7 May

IO N IPT SC R SU B

SATURDAY, MAY 7, 2011

Toyota Al-Sayer make a splash at Raft Race

150 Fils

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No: 15081

JAMADA ALTHANI 4, 1432 AH

Tens dead in Syria ‘Day of Defiance’

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Nadal crushes Llodra to reach Madrid semis

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Qaeda confirms Laden killed, vows revenge Group threatens to ‘mix blood with tears’ as Islamists march

WASHINGTON: Al-Qaeda yesterday vowed to avenge the death of Osama bin Laden and urged Muslims to rise up against the United States, as rallies against the killing of the 9/11 mastermind in a US raid flared in the Islamic world. “We call upon our Muslim people in Pakistan, on whose land Sheikh Osama was killed, to rise up and revolt to cleanse this shame,” the terror network said in a statement released by the SITE monitoring group. Confirming bin Laden’s death for the first time, Al-Qaeda urged Pakistani Muslims “to cleanse their country from the filth of the Americans who spread corruption in it”.

In the statement posted on jihadist Internet forums, the Islamist group proclaimed its Saudi-born founder a “martyr,” adding he had “terrified all the nations of disbelief”. “The blood of the holy warrior sheikh, Osama bin Laden, God bless him, is too precious to us and to all Muslims to go in vain,” the statement said. “We will remain, God willing, a curse chasing the Americans and their agents, following them outside and inside their countries. Soon, God willing, their happiness will turn to sadness,” it said, “their blood will be mingled with their tears.”

Al-Qaeda also urged the US to treat the bodies of bin Laden and those killed with him in the raid with care, and to return their bodies.

“We warn the Americans not to harm the corpse of the sheikh or expose it to any indecent treatment or to harm any members of his family, living or dead, and to deliver the corpses to their families,” it said.

“Any harm done will open the doors of evil upon you doubly, and you will not have anyone but yourselves to blame.”

Rather than making vehement cries of vengeance, the Al-Qaeda statement - entitled “You lived as a good man, you died as a martyr” struck a tone of calmness and continuation. Though it included praise of bin Laden, much of the 11-paragraph statement was dedicated to underlining that Al-Qaeda would live on, depicting him as just another in a line of “martyrs” from the group. “It is impossible, impossible.

Sheikh Osama didn’t build an organization to die when he dies,” the statement read. “The university of faith, Quran and jihad from which bin Laden graduated will not close its doors,” it added. “The soldiers of Islam will continue in groups and united, plotting and planning without getting bored, tired, with determination, without giving up until striking a blow,” the statement.

The White House swiftly said it was on alert for security threats as AlQaeda also vowed to release an audiotape made by their inspirational leader just a week before he was shot dead on Monday by US commandos in Pakistan. “We are quite aware of the potential for activity and are highly vigilant on that matter for that reason,” said White House spokesman Jay Carney.

US President Barack Obama was yesterday to meet privately with members of the elite commando team who carried out the risky helicopter-borne raid of the fortified compound in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad where bin Laden had been hiding. The White House has been eager to avoid any triumphalism over the elimination of the world’s most wanted man, blamed for the 2001 attacks in which almost 3,000 people were killed, in a bid to avoid whipping up Muslim anger.

And on the traditional day of prayers, hundreds of Islamists rallied in Pakistan, Egypt, Britain and Turkey to vow revenge for the death of bin Laden, who had inspired militant Muslims for decades. More than one hundred Islamic extremists rallied outside the US embassy in London to vent their fury at Washington. Police had to separate the group from supporters of the far-right English Defence League (EDL) who held a rival protest praising the US actions in shooting dead the Al-Qaeda leader.The bin Laden supporters waved banners reading “US govt are the real terrorists” and US leaders were branded “murderers” by the

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Police officers try to restrain pro-Osama bin Laden supporters marching to the US Embassy in London from supporters of the rightwing English Defense League yesterday. (Inset) An Egyptian protester holds a picture of bin Laden close to his heart during a protest held by Islamist groups against his killing in front of the US embassy in Cairo yesterday. —AP radicals, who warned revenge attacks were “guaranteed”.

In Abbottabad, just 50 km from the capital Islamabad, where bin Laden was finally tracked down after a years-long manhunt, police marshalled a rally of about 1,000 men. Setting fire to tyres and blocking a main road, the protesters yelled: “Down, down USA!” and “Terrorist, terrorist, USA terrorist.” Hundreds took to the streets in the insurgency-riven Pakistani city of Quetta near the Afghan border to chant “Long live Osama” and call for holy war against America. Islamists also rallied in Cairo, but were stopped by soldiers about a block from the US embassy, and resorted to shouting “leave, leave” and “lower the (American) flag.”

About 200 people, including a small group of veiled women, also gathered outside an Istanbul mosque after Friday prayers carrying pictures of bin Laden. One banner in English read: “We will not forget the crimes of US and Israel.” Lebanese radical cleric Omar Bakri, who hailed the 9/11 hijackers as the “magnificent 19,” has called for prayers to mourn bin Laden in Lebanon and outside US embassies around the world. “We call on our followers in Europe, Canada and especially Britain to pray for his soul outside American embassies,” Bakri, who was based in Britain for nearly two decades, told AFP.

After days of questions in Washington over how the 9/11 architect found shelter, Pakistan’s military hit back demanding the US cut its troop presence in the country to a “minimum”. In another sign of potential lapses by the Pakistani intelligence services, the Washington Post reported that the CIA had maintained a safe house in Abbottabad undetected for several months to spy on bin Laden’s compound. The close-up spying operation allowed them to draw up a “pattern of life” for the occupants inside, the paper said. Obama’s meeting yesterday with the commandos was to take place at the Fort Campbell army base in Kentucky, an official said. The president “will have the opportunity to privately thank some of the special operators involved in the operation,” the official said. The Obama administration has been forced to defend the raid’s legality after acknowledging bin Laden was unarmed when he was shot dead. But new details have been released of the operation after conflicting accounts from the White House. The SEALs also found an AK-47 and a pistol in his room, a US official told AFP Thursday. “He had weapons in his room, more than one,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “He was not compliant. He did not surrender.” — Agencies

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KUWAIT: His Highness the Crown Prince Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah and members of the Al-Sabah family received at Bayan yesterday condolences on the late Sheikh Khaled Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah from representative of the Yemeni Presidency and Prime Minister Dr Ali Mohammad Majour (right) and the delegation accompanying him. Also Saudi Prince Abdulrahman bin Abdullah Al-Faisal bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud paid his respect to the late Sheikh Khaled, when he met Sheikh Nawaf and members of the Al-Sabah family here yesterday.

US Embassy organizes World Press Freedom video conference KUWAIT: On May 4, the US Embassy organized a digital video conference on the occasion of World Press Freedom Day in cooperation with AMIDEAST students from the Middle East Partnership Initiative High School Journalism program and International Relations students at Pennsylvania State University.

The US Embassy’s “Virtual” Student Intern (who attends Penn State) led the lively discussion on media reliability, social media and perceptions of current events in the Middle East.

High-school students from the American Bilingual School, Salah-El-Deen School, Maria Al-Qubtia School, Fatima Al-Sarawi School and Al-Bayan Bilingual School participating in the US Department of State-funded MEPI Kuwait High School Journalism program took part in the digital video conference.

The MEPI High School Journalism Education Program is a three-year initiative in cooperation with the Kuwait Ministry of Education that supports partnerships between schools and local news media organizations to develop quality scholastic journalism programs in Kuwait and Oman. The program is administered by iEARN-USA (International Education and Resource Network), in partnership with Northwestern University in Qatar and the International Center for Journalists. AMIDEAST is a private non-profit organization that strengthens mutual understanding and cooperation between Americans and the peoples of the Middle East and North Africa.

Assembly to hold discussion on formation of teachers’ union KTS plans special seminar KUWAIT: During the May 10 session, the National Assembly will hold discussions on the formation of a teachers’ union. The relevant announcement was made by Meteb Al-Otaibi Chairman of Kuwait Teachers Society (KTS). He stressed that the KTS’s core committee had intensified efforts to prepare for the ‘landmark’ day by making extensive contacts with MPs. “We won at least 40 MPs’ approval for the new motion,” he said.

Furthermore, Al-Otaibi said that the KTS will hold a special seminar tomorrow at its headquarters in Dasma. It will be held entitled ‘We deserve to unite.’

Al-Otaibi also affirmed KTS’s belief that lawmakers would fully understand the significance of passing the new regulation to achieve teachers’ aspirations as they “deserve appreciation, equality, care, justice and getting tier rightful rights that help boost the educational process in general and encourage nationals to join the

teaching career,” he said.

The KTS’s Secretary Abdul Raheem Al-Kandari stressed that the KTS was currently studying demands to re-evaluate and reconsider expatriate teachers’ contracts as per the meeting held between KTS Chairman and a delegation of expatriate teachers last March.

They had put forward demands such as an increment in rent allowance, inclusion in teachers’ cadre and receiving annual flight tickets. Al-Kandari added, “They also called for having some local media and TV channels respect them, and stop stirring public opinion against them,” he underscored.

Furthermore, he said that the recent increments given to expatriate teachers was as per the put forward by KTS and that the education minister has referred them to the Civil Services Commission (CSC).

More blaspheming statements in Mubarak Al-Kabeer Once more, unidentified individuals scrawled blaspheming graffiti

statements against Aisha and Caliph Omar Ibn Al-Khattab ( MABPWT) across a Mubarak Al-Kabeer mosque walls. A similar act was committed two weeks ago.

Commenting on the incident, MP Mohammed Hayef said that recurring practice emphasizes the existence of ‘deviated beliefs’ targeting some children and ignorant people.

“We need to monitor those who accuse the Prophet’s Companions and their followers of being infidels.

This poses a great danger as such ‘elements’ may abuse Muslims lives, money and reputation,” he warned.

KD 170,000 to launch magazine website The Information Ministry has recently allocated KD 170,000 to a company in charge of designing and launching a special website for Kuwait’s official magazine, ‘AlKuwait Al-Youm.’

According to officials, the contract includes installation and operation of machines needed to launch the website.

Pakistani president to visit Kuwait

KUWAIT: The Kuwait Blind Association will organize the 1st Arab Blind Forum (May 8 to 12) entitled ‘Golden Jubilee Enlightens Blind Arabs.’ It will be held under the patronage of HH the PM Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammed Al-Sabah. Fayez Al-Azmi, Organizing Committee Chairman, noted that the participating delegation will begin arriving today. A slew of activities ranging from table tennis, singing, seminars, cultural competitions, excursions, blind technology exhibition and arts will be held.

KUWAIT: Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari will begin a two-day official visit to Kuwait today. He will hold talks with His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah.

On Thursday, Islamabad released an official statement stating that the visit is being made in response to an invitation extended by HH the Amir. It also said that during the visit, the president will share an audience with HH the Amir, HH the Crown Prince Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmed AlSabah and HH the Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Mohammed Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah.

The president will hold official talks with the Kuwaiti leadership to further strengthen the most cordial brotherly ties shared between the two countries, said an official Pakistani press statement. The president will also meet with heads of

prominent business and investment groups in Kuwait, including the Kuwait Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development (KFAED) and Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA). During these discussions, further enlargement in bilateral cooperation in the fields of trade and investment will be examined. This is the second visit of the President to Kuwait. He visited the country in February this year to participate in the celebrations marking 50 years of independence of Kuwait on the invitation of the Amir of Kuwait. Pakistan and Kuwait also enjoy growing trade relations. The current trade volume between the two countries has crossed $2 billion. Around 150,000 Pakistani expatriates work in diverse fields in Kuwait, including as skilled and non-skilled workers. — KUNA

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Debate, poetry recital, plays held to mark KU ‘English Day’

By Abdullah Al-Qattan KUWAIT: The Kuwait University’s (KU) English Faculty held its 8th Annual English Day on Thursday night at the Shuwaikh campus. An audience of more than 1,000 attended the event.

The event usually showcases student talent - plays that are performed, written by students, giving them the opportunity to work on creative skills. These are presented in a professional manner.

A debate competition is usually held as part of the event, in addition to a poetry recital competition and an art gallery. In this manner, the student gets a chance to develop his talents.

The fully organized event is usually supervised by one faculty member of the department, and just like the previous year, Dr Lamees Al-Bustan, supervisor of this year’s English Day said The event is basically a collaboration of students who receive guidance from professors to create a professional atmosphere or work. This is so that students use their skills gained here later on, whether it be leadership, team work or perfecting.

Dr Lamees Al-Bustan also added, “the English Day is an academic and cultural event that exhibits students’ talents and creativity through research papers, poetry, art gallery and/or direction and performance.”

The event encourages students to become independent and cooperate with each other. It helps students adopt and deal with real-life experiences.

This year’s General Coordinators Bodour AlAjeel and Bader Al-Khayyal both said that the English Day is a chance for every student to work in the place that they feel they can exhibit their talents. It is an amazing experience to have organized all the little bits and pieces of the puzzle and come out with such an amazing event.

Bodour Al-Ajeel added, “We worked together as a group and place our differences aside. This event really helps us with our communication skills and how we can share the success. Our professors really cooperate and support us throughout the making of English Day and we cannot thank them enough.”

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NBK announces winners of ‘Win iPad 2 every day’ campaign KUWAIT: National Bank of Kuwait (NBK) the best bank in the Middle East has rewarded seven winners with a brand new iPad 2 in the first raffle of the promotional campaign that is exclusive to NBK MasterCard credit cardholders.

NBK Deputy General Manager Consumer Banking Group Abdulla AlNajran Al-Tuwaijri said, “NBK maintains its leadership in the credit cards market by consistently delivering superior value to its customers. We always strive to develop promotions to reward our clients.”

The winner Ali Hassan Salman expressed his gratitude towards NBK, “I was truly surprised and very excited when I first heard the news of winning the new iPad 2.” Salman added, “NBK has always been unique in its special offers and promotions, not to mention its services. NBK is really the best bank in the Middle East. I give my thanks to NBK and my best wishes for more success.”

The winner Helal Abdullatif Al-Masri

KUWAIT: Ali Hassan Salman receives the prize from Abdulla Al-Najran. said that this campaign is one of the most exciting promotions offered by NBK, “This is the first time in my life I’ve won such a big prize. I am very pleased to get the new iPad 2.”

This promotion is valid until May 31, 2011 and is exclusively for NBK MasterCard credit cardholders (Classic,

Second International Women’s Forum to be held KUWAIT: Kuwaiti Women’s Affairs Committee, chaired by Sheikha Latifa Al-Fahad Al-Salem Al-Sabah will participate in the Second Women’s International Forum to be held in Rabat, Morocco between May 7 to 9.

The Kuwaiti Women’s Committee affirmed, in a statement, issued yesterday, its participation in the forum to be held by Provincial Office of the National Union of Moroccan Women. It is an assertion of women’s effectiveness in promoting patriotism and co-existence of different cultures and communities.

“Highlighting the role played by women in social elevation and peace promotion,” is one of the aims of this Forum, celebrating its 40th anniversary, the statement said.

It went on to say that the forum also focuses on “how women have been able to remove all obstacles that hindered them from practicing their rightful social and civil roles in communities.”

The statement further pointed out that by “adopting a number of religious, legal and international laws, women have been able to play an effective role in their communities.”

The Forum will tackle a number of women-related issues in terms of national legislations and international laws. It will also discuss women’s role in promoting a sense of national belonging and social coexistence. It will also focus on advancing means of educational, social, economic and cultural position of women.

The Kuwaiti Women’s Affairs Committee, however, will address the issue of “the role of education in promoting patriotism and social co-existence,” the statement pointed out.

It said that the role played by families, schools, social and media institutions is very important in clarifying the concept of patriotism and instilling a sense of belonging to one’s homeland in individuals.

The statement concluded by stating that exchanging opinions is very essential and should address similar women-oriented events. —KUNA

KUWAIT: Helal Al-Masri receives the prize from Abdulla Al-Najran.

Gold, Titanium, Platinum, and World MasterCard). Retail purchases and cash advances made on NBK MasterCard credit cards are included in the draws.

This offer gives NBK MasterCard credit cardholders the chance to enter weekly draws to win 45 iPads within a 45 day period. NBK MasterCard credit

cardholders got a chance to enter a draw for every KD 20 spent using their card in Kuwait or abroad.

The cardholders get double chances to enter a draw when they spend KD 20 using their card at NBK Rewards partner outlets. The next draw will be held on May 9, 2011.

Kuwait Municipality toughens inspections on salons, gyms Moves to guard against disease KUWAIT: Kuwait Municipality will toughen inspections on salons, that cater to both male and female customers, as well as spas and gyms that operate during the summer season, an official said yesterday.

Municipality Director General Ahmad Al-Subeeh pointed out that it is imperative to take health-related precautions and inspections to guard against disease.

These could be transmitted through unsterilized or improperly used and maintained equipment, or due to poor hygiene in general. Skin diseases are of great concern during summer, he noted, and the high traffic during the travel and tourism season also means more interaction among people, and accordingly more risk of infection.

“All establishments must adhere to health guidelines, procedures and measures would be taken in this regard to guarantee public safety without bias, and establishments shall be held legally accountable for any violation.”

The Municipality’s service follow up director for Hawalli Governorate said that inspectors seized 30 tons of food items that were unfit for human consumption from 1,250 outlets. These were destroyed and 600 fines and citations were issued. At least 54 establishments were shut down.

The inspectors also filed notices that violated workers’ permit guidelines and violations concerning health certification. “Raids are being held 24/7 at all establishments with the aim of protecting the public,” he said,

“and all legal action can be taken when necessary.”

In another development, the Health Ministry, the Public Authority for Civil Information (PACI) and various other concerned ministries and government establishments recently held extensive meetings to discuss the possibility of including some medical information in the new smart ID cards.

Sources said that the information should include the holder’s name, address, phone numbers, nationality, age, blood type, chronic diseases, allergies and medical history in addition to information about organ transplants, disabilities, deformities, previous surgeries, vaccinations and so on, as recommended by the GCC executive health office.

National Libyan Council hails Kuwaiti support KUWAIT: Ashraf Ali Ghafeer, the National Libyan Council’s envoy to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), yesterday hailed the State of Kuwait’s support for the Libyan people during their uprising.

Speaking after a meeting with the chairman of Kuwait Red Crescent Society (KRCS), Barjas Humoud AlBarjas, Ghafeer said that this support is consistent with Kuwait’s customary eagerness to support just causes and people in need across the world. The

official revealed that during the meeting he had reached an agreement with the KRCS to increase cooperation and coordination with the Libyan body to help address the humanitarian situation in Libya at present.

The KRCS was among the very first bodies to extend support to the Libyans along their country’s borders with Tunisia and Egypt, Ghafeer pointed out, adding that the Libyan people greatly appreciate the support of the Kuwaiti government and people.

Al-Barjas, meanwhile, said that the KRCS will continue to increase its efforts to support the Libyan people during their hour of need, stressing the vital need to coordinate international efforts towards this end.

During the meeting with the Libyan representative, Al-Barjas reviewed the forms of support the society can offer the Libyans in cooperation with other humanitarian organizations, both Libyan and international. — KUNA

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Al-Jassar urges Tehran to appreciate Kuwait stand Proof of country’s neutrality KUWAIT: A recent statement made by MP Salwa Al-Jassar concerning Kuwait’s relations with Iran has been misunderstood and misinterpreted, she asserted. The lawmaker added that she wanted to express amazement at the negative attitude exhibited towards Kuwait and other GCC countries. They had, in the past, refused to allow strikes to be conducted against Iran during Bush Senior’s administration (Iran-Iraq war).

Kuwait had objected to the use of its territory to launch strikes against Iran which was a ‘very positive attitude,’ she stressed. She also blamed Iran for interfering with Kuwait’s, Bahrain’s and other GCC states’ affairs.

Al-Jassar added that the statements made by the foreign minister emphasized Kuwait’s objection towards attacking Iran. This is proof of Kuwait’s neutrality towards Iran despite its cordial relations with the US and the West, reported Al-Watan.

Furthermore, Al-Jassar invited the Iranian regime to appreciate the stance taken by Kuwait and GCC countries.

Meanwhile, NA Speaker Jassem Al-Kharafi said here that he had called on Kuwaiti MPs to attend special sessions to be held next Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. AlKharafi told reporters, “I’d like to tell you that I sent invitations today to my colleagues at

the assembly to attend sessions on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday,” voicing hope that the procedures underway to form a new government would be completed ahead of these sessions.

The Speaker also revealed that he had received a call earlier in the day from his Iraqi counterpart Osama Al-Nujaifi, who told him that Iraq’s Iraqiya List party has taken punitive measures against one of its members who made negative remarks about Kuwait.

Al-Kharafi said that Al-Nujaifi had stressed the Iraqiya List party’s eagerness to bolster cooperation between Kuwait and Iraq. The Kuwaiti Speaker said that he had thanked AlNujaifi for supporting all efforts that could lead to further development and reinforcement of bilateral relations between the two neighboring nations.

KUWAIT: Sheikh Mubarak Abdulla Mubarak Al-Sabah with Dr Richard Schenz, Dr Wolfgang Penzias, Najeeb Al-Saleh and the businessmen.

Kuwait, Austria to cement business ties KUWAIT: Sheikh Mubarak Abdullah AlMubarak Al-Sabah, Chairman of the KuwaitAustria Business and Friendship Association (KABFA), co-hosted business lunch with the Austrian Trade Commission (WKO) on the occasion of Austrians high-level business delegation visit to Kuwait.

The Austrian business delegation was led by the Vice-President of Austrian Federal Economic Chamber Dr Richard Schenz, and the Trade Commissioner to the GCC region Dr Wolfgang Penzias and Najeeb S. Al-Saleh.

The hosts welcomed prominent Kuwaiti and Austrian business people attending the event. Speakers from the Kuwait Foreign Investment Bureau and National Offset Company gave presentations highlighting the role and functions of their organizations.

Sheikh Mubarak Al-Sabah emphasized that the main purpose of business visits like this is to invite foreign businesses to take advantage of commercial and investment opportunities and to highlight Kuwait plans to become a commercial and financial center in the region.

Furthermore, he stressed that this gathering will contribute to further strengthening the growing bilateral friendship and cooperation between Kuwait and Austria. While from the Austrian side, Dr Penzias, underlined the commitment of Austria to further enhance economic and commercial ties with Kuwait as an important and key market. Dr Schenz commented that he expects business delegations from Austria to Kuwait will be on the rise and invited Kuwaiti side to visit Austria.

Panel studying plan for expat teachers to bring spouses to country VALLETTA: Kuwaiti Ambassador Faisal Al-Musaileem pictured with Malta’s President George Abela during the ceremony.

president of Malta receives Kuwaiti ambassador’s credentials VALLETTA: Malta’s President George Abela received yesterday Kuwaiti diplomat Faisal Al-Musaileem’s credentials as the first Kuwaiti resident ambassador to the country.

President Abela, during the credential acceptance ceremony at Grandmaster’s Palace, lauded the exceptional ties shared between Kuwait and Malta.

Ambassador Al-Musaileem, conveyed to President Abela wishes of well-being and prosperity from His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah and His Highness the Crown Prince Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah.

In return, President Abela relayed to the

Kuwaiti ambassador similar wishes of progress and prosperity to the Kuwaiti Amir, HH the Crown Prince, HH the Prime Minister as well as the Kuwaiti people.

He also praised HH the Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Mohammad Al-Ahmad AlSabah’s visit in August 2010, to Malta to take part in the funeral of late President Guido De Marco; a visit that was greatly appreciated

by Malta’s leadership and people.

The Ambassador praised the excellent relations shared between the two countries, stressing the Kuwaiti government’s desire to further develop these bilateral ties in all fields. —KUNA

KUWAIT: Education minister Moudhi AlHumoud recently ordered the establishment of a committee to study possible strategies for implementing an earlier Cabinet directive allowing married expatriate teachers to bring their spouses to the country.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, the education ministry’s public relations department said that the committee, to be chaired by the Assistant Undersecretary for Administrative Affairs, Aisha Al-Roudhan, would examine the Cabinet directive and

work out the necessary strategies for implementing the recommendations in it, as well as offering proposals for the best means of securing the necessary numbers of teachers and other school staff.

The committee has already noted the need to meet the criteria set down by the Ministry of Interior in implementing the directive’s recommendations, and is set to draft a report on the study to be referred to the Cabinet. The committee is scheduled to complete its work on October 31 this year. —KUNA

PAAAFR blamed for fish scarcity KUWAIT: The Public Authority for Agricultural Affairs and Fish Resources (PAAAFR) should be blamed for the disappearance of fish like Zubaidi (Pomfret), Sbour and Maid ( Small Mullet) from local markets, remarked Thaher Al-Sowayyan, Secretary of the Kuwaiti Fishermen Union (KFU).

The body has banned trawling with monoweaved nets since August 2004. Al-Sowayyan added that although the fishing season for above-mentioned types of fish had begun by the beginning of this month, PAAAFR has not

lifted the ban.

The alternative type of nets suggested are too heavy because of being coated with cotton, reported Al-Rai. “Nine kilos of Zubaidi were sold for KD 80 yesterday while a Nuwaibi was sold for KD 42,” he said.

Fish prices have been on the rise, with some kinds almost disappearing from the markets. He also added that Kuwaiti consumers have been buying imported fish owing to “random, unstudied decisions taken

by PAAAFR.”

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National Guards honors graduates KUWAIT: The National Guards celebrated the passing out ceremony of the fourth batch of non-commissioned officers and members. The personnel were subjected to rigorous training on the use various firearms and administering first-aid treatment to the injured.

The celebratory ceremony was held at the college for training candidate officers and non-ranked personnel, in coordination with a specialized American company, with the attendance of Col Khaled Hamad Al-Washmi, in charge of military training.

The graduates had undergone rigorous training on various arms, targeting and shooting, battlefield skills, handgrenades and medical first-aid.

Col Al-Washmi congratulated the graduates, urged them to do their best to sharpen their combat skills, in line with instructions of the Guards Higher Command, the Chief of the National Guard, His Highness Sheikh Salem AlAli Ali-Sabah, and his Deputy Sheikh Meshaal Al-Ahmad AlJaber Al-Sabah, and the Guards Undersecretary, Major General Nasser Abdullah Al-Daei. — KUNA

KUWAIT: The National Guards graduates pictured with Col Khaled Hamad Al-Washmi.

Four-man gang robs expat at knifepoint in Salhiya Mobile phone thief in police net KUWAIT: Four muggers in Salhiya robbed an expatriate man at knifepoint just after he left a bank there, stealing the KD500 he had just withdrawn. The victim immediately went to the local police station, telling officers that just after he left the bank a man approached him, asking for help in lifting his disabled father out of a wheelchair and seating him in the man’s car. The victim agreed and followed the man towards where his car was supposedly located, only to find out that he had been duped by a cruel conman, with three other man jumping out and holding a knife to his throat whilst they and the other man stole his money before fleeing the scene. Police are hunting for the cowardly attackers.

Phone thief A mobile phone thief responsible for stealing the phones from a number of retail outlets was caught by police in Ahmadi, admitting that he had stolen 25 cell phones in order to sell them on at a profit. Police were called in after a number of mobile phone store-owners in the area reported that the thief had stolen phones from their shops. After reviewing CCTV footage from one of the shops, police saw the thief posing as a customer, browsing among the various phones on sale and picking one up before distracting the salesman in order to flee the scene. After the thief’s picture were passed on to all police units, he was spotted by a sharp-eyed officer in Mahboula whilst in the act of selling a stolen phone, and immediately arrested.

Prison food fan A former prisoner just released from Central Prison looks likely to return there shortly after stabbing

one of the witnesses who testified against him in the car theft case for which he was convicted. On tracing the witness’s address, the vengeful ex-con went to the man’s house and stabbed him with attacked him with a sharp metal object following a brief conversation before fleeing the scene. Police quickly found the notvery-bright former prisoner hiding in his own home and arrested him.

Car thief Two young women got a nasty shock on leaving the mosque they had gone into for Ishaa prayers on discovering that their car, parked beside the building, had been broken into and their handbags had been stolen, with the thief smashing the windscreen to gain access. The women immediately called police, and criminal evidence officers were quickly at the scene, removing fingerprints and other evidence. An Asian man who had been nearby told officers that he had seen the break-in, giving them the vehicle license plate number of the car which the culprit used to escape. A hunt is underway for the thief.

Drunks busted A young man and his girlfriend were arrested after police, who received complaints from locals about the couple who refused to turn down the loud volume on their car stereo despite repeated requests to do so, discovered that both were extremely drunk. They were taken to the local police station to sober up and face charges of public inebriation.

Brothel raids Raids on two flats being used as brothels in Hawally and Salmiya

resulted in the arrests of 15 Asian women for prostitution offences. The raids were carried out after the Director General of the Criminal Investigation Department, Brigadier Mahmoud Al-Tabbakh, received a number of tip-offs from informants about the activities which the apartments were being used for. He assigned detectives to investigate the information and after it was confirmed both flats were raided.

Kabad suicide The Kuwaiti owner of a livestock farm in Salmiya discovered the body of an Asian man employee there hanging from a noose in one of the farm buildings. The man is believed to have committed suicide. The body was removed for autopsy.

Thief caught Police in Farwaniya have arrested an Asian man who stole KD26,000 from a Kuwaiti acquaintance over a period of time. On being questioned, the thief had apparently been taking advantage of the Kuwaiti man’s trust in him to steal the money, sending it to his family back in his home country. He has been referred to the relevant authorities.

Drug dealers Two expatriate drug dealers have been arrested in Salwa, both of whom dealt in hashish informing officers about their activities during questioning.

A quantity of hashish was recovered from both men. In a separate case, a male citizen of another Gulf country was caught by police following a car chase, with officers recovering 192 narcotic tablets from his car.

All three have been referred to the relevant authorities.

One dead, five hurt in car accidents

By Hanan Al-Saadoun KUWAIT: A 61-year-old Pakistani man died after being hit by a car whilst crossing the road near the Al-Sahel Sports Club. The man suffered multiple injuries, including a fractured skull, dying at the scene. The body was removed for autopsy.

In a separate accident, A 40-year-old Indian man was rushed to Adan Hospital after suffering compound fractures to both legs in a car crash on King Fahad Road.

In another incident, a 22-year-old Kuwaiti man sustained fractures to his right shoulder bone in a vehicular collision near Sheikh Saad Al-Abdullah Airport. He was taken to Farwaniya Hospital.

Meanwhile, a 23-year-old Kuwaiti motorcyclist was taken to Mubarak Hospital after sustaining a broken left thighbone when his bike overturned after he lost control of it near the Marina Mall in Salmiya.

In a fifth incident, a 30-year-old Egyptian man suffered broken bones in his right foot and heavy bruising when he was hit by a car in Dhajeej. He was taken to Farwaniya Hospital.

Meanwhile a 45-year-old Egyptian man was taken to Farwaniya Hospital after suffering lacerations to his scalp in a car crash in Qairawan.

Newborn abandoned A newborn baby boy only a few hours old was rushed to hospital after a passerby discovered him abandoned in a street in Fintas.

Caught in the act An Arab male expatriate and an Asian woman have been referred for prosecution after they were caught in a compromising position by the owner of the home where the woman worked. The man also faces charges of entering a home with intent to commit a crime.

Obnoxious VIP Police told senior officials that they had attempted to stop a car being driven by an unnamed VIP after spotting that the driver was using police flasher lights which are prohibited for all non-emergency services vehicles. As soon as the officers attempted to pull the driver over, however, he apparently threw his passport out the window at them, telling them that he didn’t “have the time” for them, and continued on his way. An investigation is underway into the incident, with the officers attaching the VIP’s passport to their report to back up their account.

SATURDAY, MAY 7, 2011

Security services cleared over London 7/7 deaths

9

France expels 14 Libyan diplomats

10

US drones kill 17 in NW Pakistan

14

Syrian forces kill 30 protesters: Activists EU agrees asset freezes, travel bans on Syrian leaders

DAMASCUS: In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, Syrian students shout supportive slogans to Syrian President Bashar Assad, center, as he arrives to lay a wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier during Martyrs day in Kasiyoun mountain in Damascus, Syria, yesterday. Syrian activists say security forces are taking strict measures around the country as anti-regime protesters prepare for a new day of demonstrations. — AP AMMAN: Syrian security forces killed 30 protesters yesterday demanding an end to President Bashar al-Assad’s rule, rights campaigners said, and the European Union agreed to impose sanctions in response to his crackdown. Activists and witnesses said demonstrations broke out after the main Friday prayers in cities across the country of 20 million people, from Banias on the Mediterranean coast to Qamishly in the Kurdish east. The bloodiest confrontation took place in the central city of Homs where 15 protesters were killed, activist Ammar Qurabi said. Syrian state television said an army officer and four police were killed in Homs by a “criminal gang”.

International criticism has mounted against Assad, who has gone on the offensive to maintain his family’s four-decade grip on power and crush demonstrators demanding freedom.

European Union governments agreed yesterday to impose asset freezes and travel restrictions against Syrian officials responsible for the violent repression, which rights cam-

paigners say has killed more than 560 people. Officials give a lower death toll and say half the fatalities have been soldiers and police, blaming “armed terrorist groups” for the violence. They say demonstrators are few in number and do not represent the majority of Syrians.

It was not immediately clear if Assad himself would be targeted under the sanctions, which follow last week’s EU agreement in principle to impose an arms embargo on Syria.

The measures will be approved on Monday if no member state objects.

Assad’s security forces and troops, which stormed the city of Deraa last week, have prevented demonstrators establishing a platform such as Egypt’s Tahrir Square by blocking access to the capital Damascus. But every week protesters have used Friday prayers to launch fresh marches. “The people want the overthrow of the regime,” shouted 2,000 demonstrators in the Damascus suburb of Saqba, demanding the release of hundreds of relatives arrested by security forces in the last few days, a witness

said. Footage released on the Internet and aired on Al Jazeera television showed protesters in several towns and cities echoing the same calls for freedom and change of leadership.

Tanks deployed in the Damascus district of Barzeh and in Homs. In Hama, where Assad’s father brutally suppressed an armed Islamist uprising in 1982, a rights activist said security forces shot dead six demonstrators when they fired at a protest. The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a protester was killed in Latakia and three others wounded. There were also protests in the Damascus district of Midan, the suburb of Daraya and towns of Zabadani and Tel Kelekh near the Lebanon border. Activist Wissam Tarif said live ammunition was fired in at least at four demonstrations.

Despite the harsh crackdown, protesters appear determined to maintain demands for an end to years of repression, arrests without trial and corruption by the ruling elite. “The Syrian people will not back down after the country’s budding youths

were killed in their hundreds,” said Montaha al-Atrash of the Syrian human rights organisation Sawasiah.

Opposition leader Riad Seif, who helped initiate a peaceful movement seeking political freedoms and democracy 10 years ago, was arrested at one of yesterday’s protests, his daughter said. Authorities also arrested on Thursday prominent Damascene preacher Mouaz alKhatib, a major figure in the uprising, human rights campaigners said yesterday. A Western diplomat said 7,000 people had been arrested since the demonstrations broke out on March 18 in Deraa.The United States, which sought for the last few years to engage Damascus and loosen its antiIsrael alliances with Iran and militant groups Hezbollah and Hamas, imposed further targeted sanctions against Syrian officials last Friday. Last week, Assad ordered the army into Deraa, cradle of the uprising that began with demands for greater freedom and an end to corruption and is now pressing for his removal. An ultra-loyalist division led by his broth-

er Maher shelled and machinegunned Deraa’s old quarter on Saturday, residents said. The United States condemned the assault as “barbaric”.

Syrian authorities said on Thursday the army had begun to leave Deraa, but residents described a city still under siege. “With our soul and blood, we will sacrifice for you, Deraa”, chanted 20,000 protesters in nearby Jassem on Friday.

Thousands more converged on the town of Tafas, 12 km (8 miles) northwest of Deraa, which remains encircled by tanks, carrying placards with the word “leave”. Aid workers from the Red Cross and Red Crescent delivered their first emergency relief supplies to Deraa on Thursday, bringing drinking water, food and first aid materials. They had no immediate information on casualties in the city.

Human Rights Watch cited figures from Syrian rights groups saying 350 people had been killed there. It urged authorities on Friday to “lift the siege” on the city and to halt what it called a nationwide campaign of arbitrary arrests. —Reuters

INTERNATIONAL

SATURDAY, MAY 7, 2011

Israel sees progress in its Hamas fight PARIS: Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday wound up a diplomatic offensive meant to head off French and British support for a Palestinian statehood initiative, with aides declaring him encouraged so far. “The prime minister was pleased,” one official said, on condition of anonymity.

