29 Jun

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WEDNESDAY, JUNE 29, 2011

Kuwait stays on US trafficking blacklist

Protesters clash with riot police in Athens strike

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Sharapova dazzles at stormy Wimbledon

Microsoft takes Office into the ‘cloud’

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Saudi military to start pulling out of Bahrain Shiite bloc Wefaq mulls joining or snubbing talks conspiracy theories

Sweet bankruptcy

By Badrya Darwish

badrya_d@kuwaittimes.net

T

eachers’ salaries are always a bone of contention all over the world. I wonder why teaching has always been an underestimated job. Wherever I turn my head towards Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Timbuktu, England, the US, or Kuwait etc, teachers have been complaining of low income.

Just imagine! The people who teach the future of every country! From kindergarten till graduation, they take care of our kids, generations after generations. Why should these people be underpaid?

Are they doing a less important job?

Historically speaking, teachers were viewed as messengers and enlighteners. They have been respected by everyone in society. Nowadays, it’s vice versa. They are even abused and beaten in some schools in Kuwait. They are not worth an increment too.

I am not defending teachers in Kuwait only. The norm should be that teaching should be one of the highest ranking paid profession in any country.

How do you expect someone to teach your kids properly if he cannot pay his bills and is frustrated.

Why aren’t teachers’ salaries parallel to professors, scientists, engineers, lawyers, bankers, doctors, military personnel, civil servants etc? Even technicians sometimes make more money than the grade of teachers.

I was shocked with the Kuwait parliament today rejecting a bill asking for an increment for teachers.

Teachers should not be given an increment. Their whole salary should be reconsidered. The amazing thing is that the bill was rejected by three of our four female MPs. Dr Maasouma, why did you back out on teachers? You were a professor in the university yourself and you know what it feels like to be a teacher. Dr Rola Dashti, in fact I expected you to carry the banner of teachers’ increment instead of letting them down. And what justification did you give? You say that this will lead to Kuwait’s bankruptcy. Are you joking, that the teachers’ increment will bankrupt Kuwait?

Dr Salwa Al-Jassar, why did you back out on teachers? Do you think they are not doing a good job? Do you think they are less than their brothers and sisters in ministries and doctors in hospitals?

How do you trust them to teach your kids in school if they are not worthy of a decent salary? Or do you also share Rola’s justification that they will bankrupt Kuwait? In this case, it is a sweet bankruptcy.

Do you underestimate the teachers’ work and hardships? Aren’t your children students in different universities and schools? Don’t you appreciate the work of teachers? A teacher may come from 7 am till 2 pm but he carries his burden home with papers, homework and providing extracurricular advice to students sometimes till midnight.

Doesn’t he or she deserve a better life? Why are MPs highly paid? Are they doing a better job than teachers? Teachers are not allocated cars and secretaries. Ms Dashti, if you think that the increment for teachers will bankrupt Kuwait, then I have a suggestion to parliament that we cut from your salaries, guys, and slash the number of your assistants and privileges in parliament to compensate the deficiency in the budget.

For the first time I agree with MP Musallam AlBarrak who vowed to pursue the teachers’ case in the next session. Keep your fight up, Musallam!

Dutch ban religious slaughter of animals AMSTERDAM: The Dutch parliament voted yesterday to ban ritual slaughter of animals, a move strongly opposed by the country’s Muslim and Jewish minorities, but left a loophole that might let religious butchering continue. The bill by the small Animal Rights Party, the first such group in Europe to win seats in a national parliament, passed the lower house of parliament by 116 votes to 30. It must be approved by the upper house before becoming law. It stipulates that livestock must be stunned before being slaughtered, contrary to the Continued on Page 13

KUWAIT: Security officials restrain an angry spectator after MPs failed to approve a rise in teachers’ salaries at the National Assembly yesterday. (Inset) MP Rola Dashti confers with Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Sabah after the session. — Photos by Yasser Al-Zayyat

MPs fail to approve teachers’ wage hike Govt assailed over ‘inflated’ budget

By B Izzak KUWAIT: The National Assembly yesterday failed to override a government rejection of two popular laws calling to increase salaries of Kuwaiti teachers and stipends of Kuwaiti university students. The two laws needed a two-third majority support or 44 MPs to make their implementation mandatory on the government but they only got 42 votes with several MPs

voting against the two laws or abstaining. They included three female MPs - Rola Dashti, Maasouma Al-Mubarak and Salwa Al-Jassar.

The outcome of the vote angered several hundred teachers who filled the gallery expecting the pay increase legislation to pass. Speaker Jassem AlKhorafi adjourned the session until law and order was restored. MP Musallam Al-Barrak and other Continued on Page 13

Kuwait approves mega oil projects KUWAIT: Kuwait’s Supreme Petroleum Council (SPC) has given the green light for two long-stalled oil mega projects worth more than eight billion dinars ($29 billion). “We hope that the regulatory procedures and approvals are clear within the next months,” Kuwaiti oil minister Mohammad Al-Busairi told Reuters yesterday. Earlier, citing unidentified oil sources, Al-Jarida newspaper said the SPC approved the building of a new state-of-the-art

refinery and the upgrading of two of three existing refineries to raise output and produce cleaner products.

The 615,000 barrel per day Al-Zour refinery project was scrapped by the government more than two years ago, months after it awarded contracts to five Japanese and South Korean companies. MPs had opposed the plan complaining of a lack of transparency in the tendering process.

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Lagarde named IMF chief WASHINGTON: France’s Christine economies over Europe’s 65-year lock on Lagarde was named yesterday as the the IMF’s top job, the solid support of the first-ever female chief of the IMF, and United States and European nations faced an immediate crisis as violent made it virtually impossible for Mexican challenger Agustin Carstens.

Greek protests rocked the staUltimately key emerging bility of the eurozone. The nations, including Brazil, China French finance minister, and Russia, also gave Lagarde respected for her leadership their backing. Choosing during the financial crises that Lagarde was expected to ease have rocked Europe over the concerns in Europe over the past three years, was chosen Fund’s support for the fragile to replace countr yman bailouts of Greece, Portugal Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who and Ireland in the wake of the resigned abruptly on May 18 unexpected departure of after being arrested in New Strauss-Kahn.

York for an alleged sexual “ The executive board of assault. “The results are in: I am honored & delighted that the Christine Lagarde the International Monetary Fund today selected Christine board has entrusted me with the position of MD of the IMF!” Lagarde Lagarde to serve as IMF managing direcsaid via Twitter minutes after the tor and madame chairman of the executive board for a five-year term starting on announcement.

Continued on Page 13 Despite grumblings from emerging

Max 48º Min 31º Low Tide 03:38 & 05:31 High Tide 09:20

DUBAI: A Saudi military official said yesterday that the kingdom plans to pull some units out of the 1,500strong Gulf force sent to Bahrain to help quell a Shiiteled uprising for greater rights. But an adviser to Bahrain’s king said there are no plans for a full withdrawal. The Saudi military official did not say how many troops would remain behind after the pullout next week, announcing the drawdown in the midst of Bahraini government efforts to open a dialogue with the opposition they crushed a few months ago. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

Nabil Al-Hammar, an adviser to Bahrain’s king, made clear that there were no plans for a full withdrawal of the Gulf reinforcements, which include troops from the United Arab Emirates. He said some of the Saudi-led force that came to the aid of Bahrain’s rulers in March will reposition units within the tiny kingdom, but no major withdrawal plans were under way.

At least 31 people have been killed since February when Bahrain’s majority Shiites - inspired by uprisings elsewhere in the Middle East - started a campaign for greater freedoms and an end to the Sunni hold on power. Now the most powerful Shiite pro-reform bloc, Al Wefaq, is asking supporters whether they are for or against the government-proposed dialogue. Already, the leaders of Al Wefaq have shown which way they are leaning - questioning how reconciliation efforts, pushed by the US, can proceed while authorities still impose rigid security measures and hold trials linked to the reform campaign.

The question of whether to participate in the dialogue beginning Saturday is being debated in town hall-style meetings around the strategic Gulf island nation, home to the US Navy’s 5th Fleet. Washington has taken little action against Bahrain’s monarchy for the harsh crackdown on protesters. The US had urged King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa’s regime to meet some opposition demands. It also expressed concern about the severity of the sentences and the use of militarylinked security courts against protesters.

The absence of Wefaq would be a severe blow to the credibility of the talks and reinforce the sense that Bahrain is still deeply troubled after more than four months of unrest. Wefaq is the leading political voice for Shiites - about 70 percent of Bahrain’s 525,000 people and held 18 seats in the 40-member parliament before a mass resignation to protest violence against demonstrators. It also would sting Washington, which has publicly backed the talks as the only option to calm tensions in one of its main Gulf military allies. At the same time, the US is under growing pressure to take a harder line against Bahrain’s ruling dynasty, which claims that Shiite power Iran has a role in the protests.

Continued on Page 13

Iran fires missiles as war games continue TEHRAN: Iran’s Revolutionary Guards tested 14 missiles yesterday, the second day of war games intended as a show of strength towards enemies Israel and the United States. The Iranian-made surfaceto-surface missiles, with a maximum range of 2,000 km, were fired simultaneously at a single target, the official IRNA news agency reported. Commander Amir Ali Hajizadeh, head of the Revolutionary Guards’ aerospace division, emphasised Iran’s preparedness to retaliate against Israel and US interests in the event of any attack. “The range of our missiles has been designed based on American bases in the region as well as the Zionist regime,” Hajizadeh told the semi-official Fars news agency.

The United States and Israel have said they do not rule out military strikes on

Iran if diplomatic means fail to stop it developing nuclear weapons. Tehran says its nuclear program is geared to producing electricity, not atom bombs. IRNA said the Guards fired nine Zelzal missiles, two Shahab-1s, two Shahab-2s and one upgraded Shahab-3 missile. Iranian officials have previously announced that the Shahab 3 can reach targets up to 2,000 km away, putting Israel and US bases in the Gulf within reach.

A long-time enemy of the United States, Iran has been emboldened by what it perceives as US military defeats in neighbouring Iraq and Afghanistan. Both countries are still home to large US troop numbers and Washington has other bases in the Gulf that Iran could choose to target.

Continued on Page 13

QOM, Iran: The ballistic missile Zelzal is launched during the second day of military exercises yesterday. — AP

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MP faces jail sentence KUWAIT: The Criminal Court has sentenced MP Saadoun Hammad Al-Otaibi to six months in jail but was granted bail for KD 1000. He was found guilty of defamation, with charges pressed by fellow lawmaker Rola Dashti.

She moved the court after Al-Otaibi accused her of profiteering through the

infamous ‘calcified coal’ issue. The calcified coal subject concerns a project through which the government hoped to use waste produced from factories to create calcified coke (CPC), but was marred by corruption reports, reported Al-Qabas.

Al-Otaibi was also asked to pay a KD 5001 fine in compensation to Dashti.

ME to join ‘nuclear club’ to meet energy demand Kuwait’s nuclear ambitions

By Ben Garcia KUWAIT: The lack of efficient power networks and the increasing demand for electricity and water have forced a number of countries in the Middle East to consider alternatives. For Kuwait, just like other nations in the region, nuclear energy seems to be considered a viable alternative energy option. In a recent report, Deloitte and Touche Middle East, a firm providing financial advisory services in the region, reiterated the need to build nuclear power plants in the Middle East to meet the increasing levels of energy demand, which was projected to rise by 25 percent per annum between 2010-2015. A feature article in the latest issue of Deloitte and Touche’s magazine, ‘Middle East Point of View,’ argues for the need to use nuclear energy to meet the region’s increasing energy demands in the years to come. According to Deloitte’s Middle East Energy and Resources Leader Kenneth McKellar, “The nuclear momentum has started across the region. Of the 60 countries around the world that have expressed an interest in or are actively planning to introduce nuclear power, almost every country in the Middle East is represented.”

Nuclear plans Recent news reports have indicated that Kuwait aims to establish a nuclear power station to be operational within seven years. His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah has formed a special committee, the Kuwait National Nuclear Energy Committee (KNNEC), to undertake the task of acquiring and using nuclear energy in line with international treaties and resolutions.

Early last year, Kuwait’s then-Minister of Electricity and Water Bader Al-Shuraiaan, was quoted as saying that there was a demand for the peaceful use of nuclear energy. In September last year, Ahmad Bishara, the KNEC’s Secretary General, announced that Kuwait planned to build four 1,000 megawatt reactors by 2022. The Kuwait Times reported yesterday, however, that Meshan AlOtaibi, the Ministry of Electricity and Water’s Assistant Undersecretary for Planning and Training has asserted that it is currently too early to talk about building nuclear power plants in Kuwait. Al-Otaibi was addressing a workshop hosted by Kuwait last week which aimed to strengthen cooperation between Arab countries on the issue of nuclear safety. He was quoted as saying, “Preparations are currently ongoing to launch a comprehensive studies as part of a plan to use nuclear energy in water desalination projects, as well as in the field of medicine”. Since the 1950s the world has been seriously considering nuclear energy as a solution to skyrocketing fossil fuel costs, as well as seeing it as a valid alternative to the rapidly disappearing oil reserves.

Several countries in the world already use nuclear energy, but since the Chernobyl explosion of the 1980’s many countries which previously planned to move towards nuclear energy have put off doing so, with some completely abandoning the idea as a result. The earthquake off Japan earlier this year which created a gigantic tsunami that led to massive problems at the country’s nuclear facilities has also caused widespread fear over the potential problems with nuclear power, placing the

future of nuclear energy in serious question. On its part, Germany temporarily suspended its nuclear programs immediately after Japan’s nuclear crisis. Radiation in Japan has already spread, creating panic amongst both neighboring and more distant countries, including Kuwait. Contacted yesterday for his thoughts on the issue, the chairman of Kuwaiti environmental group [GreenLine] Khalid Al-Hajeri said that he would raise objections at parliament if the authorities in Kuwait attempted to force through plans to build any nuclear power facilities. “We will fight till the end and we will ask our parliament to pass a law against building nuclear power plant in Kuwait,” Al-Hajeri insisted. Asked what he believes are the best alternative power sources to nuclear energy, he said, “There are many, but we support building solar and wind energy plants to addressed our electricity needs. If we go for that, it will address our energy needs for sure; it is far safer and more environmentally friendly compared to nuclear.”

In an earlier interview held at the peak of the Japanese crisis Al-Hajeri said, “Every nation, not only Kuwait, should be prepared to manage themselves if radiation spreads.” He added, “I remember the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Russia. Like Japan, it was also far from Kuwait, but we also got a share of radiation, although at a very low level, but we also experienced the radiation contamination two weeks after the explosion.”

In the same interview, he criticized the nuclear programs currently being undertaken by several regional governments, including Iran’s, saying that they are putting their citizens and other people in extreme danger. “Economically speaking we don’t need nuclear facilities here [in the Gulf region],” he asserted. “We have oil that can feed nations, as well as several alternatives to nuclear energy if our concern is for generating power. We can generate power through solar energy, through biogas or any other green technologies. But don’t drag us into a nuclear program. Japan is already a technologically advanced country but look, even they cannot control the nuclear explosions - what about us? We aren’t ready and won’t be ready at all.”

In an exclusive 2009 interview with the Kuwait Times, Dr Hassan Shaaban, Nuclear Engineer and Professor Emeritus of Metallurgy at the Atomic Energy Authority in Egypt, said the Middle East countries were expected to join the nuclear fraternity shortly as the contemporary need for nuclear energy is very clear. “Atomic energy had a very bad reputation when it was used first by the US against Japan in 1945 and proved to be very destructive; the rest was history but the necessity of nuclear energy become crystal clear now,” Shaaban said. He estimated that there are as many as 600 nuclear power facilities globally, the majority of which are concentrated in the United States and Japan, with a couple of

nuclear reactors in Europe and one in Africa. He predicted that the Middle East will have one sooner or later. “We can use nuclear energy as an alternative to the fossil fuel used for electricity and power and it’s also non-destructive,” he stated. “We can use the same atomic bomb materials, put them the specific reactors and increase the heat gradually, instead of burning petroleum or coal, then turn it into electricity, so you have electricity created from nuclear energy. Twentyfive percent of the energy in the world today is generated by nuclear facilities. A small reactor can [provide sufficient power for] one country without using any petroleum products. That is very beneficial.”

Dr. Shaaban admitted that politics and other issues surrounding the reliability and safety of nuclear power are holding countries in the Middle East and even other nations back from introducing nuclear energy. “Of course we cannot blame oil-exporting countries for being slow to accept the idea of nuclear energy. It’s a clear threat to their businesses, but also involve politics. Iran for example is slowly building nuclear facilities but unless they come clean about their objectives we cannot blame the US and other European countries for continuously doubting the purpose of their nuclear ambition,” he said.

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‘MoC main culprit in internet price, bandwidth cap crisis’ High prices, lack of professionalism are major reasons

By Hussain Al-Qatari KUWAIT: The Ministr y of Communication(MoC) holds the solution to the Internet dilemma, argues a knowledgeable insider at one of the major internet service providers in Kuwait. The individual who spoke on condition of anonymity revealed the other side of the story, noting that the scorn from consumers should be directed at the Ministr y of Communication for refusing to solve the dilemma.

Explaining the dilemma using the least amount of technical jargon, the source argued that the Ministry of Communication currently charges internet service providers a monthly fee that totals up to approximately

KD 1.4 million, “About 60 percent of what the subscriber pays to the ISP ends up going to the MoC, and it refuses to reduce the fees,” he said.

“This 1.4 million does not go to renew the infrastructure of the Ministry of Communication - it goes to the Ministry of Finance. It is as if it is a tax that is being paid by ISPs,” he explained.

He explained that an STM-1 link, which gives the ISP more bandwidth for subscribers, costs KD 7,500. “The Ministry makes it obligatory to get it only from them and not from any outside source. At the same time, it refuses to lower the price,” he explained.

What pushed ISPs to apply the fair use policy or the internet band-

width cap policy, is the fact that the ISPs are unable to buy more bandwidth due to the high cost set by the MoC. “At the same time, the MoC refuses to lower the price even though the demand for high-speed internet is continuously growing,” he said. The result of this is the severe congestion of internet ser vers, which results in slow internet, bad user experience, and all the other problems that ensue from this.

“Downloading has become a very essential aspect of the internet experience to many users. Today many applications demand reliable download speed,” he added explaining that while the users’ demand is continuously growing, the infrastructure of the Ministr y of

Communication is on the decline.

The Internet fair use policy sets a daily limit for downloads bandwidth for users. Once the limit is exceeded, the speed is downgraded until a period of 24 hours passes. Other companies apply the same policy but use a monthly limit rather than a daily limit.

The Ministry of Communication stated to the press two weeks ago that the fair use policy is very beneficial, as it aims to protect subscribers from internet abusers. “There are internet pirates who download illegal files and sell them at a cheaper price. This is an abuse of copyright, and is considered illegal. The internet fair use policy provides safety from pirates,” he said.

MSAL keen to implement govt’s action plan

KUWAIT: His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah yesterday received the heads and board members of the Kuwait Lawyers Society and the Kuwait Farmers Union, with the two chairmen, Khalid Al-Kandari and Barrak Al-Sabeih respectively, presenting the Kuwaiti monarch with commemorative gifts to mark the occasion. The meetings, held at Seif Palace to mark the announcement of the two bodies’ new management boards, were attended by Amiri Diwan Advisor Sheikh Ali Jarrah Al-Sabah.

EPA considering legal action over GreenLine’s birthday party claim KUWAIT: The Environment Public Authority will be taking legal action against the GreenLine environmental group over recent allegations made by the group against the state’s environmental monitoring body. The EPA’s principal objection is to GreenLine’s claim that a birthday party was held at the authority’s headquarters for EPA chairman Saleh AlMoudhi, with the authority currently preparing a comprehensive report to refute the allegation.

“The EPA had already explained the misunderstanding about the alleged party, which was simply an acknowledgment during a casual weekly breakfast meeting between staff members,” said a senior EPA official in a press release issued on Monday. Speaking on condition of

anonymity, the official added, “We are preparing responses to all the false accusations and personal offenses made against EPA personnel”.

The official further indicated that many employees, especially female staff members, have suffered serious damage to their reputation “that led to domestic problems which could escalate to divorce.”

