23 jun

THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011

62 Al-Qaeda prisoners escape from Yemen jail

China frees Ai Weiwei on bail

40 PAGES

NO: 15128

150 FILS

7

www.kuwaittimes.net

RAJAB 21, 1432 AH

7

Iran’s fashion crackdown moves beyond headscarves

Brilliant Nadal too hot for Sweeting

20

40

Embattled PM faces no confidence vote Assembly passes budgets amid strong exchanges

Max 45º Min 33º Low Tide 11:05 & 23:20 High Tide 05:12 & 16:38

By B Izzak

Saudi women defy threats RIYADH: Two Saudi women said they drove their cars yesterday in a new protest against a ban on women driving in the conservative Muslim kingdom. Their actions came in response to a call on the Internet for women in Riyadh to get behind the wheel, after a show of defiance on Friday in which 42 women took to the road. Azza Shamassi, in her thirties, said she had driven her car yesterday, just as she has done “every day since last Friday”, despite a harassing message stuck to the windscreen of her car. The handwritten note read “Plz do not drive” on one side and carried an insult on the other, witnesses said. “This threat will not stop me,” Shamassi said.

Sara Al-Khalidi also said she has been driving since Friday’s protest, saying she had driven again yesterday before being stopped by a traffic policeman, who told her that police were looking for her and that she should drive home without stopping.

She said that “people encourage me when they’ve seen me driving these last few days”. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have both expressed support for Saudi women who wish to drive. No law forbids women from driving in Saudi Arabia but a religious edict stipulates that women must be driven by a male chauffeur or family member — AFP

HH the Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Sabah

KUWAIT: Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah is set to defeat the third vote of no confidence against him when the National Assembly today votes on the motion filed last week by 10 opposition MPs. The motion is expected to receive the support of 18 votes, based on most predictions, and not more than 20 votes in the most optimistic predictions, well short of the required 25 votes necessary to pass the motion.

If passed, the issue will be referred to the Amir who has the authority to either dissolve the National Assembly and call for snap polls or dismiss the prime minister and ask someone else to form a new cabinet.

This scenario has never been experienced by Kuwait and is not likely to happen today. Sheikh Nasser, appointed as prime minister since February 2006, has defeated two similar motions in the past - the last one was in January when the opposition succeeded in securing the support of 22 MPs for the motion, just three votes short.

Last week, opposition MPs Mohammad Hayef, Mubarak Al-Waalan and Waleed Al-Tabtabai grilled the prime minister over allegations that he fostered ties with Shiite Iran at the expense of Kuwait partners in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). The prime minister strongly denied the allegations. All the nine Shiite MPs, five of the six liberal National Action Bloc MPs in addition to around 15 pro-government lawmakers are expected to vote for the prime minister.

The session is expected to be held behind closed doors. Before the vote, three MPs in favor of the grilling and three MPs against will speak before giving the floor to the prime minister to defend his position again.

Continued on Page 13

Cracks emerge in Libya campaign

Protests hit Bahrain

Italy favors ceasefire; China shifts ground

8 activists jailed for life

MISRATA: Signs of discord emerged yesterday in the NATO alliance over the air campaign against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, as Italy said it favored a ceasefire and political talks while France dismissed the idea. China also signaled a shift in its stand on the conflict, describing the rebels as a “dialogue partner”, while Libyan television said that “dozens” of people had been killed in Zlitan after NATO ships shelled the town.

Four months into the uprising, and three months since NATO war planes began bombing Libya, the rebels are making only slow gains in their march on the capital Tripoli to topple Gaddafi. “The need to look for a ceasefire has become more pressing,” Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini told parliament. “I believe that as well as the ceasefire, which is the first stage towards a political negotiation, a humanitarian stop to military action is fundamental to allow immediate humanitarian aid.”

French foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero reacted sharply to Frattini’s comments, which Continued on Page 13

SURMAN: A Libyan man reacts during a funeral in the city of Surman, some 60 km west of Tripoli yesterday. Libya’s government said a NATO airstrike has killed at least 15 civilians, including three children. — AP

Kuwait ‘heading into dark tunnel’

KUWAIT: A security officer searches for the injured victims with a sniffer dog. A child was killed yesterday when a building at Al-Dhahr area collapsed.

— Photo by Hanan Al-Saadoun

KUWAIT: Sheikh Fahad Salem Al-Ali Al-Sabah, a nephew of Kuwait’s ruler, said political reform must be accelerated in the Gulf Arab country, beginning with the removal of the current prime minister. According to a Reuters’ report, a senior member of the ruling family and son of the head of Kuwait’s national guards, Sheikh Fahad made the rare move of joining protesters earlier this month in a demonstration against Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Sabah.

Although currently without a government portfolio, Sheikh Fahad owns Al Mustaqbal newspaper and the Mubasher television channel, which often cover antigovernment protests. He was a prisoner of war during the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990. “Unfortunately we are heading into a dark tunnel... I went out with the protesters because I share and believe in their calls for change and reforms,” Sheikh Fahad told a Reuters’ reporter during an interview in Kuwait City’s Qurtuba Palace.

Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser, who is currently heading his seventh government since his appointment by HH the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah in 2006, has undergone fierce criticism from Kuwaiti opposition for what they say is his failure to fulfill the demands of the people. “If the Amir does not find a person from the family who is capable of being the prime minister and meets the demands of Kuwaiti citizens, I suggest that he chooses from outside the family,” Sheikh Fahad said, as he sat in one of the palace’s diwaniyas, or reception rooms.

Continued on Page 13

MANAMA: A Bahraini security court sentenced eight Shiite activists to life in prison yesterday, triggering the first major protests in months by hundreds of anti-government demonstrators demanding political freedoms and equal rights from the Sunni monarchy.

Witnesses said police fired tear gas at marchers trying to reach a central square in Bahrain’s capital, Manama, that was once the hub of their campaign for greater freedoms, which began in February as the political tumult in the Arab world spread to the Gulf.

After the court ruling, Shiite crowds blocked roads with sand piles and called for the protest marches, which also took place in Shiite villages on the capital’s outskirts. It was the first serious unrest after months of a security lockdown by military and police units in Bahrain, a key American military ally that is home of the US Navy’s 5th Fleet. The court handed down life sentences for eight Shiite activists and long jail terms for 13 others.

They were convicted of trying to overthrow Bahrain’s 200-year-old monarchy and of having links to “a terrorist organization abroad.”

“It’s a political verdict,” said Nabeel Rajab, president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights. “All those convicted today were targeted because of their activities to bring about change and democracy in

Bahrain.” Angry crowds took their grievances back to the streets after the verdict despite the strengthened police presence around the Gulf Island. Shiites account for 70 percent of Bahrain’s population, but claim they face systematic discrimination such as being barred from top government and political posts. The protests in Bahrain have claimed at least 31 lives since February and put U.S. officials in the difficult position of denouncing the violence while standing by the allied rulers.

The kingdom’s rulers fear that any gains by Bahrain’s Shiites could open new footholds for influence by Iran, a predominantly Shiite country that is a main regional rival of the Sunni Arab-led nations just across the Gulf. Bahrain also accuses Iranian-backed Hezbollah of having a role in the protests. Shiite leaders in Bahrain have repeatedly denied any ties to Iran and accuse leaders of using the fears of Iranian string-pulling to wage crackdowns that have included hundreds of arrests and purges from jobs and universities.

Fourteen of the 21 convicted are in custody while the rest were sentenced in absentia by the security court, which was set up during martial law-style rule that was imposed in March. The emergency rule was lifted June 1, but the arrests and Continued on Page 13

MANAMA: In this file photo, Bahraini rights activist Hassan Mushaima (left), a prominent Shiite opposition leader, wears a mask against tear gas as he is greeted by an anti-government demonstrator. A court sentenced eight Shiite activists, including Hassan Mushaima, to life in prison yesterday. — AP

y

A

2

e niv rsar n

Years

THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011

LOCAL

Refinery workers strike over ‘dictator’ team leader Industrial action may paralyze work

By Nawara Fattahova KUWAIT: About 25 staff members at the Shuaiba Refinery’s operations department are continuing with their week-long strike after a meeting with the refinery manager last week failed to resolve the issues which they are protesting about. The workers are insistent that they will continue with their industrial action until they achieve their objective, having their team leader replaced.

The striking employees claim to have been treated unjustly by their team leader and are demanding that the appropriate

bonus, and other benefits to his relatives and friends. All the hardworking employees aren’t given any awards if they aren’t

strike. We complained to our direct supervisor then to his director, then we wrote a letter of complaint to the senior manager, and

KUWAIT: Some of the striking employees of the Shuaiba Refinery. action be taken against him. “This team leader is a dictator and is discriminating against us,” said one disgruntled worker. “He only gives good grades, evaluation,

his friends.”

Speaking to the Kuwait Times on condition of anonymity, the worker continued, “We took all the proper legal steps prior to our

we didn’t receive any answer. So we then went to the KNPC union, which set a meeting date for us with the refinery manager, Ahmad Al-Jeemaz.”

One week after the meeting with Al-Jeemaz took place, however, the strikers complain that their problems have still not been satisfactorily resolved. “The refinery manager left for a vacation and didn’t give us any answer to our demands,” the worker explained.

“So we went on strike until today [yesterday] to see the result of our meeting with him after he is back. Now he’s promised to form a committee to investigate our complaint. But we see the solution in changing the team leader,” he further said.

The striking employees believe that their industrial action may paralyze work at the refinery. “At the moment they’ve brought in replacements to do our jobs, but not all of them are qualified,” said the protesters’ spokesman.

“Only a few are capable of doing this job, while the majority are trainees. It’s not easy to lay us off as most of us have extensive experience in this field. Some have 10 years and others have more than 20 years of experience.

And the refinery manager’s meeting with us is proof that they still need us.”

KUWAIT: His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammed Al-Sabah yesterday received the Foreign Minister of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sven Alkalaj, and an accompanying delegation. The meeting, held at Bayan Palace, was attended by Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Dr Mohammad Sabah Al-Sabah, who is also the Acting Minister of State for Development Affairs.

Al-Razi Hospital extension ready before year end KUWAIT: The Ministry of Health intends to construct a new ten-floor, 240-bed hospital beside the current Al-Razi Hospital to act as an extension of the existing facility, according to a senior doctor there.

At a press conference held on Tuesday to announce the program for the major new facility, Al-Razi Hospital’s Deputy Manager Dr Ammar Al-Baroon said that work on the new facility, to be constructed on a 2,200 square meter site, would be completed by the end of this year.

The senior medical official explained

Drug smuggling attempt foiled

News

in brief

By A Saleh

MSAL approves request KUWAIT: The Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor(MSAL) has approved the applications filed in by ten charitable trusts. They had requested permission to collect secondhand clothing in accordance with the conditions laid down by the MSAL, said Ahmed Al-Sane, Manager of Charity Organizations Department, Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor (MSAL). Al-Sane added that advertising donation collection has been banned until further notice. He added that charities will have to submit a detailed financial report on second-hand clothing according to international rates, reported Annahar.

Furthermore, Al-Sane said that all charity organization officials will have to submit the lists containing names of collectors, in addition to providing photographs and photocopies of their civil identification cards.

KUWAIT: The police thwarted an attempt to sell 4kg of hashish. The suspect, a bedoon, traded in the banned substance. In an undercover operation, an agent struck a deal with him to sell 250 grams of the drug for KD 400. Officers seized 4kg of the illicit substance from his Firdous home. He reportedly received supplies from Iraq.

Security presence to tackle traffic woes

Faiha teachers strike KUWAIT: The chairman and members of the examination control committee at the Rushd Secondary School in Faiha went on strike on Tuesday in protest at a decision to cut 50 percent of their pay for marking exam papers. The strike took place after education minister Ahmad Al-Mulaifi refused to approve previously agreed payments for those marking the papers. The minister said that the payments would be made on the basis of the number of days worked by the teaching staff, not according to the periods worked, depriving the teachers of 50 percent of the payments at a stroke. Al-Mulaifi assured education officials, however, that he would ensure that all overdue backdated payments are made as soon as possible.

School leaving exam result KUWAIT: An impressive 90.4 percent of the school pupils who recently sat their school leaving exams, passed them, according to a senior Ministry of Education (MoE) official. Muna Al-Lughani, the MoE Assistant Undersecretary for Public Education, said that 89 percent of the pupils who sat exams in Arabic language passed, compared to 67 percent of those sitting science subject exams, and 73.6 percent of those doing Arts subjects. Al-Lughani also revealed that all the exam results are expected to be issued by next Sunday.

Municipal Council self-improvement KUWAIT: The Municipal Council has always worked towards self-development with the aim of achieving more progress that contributes toward Kuwait’s future, reported Mohammed Merwi Al-Hadiya, a Council member. In an interview with Annahar, Al-Hadiya said that two years since election, the Municipal Council has executed many projects, including spearheading a campaign to fight the spoiled food crisis in Kuwait. He also attributed the problems faced by the Municipality as concerning improper administration. Commenting on the current political situation, the member said that it was in a deplorable state in view of lack of cooperation between the legislative and the executive. At the same time, Al-Hadiya denied that such situations had an effect on the Municipal Council’s performance.

that the new building, which will be annexed to Ward One of Al-Razi Hospital, will include two floors offering over 45 clinics.

Dr Al-Baroon also revealed that a team of Kuwaiti orthopedic surgeons headed by the director of the orthopedic surgery training program at the Kuwait Institute for Medical Specialization and the hospital’s spinal surger y specialist Dr Abdulaziz AlMutair, recently used the latest surgical technology to conduct five surgical operations on spinal discs, in collaboration with a German expert in the field.

KUWAIT: A work team from Kuwait Banks Club headed by Reem Al-Waqyan conducted a beach cleaning campaign at Failaka Island this week.

MP slams minister’s proposal for new KAC planes

By A Saleh KUWAIT: MP Musallam Al-Barrak has slammed communications minister Sami Al-Nisf ’s proposal that the Kuwait Airways Corporation should buy new aircraft for its fleet. Such expenditure would be a waste of time, especially when “a thousand question marks are already hanging over” the national airline, the MP insisted.

Al-Barrak further alleged that “certain individuals” in senior positions had blocked former minister Abdullah Al-Muhailbi’s attempts to intervene in the appointment of the airline’s chairman.

The anti-government MP claimed that any move to purchase the proposed additional aircraft for KAC would be made solely for the benefit of those who wish to buy the airline when it is privatized.

On a separate issue, meanwhile, education minister Ahmad Al-Mulaifi said that ministry experts are currently conducting a feasibility study into launching a new state university body that would specialize in teaching evening classes. The new body, designed along the lines of the Open University, would utilize the existing Kuwait University buildings, charging students only token fees.

KUWAIT: The Ministry of Interior’s Traffic Department has been taking measures to tackle accidents. These include stationing 120 police officers to beef up security presence on streets.

This decision was made by Maj Gen Dr Mustafa AlZaabi Assistant Undersecretary for Traffic Affairs during a recent meeting with senior officials from the Ministry’s General Traffic Department. It addressed methods to counter traffic jams and increase road accidents. According to officials, the latest updates pertain with road reconstruction projects that were discussed during the meeting.

The ministr y ’s Ac ting Undersecretar y Lt Gen Sulaiman Al-Fahad met with senior field operation officials to discuss security plans to manage public rallies, reported Al-Rai. Separately, Sheikh Ahmad Al-Hmoud Al-Sabah Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior has reportedly been handed over lists of administrators and assistant administrative divisions that will be included in a reshuffle. An official explains that this measure comes following an earlier step carried out by the minister upon taking office.

y

A

3

e niv rsar n

Years

THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011

local kuwait digest

Massive tree of corruption

Aussie govt to review live animal export supply markets: Envoy

By Ben Garcia

By Mohammad Al-Sabti very tree germinates from a seed planted in the soil. A single spark can start a blaze.

These are fixed facts of life regardless of time and place. Politicians in Kuwait are reaping the fruits of the seeds, whether good or bad, that were planted by their predecessors.

We have no other choice but to admit the sour truth — the administrative and financial corruption we suffer from is the result of seeds planted by the government to achieve certain interests. Today, the government is harvesting the fruits borne by the massive tree of corruption. They cannot arrive at solutions to uproot the tree that has grown so much in stature.

Social disintegration, lack of patriotism, lack of commitment to duties and job requirements, lack of achievements were small saplings that the government had once planted to become giant immovable trees that we see today.

People are tired of talking about the government, mainly because it never listens and is responsible for its own performance. Meanwhile, we are also responsible for our actions. By we, I mean the people, parliament members, political activists, academics, and all members of society.

We are also equally complicit in planting the seeds that overshadow us now.

Disrespectful criticism and insults that lawmakers are subjected to today is the natural result of an approach that MPs have taken. How? MPs were the first to cross the line while criticizing their foes. Insults are used as means of expressing opinion. Eventually, the tables turned on the MPs themselves - they were verbally abused. The very public showdown that took place in the Parliament is also a natural product of offensive language that now used to address colleagues.

Today, evil seeds are still being planted in society, which when they grow to bear fruits of non- compliance with the principles of the Constitution. Calls are made to grant limitless freedom, without realizing the ‘constructive results’ that the society will harvest from them.

Unfortunately, there are certain constitutional and legal issues that are raised in a superficial manner. These are taken by the youth as something new to learn. I do not care what politicians harvest from the seeds they planted. I care about the malicious trees that are spread throughout society. These darken the path for our young generation. The evil seeds must be uprooted before they proliferate.

Our politicians respond to governmental errors by committing even bigger mistakes, which have repercussions that are more serious than that of the government’s deeds. —Al-Rai

E

News

in brief

Outgoing students honored KUWAIT: The Leaders Training Academy, an initiative by the Kuwait Teachers Society (KTS) held an awards ceremony to honor outgoing graduate students. It was held at the Movenpick Hotel at the Free Trade Zone, under the patronage of Minister of Education and Higher Education Ahmad Al-Mulaifi.

The students are the third batch to graduate from the academy since its inception last year, said Abdurrahman Al-Jasser, Academy’s Director and KTS board member in a press statement. Recruits at Leaders Training Academy attended an extensive training program that includes lectures, workshops, projects and other activities supervised by an elite team of academics with long years of experience.

KU summer courses KUWAIT: Many students, a majority of them studying in the United States, have applied to attend summer courses at the Kuwait University, Dr Mothanna Al-Refaei Dean of Admission and Registration at Kuwait University (KU) said, reported Aljarida. Al-Refaei said that over 400 students who have enrolled into science and administrative subjects had applied. Owing to limited vacancy, priority was previously accorded to KU’s registered students.

KD5 million for bonuses KUWAIT: The portion of the budget allocated by Kuwait Municipality for staff bonuses in the 201112 financial year has risen by 42 percent on the previous year, according to municipality insiders. The increase of KD2,055,000 on the previous year’s budget was approved to cover bonuses paid to staff for ‘outstanding performance’ and for participating in training courses. The insider said that the total sum allocated by the municipality for bonus payments to staff for the current year now stands at KD4,850,000.

Order to compensate local clubs KUWAIT: The Comprehensive Court on Tuesday issued a decree ordering the Public Authority for Youth and Sports (PAYS) to pay a total of KD1.12 million in compensation to the Qadisiya, Yarmouk and Sulaibikhat football clubs for their professional players’ contracts. The authority was ordered to pay the clubs KD518,000 in lawyers’ fees, as well as KD413,500 to the Yarmouk club, and KD189,000 to the Sulaibikhat club. The PAYS board of directors had ordered the suspension of payments to the professional players playing for the three clubs.

KUWAIT: Shortly after an Australian animal welfare organization’s release of controversial footages allegedly showing brutal abuse of sheep and cattle in the Middle East, specifically in Kuwait, the Australian Government has announced a review of the live animal export supply chain for all markets that receive Australian livestock. Australian Ambassador to Kuwait Glenn Miles told the Kuwait Times that the video footage released by the ‘Animals Australia’ animal welfare group relates to sheep sold in Kuwait for private slaughter during Eid Al-Adha. The envoy’s comments came after the distressing footage released by the animal rights group caused an outcry in Australia against the abuse of Australian livestock in Kuwait.

Ambassador Miles said the Australian government will review the live animal export supply for all markets and continue to work with Kuwaiti authorities and the local livestock industry on these issues.

“There are two main objectives for this review: Firstly, to ensure a system that provides appropriate welfare outcomes for Australian livestock, and secondly, to provide the basis for a sustainable live export industry over the long term,” the envoy said. Animals Australia has since released more footages of animals being mistreated prior to their slaughter in Kuwait. The images show Australian sheep being jammed into the boots of cars, bound, being kicked and being dragged

along the ground on the way to an abattoir.

The group is calling on Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard to ban the live export trade to the Middle East after investigators documented evidence of brutality to Australian sheep. In a report quoted by ‘The Australian,’ an online news site, Lyn White, Animals Australia’s Chief Investigator, called those animals who die on board the ships en route to Kuwait “the lucky ones,” describing the treatment of sheep in Kuwait as “brutal.” The Australian Government is aware of the concerns raised by Animals Australia regarding the treatment of Australian sheep in Kuwait. “We have been working with the Kuwaiti authorities and the livestock industry

for many years to improve animal handling practices in Kuwait, resulting in important gains in animal welfare,” Ambassador Miles claimed.

He added that these improvements include introducing major structural upgrades to three of the abattoirs that slaughter Australian sheep in Kuwait. “This has dramatically improved the way Australian sheep are handled and processed,” the ambassador said. “Today, the vast majority of the approximately one million Australian sheep imported into Kuwait each year are processed through these three manual facilities and through the Hawally automatic facility, which already has in place infrastructure that enhances the welfare of sheep and cattle.”

Speaking on condition of anonymity, an official at the Shuwaikh abattoir told the Kuwait Times yesterday that staff there strictly follow Islamic laws on slaughtering cattle and sheep.

A senior official at Kuwait Livestock Company, the sole importer of livestock in the country, refused to comment on the issue, saying that he had no authority to divulge any information regarding the firm’s operations. In recent report quoted by Al-Qabas, however, KLC chairman Bader Jarallah said that the firm has already introduced similar rules to those already implemented in Australia, which strictly satisfy the conditions laid out by the Animals Australia group.

THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011

LOCAL

Asian shopkeeper held for molesting six-year-old girl Kuwaiti fugitive in police net KUWAIT: An Asian shopkeeper has been referred to the Public Prosecution Service after being charged with sexually molesting a six-year-old girl in his shop in Um Al-Hayman. On returning home, the child told her parents what had taken place, with her father immediately calling police to report the incident.

The suspect has denied the allegations and the investigation is continuing.

Kuwait Towers to host annual ice cream festival KUWAIT: The Kuwait Towers will hold its month-long annual ice cream festival on July 1. The announcement was made in a press statement quoting Kuwait Towers’ Sales Manager Mohammad AlTawwash.

He also mentioned a previously announced ongoing promotion that began on June 15 and will end on July 31. Outstanding students can also enjoy 20 percent discounts on lunch and dinner at the Horizon Restaurant .

It is only applicable on reservations made for a minimum of four persons, in addition to a free cake. As part of the programs arranged for the summer, a seafood festival will be held during the holy month of Ramadan. Kuwait Towers welcomes visitors every day from 8am to 11pm.

Mohammad Al-Tawwash

KUWAIT: A 25-year-old citizen succumbed to fatal head injuries, while another 25-year-old compatriot suffered multiple injuries in a car accident that took place near Kuwait Towers. Also, a 21year-old citizen fractured his left leg, and a 29-year-old Syrian woman suffered a spinal injury in a motor accident that took place near Al-Qusour. They were admitted to Adan Hospital. In another incident, a 41-year-old citizen grazed his left arm, a 20-year-old citizen fractured his arm, pelvis and a 19-year -old citizen

Hunt on for rapists A hunt is underway for three men who raped a woman inside her Mahboula apartment. The traumatized victim, a 25-yearold Syrian woman, told officers that she had been returning to the apartment where she lives alone after exercising when the three men surprised her, pushing her into the apartment and

Malicious hoax Police have launched a hunt for the hoax caller whose report claiming to have found a landmine in an open area in Sulaibiya saw the police and bomb squad called out. On check ing the number that the hoax call emanated from, police discovered that the same number had been used in previous hoax calls.

An arrest warrant has been issued for the malicious caller.

Booze, drugs bust Four men have been charged over the possession and abuse of drugs, including alcohol. The

KUWAIT: The Central Agency for Information Technology (CAIT) will participate in the International Forum on EGovernment to be held in Singapore, upon an official invitation of Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA).

CAIT Deputy Director General Qusai Ibrahim Al-Shatti said in remarks to the media yesterday that this forum coincides with launching of the national plan of Singapore of electronic government for 2011-2015.

This strategy is aimed at establishing cooperation between the governmental entities and interaction with citizens, especially concerning the governmental policy, he stated. The CAIT participation in the event is a great opportunity for getting acquainted with the emerging trends and

employing modern concepts of best practices in the field of information technology in general and in the sector of e-government in particular, Al-Shatti said.

The forum also aims at forming a shared environment between the governmental sector, institution and individuals to enhance cooperation through a new electronic services environment, he said.

The forum is to be held under the patronage of the Prime Minister of Singapore, while three fairs will be organized on the sidelines of the event, on information technology, communications and media. The delegation of CAIT will hold a meeting with IDA as part of the memorandum of understanding, signed between the two sides, to discuss means of cooperation and aspects of mutual benefits. — KUNA

four were in a car that was pulled over for reckless driving, with the patrol officers recovering 40 narcotic tablets and a bottle of liquor from the vehicle.

Suicide bid A 40-year-old Indian man was rushed to Adan Hospital’s Intensive Care Unit after sustaining multiple injuries when he leapt from the roof of a building in Abu Hlaifa in a bid to end his life.

Shuwaikh burglary Police are hunting for the burglars who broke into a Kuwaiti man’s home in Shuwaikh, stealing three safes in the property.

The man’s nephew reported the incident after discovering that the thieves had broken a bedroom window to get into the house and stole the items. -AlAnba, Al-Watan, Al-Qabas

Drive-by shooting car found

By Hanan Al-Saadoun

KUWAIT: A car was impounded from outside a Kuwaiti man’s home after police officer’s came under gunfire from passengers in the vehicle earlier in the day.

A police officer explained that patrol officers on King Fahad Road chased the vehicle after the occupants fired on them, with only the gunmen’s poor aim protecting the officers from injury. Although the driver managed to shake them off during the pursuit, the officers managed to trace the vehicle to a nearby address. The owner of the home which the car was parked in front of swore that he had never seen the vehicle before. Police forensic staff are examining the vehicle for DNA evidence and fingerprints to catch the gunmen.

Elham Mahfouz

Citizen killed, several injured in a spate of motor accidents

By Hanan Al-Saadoun

Attempted murder Police are hunting for an Asian man who fled af ter allegedly attempting to murder his sponsor in Rigga. An investigation was launched after the sponsor told police that the wanted man, who was employed as a chauffeur, had assaulted him, hitting over the head and threatening him with a knife before running away.

tak ing turns to rape her.

Detec tives believe that the rapists planned the attack after realizing that the victim lives alone, indicating that they had been monitoring her move ments.

CAIT participates in e-govt forum in Singapore

CB improves customer feedback unit KUWAIT: The Central Bank of Kuwait announced yesterday that it has improved its customer complaints unit in order to provide a better ser vice in addressing customers’ suggestions or helping to resolve any problems that they might face.

“As part of new measures for handling customers’ feedback, the CB has strengthened its customer complaints unit in order to ensure that all costumers can easily make their opinion heard regarding any issue they have a problem with,” said acting chief executive Elham Mahfouz. In a press release issued to announce the bank’s latest measure, the senior official added that the new system would help clients to become comprehensively aware of the steps they can take in making complaints and ensuring that they are satisfactorily resolved by the bank’s staff.

Fugitive held Traffic patrol officers arrested a Kuwaiti fugitive wanted for non-payment of a KD40,000 debt. The man was caught after officers who pulled his car over on the First Ring Road after noticing that the registration had expired checked his details on the police database. The officers also found suspicious items in the vehicle which are purported-

ly associated with black magic.

sustained multiple injuries in a car accident that took place in Rai. The injured were admitted to Sabah Hospital.

Street fight A 36-year-old Pakistani national suffered injuries to his head during a noisy quarrel that broke out in Rumaithiya. He was admitted to Mubarak Hospital.

Fawzi Al Thunayan-General Manager, Board Affairs at Gulf Bank (left) accepting the token of appreciation from Health Minister Dr Helal AlSayer, during the inaugural event at the Kuwait Towers.

Fawzi Al Thunayan-General Manager, Board Affairs at Gulf Bank (left) watches the release of the red lantern with Health Minister Dr Hilal AlSayer.

Gulf Bank continues to support ‘Paint Kuwait Red’ campaign

Hit and run case A 49-year-old Indian national was fatally injured after being run over by a car in Dasma. Paramedical staff rushed him to Amiri Hospital.

New residency visa ruling for refugees KUWAIT: Illegal residents with refugee travel documents rather than regular passports will have the chance to obtain Article 18 residency visas even after the deadline of the current Amiri amnesty on June 30, according to a new ruling from the Ministry of Interior (MoI).

Ministry officials decided on the ruling during a meeting between MoI Acting Undersecretar y Lieutenant General Suleiman Al-Fahad and 12 interior ministry department representatives. The new policy is based on the special status of those refugees who are unable to travel to their Arab nations which they are denied citizenship of.

Those attending the meeting agreed

that the best option for assisting refugees who are in violation of residency laws is to help them to find jobs in Kuwait’s private sector as they cannot, in practical terms, be deported, since no one accepts them as legitimate citizens.

All others found to be breaking the country’s residency laws after the end of the Amiri amnesty on June 30 will face severe penalties including deportation with a ban on returning in the future, the ministry warned.

According to interior ministry figures, as of Tuesday 40,000 people have made use of the amnesty since it was launched in March, although a further 80,000 are still in the country illegally. — Al-Rai

Municipality fines housing violators KUWAIT: Kuwait Municipality fined violators of laws of investment buildings and structures KD 1,000 for every square meter, Head of Jahra Municipality Abdullah Al-Ali said yesterday. Al-Ali said that the municipality is currently conducting inspection campaigns to remove illegally-constructed structures close to houses, buildings’ compounds as well as non-licensed communications masts. The municipality, as a standing procedure, gives

an initial warning to all violators. If they refrain from following the regulations, they are given a financial fine of KD 1,000 for every square meter, he added. Jahra Municipality has already found that up to 175 licensed and unlicensed communication posts had been set up, Al-Ali said, warning that those that had been erected without approval of the relevant authorities would be removed and offenders would be penalized.— KUNA

Club 25-Kuwait volunteers releasing the red lantern with Dr Rana Abdulrazzaq during the opening ceremony at The Kuwait Towers.

KUWAIT: The Gulf Bank is continuing to support the ‘Paint Kuwait Red’ campaign, which aims to encourage more people in Kuwait to donate blood. To mark World Blood Donor’s Day, which fell last Tuesday, June 14, the campaign began with an event at the Kuwait Towers two days later, with the releas of 300 glowing red lanterns into the skies over Kuwait.

Large number of visitors turned out for the event, keen to see the launch and mark the beginning of the ‘Paint Kuwait Red’ campaign.

The campaign was launched under the patronage of health min-

ister Dr Helal Al Sayer, along with several prominent guests, including the minister’s wife Margret Al-Sayer, who is the Founder and Director of Bayt Abdullah Children’s Hospice, Dr Rana Al-Abdulrazzaq, the Medical and Donor Affairs Director at the Kuwait Central Blood Bank, Dr Ghanim Al-Najjar, the Political Science Professor at Kuwait University and Abdulqadir AlJassem, a prominent Kuwaiti TV presenter.

Representing the bank at the event, Fawzi Al-Thunayan, the General Manager of Board Affairs,

Children with Club 25-Kuwait volunteers at the Club’s booth in The Avenues. said: “The Gulf Bank’s support for ‘Paint Kuwait Red’ is part of the bank’s long-term commitment to serve the local community and meet its needs. The bank’s support for humanitarian organizations such as Club 25-Kuwait is in line with our aims of supporting the development of an informed and responsible community. Without exaggeration, donating blood can be a real life-saver. Witnessing the presence of so many volunteers and donors at today’s launch underlines the general concern of the community, and at Gulf Bank we are proud to be

involved in supporting and further understanding of this important cause.” In addition to the launch event, Club 25-Kuwait also opened a special booth at the Avenues Mall under the patronage of Dr Rana AlAbdulrazzaq. The booth was set up to encourage young people and children to find out more about the importance of blood donation and voluntary work. Giving blood is a gesture given out of community spirit and sense of duty. Gulf Bank recognizes the sensibility of blood donations and applauds the generosity and selflessness of all donors.

Kuwait may allow Arab universities to operate KUWAIT: The Minister of Education and Higher Education Ahmad Al-Mulaifi may allow other prestigious Arab universities to operate satellite campuses in Kuwait, according to officials from the Private Universities

Council. While speaking on the condition of anonymity, an officials said that the suggestion was put forth previously, ad ding that it appeared to be a more viable option for Kuwait owing to the restrictions placed by

the Pr ivate Universities Council at the Ministry of Higher Education, reported AlQabas.

It is viewed by many as an obstacle to opening new private universities.

A

y

e niv rsar n

Years

THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011

local

Kuwait crime level fell in 2010 KUWAIT: More than 1,500 people were questioned over homicide and assault cases recorded last year, according to a news report citing statistics from the Public Prosecution Service, a decline on the previous year’s figures.

The statistics show that 615 of those prosecuted in Kuwait in connection with violent crime in 2010 were Kuwaitis, and a further 187 were Saudis, whilst Palestinians and Jordanians accounted for another 95.

Despite the large expatriate Egyptian community in Kuwait, however, only five Egyptians were prosecuted last year for violent crime, the smallest number by

KUWAIT: His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah yesterday received the Minister of Finance Mustafa Al-Shamali, the chairman of the Kuwait Investment Authority Bader Nasser AlSubaie, and senior authority officials to mark the 50th anniversary of the KIA’s establishment.

During the meeting, which took place at Bayan Palace, the senior officials presented HH the Amir with a commemorative shield to mark the occasion. The meeting was also attended by the Deputy Minister of Amiri Diwan Affairs Sheikh Ali Jarrah Al-Sabah.

Europe, Australia top list of holiday destinations Summer season begins in Kuwait

By Nisreen Zahreddine KUWAIT: Given the current regional turmoil, this summer vacation period in Kuwait does not have the same feel as previous ones. With many of the regional destinations usually popular with Kuwaiti holidaymakers currently experiencing massive political turmoil and in some cases violence, their current appeal as relaxing holiday and tourism destinations is severely limited.

From Tunisia, usually adored by Kuwaiti holidaymakers for its moderate weather and scenic natural beauty, to Egypt, another favorite tourism spot, or Bahrain, a ver y popular weekend break destination, the usual regional holidaymakers’ choices have lost their appeal and are perhaps more preoccupied with reorganizing domestic affairs than with attracting and hosting others.

So, with most of the regional

nations no longer on the tourism destination list, what other alternatives do Kuwaitis have for their vacations?

European nations and Australia are the current favorite destinations with Kuwaitis booking their holidays, according to Sara Yehia, a consultant with travel agency ‘Aalam Al Salhiya.’

France heads the popularity list for Kuwaiti holidaymakers this year with the highest number of bookings, followed by Germany, the United Kingdom, and Turkey. France, Germany, and the United Kingdom has long been popular European destinations in Europe for Kuwaitis.

This year’s new vacation hotspot is Turkey, an increasingly popular choice for many Kuwaitis with the numbers of local vacationers booking holidays there climbing steadily.

The USA and Australia are also well-loved summer vacation destinations with many Kuwaitis, especially

those who studied in either country or have family members and friends there.

Some Arab states have been relatively unaffected by the recent turmoil, with Jordan still popular and a number of Kuwaitis still continuing to book holidays in Lebanon despite the recent political instability there, which has been greatly quelled by the formation of a new cabinet.

Ali, a young Kuwaiti man who was about to book a vacation with a group of friends, said that they’d chosen Turkey this year, not because the customary regional holiday destinations like Egypt aren’t open to tourism, but because they want to explore Turkey after seeing so many advertisements from the country’s tourism authorities extolling its natural beauty and great weather. He admitted, however, that it would be more costly than a vacation in Egypt since Turkey is far more expensive.

nationality.

A total of 811 of the aforementioned detainees faced murder charges, according to the PPS’ figures, with a number of the cases ultimately dropped due to lack of evidence.

Despite the statistics indicating that levels of violent crimes are actually falling, one security official warned that this form of crime still poses a serious threat to society, which continues to suffer from widespread violence, suggesting that the problem needs immediate intervention.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said that this problem could be countered

by strengthening social efforts to tackle the spread of criminal behavior in society.

Earlier this month, a Kuwaiti woman was sentenced to death after being found guilty of starting a massive blaze in a wedding marquee in Jahra in 2009, which killed more than 50 people. The suspect was charged with first degree murder, a death penalty offence, on the basis that the crime was premeditated. This decision was based on threats she had made prior to the incident in which she told her former husband that she would turn his wedding to his new wife, who perished in the blaze, into a funeral. — Al-Qabas

Switch everything off before leaving home, KFSD reminds holidaymakers KUWAIT: A senior Kuwait Fire Services Directorate (KFSD) official has called on Kuwaitis and expatriates leaving the country for their summer vacations to ensure that all non-essential electrical appliances are switched off before leaving.

A large number of domestic fires break out during summer due to electrical appliances being left on in homes standing empty whilst their owners or tenants are out of the country on vacation, said Captain Ammar Al-Hbail, the Deputy Director of the KFSD’s Public Relations division.

The KFSD is doing its utmost to increase awareness and safety for

all, he continued, calling on citizens and expatriates to equip their homes with fire extinguishers and smoke alarms and to ensure that all the members of their households know what to do in the event of a fire. He also urged parents and those working with children to be alert and store lighters, matches or flammable materials out of their reach.

Captain Al-Hbail stressed the importance of ensuring the safety of electrical cables and gas canisters and piping, as well as organizing the proper disposal of waste and managing storage areas responsibly. He also urged all householders leaving

on holiday to be especially careful in monitoring heat-emitting items, such as lighting and electrical wiring.

The senior KFSD official also urged vacationers to learn the emergency services phone number in their destination country and to select accommodation outfitted with the necessary safety equipment, such as smoke alarms, fire extinguishers, etc. Captain Al-Hbail concluded by reminding householders and motorists that the number of home and vehicle fires increases during the summer due to the high temperatures and to owners’ and tenants’ negligence. —KUNA

U-turn by authorities on unlicensed football pitches KUWAIT: Unlicensed football pitches established on state land will be destroyed as soon as the Ministry of Education implements a cabinet directive ordering that each area be equipped with two state-owned football pitches, according to Saud AlKhatrash, the head of the committee for removing illegal structures from state land.

This directly contradicts Al-

Khatrash’s earlier assertion in a recent press release that the government had chosen not to remove the unlicensed football pitches “due to the role they’ve played in providing a positive way for young people to spend their free time.”

Two Municipal Council members have expressed their gratitude to the cabinet and the premier for their decision ordering the establishment of proper football pitches for at least two

schools in each area of Kuwait which can also be used by local residents.

In a joint press release issued on Tuesday, councilors Ashwaq AlMadhaf and Jenan Al-Bushehri urged the government to introduce similar directives to force the Public Authority for Agricultural Affairs and Fish Resources (PAAAFR) to construct basketball and handball courts in local parks. — Agencies

A

y

e niv rsar n

Years

THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011

local

Kuwait calls for greater cooperation on nuclear safety

KUWAIT: Former Minister of Education and Higher Education, Moudhi Al-Humoud was felicitated in a special ceremony held at JW Marriott hotel recently. Ahmad Al-Mulaifi, Education Minister, Abdullatif Al-Bader, Kuwait University Rector, Dr Adulrazaq Al-Nafisi, Director General of Public Authority for Applied Education and Training as well as members from the Cabinet, Parliament, and prominent figures from all walks of life graced the occasion.— Photos by Fouad Al-Shaikh

Kuwait University, PAAET honor former education minister KUWAIT: The Kuwait University and Public Authority for Applied Education and Training(PAAET ) felicitated former Minister of Education and former Minister of Higher Education Moudhi AlHumoud, in the presence of Sheik h Mohammad Sabah Al-Salem Al-Sabah, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister; Ahmed Al-Mulaifi, Minister of Education and Higher Education and the Higher President of KU, Abdulateef AlBader President of KU; Prof Abdulrazaq Al-Nafisi President of PAAET; Deans of Colleges and Directors of Departments at KU and PAAET and educational leaders.

They attended the special ceremony that was held on Tuesday at the JW Marriot Hotel, Kuwait.

In his welcome speech, Ahmed AlMulaifi, Minister of Education and Higher Education and the Higher President of KU, assured that individual development and national development form the basis of relationships, adding that interaction and communication are important factors in building an individual’s character.

Stating that honoring individuals who

participate in the development of the country forms an integral part of Kuwait’s culture, he assured that they would not be forgotten. Al-Mulaifi added that all the efforts made by Prof Al-Humoud and her influence is still apparent in every aspect of the ministry.

Abdulateef Al-Bader President of KU said, “Your presence is a clear evidence of the respect accorded to Prof AlHumoud and her achievements at KU, and at the Ministry of Education and Higher Education. “He stressed that role played by women in the educational and political field are highly important and cannot be denied. The president also highlighted Prof Moudhi‘s assistance in the development of the Medical Science Center, and building the Dental Center that is one of the best in Kuwait.

Prof Abdulrazaq Al-Nafisi, President of PAAET also spoke about his experience with Prof Al-Humoud. They worked together in 2002 at the Higher Council for Planning, where she held the position of Director of University Planning and was also a member of the Supreme

Council for Planning. He mentioned her many accomplishments and also spoke about the clear role played in developing the educational field in Kuwait. She participated at the UNESCO conference in 2009 to display the outstanding role played by Kuwaiti women in the educational and learning sector.

Dr Moudhi Al-Humoud extended her gratitude to friends and colleagues who made efforts to upgrade educational institutions. “We all know that the challenges that higher educational institutions face - whether in KU or PAAET are large -scale,” stated Al-Humoud. He added that the demands and expectations of society are very high, indicating that most of the attendees have carried out responsibilities to by educating the youth, preparing them for difficult economic and social conditions that require qualified human potential. He asserted that the future meets a pattern change of in many behavior and policies, particularly in the fields of economy and finance.

She added that her colleagues had made humble efforts during every phase

to change and develop the educational process, even facing failures and success in others. However in both situations, they have learned and reviewed their performance and worked harder to overcome obstacles.

In conclusion, Al-Humoud expressed her gratitude to all those who worked and helped her fulfill her duties: Ministry of Education and Higher Education, Public Authority for Applied Education and Training, Research Institute, Software Center, Educational Research Center, Ministers, Secretariat of Councils of Ministers and members of Parliament who have supported educational issues.

Al-Humoud also thanked the Prime Minister for lending support, HH the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber AlSabah for placing trust in her and offering unlimited suppor t to Kuwaiti women.

The University Administration and Public Authority for Applied Education and Training also honored Al-Humoud in recognition of her efforts.

VIENNA: The State of Kuwait yesterday voiced solidarity with Japan following the horrific tsunami that caused massive devastation across the Asian country.

The Kuwaiti Ambassador to Austria and the country’s permanent representative at international organizations, Mohammad Al-Sallal, in an address to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) five-day Ministerial Conference on nuclear safety, that began here on Monday, recalled the Japanese stances in support of Kuwait at hard times in the past, noting that the Gulf state had hurriedly extended aid to Japan to cope with the recent catastrophe.

Last April, upon instructions by His Highness the Amir, Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, Kuwait allotted five million barrels of oil for the stricken nation to help them cope with shortage of energy.

Al-Sallal expressed confidence that the Japanese people would overcome all hardships, caused by the catastrophe because of their unity and support of the international community.

This convention is being held with the whole world watching conditions at the stricken Fukushima reactor-such incidents boost fears over “the culture of nuclear safety,” he said, alluding to tendency in several nuclear-powered nations to review dependence on nuclear energy.

Al-Sallal called for collective international efforts and close coordination for enforcing safety precautions for usage of nuclear energy and securing prompt action to deal with accidents and emergency conditions, including those caused by natural disasters.

Failure to take such steps will lead to dire consequences for the whole world, he warned, noting that the nuclear energy and its role in development would be in question for most of the world countries.

In this respect, the Kuwaiti envoy called on nations that have abstained from signing the Convention on Nuclear Safety to do so as soon as possible, stressing on the necessity of establishing a new international nuclear order.

Kuwait strongly believes that transparent cooperation, exchange of information on optimum safety measures at installations, in terms of designing, construction and location, will certainly contribute to enhancing global nuclear safety, Al-Sallal emphasized.

Anew, he re-affirmed prime role of the IAEA at the level of global nuclear safety and called for granting it greater role in terms of regular revisions of nations’ safety measures.

Al-Sallal urged all nations to facilitate missions of the IAEA that carries out regular inspection of nuclear installations.

Kuwait is aware that expanding role of the IAEA will warrant hiking its financial resources, however, prospected benefits will be far higher than such costs, he pointed out, re-stressing that states must shoulder the responsibility of safegguarding the nuclear sites, for damage of accidents and incidents at these sensitive locations may expand across the borders. Also in this respect, he called for “internationalizing treaties and accords related to nuclear safety” to secure prompt and effective measures in face of future accidents.

Citing the painful lessons of the past catastrophic accidents, Al-Sallal called for constructive and transparent dialogue among nations for such global security. —KUNA

Search for missing Kuwaitis ‘gradually moving forward’ UN chief’s biannual report KUWAIT: Official inauguration of the Kuwait International Bank at The Avenues shopping mall.

KUWAIT: The Kuwait International Bank team.

KIB inaugurates new branch at The Avenues KUWAIT: The Kuwait International Bank (KIB) inaugurated its latest branch at The Avenues shopping mall as part of its expansion program to extend its reach across Kuwait.

The event was attended by retired Lt Gen Abdulhameed Al-Hajji, Governor of Farwaniya, Sheikh Mohammed Al-Jarah Al-Sabah, Chairman of KIB and other important guests.

Sheikh Mohammed Al-Jarrah Al-Sabah said, “The opening of our branch at The Avenues marks the latest step of our commitment towards reaching our customers, and is part of our overall strategy to expand our network of branches across Kuwait.

“We believe that our new branch at The Avenues will enhance our relationship with our customers and provide them with the added convenience of a local branch and full banking services.”

Sheikh Mohammed Al-Jarrah Al-Sabah emphasized that KIB, one of Kuwait’s leading Islamic banking institutions, is committed to providing state-of-the-art banking, making customer service excellence the bank’s top priority.

The bank expects to open more branches throughout 2011 as part of its strategy to broaden its accessibility to new, as well as present customers. This also includes presenting a portfolio of innovative Sharia-compliant banking products and services.

The new branch at The Avenues raises the total number of KIB’s branches to 16.

UNITED NATIONS: SecretaryGeneral Ban Ki-moon said on Tuesday evening that he has a feeling that the search for Kuwaiti and third country nationals missing since the 1990-91 Iraqi invasion and occupation of Kuwait is “gradually moving forward.” The UN chief expressed concern, however, that there has been no progress in the search for the Kuwaiti document archives. In his biannual report to the Security Council on both issues, Ban said, “I believe that the current efforts in the search for missing Kuwaiti and third country nationals are gradually moving forward,” encouraging Baghdad to “expeditiously take further practical steps” towards fulfilling its obligations under UNSC resolutions.

Noting Iraq’s “assurances” on the issue, Ban said “I look forward to being able to report positively to the Security Council at the earliest on the concrete efforts made by the Government of Iraq in the implementation of this resolution (1284).”

He added that he also “valued” the continued “constructive and proactive” approach of the Kuwaiti Government in this regard.

Ban also said the task of discovering the fate of missing Kuwaiti and third country nationals is “urgent and should not be influenced by political factors and considerations. For this reason the humanitarian mandate must be insulated as much as possible from wider regional developments to ensure its effective implementation.”

The UN head described the emerging pattern of joint exploratory/excavation missions in the framework of the Technical

Subcommittee ( TSC) as a “promising approach to expedite practical progress on the ground,” and commended the role played by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the members of the TSC in this process.

He stressed that one priority at this stage is to assist and facilitate the establishment of an “effective mechanism” within the framework of the TSC to conduct regular exploratory missions to sites on Iraqi territor y where Kuwaiti and third country victims may have been buried, asserting that “such a mechanism is necessary to fully probe the fate of the missing persons.”

He went on, “The continued suppor t of the international community and the Security Council remains essential for successful realization of the mandated tasks,” he stressed.

The UN chief further indicated that since the organizational and logistical aspects of the search for the missing persons appear to be in place, the goal of finding and identifying the victims and finally closing their cases is an “imperative.” “ Visible and tangible progress” in this respect, along with other necessary steps on the part of Iraq to fulfil its obligations towards Kuwait under the relevant Security Council resolutions “should create a positive momentum” and enable the Council to work towards exiting Iraq from under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, he stressed.

Ban said that his High-Level Coordinator, Gennady Tarasov, met in Kuwait last February with Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Dr. Mohammed Al-Sabah Al-Salem

Al-Sabah, “who indicated that the emerging spirit of cooperation between Iraq and Kuwait needs to be translated into practical and result-oriented steps towards the resolution of the outstanding issues, including the files of the missing persons and property.”

In April of this year, he added, Tarasov met with Kuwaiti Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Khalid Al Jarallah, who noted during the meeting that the task of finding the remains of the Kuwaiti victims should not be “mixed” with any developments in political relations between Iraq and Kuwait.

The month after this meeting, Tarasov visited Iraq and met with the Minister of Human Rights Mohammed S. Al-Sudaney, who underscored the “commitment of his Government to meet its obligations with regard to the issue of the Kuwaiti and third country nationals.”

During his meeting with Tasarov, the Iraqi Minister noted, that the high-level consultative meeting of the members of the Tripartite Committee, held on May 18 in Baghdad for the first time in many years, “demonstrated the determination of all participants to attain speedy progress,” Ban continued.

After the “successful realization” of the first joint exploratory mission within the framework of the TSC which visited Nassiriyah, Southern Iraq, last December, Tarasov was informed that a “similar mission was planned for a nearby site of Khamisiyah, suspected to contain the remains of missing Kuwaiti and third country nationals,” Ban pointed out.

Ban revealed that it has now been decided that a new mis-

sion should be launched before the end of this month, making it the second such endeavor in six months.

“There seems to be a broad consensus among all concerned that such missions, under the aegis of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and with a strong support of the members of the TSC, may present a “suitable format for further work on the ground,” Ban said.

In Tarasov’s view, he continued, “it could become the focus of an effective functional mechanism that would set clear benchmarks for achieving progress in the search for missing persons.”

Ban also informed the UNSC in his repor t that a team of experts and forensic specialists from the ICRC, Iraq, Kuwait, the United States and the United Kingdom carried out a joint field exhumation earlier this month, on June 5-6, along ‘Highway 80’ in Kuwait, during which 32 sets of remains, presumably of Iraqi military personnel, some of them still with their identification tags, were discovered. These will be handed over to the Iraqi authorities once the necessary procedures are completed, he added.

Together with the return by Kuwait of the remains of 55 Iraqi soldiers last year, he said, “this illustrated the effectiveness of sustained professional effort in finding missing people despite the passage of years.”

The repor t also contains a communique sent by Kuwaiti Ambassador Mansour Al-Otaibi to Tasarov in April forwarding a letter from Dr. Ibrahim Majed AlShaheen, the Deputy Chairman of the Kuwaiti National Committee for Missing Persons

and Prisoners of War Affairs, which summarizes the information on the Kuwaiti and third country nationals whose remains were found in Iraq and transferred to Kuwait in 2003-2004.

The letter revealed that 350 Kuwaiti and third country nationals are still unaccounted for.

On the issue of the Kuwaiti property stolen by the Saddam regime during the invasion and occupation of Kuwait, Ban said “I remain concerned that no progress has been made in the search for the Kuwaiti national archives, and that no credible information about their whereabouts has emerged.”

He revealed that Tarasov had urged his Iraqi interlocutors once again during his most recent visit to Baghdad, to establish an interministerial committee to lead and coordinate effor ts with regard to the missing Kuwaiti archives and other properties as soon as possible.

“This would further demonstrate Iraq’s determination to resolve this matter of concern to Kuwait,” Ban asserted.

The UN chief went on, “I support the High-level Coordinator’s recommendation that an effective national mechanism be set up by the Government of Iraq to lead and coordinate efforts to clarify the fate of the Kuwaiti national archives and other properties and report the results to the United Nations.”

In conclusion, Ban recommended that the UNSC extend the financing of Tarasov’s mandate until December 2011 in order to continue to build on the current momentum. The Council was scheduled to examine Ban’s report and be briefed by Tarasov yesterday. — KUNA

THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011

Mexico nabs leader of cult-like La Familia cartel

Japan govt extends session amid turmoil Page 12

Page 9

62 Qaeda prisoners escape from Yemen jail

SANAA: A Yemeni army soldier, lifted by anti-government protestors, shouts slogans during a demonstration demanding the resignation of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, in Sanaa, Yemen yesterday. Security officials say militants, mostly from Al-Qaeda, have escaped from a prison in southern Yemen. —AP ADEN: At least 62 Al-Qaeda prisoners escaped from a south Yemen jail yesterday after they clashed with guards, killing one and wounding two others, security and medical officials told AFP. The prisoners fled the central jail in Al-Mukalla, capital of the southeastern province of Hadramawt, into the nearby mountains after they overpowered the guards and seized some of their arms, a security official said.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, had initially said the prisoners fled af ter heavily armed Al-Qaeda fighters raided the prison to free them. Another security official said a total of 62 inmates fled through a tunnel dug under the prison.

The jail is believed to house more than 100 Al-Qaeda militants, 58 of whom have been tried and sentenced, the official said.

Nasir al-Wahayshi, the leader of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), made a similar escape along with 23 other members of the network from a prison in Sanaa in February 2006. The spokesman for the civil society organizations in Hadramawt, Nasser Bak azzuz, accused the authorities of assisting the prisoners to escape.

“The regime is living its last days and wants to create chaos in Hadramawt province ... There was no attack by Al-Qaeda on the jail to free prisoners,” Bakazzuz said. A dissident militar y official echoed Bak azzuz ’s charges that security forces have facilitated the fleeing of the prisoners “as there was no resistance based on the death and injury toll.” A medic at Ibn Sina hospital in the city said a security force member was killed and two others wounded, while an Al- Qaeda militant who

arrived at the hospital in critical condition later died. The military official said: “I fear the repetition of a scenario similar to that which took place in Zinjibar,” capital of the southern province of Abyan, which has widely fallen under the control of suspected Al-Qaeda militants since late May. Battles have raged between the army and the alleged Al-Qaeda militants in several parts of the Arabian Peninsula nation that has also been witnessing a massive uprising against the 33-year- old rule of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. At least 100 soldiers have been killed since the violence in Zinjibar erupted more than three weeks ago, and 260 have been wounded, according to a military official.

Fighting between government forces and suspected Al-Qaeda elements in southern Yemen have displaced 45,000 people, the UN Office

China releases Ai Weiwei on bail BEIJING: Police in Beijing have released high-profile Chinese artist Ai Weiwei on bail after he confessed to tax evasion and because he suffers from a “chronic disease”, state media said yesterday. The release of the outspoken activist, who was taken into custody in April during the government ’s biggest crackdown on activists in years, was somewhat unexpected, as authorities had suggested he was involved in massive tax fraud.

The detention of the burly avant-garde artistwhose work was on display at London’s Tate Modern gallery this year-sparked an international outcry, with the United States and the European Union leading calls for his release. Ai, 54, was released because of “his good attitude in confessing his crimes”, his willingness to repay the taxes he owes, and on medical grounds, China’s state Xinhua news agency reported, without explaining his condition.—AFP

for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said Tuesday.

“OCHA is concerned about this conflict situation in southern Yemen in Abyan province,” said Elisabeth Byrs, an OCHA spokeswoman. “ We are concerned about the resulting displacement of people.”

Uncertainty has prevailed over the impoverished and deeply tribal country’s fate after Saleh was flown to Riyadh for treatment for wounds suffered when a bomb exploded as he prayed at his palace mosque earlier this month. The president has made no public appearance since

the attack, sparking speculation concerning his situation and casting doubts over the possibility of his return to power.

In Saleh’s absence, Vice President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi has been coming under intense local and international pressure to heed the demands of protesters to set up an interim ruling council, which would prevent Saleh returning to power.

But Hadi’s grip on power is strongly questioned as relatives of Saleh continue to run main security systems.

