22nd May 2010

RI PT IO N BS C SU THE LEADING INDEPENDENT DAILY IN THE ARABIAN GULF

24 PAGES

SATURDAY, MAY 22, 2010

Israel’s former militia allies in Lebanon now feel abandoned

JAMADA ALTHANI 8, 1431 AH

NO: 14736

150 FILS

Google premieres Web television gamble

US Senate passes historic Wall Street overhaul

Rejects return to Bernabeu to rub salt in Real’s eyes

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Greece woos China, Arabs Cash-strapped Athens seeks investments

KUWAIT: Girls play in a swimming pool at Aqua Park yesterday. The 22nd annual raft race was also held at the water park yesterday.

— Photo byYasser Al-Zayyat (See Page 2)

Thailand faces ‘huge challenges’: PM BANGKOK: Thailand’s premier said yesterday that order has been restored after a deadly crackdown on anti-government protests triggered mayhem in the capital, but that the divided kingdom faces “huge challenges”. Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva declared victory in a campaign to secure Bangkok, clamping down on militants in the “Red Shirt” movement who went on a rampage of arson and looting after their leaders surrendered Wednesday.

“This is one of the worst episodes Thailand has ever faced,” Abhisit said in a televised address to the nation.

“We will continue to swiftly restore normalcy and we recognise that as we move ahead there are huge challenges ahead of us, particularly the challenge of overcoming the divisions that have occurred in this country.”

BANGKOK: Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva speaks during a press conference at a military base yesterday. — AFP

Abhisit said he regretted the loss of life in the army offensive to shut down six weeks of anti-government protests, which left 16 dead, including an Italian photographer, but defended the way it was carried out. “The operation was within the law and complied with international practice,” he said, adding however that there would be an independent probe. Concern remains over a shootout at a temple “safe zone” where six bodies were found.

Abhisit made no mention of the fresh elections demanded by Red Shirts who condemn his government as illegitimate, but said the focus should now move to healing the splits that fomented the unrest. “We are living in the same house,” he said. “I invite all of you to join the reconciliation process. Let me reassure you that

the government will meet these challenges through the five-point reconciliation plan I have announced,” he said, referring to a road-map which failed to produce a peaceful resolution to the Reds rallies.

During failed negotiations before the crackdown, Abhisit offered to hold a vote in November - a year ahead of schedule - as long as the rallies dispersed. Major General Amnuay Nimano of the Bangkok Police said in a televised broadcast later yesterday that he had told Red Shirt leaders arrested after the protests they faced charges of insulting the monarchy, as well as terrorism.

Thailand is deeply split between the Reds, mostly urban and rural poor who are demanding the ouster of a Continued on Page 19

ATHENS: Chinese shipping and transport giant Cosco Group said yesterday it is looking to expand its operations in Greece, whose cashstrapped government has turned east and south in search of elusive foreign investments. Cosco president Wei Jiafu said the group was interested in participating in a freight and logistics center due to be built at Thriasio, west of Athens, and operated on a 40-year concession. The Chinese company already operates two container terminals at Greece’s largest port of Piraeus, near Thriasio, on a 35-year concession worth $1 billion that was finalized last year.

Wei’s remarks were met with relief in Athens yesterday, as Prime Minister George Papandreou ended an intensive weeklong series of trips and meetings to seek investment from China as well as companies from Turkey and Arab countries.

Greece came to the brink of bankruptcy this month, before receiving rescue loans from European countries and the International Monetary Fund that allowed it to refinance debts.

“I believe (Greece) will overcome its problems shortly,” Wei said after meeting Papandreou in Athens. Last week, Greece and longtime regional foe Turkey signed a series of economic cooperation agreements - including the key tourism sector - during a visit to Athens by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The large Turkish government delegation was accompanied by about 100 businessmen.

Papandreou also met yesterday with the prime Continued on Page 19

This undated handout image provided by the J Craig Venter Institute shows negatively stained transmission electron micrographs of aggregated M. mycoides. — AP

US scientists create first ‘synthetic cell’ Debate over ‘artificial life’ WASHINGTON: US researchers have developed the first self-replicating bacteria cell controlled by a synthetic genome, but denied Thursday they were playing God or seeking to recreate life in a test-tube.

“This is the first synthetic cell that’s been made,” said lead researcher Craig

Venter, unveiling the culmination of 15 years of research. “We call it synthetic because the cell is totally derived from a synthetic chromosome, made with four bottles of chemicals on a chemical synthesizer, starting with information in a computer.”

Continued on Page 19

At Dubai eatery, camel makes burger the king

This composite image shows Nickelodeon cartoon character Dora the Explorer created late last year for a contest for the fake news site FreakingNews.com. — AP

Is Dora the Explorer an illegal immigrant?

CHICAGO: In her police mug shot, the doe-eyed cartoon heroine with the bowl haircut has a black eye, battered lip and bloody nose. Dora the Explorer’s alleged crime?

“Illegal Border Crossing Resisting Arrest.” The doctored picture, one of several circulating widely in the aftermath of Arizona’s controversial new immigration law, may seem harmless, ridiculous or even tasteless. But experts say the pictures and the rhet-

oric surrounding them online, in newspapers and at public rallies, reveal some Americans’ attitudes about race, immigrants and where some of immigration reform debate may be headed.

For about a decade, the pint-sized Latina character has taught millions of children the English alphabet, colors and Spanish phrases on a Nickelodeon TV show and through a global empire.

Continued on Page 19

DUBAI: “Don’t miss yummy camel burger” reads the Dubai restaurant’s sign, putting a Western twist on a traditional fare to entice adventurous tourists into giving camel meat a chew. Camel meat is eaten throughout the Gulf, but Dubai’s Local House restaurant targets visitors who may never have bitten into this edible form of desert transport.

“Most of our guests are tourists from different parts of the world,” says Ramesh, a 44-year-old Indian national who has managed the restaurant since it opened in 2004.

He says the restaurant was the brainchild of the owner, a local from Dubai who grew up on camel meat and milk. “With this restaurant (the owner) wanted to (introduce) that to the world as well. That’s how it all started,” said Ramesh, who gave only one name.

Camels, sometimes called “ships of the desert”, are a big part of culture in the Arabian Peninsula. In the United Arab Emirates, there are camel races, camel beauty contests and competitions for the tastiest camel cuisine. Camel meat is cooked many ways and sometimes served as a “shawarma” - grilled meat wrapped in flat bread. Local House prides itself on its novel burger, but the menu boasts

an extensive camel-based offering.

“We have... camel soup, camel salad, then we have the camel burger, camel kebab, camel steak, then we have camel biryani - that is a mixture of rice and camel meat,” says Ramesh, as he rattles off still more menu items. The restaurant also offers a camel curry dish, grilled camel ribs and the camel special, which is cooked in oyster sauce. Camel sausage, bacon and pizza are in the works, Ramesh says.

“Camelicious” brand camel

DUBAI: A man eats a camel burger at the Local House restaurant on May 18, 2010. — AFP

milk, milk chocolates and milkshakes made with camel milk are some of the other offerings. Local House customers described their first taste of camel meat as positive.

“Excellent,” says Anna, a 38-year-old Canadian who tried the camel soup after hearing about the restaurant and happened upon it during her vacation to Dubai. “I wanted something of the region, something unique,” she says.

Alanen, a 60-year-old from Finland visiting Dubai with his wife, described the camel burger as “good”. He tried it because “my friends say that this place (is) the only place where we can eat a camel burger”.

Karine, 39, a French national living in the UAE, says that she tried the camel biryani and the camel special “because I lived here for four years now, and I thought it would be interesting to know how a camel tastes”. “It was nice,” she says with a laugh.

“The texture is like mutton, a bit... without the strong taste of the mutton,” but “it’s a bit hard”. Out of all the restaurant’s camel-based offerings, the camel burger is king. “The most popular is the burger, and (then) the camel special, then Continued on Page 19

BERLIN: Muslim clerics sit in the Omar Ibn Al-Khattab Mosque, which was officially opened yesterday. — AP

New mosque opens in Berlin BERLIN: A new mosque that is one of the largest in Germany was officially opened yesterday in Berlin’s Kreuzberg quarter, which has a strong Turkish presence. The mosque, which can hold around 1,000 people, is part of a complex that media reports said cost around €10 million ($12.5 million) to build and was entirely financed by private Lebanese and Palestinian donors.

The mosque is topped by a glass dome and four small minarets, and is part of a six-storey, 5,000sq-m building that includes commercial and social centres and a library. Germany’s largest mosque can accommodate 2,500 people and is in the city of Mannheim in the west of the country. The construction of mosques in Germany has prompted debate - as it has in other European countries notably among the extreme right. — AFP

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Saturday, May 22, 2010

Tabtabaei responds to critics

Govt decides to confront grilling KUWAIT: Informed sources noted that the government is convinced that the measures they have taken to solve Um Al-Haiman’s pollution problems were within law and that the Popular Action Bloc’s (PAB) threats to grill HH the Prime Minister Sheikh Nawaf AlAhmad Al-Sabah, will have no influence on their actions, reported Annahar.

Chairman of the parliamentary environment committee, MP Ali Al-Omair added that the government had already decided to confront the grilling motion filed by MP Khaled AlTahous. ‘The government said that their actions were within the laws and invited whomever wished to file a grilling motion to do so,’ he explained. He noted that the Um Al-Haiman environmental violations have existed for years and that the new Cabinet has responded to environmental threats by imposing safety conditions and removing all violating factories.

Furthermore, Al-Omair said that the Um Al-Haiman problem was very complicated

and that it involved nearby oil facilities, oil lakes and violating factories. He said that the temporary closing of factories was not enough and that many of them resumed their activities in the same manner upon reopening.

On a separate issue, MP Salwa Al-Jassar confirmed her rejection of the calls to dissolve Parliament. ‘This is not a soccer match where extra time should be given. Even if they want a rematch we’ll win again,’ she stressed. MP Hassan Jouhar said that he agreed with HH the Amir Sheikh Sabah AlAhmad Al-Sabah that the Parliament’s performance has been disappointing. MP Faisal Al-Duwaisan said that such

calls were quite natural but added that early parliamentary elections were usually called for after the Parliament had at least finished half of its term, not after only one year.

MP Dr Waleed Al-Tabtabaei responded to MPs who criticized his call to hold early elections.

He questioned their concern while reiterating his classification of the current parliament as “dangerous.” “The current Parliament is one of the most dangerous Parliaments in the history of Kuwait and could result in catastrophic outcomes for the people due to the fact that the Cabinet holds a majority support for enforcing any projects they desire,” Al-Tabtabaei said.

“An example of that is the privati-

zation law which was passed despite the fact that it was rejected by 28 MPs.” Al-Tabtabaei further criticized MPs who called on him to stay at home following his remarks to dissolve Parliament, reported Al-Rai. He called on those MPs to respect other’s opinions without resorting to such terminologies and attacks.

The MP also responded to being referred to as a ‘Sheesha MP,’ a moniker he earned following his efforts to shut down coffee shops providing sheesha to costumers as well as tents to host suspicious gatherings during the holy months of Ramadan. He added that it’s honorable for him to be known as a person committed to “tackling all negative and illegal practices in society.”

in the news 4% of public firms staff allocated for disabled KUWAIT: The Minister of Social Affairs and Labor called on all public firms to allocate at least four percent of their staff positions for disabled citizens. The step comes as part of the ministry’s attempt to support those with special needs and integrating them into society. The call was made during a meeting between Minister Dr Mohammad Al-Afasi and members of the work team assigned to prepare the formation of the public authority of disabled people’s affairs. During the meeting, the minister stressed the importance of granting disabled citizens their rights.

Police academy compound to be completed by Nov 2010 KUWAIT: The Ministry of Public Works is constructing a new building for the Police Academy, reported KUNA. The facility is expected to be completed by Nov 2011 and cost an estimated KD 45.5 million. The construction site falls within the Mubarakiya Military Camp in the G-1 area.

The building will stretch over 304,284 square meters with the capacity to hold 1,200 officers and 165 trainers and assistants.The architecture draws from traditional and Islamic influences and takes into account the climate and customs of the region. The facility will feature lecture rooms, an Olympic-sized swimming pool, a mosque, a water tower, a football field, running tracks, a training village, security towers, shooting ranges, a social services building and a registration hall. Housing units for those enrolled in the academy will be three floors each and the buildings

will share an open courtyard. A parade area surrounds the whole complex and is equipped with an Amiri and VIP platform for graduation ceremonies.

PAB suggests shorter provisional detention KUWAIT: Official sources said the Popular Action Bloc (PAB) suggested amending articles in law number 17/1960 of the penal court procedures, reported Annahar. The sources explained that the PAB suggested replacing article 69 of the law with another that states ‘should interrogators believe that for the sake of investigation, a defendant ought to be provisionally detained to prevent his escape during the process, he/she can be detained for a maximum of four days as an arrest. If the investigation is still ongoing after four days, investigators should consult the concerned court before extending the defendants detention to a maximum of seven days at a time, with a maximum total of 28 days.’ The sources added that the PAB suggested that if the investigation is not concluded in 28 days, the concerned court can again be consulted to extend the defendants detention, seven days at a time, for a maximum of 45 days, or to release the suspect with or without bail.

Two jail facilities to be constructed KUWAIT: The Ministry of Interior has started the construction of two new prison buildings inside the prison complex with the capacity to hold 600 inmates, reported Al-Rai. The new facilities will be prepared according to international humanitarian

regulations. The decision, assigned to the director of the prisons general department, Lieutenant Khalid Al-Deyeen, is based on orders from the undersecretary assistant for community institutions, Lt Anwar Al-Yaseen. The goal is to reduce the number of inmates imprisoned at the country’s current jails, which suffer from overcapacity. Furthermore, Lt Al-Deyeen is working on constructing a high standard central kitchen to improve the quality of food services provided to the prison complex.

Discrete water rationing recommended KUWAIT: It seems as though summer has taken the Ministry of Electricity and Water (MEW) by surprise. Water and electricity consumers fear that the ministry may resort to programmed cuts of either or both services earlier than expected, particularly since water supplies have already been cut for 16 hours in some southern areas, reported Al-Anbaa. Official sources said that the 16-hour water cut was gradually ended and that it put the whole MEW in a state of alert. They added that Minister Bader Al-Shuraian’s office became very busy in attempts to follow up on the situation of various water stations, namely those in southern areas, in order to prevent water tanker owners from increasing the price of the water they sold.

Well-informed sources at the Ministry of electricity and water reported that due to an alarming rise in water consumption, to the extent that it matched production, it was recommended that the ministry consider discretely rationing consumption.

Very hot, sandy summer forecast: Ajairi

KUWAIT: Families are seen enjoying outdoors before summer temperatures rise high. — Photo by Yasser Al-Zayyat

KUWAIT: In contradiction to what many had hoped for when the ‘Sarrayat’ season ended that the weather would be more stable and summer like, Kuwaiti astrologist, Dr Saleh Al-Ajairi told Aljarida that unpredictable weather condition would continue during the upcoming summer.

‘The unpredictable weather condition will start by the beginning of June because of ‘AlBawareh’ season that started to affect Kuwait with the end of the ‘Sarrayat’, he stressed pointing out that Kuwait’s dry climate and lack of rainfall had made the soil so fragile and vulnerable for frequent sand storms.

‘Summer in Kuwait is known to be either very hot or sandy, which is not very comfortable’, he added noting that temperatures had already started rising to over 40 degrees C and that they sometimes reached 43.

‘This suggests that summer will be very hot with record high temperatures in July as it is usual in Kuwait where they sometimes reach 50 degrees and probably exceed 50 in outer open skirt’, he added urging all sea lovers to stop going out to the sea on such unpredictable weather and possible sudden rough sea conditions.

KUWAIT: (Top) Winners and participants pose with their trophies at the conclusion of the 22nd annual raft race at Aqua Park yesterday. (Above) A team crosses the finish line yesterday. — Photos by Yasser Al-Zayyat

Bedoon servicemen terminated after gaining Arab passports KUWAIT: The Ministry of Defense recently terminated the membership of a number of bedoon (stateless) servicemen, after it was discovered that they managed to obtain Arab citizenships, as they are currently being prepared to be deported to the countries which provided them with the nationalities, reported Al-Rai. Furthermore, the terminated servicemen took legal actions against the ministry in bids to return to their jobs, as they claim that the passports they received were forged. The ministry

denied these claims, indicating that they have verified the validity of the passports with the embassies of their respective countries, noting at the same time that these passports have been used by the suspects in moving in and out of the country.

The ministry further accused these citizens of “aiming to gain the Kuwaiti nationality” by escalating the issue to the courts.

Meanwhile, sources within the ministry denied any connection between the terminated servicemen and any spying networks.

Meanwhile, MP Faisal AlDuwaisan expressed dissatisfaction with the Ministry of Interior’s report on bedoons that was presented before the World’s Human Rights Council in Geneva by Lt Colonel, Mohammed AlWehaib and described it as ‘inaccurate and not factual’, reported Annahar noting that Al-Duwaisan stressed that the report was a ‘Sit back’.

Al-Duwaisan also warned that should the Human Rights Council discover that the report had not been authentic, it would damage Kuwait’s reputation and

KRCS receives donations from students for Haiti victims

Stricter housing procedures for citizens living abroad KUWAIT: The Public Authority for Housing Welfare (PAHW) started enforcing stricter procedures in regards to granting approval for housing applications made by Kuwaiti citizens living abroad.

The PAHW introduced a new condition according to which applicants are

required to provide school certificates belonging to their children to prove that they are studying at local schools.

That will serve PAHW as a proof that an applicant’s family lives in Kuwait.

Several applicants tried to circumscribe this condition by providing forged docu-

ments or using the help of MPs as mediators for their transactions to be passed.

These applications have been rejected.

Thousands of citizens living abroad have registered applications for housing units in Kuwait, according to the PAHW statistics, who are trying to give priority to citi-

zens living in the country who are in actual need of housing.

Furthermore, the PAHW’s records include 4,823 applications made by citizens who failed to update their data for a long time, or at least refer to the authority to review with their applicationsí procedures. — Al-Rai

credibility. “We have to tell the truth in international forums and promise to reform the situation in order to win world’s respect, but to use false information to deny that the problem ever existed, this would be untrue and does not match the reality we are living in Kuwait”, he stressed reminding that the state had admitted the existence of bedoons and even recruited them in both the army and the police.

“How come do we still classify them as illegal residents”, he wondered.

KUWAIT: Kuwait Red Crescent Society (KRCS) receives donation from American International School (AIS) students.

KUWAIT: Kuwait Red Crescent Society (KRCS) received yesterday a donation from the students of the American International School (AIS) for the victims of the quake that hit Haiti in January.

In a press release, the KRCS expressed gratitude to the school for its trust in the society and for the students for their support.

It also expressed appreciation to all Kuwaiti initiatives aiming to provide humanitarian aid to the needy in Haiti and other countries.

Haiti was hit by a strong earthquake, leading to the death of about 300,000 people and the destruction of hundreds of homes and buildings. — KUNA

Dear traveler:

Make sure that your house is protected from theft before you travel.

With complements from the Ministry of Interior security media department

Saturday, May 22, 2010

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Kuwaiti MPs say visit to Italy ‘fruitful’

Bilateral talks focus on economic relations ROME: The visit of Kuwaiti-Italian parliamentary friendship committee to Italy, directed towards boosting bilateral cooperation in the domain, proved “fruitful,” said head of Kuwaiti delegation MP Ali Al-Diqbasi yesterday. The

ROME: Kuwait’s ambassador, Jaber Du’aij Al-Ibrahim with the KuwaitItalian Parliamentary Friendship committee members during the delegation’s visit.—KUNA

The visit of His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah AlAhmad Al-Sabah to Italy two weeks ago underscored the need to take bilateral commercial and economic cooperation to a higher level, he noted.

The parliamentary talks touched on the regional situation, alongside meeting international laws concerned with nuclear disarmament especially by the Iranian and Israeli sides to guarantee the region’s stability, he said.

They also discussed facilitating the issuing of visas for Kuwaiti nationals heading to Italy and Europe which will help attract investors and tourists, he added, while MP Duheili Al-Hajri said that the Italian side promised to discuss the matter at parliament.

Al-Diqbasi emphasized Italy’s influential role as a leading member of the EU, and hoped that the visit would help boost relations between Kuwait and the EU. Being the country’s legislative authority, the Kuwaiti National Assembly is keen on “serving Kuwait’s economy” through benefitting from the parliamentary expertise of developed countries such as

main focus of the talks grouping Kuwaiti and Italian parliamentarians was laid on enhancing economic relations, Al-Diqbasi said at the conclusion of the delegation’s visit.

ROME: MP Ali Al-Diqbasi (left) is seen with Italian counterparts during a Kuwaiti parliamentarian delegation visit to Italy. —KUNA Italy.

Meanwhile, the delegation’s deputy head MP Saleh Ashoor hailed Italy for the warm reception it gave to the delegation, adding that the visit was a good opportunity to

highlight the Italian role in liberating Kuwait from Iraqi invasion. MP Shuaib Al-Muwaizri, meanwhile, said that the delegation invited the Italian side of the Kuwaiti-Italian parliamentary friendship committee

to visit Kuwait where political, economic and military-oriented subjects were to be addressed.

The visit of Kuwaiti parliamentarians to the Chamber of Deputies (lower house) and

the Senate of the Republic (upper house) of the Italian Parliament alongside the European Parliament fell within Kuwait’s policy to boost ties with parliamentary bodies worldwide. —KUNA

Gulf palette demonstrates diverse artistic methods Plastic artists stress experience exchange

ROME: Kuwaiti lawmakers with their Italian counterparts.

in the news New passports to be printed until 2013 KUWAIT: Kuwait is currently preparing to issue new passports equipped with electronic chips that prevent forgery or manipulation.

This step comes as a precautionary measure following the recent incident of security breach which took place in the Gulf region, including the spying cell discovered in Kuwait and Bahrain, as well as the assassination of Hamas leader Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh in Dubai. In various instances forged passports were used. The new passports will be printed and prepared through special devices installed at the interior ministry’s headquarters. This step will be applied until all passports of citizens are replaced by 2013. The passports will be made inside the country.

Furthermore, the new passports will have the common features such as the blue color. The Gulf states have raised their level of cooperation in regards to the security matters, as more strict procedures in inspecting into travelers’ passports have been imposed.

These procedures were proven efficient as several cases of passports forgery have been uncovered. The most recent case happened in Bahrain where a group was busted in possession of forged American passports.

1.8 million weekend travelers in Q1 More than 1.8 million travelers have passed through the Kuwait International Airport during the weekends in the period between January start and by the end of April. This information as revealed by the operations manager of the Directorate General for Civil Aviation, Essam Al-Zamel. This number includes 536.714 departures, and 545.157 arrivals. The statistics indicate that the number of departures registered in January reached 127.84, while the arrivals reached 126.731. As for February, the number of departures has reached 152.484, compared to 154.188 arrivals, while the departures reached 124.420 compared to 133.269 arrivals in the same month. Finally, April recorded 132.726 departures, and 130.969 arrivals.

Internet replaces embassies satellite comm The State’s foreign ministry has replaced its satellite communication system used to connect with Kuwait’s embassies abroad, with a new internet communication system. This move was followed by criticism due to the fact that online communications are more vulnerable for hacking, as well as disconnection. Critics saw that this step is arbitrary

“especially after the satellite communication method has proven its efficiency in the past.”

This criticism was related to the incident in which the Kuwaiti embassy in Islamabad maintained connection with Kuwait through satellites following a blast that took place there. The blast caused all internet-based communication networks to go out of service.

Furthermore, it’s reported that the ministry ignored local internet companies after adopting the internet communication services. The ministry contracted a foreign company located in Dubai to install the new system.

KUWAIT: Several Gulf plastic artists underscored here yesterday the significance of sharing experiences in the domain of plastic art through forums and exhibitions held in the GCC member states. They were speaking to the media on the sidelines of the ongoing 2nd Gulf plastic art forum, organized by Kuwait Plastic Art Society, participating Gulf artists believed that the exchange of experience among them would undoubtedly lead to a further development of plastic art in the Gulf region.

Moussa Omar, an Omani artist, said Oman is witnessing a major boom in plastic art by attending several foreign and

international forums and exhibitions and by winning world prizes in this art.

He hoped that the participants in the Kuwait forum would come up with ambitions blueprints and recommendations that could serve arts and culture in the Gulf region in general.

Kholoud Al-Jabri, a UAE artist, hailed the Kuwaiti experiment in plastic art as pioneering in the Gulf region, recalling to memory Kuwaiti artists like Khalifa AlQattan, Abdelrasoul Salman and others.

She hailed the artistic gathering as an excellent opportunity for the Gulf artists to get acquainted with each other and to share mutual experience.

Seven parks to be built in Kuwait The Public Authority for Agricultural Affairs and Fish Resources (PAAAFR) recently signed a tender for the establishment of seven national parks located at different places around the country. The project’s price tag totals KD4.494 million. The parks, to be built in Salmiya, Salwa, Al-Qurain, AlAdan and Al-Jahra as per the contract, will be open and will not be surrounded by fences.

This information as revealed by the PAAAFR CEO, Jassem Al-Badr, who indicated that the projects execution period is 24 months. The establishment of the parks is a project included in the a set of 30 projects that were included in the country’s five-year development plan. The plan also includes establishing commercial activities such as restaurants and coffee places.

attention to culture, arts and general development in general. He spoke highly of the forum as an opportunity for restoring the relationship between Gulf and Kuwaiti artists, given that Kuwait was pioneering in the Gulf in the middle of last century through its plastic artists.

Finally, Abdullah Al-Zeid, a Kuwaiti artist, said there is a fierce competition among participating artists over prizes given by the organizing committee. He expressed his great appreciation for the role of Kuwait Plastic Art Society in the provision of opportunities for Gulf artists to encourage them and to develop their skills. —KUNA

Ambassador Al-Mulla attends naval academy reception

MPs gear for price increase debate MPs reacted recently mulled over the case in which cabinet representatives failed to attend a scheduled meeting for the parliament’s financial and economic affairs committee set to discuss the price increase. And while the criticism addressed by MPs in regards to this failure was described to be “overreacted” by committee sources who indicated that ministry officials had made it to the meeting. MP Dr. Waleed Al-Tabtabae slammed the way in which the cabinet handles meetings of parliament committees, accusing them of treating the dealing with the parliament “as if it was one of its directorates after the parliamentary majority failed to impose their control over the parliament’s decisions”. Furthermore, Al-Tabtabae explained that the Development and Reform Bloc will make a series of recommendations during the session on price increase. Among these is a proposal for establishing warehouses where a one-year supply of basic food products can be stored as reserve supplies, in addition to subsidizing food products throughout the year to keep their prices under control.

Abdelkareem Al-Busta, a Bahraini artist, opined that the forum introduces several fresh artistic methods and notions purposed to enrich Gulf art in general. He stressed the importance of such artistic forums and events especially in the field of modern plastic art. He lauded modern artists as having managed to integrate basic plastic art schools, including abstract and surreal ones, into just one style with a view to making it easy for them to convey information and promote world artworks.

Hassan Al-Mulla, a Qatari artist, said Kuwait has recently restored its Gulf plastic art prominence thanks to its much

Kuwait’s ambassador to Belgium Nabeela Abdulla Al-Mulla

BRUSSELS: Kuwait’s ambassador to Belgium Nabeela Abdulla Al-Mulla and Kuwait’s defence attache in Brussels Colonel Saad Fhaid Mohammad Al-Huraiti, attended a reception on board the Jeanne d’Arc helicopter carrier on Wednesday at Zeebruges port in Belgium. The Jeanne d’Arc is a training ship of the French Naval Academy and within this framework two Kuwaiti lieutenants were on board, Lt. Hasan Ahmad Al Rayes and Lt. Zaid Khaled Al Anqa, Kuwaiti embassy sources said yesterday. The only other non-French trainees were one from Indonesia and three from Africa.

Among the guests were Belgian Minister of Defence Pieter De Crem, Rear Admiral Jean-Paul Robyns, Aide to the King and Commander of the Belgian Naval Component, and a few other ambassadors. — KUNA

Kuwait calls for more care for newborns in E Mediterranean GENEVA: Kuwait called here yesterday for increasing investments in the field of care of newborns and pregnant women to reduce the death rate in East Mediterranean countries, which stand at 40 percent.

Director of the Kuwaiti Health Minister’s technical office Dr. Rashid Al-Ameeri said, on behalf of the East Mediterranean countries group at the General Assembly of the World Health Organization (WHO), that the death rate of newborns and pregnant women increased, although health coverage in the region increased from 28 percent in 1990 to 66.5 in 2009 and medical supervision of child deliveries hiked from 36 percent to 60 percent in the same period.

Birth defects were the reason for nine percent of deaths among newborns, he said, adding that it was significant to take serious steps to deal with that phenomenon.He demanded increasing health awareness among people regarding child deliveries, the marriage of relatives to each other, the

effects of drinking and smoking on health, late pregnancy, contagious diseases, and the importance of getting regular medical and health care during the pregnancy, delivery, and the period of breast-feeding.

There is a need for medical and social care programs, especially for newborns and children with birth defects, training people to deal with them, and providing incomes for their families he stressed.

Al-Ameeri said that a program was launched in Kuwait to monitor and follow up the issues of newborns in cooperation with the genetic diseases center.

The program provides specialized studies and advice to families, he pointed out, and the center also provides medical treatment to newborns with birth defects. He said that Kuwait issued a law that demanded people planning to get married to undergo medical screening, adding that training courses were held to spread health awareness among mothers.— KUNA

KUWAIT: A vendor at the Fish market in Kuwait is showing off the nice and fresh catch. Seafood is an all season favorite but prices of fish are comparatively lower in the summer.

—Photo by Yasser Al-Zayyat

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INTERNATIONAL

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Jews in Arab east Jerusalem defy Obama peace push JERUSALEM: When Devorah Adler’s children go to school, they pass underneath the gun-toting security officer who stands on their roof 24-hours a day, walk down a path dotted by surveillance cameras and get in a van manned by another armed guard.

Adler is one of 2,000 Jews who reside in predominantly Arab neighborhoods in the heart of east Jerusalem, part of a movement that aims to ensure Israel’s hold on the sector, which Palestinians seek as the capital of a future state. Revved up by the Obama administration’s latest attempts to limit Jewish encroachment in disputed areas of the holy city, they are working furiously to cement and expand their presence.

Adler believes her neighborhood, which Palestinians call Silwan and Jews call the City of David, was where the biblical King David once walked and is the heart of Israel’s historic capital. She is willing to brave the occasional rock-throwing and rioting that erupt in the sector — sometimes sparked by Jewish expansion moves — to

remain in the place she believes is so tied to Jewish history.

“When it’s something that you really believe in, it’s something that you’re willing to endure certain difficulties for,” said Adler, a mother of six. Nearly 200,000 Jews have moved to east Jerusalem since Israel captured the city in 1967, the vast majority living in Jewish neighborhoods built since that time. Those areas are widely expected to remain part of Israel in any future peace deal, but that does not apply to the Arab neighborhoods where Adler and other Jews have moved in, which Israel would have to cede to the Palestinians for peace.

Jerusalem is the most explosive issue separating Israelis and Palestinians. Israel’s government rules out relinquishing sovereignty in any part of the city, and Jewish expansion in east Jerusalem was at the center of a recent diplomatic row between the Obama administration and Israel’s hawkish government. Palestinians demand a total halt to Jewish construction in both east

Jerusalem and the West Bank, areas they claim for a future state. Both the settlers and their critics agree on the ultimate goal of their presence here.

“The main objective is to prevent a twostate solution and to prevent the possibility that these areas will become the capital of a Palestinian state,” said Hagit Ofran of the Israeli anti-settlement watchdog Peace Now. Palestinian government spokesman Ghassan Khatib called these residents “the most dangerous factor” preventing an agreement with Israel.

But plans are underway to strengthen their presence. At a complex in the neighborhood of Ras al-Amud now housing 50 Jewish families, a sign boasts of 60 new units to be complete by the end of the year.

Last week, Peace Now reported dozens of new houses for Jews in Arab east Jerusalem: 20 units in one neighborhood, 24 in another and renovations having started to turn an old police station in Ras al-Amud into a 14-unit apartment building.

“If you look at 2009 and 2010, you understand what the trend is here. The trend is massive expansion,” said Arieh King, who runs a group that buys land for Jews in east Jerusalem and other areas.

He said his organization’s goal is to create “Jewish continuity” from Jerusalem to settlements in the West Bank, making it harder to eventually disconnect the two.

Israel annexed east Jerusalem immediately after capturing it from Jordan during the 1967 Middle East war, a move the international community does not recognize. The Jews living in Arab neighborhoods are there in keeping with Israeli law, often in houses purchased from Arab residents directly or through organizations that buy land for Jewish settlement. To the Palestinians, however, it’s pure provocation.

The neighborhoods are prone to conflict.

Riots broke out in March as Palestinians, angered by plans for more Jewish housing in east Jerusalem, hurled rocks and set tires ablaze. Signs of Jewish entrenchment in

these neighborhoods are everywhere, beginning with the security equipment and personnel the Israelis bring with them.

Israeli police are on constant patrol. Israeli flags fly from several rooftops. Thick metal grates protect the windows of Jewish homes and visitors with no invitation are turned away by security guards.

Palestinian residents are bitter because they say they feel they are being pushed off their land. “It’s not enough that they have west Jerusalem, they need the whole city,” said Musa Alawi, an Arab resident of east Jerusalem who owns a falafel shop across the street from the Jewish housing in Ras alAmud.

Neighborly relations between Arabs and Jews are nearly nonexistent. In the neighborhood of Jabel Mukaber, Palestinian homes overlook a giant 91-unit apartment block for Jews. The only contact between the residents is when Jews stop at the local shop to buy milk. “We don’t spend time together. We don’t hang out together. I per-

sonally support that separation,” said Uri Dopelt, an Israeli who has lived in these Arab neighborhoods for the last decade.

In another neighborhood, Sheikh Jarrah, Israeli police acting on a court order evicted Palestinian families and allowed Jewish settlers to move into their homes, which had been owned by Jews before Israel’s independence in 1948. Palestinians cannot similarly reclaim lost property in the city’s western sector.

Another flashpoint is a seven-story building in Silwan built by an ultranationalist settler group in 2004. The imposing structure houses eight families who live there under 24-hour government guard.

While the government vows never to give up east Jerusalem, the Jews who have moved into the Arab districts mistrust its resolve.

“The government is feeling American pressure,” said Dopelt. “People like us in these neighborhoods are the last line in protecting what is ours.” — AP

Erdogan sends Obama letter on Iran deal

Ban hopes Iran deal may bring atom settlement ISTANBUL: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said yesterday he hoped Iran’s deal to send some of its enriched uranium abroad may open the door to a negotiated settlement of a row with the West over its nuclear programme. In a speech delivered in Istanbul, Ban said the

agreement Iran had reached on Monday with Turkey and Brazil, both non-permanent members of the UN Security Council, was “an important initiative in resolving international tensions over Iran’s nuclear programme by peaceful means.

ISTANBUL: Turkish President Abdullah Gul (R) shakes hands with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon before a meeting yesterday in Istanbul. — AFP

Moms again reunite with 3 Americans held in Iran TEHRAN: Three Americans jailed in Iran for 10 months met with their mothers a second time yesterday as Iranian authorities used their visit to underline their complaints about their own citizens detained by the United States.

The mothers are on a visit to Iran in hopes of securing the release of their children — Sarah Shourd, 31; her boyfriend, Shane Bauer, 27; and their friend Josh Fattal, 27, who were arrested in July along the IranIraq border and have been accused of espionage.

So far, Iranian authorities have given no indication that Shourd, Bauer and Fattal could be freed, or that their mothers would even be allowed to make a face-to-face appeal to top Iranian leaders like President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as they have hoped.

One glimmer of hope came as state TV

reported that the American military in Iraq has released two Iranians detained for entering Iraq without a passport. The two — Ahmad Barazandeh and Ali Abdolmaleki — have been held for seven and two years, respectively, Iran’s ambassador to Baghdad was quoted by the report as saying. Iraqi and US officials in Baghdad could not immediately confirm the report. The TV report made no connection between the release and the case of the three Americans.

But Iran has hinted in the past that it wants to swap the three Americans for Iranians being held by the United States.

On Thursday, US State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters in Washington, “We’re not contemplating any kind of a prisoner swap” for the three Americans. “But if Iran has questions about any of its citizens and whether we have any information as to their whereabouts, we

would be more than happy to receive that diplomatic note and respond to it,” he said.

There have been hints of such swaps in a past case. In 2009, US forces in Iraq freed five Iranians who had been detained since 2007 on suspicion of aiding Shiite militants, and their release came several months after Iran freed an Iranian-American journalist, Rozana Saberi, who had been arrested in early 2009 and accused of espionage. In another possible swap, Iran this month freed a 24-year-old French academic, Clotilde Reiss, arrested 10 months ago in connection to Iran’s crackdown on postelection protests. Just before her release, Paris allowed an Iranian detained in France on a US warrant over suspicions of buying technology for Iran’s military to return to his homeland. And soon after Reiss’ release, France also freed an Iranian imprisoned for the 1991 assassination of a former Iranian prime minister. — AP

US military frees two Iranians held in Iraq BAGHDAD: The US military in Iraq freed two Iranian prisoners from its custody yesterday, an Iranian diplomat at Tehran’s embassy in Baghdad told AFP. “Two Iranians have been freed by the Americans after cooperation with the office of the prime minister (Nuri al-Maliki) and the Iranian embassy,” an Iranian diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The diplomat declined to give any further details about the two Iranians who were freed.

The US military did not immediately respond to requests to confirm the prisoners’ release.

But Iran’s envoy to Baghdad, Hassan Kazemi Qomi, told Iranian state-run television that the two men were Ahmad Barazandeh and Ali Abdulmaliki, who were detained seven and three years ago respectively because they did not have passports.

“Barazandeh and

Abdulmaliki came to Iraq for a pilgrimage but when they were arrested in Najaf and Samarra, they did not have their passports,” he said, referring to Iraqi cities where two holy Shiite Muslim shrines are situated.

He added that they had been handed over to the Iranian embassy and would return to Iran at “the earliest time” possible.

The United States has detained several Iranian citizens in Iraq since the 2003 USled invasion to oust now-executed dictator Saddam Hussein.

It accuses Tehran of training and arming Shiite militant groups.

Iran detained three Americans on July 31 last year after they strayed across the Islamic republic’s border while on a hiking trip in northern Iraq’s Kurdistan region.

The release of the two Iranian prisoners in Iraq came as the mothers of the three US hikers called for the trio to be

freed as a “humanitarian gesture”. Iran has given no official indication it is preparing to release the three, although the visit itself was seen as a breakthrough.

Washington insists the three hikers are innocent and should

be released, stressing that they had mistakenly wandered across an unmarked border in a remote mountainous area. On Wednesday, Iran’s Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi renewed accusations of espionage against the trio. — AFP

AQABA: A handout from the Jordanian Royal Palace shows Jordanian King Abdullah II (R) meeting Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri in Aqaba yesterday. — AFP

“I have mentioned Turkey’s welcome role with respect to Iran, working with Brazil. We hope that this and other initiatives may open the door to a negotiated settlement,” Ban said.

But he added that the International Atomic Energy Agency, which brokered the basis of the deal last October only to see it unravel when Iran raised numerous objections, would provide its own professional assessment.

The United States handed the UN Security Council a draft resolution on Tuesday that would expand UN sanctions, hitting Iran’s banking and other industries over Iran’s protracted refusal to suspend uranium enrichment.

The draft resolution was agreed by all five permanent Security Council members after months of negotiation.

Iran dismissed it as lacking legitimacy but US President Barack Obama has insisted Washington will press ahead and that Tehran cannot be trusted.

The Islamic Republic denies Western suspicions that its secretive atomic energy programme is aimed at developing nuclear weapons capability and has said it will continue enriching uranium for fuel for electricity generation.