The official strongly condemned “people who make inaccurate claims without weighing up the repercussions that their words have on other people’s lives,” adding, “The EPA will be taking legal action against every person who damaged our staff members’ reputation by exposing pictures and claiming they show people doing something that is different than what actually happened.” — Al-Rai

KUWAIT: Senior officials at the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor (MSAL) are keen to adhere to the schedule for implementation of the government’s action strategy, the minister affirmed yesterday.

The MSAL has already carried out a number of projects outlined in the ministry’s action plan according to the timetables set for them, said the minister, Dr Mohammad Al-Afasi, in a statement issued following a meeting with senior ministry officials. He also

affirmed his own eagerness to remove any obstacles and resolve any problems that could prevent these ventures from being completed on schedule.

Dr Al-Afasi called on the ministry’s legal department to keep him regularly updated on the results of relevant legal cases. He also stressed the necessity to follow up on legislative bills, included on the parliament’s agenda, as well as on the recommendations of parliamentary committees pending approval. The

minister also stressed on the necessity of maintaining a high level of professionalism, particularly in the administrative and financial departments, to forestall any criticisms or negative comments from the supervisory authorities, particularly the State Audit Bureau.

On another issue, Dr Al-Afasi underscored the vital role of the cooperative sector in protecting shareholders’ rights, as well as in improving Cooperative Societies’ performance. — KUNA

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Kuwaiti teenager held for robbing pedestrians Rapist caught in Farwaniya gations after a bedoon (stateless) man lodged a complaint stating that his underage daughter was kidnapped and sexually assaulted at a Farwaniya apartment. He explained that the suspect lured his daughter into the apartment while she was with her family enjoying a picnic near the Kuwait Towers, reported AlQabas. Police located the suspect in Farwaniya and detained him. He pleaded guilty during interrogation and was referred to higher authorities.

facility. An army recruit was at the helm of the vehicle that hit the pedestrian. He was held for interrogation.

Road rage Police arrested a short-tempered motorist after he assaulted three people following a dispute that broke out on the street. He attempted to run them over with his vehicle.

The incident took place along the Sixth Ring Road where the citizen intercepted a vehicle in which two Pakistani men travelled, and hit them with a metal object in a fit of rage. An Arab man who tried to intervene was also assaulted. The victims left the scene. The man was eventually arrested after police used the license plate number to locate him.

Home burgled Police are hunting for a gang of thieves who made away with a large steel safe from a citizen’s home while embarking on a trip outside the country. The owner placed an emergency call after finding out that the safe which contained KD 9,000 in cash as well as jewelry went missing. The citizen explained that owing to the safe’s heaviness, it requires the physical strength of at least three adults to lift it. Moreover, the citizen contacted the company which sold the safe in an unsuccessful attempt to locate it through GPS service.

Investigators collected fingerprints from the crime scene.

Public immodesty Police reached a spot along the Gulf Road’s beach where several passersby reportedly witnessed three young men cavorting in the company of three bikini-clad women; violating state regulations that prohibits immodest clothing in public. The suspects fled the scene. A case was filed with Salhiya police station.

Rape case Police referred an Arab man to the Public Prosecution Department after arresting him in connection with a kidnap and rape case.

Sharq police station officers launched investi-

Hit and run case An Asian man sustained fatal injuries after being run down by a car along the Fahad AlSalem street. He was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit of the nearest medical

KUWAIT: A Kuwaiti teenager faces criminal charges in connection with robbing pedestrians by posing as a police official.

Investigations are ongoing into several cases that were reported by expatriates. They provided descriptions that matched with suspect’s image. Investigations eventually led to the arrest of a male suspect. During interrogation, the suspect admitted to using his father’s car to carry out operations. He also explained that he used to place a cherry light on the roof of the vehicle, making it easier to dupe victims.

Shepherd accused A shepherd was arrested after his Kuwaiti sponsor pressed charges against him, accusing him of theft. The citizen approached Jahra police and stated that the shepherd sold sixteen of his camels to a local merchant for KD 5,000. Investigations into the case are ongoing..

Company robbed An official from a dairy company that operates in Shuwaikh, filed a complaint with Shuwaikh police stating that KD 70 was stolen.

He added that several empty ice cream containers were found strewn around, indicating the involvement of more than one thief.. Theft charges were filed. However, the consumed ice cream was not taken into account because the food item was not transported out of the building. — Al-Rai, Al-Anba, Al-Watan KUWAIT: Children from Bayt Lothan paid a visit to Kuwait Red Crescent Society headquarters recently. Volunteer Abdullah Al-Rasheedi delivered a lecture on the importance of teaching first aid techniques to children at a young age.

News

in brief

Supreme Council for Family Affairs KUWAIT: A Supreme Council for Family Affairs will be established soon, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor(MSAL) confirmed in a recent statement. Mohammad AlKandari was speaking during a recent event held by the Committee to Prevent Drug Abuse on the occasion of International Anti Drugs Day, reported Al-Qabas. “Ever since [Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Justice and Minister of Social Affairs and Labor] Dr Mohammad AlAfasi was chosen to chair the Supreme Council for Family Affairs, the ministry has been working hard on realizing this project which aims at protecting families from social problems.”

‘Lack of diversified income threatens future’ KUWAIT: The lopsided approach taken by the government to diversify sources of income sabotages Kuwait’s future as oil prices- the country’s sole income source - continues to fluctuate in accordance with ongoing political events of the region. MP Dulaihi Al-Hajri issued a warning in recent press statement, in which he criticized the government for failing to diversify sources of income to save prevent a deficit should oil prices lower.

“The government has charted out a general budget that is heavily reliant on oil as the only source of income without taking into account the current events shaping the Middle East which affect global oil prices,” Al-Hajri said, explaining that maintaining a balance requires that oil prices touch $80 per barrel. However, it only reached $17 per barrel in 2000. “This poses a massive financial threat if oil prices plunge.”

Al-Hajri believes that the government must put strategic plans in place to diversify sources of income so that dependence on oil revenues can be reduced to below 50 percent in five years. This is so that Kuwait protects the balance of its budget from unstable prices, “Kuwait is capable of reinforcing its industrial, touristic and commercial sectors to introduce more sources of income in addition to oil revenues,” he said. The vision to transform Kuwait into a financial and commercial hub will free the state budget from restrictions, reported Al-Qabas.

The lawmaker concluded his statement by questioning the results of plans that the Ministry of Finance has been making for many years , specifically mentioning Kuwait’s investments abroad. He further urged the government to hold back overspending in terms of salaries while focusing more on providing job security to citizens.

‘Fake’ sales flayed KUWAIT: Commercial institutions and department stores in Kuwait usually announce sales to market their goods during slow seasons. They post large ads of big sales and aggressive marketing campaigns as part of fierce competition among them but some of these ads violate the commercial regulations and tend to be a mere trick aiming to lure as large number of consumers as possible, observers told KUNA yesterday.

“The phenomenon of fake sales is a kind of fraudulent practice that undermines the credibility of the institutions as well as the interests of consumers,” Faisal Al-Khazeem, a consumer, said.

“The prevailing trick is that some department stores raise the prices of their goods above the normal level shortly before announcing the sale,” he pointed out. “The recurrence of this trick has eroded the glamour of sales in the eyes of consumers and infringed on the fame of the local market, Al-Khazeem complained.

Nawaf Majed, another consumer, agreed that such practices are shameful and should be punishable by law. “The supervisory agencies, led by the Ministry of Commerce, have to shoulder their responsibilities in fighting these shameful acts, and protecting the fame of the local market and the interests of consumers,” Majed stressed. — KUNA

Kuwait calls for support on UNESCO’s Al-Quds proposal

KUWAIT: The Australian delegation with officials of the Municipality at the Daher slaughter house.

Australian delegation discusses livestock slaughter issue KUWAIT: The Minister of Public Works and Labor Dr Fadhel Safar welcomed Glenn Miles, the Australian Ambassador to Kuwait. He was accompanied by a delegation from the Agriculture, Fish Resources and Forests Ministr y of Australia. The visit also included officials from different sectors of the Municipality.

The Kuwait Times has previously reported about the Australian government decision to reconsider livestock export due to alleged brutal treatment meted out to cattle in the Middle East.

During the meeting, Safar discussed some problems present in slaughter procedures. The delegates explained the measures taken by Animals Australia when conditions and regulations are not adhered to.

“This visit is being made after Kuwait was accused of failing to follow the necessary rules pertinent with slaughtering.

The delegation was able to examine the maintenance work done. Animals are slaughtered as per international standards in accordance with Sharia rules,” stated Safar.

The Dahar abattoir faced problems, “We made the necessary changes to this abattoir. The Australian delegation toured the facility and saw the practical changes made. The delegation expressed satisfaction at the changes made and highlighted the importance of forging cooperation in different fields in the future,” added Safar.

He also warned against performing illegal slaughters, “It is necessary to slaughter livestock in public slaughter houses that are located in different governorates. It performed under veterinary supervision. This advise will benefit people’s health and raise Kuwait’s international profile,” he concluded.

No evidence of newspaper’s Syrian intelligence ties

By A. Saleh KUWAIT: The parliamentary interior and defense committee has failed to find any concrete evidence to substantiate allegations of a link between Kuwait’ Al-Balad newspaper and Syrian intelligence services, or of other accusations of moneylaundering by Syrian businessman Bashar Keewan, a business partner of the newspaper’s owner.

A committee insider revealed that a recent meeting with interior minister Sheikh Ahmad Al-Humoud Al-Sabah provided further confirmation to the committee that there was no evidence to support the claims. The insider said that some committee members were taken aback to discover that the allegations were wholly false, having been expecting to receive information that would support their own political views on the subject.

During the meeting, Sheikh Ahmad Al-Humoud told the committee members that there was no truth in the rumors about the newspaper or Keewan, adding that there is no evidence to substantiate the allegations, put forward by the paper’s former Managing Editor Yousef Al-Nassar, which appear to have been motivated by personal differences with the newspaper owners.

The minister said that the interior ministry would not be able to ignore any evidence that would indicate any truth to the allegations against either the newspaper or Keewan.

The insider also revealed that Sheikh Ahmad Al-Humoud had emphasized the interior ministry’s absolute rejection of any threat issued against any individual, adding that officers investigating the allegations had found no evidence whatsoever to support the accusations that Keewan had ever threatened Al-Nassar.

Sewage plant expansion KUWAIT: The Ministry of Public Works (MPW) has received the green light to go ahead with an expansion project at the Sulaibiya sewage treatment plant, which is already the world’s largest plant to use the reserve osmosis (RO) filtering method to produce clean water from sewage.

A ministry insider indicated that after obtaining the necessary approval for the project, high-level MPW officials met with senior staff from the ministry’s engineering department to coordinate on the

strategy for handling the expansion project. The MPW is now awaiting official approval from the State Audit Bureau, which is expected to be given some time next month, said the source, noting at the same time that the bureau has already given its preliminary approval. The plant, which currently treats between 425,000 and 600,000 square meters of raw sewage per day, is used to process almost 60 percent of Kuwait’s sewage, according to MPW officials. — Al-Rai

PARIS: A senior Kuwaiti official yesterday stressed the importance of implementing the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) decisions concerning Al-Quds (Jerusalem).

Speaking during the 35th session of UNESCO’s executive board’s World Heritage Committee meeting on Jerusalem, Kuwait ’s Permanent Representative to UNESCO Dr. Ali AlTarrah called particularly for implementing the decisions reaffirming the board’s previous statements and the decisions taken by the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC). The decisions, which were proposed by Jordan, were rejected by Australia and Mexico.

Al-Tarrah also underlined Kuwait’s commitment to the OIC’s decisions on the issue, adding that the Kuwaiti rulers “are closely following developments in the city of Al-Quds.” The high-level Kuwaiti envoy also called on those nations which rejected the decisions to recognize the importance of having a common understanding to preserve the components and heritage of the various beliefs based in

that city.

Al-Tarrah fur ther stressed the importance of having the international community devise a concrete solution to the complex situation in Arab region, especial amid the different kinds of developments and confrontations.

On Monday night, UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee voted in favor of a Jordanian and Arab decision on the city of Jerusalem and Bab Al Magharbeh.

UNESCO voiced its “deep” concern over Israel’s continued excavations at the old Jerusalem gate and in the surrounding area, in addition to Israel’s failure to provide the World Heritage Centre with information on this excavation work.

Under the decision, UNESCO also called on Israel to stop its work in the Old City immediately and requested that the World Heritage Centre detail in its periodic reports to the World Heritage Committee all obstacles placed by the Israelis and their justifications for not providing the centre with the required information in this regard. — KUNA

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Municipality to intensify raids on food stores Stricter measures to enforce regulations

By Nawara Fattahova

KUWAIT: Kuwait Army Chief of Staff, Lt Gen Ahmed Al-Khaled Al-Sabah with heads of GCC Armies’ administration and manpower delegations yesterday.

kuwait DIGEST

They passed, but are they educated enough?

By Dr Wael Al-Hasawi

F

irst of all, I’d like to congratulate this year’s high school graduates who managed to attain one of the highest exam pass rates in the history of Kuwait’s education system. That being said, there are a couple of things that I feel I have to point out regarding the results.

The high rate of success in pass rates, which reached 92 percent among students of science subjects this year and a similar percentage the year before, isn’t an accurate assessment of the true level of education attained by many students.

This has been proven by assessing the level of new undergraduates at Kuwait University and the Public Authority for Applied Education and Training in recent years. These assessments show that most of these new students lack any knowledge of the basics of mathematics and physics.

Add the fact that dropouts rates are increasing at both KU (statistics show that the dropout rate has reached 60 percent in the engineering faculty alone) and the PAAET, with recent reports revealing that in 2010, 5,000 students dropped out of the latter within their first year, and you’ll reach the conclusion that there is a serious flaw in the local high school education system.

The glut of high school graduates is a nightmare for KU and PAAET administrations. Both institutions are already suffering extreme overcapacity levels, and every year they find themselves facing the dilemma of figuring out ways to squeeze in even more students. This has a negative effect on the academic process overall, with class numbers in both institutions reaching as high as 70 students per class and accurate assessment of students’ abilities and performance being pushed aside in favor of churning out as many graduates as possible, no matter how academically incapable, in order to make room for the latest batch.

Although Kuwait is ranked first among Arab countries in the educational indicator, with its spending on education, at eight percent of national income, being the highest worldwide, a study prepared by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair on education in Kuwait indicates that the current system isn’t capable of preparing manpower able to face the challenges of the future. The same study shows that fourth grade students in Kuwait achieved poor results in TIMMS and PIRLS exams in recent years.

I don’t think I have to mention statistics to prove the fact that every teacher in Kuwait realizes that teaching levels in Kuwait are sharply deteriorating. This and all of the issues mentioned above need deliberate studies to find the best solutions. — Al-Rai

Govt subsidies of fuel products surpass 100 pct KUWAIT: The government gives ample support reaching over 100 percent to petroleum products sold in the local market like gasoline and lubrication oils, said Hamza Bakhsh, Managing Director of Al-Oula Fuel Co. yesterday.

Explaining that the state-owned KNPC oil company has a 24 percent stake in fuel marketing companies, among them Al-Oula, that work in the private sector, he noted that Al-Oula has a working capital of KD 30 million, with about 80, 000 shareholders.

Overall sales of fuel products, mainly gasoline, at AlOula range between 100-120 million liters a month, provided in totality by KNPC, said Bakhsh, underscoring that Al-Oula relies wholly on provisions from KNPC for its business.

As fuel purveyors, like Al-Oula, depend on monthly quotas from suppliers like KNPC, it often creates a problem for them when the market demand spikes and the purveyor does not have enough to satisfy that need.

Market conditions often are affected by the weather and the season, he pointed out. For instance demand for gasoline in summer plummets since a huge number of motorists leave the country at that time for vacation abroad, whereas demand for diesel increases in the spring as many desert picnickers need it for their camping expeditions.

For these reasons and others he called for abolition of the monthly quota system and replace it with one that takes into account more accurately market conditions.

One problem that may arise in the near future is the increasing public demand for gasoline rated Ultra, which is more commonly being used in late model luxury brand cars, said Bakhsh. — KUNA

KUWAIT: Hawally Governor Lt Gen (retd) Abdullah Al-Fares yesterday received senior Kuwait Fire Services Directorate officials. During their meeting with the governor, the KFSD’s Deputy Director General for Financial and Administrative Affairs, Brig Khalid Al-Tarkeet, and the fire service’s Public Relations and Information Director, Lt Col Khalil AlAmeer, thanked him for his efforts to facilitate firefighters’ performance of their duties and remove all obstacles that could obstruct them in doing so. The two KFSD officials presented the governor with a commemorative plaque.

Appeals Court upholds death sentence KUWAIT: The Court of Appeal has upheld the death sentence handed down by the Cour t of First Instance against a man who beheaded his business partner over a financial dispute.

The convicted man was found guilty of first degree murder based on evidence which proved that the crime was a premeditated act. The incident took place when the killer lured the Egyptian victim to a remote location where he stabbed him repeatedly and used the same weapon to decapitate him, reported Al-Qabas.

According to the results of the police investigation, the victim owned a store to which his killer sold goods based on a mutual agreement.

Irreconcilable differences developed between the two men, however, eventually motivating the convicted man to plan his business partner’s murder.

KUWAIT: With the advent of the holy month of Ramadan, work teams from the Municipality will intensify the raids conducted on restaurants, meat storage warehouses and other outlets to ensure food safety. Of late only few cases of spoiled food has been discovered, mostly owing to tight measures adopted by officials especially in Shuwaikh and Rai, “The sanctions applied on violating companies where rotten meat was found sets an example to others, resulting in a drastic reduction in the number of cases detected. The most number of violations were detected in the Asima governorate because most of the warehouses are located here,” Abdullah Al-Shatti, Acting Leader of the Asima Emergency Team of

Municipality told the Kuwait Times.

In some cases, the work team raid a certain outlet based on a complaint received from a customer, “If any consumer suffers from food poisoning after eating at restaurant, he may submit his complaint to the Municipality along with the bill and a medical report. Our team will take a sample of the food served in the restaurant and refer it to the laboratory. The restaurant will be face legal action if it found that the food id adulterated,” Al-Shatti explained.

“We receive different types of complaints. Most are about finding insects in the food served or glass shards. If the laboratory report tests positive, the concerned restaurant will be fined for selling spoilt food that injure human health,” he concluded. Abdullah Emadi, Acting General Director of Municipality

stated that the Municipality will adopt an even more stringent policy to enforce the law, “The inspections will be increased during this period as people buy more food stuff ahead of Ramadan. The Municipality will also try to generate awareness among both consumers and store owners on the right way manner in which food can be stored,” he said.

The Municipality has created a plan according to inspections will be conducted, “These(raids) will be held all day long and the food stuff will undergo rigorous laboratory examination. These samples will be sent to the laboratories of the Ministry of Health to decide if its suitable for human consumption. We advise consumers to not buy food in large quantities for storage purposes as the validity period may go unnoticed,” he added.

Technical error delays graduation certificates

Sabiyya plant to produce up to 2,000 MW per day

KUWAIT: High school graduates in Kuwait who were supposed to receive their graduation certificates yesterday will have to wait for an indefinite period to obtain them due to a technical error that left all the certificates containing incomplete data.

According to sources with knowledge of the situation, the Ministry of Education’s information center discovered an error which resulted in the certificates being printed without mentioning the results of the sophomore (10th) and junior (11th) high school grades, making it impossible for a student’s grade point average (GPA) to be calculated.

This issue is expected to cause inconvenience for many high school graduates who are anxiously awaiting their certificates in order to apply for college either locally or overseas. — Al-Qabas

KUWAIT: The Sabiyya electric power plant is the biggest project currently underway in Kuwait, with the KD760 million facility to have a total daily production capacity of 2,000 megawatts, according to Minister of Electricity and Water Salem Metheeb Al-Uthayna.