Key among them is Saleh’s son, Ahmed, who leads the elite

Republican Guard. Top US official Jeffrey Feltman met Hadi in Sanaa yesterday and discussed with him the latest developments in Yemen and means of cooperation to “confront terror,” state news agency Saba reported. Saleh, 69, has been a key US ally on the “war on terror” Yemen is the ancestral homeland of late AlQaeda leader Osama bin Laden and the jihadists’ local affiliate, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, is blamed for anti-US plots including trying to blow up a US-bound airplane on Christmas Day in 2009.— AFP

A

y

e niv rsar n

Years

THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011

i n t e r n at i o n a l

Syria scorns EU criticism Hundreds arrested after amnesty

TRIPOLI: In this photo taken on a government-organized tour, Khaled, center, and Mohammed, center left, sons of Khoweildi al-Hamidi, a close associate of Muammar Gaddafi, left, pray among others next to bodies of two children during a funeral in the city of Surman, some 60 km (40 miles) west of Tripoli, Libya yesterday.—AP

Benghazi citizens worry about flood of weapons BENGHAZI: The crack of gunfire that echoes hourly across rebel-held Benghazi was once seen as a bit of revolutionary fun, but increasingly residents are worried by their streets being awash with weapons. It does not take much effort to find a gun in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi; a young teenager poising with a loaded machine gun or a private security guard bouncing an assault rifle off his newly bought boots.

It is even easier to hear these weapons in action. Since rebels liberated the city from Muammar Gaddafi’s forces in February the guns and ammunition-once used in self-defense-have turned into playthings to be fired into the air at will. As Gaddafi compounds fell it was easy to pluck the weapons from the debris.

Seized dynamite, at times used to fish off the city’s Mediterranean coast, also provides a bit of night time entertainment. For the few and who missed out, an AK-47 can still be found with ease, although it might cost anywhere up to $2,000 (1,400 euros, 3,000 Libyan dinars). What is clear is that few in Benghazi are willing to give up their arms just yet. With Gaddafi’s forces bearing down on the neighboring city of Ajdabiya, just 150 kilometers (90 miles) away, the weapons may yet be needed. “I’ll give it back, but not before I know everything is safe,” said one young man who plucked a

Kalashnikov from an arsenal that later exploded. He asked not to be named.

In a culture where pride and reputation are carefully defended, the worry is any serious dispute can now quickly involve arms. “I want to give it back and I want others to give them back because I don’t trust people with them; I don’t trust myself,” he explained. And it is not just Libyans who are worried. “It is clear that one result of the conflict in Libya is the widespread proliferation of all kind of weaponry amongst the Libyan population,” said Pieter Wezeman, a researcher with the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. “This may feed the conflict right now, but may also lead to long-term effects regarding political or criminal violence in the country.” Another worry is that when Libya’s war is over the weapons could fuel conflict in the many neighboring countries that suffer from violence: Niger, Chad or Sudan being top of the list. The rebel National Transitional Council, lacking capacity and facing a plethora of other problems, has made the first tentative steps toward disarming the population, but with little impact.

For now the cracks and bangs that define Benghazi’s soundscape seem likely to continue, as bored young men revel at having replaced a police state with a state that has few police at all.— AFP

Saudi Arabia apologizes over beheading: Indonesia JAKARTA: Saudi Arabia has apologised for failing to inform Indonesia about the beheading of a maid convicted of murdering her Saudi employer, Jakarta said yesterday. The apology came during a meeting between Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa and Saudi Ambassador Abdurrahman bin Mohammed Al-Khayyat, a foreign ministry spokesman said. “ The ambassador apologised and regretted the situation and said that such a thing wouldn’t happen again in future,” said spokesman Michael Tene. Natalegawa also handed the ambassador a letter of protest to his Saudi counterpart, Tene said.

Indonesia earlier this week recalled its ambassador to Riyadh for consultations as lawmakers demanded a strong response to the execution, which was carried out with a sword.

Indonesian migrant worker Ruyati binti Sapubi, 54, was executed on Saturday after she was convicted of murdering her Saudi employer, Khairiya bint Hamid Mijlid, with a meat cleaver. The maid carried out the killing after she was denied permission to leave the kingdom and return to her family in Indonesia, according to officials in Jakarta.

In a second case, a court in the Saudi capital of Riyadh had sentenced Indonesian maid Darsem to death for murdering her Yemeni employer in December 2007 in what she called an act of self-

defence as the employer had tried to rape her. Indonesian officials had said she could escape the sentence if she received pardon from the family, who forgave her in January on the condition that she pays the compensation or “diyat” of two million riyals ($533,000).

The Indonesian government will be paying the compensation ahead of July’s deadline, Tene said. “The full amount had been transferred to the Indonesian embassy in Riyadh and a team from the Foreign Ministry will be flying there tonight to oversee the payment process. We hope her life will be spared,” he said.

Both women’s cases are the latest in a string of incidents involving Indonesian menial labourers in the Middle East.

Lawmakers on Tuesday urged the government to stop sending migrant workers abroad without agreements guaranteeing their basic rights. Natalegawa and other key members of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s cabinet have faced calls to resign over the persistent abuse of Indonesian migrant workers abroad.

Around 70 percent of the 1.2 million Indonesians working in Saudi Arabia are domestic helpers, according to officials.

Human rights groups say workers from countries like Indonesia, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka underpin the Gulf states’ economies but face extreme forms of exploitation.—AFP

Iranian oil delegation attacked in Baghdad TEHRAN: Gunmen attacked an Iranian oil delegation visiting Baghdad yesterday, the Iranian Oil Ministry said. “The delegation was attacked by terrorists but they are not harmed and have no problems,” the ministry’s Shana website said. “The delegation was visiting Iraq to hold talks about exporting fuel to Iraq. They came under gunfire when heading to the Electricity Ministry building.”

An Iraqi Interior Ministry source said the convoy was attacked in central Baghdad and two Iraqi guards were wounded. The head of the Iranian delegation said a contract was signed between the two neighboring countries. “We signed a contract to export 1.5 million litres of fuel to Iraq,” said Alireza Zeyghami, the semi-official Fars news agency reported, without giving further details.

Another Iraqi government source said it was an Iranian technical team visiting Baghdad as part of meetings to discuss border demarcation and investment in joint oilfields. Iran did not say who was behind the attack and no group has taken responsibility for the attack yet. Iraq became a base for many Shi’ite and Sunni armed groups after the US -led invasion in 2003 and all of these groups are active in most areas of Baghdad, the Iraqi capital.

Al Qaeda affiliates and many Sunni armed groups, some Shiite militias, and Baathists, some of whom ruled Iraq under Saddam Hussein, consider the Iranian government akin to a second occupier of Iraq. They put Iranian visitors, officials and facilities in Iraq high on their priority lists for attacks. Many of these groups are active in Baghdad. Iraq is also home to a base of the People’s Mujahideen Organisation of Iran (PMOI), which the United States, Iraq and Iran consider a terrorist group.

The PMOI has for decades advocated the overthrow of the Islamic Republic of Iran, in place since 1979. The fate of the base at Camp Ashraf, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, has been in question since the US military turned it over to Baghdad in 2009 under a bilateral security agreement. In April, Iraqi forces moved against the camp in what they said was an attempt to reclaim land and return it to farmers. Some 34 people died in clashes, according to UN investigation.

The United States has proposed a temporary relocation of Ashraf’s residents within Iraq, pending eventual resettlements in third countries, but the PMOI’s umbrella group—the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) — rejects this. — Reuters

BEIRUT: Syria yesterday scorned the European Union’s criticism of Damascus over its violent crackdown on popular unrest, saying this showed Europe wanted to sow chaos in the country. Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem said he was confident that despite mounting international pressure on Syria, three months into an uprising against the Assad family’s 41year rule, there would be no foreign military intervention in his country, nor a no-fly zone of the kind NATO has imposed over Libya.

“The reactions from European Union officials to President Assad’s speech (show) they have a plan and they want to continue with it, (they want) to plant strife and chaos in Syria,” Moualem told a news conference in Damascus.

“Stop intervening in Syria’s affairs, do not stir chaos nor strife, the Syrian people ... are capable of making their own future away from you ... Any external intervention is rejected.”

EU states reached a political agreement yesterday to extend sanctions against Syria to four military-linked entities and seven individuals, including three Iranians, linked to suppression of dissent. “There is a political agreement on extending the list,” an EU diplomat said, adding that the new sanctions would take effect on Friday, once all 27 EU states have written on Thursday to give their formal approval.

Moualem warned that Syria would turn to other regions for trade and support. “We will forget that Europe is on the map, and we will turn to the east, to the south and all directions that extend a hand to Syria. The world is not only Europe. Syria will remain steadfast,” he told a news conference in Damascus. Before the uprising, Western countries had been re-cultivating relations with Damascus after a period in which they isolated it to try to weaken its strategic alliance with Iran. Reuters monitored the televised broadcast from outside the country, since Syria has expelled its correspondents.

In a speech on Monday, only his third since the outbreak of protests in which rights groups say 1,300 civilians have been killed, Assad promised reforms and called for national dialogue. Many Syrians and world leaders dismissed his pledges as stale and inadequate.

Violence continued on Tuesday with the killing of seven people by gunmen in two cities during rival protests by Assad loyalists and opponents, an opposition activist said.

Moualem said his country would not accept demands from “outside Syria” and blamed American sanctions in 2003 for the delay in reforms in Syria. He urged Turkey, once a close ally but now an increasingly vocal critic of Assad, to reconsider its frosty response to his speech and said Syria wanted the “best relations with Turkey”.

Syria’s ambassador to Turkey, Nidal Kabalan, said yesterday Turkey-Syria ties were a “strategic relationship” for both countries and for the whole region, but added Damascus expected a

more “even-handed approach” from its neighbor. “We believe that some of the statements that have been voiced were a little bit too strong,” Kabalan told Reuters.

“Those (protesters) are Islamic fundamentalists, al Qaeda-types, who have their own agenda and foreign affiliations and programs. We have seen what they have done in Afghanistan, in Iraq and in some other Gulf countries,” he said.

Residents and activists said hundreds of Syrians were arrested since Tuesday despite Assad’s announcement of a general amnesty, the second in three weeks. The arrests concentrated on the coast, the city of Homs and the eastern province of Deir al-Zor, which borders Iraq’s Sunni Muslim heartland. Tens of students were also beaten and arrested overnight at Damascus University dormitories, the Syrian

political freedoms and the departure from power of the Assad family, which belongs to the Alawite sect, have been biggest in mostly Sunni rural areas and towns and cities, as opposed to mixed areas.

Fears are growing that Syria, a mosaic of Alawites, Sunnis, Christians, Kurds, Druzes and other groups, could implode into sectarian savager y similar to the conflict that ripped through Iraq after Saddam’s ousting. Syria, which borders Israel, Lebanon, Iraq, Turkey and Jordan, also exerts regional influence because of its alliance with Iran and its continued role in Lebanon, despite ending a 29-year military presence there in 2005. It also has an influence in Iraq. The new sanctions list was drawn up by Britain and France the brought the total number of individuals and entities targeted by EU sanctions on Syria to 34.

HATAY: Syrian refugees go about their daily business at a camp in the Turkish town of Yayladagi in Hatay province yesterday.—AFP Observatory for Human Rights said. “ The human rights situation in Syria is becoming even worse, with security forces and gangs increasingly attacking neighborhoods and more arbitrary arrests of Syrian citizens,” the Observatory said in a statement. After Assad’s first amnesty, authorities freed hundreds of political prisoners but rights groups have not reported any releases after the second amnesty. Rights groups say Syria has more than 14,000 political prisoners. Around 10,000 have been arrested during the uprising. Hundreds have gone missing after seen last being taken by secret police. Authorities say more than 200 police and security forces have been killed by armed gangs. Syria, a country of 20 million, has a Sunni majority, and the protests demanding

The EU diplomat said the Iranians were involved in providing equipment and technical support to help Syrian authorities suppress dissent. Moualem denied that Iran or its Lebanese ally Hezbollah had intervened to confront Syrian protesters, and said that the killings of some police and soldiers indicated that Islamist group al Qaeda might be behind some of the violence. “I cannot hide (the fact) that some of the practices that we have seen in the killings of security personnel gives an indication that these acts were carried out by al Qaeda,” he said, without elaborating.

In May, the European Union added Assad and other senior officials to a list of those banned from travelling to the EU and subject to asset freezes.—Reuters

6 leaders to attend Iran ‘anti-terror’ summit TEHRAN: Six heads of state, including those of Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan, are to attend a two-day “anti-terrorism conference” hosted by Iran, Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said yesterday. “The international conference on combating terrorism will commence on June 25, and will be attended by six heads of states and a number of prime ministers and

foreign ministers,” the official IRNA news agency quoted Salehi as saying.

The heads of state include Afghanistan’s Hamid Karzai, Iraq’s Jalal Talabani, Pakistan’s Asif Ali Zardari, Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir and Tajikistan’s Emomali Rahmon, Iranian media reported. “The West is the creator of terrorism and the East is blighted by it. We have high

hopes for the results of this conference,” Salehi said. Sudan’s Bashir is wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity over his government’s scorched earth tactics in the eightyear-old conflict in Darfur.

Despite its blacklisting by Washington as an alleged state sponsor of terrorism, Iran has con-

sistently maintained that it is the victim after attacks on its prime minister and president in the 1980s. Iran also faces rebellions among its Kurdish and Baluchi minorities. On Tuesday, Iran said it had arrested four suspected members of Sunni militant group Jundallah in Sistan-Baluchestan province in the southeast wearing “explosive vests.”— AFP

Israel urges Apple to remove pro-Palestinian app JERUSALEM: The Israeli government on Tuesday appealed to Apple Inc. to remove an application called “ThirdIntifada” from its App Store, saying the program glorifies violence against the Jewish state. Israel’s information minister, Yuli Edelstein, sent the request in an email to Steve Jobs, Apple’s chief executive.

“Intifadah” is the Arabic term for two violent uprisings against Israel over the past t wo decades. The free application encourages its followers to share opinions and organize protests against Israel.

It is linked to a website that, among other things, helped organize violent clashes with Israeli troops recently along Israel’s frontiers with Lebanon and Syria. “Upon review of the stories, articles and photos published by means of the application, one can easily see that this is in fact anti-Israel and anti-Zionist. Furthermore, as is implied by its name, the application calls for an uprising against the State of Israel,” Edelstein wrote.

“I am convinced that you are aware of this type of application’s ability to unite many toward an objective that could be disastrous,” he added. “I therefore turn to you with the request to instruct the immediate removal of the application in question.” There was no immediate comment by Apple. Jewish human rights organization, the Simon Wiesenthal Center also urged Apple to remove the application. The center ’s associate dean, R abbi Abraham Cooper, said in a release issued on Tuesday that “the leading new media and technology companies should not be facilitating entities with a track record of promoting incitement and violence.”

Apple’s guidelines for developers say that applications “containing references or commentary about a religious, cultural or ethnic group that are defamatory, offensive, mean-spirited or likely to expose the targeted group to harm or violence will be rejected.” The guidelines also reject depictions of weapons that encourage “illegal or reckless” use. A similar campaign by Edelstein last March prompted Facebook to remove a related page.—AP

KIRYAT MALACHY: Israeli military officers from the Home Front command rescue unit stand on the ruins of a factory during a Home Front command drill yesterday in the southern Israeli town of Kiryat Malachy. Israel is carrying out a nationwide emergency drill simulating a war on two fronts and rocket barrages hitting the country’s cities. —AP

Israeli leaders test nuclear bunker in defense drill JERUSALEM: Israeli leaders holed up in a new underground nuclear bunker yesterday as part of annual nationwide manoeuvres to prepare for a possible missile war with Iran, Syria and their Lebanese and Palestinian guerrilla allies. Officials said it was the first time that the security cabinet, headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, had tested the bunker, dug deep in the western Jerusalem foothills over the past decade and dubbed the “Nation’s Tunnel” by local media.

Israel has held increasingly sweeping civil defense drills since the 2006 Lebanon war, during which Hezbollah guerrillas fired thousands of short-range rockets at its northern towns. There have been similar salvoes from Hamas and other Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip to the south, and Israeli officials say a future war could also involve non-conventional missile strikes by Syria and Iran.

“It is certainly an extreme scenario,” Home Front Defence Minister Matan Vilnai said of yesterday ’s exercise, dubbed “Turning Point 5”, which envisaged heavy shelling and thousands of dead and wounded on several Israeli fronts. “We

assume that our enemies would not dare to operate this way, given our deterrent power,” he told Army Radio. Reputed to have the Middle East’s only atomic arsenal, Israel bombed an Iraqi reactor in 1981 under what it called a policy of denying foes the means to threaten its destruction.

Israel launched a similar sortie against Syria in 2007 but its veiled threats to tackle Iran’s remote and fortified uranium enrichment sites have often been dismissed as bluster given the tactical challenges involved.

World powers say they prefer a negotiated resolution with Iran, which denies seeking the bomb. Disclosures of the Jerusalem bunker’s existence prompted some Israelis to question whether their country, which has also been developing an elaborate ballistic missile shield, was taking a more passive approach to potential nuclear threats. Officials say that providing Israeli leaders with a secret haven from which to respond to attacks would in itself discourage, or at least contain, any future war. “Israel finally has a proper place to function during emergencies,” Vilnai said.—Reuters

A

y

e niv rsar n

THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011

Years

i n t e r n at i o n a l

Peaceful end sought in Venezuelan prison conflict

MEXICO CITY: From left to right, Gabriel Mejia Flores, Jairo Lopez Mendoza, Jaime Francisco Leyva Merlos, Juan Carlos Leyva Merlos, Raul Mejia Flores and Gerardo Gomez Mejia are shown to the press at the federal police headquarters in Mexico City yesterday.—AP

Mexican authorities nab leader of cult-like cartel A major blow to La Familia MEXICO CITY: Federal authorities apprehended the leader of the cultlike, pseudo-Christian La Familia cartel on Tuesday, saying they had dealt a debilitating blow to a major organized crime group that terrorized western Mexico. Jose de Jesus Mendez Vargas, alias El Chango, or “The Monkey,” was arrested in the central state of Aguascalientes without confrontation or casualties, said federal security spokesman Alejandro Poire. A state official who was not authorized to speak on the record said Mendez was taken at a federal police checkpoint, but authorities didn’t provide more details. “With this arrest, what remained of the structure of this criminal organization has been destroyed,” Poire told a news conference.

With the death of La Familia founder and leader Nazario Moreno Gonzalez in December, Poire said Mendez was “the last remaining head of a criminal group responsible for homicides, kidnappings, extortion, corruption and even cowardly attacks on the authorities and civilian population.”

But the leadership of a violent splinter group, known as the Knights Templar, remains at large. President Felipe Calderon personally lauded the arrest on his Twitter account, calling it a “big blow” to organized crime. The cartel was born in Calderon’s home state of Michoacan in 2006, prompting him to deploy thousands of federal police there and warning that La Familia was corrupting local officials, extorting businesses and terrorizing the popula-

tion.

According to the reward statement issued by the Attorney General’s Office, Mendez was “responsible for the transfer and sale of cocaine, marijuana, crystal methamphetamine in various states of Mexico and the United States of America. He is the alleged mastermind of kidnappings and killings, mainly of members of other criminal organizations.” The government had offered a $2.5 million reward for his capture.

La Familia first appeared four years ago when it rolled five severed heads into a Michoacan nightclub, vowing to protect local citizens from rival cartels.

Moreno set a code of conduct for its members that prohibited the use of hard drugs or dealing them within Mexican territory, even as they gruesomely decapitated foes and sold cocaine and methamphetamine by the ton. “They believe they are doing God’s work, and pass out Bibles and money to the poor,” according to a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration profile. “La Familia Michoacana also gives money to school and local officials.”

Moreno was killed in December during two days of shootouts between his gang and federal police. After his death, the group split into warring factions, causing increased bloodshed in the state in western Mexico. Mendez was believed to have remained the leader of the La Familia faction, according to federal police, while messages appeared in March that the Knights Templar sought to replace La Familia.

That name alludes to a Christian

order of knights founded in 1118 in Jerusalem to protect pilgrims in the Holy Land after the First Crusade.

Former school teacher and La Familia leader Servando “La Tuta” Gomez is believed to lead the Knights Templar, federal police say. Gomez, who has not been arrested, is wanted in the U.S. for conspiracy to import and distribute cocaine, according to an October 2009 Justice Department indictment.

The indictment says he also may be behind the murder of 12 Mexican federal law enforcement officers whose bodies were found in July 2009 while he still operated under La Familia.

An increase in firefights between factions and clashes with police in Michoacan forced as many as 3,500 people to flee their hamlets in May and seek refuge in churches, schools and recreation centers in larger towns nearby. Federal police arrested 36 La Familia members a short time later, seizing more than 70 rifles, 20,000 weapon cartridges, three grenades and 14 handguns in an air and land raid that left two officers injured. Federal Police Commissioner Facundo Rosas said at the time that Mendez’s faction had been substantially weakened.

Poire told reporters that with Mendez’s arrest, 21 of the country’s 37 top drug traffickers have been apprehended or killed since 2009. More than 35,000 people have died in drug violence since, according to government figures. Local media say the number is closer to 40,000.—AP

Argentine president says she will seek re-election BUENOS AIRES: Argentine President Cristina Fernandez announced on Tuesday that she will seek re-election, ending months of speculation about her political plans. In a nationally televised address, Fernandez told the nation, “We are once again going to go submit ourselves” to the vote.

“I always knew what I had to do because I’ve always had a high sense of political responsibility and what must be done,” said Fernandez, who succeeded her late husband Nestor Kirchner in the presidency in 2007. Polls indicate Fernandez lacks majority support in Argentina, but might easily win re-election in the Oct 23 first-round vote against a divided opposition. The president’s plans have been a subject of speculation due to rumored health issues and her public silence on her political future.

In her speech Tuesday, the 58-yearold president said she had planned on waiting closer to the end of the candidacy registration period before announcing. The candidate of the Peronist party will face challenges from Ricardo Alfonsin, the son of ex-President Raul Alfonsin, and fellow Peronist exPresident Eduardo Duhalde, among others.

Fernandez’s first-round election victory in October 2007 was widely attributed to the support of her popular husband, whom many Argentines credited with reviving the country after its 20012002 economic collapse. Fernandez, however, had already built a political career on her own terms, winning a legislative seat in the Patagonian province of Santa Cruz in 1991 when her husband became the province’s governor.

Fernandez later represented the remote province in the national Senate and Chamber of Deputies.

Political analysts speculated after her presidential win that the power couple planned to alternate four-year terms in the Casa Rosada, the country’s presidential palace, thanks to Argentine laws letting presidents serve unlimited, nonconsecutive terms. Argentine law does allow presidents to serve two consecutive terms. Such speculation ended in October 2010, when her husband died of heart failure at age 60. Fernandez has since taken to wearing black at public events and delivering emotional homages to her late-husband.

Her administration has had its rocky moments, most notably a nationwide strike that halted farm production in 2008 to protest government grain export tariffs. Fernandez had imposed the tariffs to try and force farmers to sell more of its production domestically and dampen rising food prices.

The farm conflict handed the president a major loss after her own vice president, Julio Cobos, cast the deciding vote in the Senate defeating the export tariff package. In her announcement Tuesday, Fernandez did not reveal whom she would choose as her vice presidential running mate. Fernandez’s government has also struggled to contain inflation, which unofficial estimates have shown at times topping 20 per-

cent. At the same time, her administration has overseen a continuation of the impressive economic growth notched by her husband’s government. The World Bank estimates Argentina’s economy will expand by 6.3 percent this year, second only behind Peru in Latin America. Her government has also won support with public aid programs targeting the country’s poorest and its championing of ongoing human rights prosecutions of officials in the country’s 1976-1983 military dictatorship.

Fernandez has also advocated paying off the country’s sovereign debts and supported legalizing same-sex marriage. Associated Press Writer Jack Chang in Mexico City contributed to this report. — AP

US Senate confirms Panetta as Pentagon chief WASHINGTON: The US Senate voted unanimously on Tuesday to confirm outgoing Central Intelligence Agency chief Leon Panetta as the new secretary of defense, replacing the retiring Robert Gates. Panetta, 72, who has held a variety of senior posts in Washington dating back decades, was nominated by President Barack Obama to head the Pentagon. Panetta is expected to start his new job on July 1.

The rare 100-0 vote followed a debate that saw praise for Panetta and anxiety about the challenges he will face to push defense budgets lower and oversee the start of the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan. The troop pullout is due to begin next month and Obama is expected to present a blueprint for it in a prime-time speech to Americans.

“The next secretary of defense will have to struggle with the competing demands on our forces while Washington struggles with an extremely challenging fiscal environment,” Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin said. He said Panetta’s lengthy experience made him the right man for the job.

As CIA director since February 2009, Panetta had been “intimately” involved in the most pressing national security issues, Levin said-personally overseeing the manhunt that ended in last month’s covert operation to kill Osama bin Laden, the leader of al Qaeda.

During his confirmation hearing, Panetta broadly signaled his alignment with Gates, saying they tended to “walk hand in hand” on many issues. Gates has warned against hasty troop drawdowns in Afghanistan. Senators of both parties lauded Gates, who is stepping down after four and a half years as Pentagon chief, first under former President George W Bush and then Obama.

While there was no argument about Panetta’s qualifications, his confirmation did produce Senate debate on Afghanistan. Democratic Senator Joe Manchin said the United States could not afford the war any longer as it “drowns in a sea of debt.” Manchin urged Obama to “end the scope of our current mission well before 2014,” when the lead in Afghanistan’s security is due to be turned over to Afghan forces.

“I believe it is time for President Obama to begin a substantial and responsible reduction of our military presence in Afghanistan,” Manchin told the Senate.

“I believe it is time for us to rebuild America, not Afghanistan.”—Reuters

CARACAS: Venezuelan authorities urged rebellious inmates to put down their weapons on Tuesday, saying they would continue pressing for a peaceful end to a days-long prison conflict pitting armed inmates against National Guard troops.

Maria Mercedes Berthe, an official from the Attorney General’s Office, said authorities would insist on reaching an agreement with inmates at the Rodeo II prison even through those efforts have been rejected in recent days. “If we have to continue for another week, we’re willing to do it,” Berthe told Union Radio. Troops have attempted for the last five days to dislodge a group of heavily armed prisoners who have staved off their attempts to retake control of Rodeo II located in a Caracas suburb.

A 5,000-strong security force has engaged in gunbattles with inmates at Rodeo II and the adjacent lockup Rodeo I since the military launched a weapons search on Friday. Berthe said a small group of inmates has prevented others from leaving the prison.

Troops escorted 39 inmates from cellblocks inside the Rodeo II to areas that are no longer controlled by rebellious prisoners, Justice Minister Tareck El Aissami said Tuesday.

State television broadcast footage of the inmates being helped out of armored vehicles. El Aissami said the inmates evacuated from the cellblocks had received death threats from ringleaders of the revolt, who have allegedly prohibited numerous prisoners from leaving the facility.

Violence erupted in the Rodeo I prison on June 12 when a riot broke out that left 22 people dead. Days later, thousands of troops stormed the prison to

GUATIRE: An unidentified woman passes with a child near a line of National Guard soldiers outside El Rodeo II prison in Guatire, Venezuela, Tuesday . —AP disarm the inmates.

National Guard Gen. Luis Motta Dominguez said on Monday that leaders of the violent uprising inside Rodeo II are seeking to extend the conflict, calling fellow inmates inside other prisons to convince them to attack National Guard troops.

Venezuela’s severely crowded prisons have suffered repeated violent outbursts as rival gangs fight for control of cellblocks and the sale of weapons and drugs. The country’s 30 prisons were built to hold 12,500 prisoners but instead hold about 49,000, according to the Venezuelan Prisons Observatory, a group that monitors prison conditions. Last year, 476 people died and 967 were injured in prison violence, according to figures

compiled by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Carlos Nieto, director of A Window to Freedom, a local non-governmental organization, called on prosecutors to investigate National Guard troops who have taken bribes from inmates at numerous prisons in return for contraband such as weapons and ammunition. Berthe said prosecutors would look into those allegations.

Authorities released a list on Monday of 2,500 inmates from Rodeo I and Rodeo II who have been transferred to other prisons in recent days, drawing relatives of inmates to the list posted on walls outside the prison.

Such relatives have been desperately seeking information about the fate of their loved ones.-AP

Dozens mistakenly told they won visa lottery suing MIAMI: Dozens of people who were mistakenly told they had won a spot to apply for a US visa through the annual visa lottery system are suing the US government. French native Armande Gil is a psychologist in Miami who is among those seeking class action status for a federal lawsuit filed last week in Washington. Gil said Tuesday she spent time and money preparing for her new life and was devastated

to learn it was just a bureaucratic mistake. She and others want to be reinstated as lottery winners.

Roughly 22,000 individuals were told in May they had been selected though they would still have to pass background checks. Then immigration officials discovered the supposedly random selection was skewed due to a computer glitch. A new lottery is set for July 15. — AP

A

y

e niv rsar n

THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011

Years

I N T E R N AT I O N A L

Michelle Obama urges Africa to advance women’s rights JOHANNESBURG: US First Lady Michelle Obama urged young Africans yesterday to fight for women’s rights and battle the stigma of AIDS, using her husband’s “yes, we can” campaign slogan to motivate youth across the continent. Obama is on her second solo trip abroad as first lady to promote issues such as education, health and wellness.

But her speech to a group of young women and men at Regina Mundi Church, which played a role in South Africa’s anti-apartheid movement, touched on much harder topics: race,

discrimination, democracy, and development. Obama, who is traveling with her mother and two daughters, drew on the leaders of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa and the civil rights movement in the United States as an example for the younger generation to follow.

“It is because of them that we are able to gather here today...It is because of them that I stand before you as First Lady of the United States of America,” she said to applause. “That is the legacy of the independence generation, the freedom generation.

And all of you - the young people of this continent - you are the heirs of that blood, sweat, sacrifice, and love.”

Obama appeared visibly moved when the audience stood and sang an impromptu serenade as she approached the podium. Placing her hands over her heart, she thanked the crowd and seemed to choke back tears.

She spoke passionately about women’s rights, saying the young leaders should ensure that women were no longer “second class citizens” and that girls were educated in

schools. “You can be the generation that stands up and says that violence against women in any form, in any place, including the home - especially the home - that isn’t just a women’s rights violation. It’s a human rights violation,” she said. “You can be the generation that ends HIV/AIDS in our time, the generation that fights not just the disease, but the stigma of the disease, the generation that teaches the world that HIV is fully preventable and treatable, and should never be a source of shame,” she said to applause.

Obama was introduced by Graca

Machel, Nelson Mandela’s wife. Obama and her family met Mandela at his home on Tuesday. Barack Obama is the first black US president, just as Mandela was the first black president of South Africa. Mrs Obama used her husband’s famous campaign slogan, which helped him win the 2008 presidential election, to urge the audience to follow through on the issues she addressed. “If anyone ever tells you that you shouldn’t or you can’t, then I want you to say with one voice - the voice of a generation - you tell them, ‘yes, we can.”—Reuters

‘Pilot error’ probed as Russia mourns air crash Latest victim 10-year-old boy

VATICAN: Pope Benedict XVI salutes the faithful as he arrives in St. Peter square at the Vatican for his weekly general audience yesterday.—AP

Pope may get energy-saving car ROME: The next popemobile could be green. The Vatican says Germany ’s Mercedes-Benz auto company is making a study of a hybrid, energy-saving popemobile that would replace the current Mercedes vehicle used when the pope travels abroad. “It won’t be ready for the September trip to Germany, but maybe at the end of the year or early next year,” said Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi. Pope Benedict XVI is scheduled to make his first official visit to Germany Sept 22-25.

Christian Anosowitsch, a spokesman for Mercedes in Stuttgart, Germany, said he could not confirm that the company was developing such a car, saying it is not policy to comment on possible future plans. “There is at the moment no order to build such a vehicle,” he said.

Benedict has made conserving resources an important concern of his papacy.

Solar panels have been installed on the roof of the papal audience hall at the Vatican. Earlier this year there was talk of a solar-powered electric car as the next popemobile, but apparently this idea was discarded.

Officials said Benedict would gladly use such an electric vehicle as another

sign of his efforts to promote sustainable energy and take care of the planet. The Germany-based firm SolarWorld, which provided the photovoltaic cells on the auditorium, said it had discussed the idea. But its marketing chief said the main hurdle was to get Vatican security to agree since some still have concerns , unfounded, he said , that electric cars don’t accelerate as quickly as traditional ones. When he’s outside the Vatican, Benedict usually rides in a modified white Mercedes-Benz outfitted with bulletproof windows. It has room for two passengers in addition to the pope, who sits on an elevated chair to wave to crowds. Through the years, a number of different models have been donated to the Vatican, including a luxury Lancia limousine provided to Pope John Paul II in 1999 by Fiat that caused embarrassment over the cost.

An Italian auto magazine estimated the Lancia prototype cost nearly $1.5 million to develop, although Fiat issued a statement saying the figure was “far from reality.” The Vatican, however, said at the time that had it known about the reported costs “the gift would not have been accepted.”— AP

MOSCOW: Russians left flowers and toys yesterday at the site of a plane crash that killed 45 people as questions mounted over why the pilot tried to land in poor weather at a low-tech provincial airport. Members of the public laid flowers, candles and handwritten cards at the site of the tragedy on a highway, Russian television showed, as the northern Karelia region lowered its flags for three days of official mourning.

The latest victim was a 10year-old boy, Anton Terekhin, who survived the crash but died in hospital from his injuries.

“Anton Terekhin died last night.

He had grave injuries,” spokeswoman for regional health ministry, Elena Kokovurova, told AFP. The boy ’s sister, Anastasia Terekhina, was also among the eight survivors and was taken to Moscow for medical treatment on Tuesday. Health Minister Tantyana Golikova said two other survivors were in a grave condition. The children were travelling with their mother, Oksana Terekhina, whose name was on the list of the dead released by the emergency ministry yesterday. The RusAir Tupolev 134 plane was flying from Moscow ’s Domodedovo airport to Petrozavodsk, the largest city in Karelia, and crashed onto a highway short of the runway, bursting into flames.

Investigators have warned against drawing premature conclusions but even top officials have publicly said it was an error for the pilot to attempt landing at Petrozavodsk’s small airport in heavy fog and rain. The pilot had “until the last moment looked for the runway visually but did not see it,” Russian news agencies quoted Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov as saying on the sidelines of a Paris airshow.

MOSCOW: Russian communist party supporter lays flowers at Stalin’s grave near the Kremlin wall in Moscow yesterday. Russia marked 70 years since the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany.

—AFP The federal aviation authority than 3,000 of them on the same “the air field needs to be reequipped to make flights safer. said in an initial report that the model of plane that crashed.

The plane’s black boxes have We put all the reliance on the plane did not break up or catch fire until it collided with trees. been located and the Moscow- pilots.”

The crash was the latest in a “Until the plane first collided with based inter-state air commission, trees, there is no sign that it broke which probes all air crashes in the series of accidents involving up in the air, burst into flames or former USSR, has begun its inves- Russia’s ageing fleet of planes, exploded,” it said. The accident tigation, stressing that any con- with the Soviet-era Tupolev jets took place “at twilight, in complex clusions were premature. Experts having a particularly poor safety weather conditions,” the aviation quoted in Russian media said it record. The force of the impact was unsafe to attempt a landing and exploding fuel scattered fragagency said.

After the plane hit the treeline, in bad weather because of the ments of the plane and charred it began breaking up and broke primitive equipment used by air bodies over hundreds of metres, power cables, cutting off the air- traffic controllers at the small while the plane narrowly missed port, “which consequently went Petrozavodsk airport. The airfield, a nearby village. A Swedish over to emergency generators,” designed for military aircraft, is national, a Dutch citizen and two the agency said. The media has only considered safe in good Ukrainians were among the dead, speculated as to whether the weather when the pilot can actu- as well as a family of four with plane crashed because it was ally see the plane’s position, dual Russian and US citizenship, unable to see the landing lights Kommersant wrote, citing a pilot the emergencies ministry said on its website. The Russians who after cutting the power lines. The familiar with the airport.

Vadim Bazykin, a decorated died included a well-known footaviation agency said the pilots who worked at ball referee, Vladimir Pettai, and were experienced, with chief pilot pilot Alexander Fyodorov having com- Petrozavodsk for 10 years, told five senior nuclear energy pleted 8,500 hours of flying, more Komsomolskaya Pravda daily that experts.— AFP

Danish court gives ten years to Somali ax man

Centrist Dutch lawmakers to debate ritual slaughter ban THE HAGUE: Centrist Dutch lawmakers worked behind the scenes yesterday to amend legislation that would outlaw centuries-old Jewish and Muslim traditions of slaughtering animals.

Facing a backlash from Islamic supporters for supporting the law change, the Labor Party has said it wants “to improve the legislation in certain areas.”

The party has not revealed what changes it wants, but said it still supports the legislation’s key goal , making it obligatory to stun animals before they are slaughtered. As in most western countries, Dutch law dictates that butchers must stun livestock , render it unconscious , before it can be slaughtered, to minimize the animals’ pain and fear. But an exception is made for meat that must be prepared under ancient Jewish and Muslim dietar y laws and practices. These demand that animals be slaughtered while still awake, by swiftly cutting the main arteries of their necks with razorsharp knives.

Lawmakers were to debate the bill yesterday night and were expected to vote on it Thursday or early next week.

The Labor Party’s spokesman on the issue, Martijn van Dam, could not be reached for comment ahead of the debate. The Party for the Animals, the first animal rights party elected to parliament anywhere in the world, proposed the ban on kosher and halal slaughter methods, saying they inflict unacceptable suffering on animals. Labor is not part of the governing coalition of the free-market Liberal Party and Christian Democrats, but its support is necessary

for the legislation to gain a majority in Parliament.

However, Labor has been wrestling with how to balance its commitment to animal welfare with its long-standing support for religious freedoms. Many of its members have criticized the decision to support the ban. Religious-based parties including the Christian Democrats have refused to support the bill, fearing it will undermine the country’s reputation as a bastion of religious tolerance.

Jewish and Muslim groups tried to persuade lawmakers earlier this month that the ban would constitute a fundamental attack on the freedom to practice their faiths. “If pre-stunning were made compulsor y under Dutch law, Jews would be unable to practice a central element of Jewish life which has been continuously practiced for over 3,000 years,” Britain’s Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, told a parliamentary committee.

Around 1 million Muslims and 40,00050,000 Jews live in the Netherlands, a nation of 16 million. Many of the country’s Muslims are Labor voters. Muslim representatives have said that if halal slaughter is banned by Dutch authorities Muslims will be forced to buy their meat from neighboring countries such as Belgium and Germany.

If the Netherlands outlaws procedures that make meat kosher for Jews or halal for Muslims, it will be the first country outside New Zealand to do so in recent years. It will join the Scandinavian, Baltic countries and Switzerland, whose bans are mostly traceable to pre-World War II anti-Semitism.—AP

BELFAST: Debris litters a street following an overnight riot in East Belfast, Northern Ireland, yesterday.—AP

Photographer shot in 2nd night of Belfast violence BELFAST: A photographer was shot in the leg and police were pelted with petrol bombs in a second night of riots in Belfast, police said yesterday, in some of the worst sectarian clashes in Northern Ireland for years. Police used water cannon as up to 400 people gathered late Tuesday near a Catholic enclave in mainly Protestant east Belfast, a flashpoint during the civil strife which plagued the province from the late 1960s to late 1990s.

Several gunshots were fired just before midnight, police and witnesses said, and a photographer working for Britain’s Press Association news agency was hit in his lower right leg. He was taken to hospital but was in a stable condition. Police blamed pro-British paramilitaries the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) for starting the riots but said the shots were fired by dissident republicans, who oppose the peace process and want the province to be part of Ireland.

“The UVF in East Belfast started this-

there was no sense of anyone trying to finish that (to calm things),” said Assistant Chief Constable Alistair Finlay. “Their hands are upon this, whether by direction, by omission or commission.” Like most paramilitary groups, the UVF decommissioned its weapons and declared a ceasefire following the 1998 peace accords which largely ended the bombings and shootings in the Britishruled province.

But it was blamed for a brutal murder last year when a Protestant man was shot dead in front of shoppers in Belfast in an apparent execution-style killing prompted by an internal feud. An AFP photographer covering the riots Tuesday saw a hand holding a gun emerge over a brick wall and then heard about four or five shots ring out. He shouted a warning but then he saw the Press Association photographer had been hit.

He said the shots appeared to come at random from the Catholic enclave of Short Strand. — AFP

COPENHAGEN: A Danish appeals court yesterday sentenced a Somali man to 10 years in prison for breaking into the home of a cartoonist who caricatured the Prophet Muhammad.

The Western High Court in Aarhus added an extra year to a nine-year sentence given by a lower court to Muhideen Mohammed Geelle in February.

He was sentenced a day after the court found him guilty of a terror attempt. The 30-year-old Geelle entered Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard’s home on New Year’s Day 2010 armed with an ax.

Westergaard locked himself inside a panic room and was unharmed. Police arrived and apprehended Geelle after shooting him in the leg. “This is a question of a terror-related murder attempt,” prosecutor Kirsten Dyrman said. “It is a very serious sentence for a very serious crime.” The prosecutors, however, did not link Geelle to any terrorist group.

The Western High Court said Geelle will be deported from Denmark after serving his term.

“Both I and my client are surprised that (the sentence) has been increased,” defense lawyer Niels Christian Strauss said. Strauss said he would seek to appeal the ruling to Denmark’s top court. Geelle had said he did not aim to kill Westergaard but wanted to scare him.

The appeals court also found Geelle guilty of assaulting a policeman after the officers confronted him on arrival at Westergaard’s home in Aarhus, northwestern Denmark. Danish authorities say they have foiled several terror plots linked to the 2005 newspaper cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that triggered protests in Muslim countries.

Last month, Chechen-born Lors Doukayev was sentenced to 12 years in prison for preparing a letter bomb that exploded in a Copenhagen hotel in 2010.

Doukayev, a 25-year-old citizen and resident of Belgium, was wounded when assembling the device which is believed to have been intended for the Jyllands-Posten newspaper that published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. — AP

A

y

e niv rsar n

THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011

Years

I N T E R N AT I O N A L

Afghanistan its army ready for US drawdown KABUL: Afghanistan’s NATO-trained military is ready to take responsibility for fighting Taleban insurgents and securing key parts of the country that will be the first to transition as the US begins a troop drawdown in July, the Defense Ministry said yesterday.

Many Afghans are eager to see an American departure nearly 10 years after US forces invaded to oust AlQaeda’s Taleban hosts from power, and President Barack Obama is expected to announce plans later yesterday to bring roughly 10,000 American troops home in less than a year. But the drawdown, before a full pullout by 2014, carries enormous risks for a US allied government still beset by attacks from Taleban and other insurgents. “There will be some battles, there will be suicide attacks, and bomb attacks,” said Defense Ministry spokesman Gen Mohammad Zahir Azimi said of the coming transition period. “But we in the Afghan forces are prepared to replace the foreign forces and I’m confident the army has enough capacity and ability.” About

100,000 US troops are in the country, three times as many as when Obama took office.

In a prime-time address from the White House, Obama is likely to outline a phased withdrawal that will bring 5,000 troops home this summer and an additional 5,000 by winter or spring 2012, according to a senior US defense official The Afghan army will take over responsibility for securing five provincial capitals and two provinces by July 20. Azimi said Afghan officials were confident about the transition and noted that the Taleban has been weakened and driven from bases in Kandahar, the southern city where it was born in the early 1990s, and along Afghanistan’s eastern border with Pakistan.

The countr y ’s army will have 171,600 troops by October and an arsenal of NATO weapons, Azimi said.

The Taleban, however, remains a formidable enemy. It began its yearly spring offensive at the end of April.

The month that followed was the deadliest for Afghan civilians since the

United Nations started tracking deaths in 2007, according to a report released earlier this month. Insurgents were to blame for the vast majority of the 368 civilians killed in May, the report said.

As they try to undermine confidence in the Afghan government, the insurgents have stepped up suicide attacks and bombings that are more likely to affect civilians. Afghanistan also faces economic challenges. Poverty and illiteracy are widespread and international aid efforts must overcome corruption as well as the security risks involved in trying to carry out development projects in a country still at war. Afghan security forces have grown rapidly. NATO officials say the armed force will allow foreign militaries to remove most of their troops and rely upon Afghans to protect the government and defeat the Taleban.

Many American officials acknowledge that the Taleban could continue to be a problem for the Afghan government well after 2014, Obama’s promised deadline for the withdrawal of all combat troops. The provincial capitals

identified for transition are Lashkar Gah in Helmand province, plus capitals from provinces in the west, east and north and most of Kabul, the nation’s capital. The largely peaceful northern provinces of Bamyan and Panjshir will also start to transition to Afghan control. Azimi also delivered a stern warning to neighboring Pakistan, demanding it put a stop to a four-day spate of cross-border shelling into the eastern province of Kunar, presumably targeting Taleban fighters involved in attacks in Pakistan. Azimi said 150 mortar shells have been fired into the Sakawai district, but he did not offer precise numbers of casualties.

The Afghan government is trying to find a diplomatic solution for the cross-border violence, Azimi said.

Fighting also continued yesterday in southern Afghanistan, where an insurgent attack killed an international coalition service member. NATO released no other details. Insurgents raided a checkpoint in the Qarabag district of Ghazni province in south Afghanistan, setting off a gunbattle

that killed six Afghan policemen, said Sayed Amir Shah, provincial director of intelligence. And NATO said a combined US and Afghan force killed eight insurgents in Nawzad district in the southern province of Helmand on Monday night. The troops fired in selfdefense, a NATO statement said. “The target is a senior Taleban leader who has recently been appointed the Taleban deputy governor of Nawzad district and has direct communication with Taleban provincial leadership,” NATO said.

Accounts of how many people were killed varied. A statement from the office of Helmand Governor Gulab Mangal said the joint force conducted the Nawzad raid while armed Taleban militants were attending the funeral of two fellow insurgents. A Taleban commander named Mullah Noor Mohammad and four other insurgents were killed in the raid, according to the provincial governor’s office. Two Nawzad residents who say they witnessed the raid said as many as two dozen people were killed.—AP

Eight Afghanistan police killed in checkpoint attack Thought to be inside job

PESHAWAR: Pakistani police officers display arms and ammunition they allegedly recovered from militants, in Peshawar, Pakistan yesterday.—AP

Pakistan army asks four officers about extremist ties ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan army is questioning four more officers about suspected links with a banned extremist group that has called for the military to oust the countr y ’s government, the army spokesman said yesterday. A day earlier, the army said it detained a senior officer working at army headquarters, Brig. Ali Khan, for suspected links with the group, Hizb-ut-Tahrir. The four army majors who are being questioned have not been detained, said army spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas.

Western officials have long suspected some Pakistani military officials of having ties to Islamist militant groups, especially Al-Qaeda and the Taleban. Those fears spiked after American forces discovered and killed Osama bin Laden in an army town not far from Islamabad , although the US has found no evidence senior Pakistani officials knew his location.

The Pakistan military has repeatedly denied that it supports extremist groups, and investigations into suspected militant sympathizers are usually conducted in secret. The army’s decision to acknowledge it is investigating officers over links to Hizb-ut-Tahrir could be an attempt to counter Western suspicions that it tolerates bad actors within its ranks. The family of the brigadier who was arrested has denied he has any ties with extremist groups and has demanded he be released. A brigadier is the equivalent of a one-star general. The army did not reveal the names of the four majors who are being questioned.

Hizb-ut-Tahrir’s spokesman in Pakistan

could not be reached for comment. Hizbut-Tahrir is an Islamist organization that wants to re-establish the caliphate, the administrative structure that once governed a large section of the Muslim world. It insists it has rejected violence, although observers say the group promotes an intolerant mindset that can ultimately lead some followers to embrace militancy. Although it is banned in some countries, including Pakistan and parts of Central Asia, the group is active in Western countries such as the United States, where it finds protection under free speech and association laws. Analysts say the Pakistani army is better than the country’s police at rooting out extremists, but current and former military officers have participated in attacks in recent years.

Faisal Shahzad, the PakistaniAmerican who tried to bomb New York City’s Times Square last year, allegedly was in contact with a major in the Pakistani military. In 2009, Pakistani army headquarters in Rawalpindi was attacked by 10 men in military uniforms reportedly led by a former army soldier.

And the 2008 attacks in Mumbai, India, are alleged to have been carried out with the guidance of a Pakistani spy known only as “Major Iqbal.” One constant fear is that extremists in the military could somehow infiltrate Pakistan’s nuclear program to steal materials for a terrorist weapon, but that program is governed by a multilayered security system that involves scrutiny of individuals’ backgrounds and beliefs.—AP

Bangladesh ‘lifts 13 million from poverty’ DHAKA: Bangladesh lifted 13 million people out of poverty in the five years to 2010, pushing the poverty rate in the South Asian country down to 31.5 percent, the government said yesterday. A nationwide survey, sponsored by the World Bank, found some 46.8 million people were classified as “poor” at the end of 2010, down from more than 60 million in 2005, said senior Planning Ministry official Shamsul Alam.

“It’s one of fastest paces of poverty decline in the country’s history and has been driven by a boom in remittances, welfare spending, exports and the huge growth of non-farm sectors in the rural areas,” he told AFP. “This is an impressive achievement by any standard,” said Sanjay Kathuria, World Bank Country Office acting head.

In the survey, “poor” was classified as someone unable to buy food that provides 2,122 kilocalories of nutrition per day. Remittances shot up to $11 billion in 2010 from $4.8 billion in 2005 while

exports nearly doubled in the same period, Alam said, adding the government had boosted social welfare spending by 53 percent to $2.5 billion.

“Remittances played the single biggest role because most money sent by our millions of migrant workers went to poor villages. Garment factories, the mainstay of exports, also created jobs for three million poor girls,” he said.

According to the survey, rural poverty declined to 35.2 percent in 2010 from 43.8 percent in 2005, while urban poverty fell to 21.3 percent from 28.4 percent in the same period.

Rural areas are home to some 70 percent of Bangladesh’s 150 million population. According to official statistics, some 60 percent of Bangladeshis lived below the poverty line in 1990. Impressive economic growth-averaging five percent annually through the 1990s and six percent in the 2000s-saw the number drop to 49 percent in 2000 and 40 percent in 2005.— AFP

GHAZNI: Eight Afghan police were killed yesterday when Taleban attacked their checkpoint in a brazen assault likely to raise fresh security questions as the United States prepares a troop drawdown. The attack in Ghazni province’s Qarabagh district, about 120 kilometers southwest of Kabul, is thought to have been an inside job in which insurgents worked with a policeman at the checkpoint to strike.

“The attack started at around 7:00 am and six police officers were killed during a gunfight with the attackers,” Sayed Amir Shah, the head of Afghanistan’s intelligence agency in Ghazni province, told AFP. He later said the toll had risen to eight and the fighting had stopped.

Mohammad Ali Ahmadi, the deputy provincial governor of Ghazni, confirmed the number of dead. He added: “Probably one of the police officers at the checkpoint had a previous deal with the insurgents and cooperated with and facilitated the assault.”

The Taleban claimed responsibility for the attack in a text message sent to AFP. Earlier this month, three police were killed in a similar insurgent strike on their checkpoint in the same district.

The assault came just hours before President Barack Obama is to use a prime time speech to order a US troop drawdown from Afghanistan, which one official said would likely see 10,000 soldiers back in the United States this year.

Obama will stick with his vow to begin pulling out US forces after an 18-month troop surge,

GHAZNI: The lifeless body of a police officer is carried from an ambulance at the hospital in Ghazni, west of Kabul, Afghanistan yesterday. A local Afghan government official says insurgents killed 8 police officers in an attack in central Afghanistan. —AP but apparently heed Pentagon would remain through two more under the NATO-led International warnings that an overly swift Afghan summer fighting seasons. Security Assistance Force (ISAF) It would still leave more including some 90,000 from the withdrawal could imperil hardAmerican troops in Afghanistan United States. won gains against the Taleban .

All foreign combat troops are A senior defense official said than when Obama was elected to on condition of anonymity that office in November 2008. But war due to leave Afghanistan by the the president would “likely” order sceptics argue that after the end of 2014, with a limited withthe return of about 5,000 troops deaths of more than 1,600 US drawal expected to begin next this summer and 5,000 more by service personnel and at a cost of month. The transition process the end of the year. Another nearly $10 billion a month, the will hand increasing responsibili20,000 troops, part of a 30,000- American commitment is unsus- ty for security to the Afghan strong surge ordered in tainable at its present size of police and army despite quesDecember 2009, would be with- 90,000 US troops. There are cur- tions from some experts over drawn by the end of next year, rently around 130,000 interna- whether they are ready to step meaning elevated force levels tional troops in Afghanistan into the breach.—AFP

Pakistani support for military action against militants drops ISLAMABAD: Domestic support for the Pakistani military’s campaign against Islamist militant groups has waned in recent years, a poll by a US group has found, showing deep-rooted opposition among the Pakistani public to the United States. The findings of two Pew Research Center surveys will be disappointing for the United States, which wants its ally to deal forcefully with militants, particularly those fighting US -led foreign forces across the border in Afghanistan who take refuge in northwestern Pakistani border enclaves.

The survey of 3,221 Pakistanis found that just 37 percent of them supported using the army to fight militants, which was 16 percent lower than two years ago, according to Pew. The surveys also showed that most Pakistanis — 63 percent disapproved of the secret US raid in May that killed Osama bin Laden, with 55 percent describing it as a “bad thing”.

It was not clear if the respondents disapproved of the killing of the Al-Qaeda leader, who has not been popular in the country in recent years, or the secret US raid which many people saw as a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty. Only 12 percent of respondents had a positive view of the United States and only 8 percent had confidence in President Barack Obama “to do the right thing in world affairs”, Pew said.

“Most Pakistanis see the United States as an enemy, consider it a potential military threat and oppose American-led anti-terrorism efforts,” Pew said.

The overwhelming rejection of US goals and efforts in the region puts Pakistan’s USallied government and military in a difficult position in trying to please its people while working with the United States. Although

Pakistan said the death of bin Laden was a positive step in the battle against militancy, his killing by US Navy SEALs in his Pakistani hideout seriously damaged already strained ties between the uneasy allies.

After the raid, the Pakistan army cut back the number of US troops stationed in the country and ended their role in training Pakistani soldiers involved in fighting militants. The Pakistan military also faced rare criticism at home for its failure to discover that the Al-Qaeda chief had been living in the country, apparently undetected, for years.

But Pew said despite criticism after the bin Laden raid, the military remained “overwhelmingly popular”, with 79 percent of respondents saying it had a good influence on the country. The ratings for military chief General Ashfaq Kayani saw a slight decrease after the bin Laden raid with 52 percent of people favorable and 21 percent unfavorable.

Previously, Kayani was viewed positively by 57 percent, with 18 percent seeing him in a negative light. Militants have stepped up attacks in recent weeks to avenge bin Laden’s killing. Pew said 55 percent of people surveyed were “very or somewhat worried” that the militants might take over Pakistan, though that fear was down from 69 percent two years ago. Still, 63 percent considered Islamic extremism a problem although that was a decline from two years ago, when 79 percent said they were worried. Views of Al-Qaeda and the Pakistani Taleban as threats have fluctuated over the years. In 2009, 61 percent of Pakistanis viewed Al-Qaeda as a threat, dropping to 38 percent in 2010 and rising to 49 percent after bin Laden’s death. —Reuters

India to charge Somali pirates and their hostages AHMEDABAD: Indian police said yesterday they would charge 14 suspected Somali pirates and their three hostages who drifted to within kilometers (miles) of the country’s west coast in a fishing boat. A senior police official said that investigators believed three Yemeni men found on the trawler were hostages of the alleged pirates, who are believed to have hijacked the vessel two weeks ago off the coast of Somalia.

The Yemenis told police the boat had been adrift in the Indian Ocean after running out of fuel and had been carried to the Indian coast by the tide. All 17 men were detained in the coastal district of Junagarh in Gujarat state, some 300 kilometers (186 miles) southwest from the main regional city of Ahmedabad.

“After interrogation we have ascertained that the Somali nationals are pirates who had kidnapped the three Yemenis,” Junagarh police chief Depankar Trivedi told AFP by telephone. He said police would press charges against the Somalis and their captives for entering India without valid travel documents.

The official said the Somalis were only charged with trespassing because the hijacking occurred beyond India’s jurisdiction in international waters. “We are charging them only for the violation of Indian laws,” he said, adding the three Yemenis did not possess travel documents and so were also in breach of India’s Passport Act. Trivedi said a marine police team detained the men on Sunday after local fishermen reported the presence of the Yemen-flagged vessel only a couple of kilometers (miles) off the coast of Gujarat. India’s coastguard and navy are on high alert against pirates seeking to evade the international force patrolling waters off Somalia by attacking shipping much further east in the Indian Ocean. More than 100 pirates have been caught and are awaiting trial in India following a series of violent skirmishes near the country’s Lakshadweep islands since the start of this year. India, which does not have a specific anti-piracylaw, is planning to frame legislation to deal with the scourge.— AFP

y

A

12

e niv rsar n

Years

THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011

international

Japan govt extends session amid turmoil Threatofparalysis looms TOKYO: Japan’s centre-left government yesterday pushed through an extension of the parliamentary session, but the threat of paralysis loomed amid bitter debate on when Prime Minister Naoto Kan will resign. Kan pledged this month to step down soon, but he has also demanded that bills on reconstruction from the March 11 quake, tsunami and nuclear disaster are passed first, along with legislation to promote renewable energy sources.