Ban’s spokesman had said on Monday the nuclear fuel talks shepherded by Turkey and Brazil were “encouraging” but that Tehran must comply with Security Council resolutions.

Yesterday, Ban’s speech was full of praise for Turkey’s diplomatic efforts.

Turkey has been a strong opponent of plans to impose further international sanctions on Iran, saying Iran has shown the political will to solve the seven-year-old nuclear standoff.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan spoke by phone with Obama and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin this week to stress the importance of Monday’s deal.

Yesterday, Erdogan’s office published details of a letter he had sent Obama, underlining Turkey’s commitment.

“The declaration has not closed the file on Iran’s nuclear programme but has opened an important door for a solution through diplomatic means,” Erdogan wrote.

“Turkey will continue its efforts for the solution of the problem and will pursue the issue.”

Erdogan also spoke to Britain’s new prime minister, David Cameron, who told him that “although the deal increases confidence, it does not solve the problem,” Erdogan’s official website said.

Ban was to hold talks with top Turkish officials in Istanbul and attend a reconstruction conference on Somalia today. —Reuters

BAGHDAD: A boy sprays worshippers to keep followers of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr cool as they attend open air Friday prayers in the Shiite stronghold of Sadr City in Baghdad, Iraq, yesterday. — AP

US, Egypt strive for ME nuclear arms ban deal UNITED NATIONS: The United States and Egypt are working to bridge differences on a proposed Middle East nuclear arms ban, an idea that could one day force Israel to scrap any atom bombs it has, UN diplomats say.

The US efforts to secure a deal with Egypt and other Arab countries reflect Washington’s concern to win their backing for sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program by offering a concession over US ally Israel, even though Washington says such a ban is impossible without peace in the Middle East.

Western diplomats say that the success or failure of a month-long meeting on the 1970 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) currently under way in New York hinges on the sensitive negotiations on an Egyptian proposal to hold a conference on establishing a zone free of nuclear arms in the Middle East.

“If we can’t get a deal on the Middle East in the next few days, the NPT review conference will probably collapse,” a Western diplomat told

Reuters. “It’s what happened in 2005.” Another Western diplomat familiar with the talks was guardedly optimistic. Despite the appearance of a chasm separating the Arabs from the United States and the four other permanent UN Security Council members, “informal conversations indicate the sides are not in reality too far apart,” he said.

“The next few days will be critical,” the envoy added. NPT review conferences are held every five years to take stock of and assess compliance with the anti-nuclear arms pact. They make decisions by consensus, which makes it difficult to reach agreements, since all 189 NPT signatories have a veto.

The last review conference in 2005 was widely viewed as a failure. It collapsed due to Egypt’s outrage at the failure to move forward on the Middle East nuclear-arms-free zone idea and developing nations’ anger at the United States for refusing to reaffirm disarmament pledges from 2000. — Reuters

GAZA STRIP: Palestinians take cover from shots during an exchange of fire between Palestinian militants and Israeli troops in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, yesterday. Two Palestinian militants infiltrated Israel yesterday from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip but were killed in a firefight with Israeli troops, the Israeli military said. — AP

Two Gaza gunmen shot dead after infiltrating Israel JERUSALEM: Israeli forces shot dead two Palestinian gunmen who had just infiltrated Israel from the Gaza Strip yesterday, the military said.

“There was an exchange of fire between the IDF (Israel military) and Palestinian gunmen who had infiltrated into Israeli territory. As a result two gunmen were killed,” a spokeswoman said.

She said the incident occurred near southern Israeli villages.

The two militants had infiltrated Israel “apparently with the intention of carrying out terror attacks,” the Haaretz newspaper website said.

Residents were told to stay indoors and local roads were

closed as the troops and the infiltrators traded fire, army radio reported.

Moawiya Hassanein, the head of Gaza emergency services, said there was coordination with Israel to have the bodies of the two “martyrs” returned to the Palestinian enclave. The border is heavily fortified and militant incursions into Israel are rare.

In April 2008, Palestinian fighters, under cover of mortar fire, breached the border near the Nahal Oz terminal and moved into Israel.

The militants shot dead two Israelis in what the army called a “failed abduction attempt,” before they themselves were killed by tank fire as they fled

back to Gaza. Friday’s incident followed overnight Israeli air raids which left no casualties.

Israeli officials said the three raids, targeting a residential area in the north of the Palestinian enclave and two in the south, were in response to an earlier missile attack by Palestinian militants.

Israel launched a devastating assault on Gaza in December 2008 aimed at halting rocket fire. Some 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed in the 22-day Operation Cast Lead.

The military says more than 330 rockets have been fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel since the end of of the offensive. Israel generally responds to rocket attacks with air raids. — AFP

5

INTERNATIONAL

Saturday, May 22, 2010

US, Japan condemn N Korea as Clinton starts Asia tour TOKYO: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her Japanese counterpart condemned North Korea yesterday, a day after a multinational panel blamed it for a deadly torpedo attack on a South Korean warship.

In their joint stance against the nucleararmed communist regime, both sides stressed the importance of their half-century alliance, which has been badly strained in recent months by a dispute over an unpopular US military base.

Clinton, kicking off a week-long Asia tour, called the partnership the “cornerstone” of regional stability, as she sent a stern message to Pyongyang on the issue expected to dominate her talks later in Beijing and Seoul.

“We agreed that North Korea must stop its provocative behaviour, halt its policy of threats and belligerence towards its neighbours, and take irreversible steps to fulfil its denuclearisation commitments, and comply with international law,” she said after meeting Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada.

“We cannot allow this attack to go unanswered by the international community,” she said, adding that on the Beijing leg of her trip from Monday she looked forward to “intensive consultations in China”.

The multinational team on Thursday blamed North Korea for sinking the South Korean corvette with a torpedo in March, claiming 46 lives-prompting an angry denial from Pyongyang and a threat of war if it is

punished. Other world powers, including Britain and France, have also strongly condemned the reclusive regime and are expected to back any push for fresh sanctions against Pyongyang at the UN Security Council. China, one of the five veto-wielding permanent members, has so far called for more evidence and urged calm, suggesting it will not jump to punish its communist neighbour, whose leader recently visited the country.

Clinton, who was in Japan for less than four hours before leaving for Shanghai, did not specify what steps Washington would seek. “It’s premature for me to announce options or actions without that level of consultation with regional nations that are most

directly affected by North Korea’s behaviour,” she said. “We will determine our best option moving forward and send a clear, unmistakable message to North Korea. I look forward to being able to work out the details over the next week.”

The rise in tensions in Northeast Asia comes at a time when Japan and the United States have squabbled over the fate of a US base on Japan’s southern island of Okinawa, where most residents oppose a heavy US troop presence.

Japan’s Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, after taking office in a landslide last year, proposed moving the base off the island to appease local sentiment, straining ties with the administration of President Barack

Obama. However, as the search for an alternative site in Japan has proved fruitless, Hatoyama has caved in to Washington’s demand to honour a 2006 pact struck by previous conservative governments and relocate the base on Okinawa.

Hatoyama is expected to announce next Friday that he will largely honour the base pact-an issue that has sparked mass rallies and eroded his domestic support-said news reports published on the eve of Clinton’s visit.

In a talk with Clinton, who made a courtesy call to his office, he said: “This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Japan-US alliance, and I will work to further advance the alliance. “At this time the issue of the

sunken South Korean ship has occurred and there is also Iran’s nuclear problem,” he said, referring to international suspicions Tehran is seeking to build a nuclear bomb.

“So it’s important to strengthen JapanUS ties even more.”

Clinton-who earlier thanked Tokyo for its support on Iran and rebuilding Afghanistan-replied with a full smile: “The United States and the Obama administration are very committed to our relationship.”

Hatoyama later said to reporters, regarding the controversial US Marine Corps Air Station Futenma on Okinawa island, that “I told her that we are in the final phase toward reaching an agreement by the end of May.” — AFP

Protests held across the country

Pakistanis shout ‘Death to Facebook’, burn US flags LAHORE: Pakistani protesters shouted “Death to Facebook”, “Death to America” and burnt US flags yesterday, venting growing anger over “sacrilegious” caricatures of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) on the Internet. A Facebook

CHIANG MAI: A Thai woman embraces a Red ShirT anti-government protester as he arrives from Bangkok at the train station in Chiang Mai yesterday. Emotional “Red Shirt” supporters gathered at a train station in northern Thailand, waving flags to welcome about 300 members of the movement dispersed from Bangkok. — AFP

‘Red Shirts’ welcomed home from deadly rallies CHIANG MAI, Thailand: Hundreds of angry and emotional “Red Shirts” protesters were welcomed home as heroes to northern Thailand yesterday after troops forced them to end rallies in the capital Bangkok. Some 300 Reds arrived at Chiang Mai railway station to a cheering 100-strong crowd, waving flags as they revived the spirit of anti-government rallies that paralysed parts of the Thai capital for two months. “We did not lose. This is not a retreat,” said Hoowit Kunasawat, a 49-yearold artist, one of those greeted with applause by supporters of the campaign to oust Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva’s government.

At least 85 people were killed in clashes and blasts while some 1,900 were injured in “Red Shirt” street protests that began in mid-March and ended Wednesday when troops stormed their encampment in Bangkok’s top retail area. A nighttime curfew is in place until tomorrow in the capital as well as the Reds’ heartland in the rural north and northeast, amid fears the trouble could spread to the rest of the country.

Tears rolled down the faces of many in the Chiang Mai crowd as they hugged loved ones who had returned safely from the Bangkok demonstrations, but many expressed anger that troops had used live weapons fire in their crackdown. “I am sad that the government can order the shooting of civilians. But at the same time, the people and the

world now know what kind of cruel government is in power in Thailand,” said 35-year-old Noi Jupp.

“My heart is with the Red Shirt supporters. They are poor people. What we are fighting for is justice.

This is why my heart is with them,” she added.

The conflict briefly ignited in the northeast on Wednesday, as four provincial halls were torched and some 13,000 anti-government protesters rallied in 20 provinces. The gatherings were in defiance of a state of emergency declared in vast swathes of the country as Abhisit struggled to contain the Reds, who condemn his government as undemocratic and a puppet of the nation’s elites.

Police on Thursday reportedly tore down barricades built by the Reds in Chiang Mai, to echo the towering piles of tyres, razor wire and bamboo stakes that surrounded the encampment in Bangkok.

Outside the railway station, 38-year-old rice farmer Nut Jangakat sat under a tree and said that despite being driven from the Bangkok rallies he would not give up the campaign for fresh elections and a new government. “I am waiting for instructions from my leaders.

I am not giving up. For now I will go home and back to my paddy field. With every one Red Shirt killed we believe a million supporters will emerge,” he said. “I am always ready to return to Bangkok to protest.” — AFP

HYDERABAD: A man covers himself with a plastic sheet as a shield from the rain in Guntur District, about 300 kilometers (188 miles) away from Hyderabad, in the south Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, yesterday. A powerful cyclone slammed into coastal Andhra Pradesh state, toppling power lines and triggering landslides and plunging a large swath into darkness when it hit Thursday packing strong winds of 60 miles (100 kilometers) per hour. — AP

India cyclone Laila weakens as death toll climbs up to 26 HYDERABAD: Cyclone Laila weakened yesterday after battering India’s southeastern coast with several days of torrential rain and high winds that claimed 26 lives, officials said.

The storm, which formed over the Bay of Bengal, drenched the southern state of Tamil Nadu before making landfall further north Thursday in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, where it uprooted trees, electricity poles and destroyed communication lines.

Andhra Pradesh disaster management commissioner T. Radha said more than 70,000 people evacuated ahead of the storm had been told to stay in shelters until yesterday evening. Radha told AFP that at least 17 people had died in storm-related accidents across the state. Television footage

showed cars smashed by fallen trees, huts missing their thatched roofs, people clearing debris left by the wind and rains, flooded roads and marooned villages.

The heavy rains and strong winds damaged mango, banana and lime crops, with conservative estimates putting the losses at two billion rupees (41 million dollars.) In Tamil Nadu where the storm was blamed for nine deaths, officials said life had begun to return to normal as flood waters in low-lying areas receded.

Cyclone Laila was still hovering off the Andhra Pradesh coast yesterday, but its force had weakened with wind speeds down to 75 kilometres an hour, compared to 125kmh at its peak.

“We think it will weaken further and move in a northerly

direction. But there will be more rains,” said V. Prasad Rao, director of the cyclone warning centre in Visakhapatnam city.

Another weather office advisory warned fishermen to stay ashore due to “rough” sea conditions and predicted widespread rains for Orissa state, north of Andhra Pradesh.

India and Bangladesh are hit regularly by cyclones that develop in the Bay of Bengal between April and November, causing widespread damage to homes and fields.

Last May, Cyclone Aila tore through southern Bangladesh killing 300 people and destroyed 4,000 kilometres of roads and river embankments, leading to major flooding. About 200,000 people were made homeless and many remain in temporary shelters. — AFP

Islam strictly prohibits the depiction of any prophet (PBUH) as blasphemous and the row has sparked comparison with protests across the Muslim world over the publication of satirical cartoons of Muhammad (PBUH) in European newspapers in 2006. The Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) banned access to Facebook, YouTube and more than 450 links, including restricted access to Wikipedia in view of what it called “growing sacrilegious content”. PTA released a toll-free telephone number and email address, and has acted on complaints received by the regulator.

Up to 3,000 people rallied in the eastern city of Lahore at the behest of a coalition of Islamic groups, including Jamaat-ud Dawa, regarded as a front for the militant group blamed for the 2008 Mumbai attacks. “This is a war and we have to show unity,” Farid Ahmed Paracha, a central leader of hardline Sunni Muslim political party Jamaat-eIslami told the crowd. “We should tell America that this the final match,” he added. Shouting anti America and anti Facebook slogans with chanting “Death to America,” the participants burnt US, Norway, Sweden and Denmark flags.

In Karachi, Pakistan’s biggest city, religious parties mobilised hundreds of protesters on to the streets shouting “Death to Facebook”, “Death to America” and branded the United States the “root cause of all mischief”. In Multan, a shrine city in Punjab province, hundreds of people rallied, burning US flags and tyres to block traffic before dispersing peacefully. About 250 people demonstrated in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, as well as in the northwestern city of Peshawar, where they chanted “Death to Facebook, death to Youtube,” an AFP reporter said.

But despite general anger over the caricatures, the ban on websites has sparked some criticism, particularly among the largely Western-educated elite living and working in the relatively moderate Lahore and Karachi.

The offending Facebook page has attracted 105,000 fans - and five pages of crude manipulated pictures and caricatures. Pages denouncing the competition and calling for a boycott of the May 20 competition attracted far more fans.

Facebook expressed disappointment at being blocked and said it was considering whether to make the offending page inaccessible in Pakistan. YouTube, the Google-owned video-sharing site, said it was “working to ensure that the service is restored as soon as possible”.

The controversy has yet to incite a mass outpouring on to the streets in Pakistan, where there are an estimated 2.5 million Facebook users, and it remains to be seen how far protests will spread to other Muslim countries.

Sweden said it has closed its embassy in Islamabad for more than two weeks due to the security situation, refusing to say whether any direct threats had been issued against the mission.

An Al-Qaeda front organisation has offered $100,000 to anyone who kills Swedish artist Lars Vilks, who has angered many Muslims by drawing highly blasphemous caricature of the Prophet (PBUH). — AFP

user organised an “Everyone Draw Mohammed Day” competition to promote “freedom of expression”, inspired by an American woman cartoonist, but sparked a major backlash in the conservative Muslim country of 170 million.

HYDERABAD: Pakistani students rally to condemn a page of Facebook that encourages users to post images of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), in Hyderabad, Pakistan, yesterday. Pakistan acknowledged the “suffering” caused by its bans on Facebook and YouTube, but said it would only consider restoring the websites if they take down pages considered offensive to Islam, the information technology ministry said yesterday. — AP

Musharraf to ‘join politics’: CNN ISLAMABAD: Former Pakistani military ruler Pervez Musharraf has said he intends going home to enter politics, perhaps standing to become president or prime minister, CNN reported.

Musharraf, who seized power in a coup in 1999 and ruled until stepping down as president in 2008, has raised the possibility of re-entering politics several times over the past year although political analysts have played down the likelihood.

“I certainly am planning to go back to Pakistan and also join politics. The question of whether I am running for president or prime minister will be seen later,” Musharraf told CNN in an interview.

Musharraf left Pakistan about a year ago and spends most of his time in Britain and the United States.

Many Pakistanis welcomed the 1999

coup by the straight-talking army chief, which ended a decade of fractious rule by rival parties tainted by corruption accusations.

But the longer he ruled the more unpopular he became.

In 2007, he became embroiled in a conflict with the judiciary after attempting to dismiss a Supreme Court chief who was expected to challenge Musharraf’s bid to cling to power.

For months, lawyers, joined by opposition party supporters, staged protests across the country, decrying what they described as Musharraf’s dictatorship.

In November 2007, he imposed a brief spell of emergency rule in an attempt to ensure he could hold on to power, outraging many. He later kept a promise to step down as army chief.

He tried to strike a power-sharing deal with former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, who returned from self-exile in October 2007 to campaign for a general election. But she was assassinated weeks later.

Musharraf’s government said Pakistani Taleban were responsible but in a country where conspiracy theories run rife, many people believed shadowy forces, perhaps close to Musharraf, played a part in her death.

The party that backed Musharraf was humiliated in a February 2008 election, in which Bhutto’s party won the most seats, and Musharraf stepped down later that year.

He threw his country into an unpopular alliance with the United States after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks although some U.S. and Afghan officials said his commitment was half-hearted. — Reuters

Philippine lawmakers ready to approve national vote MANILA: Philippine lawmakers expect their official tallying of votes for president and vice president in the May 10 elections to be reasonably quick, but some allegations of poll fraud could possibly delay the proclamation of winners.

A joint sitting of Congress to officially name the national leaders was brought forward by a week to May 24 after a new automated voting system produced results far quicker than the manual counting of previous elections.

Senator Benigno Aquino has a massive lead in the unofficial presidential vote count, consistent with opinion polls, and the House of Representatives probe into allegations of fraud and problems with voting machines is not expected to change that.

“We expect it to be faster than previous tallies,” Arthur Defensor, a three-term congressman who was elected governor of the central province of Iloilo, said in a television interview. In 2004, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s victory was confirmed on June 23, just a week before her inauguration as president and the start of new terms of all elected national and local officials.

Nine senators and nine congressmen have been selected to conduct the official tally of votes from 274 provinces, cities and embassies and consulates across the world next week.

“We are looking at three

weeks,” Senator Miguel Zubiri, an ally of the outgoing Arroyo, told reporters, saying he would ask the election agency to explain claims of irregularities about the vote count and transmission.

“We have to look at the authenticity of the flash cards, the authenticity of the certificates of canvass. We can’t easily take as gospel truth whatever we’ll see in those documents.”

At yesterday’s hearing, the chairman of the committee on

suffrage and electoral reforms, Teodoro Locsin, a member of Aquino’s Liberal Party, said he believed the Arroyo government was behind the initial allegations that prompted the probe.

A government spokesman said Locsin’s remarks were unsubstantiated and illogical.

Earlier this week, a video was released of an unidentified masked man claiming to work for the elections commission and saying votes have been sold

and voting machines pre-programmed.

“We already know who is behind ‘koala boy’,” election agency spokesman James Jimenez said, using the nickname given to the masked man, but did not identify him. “He is a losing candidate.”

The election commission had earlier said it has discovered discrepancies involving about 150,000 votes, not enough to have an impact on the presidential race. — Reuters

MANILA: President-apparent Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III, talks to the media following his meeting with the new US Ambassador to the Philippines Harry Thomas Jr., unseen, at his residence at Manila’s Quezon city yesterday. Thomas, who congratulated the yet-to-be proclaimed Aquino III, became the first foreign diplomat to meet with Aquino. In background are the portraits of his parents, the late Philippine President Corazon Aquino and his assassinated father Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. — AP

6

INTERNATIONAL

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Cuban cardinal wants political prisoners freed HAVANA: Cuba’s Roman Catholic cardinal called for the liberation of some of the island’s 200 political prisoners on Thursday after a rare sit-down with President Raul Castro, and said he thought his encounter with the Cuban leader was a “magnificent start” to serious dialogue.

“The church is interested in an alleviation of the situation (of the political prisoners) — the liberation of some of them, for example,” Cardinal Jaime Ortega said, a day after he and another church leader, Archbishop Dionisio Garcia, held a four-hour discussion with Raul Castro at the Palace of the Revolution, the seat of Cuba’s government. The church has called previously for freedom for the island’s prisoners of conscience, but doing so right after such a high profile

meeting was unusual. Ortega said in a news conference that he had also brought up the government’s decision to bar the dissident Ladies in White from holding weekly marches. The group — comprised of the wives and mothers of jailed political prisoners — were stopped from protesting for three straight weekends in April and pro-government counter-protesters were brought in to shout abuse at them.

The standoff ended after Ortega’s mediation, when the government agreed to allow the quiet protests to resume in return for assurances the women would not expand their activities.

The cardinal made clear that no deal on any prisoner releases or easing of measures against the opposition had been struck.

“We are not talking about any commitments. We are talking about conversations with the government, conversations that had a magnificent start yesterday (Wednesday) and that ought to continue in the near future,” Ortega said. The meeting was a sign of the church’s growing influence on the island.

Garcia, who is archbishop of Santiago and leader of the Conference of Bishops of Cuba, said it was the first time the head of the bishops’ group has met with the country’s leader in five years, when Fidel Castro was still in charge. Fidel stepped down formally in 2008, turning power over to his brother.

“It was a very positive meeting,” he told The Associated Press.

Garcia said that he thought “that there was good

will” on the part of the government on the issue of dissidents. A photo of a beaming Raul Castro with the two church leaders was printed on the front page of Thursday’s Communist-party daily Granma, but the caption said little about what was discussed and made no mention of dissidents or political prisoners.

The government denies it holds political prisoners, and says dissidents are paid mercenaries of Washington, which has been at odds with Cuba since shortly after Fidel Castro overthrew dictator Fulgencia Batista in 1959. Ortega has waded into politics several times in recent months, telling a church magazine in April that Cuba was in its worst crisis in years and that its citizens were clamoring for political and social change sooner rather than later.

The meeting between Castro and the church leaders comes a month before Vatican Foreign Minister Dominique Mamberti is scheduled to visit Cuba for talks on the island’s economic challenges and the effects of emigration and the families torn apart by it.

Mamberti is the first top Vatican official to come since Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, secretary of state to Pope Benedict XVI, visited Cuba in February 2008.

Relations between the church and Cuba’s government have often been strained. Tensions eased in the early 1990s when the government removed references to atheism in the constitution and allowed believers of all faiths to join the Communist Party.

They warmed more when Pope John Paul II visited Cuba in 1998. — AP

Blair’s tenure marked by turf battles

US spy chief Blair says he is stepping down WASHINGTON: US intelligence chief Dennis Blair announced on Thursday that he is stepping down in the first major shake-up of President Barack Obama’s national security team. “It is with deep regret that I informed the president today that I will step down as Director of National Intelligence effec-

tive Friday, May 28th,” Blair said in a statement issued by his office. Blair’s 16month tenure as director of national intelligence has been marked by infighting with the CIA and sharp criticism over the intelligence community’s failure to prevent a botched Christmas Day attempt to blow up a US airliner.

WASHINGTON: In this file photo taken Wednesday, April 21, 2010, Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair, center, is joined by directors of the government’s various intelligence agencies, including Central Intelligence Agency Director Leon E. Panetta, left, and Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence James Clapper, right, during a ceremony marking the ODNI’s fifth birthday at its headquarters in McLean, Va., just outside of Washington. Blair is resigning under pressure from the White House, ending a tumultuous 16month tenure. Clapper is considered a likely replacement for Blair. — AP

Germany requests transfer of pirates THE HAGUE: A group of suspected Somali pirates arrested last month by Dutch marines in a daring high-seas rescue operation appeared in court yesterday to fight their extradition to Germany, where prosecutors want to put them on trial. Prosecutors in the German port city of Hamburg have issued arrest warrants for the nine men and one boy because they were detained aboard a German container ship they had hijacked in the Gulf of Aden on April 5. Their case is a rare example of Somali piracy suspects being transferred to Europe for trial after being arrested by an international armada shepherding aid and freight ships through the pirate-infested waters off the coast of Somalia.

Hanneke Festen of the Amsterdam Public Prosecutor’s Office said she expects they will be handed over under European Union rules governing the transfer of suspects. Lawyers for the men argue that because they were questioned by Dutch authorities after their arrest they should be tried in the Netherlands.

“The Netherlands has already started proceedings against them and therefore it is a Dutch case,” Michiel Balemans, who represents four of the men, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

Festen rejected that argument, saying any talks they had with Dutch marines who arested them were “for military intelligence” and not part of any Dutch criminal case. “In the nine days it took to transfer them they were never charged, so a Dutch prosecution was never started,” she said. Nine of the Somalis are adults and the 10th is a minor believed to be 14 years old, Festen said.

One of the men waived his right to appear, so only nine were in court yesterday. Judges will announce their decision June 4. There is no right of appeal.

Dutch marines slid down ropes out of a helicopter to retake the German-flagged ship MV Taipan. The ship’s crew had taken cover in a locked safe room after the armed pirates hijacked the vessel about 800 kilometers (500 miles) east

of Somalia.

The initial hijacking and subsequent rescue left the ship’s bridge riddled with bullet holes.

However, nobody was seriously hurt in the Dutch operation — the pirates all dropped their weapons and surrendered when confronted by the heavily armed Dutch boarding party.

International navies who catch pirates while patrolling the waters off lawless Somalia often dump the bandits’ weapons overboard and put them back in their boats with enough food and fuel to reach the coast because of difficulties prosecuting them. That problem eased this week when Kenya announced it will resume taking piracy suspects from the international fleet for trial.

Earlier this year, Kenya stopped accepting suspects, saying they put undue strain on the country’s justice system. That decision left more than two dozen Somali pirates scooped up by US and European warships sitting in legal limbo on the high seas. — AP

Calderon lays blame for Mexico’s ills at US doorstep

THIRSK: Former Labour Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, leaves a fish and chip shop during an election campaign visit to Thirsk in northern England yesterday. Prescott was canvassing with Jonathan Roberts, Labour’s prospective candidate for the Thirsk and Malton constituency seat, voting for which will take place on May 27, 2010. — AFP

WASHINGTON: Mexico’s Felipe Calderon called for an overhaul of US immigration and gun laws, rankling some US lawmakers who said the criticism tested bilateral relations.

Calderon, in a speech to a joint session of Congress, roundly criticized a US immigration system which makes it a criminal offense to enter the United States without proper documentation, but looks the other way as millions of illegal workers, including many Mexicans, stream into the country virtually unimpeded.

“What we need today is to fix a broken and inefficient system,” Calderon told lawmakers on the second day of a two-day state visit. The Mexican leader declared that “the time has come for the United States and Mexico to work together” on the contentious immigration issue, one that for years has proved a diplomatic thorn in US-Mexican relations.

Calderon, who later visited Arlington military cemetery, renewed his call for an overhaul of US immigration laws that would offer up to 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States, many of them Mexicans, a path to US citizenship.

And for a second day, he strongly criticized a new Arizona law that has enraged Hispanics and stoked fears of racial profiling.

“It introduces a terrible idea using racial profiling as a basis for law enforcement,” he said in a speech punctuated with warm applause and even occasional standing ovations by lawmakers from Obama’s Democratic party, but stone cold silence from opposition Republicans.

Some expressed displeasure over the Mexican leader’s remarks.

“It’s inappropriate for a head of state to question our laws, especially when the state of Arizona only acted in the best interest of its citizens,” said Utah Senator Orrin Hatch after the speech.

Republican Jeff Sessions said the real problem was the “illegal movement” of undocumented workers into the United States.

“There are parts of the border that are fully under control but others not,” he said, expressing support for efforts in Arizona to crack down on undocumented immigrants.

“What the president needs to do is go to Arizona and end this,” Sessions said.—AFP

A US official said the White House has been interviewing “several strong candidates to be his replacement.”

A Senate report released this week found that the US intelligence and counterterrorism agencies missed chances to prevent the Dec. 25 plot because of human and technical errors.

Blair has locked horns behind the scenes with CIA Director Leon Panetta, fueling doubts for within the administration about his tenure. “Something has to give,” one government source told Reuters in March.

The director of national intelligence serves as the head of the intelligence community, but his control of the CIA and its operation is limited.

Blair’s often blunt style was seen by some as a source of candor, but it irked others in a White House that prizes staying on message, officials said.

Within the bureaucracy, Blair faced an uphill battle from the start.

Panetta, a former member of Congress, White House chief of staff and chairman of key congressional committee, has extensive ties within the administration and Congress.

Obama took ultimate responsibility for lapses exposed by the Christmas Day plot. But the intelligence community’s reputation suffered.

Blair has operated largely out of the public eye, especially since the Christmas Day plot, analysts say.

To contain the political fallout, the White House turned to top counterterrorism aide John Brennan, rather than Blair, to lead the public relations effort.

Blair has also maintained a low profile since a botched May 1 car-bombing in New York’s Time Square.

Blair has pressed aggressively for expanded authorities that many experts say he needs to make the post of director of national intelligence effective, but the results have been mixed.

In a classified order issued in December, the White House National Security Council reaffirmed the CIA’s leadership role in covert action. The director of national intelligence has “policy oversight” but no veto power over operations, officials said.

Under the ruling, if a covert operation is deemed an emergency, the CIA would work directly with the president and notify the director of national intelligence concurrently.

The White House also strengthened the CIA’s hand at US missions overseas.

Many current and former intelligence officials trace tensions back to 2004, when legislation overhauling the intelligence system created the office of the director of national intelligence without clearly delineating all of its powers. — Reuters

WARSAW: People watch the high water of the Wisla river next to a mermaid statue, or syrenka, the symbol of Warsaw, yesterday. Flash floods caused by days of heavy rainfall have hit parts of central Europe, killing at least seven people, disrupting power supplies and forcing thousands of people from their homes.

Southern Poland, parts of the Czech Republic and Slovakia and northern Hungary are among the worst affected regions. — AFP

Nine dead in Poland floods WARSAW: The death toll from floods which have swept Poland for the past week rose to nine yesterday, officials said, as the waters which have battered the south finally reached the capital Warsaw.

“Nine people have died, and three are missing. The latest victim was a 70-year-old man who drowned in his house in Tarnobrzeg,” national rescue service spokesman Pawel Fratczak told AFP, referring to a town in the southeast.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk yesterday presented parliament with a report on the floods sparked by torrential rains, saying their scale was “without precedent in the past 160 years”.

“We’re talking about damage worth about 10 billion zlotys” (2.43 billion euros, 3.28 billion dollars), he said.

“The situation in the River Vistula basin is much worse than in the last major floods of 1997.”

If the cost of flood damage is found to have exceeded 2.1 billion euros, Poland can formally request help from a European Union crisis fund, Tusk’s chief aide Michal Boni told parliament. That would unlock 100 million euros of EU money.

At Poland’s request, the 27-nation EU formally kicked off an emergency operation on Wednesday.

Among the individual EU member states who have so far sent rescuers and equipment were France, Germany, the Baltic nations of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, and Poland’s neighbour the Czech Republic, which has also been hit by floods.

Boni said that 23,000 people had been evacuated

from flood-hit regions, out of a total affected population of 100,000.

The Vistula winds in an s-shape across Poland for 1,050 kilometres (650 miles) from the mountainous south to the Baltic Sea in the north.

The swollen river has been bursting its banks at various points along the way, with southern Poland the hardest-hit region so far. Thousands of people have been evacuated from flood-struck communities, where homes and roads remained submerged yesterday.

The water level in Warsaw had reached 760 centimetres (24.9 feet) yesterday afternoon. Since accurate records began after World War II, the Vistula has only risen above 750 centimetres three times, in 1947, 1960 and 1962. Authorities in Warsaw, a conurbation of two million people, urged residents of riverside districts to stay alert.

“The danger will grow. The flood-wave is longer than expected and could keep passing through the capital until Sunday evening. It’s looking bad,” regional governor Jacek Kozlowski told reporters.

“We’re not worried about the river actually overflowing. But the dykes will be sodden for so long that they risk bursting at any moment anywhere,” he said.

On the River Oder, in western Poland, the situation was not as serious as along the Vistula, Tusk said.The regional hub of Wroclaw-a city of 630,000 people which was battered by the 1997 floods-was bracing for the water to arrive Saturday morning but the local crisis unit said it did not expect the Oder to overflow. — AFP

MEXICO CITY: In this July 3, 2008 file photo, Mexican Federal Police demonstrate a hostage rescue operation during a visit by Republican presidential candidate, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., to the police headquarters in Mexico City. The United States has spent fourteen percent of the $1.12 billion it promised Mexico between 2008 and 2010 to combat surging drug cartel violence, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. — AP

US funds poor farmers to make the world safer WASHINGTON: US officials have unveiled a plan to fight hunger and promote global security by investing in agriculture in developing countries.

The United States will plow at least 3.5 billion dollars over three years into programs to promote farming and fight hunger in low-income countries, mainly in Africa, US Agency for International Development (USAID) head Rajiv Khan said as he unveiled the plan called “Feed the Future.”

“Combined with the investments of our partner countries, we believe this will lead to 40 million people over 10 years increasing their incomes by more than 10 percent a year, and we expect to reach 25 million children with nutritional interventions that will prevent stunting in 10 million kids,” Khan told a symposium on agriculture and food security. “Agricultural development is a springboard for broader economic development, and food security is the foundation for peace and opportunity and, therefore, our own national security,” Khan told the gathering that included Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and the agriculture ministers of Bangladesh and Mali.

“Feed the Future” is being launched at a time when more than one billion people are chronically hungry. To US Congresswoman Rosa de Lauro, that was one billion people who could be forced by hunger “into desperate acts.” “Famine and starvation create the conditions for extremism around the world, the same extremism our men and women in the armed forces are fighting right now in Afghanistan and Iraq and elsewhere,” said de Lauro. “We fight hunger and we undercut the recruiting base of those who would threaten our families,” she said. Sirleaf said rebuilding Liberia’s farming sector was a key driver in the west African country’s recovery, after back-toback civil wars that claimed more than a quarter of a million lives between 1989 and 2003 and left the infrastructure in ruins. “Recognizing that agricultural growth is more effective in reducing poverty than any other effort in any sector, our government is placing emphasis on this strategic sector,” which ground to a halt during the years of war as farmers abandoned their fields to seek shelter in cities, said Sirleaf.—AFP

business

saturday, May 22, 2010

7

Crunch time for debt-riddled Europe BRUSSELS: Crisis-hit European finance ministers lock horns yesterday under pressure from Germany to fix tough new cross-border budget controls. After the biggest drop in more than a year on Wall Street triggered fresh turmoil in Asian markets yesterday, the talks starting at 2:00pm (1200 GMT) come on the day the German parliament is to approve its share of a near trillion-dollar eurozone bailout.

Summoned by European Union president Herman Van Rompuy, the ministers are to come up with workable ideas to ensure the 27 national governments take greater shared responsibility for the EU’s combined economy, the world’s biggest trading bloc.

Some market analysts have speculated that failure to crack down adequately could break up the 16-nation eurozone.

Economic tensions are already high despite French President Nicolas Sarkozy moving on Thursday to deny a rift with Germany. In Berlin, the tone remained sharp with Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble defending a unilateral move to curb speculative trading by saying: “If you want to drain a swamp, you don’t ask the frogs what they think of the situation.”

“The markets are a whole mess of uncertainty and fear right now,” said Joshua Raymond of City Index in London. “It is hardly surprising that investors are fleeing risky assets everywhere and this means heavy weakness for stocks, sterling and the euro.”

International Monetary Fund head Dominique Strauss-Kahn has said there was no risk of the eurozone splintering but warned the crisis could cost

Europe its credibility.

“The whole world is watching this... and is losing confidence in Europe,” he told French television late Thursday. With the sovereign debt crisis threatening to unleash global economic chaos the way the banking crisis did in 2008, US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will visit Britain and Germany next week for emergency talks. In America, the most sweeping overhaul of financial industry rules since the Great Depression of the 1930s is already under way with President Barack Obama pushing for closely-aligned changes in Europe.

In Germany, Geithner is to meet Schaeuble and the head of the European Central Bank, Jean Claude Trichet, who is also in Van Rompuy’s ‘task force’ which is charged with deliver-

ing reform to EU-wide ‘economic governance’ by October.

Germany had been reluctant to play a central role in bailing out Greece, where the crisis originated, but has since stepped inproviding cash for Athens and guarantees behind the 750-billion-euro (950 billion dollar) pot to protect other troubled euro economies like Spain or Portugal.

Sarkozy has since backed German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s call for tougher punishment for nations that run public deficits above permitted levels, which include withholding EU funds and withdrawing voting rights.

Trichet, the head of the normally conservative central bank, has meanwhile been forced to prop up credit markets, promising to buy up undesirable national bonds. Merkel has also pressed the case for a

global tax on financial markets to help tame excesses blamed for the global economic slump.

“We will campaign for that at our (G20) summit in Canada,” next month, she told a conference on financial regulation.

Merkel stunned markets on Wednesday when Berlin banned so-called naked short selling-the sale of bonds or shares by market players who neither hold the security nor have borrowed it to make their trade. Dutch lawmakers on Thursday followed suit with the lower house of parliament backing a motion asking the government to outlaw naked short selling of eurozone government bonds.

In what it described as a “worrying” sign, data and research group Markit yesterday said eurozone economic growth slowed considerably in May. — AFP

EU eyes more sanctions for budget rule breakers Ministers seek to shore up euro, guard against debt meltdown BRUSSELS: European Union finance ministers looked set yesterday to support a German proposal for tougher sanctions against EU budget rule breakers, a move to shore up the euro and guard against a debt meltdown. The ministers

are meeting for the first time to discuss changes to the way the 27-nation bloc manages public finances and its coordination of economic policy as investors flee the euro, pushing the common currency down 6 percent this month. ity in the 11-year-old euro currency, shared by 16 countries, and led to demands for EU states to work much harder on coordinating their economic policies and bring their finances into check.

EU finance ministers, chaired by EU President Herman an Rompuy will meet regularly over the next six months. Their job is to look at how to give much more teeth to the EU’s budget rules, known as the stability and growth pact, to ensure that future crises can be prevented.

“Urgent action is needed to correct weaknesses in procedures and institutions, to reform the stability and growth pact and to develop new policy tools,” Germany said in a paper prepared for the meeting of EU finance ministers.

But the gathering, which starts at 1200 GMT, is unlikely to produce immediate results as it is the first of a series of discussions that will generate conclusions for a summit of European Union leaders to be held in October.

“This is only the beginning of the discussions, there will be another meeting in June, we want to see what the issues are, what questions to ask ourselves,” one EU diplomat said. The brainstorming will be based on last week’s proposals from the executive European Commission and ideas from Germany, which wants to go much further than the EU executive arm. —Reuters

“The question of sanctions must take priority. We must do everything we can so that countries that are lax with their budgets can be rapped on the knuckles,” Austrian Finance Minister Joseph Proell told reporters on entering the meeting. French Economy Minister Christine Lagarde also said the German proposals were going in the right direction. Germany, whose leader Angela Merkel has led the calls for tougher fiscal action, agreed on Thursday to work together with France to solve Europe’s debt crisis, patching up a public rift between the euro zone’s top two economies that had rattled markets around the world.

A paper prepared for meeting by Berlin showed Germany wanted tight national compliance with budget rules, as it tries to rally the rest of the euro zone and EU behind its vision and stop differences undermining the bloc’s unity. “We need to have stronger sanctions and better national frameworks; the culture of stability needs to be reinforced. I see strong points in the German proposal,” Swedish Finance Minister Anders Borg told reporters.