During a visit to the project site on Monday evening, the minister told reporters that the plant, equipped with six major turbines, would produce some 1,350 megawatts on average per day, and would operate on gas as well as gas oil. Al-Uthayna explained that the operating firm responsible for the major facility connected the gas units there to the main power grid last June, with additional units to be installed and connected in June 2012. The company will handle all operational and equipment maintenance duties at the plant for its first seven years of operations, he explained, beginning from the date when it launches commercial operations. The contract for the design, construction, operation and maintenance of the plant was signed between the ministry and a joint alliance of US giant General Electric and Korea’s Hyundai Heavy Industries, with the US firm having primary responsibility. — KUNA

Official rejects cheque ‘lies’ KUWAIT: A senior official at His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammed Al-Sabah’s Diwan has denied rumors on social networking sites that the premier issued a personal cheque to MP Khalid Al-Adwa. Nayef Al-Rukaibi, the Undersecretary of Local Affairs at the premier’s Diwan, slammed the rumors as baseless and unfounded lies. The senior official also warned that giving credibility to such slanderous gossip could adversely affect national unity. Al-Rukaibi emphasized that legal action would be taken against anyone found to be spreading such malicious gossip.

Sandstorms expected KUWAIT: Strong northwesterly winds are expected to hit Kuwait today, bringing sandstorms across the country tomorrow and Friday that could see visibility fall to less than 1,000 meters. According to Mohammed Karam, the head of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation’s Meteorology Department, the winds are also likely to bring temperatures down to around 40 degrees Celsius (104∞ Fahrenheit).

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Annual report on human trafficking criticizes the Middle East Kuwait maintains ‘Tier 3’ rank in US report KUWAIT: The US Department of State on Monday placed Kuwait in its ‘Tier 3’ category over the issue of human trafficking, saying the country does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and is not making sufficient efforts to deal with the crime. In its annual Trafficking in Persons report, the US State Department kept Kuwait in its ‘Tier 3,’ the third ranking out of four possible levels.

The report praised Kuwait for the steps taken to shut down fraudulent labor recruiting agencies and for the terminated licenses for recruiting companies that did not meet more stringent regulations set in the February 2010 Private Sector Labor Law, but criticized the country for making minimal progress in preventing trafficking in persons this year. The report analyzed conditions in 184 nations and ranked them in terms of their effectiveness in combating modern-day slavery.

Here is the complete report on Kuwait Kuwait is a destination country for men and women who are subjected to forced labor and to a lesser degree forced prostitution, it stated. Men and women migrate from India, Egypt, Bangladesh, Syria, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Nepal, Iran, Jordan, Ethiopia, and Iraq to work in Kuwait, most of them in the domestic service, construction, and sanitation sectors. Although most of these migrants enter Kuwait voluntarily, upon arrival some are subjected to conditions of forced labor by their sponsors and labor agents, including nonpayment of wages, long working hours without rest, deprivation of food, threats, physical or sexual abuse, and restrictions on movement, such as the withholding of passports or confinement to the workplace. Although Kuwait has a standard contract for domestic workers delineating their rights, many workers report work conditions that are substantially different from those described in the contract; some workers never see the contract at all.

Many of the migrant workers arriving for work in Kuwait have paid exorbitant fees to recruiters in their home countries or are coerced into paying recruitment fees in Kuwait that, by Kuwaiti law, should be paid for by the employer - a practice that makes workers highly vulnerable to forced labor once in Kuwait. Due to provisions of Kuwait’s sponsorship law that restrict workers’ movements and penalize workers for running away from abusive workplaces, domestic workers are particularly vulnerable to forced labor inside private homes. In addition, media sources report that runaway domestic workers fall prey to forced prostitution by agents who exploit their illegal status.

The Government of Kuwait does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and is not

making sufficient efforts to do so. The government did not enact its draft comprehensive anti-trafficking law, though a subcommittee-approved bill has been on the parliament’s agenda since November 2009 without being debated. Kuwait’s victim protection measures remain weak, particularly due to its lack of proactive victim identification procedure and continued reliance on the sponsorship system, which causes victims of trafficking to be punished for immigration violations rather than protected. However, government officials participated in training on trafficking issues. The government also did not make significant progress in fulfilling other commitments made since 2007, such as enacting the draft domestic workers’ bill to provide domestic workers with the same rights as other workers or establishing a large-capacity permanent shelter for victims of trafficking. The government similarly made only minimal efforts to prevent trafficking in persons during the reporting

period. For these reasons, Kuwait is placed on Tier 3 for a fifth consecutive year.

Recommendations for Kuwait: Enact the draft anti-trafficking bill to specifically prohibit and punish all human trafficking offenses; significantly increase efforts to prosecute, punish, and stringently sentence traffickers, particularly sponsors who force domestic workers into involuntary servitude; enact and enforce the draft domestic workers bill to provide domestic workers with the same rights as other workers; establish procedures to proactively identify victims of human trafficking, especially among the female domestic worker population; revise sponsorship provisions that make workers vulnerable to abuse, including domestic workers; enforce existing laws against sponsors and employers who illegally hold migrant workers’ passports; and continue to expand on existing anti-trafficking training to law enforcement and judicial officials.

Prosecution The Government of Kuwait made few discernible efforts to significantly improve its law enforcement efforts against trafficking during the reporting period. The government still has not enacted a comprehensive anti-trafficking bill that has been on the parliament agenda since November 2009. Despite the continued absence of a comprehensive anti-trafficking law, other provisions of the Kuwaiti Criminal Code could be used to punish trafficking offenses. Limited forms of transnational slavery

The travelers are advised against carrying over $10,000. This is in accordance with 5th article of the visa’s application.

If there is need for more amount, the authorities must be presented with a written document of it upon entry. In addition, travelers must take precautions if they carry too much cash while on the move.

Travelers are to avoid smoking in public places as well as transportations, the official added.

Tourists are also urged to carry a copy of their passports while keeping the original document at the hotel’s safe deposit box. The travel documents should be valid for at least six months.

Travelers to Australia or New Zealand are advised to visit the Kuwaiti Embassy website for further information. They are also advised to send a copy of their passports to the Consulate. — KUNA

Kuwaiti ambassador opens cultural expo in Florence FLORENCE, Italy: The Kuwaiti ambassador to Italy Sheikh Jaber Duaij Al-Ibrahim Al-Sabah yesterday opened the second Kuwaiti Cultural Exhibition for Art, Photography and Music in the Italian city of Florence.

The opening ceremony was attended by the Director of the Kuwaiti Embassy’s Foreign Countries’ Media Division, Abdullah Al-Khaldi, Italian Prime Ministerial Advisor Antonio Capuano, the head of the Italian-Kuwaiti Friendship society Pierandrea Vanni and the head of Tuscany’s local council.

The expo, which has been wellreceived by Italian media outlets, is being held under the slogan of “Kuwait in Florence: music and customs for the Gulf.”

It was held in a huge tent set in Santa Maria Novella, one of the most beautiful

prostitution.

Protection During the year, Kuwait made inadequate efforts to protect victims of trafficking. The government continued to lack formal procedures for the proactive identification of trafficking victims among vulnerable populations, such as foreign domestic workers and women in prostitution. Kuwait’s sponsorship law effectively dissuades workers from reporting abuse by their sponsors to government authorities; workers who abscond from their sponsors face criminal and financial penalties of up to six months’ imprisonment, over $2,000 in fines, and deportation for leaving without their employers’ permission, even if they ran away due to abuse by the sponsor. NGO sources describe this as a “race to the police station” since victims may be punished for absconding if their employers report them missing before the victims have an oppor tunity to repor t abuses to the

‘While the government increased the minimum wage for workers in the private sector to $210 per month in April 2010, this new provision excludes Kuwait’s half-million domestic workers - the group most vulnerable to human trafficking - and does not establish mechanisms to monitor implementation of this rule.’

Australia, New Zealand travelers urged to follow guidelines KUALA LUMPUR: The Acting Charge d’Affaires to the Kuwaiti Embassy in Australia Anas Issa Al-Shaheen urged those planning to spend the summer in Australia or New Zealand to mind the directions given to ensure a pleasant time free of trouble.

Al-Shaheen stressed the need to get a visa from each country through their embassies in Kuwait.

He also urged Kuwaiti travelers planning to drive in Australia to get an international driving license or an official translated document to the Kuwaiti one.

Other guidelines stressed by the official included the need to avoid carrying narcotics, weapons as well as flammable items.

Al-Shaheen stressed on the need to keep the telephone numbers of their relatives and the embassy of the country they are visiting in case of emergencies.

are prohibited through Article 185, which prescribes a maximum penalty of five years’ imprisonment. Article 201, which prohibits forced prostitution, prescribes a maximum sentence of five years’ imprisonment if the victim is an adult and seven years if the victim is under the age of 18.

These prescribed penalties are sufficiently stringent and commensurate with those prescribed for other serious offenses.

Nonetheless, the government did not report any arrests, prosecutions, convictions, or sentences of traffickers during the reporting period for either forced labor or forced prostitution. Media sources report that one man was sentenced to death for kidnapping, raping, and selling a girl for sex against her will in December 2010. In February, a media source highlighted the arrest of the owner of an apartment where eight runaway domestic workers were forced into prostitution. The case has been referred to the attorney general, but the disposition was not final at the end of the

cities in Italy.

The exhibition, which concludes on Thursday, includes a documentary photography show featuring work from the Kuwait News Agency’s (KUNA) archive, with photos of the history and the rise of the state of Kuwait are on display side by side with artistic photographs by Nasser Al-Saleh. Al-Qalaleef (ship builders) Diwaniya is participating in the event, exhibiting a collection of old Kuwaiti boats, while boat-building experts are on hand to show visitors how the vessels were built. Kuwait’s Weaving Cooperative Society, known as Bait Al-Sadu, is also represented at the event, showcasing some of its traditional handicrafts. During the opening, the Kuwait Radio Musical Troupe serenaded the audience with some traditional Kuwaiti music. — KUNA

reporting period. Although withholding workers’ passports is prohibited under Kuwaiti law, this practice reportedly remains common as a means of obtaining foreign workers’ forced labor, yet the Government of Kuwait has demonstrated no genuine efforts to enforce this prohibition. The government remains reluctant to prosecute Kuwaiti citizens for trafficking offenses despite allegations that trafficking in Kuwait largely involved Kuwaiti employers in private residences. When Kuwaiti nationals are investigated for trafficking offenses, they tend to receive less scrutiny than foreigners.

Kuwaiti law enforcement generally takes an administrative or civil approach in addressing cases of forced labor, such as assessing fines, shutting down employment firms, issuing orders for employers to return withheld passports, or requiring employers to pay back-wages. Kuwait also made minimal efforts to address government complicity in trafficking offenses; during the reporting period, media sources report that four government officials were arrested for an unknown period of time for illegally importing workers and one Kuwaiti police officer was arrested for raping a runaway domestic worker in a detention center. The Ministry of Interior and IOM trained ministry officials, police officers, and judges on trafficking in persons during the reporting period. Kuwait should significantly increase its efforts to prosecute and criminally punish trafficking offenses, including forced labor and forced

police. The threat of these consequences discouraged workers from appealing to police or other government authorities for protection and obtaining adequate legal redress for their exploitation.

In Januar y 2011, the Ministr y of Interior revised its rules to refer nondomestic worker labor cases to the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor for investigation prior to depor tation.

However, domestic workers are excluded from this reform and remained in detention facilities pending resolution of their investigations. Women arrested for prostitution offenses also were not screened for evidence of trafficking, and faced prosecution and deportation regardless of whether they were sex trafficking victims.

The Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor continued to operate a short-term shelter with a maximum capacity of 40 intended to provide medical, psychological, and legal services; the government, however, did not report the actual number of trafficking victims assisted at this shelter during the reporting period and NGO sources report that this shelter remained underutilized. Some sources report that the shelter turns away cases that are not “simple” and does not accept trafficking victims whose employers have filed cases against them, some of which are false allegations of theft. The shelter does not allow victims to leave freely, so they are essentially detained within the shelter until their case is resolved. In September, shelter staff received training on shelter

management and victim assistance. In 2007, the government announced it would open a 700-person shelter for both men and women, but this shelter has yet to be established. There continued to be no shelter or other protection services afforded for male victims of trafficking, and it is unclear whether victims of forced prostitution can access the government’s temporary shelter. Some sending countries have expressed a preference for handling these cases through their embassies and the Government of Kuwait provided source-country embassies with funds to pay for the repatriation of some runaway domestic workers sheltered at their embassies. Government authorities, however, did not encourage victims to participate in the investigation or prosecution of their traffickers or offer legal alternatives to victims’ removal to countries in which they may face hardship or retribution. The Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Justice continued to offer training in trafficking issues for government employees, including IOM-sponsored training courses on protecting trafficking victims to increase police officer’s awareness of and sensitivity toward trafficking issues and for judges, prosecutors, and legal consultants in ways to protect expatriate workers’ contractual rights more effectively.

Prevention The Government of Kuwait made minimal progress in preventing trafficking in persons this year. Although transparency in the government ’s anti-traffick ing effor ts was lack ing, with no public reporting on these efforts apparent, the government consulted closely with the two officially recognized human rights organizations in drafting anti-trafficking legislation. While the government increased the minimum wage for workers in the private sector to $210 per month in April 2010, this new provision excludes Kuwait’s half-million domestic workers - the group most vulnerable to human trafficking - and does not establish mechanisms to monitor implementation of this rule. During the reporting period, the Ministry of the Interior took steps to shut down fraudulent labor recruiting agencies and terminated licenses for recruiting companies that did not meet more stringent regulations set in the February 2010 Private Sector Labor Law. Domestic workers also remain excluded from a new decree establishing maximum allowable work hours per week. As in past years, the Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs made a nationwide effort to reduce overseas child sex tourism by requiring some Sunni mosques to deliver Friday sermons on the danger of sex abroad and Islam’s strict teachings against improper sexual relations. (Compiled by Kuwait Times staff )

GCC states agree on joint media programs RIYADH: Officials of the member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have agreed on broadcasting regularly schedules and advertisements about the member states’ joint activities and actions on a weekly basis.

Mohammad Al-Awwash, the Kuwaiti information ministry’s Assistant Undersecretary for Radio Affairs, said the GCC countries’ radio stations would air “messages about the [GCC member states’] common activities, with an emphasis on the Gulf identity” on a rotation basis. The agreement was the fruit of a number of meetings held between Al-Awwash and his GCC counterparts that concluded in the Saudi capital, late on Monday. Elaborating on the results of the meetings, Al-Awwash said the delegates approved a tentative interim plan for the implementation of the GCC Secretariat-General’s memorandum regarding the 2010-2020 GCC media strategy, which was approved by the top GCC lead-

ers at the 31st session of the Supreme Council recently held in Abu Dhabi. During their meetings, the assistant undersecretaries agreed on the necessity of the GCC countries coordinating their efforts during the celebrations of major national occasions in the member nations, through joint programs aimed at motivating all GCC countries’ citizens to share in one another’s jubilation during such events, Al-Awwash said. They also agreed on broadcasting joint “Gulf soirees” and holding intensive media training courses, he added.

Al-Awwash, who also took part in the recent 85th meeting of the executive council of the Union of Arab Radio Stations during his visit to Riyadh, said that this meeting addressed media issues related to the recent and ongoing upheavals taking place across the Arab world.

During the meeting, he said, the Kuwaiti delegation affirmed the need for Arab media to cover

these events in a professional and objective manner so that Arab viewers would not shift their allegiance to foreign news sources and media outlets.

Furthermore, the Kuwaiti delegation pointed out that only a limited number of joint training courses had been held to date, and called for transferring the base for these activities from Damascus to other Arab capitals due to the current extraordinary conditions in Syria. Whilst in Riyadh, Al-Awwash also visited the headquarters of the Gulf Radio and Television station at the behest of Kuwaiti information minister Sami AlNisf, holding talks with the station’s Director General Dr. Abdullah Abdul-Ras and other senior officials there. The Kuwaiti delegation also visited the main offices of the Saudi Ministry of Information, holding talks with Assistant Undersecretary Ibrahim Al-Sagoub on means of enhancing media cooperation. — KUNA

IKEA releases Sustainability Report 2010 KUWAIT: IKEA yesterday announced the release of its annual Sustainability Report for 2010. The report notes key achievements attained by the company in its sustainability practices, shedding light on the wide range of initiatives that IKEA led and took part in during 2010.

At IKEA, sustainability is viewed from a strategic standpoint rooted in a broad understanding of the inter-relationship between its operation and the societies in which it operates. IKEA has had a long journey with sustainability which forms one of the four cornerstones of IKEA stores’ overall growth plans.

Working in different areas under the corporate social responsibility framework, IKEA’s persistent hard work within various environmental and social areas has already begun to show results. The IKEA Foundation, for example, has decided to invest an additional 7.5 million Euros in UNICEF’s water and sanitation program in India. This support will help expand the scope of this program in 15 Indian states.

With global economies expanding faster now than in any previous period in history, the report states, living a sustainable life has become more important than ever before, and IKEA constantly endeavors to explore creative ways to identify and pres-

ent sustainable products and solutions. The organization’s aim is ultimately for its stores to preferably have zero environmental impact and to generate zero waste and zero carbon.

The IKEA 2010 Sustainability Report also highlights the organization’s key priorities and overall goals for 2015. These priorities, it states, will influence IKEA’s entire value chain, from product design and development to the very end of a product’s life. The key focus areas for IKEA will be • Offering a range of products that are more sustainable • Taking a leading role in moving towards a low carbon society • Turning waste into resources • Reducing the company’s water footprint • Taking social responsibility During 2011 more targets will be developed at all levels of the organization to help IKEA measure its progress.

Sustainability is an integral part of IKEA stores’ business, which means that all its strategies and business plans clearly and systematically integrate sustainability improvements and investments as part of its everyday operations.

The complete report can be accessed on www.ikea.com.kw.

International WEDNESDAY, JUNE 29, 2011

‘Game over’ for Gaddafi Beijing stops short of endorsing, slams arrest warrant TRIPOLI: The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor said yesterday it could be “game over” within months for Muammar Gaddafi, but China reacted cautiously to the issuing of an arrest warrant for the Libyan leader on charges of crimes against humanity. “Today, it is time for arrests,” ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo told reporters in The Hague, a day after the ICC approved warrants for Gaddafi, his son Saif Al-Islam and Libyan intelligence chief Abdullah AlSenussi. “It is a matter of time ... Gaddafi will face charges. The arrest warrants are not going away.”

He added: “I don’t think we will have to wait for long...In two or three months it is game over.” Prosecutors allege the three men were involved in the killing of civilian protesters who rose up in February against Gaddafi’s 41-year rule. Rebels have pushed to within 80 km (50 miles) of the capital Tripoli. China stopped short of condemning or endorsing the court’s action.

“China hopes the ICC can prudently, justly and objectively carry out its duties, and ensure that its relevant work genuinely aids regional peace and stability,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said when asked about the warrants.

China has denounced the ICC’s war crimes indictment of Sudanese President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir, who is currently on a state visit in Beijing. He and Gaddafi are the only sitting heads of state facing warrants from the court. Beijing generally avoids entangling itself in the domestic affairs of other nations and has been skeptical about the NATO military operation to shore up rebels fighting Gaddafi. But Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi told Libyan rebel leaders last week that they had become an “important domestic political force” in the country.

NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu said the ICC arrest warrants demonstrated

why NATO-which has been riven by disputes over a costly operation that has dragged on longer than some foresawmust continue until it fulfills its UN mandate. “The arrest warrants are yet another signal from the international community to the Gaddafi regime: ‘Your place is on trial, not in power in Tripoli’,” she told a press briefing. But she added it was not up to NATO to enforce the warrant.

Bulgaria and Croatia added their names yesterday to the list of now 21 countries who have recognized the rebel National Transitional Council (NTC), based in Benghazi in east Libya, as the sole legitimate representative of the Libyan people.

Anti-Gaddafi rebels based in the Western Mountains region southwest of Tripoli made their biggest breakthrough in weeks on Sunday to reach the town of Bir al-Ghanam, where they are now fighting pro-Gaddafi forces for control, their spokesman said. The move took them 30 km north of their previous position and closer to Tripoli, Gaddafi’s main power base. A rebel spokesman said there had been further fighting on Monday.

“Fighting broke out yesterday evening in Bir Ayad and Bir Al-Ghanem. The (government) brigades used Grad rockets. The fighting stopped later after strikes by NATO,” he said. “The brigades bombarded Nalut last night... The humanitarian situation is still the same. We are without electricity and water.” A rebel spokesman in Misrata said Gaddafi’s forces struck at the Mediterranean coastal city some 200 km east of Tripoli overnight. “Gaddafi’s forces bombarded Misrata last night. There were no casualties, thank God. Today the situation is quiet for the moment,” said the spokesman, who gave his name as Youssef.

