29 May

ON IP TI SC R SU B

SUNDAY, MAY 29, 2011

NATO strikes destroy Gaddafi compound guard towers

Obama reassures Poland on security, visas

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JAMADI ALTHANI 26, 1432 AH

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Chennai win IPL with huge win over Bangalore

Canadian mother defends keeping gender secret

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Kuwait seizes assets of Iraqi Airways in Jordan Latest step in row over war reparations

Syrian forces torture, kill boy in custody NICOSIA: Pro-democracy activists in Syria called for fresh protests yesterday after the alleged torture and killing of a 13-year-old boy by security forces in the flashpoint region of Daraa. The body of Hamza AlKhatib was returned to his family on Wednesday, following his disappearance after a demonstration on April 29, activists said on their Facebook site, Syrian Revolution 2011. “ We will go out from every home, from every district to express our anger ” over the killing, they wrote on the page which carries a picture of the boy.

“A month had passed by with his family not A video grab shows the tor- knowing where he is, or tured body of 13-year-old if or when will he be boy Hamza Al-Khatib. — AFP released.

He was released to his family as a dead body. Upon examining his body, the signs of torture are very clear,” they said.

“There were a few bullets in his body used as a way of torture rather than to kill him with. Clear signs of severe physical abuse appeared on the body such as marks done with hands, sticks, and shoes. Hamza’s penis was also cut off.” Other activists said Hamza Al-Khatib Continued on Page 13

LONDON: Barcelona players celebrate with the trophy after winning the Champions League final football match against Manchester United at Wembley Stadium yesterday. – AFP (See Page 20)

Shaky truce eases conflict in Yemen SANAA: An informal ceasefire between President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s security forces and a tribal group brought a pause in fighting yesterday after nearly a week of deadly clashes left Yemen close to civil war. Fighting this week has killed some 115 people, prompted thousands of residents to flee Sanaa and raised the spectre of chaos that could benefit the Yemen-based branch of Al-Qaeda and threaten adjacent Saudi Arabia, the world’s No. 1 oil exporter. The latest violence, pitting Saleh loyalist forces against members of the powerful Hashed tribe led by Sheikh Sadeq Al-Ahmar, was the bloodiest since pro-democracy unrest erupted in January and was sparked by Saleh’s refusal to sign a power transfer deal.

Tribal sources and residents said a tenuous calm prevailed in the capital’s northern district of Hasaba, the scene of heavy clashes this week for control of government buildings, and outside Sanaa, a city now divided between the sides. A source close to Ahmar said negotiations were continuing through mediators on details of the truce. The Ahmar loyalists are seeking assurances that government forces would not use buildings vacated by tribal gunmen to launch fresh

attacks, the source told Reuters.

Separately, three French aid workers went missing in southern Yemen and a local security official said they were believed to have been abducted.

Kidnappings of Western tourists or workers by disgruntled tribes seeking ransom or concessions from the government have been frequent in Yemen. Most hostages have been freed unharmed.

A prominent think-tank, the International Crisis Group, said a broad, lasting ceasefire was needed immediately and should be part of a plan that leads to a transition of power. “To prevent further escalation and loss of life, the most urgent step is for both sides to immediately accept a ceasefire mediated by Yemen’s statesmen and tribal leaders,” the ICG said in a “conflict risk alert” issued late on Friday. Foreign states should be involved, it said, “but, given the deeply personal and tribal nature of the feud between the Salehs and Al-Ahmars, it cannot be addressed effectively by international mediation or initiatives alone”.

Global powers have little sway in Yemen, where tribal allegiances are the most powerful element in a volatile social fabric and the fighting already Continued on Page 13

Bahrain oppn head insists reform only way forward Sunni cleric dismissive MANAMA: The only way forward for Bahrain is through political reform rather than oppression of its Shiites and a heavy-handed crackdown, the head of its main Shiite opposition bloc said in an interview. The opposition pulled its 18 MPs out of parliament - two Sheikh Ali Salman of whom have been detained - in protest at violence against demonstrators. Sheikh Ali Salman, who heads Al-Wefaq, the Sunni-ruled kingdom’s largest Shiite political group, said his movement was also not planning to take part in upcoming by-elections.

A “counter-revolution” has raised fears among Sunnis of the Shiite-led protest movement, the white-turbaned cleric said, while insisting on a civic state for both Muslim communities and not Iranstyle clerical rule.

Continued on Page 13

Max 44 Min 28 Low Tide 02:55 & 16:22 High Tide 09:05 & 22:35

BAGHDAD: Kuwait has seized assets of Iraq’s national airline in Jordan, Iraqi officials said yesterday, the latest step in a row between the neighbouring states over war reparations. Iraqi Airways has filed an appeal against the decision in Jordan, said Karim Al-Nuri, a media adviser to the Iraqi Transportation Ministry. He said Kuwaiti authorities seized the Iraqi Airways office in the Jordanian capital after obtaining a ruling from a court there. “Two days ago, the Iraqi Airways’ office in Amman has been seized (by Kuwait) and $1.5 million of its assets have been frozen,” Nuri told Reuters by telephone.

Kuwaiti officials could not be reached for comment.

Baghdad and Kuwait have been locked in a long-running dispute over billions of dollars in reparations from Iraq, including some $1.2 billion related to aircraft and parts seized during former dictator Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. The dispute is between Kuwait Airways Corp and Iraqi Airways, both of which are state owned. “This a serious step, and it will legitimise unacceptable mistakes in the future,” Nuri said, adding that Iraqi Airways will continue flying to Jordan despite the freeze.

Last year, Kuwait tried to seize one of the Iraqi carrier’s planes in London after obtaining a High Court order against Iraqi Airways that including freezing its assets worldwide. The airline has halted flights to Britain and Sweden under threat that its planes would be seized by Kuwait. “Unfortunately, so far talks with the Kuwaiti authorities have failed to resolve this issue,” said Nasir Al-Amiri, an advisor for the Iraqi Transportation Ministry.

“We cannot see a solution on the horizon.” In May last year, Iraq’s government said it would dissolve Iraqi Airways over the next three years and pursue private options to dodge asset claims made by Kuwait over their 1990-91 war.— Reuters

Egypt permanently opens Gaza crossing RAFAH: Egypt lifted a four-year-old blockade on the Gaza Strip’s main link to the outside world yesterday, bringing relief to the crowded territory’s 1.5 million Palestinians but deepening a rift with Israel since the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak earlier this year. The Egyptian move will allow thousands of Gazans to move freely in and out of the area - heightening Israeli fears that militants and weapons could easily reach its doorstep. Israel and Egypt imposed the blockade after the Islamist group Hamas seized control of Gaza in June 2007. The closure, which also included tight Israeli restrictions at its cargo crossings with Gaza and a naval blockade, was meant to weaken Hamas, but it also fueled an economic crisis in the densely populated territory.

Hundreds of Gazans gathered early yesterday as the first busload of passengers crossed the border at 9 am. Two Egyptian officers stood guard next to a large Egyptian flag atop the border gate as the vehicle rumbled through. Rami Arafat, 52, was among the earliest arrivals. He said he hoped to catch a flight out of Cairo on Sunday to Algeria for his daughter’s wedding. “All we need

is to travel like humans, be treated with dignity, and feel like any other citizens of the world who can travel in and out freely,” Arafat said. He said he believed the relaxing of travel restrictions “will guarantee more support from all Arabs and Palestinians for the new Egyptian regime.”

Nearby, 28-year-old Khaled Halaweh said he was headed to Egypt to study for a master’s degree in engineering at Alexandria University. “The closure did not affect only the travel of passengers or the flowing of goods. Our brains and our thoughts were under blockade,” said Halaweh, who said he hadn’t been out of Gaza for seven years.

Until Saturday, the Rafah border terminal had functioned at a limited capacity. Only certain classes of people, such as students, businessmen or medical patients, were eligible to travel and the crossing was often subject to closures, leading to huge backlogs that forced people to wait for months. Under the new system, most restrictions are being lifted, and a much larger number of Palestinians are expected to be able to cross each day.

Continued on Page 13

Blast kills powerful Afghan police chief

MOUNT EVEREST, Nepal: A handout picture shows Suzanne Al-Houby, a Palestinian who lives in the United Arab Emirates, at the summit of Mount Everest on May 21, 2011 after she became the first Arab woman to scale the world’s tallest mountain. Houby, a 40-year-old mother of two, spent 51 days making the climb after spending two years preparing for her Everest attempt. — AFP

KABUL: A suicide bomber wearing a police uniform blew himself up during a meeting at a provincial governor’s compound yesterday in northern Afghanistan, killing six people including one of the most powerful men in north Afghanistan and two German soldiers, and wounding the top German commander in the country, officials said.

The bomber detonated his explosives vest in a room in the governor’s office complex in Takhar province where high-ranking Afghan officials were meeting with members of the international coalition, said Faiz Mohammad Tawhedi, a spokesman for the governor. The governor, Abdul Jabar Taqwa, suffered burns to his head, hands and back. “What we know is the guy who carried out the attack had a police uniform on,” Tawhedi said.

“How he entered the meeting room and why he was not searched, we don’t know.”

The Taleban claimed responsibility for the late afternoon attack - the latest in an uptick of violence as the Islamic extremist movement has launched its spring offensive.

Continued on Page 13

GAZA: Palestinian Mohammed Ahmed reacts as he holds his father’s passport at the Egyptian passport administration at Rafah crossing port yesterday. — AP

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SUNDAY, MAY 29, 2011

Years

LOCAL Local Spotlight Kuwait Digest

Did Kuwait lose out on Dow Chemical deal?

The rational opposition

By Dr Hassan Abbas

D

uring a public session that I attended, a parliament member started his address to attendees by reiterating the situation in the political scene. While he brought nothing new other than what we have already read about in the press, a certain word he said has caught my attention the most.

In his talk about the opposition in Kuwait, the MP discussed two types of opposition: the rational opposition and the irrational one. He went on to explain that the ‘chaotic opposition’ is not giving the rational one a chance to do something about the mistakes committed by the Cabinet.

I have to disagree with the lawmaker about what he said here. Due to the opposition allegedly losing its right way, the MP claims to have decided to side with the Cabinet. I brought up this issue because it is connected with the confrontation that called for between protesting youths and security officers at Safat Square.

The duty of police officers in such situations is to protect the safety of protestors and respect the freedom of the public to choose the place where they intend to demonstrate as long as they abide by the law; that too regardless of who organizes the gathering, or for what reason it has been called for. Police officers and lawmakers alike should respect the public movement. This is because they are required to respect their constitutional right of freedom of expression.

As far as I am concerned, a rational opposition is that which always abides by and defends the law and the Constitution. The position of the opposition is not affected by whether any of its members are donning rational approaches or not. — Al-Rai

By Muna Al-Fuzai

muna@kuwaittimes.net Ambassador Sheikh Jaber Duaij Al-Sabah pictured with the Italian pilots and other Italian officials.

Kuwait honors Italian pilots ROME: The Kuwaiti ambassador to Italy Sheikh Jaber Duaij Al-Sabah has honored two Italian pilots who took part in the 1991 liberation of the country and tasted the bitter experience of being held prisoners.

Sheikh Jaber Duaij held a ceremonial reception in honor of the two ranking airmen, Group Captains Gianmarco Bellini and Maurizio Cocciolone, who were captured by the Iraqi forces when their aircraft was shot down shortly after the launch of the war for the liberation of Kuwait on January 18, 1991.

The ceremony was attended by a large number of eminent Italian political and military figures, including Senators, Mario Palombo and Domenico Gramazio, General Cesare Marinelli of the Italian Army, Roberto Commelli of the Italian Airforce, and Colonel Alessandro Casarsa of the Carabinieri.

In a statement on the occasion, Sheikh Jaber Duaij praised the heroes for their courage and endurance of the hardships in cap-

tivity. He also praised Italy that had hurriedly stood on Kuwait’s side in the face of the blatant aggression, opening up its air space for the air forces that took part in the liberation operation and contributing with combat units for the ground action. This supportive stance solidified further the friendly ties between Kuwait and Italy, said the ambassador, who granted memorial awards to the veteran pilots.

Captain Bellini praised the warm

hospitality and the “gesture by the Kuwaiti ambassador that depicted the genuine identity of the natives of Kuwait and the civilization of this beautiful country.” He also expressed pride for taking part in repulsing the aggression against Kuwait.

Captain Cocciolone expressed identical sentiments stating that the 1991 war of liberation was the sole just war he has known throughout his life. —KUNA

New clause added to contracts KUWAIT: The Municipality has added a new clause to the newly signed contracts with cleaning companies. According to new regulations, a provision should be made to store cleaning equipment, in addition to licenses being issued to only temporary offices and accommodation arranged for cleaning workers.

The announcement was made

by Assistant Managing Director for Services Affairs Mohammad AlOtaibi. He noted in a recent statement that the Municipality is yet to select the locations that will be used for those purposes, reported AlQabas.

In separate news, the General Secretariat of the Cabinet has requested that the Minister of Public

Works (MPW) and State Minister for Municipality Affairs Dr Fadhel Safar update them on latest developments pertinent with previous Cabinet decisions to allocate one million square meters land to build a media city, in addition to allocating a 100 square kilometers area west of Al-Salmi to be used as a site for a proposed industrial city project.

Al-Roumi, Al-Huraiti represent NA in Constitutional Court Constitutionality of grilling motion KUWAIT: Deputy speaker of the parliament Abdullah Al-Roumi will plead on behalf of the parliament along with legislative committee chairman Husain Al-Huraiti, when the constitutional court looks into a request made by the cabinet on the constitutionality of a grilling motion filed by the Popular Action Bloc against His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Sabah.

A majority in the Kuwaiti Parliament has voted in favor of a request made by the cabinet to put the debate for a grilling filed early this month on hold for up to a year, until the constitutional court verifies a number of its articles which include corruption allegations. In a statement made recently to the press, MP AlRoumi revealed that the legislative committee is set today to discuss the legal memorandum based on which the pleading will be made.

This comes as the cabinet is set to discuss during its weekly meeting today their position from a grilling filed by the Development and Reform Bloc against the premier, as well as

the interpellation filed by the National Action Bloc against Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah; which both are set to be debated during the parliament’s session on Tuesday. In the meantime, MP Abdurrahman Al-Anjari - who co-presented the initial grilling against the premier along with PAB leader Ahmad Al-Saadoun - revealed that he is going to provide the legislative committee with a previous court order made by the constitutional court in 2006, in which the court explained that they aren’t entitled to look into cases pertaining with verifying the constitutionality of grilling motions. MP Khalid Al-Sultan said on his part that he doesn’t expect for the premier to face his grilling; as opposed to earlier reports which suggested that the PM has decided to fend off the motion.

A source within the cabinet said that the grilling of the DRB against the premier is likely to be sent to the constitutional court as well, indicating while speaking on the condition

of anonymity that there is enough evidence to prove that one of its articles is unconstitutional. “ The topic pertaining with the Kuwait government’s decision not to send land troops to Bahrain as part of the Peninsula Shield forces is unconstitutional because such stipulation is within the jurisdiction of the armed forces, and thus fall under the authority of the Commander in Chief; His Highness the Amir.

Separately, MP Al-Huraiti announced that the legislative committee will discuss in their meeting today the issue pertaining with lifting parliamentary immunity from MPs Musallam Al-Barrak and Saleh Ashour, as well as amendments to the penal code and the internal regulations of the parliament.

Al-Huraiti’s comments were made in a recent statement in which he also demanded that the Kuwaiti government take extra measures to insure the safety of members of the Kuwaiti embassy in Yemen amid the unrest taking place there.

— Al-Rai, Al-Qabas, Al-Watan

D

id Kuwait really lose out on the Dow Chemical Company deal? Sadly, yes. With all the official talk doing the rounds about Kuwait transforming into a financial hub, we have ended up losing a joint venture with a company like Dow Chemical. What a waste!

When the Dow Chemical Company officially opened its office in Kuwait, I was so happy to see a company of its stature, with a technologically strong position attempt to make a successful market presence here. The interest it displayed in emphasizing bilateral ties between its investments and partnerships with Kuwait, was promising at least initially. Naturally, I thought having an office in Kuwait would work toward strengthening the existing partnership relationship, as much as to develop the company’s investment in the petrochemical sector. For many years, Dow Chemical Company has operated in Kuwait through the EQUATE Petrochemical Company. It was a partnership that set a great example as a joint venture project with Petrochemical Industries Company (PIC) of Kuwait.

The Dow Chemical Company filed a lawsuit against the state-run Kuwait Petrochemical Company (KPC). The company entered into another alternative agreement with ARAMCO company to build its factories in Al-Jubail, Saudi Arabia instead. I do not think it has lost as much as Kuwait has. Apart from the penalty and the lawsuit that this country face, our reputation on doing business has been tarnished. We failed to commit to the agreement signed and suffer from a lack of vision on setting up our strategies.

These are the kind of losses that we have sustained.

In fact, I fail to think of any other foreign company that is capable of bringing advantages to its partnerships and joint venture. I’m not making this up. This company had operated in the country for 15 years. So they, were fully aware of its business climate. I’m sure the company did not expect Kuwait to take a turn around and scrap the agreement without any clear justification.

When a company of Dow Chemicals’ stature confronts all kind of hurdles while trying to upgrade its business relations and projects, it only shows what type of regulations have been laid down in that vital document named ‘development plan.’ It is replete with laws and ideas on how Kuwait can become the region’s financial trade center by 2035. For the time being, it may just remain a dream when we fail to support important sectors like Oil, Gas and Petrochemicals. Maybe Kuwait is good at planning how to effectively pass time.

Workshop to help reduce death sentences KUWAIT: At least 40 death sentences have been executed in the country during the period between 1964 2007.

Lawyer Shima Al-Enezy, a member of Lawyers’ Union made the remark. She said that procedures to carry out death penalties pass through certain channels. The convict remains imprisoned until the Amir approves the death penalty or commutes the punishment to life sentence, or pardons the convict.

She was speaking at a workshop entitled ‘Judges,’ public prosecution office, and lawyers’ role in limiting death sentences in Arab countries.’ The event was held at the Holiday Inn hotel between May 27 and 29. Kuwait is one of the countries which enforces the death penalty for crimes like murder and drug trading. Al-Enezy pointed out that this is the second such workshop held in the region. A number of conferences and seminars have been held on the topic, and related studies and researches have been discussed to reduce the death penalty, reported Al-Anba. A number of academics and human rights activists from Kuwait and the world participated in the workshop.

SUNDAY, MAY 29, 2011

LOCAL OP-ED

in my view

Silent partners to genocide

Day of rage and what

By Elizabeth Pickworth

By Fouad Al-Obaid

I

n July 1995, 8,000 Muslims were massacred in Srebrenica by Bosnian-Serb forces under the command of General Ratko Mladic.

In addition, 25,000-30,000 Muslim women and children were forced from their homes; vulnerable and without protection from their husbands who were most likely killed by Bosnian-Serb forces.

This mass killing represents one of the darkest passages in history and one of the major failures of the United Nations. However, this wasn’t the first time the UN failed to protect societies’ most vulnerable.

In 1994, approximately 800,000 Tutsis were murdered by Hutu rebels and government forces in Rwanda. While United Nations and member countries deliberated and failed to act through various meetings, they remained silent witnesses to genocide.

While countless men, women and children were tortured, raped and killed, international forces failed to deploy, governments chose not to recognize that genocide was taking place, instead the UN stated that “acts of genocide” were being carried out-not “genocide.”

This leads me to the question, how could an ‘act’ of genocide differ from ‘genocide?’ Regardless by the definition in international humanitarian and military law, shouldn’t the killing, raping and torture of innocent civilians be paramount? Shouldn’t this override any concerns and cut the red tape of international law?

Finally, when it was announced on May 26 that Serbian security forces surrounded a residence in Lazarevo just 50 miles outside of Belgrade and captured the mastermind behind the massacre in Srebenica, former General Ratko Mladic, I felt so happy that justice would be served - even if it was 16 years too late.

Although I am not from Bosnia and I was too young to fully comprehend genocide, as a young girl glued to the television news back home in Australia, I was mesmerized with such evils of the world. My school in Sydney took refugees from the Somalia civil war in 1991 and hearing of the horrors some of my classmates were subjected to made me appreciate how lucky I was to live in a country without fear, without worrying that when I wake up my parents would be killed, or I would be kidnapped and subjected to a life of abuse, maltreatment and slavery. Today, conflicts are ongoing across the Middle East and Africa, countless people are being massacred every day, children are left vulnerable, without a mum or dad to protect them.

People are dying in Libya, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan, Myanmar and the list goes on. The Somalia civil war has been ongoing since 1991 and a state of emergency was declared in 2009, yet thousands of civilians are still being killed and international governments along with the UN fail to act.

In Palestine, thousands of civilians are being massacred by Israeli armed forces. In Darfur, the genocide which has claimed the lives of over 330,000 civilians have displaced over 2,850,000 still goes on, even though president Omar Al-Bashir was found guilty in July 2010 of orchestrating the genocide and crimes against humanity against the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa tribes of Sudan.

In Uganda, the former President from 1971-1979, Idi Amin was backed by Muammar Gaddafi, East Germany and the Soviet Union and his regime, in a game of corruption and severe human rights abuses claimed the lives of around 500,00 civilians according to Amnesty International.

Without mentioning every conflict within the latter part of the 20th to the early 21st century, it has become apparent that powerful governments and the UN fail to act in the interest of those affected.

International superpowers fail to act perhaps as a conflict of interest to their strategic partnerships, or at the risk they will lose out on profitable investments. How can the international arena simply leave people to die?

The countless men, women and children who at the mercy of their government, are slaughtered and imposed with a life of suffering are left with the question “why doesn’t anybody help us?.”

How can governments and the United Nations turn a blind eye to the suffering of humankind?

Kuwait Airways demands compensation

By A Saleh KUWAIT: Iraq transport ministry said Kuwait froze the assets of Iraq Airways in Jordan. Iraq’s Ministry Advisor Kareem Al-Nouri said the freeze comes due to financial problems and debts with Iraq.

He said his ministry is looking for technical and legal solutions with Kuwait without resorting to tense decisions. Kuwait Airways is demanding KD 1.2 billion in compensation for the theft of its planes and destruction of its facilities during the invasion, and won court cases calling on Baghdad to pay.

The Iraqi cabinet liquidated Iraq Airways in March 2010 to by-pass the Kuwait demands.

fouad@kuwaittimes.net Twitter: @Fouadalobaid

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Minister urged to avoid political appointments Problems in oil sector

By A Saleh KUWAIT: The Constitutional Court has instructed Oil Minister Dr Mohammad Al-Busairi not to influence certain leaders in the oil sector by making political appointments to vacant posts. Officials said that the movement is unhappy with the government after it failed to renew KNPC CEO Saad Al-Shuwaib’s term although pressure was placed on his reappointment. The Higher Oil Council appointed Farouq Al-Zanki instead.

Officials said that leaders of a lower rank than Al-Shuwaib are major decision makers, and their decisions contradict with those of Al-Zanki’s

and may create future disputes.

There are some people who said it is necessary to remove those. They also said that competence must be the standard of appointment, not political affiliation.

Meanwhile, Kuwait’s Ambassador to Iran Majdi Al-Dhafiri resumed his activities in Tehran yesterday. AlDhafiri who was appointed in Tehran in 2001 was recalled two months ago, before returning Thursday.

Separately, officials said that Gulf ministries of finance were instructed to prepare the file of Gulf Customs Union by November. This is so that it will be included in the GCC summit agenda by the end of the year.

Officials said that the union faces

obstacles.

In another development, Kuwait has expressed readiness to sign a pact with Iraq on the assurance that Mubarak Al-Kabeer port project will not pose an obstacle to Al-Fao port project and harm Iraq’s territorial waters.

The announcement was made by Aws Al-Tamimi, Information Director at Iraq’s Foreign Affairs State Ministry. Minister Ali Al-Sajri discussed the issue with Kuwait’s Ambassador Ali Al-Momen. AlTamimi said that Kuwait’s Ambassador wants to assure Iraq and its people that Mubarak AlKabeer port project will not affect the Al-Fao port project.

Education a top priority KUWAIT: Kuwaiti leadership attaches special concern to students and their needs, for they constitute the foundation for the national development strategy, said the Kuwaiti ambassador to Bahrain Sheikh Azzam Mubarak AlSabah.

The ambassador, speaking during graduation of Kuwaiti students from the Gulf University, affirmed

that Kuwait places teaching as on top of the national priorities because it is the basis for the development of the country.

Investment in the sectors of teaching and k nowledge is a strategic investment that can effectively contribute in the service of Kuwait in all sectors, he added.

Kuwaiti youth have substantial potentials that can be employed

for making a prosperous future for the coming generations, he added.

Kuwaiti authorities, since many years ago, have supported the educational sector.

The government offers scholarships to distinguished students to study abroad and has applied modern means of education, such as electronic technology, and curricula. — KUNA

s George Clooney so famously framed this quote in an advertisement for Nespresso, ‘what else?’ We are at a staggering point in the development both of our country and democracy. What else do the fools, who we label as MPs, have in store for us? Do they not realize the growing dangers looming both internally and externally? Or as children, do their egos prevent them from seeing events from a given angle rather than the ‘mirage’ they have their masses believe?

We are a small country situated in a rather dangerous neighborhood. While some call for the destabilization of the leadership of our country, at a time when neighboring countries are opening long-closed files, we are in constant danger from multiple sources. The last thing we need is a seditious front internally working actively to spread the seeds of sectarian strife. The game the MPs are playing on Determination Square is a dangerous one. Once chaos is established it will be hard for us to untangle from its vicious cycle.

We are a nation with citizens who practice two coins of a single faith; trying each to impose the dominance on the other.

Though one side of the coin is heavier, the coin belongs to one nation and both side owe it to themselves to ensure stability. Broken in to two, the coin loses its value. In tackling the tricky issue of sectarianism, we ought to consider segregating religion from politics. Further, we need to integrate people and the sexes both in school and the workplace drilling into them the notions of civil society and duty towards the nation.

To the youth of the nation who are the prime engine of any society, we the youth are the key to the future of our nation. It is we that need to unite.

We need to work towards establishing the vision necessary for any nation to survive and thrive in a growingly competitive inter-connected world. We should realize that the opportunity afforded to us, the youth, in a country such as ours is plenty. For unlike in neighboring countries we are truly free to work collectively towards our betterment, and that of the generations to come. We owe it to our very future, one that will usher the post-oil era, which we seriously need to consider and subsequently plan for.

With all of the above in mind, I recall a notion embodied in the following quote, “failing to plan is planning to fail,” further embolden the notion that history and knowledge are to be found in books. We as a nation need to read at the personal level! At the national level, we ought to understand and value the importance of knowledge, and the acquirer thereof for “those who do not read are no better off than those who cannot.”

One book. One thought. One citizen. One nation.

Grilling motion: Co-presenter seeks MPs’ support K U WA I T: Th e N a t i o n a l Ac t i o n Bloc(NAB) member Adel Al-Saraawi has requested several parties within the Parliament and the Cabinet to take e f fe c t i ve a c t i o n a g a i n s t S h e i k h Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah, Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs, Minister of Housing and Development.

He par ticipated in the debate held along the sidelines of the interpellation motion that was co-presented with fellow bloc member Marzouq AlGhanim.

In a recent interview broadcasted

by Al-Rai TV, Al-Saraawi first pleaded to Al-Fahad himself, asking him to face the grilling motion on Tuesday’s ses-

sion, and defend his stance ‘to prove his credibility.’

Al-Saraawi further called upon two new fresh faces in the Cabinet, especially Ahmad Al-Mulaifi Minister of Education and Higher Education to secure his position, and Ali Al-Rashid Minister of Cabinet Affairs, He was challenging Al-Rashid’s denial of AlFahad being instructed to either face the grilling or resign, reported Al-Rai. Meanwhile, Al-Saraawi asked his fellow parliament members to support the interpellation motion filed against Al-Fahad, and refrain from voting for a request to refer the motion to the Constitutional Court.

KUWAIT: Ahmadi Governor Sheikh Dr Ibrahim Al-Duaij Al-Sabah met at his office in the governorate’s diwan yesterday the Vietnamese Ambassador Bui Quoc Trung and discussed matters of mutual concern and means to boost cooperation.

Ministry committed to supporting labor unions KUWAIT: The government is committed to lending constant support to labor unions in Kuwait, recognizing their efforts to reinforce democracy and freedoms in the country. This was stated by Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Justice and Minister of Social Affairs and Labor Dr Mohammad Al-Afasi. A meeting was held with a delegation from the ministry’s labor union.

“The cooperation between labor unions and the ministry is essential along with their ability to practice their role in achieving development,” Al-Afasi said.

During the event, he was congratulated for being reassigned to assume his position at the helm of the ministry, as well as being appointed as a deputy premier, reported Al- Qabas.

Separately, a governmental program that supports projects that go in line with the development plan has reserved nearly KD 19 million for projects, reported AlWatan. The MSAL is to build during the 2011/2012 fiscal year, nursery schools, complete e-government programs, as well as carry out awareness programs and activities concerning children, women and the elderly.

‘Loan law will create family crisis’

KUWAIT: Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Dr Mohammad Sabah Al-Salem Al-Sabah pictured with Kuwaiti ambassadors and envoys during a meeting here yesterday.

KUWAIT: The law that allows Kuwaiti women to seek loans up to KD 70,000 loans will create family crisis. Raising the age bar from 21 years to 30 is insufficient to protec t the Ku w a i t i f a m i l y. O f f i c i a l s f ro m t h e Pu b l i c Authority for Housing Welfare(PAHW ) made the relevant announcement.

They added that setting a price on plots available in Sabah Al-Ahmad City does not concern the Authority. The subject has been broached with the Council of Ministers.

O n t h e o t h e r h a n d, Fa h a d A l - S a e e d Deputy Director of Housing Authority said that new lands will be handed over to the authority, repor ted Alshahed. It was discussed during a meeting held with the housing committee.

KUWAIT: Deputy National Guards Director Sheikh Mishaal AlAhmad Al-Sabah pictured with a group of officers yesterday.

Sheikh Mishaal emphasized on the importance of continuing education for the National Guards members in different fields which will benefit the country.

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SUNDAY, MAY 29, 2011

Years

local KUWAIT DIGEST

In my view

Torn between two Worlds

Profits vs political fights

(Part One: Family)

By Lisa Conrad

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By Faisal Al- Zamal

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hy should we pay attention to the fabulous results of EQUATE company which represents 80 percent of our oil exports? The bigger issue seems to be the political fight which continuous for years, yet the attention given to this is minimal.

Yes, for some, this fight is more important to fo l l ow t h a n k n ow i n g t h e p ro f i t s o f EQUATE this year, which is twice as much of PIC (a state-run petrochemical company).

The amount stands at $880 million compared to $550 million in spite of the limited availability of gas provided to the company’s factory. The reason behind the profitability is the efficiency of operating all producing units, which raises sales to $2 billion. All production was exported to the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Europe.

These fabulous results are ignored totally so that no one opens the file of losses that Kuwait has incurred after the joint venture with Dow Chemical Company has been politicized. It has stalled the EQUATE’s success and doubled it several times. In addition to the legal cost of cases which are currently being fought in the British courts, the company demands compensation that amounts to $2 billion due to deal cancellation. It followed immediately after the company signed a new deal with Aramco Co in Al-Jubail, Saudi Arabia to construct factories.

Yes, creating problems are the best way to hide losses incurred and as long as politicians involve themselves in running the state affairs, and then losses are incurred, they continue to create problems to cover up the facts. For how long?

Fire department holds meeting

By Hanan Al-Saadoun KUWAIT: The final meeting of the summer period for all fire directors was held at KFSD premises. The Deputy Director General for Fire Fighting Affairs and Human Development Brig Yousuf Al-Ansari spoke about several issues related to fire fighting.

He also discussed comparative figures with the previous year and noted a significant improvement. Directors made proposals and plans for their areas.

Brig Al-Ansari asserted that rules and regulations must be adhered to protect people, property and firemen.

He added that plans must be made in place for the summer season as fire cases increase during the period.

KUWAIT: The Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research discussed means of cooperation and a number of outstanding scientific issues with the Russian-Kuwaiti Council of Businessmen yesterday. Director of the institute Dr Naji Al-Mutairi expressed the wish of the institute to make use of the Russian experience in the research field.

Netanyahu’s speech threat to Arab national security Al-Deqbasi calls for united stance KUWAIT: Commitment to the Palestinian Reconsolidation Agreement has become necessary to achieve an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, remarked Ali Al-Deqbasi Kuwaiti lawmaker and Speaker of the Arab Parliament. He was commenting on the recent speech delivered by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the United States Congress.

“An Arab solidarity is necessary today in the face of risks that threaten the national security of the Arab World,” said Al-Deqbasi, further explaining that those risks have been reflected by Netanyahu’s speech “in which he rejected the notion of recognizing the 1967 borders [for a future Palestinian state] and solutions to the refugees crisis. He asserted Jerusalem as an eternal capital to the Zionist entity and insisted on the racist demand of Israel to be recognized as a Jewish State,” reported Al-Qabas.

Furthermore, Al-Deqbasi called upon the secretary general of the Arab League to call for an urgent meeting of the foreign ministers of the member states in order to discuss a unified stance on what has been mentioned in the Israeli premier’s speech, “including the stance of seeking United Nations recognition for an independent Palestinian state.”

Al-Deqbasi also urged the Organization of the Islamic Conference to “take all necessary measures to protect Jerusalem’s Arabic identity,” labeling talks about the two-

state solution as “an illusion used by the Zionist regime as a pretext to continue building settlements on occupied lands.”

Meanwhile, Arab League said yesterday that a meeting of senior officials in regional and international organizations concerned to find a settlement to the crisis in Libya will be holding a meeting at the Arab League headquarters next Monday to discuss joint efforts and find a solution to the crisis there.

Deputy Secretary-General of the Arab League Ambassador Ahmed Ben Helli told reporters that the meeting of senior officials of the United Nations, the Arab League, African Union, Organization of Islamic Conference and the European Union will discuss the concerted efforts of these organizations to find a settlement to the crisis of Libya.

The meeting was scheduled to be held earlier but was postponed for further consultations in the light of ongoing developments in Libya and the efforts exerted at the regional and international levels in this respect.

The Arab League had held a meeting of senior officials of the five organizations last April 14 under the auspices of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to discuss the situation in Libya, where participants called for a cease-fire and the search for a political solution.

Wataniya Telecom welcomes Alghanim Industries KUWAIT: Wataniya Telecom has always viewed its strategic partners as core assets, as they have played a critical role in Wataniya’s overall success. Recently, representatives from Alghanim Industries, a long-time par tner, visited Wataniya Telecom to express their appreciation for Wataniya’s consistent service and support through the years.

During the visit, Alghanim Industries representatives met with Wataniya management including Amer Hayat, Senior Director, Direct Sales, and Rajesh Menon, Director of Sales Operation and number of Wataniya’s officials.

Commenting on their meeting, Amer Hayat Senior Director of Direct sales at Wataniya said, “Wataniya Telecom values its strategic partners. Our partnership with Alghanim Industries has been very successful and it has brought us mutual benefits.” “ We hear tily welcome them to our headquarters as we mark 10 years of working together, and continue to strengthen our relationship as we focus on the future”, Hayat added. The Alghanim Industries representatives commented on their visit,

Amer Hayat stating, “Alghanim team appreciates the relationship that we have developed with Wataniya and is looking forward to further strengthening our strategic partnership in the coming years.”

Wataniya Telecom and Alghanim Industries’ strong business partnership dates back to 2001, and the recent meeting held at Wataniya premises has further reinforced Wataniya’s commitments and dedication towards its strategic partners.

Wataniya Telecom was commercially launched in 1999 as the first privately owned operator in Kuwait. National Mobile Telecommunications Company (NMTC) trading under the brand name Wataniya Telecom is listed in the Kuwait Stock Exchange and has operations in 6 countries including Maldives, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Algeria and Palestine. Qatar Telecom (Qtel) owns 52.5% of Wataniya Telecom.

Wataniya is a customer-driven company that aims to provide product and service excellence. Over the past 10 years Wataniya has risen to be the second largest operator in one of the most competitive markets, and continues offering a wide range of prepaid and postpaid mobile voice and internet services to both individual and corporate customers.

Wataniya has built its reputation on offering innovative services, maintaining excellent network quality and delivering outstanding customer experience. These three pillars remain the basis of Wataniya’s strategy as it continues to solidify its strong market position.

h, I definitely feel like an American”, says 24-year old Maryam with a thick, yet flawless, American accent. Born and raised in a Kuwaiti suburb by traditional parents, she is one of many 20 something women in Kuwait struggling for an identity to call her own.

Many of Kuwait’s newer generations are torn between East and West, desperately trying to find a middle-ground, and Maryam finds herself in quite the dilemma negotiating between values from both. Craving the laid back lifestyle of the Western world, but also enjoying the perks of a Kuwaiti lifestyle, Maryam represents somewhat of a hybrid in a country where Western influence is everywhere from media, schools and entertainment. Laid out like a buffet, it’s easy to understand the temptation of picking and choosing the best elements from each culture. But can you really enjoy the best of both? And in doing so, what will the effects be on Kuwaiti culture? The new generations are seemingly confused between their roots and their ever evolving reality and environment where West isn’t quite West, and East isn’t quite East.

From the first step you take in Kuwait, the mix of cultures becomes immediately apparent as scents of bukhoor (an Arabian incense popular in many Kuwaiti homes) are tangled with the smells of fast food from all of your favorite American franchises. A walk in the mall is informative in itself, as young men stroll in freshly pressed dishdasha’s (traditional Kuwaiti dress) coupled with a New York Knicks baseball cap.

Kuwait Times will be investigating the issue over a short series to try and uncover how our interviewees manage the contradiction of managing to evolve, whilst also remaining the same. Because it’s such a central element of Arab culture, family is the first consideration in how cultural issues in Kuwait are at times embedded, sometimes rejected, but always present.

“Even my Mom comments that me and my sister were born in the wrong continent”, Maryam says proudly. She admits to feeling lost between who she is and who she feels society expect her to be. But, after years of going to and fro, she has decided to embrace the culture which resonates with her most: American. Does this spell the end of Kuwaiti culture? Not necessarily.

Family kernel It seems that family plays a central role in influencing how much their children embrace, or reject their culture.

Like 21-year-old Abdul comments: “Instead of reading the usual children’s stories we used to read old, Kuwaiti, traditional stories to learn about the past. I idealized my parents.”

This encouragement, Abdul feels, is what kept him firmly attached to and, more importantly, happy within Kuwaiti society.

The encouragement also appeared to have an effect on Abdul’s cultural identity, as he added: “I have an appreciation for it now. It’s nice when you have things that are specific to you and your background, like those stories. You feel more connection with your past. I know it’s cliche, but it’s true that you don’t know where you’re going if you don’t know where you’re from“.

Abdul and Maryam appear to be at opposite ends of the spectrum, but what about if you’re between the two worlds, literally? 21-year-old Moh is half-Kuwaiti, half-American. He was raised in the US until he came to Kuwait at 14 so it would be understandable, even expected, if he identified with being American more than Kuwaiti. But, he says: “I definitely feel more Kuwaiti. My Mom raised me in a very American way, but when I came here it was totally different.

My Dad likes traditional things. I still have American tendencies, but I don’t think that’s even ‘American’ anymore because Kuwait’s become so westernized.”

Moh is drawn to the family-oriented culture in Kuwait, something he appreciates more having lived abroad: “Families are close and really care for each other. In America you’re more on your own, when you’re 18 most people leave home. It’s much nicer to be surrounded by family. There’s no point in leaving home so early.“ Abdul also prefers some of the more traditional values, saying: “We eat Kuwaiti food, we speak Kuwaiti Arabic and we watch Arabic TV shows. My Mom sometimes even uses old Kuwaiti Arabic as well. My parents are traditional, and me and my siblings are in-between. I wouldn’t change anything, I like how my family are. They’re kind of liberal, they accept more than some other parents but they’re not Westernized”.

American-raised Moh also has a relatively traditional home environment in Kuwait: “We eat traditional food, everyday. We have drivers and maids, which is pretty Kuwaiti I guess. I speak in English with my Dad though because it’s better than my Arabic, and he doesn’t like saying the same thing twice.”

Secrecy Despite their conflicting opinions, Moh, Maryam and Abdul do share one thing in common: a degree of secrecy.

When asked if their parents mind behaviors which contrast with accepted Kuwaiti norms, all three admitted that they’re careful to keep everything out of the sight and mind of their parents. “My Dad doesn’t approve of western stuff, so I don’t tell him. There’s a “don’t tell me, I don’t want to know” policy.

My Dad likes traditional things, he’s not liberal at all,” Moh says.

However, he added that the extent of freedom one enjoys is dependent on more than family alone: “Kuwait’s a very male-orientated society, so I get freedom as a man. If I were a female it would be a totally different story.

Traditionally men get away with more, I get away with more than most so maybe my family is particularly lenient.” It’s all relative though, of course. Abdul appreciates the reasons behind certain rules and abides by them accordingly. He says, “They’re right. Like, staying out too late. It’s an issue with them, which is fine with me because it looks bad to be leaving the house to go out at midnight. It affects my reputation too, not just my family’s.”

Restrictions Maryam, however, faces considerably more restrictions than both Abdul and Moh. She would prefer to see changes to allow for more freedom to make choices independently: “I don’t think it’s a bad thing if the culture is changed because of Western influences. You should be able to have the choice of how much you embrace your culture. It shouldn’t be forced upon you by social pressures. I hope we end up with as much freedom to choose how we live as they have in the West.” Early curfews and travel restrictions are at the top of Maryam’s complaints as she fights to express the identity that closer resembles her beliefs and values.

Whilst Maryam, Abdul and Moh all have different ratios of East and West, traditionalism is on the rise, according to assistant Professor of Sociology at GUST, Mark Olson: “In my experience, expats who have been in Kuwait for a long time will often say that the young Kuwaitis in the 70’s and 80’s were more liberal, then.”

Therefore, there is one Kuwaiti who feels American, one who feels happily balanced between Middle Eastern and Western cultures, a third who is mixed between the two but more attached to his Kuwaiti side, and a sociologist whose report totally contradicts a lot of what the interviewees said.

What is the answer? Which side is the pendulum really swinging toward? According to Olson, the answer completely depends on you: “All of us are products of our times and individual circumstances. Our views of Kuwait often depend on our own backgrounds.”

KUWAIT : Al-Nasser Sports Center organized a campaign titled ‘Take Care of Your Health’ in Al-Bairaq Mall Complex in Al-Agailah area. It was attended by a large number of visitors.

— Photos by Yasser Al-Zayyat

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Years

local Kuwait Digest

The second marriage ‘solution’

By Naji Al-Zaid

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et hitched for the second time, and receive a KD, 6,000 loan. No, this is not a fictitious story, it is a new legislation that was passed in Kuwait based on proposals put forward by members of the Parliament. It sought to allow a Kuwaiti citizen obtain a marriage loan from the government if he decides to get married again.

While they were supposed to prioritize matters pertinent with development projects that included improving health and education, MPs in Kuwait have unfortunately been focusing on matters that focus on the steep decline of society, economy and administration. It is sad that in a society that suffers from increasing divorce rates, the excuse to get married again and divorced later is viewed as a solution.

Polygamy has impacted our society in a negative manner, the most common of which are problems concerning a husband’s failure to treat his wives equally. It should be noted that the Sharia law permits polygamy only if certain conditions can be fulfilled. One of this is that the husband ensures that both the wives are treated equally. Given the fact that taking care of two households at the same time is an extremely difficult task at present. It is almost certain that an individual willing to marry for the second time in Kuwait will not be able to meet the Sharia condition.

It appears as if lawmakers who passed this bill have framed their own rules and conditions - including the stipulation that the nationality of the second wife be Kuwaiti in order for the husband to be entitled to receive the loan.

Instead of passing legislations to reward female citizens for making efforts to raise their children and take care of households, Kuwait women have to give consent to their husbands’ decision to get married for the second time! Not only is this step derogatory to the wife, this legislation damages the true meaning of marriage and gives the impression that a husband who makes use of it is ungrateful. — Al-Qabas

FM stresses importance of economic diplomacy Call for caution and attentiveness KUWAIT: Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Dr Mohammad Sabah Al-Salem Al-Sabah yesterday urged Kuwaiti ambassadors and envoys to enact “economic diplomacy”, aimed at transforming the country into a prominent global financial centre. The minister was speaking to Kuwaiti heads of mission to nations of the Asian and Australasian regions, in their second such meeting. He said that the Foreign Ministry had organized the gathering in light of the latest complex regional and international developments that urge caution and attentiveness in protecting the interests of the country worldwide.

Sheikh Mohammad urged the diplomats to continue their role of diplomacy, in translating the directions of His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber AlSabah, into tangible means, while maintaining the safety and providing assistance to Kuwaitis undergoing a crisis abroad.

Furthermore, the attendees sent a cable of congratulations to His Highness the Amir, expressing their delight upon hearing of the success of the Amir’s recently-held medical checkups in the United Kingdom.

In the same vein, Bahr Al-Ulum expressed his thanks and appreciation for the members of the Kuwaiti delegation for what they showed of candor at the meeting, and for their positive attitude on maintaining the main goal of keeping good ties between the two brotherly countries.

Meanwhile, Khaled Al-Mughamis, Director of the Kuwaiti Foreign Ministry’s Follow-up and Coordination Directorate, and head of the Kuwaiti delegation at the meeting, said, “we have briefed the Iraqi delegation on the background details of Mubarak Al-Kabeer port project as well as information which were not known to them.”

Al-Mughamis added that, “we have totally clarified the project’s purpose, its mechanisms, and the measures which are being taken in the present time.” Asked if the meeting led to the issue of some recommendations, Al-Mughamis said that no recommendations were made by the meeting, “as it is just a technical working team that had some questions, and wanted to get some answers for them, and so it is a kind of bilateral cooperation between the two countries in order to clarify some matters that may be unknown for Iraqi brothers.” —- KUNA

Visit of Kuwaiti delegation to Lebanon praised BEIRUT: President of Kuwait Municipal Council Zaid Ayesh Al-Azmi stressed here yesterday that the visit of the Kuwaiti Municipal Council delegation to Lebanon has achieved great success and has strengthened cooperation between the two countries in areas of common interest.

Al-Azmi said at the conclusion of the visit that the latter laid a base for further cooperation between the municipal system in Kuwait and the Municipal Council of Lebanon’s Al-Qalaa city as to contribute to the upgrading of services provided as well as the importance of what has been agreed upon over the establishment of a twinning partnership between the two municipalities.

He expressed sincere thanks and appreciation to the Lebanese leadership, government and people for the hospitality and warm reception, praising the role and the great effort made by the Vice-President of the Union of Municipalities of Upper Matn and the Mayor of Al-Qalaa Brig Riaz Awar.

Al-Azmi also spoke highly of the role of the Embassy of Kuwait, Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development, Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) in Lebanon and other Kuwaiti institutions operating here for their big role through their concern and interest in raising high the name of Kuwait in all international and regional arenas. — KUNA

Kuwait emergency dept commended RIYADH: Kuwait’s emergency services department at the Health Ministry is doing a tremendous job in treating Kuwaitis injured in traffic accidents here, said a diplomat yesterday.

Head of Consulate Affairs at Kuwaiti Embassy in Riyadh Ahmad Al-Jiran told KUNA after a meeting with emergency service department head at the Kuwaiti Health Ministry Dr. Faisal Al-Ghanem that Ambassador

Meanwhile, representatives of the foreign ministries of the State of Kuwait, and the Republic of Iraq showed their satisfaction at the positive atmosphere marked by candor and transparency during the meeting held by the KuwaitiIraqi Joint Committee.

Iraqi Ambassador in Kuwait Mohammad Bahr Al-Ulum said, in a statement, that the Iraqi delegation arrived here from Baghdad, “in order to follow up, and get sufficient information regarding misgivings that surfaced in the Iraqi street on the project of Mubarak Al-Kabeer on Boubyan island.” Further, Bahr Al-Ulum expressed his satisfaction over results of the meeting which was, “very reassuring and comprehensive as it tackled all questions posed by the Iraqi side, and answered professionally, and accurately by the Kuwaiti side.”

He also made clear that these results will be submitted to the political leadership in his own country, “in order to make them well-acquainted and to provide them with all necessary information including an array of maps and documents,” noting that the delegation will make a trip to the project’s site to closely watch all works on the ground.

Sheikh Hamad Jaber Al-Ali Al-Sabah expressed appreciation for the Health Ministry for its swift response to traffic accidents occurring to Kuwaitis on the roads near the borders between both countries.

He stressed that such action had helped in saving numerous lives, adding that the Saudi authorities were also very cooperative and considerate during such situations. — KUNA

Union wants ‘50 students limit’ decision reconsidered KUWAIT: The National Union of Kuwaiti Students is demanding that the Ministry of Higher Education reconsiders a decision to stop granting scholarships to students to a college that already has at least 50 other Kuwaiti students sent there in similar scholarships. These demands were made by the NUKS executive committee during a meeting with undersecretary of the higher education ministry Dr. Khalid Al-Saad, and undersecretary assistant for scholarships affairs Khalid AlNuwaiheedh.

Meanwhile, head of the administrative board of the NUKS - Kuwait University branch Mohammad Al-Otaibi pled to Minister of Education and Minister of Higher Education Ahmad Al-Mulaifi, to enforce a project to provide a laptop computer to each KU student, which has been in discussion for a while.

Meanwhile Lawmaker Dr. Daifullah Buramia expressed disappointment following news about the Kuwaiti government signing contracts to build faculties for arts and education at the planned ‘Sabah Al-Salem University City’ in Al-Shadadiya, as he accuses the government of failing to commit to plans which would insure that the project would be finalized by 2014. “ The parliament had passed bills for financial allocations to the project more than six years ago, and only now does the government sign contracts to build two out of dozens colleges that the planned university is set to include”, the MP said. — Al Watan

Weekend traffic bust

Al-Saad hands over a certificate of appreciation to Kuwait Diving Team leader.

Diving team conferred KNPC Star Award KUWAIT: The Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC) recently conferred its Star Award on the Kuwait Diving Team, part of the Environmental Voluntary Foundation.

It is awarded to non-governmental organizations that have made outstanding efforts in the fields of health, environment and safety.

A ceremony was held at the Regency Hotel, during which KNPC Deputy CEO Asad Al-Saad presented a certificate of appreciation to Waleed Al-Fadhel, Kuwait Diving Team President, in addition to a special trophy. During the event, AlFadhel acknowledged the ‘environmental partnership’ that the diving team established with the KNPC .

KUWAIT: Security sources said that traffic department made several campaigns in the six governorate over the weekend, which resulted in handing 5259 traffic citations and the detention of 330 vehicles, distributed as follows: Hawally governorate 1240 citation and 29 vehicles detained. Capital Governorate 879 citations and 47 vehicles detained. Farwaniya governorate 841 citations and 37 vehicles detained.

Ahmadi governorate 427 citations and 12 vehicles detained. Mubarak Al Kabeer governorate 80 citations and 15 vehicles detained. Jahra governorate 295 citations and 2 vehicles detained.

Sources said that operation department at traffic department registered 1250 citations and detained 188 vehicles and 147 traffic citations and the airport region.

Traffic department urged citizens and expats to abide by traffic regulations to avoid such citations.

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LOCAL

Nepal, Kuwait enjoy excellent ties

By Madhuban Paudel Ambassador of Nepal

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iplomatic relations between the Kingdom of Nepal and Kuwait were established on Feb 25, 1972. The Embassy of Nepal was officially opened on March 21, 2010. Earlier, the Embassy in Riyadh was concurrently accredited to Kuwait.

Both countries enjoy excellent bilateral relations which are based on goodwill, mutual understanding and a co-operative attitude.

Exchange of visits at various levels have strengthened bilateral relations between the two countries.

Nepal and Kuwait have expressed avowed commitments and loyalty to the principles of the United Nations Charter and work together closely in the UN, NAM, G77 and other international forums for the common benefit of humankind and in consolidating international peace and security.

The two countries have always supported each other in all international issues of concern, and in the resolution of all problems by peaceful means.

A first one among all other South Asian nations, Nepal’s complete and unequivocal suppor t for Kuwait’s sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity during the invasion and occupation by Iraq in 1990 has been well-appreciated by the government and the people of Kuwait. On the kind invitation of His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah AlAhmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, the President of Nepal, Dr Ram Baran Yadav visited Kuwait to attend the celebrations of the 50th Anniversary of Independence, 20th Anniversary of Liberation and fifth anniversary of assumption of His Highness the Amir.

The Government Nepal expresses its gratitude to His Highness the Amir for the gracious and kind invitation and is also thankful to the government of Kuwait for its generosity and cooperation extended to Nepal in all its endeavors.

There have been several other exchanges of formal, informal and private visits as well in the past between the two countries which have cemented our bonds of friendship and cooperation.

Kuwait is the first OPEC country to provide soft term loan to Nepal for two hydro-electric projects, dating back to 1977 and a supplementary loan of KD 2 million (US$ 7.4 million) to meet the cost overrun of the same project in 1979. Later, under an agreement signed on 25 January 1985, Kuwait provided KD 6 million (US$ 20 million) for civil works on consultancy of Marsyangdi Hydro Power Project.

An agreement for a loan amounting to KD 1.5 million was also conclud-

ed on 26 October 1998 for the execution of the Praganna Kulo Irrigation Project in Dang district.

The loan is being used for the construction and rehabilitation for the irrigation canal.

The visit of the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nepal to Kuwait earlier this year has opened up a new vista of bilateral cooperation and further strengthened the bonds of our friendship and goodwill, particularly when the two countries have agreed to go fur ther ahead in enhancing the cooperation of Kuwait in the economic development of Nepal, concentrating mainly on infrastructural development.

The Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development will extend technical assistance for a road project and has assured of cooperation for one hydro-power project during this year.

The Government of Nepal highly values the support and cooperation of the Government of the State of Kuwait in the opening of the new Embassy of Nepal last year. Nepal is looking for early opening of the Embassy of Kuwait in Nepal sometime this year.

