19 Jun

ON IP TI SC R SU B

SUNDAY, JUNE 19, 2011

Kuwait marks ‘actual Independence Day’

www.kuwaittimes.net

RAJAB 17, 1432 AH

S Korean soldiers fire at Asiana passenger jet

Foreign actors try their hand at Bollywood

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constitutional monarchy

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20 5King12 37 declares Morocco a Mohammed VI unveils reforms • Youth protesters unimpressed

US holding peace talks with Taleban KABUL: The United States is holding talks with the Taleban, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said yesterday, in the first official confirmation of such contacts after nearly 10 years of war. Although diplomats and officials say talks are at a very early stage, Karzai’s remarks highlight the increasing focus on finding a political solution in Afghanistan as foreign combat troops prepare to pull out by 2014. “Talks with the Taleban have started... the talks are going on well,” Karzai said, addressing a conference in Kabul. “Also foreign forces, especially the United States, are carrying out the talks themselves.”

But the problems surrounding any reconciliation bid were thrown into sharp focus shortly afterwards when nine people died as three Taleban attackers armed with suicide vests and machine guns stormed a Kabul police station. The militants have consistently rejected any efforts to talk peace in public statements. “We have already said this and have repeated it many times. We have no negotiation with the United States and we deny any report as such,” Taleban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told AFP. The US Embassy declined to comment directly on the latest remarks from Karzai, who is known for dropping unscripted, headline-grabbing remarks into speeches, but said the United States supports Afghan Continued on Page 15

Yemen crisis puts Saudis in a bind DUBAI: Fearing both civil war and sweeping political reform as results of the crisis in Yemen, Saudi Arabia is struggling with its role as regional kingmaker.

While publicly backing Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, still in a Saudi hospital after being wounded in fighting in the capital Sanaa after months of protests aimed at ousting him, Riyadh has also tried to broker a succession on its own terms. That has entailed forging relationships with tribal chieftains, politicians and army officers long cultivated by the Saudis as counterweights to Saleh’s 33-year rule, but they are too many and too fractious to provide a ready-made successor.

And the very process of negotiating a political exit for a neighbouring ruler it no longer supports has raised talk of representative government, feared by the kingdom that is the world’s top oil exporter. “It (Saudi Arabia) will try to stop a move to any real democratic system in the country,” political analyst Ahmed alZurqa said. “This is the problem.”

The Saudi-dominated Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) mediated three aborted deals with Yemeni opposition parties under which Saleh would step down and be spared prosecution for

misconduct including bloody crackdowns on protesters who took to the streets as pro-democracy activism swept the Arab world. Each time, Saleh backed out at the last minute. His last demurral, in May, triggered two weeks of fighting with the Al-Hashed tribal confederation led by the al-Ahmar family, culminating in a June 3 attack on Saleh’s palace. That may have sealed Saleh’s fate for the Saudis, said Sheila Carapico, a Yemen expert and political science professor at the American University of Cairo. “We don’t even know if he’ll be well enough to go back (from Saudi Arabia), but apart from that, I think they’ve lost faith in him,” she said.

Saudi and Yemeni state media still stress Riyadh’s relationship with Saleh.

Wary that Yemen could slip into further chaos, Saudi Arabia has begun shipments of a grant of 3 million barrels of oil to alleviate fuel shortages now gripping Yemen. At the same time, flirtation with his enemies is evident. Sadeq Al-Ahmar, a leading Al-Hashed figure, said after a round of clashes which devastated parts of the capital that he was keeping a truce only out of respect for Saudi King Abdullah.

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RABAT: Moroccans express their support for King Mohammed VI during a rally after he announced constitutional reforms in a televised speech to the nation late on Friday. (Inset) King Mohammed listens to the national anthem after he delivered the speech. — AFP

RABAT: Morocco’s youth-based February 20 Movement called for nationwide protests today after rejecting constitutional reforms proposed by King Mohammed VI. The king outlined curbs to his wide political powers in an address to the nation on Friday, pledging to build a constitutional monarchy with a democratic parliament.

The proposals come in the wake of nationwide proreform demonstrations that began on Feb 20 - hence the name of the movement - inspired by other popular uprisings sweeping the Arab world.

Protesters say the changes, to be put to a referendum on July 1, do not go far enough. “The plan as proposed by the king yesterday does not respond to our demands for a true separation of powers. We will protest peacefully on Sunday against this plan,” Najib Chaouki, a member of the movement’s Rabat section told AFP. “The national committees (of the movement) have called for a demonstration for a true democratic constitution and a parliamentary monarchy,” he said.

The 47-year-old monarch, who in 1999 took over the Arab world’s longest-serving dynasty, currently holds virtually all power in the Muslim north African country, and he is also its top religious authority as the Commander of the Faithful. Under the new draft constitution, the king will retain this religious role and remain as head of state. He would also remain head of the army and still appoint ambassadors and diplomats, while retaining the right to name top officials of unspecified “strategic” administrations.

The prime minister, now to be called the “president of the government” will have the power to dissolve parliament however, which was hitherto the monarch’s prerogative. King Mohammed VI also pledged an independent judiciary and said the prime minister will be Continued on Page 15

Birdies, bogeys and business?

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama drove the cart and House Speaker John Boehner celebrated a short putt as their much anticipated golf outing got under way Saturday at a military base outside the US capital. Vice President Joe Biden earned the commander in chief’s approval when he sank a 4.5to-6 m putt on the first hole, a par five, at Joint Base Andrews. “Did you all catch that?” Obama shouted to reporters gathered near the green. The president sent his putt just past the hole before tapping in.

Boehner, considered one of Washington’s best golfers, gave a hearty “Oh yeah!” after draining a short putt.

Obama, who’s not in Boehner’s links league, patted the speaker on the back as they headed toward the second hole, the president driving their cart.

Aides say the time that Obama and Boehner are spending on the course could help improve a relationship that’s respectful, but hardly close. But 18 holes probably won’t give them enough time to hash out their policy differences on everything from the debt to the US military involvement in Libya.

The outing comes against the backdrop of negotiations between the White House and Congress over a long-term deficit reduction plan that will set the stage for increasing the amount of money the government can borrow. Republicans have insisted on significant cuts of about $2 trillion over 10 years or 12 years before agreeing to increase the current $14.3 trillion debt ceiling, which the government Continued on Page 15

Saudi women challenge drive ban

RIYADH: In this image made from video released by Change.org, a Saudi woman drives a car on Friday as part of a campaign to defy Saudi Arabia’s ban on women driving. — AP

Max 46º Min 34º Low Tide 08:03 & 21:03 High Tide 02:52 & 13:16

DUBAI: A Saudi woman defiantly drove through the nation’s capital while others brazenly cruised by police patrols in the first forays of a campaign that hopes to ignite a road rebellion against the male-only driving rules in the ultraconservative kingdom. It was a rare grassroots challenge to the Western-backed Saudi monarchy as it tries to ride out the Arab world’s wave of change, and a lesson in how the uprisings are taking root in different ways. In this case, on Friday the driver’s seat was turned into a powerful platform for women’s rights in a country where wives and daughters have almost no political voice.

“We’ve seen that change is possible,” said Maha AlQahtani, a computer specialist at Saudi’s Ministry of Education. She said she drove for 45 minutes around the capital, Riyadh, with her husband in the passenger seat. “This is Saudi women saying, ‘This is our time to make a change.”‘ About 40 women took part in Friday’s show of defiance. No arrests or violence were immediately reported, though Al-Qahtani was later ticketed for driving without a license.

But the demonstration could bring difficult choices for the Saudi regime, which has so far has escaped major unrest. Officials could either order a crackdown Continued on Page 15

HATAY, Turkey: Syrian refugee children play yesterday, 2011 in the Boynuyogun Turkish Red Crescent camp in the Altinozu district near the Syrian border. — AFP

Syria forces storm town near Turkey AMMAN: Syrian troops and gunmen loyal to President Bashar Al-Assad stormed a town near the Turkish border yesterday, burning houses and arresting dozens, witnesses said, in a persistent military campaign to crush popular revolt. The latest assault followed another Friday of protests, which have grown in size and scope over the last three months, despite Assad’s violent clampdown on public dissent. Activists said security forces shot dead 19 protesters on Friday.

“They came at 7 am to Bdama. I counted nine tanks, 10 armoured carriers, 20 jeeps and 10 buses. I saw shabbiha (pro-Assad gunmen) setting fire to two houses,” said Saria Hammouda, a lawyer living in the border town in the Jisr Al-Shughour region, where thousands of Syrians had fled to Turkey after the army clamped down on the area this month. Bdama is one of the nerve centres providing food and supplies to several thousand other Syrians who have escaped the violence from frontier villages but chose to take shelter temporarily in fields on the Syrian side of the boundary.

“Bdama’s residents don’t dare take bread to the refugees and the refugees are fearful of arrests if they go into Bdama for food,” Rami Abdulrahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told Reuters.

Another witness said government troops were also burning crops on nearby hillsides in an apparent scorched earth policy.

European powers initiated a detente with Assad before the unrest to try to draw the Syrian leader away from Iran and also stabilise Lebanon. But they now say

Damascus should face tougher sanctions over the violence against demonstrators seeking more political freedoms and an end to corruption and poverty. Syrian rights groups say at least 1,300 civilians have been killed and 10,000 people detained since March. One group has said more than 300 soldiers and police have also been killed.

Tens of thousands rallied across Syria on Friday, defying Assad’s repression and ignoring a pledge that his tycoon cousin Rami Makhlouf, a symbol of corruption among the elite, would renounce his business empire and channel his wealth to charity. People rallied in the southern province of Deraa where the revolt began, in the Kurdish northeast, the province of Deir al-Zor near Iraq’s Sunni heartland, the city of Hama north of Damascus, on the coast and in suburbs of the capital itself.

“The security grip is weakening because the protests are growing in numbers and spreading. More people are risking their lives to demonstrate. The Syrian people realise that this is an opportunity for liberty that comes once in hundreds of years,” opposition figure Walid al-Bunni told Reuters from Damascus. The Local Coordination Committees, a main activist group linked to protesters, said 10 demonstrators were killed on Friday in Homs, a merchant city of 1 million people in central Syria. State television said a policeman was killed by gunmen. One protester was also reported killed in the northern commercial hub of Aleppo, the first to die there in the unrest.

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local kuwait digest

Why have a secret session?

New grilling motion against PM in offing

By Abdullah Al-Mujaihem

H

is Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Sabah will face the grilling motion filed by MPs Dr Waleed Al-Tabtabae, Mohammad Hayef and Mubarak AlWaalan. This was a predicted outcome, unlike the tactics that led for the debate to be held behind closed doors following the unexpected decision by lawmakers Shuwaib Al-Muwaizri and Saleh Ashour to vote in favor of this stipulation.

The oddest part about the issue is that MPs who voted in favor of a confidential session are the first to reveal details about the debate’s session either through Twitter posts or in statements made to the press.

What is the point of holding a grilling debate behind closed doors, especially if the premier has the ability to defend allegations? After all, it was pro-government MPs who told us that the prime minister was capable of dodging every small detail on the accusations mentioned during the debate.

The debate may be over, but the grilling saga is not. Ten lawmakers signed a non-cooperation motion request, similar to what occurred during previous interpellation motions that the premier faced, and is likely going to happen with future interpellations that will come as long as HH Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Sabah remains in his post.

In the meantime, both pro-government lawmakers and antigovernment MPs continue their game of tug of war, while in the process, they shatter the hopes of people who witness the ongoing struggle that leaves no room for the development plan to move forward. Still, citizens are counting on a pro-Kuwait coalition that will hopefully put the plans back on track. — Al-Rai

‘Is Ushairej factory pouring industrial waste into Gulf?’

KUWAIT: MP Ali Al-Omair has submitted a parliamentary question to public works minister Dr. Fadhil Safar about a factory in the Ushairej coastal area whose license was renewed despite the facility allegedly violating industrial licensing terms.

In the question put to Dr. Safar, who is also the Minister of Municipal Affairs, the MP asked about the truth of rumors that the factory has been pouring raw sewage and toxic industrial waste products directly into the Gulf, further enquiring as to what, if any, action the municipality had taken over this misdemeanor. He also enquired as to whether the factory owner is, as reported, using part of the facility for workers’ accommodation, as well as using another part of the factory for collecting cardboard waste.

The Ushairej area has been the focus of environmental concerns over reports of large-scale pollution caused by industrial facilities there, which in most cases are in direct violation of the factories’ licensing conditions.

The government has been urged on several occasions to evacuate the area’s residents and launch a program to repair the ecological damage done to the area’s land and offshore environment. — Al-Qabas

Parliamentary committees meet KUWAIT: Two political blocs in the Parliament plan to file a new grilling motion against His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Sabah on Thursday, officials said. A news report quoting anonymous officials, says that the Development and Reform Bloc(DRB) and the Popular Action Bloc(PAB) will meet today to finalize on their joint grilling motion.

The report further hints at both blocs also preparing a request to ask for the prime minister’s office’s expenses. It will be reviewed by the State Audit Bureau, reported Al-Qabas.

The third main bloc in the Parliament, the National Action Bloc (NAB) will meet today to determine their stance on the non-cooperation motion filed against Sheikh Nasser AlMohammad Al-Sabah during the

grilling motion’s debate session. A voting process will be held on Thursday.

This was confirmed by bloc member MP Marzouq Al-Ghanim during a recent televised interview, in which he rejected the notion that his bloc will make a deal with either team ahead of the voting session.

Al-Ghanim further asserted that the grilling motion filed by his bloc against Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah, former Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Development and Housing, did not His Highness the Amir’s sovereignty as claimed in a memorandum forwarded

by Al-Fahad himself.

He also stated that the never-debated grilling motion is ‘historical,’ in the sense that it “exposed all the offenses committed to HH the Amir and the Kuwaiti people,” adding that the grilling

motion qualifies as a reference, reported Al-Rai. Three parliamentary committees also convened today to discuss issues on respective schedules. The budget committee will match the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation 2011/2012 budget with that of the annual plan for the same fiscal year. Meanwhile, the public funds protection committee looks into the administrative and financial aspects of the expenses of HH the Crown Prince’s office. The environment committee plans to discuss the water pollution rumors and test results, as Minister of Electricity and Water Salem Al-Othaina will attend, reported Al-Qabas.

In another development, several MPs announced plans to sign a petition seeking the approval of allowances made to teachers and students, which

will be discussed in the parliamentary session on June 28.

Lawmakers aim to finalize this thorny subject before the star t of the Parliament’s summer break, “[MPs] will not hesitate to place the two draft laws on June 28 session’s agenda,” confirmed MP Shuwaib Al-Muwaizri, who urged the Parliament’s educational committee to finalize the reports for the laws if they were rejected by the Cabinet. MPs Musallam Al-Barrak, Naji Al-Abdulhadi, Husain Miz yed and Dr Waleed AlTabtabaei also agreed that the issue must be fulfilled before the end of the month, repor ted Al-Rai. The latter argued that the current term should be extended to cover for the shortage created by official and impromptu breaks “that reduced the number of sessions from 55 to 32.”

Coastguard cracks down on jet ski pests

By Hanan Al-Saadoun KUWAIT: Coastguard officers on Friday launched a crackdown on inconsiderate jet ski-users who have been disturbing the peace of Khairan residents with their round-the-clock use of the noisy recreational vehicles.

Overseen by Ministry of Interior Assistant Undersecretary Lieutenant General Sheikh Mohammad Al-Yousef Al-Sabah and the director of Coastguard operations for the Khairan area, Lt Gen Ali Al-Zubi, the unannounced operation, launched after the ministry received several complaints from irate local residents, saw 100 citations issued to the selfish jet ski-enthusiasts.

Lt Gen Sheikh Mohammad Al-Yousef warned that similar crackdowns would continue until all violations of this nature were ended. Beginning on Friday morning, Coastguard patrols toured the Khor Al-Amai and Khor Al-Mufattah areas, spotting jet ski-users committing a wide range of violations, including use of unregistered jet skis, failing to carry safety equipment, breaking the speed limit and underage use of the recreational vehicles, amongst others.

Col Adel Al-Hashash, the director of the MoI’s Public Relations division, said that the Coastguards’ crackdown was launched in tandem with his department’s information campaign, which is intended to provide guidance to jet ski and speedboat-users on ensuring their and others’ safety at sea. He urged everyone to stay safe by complying with the rules and regulations.

‘Amir’s speech addressed problems, outlined solutions’ KUWAIT: His Highness the Amir Sheikh Anjari said. She explained that conflicts Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah’s televised address might have been triggered between disagreeing parties in other counto the nation on Wednesday tries by means of foreign interoffered solutions to many vention, “to achieve ends at the issues that the country has expense of people and their been plagued by. It should future,” reported Al-Qabas. be implemented to achieve While acknowledging HH our goals. the Amir ’s concern over the This was stated by politichaos that occurs frequently, cal activist Nabila Al-Anjari in Al-Anjari stressed that Kuwait statement made to the press. needs to be protec ted “by She asserted that commitapplying the recommendament to the guidelines outtions outlined by our leader,” lined by HH the Amir’s adding that protec ting speech is important “to proKuwait’s security and stability tect the country from evil Nabila Al-Anjari “is a duty shared by all.” and allow young generations Furthermore, Al-Anjari urged to live in a better Kuwait.”

“A lot of citizens have unfortunately failed citizens to transform their loyalty to the to understand the lessons of the past and be country ‘by working faithfully toward aware of the changes taking place in the Kuwait’s development’ which she says is region, which is not free from external inter- achieved through cooperation and rejection vention that uses people’s freedom,” Al- of sectarianism and other social differences.

Municipality releases statistical records

By Hanan Al-Saadoun KUWAIT: Farwaniya Municipality Director Ahmad Al-Hazeem has released a statistical record of the achievements garnered by Farwaniya Municipality in May. He explained that the Municipality will look into files that citizens have submitted. He said that the Engineering Service Department has issued two citations, pointing out that a number of buildings in the private residence section were 299 in number, of which 62 concerned repairing electricity transformers.

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Kuwait facing national educational disaster Bad teachers, terrible curricula

By Hussain Al-Qatari KUWAIT: How bad is education in Kuwait? Oh, let the Ministry of Education’s latest report count the 70-plus ways. A new survey which includes over 2,000 case studies on individual students and their parents states bluntly that Kuwait’s state education system is terrible and in need of immediate rescue. The study, conducted by the Ministry of Education’s Department for Research and Curricular Development, concluded that Kuwait’s education dilemma is primarily caused by a combination of bad teachers, terrible curricula and a lack of cooperation between parents and teachers, which has produced a generation of lazy unmotivated students.

KUWAIT: The staff of McDonald’s who attended the movie yesterday. —Photos by Yasser Al-Zayyat

McDonald’s holds screening of ‘Kung Fu Panda 2’ the villain Shen and his lust for power to rule over China, eliminating any forces that try to stand in his KUWAIT: McDonald’s, the popular way. Not long after the introduction, fast food chain, held two private Po and the gang come back into the screenings of the animated movie picture before Po is called to Master ‘Kung Fu Panda 2’ at Marina Mall on Shifu to learn about finding inner Saturday morning. With the assispeace. However, the peaceful air is tance and support provided by soon disturbed by a pack of wolf Shabab AlKhair Group, children soldiers and an action fight from the Kuwait Orphanage sequence soon starts (Department of Family that puts most action Nursery) in addition to movies to shame. As the guests from the media wolves retreat Po, along and families attended with the fearsome five, the event. The other set out to defeat Shen screening was dedicatand find inner peace. ed to staff members In this movie, Po from McDonald’s crew finally remembers his and head office. parents and how he A day filled with hapwas distanced from piness which is part of them. During his jourMcDonald’s ongoing ney, he also visits the commitment of giving village where he lived back to the community, with them, when his began with the screenmother left him in the ing of the film, after basket with radish after which the McDonald’s KUWAIT: Po the main character of Kung Fu Panda. the attack on the village ‘Senior Stars,’ distributed goodie bags to children that were maintaining high-quality products to keep him safe. Then the duck filled with fun gifts and souvenirs served in a safe and friendly atmos- who found him adopted him. The movie is full of action and nice from the movie. The children were phere.

The audience enjoyed watching moves, and Po finally saves China. also treated to a ‘Kung Fu Panda the animated comedy with all of its Overall, Kung Fu Panda 2 is a sequel Happy Meal.’

McDonald’s Kuwait constantly funny characters. The story starts that is a must see, especially for childemonstrates its support to the out with a background story about dren and fans of the movie.

By Nawara Fattahova

community and has a long history in sponsoring activities and sporting events for children in the community. Operating since 1994 in Kuwait, McDonald’s today has 62 restaurants that are geographically located in service to customers in many areas, committed to the wellbeing of society with an active social responsibility agenda, while

The report, which was leaked to the local Arabic press, states that the country’s poor and dated state education system does not fulfill the students’ educational needs, only encouraging them to parrot information without proper understanding.

It also accused the state education system of failing to encourage critical thinking, or to pay attention to students’ interests and extracurricular activities.

A Ministry of Education insider

told the Kuwait Times that recent rumors within the ministry suggest that a new committee is shortly to be formed to take responsibility for improving the country’s state education system.

“There are many proposals by academics and teachers in the ministry which are promising and appear to be very positive,” the insider said. “We hope that they are executed in due time, and we hope to see good results in the future. Over the past two decades the education

MP demands aid for Syrian refugees

By A. Saleh KUWAIT: A lawmaker has put forward a suggestion that local charity organizations send aid to Syrian refugees who crossed the border to Turkey, fleeing from the violent crackdown against anti-government protestors.

“I call upon the Kuwaiti Public Committee(KPC) to pledge solidarity with the Syrian people as well as local charity foundations to supervise the process of collecting donations from Kuwaiti citizens. It will be sent in a convoy to refugees,” read a statement made to the press by MP Mohammad Hayef. He urged Dr M ohammad Al-Afasi Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Justice and M inister of S ocial Affairs and Labor to facilitate procedures to realize this.

Meanwhile, Hayef also addressed Minister of Communication and

Information Dr Sami Al-Nisf, and urged him to bear responsibility for “repeated violations committed by the Interior Ministry ’s Assistant Undersecretary for News Affairs Yousuf Mustafa,” specifically mentioning a footage aired on the state’s official television channel (KTV) of His Highness the Amir shaking hands with Syrian President Bashar AlAssad, before the Amir’s speech was telecast live last Wednesday, reported Al-Qabas.

Hayef fur ther argued that Mustafa “purposely kept news about Al-Assad’s crime from the news feed [on KTV] despite airing news from Libya and Yemen,” drawing a connection between this stance and the aspect pertinent with “governmental inaction towards Iranian infiltration in state departments.” This was addressed at the prime minister’s grilling motion that was debated last week.

system has deteriorated badly.”

Among the proposals and recommendations, researchers and academics have recommended increasing the salaries of expatriate teachers, a demand that many expatriate teachers have made repeatedly in recent years.

The recommendations also include strengthening the role of parent-teacher relations, developing new curricula, and paying more attention to students’ extracurricular activities.

KCCI condemns calls to postpone privatizing KSE KUWAIT: In response to two statements made by the minister of commerce and industry and Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE) manager concerning objections to KSE privatization plans and calls to postpone the step, Kuwait Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) issued a special statement that was distributed to all local dailies explaining the situation.

KCCI stressed that KSE manager disregarded the KSE committee, to which he should refer before making decisions, and directly wrote a memo to the minister demanding the postponement of the privatization process. KCCI statement also pointed that according to law 7/2010 pertaining the establishment of a Stock Exchange Authority, the current KSE manager was appointed until the market was rearranged, which means that privatization would end the current manager’s tenure. The statement also highlighted that according to article 154 of law 7/2010, privatization ought to be done within a maximum of a year as of publishing the law’s chart in the official gazette which was done on March 13, 2011.

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Three runaway girls found at apartment in Hawally KUWAIT: Three young Kuwaiti men have been accused of illegally housing three underage girls who ran away from their family home at an apartment in Hawally.

A week after the girls were reported missing by their mother, police spotted the second-youngest one, aged 17, at a local mall in the area. On seeing the officers, she attempted to flee, but was quickly caught. On being questioned, she told detectives that she and her sisters, aged 18 and 15, had been staying in a rent-by-the-day apartment in the area, explaining that the young men had offered to host them there after they fled their family home. Police found the other two girls in the apartment, along with the three young men, and took them all into custody pending further legal action.

KUWAIT: The two Indian drug dealers pictured after their arrest.

Two Indians in custody for trading in drugs 2kg of heroin confiscated

By Hanan Al-Saadoun KUWAIT: Drug squad officers arrested two Indian expatriates, one who worked as a chauffeur for a Kuwaiti family and the other a truck driver, over their drugsmuggling and dealing activities, recovering two kilograms of heroin from their possession.

The two men were arrested after the police received a tip-off from an informant telling them that the truck driver was smuggling drugs into Kuwait from a neighboring country. The arrests indicate a lack of oversight from customs officials as the chauffeur was apparently able to leave Doha Port with the drugs hidden in his vehicle without the car being checked.

Selective treatment Following a bus accident involving staff working at the US military base, medical staff from the base apparently left four injured Filipino workers at the accident scene whilst taking two American personnel for treatment, with the injured Filipino staff being picked up by Kuwaiti hospitals’ ambulances later.

Car crashes Three Kuwaiti children, aged 11, 12 and 14, were rushed to Adan Hospital after sustaining multiple injuries in a car accident in Ahmadi. In a separate incident, this time opposite Kabad fire station, two Kuwaiti men, aged 20 and 21, suffered head injuries. Both were taken to Farwaniya Hospital. Meanwhile, a 12-year-old Kuwaiti boy suffered broken bones in his right hand, whilst a 13-year-old compatriot sustained injuries to his chin, in a buggy accident on the Bnaider coastal road.

Both were taken to Adan Hospital. Following a fourth crash, this one near the parliament building on Gulf Road, a 29-year-old Kuwaiti man complained of back and neck pain, whilst a 40-year-old compatriot also complained of pain in his neck. Both were taken to Amiri Hospital.

Fight club An 18-year-old Kuwaiti youth was taken to Farwaniya Hospital after he sustained stab wounds to his left eyebrow and one shoulder in a fight opposite Sulaibiya police station.

Pearl diving expedition exclusively in Kuwaiti waters KUWAIT: Preparations are ongoing for the 23rd Annual Pearl Diving heritage expedition which will take place under the patronage of His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah between July 14 and 23.

Citizens aged between 15 and 20 can continue to submit their applications at the Maritime Heritage Committee of Kuwait Sea Sports Club (KSSC).

Committee Chairman Ali Al-Qabandi announced that the fleets of diving ships awarded by HH the Amir as well as HH the late Amir Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad AlSabah will participate in the expedition that will take place exclusively in Kuwaiti waters. He further noted in a recent press statement that the training camp will begin today, while the ships are set to officially set sail on June 29.

Before commencing the expedition, the divers will complete the traditional ‘Habab and Shona’ ship maintenance operations on July 5, before competing in the 18th annual ‘Riqqa Battle’ ship race on July 9. The media will be invited to join divers during the trip at diving spots on July 17 and 18. Al-Qabandi also announced that the 38th Annual Kuwait Fishing Grand Competition will take place this year on November 19.

Gruesome accident A Bangladeshi man in his thirties died instantly when the truck he was sleeping under in Shuwaikh started up and drove

off before he could get out of the way.

The shocked driver, also Bangladeshi, told police that he had not seen the man under his truck before driving off.

Dealer caught Hawally police arrested an Arab drug dealer in Salmiya, confiscating 60 tablets from his possession. The man was arrested after arousing officers’ suspicions when he fled on spotting them.

Following a brief pursuit, the officers caught him and discovered the reason for his nervousness. He has been referred to the relevant authorities for further action.

Over-friendly customer service A salesman at a Sharq store was arrested for sexually harassing a Kuwaiti female customer before physically assaulting her husband. The customer was apparently leaving the shop when the salesman allegedly touched her inappropriately. When she called out to her

husband, who was standing nearby, he rushed to her aid and remonstrated with the over-friendly salesman, who then assaulted him. On leaving the shop, the couple went to the area police station to report the incident. The accused salesman was taken into custody and is facing charges of sexual harassment and battery.

Pipe thieves caught Jahra police apprehended a gang of men red-handed as they attempted to steal 19 oil pipes from a building site in Roudhatain. Police were quickly at the scene after a passerby called them on becoming suspicious of the activities taking place there. They were just in time, catching the men, all Syrian nationals, about to leave the site in a half-lorry with the stolen pipes. The reason for the attempted theft quickly became clear when the men informed officers during questioning that the pipes were worth a total of KD45,000 on the black market.

NA insiders predict easy govt win in non-cooperation motion KUWAIT: Only 18 to 20 of Kuwait’s MPs are reportedly willing to sign the non-cooperation agreement which, if it gained a majority, could see the country’s embattled premier facing further difficulties.

Parliamentary insiders have suggested that the government is likely to obtain an easy majority of support from the country’s lawmakers.

Speaking on condition of anonymi-

ty, one source said that there was no expectation that independent MPs would align themselves with the supporters of the non-cooperation motion against His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser AlMohammed Al-Sabah. The insider further predicated that whilst the majority of other National Action Bloc (NAB) members are expected to support the premier against the

non-cooperation motion, MP Abdulrahman Al-Anjari has already expressed his support for the noncooperation motion. Other antigovernment MPs have already begun holding seminars in the third, fourth and fifth constituencies to pressure fellow parliamentarians who currently oppose the noncooperation motion into changing their minds. — Al-Shahed

Burgan Bank announces summer offers tie-in with Electrozan KUWAIT: Burgan Bank has announced a new partnership with Electrozan. From today, Burgan credit card-holders will be able to take advantage of special offers and gift coupons on a wide range of selected items, including iPhones, iPads, iPods, cameras, HP, Dell and Apple laptops and an extensive array of flat-screen TVs, amongst other things, at Kuwait’s leading electronic store.

The items selected were chosen due to the large demand for them from Burgan Bank customers, especially during the summer season.

The summer promotional campaign is available to all Burgan Bank credit card holders and runs from today to July 15 at Electrozan’s showrooms in Salmiya and Al-Rai.

KUWAIT: Thunayyan Al-Qinae, the Assistant Manager of Burgan Bank’s Segmentation division, Haneen Al-Rumaihy, head of the bank’s Marketing Management division, Ayman Al-Sweefy, Electrozan’s Marketing and Sales Manager, and Baiju Pillai, Electrozan’s Business Development Manager.

Concern over govt’s airport hotels plans KUWAIT: The Kuwaiti government’s plans to build two top quality hotels at the Kuwait International Airport site to cover travelers’ needs, as well as accommodation at the new Sabah Al-Salem University which is currently under construction in Al-Shaddadiya, are worrying the owners of local hotels.

The hotel owners have expressed concern that the new projects will put further pressure on them and add to the already fierce competition between accommodation-providers.

In a letter sent recently to Minister of Public Works Dr. Fadhil Safar by the Kuwait Hotel Owners’ Association (KHOA), the association’s CEO Ghazi AlNufaisi called on the government to cancel its plans to construct two major hotels in the airport area. AlNufaisi listed a number of reasons for the KHOA members’ belief that the construction of the two new hotels will hurt the Kuwaiti private hotel sector generally.

“More than ten hotels with a total capacity of 3,000 rooms are set to open [in Kuwait] within the next three years,” the KHOA head revealed, adding that the country’s existing hotels, with a total capacity of 7,000, have been operating at an average room-occupation rate of 51 percent over the past three years, with this rate expected to fall further to 40 percent after the new hotels open.

In the letter to Dr. Safar, who is also the Minister of Municipal Affairs, the KHOA head also pointed out that current investments in Kuwait’s hotel sector are valued at over KD1 billion, with the owners constructing their hotels on land purchased at market prices without receiving any government subsidies.

He further revealed that Kuwait currently has a surplus of hotels ranked at between two to five stars in all areas, including many only a few kilometers from the site of the two planned hotels in the airport area. — Al-Qabas

UN chief lauds Kuwait’s support for re-election BRASILIA: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has expressed his appreciation of Kuwait’s support, within its Asian group, for re-electing him for a second term as the UN’s head, according to a statement issued by the Kuwaiti Embassy in Brazil on Saturday.

The statement noted that Kuwait’s Ambassador to Brazil, Yousef Ahmad Abdulsamad, met the UN chief at a reception held by the UN’s office in the capital, Brasilia.

Ban, who is currently visiting the South American country, will be present at a number of events promoting the United Nations’ role in encouraging the establishment of development projects.

“The Kuwaiti ambassador expressed his delight at the decision made by the Asian group to re-elect Ban for a second term as the UN chief,” the statement said. The reception was also attended by a number of Brazilian government ministers, representatives of international organizations and many heads of diplomatic missions. — KUNA

15% increase in power supply by June 26 KUWAIT: The Ministry of Electricity and Water (MEW) is set to introduce an additional 15 percent of capacity to Kuwait’s current power supply levels from next Sunday.

This is the date on which the first phase of a new system at Subbiya power plant will get underway, boosting the plantís current capacity by 460 megawatts, bringing its total output to 1,300 megawatts per day. This will in turn raise the countryís total daily output capacity to 12,40 megawatts.

An MEW insider said that the output from Subbiya power plant will be raised to 2,000 megawatts by the end of 2012, with the second and final phase set to make an additional 7,000 megawatts of power available, further raising the state’s power production capacity. — Al-Rai

KBC to host staff open day at Aquapark

Ali Al-Qabandi

KUWAIT: The Kuwait Banks Club( KBC) announced yesterday that it is to host its annual summer open day at the Aquapark for banking sector personnel and their families this coming Saturday, June 25.

In a press release issued by KBC chairperson Reem Al-Wuqaiyan to announce the event, she urged all banking sector workers to come along and enjoy the yearly open day, adding

that a special entertainment program, including various competitions, has been organized especially for the event. Al-Wuqaiyan also reminded those banking personnel wanting to attend to submit their application forms to the KBC social committee’s office between 10am and 10pm any day this week, or alternatively to contact the social committee representatives at their own banks.

Reem Al-Wuqaiyan

The men are currently in custody awaiting trial.

Unhappy family Police are hunting for an 18-year-old Kuwaiti man who terrorized his family at their Sabah Al-Salem home, demanding money from them, before fleeing. After he left, his shaken mother immediately called police to report the incident, telling officers that he had physically assaulted his brothers, as well as threatening to kill her and his siblings if she refused to give him money.

Drunks in custody Police arrested a drunken couple as they left a Salmiya apartment, with the man and woman’s erratic behavior catching the eye of the passing patrol officers.

The officers had to call for back up when the inebriated couple violently resisted arrest, and they were taken into custody to sober up. — Al-Anba, Al-Rai, AlWatan

Kuwait Digest

Reading into grilling motion results

By Dr Abdulmuhsin Jamaal

T

he more success His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammad AlSabah has achieved in facing allegations leveled at him in the form of his grilling motions, the more MPs have begun losing faith in the motion’s strength or its presenters’ arguments.

Perhaps after realizing that, oppositionist MP Musallam Al-Barrak swiftly announced that a new interpellation motion will be filed against the premier, even before the current grilling is completed as the non-cooperation motion voting session is still two weeks away, without considering his fellow MPs’ opinions.

From these political events and others during and after the debate session, we can conclude: 1 The grilling motion has failed as its three presenters were not able to support their argument mainly on Kuwait’s foreign policy.

2 The motion’s initiators are aware that they will not be able to pass the non-cooperation motion filed against the premier, who is to have his parliamentary confidence renewed for an unprecedented third time in a single tenure, not only in Kuwait but also in the entire Arab World.

3 Grilling motions have lost their efficacy as a productive political tool a method utilized by those who engage in personal disputes with HH Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Sabah so as to declare ‘political war’ against him.

4 Political blocs are no longer coordinating with each other before presenting grilling motions. Al-Barrak, for example, should have waited until after the voting process for the noncooperation motion was filed following the recent grilling, to avoid complicating the position of the grilling motion’s presenters by making it seem that the current motion cannot be passed.

5 This grilling motion is considered to be the second failed one that was filed by MP Mubarak Al-Waalan, who previously filed an interpellation motion against Minister of Public Works and State Minister of Municipality Affairs Dr Fadhel Safar.

Spectators also condemned the fact that the grilling motion’s presenters insisted on involving issues that fall under the purview of HH the Amir, despite clarifications received from HH the premier. Meanwhile, involving Kuwait’s relationship with other Gulf Cooperation Council member states into the grilling is also seen as pointless. These relations have always been strong enough not to be affected by political immaturity, as they are run through direct cooperation between leaders of member states. Perhaps the fact that GCC foreign ministers were meeting to discuss regional updates in parallel with the grilling motion, is the best answer to be given to lawmakers. — Al-Qabas

Kuwait, Wayne State University agree medicine scholarship program WASHINGTON: The head of Kuwait’s Cultural Office in Washington D.C. on Friday signed an agreement on behalf of Kuwait’s Ministry of Higher Education with senior officials from Michigan’s Wayne State University to initiate a medical studies scholarship program there for Kuwaiti students.

Speaking after the signing ceremony, the senior Kuwaiti official, Dr. Abdulaziz Al-Omar, said that under the terms of the agreement, ten seats will be reserved annually for Kuwaiti students, beginning in the upcoming 2011-12 academic year.

Dr. Al-Omar explained that this latest agreement is part of the ministry’s overall plan to provide more medical sciences training, with the ten places at Wayne State University to be offered for students in pharmacology, adding to the existing dentistry scholarships there offered to 27 Kuwaiti students annually.

Dr Al-Omar took the opportunity to thank the education ministry for working closely with the Cultural Office and for its efforts in ensuring the completion of the agreement.

He affirmed that the program’s success depends primarily on the selection of the best candidates for places and on their qualifications. — KUNA

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Kuwait marks ‘actual independence day’

KUWAIT: (file) His Highness Sheikh Abdullah AlSalem Al-Sabah signing the agreement.

KUWAIT: Many Kuwaitis will currently be recalling the deeds and achievements of the late Amir His Highness Sheikh Abdullah Al-Salem Al-Sabah, in bringing about their nation’s independence and creating the modern-day state of Kuwait. As a figure cherished by Kuwaitis, his memory will be particularly revered as the country marks the true 50th anniversary, today, of the country’s becoming an independent state.

According to heritage researcher Abdullah Bukhait Al-Bukhait, although June 19 was the true date of the country’s becoming officially independent, an Amiri decree was issued on May 18, 1964 stating that the official independence day celebrations should take place on Feb 25, rather than on June 19, since the former date was the one on which HH Sheikh Abdullah Al-

KUWAIT: Dalal Al-Bader (second left) and Lulwa Al-Mulla (middle) cutting the ribbon.

Salem Al-Sabah ascended to the throne.

Due to this decision, Kuwait has celebrated its independence annually on June 25 since 1965. Al-Bukhait explained that although Kuwait became independent of the UK in 1961, the country was a proudly independent nation for some centuries before becoming a British protectorate, going back to the 17th century when its rulers managed its domestic affairs and ruled on matters of foreign policy.

During the reign of Sheikh Mubarak Bin Sabah, the seventh ruler of Kuwait (18961915), the late Amir signed the protectorate treaty with Great Britain to safeguard Kuwait against external expansionist schemes. According to the treaty, London took charge of running Kuwait’s foreign affairs, whilst the national rulers were in

KUWAIT: Some children in the Aqua Tots swimming pool.

Aqua Tots makes a splash in Kuwait

By Nawara Fattahova KUWAIT: A swimming school for children from infants to 12-yearolds, the first of its kind to be launched in Kuwait, opened on Thursday. The Aqua Tots Swim School, located at the Women’s Cultural and Social Society (WCSS), is the first fully accredited Aqua Tots facility to open in the Middle East.

The inaugural ceremony was attended by Lulwa Al-Mulla, the WCSS Secretary General; Dalal AlBader, the President and CEO of International Centers and Aqua Tots’ sole agent in the Middle East; and Ron Sharo and Paul Preston, the Chairman and Deputy Chairman of Aqua Tots, as well as officials from Scuba Diving International (SDI), instructors at the new facility and other guests.

In her speech at the event, AlBader said that after opening its first Middle East outlet in Kuwait,

KUWAIT: Al-Bader and Al-Mulla with the staff of Aqua Tots. the Aqua Tots organization hopes to open others here and elsewhere in the region shortly: “We are planning to expand,” she explained. “ We will hopefully open another branch in Kuwait and a branch in Tunis by next year.”

At the center, professional swimming instructors will provide training courses for youngsters in swimming diving. “The instructors are from international

diving schools, such as Scuba Diving International and others,” Al-Bader went on, adding, “We have chosen the best instructors who have received specialist training for more than 35 hours, including in first aid.”

Aqua Tots provides eight levels of training for its young students, Al-Bader further explained. “We teach children the importance of water safety and encourage a lifelong love of swimming,” she said.

“Each class includes no more than four students. We also provide classes for disabled kids. The Aqua Tots-certified staff will be happy to assist in proper class placement to ensure the best experience for the individual child. Registration on the courses is open to kids aged from six months to 12 years.”

The WCSS head lauded the new facility. “[Kuwaiti] society is keen to support young Kuwaiti talents,” said Al-Mulla, adding, “This is our fourth kids’ activity after the Amal Club, Al-Bustan Nurser y and Al-Ibda’a Arabic Language Learning [school].”

Another speaker at the event, SDI official Salwa Al-Sayid, noted that the scuba training and certification agency ’s first Kuwait branch was launched in 2009, offering the agency ’s 40-year worldwide record of providing training and certification to those in the country wishing to take up the pastime.

charge of domestic affairs. Kuwait has made great strides on the road to development since the era of Sheikh Mubarak Bin Sabah, and subsequently during the reign of his sons, Sheikh Jaber Bin Mubarak (19151917), and Sheikh Salem Bin Mubarak (1917-1921), as well as under the reign of his grandson Sheikh Ahmad Al-Jaber (19211950). The reign of his grandson, Sheikh Abdullah Al-Salem Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah (1950-1965), witnessed the revoking of the protection accord with Britain, on June 26,1961.

Having scrapped the accord with Britain, Kuwait took charge of its own domestic and foreign affairs, becoming fully independent of the UK or any other nation. Shedding further light on those glorious days, for current Kuwaitis and their forebears, Al-Bukhait

quoted some excerpts from Sheikh Abdullah Al-Salem’s historic declaration of independence address, which was broadcast on Kuwait radio. “Today we witness a new chapter of our history, with a new accord according to which Kuwait has taken its full independence and sovereignty,” the ruler said. “The close cooperation between the government represented by officials, who are members of the ruling family and the faithful people has brought great relief to me and made me hopeful that this cooperation will proceed for the good of this country.” In his historic address, Sheikh Abdullah Al-Salem pledged to cement ties between Kuwait and other Arab states, as well as with the United Nations and other international organizations in the service of global security. — KUNA

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KUWAIT: Dean of the Diplomatic Corps, the Senegalese Ambassador Abdul Ahad Embaki hosted a farewell gathering for the outgoing ambassadors of the Republic of Bulgaria Ilko Shivachev, and Bosnia and Herzegovina Yassine Rawashde. The event took place at the Crowne Plaza Hotel last Wednesday and was attended by ambassadors and other dignitaries. —Photos by Joseph Shagra

Egypt tourism minister to visit Kuwait CAIRO: Egyptian Minister of Tourism Munir Abdelnour is due to visit Kuwait tomorrow to promote investments in tourism between the two countries.

The Egyptian minister described his three-day visit to the country as a sign of deep-rooted ties between Kuwait and Egypt.

During his stay in Kuwait, Abdenour is expected to meet Kuwait’s Minister of Commerce and Industry Dr Amani Bouresli, Head of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry Ali Thnayan Al-Ghanim, Head of Kuwait House for National Works Yousif Al-Ameri and other tourism agencies in the country.

“These meetings will discuss ways of attracting Kuwaiti tourists to Egypt this summer season,” the minister said, stressing that “Egypt is safe” and that media outlets give unrealistic image of the situation in Egypt. The Egyptian Minister will be accompanied by a delegation of media, cultural and intellectual figures. Abdelnour was due to embark on a two-day visit to Saudi Arabia, yesterday, to discuss similar matters with head of Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities Prince Sultan bin Salman before heading to Kuwait. —KUNA

Single Window service elevates municipal performance KUWAIT: The “Single Window” service, adopted to complete operations and procedures at Kuwait Municipality, is regarded a step forward in elevating this governmental body’s performance, a municipal official said yesterday.

Deputy Director General for Municipal Affairs in Asima and Jahra Mohammad Salem Al-Harees said that “there are some difficulties that face this new experience, yet they will be fixed soon to ensure the success of such new move.”

However, he stressed, during an inspection tour at Asima municipality, that the introductory course to this new system should be shortened to ensure competing procedures as soon as possible.

He predicted that this new system would get the approval of the public since it would help finishing their paperwork in a timely manner. —- KUNA

Arab countries support work standards discussed at ILO Focus on migrant workers GENEVA: Most Arab delegates to the conference of the International Labor Organization (ILO) supported the adoption of historic international labor standards on decent work for domestic workers on Thursday, with only a handful of abstentions. But some highlighted the challenges to ratification and implementation in Arab countries. The region hosts a significant number of migrant workers, some 22 million, one third of whom are women engaged in domestic work, originating from Asian and African countries such as Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Nepal, Indonesia and Ethiopia.

The number of migrant domestic workers varies from country to country. While Saudi Arabia hosts some 1.5 million migrant domestic workers, estimates for Lebanon (225,000) and Jordan (77,000) are much lower.

These workers are largely excluded from national labor legislation, social security regimes and occupational health and safety provisions and are often tied to their employers through a restrictive sponsorship system.

The majority of them have their passports and papers taken away by their employers and are not allowed outside the home on their day off.

The informal, unregulated and isolated nature of their work renders them vulnerable to exploitation and abuse.

ILO Convention 189 and Recommendation 201 on Decent Work for Domestic Workers set out that domestic workers who care for families and house-

holds must have the same basic labor rights as those available to other workers: reasonable hours of work, weekly rest of at least 24 consecutive hours, a limit on inkind payment, clear information on terms and conditions of employment, as well as respect for fundamental principles and rights at work including among others freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining.

Under international law, the next step for Member States will be to submit the new labor standards to their national competent authority for enactment or other action, including ratification. Ratification would mean accepting the Convention and Recommendation as legally binding instruments and would require ensuring they are applied through harmonizing national legislation and other methods.

Whether or not Arab governments will ratify or seek to implement the new standards remains to be seen. “ There is an Arab consensus on the adoption of the Convention and Recommendation on Decent Work for Domestic Workers but there are major obstacles to implementation at the national level,” said Bahraini Workers’ delegate Ibrahim Hamad.

“Far-reaching legislative changes will have to be made in the countries that host the vast majority of migrant domestic workers, such as the Gulf Cooperation Council states.”

Saudi Workers’ delegate Nidal Mohammad Radwan agreed that it would take some time to achieve ratification, but

said significant efforts are already underway in several Arab countries to bring national laws in line with international standards: “ There is a debate in Saudi Arabia at the moment about introducing new regulations - such as an insurance scheme - to better protect domestic workers and the families that employ them. If these laws are passed, Saudi Arabia would move closer towards ratification.”

Speaking on behalf of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries at the Domestic Workers’ Committee meeting, United Arab Emirates Government representative Humaid Rashid Bin Demas noted that a unified labor contract for domestic workers had been adopted in Kuwait, and new legislation in the UAE would allow for labor inspection in private households.

“One of the greatest challenges to implementing this Convention and Recommendation, especially in Arab countries, is how to conduct labor inspection while respecting the privacy of homes.

Labor inspectors everwhere do not have the right to enter homes. So this could be one of the greatest challenges for Arab countries,” said Egyptian Government delegate Iman Nahas.

Many believe that, in order to be effective, legislative changes would have to be accompanied with, or indeed preceded by, a change of mindset.

“It is easy to discuss legal texts and conventions, and we may even amend national legislation and ratify conventions, but the real challenge is how to make these principles a reality. In discussing and adopting

this convention, we have accepted an international and national obligation.

We hope that our commitment to domestic workers will be both a legal and a moral one,” said United Arab Emirates Government delegate Humaid Rashid Bin Demas. “ There is a genuine need for awareness-raising in Arab countries, to develop a more humane view of domestic workers and to recognize that domestic workers are real workers, not servants,” added Bahraini Workers’ delegate Ibrahim Hamad. The vote took place at the annual 100th International Labor Conference in Geneva, Switzerland.

The ILO is the only tripartite organization of the UN, and each of its 183 Member States is represented by two government delegates, and one employer and one worker delegate, with an independent vote. A two-thirds majority of votes is required for a standard to be adopted.

Convention 189 on Domestic Workers (2011) was adopted by a vote of 396 to 16, with 63 abstentions and the accompanying Recommendation 201 by a vote of 434 to 8, with 42 abstentions.

The Convention is an international treaty that is binding on Member States that ratify it, while the Recommendation provides more detailed guidance on how to apply the Convention. Ten of the 63 abstentions were registered by Arab delegates, mainly employers who underlined their support for bringing domestic work into the mainstream and addressing human rights concerns but also voiced reservations. — KUNA

EPA ‘Land and Sea’ event promotes environmental awareness

KUWAIT: Mohammed Ghareeb Hatem receiving the prize on behalf of EQUATE.

EQUATE sponsors IICO’s hospital KUWAIT: In recognition of its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives, EQUATE Petrochemical Company was recognized during the inauguration of International Islamic Charitable Organization’s (IICO) palliative care hospital under the patronage of His Highness the Amir of Kuwait Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah.

His Highness the Amir was represented by the Minister of Health Dr Hilal AlSayer and with the attendance of IICO’s Board Chairman Dr. Abdullah AlMaatouq.

EQUATE’s support and sponsorship of IICO’s hospital stems from its strategy to establish overall cooperation with all relevant bodies within and outside Kuwait to ensure sustainability at all levels.

Through EQUATE CSR Program and EQUATE Corporate Donations Team, EQUATE launched several initiatives relevant to sponsoring and adopting numerous sustainability driven ventures in medical, educational and professional fields.Such efforts have included fully renovating a pediatric ward at Al-Adan Hospital, as well as setting up a full reception area and providing heart rate measurement equipment.

Mubarak Al-Kabir Hospital received from EQUATE a state-of-the-art equipment to meet the needs of pediatric heart patients.

In support of Al-Babtain Center for Plastic Surgery and Burns, EQUATE supplied a system that enables collaboration with specialized centers around the world, in addition to a fully integrated

electronic archive for patient cases.

EQUATE donated equipment that enables the medical and administrative staff Ibn Sina Hospital for Neurology& Neurosurgery to facilitate performing their duties.

Currently, EQUATE is examining a project to renovate two wards at Hussein Makki Juma Specialized Surgery Center.

As for supporting persons with special needs, EQUATE constructed Kuwait’s first and only multipurpose hall for the Ministry of Education’s Al-Noor School for boys.

In cooperation with the Ministry of Higher Education, EQUATE has launched two university scholarship programs, with the first dedicated to EQUATE’s employees wishing to obtain degrees in majors relevant to the company’s business, while the second is for Kuwaiti high school graduates to pursue engineering degrees at US collages. The two programs currently sponsor a total of nearly 30 students.

Established in 1995, EQUATE is an international joint venture between Petrochemical Industries Company (PIC), The Dow Chemical Company (Dow), Boubyan Petrochemical Company (BPC) and Qurain Petrochemical Industries Company (QPIC). Commencing production in 1997, EQUATE is the single operator of a fully integrated world-scale manufacturing facility producing over 5 million tons annually of high-quality petrochemical products which are marketed throughout the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Europe.