The revolt has turned into the bloodiest of the Arab Spring uprisings against autocratic rulers across the Middle East,

turning into a civil war as rebels backed by Western and Arab countries took control of eastern Libya. In the district of Nalut by the Tunisian border, rebels said on Monday that power and water infrastructure had been hit by pro-Gaddafi bombing. “There is a crisis here,” a spokesman, identified as Mohammed, said. “We are without electricity after the brigades hit high-voltage electricity posts ... and the power problem affected water supplies.”

At the NATO briefing, LieutenantGeneral Charles Bouchard acknowledged what he called “indiscriminate shelling” by Gaddafi forces in Nalut and Misrata and said Tripoli maintains a significant-sized force in the Brega area. He said the situation in Tripoli remained tense after the government “severely put down” antiGaddafi protests. “This continues... We have continued reports that casualties are being taken, and that security forces continue to inflict pain and harm on the population,” he said.

ARREST WARRANTS The ICC warrant is unlikely to lead to Gaddafi’s arrest as long he remains in power and inside Libya, because the court does not have the power to enforce such orders. “Libya ... does not accept the decisions of the ICC, which is a tool of the Western world to prosecute leaders in the Third World,” Justice Minister Mohammed Al-Qamoodi said. The Libyan administration has denied targeting civilians, saying it has taken justified military action against armed criminal gangs and al Qaeda militants.

Celebrations erupted in the rebel-held city of Benghazi, in eastern Libya, after the ICC’s decision. Insurgent officials said the move meant negotiations with Gaddafi were impossible. “After this warrant, it is all irrelevant. We cannot negotiate with war criminals,” NTC spokesman Jalal Al-Galal said. —Reuters

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Bearded Mickey Mouse cartoon causes stir in Egypt CAIRO: An Egyptian Christian telecom mogul has angered Islamic hard-liners by posting an online cartoon of Mickey Mouse with a beard and Minnie in a face veil. The ultraconservative Islamists, known as Salafis, called the cartoon posted by Naguib Sawiris on Twitter a mockery of Islam.

They launched an online campaign calling on Muslims in Egypt to boycott Sawiris’ mobile phone company Mobinil. Shares of Mobinil and Orascom Telecom, which Sawiris founded, both fell Monday on the Egyptian stock exchange.

Sawiris, who is also a politician, promotes a secular Egypt. He owns media companies and after Mubarak

stepped down on Feb 11, he launched a political party that calls for separation of state and religion. After the cartoon posted a few days ago stirred complaints on Twitter, Sawiris tweeted an apology on Friday and claimed he was joking. “I apologize for those who don’t take this as a joke; I just thought it was a funny picture; no disrespect meant. I am sorry,” he tweeted.

But new Facebook groups cropped and quickly gained more than 60,000 followers, calling for a boycott of his widely used cell phone company.

Named “We are joking Sawiris,” the Facebook group said: “If you are really a Muslim, and you love your religion, boycott his projects. We have to cut

out the tongue of any person who attacks our religion.” At least 15 Salafi lawyers have filed lawsuits accusing Sawiris of religious contempt, an official at the prosecutor general office said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Another Facebook group named “We hate you Mickey Sawiris” depicted the Egyptian businessman as Mickey Mouse. The group’s motto is: “No to mockery of Islam.” The cartoons are another source of sectarian tensions, which have already exploded into violence on a number of occasions in the chaotic, post-Mubarak transition. A Salafi cleric Mazen el-Sersawi

appeared on television and scolded Sawiris. “Shame on you,” he said. “How can a man like this make fun of Muslims, in a country on the brink of sectarian discord,” he said. “If this is just joking, why don’t you depict Mickey Mouse as a monk or a nun?”

This is not the first time Sawiris has provoked criticism with comments about Islam.

In 2007, he spoke out against the Islamic veil. “I am not against veil ... but when I walk in the street, I feel like a foreigner,” he said in local media. In the broad spectrum of Islamic thought, Salafism is on the extreme conservative end. Saudi Arabia’s puritanical Wahhabi interpretation is con-

sidered its forerunner, and Saudi preachers on satellite T V and the Internet have been key to the spread of Salifism in Egypt.

Salafists are distinguished by the way they dress. In many parts of Cairo, women wear the “niqab,” a veil which shows at most the eyes rather than the scarf that covers only the hair. The men grow their beards long and often shave off mustaches, a style said to imitate Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).

The cyber campaign against Sawiris showed how uncomfortable his secular campaign has made Islamists. It also could lead to polarization in the streets ahead of crucial parliament elections set for September. —AP

‘Make Assad resign’: Syria opposition urges Moscow Russia urges reform but opposes condemnation of crackdown MOSCOW: Exiled Syrian opposition figures urged Russia yesterday to persuade Syria’s President Bashar Al-Assad to resign, warning that Moscow risked being left behind by history unless it withdrew its support for the leader. Senior Russian officials, who have thwarted Western attempts to condemn Assad for crushing protests against his rule, held a meeting with some of Assad’s most vociferous critics in Moscow. The meeting was seen as a possible sign the Kremlin might be hedging its bets and trying to ensure its clout in the Middle Eastern country if Assad is toppled.

MOSCOW: Russia’s special African envoy Mikhail Margelov (left) welcomes an unidentified Syrian human-rights activist yesterday in Moscow. —AFP

Russia’s foreign ministry said the Syrian opposition representatives came at the invitation of a regional cooperation society and that no official meetings were planned. Rights groups say 1,300 civilians have been killed during a three-month revolt against the Assad family’s 41-year rule, partly inspired by uprisings across the Arab world. Syrian authorities say more than 250 soldiers and police have died in clashes they say were provoked by militant groups. “Russia should help Syria to reach freedom and democracy by putting more pressure on the Syrian President to resign,” Mulhem Droubi, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, told journalists.

“The president should resign if he has any feeling for Syrian people,” he said after talks with the Kremlin’s special envoy for Africa, Mikhail Margelov. Russia has urged Assad to move faster on promised reforms, but has opposed Western efforts to condemn his crackdown in the UN Security Council and echoed his claims that extremists are to blame for some of the violence.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who most diplomats believe is Russia’s paramount leader, tried to play down Moscow’s ties with Syria last week, saying that Russia had no special relation-

ship with Damascus.

Putin said any leader of a nation plagued by unrest should face international pressure to stop the bloodshed. “Russia has only one friend - the Syrian people,” Margelov, told reporters after the talks. About 50 Assad supporters held a demonstration outside a news conference given by the Syrian opposition yesterday. Margelov, appointed by Medvedev to mediate in North Africa and the Middle East, said Russia wanted political dialogue to prevent Syria from following the path of Libya, which has descended into civil war.

The Syrian activists, based in Russia and other countries, said Russia had to correct its policy towards Assad. “Russia should be on the right side of history, otherwise it will be much harder for it to build relations (with Syria) in the future,” Russia’s Kommersant newspaper quoted delegation leader Radwan Ziadeh, head of the Damascus Centre for Human Rights, as saying. “By opposing a UN Security Council resolution on Syria, Russia is supporting a criminal regime,” he said. Syria’s government has announced it will invite opposition figures to July 10 talks to set the framework for a dialogue promised by Assad, and that constitutional changes would be on the agenda. —Reuters

Libya tops agenda as African leaders meet ‘Gaddafi is finished’: South African official NAIROBI: The African Union meets in a summit this week that will try to show a united front on Libya even though calls are mounting within the grouping for Muammar Gaddafi to leave, once a taboo topic. The summit will consider a report by AU panel of leaders tackling the Libyan conflict and which announced after a crisis meeting this weekend that Gaddafi had agreed to stay out of talks on an interim regime for his country.

Gaddafi “is finished,” said a South African official, who was part of a team that travelled to Tripoli last month in a failed bid to launch peace talks to end the conflict that erupted in February. The departure of continent’s longest serving leader, as demanded by the West, was long avoided by Gaddafi’s African peers, many of whom have benefitted from his funding or support and also object to international interference in their affairs.

That was until early June when Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, head of the African Union panel on Libya, said Gaddafi “can no longer lead Libya” and “his departure has become necessary”. But Ugandan Foreign Minister Henry Oryem Okellowhose country is also on the mediation panel-insisted: “That is the West’s position.” “The African position is very clear: the future of Libya needs to be decided by Libyans,” he said.

The crisis could see stormy debates within the brand-new 600million-euro luxury complex that

current African Union chairman Equatorial Guinea had built in time for the summit on tomorrow, and Friday. “Either the heads of state manage to find a consensus, but that risks being difficult, or they could vote,” said a diplomat, with the latter process rarely invoked.

“All will depend on the position of some of the heavyweights, like Nigeria,” he said.

Nigeria President Goodluck Jonathan received a personal mes-

sideration in the international arena”. The diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that despite public statements, all players in the African Union “want the departure of Gaddafi”. “The debate will not be so much on the aim as on how to get there,” he said.

The summit would also try to do this “while protecting the image of the African Union, which cannot (be seen to) change its positions and criticisms of NATO too quickly,”

TRIPOLI: This file photo shows Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi in Tripoli, Libya. Libya is expected to dominate talks at the African Union summit this week. —AP sage from Gaddafi on Friday. The Libyan leader also sent at the weekend an emissary to Algiers. The Libya mediation panel meanwhile “stressed the need for unity of purpose and action among all AU member states” to ensure an African position “is given due con-

he said. The 53-country African Union has vigorously condemned the NATO-led bombing campaign against Gaddafi positions launched 100 days ago, saying it undermines its own peace plan based on a ceasefire and negotiations towards elections. South African President

Jacob Zuma repeated again Sunday that aim of the UN resolution that allowed the campaign was to protect the Libyan people and not “to authorize a campaign for regime change or political assassination”.

Gaddafi has accepted the African Union peace plan, but it has been rejected by the rebel National Transitional Council which says the Libyan leader and his sons must first leave. Human Rights Watch meanwhile called for the African Union to refuse to allow impunity for Gaddafi, as it had for Sudanese leader Omar Al-Bashir who is under an international arrest warrant for crimes against humanity during his country’s civil war.

The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant Monday Gaddafi for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

“Bashir was very much supported by the AU and we are concerned that the same trend may be followed by the AU when it comes to the issue of Libya,” Human Rights Watch representative Aloys Habimana said. Containing flaring tensions in Sudan ahead of the south of the country’s independence on July 9 will be another task for the African leaders. AU Commission chairman Jean Ping called Sunday for the north and south to complete talks on outstanding aspects of their peace agreement, saying it was also crucial to accelerate efforts for peace, justice and reconciliation in the western region of Darfur.—AFP

BEIJING: Sudan’s leader Omar Al-Bashir, centre, leaves his aircraft as he arrives at Beijing International Airport yesterday. —AP

Sudan divide on agenda as Bashir visits Beijing BEIJING: Senior Chinese officials will take up the secession of south Sudan during talks with Sudan’s President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir, who began a state visit to his country’s powerful patron yesterday after a delay to his arrival. Bashir had been due to arrive on Monday for a summit with Chinese President Hu Jintao, one of the few foreign leaders willing to host the Sudanese leader, under indictment by the International Criminal Court over war crimes charges stemming from fighting in the Darfur region of Sudan.

But Bashir failed to show up on time in the Chinese capital, a delay that the Sudanese Foreign Ministry later attributed to a change in his aircraft’s flight plan. He arrived in the early yesterday and the summit with Hu is scheduled for this morning. “This visit will help advance traditionally friendly China-Sudan relations, issues facing north and south Sudan, and the resolution of the problems in the Dar fur region,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told a briefing. In comments published earlier by state news agency Xinhua, Hong confirmed that Sudan’s “northsouth peace process and the Darfur issue” would be on the agenda.

China is a major buyer of Sudanese crude oil, and will be keen to ensure the partition of Sudan into two states, Bashir’s north and a more oil-abundant south, will not descend into fighting that could disrupt supplies and damage Beijing’s stake on both sides of the new border. China has been building ties with the emerging state in southern Sudan but remains a major supporter of Bashir, including acting as Khartoum’s top arms supplier. In interviews with official Chinese media, the long-time Sudanese leader mixed reassurances about his commitment to a peaceful secession of the south from July 9, which Beijing has encouraged, with a warning that the split could still go wrong.

The are many “time bombs” in the dividing of Sudan and the possibility of war again erupting between the two sides cannot be excluded, Bashir told the People’s Daily, China’s main official newspaper, in an interview published on Monday. Trade between China and Sudan grew to $8.6 billion in 2010, a rise of 35.1 percent on 2009 figures, powered by the rising value of Chinese imports of oil, according to Chinese customs statistics. Sudan was China’s sixth biggest source of imported crude oil last year, when it supplied 12.6 million tons, compared with 44.6 million tons from the top supplier, Saudi Arabia.

China’s special envoy for Africa Affairs and former envoy to Sudan’s conflicttorn Dar fur region, Liu Guijin, told reporters last week that China had “done a lot of work to persuade” the north to implement the peace agreement and referendum. Khartoum seized the main town in the north-south border region of Abyei on May 21, raising fears the two sides could return to conflict. But Sudan’s military and the south’s Sudan People’s Liberation Army last week agreed to withdraw their forces in favor of Ethiopian peacekeepers.

Hong told reporters that Bashir ’s delayed flight-due to “technical problems”-would not affect the visit. But he expressed China’s disapproval over the war crimes charges. “China ... has serious reser vations about the complaints lodged against President Bashir,” he said. Human rights groups have urged Beijing to arrest Bashir. China has shrugged off these calls, saying it has every right to host the head of a state with which it has diplomatic relations.

“President Bashir in recent years has visited many countries, and has received warm and friendly treatment. China, in extending a friendly reception to Sudan’s visiting head of state, cannot be criticized,” Hong said. —Reuters

Egypt orders dissolution of Mubarak-linked councils CAIRO: An Egyptian court yesterday ordered the dissolution of local councils elected under ousted President Hosni Mubarak, after protesters called for remnants of the old political order to be dismantled. The councils, like other elected bodies in Egypt, were filled with members of Mubarak’s ruling party or his supporters who secured office during elections that were widely rigged during his rule from 1981 to February this year. “The court issued a decision to dissolve local councils across the country,” Judge Kamal Al-Lamaei told a Cairo administrative court. The case started a few months ago when a group of citizens asked the government to dissolve the local councils, saying they were corrupt. The government did not respond so they took their demand to an administrative court.

The court’s ruling is not final and the

government can appeal the verdict before a higher court within 60 days.

Local Development Minister Mohsen ElNoumani said after the ruling was announced that his ministry would examine the verdict once the court’s full statement was released before taking any steps, the official news agency MENA reported. Anger at widespread vote buying and ballot stuffing in a vote for the lower house last November helped fuel the mass pro-democracy demonstrations that brought down Mubarak. Transitional military rulers are preparing Egypt for free elections.

“This ruling is a test for the state. If the state quickly responds and says it accepts the verdict and calls for new elections for local councils, this could absorb some public anger,” said political analyst and professor Hassan Nafaa. —Reuters

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Wen in Germany, warns against rights lectures We expect from the EU respect of our sovereignty: Wen

JOHANNESBURG: Former South African President Nelson Mandela reads an advance copy of his latest book titled “Nelson Mandela By Himself”, at his home in Johannesburg, South Africa. The ‘Big-Bang club’, a photo-journalist group, has documented the violence between Nelson Mandela’s ANC and Inkatha, a rival movement founded by ethnic Zulu leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi. — AP

Still divided, S Africa looks back at its ‘bang-bang’ days JOHANNESBURG: The brutal fighting between the African National Congress and the Inkatha Freedom Party has ended, but other than that the place in Thokoza where Greg Marinovich was shot hasn’t changed much. Residents of Thokoza, a poor township on the outskirts of Johannesburg, are no longer confined there by South Africa’s apartheid laws, which were formally repealed 20 years ago, on June 30, 1991.

But they are still separated from the metropolitan area by a chasm of class, education and culture-just as they were when Marinovich, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist, was shot in the chest covering the violence that erupted in the dying days of white-minority rule. “Physically it hasn’t changed much. I go there quite regularly, and it really looks the same.

People still live in very similar circumstances,” Marinovich told AFP. “The hostels are still grim and dreadful and filthy. The squatter camps are still squatter camps.” Marinovich is a member of the so-called “Bang-Bang Club”, a group of South African photojournalists who rose to fame chronicling the violence that gripped the country’s townships in the late 1980s and early 90s.

The group documented the violence between Nelson Mandela’s ANC and Inkatha, a rival movement founded by ethnic Zulu leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi, whose Johannesburg supporters were mostly migrants living in decrepit worker hostels. Their photos cast a spotlight on the seemingly senseless “black-on-black” violencelater revealed to have been sponsored in large part by the apartheid regime.

Tomorrow will mark two decades since South Africa repealed apartheid’s legal framework with the Abolition of Racially Based Land Measures Bill. The law revoked the 1913 Black Land Act, the 1966 Group Areas Act, the 1984 Black Communities Development Act and

other laws that had separated blacks from whites.

For the Bang-Bang Club, as for the township fighters they photographed, the legacy is an ambiguous one.

Marinovich and three of his colleagues are the subject of a new film starring Ryan Phillippe, which debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival in April and has its South African premiere next month. While the conflict launched their careers and brought them renown, they paid a heavy price for membership in the informal “club”.

Marinovich has since retired from war photography, and is at work on a documentary film following the lives of the men who fought in the “Hostel Wars”. Today, Thokoza’s worker hostels are still desolate and impoverished.

Instead of fighting, groups of young men now spend their days clustered around improvised card tables or lifting weights, fighting off boredom in a country where one in four workers is unemployed. A hostel on the road where Marinovich and Oosterbroek were shot is plastered with grimy campaign posters left over from local elections in May, flashing an ANC slogan-” Together we can build better communities”-next to a smiling President Jacob Zuma. “They take us to vote, they say, vote for IFP or ANC, we can make a better life. But after you vote, you can’t say anything.

You receive nothing,” says David Hlatshwayo, 21, a high school graduate who has been unable to find a job.

Democracy has seen the rise of a black South African middle class, and some black townships, like Sowetohome to Mandela and fellow Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutuhave gone on to become neatly groomed neighbourhoods with shopping malls and cinemas. The ANC government has built 2.3 million homes, expanded water and electrical lines, and overseen a steadily growing economy. But nearly one in four South Africans still lives in shack. — AFP

BERLIN: Germany and China were to hold their first joint cabinet meeting yesterday and ink billions in new business contracts, but Premier Wen Jiabao warned Europe against interfering in its internal affairs. Wen arrived in Berlin late Monday from London where he and British Prime Minister David Cameron signed trade deals worth 1.6 billion euros while the Chinese premier brushed aside questions over Beijing’s rights record.

Chancellor Angela Merkel, Wen and a total of 23 ministers were to sign 22 state cooperation pacts and deals worth “several billion euros,” the German leader said.

While Berlin has rolled out the red carpet, starting with an informal dinner for Wen and his inner circle hosted by Merkel at a lakeside villa Monday, it insists it will not soft-pedal human rights concerns for the sake of commerce.” We have different opinions on certain issues but I am confident we can discuss them,” Merkel said at the dinner. But Wen said yesterday that he would not accept lectures from European partners. “China respects the political system and the development model chosen by the citizens of the EU,” he told a meeting of German and Chinese business leaders at a Berlin hotel.

“In exchange, we expect from the EU respect of our sovereignty, our territorial integrity and the autonomous choices of the Chinese people.” Germany welcomed the release of prominent Chinese dissident Hu Jia Sunday just days after outspoken artist Ai Weiwei returned home following nearly three months in police custody, amid a government crackdown on dissent. Western nations including Germany had repeatedly urged Ai’s immediate release. But Berlin has expressed serious concerns about apparent restrictions on Hu and Ai including their freedom to speak to the media.