The main conservative opposition Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), however, has threatened to block all key bills until Kan

asked the premier to step down to avoid political gridlock in the world’s third-largest economy, already burdened with sluggish

almost unbroken rule-has accused Kan of bungling the recovery effort and rejected offers of a grand coalition government.

TOKYO: Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan, right, Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda, second right and Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano, third right, clap hands during a Lower House plenary session in the Parliament in Tokyo, Japan yesterday.—AP resigns-setting the stage for a tense standoff and more political turmoil in coming weeks. Senior members of Kan’s Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) have also

growth and a public debt mountain.

The LDP-which was ousted in a landslide election in 2009 after more than half a century of

Amid the political skirmishing, which has dismayed voters in the disaster-hit nation, the DPJ-dominated lower house voted yesterday to extend by 70 days its cur-

rent session, which had been due to end that day.

The DPJ and its coalition partners plan to use to the time to pass another bill on rebuilding the disaster areas, as well as a bill to issue bonds for the current fiscal year to help pay for the recovery efforts. Kan-who started his political life as an environmental campaigner-also wants to pass a bill to promote renewable energy, having pushed for a rethink on atomic power since the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant disaster. The turmoil escalated on June 2, when Kan defeated an opposition no-confidence motion, initially backed by DPJ rebels, by pledging to step down once the recovery takes hold, but without giving a firm date.

The move helped Kan, Japan’s fifth premier in as many years, to stay in power for now, but set off feverish speculation on when he would step down. Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda has emerged as a frontrunner to take his post. The turmoil has slowed debate on key measures the government must take in coping with the aftermath of the March disaster and efforts to ease its ballooning debt at around 200 percent of GDP. The government on Monday failed to win approval from the ruling coalition for its tax and social security overhaul plan, which called for raising consumption tax to 10 percent in stages by March 2016, amid concerns for the fragile economy. —AFP

SHANGHAI: A couple walk past an advertisement to celebrate the upcoming 90th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China on July 1, in Shanghai, China yesterday.—AP

China warns US to keep out of South China Sea dispute BEIJING: China urged the United States yesterday to restrain other countries from provoking Beijing in disputes over contested territories in the South China Sea, warning that Washington risks becoming embroiled in an unwanted conflict.

Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai said it would be best if the United States stayed out of the long-standing disputes, but acknowledged that Washington has an interest in freedom of navigation in sea lanes that are vital to trade.

“If the United States does want to play a role, it may counsel restraint to those countries that have frequently been taking provocative action and ask them to be more responsible in their behavior,” Cui said at a briefing. “I believe that individual countries are actually playing with fire, and I hope that fire will not be drawn to the United States.” Decades of recurring tensions over rival claims to islands, shoals and reefs in the South China Sea have flared in recent weeks. Vietnam and the Philippines have cited Chinese incursions and provocations in the areas they claim and Beijing has responded by accusing the others of provocative acts.

Cui accused unspecified “other countries” of occupying territory, drilling for oil and gas and endangering fishermen in the South China Sea. But he later suggested he was referring to one country in particular and then said China wanted to avoid conflict with Vietnam. “China has no intention to get into military conflict with any country, Vietnam included,” he said. With centuries of enmity with China, Vietnam has encouraged the United States to take a more active role in the dispute. Washington has carefully tried not to pick sides in the territorial claims, which also involve Taiwan, Brunei and Malaysia.

But over the past year, shared concerns about a more assertive, powerful Beijing have lent new momentum to Washington’s ties with Vietnam. Cui tread a careful line in his remarks, laying down markers Beijing does not want Washington to cross but recognizing US interests in the region. He spoke ahead of consultations with US Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell on Saturday in Hawaii on issues in the Asia-Pacific region. —AP

Blunders damage N Korea’s next leader SEOUL: A series of policy blunders in North Korea has dealt a blow to leader-in-waiting Kim Jong-Un, South Korea’s spy chief was quoted as saying yesterday. Speaking at a closeddoor parliamentary session, director Won Sei-Hoon of the National Intelligence Service also said Jong-Un was resorting to military adventurism to rally support.

“Kim Jong-Un’s leadership has been undermined as he failed in the currency reform and the Nor th managed to build only 500 new homes,

KUALA LUMPUR: In this photo taken on June 18, 2011, laborers work on a construction site in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Malaysia’s government said yesterday it plans to gather the fingerprints of hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants next month under its largest-ever amnesty program.—AP

Malaysia to fingerprint foreigners in amnesty plan KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s government said yesterday it plans to gather the fingerprints of hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants next month under its largest-ever amnesty program, which will enable many of them to work there legally.

Authorities estimate at least 2 million foreigners work in Malaysia illegally, mostly from neighboring Indonesia.

Deput y Prime M inister Muhyiddin Yassin said the nationwide exercise star ting July 11 will be M alaysia’s biggest effort to manage its growing population of foreign workers. It will last at least two weeks but could be extended up to a month depending on its success, officials said. The fingerprints will be used to create a biometrics database that will enable the government to monitor its foreign worker population and combat problems such as fake identity documents, he said.

“This will be one of our biggest exercises ever. It won’t be easy but we will manage,” Muhyiddin told reporters. He said no action will be taken against illegal immigrants: “We want to encourage them to come out.” Malaysia has become a magnet for people from impoverished or war-torn places looking for work or seeking a transit point to enter other nations, such as Australia. Most of the illegal workers have menial jobs in palm oil plantations, factories, construction sites and restaurants.

Home M inister

H ishammuddin Hussein said the amnesty was a practical approach to fill up labor shortages in Malaysia and protect illegal immigrants against human traffickers and unscrupulous employers.

“What we are up in arms against are those who abuse them ... those who treat them as modern-day slaves. That’s what we are combating,” he said. Legal foreign workers make up 2 million of the country’s work force of 12 million.

Malaysia wants to cut dependence on foreign labor but has been unable to fill tens of thousands of low-paying menial jobs shunned by locals in this relatively wealthy Southeast Asian nation. Job opportunities have lured many illegal immigrants from poorer countries in the region, including Indonesia, Bangladesh and Myanmar.

Muhyiddin said the amnesty would offer employers their last chance to register illegal foreign workers without any penalty. After the registration period ends, he said the government would see how illegal immigrants who are registered but have no jobs could be absorbed into the work force.

Officials said those who cannot find jobs have an option to return to their home countries without any punishment. The government will later launch a crackdown to sweep up any remaining illegal immigrants, Muhyiddin added. Foreigners who enter Malaysia illegally could be jailed up to five years and caned.—AP

though it planned to build 100,000,” ruling party lawmaker Hwang Jin-Ha quoted Won as saying. Current leader Kim Jong-Il, who suffered a stroke in 2008, has been grooming his youngest son Jong-Un as eventual successor in an attempt to extend the family dynasty into a third generation.

But a bungled currenc y revaluation in 2009 reportedly fuelled food shor tages and sparked unrest in the isolated communist state. The move, widely seen as another attempt to crack down on the

burgeoning free-market economy, backfired disastrously. It sparked massive inflation and worsened food shor tages, according to numerous reports.

Seoul officials say the North has also drastically had to cut back its goal of building 100,000 houses by next year, the centennial of the birth of late founder Kim Il-Sung. The project was planned for completion in April next year but Seoul officials said only 500 homes had been completed so far due to a lack of funds and

building materials. “Kim JongUn is resor ting to militar y adventurism such as the shelling of Yeonpyeong island in order to rally support for him,” Hwang quoted Won as saying.

Nor th Korea shelled the island near the disputed sea border last November, killing four including two civilians. It said it was responding to a fire drill by South Korean troops on the island. Kim Jong-Il took over as leader after his own father Kim Il-Sung died of a heart attack in 1994. —AFP

US obliged to defend Filipinos in Spratlys MANILA: US forces are obliged to help defend Filipino troops, ships or aircraft under a 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty if they come under attack in the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, Philippine officials said, citing past American assurances. The potentially oil- and gas-rich Spratly Islands have long been regarded as one of Asia’s possible flash points for conflict. China, the Philippines and Vietnam have been trading barbs and diplomatic protests recently over overlapping territorial claims, reigniting tension.

Complicating the issue is the role the United States could play in resolving the disputes. A Mutual Defense Treaty signed by US and Philippine officials in Aug 30, 1951, calls on each country to help defend the other against an external attack by an aggressor in their territories or in the Pacific region.

Amid renewed tensions in the Spratlys, questions have emerged whether the treaty would apply if ill-equipped Philippine forces come under attack in the islands, all of which are claimed by China. Parts also are claimed by Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam. The Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs said in a policy paper that the treaty requires Washington to help defend Filipino forces if they come under attack in the Spratlys, citing US diplomatic dispatches that defined the Pacific region under the treaty as including the South China Sea. The South China Sea was not specifically mentioned in the pact.

A copy of the policy paper was seen by The Associated Press yesterday. Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario also said in a recent interview that American officials have made clear that Washington would respond in case Filipino forces come under attack in the South China Sea. The US Embassy in Manila declined to discuss details of when the pact would apply.

“As a strategic ally, the United States honors our Mutual Defense Treaty with the Philippines,” said Alan Holst, acting public affairs officer at the embassy. “We will not engage in discussion of hypothetical scenarios.” The defense treaty, which came into force in 1952, defined an attack as an armed assault on “the metropolitan territory of the parties” or their “armed forces, public vessels or aircraft in the Pacific.” While the US has a policy of not interfering in territorial disputes, the Philippine paper said “it may be construed that any attack on our vessels, armed forces or aircraft in the Spratlys would make the treaty applicable and accordingly obligate the US to act to meet the common dangers.” China has urged the United States to stay out of the territorial disputes in the South China Sea, saying they should be resolved through bilateral negotiations. Yesterday, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai warned that Washington risks getting drawn into a conflict should tensions in the region escalate further. Washington views the sea lanes in the area as strategically important. —AP

SYDNEY: A Qantas Boeing 747-400 taxies for take-off as airlines begin to clear the backlog of stranded passengers from Sydney International Airport yesterday.—AFP

Some Australia flights resume, others nixed by ash SYDNEY: Airlines were resuming flights out of some of Australia’s largest airports but canceling service to New Zealand and the island state of Tasmania yesterday as winds shifted the volcanic ash from Chile that has crippled air travel in the region for several days this month.

Many flights across southern Australia were suspended for two days because of the ash, stranding thousands of passengers before winds pushed the cloud southeast. The ash can damage jet engines.

Australian flagship carrier Qantas and rival Virgin Australia resumed early morning flights from the southern city of Adelaide yesterday. Qantas and its budget subsidiary Jetstar have told customers that flights through Melbourne, Australia’s second-largest city, and the national capital, Canberra, will resume by late morning. Virgin was to return to the air by noon.

In Sydney, Australia’s largest city, and neighboring Newcastle, Qantas, Jetstar

and Virgin planned to resume services yesterday afternoon. The three airlines canceled flights to New Zealand and Tasmania, however, because the ash has shifted into those flight paths.

Ash from Chile’s Cordon Caulle volcano grounded hundreds of flights and stranded tens of thousands of passengers last week when it hovered over several Australian cities and New Zealand. All flights were running normally by late last week, but now the ash has lapped the globe and is causing more problems.

Greyhound is running extra bus service in Adelaide, Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney and Brisbane to help move a backlog of stranded passengers, while trains between Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne had added rail cars. Civil Aviation Safety Authority spokesman Peter Gibson said it was possible all flight schedules would return to normal on Thursday. Chile said Sunday that the Cordon Caulle volcano, which began erupting June 4, was becoming less active. —AP

A

y

e niv rsar n

THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011

Years

ne ws

FAW PENINSULA: Iraqi fishermen prepare their nets in the port of Iraq’s southernmost Faw peninsula on the border with Iran. — AFP

Cracks emerge in Libya campaign Continued from Page 1 reflected Italian anxiety for some time over the NATO operation. “The coalition was in complete accord two weeks ago at the contact group meeting in Abu Dhabi: We have to intensify the pressure on Gaddafi. Any pause in operations would risk allowing him to gain time and reorganize himself,” Valero told reporters.

In Rome, a foreign ministry spokesmen played down Frattini’s comments, saying this was not an Italian proposal and that it had been discussed among others at a Cairo meeting on June 18 of European Union, UN, African and Arab officials. “There is no specific Italian proposal on this. What Minister Frattini said in parliament this morning is that Italy is interested in looking at all ideas which could relieve civilian suffering,” the spokesman said.

He said the ceasefire, an idea the United Nations has been pushing without success for some time, could apply to rebel-held Misrata and the Western Mountains region. At the same time, the African Union chief said in Addis Ababa that the West would eventually have to accept an AU ceasefire plan, saying the air bombardments were not working. “(The bombing campaign) was something which they thought would take 15 days,” Jean Ping, chairman of the AU Commission, told Reuters. “The stalemate is already there. There is no other way (than the AU plan). They will (endorse it).”

The Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), a Saudi-based grouping of 57 Muslim countries, also said it had sent a delegation that arrived in Libya yesterday to mediate. It would meet the rebels in Benghazi and Gaddafi officials in Tripoli, a statement said, but gave no more details.

The debate over a ceasefire comes as Libya’s rebels, who have made steady progress winning support abroad and isolating Gaddafi on the international stage, secured Beijing’s recognition as a “dialogue partner”.

“China sees you as an important dialogue partner,” Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi told Mahmoud Jibril, diplomatic chief of the Benghazi-based rebel National Transitional Council in Beijing. The comments were published in a statement on the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s website (www.mfa.gov.cn). “(The Council’s) representation has been growing stronger daily since its establishment, and it has stepby-step become an important domestic political force,” Yang said, adding that China was worried about the Libyan people’s suffering. Winning international recognition could eventually help the rebels to secure access to frozen Libyan funds, and the right to spend money earned by exporting oil. China is the only veto-wielding permanent member of the UN Security Council that has yet to call for Gaddafi to step down, after Russia joined Western countries last month in calling for him to leave power. Beijing, never very close to Gaddafi, hosted Libya’s Foreign Minister Abdelati Obeidi this month.

Courting the rebels has marked a policy adjustment for China, which generally avoids entangling itself in other nations’ domestic affairs. NATO and the rebels are hoping that Gaddafi’s diplomatic and economic isolation will eventually bring his government down.

Gaddafi’s forces were able to shell the rebel stronghold of Misrata on Tuesday, landing rockets in the centre of the town for the first time in several weeks. No one was reported hurt by that strike, but it undermined a relative sense of security among residents who believed that a siege on the city had been broken last month. More rockets fell later in the sparsely-populated El-Araidat neighborhood near the port. Residents said no one was hurt and a Reuters’ reporter saw only several dead sheep lying in a field after the attack.

“Everyone is worried. We don’t know where to go anymore. Only when I die will I be safe,” said Mohammed Mabrouk, who lives near one of two houses hit by the first rocket rounds in Misrata. Two more landed in open areas. At least three explosions were heard in Tripoli yesterday morning and again in the afternoon but it was not clear where or what caused them.

In a sign of the increasing impact of the crisis on daily life, Gaddafi’s state media issued instructions that ordinary people should follow “to deal with the fuel shortage”. They called on people to use public transport instead of cars, avoid using air conditioning when driving and stick to 90-100 kph as the ideal speed. They also asked Libyans to be patient when queuing at petrol stations. Exports of oil have ceased, depriving Gaddafi’s government of the funds it used during peacetime to provide the population with heavily subsidized food and fuel. Petrol queues in Gaddafi -held areas now stretch for miles.

Rebels have been trying to advance west toward the town of Zlitan, where Gaddafi’s soldiers are imposing a tight siege. Libyan television said yesterday that “dozens” of people were killed in Zlitan after NATO ships shelled the town. The report could not be independently verified because foreign reporters have been prevented from entering Zlitan. NATO normally comments on its Libya operations the following day. If the Libyan television report is confirmed, it could further complicate the mission of the NATO-led military alliance, whose credibility has been questioned after it admitted on Sunday killing civilians in a Tripoli air strike.

Gaddafi’s government says more than 700 civilians have died in NATO strikes. However, it has not shown evidence of such large numbers of civilian casualties, and NATO denies them. A rebel spokesman called Mohammed told Reuters from Zlitan that NATO had been hitting government military targets in the town on an almost daily basis. He said Gaddafi’s soldiers used artillery positions in Zlitan to fire salvoes toward Misrata. “We hear the sound of artillery fire every night,” he said. — Reuters

Faw fishermen trapped

by Iran, Kuwait dispute FAW: Like the fish they net, fishermen in Iraq’s southernmost Faw peninsula find themselves trapped by their country’s unresolved maritime disputes with neighboring Iran and Kuwait. Fishermen complain that these boundary frictions are eroding an age-old way of life, as well as their livelihoods. Muhammad Hussein, 50, remembers a time when the narrow Faw peninsula, where the mighty Tigris and Euphrates rivers empty into the Gulf, used to provide plentiful fishing and a comfortable living for hundreds of fishermen like himself.

“We would earn plenty of money from fishing, which used to be one of the best occupations in Faw,” Hussein recalls. “There were more than 600 boats in the village, but now there are less than 400, because about 2,000 people have left fishing and gone to other jobs.” The main reason for the fishermen’s demise, he adds, is the constant friction with Iranian coast guards and Kuwaiti patrols, who ply the Gulf waterway for oil exports.

Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, who was ousted in the 2003 US-led invasion, fought a 1980-88 war with Iran and invaded neighboring Kuwait in 1990 before his forces were pushed out by another US-led coalition. “The Kuwaitis insult and humiliate Iraqi fishermen splashing paint on them or beating them,” Hussein asserts, with their abusive treatment

by Iranians apparently no better: “The Iranian patrols beat us without mercy, and sometimes capture Iraqi fishermen

Kuwait ‘heading into dark tunnel’ Continued from Page 1 The Amir, who has final say in Kuwaiti politics, appoints the prime minister, who has always been from the Al-Sabah family. Sheikh Fahad said Arab leaders should learn from the overthrow of the leaders of Egypt and Tunisia in popular uprisings that modest attempts at reform were not enough. “Now I think that any Arab leader who wants to remain in his position and preserve his country’s future should start changing according to the demands of his people, and not according to what he thinks...the era of guardianship is over now.”

Kuwait, the world’s fourth largest oil exporter, is home to the region’s most outspoken parliament, which has triggered several government reshuffles and resignations, the latest of which was the resignation of a

Continued from Page 1 The political crisis is not going to end with a fresh victory for the prime minister as opposition MPs said that if the motion falls they will file another quiz against the prime minister over allegations of corruption and squandering public funds.

The new grilling will be filed by MPs Mussallam Al-Barrak, Khaled AlTahous and Faisal Al-Muslim and the main issues are expected to be corruption charges in a number of projects, backed with reports by the Audit Bureau. The new grilling is not expected to be debated in the current term as the speaker is likely postpone the debate until the next term which opens late October.

In the meantime, the National Assembly passed the 2011/2012 budgets for a number of government authorities including the Central Bank of Kuwait, the Public Industrial Authority, Zakat House, Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research and the Public Ports Authority. During the debate, a number of MPs exchanged strong language that on one occasion halted the assembly proceedings. The strongest exchange was between MP Khalaf Dumaitheer and Faisal AlMuslim. As Dumaitheer requested to comment on an issue and defend someone, Muslim asked him to name the man when he immediately responded “you shut up” in English.

That made Muslim furious and in

the exchange that followed, the two MPs used foul language like “animal” and “stupid”. Khorafi intervened to stop the clash. MPs Jamaan AlHarbash and Salwa Al-Jassar also traded accusations over appointments through the influence of lawmakers to senior government posts.

That led deputy speaker Abdullah AlRoumi to adjourn the session. MP Barrak meanwhile, yesterday returned the new brand Mercedes car he received from the national assembly last week. Similar cars were given to all other MPs. Barrak said that he returned it because of suspicion of irregularities in the way the cars were purchased. The lawmaker is the head of the assembly’s public funds protection committee.

deputy prime minister, also another senior member of the Al-Sabah family. A rift between several senior members of the ruling family, including the prime minister, is causing political paralysis, according to accounts in several local newspapers.

“This government was not even capable of meeting ten percent of the demands of Kuwaiti people... and their only solution was to blame it on what they called conflicts within the ruling family,” said Sheikh Fahad, who headed the Public Authority for Agricultural Affairs and Fish Resources from 2001 to 2006.

Despite its elected parliament, the Gulf Arab state bans political parties, but tolerates loose political blocs.

Still, Kuwait is considered more progressive than other Gulf States such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Kuwait’s 50-member elect-

ed parliament enjoys the freedom of questioning cabinet members and criticizing their performance, besides routine legislative duties. Sheikh Fahad also lent his support to protesters in Bahrain, who have mostly been cleared from the streets after a fierce crackdown in March, aided by security forces from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Kuwait also sent a minor navy force to the tiny neighbor to protect its waters. Ruled by a Sunni minority, Bahrain’s Shiite majority has long complained of a lack of jobs, representation and access to social services. There have been some small rallies in Bahrain since a state of emergency was lifted on June 1. “I support the demands of the Bahraini people for political and social corrections and for equality among citizens... but I am totally against any outside interference... whether it is Saudi Arabia or Iran,” Sheikh Fahad said. — Reuters

Protests hit Bahrain Continued from Page 1

Embattled PM faces no confidence vote

and keep them imprisoned for months without reason.”

In May last year, Iranian border guards arrested nine Iraqi fishermen who they said were in Iranian waters in the strategic Shatt Al-Arab waterway, with Tehran warning that its forces would not allow “any violation of Iranian territorial waters. Early this year, Iraq and Kuwait agreed on channels of communication to resolve fishing disputes after a January 10 clash between Kuwaiti coastguards and Iraqi fishermen that left one Kuwaiti official dead.

Hussein says that fishing was safe and profitable under Saddam’s regime because fishermen were protected by the Iraqi navy and coast guards, which are still struggling to rebuild after being dismantled following the 2003 US-led invasion. An unresolved boundary dispute over the Shatt Al-Arab was a major reason cited by Saddam for the 198088 war with Iran where the Faw peninsula was a scene of the some of the bloodiest fighting.

Maritime disputes with Kuwait remain similarly unresolved, adding to the remaining bitterness from Iraq’s 1990 invasion that triggered the first Gulf War. “I have been fishing since I was 18 and I have never seen things as bad as they are now,” says 60-year-old Thejil Nabet Flaih. “Myself, I have seen Iranians beating Iraqi fishermen and destroying their equipment, without anyone protecting [the fishermen]. The same happens with the Kuwaitis, who never miss a chance to humiliate us if they see us,” he adds. — AFP

trials at a military-civilian tribunal with military prosecutors have continued. The official Bahrain News Agency said those sentenced to life included prominent Shiite political figures Hassan Mushaima and Abdul Jalil Al-Singace and rights activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja.

Mushaima returned from self-exile in London earlier this year after Bahrain’s leaders promised to wipe away old charges of opposing the state.

Pro-reform activist Ibrahim Sharif - the only Sunni among the suspects - received five years in prison while other sentences ranged from two to 15 years. The sentences can be appealed in the same court within 15 days. Sharif ’s wife, Farida Ghulam, said her husband cried out

“Our people demand freedom” after the sentences were read. Ghulam said Al-Khawaja then shouted: “We will continue our struggle.” His daughter, Zainab, was dragged from court by female guards after she yelled “Allahu akbar,” or “God is great,” Ghulam said.

The sentences could imperil USbacked efforts by Bahrain’s Sunni leaders to open talks next week with Shiite groups, which have demanded an end to the political trials and the withdrawal of a Saudiled regional force helping prop up the Bahrain ruling family. “ We should conduct the dialogue in an open atmosphere, not when people are being arrested,” said Khalil AlMarzooq, who was among the 18 Shiite parliament members who staged a mass resignation to protest the crackdowns earlier this year. The

verdicts could also bring some direct diplomatic fallout.

At least two of those sentenced to life also hold European passports: Al-Khawaja, who is a Danish citizen, and Mohammed Habib Al-Muqdad, who has Swedish citizenship. Hours before the court session, the state news agency announced that the government had sent out 300 invitations to political parties and individuals for the proposed dialogue to begin July 1. The report did not name any of the potential participants. “The dialogue aims at bringing together the various segments of the Bahraini society to present the people’s views and demands for further reform in the country,” the report quoted Parliament Speaker Khalifa bin Ahmed al-Dhahrani as saying. Al-Dhahrani is in charge of the talks.— AP

14

THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011

opinion

THE LEADING INDEPENDENT DAILY IN THE ARABIAN GULF ESTABLISHED 1961

Founder and Publisher

YOUSUF S. ALYAN Editor-in-Chief

ABD AL-RAHMAN ALYAN EDITORIAL : 24833199-24833358-24833432 ADVERTISING : 24835616/7 FAX : 24835620/1 CIRCULATION : 24833199 Extn. 163 ACCOUNTS : 24835619 COMMERCIAL : 24835618 P.O.Box 1301 Safat,13014 Kuwait.

E MAIL :info@kuwaittimes.net Website: www.kuwaittimes.net

Issues

Sudan flexes military might ahead of split

By Alex Dziadosz orth Sudan has sent in the army along the vaguely-defined border area between north and south to stamp its authority there and eke out concessions before the south splits away with most of the nation’s oil. Khartoum sent tanks into the disputed Abyei region on May 21 and two weeks later sent troops to crush southern-aligned fighters in Southern Kordofan, which has the most productive oilfields that will be left in the north after July 9.

The north Sudanese government seems to be betting the south, which voted to split in January, will be reluctant to challenge the north’s mightier army and risk a war that could threaten its goal of recognition from Khartoum as a new African state. But Khartoum’s strategy has already angered Western powers, whose goodwill may prove vital in securing up to $38 billion in debt relief. It also fuels tensions in areas that produce oil, the lifeblood of both the northern and southern economies. “(Northerners) are underdogs from the economic side. They are going to be more affected by the secession than the south.

They want to offset that by being the ‘upper dogs’ on the security side,” said Fouad Hikmat from the International Crisis Group think tank. Asserting military strength along the border could give the north leverage as the two sides hammer out unresolved questions like how to manage the country’s oil proceeds and divide debt. “They are trying to corner the SPLM (the south’s ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement). They are putting the SPLM in a very difficult situation in Abyei, Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile,” said Hikmat. Sudan’s vast area and webs of ethnic and tribal loyalties have defied easy division, leaving flashpoints in border states like Abyei, Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile.

N

DIVIDING A NATION Khartoum’s specific goals differ in each region. In Abyei, with its valuable pasture land and some modest oil production, the north wants concessions, analysts say. The area is claimed by both sides. But a plebiscite on its fate has not happened because of disputes over who should be allowed to vote. In Southern Kordofan, the north wants to crush a wellarmed and seasoned group of fighters, many from the ethnic Nuba group who sided with the SPLM’s military wing in two decades of civil war that ended with the 2005 peace treaty. The north fears a resurgence by the group could threaten a vital oil area.

The 2005 treaty led to the referendum on secession, when Southerners overwhelmingly backed a split. It set the stage for Africa’s largest nation to be divided. But, until now, that had proceeded with far less violence than many had predicted. Even when divided, the two nations will depend on each other.

About 75 percent of Sudan’s total 500,000 bpd of crude output lies in the south. But exports depend on a pipeline that passes through the north. Southern President Salva Kiir, speaking in May when the Abyei conflict flared, said the south would not strike back.

“We thought that as neighbors we would be the best friends. We need them and they need us,” he told a news conference.

But, as the deadline to separation approaches, analysts said Khartoum is determined to show it is the more powerful partner. “Khartoum’s view of the July 9 date for Southern independence is rather different from Juba’s,” Eric Reeves, a researcher at Smith College and activist on Sudan issues, said. “It wishes to settle various issues by military force, to change the facts on the ground as of July 9,” he said. In Southern Kordofan, the north said it would not tolerate an armed group within its boundaries and demanded the Nuba fighters disarm or leave. Juba says it cannot ask the fighters to go south because they are northerners and not part of its army.

The result could be a long guerilla war pitting the north against fighters who are familiar with the area’s hilly terrain. That would disrupt trade and transport with the south and also open up Sudan’s President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir to more international criticism. —Reuters

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.

Foreign worker exodus to spark Malaysian labor crunch

By Razak Ahmad ndonesian plumber Yadi has been plying his trade in Malaysia since 2003, part of a two million-strong migrant labor force that forms the backbone of Kuala Lumpur’s plantations and construction industries. But now, the 30year old wants to go home as wages rise and job opportunities open up in Jakarta, a growing trend among Indonesian workers that analysts say could produce a labor crunch and slower economic growth for Malaysia. “I have heard a lot from friends and relatives about jobs opening up in my home country, and if I can as easily earn just slightly less in a city like Jakarta compared to what I make now, I will go back,” said Yadi, who earns 90 ringgit ($30) a day as a plumber’s assistant.

From minding babies to erecting skyscrapers, Malaysia’s economy has been supported over the last three decades by a foreign workforce drawn mainly from Indonesia, the Philippines, Bangladesh and Nepal as an industrialization drive created a wealth of low-paying jobs shunned by locals. But as more employment opportunities open up in other Asian economies, Malaysia’s appeal as a

I

destination for manual jobs is waning.

This, combined with a six-month government program beginning in July to send home illegal workers, could result in an acute labor shortage. Under the plan announced yesterday, the government will ship home some foreign workers to reduce the number of illegals, although it has yet to determine the number. “If the government gets it wrong on the labor policy, Malaysia will lose competitiveness in these economic sectors,” said Credit Suisse economist Kun Lung Wu. “If you don’t get domestic workers to move into these jobs and create higher value, you lose out on the lower cost production segment. Investors won’t want come to Malaysia and the pace of economic growth will become slower.”

Boosting competitiveness and transforming Malaysia’s economy into a highend manufacturing and services hub is a key plank of Prime Minister Najib Razak’s reform agenda. Najib, who took office two years ago, is betting on a series of structural economic reforms to help Malaysia secure a new niche that can woo back foreign investments which have left for other Asian countries.

Migrant workers, up to two million

strong, account for 21 percent of Malaysia’s workforce. In particular, the palm oil sector, second only to neighboring Indonesia in terms of production, relies heavily on foreign laborers. Eight out of every 10 workers in the plantations sector is a non-Malaysian, according to the Malaysian Employers’ Federation and a drop in foreign worker arrivals could further worsen a labor shortage and lower output growth. As more Malaysian palm oil firms expand in Indonesia to overcome a shortage of land, Indonesians have fewer reasons to seek employment outside their home country. “Malaysia will soon begin to lose foreign workers from Indonesia as the pace of economic growth in Indonesia will allow an increasing number of Indonesians to find jobs in their own country,” said Indonesian embassy spokesman Suryana Satradireja.

Indonesia’s economy is forecast by the government and analysts to expand 6.4 percent in 2011, the third-highest in Asia after China and India. In the construction sector, where two-thirds of the workforce is foreign, a labor crunch could disrupt large government infrastructure projects with a significant multiplier effect, such as a $11.5 billion rail line.

Many Indonesians also work as domestic helpers. One in every 16 residents in the capital Kuala Lumpur hires an Indonesian helper, according to data from the Indonesian embassy. Jakarta banned its citizens from working as maids in Malaysia in 2009 following allegations of abuse, but a deal reached in April will pave the way for hiring to begin again. An Indonesian working as a housemaid in cities like Jakarta can now earn up to 1,000,000 rupiah, equivalent to about $116. That is only slightly less than the salary in Malaysia, without considering other expenses incurred by foreigners, Suryana said.

Analysts say Malaysia can plug any gap in labor needs by sourcing from other countries. But such a solution would only be temporary and efforts must be directed at avoiding the “middle income trap”-under which Malaysia finds itself unable to move beyond its low-end manufacturing niche to become a developed economy. “It is vital that Malaysia overcome its reliance on cheap foreign workers so as to avoid the middle income trap,” said Manu Bhaskaran, chief executive of Centennial Asia Advisors in Singapore, which advises on economics and policy.— Reuters

S Koreans wary over plans to work less, play more

By Simon Martin outh Korea is considering shifting office hours and school holidays to encourage its hard-working citizens to spend more, but the initiative to boost domestic demand has met with a wary response. While exports are booming and growth figures are healthy, analysts agree that the general public doesn’t feel better off-a potential problem ahead of parliamentary and presidential elections next year.

A recent meeting of the cabinet and other top officials suggested some ways to decrease the economy’s dependence on exports by stimulating domestic spending which will help small businesses and lowerincome earners. One idea is to advance the work day for civil servants and other public-sector workers by one hour to 8:00 am to 5:00 pm from the current 9:00 am to 6:00 pm, so they have more time with families andhopefully-spend more.

Also being considered is the break-up of the long school winter holiday to create spring and autumn breaks, and encouraging public-sector workers to take more leaves of absence. Korea’s bitterly cold winters discourage domestic family tourism. Substitute holidays may also be allowed during the week when public holidays fall on weekends. Officials also considered regulating the opening hours of large discount stores to help mom-and-pop outlets and traditional markets. Specific policies will be announced later this month. “Regardless of statistical proof of the (economic) recovery, many people aren’t feeling it,” the Korea JoongAng Daily said Tuesday in an editorial. But it decried the “trivial solutions” put forward.

“If the administration hopes to rekindle frozen demand, it must get rid of the biggest obstacle of all: numerous regulations of service industries,” the paper said. “Only when quality service jobs are created will people feel the trickle-down.” Kim Chang-Bae, of the Korea Economic Research Institute, also had his doubts about the proposals. “The intention and direction to increase domestic consumption are right, but I don’t know whether such policies are going to be effective and practical, or whether they could be realized in the first place,” Kim said.

While large export-oriented corporations are flourishing, he said, the service sector and medium-small enterprises are relatively less successful-and that affected perceptions of the economy. South Koreans as of 2009 worked longer hours than any other member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development-an average 2,232 hours a year or 46.6 hours per week, according to OECD data.

S

But this does not translate into extra productivity, the OECD says. And some officials fear that even if office hours are shifted back one hour, peer pressure will keep public-sector employees at their desks until the same time as previously. Online postings echoed such suspicions. “It just means we will be going to work one hour earlier and leaving at the same time,” wrote Kim Jin-

Economists agree the country should lessen its dependence on export-led growth. The International Monetary Fund last week urged Korea to strengthen its non-tradable sector “in light of increasing exportdependence and the associated vulnerability to external shocks, and rising inequality”. Policymakers say the weekend proposals are not just about boosting the

SEOUL: South Korean office workers cross the street after work in Seoul. South Korea is considering shifting office hours and school holidays to encourage citizens to work less and spend more. — AFP Sung on nate.com, a leading portal. “One way or the other, we will be working overtime,” agreed Lee SeungWoo. Others said they have no extra cash to spend, anyway. “Inflation has been surging lately, so I can’t spend money on anything, let alone leisure. We’ll probably hang out at the park or other free public spaces,” posted Cha Sang-Min.

domestic economy but also about improving citizens’ quality of life. The labor ministry believes shorter hours could improve both lifestyles and productivity. A 40hour work-week introduced in 2004 for big firms will be extended next month to companies with fewer than 20 employees-a move estimated to cover about two million people.— AFP

15

THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011

analysis

NATO counts on Tripoli uprising to break deadlock

By Christian Lowe ATO is trying to lay the groundwork for an armed uprising inside the Libyan capital to oust Muammar Gaddafi because it has lost hope that rebels elsewhere in the country can advance on Tripoli any time soon. The pattern of NATO air strikes on Tripoli indicates that the alliance is trying to reduce Gaddafi’s ability to defend himself at the moment when his opponents in the city, who for the time being are underground, decide to rise up. Geoff Porter, of North Africa Risk Consulting, said NATO’s true objective was now becoming clear.

“The official NATO policy is to protect civilians from Gaddafi’s troops. The unstated goal is to create conditions in Tripoli whereby the local population can achieve ‘military breakout’ and topple Gaddafi,” he said. It is a high-risk strategy, but one the alliance has been forced into because, three months into a military campaign that most of its supporters thought would take only a few weeks, it has no other real options.

Rebels on three fronts outside the capital have been unable to make significant advances, NATO bombing and defections have not caused Gaddafi’s rule to implode and Western powers will not do the one thing that would end the conflict: send in troops. “I think there is ... a realization that the rebels don’t really have a chance of breaking out from the east, making their way to Tripoli,” said Shashank Joshi of the Royal United Services Institute, a London think-tank. “It will rely on some sort of urban uprising within the city itself.” “At some point he (Gaddafi) will run out of the resources necessary to provide internal security in Tripoli itself, and he will be over-stretched, and when that occurs ... I think you will see many armed groups rise up in Tripoli,” said Joshi.

N

STRIKE TARGETS Creating the conditions for this uprising appears to be the logic behind some of the targets in Tripoli that NATO planners have been selecting. Typhoon jets flown by Britain’s air force at the end of May fired weapons to destroy the guard towers along

the walls of Gaddafi’s Bab alAziziyah compound in Tripoli, the British military said. Those guard towers would be used to defend the compound from any attack by resistance fighters. Other attacks fit the same pattern: targeting facilities and institutions Gaddafi is likely to rely on to put down a rebellion in Tripoli. Earlier this month, NATO forces said they attacked Gaddafi’s secret police headquarters in Tripoli, and the headquarters of the domestic intelligence service.

In May, an air strike hit what the British military called a base

there” during the crackdown, said Ashour Shamis, a British-based Libyan opposition activist.

NO OTHER OPTION For Western governments, it is a gamble to count on an underground opposition movement they do not know and cannot see to unseat Gaddafi. The problem is that the weakness of the insurgents outside Tripoli leaves NATO powers with no viable alternative.

The rebel National Transitional Council added to its growing list of diplomatic allies yesterday when resource-hungry China,

every time they push a few hundred meters towards Tripoli.

Insurgents in the Western Mountains region, southwest of Tripoli, have made the biggest advances. They have thrust proGaddafi forces out of a series of towns and are now within 100 km of the capital. To get to Tripoli, though, they would have to come down from their mountain plateaux and fight Gaddafi’s forces in the desert plains. There, his heavy weapons will give him an advantage. Given time, the insurgents would probably break through. But time is a commodity

TRIPOLI: (Left to right) Mohammed and Khaled Hemidi, sons of a veteran comrade of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, carry bodies during the funeral of relatives, including children, who the Libyan regime said were killed in a NATO air strike in Sorman yesterday. — AP for the Executive Protection Forces, which it said provided the bodyguard for Gaddafi’s inner circle. An air strike this week on the town of Surman, 70 km west of Tripoli, may have been planned in the same context. Libyan officials said the attack killed 19 people, including relatives of Khouildi Hamidi, whose daughter is married to one of Gaddafi’s sons.

Hamidi himself survived, but was the likely target. He has been closely involved in efforts to stamp out the revolt against Gaddafi’s rule. “He was very much

possibly eyeing oil deals once the conflict is over, said it saw the council as an “important dialogue partner.” In military terms, the insurgents’ outlook is less rosy. In the eastern third of Libya, where the rebels have their main stronghold, they have been trying for weeks to break through proGaddafi defenses and reach the oil town of Brega.

Fighters in Misrata, 200 km east of Tripoli, have pushed Gaddafi’s forces out of the city but are bogged down in farmland to the west. They take heavy losses

NATO does not have.

With each day the conflict drags on, strains within the alliance over the cost, the civilian casualties and the legality of the operation are increasing. “We are probably getting there (on the military front) but very, very slowly, and probably too slowly for those in NATO who are getting reasonably jittery,” said David Hartwell, Middle East and North Africa analyst with IHS Jane’s, a defense and security consultancy.

“NATO appears, or part of it appears, to be getting cold feet,

or questioning the commitment, and that gives him (Gaddafi) an incentive to stick around and say to himself: ‘I can wait this out’,” he said.

WILL IT WORK? So far, many of NATO’s calculations about what it will take to oust Gaddafi have proved overoptimistic. Will its new strategy of backing a Tripoli uprising prove any different? It is clear that there is an underground opposition movement inside the Libyan capital. Activists have held “flash” protests, chanting anti-Gaddafi slogans for a few minutes, then melting away. They have hung the rebel green, black and red flag from bridges, and at night write anti-Gaddafi graffiti on walls.

Their activities go beyond nonviolent protest. At night, exchanges of gunfire can be heard in parts of the city. Libyan officials say it is celebratory gunfire. Some residents say it is the security forces clashing with insurgents.

The authorities are sufficiently worried about rebels smuggling weapons into Tripoli that they search vehicles at roadblocks at the entrances to the city. At the same time, there are signs that the security forces on which Gaddafi relies to control internal dissent-known to Libyans as the “Katiba”-are being stretched.

Some media reports say that barely-trained students have been given guns and told to man checkpoints in Tripoli because the regular forces have been sent away to the front lines. However, the balance of forces in Tripoli remains on Gaddafi’s side. He still has forces with sufficient numbers, weapons and loyalty to shoot at anyone trying to revolt.

To change that, analysts say, will take a big rebel victory in the east, the defection of an important security unit in Tripoli, or something else which loosens Gaddafi’s grip on power in the city. As with the other approaches NATO has tried to topple Gaddafi, encouraging an uprising in Tripoli will take what the alliance can least afford: time. “I think there is dissent in Tripoli, bubbling, really percolating grievances,” said Joshi at the Royal United Services Institute. “As for whether it (a revolt) is likely I think yes, but not any time soon.”— Reuters

Spain ghost airports: symbols of boom turned bust

By Ciaran Giles he glittering buildings rise up from Spain’s arid central plain. Draw closer and there’s something eerie about Ciudad Real’s Central Airport.

There’s hardly a plane in sight. Nobody’s around. Cars can only be heard faintly in the distance. This is one of Spain’s “ghost airports” - huge projects often funded by taxpayer money that helped drive Spain’s economic boom and now symbolize the wasteful spending that contributed to its spectacular bust. Envisioned three years ago as a satellite airport for congested Madrid, Central boasts one of Europe’s longest runways, yet there’s hardly a skid-mark from the handful of weekly flights it now handles.

Its vast and airy terminal, designed to handle 2.5 million passengers a year, echoes every sound. Spain’s downturn has played its role in Central’s woes, but critics say it was never a viable airport from the beginning. With Spain struggling to emerge from an economic downturn that has saddled it with a euro-zone high unemployment rate of 21 percent, principally due to the collapse of its oversized construction sector, Central stands as a cautionary tale for a Spain adjusting to leaner times. But signs abound that Spain has not fully learned the lessons of its profligate spending. Spain recently announced a high-speed rail link to the sparsely populated northwest region of Galicia, a plan many economists see as an extravagance.

Bridge and highway projects are plowing forward in the face of criticism that Spain just can’t afford them. “We had great hopes for Central, we believed in it, dreamt about it, we thought it was going to be the region’s salvation,” said Ciudad Real taxi driver Enrique Buendia, who can hardly remember the last time he got a run to the airport. “But, when you mix politicians and business it’s bad news.”

Indeed, it’s an unhealthy mix of politics and business that critics blame for white elephants such as the airport in Ciudad Real, a city of 74,000 people. Spain has a history of pouring public money into dodgy projects to fuel the careers of ambitious politicians and local entrepreneurs. The airports and other projects illustrate how regional governments and government-linked savings banks drove themselves into a debt swamp from which it will take years to emerge.

T

Analysts see regional government debt as being one of the main drags on Spain’s bid to slash its deficit from 11.2 percent of GDP in 2009 to within the European Union limit of 3 percent by 2013. Central is busy compared to twoyear-old Huesca airport in northern Spain, whose 30 employees won’t see a commercial flight for some six months.

Its restaurant is busy, but with local people and because it serves good meals.

Then there’s Castellon on the airportabundant eastern coast. Costing some §150 million, it opened in March and hasn’t yet seen a plane. It most likely won’t for a while as the national airport

been growing through construction for the last 10 years and that creates all sorts of bad habits.” Leon, Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero’s hometown, has turned a military airport into a commercial one but it has only a handful of flights a week.

The city of 200,000 inhabitants is already reachable by a modern highway and now is promised a high-speed rail stop as part of the new bullet-train to Galicia. Meanwhile, southern Murcia has just built a second airport, half an hour away from its perfectly good old one.

Now there’s talk of Toledo, an hour away from Ciudad Real, building its own, too.

CIUDAD REAL: A stop sign is seen on leaving the new Central airport terminal, even though there is no traffic or people to be seen normally, in Ciudad Real, Spain. — AP authority ponders whether to grant it a license. Castellon was built on the promise of future theme parks that have yet to materialize, making its future look bleak.

At its entrance there is to be a 24-meter statue to Carlos Fabra, the provincial president of Castellon who commissioned the project, and has been investigated several times for corruption.

“We have substituted our obsession with bricks and house building with an obsession for highways, high speed trains and airports, but it’s the same rubbish,” said Fernando Fernandez, a macroeconomics Professor at IE Business School in Madrid. “It’s like a drug addict trying detox,” he said. “The economy has

Much of the problem stems from Spain’s territorial makeup of 17 semiautonomous regions. “This is a country of fiefdoms, like the Middle Ages, you know ‘I want my airport ... my convention center and my high-speed train,”‘ said Stephen Matlin, managing director of the Matlin Associates investment banking firm in Madrid.

“One or two airports is not the problem. It’s when you take the hundreds of thousands of projects, a billion dollars here, a billion dollars there, pretty soon you’re talking about a lot of money.”

Central, about 235 kilometers south of Madrid, was heavily funded by the regionally-controlled Caja Castilla La

Mancha savings bank that ended up being the first of Spain’s troubled savings banks to be bailed out by Spain’s Central Bank last year. The airport, which cost some 1.1 billion euros, was to have a bullet-train stop to whisk people to Madrid but money and passengers ran dry.

Critics say at that distance from Madrid, the rail link would never have worked anyway. Madrid, meanwhile, resolved its congestion by building a swanky new terminal. Now in receivership, Central’s looking for a buyer. At the cafeteria, a handful of the airport’s 90 employees staff have coffee. A cleaner polishes the floor over and over. Panels flash flights to and from New York, Stockholm and other distant locations, but it’s only because the technicians are checking that they work properly. “The airport was a total rip-off,” said Eva Acosta, 38, a publicity agency employee.

“Ciudad Real is too small for what they built. It was a get-rich-quick scam between the politicians and the business set.” Spain’s two main political parties defend public infrastructure projects and blame each other for the excesses.

Rafael Simancas, the governing Socialist Party’s spokesman for infrastructure, argues that Spain for the last 20 years has dedicated more on infrastructure than most of its wealthy neighbors purely because it was coming from so far behind after the Franco dictatorship that ended in 1978. He said the government has trimmed public work spending by 40 percent because of the crisis but that Spain would continue to put emphasis on infrastructure because it improves competitiveness. Andres Ayala, his counterpart for the conservative opposition Popular Party, tipped to form government after elections next year, says the problem lies with financing, and that with more private investment there would be fewer problems. Both argue that when most of the questionable projects were drawn up nobody could have foreseen the magnitude of the crisis to come. But analysts say that unless Spain learns fast and begins investing in a new economic model by pouring billions into education and research and development, it could be headed for disaster. “What we’re doing is maintaining the old economic structure of the country,” said Fernandez. “Instead of investing in new skills for people ... we spend money on keeping them busy to give the appearance of bring the unemployment figures down.”— AP

Focus

US military receives cyber war guidelines

By Lolita C Baldor resident Barack Obama has signed executive orders that lay out how far military commanders around the globe can go in using cyber attacks and other computer-based operations against enemies and as part of routine espionage in other countries. The orders detail when the military must seek presidential approval for a specific cyber assault on an enemy and weave cyber capabilities into US war fighting strategy, defense officials and cyber security experts said.

Signed more than a month ago, the orders cap a two-year Pentagon effort to draft US rules of the road for cyber warfare, and come as the US begins to work with allies on global ground rules. The guidelines are much like those that govern the use of other weapons of war, from nuclear bombs to missiles to secret surveillance, the officials said. In a broad new strategy document, the Pentagon lays out some of the cyber capabilities the military may use during peacetime and conflict. They range from planting a computer virus to using cyberattacks to bring down an enemy’s electrical grid or defense network.

“You don’t have to bomb them anymore. That’s the new world,” said James Lewis, cybersecurity expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The new Pentagon strategy, he said, lays out cyber as a new warfare domain and stresses the need to fortify network defenses, protect critical infrastructure and work with allies and corporate partners. The entire strategy has not been released, but several US officials described it on condition of anonymity. Many aspects of it have been made public by US officials, including Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn, in speeches over the past several months. The Pentagon is expected to announce the entire strategy soon.

As an example, the new White House guidelines would allow the military to transmit computer code to another country’s network to test the route and make sure connections work - much like using satellites to take pictures of a location to scout out missile sites or other military capabilities. The digital code would be passive and could not include a virus or worm that could be triggered to do harm at a later date. But if the US ever got involved in a conflict with that country, the code would have mapped out a path for any offensive cyberattack to take, if approved by the president.

The guidelines also make clear that when under attack, the US can defend itself by blocking cyber intrusions and taking down servers in another country. And, as in cases of mortar or missile attacks, the US has the right to pursue attackers across national boundaries - even if those are virtual network lines.

“We must be able to defend and operate freely in cyberspace,” Lynn said in a speech last week in Paris.

The US, he said, must work with other countries to monitor networks and share threat information.

Lynn and others also say the Pentagon must more aggressively protect the networks of defense contractors that possess valuable information about military systems and weapons’ designs. In a new pilot program, the Defense Department has begun sharing classified threat intelligence with a handful of companies to help them identify and block malicious cyber activity on their networks. Over time, Lynn said, the program could be a model for the Homeland Security Department as it works with companies that run critical infrastructure such as power plants, the electric grid and financial systems.

Members of Congress are working on a number of bills to address cybersecurity and have encouraged such public-private partnerships, particularly to secure critical infrastructure. But they also warn of privacy concerns. “We must institute strict oversight to ensure that no personal communications or sensitive data are inappropriately shared with the government by businesses,” said Rep. Jim Langevin, D-RI, who served as co-chairman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ cybersecurity commission.

Cyber security experts and defense officials have varying views of cyber war, but they agree that it will be a part of any future conflict.

At a recent Capitol Hill hearing, incoming Pentagon chief Leon Panetta, the outgoing CIA director, said the US must be aggressive in offensive and defensive countermeasures. “I’ve often said that there’s a strong likelihood that the next Pearl Harbor that we confront could very well be a cyberattack that cripples our power systems, our grid, our security systems, our financial systems, our governmental systems,” he said. Stewart Baker, a former Homeland Security official, said Americans need to come to grips with the idea that cyber warfare could hit the US homeland. “We’ve had 50 years in which we haven’t really had to rethink what might happen in a war here,” he said.

“We need to think very hard about an actual strategy about how to win a war in which cyber weapons are prominently featured.” Part of that thinking, Baker said, involves ensuring that the US has strong firewalls to prevent attacks and that there are established routes into the networks of potential enemies.

But officials also say that cyber capabilities must be put in perspective. “It’s a decisive weapon, but it’s not a super weapon,” said Lewis. “It’s not a nuclear bomb.”

It is, however, a new weapon that hackers, criminals and other nations are honing. Already hackers have breached military networks and weapons programs, including key defense contractor Lockheed Martin.

Military officials have also warned repeatedly of cyberattacks and intrusions coming out of China, Russia and Eastern Europe. “Regrettably,” Lynn said, “few weapons in the history of warfare, once created, have gone unused. For this reason, we must have the capability to defend against the full range of cyber threats.” Lynn predicted that terror groups eventually will learn how to launch crippling cyberattacks.

Important questions linger about the role of neutral countries. —AP

P

A

y

e niv rsar n

THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011

Years

sp orts BMW International Open MUNICH: American world number 11 Dustin Johnson could take up European Tour membership in the future as he tees off this week at the BMW International Open.

Johnson, who won the BMW Championship on the PGA Tour last year, heads to Europe having finished tied 23rd behind runaway winner Rory McIlroy in the US Open. The 27-year-old Johnson played with Northern Ireland’s McIlroy for the first two rounds at the Congressional and is now contemplating playing on both sides of the Atlantic. “My first few years on (PGA) tour I didn’t really travel and this year I want to play a little more international,” Johnson told reporters on the eve of the Munich tournament. “I’m going to probably continue to play a few events every year overseas.”

Asked if he would thus think of taking up European Tour membership, Johnson said: “I have to play three more events (in Europe) but yeah, it’s a possibility. I have fans here, so it’s nice to come and play for them.”

Among his opponents this week in a tournament won in the past by compatriots Paul Azinger (twice) and John Daly, is Germany’s world number three Martin Kaymer.—Reuters

Molina tests positive

Aoyama to replace Pedrosa MADRID: Spaniard Dani Pedrosa will not be fit in time to race at the Dutch Grand Prix in Assen this weekend and will be replaced by Japan’s Hiroshi Aoyama, his Repsol Honda team said yesterday.

The 25-year-old broke his collarbone in a fall at the French Grand Prix at Le Mans last month and needed further surgery last week after a fragment of bone came loose.

Earlier in the week, Pedrosa had said it was more likely he would be back for the Italian

SINGAPORE: Brazil’s Fabiola Molina will miss next month’s World Swimming Championships in Shanghai after she was banned for two months following a positive test for a banned stimulant.

The 36-year-old tested positive for methylhexaneamine during an event in Rio de Janeiro in April, a statement from the Brazilian Water Sports Federation (CBDA) said.

The CBDA said it had taken into account “the athlete’s history and the fact that it was clear that there was no intention to enhance her performance”.

Molina will not be eligible for competition for two months starting from her last event on May 8 and loses her qualification time for next year’s London Olympics. A butterfly and back-stroke swimmer, she competed at the 2000 and 2008 Olympics.

Methylhexaneamine was originally intended to be used as a nasal decongestant but in recent times has found its way into dietary supplements marketed with thermogenic or stimulant properties. —Reuters

Grand Prix at the start of next month.

Pedrosa, last season’s runner up, missed his home race in Ba rce l ona a nd t he B r i t i s h Grand Prix and has dropped down to fifth in the championship standings on 61 points af ter six race s. Team mate Casey Stoner leads the standings on 116 points, 18 ahead of champion Jorge Lorenzo of Yamaha. Aoyama, who is seventh with 43 points, moves across from the Gresini Honda team.—Reuters

Phillies crush Cardinals in MLB ST. LOUIS: The Philadelphia Phillies piled on a season-best nine runs in the eighth inning to overwhelm the St. Louis Cardinals 10-2 in Major League Baseball on Tuesday.

In the only all-National League meeting amid interleague play, Jimmy Rollins and Chase Utley each had a two-run single in the eighth, while Carlos Ruiz had four hits and one of two basesloaded walks.

The NL East-leading Phillies have won Roy Halladay’s last seven starts, even if Tuesday’s surge came too late for him to be credited with the win. That instead went to reliever Michael Stutes (2-0), who pitched one inning, allowing one run. Cardinals reliever Trever Miller (0-1) took the loss.

Brewers 5, Rays 1 In Milwaukee, Zack Greinke struck out 10 over seven innings to direct Milwaukee to a win over Tampa Bay. Greinke (7-2) struck out at least a batter in every inning, including the side in the third, and gave up one run.

Yuniesky Betancourt homered in the second off Rays rookie Jeremy Hellickson (7-6) and Ryan Braun hit a two-run single in the seventh.

Tampa Bay lost its first game in five, while Milwaukee remains the only team in the majors not to lose consecutive home games this year.

ARLINGTON: Texas Rangers relief pitcher Yoshinori Tateyama of Japan delivers to the Houston Astros in the 10th inning of an interleague baseball game.—AP

Burgess blow adds to Waratah playoff woes SYDNEY: Wallabies scrumhalf Luke Burgess has joined the New South Wales Waratahs’ already long injury list by breaking his hand in training just before the squad departed for tomorrow’s Super rugby playoff in Auckland.

The 26-year-old, who is leaving Australia to play in France after the World Cup, joins 11 other Waratahs regulars who will not be available to face the Auckland Blues in the first round playoff match at Eden Park, local media reported.

The seven-times champion Canterbury Crusaders face South Africa’s Sharks in the other first-round clash in Nelson on Saturday, with a semi-final against the Queensland Reds in Brisbane or Stormers in Cape Town up for grabs.

The Waratahs already faced a daunting task, having won at Eden Park just once, but the absence of the likes of flyhalf Berrick Barnes, winger Drew Mitchell, number eight Wycliff Palu and hooker Tatafu Polota-Nau will make it even tougher.