KUWAIT: The Environment Public Authority’s Coastal Monitoring and Desertification Management division, yesterday held a ‘Land and Sea’ awareness-raising event at the Discovery Mall.

The event, held to mark the World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought, was sponsored by EPA Director General Dr. Selah Al-Moudhi.

In a press release issued to mark the occasion, AlMoudhi said, “The EPA has celebrated this global day for three years now by organizing different events.” This year’s event was organized by the Scientific Center, the Kuwaiti Society for the Parents of the Disabled, and a number of voluntary environmental organizations, he added.

The participation of disabled people in this event, planting trees outside the mall, was an exceptional move, proving the effective role they play in the community. The title of the ‘Land and Sea’ event was chosen to deliver a short but informative message to all the members of society, especially the young, about the vital importance of the land and marine environment and the problems both face, the EPA head explained. — KUNA

Special offers at Khairan Resort during Ramadan KUWAIT: The Khairan resort is offering visitors special discounts on reservations made during the holy month of Ramadan, as part of the Touristic Emprises Company’s summer programs for 2011.

The announcement was made by Resort Manager Adnan Zinedine, who explained in a press statement that visitors can make a reservation for six nights from Sunday to Saturday during Ramadan, while they can also benefit from ‘three nights for the price of two’ special offer for reservations made from Sunday to Wednesday. Also, visitors can enjoy a 20 percentage discount on reser vations made for weekends (from Thursday to Saturday night) during the holy month. Zinedine also noted that the offer is valid for ground floor and first floor studio apartment rooms, as well as chalets and villas.

Furthermore, Zinedine announced that a special program featuring entertainment sketches and competitions will be organized at the resort throughout Ramadan, which starts early August.

Adnan Zinedine

The Mercedes car at the Avenues.

NBK summer campaign at the Avenues KUWAIT: The luxury Mercedes SLS AMG Coupe showcased by National Bank of Kuwait for audience as of the three prizes to be awarded to NBK credit card holders attracted an unexpected and huge attention and interest by the crowds and visitors of the Avenues, who rushed to enjoy viewing and inspecting the fine details of the fascinating vehicles. This exciting promotion is valid until end of September.

NBK credit card holders will earn chances for a draw to win one of three brand new Mercedes SLS AMG Coupe when using their credit cards in Kuwait or overseas.

NBK Executive Manager, Public Relations & Advertising Department Manal Al Mattar said: “Use your NBK cards during this summer in Kuwait or abroad, and enter a draw to win one of three Mercedes SLS AMG Coupe”. “Every KD 20 spent on your credit card in Kuwait gives you one chance to enter the draw, and using your credit or debit cards abroad will give you two chances”.

Al Mattar added: “If you are not an NBK account holder, this is your opportunity to transfer your salary and earn ten chances into the draw. You can also earn additional chances by applying for a credit card or renewing the credit card.

“This is a fantastic opportunity to enjoy your summer this year while looking for-

ward to being one of the three lucky winners”.

It is worth mentioning that all interested customers can easily visit the Avenues and enjoy watching the luxury Mercedes SLS AMG Coupe, and you might be the “lucky winner”. For further information call Hala Watani on 1801801, log on to www.nbk.com or visit your nearest branch.

Manal Al-Mattar

SUNDAY, JUNE 19, 2011

2 killed as Venezuela troops storm prison

In ravaged Libya, ghosts of a Jewish past Page 8

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Rebels closing in on Gaddafi Rebels, Gaddafi force battle near Nalut TRIPOLI: Fighting between forces loyal to Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi and rebels trying to close in on his territory killed at least eight rebels near the northwestern city of Nalut, an insurgent source said.

The gun battles in the village of Takut, just outside Nalut, yesterday followed exchanges of heavy artillery fire near the city of Zlitan as the insurgents tried to take government-held territory east of the capital Tripoli. The rebels are seeking to seal off Tripoli from the east and west but their advances have been slow and weeks of NATO strikes pounding Gaddafi’s compound and other targets have failed to bring an end to his 41-yearold rule.

“The battles started yesterday and are continuing today in Takut,” the fighter, Abou Saa, told Reuters from Nalut, in arid hills some 200 km southwest of Tripoli.

“The revolutionaries destroyed six armored vehicles and killed more than 45 enemy soldiers. The rebels surrounded Gaddafi’s forces, who are holed up in a compound (in Takut).”

He added that 13 rebels were wounded in the fighting. The report could not be immediately verified due to a lack of independent media access to the area and there was no immediate comment from Gaddafi’s side.

On the other side of Tripoli, Zlitan, 160 km to the east, is the next major town on the Mediterranean coastal road to the capital from the rebel stronghold of Misrata. Capturing it would greatly advance the rebels’ strategy of cutting off Tripoli from all

sides. A Reuters team in Dafniya, on the outskirts of Misrata, said rebels fired artillery and rocket launchers on Friday but things were quieter yesterday. An insurgent called Mohammed Ali suggested inexperience and indiscipline had slowed the revels.

The rebels have said they will not attack Zlitan because of local tribal sensitivities, but are recruiting fighters from the town and waiting for the residents to rise up against Gaddafi.

Rebels are also fighting on another front: in the east near the oil port of Brega, 800 km east of Tripoli. They have made important gains on all three fronts the past few weeks, but remain far from seizing their ultimate prize-Gaddafi’s powerbase of Tripoli and its hinterland.

NATO SEES ‘POSITIVE SIGNS’ NATO planes resumed bombardments of Tripoli on Friday. Six explosions sent columns of black smoke into the sky. Gaddafi vowed to defeat NATO nonetheless.

“This is the first time they are facing an armed nation of millions. The alliance will be defeated,” he said in an audio speech on Libyan television on Friday. “We are in our country and we are determined to stay and defend it.”

In Misrata, rebel spokesman Ahmed Hassan said 10 civilians had been killed and another 40 wounded when Gaddafi’s forces shelled the city on Friday, a claim which could not be verified.

A NATO military spokesman, Wing Commander Mike Bracken, said in a briefing that west of Misrata there were “some positive signs that civil-

MISRATA: A rebel fighter fires a machine gun towards pro-Muammar Gaddafi forces at the front line of Dafniya in Misrata. — AP ians are unifying against the Gaddafi regime” and that “for the time being pro-Gaddafi forces appear unable to strongly counter the anti-Gaddafi forces’ incremental advances”. Another NATO bombardment struck in the region of Gzayha, on the Tunisian bor-

der, resident Mohamed Nagez said.

Libyan Prime Minister Al-Baghdadi Ali Al-Mahmoudi told a late night news conference that Libya would appeal to the UN Security Council for a halt to NATO’s aerial bombings. He said one air strike had hit the Al Fateh

University. “It has become clear to us that NATO has moved on to deliberately target civilian buildings. Who is killing civilians now? It is indeed NATO,” he said. Libyan state-owned Jamahiriya TV said later the prime minister had called UN Secretary

General Ban Ki-moon to call for an extraordinary session to investigate.

A NATO spokeswoman called Libyan reports of civilian casualties caused by air strikes “pure propaganda”. “The claims made by Gaddafi and members of his regime are outrageous. It is Gaddafi and his regime that have been systematically and brutally attacking the Libyan people..., shelling cities, mining ports and using mosques and children’s parks as shields,” said alliance spokeswoman Oana Lungescu.

“The mandate for NATO and our operational partners is to protect civilians in Libya against attacks and we are fulfilling that mandate ... We are conducting operations with utmost care and precision to avoid civilian casualties.”

The rebellion erupted four months ago in the eastern city of Benghazi. The NATO intervention has been going on for nearly 13 weeks, and strains are beginning to show within the alliance over the length and high costs of the operation.

Juma Ibrahim, a rebel spokesman in the Western Mountains town of Zintan, said Gaddafi loyalists were massing in Gharyan, about 120 km southwest of Tripoli-and besieging the world heritage-listed old city of Ghadames, some 600 km southwest of the capital on the Tunisian and Algerian borders. “( They) ... have destroyed some Islamic historic ruins ... palaces and forts located in the city’s old quarter,” he said. Accounts from Ghadames could not be independently verified. — Reuters

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‘Born free’ South Africans confront brutal history JOHANNESBURG: As she began a tour on Friday to learn about the brutality of apartheid, 17-year-old Boipelo Ndaba was skeptical that anything good would come of learning about that dark chapter of South Africa’s past that she’s too young to have experienced herself. That cruel system of white rule ended in 1994 with the nation’s first all-race elections that put Nelson Mandela into the presidency, but these days even his vision of reconciliation sometimes seems strained. Now, a new generation is growing up, not having experienced the humiliation of laws that required them to have passes to travel in their own country, that deprived them of the vote, that forced men to leave their families to work in distant places, that put those who resisted apartheid into prisons and onto the gallows.

In order for the generation born after apartheid, known as the “born frees,” to understand the past and draw lessons from it for the future, the government on Friday and on June 11 brought 250 teens

of all races and from all nine provinces to visit the Apartheid Museum on the edge of Johannesburg and to sites in Soweto, the black township that was a cauldron of resistance to apartheid. Ndaba, who came from rural northern South Africa, told a reporter outside the museum that she was concerned that talking about history could stir anger, making it impossible to bring races together and perhaps leading to a return of the violence of one group trying to dominate another.

“I worry that apartheid will come back,” Ndaba said. “Maybe we should forget about the past.” A tour organizer disagreed.

“We need to know our history,” said Simon Molefe. “It’s your background that guides you. If you can’t accept your background, you can’t move forward.” Over a hallway in the museum, 131 nooses dangle from the ceiling, representing the 131 opponents of the regime hanged under apartheid antiterror laws. Some students reached up to touch the nooses. They filed past a wall on which the last words of one of those

hanged, Solomon Mahlangu, are inscribed: “Tell my people that I love them and that they must continue the struggle. Do not worry about me, but about those who are suffering.”

Mahlangu was a member of the armed wing of the African National Congress who was only 22 when he was executed in 1979 on murder and terror charges. As he examined the exhibits Friday, a teen felt the pain of the legacy of apartheid that has affected his own life. Marcus Bhengu, a 16-year-old from the eastern coastal city of Pietermaritzburg, said his father left their home in search of work in 1996 and never returned. Bhengu sees apartheid’s effects even today, in the poverty that still grips South Africa and leads men like his father to travel in search of work and puts unbearable pressure on many black families.

Bhengu was inspired after visiting the Apartheid Museum to write a poem addressed to apartheid. “You separated me from my father,” he wrote. “I didn’t have

a chance of having a dad.” But he said his own experience and what he learned at the museum do not make him hate whites.

He said he learned from Mandela that if you treat a person who hurts you as he treated you, “you just become like them.”

“We must accept the past and deal with it,” Bhengu said, showing that despite the occasional eruptions of racial tensions that persist in South Africa today, Mandela’s message of reconciliation endures.

Mandela had spent 27 years in prison for fighting racist rule. From the museum, the students were taken on buses through Soweto to Kliptown.

In 1955, it was a muddy field where South Africans of all races gathered to adopt the Freedom Charter. Some of the students said they had never read the charter, which proclaims: “South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white.” Today the site is now a paved urban square built in honor of the event with huge concrete tablets containing the text of the charter. The trip ended at the

Soweto memorial to Hector Pieterson, a 13-year-old shot to death by police during the 1976 Soweto uprising. Thursday was the 35th anniversary of the June 16 start of student-led peaceful protests against apartheid that were met with police violence.

The day had its lighter moments. When the students rode past Soweto’s Maponya Mall, a grand shopping center built by one of South Africa’s first black millionaires, there were awed gasps. Some students rose to take photographs. As for Ndaba, her enthusiasm slowly grew as the tour progressed. She called Mahlangu, hanged in 1979, a good leader who “knew what he wanted.” She was impressed with how he had looked to the future for the oppressed majority, even when facing execution.

Ndaba said that despite the sadness that examining history can evoke, it can also be inspiring. She said dates like June 16, 1976, should be commemorated “because of all the people who died.” “I’ve learned so much,” she said.— AP

Britain urges citizens to leave Syria ‘now’ Lebanon wary of Syrian spillover LONDON: Britain urged its nationals yesterday to leave Syria “now” by commercial means, warning that its embassy in Damascus would unlikely be able to help them if the situation deteriorates further. “British nationals should leave now by commercial means whilst these are still operating,” the Foreign Office said in updated travel advice.

“Those who choose to remain in Syria, or to visit against our advice, should be aware that it is highly unlikely that the British embassy in Damascus would be able to provide a normal consular service in the event of a further breakdown in law and order and increased violent civil disorder. “Evacuation options would be lim-

ited because of likely communication and travel restrictions.” Britain urged its nationals on April 20 to consider leaving Syria, but has stepped up its advice amid escalating violence in the Middle Eastern country, where anti-regime protests have sparked a bloody crackdown by security forces.

“It is important that British nationals in Syria maintain a close watch on the situation and take responsibility for their own safety and security, making contingency plans accordingly,” a Foreign Office spokeswoman added. “Our advice is very clear, because of the current situation, we advise against all travel to Syria. We ask British nationals to heed this advice and leave

TRIPOLI: Lebanese people inspect damages in the Sunni Muslim neighborhood of Bab Al-Tebbaneh in the northern coastal city of Tripoli yesterday after seven people were killed in clashes between Alawites and Sunnis over a rally against the Syrian government.- AFP

Ghosts of Jewish past in war-ravaged Libya TRIPOLI: What was once the most beautiful synagogue in Libya’s capital city can now be entered only by sneaking through a hole smashed in a back wall, climbing over dusty trash and crossing a stairwell strewn with abandoned shoes to a space occupied by cooing pigeons. The synagogue, Dar Al-Bishi, was once the center of a prosperous Jewish community, one whose last remnants were expelled decades ago in the early days of Muammar Gaddafi’s regime.

Inside Libya, little trace of them remains.

Abroad, however, surviving members and descendants of the community are very much alive, watching with fascination from afar as Gaddafi’s forces and a NATO-backed rebel insurgency battle for control of a country some of them still see as home. “I have somewhat mixed feelings. I am sympathetic to people who want him out,” said Libya-born Gina Bublil-Waldman, referring to the embattled dictator. But BublilWaldman, who heads an organization of Jews from Arab countries in San Francisco, said she was still angry and hurt by the memory of her family’s expulsion from Libya. Those feelings remained strong, she said, and at this point she “would be afraid to go.” Navit Barel, a 34-year-old Israeli of Libyan descent, said the upheaval made her want to visit the country where her parents were born. Her mother and father, now deceased, both grew up near the Dar al-Bishi synagogue. “I feel like it brought back my yearning to talk to my father,” she said. Libyan Jews seem proud of their heritage and even nostalgic for their ancestral home. But they are also bitter at the mistreatment they suffered at the hands of Libyan Muslims and at the eventual elimination of an ancient native community in a wave of anti-Jewish violence linked to the rise of the Zionist movement and the creation of Israel.

Today, most of the community’s few

crumbling remains lie in Hara Kabira, a sandy slum that was once Tripoli’s Jewish quarter. Inside the Dar Al-Bishi synagogue, faded Hebrew above an empty ark where Torah scrolls were once kept reads “Shema Israel” - “Hear, O Israel” - the beginning of a Jewish prayer. The floor is strewn with decades of garbage. What was once a ritual bath next to the synagogue now houses impoverished Libyan families.

In a nearby alley, three arched doorways in a yellow facade are decorated with Jewish stars of David. The building was once the Ben Yehuda Jewish youth club, said Maurice Roumani, a Libyan-born Israeli and Libyan Jewry expert. Barel’s father, Eliyahu, taught Hebrew there. The government now owns it. Jews first arrived in what is now Libya some 2,300 years ago. They settled mostly in coastal towns like Tripoli and Benghazi and lived under a shifting string of rulers, including Romans, Ottoman Turks, Italians and ultimately the independent Arab state that has now descended into civil war.

Some prospered as merchants, physicians and jewelers. Under Muslim rule, they saw periods of relative tolerance and bursts of hostility. Italy took over in 1911, and eventually the fascist government of Benito Mussolini issued discriminatory laws against Jews, dismissing some from government jobs and ordering them to work on Saturdays, the Jewish day of rest. In the 1940s, thousands were sent to concentration camps in North Africa where hundreds died. Some were deported to concentration camps in Germany and Austria. Their troubles didn’t end with the war. Across the Arab world, anger about the Zionist project in Palestine turned Jewish neighbors into perceived enemies. In November 1945, mobs throughout Libya went on a threeday rampage, burning down Jewish shops and homes and killing at least 130 Jews, among them three dozen children. —AP

the country now.” The Foreign Office could not immediately give details on how many British nationals were still in Syria. The violence has claimed the lives of nearly 1,300 civilians and 340 security force members since mid-March, according the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Meanwhile, Lebanon’s army clamped down on two sectarian districts of a northern city yesterday after a rally in support of anti-government protestors in Syria triggered deadly clashes between rival gunmen. Troops manned checkpoints and searched cars and houses in Tripoli’s Bab Al-Tebbaneh neighborhood, a Sunni Muslim stronghold, and Jabal Mohsen neighborhood, whose residents hail from the same Alawite sect as Syrian President Bashar alAssad.

The communities’ long-running feud erupted into violence on Friday after dozens of people took to Tripoli’s Nour Square to show support for a three-month-old Syrian revolt that has drawn bloody crackdowns by Assad’s government. Security sources said between four and seven people, among them a boy and a soldier, were killed as street fighters attacked each other with assault rifles and grenades. At least 48 people were wounded. In a statement, the army said it had “returned the situation to normal” and was enforcing a ban on residents carrying guns.

“The army leadership affirms (that) it will not be lax with those who toy with security and who were the reason behind both civilian and military casualties.” Assad’s domestic challenges have been watched warily in neighboring Lebanon, where sectarian tensions have often been inflamed by Syrian involvement.

Damascus’s clout was especially strong during the Syrian military presence in Lebanon between 1976 and 2005, which also helped the standing of the small local Alawite community.

Since last month, northern Lebanon has seen an influx of Syrians fleeing an assault by Assad’s forces on the border village of Tel Kelakh.— Agencies

TRIPOLI: Libyans carry flags in the rubble of a university building in Tripoli yesterday, after officials said it was hit the day before by NATO airstrikes. — AFP

Imams, Sarkozy ward off Gaddafi spells and tanks AJDABIYA: Gaddafi’s spell has been broken, says Abubakar Tobji, a rebel near Libya’s eastern front line where imams have warded off the strongman’s witch doctors and “Sarkozy” has blasted government tanks. “At first, Gaddafi’s witch doctors thwarted our attacks with their magic. Every time we launched an offensive, a sand storm whipped up to blind us,” says Tobji who hails from Ajdabiya, the eastern crossroads city. “When our imams on the front line started to recite from the Koran, the witch doctors’ spells were broken,” he adds, exhausted.

He enters a modest house in Ajdabiya, some 40 kilometers from the front line on the road to Brega, where rebels have been trying in vain for weeks to take control of strategic oil installations. “It’s not my house,” Abubakar explains. “My house, at the eastern gate to Ajdabiya, was destroyed by a tank shell. I’m staying here, where a member of Gaddafi’s Revolutionary Council used to live.” In the lounge, an old computer screen sits draped in a dusty French flag, as flies hover insistently around the coffee offered to visitors.

French President Nicolas “Sarkozy intervened in support of the imams, now everything is OK,” he says, smiling and giving the thumbs-up. Abubakar, a fifty-something wearing combat gear, never mentions NATO

when he speaks of the alliance’s jets and helicopters that regularly pound Gaddafi’s forces on the front line. Rather, he attributes all military support for the rebels to the French leader. “Yesterday, Sarkozy destroyed three of Gaddafi’s pick-up trucks that eluded our surveillance and snuck just past Ajdabiya on the road to Benghazi,” he says.

Once a soldier in Gaddafi’s army, Abubakar took part in the campaign to take over neighboring Chad in the eighties. France intervened militarily to stop Gaddafi from taking N’Djamena, Chad’s capital. “I stayed there three years, from 1983 to 1985. That’s where my hair turned white.” He wants absolutely nothing from the French, especially President Sarkozy. On March 19, it was French strikes that stopped Gaddafi’s tanks from rolling into Benghazi, the rebel capital 160 kilometers north of Ajdabiya. “Sarkozy hit a tank in the street without damaging the houses,” Abubakar says, giving the thumbs-up again.

Another rebel, Saad Boitara sports a red beret. “He’s the best we have with an RPG (rocket-propelled grenade),” Abubakar says of his comrade, who then asks whether Sarkozy’s jets have pilots. In 1987, Gaddafi decided to disband the army and form Revolutionary Committees instead, leaving Abubakar without a job.—AFP

Young Syrians brave regime’s wrath to report repression GUVECCI: Young Syrian activists have taken on a mission to inform the world about bloody repression in their country, defying the regime’s restrictions on the media and risking their lives.

In a makeshift “media centre”, confined to a tiny room at a secret location near the Turkish-Syrian border, dissidents gather pictures and footage posted by protesters across Syria, and then publish them online. A television set, a printer, four laptops, several mobile phones and an Internet connection is all they have, along with their courage. They have learned by experience that recording the turmoil in a country where journalists are not allowed to circulate freely could be a fatal act of defiance.

Hussein, one of the activists at centre, saw his

brother shot dead while filming a protest. The bloody episode, he says, has only stoked his determination to fight on. The security forces “opened fire cold-bloodedly on marching protesters. My brother was shooting the event and got killed. He is a hero, because he was hit while he was filming,” he said, vowing to follow in his brother’s footsteps. “We are exasperated with government oppression, corruption and poverty,” he declared. Around 30 people work in the media centre, most of them from Jisr al-Shughur, the flashpoint town in northwest Syria, which was the scene of a major security crackdown that sent thousands fleeing to Turkey, only about 40 kilometers away.

The main outlets for their videos and images

HATAY: A Syrian refugee baby sleeps in a tent of the Boynuyogun Turkish Red Crescent camp in the Altinozu district of Hatay, near the Syrian border. Some 10,000 Syrians have crossed the border into Turkey to escape bloody unrest in their country.— AFP

are social media channels like Youtube, Facebook and Twitter. “Since the government bars foreign journalists from the country, young people have now become de-facto journalists in every city. Some shoot videos, some make interviews and others post them via the Internet,” another activist, Jelil, said. Jihad, a 28-year-old carpenter, is one of them. “My job is to send every video to various TV channels via Youtube.

The videos are about events in our cities. They show what the security forces are doing, the protests and everything,” he said, hiding his face behind a blue kefiyyeh. “I fear for my life, that’s why I cover my face. But I don’t do anything criminal. I’m just reporting on the events. I’m not a terrorist, or a gunman. I’m just one of those guys demanding freedom,” he said.

The “media centre” was first sending footage and images from protests, strikes and sit-ins. But as the repression grew violent, the activists began to announce killings and injuries. “We report about the view of the Syrian street about what’s going on,” Jelil said. The government has cut all communication channels to prevent the dissemination of videos and images online. The activists however have found a way to get round the restrictions, even though they would not reveal how. “The government considers every activity outside its control a terrorist act,” Jelil said. “For the Syrian government, I’m like (Osama) Bin Laden,” the late Al-Qaeda chief.

Jihad takes over to recount how he narrowly escaped from the security forces. “They came to my house to take me. My wife warned me and I ran to the rooftop. Then I jumped to another rooftop and fled,” he said. The bloody crackdown on protests, he argues, has radicalized the dissidents. “At the beginning, our goal as young people was only freedom. But today, we want the fall of the regime-our trust in them has vanished,” he explained. Safety and secrecy is a priority for the activists. “We have to work at a secret place because the government began to target us once they realized what we were doing. They want to stop us and put us in jail,” Hussein said.— AFP

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UN backs gay rights for ‘first time ever’ African and Muslim countries fume

GUATIRE: Relatives of inmates react outside the El Rodeo I prison during riots inside the jail in Guatire, Venezuela. — AP

2 killed as Venezuela troops storm prison GUATIRE: Thousands of National Guard troops stormed a Venezuelan prison Friday seeking to disarm inmates days after a bloody riot, setting off gunfights with resisting inmates that left at least two soldiers dead and 18 wounded. Bursts of gunfire erupted inside the El Rodeo I prison while hundreds of inmates’ relatives wept desperately outside, some of them shouting, “Help them!” Troops used tear gas and a water cannon to keep the relatives back from the prison as ambulances emerged to carry out the wounded.

Vice President Elias Jaua said one National Guard soldier died and 19 were wounded. Information Minister Andres Izarra said later on Twitter that another National Guard soldier had died. Officials did not mention any casualties among the inmates. “Part of those who are incarcerated have resisted,” Deputy Justice Minister Nestor Reverol told state television, saying that some of the troops were shot with high-powered weapons. He said they were in a prison tower and had refused to come down.

A military helicopter circled overhead while gunfire rang out inside the prison in what appeared be shootouts. A fire broke out in a prison tower, and then died down as the gunfire persisted. “We can’t permit anarchy in the penitentiary,” Reverol said as the gunshots continued to be heard. “We demand the inmates change their attitude.”

More than 3,500 troops were taking part in the operation in El Rodeo I and El Rodeo II prisons in Guatire, east of the capital, Caracas, and had about three-quarters of the prison population of more than 5,000 inmates under control, Reverol said.

The violence erupted as troops were carrying out a search operation to disarm inmates, National Guard Gen. Luis Motta Dominguez told state television. A riot in the prison last Sunday left 21 inmates and a visitor dead. Friday’s clashes were the latest in a series of violent outbursts in Venezuela’s severely crowded prisons, where rival gangs often fight for control of cellblocks and sell weapons and drugs with the help of corrupt prison guards. As the gunfire raged in the prison Friday, inmates’ relatives expressed anguish. “We have our

hands tied,” said Cecilia Mijares, 49, whose nephew was among the prisoners inside.

“This started early this morning. Listen to the gunfire.”

Ambulances drove in and out of the prison compound. The National Guard’s water cannon truck crashed into one of the ambulances that was leaving the prison, and another ambulance pulled up to help.

It was unclear if anyone was hurt in the collision. Government officials said the purpose of the operation was precisely to safeguard the lives of inmates. “The only thing we want is to guarantee the fundamental rights of the inmates,” Reverol said. Jaua said the government’s message for inmates’ families is that “the intervention we’re carrying out today isn’t to massacre their relatives.” “It’s to protect the lives of more than 5,000 inmates,” Jaua said in a televised speech.

A total of 124 deaths were reported in Venezuela’s prisons in the first three months of this year, a 22 percent increase over the same period last year, according to the Venezuelan Prisons Observatory, a watchdog group. Carlos Nieto, an activist who monitors prison conditions, said some inmates had told him that shootouts between troops and prisoners were continuing Friday afternoon, and that some inmates told him they had no intention of giving in. He questioned the authorities’ actions, called it the most serious incident in Venezuela’s prisons “in at least 10 years.”

Iris Villasmil, a pregnant 22-year-old whose husband is an inmate, said she and other relatives had been waiting outside the prison at 2 am hoping they would be allowed to visit their relatives when troops arrived and used tear gas and plastic bullets to disperse them. “This is horrible,” said Ana Blanco, 50, whose 18-year-old son is an inmate. “They live in there like animals.” “I’m crying because my son is in there and I haven’t been able to communicate with him, and what I hear are shots.” One woman who said her name was Maria Isabel and declined to give her last name said she was struck in the head by a soldier as he entered the prison on a motorcycle. A partly bloodied gauze pad was taped to her head. — AP

GENEVA: The United Nations endorsed the rights of gay, lesbian and transgender people for the first time ever Friday, passing a resolution hailed as historic by the US and other backers and decried by some African and Muslim countries. The declaration was cautiously worded, expressing “grave concern” about abuses because of sexual orientation and commissioning a global report on discrimination against gays.

But activists called it an important shift on an issue that has divided the global body for decades, and they credited the Obama administration’s push for gay rights at home and abroad. “This represents a historic moment to highlight the human rights abuses and violations that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people face around the world based solely on who they are and whom they love,” US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a statement. Following tense negotiations, members of the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council narrowly voted in favor of the declaration put forward by South Africa, with 23 votes in favor and 19 against.

Backers included the US, the European Union, Brazil and other Latin American countries. Those against included Russia, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and Pakistan. China, Burkina Faso and Zambia abstained, Kyrgyzstan didn’t vote and Libya was suspended from the rights body earlier. The resolution expressed “grave concern at acts of violence and discrimination, in all regions of the world, committed against individuals because of their sexual orientation and gender identity.” More important, activists said, it also established a formal UN process to document human rights abuses against gays,

including discriminatory laws and acts of violence.

According to Amnesty International, consensual same-sex relations are illegal in 76 countries worldwide, while harassment and discrimination are common in many more. “Today’s resolution breaks the silence that has been maintained for far too long,” said John Fisher of the gay rights advocacy group ARC International. The White House in a statement strongly backed the declaration. “This marks a significant milestone in the long struggle for equality, and the beginning of a universal recognition that (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) persons are endowed with the same inalienable rights - and entitled to the same protections - as all human beings.”

The resolution calls for a panel discussion next spring with “constructive, informed and transparent dialogue on the issue of discriminatory laws and practices and acts of violence against” gays, lesbians and transgender people. The prospect of having their laws scrutinized in this way went too far for many of the council’s 47-member states.

“We are seriously concerned at the attempt to introduce to the United Nations some notions that have no legal foundation,” said Zamir Akram, Pakistan’s envoy to the UN in Geneva, speaking on behalf of the Organization of the Islamic Conference.

Nigeria claimed the proposal went against the wishes of most Africans. A diplomat from the northwest African state of Mauritania called the resolution “an attempt to replace the natural rights of a human being with an unnatural right.” Boris Dittrich of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights program at Human Rights Watch said it was impor-

BBC reporter charged DUSHANBE: Tajikistan yesterday charged a BBC reporter with membership of a banned Islamist group, after his arrest sparked global concern that he was being persecuted merely for opposing the regime. Urunbay Usmonov, a correspondent for the BBC’s Central Asia service, was arrested on suspicion of membership of Hizb ut-Tahrir, which is outlawed in the secular Muslim states of ex-Soviet Central Asia. A criminal investigation has been opened against him “for participation in an extremist group,” the Tajik state committee for national security said in a statement. “The initial investigation, based on witness testimony and evidence, confirms Usmonov’s membership in Hizb utTahrir,” it said.

It added that Usmonov allegedly had long maintained contact with Hizb utTahrir figures and distributed its materials with the aim of bringing about a “violent seizure of power and change in the constitutional makeup of Tajikistan.” The BBC, which gives Usmonov’s age as 59, has said it “has no reason to believe these allegations” and also noted that Usmonov’s family has said he appeared to have been beaten up by the Tajik security services. The British embassy has urged Dushanbe to clarify the situation while the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe has said his arrest “raises concerns about undue limitations on free expression.”

Global media rights watchdog Reporters Without Borders said there is “little doubt” that Usmonov was arrested for his journalistic activities, noting that he has been unafraid to report on sensitive subjects like Tajikistan’s controversial Rogun Dam project.”Using the fight against extremism in order to crack down on dissidents is standard practice in Tajikistan,” it said in a statement. “So far, it is the police who have behaved illegally in this case.”

Freedom House meanwhile called for Usmonov’s immediate release, saying the Tajik authorities “have a history of using the fight against extremism as an excuse to crack down on voices of dissent.” Usmonov has worked for the last decade for the BBC’s Uzbek-language operation. Turkic-speaking Uzbeks form the largest minority in Tajikistan, whose national language is derived from Persian.

Hizb ut-Tahrir was founded in the 1950s in the Middle East and advocates the establishment of an Islamic “caliphate” across Muslim Central Asia, although its members insist they believe this should be achieved by peaceful means.

It appeared in Central Asia around a decade ago and its attempts to recruit new members and its distribution of anti-government literature has worried the authorities, particularly in Tajikistan, the poorest state of the former Soviet Union.

In the past decade, Tajikistan has convicted some 500 men and women for membership of Hizb ut-Tahrir.

This year alone, 40 have been jailed. —AFP

tant for the US and Western Europe to persuade South Africa to take the lead on the resolution so that other non-Western countries would be less able to claim the West was imposing its values.

At the same time, he noted that the UN has no enforcement mechanism to back up the resolution.

“It’s up to civil society to name and shame those governments that continue abuses,” Dittrich said.

The Obama administration has been pushing for gay rights both domestically and internationally. In March, the US issued a nonbinding declaration in favor of gay rights that gained the support of more than 80 countries at the UN. In addition, Congress recently repealed the ban on gays openly serving in the military, and the Obama administration said it would no longer defend the constitutionality of the US law that bars federal recognition of samesex marriage.

The vote in Geneva came at a momentous time for the gay rights debate in the US Activists across the political spectrum were on edge Friday as New York legislators considered a bill that would make the state the sixth and by far the biggest - to allow same-sex marriage. Asked what good the UN resolution would do for gays and lesbians in countries that opposed the resolution, US Deputy Assistant Secretary Daniel Baer said it was a signal “that there are many people in the international community who stand with them and who support them, and that change will come.” “It’s a historic method of tyranny to make you feel that you are alone,” he said. “One of the things that this resolution does for people everywhere, particularly LGBT people everywhere, is remind them that they are not alone.”—AP

Italy sends signal on NATO Libyan unity ROME: Any Italian debate about the possibility of ending active involvement in the NATO campaign in Libya could encourage its allies to push for a nonmilitary resolution, Defense Minister Ignazio La Russa said in a newspaper interview published yesterday. “I say that the government and parliament thinking about a date for the closure of our active participation could serve as a stimulus to our British, French and American allies to find a diplomatic way out of the crisis,” he told the daily Corriere della Sera. La Russa said Italy

could “consider the hypothesis of setting a term to our active participation in the mission” although “the willingness to make our bases available would remain.”

He said any decision on a change of policy would not come before the end of the current 90-day period authorized for the mission at the start of June. “In that period, as a country which is involved in the actions of which thus has a voice which counts, we should work as best we can to favor diplomatic and political solutions which could lead to the period after Gaddafi,” he said. —Reuters

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News

After 2-year run, ‘Barefoot Bandit’ faces prison

in brief

Wiring funds? $2.4 million in cables MEXICO CITY: Rather than wire their money abroad, crooks in Mexico decided to stuff it inside telephone cables and export them. Mexico’s tax agency said on Friday customs officials at Mexico City airport seized over $2.4 million in banknotes hidden in 1,640 feet of plastic telephone cables bound for Venezuela. A team with a sniffer dog found the package suspicious and closer inspection revealed more than 6,000 rolled-up bundles of US bills stashed into the hollow interior of the cable, which was about an inch wide, the federal agency said in a statement. A spokeswoman said a man was detained for questioning about the haul and that the investigation was continuing.

US Senators move to halt Japan base move WASHINGTON: US senators said Friday that they have taken a major step to halt a controversial military base plan on Japan’s Okinawa Island and called on the Pentagon to make a fresh assessment. Brushing aside insistence by the two governments that plans should go ahead, the Senate Armed Services Committee agreed to bar any funds to move troops from Japan to Guam and ordered a new study on Okinawa’s flashpoint Futenma base. The language was part of an annual defense funding act approved Thursday.

It needs approval from the full Senate and House of Representatives, but senators involved said that their actions on Asian bases enjoyed broad support. Senator Carl Levin, a member of President Barack Obama’s Democratic Party who heads the committee, said that the base plan in Japan increasingly appeared unfeasible and that the United States needed to control costs. “This is a major step to put all these changes on hold and to require some analysis of cost and to take an honest look at what the current plans are and what the alternatives are,” Levin told reporters on a conference call. The Senate intervened even though the Obama administration had put its foot down with Japan, insisting that the base plan could not be changed.

Gunfight kills 2 in Mexico border city MEXICO CITY: A gunbattle between soldiers and suspected cartel gunmen left two suspects dead Friday in the northern Mexico border city of Matamoros, authorities said. Mexico’s Defense Department said an army patrol came under fire and two gunmen were killed in the ensuing shootout in Matamoros, across the border from Brownsville, Texas. Soldiers found four rifles, two pistols and about 1,000 rounds of ammunition at the scene and a bulletproofed vehicle. A US newspaper reported that Zetas drug cartel leader Heriberto “El Lazca” Lazcano was apparently killed in the gunbattle. But the Defense Department statement said that “the physical characteristics of the dead men allow the conclusion to be drawn that Heriberto Lazcano, leader of the Zetas criminal organization, was not among them.” The Matamoros area has seen frequent battles between the Zetas and their rivals in the Gulf cartel. The gangs frequently kidnap migrants who move through the area, and hold them for ransom. Lazcano is considered the top leader of the Zetas, considered Mexico’s most bloodthirsty major cartel. The United States is offering $5 million and Mexico another $2.5 million in rewards for information leading to Lazcano’s arrest.

US drops charges against bin Laden NEW YORK: Federal prosecutors dropped charges against Osama bin Laden from attacks spanning more than a decade, officials said in court papers filed in US District Court in New York Friday.

Charges included more than 200 counts of criminal activity such as murder, conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction against civilians and more. US District Judge Lewis Kaplan approved the request, which is a common procedure when the defendant dies. The charges included bin Laden’s role in the bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. None of the charges were related to the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US. The court papers filed on Friday included a statement from a Justice Department official declaring detailed evidence that bin Laden was killed by US forces in a raid on May 2 in Pakistan. The statement said DNA samples, facial recognition analysis and the confirmation of one of bin Laden’s wives all confirmed the identity of the Al-Qaeda leader.

“These tests confirmed that the sample from the Abbottabad raid genetically matched the derived comprehensive DNA profile” for bin Laden, the official wrote in the statement. “The possibility of a mistaken identification is approximately one in 11.8 quadrillion.”— AFP

SEATTLE: A young man known as the “Barefoot Bandit,” who gained authority-mocking, cult status as he ran from the law for two years in stolen boats, cars and planes, now faces years in prison. Colin Harris-Moore pleaded guilty Friday to seven felony charges, ranging from stealing an aircraft to possessing a firearm. Prosecutors have said Harris-Moore hopscotched his way across the United States and abroad, frequently crashlanding planes in rural areas and stealing cars from parking lots at small airports.

His escapades, sometimes shoeless, were widely followed in print and the Internet - and earned him the “Barefoot Bandit” moniker. “We’re here today to say that Harris-Moore’s flight from justice has ended,” US Attorney Jenny Durkan said after the hearing. He will “spend a significant time in prison and will not make one dime from his crimes.” Under a plea agreement, Harris-Moore would forfeit any future earnings from movie, book, or other deals

from selling his story.

Earnings would be used to pay off the $1.4 million in restitution he owes to his many victims. Harris-Moore could receive between 5 1/4 and 6 1/2 years in prison when he’s sentenced in October, defense attorney John Henry Browne said. However, he still faces state charges in several counties, including the county where his crimes began.

Harris-Moore, now 20, smiled and greeted his lawyers as he entered the court room Friday.

He sat quietly - sometimes smiling, sometimes holding his hands and looking down - as federal judge Richard Jones went over the details of the crimes.

The federal charges, which included stealing an aircraft, possession of firearms and piloting without a license, stemmed from a spate of crimes in late 2009 and early 2010, when Harris-Moore was accused of flying a stolen plane from Anacortes, in northwestern Washington, to the nearby San

Juan Islands. Authorities say he later stole a pistol in eastern British Columbia and took a plane from a hangar in Idaho, where investigators found bare footprints on the floor and wall.

That plane crashed near Granite Falls, Washington, after it ran out of fuel, prosecutors said. He made his way to Oregon in a 32foot boat stolen in southwestern Washington - stopping first to leave $100 at an animal shelter in Raymond, Washington.

From Oregon, authorities said, Harris-Moore traveled across the United States.

In Indiana, he stole another plane, flew across half of the US, and crash landed in the Bahamas, where he was captured last July. Harris-Moore also faces several dozen charges in four Washington counties, with the most serious charge being burglary where a handgun was involved. Those charges will likely be consolidated and a hearing should take place in about a month, San Juan County prosecutor Randall K Gaylord said. Friday’s agree-

SEATTLE: John Henry Browne addresses the media after agreeing to a sentencing term with his client, Colton Harris-Moore on the steps of the Federal Office Building in Seattle. — AP ment calls for Harris-Moore to Browne said. “We’re very hopeserve his federal sentence con- ful it’ll be around the same sencurrently with whatever prison tence.” Browne added that Harris-Moore’s story would time he may get from the state.

But the state charges could attract enough attention to pay mean more time in prison off all the restitution. Asked beyond what the federal judge what Harris-Moore plans to do decides, as well as an increase in after he’s done with prison, the restitution owed, according Browne said that he’d like to go to federal and local prosecutors. to college to study engineer“All of this is up to the judge,” ing.— AP

Mexican girls trained as drug cartel killers

Strauss-Kahn spurring debate on harassment

Rising unemployment helps push kids into crime

WASHINGTON: The scandal around fallen IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn has proved an awakening for young women in France and has sparked a timely conversation about sexual harassment, a US author says. Elaine Sciolino, the long-time New York Times bureau chief in Paris, has just written a book exploring the issue of seduction in France and its importance in the corridors of power and the workplace. And she said maybe there was another chapter of her book “La Seduction” to write now, following the revelations of the sex scandal surrounding Strauss-Kahn.

The former IMF chief and French politician has long had a reputation as a womanizer, but now stands accused of trying to rape a chamb e r m a i d i n a N e w Yo r k h o t e l a n d s e x u a l l y assaulting her last month. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges and the case, which has rocked France, is making its way through the courts. But Sciolino has focused her book on i nve s t i g a t i n g t h e m o re re l a xe d a t t i t u d e i n France towards seduction, which is a part of the daily play between men and women, and at what point it tips over into harassment.

“Seduction is not criminality. Seduction when it’s done well it’s playful,” she said.

“The book was not about sexual harassment.

But I deal with sexual harassment in this book and I describe how different, very intelligent smart women, heads of corporations in France, look at behavior in the workplace that I would consider sexual harassment,” she said. “If somebody is mak ing a dir ty joke, if somebody is sniffing my perfume and tells me it’s so extraordinary I don’t feel necessarily comfortable.” And she relates how the French custom of kissing a woman’s hand made her squirm in a professional situation.

“I felt a little uneasy when Jacques Chirac kissed my hand when I walked into the Elysee. It immediately said: ‘I’m the man, you are the woman.’ “Why should he think he has the right to kiss my hand. If I want to shake his hand and be an equal, why can’t I be an equal?” But she added the Strauss-Kahn affair was a wake-up call for France. “I think this is France’s Anita Hill moment,” she said, recalling the woman whose accusations of sexual harassment nearly derailed the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the US Supreme Cour t in 1991 and sharply divided Americans.

“He still became a Supreme Court judge, but that testimony strengthened laws in the US. It led to a conversation about what is sexual harassment in the workplace. It led to stricter regulations in the workplace,” Sciolino said. “A conversation on this subject has been opened in France. I don’t k now : is the conversation going to continue? “Will the conversation die d o w n , w i l l t h e c o nv e r s a t i o n l e a d t o r e a l changes? But this is a moment that should be seized by French women to ask questions: what do we feel comfortable with, in our daily lives, on the street and in the workplace.”—AFP

CIUDAD JUAREZ: Police use a sheet to cover the view as they examine the scene where a woman was found dead in an empty lot in the northern border city of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. — AP MEXICO CITY: Dwarfed by surrounding repor ters and with her head bowed to avoid the television cameras, the slender 16-year-old hesitated slightly before she answered the question. “I’m a hitwoman,” she said.

Maria Celeste Mendoza was among six teenage suspected gang members arrested this week by police after a shoot-out with authorities in central Mexico, one of the growing ranks of young people working for the country’s drug cartels.

Dressed in combat fatigues and with her face hidden, the girl from the nor thern border state of Tamaulipas described how she had been trained to use K alashnikov assault rifles and other weapons by the Zetas, one of Mexico’s most brutal gangs. In a listless drawl, Mendoza said she was paid 12,000 pesos ($1,000) for two weeks’ work, more than three times the national average. Although she said she was trained as a hitwoman, it was unclear if she had killed anyone yet. As is customary in Mexico, she and the other suspects, six of whom were women aged 21 or below, were paraded in front of the media by police after their capture in San Cristobal de la Barranca, near the country’s second city, Guadalajara.

Rising youth unemployment, easy access to drugs and the quick cash

cartels offer recruits are all blamed for felling the delinquency that has cast a shadow over Mexico’s future.

“Organized crime has become a job provider for a section of the population who don’t have a lot of other options,” said Victor Clark-Alfaro, director of the Binational Center for Human Rights in Tijuana on the Mexican border with California.

“Since 2000, the age at which people start getting mixed up in organized crime has fallen,” he added. “And in the last few years, the age has dropped to about 17 or 18.”

Detailed figures on the role of minors in the cartels are scarce, but newspaper Reforma said the number charged with involvement in organized crime jumped to 214 last year from 8 in 2007, citing data from the attorney general’s office. The arrest of Mendoza and another 16-year-old girl with her, Isela Sandoval, is part of the trend. Sandoval also said she had been trained as a hitwoman but that she had not k illed anyone yet, according to Mexican media reports.

Around 40,000 people have died in escalating drug-related violence since President Felipe Calderon sent in the army to try to crush the cartels at the end of 2006.

LIVE FAST, DIE YOUNG Although authorities have arrested a number of teenage hitmen in

the past few years, it is highly unusual for women to work as killers for drug gangs, said Clark-Alfaro. “This may just be an isolated case. But it may mean a new pattern is emerging in the world of organized crime,” he said. Last December, Mexican soldiers captured suspected drug gang hitman Edgar Jimenez, known as “El Ponchis,” a 14-year-old US citizen who the army said had admitted killing several people while under the influence of drugs.

The vast quantities of narcotics moving across the country towards the lucrative markets of Europe and the United States have helped to turn Mexicans onto drugs earlier than before. “Kids are star ting to take drugs younger and younger,” said Alberto Islas, a security expert at consultancy Risk Evaluation. “A decade ago, the average age was 14, now it’s 10. This has the effect of lowering their perception of risks.”

Coupled with the fact that youth unemployment is now double what it was ten years ago-in a country whose growing population is one of the youngest in the Americas-the trends present the cartels with a rich source of cheap labor. “Young folk are recruited because they’re potentially more aggressive and less likely to care about the consequences than adults. — Reuters

Obama takes on new role, basketball coach WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama said yesterday ahead of Father’s Day that he has taken on a second job: as assistant coach for his daughter Sasha’s basketball team. “On Sundays, we’d get the team together to practice, and a couple of times, I’d help coach the games,” Obama noted for the first time, in his weekly radio and Internet address which this week marked Father’s Day. “It was a lot of fun-even if Sasha rolled her eyes when her dad voiced his displeasure with the (referees),” Obama said. “I was hopeful that in the years to come, she’d look back on experiences like these as the ones that

helped define her as a person-and as a parent herself.”

Obama has taken a lead on Father’s Day in recent years, delivering speeches as president and as a White House candidate that called on men to step up their responsibilities as fathers. The US leader, whose Kenyan father left him when he was only two years old, has also launched a national dialogue over the last year, on how to address early on the challenges of father absence, dispatching top officials around the country to discuss the issue. “My administration has offered men who want to be good fathers a little extra support,” he said

in the address yesterday.

Question of another child Obama said he and his wife Michelle had no plans to have another child in addition to their two daughters. “I think Michelle’s general view is ‘we’re done’,” he told the Good Morning America morning news show in an inter view broadcast Friday. Their two daughters are Sasha, 10 and Malia, 12 and Obama also joked about soon being the father of teenagers. “I understand that teenage-hood is complicated. I should also point out that I have men with guns that surround them, often, and a great incentive for running for reelection is that it

means they never get in a car with a boy who had a beer.”

The interview was mainly about family and fatherhood, but also touched on the economy and the resignation of Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner amid a flap over lewd pictures. “I wish Representative Weiner and his lovely wife well,” Obama said. “Obviously, it’s been a tough incident for him, but I’m confident that they’ll refocus and he’ll refocus, and they’ll end up being able to bounce back.” Weiner resigned on Thursday following a weeks-long scandal after he sent lewd photographs of himself to women on line. The White House

had called the situation a distraction and Obama said earlier this week he personally would have resigned.

Absent father Barack Obama, whose Kenyan father left his family when the future US president was 2 years old, said yesterday he still thinks about how things would have worked out had his dad been there. “I felt his absence. And I wonder what my life would have been like had he been a greater presence,” Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address a day before Father ’s Day in the United States. The president said that being a father was “sometimes

SANTIAGO: In this file photo President Barack Obama and his daughter Malia arrive in Santiago, Chile. — AFP

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Taseer’s daughter takes up his cause ‘We needourheroes alive’ KARACHI: A day after her father was gunned down by an extremist, a grieving Shehrbano Taseer wrote on Twitter, “A light has gone out in our home today.” It wasn’t long before the 22-year-old realized something else: Her father’s death had lit a fire in her. In the months since, the daughter of the late Punjab province Gov Salmaan Taseer has emerged as one of Pakistan’s most outspoken voices for tolerance. Through her writing and speaking, she warns any audience who will listen of the threat of Islamist extremism, and impatiently waits for her father’s killer to be brought to justice. And yes, sometimes she gets scared. She’s received threats from militants, who’ve warned her to remember her father’s fate.

NAWZAD: A soldier of the Afghan National Army stands guard at a joint US Marines observation post near the village of Kenjak-e Sofla in Nawzad, Helmand province south of Kabul, Afghanistan.—AP

UN splits Qaeda, Taleban on sanctions list UNITED NATIONS: The UN Security Council has split the UN sanctions list for Taleban and Al-Qaeda figures into two, which envoys said could help induce the Taleban into talks on a peace deal in Afghanistan. The move comes as Washington prepares to start pulling out its 97,000 troops in Afghanistan next month as part of a process to hand over all combat operations against Taleban insurgents to Afghan security forces by 2014.

Details of the divided sanctions lists were contained in two US-drafted resolutions, which the 15-nation Security Council adopted unanimously. One resolution established a Taleban blacklist and the other an al Qaeda blacklist of individuals facing travel bans and asset freezes. “The United States believes that the new sanctions regime for Afghanistan will serve as an important tool to promote reconciliation, while isolating extremists,” US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said in a statement.

She said the move sent “a clear message to the Taleban that there is a future for those who separate from Al-Qaeda, renounce violence and abide by the Afghan constitution.”

The Afghan Taleban, which ruled the country before being driven from power by US-backed forces in 2001, was playing host to Al- Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden when he launched the Sept 11 attacks on the United States. Separating the two movements has long been a Western goal.

The al Qaeda resolution strengthens the powers of the ombudsman, who handles complaints by individuals who say they should not be on the list. The Al-Qaeda sanctions list has been criticized by human rights

advocates, who say it has proven to be virtually impossible to get taken off it. German Ambassador Peter Wittig told reporters the ombudsman would now have the power to recommend removal of people from the UN blacklist and council members would have to agree unanimously to override the recommendation. Wittig, who has chaired the Taleban/Al-Qaeda sanctions committee, described the changes as “a major step forward to clear and fair procedures.”

‘PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTOR’ On the Taleban blacklist, Wittig said the Afghan government would have to be consulted on all matters regarding the listings, which will give them “additional ownership” of the process. Afghanistan’s UN ambassador, Zahir Tanin said in a telephone interview earlier this week that the move “gives us more flexibility. It will help to create a regime of engagement for people to join the peace process.” Tanin said that although it would not mean the end of sanctions against the Taleban, no longer lumping them with Al-Qaeda would be a “psychological factor” that could weigh with those Taleban considering giving up armed struggle.