Human Rights Watch urged Berlin to place the issue front-and-centre at the talks, saying that Ai’s release showed “that political pressure on the Chinese government works.” And activists pledged to hit the streets during Wen’s two-day stay. A group called Tibet Initiative Deutschland said that while Merkel

BERLIN: German Chancellor Angela Merkel (L) greets Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao at the chancellory in Berlin yesterday , prior to Germany and China’s first joint cabinet meeting. Germany and China are to sign 22 state cooperation pacts while a business delegation agrees deals worth “several billion euros”. Premier Wen Jiabao, however, warned Europe against interfering in its internal affairs. — AFP welcomes Wen to her chancellery with military honours, it would release 300 black balloons to call attention to the reported detention of 300 Buddhist monks from the Kirti monastery in Sichuan province. Relations between China and Germany hit a low point in September 2007 when Merkel welcomed the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader whom Beijing brands a dangerous separatist.

The globe’s number two economy, China, and number four, Germany, have seen trade volume rise by leaps and bounds in recent years, to hit a record 130 billion euros ($184 billion) in 2010. Both sides hope to boost the figure to 200 billion euros annually by 2015.

The German-Chinese contracts, which both sides have agreed to keep under wraps until a press conference to be held last night, are expected to involve cars, chemicals and aeronautics. The 22 state cooperation pacts to be

Europe tires over Albania’s two-year political deadlock TIRANA: Two years to the day since Albania’s disputed parliamentary elections, European fatigue has set in over the Balkan country’s longest-running political crisis in two decades. “Europeans are tired of Albania. It is up to it (Tirana) to take over its responsibilities...,” a diplomat from Brussels told AFP, summing up the attitude of the European Union, which Albania hopes to join in the near future. “I don’t see the situation improving,” EU enlargement commissioner Stefan Fuele has said.

The country’s political stand-off was triggered when the Socialist Party led by Tirana mayor Edi Rama claimed electoral fraud and demanded a recount of votes cast in the June 2009 legislative poll. The ruling Democrats, led by Prime Minister Sali Berisha, have repeatedly rejected the demands of the opposition, which boycotted parliament before a partial delegation returned to the assembly. Every Albanian election since the fall of communism in the early 1990s has been marred by accusations of fraud.

Albert Rakipi of the Institute for International Studies in Tirana, a nongovernmental research body, said there was little sign of resolution “with the

majority and opposition accusing each other of causing the current situation.”

“This could endanger the European perspectives of the country,” he added.

Albania has said it would like to achieve EU candidate status by the end of this year. But as the stalemate continues, many key decisions that demand a threefifths parliamentary majority are blocked due to the absent opposition lawmakers.

These include laws on judicial and economic reform, such as the fight against organised crime and corruption, sought by Brussels as a precondition for Tirana joining the bloc. Attempts by Europe as well as the United States to mediate the crisis have failed to yield any results as Berisha and Rama remain at loggerheads. In January the crisis turned violent when four people were killed and several injured in clashes at an anti-government protest in the capital. Some are taking advantage of the stalemate, as evidenced by the number of illegal buildings being constructed, including on the Adriatic coast in the past month, local media reported. The international community had hoped that May 8 local elections would be a chance for Albania to show some political maturity. — AFP

signed by 13 Chinese and 10 German ministers are to cover deepening cooperation in areas including climate protection, energy efficiency, food safety, education and the arts.

On the first leg of his three -nation European tour, Wen promised officials in Hungary that China would continue to support its faltering economy, and pledged to similarly aid the eurozone as it is rocked by a debt crisis. The German official said the issue of China buying more government bonds from debt-wracked countries was certain to be discussed. Analysts estimate that China has already bought more than 40 billion euros of European assets this year but this has done little to curb the crisis. Beyond bilateral issues, Merkel and Wen were to discuss international hot spots including North Korea, Myanmar, Afghanistan, Pakistan, North Africa, Syria and Iran. — AFP

Junk narrowly misses station MOSCOW: A piece of debris travelling thousands of miles an hour narrowly missed the International Space Station yesterday in a harrowing incident that forced the crew to scramble to their rescue craft. Russian space officials told news agencies the piece of space junk whizzed past only 250 m from the 13-year-old orbiter a microscopic distance in space terms. The Russian space agency separately issued a terse statement noting that “a situation occurred” involving “an object of unknown origin”. “After the object passed, the crew was allowed to return to their regular working schedule,” said the statement.

Space analysts warned that incidents of this kind were growing disturbingly more common as the amount of waste - from nuts and bolts to rocket parts - multiplied from basic wear and tear and controversial military testing. “The ISS has had to actually maneuver out of the way on 10 or 12 occasions,” said Moscow’s Space News magazine editor Igor Marinin. “The ISS has never been hit by debris,” Marinin added. But its Russian predecessor Mir “was hit pretty often. Those would leave gashes in the windows up to two centimetres thick and tear through the solar batteries.”

The ISS is currently manned by three Russians and two Americans as well as a Japanese astronaut. “Incidents involving so-called ‘space junk’ are not one of a kind. They have happened before,” the Russian space agency statement added. One of the most well-documented cases occurred in March 2009 when the ISS had a near miss with two US astronauts and a Russian on board. The incident came at a sensitive time for the $100 billion project because it was being hampered by yet another on-board problem that needed an emergency fix. One of its external tanks was leaking hydrogen and a US shuttle had to be ferried in with more crew and supplies - a mission that had to be inconveniently delayed because of the space junk scare. — AFP

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American jury weighs first foreign bribery sting case WASHINGTON: Jurors have seen grenade launchers, M4 rifles and secretly recorded videos of military suppliers working on a deal to funnel money to an official of an African nation they wanted to buy their weapons. Now after a six-week trial, the 12 jurors in federal court here are deliberating the guilt or innocence of the businessmen arrested in the first undercover sting operation designed to enforce a 1977 law against foreign bribery.

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act had fallen into infrequent use since it was enacted in the 1970s after the Watergate scandal.

But enforcement has ballooned since the last years of the Bush administration as more companies do business abroad and senior corporate officials have had to certify financial statements under laws passed in response to corporate accounting scandals.

The four men on trial are among 22 businessmen charged in a sweeping investigation, most of them arrested last year as they were gathering for a trade show in Las Vegas where they anticipated picking up checks for their military hardware from Gabon’s defense minister. But no officials from the central African nation were really involved in

the deal. Instead, it was brokered by undercover FBI agents and a cooperator from the industry who helped persuade his colleagues to sign onto the deal that would land them under indictment.

The sting produced the largest group of individuals ever charged for FCPA-related violations and is part of an increase in prosecutions that began in the Bush administration and has grown under the Obama administration. In 2004-2005, the Justice Department charged seven people under the law and collected more than $27 million in criminal fines. In 2009 and 2010, the department charged more than 50 people and collected nearly $2 billion.

Although Securities and Exchange Commission investigations in the mid-1970s led to the law, Justice officials say bribery is still an issue today and have about 15 lawyers committed to prosecuting violations. They cite World Bank estimates that more than $1 trillion in bribes are paid each year, or roughly 3 percent of the world economy. “When US businesspersons, foreign executives and even foreign officials know that they risk liability under the FCPA and related statutes, behavior changes,” Assistant

Australia confronts ‘crisis’ of soaring Aborigine crime CANBERRA: Fabian Brown, known among Aborigines by his tribal name Jabangardi, is usually jobless, an alcoholic and has been in and out of prison since he was 17. His story is all too common among Aborigines in Australia’s Outback. A parliamentary report last week called the situation a national crisis, noting the imprisonment rate for indigenous Australians has soared 66 percent in the past decade. The report underscores how little progress Australia has made - despite more than 40 years of targeted federal policies - in uplifting a section of its population that is beset by crime, poor health, domestic violence and alcoholism while living on the fringes of society.

At the time of white settlement in 1788, the Aborigine population was estimated to be as high as 1 million. Their numbers crashed dramatically because of new diseases, brutal treatment from colonists, the loss of traditional lands as well as social and cultural disintegration.

Aborigines now number 517,000, or 2.3 percent of the country’s 22.6 million people. Yet, about 25 percent of Australia’s adult prison population is Aboriginal, according to the report.

It found that Aboriginal children account for 59 percent of inmates in Australian juvenile detention centers and are 28 times more likely than other Australian children to be detained.

“Some think that there’s no other way but jail,” Brown said in a telephone interview from his hometown of Tennant Creek in the central Australian desert.

Brown, 43, who has served time for violent crimes and theft, has managed to stay out of prison for the last two years.

He sometimes works as a court interpreter for the many indigenous defendants who can’t speak English. “Some think they’re powerful and they can do anything,” he said. “Teenage boys, girls they don’t worry about getting into trouble.” He said he knows of adolescent Aboriginal boys who regard a stint in a juvenile detention center as a rite of passage to manhood.

Some Aborigines prefer their regimented lives in prison to their squalid existence in often chaotic indigenous camps on the fringes of Tennant Creek, he said. Desert temperatures drop to freezing overnight and many indigenous inmates get sick in prison, Brown said.

“It’s cold and there is no warm clothing,” he said. Brown acknowledges alcohol is

Attorney General Lanny Breuer said in a speech last month to the World Bank. “In addition to motivating US and foreign corporations to change the way they do business - something that I believe is already happening - the threat of liability can help corporations resist corrupt demands from foreign officials, which can lead the officials themselves to alter their practices.” The department’s recent prosecutions have covered bribery across the globe, including Latin America, Africa and the Middle East, and the defendants have included corporations as well-known as Daimler AG, BAE, Siemens, and Johnson and Johnson. The Houston-based firm Kellogg Brown & Root pleaded guilty to a decade-long scheme to bribe a range of Nigerian officials to get contracts worth more than $6 billion to build liquefied natural gas facilities.

Last month, the department got the firstever jury conviction against a corporation in an FCPA case - previous corporate prosecutions had ended in agreements to plead guilty. Azusa, California-based electrical utility supplier Lindsey Manufacturing, two of its executives and a broker were convicted of scheming to bribe officials at Mexico’s

state-owned utility company. Prosecutors said the bribes included a Ferrari Spyder sports car worth nearly $300,000, a $1.8 million yacht and payments of more than $170,000 toward one official’s credit card bills. In the case before the Washington jury, the FBI’s first use of an undercover sting to enforce the act has become the heart of the defense case.

Defense attorneys have been critical of the FBI’s reliance on the informant, an executive of a Florida body armor company with a checkered past, Richard Bistrong, who prosecutors acknowledged was a criminal and a “scoundrel.” Defense attorneys have labeled Bistrong a sociopathic liar with a devious mind and a history of bribery, embezzlement, tax evasion, drug use and solicitation of prostitutes. They say that he was able to persuade federal agents to let him plead guilty to a single bribery count for more than $4.4 million in bribes to officials at the United Nations and elsewhere overseas.

Bistrong lured the defendants to a Florida hotel room in May 2009 to meet a broker and offer them a chance to be part of a $15 million deal to outfit Gabon’s presidential guard from head to toe in new gear. The

Obama to talk economy, not politics in Iowa Republicans blaming Obama for sluggish economy

TENNANT CREEK: Fabian Brown, an Aborigine with a long criminal record, stands outside an Aboriginal land administration building decorated with indigenous art in his home town of Tennant Creek in central Australia. — AP a common thread in his own criminal history, yet he continues to drink. He stays out of trouble these days by being more careful whom he drinks with.

“Alcohol is usually a factor. Most of the middle-aged boys I know have been to jail,” said Brown of his dying gold mining town where more than a third of the 3,000 townsfolk are Outback Aborigines like him. Tennant Creek attempted to curb rampant alcohol abuse a decade ago by closing all liquor stores on the day that Aborigines received their welfare checks. Aboriginal families could then spend money on food and bills on so-called “Thirsty Thursday” before the drinking resumed on Friday. Thirsty Thursday no longer exists because of bureaucratic changes that allow welfare recipients to choose their pay days. The parliamentary report adds to the litany of well-documented but grim statistics about Aborigines: They die a decade younger than other Australians, have far higher rates of disease, live on incomes one-third lower than others, have a literacy rate far lower than other ethnic groups, and endure an unemployment rate of 16 percent while fewer than 5 percent of other Australians are looking for work. — AP

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama will tout manufacturing as a key to America’s economic success during a trip to Iowa, as he seeks to counter criticism of his policies by Republican presidential candidates who have descended on the state. The trip is Obama’s first to Iowa since announcing his re-election campaign earlier this year. The White House insists the stop will be about the economy, not politics, though they are emphasizing Obama’s ties with the state that jumpstarted his presidential bid with a victory in the 2008 caucuses.

“Iowa is clearly a special place for the president,” White House deputy communications director Jen Psaki said. “He spent a significant amount of time there and really got to know a lot of people across the state when he was running.” Obama will tour the Alcoa Davenport Works Factory, an aluminum-producing company, then speak with workers.

The White House says the company’s products are exported around the world, and are produced by highly skilled workers who earn wages higher than the national average.

The stop is part of Obama’s effort to promote job-creation in the midst of an economic slowdown that has reduced hiring and weakened his job approval standing with the public. After last month’s weak unemployment report showed an uptick in the jobless rate to 9.1 percent, the White House is warily eyeing the release of fresh jobs numbers Friday. The White House sees a resurgence in the US manufacturing industry as one way to create jobs and stay competitive in the global marketplace. Last week, Obama announced a $500 million joint effort by industry, universities and the federal government to help reposition the United States as a leader in cuttingedge manufacturing.

“We have not run out of stuff to make.

We’ve just got to reinvigorate our manufacturing sector so that it leads the world the way it always has, from paper and steel and cars to new products we haven’t even dreamed up yet,” Obama said Friday during a stop in Pittsburgh. In Iowa, the first state in the nation to have its say in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, Obama’s

WASHINGTON: In this file photo, President Barack Obama delivers a televised address from the East Room of the White House. Obama is set to tout manufacturing as a key to America’s economic success during a trip to Iowa. — AP message will come up against the criticism of sion in South Carolina sent shockwaves across Republican presidential candidates, who say the nation and, if allowed to stand, will result his economic policies have failed to put the in American job losses and I think you can be country on a path toward growth and pros- sure there will be some losses in Iowa as well perity. “Mr. President, your policies haven’t as other states,” Romney said in an Associated worked. Spending our way out of this reces- Press interview. Alcoa spokesman Mike sion hasn’t worked,” Rep. Michelle Bachmann Belwood said the labor board’s battle with said Monday in Waterloo, Iowa, where she Boeing over the South Carolina plant will not officially announced her run for the White have an impact on employment at Alcoa’s eastern Iowa plants, which produce aluHouse.

Former Alaska Gov Sarah Palin, who has minum lithium plate used to make structural not said whether she will run for president, components of the Dreamliner.

The labor board alleges that Boeing built a will be in Iowa on Tuesday for the screening of a documentary about her.

Another second Dreamliner plant in South Carolina to Republican presidential candidate, Mitt retaliate against union workers in Washington Romney, accused the Obama administration for striking and to discourage future strikes. It on Monday of jeopardizing the very manufac- is illegal for companies to retaliate against turing jobs the Democratic president plans to workers for exercising their right to strike. promote when he visits the Iowa aluminum South Carolina has less stringent union laws plant. Romney, the former governor of than Washington, where Boeing’s other Massachusetts, said a lawsuit filed by the Dreamliner plant is located. Romney, in his National Labor Relations Board against second bid for the Republican presidential Boeing could stifle jobs at Alcoa in Iowa, nomination, is blaming Obama for the slugwhich provides materials for the airline manu- gish economy and touting himself as the best facturer’s 787 Dreamliner. “This Boeing deci- able to take on Obama. — AP

Wildfire forces evacuations Los Alamos nuclear lab closed

US judge blocks parts of immigration law ATLANTA: A federal judge has temporarily blocked parts of the state of Georgia’s strict new law targeting illegal immigration from taking effect, including a provision that authorizes police to check the immigration status of suspects without proper identification and to detain illegal immigrants. Georgia’s became the latest in a string of state laws that have been at least temporarily stopped by legal challenges. All or parts of similar laws in Arizona, Utah and Indiana also have been blocked by federal judges.

Judge Thomas Thrash also granted a request from civil liberties groups to block a part of Georgia’s law that penalizes people who knowingly and willingly transport or harbor illegal immigrants while committing another crime. The judge was especially critical of that provision, blasting the state’s assertion that federal immigration enforcement is “passive.” Thrash noted that federal immigration officers remove more than 900 foreign citizens from the country on an average day. He also wrote that the state measure would overstep the enforcement boundaries established by federal law.

Thrash noted that there are thousands of illegal immigrants in Georgia because of the “insatiable demand in decades gone by for cheap labor” in the agricul-

catch was that they would have to prepare two invoices - one written out to the broker for the real value of the deal and the other written out to the Gabonese government with a 20 percent commission added for the broker and the defense minister. The blackand-white hidden camera footage shown in court recorded Bistrong repeatedly stressing that half the 20 percent commission - or $1.5 million - would go to the defense minister.

But defense attorneys say he never used words like “bribe” or “kickback” to make clear the payment was illegal. Their clients each could face sentences of up to 10 to 15 years if convicted. “They used a gotcha technique,” defense lawyer Matthew Menchel told jurors in closing arguments.

“It’s not enough to use innocent sounding words and say, ‘Hey, everybody should know this is against the law.”‘ Prosecutor Laura Perkins said the investigators relied on Bistrong to help build their case because people won’t openly discuss such corrupt deals with outsiders they don’t know. She said the defendants clearly knew that sending $1.5 million in public money to line a defense minister’s pocket was wrong. — AP

ture and construction industries. But he said the federal government gives priority to prosecuting and removing illegal immigrants who have committed crimes.

The civil liberties groups had sued to have those and other provisions blocked before they took effect Friday, though Thrash did toss parts of that lawsuit. The groups had argued that the law allows unreasonable seizures; blocks a constitutional right to travel; and restricts access to government services on the basis of national origin. The judge dismissed those claims, along with allegations the measure violates property rights and the state constitution.

Nonetheless, the groups hailed the ruling. “This is a victory that matches the trend nationally. It should send a really strong signal to other states considering such laws,” said Karen Tumlin, a lawyer for the National Immigration Law Center.

Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens said in a statement his office plans to appeal the court’s ruling. He said he was pleased that parts of the lawsuit were dismissed.

The law’s main sponsor, Republican state Rep. Matt Ramsey, called the judge’s ruling a temporary setback. The judge also was concerned about the wider implications of the law on trade and diplomatic relations, which were laid out by Mexican officials in court documents. — AP

LOS ALAMOS: The sun pokes through smoke from a wild fire burning near Los Alamos on Monday. — AP

LOS ALAMOS: Thousands of residents calmly fled yesterday from the town that’s home to the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory, ahead of an approaching wildfire that sent up towering plumes of smoke, rained down ash and sparked a spot fire on lab property where scientists 50 years ago conducted underground tests of radioactive explosives. Los Alamos National Laboratory officials said that the spot fire was soon contained and no contamination was released. They also assured that radioactive materials stored in various spots elsewhere on the sprawling lab were safe from flames.

The wildfire, which began Sunday, had destroyed 30 structures south and west of Los Alamos by early Monday and forced the closure of the lab while stirring memories of a devastating blaze in May 2000 that destroyed hundreds of homes and buildings.

“The hair on the back of your neck goes up,” Los Alamos County fire chief Doug Tucker said of first seeing the fire in the Santa Fe National Forest on Sunday. “I saw that plume and I thought, ‘Oh my god here we go again.”‘ Tucker said the current blaze, which grew Monday to roughly 50,000 acres, or 78 square miles was the most active fire he had

seen in his career. By midafternoon, it had jumped a highway and burned an acre of land on the outskirts of the lab’s 36-squaremile complex. The fire scorched about an acre in the area known as the Tech Area, 49, which was used in the early 1960s for a series of underground tests with high explosives and radioactive materials. Lab officials said the fire was safely extinguished.

Lab spokesman Kevin Roark said environmental specialists from the lab were mobilized and monitoring air quality on Monday, but that the main concern was smoke. The anti-nuclear watchdog group Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety, however, said the fire appeared to be about 3.5 miles from a dumpsite where as many as 30,000 55-gallon drums of plutonium-contaminated waste were stored in fabric tents above ground.

The group said the drums were awaiting transport to a low-level radiation dump site in southern New Mexico. Lab spokesman Steve Sandoval declined to confirm that there were any such drums currently on the property.