Nepal and Kuwait have signed an agreement in last January, a kind of umbrella instrument, to establish a joint commission at the level of Foreign Ministers to cover the entire gamut of bilateral relations including political and economic cooperation. This is a milestone towards further developing our bilateral ties.

Trade between Nepal and Kuwait has been very negligible and remained in favor of Kuwait.

Although the Federation of Nepal Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI) have some kind of mechanism to interact and cooperate with each with the Kuwait Chamber of Commerce and Industries, there is no visible further progress. The two countries have very little interaction among the private sectors; this needs to be enhanced. The FNCCI is expects a business team from Nepal will make a visit this year to interact with their counterparts in Kuwait and discuss the possibilities of cooperation in the areas of trade and investment. Nepal has a number of exportable items including the agriculture and finished products which can have very good market in Kuwait.

Studies have shown that Nepal has one of the world’s highest hydro-power potential (83,000 megawatt) from its river systems of which over 45,000 MW has been considered as commercially feasible. This sector can, therefore, be one of the most potential areas of investment for the Kuwaiti investors because of the increasing demand

for power in the market both within and outside including in the neighboring countries.

Nepal can also be a very good tourism destination for the Kuwaiti nationals. It is one of the richest countries in the world in terms of bio-diversity because of its geographical position and variation in altitude. The elevation of the country ranges from 60 m above the sea level to the highest point on earth, Mount Everest, 8848 m high, all within a distance of 150 km. Some other specialties any tourist can enjoy in Nepal are; eight percent of the world population (over 848 species) of birds, four percent of mammals on ear th, 11 of the world’s 15 families of butterflies, 600 indigenous plant families and 319 species of exotic orchids. There are four UNESCO World Heritage sites of which two are natural and two cultural, one being Lumbini, the bir thplace of Lord Buddha.

Among the outdoor attractions, very few can match Nepal in the variety of world class experiencebe it trekking, mountain biking, nature tours, white water rafting, canoeing, pony trekking, jungle safaris, bird watching, bungee jumping, mountain flights etc.

At present, there are over 50,000 Nepalese nationals working in various jobs and establishments in Kuwait. However, in the absence of diplomatic representation in both the capitals, a majority of them particularly in the domestic as well as labor sectors who are mostly unskilled had arrived Kuwait in the past without the official clearance of the Government of Nepal.

However, the Government of Nepal, after the opening of the Embassy, has set up a mechanism to let the flow of workers on official approval of the government. It is ver y encouraging to note that the flow of workers from Nepal in the corporate sector has also increased substantially in recent times. Since the opening of the new Embassy in Kuwait, the local companies as well as the Nepalese manpower agencies have taken interests in this area.

The embassy has been trying to bring in the workers, in both corporate and domestic sectors, only with the approval of the Department of Foreign Employment of the Government of Nepal. The Nepalese workers are known as hardworking, honest, dependable and peaceful.

Kuwait can also utilize more skilled and semi-skilled workers in technical areas including mainly health, engineering and hospitality sectors. These workers, apart from making a substantial contribution to the national economy of Nepal through remittance, have also played a great role in strengthening the bonds of friendship between our two countries.

DOHA: Al-Anjari (third from right) is seen during the seminar.

Al-Anjari discusses successful leadership in Qatar forum QATAR: A successful leader masters techniques to hone the skills and capabilities while at the same time works toward obtaining new experiences through learning and training. This was stated by Nabila AlAnjari, Kuwaiti political activist and businesswoman during a seminar she took part in at the Qatar International Businesswomen Forum that was held in Doha on May 17 and 18 under the patronage of Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, Chairperson of the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development.

The event featured participation of an elite group of businesswoman from different parts around the world, who discussed topics which help improve the efforts of women in the business field.

Al-Anjari spoke during a seminar that focused on utilizing emotional intelligence in leadership, as she addressed aspects which help people improve their leadership skills during childhood and teen

Al-Anjari (left) with deputy head of the Qatari Businesswomen Association Aisha Al-Fardan, and Qatari lawmaker Rima Badran. years, before a person’s leadership performance is shaped after they start college and then their career.

The businesswoman further talked about elements which includes looking up to a role model and focusing on reaching a cer tain goal as aspects that help a person improve their leadership skills.

They also discussed what she described as the ‘magical formula of success’ which per tain with finding cohesion between good planning, confidence with oneself and others, adaptability with surrounding situations and the ability to perform positively under pressure.

Doha hosts 6th Arab Autism meeting KUWAIT: The sixth convention of Arab Network for Autism was recently hosted in Doha, Qatar.

Agreements were reached to form joint scientific, medical and media committees.

This committee will serve people who suffer from Autism in the Arab World. Meanwhile, Dr Samira AlSaad, a founding member and member of the network’s board, Head of the Kuwait Autism Society indicate that gatherers have agreed to begin preparations for the World Autism Organization (WAO) conference. It will be hosted in 2014.

The Arab Network for Autism was founded in Lebanon in 2009 after a request was made to the Lebanese Cabinet by Dr Al-Saad, as well as Sheikha Jamila Al-Qassemi from the United Arab Emirates, Princes Fahdah bint Saud from

The meeting in progress.

Saudi Arabia, Arwa Halawi from Lebanon and Maha Helali from Egypt. Its meetings have been attended by representatives from

fourteen Arab countries. Plans are ongoing to invite representatives from remaining Arab countries to participate in future meetings.

Kuwaiti teenager fends off sexual assault in desert Body found behind mosque Abbott concludes awareness campaign on Crohn’s Disease in Kuwait KUWAIT: Abbott recently concluded an awareness campaign on Crohn’s disease in Kuwait. It was conducted across different government hospitals from May 22 to 28. The closing event was held in Bidaa where an interactive session was held by a range of renowned doctors and Crohn’s patients.

“This closing event aims to provide the doctors and the patients with a forum, from which they can discuss best practice methods to manage the disease. While there is still not a cure for the disease, the different ways how patients and their families manage Crohn’s disease play a very big role in their daily lives,” said Alaa Tosson, general manager, Abbott Kuwait, and continued.

Crohn’s disease is a serious chronic, inflammatory disease of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract and most commonly affects the end of the small intestine (the ileum) and the beginning of the large intestine (the colon). However, it may involve any part of the GI tract.

Dr. Ahmad AL Fadhli, Consultant Gastronomical/chronic Colitis at Mubarak Al Kabeer Hospital, in Kuwait, said: “There is very little awareness on Crohn’s disease in the Middle East in general, and specifically in Kuwait There are about 1,0001,400 patients suffering from this illness.”

Sharing her experience Shaimaa Al Obadili a Crohn’s patient in Kuwait said “I have been suffering from Crohn’s disease for years and the one major factor that has helped me in managing my disease has been the support of my family and the regular updates by my doctors. More awareness campaigns, such as this one, help create support groups which are often seen as being very helpful, when patients want to discuss their problems related to the disease.”

Medical practitioners also explained that since

there is no cure for Crohn’s disease, the goal of treatment is achieved through regular medication, restoring and maintaining proper nutrition, and surgery if necessary.

The common symptoms of the Crohn’s disease include diarrhea, cramping, abdominal pain, weight loss, fever, and in some cases, rectal bleeding.

However, the most common complication is blockage of the intestine, which occurs because the disease tends to cause swelling and scar tissue in the intestinal wall, which leads to a narrowing of the passage. Other complications can include sores or ulcers in the intestine, which can turn into fistulas, abscesses and fissures.

Symptoms of Crohn’s disease may include abdominal pain, diarrhea, vomiting, rectal bleeding and weight loss. The disease may be accompanied by various extra-intestinal manifestations such as the eyes and joints or on the skin. The intensity of the symptoms may vary a lot over time. Patients may experience long periods of remission or recurrent flare-ups.

KUWAIT: Police are currently looking into a case involving a Kuwaiti teenager who delivered a fatal hit against his kidnapper in a desperate bid to avoid sexual assault. Security officers accompanied by crime scene investigators had headed to a location deep into the Um Al-Haiman desert where a female citizen reported her son being there with the body of his kidnapper who he had killed.

Upon reaching the location, police found the 15-year-old sitting near a car while his hand was handcuffed to a dead body lying right beside him.

The child told the police that the man had fallen unconscious after he threw a stone at his head. In his statements to officers, the teenager explained that he was on his way out of a mosque to his house in the same area when an officer in police uniform stopped him and took him in custody for failing to carry his civil ID. But instead of taking off to the police station as he initially claimed, the police officer headed with the boy to the desert, where he stopped the car and started his rape attempt after handcuffing his hand with the kid’s to prevent him from escaping. The boy added that he grabbed a large stone from outside the car and hit his kidnapper repeatedly on the head until he fell unconscious, after which he called his mother and told her what happened. Criminal investigators confirmed the kidnapper’s death as a result of a fatal head trauma. It was later revealed that the kidnapper has been suspended for a month due to disciplinary issues.

Body found Forensic check for a body that was found behind a mosque in Jahra recently revealed that it belonged to a person who had been reported missing a few days before. Officers and crime scene investigators had reported to a location where eyewitnesses reported finding a dead body on the ground behind the mosque.

Police struggled to identify the victim initially due to the body’s advanced decomposition state, but the forensic check confirmed his identification. A murder case was opened for investigations as the body was taken for an autopsy to confirm the cause of death.

Ali house, after which her family made an emergency call. Her condition is stable, and police launched investigations in a suicide case pending the woman undertaking thorough psychological evaluation.

Fatal Crash Three people were killed and three others were seriously injured in a car collision that took place recently at the Kabad Road. Police officers accompanied by paramedics had rushed to a location near the camels market where the accident was reported. Paramedics pronounced three of the victims dead, with two of them identified as brothers aged 16 and 18, while the third is their cousin of similar age. In the meantime, the three other persons involved in the crash where rushed to the Jahra hospital in critical condition. A case was opened for investigations.

Suicide attempt A young woman was rushed to the Adan Hospital after she consumed a large amount of medications in a bid to end her life. The 22year-old was found lying unconscious inside her room at a Jaber Al-

Citizen freed Lebanese authorities managed recently to free a Kuwaiti man three days following his kidnap by a person who demanded a ransom for his release. Authorities in Beirut launched search on Tuesday for the citizen after his family was contacted by his kidnapper demanding for a $1 million ransom. The citizen’s family was able to stall negotiations with the suspect, which in addition to reducing the ransom to $350 thousand, has helped authorities track his number and put him under arrest.

Drugs found Police are currently trying to identify people who disposed an amount of drugs that were found recently inside a house in Al-Mahboula.

Officers had headed to the scene where workers at a nearby restaurant reported finding a plastic bag filled with synthetic drugs. The items were confiscated by crime scene investigators.

Suspicious activity Security officers accompanied by a bomb squad headed to a location north Al-Subahiya, where an unidentified person reported in an emergency call seeing a gas cylinder being left near an oil pipe. No cylinders or any other suspicious activity were found during the investigation.

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1,400 “missing” in troubled Kashmir

Iran sends ‘trainers’ to crush Syrian protesters

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NATO hits Gaddafi compound Russia to help broker Gaddafi exit MISRATA: The body of one and a half year-old Mohsen Ali Al-Sheikh, who was killed by a gunshot during clashes between rebels and proGaddafi forces, lies amongst others at the AlHikma hospital in Misrata.

— AP

TRIPOLI: NATO aircraft destroyed the guard towers at Muammar Gaddafi’s compound in Tripoli, a NATO official said yesterday, then staged a rare daytime air strike on the Libyan capital, heightening pressure on him to quit. “RAF Typhoons, along with other NATO aircraft, last night used precision-guided weapons to bring down guard towers along the walls of Colonel Gaddafi’s Bab AlAziziyah complex in the centre of Tripoli,” Major General John Lorimer, chief British military spokesman, said in a statement.

“Last night’s action sends a powerful message to the regime’s leadership and to those involved in delivering Colonel Gaddafi’s attacks on civilians that that they are no longer hidden away from the Libyan people behind high walls,” he said. “The massive compound has not just been his home, but is also a major military barracks and headquarters, and lies at the heart of his network of secret police and intelligence agencies,” Lorimer said. “Previous NATO attacks have hit command and control and other military facilities within the complex.”

NATO followed its fifth straight night of attacks with a daytime strike that sent smoke funneling skywards from the area of the Gaddafi compound. A big boom shook Tripoli at about 0800 GMT but it was unclear if it was caused by a bomb or missile. A NATO military

spokesman said the daylight raid targeted “a vehicle storage compound 600 to 800 meters to the east of Gaddafi’s so called tent private area. It is not part of the main Gaddafi complex”. Following the Friday night strikes, the Libyan state broadcaster said NATO raids also caused “human and material” damage near Mizda, to the south.

Russia joined Western leaders on Friday in urging Gaddafi to step down and offered to mediate his departure, providing an important boost to NATO powers seeking to end his long rule. It was a striking change in tone from Moscow, which has previously criticized the 10-week bombing of Libya. NATO intervened under a United Nations mandate to protect civilians from Gaddafi’s forces, but has effectively placed itself on the side of rebels trying to topple him in a deadlocked civil war.

“There are signs that the momentum against Gaddafi is really building. So it is right that we are ratcheting up the military, the economic and the political pressure,” British Prime Minister David Cameron said at a Group of Eight summit in France.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Gaddafi, who seized power in a 1969 coup, no longer had the right to lead Libya. “The world community does not see him as the leader of Libya,” Medvedev told reporters at the summit,

adding that he was sending an envoy to Libya to begin talks. Despite Russia’s move, there was scepticism that Gaddafi would agree to go. Previous attempts at mediation, by the African Union, Turkey and the United Nations, have foundered on Gaddafi’s refusal to leave and the insurgents’ refusal to accept anything less.

Rebel-held Misrata, Libya’s third biggest city and scene of some of the fiercest battles in the conflict, suffered a second day of heavy fighting on its western outskirts on Friday. Doctors at Misrata’s hospital said five rebels were killed and more than a dozen wounded.

Abdelsalam, a rebel spokesman in Misrata, reported a quieter situation yesterday. “When Gaddafi’s forces launch a failed attack they usually take two to three days to recover,” he said.

Fighting raged 25 kilometers east of Misrata, with three rebels killed and five wounded, said Fathi Bashaga, a member of military council in Misrata. He said rebels captured two soldiers.

“We hear many Gaddafi soldiers were killed in the battle but we don’t know how many excatly,” he said by telephone. Gaddafi’s forces have stepped up their attacks on Zintan, part of a chain of mountain settlements near Libya’s border with Tunisia, where rebels have been holding off assaults for months.— Reuters

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BEIJING: Ethnic Mongolians have taken to the streets in parts of China’s vast northern region of Inner Mongolia over the past few days to protest against the hit-and-run death of a herder, and also to call for better protection of their culture. Here are some questions and answers about the demonstrations.

HOW SERIOUS IS THE UNREST? Compared with protests in Tibet and the far western region of Xinjiang in recent years, the unrest has been relatively minor. There have been no reports of deaths nor of demonstrators going on a rampage, smashing and burning. They have also been limited so far to rather remote parts of Inner Mongolia, though there have been calls for protests in the gritty and populous regional capital Hohhot, less than an hour’s flight west of Beijing. But the protests come amid serious government jitters about broader instability.

The ruling Chinese Communist Party was alarmed by calls that spread online in February for “jasmine revolution” protest gatherings inspired by antiauthoritarian uprisings across the Arab world. Though the calls never drew big crowds, dozens of dissidents, human rights advocates and persistent protesters were detained or put in informal custody to deter any participation.

HOW MIGHT GOVERNMENT DEAL WITH THE PROTESTS? If thousands or even hundreds of people take to the streets of Hohhot, the police response could be more severe. Chinese authorities have been known to open fire with live ammunition when they feel demonstrations are getting out of hand. The government may sack certain officials to show people it takes their concerns seriously, and maybe promise greater support for Mongolian culture. The two Han Chinese truck drivers arrested for the killing of the Mongolian herder Mergen could probably be executed or given long jail terms, in a bid to calm the situation.

WHY ARE MONGOLIANS ANGRY? Resentment by ethnic Mongolians goes back decades. Inner Mongolia was the first so-called “autonomous region” set up by the Communist Party, and was meant to serve as a model for

Tibet and Xinjiang in offering a high degree of self-government. But a flood of migration by the majority Han Chinese in the years following the 1949 revolution has rapidly diluted the Mongolian population. Today they make up just one-fifth of Inner Mongolia, concentrated in rural areas.

During the chaos of the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s, tens of thousands of Mongolians were killed or locked up after the Communist Party accused them of seeking a pan-Mongolian state. China loosened its grip significantly when it began landmark economic reforms some three decades ago, but complaints of mistreatment and petty discrimination have never gone away.

Many ethnic Mongolians complain of being left out of the country’s economic boom, and say the economy is dominated by Han Chinese. In 1996, a Chinese court gave a 15-year jail sentence to activist Hada for separatism and spying and for his support for the Southern Mongolian Democratic Alliance, which sought greater rights for ethnic Mongolians.

Though released last year, he has been held incommunicado ever since, in a measure of government worries about the influence he could still have.

His wife and son were arrested shortly after he was let out, charged with illegally running a business and drug possession, respectively. As in other parts of China, environment problems have created considerable resentment.

Ethnic Mongolian herders have complained that their traditional grazing lands have been ruined by mining and desertification, and that the government has tried to force them to settle in permanent houses.

WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS? If ethnic Mongolians blockade coal mines or road and rail lines that carry coal to China’s ever-hungry power stations, the impact could be quite large, as Inner Mongolia has China’s largest coal reserves. That, however, is highly unlikely. There are too few Mongolians and they are widely spread out. And police are unlikely to allow a protest to get that far out of hand. — Reuters

Iran sends ‘trainers’ to crush Syrian protesters Death toll mounts; Torture rampant WASHINGTON: Iran is sending ‘trainers and advisers’ to Syria to help crush anti-government demonstrations threatening to topple Iran’s most important ally in the region, The Washington Post reported late Friday. The influx of Iranian manpower was adding to a steady stream of aid from Tehran, the newspaper said, citing unnamed US officials. That aid includes not only weapons and riot gear but also sophisticated surveillance equipment that is helping Syrian authorities track down opponents through their Facebook and Twitter accounts, the sources said.

Iranian-assisted computer surveillance is believed to have led to the arrests of hundreds of Syrians seized from their homes in recent weeks, the paper said. According to one diplomat and US officials, the Iranian militar y trainers are being brought to Damascus to instruct Syrians in techniques Iran used against the nation’s “Green Movement”‘ in 2009, the Post reported.

Officers from Iran’s notorious Quds Force have played a key role in Syria’s crackdown since at least mid-April, it said. US sanctions imposed against the Quds Force in April had been intended as a warning to Iran to halt the practice, said the Post.

At least eight people were reported killed by security forces Friday as pro-democracy protesters took to the streets in cities and towns across the country after Muslim Friday prayers in defiance of a government crackdown. The death toll by early evening was far lower than last Friday when at least 44 people were killed by security forces during similar protests. Since the revolt in Syria erupted in mid-March, Friday protests have become a week ly ritual and are widely seen as a barometer of whether activists are able to maintain momentum despite the repression.

Meanwhile, Syrian security forces shot dead 12 demonstrators on Friday during protests against Baath Party rule that erupted in 91 locations across Syria, the Syrian National Organization for Human Rights said.

“The authorities are still pursuing the calculated course of using excessive violence and live ammunition to confront mass demonstrations,” the organization said in a statement yesterday. Scores of people of all walks of life were also arrested including a doctor, musician, and an amateur boxer, it said. It

GENEVA: Demonstrators shout slogans during a solidarity protest for Syria, in Geneva, Switzerland yesterday. Syrian activists have called for renewed protests in honor of a 13year-old boy who allegedly was tortured and killed by security forces. — AP said the killings occurred in rural districts around Damascus, in southern Syria, the northwestern province of Idlib, the coast and the central city of Homs. Activists on Friday had put the death toll at eight.

State television said nine people, including police and civilians, were killed by armed groups on Friday. The official state news agency SANA also said yesterday that customs officials seized 36 rifles in a truck coming from Turkey. Authorities blame armed groups, Islamists and foreign agents for the violence and say at least 120 soldiers and police have been killed since the protests erupted in March. Rights groups estimate at least 1,000 civilians have been killed by security forces, the army and gunmen loyal to President Bashar Al-Assad over 10 weeks.

They said 10,000 people have been arrested, with beatings and torture a common tactic.

Leaders of the G8 powers meeting in France on Friday condemned the violence and called on Damascus to respond to the Syrian people’s “legitimate demands for freedom.” Washington and the European Union

Canada takes strong pro-Israel line at G8 Canada insists on ‘no mention of 1967 border’ DEAUVILLE: Group of Eight leaders had to soften a statement urging Israel and the Palestinians to return to negotiations because Canada objected to a specific mention of 1967 borders, diplomats said yesterday. Canada’s right-leaning Conservative government has adopted a staunchly pro-Israel position in international negotiations since coming to power in 2006, with Prime Minister Stephen Harper saying Canada will back Israel whatever the cost. Diplomats involved in Middle East discussions at the G8 summit said Ottawa had insisted that no mention of Israel’s pre1967 borders be made in the leaders’ final communique, even though most of the other leaders wanted such a reference.

The communique called for the immediate resumption of peace talks but did not mention

1967, the year Israel seized the West Bank and Gaza from Jordan and Egypt during the Six-Day War. US President Barack Obama last week laid out a vision for peace in the Middle East, saying pre-1967 borders should be a basis for talks to achieve a negotiated settlement. Israel quickly dismissed the idea as unworkable. “The Canadians were really very adamant, even though Obama expressly referred to 1967 borders in his speech last week,” one European diplomat said.

Harper, pressed repeatedly by reporters, declined to confirm he had objected to the language on borders but said he would oppose what he called unbalanced statements on finding peace in the Middle East. “We are very much at ease with President Obama’s speech but you cannot cherry pick elements of that

speech,” he said. “If you’re going to get into other elements then obviously I would have liked to see a reference to elements that were also in ... (the) speech, such as for instance the fact that one of the states must be a Jewish state, the fact that the Palestinian state must be demilitarized.”

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman thanked Canada for taking a “brave stand” at the conference, his spokesman said in a statement. It added that Lieberman had thanked his counterpart, John Bird, for Canada’s understanding that “the 67 lines do not fit in with Israel’s security requirements and the current demographic situation”, a reference to Jewish settlements Israel has built in the occupied West Bank.

The G8 communique said: “Negotiations are the only way

toward a comprehensive and lasting resolution to the conflict.”

It added: “The framework for these negotiations is well known ... We express our strong support for the vision of Israeli-Palestinian peace outlined by President Obama.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel would be indefensible if it returned entirely to the borders that existed before 1967.

Canada’s strong backing for Israel was cited by diplomats last year as one reason why Ottawa failed to win a rotating two-year seat on the United Nations Security Council. In the wake of the vote, Harper said: “When Israel, the only country in the world whose very existence is under attack, is consistently and conspicuously singled out for condemnation, I believe we are morally obligated to take a stand.” — Reuters

Arab League chief backs UN path for Palestinians DOHA: The head of the Arab League said yesterday the Palestinians should seek UN recognition for their statehood in September because negotiations with Israel have proven futile. “The sound path is going to the United Nations and political struggle,” Amr Moussa said.

He was speaking in Doha, where Arab League member states met yesterday to discuss Palestinian options in the wake of major policy speeches by US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Moussa said a vision presented by Netanyahu in a speech to the US Congress this week had amounted to a series of “no’s”. “I believe that negotiations have become futile in light of all of these no’s. What will you negotiate on?” Moussa said, referring to the Netanyahu speech which the Palestinians said put more obstacles in the path of the moribund peace process. Netanyahu said he was willing to make concessions for peace but repeated terms long rejected by the Palestinians, including an insistence that they recognize Israel as a Jewish state and accept Israel keeping settlement blocs in the occupied West Bank.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in Doha for the meeting of the Arab League’s peace process committee, said this week he would seek UN recognition for Palestinian statehood if there was no breakthrough in the peace process by September. The Palestinians currently have the status of UN observers without voting rights, but are hoping that at September’s General Assembly they can persuade other nations to accept them as a sovereign member. Both Netanyahu and Obama have criticized the move, and although US opposition means the Palestinians have very little chance of success, the Israelis fear the maneuvering will leave them looking increasingly vulnerable on the diplomatic front. — Reuters

GAZA: A Palestinian child looks through the window of a Tuk-Tuk, a three-wheel vehicle, in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip yesterday. — AP

have already imposed sanctions against Assad and other Syrian officials. But Russia and China have been more reticent in denouncing Assad. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that the bodies of seven protesters killed on April 29 near the southern city of Deraa were handed to their families yesterday, including two which it said showed marks of torture.

“We have the testimony of hundreds who were tortured, including scores of videos,” Observatory Director Rami Abdel Rahman said by telephone from Britain. Witness repor ts of the violence, and official accounts, are hard to verify independently because Assad’s government barred most international media from the country not long after the start of the unrest, which was sparked by democratic revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia. The biggest demonstrations typically occur on Fridays after Muslim prayers and they have also generally been the deadliest. But the bloodshed this week appeared to be on a lesser scale than witnessed recently. — Agencies

Egypt’s Mubarak fined $91 million CAIRO: An Egyptian administrative court fined ousted President Hosni Mubarak and two former officials 540 million Egyptian pounds ($91 million) yesterday for cutting off mobile and internet services during protests in January. It was the first court ruling to be made against Mubarak since he was ousted on Feb 11.

Mubarak faces more serious charges, including ordering the killing of protesters, a charge which could carry the death penalty. A judicial source said the administrative court fined Mubarak 200 million Egyptian pounds, former Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif 40 million pounds, and former Interior Minister Habib el-Adly 300 million pounds.

The court ruled that Mubarak, Nazif and Adly were guilty of “causing damage to the national economy” and the fines would be paid to the country’s treasury.

Political analyst Nabil Abdel Fattah called the ruling “extremely important”, saying it would change the way the Egyptian government deals with the communication revolution. “This ruling will be a turning point for the standing and decisions of some Egyptian entities still living in an authoritarian culture regarding how to deal with communication services and the freedoms they offer,” Abdel Fattah said. The 18-day uprising that toppled Mubarak was largely web-based, and was organised by groups on Facebook.

At least 800 people were killed during 18 days of protests that toppled Mubarak, and more than 6,000 were wounded by live ammunition, rubber bullets, water cannons and batons.

Telecoms operator Vodafone said in January it and other mobile operators

CAIRO: Egyptian protesters chant slogans as they attend a rally in Tahrir square in Cairo on Friday, May 27, 2011. — AP had no option but to comply with an order from the authorities to suspend services in selected areas of the country during the peak of the anti-government demonstrations. In February, Vodafone also accused the authorities of using its network to send pro-government text messages to subscribers.

Communications and Information Technology Minister Maged Othman said his ministry planned to pay compensation estimated at around 100 million pounds to mobile telecoms operators for losses caused by the service disruption, the state news agency MENA said. — Reuters

Chinese troops seal off Inner Mongolia towns BEIJING: Police sealed off parts of two county seats in China’s Inner Mongolia for a second day yesterday in what residents described as a kind of martial law after protests triggered by the death of a Mongolian herder run over by a Chinese truck driver. The demonstrations this past week in two counties and a nearby city are rare for Inner Mongolia, unlike China’s other troubled border regions of Tibet and Xinjiang which have erupted in violent protests in recent years.

While no protests were reported yesterday, residents said police continued to cordon off streets leading to government buildings in the seats of the two counties, known as Zhenglan and Xiwu in Chinese or Shuluun Huh and Ujumchin in Mongolian. “Martial law was imposed around the government again today. About 100 armed police carrying

batons are stationed there. People are barred from entering that area,” said a retiree living in the Zhenglan county seat who was reached by phone. He would only identify himself by his surname, Wang.

High school students in Zhenglan were also being kept in school over the weekend to prevent them from protesting, according to a New York-based advocacy group, the Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center. It said universities and schools in at least two other major cities in the region were under tight security, and chat rooms on a popular instant messaging service were being closed down.

The report could not be independently verified. Calls to government offices rang unanswered, or in the case of Xilinhot city - near the two troubled

counties - a duty officer referred questions to the cellphone of the government’s chief secretary, which also was not answered.

With tensions high, Amnesty International urged the government to exercise restraint. “The Chinese authorities must respect freedom of expression and assembly for protesters. Given the heavy handed repression of similar protests in other regions, like Xinjiang and Tibet, there are real grounds for concern about the situation in Inner Mongolia,” Catherine Baber, the group’s Asia Pacific deputy director, said in a statement. The protests are believed to be the region’s largest in 20 years.

Protests occurred every day this past week in the two county seats and Xilinhot, with the largest a march by thousands of Mongolians led by stu-

dents in uniform on Wednesday in Xilinhot. Hundreds of herders marched in Zhenglan on Friday until they were stopped by police. Accounts differ over whether a clash ensued. Behind the protests is a sense that Mongolian identity is under threat. Their traditional way of life - herding sheep and cattle - has almost disappeared as the grasslands give out to mining, farming and urban sprawl. A coal mining boom is accelerating the degradation, and a standoff between herders and coal truckers precipitated the recent protests.

Angry at truckers for driving over their grazing lands, herders blocked a road, and one truck driver struck and killed a herder, Mergen, who like many Mongolians goes by one name.

Authorities later arrested two Chinese in the incident. — AP

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Malta votes in divorce referendum Vote seen as test of Catholic Church’s influence VALLETTA: The people of Malta started voting yesterday in a referendum on whether or not to introduce divorce.

The Mediterranean island of 400,000 people is the only country in Europe that does not allow the practice. A member of the ruling centre-right Nationalist Party, Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando, shocked his own party in July last year when he presented a bill in parliament for the introduction of a conservative form of divorce. The proposal is based on the Irish model, where couples have to be separated for

four years before being eligible.

Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi, who is strongly against divorce but lacks room for maneuver because his government only has a one-seat majority in parliament, eventually decided that since no mention of divorce was made before the last election, the people’s mood must be judged in a referendum.

Opposition leader Joseph Muscat says he is strongly in favor of divorce, even if he is “the last man standing”. Some of his own party, however, are against.

“The divorce referendum is a vote for

modernity and an opportunity for those whose marriage has broken down to be able to start afresh,” Muscat said on Thursday, the last day of campaigning.

For Gonzi, however, divorce offers “no solutions”. “We have to help people whose marriage has broken down, but we also have to help couples prepare better for marriage so that marriages do not break down and the value of an indissoluble marriage is bequeathed to the young,” Gonzi said. The vote is seen as a test of the influence of the Roman

Catholic Church in a country where 72 percent of people still say they go to Mass on Sundays. Nearly all marriages between Maltese are held at the altar.

Although marriage breakdowns, cohabitation and children born out of wedlock have risen sharply, couples at present may only legally separate, without having the right to remarry.

Marriage annulments are granted very rarely by a Church tribunal in a process which lasts several years. An annulment is a declaration that the marriage ‘never existed’ - usually

because one of the partners had some impediment that the other did not know about. Only divorce granted abroad is recognized in Malta. Opinion polls suggest the result could go either way, with 40 percent of the electorate still undecided. The political parties kept out of direct campaigning in the referendum, mindful that their supporters are split over the issue. They have told their followers to vote according to their conscience. The result will be known today afternoon.— Reuters

Kazakh opposition calls for halt to Chinese expansion Activists gather in Almaty

OKUMA: The International Atomic Energy Agency fact-finding team leader Mike Weightman inspects Reactor Unit 3 at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in Okuma, Fukushima prefecture, northern Japan.— AP

High radiation levels detected off Japan coast TOKYO: Japan has revealed radiation up to several hundred times normal levels has been detected on the seabed off the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, a report said yesterday.

The science ministry announced late Friday highly radioactive materials were detected in a 300-k ilometre north-south stretch from Kesennuma in Miyagi Prefecture to Choshi in Chiba Prefecture, the Kyodo news agency reported. The ministry warned that the contamination could affect the safety of seafood, the report said, without giving figures for the radiation levels detected. The science ministry said it detected iodine and caesium on the seabed at 12 locations 15 to 50 kilometers from the coastline between May 9 and 14.

The news follows an announcement by environmental activist group Greenpeace on Thursday that marine life it had tested in waters more than 20 kilometers off the Fukushima

nuclear plant showed radiation above legal limits.

The anti-nuclear group, which conducted the coastal and offshore tests this month, criticized Japanese authorities for their “continued inadequate response to the Fukushima nuclear crisis” sparked by the March 11 quake and tsunami. Greenpeace said it detected seaweed radiation levels 50 times higher than official limits, which it charged raised “serious concerns about continued long-term risks to people and the environment from contaminated seawater”.

It also said that tests, which it said were independently verified by French and Belgian laboratories, showed above -legal levels of radioactive iodine-131 and caesium-137 in several species of fish and shellfish. In the aftermath of the quake small amounts of radiation from Fukushima spread across Asia, deepening concerns for millions of people in countries which

had already imposed bans on Japanese produce from near the nuclear plant. The governments of China, South Korea, the Philippines and Vietnam reported that radiation had drifted over their territories, although they emphasized the levels were so low that there was no health risk.

Fukushima prefecture has said that no fishing is going on at the moment in its waters. Japan’s fisheries agency, and neighboring prefectures, have been checking marine products at different spots, and the government has prohibited fishermen from catching some species found to have elevated radiation levels. Hong Kong said Friday it had detected a small amount of radioactive iodine-131 in a sample of grey mullet but it was well below government limits. The Hong Kong government did not say whether the iodine could be traced to the Fukushima plant. —AFP

Poland a model for democracy: Obama WARSAW: Capping an extensive trip to Europe, President Barack Obama said yesterday that the United States must always “leave room” to throw financial and moral support behind nations fighting for freedoms even during times of employment troubles and high gas prices at home. In Poland, which Obama hailed as world model of democratic transition, he said it is the responsibility of the US to support the sometimes wrenching, roiling push for democracy and human rights around the globe.

In defending his drive to improve US relations with Russia, Obama also made clear to protect Poland’s security against any threats in its neighborhood, leaving no doubt about the NATO code of members: “We defend each other.” The president sought to build his case that America and the international communi-

ty have a vested stake in the Arab revolt that is defining much of North Africa and the Middle East. He said the US cannot dictate outcomes but can help, and he cited Poland as inspiration.

“Poland’s story demonstrates how a proud and determined and enthusiastic people can overcome extraordinary challenges and build a democracy,” the president said at a brief news conference as his six-day trip to Ireland, England, France and Poland neared its end.

Obama is set to return home to familiar domestic challenges over debt and the pace of job creation as the field of potential Republican presidential contenders takes shape and draws growing attention. A tired-looking president seemed ready to head home, even counting down the days at one point in his trip. Polish Prime Minister Donald

Tusk said Obama’s enthusiastic visit to his country and the recognition by the United States of the importance of helping Poland have made a lasting difference. “We feel in Poland that you are one of us,” Tusk said to Obama. Obama’s comments came on a day in which he met in this capital city with dozens of leaders of Poland’s Solidarity movement, as well as civil society leaders. Some of them have already traveled to Tunisia where popular uprisings led to the overthrow of a longtime autocrat and sparked the protest movements that still sweep through the region, often with violent results as authoritarian governments crack down.

The US president said democratic movements will endure setbacks and require more than a burst of energy. He called for institutional change with the support of the outside world, saying US support helps people realize that “change is possible.” “Poland can play an extraordinary role precisely because they have traveled so far, so rapidly over the last 25 years,” Obama said of a nation that shed communism and held strong even during a weak global economy. To those at home, Obama said: “I want the American people to understand we’ve got to leave room for us to continue our tradition of providing leadership when it comes to freedom, democracy, human rights.” After the news conference, Obama’s final stop in Poland was at the Field Cathedral of the Polish Military, site of a memorial for the 90 people, including former President Lech Kaczynski, who were killed in a plane crash last year.— AP

ALMATY: Opposition activists in Kazakhstan called on the government yesterday to stop Chinese investment in the country’s natural resources, saying Beijing could be preparing a land grab in Central Asia. Several hundred people gathered in Almaty, the country’s largest city, for an officially sanctioned rally against Chinese expansion into Kazakhstan, a vast former Soviet republic holding 3 percent of the world’s recoverable oil reserves.

“Chinese relations to resource exploitation have imperialist undertones,” said Vladimir Kozlov, leader of the unregistered Alga! opposition party. China’s growing clout in Kazakhstan and other former Soviet republics in Central Asia is underpinned by billions of dollars of investment in the region’s oil, gas and metals reserves, including a $10 billion “loan-for-oil” deal agreed in 2009. Beijing’s foray across its 1,530 km border with Kazakhstan represents a challenge to Russia, which sees the country as part of its sphere of influence, as well as to European hopes that it can be a major new supplier of energy.

Opposition leaders, who

addressed the crowd in a small park in the outer suburbs of Almaty, said Chinese loans were being used by the billionaire shareholders of oil and mining companies to further their own ambitions. “The Chinese have only one aim-to take our land,” said Aliam Turdiyeva, 42, who described herself a social activist.

“The Chinese are not to blame. It’s our corruptible officials.” Activists waved red and white banners bearing slogans such as: ‘The fate of our land is the fate of our people’.

The government denies that China could grab land. Kazakh law permits foreigners to lease land for agricultural use for a maximum period of 10 years but forbids them from owning land. Kazakhstan, a mainly Muslim country of 16.4 million people, has attracted more than $120 billion in foreign investment since gaining independence in 1991. Official data show Chinese investment in Kazakhstan had reached $5 billion by the end of last year, slightly less than 4 percent of the country’s total foreign direct investment. Chinese companies control 22.5 percent of Kazakhstan’s oil output, though the government

forecasts this will decline to 19.3 percent in 2015 and 8.9 percent by 2020. China’s Foreign Ministr y, referring to its plans in Central Asia, has previously said it has “no plans to garrison its people in foreign lands”.

Pensioner Semyon Badyanov, 75, said foreign investment had degraded Kazakhstan’s industrial base. The engine factory where he once worked has long since closed down, he said. “Our natural resources are in the hands of foreign companies.

How much of the profits that they generate remain in the hands of the people?” he said. Kozlov said he was concerned about the longterm effects of Kazakhstan’s indebtedness to China. “We see the potential for a situation whereby one day, when it comes to repaying nearly $20 billion to China, we will have no money and no oil-because the oil is no longer ours,” he said. “We will start giving away our territory. We have lots of it and we have a common border, so the map could be redrawn to give away a couple of thousands hectares here and there.”—Reuters

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US State Department names new spokesperson WASHINGTON: The US State Department has named diplomat Victoria Nuland as its new spokesperson, two months after her predecessor quit in a row over a soldier alleged to have leaked secret documents. Mark Toner, who has been giving the daily news briefings in the interim and whom the State Department said will remain as deputy spokesman, introduced Nuland to the State Department press corps on Friday. Nuland, who was last year named the special envoy for Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, served

as the US ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) from 2005-2008, the State Department said.

Nuland, a career foreign service officer, was also principal deputy national security advisor to then vice president Dick Cheney from 20032005, it said. She replaces Philip Crowley, a retired air force colonel who resigned March 13 after slamming the Pentagon’s treatment of a US solider suspected of leaking diplomatic cables and military documents to WikiLeaks as “counterproductive.” “Given the impact of

my remarks, for which I take full responsibility, I have submitted my resignation as assistant secretary for public affairs and spokesman for the Department of State,” Crowley said at the time.

When asked at a forum on new media and diplomacy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) about the United States’ “torturing” of Private First Class Bradley Manning, Crowley was blunt and critical.

Manning, 23, was arrested in June while deployed to Iraq amid suspicions he had

passed a trove of secret US government documents to WikiLeaks, an anti-secrecy website, which were then published around the world.

Crowley said the Defense Department’s treatment of Manning, which included solitary confinement and being forced to sleep naked, “is ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid,” BBC reporter Philippa Thomas wrote on her blog.

“Nonetheless Bradley Manning is in the right place,” Crowley said, adding “there is sometimes a need for secrets” to advance US

diplomatic interests. Later that day, US President Barack Obama insisted the Pentagon’s treatment of Manning was appropriate.

On March 2, the US military unveiled 22 additional charges against Manning including the serious offense of “aiding the enemy,” which carries a potential death sentence. But the Army said he would face a maximum penalty of life in prison if convicted. The State Department said Mike Hammer is the acting assistant secretary for public affairs. — AFP

Severe storms wreak havoc across East US Tornado death toll mounts amid search

MONTERREY: A state policeman stands next to a dead man after unknown gunmen opened fire on a taxi stand, killing five men in the northern industrial city of Monterrey on Friday May 27, 2011. — AP

Criminal deportees worry Mexican border mayors MEXICO CITY: Mexico’s border mayors say they are worried about a possible surge in deportations of criminals to their cities after a US Supreme Court ruling ordered California to reduce its prison population by 33,000. Mayors of 14 border cities from Tijuana to Matamoros meeting in Mexico City on Friday say they already have problems because US authorities often don’t warn them when migrants with criminal records are deported to Mexico. “There are indications they are going to clean out their prisons,” said Manuel Baldenebro, mayor of the city of San Luis Rio Colorado, Sonora, which sits on the border with California and Arizona.

“They (migrant inmates) are a burden, and if they are trying to economize in their jails, they see it as better to send them back.” Baldenebro said the notion of more criminals has caused “fear and insecurity” in cities already plagued by a stubborn wave of drug-related violence that has killed more than 35,000 people nationally since 2006. While there are no tracking systems to determine what happens to deported criminals, at least one, Martin Estrada Luna, is accused of becoming a leader of a cell of the Zetas drug gang in the border state of Tamaulipas just 18 months after he was deported from the United States. Estrada, who had a long rap sheet of mostly theft and property crimes

in Washington state, is now in custody in Mexico City, where he is accused for masterminding the killing of more than 250 people. According to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, about 10 percent of its 162,694 inmates are from Mexico, the majority undocumented. The supreme court ordered California on Monday to reduce its prison population to ease overcrowding. California officials say they are looking at a number of possible ways to comply with the ruling, including transferring inmates to local facilities.

While there has been no mention of stepping up deportations, there are currently programs in the US to actively identify migrants in the US prison system and deport them upon release. “Our plan will be submitted to the three-judge panel on June 6 on how the state plans to comply with the population reduction order,” said corrections spokeswoman Terry Thornton. “It’s still being worked on.”

Spokesmen for Gov. Jerry Brown did not immediately return a telephone message.

Under a tough-on-crime immigration crackdown, half of the 393,000 people depor ted from the United States between October 2009 and September 2010 were convicted of crimes, from minor offenses to murder. While the US doesn’t specify their countries, the vast majority are from Mexico. — Agencies

Zelaya’s return ends Honduras long crisis TEGUCIGALPA: The return of ousted former President Manuel Zelaya from exile brings Honduras’ nearly two-year political crisis to an end and hope to one of the poorest nations in the Americas.

Zelaya’s comeback will also pave the way for Honduras to re-enter the international community, which near-unanimously rejected the June 2009 military-backed coup that forced him from office and saw him whisked out of the Central American country at gunpoint in his pajamas.

The deposed former leader on Friday traveled from the Dominican Republic, where he lived more than a year in exile, to Nicaragua in preparation for his return. He is expected to make a public appearance in Honduras’ capital, Tegucigalpa with Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro.

A lunch is set after his arrival with current Honduras President Porfirio Lobo and Jose Miguel Insulza, secretary general of the Organization of American States, according to the organization.

The OAS as well as the governments of Colombia and Venezuela are supervising the safe return of Zelaya, more than two years after he was removed by the military after ignoring a Supreme Court order to cancel a referendum asking Hondurans if they favored changing the constitution. His detractors claimed he wanted to hijack the democratic process so he could be re-elected. Zelaya has denied that was his intention. Re-election is something the Honduran constitution still prohibits.

His supporters say he was ousted because of his plans to reform Honduras’ political and economic status quo and his increasingly close relationship with leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Violent protests for and against the removal of Zelaya were staged near the presidential palace and Tegucigalpa’s main square following the coup. Now Zelaya returns to a country that has since enacted many of the changes he advocated. Zelaya’s idea of holding a referendum to amend the constitution - the

MONTPELIER: Violent weather swept across the Eastern seaboard overnight, dropping heavy rains that flooded towns from New England to Georgia, knocking out power and killing at least three people in the Atlanta area. Intense thunderstorms stalled over central Vermont, pushing rivers over their banks and ripping up streets.

About 200 people were forced from their homes. Churning brown water from the rising Winooski River and a tributary flooded into the streets of Vermont’s capital city, Montpelier, sending business owners with inundated basements scurrying to move merchandise to higher ground. “It looked like the river was right there on my porch,” said Darlene Colby, 47, who was woken up by police around 1 am.

She gathered a bag for belongings for herself and 25-year-old son and spent the rest of the night at a shelter. School was canceled for the day in Montpelier and a number of other communities in central Vermont, and state workers were given a delayed opening. Plainfield, just east of the capital city of Montpelier, got 5.22 inches of rain, St Johnsbury got 4.74 inches, and Montpelier got 3.89 inches, the National Weather Service said. There was also flash-flooding in parts of northern New Hampshire, with some homes evacuated in the Littleton area and a few roads washed out.

In eastern Pennsylvania, a tornado that touched down Thursday in Schuylkill County was the second twister to hit the area this week, the National Weather Service said. Another tornado hit Franklin County in south-central Pennsylvania. The weather service said the twister had top winds of 90 mph and traveled 200 yards, but no one was injured. In the western Pennsylvania town of Seward, high winds toppled a circus tent, injuring five people, including three children.

About 120,000 customers of PPL Electric Utilities lost power across the state. Power was restored to about 72,000 by Friday evening, but the company said

JOPLIN: A devastated Joplin, Mo neighborhood is seen yesterday.

An EF-5 tornado tore through much of the city, damaging a hospital and hundreds of homes and businesses and killing at least 132 people. — AP the hardest-hit areas might not see electricity until today. In eastern New York, about 65,000 utility customers lacked power. Most of the New York outages Friday were in the Binghamton area.

Toppled trees and flooded roads were reported Thursday in the Lake Champlain community of Willsboro, and a lightning strike was blamed for setting a home on fire Thursday evening. No one was injured. In Georgia, two Decatur women were killed in Atlanta when a tree fell on a truck, police said. Atlanta station WSB-T V reported that a 19-year-old man was killed in Mableton when a tree fell on him while he cleared debris from a driveway. Power was knocked out to more than 200,000 customers statewide, utilities said. High winds toppled trees in the Macon and Columbus areas.

A flash flood warning was issued for portions of Fulton and DeKalb counties in the Atlanta area.

Meanwhile, the death toll from

one of the worst tornadoes ever to hit the United States has risen to 132 as crews continued to search the rubble for survivors and victims. Five days after the massive tornado cut a miles-long path of destruction through this town of 50,000, officials have managed to pare down the list of the missing to 156 from 232. But for those families who are still waiting for news, the wait has been agonizing and many have mounted their own searches. Teenager Will Norton was sucked from his father’s Hummer as they drove home from his high school graduation.

Dozens of people have been helping his family search the debris field-even heading out in a small plane to scan areas farther afield-but they have had no luck.

“We are still looking. We have not found Will but we are still looking,” his aunt Tracey Presslor posted Friday evening on a Facebook page set up to organize search

efforts that has garnered mass outpourings of support. “Keep the faith. He’s out there somewhere. God bless everyone. We feel the love and we send it,” she wrote.

Friday’s steep decline in the number of missing persons came after the Missouri Department of Public Safety published a list of 232 persons unaccounted for and discovered that 90 people on the list were in fact alive, spokesman Seth Bundy said. Bundy said an additional six people on the list were determined to have died, two were duplicate names, and an additional 22 missing persons reports were filed, bringing the official number of missing to 156.

Officials said many of the missing were likely to be among the dead, but a full accounting is impossible until next of kin are notified.

“Are there individuals who are on the missing list and in fact deceased and in the morgue? Yes,” said Bundy. “How many, I won’t speculate.” Bundy said so far 19 among the 132 bodies recovered have been positively identified and their next of kin notified, and that the state was working as fast as it could. “We have people working 24 hours around the clock to do the DNA, investigate the missing persons, talk with the families.

It’s all hands on deck 24/7,” he said.

Still the process is an agonizingly slow one for families of the victims because they have not been allowed into the Joplin morgue to make identifications.

Officials have said visual identification isn’t sufficiently accurate.

But there could be a grimmer reason-half of the bodies are reportedly too badly damaged to be identifiable. Sharyn Dawson has been searching for her 74-yearold mother-in-law, Patricia Dawson, whose apartment building was completely destroyed Sunday. She said she can sympathize with the difficulty officials have had in confirming the identities of the victims, but said it has left her with little choice but to keep looking until there is news. — Agencies

Report queries Haiti death toll, homeless

TEGUCIGALPA: White hats, bearing the message in Spanish: “Welcome Commander Mel, the battle continues,” are available for sale in Tegucigalpa. — AP final straw which led to the coup - is now a law. An agreement signed last week that allows the safe return of Zelaya will allow him to form his own political party and potentially end Honduras’ longstanding and rigid two-party system. A court dismissed arrest warrants for Zelaya, who faced charges of fraud and falsifying documents, and then dropped the charges.

“For a country under the illusion of advancing and no longer being isolated on the continent, they had to make certain concessions, including allowing Zelaya to return to Honduras without being prosecuted,” said Jairo Velasquez, international relations professor at La Sabana University in Bogota, Colombia.

Lobo - who was elected president in elections scheduled before the coup said he doesn’t see a contradiction in enacting what the coup sought to avoid. “That’s life,” he said recently at the close of a business forum. “One does not govern for today. One governs so that tomorrow they can say how well you did.” — AP

PORT-AU-PRINCE: Haitian officials reacted skeptically yesterday to a draft US report that questioned both the death toll in last year’s earthquake and the numbers left homeless.

The draft report, based on a survey commissioned by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), argues that far fewer people died in the devastating 2010 quake than has been thought. It also suggests that many of those still living in squalid tent cities did not lose their homes in the disaster. The draft report, dated May 13 and which has yet to be released, draws its estimates from doorto-door surveys carried out by the agency over 29 days in January.

Challenging the commonly accepted death toll of 250,000 people, it proposes a far smaller figure. “The number of fatalities that resulted from the earthquake is estimated at 46,190 to 84,961, approximately 2.2 percent of the population,” it says. The report, a copy of which has been obtained by AFP, also questions official UN figures that around 680,000 people remain homeless. It argues that only between 5 percent and 10 percent of that number moved into the street from crumbled homes. The draft report said its own findingsand data from Haiti’s ministry of public workssuggested that the UN estimates were “improbable figures”.

There was no comment Friday from the office of President Michel Martelly. But a government spokesman, who asked not to be named, expressed surprise, saying: “Honestly, I have never heard of these figures. “The official figures remain the same. It’s surprising that we would talk about new figures now.” And one government minister, who also spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity, said he found it “curious that the new figures had appeared more than a year after the catastrophe. “The official numbers that I am aware of remain the same and that is between 250,000 and

300,000 dead,” the minister added.

US State Department Mark Toner, which oversees USAID, acknowledged they had commissioned the report from Washingtonbased firm LTL Strategies. But he added: “The first draft of the report contained internal inconsistencies with its own findings. “We are reviewing these inconsistencies with LTL Strategies to ensure information we release is accurate.” In the months after the disaster, the USAID’s Foreign Disaster Assistance funded a multi-million project to assess the safety of nearly every earthquake-damaged home in Haiti. The project was led by the Pan American Development Foundation, working with the well-known structural engineering firm, Miyamoto International and Haiti’s ministry of public works (MTPTC).

It moved across the island, identifying which homes it considered “totally unsafe” or “mostly unsafe”. The follow-up study, commis-

sioned by USAID and carried out in January, conducted more than 2,000 in-depth surveys across low-income neighborhoods in Port-auPrince. It found that 64 percent of houses designated as “totally unsafe” and more than 90 percent of those designated “mostly unsafe” had already been reoccupied. Entitled “Building Assessments and Rubble Removal in Quake-Affected Neighborhoods in Haiti,” the report could have major implications for the future of aid and reconstruction to the impoverished nation.

The United States, along with other international donors, has pumped millions of dollars into Haiti in a bid to help it get back on its feet after the quake leveled much of the capital, Port-au-Prince. The issue of the homeless was brought to the fore this week when Wilson Jeudy, the mayor of Delmas, a large district of Port-au-Prince, evicted residents from two camps in public spaces. — AFP

PORT-AU-PRINCE: Children walk along a garbage lined street in the Cite Soleil slum in Port-au-Prince. As the rainy season begins in Haiti, local and international health experts are concerned about the spread of water-borne diseases including cholera. — AP

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Suicide bomber kills 8 tribesmen in Pakistan Pakistani worried about Islamist infiltration KHAR: A suicide bomber targeted pro-government tribal elders in Pakistan’s northwestern frontier yesterday, killing eight men, officials said, a day after US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton during a visit here implored Pakistanis to take decisive steps to fight terrorism. Eight men died and 10 were wounded when a bomb ripped through a restaurant at a market in the troubled Bajur tribal region, near the Afghan border, officials said. Hours later, a government administrator, Shad Khan, said a man on foot carried out the attack. “Now we have concluded that it was a suicide attack,” he said.

Pakistani Taleban spokesman, Ahsanullah Ahsan, claimed responsibility, saying the elders were targeted because they were helping the security forces. The latest attack underscored the militants’ ability to strike at the tribesmen, who have often sided with government troops in efforts to rout insurgents. It came a day

standings and that the two sides would cooperate on raids against terror suspects.

Her comments at a weekly news briefing came hours after the suicide attack in the village of Salarzai. Bajur is considered a militant stronghold and violence has persisted there since last year, when the military claimed that it

an 18-hour siege of a naval base in Pakistan’s south.