After meeting French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Thursday and British Prime Minister David Cameron in London the day before, Netanyahu had talks met with French premier Francois Fillon on Friday morning, then headed home.

The Israeli leader told reporters in the courtyard of the Elysee Palace on Thursday that Sarkozy had backed his demand that the Palestinians recognise Israel as “the state of the Jewish people.”

Sarkozy himself did not speak and his office restated France’s policy of support “for the solution of two nation states living sideby-side in peace and security, within safe and recognised borders.” Using Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas’s new rapprochment with the militant Islamist Hamas movement to bolster his argument against backing for the caretaker government

WEST BANK: Palestinian Hamas supporters rally in the streets of the West Bank city of Tulkarem to celebrate yesterday the political unity reconciliation deal between the Islamic group and the Fatah movement which was signed by the two rival groups in Cairo. — AFP being selected by both Palestinian groups, Netanyahu was buoyed by a statement issued by Cameron’s office after his talks there.

“Prime Minister Cameron said that any new Palestinian government must reject violence, recognise Israel’s right to exist and

Kurd rebel chief threatens war ANKARA: The imprisoned leader of Turkey’s main Kurdish rebel group has warned his forces will unleash a “big war” after national elections if Turkey refuses to negotiate to end the decades-old conflict, a pro-Kurdish news agency reported yesterday. “Either after June 15, a meaningful negotiation begins, or a big war starts, doomsday comes,” the Firat agency website said Ocalan warned, in a message through his lawyers. Turkey holds elections on June 12 and final results are expected to take several days. Turkish leaders have confirmed communication between some state officials and Ocalan to seek a solution to end the fight by autonomy-seeking Kurdish rebels but refuse to hold negotiations with the rebels, who are branded as terrorists by the United States and the European Union. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, meanwhile, said yesterday the rebel Kurdistan Workers Party, known as PKK, has claimed responsibility for a deadly attack on his party’s election convoy in northern Turkey. Wednesday’s attack in Kastamonu province that left one policeman dead and another wounded has fueled nationalist sentiment ahead of elections.

Erdogan had left an election rally in Kastamonu by helicopter but journalists and party officials were returning to the capital Ankara in the convoy. Erdogan did not say how he knew that the PKK claimed responsibility.

Police and para-military forces were chasing a small group of Kurdish rebels who carried out the attack, Erdogan said. The attack came hours after clashes at funerals for seven Kurdish rebels on Wednesday in the southeast where tensions still run high.

Police yesterday raided homes of dozens of Kurds and detained them for attacking the police with firebombs and stones in violent demonstrations in the cities of Hakkari and Diyarbakir in recent days, the Anatolia news agency said. A fight between Kurdish militants and supporters of an outlawed Kurdish Islamic militant group, Hezbollah, which battled the PKK for years in the region, left one member of the Islamic group dead with gunfire on Thursday, reports said. — AP

engage in the peace process, and that Britain would judge it by its actions,” it said, citing longstanding preconditions set by the international community for engagement with Hamas.

Netanayhu said he found a similar attitude in Paris, and Israeli officials said that France was also

committed to the preconditions, laid down by the diplomatic Quartet of the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia, which Hamas has so far refused to endorse.

But both Sarkozy and Cameron said they would reserve judgement on the emerging Palestinian alliance, with the Elysee saying it hoped to get a better idea of its make-up and intention “in the coming days” and Cameron expressing the “hope that Palestinian unity between Fatah and Hamas will be a step forward.” Two weeks after his return to Israel, Netanyahu will set off on his next trip, this time to Washington where he will take his campaign to the White House in a May 20 meeting with President Barack Obama and also address both houses of Congress.

Abbas of the Palestinian Fatah faction struck an accord with Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal on Wednesday, ending a four-year feud and laying the foundations of a new unified Palestinian government. Israel is concerned that the new Palestinian authority includes militants whom it, the United States and the EU consider terrorists and those who are dedi-

cated to denying Israel’s right to exist as an independent Jewish state. “If (Palestinian) national unity is unity for peace, then we would be the first to support it,” Netanyahu said after meeting Sarkozy.

“But if it’s unity to move away from peace, pursue the battle for Israel’s eradication, then obviously we oppose it and so should everyone else.”

“If Hamas adopted positions of peace in the unity government I would say great, let’s negotiate,” he said in an interview with CNN. “But in fact the opposite has happened.” Some European leaders, including Sarkozy, have warned that they might recognise Palestinian statehood without waiting for a comprehensive peace deal, and would seek a UN resolution to confirm it.

On his visits to Britain and France, Netanyahu has warned that the UN option, far from breathing new life into the peace process, could kill it.

“A serious quest for peace can only happen through negotiations. It can only happen in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, and not through a UN diktat,” he said in Paris. — AFP

Saleh vows to resist ‘outlaw’ protesters Loyalists mark ‘Friday for security and stability’ SANAA: Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh told a mass rally of supporters yesterday that he would resist calls to quit, describing as “outlaws” tens of thousands of protesters gathered a short distance away.

“I can assure you that I will resist,” Saleh told the crowd in the capital Sanaa’s Sabbine Square after taking part in the main weekly Muslim prayers at nearby Tahrir Square.

He hit out at the protesters who have been demanding that he step down immediately and said he would “strongly defend the constitution.”

His current term of office ends in 2013. Protests demanding his departure has led to the deaths of 150 people since late January and efforts of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to broker a peaceful transition in Yemen remains stalled.

Saleh’s rivals gathered for what they called the “Friday for the loyalty of the people in the south,” while regime loyalists marked “Friday for security and stability.”

At the Place of Change, the epicentre of the protests against Saleh, large crowds demanded his immediate exit and that he be brought to trial. There were no immediate reports of clashes between the two demonstrations.

SANAA: Tens of thousands of Yemeni anti-government protesters shout slogans during a demonstration calling for the ouster of President Ali Abdullah Saleh in Sanaa yesterday as Saleh told a mass rally of supporters that he would resist calls to quit, describing as “outlaws” the anti-regime protesters gathered a short distance away. — AFP “The people want to try the executioner,” the crowds chanted.

A similar rally calling for Saleh’s departure was held in Taez, the second largest city of Yemen, located 200 kilometres (125 miles) south of Sanaa, witnesses said.

The latest show of strength came as the GCC moved to salvage an initia-

tive that would see Saleh eased out of power and ending political unrest.

The GCC has said it was awaiting a “signal” from Saleh to revive their efforts. The country’s main opposition Common Forum Thursday asked the Gulf Arab states to pressure Saleh to accept the transition plan and end months of political violence. — AFP

international

SATURDAY, MAY 7, 2011

Separatists win in Scotland, Liberal Dems sink in UK Scotland’s Labour Party leader to resign

LONDON: Ruth Parathasangary (L), the mother of Shyanuja Parathasangary, one of 52 victims of the 2005 London bombings, leaves London’s High Court yesterday. The 52 victims of the July 7, 2005 London bombings were unlawfully killed, a coroner ruled yesterday following exhaustive inquests into the Al-Qaeda-inspired atrocity. —AFP

Security services cleared over London 7/7 deaths LONDON: A coroner formally ruled yesterday that the 52 victims of the 2005 London suicide bombings were unlawfully killed, but cleared the security and rescue services of any responsibility for the deaths.

Lady Justice Heather Hallett also ruled out any more inquests or inquiries into the worst-ever peacetime attacks on British soil.

She said the evidence presented to inquests over the past 5-1/2 months “does not justify the conclusion that any failings of any organisation or individual caused or contributed to the deaths.”

All medical and scientific evidence pointed to the conclusion that none of the 52 dead would have survived, even if emergency services had got to them more quickly, she added.

“I’m satisfied on balance of probabilities that each victim would have died whatever time the emergency services had arrived,” she said.

Hallett said however she was making recommendations which “may save lives” in the future.

Many of the victims’ families had called for a full public inquiry into the bombings to establish whether the police and domestic security service, MI5, could have stopped them.

But Hallett said she believed that the hearings had sufficiently and painstakingly examined highly sensitive MI5 material relating to the occasions when the bombers came onto the security agencies’ radar before the attacks.

“To my mind, the concerns that I would not be able to conduct a thorough and fair investigation into the security issues in wholly open evidential proceedings have proved unfounded,” she said.

The inquest at London’s High Court heard how the victims had been killed during an “unimaginably dreadful wave of horror”. Four British Islamists-Mohammad Sidique Khan, 30, Shehzad Tanweer, 22, Hasib Hussain, 18, and Jermaine Lindsay, 19, — detonated bombs on three packed underground trains and a bus in the morning rush hour on July 7, 2005. As well as killing themselves and the 52 others, they injured over 700 people.

The inquests-which had to wait until all criminal trials of alleged associates of the bombers had ended-were the first public examination of the blasts and the events leading up to them.

A spokesman for 10 of the 30 families involved said they were satisfied with the proceedings.

“Many have sat through highly graphic ... accounts of the last moments of their loved ones’ lives and the details surrounding the responses of all the various emergency services immediately following the explosions,” he said in a statement.

“Whilst the sometimes traumatic proceedings will not bring back their loved ones, all involved have been united in their concern to ensure that the horror they have had to face is avoided wherever possible in the future. —Reuters

EDINBURGH: The Scottish National Party won a majority in Scotland’s parliamentary election and its leader promised yesterday to hold a vote on independence from the United Kingdom.

Voters in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland elected members of regional legislatures Thursday and hundreds of local council seats were at stake around Britain. A national referendum was also held on whether to change Britain’s parliamentary election system.

The Liberal Democrats, the junior partner in the coalition government, were dealt the biggest defeats across the country.

While results were still incomplete yesterday, the SNP became the first party since Scotland’s regional government was formed in 1999 to win a majority of the 129 seats in the Scottish Parliament.

By mid-afternoon, the SNP had won 65 seats, a bare majority; Labour had 32, Conservatives 11 and others seven.

Scotland’s Labour Party leader Iain Gray said he would resign in the fall.

Voters appeared to approve how the Scottish National Party has led a coalition government over the past four years and also backed programs to preserve free university tuition and to give the elderly free personal care. In local elections across Britain, the Liberal Democrats lost more than 500 council seats even as ballot counting continued. That was a massive defeat for the junior partner in Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservativeled coalition government, and sparked fresh calls for the resignation of party leader Nick Clegg, who is also Cameron’s deputy. The Liberal Democrats lost control of six local councils including Sheffield, Clegg’s own town. “We have taken a real knock last night. But we need to get up, dust ourselves down and move on,” said Clegg. The Conservatives gained about 80 council seats, while Labour gained more than 570. Cameron, who marked his first year in office on Friday, said his party had “fought a strong campaign explaining why we took difficult decisions to sort out the

SHEFFIELD: British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg (C) leaves after casting his vote in the local elections and AV referendum at the Hall Park Centre in Sheffield, northern England, on May 5, 2011.

Britain votes on changing the electoral system after a viciously fought campaign for the first national referendum in more than three decades threatened to tear the ruling coalition apart.—AFP mess we inherited from Labour.”

Inflation has been surging in Britain, despite sluggish growth and harsh spending cuts that are slashing government jobs and hiking university tuition fees. The parliamentary election system votes were still being counted yesterday, but earlier polls suggested that voters would reject changing the system in which the candidate with the most votes wins the seat.

The Liberal Democrats had supported the Alternate Vote system, where voters rank candidates in order of preference.

The winner is the first candidate to secure a majority, either in the first round of counting or in succeeding rounds by picking up votes as the lowest-ranked candidates are eliminated.

Despite its worst showing in 80 years in Scotland, the Labour Party just missed a majority in the Welsh Assembly, winning 30 of the 60 seats.

Elsewhere, votes were being counted yesterday to determine whether Northern Ireland is led by a British Protestant as usual or by an Irish Catholic for the first time. Final results expected Saturday. Analysts said Labour’s campaign theme that a vote for the Scottish National Party was a vote for independence had backfired.

“I voted for the SNP this time, but I’m not in favor of independence.” said Alex Burns, 44, from Edinburgh. “Scotland would have gone bankrupt if it had been outside the UK during this economic crisis.” —AP

Albania holds local elections amid crisis TIRANA:- Voters in volatile Albania head to the polls Sunday for local elections seen as a major test of the impoverished Balkans nation’s stability as it seeks to emerge from two years of political paralysis.

After deadly political violence earlier in the year, the runup to the polls has also been marred by unrest with extremists blowing up an opposition candidate’s car on Thursday in the Kukes region, north of Tirana, police said.

The incident was not the first of its kind in the campaign, marked by a heated atmosphere between the supporters of the main parties. However both government and opposition are expected to keep their followers in check on election day as Albania’s international reputation is at stake.

“Albania cannot miss the opportunity to demonstrate its capacity to conduct free, fair and transparent elections,” the European Union’s ambassador to Tirana Ettore Sequi told AFP. The international community considers local elections in Albania as a test of country’s maturity as it strives to gain membership of the European Union.

Sequi warned that a problems with the polls could keep

the European Commission from giving a positive assessment for the country’s 2008 bid for membership.

The Balkans country has been in political stalemate since parliamentary elections in June 2009, contested by the opposition which accused the ruling right-wing Democratic Party of electoral fraud and demanded a recount of the vote.

The crisis reached its peak in January, when at an antigovernment protest in Tirana, four people were killed and several were injured.

The polls in Albania have regularly been marred by violence and contested ever since the fall of communism in early 1990s. Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha vowed the local elections Sunday would go off without a hitch.

“We will change that reality ... the authorities have taken all measures to ensure that the municipal elections will be free, fair and democratic,” Berisha vowed.

Analysts say the real significance of the elections will be to act as a barometer of the support for the government and the opposition for the first time since the deadly violence in January. —AFP

INTERNATIONAL

SATURDAY, MAY 7, 2011

Miner dead, two rescuers missing in Polish mine blaze WARSAW: One miner died and two rescuers were missing underground Friday after a blaze sparked by a methane gas explosion at the Krupinski mine in Poland’s southern Silesian coal basin, officials said.

“The doctor pronounced one miner dead after he was brought to the surface,” Agnieszka Barzycka, a spokeswoman for the JSW company that owns the mine, told AFP.

“We still have no contact with the two missing rescuers,” she said.

“We’re still hoping they are alive,” JSW CEO Jaroslaw Zagorowski told Poland’s TVN24 news channel.

Earlier Friday, three miners were brought to the surface and were in stable condition.

Underground temperatures reaching 45 degrees Celsius (113 Fahrenheit) and thick smoke were hampering the rescue effort,

Barzycka said. A blaze broke out Thursday evening after a methane gas explosion nearly one kilometre (half a mile) underground, close to where a total of 32 miners were working.

Eight of the saved miners were hospitalised with burns, but their lives were not in danger, JSW said.

The liberal government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk is aiming to float

state-owned JSW-ranked as the European Union’s largest coking coal producer — on the Warsaw stock exchange in June.

According to the company website, JSW employs a workforce of 26,100 while Polish media reports have pegged the value of the company around 2.4 billion Euros (3.5 billion dollars). Poland depends on coal for more than 90 percent of its electricity production. — AFP

France expels 14 Libyan diplomats Attacks on Libyan civilians may be war crimes: Amnesty

MOSCOW: Nikita Tikhonov, background right, and Yevgenia Khasis, left, listen to a sentence from behind glass at a Moscow court yesterday. The Moscow City Court yesterday sentenced 31-year-old nationalist Nikita Tikhonov to life in prison and his 26-year-old girlfriend Yevgenia Khasis to 18 years in prison for the killing of a prominent human rights lawyer and an independent journalist. — AP

UN rights experts press US over bin Laden killing GENEVA: UN human rights experts yesterday pressed the United States for full disclosure of the facts surrounding the killing of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden because of the example such action could set.

“Actions taken by States in combating terrorism, especially in high profile cases, set precedents for the way in which the right to life will be treated in future instances,” said the UN special rapporteur on counter terrorism measures, Martin Scheinin, and the rapporteur on extrajudicial and summary executions, Christof Heyns.

“In respect of the recent use of deadly force against Osama bin Laden, the United States of America should disclose the supporting facts to allow an assessment in terms of international human rights law standards.”

“For instance it will be particularly important to know if the planning of the mission allowed an effort to capture bin Laden,” they added in a statement.

The White House’s shifting story of the attack has raised doubts about US assurances that special operations forces sent to bin Laden’s hideout in the Pakistani garrison town of Abbottabad were prepared to take him alive.

US Attorney General Eric Holder insisted Wednesday that the raid during which bin Laden was killed “was lawful and consistent with our values.”

The two experts acknowledged that “acts of terrorism are the antithesis of human rights” and that in some exceptional cases, “use of deadly force may be permissible as a measure of last resort... in order to protect life.”

“However, the norm should be that terrorists be dealt with as criminals, through legal processes of arrest, trial and judicially decided punishment.” “It may well be that the questions that are being asked about the operation could be answered, but it is important to get this into the open,” the experts said.UN High Commissionner for Human Rights Navi Pillay has repeated a similar call for full disclosure. — AFP

TRIPOLI: France yesterday expelled 14 Libyan diplomats loyal to the government of Muammar Gaddafi as Amnesty International said Libyan forces could be guilty of war crimes in the besieged city of Misrata.

France, the United States, Britain and others are trying to go beyond a NATO bombing campaign against troops loyal to Gaddafi to find other ways of helping an uprising that prised eastern Libya from his control but then stalled.

The bombing and imposition of a no-fly zone, both intended to protect civilians, have not prevented scores being killed in government attacks on remaining pockets of rebellion in western Libya, notably the besieged cities of Misrata and Zintan.

Amnesty International said indiscriminate attacks on Misrata, including the use of snipers, cluster bombs and artillery in civilian areas, might amount to war crimes.

“The scale of the relentless attacks that we have seen by al-Gaddafi forces to intimidate the residents of Misrata for more than two months is truly horrifying,” said Donatella Rovera, Amnesty International’s senior adviser in Libya.

“It shows a total disregard for the lives of ordinary people and is in clear breach of international humanitarian law.” The International Organisation for Migration evacuated 1,100 people from Misrata by ship on Wednesday under government shelling that killed five people. In Geneva, IOM spokeswoman Jemini Pandya spoke of “a life and death operation where every single minute counted”.

She told reporters the IOM was now acutely worried about tens of thousands of destitute Chadians.

“The group that we are particularly concerned about are an estimated 40,000 Chadians in the southern Libyan town of Gatroun, believed to be mostly women and children and reported to be in a desperate and pitiful condition,” she said.

“People are telling us that these migrants have no food, water, shelter or sanitation ... Our fear is that, after many weeks like this and in these kind of temperatures, they will not be able

BENGHAZI: A Libyan rebel fighter secures the area while Libyan Muslims, not pictured, attend weekly Friday prayers in Benghazi, Libya, yesterday. — AP to survive for much longer.” A French diplomatic source said the decision to expel the 14 Libyan diplomats had been taken some time ago, “but there was a process to follow”. “Many of these people were using their status as diplomats as a cover,” said the source, who declined to be named. A coalition of Western and Arab countries agreed on Thursday to provide Libya’s eastern rebels, based in Benghazi, with millions of dollars in non-military aid to help them keep services and the economy running as well as try to topple Gaddafi, in power since 1969.

The rebel Transitional National Council has said it needs up to $3 billion to keep going in the coming months, and the U.N. World Food Programme said on Thursday that Libya’s food supplies could run out in six to eight weeks, particularly in the east. At Thursday’s Libya Contact Group meeting in Rome, Kuwait pledged $180 million and Qatar promised $400-500 million to the rebels. A U.S. official said the administration was considering unblocking more than $150 million for humanitarian purposes.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Washington would try to change the law to unlock some of the $30 billion of Libyan state funds frozen in the United States to help the rebels.

The Contact Group meeting

brought together foreign ministers from more than 20 countries as well as representatives of the Arab League and the African Union.

Yesterday Russia warned the group not to try to eclipse the authority of the UN Security Council, which has imposed sanctions on Libya and authorised the use of force specifically to protect civilians.

These sanctions prevent the rebels as well as the government raising money by selling oil on international markets. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the group was trying to “take on the leading role in determining the policy of the international community in relation to Libya”, and that the international community should be concerned with stopping the fighting, not taking sides.

The insurgents trying to topple Gaddafi after 41 years in power had hoped for a swift victory, akin to the overthrow of the leaders of Egypt and Tunisia by popular uprisings.

But his better-equipped forces halted the rebels’ westward advance from Benghazi and the front line is now largely static.

NATO said its aircraft had conducted 57 strike missions on Thursday, attacking ammunition stores, tanks, armoured vehicles, rocket launchers and a communications facility in or around Zintan, Sirte, Brega, Mizdah, Misrata and Ras Lanuf. — Reuters

INTERNATIONAL SATURDAY, MAY 7, 2011

Argentine govt a danger to media freedom BUENOS AIRES: A visiting media delegation said Thursday that press freedom has deteriorated in Argentina, and accused the government of trying to reshape the media industry to control what citizens can read, see and hear.

The Inter American Press Association group said it arrived already concerned that Argentina was on a dangerous path, and its worries only deepened during two days of meetings with representatives of Argentina’s three branches of government, media companies and social organizations. “Without freedom of expression you can’t have a true democracy,” warned Gonzalo Marroquin, IAPA’s president who publishes the newspaper Siglo 21 in Guatemala. Concluding its visit, the delegation said a complete report would be released next week, but its preliminary conclusion is that Argentina’s freedoms are endangered by a constant state of conflict polarizing society. The visitors blamed “advocacy journalists” who depend on government subsidies to spread attacks on media - part of what they see as a

comprehensive, long-term strategy by President Cristina Fernandez’s government to control what is shown on TV and in newspapers.

Marroquin acknowledged that media monopolies also can pose dangers, but he said an Argentine media reform law is ominous because if upheld in court, it would force the breakup of large media companies, leaving Argentines without the voices most able to stand up to the government.

“This law won’t just eliminate a concentration of media companies. It will create another concentration, and that worries us a great deal because we have seen many newspapers here subsidized by official publicity,” Marroquin said.

The unequal distribution of government advertising to reward and punish media companies based on their support of the government is particularly worrisome, as is a proposed law that would give the government control over the production and distribution of newsprint, the delegation said.

Currently, the companies that own Argentina’s two leading dailies, Clarin

Cuba gives Chilean 20-year sentence HAVANA: A Cuban court has sentenced Chilean businessman Max Marambio, once a close friend of Fidel Castro, to 20 years in prison and a former Cuban food industry minister to 15 years after convicting them in a high-profile corruption case, official media reported on Thursday.

The court sentenced Marambio, 63, in absentia because he lives in Chile and has refused to come to the communist-ruled Caribbean island since the investigation of the case began. He and former food industry minister Alejandro Roca were convicted in a March trial for bribery and other crimes related to Marambio’s business operations in Cuba.

Marambio had a joint venture with the Cuban government known as Rio Zaza that produced fruit juice, milk and other products. It was investigated for financial irregularities. He was called to appear before Cuban investigators last year but refused to travel from Chile to Cuba. He was tried in absentia with a court-appointed lawyer representing him.

From Chile, Marambio said there were no grounds for the charges brought against him.

“There’s a new government in power made up of people with few ethics and scruples. That’s all this is,” Marambio told local radio. “I’m being persecuted by a bunch of thugs.” The court found the alleged crimes of Marambio and Roca, who left office several years ago, had caused so much damage to the Cuban economy that they deserved a long sentence, Communist Party newspaper Granma said.

The Rio Zaza case was one of several high-profile business corruption cases under investigation in Cuba, where President Raul Castro, who succeeded older brother Fidel Castro in 2008, has ordered a crackdown on graft.

Marambio was the bodyguard of Chilean President Salvador Allende, a Cuban ally, who died in a 1973 coup.

Marambio went into exile in Cuba, where he became friends with Fidel Castro as he built a business empire on the island that extended to other Latin American countries.

He eventually returned to Chile.

Marambio said in October he had filed a complaint about Cuba’s investigation into his company with an international business tribunal in Paris. —Reuters

and La Nacion, control the country’s only domestic source of newsprint.

The IAPA group said it also heard media complaints about union efforts to keep newspapers from leaving printing plants — a problem it said the government denied having anything to do with — and accused the government of using the courts to attack the media.

Public Communications Secretary Juan Manuel Abal Medina met with the group Wednesday and said the government is committed to defending free expression. As the nation’s dominant media company, Grupo Clarin poses a greater danger than the populist government, Abal Medina said. It’s an argument widely heard in Argentina, but the delegation dismissed it.

“Any journalist understands that the dimension and the action of a repressive government must be criticized when it goes against freedom of expression and freedom of the press.

The damage that a government can cause to freedom of expression isn’t comparable to the damage that a media company can cause,” Marroquin

said. Several reporters raised complaints that Cablevision — Argentina’s largest cable TV provider, owned by Grupo Clarin — has refused to comply with the media reform law congress passed last year, which among other things requires it to include statesponsored channels in its programming. The company has denied requests to offer viewers Paka Paka, a homegrown Argentine children’s television channel, and INCAA, which promotes Argentine films.

A delegation member, Claudio Paolillo of the Uruguayan magazine Busqueda, rejected the argument that such refusals limit the freedoms of Argentines who have only one cable TV provider to choose from.

“Freedom of the press means not only being able to publish what you want, but also to not publish what you don’t want,” Paolillo said.

The delegation also included Robert Rivard, publisher of the San Antonio Express-News in Texas; Maria Elvira Dominguez of Colombia’s El Pais newspaper; and Julio E. Munoz and Ricardo Trotti, executives of the Miamibased IAPA. — Reuters

Obama to honor troops, thank raid participants WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama’s carefully calibrated response to the killing of Osama bin Laden is shifting from remembrance to appreciation. One day after laying a wreath at the site of the World Trade Center in New York City, the president was to go to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, to thank participants in the daring raid on bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan five days ago.

Obama, however, is seeking to convey a return to the business of governing. He was also to stop in Indianapolis on Friday to promote his energy policies and showcase a transmission plant that produces systems for hybrid vehicles.

White House officials say that at Fort Campbell Obama will express his gratitude to the raid participants privately. But the president, joined by Vice President Joe Biden, also will address soldiers who have returned recently from Afghanistan, a public forum where the military triumph will be hard to mask.

Obama so far has tried to avoid rejoicing publicly over bin Laden’s death. But he has maintained a steady stream of events and activities that have kept the success of the remarkable commando operation at the forefront. On Thursday he visited New York fire and police stations that responded to the Sept. 11, 2001, attack that was carried out by bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda operatives, and he met privately with victims’ families. He also has given an interview about the operation to CBS television that will air Sunday. In New York, Obama did

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama waves to guests as he walks to Marine One prior to departure from the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC, yesterday. — AFP

not mention bin Laden by name. He didn’t have to.

“When we say we will never forget, we mean what we say,” Obama told firefighters. At the same time, the White House is wary of overplaying its hand. Obama has decided not to release photographs of bin Laden’s corpse, saying, “We don’t need to spike the football.” As a result, the president also has hewed to his regular schedule, participating in policy sessions and routine ceremonial events. The trip to Indianapolis originally had been scheduled for last month, but Obama canceled it as he negotiated an eleventh-hour deal

with Congress to avoid a government shutdown. White House officials would not offer details on the meeting between the president and the raid participants.

“The successful mission against Osama bin Laden is a monumental achievement,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said. “But the fact remains that we’re still at war, that we have 100,000 combat personnel in Afghanistan, we have troops in a support-and-assist role in Iraq, and we have US military men and women in other places around the globe and, in some cases, in difficult situations.” — AP

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INTERNATIONAL

SATURDAY, MAY 7, 2011

Singapore ruling party faces tough election Opposition’s aimless bashing is getting stale

BANGKOK: Thailand’s Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva talks to reporters during a press conference at the government house in Bangkok yesterday. He says he will submit an application to dissolve the lower house of parliament, setting the stage for early elections. — AP

Thai PM submits plans for house dissolution BANGKOK: Thailand’s prime minister said yesterday he has submitted an application to dissolve the lower house of parliament, setting the stage for early elections. Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said he submitted the dissolution decree to King Bhumibol Adulyadej for royal approval before going to Indonesia to attend a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Abhisit said he will give a news conference Monday after he returns, where he is expected to announce the actual dissolution and election date. Polls must be held within 45-60 days of dissolving the house.

Thailand has been gripped by political turmoil since 2006, when the military staged a coup. The country has been politically unstable since, with sometimes violent street protests launched after past votes.

Abhisit’s government’s term does not expire until the end of the year, but he is hoping that a relatively buoyant economy — along with recently passed spending measures that should please voters — make this a propitious time to hold polls.

Although royal approval is normally a formality, several elements cast a shadow over election plans, the overriding one being fears that the party loyal to former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra may stage a comeback. The pro-Thaksin Puea Thai Party won the most seats in the last election in 2007 and was able to form a government, but controversial court rulings and militant anti-Thaksin demonstrations helped Abhisit’s Democrat Party take power by wooing enough lawmakers to defect to form its own ruling coalition.

Thaksin — now in self-imposed exile — was ousted in 2006 after being accused of corruption and disrespect to the king, and his return to any position of influence is opposed by elements in the army and others in a position of power. Critics of the military fear it might stage another, pre-emptive coup.

Some of Thaksin’s opponents are urging people not to vote for any candidates, which could conceivably disrupt seating a new house.

A more immediate technical hitch is that the courts have to rule on the constitutionality of new election laws. If parliament is dissolved without a court ruling, subsequent steps and the election itself could be open to legal challenges. A ruling is expected soon. — AP

SINGAPORE: Singapore votes today in its most hotly contested election ever as the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) faces challenges on the very policies that have brought spectacular growth and made the city-state a premier global financial hub.

There seems little doubt that the PAP will retain power in today’s election, which has led financial markets to largely ignore the vote. But the party’s huge 82-2 majority in parliament may be cut back as the opposition benefits from irritation over the spin-offs of the success story: sharper income disparities and an unwelcome influx of foreigners.

Opinion polls are not published in Singapore but an online poll conducted

by Australian group UMR Research indicates that the PAP’s share of the vote may fall to 61 percent from about 67 percent in 2006. “Sometimes it’s just a case of the lesser of two evils,” said Marcus Yong, a 24-year-old advertising executive, as the election campaign wound down on Thursday. “I think I will vote for the PAP.” “The opposition’s aimless bashing is getting stale; they should be focusing on what they can offer rather than what the PAP did wrong,” he said.

Boosted by hundreds of thousands of voters born after the PAP took power in newly independent Singapore in 1965, the opposition has drawn large crowds and is contesting 82 of 87 seats in parliament, the highest number ever.

Its rallies have been remarkable for the strident criticism of the government.

Singapore has been accused by New York-based Human Rights Watch and other groups of restricting freedom of expression and using defamation lawsuits to cripple the opposition, but so far in this campaign there has been no evidence of a government clamp down.

Most of the opposition’s criticism has focused on bread and butter issues and a perception that the government was not listening.

Singapore’s economy has grown rapidly in recent years, including a 14.5 percent surge in GDP in 2010, but incomes of its citizens have not kept pace.

According to the Department of

SINGAPORE: This photo taken on May 5, 2011 shows supporters of Singapore’s ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) wave the party’s logo flags during the last day of rallying for the upcoming general elections in Singapore. — AFP Statistics, the bottom 10 percent of Singaporean households had an average monthly income of S$1,400 ($1,130) last year, versus S$23,684 for the top 10 percent. Government policies are focused on attracting foreign wealth and making the city an easy place to live, and well as invest, in, which has drawn the ire of locals. Foreigners now make up 36 percent of Singapore’s population of 5.1 million, up from around 20 percent of 4 million people a decade earlier. This, critics say, has led to competition for jobs and housing, the dilution of Singapore’s national identity, as well as crowded roads, buses and trains.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has apologised for mistakes the government may have committed and said issues such as housing prices, the cost of living and income inequality will be closely

monitored. Such an apology from the powerful PAP would have been unheard of in previous years, but some cynics have called it a show of humility designed to win back votes.

“They (the opposition) have a very different vision of how to achieve the best for Singapore,” said Paul Tambyah, a speaker at an opposition rally on Thursday night. “It is not a top down, “we know better” approach but it is all about you. Two weeks of campaigning have made the government finally listen to the people - make unprecedented apologies, take notice of the issues.

Think what five years could do.”

Despite the rhetoric, the election has drawn little interest in financial markets or among overseas investors because the PAP is unlikely to lose substantial support, analysts say. —Reuters

Rare rally tests Vietnam’s religious tolerance HANOI: Vietnam has deployed troops to contain a rare mass protest by ethnic Hmong people that is testing the government’s tolerance of minority Christians, just weeks after human rights activists accused leaders of persecuting another hill tribe.

As many as 7,000 Hmong people began to gather several days ago in the far-flung mountains of Dien Bien Province, near the northwestern border with Laos and China, apparently for religious reasons although some were advocating an independent kingdom, according to diplomatic, government and other sources.

The unrest was unlikely to pose a threat to the government but the demonstration is the biggest involving ethnic minorities since unrest in the Central Highlands region in 2001 and 2004.

Details were scant from the hard-toaccess region but a Catholic priest close to the area cited followers as saying troops had been deployed and the protesters had detained at least one government official sent to negotiate.

Vietnam’s northwest is home to various hill tribes and stubborn pockets of deep poverty in a country that has emerged from the hangover of war with

a fast-growing middle class and a dynamic, factory-driven economy.

“They probably have a hard time seeing their way out of (poverty),” Daniel Mont, senior poverty specialist with the World Bank, said of people in the region.

He added that parts of the northwest were so remote they had never been fully integrated and many minority people spoke little Vietnamese.

The Hmong are originally from southern China. Many of them migrated over many years to mountainous parts of Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand.

Their culture, which includes belief in shamans and animal sacrifice, contrasts

with modern Vietnam, which began allowing religious practice in the early 1990s. While officially atheist, most of Vietnam’s 87 million people are Buddhist by tradition.

Carlyle Thayer, a Vietnam expert at the University of New South Wales, said the demonstration was a “squall” that came out of nowhere but did not pose a significant risk to the state.

“It’s remote and it’s not a threat to the regime,” he said. A diplomatic source said 5,000-7,000 people had been involved in the unrest and one of the demonstrators had apparently proclaimed himself king. —Reuters

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SATURDAY, MAY 7, 2011

US, China race political calendar to curb irritants WASHINGTON/BEIJING: Top officials from the world’s two largest economies meet next week to try to tackle irritants in their relations, a task that will only grow tougher as domestic politics seize the stage next year.

The United States and China have a lengthy list of long-standing irritants on both the economic and diplomatic fronts, requiring careful management to ensure none boil into a dispute that damages a still-fragile global recovery.

By 2012, jockeying for position ahead of US presidential elections and orchestrating the succession of Chinese President Hu Jintao will preoccupy policymakers in each country, so the window for advancing a complicated agenda is relatively small.

Chu Shulong, a professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing, cautions that as China’s focus shifts to a successor to Hu, who retires as Communist Party chief in late 2012 and leaves the presidency in 2013, it will be less flexible in policymaking.

“For example on exchange rates, China will be focused on stability and economic security, and that could mean the government is less willing to move faster on the (yuan),” Chu suggested.

The United States has pressed China for years to allow the yuan to rise in value.

China has allowed a faster appreciation of

late, but US officials argue more must be done for Beijing to combat sharply rising domestic prices. Analysts say Monday and Tuesday’s once-a-year Strategic and Economic Dialogue is unlikely to break new ground on the range of prickly issues-from US impatience with the pace of the yuan’s rise to Beijing’s unhappiness at US arms sales to Taiwan-that complicate bilateral ties. But the talks, co-chaired on the US side

by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and on China’s by Vice Premier Wang Qishan and State Councilor Dai Bingguo, are touted as useful to air differences and prevent diplomatic fires.

One innovation this time is the inclusion of military officials from each side. China’s military might is growing and the United States is watching warily.

“Both sides say they want to improve relations, but when it comes to the substantive issues, neither wants to make significant concessions,” said Chu. “I’m afraid that the defining feature of China-US relations now: lots of talk, but not much action.” For its part, China is likely to voice concerns about the ongoing political wrangling in Washington over how best to tighten a budget that is expected to spawn a $1.4 trillion deficit this year. Hanging in the balance is a decision on raising the $14.294

trillion legal limit on US debt.

China is the United States’s main creditor, with a legitimate interest in the safety of its investments.

For the United States, the yuan will again be a centerpiece, although officials also plan to pressure Beijing on policies they say favor China’s state-owned enterprises and to push the world’s secondlargest economy to open up more to foreign investment. “This imbalance of opportunity is a barrier to continued improvement of the US and China’s commercial relationship,” US Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said on Wednesday. “It is part of a broader trend of China recently narrowing its commercial environment after a long and fruitful period of opening.”