The further loss of stand in flyhalf Daniel Halangahu to a hamstring injur y means Wallabies fullback Kurtley Beale will take over the number 10 shirt against three-times champions Blues.

“Kurtley has probably played more football at 10 than he has at 15,” said coach Chris Hickey. “Kurtley’s form has been outstanding and often at 15 he ends up at first receiver anyhow, so there’s not a great difference to being at 10 or 15 for Kurtley.”

Beale’s form has been one of the highlights of the Waratahs run to the playoffs and they will also take comfort from the four successive defeats the Blues suffered before their 33-16 win over the Otago Highlanders last Friday.

The Blues have recalled scrumhalf Alby Mathewson to their starting lineup in the only change to the team that beat the Highlanders to secure their place in the playoffs.

The Crusaders’ storming end to the season enabled them to pip the Blues to the New Zealand conference title

but the Sharks will take great heart from the way they came through their winner-takes-all encounter with the Bulls last weekend.

The Sharks stunned the double defending champions in a thrilling 2623 victory in Pretoria last Saturday and coach John Plumtree wants more of the same at Trafalgar Park on Saturday.

“The boys are excited and they will take confidence out of the performance against the Bulls,” he told South African media before departing on the 11,000-km journey to New Zealand on Tuesday.

“If we can front up physically against the Crusaders, you never know. I’d say we’d be underdogs but tags don’t matter- it’s finals football.”

The Crusaders are likely to welcome back league-convert Sonny Bill Williams at inside centre and Sean Maitland on the wing but All Blacks skipper Richie McCaw looks set to spend yet another match watching from the stands.

Having also come through a major physical challenge in their last regular season game against fierce rivals the Wellington Hurricanes, though, coach Todd Blackadder thinks his team are peaking nicely.

“It was probably one of the most physical games of our season so I’m pleased we ended up coming out on top,” he told reporters in Wellington after the 16-9 victory.

“It has given us a lot of confidence in the end. That’s especially pleasing considering what this team has been through so it has been great.”

The Crusaders have been unable to play any home matches this season after the deadly Christchurch earthquake damaged their stadium.

The Reds and Stormers are rewarded for finishing in the top two of the overall standings in Super rugby’s longest season with a rest week before hosting semi-finals next weekend. The Stormers will host the highest-ranked team in the final regular season standings to get through the first round of the playoffs.—Reuters

Braves 5, Blue Jays 1 In Atlanta, Brian McCann hit a two-run homer that powered Atlanta past Toronto. Atlanta took a 4-1 lead in the third on McCann’s 12th homer and Alex Gonzalez’s RBI double off Toronto rookie Zach Stewart (0-1), who allowed five runs and three walks in 3 2-3 innings.

Jason Heyward had an RBI single and Braves starter Mike Minor (1-2) ended a nine-start winless streak, allowing one run and striking out a season-best eight in seven innings. Atlanta has won three in a row, while the Blue Jays have scored just two runs in losing three straight on the road.

Rockies 4, Indians 3 In Cleveland, Seth Smith’s second homer of the game snapped a ninth-inning tie and gave Colorado victory over Cleveland.

Smith connected off Cleveland closer Chris Perez (2-3), hitting a 2-2 pitch into the right-field seats for his fourth career multihomer game.

Jason Giambi had three hits for Colorado, which has won six of seven and moved over .500 for the first time in a month.

The Rockies held Cleveland hitless until the sixth, and reliever Matt Belisle (5-2) worked one inning for the win. Huston Street pitched the ninth for his major league-leading 22nd save in 24 chances.

Padres 5 Red Sox 4 In Boston, former Boston prospect Anthony Rizzo drove in the go-ahead run in the seventh inning against his old team, helping San Diego snap a season-worst six-game losing streak.

Rizzo grounded out with the bases loaded, allowing Chase Headley to score, as Red Sox first baseman Adrian Gonzalez fumbled before getting the out at first. Rizzo and two other prospects were traded to San Diego in exchange for Gonzalez.

Padres reliever Chad Qualls (4-3) pitched 1 13 scoreless innings to get the win. Heath Bell worked the ninth for his 19th save in 20 opportunities. Boston’s Dan Wheeler (0-1) took the loss.

Nationals 6, Mariners 5 In Washington, Wilson Ramos capped a fiverun ninth inning with a game-ending three-run homer as Washington stormed home to edge Seattle.

Jerry Hairston and Danny Espinosa each had two-out RBI singles before Ramos connected off David Pauley (4-1), hitting a drive deep to center.

Todd Coffey (3-0) pitched the ninth for Washington, which has won nine of 10.

Dodgers 6, Tigers 1 In Los Angeles, Chad Billingsley bounced back from two poor outings to pitch Los Angeles to victory over Detroit. Billingsley (6-6) allowed one run over 5 1-3 innings — the first time in four starts that he made it past the fifth.

He struck out six and left after loading the bases with a 4-1 lead. A double play ended the threat. Andre Ethier hit a two-run homer for the Dodgers, who notched a third straight win.

Tigers starter Max Scherzer (9-3) failed to become the first pitcher to reach 10 wins this year. He gave up six runs in six innings.

D’backs 7, Royals 2 In Kansas City, Wily Mo Pena and Chris Young homered to help Arizona down Kansas City.

Diamondbacks starter Joe Saunders (4-7) held the Royals to two runs over seven innings; his

PITTSBURGH: Baltimore Orioles third baseman Mark Reynolds commits an error on a ball hit by Pittsburgh Pirates’ Neil Walker in the seventh inning of an interleague baseball game.—AP 10th consecutive start pitching at least six innings. Royals starter Luke Hochevar (4-8) picked up the loss, yielding five runs in seven innings — with his ERA climbing to 4.97.

Twins 9, Giants 2 In San Francisco, Minnesota tied a major league record by opening a game with eight consecutive hits and went on to comfortably account for San Francisco. Ben Revere had two hits and two RBIs to highlight the Twins’ eightrun first inning. Luke Hughes had a two-run single and four others had an RBI in the first to chase Giants starter Madison Bumgarner (3-9) before some fans even found their seats.

Bumgarner recorded only one out, striking out opposing pitcher Carl Pavano (5-5) who by contrast gave up only one run in eight innings.

Minnesota has won eight straight in a bid to overcome a poor start to the season, while San Francisco has lost five in a row and fallen half a game behind Arizona in the NL West.

Marlins 5, Angels 2 In Miami, Florida’s new 80-year-old manager Jack McKeon showed he still has the winning touch, leading the Marlins to victory over Los Angeles in his second game, ending an 11-game losing skid.

Florida starter Javier Vazquez (4-7) and five relievers gave up 13 hits but the Angels went 1 for 15 with runners in scoring position.

Vazquez (4-7) went 5 1-3 scoreless innings to lower his ERA to 6.37, still the highest in the majors. He had lost his previous three decisions.

Florida’s Gaby Sanchez hit his 13th home run and Hanley Ramirez had his first multi-hit game in a month. Los Angeles starter Ervin Santana (3-8) was lifted in the sixth trailing 2-0. He fell to 0-4 in his past five starts.

Athletics 7, Mets 3 In New York, Josh Outman threw another impressive game to guide Oakland past New York. Outman (3-1) lived up to his pitcher-perfect name, allowing one earned run in six innings. Jemile Weeks scored three times and

Ryan Sweeney had four hits, including an RBI single, and the A’s won their sixth straight.

Mets starter Dillon Gee (7-1) was lifted in the fourth after throwing only 45 of 87 pitches for strikes. He gave up four earned runs and walked six in suffering his first loss of the season.

Pirates 9, Orioles 3 In Pittsburgh, Neil Walker had two hits and drove in three runs to help Pittsburgh defeat Baltimore and snap a four-game skid.

Chris Resop (3-2) picked up the victory in relief, while Jose Tabata, Garrett Jones and Xavier Paul all knocked in two runs apiece for the Pirates.

Baltimore’s Jeremy Guthrie (2-9) settled down after a rocky first inning but dropped into a tie for the AL lead in losses. He gave up six runs in 6 1-3 innings.

Rangers 5, Astros 4 In Arlington, Texas, Mitch Moreland blasted the first pitch of the bottom of the 11th inning into the upper deck in right field to lift Texas past state rival Houston.

Moreland’s second homer in as many games gave reliever Yoshinori Tateyama (1-0) his first career win and handed Houston rookie reliever Enerio del Rosario (0-2) the loss. Rangers star Josh Hamilton forced extra innings with a solo homer leading off the eighth. Texas also got solo homers from Michael Young and Nelson Cruz to send the Astros to their third straight loss.

White Sox 3, Cubs 2 In Chicago, Brent Morel hit a go-ahead sacrifice fly in the seventh inning as the White Sox leveled the Chicago series at a game apiece.

Paul Konerko homered for a fifth straight game for the White Sox and Carlos Pena hit his second in as many nights for the Cubs.

Sergio Santos got the final out with two on in the eighth and then pitched the ninth for his 13th save in 15 chances. Jesse Crain (3-2) got the win in relief of Mark Buehrle, who left after rain delayed the game for 1 hour, 44 minutes.

Jeff Samardzija (5-3) took the loss.—AP

MLB results/standings Major League Baseball results and standings on Tuesday: Washington 6, Seattle 5; Pittsburgh 9, Baltimore 3; Colorado 4, Cleveland 3; San Diego 5, Boston 4; Atlanta 5, Toronto 1; Florida 5, LA Angels 2; Oakland 7, Ny Mets 3; Texas 5, Houston 4 (11 innings); Milwaukee 5, Tampa Bay 1; Chicago White Sox 3, Chicago Cubs 2; Arizona 7, Kansas City 2; Philadelphia 10, St. Louis 2; LA Dodgers 6, Detroit 1; Minnesota 9, San Francisco 2.

Philadelphia Atlanta Washington NY Mets Florida

National League Eastern Division 46 28 .622 42 33 .560 36 37 .493 35 38 .479 33 41 .446

4.5 9.5 10.5 13

Milwaukee St. Louis Cincinnati Pittsburgh Chicago Cubs Houston

Central Division 41 34 .547 40 34 .541 38 36 .514 36 37 .493 30 43 .411 27 48 .360

.5 2.5 4 10 14

Arizona San Francisco Colorado LA Dodgers San Diego

Western Division 40 34 .541 39 34 .534 37 36 .507 34 41 .453 31 44 .413

.5 2.5 6.5 9.5

American League Eastern Division Boston NY Yankees Tampa Bay Toronto Baltimore

W 44 42 40 36 33

L 29 29 34 38 38

PCT .603 .592 .541 .486 .465

Central Division Cleveland 39 33 .542 Detroit 39 35 .527 Chicago W Sox 36 39 .480 Minnesota 32 39 .451 Kansas City 31 42 .425 Texas Seattle LA Angels Oakland

Western Division 40 35 .533 37 36 .507 36 39 .480 34 40 .459

GB 1 4.5 8.5 10 1 4.5 6.5 8.5 2 4 5.5

y

A

17

e niv rsar n

Years

THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011

S P ORT S

NBA owners and players swap proposals NEW YORK: Saying it reflects a “desire to go as far as we can to avoid a lockout,” NBA Commissioner David Stern revealed Tuesday that owners have moved off their insistence on a hard salary cap. Players don’t see it that way.

So it appears the cap system remains as the biggest obstacle to a new collective bargaining agreement before the rapidly approaching June 30 deadline. Stern said the league has proposed a “flex cap,” in which teams would target a uniform dollar amount to spend, but would still be permitted to exceed it up to an unspecified level.

Players argue it’s still a hard cap, because the ceiling would eventually kick in. So even though both sides felt there was progress in what Stern had said was an important day in these negotiations, a sizable gap remains.

“At this point we’re still just really far apart on the largest issue of hard salary cap, and still some economic issues as well,” players’ association president Derek Fisher of the Lakers said.

Calling it “virtually the best shot we think we have” to avoid a work stoppage, Stern said the owners’ proposal would ensure that players’ total compensation would never fall below $2 billion a year in a 10-year contract, slightly less than the league paid this season.

He said the average player salary would be about $5 million and Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver

said the goal would be an eventual 50-50 split of basketball revenues.

The players are currently guaranteed 57 percent.

Though Stern refused to call this his last offer, he said the “cupboard is getting barer and barer.” “It’s all out there,” he said. “The owners to a person feel that this is what we have to give.” The flex cap offer had previously been proposed to the players, but had not been disclosed publicly until Tuesday.

According to Stern, teams would be targeted to spend approximately $62 million, with the option to spend above through cer tain exceptions before reaching a limit they could not exceed.

Under the current soft salary cap, teams can use various exceptions to exceed the cap, with the penalty of a dollar for dollar luxury tax once they reach the threshold.

The cap this year was $58 million, and the NBA champion Dallas Mavericks, under big-spending owner Mark Cuban, blew well past the tax level of $70 million.

The union made a proposal that offered more than $500 million in player salary reductions over the life of a five-year contract, a person with knowledge of the proposal told The Associated Press. The person, who requested anonymity because the details were not released, said the reductions would be made by slicing the players’ guarantee from its current 57 percent to 54.3 percent.

Stern called that proposal “mod-

NEW YORK: NBA commissioner David Stern (left) gestures as he holds press conference along with deputy commissioner Adam Silver, following a meeting between team owners and the NBA players union. —AP est” but “directionally better” than the union’s previous ones and said the players asked for another meeting Friday. “Today was productive and there was movement, but we’re still very far apart and ... the hard salary cap system is still something that we’re really having difficulty trying to get past,” Fisher said.

“Our players just don’t see that as the best way to tackle some of the things at least we’ve been given by owners as to reasons why we need a hard salary cap.” Last week , the league withdrew its insistence for all contracts to be non-guaranteed in a new deal, offering to leave the system as is,

where teams and players can negotiate individually.

The players have argued that was not truly a concession, because they were given something they already have. “We’ve had guaranteed contracts for 40 years, so it’s almost like somebody walks into your house and they

take something that belongs to you, and then they want to sell it back,” union executive director Billy Hunter said.

“And you say, ‘It was mine from the get-go, so why should I pay for it? And I didn’t authorize you to take it, and I never said it was available for you to take or use or abuse.”‘ Hunter had long said he was nearly certain of the league’s first work stoppage since 1998, but now says he sees signs owners are interested in making a deal.

But both sides caution they aren’t close to one yet. Asked if they were 100 miles apart going into Tuesday how far they were now, Hunter said, “ What, 99?”

Though the league’s newest proposal would mean an 8 percent pay cut in the first year, owners have moved from their initial proposal that players rejected in February 2010. Stern said there have now been 10 proposals exchanged between the sides and the players could offer another Friday.

They still must sort through the differences in the cap, with Stern saying the sides have a “different characterization” of what the league proposed. The players’ executive committee was joined by stars such as Tony Parker of the Spurs and Atlanta’s Al Horford.

Fisher said all the players have expressed their willingness to be flexible but “there are certain parts of it we have no interest in moving on and right now that’s where we stand.”—AP

India on top after Windies collapse NORTHERN IRELAND: Rory McIlroy is sprayed with champagne while holding the US Open Golf Championship Trophy at his local club where he began his golf at Holywood Gold Club. —AP

McIlroy promises to handle pressure LONDON: US Open champion Ror y McIlroy is adamant he can handle the burden of expectation following his first Major success. The 22-year-old Northern Irishman left the rest of the field trailing with an eight-stroke win at the Congressional course in Maryland last week.

It was a performance all the more remarkable given his final round blowout when leading the US Masters in April. “With success comes expectation. I know expectations on me are pretty high now, but I expect big things of myself anyway,” McIlroy told Sky Sports.

“As long as I keep committed and dedicated, I don’t see any reason why I won’t handle it (extra pressure) well.”

McIlroy, speaking at his home club of Holywood near Belfast, described his performance at Congressional as the best of his career.

“Last week was fabulous. The golf I played - I’ve never played before in my life,” he said. “I always wanted to believe that I could win a Major, but until you do, you never know. It feels great.”

McIlroy’s win kept the US Open title in

Northern Ireland following compatriot Graeme McDowell’s victory at Pebble Beach last year.

“To think a European hadn’t won it for 40 years (since England’s Tony Jacklin) until Graeme did and now the two of us went back-to-back — it’s great.

“To grow up in tough conditions here, which there is at a US Open, helped us I think. “But I don’t think you can explain back-to-back US Open winners from a country with a population of 1.5 million.”

Meanwhile fans buying tickets for next month’s Irish Open in Killarney will have their names entered into a draw where a prize will be the chance to play alongside McIlroy in the pro-am.

“Hopefully people will like the idea of taking me on. I might even give them a couple of shots,” McIlroy said. “The Irish Open is very high on the list of tournaments that I would like to win in my career one day. “I think every golfer has a special place in his or her heart for their national Open and I am no different. “To win in front of a home crowd is something we don’t get the chance to do that often, so I’d love to win the title.” —AFP

NHL board approves Thrashers sale NEW YORK: The National Hockey League (NHL) formally approved the sale and relocation of the Atlanta Thrashers to Winnipeg on Tuesday, rubber-stamping the first franchise relocation in the league since 1997.

Winnipeg hockey fans began celebrating last month when the Thrashers were sold to True North Sports and Entertainment, led by partners Mark Chipman and billionaire David Thomson, Canada’s richest man and chairman of news and information company Thomson Reuters.

But the sale agreement was dependent upon the approval of the NHL’s board of governors, who met in Manhattan on Tuesday to cast their votes.

“The Board unanimously approved both the sale of the Atlanta franchise to True North, which is Mark Chipman and David Thomson, and the relocation of Thrashers to Winnipeg,” NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said.

“Obviously, everybody is sorry and distressed and unhappy that we found ourselves in the circumstance where our franchise was leaving Atlanta. —Reuters

Shooting tournament K U WA I T: Saad A l-A b dal l ah Shooting Academy began its new summer season by enrolling large number of students. Kuwait Shooting Spor t Club prepared a special program, as its personnel are well qualified and ready to start their training.

Students would be able to prac-

tice Olympic shooting in the 10M Pistol and Rifle, Skeet and trap. The Academy will organ ize several championships for all students in the said disciplines, and outstanding shooters will be selected to join the youth in KSSC. The academy receives Kuwaiti students of both genders aged under 21 years.

KINGSTON: India dominated the second day of the first test against West Indies on Tuesday to seize the momentum in the series opener at Sabina Park.

Fast bowler Praveen Kumar captured three wickets in a devastating spell on his test debut as India dismissed West Indies for just 173 to snatch a 73-run first innings lead.

Then the tourists, who had managed 246 in their first knock, battled their way to 91-3 by stumps for an overall lead of 164 with seven wickets in hand.

Murali Vijay and VVS Laxman both made second innings ducks and opener Abhinav Mukund fell for 25 but Rahul Dravid kept the scoreboard ticking along with an unbeaten 45 while Virat Kohli was not out 14 at the close.

Kumar removed Adrian Barath, Darren Bravo and Brendan Nash in 14 deliveries just before lunch to trigger a West Indian batting collapse after the home side had resumed in a strong position at 34-1 in reply to India’s modest first day total.

Barath top scored with a patient 64 off 122 balls while wicketkeeper Carlton Baugh chipped in with 27 and Shivnarine Chanderpaul made a cautious 23 but none of the other West Indian batsmen made it to 20.

Kumar finished with 3-38 from 18 overs while fellow paceman Ishant Sharma bagged 3-29. India’s spinners, Amit Mishra and Harbhajan Singh, claimed two wickets each on a slow pitch starting to turn.

After making a bright start on the first day, West Indies made a bad beginning to the second day when Ishmar trapped Ramnaresh Sarwan lbw for three in the second over.

Barath, who hit nine boundaries and a six, combined with Bravo to steady the innings with a 56-run partnership for the third wicket before both batsmen were caught by wicketkeeper Mahendra Singh Dhoni off Kumar.

The 24-year-old paceman then claimed a third scalp when Suresh Raina held a sharp catch at third slip to get rid of Nash as the home side limped to lunch at 119-5.

Chanderpaul and Baugh gave West Indies a brief glimmer of hope with a sixth wicket stand of 45 but both fell to Harbhajan as the Indian spinners polished off the last five wickets for just 26 runs.

India suffered an early setback in their second innings when Vijay was trapped lbw by Ravi Rampaul in the second over but Mukund and Dravid restored calm with a 56-run stand in a low-scoring match that already seemed destined for an early finish. —Reuters

KINGSTON: West Indies’ bowler Ravi Rampaul (center) reacts after wicketkeeper Carlton Baugh (unseen) couldn’t hold his delivery and India’s batsmen Virat Kohli (right) and Rahul Dravid run between the wickets. —AP

Scoreboard Scoreboard at the close of play on the second day of the first test between West Indies and India at Sabina Park in Kingston, Jamaica on yesterday:

India first innings 246 West Indies first innings (overnight 34-1) A. Barath c Dhoni b Kumar 64 L. Simmons c Vijay b Sharma 3 R. Sarwan lbw b Sharma 3 D. Bravo c Dhoni b Kumar 18 S. Chanderpaul c Mukund b Harbhajan Singh 23 B. Nash c Raina b Kumar 1 C. Baugh c Vijay b Harbhajan Singh 27 D. Sammy b Sharma 1 R. Rampaul not out 14 F. Edwards c Dhoni b Mishra 7 D. Bishoo c Raina b Mishra 4 Extras (b-1 lb-3 nb-4) 8 Total (all out, 67.5 overs) 173 Fall of wickets: 1-18 2-35 3-91 4-95 5-102 6-147 7-148 8-152 9-169 10-173

Bowling: P. Kumar 18-5-38-3, I. Sharma 176-29-3, A. Mishra 13.5-1-51-2 (nb4), Harbhajan Singh 19-5-51-2 India second innings A. Mukund c Baugh b Bishoo 25 M. Vijay lbw b Rampaul 0 R. Dravid not out 45 V. Laxman c&b Sammy 0 V. Kohli not out 14 Extras (b-4 nb-3) 7 Total (for three wickets, 41 overs) 91 To bat: SK Raina, MS Dhoni, Harbhajan Singh, I. Sharma, A. Mishra, P. Kumar Fall of wickets: 1-0 2-56 3-57 Bowling: F. Edwards 9-1-27-0 (nb-2), R. Rampaul 8-2-17-1, D. Sammy 12-5-16-1, D. Bishoo 12-2-27-1 (nb-1)

Software mogul has 20/20 vision MUMBAI: After acquiring a stake in NBA franchise Golden State Warriors, Indian expatriate and software entrepreneur Vivek Ranadive is now eyeing opportunities to invest in cricket’s Indian Premier League (IPL).

Ranadive, founder and chief executive officer of Californiabased Tibco Software, was one of the 19 investors in the ownership group that bought the Warriors for $450 million last year.

The multi-billion dollar IPL, which includes celebrity owners from the country’s film and business industries, was also a perfect fit, the Mumbai-born Ranadive told Reuters in a telephone interview.

“Clearly India is a gigantic market. It’s a market for the future and cricket is the sport that people are crazy about in India and the IPL has

had quick and substantial success,” he said from his home in Appleton, near Palo Alto, California.

The glamorous Twenty20 league was launched in 2008 with eight city-based franchises and two more teams were added for a combined price of $703 million to play in the 2011 season.

Ranadive, who has authored a New York Times business bestseller, was aware of the fact that entering an existing franchise as an investor was the only viable option in the foreseeable future.

“There are a limited number of teams and the market is somewhat of a monopoly in the way it is structured. That, in a way, makes it even more valuable,” he said.

“Quite honestly, in some ways it’s not different from the NBA where you have a limited number

of franchises. “So I will stay alert to opportunities that might present themselves to participate in one of the franchises.”

The difference in time zones were inconvenient for following cricket but that did not prevent him from watching India’s victory in this year’s World Cup, the 53-year old said.

“I don’t follow it (cricket) nearly enough now being in California.

But I watched the IPL with great interest and obviously I followed the World Cup with great excitement,” Ranadive, a Harvard Business School alumni, said.

“We have a fairly large Indian population at the company. We were very happy and it (World Cup) was a great win to have for (Sachin) Tendulkar as well. “I am very impressed with both the success of

the World Cup and the success of the IPL.” An ardent sports fan, who has a basketball court in the basement of his house besides other sports facilities, Ranadive was confident that basketball, with help from the NBA, could be popularised in cricket-crazy India.

“It (basketball) is catching on quite rapidly (in India). We hope to have training programmes... Have kits for people to play... Have players go there and conduct clinics and may be even have games there at some point in time,” he said.

“We are working closely with the NBA and supporting a variety of initiatives. “I believe that basketball would be the global game in the 21st century like soccer was in the last century.” —Reuters

y

A

18

e niv rsar n

Years

THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011

SPORTS

New suits mean no more records in swimming ROME: Swimming’s world-record drought has reached 18 months, and as next month’s world championships in Shanghai draw nearer the sport’s close-knit community is starting to wonder when it will be broken.

“I think the whole swimming world has to get ready not to see another world record in the men’s sprints for a long time,” said Serbian butterfly specialist Milorad Cavic, the closest challenger to Michael Phelps’ record eight gold medals at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

How long? According to Cavic and others, a decade. The reason, of course, can be traced back to the ban on rubberized bodysuits at the beginning of last year. Since swimmers were forced to wear textiles again, no world records have been broken in an Olympic-size 50-meter pool.

The only world records set at all since Jan. 2010 came at the shortcourse worlds in Dubai in December: two from American standout Ryan Lochte, plus relay victories by Russian men and Chinese women. But the sport prefers to measure itself in the longer pool.

A staggering 43 world records were set at the last long-course worlds in Rome two years ago, and overall between 2008 and 2009 — the rubberized suit era — there were more than 200 records set over long- and short-course.

The feeling from many swimmers and coaches is that there may only be a select few records in Shanghai, and quite possibly none at all in the men’s

events. That’s because men have been penalized more under the new rules, with their suits limited to jammers covering the waists down to the knees, while women’s suits stretch from the shoulders to the knees.

“I think it would have been better to go back 15 months, not 10 years,” said Italian swimmer Massimiliano Rosolino, who has won 60 medals in Olympics, worlds and European championships in a career spanning three decades.

Cavic and Rosolino are not the only ones who point out that men’s swimming has taken a 10-year step backward. Dutch coach Jacco Verhaeren noted that in the 100-meter freestyle — swimming’s signature event — Pieter van den Hoogenband’s world record of 47.84 seconds would still stand without the seven marks set in 2008 and 2009. Cesar Cielo set the current 100 free record of 46.91 at the 2009 worlds in Rome.

“Pieter’s record came 11 years ago, then were was a one-second drop, so count 10 years,” said Verhaeren, who was Van den Hoogenband’s personal coach for 15 years. “It’s like mathematics.” Cavic and Rosolino both suggested changing the rules again to bring men’s suits in line with the women’s apparel. Making men’s suits cover the chests would also appease manufacturers, who are upset that they can no longer display their logos on men’s chests.

Less brand-visibility, they say, means less success for the companies that support swimming the most. For

the moment — at least through next year’s London Olympics — swimming governing body FINA won’t alter the rules. But FINA executive director Cornel Marculescu left open the possibility of changes at the next general congress in 2013. “ We have to see now with our swimming and coaches committees, our technical committee, to look if something needs to be changed,” Marculescu told The Associated Press on Tuesday. “But the most important criteria is to have the same condition for everybody.”

FINA honorary secretary and Italian swimming federation president Paolo Barelli has already come out in favor of textile bodysuits for men. But USA Swimming, which led the movement for outlawing bodysuits, sees no reason to make another switch.

“USA Swimming wants to see the rules currently in place for suits remain in place,” USA Swimming executive director Chuck Wielgus wrote in an Email to The AP. “I can understand the reasoning that some male swimmers might make to be able to wear suits similar in design to those that women are allowed to wear, but USA Swimming supports the rule for male suits just as it currently stands,” Wielgus added.

Meanwhile, there is also a debate over whether to create two different lists of records, by adding a list of marks achieved in textile suits to the existing world record list.

“Then there is a comparison and something to celebrate, because I

think it’s important in sport that there’s something to celebrate,” Verhaeren said. Cavic noted that swimmers are no longer collecting bonuses from their suit manufacturers and meet organizers for world records.

“Sometimes that’s $10-15,000,” Cavic said. “It depends, maybe even more. It’s good for many companies they’ve been saving a lot of money but it’s too bad for swimming.” The issue of installing a second list was debated within FINA at the start of last year, according to Barelli, but was cast aside.

“They’ve ruined the game,” Rosolino said, arguing that two lists wouldn’t make sense. “What do you ask then, ‘What do you think about this halfrecord?’ Forget about it.” So what times do swimmers aim for these days?

Personal bests are still the measuring sticks for most. But what if you’re a world record holder, such as Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe, who holds the mark of 2:04.81 in the 200 backstroke?

“I’m still looking at that as my best time,” Coventry said. “By London it’s my goal to go that. Maybe that’s a little too anxious, but that’s my goal and I think that’s a lot of swimmers goals.

You’ve got to be realistic and you might not get there but in order to try you’ve got to still have the mentality of, ‘That’s my best time.”‘ Yet Coventry clocked just 2:09.59 at last weekend’s Seven Hills meet in Rome, finishing second behind Elizabeth Simmonds of Britain, who won in 2:08.26.

Besides the suits, another noticeable change on the pool deck these

days is swimmer’s physiques, especially among the men, since overall mass seemed to improve performance in the more floatable rubberized suits.

“They’ve all suddenly gotten smaller and slimmed down,” observed Coventry, who took a year off after the 2009 worlds.

Phelps, who has always preferred racing bear chested, is pleased with the current format.

“It wasn’t really swimming (before).

You could put that suit on an out-ofshape swimmer and still be really fast,” said the American, who holds the most world records, with seven. “So I think that’s something good that we have back now. ... If you don’t work hard, you’re clearly not going to do anything.” So who’s working hard enough to break a world record in Shanghai?

More than one swimmer mentioned American breaststroker Rebecca Soni in the 200 breaststroke.

“Everyone is saying Rebecca Soni will be the girl to do it,” Cavic said. “And she just might be. I trained with her once in LA — she trains great. We’ll see.”

Or maybe Therese Alshammar in the 50 fly. The Swedish veteran clocked 25.37 seconds at the Seven Hills, within striking distance of her world record of 25.07. Among the men, France’s Camille Lacourt came within 0.03 of a world record in the 50 back at last year ’s European Championships in Budapest. Phelps and Lochte are also record candidates.

Cavic said, “There should be a parade for whatever guy does it.”—AP

AP source: NFL owners, players to meet again

Fernando Alonso in action in this file photo

Alonso due for a change of luck VALENCIA: Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso has never had much luck in the European Grand Prix in front of his home fans but this time the Spaniard arrives in Valencia convinced he is overdue a change of fortune.

After his last two races proved competitive but deeply frustrating due to safety car periods, the double world champion remains tantalisingly close to a first win of the year for Ferrari.

He might have done it in Monaco, but the race was stopped as he was poised to challenge Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel for the lead, and then in Montreal he lost out in a collision with McLaren’s eventual winner Jenson Button.

“I know that our fans are eagerly awaiting our first win of the season and I can assure you that the same goes for us,” the Spaniard told the Ferrari website (www.ferrari.com) ahead of the eighth round of the season.

“At the last two races, we showed we were clearly capable of winning and, especially in Monaco, we came pretty close, although I believe that even in Canada I could have fought for it all the way to the end, given what we had seen in qualifying.

“Now we go to a track with reasonably similar characteristics to Montreal and there is no obvious reason why we should not be competitive here too,” concluded Alonso, who is fifth overall and 92 points behind champion Vettel.

Last year the Spaniard and Ferrari left Valencia shaking their fists, with the Italian glamour team cursing what they angrily denounced as a “false race’.

Alonso had been third and chasing McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton when the safety car came out and triggered controversy, with Hamilton slipping past it while Alonso held back.

The Spaniard ended up eighth, Hamilton second-for the third year in a row- despite a meaningless drive through penalty for passing the safety car. “To tell the truth, I’ve never been

that lucky in this race since it’s been held on the Valencia street circuit,” said Alonso.

“Ever yone remembers what happened with the appearance of the safety car and there’s no point going over it again. I always believe that luck and bad luck balance out by the end of the season and maybe this unwritten rule also applies to race tracks.

“If that’s the case, I would be more than happy if last year’s misfortune was paid back now. In fact, it seems that in general so far this season, luck has not come our way: in the race in Montreal, not one damned thing went right.”

Vettel, with five wins from seven races, will be the favourite again after winning last year although it remains to be seen how much Red Bull are affected by the governing FIA’s clampdown on engine mapping systems.

Button, second overall and 60 points adrift of the 23-year-old German, will also fancy his chances while Hamilton needs a strong showing after two wild races prompted criticism of his driving.

“For me, Valencia will be a weekend of consolidation after two disappointing results in Monaco and Canada,” said Hamilton, the 2008 world champion.

“Those two races were particularly frustrating for me because we showed we had the pace to win both of them, yet I only came away with eight points.

“We’ve arguably had the fastest race car in the last three races and that’s really encouraging because I know that, when it’s put to best use, I should be able to finish at the front.”

With both McLaren drivers now having beaten Vettel this season, the German’s Australian team mate Mark Webber will also be keen to get in on the act at a circuit where last season he stood out with a spectacular crash after the car was launched into the air.

“Valencia hasn’t been an incredible venue for me in the past but I’m looking to try and break the duck this year,” commented Webber. —Reuters

ROSEMONT: NFL owners have been briefed on discussions for a new collective bargaining agreement that would net the players just under 50 percent of total revenues. Next up: more talks with the players.

Several people with knowledge of the negotiations told The Associated Press that Commissioner Roger Goodell and his labor committee will meet with players association chief DeMaurice Smith late yesterday and today in Boston.

The owners spent five hours Tuesday getting updated on various CBA issues. The people spoke on condition of anonymity because the negotiations are supposed to be confidential.

“We’re going to meet with them soon and we’re eager to accelerate the pace of the negotiations,” said Jeff Pash, the league’s chief negotiator.

One person told the AP that the players’ share would approach the 50 percent the NFLPA has said it has received throughout the last decade. But the expense credits — about $1 billion last year — that the league takes off the top would disappear. Also, there would no longer be “designated revenues” from which the players would share, the person said. Instead, the players would share from the entire pool, which they project will grow significantly over the course of a new CBA which is expected to run anywhere from six to 10 years.

So if they are taking 48 percent or more of a much higher revenue stream — without the initial NFL deduction for operat-

ROSEMONT: Jim Irsay, owner of the Indianapolis Colts, talks to reporters as he arrives for meetings.—AP ing expenses — the players still ment” with the players.

“The membership has a strong would receive far more money than they got under the previous view of the priorities and what we need to do, and a determinaagreement.

A salary floor keeping teams tion to get there,” Goodell said.

But both sides appear eager within 90 percent of the cap also would be included. The players to find common ground for a have been concerned that some new collective bargaining agreeteams whose revenue streams ment rather than going back into don’t match up with the richer cour t. A US Circuit Cour t of clubs would try to hold down Appeals is considering the salary spending. “It was a good league’s appeal of a lower-court day in the sense of we had a full injunction that originally blocked discussion on the issues,” Goodell the lockout. That injunction is on said. “Ownership is united and hold, and a ruling could come determined to reach an agree- anytime.

“This is the season to get a ment and have a full 2011 season.” Several owners were deal,” Indianapolis Colts owner expected to have objections to Jim Irsay said. “I think the logic some of the proposals. Goodell that you’re pushing on both sides was asked if there was a consen- is saying why get a deal Oct. 1, or sus among owners, to which he whenever, when you could have replied that “is a little deceiving had July 7, or whatever.” The lockbecause we don’t have an agree- out began March 12. Training

camps are scheduled to open in late July.

The person with knowledge of the negotiations said the players made economic concessions over the last three weeks of “secret” talks on both revenue percentage and on future stadium credits; many NFL teams have heavy debt for stadium construction. “The next financial model is going to look more like a division of percentage of total revenues,” the person said. “That is the context being discussed. It is a simpler mechanism to understand.

You take away the 60 percent of defined gross revenues, take away the upfront expense credits that keep growing and now will be gone, it becomes easier to deal with the economics on a macro level.”

Other items, such as a rookie wage scale and health benefits, have been discussed in those owner-player meetings, but won’t be settled until the revenue split is determined, the person added.

Goodell said no discussions were held Tuesday on a potential full-season Thursday night T V package that could increase revenues. With record ratings last season, the NFL’s value to its broadcast partners never has been higher.

Asked how close an agreement might be, neither Goodell nor Pash would put a timetable on it. “I have no idea,” Pash said.

“We have to spend a significant amount of time with the players.

There’s a lot of work to be done for both parties. I don’t think there’s any way to say it’s close or not close.”—AP

Sparks hold on to edge Liberty LOS ANGELES: DeLisha Milton-Jones scored 27 points and had a key late steal to help the Los Angeles Sparks beat the New York Liberty 96-91 in the WNBA on Tuesday. After a steal

by Milton-Jones, Candace Parker’s layup with 29 seconds left gave the Sparks a 94-91 lead.

The Liberty had two chances to tie it but Nicole Powell missed a 3 and the Sidney Spencer’s shot was

DeLisha Milton Jones

blocked by Tina Thompson. Parker had 21 points and 13 rebounds to help the Sparks win their third straight. The game was on the anniversary of the WNBA’s inaugural contest in 1997 featuring the two teams. Cappie Pondexter scored 22 points for New York, which has lost four straight.

Mercury 105, Silver Stars 98 In San Antonio, Penny Taylor scored 30 points to help Phoenix inflict San Antonio’s first loss of the season. Candice Dupree had 20 points and 13 rebounds for the Mercury, who overcame an off night from the league’s leading scorer Diana Taurasi, who shot 2 for 13 and finished with just seven points.

Becky Hammon had 28 points — including five 3-pointers — and seven assists to lead the Silver Stars, who had won their opening four games but were without leading scorer Sophia Young (illness). Phoenix led by 17 with 41/2 minutes to go before San Antonio pulled to 103-98 with under 21 seconds left.

Fever 89, Mystics 80 In Washington, reserve guard

Shavonte Zellous scored a seasonhigh 21 points as Indiana held off Washington.

Jessica Davenport and Briann January added 18 apiece to help the Fever (4-3) salvage the final contest of a three-game road trip that saw them criss-cross the country from Seattle to Phoenix to Washington in five days.

Zellous, who entered the game having scored just seven points the first six games, shot 7 for 9 from the field. Crystal Langhorne scored 23 points for Washington, which lost its fourth straight.

Leading by three at halftime, Indiana scored the first nine points of the second half and was up 14 after the break. The Mystics rallied but got no closer than three points.

Dream 71, Sky 68 In Atlanta, Angel McCoughtry scored 14 points to head an even offense as Atlanta edged Chicago.

Newcomer Courtney Paris had nine points and eight rebounds for the Dream (2-5), who won despite a third game without second-leading scorer and rebounder Sancho Lyttle, who is

competing for Spain in an Olympic qualifying tournament.

Paris was signed Saturday to fill the void and came off the bench to help Atlanta build a 43-31 halftime lead. The Dream kept Chicago’s Sylvia Fowles, the league’s secondleading scorer, in check for three quarters. Fowles finished with 21 points, giving the Sky (3-3) a 55-53 lead with 7:29 left.

The lead changed hands a few times before Erika de Souza’s turnaround jumper gave the Dream the lead for good, 67-66, with 1:32 remaining.

Storm 82, Shock 77 In Tulsa, Sue Bird scored 21 points as Seattle fought back to beat Tulsa.

Swin Cash had 17 points for the Storm, who outscored the Shock 3013 in the third quarter after trailing by six at halftime. Bird and Cash combined for 20 points after the break.

Three-time MVP Lauren Jackson suffered an apparent hip injury in the first half and did not return for Seattle after halftime. Tiffany Jackson had 20 points and 10 rebounds to lead Tulsa.—AP

A

y

e niv rsar n

Years

19

THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011

S P ORT S

Attack-hungry Chelsea gamble on Villas-Boas

JAPAN: Kuwait’s forward Yousef Nasser looks dejected in this file photo after losing the London Olympics qualifier soccer match against Japan. Kuwait take on Japan at home today. —AP

Kuwait take on Japan in Olympic qualifier TOKYO: Japan will face furnace-like conditions when their under-22 side look to defeat Kuwait today and reach the final round of 2012 Olympic qualifiers.

A 3-1 victory in the home leg should be enough but with temperatures nudging 50 degrees Celsius in Kuwait during the day, Japan can take nothing for granted.

Players were already complaining of the heat, plus the sandy dust whipped up by the wind during training. “I didn’t expect this,” midfielder Hiroshi Kiyotake told the Sankei Sports. “My throat and eyes hurt.”

Japan, bidding to reach their fifth successive Olympic Games at London next year, will, however, be boosted by the return from injury of striker Kensuke Nagai.

“I’m fit and want to play,” said Nagai, whose replacement Yuya Osako scored in the first leg. “The competition is pretty

fierce but I want to prove worth to the team.”

Japan have flopped badly in the Middle East before, most painfully when their senior side conceded an equaliser to Iraq with qualification for the 1994 World Cup just minutes away.

Olympic coach Takashi Sekizuka insisted his side were prepared to avoid a repeat of what Japanese fans and media still refer to as the “Tragedy of Doha”.

Sekisuka said: “The mental side will be key. We’ve never been to the Middle East at this time of year but we will deal with the situation. “We need to stay attackminded, be aggressive and take the game to them.”

Kuwait coach Maher Al Shemmari promised Japan would be pushed to the limit. “We gave away a couple of silly goals,” he said. “But we scored an away goal, we are at home and we still have a chance to win this tie.” —Reuters

MADRID: Chelsea’s appointment of Andres Villas-Boas is a daring gamble that marks a new period at Stamford Bridge, as the young Portuguese manager looks to shed the conservative style of play established by mentor Jose Mourinho with an attacking brand of football more akin to European champion Barcelona’s.

Chelsea’s decision to make Villas-Boas the youngest ever manager in the Premier League — just a few months older than several players at 33 —doesn’t mark the first time someone has taken a risk on the relatively inexperienced coach poached from Portuguese champion Porto and hailed as the heir apparent to Mourinho.

Villas-Boas’ stock rose significantly following Porto’s treblewinning campaign, highlighted by an undefeated league campaign and May’s Europa League triumph in Dublin. That victory only increased the comparisons to Mourinho, whose first European triumph was winning the UEFA Cup with Porto in 2003.

But Villas-Boas’ football philosophy differs drastically from Mourinho’s, as the Porto native prefers flamboyance and creativity over tactical strategy. Chelsea fans thirsty for goals and flair will appreciate Villas-Boas’ admiration of Barcelona’s passing style of play, and will be buoyed by the fact that Porto featured one of Europe’s most potent attacks last season, scoring 145 goals. “(Barcelona coach Pep) Guardiola is an inspiration to me every day,” Villas-Boas said after the 1-0 Europa League win over Braga in May. “I am inspired not only by him, but also his philosophy and the philosophy of Barcelona, of (Johan) Cruyff, of Rinus Michels.”

But some will wonder if the move to Chelsea is premature after barely two seasons of topflight experience. Villas-Boas

DUBLIN: In this May 18, 2011 file photo, Porto’s coach Andre Villas-Boas reacts at the final whistle of the UEFA Europa League final. —AP has yet to test the players’ transfer market and build his own squad, making few changes to the Porto team he inherited.

Villas-Boas will also have to deal with owner Roman Abramovich, who has a reputation for hasty decisions. The young Portuguese is the seventh coach hired by the Russian oli-

FIFA report accuses Bin Hammam of bribery bid

ARGENTINA: Brazil’s goalkeepers (from left) Jefferson, Victor and Julio Cesar, run during a training session ahead of the upcoming 2011 Copa America.—AP

Brazil look ahead, Argentina seek to end title drought PARIS: Brazil and Argentina — two names that evoke perhaps the hottest rivalry in the history of the global game — will be out to lay claim to continental superiority at the Copa America starting on July 1.

But both will be on slightly different missions. For fans of Argentina, two consecutive Olympic crowns is scant return for their expectations which have not been met at senior level since their last Copa success back in 1993, while their World Cup slate remains blank since the halcyon days of Diego Maradona at his 1986 peak.

Little wonder, then, that striker Carlos “Apache” Tevez says that “we must win it whatever it takes.” Brazil, in contrast, despite also exiting in the quarter-finals of last year’s World Cup, have managed to go on stacking up silverware, following a 2002 World Cup triumph with 2007 and 2004 Copa crowns both achieved at Argentina’s expense.

Yet the pressure is on the samba stars to deliver just as much as their neighbours, given that this month’s tournament will serve, as coach Mano Menezes freely admits, as a dress rehearsal for the 2014 World Cup when the global extravaganza returns to Brazil for the first time since 1950 - when Uruguay stunned their hosts in the Maracana.

Menezes says the onus is really on both pre-eminent Latin American powerhouses to deliver - on Argentina on home soil next month given their trophy drought - and on the Brazilians themselves as they try to hone their game in time for their own showpiece.

Those three years at least give Menezes the comparative luxury of time to draw up a game plan by giving young talents such as Neymar a platform on which to shine now that the old guard encapsulated by the likes of Ronaldo have finally left the stage.

“We are going to use all the opportunities (afforded by their Copa schedule) to prepare ourselves well for the World Cup,” Menezes told reporters in Rio on Monday hours before the squad jetted off to Argentina in advance of their first pool meeting with Venezuela on July 3.

Predecessor Dunga was shown the door after last summer’s loss to the Dutch in South Africa and Menezes himself is thus far struggling to give free rein to the flair in abundance which Brazil fans crave.

Ronaldo’s swansong against Romania brought an unconvincing 1-0 win and a goalless draw with Holland at the start of June was also not impressive.

But Menezes says he knows essentially who he should have on his teamsheet — while indulging in the time-honoured custom of deflecting any pressure onto his main rivals.

“We can say Argentina are the favourites as they are playing at home — by the same token Brazil will be favourites for the World Cup in 2014 — well that’s the theory,” noted Menezes.

At least Brazil can strut their stuff as defending champions - and without the onus of performing in front of their own fans.

For Menezes’ counterpart Sergio Batista, the pressure is certainly on as he tries to steady the ship after the adrenaline rush of Maradona’s spell in the hotseat gave way to despair after last summer’s thrashing at the hands of Germany.

Since Alfio Basile masterminded the 1993 win in Ecuador five coaches have come and gone empty-handed - Daniel Passarella, Marcelo Bielsa, Jose Pekerman, Basile again and Maradona.

But with Lionel Messi in their ranks the gauchos will feel anything is possible. First, the hosts must get past Bolivia, the unpredictable Colombia and Costa Rica, replacing special guests Japan, who pulled out in the aftermath of the tsunami earlier this year.

The auriverde must see off first the Venezuelans, then Paraguay and Ecuador.

Menezes says his dark horses are World Cup semi-finalists Uruguay and they meet Peru, Chile and Mexico — filling their habitual guest slot in the competition — in their pool.

Argentina and Uruguay have won 14 titles each to eight for Brazil, while Paraguay and Peru have netted two each to one for Colombia and Bolivia.—AFP

LONDON: Mohamed Bin Hammam tried to bribe officials in his campaign to oust Sepp Blatter as FIFA president, according to a secret report by the organisation’s ethics committee obtained by Britain’s Press Association.

There was “comprehensive, convincing and overwhelming” evidence against Bin Hammam, the head of the Asian Football Confederation, and former FIFA vice-president Jack Warner was “an accessory to corruption”, the report said.

FIFA announced on Monday that Warner had resigned as FIFA vice-president and quit all footballrelated activities.

The governing body also said it had dropped all investigations into the Trinidadian and that “the presumption of innocence is maintained”.

But the report of the ethics committee, which provisionally suspended Warner and Bin Hammam on May 29, said there was “prima facie” evidence that bribes had been paid to officials to support Bin Hammam’s campaign for the FIFA presidency, The report states that Warner facilitated the bribes.

Warner, who was highly influential as head of the Caribbean, North and Central American Federation (CONCACAF), and Bin Hammam were suspended last month by FIFA pending a full inquiry.

Bin Hammam withdrew as a candidate against Blatter on the morning of his ethics committee hearing on May 29. Both Bin Hammam and Warner have consistently denied any wrongdoing.

The report said there was “compelling” evidence Bin Hammam and Warner arranged a special meeting of the 25 members of the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) on May 10-11 in Trinidad and that, with their knowledge, cash gifts were handed over.

Statements from witnesses, described as “credible” in the ethics committee report, said CFU members were handed brown envelopes each containing $40,000. One of the witnesses, Fred Lunn from the Bahamas, photographed the cash before returning it.

The ethics committee report said: “On the occasion of this meeting it seems Mr Bin Hammam offered, at least indirectly and under the pledge of secrecy, to each of the member associations an envelope containing USD 40,000.

“The committee is also of the opinion that the respec tive money gif ts can probably only be explained if they are associated with the FIFA presidential elections of 1 June 2011.

“Therefore it appears rather compelling to consider the actions of Mr Bin Hammam constitute prima facie an act of bribery, or at least an attempt to commit bribery.

“It appears prima facie impossible, in the opinion of the FIFA ethics committee, that the accused (Warner) could have considered the money distributed... as legally or ethically proper and without any connection to the upcoming FIFA presidential election.

“Consequently, the accused would at least be considered as an accessory to the aforementioned violations.” Bin Hammam said in a statement: “There is nothing I can say more than I deny the allegations and insist that I have not done anything wrong during the special Congress at Trinidad.”

Following Bin Hammam’s withdrawal, Blatter was re-elected unopposed for a fourth term as FIFA president. —AFP

garch in eight years since he took over the club.

Abramovich has reportedly been a longtime admirer of Guardiola, who remains committed to Barcelona for another season. Like Guardiola, Villas-Boas prefers to maintain a lower profile and doesn’t court controversy like the brash Mourinho, who

was eventually cut loose by Abramovich despite three-plus successful seasons at Stamford Bridge. Regardless of the risk and potential reward, there is no arguing that Villas-Boas’ rise has been nothing short of sensational.

Former Porto coach Bobby Robson gave Villas-Boas his first chance as a teenager when he offered him an apprenticeship with the club’s youth-team coaching staff. By 17, Villas-Boas had a UEFA coaching license.

He coached the British Virgin Isles for a brief stint at just 21 — losing both games — before finding his way back to Porto, where he compiled statistics and in-depth scouting reports during Mourinho’s impressive UEFA Cup and Champions League campaigns in 2003 and ‘04.

Villas-Boas then followed Mourinho to Chelsea and Inter Milan where he worked in a similar role before going his own way and eventually landing at Academica, where he took over with 23 games to play and relegation a possibility. He kept the club in topflight football with an 11th-place finish, which led to his surprise appointment at Porto before the start of last season.

Chelsea’s decision to trust in the self-assured and media savvy Villas-Boas perhaps points to a long-term reshuffling of the squad as well, with veteran players like Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba the same age as their new manager, and John Terry and Petr Cech approaching 30.

After winning the Europa League in Dublin, Villas-Boas downplayed his own part in the success and gave most of the credit to his team.

“I am just a cog in a very effective club with super talents,” Villas-Boas said. “Players are decisive in modern football; if you don’t have the players you run into a wall.”—AP

Aguirre aiming to make Libertadores history again “It’s a great memory to have, but it’s a long time ago,” he said. “Now we have to try to do it again, bring the trophy back to Uruguay.” Aguirre said he doesn’t think he would be able to compare his feat of more than two decades ago with winning the title now, if it were to happen late yesterday. “It’s different now,” he said.

“I was 21 years old then, it’s been a long time. As a coach you have a lot more responsibilities, it’s different.”

Penarol dominated football in South America in the 1960s and in the 1980s, two spans in which it won a l l f i ve of i t s Cop a Libertadores titles and reached the final several other times.

But after the title in 1987, the club hadn’t been a serious contender until this year’s impressive campaign in which it eliminated powerful clubs such as Velez Sarsfield of Argentina, Universidad Catolica of Chile and defending Copa Libertadores champion Internacional of Brazil.

“It would be unbelievable to win the sixth title, it would add another page in the history books for us,” Aguirre said. “ We are happy to be in the final and we will try our best to win the title.”

He ack nowledges Santos comes into the decisive match as the SAO PAULO: Brazilian soccer great Pele poses with favorite after holding the Copa Libertadores trophy after a news confer- Penarol to a 0-0 draw in the first leg in ence in Sao Paulo. —AP Uruguay last week . t i t l e to t he Col om b i a n c l ub, b ut And in addition to playing in front of its Aguirre got past two America de Cali home fans, the Santos squad will defenders and fired in a low, left-foot include two players touted as future Brazil stars — Neymar and Paulo shot.

“I remember it very well,” Aguirre Henrique Ganso.

Ganso has been cleared to play after said ahead of Penarol’s last practice before late yesterday ’s matc h at a muscle injury that has sidelined him Pacaembu stadium. “A goal in the last for several weeks. “They are two great minute of extra time to give us the title players, but we are worried with the in the decisive match — it was incredi- entire Santos team, with Elano and others who are good enough to play in the ble.”

Now in the coach’s seat, the 45- Brazilian national team,” said Aguirre, year-old Aguirre has a chance to guide who dismissed any notion of a special Penarol to another title, restoring the scheme to contain Neymar and Ganso.

Uruguayan club as a powerhouse in “I have confidence in Penarol,” he said.

South America football. He’s hopeful “We deserve to be in the final, as does history will somehow repeat itself late Santos. It’s going to be a great final, very exciting.”—AP yesteerday.

S AO PAULO: Pe na rol coa c h D i e go Aguirre has another chance to secure a place in history when Penarol faces Santos in the Copa Libertadores final late yesterday.

Aguirre scored an incredible match winner when Penarol won its last Copa Libertadores title 24 years ago, finding the net in the last minute of extra time, when America de Cali fans had already started celebrating the draw.

It was the third game of the finals and the draw would have given the

Attack-hungry Chelsea gambles on Villas-Boas

Phillies crush Cardinals in MLB

19

16

THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011

Kuwait take on Japan in Olympic qualifier Page 19

WIMBLEDON: French player Richard Gasquet plays against Russian player Igor Kunitsyn in a Men’s Singles match at the 2011 Wimbledon Tennis Championships at the All England Tennis Club.—AP

Venus toils to overcome oldest player WIMBLEDON: Five-time champion Venus Williams needed three sets and nearly three hours to overcome the oldest player in the field yesterday and reach the third round at Wimbledon.

With rain delaying play on the other courts at the All England Club, Williams outlasted Kimiko Date-Krumm 6-7 (6), 63, 8-6 in a compelling battle under the sliding roof of Centre Court that featured great shot-making from both players.

Williams relied on her big serve at key moments to overcome a gritty challenge from the 40-year-old Japanese player, who was the second oldest woman to reach the second round here in the Open era after Martina Navratilova. “She doesn’t play anywhere near her age,” Williams said. Following Williams on Centre Court was defending men’s champion Rafael Nadal, who cruised past Ryan Sweeting 6-3, 6-2, 6-4 to move into the third round, showing just how tough he’ll be to stop as he chases a third Wimbledon crown.

The top-ranked Spaniard, who beat the American for the third time this year, all in straight sets, had only seven unforced errors to go with his 38 win-

ners. Nadal broke Sweeting five times and lost serve just once.

“I was playing very well,” said Nadal, who finished in style on the last two points with a running backhand passing shot down the line and a forehand volley into the open court. “The second and beginning of the third I had the match completely under control, but he had a few good shots.”

The opening contest ended with Date-Krumm hitting a backhand passing shot just wide to lose serve on match point after 2 hours, 56 minutes of play. Among those giving the players a standing ovation were all guests in the Royal Box, including Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall and wife of Prince Charles.

Williams, who fell behind 5-1 in the first set before climbing back into the match, finished with 12 aces and 45 winners, one less than Date-Krumm.

Williams had 24 unforced errors, while Date-Krumm had 31.

“It was tough. She came out and I just couldn’t seem to get a game,” Williams said. “She played so well and before I knew it the ball was past me every time in the first set.” It was the first

time the two players — who have a combined age of 71 — have met in their long careers. “She runs down every ball,” Williams said. “She hits every ball basically on the baseline, hard and flat. If you get it anywhere near the midcourt, she hits for the corners and comes to the net. “I thought she played unbelievable today. I thought she had some luck on her side, too, with net cords, balls hitting lines. I just thought today was a perfect storm for her to try to get a win.

Thankfully I had some answers.”

Williams, who turned 31 last week and is playing in her 15th straight Wimbledon, was pushed to the limit.

Date-Krumm kept her off balance by ripping back her serves, hitting flat groundstrokes from corner to corner and sneaking into the net for drop volleys. The 57th-ranked Date-Krumm made her Wimbledon debut in 1989, reached the semifinals in 1996 and retired later that year until her return in 2008. “I played my tennis and (showed) I can fight with Venus also,” Date-Krumm said. “She’s a five-time champion here.