Top Pakistani military officials are concerned that their ranks have been penetrated by Islamists aiding militants in a campaign against the state, The Washington Post reported late Friday. The top Pakistani military commander, General Ashfaq

QUETTA: Pakistani protesters rally against United States in Quetta. Visiting US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said that relations between the United States and Pakistan had reached a turning point after the killing of Osama bin Laden and Islamabad must take “decisive steps” in the days ahead to fight terrorism. —AP after Clinton and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, made a seven-hour trip to Pakistan in a bid to repair ties damaged by the US raid that killed Osama bin Laden, which Pakistanis say was an attack on its sovereignty. Yesterday, Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tahmina Janjua said Clinton’s visit had helped clear up misunder-

had defeated Taleban and AlQaeda militants after more than a year of fighting. On Thursday, a Pakistani Taleban suicide bomber detonated a pickup truck loaded with explosives near several government offices in northwest Pakistan, killing at least 32 people.

Thursday’s blast was the latest in a series of attacks to hit the country since the bin Laden raid, including

Kayani, was shaken by the discovery of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden close to a Pakistani military academy, the newspaper said. He told US officials in a recent meeting that his first priority was “bringing our house in order,” the paper reported, citing an unnamed senior Pakistani intelligence official.

“We are under attack, and the

attackers are getting highly confidential information about their targets,” The Post quotes the official as saying. Western officials have long accused Pakistan’s intelligence services of playing a double game by fighting Islamist militants who pose a domestic threat, but protecting those fighting American troops in Afghanistan.

The United States has put pressure on Pakistan to lead a major air and ground offensive in North Waziristan, the most notorious Taleban and Al-Qaeda bastion, used to launch attacks across the border in Afghanistan.

Pakistan has always maintained that any such operation would be at its own time of choosing. It argues that its 140,000 troops committed to the northwest are too stretched those fighting militants who pose a domestic threat. US Secretar y of State Hillary Clinton, visiting Pakistan on Friday, said the United States was more committed to Pakistan after the Osama bin Laden crisis.

But she urged the country to take decisive steps to defeat AlQaeda.

According to The Post, US officials say they have no evidence that top Pakistani military or civilian leaders knew about bin Laden’s hiding place. Some say they doubt Kayani or Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, head of the military’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency, had direct knowledge, the report said. Others however, find it hard to believe they did not, particularly because Kayani was head of the ISI in 2005, when bin Laden is believed to have taken refuge in Abbottabad, the paper noted. US Navy commandos killed bin Laden there on May 2 in a raid that angered Islamabad because of US incursion on to their territory without prior notice.—Agencies

KATHMANDU: A Nepalese police officer watches as supporters of Nepal’s pro-monarch National Democratic Party hold a protest rally close to Nepal’s Constitutional Assembly building yesterday.—AP

Nepal’s leaders battle to avert fresh crisis KATHMANDU: Thousands of people gathered outside Nepal’s parliament yesterday to press lawmakers to extend the term of the assembly and avert a looming constitutional crisis in the troubled Himalayan nation. With just hours to go before parliament’s term expires, desperate efforts were under way to secure the survival of the assembly, elected in 2008 in landmark general elections that followed a 10-year civil war.

Nepal’s parliament, or Constituent Assembly (CA), was elected on a two-year mandate to fulfil the terms of the peace agreement that followed the conflict and write a new constitution for the world’s youngest republic. Despite being given an extra 12 months in 2010, it has been unable to complete either task, amid fierce disagreements between the main political parties. Unless lawmakers can agree on a fresh extension, its term expired at midnight yesterday, leaving the country in legal limbo. The coalition government, which includes the leftist UML (Unified Marxist-Leninist) and Maoist parties, has proposed a bill to give the assembly more time, but does not have the twothirds parliamentary majority it needs.

The main opposition Nepali Congress (NC) party is refusing to vote for an extension unless the Maoists, who waged a decade-long insurgency against the state before winning 2008 elections, give up their arms. But the Maoist party has so far refused to surrender its weapons to the government, resulting in a tense standoff. “There is no alternative but to extend parliament’s term,” said 48-year-old shop owner Jitman Thapa outside the CA building, where thousands of riot police were

deployed. “So many people have gathered here to voice their concern. But the leaders must deliver the constitution within the extended term.”

The widespread hope that followed the end of the war in 2006 and the abolition of the monarchy two years later has been replaced by a growing sense of anger and frustration in Nepal, one of the world’s poorest countries. Political instability-Nepal was without a government for seven months before the current prime minister was elected in Februaryhas stifled economic growth, forcing many Nepalese to seek work overseas.

Thousands of people have taken to the streets in recent weeks in protest at the slow pace of progress since the 2008 elections and politicians’ failure to complete the constitution.

Police said 12 people had been arrested yesterday for protesting outside the CA building, where barricades were erected to keep protesters away from the negotiations. “The situation is volatile and we want to make sure that none of the groups take advantage,” police spokesman Nawaraj Dhakal said.

Analysts predicted the tense negotiations would continue well into the evening, with little clear indication of what would happen if no agreement could be reached. The speaker of the house, Subas Chandra Nemwang, said the parties had no choice but to agree.

“They have time and again said that they are committed to the peace process and the constitution,” he said. “I hope they will put aside their differences and reach agreement on those two vital issues.” —AFP

New Delhi fumes over US military aid to Pakistan

KABUL: An Afghan policeman stands guard as an aerial view of Kabul city is seen from atop a hill in Kabul. —AP

Afghan soldiers take control of night raids KABUL: Afghan President Hamid Karzai has ordered the Defense Ministry to take control of night raids, one of the most controversial tactics used by foreign troops fighting the Taleban, in a move likely to stoke tensions between Kabul and its Western backers. NATO-led forces defended the night-time operations as “indispensable”, but also said they supported Karzai’s aim of making them Afghan-led and were working to achieve this.

Karzai, who has previously riled US and NATO leaders with criticism of night raids, said in a statement from his office that Afghan troops should be carrying out the sensitive night raids themselves. “President Hamid Karzai ordered the Defense Ministry to prevent foreign troops from uncoordinated and arbitrary operations and bring night raids under its control,” the statement said. “The president stresses that special operations and night raids must be independently conducted by Afghan troops.”

Afghans say the raids, carried out in darkness on houses suspected of harboring insurgents or being used as a store for weapons, often lead to civilian casualties.

Foreign troops have defended them as key to gaining ground against insurgents, cutting down the leaders of a movement with more territory and influence than at any time since 2001. “We know we would not have seen the gains and progress made to date without the conduct of targeted, intelligence-driven night operations,” a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in a statement. “ISAF fully supports President Karzai’s intent to have Afghan forces increasingly in the lead for operations...We are working together to move from always having Afghan force participation, as we do now, to operations being Afghan-led.”

VIOLENT PROTESTS Karzai said the operations alienate Afghans from their government through violence, and cause discontent. Last November he called for the US military to end night raids. His latest demands come at a time of high anti-Western sentiment in Afghanistan and days after deadly protests by thousands of people against a night raid by NATO troops in which four people, including two women, were killed.

Twelve people were killed during violent protests and clashes with police in usually peaceful northern Takhar province and more 80 were wounded. Afghans, including Karzai, have condemned the raid and said the dead were four members of one family. NATO said that four armed insurgents, two of them women and one a senior member of Al-Qaeda linked Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), were killed in the raid on May 18. Despite the calls from Karzai for night raids to be banned, General David Petraeus, the commander of foreign troops in Afghanistan, has stepped up night raids since taking over running Afghan war last year.

Under a plan agreed by NATO leaders in Lisbon last year, foreign troops will begin handing over security responsibilities to Afghan troops from July with a plan to withdraw combat troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014. Despite the presence of some 150,000 foreign troops, violence in Afghanistan last year reached its deadliest phase since the US-led Afghan forces toppled the Taleban in 2001, with record casualties on all sides of the conflict. The Taleban this month announced the start of a long-awaited “spring offensive” vowing to carry out attacks, including suicide assaults, on foreign and Afghan troops and government officials. —Reuters

NEW DELHI: India has again denounced US military aid to Pakistan which it says is being used by Islamabad against Indian interests, local media reported yesterday.

New Delhi has long accused Pakistan’s powerful military of aiding militant attacks on Indian soil, including the 2008 Mumbai attacks, a charge Islamabad denies. “This (aid) is being used against us, which is not a nice gesture on the part of (the) US and we have raised this issue with them many times,” Defense Minister A K Antony was quoted as saying by the Indo-Asian News Service. US aid to Pakistan is viewed with concern in India and has been an irritant as Washington looks to upgrade strategic and economic ties with the emerging Asian power.

India’s charges against Islamabad received a boost after the star witness in a Chicago trial linked to the Mumbai attacks testified that Pakistan’s spy agency and elements in the military coordinated to plot the raid that killed at least 166 people. Pakistan has received $20.7 billion worth of US assistance over the past decade, about two-thirds of it military aid. US lawmakers have questioned the continuation of that aid since the discovery and killing by US forces of Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in a garrison town near Islamabad earlier this month. —Reuters

1,400 ‘missing’ in troubled Kashmir SRINAGAR: A human rights group in Indian Kashmir yesterday said it had documented the cases of more than 1,400 people who were victims of “enforced disappearances” in the revolt-hit region. The group said it had submitted the list of 1,417 names to Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah for an “independent and impartial” investigation. “This is a preliminary list of cases of enforced disappearances documented by us,” the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons said in a statement. The group says some 8,000 Kashmiri Muslims have disappeared since the insurgency against Indian rule erupted in 1989.

The list of missing was distributed at a protest at a park in Srinagar, summer capital of the Himalayan region. Dozens of relatives carrying photographs of their missing kin attended the silent sit-in to support demands for an independent commission to probe the cases of the missing. “The process of documentation of all cases of enforced disappearances is an enormous task,” said the group. Indian officials dispute the figures of human rights groups about the number of people who have disappeared since 1989, putting it at around 3,900 people. Government officials say many of the missing crossed into neighboring Pakistan to obtain weapons training and never returned. —AFP

MAZAR-I-SHARIF: Afghan military judges announce their final decision during a trial of three Afghan army finance officers. The accused were charged with stealing others salaries. —AP

Afghan army salary theft shows fraud widespread MAZAR-I-SHARIF: The theft took just a few keystrokes - a couple of numbers changed on a spreadsheet and suddenly one soldier’s salary was dumped into another’s bank account. For a long time, no one noticed. The three Afghan army officers didn’t divert the salaries of active duty soldiers. Instead they kept deserters on the books and directed their pay into their own accounts.

Sometimes they diverted bonuses. When 14 soldiers at a northern Afghan army base were eventually charged in the theft, about $22,000 had been stolen.

That’s not much in Afghanistan, where millions disappear from aid projects, government contracts and training programs. But the case is especially worrying as the US looks to start drawing down forces this summer because the theft occurred in one of the army’s elite commando units - using a system put in place precisely to prevent such fraud.

It’s a reminder that turning the Afghan army into a professional fighting force will likely stretch far beyond the NATO allies’ timeline to hand over control of security to the Afghan government by 2014.

Ten men were found guilty in a trial in April, and the three main conspirators received prison sentences of two to three years. All three plan to appeal. Both Afghan officers and their American advisers praised the trial as proof that misconduct is being reined in. “I’m upset that such an incident happened, but I’m glad that we are having the trial,” said Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zahi Azimi. “It is a lesson to others that anyone who steals in this way will end up in court.” The important thing, he said, is that the corruption was discovered and punished.

That almost didn’t happen. If it weren’t for the dogged pursuit by one military prosecutor, who withstood death threats and the anger of his superiors, the embezzlement would still be going on. Lt Abdul Wakil first

became suspicious when an informant alerted him in late 2010 that money was somehow being stolen from the payroll at his base, the 5th Commando Battalion in Mazar-iSharif. Wakil went to the commanding officer, Lt Col Mohammad Basir, with his suspicions.

“He refused to listen. He said there was no problem,” Wakil said.

Undaunted, Wakil started investigating on his own. As he examined the base’s payroll documents, something strange popped out: The battalion never seemed to lose any soldiers. Desertion is common in the Afghan army. Soldiers sign up for the mandatory three years, then leave whenever they’ve had enough. Sometimes they go AWOL for months, returning without explanation.

Normally a unit’s payroll shows these fluctuations. But the 5th Commando Battalion had no deserters. No one ever left and came back in.

Then Wakil compared the electronic spreadsheet emailed to the bank with the official paper copy. The computer file was different. The deserters’ bank account numbers had been changed to those of active duty soldiers. Wakil took the evidence to his superiors and opened an investigation last June. It took months for him to follow the money trail and unravel who received the stolen funds and how much. During that time, Wakil faced angry challenges from his superiors. Basir, the commanding officer, said the allegations were impossible, and he seemed to have a point. The computerized direct-deposit system was set up precisely to prevent such fraud. Before, officers routinely skimmed off some of the rank-and-file’s pay without soldiers ever realizing they were being cheated.

Now salaries went directly into soldiers’ bank accounts.

But, it turned out, there was another avenue for fraud. “No one understands the banking system, so no one saw the problem,” Wakil said. —AP

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ne ws Emiratis sail during the Al-Gaffal 60-ft traditional dhow sailing race between the island of Sir Bu Nair, near the Iranian coast, and the Gulf emirate of Dubai yesterday. — AFP

Blast kills powerful Afghan police chief Continued from Page 1 The effectiveness of the Taleban’s campaign could affect the size of President Barack Obama’s planned drawdown of US troops in July.

Taleban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said it was part of the insurgency’s assassination campaign against high-ranking government officials. The bombing also was meant to undercut a military offensive the Afghan National Army was planning to launch in the north, the Taleban spokesman said.

The most high-profile casualty was General Dawood Dawood, police chief of north Afghanistan, a former deputy interior minister and before that a close associate of mujahideen commander Ahmad Shah Masood. The loss of such a prominent and influential leader is a big blow to a force which is struggling to professionalise and shake off a reputation for abuse and corrup-

tion as foreign forces prepare to hand over security responsibilities in coming years. It may also complicate NATO efforts to prepare for the start of a security handover from foreign forces to Afghan soldiers and police in some parts of north Afghanistan.

German Defense Minister Thomas de Maiziere said yesterday night in Berlin that two German troops were killed and three wounded, including Gen. Markus Kneip, the NATO force’s commander for northern Afghanistan. Also killed were provincial police chief Gen Shah Jahan Noori, a secretary to the governor, and one of Dawood’s bodyguards, the health director said. In addition to the governor, nine other Afghans were wounded - a cameraman working in the governor’s office and eight Afghan troops. President Hamid Karzai condemned the attack, calling it a “barbaric act of terror”. The health director said a number of NATO troops were also wounded and were

taken to a military base. He could not provide details.

Violence has been on the rise in the north, where the Taliban, alQaida and fighters from other militant factions are known to be hiding, including the Haqqani network, Hezb-i-Islami and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. NATO has sent more troops to the north and has been pushing harder into militant-held areas. In Oct 2010, a bomb killed Kunduz Gov Mohammad Omar and 19 others in a crowded mosque in Takhar province. Omar was killed just days after he warned of escalating threats from Taleban and foreign fighters in the north. In February, a suicide bomber blew himself up at the entrance to an Afghan government office in neighboring Kunduz province, killing at least 30 people, including many who were waiting in line to obtain government identification cards. At least 40 others were wounded in the blast. — Agencies

Shaky truce eases conflict in Yemen Continued from Page 1 appears to be playing out along tribal, quasi-feudal lines. The political crisis has already cost the economy as much as $5 billion and immediate aid is needed to prevent a meltdown in the country with a nominal GDP of $31 billion, the countr y ’s trade minister told Reuters. “The economy should not be held hostage to the political crisis, because the situation is alarming,” Hisham Sharaf Abdalla said.

On Friday, Yemeni tribesmen said they had captured a military compound from elite troops loyal to the president 100 km outside Sanaa, widening a conflict hitherto concentrated mainly in the capital near the home of Ahmar. The fighting has overshadowed a largely peaceful protest movement that started months ago aimed at ending Saleh’s 33-year-long autocratic rule and inspired by uprisings that brought down the long-standing leaders of

Tunisia and Egypt.

Mediators have become exasperated with Saleh, saying he had repeatedly imposed new conditions each time a Gulf-led transition agreement was due for signing, most recently demanding a public signing ceremony. Machinegun fire and explosions rattled Sanaa this week before clashes eased after mediation efforts. Ahmar’s fighters evacuated government ministry buildings they had grabbed in return for a ceasefire and troops quitting their area. There was also an informal truce prevailing in a region northeast of Sanaa where tribes said on Friday said they had seized a military post. Yemeni air force fighters had strafed those tribal fighters with bombs and broke the sound barrier in flights over Sanaa.

There are worries that impoverished Yemen, where some 40 percent of the country’s 23 million people live on less than $2 a day, could

become a failed state located on a shipping lane through which 3 million barrels of oil pass daily. In the south, dozens of armed men believed to be from Al-Qaeda appeared to have full control of city of Zinjibar in the flashpoint province of Abyan on Saturday, a day after storming the city and chasing out security forces, residents said.

The United States and Saudi Arabia, both targets of foiled attacks by the Yemen wing of Al-Qaeda, are concerned any spread of anarchy could embolden the militant group.

With the political strife, the Yemenbased Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is likely to have more freedom to use a proven talent for daring bombing plots, analysts said. “Given how distracted Saleh’s government is in its attempts to cling to power, AQAP has much more open space in which to operate at the moment,” said Yemen scholar Gregor y Johnsen. —- Reuters

Egypt permanently opens Gaza crossing Continued from Page 1 Inside the border terminal yesterday, the atmosphere was orderly, as Hamas police called up passengers one by one to register their travel documents. After 51/2 hours of operation, terminal officials said 340 people had crossed from Gaza into Egypt. None were forced to return, a departure from the past when Egypt had rejected passengers found to be on “blacklists”. Another 150 people crossed from Egypt into Gaza.

“Today is a cornerstone for a new era that we hope will pave the road to ending the siege and blockade on Gaza,” said Hatem Awideh, director general of the Hamas border authority in Gaza. “We hope this facilitation by our Egyptian brothers will improve travel and will allow everyone to leave Gaza.” One after another buses crossed Rafah, pulling blue carts behind them with luggage piled high. Inside the terminal, many waited with high hopes.

One woman, who gave her name as Aisha, said she was headed for a long overdue medical checkup in Cairo. She underwent surgery for blocked arteries at a Cairo hospital in October, but Egyptian authorities had prevented her from returning for checkups because a distant relative was caught - and killed - operating a smuggling tunnel on the Gaza-Egypt border. During the fouryear blockade, a thriving smuggling business has grown along the bor-

der. Salama Baraka, head of police at the Rafah terminal on the Gaza side, said travel has been limited to about 300 passengers a day under the old system. He said it was unclear how many people would pass through yesterday, but that officials hoped to get about three days’ worth of people, or roughly 900, across.

About 100 Hamas supporters marched with Palestinian and Egyptian flags outside the border terminal in a gesture of gratitude to Egypt. “This courageous step by Egypt reflects the deep historic relations between the Palestinian and Egyptian nations,” said Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zahri. “We hope this will be a step in the long process to end the blockade imposed on Gaza.” The new system will not resolve Gazans’ travel woes completely.

While Egypt has dropped its restrictions on who can travel, bureaucratic obstacles remain. Men between the ages of 18 and 40 will have to apply for Egyptian visas, a process that can take weeks.

Women, children and older men need easier-to-obtain travel permits, which can be obtained in several days.

Israel, which controls Gaza’s cargo crossings, allows most consumer goods into Gaza, but it still restricts exports as well as the entr y of much-needed construction materials, saying they could be used by militants. Israel also enforces a naval blockade aimed at weapons smuggling. Israeli and American officials

have expressed concerns that Hamas will exploit the opening to bring weapons and fighters into Gaza. In January 2008, masked militants blew open the Rafah border wall, allowing thousands of people to pour in and out of Egypt.

Egyptian officials say they have security measures in place to keep weapons from crossing through Rafah. Hamas has long used tunnels to get arms into Gaza. Gaza militants now have military-grade rockets that have hit cities in southern Israel. Amos Gilad, a senior Israeli Defense Ministr y official, told Channel 2 TV Friday that Israel’s primary concern is that military training personnel could cross to instruct Hamas fighters. “One trainer who tells them how to set up the rockets and how to use them is equal to a large quantity of weapons,” Gilad said.

Egypt’s decision to open the border is also meant to boost an Egyptian-mediated unity deal between the rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah. Hamas has governed Gaza since routing Fatah forces in 2007, leaving the Fatahdominated Palestinian Authority in control only of the West Bank. Last month, the Egyptian regime brokered a reconciliation deal. With details still being worked out, Hamas will be in charge of the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing, but Egypt coordinated the opening with the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank, said Yaser Afnan, Egypt’s ambassador in the West Bank. — AP

Bahrain oppn head insists reform...

Continued from Page 1 The government is now “definitely demanded to introduce serious reforms. What is also definite is that stability will not come through oppression,” said Salman, ahead of the lifting of emergency laws enforced in mid-March. The Wefaq leader said “security (forces) will not bring the solution ... Without political reform, this bad situation will continue and there will not be real stability.”

If the authorities, widely criticised by rights groups for their heavy-handed clampdown on Shiites, continue with the same policies after the June 1 lifting of emergency law, the crisis will remain unchanged, he said. “If the same mentality that runs the country now continues in the coming days ... this means that Bahrain will remain ‘ill,’” he said, insisting on a political solution. “You have frightened the people with tanks, so you have to keep tanks around. This would be far from normal,” he said, warning that protesters were already returning to the streets in their villages.

The cleric led the political front of month-long protests on the streets that erupted in mid-February led

by Shiite youth inspired by uprisings that toppled longtime strongmen in Tunisia and Egypt. Banking on the unprecedented mass protest camped out at Manama’s Pearl roundabout, before it was raided in mid-March, Salman’s Wefaq and six other opposition groups raised the stakes, demanding a “real” constitutional monarchy.

Some demonstrators from the disenfranchised Shiite community called for the fall of the Al-Khalifa dynasty, sending shivers across the Sunni-ruled Arab monarchies of the Gulf wary of neighbouring Shiite Iran’s influence.

“We said: The people want to reform the regime. We did not raise the slogan of toppling the regime,” said Salman. “We conducted a survey among demonstrators, and the majority said they wanted a constitutional monarchy.”

But Salman, who led the Shiites to lift their boycott of elections and to take part in 2006 polls, since when AlWefaq (Accord in Arabic) has formed the largest parliamentary blocs, expressed disillusionment with the electoral process. “The preliminary decision of the opposition is not to take part in the by-elections (in September). We will announce our final decision in the coming days,” he said. “We have tried out participation (in parliament) and we did not manage to change a single law,” he said, pointing to the blocking powers of an upper chamber which is appointed by the king.

In a blow to Al-Wefaq, two of its former MPs, Matar Matar and Jawad Fayruz, were arrested at gunpoint shortly after Sunni fellow MPs voted to accept their resignation. Their whereabouts remain unknown. “Since they were arrested, there has been no information about them. They have not contacted their families.

Those are (former) MPs ... so one can imagine what an ordinary citizen would be facing,” said Salman.

The MPs were seized amid a massive wave of arrests of Shiites, including dozens of medics, and notably female doctors and teachers, some of whom have spoken of torture after their release. “The regime should realise that what has happened over the past two months will not be wiped from the memories of people, who will not forget and will work on documenting it,” said Salman. He also reiterated that the Shiites do not aspire to establish a religion-based state. “We always said we do not want a state based on religion and that we want a civic state. We do not want the ‘Wilayat AlFaqih’ and it is not applicable in Bahrain,” he said, referring to “rule of the supreme cleric” applied in Iran. “We want a constitutional monarchy where the Al-Khalifas would be the monarchs. We do not want Iran to meddle in our internal affairs, nor Saudi Arabia,” he said.

But a Sunni cleric yesterday said Bahrain’s opposition must change its leadership for the divided Gulf state to

move on with political reconciliation. Sheikh Abdullatif Al-Mahmoud said the democracy movement had been hijacked by Shiite opposition leaders with a sectarian agenda who were in contact with Iran’s clerical leadership. Mahmoud led a team of Sunni negotiators coordinating with Crown Prince Sheikh Salman bin Hamad AlKhalifa in talks with the opposition days before Saudi troops entered Bahrain to help the government break up the protest movement and arrest its leaders in midMarch.

He said Shiite leaders, headed by Salman, had overplayed their hand by trying to marginalise the royal family in the talks on political reform and accused them of taking orders from Iran - a familiar Sunni charge against group. “We consider there to be three forces: the system (royal family), the Sunnis and the Shiites, and political and constitutional reform needs the consent of all of them,” he said in an interview. “The problem is that the political Shiite movement has not conducted a reappraisal up to now. We don’t want to reject Shiites or their political groups,” he said. “What is needed is that they reform themselves then present themselves again to society. In my view they will change their political leaderships, especially Wefaq.”

Twenty-one opposition leaders - seven of whom are abroad - are on trial in military court on charges of seeking to overthrow the government. Salman is not one of them, as the authorities have left senior Shi’ite clerics alone. Sunni political groups are demanding the men be sentenced to death and the government refrain from issuing amnesties. The leaders on trial are not all Shiite.

They include Ibrahim Sharif, a Sunni who heads the secular Waad group.

Bahraini rights activists say they and hundreds of Shiites in detention have been tortured in jail, while thousands have been fired or suspended from work in state-linked companies for taking part in or supporting the protests. Some say there were not involved and are being targeted because they are Shiite. The Sunni-run government hopes leisure and business tourism will return to normal once martial law imposed in mid-March ends on June 1. Shiites say they fear the repression will continue behind the scenes.

Mahmoud said Shiites were to blame for their suffering. “It was Sunnis who were living in terror first, not the Shiites. (Repression) is the result of criminal acts they committed,” he said, accusing protesters of attacking and insulting minority Sunnis. He also condemned strikes by schoolteachers and days off to protest offered by some companies. After the first week of protests, Mahmoud organised a National Unity Rally to counter the Shiite-led democracy movement which the government continues to promote as a sign of widespread rejection of Wefaq and the protest movement.

He denied opposition charges his movement is funded by US ally Saudi Arabia or the ruling family but said he met with US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman after the first mass meeting he organised in late February. The opposition say Mahmoud’s Rally lacks a popular base and is a vehicle for the royal family, which feared calls for its ouster after the death of seven protesters hardened the movement’s resolve after its first week.

“At first I wasn’t worried (by the protests). They wanted to discuss setting up a constitutional monarchy, reforming parliament and naturalisation (of foreign Sunnis). I said yes, there’s no problem with that,” Mahmoud said.

“But then it became clear it wasn’t about reforms, it was about sectarian politics, to set up a religious state controlled by the supreme jurist,” he added, referring to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Wefaq rejects Sunni charges that it takes instructions on political issues from outside Bahrain. Most Bahraini Shiites look to Ali Sistani in Iraq for guidance in religious matters or Bahrain’s most senior cleric Issa Qassim. — Agencies

Syrian forces torture, kill boy in custody Continued from Page 1 decided after police had killed his cousin to take part in the anti-regime protests sweeping the country since mid-March, with their epicentre in the Daraa region of southern Syria.

His father, Ali Al-Khatib, has also been arrested, they said.

On Friday, at least 12 people were shot dead as security forces dispersed protests across Syria, activists said, updating an earlier toll of eight dead. Four protesters were killed in Daraa, another four in a Damascus suburb, three in Homs, central Syria, and one in Latakia on the coast, said the London-based National Organisation for the Defence of Human Rights.

Rami Abdul Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, urged the country’s authorities to investigate the torture to death of the 13-year-old boy and other similar cases. Seven bodies with torture marks, some with broken necks, were taken to Daraa hospital, he told AFP by telephone in Nicosia, adding that hundreds of cases of torture were being documented.

Since the revolt in Syria erupted, Friday protests following weekly Muslim prayers are widely seen as a barometer of whether activists are able to maintain momentum despite a heavy handed repression. More than 1,000 people have been killed and 10,000 others arrested since the revolt began, according to rights

groups. Syrian authorities say 143 soldiers, security forces and police have been killed. Foreign journalists are barred from travelling inside Syria, making it difficult to report on the unrest and verify witness accounts.

The government insists the unrest is the work of “armed terrorist gangs” backed by Islamists and foreign agitators.

It initially responded to the revolt by offering some concessions, including lifting the state of emergency in place for nearly five decades, but coupled this with a fierce crackdown.

The opposition has dismissed calls for dialogue, saying that could only take place once the violence ends, political prisoners are freed and reforms adopted. — AFP

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Yemen gives Qaeda chance to regroup

By William Maclean ar in Yemen would hand Al-Qaeda’s boldest militants greater scope to attack the West and repair the group’s morale after the loss of Osama bin Laden. With President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s government mired in worsening political strife, the Yemen-based Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is likely to have more freedom to apply a proven talent for daring and inventive bombing plots. The small group - some estimates put it at 300 individuals - has nothing to do with a youth-based uprising seeking to end Saleh’s long rule, or with opposition forces who fought pitched battles with his loyalists this week in the capital Sanaa.

But AQAP has international importance because it is Al-Qaeda’s most intrepid community of attackers. It is adept at fielding operatives overseas, manufacturing and concealing sophisticated explosives, and producing compelling online propaganda that instigates attacks by others. Its capacity to do all this from hideouts in remote regions in the provinces of Shabwa, Abyan, Jouf and Marib will grow to the extent that state security is distracted by political upheaval. “Given how distracted Saleh’s government is in its attempts to cling to power, AQAP has much more open space in which to operate at the moment,” said Yemen scholar Gregory Johnsen.

A senior British counter-terrorism official said aspects of AQAP were “very troubling”, including its ambition to strike outside its immediate neighborhood and what he said were its efforts to establish networks in East Africa and Europe. “They’ve penetrated the global aviation system, they’ve got very competent explosives experts, seemingly we believe more competent than those of AlQaeda’s senior leadership,” he said. The official said AQAP was operating “in a state which is failing and whose security apparatus ... has been diverted onto other matters, namely regime survival, creating areas of Yemen that are even less governed than they were a year ago.” A complete collapse in state authority would worsen a host of ills of more concern to Yemenis than AQAP, including graft, crime, unemployment and failing water supplies. But it is AQAP that is the West’s top security concern. Saleh told Reuters this week that Al-Qaeda had stepped up its attacks over the past few months but coordination with Washington in the fight against terrorism was going well. Yet his critics say it is his misgovernment that has caused a range of problems including Islamist militancy, so much so that an end to his rule would be a gain for counter-terrorism.

“His continuation in power will only contribute to the underlying causes of Al-Qaeda to flourish in Yemen lack of opportunity, corruption, cracking down on freedoms and rights, and killing Yemeni citiens in the name of fighting AQAP,” Nadwa Al-Dawsari, head of Partners Yemen, a conflict prevention group working with tribal communities, told Reuters. “If he stayed, the youth demonstrating now will be so frustrated they may want to join AQAP, or other groups engaged in smuggling, in gangs, in drug dealing and other social ills.”

Views such as Al-Dawsari’s are widespread. But analysts caution that if Saleh is replaced, his successor will come under exactly the same pressure from the West to tackle Al-Qaeda. Whether the current government’s policies will be greatly altered by a new leadership is an open question.

Many feel more emphasis on improving governance in security and the judiciary would be better than the occasional US missile attacks the government has allowed or tolerated. “There is no magic missile solution to the problem of AQAP in Yemen,” said Johnsen. “If the US continues to pursue strategies built solely around killing leaders of the AQAP without partnering that with a much more aggressive and nuanced development and political approach, then it will continue to reap short-term gains at the expense of longterm stability,” he told Reuters. Lasting advances in counter-terrorism are bound to be a long haul in a country where state authority is often limited to big cities and main roads and where tribes often dominate the surrounding mountains, valleys and deserts.

Barbara Bodine, who served as US ambassador in 19972001, told Reuters drones “most assuredly do far more harm than good. While frustrating, this is a case of finding training and supporting indigenous capabilities, not doing it ourselves”. —Reuters

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Syria army loyal, but not fail-safe

By Lachlan Carmichael he Assad family ’s decades-long rule in Syria has been built partly on a loyal and stalwart army, but the institution is not fail-safe against an unprecedented prodemocracy movement, analysts said. Though it is commanded by officers from the same minority Alawite religious community from which the Assads hail, it has a large Sunni rank-and-file who could mutiny and turn, in the long run, into an anti-regime force, one said. Under another scenario seen by other analysts, the commanders could eventually be induced to switch sides if many of their own soldiers mutiny and the international community takes a much clearer stand against the Assads.

Andrew Terrill, research professor at the US Army War College, told AFP the army is “very much structured to be loyal to the regime” of President Bashar Al-Assad, who in 2000 took over from his late

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father Hafez Al-Assad. The elite Fourth Armored Division and the Republican Guard are run

by Assad’s brother Maher and are almost entirely Alawite, an offshoot of Shiism, he said. The non-elite army units still have Alawite officers in key positions. The army is also “very much under surveillance of the Syrian security forces,” which are run by the Assad family and which “are very, very efficient at what they do,” he said.

“This is going to be nothing like Egypt where you had the army start to show an independent voice and start to tell the regime what to do,” Terrill said. “The army and the Alawite leadership of the army is going to stand behind the Assad regime because they’re scared to death of what ’s going to happen if Alawite control ends in Syria,” he said. However, the army is not all-power ful, he said.

Last week’s protests were being promoted under the slogan “Friday of the guardians of the homeland”, a reference to

the army and a play on the words used in the first verse of Syria’s national anthem. Terrill said the protesters seem to be trying to win over the many Sunni soldiers in the army in the hope they will mutiny and join the pro-democracy movement, he said. However, he said, a “ragtag group of rebels” would face “an awfully difficult force” in the elite Four th Armored and Republican Guard Divisions, which are the best trained and have the best equipment. “Maybe at some point after a prolonged struggle, they might be able to defeat the Alawites. They’ve certainly got the numbers, but it’s not something that’s going to happen overnight and it’s not going to happen pretty,” Terrill said. In short, it could be a long, bloody civil war, he said.

Ammar Abdulhamid, a Syrian dissident and democrac y ac tivist who heads the Washington-based Thar wa Foundation, agreed the army’s command fears a revolution

because they do not know how the majority Sunni will react to the Alawites. However, he believes the “army generals will begin to review their calculations and reconsider their connection to the Assad regime” if the United States and other powers decisively side with the protesters.

Until now, Washington and other capitals have urged Assad to reform the system or step down, which puts the emphasis on reform, he said.

“This is not a Sunni revolution against the Alawites,” he said. “ This is a Syrian revolution against the corruption of the Assad family, and we want the army to play a role in the transitional process... and in protec ting the interests of the minority basically in the transition,” he said.

Ahed Al-Hendi, the Arabic program coordinator of the US-based human rights group Cyber-Dissidents.org, said the “army may be the regime element most likely to join the uprising”, despite the popular

belief it is loyal to Assad.

“Although many high-ranking military officers are Alawite, the majority of their divisions are not,” Hendi wrote in Foreign Affairs. “Should the soldiers in those divisions begin to mutiny, they could compel their commanders to rebel against Assad. The Alawite army leaders may also fear a backlash and revenge attacks against Alawite sects due to Assad’s policies.”

Apart from the Republican Guard and the Fourth Armored Division, the army has not been involved in the crackdown, Hendi said in the May 3 article. However, “to convince the army to switch sides, the dissidents require international assistance,” said the rights activist. Hendi said the world community should impose “severe sanctions on targeted elements of Assad’s regime,” which has happened, and also try to “widen the cleavages” between the army and the elite divisions run by Maher AlAssad. —AFP

Peep videos may gift Erdogan super-majority

By Ibon Villelabeitia ideos posted online that purport to show opposition politicians kissing and fondling call girls have boosted Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s chances of gaining a parliamentary “super-majority” when Turkey votes on June 12. The scandal, which broke a week ago, has thrown the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) into disarray. Ten senior members caught by the peephole cameras have resigned in the wake of the scandal, which has also prompted speculation over who may be behind the “dirty politics”. “There is no doubt this is a slick, carefully planned smear campaign,” Wolfango Piccoli from Eurasia risk consultancy told Reuters. “I don’t think we have seen this type of technique during elections in Turkey in the past.”

A distant third to Erdogan’s AK party and the main opposition People’s Republican party (CHP), the MHP’s chances of notching up 10 percent of the vote - the threshold needed for a party to take seats in parliament - have been dented. If the MHP can’t take its seats they will be carved up by the other parties on a proportional basis, but the party that stands to gain the most is Erdogan’s AK. Opinion polls already show the AK garnering between 45 and 49 percent of the vote in the 550 seat assembly and if, thanks to the MHP’s convulsions, the AK ends up with a two-thirds majority it will have the power to pass constitutional reforms.

Erdogan wants to replace a charter drafted after a 1980 coup with one that is more pluralistic and democratic, fulfilling a long standing requirement to meet European Union standards. Critics who accuse the AK of harbouring Islamist tendencies fear a new charter will be cast in the AK’s own mould, watering down

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Turkey’s secularist principles. A reformist party which has its roots in banned Islamist movements, the AK has increasingly taken the space of the MHP with a more nationalist message, analysts say.

The edited videos are not particularly explicit, for example showing couples put-

The little-known website has now been blocked while an investigation by a special prosecutor takes place, but experts say the footage was the product of a professional surveillance job. The episode has fed a paranoia already rampant in this Muslim democracy. Many

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan (right) meets Libyan opposition Transitional National Council leader Mustafa Abdul Jalil on May 23, 2011 in Ankara. ting their clothes on without showing what went on before, but they also record MHP men making politically compromising remarks. The videos were posted on a website called “Different Idealism”, an allusion to the “Idealist” movement which forms the backbone of MHP support. The site had threatened to post the videos if party leader Devlet Bahceli did not resign by a deadline of May 18. He did not resign.

Turks believe their private conversations are routinely wiretapped by police and that secret camera footage has become a weapon between warring political camps. The “Ergenekon” investigations into alleged plots by clandestine groups to topple Erdogan’s government - first hailed as an opportunity to clean up Turkey’s dirty past - have created a perception among Turks that Big Brother is

lurking and that systematic violations of privacy have become normal.

Deniz Baykal, the veteran CHP leader, resigned last year after a videotape posted online showed him in a bedroom with a woman from his party who was not his wife. Erdogan has denied allegations his party played a role in the latest scandal and described the campaign as “dirty and dangerous”. In a country where there is no shortage of conspiracy theories, fingers are pointing in all directions. A foreign intelligence agency has been blamed as well as Turkish exiles and a disgruntled MHP faction. One MHP official even suggested that US President Barack Obama had played a role.

The MHP, which considers itself the guardian of Turkishness and family values, has struggled to remain relevant as European Union candidate Turkey has become more democratic and open. Its fiery leader Bahceli has made a career out of resisting human rights reforms and Kurdish rights meant to level Turkey’s path to the EU, calling for the return of the death penalty and of restrictions of house sales and land to foreigners. Ultra-nationalism often turns violent in Turkey, and the MHP’s “grey wolf” followers were very active in leftright street battles in the 1970s.

Yusuf Kanli, a columnist writing in the Daily News & Economic Review, warned of the risks if the ultra-nationalists were to lose their voice in parliament. “Would there not be the danger of derailment for Turkey because of the absence of nationalists, to be more precise, the MHP, in parliament at a time when Turkey is geared to transform itself into a stage where through some magical compromise the Kurdish problem and an absence of other perennial woes linked to the lack of democracy are all left behind?” —Reuters

15

SUNDAY, MAY 29, 2011

ANALYSIS

Mladic arrest one step in healing wounds

By Isabelle Wesselingh

T

he arrest of Ratko Mladic is a major step towards reconciliation in the Balkans, analysts said, but the region is still a long way from healing the wounds of its tragic history. “It is a very, very important step. But it is like putting a Band-Aid on a huge wound. Much more needs to be done to heal the wound,” said Refik Hodzic of the New York-based International Centre for Transitional Justice. Less than 20 years ago, the wars in Croatia, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Slovenia and Kosovo that came with the disintegration of Yugoslavia left tens of thousands dead and many more scarred by memories of massacres and atrocities.

The path to reconciliation has been slow and is far from over, though the process of bringing to justice those allegedly responsible for the worst atrocities - like Mladic - is a key step, analysts said. “For many victims, Ratko Mladic was the face of the crimes that were committed partly because of the images showing him rejoicing at the fall of Srebrenica,” said Hodzic, a former outreach coordinator for the UN war crimes tribunal in Bosnia. The 1995 Srebrenica massacre - the worst single atrocity in Europe since the end of World War II saw 8,000 Muslim men and boys

rounded up by Bosnian Serb forces and systematically executed.

Mladic, accused of masterminding Srebrenica and other atrocities during the 1992-95 Bosnian war, was arrested on Thursday and is set to be transferred next week to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague. But while Serbian President Boris Tadic said Mladic’s arrest has “closed a chapter” in the region’s history, analysts said it will take much more to turn the page on the bloody legacy of the Balkan wars. “What I am afraid of is that our politicians think that the arrest of Mladic is the good thing to close the issue of the past,” said Natasa Kandic, the director of the Humanitarian legal centre in Belgrade.

But what the region really needs, she said, “is to have a big debate in all the former Yugoslav countries about what happened” and to establish the facts of the conflicts. “Without facts being established, it is difficult to think of compromise, lasting peace and reconciliation,” she said. Separating fact from fiction will be a titanic task as each country presents its own version of the conflicts. In schools, history textbooks offer interpretations that are widely different from Croatia to Serbia, or in different parts of Bosnia, which is divided

between the Bosnian Serb Republika Srpska and the Muslim-Croat Federation. “If we want a sustainable peace, if we want to avoid potential conflicts emerging in 50 years, it is crucial that young people across the region learn what really happened,” Hodzic said.

Some efforts are being made to find a common history, with Kandic’s centre and other groups calling for the governments of former Yugoslav countries to set up a regional commission to establish the facts of the conflict.

Some 300,000 people have signed a petition calling for the commission, Kandic said, and organisers are hoping to gather one million signatures by the end of June. Reconciliation efforts will also only move forward if politicians stop playing the nationalist card and “stop manipulating victims to hide their incompetence to deal with the real problems of these countries,” Hodzic said. “(Mladic’s) arrest provides the crucial opening for the governments of Serbia, Bosnia and Hercegovina, Croatia and other countries of the region to genuinely and seriously commit to dealing with legacy of that tragic decade,” said David Tolbert, the head of the International Centre for Transitional Justice and the former deputy prosecutor at the Hague tribunal. “The arrest is a strong sign against

Focus

Mexico needs more spending to fight cartels

By Pablo Garibian

M

impunity. It shows that even protected senior officials can end up paying the price,” said Joel Hubrecht of the Institute for Advanced Legal Studies in

Paris. “(But) it does not close a chapter. On the contrary it opens another one: his trial should be a chance to confront the past.” —AFP

Laden fallout could force early Pak polls

By Sami Zubeiri

T

he embarrassing revelation that Osama bin Laden was living in a military garrison town and the fallout from the US raid that killed him are threatening to bring down Pakistan’s government and force early elections.

Since Pakistanis woke up to the shocking news from the city of Abbottabad on May 2, confidence in the country’s civilian government and military has crumbled, both at home and abroad. If the masses showed little inclination to mourn the Al-Qaeda leader’s death or denounce the American raid, they have loudly lamented the humiliating failures of their much-garlanded military to root him out on their doorstep.

In a nadir some likened to 1971, when a third of the country broke away to form Bangladesh, analysts said civilian politicians might at last have a chance to put the military in their place and assert their grip on power. Criticism of the military has been nearly unprecedented over suspicions it was incompetent or complicit in hiding bin Laden, clueless that Americans had invaded their airspace and powerless to stop them.

Compounding the situation, a series of

spectacular bomb attacks, claimed by the Taleban to avenge the killing, have fuelled concerns that the military is too weak to protect itself, let alone the country.

“The deteriorating security situation may lead to collapse of the government,” said political analyst Khurram Abbas from the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (PILDAT). The current administration’s fiveyear term is due to end in 2013.

Exploiting the fallout are main opposition leader Nawaz Sharif, who opinion polls predict would win any snap election, and former cricket hero turned politician Imran Khan. Their knives have been out for the government, painting the Pakistan People’s Party-led administration as a puppet dancing to Washington’s tune, though they have not outlined how they would root out Islamist extremism.

“The Abbottabad incident offered it a chance to establish its hold on security and other matters but it failed,” said Mutahir Sheikh, international relations professor at Karachi University. “The prime minister’s priority is to complete his five-year term. But he has no foreign minister, his interior minister is not clear

in his policy and the internal security is continuously deteriorating. “People are pinning hopes on Nawaz Sharif. If he can take a stand and boycott parliament there is possibility of fresh elections,” said Sheikh.

It took 10 hours for members of parliament to agree to a joint statement on May 13 when army chief Ashfaq Kayani and intelligence chief Ahmad Shuja Pasha briefed parliamentarians on the bin Laden attack. It demanded no repeat of the US raid, despite the White House reserving the right to do so, and an end to US drone strikes in Pakistan’s tribal northwest - both impossible for the aiddependent government to implement.

Sharif’s party (PML-N) spokesman, Siddiqul Farooq, told AFP that if the government “fails or violates” the resolution “we may say a fresh mandate is needed”.

“We want the resolution enforced. The nation wants those found guilty of criminal negligence or security lapses to be penalised,” he told AFP. “There are several options. PML-N lawmakers can resign or the party can call for mass demonstrations across the country or stage a long march to Islamabad.”

The government’s troubles do not end there. Pakistan is now entering the

hottest part of the year. Electricity cuts last for up to 20 hours of the day, leaving ordinary people sweltering in high temperatures and hitting economic production.

The financial year ends on June 30 and the government is to present the budget next month. The deficit is ballooning out of control and inflation runs at 14 percent. “A tough budget will further frustrate the people. If people reject it, the situation can aggravate and survival of the government will become difficult,” said analyst Abbas.

Next March, elections are due for 50 percent of the seats in the Senate. A seat adjustment between the PPP and its allies could give the government a twothirds majority in the upper house which Sharif would not like.

“There are a lot of issues like inflation, corruption and power problems but the poor security situation after Osama bin Laden will compel the government to go for mid-term polls,” said Abbas. “As a consequence of its performance so far and its inability to address the challenges facing the nation, a change of government or a major shake-up is possible,” conceded retired lieutenant general Talat Masood. —AFP

Powerful AIPAC on pro-Israel mission

By Michael Mathes

W

hen the full complement of US lawmakers watched Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu address Congress on Tuesday, two-thirds of them had already heard him the previous night - at top US pro-Israel lobby AIPAC. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee also hosted President Barack Obama at its conference, and while he has pushed hard for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, AIPAC has been seen as trying to hem in US presidents when they push a peace deal which the lobby sees as unfavorable to the Jewish state.

AIPAC has indisputably emerged as the most influential foreign policy lobby in the United States - possibly eclipsing the traditional powerhouse lobbies for domestic gun rights, oil and retirees. When its delegates trooped to Capitol Hill this week for a day of lobbying, they met with all 100 senators and nearly every one of 435 US representatives. “They’re the most sophisticated, effective lobby interest group in Washington, without a doubt,” Aaron David Miller, an advisor to several US secretaries of state and now scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center, told AFP. Obama took heat at AIPAC’s annual conference for suggesting that the 1967 lines with land swaps should be a basis for peace negotiations. Many AIPAC members sided with Netanyahu when he criticized Obama over his stance during a recent visit to the White House. AIPAC executive director Howard Kohr spoke out about the discord, stressing

that the leaders “work out whatever differences arise between them privately, and when tensions do arise, that the leaders work together to close those gaps.” The pair mended fences at least publicly - with Netanyahu in Congress thanking Obama for

with Israel and pledging US support for its security. Last week the organization hosted a record 10,000 delegates at a sprawling convention center, serving what some quipped was the largest kosher meal ever.

The group raises millions each

ed to a cradle of common heritage, telling AIPAC that Americans identify with Israel “on a gut level.” Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid praised AIPAC’s vigilance, telling delegates that “your tireless activism has made you an

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu waves as he arrives May 23, 2011 to address the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Policy Conference 2011 at the Walter E Washington Convention Center in Washington. — AFP

his “steadfast” support.

AIPAC was forged in the 1960s, when Israel’s survival was far from assured, and it worked over the next decades to cement the idea that US and Israeli values were one and the same, and to secure an annual multibilliondollar aid package for the lone democracy in the Middle East. It’s worked, with the vast majority of US lawmakers publicly aligning

year and pushes Congress to enact pro-Israel legislation such as tightened sanctions on Iran.

“We have lobbies that hawk cigarettes, guns and elderly people,” Miller pointed out. AIPAC, he said, “is selling by definition a very good product.” It’s also an emotional one. Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, the most senior Jewish member in House history, point-

unparalleled force, not only in this town but throughout this country and the world.”

But has AIPAC grown too strong? One person who has been close to the group for more than 20 years acknowledged its influence. “If you are a lawmaker, not surprisingly if you like to be elected, it’s easier to know what your constituents want than to go against them,” the person

said. The group has been extraordinarily successful at mobilizing the Jewish vote, and while it does not directly contribute to campaigns, its vast membership does.

In 2007 professors John Mearsheimer of University of Chicago and Stephen Walt of Harvard published “The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy,” which set off a firestorm of controversy. The book painted AIPAC as having a “stranglehold on the US Congress” due to its ability to reward legislators and candidates who support its agenda, and to punish those opposing it. Critics said it propagated a mythical theory of the all-powerful Jewish lobby. “The notion somehow that AIPAC is some nefarious organization that holds American foreign policy hostage is just fundamentally and flat-out wrong,” argued Miller.

Not all those who support Israel are AIPAC fans. Hanna King, a 17-year-old Jewish college student said as she protested outside the conference, called the group a rightwing “embarrassment” that seeks what is good for Israel, not necessarily what is good for the peace process. Josh Block, who served as AIPAC’s spokesman for nine years until last November, dismissed as “nonsense” the idea that it pushes a hardline agenda, and pointed to AIPAC’s broad bipartisan appeal. “When you’re lobbying on Capitol Hill for motherhood and apple pie, you’re going to be effective,” he said. As for critics, one person close to AIPAC who asked not to be named shrugged: “If you don’t have enemies, that means you’re not doing anything important.” — AFP

exico’s hopes of crushing the country’s drug cartels through sheer military force appear doomed unless it ramps up defense spending, currently one of the weakest in Latin America. President Felipe Calderon broke with tradition by sending in the army to crack down on drug gangs in late 2006, but pressure is growing from a resurgent opposition to spend more. The army-led offensive on the cartels has cost nearly 40,000 lives and battered support for Calderon’s conservative National Action Party (PAN), which now faces an uphill struggle to retain power in next year’s presidential election.

Although Calderon has increased defense spending by some 25 percent over the past four years, the death toll in the drug war has steadily accelerated. “It’s a total embarrassment what we’re spending on the army with the problems it’s got right now,” said opposition politician Rogelio Cerda, who chairs the defense committee in the lower house of Congress. “The army definitely needs additional resources.”

At present soldiers in Mexico earn just two thirds of what their counterparts in Colombia do, even though Mexican gross domestic product (GDP) per capita is some 50 percent higher.

The plans for the 2011 budget foresee Mexico spending over 40 percent more on salaries for staff at state oil firm Pemex, which employs roughly half as many people. Low wages are blamed for fomenting corruption in the security forces, as some soldiers boost their income by working for drug traffickers. One of Mexico’s most notorious cartels, Los Zetas, was even founded by renegade troops from the army’s special forces.

Critics of Calderon’s strategy say sending in the army has only increased the violence in Mexico and exposed the troops to the full force of corruption at the hands of the cartels.

However, security analysts say the defense ministry, which did not respond to requests for an interview, must beef up its ability to track and intercept traffickers with helicopters and patrol boats to have any chance of success.

Cerda’s Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) leads the PAN in opinion polls, which also show security is a growing concern in Mexico. The PRI already dominates the lower house, and Cerda said its deputies firmly backed higher spending.

In 2010, Mexico spent $4.86 billion on its armed forces, or some 0.4 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) show. Brazil spends four times the amount Mexico does as a share of GDP, while the figure in Chile is over eight times higher. Only in Guatemala, often cited as the main central American transit point for drugs between South America and Mexico, is government spending on the military equally modest.

Mexico’s defense outlays are low partly due to its traditional doctrine of non-alignment and rejection of military intervention after decades of post-colonial warring that culminated in its bloody revolution of 1910-1920.

Today, faced with the growing financial clout of criminal groups like top trafficker Joaquin Guzman’s Sinaloa cartel, Mexico is struggling to secure its 3,200 km border with the United States with the resources it deploys.

“They have to raise the budget to at least 1 percent of GDP but above all make better use of it,” said Alberto Islas, a security expert at consultancy Risk Evaluation. “That means the army and navy must be dedicated to protecting the borders.”

Drug war violence has stirred up tensions with the United States and put investment and tourism revenues at risk in Mexico, suggesting that a move to bolster military spending could ultimately reap rewards for the next government. Analysts argue Mexico ought to emulate Colombia, where the government sent in the army to curb the power of cartels and opponents like the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas who have also profited from the drug trade. Its success has come at a price, with Colombia tripling its military budget since 1991 to 3.7 percent of its GDP. Although Mexican servicemen earn almost twice what they did six years ago - around $800 a month - wages in Colombia are 50 percent higher, at some $1,200, according to official data. “While Colombia has enjoyed very significant success ... the power of the drug traffickers is growing in Mexico, just as the threat to the state and its citizens is,” Colombian military analyst Alfredo Rangel told Reuters. Colombia’s war against traffickers has benefited from several billion dollars worth of aid from Washington, a sum that has so far dwarfed US pledges to Mexico to help tackle the drug trade made under the so-called Merida Initiative.

PRI lawmaker Cerda said the $1.4 billion Washington had offered would not change Mexico, which is not short of cash and has a lower debt burden than Colombia and the United States. Mexico needed to take matters into its own hands, he said. “The Merida initiative is an expression of good will from the Americans that we’re grateful for, but it in absolute terms it’s not going to achieve much,” Cerda said.—Reuters

SUNDAY, MAY 29, 2011

sp orts Anderson in doubt for Lords CARDIFF: England fast bowler James Anderson will not bowl again in the first test against Sri Lanka after a scan revealed a minor side strain, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) said yesterday.