A US Treasury official on Thursday outlined the sweep of the economic topics on the table. “We are going to be talking about monetary policy, we’re going to be talking about exchange rate policy, we’re going to be talking about fiscal policy, we’ll be talking about reserve management policy,” the official said.

“That’s why we bring people like (Federal Reserve Chairman) Ben Bernanke and (China’s Central Bank) Governor Zhou (Xiaochuan) and all the senior officials on both sides together to talk,” he added. — Reuter China is already taking steps to

tamp down rising inflation. It has raised reserve requirements and has been guiding the yuan higher.

Last month, the yuan rose 0.9 percent against the dollar, marking a stepped-up pace of appreciation from a 0.4 percent March rise as the dollar dropped to threeyear lows against a basket of currencies.

The US Treasury, content to encourage yuan appreciation and hold off on tougher measures, delayed a scheduled April 15 report on currency practices of key partners, including China.

Progress next week may be even harder to make on strategic issues where foreign policy, security concerns and regional disputes come into play. A summit in January between US President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu eased tensions that flared last year over North Korea and soothed China’s concern about US military presence in Asia and arms sales to Taiwan.

But the Obama administration has said it will use the strategic dialogue to press China about human rights-always a sensitive topic for Beijing, which fears potential unrest inspired by uprisings across the Arab world. (Additional reporting by Doug Palmer and by Chris Buckley, Koh Gui Qing and Michael Martina in Beijing, writing by Glenn Somerville, editing by Dan Grebler). —REUTERS

Japan PM orders shutdown of nuclear plant near faultline Greenpeace welcomes Kan’s request to close Hamaoka

KUALA LUMPUR: Mohd Azmi Abdul Hamid (R) a representatative of the coalition of Malaysian NGOs talks to a journalists after handing out a memorandum condemning what they say was the murder of Osama Bin Laden, outside the US Embassy in Kuala Lumpur yesterday. — AFP

Philippine rebels drop secession plan on Malaysia’s advice MANILA: The Philippines’ largest Muslim rebel group yesterday said it had dropped a plan to seek secession after Malaysia threatened to stop facilitating peace talks on ending a long-running insurgency in the south of the mainly Roman Catholic state.

The Philippine government and the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) have been holding talks for nearly 12 years to find a political formula to end fighting that hobbled development in the poor but resource-rich southern region. The insurgency has killed 120,000 people and displaced 2 million.

The rebel group’s chief negotiator, Mohagher Iqbal, said the MILF had planned to introduce an option to secede in its proposed agreement with the Philippines, modelled on the peace deal in southern Sudan.

“The Malaysians twisted our arm into dropping that clause, threatening to abandon the peace talks,” Iqbal told members of the Makati Business Club, a powerful lobby group with links to President Benigno Aquino, during a dialogue in Manila. —Reuters

TOKYO: Japan’s Prime Minister Naoto Kan yesterday ordered the suspension of operations at an ageing nuclear power plant southwest of Tokyo because it is located close to a dangerous tectonic faultline.

It comes eight weeks after a massive quake and tsunami damaged the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant northeast of Tokyo, sparking the world’s worst atomic crisis since Chernobyl a quarter-century ago.

Seismologists have long warned that a major quake is far overdue in the Tokai region southwest of Tokyo where the Hamaoka plant is located. It is only 200 kilometres (125 miles) from the capital and its huge population.

“As prime minister, I have ordered, through trade minister (Banri) Kaieda, that Chubu Electric Power Co. halt operations of all the reactors at the Hamaoka nuclear power plant,” Kan said at a televised press conference.

He said the plant would stay shut while a higher sea wall is built and other measures are taken to guard it against a major quake and tsunami.

Local media said the suspension would be for about two years.

The Hamaoka plant has five reactor units, but only two are running now — number four and five. Reactors one and two, built in the 1970s, were stopped in 2009, and three is undergoing a checkup.

“The relevant authorities, including the science ministry, have shown that the possibility of a magnitude-8.0 earthquake hitting the area of the

KAMAISHI: Japanese Empress Michiko (3rd L) speaks with tsunami survivors while Emperor Akihito (2nd R) and Kamaishi Mayor Takenori Noda (2nd L) sit behind her at their makeshift shelter of Kamaishi junior high school in Kamaishi, Iwate prefecture yesterday. — AFP Hamaoka plant within the next 30 years is 87 percent,” the premier said.

“This is a decision made for the safety of the people when I consider the special conditions of the Hamaoka plant,” Kan said, adding: “I made the decision myself as prime minister.”

Kyodo News agency reported that Chubu had agreed to suspend operations. Japanese anti-nuclear campaigners have long argued that the seismically unstable area, where two major continental plates meet, makes Hamaoka the most dangerous atomic facility in the quake-prone archipelago. Heita Kawakatsu, the governor of Shizuoka prefecture, where the plant is situated, has expressed his strong opposition to resuming operations at

the closed reactors, saying that antitsunami measures were inadequate.

Kan said the government made the decision after “taking into account the enormous impact a serious accident at the Hamaoka nuclear plant would have on the Japanese society as a whole”. “It is necessary to steadfastly implement measures on a middle- and long-term basis, including construction of sea walls which can fully withstand an anticipated Tokai earthquake,” he said. After the March 11 9.0magnitude quake and tsunami knocked out cooling systems at Fukushima, leading to partial meltdowns and explosions, Chubu Electric said it planned to build a water barrier 12 metres tall or higher. — AFP

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SATURDAY, MAY 7, 2011

UN condemns Nepal’s murder-suspect minister KATHMANDU: The United Nations has condemned Nepal’s appointment of a former communist rebel commander as information minister while he is still a suspect in a kidnapping and murder case.

The world body said yesterday that Nepal’s government broke commitments to investigate human rights abuses during the country’s decadeslong civil war by appointing Agni Sapkota as minister of information and communications despite the open case against him.

Sapkota says he is innocent in the

2005 abduction and killing of a man in Kavre district, just east of Katmandu, in a crime blamed on the Maoist rebels.

Police opened a criminal case three years later — after a UN-brokered political settlement that ended the decadeslong guerrilla war — naming Sopkota as one of the main suspects because he was the rebel commander of that area.

Sapkota told the Associated Press that the case against him was concocted by political enemies. “I did not give any order and was not involved in the case,” he said. “There are political reasons behind these allegations and

attempts are being made by our opponents using this allegation as a tool against me and my party.” Sapkota is a member of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), the political wing of the former rebels that was the top votegetter in the 2008 elections. He was appointed as information minister Wednesday.

The UN said in a statement that Sapkota’s appointment reinforces a culture of impunity in Nepal. “The United Nations Human Rights Office reiterates that the State has a responsibility to ensure that the name of a person is fully

cleared following a thorough investigation before any appointment to a high public office is announced.” The Maoists fought government troops between 1996 and 2006 during which more than 13,000 people were killed.

They gave up their armed revolt and joined a peace process confining their fighters and weapons in UN monitored camps. The Maoists joined mainstream politics and emerged as the largest political party in the 2008 election. The Maoists have joined a coalition government headed by Prime Minister Jhalnath Khanal. — AP

US drones kill 17 in NW Pakistan Islamists demonstrate near Quetta

SRINAGAR: In this April 29, 2011 file photo, a Kashmiri woman walks ahead of Indian paramilitary soldiers who come out of an alley after chasing protesters during a protest. — AP

India tries sports, job training to pacify Kashmir SRINAGAR: After facing three summers of violent separatist protests in Kashmir, the Indian government is trying to prevent another outburst of rage with a new approach: charm.

It’s starting cricket and soccer clubs, holding out the hope of new jobs, and teaching troops to speak the local language as it changes tactics in this Muslim-majority region where residents have long demanded either independence or a merger with neighboring Pakistan. Simmering discontent has boiled over in past summers, with hundreds of thousands of young men taking to the streets, hurling rocks and abuse at Indian soldiers. Last year alone, 112 people were killed as troops fired live ammunition into crowds, inciting further protests in a deadly cycle of violence that only ended when the cold of winter blanketed this Himalayan region. “What we are trying to do is to make extra efforts to reach out to the people,” said Lt. Gen. Syed Ata Hasnain, the Indian army’s chief in Kashmir.

“To use the heart as a weapon, this is the doctrine.” The campaign implemented by the widely reviled Indian forces tries to address the more than two-thirds of the Kashmir valley’s 7 million people between 18 and 35 years of age, who grew up in the shadow of a separatist conflict that disrupted life for two decades.

About 68,000 people have been killed in the armed rebellion against Indian-rule that began in 1989 and the ensuing crackdown that has largely crushed the militants. Schools and colleges were closed for weeks on end and the streets became battlegrounds too dangerous for the impromptu games of cricket and soccer that are the norm across India. For the educated young there are few jobs. The stifled childhood and lack of prospects, along with the overall discontent with Indian rule, have pushed the young men of Kashmir into the streets. “If dealing with the issues of youth will bring peace to the streets, we’ll have to deal with them,” said Shiv Murari Sahai, a top police officer. The army is planning a 10-team cricket tournament called the Kashmir Premier League fashioned along the lines of the hugely successful Indian Premier League, currently underway in India. —AP

ISLAMABAD: US drone aircraft fired missiles into a house in Pakistan’s North Waziristan region yesterday, killing at least 17 suspected militants as Islamists protested against the killing of Osama bin Laden.

Four drones took part in the first such attack since US special forces killed the al Qaeda leader on Monday not far from Islamabad, further straining ties between the strategic allies whose cooperation is needed to stabilise neighbouring Afghanistan.

Facing relentless suicide bombings

by Islamic militants and struggling with a stagnant economy, Pakistan’s leaders now face criticism from all sides on bin Laden.

Both Islamists and ordinary Pakistanis are questioning how their leaders can just stand by while the United States sends commandos deep inside the country into a garrison city to eliminate the Al Qaeda chief.

At the same time, suspicions that some Pakistani security forces might have known he was hiding in the country threaten to strain already uneasy ties with Washington. “The country’s political and military leadership should immediately resign as they have failed to ensure the country’s integrity,” said Fareed Ahmed Paracha, a senior leader of the biggest Islamist political party, Jamaat-e-Islami, at a rally in the eastern city of Lahore.

“This is an attack on Pakistan’s sovereignty,” said Paracha of the raid by US Navy SEALS that ended one of the most extensive manhunts in history.

Pre-dominantly Muslim Pakistan has yet to see any major backlash since bin Laden’s killing, but is death has angered Islamists. About 1,500 Islamists demonstrated near the city of Quetta, capital of Baluchistan province in the southwest, saying more figures like bin Laden would arise to wage holy war against the United States.

“Jihad (holy war) against America will not stop with the death of Osama,” Fazal Mohammad Baraich, a cleric, said amid shouts of “Down with America”.

“Osama bin Laden is a shaheed (mar-

ABBOTTABAD: A Pakistani boy chants slogans next to supporters of a Pakistani religious group Jamaat-e-Islami during an anti American rally in Abbottabad, Pakistan, yesterday. — AP tyr). The blood of Osama will give birth to thousands of other Osamas.”

In Abbottabad, where the US operation took place, dozens of Islamists marched through streets calling on the United States to stay out of Pakistan and Afghanistan. “America is the world’s biggest terrorist,” read one placard.

Small protests were also held in the cities of Multan, Hyderabad and Abbottabad.

Anti-American sentiment runs high here, despite billions of dollars in US aid for nuclear-armed, Pakistan. Pakistan’s religious parties have not traditionally done well at the ballot box, but they wield considerable influence on the streets of a country where Islam is becoming more radicalised. The US war on militancy is unpopular in Pakistan because of the perception of high civilian deaths from drone attacks against suspected militants along the Afghan border and the feeling they are a violation of the country’s sovereignty.

The Pakistani government said bin Laden’s death was a milestone in the fight against militancy although it

objected to the raid as a violation of sovereignty. Pakistan has denied any knowledge of his whereabouts and the army threatened on Thursday to cut intelligence and military cooperation with the United States if it mounted more attacks.

Some Pakistanis are too overwhelmed by the daily grind in a politically and economically unstable nation that offers poor government services and education, to react to the fact that the world’s most wanted man was living here for years undetected.

“This is just another instance of us becoming insensitive to all the chaos around us as a nation, and Osama’s death is just another day, another incident for us,” said Jibran Jawaid, a film producer in Pakistan’s biggest city, Karachi. “Frankly, when people are so worried about high food prices, no power, security and everything, they cannot be blamed for being insensitive. A roti (bread) costs so much, bombs go off every now and then, people are robbed daily, so should they worry about that or the US raid?” — Reuters

S Sudan to redeem old pound after split

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Access buys Warner Music for $3.3 billion

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Nepal fights to save its pashmina industry

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In US, another Laden mansion sits empty

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Business SATURDAY, MAY 7, 2011

INDEPENDENCE, Ohio: In this May 3, 2011 photo, people participate in a job fair. Employers added more than 200,000 jobs in April for the third straight month. — AP

US private sector gave big jobs boost in April WASHINGTON: The US private sector forged ahead in creating jobs in April, a sign the recovery is gaining traction despite a rise in the unemployment rate to 9.0 percent, official data showed yesterday.

Businesses added a solid 268,000 jobs in April, encouraging belief that the economy’s recovery was on track even as federal and local governments cut spending and payrolls. Overall the economy created a net 244,000 nonfarm jobs last month, far more than the 185,000 expected, with the biggest growth in the service sector. It was the strongest jobs creation since May 2009, a month before the country’s worst recession in decades ended.

And the department sharply revised higher job creation figures for February and March, putting net job gains above the key 200,000 threshold for three consecutive months. “We are finally seeing steady job creation,” said John Challenger, head of

outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Some experts say a pace of at least 200,000 net new jobs a month is needed for a sustained period to reduce unemployment.

The White House welcomed the positive jobs trend despite only 1.8 percent economic growth in the January-March period.

“Despite headwinds from high energy prices and disruptions from the disaster in Japan, the last three months of private job gains have been the strongest in five years,” said Austan Goolsbee, chairman of President Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers. But, he noted, “while the solid pace of employment growth in recent months is encouraging, faster growth is needed to replace the jobs lost in the downturn.”

The new data showed an unexpected rise in the country’s unemployment rate to 9.0 percent from 8.8 percent, after falling

for four consecutive months. The number of unemployed persons stood at 13.7 million in April, while the size of the labor force was little changed. The key private-sector job creation figure of 268,000 was sharply better than the 200,000 forecast by most analysts.

“This report further confirms that the recovery is on a firmer footing and that the economy is transitioning into the expansion phase, which is accompanied by more robust job creation,” said John Ryding at RDQ Economics.

The public sector shed 24,000 jobs as governments faced squeezed budgets from falling tax revenues amid recovery from the worst recession in decades. The jobless rate and job creation data can point in different directions because they are calculated from two separate surveys: of households for unemployment, and of businesses

and government agencies for payrolls.

But economists generally took the jobs creation numbers as a better indicator of where the economy is heading.

Employment gains were broad-based in the vast services sector that accounts for roughly 70 percent of output. The department said 224,000 net service jobs were created, with growth spread fairly evenly between the retail trade, professional and business services, and health care and social services. Manufacturing, another leader in the recovery, added 7,000 jobs, while employment in the construction sector, battered in the housing crisis, was flat.

Americans faced rising inflation - the rate rose an annual 2.7 percent in March - with stagnant salaries and less purchasing power than a year ago. The average weekly wage edged up 0.1 percent in April while the number of hours worked a week - 33.6 hours - was unchanged. —AFP

business

SATURDAY, MAY 7, 2011

South Sudan to redeem old pound after split JUBA, Sudan: Southern Sudan’s central bank said it will buy back all pounds circulating in the region once a new currency is issued after independence in July as it is trying to halt a currency slide in the oil-rich south. Since southerners voted in January to split from the north in a referendum the pound has weakened steadily against the dollar on the black market in the south on worries it will be without value after independence on July 9. Analysts warn if a new currency is issued without coordination with the north on the timing and exchange rate, the pound will continue to weaken in the south with inflationary pressures rising.

Elijah Malok, governor of the Bank of Southern Sudan, said the pound would be redeemed in the south once it was replaced by the new currency, which will be called the South Sudan Pound.

“We will change their pounds, they will take them over and we will give them the (new) South Sudan Pound, which is

the same value so (southerners) don’t have to be worried,” Malok told Reuters in an interview late on Thursday. “We will do it in the south,” he told Reuters, allaying fears among southerners who thought they may be forced to trade away their old pounds in the north and along the border.

No hard figures exist but some analysts estimate more than two billion pounds are currently in circulation across the underdeveloped south.

Sudan’s central bank website does not give an overall figure for issued notes.

He declined to comment on foreign currency reserves of the southern central bank, saying only dryly: “I cannot tell you now but we are surviving.”

Malok also said he did not know the timeframe for the new currency as north and south have yet to agree on many economic and political details to ensure a smooth split. Both parts of Sudan’s economy have been hit by rising inflation, a devalued currency, a

BP opens Rosneft Arctic deal to TNK LONDON/MOSCOW: BP has agreed to cede its share of an Arctic oil exploration pact with Rosneft to its half-owned affiliate TNK-BP in a compromise with Russian partners who have fought for a slice of the action. A parallel $16 billion share swap deal between the British oil company and Russia’s state-controlled oil group Rosneft can now go ahead, the TNK-BP partners said in a joint statement, citing a decision by an arbitration panel.

Both moves are subject to the agreement of Rosneft itself.

Rosneft declined to comment on the prospect of changing partners, but Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister and Rosneft board member Igor Sechin has previously said Rosneft does not want TNK-BP to be involved in the Arctic deal because it has no deepwater offshore expertise. The owners of the other half of TNK-BP expressed their satisfaction at having muscled in on a deal that was BP’s first major strategic move after last year’s U.S. Gulf oil spill disaster shattered its reputation and hammered its share price. “We welcome today’s developments,” said Stan Polovets, chief executive of Alfa-Access-Renova (AAR), the consortium that represents the quartet of billionaire shareholders. “Today’s agreement provides a good way forward for achieving these priorities and opens the way to bring BP’s valuable expertise and technology to offshore exploration in Russia.” TNK-BP has no Arctic offshore exploration expertise of its own, but as Russia’s third biggest oil company with maturing oilfields its Russian owners do not want it to miss out on the big new Arctic prospects. BP’s shares rose 3.1 percent on the news to 436.5 pence, but some analysts were unconvinced of the workability of the plan, even if Rosneft agrees to it. “The experience of exploring in these areas is in BP, not in TNK-BP. They could get around that by seconding people into TNK-BP, but it kind of dilutes BP’s upside not only in the sense you only get half of whatever the exploration is, but also these are valuable people who could be used elsewhere,” said one analyst who did not want to be named. “It’s all rather unsatisfactory. If BP go ahead with the same Rosneft share-swap you’ve got to say, maybe what’s the point of doing all of that if you’re only going to get half of what they originally thought.” The legal wrangle dates back to the time the BPRosneft deal was signed in January, and has been holding up another key part of the plan in which BP would exchange 5 percent of its own equity for a 10 percent stake in Rosneft.

AAR had objected to the BP-Rosneft pact, saying that BP was obliged to pursue all its Russian ventures through TNK-BP. Following legal action BP has said it has offered to buy out its TNK-BP partners to try to end the dispute, and sources close to AAR said in April that BP had offered $27 billion for the 50 percent of TNK-BP held by billionaires Mikhail Fridman, German Khan, Viktor Vekselberg and Len Blavatnik. However, sources close to them have said the oligarchs are not interested in selling out. — Reuters

scarcity of foreign currency and uncertainty over sharing of oil revenues.

While the south is home to 75 percent of Sudan’s oil production, it needs to northern pipelines and access to the Red Sea to sell the crude. Malok also said the south planned to set up a stock market like in Khartoum but it would not happen anytime soon.

Malok put the current value of the pound was around 2.6 to the dollar, close to the official rate in the north but, this is way off black market rates in the dusty streets of Juba, the future southern capital. Before the January vote, the dollar bought around 2.8 Sudanese pounds in Juba. In the last couple of months it has bought between 3.1 and 3.4 pounds, but some dealers will now offer more. Most restaurants now offer at least 3. “We have too much (of the pound). They (the government) might buy it or they might not later on, we don’t know,” a street vendor said.

In March, the central bank governor of the still united Sudan quit without reason, adding to economic uncertainty. Fadi Salim Al Faqih, general manager of Bank of Khartoum, the biggest private bank, said a foreign currency scarcity has hit the economy but the central bank provides an incentive to buy and sell currency to match the black market rate.

“The exchange rate is more stable (in the north),” he said, adding: “The flows of foreign currency we see from the central bank are far more frequent and in more value,” he said, without specifying volumes.

But analysts say this measure is no help for an underdeveloped south in danger of becoming a failed state as few banks operate there. North and south Sudan have fought for all but a few years between 1955 and 2005 over differences in ideology, ethnicity, religion and oil. The conflict cost at least 2 million lives.— Reuters

Oil seesaws on jobs data after early slide Goldman says prices could top recent highs LONDON: Oil prices seesawed yesterday turning positive on better than expected US jobs data, which eased fears about global economic recovery that led to a 10-percent price crash the previous day.

A report on US payrolls showed private jobs had increased the most in 11 months, beating analysts’ expectations and spurring an upturn in oil prices. But the report also supported the dollar, which hit session highs against the euro and the yen, dampening oil market gains. “Oil higher was the initial effect seems there is a fight between oil and the dollar to go higher,” said Thorbjoern Bak Jensen, an analyst at Global Risk Management.

Brent crude shed just over $5 in the early hours of trade but recovered after the US jobs data, trading 35 cents lower at $111.14 a barrel at 1358 GMT. US crude futures were 15 cents lower at $99.65 a barrel, up from as low as $95.25 a barrel earlier in the session. “This is the first positive data point in several days.

To the extent it gives further lift to the dollar, commodities will continue to come under pressure,” said John Kilduff, partner at Again Capital LLC in New York.

Goldman Sachs, which in April predicted this week’s major correction in oil prices, said on Friday oil could surpass recent highs by 2012 due to supply tightness, contributing to the recovery ahead of the jobs data. The Wall Street bank, seen as one of the most influential in commodities business, said it did not rule out a further limited decline in oil prices in the short term. Thursday’s drop was the second biggest on record for Brent, with prices falling by more than $10. At one point, it was down $12, potentially the biggest one day drop ever. After a fifth consecutive session of losses, more than $15 had been wiped off the market since last week’s close.

NEW YORK: Traders work the crude oil options pit at the New York Mercantile Exchange yesterday. — AP “The instinct is to liquidate. Even if you are a bull, you need to have deep pockets to ride this out,” said one Singapore-based trader. Oil again suffered the deepest losses amid widespread selling of silver, industrial metals and grains yesterday, as funds liquidated positions and others bet on further losses as prices lurched lower, only to whip back in matters of minutes. Brent crude tumbled as much as 5.1 percent to a low of $105.15 per barrel early in the session, but by 1000 GMT, had recovered to $108.82, a loss of 1.8 percent.

The scale of Thursday’s fall left many analysts scrambling for an explanation in the absence of any single factor that appeared to have triggered the sell-off.

“There is no way that daily economic data has the power to cut $10 out of oil in one go,” said The JBC Energy Research

Centre, adding “the most important single reason for yesterday’s sell-off simply appears to be that a sell-off was due.”

Traders also said the slide did not appear to have been caused by any obvious change in the fundamental outlook. “It seems it’s all been driven down since Osama (bin Laden) got shot, but I don’t see that as particularly bearish myself. I don’t see what difference it makes, to be honest,” said a trader at an oil major.

Unrest across Arab nations had helped spur investors to pile into oil since the start of the year, driving Brent to a 2-1/2 year high of $127 last month. “The fear premium is reducing as the memory effect cuts in and people are used to the Middle Eastern situation... Investors think oil has finished its run and are looking for performance elsewhere,” said another trader at an oil major. — Reuters

business SATURDAY, MAY 7, 2011

General strike hits Italy mass transit

ATHENS: A man walks past ambulances during a demonstration gathering doctors and healthcare personnel outside the Greek parliament yesterday. —AFP

Greece police clash with striking doctors ATHENS: Police clashed with protesting doctors in Greece and civil servants staged a 24-hour strike in Portugal yesterday to protest government cutbacks enacted in response to Europe’s financial crisis. Riot police used pepper spray to disperse protesters outside the Health Ministry in central Athens during the brief clashes as doctors, ambulance drivers, and staff at public hospitals in greater Athens held a three-hour work stoppage. Greece’s largest unions are planning a general strike on May 11. The government announced a new round of cuts last month, that include a euro15 billion ($22.22 billion) privatization program.

The country is battling to avoid restructuring its massive debt and to meet demands for faster cost-cutting reforms by the European Union and International Monetary Fund, the providers of its euro110 billion rescue loan package.

Prime Minister George Papandreou insisted Greece had no other option than too seek the bailout loans in 2010 and impose more painful reforms in the years ahead.

“Bankruptcy was on our doorstep,” he told parliament. “I would like to know what other way salaries and pensions could be paid. How else the country would avoid crumbling from one day to the next, if the state stopped functioning and the banks closed?”

Papandreou said the government would see through plans to sell another stake in the Public Power Corporation - and reduce its holding from 51 to 34 percent. But he insisted it “will not relinquish control” over PPC and was not urgently seeking a strategic investor, given that the company’s share value has been hit by the recession. In Portugal, a strike by civil servants against austerity measures Friday had little impact on public services, though unions reported disruption to trash collection and hospital staffing levels.

Portugal’s National Federation of Civil Service Unions, which called the 24-hour strike, said around 60 percent of Lisbon trash collection staff stayed away from work and most emergency staff at main hospitals walked off the job.

Minimum hospital staffing levels, which are required by law, were provided. Some schools canceled classes and several hospitals postponed scheduled operations, but court hearings and national school exams largely went ahead as scheduled and most public offices were open, according to media reports from around the country.

The unions, which represent around 250,000 workers, are fighting austerity measures that are part of the country’s euro 78 billion ($115 billion) bailout designed to avert national bankruptcy. Portugal is freezing public sector pay through 2013, hiking taxes and cutting welfare benefits in return for the financial rescue package from other European countries and the International Monetary Fund which was agreed Thursday. Austerity policies have also triggered strikes in Greece and Ireland, two other ailing eurozone countries which took bailouts last year. —AP

ROME: Commuters in Italy scrambled yesterday to find the few buses and subway trains running during a one-day general strike that also affected air and rail travel, banks, public offices and schools. The nationwide strike was called by Italy’s biggest labor confederation to push for more investment in job creation and for reform of a tax system that is widely seen as penalizing salaried workers. The mass transit walkout was set to last for four hours at morning or evening rush hours. Flight personnel were striking from 10 am to 2 pm (08001200 GMT), and railway workers from 2 pm to 6 pm (1200-1600 GMT). Alitalia changed departure times to ensure intercontinental service and reduced domestic and European flights. The strike also forced La Scala to cancel its scheduled performance of Giacomo Puccini’s “Turandot,” the opera house’s website said.

Motorists on the main north-south highway whizzed through toll booths near Florence without paying. A sign said no toll was being collected because tollkeepers were also on strike. In Rome some taxi drivers idled their cabs even though they weren’t part of the union.

Those headed to the post office faced the prospect of long lines, as the strike in that sector was set to last eight hours, or most of the scheduled opening hours. In one Rome major piazza, Largo Argentina, one bank was closed, while across the square another bank had one worker inside at the teller’s window.

“I didn’t adhere to the strike because I don’t think it’s useful,” said Linda

ROME: Students demonstrate and hold a placard reading “We are making the wealth ourselves” during a general strike yesterday. —AFP Potoschi, a 30-year-old bank worker.

“And those who strike just lose money from their paycheck.” Leaders of the CGIL labor federation want the government to ease taxes on salaried workers in a country where the self-employed often evade taxes. Leaders of smaller labor confederations didn’t join the strike call, which meant that some transportation workers did show up for work.

The government must “immediately enact tax reform,” CGIL leader Susanna Camusso said in Naples, where the main strike rally of the day was held. “And tax revenues must be used to create jobs and growth.” Other rallies were held

elsewhere in Italy, including the country’s financial capital, Milan, where bus, subway and tram workers were set to stop work during the homebound commuter rush hours in the evening.

Premier Silvio Berlusconi has pledged over the years to create hundreds of thousands of jobs. The union leaders say the government has failed to improve the lives of the working class. Despite its high public debt levels, Italy has avoided being sucked into the European debt crisis in good part because of a low level of private debt and relative good health of banks. The strike call also involved CGIL workers at factories. —AP

Access buys Warner Music for $3.3 billion NEW YORK: Russian-American billionaire Len Blavatnik’s Access Industries is buying storied music company Warner Music Group for $3.3 billion in an all-cash transaction. Warner Music, whose talent includes Eric Clapton, Kid Rock, Madonna, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Green Day, is being sold by the private-equity firms and chief executive, Edgar Bronfman Jr. who bought the company from Time Warner in 2004 for $2.6 billion. Access, which already holds a stake in Warner Music, said the sale includes record labels such as Asylum, Atlantic, Elektra, Rhino and Warner Bros. and the prized Warner/Chappell musicpublishing division.

The purchase price of $8.25 per share is a 34.4 percent premium over Warner Music’s average share price over the previous six months. “We are delighted that Access will be the new steward of this outstanding business,” Bronfman said in a statement.

“They are supportive of the company’s vision, growth strategy and artists, while bringing a fresh entrepreneurial perspective and expertise in technology and media.

“Most importantly, Access supports Warner Music’s commitment to our recording artists

Edgar Bronfman Jr, Chairman and CEO of Warner Music Group and songwriters who are the foundation of our current and future success,” he said.

Blavatnik, Access’s chairman and founder, described Warner Music as a “great company with a strong heritage and

home to many exceptional artists. “I look forward to working closely with the many talented people within the company,” the Russian-born industrialist said. Jorg Mohaupt, Access’s head of media, acknowledged the challenges faced by the music industry as it seeks to adapt to the digital age. “The music industry is at an inflection point where digital adoption is rapidly gaining momentum,” Mohaupt said.

“Warner Music, as one of the most progressive forces in the music business, is well positioned to capture this opportunity for music creation and distribution.”

The transaction has been approved by Warner Music’s board of directors but will have to receive the green light from shareholders. Thomas H Lee Partners, Bain Capital Partners and Bronfman hold approximately 56 percent of Warner Music’s outstanding shares. The deal is expected to close in the third quarter of the year, when Warner Music will become a privately held company. Besides such music royalty as Clapton and Madonna, Warner’s catalog also includes such artists as Frank Sinatra, the Bee Gees, The Doors, Youssou N’Dour and REM. —AFP

business

SATURDAY, MAY 7, 2011

Hu to visit Russia investor forum MOSCOW: Chinese President Hu Jintao will be the top guest at Russia’s showcase investor forum next month as the Kremlin seeks to cement an alliance between the world’s biggest energy producer and the fastest growing major economy. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said yesterday that Hu will meet Russian leaders and attend the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, which the Kremlin presents as Russia’s answer to the annual World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort of Davos. “We in the Russian Federation await the chairman of the People’s Republic of China Hu Jintao, who will hold bilateral meetings and take part in

the St Petersburg Economic Forum,” Lavrov said at a briefing with Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi. Yang confirmed that Hu would travel to the St Petersburg forum, which Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is expected to open.

It will run from June 16-18. Russia and China, which had a border conflict in 1969, say their relations have never been better though some Russian officials express anxiety in private about China’s growing clout and talks on energy sales have stalled in recent years. But Russia, which is trying to stem capital outflows which totalled $38.3 billion last year, sees China as a potential

source of billions of dollars in investment which Moscow says it needs to upgrade ageing Soviet infrastructure.

China has sought to secure longterm oil and gas supplies from Russia, though wrangling over gas prices has delayed the construction of a key gas pipeline to China that would allow the Kremlin to leverage its energy sales to European customers. Russia’s state-controlled gas company Gazprom wants to pump 30 billion cubic metres of gas a year to China from end-2015 and a Chinese source said last month that a deal to end years of stalled talks could be reached by June.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has

called for boosting sales of natural resources - Russia’s main exports - to China, whose gas consumption is forecast to soar over the next decade. But some senior Russian policy makers are concerned by the influence China wields over the global energy and commodity markets which drive the fortunes of Russia’s $1.5 trillion economy, which is dwarfed by China’s $5.9 trillion GDP. China was Russia’s single largest trading partner in 2010, accounting for 9.5 percent of Russia’s external trade, though as a whole the European Union was vastly bigger, accounting for 49 percent of Russia’s $625.4 billion external trade. — Reuters

China pushes US on debt ahead of talks Obama deficit proposal as basis for deal

BEIJING: Shampoos made by Unilever are displayed for sale at a supermarket yesterday. — AP

China fines Unilever BEIJING: China’s government said it fined consumer products maker Unilever for disrupting efforts to cool surging inflation by talking to Chinese media about expected price hikes for soap and triggering a buying rush. The British-Dutch company was fined 2 million yuan ($308,000) for “spreading information about price rises and disrupting market pricing order,” the Cabinet’s planning agency said yesterday. Beijing has told companies to hold down price increases to help cool inflation that spiked to a 32-month high of 5.4 percent in March. The communist government has declared taming inflation its priority and has raised interest four times since October and imposed lending and investment curbs.

Unilever is accused of violating orders to makers of noodles, liquor and hygiene products such as soap to avoid talking publicly about prices, according to the statement by the National Development and Reform Commission. In a statement, Unilever said it concluded a case yesterday with the Shanghai Price Bureau but gave no details. “As a company with a long term commitment to China, we continue to be sensitive to the local environment. Therefore, we accept the decision of NDRC and Shanghai Price Bureau,” the five-sentence statement said.

Chinese authorities have struggled since last year to tame a surge in prices that economists blame on rising consumer demand and a bank lending boom begun during the stimulus that helped China overcome the 2008 global crisis. Inflation is politically dangerous for the Communist Party because it erodes economic gains that underpin the party’s claim to power.

The high-profile penalty for Unilever appeared to be a warning to other companies to obey government price controls.

Managers of consumer products and other companies have been summoned by regulators to receive instructions on limiting price rises, according to the NDRC, but no details of price limits or other curbs have been released. The ban on talking publicly about prices is aimed at cooling expectations that inflation will stay high. Authorities worry that might fuel a spiral of higher living costs by adding to pressure for bigger retail price hikes and wage increases. — AP

BEIJING: China, wielding its huge dollar holdings, yesterday pressed Washington to tackle its huge fiscal deficit and said it would raise the issue of discrimination against Chinese investors at high-level talks next week. Senior Chinese officials also made clear that US demands for Beijing to raise sharply the value of the yuan currency and to end a crackdown on dissent - both irritants in ties between the world’s two biggest economies - would gain little ground at next week’s Strategic and Economic Dialogue in Washington. “We are paying a lot of attention to this (the fiscal deficit),” Chinese Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao told reporters at a briefing about the talks.

The White House is in tense negotiations with Republican lawmakers over rival proposals to tackle the budget deficit, expected to reach $1.4 trillion this year and a serious worry for governments like China that buy heavily in US Treasury bonds and other dollar assets.

China’s has the world’s biggest foreign exchange reserves, with about twothirds estimated to be held in dollars, and any sign it was alarmed by policy uncertainty could ripple through global markets. “We hope that the United States in its fiscal clean-up will be able to adopt effective measures based on President Obama’s proposal,” Zhu said, giving unusually forthright backing to the Obama plan. “For the present stage, we believe that the most crucial thing is that the US economy maintains a vigorous impetus towards recovery and that this developing trend is maintained,” Zhu said. Zhu and Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai, speaking to reporters ahead of the start on Monday of the two-day talks, laid out Beijing’s positions on other economic and foreign policy disputes, stressing their desire for cooperation. That included the yuan exchange rate, which Washington has repeatedly said is held too low, making Chinese exports unfairly cheap and deterring bigger Chinese purchases of US goods. The two agree

BEIJING: A Chinese woman checks her documents as she walks past the US Embassy yesterday. China is ready to discuss its currency controls at talks in Washington next week. — AP on the direction of yuan reform, but differ on the pace of appreciation, said Zhu. “On these specific issues, I frankly acknowledge that China and the United States have different views. Therefore, we need to have discussion.”

China loosened its currency from a nearly two-year peg to the dollar last June, and this year has guided the yuan to record highs. It has appreciated about 5 percent since June. Zhu said VicePremier Wang Qishan told US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner that yuan exchange rate reform was in China’s interest. Wang and Geithner will lead the economic side of the dialogue next week, while US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo, who advises top leaders on foreign policy, will lead the strategic discussions.