EU governments are trying to regain investors’ confidence after months of turmoil that have pushed many euro zone member states’ borrowing costs sky high, led to a 110 billion euro bailout of Greece and the setting up a $1 trillion safety net to try to prevent the contagion spreading. The debt crisis has provoked huge instabil-

BRUSSELS: French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde (left) talks with British Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne (center) and Portuguese Finance Minister Fernando Teixeira Dos Santos, prior to the start of a at the European Council building yesterday. — AP

LSE earnings fall, sees gain in dark trading Revenue down 6.4 percent, beats forecast LONDON: London Stock Exchange reported a 19 percent drop in full-year earnings per share as it racked up the costs of transforming the company, while pointing to a recent upturn in dark trading at subsidiary Turquoise. Like other European exchanges, LSE has been losing market share to Chi-X and BATS, low-cost alternative platforms known as multilateral trading facilities (MTFs), since pan-European regulation opened the market to competition in 2007.

LSE has been fighting back by reducing fees, cutting post-trade costs and adding new businesses to diversify its sources of revenue, but the going remains tough.

LSE shares were unchanged at 650 pence at 0927 GMT. “The strategy amounts to a total reengineering of our business over a two-tothree-year period,” Chief Executive Javier Rolet told journalists. “The costs to achieve this are starting to come through, but the fruits of our labor have yet to be harvested.” The group’s loss of market share is likely to continue at least until the LSE can upgrade its technology, Oriel Securities said. “The outlook should get better with modest growth being factored in for fiscal year 2011,” it added.

Rolet said Turquoise, the pan-European MTF in which it acquired a controlling interest in December, rose to become the largest European dark, or anonymous, MTF for the first time on Thursday, Its volumes jumped in the past few days while Chi-X and BATS showed declines, Thomson Reuters data showed. It had ranked as sixth-largest at the time of the acquisition, Rolet said. Dark pools still account for a small percentage of the overall market but dark trading tends to be more lucrative for platforms than standard transparent trading.

To explain the gain, Rolet cited Turquoise’s neutrality and said it was designed to protect confidentiality of information versus some other platforms designed for arbitrageurs. Adjusted

EPS fell to 60.1 pence for the year to endMarch, on total income that fell 6.4 percent to 628.3 million pounds. Consensus forecasts were for 59.15 pence on total income of 619.6 million pounds, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S Estimates. The group, which operates bourses in London and Milan, said it had chopped costs by 8 percent before acquisitions and one-off items, with a 13 percent reduction in staff numbers.

Through April, the exchange’s share of trading in FTSE 100 stocks had fallen below 50 percent not counting Turquoise, according to Thomson Reuters data. Meanwhile, Rolet said the LSE and Turquoise will be offering its new Millennium IT trading platform to clients by the end of September, subject to customer readiness. One of his first moves after taking over about a year ago was to acquire the Sri Lankabased technology firm to provide a lower-cost, higher-speed trading platform.

In another development affecting exchanges, regulators in the United States and Europe are looking at “the consequences of competition in an environment where platforms do not have the same constructs and do not need to have the same level of price formation”, Rolet said. US regulators are proposing new circuit breakers in the United States after the Dow Jones industrial average on May 6 plunged around 700 points in 10 minutes for reasons that have still not been identified.

The LSE already has circuit breakers in its electronic order book that automatically halt trading briefly when stock prices jump more than a certain percent. Those circuit breakers are different from those used by MTFs, said Doug Webb, LSE chief financial officer. “If you did get a situation like the one that occurred in the US, circuit breakers would have kicked in on our market but probably not on the MTFs,” he said. — Reuters

Stocks tumble, bunds Oil prices fall firm on eurozone fears on eurozone M&S ekes out profit rise, LONDON: European stocks fell again yesterday despite German approval of a euro zone rescue package, as markets remained unconvinced the aid would resolve the debt crisis. The euro, however, found support from short covering. Wall Street was also set to open lower, after plunging nearly 4 percent in the previous session.

In the general flight to safety bund futures extended their gains, up 28 ticks on the day to 128.59, with the German 10-year government bond yield hitting a record low at 2.656 percent. “We are heading into the US session here and the markets want to be better bid. The market is just anticipating more risk aversion trades ...

People are still shedding risk and risk assets,” a bond trader said.

World stocks as measured by the MSCI All-Country index were down 0.41 percent, with the more volatile emerging markets component down 0.38 percent.

The euro continued to benefit from hedge funds scrambling to cover short positions and rose 0.32 percent to $1.2501.

Germany’s lower house of parliament approved a law allowing the country to make the biggest contribution to a 750 billion euro emergency debt package to help protect the euro, but markets remained troubled by what they perceive as poor co-ordination amongst European members in tackling the crisis. European finance ministers were meeting later yesterday to discuss changes to budget rules to prevent another

Greek-style debt crisis.

The FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares was down 2.2 percent, extending sharp falls over the previous two sessions after Germany’s decision to ban naked short selling on some assets raised fears about a lack of coordination between European policymakers. The UK’s FTSE 100 slipped below the key 5,000 mark for the first time since November 2009. “Valuations have cheapened, but the underlying fundamental issues have not been addressed and will continue to dog risk asset markets in the months ahead,” said analysts at RBC Capital Markets in a note. “The lack of political cohesion within the euro zone is becoming more

apparent by the day and this can only undermine risk appetite and conviction in the longer-term outlook for investing in the region.”

Energy shares were among the biggest losers on concerns that any setback to economic growth would hit demand for oil as the oil price fell towards $70 a barrel. Financial stocks also took a hammering following Thursday’s approval by the US Senate of a sweeping Wall Street reform bill.

Earlier in Japan, the Nikkei closed down 2.5 percent and lost 6.5 percent on the week, its biggest weekly drop in more than a year.

The euro, meanwhile, was also supported by rumors of possible central bank intervention to prop up the ailing currency. — Reuters

TOKYO: A man walks in front of an electronic stock board of a securities firm in Tokyo yesterday. Japan’s Nikkei 225 stock average shed 251.66 points to 9,778.65, with exporters falling sharply on a strong yen. —AP

LONDON: World oil prices fell yesterday, at the end of a week of heavy losses on concerns over Europe’s debt crisis, a stuttering US and the strengthening dollar, analysts said. New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in July, fell 57 cents to 70.23 dollars a barrel in midday trade. The June contract expired Thursday at 68.01 dollars. London’s Brent North Sea crude for July sank 32 cents to 71.52 dollars.

Oil dived on Thursday to near 10-month lows as stock markets slumped on eurozone debt crisis concerns and a surprise worsening in jobs data in the United States, the world’s biggest energy consumer. New York crude fell as low as 64.24 dollars, its lowest level since July 30, 2009, while Brent oil hit 70.20 dollars, a level last seen in early February.

“Concerns over the outlook for Europe continued to buffet markets,” analysts from the Commonwealth Bank of Australia said in a note. “Oil market sentiment is still being depressed by concerns over European growth,” they said.

VTB Capital’s Andrey Kryuchenkov said it was “the same old story of yet another week of losses as investors continue to pull out of riskier assets.” Global stock markets slumped further yesterday as the prospect of Wall Street

financial reforms also undercut investor confidence. The biggest drop in more than a year in New York on Thursday triggered fresh turmoil in Asia and Europe amid mounting anxiety about the global economic outlook.

Long-term concerns about the sustainability of the US recovery resurfaced after the Labor Department said initial jobless claims totaled 471,000 in the week to May 15, up 5.6 percent from the prior week’s revised 446,000 and against forecasts for another modest drop. “The unemployment figure showed a jump ... which was unexpected,” said Andy Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates. “Crude oil has just been following the stock markets down. “If you are not creating jobs, it is going to impact petroleum products demand over the next months,” Lipow said. Oil began the week in negative territory, falling to 2010 lows on fears about future demand and the strong dollar. Lower prices reflected concerns over the Europe, despite an EU-IMF rescue package worth almost a trillion dollars designed to prevent the Greek debt crisis from spreading. The market also tumbled as fears about massive debt and high eurozone public deficits sent the euro slumping to a four-year low against the dollar. —AFP

Burberry powers ahead

LONDON: British retailer Marks & Spencer is set to post a rise of just 4 percent in annual profit on Tuesday lagging rivals and underscoring the challenges facing new chief executive Marc Bolland. The performance of Britain’s biggest clothing retailer, while a vast improvement on the 40 percent plunge in earnings last year, trails the increase in profits delivered by rivals like Next, John Lewis and Debenhams.

It is also likely to be overshadowed a day later, when luxury group Burberry is tipped to post a 17 percent rise in annual profit, helped by its geographical diversity. Britain’s retailers are emerging from a long and deep recession. Government data on Thursday showed a slightly bigger-than-expected 0.3 percent monthly rise in sales volumes in April.

However, store groups fear steps to rein in government borrowing, like higher taxes and public spending cuts, could dampen consumer confidence in the months ahead.

Marks & Spencer (M&S) was hit particularly hard in the recession as it struggled to hold onto clothing market share amid the challenge from discounters like Primark. It also admitted it was too slow to adapt its upmarket food business. The firm has since fought back, introducing lower-priced “Wise Buys” in food and new clothing ranges like Indigo.

Fourth-quarter sales, posted last month, smashed forecasts. But the group said profits for the year ended March 27 would be within analysts’ existing forecast range of 620-630 million pounds ($890-904 million), held back by a larger-than-expected staff bonus and a rise in operating costs.

It also said gross profit margins would be broadly flat in 2010-11 and operating costs would rise 4-5 percent, signaling it will be a long haul for Bolland, who joined M&S at the beginning of May, to lift profits back to the 1billion-pound level achieved in 2007-8.

Analysts’ average forecast is for profits to rise from 627 million pounds in 2009-10 to 666 million pounds in 2010-11, according to data provided by the company. Analysts expect Burberry, the 154-year-old maker of upmarket raincoats and handbags, to report profit before tax and one-off items of 205 million pounds for the year ended March 31, according to the average forecast of 15 polled

by Reuters.

Earnings are tipped to rise to 238 million pounds in 2010-11 as the group, best known for its camel, red and black check, opens more shops and steps up its expansion in growth areas like childrenswear and leather goods. Burberry shares have beaten the STOXX 600 European personal and household goods index by 6 percent this year. They trade at 16.3 times earnings forecasts for 2010-11, compared with rival LVMH on 18.6 times forecasts for 2010.

M&S shares have underperformed the STOXX 600 European retail index by 16 percent this year. They trade at 10.8 times earnings forecasts for 2010-11, above Next on 9.7 times, according to Reuters data. On Thursday, British sportswear retailer JJB Sports, which came close to administration last year, is expected to post a wider pretax loss of about 60 million pounds for the year to end-Jan. 2010, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. —Reuters

8

BUSINESS

Saturday, May 22, 2010

African exporters feel pinch from weak pound, euro JOHANNESBURG: African firms exporting everything from Kenyan roses and South African BMWs to Europe are suffering from euro and sterling weakness that is making the continent a pricier destination just before its first World Cup. In South Africa, which rolls out the red carpet in June to thousands of World Cup visitors, many from Europe, fruit growers are trying to shift export lines to the Middle East and Asia, whose currencies have remained firmer than European units.

South Africa’s rand is 17 percent stronger

against the euro compared to a year ago, and 14 percent against the pound-meaning Europeans arriving for the World Cup will not find it as cheap a destination as they imagined when they booked their flights in 2009.

Kenya’s shilling has also appreciated in the last year, by 11 percent against sterling and 7 percent against the euro, making a safari stopover on the way home a far from cheap option. The Indian Ocean island’s New Mauritius Hotels last week cited the weak pound and euro as reasons for an

uncertain earnings outlook, reflecting the fears of many tourism operators on the continent. South African wine and drinks firms Distell Group and KWV, who have been enjoying World Cup-related wine promotions in UK and German supermarkets, are also likely to be among those feeling the pinch.

Europe accounts for 30 percent of all South African exports, and with concerns about budget deficits likely to hang over the euro and pound for the foreseeable future, trading for many exporters is likely to

remain tough. “It will impact on sales,” said Justin Chadwick, chief executive of South Africa’s Citrus Growers Association, which represents an industry that exports $600 million of oranges and other fruit each year, second only to Spain. “A lot of people are trying to divert fruit to the Middle East and Far East, but in reality there’s very little one can do about it.”

CAR TROUBLE Another sector likely to be hit is the automotive industry, which accounts for 6 percent of South African gross domestic

product and 11 percent of all exports.

Nearly half of those shipments, worth a total 25 billion rand ($3.2 billion) in 2009, are to Europe, according to industry body NAAMSA. In Kenya, much of the brunt will be borne by the horticultural sector, the east African country’s leading hard currency earner that raked in nearly $1 billion last year. Most of Kenya’s flower and fruit exports are to Europe.

Neighboring Uganda and Ethopia have similar industries but on a much smaller

scale. One region that stands to gain, however, is the 14-country CFA franc zone, whose currency is pegged to the euro and whose exports to the rest of the world will therefore become more competitive.

Shipments of commodities priced in dollars will also provide a local currency windfall.

“The whole of the CFA zone from Senegal down to Cameroon is going to be the beneficiary of dollar-based exports-oil, cocoa, coffee, groundnuts, you name it, said Christopher Hartland-Peel of London-based brokerage Exotix. — Reuters

Senate passes historic Wall Street overhaul Obama notches 2nd major legislative victory WASHINGTON: In a major victory for President Barack Obama, the US Senate has passed the most sweeping overhaul of financial industry rules since the Great Depression of the 1930s. By a 59-39 margin, lawmakers approved Thursday an ambitious effort to curb Wall Street excesses blamed for fueling the

2008 global economic meltdown, amid smoldering voter anger months before November mid-term elections. “To Wall Street, it says: No longer can you recklessly gamble away other people’s money,” Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. “It says to those who game the system: The game is over.”

WASHINGTON: National Economic Council Director Larry Summers (left) talks with Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs Phil Schiliro (right) after President Barack Obama made a statement on financial reform and Wall Street in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington. — AP

Platinum, palladium off lows after rout Gold arrests this week’s big slide as debt fears persist LONDON: Platinum and palladium recovered some of the losses that took them to 31/2 month lows earlier yesterday, but are still on track for their worst week in years after fund selling early in the week sparked a sharp price drop. Reuters data shows platinum heading for its biggest one-week percentage drop since late 2008 and palladium its worst week since at least 1984.

Gold was steadier, meanwhile, arresting a slide that took it to two-week lows earlier in the session, as lower prices tempted some buyers back to the market amid persistent fears over the euro zone debt crisis.

Spot gold was bid at $1,179.05 an ounce at 1145 GMT, against $1,181.10 late in New York on Thursday. US gold futures for June delivery on the COMEX division of the New York Mercantile Exchange fell $9.00 to $1,179.70 an ounce.

Platinum was at $1,484 an ounce against $1,509 after earlier falling around 15 percent from last Friday’s level. Palladium was at $410.93 versus $412.75, after falling to $393, down 25 percent on the week. “I tend to think the sell-off (in platinum group metals) has been a kneejerk reaction, and has been a little bit overdone,” said Societe Generale analyst David Wilson. “We have seen quite a lot of consumer hedging on the

PGMs yesterday, which makes sense,” he added. “If you are a big car producer and you want to lock in a lower price, yesterday was a good day to do it.”

Gold prices meanwhile recovered after earlier falling to a low of $1,166.50 an ounce, down more than 5 percent from last Friday.

Traders say prices are due a period of consolidation after rising 6 percent in the first two weeks of May to record highs at $1,248.95 an ounce. “We traded up from $1,125 to the high at $1,248 not even in a month, so it is quite normal that you have a movement against that,” said Commerzbank trader Michael Kempinski. “There is really too much investor money in there, and the funds are not all interested in the long term performance.”

SOVEREIGN DEBT Fear remains a driving force in the market. The .VIX index, Wall Street’s chief measure of volatility, closed at its highest since March 2009 on Thursday on growing fears over the euro zone’s handling of its sovereign debt problems. Equity markets extended losses yesterday, on persistent concern over euro zone sovereign debt levels and tougher financial regulation.

European shares were down 2.4 percent

just after midday. The euro clung onto its gains against the dollar as fears of currency intervention rose. Oil prices meanwhile fell back below $70 a barrel, having touched their lowest since July on Thursday.

Investment demand for physical gold continued to be firm, meanwhile, with holdings of the world’s largest gold-backed exchange-traded fund, New York’s SPDR Gold Trust, at a record 1,220.152 tons on Thursday. The gold exchange-traded products operated by London’s ETF Securities were also little changed on Thursday. The resilience of ETF holdings during gold’s latest leg lower has cheered investors who believe the longer-term outlook for the metal against a backdrop of volatility in the wider markets and rising fears over euro zone debt levels is positive.

“The move in gold has been really unusual, given the level of concern in the markets,” said Nick Bullman, managing director of Bullman Asset Management. “My view is still that in a period of strong monetization by governments, it will come out as the only real store of value,” he said. “It can get to $1,300 this year, and it will go higher if things spiral out of control. This is a great buying opportunity.” Silver was bid at $17.70 an ounce against $17.59. — Reuters

Dell profit surges NEW YORK: Revived business spending helped US computer giant Dell post a quarterly net profit yesterday that beat expectations. The Texas-based Dell said its first quarter net profit rose 52 percent to 441 million dollars over the same period a year ago while revenue increased 21 percent to 14.87 billion dollars. Earnings per share of 30 cents were better than the 27 cents forecast by Wall Street analysts and the revenue figure also topped expectations of 14.27 billion dollars.

“We feel good about the growth across our commercial business as it approaches nearly 50 billion dollars in revenues,” chief financial officer Brian Gladden said. “We will continue to make investments in our enterprise solutions throughout the year,” Gladden said in a statement. Dell, the third-

largest personal computer maker after Hewlett-Packard of the United States and Taiwan’s Acer, did not issue a revenue outlook for the current quarter but said it “believes it is seeing the early stages of a corporate IT refresh.”

“Commercial demand continued to build in the first quarter and Dell is optimistic the trend will continue throughout the year,” it said. The company added, however, that it “expects some components to remain in tight supply for the next couple quarters.” Dell said its firstquarter results “reflect the powerful combination of Dell and Perot Systems and sound company execution in an overall improving business environment.” Dell bought computer services firm Perot Systems for 3.9 billion dollars last year.

Dell reported strong growth in emerging markets during the

NORTH ANDOVER: In this photo, Dell laptops are seen in North Andover, Mass. Computer maker Dell Inc has released quarterly financial results after the market close. — AP quarter with revenue up 90 percent in India, 81 percent in Brazil and 44 percent in China.

Dell said revenue at its large businesses division was 4.2 billion dollars, up 25 percent over a year ago, led by a 61-percent increase in server revenue and a 44-percent increase in ser-

vices revenue. It said small- and medium-business revenue was 3.5 billion dollars, up 19 percent, while revenue at its consumer division rose 16 percent to 3.2 billion dollars.

Dell shares shed 3.28 percent in after-hours electronic trading to 13.85 dollars. — AFP

Senate Banking Committee chair Chris Dodd, a key author of the legislation, said it was “a major step toward creating a sound economic foundation for the American people we represent. This is their victory.” The legislation, Obama’s top domestic goal, must still be merged with the House of Representatives’ rival version into a compromise measure before the final package can go to the president to sign into law.

House Financial Services Committee chair Barney Frank, a Democrat, told CNBC television that he foresaw smooth sailing and that “the president, I am certain now, will have signed this bill well before the Fourth of July.” The measure aims to rein in big firms’ use of high-risk practices blamed for the collapse of 2008, end taxpayer-funded bailout of financial titans previously deemed “too big to fail,” and create an unprecedented consumer protection agency to shield Americans from industry abuses.

It also seeks to curb big banks’ lucrative, largely unregulated business in complex securities called derivatives, essentially bets on the future cost of an asset, which many businesses use to control risk from volatile prices. It includes several measures aimed at increasing the transparency at the US Federal Reserve and the central bank’s accountability, as well as a measure aimed at blocking International Monetary Fund aid packages like the one for Greece without a guarantee that the money will be repaid.

A few hours before the vote, Obama pledged that the law would not smother the market.

“The reform I sign will not stifle the power of the free market it will simply bring predictable, responsible, sensible rules into the marketplace,” he said in the Rose Garden of the White House. “Our goal is not to punish the banks, but to protect the larger economy and the American people from the kind of upheavals that we’ve seen in the past few years,” said the president.

Obama also took aim at the financial industry, accusing it of deploying “hordes of lobbyists and millions of dollars in ads” to kill the bill and trying to “water it down.” “Today, I think it’s fair to say that these efforts have failed,” he said. Four Republicans joined all but two Democrats to approve the measure, drawing praise from Reid at the end of a month-long, sometimes bitter debate expected to stretch into the House-Senate “conference” to build a compromise.

US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said in a statement that he looked forward to working with lawmakers “to produce a sensible, prudent reform bill that strengthens the American financial system and preserves our ability to innovate and compete in a global economy.” The two chambers were to pick negotiating delegates on Monday.

Some of the remaining disputes include curbs on derivative trading and restrictions on investment activities by deposit-holding banks.

Senate Agriculture Committee chair Blanche Lincoln, a Democrat, authored a measure in the bill aimed at ending the largely unregulated derivatives business, a step forcefully opposed by big banks and their lobbyists trying to shape the legislation. — AFP

HUAIBEI: A bank clerk counts a stack of USD together with stacks of 100 yuan notes at a bank in Huaibei, east China’s Anhui province. China stood firm against outside pressure to revalue its currency ahead of key talks with the US, and reiterated its concerns about soaring US debt levels. — AFP

China, US look to close world biggest trade gap Yuan on back burner as trade concerns move up WASHINGTON: The world’s largest bilateral trade gap-and how to narrow it-will be the focus of high-level China-US talks in Beijing next week, with export barriers taking centre stage and the yuan lurking on the side. China’s whopping trade surplus with the United States has narrowed over the past year as the global financial crisis has decimated American demand.

At their Strategic and Economic Dialogue next week, Washington and Beijing will look for ways to balance their $400 billion trade ties on a more permanent basis, steering clear of an open clash about the yuan’s peg to the dollar.

The stakes are high for both. As he tries to reinvigorate the US economy, President Barack Obama has set a goal of doubling exports in five years, which can be met only with a big increase in sales to China. For Chinese leaders, the task is to show that trade flows are headed in the right direction without fundamental change to the country’s exchange rate regime, declawing critics who have called for punitive action if it does nothing. The United States has said a top concern at the talks will be Chinese industrial policies promoting “indigenous innovation” that are seen as restrictive and have alarmed foreign companies.

The US Treasury’s senior coordinator for China affairs, David Loevinger, said this week that increasing exports meant not only fighting trade barriers but also “ensuring that large economies like China with large current

account surpluses depend more on their own domestic demand for growth”. Last year, despite the global recession, the US trade deficit with China was $227 billion, the largest for any country.

Beijing knows the road to Obama’s export target runs through China.

“Where are those goods going to go? The Chinese market is huge and it has money in its hands,” said Zhou Shijian, with the Center for US-China Relations at Tsinghua University. That feeds into one of the main messages that Zhou said Chinese officials will not tire of repeating next week. If the United States wants to sell more to China, it should loosen its controls over the exports of high-tech products. US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan will lead the economic talks on Monday and Tuesday, with top trade representatives and hundreds of senior officials from both countries also at the meetings.

LULL IN YUAN STORM The Chinese government has made clear that encouraging domestic consumption and cutting reliance on exportsjust what the United States wants it do-are top policy priorities. But any change will be measured in years, not months. With mid-term elections looming, patience in Washington can quickly wear thin and the yuan remains a flashpoint as the easiest explanation for the trade imbalance.

Geithner postponed a semiannual currency report in April that could have named China a

currency manipulator. In the eyes of many, this seemed to be more an ultimatum than an olive branch. “That left the impression that he had sold Congress on a strategy of giving China until the end of June to resume appreciation,” said Nicholas Lardy, a China expert at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

Many investors and analysts thought Beijing was on course to remove the yuan from its de facto 22-month-old dollar peg, but the European debt crisis has cast doubt on this forecast. “They cannot at the moment even pretend to be re-pegging away from the dollar to a genuine basket of global currencies because no one wants to be tied to the euro right now,” said Derek Scissors of the Heritage Foundation in Washington. In muting its criticism of the yuan, the Obama administration is, in part, taking the Chinese government at its word.

“External pressure and noise will do nothing but slow the reform process,” assistant finance minister Zhu Guangyao said of the yuan exchange rate on Thursday. In quiet tones, Beijing will also press for reassurance about the safety of the dollar and US government debt.

China is the world’s largest holder of US Treasuries with $895 billion. “I think the US side has a very weak hand going into these talks,” Lardy said. But it might just be a lull in the storm. “If nothing happens by the end of June on revaluation, then I expect pressure from Congress will resume against Geithner again,” he said. — Reuters

Singapore Airlines Q4 profit up over six-fold SINGAPORE: Singapore Airlines (SIA), a bellwether for the aviation industry, said yesterday its fourth quarter net profit soared more than six-fold as the global economic rebound boosted travel and cargo demand. Net profit in the three months to March was 278 million Singapore dollars (197.53 million US), up from 42 million dollars in the same quarter the year before, the company said in a statement.

Together with the 404-million-dollar net profit in the third quarter, the fourth quarter earnings reversed 466 million dollars in losses recorded in the financial first half. Fourth quarter revenue was 3.34 billion dollars, little changed from 3.32 billion dollars the year before, said SIA, one of the world’s most respected airlines whose earnings are closely monitored by the travel, financial and aerospace sectors.

The company had been hit by a fall in travel and cargo demand resulting from a financial crisis and the global economic slump that started in 2008 and lasted well into 2009. The airline suffered its first quarterly loss in six years in the

three months ended June 2009 and extended the losses into the September quarter before staging a turnaround. For the full-year ended March 31, net profit was 215 million dollars, down from 1.06 billion dollars the previous year.

SIA’s financial year ended before the eruption of a volcano in Iceland, which shut down much of Europe’s airspace for a week in April and affected flights worldwide. “Advance bookings for travel in the year ahead are encouraging, especially in business class,” the airline said. “Similarly, forward indicators suggest that the recent recovery in volumes of air cargo will hold up in the near term. Yields for both passenger and cargo should keep pace with the growth in demand.” The airline said the sustainability of the improvements “depends on developments in the world economy and business and consumer confidence.” Fuel costs will continue to be a major expense for the airline, SIA said, noting that the price of jet fuel hovered at around 90 US dollars a barrel recently. “It is difficult how the price will behave over the course of the year,” SIA said. — AFP

technology

Saturday, May 22, 2010

9

Red roofs invade Chinese city, angering residents GUANGZHOU, China: Their drab concrete apartment buildings are starting to look more like Spanish villas with red-tiled roofs, and that’s angering many who live in them.

For the past year, workers have been repainting hundreds of buildings in Guangzhou and topping them with pitched roofs made of PVC sheets molded to look like tiles. It’s part of a government-led campaign to spiff up this gritty metropolis for the Asian Games, a major sports competition in November.

The faux roofs have enraged many middle-class residents, but there is little they can do. Urban Chinese have enjoyed an explosion of personal freedom in the past three decades. They can pick their own jobs, start their own businesses and buy their own apartments.

But the government can still show up one day and announce that their homes will be getting a red roof - whether they like it or not. Though many believe they deserve a greater say in civic affairs, citizens remain powerless when officials launch a massive campaign with little or no public consultation. “A few of my neighbors occupied their roofs and refused to leave, but they had to eventually,” said Zheng, an office worker.

Like other residents, she wouldn’t give her full name, fearing trouble with officials. “We don’t have a choice. There’s no use challenging the government.”

Neighborhoods have become construction zones, with buildings surrounded by rusty steel and bamboo scaffolding covered with tattered green mesh. Crews put up metal frames on the flattop buildings and cover them with the PVC sheets. Many in this southern Chinese city, also known as Canton, said the roofs symbolize a negative aspect of Chinese culture: an overemphasis on superficial appearance and showing off for guests, especially those from abroad.

Beijing carried out a similar facelift for the Olympic Games in 2008, and Shanghai, for the World Expo that opened this month.

“It’s all just for show,” said Chen, a young mother, who would only give her surname. “They’re just putting new clothes and a hat on my building. In a year, it’ll look bad again.”

Most of the red-roofed buildings are in areas where foreigners are most likely to go during the Asian Games, which is expected to attract 25,000 athletes, coaches and journalists from 45 countries. They line the highway from the airport and the train

GUANGZHOU: Workers repaint building roofs near a Guangzhou Asian Games advertisement board in Guangzhou, China. —AP tracks from nearby Hong Kong, and they surround some of the fancier tourist hotels.

The Potemkin village quality of the roofs mars the cityscape, said Valery Garrett, a Hong Kong-based author who has been vis-

iting Guangzhou for decades and wrote the book, “Heaven is High, the Emperor Far Away, Merchants and Mandarins in Old Guangzhou.”

Garrett is amused by the fake dormer

windows in many of the roofs. “The idea of having dormer windows when there’s nothing inside of them is ludicrous,” she said.

The city government says the roof campaign - called “changing the flat to sloped” - is a practical move to prevent roofs from leaking during the rainy season and to shield buildings from the sun in the summer.

“The roofs can change the architectural scenery and will help us meet our goal of beautifying the city and improving the living environment,” a government statement said. Figures for how many buildings would get the roofs were not available yet, the statement said, but early estimates put the number at about 1,000.

The government wouldn’t release the overall cost but said each square meter of roofing costs between 400 yuan ($58) and 500 yuan ($73). The fuzzy numbers fuel perceptions that officials use such projects to enrich themselves by pocketing kickbacks and embezzling funds.

Juan Du, an architecture professor at the University of Hong Kong, said the red roof campaign reminds her of the City Beautiful Movement in the United States in the 1890s and early 1900s. Chicago, Detroit, Washington, DC, and other cities borrowed

classical and European styles to spruce up buildings in the belief that it would promote social harmony and civic virtue. “The notion was that by improving the image of the city, you’re improving life in the city,” she said.

But, she added, critics say the approach creates an artificial image that doesn’t truly reflect the city.

Migrant worker He Zili, who has been building the roofs, couldn’t understand why some residents were so angry. “The government is doing all this for free,” he said.

“Their homes will look nicer and they don’t have to pay. It’s a good deal.” But none of the residents interviewed by AP saw it that way.

“True, the government is paying for the roofs, but it’s our money. It’s the taxpayers’ money,” said Zheng, the office worker. “We don’t want to waste that money.” As she spoke, a small group of people gathered around, nodding in agreement and punctuating her sentences by saying, “That’s right!”

All around them, the work in their central Guangzhou neighborhood went on. The shrill whine of metal-cutting saws echoed through the streets, powered by droning generators giving off the acrid stench of diesel fuel. — AP

Google bringing Internet to TVs Android update turns Google phones into Wi-Fi hot spots

SAN FRANCISCO: Internet giant Google is out to expand its kingdom to the living room with an ambitious new service that lets people mesh television viewing with surfing the Web. “Google TV,” developed in partnership with

TANEGASHIMA: Japan’s H-2A rocket carrying Akatsuki, Japan’s first Venus probe lifts off from a launch pad at the Tanegashima Space Center in Tanegashima, southwestern Japan yesterday. — AP

Japan rocket blasts off with ‘space yacht’, Venus probe TOKYO: A Japanese rocket blasted off early yesterday and successfully launched a Venus probe and a kite-shaped “space yacht” designed to float through the cosmos using only the power of the sun. The launch vehicle, the H-IIA rocket, took off from the Tanegashima space centre in southern Japan on schedule at 6:58 am (Thursday 2158 GMT), three days after its original launch was postponed by bad weather. Live footage on the website of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) showed the rocket disappear into the sky.

“It was an almost perfect launch,” Teruaki Kawai, a space business manager with the rocket’s manufacturer, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, told a televised press conference from the island of Tanegashima. It was the 11th straight launch success for the H-IIA, Japan’s primary space vehicle, after a rocket was forced to self-destruct after blastoff in 2003 when one of its boosters failed to disengage from the main body. The rocket yesterday carried the experimental “Ikaros” - an acronym for Interplanetary Kite-craft Accelerated by Radiation of the Sun - designed to be propelled by the pressure of sunlight particles.

Similar to an ocean yacht pushed by wind, the device has a square, ultra-thin and flexible sail, measuring 14 by 14 m, that will be driven through space as it is pelted by solar particles. The sail, only a fraction of the thickness of a human hair, is also partly coated with thin-film solar cells to generate electricity. The name of the spacecraft alludes to Icarus, the figure from Greek mythology who flew too close to the sun. The space yacht, however, is headed in the direction of Venus.

Ikaros, which cost 1.5 billion yen ($16 million) to develop, will be the first use of the propellant-free technology in deep space, although it has been tested in orbit around the Earth before. “This idea of a solar sail was born some 100 years ago, as we often find it in science fiction novels, but it has not been realised to date,” JAXA says on its website. “If we can verify this navigation technology through the Ikaros, it will mark the first spectacular achievement of its kind in the world.” The rocket also released the Planet-C Venus Climate Orbiter, nicknamed Akatsuki, which means “Dawn” in Japanese.

Japan’s first Venus probe is a box-shaped golden satellite, fitted with two paddle-shaped solar panels, that is set to arrive at Venus in about six months.

“I’m full of joy after the probe was put into the right orbit,” Masato Nakamura, the JAXA chief scientist in charge of Akatsuki development, said at the press conference. “My heart is beating, thinking of what’s

ahead.” Venus is similar in size and age to Earth but has a far more hostile climate, with temperatures around 460 degrees Celsius and large amounts of carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas on Earth.

Scientists believe a probe of the climate of Venus will help them deepen their understanding of the formation of the Earth’s environment and its future. The probe will work closely with the European Space Agency’s Venus Express.

Fitted with five cameras, its mission is to peer through the planet’s thick layer of sulphuric acid clouds to monitor the meteorology of Venus, search for possible lightning, and scan its crust for active volcanoes. It will observe the planet in an elliptical orbit, from a distance of between 300 and 80,000 km.

The Japanese rocket also released four other small satellites, developed by Japanese universities and other institutions. — AFP

Biz iPhones rising on employee pleas NEW YORK: BlackBerry smartphones are firmly attached to the belt loops of most business travelers, but there are signs Apple’s trendy iPhone is making inroads into board rooms and offices.

Drugmaker AstraZeneca Plc has begun iPhone trials with some senior executives and British bank Standard Chartered has given its corporate BlackBerry users the option of switching to the iPhone, a move that could result in thousands of bankers switching to the Apple device for business on the go. “We get a lot of requests for support in the United States and Asia Pacific for the iPhone,” said Michael Reid AstraZeneca’s mobility architect, who helps oversee company business communications. “In terms of consuming my time, that’s one of the most dominant requests.”

The demands became particularly fervent in late December, after many employees received iPhones as holiday gifts.

“We had a pretty mad scramble,” said Reid.

BlackBerry remains dominant. Technology experts cite the handheld’s tight security features and the ease of coordinating its “rock-solid” applications, such as mail and calendars. BlackBerry shipments outpaced those of iPhone by 20 percent in the first quarter of this year, according to researcher iSupply Corp.— Reuters

“Google TV is a new platform that we believe will change the future of television,” Google group product manager Rishi Chandra said after unveiling the new service at a software developers conference in San Francisco. “Users don’t have to choose between TV and Web; they can have both.” Google TV, which is powered by Google’s Android software and Chrome Web browser, can be accessed using upcoming Web-enabled televisions from Sony or set-top boxes from Logitech that route Web content to existing TV sets.

Sony and Logitech said the sets and boxes will be available in the United States in time for the year-end holiday shopping season and be rolled out internationally next year. Google TV, which promises to extend the Internet search and advertising giant’s reach into the lucrative TV ad market, “combines the best of what TV has to offer and the best of what the Web has to offer,” Chandra said.

“To the user it doesn’t matter where I get my content, whether it be live TV, DVR, or the Web,” Chandra said. “They just want access to it.”

Google-owned online video service YouTube is adapting a viewer to optimize playback on Google TV. Initially, advertising served on Google TV will be the same as seen now by television viewers or Web surfers but the Internet firm said it is pondering ways to tailor advertising to the platform. Google TV product manager Salahuddin Choudhary said in a blog post that Google TV will allow viewers to get “all the (TV) channels and shows you normally watch and all of the websites you browse all day.

“With the entire Internet in your living room, your TV becomes more than a TV - it can be a photo slide-show viewer, a gaming console, a music player and much more,” Choudhary said.

Google is not the first technology company to attempt to unite the TV set and the Internet and and a number of electronics manufacturers already offer Webenabled televisions or digital settop boxes.

Yahoo! jumped into the Internet television arena more than a year ago, teaming with set makers including Sony, Samsung, VIZIO, and LG to build-in software that let viewers link directly to designated websites.

Yahoo! responded to the Google announcement with word that it is expanding to new devices to expand its reach.

“There is no doubt in my mind that the next phase of the Internet revolution will be televised,” said Yahoo! Connected TV chief architect Ronald Jacoby.

Logitech boxes, which are powered by Intel Atom computer chips, will feature computer keyboards that act as Google TV remote controls. On-screen home pages will let people search television programming as they do the Internet.

Sony chief executive Howard Stringer described it as “a very big deal”. “I can’t stress that enough,” Stringer said on stage.

technology titans Sony, Intel and Logitech, fuses the freedom of the Internet with television programming. Google executives vowed their TV platform will succeed where offerings such as Apple TV have foundered.

SAN FRANCISCO: Google TV is being demonstrated at the Google conference in San Francisco. —AP “When you put all this, as we’ve done for the fall, into the world’s first Internet television, the opportunities are, in a sense, just mind boggling.” Pricing for the TV sets or the set-top boxes was not disclosed. Sony is among the electronics companies that have brought Internet-capable televisions to market, but those sets have typically been limited to letting people access specific websites such as Yahoo! or YouTube.

“This is a much broader platform,” Stringer said of Google TV. “This is a much more robust platform which is expandable and grows. It’s going to be an eye opener.”

Google TV is an ambitious undertaking and it will take a long time for its fate to play out, according to Gartner research vice president Ray Valdes. “If anybody can pull this off, Google can,” the analyst said. “There are obstacles to overcome and I don’t see a clear path in the short term.” Google TV needs to be the exception to a rule that it is very difficult to move broadcast television into the interactive Digital Age, according to Valdes. “It took a lot to make this happen,” said Google chief executive Eric

Schmidt. “It is much harder to marry a 50-year-old technology and a brand new technology than those of us in the new technology thought.”

Google also gave developers a peek at an Android software update that lets smartphones become Wi-Fi hot spots and support video based on a Flash program shunned by iPhone maker Apple.

The Android mobile update code-named “Froyo,” short for frozen yogurt, will “be here soon,” according to Google. The news came with the announcement that more than 100,000 “Google phones” are activated daily.

Google vice president of engineering Vic Gundotra displayed more than 60 different models of smartphones built on Android software, saying that in just 18 months the platform has made “fantastic progress”. “Froyo is not a game changer but it is more good stuff,” said Gartner research vice president Ray Valdes. “The Android train has momentum and it is rolling down the track.”

In an on-stage presentation rife with jabs at iPhone, iPad, and iPod maker Apple, Gundotra

demonstrated Froyo strengths that included a head-to-head test showing Web browser performance faster than that on the iPad. “It is important to us to make the browser rock,” Gundotra said.

In a nod to the business smartphone market dominated by BlackBerry handsets made by Research In Motion, Froyo was made to be friendly with Microsoft Exchange and other applications popular with companies. Google also added “tethering” to Froyo so people can use wireless connections to link multiple smart devices to Android phones, letting gadgets share a single Internet connection.

“If you are like me you have a plethora of devices you carry around with you,” Gundotra said.

“Now your android device can in fact become a portable hotspot and indeed serve the needs of the other devices... you go to another device that doesn’t have connectivity, lets say that iPad, and have one bill.”