“Scans have shown James Anderson has a grade one (left) side strain and will not bowl for the rest of the first test match,” an ECB statement said. “He will bat as it poses minimal risk of further damage. His involvement in the second test will be determined following assessment after the match.” Anderson, the world’s third-ranked bowler, was England’s best performer in Sri Lanka’s first innings total of 400 when he claimed three for 66 from 28 overs, including the key wickets of Kumar Sangakkara, Mahela Jayawardene and Thilan Samaraweera - who all average over 50 in tests.

But he received treatment on Friday and was able to bowl just one over after tea. England closed on 47 for one in their first innings on the second day with Anderson unbeaten on one as nightwatchman. —Reuters

Warner warns of ‘tsunami’ PORT OF SPAIN: FIFA vice-president Jack Warner, who faces an ethics hearing in soccer’s widening bribery scandal today, has predicted a “football tsunami” is about to strike the sport’s governing body.

Warner, who said there was “not a single iota” of wrongdoing on his part, will answer questions at FIFA headquarters along with president Sepp Blatter and the man challenging the incumbent in next week’s election, Mohammed bin Hammam.

“I tell you something, in the next couple days you will see a football tsunami that will hit FIFA and the world that will shock you,” Warner said in comments reported by multiple newspapers in his home country of

Trinidad and Tobago.

“The time has come when I must stop playing dead so you’ll see it, it’s coming, trust me you’ll see it by now and tomorrow.”

Warner, who is the president of CONCACAF, the confederation for North and Central America and the Caribbean, features in a report given to FIFA by Chuck Blazer, his long-term ally.

The American Blazer, a fellow member of FIFA’s executive committee, reported possible violations of its ethics code, potentially involving bribery, at a meeting Bin Hammam and Warner attended along with Caribbean delegates in Port of Spain, Trinidad on May 10 and 11. —AP

Gerbaba clinches Stockholm Marathon STOCKHOLM: Shumi Gerbaba of Ethiopia won the Stockholm Marathon yesterday in 2 hours, 14 minutes, 7 seconds, in a race marred by a serious bus accident.

Gerbaba broke away from Dominic Pius Ondoro of Kenya in the last few kilometers. Pius Ondoro ended second in 2:14.23 and his countryman Kenneth Korir was third. Sweden’s Isabellah Andersson became the first woman to win the title for four years straight.

She finished in 2:37.28, ahead of second place Eri Okubo from Japan who ran 2:38:58. Police said a bus raced out of control down a set of steps and into a busy square during the marathon, injuring six people. One man was seriously injured, while four other adults and a child were taken to hospital with lighter injuries, hospital officials said.

The square, which is located near a public transport hub, was crowded with people heading to view the marathon when the accident occurred. The cause of the crash was not immediately clear. —AP

Royals top Rangers

NEW YORK: Mets’ Angel Pagan slides past Philadelphia Phillies catcher Carlos Ruiz to score during the sixth inning of a baseball game. —AP

Phillies beat sinking Mets NEW YORK: Domonic Brown hit a tiebreaking single in the ninth inning as the Philadelphia Phillies scored three runs off star closer Francisco Rodriguez to beat the sinking New York Mets 6-4 on Friday.

Jimmy Rollins drove in three runs for the Phillies and Roy Oswalt had an RBI single to go with six innings on the mound.

With runners at the corners, Ryan Madson got Daniel Murphy to ground into a gameending double play. Antonio Bastardo (30) worked a hitless eighth and Madson earned his 10th save in 10 chances.

Rodriguez (1-1) took the loss.

Justin Turner had a career-high four hits for the Mets, who have dropped five of six after winning 10 of 14. Philadelphia had lost its last four road games since a May 13 victory at Atlanta.

Pirates 4, Cubs 2 In Chicago, Kevin Correia pitched shutout ball into the eighth inning as Pittsburgh topped the Cubs. Correia (7-4) limited Chicago to four singles and a pair of walks in 7 2-3 innings. He equaled Boston Red Sox pitcher Jon Lester’s MLBleading seven wins this season, and has six of the Pirates’ 14 victories away from home.

Andrew McCutchen had two singles, a walk, an RBI and two stolen bases for the Pirates. He’s reached base in 19 straight games against the Cubs.

Doug Davis (0-3) walked six batters and hit another during 4 2-3 innings. The Cubs committed a pair of errors in the second that led to two unearned runs, and Davis allowed four in all.

Alfonso Soriano hit his 12th homer of the season, a two-run shot off reliever Joe Beimel in the ninth, but Pittsburgh closer Joel Hanrahan came on to strike out three straight batters to remain perfect in 14 save chances this season.

Nationals 2, Padres 1 In Washington, Michael Morse hit a home run on the first pitch in the bottom of the ninth inning to lift the Nationals to a win over San Diego, ending a five-game losing streak.

Drew Storen (3-1), who lost his first save chance of the season when Jason Bartlett homered to lead off the ninth, was the winner. He pitched 1 1-3 innings. It was Morse’s sixth homer of the year. Mike Adams (2-1) picked up the loss. He was the Padres’ third pitcher in the game.

Reds 5, Braves 1 At Atlanta, Mike Leake allowed one run in six innings and Ramon Hernandez hit a two-run homer in the ninth as Cincinnati

beat the Braves for only their second win in 10 games.

Leake (4-2) gave Cincinnati its first win by a starter since May 16.

The Braves loaded the bases with two outs in the eighth before Nick Massett ended the threat on Alex Gonzalez ’s grounder to shortstop Paul Janish. Tommy Hanson (5-4) gave up three runs on four hits and three walks in 4 2-3 innings.

Giants 5, Brewers 4 At Milwaukee, Brandon Crawford hit a go-ahead grand slam in his first MLB game to help San Francisco end the Brewers’ sixgame winning streak.

Tim Lincecum (5-4) gave up three runs in seven innings. The Giants won despite the ejection of manager Bruce Bochy, who argued a close play at home plate in the fifth inning. With the Brewers trying to rally in the eighth, Giants catcher Eli Whiteside took a big hit from Prince Fielder but was able to stay in the game until the end of the inning and preserve the lead.

Brian Wilson pitched the ninth for his 14th save. Shaun Marcum (6-2) took the loss.

D’backs 7, Astros 6 In Houston, Juan Miranda hit two tworun homers as Arizona rallied from a 6-0 deficit to beat the Astros. The rally matched Arizona’s all-time record for a comeback, and it was Houston’s biggest wasted lead of the season.

Daniel Hudson (6-5) survived the early Astros lead for his sixth victory in seven decisions. He pitched six innings, allowing eight hits and five earned runs and striking out four. JJ Putz pitched the ninth for his 15th consecutive save.

Cardinals 10, Rockies 3 In Denver, Colby Rasmus drove in three runs with two triples as St. Louis kept Ubaldo Jimenez winless this season with a win over Colorado.

Rasmus, mired in an 0-for-20 slump coming in, matched his career high with four hits. He singled his first two times up, then broke a 3-3 tie in the sixth with an RBI triple off Jimenez. He added a two-run triple in the seventh.

Jake Westbrook (5-3) improved to 3-0 all-time against Colorado, giving up three earned runs on five hits over five innings.

Jimenez, last year’s National League AllStar starter, fell to 0-5 and watched his ERA jump to 5.86.

Dodgers 3, Marlins 2 At Los Angeles, pinch-hitter Dioner Navarro singled up the middle with the bases loaded in the ninth inning to lead the Dodgers past Florida. —AP

ARLINGTON: Melky Cabrera and Eric Hosmer hit consecutive one-out homers in a five-run 14th inning as the Kansas City Royals ended a five-game losing streak by beating the Texas Rangers 12-7 in the American League on Friday.

Cabrera hit a drive over the center field fence off Dave Bush (0-1) to break a 7-all tie, and Hosmer gave the Royals a two-run lead. Brayan Pena added a three-run homer off Bush.

The Royals won for just the third time in 13 games. Blake Wood (2-0), the sixth Royals pitcher, threw a perfect 13th for the win. Hosmer had four hits and four RBIs for the first time in his career.

Mariners 4, Yankees 3 In Seattle, Ichiro Suzuki and Brendan Ryan each hit run-scoring grounders in the sixth inning as Seattle defeated the New York Yankees.

Seattle won for the ninth time in 11 games and got back to .500 in the standings for the first time since April 4 by taking advantage of the Yankees’ bullpen. Yankees starter A.J. Burnett gave up just two runs through five innings, but Boone Logan and Luis Ayala struggled in relief. Ayala (1-1) picked up the loss. David Pauley (3-0) worked two scoreless innings in relief of starter Michael Pineda to get the victory.

Red Sox 6, Tigers 3 In Detroit, Jacoby Ellsbury and Carl Crawford homered in a five-run third inning to help Boston beat Detroit for its 12th victory in the last 14 games.

Tim Wakefield (2-1) got his 195th career win, allowing two runs on five hits in seven innings.

Rick Porcello (4-3) gave up a season-high six runs in three innings. Crawford has nine hits in his last 12 at-bats, including two homers and seven RBIs. Rays 5, Indians 0 In St. Petersburg, Florida, David Price struck out a career-high 12 batters over seven innings and Casey Kotchman and Sam Fuld both homered as Tampa Bay shut out Cleveland.

Price (6-4) scattered four hits and walked two.

The left-hander had given up 10 runs in 11 2-3 innings during his previous two starts.

The Rays went up 4-0 in the second on two-run homers by Kotchman and Fuld off Josh Tomlin (62). Relievers Joel Peralta and Adam Russell completed the four-hitter. Tampa Bay’s Matt Joyce, who started the game hitting an MLB-best .367, had three hits in four at-bats.

Blue Jays 4, White Sox 2 In Toronto, Yunel Escobar doubled home the tiebreaking run in the seventh inning for the Blue Jays. Right-hander Casey Janssen (2-0) pitched one inning of relief for the win as Toronto ended a three-game losing streak.

Shawn Camp got one out and Jon Rauch finished in the ninth for his sixth save in eight opportunities. The Blue Jays earned a rare win against White Sox left-hander Mark Buehrle (4-4), who came in 5-2 with a 1.78 ERA in his previous eight starts against Toronto.

Angels 6, Twins 5 In Minneapolis, Maicer Izturis hit a go-ahead RBI single in the ninth inning to cap Los Angeles’ comeback win over Minnesota.

The Angels trailed 5-0 heading into the eighth but got five runs in the inning off three Twins

ARLINGTON: Texas Rangers relief pitcher Yoshinori Tateyama (22) of Japan throws during the 13th inning of a baseball game against the Kansas City Royals. — AP relievers. Erick Aybar’s three-run homer on the first pitch from Dusty Hughes ignited the rally after Twins starter Scott Baker allowed six singles over seven shutout innings. Jim Hoey (0-2) picked up the loss after allowing the Angels to level the score on Alberto Callaspo’s infield single and Russell Branyan’s sacrifice fly. Scott Downs (3-1) got two outs for the win for Los Angeles.

Athletics 6, Orioles 2 In Oakland, California, Ryan Sweeney hit a

tiebreaking single as part of a three-run sixth inning as the Athletics held on to beat Baltimore.

Josh Willingham homered and drove in two runs for the A’s, who won despite manager Bob Geren’s first ejection of the season. Sweeney also doubled and scored twice while Oakland matched its season high with four double plays. Brad Ziegler (1-0) pitched two scoreless innings for the win. Orioles reliever Alfredo Simon (1-1) gave up three runs in two innings for the loss. —AP

MLB results/standings Major League Baseball results and standings on Friday.

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

American League Eastern Division W L PCT Boston 29 22 .569 NY Yankees 27 22 .551 Tampa Bay 27 23 .540 Toronto 25 26 .490 Baltimore 24 25 .490 Central Division Cleveland 30 18 .625 Detroit 25 25 .500 Kansas City 23 27 .460 Chicago White Sox24 29 .453 Minnesota 16 33 .327 Western Division Texas 26 25 .510 LA Angels 27 26 .509 Seattle 25 25 .500 Oakland 25 27 .481

GB 1 1.5 4 4 6 8 8.5 14.5 .5 1.5

National League Eastern Division Philadelphia 32 19 .627 Florida 29 20 .592 Atlanta 28 24 .538 NY Mets 23 27 .460 Washington 22 28 .440 Central Division St Louis 31 21 .596 Milwaukee 27 24 .529 Cincinnati 27 25 .519 Pittsburgh 23 26 .469 Chicago Cubs 22 27 .449 Houston 19 32 .373 Western Division San Francisco 28 22 .560 Arizona 27 24 .529 Colorado 24 26 .480 LA Dodgers 23 29 .442 San Diego 20 31 .392

2 4.5 8.5 9.5 3.5 4 6.5 7.5 11.5 1.5 4 6 8.5

Latvala leads in Argentina CORDOBA: Finn Jari-Matti Latvala led the Rally of Argentina on Friday ahead of Nor wegian Petter Solberg with world champion Sebastien Loeb in fifth place one and a half minutes adrift after a time penalty.

Latvala had a brilliant start to the day for Ford with wins on stages two to five while Frenchman Loeb, who had won Thursday’s opening special stage at Villa Carlos Paz, fought to keep in touch in his Citroen.

By the end of El Condor 1, the fourth special stage, the 26-year-old Finn had opened a 12.3-second lead over former world champion Solberg which increased to 18.2 by the end of the day.

Finn Mikko Hirvonen, seven points behind Loeb in second place in the championship standings, is fourth in his Ford.

Latvala benefited from a good run on the 20km asphalt section of the 37.32km mixed-surface fourth stage despite using gravel tyres and with gravel settings which affected the performance of his rivals.

‘I’m happy, it’s going better on tarmac,’ Latvala was quoted as saying on the world championship official website (www.wrc.com).

‘I made a big attack on El Condor by lowering the car by 20 millimetres. This gave me more confidence.’‘It was terrible,’said Loeb coming onto the tarmac after negotiating gravel in the Cordoba mountains.

‘It was really dangerous, too fast and I couldn’t keep the car (on the road). You touch a little bit the brakes in the straight and it’s going everywhere. You cannot push, you just try to stay on the road.î Solberg regained some time on Latvala by winning the sixth stage, the 400th special section victory of the 37-year-old’s career, taking it by less than two seconds from Citroen’s Frenchman Sebastien Ogier, who is third overall.

Loeb, hit by a one-minute time penalty halfway through the day, had a better run on El Condor 2 in Friday’s seventh and final special than in the morning on the same mixed-surface section to end a disappointing day on a winning note.

The seven times world champion, a five times winner in Argentina, beat Latvala into second place on the stage after the Finn braked late at a junction and stalled. — Reuters

The Burgan Bank team with the championship trophy.

The Ahli Bank team receives the second place trophy.

Burgan Bank wins KBC Bowling Cup KUWAIT: The Burgan Bank was recently announced as winners of the 12th annual KBC Bowling Cup which concluded at the Cozmo hall in Salmiya, and that after finishing first ahead of the Ahli Bank. A number of top executives from

the Kuwait Bank Club were present during the final day of the tournament, including CEO Mahmoud Bastaki, treasurer Mohammad AlSayegh, social committee president Reem AlWuqaiyan and assistant general manager Abbas

Both teams pose with KBC officials following the coronation ceremony.

Al-Blushi. In addition to the first two finalists, the KBC also awarded Fred Gabrial from the Ahli Bank for achieving the most number of points in a single frame during the 2011 season, after getting 3000 points in one frame.

The Ahli Bank’s Fred Gabrial is rewarded.

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IndyCar land of opportunity for women racers NDIANAPOLIS: IndyCar is the land of opportunity for the world’s top women race car drivers who will try to turn Sunday’s 100th Indianapolis 500 into Ladies Day at the famed Brickyard.

While women drivers rarely compete at European racetracks, they are a regular fixture on North America’s top open wheel circuit battling wheel-to-wheel against the men.

Four women from four different countries, American Danica Patrick, Swiss Simona de Silvestro, Britain Pippa Mann and Brazilian Ana Beatriz will take the command on Sunday to start their engines while Sarah Fisher will watch from the pits as a team owner.

Girl power is nothing new for IndyCar, Janet Guthrie having long ago shattered the glass ceiling when she became the first woman to qualify for an Indy 500 in 1977.

It was IndyCar pioneers such as Guthrie and Fisher, who opened Mann’s eyes to the possibility of a racing career in North America and doors that were closed to her in Europe.

Patrick is one of North America’s most recognis-

able athletes and an IndyCar winner, but no woman has ever scored a point in Formula One. Italian Leila Lombardi was the last woman to appear in an F1 race in 1976 and few women since have been given an opportunity to earn a seat.

“I never raced for a team that was unprofessional but there were occasions when you would go test with people,” recalled Mann.

“There was a team boss who looked at me when I showed up and told me, ‘the first thing you can do is take those things out of your ears, you can go and clean your face, you can put on some shoes where I don’t see your painted toenails and then you can come back and talk to me’.

“After the test he told me I had done a really good job but he told me he wasn’t sure about having a girl on his team.

“There is still some of that back in Europe and that is why we tend to come over here. It is so great to be treated just as another professional, another racing car driver.” After competing on various European series, Mann jumped to the Indy Lights, IndyCar’s top development league, winning a race

and grabbing three pole positions, including one at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

The step up to IndyCar has proven a big one for 27-year-old Londoner, who has struggled to find the necessary sponsorship to race full-time on the circuit.

“The big deal for me is being a one-off rookie entry, first ever race, with one day experience in the car was to just make the show,” said Mann, who will make her IndyCar debut on the series’ biggest stage. “That was always the really big thing for us was to see if we could get this car in and we did.

“I’m the first British female to do this, it’s a story the media back in the UK have really picked up and run with.” A fiery crash during practise that left De Silvestro with badly burned hands nearly ended the Swiss driver’s bid for a spot in the Indy Centennial.

But in a gutsy and gritty display, De Silvestro climbed into a backup car a few days later and fought through the pain and doubt to secure a spot Sunday’s race, winning the respect of her fellow drivers.

“I think it was very brave,” said twice Indy 500

winner Dario Franchitti. “She was very brave to get back into the car and did a very good job of qualifying.

“I think she did a very good job driving through the pain. Very impressive.” Since blazing onto IndyCar scene in 2005, Patrick has been the undisputed Queen of the Brickyard.

No woman has ever won the 500 but Patrick has come the closest with a third place finish in 2009 and remains the only woman to lead a lap at the Indy.

While the 100th Indy would provide a memorable breakthrough, Mann is not sure if the world will watch a woman put her car on Victory Lane this year but is confident it will happen one day.

“That is going to be absolutely fantastic when that happens,” smiled Mann. “I don’t know if it is going to be this year. “We’ve got some great talent, Danica if she decides to stay around, Ana has done a fantastic job, Simona, WOW what a performance from her in qualifying and I’m going to put myself in there as well as a future possibility. “It will happen one day.” — Reuters

Vettel on pole in Monaco

TEXAS: Sergio Garcia of Spain, hits out of a bunker on the 18th hole during the second round of the Byron Nelson Championship golf tournament. — AP

Garcia and Palmer take charge at blustery Nelson DALLAS: Sergio Garcia ignored the gusting winds to stay on track for his first PGA Tour title in three years by firing a four-under-par 66 in Friday’s second round of the Byron Nelson Championship in Irving, Texas.

Despite playing in the most difficult weather conditions of the day, the 31-year-old Spaniard was rock-solid from tee to green and putted superbly to join American Ryan Palmer (67) in a tie for the lead at eight-under 132.

Next best at five under were Americans Tim Petrovic (66) and Scott Piercy (69), a stroke in front of compatriots Nick Watney (68), Joe Ogilvie (70) and Chad Collins (69).

Garcia, who won the most recent of his seven PGA Tour titles at the 2008 Players Championship, teed off in the afternoon when the winds had strengthened considerably from the morning.

Although he dropped a shot at the par-four third, he produced flawless golf thereafter, including a chip-in for birdie from just off the green at the par-four 15th.

“I am very pleased with the round,” Garcia told reporters after getting up and down from a greenside bunker to save par at the last where he coolly sank a six-footer.

“I drove the ball great, which I’m very happy about. Just a little bit of a bad drive on the last, but we managed to make a great up and down for a good finish.”

Garcia, who has switched to a claw grip this season to improve his notoriously erratic putting, totalled only 27 putts on firming greens as the wind gusted up to 35 mph (56 kph).

“I feel much more comfortable, I feel like I know what I’m doing,” said the Spaniard, who won the Byron Nelson Championship in 2004.

“I’ve been able to do it (putt) more consistently this year since I went to the claw grip.”

Local favorite Palmer, who had made only one cut in his seven previous starts in the PGA Tour event, set the clubhouse pace with a 67 after setting off in the morning.

The gusts intensified as the 34-year-old American reached the turn at the TPC Court Las Colinas and he safely negotiated the homeward nine in level-par 35.

“I drilled the ball great today,” said Palmer who was born in nearby Amarillo. “I’m not having that many long putts, and that just shows how solid I’m hitting the golf ball.

“The last five holes are playing tough, into the wind and uphill, so finishing in par was good. I love where I’m sitting. The course is getting firmer and faster and tougher, so a fun weekend ahead.”

One of the most impressive displays of the day came from 17-year-old American amateur Jordan Spieth who carded a 68 for a three-under total on the eve of his graduation from high school.

First-round leader Jeff Overton, who had opened with a flawless 64, lost ground on Friday as he laboured to a 74. He bogeyed his last two holes to end the day six shots off the pace.

The cut fell at three-over 143 with former major champions Mike Weir, Justin Leonard and Steve Elkington, plus 2007 Byron Nelson winner Scott Verplank, failing to advance. — Reuters

MONACO: World championship leader Sebastian Vettel secured his fifth pole position of the season after posting the fastest time in yesterday’s crash-marred qualifying session at the Monaco Grand Prix.

Vettel is already threatening to run away with the championship after racing to four wins out of five and building a commanding lead over second-place Lewis Hamilton.

However, the German has never won in Monaco before.

“It’s a bit of a casino, a lot of things going on,” Vettel said. “It’s a long race, 78 laps. Pole position here is very important so we can be very happy with that, although there’s no guarantees for tomorrow.” Vettel’s best lap time of 1 minute, 13.556 seconds gave Red Bull its sixth straight pole, ahead of McLaren’s Jenson Button and Vettel’s teammate Mark Webber, who won in Monaco last year.

“If you’d asked me before qualifying if I would have taken third, I probably would have,” Webber said. “Absolutely it is possible to win (from third on the grid). Qualifying here is crucial, no question about that. “Pole is certainly nice to have. Seb did a great lap again today and deserves the pole, JB did a great run as well.”

Webber took pole at last week’s Spanish Grand Prix, the 23-year-old Vettel took the previous four poles and already leads McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton overall by 41 points as he bids to win in Monaco for the first time. “I had to wait a long time to get the pole, but I’m very pleased,” said Vettel, F1’s youngest ever champion. It was a disappointing session for Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso, who was quickest in the final practice yesterday, but dropped to fourth in qualifying. Mercedes’ Michael Schumacher starts fifth, and Ferrari’s Felipe Massa sixth.

Mexican driver Sergio Perez crashed his Sauber exiting the tunnel near the end of qualifying. “Things like this (crash) are a bit of a wake up call,” Vettel said. Perez became the third driver to crash yesterday, racing out of the tunnel and skidding across the track. “It’s difficult to keep the focus and it’s difficult to keep the concentration when you don’t know what’s going on,” Vettel said.

“We all wish him the best.” Perez’s crash severely hampered Hamilton, as he had yet to set a lapped time and the heat went out of his tires as he waited nearly 40 minutes for qualifying to resume. The 2008 F1 champion will start today’s race down in seventh spot, a disappointment for the English driver, who was fastest in both the opening two qualifying sessions. Former F1 champion Button was relieved to have got his stint in before Perez crashed.

“I put in a good lap at the start of the session,” Button said. With Perez racing in the third session for the first time this season, the Mexican lost control of his car as he was about to come out of the tunnel. The front

3-way tie for halfway lead at BMW PGA Championship VIRGINIA WATER: Long-hitting Spaniard Alvaro Quiros birdied the final three holes Friday for a 4under 67 and a share of the second-round lead in the BMW PGA Championship with second-ranked Luke Donald and Italian teenager Matteo Manassero.

Manassero birdied No. 18 for a 70, and Donald had a 72 to match Quiros at 6-under 136 on the Ernie Els-remodeled West Course at Wentworth.

England’s David Horsey (68), Spain’s Jose Manuel Lara (70) and South Africa’s Thomas Aitken (67) were 4 under. Most of the field wore the trademark navy blue to honor Seve Ballesteros, who died aged 54 on May 7 from complications of a brain tumor.

Donald, the overnight leader after matching his

lowest European Tour round with a 64, opened with a bogey and also dropped strokes on Nos. 7 and 10. Manassero also made three bogeys.

“It was definitely tougher out there today,” Donald said. “It was slightly disappointing that I didn’t take advantage of some of the opportunities that I had there, and some of the bogeys I made were kind of weak bogeys. But I kind of stuck in there at the end, so I’m still in a good position and looking forward to the weekend.”

The Englishman needs to finish in front of Lee Westwood, 1 under after a 68, to capture the No. 1 ranking. Two-time major champion John Daly became the fourth player to pull out of the event, retiring after 14 holes because of a hip injury. The 18-year-old Manassero is well placed to capture his

WENTWORTH: Paraguay’s Fabrizio Zanotti plays a shot during the third round of the the BMW PGA Championship. — AP

third title in less than a year since he turned professional, a victory that would vault him into the top 15 in the world.

“Even if it wasn’t as windy as yesterday, it wasn’t easy to score,” Manassero said. “I haven’t played as well as yesterday, but I still shot under par, which is important on a course like this.” Third-ranked Martin Kaymer made the cut by a stroke, shooting a 71 to finish at 3 over. U.S. Open champion Graeme McDowell (5 over), Masters winner Charl Schwartzel (12 over) and British Open champion Louis Oosthuizen (8 over) missed the cut.

Ian Poulter, who beat Donald in the final of the World Match Play Championship last weekend in Spain, was even par after a double bogey on his last hole left him with a 74. Poulter criticized the course, which he had avoided in 2008 and ‘09 because he doesn’t like the greens.

“I decided to continue my love affair with this golf course on the last,” he said sarcastically. “We are trying to land it on a dining room table from 230 yards out. You miss you target, yeah, I think it’s a little unfair. I’ve walked off the golf course and I’m absolutely headless, absolutely fuming.

“It’s now turning into a very, very difficult golf course and I’ve got to say, it’s not fun golf.” Els defended the course as a major championshipstyle layout. “Wentworth is now a fair and honest test of golf,” he said. “I believe you will not find better surfaces to putt on anywhere in the world at the moment, but unfortunately you only hear the negative comments and very little positive. This course is by no means unfair.” Poulter’s criticisms were shared by playing partner Paul Casey of England, 1 under after a 71. “I think (owner) Richard Caring, from what I’ve heard, was perhaps wanting something like level par to win. Well, he might get that, but does that make it entertaining?” Casey said.—AP

slid over to the right and slammed into the tunnel barrier, spinning the car round and sending it into a tire wall on the circuit.

Button had a similar tunnel crash in 2003.

“I know how much it hurts, so hopefully he’ll be okay,” Button said. “It’s never nice to see that thing. I’m not sure he will race tomorrow, but hopefully he will get well soon.” A medical crew rushed to Perez’s car, and a giant blanket was immediately draped over it.

After a few minutes the battered car was lifted off the track after Perez had been taken away for treatment. His injuries were not immediately known.

Sauber team official Hanspeter Brack told reporters: “Sergio was conscious and he has been talking. He is now being brought to the hospital and we will have to wait for further information.” Alonso, meanwhile, had the fastest time in the third and final practice session in the morning, following on from his quickest time in Thursday’s second practice and raising hopes Ferrari could get its first

win of the season in Monaco.

Ferrari has been lagging behind Red Bull, but this weekend was the first time it has been faster in practice. Alonso, last year’s F1 runner-up, already trails Vettel by 67 points and now needs a good performance from the second row today to put any kind of pressure on Vettel.

Alonso’s best place this season was third in Turkey. “Fernando looked competitive (in practice), I don’t know what happened to them (Ferrari) in qualifying,” Vettel said.

In a disappointing afternoon for Renault, both Vitaly Petrov and Nick Heidfeld missed out on making the third qualifying stint, suggesting a problem with downforce as their cars were bumping around the track.

Practice was interrupted twice in the morning as drivers raced around the sinewy, barrier-lined circuit under perfect blue skies.

Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg and Hispania’s Vitantonio Liuzzi were both unharmed after crashes.—AP

MONACO: Red Bull driver Sebastian Vettel of Germany steers his car during the qualifying session at the Monaco racetrack. — AP

Murota extends lead LOUISVILLE: Unheralded Kiyoshi Murota of Japan shot a 5-under 67 on Friday to extend his lead over some of the biggest names in golf at the Senior PGA Championship after the partially completed second round. The 55-year-old touring pro and golf teacher followed an opening-round 66 to stand at 11-under 133, four strokes ahead of Nick Price and Hale Irwin. “We have two more days,” Murota said through an interpreter.

“So let’s wait two days from now before making any kind of judgment or assessment as to how well I have done.” Half the field had to complete the first round on Friday after rain disrupted play the day before. Second-round play was then suspended due to darkness with more than two dozen golfers yet to finish.

Price closed out an opening-round 67 and then shot a 70 in the second round to take a share of second place at 7-under 137 with Irwin, who had rounds of 69 and 68.

Loren Roberts and Olin Browne were at 6 under following 70s. Gary Hallberg was 5 under after a 67, and Tom Watson had a 70 to top the group at 4 under that also included Mark O’Meara (72).

Murota, little known outside Japan because he has seldom played in international events, trailed Price and Irwin by the time he teed off Friday, but he quickly eliminated the deficit with birdies on the first two holes and with four on the first seven holes to get to 10 under. He then had four birdies — including one on the par-5 closing hole — and three bogeys the rest of the way. Remarkably, he has had 20 one-putt

greens in his first 36 holes.

The humble, self-effacing Murota put things into perspective when asked about whether people in his homeland who were impacted by the earthquake and tsunami earlier this year might be encouraged by his strong play. “My answer to that question is no,” he said.

“The earthquake, tsunami and the radiation leak, it’s a far greater problem than the golf score achieved by a little guy like myself.” He said he thought there was no way he could shoot another 66 after the first round, but he only missed by a shot.

Murota added that he only started playing golf because there was a beautiful girl at the golf club at the university he attended.

He didn’t get the girl, but told reporters to loud laughter: “I did find golf.” Price, the winner of two PGA Championships and a British Open, has been battling a bad back in recent weeks. He took 12 days off after playing the Champions Tour stop in Birmingham, Alabama, earlier this month and has had no problems this week. He hit just 11 of 18 greens in regulation, but frequently scrambled for par when he missed the putting surface.

The Zimbabwean is hoping for hot weather this weekend, when temperatures are expected to rise above 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 Celsius).

“I prefer the heat,” he said. “I’m not saying I’m going to play any better but if you look at my record over the years, the heat never was much of a factor for me. I always seemed to play my best in summer.” —AP

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CHENNAI: Players of Chennai Super Kings pose with the winning trophy after their victory over Royal Challengers Bangalore in the Indian Premier League. — AP

Super Kings win IPL CHENNAI: Murali Vijay smashed 95 to help Chennai Super Kings win the Indian Premier League for the second straight year yesterday with a thumping 58-run victory over Bangalore Royal Challengers in the final.

Vijay, who hit six sixes and four fours in his 52-ball knock, partnered Australian Michael Hussey (63) to set Chennai on its way to a 205-5 total off 20 overs at the MA Chidambaram Stadium.

Off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin dismissed the tournament’s highest run-getter, West Indian Chris Gayle, caught behind for zero in the opening over. He then bowled Mayank Agarwal for 10 in his next over to enable Chennai take a firm grip on the match.

League toppers Bangalore, finalists in 2009, were restricted to 147-8 off 20 overs with Ashwin finishing with 3-16. Chennai, who has made it to the final three times in four editions, has not lost at home in eight matches this season.

“You can say we saved the best for the last,” Chennai captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni said. “Vijay and Hussey gave us a great start. ... You want to show intent in a final, and show you want to win it, and that’s what the batsmen did.”

Chennai was provided with a spectacular start with Vijay and Hussey involved in the highest first-wicket stand of the fourth edition of the 10-team Twenty20 tournament.

Vijay raced to his 50 in 29 balls after guid-

ing the defending champions to 94 in 10 overs, and subsequently lashed pacer Sreenath Aravind for two sixes in one over as he tore into the attack. Left-handed Hussey brought up his 50 with a reverse sweep for four off New Zealand spinner Daniel Vettori as the pair virtually batted the opposition out of the contest.

Hussey, who had survived a run out chance on 46, was caught at the long-on fence attempting to flat-bat a full toss from left-arm spinner Syed Mohammad in the 15th over. Dhoni lashed Gayle for two sixes in an over to build on the advantage before Aravind dismissed a tired-looking Vijay — caught at cover by Vettori — and Dhoni was caught at the long-off fence for 22 off suc-

cessive deliveries in the 19th over.

Gayle dismissed Albie Morkel for two and Suresh Raina for eight in the final over before West Indian Dwayne Bravo took the hosts past the 200-mark with a six off the final delivery.

Bangalore failed to recover following Ashwin’s early strikes and lost to the defending champion for the third time in four meetings this season.

Left-arm spinner Shadab Jakati dismissed South African AB de Villiers lbw for 18 and Australian Luke Pomersbach caught and bowled for two to send the visitors spiraling downwards. “It would have been a much better game if we could have put up a bowling performance like yesterday, but it was

not to be. I think 160-170 would have been chaseable,” Bangalore skipper Vettori said.

Virat Kohli hit a brisk 35 before Suresh Raina nailed him lbw. Ashwin dismissed Vettori caught and bowled for zero for his third wicket of the match to leave the visitors struggling at 70-6 in 10.2 overs.

Saurabh Tiwary hit 42 not out and Zaheer Khan 21 but Chennai had taken the game away. Gayle, who scored 608 runs in 12 matches after joining Bangalore as an injury replacement, was adjudged Man of the Series.

“Disappointed that we had to lose tonight. Congrats to CSK (Chennai), they played better and deserved to win,” Gayle said. —AP

Lab director denies hiding Armstrong’s positive test

ITALY: Belarus’ Vasili Kiryienka celebrates as he cuts the finish line to win the 20th stage of the Giro dItalia, Tour of Italy cycling race. —AP

Contador closes in on second Giro victory SESTRIERE: Alberto Contador closed in on his second Giro d’Italia title yesterday by comfortably maintaining his overall lead on the penultimate stage, which was won

by Vasili Kir yienka after a solo breakaway.

Kiryienka rode alone for most of the 20th stage and finished the 242-kilometer (150-mile) ride from Verbania to Sestriere in 6 hours, 17 minutes, 3 seconds. Jose Rujano came home second, 4:43 behind, with Joaquin Rodriguez third in 4:49.

Contador looks all but certain to win the race after he finished eighth to maintain his lead of 5:18 over second-place Michele Scarponi in the overall standings.

Vincenzo Nibali is third, 6:14 behind. It will take a mishap for the Spaniard or a massive effort by Scarponi or Nibali in the 31.5-kilo-

meter (19.5-mile) individual time trial around the streets of Milan today to prevent Contador from winning.

“It was a very long day and very tiring,” Contador said. “I wanted to stay near Scarponi and Nibali, be ready for the finish and see if I could take some points off them.”

Kiryienka was part of a large breakaway group that took the initiative early. He eventually attacked on the twisting road up the 2,178meter (7,145-feet) climb to Colle delle Finestre.

The Belarusian led the way as the tarmac surface gave way to gravel and he finished the climb with a lead of 3:50 before the descent down similarly testing conditions. “Today was a pretty good day for me and my team,” Kiryienka said. “It was very satisfying to win with such a big break.”—AP

LAUSANNE: The head of Switzerland’s anti-doping laboratory on Friday denied claims that Lance Armstrong tested positive for per formance enhancing drugs at the 2001 Tour de Suisse and the results were covered up.

Martial Saugy said his Lausanne lab did find suspicious levels of banned bloodbooster EPO in four urine samples from the race that Armstrong won, but he didn’t know if any belonged to the seven-time Tour de France winner.

“The tests were not swept under the table and it’s not true that they could have been interpreted as positive,” Saugy told Swiss daily Neue Zurcher Zeitung. Former teammate Tyler Hamilton alleged in an interview with “60 Minutes” last Sunday that Armstrong spoke of using EPO to prepare for his third Tour de France win in 2001, and that cycling’s governing body helped him hide a positive test at the Swiss warmup event.

The CBS program also reported that International Cycling Union officials brokered a meeting involving Armstrong and Saugy’s World Anti-Doping Agency-accredited lab, which tested the Swiss race samples.

Armstrong made a deal with the UCI and “figured out a way for it to go away,” Hamilton said.

Saugy said Friday that he did meet with Armstrong and then U.S. Postal team manager Johan Bruyneel, but not in Lausanne as Hamilton claimed and unconnected to a suspicious test result.

“It also wasn’t about discussing a particular result or to cover up anything,” said Saugy, adding that the 2002 meeting occurred during a collection of

blood samples. Saugy said he gave US Postal his routine presentation about EPO testing at a time when its validity and parameters were still in question.

“I explained how the EPO test worked and why there were suspect samples as well as positive ones,” he told the NZZ. Saugy, whose lab devised the UCI’s biological passport program to monitor riders’ blood, said only the governing body knew who provided the four suspicious samples a decade ago.

On Monday, the UCI said it “categorically rejects” Hamilton’s claims that it said were “completely unfounded.”

Hein Verbruggen, who was UCI president throughout Armstrong’s Tour winning streak, said the governing body “never, ever” covered up a positive test under his leadership.

Verbruggen and current president Pat McQuaid are suing cyclist Floyd Landis in a Swiss court after he accused the UCI of protecting star riders from doping allegations. Landis and Hamilton have both confessed to doping throughout their careers after years of denials. Both have spoken with U.S. federal investigators who are investigating an alleged doping program in Armstrong’s teams.

Armstrong steadfastly denies doping and has never tested positive.

“These most recent developments debunk Sunday ’s “60 Minutes” story, and underscore the evil of sloppy, opportunistic attacks on a hero to those battling cancer, based on false, leaked information about long ago bicycle races in Europe,” Armstrong attorney Mark Fabiani said Friday. — AP

Anthony Dwyer receives the prize from NBK Al Ahmadi Branch Manager Adnan Al Fahad.

NBK customers enjoy UEFA Champions League final match KUWAIT: National Bank of Kuwait (NBK) announces the two winners of a fullypaid trip to London to attend the final match of the UEFA Champions League 2010/2011, in collaboration with MasterCard International.

NBK customers Dhari Hamad Al Wazzan & Anthony Dwyer have won fully-paid trip to London to attend the final match of the UEFA Champions League 2010/2011 that will be held today (May 28th).

The first winner Dhari Hamad Al Wazzan expressed his gratitude to NBK and said: “I went to London to get the tickets, but they were all sold out. When I returned to Kuwait, I got a call from NBK Public Relations Officer informing me that I have won two tickets to attend the

final match of the UEFA Champions League”. “I am certainly very lucky to win this valuable prize but, moreover, I am luckier to be a NBK customer”, Al Wazzan added.

The second winner Anthony Dwyer stressed: “I have never imagined that I would win such a fabulous prize. I am very pleased and excited to get the chance to attend the UEFA League final match.” NBK has offered its MasterCard credit cardholders six prizes to attend the UEFA Champions League 2010/2011 finals. Each prize consisted of a fully paid travel packages for two entailing round trip airline tickets, five star hotel accommodations, tickets for two to the UEFA Champions League match, and transportation to the stadium.

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FIFA spoiling Barca-Utd party is unforgivable sin LONDON: With Manchester United playing Barcelona for the title of champions of Europe, this should have been a week to drool over the beauty of football, an opportunity to yet again pay homage to the sublime skills of Lionel Messi, the brains of managers Alex Ferguson and Pep Guardiola and the sporting excellence of two great clubs.

But FIFA’s grubby football bureaucrats are soiling the fun. To their eternal shame, the pre-match talk is of bribery, corruption, allegations of payoffs and bundles of cash to swing FIFA’s presidential election. Yet more stomach-churning ugliness at the pinnacle of world football from officials now so discredited that they are unwor thy of licking the boots of those who will entertain us in the Champions League final late yesterday.

When FIFA bureaucrats can’t even organize their own internal ballot without turning it into a farce, then how can they be trusted to oversee global management of the beautiful game? Short answer: they can’t. The

timing of their latest crisis is unforgivable. In usurping the hard-earned limelight from players who will grace the pitch at the home of football at Wembley, FIFA is committing the ultimate sin.

The focus this week should have been entirely on football ambassadors like Edwin van der Sar, United’s goalkeeper who will be playing the last match of his long and admirable career.

If those who run football were doing their job correctly, which means working efficiently, honestly and quietly in the background, not needing to be heard nor seen, we could have spent this week thinking only of whether Ferguson should be bold and play Javier Hernandez alongside Wayne Rooney in attack or instead thicken United’s midfield as Kryptonite against Barcelona’s supertrio of Messi, Xavi Hernandez and Andres Iniesta.

Instead, FIFA is stealing headlines (“WHAT A SACK OF WEASELS!” was the verdict of one London newspaper on Friday) from footballers who

deserve them far more. How desperately unfair. How wrong.

FIFA’s so-called ethics committee is now meant to clean up this mess. A pressure-hose would surely be more effective, because the dirt that has been thrown at FIFA over the years seems caked so thick. You could fill books — indeed, some have — with all the suspicions and claims of malfeasance. And even if many of them haven’t been backed up with rock-solid proof, football’s world governing body, at the very best, has an awful image problem.

The latest allegations that wouldbe president Mohamed bin Hammam sought to bribe voters are, however, more damaging than others that FIFA has swatted away because this time they come from an insider, Chuck Blazer. The American is a member of FIFA’s executive committee which, among other things, decides which nations host the World Cup. For that rich prize, presidents, prime ministers and princes get down before them on bended knee.

Bin Hammam also sits on that

committee. And he, in turn, claims that the man he is trying to unseat, FIFA president Sepp Blatter, may have known about but did nothing to stop any payoffs to voters in the Caribbean. In short, it looks like a snake eating its own tail, with former friends and allies within FIFA turning on each other in the dog fight for one of the most powerful jobs in sport.

An ideal outcome for football would be that the snake consumes itself entirely, that FIFA’s discredited leadership be replaced and rejuvenated. That is what needs to happen for FIFA to begin winning back credibility. But that is not likely to happen any time soon.

It’s impossible to know how this latest scandal will play out, because FIFA doesn’t like to wash its dirty laundry in public, it is keeping much of the substance behind the allegations against bin Hammam to itself for now, and because FIFA machinations happen behind closed doors.

One scenario, perhaps the likeliest if the allegations are proved, is that bin

Hammam is tossed out of the ballot and that Blatter gets a fourth and final four-year term unopposed next Wednesday. Bin Hammam insists he’s done nothing wrong.

Or, if Blatter did ignore any payoffs, the ethics committee that will meet this Sunday could sanction him, too. That, however, hardly seems likely given the power and network of contacts and influence he has built up in his 13 years at the top.

Or both men could be cleared and someone else could take the fall if payments were made. Someone like Jack Warner, a FIFA vice president who is also being investigated.

Warner could be a good patsy, because he’s been a previous target of numerous claims of wrongdoing, including allegations of involvement in World Cup ticket-scalping. If Warner is axed, Blatter could portray himself as a corruption-buster.

Either way, all this is ugly, ugly, ugly, and it’s unforgivable that it has overshadowed footballers about to play one of the games of their lives.—AP

Nadal strolls at French Open

BUENOS AIRES: Fans of Argentine singer and composer Diego Torres waves their Latin American flags as they wait for him to present the official song for the 2011 Copa America, “Creo en America,” or “I Believe in America,” in Buenos Aires. The 2011 Copa America will be held in Argentina from July 1 24 and will host 12 of Latin America’s soccer teams. —AP

English Premier League approves Arsenal takeover LONDON: Arsenal has received approval from the Premier League for American sports tycoon Stan Kroenke to take control of the club.

Kroenke gained a controlling stake in the London club by buying shares from fellow directors and launched a mandatory takeover bid that values the club at 731 million pounds ($1.2 billion).

“The club is very pleased to announce that the Premier League Board has confirmed that the change of control processes under the rules of the Premier League have been concluded to its satisfaction in relation to Stan Kroenke’s control of the club,” Arsenal chairman Peter Hill Wood said in a statement on Saturday.

Kroenke, who first bought shares in Arsenal in four years ago, has raised his stake to 66.06 percent and the remaining shareholders have another two weeks to accept his offer of 11,750 pounds per share.

“As the controlling shareholder of Arsenal Football Club, it will always be our intention to do what’s necessary to assure success on the pitch, provide long-term stability and build on the accomplishments and history of the club,” Kroenke said in Arsenal’s statement yesterday.

“We will continue to grow the Club’s presence globally while also adhering to

the Club’s self-sustaining economic model.

The club has funds to invest and will do so wisely.” Fans have been calling for significant funds to be spent to strengthen a side that has just ended a sixth successive season without a trophy and finished fourth in the Premier League.

“Our constant aim will be to compete for silverware and championships,” Kroenke said. “The long-term health of the club is of utmost importance.” Kroenke was obliged to launch a full takeover bid by taking his stake over the 30 percent threshold with the purchase of shares from the estate of late director Danny Fiszman, who died last month, and former director Lady Nina Bracewell Smith.

But Arsenal’s second-largest shareholder, Alisher Usmanov, is continuing to buy shares in the club. Through investment vehicle Red and White Holdings, the Russian’s stake reached 28 percent on Friday by paying up to 14,000 pounds per share.

Usmanov has never been invited onto the board of directors at Arsenal, unlike Kroenke, who also owns the NFL’s St. Louis Rams, the NBA’s Denver Nuggets, the NHL’s Colorado Avalanche and Major League Soccer’s Colorado Rapids. —AP

PARIS: After one real struggle and a second inconsistent performance at the French Open, Rafael Nadal felt a lot better and played a lot better in the third round.

At last looking like the player who’s dominated Roland Garros since 2005, the top -seeded Nadal bullied Antonio Veic of Croatia 6-1, 6-3, 6-0 yesterday, taking the final eight games.

Nadal improved his career record at the French Open to 41-1 and moved closer to winning a six th championship, which would equal Bjorn Borg for the most in tournament history.

“I improved in every aspect of my game. I was more aggressive; I made fewer mistakes. I think that at the moment, I have more control of the ball,” Nadal said. “I played very well on my forehand. I opened the court with my cross-court shots.

I won points with my forehands.

My back hand has improved quite a lot.” Probably not the sort of thing his fourth-round opponent — unseeded Ivan Ljubicic — wants to hear. But it’s true: While Veic, a qualifier ranked only 227th, couldn’t have been expected to provide much of a test, Nadal had every reason to emerge from their match on Cour t Philippe Chatrier feeling good about his game.

The Spaniard accumulated a 28-10 edge in winners, hitting 17 from the forehand side alone. He played cleanly, too, making only 18 unforced errors.

Nadal won the point 10 of the 12 times he went to the net.

And he returned spectacularly, winning 40 of the 56 points served by Veic, and converting 9 of 10 break points.

“I did a few things much better than the previous days,” said Nadal, who emphasized that

FIFA has some concerns with WCup preparations SAO PAULO: FIFA remains concerned with Brazil’s transportation infrastructure as the country prepares to host the 2014 World Cup. Football’s governing body said Friday that Brazil is mostly on track with its preparations, but “concerns remain with regard to airport operations and capacities as well as transport infrastructure.”

Renovating Brazil’s overcrowded airports and improving urban mobility have been among the bigge st c ha l l e nge s fo r l o ca l organizers ahead of the World Cup. “It is crucial that any venues which host the World Cup have adequate infrastruc ture to be able to cater for the tens of thousands of spec tators and allow them to move around the city for a particular match,” FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke said in a

statement.

“If this is not the case, we cannot stage matches in those cities.”

FIFA s a i d s u ch co ncer ns have been addressed with the highest authorities in Brazil and they are aware of the need for improvements.

B ra z i l i a n President Dilm a Rousseff recently announced the country’s airports will be opened up to private investment to ensure they are completed in time for the World Cup. Local officials have said they are confident the country will be able to properly accommodate the World Cup visitors three years from now.

Although FIFA said it received detailed repor ts showing that most World Cup preparations are “well on track,” delays in stadium construction will keep the cities of Natal and Sao Paulo out of the

Confederations Cup. The governing body said only cities with a stadium ready in early 2013 will be eligible to host matches in the warmup tournament.

Natal and Sao Paulo, South America’s biggest city and Brazil’s f i n a n c i a l ce n te r, h ave ye t to begin venue construction. Sao Paulo still wants to host the tournament’s opener, however.

Sao Paulo also won’t be able to host the International B ro a d c a s t Ce n t e r, w h i c h F I FA s a i d w i l l b e l o c a te d i n R i o d e Janeiro. Brasilia, the nation’s capital, also was vying to accommod a te t h e to u r n a m e n t ’s m e d i a center. FIFA said the venues and t h e m a t c h s c h e d u l e fo r t h e World Cup will be presented on July 29 in Rio de Janeiro. The preliminary draw for the World Cup is scheduled for July 30. —AP

PARIS: Rafael Nadal of Spain slips in his third round match against Antonio Veic of Croatia at the French Open tennis tournament in Roland Garros stadium. —AP the way he played Saturday boosted his confidence.

In his opening match Tuesday, Nadal was pushed to five sets for the first time at the French Open but came back to beat John Isner of the United States. Then, on Thursday, Nadal was forced to erase eight set points after trailing 5-1 in the third against Pablo Andujar of Spain.

That subpar per formance prompted Andujar to suggest that Nadal was “going through, perhaps, a period of doubt.”

Nadal needed a total of 7 hours, 19 minutes on cour t to get through those two victories, but conserved some energy by

finishing off Veic in a little more than 11/2 hours. It might have been even faster, actually, if not for Nadal’s well-known propensity for taking his time between points, something that drew a warning from the chair umpire Saturday. “The rule is the rule. If I am slow, I am slow. That’s what I can say,” he said. “No, no. If it’s time violation, it’s time violation. I have to go faster. That’s my fault.” While he had no complaint there, Nadal did — at a reporter’s prompting — renew his calls for the ATP to change the tennis calendar in order to give players more chance to rest at the end of each season.

The tour’s plan to expand the

next two offseasons from five to seven weeks “is not enough,” Nadal said. He’d prefer a break of two or 21/2 months between seasons, both for recovery and to try to fine-tune his game. In the meantime, he tries to fix things along the way, and was pleased the way his efforts in practice Friday showed up in his match Saturday.

“Solutions don’t come from heaven. I mean, you can’t change everything in one day.

And you know what? I had not forgotten how to play tennis for a week , but I played better today,” Nadal said. “I have more confidence, and that’s a major step forward for me.” —AP

Palermo aiming to make history in Italian Cup MILAN: Palermo is hoping to make history and win its first major trophy when it meets Inter Milan in the Italian Cup final today.

The Sicilian side has twice lost finals — in 1974 and 1979 — and will set out to make up for those defeats. “I have been here for four years and there has been constant growth,” midfielder Giulio Migliaccio said. “This final is the crowning glory and it is probably the most important match of our lives. “ This team has a strong base founded on a group of players that have been here a number of years.

We have a strong squad and a good coach.” For coach Delio Rossi reaching the final represents a remarkable turnaround in his fortunes.

At the start of 2010 Palermo president Maurizio Zamparini sacked him because of the team’s poor performance, but after a month under Sersi Cosmi failed to improve results,

Rossi was brought back in. Since then Palermo has overcome Chievo Verona, Parma and AC Milan to reach the final and more than 30,000 of its fans have bought tickets for the match at Rome’s Olympic Stadium.

“Getting to the final is fantastic enough,” Zamparini said. “Even a loss will be like a win to us, but beating Inter would be like winning the title.”

For Inter, meanwhile, the Cup represents a last chance to salvage some glory from a season that promised much, but fell short of matching the heroics of its treble-winning campaign in 2010.

Hopes were high at the start of the season that Rafael Benitez could carry on Jose Mourinho’s work, but despite winning the Italian Super Cup and World Club Cup, poor performances in the league and Champions League led to his dismissal at the end of 2010.

Leonardo took over and with a number of new signings came close to overhauling long time leader Milan in the league and guided the team to the Champions League quarterfinals.

“It is important that we maintain our concentration,” Leonardo said.

“We need to be right in the head because winning the Italian Cup would mean a lot.” Giampaolo Pazzini was one of the players whose arrival during the January transfer window sparked Inter’s revival.

The striker was part of the Sampdoria team that lost the 2009 final on penalties to Lazio and he is keen to make amends and win his first senior title. “For others the Italian Cup is worth less than other competitions,” Pazzini said. “Up until now I’ve won nothing, zero titles, but lost a final on penalties. Even so the Olympic Stadium is somewhere where I’ve always done well.” —AP

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LONDON: Barcelona confirmed their place in the pantheon of football’s greatest sides here yesterday, outclassing Manchester United 3-1 at Wembley to claim their second Champions League crown in three years.

Goals from Pedro, Lionel Messi and David Villa secured a deserved victory for the Catalan magicians after England international Wayne Rooney had raised United’s hopes with a well-taken first-half equaliser.

The star of an electrifying team performance was Argentinian striker Messi, the 23year-old maestro whose brilliant effort on 54 minutes saw him equal Ruud van Nistelrooy’s record of 12 goals in a single Champions League campaign.

It also took Messi’s tally for the season to an astonishing 56 goals in 62 games for club and country, and propelled Barcelona towards their fourth victory in club football’s most prestigious competition.

Sir Alex Ferguson’s United had been determined to avoid a repeat of the 2009 final in Rome, where Pep Guardiola’s side had struck early before going on to clinch a 2-0 win at the Stadio Olimpico.