Zhu said China had concerns of its own that would likely be aired in the discussions. Beijing complains that Washington, while pushing for greater access for US firms in the Chinese market, imposes unwarranted restrictions

on Chinese investment in the United States, often citing national security concerns. “We hope that the United States will provide a healthy legal and institutional setting for investment. In particular, we hope that the United States will not discriminate against Chinese state-owned companies.” Zhu said. The Obama administration has said it will use the strategic dialogue to press China about human rights - a sensitive topic for Beijing, which fears potential unrest inspired by uprisings across the Arab world and which has taken an increasingly harsh line against dissidents in recent months. China’s response to questions about that yesterday suggested that it does not want a feud over the issue to spread. Vice Foreign Minister Cui said that at the summit between President Obama and his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao in January both sides had agreed to respect the paths of development that each country chooses, and that discussion of human rights would be “on a basis of equality and mutual respect”. — Reuters

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SATURDAY, MAY 7, 201

Clinton urges action to blunt food price rises Calls for commitment to sustainable farming ROME: The world has to take swift action to arrest steadily rising food prices and step up its commitment to sustainable agriculture, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said yesterday. “We must act now, effectively and cooperatively to blunt the negative effect of rising food prices,” she said in a speech to the United Nations food agency in Rome. Rising food prices have become highly sensitive around the world after fuelling protests that toppled the rulers of Tunisia and Egypt earlier this year, with unrest spreading across North Africa and the Middle East.

NEW ORLANS: Raw oysters are served to customers at the oyster bar inside the Acme Oyster House May 4, 2011. —AP

Rising big river poses threat to oyster trade NEW ORLEANS: Just a year after the BP oil spill crippled Louisiana’s oyster industry, the fishermen face a new problem.

Freshwater is set to be diverted from the mighty Mississippi River into the salty waters where the shellfish grow, potentially killing them. To protect people, homes and businesses along the big river, the Army Corps of Engineers plans to open at least one spillway, sending water out of the river. The tactic may ease the pressure on levees, but it will almost certainly kill the shellfish, too.

Fourth-generation oysterman Shane Bagala spent months skimming oil to make money. Earlier this week, though, he embarked on his first oyster run, returning with a healthy catch.

But he became worried when he heard the corps was considering opening a spillway. “I’m very concerned because I’m just getting back to work now for the first time since the oil spill. Now it looks like something else might be threatening us,” said Bagala, who has fished for oysters for 22 years.

The corps plans on Monday to open the Bonnet Carre Spillway, built about 50 km northwest New Orleans in response to the great flood of 1927. The spillway diverts river water to brackish Lake Pontchartrain, and from there east into the fertile fishing and oyster grounds of Lake Borgne and the Mississippi Sound, and ultimately the Gulf. It’s been opened nine times since 1937, most recently in spring 2008, when the river was swollen by heavy rains in the Mississippi Valley. The corps is also considering opening the Morganza Spillway, about 35 miles (55 kilometers) northwest of Baton Rouge. It diverts river water into the Atchafalaya Basin. It hasn’t been opened since 1973.

Mike Voisin, an owner of an oyster processing and sales business southwest of New Orleans, said Morganza’s opening would devastate oyster harvesting grounds that largely avoided damage from the oil spill. “If Morganza opens, I assure you there will be significant (oyster) mortalities,” he said. Freshwater kills oysters because it wreaks havoc on their metabolism, preventing them from keeping a saltwater balance. Large amounts of oysters died to the west and east of the Mississippi River after the oil spill when officials used freshwater diversions in an effort to push back the oil so it wouldn’t creep inland, Melancon said. Oil that spewed for months after the well blowout a year ago also contaminated oyster beds.

Roughly half as many oysters were harvested last year compared to 2009. Nicholls State University biology professor Earl Melancon Jr was concerned opening the spillways could set the oyster recovery process back a year. “It’s Mother Nature giving us another blow after what BP did last year,” he said. “That’s dramatic for these oystermen.” Al Sunseri, co-owner of P&J Oyster Co in New Orleans, said the areas that would be harmed by Morganza’s opening are some of the most productive in the state. “It’s pretty discouraging,” he said. “It seems like there’s never any end in sight. We’ve been in survival mode for months now.”

Harry Blanchet, a biologist for the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, said the state didn’t record any oyster deaths after the corps opened the Bonnet Carre Spillway in 2008, but large areas of oysters died in 1983 when it was opened to curb severe river flooding. Mortality rates vary according to how long a spillway remains open and how much water passes through its gates, Blanchet said. Corps spokeswoman Rachel Rodi said the Bonnet Carre Spillway may be open for two to four weeks. Voisin, the owner of a processing business, said he understands why the spillways need to be open. —AP

The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation said on Thursday that world food prices rose slightly in April, boosted by concern about the US grains crop, but they were still off record highs reached in February. FAO Director General Jacques Diouf told Reuters Insider on Tuesday a weak trend in world food prices had already begun to reverse and prices were set to rise again as concerns persist over Chinese and US winter crops. Yesterday agricultural commodities remained under pressure on mounting economic concerns, with US corn futures down more than 2 percent to their lowest in over a month.

But traders said corn’s background factors remained bullish on tight oldcrop supplies and delays in spring planting. “The fundamentals around grains and oilseeds complex haven’t changed, it’s very bullish for corn in the near term,” said Adam Davis, senior grains trader at Merrick Capital in Melbourne which invests in agricultural commodities.

Clinton said the world community needed to deepen its commitment to sustainable farming and food security, and said the United States was working with international food agencies to encourage more effective policies. “That sounder approach includes improving and sharing information about food production and stocks, abstaining from export bans no matter how attractive they may appear to be, using export quotas and taxes sparingly, if at all.”

ROME: FAO Director General Jacques Diouf looks at US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton delivering her address at Rome’s UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation yesterday. – AP Discouraging panic buying and hoarding, and providing assistance when urgently needed were also important, she said. Clinton said she was aware that some countries - including the United States - may find such policies difficult to carry out given political and budgetary constraints, but she said “we need to do all we can together to find the best ways for markets to work more efficiently and deliver results”.

She added food security was a foreign policy priority for Washington. It is unclear, however, if the United States will ultimately be able to put its money

where its mouth is given the huge US budget deficits and the pressure to cut government spending, especially for foreign aid. At the July 2009 G8 summit in L’Aquila, Italy, Washington pledged $3.5 billion over three years to improve food security. However, it is not certain that the Obama administration will get the money from the US Congress. A US official said the government had requested $1.8 billion for its “Feed the Future” global hunger and food security initiative for the current US fiscal year which ends on Sept 30 but did not know if it would get those funds. —Reuters

EU bankers show no policy shift HELSINKI: Euro zone central bankers welcomed a plunge in oil and commodities prices on Friday, saying it could cool inflation, but gave no sign they would change their determination to tighten monetary policy this year. “The fall in the price of oil and commodities is good to take for all reasons, certainly for inflation, not only immediately but with the danger of second-round (effects) in the medium run,” European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet said.

Trichet, speaking at an international conference of central bankers in Helsinki, was referring to the risk that high oil prices could create pressure for inflation to rise by boosting wage demands across the economy. “It is also good to take in terms of consolidating the recovery because any increase in the price of oil and commodities has an inflationary impact and a depressive impact (on growth),” Trichet told CNBC television.

Oil prices sank 5 percent yesterday, extending Thursday’s 10 percent

crash. Some traders said concern about a possible slowdown of the global economy had helped to trigger panic selling in the commodities markets. But in an interview with Reuters Insider television, Trichet gave no sign that the ECB would change its intention to tighten policy gradually this year. Last month it raised interest rates for the first time since July 2008, and markets expect a further two hikes this year. “We have a new rendezvous in our next meeting (in June), where we will have the new projections, have a wrapup of all the new data. We will observe what we have to do at that time,” Trichet said.

Two other members of the ECB’s 23-member Governing Council indicated in Helsinki that the central bank still felt its main worry was not tightening policy fast enough. On Thursday, an ECB policy meeting decided to keep interest rates unchanged this month, and some investors interpreted a news conference by Trichet as suggesting the ECB’s next rate hike might come

only after July.

But Austrian central banker Ewald Nowotny said on Friday such an interpretation was wrong. “I definitely think it is an over-interpretation. There can be no idea about being dovish,” he told reporters. He also said two days of oil price falls were not enough for the ECB to change its view, because the central bank based its policy on medium-term trends. “We look at this in a medium-term perspective, not in the short term...I’m not in the business of making forecasts for oil prices,” Nowotny said.

Athanasios Orphanides, governor of the Bank of Cyprus, said inflation could become much more damaging in the long term if policymakers were too optimistic about how fast economies could grow without becoming unstable. “Monetary policy can inadvertently stay too easy for too long following a recession, risking generating inflation that may be much harder to control if it is recognised too late.” —Reuters

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In US, another Laden mansion sits empty

OAKLAND, Florida: A five-bedroom, Mediterranean-style mansion once owned by Khalil bin Laden, one of Osama bin Laden’s brothers, is seen. — AP

New airline IAG flies into profit LONDON: International Airlines Group, recently formed from the merger of British Airways and Spanish carrier Iberia, announced a first-quarter net profit yesterday of €33 million ($48 million). The figure for the three months to March 31 compared with an estimated net loss of 243 million euros in the first quarter of 2010, IAG said in a results statement. IAG, which was formed only in January, posted a profit after increasing capacity and slashing most costs.

However it faced a 31-percent rise in fuel charges during the reporting period.

The carrier said it expected “significant growth in operating profit this year” even though Japan’s natural disaster and unrest in north Africa and the Middle East would hit earnings by up to Ä100 million. “The continued focus on cost control has been achieved while we have seen some measured increases in capacity,” IAG chief executive Willie Walsh said in the earnings release. “We have been able to increase capacity without additional aircraft and employees,” added the former chief executive of BA. IAG also said yesterday that group revenue jumped 15 percent to €3.636 billion in the first quarter. Pre-tax losses narrowed to €47 million from €273 million.

“We expect significant growth in operating profit this year, with improvements in both our unit revenue and unit cost performance versus 2010 and are on track to reach our synergy targets,” IAG said. “Our long haul business is stable, with strength in the premium sector, but the short haul European market remains highly competitive. We expect the ongoing impact of events in Japan and North Africa/Middle East to have a negative impact on operating profit for the full year of 90 million to 100 million euros,” the company added.

“The newly formed airline has made a promising start,” said Keith Bowman, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown Stockbrokers. “Management has quickly moved to cut controllable non-fuel costs, while the improvement in the global economy has played its part in boosting both higher paying business passengers and cargo traffic. Nonetheless, the challenges ahead are still numerous. Fuel costs remain elevated, acts of terrorism have raised the cost of security, whilst geopolitical tensions and upheaval in the Middle East provide uncertainty over safety and passengers’ desire to travel. — AFP

ST PETERSBURG, Florida: For sale: a fivebedroom, Mediterranean-style mansion with a red, barrel-tiled roof and arched doorways and windows. It even comes with some notoriety as it was once owned by one of Osama bin Laden’s brothers.

Khalil bin Laden, one of the terrorist mastermind’s 54 siblings, bought the home in 1980 for $1.6 million, but the wealthy businessman and his family fled their vacation spot under police escort shortly after Sept 11, fearing they might be targeted because of the 2001 terrorist attacks. The 1920s-era mansion has sat empty ever since.

The home is in Oakland, Florida, a quiet small town about 30 km west of Orlando.

There’s a pool, horse stables and a four-car detached garage. It has fallen into a bit of disrepair due to vandals and humid Florida weather, but the real estate agent in charge of selling the property said it can easily be restored to its previous grandeur.

Asking price: $1,999,000.

Khalil bin Laden’s children used to run up and down the stairs, playing near the

quiet lake in the back when the bin Laden name meant wealth and prestige. Then came Sept 11, 2001. Eventually, boards covered windows that overlooked the 365 m of private lake shoreline.

In Feb 2006, at the height of Florida’s housing boom, Khalil bin Laden sold the property for $4 million, property records show, to a businessman who later went bankrupt and was sentenced to seven years in prison for fraud.

The home was eventually foreclosed on, said Autumn Norris-Makin, the Florida real estate agent who has been trying to sell the property for over a year. It was recently named by Forbes as one of the “creepiest abandoned mansions” in the US. Norris-Makin said she’s had a lot of interest despite the asking price.

One person was thinking about turning the property into a bed and breakfast. “It’s an amazing property,” she said Wednesday. “But not a lot of people have that kind of money right now. It would sell in a second if everyone knew the economy would turn around.” — AP

Nepal fights to save its pashmina industry KATMANDU: In the foothills of the Himalayas, they’re fighting the battle of the pashmina. The enemy in this war: Inexpensive, imitation pashmina wool mainly made in China and India that producers in Nepal say has caused their own sales to plummet.

Pashmina wool - the soft, warm fiber from Himalayan goats - has become world famous over the past couple of decades, sold in boutiques from Manhattan to Paris, and bringing much-needed money to this impoverished mountain nation bordered by two Asian giants.

In 2000, Nepal exported $103 million worth of pashmina wool. By last year, exports had slumped to $18 million. While Nepal endured widespread political unrest over the past decade, traders say the main reason for the plunge was competition from inexpensive mass-produced imitations made from synthetic fabrics and cheaper wool. “Pashmina has gone from being a luxury product associated with royalty to a cheap shawl or scarf,” said Rebecca Ordish, an Australian intellectual property lawyer based in Nepal. Consumers now “associate pashmina with the imitation, cheap, low-quality product, so they won’t be prepared to pay for the more expensive genuine product.”

So the Nepalese government and pashmina producers have a battle plan. They have registered the trademark for Nepal’s particular wool called “chyangra pashmina” after its sub-species of the goat - in dozens of Western countries, said Manoj Acharya, a top official with the Ministry for Commerce and Industries.

Exporters will mark Nepal’s pashminas with a “chyangra pashmina” logo to set it off from imitations, and the gov-

KATMANDU: In this April 26, 2011 photo, a shopkeeper waits for customers at a pashmina shop. — AP ernment is setting up a small laboratory in Katmandu to prove their goods are real, he said. “Our hope is to separate Nepal’s products from the others so that consumers are not fooled,” Acharya said.

Mandu Bahadur Adhikari, head of an umbrella body of Nepali pashmina producers, said members would also be monitoring major wool markets in the West to make sure others don’t use the “chyangra pashmina” label.

Members will fly around the world, checking labeling at high-end stores that sell pashmina wool and organizing media campaigns. They’ll also be updating importers and consumers about possible imitations.

Thousands of Nepalis are involved in pashmina production, from Himalayan herdsmen to wool processors to weavers to exporters. About

half in the industry have lost their jobs or businesses over the past decade.

Pashmina sales made up just 3 percent of Nepal’s exports last year. But they were the third-ranked export when it came to sales in hard currencies, such as euros and US dollars, which Nepal needs to import things like electrical equipment. Most of Nepal’s foreign trade is conducted in Indian rupees.

Nepal is not the only country to have faced pashmina troubles.

Producers in Indian-controlled Kashmir also saw a steep drop in exports amid competition from cheaper competitors.

Local officials there also began putting special stamps on their products, though it was not immediately clear whether that helped fight off imitations. — AP

SATURDAY, MAY 7, 2011 Members of China’s Circus Group of Henan Province perform during the Hi Seoul Festival 2011 in Seoul, South Korea yesterday. The performance features a high level artistic performance and acrobatic movements with Chinese martial arts. — AP

Rocker Bryan Adams is dad to baby girl (Page 27)

Toyota Al-Sayer drive away with Aquapark Raft Race 2011 awards (Pages 22 - 23)

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Toyota Al-Sayer drive away with

a u p q a rk A R The Toyota Al-Sayer team pose with the Cup of the Tournament.

The participants of the 23rd Aquapark Raft Race 2011 pose for a group photo with the organizers.

— Photos by Fouad Al-Shaikh

af t R

ace 2011 awards

By Ben Garcia

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Lays (Dorritos) team celebrate grabbing the third place in the mixed welded category.

The Sultan Center team look forward to winning a cup or two before the race kickstarts.

The overall champions Toyota Al-Sayer team pose with all the cups they won at the raft race yesterday.

The Kuwait Agriculture Company (3 Horses Malt Beverages) team pose ecstatically with the cup they won in the men’s welded category.

oyota Al-Sayer once again bagged the championship cup for yesterday’s raft race competition held at the Aquapark, at the foot of famous Kuwait Towers. Toyota Al-Sayer (Lexus) captured men’s and mixed welded division titles and took home the over-all tournament cup. Toyota Al-Sayer has been dominating this competition since 1997, and the secret according to Paul Reynolds, Toyota Al-Sayer - Chief Operating Officer, lies in the team’s perseverance and determination to win.

“Teamwork is very important in the raft race,” said Reynolds after Toyota was announced the overall champion at yesterday’s competition. “Fortunately we mastered the secret of teamwork; we been working together to achieve our goal. We support each other. If you really want to win, you need to know the real strength and weaknesses of your team members. If you know them, you know how to handle the training so we help and improve their standing to benefit of the team. We have worked hard indeed and get the excellent result,” Reynolds added.

The 23rd Aquapark Raft Race 2011 witnessed participation from 14 teams from different wellknown companies in Kuwait. The women’s welded division team was subsequently cancelled for lack of team participants, although Toyota has readied their women team for it. Khalid Al-Anezi-Toyota team manager shared the same rapturous feelings after the win. “I was tasked to train the Toyota team, Alhumdullalah, we have made it in all categories. We did it even as we knew there are other team participants who are very strong and courageous. ABB is one of them, there is no doubt about it,” admitted Anezi. ABB (Asea Brown Brewery) and Kuwait Agriculture Company (3 Horses Malt Beverages) has captured the second and third place respective-

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The Toyota Al-Sayer (Lexus) team pose with their cup of joy. ly for men’s welded category while Sultan Center and Lays (Dorritos) grabbed second and third place respectively for the mixed welded category. Lays (Dorritos) team was awarded ‘Best in Raft Race Boat’ design while Kuwait Agriculture (3 Horse malt beverage) got the ‘Best Uniform’ award. Winners took home some valuable gifts, trophies and medals from organizer and sponsors.

Kuwait’s Raft Race initially started at the Mesillah Beach Hotel but was transferred to the Aquapark when the hotel underwent years of major renovation.

According to Mohammad Kourshid, Aquapark Director, raft race has been entrusted to Aquapark by Tony Burlow, the main initiator of the water activity.

“We are still grateful to Tony Burlow even as he is back in UK for good, we promised to make this competition Gulf-wide, maybe by next year.

Aquapark will continue the raft race every year to offer new water and outdoor activities for all,” he said.

The raft race yesterday attracted thousands of people from different walks of life where many enjoyed several water/outdoor activities including swimming, beach volleyball, soap football and go-kart racing. Most of them also enjoyed numerous gift items and freebies distributed at a fiesta-like atmosphere.

Commenting on the limited tourism attraction in the country, Kourshid said he hoped Kuwait will fully support water sports activities which can be utilized to make this an international attraction in Kuwait.

“We have seen the interest of many people in Kuwait especially in water sport activities. We have good weather in Kuwait and the best

thing to offer here is water-based attractions. I think if we were able to capitalize in these water sport activities, we are going to win or at least get some share of tourism industry from other countries,” he commented.

Aquapark according to Kourshid is the only water facilities in Kuwait that offers outstanding facilities from several towering slides to swimming pools which are all equipped with several artificial waves. Water is also tested regularly to maintain its safety and deliver the cleanest water for their customers at all times. “We installed sensors and other safety procedures to maintain our international standards. The Ministry of Health also visits here regularly to check the water safety.

If you noticed, our slides are also very safe and we are always maintaining it to give a fresh look. In 2012, we will be adding new attraction in Aquapark so watch out for it,” he said.

Kourshid takes pride of Aquapark achievement since establishment in 1996. He said under the management of Jazeera Company, Aquapark has already expanded operation in other Gulf countries. “In Qatar after acquiring a 50,000 square meter venue, we are going to offer some attraction unique to Qatar. We are currently building modern facilities there. We also want to enter Saudi Arabia market very soon. We are growing and we are proud that we are offering facilities quite different from the rest of them.”

Yesterday’s sponsors included Sebamed, Toyota, Lays, Sultan Center, Al-Alali, Al-Sabih, Fantasy, Coca Cola, Al-Nasser Sports Center and Progress milk, among others.

The Sultan Center team react on winning second place in the mixed welded category at the raft race.

Participants get ready before the raft race begins.

enter r Sports C The Nasse red making a pictu team are ’ sign during the ‘Victory event.

SATURDAY, MAY 7, 2011

After Prince, Winehouse, Monae tours with Mars

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In this file photo Barry Bostwick (right) and Joanna Gleason (second from right) are shown with their canine sidekick Asta before a rehearsal for the new Broadway musical murder mystery “Nick and Nora” in New York. Director Arthur Laurents (left) stands behind composer Charles Strouse (second from left). — AP

‘Gypsy’ playwright Arthur Laurents dies A

rthur Laurents, the director, playwright and screenwriter who wrote such enduring stage musicals as “West Side Story” and “Gypsy,” as well as the movie classics “Rope” and “The Way We Were,” died Thursday. He was 93. Laurents died at his home in Manhattan from complications of pneumonia, said his agent, Jonathan Lomma. Laurents had an extensive career in radio and in Hollywood, but it was on Broadway where he had his biggest successes - particularly with two musicals many consider to be among the finest ever written. And Laurents provided the book or story - for both. “West Side Story,” which opened on Broadway in 1957, transformed Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” into musical theater. It had pulsating, jazzflecked music by Leonard Bernstein and galvanizing direction and choreography by Jerome Robbins.

Robbins also directed and choreographed “Gypsy,” based on the memoirs of stripper Gypsy Rose Lee. The 1959 musical, with a score by Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim, told the story of Rose, a domineering stage mother who pushed her daughter into show business. As Rose, Ethel Merman had the greatest triumph of her career. The show, Laurents once said in an interview with The Associated Press, is “about the need for recognition, which is a need for love.”

“Gypsy” has been successfully revived four times on Broadway, first in 1974 with Angela Lansbury as Rose, then with Tyne Daly in 1989 (Laurents directed both of them) and Bernadette Peters in 2003.

Laurents was back as director for the 2008 Broadway version, with Patti LuPone as

Rose. The production won Tonys for LuPone and two featured, or supporting, performers. Laurents was nominated for best director but did not win. “I directed this unlike I’ve directed any other musical,” Laurents said in the 2008 interview. “We spent an awful lot of time sitting around the table and examining literally every line in the book and in the lyrics. “I did a totally new ‘Rose’s Turn’ (the show’s big finale) for Patti. ... I didn’t feel it was right for her.

Whoever plays Rose determines the tone of the production.

And it had to be for Patti - what Patti is and what Patti does.” In 2009, Laurents directed a revised version of “West Side Story,” giving the show a new dose of realism by having much of the dialogue in Spanish. His credits as a stage director also include “I Can Get It for You Wholesale,” best remembered as the musical that introduced a 19-year-old Barbra Streisand to Broadway in 1962, and “La Cage Aux Folles” (1983), the smash Jerry Herman musical that ran for four years. Laurents was a short, compact man with a trim fighter’s build and a direct manner of speaking. He was known for saying exactly what was on his mind. He was born in Brooklyn, the son of an attorney. He attended Cornell University and after graduation began writing radio plays including scripts for such popular series as “Dr. Christian” and “The Thin Man.” While serving in the Army during World War II, Laurents wrote military training films as well as scripts for such radio programs as “Army Service Forces Present” and “Assignment Home.” His wartime experiences led to his first Broadway play, “Home of the Brave,” which

opened in December 1945. The military drama about anti-Semitism had a short run but later was made into a well-received movie in which the theme was changed to racial rather than religious prejudice.

In Hollywood after the war, Laurents wrote or co-wrote scripts for such films as “Rope” (1948), Alfred Hitchcock’s masterful take on the Leopold-Loeb murder case; an uncredited contribution to “The Snake Pit” (1948), a look at mental illness underlined

by Olivia de Havilland’s harrowing lead performance; “Caught” (1949), Max Ophuls’ love triangle melodrama starring James Mason, Barbara Bel Geddes and Robert Ryan; and “Anna Lucasta” (1949), an allwhite version of the black stage hit about a Brooklyn prostitute. Laurents returned to the New York theater in 1950 with “The Bird Cage,” a drama about a nightclub owner. It quickly flopped despite a cast that included Melvyn Douglas and Maureen Stapleton.

Two years later, he had one of his biggest successes, “The Time of the Cuckoo,” a rueful comedy about a lonely woman who finds romance in Venice with an already married Italian shopkeeper.

“Cuckoo” provided Shirley Booth with one of her best stage roles and was later made into the movie “Summertime,” starring Katharine Hepburn. In 1966, Laurents reworked “Cuckoo” as a musical, retitled “Do I Hear a Waltz?” It had music by Richard Rodgers and lyrics by Sondheim. The following year, he wrote the book for the musical “Hallelujah, Baby!” The show, starring Leslie Uggams and with a score by Styne, Betty Comden and Adolph Green, won the best-musical Tony Award in 1968.—AP

ike most artists, Janelle Monae prepares for a live show with a list she follows, including exercising and vocal warm-ups. Unlike most artists, Monae says her list also includes the routine of putting her hair in dirt, washing and conditioning it - and repeating the cycle. She also says that she eats “Asian cuisine with the bus driver.” It’s hard to tell if she is joking, but if you know of Monae - or her music - it wouldn’t be that surprising. The singer is not your typical artist: She’s always seen in a tuxedo and rocks a pompadour. Her music is a blend of alternative, R&B and funk sounds and some of her songs are inspired by things like Muhammad Ali’s fists, Walt Disney and Star Wars.

The singer’s first full-length CD, the melodramatic 18-track epic “The ArchAndroid,” follows a female android who discovers she is the chosen one and is trying to adapt to her new superpowers. The disc earned her two Grammy nominations and was a critical success. The Associated Press named it the No. 1 album of 2010. Since its release, Monae has toured with Prince and Amy Winehouse. She’ll open for Katy Perry in September and her co-headlining tour with rising star Bruno Mars kicks off Wednesday in New York. The 25year-old Monae says because of her musical style, she’s able to go on the road with, pretty much, any musician.

“I can go anywhere that I want,” Monae told the AP in a phone interview last week. “I could hang with (Vogue magazine editor-at-large) Andre Leon Talley, Karl Lagerfeld ... Big Boi (of OutKast), do shows with Prince, Stevie Wonder. I mean, that’s pretty much my life. I’m not boxed in to any one thing.” The performer said she spent 80 percent of the last year on tour, but insists she’s found some downtime to record new music. “I’m very inspired right now,” she said. “This (new) album will definitely change lives.” Monae and Mars are labelmates.

They performed a medley together at this year’s Grammy Awards, along with rapper B.o.B. Monae says she’s excited to share her music with Mars’ fans, and says they can expect surprises and more onstage. “Our shows are very high energy and you don’t see that a lot,” she said. “I would love to see it more - you know when you have the artist crowd surfing and giving their all. And there are a lot of great shows out, but what we’re doing is not being done.” — AP

Actress Jennifer Aniston makes an appearance at Sephora to promote her new fragrance ‘Jennifer Aniston’ on Thursday, May 5, 2011 in New York. — AP

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Actors of Prague’s Black Theatre performs during a presentation of ‘The flying bike’ at the Enrique Buenaventura Municipal theatre, in Cali, department of Valle del Cauca, Colombia, on May 5, 2011. The company combines stark lighting effects, pantomime sketches, humor and modern music. — AFP

Review

Gibson performance brings ‘Beaver’ to life

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el Gibson’s interpersonal flaws have all but ruined his career. Now with the dark comic drama “The Beaver,” Gibson delivers a career performance that salvages a flawed film. Directed by longtime pal Jodie Foster, who also co-stars, “The Beaver” was shot between Gibson’s 2006 anti-Semitic rant during a drunken-driving arrest and his ugly breakup from ex-girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva, which resulted in his no-contest plea and three years on probation after he was accused of striking her last year.

Inevitably, because of the spectacle of Gibson’s private life, it will be difficult for viewers to separate the real person from the fictional character in this tale of a suicidal man struggling with depression and inner demons. “The Beaver” is an unorthodox therapy session for Gibson’s Walter Black, a family man at the end of his rope who has a psychiatric break after finding a beaver hand puppet, a piece of cloth and fur that becomes an alter-ego helping him to work through his problems, at least initially. As Walter and his beaver buddy delve deeper into the nature of depression, viewers probably will ponder whether Gibson was exploring his own dark emotional recesses at the same time. —AP

In this image Riley Thomas Stewart (left) and Mel Gibson are shown in a scene from, “The Beaver.” — AP

Thor

rumbles, never quite roars

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he Norse gods are off to a decent, though not divine, start in “Thor,” the latest movie in Marvel Comics’ big-screen expansion of its superhero pantheon. Held to a more brisk running time than some superhero epics that swell to Elizabethan stage proportions, “Thor” nevertheless manages to cram in a lot of Shakespearean intrigue. Director Kenneth Branagh, whose big-screen Shakespeare adaptations include “Hamlet” and “Henry V,” pits father against son and brother against brother, with loads of palatial pride, envy, rivalry and resentment driving the action. The human part of the equation often is where “Thor” comes up short, as in the puny humans of whom the god, played by statuesque Australian actor Chris Hemsworth, supposedly becomes so fond.

Fresh off her Academy Award win for “Black Swan,” Natalie Portman as Thor’s mortal love interest is a surprisingly insubstantial presence. We have to be told by a colleague that Portman’s Jane Foster is a “master physicist,” but there’s little in the actress’ demeanor to make you believe it. Thor is the god who fell to Earth, but why he wants to stay among these little Earthlings never feels genuine, given the far cooler place he calls home.

That place is Asgard, the dwelling of superpowered beings who, in Marvel’s reworking of mythology, became objects of worship among the ancient Norsemen.

Hemsworth’s Thor is in line to inherit the throne from his father, Odin (Anthony Hopkins), over his scheming brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston). But after Thor defies his dad and leads a mission of revenge against old enemies on the ice planet Jotunheim, Odin strips his cocky son of his power and his mighty hammer, banishing him to Earth to learn some humility. In the New Mexico desert, Thor falls in with scientist Jane, her mentor (Stellan Skarsgard) and their wisecracking assistant (Kat Dennings, who keeps the movie lively with her comic timing and delivery). The Asgard sets are impressive, but while the celestial setting of this heavenly dominion gleams,

it often looks fake, even cartoonish. “Harry Potter” and “The Lord of the Rings” have presented much better fantasy lands.

The action sequences also are muddled at times, though an armored guy smashing things with a giant hammer certainly is a fresh take on superhero violence. The plot - credited to three screenwriters and two story developers, among them Marvel Comics scribe J. Michael Straczynski - is a bit unfocused, since it not only In this photo, director has to relate Thor’s journey Kenneth Branagh, from the but also help set up next film “Thor”, poses for a year’s superhero ensemble portrait in Beverly Hills, tale “The Avengers.” That film will team Thor with Robert California. — AP Downey Jr.’s Iron Man, Mark Ruffalo’s Incredible Hulk, Chris Evans’ Captain America and other Marvel heroes.

The bridge in “Thor” is Clark Gregg, reprising his “Iron Man” role as Agent Coulson, an operative for SHIELD, the outfit that assembles the superhero dream team (stick through the “Thor” end-credits for a teaser featuring a prominent member of “The Avengers” cast). While Jane, Coulson and the other humans gradually learn who Thor is and what he’s capable of, battles rage on among the Asgardians (Ray Stevenson as one of Thor’s raucous comrades and Idris Elba as the realm’s vigilant gatekeeper are standouts) and the frost giants of Jotunheim (with Colm Feore as their coolly menacing leader). —AP

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Paula Fox looks back on her wayward life A

t age 88, author Paula Fox is the settled survivor of a disrupted life. She was abandoned as an infant, frequently moved through much of her childhood, a teen mother who gave up her daughter for adoption, a witness to the devastation of post-World War II Europe, and the public and private breakdowns of New York in the 1960s and 1970s. She was an out-of-print novelist rediscovered by Jonathan Franzen, Jonathan Lethem and other authors

Paula Fox

young enough to be her children.

“I’ve always known a lot of very bad people, destructive, brutes of a certain kind. Then I’ve seen these lovely impulses and what not, and they’ve stayed with me and comforted me,” she says during a recent interview in the living room of her Brooklyn town house, a cobblestone garden in back. Known for the memoir “Borrowed Finery” and for such novels as “Desperate Characters” and the award-winning “The Slave Dancer,” Fox has a poised and graceful presence, with a strong chin, a proud smile and gently parted gray-

white hair. She has been a Brooklyn resident for decades and lives with her husband, the editor, critic and translator Martin Greenberg, and two middle-age cats, one of whom, Lucy, checks in periodically like a nervous publicist.

Fox is a recent inductee into the New York State Writers Hall of Fame.

She also has a new book, “News From the World,” short pieces written over the past 45 years, from remembrances of family and neighbors to such fiction as the title story, in which an oil slick ruins a seaside village’s peaceful isolation, a theme of violation and endangerment that appears in much of her work. The new book is dedicated to two writers she befriended as a young adult, Mary King and Pat O’Donnell. Their “goodness” and “sobriety” and “seriousness” were qualities she encountered too rarely as a girl.

Childhood taught her harsh lessons about the character of writers, and of parents. Her father, Paul Fox, was a screenwriter, and a drunk, given to “interminable, stumbling descriptions of the ways in which he and fellow writers tried to elude domesticity,” she observes in her new book. Her mother, Elsie, was a “sociopath,” the author says, who banished Paula from the house. The hero of her youth was an early caretaker, the Rev. Elwood Amos Corning, “Uncle Elwood,” whom Fox can summon in perfect detail.

“I have a painter’s memory,” Fox says during the interview. “I can remember things from my childhood which were so powerfully imprinted on me, the whole scene comes back. I remember Mr Corning, for example, Uncle Elwood, as I called him, imitating a horse he had in the living room of the house, and I remember him bursting with laughter as he galloped past me into the dining room.” Her father did make at least one important contribution: books, a box of them he delivered to Corning’s house when Paula was 5. She read fairy tales and the funny papers, Mark Twain and “Treasure Island.” She memorized Rudyard Kipling’s “If” and could recite the American presidents in chronological order.

Fox’s experiences have no apparent connection except that she was there for them. Her homes included a sugar plantation in Cuba; a small apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side; an Italian-style villa in Peterborough, New Hampshire; a finishing school in Montreal. She traveled across the country to California with a family acquaintance often too drunk to drive.

“My life was incoherent to me,” Fox wrote in “Borrowed Finery,” released in 2001 and a finalist for the

National Book Critics Circle award. “I felt it quivering, spitting out broken teeth.” She lived in Hollywood in the late 1930s and early 1940s, in apartments and rooming houses. She did see stars, some burned out, others beginning to shine. She delivered a book to a “young and thin” Orson Welles. She danced with John Wayne, a virtual unknown at the time. While visiting a friend at her apartment, she spotted a familiar face entering a room down the hall. It was Harpo Marx, seeing his mistress. She met John Barrymore, “yellowing with age like the ivory keys of a very old piano.”

She married at 17, had a child (Linda Carroll, who became Courtney Love’s mother) and gave her up for adoption. She divorced, worked for years as a teacher and as a tutor for troubled children, married Greenberg and had two more kids. Only in her 40s did she begin her first novel, “Poor George,” about a cynical school teacher who finds purpose - and ruin - in mentoring a vagrant teenager.

Her earliest published work was short fiction, and two stories - “Lord Randall” and “The Living” - are included in her new book. They are unusual efforts for a white writer, narrated in colloquial style by black characters and published in Negro Digest, which accepted the stories without meeting the author. In her memoir “The Coldest Winter,” Fox writes that living abroad liberated her mind, “showing me something other than myself.”

She thought out the life of a Latina housekeeper in the novel “A Servant’s Tale.” In “The Slave Dancer,” winner in 1974 of the Newbery Medal for best children’s book, a young boy is captured and forced on to a slave ship.