She’s a great player. So I can fight with her. It was a very, very good match for me.” With rain pounding on the translu-

cent roof, Williams and Date-Krumm put on a fighting display of competitive tennis. The first set lasted 65 minutes, the third went 69 minutes. By comparison, Venus won her first match against Akgul Amanmuradova on Monday in 59 minutes. “Obviously I’d prefer to win in straight sets with no breaks but against a player like her today, right until the end she was attacking,” Williams said.

“Even that last shot I thought I hit a great approach and she almost hit a passing shot, so that was the story of the match but I’m really glad I was able to serve well, I think that really got me through.” It was the third match played under the roof this week, with the tournament schedule already disrupted by rain. The roof was installed before the 2009 tournament and had been rarely used until this week. Matches eventually began after 3 p.m. on the outside courts yesterday after the showers let up.

“It was awesome to be able to play,” Williams said. “It was raining out there.

It’s definitely a little bit warmer and having not played on Centre Court without the roof I don’t know if it was faster or not but it’s fantastic that we have it.” The roof remained over Centre Court for

Mattek-Sands of US tests Wimbledon’s fashion police WIMBLEDON: Bethanie Mattek-Sands promised Wimbledon had never seen anything like it, and she wasn’t kidding. The 26-year-old American, famous for her unusual fashion taste, arrived on court yesterday for her firstround match wearing a white fringed jacket with 12 tennis balls cut in half stitched down each silver-studded sleeve.

She paused briefly to show off the Lady Gaga-inspired outfit for a throng of about 10 photographers that had gathered at Court 14, before spotting a look of concern on the face of a nearby tournament official. “I’m not hitting any balls in it,” Mattek-Sands said.

“Don’t worry ... It’s too heavy to wear.”

Wimbledon’s rule book stipulates that “any competitor who appears on court dressed in a manner which is deemed unsuitable by the Committee will be liable to be defaulted.” MattekSands left the jacket draped over her chair to begin warming up with Japanese opponent Misaki Doi. Underneath, she wore a skin-tight white dress with one long sleeve and one short sleeve — revealing a tattooed arm — and her trademark kneehigh socks.

Under her eyes, she wore black strips with a silver “B” painted on top.

She claims the eye black, for which she

recently signed an endorsement deal, has a practical purpose and “actually does reduce the glare.”

Mattek-Sands, who has spoken of her admiration for Lady Gaga, told her Twitter followers earlier in the day: “1st match on court 14. Make sure you’re there to see my Alex Noble Jacket when I get to the court! Wimby has never seen something like this!” British designer Noble, who has collaborated with Lady Gaga, also designed a dress for Mattek-Sands’ appearance at the WTA’s Wimbledon party last week.

That understated number was fluorescent yellow, with yellow tennis balls stitched into the corset and a Mohican-style headpiece.

Noble described Mattek-Sands’ Wimbledon outfit as “a bit more street — an urban take on tennis and couture.” Mattek-Sands has a reputation for testing the boundaries of fashion taste. She was fined at the 2005 US Open for wearing a cowboy hat onto court but it didn’t prevent her from sporting a leopard-print outfit at the tournament a year later.

The Wimbledon Museum snapped up the World Cup-inspired outfit Mattek-Sands wore at the tournament in 2006. The 2011 jacket might soon be on display — Mattek-Sands lost 6-4, 57, 7-5 to Doi yesterday.—AP

Nadal’s match, then was opened for Andy Roddick’s match against Victor Hanescu.

“The Wimbledon Centre Court with the roof or without the roof, is probably the best court of the world,” Nadal said.

“It’s always a pleasure playing in this court. For me today is a new experience.” Nadal’s next opponent will be Gilles Muller, who advanced after bigserving Canadian Milos Raonic retired while leading 3-2 in the first set yesterday. The 31st-seeded Raonic, who led the men’s tour with 504 aces in 36 matches coming into Wimbledon, had been considered a threat on grass.

Among other top names scheduled to play yesterday were Andy Murray and Juan Martin del Potro. Among men advancing yesterday were 2010 runnerup and sixth-seeded Tomas Berdych, who downed Julien Benneteau 6-1, 6-4, 6-2; No. 10 Mardy Fish, a 7-6 (6), 6-4, 6-4 winner over Denis Istomin; and No. 17 Richard Gasquet, who defeated Igor Kunitsyn 6-1, 6-4, 6-4.

Women’s first-round winners included No. 13 Agnieszka Radwanska and No. 16 Julia Goerges. Williams, who returned to tournament tennis last week at

Eastbourne after a layoff of nearly five months with a hip injury, looked flat in the early going and fell behind 3-0 and 5-1 as Date-Krumm controlled the points.But Williams settled into her game and ran off five straight games to go up 6-5, saving two set points at 5-3 and another at 5-4. Williams squandered a set point of her own at 6-5, then went down 6-2 in the tiebreaker and saved four more set points.

At 6-all, Date-Krumm floated a forehand that just caught the outside of the line and finally converted on her eighth set point when Williams missed a backhand passing shot. Williams broke twice to take the second set and went up a break at 2-0 in the third. But DateKrumm wouldn’t give in, breaking back for 2-1 when Williams double-faulted and then saving six break points in the fourth game.

“It’s just important to play each point, and just to keep competing, keep battling,” Williams said. “I feel like I’m playing better than Eastbourne. I feel like my movement is a lot better.

I’m not feeling any pain from my injury right now so that’s more than I expected.”—AP

With Bolt looming, Gay focuses on world berth

WIMBLEDON: Bethanie Mattek-Sands of the US arrives on court prior to her match against Japan’s Misaki Doi at the All England Lawn Tennis Championships.—AP

EUGENE: Tyson Gay’s pursuit of Usain Bolt heats up this week as Gay battles his US sprint rivals for a chance to take on the Jamaican star at the athletics World Championships.

Gay has signalled his intention of reclaiming the 100m world title with the fastest 100m in the world this year. But before an eagerly anticipated showdown can occur at the World Championships in Daegu, South Korea, Gay must book his place on the US team at the national championships and world trials that start here today.

Gay has been plagued by injuries since winning the 100m and 200m world titles in Osaka in 2007. He missed out on the Olympic final in Beijing the following year and pulled out of the 200m after taking 100m silver behind Bolt at the World Championships in Berlin two years ago.

Gay has already narrowed his focus for the season, saying that he expected to compete in just the 100m at the US championships. His 9.79sec, run in a small meeting in Cleremont, Florida, on June 4, is the fastest in the world this year.

But half a dozen other US men have run 10.0 or faster. In the Diamond League meeting on Eugene’s Hayward Field track on June 4, Mike Rodgers clocked a personal best of 9.85 to finish second to Jamaican Steve Mullings.

Darvis Patton was fourth in 9.94 and former world and Olympic champion Justin Gatlin sixth in 9.97. University of Oklahoma student Rakieem Salaam clocked 9.97 at the NCAA collegiate championships, and Olympic bronze medallist Walter Dix won in Daegu in 10.0 in May. Gatlin is on the comeback trail after serving a doping ban. His appearance at the Prefontaine Classic was his first in a Diamond League meeting, but even then he was looking toward the US trials and the top-three finish he’ll need to book a world berth.

In Gay’s only other 100m so far this season, he was second to Mullings in a photo-finish at the New York Diamond League meeting, both clocking 10.26 in damp, chilly weather with a significant headwind.

In a race delayed by three false-starts Gay was noticeably slow out of the blocks.

He was confident he could improve. “I still have a positive mind frame that once I put everything together, I know it’s going to be pretty good,” he said.

The stringent US qualifying system, based on performance at the trials, makes for a high pressure meeting. Even those who have IAAF byes as reigning world champions must compete in at least one heat of some event to secure their places on the team. —AFP

y

A

S&P affirms NBK’s A1 ratings

e niv rsar n

Years

Page 22

flydubai deal worth over $300 million Page 22 THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011

Lagarde eyes IMF top spot

Qantas reaches $100m settlement with Rolls-Royce Page 25

Page 26

ATHENS: A protester holds an iron base in front of riot police during clashes outside the Greek Parliament yesterday. - AP

Greek PM survives vote, eyes austerity push Europe pushes banks to join Greek bail-out ATHENS: After surviving a crucial confidence vote, Greece’s struggling prime minister prepared yesterday for his next political battle - getting a new austerity package through parliament to avoid a default on the national debt. Greece’s international creditors demand that George Papandreou get approval for $40.24 billion in budget cuts and new taxes and a 50 billion euros privatization drive by the end of the month before handing over 12 billion euros in bailout funds to save the country from bankruptcy in mid-July.

A default could drag down Greek and European banks and shake the finances of other weak eurozone countries such as Portugal, Ireland and Spain. All 155 lawmakers from Papandreou’s Socialist party voted to back their leader in the 300-seat parliament yesterday, eliminating the chance of early elections and shoring up confidence in markets. After the vote, the euro remained buoyed, the Athens stock index rose 1.5 percent and the Greek bond yields dropped for a second day running, a sign investor confidence is improving slightly.

The vote offered some encourage-

ment for the embattled prime minister, who has had to contend with strikes, riots and dissent within his own party because of the deeply unpopular measures. But Papandreou’s struggles are far from over.

He still needs to convince several of his own deputies to support the austerity measures which they have publicly criticized. At least one deputy said he would not back them. Alexandros Athanasiades told a private Greek television channel yesterday that he would vote down the measures over objections to selling off state assets.

Papandreou is due to meet with lawmakers from his party to begin shoring up support for the measures slated for a Jun. 28 parliamentary vote. Greece is being kept financially afloat by a $157 billion package of bailout loans granted by other eurozone countries and the International Monetary Fund last year, and has implemented strict austerity measures in return, cutting public sector salaries and pensions, increasing taxes and overhauling its welfare system. But the country has struggled to meet it targets, missing many, and is now in negotiations for a second bailout, which

Papandreou has said will be roughly the same size as the first.

Meanwhile, officials from the IMF, European Commission and European Central Bank who have been overseeing Greece’s reforms are in Athens to discuss the new austerity measures. Nicola Mai with JP Morgan Chase bank said Papandreou will likely succeed in passing the austerity package, but sees greater risk to whether he can successfully implement it over time. Mai said strong public opposition and weakness in the economy will make it difficult for Papandreou to push through necessary structural reforms, meet fiscal targets and sell state assets.

Meanwhile, European governments are pressing reluctant banks and insurers to share the pain of a second Greek bailout package, in an attempt to avoid market meltdown while reducing the cost to taxpayers. Talks between governments and creditors began across the euro zone yesterday, three people familiar with the matter told Reuters. The European Union bloc agreed last week that any private sector support for the bailout had to be voluntary.

“The (German) finance ministry has invited banks and insurers for talks on a working group level in Frankfurt,” the source said, adding that all relevant banks and insurers in Germany that could contribute would take part. Separately, the French insurers’ association FFSA said its head Bernard Spitz had been summoned to the finance ministry yesterday to discuss the Greek debt situation. “Yes, he is there right now,” a spokesman said. Euro zone governments are discussing a second bailout package for Greece that would run from 2011 to 2014 and could amount to $172 billion, including up to 30 billion euros from the private sector.

But there is rising pressure in countries like Germany, Finland and the Netherlands for aggressive steps to force banks to share the burden of a new aid package, after taxpayers coughed up all of the money in the previous round. The Dutch Ministry of Finance was talking yesterday with the country’s banks, insurers and pension funds about the extension of debt to Greece, a source familiar with the matter said. The source declined to give further details.

Any suggestion that governments are

Airbus mops up India, Qatar orders Kuwait’s Alafco inks deal for 6 Airbus A350s LE BOURGET: European plane maker Airbus won a slew of orders for its A320 medium-haul workhorse, including a record deal for 180 from Indian budget carrier IndiGo at a rainy Paris Air Show yesterday. On top of that $15 billion (10billion- euro) sale, Airbus was also expected to sign a deal with Qatar Airways to buy five of its A380 superjumbos, an industr y source said.

Airbus’s US rival Boeing for its part signed a memorandum of understanding for the sale of 40 B737 medium-haul planes to Russian company UTair Aviation for a list of price of 3.2 billion dollars.

The IndiGo order comprises 150 A320neo, the upgraded and more fuelefficient variant of the A320, of which the airline will also take 30, making it the largest single civil aviation order by the number of planes involved. Airbus

commercial head John Leahy said the sale was “the largest transaction in civil aviation ever done,” adding that the company could have chalked up more than 1,000 orders for the A320neo by the end of the airshow. Meanwhile, the monster A380, in the light blue livery of Korean Air, sat on the runway at the old Le Bourget airfield, recruited at the last minute after the intended show model damaged its wing on arrival. That craft was due to appear later after repairs.

Nearby stood its rival, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. The first Dreamliner due to fly long-haul commercial routes was presented by its launch customer, Japan’s All Nippon Air ways, which vaunted it as key to its ambitious expansion. “We have a target to expand our international network and the 787 will play a significant role in that target,” Shuichi Fujimura, a senior vice presi-

dent of the airline (ANA), told reporters, presenting a model of the plane’s future dark blue striped livery. On the rainy third day of the show, visitors were able to splash through the puddles to climb aboard ANA’s Boeing 787, minus some seats and trimmings, and admire its larger-than-normal cabin windows, a point of pride for the airline. Boeing has long delayed its first delivery to ANA due to technical setbacks, which Fujimura said is now expected in August or September. Kuwaiti plane hire firm Alafco signed an accord for six big long-haul Airbus A350s for $1.6 billion at list prices. Republic, the owner of US Frontier Airlines, signed a preliminary agreement to buy 80 A320neos worth $7 billion at list prices, Airbus said. Latin American carrier AviancaTaca announced it intended to order 51 A320s, including 33 of the Neo.—AFP

ENI PROBE: Focus on Kuwait, Iraq MILAN: An Italian prosecutor is investigating the country’s largest energy group ENI and five executives over suspected corruption related to projects in Iraq and Kuwait, an official said yesterday. The Milan prosecutor ’s office is probing whether the executives took kickbacks from Italian engineering and construction firms in exchange for subcontracts to drill for oil in Iraq’s Zubair and Kuwait ’s Jurassic fields. Prosecutors are investigat-

ing both the company and the five executives for “international corruption.” They are also looking into the Italian firms Bonatti, Ansaldo, Renco, Elettra Energia and Elettra Progetti over suspected bribes or promises of kickbacks.

ENI was unable to be reached for comment. The energy company has since 2009 headed a consortium drilling in Iraq’s Zubair field while its subsidiary Saipem last year was awarded a contract

to engineer and construct oil and gas treatment facilities in Kuwait. Saipem and five of its management have been on trial in Milan since April related to alleged kickbacks they gave in 1995-2004 to obtain contracts in Nigeria, where they were part of an international consortium including the US giant Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR). ENI and its subsidiary were fined $365 million last year by US authorities.— AFP

forcing the banks to pay could be viewed by credit rating agencies as effectively a Greek default or restructuring, however.

That could trigger further catastrophic debt downgrades. German chancellor Angela Merkel last week softened her tough position on the banks in a meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and the two agreed that any private sector support should be purely voluntary.

In exchange for their support, German lenders have now demanded “additional incentives” in the form of state guarantees, and the talks will in all likelihood focus on the details of how to make this work. “It’s a matter of semantics. What the EU finance ministers want to avoid is a mandatory rollover because of the implications that might have for Greece’s ratings,” said Simon Adamson, a senior analyst at Creditsights.

“It has to be voluntary, but there are different shades of voluntary,” he said, adding that banks in many countries were in a weak position to negotiate after receiving billions of euros in state support at the peak of the credit crisis. Private investors are estimated to hold some two-thirds of Greece’s approximately 270

billion euros of sovereign bonds. Roughly 90 billion euros of that is held by insurance companies, pension funds and investors such as hedge funds. French and German banks are among the biggest holders of Greek debt, with French banks holding $56.7 billion at the end of 2010, and German banks holding $34 billion, according to Bank of International Settlements (BIS) data. Of these totals, French banks held $15 billion in government debt, and German banks $22.7 billion.

Banks in Germany themselves have quantified their exposure at between 10 and 20 billion euros, while insurers estimate their holdings at 6 billion euros, just a fraction of their total invested assets.

Even if Greece defaulted, the impairment charges for banks might not be devastating, some analysts say. However, a Greek default would send markets into a tailspin and spark fears countries such as Spain and Italy are next in line. Companies including the Gulf’s Dubai World , which rescheduled its $25 billion debt pile last year, forced outliers to comply through a deal that applied to all if a certain threshold of creditors agreed to it.— Agencies

World stocks mixed BANGKOK: World stock markets were mixed yesterday as optimism that debt-laden Greece might avoid default wore off amid a profit warning from a European electronics giant. Oil prices fell below $94 a barrel, while the dollar was higher against the euro and the yen. Shares were mostly lower in early European trading. Britain’s FTSE 100 fell 0.1 percent to 5,770.34.

Germany’s DAX added 0.2 percent to 7,296.54, while France’s CAC-40 was down 0.1 percent at 3,872.88.

Wall Street was set to move lower after four sessions of gains, with Dow Jones industrial futures losing 0.1 percent at 12,076 and S&P 500 futures 0.2 percent down at 1,285.70. Investor sentiment shriveled after Amsterdambased Royal Philips Electronics NV issued a profit warning, saying worsethan-expected demand in Western Europe hurt its performance in the second quarter. Earlier in Asia, markets were generally higher as the euphoria from a vote of confidence in the Greek government helped push markets up.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 index gained 1.8 percent to close at 9,629.43, with export-focused stocks shooting up on a weakening yen, which makes products heading overseas less expensive.

Consumer electronics giant Sony Corp jumped 3.7 percent. Toshiba Corp rose 2.8 percent, and Hitachi Ltd. was up 3.1 percent. Confidence was boosted after the Greek government won a crucial vote of confidence, raising the likelihood that the country will push through budget cuts required to get the latest installment of emergency

loans. Worries that a default by Greece could lead to a wider financial crisis have been dragging on markets since early May. “In the short term, people have become more optimistic because the Greek crisis seems to be resolved,” said Castor Pang, head of research at Core Pacific-Yamaichi in Hong Kong. He said markets would remain “calm” if the US Federal Reserve, which began a two-day policy meeting Tuesday, does not announce another round of bond buying, or quantitative easing, to help boost the economy once the current program ends late this month.

Resources and heavy machinery

producers - companies whose profits are closely tied to global economic growth - had strong gains. Hong Kong-listed Zijin Mining Group, China’s biggest gold miner, rose 2.2 percent. Australia’s BHP Billiton, the world’s largest mining company, rose 1.1 percent. Japan’s Komatsu Ltd., one of the world’s leading equipment makers, jumped 2.5 percent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was marginally higher at 21,859.97 and South Korea’s Kospi rose 0.8 percent to 2,063.90.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.5 percent to 4,532.60. Benchmarks in Taiwan, Indonesia and the Philippines also rose. —AP

TOKYO: A businessman walks past a stock share prices board in Tokyo yesterday. —AFP

y

A

22

e niv rsar n

Years

THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011

B U S I NE S S

ABK first to launch MasterCard World with Premium Mirror Mark KUWAIT: Al Ahli Bank of Kuwait became the first bank in the Middle East to launch the new and exclusive World MasterCard, with the new premium mirror mark.

The new super premium cobranded ABK Emirates World MasterCard has been designed to service ABK’s most prestigious clients. Its unique design, features and benefits deliver both recognition and reward locally and abroad. ABK Emirates World MasterCard cardholders enjoy premium Sk y wards M iles on international spends, earning 7 M iles per KD1 spent abroad compared to the 3 miles on local spend. Skywards, the awardwinning frequent flyer programme of Emirates, offers members earning opportunities when they fly on Emirates or partner airlines, or when they use the programme’s designated

Stewart Lockie hotels, car rentals, financial, leisure and lifestyle partners.

Sk y wards M iles can be redeemed for an ex tensive range of rewards, including tickets on Emirates and other Skywards partner airlines, flight upgrades, hotel accommoda-

tion, excursions and exclusive shopping.

The product has been carefully designed to offer exclusive privileges such as complimentar y access to over 600 airpor t lounges across the globe (including all GCC airpor ts), automatic upgrades to SPG Gold Preferred Membership at Starwood Hotels and Resorts worldwide, access to the world’s leading luxur y lifestyle Concierge Ser vice and World privilege access ser vices through Quintessentially, a private members’ club, as well as preferential servicing with Hertz car hire worldwide. ABK Emirates World MasterCard cardholders also benefit from complimentary purchase protection, extended warranty, plus free travel accident insurance and medical coverage.

Stewar t Lock ie, GM, Retail Banking commented ‘This is and will be the most exclusive premium card on offer in Kuwait.

We feel privileged that ABK is the first bank in the Middle East to introduce the new premium mirror mark, aimed at distinguishing and rewarding our most prestigious and affluent customers.’ Lock ie added ‘I believe that we have successfully delivered a card product that truly matches the status and desires of our most discerning clients. With the ABK Emirates World MasterCard our customers are assured excellent returns and recognition both locally and abroad.’ Due to the exclusive nature of this product, and its limited availability, we would request you contact your premium banking relationship officer for more information.

Qatar Airways celebrates new route launch: Venice VENICE: Qatar Air ways Chief Executive Officer Akbar Al Baker has reinforced the strategic importance of the airline’s ongoing expansion in Europe following its latest route launch to Venice. The world-renowned tourism hotspot became Qatar Airways’ fifth new European destination launched this year following a major European expansion drive by the Doha-based carrier. Just in time for the busy summer holiday season, the new route promises to be highly popular among leisure travellers heading to Venice to see the stunning Piazza San Marco, experience romantic gondola rides or just enjoy “La Dolce Vita”, the Italian expression for the “Good Life”.

With the start of daily flights from the Middle East to one of Europe’s most romantic cities, award-winning Qatar Airways has established itself as the only Five Star ranked airline serving Venice, offering its customers the highest levels of service and in-flight experience. Speaking at a press conference in Venice, Qatar Airways Chief Executive Officer Akbar Al Baker spelled out the airline’s commitment to the Veneto region and Italy in general, helping strengthen commercial and economic ties with the newly-introduced route.”With our new daily service to Venice, we have yet added another famous European city to our growing network and look forward to bringing visitors from the

Qatar Airways hosts a packed press conference in the Italian city of Venice to herald the arrival of new flights to its third Italian gateway.

Middle East, Africa and Asia and Australia to this year round tourism destination.

“Likewise we are confident that the Italian travelling public will welcome our new service, which brings exotic holiday destinations such as the Maldives and the Seychelles and vibrant business destinations such as Shanghai and Singapore closer to Italy to convenient and easy connections via Doha.” “Venice Airport and local authorities have been very supportive, recognising the benefits the new Qatar Airways service will bring to the travelling public in Italy and businesses of the Veneto region,” he added.

Built on water starting more than 1,500 years ago, Venice attracts a staggering 20 million tourists each year and is one of

the 40 UNESCO world heritage sites in Italy.However, Venice is not only a market for leisure traffic.

North Eastern Italy and the Veneto area belong to the most dynamic and economically power ful regions in Italy and are the home of many shoe, textile and eyeglass manufacturing companies with high export activity. Leading international fashion brands such as Diesel, Replay, Geox and United Colors of Benetton reside in close proximity, making Venice a vibrant commercial centre with also great potential for Qatar Airways’ cargo business.

While Venice has a relatively small population of around 270,000 inhabitants, the nearby cities of Bologna, Verona and Trieste collectively have a catchment area of over six million peo-

ple, representing over 10 per cent of Italy’s total population. With the launch of daily flights between the carrier’s Doha hub and Venice, the “City of Canals” becomes Qatar Airways’ third Italian gateway after Rome and Milan, to where the airline also operates daily services.

Qatar Airways operates a modern Airbus A320 featuring 12 seats in Business Class and 132 seats in Economy on the Venice route.

Passengers are offered seatback TV screens in all classes with the nex t generation interac tive onboard entertainment system featuring a choice of more than 700 audio and video on demand options. Furthermore, the aircraft is equipped with a special OnAir service allowing passengers to use their mobile phones onboard for SMS, MMs and emails.

IPIC launches $1.5 billion bridge loan DUBAI: Abu Dhabi-owned International Petroleum Investment Co (IPIC) has launched a $1.5 billion bridge financing facility through RBS, JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs, two sources said yesterday. The 18-month facility will initially carry a margin of 50 basis points over Libor, the two sources, both familiar with the matter, said, but will step up after 12 months, one of them added,

declining to say what the new margin would be.

It is understood that a wider group of banks have been invited to participate in the deal, but one banking source said the margin was too tight to be attractive for the bank. IPIC held investor update meetings earlier in June but insisted that it would only issue another bond in coordination with Abu Dhabi’s debt management office. IPIC,

whose current investments include major stakes in Austrian oil group OMV and Spain’s Cepsa, was last in the market in March when it raised $4 billion in three-tranche euro and sterling-denominated bonds. Separately, Abu Dhabi is likely to issue an international bond in the next 6 to 12 months, a senior debt management official said yesterday. —Reuters

Jazeera’s Airbus A320

Jazeera Airways, Lufthansa Technik extend Total Engine Support contract LE BOURGET AIR SHOW: Award-winning Jazeera Airways and Lufthansa Technik AG, the leading provider for maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) of airplanes, components and engines, have extended their existing 10-year Total Engine Support TES(r) contract signed in 2006 for an additional two years. The agreement comprises 13 CFM56-5B engines of the six Airbus A320 airplanes of Jazeera Airways’ fleet.

Chairman of Jazeera Airways Group, Marwan Boodai, said, “We’ve had a great working relationship with the Lufthansa Technik team since 2006. They have provided Jazeera Airways with great support and service through the years and we look forward to continue working with them for the years to come”.

“The extension of our strong relationship with Jazeera Airways is the result of the good and trustful cooperation both

partners have developed over the past years”, said Dr. Thomas Stueger, Chief Executive Product and Service of Lufthansa Technik. “Working together for quite some time since the start of Jazeera’s operation we are very familiar with their needs in technical support and their special operation requirements for highly utilized airplanes.”

The EMS(r) agreement is just one part of several services Lufthansa Technik is delivering to Jazeera Airways. In 2006, the partners signed a 10-year total technical support that includes Component Maintenance Services (CMS), Maintenance Management Services, and Reversers/Nacelles covered by Aircraft Related Components (ARC) as well as access to Lufthansa Technik’s component pool which covers more than 1000 components.

Al-Beit Al-Mali Fund sees returns 44.3 percent above benchmark QATAR: Investment House Qatar, dends to investors.”

He added, “I would like to take this announced yesterday that the Al-Beit AlMali Fund, managed by Global oppor tunity to thank the Asset Investment House (Global), has recorded Management Team at Global for their 5.3percent return during the first five achievement during the first five months months of 2011, outper forming its of 2011. Their commitment to provide benchmark by 4.4percent and bringing value-added products and services is the total returns since inception to reflected in the Fund’s results.”

Investment House was 50.4percent, a solid established in 2001 as a 44.3percent above its private shareholding benchmark. The Al-Beit company under comAl-Mali Fund was plete super vision of launched in September Qatar Central Bank. The 2006 by Investment company provides a House and aims to wide range of Sharia achieve medium to compliant investment long-term capital appreproducts and services ciation by investing in in investment banking, Sharia-compliant comasset management, pripanies listed on the vate equity and strucQatar Exchange. At the tured finance, and end of May 2011, the focuses on different Fund’s sector allocation economic sectors was focused on including financial servFinancials (35.6percent), ices, real estate and Services (35.3percent) Sherif El-Rafie construction, manufacand Industrials (28.8perturing and the services cent). Mohamed Sherif El-Rafie, General Manager of Investment sector. The company ’s Sharia board House, said, “Al-Beit Al-Mali Fund has reviews all products and services and consistently outperformed its bench- provides religious and moral opinion mark since its inception in 2006. In 2010, and validation for all financial and operthe fund recorded a return of 25.1per- ational aspects, in strict compliance with cent and distributed 7percent cash divi- Islamic code and standards.

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

.2721760 .4390200 .3900000 .3234040 .2793990 .2881530 .0061030 .0024910 .0741320 .7221440 .3849730 .0725990 .7071350 .0062850 .0461310

.2774230 .4474840 .3914980 .3296380 .2847850 .2937090 .0062200 .0025390 .0755620 .7360660 .3923950 .0739990 .7207670 .0064070 .0470210

CUSTOMER TRANSFER RATES .2728500 .2764500 .4401070 .4459140 .3924670 .3976460 .3242040 .3284810 .2800900 .2837860 .0526200 .0533140 .0428560 .0434220 .2888660 .2926780 .0350280 .0354910 .2214690 .2243910 .0034030 .0034480 .0000000 .0061980 .0000000 .0025300 .0000000 .0032330 .0000000 .0037610 .0743160 .0752960 .7239320 .7334840 .0000000 .3910180 .0727790 .0737400 .7088850 .7182390 .0000000 .0063850

Al-MuzainiExchange Co.

Japanese Yen Indian Rupees Pakistani Rupees Srilankan Rupees Nepali Rupees Singapore Dollar Hongkong Dollar Bangladesh Taka

ASIAN COUNTRIES 3.449 6.117 3.204 2.506 3.833 223.350 35.323 3.693

Philippine Peso Thai Baht Irani Riyal - Transfer Irani Riyal - Cash

6.304 8.998 0.271 0.273 GCC COUNTRIES 73.389 75.618 714.820 730.770 74.923

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 48.350 46.266 1.259 201.320 388.640 182.500 5.941 35.681

EUROPEAN & AMERICAN COUNTRIES US Dollar Transfer 275.100 Euro 396.420 Sterling Pound 448.000 Canadian dollar 282.560 Turkish lire 172.260 Swiss Franc 327.890 Australian dollar 290.920 US Dollar Buying 273.900 20 Gram 10 Gram 5 Gram

GOLD 283.500 143.500 74.000

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 294.800 293.300 730.990 730.990 3.960 3.695 285.700 284.200 539.900 36.500 54.000 167.800 224.100 48.340 46.315 398.900 397.400 35.970 35.820 6.300 6.130

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 0.232 0.241 3.530 389.810 0.186 93.430 47.400 4.310 226.800 1.864 51.300 713.930 3.300 6.540 76.040 73.390 224.150 43.560 2.644 450.000 44.100 329.900 5.700 9.390 198.263 74.940 275.200 1.230

0.033

388.480 0.185 93.430 3.850 225.300

328.400 5.700 9.210 74.840 274.800

TRAVELLER’S CHEQUE 448.000 274.800

Sterling Pound US Dollar

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

Selling Rate 274.850 284.045 447.320 396.695 326.139 728.013 74.808 75.444 73.256 386.883 46.265 2.504

6.127 3.210 3.712 6.296 674.181 3.525 9.101 5.779 3.916

KuwaitBahrainIntlExchange Co. 713.750 3.210 6.330 75.610 73.390 224.150 43.560 2.505 448.000

GOLD 1,597.270

10 Tola

Indian Rupees Pakistani Rupees Bangladesh Taka Philippines Pesso Cyprus pound Japanese Yen Thai Bhat Syrian Pound Nepalese Rupees

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) 274.800 3.220 6.140 2.520 3.705 6.375 74.920 73.480 730.600 46.230 452.200 0.00003280 3.910 1.550 390.400 5.750 400.700 289.200

AlMulla Exchange Currency Transfer Rate (Per 1000) US Dollar 274.450 Euro 398.000 Pound Sterling 447.800 Canadian Dollar 284.300 Japanese Yen 3.450 Indian Rupee 6.125 Egyptian Pound 46.185 Sri Lankan Rupee 2.503 Bangladesh Taka 3.679 Philippines Peso 6.328 Pakistan Rupee 3.208 Bahraini Dinar 730.900 UAE Dirham 74.800 Saudi Riyal 73.300 *Rates are subject to change

A

y

e niv rsar n

THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011

Years

BUSINESS

Joyalukkas dazzling customers this summer KUWAIT: Joyalukkas, the world’s favorite jeweler, is all set to celebrate summer with a variety of offers and exclusive designs that have been exclusively tailored for the season.

Since summer is the season when most residents plan their holidays and indulge in jewelry shopping for self and family back home. To make the summer jewelry shopping special for customers, Joyalukkas has planned a

special initiative called ‘Summer Dazzles’ exclusively for jewelry shoppers in Kuwait.

This summer initiative will combine a big win along with a mix of other prizes to make ‘Summer Dazzles’ exciting and fruitful for jewelry shoppers.

“We have always prided ourselves on being a customer-centric brand, and through this promotion we seek to maximise the experience of customers

and make summer extra special for jewelry shoppers in Kuwait,” said John Paul Joy Alukkas, Executive Director, Joyalukkas Group, GCC. The ‘Summer Dazzles’ promotional initiative will offer customers a Free Watch on jewelry purchases worth KD 300. In addition to the free watch, customers will also get free Nokia C5 Mobile phones, LG 32” LCD TVs and Dell laptops on purchase of diamond

jewellery. Joyalukkas has also introduced a large number of new designs offering a wide variety and choices to make summer shopping special for its customers.

The new designs, obtainable from all Joyalukkas showrooms across Kuwait, will be available in gold, diamond, pearl, precious stones and platinum, under its popular brands like Eleganza, Di Royale, Masaaki, Ratna

and Zenina, to name a few. The ‘Summer Dazzles’ promotion commenced on June 8th and will be valid up to July 30th 2011. Joyalukkas is an ISO certified group with 80 showrooms in eight countries across the world and has been the proud recipient of the prestigious Middle East Local Retailer of the year and the Dubai Quality Awards appreciation certificate.

VIVA introduces new GCC roaming rates Enjoy cheaper rates while traveling to Gulf countries KUWAIT: In compliance with the GCC Regulation, Kuwait Telecommunications Company VIVA, is introducing its new 2011 roaming rates for customers traveling to any GCC destination. The new rates will become effective starting July 1st, 2011.

On the new roaming rates, VIVA has always aimed at providing its customers with the most efficient services, and will continue to aim at offering customers new and competitive

promotions, products and services that will benefit them most.

Along with VIVA’s existing roaming ser vice, customers traveling to any of the GCC destinations will have the ability to use their line with lower roaming rates using VIVA. Customers can make and receive local and international calls as well as send and receive SMS text messages, divert their calls to any other number and use the Missed Calls Aler t Plus. With data roaming service, customers

can check e -mail, read news, view content, send and receive MMS and use all data services.

When mobile phones are switched on, it will automatically find an operator and customers can begin using their devices immediately.

Customers are encouraged to take the opportunity to enjoy VIVA’s ex tensive net work of international roaming partners and stay in touch with friends, family or colleagues. Customers can make and receive calls, SMS

text messages and use any of VIVA’s ser vices in up to 170 countries with more than 400 roaming par tners. VIVA also makes it possible for customers who own devices with data ser vices with more than 215 operators in 115 countries supporting broadband data services. To activate the roaming service and to find out more information on GCC roaming rates please visit any of the available VIVA branches or visit our website at www.viva.com.kw.

S&P affirms NBK’s A+/A-1 ratings

Muhammad Al-Lamadani (left), Senior Executive Sales, VP GE International Inc. signs the engine MRO contract with Mukesh Sodani, Chief Financial Officer of flydubai.

flydubai deal worth over $300 million KUWAIT: flydubai, the world’s fastest growing start-up airline, has signed a contract with GE Aviation for the maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) of 109 engines over the next 10 years. The OnPoint solution agreement, signed at this week’s Paris Air Show, represents an investment of $2 million per CFM56-7B engine that power flydubai’s fleet of Boeing 737-800 NG aircraft. Some engines will have more than one shop visit, putting the total value of the contract at more than $300million.

Ghaith Al Ghaith, CEO of flydubai, said: “flydubai is constantly looking for the best services and partners to ensure our fleet remains in the best condition to safeguard our operational obligations and safety of our passengers and crew. We have one of the newest fleets in the industry and signing this agreement will ensure our engines continue to perform at peak levels.” flydubai, which marked two years of operations on 1 June 2011, currently has a fleet of 17 aircraft with many more due to be delivered in the months and years ahead. “flydubai has ordered more than 50 Boeing 737 aircraft, serving the needs of the passengers traveling in the GCC, Middle East, Indian Sub-Continent and, North Africa, Asia and the fringes of Europe,” said Muhammad Al-Lamadani, Senior Executive Sales, VP GE International Inc.. “With this agreement,

GE Aviation will provide flydubai with high quality services and material to ensure its CFM56-7B engines continue to perform well in the field.”

OnPoint solutions are customised service agreements tailored to the operational and financial needs of each customer for any size fleet. These agreements are designed to help lower the customers’ cost of ownership and maximize the use of their assets. Backed by GE’s global support network, OnPoint services may include overhaul, on wing suppor t, new and used-ser viceable parts, component repair, technology upgrades, engine leasing, integrated systems support and diagnostics and integrated systems. flydubai has a simple model where customers only pay for services they want to receive. Fares are inclusive of all taxes plus one piece of hand luggage weighing up to 7kg and one small laptop bag or hand bag. Checked baggage starts at AED50 for 20kgs. A seat with extra legroom costs AED100. flydubai operates from the modernised Terminal 2 building on the north side of Dubai International Airport. GE Aviation, an operating unit of GE, is a world-leading provider of jet and turboprop engines, components and integrated systems for commercial, military, business and general aviation aircraft. GE Aviation has a global service network to support these offerings

Mabanee Co listed on the ‘Kuwait 15’ index of KSE KUWAIT: Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE) has announced the selection of Mabanee Co. as one of the companies listed on the ‘Kuwait 15’ index for measuring market performance. The selection affirms the company’s solid position in the real estate sector. Mabanee Co. is one of 50 companies listed on KSE that were initially selected for the index based on their liquidity. The selected companies were then categorized according to market capital value based on major sectors , and the 15 companies with the top capital value were included in the ‘Kuwait 15’ index.

The companies on the ‘Kuwait 15’ index represent 65.6 percent of KSE’s total capital and 59.12 percent of the market ’s overall liquidit y. Besides Mabanee Co., the index includes the National Bank of Kuwait, the Mobile Te l e c o m m u n i c a t i o n s Company (Zain), Kuwait Finance House, Gulf Bank , Boubyan Bank , the National Mobile Te l e c o m m u n i c a t i o n s Co m p a ny ( Wa t a n i y a ) , U n i t e d A h l i Bank, Burgan Bank, Kuwait Projects

Company (Holding), Agility, Kuwait I nternational Bank , the National Industries Group (Holding), Gulf Cable and Electrical Industries Co., Boubyan Petrochemical Co. Mabanee Co., which was listed on KSE in 1994 has the largest market capital value in its sector in Kuwait . Its current paid up capital exceeds KD55 million, with more than 1500 distinguished shareholders . Besides real estate development, Mabanee Co.’s activities extend to construction, project management, and investment. Mabanee recorded an average annual business growth exceeding 10percent in the past four years. The Avenues is the most important project operated by the company, bringing a new dimension to the world of shopping through its unique design, spacious areas and the diversity of its shops. The mall is home to more than 400 shops representing renowned brands, and it has become a shopping destination for many citizens, residents and tourists. The mall attracted more than 22 million shoppers last year.

KUWAIT: Standard & Poor’s, the international credit rating agency, affirmed yesterday the long term and short term counterparty credit ratings of NBK at A+/A-1, with a Stable outlook. The affirmation of NBK’s ratings were constrained by the weakened economic environment domestically and the geopolitical unrest in the

regional markets. On a positive note, the ratings reflect NBK’s strong track record of resilient performance, its leading market position and its clear strategic direction.

The rating agency highlighted in its recently released report that NBK’s ratings are supported by the bank’s leading commercial

position in its domestic market and its sound pre-provision earnings capabilities.

S&P made a special emphasis on NBK’s strong capitalization which the rating agency views as high by international standards and expects it to continue to underpin NBK’s financial profile.

Standard and Poor’s also added

Siemens launches iDos KUWAIT: Siemens, Germany’s No 1 in innovative home technologies, is ushering in a new era of convenience and efficiency with the introduction of iDos, the world’s first washing machine with an integrated dosing system. Extremely convenient for families, iDos measures and dispenses detergents automatically for any laundry load thus ensuring that every washing gets the right amount of liquid detergent down to the millimeter. It also avoids the negative effects of overdosing thus making the use of the washing machine extremely easy for any member of the family. iDos reduces water consumption by up to 7,062 litres per year, a key consideration for washing machine usage in the Middle East region. The laundry detergent tank needs to be filled only once for every twenty loads of laundry thus enhancing convenience of use and saving the time for the users. iDos has been launched in the Middle East through an innovative campaign by Siemens - ‘iThink. iSave. iCare. iWash. iDos’ - which depicts the key brand attributes of the product of using a innovative product, achieving savings while caring for health and family through the convenient wash offered by iDos. Georg Kazantzidis, Marketing and Business Development Director, BSH, said: “iDos is truly revolutionary in terms of technology. For the Middle East users, it particularly brings the added advantage of reduced water and energy use as well as savings in detergent usage. The sheer convenience of automatic dosing will further add to the quality of their lifestyle.” According to surveys on laundry habits in select European countries conducted by Siemens, 90 percent of all consumers do not dose their laundry detergent correctly. The overdosing of laundry detergent leads to problems, especially for the environment because excessive foam formation will result in additional rinsing cycles and hence a disproportionate increase in water consumption.

Choosing the right dose of detergent is not easy. Even the users of measuring cups are often way off the mark. The right dose to be used depends on a number of factors including water hardness, soiling, capacity, machine dimension and nature of the fabric.

While overdosing leads to excessive foam production, visible residues and thus risk of allergies in addition to higher costs and environmental pollution resulting from higher water consumption, under dosing of the detergent leads to stains, fat lice, bad odour and the clothes becoming grey or shabby. The right dose of detergent is thus crucial not only for family health but also in terms of sustainable development issues such as excess water and energy use, both addressed effectively by iDos. The iDos automatic dosing system’s finely tuned sensors automatically register both the amount of laundry and the different types of fabric contained in a load, i.e. cotton, syn-

The Siemens iDos

thetic fabrics, or mixed loads. Even the laundry’s degree of soiling can be determined with great precision with the aid of sensors. Based on these factors, the programme logic calculates the perfect washing sequence and the precise temperature control and carefully adjusts the laundry detergent doses administered in several steps.

The detergent tank of iDos can be easily removed for cleaning while the liquid detergent or softener can be added between laundry loads at any time. The machine also has a manual compartment where users can manually add powdered or liquid detergent or other laundry products adding to their convenience and options. iDos also comes with several value-added features. The anti-vibration design of the new sidewalls help stabilize the washing machine for a noticeable reduction in vibrations. The automatic stabilization system has highly sensitive sensors that detect even the smallest vibrations and work directly to optimize spinning behavior and compensate every imbalance. This makes the new washing machine extremely quiet even at the highest spin speed.

The revolutionary design of iQdrive has a brushless magnetic drive in which results in an extremely reliable high-output motor whose innovative magnet technology activates the iQdrive without friction. This is effective whether users wash heavy loads once a week or several times a day. The iDos washer also has the Siemens anti-stain system capable of removing the 16 most frequent stain types without special stain remover, as well as the varioPerfect Control logic, which the user select what matters most to him or her for every single load of laundry. Without compromising on results, users can save a great deal of time by up to 60percent on standard or special cycle with the speedPerfect option and save energy automatically adjust the wash cycle, lower the water temperature and reduce energy consumption with the ecoPerfect option. Translated into numbers, the washer will use up to 30 percent less power than the limit value demanded by energy efficiency grade A.

that NBK, with its leading position in the domestic market, is expected to focus primarily on opportunities that government projects are likely to provide over the medium term and to leverage its controlling 47percent stake in Kuwaiti Islamic lender Boubyan Bank to offset any growing competition.

Leighton’s Dubai unit eyeing Saudi deals DUBAI: Dubai construction firm Al Habtoor Leighton, an affiliate of Australia’s Leighton Holdings, is eyeing two contract wins in Saudi Arabia worth up to 10 billion riyals each by year end, its top executive said. The firm also hopes to announce onshore projects in Iraq by the end of 2011 and will bid for work on Qatar’s $36 billion railway and metro project as it aims to have 50 percent of its work outside the United Arab Emirates by the end of 2012.

“We would think that in the next 6 to 12 months there will be a couple of substantial orders (in Saudi),” Laurie Voyer, chief executive and managing director told the Reuters Real Estate and Infrastructure Summit in Dubai yesterday. “I’d be surprised if it’s not in the scale of 5-10 billion riyals,” he said, adding that the contracts would likely be infrastructure and development projects. Saudi Arabia, the biggest Arab economy, is facing a massive housing problem due to rapid population growth and an inflow of expatriate workers coming to the kingdom which is rolling out a $400 billion infrastructure spending plan.

Dubai builder Arabtec told the summit on Monday it is looking to eventually more than double its workforce to 25,000 in Saudi Arabia.

Construction firms have been rapidly expanding operations outside the United Arab Emirates, where house prices in Dubai, the emirate hardest hit by the financial crisis, plunged some 60 percent from their peaks in 2008, and billions of dollars worth of projects were put on hold or cancelled.

Voyer said the firm expected to increase its current order book to 25 billion dirhams ($6.81 billion) by year-end from 20 billion dirhams currently as it looks to win more contracts in the Gulf Arab region.

Al Habtoor won its first contract in Iraq last year and its first in Saudi Arabia in 2009. Voyer said the firm is keen to participate in Qatar’s railway and metro project, tenders for which are expected to be out in the next two months.

“For the Doha metro there is lot of registration for interest and industry sounding going on at the moment. We are staying near the front line on that.

We will participate in this.” He said the company may look to pitch for tenders on tunneling, track work and building stations all of which Leighton has traditionally done in Australia. Voyer added that the company has already bid for the UAE’s 40 billion dirham rail network called Etihad Rail. “It’s being evaluated at the minute,” he said. Construction of the first phase is expected to begin in the second half of 2011.

Voyer said Al Habtoor Leighton is not looking to announce writedowns for its projects in the United Arab Emirates and that it would unlikely need further cash from its parent firm. Leighton, Australia’s biggest contractor, is a unit of Germany’s largest builder Hochtief , in which Spain’s ACS took a majority stake last week drawing the curtain on a takeover saga that has lasted more than 9 months.

Voyer said in April it may need a cash injection from its parent firm if its ongoing legacy projects are not paid on time. “There is some money outstanding in Dubai ... it’s digestible. We’ve got plans to recover that money and it could take 3 or 4 years to get back,” Voyer said yesterday, declining to say how much the company is owed.—Reuters

y

A

24

e niv rsar n

Years

THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011

BUSINESS

KSE rallies on mixed note GLOBAL DAILY MARKET REPORT

MIDEAST STOCKS

KUWAIT: Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE) ended yesterday’s trading session on a mixed note. Despite a slim advance recorded by KSE Price Index, poor performance of the markets blue-chip stocks pulled Global’s weighted General Index to end the day in negative territory.

Market indices Global General Index (GGI), market weighted, ended the day down by 0.16 percent, at 193.47 point.

Market capitalization was down for the day at KD31.61 billion. On the other hand, KSE Price Index closed at 6,278.7 point, adding 2.70 points (0.04 percent) to its previous close.

Market breadth During the session, 99 companies were traded. Market breadth was skewed towards decliners as 28 equities retreated versus 27 that advanced.

Daily trading activity Trading activity was up this session. The trades conducted in the banking sector. Total volume traded was up by 57.58 percent with 147.62 million shares changing hands at a total value of KD33.44 million (95.93 percent higher compared to the day before). The banking sector was the volume leader yesterday, accounting for 35.64 percent of total shares. The same sector was the value leader, with 56.98 percent of total traded value. Kuwait International Bank was the most active in terms of volume and values traded during yesterday session, with 46.16 million shares exchanged at an aggregate value of KD15.02 million.

Top gainers and biggest decliners In terms of top gainers, Commercial Real Estate Company took the top spot for the day, adding 7.14 percent and closed at KD0.075.

The company has sold a piece of land in Al-Mahboola for KD34.38 million. Accordingly, the company generated KD29.24 million profit, to be

Dubai falls after MSCI delay; most markets flat

recorded in 2Q2011 financial statements. On the other hand, Housing Finance Company (ISKAN) shed 10.10 percent and closed at KD0.045, making it the biggest decliner in the market.

Sectors wise Although five indices managed to end the session on a positive note, the biggest two sectors affected negatively on the market. Global Banking Index and Global Services Index were the only two declining sectors as they closed down by 0.70 percent and 0.02 percent, respectively. There was up-normal trading on Kuwait International Bank during yesterday’s session. However, the scrip closed flat at KD0.325 after topping the volume and value leaders’ lists with 46.16 million shares changing hands at a total value of KD15.02 million. The heavy weighted, National Bank of Kuwait (NBK) wiped Tuesday’s gain and closed down by 1.69 percent. Boubyan Bank was the

only other loser in the sector, shedding 1.64 percent of its share value.

On the services sector, heavyweights Zain and Wataniya stocks closed unchanged at KD1.040 and KD1.960, respectively, helping the services index to cut its losses as Agility closed down by 1.54 percent at KD0.320.

The investment sector was a great support and limited the market’s loss as it index increased by 0.10 percent by the end of the day. A gain of 2.53 percent on the stock of Kuwait Foodstuff Company (Americana), pushed the Global Food Index 2.12 percent higher.

Meanwhile, Global Insurance Index posted 0.64 percent in daily gains, on the back of a 3.33 percent advance on the counter of Kuwait Insurance Company share price.

Global Non-Kuwaiti Index added 0.98 in daily gains buoyed by positive performance recorded by several component stocks. Ahli United Bank and Gulf Cement Company

were up by 1 percent and 1.15 percent, respectively. In sector related news, United Gulf Bank (UGB), has announced the full repayment of its three-year $115 million syndicated loan facility which matured on June 16, 2011. The scrip closed up by 3.13 percent at KD0.330.

Oil news Kuwaiti crude price went up $0.28 in yesterday’s trading to reach $105.93pb, according to Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC). The price reached $104.93pb on Monday, with a 28 cents increase.

The slight increase in crude prices came after a series of severe drops last week, hitting $110.43pb for the Kuwaiti crude on June 13.

Corporate news United Gulf Bank (UGB), has announced the full repayment of its three-year $115 million syndicated loan facility which matured on June 16, 2011.

DUBAI/CAIRO: Dubai’s index fell yesterday after MSCI delayed its decision on a possible index upgrade for the UAE and Qatar, as most regional markets ended flat.

Dubai’s benchmark fell 1.8 percent, its largest one-day decline since May 23, after index compiler MSCI said it would delay to December its decision on whether to upgrade Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Qatar to emerging market status.

Bourses in Abu Dhabi and Qatar ended largely flat. Foreign ownership limits in Qatar, capped at 25 percent,would stand in the way of an upgrade, MSCI said.

“Given this was on the day of MSCI’s expected announcement, I would say the (Dubai) market is pretty resilient,” said Matthew Wakeman, EFG-Hermes managing director for cash and equity-linked trading. “I don’t think there were a lot of foreigners selling, it’s mostly retailers.”

Dubai Financial Market, the only listed bourse operator in the Gulf, tumbled 5.4 percent. Contractor Arabtec and Emaar Properties fell 3.7 and 2.8 percent respectively. “What’s more important than the one-day reaction is where this decision leaves us - the biggest obstacle remains foreign ownership limits and that needs to be addressed by the authorities,” said Hashem Montasser, managing partner at Frontlane Capital, a Dubai-based asset management firm. “The rules need to be relaxed so we have a larger investible universe,” Montasser adds.

In Egypt, the index fell 1 percent as concern that stock prices had risen too far given an uncertain economic outlook outweighed Citadel Capital’s announcement of takeover talks. “In the short term, the market is news and rumour-driven, and looking expensive given the uncertain growth outlook,” said Omar Ascar, head of trading in Cairo Capital Securities. Citadel, up 0.3 percent, said it was in possible buyout talks with potential strategic partners.

Saudi Arabia’s index reversed early-session gains after impact of the Greek government’s confidence vote in parliament waned, prompting some investors to switch focus to the US Federal Reserve.

The Fed is likely to ack nowledge renewed weakness in the US economy and reiterate its commitment to keep interest rates low for an extended period.

Global shares retreated yesterday. The Saudi index eased 0.2 percent, inching towards Monday’s 12-week low. Local investors are looking at cues from global markets amid a lack of fundamental catalysts, and await second-quarter earnings season which commences in about three weeks. “We’re going to start looking solely at home at how the numbers pan out,” said a Riyadh-based fund-manager who asked not to be identified. Saudi Basic Industries Corp (SABIC) dropped 0.7 percent, Al-Rajhi Bank slipped 0.4 percent and Saudi Electricity Company shed 0.7 percent.

Yesterday’s highlights Dubai The index fell 1.8 percent to 1,550 points.

Egypt The measure slipped 1 percent to 5,473 points.

Saudi Arabia The benchmark eased 0.2 percent to 6,449 points.

Qatar The index shed 0.03 percent to 8,217 points.

Abu Dhabi The measure eased 0.03 percent to 2,733 points.

Oman The index inched down 0.05 percent to 6,006 points.

Kuwait The measure edged up 0.04 percent to 6,279 points.

Bahrain The measure declined 0.2 percent to 1,338 points —Reuters

A

y

e niv rsar n

Years

THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011

business Nokia to transfer 2,800 employees to Accenture HELSINKI: Nokia Corp said yesterday that it has completed a deal to outsource Symbian software development to Accenture, including the transfer of 2,800 workers to the global management-consulting firm. The announcement came two months after Nokia disclosed the plan as part of its aim to cut costs by $1.5 billion by 2013, including 7,000 global layoffs, and catch up with top rivals in the tough smartphone market. The Finland-based company faces strong competition from Research in Motion’s Blackberry, Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android, as it continues to see market share fall. Last month it issued a big profits warning. Nokia’s share price has plunged in recent months and was trading near multi-year lows of $6.08 in early afternoon trading in Helsinki - almost unchanged from Tuesday’s closing rate.

Nokia said Accenture PLC will provide it with software services through 2016 with the personnel transfer expected in October when the deal closes. Half of the workers are based in Finland with another 1,400 in China, India, Britain and the United States. Besides the personnel transfer, Nokia has said it plans to lay off 4,000 people by the end of 2012, mostly in Denmark, Finland and Britain.

Since 1998 Nokia has been the biggest seller of cellphones but in the first quarter of this year Apple overtook it as the world’s top handset vendor in revenue terms reaching sales of $11.9 billion on shipments of 18.6 million devices against Nokia’s revenue of $9.4 billion on shipments of 108.5 million units.

Although Nokia sold 432 million devices in 2010 _ more than its three closest rivals combined _ its market share continues to fall. At 29 percent in the first quarter, it’s at its lowest level since the late 1990s. Even more damaging has been Nokia’s inability to meet modern challenges of the smartphone market, the lucrative sector in the handset industry, where Nokia used to be the leading innovator. Although it sold 24 million smartphones in the first quarter, 13 percent more than in 2010, its share in the sector plunged to 24 percent from 39 percent a year earlier.

On Tuesday, Nokia unveiled the N9 smartphone, based on its new MeeGo platform, but the handset received mixed reviews as markets are waiting to see the company’s first Windows Phone. CEO Stephen Elop has said the Windows-based phone will be launched later this year with bulk sales expected in 2012. In February, Nokia announced a major strategy shift when it partnered with Microsoft Corp., saying it will gradually replace Symbian and MeeGo platforms with the Window-based software that will become the main software used in Nokia cellphones. — AP

Qantas, Rolls-Royce reach $100 million settlement Agreement reached over engine failures SYDNEY: Qantas said yesterday it had reached a $100 million settlement with engine maker Rolls-Royce over a mid-air blast that forced the grounding of the Australian flag carrier’s entire A380 fleet. The deal led the airline to increase its profit forecast for the year ending in June despite being hit by natural disasters at home and abroad as well as soaring fuel bills. “We have reached a compensation agreement with Rolls-Royce following the Rolls-Royce engine failure on flight QF32 in November last year,” said a “pleased” Qantas chief Alan Joyce.

“After extensive negotiations Rolls-Royce has committed to a settlement of around Aus$95 million.” In November a Qantas A380 superjumbo that had just left Singapore was forced to return and make an emergency landing because one of its RollsRoyce Trent 900 engines exploded mid-flight. The incident dented the carrier’s reputation for safety, having never experienced a crash in the jet age, and forced it to initially ground all six of its Airbus double-deckers.

Subsequent investigations pinpointed a manufacturing defect that caused fatigue cracking in an oil pipe, resulting in a fire and potentially catastrophic engine failure.

Qantas, Singapore Airlines and Germany’s Lufthansa all used the Trent 900 engine on their A380 superjumbos and

dozens of turbines had to be replaced. The Australian firm did not resume full A380 services until January, and the plane involved in the blast will be out

which have lost about a third of their value since the blast, surged three percent immediately after the announcement before dropping back to around

and scaled back growth plans.