Yet despite a bright opening United were ultimately handed a defeat that was just as emphatic as their loss two

years ago, with the Spanish champions revelling in the wide open spaces of Wembley.

United, lining up in an aggressive 4-4-2 formation, had harried Barcelona relentlessly in the early exchanges as they sought to prevent the Catalans from settling into their flowing passing rhythm.

But it was not long before Barcelona found their feet and United were to spend much of the opening half an hour, and the match, firmly on the back foot.

Villa shot wide after being picked out by Messi on the edge of the area and moments later Pedro went close after Xavi and Gerard Pique combined menacingly.

A jinking run by Messi set alarm bells jangling in the Manchester United defence before the striker threaded a lovely pass to Pedro only for United skipper Nemanja Vidic to slide in with an important block.

United had Vidic to thank for another superb piece of defending shortly afterwards, the Serbian judging his tackle brilliantly to deny Messi.

But on 27 minutes, Barcelona’s relentless pressure finally reaped its reward. An exquisite pass from Xavi struck with the outside of the boot picked out Pedro and the winger coolly clipped his shot beyond van der Sar. At that point Ferguson must have been fearing a repeat Rome. But crucially, United were able to find an

equaliser within seven minutes. Rooney combined passes with Michael Carrick out wide on the right before racing towards goal.

Another one-two with Ryan Giggs, looking perilously close to off-side, and Rooney was in space.

The England international took his time and swept in a curling shot beyond Victor Valdes to round off a wonderful move.

The goal clearly rattled Barcelona, but the Catalans were soon threatening again. Messi went on a surging run and picked out Villa but then just failed to control his team-mate’s return pass and United breathed again.

United started the second half positively but again Barcelona were swiftly on top as the warning lights were flashing again.

A fine save from van der Sar denied Dani Alves after the Brazilian was played in by Andres Iniesta before Vidic headed away Messi’s follow up shot.

But on 54 minutes Barcelona were back in front. Messi gathered the ball 25 yards out, and with Patrice Evra standing off fatally, the Barca talisman buried a thunderous low shot beyond van der Sar. With Barcelona firmly on top it was left to Villa to apply the coup de grace on 69 minutes. Messi embarrassed Nani before racing down the right flank. When Nani then failed to clear again, Messi found Sergio Busquets who passed to Villa who curled into the top corner.

As the seconds wound down, Guardiola could even give a run out to captain Carles Puyol, surprisingly left on the sub-

stitutes bench amid concerns over his fitnesss. Meanwhile, Messi cemented his status as the greatest player of his generation as two moments of magic from the Argentine maestro inspired Barcelona to Champions League glory.

Messi arrived at Wembley widely regarded as the sport’s preeminent force but the likes of Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo and Manchester United’s Wayne Rooney also had their claims to be the world’s best.

Those arguments will now be forgotten as Messi produced a second match-winning display in a Champions League final against United in the space of just three years.

Back in 2009, Messi announced his arrival as a true great with a headed goal in Barca’s 2-0 victory over United in Rome. This time he did his damage with a sweet strike to restore Barca’s lead early in second half before a superb solo run provided the impetus for David Villa’s clinching third goal.

A remarkable tally of 56 goals in 62 games for club and country this season suggests Messi deserves his place alongside Pele, Diego Maradona, Johan Cruyff, Alfredo Di Stefano and George Best in the pantheon of all-time greats.

Maradona worked with Messi when he was Argentina manager at last year’s World Cup and said recently: “I’ve heard many times over the years that there is a ‘new Maradona’.

With Messi, though, I believe the player is equal to the hype.”

It was easy to see why Maradona is so enthralled by his compatriot as he bewitched the United defence time and again.—AFP

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BRUSSELS: Japan Prime Minister Naoto Kan (left), President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy (centre) and President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso (right) give a joint press conference after their 20th EU-Japan Summit yesterday at the EU headquarters in Brussels. — AFP

EU, Japan to strive for mega free trade deal Scoping exercise likely to take six to nine months BRUSSELS: Leaders of the European Union and Japan yesterday agreed to start talks towards a multi-billion-euro free trade deal linking the world’s third biggest economy to the globe’s largest market.

Long demanded by Tokyo, the decision to launch preliminary talks on a trade deal, as well as on a binding political accord, was announced at the close of a summit between EU leaders and Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan. “We still have a long way to go, but the objective is now clear,” said EU president Herman Van Rompuy after the talks in a history-packed castle nestling in parkland on the outskirts of Brussels.

“When two of the world’s largest trading partners jointly confirm their intention to work towards a free trade agreement, that is a big step forward,” he added.

A joint statement said it was “agreed to start the process for negotiations for a deep and comprehensive free trade agreement (FTA)/economic partnership agreement (EPA), addressing all issues of shared interest to both sides”. Among

issues listed in the document are tariffs, non-tariff-measures, services, investment, intellectual property rights, competition and public procurement.

Hailing a move that helps defuse decades of trade friction, Kan said: “I’m convinced this will lead to a far-reaching economic partnership agreement.”

But the EU says a mountain of work remains to identify sticking points and compile a to-do list of obstacles to overcome before member states will approve official negotiations towards an FTA between the two economic giants. The EU’s signature of an FTA with Asian rival South Korea last year has upped Tokyo’s insistence on a deal to offset fears that Japan’s famed electronic appliances and automobiles may lose a competitive edge.

But European businesses complain of continuing obstacles in accessing the Japanese market, and Brussels in particular wants Tokyo to open up its public procurement market.

Tackling all the obstacles to free trade would release a “big potential” for business on both sides, said European

Top IMF hopefuls to seek support with Brazil visit BRASILIA: The two leading candidates for the position of International Monetary Fund managing director head to Brazil next week for back-to-back visits, officials said.

French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde plans to travel to Brasilia tomorrow to seek support for her candidacy, the French embassy here said Friday. Mexico’s central bank governor Agustin Carstens is also expected in Brasilia on Wednesday, a spokesman for Brazil’s finance ministry told AFP. Lagarde’s visit would be her first stop on a tour of emerging powers that is also expected to include visits to China and India. She will have lunch with her Brazilian counterpart Guido Mantega and also meet with the Brazilian central bank president Alexandre Tombini, the French embassy said.

The French finance minister is the favorite to succeed Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who has been charged with sexual assault in New York, as the head of the international financial organization.

The so-called BRICS, the group of emerging economic powers that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, have criticized the Europeans’ grip on the IMF, but have not yet agreed on a candidate of their own. On Tuesday representatives of the BRICS lashed out in a statement saying they are “concerned” with indications from European officials that the position of managing director should continue to be held

by European.

The 2008-2009 financial crisis in the United States and Europe showed the need to reform institutions like the IMF “to reflect the growing role of developing countries in the world economy,” they said.

The five have however refrained from endorsing any candidate, with the nominating period still open up until June 10, and Mantega indicating Brazil would back a candidate who holds positions that are “most consistent with our views.” Earlier this week he said he had already spoken with both Lagarde and Carstens, noting the Mexican governor had “called me requesting our support.”

The IMF will publish the full list of names of candidates seeking to become the next managing director

by June 17, a spokeswoman said this week. The final selection for the chief is expected to be announced by June 30. —AFP

Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso. Concretely, yesterday’s agreement provides for an immediate start to hammer out a list of problems to address and goals to achieve-a process known in EU jargon as a “scoping exercise”, likely to take six to nine months.

Only then could the EU 27 give a green light to an official launch of FTA negotiations. Prompted by Britain, Europe’s leaders in March called for FTA talks to aid Japan-but on the proviso that Tokyo lift restrictions to trade.

Trade ties consistently favour Japan, with Tokyo’s better track record “partly a reflection of continuing market access problems for foreign firms in Japan,” a European Commission report said this year.

Japan, struggling to recover from a devastating March tsunami and nuclear meltdown, had hoped the summit would offer a formal launch of FTA talks, but Europe held back until winning more assurances of a level playing field.

“We want to do business with Japan but there must be a clear give-andtake,” said a business sector lobbyist

who asked not to be identified. “We want to see clear signs from Japan that it is open to us.”

Europe notably complains over unfair treatment in government procurement, comparing a 312 billion euro procurements market (2.5 percent of EU GDP) open to Japanese companies in 2007, to a 22 billion euro share (0.5 percent of Japan’s GDP) offered to EU firms.

Even the European Parliament stepped up on the eve of the summit to warn against jumping into bed with Japan. “Instead of rushing headlong into new negotiations over a free trade agreement, EU countries should insist on tangible results,” said Euro-MP Daniel Caspary, who sits on the assembly’s trade committee.

Britain’s Foreign Secretary William Hague this month touted the prospects of a golden pot. The removal of tariff and non-tariff barriers could deliver over 40 billion euros ($60 billion) of additional European exports to Japan, and more than 50 billion euros of extra exports from Japan to the EU, he said. — AFP

Yemen conflict costs state $4bn to $5bn Vital oil sector hit hard by conflict SANAA: The political crisis that has pushed Yemen to the brink of civil war has cost the economy as much as $5 billion, and immediate aid is needed to prevent a meltdown, the country’s trade minister said yesterday.

Three months of street fighting and political protests have left nearly 300 dead, scared away investors, driven off urgently needed foreign aid and swollen budget deficits. “We have reports that the losses range between four to five billion dollars,” Hisham Sharaf Abdalla, minister of industry and trade, told Reuters in an interview.

Western and Gulf donors have called on President Ali Abdullah Saleh to end his 33-year reign under a Gulf-brokered deal and are wary of turning on the aid taps until a solution is found to a crisis that has pushed the state toward collapse. “The economy should not be held hostage to the political crisis, because the situation is alarming,” the trade minister said.

The outside world is worried that chaos in the country could benefit the Yemenbased branch of al Qaeda and threaten adjacent Saudi Arabia, the world’s No 1 oil exporter. Yemen is also on a shipping lane through which 3 million barrels of oil pass daily. The Group of Eight powers promised tens of billions of dollars in aid to Tunisia and Egypt at their summit on Friday and held out the prospect even more to foster the Arab Spring and the new democracies emerging from popular uprisings. Abdalla said the conflict in Yemen has hit the tourism and construction sectors hard while straining a stillfunctioning electric grid. The political crisis is expected to swell the deficit from an initial projection of 4 percent of GDP to 7 percent, he said.

Some of Yemen’s biggest losses are related to fuel in the country that relies on oil for 60 percent of its income and a has a nominal GDP of $31 billion.

Abdalla said in April and May, Yemen has had to import fuel and petroleum derivatives, which have cost $1 billion over the two months. “We started doing that because the opposition pushed the tribes to bomb the oil pipeline, which has been closed since the end of March,” he said.

Damaged pipelines have also cut off an impor tant source of income for the world’s 32nd largest oil exporter and 16th biggest seller of liquefied natural gas.

“Our biggest problem is that we haven’t been able to attract foreign direct investment to create jobs because of the security problem in Yemen,” he said. But economists said the problems are much deeper than that. Under President Saleh, Yemen became the poorest country in the oil-rich Arabian Peninsula with about 40 percent of the population living on less than $2 a day.

“If there is no injection from outside ... the Yemen economy will collapse, definitely,” Mohamed al-Maytami, economics professor at Sanaa University, said earlier this month.

“The rial will collapse, inflation will rise to a level Yemen had never witnessed, the most needed food will not be available for majority of people who are poor,” he said.

Abdalla called for a resumption of foreign aid and expected the Gulf-led initiative for a transition of power to provide economic assistance of about $2 billion to $3 billion.

But most of all, he said the stated needed help now. “We should not get the economy mixed with the ongoing political game.”—Reuters

BRUSSELS: Japan Prime Minister Naoto Kan takes a seat for the 20th EUJapan summit at the Val Duchesse castle in Brussels yesterday. An EUJapan summit seeking to elevate ties between the world’s third economy and leading market to a new dimension, looks set to stumble on prickly differences over trade.—AFP

India puts conditions on Cairn-Vedanta deal NEW DELHI: An Indian ministerial panel wants conditions attached to a proposed $9.6-billion sale of Cairn Energy’s Indian oilfields to Vedanta, sources said on Saturday, which could derail the deal.

Cairn Energy has called the government’s final decision on the salewhich would be one of the biggest takeovers in Indian corporate historya litmus test for the country as it seeks to woo foreign investors. The ministerial panel met Friday to decide its recommendation to another federal cabinet body on the deal, in which Scotland-based Cairn Energy plans to sell Vedanta control of its Indian unit, which produces oil in Rajasthan state.

The panel did not disclose its stand, but a source familiar with the transaction told AFP the ministers want the sale’s approval to be conditional on Cairn India agreeing to take on a share of the oil royalty payments currently made by its state-run partner Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC).

ONGC owns a 30 percent stake in the Cairn-operated block but pays royalties on 100 percent of the output under a “royalty holiday” scheme dating from the 1990s aimed at promoting private oil exploration in energy-hungry India. The two firms are locked in a bitter dispute over the issue, with ONGC pushing for the royalty burden to be shared along ownership percentages before the government approves the sale. “The ministers have chosen to support ONGC’s position,” the source said. A Cairn spokesman would not comment on the matter except to say it continued to work with London-listed Vedanta Resources “to secure the necessary consents” from the Indian govern-

ment. Vedanta had no comment.

But Cairn has previously said the original royalty arrangements must be upheld, warning changing them would affect the valuation of the deal by hurting Cairn’s profitability and could jeopardize the transaction.

Vedanta, in a January letter to the Indian government, said it was “not in position to accept” new royalty conditions as it would hurt Cairn India’s value, according to local media.

The sources also said the ministerial panel upheld ONGC’s argument that Cairn should pay tax on its output from the block. The ministerial recommendations are “potentially a deal killer,” said another source with knowledge of the transaction. “The whole world is watching this. Foreign investors are going to be very worried about investing in India.”

Oil Minister S Jaipal Reddy said late Friday the “outer limit” for the ministerial panel to submit its recommendations to India’s Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs for a final decision was two weeks.

The standoff comes at a bad time for India as foreign investment has plunged, with investors worrying about a slew of corruption scandals that have shaken the Congress partyled government.

In August 2010, Vedanta, owned by billionaire Anil Agarwal, said it would purchase a majority stake in Cairn India, adding to its aluminum, copper, iron ore and zinc assets. The ministerial meeting came days after Cairn India reported a 10-fold leap in quarterly profit to a record 24.6 billion rupees ($543 million) thanks to a surge in crude oil prices and output. — AFP

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Qatar strategically important investment destination: Baker

Bayt.com report

Mazaya Qatar CEO participates in Arab Investment Summit 2011 KUWAIT: Mazaya Qatar Real Estate Development Company (QSC) has wrapped up its participation in the Arab Investment Summit 2011, which drew to a close on Tuesday) at the Yas Island Rotana and Centro on Abu Dhabi’s Yas Island.

The Arab Investment Summit 2011, which ran from 23 to 24 May, presented investors with an opportunity to gain confidence and discover capital opportunities in a safe environment, as well as to meet and do business with over 300 investors, decision makers, and key role players in the regional market.

The Summit focused on strengthening the relationships between countries in order to promote new investments. As part of Mazaya Qatar’s participation in this important event, company CEO Seraj Al Baker took part in a panel discussion on the second day of the summit, which examined ways of identifying which emerging country governments are open to business to ensure the best possible selection for investors. The panel included Mohamad Sotoudeh, CEO of Essdar Capital, and moderated by Dr Ibrahim Al Hajari, Assistant Professor at the Petroleum Institute in Abu Dhabi.

Speakers stressed the importance of the government’s role in maintaining political stability as a major concern, as well as economic and investment stability. It was suggested that this could be achieved by updating investment tools in line with international developments and adopting transparency when setting investment requirements. Many countries enjoy vast economic resources and investment opportunities, but political unrest and economic instability discourage investors from entering these

markets. Therefore, the governments of these countries must urgently consider taking action to boost the investment climate and keep pace with other countries that have managed to attract investors.

Speaking of the panel and the points that were covered, Al Baker said, “ The decision of which emerging country to invest in relies heavily on the processes and policies set by that country’s government, including licenses, incentives and other government-driven practicalities that need to be incorporated into the decision. The panel discussion covered the role of public capital as a source of funding and decision making; cost and timeline forecasting for projects and private equity investments, and whether it is possible to account for all factors and variations; the top three markets with potential opportunities; and the top three economies with surmountable

challenges - all very valuable information for potential investors looking at the Arab markets.”

On his company’s decision to participate in the Arab investment Summit 2011, Al Baker said, “Mazaya Qatar has a portfolio of important architectural and professional civil engineering projects and mega-projects in Qatar, and we are committed to making a difference in real estate development, to taking it beyond mere development into a quality business that will help enhance the company’s position on both the GCC and regional levels. We are also invested in highlighting the opportunities available to investors, both regional and foreign, in Qatar, as well as the GCC and the wider Middle East.

Participation in events such as the Arab Investment Summit presents us with the perfect opportunity to do just that.”

2011 has seen Mazaya Qatar

start to carry out its expansion plans while also completing its existing projects. The company’s impressive track record, strong financial position and signing of strategic long-term income guaranteed projects will help push the real estate sector towards recovery and create a brighter and more mature future.

Al Baker stressed the strategic importance of Qatar presently, and the multitude of investment opportunities in various sectors within the Qatari markets. He invited investors to speed up entering the Qatari market in order to benefit from these opportunities.

The GCC is currently in a perfect position to diversify away from oil and other traditional investments, with its booming economies, growing population and hydrocarbon wealth. The Arab Investment Summit gave those present the chance to discover non-traditional investment

opportunities; to meet with over 200 of the biggest projects in the region; to leverage initiatives undertaken by the region’s governments to attract investments; to get to know new revenue streams for projects and how to acquire finance; to meet with business and government leaders to discuss major developments, challenges, and success stories in the area of investment in the Middle East; and to network with hundreds of investors from all over the world.

Fifteen powerful keynote sessions and four interactive panel discussions focused on various aspects of Middle East investment, which helped attending investors to understand the intricate dynamics of Middle East investment opportunities, and to identify hidden treasures.

Key topics included expansion of the capital markets to facilitate smooth flow of money; challenges faced by regional and foreign investors; public-private partnerships as a catalyst for sustainable development; leveraging existing investments and driving new investments; exploring financing options; oil and gas as key elements of Middle East growth; making the Middle East power sector attractive to private investors; creating more investment opportunities in the telecoms sector; analysing market trends and future investments in the Middle East communication market; attracting investment in the aviation sector; investment opportunities for infrastructure development in the Middle East; the investment potential in establishing commercial banks and financial institutions in the Middle East; and the real estate sector’s status as one of the greatest opportunities awaiting foreign investors.

GM recognizes six Mideast dealers with ‘Best-of-the-Best Grandmasters’ award KUWAIT: General Motors has recognized six dealers from the Middle East with the prestigious annual Grandmasters Award. The global award, which is presented to outstanding dealers of Chevrolet, GMC and Cadillac vehicles, recognizes the best-of-the-best GM dealers across the globe.

The aim of the Grandmasters Award is to raise levels of customer care in terms of sales and aftersales service to ensure that GM’s dealers provide the best customer ownership experience in the region.

“Providing a range of award-winning cars, pickups, crossovers and SUVs is not enough to maintain our success in this challenging and demanding market,” said John Stadwick, President and Managing Director of GM Middle East Operations. “We have to ensure that all GM customers in the Middle East

receive a world-class shopping, buying and ownership experience. And, our dealers have worked tirelessly to provide a customer experience that is second-to-none in the region.”

The six winning dealers from the region were: Abdullatif Alissa Automotive Company from Saudi Arabia; Behbehani and Alamana Industries from Kuwait; Rasamny Younis Motor Company (RYMCO) from Lebanon; Leading Vehicles Company (LVC) from Jordan; and Al Mansour Automotive Company (MAC) from Iraq.

“All the Grandmasters Award winners are the best-of-the-best dealers. They have exceeded their customer satisfaction targets and made an invaluable contribution to the success of GM Middle East during 2010 and the four months of 2011, which has seen our sales increase by 19%,” added Stadwick.

Representatives from the six winning Middle East dealers at a ceremony dinner hosted by General Motors.

Lama Ataya, chief marketing officer, Bayt.com

Tips to stay healthy at the workplace KUWAIT: Maintaining a healthy lifestyle at the workplace represents one of the biggest dilemmas that working professionals are faced with around the globe today. Clinging to a computer screen 8 to 10 hours a day, 5 to 6 days a week naturally drains one’s energy levels and affects one’s health over time. Recent Figures released by the World Health Organization (WHO) have revealed that more than one billion adults are overweight worldwide, 300 million of which are classified as “clinically obese”.

The Middle East region has not escaped the obesity epidemic which has raised concerns of officials and residents across the region. A poor diet and unhealthy lifestyle are the primary factors inducing excessive weight gain and associated riskier health issues. How can a working professional develop a healthier lifestyle at the workplace and thus lower the risk of raised BMI and diet-related chronic diseases? (such as diabetes, hypertension, etc...)

Below are Top Tips from the career experts at the Middle East’s No 1 job site Bayt.com to promote a healthier wellbeing and a better lifestyle at work: 1. Do not miss breakfast: Make time for breakfast every morning before or after coming into the office: A hearty breakfast is key to maintaining your food balance throughout the day (aim for a healthy daily 3 to 5 meal plan) 2. Get your homemade food with you to the office: Pack your lunch: a homemade lunch is by all means much healthier than vending machine treats and many food court fast foods. Also, keep healthy snacks within reach at your desk so that you can easily and readily shun all unhealthy food cravings.

3. Get out of the office during your lunch break: Regardless of whether it’s a 30 minute or an hour-long lunch break, make it a point to get out of the office and take a stroll around your building or the neighborhood. If it’s too hot or too cold to walk outside grab a cab and up that heart rate by enjoying a brisk walk at the closest mall/ shopping center/ park, etc...

4. Keep your body hydrated at work: Always have your bottles of water stored at work. Do not settle for less than 8 glasses a day. People often tend to forget about drinking water in the midst of a busy working day.

Keep your water within reach at all times while working in order for you to avoid dehydration, lack of energy and eventually inefficiency at work. Worn-out bodies and souls are naturally not as productive as healthy energetic ones!

5. Keep the motion going: Do you need to share a word with a colleague down the hall? Walk down to him/ her instead of using the phone or e-mail. Do you have an urgent request from the IT department on the second floor? Walk up or down the stairs to him. This simple effort will keep your blood circulation in tune.

6. Raise the health issue to management: Being a full time employee translates into spending most of your time at work. Do you and your colleagues trust management should better equip you with healthy lifestyle boosting measures? Would an office cafeteria (that caters healthy foods), a company gym, or organizational outdoor activities keep you more fit? Suggest the options you find viable to the upper echelons in the organization. At the end of the day, matter will all translate into improved ROI. Get those persuasive skills of yours rolling and let the fun begin!

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

.2700000 .4420000 .3820000 .3090000 .2790000 .2880000 .0040000 .0020000 .0747670 .7284350 .3810000 .0700000 .7140980 .0040000 .0430000

.2765000 .4530000 .3950000 .3210000 .2890000 .2970000 .0072500 .0035000 .0755190 .7357560 .4010000 .0770000 .7212750 .0072000 .0530000

CUSTOMER TRANSFER RATES .2754000 .2775000 .4445090 .4478990 .3856290 .3885690 .3117500 .3141270 .2813940 .2835390 .0517120 .0521070 .0431880 .0435180 .2903130 .2925270 .0354180 .0356880 .2206020 .2222850 .0033830 .0034090 .0000000 .0061800 .0000000 .0025340 .0000000 .0032360 .0000000 .0038140 .0750100 .0755820 .7306980 .7362700 .0000000 .3925040 .0734600 .0740200 .7155110 .7209660 .0000000 .0064530

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

Al-Muzaini Exchange Co.

Japanese Yen Indian Rupees Pakistani Rupees Srilankan Rupees Nepali Rupees Singapore Dollar Hongkong Dollar Bangladesh Taka

ASIAN COUNTRIES 3.451 6.111 3.227 2.511 3.833 224.120 35.538 3.739

Philippine Peso Thai Baht Irani Riyal - Transfer Irani Riyal - Cash

6.376 9.096 0.271 0.273 GCC COUNTRIES 73.750 75.990 718.330 734.360 75.291

Saudi Riyal Qatari Riyal Omani Riyal Bahraini Dinar UAE Dirham

ARAB COUNTRIES Egyptian Pound - Cash 49.500 Egyptian Pound - Transfer 46.419 Yemen Riyal 1.265 Tunisian Dinar 201.790 Jordanian Dinar 390.550 Lebanese Lira 183.400 Syrian Lier 5.970 Morocco Dirham 35.442 EUROPEAN & AMERICAN COUNTRIES US Dollar Transfer 276.450 Euro 400.020 Sterling Pound 460.570 Canadian dollar 287.370 Turkish lire 172.510 Swiss Franc 329.500 Australian dollar 292.620 US Dollar Buying 275.250 GOLD 285.000 145.000 75.000

20 Gram 10 Gram 5 Gram

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

SELL CASH SELL DRAFT 299.400 297.900 734.840 734.840 4.000 3.740 286.600 285.100 542.700 14.100 54.000 167.800 224.800 48.870 46.521 399.500 396.000 36.240 36.090 6.330 6.115

Indonesia Iranian tuman Iraqi dinar Japanese yen Jordanian dinar Lebanese pound Malaysian ringgit Morocco dirham Nepalese Rupees New Zealand dollar Nigeria Norwegian krone Omani Riyal Pakistani rupees Philippine peso Qatari riyal Saudi riyal Singapore dollar South Africa Sri Lankan rupees Sterling pound Swedish krona Swiss franc Syrian pound Thai bhat Tunisian dollar UAE dirham U.S. dollars Yemeni Riyal

0.033 0.239 0.242 3.510 391.860 0.187 94.220 47.600 4.330 229.500 1.873 51.500 717.690 3.320 6.620 76.440 73.770 224.780 42.460 2.657 460.000 45.300 329.400 5.800 9.500 198.263 75.340 276.700 1.240

0.033

390.530 0.186 94.220 3.840 228.000

717.510 3.240 6.385 76.010 73.770 224.780 42.460 2.511 458.000 327.900 5.800 9.320 75.240 276.300

GOLD 1,579.860

10 Tola

Sterling Pound US Dollar

TRAVELLER’S CHEQUE 458.000 276.300

Dollarco Exchange Co. Ltd Rate for Transfer US Dollar Canadian Dollar Sterling Pound Euro Swiss Frank Bahrain Dinar UAE Dirhams Qatari Riyals Saudi Riyals Jordanian Dinar Egyptian Pound Sri Lankan Rupees

Selling Rate 276.700 286.245 446.875 391.755 312.706 732.342 75.312 75.980 73.756 390.866 46.518 2.514

Indian Rupees Pakistani Rupees Bangladesh Taka Philippines Pesso Cyprus pound Japanese Yen Thai Bhat Syrian Pound Nepalese Rupees Malaysian Ringgit

6.124 3.236 3.758 6.368 678.726 3.479 9.216 6.036 3.920 91.000

Kuwait Bahrain Intl Exchange Co. Currency US Dollar Pak Rupees Indian Rupees Sri Lankan Rupees Bangladesh Taka Philippines Peso UAE Dirhams Saudi Riyals Bahraini Dinars Egyptian Pounds Pound Sterling Indonesian Rupiah Nepali rupee Yemeni Riyal Jordanian Dinars Syrian Pounds Euro Canadian Dollars

Rate per 1000 (Tran) 276.750 3.245 6.110 2.530 3.765 6.405 75.440 73.995 735.600 46.505 452.900 0.00003280 3.910 1.550 393.100 5.750 394.100 288.100

Al Mulla Exchange Currency US Dollar Euro Pound Sterling Canadian Dollar Japanese Yen Indian Rupee Egyptian Pound Sri Lankan Rupee Bangladesh Taka Philippines Peso Pakistan Rupee Bahraini Dinar UAE Dirham Saudi Riyal *Rates are subject to change

Transfer Rate (Per 1000) 275.850 394.300 452.800 284.600 3.395 6.120 46.365 2.510 3.726 6.375 3.222 734.800 75.200 73.700

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NBK announces 4th week winners of 'Win an iPad 2 Every Day' campaign KUWAIT: National Bank of Kuwait (NBK), the best bank in the Middle East, rewards seven winners with a brand new iPad 2 in the fourth raffle of its promotional campaign " Win an iPad 2 ever y day" that is exclusive to NBK MasterCard credit cardholders.

NBK maintains its leadership in the credit cards market by consistently delivering superior value to its customers.

This promotion is valid until May 31st, 2011 and is exclusive to NBK MasterCard credit cardholders (Classic, Gold, Titanium, Platinum, and World Cardholders get a chance to enter a MasterCard). Retail purchases and cash draw for every KD 20 spent using their advances on NBK MasterCard credit card in Kuwait or abroad. Cardholders get double chances to enter a draw cards are included in the draws.

"Win an iPad 2 every day" campaign when they spend KD 20 using their gives NBK MasterCard credit cardhold- card at NBK Rewards partner outlets. ers the chance to enter weekly draws The next draw will be held on 2nd to win 45 iPads within a 45-day period. June, 2011.

No. Winner Names Prize 1 OBAID RAHEEL SALMAN ALSHIMMARI iPad 2 2 SANAA HASSAN MOHAMED ALMOUMEN iPad 2 3 GHUNAIM EDHAM GHUNAIM ALZAID iPad 2 4 MAMMADOV RUFAT iPad 2 5 ABIDAH KAUSAR VERNALL iPad 2 6 ABDULLA IBRAHEM ATEYA ALBATENI iPad 2 7 SAWSAN ESMEL ALI DASHTI iPad 2

Tezenis Store opens at Avenues Mall KUWAIT: The Azadea Group has opened the first store for the Tezenis brand of clothing in Kuwait at the Avenues Mall.

The store is only second in the Middle East of the brand that offers a wide variety of fashion wears, undergarments and home wear for men, women and children. The store was opened close on the heels of its first store that opened in Lebanon as per an agreement signed between the Beirut-based group and Italy’s Calzedonia company. “ We are proud to introduce the

Tezenis brand to Kuwait’s customers as the newest member of our variety of brands”, said general manager of the Azadea office in Kuwait Ayman AlMustaihi in a statement made to reporters during the opening event.

The Azadea Group has a history of more than 25 years of operation in the Middle East and North Africa. It runs more than 30 global trademarks including Zara, Massimo Dutti, Boggi, Promod, Bershka, Virgin Megastore, Columbus Cafe and PAUL.

Al-Argan Real Estate posts KD 4m profits Assets went up 5%, expansion on track

By Nisreen Zahreddine KUWAIT: Al-Argan Real Estate company held its general assembly where Chairman and Managing Director Khaled AlMeshan gave a briefing on the revenues attained in 2010. It amounted to 15 percent and shareholder’s shares were valued at 6.5 percent. These revenues, he explained, were attained from diverse sources of income and geographical expansion.

The total profits attained for 2010 is KD 4 million, with profitability of bonds amounting to 15.54 fils. The company’s assets had been increasing by five percent and ownership right with 5.4 percent when compared to 2009. The general assembly did not distribute dividends to shareholders.

He added that the company did some rescheduling by forming new internal departments without increasing the expenses.

Some debts were also rescheduled to lower the interest.

Al-Meshan explained that some projects were launched by the company during the first quar ter of 2011. These are Jeyoun in Bahrain and Beyout AlFaye in Oman, also in Saudi Arabia, Al- Argan Projects company, a sister company of Al-Argan real estate in Saudi Arabia will be assisting in the establishment of 10,000 residential units for middle-income employees in different areas like Riyadh, Dammam, Khobar, Jubeil. These projects are included in the development plan of the government.

The company’s management report included an overview of the different projects executed by the company. First in Kuwait, Argan Business Park aims to live up to the utmost standards of sustainable development and integration of green features. Argan Business Park is ALARGAN International Real Estate Company ’s latest venture in Kuwait and the location of the Company’s new headquarters.

The business park is a waterfront, nine-building office complex situated in the Kuwait Free Trade Zone and features a central landscaped garden, auditorium equipped with the latest technology, cafeteria, gym and a one-ofa-kind rooftop running track, which circulates the entire office complex. It currently offers a variety of leasing opportunities.

In Oman, Al-Argan Investment Company (ALARGAN’s affiliate in the Sultanate) launched the first phase of Beyout AlFaye in 2010, a mixed-use development situated in the area of Al-Khoudh in Muscat. The project includes the development of 126 villas as well

KUWAIT: Chairman and Managing Director of Al-Argan Real Estate Co Khaled Al-Meshan addresses the general assembly. —Photos by Yasser Al-Zayyat

as a commercial retail component. The project consists of three phases, with phase one expected to be completed in quarter three 2011.

In Saudi Arabia, the company launched Manazel Qurtoba project which is considered to be one of the largest integrated housing communities in Riyadh, Manazel Qurtoba will accommodate over 4,500 people by providing 1,400 residential units including villas, duplexes and apartments. The development covering a total land area of over

Fiat said in a release on Friday.

Treasury confirmed that it received notice from Fiat, but declined to discuss the announcement further. The announcement comes ahead of President Barack Obama’s planned visit to a Chrysler plant in Toledo, Ohio, next week.

This week, Fiat boosted its stake in Chrysler to 46 percent after repaying $7.6 billion in loans from the United States and Canada through a refinancing deal. A deal with Treasury would bring its stake to 52 percent.

Sergio Marchionne, the chief executive of both Fiat and Chrysler, has said his overarching goal this year was for Fiat to obtain a majority share in Chrysler. Marchionne

commercial and retail development including a scenic, landscaped park, designed to serve the residents of the project and the surrounding local community.

The project enjoys access to major surrounding roads and is located only 15 minutes from Bahrain International Airport. Jeyoun is expected to be completed in Q2 2012, while Jeyoun AlQaryah will be completed in Q3 2012.

Currently, Jeyoun townhouses are being offered in addition to Jeyoun AlQaryah which is leasing retail and commercial space.

Investors look wistfully at Turkmen gas AVAZA, Turkmenistan: When news emerged five years ago that Turkmenistan had discovered one of the world’s largest natural gas fields, international investors sniffed an opportunity. But despite exhaustive efforts and flattery heaped on the former Soviet nation’s authoritarian leader, global energy companies look no closer to getting a piece of it.

Representatives from all energy majors flocked to a gas conference ending yesterday at this half-completed resort town on the Caspian Sea to pay compliments to top officials and remind the government that they remain as eager as ever to invest.

Turkmenistan, a thinly populated nation of 5 million people, estimates it is sitting on top of 24.6 trillion cubic meters of gas — enough to supply the European Union for half a century at current consumption levels. The biggest jewel is the South Yolotan field, which the energy auditing company Gaffney, Cline & Associates told the conference appears to be the secondbiggest on the planet. The auditors didn’t give figures, but previous estimates have placed South Yolotan’s gas at about 14 trillion cubic meters — about 7 percent of the known reserves worldwide.

Turkmen President Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov says his country can go it alone on South Yolotan and other onshore sites,

and has instead invited investors to consider exploring for oil and gas in less profitable sites beneath the Caspian Sea. But foreign businessmen say this policy is short-sighted.

Berdymukhamedov, whose address to the conference was delivered in his stead by a senior gas official, limited himself to a vague appeal for “major amounts of investment from international companies.” Peter Holding, a senior manager at the auditors Gaffney, Cline & Associates, suggested South Yolotan is so vast it could provide rich pickings for multiple companies. “The South Yolotan field is so big that it can sustain several developments in parallel,” he said. So far, substantial financing for the field has been provided by $8.1 billion in loans from China, which last year began receiving gas from Turkmenistan. The pipeline is expected to reach full capacity of 40 billion cubic meters a year in 2015.

State-owned China National Petroleum Corp. is the only foreign company to have been able to take a stake in the onshore gas exploration market after winning the right in 2007 to develop the Bagtyyarlyk deposit, where reserves are estimated at around 1.3 trillion cubic meters. If Turkmenistan appears relatively complacent about the need for foreign engagement in development, it is acting with more urgency when it comes pushing for the addi-

Fiat to control Chrysler by buying US stake DETROIT/MILAN: Fiat SpA plans to exercise an option to buy the US Treasury’s stake in Chrysler, which paves the way for the Italian automaker to clinch a majority share in the company by early next month.

Fiat notified the US Treasury of its intent on Friday. The purchase price will be based on the equity value of Chrysler agreed by Treasury and Fiat within 10 business days.

If Fiat and Treasury cannot settle on the price, the amount will be determined by two of three investment banks appointed by the company and the US government. The option would allow Fiat to increase its stake in Chrysler by 6 percent,

360,000m2 will incorporate a retail component as well as serve the residents of the project and neighboring communities. The project’s expected completion is Q3 2011.

As for Bahrain, Jeyoun project was released later in 2010, it is a development situated in the growing suburb of Bu Quwah, south west of Manama and covers a total land area of 37,803m2. The development comprises of 82 townhouses in a variety of layout options and designs. The project includes Jeyoun AlQaryah, a vast

told Reuters on Friday that Fiat would be interested in buying Canada’s stake in Chrysler for a “reasonable price”, but said he had not discussed it with Canadian authorities.

Earlier this month, Chrysler said in a regulatory filing that Fiat had options to increase its holding to more than 70 percent, which included buying the US Treasury stake within 12 months of repaying the loans. Starting July 2012, Fiat also has the option to buy up to 40 percent of the interest held by the healthcare trust affiliated with the United Auto Workers, known as the VEBA. The timing of a potential initial public offering depends on the

needs of the VEBA, Marchionne has said. Analysts have said Fiat is likely to buy as much of Chrysler as possible before the US automaker goes public.

“Marchionne is ... acutely aware that acquiring additional equity in Chrysler once listed will prove to be more expensive than is currently the case,” Bernstein Research analyst Max Warburton said in research note.

This week, Ron Bloom, the Obama administration’s point man for auto restructuring, said Chrysler’s payoff qualified it for “comeback of the year” and was also a feather in Obama’s cap as he gears up for the 2012 presidential race. —Reuters

tion of new pipelines.

A more tantalizing destination for Turkmen gas is Europe, an option that would require a pipeline to be built across the Caspian seabed to Azerbaijan. This route, which has been actively obstructed by fellow Caspian nation Russia, would serve to partly fill up the European Union-backed Nabucco pipeline that would run from Turkey through Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and end in Austria.

Berdymukhamedov has expressed his ambition for Turkmenistan to one day provide up to 40 billion cubic meters of gas per year to Europe.

In the short-term, even the more modest and realistic figure of 10 billion cubic meters could still prove lucrative and generate $3 billion in revenue annually for Turkmenistan, said Wolfgang Peters, a top official in the Nabucco partner RWE’s supply division. But for any of that to happen, industry insiders say all the countries along the possible export path will need to take bold steps before the clock runs down on Europe’s access to Turkmenistan’s energy bonanza. “The window of opportunity for Turkmen gas never been so open as now, but we need commitments and decisions soon,” said MichaelDieter Ulbrich, head of the pipeline projects department at OMV, which also has a stake in the planned Nabucco route. —AP

Noor Islamic Bank denies merger plans DUBAI: Dubai’s Noor Islamic Bank has no plans to merge with any other financial institution, the chairman of the emirate’s Supreme Fiscal Committee said yesterday. “ There were never any plans to merge Noor Islamic Bank with, or have it absorbed by, any other financial institution. These were nothing but unfounded market rumors,” Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al-Maktoum, who is also chairman of Noor Islamic Bank, said in a statement.

Noor Islamic Bank had been touted as a possible candidate to absorb troubled Islamic lender Dubai Bank, which was

recently taken over by the Gulf emirate’s government.

Noor’s chief executive Hussain AlQemzi had previously denied that the lender was considering a merger but market speculation persisted after the Dubai government said it would consider merging Dubai Bank with another state - owned financial institution.

Dubai already has stakes in six commercial banks in the UAE, including Emirates NBD, Dubai’s largest by market capitalization, Dubai Islamic Bank and Noor Islamic Bank. The Supreme Fiscal Committee oversees Dubai’s fiscal policies. —Reuters

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KSE stocks drop amid profit-booking KUWAIT: Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE) ended last week in the red zone for the fourth consecutive week as both its main indices recorded losses in parallel to the overall performance of the main GCC and international stock markets. This decline came as a result of the random selling actions witnessed last week by many stocks, with focus on leading stocks, in addition to the speculative deals and profit taking of investment and real estate sectors’ stocks.

Moreover, market liquidity retreated during few sessions of last week amongst general weakness in trading, which caused some dealers to take a step back from placing orders, while keeping an eye on the country political news.

In this contrast, Kuwait Stock Market ended last week with a decrease in its main indices as price index closed at 6,374.1 declining by 1.57%, while the weighted index closed at 442.24, declining by 1.91% compared to the closings of the week before. Furthermore, and in comparison with the performance of the prior two weeks, the average daily turnover decreased by 23.57%, whereas average trading volume decreased by 30.98%.

By the end of the week, the price index closed

BAYAN WEEKLY MARKET REPORT at 6,374.1 points, down by 1.57% from the week before closing, whereas the weighted index registered a 1.91% weekly loss after closing at 442.24 points.

Sectors’ indices Five of KSE’s sectors ended last week in the red zone, while the other three recorded increases.

The Investment sector headed the losers list as its index declined by 3.87% to end the week’s activity at 4,148.0 points. The Real Estate sector was second on the losers’ list, which index declined by 2.67%, closing at 2,198.7 points, followed by the Banks sector, as its index closed at 12,072.9 points at a loss of 1.49%. The Services sector was the least declining as its index closed at 14,509.3 points with a 1.24% decrease. On the other hand, last week’s highest gainer was the Insurance sector, achieving 2.21% growth rate as its index closed at 2,603.9 points. Whereas, in the second place, the Food sector’s index closed at 4,386.7 points recording 0.41% increase. The Non Kuwaiti

Companies sector came in third as its index achieved 0.11% growth, ending the week at 6,421.4 points.

Sectors’ activity The Services sector dominated total trade volume during last week with 257.29 million shares changing hands, representing 32.62% of the total market trading volume. The Real Estate sector was second in terms trading volume as the sector’s traded shares were 25.76% of last week’s total trading volume, with a total of 203.18 million shares. On the other hand, the banks sector’s stocks where the highest traded in terms of value; with a turnover of KD 48.41 million or 42.29% of last week’s total market trading value. The Services sector took the second place as the sector’s last week turnover of KD 27.98 million represented 24.44% of the total market trading value.

Market capitalization KSE total market capitalization declined by

1.88% during last week to reach KD31.30 billion, as six of KSE’s sectors recorded a decrease in their respective market capitalization, whereas the other two recorded increases. The Investment sector headed the decliners list as its total market capitalization reached KD 2.54 billion, decreasing by 4.59%. The Services sector was the second in terms of recorded decline with 2.96% decrease after the total value of its listed companies reached KD 7.70 billion. The third place was for the Industry sector, which total market capitalization reached KD 2.40 billion by the end of the week, recording a decline of 2.86%. The Food sector was the least declining with 0.57% recorded decrease after its market capitalization amounted to KD738.83 million.

On the other hand, the Insurance sector headed the growing sectors as its total market capitalization reached KD 303.47 million, increasing by 3.02%. The Non-Kuwaiti Companies sector was the second in terms of recorded growth with 0.09% increase after the total value of its listed companies reached KD 1.97 billion.

For further details, please visit our web site: www.bayaninvest.com

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business

The Citroen DS4 and C4 win Auto Bild 2011 design award fter claiming the title of “Most Beautiful Car of the Year” at the International Automotive Festival, the Citroen DS4 has won the Auto Bild 2011 Design Award in its category. The prize was awarded by readers of German motoring magazine Auto Bild and its partner publications in Europe. The Citroen DS4 also took third place in the “Most Beautiful among the Beautiful” category, just behind the Mercedes Benz SLK and the BMW 6-Series.

Every year, Auto Bild organizes a Design Award with its 26 European partners. Readers select their favorite models in five categories: city and compact cars, coupés and cabriolets, road cars and estates, 4WDs and MPVs, and concept cars. All votes are based on just one criterion. Appeal.

Among the 116 candidates, the Citroen DS4 won first prize in the City and Compact Cars category, with the Citroen C4 in second place. An impres-

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sive 1-2 that once more showcases the Marque’s innovation and creativity.

The Citroen DS4 was also on the podium of the “Most Beautiful among the Beautiful”, just behind the Mercedes Benz SLK and BMW 6-Series. Showing that a bold approach is a powerful argument.

The Citroen brand A dynamic and creative brand, Citroen launched its distinctive DS line in 2010. The DS3, the first model, will be followed this year by the DS4 and DS5. Building on more than 90 years of Creative Technologie, Citroen is marketing a range including two fullelectric cars, vehicles equipped with e-HDi micro-hybrid technology, and soon - a full hybrid, Hybrid4.

The Marque is also innovating in services with Citroen Multicity, its mobility offering. Citroen has 10,000 customer contact points, 11,500 employees and presence in 80 countries. It sold 1,460,000 vehicles in 2010.

KFHR Report

Saudi real estate prices seen rising

KUWAIT: A report prepared by “KFHR” Kuwait Finance House Research Ltd disclosed expectations about further increase in real estate prices in Saudi Arabia, especially residential and office real estate properties during the upcoming period.

The report explained that the government increased spending while government other policies seem to address the gap between supply and demand. The increase is also attributed to the rapid adoption of new legislations, regulations, and procedures; notably the mortgage law, which will provide a direct driving force to the real estate sector after approval by the Government of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques. The new law will provide a package of measures which reflects a sincere interest in housing issues. King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz announced a plan to spend $67 billion to build 500 thousand houses and to transfer of the Housing Authority into a Ministry with a budget of up to 4 billion dollars. He also expressed his commitment to increase funding for housing for a value of $15 billion.

The report highlighted the importance of residential real estate where the real estate sector in the Kingdom accounts for 70% of the total real estate activity. While Saudi Arabia witnesses a significant shortfall in the number of housing units due to the steady population increase rates, it is expected that the population of the Kingdom will reach 29 million in 2015.

This will exacerbate the current gap between supply and demand, which is forecasted to continue on the medium and long terms. This is especially true due the five year timeframe taken to deliver the units to be built according to the commitment made by the Saudi King to increase funding for housing for a value of $15 billion.

The report expected that the approval of the mortgage law, which was planned over 10 years, will increase demand on housing and prices to higher levels due to the increased number of those interested in having their own private housing...

The following are the details of the report: The demand for real estate is expected to propel higher, owing to the high population growth rates in the region and an ever increasing foreign workforce influx. In recent years, Saudi Arabia has undertaken many economic reform measures that added further clarity to laws and regulations and are aimed at attracting foreign investments and providing direct impetus to the real estate sector. Saudi Arabia, the largest amongst the GCC economies, has also managed to maintain its grip on economic factors even in the current crisis scenario because of its prudent policies and petrodollar wealth. Saudi Arabia is expected to pencil in GDP growth of 7.5% in 2011.

Inflation, which dropped to 4.7% in March from 4.9% a year earlier, is expected to rise as spending increased but it is not expected to exceed 6%.

Saudi Arabia is not only the largest of the GCC countries accounting for

over 60% of the region’s population, it also continues to experience one of the world’s steepest rises in population; increasing from 7.3mln in 1975 to an estimated 24mln at present.

According to UN estimates, the Kingdom’s total population is forecast to reach 29mln by 2015. The growth in population is generating enormous pressure on the country’s residential real estate market and is opening up the Kingdom for vast arrays of growth opportunities in other segments of real estate as well.

Going forward, Saudi Arabia is projected to have one of the more resilient, safest and robust real estate markets in the GCC. Residential prices which increased at a rate of 10% p.a. during 2002-2005, will continue an upward momentum. The growth of real estate sector is forecast to have moderated to 5% during 2009 (owning to the overall global slowdown), but the moderation is believed to be transient and the market is likely to pick up pace this year on the back of an unbalanced demand and supply equation.

We envisaged that, while real estate values are increasing, on a relative income basis, there will be higher valuations once the mortgage law comes into effect.

Residential Market The residential segment is dominating the real estate sector in Saudi Arabia accounting for more than 70% of total real estate activity in the Kingdom. The kingdom is facing massive shortage of housing units because of huge demand-supply gap. The demand-supply gap seems to persist in the medium to long term even after taking into account the supply of 100,000 units ever y year. King Abdullah announced a plan to spend $67bln to build 500,000 homes and turned the country’s housing authority into a ministry with a budget of $4bln whilst he pledged to increase funding for housing by $15bln. The delivery of these units could be extended for a minimum of five years given the prolonged time for the tendering, design and approval phases and also taking into account the Saudi current construction capacity of around 120,000 units per year.

Residential prices which increased at a rate of 10% p.a. during 2002-2005, will likely to continue an upward momentum, once the current economic slowdown is over. Prices reportedly grew up to even 100% in some of the prime locations of main cities like Riyadh which too faced a correction evident by the rise in yield to the extent of 200 basis points. The growth of real estate sector is estimated to have moderated to 5% during 2009; however, the moderation is believed to be transient and prices are forecast to increase after the introduction of the mortgage law. The Saudi Arabia mortgage law, which has been in planning for almost ten years, is likely to be approved soon. While the timeline remains unclear, we envisaged a faster turnaround given that the His Majesty King Abdullah is striving to resolve social and housing issues.

US refuses to label China a ‘currency manipulator’ Beijing told to speed up forex reforms WASHINGTON: The United States refrained from branding China a currency manipulator, a move that could trigger sanctions, but urged Beijing to speed up progress on making its currency more flexible.

In a report to Congress, the US Treasury said it had concluded that China was allowing the yuan, whose official named is renminbi, to appreciate against the dollar and had shown willingness to continue promoting exchangerate flexibility.

The Treasury Department cited “the ongoing appreciation of the renminbi against the dollar since June 2010” as well as “China’s public statements asserting that it will continue to promote RMB exchange rate flexibility.”

The Treasur y also noted “China’s recent policy commitments through the G20 and the US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue to address external imbalances.”

“However, Treasury believes that progress thus far is insufficient and that more rapid progress is needed.” Since China’s pledge in June 2010 that it would make its currency more flexible, the yuan had appreciated 5.1 percent against the dollar since then through the end of April, or about a 6.0 percent annual pace.

Adjusted for China’s “significantly” higher inflation compared with the United States, the currency has appreciated at a much stronger annual rate of roughly 9.0 percent, the report said. “By trying to limit the pace of appreciation, China is not allowing the

SHENYANG: An employee at the Huaxia Bank in Shenyang, China, counts US banknotes flanked by stacks of Chinese currency. (File photo) exchange rate to serve as a tool to counter inflation in its own economy,” the Treasury said.

“A more rapid pace of nominal appreciation would enable China to achieve the needed adjustment in the real value of its currency while simultaneously reducing inflationary pressures in its domestic economy.”

The Treasury noted that China’s international reserves soared by $197 billion over the January-March period, saying that was among the signs indicating “the renminbi remains substantially undervalued.”

The Treasury warned that China’s monetary policy worked against China’s stated goal of strengthening domestic demand to wean the economy away from dependence on exports.

“And it places an undue burden of adjustment on other

emerging market economies that maintain more flexible exchange rate systems and that have already seen substantial exchange rate appreciation.”

As a member of the Group of 20 rich and emerging-market economies, China has pledged to work toward reducing global imbalances in part responsible for the 2008-2009 financial and economic crises.

The Treasury’s semi-annual report to Congress on the currency practices of the country ’s major trading partners covers developments in the second half of 2010, and certain data and developments through April.

China has drawn sharp criticism from a number of US lawmakers who allege it keeps the yuan undervalued to make its exports cheap, gaining a trade advantage that has cost American jobs.

A Treasury finding that China manipulated its currency would pave the way for US economic sanctions against Chinese imports.

Treasury said it would “continue to closely monitor the pace of RMB appreciation by China.” “We will continue to encourage China to open markets and to pursue policies that level the playing field and support a shift to domestic demand-led growth.”

The Treasury released the report late in the afternoon Friday, when many lawmakers already had left the US capital ahead of a long holiday weekend capped by Memorial Day Monday.

The Treasury report was supposed to have been delivered by April 15, but was delayed to take into account high-level US-China talks in Washington the prior week.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has called the exchange rate situation with the Asian giant “the most important problem to solve in the international monetary system today”. The US-China Business Council welcomed the report, saying the Treasury Department “continues to make the right call on China’s currency policy.”

“Designating China as a ‘manipulator ’ would achieve nothing,” said council vice president Erin Ennis. “USCBC believes that Obama administration’s approach of employing multilateral and bilateral engagement with China is the most useful way to make progress on the exchange rate issue.” — AFP

Supertech - Creating value with architectural excellence Supertech, one of the leading real estate developers in India, with more than 33 million square feet of landmark residential and commercial projects in their portfolio, is now embarking on their latest venture - North Eye, the tallest residential tower in North India.

With 66 levels of unparalleled luxury, along with unmatched comforts, amenities and facilities, North Eye offers a choice of fully furnished studio apartments, 2/3/4 BHK luxury apartments and 3BHK duplex condominiums.

Catering to different lifestyles, North Eye provides residents with extravaganzas, like highend shopping, fine dining, entertainment and recreation facilities, a roof-top infinity pool, open-air restaurant, helipad and an observatory deck, all without stepping out of the building.

Ever since its inception in 1988, Supertech has endeavored to provide exquisite life style solutions to the living and working space requirements of discerning customers.

Redefining landscapes with magnificent projects that include residential, commercial, hospitality, IT Parks and complete townships, Supertech has ushered a revolution in real estate developments, by setting new trends and standards that have become benchmarks in architectural excellence.

Supertech has developed some of the finest and most modern residential and commercial complexes in Delhi, National Capital Region (NCR) and new urban settlement like Meerut, Moradabad, Haridwar and Rudrapur. Some of the architectural masterpieces crafted by Supertech include Emerald Court, a high-end residential project at NOIDA Sector 93, and the

Pentagon Mall, a 7 million square feet commercial hub in Haridwar. Supertech has also tied up with a prestigious MNC Group to set up a 5-star Hotel at Rudrapur, Uttarakhand and with a major health-care company to open medical facility outlets in different formats at all Supertech projects.