Google said that Froyo will support the coming Flash Player 10.1 from Adobe Systems. Adobe has been in a public feud with Apple chief executive Steve Jobs,

who has banned Flash from the iconic California company’s gadgets and openly lambasted the software. Most online video is based on Flash.

“We are not only committed to having the world’s fastest browser, we’re committed to having the world’s most comprehensive browser,” Gundotra said. “It turns out... the Internet people use Flash. Part of being open means being inclusive, not exclusive.”

Working with Adobe to meet the online video needs of users is “much nicer than just saying ‘No’,” he added in an indirect jab at Jobs. Google also announced that the Android Marketplace stocked with more than 50,000 applications will feature music as well and people will be able to transfer libraries of digital tunes to its smartphones.

Google is working on building “intent” recognition into Android phones so devices know automatically when people want to make telephone calls or get turn-byturn directions to destinations.

“We have big dreams for Android,” Gundotra said. “Part of that means Android will go to new places with new chip applications.” —AFP

Astronauts make third and final spacewalk of mission CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida: Two shuttle astronauts took one last spacewalk at the International Space Station yesterday to finish replacing old batteries and tackle some odd jobs as their visit drew to a close. Garrett Reisman and Michael Good were eager to get started on the third spacewalk in five days for the Atlantis crew. As the pressure slowly dropped in the air lock, Reisman commented: “It’s like standing on your bathroom scale and waiting for the needle to go down.”

Within a half-hour, the spacewalkers had plugged in a new jumper cable on the station’s sprawling framework. Their next stop was the nest of batteries on the far left side.

Reisman and Good had two fresh batteries to install. Good and another astronaut put in four during Wednesday’s spacewalk. Each battery is about the size of a 1 m box and weighs 170 kg. Atlantis delivered the batteries last weekend along with a new Russian compartment. The chamber was opened Thursday, but had to be sealed again when metal filings were found floating inside.

Mission Control said air scrubbers hopefully will clean up everything.

Atlantis will undock from the space station tomorrow for the very last time. Only two more shuttle missions are on the books, both of them scheduled for this fall and set

aside for NASA’s two other shuttles. NASA and some members of Congress are pushing for one more flight of Atlantis, next June. The Obama administration would have to give its blessing.

President Barack Obama wants to end the shuttle program fairly soon so that NASA has more money to spend on developing the technologies needed to send astronauts to asteroids and Mars. Russian rockets will continue to ferry US astronauts to and from the space station, until commercial companies can perform the job with their own spacecraft. The space station is expected to keep operating for another 10 years. — AP

HEALTH & SCIENCE

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Saturday, May 22, 2010

Church warns cell scientists not to play God

ROME: Catholic Church officials said yesterday the recent creation by researchers of the first synthetic cell can be a positive development if correctly used, but warned scientists that only God can create life.

Vatican and Italian church officials were mostly cautious in their first reaction to the announcement from the United States that researchers had produced a living cell powered by manmade DNA. They warned scientists of the ethical responsibility of scientific progress and said that the manner in which the innovation is applied in the

future will be crucial.

“If it is used toward the good, to treat pathologies, we can only be positive” in our assessment, Monsignor Rino Fisichella, the Vatican’s top bioethics official, told state-run TV. “If it turns out not to be ... useful to respect the dignity of the person, then our judgment would change.”

“We look at science with great interest. But we think above all about the meaning that must be given to life,” said Fisichella, who heads Vatican’s Pontifical Academy for Life.

“We can only reach the conclusion that we need God, the

origin of life.” Catholic Church teaching holds that human life is God’s gift, created through natural procreation between a man and woman. The inventors said the world’s first synthetic cell is more a re-creation of existing life - changing one simple type of bacterium into another - than a built-from-scratch kind. But genome-mapping pioneer J Craig Venter said his team’s project paves the way for designing organisms that work differently from the way nature intended for a wide range of uses.

A top Italian cardinal, Angelo

Bagnasco, said the invention is “further sign of intelligence, God’s gift to understand creation and be able to better govern it,” according to Apcom and ANSA news agencies. “On the other hand, intelligence can never be without responsibility,” said Bagnasco, the head of the Italian bishops’ conference.

“Any form of intelligence and any scientific acquisition ... must always be measured against the ethical dimension, which has at its heart the true dignity of every person.”

Another official with the Italian bishops’ conference,

Bishop Domenico Mogavero, expressed concern that scientists might be tempted to play God. “Pretending to be God and parroting his power of creation is an enormous risk that can plunge men into a barbarity,” Mogavero told newspaper La Stampa in an interview.

Scientists “should never forget that there is only one creator: God.” “In the wrong hands, today’s development can lead tomorrow to a devastating leap in the dark,” said Mogavero, who heads the conference’s legal affairs department. —AP

Women who drink coffee may have smaller babies Caffeine intake affect ‘length growth of the fetus’ NEW YORK: Pregnant women who drink six cups of coffee every day may have smaller babies than women who consume less caffeine, according to a Dutch study. Researchers from the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam

followed more than 7,300 Dutch women from early pregnancy onward of whom between 2 and 3 percent said they consumed the caffeine equivalent of six cups of coffee per day during any trimester.

PIATRA CRAIULUI NATIONAL PARK: A Romanian volunteer of “Green Agent” NGO climbs on a tree left behind after deforestation, in Piatra Craiului National Park. —AFP

Balkans sound alarm as ‘forests disappear’

BUCHAREST: Illegal logging and unregulated real estate projects are threatening the Balkans’ once abundant forests, home to more than half of Europe’s bears and to large wolf populations. To alert public opinion to the looming dangers, national parks in the region will rally this weekend to mark the International Day for Biological Diversity, set a decade ago by the UN General Assembly for May 22. Albania is one of the world’s countries worst hit by deforestation. Woodlands that covered 51 percent of its territory prior to 1990 have now receded to 25 percent, according to several environmental non-governmental organizations contacted by AFP. The Vlora region on Albania’s southern Adriatic coast is a prime example, where 102 hectares (252 acres) of forests were cleared to make room for illegal construction, according to the Albanian National Forest Association.

Even Albania’s national parks such as the Lura, considered a gem of the Balkans with its vast expanse of pine, fir and beech trees, have not been spared by illegal loggers. While ten times more trees are felled illegally than legal-

ly, according to the national statistics institute, no one has so far been tried or convicted for the crime. Romania, meanwhile, still boasts 300,000 hectares of intact forest, the secondlargest woodland expanse in Europe after that in Russia. But its national parks, too, are threatened. In Piatra Craiului Park in the Meridional Carpathians, nearly 300 hectares of forests were chopped down illegally between 2004 and 2007. An environmental group called Agent Green recently staged a protest, using huge logs to write the letter “crime” on one of the now bald mountainsides.

“This is a disaster, I’ve never seen anything like this. If logging continues, the area will turn into a desert,” Alex, an environmental activist who declined to give his last name said.

Official figures also paint a bleak picture: more than 170,000 cubic meters of illegally cut timber are seized every year in Romania.

Moreover, out of 25,000 fines issued over the last three years, only two have ended up in actual convictions, Romanian junior minister for forestry Cristian Apostol said, blaming “legal loopholes” for the situation.

Citing various reports, he said more than 180,000 hectares of forests alone have been illegally cleared since the fall of late communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu in December 1989. While reforestation might have helped the woodlands, it does not repair the damage done to biodiversity, NGOs say. Some of Romania’s deforestation is blamed on shifts in ownership after the collapse of communism.

“The law was there but the necessary structures to enforce it were missing,” Apostol said.

Today, he said, there are more than 800,000 private owners of forest land and “it is not easy to control all of them.” “Things have improved, however, thanks to regional enforcement bodies and private firms and foundations,” he said, adding more than one-quarter of Romania’s forests were now privately managed.

In neighboring Serbia, which boasts several intact forests, the Endemit environment group deplored that part of Kopaonik national park had been cleared to create sports grounds. “The government must choose between promoting tourism and protecting the environment,” Endemit said.—AFP

On average, their babies’ length at birth was slightly shorter than that of newborns whose mothers had consumed less caffeine during pregnancy.

“Caffeine intake seems to affect length growth of the fetus from the first trimester onwards,” researcher Rachel Bakker told Reuters Health. Heavy caffeine consumers also had an increased risk of having a baby who was small for gestational age-smaller than the norm for the baby’s sex and the week of pregnancy during which he or she was born.

That finding, however, was based on a small number of babies, and the significance is uncertain. Of 104 infants born to women with the highest caffeine intakes, seven were small for gestational age. The findings, reported in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition add to the conflicting body of research into whether caffeine during pregnancy affects fetal growth. Some studies, for instance, have linked regular caffeine consumption during pregnancy-even a relatively modest one or two cups of coffee a day-to an increased risk of low birth weight. But other studies have found no such effects.

Researchers have also come to conflicting conclusions as to whether caffeine affects the risk of miscarriage. In this latest study, Rachel Bakker and colleagues at the Erasmus Medical Center used ultrasound scans to monitor fetal growth over the course of pregnancy in 7,346 women. At each trimester, the women reported on their usual intake of coffee and tea. Most women consumed less than the equivalent of four cups of coffee per day at any point in pregnancy, but between 2 and 3 percent downed six or more cups’ worth of caffeine.

Overall, babies born to heavy caffeine consumers were slightly shorter, on average, at birth and during all three trimesters of fetal development, based on the ultrasound tests. Bakker said the implication is that pregnant women should not consume more than six cups of coffee per day.

However, the findings also do not mean that less coffee is generally “safe” during pregnancy.

“We only studied the effect of caffeine on fetal growth,” Bakker said. “Future studies on possible other effects of maternal caffeine intake are therefore needed.” — Reuters

New animal hospital opens at California LONG BEACH: They don’t cry, cough or run a fever, so how can you tell when a fish is sick? You watch them, because you have to find them before you can fix them, explained Aquarium of the Pacific veterinarian Lance Adams, who is also known as a “wet vet” or “aqua doc.” Adams heads a team of about 50 aviculturists, mammalogists and aquarists who care for 11,000 fish, birds, mammals, reptile at the aquarium, located about 25 miles south of Los Angeles.

The smallest of the animals, like baby sea horses, can weigh less than a gram, while the largest, like the California sea lion, can weigh more than 550 pounds.

The Molina Animal Care Center, a $5.5 million expansion that gives the aquarium a 14,000-square-foot hospital, and will give the staff new space, new technology and a new audience. The center will be one of only a few aquarium hospitals in the

country where visitors can watch as animals are examined and treated, and it may be the only one that allows people to watch surgeries as they are performed, said Steve Feldman, a spokesman for the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, based in Maryland.

The aquarium is also opening a remodeled sea otter habitat, named after the oil giant BP, which donated $1 million for its development four years ago. The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico dimmed the park’s salute to the new otter home, but aquarium executives said the company’s name would not be stripped from the attraction.

This summer, a live feed will be hooked up and aquarium surgeries will be broadcast to the local childrenís hospital so patients and their parents can watch.

The idea is to let kids know they are not alone and give them a chance to ask Adams questions about the surgeries. “It

is truly state-of-the-art in terms of the equipment and facilities, but as importantly, it allows visitors and kids and even the hospital to really learn something about how we care for these creatures and it does it through a number of innovative methods. The openness and the transparency is a really unique feature of this facility,” Feldman said.

Not every surgery will be successful.

“Because they are wild and we are restraining the animals, there is always a chance something could go wrong,” Adams said. “The animal could get overstressed and die. We do what we can to prevent it but if something happens we just have to explain it to the kids.” Beyond the surgeries for sick animals, there will be the cosmetic surgeries, Adams said.

If a sea lion breaks a tooth, a sawfish loses its rostrum or a shark’s eye is gouged out, cosmetic surgery is needed to

return the animal to its exhibit at the aquarium, Adams said. “We try to maintain the normal appearance of the animals.” They don’t do elective surgeries like enhancements or facelifts. And theyíve never done a transplant or installed a pacemaker at the aquarium, although “it’s only a matter of time until a case comes up.” Caretakers work to prevent problems, constantly monitoring environments, water quality and food. And always watching the animals.

Some of the things they look for in fish: - If a fish gets itchy, it will start scratching by rubbing against things like rocks. It probably has an external parasite that lives on the skin, he said. - Fish putting on weight. The biologists might switch diets or change the number of times some fish are fed. But there is a limit, Adams said, “because you feed to the weakest or most sensitive” fish in a tank. — AP

GANDHINAGAR: A wildlife park keeper nurtures one of two leopard cubs at the Indroda Nature Park in Gandhinagar, some 30 kms from Ahmedabad.

The cubs were deserted by their mother nearly a month ago in a sugarcane field in Chikhli Taluka of the Navsari district. The local farmers handed over the leopard cubs to the Forest Department officials and currently their health and diet are being closely monitored in a bid to save them. —AFP

Diabetes drug linked to vitamin deficiency Long use of diabetes drug raises risk of B12 deficiency LONDON: Patients treated over long periods with metformin, a common drug for diabetes, are at risk of developing vitamin B12 deficiency which is also likely to get worse over time, according to a study published yesterday. Dutch scientists who carried out the study said the findings suggest that regular checking of vitamin B-12 levels during long-term metformin treatment should be “strongly considered” to try to prevent deficiency and its effects.

Vitamin B12 is essential to maintain healthy nerve cells and red blood cells. It is found in meat, dairy products, eggs, fish, shellfish and fortified breakfast cereals, and it also can be taken as a supplement. Coen Stehouwer of Maastricht University Medical Centre in the Netherlands, whose study was published in the British Medical Journal, said symptoms of B12 deficiency include fatigue, mental changes, anaemia and nerve damage known as neuropathy.

All these symptoms can easily be misdiagnosed as being due to diabetes and its complications, or to ageing, he said, but checking B12 levels could help doctors to assess the real cause and treat it if it was found to be B12 deficiency. “Our data provide a strong case for routine assessment of vitamin B12 levels during long term treatment

with metformin,’ Stehouwer wrote.

An estimated 246 million people around the world have diabetes and rates are expected to rise along with the number of people who are overweight or obese. Most sufferers have type 2 diabetes, the kind linked with poor diet and lack of exercise. Stehouwer’s team studied 390 patients with type 2 diabetes, giving metformin to 196 of them three times a day for more than four years, and a placebo, or dummy pill, to the other 194.

They found that people who had taken the metformin had a 19 percent reduction in their vitamin B12 levels compared with people who had taken a placebo, who had almost no B12 change.

The reduced levels of vitamin B12 in the metformin group also persisted and became more apparent over time, they said. “Our study shows that it is reasonable to assume harm will eventually occur in some patients with metformininduced low vitamin B12 levels,” Stehouwer wrote. In a comment on the study, Josep VidalAlaball, a specialist in primary care and public health at Heath Park in Cardiff, Wales, said assessments should be carried out to see if giving patients advice on B12 in their diets would solve the problem. “If it does not, a trial of screening for vitamin B-12 deficiency in patients taking metformin would be needed,” he wrote. — Reuters

Anti-cancer Rituxan cuts lymphoma recurrence WASHINGTON: Long-term treatment with anti-cancer medication Rituxan, produced by Swiss laboratory Roche, can cut the recurrence of follicular lymphoma in some patients by half, a new study said. A slow-growing form of blood cancer that usually develops in the lymph nodes, follicular lymphoma is one of the most commonly occurring in a group of diseases known as non-Hodgkins lymphomas.

“These findings provide hope for the way we manage this disease,” said lead author Gilles Salles of the University of Lyon.

“Maintenance therapy” using rituximab, the generic name for Rituxan, “is likely to become a new standard of care for these patients,” he said in a telephone press conference Thursday held by the American Society of Clinical Oncology ahead of its annual meeting in Chicago in June. The study found that two years worth of maintenance therapy with rituximab reduced the risk of recurrence of follicular lymphoma by 50 percent in those patients who responded positively to initial chemotherapy.

The goal of maintenance therapy is to prolong remission in cancer patients. Those with follicular lymphoma are usually at risk of relapse within three to six years of their initial treatment. The clinical study involved just over 1,000 patients with stage III or IV follicular lymphoma who saw positive effects from rituximab-based combination chemotherapy. A randomly selected group of 505 patients received an additional two years of rituximab, while the rest of the group had no maintenance therapy.

After a median follow-up time of 25 months, the disease reappeared in 18 percent of those receiving the maintenance therapy, compared with 35 percent of those in the control group. The benefits of the treatment were observed across all groups of patients, regardless of age, prior treatment, or their stage of remission, the study said. Rituxan, known as MabThera in Europe, is generally well-tolerated by patients. The most common side-effect is infections, which were seen in 37 percent of those on the drug, compared with 22 percent in the control group.

On the basis of the tests, Roche and biotech company Biogen are seeking approval from the US Food and Drug Administration for use of Rituxan in maintenance therapy. The study’s conclusions “add to the body of evidence supporting Rituxan in non-

Hodgkin’s lymphoma and emphasize the role Rituxan plays in helping people with this cancer that will most likely recur,” said Greg Reyes, senior vice president, Oncology Research and Development at Biogen.

“We look forward to discussing these new data with the FDA and European regulatory authorities,” he said in a joint statement issued by Biogen and Roche. The drug is already authorized for use in the United States and Europe for treatment of cancer and obtained FDA approval in 1997 for use against lymphoma, rheumatoid arthritis and certain forms of leukemia. Worldwide sales of the drug totaled some 5.6 billion dollars in 2009. — AFP

HEALTH

Saturday, May 22, 2010

11

EU struggles to find voice on environment issues Power struggles marred action on CO2, bluefin tuna BRUSSELS: The European Union is bogged down in a power struggle over who speaks for the bloc at international meetings, threatening action on environmental issues from mercury pollution to whaling, EU officials say.

The discord has emerged since the 27-countr y bloc adopted its new Lisbon Treaty late last year, which sowed confusion by empowering a new European Council president and foreign policy chief. “We’re in a bit of a mess,” one senior EU official said on Friday. “We’re still feeling our way forward.” The first sign of the EU’s new impotence emerged at the last meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in March, when EU countries struggled to find a common voice on protecting the Atlantic bluefin tuna.

Bluefin populations have been cut by 80 percent in 40 years, largely to satisfy sushi lovers in Japan, and EU governments agreed in March to support a trade ban to protect the fish.

But while Japan lobbied hard and early against a ban, Europe was so embroiled in internal wrangling and so inflexible in its approach that it failed to make an impact. “There are lessons to be lear ned from CITES,” said European Commission environment spokesman Joe Hennon. “The EU needs to be in a position to engage with international partners and to do so early enough to make a difference.”

WH ALI N G C OM EBAC K The EU was left feeling as powerless at CITES as it did when it came away empty-handed from climate talks in Copenhagen last December, a meeting at which it had hoped to lead the world to a strong global deal on cutting climate-warming emissions.

Opponents of whaling now fear the same confusion could help those who want to legitimize the hunt.

Whale hunting was banned in 1986, but Norway, Japan and Iceland have used loopholes to kill thousands of whales since then. The International

Whaling Commission (IWC) will discuss a proposal in June that would reduce the catch but at the same time legitimize it. At a March meeting of the IWC, EU countries were confused about how to vote on the hunting of humpback whales off Greenland, because Denmark supported the hunt and there was little chance of finding a united EU stance.

“This absurd position... effectively means that one member state can block the conservation efforts of all other EU member states in international fora like the IWC, CITES and other environmental treaty meetings,” said Chris Butler Stroud, of the Whale and Dolphin Conser vation Society (WDCS). “This is a backdoor hijacking of democracy and the rights of gover nments to represent the European people’s strong anti-whaling stance,” he added. L awyers have advised the WDCS, however, that despite the advice member states are receiving, the new EU treaty has not robbed them of the right to vote.

BATTLE OVER M ERCU RY Meanwhile, the political battle over who speaks for the EU continues in its Brussels headquarters. The EU’s executive, the European Commission, last week rejected a proposal that it share responsibilities with EU member states at United Nations talks on mercury pollution in Stockholm in June. Member states are worried it would set a precedent for other negotiations. The row escalated this week when the Commission withdrew its own proposal, leaving the EU without a common stance to take to Stockholm. “The Commission is looking for a mandate on mercury,” said environment spokesman Hennon. “We regret how things have gone.”

Greenpeace urged the EU to resolve the issue and lead global environment talks from the front. “It’s the Commission’s job to sort this out or it risks undermining the whole purpose of the EU,” said Greenpeace spokesman Mark Breddy. — Reuters

CANNES: Greenpeace militants hold a banner reading ‘Stop Fishing Red Tuna’ during an action on the sidelines of the 63rd Cannes Film Festival in Cannes. — AFP

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SPECTRUM

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Cannes protests for France-Algeria war film iot police held off protestors on the Cannes waterfront yesterday during a demonstration against the film festival screening of an explosive thriller about the Algerian war of independence.

Police with batons and shields blocked demonstrators from reaching the festival hall where FrenchAlgerian film-maker Rachid Bouchareb’s “Outside The Law” screened yesterday.

Police estimated some 1,200 people joined the protest which involved members of the far-right National Front party, but no incidents were reported.

The party and other right-wing politicians have accused Bouchareb of distorting history in his emotionally-charged account of Algerian militants’ fight against French colonization of their homeland.

The movie, part-financed by France, tells the

R

story of Algerian brothers who are driven from their home as children by colonialists and grow up to mount an armed resistance movement on French soil. It opens with a massacre of Algerian civilians by French soldiers in the town of Setif in 1945 - a historical event which critics say is misrepresented-and ends with a crackdown on independence demonstrators in Paris.

The film sparked controversy ahead of the festival, with right-wing politicians criticizing its treatment of France’s role in Algeria during the colonial period and the war that led to independence in 1962.

Lawmaker Lionnel Luca of the governing UMP party, who led criticisms of the film before the festival, complained after seeing it that it “compared the French to the (Nazi) SS and the French police to the

Gestapo.”

Two of the brothers in the film, Messaoud and Abdelkader, launch attacks against police from their base in an immigrant shanty town in northern Paris-a precursor of the current-day suburbs which exploded in violence in 2005. Their campaign prompts French authorities to retaliate by forming their own underground armed group to launch bomb attacks and kill Messaoud and Abdelkader and other FLN members.

Army veterans and groups representing former colonists and “harkis”, Algerians who fought for France, joined the protest, with demonstrators waving French flags and singing the French national anthem.

“It is a falsification of history,” said Frederic Bruno, a 62-year-old pensioner who travelled from Nice to join the rally. In Setif, “the army kept order”

after Algerians killed French people, he said.

Bouchareb insisted after the screening: “The film isn’t a battlefield. The film is not there to provoke confrontation. It is there to launch a calm debate.” On top of the National Front protest, Cannes mayor Bernard Brochand, from President Nicolas Sarkozy’s UMP party, held a ceremony for what he called the “French victims” of the Algerian war and the events in Setif.

The film is one of few cinematic treatments of the conflict. Stories about the activities on French soil of independence fighters including the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) are especially rare.

“It is for sociologists or other experts to say why in France people find it difficult to journey into the past,” Bouchareb told a news conference. The third

Fashion gears up for Cannes red carpet finale t Cannes, the buzz on likely winners of the festival’s top prize tomorrow is keeping fashionistas and film-makers alike awake at nights, as brands and movies fight for red carpet limelight. A city studded with high-end jewelers and designer boutiques, sun-kissed Cannes mutates into the world’s capital of luxury once a year when the 12-day festival comes around.

The prime time for Gucci, Pucci, Armani and the rest will be the gala close May 23 when paparazzi and TV networks from across the globe flash celebs sashaying up the red carpet’s 24 steps for the Palme d’Or awards finale.

“The red carpet has become a catwalk show,” said Francois Ortarix, spokesman for Swarovski, the Austrian crystal-makers of cutting-edge jewelry and other accessories. The firm this year did “Desperate Housewife” Eva Longoria an 11th-hour favor when she called 15 minutes before stepping up the carpet to say her free 500euro gift Swarovski clutch-bag was a little oversize and didn’t match her dress.

Ortarix literally ran to her swish hotel suite with a smaller pouch in a different shade.

“She even offered to return the other one,” he said.

Like other designer labels, Swarovski flies into the festival each year, setting up a showroom in one of the city’s swankiest hotels where movie stars and celebs are offered jewels and accessories on loan.

“People the world over watch the red carpet for new styles. It makes our customers dream they too can be as stunning as the stars,” he said. In a showroom nearby looking over the Mediterranean, Lebanese couture supremo Elie Saab has flown in 100odd evening gowns worth anywhere from 3,000 to 30,000 euros-also lent for the night for free, but only to celebs.

“Our problem this year is there’re more male than female stars but we don’t do suits,” said spokeswoman Emilie Legendre.

Bollywood beauty Aishwarya Rai, Chinese star Fan Bingbing, Britain’s Helen Mirren and Longoria all stepped out in Elie Saab at Cannes this year. Once loaned, the gowns can never hit the red carpet again. A recent documentary titled “Red Carpet” said members of last year’s Cannes jury that names the winners of the festival awards were paid “90,000 euros each to wear an Armani creation for the opening ceremony.

At the Oscars, said the movie’s director Olivier Nicklaus, fashion houses lavish sums of up to 250,000 dollars to get a dress in the spotlight. But Elie Saab’s Legendre said their fashion house did not hand over cash. “We don’t have muses, we don’t pay.

People call, or their agents, asking for a gown. Sometimes the requests are made in

A

ANTIBES: US actress Elizabeth Banks poses while arriving at amfAR’s Cinema Against Aids 2010 benefit gala in Antibes, southeastern France.

—AFP

ANTIBES: Chinese actress Fan Bingbing poses while arriving to attend the 2010 amfAR’s Cinema Against Aids in Antibes, southeastern France.

— AFP

CANNES: Singers Marc Anthony and Jennifer Lopez arrive for the amfAR Cinema Against AIDS benefit at the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc, during the 63rd Cannes international film festival. — AP Los Angeles, way before Cannes, sometimes it’s a last-minute affair.” The label brings a seamstress for the duration of the filmfest and when necessary finds a hairdreser, jeweler, shoes or bags.

“Newcomers to the red carpet also want advice, asking ‘When must I stop, when do I turn to catch the cameras?’”, she said.

“It’s a very intimidating thing to have to do.” With premieres, parties, photo-calls and cocktails, luxury labels are busy throughout the 12-day festival, the movie world’s biggest annual event. Chopard, the legendary Swiss luxury goods firm, hired the rooftop terrace of the Martinez hotel, where suites can cost tens of thousands of euros a night, for the duration of the festival. There it hosts soirees where champagne flows and stars wander in and out.

At a mega-party for its 150th anniversary, Lionel Richie flew in to perform for A-listers such as Paris Hilton, Marion Cotillard, Meg Ryan and Naomi Campbell.

Chivas whisky, one of 40-odd partners of the festival, treats its best customers to a day in Cannes, including wining, dining, late night partying and a red carpet premiere. So as the Cannes finale looms, the battle has begun to dress the stars who will climb the carpet for the very last day. “We don’t know yet though the rumor-mill is beginning to buzz,” said Legendre. “In the meantime we’re on call here every day from 4 pm to midnight in case a star needs a dress.” — AFP

ANTIBES: English model Naomi Campbell poses while arriving to attend the 2010 amfAR’s Cinema Against Aids. — AFP

brother, Said-played by French-Moroccan comedian Jamel Debbouze-tries to take a peaceful route as an entrepreneur promoting an Algerian boxer, and clashes with his militant brothers.

Debbouze won a best actor prize at Cannes in 2006 along with his fellow male leads in Bouchareb’s Oscar-nominated film “Days Of Glory”, about north Africans who suffer discrimination despite serving in the French army in World War II. That film prompted France’s then-president Jacques Chirac to order that such soldiers get the same pensions as French ones. One of the producers of “Outside The Law”, Tunisian Tarak Ben Ammar, said: “France co-financed the film. There are lots of people who don’t have a problem with the past. The public will judge.” — AFP

Rock ‘n’ roll nostalgia is sure seller at Cannes he smoky whiff of rock ‘n’ roll nostalgia hangs in the air at Cannes, where films about The Rolling Stones and other stars make music one of the movie festival’s most bankable commodities. British rocker Mick Jagger strutted into town Wednesday to plug “Stones in Exile”, a new documentary based on archive footage of the recording of the band’s classic album “Exile On Main Street” in 1971.

Meanwhile US director Martin Scorsese, who appeared on the red carpet here last week, is making a film about the late Beatles guitarist George Harrison, top movie magazine Screen reported.

The film is “a labour of love”, it quoted the 67year-old director as saying. “I’ve been a great admirer of his music for years, I was interested in the voyage that he took as an artist. Scorsese’s picture will use old footage plus interviews with band members Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, the report said-the same formula used by the Stones film.

“The intoxicating blend of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll never spoils, particularly if it’s of an early ‘70s vintage,” wrote film industry reporter Steve Chagollan in Variety magazine, referring to the Stones film. “And it never hurts to use film and TV to sell it, particularly if the film makes its debut at Cannes,” he wrote, adding that it was “perhaps the first time a film commissioned as a promotional tool will be screened” in Directors’ Fortnight”.

“Stones In Exile” coincides with the re-release this month of the original double-disc album, which was climbing up towards the top of the British music charts as Jagger entertained the crowds in Cannes. Jagger appears on the film joking about the nostalgic way it aims to revive interest in the album. He hired film-maker Stephen Kijak to scour the band’s archives and put the movie together, overlaying footage of sessions and concerts with album tracks such as “Tumbling Dice”. “To just do a record isn’t enough,” he said at the screening. “You need to see something of the period.”

Elsewhere in the world of rock, Vision Music, which specializes in distributing music-themed films, was at the film market in Cannes peddling a new work about Lemmy, the grizzled frontman of heavy metal group Motorhead. Independent filmmakers Lionel Guedj and Stephane Bebert were also looking to sell their punk documentary “Rock ‘n’ Roll... Of Corse!”, about a lower-profile musician, Henry Padovani of The Police. A more unusual music story is vying for a prize at Cannes meanwhile: “Benda Bilili”, a French-made film about wheelchair-bound Congolese street musicians who take on Europe.

The cast of the film and French film-makers Renaud Barret and Florent de la Tullaye drew loud applause when they appeared at its screening. Their film features in the prestigious Cannes side-festival Directors’ Fortnight, along with the Stones documentary, which was launched here but is not competing. “The docu should play especially well at fests and Euro art houses,” the film industry bible Variety magazine said of “Benda Bilili”. “It’s... hard not to get swept away by the concert footage.” — AFP

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Buzz in short supply at Cannes Boxer scoops Cannes film dog prize

ome of the films were way too long, business was way too flat, the stars on the red carpet were predictably thin, and everybody’s attention span is getting ever shorter.

That pretty much sums up the 63rd Cannes Film Festival, not to mention the fact that it took way too much effort for many travelers to get here, courtesy of that ever-shifting volcanic ash cloud.

There was a fractured edge to the proceedings because buyers, sellers, producers and filmmakers remain wearied by a recession that hasn’t yet dissipated; if anything, it’s worsened across southern Europe. The Brits seemed distracted by their own faltering economy and by trying to figure out what their new coalition government has in store for them. The Germans, once a reliable fest mainstay, fielded few entrants in the sections and generally played things low profile. Cannes also lacked a proper scandale. No film was roundly booed or yanked; no one caused a ruckus.

One also could sense the muted tone in that there were very few stunts on the beach or over-the-top signage blanketing the hotels.

There were parties aplenty-including the chock-a-block market opening, complete with Chinese fireworks over the Mediterranean, and Vanity Fair’s exclusive do at the Hotel du Cap-but none really was for the record books.

Not that the event didn’t have its cinematic charms. In its effort to balance art and commerce, organizers managed to provide a little something for everyone, even if no one on the Croisette seemed irrationally exuberant about anything.

Universal’s “Robin Hood,” Fox’s “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps” and Woody Allen’s “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger” upped the ante with glitzy red-carpet and media appearances by Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchett, Michael Douglas, Naomi Watts, Allen and Oliver Stone. The press of flesh to get a glimpse was as thick and rabid as it is any year, and the general audience (if there is such

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a thing in Cannes) seemed more appreciative of these three Hollywood concoctions than did, say, the hardened media corps.

An old hand at these things, Douglas, with his streaked silver hair and suave manners, played the matinee idol to the hilt; Josh Brolin also got into the swing of it, doing double duty in the Stone and Allen pictures. The only US picture in the main competition, “Fair Game,” unspooled Thursday evening, for which Watts returned to town (her co-star, Sean Penn, was missing as expected) along with director Doug Liman.

The Hollywood quotient aside, no other picture seemed to set the tone for the proceedings or to be the automatic shoo-in as the Palme d’Or winner. If anything, the overall selection seemed a tad thin, certain auteurs brought disappointing efforts, and even projects in the market didn’t seem to be wrapping up presales with any alacrity. “Tepid” is how one veteran critic put it, describing his reaction to most of what he had seen by midfest. He was referring to pics by Takeshi Kitano, Wang Xiaoshuai, Daniele Luchetti and Im Sang-soo, among others.

A basic question continued to arise at the news conferences following the competition screenings. Here’s how one diplomatic French journalist phrased it, speaking to a director on the podium: “By making such an austere, rigorous, slow-paced movie, do you not risk boring your audience?” One director-in this case Xavier Beauvois, also French summed up the auteurish stance: “Speed, speed, speed. That’s what Hollywood does; I do not do jump cuts.”

Yet another decried “Plasticine Hollywood,” and a third lamented short attention spans and how tweets and cell phones and whatnot are undermining personal intimacy.

Not surprisingly, perhaps, most movies were of a somber, downbeat or outright depressing nature. There was a sprinkling of upbeat fare: Stephen Frears’ sprightly “Tamara Drewe” was a scintillating concoction; Mathieu Amalric’s “Tournee” was a rollicking tribute to

nouvelle burlesque and featured the fest’s only zaftig stars, as in blonde stripteasers from the States.

As for performances that could cop the top prizes, those being talked about most fervidly were Javier Bardem’s intense, in-your-face work in Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s “Biutiful” and Lesley Manville’s tour de force as a boozy, aging single in Mike Leigh’s “Another Year.” (The latter film was snapped up by Sony Pictures Classics in one of the few deals concluded here.) Three other hot tickets showed just how varied a cornucopia can be enjoyed in Cannes by those who are “into” movies-two very long and one arguably too short.

A restored version of Luchino Visconti’s “Il Gattopardo,” arguably the “Gone With the Wind” of Italy, was a feast for the eyes-not to mention the wonderful acting from Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon and Claudia Cardinale.

The latter two were on hand to take a bow alongside Martin Scorsese, who was instrumental in spearheading the new print. Olivier Assayas’ “Carlos,” about international terrorist Carlos the Jackal and starring Edgar Ramirez, screened Wednesday in its five-hour televisual version; it already has been picked up in the U.S. by IFC and likely will get a lot of ink stateside.

Then there’s the just-finished “Stones in Exile,” an hourlong documentary about the Rolling Stones and their sojourn on the French Riviera during the early 1970s; the picture sold like hotcakes to broadcasters worldwide. Elsewhere, a petition circulated among cineastes here on behalf of Roman Polanski in the wake of another (could the timing be a coincidence?) revelation about his sexual misconduct years ago. And Juliette Binoche, star of Abbas Kiarostami’s Competition entry “Certified Copy,” promptly broke out in tears during a news conference when she learned that another Iranian director, Jafar Panahi, had begun a hunger strike in a Tehran jail. — Reuters

boxer called Boss, who sparks a deadly stampede of Friesian cows in Stephen Frears’ film “Tamara Drewe,” yesterday scooped the Palm Dog prize at Cannes. “Boss was a complete superstar and was crucial at innumerable plot moments and was the doggy denouement of the film,” said Toby Rose, the organizer of the unofficial canine prize he awards along with leading British film critics.

The boxer had to fight off competition from an Irish wolfhound with which

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NEW YORK: Toddlers show off new Huggies Little Movers Jeans Diapers during the “What’s Your Denim Style” baby fashion show in Union Square. The all-new jeans design by Huggies are the new look for summer.

— AFP

Russell Crowe bedded down after Lady Marian chased him out of her bedroom in “Robin Hood,” the film that opened the festival. But the fact that Boss’s cow stampede killed off a main character in “Tamara Drewe” clinched it for the boxer, said Rose. He opened the high-kitsch award ceremony by greeting the small audience in the British Film Centre pavilion on the Cannes beachfront with his customary greeting: “Ladies and gentlemen, dogs and bitches.”

The producer of Frears’ film was on hand to accept the trophy, a diamante collar with the words Palm Dog stitched into it.

Last year a 3D dog from the Pixar-Disney comedy “Up” took the award. In 2008 it was won by a mongrel whose owner gets arrested for stealing dog-food in “Wendy and Lucy”. One year it went to a hound that was no more than a chalk outline in “Dogville” by Denmark’s Lars von Trier.

This year is the 10th anniversary of the Palm Dog prize. — AFP

amian Marley and Nas had one goal in mind when they announced their collaborative album two years ago: finishing it. So they stopped work on their own solo projects, and built a chart to assess the progress of their work while discussing topics like poverty, ancestry and leadership. “It just meant so much to me,” Nas said of the CD. The result is “Distant Relatives,” which was released Wednesday. It is a socially conscious, Africanthemed record that was produced entirely by Damian and Stephen Marley.

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iven that “Shrek Forever After” is the first film in the franchise in 3-D, it is surprisingly flat, and that does not describe just the look of it. This fourth and allegedly final installment in the series is lifeless, joyless and woefully devoid of the upbeat energy that distinguished the earlier movies, or at least the first two. If “Shrek the Third” from 2007 felt tired, “Shrek Forever After” is practically narcoleptic. Brief bursts of manic energy give way to long, heavy stretches that drag.

Most of the hackneyed pop culture references of its predecessors are gone, mercifully, but so is the fun. This time, the big, bad ogre is having a mid-life crisis. That is not exactly a hoot for the kids in the audience, and their parents can suffer through that at home for free. As for the animation, presenting it in 3-D does not add a whole lot. This is not a deeply immersive experience; more often, it consists of stuff being flung at you in gimmicky fashion. After this summer, when about a half-dozen movies will be leaping out at us in 3-D, can the whole trend just go away? Please?

And the frustrating part is, the “Shrek” movies did not need an added dimension: They already had an impressive visual scheme all their own. The texture of the surroundings that made the franchise stand out among a slew of animated fare - the tactile nature of the grass and trees, the water, Donkey’s fur - gets obliterated when rendered in 3-D. And so in theory, all that is left is the story, but that does not reach out and grab us either.

As directed by Mike Mitchell (“Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo,” “Sky High”) from a script by Josh Klausner and Darren Lemke, “Shrek Forever After” finds the lovable green dude (voiced as always by Mike Myers) increasingly disenchanted with his subdued, family-man existence. The triplets he had with wife Fiona (Cameron Diaz) are a year old now, and he realizes that each new day is the same as the last (in a sequence straight out of “Groundhog Day”).

After being repeatedly tormented at his kids’ birthday party to “do the roar” that made him famous, one of a handful of jokes that are funny the first couple times but get beaten into the ground, Shrek loses it. He misses the simple pleasures of being a fearsome ogre: terrorizing villagers, wallowing in the mud, etc. He throws a tantrum. Blinded by his frustration, he enters an ill-advised contract with the obviously evil Rumpelstiltskin (Walt Dohrn) to revisit his old life for one day.

But this sends him to an alternate universe where the land of Far, Far Away, as he knew it, no longer exists. Fiona is not his wife but rather a warrior princess leading a rebellion; his best friend, Donkey (Eddie Murphy), is still perky and sassy but does not know him; and, most troubling purely from a survival standpoint, ogres are being hunted in the woods.