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said earlier this month there could be political talks with the Taleban by the end of this year, if the NATO alliance kept making military advances on the ground, putting pressure on the insurgents. Currently, there are 138 Taleban and 253 Al-Qaeda names on what will now be two separate UN blacklists. —Reuters

News

in brief

Oldest prisoner freed LUCKNOW: Prison authorities in India have released the country’s oldest inmate, 108-year-old Brij Bihari Pandey, who was convicted of a murder he committed at the age of 84, officials said yesterday. Pandey, a Hindu priest, was freed on Friday by a court in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh on humanitarian grounds as prison officials were finding it difficult to provide regular medical treatment to the “oldest prisoner in the history of Indian prisons.”“It was getting difficult to take care of a 108-year-old prisoner. We moved an application for his release and the court accepted it,” said S.K. Sharma, superintendent of Gorakhpur Jail, 300 kilometres from the state capital Lucknow. Sharma said the release was based on humanitarian grounds. At the ripe old age of 84, Pandey along with 15 others, many of them his nephews and family members, killed four people over the inheritance of a Hindu religious institution.

Coast guard searches for missing fishermen KOLKATA: India’s coast guard yesterday launched an operation to trace about 400 fishermen who went missing during monsoon storms in West Bengal, officials said. About 33 fishing boats went missing on Friday in the choppy waters of the Bay of Bengal in eastern India. “Our team has been able to establish contact with some fishermen but we are yet to trace 25 trawlers,” Iqbal Singh Chauhan, coast guard commander stationed in West Bengal said. Naval vessels, hovercraft and helicopters have joined the rescue effort but incessant rainfall is hindering the search operation.

Chauhan said they had reports that more than 20 fishing boats had anchored at various isolated islands near the Sundarbans mangrove forest 120 kilometres south of Kolkata, capital of West Bengal. “Preliminary reports suggest that most of the fishermen are safe but we are yet to establish direct contact with them,” he said.

Blast kills 4 in Pakistan QUETTA: Four people, including two children, were killed and 28 wounded yesterday in a bomb blast and a militant attack on Pakistani troops, security officials said. The children and one civilian were killed by a remote-control motorcycle bomb targeting security forces in Punjgur district of the insurgency-hit southwest province of Baluchistan.”Three people including two children were killed and 26 people were injured, the target was a paramilitary convoy,” a senior security official said. Five soldiers were among the wounded, officials said. An official of the paramilitary Frontier Corps confirmed the incident. There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Hundreds of civilians have been killed since Baluch rebels rose up in 2004 against the federal government, demanding political autonomy and a greater share of profits from the region’s oil, gas and mineral resources.

No hero’s burial for Ferdinand Marcos MANILA: Philippine President Benigno Aquino has decided not to allow the body of late dictator Ferdinand Marcos to be buried in a cemetery for national heroes in Manila, his spokesman said yesterday. Ricky Carandang, head of the presidential communications development and strategic planning, told Reuters the president had yet to decide whether Marcos would be granted military honors when he is buried in Ilocos Norte, his home province. After two decades in power, Marcos was toppled in an army-backed popular uprising in 1986 that swept Corazon Aquino, the mother of the current president, to power.

“These extremists, they want to tell you how to think, how to feel, how to act,” says Taseer, a slim, elegant young woman with intense brown eyes. “It has made me more resolute that these people should never win.” Salmaan Taseer was assassinated on Jan. 4 at a market in Islamabad by one of his own bodyguards. The confessed killer, Mumtaz Qadri, boasted that he’d carried out the slaying because the outspoken politician - a liberal in Pakistani terms - wanted to change blasphemy laws that impose the death sentence for insulting Islam. To the horror of Taseer’s supporters, many Pakistanis praised the assassin.

Islamist lawyers showered Qadri with rose petals, and major Muslim groups, even ones considered relatively moderate, said Taseer deserved to die because, in their view, speaking out against the blasphemy laws was tantamount to blasphemy itself.

Two months after Taseer’s killing, gunmen killed Shahbaz Bhatti, the sole Christian minister in the government and another opponent of the blasphemy laws, which have often been used against Pakistan’s Christian minority. Bhatti’s killers left a note promising to target others who pushed to change the laws. Shehrbano Taseer still has trouble remembering those first moments and days after her father’s death - her brother telling her their father was gone, the rush of grief, the hundreds of people flooding her family’s home in the eastern city of Lahore. Mostly, it’s a blur. “I’d never lost anyone in my life, not a friend or anyone,” she says. “For everyone else it was the governor and their leader and this man, and it was this big, sexy story and it was so sensationalist. But for me, it was my father.” Taseer majored in government and film at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, and is by profession a journalist. She spends much of her time now writing columns and traveling in and beyond Pakistan to speak about Islamist extremism.

Salmaan Taseer, a father of seven, was not afraid to be blunt - a trait that attracted both enmity and grudging respect. On Twitter, Salmaan Taseer openly taunted and trashed extremists, once tweeting that he’d never back down on the blasphemy issue, “even if I’m the last man standing”. His daughter, who tweets under the handle shehrbanotaseer, is more gentle but just as firm. Her more than 9,000 followers on Twitter often receive notes that criticize Pakistan’s discriminatory laws, especially blasphemy claims that have reached the courts since her father’s death. When she singles out a politically marginalized community, either on Twitter or her

US, Vietnam urge calm amid tension in South China Sea WASHINGTON: The United States and Vietnam have jointly called for freedom of navigation and rejected the use of force in the South China Sea, amid simmering tensions between Beijing and its neighbors. After talks in Washington, the former war foes said that “the maintenance of peace, stability, safety and freedom of navigation in the South China Sea is in the common interests of the international community.”

“All territorial disputes in the South China Sea should be resolved through a collaborative, diplomatic process without coercion or the use of force,” the two countries said in a joint statement. Disputes have flared in recent weeks in the South China Sea, with Vietnam holding livefire military exercises after accusing Chinese ships of ramming an oil survey ship and cutting the exploration cables of another one.

China staged its own three days of military exercises in the South China Sea, which state media said was aimed at boosting the country’s offshore maritime patrol force. “The US side reiterated that troubling incidents in recent months do not foster peace and stability within the region,” the statement said. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, on a July 2010 visit to Vietnam that were closely watched around Asia, said that the United States had a vital national interest in freedom of navigation in the South China Sea. China has myriad disputes in the potentially resource-rich sea with countries including Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines-which said Friday that it was sending its aging naval flagship into the disputed waters.

Amid the tensions, China said Tuesday that it would not resort to the use of force in the South China Sea and urged other countries to “do more for peace and stability in the region.” In the statement, the United States and Vietnam threw their support for talks under the aegis of a 2002 agreement between China and the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations, in which the two sides pledged to work on a code of conduct for the South China Sea. China and ASEAN have done little in the intervening nine years to reach the code. Diplomats say that the Chinese appear to favor one-on-one talks with each nation, fearing that ASEAN would gang up on them in a group setting.

Despite the memories of war, the United States and Vietnam have been rapidly building relations-in part due to a spike in tensions between Beijing and Vietnam, which bitterly recalls 1,000 years of Chinese rule. “The situation with the sovereignty issues in the South China Sea has actually helped our relationship in a sense that they understand that they have a commonality of interest,” Senator Jim Webb said at a conference Monday. Webb, a former combat Marine in Vietnam, said that the United States needed to be firmer on disputes in the South China Sea. The United States officially does not take a position on disputes to which it is not party.

President Barack Obama’s administration has put a focus on building ties with growing US-friendly nations in Southeast Asia and has enthusiastically welcomed the growing relationship with Vietnam, which includes military ties.

While mostly supportive of warmer ties, many members of Congress are sharply critical of Vietnam over its human rights record and demand progress in return for better ties.

Human rights did not figure in the joint statement. The annual US-Vietnam talks involved Andrew Shapiro, the assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs, and Vice Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh. —AFP

other outreach, Taseer recalls how well her father treated that group, how he was often the only public official to visit their homes after an attack or publicly speak on their behalf.

Once, Salmaan Taseer took his daughter along on a visit to meet Mukhtar Mai, a Pakistani woman whose case attracted international attention because of allegations that she was gang-raped on

KARACHI: In this June 13, 2011 photo, Shehrbano Taseer, daughter of the Pakistan’s assassinated governor, speaks at the Social Media Summit. —AP the orders of a village council. The governor asked Mai to put her hand on his daughter’s head, so that Shehrbano Taseer could gain the same courage to stand up for her rights.

Like her father and Bhatti, the Christian leader, Taseer wants the blasphemy laws amended to prevent their misuse. The laws are vaguely written, and often used to persecute minorities or settle rivalries, rights activists say. The state has not executed anyone under the law, but the accused may spend years in custody. Some defendants have been killed by extremists after being freed by the courts. But Taseer has found that many Muslims, even moderate, liberal ones, are extremely sensitive about blas-

phemy. She recalls giving a speech in England when a woman in the audience suggested that her father deserved what he got because he was so blunt about the topic. “I said, ‘I don’t care what he said, and I don’t care how he said it. He didn’t deserve to be shot and killed for it’,” Taseer says.

She’s dismayed at the toll extremism is taking on Pakistan by spawning violence or an intolerant mindset. She’s also disappointed at how few Pakistani leaders are willing to take a public stand against extremism or how many find some reason to excuse it. She bemoans how for decades moderate or liberal leaders in Pakistan have appeased the religious right for short-lived political gains - whether it was by banning alcohol and nightclubs or passing laws that discriminate against certain religious sects.

Unlike many Pakistani politicians, she’s willing to criticize the role Saudi Arabia has played in funding numerous hardline Islamist schools in Pakistan. And she’s quick to note that the United States as well as Pakistan says little about it - after all, it needs Saudi Arabia’s oil. Pakistan has a tradition of dynastic politics. The most famous political family has been that of the Bhuttos, which spawned former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, also assassinated by Islamist extremists. Salmaan Taseer was a member of the Bhutto-led Pakistan People’s Party. Shehrbano Taseer says she views Pakistan as an enticing challenge akin to a Rubik’s Cube because of its many, convoluted problems. But she says she has no plans to run for office. “It’s such a dirty profession,” she says, laughing.

Sherry Rehman, a People’s Party lawmaker who also has been threatened for speaking out against the blasphemy laws, says Shehrbano Taseer will “chart her own future”. “She’s found a torch to carry, and she will do it,” Rehman says. “It’s what her father would have wanted.” Taseer is frustrated with the Pakistani justice system’s delays in processing the case of Qadri, her father’s confessed killer.

Pakistan’s courts have very low conviction rates, even in terrorism cases. Qadri’s confession may not be enough to persuade a court to punish him, considering the threats facing any judge who dares pass such a judgment. Taseer wants the former bodyguard to spend his life in prison, in solitary confinement. A death sentence is “too easy”, and a conviction would send a warning to other would-be assassins, she says. “In Pakistan, we have very few brave and honest leaders,” she says. “We need our heroes alive.” —AP

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Islamic reality TV show seeks best women preachers KUALA LUMPUR: A forthcoming Islamic reality television show in Malaysia aims to find the best women preachers and change conservative mindsets on the role of women in Muslim societies. The 13episode prime time program titled “Solehah”, an Arabic word meaning “pious female”, is a talent contest that will feature charismatic young Muslim women judged by clerics on their religious knowledge as well as their oratory skills and personality.

Although Islam allows both men and women to preach the religion to society, the field remains dominated by males in

most Muslim countries, something the show’s producers in this mainly Muslim but multi-religious Southeast Asian country hope to change. “If American Idol can help their contestants develop as singers, our show aims to help Muslim women develop as Islamic preachers,” said Zulkarnaen Mokhtar, brand manager at the private television station which produces the show.

The show will start airing in October and follows on the heels of the hit Islamic themed show “Imam Muda,” or Young Imam, which is shown on a rival TV station and seeks the best Imam or male Muslim

leader. Imam Muda is set to enter its second season. The television station said earlier in a statement that it had seen there was a dearth of reality TV shows catering to women and religion. “Solehah aims to be a show that provides religious education informally while acknowledging the role of women in the development of Islam,” it added.

The women are being judged by their ability mainly to “da’wah,” an Arabic word literally meaning to spread Islam. In practice it mainly means delivering religious lectures to an audience of Muslims to get

them to be better Muslims. The first day of two days of auditions for Solehah, open to Muslim women aged between 20 to 30, was held in the capital city on Saturday and drew a group of women clad in colorful headscarves, some accompanied by their mothers. They were tested by a selection panel on skills including reciting the Quran and delivering impromptu threeminute religious lectures on the responsibility of Muslims to help victims of natural disasters.

Amie Sofia Ahmad, 25, an Egypt-trained Quranic studies graduate who took part in

the audition, said some conser vative Muslims frown upon Muslim women appearing and promoting themselves so openly on television.

“But we live in a modern world and television can be an important medium to spread the religion so why should we continue to remain in the background?” she said. Prizes have yet to be decided. The prize for the Imam Muda men’s program are a job as an imam, or mosque leader, a car, a cash prize of 30,000 ringgit($9,922), and a four-year scholarship to Al-Madinah University in Saudi Arabia. — Reuters

South Korea troops fire at Asiana passenger jet Troops mistake it for North Korean aircraft

MIYAGI PREFECTURE: A woman lays flowers for the victims at the disaster zone in Kesennuma, Miyagi prefecture yesterday, 100 days after the massive 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami devastated the northeastern coast of the country and sparked the world’s worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl. — AFP

Cleanup system shut down at nuke plant TOKYO: A system to clean massive amounts of contaminated water at the site of Japan’s nuclear disaster was shut down yesterday, just hours after it began full operations, because a component filled with radioactivity much more quickly than expected. Tokyo Electric Power Co, which operates the tsunami-hit Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, is investigating the cause and isn’t sure when it will restart the system, company spokesman Junichi Matsumoto said.

Fresh water is being pumped in to cool damaged reactor cores, and is getting contaminated in the process.

Some 105,000 tons of highly radioactive water have pooled across the plant, and could overflow within a couple of weeks if action is not taken. In earlier tests, the water treatment system reduced cesium levels in the water to about one-10,000th of their original levels. The system began full operations Friday night after a series of problems involving leaks and valve flaws. The system was suspended yesterday when workers detected a sharp radiation increase in the system’s cesium-absorbing component, Matsumoto said.

Radioactivity in one of 24 cartridges, which was expected to last for a few weeks, had already reached its limit within five hours, he said.

Japan’s March 11 earthquake and tsunami knocked out power to the nuclear plant, incapacitating its crucial cooling systems and causing three reactor cores to melt. TEPCO aims to bring the reactors to a stable cold shutdown state by early January. The water treatment system is to be eventually connected to a cooling system so the treated water can be reused. But treating the water will create an additional headache - tons of highly radioactive sludge will require a separate long-term storage space. The Fukushima crisis shattered Japan’s confi-

dence in the safety of nuclear energy and prompted anti-nuclear sentiment. But there are also concerns that Japan will face a serious summertime power crunch unless more of its reactors get back on line. Of Japan’s 54 nuclear reactors, more than 30 - including six at Fukushima Daiichi and several others that stopped due to the quake - are out of operation.

Economy and Industry Minister Banri Kaieda said yesterday that the rest of the nuclear plants in Japan are safe and their reactors should resume operations as soon as their ongoing regular checks are completed.

He said nationwide inspections this week have found that Japanese nuclear power plants are now prepared for accidents as severe as the one that crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi. Resumption of about a dozen reactors undergoing regular checkups is up in the air amid growing local residents’ fear of nuclear accidents.

Many of the plants’ hometown officials have said restarting any pending reactors would be impossible amid the ongoing crisis. Kaieda, however, said Japan needs the power. “Stable electric supply is indispensable for Japan’s reconstruction from the disaster and its economic recovery,” he said in a statement.

The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency instructed Japanese nuclear operators to improve their preparedness for severe accidents earlier this month and conducted nationwide on-site inspections this week. The inspections focused on measures to reduce the risk of hydrogen explosions inside containment buildings as one of the lessons learned from the Fukushima crisis, the world’s worst atomic accident since Chernobyl.

Japanese nuclear plant operators have already taken other steps to improve accident management since the disaster to maintain core cooling capacity during blackouts. — AP

SEOUL: South Korean troops have fired at a passenger jet flying from China with 119 people on board after mistaking it for a North Korean aircraft, amid increasingly fraught relations on the divided peninsula. Two soldiers at a guard post on Gyodong Island, just 1.7 kilometers south of the North Korean coast, fired their K-2 rifles on Friday towards the plane, descending as it approached Seoul’s Incheon International Airport.

Ties between the two Koreas are at their lowest ebb in more than a decade after Pyongyang announced late last month it was breaking all contacts with the South’s conservative government. The South Korean Asiana aircraft was flying southeast over Jumun island, 12 kilometers south of Gyodong, towards Incheon, when the soldiers fired a total of 99 rounds including two blanks, Yonhap news agency said. “The firing continued (for) about 10 minutes but the plane was too far off the rifle’s range and it did not receive any damage,” Yonhap quoted a Marine Corps official as saying. “When the plane appeared over Jumun Island, soldiers mistook it as a North Korean military aircraft and fired.”

A Marine Corps spokesman confirmed the incident to AFP but declined to give further details. An aviation controller said that the Asiana Airbus 321 was flying from the southwest Chinese city of Chengdu with 119 people on board, including crew members, and was following a normal route. “It was flying normally. It did not deviate from its normal route,” the controller said. An Asiana spokesman said there was no damage to the plane as it was too far away from the guard post, adding that the military had inquired whether the plane had suffered any damage.

Following the incident, the Marine Corps will step up training for soldiers to help them distinguish between civilian aircraft and enemy planes, Yonhap said.

South Korean soldiers had been alerted to possible provocative acts by North Korea amid simmering cross-border tensions. After a few months of relative calm, since late May

PAJU: South Korean Catholic nuns release dove-shaped balloons during a mass for peace and reunification of the Korean peninsula at the Imjingak Pavilion in Paju, South Korea. — AP the North has been using harsher rhetoric against the South’s conservative governmentdescribing it as a US puppet bent on fuelling confrontation. The South’s Defense Minister Kim Kwan-Jin has told frontline troops that if the North Koreans attack, they should strike back immediately without waiting for orders from top commanders about how to respond.

“Don’t ask your commanders whether to fire back or not. Take actions first and then report afterwards,” Kim was quoted as saying when he visited the western frontline in March.

The minister’s remarks came after the South’s military was widely criticized for a perceived weak and slow response when North Korea last November shelled Yeonpyeong Island, one of five frontline islands, and killed four people. The arrival by boat in South Korea of nine refugees from the North on June 11 has further heightened tensions.

South Korea has rejected Pyongyang’s demand to send the nine back to the commu-

Floods, lightning kill eight in China BEIJING: Floods and lightning killed at least eight people as heavy rains pounded southern China, destroying homes and blocking roads, official media said yesterday. Flooding from this month’s seasonal rains has already forced hundreds of thousands of people from their homes and left more than 170 dead or missing. Two people died in the southern province of Guizhou after being struck by lightning, the official Xinhua News Agency said. Two others died after being washed away by floods Friday evening. Xinhua said four

other people died but did not provide details. The Ministry of Civil Affairs said Friday that flooding and rains have killed 25 people, left 25 missing and forced about 671,200 from their homes since Monday. Xinhua did not say whether the most recent fatalities were included in the 25. The torrential rains are forecast to continue through the weekend. Landslides crushed parts of a railway line in southwestern China on Thursday evening, stranding 5,000 passengers on four trains, railway officials said. — AP

Chinese workers flee Myanmar’s fighting YANGON: More than 200 Chinese workers have returned home from Myanmar after separatist rebels attacked a hydropower plant in the northern border province of Kachin, state media in Myanmar said yesterday, the first official comment on the recent fighting. The Chinese ambassador had met Myanmar’s foreign and border affairs ministers on Friday, media said, without giving details of the discussion. An official statement in the daily New Light of Myanmar outlined several threats since April by the Kachin Independence Army against Chinese projects in Kachin State, including the Tarpein Hydropower Project.

“The project, which is equipped with four 60-MHz generators, ceased to operate as from 14 June, causing a great loss to the state and the people,” it said.

Altogether, 215 Chinese employees assigned to the project returned to China from June 9 to 14, it said.

Responding to an attack by Myanmar’s army, the KIA blew up 25 bridges in the region from June 14 to 16, it added. Residents in the Kachin State capital, Myitkyina, said the region remained tense, but it was not clear if fighting was still going on. Sources in Kachin have said hundreds of people had fled their homes in the mountainous region to escape eight days of fighting up until Thursday.

An estimated 2,000 people were reported to have sought shelter in a camp run by the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), the rebels’ political arm, and another 7,000 had set up tents and shelters in the jungle along the frontier. The KIO has battled the central government for decades but agreed to a ceasefire in 1994 under which its fighters were allowed to keep their arms. However, tension has been rising since last year, largely because the Kachin

THANLYIN: Daily wages laborers carry sand unloaded from a ship as they work at a construction site in Thanlyin, outskirts of Yangon, Myanmar. — AP have resisted government pressure to fold their men into a state-run border security force.

Analysts say Myanmar’s 10-week old government, the country’s first civilian-led administration in five decades, is intent on seizing control of the rebellious states but is reluctant to engage in conflict with the numerous factions. Chinese-built dams have been divisive projects in Myanmar, with ethnic minorities

seeing construction as expanding military presence into their territory. Some analysts say Kachin rebels may be trying to hold the dams hostage in return for a share of the revenue from the projects. The risk of fighting spreading in the heavily militarized border region is a worry for China, which is building oil and gas pipelines through its Southeast Asian neighbor to improve energy security. — Reuters

nist state, but the North’s Red Cross warned Thursday that relations could worsen unless they are returned immediately. Seoul’s policy is to accept all North Koreans who wish to stay in the South, while repatriating those who stray across the sea border by accident.

The arrival in February of a boatload of North Koreans sparked weeks of acrimony.

That boat drifted across the Yellow Sea border in thick fog, possibly accidentally. The North’s military has also threatened an attack in protest at the use by some South Korean troops of photos of Pyongyang’s ruling family as rifle-range targets. The practice has been stopped but the North is demanding an apology. Media reports on Friday said the South has deployed missiles capable of hitting the North Korean capital Pyongyang near the tense border. The deployment of the surfaceto-surface missiles was in response to a recent rise in tensions, Yonhap news agency and Dong-A Ilbo newspaper reported. — AFP

China arrests 19 over riots BEIJING: Authorities in China have arrested 19 people suspected of “provoking incidents” during three days of riots in the country’s southern industrial heartland, state media said yesterday. The violence in Guangdong province was the latest in a series of flare-ups in the country, which analysts say highlight resentment towards an unresponsive government. The clashes in Xintang, a district in the greater Guangzhou area, began on June 10 after rumors spread that police had beaten a street hawker to death and manhandled his pregnant wife.

“On June 15 the judicial authorities arrested 19 people suspected of obstructing the work of the police, provoking incidents and deliberately destroying property,” the Zengcheng Daily said Friday in an article published on a local government website. The article stressed that nobody was killed in the clashes and said “armed police did not carry lethal weapons or fire a single shot”. “There was no confrontation between police and the civilian population, nor between the local population and migrants,” the article said. But television images of the unrest showed hundreds of officers and armored vehicles deployed, with people hurling bricks and bottles at local officials and police, and vandalizing ATMs and police posts.

The official state news agency Xinhua ran a long article yesterday highlighting wealth inequalities and social division between locals and migrant workers in the area. Official statistics show that Xintang has a local population of around 200,000 but as many as 500,000 to 600,000 unregistered migrant workers without access to public services, Xinhua said. The man rumored to have been killed was presented at a news conference by authorities last Sunday, telling reporters that he, his wife and their unborn baby girl were “doing very well”.

Police said they had detained a person suspected of spreading rumors on the Internet that triggered the clashes.

The public security bureau in Guangzhou city announced on its official page on Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter, that the suspect surnamed Chen was detained Tuesday and had confessed to publishing false information online. Elsewhere in Guangdong province, hundreds of workers went on strike at a watch factory this week in protest at long working hours, the Southern Metropolitan Daily reported. The Guangzhou riots followed hot on the heels of a mass protest in the central province of Hubei on June 9, when 1,500 people clashed with riot squads following the alleged death in police custody of a local legislator.

Earlier this month, hundreds of people battled police and destroyed cars in another incident in Guangdong, after a factory worker was wounded in a knife attack over a wage dispute. — AFP

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SUNDAY, JUNE 19, 2011

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Hopes, fears rise over Karabakh

By Matthew Collin opes have been raised of progress towards a peace deal to end the long-running stand-off between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorny Karabakh, but analysts warn that a return to war is also possible. There has been speculation ahead of talks between the Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents on June 25 in the Russian city of Kazan that the bitter enemies could sign a “basic principles” agreement - a small step on a long road to a settlement of the dispute over the mountainous region.

But 17 years after the ceasefire that ended all-out hostilities, tensions have risen again with regular firefights along the Karabakh frontline and repeated threats from Baku to seize the region back by force if talks don’t yield results. In response, the ethnic Armenian forces who have controlled Karabakh since the war and their backers in Yerevan have threatened large-scale retaliation if Baku takes military action. “This is not a ‘frozen conflict’; it is actually smouldering,” said Thomas de Waal, a Caucasus expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. “The level of the rhetoric makes war more possible and the danger is that, at some point, words could become deeds.”

Energy-rich Azerbaijan, flush with oil and gas money, has massively increased military spending, and a report from the International Crisis Group think tank earlier this year warned that an arms build-up and clashes on the frontline could lead to renewed fighting. The conflict in the 1990s killed some 30,000 people and forced around a million more from their homes. A return to war could threaten important pipelines which pass close to Karabakh, taking Caspian Sea oil and gas from Azerbaijan to Europe, and even involve neighbouring powers like Turkey, which supports Baku over Karabakh, and Russia, which has troops stationed in Armenia.

“The scenario could get very ugly - energy pipelines could be considered fair game, you could have a huge refugee exodus and the danger is that Turkey and Russia could be dragged in,” said Lawrence Sheets, Caucasus project director at the International Crisis Group. A statement issued by the US, Russian and French presidents at the G8 summit last month put pressure on both countries to “move beyond the unacceptable status quo” and “take a decisive step towards a peaceful settlement”. “We strongly urge the leaders of the sides to prepare their populations for peace, not war,” the statement said.

It urged them to sign a “basic principles” document that envisages an Armenian withdrawal from areas around Karabakh also seized during the war, the return of refugees, international security guarantees, and a decision on the final status of the territory at an unspecified point in the future. Officials in both countries said they had come closer to resolving differences over the document ahead of the talks this month, although they continued to express suspicions about the other’s motives. “I’ve seen some very hostile statements from both sides and nothing to suggest that some sort of breakthrough is on the horizon,” said Sheets.

Even if the document is signed, huge obstacles to a peace deal remain. Azerbaijan insists that Karabakh must remain part of its sovereign territory, albeit with widespread autonomy, while Armenia says it must never return to Baku’s control. The ethnic Armenian authorities who now control the region say that they too should have a seat at the negotiating table, although Baku regards them as illegitimate.

Karabakh remains a highly emotive issue in both Azerbaijan and Armenia, where enmity is constantly stoked by official rhetoric and media reports. “No one (in Armenia) believes that Nagorny Karabakh can be handed over to Azerbaijan,” said Manvel Sarkisian of the Armenian Centre for Strategic and National Studies.

“They believe that Karabakh should be recognised as an independent state or joined with Armenia.”

In Azerbaijan however it is considered absolutely unthinkable for the region to be allowed to secede.

“Azerbaijan’s position is clear - territorial integrity cannot be a subject for discussion,” said foreign ministry spokesman Elkhan Polukhov. “This position has the unequivocal support of the Azerbaijani public.” No country in the world, even Armenia, has recognised Karabakh as independent from Azerbaijan, but while Baku says that its sovereignty must be maintained, Yerevan says that the people now living in the disputed region must have the right to self-determination. —AFP

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All articles appearing on these pages are the personal opinion of the writers. Kuwait Times takes no responsibility for views expressed therein. Kuwait Times invites readers to voice their opinions. Please send submissions via email to: opinion@kuwaittimes.net or via snail mail to PO Box 1301 Safat, Kuwait. The editor reserves the right to edit any submission as necessary.

Cracks in Syrian army after months of protest

By Khaled Yacoub Oweis yria’s military, spearheading assaults on cities and towns to crush a threemonth uprising, is showing cracks along sectarian lines that could threaten President Bashar Al-Assad’s political survival. The 45-year-old president is relying increasingly on the army, whose command and many senior officers are drawn from his minority Alawite sect, in a military campaign seen as targeting protesters drawn mainly from the majority Sunni community.

Diplomats and military experts say mostly Alawite units have been implicated in the worst bloodshed in the unrest, angering many Sunnis and triggering some army desertions, but so far no major defection of troops.

“It is still unclear what threshold would have to be crossed in order for mass defections to start occurring (so) that other Sunni conscripts would view defection as a more viable option,” said W. Andrew Terrill, who has studied the Syrian army at the US Army War College in Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. The most loyal army units are the mainly Alawite divisions commanded

by Assad’s brother Maher, including the Republican Guard and the Fourth Armoured Division, each of which have around 10,000 men, backed by tanks. They are better trained and paid than the rest of the army, which numbers over 200,000 troops including conscripts, and are helped

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by smaller loyalist units and Alawite militias in several parts of the country.

Experts say that as the military build-up continues in restive regions, prompting further protests, the so far small-scale defections in rural areas could widen to higher ranks and larger numbers. High-ranking Syrian soldiers and police were among more than 8,000 refugees seeking shelter in Turkey from the crackdown in northern Syria, Turkey’s Anatolian news agency said.

But activists said there was a strong ideological streak in the military, which would resist sectarian splits, and that four decades of Assad family rule had focused the army’s mission on protecting the Syrian leadership.

“The army will be divided only if the regime collapses, not before. It is an ideological army and all officers are Baathists,” said one activist, referring to the ruling Baath Party. Terrill said soldiers and conscripts were tightly controlled by a secret police force which made “ordinary Syrian soldiers view themselves as closer to inmates in a prison than people with real options”. “The final acid test would be if troops felt that by their defection they could help defend their own homes and communities once these come under attack,” he said. “In that case, they would come under enormous psychological pressure to desert the army.”

Alawite dominance of the senior military ranks dates back to a few years after

the Baath Party took power in 1963.

Alawite officers captured key posts in air squadrons, missile batteries, armoured divisions and military intelligence. Among them was Assad’s father Hafez, who became defence minister and, in 1970, president. The protests against his son, Bashar, erupted in March in conservative rural Sunni regions and spread to the outskirts of Damascus and the commercial hub of Aleppo. Rights groups say 1,300 civilians and 300 police and soldiers have been killed.

A diplomat said dissatisfaction among Sunni ranks was increasing as the uprising continues and the army rank and file discover the scale of the killings in their home areas, such as the Hauran Plain in the south, cradle of the uprising, Homs province, and the northwest region bordering Turkey. In a sign that the Sunnis may be less willing to fire at protesters, witnesses said the army deployed several tanks this week near a football field in the city of Deir al-Zor, but soldiers did not fire as demonstrators passed and climbed tanks.

“I talked with one tank crew. They were from Hama. I asked the commander of the tank ‘Don’t you know that 71 demonstrators were killed in Hama on Friday three weeks ago?’” said a resident, who works as a computer engineer. “He said: ‘We know but we are soldiers.’ All the time they were looking behind their back to see if there was an officer watching them,” he said.

The tanks withdrew from Deir Al-Zor, the capital of an eastern tribal province that borders Iraq’s Sunni heartland, this week, in a rare instance of army deployment that did not result in bloodshed. Two defecting Sunni conscripts who had fled to Turkey said the army banned vacations three months ago, restricting access to their families in areas under assault. In the town of Maarat Al-Numaan, residents said a funeral was held this week for Hammoud Yehia Hassan, a soldier in his 20s, who they say was shot after refusing to fire at demonstrators.

A strategic studies professor in Jordan, who declined to be named to avoid sensitivities with Syria, said that the army remained in the grip of Assad and his brother, but that one major outbreak of bloodshed could spin Sunni units out of control. “The Sunnis are boiling under the surface and Assad cannot control events,” he said. A Syrian army ex-officer, who served in air force defence, recalled how he was the only Sunni officer among seven Alawites at his missile battery unit. “I think that the Sunnis in the army are counting on the silent majority of Syrians who are no longer shutting up and (who are) going to the streets before they move. “The price will be more martyrs. Whether the Sunnis can overcome the much better equipped Alawite units is a different matter, but at least they could provide protection for the demonstrations,” he said. — Reuters

Assad loses his grip to hardliners

By Samia Nakhoul resident Bashar Al-Assad is losing control to his hardline relatives, his forces are overstretched, his government is running out of money and the revolt against his rule is gathering support and funding. Given all this, analysts and Syrian-based diplomats say the international community is starting to plan for a Syria without the Assads.

The risks of a slide into sectarian war are significant, most Syria-watchers nonetheless say, believing Assad will fight to the end, and start to regionalise the conflict by inciting violence in Lebanon, Turkey and across the borders with Israel.

“Despite everything they have done over the past few weeks - killing, torture, mass arrests and raids - the protests are continuing,” said one Western diplomat. “This regime will fight to the death, but the only strategy they have is to kill people, and this is accelerating the crisis.” In its attempt to stamp out protests across the country of 23 million, the government has withdrawn most security forces from the suburbs of the capital, Damascus, diplomats say. Yet each time the authorities go in hard to deal with one centre of rebellion, other towns rise up.

Reliant on two elite units commanded by his brother Maher - the 4th Armoured Division and the Republican Guard - as well as secret police and militia from his minority Alawite sect, President Assad is plainly overstretched. “Our assessment is that the regime will fall,” predicted the Damascus-based diplomat. “They have three to six months of actual military capabilities to sustain this, but they cannot keep a prolonged operation going indefinitely”.

Najib Al-Ghadban, a Syrian academic and activist, said in London there was a broad consensus on overthrowing the Assad family after 40 years in power. “We believe strongly that the regime has lost its legitimacy. It has no vision on how to get the country out of the crisis. The situation is deteriorating,” Ghadban said. “We are certain this will reach a positive end like Tunisia and Egypt,” he added.

So far more than 1,100 people have been killed, up to 10,000 detained and thousands have fled since the crackdown began, according to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. The international community, diplomats said, see a post-Assad era ideally facilitated by a military coup and several governments are encouraging Syrian generals to mutiny. “We are isolating him and his family. We’re addressing military leaders and cabinet members to rise up.

We’re encouraging the generals to rise up”, the diplomat said. “The key variable is the continuation of the momentum (of the revolt). We really believe there is no point of return.”

He and other analysts also believe that Syria’s economic paralysis, amid insistent reports the government is running

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out of money and having to call on its inner circle for emergency funding, will fatally weaken the Assads. One diplomat said Assad’s cousin, the business tycoon Rami Makhlouf who is a hate figure for protesters, has recently deposited $1 billion at the central bank to stabilise the Syrian pound.

“When they are no longer capable of paying the salaries of bureaucrats, the army, the police and their Alawite militia this crisis will balloon and bring about the collapse of the regime,” the diplomat said. “This is a train wreck waiting to happen”.

Signs of stretched resources and fraying loyalties are already apparent.

As protests started to spread, the authorities pulled out contingents of security and elite forces from the capital, which are now firefighting from Deraa in the south to Jisr Al-Shughour in the north, the scene of heavy reprisals after the government this month claimed to have lost 120 dead to “armed gangs”.

But even so residents say there are demonstrations every weekend in Damascus and surrounding suburbs. The bloodshed in Jisr Al-Shughour was the result of splits in army ranks, diplomats say, an ominous sign for the Assads. “Around 50 soldiers and mid ranking officers defected and were supported by locals and the authorities sent a force to counter them and 120 were killed”, said another Syriabased diplomat, dismissing government accounts this was the work of Salafi fundamentalists as propaganda.

He and others point to the growing sophistication of the rebellion, which draws support from across society. “After

three months this is not a poor man’s uprising. There is significant financing from the Syrian business community and upper class. They give money for satellite phones, cameras, food, water and medical supplies,” the resident diplomat said. “This is a broad-based movement that includes not only Syrian youth, but imams from mosques, businessmen, even former Baath party members.”

Analysts are puzzled by Assad’s failure to address the nation in a speech since the revolt started in mid-March.

They point out that conciliatory statements by Assad promising that protesters will not be fired on and the killings that followed show that he is not in control. “The big unanswered question concerns the president,” said Patrick Seale, biographer of Bashar’s father, Hafez Al-Assad. “The question is: Is he (Bashar) complicit with the killing or has he been pushed aside? The people running the show are the hardliners, the thugs.” Seale added: “Assad is not in charge. He is showing no leadership. He is depasse. They have really taken over.”

Residents of Syria describe a state of fear and panic among the Alawite community, saying there had been revenge attacks against Alawite army officers and security men. They said Alawite officers in Sunni areas have pulled their children out of school and sent their families to Alawite villages or abroad. Syrian activist Ausama Monajed said the international community, which has put 13 Syrian officials on its sanctions list, should add army officers involved in killing protesters as well as Syrian firms linked to the Assad family. Syrian oil sales, worth $7-8 million a day and which Monajed says go directly to fund the military, should be boycotted. Arab states must build a consensus against Assad by lobbying China and Russia for a Security Council resolution, he said.

All scenarios that anticipate the downfall of Assad, however, depend on the Sunni-dominated army splitting, while Western military intervention such as in Libya is unlikely in Syria because of the regional risks. Analysts say the risks are high that Syria, an ally of Iran and Lebanon’s Shi’ite Hezbollah guerrillas and with a sectarian and ethnic mix of Sunni, Kurdish, Alawite and Christians, could slip into war.—Reuters

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Continued from Page 1 says it will surpass Aug 2. Vice President Joe Biden is leading a group of bipartisan lawmakers in deficit talks, and he was down to be Obama’s golf partner.

Boehner picked a fellow Ohio Republican, budget-cutting Gov. John Kasich, to join him for the round. Kasich was House Budget Committee chairman in the 1990s when Republicans were negotiating budgets with Democratic President Bill Clinton. While both sides say they’re optimistic about the progress being made in the deficit talks, Boehner has suggested he and the president may need to get more closely involved in order to reach a deal. The White House has played down any expectations about that happening on the golf course. “I can say with great confidence that they will not wrap up the 18th hole and come out and say that we have a deal,” Carney said.

Policy tensions between Obama and Boehner also have extended to the US military campaign in Libya. Boehner led the House in passing a resolution that chastised Obama for failing to provide a “compelling rationale” for US involvement, and has said Obama is in violation of the War Powers Act. In return, the White House has sought to discredit Boehner’s position on the act, sending reporters old statements Boehner made questioning the constitutionality of the measure. Boehner had a clear advantage over Obama on the scorecard.

The speaker reportedly shoots in the low-80s, good enough for the magazine Golf Digest to recently rank him 43rd among 150 prominent Washington golfers. The president, on the other hand, was ranked 108th. “Boehner’s a much better golfer than I am, so I’m expecting him to give me some strokes,” Obama said in a recent television interview. The president is likely to get a boost from Biden - Golf Digest’s 29th best golfer in Washington.

They are playing in private, but cameras were promised a quick glimpse of the foursome on the course. — AP

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner are on the first green as they play golf at Andrews Air Force Base yesterday. — AP

Saudi women challenge drive ban Continued from Page 1

PARIS: A vegetable pyramid is built in front of the Eiffel Tower by French vegetable farmers as they give cucumbers and tomatoes away to passersby during a demonstration organized by cucumber and tomato producers yesterday on the Champ de Mars to protest against the collapse of cucumber sales due to the fear of E. coli bacteria contamination. — AFP

Yemen crisis puts Saudis in a bind Continued from Page 1 Opposition parties ranging from socialists to Islamists of both the Sunni and Zaydi Shiite sects, and which signed off on the GCC deals, lost credibility with “Arab Spring”inspired youths who have emerged as a separate Yemeni constituency.

“We believed, and still believe, that the Gulf states do not want the youth revolution to succeed in Yemen, so that its effects won’t spread to the other states of the region,” said democracy activist Omar Abdelqader.

The opposition parties have participated in negotiations with

Yemen’s acting leader, Vice President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, in which the absent president’s fate was not broached. US diplomats helped broker those talks. But with Washington apparently preparing to pursue attacks on Al-Qaeda in Yemen with more use of CIA-operated drones, analysts believe it may have satisfied its needs in Yemen, and will leave kingmaking to the Saudis. “I don’t think the US has a policy on Yemen,” Carapico said. “One part is we back the Saudis and whatever they want is good enough for us, and then the other part of it is we really, really don’t like Al-Qaeda.”

The balance of forces on the

ground suggests no single contender will simplify the task of succession by emerging stronger than the others.

Though Saleh’s ruling party suffered high-profile defections, several of his relatives - including a son, BrigadierGeneral Ahmed Ali Abdullah Saleh, who leads the Republican Guard retain command and seem to have achieved military parity with the president’s enemies. “I don’t think you’re going to see many more people jumping ship at the moment,” said James Spencer, a defence and political risk consultant. “Saleh’s son and nephews have hung on ...

Ahmed Ali has made it clear he’s not going to go meekly.” — Reuters

Syria forces storm town near Turkey Continued from Page 1 Thousands of people turned up to a funeral of a dead protester in Deir AlZor, chanting anti-government slogans, Abdulrahman said. The state news agency said nine people, including civilians and police, were killed in attacks by gunmen. Syria blames armed gangs and Islamists, backed by foreign powers, for the violence. The Syrian government has barred most international journalists from the country, making it difficult to verify accounts from activists and officials.

Two towns on the main DamascusAleppo highway north of Homs were also encircled by troops and tanks, residents said, five days after the army retook Jisr Al-Shughour, sending thousands fleeing across the border into Turkey. Refugees from the northwestern region said troops and gunmen loyal to Assad known as “shabbiha” were pressing on with a scorched earthed campaign in the hill farm area by burning crops, ransacking houses and shooting randomly.

The International Federation for Human Rights and the US-based Damascus Centre for Human Rights Studies said in a statement that, according to local sources, Syrian forces had killed more than 130 people and arrested over 2,000 in Jisr AlShughour and surrounding villages over the last few days. The number of refugees who have crossed over into Turkey from Syria has reached 10,114, and another 10,000 were sheltering by the border just inside Syria, according to Turkish officials.

Journalists were given a brief tour of the Boynuyogun refugee camp in Hatay, where some 3,500 people were living in 600 tents. One refugee described how security forces clamped down on anti-Assad demonstrations. “We wrote anti-regime slogans on the walls. Then the government reacted by erasing the slogans and they arrested the guy who tore down Assad’s picture,” said a 26-yearold man from Jisr al-Shughour who said his name was Mohammed.

Another refugee named Adam said

security forces arrested people in the middle of the night a couple of weeks after the demonstrations. “They came to my house ... they started hitting me with the butts of their rifles on my back and head. They said “Is this the freedom you’re asking for?’”

Assad has responded to the unrest with a mix of military repression and political gestures aimed at placating protesters. He has faced international condemnation over the bloodshed, and has seen the first signs of cracks in his security forces after a clash in Jisr Al-Shughour earlier this month in which the government said 120 security personnel were killed. There have been no mass desertions from the military, but the loyalty of Sunni Muslim conscripts might waver if the crackdown on mainly Sunni protesters continues. Assad’s family and many military commanders are members of the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiism. In a spillover of the unrest into Lebanon, Sunni and Alawite gunmen clashed in the northern city of Tripoli and four people were killed. — Reuters

King declares Morocco a constitutional...

Continued from Page 1 able to appoint government officials, including in the public administration and state enterprises, taking over an authority previously held only by the king. The reference to the king in the constitution as “sacred” would be replaced by the expression: “The integrity of the person of the king should not be violated.” Immediately after the speech ended, cars flying Moroccan flags drove through the streets of the capital honking their horns, and young people marched along the wide boulevards banging drums and cheering.

Many political players welcomed Mohammed VI’s proposals.

“Compared to the current constitution, this plan is an important advance,” Saad Eddine Othmani, an opposition lawmaker, told AFP. “Everything the king promised in his speech of March 9 has been retained.” That speech was the king’s

first since the uprisings that toppled the autocratic rulers of Tunisia and Egypt and came less than a month after the protests erupted in Morocco for more social justice and limits on royal powers. “But is this advance enough? That is what we will discuss today” within the Justice and Development Party, an Islamist opposition party, Othmani said. The head of the government coalition partner Party of Progress and Socialism, Nabil Benabdallah, also praised the speech. “Morocco is entering a new constitutional phase.

This plan will allow the construction of a modern democratic state,” he said.

In the capital Rabat where crowds marched through the normally quiet nighttime streets, most seemed to applaud the king’s speech. “It elevates the constitution and lets the king pull back so the people and the government can rule,” said Rafai Touhami, a 60-year-old clutching a sheaf of newspapers standing out-

side a cafe. “The king will always be there, though, since the political parties aren’t ready to rule,” he added, reflecting popular distrust of the politicians in favor of the king.

Abderrahim Chaawat, 34, who watched the speech from a cafe in Casablanca said the part of the speech that affected him the most were reforms to strengthen the judiciary. “There is no justice in this country, it has to be changed totally from head to toe,” he said. “If the justice system worked here, then everything would be fine.”

But the February 20 Movement, demanding deep political reforms, called for a peaceful protest today in cities including Rabat, Casablanca, Tangiers, Marrakesh and Fez, according to the movement’s Facebook page, which has more than 60,000 adherents. The youth-led group has brought thousands of people on to the streets in unprecedented calls for change and an end to corruption. —Agencies

on the women or give way to the demands at the risk of angering clerics and other conservative groups.

It also could encourage wider reform bids by Saudi women, who are not allowed to vote and must obtain permission from a male guardian to travel or take a job.

Saudi Arabia is the only country that bans women from driving. The prohibition forces families to hire live-in drivers, and those who cannot afford the $300 to $400 a month for a driver must rely on male relatives to drive them to work, school, shopping or the doctor.

A similar effort more than two decades ago faltered.

In Nov 1990, when US troops were deployed to Saudi Arabia before the invasion to oust Iraqi troops from Kuwait, about 50 women got behind the wheel and drove family cars. They were jailed for one day, had their passports confiscated and lost their jobs. The official start of the latest campaign follows the 10-day detention last month of a 32-year-old woman, Manal AlSherif, after she posted video of herself driving. She was released after reportedly signing a pledge that she would not drive again or speak publicly. Her case, however, sparked an outcry from international rights groups and brought direct appeals to Saudi’s rulers to lift the driving ban.

On Friday, activists said security forces mostly stood by in an apparent effort to avoid clashes or international backlash. Eman Al-Nafjan, a prominent Saudi-based blogger, said some women drove directly in front of police units, which made no attempts to intervene.

Women participating in the campaign also flooded a senior traffic police officer with text messages saying: “Saudi women demand to drive.” “To be honest, we didn’t expect that,” she said in a telephone interview. “The more women who drive without problem, the more that will join them.”

Al-Qahtani decided to go out for another spin shortly before sundown, partly to encourage more women.

Realizing she was taking a risk, she packed a change of clothes with her. Sure enough, a traffic police stopped her and her husband on the highway. After an order to hand over the keys and a conversation on the side with her husband, the police officer decided to give alQahtani a ticket for driving without a license. “When I had my ticket, I felt like I did something. I made them understand that we need our right,” she said. “I feel great ... It is a good sign.”

Activists have urged Saudi women to begin a mutiny on their own against the driving restrictions, which are

supported by clerics backing austere interpretations of Islam and are enforced by powerful morality squads.

Encouragement poured in via the Internet. “Take the wheel. Foot on the gas,” said one Twitter message on the main site women2Drive. Another urged: “Saudi women, start your engines!” A YouTube page urged supporters around the world to honk their car horns in solidarity with the Saudi women.

“We want women from today to begin exercising their rights,” said Wajeha Al-Huwaidar, a Saudi women’s rights activist who posted Internet clips of herself driving in 2008. “Today on the roads is just the opening in a long campaign. We will not go back.” The plan, she said, is for women who have obtained driving licenses abroad to begin doing their daily errands and commuting on their own. “We’ll keep it up until we get a royal decree removing the ban,” she told AP. Al-Nafjan said she accompanied a friend who drove around the capital for 15 minutes with her children in the car. Some 40 women took a drive nationwide, according to reports logged on social media websites keeping track of the event. A protest supporter, Benjamin Joffe-Walt, said some Saudi men claimed they drove around dressed in the traditional black coverings for women in an attempt to confuse security forces.

Witnesses in the eastern city of Dammam reported that four women took a spin with their families on the city’s corniche at dawn without incident. The witnesses spoke on condition of anonymity because the sensitivity of the matter.

Conservative forces staged an Internet counterattack. One video - denouncing the “revolution of corruption” - featured patriotic songs and a sinister-looking black hand with red fingernails reaching for the Saudi flag. On Facebook, a hardline group had the message for Saudi women seeking the right to drive: “Dream on.”

Saudi Arabia has no written law barring women from driving - only fatwas, or religious edicts, by senior clerics. They claim the driving ban protects against the spread of vice and temptation because women drivers would be free to leave home alone and interact with male strangers. The prohibition forces families to hire live-in drivers or rely on male relatives to drive.

Saudi King Abdullah has promised some social reforms, but he depends on the clerics to support his ruling family and is unlikely to take steps that would bring backlash from the religious establishment. “We have to take the risk. It boils down to this: How long can they keep this up and how many women can they put in jail?” Al-Nafjan said. — AP

US holding peace talks with Taleban Continued from Page 1 reconciliation and has assisted Afghan government-led reintegration initiatives aimed at the Taleban.

“We must help create conditions necessary to enable a political settlement among the Afghan people.

This includes reconciling those insurgents who are willing to renounce Al-Qaeda, forsake violence and adhere to the Afghan constitution,” an official at the US embassy in Kabul said.

Western officials acknowledge on condition of anonymity that attempts to set up contacts with the Taleban are at a very early stage, while efforts to open up a communication channel with Taleban leaders are still being made. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton earlier this year called on Taleban members to split from Al-Qaeda, renounce violence and accept the constitution so they can be reintegrated into society. And US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on a visit to Kabul this month that there could be talks with the Taleban by the end of the year if foreign troops make sufficient gains.

US State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the US has “consistently supported an Afghan-led” peace process. “Over the past two years, we have laid out our red lines for the Taleban: They must renounce violence; they must abandon their alliance with Al-Qaeda; and they must abide by the constitution of Afghanistan,” Toner said. “This is the price for reaching a political resolution and bringing an end to the mili-

tary actions that are targeting their leadership and decimating their ranks.”

A report last month in Der Spiegel magazine claimed Germany was helping to mediate secret, direct talks between the US and the Taleban on German soil while the New Yorker magazine reported in February that the US had begun direct discussions with senior Taleban figures. Karzai’s comments came the day after the United Nations Security Council agreed to split the international sanctions regime for the Taleban and AlQaeda. The move sends “a clear message to the Taleban that there is a future for those who separate from Al-Qaeda, renounce violence and abide by the Afghan constitution,” said Susan Rice, UN envoy for the United States, which led the campaign for the division.

Yesterday’s violence underscored the challenges facing any possible negotiated settlement to the decade -long war. Three men dressed in Afghan army uniforms stormed the police station near the presidential palace and opened fire on officers, said Mohammed Honayon, a witness. The Interior Ministry said in a statement that one of the attackers detonated a suicide bomb vest outside the gates while the others rushed in and began shooting. The crackle of gunfire echoed through the streets typically bustling with shoppers and government employees on a Saturday, the start of Afghanistan’s workweek.

The fighting ended by 3 pm

when security forces shot dead the two other attackers. Three police officers, one intelligence agent and five civilians were killed in the attack, the Interior Ministry said.

Taleban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attack in a text message to AP, saying the group dispatched three suicide bombers. The assault occurred shortly after Karzai’s announcement.