In light of the payout and despite the impact from recent natural disasters at home and abroad-including earthquakes

SINGAPORE: In this file photo, firefighters attend to a Qantas passenger plane after making an emergency landing with 459 people aboard after having engine problems. —AP of action until next February for repairs estimated to cost Aus$135 million. The carrier said the settlement signalled the end of its compensation case in the Federal Court of Australia, adding that it “looks forward to a continued strong relationship with Rolls-Royce”. Its shares,

A$1.845 - 1.1 percent firmer in a broadly higher market.

Battered by rising fuel prices and a string of natural disasters including an ash plume from a Chilean volcano that forced widespread flight chaos this week, Qantas has announced job cuts, cancelled plane orders

in New Zealand and Japan-the airline revised its full year earnings outlook, forecasting a pretax profit of Aus$500-$550 million in the 12 months to June. It had earlier predicted profits would be “materially stronger” than the 2010 figure of Aus$377 million.

Disasters including earthquakes in Japan and New Zealand, floods and cyclones in Australia and the Chile volcano had wiped out $206 million, he said, with the full cost of the ash upheaval yet to be determined.

Historically high fuel prices were also eating into profits. “We don’t have much leeway, we have to be excellent just to get a profit at all, let alone make the returns required to justify capital investments,” Joyce said. He vowed “tough decisions” on Qantas’s international business, which is set to return a $200 million loss for the 12 months ending June 30, pinning the airline’s future on Asia-the world’s fastest growing aviation market. “As a nation we used to fly via Asia-now we fly to Asia, and the future will be all about travel to and within Asia,” he said, promising to unveil a new international strategy later this year.

There has been widespread speculation that Qantas is planning an Asian subsidiary, hoping to lower its cost base and tap the burgeoning travel market there.

The Qantas chief, meanwhile, stepped up warnings to engineers, pilots and baggage handlers over strike plans, accusing unions of having “fallen out of touch with reality.” “We have seen the anxiety and stress caused when volcanic ash affects many areas of our network-imagine the consequences of industrial action against the whole of our network,” he said. — AFP

Ash clouds blacken australia tourism SYDNEY: Cyclones, floods, earthquakes and now an ash-spewing volcano have come at a high price for Australia’s aviation and tourism industries, which analysts say are losing tens of millions of dollars a day. Already struggling with surging fuel costs and a mining-driven rally in the Australian dollar that has seen an exodus of holidaymakers offshore, tourism and travel operators could little afford this year’s string of disasters. The ash cloud from Chile’s Puyehue volcano grounded hundreds of domestic and international flights in Australia this week, the second major disruption due to the plume.

Sydney, the nation’s biggest airport, all but

BAODING: A worker assembles mechanic parts of a wind turbine at a factory of Guodian United Power Technology Co., Ltd. Baoding is promoting itself as a manufacturing center for solar, wind and other gear by transforming into a living showcase of environmental technology. — AP

China’s ‘solar city’ rushes to capitalize power boom BAODING: Solar panels jut out of streetlights in China’s self-proclaimed Clean Energy City.

Tiny wind turbines twirl atop public buildings.

Schools are due to teach students about “green living.” In the scramble to profit from demand for clean energy, this city southwest of Beijing is promoting itself as a manufacturing center for solar, wind and other gear by transforming into a living showcase of environmental technology. “Baoding is following a path of ecological civilization,” a deputy mayor, Zhou Xingshi, told a group of visiting reporters.

Baoding illustrates the intensity of Chinese government efforts to profit from rising global demand for clean energy. Communist leaders are promoting solar, wind and hydropower to curb surging demand for imported oil and gas and see technology exports as a route to cleaner growth and higher-paid jobs.

Chinese utility companies are required to install wind turbines and Beijing has promised to pay part of the cost of solar equipment - a strategy that is driving the rapid growth of Baoding and other supply centers.

China led the world in clean energy investment last year at $54.4 billion, up 39 percent from 2009, according to a March report by the Pew Charitable Trust. Worldwide, investment rose 30 percent to $243 billion.

Baoding, 90 miles from the Chinese capital in the table-flat farmland of Hebei province, started billing itself as a renewable energy center in 2002 after the success of Yingli Green Energy Co., a local startup founded in 1987 that grew into a major supplier of solar panels. City leaders officially declared Baoding a “Clean Energy City” in 2006.

Today, Baoding has two government research labs and 170 companies that produce clean power equipment. They include Zhonghang Huiteng Windpower Equipment Co., one of the biggest makers of wind turbine blades. Other fields targeted by Baoding for development include batteries and power transmission. Baoding’s clean energy companies had $7 billion in revenue last year, according to the city government. It says the local industry should grow by 30 percent a year through 2016. Local authorities work closely with companies, organizing job fairs,

providing training and helping to recruit employees through local schools. Companies also are attracted by Baoding’s “funding resources,” said Lian Shujun, deputy director of the Baoding National New and High-Tech Industrial Development Zone. Lian gave no details but Chinese companies in favored industries can receive government support ranging from tax breaks and low-interest loans to free rent in business parks.

Such support has prompted complaints

by Beijing’s trading partners that the government is improperly subsidizing Chinese companies and hampering market access. The US government said this month Beijing agreed to rescind some policies that American officials said amounted to subsidies to makers of wind turbines. China already is the world’s biggest producer of solar and wind equipment. Yingli and other Chinese solar suppliers have long competed in global markets because their equipment was too expensive for domestic use. Chinese makers of wind gear are only starting to expand abroad but some domestic producers already are among the world’s biggest due to their vast home market. The Chinese government says it wants at least 15 percent of the country’s power to come from renewable sources by 2020. It is spending heavily on grants and other aid to propel technology development.

“The Chinese government is very supportive of the green market,” said Liansheng Miao, Yingli’s founder and chairman. In a sign of high-level endorsement, Yingli received a $5.5 billion line of credit last year from stateowned China Development Bank. Miao rejected what he said was the notion that Yingli, a private company with shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange, succeeds due to government support. “I am an entrepreneur, not a state-owned entity, so the government would not help me,” he said at a news conference. “What we compete on is our innovation and cost structure.” Yingli’s CFO, Li Zongwei, said it has yet to receive any money from the China Development Bank and will have to submit individual projects to obtain loans. Li said such projects are conducted on “commercial terms.” Other companies in Baoding say business is booming. —AP

shut down for some 24 hours, and flights from Asia and Europe had to be diverted to Brisbane, stranding thousands of passengers and leaving airlines with a hefty bill.” This will be having a very major effect (and) not only on the airlines,” aviation analyst Neil Hansford told AFP. “All they’re going to save by not flying is the fuel, the payments for air traffic fees, some airport charges... but they can only get rid of up to 20 percent of their costs; 80 percent of their costs sit there whether they fly or not.

“The industry could be losing in excess of Aus$30 million a day.” Hansford, chairman of consultancy Strategic Aviation Solutions, said

the latest flight chaos would be felt particularly hard because it came mid-week, impacting business travel. “You take taxis, then you’ve got to take hotels, restaurants... because this is right in the heart of the business week,” he said. Airports, which mainly profit from parking, would also see significant one-off losses from the upheaval, which affected most of the nation’s major terminals, he added. Australian flag carrier Qantas said yesterday that the ash had cost it $21 million before this week’s chaos and estimated 200,000 of its passengers had been hit in recent days-”well over 10 times as big” as the impact of last April’s Icelandic eruption. —AFP

Kesa considering selling Comet as trade worsens LONDON: Kesa, Europe’s third-biggest electrical goods retailer, is considering the sale of its loss-making British chain Comet after trade across the group worsened in its new financial year.

Chairman David Newlands told reporters yesterday that the company was looking at a range of options for Comet, including a sale or formation of a joint venture, while pressing ahead with a turnaround plan which includes selling weaker shops and focusing on profitable ranges like small appliances. Comet, which trades from about 250 stores and employs some 10,000 people, slumped to a loss of 8.9 million Euros in the year to April 30, results which Newlands described as “unsatisfactory and unacceptable”.

“We now have a strong turnaround plan in place and the board decided it was the right time to benchmark that plan against the external alternatives,” he said. Kesa shares jumped as much as 8 percent to 146.2 pence on hopes the firm would finally find a solution for the chain. However, some analysts questioned whether a buyer would come forward in a market where specialists like Kesa, Dixons and Best Buy face cut-price competition from grocers and the Internet, and where consumers are cutting back on discretionary purchases as household budgets are squeezed.

“It is entirely possible that things could get worse, not least as interest rates haven’t gone up yet,” said Arden Partners analyst Nick Bubb. Best Buy and partner Carphone Warehouse last week delayed a decision on the future of their fledgling UK megastore business, which some analysts took as a sign they are waiting to see what happens with Comet and could make a bid.

Underscoring the pressure on consumer-focused companies, Europe’s biggest consumer electronics maker Philips yesterday issued a profit warning.

Ridding itself of Comet has been suggested by analysts as an ambition of Kesa’s 18 percent activist shareholder Knight Vinke. Losing Comet could enable Kesa to focus on its successful Darty business in France, switch its listing from London to Paris and get its shares re-rated, but it would also reduce the group’s buying scale, which could impact profit margins.

Kesa has also attracted talk of a bid for the whole group, with private equity firms like PAI Partners mentioned as potentially interested in breaking up the company themselves. The company has declined to comment on such speculation. Kesa said trading since the end of April had been tough and weaker than internal expectations, with sales of televisions proving particularly poor against a strong performance during the same period last year ahead of the 2010 soccer World Cup. Analysts at Singer Capital Markets said they expected 2011-12 profit forecasts to be cut by about 5 percent.

However, Newlands said Kesa was comfortable with the existing consensus forecast, which analysts said was about 106 million Euros. —Reuters

(From right) Mike Pendill, Middle East Head of Citi’s Global Subsidiaries Group, Osamu Okada, Middle East Japan Desk Head at Citi and Marc Merlino, Corporate Banking Division Head, Citi Japan at the Japan Day event.

Citi holds Japan Day event in Dubai DUBAI: “Total trade between Japan and the UAE was increased by 25.4% to 36.6 billion US dollars in 2010. Japan’s exports to UAE increased by 13% to 7.3 billion and Japan’s imports from UAE also increased by 29% to 29.3 billion respectively.”

These figures were part of the opening remarks by HE Takashi Ashiki, Consul General of Japan in Dubai, during the Japan Day, a focused client event organized recently by Citi’s Japan Desk and featuring 30 top Japanese corporations with extensive business interest in the UAE. “Currently, around 315 Japanese companies are operating in the UAE...in Dubai we have 270 companies and 2500 Japanese people as well as the one and only Japanese Business Council for the Middle East and Africa,” continued HE Ashiki.

Japan Day event was an opportunity for Citi’s Global Subsidiaries Group (GSG), a focused client segment for Citi serving multinationals in more than 170 markets around the globe, to brief clients on the latest corporate banking, trade finance and treasury solutions, as well as furnish relevant economic research.

Mike Pendill, Middle East Head of Citi’s Global Subsidiaries Group (GSG) based in Dubai, said: “This event falls within our strategy to deepen our existing and time-tested partnerships with Japanese clients around the world, and to

highlight the UAE as a trading hub and a location of choice for our regional platform offering integrated cash management and trade solutions to Japanese corporations.”

Recently, GSG announced the establishment of a dedicated Japan Desk covering the Middle East and based in Dubai. This move is designed to better serve Japanese clients as they continue to expand into the region in response to increased trade and investment flows into the Middle East. Osamu Okada, Middle East Japan Desk Head at Citi, said: “Through a dedicated banking team on the ground, we are capable of delivering the full capabilities of Citi and facilitating opportunities and cross-border activities to Japanese multinationals active in the region.” Citi has been in the Arab World for nearly 50 years and views the region as critical to its global franchise. It currently offers full scale corporate banking services across ten Arab countries including Egypt, UAE, Lebanon, Jordan, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait as well as Pakistan.

Citi’s on-the-ground capabilities include Investment Banking, Capital Markets Origination, Equity Sales & Distribution businesses, Global Transactions Services, Equity Research, and Global Islamic Banking serving the MENA region.

A

y

e niv rsar n

THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011

Years

business

JPMorgan to pay $153.6M to settle fraud charges WASHINGTON: JPMorgan Chase & Co has agreed to pay $153.6 million to settle civil fraud charges that it misled buyers of complex mortgage investments just as the US housing market was collapsing. J.P. Morgan Securities, a division of the powerful Wall Street bank, failed to tell investors that a hedge fund helped select the investment portfolio and then bet that the portfolio would fail, the Securities and Exchange Commission said. Among the investors who lost money on the deal were autoworkers for General Motors, a Lutheran financial organization in Minneapolis and a retirement services company in Topeka, Kansas.

The settlement announced Tuesday is one of the most significant legal actions targeting Wall Street’s role in the 2008 financial crisis. It comes a year after Goldman Sachs & Co. paid $550 million to settle similar charges. Still, the settlement amounts to less than 1 percent of the bank’s 2010 net income of $17.4 billion _ or less than what JPMorgan earns in one week.

In its announcement, the SEC also said it had charged Edward Steffelin with misleading investors. Steffelin headed the team at GSCP, an investment firm that was supposed to have been selecting the portfolio of mortgage securities in the $1.1 billion deal. The SEC alleged that Steffelin knew that hedge fund Magnetar

Capital was directly involved in choosing the securities and was seeking a job with Magnetar at the time.

Steffelin has not reached a settlement with regulators.

His lawyer, Alex Lipman, said the SEC was making Steffelin a scapegoat in its case against JPMorgan, “to attach a name and a face” to it.

As part of the JPMorgan settlement, investors who were harmed will get back all of their money, the SEC said. JPMorgan also agreed to improve the way it reviews and approves mortgage securities transactions. JPMorgan neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing under the settlement. The bank released a statement saying it lost nearly $900 million on the investment. It also noted that it reviewed similar mortgage investments and voluntarily paid $56 million to compensate some investors in those deals. The bank agreed to settle the charges two weeks after Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co., complained to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke that new financial regulations designed to prevent another financial crisis were too burdensome on banks.

In a related action Monday, another federal agency, the National Credit Union Administration, sued JPMorgan Securities seeking to recover $278

million in losses on securities tied to risky mortgages that were purchased by five wholesale credit unions that failed in 2009 and 2010. The NCUA also sued Royal Bank of Scotland PLC for $565 million in damages over the same issue. Regulators have been investigating a number of major banks’ actions ahead of the financial crisis. More charges are expected.

Magnetar wasn’t charged in the SEC action. SEC enforcement chief Robert Khuzami said the hedge fund “was not responsible for those disclosures to investors.” But he said such deals “remain a high priority for the SEC.” Magnetar essentially made a $600 million bet that the investments would fail once the deal closed in May 2007, the SEC said. Just one month earlier, JPMorgan had launched a “frantic global sales effort” going beyond its traditional customers to sell mortgage securities, according to the agency’s suit.

Khuzami said the JPMorgan case, at its core, is about getting investors truthful information about their investment options. “The appropriate disclosures would have been to inform investors that an entity with economic interests adverse to their own was involved in selecting the portfolio,” he said. JPMorgan sold about $150 million in those securities to more than a dozen financial institutions that lost nearly

their entire investment, the SEC said. Under the settlement, nearly $126 million of the $153.6 million will be returned to investors. The rest will go to the US Treasury.

The investors included Thrivent Financial for Lutherans, a faith-based membership organization based in Minneapolis; Security Benefit Corp., an insurance and retirement services company based in Topeka, Kansas; General Motors Asset Management, which manages the automaker’s pension plans; and several Asian financial institutions such as Tokyo Star Bank, Far Glory Life Insurance Co. Ltd., Taiwan Life Insurance Co. Ltd. and East Asia Asset Management Ltd. The penalty is the biggest since Goldman Sachs & Co. settled civil fraud charges last summer. The $550 million that Goldman paid was the largest penalty against a Wall Street firm in SEC history. The Goldman settlement amounted to less than 5 percent of Goldman’s 2009 net income of $12.2 billion after payment of dividends to preferred shareholders - or a little more than two weeks of net income. Goldman was accused of steering investors toward mortgage investments without telling the buyers that the securities had been crafted with input from a client that was betting on them to fail. — AP

Lagarde eyes IMF’s top spot Second legal probe ups pressure on IMF candidate WASHINGTON: French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde is set to appear before the International Monetary Fund’s executive board today to make the case for why she should lead the global lender. She is up against Mexican central bank chief Agustin Carstens, who has been billed as the candidate of the world’s developing economies, which have never before been represented in the position of IMF managing director. The two are vying to replace France’s Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who resigned from the position in May to face trial in New York on charges of sexually assaulting a hotel maid. He has denied the allegations.

Lagarde-who would be the first woman to head the powerful multilateral institution-took off for Washington on Tuesday, she announced on the micro-blogging website Twitter. She was due to visit IMF headquarters yesterday for a series of bilateral meetings. In the afternoon she is scheduled to meet US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. She is to audition before the 24 members of the IMF’s executive board today, who must decide on a successor to Strauss-Kahn by the end of June. “During their informal meetings with the board, each candidate will present their views on issues facing the Fund and the membership, and the executive directors will be able to exchange views with the candidates,” the IMF said earlier this week.

Carstens, a 53-year-old economist and former IMF official, presented his case before the executive board on Tuesday, pledging to bolster the legitimacy of the 187-nation fund if selected.

The Mexican central banker called for the IMF’s governance structure to be more representative of emerging-market countries, which would in turn contribute more to the fund. The redistribution of quotas-the sums provided to the IMF by its member countries-must continue “in favor of emerging and developing countries,” he told the board, according to an IMF statement. Carstens

expressed satisfaction with the three-hour meeting as he left IMF headquarters in Washington. “It was a fairly long meeting, very orderly, in which I was allowed to express my points of view on the Fund and the risks it faces,” he told reporters. Lagarde, 55, a lawyer by training, has declared on Twitter that she believes the IMF should be “responsive, cooperative, legitimate and even-handed.” She has called herself an advocate of “moderate liberalism.” Lagarde is widely seen as the front-runner. But that has not stopped the two contenders from touring the world to promote their candidacies. Since June 1, Carstens has gone to Brazil, Argentina, Canada and India; after his visit to Washington, he trav-

LUXEMBOURG: French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde arrives for a Eurogroup meeting. — AFP

Spain lawmakers approve new labor market reforms MADRID: Spanish lawmakers approved new labor reforms yesterday to make wage negotiations more flexible, in a narrow victory for a government fighting to lower sky-high unemployment and regain the confidence of war y investors. The reforms are designed to shake up 30-year-old laws governing how unions and employers negotiate wages and other working conditions. The government acted after four months of talks between the two sides collapsed. Parliament will now start debating possible amendments.

Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who runs an increasingly weak minority government, got the package of reforms through the lower chamber of Parliament only after frantic negotiations with small regionally based parties, which ultimately abstained from voting. That gave Zapatero a simple majority, all he needed because the package was presented as a decree. Spain has so far avoided a debt crisis like the one afflicting several smaller eurozone countries, but many economists say it is not out of the woods yet.

Legislative approval of the collective bargaining changes came a day after the International Monetary Fund urged Spain to press ahead with more job-market reforms aimed at cutting its high unemployment rate - 20.7 percent as of the end of April according to the EU and 21.3 as of the end of the first quarter, according to the Spanish government. Economists say the old system is rigid and particularly harmful as Spain fights to overcome recession and desperately needs to create jobs, raise tax revenue and ward off fears it might be the next EU country to need a bailout. The vote was 169 in favor

eled to China and Japan.

Since May 30, Lagarde has visited Brazil, India, China and Portugal-where she attended the annual meeting of the African Development Bank-followed by Saudi Arabia and Egypt. This marks the first time that both candidates for IMF managing director have undertaken such intense campaigns. In 2007, Strauss-Kahn was the first candidate who visited multiple capitals other than Washington. His campaign gave him a decisive advantage over his Czech rival Josef Tosovsky. The executive board will aim to reach a decision “by consensus,” according to the IMF, but in case of deadlock it will decide by majority vote. The board is scheduled to formally discuss

and 159 against, with 20 abstentions.

The only ‘yes’ votes came from Zapatero’s party. Both unions and business groups have found something to complain about the government’s reforms.

The CEOE, Spain’s main business federation, is unhappy with a clause that stipulates that when a collective pay deal expires, its terms will remain in effect for up to 14 months while a new one is renegotiated. Unions, meanwhile, complain about reforms giving businesses greater flexibility, such as having employees do longer shifts when the workload demands it and shorter ones when business is slow. The changes are seen as the final plank of a reform package Zapatero was forced to enact under pressure from the EU and international financial organizations over the past year.

During that time, Spain fought to overcome recession and quell fears that its deteriorating public finances would require it to take a Greece -style bailout.

Zapatero has already cut government spending, frozen pensions, raised the retirement age and made it easier and cheaper for companies to lay people off. Spain slipped into recession in 2008 after a real estate bubble burst and along with it, a credit-fueled consumer spending spree vanished. The economy is growing again - although just barely - but the jobless rate has risen relentlessly, more than doubling since 2007.

Zapatero’s Socialists trail conservatives badly in the polls and Zapatero has said he will not seek a third term in general elections that must be called

by March 2012. His par ty was trounced in municipal and regional elections last month.— AP

the two candidates on June 28, and it must complete the selection process by June 30 at the latest.

The board consists of one woman and 23 men. Seven of the board’s members are from the European Union. Since 1946, under a tacit agreement between the United States and Europe, the leadership of the IMF has always gone to a European while the top job at the World Bank has always gone to an American.

Meanwhile, a second legal probe into France’s handling of a business dispute upped the pressure yesterday Lagarde, who is suffering allegations that she abused her authority in cutting short a legal battle between tycoon Bernard Tapie and his bank, sending the parties into arbitration. But on yesterday, judicial sources told AFP that prosecutors have begun an inquiry into whether the head of a state entity administering the bank’s debts concealed information relevant to the arbitration from his own board. Lagarde is not personally targeted in this second inquiry, but the official was under her ministry’s authority and the investigation can only add to the climate of suspicion surrounding her handling of the Tapie case. The arbitration panel eventually decided the businessman should be paid 385 million Euros from the public purse in damages and interest after the alleged mishandling by the state-run bank of the sale of his sportswear brand Adidas.

Lagarde’s political opponents have criticized the decision to cut short a legal battle between the bank and Tapie, an acquaintance of President Nicolas Sarkozy, and prosecutors allege she may have exceeded her powers. The Court of Justice of the Republic-which in France is the body which decides whether ministers can be prosecuted for alleged wrongdoing in officeis to rule on July 8 whether Lagarde can be formally investigated. — AFP

Fed speaks again as weak indicators cloud outlook WASHINGTON: US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke gave his second-ever press conference yesterday as signs of weakness in the world’s biggest economy cloud prospects for a stimulus reduction. The central bank’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) on Tuesday debated an eventual exit strategy from the more than $2.3 trillion of support the Fed has pumped into the economy since the 2008 financial meltdown.

Financial markets keenly awaited the conclusion of the two-day FOMC meeting, hoping to parse its policy statement, and Bernanke’s second-ever post-meeting briefing, for clues on the direction of interest rates.

The Fed will also publish updated estimates on economic growth, unemployment and inflation. IHS Global Insight analysts Patrick Newport and Nigel Gault warned that, “with growth signals coming in weak, inflation signals uncomfortably high, and

financial markets still worried about the eurozone sovereign debt crisis,” Bernanke would face tougher questions than at his first briefing on April 27. A change in nearzero interest rates was essentially ruled out.

Since December 2008, the Fed has kept its key target interest rate between zero and 0.25 percent in an effort to boost economic growth, and has promised repeatedly to leave it there for “an extended period.”

Most experts anticipate the FOMC will signal that the Fed’s $600 billion asset purchase program, or quantitative easing, dubbed QE2, will end as scheduled by June 30, and no other QE program will be announced. “The economy has not deteriorated enough to require QE3 and for this reason we believe that the losses in the greenback could be limited as the end of quantitative easing boosts the dollar,” said Kathy Lien at GFT. —AFP

AMSTERDAM: In this file photo new CEO of Philips Frans van Houten poses prior to a news conference. Philips Electronics issued a shock profit warning yesterday. — AP

Philips issues profit warning AMSTERDAM: Lighting and consumer electronics giant Royal Philips Electronics NV issued a shock profit warning yesterday, saying worse than expected demand in western Europe hurt its performance in the second quarter. Shares dropped 10 percent in the first minutes of trading in Amsterdam.

In a statement, the Amsterdam-based company said its lighting arm - which is the world’s largest lighting maker - will report low single-digit sales growth, down from mid-singledigit growth, along with shrinking margins. The company said the arm’s operating earnings before amortization will be around 85 million Euros against the previous quarter’s 193 million Euros. Philips said its consumer products arm is facing weak demand, declining licensing revenues and costs from exiting most of its television business. Here, it said operating earnings before amortization will be around 50 million Euros, down from 119 million Euros.

Philips said it will cut costs and take other unspecified measures in response. The company is due to report full second-quarter earnings July 18. “The results are well below estimate and it is particularly disappointing that Philips does not really provide a credible explanation for the extent of the shortfall,” said SNS Securities analyst Victor Bareno, who had rated shares a Buy. “It is also highly disappointing that Philips reports such a massive shortfall just before the end of the quarter.” He said Philips’ new management will now lack credibility in pitching the market any long-term growth expectations, and he will downgrade financial estimates and probably his recommendation as well. The company named Ron Wirahadiraksa as chief financial officer in March and Frans van Houten as chief executive April 1. Wirahadiraksa was previously the top financial executive at Philips’ health care arm, while Van Houten returned after a stint as head of its former semiconductor business, now the independent chip maker NXP NV. The company did not mention its third major division, which makes medical imaging equipment and is more insulated from consumer demand. — AP

G20 faces food commodities fight PARIS: The world’s top economies will try today to overcome differences and honour pledges to crack down on food price spikes which are again hitting consumers and fuelling unrest. A surge in agricultural commodities prices in 2007-2008 that triggered riots in some countries over food price rises led to a commitment by the Group of 20 nations to contain price volatility. But the G20 nations are still divided on key issues, such as clamping down on speculation, even though this is again a hot issue with food commodity prices hitting new high levels and helping fuel the Arab Spring revolts.

“It will be difficult to wring out an agreement,” French Agriculture Minister Bruno Le Maire conceded last week. But he warned that nothing less than “avoiding the 21st century becoming a century of hunger in the world” will be at stake when G20 agriculture ministers sit down in Paris today. France has made limiting speculation and reining in markets a centerpiece of its G20 presidency, and said it will accept no fudges on key issues.

Today “it will be white smoke or black

smoke, there won’t be half-measures,” vowed Le Maire. France would like to see the introduction of limits on the participation of purely financial actors on the agricultural commodity markets, and that traders be required to hold at least a portion of what they trade.

Countries such as the United States, Britain, Australia and Brazil are con-

cerned that such limits could crimp futures and derivatives markets, which are increasingly vital to farmers and processors. Another dispute focuses on increasing transparency on agricultural commodities production and stocks, with a proposal to create a global information network to boost reporting of key data. The paucity of information is widely seen as fuelling speculation, but

BOLIVIA: In this file photo, a woman looks at oat crops in Achacachi, Bolivia. Corn and sugar farmers worried as their crops withered last year during a drought that was the worst in 20 years. Farmers were also hurt by price controls that eliminated profits and by other government policies including farm seizures and restrictions on exports. — AP

countries such as China and India are still reluctant to share information they view as important to national security, diplomats said. “If countries among the G20 continue to view their stocks, their production, their crops information as if they are nuclear weapons, we will continue to have volatility,” OECD chief Angel Gurria said last week. “We have to create transparency.”

The 34-nation Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development has led calls for greater market transparency to reduce volatility. The draft of the action plan to be debated by ministers today includes a proposal to set up a Agricultural Market Information Service into which G20 countries would feed harmonised data. The proposal would house the service with the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and have it up and running next year.

Biofuels are another contentious issue, with poverty relief groups disappointed that the G20 does not recognise that the use of food crops to produce fuels is pushing up prices and causing hunger.—AFP

A

y

e niv rsar n

THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011

Years

TECHNOLOGY

Models showcase the newly-launched Sony Ericsson Xperia Ray phone yesterday in Singapore.

Sony Ericsson eyes Android market with new phones New models unveiled in Singapore SINGAPORE: Mobile phone maker Sony Ericsson unveiled two new Android models yesterday in a bid to grab more of the burgeoning smartphone market.

The company, a joint venture between L.M. Ericsson and Sony Corp., plans to launch the Xperia ray and Xperia active models during the third quarter, Chief Marketing Officer Steve Walker announced in Singapore. The new models should help the company expand its 11 percent market share of the Android segment, Walker said. “Android smartphones is a rap-

idly growing part of the market, and we see our share within that market growing,” Walker told The Associated Press.

London-based Sony Ericsson, which saw its phone unit sales drop 23 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, is moving away from cheaper phone models and seeking to take on Apple Inc.’s iPhone, Research in Motion’s Blackberry and Nokia Corp.’s N9 in the higher-priced smartphone market.

By 2015, about 60 percent of mobile phones sold in the

Asia-Pacific region will likely be smartphones, up from 20 percent in 2010, Walker said.

“We made quite a fundamental shift in strategy and decided to focus a large part of our efforts into smartphones, to focus on the mid- and high-end part of the business,” Walker said. “In many markets, we see a dramatic shift from feature phones to smartphones.”

The company said in April that smartphones accounted for more than 60 percent of its sales during the first quarter. Sony

Byliner, a new website for readers and writers Website encourages discovery of old and new print media WASHINGTON: Print magazines may be struggling but the founders of Byliner, a new website, believe there is an audience and a business opportunity online for long-form journalism.

Byliner.com, which launched in beta, or test, mode on Tuesday, is building a social network for readers and writers and a publishing business around magazine articles. The website offers links to more than 32,000 magazine stories from around 750 publications and nearly 3,000 writers, including some of the best known names of the past 100 years. It features longform work by current scribes such as Christopher Hitchens, Jon Krakauer and Michael Lewis but also articles by literary legends such as Ernest Hemingway, Norman Mailer and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Browsing the site by writer’s name, topic or publication, a Byliner user can find stories penned by Ernest Hemingway for The Toronto Star in 1918 or an article written by Norman Mailer for Life magazine in 1971 on the Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier bout.

Byliner, however, is aspiring to be much more than just an index for digital copies of old magazine articles.The site is also publishing original works from current writers, offering curated

reading lists and tools that allow users to submit and share stories.

“What we want to do is to give readers the opportunity to discover and read stories that they wouldn’t necessarily have found,” Byliner founder and chief executive John Tayman told AFP. Byliner focuses on what Tayman calls narrative feature nonfiction, stories of between 10,000 and 35,000 words that “fall between what a conventional magazine piece is and what a conventional book is.”

“That’s really the genesis of the company,” said Tayman, a former editor and writer at Outside and Life who also authored “The Colony.” “I began thinking about the hole in the market between magazines and books.”The vast majority of Byliner’s articles are free but the San Francisco-based startup is also commissioning stories and publishing them as “Byliner Originals.” The site created a buzz earlier this year with a piece written by Krakauer, the author of “Into Thin Air” and “Into the Wild,” about Greg Mortenson, the author of the best-selling “Three Cups of Tea.” Krakauer’s expose, which was offered for free for 72 hours ahead of Byliner’s official launch, revealed mismanagement at Mortenson’s nonprofit charity, the Central Asia

Institute, and that a number of the incidents depicted in his book never happened.

Krakauer’s story, “Three Cups of Deceit,” is available on the Byliner website for $2.99, along with other “Byliner Originals” such as a story by William Vollmann about visiting Japan’s nuclear evacuation zone, also for $2.99.”We develop ideas and then put these great stories in the hands of great writers,” Tayman said. “We pay an assignment fee to the writer and then we do a simple, very transparent 50-50 revenue share.”

Visitors to Byliner can click on links at the bottom of a writer’s page to buy their books directly from Amazon and the Byliner CEO said he will eventually be adding magazine subscriptions.

“There’ll be one-click easy access to subscribe to a publication if it has an iPad app,” Tayman said.

He said he expects the majority of Byliner’s revenue to come from sales of “Byliner Originals” but the site is also counting on affiliate revenue and “some very careful sponsored advertising.”

Byliner is also taking a page from Pandora, the Internet radio that creates personalized radio stations for users based upon their favorite artists or songs. “They do a very good job of helping listeners discover new songs and new artists,” Tayman said of Pandora. “We want to do

Free-moving Japan robot camera may ease stomach exams

UK police make arrest in hacking attacks LONDON: A 19-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of involvement with cyber attacks on Sony and the CIA website, British police said. The arrest took place following a joint operation by its Internet crimes unit and the FBI, the Metropolitan Police said Tuesday. The FBI declined to comment. British police would not say if the suspect was tied to the Lulz Security hacking collective, which has claimed responsibility for recent high-profile attacks, but confirmed that a computer seized in the operation will be examined for Sony data. Police declined to identify the suspect because he has not been charged with a crime. Lulz had boasted of successfully hacking Sony in addition to subsequent attacks on the CIA web page and the US Senate computer system. The hackers recently called for ‘war’ on governments that control the Internet. Lulz appeared dismissive of the arrest, saying on Twitter that it used the arrested man’s server, but that the man is not part of the group.

“Clearly the UK police are so desperate to catch us that they’ve gone and arrested someone who is, at best, mildly associated with us,” it Tweeted. Although little is known about Lulz, hacker collectives are typically loose networks with diffuse supporters in more than one location, so an arrest could do little to bring down an organization and even encourage supporters to carry on a group’s cause.

The teenager was arrested in the commuter town of Wickford, about 35 miles (55 kilometers) northeast of London, late Monday on suspicion of hacking and fraud offenses and taken to a central London police station for questioning, police said.

Police said the arrest resulted from an investigation into network intrusions and distributed denialof-service attacks against “a number of international business and intelligence agencies by what is believed to be the same hacking group.” Officers are conducting forensic examinations on “a significant amount of material” found in the search of a home following the arrest. Lulz has taken credit for hacking into Sony Corp where more than 100 million user accounts were compromised and defacing the PBS website after the US public television network aired a documentary seen as critical of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The hackers also say they are responsible for attacks on the CIA website and the US Senate computer system.

something very similar. We want to help readers discover new writers and new great writing.

“We’re building a recommendation system so that you can use your affinity, your like, of a particular writer or a particular article to have new writers and new articles discovered for you and placed in front of you,“ he said.

Writers themselves will contribute to the recommendation engine.If a reader has indicated, for example, that they like the work of Mark Bowden, author of “Blackhawk Down,” new articles by Bowden will appear in a user’s “activity stream,” Tayman said.

“And if Mark Bowden shares or submits an article he’s discovered his discovery will appear in your stream,” he said. “You can use your favorite authors, their tastes and their reading habits to discover new writing.. And you can do a similar thing with your fellow readers.”

So as not to fall afoul of publishers and copyright law, Byliner does not publish the full text of an article on its own site but only a small taste, “enough for people to see that this is a great article,” Tayman said. “We point readers to the magazine website itself,” he continued. “As our traffic grows, Byliner’s going to be driving a lot of traffic to the source publications.” — Byline

A visitor wearing a large head-mounted display (HMD) by high-tech venture Crescent enjoys a shooting game using virtual reality technology during the annual “3D and Virtual Reality Expo” in Tokyo yesterday.

TOKYO: A tiny, free-moving capsule camera with fins that can be gulped down and controlled remotely may one day make stomach exams much easier to handle.

Japanese scientists and medical researchers say they have successfully tried out what they believe to be the world’s first free-moving, fin-equipped capsule camera small enough to be swallowed and swim through the human digestive tract.

“This shape had to be something that people can swallow, and thus move around freely inside the body and take a picture,” said Kazuhide Higuchi at Osaka Medical College in western Japan, one of the lead researchers, to a local broadcaster.

Capsule cameras already exist but most are propelled through the stomach and intestine by peristalsis, the movement of muscles in the digestive tract, limiting their usefulness, said Higuchi and fellow researchers on their website. But thanks to their efforts, and that of colleagues at Ryukoku University, a capsule has been given magnetic field-powered fins that help it swim around on remote control as it sends pictures back to the examining doctors.

The capsule also works the same way as suppositories for examinations of the large intestine, researchers said on their website. It leaves the body the same way.”Even if you leave it inside the body after it finishes taking pictures of your stomach, it will probably just come out as stool,” Higuchi added.

The camera is still in the prototype phase and researchers say it will take a few more years before it can be put to practical use. — Reuters

Australia unveils cybercrime laws to combat global threat CANBERRA: Australia’s government unveiled legislation yesterday to crack down on cybercrime in the wake of recent cyber attacks on multinational companies and institutions, from Google to the International Monetary Fund and the US Senate.

Cybercrime was a growing threat to individuals, businesses and governments, Attorney-General Robert McClelland said, with the country’s giant resource industry having warned recently of near-daily hacking attempts from offshore.

“The increasing cyber threat means

that no nation alone can effectively overcome this problem and international cooperation is essential,” McClelland said.

The laws, once passed by parliament, will give Australian police and intelligence agencies the power to force telecommunications companies to keep sensitive information that was normally stored only briefly before being destroyed.

They also aim to strengthen cooperation with overseas cybercrime agencies, giving police and security agencies better access to information stored

overseas when investigating crimes locally committed using the internet.

“Australia must have appropriate arrangements domestically and internationally to be in the best possible position to fight cybercrime and cyber security threats,” McClelland said.

Cyber hackers have launched a series of attacks in recent weeks targeting not only US lawmakers, but also global companies and institutions, from Citigroup Inc to aerospace company Lockheed Martin , forcing governments and private companies to look at strengthening defenses.—Reuters

Ericsson’s latest models that run on Goggle Inc.’s Android platform, the Xperia ray and active, will likely be priced below the high-end Xperia arc, Walker said.

Xperia active is water resistant and works if fingers are wet or sweaty, while the Xperia ray seeks to combine a sleek design with a device that is 9.4 millimeters thick (about 1/3 inch-thick). Sony Ericsson also plans to introduce a less expensive model that highlights texting service and is aimed at teenagers, Walker said. — AP

Nokia’s new flagship N9 gets mixed reviews SINGAPORE: Nokia’s latest attempt to win back market share with its N9 phone received mixed reviews yesterday but analysts said the real test will come when it releases new models using the Windows Phone 7 operating system.

Fans lauded the N9’s ease of use without any “home” button — a feature of the iPhone and other rivals while detractors mocked what they saw as its outdated Meego operating system.

Unveiled by Nokia chief executive Stephen Elop at the CommunicAsia telecoms fair in Singapore this week, fans crowded around the company’s booth to try out the device.

The N9 has a 99-millimetre (less than four inches), 854 x 480 pixel display and weighs 135 grams (less than five ounces), putting it clearly in iPhone territory. Its most distinctive feature is an “allscreen” display, with users swiping the screen to switch between applications. The device also has a function that allows users to link it to dedicated accessories such as a headset or speakers by simply touching the phone against them.

“Being a user of Apple, an iPhone, this is light years ahead of what iPhone 3G does,” declared Paul Krzystoszek, operations and marketing manager for Australian Satellite Communications.

“The ease of use... the intuitive nature of swiping across the screen instead of using a button, there’s no button on it, the plastic casing, I think they’re all things that make it a lot better than what we have already,” he told AFP after trying the phone at the Nokia booth.

“Awesome” was how Shahiran Jaafar, chief executive officer of Malaysian firm Microtel Systems and user of an iPhone 3G, described the N9. “The fact that you can just swipe it and it goes back to whatever screen that you need it to go back to, the fact that it can show all the open tasks that’s available, that’s fantastic,” he said.

“It just dwarfs the iPhone, the iPhone is nothing now.” However, some were unimpressed by the fact that the N9 was still operating on Nokia’s MeeGo platform despite the company’s impending adoption of the Windows Phone 7 platform later this year.

“I have a problem with... the operating system,” said Phoosith Ratpiyasoontorn, a Thai systems integration engineer, lamenting that MeeGo lacked user volume and compatibility with many applications.

Technological consultancy firm Ovum’s consumer information technology analyst Tim Renowden said the true test of whether Nokia can reverse its sagging fortunes will be when its new handsets using Windows Phone 7 are rolled out. “ The N9 is an interesting demonstration that Nokia can still build excellent hardware, and it shows the progress made on the MeeGo OS,” he said. ”But it doesn’t change the fact that most Nokia fans will be waiting for the first Windows Phone 7 handsets to arrive later this year,” he told AFP. “With Nokia’s focus shifting to Windows Phone 7 it’s hard to get excited about MeeGo on Nokia hardware, despite the apparent merits of the N9 itself.” Ratpiyasoontorn added that the choice for him would be clear if the N9 was stacked up against the iPhone. “iPhone for sure because the ecosystem, they have a lot more content, more applications,” he said. In Finland, Nokia touted the virtues of Meego as the N9 was unveiled in Asia.

“It reflects a change in philosophy, hardware and software coming together at Nokia in a very specific way to create a device,” said Peter Skillman, Nokia Vice President of Services and Meego Design. “This impacts everything from smartphones to low-end phones right across the board.” — AFP

A

y

e niv rsar n

THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011

Years

H E A LT H & S C I E N C E

Smoking moms lower ‘good’ cholesterol in kids European study reveals risks associated with the deadly habit PARIS: Women who smoke during pregnancy may lower the level of ‘good’ cholesterol in their children, with some negative impacts showing up later in life, according to a study released on Tuesday. HDL or high-density lipoprotein cholesterol helps protect against heart disease as one gets older.

The research, published in the European Heart Journal, showed that by age eight children born to mothers who smoked while pregnant had HDL cholesterol levels about 10 percent below normal, once other factors were taken into account. Whether or not children were exposed to other people’s smoke after birth did not change the outcome, a strong indication

that prenatal exposure had the most impact on subsequent development, the study found. “Our results suggest that maternal smoking ‘imprints’ an unhealthy set of characteristics on children while they are developing in the womb, which may well predispose them to later heart attack and stroke,” said David Celermajer, a professor at the University of Sydney and leader of the study. “This imprinting seems to last for at least eight years and probably a lot longer.”

Smoking during and after pregnancy has long been linked to a range of health consequences in offspring, including behavioral and neurocognitive problems, and sudden infant death. Up to now, however, it

was unknown whether pre-natal exposure upped the risk of future cardiovascular disease.

Celermajer and colleagues examined the effects of maternal smoking on the thickness of the arterial wall and the levels of lipoproteins in 405 healthy eightyear-olds born between 1997 and 1999.

The children had been enrolled before birth into a clinical trial looking at asthma and allergic diseases.

The researchers collected data on the mothers’ smoking habits during and after pregnancy, and on the children after they were born. They used ultrasound scans to measure the arterial wall thickness and, in 328 children who agreed, took blood in order

to measure lipoprotein levels. There was no effect on the thickness of the children’s arteries, a telltale sign of heart disease.

But levels of HDL cholesterol were lower, suggesting a 10 to 15 percent higher risk for coronary disease later in life for the children of smoking mothers.

The prevalence of smoking during pregnancy is around 15 percent in many Western countries.

“We will have to do long-term follow-up to see if these particular children continue to have lower HDL cholesterol levels than normal, but one should presume that this risk factor might indeed be persistent,” said Celermajer. — Reuters

Gory cigarette warnings are not new around world US ‘far behind’ in smoking awareness campaign NEW YORK: Graphic new warning labels on cigarette packs that show a diseased lung or rotting teeth may be shocking to U.S. consumers, but those in countries from Egypt to Uruguay may ask: “What’s the big deal?”

The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday released nine new labels for cigarette packs that aim to show the dangers of smoking through images such as a diseased lung, a smoker wearing an oxygen mask and an emaciated cancer patient. But more than 40 countries around the world already require warnings as graphic as the new US labels if not more so.

The US warnings the biggest change to the labels in 25 years use mostly fear and disgust to discourage Americans from smoking. The FDA estimates the new labels will cut the number of smokers by 213,000 in 2013, with smaller additional reductions through 2031.

Although it’s impossible to attribute reduced smoking rates to any single cause, in Canada, Brazil, Thailand and other countries, stronger warnings have been associated with an increase in the number of smokers trying to quit. “We are so far behind,” says Michael Cummings, chair of the Roswell Park Cancer Institute’s Department of Health Behavior. “We’re a third world nation when it comes to educating the public on the risks of smoking.” The new warning labels include images of cigarette smoke coming out of a tracheotomy hole in a man’s neck, a mother and baby with

smoke swirling nearby and a sewn-up corpse. They will take up the entire top half both front and back of a pack of cigarettes. They must also appear in advertisements and constitute 20 percent of each advertisement. Cigarette makers will have to run all nine labels on a rotating basis. They have until the fall of 2012 to comply. Before the new labels were introduced, the US had some of the weakest cigarette warnings in the world. The introduction of the graphic labels was required in a 2009 law that, for the first time, gave the federal government authority to regulate tobacco.

The US first mandated the use of warning labels stating, “Cigarettes may be hazardous to your health” in 1965. The current warning labels put on cigarette packs in the mid-1980s say more explicitly that smoking can cause lung cancer, heart disease and other illnesses. But they are text-only blurbs found in a small box on the side of the pack.

The new labels with the graphic images, the government acknowledges, are graphic but much-needed. Tobacco use costs the US economy nearly $200 billion annually in medical costs and lost productivity, the FDA said. Tobacco use also is responsible for about 443,000 deaths a year in the US. “Some of the powerful images certainly are a reminder of the health risks. Some of the images like the one of the mouth with the sort of rotting, dirty

Dentsply buys Astra Tech for $1.8 billion LONDON: US company Dentsply International secured a bigger bite of the global dental market by buying AstraZeneca’s dental implants and medical devices unit Astra Tech for $1.8 billion.

Dentsply, which beat off bids from rival medical technology groups and private equity firms, said yesterday the acquisition would increase its revenue by around a quarter and be accretive to earnings immediately.

Swedish-based Astra Tech, which had revenue last year of $535 million, is the world’s thirdlargest dental implants maker after Straumann and Nobel Biocare . It has a separate medical devices arm focused on urology and surgery.

Acquiring Astra Tech will strengthen Dentsply ’s leading position in the global dental market, while for AstraZeneca the disposal reinforces its role as a “pure play” pharmaceuticals company at a time when many rivals are diversifying.

AstraZeneca chief executive David Brennan said the auction process, run by JPMorgan , had attracted “a high degree of interest”. The price, however, was somewhat short of the $2 billion figure

some analysts had been expecting.

The deal, expected to close in the second half, will not hit AstraZeneca’s core earnings in 2011 but will provide extra resources for the British drugmaker to improve returns a high priority for Brennan as the drugmaker heads into a wave of patent expiries on some of its biggestselling medicines.

The company earlier this year announced a doubling of its 2011 share buyback program to $4 billion.

York, Pennsylvania-based Dentsply said the transaction was expected to boost adjusted earnings per share by 12-17 cents in the first full year and by 30-40 cents by the third year, including the benefits of sales and operational synergies.

Bret Wise, Dentsply chairman and chief executive, said the deal would more than double his company’s position in dental implants, while urology and surgery provided additional growth opportunities.

Given the increasingly competitive nature of the global medical devices industry, Seymour Pierce analyst Mike Mitchell said it made

sense for AstraZeneca to dispose of Astra Tech, though this made it more reliant on risky new drug development.

“Inevitably, however, AstraZeneca’s reliance on its pharmaceutical/share buyback model is even more emphatic, and today’s news does nothing to dispel our misgivings on the former,” he said, reiterating a “reduce” recommendation on the stock.

AstraZeneca shares were 0.2 percent lower by 0800 GMT, slightly outperforming a 0.5 percent decline in the European drugs sector .

Like other parts of the medical device sector, the dental implant market has been hurt by lower consumer spending but is starting to grow again as the economy recovers.

Swiss groups Nobel Biocare and Straumann had both been eyeing the Astra Tech business but pulled out of the process before tabling binding bids, Reuters reported earlier this month.

Despite the loss of those two potential trade buyers, Dentsply’s acquisition underlined corporate bidders’ resurgent appetite to use cash to make acquisitions and outbid private equity firms for strategic assets. — Reuters

teeth and the ulcerating lesion on the lip are also reminders that smoking causes disfigurement,” said FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said on Tuesday at a White House briefing. “And I think that those are very powerful messages.”“The US is following the lead of other countries. Many have introduced graphic labels and some are seeing results.

Uruguay has some of the world’s strongest warning labels. The government requires that 80 percent of the front and back of all cigarettes packages be devoted to warnings. One version shows a person smoking a battery like it’s a cigarette to illustrate that both products contain the toxic metal cadmium.

In Brazil, labels feature graphic images of dead fetuses, hemorrhaging brains and gangrened feet.

They also fill an entire face of a cigarette box. In a survey, 54 percent of Brazilian smokers said these gory warnings had changed their opinion on the health consequences of smoking, while more than twothirds said the images boosted their desire to quit, according to a report by World Health Organization researchers.

Many proponents of stronger warning labels point to Canada as evidence that pictures work. Under a first-of-its-kind law passed in Canada in 2000, tobacco companies had to affix warnings about the dangers of smoking including photos of a diseased heart or spots on the tongue from oral cancer on cigarette packages.

Following that change, nine out of ten Canadians surveyed demonstrated a deeper knowledge of the health consequences of smoking. The smoking rate also fell to 20 percent from 26 percent. Of course, it’s impossible to know how many people kicked the habit as a result of any single regulatory measure. Canada has taken several other steps as well, introducing higher taxes, more public education and smoking bans in public places. “ We’ve now seen it happen enough times in enough different cultures to feel very confident in concluding that not only do warning labels change knowledge and beliefs, they change behavior,” says Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, a Washington-based advocacy group. Still, some countries lag behind in rolling out more graphic labels.

Within the European Union, a rule in place since 2001 requires all tobacco products to display two text warnings: a compulsory one stating that ‘tobacco kills’or “tobacco can seriously harm you and others around you” and a second, more-specific warning, such as “smoking causes fatal lung cancer.” Member states have the option to supplement the text warnings with pictures highlighting the damage smoking can do.

China has some of the world’s weakest laws on warning labels. The mandated text-only warnings are printed in small, six-point font and do not spell out specific risks. Tobacco companies can design their own labels as long as they meet these minimum requirements. China also has the highest rates of smoking in the world. More than half of men use tobacco products, and one million smokers die each year. — AP

PANAMA CITY: An empty coffin, which was placed by the relatives of people who died after taking contaminated medicine, sits on display during a vigil in honor of those who died after taking contaminated medicine at an entrance to the presidential palace in Panama City on Tuesday. —AP

Aussie chef catches flak for treated tap water SYDNEY: An Australian chef has received a chilly reception for charging diners for treated tap water and ditching boutique bottled water, which he termed wasteful, for an eco-friendly option.

Mark Best, chef and owner of Marque Restaurant in Sydney, turned years of environmental consciousness into action by splashing out on a $6,000 Italian-made water system that filters, chills and carbonates tap water, the first of its kind in an Australian restaurant.

He now charges A$5 ($5.3) for water-but this includes unlimited refills. He previously charged A$10 for 500 ml of boutique bottled water. Not only did the move lighten his carbon impact by cutting down on refrigeration and transport needs for the bottled water, it also helps reduce the amount of plastic bottles clogging up landfills, he said.

“I’m not highly political but I want to make people aware and this is just one initiative,” Best said.

But while the environmentallyfriendly move has drawn praise in some quarters, many are outraged at having to pay for what they see as basic tap water, however fancied

up it may be.

“If you’re willing to pay $5 for a glass of water then you’ve more money than sense. Give it to charity,” said one commenter on a local newspaper website.

Best said he has also received abusive emails. “A guy said that I was pathetic and he hoped the lawyers took me to pieces...I’m not sure for what.”

Local law states that if tap water is treated it is not illegal to sell it on licensed premises, but licensed premises must supply free tap water when required by a customer.

Best said authorities gave him a green light. Though he could have buried the charge in the bill, Best said he wanted to make the charge clear and raise awareness of the need for restaurants to be socially responsible and reduce plastic waste. He added that in the past, some customers would pay up to $40 a meal for bottled water with no complaint. “They can drink 40 litres for A$5 if they want and suddenly it’s seen as charging for tap water!” he said. “It’s quite interesting, it means the marketing of the mineral water has been very effective.” — Reuters

Indonesian forest people condemn climate scheme JAKARTA: Indigenous peoples of Indonesian Borneo yesterday demanded a halt to internationally backed forest conservation schemes, saying they are trampling their rights and robbing their lands.

The Central Kalimantan chapter of the Indigenous Peoples Alliance issued a statement condemning the projects, including those being implemented under a $1 billion deal with Norway to cut carbon emissions from deforestation. The projects, which also involve the Australian government, CARE International and WWF environmental group, fall under a UN-backed conservation drive known as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD). Indigenous alliance secretary general Abdon Nababan said the rights of traditional landowners had been ignored, and forest-dependent communities faced being driven off their lands or denied their customary livelihoods. “REDD could be the cause of cultural genocide as most indigenous people live in primary forests and peatland areas” which fall under a forestry moratorium announced by the Indonesian government last month, he told AFP. “Its implementation will surely drive them away, though they have lived there for hundreds or thousands of years,” he added.

Several studies have found that indigenous peoples are good forest managers but Nababan said schemes like REDD-part of UN talks for post2012 climate action-handed control to corporations and environmental groups. “There is no other choice but to appoint indigenous people as the REDD projects’ main actors. They have traditional knowledge in managing and safeguarding our forests over centuries,” he said. The alliance called for an “immediate moratorium” on all REDD projects in Central Kalimantan until various conditions are met, including recognition of the mainly Dayak peoples’ “political sovereignty” and “collective rights”. Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s top advisor on climate change and REDD issues, Agus Purnomo, said he was unable to immediately comment. Indonesia is often cited as the world’s third biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, due mainly to rampant deforestation by the palm oil, mining and paper industries.

Central Kalimantan is a heavily forested and resource-rich province with a total area of about 153,000 square kilometers (60,000 square miles), or more than the land mass of Greece. It has been designated as a test ground for REDD pilot projects,

which are key to Indonesia’s commitments to slash its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 26 percent by 2020. Deforestation is estimated to account for almost 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. In Indonesia it is said to produce more carbon emissions than all the cars, buses, trains and planes in the United States. But a joint statement issued after a meeting of the indigenous alliance last week said REDD schemes under way in Central Kalimantan were creating “confusion and chaos among indigenous communities”. It said the government and the schemes’ backers had ignored their obligations to inform and consult with indigenous peoples whose lives could be dramatically altered by measures to prevent deforestation.

The alliance also demanded the Indonesian government address allegations of massive corruption surrounding forestry concessions.

The forestry ministry admitted in February that less than 20 percent of plantation companies and less than 1.5 percent of mining firms had official operating permits in Central Kalimantan. It said that out of 352 plantation companies operating in the province, only 67 had permits, while only nine out of 615 mine units were operating legally. — AFP

A

y

e niv rsar n

THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011

Years

H E A LT H

New drug plants to boost Thailand’s self-reliance new vaccine plant to be ready in 2012 BANGKOK: When Thailand scrambled two years ago to fight the H1N1 pandemic that spread quickly across the world, health authorities hit a roadblock faced by many developing countries: they couldn’t afford enough vaccines without breaking their budget.

Thailand is about to change that with two drug production plants expected to go onstream in 2011 and 2012 that will provide affordable medicines as well as independence from Western pharmaceutical giants during crises. One plant will manufacture essential medicines while the other will produce seasonal and pandemic flu vaccines for its 65-million strong population, making Thailand one of a handful of countries in Asia building their vaccine-making capability.In Asia, Japan and South Korea have well established vaccine makers, while China and India are fast becoming substantial vaccine producers manufacturing vaccines against tuberculosis, measles, hepatitis, Japanese encephalitis, rubella, mumps, rabies, pertussis, tetanus, typhoid and influenza.

Like most developing countries in the world, Thailand realised its vulnerability in 2009 when rich nations snapped up as many H1N1 swine flu vaccines as Western pharmaceutical giants could produce. hat forced the World Health Organisation to step in and obtain pledges from countries and partners to donate vaccines to around 100 low- and middleincome countries.

“During the H1N1 pandemic (in 2009), we tried to get money from our government to buy vaccine from Western pharmaceuticals,” said Witit Artavatkun, managing director of Thailand’s Government Pharmaceutical Organisation (GPO), which will manage and operate the two plants.

“But 600 million Thai Baht ($19.6 million) bought us only 2 million doses, and we have 65 million people. The gap is huge.”

The new vaccine plant in Saraburi will employ Russian technology, which was transferred under an umbrella WHO project initiated in 2006 to boost global flu vaccine production capacity, particularly in countries lacking in such technology. “The plant will be completed in 2012 and produce vaccines for pandemic flu and seasonal flu. It is for national security, not commercial reasons. We produce to cover our population in times of pandemics,”Witit said in an interview.