That’s right, it’s the old alternate-universe bit. So Shrek must befriend Donkey and woo Fiona to make everything right again: basically, repeat all the steps he went through in part one, which only reinforces the lack of originality now that we’ve reached part four. An attempt at injecting some novelty with the Rumpelstiltskin character also falls flat: He is tiny but hugely obnoxious. It is one thing to have an over-the-top villain if he is a compelling, well-developed figure.

This guy is just off-putting. The only thing that changes about him are the wigs he wears for various occasions. —AP

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Saturday, May 22, 2010

Nas, 36, said working on an album without his usual suspects got him out of his comfort zone. “To change it up so kind of drastically from when you talk about hip-hop producers who only do hip-hop, and then go to work with D, it’s like a whole new experience and I was just excited for the challenge.”

Marley, 31, said the process taught him “how to do production for an artist other than myself.” Nas, who has released nine of his own CDs, said he trusted Marley’s vision for the project.

“I’d be done with my work for the day and then

come back the next day and then hear something else added and be like, ‘Wow, that’s perfect right there,”‘ he recalled. The performers hope the disc - which features Lil Wayne, Joss Stone and Somaliborn rapper K’naan - will unite cultures and inform listeners of their African roots. “We’re dealing with a family issue with this album ... and nobody’s excluded when we say ‘Distant Relatives.’ We’re talking about everybody - white, black, Asian, Indian, whatever you are, you’re our family with this one,” Nas said.

“If you can accept the truth, once and for all, that can help to kind of cure you of your sickness, you know, with your racism and your corrupt politics, and your greed. You think about people for a change, and you think of those people as your family. And it’s a good time right now to talk about that,” he continued. Marley and Nas, who will begin an international tour this month to support “Distant Relatives,” are interested also in creating a sophomore album as a duo. Nas, who debuted in 1994 and is known as one of hip-hop’s top lyricists, says he’s

sometimes unsure about his future in music.

“When we think that we’re just starting to get a name in the game, there’re artists that have been around a lot longer than us who are in their 60s and 70s, who have huge tours and do great humanitarian work. I look at them and (ask), ‘What will I do?”‘ he wondered. “I remember thinking, ‘Oh man, I won’t be rapping forever.’ But the reality of it is ...” Marley interjects with a laugh and said: “You just might be.” Added Nas: “There’s a good chance.” — AP

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ids just wanna have fun or so DreamWorks Animation’s bean counters will be hoping this weekend. The studio’s “Shrek Forever After” opens Friday via Paramount, with executives more challenged than comforted by the knowledge that each installment in the family-comedy franchise has posted successively bigger debuts. The most recent entry — “Shrek the Third”opened with $121.6 million in May 2007, en route to an eventual $322.7 million domestic tally. But honors for the biggest total go to 2004’s “Shrek 2” with $441.2 million.

So that sequel’s total box office and the threequel’s opening tally are the marks to beat-with the fourquel likely to fall short by both measures. “Shrek Forever After” should top the weekend with perhaps $100 million through Sunday. Prerelease tracking suggests a lighter bow, but such projections are infamous for underrating family films, and don’t account for the hefty impact of 3D upcharges. (An AMC theater in New York is selling tickets for Imax 3D screenings of “Shrek Forever” at a venue-record $20.)

As for the film’s longer-term

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MUMBAI: Indian police stand guard in Mumbai. An Indian police force has drafted in one of the country’s top fashion designers to overhaul their distinctive khaki uniforms. — AFP

n Indian police force has drafted in one of the country’s top fashion designers to overhaul its distinctive khaki uniforms, a report said yesterday. The police in the western state of Maharashtra have called on the services of Manish Malhotra, who made his name dressing leading Bollywood actresses, to give their officers a smart new look, the Daily News and Analysis paper said.

The daily reported that Malhotra had shown four

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to five new designs in blue and dark blue to senior police officers in the state capital, Mumbai, and that a final choice was being considered. “Manish has been working on this project for four months. The Mumbai police is looking for a chic uniform and they feel Malhotra is the right man for them,” an unnamed “industry insider” was quoted as saying.

Senior officer Subash Awte added: “We have not yet finalized anything. We are trying to see how the

new uniform would make the police smarter. It should be practical for operational purposes and convenient.” Khaki uniforms were first introduced in the 19th century under British rule. The change, if approved, comes as part of an overhaul of police in Mumbai in the wake of the deadly 2008 Islamist militant attacks on the city when the force was found to be lacking training, equipment and manpower.

Security experts have said that urgent invest-

ment was needed to boost police numbers across India, with many areas understaffed, particularly of experienced senior officers. In Mumbai, India’s financial and entertainment capital, there are some 48,000 officers for an official population of about 14 million-or one officer per 291 people. Maharashtra Police has just over 163,000 officers for a total population of 96.8 million people-or one police officer per 590 people. — AFP

Bieber-mania aside, Justin tries to be a normal kid

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hen you are a 16-year-old pop star who jets around the world, hangs out at the White House, regularly gets chased by hysterical girls while maintaining the most perfectly coifed hair in the universe, it is hard to be a typical kid. Still, Justin Bieber tries. During a recent interview, he talked about setting up time to spend with a friend. Except unlike other kids bumming around town, Justin will be flying

CALIFORNIA: Singer Justin Bieber poses next to Allua, a female beluga whale at SeaWorld San Diego in San Diego. — AFP

prospects, the jolly green giant will enjoy a U.S. Memorial Day-stretched second session before running into its first rival family film on June 4, when Fox unleashes live-action comedy “Marmaduke.” An even more fearsome rival-Disney/Pixar’s 3D tentpole “Toy Story 3”- hits theaters June 18.

There’s been speculation on Wall Street about the possibility of a disappointing bow by “Shrek Forever” and the likely effect on DreamWorks Animation shares. But such pessimism is tempered by the recollection that the studio’s “How to Train Your Dragon” opened with less than $44 million in March but now is pushing $210 million.

Production costs totaled an estimated $135 million on “Shrek Forever After,” roughly in line with those on other DWA pics despite the added expense of 3D. Also this weekend, Universal debuts action-comedy spoof “MacGruber.”

Taking to the big screen his sketch character from “Saturday Night Live,” Will Forte stars in the title role of an ex-special ops officer recalled to duty to hunt archnemesis Dieter Von Cunth (Val Kilmer).—Agencies

out his buddy to spend the weekend in a plush hotel, and will hang with him only after he is done with the myriad responsibilities that befall the hottest entertainer on the planet.

“I try to spend as much time with my friends and just be a regular kid as I can on top of work,” says Justin.

Of course, being a regular kid when you are arguably the most popular commodity in entertainment is a near impossible task. It seems as if the world has been engulfed in Bieber-mania: The YouTube phenomturned-superstar has graced the cover of People magazine, had appearances on “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” “Saturday Night Live” and “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” been a guest at the White House and sold more than a million copies of his debut album, “My World 2.0.” He poses for photos with Kim Kardashian and starts a frenzy on Twitter. (“Seriously Biebs,” she posted, “I’m getting death threats from your fans.”) He is friends with the Jonas Brothers and Jaden Smith, and counts Usher as his professional mentor. It is hardly kid stuff. But you will hear few complaints about it from Justin, who figures he would “probably work at McDonald’s or something” if he wasn’t preoccupied with being a global sensation.

“People ask me, ‘Do you wish having a regular life?’

And I’m like, ‘You know, not really.’ ... Just regular people, they’re like, ‘Maybe I want to be famous,”‘ reasons Justin. “They want to be famous. Sometimes I want to be just regular, just hanging out or whatever. There’s ups and downs to everything.” There have not been many public downs for the young Canadian since his meteoric rise. He was noticed first with his homemade videos on YouTube, which have collected millions of views.

In one, he sang a cover of a Chris Brown song, closing his eyes, moving with the music, his voice clear and strong, with posters of Bart Simpson and Tupac Shakur visible on the wall in the background. It did not take long for the music industry to notice. —AP

HOLLYWOOD: Shrek poses with actor Mike Myers, his voice in the US version of the film, after being honored by a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Hollywood, California.

—AFP

WEST JAVA: 12-year-old American actor Hasan Faruq acts as little Obama during shooting of film “Little Obama” in Bandung, West Java, Indonesia. — AP

oung Barry Obama is struggling with his pingpong shot. Or rather, 12-yearold Hasan Faruq Ali is struggling to play left-handed in imitation of the character he is portraying in a new Indonesian film, “Little Obama.” “Hasan has the walk, he has the posture of Barry,” said Slamet Djanuadi, a consultant on the film and a childhood friend of President Barack Obama when he lived in Indonesia from 1967 to 1971.

“But Barry was a better pingpong player,” he laughed, watching Hasan hit the ball off the table. The movie, produced by Multivision Plus, Indonesia’s largest production company, will premiere in Indonesia on June 17, the week of Obama’s anticipated visit to the country.

The president postponed a planned visit in March to push through health care legislation.

The film tells the story of Obama’s childhood in Jakarta, where he lived with his mother and Indonesian stepfather from age 6 to 10. “It’s about his friendships, his hobbies, just a childhood story,” said screenwriter and co-director Damien Dematra. “It’s not about politics, it’s just the story of a boy.” Hasan, who was born in America in Questa, New Mexico, but has lived in Indonesia since he was about 2 years old, was an obvious casting choice to play the young Obama.

Fluent in English and the Indonesian language, and the son of a white mother and African American father, Hasan fit the bill. Improving his pingpong game was his focus during breaks on the fifth day of filming, earlier this week. Day four’s challenge was boxing, a childhood pursuit the president has said he learned from his stepfather and one that Hasan, with three years of karate training, felt more comfortable with.

“It feels great to play Obama,” the

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novice actor said with a grin. “I was shy about it at first and there are some new difficulties that you have to work to get over, with intense practice, like this,” gesturing toward the pingpong table on the lawn - “and just learning the lines, practicing the scenes. “But then it became easy and fun, especially acting as a very important character who left here to become president,” Hasan said. The movie set is a colonial-era house on the outskirts of Bandung, a city famed for its colonial architecture amid lush hilltops about 110 miles southeast of Jakarta.

Directors John de Rantau and Dematra chose the city because it resembles Jakarta in the 1970s. Obama’s old home in the Jakarta neighborhood of Menteng is now surrounded by tall apartment blocks and is too urban. The movie is taken from Dematra’s book “Obama Anak Menteng” - “Obama, the Menteng Kid” a fictionalized biography based on interviews with about 30 old friends and neighbors. It is the first in a planned trilogy about Obama in Indonesia. The second book is to focus on his education at a Catholic school and the third on his relationship with his mother.

Dematra said he was a Hillary Rodham Clinton fan until he researched Obama. “I just felt that this guy is an extraordinary person,” Dematra said.

“The reason I’m doing this is I want people around the world to know that Obama can become who he is because of his background in Indonesia. The different religions and races, the pressures that he had. I want the film to inspire people.”

Two of Obama’s old friends, Djanuadi and his brother, Yuniadi, whose family shared a house with Obama’s, are coaching Hasan on everything from sports to Obama’s relationship with his mother and stepfather. “It takes us back to the past,

teaching Hasan and remembering the games we played together, flying kites, Monopoly, puzzles,” Djanuadi said.

“Barry would probably like this movie for the same reasons, to recall his memories.”

Hasan, the child actor, is not quite as chubby as Obama was, Djanuadi and his brother say, despite his efforts to grow into his character by eating extra meals and giving up karate practice. Now in costume - muddied shorts and T-shirt and a bandage around his leg from a playground scuffle the fictional Obama had Hasan waits for his next scene to be filmed, dribbling a soccer ball like a basketball and pretending to shoot at an imaginary basket.

“President!” the director calls out, amid laughter, summoning Hasan to the living room for his next take. Over and over, for nearly an hour, he carries a soccer ball into the room, calling out for his parents before meeting them in the hallway and looking distressed upon seeing they’ve been arguing. Finally, after several takes, it’s a wrap. Shakur Ali, Hasan’s father, watched from a window. He said the first time he watched Hasan act, it brought tears to his eyes.

“I was shocked to see the change, to see him become this person,” said Ali, who doesn’t follow US politics and said it doesn’t matter to him that his son is playing Obama but just that he is following his dream of being a performer. Cara Lachelle, a South African-born actress, said she took her role as Obama’s mother very seriously. “His mom was so strong, she knew her son would be put through hardship and she helped him through that,” Lachelle said. “I am very careful about the way I portray her, to do justice to them both.” Indonesian actor Eko Noah plays Lolo Soetoro, Obama’s stepfather.—AP

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indsay Lohan is coming home to a litany of legal woes after a few breezy days at the Cannes Film Festival, where she attended various events to promote her Linda Lovelace film and partied into the wee hours on the day she was supposed to be in court in Beverly Hills. The 23-year-old actress was to be arrested upon her return to Los Angeles for missing a mandatory court hearing, but a judge recalled the warrant late Thursday after Lohan posted bail.

Superior Court Judge Marsha Revel set bail at $100,000, revoked Lohan’s probation and imposed strict new conditions on the star, who was due in court for a progress report on her probation stemming from two arrests in 2007.

The judge ordered that Lohan be prohibited

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from drinking any alcohol, required to wear an alcohol-monitoring bracelet and submit to random weekly drug testing. “If she wanted to be here, it looks to the court that she could have been here,” Revel said, frustrated at Lohan’s absence.

The actress, wearing short shorts and high heels, was partying on a yacht in the French Riviera until early Thursday morning, says celebrity photographer Phil Ramey, who posted the photos on his website tinselclown.com.

Lohan’s attorney, Shawn Chapman Holley, said Lohan’s passport was stolen while in Cannes and she was unable to return to Los Angeles in time for Thursday’s hearing. “She did, in fact, have airline tickets,” Holley told the judge. She said Lohan was to be back in the United States

by Friday evening.

Lohan has been on probation since August 2007 after pleading guilty to misdemeanor drug charges and no contest to three driving charges.

The plea came after a pair of high-profile arrests earlier that year. Despite spending 84 minutes in jail and performing mandatory service at the county morgue, Lohan has struggled repeatedly with the terms of her sentence. In October, a judge extended her probation for another year but a prosecutor warned the actress she faced jail time if she violated her probation.

The extension was the third time Lohan escaped punishment after her alcohol-education program notified the court the actress had violated its rules. Two of the instances were described as misunderstandings; the third was

Saturday, May 22, 2010

chalked up to a busy work schedule. Revel said Thursday there is probable cause to believe Lohan may have violated her probation. A formal hearing will be held to determine if Lohan is in compliance with the court’s conditions. No date has been set.

In a video posted online on the celebrity website Hollywood.TV Monday, Lohan says she’s “been in compliance more than ever” with the terms of her probation and could complete the required alcohol-education classes in “about two and a half weeks.” Speaking to the media after the hearing, Holley said that Lohan has completed 10 of the 13 required alcohol-education classes. She said the actress went to Cannes to promote a film, adding, “It’s her job.” — AP

CANNES: In this file photo, Lindsay Lohan arrives for an event during the 63rd international film festival, in Cannes, France. — AP

The Dead Weather drops second album in a year major review of contemporary art opened in Romania’s capital Bucharest yesterday amid controversy, with organizers accusing one of its venues of “censorship”. Organizers of the International Biennial for Contemporary Art said the National Museum of Geology refused to put on display a photomontage, “Tit for Twat: Can We Talk?” by Kaucyila Brooke, considering it to be “pornographic.”

“This is a flagrant breach of the right to free speech, a blow to the artist’s dignity and an insult to human intelligence,” they said. Stella Rollig from the Lentos Kunstmuseum of Linz, Austria, quoted in a Biennial press statement, said this was not only “a serious case of censorship but also a very sad denial of the Romanian public’s right to see this outstanding ... work”.

Broke’s work “is not about eroticism ... It only has a naked woman in it,” the organizers said. But the museum said the piece was “inappropriate” for its public, 80 percent of which consists of children. “With all my esteem for artists and their means of expression, we must make a distinction between censorship and matching works on display with the purpose of a location,” Marcel Maruntiu, its scientific director said.

The Biennial’s German curator, Felix Vogel, said one of its goals was precisely to “activate the city” by exhibiting in locations not usually intended for contemporary art. About 40 artists coming from the Britain, Germany, Sweden and the United States are taking part in the Biennial (www.bucharestbiennale.org ), which runs through July 25. Installations such as “Wartime Knitting Circle”

by Sabrina Gschwandtner, “Table Read” by Olivia Plender and Unnar ÷rn, and “Brinco” by Judi Werthein are described as invitations to reflect on society, democracy and people. — AFP

A BUCHAREST: A visitor looks at the installation “Small potatoes make big noise” by artist Asa Sonjasdotter at the International Biennial of Contemporary Art in Bucharest yesterday.

— AFP

ilmmaker Morgan Spurlock, TV producer Joss Whedon, Ain’t It Cool News founder Harry Knowles, and Stan Lee are teaming up to make a feature documentary about Comic-Con. “Comic-Con Episode Four: A Fan’s Hope” will, in the worlds of the film’s makers, “follow seven different people from across America, and around the world, as they descend upon the veritable Mecca of fandom and experience the rapture that is Comic-Con.” Spurlock, who was nominated for an Oscar for his “Super Size Me” documentary, is directing. Shooting begins in June, tracking its subjects to this year’s Comic-Con, which runs July 21-25 in San Diego. Said Knowles: “I’ve been going to Comic-Con since 1974 and have been amazed that nobody has mounted a serious attempt at documenting what it is that happens there.” Knowles, Whedon and Lee are on board in undetermined consulting roles.

— Reuters

F

wilight” actress Ashley Greene, “Heroes” starlet Hayden Panettiere, and Rory Culkin (“Twelve”) are mulling offers for key starring roles in “Scream 4,” which is heading toward a July start date. The Dimension Films project reunites director Wes Craven with writer Kevin Williamson, who kicked off a horror-movie revival with his “Scream” script in 1996.

The story brings back original cast members Neve Campbell, David Arquette and Courteney Cox, though the new flick is seen as a passing of the baton to a new generation of slasher victims, with Williamson already under contract to write a fifth installment. If deals are concluded, Greene would play Campbell’s cousin Jill, essentially the heroine of the movie, and Panettiere would play her best

“T

friend, a nerdy film geek.

Culkin would play a potential love interest for Jill. Lake Bell (“It’s Complicated”) is negotiating to play a police officer who knew Sidney (Campbell) from high school.

Casting is proceeding slowly because Craven and Dimension are not sending the script to agencies in order to protect its secrecy. With only character descriptions, actors are having a difficult time deciding whether certain roles are for them. Craven, Williamson and Iya Labunka are producing the feature, which is slated for an April 15 release. Original producer Cathy Konrad is not aboard the production and is suing the Weinsteins, alleging that she was cut out of “Scream 4.” The film will shoot in incentive-rich Michigan. The original was shot in Santa Rosa, Calif. — Agencies

ritish actress Romola Garai is in negotiations to join the cast of “One Day,” a romantic comedy that starts shooting this summer in London. Danish filmmaker Lone Scherfig (“An Education”) will direct the Focus Features project from British author David Nicholls’ adaptation of his own novel. Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess star as people who meet during their 1988 graduation and proceed to meet one day a year for the

B

ver the next couple of weeks, a new dance and music festival will come to life in the gardens of Copenhagen’s Carlsberg Brewery. At the centre of the new Spring Dance festival will be the award-winning Danish Dance Theatre-of which British-born Tim Rushton is artistic director-and an ambition to create a large international festival.

“Hopefully, within three years I will have developed a MAD festival, a music and dance festival, where I can invite some of these fantastic Nordic musicians and some of the best dancers in the world and make a cultural garden,” Rushton said. Having the festival in what used to be the private garden of brewer, Carlsberg founder and art patron JC Jacobsen (1811-1887), is no coincidence. Since brewery production was moved outside Copenhagen in 2008, the Valby site has become a mecca for modern dance in the Danish capital.

Danish Dance Theatre has its administration and training studios at the old bottling plant, now called the hall of dance. The hall also provides training facilities for other contemporary dance companies and private ballet classes. For Rushton, the idea of bringing contemporary dance into a historic context was also appealing. “Modern dance and many other modern art forms are, not root-less or historyless, but their history is so young that it is important to borrow history, to borrow a story,” he said.—Reuters

next 20 years. In “When Harry Met Sally ...” fashion, the story tracks their lives and loves until they realize they were meant for each other. Garai will play the woman Sturgess’ character marries, and then divorces during those years. She most recently played the title role in the BBC miniseries “Emma.” Other film credits include “Atonement” and “Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights.” — Reuters

O

Ashley Greene

Romola Garai

ack White has built himself a do-ityourself utopia in a nondescript building downtown. Third Man Records, decorated in the bold primary colors White favors, features a recording studio, a stage for live performances that doubles as a soundstage, a darkroom and a boutique-sized record store out front.

White can take a concept, put it on tape, design and produce the cover and liner notes, shoot the video and record a live show in just a matter of weeks.

It’s the kind of place where a band can thrive, and his latest, The Dead Weather, is doing just that. Thanks to the all-inclusive nature of Third Man Records, the group just released it’s second album in 10 months. “He’s done that punk rock dream of being able to control every element yourself and making sure that’s exactly how you want it, and (stuff) comes out when you want (stuff) to come out,” bandmate Alison Mosshart said. “It’s incredible what he’s got.”

White, the mercurial 34-year-old musician and producer whose already fully loaded resume consists of The White Stripes and The Raconteurs, is already a prolific artist. Add in the other three members of The Dead Weather singer-guitarist Mosshart of The Kills, bassist Jack Lawrence of The Greenhornes and The Raconteurs and Queens of the Stone Age guitarist Dean Fertita and the creative spark takes on the shimmering blue of an acetylene torch. White, Lawrence and Mosshart had been friends for years and their bands were out on tour together.

White caught bronchitis and slipped a disc in his neck toward the end of the string of dates and Mosshart began joining him on stage to sing some of his parts. When the tour wrapped, the friends limped into Nashville where they were joined by Fertita in early 2009.

White suggested they cut a 7-inch record and a jam session of sorts turned into something special right away. “It was kind of magical,” Mosshart said.

“When we got there, within about 15 hours we wrote five songs and kind of couldn’t stop ourselves. That’s certainly a little bit weird.” The band’s first album, “Horehound” was released six months after recording started. The Dead Weather went on tour and found the creativity couldn’t be capped. The band wrote songs during soundcheck and slapped them down on tape during breaks in Nashville. From there it took just a few weeks to finish off “Sea of Cowards,” which came out this month.

“It’s magic, but you’re very fortunate to have it once in your lifetime,” White said of the band’s output. “For it to keep happening over and over again enough so we can all keep working and creating together is incredible.” This flammable chemistry might have something to do with the way the band approaches its music. None had time for another project, but the approach with The Dead Weather was so different and inviting, it was hard to pass up.

Lawrence, a longtime collaborator with White, describes it this way: “All of us are writing in one room together.

We’re going in with nothing usually and sitting down and someone comes up with one part, and everybody else chimes in. And Alison’s sitting over in the corner writing lyrics to it the whole time.” That’s a complete departure from White’s other two bands. The Whites Stripes, which includes longtime collaborator Meg White, is a one-man show where writing is concerned. White also sets the agenda and carries off an often virtuoso performance on guitar that makes the band go. He formed The Raconteurs because he wanted to try something different and write with another songwriter.

He asked Brendan Benson to join him, then filled in with longtime friends Lawrence and drummer Patrick Keeler, Lawrence’s rhythm section mate from The Greenhornes. White and Benson show up with songs in place for the group to work on and what results is a polished, sometimes theatrical brand of rock.

The Dead Weather, in which White plays the drums, satisfies another part of his personality. There were no preconceived ideas or mission statements when they entered the studio together. There was no need. “Every band finds their own comfort zone in how they work together,” White said.

“Some bands can all write in the same room, some bands can’t. It doesn’t work that way. Some bands need a central leader, some bands are more democratic. It decides itself. You don’t take a vote.” — AP

J

15

WHATʼS ON IN KUWAIT

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Graduation ceremony of Kuwait Maastricht Business School (KMBS)

Embassy information EMBASSY OF NIGERIA The Embassy of the Federal Republic of Nigeria wishes to invite all Nigerians residing in Kuwait to come and register with the Embassy. The registration is compulsory for all Nigerians residing /visiting Kuwait. Kindly bring the following documents along with you: • A photocopy of the Nigerian passport • One passport photograph • Copy of the civil identification card or visa For additional information please call: 25620278 or visit the Embassy at Block, 4, Malik Bin Anas Street, Avenue 44, House 31, Along Al-Aqsa Road, Rumaithiya. The Consular Section opens Sunday - Thursday from 9 am - 3 pm Your prompt response is highly solicited.

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

t was a rosy moment at the Radisson Hotel on the 18th May, 2010 as the final year students from Kuwait Maastricht Business School (KMBS) gained their MBA degrees. The event attracted lots of dignitaries including the Minister of Education and Higher Education, Dr Moudhi Al-Homoud.

The Maastricht School of Management

I

(MSM) is based in the Netherlands, and is a global graduate business school dedicated to excellence in management education and performance. Its objective is to emphasize the key role that good management plays in competition, growth and productivity. As such, KMSM aspires to be the ‘Centre of Excellence’ in professional management education through its Pre-

Tamilosai Poets Association hold 5th year ’versary T

is also subject to the Inspection System of the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, and the quality standards of the Scientific Advisory Board for International Education of the Netherlands. In January 2006, MSM/KMBS was awarded accreditation from the prestigious accrediting body AMBA (Association of MBAs).

Blood donation camp RI Telugudesam Kuwait branch is organizing a blood donation camp to commemorate Late N T Ramarao’s 88th birthday on Friday, May 28 at Central Blood Bank, Jabriya. Those who are interested to donate blood, kindly contact us at: 97125420, 99396711, 99996851, 97809251, 99560433, 99964891, 99410315.

N

Karungkulam Sivamani presented were among the dignitaries who were present.

Poems and Songs were recited by members. Tamil Kaanal pootti was won by S Ajay Krishna while the vote of thanks was delivered by the PRO Devi Ravi.

The meeting came to conclusion with a delicious lunch.

Kuwait weather

he 49th monthly and 5th year anniversary of the Kuwait Tamilosai Poets Association was held on May 7th Friday at Old Thanjai Hotel Mirgab.

The meeting was presided by Pa Sekar.

The secretary PromothRajan, Frontage president U K Sivakumar, Raja Sekaran, ex-president Sadiq Batcha and

MBA, MBA and PhD/DBA degree granting, executive education, and international consultancy programs.

MSM is accredited by the Association of the Collegiate Business School and Programs (ACBSP) accreditation agency and the International Assembly of Collegiate Business Education (IACBE) accreditation agency. MSM

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.

KUWAIT: Kids play in a swimming pool at a waterpark in Kuwait City yesterday. — Photos by Yasser Al-Zayyat

SPECTRUM

16 CROSSWORD 996

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Calvin Aries (March 21-April 19) Start looking for classes, books and/or lectures on how to organize your financial affairs. Things are looking up and your success will hinge on your organizational skills. The few challenges that you face for the rest of this year are nothing you cannot handle. This can begin to be one of the happiest and most fulfilling times of your life. You have inner vision, coupled with the ability to see the big picture of most situations. This will find you smoothing ruffled feathers today and bringing two people together that have had difficulty in understanding one another before today.

You will find that today can turn into a very romantic time. Your playmate or loved one will enjoy planning a surprise for you this evening. You are passionate, generous and loving.

Taurus (April 20-May 20) You have a clear vision this Saturday and you can see what steps to take in most situations that call for decision-making. You are happy when in control and you enjoy managing anything practical. You will excel in group activities and it is easy for you to get your ideas across to others. Not too emotional, you are objective, businesslike and reliable. You may not trust those in authority just now, so be careful with your responses to superiors. Someone understands how you feel and is sympathetic. You seem able to manipulate most every situation and bring it to good use. Your mind is ever on how you present yourself and come across with others; making sure you are understood and that you understand. It is easy for you to express yourself this evening.

Pooch Cafe

ACROSS 1. Little known Kamarupan languages.

5. Aircraft landing in bad weather in which the pilot is talked down by ground control using precision approach radar.

8. A knockout declared by the referee who judges one boxer unable to continue.

11. Exhibiting or restored to vigorous good health.

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

13. Mythical bird of prey having enormous size and strength.

14. In bed.

15. Considerate and solicitous care.

16. Take in solid food.

17. The cry made by sheep.

19. An esoteric or occult matter that is traditionally secret.

22. (Babylonian) God of storms and wind.

23. The seventh month of the Moslem calendar.

26. Rare (usually fatal) brain disease (usually in middle age) caused by an unidentified slow virus.

28. A United Nations agency created to assist developing nations by loans guaranteed by member governments.

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

33. A constellation in the southern hemisphere near Telescopium and Norma.

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

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

43. A percussion instrument consisting of a pair of hollow pieces of wood or bone (usually held between the thumb and fingers) that are made to click together (as by Spanish dancers) in rhythm with the dance.

45. An interior passage or corridor onto which rooms open.

47. (informal) Roused to anger.

48. On or toward the lee.

49. The federal agency that insures residential mortgages.

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

DOWN 1. According to the Old Testament he was a pagan king of Israel and husband of Jezebel (9th century BC).

2. A small cake leavened with yeast.

3. Evergreen trees and shrubs having oily one-seeded fruits.

4. Having any of numerous bright or strong colors reminiscent of the color of blood or cherries or tomatoes or rubies.

5. (slang) A gangster's pistol.

6. Derived from or containing calcium or lime.

7. Type genus of the family Arcidae.

8. A step in walking or running.

9. Sluggish tailless Australian arboreal marsupial with gray furry ears and coat.

10. The cardinal number that is the sum of seven and one.

18. Light informal conversation for social occasions.

20. Having undesirable or negative qualities.

21. A quantity of no importance.

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

25. A son who has the same first name as his father.

27. 35th President of the United States.

29. A metric unit of volume or capacity equal to 10 liters.

30. Small genus of mediterranean shrubs.

32. Tag the base runner to get him out.

34. Being or occurring in fact or actuality.

35. (usually followed by `to') Having the necessary means or skill or know-how or authority to do something.

37. A woman hired to suckle a child of someone else.

38. A soft yellowish-white trivalent metallic element of the rare earth group.

39. Someone who works (or provides workers) during a strike.

40. An informal term for a father.

42. Fermented alcoholic beverage similar to but heavier than beer.

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

46. A gray tetravalent metallic element that resembles zirconium chemically and is found in zirconium minerals.

Gemini (May 21-June 20) All kinds of information may be coming to your attention this day--and it is all good news. Your career direction gets some encouragement and life?s problems find easy solutions. You are pioneering when it comes to self-analysis and self-care--food, diet, health, etc. You can see new ways to make use of your position--at work and at home. You may benefit from a person in authority this afternoon. Someone may take it upon themselves to teach or lead you into a good direction.

Perhaps they will help you with the upgrade in your profession. In a speaking engagement this afternoon, you communicate with great enthusiasm. Words just flow out today and are followed by an emotional impact that brings them home to your listeners.

Non Sequitur

Cancer (June 21-July 22) Career choices, the obvious path that is opening up for you may grate against your own sense of freedom and independence. Success and security at the expense of originality may be too great a price to pay. Some middle road could be found but bidding your time and moving into another position may be better. You will make career gains through your ability to sense quality and choose accordingly. Continued success on the career level may point to your abandoning some of your dreams for a short while. While success is important, do not throw the baby out with the bath water. Your standards got you where you are. Try for a good compromise now. Being more involved with neighbors or sibling/s is satisfying this evening.

Leo (July 23-August 22) This is a real time to buckle down and blend your career. Your organizational abilities and sense of responsibility will be what guides you and creates successful results. Your career could assume a much more determined path--a firm foundation. Your inner resources and positive input are emphasized. Expect a sense of support and good will from those around you. You are being prepared for future successes and you feel satisfied with your advancement. You can be ardent, active and impulsive and the home front is just the place for that passion. You complete your chores and encourage others to do the same through some imaginative or creative incentive. This evening is a good time to begin a weekend camp-out--others want to join you.

Zits

Virgo (August 23-September 22) Your business partners are trustworthy and the business deals you create together will be positive for some time to come. Balance your energies.

Time spent in physical and psychological support of others--in addition to your own accomplishments today--can make for a rewarding time. Be clear in your words and in your writings.

Getting in a hurry will cause frustrations. Others could misconstrue the meaning of your words. Now is the time to enjoy good interactions with the people you love. If you are really serious about losing weight, counting calories may make you very nervous since you like good hearty meals. Eat your meat without gravy and try one helping with a small salad. Get into a regular exercise program; you will succeed.

Libra (September 23-October 22) It would be wise to listen to all those around you before making a particularly difficult decision that will affect many people today. Do not become preoccupied with one concept and accept it as gospel. Weighing all sides of a problem may be most beneficial. There could be pressures today that will awaken you to some situation in the work place that needs changing. Keep an eagle eye on the development and you could be a part of the change. This is a great time to be with others and to work together. You may be sought after as just the person for a particular job. Your disposition is open and welcome to all you meet. Interactions with the opposite sex are both delightful and stimulating.

Spend some time in creative intellectual pursuits this evening.

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) Others may challenge your authority or the direction you are taking. Think through your motivation--thought is paramount. Maintain a right mental attitude, the attitude of patience, sincerity and good cheer. To think rightly contributes to your productiveness. Before the work is completed, there is a chance to understand and create some better results. This sort of day will help you to learn some unique problem-solving techniques. This is also a time when home could be used for more than just a place for the family to live. You could be working to set up a work place for your mate, a friend, adult-child or partner. This evening there could be some special moments with someone you love. A sense of support makes this a very rewarding time.

Yesterday’s Solution

Capricorn (December 22-January 19) There may be temptations to overextend your budget as business travel is possible and most likely, profitable.

Whether you travel or not, you will meet some highly influential individuals at this time. A group or team type of working situation brings the best results today. You may be sought after as just the person for a particular future job. Your management and directional abilities are in high focus. It is important to develop a team attitude so as not to alienate fellow workers. Take time this weekend to strengthen your friendships. Spending time with close, old friends can be satisfying. For more cash on hand, consider selling something that does not benefit you anymore, or hold a garage sale. Try your hand at some form of creative expression.

Aquarius (January 20- February 18) This is a time

Yesterday’s Solution

when you can expect a little boost with some sort of extra support or recognition from those around you. You may feel that you are in touch and in harmony with others; the lines of discourse are open. The support you need is available.

Relating with co-workers and working with others gets a plus at this time. You may be sought after as just the person for a particular job. You can demonstrate great understanding and sensitivity to the needs of others and are in a good position to lead or guide others.

Lovers, children and other people or things dear to your heart are emphasized now. Being appreciated and admired for your gifts and talents are powerful needs. Taking chances can bring big rewards. Puzzles are not a waste of time this evening.

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) You could be in the limelight, especially with superiors or in relation to your work. You may find that you enjoy your job or the responsibility it entails more than usual. Your own values in business are admired by your colleagues. You are sensitive and in-tune with others today, perhaps listening at some length to someone?s problems. You seem out-front and candid. Your intensity and passionate approach to life are obvious to all who meet you. You are driven to penetrate the trivial and get at the basics in your life. Your mind tends to be very imaginative and not concerned with facts and figures today but instead, ideas and writings of a mystical or poetic nature appeal to you. Research into religious or very idealistic subjects is indicated now.

Saturday, May 22, 2010

17 Flight Schedule Arrival Flights on Saturday 22/05/2010 Airlines Flt Route Jordanian 802 Amman Jazeera 263 Beirut Wataniya 188 Bahrain Wataniya 306 Cairo 211 Bahrain Gulf Air Turkish 772 Istanbul Ethiopian 620 Addis Ababa DHL 370 Bahrain Pakistan 239 Sialkot Emirates 853 Dubai Etihad 305 Abu Dhabi Qatari 138 Doha Jazeera 637 Aleppo Jazeera 527 Alexandria Kuwait 412 Manila/Bangkok British 157 London Kuwait 416 Jakarta/Kuala Lumpur Falcon 201 Bahrain Kuwait 204 Lahore Jazeera 613 Lahore 302 Mumbai Kuwait 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 182 Bahrain Middle East 404 Beirut Alnaser 711 Baghdad/Najaf Wataniya 102 Dubai Jazeera 165 Dubai Jazeera 171 Dubai 610 Cairo Egypt Air Jazeera 457 Damascus Kuwait 672 Dubai Kuwait 774 Riyadh Jordanian 800 Amman United 982 Washington DC Dulles Wataniva 432 Damascus 621 Assiut Egypt Air Fly Dubai 057 Dubai Wataniya 422 Amman Jazeera 257 Beirut Saudia 500 Jeddah Kuwait 552 Damascus Nas Air 745 Jeddah Qatari 134 Doha Mahan Air 5066 Mashad Kuwait 786 Jeddah Iran Aseman 6791 Mashad Kuwait 118 New York Nas Air 703 Medinah Mihin 403 Colombo/Dubai Jazeera 427 Bahrain 061 Baghdad/Najaf Rovos Etihad 303 Abu Dhabi Emirates 857 Dubai Gulf Air 215 Bahrain Cargolux 792 Luxembourg Wataniya 402 Beirut Saudia 510 Riyadh Jazeera 493 Jeddah Arabia 125 Sharjah Jazeera 433 Mashad Jazeera 239 Amman Srilankan 227 Colombo/Dubai Syrian Air 341 Damascus Wataniya 304 Cairo Kuwait 104 London Wataniya 106 Dubai Kuwait 502 Beirut Kuwait 542 Cairo Kuwait 618 Doha Wataniya 202 Jeddah Kuwait 548 Luxor/Sharm El Sheikh Iran Air 607 Mashad Jazeera 177 Dubai Jazeera 459 Damascus Kuwait 674 Dubai Bahrain Air 344 Bahrain Singapore 458 Singapore/Abu Dhabi Kuwait 562 Amman Kuwait 814 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 404 Beirut DHL 372 Bahrain Gulf Air 217 Bahrain Emirates 859 Dubai Qatari 136 Doha Kuwait 178 Geneva/Frankfurt United 981 Bahrain Jazeera 429 Bahrain Jazeera 117 Abu Dhabi Lufthansa 636 Frankfurt Jazeera 185 Dubai Egypt Air 612 Cairo India Express 393 Kozhikode/Cochin Egypt Air 606 Luxor Wataniya 108 Dubai

Time 00:05 00:10 00:30 00:50 01:05 01:15 01:45 02:15 02:15 02:25 02:55 03:25 05:45 06:10 06:15 06:30 06:35 07:00 07:10 07:40 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 11:15 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 16:00 16:15 16:20 16:40 16:50 16:50 16:50 16:55 17:15 17:15 17:15 17:20 17:35 17:40 17:40 17:45 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 21:05 21:15 21:35 21:40 21:55 22:10 22:35 22:35 22:40 22:55 23:10 23:15 23:55

Departure Flights on Saturday 22-05-2010 Airlines Flt Route Shaheen Air 442 Lahore Egypt Air 607 Luxor KLM 0447 Amsterdam Lufthansa 637 Frankfurt Indian 576 Goa/Chennai Turkish 773 Istanbul Ethiopian 620 Bahrain/Addis Ababa DHL 371 Bahrain 240 Sialkot Pakistan Emirates 854 Dubai Etihad 306 Abu Dhabi Qatari 139 Doha Wataniya 101 Dubai Jordanian 803 Amman Jazeera 164 Dubai Jazeera 422 Bahrain Gulf Air 212 Bahrain Wataniya 181 Bahrain Rovos 094 Dubai/Kandahar Jazeera 456 Damascus Wataniya 431 Damascus British 156 London Jazeera 256 Beirut Fly Dubai 054 Dubai Jazeera 170 Dubai Kuwait 671 Dubai Kuwait 551 Damascus 421 Amman Wataniya Arabia 122 Sharjah Kuwait 101 London/New York Emirates 856 Dubai Kuwait 773 Riyadh Qatari 133 Doha Etihad 302 Abu Dhabi Kuwait 785 Jeddah Kuwait 547 Luxor/Sharm El Sheikh Wataniya 401 Beirut Gulf Air 214 Bahrain Kuwait 165 Rome/Paris 303 Cairo Wataniya Middle East 405 Beirut Rovos 062 Baghdad Kuwait 541 Cairo Jazeera 432 Mashad Jazeera 492 Jeddah Al Naser 712 Najaf/Baghdad Jazeera 238 Amman Kuwait 501 Beirut Wataniya 201 Jeddah Egypt Air 611 Cairo Jazeera 426 Bahrain Jazeera 458 Damascus Jordanian 801 Amman Wataniya 105 Dubai Kuwait 561 Amman Fly Dubai 058 Dubai Egypt Air 622 Assiut United 982 Bahrain Jazeera 176 Dubai Kuwait 673 Dubai Wataniya 403 Beirut Kuwait 611 Doha Nas Air 746 Jeddah Saudia 505 Jeddah Qatari 135 Doha Kuwait 613 Bahrain Iran Aseman 6792 Mashad Mahan Air 5065 Mashad Nas Air 704 Riyadh 304 Abu Dhabi Etihad Mihin 404 Dubai/Colombo Emirates 858 Dubai Gulf Air 216 Bahrain Wataniya 305 Cairo Kuwait 543 Cairo Jazeera 262 Beirut Arabia 126 Sharjah Jazeera 184 Dubai Saudia 511 Riyadh Jazeera 116 Abu Dhabi 792 Hong Kong Cargolux Kuwait 285 Chittagong Kuwait 787 Jeddah Jazeera 428 Bahrain Srilankan 228 Dubai/Colombo Wataniya 407 Beirut Syrian Air 342 Damascus Wataniya 107 Dubai Wataniya 321 Sharm El Sheikh Jazeera 240 Amman Kuwait 283 Dhaka Iran Air 604 Isfahan Bahrain Air 345 Bahrain Jazeera 512 Sharm El Sheikh Fly Dubai 062 Dubai Singapore 457 Abu Dhabi/Singapore Kuwait 331 Trivandrum Oman Air 648 Muscat Middle East 403 Beirut Jet A/W 571 Mumbai Egypt Air 619 Alexandria Wataniya 187 Bahrain KLM 0445 Bahrain/Amsterdam Gulf Air 218 Bahrain DHL 373 Bahrain Kuwait 675 Dubai Emirates 860 Dubai Kuwait 381 Delhi Falcon 102 Bahrain Qatari 137 Doha Kuwait 301 Mumbai Kuwait 205 Islamabad Jazeera 480 Sabiha Jazeera 526 Alexandria Jazeera 502 Luxor United 981 Washington DC Dulles Kuwait 411 Bangkok/Manila Egypt Air 613 Cairo

FOR AIRPORT INFORMATION 161

ACCOMMODATION Time 00:10 00:15 00:30 00:50 00:50 02:15 02:30 03:15 03:30 03:45 04:00 05:00 06:50 07:00 07:00 07:25 07:45 07:50 08:00 08:05 08:10 08:25 08:25 08:40 08:45 09:00 09:10 09:10 09:20 09:30 09:40 10:00 10:00 10:10 10:25 10:55 11:35 11:35 11:45 11:50 11:50 12:00 12:00 12:05 12:15 12:15 12:25 13:00 13:45 13:55 13:55 14:00 14:30 14:30 14:35 14:35 14:40 14:50 14:55 15:10 15:10 15:35 15:45 16:00 16:20 16:55 17:00 17:05 17:10 17:35 17:40 18:05 18:05 18:05 18:10 18:20 18:20 18:35 18:35 18:40 18:45 18:45 18:50 19:10 19:10 19:25 19:30 19:40 19:45 19:55 20:00 20:05 20:10 20:15 20:50 20:55 21:00 21:15 21:20 21:30 21:35 21:35 21:40 21:55 22:00 22:10 22:25 22:30 22:30 22:35 22:43 22:55 23:05 23:20 23:30 23:40 23:40 23:55

Sharing accommodation in Abbassiya near Integrated Indian School available for small family with Keralite family. C-A/C, bathroom attached from May 28. Call 66343645. (C 2297) Sharing room for rent, big room & bathroom, family only, Hassan Baski St., corner Qutaiba st, Hawally. Tel: 97921468. (C 2296) Sharing accommodation available for Christian couples/working ladies with Keralite family in Abbassiya.