Afghan attempts to pursue talks with the Taleban have been public for months - Karzai last year set up a High Council for Peace to look at the issue. But efforts to negotiate hit an embarrassing setback when reports in November said a Pakistani shopkeeper posing as a senior Taleban leader had been brought to Kabul for talks with the president before being exposed as a fake. US President Barack Obama is expected to announce soon how many troops from his country will pull out from July as the process of handing control from foreign to Afghan forces starts.

It is due to conclude in 2014, when all foreign forces are scheduled to leave Afghanistan. Obama is facing mounting pressure to announce a significant drawdown after last month’s killing of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and amid domestic economic woes and a mounting US death toll. The Taleban’s harbouring of bin Laden was the reason for the US-led invasion in 2001 following the September 11 attacks. There are around 130,000 international troops in Afghanistan, of which some 90,000 are from the US. — Agencies

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sp orts Brownlee wins triathlon KITZBUEHEL: Alistair Brownlee won his second successive world series triathlon in Kitzbuehel and took the lead in the overall standings yesterday.

Brownlee, who won in Madrid two weeks ago, was first out of the water, tied for the lead after the cycle leg, then powered home on the run to beat second-placed Alexander Brukhankov of Russia by 44 seconds.

Sven Riederer of Switzerland was third.

Brukhankov also moved into second overall, while Javier Gomez and Jonathan Brownlee, Alistair’s brother, didn’t race and dropped to third and fourth after three

rounds. Alistair Brownlee made light of the chilly rain and wind. Leading after the swim, he was joined by countryman Stuart Hayes and Brazil’s Reinaldo Colucci on the bikes in pouring rain. As soon as they started running, however, the pair was ditched

by Brownlee, who won Kitzbuehel for the second time in three years.—AP

Le Graet elected FFF president PARIS: Guingamp chief Noel Le Graet was surprisingly elected president of the French Football Federation (FFF) yesterday to succeed Fernand Duchaussoy, who had been the pre-vote favourite despite a string of rows.

French football has suffered a turbulent recent period with the national team going on strike and being dumped out in the group stage of last year’s World Cup before a racism scandal led to a probe in which coach Laurent Blanc was cleared.

France did have some success when chosen to host Euro 2016.

Le Graet, 69 and president of second-division Guingamp, collected

54.39 percent of the votes compared to 45.40 percent for Duchaussoy and 0.19 percent for third candidate Eric Thomas.

“The job is extremely exciting.

We will start work today,” the new president told the General Assembly of the FFF. Le Graet’s term will last until December 2012 and he has indicated that he will not take a salary.

He said his first job was to look into the role of technical direc tor af ter incumbent Francois Blaquart was implicated in the row over whether the federation should consider imposing limits for ethnic players in youth teams. — Reuters

O’Connor moves to Rebels MELBOURNE: Wallabies backline star James O’Connor has confirmed his switch from the Western Force to the Melbourne Rebels, signing a two-year deal with the new Super 15 rugby side and the Australian Rugby Union.

O’Connor, 20, will end his four-year association with the Force to join Wallabies teammate Kurtley Beale at the Rebels, vastly strengthening the team which finished last in the Super 15 in its debut season.

Wallabies coach Robbie Deans yesterday welcomed O ’ C o n n o r ’s decision to resign with the ARU. The test fullback is the 18th current test

Lind fires Blue Jays past Reds CINCINNATI: The Toronto Blue Jays rode the hot bat of Adam Lind to edge the Cincinnati Reds 3-2 in interleague play on Friday.

Lind belted his fourth home run in his last four games, a two-run shot in the seventh inning, as he pushed the Blue Jays lead to 3-1. Scott Rolen reduced the deficit in the bottom of the seventh when he hit a solo home run, but Toronto held on.

“I quit trying to feel my way along. I hadn’t been swinging with a lot of authority,” said Lind, explaining his recent success. “I was hitting singles over the shortstop’s head. I started looking to pull the ball and it has worked.”

Cincinnati’s Drew Stubbs opened the scoring with an inside-the-park home run in the sixth inning, capitalising on a mix-up between Toronto outfielders Juan Bautista and Corey Patterson that allowed the deep fly ball to drop between them.

“If I let that bother me, then I’m trying to do it all myself and I’m out of my rhythm,” said Blue Jays starter Jo-Jo Reyes. “I’ve been taught that you can’t let those things get to you. I have a great group of guys here who have welcomed me. I feel wanted here.”

The Blue Jays responded with three runs in the seventh led by Lind’s blast to give Reyes, who pitched 6.1 innings and allowed two runs on six hits while striking out five, the victory.

Cincinnati starter Mike Leake took the loss, allowing three runs on five hits while striking out three in seven innings.

“I don’t like to use the quality start thing as an indicator,” Leake said. “Yeah, it was a good outing, but I still missed two pitches that came back to haunt. That’s about it.”

Meanwhile, Frank and Jamie McCourt agreed on Friday to let a judge decide who owns the Los Angeles Dodgers-a

ruling that could lead to Frank McCourt winning sole control or a sale of the troubled franchise.

Attorneys for both McCourts said during a brief court hearing in Los Angeles that the estranged couple had resolved all other issues in their bitter divorce case, which has left the fate of the Dodgers hanging in the balance.

The settlement agreement between the two sides calls for Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Scott Gordon to preside over a one-day trial in August to determine if the team belongs exclusively to Frank McCourt or is community property.

If Gordon rules that the club is community property, Frank and Jamie McCourt would each own 50 percent, which could lead to a sale of the team.

Jamie McCourt, who filed for divorce in October of 2009, asked Gordon in May to order an immediate sale of the Dodgers, saying her husband had mismanaged the storied franchise.

If the judge rules that Frank McCourt has sole ownership of the Dodgers, he will pay Jamie McCourt $100 million under the agreement.

The agreement is contingent on Major League Baseball approving a long term television contract between the Dodgers and the Fox network, which includes an up-front payment of $385 million that Frank McCourt has said is key to the team’s finances.

An MLB spokesman contacted by Reuters declined to comment on the McCourts settlement or the proposed television deal. McCourt, after a meeting with MLB officials in April, said that Commissioner Bud Selig had vetoed the Fox TV deal. But the league responded that McCourt was simply told the commissioner would make no decision until after an investigation of the club.

Major League Baseball, in an extraor-

Floyd Mayweather Jr.

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

Chicago Cubs 3, NY Yankees 1; Cleveland 5, Pittsburgh 1; Washington 8, Baltimore 4; Boston 10, Milwaukee 4; Tampa Bay 5, Florida 1; LA Angels 4, NY Mets 3; Toronto 3, Cincinnati 2; Texas 6, Atlanta 2; Minnesota 6, San Diego 5; Kansas City 5, St. Louis 4; Colorado 13, Detroit 6; Arizona 4, Chicago White Sox 1; Oakland 5, San Francisco 2; Seattle 4, Philadelphia 2; Houston 7, LA Dodgers 3.

American League Eastern Division W L Boston 42 27 NY Yankees 39 29 Tampa Bay 37 33 Toronto 35 35 Baltimore 31 36 Central Division Cleveland 37 31 Detroit 38 32 Chicago White Sox 33 38 Kansas City 31 39 Minnesota 29 39 Western Division Texas 37 34 Seattle 36 34 LA Angels 34 37 Oakland 31 40

Philadelphia Atlanta Washington NY Mets Florida

CINCINNATI: Toronto Blue Jays relief pitcher Frank Francisco (left) is congratulated by catcher JP Arencibia (right) after they defeated the Cincinnati Reds 3-2 in an interleague baseball game. — AP

dinary move, took over day-to-day control of the Dodgers in April over what Selig said were concerns over the team’s finances.

In May, the family of a San Francisco Giants fan who was brutally beaten at Dodger Stadium on Opening Day sued

the team and owner Frank McCourt.

The attack on Bryan Stow ignited a furor in Los Angeles over what critics say was a failure by McCourt and city officials to curb an atmosphere of intimidation and thuggish behavior at the stadium. — Reuters

Lawyer: Mayweather didn’t show up for deposition LAS VEGAS: Boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. failed to turn up for a court-ordered deposition in Las Vegas on Friday in a federal lawsuit alleging he defamed rival fighter Manny Pacquiao, Pacquiao’s lawyer said.

Attorney Daniel Petrocelli said Mayweather violated a court order by not appearing to answer questions about repeatedly saying the Filipino fighter has used per formance enhancing drugs. Petrocelli said he plans to ask a federal judge to rule in Pacquiao’s favor as a result.

“We will seek a default. The court has the power to hold him in contempt as well,” Petrocelli told The Associated Press. “He has an obligation to respect the process and to follow a court order.” Mark Tratos, Mayweather’s lawyer, said he filed an appeal to the order Thursday evening that is still pending, and told Pacquiao’s lawyers that neither he nor the fighter were available Friday

player to extend his contract with the union this year.

Deans said O’Connor’s decision “provides certainty, both for James and for Australian Rugby.” “While James has already made a significant impact in his career to date, there is a lot more that can be achieved and he is striving for that,” Deans said. “The last three years have provided a good base. We are all going to be working hard to make sure that there is a lot more to come.”

O’Connor was the second youngest Wallaby ever when he made his test debut off the bench against Italy at Padua in Nov. —AP

morning. “We tried to extend every courtesy we could,” Tratos said.

Both sides argued Thursday before federal Magistrate Judge Robert Johnston, with Johnston siding with Pacquiao. Mayweather’s lawyers argued he needs to concentrate on training for a Sept. 17 fight against Victor Ortiz. Tratos said he planned to file with the court on Monday a copy of Mayweather’s training regimen, to show why it can’t be interrupted as he looks to fight for the first time in more than a year.

“We’re more than happy to produce him after the fight,” Tratos said. “It’s important for him to be in tip-top shape.” Tratos said he expected a deposition would take about seven hours, but would require time for Mayweather to prepare.

Mayweather and Pacquiao are considered by many the best pound-for-pound fighters in the world, though they’ve never met in the

ring. Negotiations for a fight that would presumably sell out, draw a huge pay-per-view audience and make each fighter millions of dollars have fallen through several times.

Pacquiao (53-3-2), the current WBO welterweight champion, is scheduled to fight in November against Juan Manuel Marquez.

Mayweather is undefeated in 41 fights, having won titles in five divisions.

Pacquiao’s lawsuit was first filed in 2009, alleging Mayweather and his camp maliciously said in interviews that Pacquiao had gained his strength and power using illegal drugs.

Pacquiao says in the suit that he has never tested positive for any performance-enhancing drugs. Mayweather’s lawyers have said in the past that Pacquiao’s rival was merely questioning the boxer’s reluctance to submit to strong drug testing — stopping short of calling him a drug user. Tratos said Friday that view has not changed. — AP

Milwaukee St. Louis Cincinnati Pittsburgh Chicago Cubs Houston San Francisco Arizona Colorado LA Dodgers San Diego

National League Eastern Division 44 27 39 32 34 36 34 36 32 38 Central Division 39 32 38 33 37 34 35 34 29 40 26 45 Western Division 39 31 39 32 34 35 31 40 30 41

PCT .609 .574 .529 .500 .463

GB 2.5 5.5 7.5 10

.544 .543 .465 .443 .426

5.5 7 8

.521 .514 .479 .437

.5 3 6

.620 .549 .486 .486 .457

5 9.5 9.5 11.5

.549 .535 .521 .507 .420 .366

1 2 3 9 13

.557 .549 .493 .437 .423

.5 4.5 8.5 9.5

Bahar rules out Renault F1 name change before 2013 LONDON: Renault plan to retain their black and gold livery next ye a r a n d a ny re n a m i n g o f t h e Formula One team as Lotus is out of the question until at least 2013, Group Lotus CEO Dany Bahar said on Friday.

M a l ays i a n - ow n e d s p o r t s c a r maker Lotus last year agreed a title sponsorship deal with the team until the end of the 2017 season with the aim of becoming co - ow n e r s a l o n g w i t h G e n i i Capital.

Although the team is entered as Renault F1, the French car maker sold their remaining stake in the team to Genii last year.

“We enjoy a very good relationship with our partners Genii, we are very much involved in their business, we are happy with how it’s run and as things are run properly and (are) well managed there i s n o re a s o n fo r u s to d o a ny move,” Bahar told reporters at a lunch in central London.

“We are absolutely fine as it is.

“If we decide to go for the long term (ownership) then a renaming would be an issue,” he added. “But a t t h e m o m e n t i t ’s o u t o f t h e question and it’s not something we are pursuing. Out of the question until 2013.”

Under the terms of the confidential Concorde Agreement gove r n i n g t h e s p o r t , te a m n a m e changes have to be agreed by all teams-something that is likely to remain an obstacle until the current version expires at the end of next year.

Group Lotus and rivals Team Lotus, owned by Malaysian aviation entrepreneur Tony Fernandes

and also using Renault engines, have taken their fight over the use of the Lotus name to the London High Court.

A ruling last month, which G ro u p Lo t u s a re a p p e a l i n g, allowed Team Lotus to continue under that name while recognising that only Group Lotus could compete as just Lotus.

Th e j u d g e a l s o fo u n d t h a t Renault were entitled to continue racing in the black and gold livery that harks back to the days of the o l d t i t l e - w i n n i n g Te a m Lo t u s fo u n d e d by t h e l a te Co l i n Chapman.

“I think you need consistency,” said Bahar. “We like the livery in the black and gold, we use it in many road car limited editions on our side.

“It’s a nice liver y that is perceived well by the people, especially on the road car side, so I see no reason why we should change it.”

Renault finished on the podium in the first two races of the season, with Russian Vitaly Petrov and Germany’s Nick Heidfeld, and Bahar said Group Lotus were getting what they wanted out of their involvement.

“Although the first two results made us a bit hungr y for more success, the bottom line is that we have to be very happy with what the team has achieved,” he said. “ The par tnership is running very well and I hope it continues to b e l i k e t h a t . I t ’s a b o u t t h e branding of Lotus, about technology transfer. The naming issue is there, unfortunately, but it doesn’t really impact.” — Reuters

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Waratahs defeat Brumbies

HAMILTON: Reds’ Will Genia (second left) is tackled by Chiefs’ Brendon Leonard (left) during a Super Rugby match at Waikato Stadium.—AP

Reds halt Chiefs march HAMILTON: Wallabies flyhalf Quade Cooper became the first Australian player to pass 200 points in a Super rugby season when he contributed 14 to the Queensland Reds’ 19-11 win over the Waikato Chiefs yesterday.

Cooper entered the Reds’ last match of the regular season with 196 points and reached the milestone quickly when he kicked a conversion of Liam Gill’s fifthminute try, then added a 17th minute penalty.

He finished with four penalties and a conversion to take his season’s tally to 210 points, making him the leading pointscorer in the tournament this season. The win ensured Queensland finished the regular season in first place — with 13 wins from 16 games — to gain a home semifinal in two weeks’ time.

Queensland’s win gave it 66 competition points for for the season, putting it 14 points in front of the New South Wales Waratahs in the Australian conference ahead of the Waratahs clash with the ACT Brumbies.

The Reds’ win lifted them six points clear of the Auckland Blues on the overall championship table, although matches later Saturday involving South Africa’s Stormers and the Canterbury Crusaders were likely to trim that lead.

Queensland still finished a record season emphatically on top of the competition, earning a week off next weekend before it returns for a home semifinal at Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium on July 1.

“It was a tough night but to finish the season number one is a massive effort and it shows the consistency that this team has been building toward so I’m really proud of that,” Reds captain James Horwill said.

“The finals are a whole different ballgame. We’re going to have a week off now and we’ve got to prepare well.” The Reds entered the match hard hit by injuries and were short of their best form, struggling at times in scrums but compensating with outstanding play at

breakdowns and a fierce, unyielding defense.

Their latest casualty was Wallabies prop James Slipper who limped from the field after only five minutes with a leg injury.

“I think as of tonight we’ve used 37 players this season, so it’s a big squad effort and we’re going to need those guys going into the final,” Horwill said.

“We get a week off now and then we get to go home and hopefully pack out Suncorp for a home semifinal.” Both teams scored one try yesterday — the Reds after only five minutes and the Chiefs three minutes before fulltime.

In between, Cooper controlled the match and dictated the outcome with brilliant playmaking and outstanding goalkicking.

His first half conversion and penalty helped the Reds to a 10-6 lead and he landed penalties in the 11th, 16th and 20th minutes of the second half to give the Reds a defensible advantage.

The Chiefs finished both halves strongly but took 77 minutes to find a way through the Reds’ defense. The match was emotionally charged for the home side who have failed to make the playoffs and were therefore playing their final match of the season.

Chiefs coach Ian Foster and at least seven members of the starting lineup on Saturday were involved in their last match for the team, giving the game an extra, emotional edge.

Among the players leaving is Chiefs captain and All Blacks fullback Mils Muliaina who will play in Japan next season. Muliaina, who has played 55 matches for the Chiefs, was disappointed his team was unable to finish on a high note.

“It was a quality side that we came up against,” he said. “That’s why they’re at the top of the ladder.

“It’s a sad way to finish but, hey, we’ve had some good times and we’ll look forward to the next stage of our rugby careers.”—AP

GREECE: Ford Abu Dhabi World Rally team pilot Jari-Matti Latvala and co-driver Miikka Anttila, of Finland, compete at the WRC Acropolis Rally of Greece.—AP

Solberg leads Acropolis Rally ATHENS: Nor way ’s Petter Solberg enjoyed a hefty 51.6-second lead in the Acropolis Rally after a first leg on Friday in which the main contenders made errors or slowed deliberately for strategic reasons.

The former champion, in a privately entered Citroen, won the day’s first four stages after Thursday’s ceremonial start in Athens.

Citroen’s championship leader Sebastien Loeb was in second place after losing time with a puncture 10km from the end of the fifth stage over rockstrewn mountain roads around Loutraki, to the west of the capital.

The Frenchman’s team mate and compatriot Sebastien Ogier and Ford’s Finnish driver Mikko Hirvonen both eased off in the final stage to ensure they were behind Loeb on Saturday morning when the leading cars effectively act as

‘roadsweepers’.

Hirvonen was in third place, 3.7 adrift of Loeb while Ogier was fourth and 1.9 seconds behind. Ford’s Jari-Matti Latvala had been in second place but a problem with his car’s differential cost him threeand-a-half minutes on stage six, won by Loeb, and dropped the Finn to eighth overall.

“I lost time on the last stage behind Latvala but I’m happy to be leading,” Solberg told the official wrc.com website.

“The gap is good.”

The rally, one of the most gruelling tests in the championship with cockpit temperatures usually well in excess of 30 degrees Celsius, is returning to the calendar after a year’s absence.

The seventh round of the championship, it marks the halfway stage of the season. Loeb leads the standings with 126 points to Hirvonen’s 113. —Reuters

SYDNEY: The New South Wales Waratahs beat the ACT Brumbies 41-7 in a one-sided Australian derby yesterday to clinch a Super rugby playoffs spot for the fifth time in seven seasons.

Wallabies fullback Kurtley Beale created a first half try for Lachie Turner and kicked 16 points for the Waratahs, who moved from seventh to fifth place in the championship table and became one of six teams contesting the playoffs over the next two weeks.

The Waratahs led 10-0 after a close first half then ran away with tries after halftime from lock Sitaleki Timani, Dave Dennis and replacements Chris Alcock and Sosene Anesi. New South Wales’ strength is also a defense that’s conceded only 20 tries in 16 matches this season and just six in home games.

The Brumbies scored a try in the second minute of injury time to avoid being held scoreless for the first time since 2005 and for only the second time in their history.

They also reduced what was the biggest winning margin for the Waratahs in matches against ACT. Wallabies flyhalf Matt Giteau created the try for winger Francis Fainifo and converted it from the sideline to end his 104-match Super rugby career. Giteau is leaving the Brumbies to join French club Toulon from next season.

The Waratahs ensured they grasped their chance of a playoffs place with determination. They had dropped out of the top six when they lost back-to-back matches in South Africa to the Sharks and Bulls but finished the regular season strongly, with wins over the Melbourne Rebels, Otago Highlanders and Brumbies.

They dominated the first 15 minutes of Saturday’s match but had only Turner’s fourth-minute try to show for their superiority. Beale made the try, squeezing between tacklers as the Waratahs attacked off turnover ball to give the final pass to his winger.

The elusive Beale was the Waratahs’ best player throughout the first half, sounding out the

SYDNEY: Brumbies’ Matt Giteau (left) in last ever Super game attempts to sidestep the Waratahs’ Sosene Anesi during their Super Rugby match.—AP Brumbies’ defense, but New South Wales produced a more rounded attacking performance after halftime.

They built an overwhelming share of possession, established field position and minimized the errors that unpicked their attacking game before halftime. “It was a really good second half,” Waratahs captain Phil Waugh said. “We had our chances in that first 15 minutes to score more points but didn’t quite get over the line so to finish the way we did made it a really good night.

“Guys worked really hard...in games like this you have to work hard. The guys, particularly in the forwards, worked hard tonight, won that contest and it was able to open up a bit more for the backs.”

The Waratahs’ 10th win of the season left only one playoffs place to be decided in a match later on Saturday between South Africa’s Sharks and Bulls. The Queensland Reds, Canterbury Crusaders and Auckland Blues qualified with wins in the last regular season round.

South Africa’s Stormers have a playoffs place in hand ahead of their final match against the Cheetahs, leaving the Pretoriabased Bulls and Durban-based Sharks to contest the last available slot. The Waratahs did not immediately know who their playoffs opponent would be or where the match would be played. “It doesn’t really bother us,” Waugh said.

“We’ve worked to get where were are and now it’s just a matter of getting out there next week.”

After the tight first half, the second half on Saturday saw an avalanche of scoring with tries to Timani in the 47th minute, Alcock in the 60th, Anesi in the 67th and Dennis in the 75th.

Alcock’s was the best of the game and one of the best of the season. He first wrestled the ball from Brumbies scrumhalf Patrick Phibbs near halfway and pushed off seven defenders in a 50 meter dash to the tryline. The Brumbies ended their worst-ever season in terms of matches lost and look to the future under a new coach, former Springboks mentor Jake White.

“We were just outplayed,” Giteau said. “Credit to the Waratahs, their defense was really good and at the breakdown they really dominated us.”—AP

Crusaders stop Hurricanes WELLINGTON: All Blacks scrumhalf Andy Ellis landed a 45meter dropgoal 14 minutes from time to cement the Canterbury Crusaders’ 16-9 win over the Wellington Hurricanes in Super 15 rugby yesterday.

Former Hurricanes center Robbie Fruean, now a key member of the Crusaders’ backline, scored the only try of the match three minutes into the second half to establish a 13-6 lead after the teams had been level 6-6 at halftime.

The Hurricanes closed to 13-9 and could have taken the lead but for a match-saving tackle by Crusaders fullback Tom Marshall midway through the second period. Ellis’s audacious dropgoal gave Canterbury a more comfortable victory margin.

With its 11th win from 16 regular-season games, Canterbury overtook Auckland to claim first place in the five-team New Zealand conference, earning it a semifinal next weekend. The win lifted the Crusaders to overall second place on the championship table, five points behind the Queensland Reds, but that placing remained under threat from the third-placed Stormers, who were playing the Cheetahs later Saturday.

Although Saturday’s match was played at Wellington and on the Hurricanes’ home ground it was technically a home match for the Crusaders, who have been exiled from their stadium at Christchurch since the earthquake of Feb. 22. The Crusaders have played home matches this season at five different venues, including Twickenham in London, and will return to the provincial city of Nelson for their semifinal.

Their achievement in reaching the playoffs in a season disrupted by the Christchurch earthquake and continuing aftershocks was remarkable.

The latest major quake — magnitude six, on Monday — further damaged the homes of Crusaders captain Kieran Read and All Blacks flyhalf Dan Carter, leaving those players and others with off-field distractions. An ash cloud from an erupting Chilean volcano also disrupted the Crusaders’ travel plans this week, forcing them to fly from Christchurch to Wellington aboard a 67-year-old Douglas DC3.

“Essentially it was the people back home that really motivated us tonight,” Read said. “We put it out there for them. We’re happy to get the win tonight, we know there’s a lot more to go but this one is for the people back home.”

The Crusaders had to work hard for the win in a match played in wet and slippery conditions. The Hurricanes, whose season ended with this match, were determined to finish on a high note after a season of off-field controversy and on-field under-achievement.

The game was the last in Hurricanes colors for captain Andrew Hore and All Blacks center Ma’a Nonu, both sacked by new coach and former Crusaders assistant Mark Hammett. Several more players, including front-rowers Neemia Tialata, John Schwalger and Anthony Perenise are also leaving to take up contracts overseas. Hore and Nonu played superbly in one of the Hurricanes’ best performances of the season to cast further doubt on the wisdom of Hammett’s decision to cut them. Neither wishes to leave, and the crowd showed its respect for Hore when he left the field in the 71st minute to a lengthy standing ovation. “It’s been a tough old season, really,” Hore said. “Obviously we didn’t get off to a great start with a loss to the Highlanders and the tragedy down in Christchurch and we’ve sort of bumbled our way through the rest of the season.

“It’s pretty sad. Obviously a few of us didn’t want to leave on other people’s terms and we have to so we’ve got to pick our lips up and move on.” Carter kicked two penalties from three attempts and Hurricanes flyhalf Aaron Cruden kicked two from two to create a 6-6 stalemate after a rugged first half. Fruean’s try three minutes into the second half, after winger Zac Guildford had run the ball back brilliantly from a missed touch-finder, split the teams and eventually decided the match. Ellis’s late dropgoal put the outcome beyond doubt.—AP

PRETORIA: Francois Hougaard of the Bulls (left) in action during their Super 15 rugby match against the Sharks.—AP

Two thirds of Olympics ticket hopefuls miss out LONDON: Most of the people who applied for tickets for the 2012 London Olympics missed out in the first round of sales.

Organizers announced Friday that 1.2 million of the 1.9 million people who applied for tickets ended up with nothing. Just 700,000 individuals — mostly Britons — split 3 million tickets between them after a six-week sales window.

“We certainly understand people’s disappointment,” organizing committee chief executive Paul Deighton told The Associated Press. “But we think we allocated tickets as fairly as we could.” Tickets were not put on sale on a first-come, first-served basis and events that were oversubscribed were allocated through a lottery system.

A third of the tickets have been sold to London residents, while the average successful application saw four tickets sold for 175 pounds ($283).

The 1.2 million people who missed out on tickets will be given the first opportunity to buy tickets when a further 2.3 million go on sale on June 24. That will include 1.7 million tickets for the football matches that are being played at large stadiums across Britain on top of the 500,000 already sold. Hockey and volleyball tickets are among the other 600,000 tickets available from next Friday.

By next month organizers expect

to have raised 400 million pounds ($647 million) from ticket sales, with a further 100 million pounds ($162 million) anticipated by the time the Olympics start on July 27, 2012. In total, 6.6 million tickets will have been made available to the public.

While tickets remain for sports such as track and field, others like track cycling, rhythmic gymnastics, triathlon, modern pentathlon and the cross-country equestrian competition are sold out.

The expectation of seeing Usain Bolt in the 100 meters final attracted 1.3 million applications, but only 30,000 of the 80,000 seats at the Olympic Stadium will have gone on general sale. So far 21,000 tickets have been sold and the remaining 9,000 will be made available next year.

Tickets that go on sale to the British public can be bought by anyone living the European Union. But only 3 percent of sales through the official site have come from outside Britain. People can also buy tickets in their own country through a designated company or the national Olympic committee.

“If you benchmark that (demand) against other games it’s a massive domestic interest,” organizing committee chairman Sebastian Coe said. “I would be hard pushed to give you such a demand for any other sporting event in my lifetime.”—AP

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UEFA wants FIFA reforms in 3 months after crisis NYON: European football’s governing body urged FIFA on Friday to implement “concrete” changes within three months to deal with world football’s worst corruption crisis.

Allegations of bribery during the presidential election led to FIFA executive committee members Mohamed bin Hammam and Jack Warner being suspended pending a full investigation.

Earlier this month, Sepp Blatter began his fourth term as FIFA president unopposed after bin Hammam’s withdrawal by pledging a “zero-tolerance” approach to corruption.

UEFA, under President Michel Platini, wants Blatter’s promised changes to FIFA to be carried out promptly.

“The executive committee takes good note of the will of FIFA to take concrete and efficient measures with regards to good governance, expects to see results within the next three months and is following the

situation closely,” the committee of top UEFA officials said in a statement after a two-day meeting. The hard line taken by UEFA in its statement was later underlined by its executive committee member Jim Boyce, who is also a FIFA vice president.

“All of the UEFA executive committee are absolutely adamant that FIFA has to do something and has to be seen to be doing something,” Boyce told The Associated Press.

“We have given three months to see if appropriate action is taken by FIFA. Obviously we will discuss that again at the next meeting (in September).”

As he was re-elected, Blatter immediately sought to prove that his promise of reform was genuine with a major policy shift on how the World Cup venues are announced.

Future World Cup hosts will be decided in a vote of all 208 federations instead of FIFA’s 24 executive committee members.

Corruption claims during last year’s contest to decide the 2018 and 2022 hosts led to executive committee members Amos Adamu and Tahiti’s Reynald Temarii receiving bans. Blatter’s toughest critics are at the English Football Association, which tried to get the June 1 presidential election suspended after bin Hammam’s withdrawal.

While the FA failed to gain enough support for the motion at the FIFA Congress, its leadership claims that demands for reform led directly to Blatter changing the World Cup voting system.

The FA is now waiting for more details on Blatter’s reforms during his final four-year term. “We have exchanged correspondence with Blatter now,” FA general secretary Alex Horne said.

“We intend to meet him in the not-too distant future to understand his proposals for reform, to understand his independent

committees for reform, what exactly he is trying to achieve to improve transparency and the things we really stood up for in congress.” The FA is yet to be convinced about the merits of Blatter appointing opera great Placido Domingo and former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger to a committee of “wise men” to help clean up FIFA. Meanwhile, the ethics commission of the International Olympic Committee is looking into corruption allegations leveled at former FIFA President Joao Havelange, who now serves as an honorary president of the footballing authority.

Though FIFA is not investigating a BBC report that Havelange received a $1 million kickback in 1997 when he was still president of world football, the matter has been taken up by the IOC — where the Brazilian is the committee’s longest-serving member with 47 years’ service. The ethics commission

asked the BBC for any evidence of wrongdoing last year and is assessing what it has received since. “ The commission has received supporting documents from the BBC and is now in the process of verifying the authenticity of the material that has been gathered so far,” the IOC said Friday.

UEFA’s two-day session also saw Norway’s Karen Espelund, the head of its women’s football committee, join the traditionally male-dominated executive committee. The appointment, by invitation, followed a pledge to that effect by Platini on his reelection as president in March.

At the time, Platini said: “This is but a first, symbolic step, but symbols are sometimes key to changing the way we think. Women have a lot to offer to the development of the game and it is a first step towards a better representation in decision-making bodies.”—AP

Tricky tests for Mexico, US in Gold Cup q-finals

BOGOTA: Colombia’s soccer player Radamel Falcao (left) who plays for FC Porto, poses for a photo with Colombian Senator Alexandra Moreno Piraquive after being honored for being an example athlete by Congress in Bogota. —AP

Iraqi federation elects new chief BAGHDAD: The Iraqi Football Association (IFA) gained a new chief yesterday, in an election in which the country’s football establishment won over a candidate unofficially backed by the government.

Najeh Hmoud’s victory over Falah Hassan is expected to end two years of paralysis and problems with world football’s governing body, FIFA. Hmoud, the IFA’s deputy chief, won with 48 votes to 26 for the only other contestant, Falah Hassan. Three other contestants who had announced their candidacy on Friday later pulled out for reasons that remained unclear.

The election came after the IFA’s disputed chief Hussein Said announced his resignation Monday, saying he was doing so in order to allow the association to get on with its work.

The election pitted Hmoud, who was backed by the country’s football establishment, against Hassan, who was unofficially backed by the youth ministr y, which is close to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s government.

Although FIFA insists that football must be free of politics, in Iraq politics permeates nearly everything, especially football. There were 75 members on the general committee with voting rights, but not all of them cast a ballot.

“I think the experience I gained from working as the association’s deputy over the past several years (since 2004) are enough to give me the win,” Hmoud said the day before the election. “ The general committee knows what I’ve done and what I want to do in the future, and I think I will win the elections because I have a large number of supporters inside the committee.” he told AFP. The election came

after Said’s resignation. For the past two years he had been locked in a conflict with Maliki’s Shiite-dominated government, which had opposed him at every turn for his past ties with the regime of Saddam Hussein, who was ousted in the 2003 US-led invasion.

Said had ser ved as a deputy to Saddam’s younger son, Uday, but has denied he was ever a member of the Iraqi dictator’s Baath party.

Last August, FIFA gave Iraqi football chiefs a one-year deadline to settle their differences after elections last July to the IFA board fell into disarray.

FIFA lifted its suspension on Iraq on March 19, 2010, after a solution was reportedly found in the spat.

But about a week before a new IFA election was due to take place, soldiers sought to arrest Said and three other senior officials on corruption charges.

Two rival general assemblies were then held in the Iraqi capital Baghdad and in the northern city of Arbil on July 24, prompting the IFA to postpone elections of a new executive committee.

World football chiefs had suspended the IFA in November 2009 after Iraqi police seized control of the association’s offices and its board was dissolved on charges of links to Saddam.

FIFA then demanded the reinstatement of the association’s executive committee and threatened to ban Iraq from international matches over “governmental interference in the electoral process” of the IFA. Iraq was also briefly sidelined from international football in May 2008, after the government dissolved the national Olympic Committee a year after the national side won the Asian Cup. —AFP

MIAMI: Mexico and the United States face tricky tests in this weekend’s Gold Cup quarterfinals as the tournament for North and Central America and the Caribbean enters the knockout phase.

The Mexicans take on Guatemala late yesterday at the New Meadowlands stadium in New Jersey, while the US face improving Jamaica at the RFK stadium in Washington DC today.

Mexico, clear favorites for a sixth Gold Cup title, have been in sparkling form so far, winning all three of their group games, scoring 14 goals in the process and conceding just one.

Manchester United striker Javier Hernandez has been in devastating form with five goals for El Tri including a hattrick in the opening day 5-0 thrashing of El Salvador.

With Andres Guardado and

Giovani dos Santos playing in suppor t of the poacher Hernandez, Mexico have by the far most potent attack in the tournament, scoring twice as many goals as any other team in the group stage.

All this has been achieved despite the loss of five players from the Mexico squad after it was discovered they had tested positive for the banned substance Clenbuterol.

Guatemala are an improving team with some exciting talent, including winger Marco Pappa, and their coach Hugo Almeida said they should not be underestimated. “I don’t know why they are counting us for dead.

We are ver y much alive,” he said.

“It is true that Mexico is the powerhouse here but when you play a team like that you tend to tr y even harder. We respect Mexico but we have some fast young players and

we will see how we go.”

The US, who met Mexico in the last two Gold Cup finals including a 5-0 defeat in 2009, are hoping for a return to their best form after some drab displays so far.

Bob Bradley’s side were solid but uninspiring in a 2-0 win over Canada, flat and lacking composure in their shock 2-1 loss to Panama and couldn’t finish off tiny Guadeloupe as they picked up the bare minimum expected with a 1-0 win. After those disappointing performances, the team’s two top attack ing threats, Landon Donovan and Clint Dempsey, have been given permission to miss the three days of training in the build-up to Sunday ’s clash in order to attend the weddings of their respective sisters.

The U.S. are up against a Jamaican team who won all three of their group stage

Ballack refuses farewell game FRANKFURT: Former Germany captain Michael Ballack says he is so disappointed with being ousted from the national team that he will not accept a farewell match.

Germany coach Joachim Loew said Thursday there was no Germany future for the 34-yearold Ballack and that he was under the impression that the player understood his position.

Ballack used a statement from his lawyer to say that he was “disappointed and surprised” by Loew’s statement. Ballack said the offer to have a farewell appearance in a friendly against Brazil on Aug. 10 in Stuttgart is “a farce.” “ To pretend that they always dealt with me and my role as captain openly and honestly is the height of hypocrisy,” Ballack said in the statement.

The 34-year-old former Chelsea midfielder has 98 caps but has not played for Germany in more than a year and missed seven months with an ankle injury, including last year’s World

Cup in South Africa, where Germany finished third.

Ballack, who had 42 goals in a Germany career that began in April 1999, never won a major title with the national team. He was Germany ’s captain in 55 games. Loew had nominally retained Ballack as captain, but left him out of the Germany squad recently despite the player enjoying a strong end to the season. On Thursday, however, the federation said Ballack won’t be part of the squad in future — though it made an offer for him to play one last game as captain in the friendly against Brazil.

Loew said recent months have brought many young players to the fore who have “good prospects.” “In our talks, I had the impression that Michael definitely understands our point of view,” Loew said. “So in the interest of everyone, an honest and clear decision is now appropriate.”

Ballack’s last game for Germany was in March 2010, a 1-0 loss to Argentina in a friendly.

Germany’s captain Michael Ballack His club career included stints with Kaiserslautern, Bayer Leverkusen, Bayer Munich and Chelsea. When his contract at Chelsea was not extended, Ballack returned to Leverkusen and struggled to make the starting lineup after coming back

ask for a transfer, no. That would be disrespectful. I hope they can reach an agreement that is satisfactory for everyone.

“Chelsea are a big club with an ambitious owner. They have great players and they have ambitions to fight for the title and win the Champions League. I want to stay in London. I am very happy here and so are my family.”

But Levy insisted in a club statement there will be no sale “at any price, to Chelsea Football Club or any other club.”

Levy said: “I wish to make it absolutely clear, as I have said previously, that none of our key players will be sold this summer. We are building a team for the future to consistently play at the highest level and retaining quality players is crucial to that. Tottenham boss Harr y Redknapp dubbed Chelsea’s initial offer as “ridiculous” while insisting that Modric, whom he rates in any case at a minimum 30million pounds, was “irreplaceable” and not for sale. Modric, 25, says he must consider his options, noting that “it is for football that players leave clubs and move. — AFP

from an ankle injury. But he finished the season strongly. The tackle that effectively ended his Germany career came in the FA Cup final against Portsmouth in 2010 and was committed by former Bundesliga player KevinPrince Boateng. —AP

Silver Stars down Mercury PHOENIX: Sophia Young scored 20 of her 26 points in the second half as the San Antonio Silver Stars remained unbeaten after four games by overcoming a 14-point halftime deficit to beat the Phoenix Mercury 101-99 on

Friday. Becky Hammon added 22 points and nine assists, and rookie Danielle Adams had 16 points and six rebounds. Diana Taurasi had 20 points, five rebounds and three assists for the Mercury (0-3).

Modric ready to leave Spurs LONDON: Tottenham midfielder Luka Modric says he is tempted by the prospect of a move to Chelsea and ready to leave Spurs but insists he will not submit a formal transfer request.

Chelsea have already had a 22million pound (30 million dollars) offer rejected while Manchester City and Manchester United are monitoring the situation although Spurs’ chairman Daniel Levy insisted they will keep their star.

With all three potential suitors able to offer Champions League football next season - unlike Spurs - the Croatia international wants to move on if a suitable offer is made for his services.

“If somebody comes to the club and the offer is good for me and acceptable to them, then I want to leave,” Modric told the Daily Mail.

“I want to leave Tottenham as friends. I have enjoyed my time there, but now it is right for me to look at another club.

“I have an arrangement with the chairman. When I signed my new contract, he said that, if another club came to sign me, they would consider the offer. I won’t

games, including an impressive 1-0 win over 2010 World Cup finalists Honduras.

Under coach Theodore Whitmore, the Reggae Boyz have come together as a team unit again after a poor World Cup qualifying campaign and with Dane Richards and Ryan Johnson provided pace and sk ill up-front they will be a tough opponent for the US. Jamaica have never beaten the US however, losing nine of the 17 meetings of the two nations including seven of nine on US soil.

Panama showed the US was susceptible to pace and aggression and the Panamanians are look ing to progress fur ther when they face El Salvador in the capital on Sunday. The other tie is a classic Central American match-up with Costa Rica, who suffered a 4-1 thrashing from Mexico, tak ing on Honduras. —Reuters

Lynx 96, Dream 85 At Minneapolis, Seimone Augustus scored 25 points to lead Minnesota past Atlanta for its fourth straight victory after a season-opening loss.

Rebekkah Brunson had 18 points and 14 rebounds for her fifth straight double-double, one short of the WNBA record to start a season. Lindsay Whalen added 16 points and eight assists, and Maya Moore had 13 points.

Angel McCoughtry led Atlanta (1-4) with 27 points.

Storm 68, Fever 54 At Seattle, Swin Cash had 14 points and eight rebounds, and Sue Bird added 12 points in the defending WNBA champion Seattle’s victory over Indiana.LeCoe Willingham had 10 points for Seattle (2-1). Katie Douglas led Indiana (3-2) with 11 points after entering the game with a WNBA-best 21.3 average.

Seattle, coming off a loss to Minnesota on June 9 when it fell behind 22-0, scored the first four points Friday and never trailed.

CARACAS: US former WNBA player Kayte Christensen teaches basketball to a girl during clinics for young basketball players. —AP

Sky 85, Liberty 73 At Rosemont, Illinois, Sylvia Fowles had a season-high 27 points and 11 rebounds to help Chicago beat New York for its third straight victory.

Fowles scored 10 points in third quarter and the Sky (3-1) outscored the Liberty (2-3) 32-13 in the period to turn a 36-31 halftime deficit into a 63-49 advantage. Epiphanny Prince added 17 points for Chicago, and Michelle Snow had 13. —AP

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Chase begins to reel in McIlroy at the US Open

PARIS: In this June 3, 2011 file photo, Serbia’s Novak Djokovic reacts as he plays Switzerland’s Roger Federer. Djokovic can start a new winning streak by beating Jeremy Chardy of France in the first round at Wimbledon. —AP

Isner draws Mahut in 1st round at Wimbledon WIMBLEDON: The longest match rematch is coming to Wimbledon next week after John Isner and Nicolas Mahut were drawn Friday to face each other in the first round.

Last year, the pair played the longest match in tennis history at the All England Club, with Isner winning 6-4, 3-6, 6-7 (7), 76 (3), 70-68 in a first-round match that which lasted 11 hours, 5 minutes stretched over three days. An audible gasp followed Friday’s announcement, but laughter soon ensued.

“It’s going to be pretty nuts,” Isner said Friday. “I couldn’t believe it, I joked with him earlier in the week, last week, and said ‘watch us play each other,’ and he said ‘no, there’s no way, that’s not even funny.”‘ The two players, who have become good friends since their historic encounter a year ago, were due to practice with each other late yesterday — but canceled those plans as soon as they found out the rematch was on. “We might do dinner (afterward),” Isner said. “We’re really good friends now, but obviously we both want to win, but we’re going to enjoy it and laugh at it at the same time.” Isner later posted “anyone seen the wimby draw? Who do I play?” as a joke on Twitter and the social networking site was buzzing with talk about the matchup.

“Isner vs mahut drawing each other in the first round after last year is the most amazing thing I’ve seen in tennis! Centre court anyone?!” fourth-seeded Andy Murray said.

Former US Davis Cup captain Patrick McEnroe borrowed his brother John’s famous catchphrase as he posted: “you cannot be serious!!!” The match last year was played on Court 18, and a new plaque this year commemorates the epic contest.

Isner said he didn’t mind which court they played on. “I don’t care what they do,” Isner said.

“It’s going to be crazy, they might put us on a bigger court, (or) put us back on that court (18).” This year’s contest is scheduled to take place — or begin at least — on Tuesday. Their first-round match was held over twice because of darkness last year, and with rain forecast for the opening week of Wimbledon, there is a chance they could be delayed again.

Defending champion Rafael Nadal was drawn in the opposite half from six-time champion Roger Federer, meaning there is a chance of a fourth Wimbledon final between the two. The top-seeded Nadal will start against Michael Russell of the United States in the opening match on Centre Court on Monday.

Nadal could come up against the big-

serving Milos Raonic in the third round and then 2009 U.S. Open champion Juan Martin del Potro in the last 16. If the seedings pan out, Nadal’s quarter final could be a rematch of last year’s final against Tomas Berdych.

Federer has second-seeded Novak Djokovic as his projected semifinal opponent. The third-seeded Swiss will face Mikhail Kukushkin of Kazakhstan in the first round, and could encounter former finalist David Nalbandian in the third round.

Djokovic meets Jeremy Chardy of France in the first round. Of the top four, Murray has possibly the most difficult route to the final. Before a possible semifinal against Nadal, he could face Marin Cilic in the third round, Richard Gasquet in the last 16 and three-time finalist Andy Roddick in the quarterfinals. Murray will meet Daniel Gimeno-Traver of Spain in the first round.

In the women’s draw, seventh-seeded Serena Williams and big sister Venus Williams are in opposite halves, setting up the possibility for a fifth sibling final at the All England Club.

The sisters have won nine of the past 11 Wimbledon finals. Serena, who has won four, is 3-1 against five-time champion Venus in the final match.

Serena has played only two matches since winning the title last year after complications with a foot injury led to blood clots on her lungs. She returned in Eastbourne this week, losing a three-set match to Vera Zvonareva.

Zvonareva could meet Venus, who has been seeded 22nd, in the fourth round at Wimbledon. Venus opens against Akgul Amanmuradova of Uzbekistan, while Serena takes on Aravane Rezai of France.

Zvonareva plays Alison Riske of the United States.

As the defending champion, Serena’s first-round match will open play on Centre Court on Tuesday. Top-seeded Caroline Wozniacki, the No. 1-ranked player looking for her first Grand Slam title, meets Arantxa Parra Santonja of Spain in the first round. If she gets that far, she could meet Serena in the semifinals.

French Open champion Li Na has a potentially tough second-round match. If she gets past Alla Kudryavtseva of Russia in the first round, she could face Sabine Lisicki, who won the Birmingham title on grass last week and was awarded a wild card at Wimbledon after a long injury layoff.

Maria Sharapova, the 2004 Wimbledon champion, will be up against Anna Chakvetadze of Russia in the opening round. —AP

Russia’s Vera Zvonareva reacts in this file photo

Tears and tantrums are good for my game, says Zvonareva LONDON: Vera Zvonareva was a shock finalist at Wimbledon last year but 12 months on it would be no surprise if the Russian repeated her feat at the All England Club over the next fortnight.

The 26-year-old from Moscow, the world number three, is second seed for the women’s singles having built on her run on the London grass courts last year to become one of the most consistent performers on the WTA tour.

Yet she was once written of as too emotional to achieve her full potential as defeats often used to be accompanied with tears and tantrums and rants at her coaching

entourage.

Thankfully, in a game often derided for lacking personalities, she refuses to conform to the poker-faced stereotype of the players being churned out of tennis academies around the world. Rather than change, she has instead harnessed the nervous energy and emotions that once proved so destructive. “I really don’t care what people say because I always believed in myself,” Zvonareva told Reuters at Eastbourne this week where she was beaten in the quarterfinals of the Wimbledon warm-up by Samantha Stosur. —Retuers

BETHESDA: The chase was on to reel in runaway leader Rory McIlroy in the third round of the US Open at Congressional Country Club here yesterday.

The 22-year-old Ulsterman has blown the field apart in the first two days with rounds of 65 and 66 giving him the lowest first 36 holes in US Open history.

He stands at 11-under, five clear of second-placed Yang Yong-Eun of South Korea with Americans Robert Garrigus, Brandt Snedeker, Zach Johnson and Matt Kuchar as well as Spain’s Sergio Garcia a further three strokes adrift.

With the leaders not due out till mid-afternoon, American qualifier Webb Simpson showed that lowscoring was possible by reaching the turn in four under to put him at level par for the tournament.

McIlroy, seemingly pre-destined for golfing glory since he first burst onto the scene as an 18-year-old amateur at the 2007 Carnoustie British Open, said he intends to stay the course by continuing to be “aggressive” and “cocky”.

“I just try and have a bit of an attitude,” he explained. His play so far has delighted the big crowds at this course west of Washington, frequented by US presidents and lawmakers, and left many of his rivals open-mounthed in admiration, evoking memories of the young Tiger Woods.

But one big question marks hangs over the young buck — will he collapse again as he did in the second round of the last year’s British Open at St Andrews and at the final round of this years Masters at Augusta National.

On both occasions, he led the tournament only for his game to disintegrate with resulting 80s. At his shoulder ready to pounce will be Yang, a tough and uncompromising 39-year-old who knows something about making comebacks.

Two years ago, he made golfing history by coming from two strokes behind in the final round to defeat Tiger Woods for the PGA Championship title at Hazeltine in Minnesota.

Yang had trailed leader Woods by six at the halfway stage, the same margin he trails McIlroy at Congressional.

It was the first time in 15 attempts that Woods had failed to win a major title when leading or tied for the lead entering the final round.

In so doing, Yang became the first Asian man to win a major title, earning him instant celebrity throughout the continent.

He also produced a remarkable

BETHESDA: Martin Kaymer, of Germany, watches his drive from the sixth tee during the third round of the US Open Championship golf tournament. —AP

BETHESDA: YE Yang, of South Korea, lines up his putt on the 14th green during the second round of the US Open Championship golf tournament. —AP comeback, he points out, last year to win the Korea Open after starting the third round 10 strokes adrift of third round leader Noh Seung-Yul, who also made the cut here at even par.

“Anything can happen in golf, really,” was his blunt assessment of the challange facing him at the weekend. For those more distant

Murray keen to avoid more roof rage LONDON: Andy Murray has played down suggestions he is unhappy at the prospect of playing his Wimbledon first round match against Spain’s Daniel Gimeno-Traver under the Centre Court roof.

Fourth seed Murray is likely to kick off his bid for a first Wimbledon title on the first day of the tournament on Monday, but the weather forecast predicts rain for the opening few days of the Grand Slam event in south-west London.

With British number one Murray a strong contender for a Centre Court slot, that would mean a strong possibility of playing all or part of his match under the court’s multi-millionpound, retractable roof.

Murray had an uncomfortable experience of Wimbledon’s ‘indoor’ conditions in 2009 when he faced Stanislas Warwinka in the first match played under the new structure.

Although he won the fourth round clash in five sets, at the time Murray said he didn’t enjoy the humidity generated by the enclosed environment and the slower pace of the balls.

Keen to avoid a Wimbledon row before the tournament has even begun, Queen’s champion Murray was more diplomatic in a press conference at the All England Club on Saturday.

“It’s more humid. It slows the conditions down and the balls become heavier. Whether that’s good for me or not, I never said,” Murray remarked. “At the time I was the first one to play a match under it and that is what the indoor court does.

“As for the roof, I’ve never played on grass indoors before. It was a new experience for me.

It was obviously great to get the match finished.

“There’s definitely an advantage to get your match finished if the weather’s not good. “If you can get on and get your match done, you don’t have to play back to back days. It’s tough over five sets. “But who knows if I’ll be on Centre Court or not. I’ll have to wait and see.” —AFP

from the lead, many appear already to have consigned themselves to playing for second place.

But as in life, in golf, hope springs eternal as world No.2 Lee Westwood intimated. “I think that’s the attitude I’m going to go with over the next couple of days-to try and get past whoever is in the second spot-and we’ll see what Rory does,” the

Englishman said. “He’s had leads before.”

With 72 players into the weekend and the final pairing of McIlroy and Yang not due off before 3:50 pm local time (1950 GMT) due to the end of the second round, organizers were facing a race against the clock to have the round completed by sunset. —AFP

Sagan strikes again as tempers fray on Tour SWITZERLAND: Slovakian Peter Sagan claimed his second victory of the Tour of Switzerland as tempers frayed on the finish line of the eighth and penultimate stage over 167.3 km yesterday.