“I’ve never been a slave. I’ve never been black. I was never on a ship. But I have a certain narrow understanding of certain kinds of characters, and of evil and kindness and goodness and tenderness,” Fox says. As an adult writer, Fox received acclaim for her subtle prose and her deep insights into the collapse of white collar security in the ‘60s and ‘70s. A nasty bite from a cat in “Desperate Characters” mirrors a plague of violence and decay that has spread through New York City. “The Widow’s Children” finds a family at war as a husband and wife prepare for a trip to Africa. “Everything is always on the edge of crisis and sometimes whole countries, like Libya, tumble into them,” Fox says. “There’s a certain amount of tyranny in all of us to some extent, and in some people it’s much more developed than in others. It’s a different balance which makes us all different. But we all have the same qualities and essence. There’s a certain tendency toward bigotry, cruelty,

absolutism, stupidity. It doesn’t take over in a lot of us. ... We know it’s there. People don’t want to know that.”

But by the 1990s her work was forgotten by all but her most determined admirers. One of them, fortunately, was Franzen. The future author of “Freedom” and “The Corrections” came upon “Desperate Characters” while at the Yaddo writers colony in Saratoga Springs, New York, in 1991. A few years later, he wrote an essay for Harper’s magazine that worried about the state of American fiction and called “Desperate Characters” an overlooked masterpiece that provided him “company and consolation and hope in an object pulled almost at random from a bookshelf.” Author Tom Bissell, then a paperback editor at W.W. Norton, read the essay and wondered why he hadn’t heard of the novel. He looked in stores and had no luck, not even among the epic stacks at the Strand in Manhattan’s Union Square, a veritable lost and found for literature. He finally got in touch with Fox, who sent him one of her copies; Norton reissued all of Fox’s adult novels, with introductory essays by Franzen, Lethem and other writers. “I think Paula obliterates the distinction we make between ‘minimalist’ and ‘maximalist’ writers,” Bissell says.

“Paula, whose prose is quite spare but never feels ‘minimal’ or skeletal at all, shows us that all so-called minimalism is good old-fashioned carefulness in narration.” Cruelty inspired some of her best work, but also robbed her gift for invention.

In the mid-’90s, she was visiting Jerusalem when she was attacked by a mugger, thrown to the ground and hospitalized. Fox says she can still write, but only nonfiction. She has published no novels since being injured, instead writing “Borrowed Finery” and “The Coldest Winter.”

“Another quarter of an inch and I would have been dead,” she says of her head injury.

“It took me a long time to write a few pages of ‘Borrowed Finery,’ then as I went on it took less and less time and by the time I came to ‘The Coldest Winter,’ I didn’t have so much trouble.

“There are moments one is so grateful for certain things. For instance, I thought the other day of the water that comes out of our faucet, for a second I felt an immense social gratitude toward the water itself. You see the difference between your situation and the world’s, in one form or another. I wasn’t congratulating myself. I didn’t feel complacent about it at all, not consciously. “In any event, I was so relieved to think about the water system in Brooklyn.” — AP

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SATURDAY, MAY 7, 2011

Cyndi Lauper singing the blues at NO’s Jazz Fest

In this photo made available yesterday, Colombian singer g Shakira performs durin pp Pa the in t cer her con s Laszlo Budapest Sport st, pe da Bu in Arena y, Hungary, late Thursda AP — .

11 20 May 5,

Cyndi Lauper (center) performs at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in New Orleans, Thursday, May 5, 2011. — AP

C

yndi Lauper sings the blues? Absolutely. In fact, that’s how the singer known for her pop songs began her career and she said recently that a return to the genre was inevitable. “I started in a Janis Joplin cover band and the bad thing was nobody was listening,” Lauper said in an interview with The Associated Press. “To go back to Square One at this time in my life is really important for me.

Everything is all based on the blues and to go back was a great gift.

To go back with a high rhythm section was an even better, greater gift.” Lauper fans heard songs from her latest project, “Memphis Blues,” as well as such pop classics as “Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” “Time After Time,” and “True Colors” on Thursday during a closing, debut performance at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, which runs through Sunday.

“I’ve always wanted to play at the jazz festival,” she said. “I’m so excited.” She reiterated that on stage to the thousands of people jamming the field to see her. Her set opened with a nod to New Orleans’ second-line tradition, as she danced on stage waving a black and blue umbrella before moving into her rendition of “Shattered Dreams,” which drew rousing applause. Laurel Sprengelmeyer said Lauper was one of the draws for her at this year’s festival. “I think she’s really spirited and fun,” said Sprengelmeyer, who’s visiting from Montreal. “I was surprised by the blues but she seems to really be into it. You know it’s good to see her because we can connect to our youth, but the blues really showed her versatility.” Laura Tennyson, of New Orleans, showed up at the fest just in time for Lauper’s show.

“I love her,” Tennyson said. “She’s soulful and she gives you that ‘I’m a strong woman and I’m happy’ feeling but in a rockin’ way.” Her venture into the blues is a testament to her timelessness, said Tennyson’s friend, Donna Duplantis, also of New Orleans. “And she looks (expletive) amazing!” Lauper, 57, said she loves the city of New Orleans and though she’s never played the festival before she has performed at some of the city’s other well-known music houses, such as Tipitina’s. “All I know is, is that I love New Orleans,” she said. “It’s one of the jewel cities of America and music-wise, it’s a place that is revered by many musicians. Just to be able to play at the festival is such a big, big deal. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do.”

“Memphis Blues,” released last June, debuted on the Billboard Blues Album Chart at No. 1 and remained there for 14 consecutive weeks.

The album has a couple of songs featuring New Orleans’ own Allen Toussaint, the legendary musician, composer and producer.

“When he was doing his album, he contacted me and I was up to my eyebrows in I don’t know what and I couldn’t. So when the opportunity came around for mine, I definitely wanted Allen to be a part of it. I knew mixing him with the Memphis guys would be really adding some spice. And when he started playing ‘Shattered Dreams’ and to hear it all come together. I mean, wow. Everyone fell into that downbeat like a dream and it became otherworldly,” Lauper said.

The project also includes collaborations with B.B. King, Johnny Lang, Ann Peebles, Tracy Nelson and Charlie Musselwhite, who performed Thursday in the festival’s Blues Tent as well as with Lauper during her set. When she confirmed her Jazz Fest appearance, Lauper immediately thought of bringing Toussaint in as a special guest too but “unfortunately he’s going to be playing on the other side of town at exactly the same time.” “I had an extraordinary experience playing with those guys,” Lauper said. “I could actually feel like a dirt road under my feet when we did ‘Crossroads’ and that’s from where I sang, where I collaborated, on that level.” — AP

Rocker

Bryan Adams

is dad to baby girl

C

anadian rocker Bryan Adams has become a father for the first time at the age of 51, People magazine reported on Thursday. The “Summer of ‘69” musician’s personal assistant gave birth to a daughter, Mirabella Bunny, on April 22, People said on its Web site.

Adams’ spokeswoman did not respond to messages seeking confirmation. The mother, Alicia Grimaldi, is a long-time employee who helps run Adams’ charitable efforts. She and the baby were both “well and happy,” Adams was quoted as saying in the report. Adams maintains strict secrecy about his private life, and the

nature of his personal relationship with Grimaldi has not been disclosed. Britain’s Sunday Telegraph, which broke the news of his pending fatherhood in March, quoted an unidentified source at the time as saying that many of Adams’ friends did not know he was in a relationship. Grimaldi, a Briton, helped set up the Bryan Adams Foundation in 2004, three years after graduating from Cambridge University, according to Adams’ Web site. Adams, famed for such rock songs as “Summer of ‘69,” “Cuts Like a Knife,” and “Everything I Do (I Do It For You),” will launch a European tour next month. — Reuters

Son of Pink Floyd star admits London rampage

T

he son of Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour could face jail after admitting going on the rampage during a mass protest in London five months ago against the raising of university tuition fees. Charlie Gilmour, 21, is accused of a string offences at the demonstration last December, during which he was photographed hanging from a flag on the city’s main war memorial. He was granted bail by a court until July to give him time to complete Cambridge University exams, the Press Association reported yesterday.

Gilmour entered a non-specific guilty plea. He has yet to specify whether he admits leaping on the bonnet of a car carrying royal protection officers escorting Prince Charles and his wife Camilla to the theatre. Gilmour is also accused of smashing a window at a high street store and throwing a rubbish bin at the royal convoy. The bin missed the royal couple but hit another car, it is alleged. He

was among thousands of people who protested in Trafalgar Square and Parliament Square and was photographed hanging from a Union Jack on the Cenotaph memorial.

He issued an apology the day after the demonstrations, describing it as a “moment of idiocy”, and adding that he did not realize the monument commemorated Britain’s war dead. Gilmour’s biological father is poet and playwright Heathcote Williams but he was adopted by the Pink Floyd rock star when his mother, writer and journalist Polly Samson, remarried. Judge Nicholas Price at Kingston Crown Court in southwest London adjourned the case until July 8. “The fact that I am granting you bail is of no indication whatsoever that you will be dealt with in a non-custodial way,” he told Gilmour. Most universities in Britain are trebling their annual tuition fees to around 9,000 pounds ($14,750) starting next year. — Reuters

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SATURDAY, MAY 7, 2011

Kendra Wilkinson

voted off ‘Dancing with the Stars’

T

he former Playboy model and her professional partner Louis van Amstel impressed the judges with their tango but failed to win over the viewers so were eliminated from the show last night. A tearful Kendra said of her time on the show: “I’ve lasted seven weeks - seven weeks longer than I ever thought I would last.” The 25-year-old beauty said she was looking forward to spending more time with her NFL star husband Hank Baskett and their 17-monthold son, Hank Jr. She told viewers: “I’m not the best dancer but I am the best mum. I’m back to being a mum.” While it was Kendra who got kicked off, fellow contestant Kirstie Alley who scored 30 points from the judges, just one mark less than her now-departed rival - was convinced it was going to be her. The former ‘Cheers’ star said: “I was really afraid.

And I was so afraid that it put me in a different mindset.

Next week, I am going to be the best dancer.” As well as Kirstie, the remaining contestants are Chelsea Kane, Ralph Macchio and Romeo.

Simon Cowell

T

No big wedding for

T

he ‘Scream 4’ actress got engaged to actor Dax Shepard over a year ago but says the couple aren’t planning an expensive and elaborate day because she doesn’t see the point in it. She said: “We’re just not having a wedding, so there’s no story to report there. I mean, we’re still getting married, but we’re going to do it whenever we feel like it. “The fact that he asked me to marry him is of a little more importance than me planning a party.”

Despite not wanting a big white wedding, Kristen says she’s extremely happy with Dax because he can always make her laugh, which she believes is very important in a relationship. She told Us Weekly magazine: “He constantly keeps me laughing; when I’m sad, mad, frustrated, annoyed. Regardless of what it is he can lighten the mood. He’ll do anything that the mood requires. I can’t get frustrated and that is a very powerful weapon. Comedy is a very powerful weapon. He’s so funny that it’s overwhelming. “I really don’t have bad days, you know what I mean? Even if it’s me being frustrated, he’ll make a joke about me and it’ll be so genuinely funny that I have to laugh.”

is worth £200 million

he 51-year-old music mogul made £35 million last year from his various business interests including his SyCo music label and reality TV shows including ‘The X Factor’ and ‘America’s Got Talent’, leading to his inclusion at number six on the annual Sunday Times Rich List of Britain’s music millionaires, which is due to be published by the newspaper this weekend. Simon - who owns homes in Beverly Hills, Barbados, Malaga and Dubai - has bypassed music legends including Sir Elton John, Sir Mick Jagger and Keith Richards on the list, but his assets are dwarfed by others including former Zomba Records owner Clive Calder who took the top spot with a £1.3 billion fortune and rival Simon Fuller, whose £375 million wealth earned him fifth place on the list. Other musicians who made the list were Beatles legend Sir Paul McCartney, with a £495 million fortune, and Sting with £180 million. Even though Simon - who is engaged to make-up artist Mezhgan Hussainy - can claim to be one of Britain’s richest men he admitted he still enjoys playing the National Lottery, but would never tell anyone if he scooped a million pound jackpot. He said: “I still buy

Kristen Bell

lottery tickets. I still play. But I tick the box that says no publicity so no one would know.” However, despite his vast wealth, Simon has recently admitted he often gets in “dark moods for no reason” and has often considered going to see a psychiatrist to deal with “a number of issues” he has. He explained: “If I ever decided to go to a psychiatrist, it would be a long session. I have always thought that I do have a number of issues that probably need dealing with, because I am quite odd in some ways. “I get very dark moods for no reason. I just sit on my own for days.”

Top 10 music millionaires 1. Clive Calder - £1.3 billion 2. Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber - £680 million 3. Cameron Mackintosh - £675 million 4. Sir Paul McCartney - £495 million 5. Simon Fuller - £375 million 6. Simon Cowell - £200 million 7. Sir Elton John - £195 million 8. Sir Mick Jagger - £190 million 9. Sting - £180 million 10. Keith Richards - £175 million

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SATURDAY, MAY 7, 2011

Teri Hatcher

has guys asking her out

T

Robert Pattinson

has the hots for older women

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he 24-year-old actor - who is in a relationship with his ‘Twilight Saga’ costar Kristen Stewart - insists starring with older leading ladies in Reese Witherspoon and Uma Thurman in ‘Water for Elephants’ and ‘Bel Ami’ did not bother him as it was so similar to his own life. He said: “Every girl I went out with in my teens was older than me. My first girlfriend was 26, I was 17. “Women who were older always seemed more exciting.” The British hunk admits one of the attractions of dating older women was how much it irritated other people. He explained: “I used to think I

was a bit of a bad-a** when I was younger. I liked that it annoyed people how much younger I was. “I liked walking into a room with a woman and people looking at us and thinking, ‘They do not look right together.’ “ Nowadays, Robert is more cautious with his personal life as he knows any outrageous antics will shunt him further into the spotlight. He told Britain’s Elle magazine: “It isn’t possible to get away with stuff with camera phones around. I can’t do it. “If I drink, I’m destroyed the entire next day. I don’t understand how these stars used to go on benders all the time.”

Kate Hudson’s

son is ‘very protective’ of her

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he ‘Something Borrowed’ star is currently expecting a baby with fiance Matt Bellamy and says seven-year-old Ryder her child with ex-husband Chris Robinson enjoys mocking her ever-expanding bump, but also tries his best to take care of her. She said: “He likes making fun of me. He’s a kid, he loves it. He says, ‘You’re huge!’ And all that kind of stuff. “He’s very protective. I put spicy stuff on my food, he goes, ‘Mom, don’t eat that.’ I was like, ‘What?’ He goes, ‘Don’t eat that.’ This was last night. He goes, ‘The baby might not like spicy.’ I was like, ‘What is going on?’ “All of a

sudden he doesn’t want me to drive a car. You shouldn’t be driving. I can’t get up on anything high. I got up on the thing to get his ball out and he just went, ‘Get down.’ He’s very protective. It’s pretty cute.” Kate, 32, feels more settled with her second pregnancy because she has already planned out a living space for the new arrival, something she was unable to do with Ryder. She told website Starpulse: “It’s a totally different pregnancy completely. I mean, couldn’t be more opposite, everything. “This time I’m actually set up, whereas before, I remember with Ryder I didn’t even have a nursery. I was trying to get the nursery together. I didn’t really have a house until I was seven months pregnant, a home.

This time it feels like I actually got to paint a nursery. I actually have a color in a room. “I’m going with neutral color. I don’t know what it is so it’s neutral. I like yellow.

Yellow’s a good sunny color for kids, I think. “

he ‘Desperate Housewives’ star - who has a 13-year-old daughter Emerson with her second husband Jon Tenney - has thrown herself into the dating scene in recent months and admits she is trying a “different way” to find her ‘Mr Right’. Teri who was also previously married to Marcus Leithold - thinks she has been reluctant to commit to new relationships in the past but is now keen to find love again. She said: “We were going on rides.

This guy came up to me and said, ‘Do I know you?’ He seemed nice. We talked. So he walked away and my girlfriend goes, ‘Should I see if he’s single?’ I go, ‘Yes.’ She runs over, gets his card. We went on a date, didn’t work out.

Fine. The point is, I’m actively trying in a different way. Since then, I’ve gone on a date with a very attractive man and it was a terrific example of me manifesting this conscious change and taking responsibility for why I may have unconsciously been keeping relationships at bay. By no means am I in one, but I have three guys calling at the moment, and that’s different from before.”

Although the 46-year-old actress is looking for a new guy, she has a very specific list of qualities she wants in a boyfriend and she knows she definitely doesn’t want a toy boy. In an interview with the June issue of Prevention magazine, she said: “I want to have an open mind. I’d like him to be between 39 and 54. Fun, adventurous, funny, kind, honest, smart. Successful but I want to be clear that doesn’t necessarily mean rich.”

Ronnie Wood

rekindles relationship with Ekaterina Ivanova

T

he 63-year-old rocker left his wife Jo Wood for the Russian waitress in 2008 and had a 14-month relationship with Ekaterina before they separated following his arrest for an “assault” on her in December 2009. Despite their bitter split, Ronnie has reportedly been begging Ekaterina for dates behind the back of his 31-year-old Brazilian polo coach girlfriend Ana Araujo. A source told The Sun newspaper: “Ronnie’s love life is never simple. Ana had been really good for him and settled him right down. They have lived in each other’s pockets for over a year but he still has feelings for Ekaterina. “He is never far away from pressing the selfdestruct button. When Ana found out he was back in touch with her, she went bananas.”

After a row with Ana over his contact with Ekaterina, Ronnie is said to have contacted ex-wife Jo for advice but she “doesn’t have any sympathy from him complicating things”. The source added: “Ronnie has done what he always does - drops himself in it and

then rings round his former partners looking for sympathy.” Ronnie’s spokesperson has confirmed he and Ekaterina, 22, “are friends again”. —Bangshowbiz

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TECHNOLOGY SATURDAY, MAY 7, 2011

Viacom, Endemol launch new entertainment brand LONDON: Entertainment companies Viacom and Endemol have joined forces to launch a new entertainment brand called Viacom Blink! that will target women aged 16 to 49.

The partnership is part of Viacom’s strategy to win more adult viewers, and more specifically females, according to Bob Bakish, president and CEO of Viacom International Media Networks (VIMN), a unit of Viacom Inc. “It’s about continuing to grow our portfolio,” he told Reuters. “We serve kids and families with Nickelodeon, the youth market with MTV and are beginning to build a significant adult position with Comedy Central.” He declined to give financial details of the deal. Programming that may feature on Viacom Blink! include

“Hot in Cleveland”, “Make Me A Supermodel”, “Forensic Investigators”, “Rescue Special Ops”, “Home and Away”, “The Secret Life of Us”, “Spirited”, “Gok’s Fashion Fix’, “The Little Couple” and “Fear Factor US.” The long-term partnership will give VIMN access to more than 4,000 hours of content for television and digital media platforms, with around 800 hours in the first year. VIMN also said it was in discussions with movie studios to showcase a selection of feature films on the channel.

Bakish said that with so many services already targeting adults in the United States, Viacom Blink! was not a “radical” change for Viacom, although it was an opportunity to focus on a particular audience primarily in emerging markets.

The new brand will debut in Poland in the summer, and, while Bakish gave no timetable, the partners have mapped out an expansion plan that will concentrate on Central Europe, the Middle East and Latin America. “We believe there is a broad opportunity in the pay TV landscape associated with a service like this,” Bakish said. “We have to get up and running and see how the world evolves.

There is certain appeal to emerging markets which may have faster growth characteristics, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we did something in a more mature European market.” Bhavneet Singh, managing director of emerging markets at VIMN, said Poland made sense as a launch location. “It just seemed like Poland has a robust pay TV business, is

growing, and we have a solid business and good capability to execute the plan.”

For Netherlands-based Endemol, best known for creating the groundbreaking reality television show “Big Brother,” the scale of the partnership was a step up from the norm. “This is not a simple provision of a few shows, but hundreds of hours a year,” said Ynon Kreiz, chairman and CEO of Endemol.

“This is a further step than a regular provision of shows on a show-by-show basis,” he told Reuters, adding that Endemol may pursue more such partnerships in the future. “What’s exciting for us is that this is a new global brand being launched by arguably one of the most sophisticated channel operators in the world,” Kreiz said. —Reuters

Sony CEO apologises to gamers Sony working with FBI, cyber-security detectives

CHICAGO: Sir Miles Davis Academy students Brianna Brown, Tekayla Timms and Lauryn Hill participate in an invention school workshop led by James Dyson, second right, as the James Dyson Foundation begins its mission to encourage more American students to become future engineers and inventors in Chicago. — AP

Mark Zuckerberg becomes a home owner: Report SAN FRANCISCO: A local newspaper on Thursday reported that Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg is giving up life as a renter for a posh house a short drive from the social network’s new Silicon Valley campus.

The Bay Area News Group reported that Zuckerberg bought a home in Palo Alto, the northern California city he has lived in since dropping out of Harvard University to devote himself to Facebook after it launched in early 2004.

Public records indicate that Zuckerberg, who will be 27 years old on May 14, paid $7 million for a home boasting a saltwater pool, a music alcove, and five bedrooms, according to the newspaper group.

News of the house purchase came as Facebook prepared to move its fast-growing operations to a sprawling Silicon Valley campus once home to Sun Microsystems.

Facebook has seen its ranks of employees increase by about 50 percent annually and is already cramped in the space it moved into in Palo Alto in early 2009.

The former Sun campus in the city of Menlo Park, which borders Palo Alto, has nine buildings with a total of a million square feet (92,900 square meters) of office space set on 57 acres (23 hectares) of land, according to Facebook director of real estate John Tenanes.

“We’ve been looking for a setting where we can plant some roots,” Facebook chief financial officer David Ebersman said while unveiling the plan in February with city officials at Menlo Park City Hall. — AFP

TOKYO: Sony Chief Executive Officer Howard Stringer apologised to users of its PlayStation Network and other online services, breaking his silence on the biggest Internet security break-in ever.

Stringer’s comments, which did not specify when services would resume, come after criticism of his leadership since Sony revealed hackers had compromised the data of more than 100 million accounts used for accessing games and music over the Internet.

“As a company we - and I - apologize for the inconvenience and concern caused by this attack,” Stringer said on Sony’s US PlayStation blog late on Thursday.

The incident may prove to be a significant setback for a company looking to recover after being outmanoeuvred

by Apple in portable music and Samsung Electronics in flat-screen TVs and which faces a tough fight in video games with Nintendo and Microsoft.

One analyst said security concerns could weigh on sales of Sony’s gadgets and hurt growth prospects for its network services. “There is a real concern that trust in Sony’s business will decline,” Kota Ezawa, analyst at Citigroup Global Markets Japan, wrote in a note ahead of the comments from Stringer. “The network business itself still only makes a small direct contribution to earnings, but we see a potential drop in hardware sales as a concern.”

But Peter Walshe, senior director at global brands research agency Millward Brown, said the main Sony brand should bounce back, although PlayStation specifically might suffer.

“The parent brand is likely to be more resilient,” he told Reuters by telephone.

“Sony is one of the most trusted brands in the world, while Sony PlayStation has quite a low trust score to begin with.”

“People may shout: ‘I’m never going to buy Sony again,’ but in our experience that doesn’t tend to happen.”

The Internet breaches sparked thousands of comments on the official PlayStation fan page on Facebook and on its blog, some of them from users who said they would switch to Microsoft’s Xbox Live games network.

Although video game hardware and

software sales have declined globally, the PlayStation Network is a key initiative for the electronics company.

Yesterday, Sony shares ended 2.3 percent lower in a broader market down 1.5 percent, extending its total losses to about 6 percent since it revealed the breach. The Nikkei is up around 3 percent over the same period.

Sony issued its first warning on the break-in a week after it detected a problem with the network on April 19, infuriating many PlayStation users around the world. Sony said it needed time to work out the extent of the damage. WHY THE DELAY? “I know some believe we should have notified our customers earlier than we did. It’s a fair question,” Stringer said.

“I wish we could have gotten the answers we needed sooner, but forensic analysis is a complex, time-consuming process. Hackers, after all, do their best to cover their tracks, and it took some time for our experts to find those tracks and begin to identify what personal information had - or had not - been taken.” Stringer said Sony would restore network services “in the coming days”, but gave no date.

“That’s all well and good, but when exactly is the PSN going to be back up?

“Coming Days” could be tomorrow or it could be weeks from now,” a user called Morac said on the PlayStation blog.

Sony’s handling of a massive Internet security breach is becoming a public relations nightmare reminiscent of Toyota Motor’s bungled response to a series of vehicle recalls last year, fuelling criticism of Japan Inc’s standards of disclosure. “The initial response was definitely slow,” said Yasuyuki Katagi, president of Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide (Japan). He said Japanese firms were used to keeping problems quiet because local customers would assume they were taking steps to fix things. “However, this doesn’t apply when a problem extends to the global business environment,” Katagi added.

In the United States, several members of Congress have seized on Sony’s breach, in which hackers stole names, addresses and possibly credit card details. One U.S. law firm filed a

lawsuit in California on behalf of consumers. The theft prompted the US Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation to open an investigation and New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has subpoenaed Sony entities over the breaches.

“Almost 100 percent of the time, it’s the handling of the crisis that creates lasting and negative perceptions rather than the event on its own,” said Danny Phan, executive director at public relations firm Pelham Bell Pottinger Asia.

“Keeping your stakeholders in the dark for too long will create deep rooted suspicion and mistrust when the news breaks, potentially severing all positive sentiments previously built over the years.” Sony previously said it would offer some free content, including 30 days of free membership to a premium service to existing users and in some regions pay credit card-renewal fees.

Stringer also said the company had launched a $1 million data theft insurance policy for its U.S. PlayStation Network and Qriocity users.

“I know this has been a frustrating time for all of you,” Stringer said. “To date, there is no confirmed evidence any credit card or personal information has been misused, and we continue to monitor the situation closely,” he said.

Sony’s revelation of a second Internet breach on Monday came just a day after it said measures had been put in place to avert another cyberattack like that which hit its PlayStation Network, leading to the theft of information on 77 million user accounts.

The company is looking to its insurers to help pay for its data breach, an amount that one expert estimates could exceed $2 billion, but others said insurers may balk at ponying up that kind of money.

“We have a variety of types of insurance that cover damages. Certain carriers have been put on notice,” said Sony spokesman Dan Race.

The hackers have not been identified, but Internet vigilante group Anonymous, which had claimed responsibility for previous attacks on Sony and other corporations, denied it was behind the data theft. —Reuters

technology

SATURDAY, MAY 7, 2011

Not too full and not too empty - looking after your battery MUNICH: Batteries are expendable - at some point their lifetime will be over and it’s time to find an often expensive replacement.

But it is possible to delay the inevitable, according to Kai-Christian Moeller of Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for Silicate Research (ISC). Batteries in modern smartphones, digital cameras or notebooks age faster when they are loaded and stored improperly, explained the head of the battery research group.

By keeping the charge capacity between 10 and 90 per cent, one can extend the lifespan of one’s battery,

explains Moeller. That means smartphones and notebooks should never be drained entirely or charged to their maximum levels.

Battery-powered devices are also better off if they’re not left in the sun or a hot car.

That’s because temperatures higher than 60 degrees Celsius age the cells a lot faster.

If a smartphone battery only holds its charge for one day, it’s usually because of a defective or worn battery. Broadcasting and receiving via UMTS, receiving GPS signals and large displays also eat up a lot of power, say experts.

Notebook owners can also extend their

Work smarter with your smartphone WASHINGTON: Out of the box, smartphones come with a lot of nifty features. But, being the tiny computers that they are, they also come with tremendous untapped potential. To get the most out of your smartphone whether it’s a BlackBerry, iPhone, Android, or some other model - you have to add a little know-how and a few tools.

The payoff, though, is greater productivity and more fun.

—- Find apps for internet services No matter how good the internet browser is on your smartphone, surfing the net on a tiny screen is tough to do. That’s why it makes sense to search out smartphone apps to access your most commonly used internet sites.

Google, for instance, makes smartphone apps for its Gmail, Maps, and Search features. Skype makes a smartphone app. For iPhone and Android, there’s Craigsphone for Craigslist, as well.

Also, if you’re a lover of web forums, check out Tapatalk, which puts a phone-friendly face on many of the most popular web forums. And if instant messaging is a staple on your desktop PC, there’s no reason to leave it behind on your smartphone. Look at Beejive, which can aggregate your instant messaging accounts - including those on Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo! AIM, and Google Talk and permit you to carry on multiple instant messaging chats at once.

Security If your smartphone were lost or stolen, what personal information would be at some stranger’s fingertips? If you’re like many smartphone users, you probably carry your device around with no password protection whatsoever. If so, you’re courting disaster. Personal e-mail, bank account information, web search history, contacts, and more are typically stored on a smartphone.

Protect that information at multiple levels. First, take the time to learn how to password protect your smartphone itself. Most can be set up to require some type of password to log on to the device or to enter it after it is in a low-power state. Any applications that contain personal information of any type - including e-mail programs should be protected by a password as well. Don’t leave home without one.

Battery life It’s almost guaranteed that your smartphone will start running out of battery power just when you need it the most. You can do a lot to extend the life of your smartphone’s battery, though, by deactivating features that you don’t need or use on a regular basis. Use your phone’s setup feature to disable Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, for example, if you don’t need them. Both services engage power-consuming internal electronics. Also, get in the habit of putting your phone into a low-power standby mode when you’re not using it rather than just locking the keyboard. By using the low-power mode, you can almost double the amount of time you get from one battery charge.

Unlock it Smartphones from many carriers come in a “locked” state, preventing the phone from being used with another carrier by means of simply inserting a SIM card. That’s a real hindrance when you’re traveling abroad and would like to use your phone just by buying a SIM card once you arrive. —dpa

battery’s lifespans. If the device is going to be plugged in for a longer period of time, it’s a good idea to remove the battery, says Moeller. In this case, the battery shouldn’t be fully charged: a charge of 50 per cent is ideal for storage.

As a rule of thumb, well cared for batteries lose about 20 per cent of their capacity after 500 recharges, explains Moeller.

“Just like tyres or the braking system of a car, batteries are expendable. Most lithium ion batteries have a lifespan of several thousand loading cycles.

To keep wear and tear under control, there are special programmes for note-

books and smartphones that, for example, show what percentage of capacity is still available or how many loading cycles the battery has already undergone.

Most electronic devices today have either lithium ion or the more modern lithium polymer batteries. The latter have a high energy density.

“Battery care in that sense is no longer necessary” with either kind of battery, explains Moeller.

The so-called Memory effect, or loss of capacity, does not apply to lithium batteries the way regular partial loading does with nickel cadmium batteries. —dpa

Long queues for iPad 2 in China ‘It’s convenient and it’s great fun’ BEIJING: Apple fans queued up for hours yesterday in China to snap up the iPad 2 as the updated version of the popular tablet computer went on sale in the world’s biggest Internet market.

Apple’s four stores in Beijing and Shanghai began offering the Wi-Fi model of the lighter, thinner, cameraequipped touchscreen device, which went on sale in the US on March 11 and in countries across Asia last week to great fanfare.

“It’s convenient and it’s great fun.

I’ve been looking forward to getting one for more than a month, since I learned that Apple was going to launch it in China,” 22-year-old Liu Yan, who runs a magic shop, told AFP. Liu purchased the most expensive model-the 64-gigabyte version selling for 5,288 yuan ($815). The cheapest 16-gigabyte version sells for 3,688 yuan. Both black and white models were on offer.

Apple employees told AFP that hundreds had queued overnight outside the store in a trendy upscale shopping mall in the city centre. Hired security guards maintained order throughout the day.

By 5:00 pm, queues had waned, but the glassfront store was still jammed with customers including 22-year-old Flora Wang, who said she wanted to buy an iPad but was still deciding whether to buy the original model or the updated one.

“The screen is so big,” said Wang, as she played a game and browsed the online app of Spanish fashion brand Zara.

The iPad was also on sale at authorised dealers in China, such as electronics chain stores, but was not available late Friday on Apple’s online store for China.

China has a booming grey market for Apple products to satisfy pent-up demand-perhaps prompting the California-based high-tech giant to gradually shorten the lag time

BEIJING: A Chinese man, center, holds a mattress as he queues overnight with hundreds of others for the chance to buy a iPad 2 on the first day of its sale at the Xidan Apple Store in Beijing, China yesterday. — AP between the US and China launches of its coveted gadgets.

The iPhone officially went on sale in China in October 2009 — more than two years after its US launch. The original iPad, which debuted in the United States in April 2010, hit store shelves in China in September.

Apple plans to have 25 new stores in China by the end of this year.

With the world’s top Internet population at more than 457 million users, China is a key market for tablet computer makers-research firm Analysys International estimates tablet sales will reach 4.5 million units here in 2011.

“It is not surprising to see people lining up for the iPad 2, but I don’t think there will be a supply crunch due to heavy demand,” Sun Peilin, an analyst at Beijing-based Analysys, told AFP. “Sales will normalise and then pick up in the second quarter,” Sun said,

adding that iPad prices on the grey market had dropped off on Friday as the official launch went into full swing.

Apple sold 15 million iPads last year, generating $10 billion in revenue and establishing the multi-tasking device as a “must-have” consumer item for many.

It quickly dominated the tablet computer market and was swiftly followed by offerings from the tech industry’s main players, from Samsung and Dell to BlackBerry maker RIM and Toshiba. Sony unveiled its tablet models last week.

In March, Chinese computer giant Lenovo launched its own tablet computer-the LePad, powered by Google’s Android software-at home as it tries to compete for a share of an increasingly crowded market dominated by the iPad. It is due to go on sale outside China

by June. — AFP

TV listings

SATURDAY, MAY 7, 2011

19:55 20:55 21:25 22:25 23:25 23:55

00:45 Untamed And Uncut 01:40 Dogs 101 02:35 Karina: Wild On Safari 03:30 Big Five Challenge 04:25 In Search Of The Giant Anaconda 05:20 Animal Cops Houston 06:10 Dogs 101 07:00 Meerkat Manor 07:25 Crocodile Hunter 08:15 The Really Wild Show 08:40 Natural Born Hunters 09:10 Michaela’s Animal Road Trip 10:05 Cats 101 11:00 Animal Precinct 11:55 Wildlife SOS 12:20 E-Vets: The Interns 12:50 Animal ER 13:45 Wildest Africa 14:40 Austin Stevens: Most Dangerous...

20:10 Dogs/Cats/Pets 101 21:05 Air Jaws 22:00 Air Jaws 2 22:55 Crime Scene Wild 23:50 The Most Extreme

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

The Weakest Link Jekyll Live At The Apollo Supernova Doctors My Family Me Too Tweenies Teletubbies Charlie And Lola Me Too Tweenies Teletubbies Charlie And Lola Me Too Tweenies Teletubbies Charlie And Lola Me Too Tweenies Teletubbies Charlie And Lola My Family The Planets The Weakest Link Eastenders Strictly Come Dancing One Foot In The Grave The Planets The Weakest Link Holby City Holby City Robin Hood One Foot In The Grave Green Green Grass Live At The Apollo Beautiful People A Thing Called Love

00:05 00:55 02:30 03:20 04:45 05:35 07:05 07:50 11:15 12:50 14:30 16:05 19:50 21:30 23:00

Home For Life Masterchef: The Professionals Indian Food Made Easy Daily Cooks Challenge Indian Food Made Easy Cash In The Attic Ching’s Kitchen Saturday Kitchen Masterchef: The Professionals Saturday Kitchen Holmes On Homes Fantasy Homes In The City Holmes On Homes Masterchef: The Professionals Saturday Kitchen

00:40 01:35 02:30 03:25 04:20 05:15 05:40 06:05 07:00 07:50 08:45 09:40 10:30

Dirty Jobs Mega Builders Ultimate Survival Mega Builders Mythbusters How It’s Made How Stuff’s Made Dirty Jobs American Chopper Street Customs 2008 Motor City Motors Mythbusters Deconstruction

E!es Chelsea Lately Kimora: Life In The Fab Lane E! News Chelsea Lately Holly’s World

00:40 Winter X Games 14 2010 01:30 World Combat League 02:20 Carpocalypse 03:10 M1 Selection 2010 04:00 LG Action Sports World...