C-A/C flat furnished, from end of May ‘10. Contact: 66743956/24318478.

(C 2299) Sharing accommodation available for Indian couple (preferably Keralite) in a central AC flat in Salmiya, Amman street, near Appolo hospital, attached bathroom/ telephone/ internet facility. Contact: 97919485.

(C 2298) 22-5-2010

Flat (mulhaq) for rent in Farwaniya 2 rooms water, electricity and A/C, Indian family only, no children, Call 97409556. (C 2293) 20-5-2010 Sharing accommodation available in a fully furnished 1 BHK flat for small Muslim family (Indian) from 25th June to 10 September in Abbassiya, opp German clinic. Contact: 97834504.

(C 2286) 19-5-2010

CHANGE OF NAME Busam Aswani holder of Indian Passport No. H 2028715, issued in Hyderabad, hereby change my name to Fatima Riaz.

(C 2290) 20-5-2010

FOR SALE Toyota Corolla, model 2006, 1.8 XLi, color white, 76,000 km, price KD 2,550.

Tel: 55107856. (C 2294) 20-5-2010

Semi-furnished single room available in Sharq near Amiri hospital for a single bachelor. Contact: 66562488, 22428159.

(C 2295)

Toyota Corolla, model 2010, color white, price KD 3950 only. Tel: 66050484.

(C 2284)

Accommodation available for Christian bachelors near United Indian school. Contact: 97695791. (C 2289)

Toyota Corolla, model 2005, color white, price KD 2450 only. Tel: 60951195.

(C 2285)

Sharing accommodation available in Abbassiya for a couple/ small family/ bachelor in a C-AC building, with 2 spacious bedrooms, 2 bathrooms & a big hall, kitchen facility, ready to occupy, ideal location 24 hr security. Call 66752359 or 97635928. (C 2292)

Toyota Camry Grande, model 2005, 6 cylinders, done 62,000 kms only, white color, excellent condition, cash price KD 2,850. Contact: 66211779. (C 2287) Audi A8 2002 in good condition, silver color, leather interior, KD 2500 obo. Call

99786814. (C 2283) 19-5-2010 i-mate Jama 201 phone, KD 35.

Tel: price 55451465/66451465.

(C 2281) 1 year Internet subscription card, price KD 15 (original price KD 55).

Tel: 55451465/66451465 (C 2280) 18-5-2010 Toyota Corolla, model 2006, 1.8 XLi, color white, km 76.

Price KD 2,500. Tel: 55107865. (C 2270)

looking for immediate placement. 12 years Kuwait experience, complete secretarial works/office administration & coordination/independent correspondence/ local purchase/quantity survey works. Please call 66597087/24349364.

(C 2288) 19-5-2010 I need full-time job as sales executive, my qualification is B.Com + MBA, valid driving license. I can also handle bank and payment recovery related issues.

Call: 55355954. (C 2276) 18-5-2010 SITUATION VACANT

SITUATION WANTED

A Pakistani male, M.Com having 3 years experience in Kuwait, computer knowledge, seeks a job in accounts or stock. Visa 18.

Contact: 55241688.

(C 2291) 20-5-2010 Experienced secretary is

Urgently required housemaid for Indian family in Abbassiya. Please call 99509436. (C 2279) Required live-in maid for an Indian family, please contact: 24764736 or 66527975 between 5 pm to 11 pm.

(C 2277) 18-5-2010

TV PROGRAMS

18

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Orbit / Showtime Listings 20:30 Fantasy Factory 21:00 Blood, Sweat & Gears 22:00 China Invitational 2009 23:00 Fight Girls 00:00 Inside the Actors Studio 01:00 Life 02:00 Life on Mars 03:00 ER 04:00 Life 05:00 The Closer 06:00 Beauty and the Geek 07:00 Inside the Actors Studio 08:00 The Pacific 09:00 Survivor 10:00 Life on Mars 11:00 ER 12:00 Beauty and the Geek 13:00 The Closer 14:00 Life on Mars 15:00 Life 16:00 The Pacific 17:00 Survivor 18:00 Burn Notice 19:00 CSI New York 20:00 Glee 21:00 Drop Dead Diva 22:00 The Closer 23:00 The Ex-List

00:15 Dark Days in Monkey City 00:45 Animal Cops Houston 01:40 Untamed & Uncut 02:35 Whale Wars 03:30 Animal Cops Miami 04:25 Animal Precinct 05:20 Deep Into the Wild with Nick Baker 05:45 Monkey Business 06:10 E-Vets: The Interns 06:35 Aussie Animal Rescue 07:00 Lemur Street 07:25 Meerkat Manor 07:50 All New Planet’s Funniest Animals 08:45 Animal Cops Phoenix 09:40 E-Vets: The Interns 10:05 New Breed Vets with Steve Irwin 10:55 Animal Planet’s Most Outrageous 11:50 Beverly Hills Groomer 12:15 Monkey Life 12:45 Dogs 101 13:40 Escape to Chimp Eden 14:35 Chimp Family Fortunes 18:15 Planet Wild 19:10 Orangutan Island 19:40 Going Ape 20:10 Cell Dogs 21:05 Untamed & Uncut 22:55 Animal Cops Miami 23:50 Orangutan Island

00:45 Red Cap 01:45 The Weakest Link 02:30 Last of the Summer Wine 03:05 Teletubbies 03:30 Me Too 03:50 Tweenies 04:10 Teletubbies 04:35 Me Too 04:55 Tweenies 05:15 Teletubbies 05:40 Me Too 06:00 Tweenies 06:20 Teletubbies 06:45 Me Too 07:05 Tweenies 07:25 Teletubbies 07:50 Me Too 08:10 Tweenies 08:30 Teletubbies 08:55 Me Too 09:15 Tweenies 09:35 Teletubbies 10:00 Coast 11:00 Eastenders 13:00 Bargain Hunt 16:00 The Weakest Link 18:15 Holby City 20:15 Doctor Who 21:00 Doctor Who Confidential 21:20 Robin Hood 22:15 Green Green Grass 22:45 Suburban Shootout 23:15 The Smoking Room 23:45 Hyperdrive

00:20 The Naked Chef 01:20 Living In The Sun 02:05 What Not To Wear 02:55 Come Dine With Me 03:45 Daily Cooks Challenge 04:15 Cash In The Attic USA 04:45 Hidden Potential 05:10 What Not To Wear 06:00 MasterChef Goes Large 07:00 Antiques Roadshow 12:00 Saturday Kitchen 13:00 Living In The Sun 13:45 Cash In The Attic 16:00 Bargain Hunt 16:45 Come Dine With Me 18:25 Chuck’s Day Off 19:40 Trish’s Mediterranean Kitchen 20:05 Gino D’Acampo - An Italian In Mexico 20:30 The Naked Chef 21:45 Come Dine With Me

01:45 It Might Get Loud-PG15 03:45 Civilization Of Maxwell Bright-18 06:00 Meet Joe Black-PG15 09:00 Field Of Dreams-PG 11:00 Grace Is Gone-PG15 12:30 Jacquou Le Croquant-PG15 15:00 Looking For Richard-PG15

00:00 Chopped 01:30 Food Network All-Star 02:30 Food Network Challenge Special 03:30 Best Thing I Ever Ate 04:00 Teleshopping 07:00 30 Minute Meals 07:50 Giada At Home 08:15 Rescue Chef with Danny Boome 08:40 Great British Menu 11:00 Barefoot Contessa 12:00 Everyday Italian 13:00 30 Minute Meals 14:00 Nigella Express 15:00 Barefoot Contessa 15:30 Great British Menu 18:00 Everyday Italian 19:00 Nigella Express 20:00 Extreme Cuisine with Jeff Corwin 21:00 Food Network Challenge Special 23:00 Unwrapped

00:30 A Haunting 01:20 FBI Files 02:10 Extreme Forensics 04:00 Forensic Detectives 04:55 Real Emergency Calls 05:20 Dr G: Medical Examiner 06:10 Ghosthunters 07:00 Forensic Detectives 07:50 FBI Files 08:40 Undercover 09:30 Diagnosis: Unknown 10:20 Forensic Detectives 11:10 FBI Files 12:00 Impossible Heists 12:50 Disappeared 13:40 Royal Inquest 14:30 Forensic Detectives 15:20 FBI Files 16:10 Undercover 17:00 Diagnosis: Unknown 17:50 Forensic Detectives 18:40 FBI Files 19:30 Impossible Heists 20:20 Disappeared 21:10 Ghost Lab 22:00 A Haunting 23:40 Psychic Witness

The Golden Compass on Super Movies 17:00 Napoleon Part 3-PG 19:00 Baghead-18 21:00 American Teen-PG15 23:00 Liberty Heights-18

00:00 Border Security 00:30 Destroyed in Seconds 01:00 Miami Ink 02:00 Overhaulin’ 02:55 Industrial Junkie 03:50 Extreme Engineering 04:45 Mythbusters 05:40 How Stuff Works 06:05 Dirty Jobs 07:00 Nextworld 07:55 Brainiac 08:50 Mythbusters 09:45 How Does it Work?

10:10 Huge Moves 11:05 World’s Toughest Tools 12:00 Fifth Gear 12:30 Fifth Gear 12:55 Twist the Throttle 13:50 Speed Capital of the World: Bonneville 14:45 Mighty Ships 15:40 Huge Moves 16:35 World’s Toughest Tools 17:30 How Does it Work?

18:00 Destroyed in Seconds 19:00 Tornado Road 20:00 Ultimate Survival 21:00 Extreme Fishing with Robson Green 22:00 Deadliest Catch 23:00 Surviving Disaster

00:30 The Colony 01:20 The Gadget Show 02:10 Space Pioneer 03:00 Beyond Tomorrow 03:50 Scrapheap Challenge 04:45 How Stuff’s Made 05:10 Weird Connections 05:40 One Step Beyond 06:10 The Colony 07:00 Scrapheap Challenge 08:00 Robotica 09:00 Science of the Movies 09:55 Junkyard Mega-Wars 15:25 Savage Planet 15:55 Eco-Tech 16:50 How It’s Made 17:45 Da Vinci’s Machines 18:40 NYC: Inside Out 19:30 Nextworld 20:20 The Gadget Show 21:10 Science of the Movies 22:00 Mythbusters 23:40 Nextworld

00:00 Jungle Junction 00:20 Special Agent Oso 00:45 Handy Manny 01:10 Imagination Movers 01:35 Jungle Junction 02:00 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 02:50 Handy Manny 03:10 Jungle Junction 03:20 Special Agent Oso 03:35 Fairly Odd Parents 04:00 Phineas & Ferb 04:25 Suite Life On Deck 04:45 Wizards Of Waverly Place 05:10 Hannah Montana 05:35 Wizards Of Waverly Place 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 Kim Possible 10:50 Famous Five 11:15 I Got A Rocket 11:35 Fairly Odd Parents 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 Wendy Wu 20:35 Hannah Montana 21:00 The Suite Life Of Zack & Cody 21:45 The Replacements 22:00 Hannah Montana 22:25 Jonas

00:15 Streets of Hollywood 00:40 E!ES 01:30 Extreme Hollywood 02:20 Sexiest 03:15 Fatal Beauty 05:05 Dr 90210 06:00 THS 07:45 25 Most Stylish 08:35 E! News 09:00 The Daily 10 09:25 20 Acts of Love Gone Wrong 11:05 Kendra 11:30 Kendra 12:00 E! News 12:25 The Daily 10 12:50 Behind the Scenes 13:40 Pretty Wild 14:30 Keeping Up with the Kardashians 15:25 THS 17:10 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 22:10 E! News 22:35 The Daily 10 23:00 Dr 90210 23:50 Bank of Hollywood

00:00 M1 Challenge 03:00 Ride Guide MTB 2008 04:00 Fantasy Factory 05:00 TNA Xplosion 06:00 Cape Epic 07:00 FIM World Motorcross MX3 Championships 2009 08:00 Fantasy Factory 09:00 TNA Xplosion 10:00 X Games 15 2009 11:00 LG Action Sports World Championships 2008 12:00 China Invitational 2009 13:00 X Games 15 2009 14:00 Blood, Sweat & Gears 15:00 Fantasy Factory 16:00 X Games 15 2009 17:00 TNA Xplosion 18:00 Ride Guide MTB 2008 19:00 X Games 15 2009 20:00 Fantasy Factory

01:10 Golden Gate 02:40 The End 04:20 Leather Jackets 05:50 Bullet Proof 07:25 Kuffs 09:05 Nobody’s Fool 10:50 Huckleberry Finn 12:40 Mr. Wonderful 14:20 The King And Four Queens 15:45 Teen Wolf 17:15 Women Vs. Men 18:40 The Hillside Strangler 20:20 No Such Thing 22:00 3 Strikes 23:30 Behind Enemy Lines

00:00 Bondi Rescue - Bali 00:30 Lonely Planet 01:30 Don’t Tell My Mother...

02:30 4Real 03:00 First Ascent 03:30 Jailed Abroad 04:30 Odyssey:Driving Around The World 05:00 Amazing Adv Of Nobody Europe 05:30 Word Travels 06:00 Bondi Rescue - Bali 06:30 Lonely Planet 07:30 Don’t Tell My Mother...

08:30 4Real 09:00 First Ascent 09:30 Jailed Abroad 10:30 Odyssey:Driving Around The World 11:00 Pressure Cook 11:30 Food School 12:00 Word Of Mouth 12:30 Weird And Wonderful Hotels 13:30 Himalaya:The Summits of Humili 14:30 Everest Man Vs. Mountain 17:00 Pressure Cook 17:30 Food School 18:00 Word Of Mouth 18:30 Weird And Wonderful Hotels 19:30 Himalaya:The Summits of Humili 20:30 Everest Man Vs. Mountain 23:00 Pressure Cook 23:30 Food School

00:00 Watching Ellie 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 Saturday Night Live 05:00 Kath & Kim 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 Married with Children 09:30 Family Biz 10:00 Everybody Loves Raymond 10:30 Dharma & Greg 11:00 Frasier 11:30 The Bernie Mac show 12:00 Saturday Night Live 13:00 Two and a half men 13:30 Tyler Perry’s House of Payne 14:00 Married with Children 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 Mothe 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 Entourage 23:00 Saturday 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!

22:00 The Tonight Show with Jay Leno 23:00 The Monique Show

00:00 The Bank Job-PG15 02:00 The Secret Lives Of Second WivesPG15 04:00 Igor-PG 06:00 Skin-PG 08:00 The Dark Knight-PG15 10:30 Call Of The North-PG 12:00 Ocean’s Thirteen-PG15 14:00 Capturing Mary-PG15 15:30 The Dark Knight-PG15 18:15 Drillbit Taylor-PG15 20:00 My One and Only-PG15 22:00 Tropic Thunder-18

01:00 Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation-18 03:00 Psycho-PG15 05:00 Road Of No Return-PG15 07:00 Mercury Man-PG15 09:00 The X Files-PG15 11:00 Star Trek 10: Nemesis-PG15 13:00 Stargate: The Ark Of Truth-PG 15:00 The X Files-PG15 17:00 Heist-PG15 19:00 Cloverfield-PG15 21:00 Inside Ring-PG15 23:00 Scorpion-18

00:00 The Go-getter-PG15 02:00 Kids In The Hall: Brain Candy-18 04:00 Good Burger-PG15 06:00 The Broken Hearts Club-PG 08:00 Committed-PG15 10:00 My Favorite Martian-PG 12:00 Sisterhood Of The Travelling Pants 2-PG15 14:00 Car Babes-PG15 16:00 The Go-getter-PG15 18:00 Women In Trouble-PG15 20:00 In The Loop-18 22:00 American Pie 2-18

00:00 Barbie Magic Of The Rainbow-FAM 02:00 Gladiator Academy: The MovieFAM 04:00 The Jungle Book IV : Hate And Love-FAM 06:00 The Wild Thornberrys Movie-PG 08:00 Barbie Of Swan Lake-FAM 10:00 The Jungle Book IV : Hate And Love-FAM 12:00 Snow 2: Brain Freeze-FAM 14:00 Gladiator Academy: The MovieFAM 16:00 D3: The Mighty Ducks-PG 18:00 Velveteen Rabbit-FAM 20:00 Super 7-FAM 22:00 Snow 2: Brain Freeze-FAM

00:00 “24” 01:00 “24” 02:00 Flash Forwards 03:00 Lipstick Jungle 04:00 Every Body Loves Raymond 04:30 Home Improvement 05:00 The Unusuals 06:00 Better off Ted 06:30 Billable Hours 07:00 Flash Forwards 08:00 Every Body Loves Raymond 08:30 Home Improvement 09:00 Lipstick Jungle 10:00 The Unusuals 11:00 Flash Forwards 12:00 Better off Ted 12:30 Billable Hours 13:00 Every Body Loves Raymond 13:30 Home Improvement 14:00 “24” 15:00 “24” 16:00 The Unusuals 17:00 In Plain Sight 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 Beauty and the Geek 23:00 In Plain Sight

01:00 Premier League Season Review 02:00 Premier League Classics 02:30 Premier League Classics 03:00 Premier League Classics 03:30 Premier League Classics 04:00 Premier League Classics 04:30 Premier League Classics 05:00 Premier League 07:00 Premier League Classics 07:30 Premier League Classics 08:00 Premier League Classics 08:30 Premier League Classics 09:00 Premier League Classics 09:30 Premier League Classics 10:00 Tennis Masters Guinot Mary Cohr 12:00 Tennis Masters Guinot Mary Cohr 14:00 Premier League Golas Of The Season 15:00 Premier League Classics 15:30 Premier League Classics 16:00 Premier League Classics 16:30 Premier League Classics 17:00 Premier League Classics 17:30 Premier League Classics 18:00 Tennis Masters Guinot Mary Cohr 20:00 Tennis Masters Guinot Mary Cohr 22:00 Barclays Premier League Highlights 23:00 Premier League

00:00 Total Rugby 00:30 Super 14 02:30 AFL Toyota Premiership 05:00 World Sport 05:30 V8 Supercars 06:00 Mobil 1 The Grid 06:30 ICC Cricket World 07:00 Live AFL Premiership 10:00 Super League 12:00 V8 Supercars 12:30 Live NRL Premiership 14:30 ICC Cricket World 15:00 European Tour Weekly 15:30 Total Rugby 16:00 Live Super 14 18:00 Live European Challenge Cup Final 20:00 Live Super League 22:00 ICC Cricket World 22:30 Super 14

01:35 Anchors Aweigh 04:00 The Dirty Dozen 06:30 The Screening Room 07:00 Silk Stockings 08:55 The Bad And The Beautiful 10:55 Some Came Running 13:10 The Glass Bottom Boat 15:00 My Favorite Year 16:30 On The Town 18:05 The Screening Room 18:30 Beau Brummell 20:20 Elvis: That’s The Way It Is 22:00 Coma 23:55 California Split

00:30 Deep Wreck Mysteries 01:20 Mega Movers 02:10 Cities of the Underworld 03:00 The Crusades 03:55 Dead Men’s Secrets 04:50 The Universe 05:40 Extreme Trains 06:30 Deep Wreck Mysteries 07:20 Mega Movers 08:10 Cities of the Underworld 09:00 The Crusades 09:55 Dead Men’s Secrets 10:50 The Universe 11:40 Extreme Trains 12:30 Deep Wreck Mysteries 13:20 Mega Movers 14:10 Cities of the Underworld 15:00 The Crusades 15:55 Dead Men’s Secrets 16:50 The Universe 17:40 Extreme Trains 18:30 Deep Wreck Mysteries 19:20 Mega Movers 20:10 Cities of the Underworld 21:00 Hotel Ground Zero 21:55 102 Minutes that Changed America 23:40 Conspiracy?

00:00 Jerseylicious 01:00 Kimora: Life in the Fab Lane 01:30 Dallas Divas & Daughters 02:00 Whose Wedding Is it Anyway?

03:00 How Do I Look?

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 Clean House 14:00 Clean House 15:00 Clean House 16:00 Clean House 17:00 Clean House 18:00 Clean House 19:00 Clean House 20:00 Clean House 21:00 Ruby 22:00 Jerseylicious 23:00 Dr 90210

01:00 Code 01:04 New 01:35 Playlist 02:00 Urban Hit 02:45 Playlist 05:00 Code 05:04 Playlist 08:00 Code 08:04 Rnb 10 08:45 Playlist 11:00 Club 10 11:45 Playlist 13:00 Code 13:04 Urban Hit 13:50 Playlist 14:00 Focus 15:00 Guest Star 15:15 Playlist 16:00 Code 16:04 French Only 16:45 Playlist 18:00 Urban Hit 30 20:00 Code 20:04 Africa 10 20:45 Playlist 21:00 Trace Video Mix 22:00 Legend 23:00 Club 10 23:45 Playlist

00:00 World’s Greatest Motorcycle Rides 01:00 Globe Trekker 02:00 Down the Line 03:00 Essential 03:30 Culture Shock 04:00 Globe Trekker 05:00 Planet Food 06:00 World’s Greatest Motorcycle Rides 07:00 Globe Trekker 08:00 Spring 08:30 Top Travel 09:00 Inside Luxury Travel-Varun Sharma 10:00 Distant Shores 10:30 Distant Shores 11:00 Distant Shores 11:30 Distant Shores 12:00 Globe Trekker 13:00 Planet Food 14:00 Chef Abroad 14:30 Chef Abroad 15:00 Think Green 16:00 Globe Trekker 17:00 Inside Walt Disney Studios - Paris 18:00 Inside Luxury Travel-Varun Sharma 19:00 Floyd On Africa 19:30 Chef Abroad 20:00 Chef Abroad 20:30 Sophie Grigson in the Souk 21:00 Planet Food 22:00 Top Travel 22:30 Destination Art 23:00 Globe Trekker

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 Vintage 13:00 Music For The Masses 14:00 Britney vs Christina Weekend 17:00 Final Countdown Best First Hits 21:00 100 Greatest Hard  Rock Songs Pt3 22:00 100 Greatest Hard  Rock Songs Pt4 23:00 Saturday Night Fever 23-05-2010

00:00 WWE Smack Down 02:00 WWE Bottom Line 03:00 WWE NXT 04:00 NRL Full Time 06:00 UFC Unleased 07:00 WWE Bottom Line 08:00 WWE NXT 09:00 WWE Smack Down 11:00 WWE Vintage Collection 12:00 WWE Bottom Line 13:00 FIA GT1 World Championship 15:00 V8 Supercars 16:00 V8 Supercars 16:30 Live PGA European Tour 20:30 European Challenge Cup 22:30 WWE Smack Down

01:45 Expired-18 04:00 The Memsahib-PG15 06:00 Australia-PG 09:00 The 11th Hour-U 11:00 Happy Go Lucky-PG15 13:00 Impact 1-PG15 15:00 Impact 2-PG15 17:00 The 11th Hour-U 19:00 Marley And Me-PG15 21:00 The Golden Compass-PG 23:00 State’s Evidence-18

Ocean’s Thirteen on Show Movies

Star Listings (UAE Timings) STAR Movies 20:50 Picture Perfect 22:35 Solar Destruction 00:05 Keeping The Faith 02:15 Nanny’s Secret, A 03:50 Picture Perfect 05:35 Solar Destruction 07:05 Keeping The Faith 09:15 Just Married 10:50 Joshua 12:35 Pandemic 14:10 Life With Mikey 15:45 Invincible 17:30 Transporter, The 19:00 From Hell STAR World 20:00 American Idol 21:00 [V] Tunes 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 08:30 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 The Bold and the Beautiful The Bold and the Beautiful October Road American Idol [V] Tunes Stone Undercover Scrubs Scrubs According To Jim According To Jim Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?

American Idol Samantha Who? Rules Of Engagement Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?

Granada TV 20:00 The Friday Night Project - Patsy Kensit 20:30 Miranda 21:00 I’m A Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here! (Series 7) 22:30 The Real Good Life 23:00 I’m A Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here! (Series 7) 00:30 The Real Good Life 01:00 Northern Lights 02:00 The Last Detective (Series 1) 03:30 Art Crime 04:30 I’m A Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here! (Series 7) 06:00 Emmerdale (WEEKEND OMNIBUS)

07:30 08:00 09:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 13:00 14:00 16:00 17:00 18:00 19:00

Big Bad World (Series 2) All About George (Series 1) Art Crime 60 Minute Makeover (Series 3) Come Dine With Me (Primetime Series 2) Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway (Series 3) Stars In Their Eyes (Series 13) Prime Drama: Too Good To Be True Come Dine With Me (Primetime Series 2) Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway (Series 3) Stars In Their Eyes (Series 13) Prime Drama: Too Good To Be True

Channel [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 [V] Plug 04:30 The Playlist 05:00 [V] Special 06:00 [V] Tunes

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] 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

Fox News 20:00 Happening Now 21:00 The Live Desk 23:00 Studio B with Shepard Smith Live 00:00 Your World with Neil Cavuto 01:00 Glenn Beck with Glenn Beck 02:00 Special Report with Bret Baier 03:00 The FOX Report with Shepard Smith 04:00 The O’Reilly Factor 05:00 Hannity 06:00 On the Record with Greta Van Susteren

07:00 08:00 09:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 13:00 14:00 15:00 16:00 17:00 18:00 18:30 19:00 19:30

The O’Reilly Factor Hannity On the Record with Greta Van Susteren Glenn Beck with Glenn Beck Fox Report Special Report with Bret Baier Hannity (repeat) The O’Reilly Factor (repeat) FOX and Friends Saturday FOX and Friends Saturday FOX and Friends Saturday Bulls and Bears Cavuto On Business FORBES on FOX Cashin’ In

National Geographic Channel 20:00 Inside -Inside: Bethlehem Under Fire 21:00 Against All Odds -Bolt From The Blue S1-3 22:00 Is It Real? -Ghosts 1 22:30 Is It Real? -Crop Circles 2 23:00 THEME WEEK -Fight Science : Fight Like An Animal 00:00 Rescue Ink -Biting Back 2 01:00 Convoy - War For The Atlantic -Wolfpack Rising 1 02:00 Megastructures -Super Carrier : Into The Danger Zone 03:00 Adventure Wanted -Stock Car S1-5 04:00 Food Lovers Guide To The Planet -Korean Code

04:30 Food Lovers Guide To The Planet -Pepper Planet 05:00 Mystery Files 30min -Mystery Files : Cleopatra 13 05:30 Mystery Files 30min -Mystery Files : Robin Hood 1 06:00 Wild Africa -Hyena Queen 07:00 Nat Geo Weekends -The Known Universe : Sizing Up The Universe 08:00 Mystery Files 30min -Mystery Files : Cleopatra 13 08:30 Mystery Files 30min -Mystery Files : Robin Hood 1 09:00 ABOUT ASIA -ShowReal Asia : Supercell 10:00 ABOUT ASIA -ShowReal Asia : Super Cyclone 11:00 Best Job in the world -The Best Job In The World : Day 1 1 11:30 Best Job in the world -The Best Job In The World : Girlfriend On The Run 2 12:00 Megastructures -Super Carrier : Into The Danger Zone 13:00 Nat Geo Weekends -The Known Universe : Blowing Up The Universe 14:00 Taiwan To The World -Taiwan to the World : Womb of the World 15:00 Mystery Files 30min -Mystery Files : Cleopatra 13 15:30 Mystery Files 30min -Mystery Files : Robin Hood 1 16:00 Megastructures -Super Carrier : Into The Danger Zone 17:00 Nat Geo Weekends -The Known Universe : Blowing Up The Universe 18:00 Taiwan To The World -Taiwan to the World : Womb of the World 19:00 ABOUT ASIA -ShowReal Asia : Kick Fighters

NEWS

Saturday, May 22, 2010

19

1794 silver coin sells for $7.85m

NAHARIYA: Victor Nader (left), a former Southern Lebanese Army (SLA) officer, talks to Lebanese members of his former unit on the beach at this Israeli coastal town on May 19, 2010. — AFP

Israel’s former Lebanese allies now feel abandoned NAHARIYA, Israel: When Victor Nader, commander of the South Lebanon Army (SLA) special forces, calls his troops they show up promptly. These days, though, the rallying point is a beachside cafe in Israel. Most of the 23 fighters in his elite unit moved to Israel after the end of the 22-year occupation of Lebanon on May 24, 2000 led to the collapse of the SLA. But like many of the SLA fighters who fled across the border 10 years ago, they say Israel has done very little in recognition of their support during the conflict.

Trained, financed and armed by Israel, the Christian SLA battled Palestinians and Shiite Hezbollah fighters during the occupation of southern Lebanon. When the Israeli troops pulled out the militiamen fled, fearing persecution by Hezbollah and others in the area who considered them traitors. Some 3,000 SLA veterans now live in Israel, often working in low-paying factory, restaurant or cleaning jobs. Many of them claim they are not getting due recognition for their support for Israeli troops, and that the financial aid they do

receive is insufficient.

“For 14 years I fought for Israel, and look what they give us - nothing,” said Bassam Hajjar, one ex-soldier who responded to Nader’s summons to regroup at a cafe in Nahariya, eight kilometres from the Lebanese border. “They did not give us a house, not even a real education,” said Hajjar, a father of four who works at a metallurgical plant. A fluent Hebrew-speaker, Hajjar is now an Israeli citizen, as are most of the former SLA members who fled to the Jewish state. But he and his friends all say they still sorely miss their native Lebanon.

After chatting over coffee, Nader and his men drove the few kilometres to the Rosh Hanikra border post where Lebanon can be seen through the barbed wire. “We have 700 SLA men who fell and are buried there, with IDF (Israel Defence Force) badges on their uniforms,” said Nader, a 48-year-old electrician whose towering, muscular frame betrays his military past. Faddi Taomeh, a former sniper sporting a tight camouflage

T-shirt and a web of scars, said the veterans were not asking for much. “We just want to live like everybody else,” he said.

But the men of the SLA special forces know there are not many places that would welcome them. “No one wants us,” said Nader, who lived in France for several years before moving to Israel in 2008. France refused him refugee status, citing his role in the SLA “whose human rights violations are notorious”. The SLA gained notoriety for what Amnesty International said was the “systematic” torture of prisoners, particularly at the infamous Khiam prison in southern Lebanon.

Nader knows he definitely is not welcome in Lebanon, where those former SLA members who did return are often viewed as traitors and faced prison sentences on charges of collaborating with the enemy. “In 2000 when the IDF pulled out, I knew it was the end of Lebanon,” said Nader. “I know I will never return,” he added. But in the event of another war, “I will be with Israel.” — AFP

Greece woos China, Arabs Continued from Page 1 minister of oil-rich Libya, Baghdadi Mahmudi, and on Thursday held talks with Arab businessmen and officials in Beirut, Lebanon. “Making cuts will not go far enough to deal with our fiscal problems,” Papandreou told parliament Friday.

“What is needed is growth ... You can see the tremendous effort we are making to

attract productive investment.” Greece’s national debt - already more than €300 billion ($375 billion) - is due to increase to 133 percent of Gross Domestic Product this year, maintaining concern among countries that use the euro.

The Finance Ministry yesterday said the country has beaten targets to reduce its budget deficit so far this year. It said the January-April budget shortfall was

€6.31 billion ($7.77 billion), compared with €10.79 billion in 2009 - a 41.5 percent reduction that bettered the target set by the government of 35.1 percent.

Greece’s strict adherence to budget targets and its harsh austerity program were set as conditions to winning a €110 billion three-year rescue loan package from other European Union countries and the IMF. — AP

At Dubai eatery, camel makes burger the king Continued from Page 1 comes the steak,” Ramesh says. The burger comes with onions, tomatoes, cheese, mayonnaise and ketchup, sandwiched between two pieces of khameer, a thin, round bread topped with sesame seeds. The meat is similar in texture to beef, but a bit tougher. It has a slightly smoky flavour with a tangy aftertaste, but

its taste is mostly obscured by the ketchupmayonnaise mix. Camel meat, Ramesh says, generally has a sweet taste. The burger costs 35 dirhams (about nine dollars), while other dishes range in price between 20 and 72 dirhams (about six and 20 dollars).

Local House, in the Bur Dubai area, is housed in a drab-brown building that would be fairly nondescript, were it not for the exterior decorations. In addition to the

“yummy camel burger” sign, a poster shows a cartoon Emirati man holding the reins of a camel that is clutching a burger in its teeth. There is currently only one branch of the restaurant, but Ramesh says there are plans to expand to other emirates in the UAE, and also to open a branch in Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building.

Opening branches in other Gulf countries is also a possibility, he says. — AFP

US scientists create first ‘synthetic cell’ Continued from Page 1 The method could be used to design bacteria specifically to help produce biofuels or to clean up environmental hazards, said the study carried out by the J Craig Venter Institute, and published in the journal Science. Potential applications include producing algae to clean up carbon dioxide, one of the main greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, or making new clean energy hydrocarbons for refineries. Researchers also hope to work on techniques to speed up the production of vaccines and to make new food ingredients and chemical substances. “This becomes a very powerful tool for trying to design what we want biology to do,” said Venter, co-author of the first sequencing of the human genome in 2000.

The report, published yesterday in the journal Science, is triggering excitement in this growing field of synthetic biology.

“It’s been a long time coming, and it was worth the wait,” said Dr George Church, a Harvard Medical School genetics professor. “It’s a milestone that has potential practical applications.” The project has overcome some hurdles in engineering larger genomes that will help push forward the field, said biological engineer Dr Ron Weiss, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology leader in synthetic biology.

“It’s an important step,” said Weiss. Even though the manmade DNA needed an already living cell to start working, eventually it reproduced and “all elements in the cells after some amount of time can be traced to this initial artificial DNA. That’s a great accomplishment.”

But critics warned that he and his team were opening up a Pandora’s Box by paving the way towards building artificial organisms that are still not properly understood. In an interview with the BBC, Venter defended himself from accusations that he was “playing God”.

“That’s a term that comes up every time there is a new medical or scientific breakthrough associated with biology,” he said.

“It’s been a goal of humanity from the earlier stages to try and control nature... that’s how we got domesticated animals.

“This is the next stage in our understanding, it is a baby step in our understanding of how life fundamentally works and maybe how we can get some new handles on trying to control these microbial systems to benefit humanity.”

The researchers synthesized the 1.08 million base pair genome of the bacterium Mycoplasma mycoides - which commonly causes mastitis in goats - created from four bottles of the chemicals which make up the components of DNA. They also added “watermarks” to the synthetic genome to distinguish it from a natural one. The watermarks included the names of 46 authors and scientists who worked on the project on the genome along with its own website address - so that anyone who decodes it can send an email to the team. Three sets of quotations including “to live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life” from Irish author James Joyce were also included.

Venter told a press conference the team had started with a living cell, which had been transformed with the synthetic genome, adding the cell had gone through

a “million steps of replication” and was now frozen in a freezer. “This is an important step we think, both scientifically and philosophically. It’s certainly changed my views of the definitions of life and how life works,” he added in a statement.

Throughout the research, the team had engaged in discussions about the ethical implications of their work, he stressed. But Canadian international technology watchdog ETC Group warned against further such research. The synthetic cell “is not a one-stop shop for all our societal woes,” said the group’s director Pat Mooney. “It is much more likely to cause a whole new set of problems governments and society are ill-prepared to address.”

Venter’s team announced in 2008 that it had chemically synthesized a bacterial genome, but it was unable to activate that genome in a cell at that time. Now the team had managed to “boot up” the synthetic genome to create the first cell controlled by a synthetic genome. But Jim Thomas from the ETC Group warned: “Synthetic biology is a high-risk, profitdriven field, building organisms out of parts that are still poorly understood.

“We know that lab-created life forms can escape, become biological weapons and that their use threatens existing natural biodiversity.”