Versatile Liquigas rider Sagan had already shown his class in the mountains when he won stage three to Grindelwald ahead of Italian all-rounder Damiano Cunego.

After a frantic last 25km in which several top sprinters, including Britain’s Mark Cavendish, were left behind by a split in the peloton a powerful sprint to the finish by the Slovakian left Australian Matt Goss in second with Britain’s Ben Swift in third place.

“It was a really hard finale but thankfully in the final kilometre I had (teammate) Daniel Oss leading me out,” said Sagan, who also secured the race’s blue jersey for the points competition.

“I’m very satisfied with this second win and the points jersey. It’s been a huge success for me this week.” Lampre rider Cunego meanwhile retained the race leader’s yellow jersey with a 1min 36sec lead on Dutchman Steven Kruijswijk ahead of the race-closing time trial here today.

Cunego had stayed at the front of the main chasing peloton as it pursued an earlier breakaway, an intelligent move given what was to happen in the final, hilly kilometres.

After Cavendish’s team had spent energy driving the chasing peloton, the American outfit were outfoxed when Movistar upped the pace on the category three Hallauerberg climb whose summit was 22km from the finish.

“We wanted to try and eliminate as many sprinters as possible” explained the Spanish team’s sporting director Jose Luis Arrieta, whose main hope Jose Joaquin Rojas would eventually finished sixth.

The Garmin team of Nor wegian sprinter Thor Hushovd soon joined in, and the Leopard team put German powerhouse Jens Voigt on the front to do

further damage.

Despite Goss making the cut for HTCHighroad, their efforts ultimately left Cavendish and overall contender Mollemasecond overall at 1:23 overnight-fighting a vain battle to close the gap.

It also pushed Leopard’s defending champion Frank Schleck up to third place, still 1:41 behind Cunego, however emotions ran high at the finish line where it transpired that Mollema had suffered a puncture 15km from home.

Mollema, who dropped to fifth overall at 2:11, accused Leopard of double standards and said their tactics will not be forgotten at next month’s Tour de France.

“It’s unbelievable they (Leopard) hit full gas when they heard I wasn’t in the group any more,” said the Dutchman.

“Last year in the Tour de France the Leopard guys (then riding for Saxo Bank) neutralised the race when some of their guys had crashed.

“We won’t forget this when it comes to the Tour de France.” Leopard sporting director Torsten Schmidt defended the team’s tactics. “The team pulled with 15 kilometres to go.

“We were on the front from there all the way to the finish. They fought to gain as many seconds as possible for the overall.”

American Levi Leipheimer of RadioShack is still 1:59 behind the Italian race leader, and the biggest threat on Sunday when a hilly 32.1 km race against the clock will decide the race. Cunego, however, remained defiant.

“I’ve got quite a good lead and I’m in great form at the moment so it’s up to the guys behind me to catch me,” said the Italian.

Schleck’s younger brother Andy, who has shown mixed form this week as he primes his condition for an assault on the Tour de France yellow jersey, secured the king of the mountains’ green jersey.

Frenchman Lloyd Mondory of AG2R secured the blue jersey for the sprint competition. —AFP

Chase begins to reel in McIlroy at the US Open

Ballack refuses farewell game

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Tricky tests for Mexico, US in Gold Cup q-finals Page 18 SANTA CLARA: Michael Phelps competes in the men’s 100 meter butterfly final during Day Two of the Santa Clara International Grand Prix at George F. Haines International Swim Center.—AP

Phelps wins 100 fly, loses 100 free SANTA CLARA: Michael Phelps continued his inconsistent year Friday, easily winning the 100-meter butterfly but finishing second in the 100 freestyle at the Santa Clara International Grand Prix.

The 14-time Olympic gold medalist and world record holder handled the competition in the butter fly.

Australia’s Nicholas D’Arcy was second and Davis Tarwater third. “The fly I felt good. I was able to connect my stroke a little bit more and get my hips into it,” Phelps said.

“At the end of the day, I was kind of bummed about the finish. I thought I was kind of long on the finish. But it’s a good time. I can’t really complain. I feel like I had a lot of pop

on the first 50 than I did earlier in the year. So I think that’s a lot better.” The strong showing in one of Phelps’ signature events was outshined only by a slow start in his only other race of the night.

Phelps nearly chased down Park Tae-hwan of South Korea in the 100 free before finishing a close second.

“I couldn’t get into it,” Phelps said. “I couldn’t run him down.” Santa Clara is the last stop on USA Swimming’s grand prix series and the final tuneup for next month’s world championships in Shanghai.

The 100 free was not one of the events Phelps raced in route to a record eight gold medals in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The addition is one

of a few small changes Phelps is trying to make as he grows older — at least by swimming standards. He turns 26 at the end of the month.

Phelps had told reporters a day earlier what most had long suspected: He likely won’t enter eight events in the 2012 London Games and try to repeat his record performance. He plans to drop the 400-meter individual medley — once among his marquee events — and could trim his schedule more. As with most swimmers, the final answer will come after a test run this summer.

With the world championships looming in Shanghai next month, everybody is aiming for maximum output. Lochte, Phelps’ longtime

teammate and rival, is still slowed by a strained MCL in his left knee and again didn’t get the results he wanted. “It’s time for me to start getting mad,” Lochte said, chuckling. “I keep seeing everybody else’s times get lower and lower. I keep waiting for my time. But this is just kind of a tuneup.” Phelps will compete in two other events this weekend: the 200meter backstroke (also against Lochte) late yesterday and the 200meter butterfly today.

He stressed that he was mostly happy with the results so far at Santa Clara, already feeling stronger from his latest training session. The plan is to slowly increase his schedule from now until London.

“I think we’ve just been able to work on being able to finish more and stronger,” he said. “So I think that’s going to play out a little bit more.” Eleven-time Olympic medalists Natalie Coughlin won the women’s 100 free in 54.1 seconds, but was disqualified for staying under water too long. Melissa Franklin was awarded first with a time of 54.33 seconds.

Meanwhile, a 17-year-old swimmer competing at the Santa Clara International Grand Prix went missing for several hours, prompting a desperate search before she was located.

Family and friends of Carissa Metcalf had handed out photos of

Wozniacki — No-one wants to play the Williams sisters

Bartoli wins first grass court title EASTBOURNE: Marion Bartoli of France won the first grasscourt title of her career yesterday, defeating Czech Petra Kvitova 6-1, 4-6, 7-5 in the Eastbourne final, having played two matches in one day.

Bartoli now heads into Wimbledon, which starts on Monday, with supreme confidence after earning victory in blowy conditions and the threat of rain in two hours, 19 minutes.

The world number nine, who was the Wimbledon runner-up in 2007, losing to Serena Williams, saved seven of 10 break points while breaking Kvitova on five occasions.

Her title triumph came only hours after Bartoli had played a rain-delayed semi-final held over from Friday, thrashing Australia’s Samantha Stosur 6-3, 6-1.

“It’s great to come up with a win, but it was a huge challenge again today,” said Bartoli. “I was not used to playing matches on the same day. It was an entertaining final. Petra was hitting the ball very hard and very deep, so she had all the credit for coming back. Then at the end it was just fighting and trying to find a way to win.”

Bartoli needed to struggle for her final victory, sweeping the last five games of the opening set, but losing a lead in the second and missing a chance to serve it out on her first opportunity while leading 5-4 in the third.

But the persistent sixth seed broke the Czech in the next game and claimed the win one game on off the the first of two match points. She had also defeated Kvitova in their only other meeting in 2008 indoors.

“Now I have to be focused on

Wimbledon,” said Kvitova. “I’m happy that I played many matches here, and it was a lot of practice for Wimbledon.”

Kvitova won her semi-final earlier in the day when Slovak opponent Daniela Hantuchova retired with an abdominal injury, trailing 7-6 (11/9), 4-2 after 90 minutes.

“It’s not great, That’s for sure,” said the Slovak who lost the Birmingham final on Monday to Germany’s Sabine Lisicki. “It happened at 3-0 in the first set. I was running for a wide backhand and felt a sharp pain and just was getting worse and worse from then.

“I have to hope for some magic and get as much treatment as I can. As soon as I get to Wimbledon I will try to work with the physios and try to do something to be able to be ready for Monday.”

Hantuchova had knocked out Venus Williams in the quarter-finals. Bartoli lifted the sixth title of her career after losing finals this season at Indian Wells to world number one Caroline Wozniacki and at Strasbourg on clay to German Andrea Petkovic.

Kvitova’s beaten opponent Stosur heads to Wimbledon as tenth seed with a good feeling. “This has been good preparation, a really good week. In spite of the match today I’m going to into Wimbledon feeling good. I played some really good tennis here and got through some really good matches.”

The Wimbledon tune-up event was washed out by rain on Friday and still needs to complete the men’s final between Serb third seed Janko Tipsarevic and Italy’s Andreas Seppi to wrap up on time. —AFP

her Friday night around the grand prix and throughout the neighborhood after she vanished just before the event.

A spokeswoman for USA Swimming says Metcalf was found safely. It wasn’t immediately clear where she was found. Metcalf had last been seen before her preliminary morning races outside the swimming complex and then disappeared.

She is from California and was to compete in the 100-meter freestyle and 200-meter breaststroke. The event is the last of the grand prix series and the final tuneup for others such as Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte before next month’s world championships.—AP

EASTBOURNE: France’s Marion Bartoli poses with the trophy after winning the final singles tennis match at the Eastourne International tournament against Czech Republic’s Petra Kvitova.—AP

Vinci, Tursunov triumph ROSMALEN: Italian seventh seed Roberta Vinci saw off Australian Jelena Dokic 6-7 (7/9), 6-3, 7-5 to win the W TA tournament at Rosmalen yesterday, adding the crown to an earlier success this season in Barcelona.

Dokic went down fighting in staving off three match points but finally conceded after 2hr 5min on court as Vinci landed her fifth career title. Former Wimbledon semi-finalist Dokic said the weather conditions had made life difficult but saluted her opponent.

“The conditions were difficult, the wind, the cold, it wasn’t easy. But that takes nothing away from Roberta, who was a deserved winner. She didn’t crack on the big points.”

Dokic, who landed her first title in nine years at Kuala Lumpur earlier this season, insisted that her run in the Netherlands

would stand her in good stead for Wimbledon, where in 1999 she caused a sensation by dumping out former world number one Martina Hingis in the opening round.

Vinci insisted meanwhile that “I am ready for Wimbledon, even if I am a little tired. I will go to London without any pressure — though the standard will be much higher than at Rosmalen.”

Vinci, 28, will take on Russian Vera Dushevina in the opening round while Dokic will meet French Open runner-up and last year’s Roland Garros champion Francesca Schiavone.

Meanwhile, Russia’s Dmitry Tursunov defeated Ivan Dodig of Croatia 6-3, 6-2 in the men’s final for his first title of the season and seventh of his career.—AFP

LONDON: World number one Caroline Wozniacki admits all the top stars on the women’s tour are desperate to avoid playing the Williams sisters at Wimbledon.

For the first time in a year both Serena and Venus Williams are competing together in a Grand Slam as the American siblings aim to continue their dominance on the grass courts of the All England Club. Serena, 29, has been sidelined since winning Wimbledon 12 months ago after stepping on broken glass during a party and then suffering a potentially lifethreatening blood clot.

The four-time Wimbledon champion finally returned to action at Eastbourne this week and won one match before losing to Vera Zvonareva. Venus, 31, also played at Eastbourne in her first appearance on the Tour since being forced to quit her Australian Open third match against Andrea Petkovic in January due to a hip injury which kept her out for the next five months. Despite their lengthy injury absences, the Williams sisters have such a formidable record at Wimbledon-where they have won nine titles-that top seed Wozniacki concedes no-one wants to face them over the next two weeks.

“Obviously no one wants to play them. They have the experience and play really well, especially on grass,” Wozniacki said. “It’s good that they got a higher seed than their rankings because no one wants to play them in the early rounds. “We have to see how they do but grass is a little bit of a different surface. Here it’s important to serve and return well. “We all know that the game of the girls is perfectly suited for the grass. “I read somewhere that in the last 11 years a Williams has won here nine times. It just says something about what great champions they are, but also how well they’re playing on grass.” Although the Williams sisters have a reputation for being rather aloof from their peers on the circuit, Wozniacki, who could play seventh seed Serena in the Wimbledon semifinals, insists she has always enjoyed their company and even flew to California to see how Serena was doing after her surgery. “Serena and Venus are great girls. I have a good relationship with them. It’s always good to have a good laugh in the locker room,” Wozniacki said.“Of course you don’t wish anyone to be injured or hurt, so obviously you want them back and healthy, which is the most important thing.

“I went to visit her when I was in L.A. just to see how she was doing. I don’t wish for anyone to be in that situation because it’s scary.” —AFP

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Ferrari World Abu Dhabi launches online tickets Page 22

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Porsche right on top in ‘Sportiest Cars of 2011’

Friendly Obama-Boehner golf game has high stakes at risk

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ATHENS: Backdropped by the Greek Parliament, theatrical performers from the French theatrical company “Le Theatre du Soleil”(not seen) hold up a giant marionette representing “justice” with its face with ‘’blood’’ , during a peaceful ongoing rally against plans for new austerity measures, at Syntagma square yesterday. — AP

Greeks protest as revamped govt pursues cuts Market rout pauses, but investors remain on edge ATHENS: Thousands of Greeks marched on parliament yesterday in a show of unabated public anger after Prime Minister George Papandreou reshuffled his cabinet and vowed to push on with a belt-tightening campaign. In a move meant to stifle dissent in his Socialist Party, Papandreou on Friday dismissed former Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou, author of a new five-year austerity programme that has sparked weeks of protests. The reshuffle coincided with a pledge by France and Germany to continue funding Athens, a move that may have bought Greece and its fellow euro zone members time to prevent a messy default, even if doubts over its longer-term solvency persist.

The European Union and International Monetary Fund have made the reforms a condition for a new bailout package worth an estimated 120 billion euros ($170 billion) that Greece, shut out of capital markets, will need to fund itself through 2014. Around 5,000 protesters from the Communist group PAME marched into Athens’ central Syntagma square-where demonstrations turned violent earlier this week-chanting “the measures are killing us!” French activists

also performed with a three-metre puppet depicting a bloodied figure of Lady Justice to rhythmic drumming in a gesture of solidarity with Greek protesters who have camped in the square for three weeks. “What has changed with the reshuffle? Nothing,” said Costas, a 22-year-old student who has been camping on the square since the beginning of the month. “We are not planning to leave unless they take back the measures.”

Reshuffle might weaken reforms Papandreou appeared to curb a revolt in his party by including some of the austerity package’s harshest critics in the new administration, but that might also weaken the reforms. He named political heavyweight Evangelos Venizelos, his biggest party rival, as finance minister. Shortly after his nomination, Venizelos said he would travel to Brussels today to ask lenders to allow some “improvements ... for social justice” in the reform package.

On the same day, euro zone finance ministers are expected to agree to release a 12 billion euro tranche of an existing, year-old bailout loan that

Greece needs to pay back debt maturing in July and August and avoid default. “They’ve bought themselves time until September,” said Howard Wheeldon, strategist at BCG Capital Partners in London. “Germany and France are the main countries involved here, and neither of them are going to let the euro fail, and they’re not going to let Greece fail.”

Luxembourg’s Jean-Claude Juncker, the chairman of the euro zone finance ministers’ Eurogroup, criticised German pressure to involve bondholders, telling a German newspaper this has pushed up the cost of the bailout. Successful negotiations over a new aid package for Greece are vital to the economic health of the euro zone, Juncker said. “We are playing with fire,” he said, adding that in the worst case, ratings agencies could declare a default leading to dire consequences for the currency union.

Papandreou’s new cabinet is expected to survive a parliamentary confidence vote on Tuesday night, and then approve a package which envisages 28 billion euros in tax hikes and spending cuts by 2015. But Greek media were less certain about implementation, an issue that dogged

Venizelos’s predecessor when he struggled to meet deficit targets agreed with Greece’s bailout lenders. “Greece needs a strong government. But does it need a strong government to finally implement what has been agreed with the EU or to break these deals?,” columnist Yiorgos Karipidis wrote in main Greek financial daily Imerisia.

Fears of default Greece’s biggest union GSEE, representing around 2 million workers in the private sector, called for a 48 hour strike when parliament votes on what has been dubbed the mid-term plan.

The government hopes that will happen by endJune. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said yesterday all parties negotiating a new bailout had agreed that private creditors should be involved on a voluntary basis but details on how to do this still needed to be worked out.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday backed away from a demand that private bond holders swap their holdings for new Greek debt with maturities of seven years. She said she now

UK union leader warns of worst strikes since 1926 LONDON: The leader of Britain’s biggest public sector union has threatened to unleash the biggest wave of strikes in nearly 100 years to force the government to back down on planned pension reforms and deep spending cuts. The coalition government says it must push ahead with tackling a record peacetime budget deficit or risk suffering a debt crisis similar to those seen in Greece and Ireland.

It expects about 330,000 public jobs to go as it cuts spending by 81 billion pounds ($130.5 billion) over the next four years.

Dave Prentis, who as head of Unison represents 1.4 million public workers, said the state sector’s share of the spending cuts was too big and he warned of indefinite rolling strikes to make the government soften its austerity programme.

“It will be the biggest since the general strike,” Prentis said in an interview with the Guardian newspaper yesterday. More than three million workers took part in the 1926 general strike in support of the coal miners’ ultimately failed attempt to resist wage cuts. Railways, docks, steelworks and many other industries were disrupted during the nine-day strike.

However, its impact was blunted by months of government planning and the use of thousands of police and soldiers to keep the country moving.

Current anger over the public spending cuts is growing and union members were

determined to keep up pressure on the government, Prentis added. The next wave of strikes will be more successful than the long-running and sometimes violent miners’ strikes in 1984-85 that ended in victory for Margaret Thatcher, Conservative prime minister at the time, he said. “It won’t be the miners’ strike,” Prentis told the Guardian. “We are going to win.”

Trades Union Congress leader Brendan Barber said he and Prentis both still wanted to resolve the dispute through talks with the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government. About 750,000 workers including teachers and job centre staff have already said they will stage coordinated action this month in what would be Britain’s worst stoppages for decades.

Finance minister George Osborne has repeatedly said the country must cut spending and raise taxes if it wants to retain the confidence of lenders and the money markets.

While students clashed with police during demonstrations over higher tuition fees late last year, Britain has avoided the violent demonstrations against austerity measures seen in other European countries. However, pressure is growing on many British workers from a combination of weak economic growth, higher taxes, muted wage rises and inflation running at 4.5 percent, more than double the central bank’s target. — Reuters

believed an option based on investors voluntarily maintaining their exposure, which some banks have suggested they might explore, would be sufficient. The Franco-German agreement on Friday boosted markets, reducing risk premiums on Greek and other peripheral euro zone bonds after a week-long financial retreat.

The European Union’s internal markets commissioner said a restructuring of Greece’s 340 billion euro debt is not on the agenda. “It would only postpone the problem and in the wake of a restructuring Greece would face exactly the same difficulties and would no longer have any credibility to borrow,” Michel Barnier told Europe 1 radio, describing Greece as a country that had been badly run and had lived above its means.

Bond markets remain spooked by fears of Greek default and most economists are overwhelmingly sceptical that Greece can ever repay a debt pile that economists expect to rise to 170 percent of the country’s annual economic output by 2013. “I think (the markets) will calm down in the next two to three weeks, but tensions may well start to step up again in four to five weeks,” BCG Capital Partners’ Wheeldon said. — Reuters

Flight delays to persist through weekend: United

SAN FRANCISCO: United Airlines passengers sleep at San Francisco International Airport early yesterday. — AP

CHICAGO: It could take several days for thousands of stranded travelers to get home after a United Airlines computer system shut down for several hours, leading to widespread cancelations Friday night. The unspecified “network connectivity” problem was fixed and flights resumed early yesterday, but the airline said delays could persist throughout the weekend.

Also, with flights nearly full, there was little room for passengers whose flights had been cancelled to rebook. “There’s literally nowhere to put them,” airline analyst Robert Mann said.

“There are already very few empty seats on the flights that operate.” United’s planes were an average of 86.8 percent full in May. To try to alleviate the congestion, the airline allowed passengers with tickets yesterday flights to cancel or delay their travel to a later date without charge. Luckily, yesterday is one of the lighter travel days. The outage started about 7:15 pm CDT Friday and lasted for about five hours. Long lines of passengers formed at airports in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Denver and Chicago. Some passengers ended up spending the night at airports or found hotel rooms in the cities where they were stranded.

United said its flight departures, airport processing and reservation system, including its website, were affected by the outage.

United didn’t say how many passengers or flights were affected. But Los Angeles International Airport spokeswoman Nancy Castles said the outage affected about 2,500 people at that airport alone. Courtney Mickalonis, spokeswoman for Dulles International Airport in Washington, said offi-

cials there handed out blankets to about 300 passengers stranded overnight. Nina and Mark Whitford of Brockville, Ontario, ended up in Chicago while on a layover on their flight home from Minneapolis. They said they were headed to a hotel to spend the night and were dismayed when an airline worker told them they would have to mail in their hotel receipt to get reimbursed.

“We’ve been waiting here for about two hours for our baggage, and nothing’s come,” said Nina Whitford, 35. She said several people were still at the airport around 1 am CDT, and others on their flight had rented cars to complete their trip to Canada. “Some people were sleeping and some people were getting very angry because no one was giving us any answers,” she said. Ron Schaffer, an Apple Inc engineer, was trying to connect with a flight to Grand Junction, Colorado, after flying into Denver from Orlando, Florida. “A hundred yards of kiosks, and every one of them closed,” he said, adding there were no flights listed on monitors. “Workers were trying to answer questions. They have no ability to do anything manually. They can’t check baggage. You can’t get baggage. You are really stuck.” Some Continental Airlines passengers also were affected by the outage.

United and Continental merged in May 2010. They still operate as separate airlines but are slowly integrating systems. United spokesman Charles Hobart said yesterday morning that Continental was able to dispatch flights normally, but some of its airport kiosks were affected. —AP

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B U S I NE S S

UAE May inflation at 3-month high Foodprices soar,housingcosts down DUBAI: Inflation in the United Arab Emirates climbed to a three-month high of 1.4 percent on an annual basis in May and edged up from the previous month as food prices continued to soar, data showed yesterday. Consumer price growth in the world’s No. 3 oil exporter floated around 1 percent for most of 2010 after debt troubles at Dubai state-owned firms knocked the economy.

Inflation has remained low this year, at 1.1 percent in April, as banks remain hesitant to lend despite inflows of deposits to the OPEC member, seen as a relatively safe haven after unrest rocked nearby Bahrain, Oman and Yemen. On the month, living costs rose 0.2 percent in May after five monthly declines in a row, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed.

Analysts polled by Reuters in March expected average inflation in the second largest Arab econ-

omy to quicken to 2.5 percent in 2011 from 0.9 percent last year, which was the lowest annual level since the Gulf war started in 1990. Food costs, which account for 14 percent of consumer expenses in the $298 billion UAE economy, jumped 1.3 percent month-on-month in May, the same pace as in the previous month, the data showed.

Concerned about the regional turmoil, the UAE government has promised to spend $1.6 billion on infrastructure in less devel-

oped northern emirates, raise military pensions by 70 percent and subsidise bread and rice. It also called on retailers to offer discounts of up to 50 percent in the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which begins in August, when food prices usually surge as families enjoy more elaborate evening meals after the daylight fasting.

In May, the UAE said it planned to combat rising global commodity prices by fixing the cost of about 400 foodstuffs and

3i Infotech unveils advanced solution

KNPC picks HP software to accelerate business growth KUWAIT: HP yesterday announced that Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC), one of the world’s largest national oil companies, is

Tayfun Topkoc using HP Business S er vice Management to transform its technology environment, streamline operations and run its business more efficiently.

With more than 7,500 users, KNPC was determined to continue providing superior service while their information and IT projects rapidly increased. Historically, KNPC managed information and IT projec ts through manual change processes. To address this, HP and its local partner Tawasul Services implemented HP Business Availability Center Software to pro-

household products at 70 outlets. Housing prices, the largest basket item with a 39 percent share, fell 0.1 percent on a monthly basis in May in a sixth consecutive decline as the proper ty sector remains weak.

Transport costs rose 0.1 percent, slightly slower than in April. In March, the Gulf country’s central bank governor said inflation was not a worry, adding that consumer price growth should range around ver y low single -digit rates. —Reuters

vide KNPC advanced warning of service disruptions and isolation of their root causes before they impact the business.

“KNPC is striving to improve our abilit y to respond to market changes to supply gas to businesses more efficiently,” said Khaled AlAsousi, IT Manager, KNPC. “With HP software, we can be more agile in order to adjust to dynamic market and customer demands for fast, innovative services.”

“IT needs to be the innovation engine for the business. “By eliminating manual practices and providing better change processes, HP Software will help KNPC accelerate business transformation without increasing risk,” said Tayfun Topkoc, HP Software Director for the Middle East. With HP software, KNPC IT will receive aler ts when exceptions occur; eliminating duplicate error aler ts and minimizing the time spent reacting to these alerts.

The HP solution includes HP Net work and Operations Management Center, HP Business Availability Centre and HP Storage Essentials. By automating IT operations, KNPC will have increased visibility over its entire IT infrastructure and services, ensuring increased responsiveness to the changing needs of customers and the marketplace. In a world of continuous connectivity, the Instant-On Enterprise embeds technology in everything it does to serve customers, employees, par tners and citizens with everything they need, instantly.

KUWAIT: 3i Infotech, a global financial technology solutions and services provider unveiled the advanced and upgraded version of their Enterprise Resource Planning Solution, ORION Enterprise in Kuwait. The ERP platform, with built-in CRM and SCM and Business Intelligence capabilities, offers organizations sharp insights into and control over operations across the value chain through a single application.

With its power ful suite of tools such as workflow management portal, individual desktop and Business intelligence and a set of ready functional Pankaj Chawla modules mapped to best industry practices, ORION Enterprise addresses the needs and challenges of diverse industries.

Pankaj Chawla, President - Middle East, India, APAC & Africa Markets, 3i Infotech said, “ORION Enterprises is aimed at assisting set-ups across finance, manufacturing, sales, supply chain management, retail, contracting, auto dealership management and human resource and payroll management. ORION Enterprise is a dynamic enterprise resource planning solution that allows organizations to smoothly integrate disparate teams, functions, processes and systems while providing top management with business insights through the use of its powerful built-in business intelligence”.

The key business benefits of ORION(tm) Enterprise are: Seamless integration with single-application access to all business processes; enterprise-class scalability; adaptability with easy feature and function customization, to cope with rapidly changing business scenarios; ease of implementation with a user-friendly interface, smooth data integration, and detailed documentation; increased profitability with greater supply chain flexibility and quicker response time to new geographies and opportunities Lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO); increased customer loyalty with collaborative tools; and better, sharper decision-making with incisive analytical and reporting tools.

Ferrari World Abu Dhabi launches online tickets KUWAIT: Tickets to the region’s premier family entertainment centre, Ferrari World Abu Dhabi, can now be purchased online at www.ferrariworldabudhabi.com, allowing you to sk ip the queues or gift a visit to the world’s largest indoor and only Ferrari themed park with a simple click. All categories of tickets including General Admission, General Admission Junior, Premium Admission and Premium Admission Junior will be sold on the Park’s official website. Visitors keen on planning a trip will be able to browse through Ferrari World Abu Dhabi’s exciting rides and attractions, authentic Italian restaurants and signature Ferrari stores and immediately and conveniently book their tickets online.

NBK offers valuable tips to customers for travel season KUWAIT: National Bank of Kuwait (NBK) takes the opportunity of this summer travel season to remind its customers to take advantage of NBK’s attractive summer promotions, and to offer them valuable travel tips.

With the arrival of the summer holiday travel season, the majority of our customers will be traveling starting from this month of June. Every summer we offer our valued customers exclusive promotions and this time we’re also providing them with valuable travel tips. Many countries now require customers to enter their debit card PIN numbers instead of providing their signatures at the point of sale. Card PIN numbers are also required to withdraw cash from any ATM worldwide. Therefore NBK advises its customers to follow these travel tips: Always check the expiry dates of their debit and credit cards before they travel.

Make sure they change the PIN numbers of their debit cards through any NBK ATM machine before they travel.

Request new PIN numbers for their credit cards by calling our Hala Watani call centre, or by visiting any NBK branch.

When our customers use their NBK cards while travelling, some shops

will ask them whether they want their purchases to be paid in the local currency or Kuwaiti Dinars equivalent; NBK recommends paying in the local currency of their destination and not in their home currency (Kuwaiti Dinars) as NBK always provides the best exchange rates on foreign transactions.

To register for our Watani Online banking service through our website nbk.com, so that they can access their accounts online while traveling.

To sign up for SMS Real Time Service to receive instant text message for all purchases and transactions done inside and outside Kuwait.

NBK also offers its customers “Travel Safe”, NBK’s travel insurance package in cooperation with AlAhleia Insurance Company during the holiday season. It addresses a wide array of travelers needs providing policy holders increased coverage at highly competitive rates through its alliance with Al-Ahleia Insurance Co. NBK customers can apply and obtain their policy instantly at any of NBK’s branches located around Kuwait. In addition, policy holders can receive the required insurance certificate for their Schengen visa from Al-Ahleia Insurance Co. virtually hassle free when presenting their NBK Travel Safe policy.

EXCHANGE RATES CommercialBankofKuwait 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 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

.2700000 .4410000 .3850000 .3190000 .2770000 .2870000 .0040000 .0020000 .0744690 .7255320 .3310000 .0700000 .7112520 .0040000 .0430000

.2770000 .4540000 .3960000 .3300000 .2870000 .2960000 .0072500 .0035000 .0752180 .7328240 .4010000 .0770000 .7184000 .0072000 .0530000

CUSTOMER TRANSFER RATES .2743000 .2764000 .4434330 .4468280 .3876270 .3905950 .3216090 .3240710 .2798690 .2820120 .0519680 .0523660 .0421040 .0424260 .2890570 .2912700 .0351970 .0354660 .2207290 .2224190 .0033880 .0034140 .0000000 .0062250 .0000000 .0025310 .0000000 .0032330 .0000000 .0037610 .0747110 .0752830 .7277790 .7333510 .0000000 .3909480 .0731660 .0737260 .7126530 .7181090 .0000000 .0063980

Al-MuzainiExchange Co.

Japanese Yen Indian Rupees Pakistani Rupees Srilankan Rupees Nepali Rupees Singapore Dollar Hongkong Dollar Bangladesh Taka

ASIAN COUNTRIES 3.437 6.144 3.203 2.507 3.850 223.490 35.338 3.694

Philippine Peso Thai Baht Irani Riyal - Transfer Irani Riyal - Cash

6.336 9.024 0.271 0.273 GCC COUNTRIES 73.363 75.591 714.560 730.510 74.869

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

ARAB COUNTRIES 48.500 46.230 1.259 201.980 388.500 182.500 5.937 35.576

EUROPEAN & AMERICAN COUNTRIES US Dollar Transfer 275.000 Euro 397.790 Sterling Pound 4513280 Canadian dollar 285.270 Turkish lire 173.830 Swiss Franc 326.990 Australian dollar 293.430 US Dollar Buying 273.800 20 Gram 10 Gram 5 Gram

GOLD 282.000 142.000 73.000

BahrainExchange 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 294.300 292.800 732.850 732.850 3.970 3.706 285.600 284.100 541.300 14.100 53.600 167.800 223.300 48.460 46.434 393.800 392.300 36.070 35.920 6.330 6.150

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

0.034 0.234 0.241 3.510 390.800 0.186 93.060 47.500 4.320 224.900 1.868 50.900 715.740 3.310 6.570 76.230 73.570 223.270 42.940 2.650 450.300 43.400 326.600 5.700 9.430 198.263 75.130 275.900 1.240

0.033

389.470 0.185 93.060 3.860 223.400

325.100 5.700 9.200 75.030 275.500

TRAVELLER’S CHEQUE 448.300

Sterling Pound

DollarcoExchange 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 Indian Rupees

Selling Rate 275.000 284.490 447.975 396.910 326.395 728.413 74.848 75.485 73.293 387.092 46.291 2.506 6.155

3.216 3.714 6.340 674.549 3.522 9.112 5.782 3.931 91.345

KuwaitBahrainIntlExchange Co. 715.560 3.220 6.350 75.800 73.570 223.270 42.940 2.512 448.300

GOLD 1,575.580

10 Tola

Pakistani Rupees Bangladesh Taka Philippines Pesso Cyprus pound Japanese Yen Thai Bhat Syrian Pound Nepalese Rupees Malaysian Ringgit

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) 275.500 3.225 6.155 2.525 3.710 6.375 75.110 73.670 732.400 46.345 452.000 0.00003280 3.910 1.550 391.400 5.750 394.900 287.900

AlMulla Exchange Currency Transfer Rate (Per 1000) US Dollar 275.150 Euro 392.100 Pound Sterling 448.100 Canadian Dollar 284.000 Japanese Yen 3.455 Indian Rupee 6.137 Egyptian Pound 46.300 Sri Lankan Rupee 2.510 Bangladesh Taka 3.690 Philippines Peso 6.310 Pakistan Rupee 3.206 Bahraini Dinar 732.800 UAE Dirham 75.000 Saudi Riyal 73.500 *Rates are subject to change

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BUSINESS

Moody’s threatens to cut Italy debt rating ‘Low productivity impediment to growth’ WASHINGTON: Moody’s Investors Service warned Friday it may cut Italy’s credit rating, citing growth risks in the economy, a large budget deficit and ongoing debt woes in Europe. Moody’s said it placed Italy’s Aa2 local and foreign currency government bond ratings “on review for possible downgrade, while affirming its short-term ratings at Prime-1.” “The Italian economy faces growth challenges in an environment characterized by long-term structural impediments to growth and potentially rising interest rates,” the ratings agency said in a statement.

“Structural economic weaknesses-mainly low productivity and important labor and product market rigidities-have been a major impediment to growth in the last decade and continue to hinder the economy’s recovery

from the severe recession it experienced in 2009.” Amid rising interest rates and weak gross domestic product growth, the government may find it difficult to put the public debt-to-GDP ratio and the interest burden on a solid downward track, the agency explained. The Moody’s warning came after two sharp election defeats for the Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi.

May 30 municipal elections saw the left take control of his Milan fiefdom, while on June 14 an overwhelming majority defeated four referendum questions: on nuclear power, a law to give Berlusconi legal immunity, and two on water privatization. Moody’s highlighted rising concerns about debt levels in the eurozone, where Greece is edging toward sovereign default.”The fragile market

sentiment that continues to surround European sovereigns with high levels of debt poses additional risks for Italy,” Moody’s said. “ The continued stability of market demand for Italy’s debt is uncertain at current yields.” On May 20, another of the three major ratings agencies, Standard & Poor’s, placed Italy on alert for a possible downgrade. S&P warned it could lower Italy’s rating to A+, its fifth-ranked rating and equivalent to Moody’s A1.

Italy ’s rating with Moody ’s has been unchanged since May 2002, when it was raised a notch. According to 2011 projections published Friday by the International Monetary Fund, Italy will have a budget deficit-to-GDP ratio of 4.1 percent and public debt ratio of 120.6 percent. — AFP

Gulf Bank announces winners of Al-Danah Weekly Draw

Porsche right on top in ‘Sportiest Cars of 2011’ DUBAI: Porsche is the top favourite among sports car fans: The readers of the “sportauto” car magazine ranked seven Porsche models - from the Boxster to the Panamera - first in the 15 categories of “The Sportiest Cars of 2011” survey.

A second and two third places top off Porsche’s track record of success.

The top models of the 911 line once again proved to be winners, from the open Carrera GTS and the Turbo S Cabriolet to the quasi race cars GT3

and GT3 RS. These sports cars received three times as many votes as the runners-up. There can be no clearer proof that the 911 model line enjoys highest esteem in the sports car world. Other winners were the Cayman R, Boxster S and Panamera Turbo models. No other brand came close to winning as many first places. With this result, Porsche clearly strengthened its position at the top. In the 2010 survey, three awards for the first place went to Zuffenhausen.

MAN seeks Ferrostaal talks with IPIC FRANKFURT: MAN plans to reach agreement with Abu Dhabi’s IPIC fund over industrial ser vices company Ferrostaal “as soon as possible” MAN Chief Executive Georg PachtaReythofen was quoted yesterday as saying. After a breakdown of relations between the two par ties, IPIC has shown a willingness to negotiate, Pachta-Reythofen told German weekly Frankfur ter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, according to an advance copy of its Sunday edition.

“We will hold constructive talks.

Nobody can live with the (current) situation,” Pachta-Reythofen told the paper in an interview. MAN has been trying to offload its remaining 30 percent stake in Ferrostaal to IPIC following the sale of a 70 percent stake to the fund in

2009. But an unresolved bribery scandal involving contracts to supply submarines to Greece and Portugal has held up a deal. When MAN tried to sell the 30 percent to IPIC via a put option in early 2010 the sovereign wealth fund refused, due to the bribery investigation, and later on sought to annul the original purchase agreement.

At the time, IPIC also rejected an offer by MAN for an out-of-court cash settlement. Separately, the MAN chief told the paper that business in the current year is exceeding expectations and it expects to make 150,000 trucks this year, 80,000 in Germany and a further 70,000 in Brazil. MAN still regards a takeover offer by Volkswagen as being too low, the truck maker reiterated. — Reuters

Samsung Galaxy S II available with VIVA KUWAIT: Kuwait Telecommunications Company VIVA, is pleased to announce that it is the sole distributor of the highly anticipated new smart phone device, the Samsung Galaxy S II, and is now offering exclusive package deals tailored to fit customer needs.

VIVA CEO, Salman Al-Badran stated, “It is part of our responsibility as telecommunication company, to continuously seek to provide customers with the latest device and technology innovations at competitive prices,” adding, “VIVA is always looking to assure that our customers’ needs are fulfilled with their communication needs.”

On his part, President of Al-Babtain Integrated Solutions Company, a Samsung - Kuwait distributor, Mohammed Abdul-Aziz Al-Babtain said, “We gave VIVA the exclusivity for the device and proper authorization because of the company ’s position in the telecommunication industry. We at AlBabtain choose our partners wisely and are proud of our partnership with VIVA, Kuwait,” reaffirming, “we look to continue in full cooperation in order to provide Kuwait with the latest Samsung devices.”

President of Samsung Electronics in the Gulf region Young Soo Kim commented further stating, “Samsung is the world’s leading mobile phone maker, and therefore keen to offer our products through major companies who can target large audiences.” Stressing, “ The cooperation between VIVA and Samsung will remain in continuous development to ensure the supply of the latest products.”

The Samsung Galaxy S II device is offered with three unique packages that are available to new customers as well as

Mohammed Abdul-Aziz Al-Babtain existing customers, starting at KD11, KD30 or, KD55 per month for an entire year with free Internet usage, and a one year warranty. For KD30 per month, customers can benefit with 1,500 minutes of local calls and 300 local SMS text messages, or enjoy 5,000 minutes of local calls, and 1,000 local SMS text messages for the monthly rate of KD55. Customers can choose the package that best suits their needs and take advantage of free or discounted devices, high speed internet service and a free gold number.

VIVA’s Android lovers can now enjoy this new and exclusive offer, as well as explore the excellent tools and various applications of the new Samsung Galaxy S II device. In addition to the launch of the new device, a unique upgrade will allow for the device to be supported in Arabic, and will be available to customers next month for free.

KUWAIT: Gulf Bank held its 23rd Al-Danah weekly draw on June 13, 2011, announcing a total number of 10 Al-Danah weekly prize draw winners, each awarded with prizes of KD1,000. Gulf Bank encourages everyone in Kuwait to open an Al-Danah account and/or increase their deposits to maximize their chances of becoming a winner in the upcoming weekly (KD1,000 for 10 winners), quar terly (KD500,000) and the annual draw (1 million dinars). Gulf Bank’s Al-

Danah allows customers to win cash prizes and encourages them to save money. Chances increase the more money is deposited and the longer it is kept in the account.

Al-Danah also offers a number of unique services including the Al-Danah Deposit Only ATM card which helps account holders deposit their money at their convenience; as well as the Al-Danah calculator to help customers calculate their chances of becoming an Al-Danah winner.

To be part of the Al-Danah draws, customers can visit one of Gulf Bank ’s 54 branches, transfer on line, or call the Customer Contact Center on 1805805 for assistance and guidance. Customers can also log on to www.e-gulfbank.com,

Gulf Bank’s bilingual website, to find all the information regarding Al-Danah or any of the bank’s products and services or log on w w w.e gulfbank.com/aldanahwinners, to find out more about Al-Danah and who the winners are.

Elliott Wave Principles in action applied to euro

By Kamel Mansour

T

he market has always been a mystery to every investor not to mention the least to the ordinary layman who perceives the foreign exchange market as an electronic gambling casino whose outcome is unpredictable and even the winnings do not have a 50-50 chance of realization. “Success is never final.

Failure is never fatal. Courage is what counts (Sir Winston Churchill).” This is what impels the Elliottician who strongly believes that the market follows a rhythmic principle of ebb and flow in combinations of 5 waves followed by 3 waves. R N Elliott did not apply his famous Principles to the Currency Market, yet he did not preclude its application to different markets dominated by mass psychology and human idiosyncrasy. Many were unable to comprehend the Principles because their “Only limit to ... realization of tomorrow is the doubt of today (Eleanor Roosevelt)”, the distrust in Elliott’s methodology.

In my previous article on the Canadian Dollar against the dollar, I looked at the Loonie with Elliott’s Principles glasses. The euro against the dollar (hereafter referred to as euro) is no different. Despite elongated upward corrections, it is trending downward for a long period to come with the first swing to target at least 1.2000 marks on the euro in the coming few quarters.

The euro saw life in 1999, but it was an incarnation of its ancestor, the club of European currencies known as ECU (European Currency Unit) which was born on 13th of March 1979. Due to the absence of high-low-close data prior to May 1986, I resorted to the monthly closing prices from February 1985 to May 1986, extracted the maximum and the minimum for this short interval and incorporated the result to the available high-low-close data from May 1986 till May 2011. No data further back in time was publically available to envisage past wave count.

I want to reiterate that the only deviation from the original principles was the new plotting technique, to which the Principle’s analysis was applied; a personally devised technique to eliminate the inflationary factor embedded in the price itself.

New insight into historical findings Elliott classified, with ingenuity, the degrees of waves in descending order: Grand Super Cycle, Supercyle, Cycle, Primary, Intermediate, Minor, Minute, Minuette, Subminuette. The retracement from the March 2008 High of 1.5900 to the Low in June 2010 at 1.1880 crossed the High of the Cycle that ended in February 1991 at 1.4220. From an Elliott perspective, the crossover meant the whole wave structure from February 1985 till March 2008 was either corrective or that the All Time High of March 2008 was not the end of the Third Cycle, but was the end of the Fifth Cycle.

In either case, the corrective and downward movement from March 2008 would not change.

The presumption that the Fifth Cycle has ended in March 2008 was more favorable due to the evolutionary economic growth of nature. Things begin as startup then, expansion follows and finally, maturity is reached. Thus, from the birth of the ECU to the maturity of the euro, the First Super Cycle was attained in March 2008. The impulsive Cycle III spanned 72 months. It commenced in February 1985 at a level of 0.6480 and finished in February 1991 at 1.4220. The Corrective Fourth Cycle elapsed 116 months. It started with an Irregular wave to take the market down to 1.1170 by August 1993 (30 months) forming Primary A Wave, then retraced upward to 1.3530 by August 1995 (24 months), forming Primary B wave. Finally, the C wave unfolded to take the market down to October 2000 (62

months) reaching 0.8230 marks.

The divine proportion The Divine Proportion, or better known as the Golden rule, was extensively used by Greeks in their art to give beauty, harmony and balance in architecture and design. This was the famous Phi = 1.6180. It was also known as the Fibonacci ratio where the division of the higher Fibonacci integer to the immediate preceding integer would give Phi. The mesmerizing splendor of this ratio can be found in various instances in euro movement. If we calculated the distance from start of the Third Cycle to the Top of the Third Primary in that Cycle, multiplied it by 61.8% and then added the result to the bottom price of the Fourth Primary in June 1989, it equaled 1.4510. The High of the Third Cycle registered 1.4220 in February 1991. The High of the ensuing Irregular Fourth Cycle reached 1.4580 in September 1992; an impeccable application of Fibonacci Ratio.

The Fourth Cycle also satisfied Fibonacci ratio both in price and in time. In terms of time, if we multipled 161.8 percent by 72 months (time the Third Cycle elapsed), it equaled 116 months, which was exactly the time it took to reach from February 1991 to October 2000, the start and the end of the Fourth Cycle, respectively. As for the Price target, if 1.618 is multiplied by the distance from the Irregular High of the First Primary in the Fourth Cycle in September 1992 to the August 1993 Low of that same Primary wave in this Fourth Cycle and deducted the result from the high of Second Primary wave of the Fourth Cycle in August 1995, it would give us 0.8320 mark on the euro; another excellent approximation of the Low in October 2000 which actually stood at 0.8230. In brief, Primary A of the Fourth Corrective Cycle was in divine relation with Primary C of that Cycle. The balancing of Price and Time was a perfect target for an ending of a correction and the ensuing of the original trend; the upward trend of the Fifth Cycle. The Fifth Cycle that commenced in October 2000 went into Five delineated Primaries whose time frames, in months, were: 3,13,23,22,28 (total 89 months - A Fibonacci integer) which ended in March 2008 at 1.5900 mark on the euro. If the distance from the beginning of the First Primary of the Fifth Cycle to the end of the Third Primary of that Cycle is multiplied by 0.618, and added the result to the Low of the Fourth Primary in the Fifth Cycle in November 2005, the euro would have ended at 1.5360, where in fact, the high in March 2008 was at 1.5900.

Alternation of waves This concept was stressed in Elliott’s opus magnum “Nature’s Law” where waves switch turns between bulls and bears, fives and threes, ups and downs, regulars and irregulars, simple and complex, ad infinitum. The Fourth Cycle was an Irregular wave where the top of the correction was higher than the end of the Top of the Previous Cycle; the Third Cycle. The First wave of the Second Super Cycle was a Regular wave; hence, the alternation of tops and an important factor to take into consideration for future market movements. In the currency market, I noticed that the alternation was just a culmination of different psychological thinking of the mass which was evident in the composition of the corrective waves. The conclusions brought up hereunder were purely personal since Elliott did not analyze the currency market. The Human always seeks innovation and utilizes a different strategy from that which was used by the predecessors to arrive at a different result from the previously adopted by the latter. Once the alternative solution does not work, the original method utilized by the forerunners is sought aspiring that it may correct the errors.

The B Intermediate wave from July 1991 to September 1992 of the First Primary of the Fourth Cycle was a Zig Zag, a formation of 5 waves, 3 waves and then 5 waves. The B Intermediate wave from October 2008 to December 2009 of the First Primary of the Second Super Cycle was an elongated C-Wave, a formation of 3-3-5 wave combinations with an unusual long 5 wave. The Second Primary from August 1993 to August 1995 of the Fourth Cycle was an elongated C-Wave, whereas the Second Primary from June 2010 to May 2011 of the Second Super Cycle was a Zig Zag. The sequence of the change of the sub-wave from July 1991 to September 1992 vis-a-vis the sub-wave from August 1993 to August 1995 alternated with the sequence of the change of sub-wave from October 2008 to December 2009 and that of the sub-wave from June 2010 to May 2011.

Balance in time The market direction, whether upward or downward, is a result of the balance of price and time. Thereafter, once the final C wave count is satisfied, the market turns direction. The First Primary downward correction in the Fourth Cycle took 30 months which was one month more than the Fourth Primary of the Previous Third Cycle. The First Primary in the Second Super Cycle ending in June 2010 took 27 months, more than any Corrective Retracement in the previous Fifth Cycle (Fourth Primary - 22 months). The Second Primary upward move in the Fourth Cycle that took 24 months from August 1993 was more than the largest impulse in the Third Cycle which took 20 months. The market topped at 1.3530, turned lower, saw the calamitous final C wave where the euro ended in October 2000 at 0.8230 marks and took 62 months to meet the Divine Proportion target of 116 months.

Euro’s future direction “We are like people looking for something they have in their hands all the time; we’re looking in all directions except at the thing we want, which is probably why we haven’t found it (Plato 380 BC)”. When we extrapolate to the future all the finding facts, we will clearly foresee the macro downward trend of the euro despite the elongated upward spikes in its path.

The time from the all time High in March 2008 to the High reached in May 2011 took 38 months. The time elapsed by the Fourth and Fifth Primaries of the Fifth Cycle took 50 months.

This meant that we still have, at least, 12 months to go for this current sub-wave - that topped in May 2011 - to finalize. The Divine Target for the Second Super Cycle in which the euro is currently swaying, when compared to the Fifth Cycle, requires 144 months to complete. The parallel to the bottom line channel that bounded February 1985 and October 2000, when extended from the High of February 1991, targeted 1.6130 as an upper resistance price and capped the end of the Fifth Cycle High in March 2008 which actually reached 1.5900. In fact, the euro reached 1.6037 in July 2008. This channel became a very strong boundary for three decade movements on the euro which would make the bottom of the channel a very substantive support on the down side just like it was a rigorous resistance on the upside.

Conclusion The key element in the impending move from May 2011 is whether the market will unfold in 3 sub-waves or 5 sub-waves.

Irrespective of the unfurling of these sub-waves, we are unmistakably moving downward to, at least, 1.2000 marks on the euro in the next few quarters and in order “To accomplish great things, we must not only act.... not only plan, but also believe! (Anatole France)”.

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Bourse profits after suffering losses BAYAN INVESTMENT WEEKLY KUWAIT: Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE) ended last week in the green zone. The price index ended the week with an increase amounted to 0.48 percent, while the weighted index grew by 0.70 percent compared to the closings of the week before. Moreover, last week’s average daily turnover decreased by 4.19 percent, compared to the preceding week, whereas trading volume average recorded a growth of 31.18 percent.

KSE managed to get back to the green zone, after suffering losses for six weeks, thanks to the notable increase in buying deals, which concentrated on the leading stocks. In addition, some investment groups executed deals to increase the value of their stocks and improve their financial position, as end of first half 2011 financial period is approaching.

On the other hand, small stocks were subject to speculations, which came as a response to the improvement of many stocks’ prices, and as a reaction, many investors executed profit tak ing operations, which explains the hesitation of the market in some days. By the end of the week, the price index closed at 6,336.9 points, up by 0.48 percent from the

All indices witness gains this week MARKAZ TECHNICAL ANALYSIS

week before closing, whereas the weighted index recorded a 0.70 percent weekly gain after closing at 442.54 points.

Sectors’ indices Seven of KSE’s sectors ended last week in the green zone except for one sector, whereas the insurance sector ’s index closed with no change from the week before. Last week’s highest gainer was the food sector, achieving 2.34 percent growth rate as its index closed at 4,422.4 points.

Whereas, in the second place, the real estate sector’s index closed at 2,193.8 points recording 0.97 percent increase. The industry sector came in third as its index achieved 0.48 percent growth, ending the week at 4,505.5 points. The banks sector was the least growing as its index closed at 11,914.1 points with a 0.06 percent increase.

Sectors’ activity The services sector dominated total trade volume during last week with 183.61 million shares changing hands, representing 34.83 percent of the total market trading volume.

The real estate sector was second in terms trading volume as the sector’s traded shares were 27.90 percent of last week’s total trading volume, with a total of 147.07 million shares. On the other hand, the services sector’s stocks where the highest traded in terms of value; with a turnover of KD28.69 million or 34.11 percent of last week’s total market trading value. The banks sector took the second place as the sector’s last week turnover of KD17.25 million represented 20.51 percent of the total market trading value.