The vaccine plant will manufacture a trial H1N1 vaccine once it is up and running, and launch its seasonal flu vaccine by 2015. “We will use the H1N1 as a platform ... If we are hit by a pandemic (flu virus) that is a totally different (strain), we can make use of the same process (production chain),” he said.

GPO plans to distribute pandemic vaccines free to Thais in future while seasonal flu vaccines will cost substantially less than imported vaccines.

Healthcare is a hot issue in Thailand, a country with wide wealth disparity. While the richest 20 percent of its citizens

Make your teeth a piece of art

command 58.6 percent of the wealth, 26.5 percent live on $2 a day, according to the World Bank. The country is headed for elections in July and its medical and healthcare sectors are closely watching what key candidates have to offer to improve healthcare.

Thailand’s total healthcare expenditure made up 4.3 percent of its GDP in 2009, compared with China’s 4.6 percent and Vietnam’s 7.2 percent.

“What’s the use of a government that doesn’t take care of healthcare or education?” said Saree Aongsomwang of the Foundation for Consumers. Former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a military coup in 2006, is remembered even by his critics for implementing a universal healthcare insurance scheme in 2001, which made basic treatment accessible to the poor.

Thailand’s healthcare was given booster shots in 2006, 2007 and 2008 by the military-led government when it defied big foreign business and issued “compulsory licences” covering two drugs for AIDS, one for the heart and four for cancer.

These licences allowed the state to override patents held by foreign drugmakers and produce the drugs locally or import cheap generic versions of these medicines.

By end-2011, GPO will bring onstream a large drug production plant that will churn out these essential medicines, including anti-AIDS drugs efavirenz and lopinovir/ritonavir,

and drugs for diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, hepatitis, renal failure, psychosis and intestinal diseases, Witit said.

Efavirenz, known by its brand Stocrin, is produced by Merck Sharp & Dohme, while Abbott Laboratories produces lopinovir/ritonovir under the brand Kaletra. Located in Rangsit, 40 km (25 miles) from Bangkok, the new drug plant will have a production capacity of 10 billion tablets a year, or double the combined capacity of GPO’s string of small plants in Bangkok city now. “We have a lot of diabetes, hypertension, renal failure. The number of patients is increasing,” Witit said.

“We are interested in exporting (generic drugs) ... right now we export small amounts to Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar. In future we hope to export to ASEAN countries, the emerging markets with half a billion people,” he said. Since it began importing cheaper generic AIDS drugs from India, Thailand has been saving 200 million baht each year which it uses on other patients, like those with renal diseases, said Pongsadhorn Pokpermdee, health economist and a deputy of the public health office of Nongbualanpoo, a northeastern province.

But while everyone has access to basic healthcare, health expenditure is low at $168 per head a year and Thais still need to pay out of pocket for more sophisticated treatment and advanced drugs. China spends $177 per capita on healthcare, Cambodia $42, Malaysia $336 and Japan $3,321. — Reuters

Al-Seef A l-Seef Hospital p Oral Or ral and Maxillofac Maxillofacial ial Surger Surgeryy & Dental Denttal Department Special Sp pecial Summer Promotionn benefit ben nefit from the flexible or prepai prepaidd payments on orthodont orthodontic ic trea treatment. atment.

Thee offer includes: Th G_Y`YhU` UbX XYbhU` YjU`iUh]cb :]`Y cdYb]b[ G_Y`YhU` UbX XYbhU` YjU`iUh]cb :]`Y cdYb]b[ 8]U[bcg]g cZ cfh\cXcbh]W WUgYg Cfh\cXcbh]W YlUa]bUh]cb 8 ]U[bcg]g cZ cfh\cXcbh]W WUgYg Cfh\cXcbh]W YlUa]bUh]cb 7cbgi`hUh]cb UbX hfYUhaYbh d`Ub DUbcfUa]W L!fUm 7 7cbgi`hUh]cb UbX hfYUhaYbh d`Ub `h h] Xh h h ` DUbcfUa]W L!fUm D ] L Visit Vis it us to fulfill your expectations and a to keep your bright smile fo forever rever

From Fr rom 1st June till 30th of August For Reser Reservation vation and Further F inquires:

25764226 / 7 - 60010292

To a advertise dvertise on tthis his page l t t us: please contact

Dermatology & Cosmetology Cosmetology t Dermatology t General Medicine t Internal Internal Medicine t Ent t Ophthalmology Ophthalmology t PPeadiatric eadiatric t Ob & Gynecology Gynecology

t Orthopedic Orthopedic t XX-ray -ray & Ultrasonograph Ultrasonography g y t General Physician Physician t Dental t Laboratory Laboratory t Pharmac Pharmacyy

Cosmetology C osmetology Clinic.

Clinic.

248 33 199 ads@kuwaittimes.net

Non N on SSurgical urggical FFacelift, acelifft, Antii AAgeing ggeingg W Wrinkle rinkle Frown Li / Pigmenta Pigmentation D b CChin Frown Lines g tion Double hin Correction Botox Correction i Sk SSkin kiin RRejuvenation ejuv ox / FFillers illers j enation Bot Painless LLaser aser Hair emoval Dermar ollerr, Painless Dermaroller, H i RRemoval Skin Brighting Skin Whitening Whitening & Brightin ng VVail aail TTreatment reatment

Wee A W Accept ccept All All Major Ma ajjor IInsuramce nsuramce C Cards ards FARWANIYA FA ARWANIYYA - OPP OPP. P. POLICE POL LICE ST STATION TATION T Behind B ehind Magadheer Magadheer Commercial Comm mercial Complex Complex

s - 65561619 TEL: 24734000 6

shifakuwait@gmail.com shifak uwait@g gmail.com w www.shifakuwait.com ww.shifakuwait.com Workiing Hours: 8.00 am m to to 12:00am Working

y

A

30

e niv rsar n

Years

THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011

W H AT ’ S O N Notice to Filipino citizens

N

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)

FGP Convention 2011

T

he prayer partner of United Prayer Warriors and Tamil Pentecostal Church cordially invite you and your family and friends to participate in our 2011 convention. We are also pleased to inform you that Pastor I. Vinil Sathish, President of Full Gospel Pentecostal Churches, Tamil Nadu will be our Guest Speaker during the fourth Anniversary, 2011 Convention.

Date: 23, 24 & 25 June 2011 (Thursday, Friday & Saturday) Place: Ruchi Auditoruium, Abbasiya Time: 06.00 Pm to 9.00 Pm 5th YEAR - FIRST FASTING PRAYER Date: 24 June 2011(Friday) Place: Ruchi Auditoruium, Abbasiya Time: 09:30 Am to 01.00 Pm Prayer Request and more Details Contact # Bro. S.Suresh Kumar - 97927436, 60931099

K’S PATH organizes fundraiser Quiz Night

K’

S PATH (Kuwait Society for Protection of Animals and Their Habitat) - a non-profit animal welfare organization - will hold a Quiz Night on June 23, 2011 at the Movenpick Hotel & Resort Al Bida’a ballroom starting 7 pm. The funfilled 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’

A

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

113th Philippines independence day celebrated at the Crowne Plaza Kuwait

J

une 12 marked one of the most significant days for Philipino around the globe. Philipino community in Kuwait celebrated at the Crowne Plaza Kuwait the 113th Independence Day of the Philippines. Held at the popular Atrium with both hotel staff, the evening was a celebration of all that represents the freedom of a nation which was liberated from Spanish colonial rule in 1898.

Echoing their patriotism far away from their homeland, the evening

began with the National Anthem sung proudly in a chorus, followed by the patriotic oath, pledging their love and allegiance to their homeland. Ahmed Serafi, Hotel Manager, addressed the gathering, after a moment of silent prayer and candle lighting, congratulating the people on the occasion of their Independence Day and expressing his sincere appreciation for the contribution of the Philippinos towards the smooth operations of the hotel. The Chief Guest for the evening, Dr. Jesusa

Cristina V. Puno, Principal of the New Kuwait Philippines International School, then spoke to the assembly. He mentioned his gratitude to the management of the hotel for allowing the Philipino community to celebrate their Independence Day in such style, and encouraged the people to always maintain the pride and integrity of the nation.

A ceremonial cake was cut and a toast was raised, cheering 113 years of independence and progress of the

nation of Philippines, followed by a brief presentation on the culture and dance of their homeland. A traditional cultural dance show was displayed by the students of Philippine International School, and a testimony was given by Chedi Ignacio, an Overseas Philipino Worker, who is employed with the Health Club of the Crowne Plaza Kuwait. The evening closed with music, traditional Philipino cuisine, games and a martial arts demonstration by the Philippine Catsclaw Martial Arts Association.

Summer Activities KAYAKING Kuwait Surf-Ski Kayak Club 99706742 Sea kayaking is one of the fastest growing water sports in the world today. Call if you are interested in purchasing a kayak, getting involved in the sport.

MOTOR SPORTS Kuwait Motor Bike League / The Amateur Car & Motorbike Association Motorbike track (for trail/dirt bikes) and rally car-racing centre located behind the Science Club on the northern side of the 6th Ring Road (between roads 401 and 50). Car and bike races held on Fridays. Use of facilities and participation in competitions limited to members only. office on 3td Ring Road, near Road 50.

NETBALL Kuwait Netball Meet Monday for mixed games 6:30 -7:30 and Tuesday for Woman only check the website for more info. www.kuwaitnetball.com RUGBY Kuwait Nomads The rugby season in Kuwait runs from September to May. Mens, ladies and minis rugby are played and the teams frequently travel to participate in AGRFU tournaments. Any interested child between the ages of 5-17 can participate in the Minis rugby. Training is held every Friday between 9am-llam on the grassed pitch at the Yarmouk stadium.

The men’s and ladies teams have the pleasure of training and playing on the KOC sand pitch in Ahmadi, the home of the Kuwait Nomads. Training nights are Sundays and Tuesdays from 7pm-9pm.

Inter-Gulf matches are played on Thursdays or Fridays. www.p8nompds.com RUNNING For anyone who likes walking, jogging or cycling in Kuwait there is a very good track around the area of Mishref. The track is 4.9km long and is marked out in distances of 100m. There are also a number of outdoor exercise machines located near the start and the end of the track. Please note, however, that the track is more of a horseshoe shape rather than a complete circuit as there

is a gap of at least a mile between the start and finish. Decide how far you want to walk, walk half the distance and then turn back. There are roads to cross so take care if you have young children with you. Despite all of this, it’s still very worthwhile going along and trying it out.

HASH HARRIERS 23982219 Social jogging on Thursday and Saturday evenings. Hash Harriers has been operating around the world since 1938. Hash is for a mixture of abilities from walkers to experienced runners. It is social rather than athletic. Length of course depends on time of year.

Contact Gerry Burton on the above number or on 99764028. www.hasher.net SAILING The Arabian Gulf waters are an ideal environment in which to learn to sail.

Offshore the seas are seldom rough and there is often a moderate breeze.

Many of the sea clubs organize sailing activities.

CATAMARAN SAILING 66587737 Dive Caroline Beach Fafaheel The Kuwait Catamaran Club is a group of enthusiasts who love sailing on fast cats in the Arabian Gulf’s waters around Kuwait. Usually an informal group sail on Friday afternoons. Boats are privately owned but visitors are very welcome and can be taken out as crew. Boats for hire, a Dart 18 and Hobie 16.

Contact John Morley johnmorley@hotmail.com Fahaheel Sailing Club (see Dive Caroline) 2371 9289 www.horn3.com KOSA 23983365 99745383 The Kuwait Offshore Sailing Association (KOSA) meets on the first Tuesday of each month (except July and August) at the Dive Caroline clubhouse, which is located at the Fahaheel Sea Club. Fortnightly racing plus International events in Bahrain and Dubai. Boats often require crew and will take you if you turn up!

Catamaran racing is arranged after KOSA morning races, followed by a sunset barbecue on the beach. An Annual Regatta, usually during April, is also organised. www.kospg8.com SCUBA DIVING The Arabian Gulf is the perfect place in which to learn to scuba dive. Although dive sites are not as spectacular as those in the Red Sea and Thailand, the local environment is conducive to teaching youngsters who wish to do fairly shallow dives and build up their confidence. A parent/guardian is required to accompany all children between the ages of 10-12. Thereafter the child may be accompanied by a diving instructor. It is a good idea for adults to attend the theory classes with their children.

DIVE CAROLINE 2371 9289 Fahaheel Sea Club, Fahaheel Dive Caroline is a friendly sailing and diving club with pool, beach, sauna, steam room, fitness and social areas. Scuba diving training and equipment sales; skippered sailing yacht charter for up to 8 passengers; fishing charters (up to 6 passengers with a max. of 2 trawling lines); skippered power boat hire for 6, 8 or 14 passengers. Birthday parties are hosted at the DC pool for children 8 years old and over (maximum of 16 children). Swimming lessons for children as well as private lessons for adults. Banana boat rides, water skiing, kayaking. 10% dIscount for BLS Members (and friends) on stock purchases and on training courses for groups of 6 or more participants, Medic First Aid courses and Paedlatrlc First Aid courses. www.divecaroline.com Dive Centre 99649482 The Palms Hotel, Salwa A full service PADI 5 Star Dive Centre catering for all of your diving requirements. www.thepalmsdivecenter.com KIM Dive Centre 23716002 Villa 365, Hilton Kuwait Resort Kuwait International Marine (KIM) Centre is a full service PADI 5 Star Dive Centre catering for all of your diving requirements. 10% discount for all BLS Members on courses, boat trips and

Dive Shop. www.kimcenter.selmpb.com Kuwait Mantas Non profit scuba diving group See ‘Interest Groups’. info@kuwaitmantas.com www.kuwaitmantas.com SHOOTING Hunting & Equestrian Club 24739199 Shooters can sharpen their skills at the range. Members aren’t charged any fee but have to bear the costs of the cartridges while guns are provided by the club.

Shooting Range Complex 2475 9999 Off the 6th Ring road and drive past the Hunting and Equestrian Club. www.nrckuwait.com SOFTBALL Ahmadi Softball Located at the softball grounds situated behind the Governorate Building in Ahmadi SQUASH Squash courts are available at a few of the 5-star hotels as well as at the Salmiya Club. There are a number of squash leagues and tournaments are held throughout the year.

Duffers League 99701720 The League comprises about 25 players of all standards. Players are placed in groups of 4 which means you play three games per month. The rules of standard squash apply with all matches being best of five. Games are arranged by mutual agreement between the players. Contact Philip Anderson at andersoninkuwait@mac.com Kuwait Squash Federation 2263 4618 Salmiya Club 2575 5052 Salmiya Sheikha Squash www.sheikhasguash.com Health Club 2474 2000 Crowne Plaza Hotel, Farwaniya

y

A

31

e niv rsar n

Years

THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011

W H AT ’ S O N

Embassy

ACK Honors its Engineering Students

T

he Australian College of Kuwait (ACK) participated in Kuwait University’s (college of Engineering and Petroleum) First National Robotic Competition for college undergraduate students. The main goals of the competition were to create awareness of robot technology, complete practical projects to compete with them in a fair environment, and to encourage the youth sector to invest their time in science and modern technology.

ACK is proud of its students for putting in time and effort towards this competition, and therefore, held a meeting with ACK’s academic director, Professor Abul R. Hasan to honor them. Although ACK did not win the competition, one of its three teams earned first place out of twenty eight in the first qualifying round for achieving the fastest time.

At ACK the emphasis is

placed on “Project Based Learning” which combines understanding concepts via hands-on applications of theories. It is a teaching and learning model that emphasizes studentcentered instruction by assigning projects. This involves innovative curriculum development and instructional approach that allows students to engage learning experiences in real-world projects through which they develop and apply knowledge.

The ability to critically analyze concepts and designs, collect and analyze data and participate in forums with other students and faculty members are what makes ACK unique. This process at ACK ensures an active learning experience for all students.

Professor Hasan said “we are continuously interested in the ‘hands on’ learning for our students. We would like to thank Kuwait University for this excellent initiative.”

Greetings

H

Happy 10th Birthday to Madhuka Dulangali.

Best Wishes from Damayanthi Wijyathna

Galleries in Kuwait: Sultan gallery established 1969 to promote Arab contemporary art. Sabhan, Sadeer company. Block 8, street 105, building 168. 24714325 ext. 110

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.

■■■■■■■

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.

Ultratone Futura Pro Bioenergy System launched at Spa Aquatonic Kuwait aving pioneered the concept of serenity and relaxation with the Thermes Marins De Saint Malo in the GCC, the Spa Aquatonic at Crowne Plaza Kuwait is now moving on to newer ventures. The Aquatonic Pool at the Spa Aquatonic is unique by its exclusivity in the Middle East as well as Thalasso therapy treatments that focus solely on stimulating blood circulation, improving muscle tone and treating stiff muscles in the back and neck.

Established as a champion in the fitness and well - being of individuals in body, mind and soul, the Spa Aquatonic has taken a leap with the introduction of the Ultratone Futura Pro. In the presence of the management and top members of the press, Kristin Schaefer Centofanti, one of the world’s foremost experts in the field of Bio Stimulation and creator of the Ultratone Futura Pro Concept, launched this revolutionary system, which is an all-in-one body and face shaping system.

Recognized for her work at international levels, Kristin began scientific research in the 70’s, with

a career span of over 40 years and is currently the Director of Studies and Research Development Officer for Ultratone Scientific Instruments Limited, London. Spa Aquatonic at Crowne Plaza Kuwait has pioneered this system kuwait, which is an additional bonus for all those seeking to lose weight, without the discomfort of electrical stimulation.

ULTRATONE FUTURA PRO system combines proven therapies to tone the face and body. Ultratone’s registered Ultrawave signal imitates the body’s own natural bioelectric energy to stimulate tone and rejuvenate the treated areas of the body. A wide range of programs are able to target specific problems. The Futura Pro automatically leaves the body relaxed and invigorated in just 30 minutes. The system combines Health and Beauty in a single treatment of all body and face shaping needs for both men and women. Men have choices ranging from slimming, toning, workout, detox, massage and revitalization. Women can choose from weight loss and anti cellulite, tightening and inch loss, non - surgical facelift, wrinkle

reduction, anti-aging, and detox rejuvenation. There are different combinations of programs, each of which can be personalized to suit individual needs of the clients.

Currently the most versatile unit in the world, The Futura Pro incorporates Slimming, Dermal, Toning, Anti-Ageing, Detox, Circulation, Sport Training, Acupressure, Reflexology and Rehabilitation facilities. It also has the unique ability to send out different programs to different body areas so that each part of the body or face can receive the precise treatment required. As many as 6 areas can be treated at a time, which concentrates the results and can give the equivalent of up to 3 hours treatment in a 30 minute session. A combined system device tailor made for medical aesthetic practices, it features cellulite and deep fat breakdown, lipolysis evacuation, facial lifting, toning and fine line reduction and is advantageous for those customers, for whom surgical liposuction is not an option.

Come in for an extraordinary experience of the body, mind, and soul - an Irresistible Feeling - only at the Spa Aquatonic!

Dar Al-Funoon, Behbehani Compound, House 28- near the Christian Church off of Gulf Road.

Tel: 22431338 Dar Al-Athar Al-Islamiyyah, Shaab, next to Shaab Leisure Park. Tel: 22400963 AWARE Surra Street, Block 3, Villa 84. Tel: 25335260/80 or www.aware.com.kw The Strip, across Al-Seif Palace Jibla Tel: 99666533 www.the-exhibition.com.kw Located on ‘The Strip’ Across from Al-seif Palace Jibla, Kuwait Tel: + (965) 9-406-6226 Fax: + (965) 2-534-4061 Email Address: info@the-exhibition.com.kw Mailing Address: P.O. Box 17919, Khaldiya, Kuwait

“ The AWARE Management is glad to announce that Ramadan Arabic language courses will begin on August 7th till September 15th, 2011. AWARE Arabic language courses are designed with the expat in mind. The environment is relaxed & courses are designed for those wanting to learn Arabic for travel, cultural understanding, and conducting business or simply to become more involved in the community. We cater to teachers, travelers & those working in the private business sector.

AWARE Arabic courses highlight: ● Introductory to Level 4 Arabic language basics ● Better prepare you for speaking, reading and writing Arabic ● Combine language learning with cultural insights ● Taught in multi-nationality group settings ● Provide opportunities to interact with Western expatriates and native Kuwaitis/Arabs.

For more information, call 25335260 or log onto: www.aware.com.kw

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 ■■■■■■■

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.

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

T

Aware Arabic courses

■■■■■■■

■■■■■■■

Scientific Center launches summer camp he Scientific Center kicks off its summer camp for 2011 on Sunday, July 3, 2011, which will feature many activities held in weekly camps from Sunday to Thursday between 9:30 am and 2:30 pm.

Kids between the ages of eight and twelve are allowed to participate in the camp, as they will engage in educational and artistic workshops, in addition to visits to the aquarium and the Discovery Hall, as well as behind the scene trips and iMAX movie shows.

Information

McDonald’s launches ‘colorful glass’ promotion

M

cDonald’s, the restaurant dedicated to delivering the world’s best eatingout experience, has introduced an extra value fun promotion whereby customers receive a free and exclusive colored ‘Coca-Cola’ glass with every large extra value meal.

The campaign offers customers in the region, for a limited time, the chance to collect all six colored glasses - in Pink, Green, Blue, Lime, Grey and Purple.

The Coca-Cola glasses, inspired by the vintage Coca-Cola Hutchinson Bottles, are some of the most recognisable cultural icons and collectible items in the world. In order to add a touch of color to their lives, all McDonald’s and Coca-Cola fans in the region can log on to www.mcdonaldsarabia.com, and upload a photograph or take their own original image using the webcam application - to create their own personalised pop art piece featuring a variety of colors. Customers can

create as many pictures as they like, view them before deciding on the final image and then post their artistic creations as their Facebook and Twitter profile pictures.

“At McDonald’s, we strive to continuously provide our customers with rewarding offerings as well as fun and engaging activities. With our ‘colourful glass’ promotion, we’re excited to offer our customers great value for a unique and sought-after item in a variety of special colours, while also having fun online creating

■■■■■■■

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.

■■■■■■■

their own pop art,” said George Khawam, Marketing Director of McDonald’s Kuwait.

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 SOUTH AFRICA The Embassy of the Republic of South Africa will be closing at 01:00pm on Thursday, 23 June 2011 due to a training session. The Embassy will resume its normal working hours on Sunday, 26 June 2011, from Sunday to Thursday. Please note that the working hours will be from 8h00 to 16h00 & the Consular Section operation hours will from 8h30 to 12h30, for emergency please contact mobile No. 99794483.

A

y

e niv rsar n

THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011

Years

TV PROGRAMS

00:45 Dogs 101 01:40 Untamed And Uncut 02:35 Austin Stevens Adventures 03:30 Speed Of Life 04:25 Buggin’ With Ruud 05:20 Animal Cops Phoenix 06:10 America’s Cutest...

07:00 Meerkat Manor 07:25 The Really Wild Show 07:50 The Planet’s Funniest Animals 08:40 Breed All About It 09:10 Extraordinary Dogs 09:35 Project Puppy 10:05 Dogs 101 11:00 Animal Cops Miami 11:55 SSPCA: On The Wildside 12:20 Wildlife SOS 12:50 Animal ER 13:45 Animal Cops Phoenix 14:40 The Real Lost World 15:30 Echo And The Elephants Of Amboseli 16:00 The Really Wild Show 16:30 Crocodile Hunter 17:25 My Cat From Hell 18:20 Breed All About It 18:45 Planet Wild 19:15 The Real Lost World 20:10 Dogs 101 21:05 Natural World 22:00 Max’s Big Tracks 22:55 I Was Bitten 23:50 The Real Lost World

00:05 Keeping Up Appearances 00:35 The Weakest Link 01:20 Casualty 02:10 Bleak House 03:05 Eastenders 03:35 Doctors 04:05 Keeping Up Appearances 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 Keeping Up Appearances 10:40 The Weakest Link 11:25 Doctor Who 12:10 Doctors 12:40 Eastenders 13:10 Casualty 14:00 Keeping Up Appearances 15:30 Doctor Who 16:15 Doctor Who Confidential 16:30 The Weakest Link 17:15 Doctors 17:45 Eastenders 18:15 Casualty 19:05 Doctor Who 19:50 Doctor Who Confidential 20:00 The Weakest Link 20:45 Doctors 21:15 Eastenders 21:45 Casualty 22:40 Ray Mears’ Northern Wilderness 23:30 Keeping Up Appearances

00:30 Come Dine With Me 01:20 The Home Show 02:05 Design Star 02:50 Design Star 03:35 New Scandinavian Cooking 04:00 Daily Cooks Challenge 09:15 Daily Cooks Challenge 09:45 Antiques Roadshow 10:35 Design Star 11:20 Design Star 12:05 New Scandinavian Cooking With Andreas Viestad

12:30 12:55 13:50 14:30 15:15 16:05 16:50 17:35 18:05 18:30 19:00 19:50 20:35 21:20 22:10 23:00 23:25

New Scandinavian Cooking Antiques Roadshow Cash In The Attic Bargain Hunt Come Dine With Me Design Star Design Star Indian Food Made Easy New Scandinavian Cooking New Scandinavian Cooking Antiques Roadshow Cash In The Attic Bargain Hunt Come Dine With Me The Home Show Rick Stein’s French Odyssey Rick Stein’s French Odyssey

00:00 BBC World News 00:30 World Business Report 00:45 Sport Today 01:00 BBC World News America 01:30 Asia Business Report 01:45 Asia Today 02:00 BBC World News 02:30 Asia Business Report 02:45 Asia Today 03:00 BBC World News 03:30 Asia Business Report 03:45 Asia Today 04:00 BBC World News 04:30 Asia Business Report 04:45 Asia Today 05:00 BBC World News 05:30 Asia Business Report 05:45 Asia Today 06:00 BBC World News 06:30 Hardtalk 07:00 BBC World News 07:30 World Business Report 07:45 BBC World News 08:30 World Business Report 08:45 BBC World News 09:30 World Business Report 09:45 Sport Today 10:00 BBC World News 10:30 World Business Report 10:45 Sport Today 11:00 BBC World News 11:30 Hardtalk 12:00 BBC World News 12:30 World Business Report 12:45 Sport Today 13:00 BBC World News 13:30 World Business Report 13:45 Sport Today 14:00 GMT With George Alagiah 14:30 GMT With George Alagiah 15:00 BBC World News 15:30 World Business Report 15:45 Sport Today 16:00 Impact With Mishal Husain 17:30 World Business Report 17:45 Sport Today 18:00 BBC World News 18:30 Hardtalk 19:00 The Hub With Nik Gowing 20:30 World Business Report 20:45 Sport Today 21:00 World News Today With Zeinab Badawi 22:30 World Business Report 22:45 Sport Today 23:00 BBC World News America 23:30 Hardtalk

00:05 Cow And Chicken 00:30 Cramp Twins 00:55 George Of The Jungle 01:20 Courage The Cowardly Dog 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 Codename: Kids Next Door

07:25 Cow And Chicken 07:50 Angelo Rules 08:05 Cartoon Network Dance Club 08:15 Adventure Time 08:40 Ben 10: Ultimate Alien 09:05 The Secret Saturdays 09:30 Batman: The Brave And The Bold 09:55 The Powerpuff Girls 10:20 Robotboy 10:30 Hero 108 10:55 Ben 10 11:20 Chowder 11:45 The Marvelous Misadventures Of Flapjack 12:10 Camp Lazlo 12:35 George Of The Jungle 13:00 Foster’s Home For Imaginary Friends 13:25 Codename: Kids Next Door 13:50 Ben 10 14:15 My Gym Partner’s A Monkey 14:40 Squirrel Boy 15:05 Eliot Kid 15:35 Ed, Edd N Eddy 16:00 Cow And Chicken 16:25 Chop Socky Chooks 16:50 Skunk Fu! 17:15 Chowder 17:40 Best Ed 18:05 Hero 108 18:30 Cartoon Network Dance Club 18:45 The Marvelous Misadventures Of Flapjack 18:55 Star Wars: The Clone Wars 19:20 Ben 10: Alien Force 19:45 The Secret Saturdays 20:10 Bakugan Battle Brawlers 20:35 Fantastic Four: World’s Greatest Heroes 21:00 The Powerpuff Girls 21:25 Ed, Edd N Eddy 21:50 Robotboy 22:00 Adventure Time 22:25 Hero 108 22:50 Ben 10 23:15 Bakugan Battle Brawlers 23:40 Chowder

00:00 00:30 01:00 03:00 04:00 05:00 06:00 06:30 07:00 07:30 08:00 10:00 10:30 11:00 12:00 13:00 13:30 14:00 15:00 16:00 17:00 18:00 18:30 19:00 20:00 20:30 21:00 22:00 23:00

Backstory World Sport World Report World Business Today Piers Morgan Tonight Anderson Cooper 360 World Sport Talk Asia World Report Backstory World Report World Sport Edit Room World Business Today World One World Sport Icon Piers Morgan Tonight News Stream World Business Today International Desk The Brief World Sport Prism International Desk Icon Quest Means Business Piers Morgan Tonight Connect The World

00:40 01:35 02:30 03:25 04:20 05:15 05:40 06:05 07:00 07:50 08:45 09:10 10:05 10:30 10:55 11:25 12:20 13:15

Dirty Jobs Science Of The Movies Ultimate Survival Ultimate Car Build-Off Mythbusters How It’s Made How It’s Made Dirty Jobs Ultimate Car Build-Off Street Customs How It’s Made Mythbusters Cake Boss Border Security Time Warp Science Of The Movies The Future Of...

Ultimate Survival

THE SUNSET LIMITED ON OSN CINEMA

14:10 15:05 16:00 16:55 17:50 18:45 19:10 19:40 20:05 20:35 21:00 21:55 22:25 22:50 23:45

LA Ink Dirty Jobs Battle Machine Bros Mythbusters Extreme Fishing Cake Boss Border Security Time Warp How It’s Made How It’s Made Surviving The Cut Sons Of Guns Sons Of Guns Frontline Battle Machines...

Extreme Fishing

00:30 00:55 01:45 02:10 02:35 03:25 03:50 04:45 05:40 06:10 07:00 07:55 07:58 08:25 08:55 09:45 10:10 10:35 11:25 11:50 12:40 13:05 13:55 14:45 15:35 16:00 16:03 16:30 17:00 17:50 18:40 19:05 19:30 20:20 20:45 21:10 21:35 22:00 22:25 22:50 23:40

The Gadget Show Mega World How It’s Made How It’s Made How Stuff Works Cool Stuff And How It Works Scrapheap Challenge Science Of The Movies Patent Bending Engineered Catch It Keep It Head Rush Sci-Fi Science Weird Connections Sci-Fi Saved My Life The Gadget Show The Gadget Show What’s That About?

Mean Green Machines Catch It Keep It Patent Bending How Stuff Works Eco-Tech Mega World The Gadget Show Head Rush Sci-Fi Science Weird Connections Brainiac Bad Universe Bang Goes The Theory Bang Goes The Theory The Future Of...

Sci-Fi Science How Does That Work?

The Gadget Show The Gadget Show Bang Goes The Theory Bang Goes The Theory The Future Of...

The Colony

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 08:10 08:20 08:45 09:10 09:20 09:30 09:55 10:05 10:25 10:50 11:15 11:35 12:00 12:10 12:35 13:00 13:25 13:40 14:05 14:15 14:25 14:50 15:15 16:05 16:30 16:40 16:55 17:20 17:45 17:55 18:15 18:35 19:00 19:20 19:45 20:05 20:25 20:50 21:10 21:20 21:30 21:55 22:20 22:35 22:45 23:00 23:20 23:30 23:55

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 Special Agent Oso Jungle Junction Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Timmy Time Handy Manny Jake & The Neverland Pirates The Hive Handy Manny Jake & The Neverland Pirates Handy Manny The Little Mermaid Handy Manny The Hive Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Handy Manny Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Jake & The Neverland Pirates Jungle Junction Timmy Time The Hive Little Einsteins The Little Mermaid Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Handy Manny The Hive Jake & The Neverland Pirates Imagination Movers Handy Manny The Hive Handy Manny Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Handy Manny Jake & The Neverland Pirates Handy Manny The Little Mermaid Handy Manny Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Jake & The Neverland Pirates The Hive Handy Manny The Little Mermaid Little Einsteins Handy Manny The Hive Jungle Junction The Little Mermaid Timmy Time Jo Jo’s Circus Mickey Mouse Clubhouse

06:00 Kid vs Kat 06:20 Kick Buttowski 06:40 Pokemon Dp: Sinnoh League Victors 07:05 Phineas And Ferb 08:05 American Dragon 08:30 Kick Buttowski 08:50 Kid vs Kat 09:50 I’m In The Band 10:15 The Super Hero Squad Show 10:40 Suite Life On Deck 11:30 Pair Of Kings 11:55 Phineas And Ferb 12:45 Kid vs Kat 13:50 The Suite Life Of Zack And Cody 14:15 The Suite Life Of Zack And Cody 14:40 Zeke And Luther 15:05 Kick Buttowski 15:25 Kid vs Kat 15:35 Pokemon Dp: Sinnoh League Victors 16:00 I’m In The Band 16:25 Suite Life On Deck

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

Zeke And Luther Phineas And Ferb Escape From Scorpion Island Kick Buttowski American Dragon Aaron Stone Phineas And Ferb Kid vs Kat Phineas And Ferb I’m In The Band Zeke And Luther Phineas And Ferb The Suite Life Of Zack And The Super Hero Squad Show Programmes Start At 6:00am

00:25 Kendra 00:55 Then And Now 01:25 E!es 01:50 E!es 02:20 E!es 03:15 25 Most Stylish 04:10 Sexiest 05:05 Extreme Hollywood 06:00 THS 07:50 Behind The Scenes 08:20 E! News 09:15 Khloe And Lamar 09:45 Khloe And Lamar 10:15 THS 12:05 E! News 13:05 Fashion Police 13:35 Keeping Up With The Kardashians 14:35 THS 16:25 Behind The Scenes 16:55 Holly’s World 17:25 Holly’s World 17:55 E! News 18:55 Kimora: Life In The Fab Lane 19:55 THS 20:55 Chelsea Lately 21:25 Khloe And Lamar 21:55 Khloe And Lamar 22:25 E! News 23:25 Chelsea Lately 23:55 Kourtney And Kim Take New York

00:15 Untracked 00:40 Mantracker 01:30 World Combat League 02:20 Untracked 03:10 Fight Girls 04:00 I’ll Do Anything 04:50 Mantracker 05:15 Mantracker 05:40 World Combat League 06:30 FIA European Drag Racing 2008 07:00 FIA European Drag Racing 2008 07:30 FIA European Drag Racing 2008 08:00 Quattro Events 2009 08:25 X-Traordinary 09:15 Lucas Oil Ama Motocross...

10:55 Eds Up 11:20 Eds Up 11:45 Fantasy Factory 12:35 Untracked 13:25 Mantracker 14:15 World Combat League 15:05 Eds Up 15:55 Fantasy Factory 16:45 Quattro Events 2009 17:10 X-Traordinary 18:00 Lucas Oil Ama Motocross...

19:40 Mantracker 20:30 Untracked 21:20 FIM World Motocross MX3 Championships...

21:45 FIM World Motocross MX3 Championships...

22:10 World Combat League 23:00 Fight Girls 23:50 Untracked

00:30 01:20 02:10 03:00 03:50 04:45 05:15 06:10 07:00 07:50 08:40 09:30 09:55 10:20 11:10 12:00 12:50 13:40 14:30 14:55 15:20 16:10 17:00 17:50 18:40 19:30 19:55 20:20 21:10 22:00 Cases 22:50 23:40

Ghost Lab Psychic Witness I Almost Got Away With It I Almost Got Away With It Dr G: Medical Examiner Crime Scene Psychics Ghost Lab Mystery Diagnosis Forensic Detectives Murder Shift Mystery Diagnosis Real Emergency Calls Real Emergency Calls Solved FBI Files On The Case With Paula Zahn FBI Case Files Mystery Diagnosis Real Emergency Calls Real Emergency Calls Solved Forensic Detectives Murder Shift FBI Files Mystery Diagnosis Real Emergency Calls Real Emergency Calls On The Case With Paula Zahn FBI Case Files Autopsy: Most Shocking

00:05 01:40 03:20 04:55 06:40 08:40 10:45 12:20 12:35 14:10 15:50 17:20 18:50 20:25 22:00 23:25

Limbic Region, The Dead Of Winter Finding The Way Home Tank Girl Mac The Missouri Breaks Billy Galvin Big Screen - 4 One Special Victory Captive Hearts Madhouse Tempest, The North Of Chiang Mai The Defiant Ones Knack And How To Get It, The Witness To The Mob

00:30 01:30 02:00 02:30 03:30 04:00 04:30 05:00 05:30

Banged Up Abroad Madventures Madventures Banged Up Abroad Destination Extreme Bondi Rescue David Rocco’s Dolce Vita Exploring The Vine Cruise Ship Diaries

True Crime Scene Dr G: Medical Examiner

HALLOWEEN 2 ON OSN MOVIES ACTION 06:30 07:30 08:00 08:30 09:30 10:00 10:30 11:00 11:30 12:30 13:30 14:30 15:30 16:00 16:30 17:00 17:30 18:30 19:30 20:30 21:30 22:00 22:30 23:00 23:30

Banged Up Abroad Madventures Madventures Banged Up Abroad Destination Extreme Bondi Rescue David Rocco’s Dolce Vita Exploring The Vine Surfer’s Journal Bondi Rescue Nomads Banged Up Abroad Destination Extreme Bondi Rescue David Rocco’s Dolce Vita Exploring The Vine Surfer’s Journal Bondi Rescue Nomads Banged Up Abroad Destination Extreme Bondi Rescue David Rocco’s Dolce Vita Exploring The Vine Surfer’s Journal

00:00 02:00 18 04:00 06:00 08:00 10:00 12:00 14:00 16:00 18:00 20:00 22:15

Penny Dreadful-18 Smokin’ Aces 2: Assassin’s BallLet Me In-R Blue Crush-PG15 Timeline-PG15 Star Runners-PG15 S.W.A.T.-PG15 Timeline-PG15 Inkheart-PG S.W.A.T.-PG15 Se7en-18 The Ruins-R

01:15 The Sunset Limited-PG15 03:00 Good Hair-PG15 05:00 It’s A Wonderful AfterlifePG15 07:00 Bandslam-PG15 09:00 Good Hair-PG15 11:00 The Last Song-PG15 13:00 Justice League: Crisis On Two Earths-PG 14:45 Citizen Jane-PG 16:45 Invictus-PG15 19:00 The Sorcerer’s ApprenticePG15 21:00 Secretariat-PG15 23:15 Saw VI-R

00:30 The Daily Show With Jon Stewart 01:00 The Colbert Report 01:30 Boondocks 02:00 The Big C 02:30 Party Down 03:00 Rita Rocks 03:00 The Big C 03:30 Party Down 03:30 Tyler Perry’s House Of Payne 04:00 Boondocks 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 Parks And Recreation 08:30 The New Adventures Of Old Christine 09:00 Rita Rocks 09:30 Will And Grace 10:00 According To Jim 10:30 Parks And Recreation 11:00 Family Biz 11:30 The Tonight Show With Jay Leno 12:30 The New Adventures Of Old Christine 13:00 Tyler Perry’s House Of Payne 13:30 Will And Grace 14:00 According To Jim 14:30 The Simpsons 15:00 Parks And Recreation 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 Happy Endings 19:30 Community 20:00 The Tonight Show With Jay Leno 21:00 The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

21:30 22:00 22:30 23:00 23:30

The Colbert Report The Ricky Gervais Show Party Down Boondocks Late Night With Jimmy Fallon

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

Supernatural Game Of Thrones The Ellen DeGeneres Show Terriers The View Good Morning America Detroit 1-8-7 Emmerdale Coronation Street The Ellen DeGeneres Show The Martha Stewart Show The View Supernatural Terriers Live Good Morning America Grey’s Anatomy The Ellen DeGeneres Show Emmerdale Look-A-Like Bones White Collar Burn Notice The Good Guys Detroit 1-8-7

00:00 Criminal Minds 01:00 The Unit 02:00 Supernatural 03:00 Game Of Thrones 04:00 Terriers 05:00 Law And Order: Criminal Intent 06:00 Criminal Minds 07:00 30 Rock 08:00 The Event 09:00 Law And Order: Criminal Intent 10:00 Terriers 11:00 Supernatural 12:00 30 Rock 14:00 The Event 15:00 Criminal Minds 16:00 Cougar Town 16:30 Look-A-Like 18:00 The Event 19:00 Bones 20:00 White Collar 21:00 Burn Notice 22:00 The Good Guys 23:00 Surface

01:30 Universal Soldier: Regeneration-PG15 03:15 Killshot-18 05:00 Blindness-18 07:00 Fast And Furious-PG15 09:00 Lost In Space-PG15 11:15 12 Rounds-PG15 13:15 Star Trek: Generations-PG 15:15 Lost In Space-PG15 17:30 The Day After Tomorrow-PG 19:30 Donnie Brasco-PG15 21:45 Zombieland-18 23:15 Halloween 2-18

00:00 02:00 04:00 06:00 08:00 10:00 12:00 14:00 16:00 18:00 20:00 22:00

Management-PG15 The Last Supper-PG15 I Spy-PG Can’t Buy Me Love-PG15 My One And Only-PG15 Head Of State-PG15 Suburban Girl-PG15 Chatterbox-PG Management-PG15 The Freshman-PG15 Miss March-18 Malibu’s Most Wanted-PG15

00:00 02:00 04:00 07:00 09:00 11:00 13:00 14:45 17:00 19:00 21:00 23:00

The Informers-18 Cat People-18 Forrest Gump-PG15 Eva-PG15 Skellig-PG15 Ice Castles-PG15 Little Nicholas-PG Capitalism: A Love Story-PG15 Creation-PG15 Everybody’s Fine-PG15 Simon Birch-PG The Reckoning-18

01:00 03:00 05:00 07:00 PG15

Head Over Heels-PG15 America’s Sweethearts-PG15 Gifted Hands-PG15 Revenge Of The Bridesmaids-

09:00 11:00 13:00 15:00 17:00 19:00 21:00 23:00

Hachiko: A Dog’s Story-PG15 Sweet Home Alabama-PG15 Free Style-PG15 Anger Management-PG15 Hachiko: A Dog’s Story-PG15 The Joneses-PG15 Secretariat-PG15 Public Enemies-18

00:00 My Fair Madeline-FAM 01:45 Pete’s Dragon-PG 04:00 Gladiators: The Conspiracy-PG 06:00 Ponyo On The Cliff By The SeaFAM 08:00 Winx: Secret Of The Lost Kingdom-PG 10:00 Ice Age 3: Dawn Of The Dinosaurs-FAM 12:00 Gladiators: The Tournament-PG 14:00 Ponyo On The Cliff By The SeaFAM 16:00 Stuart Little 2-FAM 18:00 Planet 51-PG 20:00 Tooth Fairy-PG 22:00 Gladiators: The Tournament-PG

00:00 European Tour Weekly 00:30 Darts UK Open 04:30 AFL Highlights 05:30 World Hockey 06:00 Weber Cup Bowling 07:00 NRL Full Time 07:30 Mobil 1 The Grid 08:00 Trans World Sport 09:00 Ladies European PGA Tour Highlights 10:00 European PGA Tour Highlights 11:00 European Tour Weekly 11:30 AFL Highlights 12:30 Rugby Junior World Championship 14:30 Rugby Junior World Championship 16:30 Darts UK Open 20:30 European Tour Weekly 21:00 European PGA Tour

00:00 Rugby Junior World Championship 04:00 Masters Football 07:00 Golfing World 08:00 Rugby Junior World Championship 12:00 Total Rugby 12:30 Super Rugby Highlights 13:30 World Hockey 14:00 Weber Cup Bowling 15:00 European Tour Weekly 15:30 Live European PGA Tour 19:30 Golfing World 20:30 Total Rugby 21:00 NRL Full Time 21:30 Live RFL Championship 23:30 Masters Football

01:00 02:00 03:00 04:00 07:00 09:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 14:00 16:00 19:00 20:00 21:00

V8 Supercars Championship Intercontinental Le Mans Cup UFC Unleashed UFC 131 WWE SmackDown WWE Bottom Line UAE National Race Day Series Intercontinental Le Mans Cup WWE Vintage Collection WWE SmackDown UFC 131 WWE NXT Intercontinental Le Mans Cup Prizefighter

02:20 Elvis On Tour 03:50 Julie 05:25 Crest Of The Wave 07:00 Now, Voyager 08:55 Gigi 10:50 Action In The North Atlantic 12:55 Sunday In New York 14:40 It Happened At The World’s Fair 16:25 The Wizard Of Oz 18:05 Interrupted Melody 19:50 The Wonderful World Of The Brothers Grimm 22:00 Butterfield 8 23:45 Mr. Ricco

Classifieds THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011

Contact: 97552140/ 99952794. (C 3468) 22-6-2011

Contact: 24802641/ 66022437. (C 3467) 21-6-2011

Appolo Hospital, Naser AlBadher Street, new building.

Contact: 99761807. (C 3458)

Sharing accommodation available for decent couple or bachelor in double bedroom flat in Abbasiya.

Contact: 99679014.

(C 3470) 23-6-2011

Room for rent with separate bathroom including drawing and kitchen facilities for decent ladies or couple in Salmiya, C-A/C flat, new building in very good location. Contact: 99678634. (C 3463)

Sharing accommodation available for decent Christian couple / executive bachelor or working lady, separate room and toilet in Mahboula.

Contact: 66216713. (C 3457)

Sharing available for family (bath attached) in a double bed room + hall fat Abbasiya near Asianet building opp. Garden and Variety Store. Contact: 97213877/ 50202206.

(C 3459)

Furnished sharing accommodation available in 2 bed & 2 bathroom + big kitchen & hall, flat at Abbassiya, near United Indian School for couple/executive bachelor.

Sharing accommodation available in old Reggai behind Al-Zallah Supermarket, 2 BR flat C-A/C for executive bachelor or couple family from July.

© 2011 011 MCT Source: World rld Book Graphic: Paul T Trap

ACCOMMODATION

Triangles T riangles hold h old up up a house house Make Make a model that shows shows a basic rule rule of designing buildings, buildings, then go out in your yo our town town and find examples examples x of that rule rule in action.

1

One big independent master bedroom with attached bathroom available for 2 or 3 decent bachelors in 2 BR flat C-A/C, kitchen and SAT facility W&E free, near Shaara Amman Salmiya, opp.

Make two Make two square es of squares sti cks and a clay clay sticks

4

Take T ake the h cube b apart, apar t, cut the sticks sticks so they th hey are only three-quarters three-qua ar ters as long as before before e and put the cube ba back ck together together 3/4 3 /4

2

Use ffour our more sti cks sticks to build build a cube

3

You’ll Y ou’ll need need t At least 18 plastic or w wood ood coffee-stirring cof fee-stirring sticks sticks

Push down down gently on the cube

Decent Muslim couples/ small family to share in two BRH flat in Abbasiya with family of 3 from July 1. Rent KD 70 including water/electricity. Contact: 66895049.

4 1//4

time, attach an n uncut This time, stick diagonally across acrross the stick squ uare middle of each square Did that make the make cube stronger?

Is it v very er y strong?

Wha at happens What if you you push d own w and down sid eways at sideways s the same time e? time?

t Modeling clay clay t Scissors

(C 3460) Sharing accommodation available in Shaara Amman, Salmiya, opposite Al-Rashid Hospital, for bachelor.

Contact: 65515717.

(C 3462) 20-6-2011 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)

What W hat happened? happened?

Make a square or rectangle out of sticks, and it can collapse easily ... ... but add a diagonal brace, and it becomes two triangles, which are much stronger That’s ’ why carpenters use diagonal braces when they build a wall or a house Find a construction site where carpenters are making a building out of wood, and look for the diagonal braces

FOR SALE Toyota Camr y G.L.A.B.S model 2011, 4 cylinder engine, white color (Sadfi), 4,000km done. Price KD 4,850. Contact: 99105286.

(C 3471) 23-6-2011 Toyota Corolla model 2010, color white, good maintenance, price KD 3,550 only.

Contact: 99419677.

(C 3465) Toyota Corolla model 2007 1.8, color golden, good condition, price KD 2,650 only. Contact: 66974049.

(C 3466) 21-6-2011 Expat family selling household items + electronics (washing machine, dishwasher, microwave oven, deep freezer, projection TV). Contact: 66042205 also check tiny.cc/lpa36

Contact: 97220933.

(C 3454) 18-6-2011

SITUATION WANTED Seeking job as Accountant, 10 years experience, Indian, Keralite, having own car and valid Kuwait driving license, join immediately. Contact: 99214246.

(C 3469) 23-6-2011

SITUATION VACANT Required English speaking maid/nanny.

Contact: 99824597. (C 3461) 20-6-2011 Required housemaid in Farwaniya, Block 5, who knows cooking and cleaning for an Indian family.

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)

TRANSPORT Urgently need transport for 3 persons from Salmiya, Sharah Amman to Ministry of Health (H.O) near Sabah Hospital, timings 7:30 am back 1:45 pm. Please call: 97525187. (C 3464) 21-6-2011 CHANGE OF NAME 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)

DIAL 161 FOR AIRPORT INFORMATION In case you are not travelling, your proper cancellation of bookings will help other passengers to use seats Airlines RJA JZR JZR MEA THY ETH UAE DHX ETD MSR FDB GFA QTR THY JZR FAH JZR KAC BAW JZR KAC KAC IRA KAC FDB KAC KAC KAC KAC UAE QTR ABY ETD GFA MEA JZR MSR JZR SYR KAC MSR UAL SHY RJA MSR FDB OMA JZR KAC MSR KAC SVA KAC

Flt 642 205 267 406 772 620 853 370 305 614 67 211 138 770 503 201 555 412 157 1541 206 382 605 302 53 332 352 284 362 855 132 125 301 213 404 165 623 561 341 672 610 982 4125 640 621 57 645 357 562 2122 546 500 552

Arrival Flights on Thursday 23/6/2011 Route AMMAN DAMASCUS BEIRUT BEIRUT ISTANBUL ADDIS ABABA DUBAI BAHRAIN ABU DHABI CAIRO DUBAI BAHRAIN DOHA ISTANBUL LUXOR DUBAI ALEXANDRIA MANILA / BANGKOK LONDON CAIRO ISLAMABAD DELHI ISFAHAN MUMBAI DUBAI TRIVANDRUM COCHIN DHAKA COLOMBO DUBAI DOHA SHARJAH ABU DHABI BAHRAIN BEIRUT DUBAI SOHAG SOHAG DAMASCUS / DEIREZZOR DUBAI CAIRO WASHINGTON DC DULLES BODRUM AMMAN ASSIUT DUBAI MUSCAT MASHAD AMMAN CAIRO ALEXANDRIA JEDDAH DAMASCUS

Time 0:05 0:25 0:35 0:45 1:15 1:45 2:25 2:55 2:55 3:05 3:10 3:15 3:20 4:10 5:15 5:25 6:10 6:15 6:30 7:10 7:15 7:20 7:40 7:50 7:55 7:55 8:05 8:10 8:20 8:25 9:00 9:10 9:30 9:35 10:55 11:10 12:10 12:30 13:00 13:15 13:20 13:30 13:30 13:35 13:40 13:50 14:00 14:10 14:20 14:25 14:30 14:30 14:35

KAC KNE JZR QTR JZR KNE KAC MLR ETD UAE KAC GFA SVA JZR TAR JZR ABY ALK JZR RBG KAC KAC KAC KAC KAC KAC KAC KAC JAI SIA IRA FDB OMA JZR MEA KAC MSR DHX KLM UAE GFA QTR UAL AIC JZR MSR JZR JZR MSR DLH MEA AXB JZR PIA

788 745 257 134 535 789 118 403 303 857 154 215 510 777 327 239 127 227 177 3555 104 502 542 618 786 614 674 774 572 458 617 61 647 179 402 178 618 372 445 859 217 136 981 981 135 606 513 185 612 636 408 389 539 205

JEDDAH JEDDAH BEIRUT DOHA CAIRO JEDDAH NEW YORK COLOMBO / DUBAI ABU DHABI DUBAI ISTANBUL BAHRAIN RIYADH JEDDAH TUNIS / DUBAI AMMAN SHARJAH COLOMBO / DUBAI DUBAI ALEXANDRIA LONDON BEIRUT CAIRO DOHA JEDDAH BAHRAIN DUBAI RIYADH MUMBAI SINGAPORE / ABU DHABI AHWAZ DUBAI MUSCAT DUBAI BEIRUT GENEVA / FRANKFURT ALEXANDRIA BAHRAIN AMSTERDAM DUBAI BAHRAIN DOHA BAHRAIN CHENNAI / AHMEDABAD BAHRAIN LUXOR SHARM EL SHEIKH DUBAI CAIRO FRANKFURT BEIRUT KOZHIKODE / MANGALORE CAIRO LAHORE

14:40 14:45 15:10 15:15 15:50 16:00 16:15 16:40 16:50 16:55 17:00 17:15 17:20 17:25 17:30 17:35 17:40 18:00 18:00 18:05 18:35 18:45 18:50 18:55 19:00 19:20 19:25 19:25 19:35 19:35 19:45 20:00 20:10 20:10 20:15 20:45 20:55 21:00 21:05 21:15 21:25 21:35 22:00 22:05 22:10 22:15 22:20 22:35 22:50 23:00 23:05 23:10 23:30 23:55

Airlines AXB JZR DLH AIC KLM PIA MEA THY ETH UAE FDB DHX ETD MSR QTR THY JZR JZR RJA GFA KAC JZR BAW IRA FDB JZR KAC KAC KAC KAC JZR KAC UAE ABY KAC QTR ETD GFA KAC MEA KAC JZR JZR KAC MSR KAC JZR SYR MSR SHY RJA FDB MSR

Depurture Flights on Thursday 23/6/2011 Flt Route 394 COCHIN / KOZHIKODE 1540 CAIRO 637 FRANKFURT 576 GOA / CHENNAI 447 AMSTERDAM 216 KARACHI 407 BEIRUT 773 ISTANBUL 620 BAHRAIN / ADDIS ABABA 854 DUBAI 68 DUBAI 371 BAHRAIN 306 ABU DHABI 615 CAIRO 139 DOHA 771 ISTANBUL 560 SOHAG 164 DUBAI 643 AMMAN 212 BAHRAIN 545 ALEXANDRIA 356 MASHAD 156 LONDON 606 MASHAD 54 DUBAI 534 CAIRO 787 JEDDAH 153 ISTANBUL 671 DUBAI 551 DAMASCUS 256 BEIRUT 561 AMMAN 856 DUBAI 126 SHARJAH 101 LONDON / NEW YORK 133 DOHA 302 ABU DHABI 214 BAHRAIN 165 ROME / PARIS 405 BEIRUT 541 CAIRO 776 JEDDAH 238 AMMAN 501 BEIRUT 624 SOHAG 785 JEDDAH 176 DUBAI 342 DEIREZZOR / DAMASCUS 611 CAIRO 4126 ANTALYA 641 AMMAN 58 DUBAI 622 ASSIUT

Time 0:15 0:20 0:40 0:50 0:55 1:10 1:45 2:15 2:30 3:45 3:50 3:55 4:05 4:05 5:00 5:10 5:55 6:55 7:00 7:10 7:40 8:20 8:25 8:40 8:40 8:50 8:55 8:55 9:00 9:10 9:10 9:15 9:40 9:50 9:55 10:00 10:15 10:20 11:45 11:55 12:00 12:00 12:10 13:00 13:10 13:30 13:40 14:00 14:20 14:30 14:30 14:35 14:40

Directorate General of Civil Aviation Home Page (www.kuwait-airport.com.kw)

UAL OMA KAC MSR KNE KAC SVA JZR KAC JZR QTR KAC JZR KNE VOS ETD MLR UAE GFA TAR ABY JZR JZR SVA RBG ALK JZR KAC KAC JAI FDB IRA KAC KAC OMA MEA SIA KAC MSR DHX KLM KAC JZR UAE GFA FAH QTR KAC KAC JZR JZR MSR KAC UAL KAC MSR

982 646 673 2123 746 617 505 178 773 512 135 613 538 790 82 304 404 858 216 328 128 184 266 511 3556 228 134 283 361 571 62 616 331 351 648 403 457 543 619 373 445 677 206 860 218 102 137 301 205 502 554 607 411 981 415 613

BAHRAIN MUSCAT DUBAI CAIRO JEDDAH DOHA JEDDAH DUBAI RIYADH SHARM EL SHEIKH DOHA BAHRAIN CAIRO JEDDAH BAGHDAD ABU DHABI DUBAI / COLOMBO DUBAI BAHRAIN TUNIS SHARJAH DUBAI BEIRUT RIYADH ALEXANDRIA DUBAI / COLOMBO BAHRAIN DHAKA COLOMBO MUMBAI DUBAI AHWAZ TRIVANDRUM COCHIN MUSCAT BEIRUT ABU DHABI / SINGAPORE CAIRO ALEXANDRIA BAHRAIN BAHRAIN / AMSTERDAM DUBAI / MUSCAT DAMASCUS DUBAI BAHRAIN BAHRAIN DOHA MUMBAI ISLAMABAD LUXOR ALEXANDRIA LUXOR BANGKOK / MANILA WASHINGTON DC DULLES KUALA LUMPUR / JAKARTA CAIRO

14:45 15:00 15:10 15:25 15:30 15:35 16:00 16:00 16:05 16:10 16:15 16:20 16:40 16:45 17:00 17:35 17:40 18:05 18:15 18:20 18:20 18:25 18:30 18:35 18:45 19:10 19:10 20:00 20:20 20:35 20:40 20:45 21:00 21:05 21:10 21:15 21:20 21:55 21:55 22:00 22:05 22:10 22:20 22:25 22:30 22:30 22:35 22:45 22:55 23:05 23:10 23:15 23:40 23:40 23:50 23:50

34

THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011

s ta rs CROSSWORD 357

STAR TRACK

CALVIN & HOBBES

Aries (March 21-April 19) A talent of yours is required in the business place. There might be a convention in which your company is preparing to be represented or a new opening of a branch company. Whatever the case, it could be you play the piano or greet people or help in some other way. You might set aside some time to visit with a past friend that appears on the scene. The prospects for a spectacular day are promising. You help make the day a positive one for others. You manage to spend a lot of time in the spotlight. With family or friends this evening, there is talk of a vacation. There is a love of the sea and a great desire to take some time off for a while.