Dismissing the danger of bio-terrorism, Venter added to the BBC: “The technology is not for sale, the cells are not for sale. We are trying to use this technology to advance vaccine protection, we are trying to use it to advance the basic understanding of cellular life.” — Agencies

LOS ANGELES: What may be America’s oldest silver dollar has become the world’s most expensive coin, with its owner saying it changed hands in a private transaction between coin collectors for nearly $8 million. Steven L Contursi, who has owned the mint-condition 1794 Liberty dollar for the past seven years, confirmed Thursday that he sold it to the Cardinal Collection Educational Foundation of California for $7.85 million. The previous record price paid for a coin was $7.59 million for a USminted 1933 $20 gold piece, according to the American Numismatic Association. The US began producing silver dollars in 1794, and this particular one remains in near-perfect condition 216 years later.

That being the case, the price it fetched was not surprising, said professional coin grader David Hall. “Even if it looks like it’s been run over by a truck it would still be worth a hundred grand,” he said. Part of the so-called flowing-hair silver dollars, the coin has a portrait of Lady Liberty with long, straight hair on the front and a noticeably skinny American eagle on the back.

“That’s the type of piece that is available maybe once in a lifetime,” said Martin Logies, curator of the Cardinal Collection, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving rare coins and educating the public about them. He said the foundation plans to put the coin on display, just as Contursi did much of the time he owned it.

Numismatic experts say it was among the first US silver dollars ever made. “From the research I’ve done, it is unquestionably the earliest struck of all the pieces known to remain in existence,” said Logies, author of “The Flowing Hair Silver Dollars of 1794”. Of the approximately 1,750 such dollars produced that year, only about 150 are known to exist. The quality of the imprint on this one shows it was struck on a handcranked press from a special piece of polished, high-quality silver. That indicates it was intended for either a dignitary or the mint’s own private collection, said Larry Shepherd, executive director of the American Numismatic Association.

It likely remained in the mint’s collection until the 1800s, Shepherd said, when it was probably traded to a private collec-

PITTSBURGH: This 2004 image shows Steven L Contursi, President of Rare Coin Wholesalers, being interviewed at the exhibit of his 1794-dated US silver dollar at the World’s Fair of Money. — AP tor, something he said the mint sometimes did in those days.

Contursi, who runs California-based Rare Coin Wholesalers, acquired it for an undisclosed sum in 2003. He said he wasn’t looking to sell it until Logies approached him. The Cardinal Collection curator had been one of a handful of experts Contursi had allowed to examine the coin after he bought it. He joked that Logies had had his eye on it ever since. “He just finally made me an offer I couldn’t refuse,” he laughed. — AP

Indonesian child smokers rising JAKARTA: Ardi Rizal, 2, throws a tantrum when his parents refuse him a cigarette. His father gave him his first when he was just 18 months old. The smoking toddler was witnessed by a reporter who recently visited his home in the fishing village of Musi Banyuasin, in Indonesia’s South Sumatra province. “I’m not worried about his health, he looks healthy,” shrugged the boy’s father Mohammad Rizal. “He cries and throws tantrums when we don’t let him smoke.

He’s addicted.”

Ardi’s youth is the extreme of a disturbing trend. Data from the Central Statistics Agency showed 25 percent of Indonesian children aged 3 to 15 have tried cigarettes, with 3.2 percent of those active smokers.

The percentage of 5- to 9-year-olds lighting up increased from 0.4 percent in 2001 to 2.8 percent in 2004, the agency reported.

A video of a 4-year-old Indonesian boy blowing smoke rings appeared briefly on YouTube in March, prompting outrage before it was removed from the site. Child advocates are speaking out about the health damage to children from secondhand smoke, and the growing pressure on them to pick up a

cigarette in a country where one-third of the population uses tobacco and single cigarettes can be bought for a few cents.

Seto Mulyadi, chairman of Indonesia’s child protection commission, blames the increase on aggressive advertising and parents who are smokers. “A law to protect children and passive smokers should be introduced immediately in this country,” he said. A health law passed in 2009 formally recognizes that smoking is addictive, and an anti-smoking coalition is pushing for tighter restrictions on smoking in public places, advertising bans and bigger health warnings on cigarette packages.

But a bill on tobacco control has been stalled because of opposition from the tobacco industry. The bill would ban cigarette advertising and sponsorship, prohibit smoking in public, and add graphic images to packaging. Benny Wahyudi, a senior official at the Industry Ministry, said the government had initiated a plan to try to limit the number of smokers, including dropping production to 240 billion cigarettes this year, from 245 billion in 2009. “The government is aware of the impact of smoking on health

and has taken efforts, including lowering cigarette production, increasing its tax and limiting smoking areas,” he said.

Mulyadi said a ban on advertising is key to putting the brakes on child and teen smoking. “If cigarette advertising is not banned, there will be more kids whose lives are threatened because of smoking,” he said.

Ubiquitous advertising hit a bump last month when a cigarette company was forced to withdraw its sponsorship of pop star Kelly Clarkson’s concert following protests from fans and anti-tobacco groups.

However, imposing a nonsmoking message will be difficult in Indonesia, the world’s third-largest tobacco consumer.

Tubagus Haryo Karbyanto, a member of the National Commission of Tobacco Control, said Indonesia must also address the social conditions that lead to smoking, such as family influence and peer pressure.

“The promotion of health has to be integrated down to the smallest units in our society, from public health centers and local health care centers to the family,” he was quoted as saying by the Jakarta Globe yesterday. — AP

Is Dora the Explorer an illegal immigrant?

Continued from Page 1 Her smiling cherub face is plastered on everything from backpacks to T-shirts to fruit snacks. But since the passage of the Arizona law - which requires authorities to question people about their immigration status if there’s reason to suspect they’re in the country illegally - Dora’s life and immigration status have been scrutinized and mocked.

“Dora is kind of like a blank screen onto which people can project their thoughts and feelings about Latinos,” said Erynn Masi de Casanova, a sociology professor at the University of Cincinnati. “They feel like they can say negative things because she’s only a cartoon character.” The depictions, whether through irony or protest, are being used by those who oppose and support Arizona’s law. On one hand she’s a likable symbol who many can relate to, and at the same time, perceived as an outsider who doesn’t belong anywhere.

It’s not the first time a children’s character has been dragged into a serious debate.

In the late 1990s, Tinky Winky the Teletubby, a purple children’s TV character with a triangle antenna - was called out by Christian leaders for being gay. Sesame Street roommates Bert and Ernie are often involved in statements on same-sex marriage. Both shows’ producers say the characters aren’t gay. In Dora’s case, especially because her image is so widely available, she’s an easy target as discussion ramps up on how lawmakers should address the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants living in the United States.

Several websites, including The Huffington Post, have narrated Dora’s mock capture by immigration authorities. One picture circulating on Facebook shows an ad for

a TV show called “Dora the Illegal Immigrant”. On the Facebook page “Dora the Explorer is soo an Illegal Immigrant,” there are several images showing her sailing through the air over the US-Mexican border.

Many of the Dora images assume the Latina character is an illegal immigrant from Mexico. But that’s where it gets complicated. Representatives from Nickelodeon declined to comment on Dora’s background, and her place of birth or citizenship have never been clear. She has brown skin, dark hair and speaks Spanish with an American accent. “She’s always been ambiguously constructed,” said Angharad Valdivia, who teaches media studies at the University of Illinois and has explored the issue. “In the US the way we understand race is about putting people in categories and we’re uncomfortable with people we can’t put into categories.”

Dora lives in an unidentified location with pyramids that suggest Mexico, but also tropical elements such as palm trees and her friends, Isa the iguana and Boots the monkey.

Does that mean she’s from South America or Florida? Then there’s oak trees and her fox nemesis Swiper, which are more common to the American Midwest. The show often plays Salsa-like music, which has some roots in Cuba and is popular across Latin America.

Even the voice actresses behind Dora don’t provide insight.

The original Dora voice belonged to Kathleen Herles, whose parents are from Peru. Dora is currently voiced by actress Caitlin Sanchez, a New Jersey-born teen who calls herself Cuban American; her grandparents are Cuban. The images have been used on all sides of the immigration reform debate.

Many immigrant families, particularly Latinos, see Dora as a symbol of freedom, someone to relate to. She’s a young girl with brown skin

who lives in a borderless world and can travel anywhere she wants without consequence.

“It’s symbolic of the way many Latinos live ambiguously in the United States,” said Nicole Guidotti-Hernandez who teaches gender studies at the University of Arizona. “It’s a shorthand for claiming our lives in the United States, especially for children.”

At the same time, Guidotti-Hernandez says the ambiguity and negative imagery makes Dora susceptible to being used by those who support the Arizona law. As for the mug shot, it’s been around since late last year, when Debbie Groben of Florida created it and entered it in a contest for the fake news site FreakingNews.com. Since debate over the Arizona law heated up America’s immigration debate, it’s been emailed and texted widely and used on signs at rallies. “My intentions were to do something funny, something and irreverent,” said Groben, who said she opposes Arizona’s law. “I actually like the little kid.”

The issue appears to have resonated little with Dora’s biggest fans, the millions of parents and their children who seem mostly unaware of the discussion encircling their beloved cartoon. Altamise Leach, who has three children, said Dora’s ethnicity and citizenship are irrelevant. The stay-at-home mom credits the cartoon with helping teach her children team work. She even threw her 3-year-old daughter a Dora birthday party, complete with a Dora-like adventure, Dora cake and a woman who dressed up as Dora.

“We have so many diverse cultures, let’s try to embrace everybody,” Leach said. “She puts a smile on my daughter’s face, that’s all I want.” Erick Wyatt said he never thought about Dora’s origins and his three children never asked. “I just thought she was a cartoon character that spoke Spanish,” the Michigan man said. — AP

Thailand faces ‘huge challenges’: PM Continued from Page 1 government they condemn as undemocratic, and rival pro-establishment “Yellow Shirts” who represent the nation’s elites.

The Reds are mostly supporters of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a 2006 coup. The billionaire was accused of gross rights abuses and corruption, but won grass-roots support with his populist policies.

Thaksin’s elected allies were later ejected in a controversial court ruling, paving the way for Abhisit’s administration to be appointed in a 2008 army-backed parliamentary vote. The violence in Bangkok drew expressions of concern from across the world and yesterday, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations said peace and stability in

Thailand were crucial to the bloc’s future. It was a rare statement about the internal affairs of one of its members.

Across central Bangkok a huge clean-up was under way after the scenes of anarchy that saw 36 major buildings go up in flames including the stock exchange and the nation’s biggest mall which now lies in ruins.

In the hotspots where protesters have battled with security forces over the past week, roads were being cleared of burned tyres, and concrete blocks and stones that had been used as missiles.

Thailand has suffered regular bouts of civil unrest in its turbulent history, but commentators warned the emotional wounds from unrest that has left 86 dead and 1,900 injured since mid-March could be hard to heal. “No one knows how long it will take to

close the deep divisions that have been opened within Thai families and society,” the Bangkok Post said in a front page editorial.

Bangkok and 23 other provinces in the rural north and northeast - the Reds’ heartland have been put under a curfew until tomorrow to try to contain the conflict and prevent it from spreading across the nation.

Some 300 angry and emotional Reds who had taken part in the protests were welcomed home as heroes in the northern city of Chiang Mai yesterday, greeted by a cheering and flag-waving crowd at the railway station. “I am waiting for instructions from my leaders. I am not giving up. For now I will go home and back to my paddy field. With every one Red Shirt killed we believe a million supporters will emerge,” said 38-year-old Nut Jangakat. — AFP

SPORTS

20

Saturday, May 22, 2010

MLB results/standings Major League Baseball results and standings on Thursday. Kansas City 9, Cleveland 3; Atlanta 10, Cincinnati 9; Philadelphia 5, Chicago Cubs 4; St Louis 4, Florida 2; Detroit 5, Oakland 2; Seattle 4, Toronto 3; NY Mets 10, Washington 7; Tampa Bay 8, NY Yankees 6; Milwaukee 4, Pittsburgh 3; Boston 6, Minnesota 2; Texas 13, Baltimore 7; Colorado 4, Houston 0; LA Angels 6, Chicago White Sox 5; Arizona 8, San Francisco 7; LA Dodgers 4, San Diego 1.

Tampa Bay NY Yankees Toronto Boston Baltimore

American L eague Eastern Division W L PCT 30 11 .732 25 16 .610 25 18 .581 22 20 .524 13 29 .310

GB 5 6 8.5 17.5

Central Division Detroit 24 17 Minnesota 24 17 Kansas City 17 25 Chicago White Sox 16 24 Cleveland 15 24

.585 .585 .405 .400 .385

7.5 7.5 8

Texas Oakland LA Angels Seattle

Western Division 24 18 20 22 20 23 15 26

.571 .476 .465 .366

4 4.5 8.5

Philadelphia Florida Atlanta Washington NY Mets

National League Eastern Division 25 15 22 20 21 20 21 21 20 22

.625 .524 .512 .500 .476

4 4.5 5 6

St. Louis Cincinnati Chicago Cubs Pittsburgh Milwaukee Houston

Central Division 24 18 23 18 19 23 18 23 16 25 14 27

.571 .561 .452 .439 .390 .341

1.5 5 5.5 7.5 9.5

San Diego LA Dodgers San Francisco Colorado Arizona

Western Division 24 17 23 18 22 18 20 21 18 24

.585 .561 .550 .488 .429

1 1.5 4 6.5

ST LOUIS: Florida Marlins’ Brett Hayes (left) is out a second as St. Louis Cardinals shortstop Brendan Ryan fails to turn the double play during the seventh inning of a baseball game.—AP

Braves stun Reds, Cardinals down Marlins ATLANTA: Brooks Conrad hit a pinch-hit grand slam to cap a seven-run ninth inning that gave the Atlanta Braves a stunning 109 victory over the Cincinnati Reds on Thursday.

The Braves fell behind 8-0 against rookie Mike Leake and were still down 9-3 heading to the ninth. Four straight hits, including Nate McLouth’s two-run single, gave the Braves hope. A walk to David Ross loaded the bases with no outs, bringing the potential tying run to the plate.

Martin Prado hit a grounder to third that looked like a double play, but Miguel Cairo could not get the ball out of his glove _ Cincinnati’s fourth error. Jason Heyward struck out against Arthur Rhodes, and Cincinnati turned to closer Francisco Cordero (1-3), who served up the home run to Conrad. The ball deflected off the glove of left fielder Laynce Nix and over the wall.

Cardinals 4, Marlins 2 At St. Louis, Adam Wainwright dominat-

ed after a shaky start and Matt Holliday got his first two RBIs in four games since moving to third in the order as St. Louis beat Florida.

Wainwright (6-2) allowed the first two first-inning runs against him this season, but he settled down to go seven innings. He allowed six hits and struck out eight.

Hanley Ramirez had an RBI single and a walk for the Marlins, who lost for only the second time in eight games.

Phillies 5, Cubs 4 At Philadelphia, Raul Ibanez hit a tiebreaking RBI single in the eighth inning, Jimmy Rollins hit a three-run homer and Chase Utley also went deep as Philadelphia edged Chicago.

Danys Baez (2-1) retired all three batters he faced to earn the win. Jose Contreras pitched out of a jam in the ninth for his second save in two tries. He’s is filling in as the closer with Brad Lidge and Ryan Madson on the disabled list.

Kosuke Fukudome hit a tying solo shot in the eighth, and Derrek Lee also connected for Chicago. John Grabow (0-3) took the loss after coming on in relief in the eighth.

Brewers 4, Pirates 3 At Pittsburgh, George Kottaras, playing only because of an injury, doubled in a run as Milwaukee rallied from a three-run deficit to beat Pittsburgh and end a nine-game losing streak. The Brewers came back from 3-0 deficit in the first with two two-run innings.

Carlos Villanueva finished it off by pitching the ninth for the first save this season by a Brewers reliever other than Trevor Hoffman, who sat out the two-game series to work on mechanical problems.

Villanueva hit pinch-hitter Ryan Doumit in the back with a pitch with one out, only to get Delwyn Young to ground into a gameending double play.

Mets 10, Nationals 7 At Washington, David Wright hit a three-

run double and had four RBIs for New York, and Raul Valdes filled in admirably for injured starter John Maine for five innings.

Wright put the Mets ahead 3-0 with a double but in the bottom of the first Maine threw just five pitches — a walk to Nyjer Morgan — before Mets manager Jerry Manuel removed him. Maine, who has had problems with his right shoulder, left the game “for precautionary reasons,” the Mets said. He will see a doctor Friday.

Valdes (2-1) pitched five innings, allowing three runs and seven hits. He struck out six and walked one. Wright added a sacrifice fly during a five-run fifth inning for the Mets, who had lost nine of 11.

Rockies 4, Astros 0 At Houston, Ubaldo Jimenez allowed one hit over seven innings and Troy Tulowitzki had a three-run homer for Colorado, which beat Houston to break a three-game losing streak.

The only hit Jimenez (8-1) allowed was

Humberto Quintero’s single to start the third inning. Jimenez, who improved his major league-low ERA to 0.99, struck out four and walked two.

Matt Belisle allowed one hit in the eighth before Manny Corpas did the same in the ninth to complete the shutout. A single by Brad Hawpe in the eighth drove in a run to make it 4-0.

D’backs 8, Giants 7 At Phoenix, Conor Jackson scored the tie-breaking run on a wild pitch with two outs in the eighth inning as Arizona completed a two-game sweep of San Francisco.

Mark Reynolds hit his 100th career home run and had three RBIs, and Stephen Drew drove in two runs for the Diamondbacks.

Reynolds was at-bat when Jeremy Affeldt (2-3) bounced a pitch well short of the plate, allowing the winning run to score. Juan Uribe and John Bowker hit home runs and Aubrey Huff had two RBIs for the Giants.

Griffey pinch single helps Mariners defeat Jays 4-3 SEATTLE: Ken Griffey Jr.’s gamewinning, pinch-hit single in the ninth inning capped Seattle’s three-run rally off American League saves leader Kevin Gregg and gave the Mariners a 4-3 victory over the Toronto Blue Jays on Thursday.

Seattle ended a five-game losing streak and Griffey’s teammates mobbed him between first and second base. Nine days ago the Mariners rallied to his defense following a report he was unavailable to pinch-hit in an earlier loss because he was sleeping in the clubhouse. It was the first gameending hit of Seattle’s disappointing season. Josh Bard tied the game with a sacrifice fly.

Royals 9, Indians 3 At Cleveland, Luke Hochevar pitched a complete game and Alberto Callaspo hit a three-run homer as Kansas City beat Cleveland.

Hochevar (4-2) gave up four hits to go the distance for the third time in his career. He had no trouble with the Indians, who were without the top two hitters in their lineup — Asdrubal Cabrera and Grady Sizemore, both out with injuries.

Hochevar, who had lost his last three starts to Cleveland, gave up two first-inning singles and then retired 15 of 16 before Choo Shinsoo’s double in the sixth.

Callaspo connected for his seventh homer in the third off Mitch Talbot (5-3), and Jose Guillen later added his ninth homer this season.

Jhonny Peralta hit a two-run homer for the Indians, who dropped their fourth straight and fell below the Royals into last place in the AL Central.

Tigers 5, Athletics 2

Rangers 13, Orioles 7

At Oakland, California, Miguel Cabrera and Magglio Ordonez both drove in two runs for Detroit, and Jeremy Bonderman won for the first time in over a month. Tyson Ross lasted four innings in his second start, allowing three runs and seven hits. Ross was an emergency starter for Oakland when Justin Duchscherer was unable to start last Saturday. He’s given up seven runs over 10 2-3 innings after allowing six in his first 16.

At Arlington, Texas, Nelson Cruz had a three-run homer and drove in four runs in his first career four-hit game as Texas ran its winning streak to four games. Rangers starter Scott Feldman (2-4) had the benefit of early run support to win for the first time since April 11 despite allowing a career-high 12 hits over six innings.

Feldman gave up four runs, struck out five and walked one as AL West leader Texas won for the 10th time in 14 games. Matt Treanor added a three-run homer in a five-run eighth and David Murphy had three of Texas’ season-high 20 hits to help the Rangers equal their highest scoring output of the season.

Luke Scott’s three hits led the Orioles, who have lost five of six and own the worst record in the majors (13-29).

Rays 8, Yankees 6 At New York, Carlos Pena homered twice and Ben Zobrist and B.J. Upton also connected as Tampa Bay won its sixth straight game.

A day after tagging A.J. Burnett, the majors’ best team came out swinging against Andy Pettitte (51). Jason Bartlett led off with a double, Carl Crawford followed with an RBI single and then Zobrist homered. Just like that, it was 3-0.

Red Sox 6, Twins 2 At Boston, Kevin Youkilis hit a three-run homer and added an RBI double to help Jon Lester earn his fourth straight victory.

Lester (4-3) allowed two runs — one earned — six hits and zero walks, striking out nine for his fifth career complete game.

Adrian Beltre homered and Victor Martinez had three doubles for Boston, which completed a twogame sweep. The Twins have scored six runs total while losing their last three games to fall out of sole possession of first place and into a tie with Detroit atop the AL Central.

Lorenzo and Rossi face off in Le Mans

Angels 6, White Sox 5 At Chicago, Ervin Santana pitched seven solid innings and Juan Rivera hit a two-run homer as Los Angeles edged Chicago.

Kendry Morales had three hits and drove in two runs for the Angels, who have won five of seven. Santana (3-3) didn’t have any problems with the White Sox, who came into the game with the worst batting average in baseball at .230. He allowed one unearned run and seven hits.

He struck out six and pitched around three walks. The White Sox have only won two series — Royals and Mariners — this season and have lost eight of 12. White Sox starter Jake Peavy (3-3) was tagged for six runs and eight hits.

He struck out eight and walked two. —AP

Dodgers 4, Padres 1

At Los Angeles, Clayton Kershaw pitched 7 1-3 gritty innings to win his third straight start and Garret Anderson delivered the go-ahead run with a sacrifice fly for Los Angeles.

Kershaw (4-2) allowed a run and seven hits, struck out seven and walked two. He has given up no more than two runs in seven of his last eight starts.

Ronald Belisario struck out both batters he faced and Jonathan Broxton pitched a scoreless ninth for his eighth save in 10 attempts.

Manny Ramirez was out of the Los Angeles Dodgers’ starting lineup on Thursday night for the second straight game because of a sore little toe on his left foot.

The injury occurred while the slugging left fielder was swinging his leg back and forth in the trainer’s room, trying to get loose before Wednesday night’s 10-5 loss to San Diego, and accidentally made contact with a table.—AP

CLEVELAND: Kansas City Royals’ Jose Guillen hits a two-run home run off Cleveland Indians relief pitcher Hector Ambriz in the seventh inning of a baseball game.—AP

LE MANS: Yamaha teammates Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi continue their battle for MotoGP supremacy in the third leg of the 2010 season at Le Mans tomorrow.

Lorenzo approaches the French Grand Prix in pole position, the Spaniard’s win in Jerez last time out giving him a four-point lead in the riders’ standings after Rossi took the opening race in Qatar.

Lorenzo, who came out tops in difficult conditions in Le Mans 12 months ago, recalled: “Last year I won in Le Mans in an amazing and crazy race - I hope the fans aren’t waiting for a repeat this weekend!”

In an interview with the sport’s official website, motogp.com, he added: “Of course the weather is always a risk in Le Mans, but I hope for sun.

“I’ve been on the podium twice there, last season and when I won my second 250cc title, so I am looking forward to trying again. I’ve had almost three weeks since Jerez and I know that I am ready for this second European race.”

He refused to accept the tag of favourite, saying: “Despite our victory in Jerez and taking the lead in the world standings I continue to think that I am not the favourite because the season is very long and it has only just started.”

Rossi had a race to forget in Le Mans last season, the world champion trailing in 16th - but his overall form at the historic French venue is excellent, with three MotoGP victories here.

He is feeling bullish after recovering from an injury sustained in a motorcross training accident. “My shoulder is more or less recovered now so I hope I will be back to full strength in Le Mans.

“Despite the disaster of last year’s race, Le Mans is a good track for me and the Yamaha always goes well there. The biggest problem is the weather, but after last year I think we deserve a sunny French GP.” Rossi added: “We’ve made a good start to the season, with the win in Qatar and then another podium, but we have also struggled with the bike in some areas and so we need to try to improve our performance. We had a good test after Jerez so I hope that we will be able to use that information to start strongly here.”

Tomorrow’s race is a landmark occasion for Honda’s Dani Pedrosa, who is competing in his 150th MotoGP grand prix.—AFP

SPORTS

Saturday, May 22, 2010

21

Recession fails to frighten sports sponsors LONDON: From a global recession to badly behaved athletes, nothing seems to deter companies from investing in sports sponsorship.

While most industries are feeling the pinch the sporting world has been resilient in its ability to attract companies to splash the cash in return for access to global sports markets and their consumers.

Dutch-based beer company Heineken NV, whose chief brands are Heineken and Amstel, has become synonymous with soccer and rugby as sponsors of the UEFA Champions League, the rugby World Cup and Heineken Cup. “The brand is over 140 years old and we tend to say we have lived through quite some crises in the past and a brand like Heineken looks to the future and invests in the future,” Heineken’s Hans Erik Tujit told Reuters.

Global Director of Brand Activation Tujit added. “That’s why, crisis or no cri-

sis, with that confidence and long term vision, sports sponsorship is almost a natural thing to do.”

Soccer clearly rules the European roost in terms of attracting lucrative sponsorship deals and is currently enjoying a global appeal in the countdown to the June 11-July 11 World Cup in South Africa.

Its ability to bridge new and old markets is highlighted in the Champions League, where hundreds of millions, more outside Europe than in, tune in to watch the eightmonth competition.

“If you chose quality events to be associated with, then I find (sponsorship) quite a limited risk. In the short term, if 83 percent of football fans now watch Champions League, that’s not going to suddenly drop to 50 percent,” Tujit said.

Highly esteemed events represent the lowest risk for sponsors who avoid balancing their brands on the shoulders of a team or individuals vulnerable to poor perfor-

mances or prone to controversial behaviour. Rail company Eurostar, who once raised an estimated 50 million pounds ($71.74 million) worth of PR coverage through sponsoring the launch of the Da Vinci code film, have recently got in on the act as an official sponsor of the 2012 London Olympic Games.

“There is a small risk that the Games don’t run particularly well, but in all honesty we will have got all our benefits before that, so for us it is an incredibly low risk thing to do,” Eurostar Commercial Director Nick Mercer told Reuters.

“What we are trying to do is generate demand using the Games...it is using the excitement and collateral you are able to get from a partnership to be able to do that.”

Of course, sport is not immune from the recession. Deloitte’s most recent Premier League commercial revenue figures show a decrease from 453 million pounds in the

2007/08 season to 449 million in 2008/09.

“In terms of sport, we talk about it being resilient rather than recession-proof and that has definitely come through,” Alan Switzer of Deloitte’s Sports Business Group told Reuters.

“Even in a recession people are generally content to continue to go to sporting events and Sky subscriptions are actually increasing.”

Although total shirt sponsorship revenue across the five biggest European leagues was reported to have dropped by 2.6 percent to 365 million euros ($453.2 million) this season, some clubs have still managed to broker record deals.

Liverpool’s new four-year deal with Standard Chartered Bank is worth a reported 80 million pounds and is the club’s largest ever commercial agreement.

Manchester United start a new deal with Aon Corp next season and Bayern Munich, whose Bundesliga leads the way in

shirt sponsorship revenue, are with Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile.

In golf, last year’s revelations about world number one Tiger Woods’s adulterous affairs led to three of his major corporate sponsors abandoning him but others have shown interest in replacing them as he continues to command huge TV audiences.

This resilience is borne out across the industry with sports from cricket to the fast-developing basketball scene posting positive outlooks on sponsorship.

Craig Sackfield represents the off-field interests of five England cricketers including bowlers Jimmy Anderson and Twenty20 World Cup winner Stuart Broad: “I’ve not noticed a huge drop (in sponsorship interest). I’ve not lost a sponsor during the bad times and Stuart has attracted more sponsorship during the last 12-18 months as his stature has grown,” he told Reuters. “I started this company 18

months ago, probably the worst time to do it, and the recession scared me but it has not had a major influence at all.”

Already hugely prominent in America and Asia, basketball is now booming in Europe and as its global appeal becomes more widespread so does interest in sponsorship.

“We’ve seen an increase in asking for content. If you look at the rights for television or partners, it’s stable,” the International Basketball Federation’s (FIBA) Patrick Baumann told Reuters.

“We are even re-negotiating for the next cycle of rights (2012-14). It looks like that business has not suffered, it keeps going.” The ability of different sports to reach a plethora of consumers ranging from interests in clothing and mobile phones to a cold beer makes the industry an invaluable company resource, which, even in times of financial hardship, continues to prove to be one expenditure worth having.—Reuters

Canadiens down Flyers 5-1 MONTREAL: Cammalleri scored in the first period to end Montreal’s two-game drought against Michael Leighton, leading the Montreal Canadiens to a 5-1 win over the Philadelphia Flyers in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference final.

Tom Pyatt and Dominic Moore had a goal and assist each for Montreal, which earned its first win in the series. Brian Gionta and MarcAndre Bergeron also scored as Leighton’s shutout streak was snapped at 172:05.

“We are a much better team when our backs are against the wall,” Gionta said. “We’ve dealt with it all year.” Philadelphia’s Simon Gagne foiled Jaroslav Halak’s shutout bid by scoring 8:22 into the third period.

Leighton stopped 34 shots.

The Flyers had won six straight, dating to their secondround series win over Boston during which they overcame a 3-0 series deficit. It was Leighton’s first loss in five starts since taking over after Brian Boucher hurt his knee.

Cammalleri got it started with his team-leading 13th goal, opening the scoring 7:05 into the game. Halak finished with 25 saves.

Playing their first game at home in 10 days, the Canadiens outshot Philadelphia 28-13 in building a 3-0 lead on Moore’s goal midway through the second period. Moore’s score sent the raucous crowd into a fury, leading to derisive chants of “Leighton! Leighton!” Game 4 of the best-of-seven series is Saturday in Montreal. —AP

MONTREAL: Brian Gionta No. 21 of the Montreal Canadiens loses his stick while handling the puck against Scott Hartnell No. 19 of the Philadelphia Flyers in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Finals during the 2010 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs.—AFP

Pumped-up Japan on verge of World Cup

Toulouse seek fourth European Cup crown PARIS: Toulouse will be seeking an unprecedented fourth European Cup title when they take on fellow French club Biarritz at the Stade de France here today.

Toulouse have been the most consistent team in European rugby in the 15 years since the continent’s showpiece tournament was launched, winning three times (1996, 2003, 2005) and twice being losing finalists (2004, 2008).

Opponents Biarritz, who failed to even make it to the Top 14 play-offs so patchy has their domestic form been, did make the 2006 European final when they were pipped by Munster.

This time around, the Basque club dispatched Munster in the semi-final while Toulouse saw off reigning champions Leinster to make it the first all-French final since Toulouse beat Stade Francais 18-12 after extra time five years ago.

Biarritz No 8 Imanol Harinordoquy, the stand-out forward in the Six Nations as France coasted to a Grand Slam, was under no illusion of what to expect from Toulouse - a team he said mirrored the mighty All Blacks.

“They are a model of consistency,” he said. “In terms of squad, structure and results Toulouse are certainly the No 1 club in France - and probably Europe as well.

“I compare them slightly to the All Blacks, especially when you see their three-quarter play and how fast they react on the counter attack. On paper they are the favorites, and they are a team that we don’t often beat, but I believe we can beat them.

“And I am like most children - I always want what I don’t have. It’s so hard to get to a European Cup final and winning it would be so dear to me.”

Current Toulouse captain Thierry Dusautoir was a Biarritz player back in 2006 - and was a 52nd minute replacement in the final - before joining

Toulouse that summer.

“He knows us well enough to be wary and we won’t be expecting any favours from him during the 80 minutes,” joked Harinordoquy.

Biarritz were dealt a hammer blow with the news that star centre Damien Traille had not recovered sufficently from an arm injury to make the match-day squad.

For Toulouse, influential playmaker Jean-Baptiste Elissalde is uncertain, but former All Black scrum-half Byron Kelleher is back in the hot seat after sitting out the club’s 21-13 Top 14 semifinal defeat to Perpignan last week.

Kelleher’s battle with Biarritz’s Dimitri Yachvili, whose all-round kicking game is crucial for his side, could be decisive for the outcome of the game, with the sniping Kiwi hitting some peak form.

Toulouse have also been preparing their forwards for what promises to be an uncompromising battle between some of the hardest-hitting players in world rugby.

After last week conceding 21 points to Perpignan from scrum-related infringements, Toulouse lock Romain MilloChluski has promised a volte-face. “(Against Perpigan) we didn’t show our real side. Our pack must remember that,” he said. “Against Biarritz, who resemble Perpignan pack-wise, it will be interesting.”

Forwards coach Yannick Bru, the former France hooker, was also wary of a Basque pack that dominated a strong Munster opposition in the semi-final.

“We will find ourselves up against a scrum which likes to dominate, very well prepared technically and blessed by a great character,” he said.

Toulouse captain Dusautoir added: “We suffered against Perpignan but we’ll focus on what didn’t work and find the right answers.”—AFP

FRANCE: Toulouse’s players take part in the captain’s run training session at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, north of Paris, on the eve of the European H-Cup rugby final match.—AFP

Pacquiao relaxes blood test stance on Mayweather bout MANILA: Manny Pacquiao would be willing to take a blood test 14 days prior to a bout with Floyd Mayweather Jr, local media reports said, edging the two men regarded as the world’s best pound-for-pound boxers closer to a showdown.

Talks between the fighters’ camps stalled earlier this year over Pacquiao’s refusal to agree to Mayweather’s demands for Olympicstyle random drug testing, with the Filipino saying he did not want blood drawn from him too close to a fight.

“Fourteen days is okay with me, as long as (the blood test) isn’t done on the day of the fight, and only the

right amount of blood will be drawn from me,” Pacquiao told Filipino media.

Pacquiao’s compromise could bring the two camps back to the negotiating table for a fight many feel would have the potential to be the sport’s richest ever.

Since talks broke down, Mayweather eased to a decisive points victory over fellow American Shane Mosley earlier this month in a welterweight non-title bout that drew 1.4 million pay-per-view buyers.

That followed Pacquiao’s mauling of Ghana’s Joshua Clottey in March.

The seven-weight champion has since been elected to congress back home and will need to fit his training regime in with parliament sessions after being sworn in on June 30.

However, Pacquiao believes he is perfectly capable of being able to pursue both a boxing and political career.

“I will attend (congress) sessions in the morning until afternoon then I go to the gym around 4 or 5 p.m.,” Pacquiao told the Manila Bulletin.

“I will stay in the country during training camp then with two weeks before the fight, I will fly to the U.S.” —Reuters

TOKYO: A pumped-up Japan goes into its final game of the Asian Five Nations today against Hong Kong knowing it needs just one more point to qualify for the 2011 rugby World Cup. Japan leads the race for the automatic Asian World Cup slot with three wins for 18 points, ahead of Hong Kong on 12 points.

A win or draw at the Prince Chichibu Memorial Stadium here today will be enough to see them join hosts New Zealand, France, Tonga and Canada in Pool A of the rugby showpiece next year.

Even if Japan lose, they will still qualify for their seventh straight World Cup by scoring four tries, or by losing by less than seven points.

Victory will also hand them their third straight Asian Five Nations title. “The rugby World Cup is the pinnacle of the sport and certainly the ambition of our squad is to qualify for the 2011 tournament in New Zealand,” said Japan coach John Kirwan.

“It hasn’t been hard motivating the team. They really understand the importance of winning and want to go to the World Cup. They will be very motivated,” he added.

The All Blacks legend, who scored 67 tries for New Zealand, has produced what he calls “a Japanese style game played at pace with good support and decision making”.

Kirwan helped Japan put an end to a 13-match losing streat at the 2007 World Cup with a draw against Canada. But they still only boast one win, one draw and 18 defeats from their previous six tournaments. He has made three changes from the side that started last week’s 101-7 thumping of Kazakhstan.

Ryu Koliniasi Holani is back at No.8 after an injury filled 18

months, Alisi Tupuailei is on the wing and Shinsuke Nakamura starts at tighthead prop.

“No player thinks that we’ve already qualified for the World Cup. We want to represent Asia by beating Hong Kong,” added stand-in skipper Hitoshi Ono. Usual captain Takashi Kikutani received a two-game penalty for a stamping incident and use of the elbow in their match against the Gulf two weeks ago.

Japan is the only Asian country to have played in the World Cup, but the Asian Five Nations runner-up has a chance to rewrite the history books.

Whoever finishes second enters a play-off phase starting with a clash against Uruguay in July, with the winner then facing a home-and-away contest against a side from either Europe or Africa.

Hong Kong coach Dai Rees is determined to give Japan a run for their money. “We’ve got to go and get something out of Japan. It’s still in our own hands. Bonus points, win, draw or whatever, so we haven’t got to worry about what’s going on in Korea,” he said.

Kazakhstan, still reeling from their humiliating defeat to Japan last weekend for a 1-2 win-loss record, also have their World Cup dreams alive.

They have seven points and play South Korea in Incheon, also on Saturday. South Korea have one point from three defeats and the Gulf 10 points from a 2-2 record.

Kazakhstan skipper Timur Mashurov said a bonus point win against South Korea could be enough to finish second, matching last year’s achievement. “We’ll do our best,” he said.—AFP

22

SPORTS

Saturday, May 22, 2010

A very good day for Jason Day at Nelson

TEXAS: Jarrod Lyle puts on the first green during the first round of the Byron Nelson Championship golf tournament. —AP

Donald takes early lead VIRGINIA WATER: Luke Donald’s bright pink trousers were not the only thing wowing the Wentworth crowd as he compiled another excellent 68 to take the early second-round lead in the PGA Championship yesterday.

World number 18 Donald held a two-shot lead on 136 — six under-and was one of the few players moving in the right direction on the leaderboard on another testing day on the revamped West Course.

Fellow Britons Paul Casey (68) and Chris Wood (68) were sharing second place in the clubhouse on 138 alongside Swede Fredrik Andersson Hed (70) who won the Italian Open earlier this month.

Overnight leader Danny Willett of Britain, who shot a six-under 65 on Thursday, was a late starter on another baking hot day on the outskirts of London. “You have to plan around this course a little bit more, plot your way around,” Donald told reporters, referring to the much talked-about layout which has been remodelled

by South African Ernie Els. Plot was the key word as he mixed precise drives and irons with deft touches around the green, most noticeably on 15 where the Englishman saved par with a superb bunker escape and on 16 where he pro-

duced a fine up-and-down for par. Donald then holed a 20-footer for a birdie at the monstrous 600-yard 17th. “Before you could just step up at the 17th and 18th, give it a whack and usually make a couple of birdie fours,” he said.

“Now it’s very hard to hit it on the green at 17, it’s a narrow entrance, and on 18 it’s a very difficult second shot if you choose to go for it.

“I’ve enjoyed some of the changes to the course. I think the greens are more consistent and it’s still a tough challenge,” said Donald.

Casey’s ball striking was imperious, though it took an eventful back nine for his putter to warm up as the world number eight and 2009 PGA champion recorded five birdies and two bogeys.

Lee Westwood was hovering around the cut mark after carding a 74 for 144, two over, and for the second day running he had issues with the course.

“You’re not sure how much sand is in the bunkers. The caddies have a real job raking them, I feel sorry for them,” said the world number three. Fanny Suneson, former caddie to Nick Faldo and now carrying Swede Henrik Stenson’s bag, told Reuters much the same after she spent several minutes in a trap. “It’s a fact. They are hard to rake,” she said wearily. —Reuters

WENTWORTH: England’s Luke Donald tees-off on the 10th hole during the second round of the BMW PGA Championship. —AP

Mickelson aims to dethrone Woods LOS ANGELES: When Phil Mickelson tees off at next week’s Colonial Invitational at Fort Worth in Texas, the American left-hander will have another chance to replace Tiger Woods as world number one for the first time.