05:40 World Combat League 06:30 iEX 2009 08:00 Ticket To Ride 2009/2010 09:40 Maloof Money Cup 2010 11:20 Lucas Oil Motocross Championships 2009 12:10 Lucas Oil Motocross Championships 2009 13:00 Winter X Games 14 2010 13:50 Ride Guide Mountainbike 2009 14:40 Dr Danger 15:55 Breitling Airsports 2009 16:20 Lucas Oil Motocross Championships 2009 17:10 Carpocalypse 18:00 Ride Guide Mountainbike 2009 18:50 Lucas Oil Motocross Championships 2009 19:40 Lucas Oil Motocross Championships 2009 20:30 Winter X Games 14 2010 21:20 Carpocalypse 22:10 Ride Guide Mountainbike 2009 23:00 IFMXF 2010 23:50 Aiya TV

GONE IN SIXTY SECONDS ON OSN ACTION HD 10:55 Deconstruction 11:25 James May’s Man Lab 12:20 Mythbusters 13:15 Motor City Motors 14:10 Street Customs 2008 15:05 Mega Builders 16:00 Olympic Park Machines With Jonny Smith 16:55 Mighty Ships 17:50 How It’s Made 18:15 River Monsters 19:10 American Loggers 20:05 Ultimate Survival 21:55 Gold Rush: Alaska

00:30 The Gadget Show 00:55 Kings Of Construction 01:45 Stephen Hawking’s Universe 03:25 How Stuff’s Made 03:50 Junkyard Wars 04:45 What’s That About?

05:40 Patent Bending 06:10 Human Body: Ultimate Machine 07:00 Sci-Fi Saved My Life 07:55 Brainiac 08:45 Head Rush 08:48 Sci-Fi Science 09:15 Weird Connections 09:45 Scrapheap Challenge 10:35 Invisible Worlds 13:05 Real Superhumans 14:45 The Gadget Show 15:35 Patent Bending 16:00 Head Rush 16:03 How Stuff’s Made 16:30 How Does That Work?

17:00 Powering The Future 17:50 How Stuff Works 18:40 Sci-Fi Science

19:05 19:30 20:20 21:10 22:00 22:50 23:40

Sci-Fi Science Bang Goes The Theory The Gadget Show Bad Universe Da Vinci’s Machines Catch It Keep It Weird Or What?

00:00 00:25 01:15 02:00 02:50 03:35 04:25 05:15 06:00 06:25 06:45 07:10 07:35 08:00 08:25 08:50 09:00 10:30 10:55 11:15 11:40 12:00 12:25 12:50 13:15 13:40 14:00 14:25 14:50 15:15 15:35 16:00

Kim Possible Fairly Odd Parents Stitch Replacements Emperors New School Stitch Replacements Fairly Odd Parents Special Agent Oso Jungle Junction Handy Manny Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Fish Hooks Sonny With A Chance Phineas And Ferb Have A Laugh Jump In Hannah Montana Forever Good Luck Charlie Shake It Up Suite Life On Deck Fish Hooks Wizards Of Waverly Place Sonny With A Chance Hannah Montana Forever Stitch Shake It Up Fish Hooks Phineas And Ferb Good Luck Charlie Fairly Odd Parents Suite Life On Deck

16:25 16:45 17:10 17:30 17:57 18:00 18:20 18:45 19:10 20:40 20:57 21:00 21:25 21:50 22:15 22:40 23:05 23:30 23:55

Hannah Montana Forever Wizards Of Waverly Place Shake It Up Fish Hooks Have A Laugh Hannah Montana Forever Good Luck Charlie Sonny With A Chance Wendy Wu Hannah Montana Forever Have A Laugh Wizards Of Waverly Place Jonas LA Good Luck Charlie Sonny With A Chance Wizards Of Waverly Place Jonas Hannah Montana Kim Possible

00:25 Kendra 00:55 Behind The Scenes 01:25 20 Best And Worst Celebrity Plastic...

03:15 25 Most Stylish 04:10 Sexiest 05:05 Extreme Hollywood 06:00 THS 07:50 Behind The Scenes 08:20 E! News 09:15 Extreme Close-Up 10:15 Holly’s World 16:00 THS 16:55 Holly’s World 17:25 Fashion Police 17:55 E! News 18:55 Kourtney And Kim Take New York 19:25 Kourtney And Kim Take New York

00:05 Unwrapped 00:30 Diners, Drive-Ins And Dives 00:55 Barefoot Contessa 01:20 Barefoot Contessa 01:45 Chopped 02:35 Good Eats - Special 03:00 Good Eats - Special 03:25 Food Network Challenge 04:15 Good Eats - Special 04:40 Unwrapped 05:05 Ten Dollar Dinners 05:30 Paula’s Best Dishes 05:50 Paula’s Party 06:35 Barefoot Contessa 07:00 Chopped 07:50 Guy’s Big Bite 08:15 Boy Meets Grill 08:40 Good Deal With Dave Lieberman 09:05 Ten Dollar Dinners 09:30 Paula’s Best Dishes 09:55 Barefoot Contessa 10:20 Diners, Drive-Ins And Dives 10:45 Throwdown With Bobby Flay 11:10 Unwrapped 11:35 Paula’s Party 12:25 Good Eats - Special 12:50 Paula’s Best Dishes 13:15 Throwdown With Bobby Flay 13:40 Ultimate Recipe Showdown 14:30 Diners, Drive-Ins And Dives 14:55 Unwrapped 15:20 Boy Meets Grill 15:45 Chopped 16:35 Guy’s Big Bite 17:00 Barefoot Contessa 17:25 Good Deal With Dave Lieberman 17:50 Ten Dollar Dinners 18:15 Paula’s Party 19:05 Good Eats - Special 19:30 Food Network Challenge 20:20 Diners, Drive-Ins And Dives 20:45 Diners, Drive-Ins And Dives 21:10 Food Network Challenge 22:00 Chopped 22:50 Ultimate Recipe Showdown 23:40 Good Eats - Special

00:00 01:00 02:00 03:00 04:00 04:30 05:00 Planet 05:30 06:00 06:30 07:00

Market Values Departures Don’t Tell My Mother

By Any Means Pressure Cook David Rocco’s Dolce Vita Food Lovers Guide To The Exploring The Vine Market Values Market Values Departures

08:00 09:00 10:00 10:30 11:00 16:00 16:30 17:00 22:00 22:30 23:00

Don’t Tell My Mother

By Any Means Exploring The Vine David Rocco’s Dolce Vita Banged Up Abroad Exploring The Vine David Rocco’s Dolce Vita Banged Up Abroad Exploring The Vine David Rocco’s Dolce Vita Banged Up Abroad

00:00 01:00 01:55 02:20 02:50 03:45 04:40 05:35 06:30 07:25 08:20 09:15 10:10 11:05

Wild Sex Dino Autopsy Monkey Thieves Monkey Thieves Dangerous Encounters Strike Force Hammerhead Highway Shark Men Monster Fish Hooked V Monster Fish Of The Congo Clan Of The Meerkat Swamp Men Shark Men

01:00 03:00 03:30 05:30 08:30 09:00 09:30 11:30 14:30 15:00 15:30 18:30 19:30 20:00 23:00

Prime/Time Boxing Inside The PGA Tour Champions Tour Major League Soccer Golf Channel Programming Golf Central International Golf Channel Programming PGA Tour Inside The PGA Tour Asian Tour European Tour Mobil 1 The Grid This Week In Baseball Major League Baseball On Fox PGA Tour

00:20 Tales From The Crypt Keeper 00:45 Rescue Heroes 01:00 Beverly Hills Teen Club Marathon 06:00 New Adventures Of Madeline 06:25 Rupert 06:45 Max And Ruby 07:10 Max And Ruby 07:35 Babar 08:00 Programmes Start At 8:00pm KSA 20:00 Dennis The Menace 20:45 Sabrina The Animated Series 21:10 S Club 7 In Miami 21:35 Beverly Hills Teen Club 22:00 Frankie And Hazel 23:30 Dennis The Menace 23:45 Nancy Drew

01:30 03:25 04:50 06:20 07:55 10:15 11:50 13:25 15:25 17:20 18:45 20:15 20:30 22:00 23:30

American Heart Jackson County Jail To Kill For Taking Of Beverly Hills Avanti One Special Victory Chance Of A Lifetime Comes A Horseman Gator Johnny Be Good The Wrong Girl Big Screen 1 Crime And Punishment (1998) Cool Blue Buy And Cell

01:00 The Final-18 02:30 The General’s Daughter-18 04:30 Orphan-18 06:30 Gone In Sixty Seconds-PG15 08:30 Star Trek: Generations-PG 10:30 Angels And Demons-PG15 12:45 State Of Play-PG15 15:00 Star Trek: Generations-PG 17:00 The One-PG15 18:30 State Of Play-PG15 20:45 Universal Soldier: Regeneration-PG15 22:30 8 Mile-18

TV listings

SATURDAY, MAY 7, 2011

01:00 While She Was Out-18 02:30 Bandslam-PG15 04:30 2012-PG15 07:30 The Nutty Professor-FAM 09:00 Bandslam-PG15 11:00 2012-PG15 14:00 Invictus-PG15 16:30 The Last Song-PG15 18:45 Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant-PG15 21:00 Good Hair-PG15 23:00 The Ruins-R

00:30 The Daily Show With Jon Stewart 01:00 The Colbert Report 01:30 Family Guy 02:00 Funny Or Die Presents 02:30 Bored To Death 03:00 Friends 03:30 Modern Family 04:00 Family Guy 04:30 The Tonight Show With Jay Leno 05:30 Malcolm In The Middle 06:00 Yes Dear 06:30 The Drew Carey Show 07:00 Late Night With Jimmy Fallon 08:00 8 Simple Rules ...

08:30 Dharma And Greg 09:00 Friends 09:30 Malcolm In The Middle 10:00 Yes Dear 10:30 Outsourced 11:00 The Drew Carey Show 11:30 The Tonight Show With Jay Leno 12:30 Dharma And Greg 13:00 8 Simple Rules ...

13:30 Malcolm In The Middle 14:00 Yes Dear 14:30 Modern Family 15:00 Outsourced 15:30 The Daily Show With Jon Stewart 16:00 The Colbert Report 16:30 The Drew Carey Show 17:00 Late Night With Jimmy Fallon 18:00 Friends 18:30 8 Simple Rules ...

19:00 My Boys 19:30 How I Met Your Mother 20:00 The Tonight Show With Jay Leno 21:00 The Daily Show With Jon Stewart 21:30 The Colbert Report 22:00 Saturday Night Live 23:00 South Park 23:30 Late Night With Jimmy Fallon

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

12:30 The New Adventures Of Old Christine 13:00 The Ellen DeGeneres Show 14:00 The Unit 15:00 Cold Case 16:00 The Office 16:30 Coronation Street 17:00 The Ellen DeGeneres Show 18:00 The Unit 19:00 Persons Unknown 20:00 The Event

01:00 Night Of The Living Dead 3DPG15 03:00The Fast And The Furious-PG15 05:00 The Final-18 07:00 Vertical Limit-PG15 09:00 Dragon: The Bruce Lee StoryPG15 11:00 The Day After Tomorrow-PG 13:00 Appaloosa-PG15 15:00 Dragon: The Bruce Lee StoryPG15 17:00 Star Trek-PG 19:15 The Taking Of Pelham 123-18 21:00 8 Mile-18 23:00 Halloween 2-18

00:00 02:00 04:00 06:00 08:00 10:00 11:30 14:00 16:00 18:00 20:00 22:00

Mystery Men-PG15 Patch Adams-PG15 Ed-PG Daddy Day Care-PG Chasing Papi-PG A Simple Wish-FAM Keeping The Faith-PG15 The Match-PG15 Mystery Men-PG15 Shorts-PG Dance Flick-18 Friday-18

01:00 03:00 05:00 07:00 09:00 11:00 FAM 13:00 PG15 15:00 17:00 19:00 21:00 23:00

Partir-18 Morning Light-PG Hotel For Dogs-FAM Oceans - Into The Deep-PG Mean Girls-PG15 Ponyo On The Cliff By The SeaGhosts Of Girlfriends PastMichael Jackson’s This Is It-PG Mean Girls-PG15 Good Hair-PG15 Glorious 39-PG15 Hurricane Season-PG15

00:00 The Trumpet Of The Swan-FAM 02:00 Ace Ventura : Pet Detective Jr.PG15 04:00 Yogi And The Invasion Of The Space Bears-FAM 06:00 Babe-FAM 08:00 Scooby-Doo Meets The Boo Brothers-FAM 10:00 Ace Ventura : Pet Detective Jr.PG15 12:00 Cars-PG 14:00 Babe-FAM 16:00 Monsters vs. Aliens-PG 18:00 Barbie: A Fairy Secret-FAM 20:00 War Of The Buttons-PG 22:00 Cars-PG

00:00 01:00 03:00 07:00 08:00 10:00 10:30

Trans World Sport International Rugby League Super 15 Trans World Sport International Rugby League Total Rugby Live Super 15

12:30 14:30 15:30 17:30 18:00 20:00 22:00

Live Super 15 Trans World Sport Live Aviva Premiership Total Rugby Live Super 15 Live Super 15 Super 15

01:30 04:00 05:00 07:00 11:30 12:30 14:30 18:30 19:00 21:00 23:30

AFL Premiership The All Sports Show International Rugby League European PGA Tour Trans World Sport Live NRL Premiership Live European PGA Tour Total Rugby Live Aviva Premiership AFL Premiership Scottish Premier League

00:00 02:00 03:00 04:00 05:00 07:00 09:00 10:00 10:30 13:30 14:00 15:00 21:00 22:00

WWE SmackDown WWE Bottom Line WWE NXT UFC The Ultimate Fighter UFC Unleashed WWE SmackDown WWE Bottom Line V8 Supercars Extra Live Aussie Rules V8 Supercars Extra Le Mans Series Live Le Mans Series UFC The Ultimate Fighter WWE SmackDown

00:00 Jerseylicious 01:00 Fashion Avenue

No Ordinary Family American Idol Survivor: Redemption Island No Ordinary Family Lie To Me Good Morning America C.S.I. New York One Tree Hill Lie To Me Karen Sisco The View American Idol Survivor: Redemption Island Karen Sisco Live Good Morning America C.S.I. New York The Ellen DeGeneres Show Emmerdale Coronation Street Persons Unknown The Event Sons Of Anarchy Boardwalk Empire C.S.I. New York

00:00 Cold Case 01:00 American Idol 02:00 Royal Pains 03:00 Survivor: Redemption Island 04:00 No Ordinary Family 05:00 The Philanthropist 06:00 Cold Case 07:00 The New Adventures Of Old Christine 08:00 The Unit 09:00 The Philanthropist 10:00 American Idol 11:00 Survivor: Redemption Island 12:00 The New Adventures Of Old Christine

THE TAKING OF PELHAM 123 ON OSN MOVIES ACTION

01:30 01:55 02:25 03:20 05:10 05:35 06:05 07:00 08:00 09:00 12:50 19:25 20:20 21:15 22:10 23:05

Fashion Avenue Big Boutique How Do I Look?

Whose Wedding Is It Anyway?

Homes With Style Area Clean House Big Boutique Clean House Giuliana And Bill Whose Wedding Is It Anyway?

Clean House Ruby: My Naked Truth Fashion Police Jerseylicious Top 10

02:00 The Fearless Vampire KillersFAM 03:45 Ride The High Country-FAM 05:15 Jezebel-FAM 07:00 I am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang-FAM 08:35 Boys’ Night Out-FAM 10:25 Catlow-FAM 12:05 Crazy From The Heart-FAM 13:35 Go West-FAM 15:00 Knights Of The Round TableFAM 16:55 36 Hours-FAM 18:45 That Midnight Kiss-FAM 20:20 The Wizard Of Oz-FAM 22:00 Demon Seed-FAM 23:35 Alex In Wonderland-FAM

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

Life After People Conspiracy?

Modern Marvels The Universe Prehistoric Monsters Revealed Giganto: The Real King Kong Life After People Conspiracy?

Modern Marvels The Universe Prehistoric Monsters Revealed Giganto: The Real King Kong Life After People Conspiracy?

Modern Marvels The Universe Prehistoric Monsters Revealed Giganto: The Real King Kong Life After People Conspiracy?

Modern Marvels Deep Sea Detectives Deep Wreck Mysteries Deep Sea Salvage The Real Robin Hood

00:05 Cow And Chicken 00:30 Cramp Twins 00:55 George Of The Jungle 01:20 Adventure Time 01:45 Eliot Kid 02:10 Ed, Edd N Eddy 02:35 Ben 10: Alien Force 03:00 The Powerpuff Girls 03:15 Chowder 03:40 The Secret Saturdays 04:05 My Gym Partner’s A Monkey 04:30 Ben 10: Alien Force 04:55 Best Ed 05:20 Skunk Fu! 05:45 Cramp Twins 06:10 Eliot Kid 06:35 The Marvelous Misadventures Of Flapjack 07:00 Ed, Edd N Eddy 07:25 Chop Socky Chooks 07:50 Chowder 08:05 Cartoon Network Dance Club 08:15 Ben 10: Alien Force 08:40 Bakugan: Gundalian Invaders 09:05 Batman: The Brave And The Bold 09:30 The Secret Saturdays 09:55 My Gym Partner’s A Monkey 10:20 George Of The Jungle 10:30 Angelo Rules 10:55 Best Ed 11:20 Eliot Kid 11:45 Skunk Fu! 12:10 Fantastic Four: World’s Greatest Heroes 12:35 Bakugan: New Vestroia 13:00 Ben 10

13:25 Codename: Kids Next Door 13:50 The Marvelous Misadventures Of Flapjack 14:15 The Life And Times Of Juniper Lee 14:40 George Of The Jungle 15:05 Ed, Edd N Eddy 15:20 Cartoon Network Dance Club 15:35 Chop Socky Chooks 16:00 Robotboy 16:25 Squirrel Boy 16:50 Chowder 17:15 The Secret Saturdays 17:40 Ben 10: Ultimate Alien 18:05 Bakugan: New Vestroia 18:30 Angelo Rules 18:55 Best Ed 19:20 Adventure Time 19:45 Cow And Chicken 20:10 The Marvelous Misadventures Of Flapjack 20:35 Courage The Cowardly Dog 21:00 The Powerpuff Girls 21:15 Cartoon Network Dance Club 21:25 Ed, Edd N Eddy 21:50 Robotboy 22:00 Batman: The Brave And The Bold 22:25 Skunk Fu! 22:50 Ben 10: Ultimate Alien 23:15 Bakugan Battle Brawlers 23:40 Chowder

INVESTIGATION DISCOVERY 00:30 Ghost Lab 01:20 A Haunting 02:10 Murder Shift 03:00 Undercover 03:50 Dr G: Medical Examiner 04:45 Crime Scene Psychics 05:15 Ghost Lab 06:10 Mystery Diagnosis 07:00 Forensic Detectives 07:50 On The Run 08:40 Mystery ER 09:30 Real Emergency Calls 09:55 Real Emergency Calls 10:20 Who On Earth Did I Marry?

10:45 I Was Murdered 11:10 FBI Files 12:00 Murder Shift 12:50 The Will: Family Secrets Revealed 13:40 Mystery ER 14:30 Real Emergency Calls 14:55 Real Emergency Calls 15:20 Who On Earth Did I Marry?

15:45 I Was Murdered 16:10 Forensic Detectives 17:00 On The Run 17:50 FBI Files 18:40 Mystery ER 19:30 Real Emergency Calls 19:55 Real Emergency Calls 20:20 Murder Shift 21:10 The Will: Family Secrets Revealed 22:00 The Haunted 22:50 Ghost Lab 23:40 Mysterious Journeys

00:00 Working Holiday 01:00 Globe Trekker 02:00 48 Hours In 02:30 Distant Shores 03:00 Four Men and a Lady 03:30 Travel Today 04:00 Globe Trekker 05:00 Working Holiday 06:00 Top Travel 06:30 Rudy Maxa’s World 07:00 Globe Trekker 08:00 Spring 08:30 Rudy Maxa’s World 09:00 Essential 09:30 Globe Trekker 10:00 Globe Trekker 11:00 Planet Food 12:00 Globe Trekker 13:00 Spring 13:30 Globe Trekker 14:30 Chef Abroad 15:00 Indian Times 16:00 Globe Trekker 17:00 That Crazy French Woman 18:00 Hollywood and Vines 18:30 Travel Today 19:00 Globe Trekker 20:00 Working Holiday 21:00 Globe Trekker 22:00 Julian and Camilla’s World Odyssey

what’s on SATURDAY, MAY 7, 201

AUK’s team advances to Microsoft Imagine Cup World Finals in NY

A

fter several hours of intense work, SWAP team of the American University of Kuwait (AUK) presented their creative idea to the Microsoft Imagine Cup panel of judges in Dubai on April 25 to advance to the world finals of Microsoft Imagine Cup to take place in New York in Summer 2011. The team had the highest ranking within all other Kuwaiti teams and placed second in the Gulf Microsoft Imagine Cup Competition for Software Design. By representing the State of Kuwait in the Imagine Cup World Finals for the second year in a row, AUK will set a new record in the region.

Over the past few months, Microsoft Gulf selected 10 teams from around the Gulf to compete in the Imagine Cup Regional Competition. Over 2000 students registered for the competition and only 30 students advanced to the regional finals. The finalists have been chosen from different universities in Kuwait, Oman, and UAE based on their proposed ideas to solve the world’s most challenging social issues outlined in the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals. This year Kuwait was represented by four teams in the competition that took place at the American University in Dubai (AUD). Each team had fifteen minutes to present their work to a panel of judges comprising of senior members from the enterprise and government sectors. By announcing the AUK SWAP team among the top three winners, AUK brought victory to Kuwait and established the consistent presence of AUK innovators in the international arena.

The AUK SWAP Team, represented by Ali Taqi (Information Systems Senior), Bader Al Mohammed Ali (Computer Science Senior), and Eissa Al-Qadeeri (Computer Science

Information EMBASSY OF AUSTRALIA The Embassy encourages all Australians to register their presence in Kuwait through Smartraveller Online.

Australians who are registered are asked to update their details. The information provided will assist us in contacting you in an emergency. www.smartraveller.gov.au Kuwait citizens can apply for and receive visit visas to Australia online at www.immi.gov.au. This usually takes two working days. All others visa applications are handled by the Australian Visa Application Centre Tel. 22971110.

Witnessing and certifying documents are by appointment only, please contact the Embassy on 2232 2422.

The Australian Embassy is open from 8.00am to 4.00pm, Sunday to Thursday.

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Senior), decided to solve the world’s problems through their ‘Revolutionary Reporting System’. Their design is based on a simple image reporting software that uses the geographic location tagging on images for reporting any emergencies related to road accidents, environmental hazards, theft, or medical emergencies. Their project was a winning idea, not only for its value to humanity, but also for the way they presented it in the public event. The AUK team made their way to the winning podium by a live demonstration that impressed the audience when their ‘Revolutionary Reporting System’ reported a humorous situation at the event hall. The system captured the situation, located the AUD Auditorium on the map, and then displayed the incident in front of the judges. The audience rose and clapped for the confident performance.

Under the mentorship of Dr Amir Zeid, Program Lead of Computer Science & Information Systems, AUK teams have been winning titles in the Annual Imagine Cup

Competition since 2009. This year Dr Zeid managed to lead three AUK teams to qualify to the regional finals in Dubai. Having three AUK teams in the top ten teams in the region sets a new record. “It has been quite a challenge to coach three teams this year,” Dr. Zeid said, “The competition is not only about creative ideas, but also a demonstration of skills in public speech, smart responses, time management, and stress regulation.

A slight mistake can risk your chances of winning. I give credit to all three teams for their great performance.” The two other AUK teams this year were: Team Dream, composed of Wael Al-Ahmady, Mejren AlHammadi, Faisal Al-Ajmi, and Salem AlHammadi; and VOL, composed of Khaled AlJassar, Abduallah AlShaya, Mohammed AlShatti. The Imagine Cup, in its fifth year in the Gulf, is Microsoft’s initiative to encourage young people to apply their imagination and creativity to technology innovations that can make a difference and address realworld issues.

Cadbury Academy of Joy treats Kuwaitis to humorous evenings

C

adbury Dairy Milk, the iconic global chocolate brand, is bringing moments of joy to young men and women across Kuwait with the launch of its Academy of Joy tour.

Organized in collaboration with Dubomedy Arts, the Academy of Joy offers a series of special comedy workshops and professional shows aimed at spreading joy and laughter among people. Stand-up comedy is fast growing in popularity in the region, with many young, talented Kuwaiti men and women expressing themselves through humour. The tour will not only help them to develop their comedic skills, but also encourage them to share their joyous moments with others.

“Laughter is essential for the enjoyment of life, and what better way to bring moments of joy to the lives of young adults in the region than through a comedy tour. Dubomedy and the wonderful comedy community perfectly bring to life the brand’s spontaneous, joyful personality,” said Khurram Siddiqi, Director Marketing Chocolates & Snacks, Kraft Foods MEA. The Academy of Joy tour kicks off its entertaining workshops in Kuwait on

Embassy

May 10 at the Gulf University for Science & Technology, and will run for two days. The workshops, open to all men and women, will bring together a humorous community of artistes to work together on developing their stand-up talents, performance delivery and improvisation skills. All the skits will be performed in front of a live audience on the final day of the workshops.

The most hilarious stand-up comedian will then be chosen to showcase their laugh-inducing skills by opening for a professional comedy show the evening of May 12, alongside renowned funnymen Omar Ismail and Brent Jenkins.

Ali Al-Sayed, Dubomedy Arts producer and performer and host of the workshops, said, “We have such a

growing talent of stand-up comedians in the region, and it’s great to see the Cadbury Academy of Joy offering opportunities for our local artists. I can’t wait to see the performances!”

Along with Ali, the workshops will be hosted and led by Mina Liccione, Broadway veteran and headliner of ‘Funny Girls.’

The Cadbury Academy of Joy tour will also be hosting workshops in Jeddah and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; Doha, Qatar; and Muscat, Oman. Keep a look out for the upcoming event dates!

More information on the tours and registration options can be found at www.dubomedy.com/aoj/index.html and www.facebook.com/CadburyArabia

EMBASSY OF BRITAIN The Visa Application Centre (VAC) will be closed on the same dates above. The opening hours of the Visa Application Centre are 0930 - 1630 Application forms remain available online from the UKBAs’ website: www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk or from the Visa Application Centre’s website: www.vfsuk-kw.com. And also, from the UK Visa Application Centre located at: 4B, First Floor, Al Banwan Building (Burgan Bank Branch Office Building), Al Qibla area, opposite Central Bank of Kuwait, Kuwait City. For any further inquiries, please contact the Visa Application Centre: Website: www.vfs-uk-kw.com E-mail:info@vfs-uk-kw.com Telephone:22971170. The Consular Section will also be closed on the same dates.

For information on the British Embassy services, visit the British Embassy website: www.ukinkuwait.fco.gov.uk ■■■■■■■

EMBASSY OF CANADA The Embassy of Canada is located at Villa 24, Al-Mutawakel St., Block 4 in Da’aiyah. Please visit our website at www.Kuwait.gc.ca.

Canada offers a registration service for all Canadians travelling or living abroad. This service is provided so that Consular Officials can contact and assist Canadians in an emergency in a foreign country, such as a natural disaster or civil unrest, or inform Canadians of a family emergency at home. The Embassy of Canada encourages all Canadian Citizens to register online through the Government of Canada Travel Website at www.voyage.gc.ca. The Canadian Embassy in Abu Dhabi provides visa and immigration services to residents of Kuwait.

Individuals who are interested in visiting, working or immigrating to Canada are invited to visit the website of the Canadian Embassy to the UAE at www.UAE.gc.ca.

Effective January 15, 2011, the only Temporary Resident Visa (TRV) application form that will be accepted by CIC is the Application for Temporary Resident Visa Made Outside of Canada [IMM 5257] form. All previous Temporary Resident Visa application forms will no longer be accepted by CIC and instead will be returned to applicants. Should old applications be submitted prior to January 15, 2011 they will continue to be processed. To ensure that the most recent version of the Temporary Resident Visa application form is being utilized, applicants should refer to the CIC website. As of January 15, 2011, forms are to be filled in electronically. The Embassy of Canada is open from 07:30 to 15:30 Sunday through Thursday. Consular Services for Canadian Citizens are provided from 09:00 until 12:00 on Sunday through Wednesday.

The forms are available on the internet at: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/pdf/kits/forms/IMM5257E.P DF. A guide explaining the process can be found here: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/pdf/kits/guides/5256E.PDF.

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what’s on SATURDAY, MAY 7, 201

GUST wins 3rd place in Abu Dhabi

T

he Gulf University for Science and Technology (GUST) MIS and CS team participated in the IT Application Competition organized by the Zayed University in Abu Dhabi where over 118 teams from 42 universities in 17 different countries participated. The GUST team comprised of students Khalid Al-Mutawa (MIS), Mahmoud Alaref (MIS) and Monzer Khamash (CS) and supervised by Dr Nada Al-Masri, Assistant Professor in GUST’s MIS Department, was the only

participating team from a university in Kuwait. The team placed 3rd in the IT applications category for their developed “GradeBook” application which is a web based multi-tier system to allow instructors to post students’ grades on-line. As opposed to existing systems, the developed system is user friendly and uses an innovative dynamic approach similar to a spreadsheet application and yet it is accessible on-line. They received a prize of 5,000 dirhams for their win.

Iszonica fashion show a big success

T

Kidney Federation of India chairman visits Kuwait r Davis Chiramel, chairman of Kidney Federation of India and founder of charity institutions such as ACTS (Accident Care and Transport Service) and Janananma will be visiting Kuwait tomorrow and the well wishers of Kidney Federation of India is arranging a gathering with Fr Davis Chiramel at United Indian School, Abbasiya on May 9, 2011, Monday at 7:00 pm.

F

Future Eye Theatre Workshop Future Eye Theatre, Kuwait will hold a demonstration-cumworkshop on ‘Theatre and Dance’ today (May 7, 2011) at 7.30pm at the Successlines, Abbassiya. Renowned Kathakali exponent Kalamandalam E Vasudevam and Bharatanatyam and Mohiniyattom exponent Kalamandalam Mallika will conduct the workshop. All theatre and dance lovers including dance students are welcome. For details, Tel: 97277151, 66726427 or 65018302.

Ahmadi Music Group The Ahmadi Music Group, directed by Richard Bushman, is delighted to announce the forthcoming production of The Desert Song by Siegmund Romberg and Oscar Hammerstein.

Fully-staged, with costumes, dancing, professional soloists, a cast of around fifty people and a full symphony orchestra, this will be a wonderful opportunity to experience an evening of musical theatre in the stunning new Performing Arts Centre at The English School Salmiya. Tuesday 31 May, Preview Performance for students. Wednesday 1 June, Black-tie Gala Opening Performance followed by Buffet Supper. Thursday 2 June, Performance. Friday 3 June, Performance. All performances start at 7pm at The English School, Salmiya. Emailing invitations@ahmadimusicgroup.com

he Iszonica Fashion Week ‘One Love’ Art and fashion show hosted by Iszonica Modelling School and the Caribbean Association Kuwait was truly a remarkable event.

The spectacular blend of fashion and art on the runway premiering designs from: Jamaica, Africa, Columbia, Canada, England, Kuwait and Thailand added to the cultural richness and diversity of designs that were on display. The prestigious event also featured the very best hair style designs and accessories. From Jamaica, Art Boutique’s ‘Paradise’ collection showcased an array of exotic colors and prints, intermixing art and fashion and ended the show with a breath taking, pulsating Caribbean Carnival display.

Designers had a chance to talk about how their designs help and support local communities giving the audience a better understanding about the ethos of their business.

Michelle Johnson, Managing Director of Iszonica is planning to make Iszonica Fashion Week an Annual event here in Kuwait, where young designers from Kuwait and from within the local community can have the opportunity to showcase their talent and express their artistic ideas.

Guest designers at the fashion show included Ja-Lynn, a new designer label in Kuwait. Their collection is essential for the global women in Kuwait. A melting pot of treasures crafted into clothing and accessories to excite and delight. They work closely with hillside tribal villages in Thailand who are skilled in ancient crafts, supporting dedicated ethnic people in their effort to maintain a chosen life style, keeping their her-

itage alive. Threadz Couture Manger, Mashael Alasousi a young Kuwaiti designer works with ladies in Yemen to produce beautiful woven fabric which they use to make exquisite accessories for women. CEO of Lion and Lioness clothing, Errol Johnson, from the United Kingdom, expressed

how a percentage from the sales of his clothing line helps inner city young boys. A percentage of the proceeds of this event will be given to two nominated charities. A big thank you goes to the Embassy of Jamaica in Kuwait for their support and to all who attended the event.

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HEALTH

SATURDAY, MAY 7, 2011

Doctors study link between children brain size, autism Kids with autism have larger brains MELVILLE: Medical investigators have found that children with autism have larger brains than children without the condition, raising questions about differences in the neurological development of affected youngsters. The research, which used magnetic resonance imaging and was published in the Archives of General Psychiatry, noted the difference in brain size appears related to increased rates of brain growth before age 2. Although smaller studies in the past have pointed to a connection between autism and an increase in brain size, the new research, which compares 59 children with autism to 38 children without the condition, is the first to define the tim-

ing of brain growth in children with autism.

Dr Andrew Adesman, chief of developmental and behavioral pediatrics at the Cohen Children’s Medical Center of New York in New Hyde Park, said the new finding jibes with other studies showing that some children with autism have a somewhat larger head size. The increase in head circumference, Adesman said, has its onset around 1 year of age. “This new study, using sophisticated brain-imaging techniques at 2 years and again at 4 to 5 years, confirms not only that children with autism have brain overgrowth by the age of 2, but that this difference in size is stable, not progressive, during a child’s preschool years,”

Adesman said. To arrive at their conclusions on timing of spurts in brain growth, Dr. Heather Cody Hazlett and colleagues at the University of North Carolina performed imaging studies on the two sets of children and conducted behavioral assessments.

Two years after the first round of studies, when the children had reached 4 to 5 years old, medical investigators repeated each of the steps, again performing MRIs and conducting behavioral assessments. On the follow-up evaluation, however, brain scans were evaluated for the volume of the brain’s gray and white matter.

Gray matter refers to the neurons - brain cells - involved in all higher human func-

tioning: memory, hearing, vision, emotions, speech and language. White matter is made up of highly insulated cells and comprises the tissue through which signals pass to reach different regions of gray matter. Hazlett found overall enlargement of the brain in children with autism at all ages studied. “Although this study has no direct clinical implications,” Adesman said, “it does encourage researchers to more closely evaluate brain development in the months just before and after a child’s first birthday, since this is when early signs of autism often manifest initially and when changes in head size also become evident.” — MCT

Theory explains altruistic behavior Robots demonstrate genes play role in altruistic behavior LOS ANGELES: If natural selection means that only the fittest individuals survive to pass their genes on to the next generation, then selfless behavior should not exist. Yet dolphins are known to support their injured brethren, and some species of monkeys will scream to warn others of danger, even though doing so makes them an easier target. Biologists have a theory to explain such altruistic behavior: Animals will help each other if they have strong genetic ties, since such aid preserves genes they have in common.

Known as Hamilton’s rule of kin selection, the theory predicts that animals are prepared to make bigger sacrifices for close relatives - who share more genes - than for distant cousins. But testing this theory in the real world would require careful observation of whole populations of animals over hundreds of generations, and that’s time most scientists don’t have. So Swiss researchers built a population of 1,600 simulated robots and hundreds of thousands of their offspring that evolved over 500 generations.

The result: Groups of robots that were closely related acted more altruistically than groups that were made up of strangers. The stronger the genetic ties within the group, the more sacrifices the robots made.

Hamilton’s rule “really seems to be a fundamental principle of a natural system,” said Markus Waibel, a roboticist at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland, who worked on the study published Tuesday by the journal PLoS Biology.

Waibel and his colleagues pro-

grammed the virtual robots with 33 “genes” that controlled their behavior. The robots were put into groups of eight and set loose to forage for food tokens. After a robot found and retrieved a token, it could decide whether to keep it or share the spoils with the other seven members of its group.

In some of the groups, all eight robots were exact clones that shared all 33 of their genes. In other groups, the robots shared about half of their genes, as if they were siblings. Some groups were made up of eight robots with no genetic relationship at all.

After each round of token-gathering, the researchers took the genetic code from the “fittest,” or most successful, robots and recombined it with that of other successful robots to mimic sexual reproduction. Random mutations were sprinkled in here and there to add a touch of realism to the experiment. The researchers found that Hamilton’s rule did indeed hold true.