Using state-of-the-art engineering techniques, high quality materials and skilled workforce, Supertech creates edifices that have a consistency in quality, which complies with contemporary international standards.

Providing cost-effective holistic solutions to clients, Supertech constructions have been acknowledged as value products in terms of quality, aesthetics, overall planning, finishing and timely possession.

Bleak years ahead for Britain: BOE economist LONDON: Britain faces a “bleak time” over the next two years due to low economic growth, the Bank of England’s chief economist said yesterday.

Spencer Dale indicated that interest rates would rise this year.

They were held at a record low of 0.50 percent this month, as anemic British growth offset surging inflation. Britain’s central bank has held the rate for more than two years. “I think the next year or two will be a relatively bleak time. I think we have relatively hard times ahead,” Dale told the BBC. “I am not confident about the strength of the recovery, particularly in terms of the weakness we see in the household sector and the implications that may have for consumption.

“I am even more worried about inflation and the risk that we may see price pressures from the rest of the world continue to push up and the high levels of inflation we have seen in the UK persist for longer than we otherwise expect.”

Bank of England policymakers

voted 6-3 this month to keep its key interest rate at 0.50 percent.

Dale voted for a 0.25 percent rise.

Despite high inflation, the central bank has refrained from hiking its key lending rate due to Britain’s weak recovery from recession.

Inflation over 12 months has meanwhile held above the Bank of England’s official target rate of 2.0 percent since December 2009.

British annual inflation soared to 4.5 percent in April, hitting a two-and-a-half-year high and stoking the prospect of a rate hike. “The level of interest rates at the moment is at an extraordinary low level,” Dale said. “At some point, I do expect interest rates to rise, but how quickly and how much, I really can’t say.”

He added: “I am worried about growth remaining feeble and I am also worried about inflation remaining high-and if you like, that’s the dilemma facing the MPC (monetary policy committee) at the moment-trying to balance these two very significant risks.” — AFP

The vision and entrepreneurial acumen of R.K. Arora, chairman and CMD of Supertech, along with the dynamic and pragmatic leadership of the Board of Directors, and the dedication and commitment of its personnel, has allowed Supertech to become one of the foremost real estate developers in the country offering value through quality.

Supertech is exclusively represented in Kuwait by The Prudent Group, a multi-faceted provider of real estate support and investment advisory services for Indians in Kuwait. Offering a spate of bespoke services, The Prudent Group provides their valued clients in Kuwait with effective solutions to many of the challenges involved in managing real estate assets in India in both primary and secondary segments.

Chevron to explore shale gas deposits in Bulgaria SOFIA: Chevron, the number two US oil company, has won a tender to explore shale gas deposits in northeastern Bulgaria, Economy and Energy Minister Traicho Traikov said yesterday.

“Chevron, which won the tender, offered the government a 30million-euro ($43 million) bonus for the licence to explore a shale gas field near Novi pazar. It won in competition with Canadian BNK,” Traikov told a press conference.

Two more tenders for shale gas exploration in the same region in northeastern Bulgaria were still

underway with offers to be submitted by end-June, Traikov added.

Inital estimates of the companies interested in shale gas exploration in Bulgaria put the country’s deposits between 300 billion and 1.0 trillion cubic metres, he explained. Bulgaria, which is almost totally dependent on Russian gas supplies via Ukraine, sees shale gas as a possibility of diversifying its energy sources. Bulgaria also hopes to link its gas transportation network to neighboring Greece in 2014 and receive gas from Azerbaijan via an interconnector system. —AFP

S Leone cuts fuel, rice prices to avoid protests FREETOWN: Sierra Leone has suspended a 10 percent tax on imported rice and cut the price of petroleum products in an attempt to avert civil unrest over the rising prices of basic necessities.

President Ernest Bai Koroma, speaking on national radio and television on Friday night, blamed the higher prices on external factors beyond the control of the impover-

ished West African nation, still recovering nine years after the end of civil war.

“Let me assure you, fellow citizens, that I also feel the pain,” Koroma said. ‘You are no doubt aware that the current problems are not home made, but are problems imposed upon us by external factors beyond our control,î he said. — Reuters

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BUSINESS

Nervous investors to demand bigger returns WALL STREET WEEKLY OUTLOOK NEW YORK: The world looks a lot more dangerous than it did only a few months ago and signs are that US stock investors are starting to demand more for the added risk.

With important manufacturing and jobs data due next week, it could start to get even riskier.

That means nervous investors are likely to keep a lid on equity prices this year as they grapple with slowing global growth and a host of geopolitical risks from the Arab Spring to debt defaults in the eurozone.

The actions of some big Wall Street banks best show the shift in the risk-reward nexus. Over the last two weeks, UBS, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs have effectively lowered their view of what investors will be willing to pay for a dollar of corporate earnings this year.

Jonathan Golub, chief US equity strategist at UBS in New York, made the decision to keep his S&P 500 Index target on hold, even though he increased his expectations of what S&P 500 companies would likely earn this year and next.

“Earnings are going to continue to surprise to the upside, but investors will continue to be reluctant to believe in the sustainability of earnings and, therefore, not give

full credit to that,” Golub said. Golub raised his average S&P 500 earnings estimate to $101 from $96 for this year, but left his year-end S&P 500 target at 1,425. By doing that, Golub has effectively lowered his price-toearnings (P/E) ratio-the amount investors are willing to pay for a dollar of earnings-to 14.1 from 14.8.

That amounts to an increase in the expected equity yield a measure of the return investors want-to 7.1 percent from 6.8 percent. That is significant because the expected priceto-earnings ratio was already below what investors have historically been willing to pay for S&P 500 earnings. The average trailing P/E ratio is 15.6 over the last five years and 19.2 since 1988, according to Standard & Poor’s.

Golub argues that a batch of weak economic data pointing to slowing manufacturing, a weak housing market and stubbornly high unemployment is weighing on investor sentiment. Weakness in commodity markets and rotation into defensive sectors of the stock market testify to that shift.

With next week’s ISM national manufacturing sur vey for May expected to show more weakness and payroll data tipped to show under 200,000 jobs added during

the month, risk aversion- driven by fear about the economy-could get worse before it gets better.

Goldman Sachs economist Zach Pandl said his firm is predicting

150,000 jobs were added in May, compared with a Reuters consensus of 185,000.

An ISM reading below 60 next Wednesday would show “the

strongest period of growth has passed and investors may need to adjust their expectations going forward,” said Michael Sheldon, chief market strategist at RDM Financial in Westport, Connecticut.

Economists in a Reuters poll expect the ISM reading to fall to 58 in May from 60.4 in April. Goldman Sachs has also been tweaking its stocks outlook.It cut its year-end S&P 500 target, one of the highest on the Street, to 1,450 from 1,500, and lowered its 2012 earnings outlook to $104 to $106, citing lower global growth, higher commodity prices and slightly higher inflation.

Goldman analyst David Kostin, who is responsible for the S&P 500 target, was unavailable for an interview. However Goldman’s analysts wrote: “As we transition into the late expansion phase of the cycle later this year, the risk-reward balance for the S&P 500 is likely to become slightly less attractive.”

Citigroup also slightly increased its earnings estimates for S&P 500 companies, lifting its 2011 forecast to $98 from $96.50. Although admittedly only a small increase, it chose to leave its S&P 500 target at 1,400.

Tobias Levkovich, Citigroup’s chief US equity strategist, could not

be reached for comment.

The targets for all three banks are still at the upper end of analysts’ estimates and are 5 percent to 8 percent above current levels. Even if the index does get up to those levels later this year, those gains are slight compared to the near 80 percent run the S&P 500 has experienced since hitting a bear market low in March 2009.

For people like Bill Strazzullo, partner and chief investment strategist at Bell Curve Trading in Boston, that means the risks are firmly on the downside.

“The good news is there’s some upside. The bad news is that you’ve probably made about 80 (percent) to 90 percent of this rally,” Strazullo said. “From a ‘bigger picture’ standpoint, the risk-reward really doesn’t make sense.”

Strazullo believes the S&P 500 will revert toward fair value, which he places at 1,100, based on where most of the money in the S&P 500 is invested. He is looking at some longer-term bearish options trades to capitalize on the end of the March 2009 rally.

“I’m not saying we’ll go all the way back there, but the point is, you could drop a lot further than most people anticipate.” —Reuters

Biden focuses on jobs, hails car industry gains Comeback of bailed-out GM, Chrysler cited WASHINGTON: Vice President Joe Biden yesterday hailed the recovery of the US auto industry, turning White House attention back to the domestic priority of job creation after a week devoted to foreign policy. Easing US unemployment from painful levels of 9 percent may be vital to President Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election bid and the administration is seeking to bolster his standing with blue collar workers as it takes credit for the auto bailout.

“Because of what we did, the auto industr y is rising again.

Manufacturing is coming back.

And our economy is recovering and it’s gaining traction,” Biden said in the weekly White House radio and Internet address.

Chr ysler Group LLC on Tuesday paid back $7.6 billion in US and Canadian government loans from its 2009 bailout. The move allowed Chrysler to deepen its ties with Italian automaker Fiat SpA. Chr ysler ’s move allowed Obama, a Democrat, to pause during a busy European trip to remind Americans that he pushed through the auto rescue despite opposition from Republicans who condemned it as excessive government intervention. “ This announcement came six years ahead of schedule -and just two years after Chr ysler Corp emerged from bankruptcy. You know, and it’s a sign of what ’s happening throughout the American automobile industry,” Biden said.

“It’s not just Chrysler. Also this week, GM announced that its Detroit-Hamtramck factory will

run three shifts for the first time its 26-year history. You know, that’s 2,500 more good, paying jobs,” Biden said.

General Motors Co filed for bankruptcy in 2009 but soon

its Chevrolet Cruze.

Ford Motor Co did not take a US government bailout to help restructure in 2009, unlike rivals GM and Chrysler, but did receive direct and indirect financial

US Vice President Joe Biden emerged from bank ruptc y thanks to a $52 billion US taxpayer-funded bailout. GM’s profits are now beating expectations on the back of strong demand for more fuel-efficient cars like

assistance through loans, capital, tax credits and other programs that have aided its strong turnaround.

Obama was due to return to Washington later yesterday from

a six-day visit to Ireland, Britain, France and Poland, and after spending part of the previous week focused on the Middle East. On Sunday, Obama is due to fly to Missouri to witness the destruction caused in the city of Joplin by a powerful tornado that killed more than 130 people.

Obama’s public approval ratings have risen since US forces killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden on May 2. But Obama’s stewardship of the economy gets lower marks, as persistent unemployment and high gasoline prices dent the wallets and dim the confidence of voters.

Michigan, epicenter of the US auto industry, went heavily for Obama in 2008 over his Republican challenger John McCain, and the White House wants to make sure that it stays in his column next year.

“Even for a lot of people with jobs, their wages aren’t keeping pace with prices of everything from gas to groceries,” Biden said. “We’re focused on making sure that if you work hard, play by the rules, you’ll be able to get ahead.” —Reuters

Russia to lift grain export ban July 1 MOSCOW: Russia on July 1 will lift a grain export ban it imposed in August 2010 in the middle of an unprecedented drought that wiped out har vests, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said yesterday.

“We are lifting the grain export ban on July 1,” Putin said in televised remarks. The ban by the world’s thirdlargest wheat exporting country had originally been due to expire at the end of December but was renewed amid fears of another grain shortfall this year.

A top minister had earlier suggested that the ban may be extended through the summer. Analysts said Russia’s export ban helped contribute to a sharp rise in food prices last year that was one of the factors behind the wave of north African revolts that became known as the Arab Spring.

Russia’s decision comes three days after Ukraineoften referred to as the breadbasket of Europe-said it too was lifting all export limits after seeing a rise in stockpiles.

Putin instructed his first deputy in charge of agriculture to make sure that Russian farmers had access to the loans required to seed and harvest enough land this year. “We are closely following the progress of this vital part of the economy and using all mechanisms at our disposal to support it,” he said.

Russia’s decision to extend the loan was caused in part by complaints from farmers that the after-effects of the global economic crisis were tightening their access to the necessary bank loans.

But First Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov said Russia had some of the world’s cheapest grain and that lifting their export restrictions could only be beneficial to farmers.

“Our current grain prices ... are almost half those on the world market,” Zubkov told Putin.

“So, considering that we really do have grain now and the state of winter grain crops is good ... I think that we can lift the export restrictions on July 1.” —AFP

HAVANA: A street vendor sells flowers in Havana. Cuba announced new measures on Friday to spur the island’s push into private enterprise, instituting a moratorium on payroll taxes for small business owners and loosening limits on the size of private restaurants. —AP

NY pleas bolster govt case at finance trial NEW YORK: The government on Friday strengthened its insider trading case against a former consultant for a California research firm by securing guilty pleas and cooperation deals with a former hedge fund portfolio manager and a technology company ’s senior financial analyst.

The pleas by Samir Barai, of Manhattan, and Son Ngoc Nguyen, of San Jose, California, included admissions that they had conspired with Winifred Jiau, a former Primary Global Research employee who’s set to go on trial in US District Court on Wednesday.

Jiau was charged with securities fraud in a probe of securities industry workers who pass off inside information as legitimate research after convincing employees of public companies to provide information about their companies before it is made public. She has pleaded not guilty.

Barai, the 39-year-old owner of the Barai Capital Management hedge fund, pleaded guilty to conspiracy, securities fraud, wire fraud and obstruction after he was arrested in February. Barai admitted during his plea Friday that he instructed a

research analyst to shred evidence last November after hearing about the probe. He said he engaged in a scheme to benefit from inside information from 2006 through 2010 and some of his illegal secrets came from Jiau.

“I deeply regret all of my actions in this case,” he said. His Manhattan sentencing is set for Aug 29. Earlier Friday, Nguyen, a 39-year-old senior financial analyst at computer chips manufacturer Nvidia Corp., pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge in the case in a cooperation deal. He admitted that he shared inside information with Jiau from 2007 through early 2009. Prosecutors allege that the deal among Nguyen, Jiau and a co-conspirator who worked in the finance department of Marvell Technology Group Ltd. called for her to provide inside information about Nvidia and Marvell to Nguyen. Prosecutors said the deal also required that she provide Nguyen and the co-conspirator with stock tips that she learned from contacts she had at various companies. There are no allegations of wrongdoing against Nvidia or Marvell. —AP

IMF faces dilemma with Greece

BHAVNAGAR: Indian workers are seen at one of some 160 plots at AlangSosiya Shipbreaking yard in the vicinity of Meethi Virdi village in Bhavnagar district, some 260 km from Ahmedabad on Friday. —AP

Ex-Bank of Italy chief sentenced to 4 years in jail MILAN: An Italian court sentenced Italy’s former central bank governor Antonio Fazio yesterday to four years in jail for market-rigging related to a 2005 takeover battle over Italian bank Banca Antonveneta.

A Milan court has also ordered Fazio — who headed the Bank of Italy from 1993 to 2005 — to pay a 1.5 million euro ($2.14 million) fine for his role in the takeover saga pitting Dutch Bank ABN AMRO against Italy’s Banca Popolare Italiana (BPI). Fazio’s lawyer called the sentence “unjust” and said he would file an appeal, the Ansa news agency said. Fazio was forced to resign in December 2005 amid allegations that he backed the

domestic bid by BPI-now part of Italy’s Banco Popolare.

The court also fined insurer Unipol 900,000 euros and ordered the seizure of 39.6 million euros over the misconduct of two former employees in relation to the Antonveneta case. Under Italian law companies are held responsible for supervision failures. Unipol’s former chairman Giovanni Consorte was sentenced to three years in jail and a one million euro fine. Fazio also faces charges of favouring market-rigging in a separate case involving Unipol’s 2005 bid for Italian bank Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL). He denies the charges. —Reuters

WASHINGTON: The International Monetary Fund faces a tough dilemma with Greece, tugged between bending its standards to give more support to Athens or to push the country out on its own, at risk of a debacle for the euro-zone.

A team from the global lender of last resort has been in Athens for three weeks trying to negotiate the next tranche of their 30 billion euro bailout loan to the country, part of a joint 110 billion euro packed with the European Union to save Greek finances.

If it goes ahead, it would be the largest loan the IMF had ever disbursed to one country.

But after warnings from both the EU and IMF that Greece is not meeting the conditions of the rescue, the next disbursement is not a done deal. IMF acting managing director John Lipsky told Bloomberg Television Friday from Deauville, France, where the G-8 countries were meeting, that Greece has to follow through with reform commitments to get more money.

“It’s pretty straightforward: there are conditions and criteria associated with the disbursal of funds, and our staff along with European colleagues are in Athens right now in discussions with the Greek authorities.” A

day earlier IMF spokeswoman Caroline Atkinson said the Fund needed “assurances” on how Athens will fund its future to continue giving it support.

“We are certainly focusing on what can be the next steps for the economic program in Greece,” she told reporters. “And so we look for-our technical term is financing assurances. We have to ask for financing assurances in every program.”

The IMF never makes public its conditions for governments receiving bailout financingand the conditions are usually tough, economically and politically.

But in principle, the recipient has to make certain guarantees that it will be able to meet its financial obligations in the foreseeable future. In other words, the Fund will not hand money to a country which will not be able to pay it or other creditors back under commitments made at the outset of the program.

“There are specific IMF rules and one of those rules says that the IMF can only take action when the refinancing guarantee is given over 12 months,” Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, who heads the euro-zone finance ministers, warned Thursday. —AFP

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TECHNOLOGY

Quest for educational success University creates gaming platform to help students

SEATTLE: More bird-watchers are using recorded bird songs to flush out species for better viewing and photography. Here, veteran birder Dennis Paulson listens for birds as he demonstrates a “playback” recording in his backyard. — MCT

Naturalists fear overuse of birdcall applications SEATTLE: On a spring morning in North Seattle, a chestnut-backed chickadee - let’s call him Chuck was taking care of business when he heard an alarming sound: the high-pitched song of another male. Chuck swooped in to investigate. Perched in a hemlock, he cocked his head, listening for the intruder. Hearing no repeat, he voiced his “chick-adee-dee” challenge. He then flew off, paying scant attention to the gray-haired man holding an iPodspeaker combination the size of a coffee mug.

“I promise I’ll never do this to you again,” said Dennis Paulson, a veteran birder and director emeritus of the Slater Museum of Natural History in Tacoma, Wash. Paulson was demonstrating a technique that’s hatched a flap among bird-watchers: the use of recorded calls to flush out species for better viewing and photography.

These being folks who love nothing more than tramping around with binoculars, the sparring is mostly polite. It’s a given that no one wants to harm a feather on a sparrow’s head. But the question is whether being summoned by a phantom rival may, in some cases, actually put birds at risk.

“It stresses the birds, I wouldn’t deny that for a minute,” Paulson said. “But as far as I know, it’s a very, very short-term stress.” His personal rule is to use “playback” rarely and only where birds aren’t likely to ever encounter recorded song again - deep in the woods or, just this once, his forested yard.

But for many other birders, playback has become a tool of first resort, thanks to the proliferation of smartphones and apps that can crank out tunes from every species on the planet. At the same time, birders share unusual sightings and hot spots via the Internet, which can mean the same birds are blasted over and over. “It has gotten much more common,” said Dr Jack Stephens, president of the Washington Ornithological Society. He recalls the days when only the most expert birders bothered to cart bulky tape players into the field. “Now, you see people get out of a car and the first thing they do is pull out a recording and start to play it on a loop.”

Like most birders, Stephens is middle-of-theroad on playback. He cringes at overuse. But, after 45 minutes of fruitless scanning on a Texas trip, a song snippet earned him a glimpse of a Swainson’s warbler, one of North America’s most secretive species. While delightful to our ears, singing is serious for birds. Males pour their hearts out to impress the ladies. They trill to proclaim territory and keep other males away. Every strange song - whether from another bird or an iPhone - registers as a threat.

“That’s why it works,” said Sam Wasser, director of the University of Washington’s Center for Conservation Biology. “The male is going: ‘Oh, my god! There’s another bird in my territory.’” The trickery is most effective during breeding season. When the sought-after bird pops out, birders can snap pictures and tick off a box on their life lists. But the consequences to the bird can include heart-pumping anxiety, exposure to predators and an undefended nest and mate.

“I’ve seen woodpeckers respond to playback from birders... and a sharp-shinned hawk comes and takes that bird out,” said Martyn Stewart, a Seattle-based wildlife recording expert. Stewart is “dead set against” the use of playback to lure birds yet many apps and song libraries include his recordings. “It’s ironic ... but I’m really instrumental in it,” he said.

With 30-plus years of experience, Stewart easily can detect the difference between a relaxed bird and one responding to a threat. “You can hear the stress in their voice,” he said. “Birders will say there’s no harm done, but that’s because they want to justify putting a bird on their list.” Federal biologists recently scaled back the use of recordings in spotted-owl surveys after it became clear that birds who “Whoo”-ed in reply were subject to attack by more aggressive barred owls.

One reason birders are so split on the use of playback is that there’s little evidence pro or con.

But a handful of studies suggest the practice is not entirely innocuous. Ordinary life already is tough for birds, especially during breeding season, said University of Washington biologist Eliot Brenowitz, who studies brain wiring and bird song. In some species, males become accustomed to the voices of their neighbors, which makes them more likely to be alarmed by an unfamiliar, recorded call, he said.

University of Washington professor emeritus John Wingfield found testosterone levels increased up to tenfold in male song sparrows confronted with taped songs. They remained revved up for one to two days. “These males will continue to spontaneously sing and patrol their territory,” Wingfield said. “They get very aggressive and attack other birds.” And they were distracted from parental duties, such as feeding chicks. Elevated testosterone also may suppress birds’ immune systems, though that link is unproved, he said. Wingfield’s years of field research helped persuade him to give up the use of playback in his recreational birding.

Daniel Mennill, who discovered playback can have romantic fallout for male birds, still makes judicious use of the technique. — MCT

BOISE: The Doors’ hypnotic rhythms provide the musical backdrop as students in Chris Haskell’s educational technology class use laptops to work their way through their final quests. As they complete a task, students may earn a reward or advance to a higher level.

The highest rank is “teacher.” That’s what most of these undergraduate students want to become in real life, and along the way they’re among the first to venture into a new teacher-training approach devised by Haskell and Boise State’s Depar tment of Educational Technology Chairwoman Lisa Dawley.

The two are using the platform to teach those future teachers, and they hope those new teachers will, in turn, use it with their students. It’s called 3D GameLab and sports the tag line, “Turn your classroom into a living game.” This August, Dawley and Haskell will host a three -week online summer camp expected to train 500 teachers from across the world, each of whom can use the quest-based gaming platform to teach up to 60 students this fall.

“That’s 30,000 people,” Dawley said.

“Eventually, it will easily become millions.” Owned by Boise State, the platform is in “closed beta” trial mode now but will later go public and “become commercialized in some way, shape or form,” she said. That could happen as early as next spring, she said. “We’re exploring the business model behind it now,” she said. Eventually, Dawley would like to see GameLab take off as a sort of “Facebook for education,” an online social network that would offer basic access to its learning programs for free, worldwide.

To some, applying the lessons of the game World of Warcraft to a teachertraining curriculum may seem odd. But it’s really a natural avenue, one that taps into students’ interests and aptitudes, Dawley said. “Ninety-seven percent of kids play games,” she said. “They understand it: Choose a quest, work on your quest, turn in your quest.” The approach is far from frivolous, Haskell said. It engages students’ imaginations and allows them control and choice in how to navigate the course. So far he has developed a couple hundred quests, each keyed to state and national core

BOISE: Chris Haskell, a special lecturer in educational technology, co-developed a game based learning management system called 3D Game Lab. — MCT standards.

Some quests take a couple of days; some can take as little as 15 minutes.

Some embrace new technologies such as “voice thread” online conversations.

Others are as old-school as a spreadsheet. The key, Haskell said, is that students get to choose which quests to pursue, and in which order. “Having a lot of different options creates excitement for students,” said Summer Dalgarn, who is seeking a second degree so she can teach English with a writing emphasis.

“There’s positive forward momentum, and it makes you want to do something harder because you’ll get farther.

“Each quest, in its essence, is something that ’s valuable to k now as a teacher.” Many students keep embarking on quests after they’ve completed all the requirements, Haskell said, because it’s fun. “This is my favorite class out of all the ones I’ve taken,” said Boise State sophomore Anna Richter, a kinesiology student. “It’s interactive; it’s not me sitting and listening to a teacher talk. “I would say it’s as challenging as other courses. I just feel like it’s an easier learning style and less stressful.”

Richter’s not a gamer, and she’s not sure

she wants to be a teacher. But the class has helped her learn techniques and tools that have helped her not only cruise through the quests but also do better on papers and presentations for other courses.

For example, she said, a quest in PowerPoint helped her make a key presentation for another class “much more visually appealing.” Students in Haskell’s classes range from avid gamers like Dalgarn to technologically tentative future teachers such as Debbie Messecar. She doesn’t see the class as a game. “I see a lot of kids playing games, and that’s not what this is. I consider it a technology lab.” Messecar’s favorite quest was a spreadsheet for gradebooks.

She said the course has helped her get more comfor table with computers, which in the past she’d only used for email or downloading photographs. And that, she said, will be an asset in her future classrooms.

Boise State’s Depar tment of Educational Technology trains more online K-12 teachers than any other university in the nation, Dawley said, with about 550 graduate students this past year. Only about 28 percent of those stu-

dents live in Idaho, but since the graduate program is completely online, that’s not a problem. The program is self-supporting. Tuition from those graduate students generated about $1.8 million in the past year, she said, enough to cover the salaries of 12 full-time faculty members, pay around 25 adjunct faculty members, fund a scholarship and grant graduate assistantship stipends to about 10 students.

The educational technology department’s core mission is to explore and employ “current and emergent technologies,” Dawley said. “We’re the geeky ones.” The GameLab platform got its start last spring when World of Warcraft fans Haskell and Dawley were talking about ways to tap into the structure and appeal of such games. “It began the way a lot of our conversations begin,” Haskell said. “Wouldn’t it be really cool? ... “ They enlisted Rocket, a local web-development company, to help create the platform. Its first outing was a camp last summer for teenagers, who helped refine the program as they gamed their way through lessons.

In the fall, Haskell started using 3D GameLab to teach two sections of Education Technology 202, a required course for students who want to become teachers. So far, about 100 students have participated in that pilot program. Students rate each quest, which helps teachers know what works best, Haskell said. So far, he said, his students taking the game-based version of Ed Tech 202 have been doing better than their traditional-classroom counterparts.

The BSU professors’ efforts are part of a nationwide trend of using gaming and other online approaches in education, said Luci Willits, chief of staff for Idaho Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna. “And it certainly aligns very well with the superintendent’s initiatives for technology,” she said. “It offers immediate feedback, and it’s a reflection of the world our students live in.” “It’s content that drives technology - embedded lessons in a game,” Willits said. At each step, students receive near-instant feedback from Haskell. And when they earn the required 2,000 points to complete the course, they receive an email from him. It says, simply, “you win.” — MCT

93% of Taiwan students suffer cell phone fears

If you want the ultimate in good sound from a single speaker setup check out the Definitive Technology Mythos SSA-42 or SSA-50 surround bar speakers.

They start at $799 and you must use them with an A/V receiver and a subwoofer. — MCT

Not all soundbars are created equal Q. My room is not suitable for hanging surround speakers for a 5.1 channel setup. I am considering a soundbar.

How does it provide the surround effect? Can I just get 5 speakers and put the surround speakers in front of my TV next to the left/right/center speakers?

A. Not all soundbars are 5-channel capable. I’ll discuss the different types available as well as make a few recommendations. A soundbar is a long, thin speaker that is placed under or above a television. These speakers are often used with a subwoofer as the size and shape of a soundbar cabinet does not allow much bass to be produced. Some soundbars are complete, self-powered systems; others are simply speakers that connect to the terminals of an audio/video receiver.

Given the poor sound quality of a typical flat panel TV the improvement in sound quality and clarity can be quite dramatic, even when using a very inexpensive soundbar. You will hear fuller, more natural sound, clearer dialogue, and room-filling volumes more easily. Twochannel soundbars use electronic signal processing to create surround effects using only the left and right stereo channels. Your TV may have this signal processing available in the audio menus. If you turn it on you can enjoy more spacious sound without connecting an external system. Look in the television’s audio menus for settings like SRS, VSS or Virtual Surround.

Though you may hear a more spacious sound in your room with this kind or soundbar you won’t be hearing every bit of detail in the soundtrack as the rear surround channels contain unique sonic information. If this is what you want, the Vizio VSB200 is well regarded and sells for

under $100 without a subwoofer.

Spending $199 gets you the Panasonic SC-HTB10, which integrates well with Panasonic TVs, and the top-rated Sony HTCT150 sells for under $300 including subwoofer.

The best soundbars are called surroundbars because they have speaker drivers for each of the 5 channels. The best of these are unpowered speakers that are driven by the speaker terminals of an audio/video receiver. Circuitry in the surroundbar, often in conjunction with additional drivers in the cabinet, work to creates a cancellation effect similar to that used in noise-canceling headphones. It affects the sound that actually reaches your ears, creating a soundfield that is enveloping and spacious while reproducing every nuance in the original program.

You won’t hear sound behind you, but you will hear everything the director intended you to hear and it will sound much more satisfying than mere stereo.

A great self-powered unit is the Polk Audio SurroundBar 6000 IHT (Instant Home Theater) for $499 including powered wireless subwoofer. If you want the ultimate in good sound from a single speaker setup check out the Definitive Technology Mythos SSA-42 or SSA-50 surroundbar speakers. They start at $799 and you must use them with an A/V receiver and a subwoofer. This makes it expensive compared to the others mentioned here, but the best rarely comes cheap. Because surround speakers lack the circuitry or additional drivers of a surroundbar, placing them next to the left/center/right speakers as you suggested won’t work.

The soundfield they will create could potentially be confusing and I recommend against it. — MCT

TAIPEI: More than 90 percent of Taiwan students worry or panic when they cannot use their cell phones, according to a survey released. The King Car Education Foundation polled 2,141 students from fifth-graders to university students in April to find out how cell-phone use affected their lives. Overall, 80 percent had cell phones, a 15-percent increase from 2009. Nearly 100 percent of high school students and older had their own phone, compared with 45 percent for primary school students. But the phones have brought anxieties as well as convenience.

Ninety-three percent of the students polled said they panic or feel uneasy when they cannot make calls because they are not carrying the phone or when the battery has run out. They also said they suffered distress when their phone

does not ring or when they cannot get through to someone. Asked how they would feel about life without their phones, 33.7 percent said they feared boredom, and 19.3 percent said they would worry about losing touch with friends.

“Cell-phone use has become a daily necessity for teenagers,” said Chan Chifeng of National Taiwan University Hospital. “It has both positive and negative effects on health, but the signs are not as obvious as PC [personal computer] or Internet addiction,” the foundation’s report quoted him as saying.

Students should be careful to use their phones in a “healthy way,” the foundation’s secretary general, Tseng Ching-yun, said, adding that the devices should not be allowed to affect their studies or health. — dpa

1923 Leica prototype sells for 1.32m euros VIENNA: A Leica camera from 1923 was sold at auction yesterday for a world record 1.32 million euros ($1.89 million), shattering pre-sale estimates. The purchaser was a private collector from Asia who wants to remain anonymous, said Vienna’s WestLicht gallery, which organized the auction.

The camera was one of about 25 prototypes made in 1923, two years before

the celebrated German brand went into commercial production. It had been valued ahead of the auction at between 350,000 and 450,000 euros.

The previous world record was set last year when a collector paid 732,000 euros for a daguerreotype, the world’s first commercially produced camera, which bore the rare signature of its French inventor. — AFP

VIENNA: A picture shows the 7th camera of the Leica 0-series during the West Licht Photographica Auction yesterday. — AFP

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China orders death penalty for food safety crimes BEIJING: China’s top cour t has ordered capital punishment for food safety crimes that result in fatalities, as the nation battles a wave of scares over tainted foodstuffs. In notice on Friday the Supreme People’s Court urged harsher penalties for manufacturers who produce tainted food-

stuffs and for food inspectors convicted of dereliction of duty. “Those food safety crimes leading to fatalities or any other serious aftermath should be sentenced to death in accordance with the law,” the notice said. The order was issued after China eliminated capital punishment for

some economic crimes in February, as it moved to curb use of the death penalty in a nation believed to execute more people than the rest of the world combined.

But a wave of food scares seems to have prompted the harsher penalties as safety problems continue

despite government promises to clean up the food industry following a deadly 2008 milk scandal. Tainted pork, toxic milk, dyed buns, melons laden with chemicals and other dodgy foods have surfaced in recent weeks, making consumers ill and highlighting the government ’s

apparent inability to oversee China’s huge and under-regulated food industr y. According to Amnesty International, China executes more people each year than the rest of the world put together, but the exact number remains a closely guarded state secret.— AFP

Canadian mom defends keeping gender secret ‘It’s none of the world’s business’

KLETTWITZ: The vehicle of the team “Yildiz Technical University” from Turkey competes in the Shell Eco-Marathon at the Eurospeedway racetrack yesterday. From May 26 to 29, 2011, more than 200 teams from 27 countries take part in the event to achieve the highest possible fuel efficiency. — AFP

Bacteria blamed for bad weather LOS ANGELES: We already blame bacteria for spoiling our food, damaging our gardens, causing all sorts of infections and illnesses and mak ing us squirm and sneeze. Now, scientists say, we may be able to add bad weather to the list of the once-celled organisms’ troublesome deeds, too. According to research presented this week at the meeting of the American Society of Microbiology in New Orleans, scientists at Montana State University in Bozeman have discovered large concentrations of bacteria at the core of hailstones - a finding that suggests that bacteria or other airborne microorganisms have a role in the stones’ formation.

Co-author Alexander Michaud said that germs floating in the atmosphere seem to behave as “ice nucleators” - particles that allow water molecules to collect and freeze in clouds. Ice nucleation is necessary for hail, as well as rain, snow and other forms of precipitation.

The hailstone discovery is new, but scientists have been studying this phenomenon - known as bioprecipitation for decades, said Brent Christner, a microbiologist at Louisiana State University who was also interviewed along with Michaud during the ASM meeting.

But, Christner added, there’s still plenty to discover about the process of bioprecipitation. Researchers don’t even really know which bugs are involved.

“Ninety-nine percent of the ice-nucleating organisms haven’t been described yet,” he said. “It may not be exclusive to bacteria.” Scientists have discovered many proteins that help plants fight freezing, he said - adding that he expects the same is probably true of proteins that speed the process. “We know that biology affects climate in some way. But (that it does so) directly, in such a way as this is not just fascinating but very important.”— MCT

Spain denies suspending two distributors MADRID: Authorities in southern Spain denied yesterday that they had suspended the activities of two distributors suspected of exporting cucumbers tainted with potentially deadly bacteria. The regional council of Andalusia said suspect batches of cucumbers had been withdrawn pending laboratory checks whose results would be known Monday, after haemolytic uraemic syndrome (HUS) blamed on Spanish cucumbers claimed at least two lives in Germany and sickened nearly 300.

The European Commission said Friday that Spain had suspended the activities of two distributors in the southern provinces of Almeria and Malaga. A probe was launched and samples were taken from the soil, water and products from the two agricultural sites, the European Union’s executive arm said. “Investigations are ongoing to identify other potential sources, while a third suspect batch of cucumbers originating either in The Netherlands or in Denmark, and traded in Germany, is also under investigation,” it said.

A suspect consignment of Spanish cucumbers was distributed to Denmark, but authorities there traced the vegetables and withdrew them from the market, the statement said. The Andalusian authorities said yesterday that exhaustive checks by the Malaga company on its cucumbers had shown them totally free of contamination.

“Nevertheless we decided to suspend the product as a preventive measure,” a statement added. In the other company, at Roquetas del Mar, a consignment had been identified with some difficulty, it said.— AFP

HANOVER: A small p

TORONTO: A Canadian couple says it’s none of the world’s business to know their baby’s gender despite a firestorm of criticism over their controversial decision to keep the infant’s sex a secret. Kathy Witterick said her 4-month-old baby Storm should be able to develop its own sexual identity without having to conform to social stereotypes or bow to predetermined expectations associated with gender.

Witterick, 38, and her husband, David Stocker, 39, have faced a backlash since the couple’s story first appeared in the Toronto Star last weekend. Witterick says their critics are being judgmental.

Witterick said in an email Friday that the idea that “the whole world must know what is between the baby’s legs is unhealthy, unsafe and voyeuristic. We know and we’re keeping it clean, safe, healthy and private (not secret!).” Witterick said Storm has a sex which those closest to him or her acknowledge and said they don’t know yet about the baby’s color or dress preferences.

Witterick and her husband have also been criticized for the way they are raising their other two children. Five-year-old Jazz and twoyear-old Kio are well aware that they ’re boys, but have been encouraged to shun gender norms and express themselves in whatever way they wish.

Witterick said Jazz has the right to choose his clothes and hairstyle and said he chooses freely to wear pink despite criticism. “Jazz has a strong sense of being a boy, and he understands that his choices to wear pink and have long hair are not always acceptable to his community,” she wrote. Witterick said the argument that children need a sex taught to them in order to feel safe in the world does not hold up in their experience. She said an infant at four months is still learn-

Loading up on calcium won’t ‘eliminate’ osteoporosis risk LOS ANGELES: Calcium is important for bone health, but medical experts have long debated how much calcium people should consume to reduce the risk of osteoporosis later in life. A new study suggests that the US recommendation for adult women may be unnecessarily high. The recommended dietary allowance for women ages 51 and older in the United States is 1,200 milligrams a day, compared with the recommendation in the United Kingdom of 700 milligrams per day. The new study, published online Tuesday in the British Medical Journal, suggests that consuming more than 700 mg a day won’t help.

Researchers looked at medical records from 61,433 women who were part of the Swedish Mammography Study. Some of the women also completed questionnaires about their diet and calcium intake. The researchers then looked at the women who had fractures or developed osteoporosis in a 19-year follow-up period. They found that the women with the lowest risk of fracture consumed about 750 mg of calcium per day.

Fracture risk did not decrease among women who began taking more calcium as they got older. “Our observational data suggest that in the prevention of osteoporotic fractures emphasis should be placed on individuals with a low intake of calcium rather than increasing the intake of those already consuming satisfactory amounts,” the authors wrote.— MCT

TORONTO: In this photo Storm (right) gets a cuddle from older brother Jazz. Toronto couple Kathy Witterick, 38 and David Stocker, 39, are raising their four-month-old child, Storm, to be genderless. —AP ing to recognize himself or herself and it’s not appropriate to force a sex on them. Witterick said the couple has been trying to keep their children safe from a media frenzy but said it has been difficult. The couple has been criticized for imposing their ideological values on a newborn and subjecting their kids to ridicule.

“Storm will certainly need to understand his/her own sex and gender to navigate this world (the outcry has confirmed that clearly!), but there has never been any question that within our family, the issues of sex and gender and the decisions relating to it are always open for age appropriate discussion,” Witterick wrote. Witterick said it’s important to challenge traditional thinking. “The discussion that

emerges not only “outs” people (in their rush to judge, they demonstrate the prevailing views), but also has the effect of helping people examine whether they truly do believe the status quo to be the best that we can do. Is this the best that we can do to grow healthy, happy, kind, well adjusted children?,” Witterick wrote.

Laura Swan, a friend of Witterick’s, called Witterick a “really good mom” and said her kids are great. Swan declined further comment. A follow-up article in The Star published earlier this week documented furious reader feedback criticizing the parents for turning child-rearing into a social science exercise. Dr Ken Zucker, the chief psychologist and head of the gender identity service for children at

Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, said the story has caused anxiety among people who are now wondering how they became who they are.

“The reason this story has gone viral and been of so much interest is because it has activated an ongoing discourse of how does a child’s gender identity actually get formed,” Zucker said. “There would be people on one side of the spectrum who would say that gender identity is completely hard wired and even if you don’t sex a child they are going to develop a gender identity in accordance with their biology,” he said. “And then there are people on the other side of the spectrum that say that gender identity is completely influenced by socialization.”—AP

Drugmakers brace for generic versions of biotech blockbusters CHICAGO: In 2001, Abbott Laboratories spent nearly $7 billion on the biggest acquisition in the company ’s 123-year histor y, primarily to access one drug, Humira. Since then, the drug giant has raked in more than $24 billion in sales from Humira, a pricey medicine derived from human cells and used to treat a variety of autoimmune diseases. This year, Humira is forecast to have its biggest year ever, with some analysts projecting more than $7 billion in sales.

But the national health care law is intended to put the brakes on the profit bonanza from Humira, as well as many other biotechnology drugs, by opening up the sector to generic competition. That will make biotech drugs, also known as biologics, which are innovative treatments derived from living cells, affordable to more consumers. Many patents on some topselling biotech drugs will start to expire in the next few years. But when “biosimilars” or “biogenerics” will be available to US consumers is unclear.

The Food and Drug Administration is working on guidance on how the approval for this class of generic drugs will work.

“Biotech drugs are among the world’s most expensive,” said Dr Sidney Wolfe, director of the health research group at Public Citizen, a consumer watchdog of the health care industry.

“They have been good, but they have been expensive, so it is extraordinarily important to get biogenerics as quickly as possible.” The Affordable Care Act, signed into law by President Barack Obama in March 2010, clears a path for the FDA to approve generic forms of biotech drugs. Biogenerics have been unavailable in the US because they were not part of the 1984 landmark Hatch-Waxman Act, which allowed for cheaper generic versions of chemically derived drugs.

Thanks to the 1984 law, consumers have access to generic versions of many blockbuster treatments, including the cholesterol drug Zocor and the antidepressant Prozac, which can cost $3 to $5 a day. The generic forms of those drugs typically cost pennies a day. But biotech drugs weren’t developed until the 1980s, when technology

cleared the way for genetic engineering on DNA, allowing drug companies to rake in huge profits from this relatively new class of treatments.

Humira is a monoclonal antibody, hailed for its ability to work like a smart bomb because of its ability to precisely attack disease cells. Abbott says more than 500,000 people worldwide are taking Humira to battle a range of autoimmune diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease and psoriasis, often halting progression of the condition. But the innovation has come with a price. Humira costs patients, their employers and health insurance companies about $20,000 for one year of treatment. Doctors say costs can run higher depending on the patient and dosage needed to be injected into patients.

The anti-anemia drug Epogen can cost more than $10,000 a year per patient, while biologic medicines for cancer and other life-threatening diseases can cost tens of thousands, sometimes more than $100,000 a year.

While biotech drugs are very expensive for consumers, they can pay off for drug companies. When Abbott engineered its $6.9 billion acquisition of Knoll Pharmaceuticals, which developed Humira, Wall Street analysts and investors thought the company spent too much. The drug industry at the time often touted the cost of researching and developing one drug at $800 million or more.

Knoll provided Abbott with a host of products, including the popular thyroid treatment Synthroid and the diet drug Meridia, which had a few years of good sales before the FDA requested the company take it off the market due to heart risks. When Abbott bought Knoll in 2001, which was before Humira won FDA approval, Knoll was generating about $2 billion in sales. “They have more than recouped their investment,” Wolfe said of Abbott.

Abbott Chairman and CEO Miles White recently indicated Humira will continue to be a blockbuster, given its first patents don’t expire for another five years. “Humira has been a phenomenally successful product with application in a lot of different disease categories,” White said at the company’s

annual shareholder meeting last month. “Humira’s got long legs, out until about at least 2016, when its first patents begin to expire.”

White is banking on all of the FDAapproved indications for Humira, which has held up against competition from rival rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn’s treatments derived from biotechnology, such as Johnson and Johnson’s Remicade and Amgen Inc.’s Enbrel. The patent for Remicade also is expected to expire in the next few years. “It is yet unclear what kind of competition we’ll experience from biosimilars or the equivalent of generics at some point later in time,” White said. “So I think some of the concern about Humira is exaggerated and overblown.”

One primary obstacle that could delay entry of a Humira rival lies with the FDA. The agency this month said it continues to work on the regulatory review process, which will require clinical trials, unlike the process used to approve generic copies derived from chemicals. Neither Abbott nor the FDA is aware of a company that has begun to work on a biosimilar version of Humira, but some companies are starting clinical trials of biosimilars of other drugs. Hospira Inc., for example, is selling a biogeneric of Epogen in Europe and last year began clinical trials in 20 US hemodialysis centers.

Some analysts think it will be difficult for companies to replicate biologics as easily as pills and capsules derived from chemicals. Biologics are more complex to make, and there are not enough makers to drive prices down to the 60 to 80 percent discounts that are common among chemically derived pills and capsules, some analysts say. “When Humira loses patent protection in 2016, it may become an albatross similar to Pfizer’s Lipitor,” Morningstar Inc. analyst Damien Conover said in a recent report, referring to the generic competition Pfizer’s cholesterol pill faces in November.

“However, since we believe the drug’s biologic composition will dilute the impact of generic competition, we project an immediate sales decline of 20 percent following the patent loss, instead of the typical 80 percent crash.”— MCT

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Prenatal vitamins reduces risk of autism by half LOS ANGELES: Women who reported not taking prenatal vitamins immediately before and during a pregnancy were twice as likely to have a child with autism, University of California, Davis, researchers reported Wednesday. If the women also had a mutation in a high-risk gene, they were seven times as likely to have a child with the developmental disorder, the researchers reported in the online edition of the journal Epidemiology. The study is scheduled to appear in print in July.

Epidemiologist Rebecca J Schmidt of the UC Davis MIND Institute and her colleagues studied about 700 Northern California families with 2- to 5-year-old children with autism who were participants in the Childhood Autism Risk from Genetics and the Environment study from January 2003 to December 2009. In telephone interviews, the mothers were asked whether and when they took prenatal vitamins and the type of vitamins ingested.

The team found that mothers who took the vitamins prenatally or during the first month of pregnancy were only half as likely to have a child with autism as those who didn’t. For mothers who began taking them in the second month of pregnancy, there was no effect, however. This suggests that by the time most women learn they are

pregnant, beginning to take the vitamins will provide little or no benefit in terms of autism.

The researchers also found strong associations with two gene mutations that had previously been linked to autism risk. One is the variant of the methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase, or MTHFR, gene associated with less efficient metabolism of folic acid and increased blood levels of the amino acid homocysteine. The other was a variant of the catechol-Omethyltransferase, or COMT, gene, which is also linked to increased levels of homocysteine. For women who did not take vitamins and had the MTHFR variant, the risk of having an autistic child was 4.5 times normal. For those who did not take vitamins and had the COMT variant, the risk was seven times normal.

“The good news is that, if this finding is replicated, it will provide an inexpensive, relatively simple evidence-based action that women can take to reduce risks for their child, which is to take prenatal vitamins as early as possible in a pregnancy and even when planning for a pregnancy,” said epidemiologist Irva Hertz-Picciotto, the senior author of the study. It is important to replicate it, she added, because the study relied on women’s recall of their vitamin use, which is not always accurate. — MCT

Say bye to obesity

Alzheimer’s, leukemia share protein molecule MELVILLE: A molecule known to play a role in a rare form of leukemia also appears to have a hand in Alzheimer’s disease, Long Island scientists have found in the first investigation to show how this well-known component of cancer in the blood can also lead to dementia. Dr Peter Davies and colleagues at the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research in Manhasset, NY, have made a landmark discovery, unmasking a protein molecule known as c-Abl. They found it in the morass of plaques and tangles that define the damaged brain tissue of people with Alzheimer’s disease.

For decades, c-Abl has been known as the active component in chronic myeloid leukemia, or CML. The protein so adversely affects patients’ white-cell population, known as B-cells, that some scientists have likened it to a light switch: when it is flipped

on, it can lead to CML. Its newly defined presence in Alzheimer’s disease is a story that has been unfolding for more than two decades, said Davies, director of the Litwin-Zucker Center for Research in Alzheimer’s disease.

“We first saw c-Abl 25 years ago in the brains of patients with Alzheimer’s disease,” Davies said Thursday. “There were signs that nerve cells were trying to divide, which of course they shouldn’t be doing because adult brain cells don’t divide. But now we know that c-Abl is responsible for this.”

Davies emphasized that his discovery does not mean that Alzheimer’s is a form of cancer but that the two unrelated conditions share an aberrant molecule. His discovery is outlined in greater detail in a study published online Thursday in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.

Dr Creighton Phelps, director of the

Alzheimer’s program at the National Institute on Aging in Bethesda, Md, said the research was intriguing and that multiple Alzheimer’s triggers are likely to be found.

Phelps said he would like to know precisely where c-Abl fits in the rogues’ gallery of molecular suspects. “It may not be in the main pathway” that leads to the disease, Phelps said, “but it may be affecting other players in the main pathway.” Davies and his team, meanwhile, have begun investigating medications that can switch off c-Abl for Alzheimer’s. The blockbuster medication Gleevec, approved a decade ago for CML, would not work, he said, because it won’t cross the blood-brain-barrier, the tight network of capillaries shielding the brain. They are working on several medications similar to Gleevec that can potentially evade the brain’s defenses. — MCT

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T R AV E L

SUNDAY, MAY 29, 2011

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W H AT ’ S O N

Two days of laughter at Cadbury Academy of Joy

C

adbury Dairy Milk, the iconic global chocolate brand, held its first comedy workshop & professional show for talented young Kuwaiti men and women as part of its Academy of Joy tour. Organized in collaboration with Dubomedy Arts, the hilarious evenings held at the Gulf University for Science & Technology (GUST), brought a humorous community of artistes to work together on developing their stand-up talents, performance delivery and improvisation skills as well as encouraging them to share their joyous moments with others.

“Laughter truly is the best way to bring people together, and what better way to bring moments of joy to the lives of young adults in the region than through a comedy tour, and the response has been fantastic! The participants and the Dubomedy team had a wonderful time sharing and learning from each other, which really represents the brand’s joyful personality. We couldn’t have wished for a better start to the tour,” said Khurram Siddiqi, Marketing Director - Snacks, The GCC and MENA New Markets, Kraft Foods MEA. “The event was a great break for students, staff and faculty alike from

their daily routines and provided them with an outlet for not only their humor but for their creativity as well as some students showcased great talent at the workshops,” said Aseel AbouNemah from GUST’s Office of Student Life.

After spending two days improvising

and practicing a stand up routine, the skits were then performed in front of a live audience on the final day of the workshops. The most hilarious standup comedian, Abdullah Al Saeedi, was chosen to showcase his laugh-inducing skills by opening for a professional

comedy show the evening of May 12, alongside renowned funnymen Omar Ismail and Brent Jenkins. Abdullah presented a stand up routine in Arabic, giving his comedic twist on the issues that leave young men like him confused and delivering his memorable tag line “but you know what?...I don’t care”. Commenting on his experience, Abdullah said, “This was very exciting for me, I’ve done theater before but never comedy or stand-up, I hope people enjoyed it as much as I did”.

Ali Al Sayed, Dubomedy Arts producer and performer and host of the workshops, said, “Kuwait has really set a high standard for growing talent of stand-up comedians in the region and we had a brilliant time interacting with them. It’s great to see the Cadbury Academy of Joy offering opportunities for our local artists. We can’t wait to take the tour to another group of aspiring comedians on our next stop in Saudi Arabia”. Along with Ali, the workshops were 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.

Garshom awards prominent NRIs

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rominent business personality and Kuwait’s chain of supermarket Gulfmart’s Country head T A Ramesh and Sageer Trikarpur, Chairman of Kuwait’s largest social welfare association of Indian nationals received the prestigious Garshom Award.

Najma Heptulla, the Former Rajya Sabha Chairperson presented the award to Ramesh and Thrikkarippur in a glittering function held at Salmiya Indian community school.

Organizing committee chairman Jacob Channapetta presided over the function.

Indian Embassy Charge d affairs Vidhu P Nair, Samajwadi party national general secretary Rajeev Kumar Rai and Ivan Nigli, ex-MLA Karnataka, were the chief guests for the day.

Sunitha Krishnan- Hyderabad, V C Praveen- Chennai, S Ahmed- Trivandrum and All Malaysia Malayalee Association also received the award yesterday.

Garshom Award has been instituted by Bangalore based Garshom Infomedia for NRIs settled abroad and those who

have returned to the country.

The award committee constitutes Nigli, B Ashok Kumar (Muscat), Polly Mathew Somatheeram (Germany) and Jins Paul (Managing Editor, Garshom Infomedia Limited).

Trikarpur from Kuwait, Krishnan from Hyderabad and Praveen from Chennai were awarded Garshom Pravasi Ratna, Garshom Pravasi Vanitha and Gashom Yuva Pravasi awards respectively. Ahmed from Trivandrum received Garshom

New Sales Director at Movenpick Hotel

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dding a new member to the growing team, the Movenpick Hotel Kuwait Free Zone recently appointed Giovanni Petrigh as Director of Sales. Giovanni joins the company with a track record of more than 17 years working with major names in the world of hotels and hospitality.

Giovanni’s career began in 1995, with a position in Public Relations.

Then he moved to Kuwait to work with Safir International Hotel at the front office. He gained the requisite experience that enabled him to work at the Ritz Hotel as the manager for the night shift. He was also a part of the team that worked for the hotel’s soft opening.

Over the course of his career, Giovanni acquired experience in the sales department, and he joined the Sheraton Hotel Kuwait, serving his position as Sales Executive. His ascent on the career ladder was then marked by a stint as Sales Manager at the Hilton Kuwait Resor t, Assistant Director of Sales at the Regenc y Kuwait Hotel and Resort and finally as Director of Sales and Marketing at the Safir International Hotel.

Giovanni’s expertise in his career has been strengthened by sk ills gained through a number of training courses, which coupled with the diversity of hotels he has worked at, have contributed significantly to his sound knowledge in the world of sales and hospitality management.

Giovanni has expressed his delight at joining the Moevenpick Hotel Kuwait Free Zone family. He hopes God grants him the strength to move forward and drive the success of the hotel chain, which is distinguished by its Swiss hospitality and service.

Pravasi Returnee award.

Gulfmart’s country head Ramesh was selected for Garshom Special Award. AMMA (All Malaysia Malayalee Association) from Malaysia won the best Pravasi Organization of

the year 2010. This is the first time Garshom is conducting this international award night in Kuwait.