Market capitalization KSE total market capitalization grew by 0.67 percent dur-

ing last week to reach KD31.19 billion, as seven of KSE’s sectors recorded an increase in their respective market capitalization, whereas the Insurance sector’s market capitalization remained the same from the week before. The food sector headed the list as its total market capitalization reached KD761.66 million, increasing by 3.84 percent.

The services sector was the second in terms of recorded growth with 1.40 percent increase after the total value of its listed companies reached KD7.79 billion. The third place was for the Investment sector, which total market capitalization reached KD2.52 billion by the end of the week, recording an increase of 1.13 percent.

The banks sector was the least growing with 0.06 percent recorded growth after its market capitalization amounted to KD13.67 billion.

KUWAIT: This week, the KSE weighted index increased by 0.7 percent or 3 points at 443 level, while the KSE price index gained 0.5 percent or 30 points closing at 6,337 level. All the sectors indices ended in positive territory and the top gainers were the food and the real-estate sectors which rose 2.3 percent and 1 percent respectively. While the remaining sectors were up in the range of 0.5 percent to 0.2 percent on weekly basis. The market sentiment was positive as 53 stocks gained against 42 stocks declined and 38 stocks closed at same level as the previous week. Most of the large caps

stocks ended the weekly positively and the top gainers were NMTC +4.2 percent, NINV +4.2 percent, food +3.9 percent, BPCC +3.6 percent, KPROJ +2.6 percent, NIG +2 percent, Burgan +2 percent, Zain +1.9 percent, NBK +1.7 percent, MABANEE +1.1 percent and the loser was Agility that lost 5.7 percent compared to last week. The KSE weighted index has downside support at 438 levels and upside it may move higher up to 450 level if it crosses 445 resistance level. While the KSE price index has upside resistance at 6,400 level and downside support remains at 6,300 level.

Russia to Belarus: Lift trade hurdles or lose aid ST PETERSBURG: Russia threatened yestedray to retaliate against Belarus, which is struggling to keep its currency stable, for considering trade restrictions to conserve scarce foreign currency reserves. Belarus undertook obligations to agree import restrictions with its partners in a three-country customs union, Kazakhstan and Russia, starting this year.

But the country’s dire need to conserve its central bank reserves prompted President Alexandrer Lukashenko on Friday to say the country could halt all but the most essential imports.

“This is the crudest possible violation of all the agreements we achieved within

the customs union,” Russia’s Deputy Economy Minister Andrei Slepnyov told reporters yesterday. “We understand the difficulties faced by the Belarussian side, and for some time we have waited in hope. But no decisions are under consideration that take into account our interests, so we have sent a request for formal consultations.”

Belarus secured a $3 billion multitranche support programme from a Russian-led regional bailout fund this month. But the government says it needs more funds and is seeking loans of up to $8 billion from the International Monetary Fund. — Reuters

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Plane orders to take off at Paris air show

HAVANA: Regla Gonzalez sells cooking tools at a former parking used as a makeshift market. The application of a group of economic reforms to enhance work independent from the State, forced Cuba’s government to transform different spaces in new markets. — AP

Marketplaces dot Havana for new private vendors HAVANA: Marketplaces full of vendors hawking everything from food to religious items may be common sights across Latin America, but they’re springing up for the first time in the Cuban capital as the island’s Communist government opens its tightly controlled economy to some private-sector activity. Nearly 140 official points of sale in abandoned structures, parking lots and crumbling old buildings have been established in recent months and are accommodating about 2,600 independent vendors, the Communist Party newspaper Granma reported Friday. The number of markets “should grow steadily,” Luis Carlos Gongora, vice president of Havana’s Provincial Administration Council, told the newspaper.

Cuba only recently began licensing a broad spectrum of private sector activity, giving rise to a nascent and growing class of selfemployed people. Former health care worker Andres Lamberto Diaz, who took out a license for to sell clothes, shoes and jewelry, said he pays 40 pesos ($1.60) a day - on top of his taxes and license fees - for the right to set up shop on a lot where few traces remain of what was an old mansion in busy Central Havana.

“Things are organized here, and the flow of people along the avenue is good,” Diaz said.

“Nevertheless, I think it’s a lot to pay each day for the space.” Official salaries average about $20 a month in Cuba. Faustino Agramonte,

the state administrator of the market, said it houses 21 independent merchants, and officials are looking at possibly expanding into a little-used parking lot on the site of another collapsed building. Buckets, spatulas, cheese graters and soup pots hung from one stand Friday. Colorful clothing was on offer at another, strung up underneath a canvas tarp to protect it from the intense tropical sun. The market launched in early 2010.

Under the new rules governing independent businesses, many people have set up shop in their own houses. Not all Cubans, however, live in spaces appropriate for home businesses, and many are taking to the streets. The government has accomodated the trend by creating authorized vending zones where sellers can gather.

Officials are considering adjustments to the tax structure for independent operators, Granma said. Mired in deep financial woes and hamstrung by inefficiency in state-run businesses, Cuba announced last August that it would be implementing major changes in hopes of rescuing its troubled economy. From the end of 2010 through May, more than 200,000 Cubans became licensed independent workers. President Raul Castro insists that the new private-sector activity is meant to “update” Cuba’s socialist model, not replace it with the free market. — AP

ST PETERSBURG: Russian President Dmitry Medvedev (second left) speaks with Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev (left), Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero (second right) and Finnish President Tarja Halonen (right) during their meeting at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum yesterday. — AFP

Report finds Chinese consumers choosier SHANGHAI: Chinese consumers are becoming increasingly sophisticated in their tastes and expect a wider range of better products, according to a report released that says local companies lead foreign ones in using e-commerce to expand sales. The report by the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai and the consultancy Booz & Co says China will likely become the second-largest consumer market in the world by 2015, just trailing the United States. As their incomes grow, Chinese will have enough purchasing power to buy 14 percent of the world’s goods by 2015, up from 5 percent now, said the report, which surveyed 135 major consumer goods companies, 70 percent of them multinationals. Wider access to information, travel and the Internet is raising awareness about different lifestyles and driving demand for a greater range of choices than in the past, the report said. “As wealth continues to grow, people will begin to focus more on enjoying the fruits of their labor, increased attention to leisure activity, domestic travel, interest in arts and science and self-betterment,” it said.

Such trends reflect the transformation of China into a dynamic consumer economy from a centrally planned one that several decades ago was dominated by rationing and shortages. In recent years, frequent food and drug safety scandals have highlighted the poor and sometimes unsafe quality of many of the products available to most Chinese consumers.

Investing in brand building and quality control are crucial and will pay off, Ken Newell, president of PepsiCo (China), said in a panel discussion of the report. “Increasingly we’re seeing consumers willing to pay a premium for a guarantee of quality,” Newell said, noting that the growing size of the Chinese middle class will eventually drive up sales vol-

ume. As the single-child families mandated

by China’s population policies mature, their shopping habits and tastes will also change, it said.

“These changes could affect purchasing behaviors in many ways including product innovation, packaging sizes, packaging, design, access and delivery,” it said. At the same time, as elsewhere in the world, access to the Internet, mobile communications and gaming allows shoppers to research their choices and buy online. “Over the next three to five years, the growth in e-commerce in China will significantly change the way in which consumers access information, interact and shop,” the report says.

This means a market dominated by “consumers who are less loyal to specific brands and less willing to pay more for the same quality,” it said. Almost all Chinese companies surveyed said they were already heavily using e-commerce or planned to begin doing so soon, while multinational companies were less likely to have such plans, the report said.

Chinese companies also have less trouble hiring the staff they need than foreign companies and are have strategies focused on highvolumes and low prices that are more attuned to the tastes of the hundreds of millions of new consumers they are targeting, it concluded. The report highlights the aggressive strategies Chinese companies are adopting to gain market share.

“The Chinese companies are continuing to gear up to bring products into the marketplace that are not just your locally priced, “me too” products, but products that are innovative, products that are of high quality, and products that clearly are going to give the multinational companies a run for their money here in the Chinese marketplace,” said Joanne Bessler, a partner at Booz & Co. — AP

PARIS: The deafening roar of the biggest airliners and most advanced combat jets will split the skies north of Paris tomorrow when the world’s flagship air show returns to the French capital.

Alternating year-by-year with Britain’s Farnborough, the Le Bourget aviation show is the industry’s showpiece event and this year is expected to mark a return to massive multi-billion-euro orders for new aircraft. On an industrial level, the event will be dominated by the duelling giants of commercial aviation, US behemoth Boeing and European champion Airbus, but the scientific star of the show will be a unique solar-powered plane.

As big as an airliner with its 63 metre wingspan but as light, at 1,600 kilos, as a family car, the Solar Impulse will demonstrate the future of aviation with daily flights, weather permitting, around the site. Its electric propellers are powered only by solar panels and the team hopes that they can fly the craft all the way around the world to demonstrate their revolutionary technology to industry leaders.

The sales teams, company executives, journalists and engineers will do business in the first four days of the show and will be joined Friday by tens of thousands of enthusiasts for a three-day festival of flight. Guests will include France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy, who opens the show tomorrow, Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin who will visit on Tuesday and Israel’s Defence Minister Ehud Barak, opening his country’s stand.

Industry executives will be eyeing the big firms’ order books, looking for confirmation that after a cautious 2009 following the global financial crisis airlines are preparing to renew their fleets with the latest aircraft. Airbus general manager

Fabrice Bregier predicted a “good show” and the French-based firm, a subsidiary of European giant EADS, has announced plans to boost production of its A320 basic model from 36 to 42 per month.

The plane-maker will also bring out its long-delayed A400M military transport for its first Paris air show outing, and its A380 superjumbo-still the world’s biggest passenger jet-will make regular fly-bys.

While the Solar Impulse will demonstrate that in the far future flight may be possible without conventional fuel, Airbus hopes its A320neo-with new fuel-efficient motors-will point the way to a 15 percent cheaper interim solution.

Gulf carrier Qatar Air ways and Malaysia’s AirAsia are expected to sign orders for delivery of the jet in 2015, following India’s GoAir and the Philippines’ Cebu Airlines who have just bought more than 100 of them for $10 billion.

Alongside the A320neo, the European manufacturer ’s main hopes for the future now lie with its A350 project, a long-haul airliner made out of modern composite materials designed to be light and efficient. It is due to enter service in 2013 but already the programme seems likely to face delays of the kind that have dogged Boeing’s recent Dreamliner project.

The American giant traditionally

announces new orders through the course of the year rather than at the annual meeting but will hope to wow Paris buyers with its modernised 747-8, the latest version of the original Jumbo Jet. The firm is also expected to announce how it plans to upgrade the 737 mediumhaul jetliner-the world’s largest selling aircraft-perhaps with new jet engines to match the A320neo’s improved fuel efficiency. Beyond the big two, Canada’s Bombardier and Brazil’s Embraer will also fly the flag, along with emerging or reemerging firms from China and Russia, but defence sales are expected to be slim in a time of global budget cuts. — AFP

TOKYO: Japan’s auto giant Honda Motor unveils the new five-door compact hatch-back wagon “Fit Shuttle” at the company’s headquarters. The new Fit is equipped with a 1.5-litre gasoline or 1.3-litre gasoline/electric hybrid engine. — AFP

Friendly Obama-Boehner golf game has high stakes at risk White House hopes better relations will assist debt deal WASHINGTON: Yesterday’s round of golf between President Barack Obama and Republican leader John Boehner has unusually high stakes for a friendly game, since any positive sentiment it yields may help lead to a debt deal.

Obama and Boehner, speaker of the House of Representatives, have a respectful working relationship but lack personal rapport, reflecting the entrenched differences between their parties on budgets and borrowing that have raised market fears about a possible US default. Their first golf outing is described by aides as a chance to get to know each other better and possibly set up a scenario where Democrats and Republicans find ways to agree to work together and raise the $14.3 trillion limit on the nation’s debt.

“This is an opportunity that I think has value beyond the game,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said, suggesting it was helpful for the leaders to mull ideas in an informal setting. “It may move you a little bit closer toward the kind of compromise that we need to get the things

done that the American people expect us to get done,” Carney said. “If it takes a few hours out on the golf course to help that process, I think it’s a worthwhile thing to do.”

Absent a deal to allow the nation to issue more debt, the Treasury Department has warned that the government will begin defaulting on obligations on Aug 2. Brendan Buck, spokesman for Boehner, acknowledged that debt and deficits would likely be discussed on the green but said tough decisions on spending cuts would be left for lawmakers. “I imagine that they will chat about some policy issues, but I would try to separate this round of golf from any type of serious negotiating session,” Buck said. “It’s mainly an opportunity to have a social outing and play some golf.”

US presidents have played golf with friends and foes for years.

Lyndon Johnson rounded up votes for the 1965 Civil Rights Act on the golf course, while Bill Clinton often used the game to negotiate with allies and opponents. But Obama, who has played more than 60

rounds of golf since becoming president, has rarely used the game as a means of politicking, preferring to play with friends.

Avid golfers Obama and Boehner will be joined at a yet-to-be-disclosed golf course in the Washington area

by Vice President Joe Biden and Ohio Republican Governor John Kasich, an expert on federal financial matters and a friend of the speaker. Biden has been leading debt limit negotiations since last month. His bipartisan group of lawmakers is due to meet three or four times this week, with healthcare and taxes among the tricky issues to be resolved before the Aug. 2 deadline.

Obama and Boehner are expected to step in eventually to get to a final deal, given the chasm between the parties on how to come up with the budget savings that would provide lawmakers political cover to raise the debt ceiling. Julian Zelizer, a professor at Princeton University, said both Boehner and Obama needed to appear to be tr ying to reach a

solution on the debt ceiling, but warned yesterday’s game may not yield much in Washington’s current fractious climate.

“Both parties are really stuck in,” he said. “It’s hard to overcome all the forces that make partisanship so strong on Capitol Hill. It’s hard for a golf outing to overcome that.”

In contrast to the US Open golf tournament, which is expected to draw tens of thousands of spectators yesterday to its third round in Bethesda, Mar yland, outside Washington, the politicians will play away from the public eye, with limited exposure to the press.

Obama and Boehner are both avid golfers, although the speakerwith a handicap of 8 to Obama’s 17 — is a better player. Obama does not publicly release his scores but Golf Digest has interviewed his golfing partners to estimate his handicap. With a handicap of 6.3, Biden ranks 29th among Golf Digest’s top 150 Washington golfers, 14 places above Boehner.

Traditionally, out of respect to the president and his guests, the scores in a presidential golf match are not publicly disclosed. — Reuters

Line drawn in US stocks’ battle NEW YORK: The S&P 500’s 200-day moving average is the line in the sand as the bulls and the bears fight over the US stock market’s direction. It will face one of its stiffest tests this week with Greece’s debt crisis appearing to reach a climax. After setting its closing high for the year on April 29, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index has lost about 7 percent.

Wall Street typically defines a drop of 10 percent or more from a recent peak as a correction. The benchmark S&P 500 hit its lowest point right on its 200-day moving average in volatile trading on Thursday. The index then rallied 1 percent from that session low to close on Friday at 1,271.50. It also scored its first weekly gain in the last seven weeks.

At Friday’s close, the S&P 500’s 200-day moving average was around 1,259. If the level holds, it could be a springboard for stocks to rally. “We seemed to have bounced off that level of concern that people were watching,” said David Joy, chief market strategist at Ameriprise Financial, where he helps oversee $571 billion in assets. “At least for now, that is a little bit of evidence that these problems are solvable and markets could move higher.”

The Nasdaq, which often leads market moves, has not fared so well, and that is a worry to investors. It has closed below its 200-day moving average and kept falling on Friday when other indexes stabilized. It ended the week down 1 percent. From its 2011 closing high on April 29, the Nasdaq has tumbled nearly 9 percent-getting close to a correction. Bond markets remain anxious about a Greek default. Most economists are overwhelmingly skeptical that Greece can ever repay its mountain of debt, which has reached 340 billion euros-or 150 percent of

the countr y ’s annual economic output.

Reuters’ calculations using 5-year credit default swap prices from Markit show an 81 percent probability of Greece eventually defaulting, based on a 40 percent recovery rate. But for now, it seems stock investors are sanguine. They believe the European Union will rescue Greece without major disruption to markets and are using the drop in equity prices as a buying opportunity.

Bob Doll, chief equity strategist at BlackRock, says he has been using the pullback to reduce his underweight in cyclical stocks such as a Alcoa Inc, Applied Materials and International Paper. He has also been cutting his overweight in defensive areas such as healthcare, trimming positions in stocks like United Health and Aetna. Doll believes the S&P 500 will rally to 1,350 by the end of the year.“We’re going to find BandAids and we’re going to muddle through these credit problems,” Doll said.

“The consequences of not following that route could be pretty dire, and I think the interested vested parties are going to step up.” BlackRock is one of the world’s largest money managers with $1.56 trillion in equity assets under management. Doll is also lead portfolio manager of BlackRock’s Large Cap Series Funds and advises on $317 billion that is actively managed.

A slew of data showing the United States is on the verge of a slowdown has already done its damage to the market. After the heavy selling of the past several weeks, it seems investors are taking a wait-and-see approach-for now. Joy is waiting until after the summer before making big moves. “There is so much uncertainty that it is probably not

wise to make big long bets, but I think that opportunity may well arise toward Labor Day,” he said.

In the meantime, any sign that fears may have been overblown could spur a rally. The final reading on US gross domestic product for the first quarter is forecast to come in at an annualized growth rate of 1.9 percentslightly higher than the first two estimates.

But investors will be on the lookout for a surprise. “People are not expecting a lot from GDP so should it come a little better than expected, you could see a pretty decent rally,” said King Lip, chief investment officer of Baker Avenue Asset Management in San Francisco.

Some analysts attribute much of the market ’s turmoil to the end of the Federal Reserve’s asset-purchase program, known as quantitative easing, or QE2. That will come to a close at the end of the month. Investors will be looking to Chairman Ben Bernanke to reassure markets after the Fed’s two-day meeting ends on Wednesday. “What investors are really looking for is not a QE3 but a QE2.5, where (the Fed) continues to reinvest the coupons they get from the bonds they purchased,” Lip said. “If that’s the case, investors will look well on that.”

The CBOE Volatility Index or VIX, a gauge of investor anxiety, spiked during the week, but it is still at relatively depressed levels.

That could be a sign investors are still too complacent about the risks ahead.

“If the economy is slowing as much as people are thinking, should there be more risk to second-quarter earnings? That’s a real question we have to ask,” Doll said. “There is risk of complacency-no question.” — Reuters

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IMF reduces forecast for US, global growth WASHINGTON: The International Monetary Fund said Friday that it expects the US economy to grow at slower pace this year than previously estimated, dragged down by higher oil prices and lower factory output. The lending organization also warned that the European debt crisis poses a growing threat to the global economy.

It cited investors’ increasing concerns that Greece’s government won’t be able to implement the changes necessary to avoid defaulting on its debt.

The US is forecast to grow 2.5 percent this year, down from the IMF’s April estimate of 2.8

percent. Growth will likely be 2.7 percent next year, the IMF said, rather than 2.9 percent. Both estimates are below the 2.9 percent growth the US recorded in 2010. The global economy will likely grow 4.3 percent this year, down from an earlier estimate of 4.4 percent. The lower US forecast is similar to many recent downgrades by private economists. A survey this month of 38 economists by The Associated Press found that they expect growth of 2.6 percent this year, down from an earlier estimate of 2.9 percent.

By contrast, the IMF boosted its forecast for the 17-nation euro area, which it said it expects

to grow 2 percent this year. That’s compared to a previous forecast of 1.6 percent. The improved outlook is largely due to higher business investment spending in Germany and France. Large budget deficits in the US and Japan could threaten their economies, the IMF said. Both countries should take steps to cut their deficits, but at a gradual pace, the IMF said. Rapid spending cuts or tax increases could threaten the two countries’ “tepid recoveries.” “For the US, it is critical to immediately address the debt ceiling and launch a deficit reduction plan that includes entitlement reform and revenue-raising tax

Profitless Pandora pricks tech bubble Facebookhalo, economicworries drive rushtomarket NEW YORK: It had all the signs of another dotcom bubble: A start-up without a convincing business plan or any foreseeable chance of turning a profit saw its shares soar in the first hours after its stock market debut. The difference this time-one that cost some investors money but provided a measure of relief to anyone worried about an overheated IPO market-is that shares of Pandora Media Inc quickly went south. Two days after Pandora’s stock debuted, it had handed back all its gains and was down nearly 20 percent from its IPO price of $16. While Pandora raised $235 million in its offering, any of the investors that bought shares at the IPO price or higher are now suffering losses-a tough lesson in jumping into the dicey IPO market.

And Silicon Valley seems just fine with that.

Not due to Schadenfreude within the venture capital and start-up worlds, although surely some exists, but rather because it demonstrated sanity in the markets. “Pandora showed that if you’re still trying to figure out your business model and you go public, then the market is going to call you out on it,” said Bruce Taragin, managing director of Blumberg Capital. “I’m pleased there’s no irrational fervor in the marketplace.” Pandora, an online music service, is not alone. Its rise and fall just happened at a stunning speed.

Shares of LinkedIn Corp and China’s Renren Inc, social networks that debuted in May, also reversed course after strong debuts. It just took them a bit longer. Today, LinkedIn is still above its IPO price but is down 45 percent from it highs, while Renren has lost half of its value since its IPO. For the Chinese Internet companies there has been a double dose of bad sentiment to deal with. A series of accounting scandals at Chinese companies listed in North America has led to a loss of confidence in the sector generally. Josef Schuster, founder of Chicago-based IPO research and investment house IPOX Schuster LLC, said the pullback from Pandora and others is “a healing process” that should help the technology IPO market in the months to come.

No profit? Stay home Indeed, the road ahead looks quite crowded for technology start-ups that want to go public. But for now it may be too early for judgment since only a clutch have made their public debut. “Right now it’s just a handful of companies,” said Eric Hippeau, a partner at Lerer Ventures. “It’s not the best way to indicate where the market is going.” That should change in the coming months. Groupon has filed for an IPO, while Zynga and Twitter could also announce IPO plans. Facebook would be the most anticipated, considering it has 500 million users and this year could produce what one researcher estimated would be $4 billion in ad revenue.

NEW YORK: Tim Westergren (foreground left), Chief Strategy Officer & Founder and Joe Kennedy (foreground right), CEO & President, of Pandorainternet radio, watch as their company begins trading on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. — AP “For the market as a whole it’s actually going to be quite good,” Schuster said of the Pandora debut. “You will see Groupon being much cheaper, you will see Zynga being much cheaper. I think it’s going to have a big influence on the Facebook valuation as well.”

The trouble with Groupon and many others lining up for IPOs is that they aren’t turning profits. Groupon posted an operating loss of $117 million in the first three months of the year. In its IPO filing, Chief Executive Andrew Mason said the company does not value itself in a conventional manner and suggests other ways of looking at how much Groupon is worth.

Pandora, for its part, has never turned an annual profit. “What we thought before when you couldn’t do an IPO is still true: If you are losing money, don’t go public,” said Todd Dagres, general partner at Spark Capital. The question is whether Pandora will serve as a cautionary tale for super-hyped start-ups and those investors willing to overlook doubtful business plans to get a piece of the action.

“Everybody wants to invest in Facebook but they can’t,” said Dagres, citing a “halo effect” surrounding social and new media. “Other companies are riding that wave that are not leaders in the category and don’t have longterm advantages. The reason is because there is a premium for growth.”

Perhaps the rush to sell shares to the public and raise money is sensible, considering how much uncertainty surrounds the housing markets, employment and fears about debt troubles at home and abroad. “Now is a great time to raise money, A lot of times smart entrepre-

BLME launches sharia compliant BLMEFX which fulfils the need of LONDON: Bank of London our customers and which and The Middle East plc offers the same functionali(BLME), London’s leading ty as a conventional prodwholesale Sharia’a compliuct.” ant bank whose main BLMEFX, is available shareholders are Boubyan over the internet and uses Bank, the Securities House industry standard secure and the Public Institution sockets layer (SSL) technolfor Social Security, yesterogy to deliver the functionday announced the launch ality to its clients. BLMEFX of BLMEFX, one of the has been designed with world’s first Sharia complithe emphasis on ease of ant web-based FX trading Humphrey Percy use. Once a client has been platform to provide clients in Kuwait with direct access to multiple permitted access they can trade on the currencies in order to undertake overseas platform using any of the major Internet browsers available today. transactions.

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neurs are raising perhaps a little bit more than they think they need because they recognize that it may not last forever,” said Paul Buchheit, a partner at start-up accelerator Y Combinator and former Google engineer. “I’m not worried about a tech bubble. I’m worried that the entire economy may be a bubble,” he added.

Others, of course, say the IPO market is on solid footing and that much of what happened with Pandora is a pricing issue that will be sorted out with public offerings over the coming three to six months. “I don’t feel we’re in a bubble, I feel that strongly,” said Sandy Miller, general partner at Institutional Venture Partners, an investor in Twitter and Zynga.

“We’re in the early stages of an IPO market, which I think will be sustainable for some period of time.” In a sign of how much market sentiment has shifted in only a few months it is worth recalling the complaints from one executive that Morgan Stanley had underpriced his company’s offering.

Li Guoqing, the chief executive of ECommerce China Dangdang in January ranted publicly on a Chinese Twitter-equivalent that he thought Morgan Stanley had priced the shares of his company too low. “I regret not giving the share offer to Goldman Sachs,” Dangdang’s Li wrote on the Weibo microblogging site.

“I’m openly criticizing investment banks, including Morgan Stanley.” Dangdang’s shares, which shot up 87 percent on their first day of trading are now at $11.50 — which puts them 28 percent below the IPO price that Li complained about. — Reuters

Juncker warns euro crisis could spread to Belgium BERLIN: Eurogroup head Jean-Claude Juncker warned yesterday that the euro crisis hitting Greece and others could affect Italy and Belgium, saying in an interview with a German daily, “we are playing with fire”.

Luxembourg Prime Minister Juncker, who heads the group of eurozone finance ministers, said that the problems which have forced Greece, Ireland and Portugal to seek emergency bailouts from the EU and the IMF could also hit, “due to their high levels of debt, Belgium and Italy, even before Spain,” which has been touted as the next in line for possible help. In the German daily Suddeutsche Zeitung, Juncker also warned against obliging private creditors to take part in a second bailout package which is being planned for Greece, warning that ratings agencies would see such a move as a debt default.

That could have catastrophic effects for the euro, he warned; “we are playing with fire.” If Greece was deemed to be a defaulter that would have drastic consequences for the rest of the eurozone, he added. In a separate interview in Belgian daily La Libre, Juncker said he was confident Greece could eventually turn the corner but would likely take longer to beat its problems than previously believed. “If we could agree on a new aid programme, submitted to strict conditionality, we could develop an overall solution that would enable Greece, in a timeframe that will probably be longer than forecast, to return within the rails,” he said. Asked whether Greece could quit the eurozone, Juncker dubbed that an “absurd” idea with “unimaginable consequences”.

“There would be a contagion not only across the eurozone but also in Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia. It would cause widespread fire. Even the most outlandish don’t raise this hypothesis,” he said. — AFP

reform,” the fund said.

The Obama administration and Republican lawmakers are negotiating over how to raise the nation’s legal debt limit of $14.3 trillion, which the administration says it will reach Aug 2.

Republicans are insisting on about $2 trillion in cuts over 10 to 12 years before agreeing to raise the ceiling. The Washington-based fund has 187 member nations and lends money to countries in financial distress. It has played a key role in negotiating and financing European Union bailout packages for Greece, Ireland and Portugal. — AP

How to optimise your rapport with the boss our relationship with your boss can be a wellspring of growth possibilities if nurtured properly or a career minefield if left to go sour. Maintaining a good professional relationship with your manager can make all the difference in the type and quality of projects that get sent your way, in your career advancement, in your relationship with others in the firm and in your overall reputation in the industry even after you leave the firm. Take the time to work on this relationship and follow this simple checklist provided by the career experts on the Middle East’s job site Bayt.com to keep you on the right track.

Perfect your role: Your relationship with your manager will- to a very large extent- be determined by your overall professional skills, attributes and success at the job you are doing. A manager will take far more pride in the employee who constantly produces quality work, meets deadlines and is pleasant to work with.

Perfect your job by knowing exactly what your manager’s objectives for the position are and then exceeding his expectations. Always aim to go the extra mile to show that you are truly dedicated to the position and that you take your career very seriously. This can include volunteering to help others when you have time, taking on additional projects when you can afford to, cultivating unique skills and coming up with new ideas to improve per formance, win clients or cut costs. Building a reputation for yourself as someone who does the job extremely well, is professional, pleasant and always goes the extra mile will reflect just as positively on your boss.

Communication: The importance of building an open dialogue with your manager cannot be overemphasized.

Maintaining an open channel of communication with your boss is one of the key ingredients of a successful long-term relationship. The goal of these communications is to build a professional rapport, gain visibility and ensure an unhampered flow of information about the firm, the unit, your own performance and any problems, concerns, issues, accomplishments on either side.

Manage his expectations: Once you have a good grip on the job requirements and have a solid relationship with your boss in place that is built on trust and mutual respect, you can begin to manage your boss’s expectations regarding the quality and quantity of your work. This is an essential damage-con-

Y

Lama Ataya trol tactic if you are to avoid many of the pitfalls that are essentially the result of poor assertiveness skills. Learn to tell your manager that you are overburdened (only when you are of course).

Use words like ‘we need an additional resource’, ‘I have to prioritize’, ‘I have a more urgent deadline’, ‘ I don’t want to compromise the quality of the project’ to communicate your own time schedule and your existing workload. Always have a list ready of projects you are engaged in and their priority so your manager can more easily plan the projects he sends your way. You should focus on being ‘productive’ rather than merely ‘busy’ so your manager learns to respect your prioritization skills and general work aptitude.

Reverse feedback: Your boss has a boss and deadlines too, so learn to make his life a bit easier by sending some reverse positive feedback his way when you can. Avoid the false superficial kind of schmoozing but DO compliment or thank your boss whenever you can - on something he taught you, a course he sent you to, a project he sent your way, a project he didn’t send your way, a tip he gave you or some other form of constructive criticism he made, a resource he assigned you, a deal he landed, a client he made happy, a new idea, a presentation he made etc. He will appreciate the flattery if it is genuine and delivered professionally. He will also be more inclined to help you in the future if you are appreciative of the steps he takes to guide and promote you.

Finland’s PM Katainen faces reform challenge HELSINKI: Jyrki Katainen, Finland’s new prime minister, struggled to form a government and will face more tough times with his six-party coalition in the Nordic country in need of prompt fiscal reforms.

Katainen, 39, has had challenges before: as finance minister in the coalition before April elections, he steered Finland through a recession that saw economic output plunge 8 percent in 2009. After the vote, he managed to keep Finland on a pro-Europe course, despite the big election gains by the Euro-sceptic True Finns party which chose to opt out of the new government.

Katainen has steadily moved his rightleaning National Coalition party closer to the political centre and put it in charge of a government for the first time in 20 years. That, however, was achieved with no more than 20.4 percent of the votes.

In Finland’s multi-party system, where no party has much power on its own, even the prime minister’s party needs to make many compromises to form a majority government. That is nothing new to consensus-builder Katainen, who often favours close cooperation with other parties and labour market organisations to keep the nation of 5.4 million united.

Small-town roots Although the National Coalition has historically been a party of high-earners with wealth to protect, Katainen says all Finns today are in the same boat.

“Finland has always been a country where we are all born in the same hospitals, go to the same day-care centres and the same schools, military service. We know each other,” he said in a TV interview before the election. Although a first round of government talks earlier this month ended in a quarrel with the leftist parties, Katainen has also been praised by the left as a skilful negotiator.

He grew up in a small town in central Finland and worked as a part-time

teacher before entering local politics in his early 20s. Katainen says he is bad at political manoeuvring and not fond of it.

He cuts an image of a clean-living and energetic family man and father of two.

Because of his schoolboy looks, Katainen has had to endure the nickname “Jyrkiboy” borrowed from a popular Finnish song and struggle to emerge from the shadow of former party leader and presidential candidate Sauli Niinisto and his cohorts.

He came into his own as party leader in 2008 when he sacked his foreign minister, Ilkka Kanerva, a National Coalition veteran politician, after Kanerva’s text messages to an erotic dancer were splashed over the Finnish press. Katainen replaced Kanerva at the foreign ministry with Alexander Stubb, another of a younger generation of media-savvy liberal internationalists in the National Coalition. Strongly pro-European, Katainen is a vice president of the European People’s Party (EPP), a grouping of centre -right parties in the European Parliament.

Postponed reforms Before the election, Katainen stressed the need for reforms to spur growth and investment in the Nordic country. But analysts said it was hard to find any plans on that front from the policy programme he announced on Friday, which will cut corporate taxes by one percentage point and hike capital income taxes.

Economists have said fiscal reforms are necessary in the country with Europe’s fastest-ageing population, rising government debt and weakening growth prospects.

In the previous coalition, Katainen pushed for an increase in the minimum retirement age, now 63 years, to curb future pension costs. But the move failed after unions hinted they could retaliate with a general strike. —Reuters

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Ceglia passed polygraph test in Facebook case BANGALORE: Paul Ceglia, who says a contract and emails entitle him to half of Facebook, has cleared a polygraph examination conducted to determine the veracity of the alleged contract with the online social network’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg, his lawyers said in a court filing.

The polygraph test results, which were filed with the US District Court in Buffalo, New York,

on Friday, are part of Ceglia’s opposition to Facebook’s request that he immediately turn over the alleged original contract and emails for inspection, without being asked to reciprocate.

Ceglia’s lawyers contend that the lie-detector testing proves that the agreement and emails are authentic and asked the court to allow both sides to inspect the evidence, instead of granti-

ng Facebook’s request that only it should be allowed to do so.

“Ceglia’s lawsuit is a shell game, shifting and changing with every filing,” said Orin Snyder a partner in the law firm of Gibson Dunn, which represents Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook.

“This latest court filing admits that the bogus emails are, literally, a cut-and-paste job, just like

the so-called contract is a fraud.” Ceglia, a wood pellet salesman from Wellsville, New York, is trying to show he contracted in 2003 for 50 percent of Zuckerberg’s interest in what became Facebook. In his amended complaint filed on April 11, Ceglia had discussed the alleged Facebook contract and emails from 2003 and 2004.— Reuters

Vatican turns to Internet to stem sexual abuse Catholic Church to launch e-learning centre

BEIJING: In a file picture taken on May 12, 2011 a man surfs the internet at an internet cafe in Beijing. The Internet is poised for potentially one of its biggest shakeups in years as an industry body prepares to vote on June 20 on a proposal to open up new domain suffixes for private companies. —AFP

New Internet era beckons with company domain names SINGAPORE: The Internet is poised for potentially one of its biggest shakeups in years as an industry body prepares to vote Monday on a proposal to open up new domain suffixes for private companies.

Under the changes to be decided at a meeting in Singapore, businesses would no longer be restricted to the list of generic top level domains (gTLDs) that include .com, .net and .org when they apply to register a website address.

Industry observers say global giants such as Apple, Toyota and BMW could be in the vanguard of launching websites with their own domain names. “New gTLDs represent one of the biggest changes to the Internet since its inception,” said Michele Jourdan, communications manager for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

“While they won’t have a technical impact on the way the Internet operates, they could potentially change the way people find information and how businesses plan and structure their online presence,” she told AFP. ICANN, a non-profit body managing the Domain Name System and Internet Protocol addresses that form the technical backbone of the Web, is holding a six-day global meeting in Singapore to discuss a range of matters.

Its board will vote on Monday on whether to proceed with the new gTLD program, and an ICANN source said approval was expected. “Corporations may choose to apply for their own domain, offering them new possibilities for structuring their online and offline presence,” said Jourdan. “They may also offer corporations better brand control.

“Additionally, entirely new domains may come into existence that bring about new commercial opportunities.” But it won’t come cheap. It will cost a company $185,000 just to apply and there are a number of criteria that must be met before ICANN will give the nod for a firm to own

the domain name of its choice. The fee is needed to recoup the costs associated with the new gTLD program and to ensure that it is fully funded, ICANN said.

It would also weed out opportunistic applicants seeking to resell domain names for a profit after buying them cheaply, a problem in the earlier days of the Internet.

According to the draft new gTLD applicant guidebook dated May 30, only “established corporations, organizations, or institutions in good standing may apply for a new gTLD”. ICANN will not consider applications from individuals or sole proprietorships.

Adrian Kinderis, a Melbourne-based domain name expert, said big companies will have a golden opportunity to protect their trademarks in cyberspace if ICANN votes in favor of opening up the domain gates. “One of the biggest issues we have right now is anybody can go register anything,” Kinderis, the chief executive of domain name registry services provider AusRegistry International, told AFP. “The new programme gives trademark holders an opportunity to go in first and secure their brand. “If they don’t have a legitimate trademark for it, then they don’t get it.

That’s why it is better.”

The proposed new gTLD programme also offers companies the opportunity to beef up their digital marketing campaigns, said Kinderis, who sits on one of ICANN’s advisory boards. “This is not just about going out to get a domain name,” he said.

“You are actually getting an important part of the Internet real estate, it’s the digital opportunity to build your message.” A Singapore-based branding expert, Graham Hitchmough, said companies will have a lot more leeway to reach out to their target audience if the new domain names are approved. “It allows them an opportunity to articulate their brand and range of products in a more clear and consistent way,” said Hitchmough, managing director at global agency Brand Union. — AFP

2D ticket sales outpace 3D on ticket selling website NEW YORK: 2D movie ticket sales on Fandango for Warner Bros. weekend release “Green Lantern” and the final installment of “Harry Potter” are outpacing 3D ticket sales in a possible latest sign of 3D fatigue, BTIG analyst Richard Greenfield said Friday. He cited the live “top sellers” data on the Pulse section of Fandango’s iPad app, saying that the sales trends for the superhero movie come despite what he called a “massive 3D promotional push” for “Green Lantern” on Fandango, YouTube and elsewhere.

“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows: Part 2” ticket sales went on sale earlier this week, and 2D tickets are in the top 5 on the “top sellers” list, while 3D tickets are not, the analyst highlight-

ed. “We continue to believe US consumers are frustrated with the amount of 3D movies Hollywood is producing, especially when combined with excessive ticket prices,” Greenfield said.

“In addition, we suspect the darkness of 3D is starting to impact movie satisfaction (this was a key problem with “Pirates 3D,” with both “Green Lantern” and “Potter” starting off with darker imagery and then layering on 3D glasses that darken the images further),” Greenfield added, pointing out the disappointing performance of a range of recent 3D releases. While the higher ticket prices of 3D could allow the 3D box office take to exceed 2D box office, “ticket sales are clearly skewing 2D,” he concluded.— Reuters

ROME: The Roman Catholic Church, often accused of dragging its feet on sexual abuse scandals, will turn to the Internet with a new e-learning centre to help safeguard children and the victims of molestation. The Vatican presented the move at a news conference yesterday flagging an international conference on sexual abuse of children by clergy to be held next February at Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University with church backing. “ The e-learning centre will work with medical institutions and universities to develop a constant response to the problems of sexual abuse,” Monsignor Klaus Peter Franzl of the archdiocese of Munich. It will be posted in German, English, French, Spanish and Italian and help bishops and other church workers put into place Vatican guidelines to protect children.

“We want people to know that we are serious about this and that we think the Church has to be at the centre of a solution,” said Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi. “This is not a flash in the pan initiative but something we are committed to in the long-term. The e-learning centre will offer guidance to those who have to respond to abuse cases as well as information for victims.

It is set to go live early next year during the conference in

Rome called “Towards Healing and Renewal,” which will draw top experts on sexual abuse of children by clergy. Baroness Sheila Hollins, an independent member of Britain’s House of Lords, said she hoped the conference would help bring the victim’s point of view to the forefront of debate.

“Victims feel a double shame.

Shame for having been abused and shame for having remained silent about the abuse,” said Hollins, a professor of psychiatry at St George’s University, London who will be one of the main speakers a the symposium.

“Some have lost their faith and are unable to go in a church because of the presence of a priest, others have kept their faith despite it all,” said Hollins, who is involved in healing programs for sexual abuse victims in Britain and Ireland.

The e-learning centre and the conference are the Church’s latest efforts to come to grips with the scandal that has rocked it around the world. Two months ago the Vatican sent a directive to all bishops telling them they must make it a global priority to root out sexual abuse of children by priests. The Vatican has told the bishops that each diocese must draw up tough guidelines, based on a global approach but in line with local criminal law, to deal with cases of abuse. — Reuters

ROME: Vatican sex crimes prosecutor Monsignor Charles Scicluna listens to a journalist’s question in Rome yesterday. Monsignor Scicluna told reporters that the symposium and the online database will help “give a credible and transparent and accountable response’’ to the clergy sex abuse scandal. —AP

Put a cork in the Internet bubble talk - for now SAN FRANCISCO: It’s starting to feel like a 1999 flashback. Internet companies - some of them profitable, some not - sense a golden opportunity and are lining up to go public this year.

But here’s something to keep in mind as the latest case of Internet fever grips Wall Street: It’s still nowhere close to the giddy days of the dot-com boom, when investors bought stocks as impulsively as lottery tickets. Technology stocks today are the cheapest in more than nine years, at least judging by one benchmark for appraising companies.

This year could yield the most initial public offerings of technology stocks since 2000. But the venture capitalists who bankroll high-tech startups aren’t pouring money into the Internet like they once did. And even rapidly growing Internet companies LinkedIn Corp. and Pandora Media Inc. have lost some of their luster after dazzling investors when they went public in recent weeks.

All those factors signal that cooler heads are prevailing, especially with the global economy on shaky ground. So far this year, 28 of the 74 IPOs completed in the US have been by technology companies, according to IPO investment advisory firm Renaissance Capital. If, as expected, another 31 tech IPOs are completed by the end this year, it will be the most from the sector since 2000.

The growing enthusiasm for Internet services reflects how far the Internet has come since the dot-com boom. An estimated 2 billion peo-

ple worldwide have Web access now, about eight times as many as in 2000. High-speed Internet connections have become common, turning the Web into an entertainment center as well as an information hub. And mobile devices have made it possible to stay connected from almost anywhere at any time.

“I don’t see a bubble,” venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, best known as founder of the pioneering Web browser Netscape, told The Associated Press in March. Andreessen has investments scattered all over the Internet, mostly in companies that are steadily increasing their revenue. Some of them are even profitable, virtually unheard of during the late 1990s. That’s why he thinks it’s logical for more money to be flowing into one of the most promising parts of the US economy.

“I think people are confusing success with a bubble,” Andreessen said. “Maybe stuff is just working.”

But well-established technology companies, including many that helped build the Internet into what it is today, have fallen out of favor. To gauge just how far, consider the price-to-earnings, or P/E, ratio of technology stocks in the bellwether Standard & Poor’s 500 index.

The P/E number divides a company’s stock price by its earnings per share. The higher the P/E, the more likely a stock is overvalued by the market. Based on earnings reported for the past year, the figure for S&P 500 tech stocks is 14.1, the lowest since March 2002. Before the Great Recession started in December 2007, it

Oracle seeks up to $6.1b in Google lawsuit SAN FRANCISCO: Oracle is seeking between $1.4 billion and $6.1 billion in a patent lawsuit against Google over the lucrative smartphone market, according to a court filing. Oracle sued Google last year, claiming the Web search company’s Android mobile operating technology infringes upon Oracle’s Java patents.

Oracle bought the Java programming language through its acquisition of Sun Microsystems in January 2010. A US judge this week ordered Google to make public parts of a court filing that contains details

about Oracle’s damage claims. Google complied with that order on Friday, and revealed the damages range sought by Oracle.

Google disputes the Oracle damages amount in the court filing, calling it “a breathtaking figure that is out of proportion to any meaningful measure of the intellectual property at issue.” Representatives for both companies did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The case in US District Court, Northern District of California, is Oracle America, Inc v Google Inc, 10-3561. — Reuters

NEW YORK: In this file photo taken June 15, 2011, Joe Kennedy, third from left, CEO & President, and Tim Westergren, fourth from left, Chief Strategy Officer & Founder, of Pandora internet radio, ring the NYSE opening bell to celebrate their company’s IPO at the New York Stock Exchange. — AP

was 25.4. Before the Internet bubble blew up, it was 66.4. Even Google, the Internet’s most profitable company, hasn’t been getting any love of late. Though its earnings are still rising at a robust rate, the company’s stock has fallen more than $100, or 18 percent, so far this year.

LinkedIn, which runs a site for professional networking, triggered talk of another dot-com boom when its shares more than doubled in its stock market debut. LinkedIn was minted with a market value of $9 billion, the highest for an Internet company since Google went public in 2004. Then Pandora Media, an Internet radio station, doubled the target price for its IPO because of such intense demand. At the end of its first day of trading Wednesday, Pandora had a market value of $2.8 billion - more than AOL Inc., which had a market value of more than $160 billion in early 2000.

Pandora stock fell below its IPO price of $16 in its second day on the market, suggesting investors were having second thoughts about a company that still hasn’t turned a profit despite building an audience of 94 million. In another indication of sobriety, LinkedIn’s stock has lost more than a quarter of its value since its first day of trading.

The caution may be short-lived, though.

Online coupon seller Groupon Inc. has filed plans for an IPO that has analysts wondering whether its market value will exceed $25 billion - even higher than Google on the day it went public. Groupon’s revenue is growing at a much faster rate than Google’s was when it went public. Unlike Google, though, Groupon has been losing money - $413 million last year.

When Groupon executives start meeting with prospective IPO investors, they could face questions about why the company’s insiders decided to sell so many shares of what is supposed to be a great stock. Since April 2010, the insiders sold $860 million of stock, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The sales generated windfalls of $382 million for Groupon cofounder Eric Lekofsky and $28 million for cofounder and CEO Andrew Mason. Both men remain among Groupon’s largest shareholders.

The company’s IPO is expected in September or October.

Other highly anticipated Internet IPOs on the horizon include Zynga, the maker of popular Web games such as “CityVille,” and Facebook, which, with an audience of more than 500 million users, makes it the most likely candidate to turn the current Internet fever into delirium. Facebook, which was founded seven years ago in a Harvard University dorm room and could go public by next spring, has already been valued by private investors at $85 billion. — AP

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Little light bulb has burnt 110 years in Calif SAN FRANCISCO: The world’s oldest light bulb turned 110 yesterday in Livermore, California, a tiny 4-watt night light that has burnt its way into the Guinness World Records. The bulb first lit up in 1901 when it was donated to the fire depar tment - before the Titanic sank and before San Francisco endured its disastrous quake. Yesterday, the Livermore Firehouse, which has moved the bulb three or four times since 1901, was to celebrate the birthday with cakes, parades, speeches and a brass band.

What other light bulb has its own profile on Facebook and is watched over by a webcam which offers round-the-clock proof of its continued activity? “In our guestbook we have people from Germany, China, Japan, Russia, England, you name it,” beams Lynn Owens, 67, the former division chief for the Livermore Fire

Department who has looked after the bulb for 30 years. As “spokesperson” for the Centennial Lightbulb, Owens has an answer to all questions but one. “Why does she burn longer than all the others? That is the mystery that nobody knows,” he says.

Lots of experts have tried to establish precisely why, but none of them came to a convincing conclusion. “No one turns it on and off, maybe that’s why it lasts so long,” Owens guesses. The bulb hangs well over five metres above the floor of the fire station, and the small switch at its base is out of reach. The hand-blown bulb was made in the 1890s by Shelby Electrics Company in Ohio. The owner of an energy company in Livermore gave it as a present to the local Fire Department, which was at the time still using kerosene lamps. So as not to not leave

the station completely in the dark at night, the bulb was left burning ‘round the clock. “She was meant to be a little nightlight, it just gives the room a little warm glow,” Owens notes.

With a carbon filament and just 4 watts, it tirelessly gives off a gentle, amber-yellow light.

Night or day, nobody turns it off. The bulb first caught the public eye in 1972, when a newspaper reporter looked into its longevity and suggested it should be in the Guinness World Records. The true test came in 1976, with the move to a new firehouse. Wrapped in foam, with a siren-wailing police guard, it was rushed to a new site where it was carefully hung from the ceiling. “It was off maybe at the most seven, eight minutes,” Owens recalls.

A soft click on the old switch at the base, and it glowed on. It has not stopped since. Not

even a power cut can get it, because it is plugged onto an emergency power appliance.

This bulb, which sur vived the 1906 San Francisco quake disaster 60 km distant from Livermore and numerous energy crises since, runs no risk of being replaced by a power-saving light bulb. “Nobody will ever touch it again,” Owens says. “And if she burns out one day, the bulb will never leave Livermore.”

Just in case, R ipley ’s Believe I t Or Not Museum has already enquired about the possibility of taking it. The bulb shows no signs of ageing, not even a nervous flicker before its 110th birthday. “In this mobile society, where everything moves so fast, this little lightbulb represents stability,” Owens boasts with nostalgia. “It is doing today what is has done for 110 years.” — dpa

Black holes populated cosmos much earlier

US cancer deaths drop but least-educated at high risk SAN FRANCISCO: A continued decline in cancer death rates since the early 1990s has averted nearly 900,000 cancer deaths, but the least educated Americans have more than twice the fatality rate of those who’ve had the most schooling, according to a new report.

The effect of this disparity is on full display with lung cancer, where the death rate for men in 2007 was five times higher among the least educated compared with the most educated, said Elizabeth Ward, an Atlanta-based author of the report and national vice president for intramural research at the American Cancer Society.

The link between education level and tobacco use is hard to deny. Among men with 12 or fewer years of education, 31 percent are current smokers compared with 12 percent of college graduates and just 5 percent of men with graduate degrees, according to the American Cancer Society’s report. Another area where education can play a role is colorectal cancer, which sometimes can be prevented if people have precancerous polyps discovered and removed during recommended screening tests called colonoscopies.

“If you’re less educated, there’s a lower probability that you have good health insurance that covers these screening tests,” Ward said. “In addition, there’s less access to the knowledge that you should be getting these screening tests. These are complex issues, but we see these consistent types of relationships.” Of course, smoking isn’t the only behavioral factor that can make a difference in cancer risk. Maintaining a healthy diet and physical activity are important as well, she said. Socioeconomic factors such as employment and income matter, too. “In general, there’s a correlation between being more educated and having jobs with access to health care or sufficient income to have access to insurance,” Ward said.

The combined effect is stark. Closing the education gap could have prevented an estimated 37 percent of premature cancer deaths among people age 25 to 64 in 2007, the report found. That equates to more than 60,000 lives. Still, overall death rates declined among every racial/ethnic group for both sexes from 1998 through 2007, except for American Indian and Alaska Native women, whose death rates were stable, according to the American Cancer Society’s statistics.

African-American and Hispanic men showed the greatest annual cancer-death decreases at 2.6 percent and 2.5 percent respectively. “You’re really seeing a cumulative impact of prevention, early detection and treatment advances that’s resulting in this fairly steady decline in mortality,” Ward said.

Nearly 1.6 million new cancer cases are expected to be diagnosed in the US this year, not counting slow-growing squamous cell and basal cell skin cancers. Cancer accounts for nearly one in four deaths, and it’s expected to kill 572,000 Americans in 2011.

Among men, cancers of the prostate, lung and colon/rectum are expected to account for slightly more than half of all new cancer cases this year while cancers of the breast, lung and colon/rectum will be the most common cancers among women, the study found. Prostate cancer and breast cancer each will make up about 30 percent of all new cancer cases among men and women, respectively.