The robots’ inclination toward altruism depended on the costs and benefits of selfless behavior. When the cost and benefits were roughly equivalent, the robots were about twice as likely to help their identical twins as they were to help their other siblings, and not at all likely to help complete strangers. But when the cost-to-benefit ratio was high - in other words, when it was too much of a pain to be nice - the robots would only help each other if they were identical twins. On the other hand, if it didn’t hurt much to share some of their bounty, the robots would help one another even if they were distant relatives. —MCT

FUKUSHIMA: A worker measures radiation levels inside the Unit 1 reactor building of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Okuma, Fukushima Prefecture, northeaster Japan. — AP

Health risk from troubled nuke plant TOKYO: Radioactive substances have been leaking from Japan’s tsunami-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant for nearly two months, and the plant is likely to continue emitting radiation into the atmosphere, and possibly into the ocean and ground water, for many months to come. People living within a 20 km radius of the plant have been evacuated, while those in five towns downwind from the plants have also been told to prepare to leave their homes. Following are some questions and answers about the health risks from continued radiation exposure from the plant, 240 km from Tokyo, as operator Tokyo Electric Power Co struggles to bring it under control: HOW MUCH RADIATION HAS BEEN MEASURED? The highest radiation reading outside the evacuation zone on Thursday measured 0.046 millisieverts an hour in Namie, Fukushima, which is one of the towns whose residents are preparing for evacuation. Most areas outside the evacuation zone logged readings around 0.001 millisieverts an hour or less. Japan’s National Institute of Radiological Sciences calculated that in the month from March 14 to April 11, following the earthquake and tsunami, a person in Tokyo who spent eight hours a day outdoors and drank tap water would have been

exposed to about 0.12 millisieverts. In absolute terms, these quantities are extremely small. People in Japan are on average exposed to 1.5 millisieverts of natural background radiation a year.

HOW MUCH EXPOSURE IS DANGEROUS? Experts’ opinions vary. One benchmark from the Symposium on the International System of Radiological Protection recommends maximum exposure levels of 1 millisievert per year for the general public. Children, whose cellular activity is more active than in adults, are especially vulnerable, and public health officials say they should be shielded as much as possible from unnecessary exposure.

CAN LONG-TERM EXPOSURE TO LOW LEVELS OF RADIATION CAUSE CANCER? Yes. Radiation is cumulative, and in theory, every radioactive particle that makes its way into the body increases the risk of cancer. But there is no conclusive study that links a rise in cancer to cumulative radiation doses of less than 100 millisieverts.

Experts are divided on the policy implications for these lower dosages. Researchers are stumped in part because it can take decades and even generations before cancer emerges, and because so many other lifestyle choices can increase cancer risk.

Researchers also had very poor quality data on dosage measurements after Chernobyl. —Reuters

Say bye to obesity

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information SATURDAY, MAY 7, 2011

DIAL 161 FOR AIRPORT INFORMATION In case you are not travelling, your proper cancellation of bookings will help other passengers to use seats Arrival Flights on Saturday 7/5/2011 Route

Airlines

Flt

PIA THY ETH PIA UAE DHX ETD FDB GFA QTR JZR JZR JZR JZR KAC BAW KAC FCX KAC KAC FDB KAC KAC KAC KAC KAC UAE QTR ABY ETD GFA MHK IRC JZR JZR JZR IRM KAC MSR UAL RJA MSR KNE FDB KAC LMU JZR SVA KNE JZR JZR QTR QTR IRC KAC AFR SYR ETD UAE SVA KAC CLX GFA SVA JZR JZR ABY KAC ALK JZR KAC KAC KAC IRA KAC KAC SIA JAI SIA JAI KAC KAC AIC VOS FDB OMA JZR

215 772 620 239 853 370 305 67 211 138 529 503 555 555 412 157 416 201 206 382 53 302 352 284 362 344 855 132 125 301 213 711 6964 165 121 213 5066 672 610 982 640 621 703 57 786 109 357 500 745 257 257 134 134 6791 118 6706 341 303 857 2670 178 792 215 510 777 239 127 550 227 177 104 502 542 607 674 774 458 572 458 572 562 562 975 93 61 647 179

KARACHI ISTANBUL ADDIS ABABA SIALKOT DUBAI BAHRAIN ABU DHABI DUBAI BAHRAIN DOHA ASSIUT LUXOR ALEXANDRIA ALEXANDRIA MANILA / BANGKOK LONDON JAKARTA / KUALA LUMPUR BAHRAIN ISLAMABAD DELHI DUBAI MUMBAI COCHIN DHAKA COLOMBO CHENNAI DUBAI DOHA SHARJAH ABU DHABI BAHRAIN BAGHDAD / NAJAF TEHRAN DUBAI BAHRAIN DEIREZZOR MASHAD DUBAI CAIRO WASHINGTON DC DULLES AMMAN ASSIUT MEDINAH DUBAI JEDDAH ALEXANDRIA MASHAD JEDDAH JEDDAH BEIRUT BEIRUT DOHA DOHA MASHAD NEW YORK PARIS DAMASCUS ABU DHABI DUBAI JEDDAH GENEVA / FRANKFURT LUXEMBOURG BAHRAIN RIYADH JEDDAH AMMAN SHARJAH SOHAG / SHARM EL SHEIKH COLOMBO / DUBAI DUBAI LONDON BEIRUT CAIRO MASHAD DUBAI RIYADH SINGAPORE / ABU DHABI MUMBAI SINGAPORE / ABU DHABI MUMBAI AMMAN AMMAN CHENNAI / GOA KANDAHAR / DUBAI DUBAI MUSCAT DUBAI

Time 0:25 1:15 1:45 2:15 2:25 2:55 2:55 3:10 3:15 3:20 3:35 5:15 6:10 6:10 6:15 6:30 6:35 7:00 7:15 7:20 7:55 7:55 8:05 8:10 8:20 8:20 8:25 9:00 9:10 9:30 9:35 11:00 11:05 11:10 11:15 12:40 12:50 13:15 13:20 13:30 13:35 13:40 13:45 13:50 14:00 14:05 14:10 14:30 14:45 15:10 15:10 15:15 15:15 16:00 16:15 16:15 16:40 16:50 16:55 17:00 17:15 17:15 17:15 17:20 17:25 17:35 17:40 17:50 18:00 18:00 18:35 18:45 18:50 19:05 19:25 19:25 19:35 19:35 19:35 19:35 19:50 19:50 19:55 20:00 20:00 20:10 20:10

OMA MEA KAC MEA KNE KAC KAC MLR MLR MSR MSR DHX DHX KLM KLM UAE UAE GFA GFA JZR JZR QTR QTR UAL UAL SVA SVA JZR JZR MSR MSR JZR JZR MSR MSR DLH DLH AXB AXB BBC BBC

647 402 618 402 789 788 788 1405 1405 618 618 372 372 445 445 859 859 217 217 203 203 136 136 981 981 2660 2660 135 135 606 606 185 185 612 612 636 636 393 393 45 45

MUSCAT BEIRUT DOHA / BAHRAIN BEIRUT JEDDAH JEDDAH JEDDAH COLOMBO / DUBAI COLOMBO / DUBAI ALEXANDRIA ALEXANDRIA BAHRAIN BAHRAIN AMSTERDAM AMSTERDAM DUBAI DUBAI BAHRAIN BAHRAIN DAMASCUS DAMASCUS DOHA DOHA BAHRAIN BAHRAIN JEDDAH JEDDAH BAHRAIN BAHRAIN LUXOR LUXOR DUBAI DUBAI CAIRO CAIRO FRANKFURT FRANKFURT KOZHIKODE / COCHIN KOZHIKODE / COCHIN DHAKA / BAHRAIN DHAKA / BAHRAIN

20:10 20:15 20:15 20:15 20:20 20:25 20:25 20:50 20:50 20:55 20:55 21:00 21:00 21:05 21:05 21:15 21:15 21:25 21:25 21:30 21:30 21:35 21:35 22:00 22:00 22:05 22:05 22:10 22:10 22:15 22:15 22:35 22:35 22:50 22:50 23:00 23:00 23:15 23:15 23:45 23:45

Airlines DLH AIC KLM PIA THY ETH PIA UAE FDB DHX ETD QTR JZR JZR GFA KAC JZR JZR JZR BAW FDB KAC JZR KAC KAC UAE ABY KAC QTR ETD GFA KAC KAC JZR IRC JZR MHK KAC KAC JZR IRM MSR KNE RJA

Departure Flights on Saturday 7/5/2011 Flt Route 637 FRANKFURT 976 GOA / CHENNAI 447 AMSTERDAM 216 KARACHI 773 ISTANBUL 620 BAHRAIN / ADDIS ABABA 240 SIALKOT / ISLAMABAD 854 DUBAI 68 DUBAI 371 BAHRAIN 306 ABU DHABI 139 DOHA 164 DUBAI 212 DEIREZZOR 212 BAHRAIN 785 JEDDAH 120 BAHRAIN 120 BAHRAIN 356 MASHAD 156 LONDON 54 DUBAI 671 DUBAI 256 BEIRUT 101 LONDON / NEW YORK 101 LONDON / NEW YORK 856 DUBAI 126 SHARJAH 549 SOHAG / SHARM EL SHEIKH 133 DOHA 302 ABU DHABI 214 BAHRAIN 165 ROME / PARIS 541 CAIRO 776 JEDDAH 6808 SHIRAZ 238 AMMAN 712 NAJAF / BAGHDAD 501 BEIRUT 501 BEIRUT 176 DUBAI 5065 MASHAD 611 CAIRO 702 RIYADH 641 AMMAN

Time 0:40 0:50 0:55 1:25 2:15 2:30 3:30 3:45 3:50 3:55 4:05 5:00 6:55 7:00 7:10 8:15 8:20 8:20 8:20 8:25 8:40 9:00 9:10 9:30 9:30 9:40 9:50 9:55 10:00 10:15 10:20 11:45 12:00 12:00 12:05 12:10 12:20 13:00 13:00 13:40 14:15 14:20 14:25 14:30

FDB MSR UAL KAC LMU KAC KAC KAC KNE KAC KAC JZR SVA JZR KAC JZR QTR QTR IRC VOS ETD SYR KAC AFR SVA UAE GFA ABY JZR JZR SVA CLX ALK JZR KAC IRA JAI JAI FDB KAC KAC KAC OMA KNE OMA MEA MEA SIA SIA MLR MLR MSR MSR DHX DHX KLM KLM KAC KAC JZR JZR UAE UAE GFA FCX GFA KAC KAC QTR QTR KAC KAC KAC KAC SVA SVA JZR JZR MSR MSR JZR JZR KAC KAC UAL UAL MSR MSR

58 622 982 561 110 787 673 673 746 617 617 178 505 202 773 202 135 135 6792 82 304 342 543 6706 9570 858 216 128 184 266 511 792 228 134 283 604 571 571 62 331 351 351 648 790 648 403 403 457 457 1405 1405 619 619 373 373 445 445 677 677 206 206 860 860 218 102 218 381 381 137 137 301 301 205 205 9361 9361 554 554 607 607 222 222 411 411 981 981 613 613

DUBAI ASSIUT BAHRAIN AMMAN ALEXANDRIA JEDDAH DUBAI DUBAI JEDDAH DOHA DOHA / BAHRAIN DUBAI JEDDAH DAMASCUS RIYADH DAMASCUS DOHA DOHA MASHAD BAGHDAD ABU DHABI DAMASCUS CAIRO DUBAI / HONG KONG JEDDAH DUBAI BAHRAIN SHARJAH DUBAI BEIRUT RIYADH HONG KONG DUBAI / COLOMBO BAHRAIN DHAKA ISFAHAN MUMBAI MUMBAI DUBAI TRIVANDRUM COCHIN COCHIN MUSCAT JEDDAH MUSCAT BEIRUT BEIRUT ABU DHABI / SINGAPORE ABU DHABI / SINGAPORE COLOMBO COLOMBO ALEXANDRIA ALEXANDRIA BAHRAIN BAHRAIN BAHRAIN / AMSTERDAM BAHRAIN / AMSTERDAM DUBAI / MUSCAT DUBAI / MUSCAT DAMASCUS DAMASCUS DUBAI DUBAI BAHRAIN BAHRAIN BAHRAIN DELHI DELHI DOHA DOHA MUMBAI MUMBAI ISLAMABAD ISLAMABAD JEDDAH JEDDAH ALEXANDRIA ALEXANDRIA LUXOR LUXOR ALEPPO ALEPPO BANGKOK / MANILA BANGKOK / MANILA WASHINGTON DC DULLES WASHINGTON DC DULLES CAIRO CAIRO

Directorate General of Civil Aviation Home Page (www.kuwait-airport.com.kw)

14:35 14:40 14:45 14:45 15:05 15:05 15:10 15:10 15:30 15:35 15:35 16:00 16:00 16:05 16:05 16:05 16:15 16:15 17:00 17:00 17:35 17:40 17:55 18:00 18:00 18:05 18:15 18:20 18:25 18:30 18:35 18:45 19:10 19:10 20:00 20:05 20:35 20:35 20:40 21:00 21:05 21:05 21:10 21:10 21:10 21:15 21:15 21:20 21:20 21:50 21:50 21:55 21:55 22:00 22:00 22:05 22:05 22:10 22:10 22:20 22:20 22:25 22:25 22:30 22:30 22:30 22:30 22:30 22:35 22:35 22:45 22:45 22:55 22:55 23:05 23:05 23:10 23:10 23:15 23:15 23:25 23:25 23:40 23:40 23:40 23:40 23:50 23:50

CLASSIFIEDS SATURDAY, MAY 7, 2011

Contact: 99494671.

(C 3308) 3-5-2011

ACCOMMODATION Sharing accommodation available for decent Keralite bachelor in Abbassiya near German clinic.

Call 66941892.

(C 3319) Sharing accommodation available for families or working women from June 1st onwards, in a new building with two room and two toilet, behind United Indian school, Abbassiya. Contact: 66772421, 66552412.

(C 3318) 7-4-2011 One big room with attached bath available for decent couple or single bachelor in Fintas 3 BR C-A/C flat, near the London hospital and close to Fahaheel highway.

Please contact: 60020168.

(C 3317) 5-4-2011 Keralite family on vacation, flat available for 2 months (June - July). in Abbassiya Call 97121669. (C 3313) 4-5-2011 One bedroom available for Keralite couples or working lady in Abbassiya near Orma restaurant with a family.

A Hindu bachelor wants one bachelor/couple to share a complete 2 bedroom furnished flat near Holy sweet, Abbassiya, minimum rent KD 100. Tel: 66913938. (C 3302) 30-4-2011

FOR SALE

2009 model Toyota Corolla, excellent condition, price KD 3450. Tel: 60951195.

(C 3307) SUV Envoy, model 2007, very good condition, price KD 3700. Tel: 66728911.

(C 3311) 3-5-2011 PC Compaq Pentium 4, HD 20 GB, Ram 128 MB (expandable), Windows XP professional with 15” LCD Neovo.

All in excellent condition, price KD 40 only. Call 60477518 & 99337034.

(C 3305) 1-5-2011 2005 model Mitsubishi Nativa white color, running 96,000 km excellent condi-

tion, CD, remote, alloy wheel, single owner, accident free new 4 tires, price KD 2400.

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Housemaid urgently needed- preferably Sri Lanka, Indonesian and India. Call 97785326

MATRIMONIAL CHANGE OF NAME I, Shavaz, holder of Pakistan Passport No. KH048265, hereby change my name to Abdul Ahad Fayyaz. (C 3309) 3-5-2011

Proposals invited for postgraduate (MBA) Kuwait employed, Orthodox girl 28/160, planning vacation May-June. Contact: gegekutty@hotmail.com / palliyilus@yahoo.com (C 3314) 4-5-2011

SITUATION VACANT Driver wanted urgently for a decent Kuwaiti family.

Indians with local experience preferred temporary for 3 months. Please contact 99006777 for immediate appointment. (C 3312) American family looking for live-in maid. Call 65729276, 66104141.

(C 3310) American family in Salwa needs full time, live-in maid, start immediately. Must speak English. Call 66838807 after 4pm.

(C 3306) 3-5-2011

SITUATION WANTED

Indian male B.Com, 25 years Gulf experience (Kuwait & UAE) in management, procurement, sales, seeks senior position, experience in oil field materials, hard wares, power and hand tools, timber, steel, building materials etc.

Contact: 66889375.

(C 3302) 4-5-2011 Accountant Indian (male) 9 years experience (2 years in Kuwait), B.Com, PG in Sociology, accounts up to finalization, bank reconciliation, inventory, cash, creditors and debtors manage-

ment, good knowledge in Tally, Oracle, MS Office.

Tel: 65990299.

(C 3304) 1-5-2011

LOST I, Nusheen Mustafa Kardame, Indian Passport holder No: G2641002, have lost my B.Com certificate and

mark sheet a week ago at AlRai bus stop. Anybody who happens to find it please contact 66804400. (C 3316) I, Nida Mustafa Kardame, Indian Passport holder No: G2640931 have lost my B.Com certificate and mark sheet a week ago at Al-Rai bus stop. Anybody who happens to find it please contact 67761591. (C 3315) 4-5-2011

C R O S S W O R D

3 1 0

SATURDAY, MAY 7, 2011

Word Sleuth Solution

Yesterday始s Solution

ACROSS 1. (informal) Of the highest quality.

4. Derived from or containing calcium or lime.

10. 36th President of the United States.

13. Mythical bird of prey having enormous size and strength.

14. A college town in central New York on Lake Cayuga.

15. Compete for something.

16. A Buddhist who has attained nirvana.

18. The basic unit of money in Honduras.

20. African tree having an exceedingly thick trunk and fruit that resembles a gourd and has an edible pulp called monkey bread.

21. The craniometric point in the region of the sphenoid fontanelle.

22. A public promotion of some product or service.

24. English economist noted for his studies of international trade and finance (born in 1907).

27. Fiddler crabs.

31. Of or relating to or involving an area.

32. Used by southerners for an inhabitant of a northern state in the United States (especially a Union soldier).

35. Large gregarious predatory feline of Africa and India having a tawny coat with a shaggy mane in the male.

37. United States naval officer and historian (1840-1914).

38. A fractional monetary unit of Japan and Indonesia and Cambodia.

40. Avoid or try to avoid, as of duties, questions and issues.

43. South African shrub having flat acuminate leaves and yellow flowers.

47. (Babylonian) God of wisdom and agriculture and patron of scribes and schools.

51. Weapons considered collectively.

52. A Kwa language spoken in Ghana and the Ivory Coast.

54. Mild yellow Dutch cheese made in balls.

55. A correctional institution used to detain persons who are in the lawful custody of the government (either accused persons awaiting trial or convicted persons serving a sentence).

56. Cubes of meat marinated and cooked on a skewer usually with vegetables.

58. A white linen liturgical vestment with sleeves.

59. (prefix) In front of or before in space.

60. Small terrestrial lizard of warm regions of the Old World.

61. The former capital and 2nd largest city of Brazil.

DOWN 1. An Arabic speaking person who lives in Arabia or North Africa.

2. (Greek mythology) Daughter of Zeus and Demeter.

3. The persistence of a sound after its source has stopped.

4. A stronghold into which people could go for shelter during a battle.

5. A highly unstable radioactive element (the heaviest of the halogen series).

6. A gonadotropic hormone that is secreted by the anterior pituitary.

7. A high-crowned black cap (usually made of felt or sheepskin) worn by men in Turkey and Iran and the Caucasus.

8. A tray for making cubes of ice in a refrigerator.

9. Engraving or carving in low relief on a stone (as in a brooch or ring).

10. Being seven more than fifty.

11. A pen that has a small metal ball as the point of transfer of ink to paper.

12. Close-fitting pants of heavy denim for casual wear (usually in the plural).

17. A port city in southwestern Iran.

19. According to need (physicians use PRN in writing prescriptions).

23. Wild sheep of northern Africa.

25. A member of an Iroquoian people formerly living on the south shore of Lake Erie in northern Ohio and northwest Pennsylvania and western New York.

26. (in Gnosticism) A divine power or nature emanating from the Supreme Being and playing various roles in the operation of the universe.

28. A Loloish language.

29. A soft heavy toxic malleable metallic element.

30. 100 sene equal 1 tala.

33. A primeval personification of air and breath.

34. A tranquilizer (trade name Navane) used to treat schizophrenia.

36. A Powhatan Indian woman (the daughter of Powhatan) who befriended the English at Jamestown and is said to have saved Captain John Smith's life (1595-1617).

37. A gonadotropic hormone that is secreted by the anterior pituitary.

39. A compartment in front of a motor vehicle where driver sits.

41. A fabric woven with lisle thread.

42. A communist state in Indochina on the South China Sea. 44. A port city in northwestern Algeria and the country's 2nd largest city.

45. Prevent from being included or considered or accepted.

46. A brace that extends from the rear of the keel to support the rudderpost.

47. Committee formed by a special-interest group to raise money for their favorite political candidates.

48. The sixth month of the civil year.

49. An island in Indonesia east of Java.

50. A slight rounded elevation where the malleus attaches to the eardrum.

53. A loose sleeveless outer garment made from aba cloth.

54. A column of light (as from a beacon).

57. A soft silvery metallic element of the alkali earth group.

Yesterday始s Solution

sports SATURDAY, MAY 7, 2011

Price dominates as Rays beat Blue Jays ST PETERSBURG: David Price allowed one unearned run while pitching into the ninth inning and Johnny Damon got his 2,600th career hit as the Tampa Bay Rays beat the Toronto Blue Jays 3-1 on Thursday. Price (4-3) is undefeated against the Blue Jays, winning eight times in nine starts. The left-hander allowed four hits and struck out 10 over 8 2-3 innings. Damon had two hits, which moved him past Steve Garvey (2,599) into 75th place on the career list. His fifth-inning double (490) tied him for 59th place with Mickey Vernon on that list. The Rays won their 12th consecutive home series over Toronto, since 2007. John Jaso had an RBI double, Damon drove in a run with an infield single and Matt Joyce hit a sacrifice fly off Kyle Drabek (2-2) to put the Rays ahead 3-0 in the third.

Royals 9, Orioles 1 At Kansas City, Missouri, Melky Cabrera homered, doubled and singled while driving in four runs, and Bruce Chen allowed one run in seven innings as Kansas City trounced Baltimore. Cabrera, who also scored three times, hit a solo homer in the eighth off Clay Rapada.

Chen (4-1) gave up his only run in the first and then pitched shutout ball for the next six innings. The lefthander, who was KC’s biggest winner last year, allowed five hits and one run, walking two and striking out five.

He has not lost a start in Kauffman Stadium since Aug. 12, 2010, against the Yankees. Since then, he’s 6-0 in nine starts at home.

Tigers 6, Yankees 3 At Detroit, Brennan Boesch homered and drove in three runs as Detroit took advantage of some sloppy fielding to beat New York for the third straight time.

Derek Jeter didn’t play for the Yankees, given the day off after leaving the previous night’s game with a right hip problem. His replacement, Eduardo Nunez, made two errors, including a high throw in the seventh that gave the Tigers two runs. Rick Porcello (2-2) allowed two runs on eight hits for the Tigers. He walked two and struck out three. AJ Burnett (4-2) held Detroit hitless until the sixth inning but made an error of his own that led to Detroit’s run in the first.

Angels 11, Red Sox 0 At Boston, rookie Mark Trumbo hit his sixth homer of the season as the Los Angeles Angels salvaged a series split at Boston, racking up 18 hits. Bobby Abreu drove in three runs for Los Angeles, which was 0-6 against Boston entering the four-game series. After ending the skid in a rain-delayed 5-3 win in 13 innings early Thursday, the Angels chased Boston starter John Lackey (2-4) in the fifth after scoring eight runs on 10 hits. Joel Pineiro (1-0) got his first win of the season, holding Boston to three hits over 5 2-3 innings. Relievers Rich Thompson and Francisco Rodriguez preserved the shutout as the Angels prevented the Red Sox from getting a runner past second.

Indians 4, Athletics 3, 12 innings At Oakland, California, Jack Hannahan and Lou Marson had RBI singles in the 12th inning to lift Cleveland over Oakland. Hannahan’s bloop single to left off Craig Breslow (0-2) provided the go-ahead run, and Marson followed with another single to propel Cleveland to another late-inning rally. A night after their sevengame winning streak was snapped, the Indians won in their final at-bat for the seventh time this season. Chad Durbin (2-1) pitched two innings for the win and Chris Perez earned his ninth save in 10 chances. Ryan Sweeney had a career-high five hits and added two RBIs for the Athletics, who wasted another strong performance by starter Brett Anderson. He pitched nine innings and got a no-decision.

Mariners 3, Rangers 1 At Seattle, Justin Smoak hit his fifth homer and Jason Vargas pitched a shutout into the eighth inning as Seattle downed Texas. Seattle won for the seventh time in nine games, taking two of three from the Rangers to move within two games of .500 after starting the season 8-15. Smoak homered against Colby Lewis (2-4) in the second and finished with three hits. Vargas (2-2) allowed one run and six hits in 7 2-3 innings. Jamey Wright got the final out of the eighth and Brandon League finished for his ninth save in nine chances.—AP

PHOENIX: Colorado Rockies’ Dexter Fowler (left) is tagged out at home plate as Arizona Diamondbacks’ Miguel Montero tumbles over during the first inning of an MLB baseball game on Thursday, May 5, 2011. — AP

Braves stun Brewers for 4-game sweep ATLANTA: Martin Prado hit a tiebreaking home run in the eighth inning as the Atlanta Braves beat the Milwaukee Brewers 2-1 on Thursday to complete a four-game series sweep. Prado led off against Kameron Loe (2-3) with his third homer.

Prado was Loe’s first batter in relief of Shaun Marcum, who pitched seven strong innings. Milwaukee has a six-game losing streak. Atlanta has won five straight. Jonny Venters (2-0) worked the eighth and Craig Kimbrel pitched a perfect ninth for his seventh save. Atlanta’s Eric Hinske, making only his third start of the season at first base, homered. Braves rookie Brandon Beachy yielded an unearned run in six innings. Marcum gave up five hits and a walk. He finished with eight strikeouts.

Diamondbacks 3, Rockies 2, 11 innings At Phoenix, Gerardo Parra and Chris Young homered off Huston Street in the ninth inning as Arizona won in 11 innings to take two of three from Colorado. Justin Upton’s bloop single to right off Matt Belisle (2-2) brought in the winning run after Young narrowly missed another homer with a double off the overhang in left-center. Street blew his first save in 12 tries this season after Jason Hammel had thrown seven scoreless innings. Parra’s one-out opposite field homer cut it to 2-1, then Young’s two-out shot to left tied it.

Jose Morales drove in two runs off Arizona starter Ian Kennedy with a sacrifice fly and a single.

Phillies 7, Nationals 3 At Philadelphia, Roy Halladay struck out 10 batters in seven innings, and Raul Ibanez and Shane Victorino homered as Philadelphia completed a three-game sweep of Washington. Halladay, the reigning National League Cy Young pitching award winner, allowed two runs and six hits to win his 10th straight decision against the franchise from Washington and Montreal. Halladay (5-1) has won 13 consecutive starts against the NL East. John Lannan (2-4) allowed seven hits and six runs in two-plus innings to fall to 0-10 against the Phillies.

Cardinals 6, Marlins 3 At St Louis, Lance Berkman homered and drove in four runs and Matt Holliday had two RBIs for St Louis. Albert Pujols singled three times against Josh Johnson (31), the NL pitcher of the month who had an 0.88 ERA in April. He allowed only 18 hits in 41 innings last month, but the Cardinals battered him for eight hits in 25 at-bats.

Holliday fought off an inside pitch for the tying hit with one out in the eighth, chasing Johnson after 114 pitches, and Berkman greeted Mike Dunn with a threerun homer.

Reds 10, Astros 4 At Cincinnati, Homer Bailey returned from the disabled list with six strong innings, and Ryan Hanigan drove in three runs with a three-hit game for Cincinnati.

Bailey (1-0) developed a shoulder problem during spring training, forcing him to go on a throwing program. The right-hander

gave up four hits and one run in six innings, striking out seven. The Reds scored six runs in 5 2-3 innings against Brett Myers (1-2), who failed to go six innings for only the second time in 40 career starts with the Astros. Myers also left after 5 2-3 innings of a 9-1 loss in Cincinnati last Sept 30.

Mets 5, Giants 2 At New York, Mike Pelfrey pitched into the eighth inning against San Francisco’s limited lineup and Carlos Beltran homered as New York averted a series sweep to San Francisco. San Francisco loaded the bases with one out in the ninth against Francisco Rodriguez, but Miguel Tejada struck out and pinch-hitter Buster Posey grounded out to end the game. Jose Reyes lined a two-run triple and the Mets took advantage of more wildness from Jonathan Sanchez (2-2) to win for the second time in seven games.— AP

MLB results/standings Major League Baseball results and standings on Thursday.

Cincinnati 10, Houston 4; Detroit 6, NY Yankees 3; Tampa Bay 3, Toronto 1; NY Mets 5, San Francisco 2; LA Angels 11, Boston 0; St. Louis 6, Florida 3; Kansas City 9, Baltimore 1; Cleveland 4, Oakland 3 (12 innings); Philadelphia 7, Washington 3; Atlanta 2, Milwaukee 1; Arizona 3, Colorado 2 (11 innings); Seattle 3, Texas 1.

National League American League Eastern Division Eastern Division Philadelphia 21 9 .700 W L PCT GB Florida 19 11 .633 2 NY Yankees 17 12 .586 Atlanta 18 15 .545 4.5 Tampa Bay 17 14 .548 1 Washington 14 17 .452 7.5 Baltimore 14 16 .467 3.5 NY Mets 13 18 .419 8.5 Toronto 14 17 .452 4 Central Division Boston 14 17 .452 4 St. Louis 18 14 .563 Central Division Cincinnati 16 15 .516 1.5 Cleveland 21 9 .700 Pittsburgh 15 16 .484 2.5 Kansas City 17 14 .548 4.5 Chicago Cubs 14 16 .467 3 Detroit 15 17 .469 7 Milwaukee 13 18 .419 4.5 Minnesota 11 18 .379 9.5 Houston 12 19 .387 5.5 Chicago White Sox11 21 .344 11 Western Division Western Division Colorado 18 11 .621 LA Angels 18 14 .563 San Francisco 15 16 .484 4 Texas 17 15 .531 1 LA Dodgers 15 17 .469 4.5 Oakland 16 16 .500 2 Arizona 14 16 .467 4.5 Seattle 15 17 .469 3 San Diego 12 19 .387 7

sports

SATURDAY, MAY 7, 2011

Struggling Lakers lose Artest for one game DALLAS: The Los Angeles Lakers, on the ropes in their bid for a third straight NBA title, won’t have forward Ron Artest for game three of their Western Conference series against Dallas. Artest was suspended for yesterday’s game after flinging a forearm to the face of Mavericks guard J J Barea with 24 seconds to play in Wednesday’s game in Los Angeles.

Artest was ejected from the contest and the NBA said Thursday he would also be assessed a flagrant foul.

An accumulation of flagrant foul points could lead to an additional suspension. It’s another blow for a Lakers team suddenly flailing. The Mavericks beat the Lakers twice in Los Angeles to seize a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven

second-round series and host games three and four. Even Mavericks star Dirk Nowitzki admitted it wasn’t what most expected to see. “If you would have told me before that were going to win both games, that would have been hard to believe,” Nowitzki said. “But I think we earned it.”

Nowitzki stressed that the Mavericks can’t take anything for granted. “This series is far from over,” he said. “I’ve been around a long time.

I’ve been up 2-0 before and ended up losing the series. I’ve been down 2-0, lost both home games ... and came back and won in game seven ... We have to stay focused, stay together.”

And the Lakers need to get together after two erratic performances that had

big man Andrew Bynum speaking darkly of “trust issues” in the team.

“It’s obvious that we have trust issues, individually,” Bynum said. “All 13 of our guys have trust issues right now. I think it’s quite obvious to anyone watching the game-hesitation on passes, and defensively we’re not being a good teammate because he wasn’t there for you before-little things. And unless we come out and discuss them, nothing is going to change.” Bryant interpreted Bynum’s remarks as concern about the Lakers’ communication-or lack thereof-on defense.

“I think the trust that he’s referring to is being able to help each other on the defensive end of the floor,” Bryant

said. “You saw a lot of layups. He gets frustrated when he supports a guard coming off the screen-and-roll and nobody supports him.” Three NBA teams have rallied to win a sevengame series after dropping the first two games at home. No team has come back to win a series after falling in an 0-3 hole, a fact that turns up the pressure on the Lakers on Friday. “We don’t like being in this position,” said Lakers point guard Derek Fisher. “It’s not familiar. But we are where we are, so we have to make sure we stay together as a group and figure this thing out. We’re trying to make history here, and that’s not easy. We have to be willing to be accountable, all of us.”—AFP

Canucks push Predators to the brink with 4-2 win Henrik Sedin breaks playoff goal drought

Spain’s Alberto Contador

Contador raises stakes TURIN: Cycling’s top stage racer Alberto Contador will be making a highly unusual bid to win both the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France in one season but if any rider can manage the enormous feat, the Spaniard can. Speaking at a news conference the day before the Giro starts in Turin, the Saxo Bank rider said: “It will be very difficult to do, but I want to try it. “Maybe the Giro isn’t the best preparation for the Tour because the Giro has such a difficult route this year but to try to do both gives me an extra level of motivation and (to win them) will be something very important.”

Contador is able to compete in the Giro after being cleared by the Spanish cycling federation over his positive test for clenbuterol in last year’s Tour. He is awaiting the outcome of an appeal against that decision by the International Cycling Union and World Anti-Doping Agency at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Winning the Giro-Tour double in the same year is viewed as exceptionally tough. Seven-times Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong never even attempted it in his prime, and the last rider to succeed was the late Marco Pantani of Italy in 1998. In 2010, Italian Ivan Basso crushed the opposition in the Giro, cycling’s second biggest stage race, but his Tour de France bid collapsed completely and he finished 32nd, almost an hour behind. “If anybody can do the double, it’s Alberto,” said Contador’s team manager at Saxo Bank, Bjarne Riis. “His program has been built towards this, and he’s ready to try. Of course it’s a risk to go for both, but it’s beautiful to try to do it.” Unbeaten in major Tours since 2007, Contador has won three Tours de France titles, a Giro d’Italia pink jersey and a Tour of Spain. He has triumphed in the Giro and Tour of Spain in the same year, in 2008, but has never attempted a Giro-Tour double. Asked if he wanted to win the Giro in a spectacular way like top Spanish soccer club Barcelona or to take the victory with a more conservative approach like Barcelona’s key rivals Real Madrid, Contador said: “The aim is to do both. “I want the win in Milan, that’s the biggest objective. But I think this year’s Giro is so hard, that it will be impossible for it not to be a spectacular way.” The Giro finishes in Milan on May 29 after snaking round the country with the ninth stage up Mount Etna in Sicily particularly daunting.— Reuters

NASHVILLE: The top-seeded Vancouver Canucks moved within one win of the Western Conference finals after they overcame the Nashville Predators 4-2 on Thursday. The win gives Vancouver a 3-1 lead in the best of seven series which shifts back to Vancouver for an elimination game today. With the scores tied at 2-2 in the third period, Ryan Kesler burst through the Predators defense and beat Nashville goalie Pekka Rinne for a spectacular powerplay goal at 07:28 to give Vancouver a lead they would not lose.

“That was an unbelievable goal,” defenseman Christian Ehrhoff told reporters of his team mate’s effort. “A nice goal and at a great time. He’s worked really hard all playoffs long, and he got another game-winner.

Well-deserved.” Canucks center Henrik Sedin then scored his first goal of the playoffs into an empty net with 21 seconds remaining to make the game safe. Rinne made 24 stops for Nashville to keep the Predators within striking distance until the end despite the Canucks dominating play for long periods.

Although not as busy as his counterpart, Roberto Luongo (19 saves) had to make several difficult stops particularly during a five-on-three man advantage for Nashville in the second period. “They were in striking distance and we got a couple of big plays from our goaltender,” Canucks coach Alain Vigneault said. “We had a great job from Dan Hamhuis, Alex Burrows and Ryan Kesler, who were out there for almost the full five-onthree.

They were at the right place, doing the right things.” Vancouver opened the scoring at 15:04 in the first period with a goal by Ehrhoff, but the lead was short lived as Joel Ward leveled on a powerplay in the final minute of the period.