He acknowledged that low-level waste is at times put in drums and regularly taken from the lab to the Waste Isolation Pilot Project site in Carlsbad. — AP

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Afghan, NATO forces nab militant dressed as woman KABUL: A senior leader of an Al-Qaedalinked terror group has been captured in northern Afghanistan dressed up like a woman - the latest in a recent series of cases involving male militants disguised as females, the US-led military coalition said yesterday.

A joint Afghan and coalition force apprehended a leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and two of his associates during a nighttime operation Monday in Kunduz city, NATO said. It said the militant, who also suppor ted the Taleban network, had planned attacks against the Afghan National Police, various

suicide bombings and assaults against other Afghan security forces. NATO did not release the names of the three suspects caught in Kunduz.

“The leader attempted to disguise himself as a female by wearing a burqa, which is an all-enveloping cloak worn by some Muslim women,” the coalition said in a statement. “In the last two months there have been several instances of targeted males wearing burqas in attempts to disguise themselves in order not to be caught

by Afghan-led forces.” The coalition said there also have been a handful of recent reports of female combatants in burqas.

Kunduz and surrounding provinces are known hide-outs for the Taleban, Al-Qaeda and fighters from militant factions that include the Haqqani network, Hizb-i-Islami and the IMU, which aims to create an Islamic state across Central Asia. The IMU was formed in 1991, originally aiming to set up an Islamic state in Uzbekistan, which neighbors Afghanistan, but later expanded its goal to seeking one across Central Asia.

Aligning itself with Al-Qaeda, it has been most active in the north where violence has been on the rise. Earlier this month, a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a mosque in Kunduz where a

remembrance ceremony was being held for a slain Afghan police commander. The blast killed four police officers.

This spring, a suicide bomber killed 35 people at an Afghan army recruitment center and at least 30 others died when another suicide bomber blew himself up at a government office where Afghans were waiting in line for identification cards. In October, a bomb k illed Kunduz Gov. Mohammad Omar and 19 others in a crowded mosque in neighboring Takhar province. Omar was killed just days after he warned of escalating threats from Taleban and foreign fighters in the north.

In other incidents across Afghanistan, a roadside bomb killed two women and injured a child who were walk ing in Panjwai district of Kandahar province in southern Afghanistan, said district police chief Mohammad Azeem.

Separately, the coalition said two NATO service members had been killed in the south. One was killed Monday by a roadside bomb and the other died yesterday in an insurgent attack. No other details were released. The deaths bring to at least 55 the number of NATO service members killed in June in Afghanistan, including at least 34 Americans. — AP

Refugee group finds over 250,000 Afghans displaced Afghans unwilling to return, fearful that it’s unsafe: Report

FIJI: This file photo shows Papua New Guinean Prime Minister Michael Somare (R) departing the opening ceremony for the 37th Pacific Islands Forum meeting on Denarau Island in Fiji. Papua New Guinea’s veteran leader Michael Somare is resigning the prime ministership due to ill health, a report said yesterday. — AFP

Ailing PNG leader Somare resigns YDNEY: Papua New Guinea’s long-serving leader Sir Michael Somare has resigned as prime minister due to ill health, his family said yesterday, ending an era in the impoverished Pacific island nation. The 75-year-old, who has been in politics for almost 50 years and became his country’s first prime minister on independence in 1975, underwent heart surgery in Singapore earlier this year but has not fully recovered.

His son Arthur Somare said that family had made the decision for him to retire without consulting the premier, who held the office for almost 18 years in total, as he was too ill. “These complications have further delayed the anticipated time in which Sir Michael was expected to recover and return to Papua New Guinea,” Arthur Somare, himself a member of parliament, said in statement sent to AFP. “Therefore, on behalf of (his wife) Lady Veronica, I wish to announce that it is our family’s collective desire that Sir Michael be allowed to recover at his own pace and therefore retire.”

Arthur Somare’s spokesman added that Sir Michael remained in intensive care and was “not in a good enough condition” to discuss retirement, with the family taking the decision on his behalf. “In the greater interest and collective good of the country we are of the view that this decision is necessary, and we believe it will also be his desire to do so at this time given the circumstances,” Somare added.

“In our considered decision to do this we believe PNG should have a level of certainty with regard to political stability and leadership well into the future.”Sir Michael has dominated Papua New Guinea’s fractious political scene for decades and his retirement after more than 40 years in parliament represents the end of an era. Born to a policeman father in Rabaul on April 9, 1936, he grew up in a village in East Sepik. — AP

KABUL: More than 250,000 Afghans have fled their villages during the past two years of fighting, Refugees International says, in a report critical of US Special Forces and other international and Afghan military operations for exacerbating the displacement of civilians. The total cited in the report, which was set to be released yesterday, is less than 1 percent of Afghanistan’s estimated population of 28 million people, but it reflects people’s concerns about their security as the war here nears its 10-year mark and the US is poised to start withdrawing combat forces.

President Barack Obama announced last week he was ordering 10,000 US troops home by year’s end; as many as 23,000 more are to leave by September 2012. That would leave 68,000 US troops in Afghanistan. “As the US begins to draw down its forces and transition responsibilities to the Afghan government, the Obama administration must mitigate further displacement and ensure that the Afghan government takes greater responsibility for the protection of displaced people,” the report said.

It noted that Afghan civilians are caught in the crossfire of an intensifying military campaign against insurgents.

Since the beginning of this year, more than 91,000 have fled their villages, compared with 42,000 during the same period last year, the report said. Refugees International, based in Washington, D.C.,

AZIZBAD: In this file photo, an Afghan woman and her daughter wail after their relative was killed in an air strike. Refugees International revealed, in their report released yesterday, that over 250,000 Afghans have been displaced. — AP blames the increase on military operations by Afghan forces and the foreign military contingent called the International Security Assistance Force.

“The increasing use of airstrikes by the International Security Assistance Force and the Afghan national security forces as well as night raids by US Special Forces is destroying homes, crops and basic infrastructure, traumatizing civilians and dis-

guru’s charity offers tax on his wealth NEW DELHI: Trustees of the enormous wealth left by a recently deceased Indian guru offered yesterday to pay tax on the vast piles of cash and gold discovered in his private chambers. Sathya Sai Baba, one of India’s most famous and widely followed spiritual gurus, died on April 24 and was interred at his ashram in Puttaparthi in southern Andhra Pradesh state.

Trust members found 98 kilograms of gold, 307 kilograms of silver and $2.55 million in cash afterwards in his private quarters. The treasure was recorded in the presence of two retired judges. The rooms had been kept shut from March 28 when Sai Baba, who had ashrams in 126 countries, was hospitalized and were reopened on June 16. The Sathya Sai Trust, which manages his vast empire spanning hospitals and spiritual retreats, said it had not previously been aware of the undisclosed riches and has deposited them with a bank. “As soon an inventory was taken, the money was deposited with the State Bank of India,” trust member V. Srinivasan told a news conference in Puttaparthi. “Even without a demand we paid 97 million rupees as income tax and the balance if any will be paid after the valuation of the gold, jewellery etc,” Srinivasan said. “We had no knowledge about the money... it was given to him (and) Bhagwan Sai Baba kept it for public use,” he said. — AFP

Former sex tycoon vies to become MP BANGKOK: As the super-pimp who once ran Thailand’s biggest brothel empire and then exposed the police kickbacks he had to pay for it to flourish, Chuvit Kamolvisit feels uniquely qualified to lead the country’s fight against corruption. And in his quest to win a parliament seat in elections Sunday, the 49-year-old one-time massage parlor king is betting a public tired of divisive, hypocritical leaders will agree.

Politicians “are like diapers - you have to change them,” Chuvit said in an interview, referring to a campaign

poster that features him cradling a toddler. “Otherwise it’s too dirty.”

Chuvit’s bid to become a lawmaker is no joke. He first won a national assembly seat back in 2005, only to be disqualified the following year because he had not been a member of his party long enough before the poll. He’s also run for Bangkok governor twice, coming in a distant third both times. His last campaign nosedived after he punched a newscaster in the face for asking questions he didn’t like - then kicked him when he fell to the ground. “When I got into

BANGKOK: Chuvit Kamolvisit, former owner of a string of massage parlors, waves to his supporters during an election campaign for his Rak Thailand Party. — AP

politics, I didn’t know that it’s too dirty for me - even me,” Chuvit said ruefully. “Maybe I’m stupid for jumping into it,” he added. “I pray someday I can stop. It’s like you are gambling ... you know you’re gonna lose all the money but you keep” playing anyway. If elected, Chuvit has vowed not to join any ruling coalition. Instead, he would stand alone as an independent outsider regardless of the outcome - a one-man, anti-corruption reality check on government.

With the air and swagger of a mafia don, the stocky, mustachioed Chuvit plays the part of former sex boss well.

Since selling off his brothels, he has become a kind of pimp-turnedRobin Hood - exploiting his own sordid past to legitimize his crusade against graft. It all began in 2003, when he was accused of the unauthorized, overnight demolition of scores of unlicensed bars and shops from a downtown Bangkok block he owned. The brutal move erupted into a major public scandal, and when the police failed to protect him, Chuvit fought back by exposing the behemoth bribes he had to pay to keep his mighty empire of flesh running. Confirming that open secret turned him into an unlikely folk hero among Bangkok residents, eclipsing the demolition itself and underscoring public revulsion against official corruption. — AP

placing tens of thousands of people,” the report said. The military coalition has embraced night raids as a tactic for targeting the insurgents’ leadership, preventing it from making a comeback and forcing it to the negotiating table. Some Afghan analysts, however, think it’s impossible to bomb the insurgents to the negotiating table, saying the airstrikes and night raids only embolden militants’

fighting spirit. In northern Afghanistan alone, nearly 30,000 individuals have been displaced, a more than sevenfold increase compared to last year, the report said. “Before the military escalated its campaign, Afghans were fleeing for brief periods and returning home shortly thereafter. Now, people are increasingly unwilling to return home because they fear their villages are no longer safe,” the report said. “To address this increasing instability, ISAF and Afghan national security forces must reduce the displacement caused by their operations.”

Refugees International also contended the proliferation of militias is increasing insecurity, especially in the north. Many new militias operate under the guise of the US and ISAF-backed Afghan Local Police, it said.

Security analysts and representatives of displaced individuals, government and humanitarian groups told the refugee organization that the “expansion of poorly vetted, ill-trained and unsupervised Afghan Local Police units and irregular militias are a major threat to civilians and stability.” The report said such armed groups have allegedly committed abuses including murder, theft, extortion, bribery and intimidation. The international military coalition defended the local police initiative, saying any allegations against the Afghan Local Police brought to the attention of Afghan forces are investigated. — AP

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US, Philippines commence navy drills amid China row Exercise not linked to South China Sea dispute PUERTO PRINCESA: The United States pledged yesterday its “enduring commitment” to helping the Philippines, as the longtime allies began naval exercises amid a simmering maritime row with China. Two state-of-the-art US missile destroyers sailed into Philippine waters to kick-start the 11 days of training, which will take place close to the much coveted South China Sea that is the focus of the regional tensions. Both sides emphasized the event was an annual one aimed at deepening defense ties, and not linked to the rising concern in Manila about allegedly aggressive Chinese actions in the strategic and potentially resource-rich South China Sea. “CARAT was planned in advance... the issue in the South China Sea started in February,” Philippine Navy vice-commander Rear Admiral Orwen Corez said at an opening ceremony for the event, referring to it by its acronym. “CARAT has nothing to do with the issue.” Nevertheless, the exercises were portrayed as a show of unity between the Philippines and its former colonial ruler. “The US and the Philippines are allies and that is the strongest and most enduring commitment the two nations can make,” the commander of the US 7th Fleet, Vice Admiral Scott Van Buskirk, said at the opening ceremony.

“Our alliance is underpinned by a deep and abiding US interest in the freedom

and security of the Republic of the Philippines.”

Philippine President Benigno Aquino this month called for US help in containing China’s South China Sea ambitions, saying his country was too weak to stand up to the Chinese alone. Aquino made his plea to the United States after accusing China

PUERTO PRINCESA: A Philippine naval personnel stands on guard during the arrival of missile destroyer USS Chung Hoon (DDG-93) before the US-Philippine joint naval military exercise entitled ‘Cooperation Afloat Readiness Training’ (CARAT) near the disputed Spratly Islands. — AFP

Philippines, Singapore off US trafficking watchlist WASHINGTON: The United States on Monday removed the Philippines and Singapore from a human trafficking watchlist that had drawn concerns from the close allies, but it reported record abuses around the world. The State Department’s annual Trafficking in Persons Report has become increasingly sensitive for Southeast Asian governments, which face a cutoff of US assistance if they are found to be unresponsive in fighting trafficking.

The latest report elevated the Philippines, Singapore and Laos off the watchlist to so-called Tier 2, which means that the countries do not fully meet standards on human trafficking but are making efforts to do so. Indonesia and Cambodia stayed at Tier 2, but Brunei, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam remained on the watchlist. The only Asian jurisdictions on Tier 1, meaning full compliance, were South Korea and Taiwan. Releasing the report, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that as many 27 million men, women and children suffered from trafficking around the world for sexual exploitation or forced labor.

“Unfortunately, because of the ease of transportation and the global communications that can reach deep into villages with promises and pictures of what a better life might be, we now see that more human beings are exploited than before,” Clinton said. But US allies have sometimes responded indignantly. Singapore last year lashed out at being put on the watchlist and urged the United States to examine its own record, including the treatment of its millions of illegal residents.

The United States gave itself a Tier 1 ranking but offered details about problems at home, including allegations of exploitation by federal contractors. “I don’t think it’s fair for us to rank others if we don’t look hard at who we are and what we’re doing,” Clinton said. In the Philippines, President Benigno Aquino took the unusual step of saying in April that his country was off the

of inciting at least seven recent incidents in the disputed waters, including one in which a Chinese vessel allegedly opened fire on Filipino fishermen. Aquino also accused China of breaking international law by entering the Philippines’ 200-nautical-mile economic exclusion zone. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week

watchlist, leading US officials to clarify that no decision had yet been made. In Monday’s report, the State Department praised an “intensified effort” by the Philippines. It said the Philippines convicted 25 trafficking offenders, compared with nine the previous year, including first-ever convictions for forced labor.

Elsewhere in Asia, the State Department removed Sri Lanka and Fiji from its watchlist. It praised Sri Lankaoften on the receiving end of criticism over human rights-for its first convictions under an anti-trafficking law on the island, which is a major source of workers to abuseprone Arab countries. On the other hand, the United States downgraded the Federated States of Micronesia to Tier 3, meaning that some assistance will be suspended to the nation of more than 600 islands that is closely linked to the United States. The report said that Micronesian traffickers have forced women into prostitution in the United States with promises of well-paying jobs.

The State Department said that Micronesian waters are believed to be rife with trafficking but that the government has not conducted any investigations into the problem. Myanmar, North Korea and Papua New Guinea remained at Tier 3. In a change this year ordered by the US Congress, countries that stay on the watchlist for two consecutive years now automatically drop to Tier 3 - although the administration can order an exemption.

Representative Chris Smith, who authored the 2000 act that set up the report, criticized President Barack Obama’s administration for letting China remain on the watchlist again instead of dropping automatically to Tier 3. “Two years of warning is enough.

The Obama administration has again abandoned trafficking victims in China-who are predominantly women. It’s shameful,” said Smith, a Republican from New Jersey. “Our obligation is to the victims of trafficking, not the dictatorship,” he said. — AFP

offered the Philippines’ some comfort, pledging that the superpower would help to modernise the cash-strapped Philippine military. “We are determined and committed to supporting the defence of the Philippines,” vowed Clinton.

China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia and Taiwan have overlapping claims to parts of the South China Sea, which is believed to have vast oil and gas deposits, while its shipping lanes are vital for global trade. Vietnam as well as the Philippines have in recent months accused China of taking increasingly aggressive actions in staking its claim to the disputed waters and its archipelagos.

In response, China has insisted it wants to resolve the territorial dispute peacefully but remained firm in its claims to most of the South China Sea, even waters within the Philippines’ economic exclusion zone.

Yesterday’s opening ceremony for the naval exercises took place at a military base in Puerto Princesa, the capital of Palawan, a narrow island that divides the South China Sea to the west and the Sulu Sea in the east. The exercises, called Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training (CARAT), will take place in the Sulu Sea. About 800 US sailors will be involved, as well as the two guided missile destroyers and a salvage ship. They will join a Philippine fleet of mainly World War II-era ships. — AFP

Japan’s Maehara: Escaping deflation is a top priority TOKYO: Former foreign minister Seiji Maehara, a possible contender to replace Prime Minister Naoto Kan, said yesterday that Japan should escape from deflation before hiking the 5 percent sales tax to curb public debt, echoing ruling party concerns that are stalling a more stringent government plan.

Maehara, a former head of the ruling Democratic Party, also called on Kan to clarify when he would keep his pledge to quit, saying the premier’s determination to cling to his post was blocking passage of key bills and creating a political vacuum. “Other countries will not negotiate or make new efforts with a prime minister ... who has said he will quit,” Maehara told Reuters in an interview. “The very continuation of this cabinet is a political vacuum.”

Kan, under fire for his handling of a nuclear crisis at the tsunami-crippled Fukushima atomic plant, on Monday spelled out conditions for keeping his promise to resign, including the passage of a bill to allow the issuance of deficit bonds and another to promote renewable energy sources. But with the outlook murky for passage of the legislation in a divided parliament, it is unclear when Kan will step down.

The political stalemate is distracting from efforts to rebuild from the devastating March 11 earthquake and tsunami and tackle structural problems such as tax reforms to curb public debt already twice the size of the $5 trillion economy. Kan’s DPJ rivals are balking at a plan to raise the sales tax in stages to 10 percent by the year starting in April 2015. Maehara said an escape from deflation should come first but that the sales tax would have to be raised from around 2015.

“If we do fiscal reform without some guarantee of economic growth and before overcoming the disease of deflation, the economy could worsen,” Maehara said. But he added that it was also important to show markets a roadmap for fiscal reform-starting from around 2015 - in order to ease con-

cerns about Japan’s ballooning debt.

“ENERGY ELECTION” Maehara said a third extra budget to finance rebuilding from the tsunami should total around 10 trillion yen, considering the scale of the disaster and the need to escape deflation, and urged the Bank of Japan and the government to work together to ensure recovery and escape deflation.

Maehara, who declined to say whether he would run for prime minister if Kan quits, said calling a snap election over energy policy-a step some experts say Kan could takewouldn’t make much sense since major parties did not differ so much on the need to boost the role of renewable energy and reduce reliance on nuclear power in the wake of the Fukushima crisis.

Kan told a meeting of DPJ lawmakers yesterday that energy polic y would be the biggest focal point of the next election, which must be held by 2013. “I don’t think the parties would be that different (on energy policy). Everyone is aware that the direction is to move away from nuclear power,” Maehara said, adding that it was not possible to shut down all nuclear plants immediately given the negative impact on the economy.

Japan relied on nuclear power for about 30 percent of its electricity supply before the March 11 disasters.

Maehara also said he thought a “grand coalition” between the DPJ and the main rival Liberal Democratic Party was one way to break Japan’s parliamentary and policy deadlock, but that such a tie-up should not last for more than one year.

Besides working to rebuild northeast Japan, the coalition could also t a c k l e t a x re for m s, s ha r i ng t he responsibility for tax hikes that lawmakers fear would alienate voters.

“Sharing the responsibility is one way of thinking,” he said. Talk of such a coalition had swirled earlier this month but chilled after Kan indicated he had no plan to step down soon. — Reuters

News

in brief

Storms kill 22 HANOI: The government says storms in northern Vietnam have killed 22 people as five more bodies were recovered. Five others are missing and 65 have been injured. The Floods and Storms Control Department said on its website yesterday that 12 of the victims were killed by lightning. The rest died from falling trees, collapsed houses or were washed away by floods in eight Northern provinces before and after Tropical Storm Haima hit the region last week. Nearly 2,700 homes were destroyed or damaged, and 990,000 acres of rice paddy were inundated. Vietnam is prone to floods and storms which kill hundreds of people a year.

South Korea dog meat festival bites the dust SEOUL: A South Korean dog meat festival has been cancelled following growls of protest from animal rights activists, one of the would-be organizers said yesterday.