In her speech, Heptulla opined that the Indians are very active all over the world. “I am happy to know that Mr TA

Ramesh is holding a very successful post among the Kuwait business community. It’s highly appreciable that he employs large number of Indians in this country,” said Heptulla.

It was the excellence in his

work area of being at the top management of Gulfmart, Kuwait’s chain of supermarkets that caters to the Indian community that won Ramesh a special award from the jury of Garshom Awards 2010. Being the Country Manager of

Gulfmart, Ramesh has been the leading force in spreading the reach of Gulfmart throughout Kuwait and this managerial excellence has been appreciated by the Indian community in Kuwait. Ramesh thanked the whole Indian Community in Kuwait for getting this prestigious award.

Trikarpur’s tireless work towards ensuring social security and upliftment of the Malayalees in Kuwait combined with his contribution in his social responsibility by supporting the economically weaker sections in Kerala was what led him to be selected the Garshom Pravasi Ratna 2010. Sageer is the founder of Kuwait Muslim Association which is the largest social welfare organization among the Indian community in Kuwait. “It’s each individual’s responsibility to share our time for the upliftment of the society” Sageer said while receiving the award. Prominent members among the community attended the function. A special melodious musical evening was also organized as a part of the Garshom Awards.

Announcements ‘Mahakte Lamhe’ Indian Cultural Society (ICS) presents “Mahakte Lamhe” with Udit Narayan with Deepa Narayan.

Another attraction of the evening will be reality shows fame Neha Chouhan & Nayan Rathod on 10th June 2011 Friday at Auditorium Kamil Al Rays, American International School, near Police Station Maidan Hawally Kuwait at 7.30 pm sharp.

The Chief Guest for the event will be Vidhu P Nair Charge d” Affaires Embassy of India, Kuwait and the guest of honor will be prominent personalities from Kuwait. For details contact: 97690035, 66568147, 94450833, 97270386, 97286577, 67030839, and 99757214 Email ics.kuwait@gmail.com BAIA Summer Camp now open for registrations 2011 ON STAGE summer camp from 19 June to 06 July. Last year High School Musical, this year Camp Rock, Tangled, Cars...many more! From Page to Stage in just 3 weeks, through costume design, technicals, acting, singing, dance, music, make-up, film and lighting. Create a fabulous performance ON STAGE. Discounts available if registered before 01 June. Call 60052087 or mail administrator@baia.com.kw. Full details of all events and courses are available on www.baia.com.kw 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 AWARE Arabic course The AWARE management is glad to inform you that Summer 2 Arabic language courses will begin on June 12 until July 21, 2011. AWARE Arabic language courses are designed with the expat in mind. The environment is relaxed & courses are designed for those wanting to learn Arabic for travel, cultural understanding, and conducting business or simply to become more involved in the community. We cater to teachers, travelers and those working in the private business sector.

AWARE Arabic courses highlights: Introductory to Level 4 Arabic language basics; Ccmbine language learning with cultural insights; taught in multi-nationality group settings ; and provides opportunities to interact with Western expatriates and native Kuwaitis/Arabs. For more information and/or registration, call 25335260/80 ext 105 or 0 or log onto: www.aware.com.kw

Marina Hotel organizes open day for Coral Reef members

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arina Hotel organized on May 13, 2011 a special day of fun, relaxation and activities beside the pool for the members of the Coral Reef Health Club and their families. As the day started, members and their families were flocking to the pool area where all the fun was awaiting. Senior

management and health club instructors were also participating and keeping everyone entertained with games, music and lots of giveaways.

Before long, the pool area was full with people getting together, resting and enjoying the breathtaking views of the city and the Arabian blues. For this occasion, General Manager, Nabil Hammoud commented: “We recognize the importance of having a healthy lifestyle and we have organized this special day to raise the awareness of our members and especially our younger generation on the importance of exercising for a better health”. Hammoud added: “we were also very pleased to see our members and their families enjoying this day and simply relaxing. We always make special efforts to keep our members and guests feel relaxed and at home”.

The day continued with an appetizing open buffet filled with delicious varieties of hot and cold dishes as well as a list of refreshing juices and other flavorful beverages. The best part of the day had yet to come with the teams of basketball and volleyball getting ready to start the games and win exciting prizes under the cheers of their fans!

As the sun set, the pool became illuminated with a colorful light display which created a unique atmosphere to unwind and watch the capturing sun set over the horizon.

Summer time at the Coral Reef Health Club at the Marina Hotel is very unique. The health club has a team of qualified instructors and is fully equipped with a wide range of equipments and offers a variety of weekly programs of fitness classes including yoga. Coral Reef has its own entrance at the back of the hotel and a free car parking for members.

Holiday Inn Kuwait organises blood donation campaign

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n line with its Corporate Social Responsibility, Holiday Inn Kuwait held a Blood Donation Campaign, which involved the active participation of its staff and management.

In collaboration with the Central Blood Bank of Kuwait, the hotel made a concentrated effort towards the benevolent cause of saving lives of citizens and residents of the State of Kuwait.

Director of Operations for Holiday Inn Kuwait, Maged Hanna, who was the first donor of the day, commented,” this event is part of our commitment towards the community we live in. It is our social responsibility to serve the community and support charitable actions; be it donating blood or any other humanitarian activities and we are extremely proud to see the large number of our staff who has come forward to donate blood for this noble cause. We also look forward to organize similar activities on a regular basis within the hotel.”

The medical team expressed their gratitude and appreciation to the staff and

management of the hotel for their active interest towards such responsible social activities, which involves the saving of precious human lives, and especially the Public Relations team of the Holiday Inn Kuwait for organizing the Blood Donation Campaign

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Years

TV PROGRAMS

00:45 Untamed And Uncut 01:40 Dogs 101 02:35 Great White Appetite 03:30 Shark Attack File 04:25 The Animals’ Guide To Survival 05:20 Animal Cops South Africa 06:10 Dogs/Cats/Pets 101 07:00 Meerkat Manor 07:25 Growing Up...

08:15 The Really Wild Show 08:40 Natural Born Hunters 09:10 Michaela’s Animal Road Trip 10:05 Must Love Cats 11:00 Animal Precinct 11:55 Wildlife SOS 12:20 Vet On The Loose 12:50 Planet Earth 13:45 Planet Earth 14:40 Extraordinary Dogs 15:05 Project Puppy 15:35 Natural Born Hunters 16:00 Natural Born Hunters 16:30 Karina: Wild On Safari 16:55 Karina: Wild On Safari 17:25 Cheetah Kingdom 17:50 Cheetah Kingdom 18:20 The Last Lion Of Liuwa 19:15 Wildest Africa 20:10 Dogs 101 21:05 Queens Of The Savannah 22:00 Life Of Mammals

00:15 Robin Hood 01:00 Strictly Come Dancing 02:25 Strictly Come Dancing 03:05 One Foot In The Grave 03:35 Beautiful People 04:05 Green Green Grass 04:35 Me Too 04:55 Tweenies 05:15 Teletubbies 05:40 Bobinogs 05:55 Me Too 06:15 Tweenies 06:35 Teletubbies 07:00 Me Too 07:20 Tweenies 07:40 Teletubbies 08:05 Bobinogs 08:20 Me Too 08:40 Tweenies 09:00 Teletubbies 09:25 Bobinogs 09:40 One Foot In The Grave 10:10 Green Green Grass 10:40 Robin Hood 11:25 Doctor Who Confidential 11:40 The Weakest Link 12:25 Casualty 13:15 Casualty 14:05 The Weakest Link 14:50 The Weakest Link 15:35 Doctors 16:05 Doctors 16:35 Doctors 17:05 Doctors 17:35 Doctors 18:05 Robin Hood 18:50 Doctor Who Confidential 19:00 One Foot In The Grave 19:30 Green Green Grass 20:00 Ray Mears’ Northern Wilderness 20:50 Monarch Of The Glen 21:40 New Tricks

00:15 Saturday Kitchen 00:40 Holmes On Homes 01:30 Holmes On Homes 02:20 Come Dine With Me 12:20 New Scandinavian Cooking 12:45 New Scandinavian Cooking 13:10 New Scandinavian Cooking 13:40 New Scandinavian Cooking 14:05 New Scandinavian Cooking With Andreas Viestad 14:30 New Scandinavian Cooking With Andreas Viestad 14:55 New Scandinavian Cooking With Andreas Viestad 15:20 New Scandinavian Cooking

With Andreas Viestad 15:45 New Scandinavian Cooking With Andreas Viestad 18:50 Come Dine With Me 20:30 Perfect Day 20:55 Perfect Day 21:20 New Scandinavian Cooking 22:10 Come Dine With Me

00:00 01:30 02:00 02:10 02:30 03:00 03:10 03:30 04:00 04:30 05:00 06:30 07:00 07:30 08:00 08:30 09:00 09:30 10:00 10:10 10:30 11:00 11:10 11:30 12:00 12:10 12:30 13:00 13:10 13:30 14:00 14:30 15:00 15:10 15:30 16:00 16:15 16:30 17:00 17:30 18:00 19:30 20:00 21:15 21:30 22:00 22:30 23:00 23:10 23:30

BBC World News Middle East Business Report BBC World News World Features Newsnight BBC World News World Features Equestrian World BBC World News Dateline London BBC World News Click BBC World News Newsnight BBC World News India Business Report BBC World News Fast Track BBC World News World Features Equestrian World BBC World News World Features Dateline London BBC World News World Features Horizons BBC World News World Features BBC World News BBC World News Newsnight BBC World News World Features Women On War BBC World News Sport Today Click BBC World News Earth Reporters BBC World News India Business Report BBC World News Sport Today Click BBC World News Equestrian World BBC World News World Features Earth Reporters

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 08:15 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 Cartoon Network Dance Club 15:15 Ed, Edd N Eddy 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 21:25 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

00:40 Manhunt: Search For A Killer 01:35 Mythbusters 02:30 Surviving Disaster 03:25 Worst-Case Scenario 03:55 Worst-Case Scenario 04:20 How Do They Do It? 04:50 How Stuff’s Made 05:15 Airplane Repo 06:05 Mythbusters 07:00 Extreme Engineering 7 07:50 Mighty Ships 08:45 Huge Moves 09:40 Mythbusters 10:30 Gold Rush: Alaska 11:25 Sarah Palin’s Alaska 12:20 Mythbusters 17:50 How Do They Do It? 18:15 Gold Rush: Alaska 19:10 Is It Possible?

20:05 Cell Phone Revolution 21:00 Mythbusters 21:55 Get Out Alive 22:50 Surviving Disaster 23:45 Police Women Of Maricopa County

00:30 Nextworld 01:20 The Gadget Show 01:45 The Gadget Show 02:10 What’s That About?

03:00 Sci-Fi Science 03:25 Sci-Fi Science 03:50 How Stuff Works 04:45 Engineered 05:40 How Stuff’s Made 06:10 Superships 07:00 How The Universe Works 07:55 Brainiac 08:45 Head Rush 08:48 Sci-Fi Science 09:15 Weird Connections 09:45 Catch It Keep It 10:35 Are We Alone?

12:15 Bad Universe 13:05 Bad Universe 13:55 Bad Universe 14:45 The Gadget Show 15:10 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 Bang Goes The Theory 17:25 Bang Goes The Theory 17:50 Sci-Trek 18:40 The Future Of...

19:30 Mighty Ships 20:20 The Gadget Show 20:45 The Gadget Show 21:10 Through The Wormhole With Morgan Freeman

22:00 22:50 23:15 23:40

The Future Of...

Bang Goes The Theory Bang Goes The Theory Mega World

00:20 00:45 01:10 01:35 02:00 02:20 02:45 03:10 03:35 04:00 04:25 04:50 05:15 05:35 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 16:25 16:45 17:10 17:30 17:53 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

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

06:00 Kid Vs Kat 06:20 Kick Buttowski 06:40 Pokemon 07:05 American Dragon 07:30 Phineas & Ferb 07:55 Phineas & Ferb 08:20 Suite Life On Deck S3 08:45 Pair Of Kings 09:10 Kid Vs Kat 09:25 The Avengers: Earths Mightiest Heroes 09:50 New Spiderman 10:15 Zeke & Luther 10:40 I’m In The Band 11:05 The Super Hero Squad Show 11:30 The Suite Life Of Zack & Cody 11:50 Phineas And Ferb 12:00 Hatching Pete 13:25 Phineas And Ferb 13:40 Pokemon 14:05 The Super Hero Squad Show 14:30 Kick Buttowski 14:55 Pair Of Kings 15:20 Phineas And Ferb 15:30 The Suite Life Of Zack & Cody 15:50 I’m In The Band 16:15 Zeke & Luther 16:40 Zeke & Luther 17:05 The Super Hero Squad Show 17:30 Pokemon 17:55 Suite Life On Deck S3 18:20 Suite Life On Deck S3 18:45 Phineas & Ferb 19:10 The Avengers: Earths Mightiest Heroes 19:35 The Avengers: Earths Mightiest Heroes 22:20 Pokemon

00:25 Fashion Police 00:55 Chelsea Lately 01:25 15 Unforgettable Hollywood Tragedies 03:15 E! Investigates 04:10 Sexiest 05:05 Reality Hell 05:30 Wildest TV Show Moments 06:00 THS 07:50 Behind The Scenes 08:20 E! News 09:15 Extreme Close-Up 09:45 Extreme Close-Up 10:15 THS 15:55 E!es 16:55 Behind The Scenes 17:25 Behind The Scenes 17:55 E! News 18:55 Holly’s World 19:25 Holly’s World 19:55 Kimora: Life In The Fab Lane 20:55 Kendra 21:25 Kourtney And Kim Take New York 21:55 Kourtney And Kim Take New York 22:25 E! News 23:25 The Soup 23:55 Chelsea Lately

THE ALPHABET KILLER ON OSN MOVIES ACTION

00:15 The Millionaire’s Club 00:40 Gumball 3000: 2008 01:05 Gumball 3000: 2008 01:30 M1 Selection 2010 02:20 FIA European Drag Racing 2008 02:45 FIA European Drag Racing 2008 03:10 FIA European Drag Racing 2008 03:35 FIA European Drag Racing 2008 04:00 Carpocalypse 04:50 Lucas Oil Motocross Championships 2009 05:40 Lucas Oil Motocross Championships 2009

06:30 Ride Guide Mountainbike 2008 08:00 Quattro Events 2009 09:40 FIM World Motocross MX1/MX2...

10:30 FIM World Motocross MX1/MX2...

11:20 Lucas Oil Motocross Championships 2009 12:10 Lucas Oil Motocross Championships 2009 13:00 Extreme Lives: My Right Foot 13:50 Sports Jobs 14:15 Sports Jobs 14:40 Eds Up 16:45 Eds Up 17:10 Fight Girls 18:00 Sports Jobs 18:25 Sports Jobs 18:50 Lucas Oil Motocross Championships 2009 19:40 Lucas Oil Motocross Championships 2009 20:30 Extreme Lives: My Right Foot 21:20 Fantasy Factory 22:10 Sports Jobs 23:00 Fight Girls 23:50 Gumball 3000: 2008

00:30 01:20 02:10 03:00 03:50 04:45 05:15 Jones 06:10 07:00 07:50 08:40 09:30 10:20 11:10 12:00 Jones 12:50 13:40 14:30 15:20 16:10 17:00 17:50 18:40 19:30 20:20 Jones 21:10 22:00 22:50 23:40

A Haunting The Haunted Ghost Lab Mysterious Journeys A Haunting Ghosthunters True Crime With Aphrodite Mystery Diagnosis Forensic Detectives CSU Mystery Diagnosis Real Emergency Calls Fugitive Strike Force FBI Files True Crime With Aphrodite Solved Mystery Diagnosis Real Emergency Calls Fugitive Strike Force Forensic Detectives CSU FBI Files Mystery Diagnosis Real Emergency Calls True Crime With Aphrodite Disappeared Ripped From The Headlines Deadly Women I Almost Got Away With It

00:00 Banged Up Abroad 04:00 Exploring The Vine 04:30 David Rocco’s Dolce Vita 05:00 Banged Up Abroad 10:00 Don’t Tell My Mother 10:30 Amazing Adventure of A Nobody 11:00 Meet The Amish 12:00 Long Way Down 13:00 Cruise Ship Diaries 14:00 Banged Up Abroad 15:00 Departures 16:00 Don’t Tell My Mother 16:30 Amazing Adventure of A Nobody 17:00 Meet The Amish 18:00 Long Way Down 19:00 Cruise Ship Diaries 20:00 Banged Up Abroad 21:00 Departures 22:00 Don’t Tell My Mother 22:30 Amazing Adventure of A Nobody 23:00 Meet The Amish

00:15 The Descent 2-18 02:00 The Spirit-PG15 03:45 The Manchurian Candidate18 06:00 The Truth About Charlie-PG15 08:00 Fast And Furious-PG15 10:00 Con Air-PG15 12:00 Face Off-PG15 14:15 Fast And Furious-PG15 16:00 Air Force One-PG15 18:00 Face Off-PG15 20:15 Green Street 2: Stand Your Ground-18 22:00 The Alphabet Killer-PG15

01:00 03:00 04:30 06:30 09:00 11:00 13:00 15:00 17:00 19:00 21:15 23:00

Say It In Russian-18 Good Hair-PG15 Charlie And Boots-PG Invictus-PG15 Good Hair-PG15 All About Steve-PG15 Charlotte Gray-PG15 Car Babes-PG15 Bandslam-PG15 Sherlock Holmes-PG15 She’s Out Of My League-18 Remember Me-PG15

00:30 The Daily Show With Jon Stewart 01:00 The Colbert Report 01:30 South Park 02:00 Saturday Night Live 03:00 Friends 03:30 How I Met Your Mother 04:00 South Park 04:30 The Tonight Show With Jay Leno 05:30 Will And Grace 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 Will And Grace 10:00 Yes Dear 10:30 My Boys 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 Will And Grace 14:00 Yes Dear 14:30 How I Met Your Mother 15:00 My Boys 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 Just Shoot Me

REMEMBER ME ON OSN CINEMA 18:30 Tyler Perry’s House Of Payne 19:00 Seinfeld 19:30 30 Rock 20:00 Two And A Half Men 20:30 Cougar Town 21:00 The Daily Show With Jon Stewart 21:30 The Colbert Report 22:00 Saturday Night Live 23:00 South Park 23:30 Two And A Half Men

00:00 The Event 01:00 Sons Of Anarchy 02:00 The Ellen DeGeneres Show 03:00 Persons Unknown 04:00 The View 05:00 Downton Abbey 06:00 Good Morning America 07:00 The Bachelor 08:00 Emmerdale 08:30 Coronation Street 09:00 The Ellen DeGeneres Show 10:00 Downton Abbey 11:00 The View 12:00 The Event 13:00 Persons Unknown 14:00 Downton Abbey 15:00 Live Good Morning America 16:00 The Bachelor 17:00 The Ellen DeGeneres Show 18:00 Emmerdale 18:30 Coronation Street 19:00 Law And Order: Los Angeles 20:00 Law And Order 21:00 Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior 22:00 Treme 23:10 The Bachelor

00:00 Cold Case 01:00 C.S.I. 02:00 Sons Of Anarchy 03:00 The Event 04:00 Persons Unknown 05:00 Psych 06:00 Cold Case 07:00 The New Adventures Of Old Christine 07:30 Coronation Street 08:00 The Unit 09:00 Psych 10:00 The Event 11:00 Persons Unknown 12:00 The New Adventures Of Old Christine 12:30 Coronation Street 13:00 The Ellen DeGeneres Show 14:00 The Unit 15:00 Criminal Minds 16:00 The New Adventures Of Old Christine 16:30 Coronation Street 17:00 The Ellen DeGeneres Show 18:00 American Idol 19:00 Law And Order: Los Angeles 20:00 Law And Order 21:00 Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior 22:00 C.S.I. 23:00 Psych

01:00 Underworld: Rise Of The Lycans-18 02:30 The Manchurian Candidate18 04:45 Rage: Carrie 2-PG15 06:30 Armageddon-PG15 09:00 Gone In Sixty Seconds-PG15 11:00 Hollywood Homicide-PG15 13:00 Annihilation Earth-PG15 15:00 Gone In Sixty Seconds-PG15 17:00 Surrogates-PG15 19:00 XXX-PG15 21:00 The Alphabet Killer-PG15 23:00 Blindness-18

00:00 Jack-PG15 02:00 Down And Out In Beverly Hills-PG15 04:00 The Cable Guy-PG15 06:00 Love Happens-PG15 08:00 I Spy-PG 10:00 Four Christmases-PG15 12:00 Paper Heart-PG15 14:00 The Frighteners-PG15 16:00 Jack-PG15 18:00 The Last Supper-PG15 20:00 Palo Alto-PG15 22:00 Fired Up!-18

01:15 Cat People-18 03:15 Free Style-PG15 05:15 Man In The Chair-PG15 07:15 Nurse.Fighter.Boy-PG15 09:00 Bran Nue Dae-PG15 11:00 Last Chance Harvey-PG15 13:00 Stevie-PG15 15:00 Sticks And Stones-PG 17:00 A Shine Of Rainbows-PG15 19:00 Le Premier Jour Du Reste De Ta Vie-PG15 21:00 Blues Brothers 2000-PG15 23:15 This Revolution-PG15

00:30 03:00 05:30 07:00 09:00 11:00 13:00 15:00 17:00 19:00 21:00 23:00

Boogie Nights-18 W-PG15 Monsters Inc-FAM Someone Like You-PG15 Up-FAM Ice Castles-PG15 Fantastic Mr. Fox-FAM Under The Tuscan Sun-PG15 Up-FAM Perrier’s Bounty-18 Blues Brothers 2000-PG15 Order Of Chaos-R

00:00 Dennis The Menace: Cruise Control-FAM 02:00 Gold Diggers: The Secret Of Bear Mountain-PG 04:00 Barney’s Great AdventureFAM 06:00 Nativity!-PG 08:00 Pollyworld-FAM 10:00 Dennis The Menace: Cruise Control-FAM 12:00 Scooby-Doo Meets The Boo Brothers-FAM 14:00 Nativity!-PG 16:00 Homeward Bound II: Lost In San Francisco-FAM 18:00 Planet 51-PG 20:00 Pete’s Dragon-PG 22:15 Scooby-Doo Meets The Boo Brothers-FAM

00:00 Youth In Revolt-18 02:00 End Of The Spear-PG15 04:00 Nanny Mcphee And The Big Bang-PG 06:00 Before You Say I Do-PG15 08:00 Flicka 2-PG15 10:00 9-PG 12:00 Valentine’s Day-PG15 14:00 Elle: A Modern Day Cinderella Tale-PG15 16:00 Flicka 2-PG15 18:00 Four Last Songs-PG15 20:00 Saint John Of Las Vegas-PG15 22:00 The Hurt Locker-18

01:00 Aviva Premiership 03:00 Super 15 05:00 Super 15 07:00 Super League 09:00 Live Super 15 11:00 Aviva Premiership 13:00 Live Test Cricket 20:00 Super 15 22:00 Live Senior Championship

PGA

02:30 AFL Premiership 05:00 NRL Premiership 07:00 Live NRL Premiership 09:00 ICC Cricket World 09:30 The Senior PGA Championship 13:00 Futbol Mundial 13:30 NRL Premiership 15:30 Trans World Sport 16:30 Live European PGA Tour 20:30 NRL Premiership 22:30 Futbol Mundial 23:00 Aviva Premiership

00:00 01:00 02:00 04:00 05:00 06:00

UFC 130 Countdown Intercontinental Le Mans Cup V8 Supercars Championship WWE Vintage Collection UFC Unleashed UFC Unleashed

07:00 09:00 10:00 11:00 13:00 14:00 16:00 20:00 21:00 22:00 23:00

WWE SmackDown WWE Bottom Line Intercontinental Le Mans Cup V8 Supercars Championship WWE Bottom Line WWE SmackDown Live PGA European Tour WWE NXT UFC The Ultimate Fighter UFC 130 Countdown WWE NXT

01:20 America: The Story Of The Us 02:10 Clash Of The Gods 03:00 Deep Sea Detectives 03:55 Deep Wreck Mysteries 04:50 Deep Sea Salvage 05:40 Seven Signs Of The Apocalypse 07:20 America: The Story Of The Us 08:10 Clash Of The Gods 09:00 Deep Sea Detectives 09:55 Deep Wreck Mysteries 10:50 Deep Sea Salvage 11:40 Seven Signs Of The Apocalypse 13:20 America: The Story Of The Us 14:10 Clash Of The Gods 15:00 Deep Sea Detectives 15:55 Deep Wreck Mysteries 16:50 Deep Sea Salvage 17:40 Seven Signs Of The Apocalypse 19:20 America: The Story Of The Us 20:10 Clash Of The Gods 21:00 Ancient Wonders 21:55 Clash Of The Gods 22:50 Egypt: Land Of The Gods 23:40 Dogfights

00:00 Travel Notebook 01:00 Working Holiday 02:00 Think Green 03:00 Julian and Camilla’s World Odyssey 04:00 Globe Trekker 05:00 Travel Notebook 06:00 Travel Today 06:30 Cruise Today 07:00 Globe Trekker 08:00 Working Holiday 09:00 Glutton For Punishment 09:30 Angry Planet 10:00 Nomad’s Land 11:00 Great Scenic Railways-US & Canada 11:30 The Big Fish 12:00 Globe Trekker 13:00 Travel Today 13:30 Cruise Today 14:00 Working Holiday 15:00 Travel Notebook 16:00 Globe Trekker 17:00 Travel Today 17:30 Cruise Today 18:00 Feast India 18:30 Feast India 19:00 Globe Trekker 19:30 Essential 20:00 Essential Specials 21:00 Distant Shores 21:30 Glutton For Punishment 22:00 World’s Greatest Motorcycle Rides 23:00 Globe Trekker

00:55 Impromptu 02:39 Hendrix 04:20 Jackson County Jail 05:45 Stone Cold 07:15 The Group 09:45 Back To School 11:20 Absolute Strangers 12:50 Mr. Majestyk 14:30 The 70’s 16:30 Big Screen 2 16:45 April Morning 18:25 Across 110th Street 20:05 Invasion Of The Body Snatchers 22:00 Foxy Brown 23:30 Black Mama, White Mama

Classifieds SUNDAY, MAY 29, 2011

Healthy Living

ACCOMMODATION

A better barbecue

Sharing accommodation available in Abbassiya near United Indian School in a central A/C new building with double bedroom double bathroom, hall, kitchen flat with Keralite Christian family, preference for couples or working ladies.

Contact: 66273165.

(C 3397) 29-5-2011

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A fully furnished two bedroom two bathroom central A/C flat available for two months (July-Aug) for families on visit, rent KD 205.

Contact: 67797042 or 66674242. (C 3389)

Â&#x2021; $YRLG IODUH XSV WKDW EXUQ IRRG VFUDSH RII DQ\ FKDUUHG ELWV Â&#x2021; .HHS WKH JULOO FOHDQ EXLOG XS RQ WKH JULOO SURGXFHV +&$V 3$+V Â&#x2021; 8VH PDULQDGHV ZLWK ROLYH RLO RU FLWUXV MXLFHV ZKLFK FXUWDLO WKH IRUPDWLRQ RI WKH FKHPLFDOV 6RXUFH $ERXW FRP 061%& 0&7 3KRWR 6HUYLFH *UDSKLF 3DW &DUU

One big master bedroom with attached bathroom available from 1st June immediately for one or two executive bachelor in new building C-AC. Sat and kitchen facility W&E free, near Shara Amman street, opp Appolo hospital Salmiya. Call 99761807.

(C 3393) 28-5-2011

© 2011 MCT

Healthy Living

Savory soups Long a favorite with Asian cooks, ginger adds zest â&#x20AC;&#x201C; as well as many health benefits â&#x20AC;&#x201C; to a variety of soups.

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Sharing accommodation available in Salmiya near Apollo Clinic for decent family or working lady.

Contact: 99094516.

(C 3387) 26-5-2011

Â&#x2021; Contains gingerol ZKLFK JLYHV LW KRWQHVV DQG FXUEV SURVWDJODQGLQV KRUPRQH OLNH VXEVWDQFHV WKDW DFWLYDWH WKH LQIODPPDWRU\ UHVSRQVH Â&#x2021; Good source RI SRWDVVLXP PDJQHVLXP FRSSHU DQG YLWDPLQ %

Accommodation available for family or working ladies in Abbassiya. Contact: 97193304. (C 3378)

Â&#x2021; Tasty soups LQFOXGH JLQJHU FDUURW JLQJHU FKLFN SHD JLQJHU SXPSNLQ DQG JLQJHU EXWWHUQXW VTXDVK IODYRU ZLWK RQLRQ JDUOLF DQG ROLYH RLO XVH FKLFNHQ RU YHJHWDEOH VWRFN IRU D EDVH DGG SHSSHU WR WDVWH 6RXUFH &OHYHODQG &OLQLF :RUOGÒ&#x2039;V +HDOWKLHVW )RRGV *UDSKLF 3DW &DUU

Fully furnished sharing accommodation with separate bathroom available for bachelor in Sara Complex, Salmiya. Please call after 4 pm. Contact: 25613581/ 99553240. (C 3384)

Sharing accommodation available in a studio flat in Khaitan (opp. Jamaya behind petrol pump) with a Mangalorean R.C bachelor.

Rent KD 25. Call: 66036893.

(C 3380)

© 2011 MCT

FOR SALE Nissan Pathfinder 2003 model, black color, km 153,000, 4WD, CD, alloy wheels, very good condition, interested please call 60435876, price KD 2,550.

(C 3391) Nissan Pathfiner 2004 model, 3.5 cc, white color, 6 cylinder, 4WD, excellent condition, km 125,000, price KD 2650, registration up to June 2012. Contact: 55602671.

(C 3390) Mazda Zoom 3, golden color, 2007 model, full automatic + CD, original paint, price KD 1,600. Mob: 55323839.

(C 3394) 28-5-2011 Suzuki Grand Vitara 2004 model, Red Color, Single user, 2 door, very good condition. Contact: 66619705.

(C 3381)

SITUATION VACANT Live -in housemaid required for an Indian family in Salwa, sponsorship can be arranged, call after 5pm 97205370/ 99786848.

(C 3396)

A small Kuwaiti family is looking to hire a cook.

Requirements: Must be Christian and fluent in English.

Call 99199020. (C 3395) 29-5-2011 Need driver for house.

Contact: 97600588. Fax: 25755751. (C 3388) 26-5-2011

MATRIMONIAL Marriage proposals are invited for a Jacobite Christian girl (Engineer, 26 yrs, 150cm, fair, B/B in Kwt) employed in MNC in Kuwait, from parents of professionally qualified boys (Jacobite, Orthodox or Marthoma) employed in India or abroad (preferably

in Middle East). Kindly respond with details to mprop9@gmail.com (C 3382) Proposals invited for Marthoma boy, 35 yrs, ht 167cm, wt 80, hotel management, settled in Thiruvanandapuram, working in Kuwait MOH Chef (private firm), family status, seeking alliance from girls working in Kuwait or abroad. Please Email: alexandarjon@yahoo.com (C 3385) 26-5-2011

CHANGE OF NAME I Muthukumar, holder of Indian Passport No. F1371132 here by change my name to MUTHU MOHAMED. (C 3386) 26-5-2011

DIAL 161 FOR AIRPORT INFORMATION In case you are not travelling, your proper cancellation of bookings will help other passengers to use seats Airlines RJA JZR THY ETH UAE DHX ETD FDB GFA QTR FCX JZR KAC BAW KAC KAC IRA KAC KAC FDB KAC KAC KAC UAE QTR ABY IRA ETD GFA IRC FCX MEA JZR JZR JZR RBG KAC MSR UAL RJA KAC FDB KAC SVA SYR

Arrival Flights on Sunday 29/5/2011 Flt Route 642 AMMAN 267 BEIRUT 772 ISTANBUL 620 ADDIS ABABA 853 DUBAI 370 BAHRAIN 305 ABU DHABI 67 DUBAI 211 BAHRAIN 138 DOHA 201 DUBAI 555 ALEXANDRIA 412 MANILA / BANGKOK 157 LONDON 206 ISLAMABAD 382 DELHI 615 SHAHRE KORD 302 MUMBAI 332 TRIVANDRUM 53 DUBAI 678 MUSCAT / DUBAI 352 COCHIN 284 DHAKA 855 DUBAI 132 DOHA 125 SHARJAH 603 SHIRAZ 301 ABU DHABI 213 BAHRAIN 6801 AHWAZ 203 DUBAI 404 BEIRUT 165 DUBAI 121 BAHRAIN 561 SOHAG 3553 ALEXANDRIA / SOHAG 672 DUBAI 610 CAIRO 982 WASHINGTON DC DULLES 640 AMMAN 774 RIYADH 57 DUBAI 562 AMMAN 500 JEDDAH 341 DAMASCUS

Time 0:05 0:35 1:15 1:45 2:25 2:55 2:55 3:10 3:15 3:20 5:25 6:10 6:15 6:30 7:15 7:20 7:35 7:50 7:55 7:55 8:00 8:05 8:10 8:25 9:00 9:10 9:25 9:30 9:35 10:15 10:30 10:55 11:10 11:15 12:30 12:55 13:15 13:20 13:30 13:35 13:40 13:50 14:20 14:30 14:55

KAC KAC JZR QTR ETD UAE GFA SVA JZR JZR ABY JZR JZR KAC KAC KAC KAC ALK KAC KAC KAC JAI FDB OMA VOS MEA DHX KAC UAE KAC GFA QTR AFG UAL AIC JZR JZR JZR MSR DLH AXB JZR KLM BBC JZR PIA

788 746 257 134 303 857 215 510 777 239 127 213 177 166 542 618 786 227 614 102 674 572 61 647 81 402 372 512 859 172 217 136 405 981 981 135 787 185 612 636 389 539 447 45 481 205

JEDDAH ABU DHABI / DAMMAM BEIRUT DOHA ABU DHABI DUBAI BAHRAIN RIYADH JEDDAH AMMAN SHARJAH DEIREZZOR DUBAI PARIS / ROME CAIRO DOHA JEDDAH COLOMBO BAHRAIN NEW YORK / LONDON DUBAI MUMBAI DUBAI MUSCAT BAGHDAD BEIRUT BAHRAIN TEHRAN DUBAI FRANKFURT BAHRAIN DOHA KABUL / DUBAI BAHRAIN CHENNAI / AHMEDABAD BAHRAIN RIYADH DUBAI CAIRO FRANKFURT KOZHIKODE / MANGALORE CAIRO AMSTERDAM / BAHRAIN DHAKA / BAHRAIN SABIHA LAHORE

15:00 15:05 15:10 15:15 16:50 16:55 17:15 17:20 17:25 17:35 17:40 17:50 18:00 18:40 18:50 18:55 19:00 19:00 19:20 19:25 19:25 19:35 20:00 20:10 20:15 20:15 21:00 21:00 21:15 21:20 21:25 21:35 22:00 22:00 22:05 22:10 22:20 22:35 22:50 23:00 23:10 23:30 23:35 23:45 23:50 23:55

Departur AXB DLH AIC THY ETH UAE FDB DHX ETD QTR JZR JZR RJA GFA VOS JZR BAW IRA FDB KAC KAC KAC KAC JZR KAC KAC UAE ABY QTR ETD GFA KAC IRA IRC FCX MEA JZR KAC JZR JZR KAC KAC RBG JZR

Depurture Flights on Sunday 29/5/2011 Flt Route 394 COCHIN / KOZHIKODE 637 FRANKFURT 976 GOA / CHENNAI 773 ISTANBUL 620 BAHRAIN / ADDIS ABABA 854 DUBAI 68 DUBAI 371 BAHRAIN 306 ABU DHABI 139 DOHA 560 SOHAG 164 DUBAI 643 AMMAN 212 BAHRAIN 94 DUBAI / KANDAHAR 120 BAHRAIN 156 LONDON 614 SHAHRE KORD 54 DUBAI 171 FRANKFURT 671 DUBAI 745 DAMMAM / ABU DHABI 117 NEW YORK 256 BEIRUT 561 AMMAN 787 JEDDAH 856 DUBAI 126 SHARJAH 133 DOHA 302 ABU DHABI 214 BAHRAIN 773 RIYADH 602 SHIRAZ 6802 AHWAZ 204 DUBAI 405 BEIRUT 776 JEDDAH 541 CAIRO 212 DEIREZZOR 238 AMMAN 103 LONDON 785 JEDDAH 3554 ALEXANDRIA 176 DUBAI

Time 0:15 0:40 0:50 2:15 2:30 3:45 3:50 3:55 4:05 5:00 5:55 6:55 7:00 7:10 8:00 8:20 8:25 8:35 8:40 8:55 9:00 9:05 9:05 9:10 9:15 9:25 9:40 9:50 10:00 10:15 10:20 10:20 10:25 11:15 11:45 11:55 12:00 12:00 12:05 12:10 12:30 13:30 13:35 13:40

Directorate General of Civil Aviation Home Page (www.kuwait-airport.com.kw)

MSR RJA FDB UAL KAC KAC SVA SYR JZR QTR KAC KAC JZR ETD UAE GFA ABY JZR SVA JZR JZR JZR KAC ALK KAC JAI FDB KAC KAC OMA MEA DHX UAE GFA FCX QTR KAC KAC JZR JZR JZR KAC UAL MSR KAC

611 641 58 982 673 617 503 342 480 135 613 511 538 304 858 216 128 184 511 786 204 134 283 228 361 571 62 343 351 648 403 373 860 218 102 137 301 205 502 554 530 411 981 613 415

CAIRO AMMAN DUBAI BAHRAIN DUBAI DOHA MEDINAH / JEDDAH DAMASCUS SABIHA DOHA BAHRAIN TEHRAN CAIRO ABU DHABI DUBAI BAHRAIN SHARJAH DUBAI RIYADH RIYADH DAMASCUS BAHRAIN DHAKA DUBAI / COLOMBO COLOMBO MUMBAI DUBAI CHENNAI COCHIN MUSCAT BEIRUT BAHRAIN DUBAI BAHRAIN BAHRAIN DOHA MUMBAI ISLAMABAD LUXOR ALEXANDRIA ASSIUT BANGKOK / MANILA WASHINGTON DC DULLES CAIRO KUALA LUMPUR / JAKARTA

14:20 14:30 14:35 14:45 15:10 15:35 15:45 15:55 16:00 16:15 16:20 16:30 16:40 17:35 18:05 18:15 18:20 18:25 18:35 18:40 18:55 19:10 20:00 20:10 20:20 20:35 20:40 21:00 21:05 21:10 21:15 22:00 22:25 22:30 22:30 22:35 22:45 22:55 23:05 23:10 23:35 23:40 23:40 23:50 23:50

34

SUNDAY, MAY 29, 2011

s ta rs CROSSWORD 332

CALVIN & HOBBES

STAR TRACK Aries (March 21-April 19) There is a great infusion of energy for your ego as well as your body.

Physical exercise or sports is a good outlet for release of stress. A good workout will enable you to overcome whatever stress you may be feeling just now. This is a day that could try your patience. Little things like traffic jams and a coworker’s idiosyncrasies may get on your nerves. Make an extra effort to think before speaking, especially in the work environment. Your path of greatest happiness is through the enhancement and acknowledgment of your personal image, moneymaking abilities, health, work achievement and social life. Plans of a social gathering this evening bring your energies into balance. You like to please others and make an extra effort to help friends.

Taurus (April 20-May 20)

POOCH CAFE ACROSS 1. Having undesirable or negative qualities.

4. Having the wind against the forward side of the sails.

9. Bony flesh of herring-like fish usually caught during their migration to fresh water for spawning.

13. A dark-skinned member of a race of people living in Australia when Europeans arrived.

14. Spanish missionary who founded Franciscan missions in California (1713-1784).

15. A member of a pastoral people living in the Nilgiri hills of southern India.

16. Any high mountain.

17. Cubes of meat marinated and cooked on a skewer usually with vegetables.

18. Mild yellow Dutch cheese made in balls.

19. An accidental hole that allows something (fluid or light etc.) to enter or escape.

21. Small silvery schooling fishes with protrusible mouths found in warm coastal waters.

23. (Akkadian) God of wisdom.

26. A partially opened flower.

27. (Japanese) Vegetables and seafood dipped in batter and deep-fried.

31. United States songwriter noted for his protest songs (born in 1941).

35. Conduit that carries a rapid flow of water controlled by a sluicegate.

36. The 7th letter of the Greek alphabet.

38. A benevolent aspect of Devi.

39. Belonging to or on behalf of a specified person (especially yourself ).

40. Being or moving higher in position or greater in some value.

41. An interruption in the intensity or amount of something.

43. The seventh month of the Moslem calendar.

45. Genus of American of east Asian perennial herbs with yellow to orange or red flower rays.

46. Informal terms for a mother.

49. A plant hormone promoting elongation of stems and roots.

50. A small cake leavened with yeast.

52. A loose sleeveless outer garment made from aba cloth.

54. A small ball with a hole through the middle.

58. A radioactive element of the actinide series.

59. A lipoprotein that transports cholesterol in the blood.

61. Tall feather palm of northern Brazil with hard-shelled nuts yielding valuable oil and a kind of vegetable ivory.

64. Brief episode in which the brain gets insufficient blood supply.

66. (Greek mythology) Goddess of wisdom and useful arts and prudent warfare.

68. South American wood sorrel cultivated for its edible tubers.

69. A condition (mostly in boys) characterized by behavioral and learning disorders.

70. Ground snakes.

71. An American doctorate usually based on at least 3 years graduate study and a dissertation.

DOWN 1. Any of numerous local fertility and nature deities worshipped by ancient Semitic peoples.

2. (usually followed by `to') Having the necessary means or skill or know-how or authority to do something.

3. Amino acid that is formed in the liver and converted into dopamine in the brain.

4. Inquire about.

5. Cattle that are reared for their meat.

6. Someone who engages in arbitrage (who purchases securities in one market for immediate resale in another in the hope of profiting from the price differential).

7. Crowd or pack to capacity.

8. Cubes of meat marinated and cooked on a skewer usually with vegetables.

9. Not subject to change or variation especially in behavior.

10. A blind god.

11. The sixth month of the civil year.

12. Fallow deer.

20. A cap with a flat circular top and a visor.

22. Historical and literary materials relating to Judaism.

24. Hardy evergreen dioecious shrubs and small trees from Japan.

25. A white metallic element that burns with a brilliant light.

28. English essayist (1775-1834).

29. Tough Asiatic grass whose culms are used for ropes and baskets.

30. Informal abbreviation of `representative'.

32. A substance for packing a joint or coating a porous surface to make it impervious to gas or liquid.

33. An Asian river between China and Russia.

34. An independent agency of the United States government responsible for aviation and spaceflight.

37. Of or relating to or characteristic of Thailand of its people.

42. Jordan's port.

44. A woman hired to suckle a child of someone else.

47. A republic on the island of Malta in the Mediterranean.

48. The blood group whose red cells carry both the A and B antigens.

51. Harsh or corrosive in tone.

53. In bed.

54. A Russian river.

55. A program under which employees regularly accumulate shares and may ultimately assume control of the company.

56. United States writer (born in Poland) who wrote in Yiddish (1880-1957).

57. Two items of the same kind.

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

62. Used of a single unit or thing.

63. The cry made by sheep.

64. A trivalent metallic element of the rare earth group.

65. A public promotion of some product or service.

67. A metric unit of volume or capacity equal to 100 liters.

Yesterday’s Solution

You will find a constructive manner in which to release the tremendous energy that you feel inside today. A career or hobby in one of the entertainment industries is a possibility at this time. No matter what type of work you do, this is a good time to throw yourself into your work. Do not become preoccupied with one idea, however. It is best to follow your usual successful techniques by listening to those around you before making an important decision. It is easy for you to work with those in authority or those more experienced than you. You enjoy working with others and would make a good manager. You have an interest in athletics, exercise and the outdoors this afternoon and may enjoy signing on to instruct or coach young people in the art of sports.

Gemini (May 21-June 20) Take full advantage of your position today. It is an excellent time to solicit the help of others—if you need it. Also, this is a good time to think more seriously about your future, set goals and reassess your path in the professional world. You have confidence and faith in your future and a good understanding that there is much you do not know. This attitude will certainly help you to continue a forward move in whatever plans or goals you may have. You are clear in your communication with young people this afternoon; the job now, however, is to listen very carefully to what is not being said. Harmony and beauty are deeply satisfying this evening—your heart is happy. Offer to be the one that cleans up after dinner.

Cancer (June 21-July 22)

NON SEQUITUR

This is a great time to work and play with others. You may be sought after as just the right person for a particular job; your attitude is that nothing is impossible. Your management and directional abilities are in high focus. There could be some dramatic changes in your goals and ambitions, perhaps making a turning point in your life. Now is the time to make any changes you have been putting off for so long. There are relatively light duties in the workplace now. You are well disposed to friends and will enjoy many stimulating conversations this afternoon. There is an opportunity later to make a new friend. It is extremely smart to reinforce all your relationships now. Co-workers have social plans for you this evening.

Leo (July 23-August 22)

ZITS

Your interest in professional success is great at this time and you may inspire co-workers and friends to great accomplishments.

Others value your thoughts, particularly as you help others to see there is another view. You are practical and may have several opportunities to help in some group decisions today. Your career could assume a much more determined and solid form—a firm foundation. You may be of great help to someone today without even realizing it. You are able to grow and progress throughout your life without too many major difficulties because your choices are good. Consider some volunteer work. If you are looking to expand your circle of friends, you will be pleased to find similar thinking people in these surroundings.

Virgo (August 23-September 22) You exhibit good practical job-related thoughts and ideas today.

The ability to communicate with superiors or describe what you see is evident as well. Circumstances should work together now to help you bring out your philosophies and make it easier to make your dreams a reality. You may find yourself helping another person see the good that surrounds them. So many times we see our lives but not clearly and you are good to lead with compassion. Deep and penetrating analysis, particularly with a group or in relation to your situation, may be in order. Others could seek you out for your psychological insight and understanding. This could be a good time to make changes in your environment. You shine this evening as you attend a social event.

Libra (September 23-October 22)

MOTHER GOOSE AND GRIMM

You should be alert to any changes that need to be made in the workplace today. You can be quite creative in your problem-solving abilities. You are a virtual dynamo, zipping around and getting things done.

Impulsive actions can be detrimental to whatever end result you are trying to reach, however—so just be aware. A newcomer brightens the scene considerably. This could be the making of good friends. Try to see the big picture in a romantic relationship now. You may enjoy living out the experience of your dreams today. Your disposition is warm and pleasant, making you the most congenial person in town. You are willing to give of your time in order to help others. You are in a period of personal pleasure now. Try not to overdo it.

Scorpio (October 23-November 21) We are at the end of the week and you could be, rightfully, dragging your feet. This is not a great day to make plans or decisions. It could be hard to figure out the right move. You may feel frustrated as to where you are headed in your professional life. Someone older or in authority may give you advice or help you with some difficult task. Take it easy on yourself today. Walk outside during the lunch break or take a short trip. Perhaps purchasing a small surprise gift for a loved one will be a fun side activity. Harmony and beauty are deeply satisfying—and the lack of them can be emotionally unsettling. Close personal ties to other people are a focal point for your feelings—marriage and other partnerships could be a key arena for this. Goodwill is easy.

Sagittarius (November 22-December 21) There is a more dynamic and outgoing quality to your life style now. You may feel the urge to work extra hard today, particularly on a competitive project. Taking on a leadership role may mean more to you now than in the past: second best is not good enough! A surprising bit of news comes to you from reading or hearing some current event. You may want to know more about a variety of things and find it sad there is so little time in your life to really sit and read.

You may wonder if there is still a newspaper. You may be pleased to find many avenues of information open up to you when you pop into a downtown bookstore this afternoon. You have much energy to nurture your marriage relationship and that is what you do this evening.

Capricorn (December 22-January 19) Working to build your finances or to hold on to what you have is a key interest to you today. Power is building up for you in family, home, ownership, property and community interests and will continue to build through the end of this month. You attract very strong-minded people to you within the work environment and you admire the concentration it takes to remain within a focused frame of mind. You have an ability to deal with long-term professional stress because of your good attitude as well as the activities you do away from the workplace. At home, you enjoy friends that are light-hearted and easy-going. Your love life is becoming the supportive and strong relationship you had always wanted. You receive smiles and hugs this evening.

Yesterday’s Solution Aquarius (January 20- February 18) You are full of new ideas about your latest budget as well as a moneymaking effort. This looks successful and helpful to others who might want to use your same system. You tend to be extremely hardworking and ambitious on the professional level. Independence, as well as anything unusual or different, is valued. Today you may need a list that will help you stay focused as you could find several interruptions from your work. There are plans to be made for the weekend and projects to finish and people to see after work. Relax, you have everything under control. This evening you will want to plan a most relaxing time—perhaps stopping off on the way home for a take-out meal would help you to free up some time for yourself.

Pisces (February 19-March 20)

Word Sleuth Solution

You can get a lot accomplished today. You may be especially dynamic and assertive. Although you are usually able to keep your mind on your job, you will find that you are able to branch away from the old way of doing things and gain a good inspiration. This is a perfect time to move forward in your career decisions. You have all the drive and energy you could want in order to follow through on your ideas. You could find that you are appreciated for your ability to act and get things done. Instead of cold and calculating, you have become more compassionate and intuitive. There is a harmonious aspect at this time that encourages optimism and good humor. Refinement and relationships are the keys to emotional satisfaction for you now.

A

y

e niv rsar n

SUNDAY, MAY 29, 2011

Years

i n f o r m at i o n STATE ST TATE T OF KUW K KUWAIT WA AIT

Tel.: T el.: 161 e

DIRECTORA DIRECTORATE AT TE GENE GENERAL ERAL OF CIVIL A AVIATION V VIA AT TION METEOROLOGICAL DEP D DEPARTMENT PA ARTMENT

112

DA AY: Y Saturday DAY:

Ext.: 2627 262 27 - 2630

Fax: 24348714 WWW .MET.GOV V..KW W WWW.MET.GOV.KW

28/05/2011 28/05/201 1

Ministry of Interior

Issue T ime Time

07:00

Expected Weather Weather for the Next 24 4 Hours Hot wi with ith moderate to fresh north westerly w wind, with speed off 20 - 45 km/h causing raising g dust over open areas

BY Y DA DAY: AY:

website: www.moi.gov.kw

Relatively moderate Relativ vely hot with light to modera ate north westerly wind, with h speed of 12 - 35 km/h

NIGHT:: BY Y NIGHT

For labor-related inquiries and complaints: Call MSAL hotline 128

No Current Warnings Warnin a gs

WARNING W A ARNING STATION ST TATION T

Hospitals Sabah Hospital

FIRE BRIGADE

24812000

MAX. EXP EXP. P.

MIN.. REC.

KUW WA AIT CITY KUWAIT

41 °C

31 °C

KUW WA AIT AIRPORT AIRPOR RT KUWAIT

42 °C

26 °C

40 °C C

28 °C C

Amiri Hospital

22450005

NUW WA AISEEB NUWAISEEB

Maternity Hospital

24843100

WAFRA A WAFRA

43 °C

27 °C

Mubarak Al-Kabir Hospital

25312700

SALMI

40 °C

24 °C

Chest Hospital

24849400

ABDAL LY ABDALY

43 °C

26 °C

Farwaniya Hospital

24892010

ALIY YA AH JAL ALIYAH

41 °C

26 °C

Adan Hospital

23940620

FAILAKA A FAILAKA

42 °C

27 °C

Ibn Sina Hospital

24840300

POR RT AHMADI PORT

40 °C

31 °C

Al-Razi Hospital

24846000

M UMM AL-MARADEM

37 °C

29 °C

Physiotherapy Hospital

24874330/9

WARBA A A - BUBYAN BUBY YA AN WARBA

42 °C

26 °C

Clinics

SFC. CHAR CHART T

28/05/201 1 0000 UTC 28/05/2011

4 DA DAYS AY YS FORECAST

4732263

Roudha

22517733

Adhaliya

22517144

Sunday

29/05

hot

43 °C

27 °C

NW-NE NW-NE

10 - 30 km/h

Khaldiya

24848075

Monday

30/05

hot

44 °C

31 °C

VRB-SE

08 - 28 km/h

Keifan

24849807

Tuesday Tuesday

31/05

hot

44 °C

32 °C

NW-N NW-N

12 - 32 km/h

Shamiya

24848913

Weednesday Wednesday

01/06

hot

45 °C

33 °C

N-NW

15 - 38 km/h

Shuwaikh

24814507

Abdullah Salim

22549134

Al-Nuzha

Temperatures Temperratures DATE DA AT TE

WEA WEATHER AT THER

MAX.

PRAYER PR RA AY YER TIMES

Wind Wind Speed

Wind Wind Direction Direction

MIN.

RECORDED D YESTERDAY YESTERDA AY AT AT KUW KUWAIT WA AIT T AIRPORT AIRPORT

Fajr

03:17

MAX. MA AX. Temp.

Temp.

42 °C

22526804

Sunrise S i

04 50 04:50

MIN. Temp.

MI IN T IN. emp.

29 °C

Industrial Shuwaikh

24814764

Zuhr

11:45 11:45

MAX. RH M

26 %

Al-Khadissiya

22515088

Asr

15:20

MIN. RH M

08 %

Dasmah

22532265

Sunset

18:40

MAX. Wind MA AX. W ind

N 53 km/h

Isha

20:10

TOTAL RAINFALL T OT TA AL L RAI INF FA ALL L IN 24 HR.