Cancer death rates have declined 22.2 percent for men and 13.9 percent for women from the peak years of 1990-91 to 2007. Lung cancer eclipsed breast cancer as the leading cause of cancer death among women in 1987 and is forecast to cause 26 percent of all female cancer deaths this year, compared with 15 percent attributable to breast cancer, 9 percent to colon and rectum and 7 percent owing to pancreatic cancer. For men, 28 percent of cancer deaths will be due to lung cancer compared with 11 percent for the prostate, 8 percent for colon and rectum and 6 percent for pancreatic cancer, the report found.

For children with cancer, the news is mostly good. The incidence of childhood cancer has risen slightly - by 0.6 percent per year between 1998 and 2007 - but the death rate dropped 1 percent per year during that period. The portion of kids younger than 15 who had any type of cancer and survived at least five years grew to 82 percent in the period 1999 to 2006 from 58 percent in the mid1970s.

Besides the pain and suffering cancer causes, it also often slams the bank accounts of individuals, employers and government insurance programs. The nearly 12 million Americans who’ve had cancer incur larger health-care costs than people who aren’t cancer survivors, even if the diagnosis was made long ago. On average, cancer survivors under age 65 had an excess $4,000 to $5,000 in total annual medical expenditures compared with similar people who’d never had cancer, according to a new study published June 15 in the journal Cancer. Those figures don’t account for potential differences in premium costs and may understate the extent of cancer patients’ out of pocket costs.

Most of the extra costs cancer survivors incurred were picked up by health insurance, but having cancer doubles your risk of high out-of-pocket costs, the study found. That’s because survivors face increased risk of having other cancers or may have a recurrence of the original cancer, said Pamela Farley Short, lead author of the report and a professor of health policy and administration at Pennsylvania State University. Many also may have to deal with the long-term health effects of cancer treatment, both physically and mentally.

“Treatment for cancer is really tough stuff,” she said. “You’re poisoning people, to put it starkly.

Chemotherapy and radiation therapy are really hard on people’s bodies.”—MCT

LOS ANGELES: Astronomers have discovered a hidden collection of supermassive, growing black holes dating back to the early Universe showing, for the first time, that black holes populated the cosmos far earlier than thought. The findings, published online Wednesday in Nature, could help scientists understand how these black holes are born, how big they grow and how galaxies develop with them. “We know the nearest galaxies, like our own Milky Way, all have supermassive black holes in the center,” said lead author Ezequiel Treister, an astronomer at the University of Hawaii. “And the question is, how did they form? How did they get there?”

Astrophysicists had theorized that black holes would be found at the center of galaxies very early in the universe. But when astronomers tried to detect them - by looking for X-ray radiation emitted by dust falling into a black hole - they came up empty. X-rays, unlike visible or infrared light, can escape the powerful gravitational pull of a black hole. And so Treister decided to look for high energy X-rays using NASA’s space-based Chandra X-ray Observatory.

Because earlier searches had failed, the team combined the signals coming from about 200 galaxies that had existed less than 1 billion years after the Big Bang.

The scientists were surprised to find that at least 30 percent, and possibly many more, of the galaxies contained black holes at their centers showing that the strong association between black holes and galaxies dates back to the very young Universe. Astronomers hadn’t been able to detect these black holes before because they were surrounded by clouds of gas and dust that obscured all but the most high-energy radiation from view. “This paper takes that relationship (between black holes and galaxies) back to when the universe was only a billion year old -

This undated artistic view released by the NASA shows a close-up of a super massive black hole.

This image shows the material surrounding the black hole, which ultimately will fall in the central region releasing the X-ray radiation detected in this work. — AFP

quite further back than we’ve been able to take it before,” said Harvey Tananbaum, director of the Chandra X-ray Center at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “This is completely new and unexpected - no one expected this connection to start so early in the universe,” Treister said.

Scientists are still not sure how these ancient black holes were formed. One theory is that several smaller black holes eventually merged together. Another suggests that individual black holes sucked in huge amounts of gas and dust and grew to supermassive size. The reason why

Unique three-way partnership aims to help Africa help itself NAIROBI: World Vision, Agility and Advance Aid are delighted to announce a three-way partnership that will enable African-produced emergency relief goods to be provided to assist in African emergencies- a first of its kind. This partnership will begin to reverse a trend whereby all emergency relief goods have been sent to Africa from the Far East, sometimes even from Europe and North America.

The 5,000 Emergency Kits that Advance Aid is supplying to World Vision today are 100 percent locally-purchased and more than 80 percent African-manufactured.

The partners believe that this is the first time that a largely African kit has been supplied for use in African emergencies.

Advance Aid has worked with a number of Kenyan manufacturers to source the goods for the Emergency Kits. Each Kit provides the basics that help a family of five to survive once they have lost everything in a natural or manmade disaster and contains plastic sheeting, blankets, a mosquito net, a kitchen set, two buckets and a hygiene kit.

Logistics and warehousing services are being provided for the initiative by Agility, a leading global logistics provider, through its warehouses in Nairobi and Mombasa.

Agility will also be working with World Vision Kenya to distribute the emergency kits – in forty-foot containers provided by Advance Aid – to World Vision offices across the country where they will be stored to be ready for use in the event of emergencies striking.

“We are delighted to be able to work with World Vision and Agility on this initiative,” says David Dickie, Chief Executive of Advance Aid. “They have both shown great vision in backing this idea and helping it come to life. We are also grateful to the local manufacturers who have helped us make this

possible and have seen both the value of the initiative for Africa and the opportunity that it presents to them to get back into a market that has largely moved to South East Asia. Africans should be getting the full development benefit of the huge sums of money that are spent here on emergencies.

This development benefit should be bringing jobs and wealth to Africa, not just imports.”

Nicholas Wasunna, Senior Advisor, World Vision Kenya adds, “As the frequency of emergencies increases, there is an urgent need to ensure that life saving humanitarian assistance is able to reach the most affected populations as soon as possible so as to uphold the humanitarian imperative of saving lives. World Vision is committed to remaining responsive to emergency needs and through this exciting partnership with Advance Aid and Agility we have together developed a solution that best addresses the immediate needs of vulnerable children and communities across Kenya”.

“Agility is pleased to partner with Advance Aid and World Vision in this new model of relief aid procurement and distribution,” says Dev Bij, Agility’s CEO of East Africa. “The partnership fits in well with Agility’s vision of corporate social responsibility and our commitment to contribute to positive change in the East African countries that we work in. Partnering in a project of this nature that largely depends on an effective supply chain solution is synonymous to our business and we are delighted to contribute our skills, knowledge, resources and local expertise. Building on local capacity and the high level of local content in this relief aid model coupled with the benefits of prepositioning are also key factors attributed to Agility’s participation in this project.”

black holes and galaxies are connected also remains a mystery, said Mitchell Begelman, an astrophysicist at the University of Colorado who was not involved in the study. Does galaxy formation depend on black holes, or do black holes need galaxies to form? It’s probably both, Begelman said.

“We’re pretty sure there’s a connection there we just don’t understand exactly what the relationship is,” he said. By studying these early black holes and their galaxies, he added, “we’re hoping eventually to understand how this interplay works.” — MCT

Scientists test ability to strengthen memories LOS ANGELES: Do you wish you could forget that time singing karaoke with your boss or recall the location of that great restaurant you visited last year? Take heart: Scientists are coming closer to being able to turn memories on and off with the flip of a switch. A team led by Theodore Berger, a professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Southern California, has figured out how to manipulate brain cells in rats so that memories stored in the hippocampus, a region crucial for memory formation, were activated or suppressed. The technology, scientists said, could one day have medical applications.

In the study, published in the Journal of Neural Engineering, researchers first trained rats on a simple task: remembering which of two levers they pressed first, then learning to press the other lever. As the rats performed the task, the scientists carefully monitored the electrical activity in each creature’s hippocampus to pinpoint the pattern of nerve-cell activity involved in forging a solid memory.

Then, using the same glass needles they used to record the nerve activity, they stimulated nerves in the same pattern - and found that the animals’ performance on the task got even better. The rats made fewer errors and were able to remember which lever was the “correct” one for a longer period of time.

The scientists went a step further and suppressed the rats’ memory with a drug called MK801, causing them to forget their task. When the animals’ brain cells were later stimulated with the “correct” pattern, they remembered again which lever to press.

“What’s really exciting about this study is that when they played back the ‘good’ patterns the patterns when the animal got the task right - it did appear to improve memory,” said Dean Buonomano, an associate professor of neurobiology and psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles’ Brain Research Institute who was not involved in the research. “ That they were able to achieve what they did is remarkable,” added Dr. Robert Malenka, co-director of the Stanford Institute for Neuro-Innovation and Translational Neuroscience.

“They could improve the animal’s performance dramatically - suggesting that in the very distant future, this kind of approach could have clinical applications.”

In collaboration with researchers at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, NC, Berger said he was now preparing to conduct similar studies with primates. The ultimate goal, he added, is to help people with conditions such as stroke, epilepsy and dementia strengthen memories and to help doctors diagnose memory problems before they worsen. The technology might even help suppress distressing memories in patients with post-traumatic stress disorder, Malenka said.

But first, researchers would have to show that they can stimulate or repress far more complex memories than the ones in the rat experiment, scientists said. “Here, it’s a simple task,” Buonomano said. In contrast, humans’ “memories are ver y rich and specific. We remember different faces, movies, events in our lives....

We have very many steps to go before this can be implemented.” — MCT

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As climate talks sputter, scientists vet ‘Plan B’ BONN: On the heels of another halting round of talks on climate change, UN scientists this week will review quick-fix options for beating back the threat of global warming that rely on technology rather than political wrangling. Experts from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), meeting for three days from Monday in the Peruvian capital Lima, will ponder “geo-engineering” solutions designed to cool the planet, or at least brake the startling rise in Earth’s temperature. Seeding the ocean with iron, scattering heat-reflecting particles in the stratosphere, building towers to suck carbon dioxide (CO2) out of the atmosphere, and erecting a giant sunshade in space are all on the examining table.

Critics say such schemes - some of which have been tested experimentally are a roll of the dice with Earth’s climate system and its complex web of biodiversity. And even if one problem is solved, they argue, it may be impossible to anticipate knock-on effects and unintended consequences. There is a political danger as well, climate policy experts caution: the prospect of a quick fix to global warming could weaken an

already fragile global consensus on the need to reduce greenhouse gases or subvert complicated methods for measuring emissions cuts. “It’s a convenient way for Northern governments to dodge their commitments to emissions reduction,” said Silvia Ribeiro of the ETC Group, a technology watchdog group.

Last week, more than 100 organisations, including ETC and Friends of the Earth, sent an open letter to the IPCC “demanding a clear statement of its commitment to precaution and to the existing international moratorium on geoengineering.” Only four years ago, in its landmark Fourth Assessment Report, the IPCC dismissed geo-engineering in a brief aside as charged with potential risk and unquantified cost. But now the Nobel-winning panel is taking a closer look, a telling sign, for some, that the effort to tackle global warming through politics is taking too long and bearing too little fruit.

Delegates ended another 12-day talkfest in Bonn on Friday under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), still deeply riven over who should cut their emis-

Make your teeth a piece of art

sions, by how much and when. Current pledges fall far short of holding temperature rise in check below 2.0 degree Celsius compared with preindustrial levels, a widely accepted threshold for safety. IPCC officials defend the new review on several grounds.To begin with, it is what members of the 194-nation intergovernmental body asked for, said Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, a leading Belgian scientist and vice chair of the IPCC. “My concern is to fulfill an IPCC mandate to provide the best information available to take informed decisions to protect the climate and the environment,” he said by telephone. “We will look at the advantages and possibilities, but we will also look at the potentially negative aspects.” The experts meeting Monday, he added, review the state of scientific knowledge but do not make policy recommendations. “In the absence of an objective IPCC assessment, the only information available to policy makers would be from quite a diverse range of sources, some of which might have an interest at stake,” he said.

Geo-engineering schemes can be as simple

as planting trees to absorb CO2 or painting flat roofs white to reflect sunlight back into space, a technique already in use in many sun-baked urban settings. They also include scattering sea salt aerosols in low marine clouds to render them more mirror-like, sowing the stratosphere with reflective sulphate particles, or “fertilising” the ocean surface with iron to spur the growth of micro-organisms that gobble up CO2.

At the sci-fi end of the scale is a proposal which exists, for now, only on paper - for a sunshade positioned at a key point between Earth and the Sun that would deflect one or two percent of solar radiation, turning the planet’s thermostat down a notch. In an analysis published in September 2009, the Royal Society, Britain’s academy of sciences, judged that planting forests and building towers to capture CO2 could make a useful contribution - once they are demonstrated to be “safe, effective, sustainable and affordable.” It also noted that blunting the impact of solar radiation would still not lower atmospheric concentrations of CO2, which is also driving ocean acidification. — AFP

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W H AT ’ S O N Announcements 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 Hoppin’ John String Band The Hoppin’ John String Band, a Bluegrass group, will be in Kuwait as part of a US Embassy sponsored visit and they’ll be conducting public performances in several locations. All public performances will open to the public and free of charge. No tickets or seat reservations will be required. Here are the details: Date: June 19, 2011 Time: 7:15pm to 8:30pm Location: The Al-Babtain Central Library for Arabic Poetry.

First Jeevan TV annual awards

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eevan TV, Kuwait one of the most popular Indian channels in Kuwait that has raised itself to the status of a family club and socio cultural organization has declared the first annual awards in various fields. The 8 awards, co organized by Al-Mulla Exchange and chosen by the jury comprising of Sam Pynummood, Sagir

Thrikkarippoor and KP Balakrishnan will be presented during the mega cultural event scheduled on July 8 in Kuwait, announced Vinod V Nair, Jeevan TV Kuwait chief along with Rajesh Gairola, Al-Mulla Exchange GM, and John Simon, Al-MullaMarketing Manager in the press meet recently held in Kuwait. The awardees are Dr Nasar

Al Sane (Social Service to Expats by a Citizen), M Mathews (Overall Contribution), Thomas Chandy (Expat MLA), KG Abraham (Industrialist), TA Ramesh (Support to Cultural Activities), Dr Biji Basheer (Helper to the Downtrodden), Babuji Batheri (Cultural Activities) and Indian Doctors Forum (Health Care).

Notice to Filipino citizens

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otice is hereby given that under Republic Act No. 9189, otherwise known as “The Overseas Absentee Voting Act of 2003”, all citizens of the Philippines abroad, not otherwise disqualified by law, at least eighteen (18) years of age on the day of the election, and who are registered overseas absentee voters with approved applications to vote in absentia, may vote for Senators and Party-list Representatives. For this purpose, all qualified Filipino citizens not registered as voters under Republic Act No. 8189, otherwise known as “The Voters Registration Act of 1996”, (the system of continuing registration) shall file an application for registration while those who are already registered under the said Act shall file an application for certification. For purposes of the May 13, 2013 elections, the filing of applications for registration/certification and transfer of registration records shall be filed at the Post or other designated registration areas from October 31, 2011 to October 31, 2012. The 30-day voting period is from April 13, 2013 until 3:00 o’ clock in the afternoon (Philippine time) of May 13, 2013 at any Philippine Embassies or Consulates. (The time for voting to be announced later). For details, please contact telephone number: 65184433 (Kuwait)

K’S PATH organizes fundraiser Quiz Night

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S PATH (Kuwait Society for Protection of Animals and Their Habitat) - a non-profit animal welfare organization - will hold a Quiz Night on June 23rd 2011 at the Movenpick Hotel & Resort Al Bida’a ballroom starting 7 pm. The fun-filled evening will have participants compete in teams of 8 to win great prizes including a special prize for the best team name. “Our Quiz Nights are a great way for families and friends to get together to have fun and support a worthy cause,” says K’S PATH Chairman Ayeshah Al Humaidhi. “Our past fundraiser quiz nights were very well received and we’re back by popular demand this year with exciting quiz rounds. All proceeds from the fundraiser go towards the upkeep of K’S PATH shelter and animals.” Entry to the Quiz Night is KD 12 per head, inclusive of great prizes and dinner. As seats are limited, please RSVP by June 19th and email your team details to events@kspath.org

Infunity presents summer ‘Blank Camp’

KUWAIT: An Umra trip was organized by Islam Presentation Committee at the expense of the heirs of the late Fahad Al-Ajmi for the expats who converted to Islam. A detailed program was set for the trip to enable them get informed about all the holy places in Makkah City.

Goan Association set for grand Sao Joao Fiesta

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or the first time in Kuwait, Sao Joao Fiesta - A feast of fun, food & dance to be organized by Kuwait Goan Association. There will be live entertainment by ALCATRAZ (Goa), 3 DIMENSIONS & COUNTRY KIDZ, Dj Marlon, STYX, Enjoy Traditional Goan Food, Fruits, Games, Konkani Stage program, Jive Competitions, Crowning of the San Joao Feiesta Couple, Raffles, and Lots of Prizes & Surprizes Galone, Sound & Lights, and Young Talents to

Perform. Also there will be a full day family program on 24 June 2011 from 12 noon onwards at the Carmel School Auditorium - Kheitan. This program is sponsored by Al Muzaini Exchange Co, Churchill Bros, Valanka Alemao, Baskin Robbins, Dana Optics Co, Lulu Hypermarket, Mughal Mahal Restuarants, Ceasars Travel Group, Fitwell Tailor, Bhasin Co and M&M Confectionery. Master Compere Merwyn Pereira will be in attendance.

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re you looking to keep your kids busy this summer? The family entertainment center “Infunity” presents its first summer “Blank Camp”, which offers a great experience, fun and adventures for young campers ages 5 to 12 years old. The “Blank Camp” which is managed by Blank Hunts, offers a variety of activities including arts, crafts, reading, theater, sports and treasure hunt. The camp will be running from June 19 to July 14 at “Infunity”, 360 Mall, Level 3 and will be conducted from 9 am to 1:30 pm. In this camp, kids will have the opportunity to learn new skills, gain knowledge, enhance self-confidence and build character and self-esteem. In addition, build up new friendships and unforgettable experiences that last a lifetime. “Infunity” aims through this camp to offer kids the opportunity to express their capabilities, try new things, stimulate challenge, work in teams and improve their skills. Moreover, all activities are chosen and designed carefully to entrain young campers in a healthy and safe environment. It is worthy to mention that the family entertainment center “Infunity” is one of the latest entertainment centers in Kuwait and it is the right place for the families who are seeking to spend enjoyable and pleasant times since its games are the most recent in Kuwait and combines education and entertainment. Invest your kid’s time and call on 99091277 to register.

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

Kala language program commences in Fahaheel

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he free Malayalam Classes organized

by Kala, Kuwait have begun in Fahaheel area. Bhashasamithi General Convenor PK Janardhanan inaugurated the intitial class at the centre near Mangaf English School by reciting a famous poem of a renowned Keralite poet Kadamanitta Ramakrishanan following which he handed over the syllabus to the respective teacher of that class Hari Kumar.

G. Sanal kumar and P.R Babu interacted with the children. A large crowd was present including parents and Bhashasamithi

members.Bhashasamithi Fahaheel zone convenor Rahil K Mohandas welcomed all.

As informed by Kala office bearers, the classes at Abuhalifa, Mahboula and Fahaheel will be commencing soon. For registrations, kindly contact: 97262978, 23714258 or 99682365.

KUWAIT: Women Affairs Director at Islam Presentation Committee Wadhha Al-Blayes visited the Durar club and the project of ‘Hijabi is my crown’ to offer congratulations to the newly girls who converted to Islam.

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Embassy Information EMBASSY OF ARGENTINA In order to inform that 23rd of October 2011, will be Argentine national election where all Argentinean citizen residents permanently in Kuwait can vote only if they are registered at the Electoral Register of the Argentine Embassy. The procedure of inscription ended on 25 of April 2011. To register it is necessary that Argentinean citizens should come personally at the Argentinean Embassy (Block 6, street 42, villa 57, Mishref) and present the DNI and four personal photos (size 4x4, face should be front on white background). For further information, contact us on 25379211.

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EMBASSY OF AUSTRALIA The Embassy encourages all Australians to register their presence in Kuwait through Smartraveller Online (see link below).

Australians who are registered are asked to update their details. The information provided will assist us in contacting you in an emergency. www.smartraveller.gov.au Kuwait citizens can apply for and receive visit visas to Australia online at www.immi.gov.au. This usually takes two working days. All others visa applications are handled by the Australian Visa Application Centre Tel. 22971110.

Witnessing and certifying documents are by appointment only, please contact the Embassy on 2232 2422.

The Australian Embassy is open from 8.00am to 4.00pm, Sunday to Thursday.

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EMBASSY OF BRITAIN The Visa Application Centre (VAC) will be closed on the same dates above. The opening hours of the Visa Application Centre are 0930 - 1630 Application forms remain available online from the UKBAs’ website: www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk or from the Visa Application Centre’s website: www.vfs-ukkw.com. And also, from the UK Visa Application Centre located at: 4B, First Floor, Al Banwan Building (Burgan Bank Branch Office Building), Al Qibla area, opposite Central Bank of Kuwait, Kuwait City. For any further inquiries, please contact the Visa Application Centre: Website: www.vfs-uk-kw.com E-mail:info@vfs-uk-kw.com Telephone:22971170. The Consular Section will also be closed on the same dates.

For information on the British Embassy services, visit the British Embassy website: www.ukinkuwait.fco.gov.uk ■■■■■■■

Al Bayan Bilingual School Preschool Graduation

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l Bayan Bilingual School celebrated its KG2 Graduation in the presence of parents and members of the school’s administration and faculty. Ceremony program began with a recitation from the Holy Quran, followed by a visual presentation included photographs of the various children’s activities throughout the school year, then a march by the 144 graduates onto the stage.

The ceremony program included a short speech

by Deborah Lalonde, the Preschool Principal, and Thomas Quinn, the School Director who addressed the young graduates and their parents in words of appreciation for their great efforts and happiness for their graduation, followed by the awarding ceremony of the children’s graduation certificate. The ceremony also included some lyrical passages by the students in both Arabic and English languages, for which the children had lots of applause and admiration and concluded with a thank you statement to all the KG2 teachers who have credit in the children’s success.

EMBASSY OF CANADA The Embassy of Canada is located at Villa 24, Al-Mutawakel St., Block 4 in Da’aiyah. Please visit our website at www.Kuwait.gc.ca.

Canada offers a registration service for all Canadians travelling or living abroad. This service is provided so that Consular Officials can contact and assist Canadians in an emergency in a foreign country, such as a natural disaster or civil unrest, or inform Canadians of a family emergency at home. The Embassy of Canada encourages all Canadian Citizens to register online through the Government of Canada Travel Website at www.voyage.gc.ca. The Canadian Embassy in Abu Dhabi provides visa and immigration services to residents of Kuwait.

Individuals who are interested in visiting, working or immigrating to Canada are invited to visit the website of the Canadian Embassy to the UAE at www.UAE.gc.ca.

Effective January 15, 2011, the only Temporary Resident Visa (TRV) application form that will be accepted by CIC is the Application for Temporary Resident Visa Made Outside of Canada [IMM 5257] form. All previous Temporary Resident Visa application forms will no longer be accepted by CIC and instead will be returned to applicants. Should old applications be submitted prior to January 15, 2011 they will continue to be processed.

To ensure that the most recent version of the Temporary Resident Visa application form is being utilized, applicants should refer to the CIC website.

As of January 15, 2011, forms are to be filled in electronically. The Embassy of Canada is open from 07:30 to 15:30 Sunday through Thursday.

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EMBASSY OF GERMANY The Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Kuwait wishes to announce that as of 1 May 2011, the external service provider Al Qabas Assurex is operating a Visa Application Centre in support of the German Embassy. Short-term visa applications for travels to Germany (e.g. for tourism, visits, business) are to be submitted to the service provider Al Qabas who for your convenience will ensure that all relevant documents are included in your application. Your personal appearance at the Application Centre is not required. Address of the Visa Application Centre: Al Qabas Assurex Sanabel Tower (Al-Babtain) Mezzanine (M3) opposite Sharq Mall Kuwait 22924444 Fax: 22924442 Further information are available on the following websites: www.kuwait.diplo.de www.qavisa.com ■■■■■■■

EMBASSY OF KENYA The Embassy of the Republic of Kenya wishes to request all Kenyans resident in or training through Kuwait to register with the Embassy. We are updating our database. This information is necessary in order to facilitate quick assistance and advise in times of emergency. Kindly visit in person or register through our website www.kenyaembkuwait.com. The Embassy is located in: Surra Area - Block 6 - Street 9 Villa 3 Tel: 25353362 - 25353314; Fax: 25353316.

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EMBASSY OF NIGERIA The Nigerian embassy has moved its office to Mishref. Block 3, Street 7, House 4. For enquires please call 25379541. Fax25387719. Email- nigeriakuwait@yahoo.com or nigeriankuwait@yahoo.co.uk ■■■■■■■

EMBASSY OF PERU With the growing interest shown by Kuwaiti citizens and/or foreign residents in Kuwait for going for vacation and tourism to Peru and/or with the purpose of doing business over there, The Embassy of Peru in Kuwait did the effort and obtained as a temporary and immediate solution - till the opening of the consular section of Diplomatic Mission of Peru in Kuwait City - that the consular section of the Embassy of Peru in Qatar will attend those requests of granting such visas. Working hours: 9 am till 2 pm or call +974-4491-5944, Fax: +974-4491-5940 E-mail: info@peruembassy.com.qa

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00:45 01:40 02:35 03:30 04:25 05:20 06:10 07:00 07:25 08:15 08:40 09:10 10:05 10:30 11:00 11:55 12:50 13:45 14:40 15:35 16:30 17:25 18:20 19:15 20:10 21:05 22:00 22:55 23:50

Dogs 101 Untamed And Uncut Sharkman Sharkman After The Attack Animal Cops South Africa America’s Cutest...

Meerkat Manor Michaela’s Animal Road Trip The Really Wild Show Jeff Corwin Unleashed Must Love Cats Extraordinary Dogs Project Puppy Dogs 101 Dogs/Cats/Pets 101 Mutant Planet Mutant Planet My Cat From Hell Dogs 101 Karina: Wild On Safari Cheetah Kingdom Tigers Attack Speed Of Life Dogs 101 Life Of Mammals Life Of Mammals I Was Bitten Penguin Safari

00:10 Robin Hood 00:55 Strictly Come Dancing 03:00 Green Green Grass 04:00 One Foot In The Grave 04:35 Fimbles 04:55 Balamory 05:15 Teletubbies 05:40 Gigglebiz 05:55 Fimbles 06:15 Balamory 06:35 Teletubbies 07:00 Fimbles 07:20 Balamory 07:40 Teletubbies 08:05 Gigglebiz 08:20 Fimbles 08:40 Balamory 09:00 Teletubbies 09:25 Gigglebiz 09:40 Green Green Grass 10:40 Robin Hood 11:25 Doctor Who Confidential 11:35 The Weakest Link 12:20 Casualty 13:10 Casualty 14:05 The Weakest Link 15:35 Doctors 18:05 Robin Hood 18:50 Doctor Who Confidential 19:00 Green Green Grass 19:30 Green Green Grass 20:00 Ray Mears’ Northern Wilderness 20:50 Monarch Of The Glen 21:40 New Tricks 22:35 Moses Jones 23:25 Desperate Romantics

00:20 Saturday Kitchen 01:15 Design Star 02:45 Come Dine With Me 06:00 Saturday Kitchen 07:00 Come Dine With Me 12:00 New Scandinavian Cooking 13:40 New Scandinavian Cooking With Andreas Viestad 17:00 New Scandinavian Cooking With Andreas Viestad 17:25 New Scandinavian Cooking 19:30 New Scandinavian Cooking With Andreas Viestad 19:55 Come Dine With Me 20:40 New Scandinavian Cooking With Andreas Viestad 21:10 New Scandinavian Cooking With Andreas Viestad 21:40 The Naked Chef 22:10 The Naked Chef 22:40 Rhodes Across The Caribbean 23:25 Rhodes Across The Caribbean

00:00 00:10 01:00 01:30 02:00 02:10 02:30 03:00 03:10 03:30 04:00 04:30 05:00 05:10 06:00 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 18:10 19:00 19:30 20:00 20:30 21:00 21:15 21:30 22:00 22:30 23:00 23:10 23:30

BBC World News The World Debate 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 The World Debate 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 Africa Business Report BBC World News Newsnight BBC World News World Features The Bottom Line BBC World News Sport Today Click BBC World News Extra Time BBC World News The World Debate BBC World News India Business Report BBC World News Africa Business Report BBC World News Sport Today Click BBC World News Equestrian World BBC World News World Features Extra Time

00:00 The Best Of Backstory 00:30 World Sport 01:00 World Report 01:30 Mainsail 02:00 World Report 02:30 Inside Africa 03:00 Your $$$$$ 04:00 Piers Morgan Tonight 05:00 The Best Of The Situation Room 06:00 World Sport 06:30 Mainsail 07:00 World Report 07:30 The Best Of Backstory 08:00 World Report 08:15 CNN Marketplace Middle East 08:30 Revealed 09:00 World Report 09:15 CNN Marketplace Africa 09:30 Ireport For CNN 10:00 World Sport 10:30 Mainsail 11:00 African Voices 11:30 Talk Asia 12:00 News Special 12:30 World View 13:00 World Report 13:30 World Sport 14:00 Piers Morgan Tonight 15:00 Fareed Zakaria Gps 16:00 State Of The Union With Candy Crowley 17:00 International Desk 17:30 Inside Africa 18:30 World Sport

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 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 Essential 12:00 Globe Trekker 13:00 Essential Specials 14:00 Working Holiday 15:00 Travel Notebook 16:00 Globe Trekker 18:00 Feast India 18:30 Essential 19:00 Globe Trekker 20:00 Essential Specials 21:00 Distant Shores 21:30 Glutton For Punishment

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 Cartoon Network Dance Club 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 15:20 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: Gundalian Invaders 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 Cartoon Network Dance Club 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

MR. NICE ON OSN MOVIES HD

00:40 01:35 02:30 03:00 03:25 03:55 04:20 04:50 05:15 05:40 06:05 06:35 07:00 07:50 08:45 09:40 10:30 11:25 12:20 13:15 14:10 15:05 17:20 18:15 19:10 19:40 20:05 21:00 21:55 22:50 23:45

I’m Alive Behind Bars How Machines Work How It’s Made How Machines Work How It’s Made How Machines Work How It’s Made How Machines Work How It’s Made How Machines Work How It’s Made Extreme Engineering Mighty Ships Huge Moves I’m Alive I’m Alive Gold Rush: Full Disclosure Sarah Palin’s Alaska LA Ink The Next Great Baker Cake Boss Mythbusters Gold Rush: Full Disclosure Danger Coast Danger Coast Swords: Life On The Line Mythbusters Science Of The Movies The Future Of...

Surviving The Cut

00:30 Nextworld 01:20 The Gadget Show 02:10 What’s That About?

03:00 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 Punkin Chunkin 2010 10:35 Mighty Ships 14:45 The Gadget Show 15:35 Patent Bending 16:00 Head Rush 16:03 Cool Stuff And How It Works 16:30 How Does That Work?

17:00 Bang Goes The Theory 17:50 Inside The Space Shuttle 18:40 The Future Of...

19:30 Engineering Thrills 20:20 The Gadget Show 21:10 Through The Wormhole With Morgan Freeman 22:00 The Future Of...

22:50 Bang Goes The Theory 23:40 Mega World

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

00:20 00:45 01:10 01:30 01:55 02:20 02:45 03:10 03:30 03:55 04:20 04:45 05:10 05:35 06:00 06:25 06:50 07:15 07:40 08:00 08:20 08:45 08:55 09:15 09:20 09:30 09:55 10:15 10:25 10:45 10:50 11:15 11:30 11:35 11:45 12:00 12:20 12:30 12:50

Jungle Junction Special Agent Oso Little Einsteins Higglytown Heroes Jo Jo’s Circus Jungle Junction Special Agent Oso Little Einsteins Higglytown Heroes Jo Jo’s Circus Jungle Junction Special Agent Oso Little Einsteins Higglytown Heroes Jo Jo’s Circus Jungle Junction Special Agent Oso Little Einsteins Higglytown Heroes Special Agent Oso Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Timmy Time Little Einsteins Where Is Warehouse Mouse?

The Hive Jake & The Neverland Pirates Jungle Junction Special Agent Oso Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Where Is Warehouse Mouse?

Mickey Mouse Clubhouse The Little Mermaid Where Is Warehouse Mouse?

Handy Manny Jake & The Neverland Pirates Imagination Movers Where Is Warehouse Mouse?

Imagination Movers Where Is Warehouse Mouse?

12:55 13:15 13:25 13:45 13:55 14:00 14:10 14:20 14:30 14:30 14:40 14:50 15:10 15:15 15:35 15:40 16:05 16:15 16:25 16:30 16:50 17:00

Imagination Movers Where Is Warehouse Mouse?

Handy Manny Jake & The Neverland Pirates Where Is Warehouse Mouse?

Jungle Junction The Hive Timmy Time Special Agent Oso Where Is Warehouse Mouse?

Special Agent Oso The Little Mermaid Where Is Warehouse Mouse?

Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Where Is Warehouse Mouse?

Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Handy Manny Handy Manny Where Is Warehouse Mouse?

Jake & The Neverland Pirates Jungle Junction Imagination Movers

06:00 Kid vs Kat 06:20 Kick Buttowski 06:40 Iron Man: Armoured Adventures 07:05 Pokemon Dp: Sinnoh League Victors 07:30 Phineas And Ferb 08:20 Suite Life On Deck S3 08:45 Pair Of Kings 09:10 Kick Buttowski 09:30 Rekkit Rabbit 09:50 Zeke And Luther 10:40 I’m In The Band 11:05 The Super Hero Squad Show 11:30 The Suite Life Of Zack And Cody 11:55 Kick Buttowski 12:15 Kid vs Kat 12:35 American Dragon 13:00 Hatching Pete 14:30 Kick Buttowski 14:55 Pair Of Kings 15:20 Phineas And Ferb 15:50 I’m In The Band 16:15 Rekkit Rabbit 16:40 Zeke And Luther 17:05 The Super Hero Squad Show 17:30 Pokemon Dp: Sinnoh League Victors 17:55 Suite Life On Deck S3 18:45 Zeke And Luther 19:35 The Suite Life Of Zack And Cody 20:00 Zeke And Luther 20:50 The Suite Life Of Zack And Cody 21:15 Zeke And Luther 21:40 Zeke And Luther 22:00 The Suite Life Of Zack And Cody 22:20 I’m In The Band 23:00 Programmes Start At 6:00am KSA

00:25 Fashion Police 00:55 Chelsea Lately 01:25 E!es 02:20 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 Kendra 10:15 Married To Rock 11:10 Kimora: Life In The Fab Lane 12:05 E! News 13:05 Fashion Police 13:35Kourtney And Kim Take New York 14:05 THS 15:00 Khloe And Lamar 15:55Kourtney And Kim Take New York 16:55 Behind The Scenes 17:55 E! News 18:55 Holly’s World 19:55 Kimora: Life In The Fab Lane 20:55 Kourtney And Kim Take New York 21:25 Khloe And Lamar 22:25 E! News 23:25 Fashion Police 23:55 Chelsea Lately

00:15 Aiya TV 01:30 M1 Selection 2010 02:20FIA European Drag Racing 2008 02:45 Ride Guide Mountainbike 2009 04:00 Carpocalypse 04:50 Lucas Oil Ama Motocross Championships...

05:40 Lucas Oil Ama Motocross Championships...

06:30 FIA European Drag Racing 2008 08:00 Quattro Events 2009 09:40 FIM World Motocross MX1/MX2...

11:20 Lucas Oil Ama Motocross Championships...

13:00 LG Action Sports World...

13:50 Dr Danger 14:40 Fantasy Factory 17:10 I’ll Do Anything 18:00 Dr Danger 18:50 Lucas Oil Ama Motocross Championships...

20:30 LG Action Sports World...

21:20 Fantasy Factory 22:10 Dr Danger 23:00 I’ll Do Anything

00:30 01:20 02:10 03:00 04:45 05:15 06:10 07:00 07:50 08:40 09:30 10:20 11:10 12:00 12:50 13:40 14:30 15:20 16:10 17:00 17:50 18:40

A Haunting The Haunted Ghost Lab A Haunting Crime Scene Psychics On The Case With Paula Zahn Mystery Diagnosis Forensic Detectives Murder Shift Mystery Diagnosis Real Emergency Calls Fugitive Strike Force FBI Files On The Case With Paula Zahn Solved Mystery Diagnosis Real Emergency Calls Fugitive Strike Force Forensic Detectives Murder Shift FBI Files Mystery Diagnosis

GOTHIKA ON OSN MOVIES ACTION 19:30 19:55 20:20 21:10 22:00 22:50 23:40 Cases

Real Emergency Calls Real Emergency Calls On The Case With Paula Zahn Disappeared Nightmare Next Door Deadly Women Autopsy: Most Shocking

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

Racing To America Bondi Rescue David Rocco’s Dolce Vita Bondi Rescue Racing To America Bondi Rescue Market Values Bondi Rescue Banged Up Abroad Don’t Tell My Mother The Frankincense Trail Banged Up Abroad Bondi Rescue Market Values Bondi Rescue Bondi Rescue Banged Up Abroad Don’t Tell My Mother Don’t Tell My Mother The Frankincense Trail Banged Up Abroad Bondi Rescue Market Values Bondi Rescue Bondi Rescue Banged Up Abroad

00:00 02:00 04:00 06:00 08:00 10:00 12:00 14:00 16:00 18:00 20:00 22:00

Paranormal Activity-PG15 Armored-18 Gothika-18 The One-PG15 Lara Croft: Tomb Raider-PG15 Ghost Town (TV Movie)-18 Hardwired-PG15 Lara Croft: Tomb Raider-PG15 Virtuality-PG15 Hardwired-PG15 Deadly Impact-18 Sugarhouse-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 Saturday Night Live 03:00 Til Death 03:30 8 Simple Rules ...

04:00 South Park 04:30 The Tonight Show With Jay Leno 05:30 Will And Grace 06:00 According To Jim 06:30 Family Biz 07:00 Late Night With Jimmy Fallon 08:00 Melissa And Joey 08:30 The New Adventures Of Old Christine 09:00 Til Death 09:30 Will And Grace 10:00 According To Jim 10:30 Melissa And Joey 11:00 Family Biz 11:30 The Tonight Show With Jay Leno 12:30 The New Adventures Of Old Christine 13:00 8 Simple Rules ...

13:30 Will And Grace 14:00 According To Jim 14:30 How I Met Your Mother 15:00 Melissa And Joey 15:30 The Daily Show With Jon Stewart 16:00 The Colbert Report 16:30 Family Biz 17:00 Late Night With Jimmy Fallon 18:00 Rita Rocks 18:30 Tyler Perry’s House Of Payne 19:00 Seinfeld 19:30 Sons Of Tucson 20:00 Two And A Half Men 20:30 Perfect Couples 21:00 The Daily Show With Jon Stewart 21:30 The Colbert Report 22:00 Neighbors From Hell 22:30 That Mitchell And Webb Look 23:00 South Park

01:00 03:00 05:00 07:00 09:00 11:30 13:15 PG15 15:00 17:30 19:15 21:00 23:00

Collateral-18 Gothika-18 It’s Alive-R S.W.A.T.-PG15 Independence Day-PG15 The Stepfather-PG15 Beyond A Reasonable Doubt-

10:00 12:00 14:00 16:00 16:30 17:30 18:00 Cup

NRL Premiership Super 15 NRL Premiership Futbol Mundial Trans World Sport Total Rugby Live Rugby Union IRB Nations

00:00 WWE Bottom Line 02:00 WWE Vintage Collection 03:00 WWE Smackdown 06:00 UFC Unleashed 07:00 V8 Supercars Championship 08:00 Live V8 Supercars Championship 10:15 WWE SmackDown 12:00 Le Mans 24 Hour Race 14:00 V8 Supercars Championship 00:00 Mafia!-PG15 16:00 WWE Smackdown 02:00 Dickie Roberts: Former Child 18:00 WWE Vintage Collection Star-PG15 19:00 V8 Supercars Championship 04:00 Old Dogs-PG 21:00 WWE Bottom Line 06:00 From Justin To Kelly-PG 22:00 WWE NXT 08:00 Houseguest-PG15 23:00 WWE SmackDown 10:00 As Good As It Gets-PG15 12:30 One Fine Day-PG15 14:30 Flirting Wth Flamenco-PG15 16:15 Mafia!-PG15 18:00 Down And Out In Beverly HillsPG15 00:00 Homes With Style 20:00 Garage Days-18 01:00 Fashion Avenue 22:00 Observe And Report-18 01:55 Big Boutique 02:25 How Do I Look?

03:20 Whose Wedding Is It Anyway?

04:15 Married Away 01:00 Mr. Nice-18 05:10 Homes With Style 03:00 Star Trek-PG 05:35 Area 05:15 Don’t Fade Away-PG15 06:05 Clean House 07:15 The Sorcerer’s Apprentice 07:00 Big Boutique 09:15 Smart People-PG15 08:00 Clean House 11:00 Hope Springs-PG15 09:00 Top 10 13:00 Flicka 2-PG15 09:55 Homes With Style 15:00 500 Days Of Summer-PG15 10:50 Bridalplasty 17:00 Smart People-PG15 11:50 Bridalplasty 19:00 Green Zone-PG15 12:50 How Do I Look?

21:00 Somewhere-PG15 23:00 Assassination Of A High 13:45 Marry Me In Mexico: Trish’s Dream Wedding School President-18 14:45 Clean House Comes Clean 15:40 Top 10 16:35 Giuliana & Bill 18:25 Jerseylicious 00:00 Scooby-Doo And The Ghoul 19:25 How Do I Look?

School-FAM 20:20 Fashion Police 02:00 Pocahontas III: The Journey In 20:45 Clean House Comes Clean Time-PG 21:15 Giuliana & Bill 04:00 Inspector Gadget’s Last Case: 22:10 Ruby Claw’s...-FAM 23:05 Bridalplasty 06:00 Ace Ventura : Pet Detective Jr. Independence Day-PG15 Mortal Kombat-PG The Gene Generation-18 Sugarhouse-PG15 Children Of The Corn-18

08:00 Groove Squad-FAM 10:00 Scooby-Doo And The Ghoul School-FAM 12:00 Time Kid-FAM 14:00 Alvin And The Chipmunks: The Squeakquel-FAM 16:00 Babe-FAM 18:00 Babe: Pig In The City-FAM 20:00 Catch That Kid-PG15 22:00 Time Kid-FAM

00:00 A Fork In The Road-PG15 02:00 Alice In Wonderland-PG 04:00 Daddy Day Care-PG 06:00 Who’s Your Caddy?-PG15 08:00 Make It Happen-PG15 10:00 End Of The Spear-PG15 12:00 Alice In Wonderland-PG 14:00 Hey Hey Its Esther Blueburger-PG15 16:00 Make It Happen-PG15 18:00 Toy Story 3-FAM 20:00 Somewhere-PG15 22:00 My Best Friend’s Girl-18

01:30 NRL Premiership 03:00 Rugby Junior World Championship 07:00 Live NRL Premiership 09:00 ICC Cricket World 09:30 Masters Football 12:30 Futbol Mundial 13:00 Live Test Cricket 20:00 ICC Cricket World 20:30 NRL Premiership

01:30 04:30 06:30 07:00 08:00

Masters Football Super 15 Futbol Mundial Trans World Sports Live NRL Premiership

00:00 The Universe 22:00 Apocalypse Island

01:40 03:30 05:25 07:00 08:40 10:30 12:30 14:25 16:00 18:05 19:35 22:00

The Asphalt Jungle Boom Town Saratoga For Me And My Gal The Glass Bottom Boat Lust For Life Silk Stockings Gaby The Hill Tom Thumb Cimarron The Split

00:10 The Hardy Boys 00:30 Inspector Gadget 01:00 Inspector Gadget Marathon 06:00 New Adventures Of Madeline 06:25 Rupert 06:45 Jass Time 07:00 My Fair Madeline 08:00 Programmes Start At 8:00pm KSA 20:00 Snow White And The King Of The Forest 20:20 Fat Dog Mendoza 20:45 Sabrina The Animated Series 21:10 S Club 7 In Miami 21:35 Beverly Hills Teen Club 22:00 Snow White And The King Of The Forest 23:20 Sonic Underground 23:45 Nancy Drew

Classifieds SUNDAY, JUNE 19, 2011

ACCOMMODATION Spacious bedroom with separate bathroom (two bedroom two bathroom flat) available for only Keralite couples in Abbassiya near United Indian School from 18th June onwards. Contact: 66846299.

(C 3455) 19-6-2011 A fully furnished 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom CA/C flat for rent for 2 months (July & August) specially for families on visit, nice location in Khaitan. Contact: 67797042/66674242.

(C 3451) Sharing accommodation available in Abbassiya with Keralite family for decent Keralite couple in two bedroom, two bathroom flat. If interested call: 97168979.

(C 3453) 18-6-2011 Separate room available for Indian bachelors in old Riggae. Sector-1, St.-1, Jadda-3.

Contact: 97525930. (C 3447) 16-6-2011 Sharing accommodation with Kerala family from July 4, for decent couples or working ladies, near Ruchi

Restaurant, Abbassiya.

Contact: 99487601.

(C 3440) Sharing accommodation available for Keralite family, working ladies or couples, Abbassiya.

Contact: 97769931. (C 3441) Fully furnished flat of 1 bed, hall available from June 20, 2011, to share a practicing Muslim person or family, located in Abbasiya near German Clinic. Contact: 99430379.

(C 3445) Sharing furnished accommodation available in Salmiya behind Hadi Hospital, preferred nurses, lady doctor, teacher or working in saloon. Contact: 66373409.

15-6-2011

SITUATION WANTED

FOR SALE

CHANGE OF NAME

Educated Iranian man looking for suitable vacancy, 7 years experience in trading field (Import and Export) well familiar with Microsoft office and English language, residency article 18 transferable.

Contact: 66346118.

(C 3452) 18-6-2011

Expat family selling household items + electronics (washing machine, dishwasher, microwave oven, deep freezer, projection TV). Contact: 66042205 also check tiny.cc/lpa36 (C 3456) 19-6-2011

I, Rania, holder of Indian Passport No: E1093683 issued from Kuwait on 02/05/2002 D/o Mohamed Hussain Pallath residing at Pallaath house, Mookkuthala Po, Malappuram Dt, Kerala have changed by name as Rania Mohamed Hussain Pallath.

(C 3450) 18-6-2011

PC Compaq Pentium 4, RAM 256MB, HD 40 GB, DVD-CD Writer, Windows XP Professional with 15” LCD Neovo, excellent condition. Price KD 45. Call: 99322585/ 99337034.

(C 3448) 16-6-2011 Chevrolet Optra, model 2006, silver while color, 4 cylinder, insurance up to June 2013, price KD 1300/-.

Contact: 97124858.

(C 3439) Expat family selling furniture items (sofa sets, bed sets, tables, carpets, no electronics).

Contact: 66042205.

Also see tiny.cc//lpa36 (C 3442) For sale wooden bedroom furniture (except wardrobe), wooden dining table with four chairs, all Center Point, Panasonic 42” Plasma and JVC hi-fi system with 5 DVD players, and

MATRIMONIAL Seeking proposal for Muslim Pakistani daughter, 25 years, MSc., tall, smart, fair, in job Kuwait, from matching status boy in Kuwait/Pakistan. Contact: hamdared555@gmail.com or P.O. Box: 1329, Khaitan 83001. (C 3449) 18-6-2011 Tamil Muslim girl, MCA, 25 yrs from Tamil Nadu, seeks alliance from professionally qualified, Tamil Muslim boys working in Kuwait.

Contact Email: sha_kwt@yahoo.com (C 3446) 15-6-2011

(C 3443) SITUATION VACANT Required housemaid in Farwaniya, Block 5, who knows cooking and cleaning for an Indian family.

Contac t: 97220933. (C 3454) 18-6-2011 Required live-in Filipina maid. Call: 99601906.

Required live-in maid, any nationalit y.

Call: 99601906.

(C 3444) 15-6-2011 Required English speaking live-in maid / nanny.

Contact: 99824597.