The Korea Dog Farmers’ Association had scheduled for Friday a festival aimed at promoting traditional dog meat consumption, said Ann Yong-Geun, an adviser to the association. “We couldn’t possibly go on with the plan due to endless phone calls of complaint... now there are few willing to rent us a place for the event,” Ann, a professor of nutrition at Chung Cheong University said. The association had said the festival, to be held in a traditional open-air market in the city of Seongnam just south of Seoul, would showcase various canine delicacies including barbecued dog, sausages and steamed paws. The event at the market, well known for selling dogs for meat, would also have featured products such as cosmetics and spirits with canine ingredients. Ann said the festival would have displayed video clips and pictures of farms raising dogs under sanitary conditions, contrary to public perceptions.

Radioactive water leaks TOKYO: Tons of radioactive water was discovered to have leaked into the ground from the Fukushima nuclear plant, Japan’s nuclear watchdog said yesterday. About 15 tons of water with a low level of radiation leaked from a storage tank at the plant, on the Pacific coast 240 km north of Tokyo, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said. Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co said it was still investigating the cause of the leak, which was repaired after being discovered around noon yesterday.

Vast amounts of water contaminated with varying levels of radiation have accumulated in storage tanks at the plant after being used by the utility to cool reactors damaged when their original cooling systems were knocked out by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. Tepco is trying to use a decontamination system that cleans radioactive water so it can be recycled to cool the reactors, but has encountered technical glitches.

CAMBODIA: Buddhist monks walk into the Extraordinary Chamber in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) yesterday. Four top Khmer Rouge leaders went on trial at Cambodia’s UN-backed war crimes court for genocide and other atrocities during the hard-line communist regime’s reign of terror in the 1970s. — AFP Victims upset as Khmer Rouge leader walks out PHNOM PENH: A top Khmer Rouge leader on trial for genocide and other atrocities walked out of Cambodia’s UN-backed court yesterday for a second straight day, to the dismay of survivors. “Brother Number Two” Nuon Chea, wearing a woolly hat and his trademark sunglasses, refused to stay for proceedings that will focus on preliminary legal objections by co-defendant Ieng Sary, a former foreign minister. “I will walk out and return to my detention facility,” Nuon Chea said, adding he would only return to “actively participate” when his own case was discussed.

The 84-year-old was then escorted out by three security guards. The four accused face charges including genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes over the deaths of up to two million people from starvation, overwork, torture or execution during the Khmer Rouge’s brutal 1975-79 rule. Nuon Chea’s defiant actions mirrored those on the first day of the trial on Monday, when he left the courtroom in protest at the handling of the investigation and legal proceedings, saying he was “not happy”.

The four elderly defendants are allowed to be absent if they refuse to cooperate. Their complex trial, expected to take years, is seen as vital to healing the traumatized nation’s deep scars, and the regime number two’s walkout upset Khmer Rouge survivors.

Asia maritime disputes harder to manage

WASHINGTON: Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton presents a 2011 Hero Acting to End Modern Day Slavery Award to Darlene Pajarito, a prosecutor from Zamboanga City, Philippines, coinciding with the release of the 2011 Trafficking in Persons Report on Monday. — AP

SYDNEY: Nationalism and hunger for resources are stoking maritime disputes in Indo-Pacific Asia, with China showing “troubling signs of assertiveness at sea”, an Australian think-tank warned yesterday. The Lowy Institute foreign policy group said there had been an “upsurge in confrontation at sea in Asia in recent years”, with clashes increasing in both frequency and intensity and the stakes “certainly” getting higher.

“Nationalism and resource needs, meanwhile, are reinforcing the value of territorial claims in the East and South China seas, making maritime sovereignty disputes harder to manage,” the paper said.

“Chinese forces continue to show troubling signs of assertiveness at sea, though there is debate about the origins or extent of such moves.” Expanding naval and air power meant Asia was becoming a “danger zone” for closerange encounters between competing powers, “typically in sensitive or contested” areas, Lowy warned in a new strategic study. “While the chance that such incidents will lead to major military clashes should not be overstated, the drivers-in particular China’s frictions with the United

States, Japan and India-are likely to persist and intensify.” The study, “Major Powers and Maritime Security in Indo-Pacific Asia” was prepared from wide ranging interviews with security workers and experts in China, Japan and the United States.

It cited a March 2009 confrontation between Chinese ships and the USNS Impeccable in the South China Sea off Hainan island as typical of East Asia’s modern maritime security environment. Suspecting the Impeccable of gathering intelligence on Chinese submarines, Lowy said the US ship was “shadowed and harassed” until it fled the area. Beijing has denied harassing the vessel. The incident damaged the US-China relationship and shook Asian maritime stability more generally, presaging North Korea’s sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan last March and shelling of Yeonpyeong island, Lowy said.

“Beijing’s mishandling of these issues-its refusal to blame North Korea has damaged relations with South Korea,” the think-tank said.

China’s relations with Washington were further damaged by Beijing designating its territorial claims in the South China Sea a “core” defense

interest which could require the use of force, the study found. Beijing had “encountered direct maritime mistrust with a range of other nations, notably India and some Southeast Asian neighbors” due to territorial disputes, it added. “The South China Sea is now looked upon as another strategic flashpoint in East Asia,” Lowy said. The study found Asia was ill-prepared for maritime conflict, with low levels of trust between nations and formal rules and communication channels “flimsy and little-used”.

China would only agree to confidence-building exercises when it had established trust with the other nation, while western powers including Washington saw them as necessary “precisely when trust is absent”, Lowy said. An escalation in the number and tempo of confrontations would increase the chances of an armed stand-off, diplomatic crisis or even conflict, playing into a “wider deterioration of security relations among major powers,” it said. Though currently concentrated in East Asia, Lowy said the risk of majorpower conflict could spread across the entire Indo-Pacific, with “competition between China and India at sea only a matter of time”. — AFP

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Woman sues Abercrombie over hijab SAN FRANCISCO: A former stockroom worker for Abercrombie & Fitch Co sued the clothing retailer in federal court yesterday, saying she was illegally fired after refusing to remove her Muslim headscarf while on the job. Hani Khan said a manager at the company’s Hollister Co store at the Hillsdale Mall in San Mateo hired her while she was wearing her hijab. The manager said it was OK to wear it as long as it was in company colors, Khan said. Four months later, the 20-year-old says a district manager and human resources manager asked if she could remove the hijab while working, and she was suspended and then fired for refusing to do so.

It’s the latest employment discrimination charge against the company’s so-called “look policy”, which critics say means images of mostly white, young, athletic-looking people.

The New Albany, Ohio-based company has said it does not tolerate discrimination. Still, Abercrombie has been the target of numerous discrimination lawsuits, including a federal class action brought by black, Hispanic and Asian employees and job applicants that was settled for $40 million in 2004. The company admitted no wrongdoing, though it was forced to implement new programs and poli-

Hani Khan

cies to increase diversity.

“Growing up in this country where the Bill of Rights guarantees freedom of religion, I felt let down,” Khan, now a college student studying political science, said at a news conference. “This case is about principles, the right to be able to express your religion freely and be able to work in this country.” Abercrombie defended its record in a comment provided to AP, saying diversity in its stores “far exceeds the diversity in the population of the United States.” “We comply with the law regarding reasonable religious accommodation, and we will continue to do so,” said Rocky Robbins, the company’s general counsel. “We are confident that when this matter is tried, a jury will find that we have fully complied with the law.”

The lawsuit filed in US District Court in San Francisco comes after the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled in September that Khan was fired illegally. Khan’s lawsuit was filed in conjunction with the EEOC’s lawsuit. It is not the first time the company has been charged with discriminating against Muslim women over the wearing of a hijab. In 2009, Samantha Elauf, who was 17 at the time, filed a federal lawsuit in Oklahoma, alleging the company rejected her for a job because she was wearing a hijab. That case is still ongoing.

The EEOC filed another lawsuit for the same reason, saying the company denied work to a hijab-wearing woman who applied for a stocking position in 2008 at an Abercrombie Kids store at the Great Mall in Milpitas, California.

Khan’s attorney said her client is looking to get Abercrombie to change its “look policy” to allow religious headscarves to be worn by employees, and for unspecified damages. The lawsuit alleges violations of federal and state civil rights and employment laws.

“Abercrombie prides itself on requiring what it calls a natural classic American style. But there’s nothing American about discriminating against someone because of their religion,” said Araceli Martinez-Olguin, an attorney with the Legal Aid Society-Employment Law Center.

“Such a look policy cannot be squared with our shared values. No worker should have to choose between their religion and their job.” — AP

MPs fail to approve teachers’...

Continued from Page 1 lawmakers blasted the position of their fellow MPs who refused to support the law and vowed that they will pass the law in the next term when it will only need 33 votes to pass. MP Dashti said she voted against the two laws because she did not want to contribute to the bankruptcy of Kuwait.

Also, 10 MPs filed a request calling for the Assembly to vote on a law also rejected by the government that calls for scrapping interest on loans. The Assembly will debate the request today, the last day of the current term. In today’s session, the Assembly is expected to vote on the 2011/2012 budget which is projecting the largest expenditure in Kuwait’s history despite a huge deficit.

Expenditures are projected at KD 19.7 billion after the government requested additional expenses of KD 1.77 billion on top of the spending the Cabinet approved a few months ago of KD 17.9 billion.

The Assembly’s budgets committee has unanimously rejected the draft budget, saying spending is highly inflated. The committee was supposed to meet with the finance ministry late yesterday to reduce the size.

During the debate, head of the budgets committee MP Adnan Abdulsamad said the

projected spending is highly inflated “although we had repeatedly asked the government to rationalize, but it did nothing”.

He added that MPs should be partly blamed for the increase in spending for approving laws to increase salaries.

Abdulsamad said that “ten years ago, we needed oil price to be at just $18 a barrel to meet spending, but at present, if oil price drops below $85-90, revenues will not cover our needs and we will be forced to withdraw from the reserves”.

State Minister for Cabinet Affairs Ali AlRashed said the blame for the soaring spending should be shared by the government and MPs saying that half of the budget is for paying wages. Member of the budgets committee MP Adel AlSaraawi said that wages and subsidies on power, fuel, food and others eat up around 90 percent of the budget, blaming a lack of planning. He said that spending in 2001/2002 was just KD 5 billion and now it is KD 20 billion. After 10 years, it could be KD 40 billion and oil revenues may not be enough. Liberal MP Abdulrahman Al-Anjari said that subsidies account for more than KD 4 billion or 25 percent of the expenditure, while the government’s capital spending is very small.

Dutch ban religious slaughter...

Continued from Page 1 Muslim halal and Jewish kosher laws that require animals to be fully conscious. “This way of killing causes unnecessary pain to animals. Religious freedom cannot be unlimited,” said Marianne Thieme, head of the Animal Rights Party, said before the vote. “For us religious freedom stops where human or animal suffering begins.”

In a rare show of unity, the Netherlands’ Muslim and Jewish communities - numbering about 1 million and 40,000 respectively in a total population of 16 million - have condemned the proposed ban as a violation of their religious freedom. “The very fact that there is a discussion about this is very painful for the Jewish community,” Netherlands Chief Rabbi Binyomin Jacobs told Reuters.

“Those who survived the (second world) war remember the very first law made by the Germans in Holland was the banning of schechita or the Jewish way of slaughtering animals.” Uca Octay of Rotterdam’s Islamic University said: “We will have to import halal meat from neighboring countries or find another way to meet the needs of the Muslim population.”

The law said religious groups could continue ritual slaughter if they proved it was no more painful than stunning, but it was not clear how to do this. The Jewish community has challenged a study on animal pain used to support the ban. “This is absolutely impossible to prove,” Jacobs said. “You can’t ask the animal how it feels afterwards.” Britain’s Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks visited the Netherlands last week to lobby against the law, arguing that pre-stunning failed in up to 10 percent of cases and that caused more pain than the swift cutting of the throat by a razor-sharp knife. Philip Carmel, International Relations Director for the Conference of European Rabbis in Brussels, stressed the upper house of parliament could still reject the law. “We

believe the Dutch parliament and people, who have a history of tolerance, will see sense and make the right decision,” he said.

Dutch Muslims, mostly of Turkish and Moroccan origin, have complained they felt stigmatised by the planned ban, debated amid growing support for anti-Islam populist Geert Wilders. A court cleared Wilders last week of charges of hate speech against Muslims. His Freedom Party has supported the ban.

Elbakkali Elkhammar, chairman of the Dutch Council of Imams, said that religious groups should be given the benefit of the doubt. “There are various opinions about this matter, both from Islamic jurisprudence as medical science, that sometimes approve of other protocols for ritual slaughter and sometimes forbid them,” he said in a statement.

“The solution is therefore to leave the rules unchanged. There was no reason for passing this law,” said Imam Mahmut of the El Tawheed mosque in Amsterdam. “This is a political decision. Who has the authority to determine whether the way of killing animals is good or not?”

European Union regulations require animals to be stunned before killing but allow exceptions for ritual slaughter, which the European Court of Human Rights has ruled is a religious right. Animal rights activists insist this is inhuman. Carmel said the European Parliament last week rejected a bid by animal rights advocates to have kosher and halal meat specially labelled as coming from unstunned animals.

Luxembourg, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland ban ritual slaughter. Swiss animal rights groups and far-right politicians have called for a ban on imported halal and kosher meat. Of the 500 million animals slaughtered annually for food in the Netherlands, only 1.2 million animals are slaughtered according to Muslim or Jewish traditions, Dutch statistics show. — Agencies

RAMTHA, Jordan: Jordanian female de-miners clear a minefield in the northern Jordanian-Syrian border area yesterday. The clearance project, funded by the Norwegian People’s Aid and the National Committee for Demining and Rehabilitation, started in April 2008, and aims to complete clearance of 93 minefields spanning 104 km along the border. — AP

Saudi military to start pulling out of Bahrain Continued from Page 1 Hundreds of Shiite opposition supporters and leaders have been arrested or dismissed from state jobs and universities. Last week, eight prominent opposition activists were sentenced to life in prison. On Monday, 28 doctors and nurses faced charges of taking part in the protests and spreading “false news” - which is seen as a reference to talking to foreign media.

Yesterday, defense lawyers said the 28 doctors and nurses were released from custody, although charges against them were not dropped. At least 20 health professionals, who treated injured protesters during the unrest, remain in prison. “It’s not a good atmosphere,” said Ali Salman, the leader of Wefaq, who suggested Bahrain’s rulers are

seeking dialogue to improve the country’s image as safe again for tourism and foreign investors. “They picked a date, they sent out invitations and they decided on the agenda,” Salman said. “We feel that even the result of this dialogue has already been determined.

That is a bad sign.”

Muneera Fakhro, a Sunni politician who is leading the secular Al Waad party at the talks, said the entire effort would be futile without Wefaq. “If they don’t come, then with whom will the government talk in the opposition?” she said. Even the distribution of seats points to a possible Wefaq protest boycott. Just five of the 300 seats in the talks have been set aside for Wefaq even though they represented about 60 percent of voters in parliament elections last year. Many other seats have gone to government-allied civic groups,

political societies and business representatives.

A 37-year-old engineer, who was fired from his job at a state -run company for protesting, suggested Wefaq and any other opposition party would risk losing support if it participated in the dialogue. ”We don’t trust this government, as it never cared about its own people and always broke promises,” said the engineer, who spoke on condition his name be withheld for fear of reprisals.

Still, Salman said his group will not say “no” to dialogue lightly. Currently, party representatives are meeting with supporters around Bahrain to gauge Shiite views, he said. “It’s not an easy decision,” Salman said. “We try to do our best, but we don’t hold the key to all solutions and there are a lot of bad sentiments in the community.” — AP

Iran fires missiles as war games continue Continued from Page 1 “The Americans have reduced our labours,” Hajizadeh told Fars. “Their military bases in the region are in a range of 130, 250 and maximum 700 km in Afghanistan which we can hit with these missiles.” Hossein Salami, deputy commander of the Guards, said: “We still have our fingers on the trigger, but the number of triggers has increased.”

The “Great Prophet 6” war games, to be carried out on land and sea, are a “message of peace and friendship to countries of the region,” Hajizadeh said on Monday. Asked whether Iranian missiles were a threat to Europe, Hajizadeh told IRNA that while Iran had the technological capacity to build longer-range missiles, the 2,000-km range had been chosen precisely with Israel and US bases in mind.

“Except America and the Zionist regime, we do not feel a threat from any other country,” he said.

Also yesterday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry summoned the Hungarian ambassador, whose country holds the European Union’s rotating presidency, to protest against sanctions slapped by the bloc on three high-ranking Revolutionary Guards officials. The EU accused the three of supporting Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad’s suppression of anti-government protests and added their names on Friday to a blacklist that imposes travel restrictions and freezes assets. The Guards also unveiled new underground ballistic missile silos which they said would reduce launch times as missiles would not need to be moved prior to being launched. “The silos are a part of the swift reaction unit of the missile brigade, missiles are stored vertically, ready to be launched against pre-determined targets,” Fars quoted Hajizadeh as saying.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said Iran’s military capability

was for purely defensive purposes but the country is happy if its show of strength rattles the West. “The Westerners’ concern is a source of delight for us, because we will not allow any country to have a greedy approach towards our country’s interests and territorial integrity,” Mehmanparast said. “If all the regional states had the highest defensive capability the Zionist regime would have never allowed itself to carry out an act of aggression.”

Mehmanparast also urged Russia to make good on a delivery of S-300 surface-to-air missiles to Iran. “This missile system is for defensive purposes, therefore, it is not included in the illegal sanctions ... We are expecting Russia to follow up the bilateral commitments more seriously.” Moscow unilaterally suspended the delivery of S-300s after the United States and Israel expressed concern that Iran could use the anti-aircraft missiles to shield its nuclear facilities. — Reuters

Kuwait approves mega oil projects Continued from Page 1 Kuwait ’s four th refin er y ha d b e e n expected to start up in 2016 at an estimated cost of about KD 4 billion ($15 billion).

The SPC approval granted late on Monday

is a major step forward for a project that has been repeatedly delayed by a stand-off between the National Assembly and government.

Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC) operates the country’s three exist-

ing refineries. The two projects are projected to raise Kuwait’s refining capacity to 1.4 million barrels per day from the current 930,000 bpd. When the two projects are complete, Kuwait plans to shut the third of its three existing refineries. — Agencies

Lagarde named IMF chief Continued from Page 1 July 5, 2011,” the Fund said in a statement.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s office declared it a “victory for France”. Since the race began in late May, 55-year-old Lagarde has been the strong favorite over Carstens, Mexico’s central bank chief, despite his formidable resume.

Despite an effort to cobble together a developing world challenge to Europe’s lock on the job, key emerging economies were persuaded by Lagarde’s lobbying to cast in for her. And few had expected Washington to break the tacit pact, dating to the founding of the International Monetary Fund and sister

institution the World Bank, that an American would run the Bank while a European headed the Fund.

The 187-nation Fund, which plays a crucial but often controversial role aiding countries in financial straits, was left reeling after Strauss-Kahn resigned in the middle of tense negotiations over Greece’s massive bailout and anxiety over other struggling European economies. Strauss-Kahn, the IMF chief since 2007, was arrested in New York on allegations that he sexually assaulted a hotel chambermaid. He denies the charges, and remains under house arrest while preparing his defense.

With their crisis festering, Europe’s powers

aggressively put forward Lagarde. Though not an economist, she has gained wide respect as France’s point-woman during its leadership of the G20 as well as in European debt talks. “The big advantage of Christine Lagarde is representing a continuity in the cooperation between the Fund and the eurozone,” said a source close to the IMF. Nevertheless, Lagarde had to tour the world to convince emerging economic powers like China and India that she would not be too biased to take tough stances on the European bailouts. “I am not here to represent the interest of any given region of the world, but rather the entire membership,” she told the IMF board last week. — AFP

14

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 29, 2011

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Issues

Afghan bank furore fuels war doubts

By Sardar Ahmad

T

he Afghan central bank chief’s resignation and flight to the United States will fuel foreign anger about the cost in blood and treasure of the war effort as US-led troops begin to leave, experts said. Abdul Qadir Fitrat, the chairman of Da Afghanistan Bank, claimed in media interviews that a scandal over fraud-hit Kabul Bank, which is linked to influential figures close to the government, had put his life in danger. Analysts in Kabul say the fresh twist in the long-running saga will again spark doubts over the price of the decade-long, US-dominated effort in Afghanistan and the probity of President Hamid Karzai’s government.