Bneid Al-Ghar

22531908

Al-Shaab

22518752

Al-Kibla

22459381

Ayoun Al-Kibla

22451082

Al-Mirqab

22456536

Sharq

22465401

Salmiya

25746401

Jabriya

25316254

Maidan Hawally

25623444

Bayan

25388462

Mishref

25381200

W.Hawally

22630786

Sabah

24810221

Jahra

24770319

New Jahra

24575755

West Jahra

24772608

South Jahra

24775066

North Jahra

24775992

North Jleeb

24311795

Al-Ardhiya

24884079

Firdous

24892674

Al-Omariya

24719048

N.Kheitan

24710044

Fintas

3900322

22418714

Al-Shohada’a

22545171

Al-Shuwaikh

24810598

Al-Nuzha

22545171

Sabhan

24742838

Al-Helaly

22434853

Al-Fayhaa

22545051

Al-Farwaniya

24711433

Al-Sulaibikhat

24316983

Al-Fahaheel

23927002

Jleeb Al-Shuyoukh

24316983

Ahmadi

23980088

Al-Mangaf

23711183

Al-Shuaiba

23262845

Al-Jahra

25610011

Al-Salmiya

25616368

POLICE STATION

Rabiya

DAY DA AY

Al-Madena

un nless otherwise stated.

All times are local time unless

Al-Madena Police Station Al-Murqab Police Station Al-Daiya Police Station Al-Fayha’a Police Station Al-Qadissiya Police Station Al-Nugra Police Station Al-Salmiya Police Station Al-Dasma Police Station

22434064 22435865 22544200 22547133 22515277 22616662 25714406 22530801

THE PUBLIC AUTHORITY FOR CIVIL INFORMATION Automated enquiry about the Civil ID card is 1889988

00 mm

28/05/1 1 02:22 UTC 28/05/11

V1.00

T1.06

PHARMACIES

AIRLINES

ON 24 HRS DUTY GOVERNORATE

PHARMACY

ADDRESS

PHONE

Ahmadi

Sama Safwan Abu Halaifa Danat Al-Sultan

Fahaeel Makka St Abu Halaifa-Coastal Rd Mahboula Block 1, Coastal Rd

23915883 23715414 23726558

Jahra

Modern Jahra Madina Munawara

Jahra-Block 3 Lot 1 Jahra-Block 92

24575518 24566622

Capital

Ahlam Khaldiya Coop

Fahad Al-Salem St Khaldiya Coop

22436184 24833967

Farwaniya

New Shifa Ferdous Coop Modern Safwan

Farwaniya Block 40 Ferdous Coop Old Kheitan Block 11

24734000 24881201 24726638

Hawally

Tariq Hana Ikhlas Hawally & Rawdha Ghadeer Kindy Ibn Al-Nafis Mishrif Coop Salwa Coop

Salmiya-Hamad Mubarak St Salmiya-Amman St Hawally-Beirut St Hawally & Rawdha Coop Jabriya-Block 1A Jabriya-Block 3B Salmiya-Hamad Mubarak St Mishrif Coop Salwa Coop

25726265 25647075 22625999 22564549 25340559 25326554 25721264 25380581 25628241

Kuwait Airways Jazeera Airways Jet Airways FlyDubai Qatar Airways KLM Air Slovakia Olympic Airways Royal Jordanian Reservation British Airways Air France Emirates Air India Sri Lanka Airlines Egypt Air Swiss Air Saudia Middle East Airlines Lufthansa PIA Alitalia Balkan Airlines Bangladesh Airlines Czech Airlines Indian Airlines Oman Air Turkish Airlines Aeroflot

22433377 177 22924455 22414400 22423888 22425747 22434940 22420002/9 22418064/5/6 22433388 22425635 22430224 22425566 22438184 22424444 22421578 22421516 22426306 22423073 22422493 22421044 22414427 22416474 22452977/8 22417901/ 2433141 22456700 22958787 22453820/1 22404838/9

PRIVATE CLINICS Ophthalmologists Dr. Abidallah Al-Mansoor 25622444 Dr. Samy Al-Rabeea 25752222 Dr. Masoma Habeeb 25321171 Dr. Mubarak Al-Ajmy 25739999 Dr. Mohsen Abel 25757700 Dr Adnan Hasan Alwayl 25732223 Dr. Abdallah Al-Baghly 25732223 Ear, Nose & Throat (ENT) Dr. Ahmed Fouad Mouner 24555050 Ext 510 Dr. Abdallah Al-Ali 25644660 Dr. Abd Al-Hameed Al-Taweel 25646478 Dr. Sanad Al-Fathalah 25311996 Dr. Mohammad Al-Daaory 25731988 Dr. Ismail Al-Fodary 22620166 Dr. Mahmoud Al-Booz 25651426 General Practitioners Dr. Mohamme Y Majidi 24555050 Ext 123 Dr. Yousef Al-Omar 24719312 Dr. Tarek Al-Mikhazeem 23926920 Dr. Kathem Maarafi 25730465 Dr. Abdallah Ahmad Eyadah 25655528 Dr. Nabeel Al-Ayoobi 24577781 Dr. Dina Abidallah Al-Refae 25333501 Urologists Dr. Ali Naser Al-Serfy 22641534 Dr. Fawzi Taher Abul 22639955 Dr. Khaleel Abidallah Al-Awadi 22616660 Dr. Adel Al-Hunayan FRCS (C) 25313120 Dr. Leons Joseph 66703427 Psychologists /Psychotherapists

Paediatricians

Plastic Surgeons Dr. Mohammad Al-Khalaf

22547272

Dr. Abd Al-Aziz Al-Rashed

Dr. Abdal-Redha Lari

22617700

Dr. Zahra Qabazard

Dr. Abdel Quttainah

25625030/60

Family Doctor Dr Divya Damodar

23729596/23729581

Psychiatrists Dr. Esam Al-Ansari

22635047

Dr Eisa M. Al-Balhan

INTERNATIONAL CALLS

22613623/0

Gynaecologists & Obstetricians DrAdrian arbe

23729596/23729581

Dr. Verginia s.Marin

2572-6666 ext 8321

Endocrinologist 25340300

25710444

Dr. Sohail Qamar

22621099

Dr. Snaa Maaroof

25713514

Dr. Pradip Gujare

23713100

Dr. Zacharias Mathew

24334282

(1) Ear, Nose and Throat (2) Plastic Surgeon Dr. Abdul Mohsin Jafar, FRCS (Canada)

Dr Anil Thomas

3729596/3729581 22641071/2

22655539

Dr. Majeda Khalefa Aliytami

25343406

Dr. Anesah Al-Rasheed

22562226

Dr. Ahmad Al-Khooly

25739272

Dr. Abidallah Al-Amer

22561444

Dr. Salem soso

22618787

Dr. Faysal Al-Fozan

22619557

Dr. Abdallateef Al-Katrash

22525888

Dr. Amer Zawaz Al-Amer

22610044

Dr. Abidallah Al-Duweisan

25653755

Dr. Mohammad Yousef Basher

25327148

Dr. Bader Al-Ansari

25620111

Neurologists

Dr. Adnan Ebil

22639939

Dr. Sohal Najem Al-Shemeri

25633324

Dr. Mousa Khadada

22666300

Dr. Jasem Mola Hassan

25345875

Gastrologists

25728004

Dr. Nadem Al-Ghabra

25355515

Dr. Sami Aman

22636464

Dr. Mobarak Aldoub

24726446

Dr. Mohammad Al-Shamaly

25322030

Dr Nasser Behbehani

25654300/3

Dr. Foad Abidallah Al-Ali

22633135

Soor Center Tel: 2290-1677 Fax: 2290 1688

info@soorcenter.com www.soorcenter.com

Dr. Kamal Al-Shomr 25329924 Physiotherapists & VD Dr. Deyaa Shehab

25722291 22666288

Rheumatologists:

Dr. Fozeya Ali Al-Qatan

Dr. Latefa Al-Duweisan

Dr. Ahmad Al-Ansari 25658888

Dr. Musaed Faraj Khamees

Dentists

Internists, Chest & Heart

25339330

25655535

Dr. Shamah Al-Matar

General Surgeons

Dr. Abd Al-Naser Al-Othman

Dr. Naif Al-Mutawa, Ph.D. 2290-1677 Susannah-Joy Schuilenberg, M.A. 2290-1677

Dr. Adel Al-Awadi

25330060

Dr. Khaled Al-Jarallah

25722290

Internist, Chest & Heart DR.Mohammes Akkad

24555050 Ext 210

Dr. Mohammad Zubaid MB, ChB, FRCPC, PACC Assistant Professor Of Medicine Head, Division of Cardiology Mubarak Al-Kabeer Hospital Consultant Cardiologist Dr. Farida Al-Habib MD, PH.D, FACC Inaya German Medical Center Te: 2575077 Fax: 25723123

2611555-2622555

William Schuilenberg, RPC 2290-1677 Zaina Al Zabin, M.Sc. 2290-1677

Afghanistan Albania Algeria Andorra Angola Anguilla Antiga Argentina Armenia Australia Austria Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bermuda Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia Botswana Brazil Brunei Bulgaria Burkina Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Canada Cape Verde Cayman Islands

0093 00355 00213 00376 00244 001264 001268 0054 00374 0061 0043 001242 00973 00880 001246 00375 0032 00501 00229 001441 00975 00591 00387 00267 0055 00673 00359 00226 00257 00855 00237 001 00238 001345

Central African Chad Chile China Colombia Comoros Congo Cook Islands Costa Rica Croatia Cuba Cyprus Cyprus (Northern) Czech Republic Denmark Diego Garcia Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic Ecuador Egypt El Salvador England (UK) Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Falkland Islands Faroe Islands Fiji Finland France French Guiana French Polynesia

00236 00235 0056 0086 0057 00269 00242 00682 00506 00385 0053 00357 0090392 00420 0045 00246 00253 001767 001809 00593 0020 00503 0044 00240 00291 00372 00251 00500 00298 00679 00358 0033 00594 00689

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36

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Years

SUNDAY, MAY 29, 2011

lifestyle G O S S I P

Cheryl Cole shocked to be axed from

‘The X Factor’ T

forcing his hand to release Cheryl, proving he is no longer the “arch manipulator” he thinks of himself as. A source said: “Simon Cowell wants to be seen as the arch manipulator, the controller of everyone’s destiny, yet he seems to be losing his touch. “He thinks he keeps everyone on their toes by leaving announcements until the last minute, but it just looks desperate. He prides himself on being able to charm everyone into doing what he wants but the tactic is not working. “He couldn’t get most of the US stars he wanted for ‘The X Factor’ and the Fox guys over-ruled him on Cheryl, which has got to hurt.” It is now thought Cheryl will return to the UK version of the show, alongside Gary Barlow, Kelly Rowland and Louis Walsh. A source told The Sun newspaper: “She is hurt but has agreed to come back. She doesn’t want her British fans to think she would desert them. She is determined to make it clear she hasn’t failed.”

Ana Ortiz

is pregnant with second child

Kate Moss wants more kids

he British beauty - who is reported to have been replaced

by Nicole Scherzinger on the judging panel of the show alongside LA Reid, Paula Abdul and Simon Cowell - did not expect to be sacked and is upset Simon, with who she worked on the UK version of the show, did not tell her of the move in person. A friend of Cheryl’s said: “She is completed shocked and stunned. She never saw this coming. “The fact Simon didn’t tell her in person hurt. She never thought he would do that to her.” The 27-year-old singer has told friends she feels like she has been strung up by her former boss and was not given a chance to hold her own on the musical TV talent show. She is quoted by the Daily Mirror newspaper as telling a friend: “I’ve been hung out to dry and I know who’s to blame. I’ve had no opportunity whatsoever to prove myself and instead they’ve just cast me aside like a fool.” Now Simon has been accused of “losing his touch” on the show, with Fox

he 37-year-old supermodel - who has an eightyear-old daughter, Lila, with former boyfriend Jefferson Hack - is focused on her forthcoming wedding to Jamie Hince, and says she and the 40year-old rocker will consider starting a family together once they have tied the knot in July. She said: “First of all I am going to get married. And maybe more kids? Who knows what the future will bring. My career is okay so far, anyway.” The British beauty admitted she felt she had “made it” when she gave birth to her daughter in September 2002.

She told German magazine Gala: “When I gave birth to Lila, after I did it I was just thinking, ‘Yeah! I really made it!’ “ Kate also revealed she is attracted to older men, including Rolling Stones frontman Sir Mick Jagger, 67, and 64-year-old David Bowie. Asked who she finds attractive, she said: “Mick Jagger, David Bowie - all those sex gods of rock.” Kate often features on Best Dressed lists, but could be set for a change of image after being inspired by eccentric pop star Lady Gaga. She said: “Lady Gaga gives you the feeling it’s OK to be able again to get really dressed up.”

T

Sandra Bullock blows $22.9m on a new nest T

with Louis, as that is where the tot is from. Sandra - who started the adoption process of Louis with ex-husband Jesse James but eventually applied as a single parent after they separated following revelations he cheated on her with a string of women - has said of New Orleans: “Without the spirit of the people who live there and take care of the city and honor its traditions, its love for music, its love for life, take those people out and you don’t have why I love New Orleans so much.”

T

T

Why Kirsten Dunst doesn’t want to be perfect

is begging Maria Shriver for a second chance he couple split after 25 years together earlier this month when it emerged Arnold fathered a 13 year old son with the family’s former housekeeper, Mildred ‘Patty’ Baena, but he is desperate for “one more chance” to work things out. Author Ian Halperin, who wrote an unauthorized biography of Arnold ‘The Governator’, told website Extra: “He’s actually shed tears. He knows he’s done wrong, and he’s begging on his knees for forgiveness and one last chance. Arnold has been making calls to Maria repeatedly, asking her for one more

T

chance.” Things haven’t been going Arnold’s way however, with the author adding: “Maria wants no part of it.” Maria who has four children with Arnold, Katherine, 21, Christina, 19, Patrick, 17, and Christopher, 13 - was pictured earlier last week having lunch with Bono, lead singer of rock band U2, who Ian said is helping her through the split. He added: “Maria and Bono have been friends for years. Maria just wanted to seek advice, and Bono’s going to help Maria get over the devastation of being cheated on all these years by Arnold.”

Adele ‘collapses’ after Beyonce praises her he 22-year-old singer is a huge fan of the ‘(Rule The World) Girls’ hitmaker and was overwhelmed by the encounter, which she described as the “highlight” of her life. Recalling the 2010 meeting at the Sony Grammy ’s party, Adele said: “She went, ‘Adele’ and I went, ‘Uh Beyonce!’ And then Jay-Z went, ‘Adele! I was like, ‘You can’t both call me Adele!’ “I was like, ‘Can I have a picture?’ and Beyonce said, ‘Can I have a picture with you?’ “Beyonce then told Adele: “When I listen to you, I feel like I’m listening to God.” Adele added to Q magazine: “I heard it but I was like, ‘Don’t let her know you’ve heard it.’ “I ran out on the balcony and fell into her security’s arms, going, ‘She’s so nice!’ And literally collapsed. Sobbing my heart out, it was like being winded. Highlight of my life, ever.” Adele admits she always looks to Beyonce for inspiration and thinks she is a good example for how to conduct herself. She added: “I don’t know her but she’s a huge part of my life. Everything I refer to has always got something to do with Destiny’s Child or her. She just knows what she wants. She’s in control of it all. She’s classy. She’s still totally relevant. And just a nice person.”

Schwarzenegger

he Oscar-winning actress purchased the luxurious seven-bedroom Beverly Hills property for her and 17-month-old adopted son Louis to live in. The Tudor-style property is set on 4.1 acres and comes with eight bathrooms, a detached four-car garage, a library, office, eat-in kitchen, workout room, staff quarters, swimming pool and stunning 270-degree views from downtown Los Angeles to the Pacific Ocean. Until she bought the new property Sandra was living in New Orleans

he former ‘Ugly Betty’ actress - who already has a 23-month-old daughter, Paloma Louise, with husband Noah Lebenzon - is expecting a boy but admits the couple are struggling with names because they want something that pays tribute to their Spanish roots yet is still easy to pronounce. She told Latina magazine: “We know it’s a boy! We are trying to come up with some names that we can agree on. “It has to be Spanish, but something non-speakers can pronounce without mauling. Suggestions? I’m open.”

Ana welcomed her first child into the world on June 27 2009 and she was “elated” at becoming a mother. A spokesperson for the star said: “She is elated and completely glowing. She is surrounded by her friends and family and so happy to be a mom. “She is just really enjoying the moment. The baby is absolutely beautiful.” During her pregnancy, Ana, 40, said she was “really enjoying” the experience of carrying her first child. She said: “I’ve heard lots of horror stories, but I’m actually really, really enjoying this.”

he 29-year-old actress has often been told she should fix her teeth and other things not considered perfect by Hollywood standards, but she likes her looks and does not intend to ever change them. She said: “I like imperfections. People have said lots of times, ‘Why don’t you fix your teeth?’ For me, the people I respect are like, ‘Don’t ever fix your teeth!’

T

“So the aesthetic I migrate to is not the mainstream aesthetic. I think it’s difficult to grow up going to the movies where things are so perfect and that’s the idea of a movie star, too.

“You know, you see the star up there and a line or a pimple has been digitally removed so you look, well, perfect.” One of the people critiquing her looks was her mother Inez, who told her to

get her teeth straightened and wear make-up to cover her pale lips. She added to the Daily Mail newspaper: “My mother’s like, ‘Your lips are pale, wear some red lipstick!’ So when we go out to dinner, I’ll put on the damned red lipstick for her. “Mothers look at their daughters and they think they’re the most beautiful. But we’re just who we are. — Bangshowbiz

SUNDAY, MAY 29, 2011

lifestyle Music & Movies

Disney’s revamped Star Tours at Hollywood Studios in Los Angeles, California, bridges the time between the two Star Wars trilogies.

— MCT photos

Universal Orlando to build a new 3-D ride A

new ride to open next year at Universal Studios will feature super villain Gru and his daughters from “Despicable Me.” Universal Orlando, extending the momentum of last year’s opening of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, announced Thursday it will create a new ride based on the movie Despicable Me and will upgrade The Amazing Adventures of Spiderman ride with new digital technology. The announcement came a day before Disney opens its revamped Star Tours ride at Hollywood Studios and a week before Busch Gardens kicks off its new launch roller coaster, Cheetah Hunt - all evidence that summer vacation is upon us.

The new Despicable Me attraction, which will be part ride, part interactive dance party, will immerse visitors in the world of Gru - whom Universal Creative president Mark Woodbury called “the world’s most lovable villain” - his adopted daughters and more than a million of his goggle-eyed “minions.” The ride, which will open on an unspecified date in 2012, will replace the Jimmy Neutron attraction at Universal Studios.

The ride will take guests on a 3-D digital adventure into Gru’s house and his secret lab, where the villain will “transform guests into an army of mischievous, scene-stealing minions,” according to Universal’s press release.

“Gru needs help with this new venture,” said Thierry Coup, senior vice president of the Universal Creative Studio. “He doesn’t have

enough minons so he turns us into minions.” The ride culminates in an interactive dance party. “You will step out of the ride and into the post-show.

You will be able to interact with the characters,” Coup said.

Universal also announced that it will upgrade its groundbreaking Spiderman ride at Islands of Adventure with new animation in 4K high definition. The work will require Spiderman to be closed for a short time, probably not until next year; dates will be announced later. Although the ride vehicle and the plot - Spiderman battling villains on the streets of New York - will remain the same, the technology will make the 3-D images of the action sharper and crisper, Coup said. Not only will passengers be able to see details they couldn’t see before, new details will be added.

“It will feel like an entirely new experience,” Coup said. But guests will still have to wear 3-D glasses. While both of Universal’s new attractions will open next year, two other theme parks are debuting new or revamped rides this month. At Disney, a revamped Star Tours attraction with dramatically upgraded technology was scheduled to re-open Friday at Hollywood Studios, nine months after it closed. The ride vehicles, use of motionsimulator technology and theme of interstellar travel are the same. But the revamped ride has a new soundtrack and uses new 3-D digital filming.

The most striking change, however, is that instead of the same adventure each time, the

Cuban ballet to start US tour this week

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he Cuban National Ballet heads to the United States this week for a month-long tour that director and ballet legend Alicia Alonso hopes will bring happiness to US-Cuba relations that have been unhappy for half a century. The tour is the latest in a series of cultural exchanges that began after US President Barack Obama took office as the longtime ideological foes seek common ground they have been unable to find politically since Cuba’s 1959 revolution.

The Cuban troupe will perform Tuesday in Washington then go to New York and Costa Mesa, California before wrapping up in Los Angeles on June 26. The New York-based American Ballet Theatre and members of the New York City Ballet performed before ecstatic audiences in Havana in November, creating good vibes that Alonso said Friday she hopes to duplicate. “All the people were very happy, so it was a very different change,” she said of the performances by the US companies.

“I hope this time we’re going there and it’s going to be exactly the same-happiness (for) all of us,” she told Reuters. Alonso, who is 90 and nearly blind, danced in the American Ballet Theatre in the 1940s and 1950s, but returned to Cuba after the revolution and took over the Cuban National Ballet. She has groomed dancers who now perform in ballet companies around the world and taken the Cuban company to the United States several times, the last coming in 2003.

She said this latest trip was not about politics, but art, which transcends national boundaries and disputes. “Actually, dancers belong to the world. The artist is the best thing for humanity; he has no frontier. He has only one (goal) — happiness of the people,” Alonso said. Obama has said he wanted to “recast” US-Cuba relations, but they have warmed only modestly under his administra-

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The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man at Universal’s Islands of Adventure will be completely reanimated in 4K digital high definition.

A new ride at Universal Studios in Florida, features supervillain Gru and his daughters from “Despicable Me.”

Muslim playwright, actress returns to high school stage for one-woman show

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Cuban Prima Ballerina Assoluta Alicia Alonso (left) and UNICEF representative to Cuba Jose Juan Ortiz, attend a press conference on May 27, 2011 in Havana.—AFP tion. But cultural exchanges have blossomed as Obama took steps to encourage “people-to-people” contact between the countries. Last year, jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis led a Cuba trip by the Jazz at Lincoln Center orchestra and pop group Kool and The Gang played a Havana concert, while Cuban musicians including Silvio Rodriguez, Chucho Valdes and Omara Portuondo performed in the United States.

Singer-songwriter Carlos Varela is set for a US tour in June. “It has been wonderful. I think it has been marvelous,” Alonso said of the cultural events. But, she said, “Government, that’s another thing.” The Cuban company will perform “The Magic of Dance,” which includes passages from ballet classics such as “Giselle,” “Sleeping Beauty” and “Swan Lake,” and “Don Quixote.” —Reuters

Car hits decorated fence at Ohio ‘Superman house’ car has taken out part of a fence paying tribute to Superman around the Cleveland home where two high school kids created the Man of Steel. The picket fence around the childhood home of Joe Shuster is decorated with large metal plates reprinting the first Superman story from a 1938 comic book. The Plain Dealer of Cleveland reports Tuesday night’s crash damaged seven of the 15 color plates. Neighborhood devel-

attraction has random story combinations that potentially make each experience different from the last. Guests on a Starspeeder 1000 piloted by C-3PO and pursued by Imperial ships might encounter Princess Leia or Darth Vader or Jar Jar Binks; it might fly into a meteor shower one time and go to Naboo the next.

Busch Gardens held a grand opening for its first launch coaster, Cheetah Hunt, May 26. The coaster will use the force of repelling magnets to launch uphill in bursts of speed, from zero to 38 mph in two seconds, then in a second two-second burst it will accelerate to 60 mph. The thrill ride was designed to simulate a cheetah chasing prey as the coaster races across the park’s Serengeti Plain. The coaster’s vital statistics: 4,400 feet of track (the longest at the park), speeds up to 60 mph, a 360-degree helix, a 130-foot dive from its signature tower into a below-ground trench. The ride will last about 3 minutes, including loading and unloading.

The coaster is combined with a second new attraction, a habitat for cheetahs called Cheetah Run. The habitat, built in the area that used to house the Budweiser Clydesdales, will have elevated, glass-paneled viewing areas where visitors can watch animal trainers conduct sprints with the big cats. — MCT

opment director Tracey Kirksey tells the newspaper she believes a man who lives near the house hit the fence with his car. She says he wants to pay for the damage. Last month, a historical marker honoring Shuster and classmate and Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel was stolen in the same Glenville area of Cleveland. It was returned undamaged weeks later. —AP

s a teenager, Rohina Malik went to great lengths to hide her Muslim heritage. While some girls her age chose to wear the traditional headscarf, she opted against it. And when teachers read “Rohina” at roll call on the first day of school, she asked them to call her Mariam, her less Muslimsounding middle name. Unable to hide her caramel skin or overcome her shyness, the aspiring actress and playwright didn’t audition for a role until her senior year at Niles North High School. She was astounded when she landed the lead.

But what was once a source of shame in her adolescent mind has grown into inspiration. After putting her craft on hold for nearly two decades, Malik’s breakout one-woman show, “Unveiled,” has positioned her as one of Chicago theater’s rising stars, critics say.

“When I was a teen, I thought my skin color, my religion, my heritage, would prevent me from being a part of the American theater experience,” said Malik, now 34 and a mother of four. “Now, young Muslims ask me the same things I used to ask myself: ‘Can a Muslim be a theater artist?’ I tell them ... ‘Focus on your craft, and leave the rest to God.’” As the American Muslim community faces more scrutiny - from hearings on Capitol Hill to hostile neighbors who don’t want them worshipping next door - Malik draws on the confidence she gained in high school to set aside her self-consciousness to fulfill her dream. In June, the Goodman Theatre will host a reading of her newest play, “The Mecca Tales,” a script commissioned by the Goodman that examines why five Muslim women have decided to make the once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage to Mecca at this particular time in their lives.

In addition, her play “Unveiled,” about five fictional Muslim women who find their inner strength when confronted by prejudice and pressure after the Sept 11 terrorist attacks, is being translated for audiences in France, where Muslim headscarves have been banned for women working in the public sector.

“Muslims are human beings, they are like everybody else,” she said. “I want my writing to show that.”

Born in London, Malik moved to Skokie, Illinois, and enrolled at Niles North in the middle of her freshman year. She took every variety of theater course, writing poetry and plays,

es North rly of Skokie and a Nil ere she s Rohina Malik, forme wh res , act rth d No an es ht Nil rig at yw Pla a performance for res pa pre , ate du gra High School racters. — MCT as Muslim women cha University did three monologues but to major in religious studies. She married she never auditioned for an acting role until shortly after graduation and had the first of her senior year. She decided to audition for a four children in 2001. Life took another turn role in a production of the 18th century British on Sept 11 of that year. comedy “She Stoops to Conquer” after a fellow She wore a hat instead of a hijab when she student said the cast of the play should be all left the house that day. In the years that folwhite. That comment drove her to prove him lowed, she confronted a new self-consciouswrong. She got the lead. ness about her faith. She also experienced an “I couldn’t let that statement break me,” she emptiness inside. “In my soul, there was a said. “Theater is the one medium that’s color void,” she said. “I tried to think of the time blind. I got the lead. That was a sweet victory.” when I was most happy in my life.” She Drama teacher Timothy Ortmann, who invited thought back to high school. So she began to his former student back to the Niles North write. Inspired by her own encounters with stage in April, watched Malik come out of her prejudice, her first original play “Unveiled” shell in the early 1990s. He still slips and calls debuted at 16th Street Theater in 2009. her Mariam and recalls the young artist’s Her sympathetic portrayals of five modern struggles with her identity.

Muslim women have inspired invitations from “The magic of theater is you can really try synagogues, churches and mosques and on a lot of different masks very quickly and fig- apologies from audience members who after ure things out about yourself,” he said. “You seeing the show have reconsidered preconlearn a lot about yourself pretending to be ceived notions and stereotypes. The play also somebody else.” While attending Oakton has inspired rave reviews from most critics.

Community College, Malik donned the tradiTanya Palmer, director of new play developtional Muslim headscarf, or hijab. ment for the Goodman Theatre, said she has Since her interest in Islam was growing, watched Malik and her characters evolve since and her parents never approved of her theater “Unveiled.” — MCT aspirations anyway, she did not return to the stage and later transferred to DePaul

SUNDAY, MAY 29, 2011

lifestyle

Former American Idol judge Paula Abdul dances on stage during the grand opening of Universal Studios Singapore. — AP

‘Grease’ star Jeff Conaway dies at 60 J

Jeff Conaway at the 2009 Fox Reality Channel Really Awards in Los Angeles. — AP

eff Conaway, who starred in the sitcom “Taxi,” played swaggering Kenickie in the movie musical “Grease” and publicly battled drug and alcohol addiction on “Celebrity Rehab,” died Friday. He was 60. The actor was taken off life support Thursday and died Friday morning at Encino Tarzana Medical Center, according to one of his managers, Kathryn Boole. “It’s sad that people remember his struggle with drugs. He has touched so many people,” she said, calling Conaway a kind and intelligent man who was well read and “always so interesting to talk to. We respected him as an artist and loved him as a friend.” “He was trying so hard to get clean and sober,” Boole added. “If it hadn’t been for his back pain, I think he would have been able to do it.” Family members, including Conway’s sisters, nieces and nephews, and his minister, were with him when he died, Boole said.

He was taken to the hospital unconscious on May 11 and placed in a medically induced coma while being treated for pneumonia and sepsis, which is blood poisoning caused by a bacterial infection. Conaway had failed to seek medical aid, instead trying to treat himself with pain pills and cold medicine, said Phil Brock, Boole’s business partner. “He’s a gentle soul with a good heart but he’s never been able to exorcise his demons,” Brock said after Conaway was hospitalized.

Conaway is the second person who appeared in the VH1 reality series “Celebrity Rehab With Dr Drew” who later died. In March, former Alice in Chains bassist Mike Starr, who was on the show in 2009, was found dead in Salt Lake City. The month before, police there had arrested him on suspicion of possession of medications without a required prescription. Messages seeking com-

ment from the show’s Dr Drew Pinsky, a physician and radio and TV personality, were not immediately returned Friday.

On his HLN network show, “Dr Drew,” Pinsky said Friday he was angry about Conaway’s death, decrying what he called the ready availability of prescription opiates for a “severe drug addict” with chronic pain like Conaway. “I told him for years it was going to kill him,” Pinksy said. What happened to Conaway is not uncommon, he said: An addict consumes too much of a drug, it enters the user’s lungs and causes rapidly progressing pneumonia that he or she fails to recognize because of impairment. There is no evidence Conaway intentionally overdosed, Pinsky said.

Conaway had acknowledged his addictive tendencies in a 1985 interview with The Associated Press, when he described turning his back on the dream of a pop music career.

He’d played guitar in a 1960s band called 3 1/2 that was the opening act for groups including Herman’s Hermits, The Young Rascals and The Animals. “I thought, ‘If I stay in this business, I’ll be dead in a year.’ There were drugs all over the place and people were doing them. I had started to do them. I realized that I’d die,” Conaway told the AP. His effort to avoid addiction failed, and his battles with cocaine and other substances were painfully shared in two stints on “Celebrity Rehab With Dr Drew.” Conaway, who’d had repeated back surgeries for an injury, blamed his cocaine use and pain pill abuse in part on his lingering back problem.

Conaway was born in New York City on Oct 5, 1950, to parents who were in show business.

His father was an actor, producer and agent, and his mother was an actress. He made his

Broadway debut in 1960 at the age of 10 in the Pulitzer Prize-winning play “All the Way Home.” By then his parents were divorced, and Conaway had spent a great deal of time with his grandparents who lived in the Astoria section of Queens.

“I used to hold in a lot of feelings. I’d smile a lot but I was really miserable. I didn’t know it at the time, but I’ve figured it out since. When I was on stage, I could make people laugh,” he said in 1985. He toured in the national company of the comedy “Critic’s Choice,” then attended a professional high school for young actors, musicians and singers. After abandoning music he returned to acting with a two-year stint in “Grease,” on Broadway (playing the lead role of Danny Zuko at one point) and eventually with the touring company. The musical about high school love brought Conaway to Los Angeles and television, including a small part on “Happy Days” that led to larger roles. He had roles in small films and then in the movie version of “Grease” (1978), although he lost the topbilled part to John Travolta. In 1978, he won the “Taxi” job - playing vain, struggling actor Bobby Wheeler - that put him in the company of Judd Hirsch, Danny de Vito and Andy Kaufman in what proved to be a hit for ABC. The tall, gangly actor, with a shock of blond hair and what the late longtime AP drama critic Michael Kuchwara called a “wideangle smile” and “a television face, just right for popular consumption,” appeared a success. But Conaway, who received two Golden Globe nominations for “Taxi,” said he tired early of being a series regular, although he stayed with the series for three years, until 1981 (“Taxi” ended in 1983 after moving to NBC the year before). “I got very depressed.

Hollywood can be a terrible place when you’re depressed. The pits. I decided I had to change my life and do different things,” he said.

His movie career failed to ignite, however, and Conaway shifted back to TV with the short-lived 1983 fantasy series “Wizards and Warriors” and the 1985 flop “Berrengers,” a drama set in a New York department store. He made a bid to return to Broadway in “The News,” but the rock musical about tabloid journalism closed within days. A 1994-98 stint in the sci-fi TV series “Babylon 5” as security chief Zack Allan proved successful, but it was followed by only scattered roles on stage, in films and TV shows. He was in the reality series “Celebrity Fit Club” in 2006 and then in “Celebrity Rehab,” in which the frail Conaway used a wheelchair and blacked out on camera. A fall in 2010 caused a broken hip and other injuries that left him in more precarious health.

Conaway told the Los Angeles Times in a January 2011 article that series producers asked him to “give them drama.” But he also said he welcomed the support he received from those who viewed his struggle. “I got a lot of love from people, and when people stop me on the street and say, ‘Man, your story touched me so much,’ it just makes all this pain worthwhile, you know?” he said. “I don’t know where actors go after they die, but I know people who help other people have a nice place to go. And I would like to go there if I can.” Conaway was wed twice, first to Rona Newton-John, sister of singer and Conaway’s fellow “Grease” star Olivia Newton-John, and then to Kerri Young. It was unclear if he and Young were married at the time of his death, Boole said. — AP

S Korea’s Kwon Sang-woo eyes Chinese film career

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Members of a Bavarian costume group perform yesterday in a festival tent in Weilheim, southern Germany. Bavaria’s best ‘Schuhplattler’ folk dancers compete in the ‘Preisplattln’ event to win the ‘Bavarian Lion’. — AFP

John Benjamin Hickey juggles stage role, TV show

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espite these recessionary times, John Benjamin Hickey has managed to land not just one great job, but two. The character actor is starring on Broadway as an AIDS-stricken journalist in a muchpraised revival of Larry Kramer’s “The Normal Heart” and playing Laura Linney’s troubled brother on Showtime’s “The Big C.” The only snag: He has to do them at the same time. One is live theater eight times a week in Times Square, while the TV show requires that he spend three or four days a week filming 25 miles northeast of the city in Stamford, Conn., for the second season of the

acclaimed series. He laughs at his luck, what he calls an “embarrassment of riches.” “It could not have been a more insane confluence of events,” he says over lunch at a Greenwich Village cafe near his home during one of his few empty afternoons. “The timing couldn’t have been better and it couldn’t have been worse.” He has juggled both with some success.

Hickey, in his fifth Broadway show, has earned his first Tony Award nomination as best featured actor in a play. His two jobs have turned the laid-back Hickey into someone who memorizes railroad timetables and

calculates traffic patterns. He’s also found himself among the crowds sprinting through Times Square to make it to the theater on time. Once, he almost missed a performance. To make the evening curtain at 8 pm, he likes to grab a train in Connecticut no later than 6:15 pm. One recent night, he was forced to take one that left closer to 6:30 pm. Then it was 15 minutes late - and he still had a 45minute commute. How did this man - who describes himself as “a hothouse flower” with a delicate stomach and a “mild Presbyterian boy from Plano, Texas” - handle such a nerve-jangling commute? —AP John Benjamin Hickey

fter building a name for himself in the South Korean film and TV industries, Kwon Sang-woo is setting his sights on another booming Asian entertainment market - China. The 34-year-old actor is shooting a Chinese-language romance alongside Hong Kong actress Cecilia Cheung and will next join the Jackie Chan project “Chinese Zodiac.” Kwon, who shot to fame with the 2003 TV drama “Stairway to Heaven,” took a break from shooting Friday in the southern Chinese city Shenzhen to promote “Repeat, I Love You.” “This movie marks my first foray into international markets, so I take this movie very seriously,” Kwon told reporters.

The South Korean entertainer said he has been a fan of Hong Kong and Chinese film since his student days. “My childhood memories are filled with fondness and worship for Chinese entertainers, so I am very happy for this opportunity. Even though there is the language barrier, we share the same emotions,” he said. Kwon, whose recent film credits include “Destiny,” “More than Blue” and “71: Into the Fire,” praised Cheung, who plays two characters in the movie - both of whom Kwon’s character falls for.

“One role is a very feminine, sophisticated woman. The other is very tough. She was able to draw a clear distinction between the two,” Kwon said, adding that he was already familiar with Cheung from her starring role in the 2001 South Korean drama “Failan.” Casting South Korean talent revives a trend in Chinese film. Veteran Ahn Sung-kee costarred with Hong Kong superstar Andy Lau in the 2006 costume drama “Battle of Wits.” Ji Jin-hee was one of the leading men in Peter Chan’s 2005 musical “Perhaps Love.” And Cheung worked with Jang Dong-gun on Chen Kaige’s 2005 fantasy epic “The Promise.” Dan Mintz, chief exec-

Kwon Sang-woo utive of DMG Entertainment, the Chinese studio behind “Repeat, I Love You,” said he was looking to breed creativity through cultural exchange - and wasn’t necessarily thinking about South Korean box office numbers. Directed by Hong Kong pop lyricist Calvin Poon, “Repeat, I Love You” also features Taiwanese singer Angela Chang and Taiwan-based model Sphinx Ting, as well as mainland Chinese entertainers Jing Tian and Jing Boran. “What we look for is very different points of view. And what helps different points of view is by having different people from different places come together,” Mintz told The Associated Press, noting that instead of having Kwon master Chinese, he speaks Korean in the movie.

Kwon told the AP after Friday’s news conference that after finishing “Repeat, I Love You,” he will go to Paris to join the cast of Chan’s “Chinese Zodiac.” —AP

SUNDAY, MAY 29, 2011

lifestyle

Beauty industry honors

Fergie and her fragrance

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ergie’s life just got a little more glamorous in undertones of tuberose and leather - with her win of a Fifi award from the perfume industry for her scent Outspoken. The Fragrance Foundation presented the Black Eyed Peas singer with the honor Wednesday night for new celebrity fragrance of the year at a splashy Lincoln Center ceremony. Outspoken is Avon’s most successful fragrance launch to date. The prize, Fergie said in a telephone interview, along with the yellow BCBG Max Azria gown she wore to pick it up and all the trappings of fame, are just icing now that she’s realized her biggest aspiration - her success as a solo artist.

“Never in my wildest dreams did I think all this would happen,” she said. “My goal was a solo album. It was my dream since I was a little girl, and I went down many roads to get there.” Fergie, 36, said she enjoys all the glitz, glamour and wardrobing, especially playing around with beauty products to create different looks. At home, though, she tones it down - a lot - and usually doesn’t wear any makeup at all. Perfume is differ-

ent. She’s always been a fragrance fan, she said, wearing for a period as a teenager the men’s cologne Drakkar Noir because it reminded her of an old boyfriend, and Dior’s Poison because she linked it to lyrics of a favorite song.

Outspoken is a floral with notes of iced berry, tuberose and a base of leather. A second perfume Fergie has created, Outspoken Intense, will be available in October. One of the key scent notes is kumquat.

One whiff and she’s transported to her backyard growing up in Southern California, she said.

“My dad grew them. He taught me how to peel them. They’re very, very small.” Fergie plans to use her new role in the beauty industry to ask questions of other designers, perfumers and celebrities. “I’d love to know what all their inspirations are.” Oscar winner Halle Berry and Mary J Blige were among the other Fifi winners.

“The celebrity category in fragrance is no longer an ‘add on’ as it was once considered, never knowing if it would last or not. Today, it is a major segment of fragrance marketing and our

hope is that the celebrities, who chose to have a fragrance or endorse one, take it as seriously as their latest album, film or book by supporting it in the same way,” said the group’s president, Rochelle Bloom. Hall of Fame nods went to Issey Miyake L’Eau d’Issey and Jean Paul Gaultier Le Male for men, and Bombshell by Victoria’s Secret and Bath & Body Works Twilight Woods received consumer choice awards.

Berry was named the top fragrance celebrity for her work promoting and embracing the “world of fragrance over a period of time,” according to the Fragrance Foundation. Mary J Blige and the cosmetics company Carol’s Daughter were honored for their direct-to-consumer approach. The following were named fragrance of the year in their respective distribution categories: VS Bombshell and Banana Republic/Republic of Men (specialty brand); Halle

by Halle Berry Pure Orchid and Herve Leger Homme (broad appeal); Gucci Guilty and Blue de Chanel (luxe); and Balenciaga Paris and Tom Ford Azure Lime for Men (specialty luxe). — AP

Singer Stacy “Fergie” Ferguson attends The Fragrance Foundation’s 2011 FiFi Awards at Lincoln Center on Wednesday, May 25, 2011 in New York. — AP

Courtney Love sued again for defamation on Twitter

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t’s been only a few months since Courtney Love paid to settle that unique lawsuit claiming she defamed a fashion designer via Twitter. Now the rocker has been sued again for comments made online, this time by lawyers who represented her in an effort to pursue money allegedly stolen from the estate of her late husband, Kurt Cobain. Gordon & Holmes, a San Diego-based law firm, filed suit Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court claiming the firm represented Love from December 2008 to May 2009, but toward the end of the representation, Love allegedly became angry when the firm’s partner Rhonda Holmes asked that Love refrain from “any and all substance abuse” during the attorney-client relationship, according to the suit.

Love allegedly fired the firm, but came back months later asking it to resume representing her. The firm declined, according to the suit, and soon after Love began making allegedly libelous statements on Twitter and elsewhere suggesting the lawyers had taken a bribe. “I was

devastated (sic) when Rhonda J Holmes Esq of San Diego was bought off [...]” Love tweeted. The suit also cites an interview Love did in July 2010 with a Web site: “I’ve been hiring and firing lawyers to help me with this.” She goes on to tell of a female attorney who has since stopped taking her calls because “they got to her” after she mentioned something to Page 6 of the New York Post. “She’s disappeared.”

Holmes claims that the statements suggesting she had been bought off or accepted a bribe, coupled with Love’s power as a celebrity, have caused significant damage to her legal career. The attorney is also asking for punitive damages to deter Love from repeating the allegedly defamatory actions. The complaint, filed by Holmes’ firm, alleges causes of action for libel, false light invasion of privacy and intentional inter ference with a prospective economic advantage. It seeks unspecified damages. Love’s attorney could not immediately be reached for comment. — Reuters

Relatives of slain Cali Swag District rapper Montae “M-Bone” Talbert react to a speaker’s remarks during a funeral service for him, Friday, May 27, 2011, in Inglewood, Calif.

From left are brothers Marcel and Montreal Talbert, grandmother MaryAlice Phillips, brother Shannon Gipson and mother Andrea Armstrong. The rapper was shot and killed on May 15 in Inglewood. — AP

‘Godfather of Rap’ dies in NYC M

usician Gil Scott-Heron, who helped lay the groundwork for rap by fusing minimalistic percussion, political expression and spoken-word poetry on songs such as “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” died Friday at age 62. A friend, Doris C Nolan, who answered the telephone listed for his Manhattan recording company, said he died in the afternoon at St Luke’s Hospital after becoming sick upon returning from a European trip. “We’re all sort of shattered,” she said. Scott-Heron’s influence on rap was such that he sometimes was referred to as the Godfather of Rap, a title he rejected.

“If there was any individual initiative that I was responsible for it might have been that there was music in certain poems of mine, with complete progression and repeating ‘hooks,’ which made

them more like songs than just recitations with percussion,” he wrote in the introduction to his 1990 collection of poems, “Now and Then.” He referred to his signature mix of percussion, politics and performed poetry as bluesology or Third World music. But then he said it was simply “black music or black American music.” “Because Black Americans are now a tremendously diverse essence of all the places we’ve come from and the music and rhythms we brought with us,” he wrote.

Nevertheless, his influence on generations of rappers has been demonstrated through sampling of his recordings by artists, including Kanye West.

Scott-Heron recorded the song that would make him famous, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” which critiqued mass media, for the album “125th and Lenox” in Harlem in the 1970s.

Boycott call fails to dampen Swazi music fest

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Singer Lady Gaga performs on ABC’s ‘Good Morning America’ in Central Park on Friday, May 27, 2011 in New York. — AP

call to snub Swaziland’s biggest music festival netted two acts but most of the billed artists will not boycott the event in Africa’s last absolute monarchy, the organizer said yesterday.

Two South African artists bowed out days ahead of the annual Bushfire Festival in the tiny mountain kingdom which drew 2,000 people to the Friday night opening with ticket sales up from last year. “Ninety-five percent of artists decided to attend and that is an overwhelming statement of support and recognition of what our platform offers,” organizer Jiggs Thorne told AFP. “We managed to get South African artists to replace those who pulled out. We are extremely pleased with our opening night and expect seven to eight thousand people on Saturday night.”Dissidents had called on artists to boycott the annual festival to protest the 18-year absolute rule of King Mswati III, who leads a life of luxury while nearly 70 percent of people live on less than a dollar a day. South African DJ Black Coffee and musician Caiphus Semenya pulled out, but still on the weekend lineup are artists like Zimbabwe’s Oliver Mtukudzi, Malian guitarist Habib Koite and singer Shanti Lo from Botswana.

Styled after the cultural boycott against apartheid South Africa in the 1970s and ‘80s, the stay-away call was aimed at isolating Mswati, whose jet-setting lifestyle has become increasingly controversial.

In April, anger over government moves to slash civil servants’ salaries in the face of a crippling budget crisis erupted into street protests which were met with a crackdown during which police beat and detained opponents. According to Thorne, “pro-democracy groups are barking up the wrong tree,” as the festival’s profits will primarily go to a local charity for AIDS orphans. — AFP

Rihanna performs on the NBC “Today” television program, in New York’s Rockefeller Center, Friday, May 27, 2011. — AP

He followed up that recording with more than a dozen albums, initially collaborating with musician Brian Jackson. His most recent album was “I’m New Here,” which he began recording in 2007 and was released in 2010. Throughout his musical career, he took on political issues of his time, including apartheid in South Africa and nuclear arms. He had been shaped by the politics of the 1960s and the black literature, especially of the Harlem Renaissance.

Scott-Heron was born in Chicago on April 1, 1949. He was raised in Jackson, Tenn., and in New York before attending college at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. Before turning to music, he was a novelist, at age 19, with the publication of “The Vulture,” a murder mystery. He also was the author of “The Nigger Factory,” a social satire. — AP

‘Grease’ star Jeff Conaway dies at 60

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SUNDAY, MAY 29, 2011

Tattoos come out of hiding

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here’s a row of containers holding incense just inside Sheila Whited’s tattoo shop in Springfield Township, Ohio. Fizzy pop, ocean wind, Arabian night are some of the aromas. On this day, the smell of vanilla filled the air. A few feet away, Leslie Wilhelm was lounging in an antique barber’s chair. She came for her 11th tattoo, a butterfly. As the artist, whose shop is named Tattoos by Sheila, leaned over her, Wilhelm wore a semismile.

Oh, sure, it hurt. “Like really bad bee stings,” Wilhelm said, adding that the outline of the design is the worst. When the 36-year-old, nicknamed “Red” for her ginger-colored mane, got her first tattoo, she perspired so much, her back and legs were dripping. But no longer she’s used to it.

The pain can be more or less severe, depending on where the tattoo is located.

What area is the most painful? “He has one; we don’t,” Whited said, nodding her head toward a male photographer. It sure does seem like more people are getting inked these days. In a 2006 Pew Research Center report, some 36 percent of US 18- to 25-year-olds and 40 percent of those ages 26 to 40 have at least one tattoo. But Whited said she’s no busier now than she was 32 years ago, when she began inking masterpieces in the folds and curves of people’s bodies.

“It’s not that they didn’t get them; they just got them in hidden areas,” Whited said.

“People (like Wilhelm) are now showing them because it’s more accepted.” Perhaps you’ve noticed tattoos on some professionals (though anything above the neck is generally still considered a no-no in the business world).

Once reserved for sailors and motorcycle gangs, tattoos have lost their unsavory image.

“I’ve always done people that you would never dream had tattoos. ... I mean, I tattooed my gynecologist 15 years ago,” Whited said, chuckling.

While 18- to 25-year-olds are typical clients at Akron’s Good Life Tattoos & Piercing, older folks are not alien. The oldest person Jesse Strother, 26, co-owner and artist, has tattooed was a 67-year-old man. He selected an arrowhead design to cover up a former sweetheart’s

more than ink a design. For instance, years ago, Whited was asked to place a small dot on the bottom of a baby’s foot. Twins had been born - one with a heart defect, the other without. When the mother returned to work, she was fearful that because the twins were identical, a caregiver might give medicine to the wrong infant. So someone suggested the dot.

Piercings are popular, too. Jeremiah Currier, 27, who co-owns Good Life Tattoos & Piercings with Strother, gets worked up about the subject. He maintains that places such as those in some shopping malls should be told to discard plastic guns and use ones that can be sterilized properly. Cleanliness, as it should be, is a big deal to Currier. The media and celebrities who show off their piercings pave the way for trends, he noted. The above-18 crowd sometimes requests piercings in private parts.

But at least half of the shop’s piercing business is 14- to 18-year-old girls who come in to get their ears, lips, belly buttons and nostrils pierced. “In my shop, it’s up to the parents to

Tattoo artist Sheila Whited (left) adds a butterfly to the right arm of Leslie Wilhelm in Akron, Ohio. name. That’s one of the reasons some suggest kids should wait until they are at least 18 to get a tattoo. Their minds may change - a lover today may be a foe tomorrow.

But even 18-year-olds, which is the youngest someone in Ohio can get a shop tattoo without parental consent, can make a faux pas. Take Kimberley Vlaminck of Belgium, for instance. She claimed last year that she fell asleep when an artist was tattooing 56 stars on her face, where she wanted just three. Of course, controversy followed - many wondered how anyone could zonk out when getting a constellation inked on her face. Turns out, the 18-year-old made up the story when she saw how furious her father was about the tattoos.

The lesson? Think, think, think - and, if you’re a teen, talk it over with your parents or someone more mature before being marked.

“In recent months, I have discovered that more and more of my friends and classmates are getting tattoos,” said Madeleine Winer, a St Vincent-St Mary High School senior and member of a group of young people who advise the Beacon Journal on subjects of interest to their peers. “I know some of my classmates got them as a 16th or 17th birthday gift from their parents. . . . People my age get tattoos to commemorate an important event or person in their life. “I see tattoos as a form of art, but I would never want to get one. I am afraid of ... needles.”

Sometimes tattoo artists are called on to do

Sheila Whited has walls that display thousands of tattoos. — MCT photos

Tattoo artist Sheila Whited added this butterfly to the right arm of Leslie Wilhelm.

How to create new looks daily out of one basic piece T

his all started because I was too lazy to hang up my clothes. A few weeks ago, I was changing my clothes after work and tossed my pants on a bedroom chair. Actually, I dropped them on the floor. The next morning, the pants were right there - how convenient - just a few steps from the bed where I’d left them. So, why bother thinking about what to wear? I just picked up the pants, put them right back on and headed for work.

Pants, Day 2: Nobody seemed to notice that I was wearing the same thing. Not my spouse. Not my cubicle mates. That’s when I decided on my little experiment. I’d change my top, my jewelry and shoes but I’d wear the same pants every day. I figured it was only a matter of time until someone suggested it was time for a change. It never happened. For two weeks I wore the same dark gray pants. There was not so much as a raised eyebrow from the people who saw me every day.

Pants, Day 3 was the same as Pants, Days 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10. No reaction. Nothing.

Remember, I work at a newspaper. My co-workers are trained observers. Many of them are in the visual part of the business. Some edit the style and fashion pages. Nothing. I’m pretty sure I could have continued my trousers test for months but it got boring, putting on the same thing every day. What I learned is a lesson for us all. We don’t need a closet packed with stuff. A few wardrobe workhorses will go a long way to building a stylish look. And basics don’t have to be expensive.

I bought these particular pants, unlined wool

by MaxMara, for $60 at a consignment store. And

decide if their child is mature enough to care for a piercing,” Whited said. “If a kid comes in and I can see that they are rude or nasty to their parents, I won’t do it.”

Whited has built a following during the past three decades, so much so that she has

I’ve seen $10 suits for men and women at Goodwill that could be the backbone of a versatile and varied personal fashion statement. Think of dark pants - or a simple black dress or skirt - as your backdrop. Scarves, jewelry, a simple shirt, a jacket, a sweater, a belt, some interesting shoes - they’ll completely change your look as they did mine during my two-week experiment.

In the past few years there have been a variety of well-publicized wardrobe simplification movements like Six Items or Less, sixitemsorless.com, where participants pick a half dozen basic items and wear only those for a month (with lots of exclusions like underwear, shoes, heavy coats, accessories, workout wear). Or, the Great American Apparel Diet, thegreatamericanappareldiet.com, whose participants vow to buy nothing for a year (exceptions here, too, like shoes, underwear, accessories).

I don’t like rules and I’m not much of a joiner, so those exercises don’t appeal to me. But what does appeal is the idea of making maximum use of the money I spend and the space in my closet. That’s why putting my clothes spending on a diet and instead relying on a handful of core items seems so smart. With that in mind and to get you thinking, I paired my well-worn pants with items I already had in my closet to create this trio of totally different looks that assure that no one will guess you’re wearing the same thing over and over again. — MCT Ellen Warren models the “Keep it Simple” look using simple black pants that she wore for two weeks without anyone noticing in the Tribune Studio. — MCT photos

tattooed generations of families: “It’s not unusual to have a grandmother and granddaughter to come in together.” But what happens to the tattoos that were inked on Grandma back when Groucho Marx made Lydia the Tattooed Lady a hit? “The only thing I can think of when I imagine getting a tattoo is how gross it will look when I’m a wrinkly old lady baking cookies with my family,” said Trista White, a senior at Firestone High School and another member of the Beacon young readers group. “Even if I think the design is super cute right now, I know that my grandkids will think differently when they see old Granny with a butterfly on her shoulder or some black birds flying up her vein-ridden arm.” —MCT