Woods, who has steadily dropped ranking points this year, is sidelined with a lingering neck injury and Mickelson would take over at the top should he secure victory at Colonial Country Club, a venue where he triumphed in 2000 and 2008. “A win for Phil would do it,” Ian Barker, the European Tour’s director of information services who manages the official rankings, told Reuters on Thursday.

“However, second place alone would almost certainly not be enough unless the field at the Colonial is considerably stronger than last year.” A fortnight ago, second-ranked Mickelson had an opportunity to dethrone the 14-times major champion at the Players Championship in Florida. Victory, with Woods finishing outside the top five, would have done the trick.

Although a battling Woods failed to finish the tournament, pulling out of the final round because of neck pain, Mickelson failed to deliv-

er his side of the bargain. Five shots off the pace after round three, he signed off with a topsyturvy 74 to slip back into a tie for 17th at the prestigious event dubbed the unofficial fifth major. Overall, though, Mickelson has been the game’s standout player over the last nine months and, in the eyes of many, a deserving world number one.

He ended his 2009 campaign in barn-storming fashion, clinching the PGA Tour’s seasonending Tour Championship in September and the WGC-HSBC Champions in China in November after overshadowing Woods in each of those high-profile events.

Since returning to the US circuit for this season, short game magician Mickelson has exuded confidence with his driving under much more control and his putting in tip-top shape.

Although his early results were not what he wanted, he peaked at the best possible time to claim his third Green Jacket at last month’s US Masters before finishing second at the Quail Hollow Championship. In January, ahead of the San Diego Championship near his home in Rancho Sante Fe, Mickelson hinted at what was to come. — Reuters

IRVING: Australia’s Jason Day birdied four of his first six holes on his way to a 4-under 66 for a share of the first-round lead when play at the Byron Nelson Championship was suspended late Thursday. The threatening skies never actually drenched the TPC Four Seasons course, but the radar looked so scary there was a delay of 3 hours, 44 minutes.

Joe Durant finished with an eagle and a birdie to match Day at 66.

Steve Elkington, Hunter Mahan and Jarrod Lyle were still on the course with scores of 4-under. Day’ s stomach was troubling him while he was on the driving range Thursday morning, an angry reaction to antibiotics that are supposed to wipe out a lingering, often-misdiagnosed sinus infection.

He was thinking about withdrawing from the tournament. Then he realized it looked like rain and he’d left his umbrella in the car.

Walking to the parking lot, Day pictured himself getting behind the wheel and heading to his home in Fort Worth. He ended up toughing it out, and “it was probably a good idea,” he said with a smile.

Elkington will have two holes left, Mahan three and Lyle seven when play resumes at 7:15 a.m.

Friday, pushing back the start of the second round by an hour.

Thursday’s late starters are the first to go off Friday, which means it will be a long day for them.

Among those working overtime will be 16-year-old Jordan Spieth, the reigning U.S. Junior Amateur champion. He’s the first high school student to get a sponsor’s exemption into this event since Tiger Woods in 1993, and he showed he belongs by shooting even par through 11 holes.

Spieth woke up nervous and held his emotions in check during the delay by playing table tennis, shopping for souvenirs and putting. After a raucous ovation at his introduction, he ripped his tee shot down the middle, beyond his two playing partners.

He parred the first four holes, then dropped in a birdie.

He finished with a par putt and walked away saying, “I wanted to keep playing, I didn’t care how dark it was.” Dustin Johnson was part of a group tied for second at 3-under, one shot behind. He’s No. 9 on the season’s money list, the top earner in this field.

Defending champion Rory Sabbatini was among a pack at 68.

Vijay Singh and Rickie Fowler got off to poor starts in their quests to qualify for the US Open. Both need to be near the top of the leaderboard to get into the top 50 in the world rankings by Monday’s deadline, but both were stopped at 2-over. Fowler had two holes left, Singh three.

Although the weather made for a long afternoon, it helped Day. He used the down time to recover from the strength-sapping eight-plus holes he’d played. “I just kind of sat down and rested,” Day said. “I just sat down at a table with a bunch of friends and my wife and we sat there and talked, drank a lot of water, tried to keep up with my nutrition at least in there.”

After the restart, he sure kept things interesting: two birdies, two bogeys and several scrambling pars — like on No. 1, his first full hole after the break. His tee shot was so poor it landed on the cart path, against a fence. “I don’t think any player has been over there except me today,” he said.

Day’s season has been a lot like this round, spurts of great shots and bad ones, and ever-present illness.

His physical problems began at the season-opening tournament in Hawaii. He’s seen about six doctors trying to figure out what’s wrong.

The diagnoses he’s heard include swine flu, bronchitis and allergies, and he’s been given several different medicines.

Turns out he has a chronic sinus infection. He was given a shot and a batch of heavy antibiotics that should finally clear things up — but only after they threaten to clean him out. That’s why he stood on the driving range wondering if 18 holes was a good idea.

“I really didn’t think I was going to play this morning,” he said. Now the really weird part: The longer Day’s medical woes have dragged, the better he’s played. He’s had three top-25 finishes this season, all in the last five weeks. Day suggests it’s because he’s practiced less and lowered his own expectations.

“I think I’m going out there and trying to play smarter golf,” said Day, who is only 22 but grew up being described as Australia’s answer to Tiger Woods. “I didn’t chip and putt as well as I would like to at the start of the year, and everything is turning around nicely now.”

That breakthrough, first PGA Tour win would be even better. —AP

SHANGHAI: Usain Bolt of Jamaica (left) speaks as 110m hurdler Liu Xiang of China, looks on during a news conference of 2010 IAAF Diamond League in Shanghai. —AP

Bolt back in China, Liu looks for form SHANGHAI: Usain Bolt returns to China for the first time since his triple-gold Olympic feat to launch his 200-metre season tomorrow while hurdler Liu Xiang looks for redemption in his hometown.

Bolt comes to the Shanghai IAAF Diamond League meet after running 9.86 seconds—the fastest time of the year so far—to win his season-opening 100m at South Korea’s Daegu PreChampionships Meeting on Wednesday.

The 100m and 200m world record holder is being pursued by American Tyson Gay and fellow Jamaican Asafa Powell, who have both made it clear they aim to beat him this year-and Bolt him-

self has said it could be the season to do it. But with Gay and Powell staying away from Shanghai, Bolt is expected to dominate Sunday’s race despite calling this an “off season” when he intends to get as much rest as possible ahead of next year’s world championships.

Bolt’s 200m race here will help set the stage for three upcoming Diamond League showdowns with Gay, who fired a new warning in Bolt’s direction by shattering the 44-year-old straight line 200m world record on Monday.

Shanghai’s fiercest race is expected to be the men’s 110m hurdles as Chinese star Liu seeks to regain world-class form after finishing seventh in his interna-

tional return at the World Indoor Championships in March.

Barbados’ Ryan Braithwaite, the 110m hurdles world champion, and American David Oliver, who won bronze at the indoor championships, will challenge Liu on his home turf.

But Olympic champion Dayron Robles of Cuba has decided to skip the meet, preventing a showdown with Liu. Liu, who became the first Chinese man ever to win Olympics track and field gold at the 2004 Athens Games, is striving for his one-time record-breaking form after an achilles heel injury force him out of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. US sprinter Carmelita Jeter also returns to

Shanghai where she ran the best women’s 100m time of last year at 10.64 seconds. She competes against world champion ShellyAnn Fraser of Jamaica for another victory in Shanghai.

Jeter comes to China after winning the women’s 100m in Daegu on Wednesday.

A total of 15 reigning world or Olympic champions will compete in Shanghai at what organisers say is the highest level IAAF competition ever held in China. The Diamond League awards points depending on performances throughout the 14event programme with the winners of the 16 meets taking home a diamond trophy and a cash prize. —AFP

Grass-roots support pushes parkrun to new heights ENGLAND: When a lone member of a northern English running club recently suggested a boycott of the burgeoning parkrun movement because of its negative impact on clubs it sparked an astonishing backlash.

The letters pages and forums of running and athletics magazines and websites were swamped with comments from people of every ability praising parkrun.

“It was amazing the number of people who spoke out saying it was absolute nonsense and that they understood we were supporting running clubs,” parkrun founder Paul Sinton-Hewitt told Reuters in an interview.

“We were getting club secretaries saying many of their runners were at our events and that they were attracting new people to the club who ran for the first time in a parkrun and would previously never have thought of joining a club.

“Once people experience it and understand that it is a community event run by volunteers for people who have never run before and for people who have run thousands of races they realise it is a positive thing for clubs and the whole sport.”

It is all a long way from when SintonHewitt set up a small-scale regular 5km run with some friends at Bushy Park in southwest London in 2004.

A second run opened in nearby Wimbledon in 2007 and now there are almost 40 events around Britain and two in Denmark.

In the last few weeks important tie-ins with UK Athletics and the London Marathon have given the movement another shot in the arm as Sinton-Hewitt and his army of volunteers continue their push to have an event in every town in the country.

The concept is simplicity itself. Anyone

interested registers once on the website (www.parkrun.com), is allocated a printable barcode and is then good to go at any of the 5km events, all held on parkland and all free.

They start at 9am every Saturday morning, 52 weeks a year.

On completion each runner’s barcode is recorded and results are emailed out later in the day, with details of all previous results and historical data available on the website.

Sponsorship from Nike, Lucozade Sport, Sweatshop and the London Marathon helps pay for the technology to roll out new events but all the backers are totally committed to the events remaining free and truly grass roots.

Bushy is the largest with around 600 people running every week, while newer editions attract only a handful before word of mouth general swells them towards an average figure of 125.

Last week the total nationwide turnout topped 5,000 for the first time while over 70,000 different people have registered and almost 1,000 different clubs have been represented. The best runners complete the various courses in under 16 minutes while others amble round in twice that. Children, baby buggies and dogs are all welcome.

Sinton-Hewitt recently became parkrun’s third full time employee after spending years - and thousands of pounds of his own money - promoting it in his own time. His efforts were recognised last year when Runners World magazine named him one of their “Heroes of Running” for his philanthropic contribution.

Sinton-Hewitt and colleague Chris Wright delight in being described as zealous missionaries as they seek expansion and they have found some like-minded people inside the London Marathon who have

helped open some doors wide for parkrun.

“What impressed us most is that it’s the first time for a long time that we’ve seen something new and incredibly creative within the running marketplace,” race director and former 10,000 metres world record holder David Bedford told Reuters. “It’s a really positive event and like them, we can envisage a time when every town has one.”

It is not only the running world embracing parkrun as the medical community are also now recognising the benefits.

A new parkrun was launched in Kingston-upon-Thames this year partly at the behest of the local Primary Care Trust, who are encouraging patients with mild depression to try it out having seen impressive results elsewhere where mental health is improved by exercise and community involvement.

However, it is not all plain sailing as the movement’s popularity brings its own problems. The perceived impact on other park users can be an issue, particularly the thorny subject of parking, while some potential new venues are seeing the size of the organisation and asking, unsuccessfully, for money to host a run or to “manage” parking. “Every one of our events is under pressure and there is a bit of a backlash now,” says Sinton-Hewitt. They see we are sponsored by some big names so they think we are cash rich.

“We are challenged by limited resources, both people and money. Every time we start a new event it costs.”

Bedford, however, sees a rosy future. “parkrun interacts with runners as well as people who at the moment nobody in the sport is currently interacting with,” he said.

“Long term, it can only do good in so many different ways.” —Reuters

Proteas aim high again against hosts W Indies

ANTIGUA: South Africa’s Morne Morkel (left) celebrates with wicket keeper AB de Villiers (right) in this file photo. —AP

NORTH SOUND: South Africa will hope the one-way traffic continues when they face a beleaguered West Indies today at the Vivian Richards Cricket Ground in the first of their five One-day Internationals. The Proteas’ confidence had taken a beating during the recent Twenty20 World Cup staged in the Caribbean, where they exited with a whimper at the Super Eight stage, but this has been restored thanks to a pair of T20 victories over West Indies on Wednesday and Thursday.

Graeme Smith’s side swept the two T20s with a 13-run victory in the first match, and a tense one-run win in the second, and they are anxious for more success.

“This ODI series is very important for us, and as we showed during the two T20s, we wanted to win, and play with our usual intensity,” said Smith.

“We want to get back on the road to success again, and we have a lot of work to do, following a poor campaign in the T20 World Cup, so this is an important tour for us.

“We have a long break following this tour, and so we want to leave everything out on the field here in the Caribbean.”

For West Indies, the problems have reached terminal decline, and their captain Chris Gayle felt powerless in trying to halt the slide.

He has taken aim at his fellow batsmen, and questioned their mindset.

“I do not know if they are too worried about the position of the match, or their place in the team too much, or something else, but they have to free-up,” he said.

“They have to go out there with a free mind, and play some good cricket.” He dismissed experience as a problem, and indicated that his teammates had to start taking responsibility for their performances.

“It’s up to the individual,” he said. “They have to look into themselves, and try to redeem themselves as much as possible. I cannot do it for them. I have a lot to think about as well, so it’s up to them.” — AFP

23

SPORTS

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Terrorism could be threat to World Cup JOHANNESBURG: The World Cup could be vulnerable to a terrorist attack, despite repeated South African assurances that the tournament is safe and the discovery of what looks like a half-baked plot hatched in Iraq.

The recent arrest in Iraq of Abdullah Azzam al-Qahtani, an alleged al Qaeda supporter who says he was planning an attack on the Dutch and Danish teams, has revived debate on whether the soccer spectacular in South Africa faces a threat of this kind.

South African officials have long said their respected non-aligned status and the lack of any substantial local support for militant groups should insulate them from terrorism. Both the government and soccer’s governing body FIFA, which is cooperating with foreign security agencies and Interpol, say no viable threat has been identified.

Although most experts say Qahtani’s scheme appeared far from posing a serious threat, they believe terrorism cannot be ruled out because of the huge attention that even a small attack would get during the June 11-July 11 World Cup. “It is the biggest sports event in the world. Although South Africa might think we are beyond the interests of groups like al Qaeda, the event is the target, not the country,” said Anneli Botha, from the Institute of Security Studies in Pretoria.

“What makes South Africa so unique?

Yes, we are not involved in Iraq or Afghanistan, but unfortunately the tremendous media coverage you are going to get will definitely attract not only al Qaeda but I think even smaller groups,” she told Reuters.

Like previous violence at big sporting

events, an attack on the Togo team bus during the African Nations Cup in Angola in January attracted global headlines and thrust a small and largely forgotten separatist group back into the limelight.

Two members of the Togo delegation and a driver were killed. Police have trained in how to react to an attack, including one using chemical or biological weapons, and the force’s chief, Bheki Cele, says they will pay particular attention to potential targets, including the United States v England match on June 12.

Far more time has been spent on combating the threat from South Africa’s frightening rates of crime which make it one of the world’s most violent countries outside a war zone.

South African police reacted to the Qahtani arrest by saying they would ensure

the safety of all visitors and teams although officials seemed caught unawares by the case and local media have accused them of being dangerously out of the loop.

While South Africa has not been targeted in recent years, several militants involved in attacks around the world are known to have spent time in this country, which experts say has acted as a safe haven and staging post for operations elsewhere.

Critics say widespread corruption among police and officials, including the sale of South African passports, has undermined counter terrorism efforts.

Professor Hussein Solomon, head of the International Institute of Islamic Studies in Pretoria identifies corruption as a major weakness.

“I strongly suspect that foreign countries are reluctant to share information with us on

their operations,” he said. Other experts say foreign agencies are sharing a great deal of intelligence with Pretoria ahead of the tournament.

“There are concerns regarding the ability of the South Africans to handle security threats, but the Americans as well as others know it is in their paramount interest to share credible intelligence. It does no good to bypass the South Africans,” said Mark Schroeder of Stratfor strategic analysis company.

Nevertheless, experts believe the World Cup is too tempting a target for international militants to ignore. “Al Qaeda has not been able to pull off a major attack in recent years. A terrorist group is only as effective as its last attack,” Botha said.

She added that militant attacks had been foiled around the last three World Cups in

France, Japan and South Korea and Germany.

The lack of any sign of an attack was no guarantee, she said. “If you raise any concern, if you raise any alarm, your plot is dead.”

South African Muslims have not been radicalised and are quick to deny any support for terror plots, but Somali and Pakistani immigrants have remained somewhat isolated from the rest of society and were targets of brutal xenophobic attacks two years ago, increasing a sense of alienation.

The Islamic community was angered on Friday when the weekly Mail & Guardian news magazine published a cartoon showing the Prophet Mohammad, which is offensive to Muslims, raising fears it might encourage an attack on the World Cup. — Reuters

Rejects return to Bernabeu to rub salt in Real’s eyes

MADRID: Bayern Munich teammates during a training session at the Santiago Bernabeu stadium in Madrid. Bayern will face Inter Milan in the Champions League final soccer match today. — AP

Madrid final gets money boost MILAN: The Champions League final in Madrid will provide a 351.5 million-euro windfall to the battered European economy, as more fans are travelling to the buzzing Spanish city for today’s showdown.

According to a study commissioned by MasterCard, one of the sponsors of the competition, more than 120,000 people will descend on Madrid despite the downturn for the first Champions League final to be played on a Saturday evening.

The uncertainty about the winner between Inter Milan and Bayern Munich, both vying for a treble having won their domestic doubles, is also spicing up the atmosphere, the report said.

“In difficult economic times, this kind of event provides people with a chance to escape from reality,” Simon Chadwick, professor of Sport Business Strategy and Marketing at Coventry University in England, who conducted the study, told Reuters.

“In addition to that, we will see more travelling fans and one of the reasons is the rescheduling of the game from Wednesday to Saturday evening, when people can move more easily,” he said.

Last year’s final between Manchester United and eventual winners Barcelona in Rome gener-

ated 313 million euros of total revenues.

The winner of Saturday’s match will pocket more than 120 million euros through increased squad value, season ticket sales, prize money, sponsorship deals and television rights, the study said. The loser may earn 70 million euros.

The Spanish capital is also set to receive an economic boost of 50 million euros, slightly higher than Rome last year.

Around 170 million fans are expected to tune in to watch on television, eclipsing the audiences of last year’s final and of the Superbowl.

Bayern are seeking their fifth European title to end a nine-year drought. Inter Milan won their second European title in 1965 and last reached the final of the competition since 1972.

“The particular attraction is the Italian and German dimension because it is a totally unpredictable final,” Chadwick said. This is also the first time in five years that no English or Spanish powerhouses clash for the title.

Bayern Munich and Inter Milan have two completely different business models, according to German consultancy group Sport+Markt. The Italian side draws 60 percent of its total revenue from TV rights, while the Bavarians get 54 percent of their turnover from sponsors and marketing, the firm said in a study. — Reuters

Estudiantes bundled out of Libertadores BUENOS AIRES: Holders Estudiantes were eliminated from the Libertadores Cup despite a 2-1 home win over Internacional of Brazil in the second leg of their quarterfinal on Thursday.

Giuliano struck in the 89th minute with the crucial goal that sent the Brazilian side, who won the first leg 10 at home in Porto Alegre last week, through on the away goals rule after the tie ended 2-2 on aggregate.

Brazil’s Flamengo also won 2-1 away to Universidad de Chile but went out on the away goals rule after their tie finished 4-4 on aggregate after the Chileans secured a surprise 3-2 win at the Maracana in the first leg.

Inter, champions in 2006, go into an all-Brazilian semi-final against three times winners Sao Paulo, who eliminated last year’s runners-up Cruzeiro, also of Brazil, on Wednesday.

The match was marred when Inter’s reserve goalkeeper Lauro came on after the final whistle and hit Estudiantes defender Leandro Desabato from behind before running into the dressing room as police tried to control the players.

The incident, which seemed to have been sparked by an argument between Desabato and Inter’s Argentine goalkeeper Roberto Abbondanzieri, did not develop into a free-for-all. Estudiantes had taken a quick two-goal lead with two superb strikes in the 19th and 21st minutes.—Reuters

MADRID: One of the great ironies of the 2010 Champions League final between Bayern Munich and Inter Milan at Real Madrid’s Bernabeu stadium today is that the main protagonist for each side will be a Real reject. Bayern’s Arjen Robben and Inter’s Wesley Sneijder were forced out of the Bernabeu last summer to make way for mega-money star signings Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaka and even Xabi Alonso and Karim Benzema.

Neither Robben nor Sneijder wanted to leave but Real’s loss turned out to be Bayern and Inter’s gain. In fact the two Dutchmen have arguably been their new teams’ best players this season with Robben scoring the crucial last goals in the Bavarians’ 3-2 defeats at both Fiorentina and Manchester United to allow the Germans to squeeze through on away goals each time.

Sneijder’s vision, passing and exocet free-kicks have brought a new dimension to Inter’s attacking play in the post-Zlatan Ibrahimovic era.

And the irony that two Real outcasts will once again be gracing the Bernabeu while their expensive replacements are already on holiday has not been lost on Bayern’s Robben.

“We both wanted to stay in Madrid at the start of the season,” he told the Bayern website. “But the situation changed, and we both decided to go.

Coming back now is great.

“Real’s dream was to be in the final at their home ground, but it’s not worked out. We left, found new clubs, and now we’re in the final.”

The two Dutch friends have been exchanging jovial banter over sms messages in the run up to the final but once they get out on the pitch their friendship will have to be on pause.

“We’re both aware of the situation.

Everyone wants to win. We can both be proud of the season so far,” added Robben, who rubbished reports from Italy that Sneijder might be ruled out of the final with injury.

“He’ll play, I’m 100 percent certain. He may need 100 injections, but he’ll play.”

Another interesting backdrop to the final is that both teams have completed domestic doubles already and whoever wins will become only the third team in history to complete the treble following Manchester United in 1999 (who denied Bayern that feat) and Barcelona last season.

Also the two coaches have already won this competition with other clubs and whoever wins the final will join Ottmar Hitzfeld (Borussia Dortmund in 1997 and Bayern in 2001) and Ernst Happel (Feyenoord in 1970 and Hamburg in 1983) as winners with two different clubs.

Inter’s Jose Mourinho won the title with Porto in 2004 while Bayern’s Louis van Gaal won it with Ajax in 1995.

But there is no love lost between the two as Van Gaal accused Inter of being negative and having help from the referees to reach the final, something which angered the Portuguese.

“In this Champions League I don’t remember another match like InterBarcelona at the San Siro,” said Mourinho.

“No one else has played the football we played, no one else attacked the champions of Europe as much as we did. “No one attacked as we did at Stamford Bridge (against Cheslea). We played two matches like no one else.

“Saying the things he said is like kicking sand in our faces.” And Mourinho pointed out that Bayern had had their fair share of favorable decisions, such as Miroslav Klose’s clearly offside goal in the first leg against Fiorentina and the sending off of Manchester United fullback Rafael in the second leg against the Premier League team which United had been dominating until then.

“Italians have not forgotten the match against Fiorentina in the same way the English have not forgotten Rafael’s red card, but that’s not my problem,” said Mourinho.

The Portuguese coached Robben at Chelsea and the Dutch winger said he is looking forward to seeing his old boss, who he likens to his new gaffer. — AFP

MADRID: (From left) Inter Milan midfielder Esteban Cambiasso, Inter Milan forward Samuel Eto’o, Inter Milan midfielder Mariga Wanyama MacDonald and Inter Milan midfielder Rene Krhin vies for the ball during a training session. — AP

Barcelona fans flock to Villa presentation MADRID: Around 35,000 Barcelona fans went to the Nou Camp to see striker David Villa presented yesterday as the club’s first signing since they won a second consecutive La Liga title last weekend. The 28-year-old passed a medical and signed a four-year contract with an option for a further season, after completing a 40-million-euro move from cash-strapped Valencia. He had a buy-out clause of 200 million euros, Barca said on their website (www.fcbarcelona.com).

Villa will be leading the line for Spain at the World Cup finals next month, along with new Barca team mates Xavi, Andres Iniesta, Gerard Pique, Carles Puyol, Pedro, Sergio Busquets

and Victor Valdes.

“One of the many reasons that helped me make my decision to go to Barca, once Valencia said they wanted to sell me, was the friendship I have with many of them (the players),” Villa told reporters.

“I know I won’t have any problems because many of them have already helped me to become a Barcelona player.”

The quietly-spoken Asturian added: “I am proud that Barca returned to try and sign me (after an unsuccessful attempt last season). I have always been clear about where I wanted to go.” Barca’s sports director Txiki Begiristain said Villa’s arrival did not threaten

Swedish forward Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s future at the club. “David is an extraordinary number nine but can also play out wide, he is completely compatible with Ibrahimovic,” Begiristain told reporters.

“The season is very long, and we need forwards of great quality, and now we have covered every type of profile. There isn’t a perfect XI and coach Pep Guardiola will decide in each game.”

With World Player of the Year Lionel Messi a definite up front and youngsters Pedro and Bojan Krkic pushing for places the player most likely to be moving on is France striker Thierry Henry. — Reuters

Todayʼs matches on TV (local timings) SANTIAGO: Chile’s Universidad de Chile’s Nelson Pinto (right) fights for the ball with Brazil’s Flamengo’s Toro during a Copa Libertadores soccer match.—AP

UEFA Champions League Bayern v Inter ......... .... 21:45 Al Jazeera Sport +3 Al Jazeera Sport +4

SPAIN: Barcelona’s new signing David Villa gestures, during a press conference on his arrival, at the club’s office in Barcelona. — AP

www.kuwaittimes.net

Bayern and Inter: Europe’s best teams MADRID: When UEFA president Michel Platini hands the Champions League trophy to either Inter Milan or Bayern Munich today, plenty of people will feel a twinge of disappointment that the shiny, big-handled cup is not going to another, arguably more deserving team. But they will be wrong.

Neither Inter nor Bayern have the footballing beauty of Barcelona, last year’s champion and this year’s favorite before floundering on the rocks of Inter’s defense.

Nor are they as star-studded as Real Madrid or as globally recognized as Manchester United. And depending on your point of view, the bloated self-confidence of Bayern and Inter coaches Louis van Gaal and Jose Mourinho is either funny or nauseating.

Nevertheless, after 90 minutes of football at Madrid’s Santiago Bernabeu stadi-

um — or more if the crowd of 75,000 is lucky enough to get extra time — either Inter or Bayern will rightly be able to say that they are Europe’s top club.

Not the most graceful or exciting to watch, nor the most lovable, richest or the most popular, but still the champions, the undisputed kings of this season.

That makes them deserving of respect and as worthy as anyone, no matter what one thinks about them or their football.

It’s true that their encounter does not have the “Clash of the Titans” feel of last year’s final between Barcelona and United, both bigger names than the champions of Italy and Germany.

Nor does the match promise the spree of goals seen, say, in this year’s quarterfinals between Barcelona and Arsenal, which play freer-flowing football than Van Gaal and Mourinho’s carefully drilled and

scripted sides.

But what Inter and Bayern have also proved on their gritty, somewhat improbable and at times lucky trek to the final is that, ultimately, only winning matters, not winning with style.

When Barcelona beat United 2-0 to be champions last year, the players were the stars, for both good reasons and bad.

Lionel Messi scored a stratospheric header, while Cristiano Ronaldo was a United disappointment.

This year, Van Gaal and Mourinho promise to steal the show. That’s because they tend to overshadow everyone with their loud mouths backed up and justified by their admirable records of success. One of them will win the Champions League for a second time Saturday and with a different club from their first time.

That is a feat as remarkable as it is rare:

only two other managers have turned more than one team into champions of Europe in the 53 years that clubs have contested for that title. For Van Gaal, victory might help him keep winger Franck Ribery next season and attract other marquee players to Bayern.

For self-proclaimed “Special One” Mourinho, winning could be his ticket to a job at Real Madrid should he chose to quit Italian football, where the level of appreciation for him has not always matched his own large sense of self-worth.

A few other thoughts: No matter what Mourinho says, this match is not more important than the World Cup. Mourinho, great motivator that he is, may have told his players that.

But they will also know that the World Cup final in South Africa on July 11 will be bigger still.

Mourinho rightly says that the quality of Champions League football can be unbeatable, because it’s played by the best squads that money can buy. But World Cup emotions are higher. Played on the world stage, football becomes a form of national expression. That’s not true of the Champions League.

Nothing personal against Real Madrid, but it is perhaps not a bad thing for football that it didn’t reach the final being played in its stadium. Had Madrid been crowned champions this year, it would have been viewed as a victory for the idea that all it takes to succeed in football is money, lots of money, 250 million euros (then $364 million) to be precise.

That was the prince’s ransom splurged

by Madrid last year on Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaka and other recruits who were meant to bring instant trophies. While wealth is

Belletti wins stage, Porte retains lead

Sharapova reaches WTA final showdown STRASBOURG: Former world number one Maria Sharapova reached the final of the WTA Strasbourg claycourt event by beating Spain’s Anabel Medina Guarriges in the semi-finals yesterday.

The Russian superstar, a threetime Grand Slam winner, won 4-6, 6-2, 6-2 and will face Germany’s Kristina Barrois in today’s final.

Barrois, the world number 90, defeated America’s Vania King 2-6, 6-2, 7-6 (8/6) to reach her first WTA final. The German will be aiming to become the first Strasbourg winner from her country since Steffi Graf in 1997.

Top seed Sharapova and fifth seed Guarriges met yesterday afternoon after each had completed straightforward victories in their rain-delayed quarter-finals in the morning.

Guarriges, Strasbourg champion in 2005, 2007 and 2008, dominated the first set before ceding the advantage to her opponent, who had little trouble sewing up the match after assuming control of the second set.

Meanwhile, two years after she walked away from the French Open, four-time champion Justine Henin returned to Roland Garros yesterday, busily renewing friendships as well as a bizarre dressing room ritual.

“I went to see the place with my locker in the locker rooms where I had won the last time. It’s the sort of good luck charm for me,” said the Belgian, playing her first French Open since winning the last of her four titles in 2007.

“But the most emotional thing was to meet people again, see the same people working for the tournament, with whom I had created some friendly relationships. Also to come back to clay here, which is the best clay ever.”

Henin’s love affair with Roland Garros is well-documented. It was the place she visited as a child accompanied by her mother whose death, when she was just 12, left

her devastated.

The former world number one won the first of her seven Grand Slam titles here in 2003, but when she called it quits in 2008, she was adamant that the adventure was over.

But just like compatriot Kim Clijsters, the 27-year-old Henin realised there was unfinished business, most notably the giant hole in her CV where she believes a Wimbledon title should be.

Despite retiring as the 2007 winner, Henin insists that she does not feel like a defending champion - Ana Ivanovic and Svetlana Kuznetsova have succeeded her although neither has kicked on.

“It’s long ago that I played here.

It’s three years that I won the title here. So, I don’t have this feeling.

It’s just great to be back.”

This French Open will be Henin’s second Grand Slam since her return to the game, having reached the Australian Open final in January where she lost to old rival Serena Williams.

Adding spice to her return to Paris is finding the top-seeded American in her part of the draw where they could meet in the quarter-finals. To help her cause, Henin is counting on local support, never slow in coming forward to aid a fellow French speaker.

“I practiced on Court No. 1, and I remembered that 13 years ago I won the juniors here. Also, I feel at home here because the French crowd always welcomed me incredibly well, and many Belgian people come because it’s close,” said Henin.

“So when you are at the other end of the world in Australia you feel more isolated, whereas I feel here I’m surrounded by many more people. This can be a driver for me.” In the claycourt season so far, Henin has won the Stuttgart title before a surprise first round exit in Madrid, her form hampered by recovering from a broken finger on her left hand as well as a sudden bout of sinusitis.—AFP

CESENATICO: Italy’s Manuel Belletti, of the CSF team, won yesterday’s 13th stage of the Tour of Italy with Australian Richie Porte of Saxo Bank holding on to the leader’s pink jersey.

Belletti, who was born in Cesena near the stage’s finishing line, took the honours after leading home a lengthy breakaway. New Zealand’s Greg Henderson took second place ahead of Spaniard Iban Mayoz and Germany’s Paul Voss.

“I felt an incredible emotion,” said Belletti.

“The finish line is five kilometres from my house.

It’s the realisation of a dream.”

Belletti’s victory was the second for an Italian in this year’s race, following Filippo Pozzato’s success in the 12th stage on Thursday.

A group of 17 riders, none of whom presented any kind of threat to the overall leaders, broke away after 62 kilometres of the 223km stage.

They stretched their lead over the chasing pack to almost 10 minutes by the 136km mark and arrived in Cesenatico, the former home of late 1998 Giro winner Marco Pantani, more than seven minutes ahead of the peloton.

Belletti outpaced the supposedly quicker Henderson in the ensuing sprint, while Russia’s Vladimir Karpets crossed the line five minutes back in 17th place to bite off two and a half minutes of the overall leaders’ advantage.

“To win in front of my fans, in the town of Marco where I watched races on television, I can’t find the words to describe what it means to me,” added Belletti. “It’s my first Giro.”

Karpets said his late charge had been instinctive. “I took 2min 24sec (from the leaders) and I’m missing 10 more (minutes),” he said. “If I keep feeling this good, I hope to do well in the next stages.”

Porte finished seven minutes off the pace in 39th place to keep hold of the race leader’s jersey. Today’s 14th stage in the mountainous north of the country is a 205km ride from Ferrara to Asolo, with Monte Grappa to be climbed 40km from the finish.—AFP

Armstrong crashes out of race

Russian women left in the shade PARIS: Twelve months after Russia provided both finalists at the French Open, the country’s female tennis players are experiencing a serious collective slump.

Svetlana Kuznetsova defeated compatriot Dinara Safina in straight sets in last year’s decider but both have since failed to make any kind of impression at the major tournaments.

Golden girl Maria Sharapova reached the quarter-finals in 2009 following her return from a longstanding shoulder problem but injuries continue to plague her and the former world number one is currently ranked 13th.

Kuznetsova, Safina and Olympic champion Elena Dementieva continue to fly the Russian flag in the world’s top 10 but the Williams sisters Serena and Venus are now ranked first and second respectively and arrive at Roland Garros with proven Grand Slam pedigree.

Denmark’s Caroline Wozniacki, currently ranked third, is the new rising star in the women’s game and Belgian comeback queens Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin have returned from retirement with silverware in their sights.

Safina’s fall from grace has been perhaps the most alarming.

Her 6-4, 6-2 defeat to Kuznetsova in Paris last June meant she had

lost her first three Grand Slam finals in straight sets and after being thrashed by Venus in the Wimbledon semi-finals she lost in the third round at the US Open.

A painful back injury sustained at the Australian Open forced her out in the fourth round and her subsequent absence has seen her fall to ninth in the rankings, having risen to first last year.

Her return to action saw her reach the last eight at Stuttgart but she fell in the first round in both Rome and Madrid and insists her focus now is on keeping free from injury.

“My back injury is the worst you can get, because if things go wrong again, that might be it for my professional career altogether,” said the 24-year-old, who was diagnosed with a double stress fracture and a ruptured muscle in her back in January.

“With a broken arm or leg, you can rest it, but with your back it is almost impossible. It has made me realise how much I love tennis. “Regarding things like rankings, titles, defending points-who really cares?”

Defending champion Kuznetsova, meanwhile, followed up her Roland Garros triumph with a third-round exit at Wimbledon and defeat to Wozniacki in the fourth round at the US Open.—AFP

vital for victory in football, it is not everything — at least not yet.

Lyon, France’s richest side, proved that in ousting the even wealthier Madrid from this year’s competition.

In midfielder Wesley Sneijder and winger Arjen Robben, both Inter and Bayern have players who could set this final alight. Sneijder’s ability to spot and make goal-creating passes can be stunning. And few goals this season were better than Robben’s volley that sank United in the quarterfinals.

But keep a special eye Saturday on Samuel Eto’o. With a goal for Inter, Eto’o would become the first player to score in three Champions League finals. He previously hit the net in Barcelona’s victories against Arsenal in 2006 and against United last year. That Barca subsequently got rid of Eto’o now looks like folly.—AP

Maria Sharapova in action against Anabel Medina at the WTA Strasbourg claycourt event.

France eager for another Noah PARIS: Yannick Noah turned 50 this week, still the most popular personalty in France, 27 years after his emotional win over Mats Wilander to capture the French Open title.

Part of that celebrity is down to Noah’s outgoing nature and part also to the huge success of his subsequent career as a reggae singer.

But more importantly it is because he is the only Frenchman in the last 64 years to have won at Roland Garros, the temple of French tennis.

“Already it’s 27 years since my victory at Roland - it’s hard to imagine. Twenty-seven years - I think that’s what you call getting old,” he told L’Equipe newspaper.

Since Noah, its been heartbreak all the way for the French as hope after hope - Henri Leconte, Guy Forget, Cedric Pioline and Sebastien Grosjean - all failed to match their compatriot’s crowning achievement. This year the home focus will be on two world top 20 players, both black - Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and

Gael Monfils. Neither are among the favourites.

Monfils, who reached the semi-finals in Paris two years ago and the quarter-finals last year, losing to Roger Federer on each occasion, agrees that the long wait to emulate Noah is an added burden for French players.

“A lot of people are waiting for another Yannick Noah,” the Parisien said. “You are always getting compared to him.” “They say that mentally he was stronger. It’s hard to take but we are working at it.

“We all want to have our name inscribed alongside Yannick’s. We try to do things like him, but for the moment it doesn’t quite work for us. Why? Because there are players out there who are better than us it’s as simple as that.

“You can’t kid yourself - (Rafael) Nadal’s stats on clay are out of this world and Roger (Federer) always gets as far as the semi-finals. In the last five years it’s basically been the same players that win the Grand Slams.” Tsonga knows he has what it takes to get to

a Grand Slam final having reached the title match at the Australian Open in 2008 before losing a tough four-setter to Novak Djokovic.

But although he has made Roland Garros his priority for this year, there are doubts he will be able to go all the way.

Firstly, he does not have a great deal of experience of playing on clay - just 28 games since the start of his career. This year he has five wins against four defeats. Also, he has once again had back pain - an injury that all but derailed his career after an outstanding spell in the junior ranks.

Tsonga was forced to withdraw from his second round tie in Madrid last week although he believes that the extra time off will actually do him some good.

“I was never in danger of missing Roland Garros,” he said. “In a way I needed this little break just to get away from everything and live a normal life for a few days. —AFP

BAKERSFIELD: Seven-times Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong crashed out of the Tour of California on Thursday shortly after he dismissed a former team mate’s claim that he used performance-enhancing drugs.

Armstrong withdrew from the event after a crash left the American bloodied and sent to hospital for precautionary X-rays during a fifth stage that saw Australian Michael Rogers grab the overall lead.

Rogers became the fourth new leader in five days with his second-place finish to Slovakia’s Peter Sagan in the 195.5-km stage from Visalia to Bakersfield. Prior to the stage, Armstrong denied accusations by Floyd Landis that he used performance-enhancing drugs.

Landis, stripped of his 2006 Tour de France victory after failing a doping test, ended years of denial on Wednesday when he confessed to using drugs from 2002 when he joined the U.S. Postal team and was a team mate of Armstrong.

Armstrong crashed with several other riders in the opening kilometers of Thursday’s fifth stage. He needed eight stitches below his left eye and X-rays on his elbow were negative.

“It was a shame to have to abandon early and not be able to help Levi (Leipheimer) to another victory,” said Armstrong, who kept riding but later quit because of the injuries.

Rogers, a three-time World Time Trial champion, began the day trailing American Dave Zabriskie for the overall lead, but with the help of a time bonus he won a tiebreaker for outright lead because of better accumulative stage finishes.

“Obviously, I woke up this morning and heard the news like everyone else did,” said Rogers of Landis’s revelations. “I came here to win this race and that’s what I concentrated on.

During the race I didn’t think of anything else but.”

American Levi Leipheimer, winner of the last a three Tour of California races, is third while Sagan is fourth overall.—Reuters