(C 3436) 13-6-2011

DIAL 161 FOR AIRPORT INFORMATION In case you are not travelling, your proper cancellation of bookings will help other passengers to use seats Airlines

Flt

RJA JZR KAC THY ETH KAC UAE DHX ETD MSR FDB JZR GFA QTR KAC FCX JZR KAC BAW JZR 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

642 267 790 772 620 108 853 370 305 614 67 189 211 138 544 201 555 412 157 1541 206 382 615 302 332 53 678 352 284 855 132 125 603 301 213 6801 203 404 165 121 561 3553 672 610 982 640 774

Arrival Flights on Sunday 19/6/2011 Route AMMAN BEIRUT MEDINAH ISTANBUL ADDIS ABABA GENEVA / LONDON DUBAI BAHRAIN ABU DHABI CAIRO DUBAI DUBAI BAHRAIN DOHA CAIRO DUBAI ALEXANDRIA MANILA / BANGKOK LONDON CAIRO ISLAMABAD DELHI SHAHRE KORD MUMBAI TRIVANDRUM DUBAI MUSCAT / DUBAI COCHIN DHAKA DUBAI DOHA SHARJAH SHIRAZ ABU DHABI BAHRAIN AHWAZ DUBAI BEIRUT DUBAI BAHRAIN SOHAG ALEXANDRIA / SOHAG DUBAI CAIRO WASHINGTON DC DULLES AMMAN RIYADH

Time 0:05 0:35 0:45 1:15 1:45 2:05 2:25 2:55 2:55 3:05 3:10 3:10 3:15 3:20 4:40 5:25 6:10 6:15 6:30 7:10 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

FDB KAC SVA KAC KAC JZR QTR JZR ETD UAE GFA SVA JZR JZR ABY JZR FDB ALK JZR KAC KAC KAC KAC KAC KAC KAC JAI SYR FDB OMA VOS MEA KAC KAC DHX UAE KAC GFA QTR AFG UAL AIC JZR JZR JZR MSR DLH AXB JZR KLM

57 562 500 788 746 257 134 535 303 857 215 510 777 239 127 213 63 227 177 166 542 618 786 614 674 102 572 341 61 647 81 402 552 512 372 859 172 217 136 405 981 981 135 787 185 612 636 389 539 447

DUBAI AMMAN JEDDAH JEDDAH ABU DHABI / DAMMAM BEIRUT DOHA CAIRO ABU DHABI DUBAI BAHRAIN RIYADH JEDDAH AMMAN SHARJAH DEIREZZOR / ALEPPO DUBAI COLOMBO / DUBAI DUBAI PARIS / ROME CAIRO DOHA JEDDAH BAHRAIN DUBAI NEW YORK / LONDON MUMBAI DAMASCUS / ALEPPO DUBAI MUSCAT BAGHDAD BEIRUT DAMASCUS TEHRAN BAHRAIN DUBAI FRANKFURT BAHRAIN DOHA KABUL / DUBAI BAHRAIN CHENNAI / AHMEDABAD BAHRAIN RIYADH DUBAI CAIRO FRANKFURT KOZHIKODE / MANGALORE CAIRO AMSTERDAM / BAHRAIN

13:50 14:20 14:30 15:00 15:05 15:10 15:15 15:50 16:50 16:55 17:15 17:20 17:25 17:35 17:40 17:50 17:55 18:00 18:00 18:40 18:50 18:55 19:00 19:20 19:25 19:25 19:35 19:55 20:00 20:10 20:15 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

BBC JZR PIA

45 481 205

Airlines TimeAXB JZR DLH AIC THY ETH UAE FDB DHX ETD MSR QTR JZR JZR RJA GFA VOS JZR BAW IRA FDB JZR KAC KAC KAC KAC JZR KAC KAC UAE ABY QTR ETD GFA KAC IRA JZR IRC FCX MEA KAC JZR JZR KAC KAC

Flt 394 1540 637 976 773 620 854 68 371 306 615 139 560 164 643 212 94 120 156 614 54 534 171 671 745 117 256 561 787 856 126 133 302 214 773 602 212 6802 204 405 541 776 238 103 785

DHAKA / BAHRAIN SABIHA LAHORE Depurture Flights on Sunday 19/6/2011 Route COCHIN / KOZHIKODE CAIRO FRANKFURT GOA / CHENNAI ISTANBUL BAHRAIN / ADDIS ABABA DUBAI DUBAI BAHRAIN ABU DHABI CAIRO DOHA SOHAG DUBAI AMMAN BAHRAIN DUBAI / KANDAHAR BAHRAIN LONDON SHAHRE KORD DUBAI CAIRO FRANKFURT DUBAI DAMMAM / ABU DHABI NEW YORK BEIRUT AMMAN JEDDAH DUBAI SHARJAH DOHA ABU DHABI BAHRAIN RIYADH SHIRAZ DEIREZZOR / ALEPPO AHWAZ DUBAI BEIRUT CAIRO JEDDAH AMMAN LONDON JEDDAH

23:45 23:50 23:55

0:15 0:20 0:40 0:50 2:15 2:30 3:45 3:50 3:55 4:05 4:05 5:00 5:55 6:55 7:00 7:10 8:00 8:20 8:25 8:35 8:40 8:50 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 10:50 11:15 11:45 11:55 12:00 12:00 12:10 12:30 13:30

Directorate General of Civil Aviation Home Page (www.kuwait-airport.com.kw)

RBG JZR MSR RJA FDB UAL KAC KAC KAC SVA JZR QTR KAC KAC JZR ETD UAE GFA ABY JZR SVA FDB JZR JZR JZR ALK KAC KAC KAC JAI FDB SYR KAC KAC OMA MEA KAC DHX UAE GFA FCX QTR KAC KAC JZR JZR JZR KAC UAL MSR KAC

3554 176 611 641 58 982 551 673 617 503 480 135 613 511 538 304 858 216 128 184 511 64 786 204 134 228 1501 283 361 571 62 342 343 351 648 403 543 373 860 218 102 137 301 205 502 554 530 411 981 613 415

ALEXANDRIA DUBAI CAIRO AMMAN DUBAI BAHRAIN DAMASCUS DUBAI DOHA MEDINAH / JEDDAH SABIHA DOHA BAHRAIN TEHRAN CAIRO ABU DHABI DUBAI BAHRAIN SHARJAH DUBAI RIYADH DUBAI RIYADH DAMASCUS BAHRAIN DUBAI / COLOMBO BEIRUT DHAKA COLOMBO MUMBAI DUBAI ALEPPO / DAMASCUS CHENNAI COCHIN MUSCAT BEIRUT CAIRO BAHRAIN DUBAI BAHRAIN BAHRAIN DOHA MUMBAI ISLAMABAD LUXOR ALEXANDRIA ASSIUT BANGKOK / MANILA WASHINGTON DC DULLES CAIRO KUALA LUMPUR / JAKARTA

13:35 13:40 14:20 14:30 14:35 14:45 14:55 15:10 15:35 15:45 16:00 16:15 16:20 16:30 16:40 17:35 18:05 18:15 18:20 18:25 18:35 18:40 18:40 18:55 19:10 19:10 19:30 20:00 20:20 20:35 20:40 20:55 21:00 21:05 21:10 21:15 21:55 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, JUNE 19, 2011

stars CROSSWORD 353

CALVIN & HOBBES

STAR TRACK Aries (March 21-April 19) There could be some restrictions on your activities at home this morning. You may find yourself pacing the floor much of the morning. Inactivity can be just as stressful as too much activity. Repairing machinery or perhaps performing some chores could be most beneficial now. Perhaps you could find ways to help speed up the slowdown through running errands, etc. You will be able to help speed things along and there will be some time to yourself this afternoon. You and your friends have plans for a camping or fishing trip this evening and there is just enough time to get ready. Honest and frank, you hate routines and love the outdoors, travel and sports. An eternal optimist, you are open, friendly and lucky too. Include the family in some future travels.

Taurus (April 20-May 20)

POOCH CAFE ACROSS 1. The fleshy part of the human body that you sit on.

5. Greek mythology.

10. A benevolent aspect of Devi.

13. An elaborate song for solo voice.

14. A condensed but memorable saying embodying some important fact of experience that is taken as true by many people.

15. A local computer network for communication between computers.

16. A period of 40 weekdays from Ash Wednesday to Holy Saturday.

17. Person who does no work.

18. (British) Your grandmother.

19. A compartment in front of a motor vehicle where driver sits.

21. A member of the Caddo people who formerly lived in the Dakotas west of the Missouri river.

23. In bed.

25. The granite-like rocks that form the outermost layer of the earth's crust.

26. A blind god.

29. A silvery ductile metallic element found primarily in bauxite.

33. A colorless and odorless inert gas.

34. (Old Testament) The second patriarch.

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

39. A white soft metallic element that tarnishes readily.

40. A gradual decline (in size or strength or power or number).

42. A federal agency established to regulate the release of new foods and health-related products.

44. Made of or resembling lace.

46. A decree that prohibits something.

47. An informal term for a father.

51. Large burrowing rodent of South and Central America.

53. A scholar who specializes in Arab languages and culture.

56. (of complexion) Blemished by imperfections of the skin.

60. Big-eyed scad.

61. An officer who acts as military assistant to a more senior officer.

64. Title for a civil or military leader (especially in Turkey).

65. Being one more than two.

66. A port city in southwestern Iran.

68. God of the underworld.

69. (Irish) Mother of the ancient Irish gods.

70. West Indian tree having racemes of fragrant white flowers and yielding a durable timber and resinous juice.

71. The residue that remains when something is burned.

DOWN 1. A fine grained mineral having a soft soapy feel and consisting of hydrated magnesium silicate.

2. The chief solid component of mammalian urine.

3. In the Arabian Nights a hero who tells of the fantastic adventures he had in his voyages.

4. Headdress that protects the head from bad weather.

5. Submerged aquatic plant having narrow leaves and small flowers.

6. A condition (mostly in boys) characterized by behavioral and learning disorders.

7. East Indian tree bearing a profusion of intense vermilion velvet-textured blooms and yielding a yellow dye.

8. Small genus of dioecious tropical aquatic plants.

9. In or belonging to the air or operating (for or by means of aircraft or elevated cables) in the air.

10. The inner and longer of the two bones of the human forearm.

11. A flat-bottomed volcanic crater that was formed by an explosion.

12. A former copper coin of Pakistan.

20. A Mid-Atlantic state.

22. Being ten more than one hundred forty.

24. Soft creamy white cheese.

27. Toward the mouth or oral region.

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

30. A metrical unit with unstressed-stressed syllables.

31. Fallow deer.

32. A port city in northwestern Algeria and the country's 2nd largest city.

35. A metallic element having four allotropic forms.

36. The blood group whose red cells carry both the A and B antigens.

37. A boy or man.

41. Type genus of the Lycaenidae.

43. A port city in southwestern Turkey on the Gulf of Antalya.

44. A highly unstable radioactive element (the heaviest of the halogen series).

45. A white metallic element that burns with a brilliant light.

48. A loose sleeveless outer garment made from aba cloth.

49. English theoretical physicist who applied relativity theory to quantum mechanics and predicted the existence of antimatter and the positron (1902-1984).

50. A very poisonous metallic element that has three allotropic forms.

52. A radioactive element of the actinide series.

54. One of a pair of long straps (usually connected to the bit or the headpiece) used to control a horse.

55. An official language of the Republic of South Africa.

56. A very poisonous metallic element that has three allotropic forms.

57. A quantity of no importance.

58. Armor plate that protects the chest.

59. Distinctive and stylish elegance.

62. An agency of the United Nations affiliated with the World Bank.

63. A light touch or stroke.

64. A silvery ductile metallic element found primarily in bauxite.

67. A soft silvery metallic element of the alkali earth group.

Yesterday’s Solution

Your outward seriousness and no-nonsense approach to things are obvious to all. This deliberate sense of responsibility comes across and is central to your personality and the way you relate to other people. You can be a stickler with details today. You are driven and passionate in your pursuit of change and inner growth. You possess, at the core, an intensity that burns through superficialities, searching for opportunities to face the truth and render the evident to view.

You will find opportunities to be with your friends this afternoon in some form of group sports. Have fun with a loving person who thinks you are special and would like a little one-on-one play. You are in a planning mood this evening. You can see the road ahead and will make the right choices.

Gemini (May 21-June 20) When it comes to your work or home your conservative values may clash with whatever is unconventional and different at this time.

Others may decide to create some changes. You may not care for the furniture or appliance someone has chosen. You may do your best to ignore these changes. You appreciate tradition and regularity and your value system is dead set against anything new or out of the ordinary. Occasionally, you surprise others with your sense of humor and eventually, you adapt to whatever changes occur. There are breakthroughs regarding relationships. There are unconventional approaches to partnerships and lovers. Positive communication is good. Your demeanor today sets examples for others in the future.

Cancer (June 21-July 22)

NON SEQUITUR

Others may find you especially witty and eccentric today. Much of your personal life hinges on pursuing your own growth and success. Today you have an urge to go into work and finish up some issues or fine tune your plans for next week. Harmonizing the needs and demands of business and personal life may be difficult but certainly worth the effort. Think again about your itinerary today. Your time may be best spent in the company of your family or nurturing your friendships. Participate in the upkeep of your home or car instead of hiring someone else to do the job. Discover parts of you and your loved ones that renew your spirit and your energies. This can be a very creative and even romantic time to remember.

Leo (July 23-August 22)

ZITS

You are a solid supporter, always gravitating to the heart of things.

You may have trouble getting moving, but once rolling, others should be prepared. You have a stick-to-itiveness that may often find you in the thick of things. Your energies run effectively toward making yourself felt in the material, tangible outer world. You can be an action person if you want to be. You can gain the attention of others and encourage others to get moving. Some circumstances of your life suggest extroversion. You may, however, find it more convenient to neglect your mental and organizational abilities when social opportunities arise this afternoon. Keep your priorities straight and you will be a happy camper. People value you for your dynamic qualities.

Virgo (August 23-September 22) You are a very feeling person and can sense the drift of a situation without a lot of analysis. This immediate hands-on approach might be contrasted with one that is more deliberate and cerebral. You could be left with a bit of an inferiority complex when it comes to matters of education, philosophy and conceptual ability. In a word, you revere this kind of stuff, not because it is natural to you, but rather because it may not come easily. You enjoy the process of work and although you may feel you take a lot of time to complete your task, you are most successful with the desired results. Be humble as you display your work or your accomplished results. There is time this evening for your love relationship to blossom. The two of you enjoy communicating.

Libra (September 23-October 22)

MOTHER GOOSE AND GRIMM

Try not to worry so much—your abilities are much more accurate than you give yourself credit for lately. Your concern for everything makes you invaluable when anything needs doing and, if left unoccupied, you have been known to worry for worry’s sake. Given only a few facts, you are able to take in a situation and come up with a real picture of what is happening. So, be realistic and use your worry energy productively. The accent is on earning, spending and possessions. You can put a new moneymaking idea into motion soon. Your sharp communication skills are at a high, so ask the right questions and the day will take you where you need to go. You might become interested in selling homes. Take a walk this evening and enjoy time.

Scorpio (October 23-November 21) You have an innate urge to save, salvage and conserve. You always want to help and to be of service whenever possible. You hate waste and are very thorough and precise. For the most part, you work very hard to understand people and you are very accepting. There is a need to be the center of attention today, also a craving to give and to be appreciated. This can be an expansive, creative and even romantic phase, a time you will look back on with pride.

Emotionally, you are full of energy, rushing into areas and handling subject matters that others would never come near. Vulnerable issues, sensitive areas of the self and psychology are the first places you head. Interestingly enough, you are able to find the most positive outcome in most problems.

Sagittarius (November 22-December 21) You may feel that you are in-touch and in-harmony with others as the lines of communication are open. The support you need is there. This is a good day to solve problems and make important decisions. You will find a way around most any problem and are in control and able to guide yourself with ease. Your sense of inner direction is good and should lead to many opportunities. You bring a sense of value and the ideal to what are otherwise very practical matters. A cycle of nostalgia and domesticity begins now emphasizing a need for security and a sense of roots. Family, home, relatives and real estate play a bigger part in your life. You want to belong on a private, intimate and personal level, to be needed and to feel it is okay to have needs.

Capricorn (December 22-January 19) You will tend to find yourself socializing more than usual today. You can always put your ideas into words and describe or analyze situations for yourself and others. Your theories may be fine, but you may lack heart or patience to let things ripen. Write down your ideas and next week you will find an opportunity to share them, perhaps in a memo or presentation to an administrator, instead of talking about them to co-workers. You will get credit for your own ideas and the people in control of business production will appreciate your input. Work on patience this day—new neighbors may present some fun, busy and new ideas for entertainment this evening. Careful, pick and choose and create a balance of activities so that finances and fun do not suffer.

Yesterday’s Solution Aquarius (January 20- February 18) There may be confusion today over a professional or career decision. You do not like making career decisions and you can get downright confused when it comes to making the right choice. You may not appreciate advice, but advice may be the best route to consider just now. Otherwise, the question at hand could become somewhat more complex. Once you have determined the right route for yourself, you should take it. With this behind you, let it go and enjoy the rest of the weekend by relaxing in some fun way. This is a fun time to purchase beauty or toiletries, perhaps a new scent or product? Enjoy your dreams of the future. You might enjoy an early picnic dinner with your loved ones or friends.

Tonight’s evening hours are for romance.

Pisces (February 19-March 20)

Word Sleuth Solution

This is a good time to really get down to the business of cleaning up your act, taking care of loose ends and attending to any details you may have neglected up to now. Health, food and physical condition come under scrutiny and you work to care for these matters. Perhaps you will be encouraging loved ones to join you in beginning some regular form of exercise. Your system of values may deepen, providing you with a better sense of discrimination. You will make good choices in the area of investment purchases today. There is a lot of mental energy to complete your plans for this day and there must be a balance maintained so you are not too stressed. Things do seem almost magical in the way they work out for you at this time.

A

y

e niv rsar n

SUNDAY, JUNE 19, 2011

Years

i n f o r m at i o n FIRE BRIGADE

STATE ST TAT TE OF KUW K KUWAIT WA AIT

112

Tel.: T el.: e 161

DIRECTORA DIRECTORATE AT TE GENE GENERAL ERAL OF CIVIL A AVIATION V VIA AT TION METEOROLOGICAL DEP D PA ARTMENT DEPARTMENT DA AY: Y Saturday DAY:

WWW .MET.GOV V..KW W WWW.MET.GOV.KW

18/06/2011 18/06/201 1

Ministry of Interior

Ext.: 2627 262 27 - 2630

Fax: 24348714

07:00

Time Issue Time

Expected Weather Weather for the Next 24 4 Hours Dusty with moderate to fresh north h westerly wind, with speed of 25 - 50 km/h

BY Y DA DAY: AY:

website: www.moi.gov.kw Dusty with moderate to fresh north h westerly wind, with speed of 25 - 50 km/h

NIGHT:: BY Y NIGHT

For labor-related inquiries and complaints: Call MSAL hotline 128

Windy W indy

WARNING W A ARNING STATION ST TAT TION

MAX. EXP EXP. P.

MIN.. REC.

KUW WA AIT CITY KUWAIT

43 °C

33 °C

24812000

KUWAIT KUW WA AIT AIRPORT AIRPOR RT

44 °C

33 °C

Amiri Hospital

22450005

NUWAISEEB NUW WA AISEEB

45 °C C

32 °C C

Maternity Hospital

24843100

WAFRA WA AFRA

45 °C

33 °C

Mubarak Al-Kabir Hospital

25312700

SALMI

42 °C

29 °C

Chest Hospital

24849400

ABDAL LY ABDALY

45 °C

32 °C

Farwaniya Hospital

24892010

ALIY YA AH JAL ALIYAH

44 °C

31 °C

Adan Hospital

23940620

FA AILAKA FAILAKA

44 °C

31 °C

Ibn Sina Hospital

24840300

POR RT AHMADI PORT

42 °C

34 °C

Al-Razi Hospital

24846000

M UMM AL-MARADEM

37 °C

32 °C

Physiotherapy Hospital

24874330/9

WA ARBA A - BUBYAN BUBY YA AN WARBA

45 °C

32 °C

Hospitals Sabah Hospital

Clinics

SFC. CHAR CHART T

18/06/201 1 0000 UTC 18/06/2011

4732263

Roudha

22517733

Adhaliya

22517144

Sunday

19/06

Khaldiya

24848075

Monday

20/06

Keifan

24849807

T uesday Tuesday

21/06

Shamiya

24848913

W eednesday Wednesday

22/06

Shuwaikh

24814507

Abdullah Salim

22549134

Al-Nuzha

T emperratures Temperatures DAY DA AY

DATE DA AT TE

WEA WEATHER AT THER

MAX.

MIN.

Wind Wind Direction Direction

Wind Wind Speed

dusty

43 °C

33 °C

NW

30 - 60 km/h

dusty

43 °C

32 °C

NW

25 - 50 km/h

dusty

43 °C

33 °C

NW

25 - 50 km/h

dusty

45 °C

34 °C

NW

25 - 45 km/h

PRAYER PR RA AY YER TIMES

RECORDED D YESTERDAY YESTERDA AY A AT T KUW KUWAIT WA AIT T AIRPOR AIRPORT T

Fajr

03:13

MAX. MA AX. Temp.

Temp.

45 °C

22526804

Sunrise S i

04:49 04 49

MIN. Temp.

MI IN T IN. emp.

31 °C

Industrial Shuwaikh

24814764

Zuhr

1 1:49 11:49

MAX. RH M

16 %

Al-Khadissiya

22515088

Dasmah

22532265

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

4 DA DAYS AY YS FORECAST

Rabiya

Al-Madena

15:23

MIN. RH M

18:50

MAX. Wind MA AX. W ind

Isha

20:22

TOTAL RAINFALL T OT TA AL L RAI INF FA ALL L IN 24 HR.

un nless otherwise stated.

All times are local time unless

22434064 22435865 22544200 22547133 22515277 22616662 25714406 22530801

THE PUBLIC AUTHORITY FOR CIVIL INFORMATION Automated enquiry about the Civil ID card is 1889988

05 %

Asr Sunset

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

NW W 57 km/h 00 mm

18/06/11 03:04 UTC 18/06/11

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

y

A

36

e niv rsar n

Years

SUNDAY, JUNE 19, 2011

li fe s ty le G O S S I P

Timberlake insists

there are no ‘particular qualities’ he looks for in a woman he 30-year-old singer-and-actor - who has previously dated stars including Jessica Biel, Cameron Diaz and Britney Spears - enjoys meeting new people and is happy to go wherever life takes him because he can’t understand the “drama” which surrounds relationships. He said: “I don’t know that I’m looking for anything in particular. “I think people are people and I enjoy meeting them. I don’t know that there’s a particular quality in a woman I would go for over any other. “I think there’s too much being made these days about being ‘single’ or ‘not single’. There’s too much drama about it when it really shouldn’t be much of an issue at all. “I’m just enjoying exploring my life right now and wherever that path ends up will be OK because that’s where I’ll have wanted it to end up.” The ‘Bad Teacher’ star - who shot to fame aged just 12 as a member of the ‘AllNew Mickey Mouse Club’ - turned 30 in January and admitted it has taken him until now to learn to relax and not seek acknowledgement in as many areas as possible. He added in an interview with Britain’s HELLO! magazine: “It’s an exciting time for me. I kind of had a feeling in my twenties that I wanted to do as much as I could, as fast as I could, and I did do a lot of amazing stuff.”But now I’m able to look at life and say, ‘You know, I don’t necessarily need to do everything.’ I don’t feel the need to be validated any more, which is a great place to be. “Since I wrapped ‘Bad Teacher’, I haven’t been doing a lot of work, I’ve just been being. And that’s very enjoyable.”

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Gaga back with ex he ‘Edge of Glory’ singer announced she had separated from Luc Carl in May but the pair have now decided to give their romance another try. A source told Us Weekly magazine: “They had a little fight. I think the break-up lasted a week or two. But they are totally back together now.” Gaga - who got together with Luc again in July 2010 after they had a break from each other - announced she was single during an appearance on British TV series ‘The Graham Norton Show’. She said: “No, I don’t have a boyfriend and haven’t been on any dates recently.” The 25-yearold singer wrote the song ‘You and I’, which features on her global chart-topping album ‘Born This Way’, about 30-yearold Luc and admitted in the wake of the break-up performing the track makes her emotional. She explained: “There is not one song on any of my records that wasn’t written by me, and I think when you write your own music you find ways to reinvent [the songs] emotionally through yourself and performance so that they are different every night and that song you know, sometimes it’s about the guy and sometimes it’s about the fans.”

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Rosanna Arquette has got engaged

Diaz reads scripts right through before commit-

Bar Refaeli has broken her arm he supermodel - who is the ex-girlfriend of Leonardo DiCaprio - has been left with the nasty injury after an unknown accident and she is not happy about it. She wrote on her twitter page: “I broke my arm. And I’m annoyed! Booooooo. (sic)” No other details about how she got the injury are known yet. Bar’s followers on the micro-blogging website were quick to send her get well soon messages. User AzulinR tweeted: “Oh yikes!! Sorry to hear that, yaldonet! Hope it heals very very quickly!! (sic)” One cheeky fan even offered to help the stunning Sports Illustrated swimsuit model get dressed while she is incapacitated. Her follower Austin Michael wrote: “If you need some help putting your bikini on, let me know ... lol. (sic)” Bar and Leonardo separated in May after being in a relationship on and off for over five years. They decided to call time on the romance because they had “grown apart” and were both focused on their careers. Since the break-up, the 36year-old actor has started dating ‘Gossip Girl’ star Blake Lively, 23. Bar, 26, has not been romantically linked with anyone since the relationship ended.

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he 38-year-old actress admits she was initially unimpressed when she was given the script for her new movie ‘Bad Teacher’ but was pleased she carried on reading as she eventually fell in love with her charac ter Elizabeth Halsey. She said: “Thirty pages in, I didn’t want to know her and then by 10 pages more I was starting to get her. By the end I loved her. “My rule is I have to read it all the way through. It’s kind of like the dress that looks terrible on a hanger, and then you try it on and it’s the only dress that looks good - after you’ve said, ‘That will never look good.’ “It was a struggle at

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first, then I realized how brilliant she was.” The blonde beauty was relieved she finished the script because she realized it was a character she “had to” play in order to relax from usual moral constraints. She explained: “It was an opportunity to play a character I didn’t have to be morally responsible for. We all have to follow certain social standards and I was able to let that go for a couple of months, leave behind all my moral qualms, then step back out of that at the end of the day and go back to being part of society. “I had to play her, I just knew I had to. There was no choice for me.”

Robbie Williams cheers up Joss Stone he Take That star is close friends with the British singer - after they performed together at the 2005 BRIT Awards - and after he heard the news that two men were allegedly planning to take her, he phoned her up and invited her backstage at the group’s show in Cardiff, Wales. A source told The Sun newspaper: “Robbie and Joss have been mates for years. He got straight on the phone to see if she was OK and invited her to Wales. “She’s still in shock but Robbie did his best to put a smile back on her face. His cheeky chappy side was in overdrive when they met up after the gig. “She was making light of it too, joking that it’s been like an episode of ‘Midsomer Murders’.” Two men Junior Bradshaw, 30, and Kevin Liverpool, 33 - were arrested earlier this week accused of conspiracy to rob and cause grievous bodily harm. While the alleged plot must have been terrifying for Joss, she was keen to reassure fans she is fine following the ordeal. She released a statement yesterday, saying: “I’d like to thank everyone for their concern but I’m absolutely fine and getting on with life as normal while the police continue with their inquiries.”

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he actress-and-director’s investment banker boyfriend Todd Morgan popped the question to her last week and she said “yes”. A source told RadarOnline.com: “Rosanna was kind of taken aback but absolutely thrilled when Todd proposed. She s completely in love and had no hesitation in accepting. “She didn’t think she would ever get married again and was happy with the way things were between her and Todd. But Rosanna is, at the heart of it, a real romantic and she’s willing to give marriage another go. She’s certain that Todd is 100 per cent the right guy for her, she is really, really happy. Rosanna - the sister of actors Patricia and David Arquette - and Todd are set to now start planning their nuptials, but the couple don’t want it to be an extravagant ceremony with a large guest list.

The source added: “They haven’t set a date yet but they are both keen for it to happen sooner rather than later. They want a small, intimate affair with just close friends and family.” Rosanna, 51, has been married three times before, to Anthony Greco, James Newton Howard and John Sidel.

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SUNDAY, JUNE 19, 2011

lifestyle

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Foreign actors try their hand at Bollywood M

French haute couture designer Jean-Paul Gaultier fashions are displayed at an exhibit on June 14, 2011 at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in Montreal, Quebec. The exhibit opens to the public from June 17- October 2, 2011, before traveling to Dallas, San Francisco, Madrid and Rotterdam. —AFP

Jean-Paul Gaultier’s magical maelstrom hits Montreal

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rom his old teddy bear decked out in a paper bosom to Madonna’s corsets and a parrot feather bolero, French couturier Jean Paul Gaultier reveals an enchanting universe at Montreal’s Fine Arts Museum exhibition which opened Friday. The 59-yearold, who views haute couture as an art form, welcomes guests to a preview from the top of a grand staircase, sporting a simple knit sea sweater and surrounded by a handful of young women in splendid clothes and hairdos.

It is actually a dummy, its eyes and lips moving as it delights visitors with an anecdote from Gaultier’s life. Gaultier’s face is projected on the model using a technique developed by Quebec theater director Denis Marleau. The illusion

is striking. Hidden speakers allow Gaultier and several other models in the exhibition to tell their stories, thus the exhibit itself is communicating with the spectator. Marleau had used the technology in mounting Maurice Maeterlinck’s play “The Blind” before deciding to use it here, the real Gaultier told reporters at the preview including AFP. It is also a nod to Jacques Becker’s 1945 melodrama “Paris Frills” (“Falbalas”) in which one of the characters sees his lost love in a mannequin. The idea for “The Fashion World of Jean-Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk” was conceived by the museum’s director Nathalie Bondil. For her, haute couture is an art form entirely set apart from others and deserving of a

place in museums. Gaultier, she said, is “beyond fashion”. His work carries “a humanist message, of liberty and tolerance for minorities.” “I’ve always tried to show that there is no single beauty,” the artist added. Are Jean-Paul Gaultier’s corsets and other cage-dresses for women really symbols of freedom? “Yes,” insisted Bondil. “These are ithyphallic corsets.” In other words, they showcase women’s breasts, affirming the power of women. American singer Madonna, who lent the museum a gown decorated with selvage shaped into breast cones, agrees. In an exhibit inscription, she wrote: “I think that inversion of the concept of the corset is what turns it into a symbol of feminine power and sexual freedom.” —AFP

any foreign tourists return home from India with tales of how they were recruited as Bollywood extras from the bustling bars and busy streets of Colaba Causeway in south Mumbai. But a growing number of overseas actors are now looking for something more than just a walk-on part in the popular Hindi-language film industry.

One of them is Alexx (eds: correct) O’Nell, a 30-year-old from Connecticut on the US east coast, who studied theatre in his home country before the marketing firm he worked for transferred him to India’s entertainment capital. That was seven years ago.

Since then he’s appeared in a number of South Indian language and Bollywood films, including the 2007 comedy “Loins of Punjab Presents”, a satire on expat Indians set in Mumbai and New Jersey.

He is currently working on a new project, “Joker”, with action hero star Akshay Kumar, which is in production and is due out later this year. For O’Nell-who’s been a model, appeared on Indian television and married an Indian actress-forging a career in Bollywood has been easier than trying to make his name in Hollywood, even if he always gets to play the foreigner.

“As an Indian, I’d be competing with the best of the best, with everyone in the entire country who wants to be in Indian films,” he told AFP at his home in the Mumbai suburbs. “If I was in Hollywood, I’d be competing with every American, the best of the best, who wants to be in Hollywood films. So the difference here is, yes, I’m competing for fewer roles with fewer people but in the end it works out.”

O’Nell, though, is a rarity. Firstly, he’s been successful and secondly, he’s a man. More women have come to India to seek a starring role and many studios regularly use foreign

In this file photograph taken on May 18, 2011 Brazilian model and actress Giselli Monteiro (L) poses with Indian Bollywood actress Zoa Morani at the music launch for the forthcoming Hindi film ‘Always Kabhi Kabhi’ directed

by Roshan Abbas in Mumbai. —AFP dancers for the set-piece song-anddance routines that are Bollywood’s trademark. Many seek to emulate the success of Katrina Kaif, the Hong Kong-born, London-raised former model, who has become a Bollywood A-lister and one of the most-searchedfor Indian film stars on the Internet.

Other successful imports include the Mexican model and former television presenter Barbara Mori, who starred alongside Hrithik Roshan in last year’s “Kites”. The Brazilian model Giselli Monteiro also won plaudits for her role in “Love Aaj Kal” (Love Today Tomorrow) in 2009. Her second film,

“Always Kabhi Kabhi”, produced by the superstar actor Shah Rukh Khan, is out on June 17. Among those breaking through are Tania Zaetta (Australia), Kalki Koechlin (France) and Preeti Desai (Britain). Proficiency in Hindi is essential for anyone looking to make their mark. Kaif’s dialogue had to be dubbed in her early films but now she voices her own parts. “The diction is very important when you say dialogues and it is a must for all these heroines who come from abroad to get it right,” said Vidha Chibber, a Hindi tutor who taught Monteiro for “Love Aaj Kal”.—AFP

SUNDAY, JUNE 19, 2011

lifestyle

Janacek opera in Vienna depressingly enjoyable In this photo taken Saturday, June 11, 2011 and provided by the Viennese State Opera, from left, Wolfgang Bankl in the role of Dikoj, Marian Talaba as Tichon, Janice Watson as Katya, Marcus Pelz as Kuligin and Deborah Polaski as Kabanicha, perform during a dress rehearsal for the opera ‘Katya Kabanova’ by Leos Janacek, at the State Opera in Vienna, Austria. —AP

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t was a depressing evening, and a very enjoyable one.

“Katya Kabanova” is no “Marriage of Figaro.” From the first muffled thud of the kettle drum at the Vienna State Opera to its last powerful chords, Leos Janacek’s opera depicts a life so sad that the heroine’s suicide is the ultimate moment of release. The story line is morbid, a woman trapped in an unhappy marriage has a brief affair and then kills herself. The music tears at the emotions, waves of sound break on each other in an expressionistic spectrum of dark tones that build on the desperation of Katya’s wasted life being played out on stage.

U2 guitarist’s project rejected by coastal agency

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Because this opera is so morbid, any performance has to be very good to succeed. Audiences caught up in intense emotions will not tolerate the distraction of depression overload caused by sloppy staging, singing or conducting. So, Friday’s new production at the Vienna State Opera was enjoyable in its hopelessness.

Conductor Franz Welser-Moest, who has described the score of Katya Kabanova as “turbulent waters” full of “very many cliffs,” navigated admirably through the musical torrents. That’s not easy in a work where one chord oftens seems internally torn as it expresses the conflicting emotions

proposal led by U2 guitarist The Edge for five mansions overlooking Malibu, California, has been rejected by California’s coastal development agency, despite assurances by him that it would be one of the greenest developments in the world. The California Coastal Commission voted 8-to-4 Thursday against the proposal, citing concerns that it would irrevocably damage the environment.

Staff told the commission that approving such a project would set a precedent and invite other large developments to rugged, environmentally sensitive locations. “In my 38 years, I have never seen a project as environmentally devastating as this one,” said Peter Douglas, executive director for the commission. “An environmentally sensitive person would never pick this site to develop.” Following the vote, Fiona Hutton, spokeswoman for the property owners, said they would be “vigorously exploring all potential options, including litigation.” “Frankly, we’re outraged by this decision and the inflammatory statements of Coastal Commission staff, given we had worked collaboratively with them for the past four years,” she said. The proposal called for five multilevel homes of up to 12,785 square feet (1,190 sq. meters) to be built on 156 acres (63 hectares) in the Santa Monica Mountains.

Project designers said the homes would have the top green building certifications and the guitarist said the mansions would be some of the most environmentally sensitive in the world. Project opponents, including the National Park Service, however, said the development would scar the expansive ridgeline. The musician and his partners had earlier appeased one of its staunchest opponents, the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, after agreeing to give the agency more than $1 million, dedicate nearly 100 acres (40 hectares) to open space and provide public access to hiking trails if the homes were approved.

One sticking point was the claim by proponents that they are five separate owners each building a single home on separate lots, an argument that would make it more difficult for the commission to deny their proposals. Commission staff said the current owners did not adequately show that the properties were individually owned. Don Schmitz, the project’s planning consultant, told commissioners there are homes at similar elevations in the Santa Monica Mountains and there is plenty of development near the site.

“We’re flummoxed to understand why we’re so special,” said Schmitz. “There is nothing these property owners can do that they haven’t already done.” In the end, however, most of the commission didn’t appear to buy that argument. While some complimented the project’s green intentions and overall design, which included organic features such as a home that wrapped around an existing pile of boulders, commissioners said the project was simply too big and sited in the wrong area. Commissioner Bruce Reznik acknowledged he was a big fan of U2 and loved the project’s design but felt the overall scale was just too large. “I do believe this project has the best of intentions,” he said. “Of course, my mom used to say the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”— AP

of as many as three singers on stage. On stage, Janice Watson was heartbreakingly authentic as Katya, with plenty of the range and volume that this opera calls for.

Klaus Florian Vogt kept pace as Boris, powering up his delivery to Wagnerian strength as required. Deborah Polanski was a wonderful Kabanicha, the uber mother-in-law whose oppressive domination of Katya, and suppressed sexual desire for her own son, drives Katya first to adultery and then to suicide. Her look of triumph as she bends over Katya’s dead body to slip the wedding ring off her finger and on to her own is one of the many highlights of the less than two-

hour performance. Also good: Wolfgang Bankl as Dikoj, Boris’ abusive uncle and Kabanicha’s secret lover; Marian Talaba as Tichon, Katya’s husband; Stephanie Houtzeel as Vavara, Kabanicha’s daughter and Norbert Ernst as Kudrjas, her lover.

Director Andre Engel and his team move the action from a small Russian village of the last century to Little Odessa, the Russian enclave of New York City in the 1940s and 1950s. The concept works by substituting the closeness of an ethnic ghetto for the isolation of a village, both metaphors for prisons that Katya tries in vain to escape. Depressing? Yes. Enjoyable? Totally. — AP

Bonnaroo music festival celebrates its tenth year W

ith its 10th-anniversary edition in the books, the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival in Manchester, Tenn., has evolved in many ways, all springing from the initial desire of its creators to stage great music in a unique way. Like the first Bonnaroo, the 2011 event sold out, and though the event succeeded by a variety of metrics, now, as then, the music melded with the experience drove it all.

“From the very beginning, our No 1 goal was to create the most amazing music festival we could imagine and to overdeliver to the customers,” said Ashley Capps, president of AC Entertainment, founder of Bonnaroo with Super fly Productions. Neither the folks at Superfly nor Capps and his Knoxville, Tenn.based team had done anything like Bonnaroo prior to diving in in 2002. AC was a regional promoter that had overseen a couple of camping festivals that maxed out at 6,000 people per day, and New Orleans-based Superfly was known for its series of club shows during Jazzfest.

The two teams were brought together by a couple of agents who felt the companies could find synergies in the era of massive promoter consolidation.

“They said, ‘You guys have a similar vision of what you’re doing and could probably benefit from working together,’ “ Capps recalled. This

Visitors jump on a slide at a campsite during the Hurricane Festival in Scheessel, northern Germany, yesterday. During the three-day festival around 80 bands will perform in front of 73,000 music fans. —AFP

was also the height of the jam band era. Capps had already been in discussions about a series of weekend shows with Widespread Panic, String Cheese Incident and Phil Lesh & Friends. Those events never happened, but those three bands were the cornerstone of the first Bonnaroo.

“Panic was the first band to say ‘yes,’ “ Capps said. “I remember sitting down with [Panic agent] Buck Williams, talking about the concept, and he was understandably skeptical. I met Buck out on the site a few weeks after that to show him what we were talking about. I still remember him looking at me and saying, ‘I think you’re crazy, but we’ll do it.”“ Ah, the site. Roughly 750 acres of what was farmland (the Bonnaroo team has since purchased the site) about 60 miles south of Nashville in sleepy Manchester. Until Bonnaroo, the site was known in the music industry only as hosting the Itchykoo Park heritage rock festival, largely considered a failure due to low attendance and logistical problems. Capps thinks Itchykoo indirectly helped Bonnaroo.

“No 1, it alerted us to the site in the first place,” he said. “No. 2, the community had embraced the idea of Itchykoo. They felt a little burned by the Itchykoo experience, but they were willing to embrace our concept and give it another shot.” Bonnaroo famously sold out in 11

days and has since evolved into an event that can host titans to up-and-comers in rap, metal, mainstream rock, bluegrass, jazz or basically anyone it damn well pleases. Along the way, it has earned a status in musical culture that few dreamed possible.

“It certainly had a momentum to it that none of us in our wildest dreams could have expected,” Capps said.

“We thought it was a good idea, but its evolution and its significance in the musical landscape is something that genuinely grew organically and came from our initial impulse, which was to create a great music festival.” Great not only for fans, but for bands and the industry.

Alberta Cross frontman Petter Ericson Stakee said Bonnaroo is a critical play in the band’s development.

“You play for a lot of people that don’t know you,” he said. “We . . . did a signing. It was a long, long queue, and there was a lot of people saying, ‘I never heard you before today. I’m going to spread the word.’

That’s the beauty of festivals.” Manager Michael McDonald, whose Mick Management handles John Mayer, had four acts at Bonnaroo: Walk the Moon, the Walkmen, Justin Townes Earle and Ray LaMontagne. He considers the festival a critical artist development tool. —Reuters

SUNDAY, JUNE 19, 2011

lifestyle

Bristol Palin

calls her ex ‘the gnat’ in new book

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In this Nov 24, 2010 file photo, former “Dancing with the Stars” contestant Bristol Palin arrives for an appearance on ABC’s “Good Morning America” in New York.

The daughter of former Alaska governor Sarah Palin has a memoir published by William Morrow called “Not Afraid of Life,” expected this summer. —AP

ristol Palin writes in her new book of losing her virginity to boyfriend Levi Johnston on a camping trip after getting drunk for the first time on too many wine coolers. She awoke in her tent, alone, with no memories of what had happened as Johnston “talked with his friends on the other side of the canvas.” She had vowed to wait until marriage. And she had lied to her parents about where she was going. Palin, a 20-year-old single mother and the daughter of former Alaska Republican Gov. Sarah Palin, tells a story of “deception and disappointment” in the book, “Not Afraid of Life: My Journey So Far.” The memoir, co-written with Nancy French, is scheduled for publication by William Morrow next week. The Associated Press purchased a copy Friday.

Palin’s book covers growing up with her family, which she portrays affectionately, and the excitement of her mother’s political life as governor and then, in 2008, as the Republican vice presidential candidate. But the main theme is her on-and-off-again relationship with Johnston, with whom she had a child and was briefly engaged while caught in a media spotlight.

She blasts him as “the gnat named Levi Johnston constantly spreading false accusations against our family” and calls him a selfinvolved slacker “who cheated on me about as frequently as he sharpened his hockey skates.” But Palin, self-described as a good girl and straight-A student, had been drawn to him and his bad-boy manner from the time they met in seventh grade. When she confronted him about their sexual encounter, he said what she wanted to hear: They wouldn’t do it again until they were married.

It didn’t work out that way, though Palin notes that when she got pregnant she was on birth control pills prescribed to treat her cramps. Only by the eighth home pregnancy test, she writes, was she convinced of the positive results. When she told her parents, they were accepting, not condemning, she writes, and focused on the future, particularly her continuing education. Johnston’s reaction wasn’t so reassuring: “Better be a (bleeping) boy,” he declared.

Palin writes of being awakened early one morning in August 2008 by her father, Todd Palin. He gathered the kids, collected their

cellphones and announced they were going on a surprise trip.

The destination was Dayton, Ohio, where, the next day, Arizona’s US Sen John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, introduced his vice presidential pick and her family to the world. By then, Sarah and Todd Palin knew their daughter was expecting. The public found out during the Republican convention, when Sarah Palin was shocked to see a TV network carrying an unapproved message from her commenting on it. The entire family, along with Johnston, appeared at the convention.

Bristol Palin writes that, in her mind, being there on display with Johnston “somehow legitimized us as a couple.” But soon after Tripp’s birth in December 2008, Palin writes that she found a text on Johnston’s cellphone that revealed he had been cheating on her again. He confessed and left the family’s house. They reconciled one more time 18 months later. Johnston presented her with a ring, and they decided to sell the story of their engagement to Us Weekly magazine. But by the time the story appeared, they had split for good. Johnston had

informed her he had gotten another woman pregnant. “I’d just made a complete fool of myself and given my family the middle finger,” Palin writes of hearing the news.

Johnston cashed in on his newfound fame in ways Palin found appalling. Her reaction to learning that her son’s father had posed nude for Playgirl: “Puke!” But Palin’s unsought celebrity brought her opportunities, too. Last fall, she competed on ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars,” where, she writes, as each week passed and she survived her rivals “got a little colder.” In her book, Palin describes herself as “just a normal girl who couldn’t hide her problems and learned a few lessons along the way.”

She has since emerged as a spokeswoman working to prevent teen pregnancy, earning thousands of dollars, which she doesn’t discuss in the book. In addition, the Bio Channel has announced a reality series in which she will star. Meanwhile, Johnston, who has feuded often with the Palins, has promised to set the record straight in his own book, “Deer in the Headlights: My Life in Sarah Palin’s Crosshairs.” It’s scheduled for publication this fall. — AP

A Chinese woman holds up an umbrella inside a laser light installation art titled “V” by Chinese artiste Li Hui displayed at an art gallery in Beijing, China yesterday.—AP

NBC beats writer who sued over Dance titles, apps, taking over ‘My Name Is Earl’ videogame genre N T BC has prevailed in a lawsuit brought by a writer who claimed that the network stole a screenplay to create the hit series “My Name is Earl.” Mark Gable sued NBC Universal in 2008, claiming the network took copyrighted elements from his screenplay “Karma” to create “Earl,” the Jason Lee comedy that aired for four seasons on the network. The suit detailed similarities between “Karma” and the pilot episode of the series, including a main character who wins the lottery and attempts to use the money to turn bad karma into good karma by seeking out wronged persons from his past in order to make amends.

Gable said in 1995 he circulated his script in Hollywood. One recipient was United Talent Agency, which represented “Earl” co-producer Brad Copeland. But the lawsuit was dismissed on summary judgment by a district court judge in February. The judge couldn’t find enough

“substantially similar” in the two scripts.

Perhaps the only thing extraordinary in this case is that the judge refused to take expert testimony from David Nimmer, a copyright scholar whose treatise, “Nimmer on Copyright,” is regarded as one of the best ever written on copyright law.

The plaintiff introduced a 20-paragraph report by Nimmer of comparisons between the two scripts and a lengthy legal analysis of the Ninth Circuit’s take on copyright infringement cases. The judge rejected the report saying Nimmer wasn’t “qualified to offer a literary analysis in this case.”

In an unpublished opinion issued on Thursday, the Ninth Circuit says that the district court didn’t abuse its discretion by ignoring Nimmer, meaning Gable’s allegations alone would need to be sufficient against NBC. Alas, they’re not. “The superficial points of compari-

son between ‘Karma’ and ‘Earl,’ gleaned haphazardly from three seasons of the television series, do not rise to the level of substantial similarity,” writes a panel of justices at the Ninth Circuit in affirming dismissal of the case. —AP

Sony movies disappear from Netflix in dispute

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ony movies have disappeared from Netflix’s streaming video service, Netflix and Starz said on Friday, citing a temporary contract issue between Sony and Liberty Media’s Starz premium TV service. Starz has output deals with Walt Disney and Sony and has been negotiating a potential renewal of a digital distribution deal, which currently runs through early 2012, with Netflix.

A source said the issue at hand has to do with Netflix’s continued strong subscriber growth, which triggered a subscriber cap in the Starz-Sony contract. Starz requested that

Sony films be taken down from Netflix’s online service temporarily while the parties work through the contract issue. The exact cap and further details weren’t immediately clear.

“Sony movies have been temporarily taken down from the Starz Play service on Netflix,” a Starz spokesperson confirmed. “All parties are working diligently to resolve the issue and return the films to Netflix members.”

A Netflix blog post on Friday had first brought the issue to light. “You may have noticed that Sony movies through Starz Play are not currently available to watch instantly,”

Pauline Fischer, vp of content acquisition at Netflix, said in that post. “This is the result of a temporary contract issue between Sony and Starz and, while these two valued partners work through their differences, we hope you are enjoying the wide variety of new movies and TV shows added daily.” Netflix and Starz didn’t say how long the contract issue could take to be resolved, but sources said the parties are hoping to work through it as quickly as possible. Sony didn’t comment. BTIG analyst Richard Greenfield said there are several possible ways to resolve the issue. —Reuters

here won’t be another installment of “Guitar Hero” or “Rock Band” coming to videogame retail shelves this year. But-music games aren’t dead. Dance-based titles, music-focused mobile apps and even a few more stabs at the traditional guitar-gaming genre are still there to keep music licensing departments more than busy. “ The amount of music used in videogames is as big as ever, if not growing,” says Mark Pinkus, senior VP of worldwide licensing for Warner Music Group’s Rhino Entertainment division.

“Our videogame clearance person is inundated with music-based game licensing.” The bulk of this activity comes from the new dance-gaming market, made possible by the sudden explosion of motion-capture gaming systems-the Kinect for the Xbox 360, the Move for the PlayStation 3 and of course the pioneering Wii (to which creator Nintendo unveiled a follow-up at the recent E3 conference, called Wii U).

Coming out later this year is “Dance Central 2,” “Just Dance 3” and “Everybody Dance,” among others. There’s even rumors that “Guitar Hero” publisher Activision may be working on a “Dance Hero” line, but that hasn’t been confirmed. The original “Dance Central” arrived at the same time as the Kinect, and as such had a limited market-but still sold more than 1 million units in less than a month. A representative for developer Ubisoft, behind the “Just

Dance” series, as well as “Michael Jackson: The Experience,” said that its dance-game titles combined sold 10.5 million units in the last three months of 2010 alone.

“The uptick in dance games has offset the declines in other markets,” EMI Music Publishing VP of music resources Rod Kotler says. The downside in relying on dance games, however, is that the market for downloadable content isn’t as strong. Harmonix, the developers behind the “Rock Band” and “Dance Central” series, introduces new music to buy and download for the former every week. It can’t do the same for “Dance Central” because it takes far longer to create a new song for the motion-based dance game than it does for the easier interface of a plastic guitar with five buttons.

Fortunately, there’s a huge increase in music licensing for mobile and social games on platforms like Facebook.

“We’re hoping that ultimately that space will make up for the drop in [music games],” Pinkus says. “The number of requests we’re now receiving, we’re getting from apps.” Finally, Ubisoft is taking one last shot at the guitar-game market.

With neither “Guitar Hero” or “Rock Band” installments expected this year, the company anticipates having the market largely to itself with “Rocksmith,” a rhythm game that uses a real guitar as the controller to add a stronger musiceducation twist. —AP

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Bristol Palin calls her ex ‘the gnat’ in new book Years

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Some 140 creations by Japanese hat artist Akio Hirata are displayed by designer Oki Sato during a hat exhibition at a Tokyo hall yesterday. —AP

Vienna Philharmonic honors French artist cancels Indian conductor Mehta China show over Ai detention F T rench sculptor Daniel Buren has decided to cancel an exhibition scheduled for mid-July in Beijing in “solidarity” with detained artist Ai Weiwei, he told AFP. Buren, perhaps best known for his striped columns in the historic state-owned Palais Royal gardens near the Louvre in Paris, was to have shown a vast exhibit at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art from July 15. “I don’t think it is possible to do nothing,” Buren told AFP. “It’s almost an ethical obligation to act,” added the Frenchman, who was to have headed for Beijing early next month.

The outspoken Ai Weiwei, 54, a constant thorn in the side of Chinese authorities, was detained in Beijing on April 3 as he tried to board a flight to Hong Kong. He is under investigation for “economic crimes” and relatives of the artist say they do not know where he is. Renowned British sculptor Anish Kapoor said Tuesday he had called off a planned exhibition in China over the ongoing detention of Ai Weiwei. The British Council had asked Kapoor to plan

a show at Beijing’s National Museum of China as part of next year’s “UK Now” festival.

Buren said: “First I signed petitions to free Ai Weiwei. But as he is still being held, virtually in secret, after two months I think the best solution is for me to pull out.” The artist, who has exhibited several times in China, continued: “If I carried on without doing anything, it would be a mistake that I would regret for the rest of my life.

“When freedom of expression is flouted in a country, what value can be given to the works of artists who are still allowed to express themselves? That compromises our own work.” Ai, who helped conceive the “Bird’s Nest”-the 2008 Olympic stadium in Beijing, investigated school collapses in the 2008 Sichuan quake and conducted a “citizen’s probe” into a Shanghai fire that killed 58 people last November.

His detention came as part of a major government crackdown on dissent by China’s rulers following anti-government protests sweeping through the Arab world.— AFP

Shih Tzu dog ‘Panhou’ styled as a punk drives a remote-controlled electric car during the international dog exhibition in Erfurt, central Germany yesterday. 4,000 dogs of 250 breeds from 15 countries take part at the exhibition .—AP

he prestigious Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra yesterday paid homage in an emotional ceremony to 75year-old Indian conductor Zubin Mehta, celebrating 50 years of musical collaboration. In the orchestra’s historic Musikverein hall, a visibly moved Mehta recalled how he had carried out his musical studies-initially as a doublebassist-in the Austrian capital.

“Vienna was and remains my musical barometer,” Mehta said, recalling how as a poor student he had “sneaked in” to the Musikverein without paying to stand and watch performances During the ceremony Mehta was praised by Argentinian-Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim, who took to the piano for the occasion, by the director of the Vienna State Opera, Frenchman Dominique Meyer, and by the chairman of the Vienna Philharmonic, Austrian violinist and conductor Clemens Hellsberg.

Hellsberg noted that Mehta had conducted the Philharmonic no fewer than 293 times and that only two other conductors-German Bruno Walter and Austrian Herbert von Karajan, both deceased-had also reached 50 years of collaboration with the orchestra. The orchestra’s musicians paid homage to Mehta with a concert of works by Johannes Brahms, Franz Schubert, Richard Strauss, Giuseppe Verdi and Joaquin Rodrigo.—AFP

Indian conductor Zubin Mehta speaks yesterday after the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra gave a musical homage to mark his 50 year collaboration with the orchestra in Vienna. —AFP

Princess Diana’s brother marries for 3rd time P

rincess Diana’s younger brother has married a Canadian philanthropist in a low-key wedding at his ancestral home in central England. A spokesman said the wedding of Charles Spencer and Karen Gordon in Althorp yesterday was attended only by close family and friends. Spencer, an earl, had been married twice before.

He has four children from his first marriage, to Victoria Lockwood, and two children from his second marriage, to Caroline Freud. Gordon, a former fashion model, is the founder and chief executive of Whole Child International, a Los Angeles-based charity that works to help orphaned, abandoned or abused children. —AP