Vancouver regained the lead with

NASHVILLE: Nashville Predators right wing Joel Ward (29) is knocked into Vancouver Canucks goalie Roberto Luongo (1) by Canucks defenseman Christian Ehrhoff (5) as Ward scores in the first period of Game 4. — AP

the only goal in the second period via the stick of Alexander Edler but Cody Franson scored early in the third period to tie the game before Kesler pounced. “We’ve been on death’s doorstep a couple times,” Nashville coach Barry Trotz said. “In the Anaheim series, we were there, and

we found a way to come back and win,” Trotz said of his team’s 4-2 series win over the Ducks. “In Vancouver, we were there, and you know we find ways. And as I said, we’ve dug ourselves a hole but we’ve been in a few holes this year and this group has been able to do it all year.”— Reuters

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sports SATURDAY, MAY 7, 2011

Uncle Mo won’t go in Kentucky Derby

ISTANBUL: Red Bull German driver Sebastian Vettel’s car is seen after crashing at pits during the first free practice at the Istanbul Park circuit racetrack yesterday. —AP

Vettel crashes in morning, misses second practice Button fastest in Turkey ISTANBUL: McLaren’s Jenson Button set the pace in Turkish Grand Prix practice yesterday while Formula One world champion Sebastian Vettel crashed in the morning and missed the entire second session. Vettel, the championship leader after winning two of the first three races, gave his Red Bull mechanics plenty of extra work after spinning into the barriers at the rain-soaked Istanbul Park circuit.

The 23-year-old German, who has been on pole position for the past four races, spun at the exit of the challenging triple apex turn eight. The session was red flagged with 27 minutes remaining, with marshals clearing mud off the track while the battered Red Bull was hoisted onto a flatbed truck and brought back to the pitlane. “There was some water on the exit. There was nothing I could do,” he said over the team radio after his car skidded down the barriers to a halt.

The damage was extensive and Vettel was a mere spectator in the afternoon when the sun made a weak appearance and temperatures rose notably. He will now go into the weekend with no dry weather mileage under his belt.

Button, winner in Turkey with Brawn in his 2009 championship year, was fastest in one minute 26.456 seconds at the front of a quartet of Mercedes-powered cars. Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg was second on the timing screens, ahead of McLaren’s 2010 race winner Lewis Hamilton and Michael Schumacher. Red Bull’s Australian Mark Webber, on pole in Istanbul last year, was fifth.

INDIAN FIRST Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso was fastest in the morning in a largely meaningless session full of spins and spray with a best lap of 1:38.670, ahead of Rosberg and Schumacher in a strong showing by the Mercedes team. Alonso spun in the afternoon, his Ferrari crawling back to the pits with a hydraulics problem as marshals gave him a helping push.

Ferrari’s Brazilian Felipe Massa, a three times winner in Turkey, was seventh and sixth after complaining of brake problems. McLaren had propped up the rear in the morning, with Hamilton 24th and failing to set a timed lap while Button did just four as the team focused on practice starts.

A little piece of history was made at the slower end of the pitlane in the first session, with India having two Formula One drivers on track together for the first time at a grand prix weekend. Karun Chandhok, the Team Lotus reserve, was given time in the car instead of Finland’s Heikki Kovalainen while HRT’s regular racer Narain Karthikeyan was also out on track. Chandhok, who made his race debut with HRT last year before Karthikeyan made his comeback this season, had taken part only briefly in the first practice in Australia in March when he was first out of the pitlane and promptly crashed. Karthikeyan did not take part in that practice session due to problems with his car.—Reuters

LOUISVILLE: Uncle Mo won’t run in the Kentucky Derby today because of a puzzling internal ailment that has 0reduced his appetite and energy. Owner Mike Repole announced the decision to scratch the colt yesterday, about 40 minutes before Derby wagering opened.

Uncle Mo was the 9-2 second choice. His absence reduces the field for the 137th Derby to 19 horses. Dialed In is the 4-2 early favorite. In 2009, favorite I Want Revenge was scratched on the morning of the Derby with a career-ending leg injury. The Derby dreams of Repole and trainer Todd Pletcher aren’t completely dashed. Repole owns and Pletcher trains 20-1 shot Stay Thirsty, but their biggest hopes rested with Uncle Mo. “Uncle Mo is a franchise player,” Pletcher said. “Our confidence level with a healthy Uncle Mo would have been pretty high.” Jockey John Velazquez, who is winless in 12 Derbys, has lost his ride. Ramon Dominguez will be aboard Stay Thirsty. Uncle Mo’s illness, which began as a gastrointestinal inflammation, was discovered after he was upset as the heavy favorite in the Wood Memorial on April 9. He led for most of the way before finishing third, beaten by a length.

The colt was put on medication, which Pletcher said helped, and he continued training in preparation for the 11/4-mile Derby, the opening leg of the Triple Crown series. On the track during workouts, Uncle Mo appeared to be in good form, and Repole said the colt was 100 percent sound. He “galloped like a monster” yesterday morning, Pletcher added. Around the barn, though, he was showing signs that something was amiss. His appetite was lower, he lost weight and his coat didn’t look good, Pletcher said. “We’ve got something going on inside that I don’t know what it is. The best vets in the world don’t know what it is,” the trainer said. “When you don’t know, that’s when I get scared.”

Three vets examined Uncle Mo on Thursday and didn’t say the colt couldn’t run in the Derby. However,

LOUISVILLE: Janet Kean, from England, reads the racing program for the 137th running of the Kentucky Oaks horse race at Churchill Downs yesterday. —AP after they left the barn, Pletcher sat down with Repole and said he didn’t want Uncle Mo to race. “I’m actually relieved and now I’m really concerned and worried about Uncle Mo,” Repole said. “We’ve gotten the best vets. I’m willing to give this horse the best resources to come back. He is a super-

star.” Pletcher said Uncle Mo had a GI infection, but no one was sure if it was the main issue or a secondary problem.

The colt’s blood work showed a specific enzyme was elevated, and the vets couldn’t explain why. “They’re baffled,” Repole said. “That’s what gets us nervous the most.”— AP

Thai ace Prom sparkles in Pattaya

Ballesteros ‘deteriorating’

PATTAYA: Thailand’s Prom Meesawat shot a career-best 10under-par 62, capped by a hole-in-one, to storm into the halfway lead at the Singha Pattaya Open yesterday. Prom, one of the brightest prospects in Asian golf before his game deserted him a few years ago, is 12 under at 132, two ahead of countryman Thammanoon Sriroj who shot his second straight 67 at Burapha Golf Club.

Kwanchai Tannin is a further stroke behind after a 68 with first round leader Atiwit Janewattananond (70), Atthaphon Prathummanee (67) and Indonesia’s Rory Hie (66) in joint fourth on eight-under 136. Prom, who won the title in 2006, started quickly with three straight birdies and finished the front nine with an ace sandwiched in between two birdies. He was out in 29 and carded three more birdies on the back nine. “That is my best tournament round and I am delighted with the way I played.

Everything just clicked today,” said the 26-year-old. “The highlight was my hole in one at the eighth. I had 181 yards into the wind and hit a six iron. “I heard the ball hit the flagstick but did not know it had gone into the hole until people behind the green started jumping up and down. —AFP

MADRID: Spanish golf legend Severiano Ballesteros, who underwent surgery for a brain tumor three years ago, has suffered a “severe deterioration” of his condition, his family said yesterday in a statement on his website. “The Ballesteros family reports that there has been a severe deterioration of the neurological condition of Seve Ballesteros,” said the statement. It said the family will be providing regular updates on his condition on the website, www.seveballesteros.com. Ballesteros, 54, was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor after losing consciousness at Madrid airport on October 6, 2008. He underwent four operations to remove the tumor and reduce swelling in his skull as well as chemotherapy. He has called his battle against the tumor the “hardest challenge of my life.”

Regarded as one of golf’s all-time greats, Ballesteros won five majors during his stellar career after turning professional at 16 in 1974. He won the British Open in 1979, 1984 and 1988 and became the first European to win the Augusta Masters in 1980, an achievement he repeated in 1983. Ballesteros was also an influential figure in the Ryder Cup, winning 20 points from 37 matches and captaining Europe to victory over the United States at Valderrama in 1997. —AFP

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Shooters book their places for final rounds Kuwait’s Mariam Irzouqi claims first gold

By Abdellatif Sharaa KUWAIT: The Amir Shooting Tournament were highly contested yesterday as shooters booked their places in the final rounds today. The first to claim the first gold medal in the tournament was Mariam Irzouqi with a score of 398/400 in the women’s 10 meter rifle as she became the first Kuwait champion in this event. Ayat Al-Duwaikhi was second with a score of 393 while Fatima Abdelmalek was third with 385.

In the men’s 10 meter air rifle, Abdallah Alharby took the first position, scoring 698.7/700; Khalid Al-Subaiee was second with a score of 685.9 while Mohammad Adel was the third with 678.4/700. In the juniors event Mohammad Adel was the first, followed by Bandar Al-Mutairi and Ali Farhan Al-Mutairi respectively.

In the archery preliminaries, the Arab Champion and Kuwait’s Faleh Al-Askar maintained his supremacy in both general and juniors events and scored 539 points out of

720, while in the women’s event, archer Sanaa Al-Khudari was the first scoring 524 points. The final rounds will be played today to determine the champions.

Qatari rifle and pistol shooter Ghanim Saad Al-Nuaimee said he was honored to participate in the Amir’s Tournament as it gives him the opportunity to compete in a well organized event in an ideal environment. AlNuaimee hoped the number of tournaments be increased to keep shooters ready for major international competitions. He wants the procedures for shooters travelling with their equipments be simplified. Al-Nuaimee urged the authorities to bring the best coaches and trainers as he thanked shooting officials in Kuwait.

The Secretary General of the Arab and Kuwait Shooting Federations Obeid Al-Osaimi said the competitions among all shooters from all categories were very strong. He said trap, double trap, skeet, air rifle and pistol in addition to archery were all contested by a large number of shooters from Kuwait Shooting Sport Club, military, police and

Shooter Abdallah Al-Rasheedi national guard unions along with shooters from Qatar. AlOsaimi said the shooting club’s technical systems received special attention in order to enhance their performance.

Nadal crushes Llodra to reach Madrid semis

MADRID: Rafael Nadal from Spain celebrates during the match against Llodra from France in the Madrid Open tennis tournament yesterday. — AP

MADRID: Holder Rafael Nadal marched into the semi-finals of the ATP-WTA Madrid Masters yesterday, snuffing out Frenchman Michael Llodra’s challenge 6-2, 6-2 in little more than an hour. The French Open champion, chasing his third title of the spring on clay, will next face either old rival Roger Federer or Robin Soderling for a place in the final.

Nadal’s victory was his 36th in succession on clay with his last loss coming in the fourth round to Soderling at 2009 Roland Garros.

The top seed has charged through another clay campaign with titles in April at Monte Carlo and Barcelona so far. “Today went very well,” said Nadal, winner of a 12th match this season on clay. “I felt pretty good on the court, and we barely had any rallies. “Of all the clay events this one is the least similar to Roland Garros.

But things are going fantastically well for a few weeks now, and you

have to enjoy it.”

Nadal was untroubled by Llodra, a classic serve-and-volleyer who was simply out of his depth on clay against the best the game has to offer. The world number one did not lose a point on serve until his third game and was never under pressure from Llodra who saved two match points before Nadal secured the victory after 74 minutes without facing a break point. Tomaz Bellucci became the first Brazilian into the semi-finals of a Masters since threetime Roland Garros champion Gustavo Kuerten in 2003 thanks to a 7-6 (7/2), 6-3 defeat of Wimbledon finalist Tomas Berdych.

Bellucci is coached by “Guga’s former mentor, Larri Passos. Bellucci achieved his second Top ten victory in less than 24 hours after dispatching world number four Andy Murray in the Madrid third round. On the women’s side, Julia Goerges booked the first of the semi-final spots,

defeating Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 6-4, 6-2. The world number 27, who is set for a move into the top 25 on Monday, took just under 90 minutes to clock her ninth straight victory, a run which began when she claimed the Stuttgart title a fortnight ago.

Goerges, 22, was the first German to lift home honors in Stuttgart since Anke Huber in 1994. Along the way, she accounted for world number one Caroline Wozniacki, her third-round victim this week in Madrid as well. Goerges saved six break points against Pavlyuchenkova and broke the Russian three times, going through on the first of three match points.

Goerges, an Auckland semi-finalist in January, improved to 22-9 this season and leads the WTA with 16 victories on clay in 2011. She next faces Belarusian Victoria Azarenka, who battled past Czech Lucie Safarova 6-3, 3-6, 6-2. — AFP

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Italian Leauge Preview

Milan set for title party ROME: AC Milan will be celebrating an 18th Serie A title this weekend if they avoid defeat away to Roma today. Milan just need one more point to ensure they win the league and even if they don’t get it today night, they could still be crowned champions tomorrow if Inter Milan fail to beat Fiorentina. Only a month ago the Serie A title race appeared to be heading for a thrilling three-way finish, with some even speculating that then in-form Udinese could turn it into a four-way battle. But Milan beat both Inter and Napoli 3-0 at home and neither side recovered from those defeats to mount a serious challenge.

Since a surprise defeat at Palermo seemed to open the door to their rivals in March, Milan have won five in a row.

What’s more, star forward Zlatan Ibrahimovic has played in only one of those matches and is due to return to the fold against Roma, who will be without suspended midfield pair Daniele De Rossi and Simone Perrotta. It’s perhaps just as well that Milan have a healthy eight-point lead going into these final three games, because on paper at least they appeared to have the toughest run-in.

Away trips to Roma, who are sixth, and fifth-placed Udinese sandwich a home clash with Caglairi. Arriving at this stage with only a couple of points advantage over Inter and/or Napoli would have put the pressure on Milan but now Massimiliano Allegri’s team can relax safe in the knowledge that the job is almost done. And the coach himself admitted as much after last week’s victory over Bologna.

“We’ll get one point from three games, we hope to do it as soon as possible but we’re in good shape,” he said.

Once they have secured the title, Milan will start to focus on next season and an improved assault on the Champions League. Since winning the competition in 2007 they have not made it past the last 16 and vice-president Adriano Galliani has promised some big signings in the summer, although he also said they will have to clear out some squad players. “Due to injuries our squad grew to 31 players this year and it needs to return to 25-26,” he said.

“It was an emergency brought on by the injuries. “If we do win the league after many years of success for the other team in this city (Inter), our transfer dealings will be with the Champions League in mind which, more than ever, will be our priority.” Behind Milan Inter need one point and Napoli, who travel to Lecce, need two to ensure they go straight into the Champions League group stages next season. But the real battle is on for fourth place and the spot in the last Champions League qualifying round. Lazio currently hold that but they have lost their last two and five of their last nine. They lead Udinese and Roma by just one point and travel to Udinese tomorrow in a crucial battle. And having won 1-0 at Lazio on Monday, Juventus, who host Chievo next Monday, are also still in with a chance as they are just four points behind Lazio. At the bottom Brescia could make a quick return to Serie B if they fail to win at home to Catania, depending on how Lecce, Sampdoria and Cesena get on.

The only way they can ensure they last another week and don’t join already-relegated Bari in Serie B next season is with a victory. —AFP

NBK trounce CBK 5-0 KUWAIT: National Bank of Kuwait (NBK) defeated Commercial Bank of Kuwait 5-0 in KBC Football Trophy for 2011 season. NBK Public Relations Manager, Abdulmohsen Al Rushaid said: “This remarkable result culminates the unremitting efforts continuously exerted by NBK’s Football team to maintain its outstanding status”.

Al Rushaid added: “This victory is also the result of the efforts on the part of NBK’s team players, advance preparations by the team as a whole in addition to commitment and support provided by NBK management”.

Blanc set for hearing into football race row PARIS: France coach Laurent Blanc and national technical director Francois Blaquart became the main focus yesterday as France sought to defuse a race row that has also caused a split in the country’s 1998 World Cup-winning team. Blanc is reportedly among several officials at the French Football Federation (FFF) who discussed introducing quotas on the national football training programs for players with dual-nationalities. In a published transcript of a meeting in November, which was secretly taped by an FFF official, Blanc is heard comparing the almost all-white Spain team to the mixed-race France team and dicussing the physical attributes of black players. —AFP Abdulmohsen Al Rushaid

French Leauge Preview

Marseille braced for title test PARIS: Having slipped to second place last weekend, reigning French champions Marseille risk seriously compromising their title chances when they visit Lyon on Sunday. Marseille’s surprise 1-1 draw at home to Auxerre allowed Lille to return to the summit, and Rudi Garcia’s team could go provisionally four points clear with victory at third-bottom Nancy today. Lyon’s Stade Gerland is a challenging venue at the best of times but the home side are in particularly dire need of points after losing 2-0 at Toulouse.

The defeat allowed Paris Saint-Germain to draw level on points with Lyon in third place-the final Champions League qualifying berth-but Marseille coach Didier Deschamps says his side will not sit back and allow Lyon to attack them. “Going to Lyon to defend is not the best solution,” Deschamps told Marseille’s in-house television station, OMtv. “We will certainly have to defend well against an opponent that attacks well but we must also create problems for them by keeping a balance. “And I prefer my team to have the ball rather than running after it.”

Midfielders Benoit Cheyrou and Lucho Gonzalez are expected to make the Marseille squad after sustaining injuries against Auxerre, while forward Loic Remy returns from suspension following his red card at Montpellier. Tomorrow’s game will bring Lucho up against his Argentine compatriot, and former Porto team-mate, Lisandro Lopez, who has upbraided his own team-mates over their dire performance at Toulouse. “It was a disaster on every level,” said the striker. “If we

want to take something positive from it, it’s that everyone makes mistakes and we cannot make errors like that in our remaining matches.”

Lyon will be without left-back Aly Cissokho and winger Michel Bastos, after both were sent off in the second half at Toulouse, while centre-backs Jeremy Toulalan and Cris are both doubtful with injuries. PSG can steal a march on Lyon with victory at Monaco today, although the side from the principality have lost just once in their last five matches to clamber out of the relegation zone. With eight teams separated by just four points in the bottom half of the table, Ligue 1 appears destined for a nail-biting relegation scrap.

Bottom club Arles-Avignon have already been relegated and Lens, nine points from safety, look guaranteed to join them, but even 11th-placed Toulouse are still to break free from the mire at the table’s foot.

Nancy slipped into the drop zone after losing 1-0 at Sochaux last weekend and today they face a Lille team with the championship bit firmly between their teeth after their 5-0 demolition of Arles. “If we play our football, I’m sure that we’ll at least qualifying for the Champions League and we can win the championship,” said Lille centre-back David Rozehnal. “We’re the leaders. We’re in front of Marseille, who have a difficult match against Lyon. For us, it’s better to be in front.” In the race for sixth place, and Europa League football next season, sixth-placed Lorient host Toulouse, with Bordeaux-two points behind Lorient in eighth place-at home to seventh-placed Sochaux.—AFP

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City aim to end Everton hoodoo MANCHESTER: Roberto Mancini admits he is as puzzled as anyone by Everton holding the Indian sign over his high-flying Manchester City side. The City manager has seen his side lose the last three games against Everton, including falling to a rare home defeat when they crashed 2-1 in December. It’s a sorry record that needs to be halted on Saturday if the mega-rich club want to continue their charge for Champions League football next season. But failing to end their hoodoo at Goodison Park could see their lead cut and, with rivals Tottenham still to face City, the race for qualification for Europe’s premier cup competition could yet take on a fresh twist.

But Mancini believes four more points would be good enough to guarantee their top-four finish and has urged his side to finish the job off. “We need four points. That should be enough for us,” he said. “We know it will be a difficult game and it’s important we play very well against Everton if we what to end that run. “It’s always difficult for us, but we want to change that. “Sometimes it can happen and there’s no reason why one team always win. You can’t explain it but we want to change that record now. “Against Everton in December we started the game slowly. We had a few injures and they scored a couple of early goals. That put us on the backfoot - it’s as simple as that. “We have improved since then but it will be very hard and we will have to be ready to fight.” — AFP

Matches on TV (Local Timings)

English Premier League Aston v Wigan Abu Dhabi Sports HD 6 West Ham v Blackburn Abu Dhabi Sports HD 8 Newcastle v Birmingham Abu Dhabi Sports HD 4 Everton v Manchester City Abu Dhabi Sports HD 3 Bolton v Sunderland Abu Dhabi Sports HD 7 Tottenham v Blackpool Abu Dhabi Sports HD 3

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Italian League Palermo v As Bari Aljazeera Sport +8 AS Roma v AC Milan Aljazeera Sport +1 Aljazeera Sport +3 Aljazeera Sport 1 HD

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MANCHESTER: Victory over Chelsea should be enough to secure Manchester United a record 19th English title, manager Alex Ferguson said before tomorrow’s big game where he is counting on a “fantastic” home record. His side have dropped only two points at Old Trafford all season and are in good spirits after reaching the Champions League final this week with a 6-1 aggregate win over Schalke 04 which was completed using a second-string team.

Having rested key players, including striker Wayne Rooney, who has now recovered from a tight hamstring, Ferguson believes his team are in ideal shape for the huge Premier League game “If we win, I think we should win the league,” Ferguson told a news conference yesterday. “Our home record is fantastic, it’s probably the best in Europe, and it has to be tomorrow, it’s a big game.”

With three games left, United have 73 points to Chelsea’s 70, with both on the same goal difference, meaning the London side will go top if they win while a victory for United would leave them needing one more point to clinch the title. United travel to Blackburn Rovers next week before hosting fellow strugglers Blackpool on the last day of the season in what on paper looks an easier run-in than Chelsea’s home match against Newcastle United before a tricky trip to Everton. “Our home form has been an advantage to us this season, that’s the reason we’re there because if you look at our away record it has not been great,” said Ferguson, whose side have collected 24 points from a possible 54 on their travels.

United’s 1-0 defeat at Arsenal and Chelsea’s 2-1 win over Tottenham Hotspur last weekend has set up tomorrow’s game as key in the title race, a notion that looked unlikely two months ago when the champions trailed the leaders by 15 points. The loss at Arsenal forced Ferguson into some drastic squad rotation against Schalke, making nine changes from the side that started

MANCHESTER: Manchester United’s Rafael (left) vies with Schalke’s Sergio Escudero (center) and Kyriakos Papadopoulos during the UEFA Champions League semi-final in this file photo. Manchester won by 4-1 and qualified for the final. — AFP the first leg, and he was glad his players will be as rested as the Chelsea side who did not play in midweek. “That makes a difference at this time of the season,” said Ferguson. “You’ve got two fresh teams and it should be a fantastic game.”

Chelsea were the last side to win at Old Trafford, more than a year ago, and their late charge in a bid to retain their league crown owes much to March’s victory over United at Stamford Bridge when they came from a goal down to win 2-1.

“The result against us was the change for them,” said Ferguson. “That gave them that lift from being out of the game to winning it and, of course, us losing to Arsenal tomorrow is going to open the door for them”. Despite the slip-up against Carlo Ancelotti’s side away from home, United can draw com-

fort from their more recent meetings with Chelsea in the Champions League where they beat them 3-1 on aggregate in the quarter-finals last month.

Ferguson said he expected striker Didier Drogba to start for Chelsea but had no idea whether record signing Fernando Torres would feature. He also gave little away about his own lineup, other than saying midfielder Darren Fletcher would not start. Fletcher came on for the last 20 minutes against Schalke, getting a standing ovation after two months out with a virus, and Ferguson is hoping he will be back at his best in time for the May 28 Champions League final against Barcelona at Wembley. “He has almost three weeks to the final and that is his target,” he said. “If he does reach it, it would be a great boost to us. As we all know he is a big-game player.”— Reuters

21:45

Barcelona targeting Spanish title party

Spanish League Hercules v Real Racing Aljazeera Sport +9 Sporting Gijon v Deportivo Aljazeera Sport 1 HD Athletic de Bilbao v Levante Aljazeera Sport 2 HD Valenciav Real Sociedad Aljazeera Sport +5 Aljazeera Sport +3 Getafe v UD Almeria Aljazeera Sport +6 Atletico de Madrid v Malaga Aljazeera Sport +2 Aljazeera Sport 2 HD Sevilla v Real Madrid Aljazeera Sport +2 Aljazeera Sport 2 HD

Beat Chelsea and title is ours: United’s Fergie

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BARCELONA: Barcelona, fresh from reaching the Champions League final, face a highly-charged derby against Espanyol tomorrow where victory could deliver the Spanish league title. With four games to go Barcelona have an eight-point lead over Real Madrid, their vanquished opponents in Europe, who go to Sevilla today.

Barcelona coach Josep Guardiola celebrated with his players on the Nou Camp pitch on Tuesday after reaching the Champions League final, but he now knows he must bring them back down to earth. Only once the title is wrapped up will the coach let his star-studded side think about facing Manchester United in the final at Wembley on May 28. “We have to be ready for the league games and hopefully we will have some players back fit,” said Guardiola. “It will be a key game tomorrow and a victory would take us closer to winning the title. The league is our

main target as it gives us most credibility.” On the challenge of facing United, Guardiola still allowed himself a peek beyond this weekend and ahead to Wembley where he played in the 1992 Barcelona team which lifted the club’s first ever European Cup. “Of course it is the new Wembley and so it is not going to be as special going back there. It is a chance for us to show our way of football, to keep hold of the ball and move it around as quickly as possible.” Espanyol have struggled since Christmas and are four points off a European place despite beating rivals Athletic Bilbao last weekend. It will be hard for embattled Real coach Jose Mourinho to lift his team who play a Sevilla side who have had a late surge to take them up to fifth.

Mourinho also has a potential UEFA sanction hanging over him after his controversial comments following his team’s 2-1 defeat to Barcelona in the first leg of their stormy Champions

League semi-final. Sevilla believe they are facing Real at the right time. “We are in form at the moment. All year we have worked hard but we have lacked consistency and so it would be great to finish the season on a high note,” said Sevilla striker Alvaro Negredo.

Valencia and Villarreal continue the battle for third place and Valencia maintain a three-point lead over their local rivals despite having lost their last two matches. They entertain Real Sociedad while Villarreal must put their disappointment at being knocked out of the Europa League by Porto at the semifinal stage behind them when they take on Mallorca. Atletico Madrid are one of the favorites to claim a place in the Europa League with four wins out of five games and they now face Malaga while Bilbao, below them, are at home to Levante. At the other end of the table Almeria are practically relegated as they are 12 points from safety. —AFP

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FIFA probes match-fixing claims Blatter pledges more FIFA transparency LONDON: Football’s ruling body FIFA is investigating claims that over 300 matches on three continents were influenced by match-fixers, The Daily Telegraph reported yesterday. FIFA suspects match officials were paid as little as $10,000 to help engineer specific results in international friendly matches and European club games, netting fixers hundreds of millions of dollars on Asian betting markets. “The threat from match-fixing to the integrity of the global game is significant,” Chris Eaton, FIFA’s head of security, confirmed to the British newspaper.

“Interviews with those involved have told us that fixers can spend upwards of $300,000 to stage a friendly international and they do that with the expectation

of a significant profit margin,” the former Interpol official added. Eaton told the Telegraph he believed fixers had made “tens of millions of dollars” in profit.

Employees from at least six different national football associations are under suspicion of assisting the criminal network, which is thought to work out of Singapore and Malaysia. FIFA fear the upcoming under-17 and under-20 World Championships are at risk. “We have admissions from those we are focusing on that they have been planning to target younger players at the under-17 and under-20 level,” Eaton told the broadsheet. “That is enough to make me concerned that we need to put preventative measures in place,” he added. Matches under suspicion include club games in

Germany and Finland, Europa League fixtures and friendly internationals involving Kuwait, Jordan, Bolivia, Latvia, Bulgaria, Estonia, Malaysia and Zimbabwe. A friendly game between Bahrain and Togo came to the world’s attention after the African country denied sending a team, and were instead represented by amateurs who struggled to last the full game. During the match, which is under investigation, Bahrain scored eight goals, five of which were ruled out, resulting in a 3-0 scoreline. Meanwhile, World football chief Sepp Blatter has pledged to create a more open and transparent FIFA if he wins a fourth term as head of football’s world governing body. Blatter’s policies were heavily scrutinized after the sur-

prise vote to hand Qatar the 2022 World Cup, with lack of transparency being the chief gripe of detractors. The Swiss’s bid is being challenged by Mohamad bin Hammam, the president of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) who has pledged to expand FIFA’s decision-making process and introduce a “more fair distribution of revenue and increased transparency”.

In a letter on insideworldfootball, Blatter conceded yesterday that better communication with the outside world is essential and says it will form a cornerstone of his final term in charge. “The results of communicative ineptitude can be devastating for all those in an organization who are decent and hard working,” he said. —Agencies

Champions Mazembe face first serious test JOHANNESBURG: FIFA Club World Cup runners-up TP Mazembe from the Democratic Republic of Congo face the first serious examination of their African Champions League title hat-trick credentials this weekend. The ‘Crows’ must take advantage of playing at home and overcome a 1-0 loss at Wydad Casablanca of Morocco if they are to reach the last-eight mini-league phase of the premier Pan-African club competition.

After losing the final against Inter Milan of Italy 3-0 in Abu Dhabi last December, players and officials from the Congolese club vowed to conquer Africa again and have another crack at the world championship. Mazembe began the challenge for a third consecutive African title with home and away victories over Simba of Tanzania before falling to an early Mustapha Allaoui goal two weeks ago in the Moroccan commercial capital.

It is a third round deficit the home team should be able to overcame even though they still lack talismanic midfielder Mabi Mputu, suspended for a year last May for his role in the assault of match officials. There was a silver lining to the ban as footballers like young midfielder Dioko Kaluyituka sprung to prominence and his scoring skills pose a major threat to 1992 African champions Wydad. Kaluyituka was on target once in Lubumbashi and twice in Dar es Salaam against Simba, whose Zambia-born coach Patrick Phiri praised the Congolese after the tie.

“Mazembe did not reach the Club World Cup final because somebody likes them. They are a quality side with lots of experi-

ence. We tried our best, but our best was not good enough,” admitted Phiri. Wydad have proved defensively stingy in away outings this season, losing 1-0 to Aduana Stars in Ghana after taking a three-goal advantage there and holding Kano Pillars 0-0 in Nigeria as they defended a twogoal lead. Record six-time African champions Al-Ahly of Egypt are widely considered the biggest threat to Mazembe and a goalless draw in Zambia against ZESCO United suggests they will be among the eight group-draw participants.

Ahly coach Manuel Jose from Portugal has confessed that many of his stars like midfield magician Mohamed Aboutreika are growing old and the team requires a transfusion of young blood. But the Cairo ‘Red Devils’ are now getting the regular competitive practice denied to them early this year because of the popular uprising against Hosni Mubarak and it would be a shock if ZESCO prevailed. Runners-up to Mazembe last year, Esperance appear ‘bankers’ after walloping Diaraf of Senegal 5-0 at home while fellow Tunisian challengers Club African must overcome a 1-0 deficit when Al-Hilal of Sudan visit Tunis.

The 1976 African champions Mouloudia Alger of Algeria also look set to make the mini-league phase having snatched a stoppage-time equalizer in Angola to draw 1-1 with InterClube. Fellow Algerians Entente Setif tackle 2008 runners-up Cotonsport Garoua of Cameroon in a first leg delayed two weeks because four of the Cameroon African youth championship squad came from the northern club. —AFP

ASUNCION: Paraguay’s Cerro Porteno’s players celebrate at the end of a Copa Libertadores soccer match penalty shootout against Argentina’s Estudiantes de La Plata in Asuncion. — AP

Estudiantes kicked out of Libertadores Velez, Chiapas march on BUENOS AIRES: Four-times South American champions Estudiantes were knocked out of the Libertadores Cup by Cerro Porteno after a penalty shootout in Asuncion on Thursday. Fellow Argentine side Velez Sarsfield qualified comfortably for the quarter-finals 5-0 on aggregate after a 2-0 away win over LDU Quito in the second leg of their first knockout round tie. Despite their poor form in the Mexican championship, Chiapas came from behind three times to draw 3-3 with Colombia’s Atletico Junior in Barranquilla and advanced on the away goals rule 4-4 on aggregate.

With captain Juan Sebastian Veron missing through illness, Estudiantes again drew 0-0 with Cerro before the Paraguayan side triumphed 5-3 on penalties. There is no extra time in the competition.

Goalkeeper Diego Barreto saved the Argentine side’s fourth penalty from Facundo Roncaglia before Javier

Villarreal converted Cerro’s fifth. Estudiantes have suffered an alarming loss of form having gone eight matches in the Argentine Clausura championship and the Libertadores Cup without a win. At high altitude in Quito, after an interruption of 17 minutes due to a lighting failure, LDU hit the woodwork twice in a brief spell of complete dominance. LDU striker Hernan Barcos shot against the bar and less than two minutes later Velez keeper Marcelo Barovero saved from midfielder Luis Bolanos and Enrique Vera hit the rebound against the post. Velez stunned the Ecuadorean side before halftime with a goal from midfielder Ricky Alvarez, who took a pass from substitute David Ramirez, rounded a defender and beat goalkeeper Alexander Dominguez. Ramirez delivered another fine pass 10 minutes from time for substitute Ivan Bella to score Velez’s second, tucking the ball behind Dominguez from a tight angle. —Reuters

SATURDAY, MAY 7, 2011

Sports

Estudiantes kicked out of Libertadores

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BRAGA: Sporting Braga players celebrate after their 1-0 victory over SL Benfica’s during their Europa League Semi-final, second leg soccer match at the Municipal Stadium on Thursday, May 5, 2011. — AP

First all-Portuguese Europa final Braga, Porto face off BRAGA: A headed goal by midfielder Custodio gave Braga’s “group of heroes” an enthralling 1-0 win over Benfica on Thursday and a place in the first all-Portuguese Europa League final. Outsiders Braga beat their more illustrious Portuguese compatriots on away goals after a 2-2 aggregate draw in the semi-final.

Braga will travel to Dublin for their debut European final on May 18 to face Porto, who swept past Villarreal 7-4 on aggregate thanks to their 5-1 triumph in last week’s first leg.

Hosts Braga started sharply at their distinctive stadium, where a sheer wall of rock forms one of the four sides, and went ahead on 19 minutes when Custodio gave keeper Roberto no chance by towering above the defense to score after a corner. “I am not the hero, we are a group of heroes. There are no words, there is an immense joy in the air here,”

Custodio said, as television images showed hundreds of Braga fans celebrating in the centre of the northern city. Pressing hard, Braga gave Benfica scant room to deploy their flowing game, but the visitors came close to leveling the match when Argentine forward Javier Saviola sent a scuffed shot against the post five minutes before the break. Benfica continued to struggle and their first chance in the second half came on the hour mark when substitute winger Franco Jara sent a dipping shot wide from the edge of the box. They then missed two chances in the 79th minute when Nicolas Gaitan forced keeper Artur to touch away a fierce shot and Luisao sent a header wide from the ensuing corner with Saviola arriving seconds too late at the far post. Braga responded with two chances of their own in the 84th minute, Custodio and Hugo Viana

both forcing Robert into reflex saves with powerful drives as they held on to book a spot in the final. “We deserve to be in the final, justice was done and this is very gratifying,” Braga coach Domingos Paciencia said.

“The final is there for us to win, that is obvious. We have already shown we can do it,” added the coach, who spent most of his playing career as a striker at Porto. His side dropped down to the Europa League from the Champions League group stage and then knocked out Liverpool and Dynamo Kiev before meeting compatriots Benfica.

Porto lose 3-2 but progress Porto striker Radamel Falcao scored for the fifth time against Villarreal as his side wrapped up a 7-4 aggregate victory on Thursday to saunter into the Europa League final.

Villarreal won 3-2 on the night, making a storming start in front of their

own fans in a brave attempt to overturn a 5-1 first-leg deficit. Cani netted after a well-worked move in the 17th minute, but against the run of play Hulk leveled with a deflected shot just before the break.

Early in the second half, tournament top scorer Falcao made it 2-1 with his fifth of the semi-final and 16th of the competition while late goals from Joan Capdevila and Giuseppe Rossi, from the penalty spot, gave Villarreal a pyrrhic victory.

Porto meet compatriots Braga in the Dublin final on May 18. “It’s a dream,” Colombian Falcao told Portuguese television. “When I came to Europe I dreamed of doing big things and Porto is a top-quality team. I knew we could achieve this type of feat. We’ve taken a big step but now we have to take the final one, the game in Dublin.” Villarreal coach Juan Carlos Garrido was not giving up and lined

up with three strikers at the Madrigal and they created a flurry of chances in a frantic opening period. A trademark quick-passing move led to Marco Ruben crossing low for Cani to slide in and open the scoring but the second goal refused to arrive and Porto started to threaten on the break. Hulk burst down the middle of the pitch in the 40th minute, shrugging off the attentions of Javier Matilla, and his fierce drive deflected off Mateo Musacchio, wrong-footing Diego Lopez, and bounced into the net. The equalizer silenced the rowdy home crowd which was further subdued three minutes after the re-start when Falcao collected Fredy Guarin’s cross and beat Lopez from close range.

Capdevila volleyed in an equalizer at the back post in the 75th minute and Rossi converted from the penalty spot after Ruben was felled in the area with 10 minutes to go. — Agencies