Travel may be possible before the middle of next month. There is a lot of talk about traveling on the sea.

Taurus (April 20-May 20) You could find yourself feeling rebellious and independent regarding your current situation. Some difficult employee may bring opposition to a group, or just strain relationships. There is the possibility of new visions or sudden insights into your ability to solve problems and others take your lead. Progress in the workplace is a miraculous thing today but it is possible. You naturally gravitate toward positions of power. Others see in you a great practical ability and will accept you as a leader or authority figure easily. This could be a very political time for you. It certainly is a time in which you can accomplish much for the workplace or your community. A short story has a beginning this evening and you will be pleased at the outcome.

POOCH CAFE ACROSS

1. Intentionally so written (used after a printed word or phrase).

4. A city in southern Turkey on the Seyhan River.

9. Greenish-yellow pear.

13. A close friend who accompanies his buddies in their activities.

14. Having two feet.

15. (prefix) Indicating difference or variation.

16. Located in or toward the back or rear.

18. Any competition.

19. A small ball with a hole through the middle.

20. The face veil worn by Muslim women.

23. The state prevailing during the absence of war.

25. (astronomy) The angular distance of a celestial point measured westward along the celestial equator from the zenith crossing.

27. A silvery ductile metallic element found primarily in bauxite.

32. The sense organ for hearing and equilibrium.

33. Before noon.

35. An Indian side dish of yogurt and chopped cucumbers and spices.

37. A colorless and odorless inert gas.

39. A public promotion of some product or service.

40. Showing or causing joy and pleasure.

41. A tricycle (usually propelled by pedalling).

44. (old-fashioned) At or from or to a great distance.

47. A member of the British order of honor.

53. A condition (mostly in boys) characterized by behavioral and learning disorders.

56. Tropical starchy tuberous root.

57. A unit of length of thread or yarn.

58. A person who enjoys reading.

60. Imperial dynasty that ruled China (most of the time) from 206 BC to 221 and expanded its boundaries and developed its bureaucracy.

61. A hotel providing overnight lodging for travelers.

62. A large fleet.

63. An insecticide that is also toxic to animals and humans.

DOWN 1. Moving quickly and lightly.

2. The United Nations agency concerned with atomic energy.

3. A fastener (as a buckle or hook) that is used to hold two things together.

4. The blood group whose red cells carry both the A and B antigens.

5. English theoretical physicist who applied relativity theory to quantum mechanics and predicted the existence of antimatter and the positron (1902-1984).

6. With rapid movements.

7. An acute inflammatory disease occurring in the intestines of premature infants.

8. A sweetened beverage of diluted fruit juice.

9. A coffee cake flavored with orange rind and raisins and almonds.

10. Evergreen trees and shrubs having oily one-seeded fruits.

11. Block consisting of a thick piece of something.

12. The closing section of a musical composition.

17. Fertility goddess in ancient Greek mythology.

21. Stem of the rattan palm used for making canes and umbrella handles.

22. Any culture medium that uses agar as the gelling agent.

24. A state in northwestern North America.

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

28. South American wood sorrel cultivated for its edible tubers.

29. A river that rises in western New Mexico and flows westward through southern Arizona to become a tributary of the Colorado River.

30. Essential oil or perfume obtained from flowers.

31. An informal term for a father.

34. A flat-bottomed volcanic crater that was formed by an explosion.

36. Title for a civil or military leader (especially in Turkey).

38. Something acquired without compensation.

42. A native of ancient Troy.

43. Counting the number of white and red blood cells and the number of platelets in 1 cubic millimeter of blood.

45. English monk and scholar (672-735).

46. Having help.

48. Chief port of Yemen.

49. A signal transmitted along a narrow path.

50. A condition (mostly in boys) characterized by behavioral and learning disorders.

51. (Babylonian) God of storms and wind.

52. A loud bombastic declamation expressed with strong emotion.

54. An undergarment worn by women to support their breasts.

55. (Irish) The sea personified.

59. An intensely radioactive metallic element that occurs in minute amounts in uranium ores.

Gemini (May 21-June 20) It’s important to keep your perspective with a close relationship today. Something you thought was resolved may, once again, come to your attention. Cool logic will help you communicate. Learn from past experiences and agree to disagree. This way, there is forward movement. You have the mental drive that is necessary for political assignments and may find yourself enjoying the tasks. Put your artistic talents to work improving your home this afternoon. Colorful accents will brighten the scene and the psyche. Consider an herb garden in a bright and sunny corner of a room. Consult those that share your space so that everyone is able to give some input. New ways of appreciating and loving may be possible now. A loved one shows off a new talent tonight.

Cancer (June 21-July 22)

NON SEQUITUR

Fate sends opportunity your way if you listen to your instincts and give your natural sense of curiosity a free rein. Travel and education can help uncover some of the answers that will give you the power or advantage you seek. Allow yourself these experiences. Mass communications can be financially rewarding in some way—think about advertising, broadcasting, publishing, etc.

Something as simple as owning a computer and belonging to a network would be what puts you into a new and rewarding business. The way in which you respond to change and maintain your independence is a major focus now. A young person in your family wants more independence—give them responsibilities and independence will come.

Leo (July 23-August 22) Mysterious or mystical information fires your imagination and you may find there could be more imagination than knowledge for now. Keep an open mind and learn all you can, but do not take everything you hear for gospel. You may take action today, when an issue dear to your heart comes to your attention. Your theories are good but facts will get you support for what you want to accomplish. Work today on research and creating a plan that will develop some positive outcomes. Patience is a key word when it comes to dealing with people—timing is essential. You may be pleasantly surprised with a call or letter you receive this afternoon. Contacts with an old neighbor or friend bring about good memories from the past.

ZITS

Virgo (August 23-September 22) Situations and people you thought you could rely on might not be so solid today. These are the ways we learn about people. It is very important that you do not hold grudges and you learn from your experience with others. Look for the truth in all of your affairs. There is a feeling that things will work out in positive ways. You should be able to improve your security now. This is a time of independence when you may try new and different things. This is also a time during which you may be able to speed up your pace to reach your goals and acknowledge your life’s purpose. You could receive unexpected help from someone older or from authority figures. Accept the good advice that somebody older gives you today—you can’t go wrong.

Libra (September 23-October 22)

MOTHER GOOSE AND GRIMM

Scorpio (October 23-November 21) The idea of how you want your day to go and the plans of those around you may be in conflict with others today. With communication, compromise and the willingness to share, today can turn out to be one of your best family or friendship days. The people or person you live with may agree to share or trade some book, equipment or chore with you today. Your eagerness to work or play with others and to be helpful will create some bonds that will last forever. This is an important time to be patient and tread lightly when it comes to indulgence and overextending yourself. Whether your relationships at this time are partnerships, work, social or personal, they are very important now and can have a very strong influence on your career and private life.

Sagittarius (November 22-December 21) Although work is accomplished with little or no problems, there is a feeling of low energy. This will pass but you can use the afternoon as an opportunity to clear away some of the things that you have been holding for too long. Those old books you would like to read again may better serve you as a gift to the library. Keep your favorites, but make room for the new books that will be coming into your life. You may want to dedicate one room of your living quarters as a library or hobby room. Now is the time to be creative—perhaps after you remove the old newspapers or magazines and as your energy returns you could create an indoor herb garden that will be relaxing as you read. Education in law and philosophy impacts your lifestyle now.

Capricorn (December 22-January 19)

To

Yesterday’s Solution

Your physical vitality, psychological or spiritual goals are highly emphasized now. If there is something in your life that works against your progress—now is the time to weed through and eliminate or in some way divert or control the problem. This means abundance of old clothes or too many animals or not enough time for a good night’s rest, etc. This is not a favorable time for establishing new life directions, but is a good time for creating a healthy balance. Stay away from arguments and possible hard feelings at this time. After the workday is over consider inviting a friend or loved one to enjoy a movie with you. You are a master of applied psychology and will be able to apply a subtle influence on a young person in your family tonight.

You have great internal strength and tend to be independent, preferring to lean on yourself more than on others. You may find opportunities to be self-motivating today—certainly no dependency here. This afternoon you may decide to sign up to work in a trade day activity or a festival of sorts for this next weekend. You look forward to earning a little extra money. Any activity that pulls in a little extra cash will also create an opportunity for you to show off your talents so also consider displaying your own talents. Family matters are enjoyed most of the late afternoon. Being more involved with family now may involve some picture taking, social get-togethers, etc. Communicating ideas, experiences and current affairs with loved ones is most important today.

Yesterday’s Solution Yester

Aquarius (January 20- February 18) You are very communicative—not just a little curious. You enjoy talking and writing skills. If you are in a job that calls for a creative expression, you can excel in your presentation. Working with another person speeds the work along to a completion this afternoon. At home this afternoon you may become involved in much letter-writing or phone conversations with family members you do not get to see very often. You could be most persuasive with others and moving in speech and communication. Study, research and investigations of all kinds appeal to you as well. If you are not traveling now, you will be thinking about it soon. The best places to visit, stay and eat are topics of conversation over the fence with neighbors this evening.

Pisces (February 19-March 20)

Word Sleuth Solution

You can be peaceful, calm and undisturbed regardless of what is going on around you today. You are a genius at bringing out the best in others and this is something you take great pride in now. Teaching, translating, conducting a tour or an orchestra are just a few of the things you could excel in today.

An elderly couple or people show their gratefulness to you for some help or advice you shared recently. Ideas—philosophy and religion—are what make your life stimulating. Travel opportunities may come to your attention this afternoon and you can make future plans with your mate or loved ones. Before you relax this evening, you spend some time caring for animals or children. Tonight is for relaxing with bubbles, music and your heart’s desire.

A

y

e niv rsar n

THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011

Years

i n f o r m at i o n 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 W DAY: Wednesday eednesday

Ext.: 2627 262 27 - 2630

Fax: 24348714 WWW .MET.GOV V..KW W WWW.MET.GOV.KW

22/06/2011 22/06/201 1

Ministry of Interior

07:00

Issue T ime Time

Expected Weather Weather for the Next 24 4 Hours Hot wi with ith moderate to fresh north westerly w wind, with speed off 25 - 45 km/h causing raising g dust over open areas

BY Y DA DAY: AY:

website: www.moi.gov.kw

Relatively km/h Relativ vely hot with moderate wind d in general north westerly wind, w with speed of 20 - 38 km m/h

NIGHT:: BY Y NIGHT

For labor-related inquiries and complaints: Call MSAL hotline 128

Dusty

WARNING W A ARNING STATION ST TAT TION

Hospitals Sabah Hospital

FIRE BRIGADE

24812000

MAX. EXP EXP. P.

MIN.. REC.

KUW WA AIT CITY KUWAIT

44 °C

33 °C

KUWAIT KUW WA AIT AIRPORT AIRPOR RT

45 °C

33 °C

44 °C C

31 °C C

Amiri Hospital

22450005

NUWAISEEB NUW WA AISEEB

Maternity Hospital

24843100

WAFRA WA AFRA

45 °C

31 °C

Mubarak Al-Kabir Hospital

25312700

SALMI

44 °C

26 °C

Chest Hospital

24849400

ABDAL LY ABDALY

46 °C

29 °C

Farwaniya Hospital

24892010

ALIY YA AH JAL ALIYAH

46 °C

29 °C

Adan Hospital

23940620

FA AILAKA FAILAKA

43 °C

29 °C

Ibn Sina Hospital

24840300

POR RT AHMADI PORT

43 °C

34 °C

Al-Razi Hospital

24846000

M UMM AL-MARADEM

38 °C

31 °C

Physiotherapy Hospital

24874330/9

WA ARBA A - BUBYAN BUBY YA AN WARBA

45 °C

29 °C

Clinics

SFC. CHAR CHART T

22/06/20 0000 UT TC UTC

4732263

Roudha

22517733

Adhaliya

22517144

Thursday

23/06

Khaldiya

24848075

Friday

24/06

Keifan

24849807

Saturday

25/06

Shamiya

24848913

Sunday

26/06

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

hot + raising du ust dust

46 °C

33 °C

NW

20 - 45 km/h

hot + raising du ust dust

46 °C

34 °C

NW

15 - 40 km/h

hot

46 °C

34 °C

NW

15 - 40 km/h

du ust hot + blowing dust

47 °C

34 °C

NW

15 - 40 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

03:14

MAX. MA AX. Temp.

Temp.

44 °C

22526804

Sunrise S i

04 48 04:48

MIN. Temp.

MI IN T IN. emp.

33 °C

Industrial Shuwaikh

24814764

Zuhr

11:50 11:50

MAX. RH M

17 %

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

22434064 22435865 22544200 22547133 22515277 22616662 25714406 22530801

THE PUBLIC AUTHORITY FOR CIVIL INFORMATION Automated enquiry about the Civil ID card is 1889988

Asr

15:24

MIN. RH M

05 %

Sunset

18:51

MAX. Wind MA AX. W ind

N 64 km/h

Isha

20:23

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

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

00 mm

22/06/1 11 1:00 UTC 22/06/11 11:00

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

THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011

li fe s t y le Gossip

he ‘Fashion Police’ host was left “heartbroken” last week after her five-month-old puppy Noodles was put to sleep when it was discovered she had an incurable brain condition and the 26-year-old star admits she is finding it “hard” to deal with the loss of her pet. She said: “It’s been a really hard week for me as my five-month-old baby girl Noodles was incredibly ill. “I’m unbelievably devastated. To me, it’s like losing a child. My heart is broken.” Kelly revealed that she consulted a number of veterinary specialists as it was difficult to find out what was wrong with the dog at first. She explained in her column for Closer magazine: “I woke up to

T

feed her only to find she wasn’t moving and was barely breathing. We rushed to the vet but, after tests, they still weren’t sure what had happened, other than the fact she’d had a seizure. “I then drove her to a specialist and at first they thought it was her liver, but realised her brain was swelling and, unfortunately I had to have her put to sleep.” Last July, Kelly - who also has another dog, Sid - was left devastated when her new puppy Woody died aged just 14 weeks old from unknown causes.

he 69-year-old singer stumbled over a Jimmy Choo spiked heel in a hotel room and after the pain had eased off, she decided not to receive medical attention initially - only to learn she had fractured the digit after having X-rays at Community North Hospital in Indianapolis a few days later. She said through her spokesperson: “It hurt like heck for a minute, but seemed to subside. “I’m so grateful it wasn’t my right piano peddle foot, I have a gig on July 27 at the Jones Beach Theatre in New York!” While Aretha knows the injury could have been worse, she is now left with another problem after her foot was heavily strapped up. She joked: “How am I supposed to match my new Marc Jacobs gown with this wooden blue hospital shoe?” This is not the first health problem Aretha has experienced in recent months.The ‘Respect’ singer underwent surgery in December for an undisclosed complaint - which was rumoured to be pancreatic cancer -and recently revealed the pain she felt was so severe she could barely stand and immediately pulled out of her concert tour in order to receive treatment. She said “That [pain in my side] was my first inkling that something was wrong, that something wasn’t what it should be. “The pain was so hard it nearly brought me to my knees. So I said, ‘The concerts are over. I have to go find out what is wrong.’ “

T

he fashion designer and her husband David Beckham will welcome their first daughter into the world next month - a sister for sons Brooklyn, 12, Romeo, eight, and six-year-old Cruz - and preparations for the new arrival are almost complete. A source said: The nursery is ready and is a girlie overload. “It’s very tasteful - mostly cream with dashes of pink and every detail has been thought of. The design is shabby chic with French inspired furniture.

The baby will have the finest of everything.”

As well as splashing out on furniture from exclusive baby boutique Petit Tresor, Victoria has also started shopping for designer outfits for her daughter. The source added to Closer magazine: “Victoria splashed out £549 on a bassinet crib and bought a £1,584 changing table and a chaise longue. She also got three teddy bears. “One of the stun-

T

he ‘Tourist’ actress - who raises adopted children Maddox, nine, Pax, six, Zahara, five, and biological kids, Shiloh, five, and twoyear-old twins Knox and Vivienne with partner Brad Pitt - never imagined having kids, and says her maternal feelings deepened further when she embarked on a relationship with the actor in 2005. She said: “It’s been one of the great surprises of my life. When I was younger I never imagined being a mother and then those maternal feelings really evolved and deepened once I began adopting and started living with Brad,

T

which made me want to have children of our own. “I feel truly at ease when I know I’ve helped give them a safe and hopeful life. A big family can generate a lot of chaos, but it’s also a source of inner peace - the best feeling in the world. I’m much less anxious about life and so much more light-hearted and carefree.” In order to cope with the “chaos” of family life, Brad and Angelina have learned the best ways to share childcare. She explained in an interview with Britain’s OK! magazine: “Brad has always had a very close relationship with Mad and I tend to let him look after the boys and take care of discipline while I keep the girls in line!

“Sometimes they try to play one parent off against the other but Brad and I maintain a united front.

It’s the same rules whether it’s mommy or daddy laying down the law.”

ning pieces is a £1,825 cream wardrobe with bunnies engraved into the frame, which she has already filled. “She had already bought a few pieces in New York and online, such as a Kate Mack dress, plus she got lots of presents at her baby shower in May. She’s so excited.” David and Victoria are said to have their name choices shortlisted to three but are refusing to disclose what they are.

The source said: “They’ve narrowed their names to three - and they’re keeping them a secret. “Romeo wants to call her Justine Bieber, which is obviously off the list, but Brooklyn is a Beatles fan and suggested Jude, which David and Victoria actually like.”

he 30-year-old hotel heiress split from the nightclub mogul after a year-and-a-half of dating earlier this week, but claims they have not separated on bad terms and will always love one another. She told Hollyscoop: “We are

T

he 30-year-old socialite is currently planning her wedding to boyfriend Kris Humphries and has vowed to start trying to conceive once they tie the knot. She said: “I’m sure at some point in the next year I’ll want to have babies, so I have to get into my best shape before that. “Maybe we’ll start trying at the end of the year. After the wedding.” Kim - who was married to music producer Damon Thomas for four years until 2004 - says her engagement to Kris is a “dream come true” and she can’t wait to tie the knot. She added in an interview with LOOK magazine: “I didn’t put a time limit on it or an age limit. I’ve been married before, so it wasn’t my goal to get married, it’s just that I found someone I’m madly in love with and it’s worked out that way. “It’s ironic and funny, I said, ‘I wanna be married at 30 and it’s happening.’ It’s just a dream come true. “I’m so excited for my new life to start.”

T

— Bangshowbiz

friends. He’s a great guy and he’s always treated me amazing and we’ll always be great friends.” Paris also discussed the demise of her relationship with US TV talk show host George Lopez, admitting she was very unhappy that Cy read her text messages. After being quizzed by the presenter about Cy’s jealous behaviour - which included checking her phone - that is shown in her new TV show ‘The World According To Paris’, she said: “ I don’t think anyone likes that to happen. “We’re not together anymore. I love him and we remain good friends.

“It’s not about that [wanting to have fun], the relationship ran its course but we’ll see what happens.” The reality TV star also admitted she tells new friends and boyfriends fake stories about herself as a “test” to find out if she can trust them. She explained: “There’s one test I do with new people in my life, I tell them a fake rumour and see if it’s printed in tabloids the next week and then I know if I can trust them or not.”

y

A

37

e niv rsar n

Years

THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011

li f e s ty le

he University of Sydney was celebrating yesterday after a Picasso painting it was given sold for more than US$20 million at a London auction, with the funds to be used for scientific research. “Jeune fille endormie”, an intimate portrait of the Spanish-born artist’s lover Marie-Therese Walter, whom he met when he was 45 and she was 17, was one of three works at Christie’s Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale. It sold for £13.5 million ($22 million) on Tuesday, easily surpassing its £9 million valuation.

T

In this file photo, the Pablo Picasso painting “Jeune fille endormie” is on show during a Masterpieces exhibition at Christie’s auction house in London. — AP

nder fluorescent lights and a whirling ceiling fan that is no match for the Havana summer morning heat, Emiliano Nelson Guerra traced a pattern onto a bolt of pink cotton cloth and carefully scissored the edges.

Intermittently pulling on a fat cigar, he explained the significance of the “guayabera,” the roomy, collared, four-pocketed dress shirts that Cubans wear to look spiffy on this tropical island where neckties are practically extinct.

“The guayabera is nothing less than the typical Cuban garment,” Guerra said. “It’s our image, so you always have to try to make it look its best.” Guerra, a 49-year-old with closely cropped hair and a receding hairline, is Cuba’s shirtmaker to the stars. Known as Nelson to his friends, he has spent the last two decades establishing himself as Cuba’s leading designer of the guayabera, which the government last year decreed the official formal attire for state functions. He has hand-crafted shirts for international luminaries from American singer Harry Belafonte and British pop star Sting to Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela, and Prince Albert of Monaco. E’Nelson Collection designs have exhibited in shows and fairs and been worn by world-renowned Cuban musicians like Chucho Valdes and the late Compay Segundo, of Buena Vista Social Club fame, and they’re also in demand by wealthy foreigners and well-heeled Cubans up to the highest levels of government.

“One time I even made a guayabera for ‘el comandante,”‘ Guerra said, referring to former President Fidel Castro, known more for his affinity for military attire. Guerra recalled the first time he met American actor Danny Glover, who has cultivated close ties to Cuba, about a decade ago at a film festival in Havana. He asked the “Lethal Weapon” star about the shirt he was wearing, which turned out to be an artesanal African garment. The shirtmaker soon found himself hurriedly assembling a bone-white, embroidered masterpiece that he gave to Glover the last night of the festival. “He tried it out immediately,” Guerra said. “He took off the shirt he was wearing, put mine on and said, ‘Excellent.”‘ A year later the actor was back in town without the guayabera.

“He wasn’t wearing it. Instead he told me, ‘I want another one!”‘ Guerra said, breaking into laughter at the memory. He said he has made three shirts so far for Glover.

Working under a Cuban law that lets artists and craftspeople operate independently, Guerra and his

U

three assistants churn out 80 to 100 guayaberas a month. In a country where official monthly wages average around $20, they sell in hotels and tourist shops for $49 for a casual short-sleeve, and $100 for a formal linen long-sleeve.

He’s also taken custom orders up to $229. Guerra’s most recent project for a high-profile client was making enough shirts to clothe an entire orchestra: 150 short-sleeved white guayaberas discounted at $40 a pop for the New York Philharmonic.

“He showed us a number of designs that were very creative and beautiful and took the idea of a traditional guayabera and brought them into a more contemporary context,” said Eric Latzky, a Philharmonic spokesman who met with Guerra in Havana several months ago. The group’s plans to perform in Cuba in 2011 were called off for logistical reasons, but Guerra says there’s enough demand for his shirts that he should be able to unload the 90 he’s already made in a month or two. Still, like any artist, he’s disappointed he won’t get to see the finished product up on stage. “It’s important to see your work at the end, in the place where it was going to be used,” Guerra said. “To see the whole orchestra dressed up ... and even one man from the orchestra who apparently wears a size XXXXXL. I’ve never seen the man, but he must be gigantic.”

Guerra’s currently crafting guayaberas for Miami-based salsa musician Isaac Delgado, who’s been wearing E’Nelson Collection since the 1990s, for his new album cover and upcoming European tour. Guerra proudly held up a demo: white-fronted with the entire back a red, white and blue Cuban flag.

“He’s a tremendous designer with very good taste,” said Massiel Delgado, the singer’s wife and assistant. Guerra founded his home workshop in historic Old Havana the mid-1990s with 10 initial designs that have today swelled to more than 100.

Cardboard patterns and photos of him with Glover, Sting and Segundo adorn the walls of the cutting table room. —AP

In this photo, Cuba’s designer Emiliano Nelson Guerra works on a “guayabera” in his workshop in Havana, Cuba. — AP

ry it. Go ahead, stick your finger in!” The dollop of spicy hot-pepper paste is hard to turn down, coming as it does from the blender of Jean-Georges Vongerichten, one of the best-known chefs in the world, not to mention the owner of 31 restaurants and the man known for basically revolutionizing fine dining in New York. And we’re in his own home kitchen, yet. So the pinkyfinger slurp is gratefully accepted. “Full flavor, no?” he asks. That’s an understatement. Vongerichten is famous for the variety of his dishes and the magic he creates by mixing unusual and exotic flavors. But today, in an airy, open kitchen that looks out over a pond in suburban Waccabuc, New York, what’s being served is outside his comfort zone and experience: Korean food, prepared not by him but by his wife, Marja. In July, “Kimchi Chronicles,” hosted by the Korean-born Marja, debuts on US public television. (Marja’s husband will be her celebrity sidekick.) The show is part travelogue, part cooking show, and aims to introduce viewers to a cuisine that, while on the rise, has yet to make strong inroads in the United States. Even Vongerichten himself, whose empire includes 10 restaurants in New York alone, among them his flagship Jean Georges and the Asian-themed Spice Market, spent five formative years in Asia but was still unfamiliar with Korean cuisine until recently.

“I didn’t know anything about it until I met Marja,” he says. His wife of six years has been cooking Korean more and more since the show got under way, vying for kitchen space with her husband. There are a number of reasons Korean food has not become nearly as prominent in the United States as some other Asian cuisines. Most Korean restaurants are small places in Koreatowns geared toward native Koreans, says Wendy Chan, a food consultant who has worked to introduce the cuisine to Americans. There’s little explanation of the menu and often perfunctory service, she says. But it’s also the nature of the food itself that’s difficult for Americans to understand, even if they may have encountered kimchi (spicy cabbage), or barbecue or bibimbap, a bowl of rice with stir-fried vegetables, and often meat and

“T

an egg on top.

“People are confused,” says Chan. “They go into a restaurant and before they even order, they’re presented with a dozen different little dishes. These little side dishes maybe vegetables of the day or pickles of the day - are very important in Korean cuisine. But they confuse people - often there isn’t even a name for them.” Also, many people mistakenly assume all Korean food is spicy and red - like the gochujang, or hot pepper paste, that Marja Vongerichten has prepared today, a Korean staple used to give zest to countless dishes, almost like a ketchup. But that’s inaccurate, says Chan.

A big hope for Korean cuisine in America, she notes, is the rise of several Koreanborn chefs introducing their talents to the restaurant world: David Chang, for example, at Momofuku Ko in Manhattan, Akira Back at Yellowtail in Las Vegas, and Roy Choi, known for his Korean taco truck in Los Angeles.

There’s also a well-orchestrated effort by the South Korean government to aggressively promote Korean cuisine in the United States. At this summer’s Fancy Food Show in Washington, DC the Korean section will be the largest of any Asian cuisine, says Chan, and will include a pop-up Korean restaurant.

Indeed, the South Korean government is among the sponsors of “Kimchi Chronicles,” says executive producer Charlie Pinsky, a longtime producer of TV food shows. He explains that the idea for the show came one evening at dinner at Jean Georges with some Korean businessmen. “We suddenly realized Marja was the ideal person to host, and with her husband they made a great team,” he says.

“And her personal story was perfect.” For 13 episodes, Marja Vongerichten and the crew made two long visits to South Korea (her husband came on one of them.) Each episode focuses on one key element of Korean cuisine - such as rice - and involves trips to markets, restaurants or homes. An accompanying cookbook, “The Kimchi Chronicles,” provides recipes adapted for the American palette. But back to that personal story: Marja was born to a US soldier and a Korean mother. She was adopted at age 3 by a northern Virginia couple.

At 20, then a student, she tracked down

The 1935 portrait was donated to the university last year by a mystery American, on the condition that it would be sold and all proceeds directed to scientific research. “This is a great result which is transformative for the university and for the health of the nation,” said University of Sydney Vice -Chancellor Michael Spence. “The sale of this remarkable work is the result of one donor’s extraordinary generosity who said ‘this painting is going to change the lives of many people’.

“They were right. We are grateful for their extraordinary generosity and delighted with the outcome of the auction.” The money will be spent on research into diabetes, obesity and heart disease. “It is a university-wide project that will involve everyone from economists to sociologists,” added Spence. The artwork was originally bought by the founder of the Chrysler car company, Walter Chrysler, who sold it to the mystery donor, who in turn gave it to the university. — AFP

her birth mother, who had settled in Brooklyn with an American husband.

When Marja (then named Marja Allen) got the phone number, she stared at it for hours. Then she called, and her mother fainted straight away on the phone. Marja flew up to New York and reunited with her mother, who, as mothers do, immediately

Jean-Georges Vongerichten fed her - Korean food, of course. “All these flavors came back to me,” she says. In her Westchester kitchen, Marja Vongerichten takes out some sushi rice and rinses it; it will accompany the chicken dish she is serving, dak bokkeum, basically chicken in a big pot with carrots, onion, potatoes, and lots of gochujang. Her husband picks up the lid of a pot steaming on the stove and beckons: “You have to smell this,” he says.—AP

Museum uncovers

Van Gogh painting of brother arry Potter creator JK Rowling will unveil her latest venture involving the boy wizard today, ending fevered speculation among fans about what comes next. Having announced a new website (www.pottermore.com), the British author has kept its contents a closely guarded secret, giving previews to just a handful of the biggest fan sites who have been sworn to silence.

All will be revealed today, with a countdown clock linked to the website indicating that it will go live at noon London time (1100 GMT).

“The owls are gathering ... Find out why soon” is all the link says. What many Potter fans would like most would be an eighth novel to follow on from the seventh and “final” instalment “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” published in 2007. But Rowling’s publicist has already made clear that it would not involve a new book. The seven-novel series has sold more than 400 million copies worldwide, and, along with the blockbuster movie franchise, turned Rowling into the world’s wealthiest writer. Other options on the website include a social networking fan site, an online game or the launch of the novels as ebooks. The announcement comes just a few weeks ahead of the theatrical release on July 15 of the eighth and final Harry Potter film which will be shown in 3D. The seven movies released so far have grossed $6.4 billion in ticket sales. — Reuters

H

he Van Gogh Museum said Tuesday its experts now believe one of Vincent van Gogh’s paintings previously thought to be a self-portrait actually depicts his brother, Theo. If true, it would be the only known painting of Theo, although Vincent made several sketches of his brother, who supported him finan-

T

In this photo released by The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, Netherlands on Tuesday, June 21, 2011, shows a painting by Vincent van Gogh which the museum previously believed to be a self-portrait but actually depicts his brother, Theo. — AP

cially and was his lifelong confidant and friend. “People have often thought it was funny that there were no portraits of Theo, given that they were so close,” said museum spokeswoman Linda Snoek.

She said the portrait was made in 1887 while the pair lived together in Paris - a lesser-known period of Van Gogh’s life, since the bulk of information about Vincent is derived from letters he sent to Theo. The painting has long been in storage, but went on display at the museum in Amsterdam Tuesday as part of an exhibition on new findings about the painter’s time spent in Antwerp and Paris in 18851888. Though the brothers resembled each other physically, scholars determined the painting represents Theo by a number of factors.

Head researcher Louis van Tilborgh compared two paintings from 1887 with similar-looking men in suits set against a blue background. “They are two small, detailed portraits that when you see them you think: they belong together,” Van Tilborgh said in an interview with Dutch state broadcaster NOS. The portrait of Theo shows he had rounder ears than Vincent did. The other portrait shows Vincent with long, angular ears, consistent with other artists’ paintings of Vincent.

That’s before he famously self-mutilated one of his ears in December 1888.—AP

A

y

e niv rsar n

THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011

Years

lifestyle

Dancers from Chinese dance group the Legend of Shangri-La perform during a dress rehearsal in Sydney, Australia yesterday. The Chinese dance troupe will perform Wednesday as the official opening of the Year of Chinese Culture in Australia. — AP

US actor Richard Gere poses for the media during a press conference for his photo exhibition in Seoul, South Korea yesterday. Gere is in Seoul promoting an exhibition of photographs of Tibet and India taken by the Hollywood actor and other photographers. — AP

A

In this file photo, Lindsay Lohan arrives for a preliminary hearing in Los Angeles. — AP

B

eing under house arrest seems to have an upside for Lindsay Lohan. The 24-year-old actress says that since being confined to her 3,000-square-foot home in Venice Beach, California, she’s caught up on movies and TV shows, stayed out of the public eye and, most important, had time to finish decorating her house and patio. “I probably wouldn’t have done it had I not been home,” Lohan says in an interview in Life & Style magazine, on newsstands Friday.

Lohan is serving house arrest on a 120-day jail sentence for violating her probation in a 2007 drunken driving case by taking a necklace without permission from a jewelry store in January. She began serving her sentence last month, and is expected to serve about 35 days. Lohan says that while not ideal, she treasures these moments alone in her home.

“There are so many things you can do,” she says. “It’s a nice way to just be reading scripts and focusing on what I’m going to do next.” But Lohan says she cannot wait to resume doing things that she had taken for granted, like walking in the neighborhood, going shopping or dining out. Her recent request to leave her home to attend her brother’s 16th birthday party was denied, she says, which “bummed her out.” In the interview, Lohan also addresses criticism that she got off easy with house arrest by saying it’s a common punishment. She says it’s a better alternative to a 12-by-8-foot (3 1/2-by-2 1/2-meter) jail cell at the Lynwood facility. “It’s a scary place and a place that I don’t wish on anyone,” she says. Lohan says she’s anxious to get started on the community service portion of her sentence.

“I want to finish that so I can work in August and September,” she says. Lohan claims that she no longer drinks, but falls short of saying she’ll stay out of nightclubs.

“I don’t think you should ever say never,” she says. — AP

record executive accused of paying someone to rob the late rapper Tupac Shakur in 1994 was charged on Tuesday with trafficking cocaine between Los Angeles and New York City. James Rosemond, 46, cofounder of Czar Entertainment whose artists include Sean Kingston and The Game, was arrested at a Manhattan hotel on Tuesday.

Federal authorities have been investigating him for alleged drug trafficking since 2009. He appeared in Brooklyn federal court on Tuesday and was remanded in custody. He did not enter a plea.

His arrest comes days after New York police said they were investigating a claim by a convicted murderer that Rosemond paid him $2,500 to rob Shakur in 1994 outside a Manhattan recording studio. Shakur was shot five times, but survived. A lawyer for Rosemond has denied the claim — made in an online post-linking the executive to the attack on Shakur and on Tuesday also denied the drug charges against Rosemond. If convicted, Rosemond faces a maximum life sentence.

“The indictment is the result of witnesses who have been threatened and bribed and have otherwise spent lifetimes lying,” said Rosemond’s attorney, Jeffrey Lichtman. “The government wants a trial-they’re going to get a trial.” Federal prosecutors accused Rosemond of being involved in a trafficking ring that ensured “a near-continuous flow of cocaine and cash” between Los Angeles and New York since 2008.

According to the complaint, drugs were initially shipped in vacuum-sealed packages filled with mustard, to evade drug-detecting dogs.

When law enforcement officials became suspicious, Rosemond is accused of sending drugs via freight apparently intended for the performers he managed. But when one of those pack-

B

In this film publicity image released by Paramount Pictures, Po, voiced by Jack Black (center) Tigress, voiced by Angelina Jolie (right) and Monkey, voiced by Jackie Chan are shown in a scene from “Kung Fu Panda 2.” — AP

T

he Glastonbury festival opened its gates yesterday to 150,000 fans ignoring forecasts for rain and muddy fields to hear U2 and Beyonce alongside a bewildering choice of smaller acts from Spliff Richard to punk poet Attila the Stockbroker.

Now in its fifth decade, the event has grown from a humble gathering of 1,500 people on Michael Eavis’s Worthy dairy farm in 1970, each paying one pound ($1.60) and receiving free milk, to a giant five-day celebration of music costing 195 pounds for a basic ticket.

The main talking point in the build-up to the festival, held most years on a sprawling site set in picturesque southwest England, is the weather, and the outlook this year looks more mixed than the sun-baked 2010 edition.

Heavy rain means shin-deep mud, leaking tents and sodden crowds, but Britain’s Met Office is predicting sunshine, clouds and light rain at the event which ends on Sunday night, and punters are advised to pack sun cream as well as raincoats. The biggest shows kick off tomorrow, when the main Pyramid stage will host blues guitar legend B.B. King and contrarian Manchester singer Morrissey in the lead up to Irish rockers U2, the opening headline act.

The band had been scheduled to perform in 2010, but were forced to cancel when lead singer Bono injured his back. Drummer Larry Mullen, Jr said the set, before a crowd of some 100,000 standing on a grass slope lead-

In this courtroom drawing, James Rosemond (right) is arraigned on drug trafficking charges at Brooklyn Federal Court in New York, Tuesday, June 21, 2011. — AP

ages was seized by authorities, the drugs were then smuggled in hidden compartments of cars, prosecutors said. Czar Entertainment was not immediately available for comment on the charges against Rosemond. According to the company’s website, Rosemond was credited for producing hit songs, including Salt-N-Pepa’s “Shoop.” — Reuters

ing down to the stage, posed a new challenge for the group, which has honed its live act on a record-breaking world tour that is still ongoing. “It’s not the 360 Degree show, we’re out of our comfort zone and that’s important for us,” he told BBC Radio.

“Despite everything we have something to prove and it’s about the songs. It’s about a

band being able to get up and play the music and there aren’t bells and whistles necessarily. That’s a challenge for us and we’ve got something to prove.” Coldplay, who fill the headline slot on Saturday night and release a new album soon, confessed to some nerves, despite, like U2, being one of the biggest bands on the planet.

Festivalgoers queue in the car park while they wait to gain access to the annual Glastonbury festival near Glastonbury, Somerset yesterday. — AFP

Glastonbury is part of an increasingly crowded live music calendar in Britain, but remains the “mighty mother of all festivals” in the words of music website Pitchfork. “It’s one of the few shows that we’ll get really nervous about,” said Coldplay drummer Will Champion. “When we’re doing our own stuff there’s a very set routine ... At a festival it’s different,” he told BBC, the festival’s official media partner. According Eavis’s daughter and Glastonbury co-organiser Emily, Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin helped the festival secure Beyonce Knowles for the final headline slot on Sunday, which brings the curtain down on the event.

Knowles’ husband Jay-Z performed at the event in 2008, a choice which upset some members of the British rock establishment like Oasis, who argued that Glastonbury was not the place for US hip-hop. The rapper answered his doubters with a rousing set, and the choice of Beyonce this year barely raised an eyebrow. Pop pundits have singled out performers including Tinie Tempah, Plan B, Paul Simon, Primal Scream, Mumford & Sons, The Chemical Brothers, White Lies, Queens of the Stone Age, Cee Lo Green and Ke$ha as ones to watch across dozens of stages.—Reuters

ritney Spears brought her Femme Fatale tour to Los Angeles’ Staples Center Monday, where the packed crowd heard a plethora of hits from the singer’s decade-plus career. Among the tunes included in the evening were all five of her Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hits: “...Baby One More Time,” “Womanizer,” “3,” “Hold It Against Me” and her Rihanna remix duet “S&M.” Most of the show, as expected, seemed to be lip-synced.

Occasionally, especially in the early portion of the night, what sounded like live ad-libs from Spears could be heard.

Spears opened the evening with her Hot 100 No 1, “Hold It Against Me,” and then surprisingly segued into the new “Femme Fatale” US bonus track “Up n’ Down.” All told, Spears blazed through a 22-song set (four of those were blended into two separate medleys) that was contained within distinct Femme Fatale-inspired acts. A highlight was the bright and colorful segment that kicked off with the new “Femme” album track “Big Fat Bass.” Spears seemed especially engaged with the audience and her dancers, smiling and playful whilst prancing about the stage. Her giddiness was amplified for “How I Roll,” when she was rolled out into the center of the audience on a tricked-out, Mini Cooper-like car.

Throughout the evening, the diva was aided by an armada of impossibly athletic and acrobatic dancers.

During “He About to Lose Me,” Spears was surrounded by four especially daring male dancers, who did their best death-defying Olympian gymnast poses from atop cagelike contraptions high in the air. Their handstands and Cirque du Soleil-esque contortions drew gasps from the impressed crowd. Fans went nuts after Spears recreated much of her original choreography-including her memorable slide to the floor and the arms-in-the-air flings-for a sensual “I’m a Slave 4 U,” which was followed by a cover of Madonna’s classic 1983 single “Burning Up.” The crowd also reacted positively to “Boys,” but for possibly a different reason: if you stitched together the fabric that Spears and her dancers were wearing for the slinky number, it might have made a scarf. “Boys” was followed by the ballad “Don’t Let Me Be the Last to Know,” which may have been the one song of the night that Spears sang completely live. (Though it was hard to tell whether she was singing along to pre-taped “live” vocals.) Some aspects of the show were reminiscent of previous tours by Madonna and Kylie Minogue. — Reuters

A

y

e niv rsar n

THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011

Years

lifestyle

Natalie Redding, owner of Namaste Farms in Temecula, California, shears sheep and goats and produces handspun yarn. — MCT photos

Natalie Redding washes the wool she sheared off a ram to dye and to make hand spun yarn.

Natalie Redding

A different spin on things W

hether it’s a luxury automobile, a couture gown or a special vintage of wine, even those who aren’t collectors and connoisseurs recognize that perceived rarity and quality drive up demand. And price. But would you be willing to pay a premium price say five times as much - for yarn? What if it was a luxurious, lustrous fiber, hand-sheared, -washed, -dyed and spun from an award-winning sheep - all by the same woman - less than 100 miles southeast of Los Angeles?

You might not, but fiber enthusiasts will. That’s something shepherdess-spinner (she uses the term “fiber artist”) Natalie Redding found out last September when her Namaste Farms wools and fibers - feathersoft skeins of iridescent purples and blazing oranges, some dangling with Hello Kitty charms and beads became available at the click of a mouse. In fact, business is booming so much that Redding’s vertically integrated one-woman (with the assistance of husband, kids and a hired hand) small-batch fiber enterprise is bringing in almost enough to make the family’s 5-acre farm in Temecula , California self-sustaining.

How the 47-year-old former model became a “yarntrepreneur” mogul is a long yarn itself, and one that Redding starts to spin on a tour of her farm one sunny weekend, her wiry 5-foot-7, 122-pound frame clad in a pair of dark-wash William Rast designer jeans, a formfitting white tank top and a pair of scuffed cowboy boots, with hair falling to her belt, wrists jangling with silver bracelets and face framed by earrings the size of parakeet swings. “Yes, this is my standard fare,” she says when asked by a reporter if she actually tends to barnyard chores dressed that way. In the same breath, she says she wants to be taken seriously as a farmer and a businesswoman but refuses to fit anyone else’s stereotype. “What bothers people is that I just don’t look like an aggie (agriculture person). I’m out there wearing Armani boots, designer jeans and a Prada belt, and I’m not wearing a men’s T-shirt. For some reason it disturbs them.”

M

arch showers. Blooming flowers. And a hike in the cost of clothing. Didn’t expect that last one as a sign of spring, did you? Well, this season will be remembered as the first time in a decade that the cost of clothing, particularly cotton, will go up instead of down. That should make you think twice about throwing away that cardigan when you’re doing your spring cleaning even if it’s three seasons old.

With that in mind, we enlisted the help of Alicia Shaffer, owner of Prim, Pleasanton, Calif’s newest boho chic boutique, to select seven items every woman should buy or salvage from her closet. These pieces can be worn year round and mixed and matched with other basics to make multiple outfits. And, for inspiration, some of the items have a distinctly

The “them” Redding refers to are the people she says prejudged her and treated her poorly when she first started on the sheep- and goat-show circuit. “At my first show in 2006 everyone thought because I didn’t look like everybody else, I was a poser. And they said things like: ‘All you do is go out and buy the best animals.’ Why would I want to buy bad animals?” That comment about buying the best animals touches on another hurdle to being taken seriously - the notion that somehow Redding was nothing more than a deep-pocketed backyard hobbyist embarking on a vanity project. After all, a Cadillac Escalade and a Porsche sit in the driveway of Namaste Farms, and a ramshackle bungalow in the barnyard holds enough professional equipment to equip a recording studio. It is, in fact, a functioning studio (dubbed “The Recording Farm”) used by her sound engineer husband Sean Redding, who happens to be the son of the late William “Jheri” Redding - the hairdresser, businessman and inventor of the Jheri curl.

Natalie met her future husband in 1992 after answering a help-wanted ad at a thoroughbred horse ranch, which Sean was managing for his father. Before that, in the early ‘80s, the Mendocino, Calif.-born high school graduate had chosen Hong Kong over college, working there as a fashion model who supplemented her income as a cage-dancing cocktail waitress. Natalie Redding eventually returned to California, went to college and earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in animal science from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. It was horses that brought the Reddings to Temecula, but they started shifting to what Natalie calls “safer animals” when the couple began having children. For most of the decade in between, they grew the farm with little in the way of fiscal restraint - buying and breeding the best stock money could buy, including angora and pygora goats and unique sheep breeds such as Gotlands, Babydolls and Wensleydale Longwools (with long, corkscrews of wool that look like a cross between

soft, feminine feel of spring.

Tunic jersey dress: Tall people can pull off a tunic-style dress as a top, but most women will rock this soft, jersey tunic as a dress. With the right accessories, it seamlessly goes from day to night, Shaffer says. You can buy it in a solid color, such as gray or navy, but she prefers the bright floral patterns of spring.

Outfits: “Wear it with a wide, woven belt and gladiator sandals or throw it over a pair of leggings for more of a bohemian look,” Shaffer says.

Black leggings: No one item is as versatile as a cotton-lycra blend of leggings in black, Shaffer says. They are comfortable, flattering, affordable, and break up the week for those of us who live in jeans. Outfits: “You can wear the leggings with the tiered tank top and flats or

Shirley Temple curls and dreadlocks), She hired the best breeders and in 2006 paid an expert $175 a day for a week to teach her the art of dying and hand-spinning the wool. Today, Namaste Farms boasts somewhere between 85 and 100 head of goats and sheep and a menagerie that includes llamas, cows, pigs and a flock of peafowl (including some prized Java Greens), turkeys, chickens (Buff Orpingtons, Marans and Speckled Sussex) and three incubators that are in the process of hatching 600 to 700 eggs at any given time. “Yes, my husband comes from a wealthy family,” Redding says, “and Sean’s mom had pretty much been his benefactor.” But the economic downturn of 2007 and her mother-in-law’s failing health made Redding hyperfocus on turning her wool gathering into a real business “I realized that the economy was tanking and we had five kids and I wanted to really make this work.

And the good thing was that at this point, I already had all the tools I needed,” she says. Although Redding

tunic dress and pumps,” Shaffer says. In cooler weather, pair the tank and leggings with boots and a feminine blazer or big sweater.

Slub cardigan: One touch of this long, lightweight, knit cardigan and you’ll never go back to the short, buttoned variety. “You want one with an asymmetrical cut that hits at the hip

started out selling her fiber through a few bricks-andmortar yarn stores, the big leap forward for the burgeoning business came in September 2010 when she persuaded one of the biggest online retailers of yarn and fiber to stock her hand-spun, single-ply long wool.

“The quality is absolutely superb,” says Deborah Knight, chief marketing officer for Yarnmarket, which runs Yarnmarket.com. “Natalie buys high-quality animals and breeds them herself and ends up with a very high-quality fiber. And she’s a good hand spinner.”

Knight declined to divulge specific sales, but would say that by the time they tallied 2010 year-end numbers, Namaste Farms ranked 50th out of their 80 yarn providers in sales. — MCT

bone,” Shaffer says. “That’s the most flattering.”

She suggests choosing one in a charcoal gray or chocolate brown. Outfits: “This cardigan goes with everything. It works with a tank top and jeans just as much as a pencil skirt and blouse or over a dress,” Shaffer says.

Tiered tank top: It’s likely you don’t have this item in your closet. And you might think the three-tier style wouldn’t favor every body type, but it does. The drapey style hits just below the hips, Shaffer says, so everyone falls in love with it. For maximum use, she recommends it in a neutral tone. Outfits: “You can wear this with everything,” Shaffer says.

“Skinny jeans, black leggings, shorts, work slacks. You can throw the cardigan over it or the tunic dress for a soft, pulled together look.”

Linen pants: “ These are a basic you wouldn’t normally think of, but they work so well from spring to summer and even into fall if you pair them with darker colors,” Shaffer says. She suggests a putty or gray color.

Outfits: Where to begin? You can wear these lightweight, straight leg pants under the tunic dress for a bohemian look or with the tiered tank and cardigan or any other basic top in your closet, Shaffer says.

Models show off spring clothing in Walnut Creek, California. — MCT photos

Natalie Redding spreads dyed wool to air dry it before making hand spun yarn.

Ruffled blouse: If it’s not a staple already, this rayon-cotton blend blouse will join your white button-down as a wardrobe must-have.

It’s also long-sleeved but softer and lighter than its crisp, boxy cousin, so it can be belted for a flattering fit, Shaffer says. Outfits: The top looks great with a pair of skinny jeans, a pencil skirt, or if it’s long enough, with black leggings, she says.

Skinny jeans: Despite their staying power through the seasons, a lot of people are still hesitant to go skinny, Shaffer says. “But they have so much stretch to them that you cannot go wrong, no matter how curvy you are,” she says, especially since tops have trended on the long side for some time now. Outfits: The possibilities are endless, Shaffer says. She loves skinnies with the ruffled blouse or tiered tank top and cardigan. But a simple white T-shirt is also chic and timeless. And we hope you’ve got plenty of those in your closet. — MCT

e niv rsar n

y

A

A different spin on things

Years

THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011

39

Iran’s fashion I

t’s an Iranian rite of summer: Islamic morality squads pressure women to keep their headscarves snug and coverings in place, and after a few extra tugs for modesty’s sake the crackdown inevitably fades. This year, however, Iran’s summer fashion offensive appears bigger and more ominous, and has expanded the watch list to men’s hairstyles and jewelry considered too Western. No official explanation has appeared for the sterner approach this season. But it fits with the steady push by Iran’s ruling theocracy to reel back the liberal fashion trends that began in the 1990s _ such as body-hugging coverings for women and earrings and tattoos for men - and to sweep away non-Islamic influences in universities and cultural institutions.

The drive to turn back the clock - part of what Iran calls a “moral security plan” - also could reach deeper as the all-powerful clerics running Iran move to reinforce their authority. The conservative forces around Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei have already struck back hard at President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s attempts to expand his power base, and are expected to set a hard-line tone for parliamentary elections early next year.

Nearly two-thirds of Iran’s parliament have signed a statement supporting the latest fight against “Western cultural invasion.” It’s blamed for such challenges to Islamic dress codes as women’s headscarves pushed back and pants cropped short to show as much leg as possible. Some 70,000 police officers have been deployed in Tehran this month to enforce the dress codes, the state news agency IRNA said.

“Confronting those who are not sufficiently veiled is a legitimate demand of the people,” said Iran’s police chief, Gen Esmaeil Ahmadi Moghadam, who was added to the US sanctions list earlier this month for his alleged role in the political clampdowns after Ahmadinejad’s disputed re-election in 2009.

The fashion targets this year also include men’s hairstyles and “un-Islamic” bling such as necklaces.

Last year, a fashion watchdog group gave the Culture Ministry a guide to acceptable men’s haircuts. On the blacklist: ponytails, a spiked style known locally as the “rooster,” and the retro “mullet” do, with its cropped front and cascading back. “Of course there are people out there who would not like” young people’s taste, said a man in his late 20s, who gave only his family

F

ormer Miss World turned actress Aishwarya Rai Bachchan is pregnant, her father-in-law and veteran Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan has revealed. “NEWS NEWS NEWS !! I AM GOING TO BECOME A GRANDFATHER .. AISHWARYA EXPECTING .. SO HAPPY AND THRILLED !!!,” Bachchan wrote on his Twitter page late Tuesday. Aishwarya Rai, 37, married Bachchan’s actor son Abhishek, 35, in April 2007. The child will be their first and comes after weeks of speculation in Indian gossip columns about the actress’ fluctuating weight.

Bachchan senior later said on the micro-blogging site that he was “overwhelmed” with the response to the news from followers and had received 2,843 tweets of congratulation in just half an hour. Writing on his blog bigb.bigadda.com, he said: “There is joy and happiness around us.” There was no immediate indication when the baby was due. The BachchansAmitabh, his actress wife Jaya, Aishwarya and Abhishek-are Bollywood’s “first family” and have a fanatical following in India and around the world. His daughter, Shweta Nanda, has two children.

The family patriarch said he was particularly pleased with the news because “now cometh the progeny of my son that shall bear the surname Bachchan - the first in this generation...”. The family boycotted the annual Filmfare magazine awards in 2010 after a tabloid newspaper in Mumbai wrote that Rai could not have children, prompting a legal notice to be sent demanding a retraction and an

crackdown moves beyond headscarves

name, Mohajer, as he browsed in a Tehran jewelry store. “But I cannot understand why I have to listen to them.” Breaking the fashion mold in Iran - especially for men - also has become a low-risk way to show support for the political opposition.

Farhad, a 21-year-old student with shoulderlength hair, said he had once dyed portions of his locks green - the color adopted as the symbol of the protesters after the elections two years ago. “Young people are used to the crackdown on clothes every summer,” said Farhad, who wouldn’t give his last name for fear of reprisals from authorities. “But this year you get the feeling it’s a bit more serious.” For men, the backlash has usually been just a warning to head

apology. Rai, who took the Miss World crown in 1994, made her debut in Hindi-language Bollywood in the late 1990s and has gone on to star in more than 40 Indian films. Most recently she was in the blockbuster South Indian film “Endhiran” (Robot) alongside Tamil-language superstar Rajinikanth, which broke box office records in India. She appeared as a jewel thief in Steve Martin’s “The Pink Panther 2”. Her other English-language films include “Bend It Like Beckham” director Gurinder Chadha’s “Bride and Prejudice” in 2004 and “The Last Legion” in 2007.

straight to a barber or home to change outfits.

Women, however, often get a lecture on Islamic clothing and values, said Tehran Deputy Police Chief Ahmad Reza Radan.

“If they don’t take action immediately and rectify the problem in their outfit, they will be arrested,” he was quoted as saying by IRNA. Then their families are asked to bring “appropriate” clothing to the police station. The detainees are freed only after signing a pledge “not in appear in public again like that,” he said. But the lines between fashionista and fashion outlaw keep shifting. What was once common and seldom challenged - such as tight-fitting and kneelength outer coverings on a woman - could now bring

She was recently seen at the Cannes film festival promoting her upcoming film “Heroine”, which was due to begin shooting this year. The chief executive of UT V Motion Pictures, Ronnie Screwvala, said at the time that Rai had star power. “She is the brand ambassador for India and for Indian cinema when it comes to the French Riviera.” Rai also has a number of lucrative modelling contracts, including for French cosmetics firm L’Oreal. — AFP

In this photograph (left to right) Indian actor Amitabh Bachchan poses with his wife Jaya, daughter-in-law Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and son Abhishek Bachchan at the premiere of the Bollywood Hindi film ‘Paa’ in Mumbai. — AFP

rebuke, according to authorities. Earlier this month, a hard-line Friday prayers leader, Ahmad Khatami, said that even a woman’s necklaces and bracelets should not be shown to men outside her immediate family.

There are no official reports on arrests linked to the fashion crackdown. But Tehran’s deputy police chief Radan told state TV on Monday that authorities have notched up dozens of other busts: shutting down stores accused of selling revealing clothing. — AP

In this photo, an Iranian female visitor (center) views dressed mannequins, portraying some of the traditional dresses during the “Iranian Islamic Fashion Show” event in Tehran, Iran. — AP

Cirque du Soleil artistes perform at a photo rehearsal of a show “Varekai” at the Quirino Grandstand in Manila on June 21, 2011. — AFP photos