“From the public point of view in the West, they will ask questions about this, very legitimate questions on the part of the taxpayers,” said Najeeb Azizi, an economics lecturer at the American University of Afghanistan. He said the current crisis showed “how fragile the Afghan state is” and how much support Afghanistan still needs from the international community. “There’s no doubt, this country cannot be left on its own,” he added.

With the transition from foreign to Afghan forces due to start in some areas from next month and 10,000 US troops leaving this year, Western officials say now is the time for Karzai’s government to show it can govern well. But some experts predict that Fitrat’s resignation is likely to hurt the government’s already battered reputation and could further hit sharply diminished aid flows to the desperately poor country. “This will worsen the reputation of the government of Afghanistan with the donor community,” said Gran Hewad of the Afghanistan Analysts Network think-tank in Kabul, predicting a “reduction of aid” as a result.

Fitrat has named high-profile figures who were allegedly involved in a corruption scandal amounting to nearly $1 billion at Kabul Bank, Afghanistan’s biggest lender whose co-founders include a brother of Karzai. Fitrat’s central bank took over the lender last year after claims that executives had given themselves secret loans that were partly used for a property-buying spree in the Gulf emirate of Dubai.

Even before Fitrat fled, disagreements between Kabul and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) over Afghanistan’s handling of the bank crisis led to the withholding of hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign aid. The IMF refused to renew its loan program for Afghanistan last September, triggering doubts among other donors that their aid would be well used. The international lender has since indicated that the start of a new program is linked to a satisfactory resolution of the Kabul Bank crisis.

Some Western officials in Kabul warn that Afghanistan could run out of money as early as next month as a result of the scandal. Others say that Afghan officials could find a way to tide themselves over by reallocating funds. Hewad said the departure of Fitrat could make the banking situation harder to fix in the long term and urged the IMF to show more flexibility. “This is a new state, a democracy, a new free-market economy,” he said. “The position that the IMF has taken is increasing the fragility of the situation,” he said.

“They must be more flexible and take a more supportive (stance) than they have until now.”

Kabul University economics professor Sayed Massoud said that regardless of what happens, the Afghan people would be the real losers. “The Kabul Bank issue is not an economic problem, it’s rather a political-economical problem that has brought numerous issues before the country,” he said. “ The ones that suffer the most are the Afghan people.” — AFP

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.

Karzai pulling strings in parliament crisis

By Sardar Ahmad

A

row over alleged vote fraud has dragged Afghanistan back into a political crisis which critics blame on President Hamid Karzai, weeks before foreign troops start pulling out after ten years of war. The dispute has paralysed parliament and raises fresh questions about Karzai’s leadership, with one expert describing it as a “game” by the president designed to neuter opposition. It comes as Karzai falls under more scrutiny than ever, with 10,000 United States troops leaving Afghanistan this year and Afghan forces and officials taking increasing responsibility for their own country from July.

Some lawmakers are threatening huge protests after a Karzai-backed special tribunal last week moved to throw out 62 lawmakers, a quarter of the 249-seat lower house Wolesi Jirga, over alleged ballot-rigging in polls last September. “Preparations are already underway we’ll organise massive demonstrations,” said Mohammad Tahir Zuhair from the northern province of Samangan, who will lose his seat if the tribunal’s ruling is implemented. “From four directions of Kabul, we will march on the gates of the presidential palace and will stay there until Karzai gives up on this.”

The special tribunal’s decision has already prompted members of parliament to pass a vote of no confidence Saturday in the country’s top judge, the attorney general and four other members of the supreme court.

Highlighting the tensions, attorney general Mohammad Ishaq Alako, a long-time Karzai ally, dismissed the parliament’s decisions as “illegal” and vowed to enforce the court’s verdict - using force if necessary. Lawmakers have also appealed to the United Nations for assistance, prompting Karzai’s spokesman Waheed Omer to say that any foreign “interference” in the situation “will be considered a violation of national sovereignty.”

The issue of the special tribunal has been hanging over Afghan politics for months. Despite elections being held last September, parliament was only inaugurated in January after a lengthy stand-off between Karzai and his opponents was resolved by a fragile truce. Now that

the special tribunal has delivered its verdict, the whole issue has again flared up at a crucial point. Western officials in Kabul repeatedly stress that, in order for the switch from foreign to Afghan security control and governance to work amid a deadly insurgency, Afghan leaders have to step up and take more responsibility.

Experts, though, accuse Karzai of playing politics with the parliament, even though a number of his allies could lose their seats. “It’s a Karzai game,” said Kabul-based analyst Haroun Mir. “Karzai had problems with the previous parliament which was relatively powerful. It had become a headache for him and he didn’t want that to happen again.”

Thomas Ruttig of the Afghanistan Analysts Network said the stand-off had thrown parliament’s standing into question, to the president’s advantage. “The legitimacy of this second post-Taleban parliament of the ‘new democratic’ Afghanistan has been destroyed for good,” he wrote this week. “The winner again - is Karzai. The losers are those who want a functioning Afghanistan, governed not ruled.”

The row also threatens to hold up crucial decisions by parliament to tackle the Kabul Bank scandal, which has seen hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign aid withheld this year. The lender was taken over last year by Afghanistan’s central bank after claims that executives had granted themselves off-the-book loans worth a reported $900 million, partly used to buy luxury properties in Dubai. But in the view of the losing candidates who the special tribunal’s ruling would benefit if implemented, the court is only making sure that the right outcome is reached.

Zuhair, a sociologist, could lose his seat to Ahmad Khan Samangani, a powerful warlord and ex-militia commander, if the tribunal has its way.

Samangani’s 20,000 votes were initially deemed fraudulent by the election authorities but now the court has ruled they should be given back. “Justice is done now,” Samangani, who has led massive protests

against the cancellation of his votes, told AFP. “My votes were clean and transparent. I’m happy that justice was done for me.” — AFP

After Laden, militants flood net with threats

By William Maclean

M

ilitants mourning Osama bin Laden have stepped up threats against targets in the West, taking their cue from an Al-Qaeda statement that followers in the United States and Europe are “perfectly placed” to strike. The network’s globally scattered online followers spent much of June compiling lists of possible targets including Western companies, business leaders and politicians on password-protected Islamist forums, Westernbased experts who monitor the websites say.

Western companies, especially those with military links, seem a particular target, analysts say.

Such “wish lists” do not represent actual plots, since participants suspect, probably with good reason, that the forums are closely monitored by state intelligence agencies. Nor have the militants tended to couch their comments specifically as vengeance for bin Laden’s May 2 killing by US forces in Pakistan - the notion of retaliation is in any case a given among admirers of the group’s founding figurehead. Instead militants appear to be responding to a June 2 video appeal by Al-Qaeda core leaders for individuals in the West to carry on bin Laden’s work with “do-it-yourself” strikes on targets using whatever means, no matter how primitive.

“Muslims in the West have to remember that they are perfectly placed to play an important and decisive part in the jihad against the Zionists and Crusaders,” Al-Qaeda official Adam Gadahn says in the video, entitled “You Are Responsible Only For Yourself”. “Take America as an example. America is absolutely awash with easily obtainable firearms ... What are you waiting for?” The video statement also called on militants to develop the Internet skills to attack the West in cyberspace.

Following the video, participants in several forums began to compile lists of dozens of

potential targets including Western corporations and executives they said militants should assassinate.

They included several Western arms makers, oil companies, banks and media companies and former US President George W Bush and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, according to the US-based Site Monitoring Service. The compiling of wish lists of targets is nothing new on the forums. But the large volume of stated targets, and an emphasis on private companies and their leaders, has drawn attention among security officials.

In a study of the threats, the Londonbased Exclusive Analysis risk forecasting company said there was a small risk of “selfstarter jihadis selecting a target from the published list for a small-scale attack, if it is opportune in the area where

the individual or small group is active”. But it added that the large number of targets named would “likely” dilute any associated risks, and there were few precedents for a forum discussion inciting an actual attack. To date, most attacks purportedly motivated by bin Laden’s death have happened in Pakistan, where Al-Qaedaaligned armed groups have waged a bloody insurgency against the government for years. Earlier on Monday, one of these groups, the Pakistan Taliban, threatened to carry out a series of attacks in the West to avenge bin Laden.

But the AlQaeda video, which also features top AlQaeda strategist Abu Yahya al-Libi, is an endorsement of a strategy of using “lone wolf” militants pioneered notably

by Al-Qaeda’s Yemenbased arm, security analysts say. AlQaeda in the

Arabian Peninsula has encouraged several militants in the West to stage attacks over the past two years, including a mass killing at an US military base, a failed attempt to down a US airliner over Detroit, a stabbing of a British politician and a plot to blow up a US-bound plane.

Approval of what militants call “individual jihad” is a notable development for AlQaeda, because its core leaders, believed to be hiding in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area, have long been believed to favour much more complex, team-based plots like the Sept. 11 attacks of 2001. Exclusive Analysis noted that while forum discussions usually did not precipitate actual attacks, several forum members had engaged in militant activity in the past. The most prominent example is a member of the now defunct Al-Hisba forum, Humam Khalil AlBalawi, who killed seven CIA operatives in a suicide bombing at a US base in Khost, Afghanistan, on Dec 30, 2009.

Henry Wilkinson of Janusian security consultants said the threats were the first time that businesses had been put “so closely in the crosshairs” of Al-Qaeda and similar groups. It was not possible to infer reliably that there was a specific threat to a named target, and the adoption of a strategy of lone wolf attacks could reasonably be seen as a tacit admission of weakness by Al-Qaeda, he said. Nevertheless, companies named by militants would be concerned that they were mentioned in the forums, he said. The stated intention of the list produced by users of the prominent Shumukh al-Islam forum, according to a translation of the threats by Exclusive Analysis, is to have it “approved by jihadi leaders ... then after the approval, we will add detailed reports with titles, telephone numbers and mail addresses which we will send booby-trapped parcels to”. — Reuters

15

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 29, 2011

analysis

Palestinian unity proves elusive

By Nidal Al-Mughrabi

T

wo months after announcing a surprise reconciliation deal to end years of feuding, rival Palestinian groups Hamas and Fatah remain at loggerheads, unable to implement even the easiest parts of their accord. A senior Hamas official blamed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday for the deadlock, accusing him of being inflexible over who should head the planned unity government. Abbas’s Fatah movement said discussions continued, but conceded that there were no toplevel meetings scheduled to resolve an issue that officials on both sides had predicted would be sorted out within days of their April 27 accord.

With the reconciliation drive at an apparent standstill, Abbas is continuing to push ahead with his move to secure United Nations recognition of Palestinian statehood in September. But analysts said the political deadlock would raise tensions in the Palestinian Territories and augured ill for the future of relations between the Islamist group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, and Abbas’s mainly secular Fatah, which holds sway in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. “I did not believe that this reconciliation would go anywhere from the word go,” said political analyst Hani Habib. “The problems are not just about one person. The problem is that there is no willingness on the side of Hamas or Fatah to bring about reconciliation on the ground,” he added.

Forging Palestinian unity was regarded as crucial to giving credibility to the push for independence, and in a deal brokered by Egypt, Fatah and Hamas agreed to create a government of independents to

start preparing for long-delayed elections. Abbas has insisted that Salam Fayyad, an internationally respected former World Bank economist, should remain prime minister of any future administration.

Hamas, which is shunned by the West for refusing to recognise Israel

signed the reconciliation accord which stated that choosing the prime minister and the ministers would be done through agreement,” he added.

Fatah insists the president can nominate his own prime minister and officials say in private that

nates, so too apparently has a US push to revive peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

A round of secret meetings with US envoys aimed at getting the two parties back round the table has not yet achieved any breakthrough and Abbas reaffirmed on Sunday

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas attends a meeting of the Palestinian leadership on June 26, 2011 in the West Bank city of Ramallah, where he said he was still determined to go to the Gaza Strip, despite hitches in reconciliation talks with Hamas and that the Palestinians would pursue their unilateral bid for recognition in September. – AFP and failing to renounce violence, wants a new figurehead and neither side shows any sign of backing down.

Senior Hamas leader Khalil AlHayya said on Monday Abbas “has no right” to stick to Fayyad. “We

Abbas is eager to keep Fayyad to allay Western concerns over any alliance with Hamas, which is branded a terrorist organisation by the United States and the European Union.

As the reconciliation pact stag-

that he planned to win the Palestinians UN recognition this coming September. “I have said we will go to the United Nations if negotiations fail,” Abbas told a meeting of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, which is dominated

by his Fatah group. “So far we have not received any project to resume the negotiations ... and will therefore go to the United Nations to get a resolution for Palestine to be a member of this international institution.”

A Palestinian envoy told Reuters diplomats had been banned from taking holidays in the coming weeks as they prepare for their UN offensive, with delegations due to visit a number of countries to try to win backing for the September initiative. Although well over 100 countries are expected to back the Palestinians, the United States has made clear it intends to veto any resolution brought before the UN Security Council - a move likely to doom efforts to secure full UN membership. Hamas has dismissed the UN manoeuvring, warning it would not bring any joy to Palestinians. “Whoever bets on a mirage will harvest failure,” Hayya said on Monday.

While endorsing the UN mission, some Fatah officials openly fret that failure to implement the Hamas reconciliation deal could lead to a backlash on the streets. While turmoil has swept much of the Arab world this year, the Palestinian Territories have been relatively quiet. However, just before the April 27 accord was unveiled, protests bubbled up in both the West Bank and Gaza to demand an end to the Hamas/Fatah schism.

Locals say failure to follow through on their public commitments could inflame passions. “If no prime minister is named shortly, the people won’t believe their politicians any more. They will think they have been taken for a ride and we will soon see demonstrations,” senior Fatah official Sabri Saidam said in Ramallah. — Reuters

Egypt rejection of IMF may slow recovery

By Patrick Werr

E

gypt’s decision to scrap plans to borrow from the International Monetary Fund may slow an economic recovery, delay a solution to a potential fiscal crisis and make it harder for future governments to access credit. Egypt had sealed a $3 billion dollar financial package on June 5 to shore up its finances after the protests that ended Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule scared away tourists and investors, two of its main sources of foreign exchange. But over the weekend, Finance Minister Samir Radwan said Egypt would not need to borrow from the IMF or the World Bank, which had also offered a large lending package, asserting that the shortfall could now be covered locally and from foreign aid.

“It is totally unwise for them to refuse this IMF money,” said one Western banker.

“Even if they had been promised (funds) from other sources to fill external and fiscal gaps, it would have been a lot better for them to depend on the IMF.” He said IMF guidance would have reassured other investors. But Egypt’s ruling army council, which took control after Mubarak, may be reluctant to be tied even to the lenient terms offered by the IMF as it seeks to avoid any foreign interference after Egyptians toppled Mubarak who had close ties to the West.

Egyptian credit default swaps were trading at 308.7 on Tuesday, up from 304.7 on Friday, according to data provider Markit.

They rose as high as 441 in late January as

the revolt against Mubarak was growing.

The yield on Egypt’s 5.75 percent, 10-year dollar bond was at 5.759 percent, up from 5.701 on Friday. “There has been an increase in a nationalistic attitude, ‘we can do it ourselves’,” said one Western diplomat, who declined to be named because of the political sensitivities.

The government forecasts that its revised budget will cut the deficit for the fiscal year star ting July 1 to 8.6 percent of gross domestic product from a previously predicted 11 percent, but has given few details of how it will achieve this. Economists questioned whether it could narrow the deficit at a time when the economic slowdown has cut tax revenue and when calls for higher wages from state employees and for higher subsidies on basic commodities are piling on spending pressure. A parliamentary election in September is adding political uncertainty to investors’ concerns.

The Finance Ministry said this month the economy contracted in the first six months of 2011 and was likely to grow only 3.2 percent in the 2011/12 financial year, compared with the 6 percent growth that Mubarak’s government had predicted. “The current fiscal forecasts are based on this notion that they will increase their revenues, and also they’ll be able to maintain their expenditures. Time will tell if this would work,” said John Sfakianakis, an economist with Banque Saudi Fransi. “It’s a first forecast, and usually the first forecast by anybody tends to be either an overshoot or an undershoot.”

Egypt approached the IMF and interna-

tional donors in early May to help it plug an estimated $11 billion balance of payments gap in 2011/12 caused by the political turmoil. Later in May it approved a budget for 2011/12 that boosted spending by a quarter, partly to help the poor. Then it sealed its $3 billion IMF pact in June to help fund the deficit. Donor sources said the terms of the deal were among the easiest ever approved by the IMF, with Egypt repaying the funds in between 3-1/4 and five years at a variable interest rate starting at 1-1/2 percent. The finance minister described the terms as “extremely lenient. They didn’t put conditions, they put benchmarks.”

But he told Reuters that budget revisions, agreed after a national dialogue and reflecting the army council’s concerns about passing a big debt burden to the next government, meant the funds would no longer be needed to finance the deficit, which would be covered locally and from foreign commitments. He said Egypt, as a member of the IMF, had the right to return to the Fund in future. “What we are doing now is getting technical assistance from them,” he added.

The IMF’s board had been due to meet to approve the deal in mid-July, with the first tranche of funds made available the same day and subsequent tranches paid quarterly over 12 months. Egypt had initially said it wanted the cash as soon as possible.

Economists said the funds would have underpinned a state-led fiscal stimulus when poor business confidence and a slow economy mean business is unwilling or

unable to boost its activity and when the official unemployment rate has surged to nearly 12 percent.

“It was important to get external assistance as soon as possible and it seemed to me the IMF and World Bank had committed a fair amount of money,” said Cem Akyurek, an economist with Deutsche Bank. “So it was important for Egypt to get the money as quickly as possible to start a recovery.”

Instead, by chopping spending and raising taxes, the government could reduce the amount of income tax it will collect over the coming year, casting doubt on its fiscal projections. “The question is, is the deficit really reduced? Because it could also be window dressing. We don’t know yet where the lowering of the deficit comes from. But even if it turns out to be real deficit reduction, it’s not necessarily good for the economy,” said a Western diplomat.

Diplomats and economists say the World Bank and other international donors, as well as commercial banks, usually look to the IMF as a seal of approval for lending to governments. The World Bank had said it would offer $4.5 billion over the next 24 months, including $1 billion to help cover next year’s budget shortfall.

It now says it will review the plans after Egypt said it no longer wanted the IMF money. Egypt on June 9 had also requested funds from the European Union for microfinance assistance designed to complement the IMF program, but if no IMF agreement is signed these will not be made available, the diplomat said. — Reuters

Violence feared after key Thai elections

By Didier Lauras

T

he divisions that plague Thai society will deepen further after Sunday’s election unless arch-enemies within the political realm agree to respect the verdict of the polls, analysts say. Ahead of the July 3 vote which is crucial to the future of the Southeast Asian nation, few observers expect the winner will be able to quietly take power for a four-year term and face opposition merely from within parliament. The election is largely a battle between the establishment-backed, ruling Democrats led by Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, and the opposition Puea Thai, spearheaded from exile by former premier Thaksin Shinawatra.

Five years on from a military coup that deposed Thaksin and triggered years of bloody political crisis, the billionaire remains a figure who crystallises debate in Thailand, where he is still both widely adored and hated. Two major political movements have formed around his personality: the antiThaksin, royalist “Yellow Shir ts” tacitly backed by the nation’s elites, and the largely working-class and rural “Red Shirts” who are his loyalists.

The years since Thaksin’s expulsion from power have been marked by mass street rallies by both movements. Last year the Reds brought Bangkok to a standstill with a two month-long demonstration that drew an estimated 100,000 people at its peak, and ended in an army crackdown that left more than 90 people dead. Many observers fear a resurgence of street demonstrations over the coming months. “This election will lead to more violence and unrest because no matter who forms the next government, be it the Puea Thai or be it the Democrats, there will be protesters in the streets opposing these parties,”

said Paul Chambers, a senior research fellow at Payap University in northern Chiang Mai city. “That means that neither party can really claim legitimacy, a mandate from the entire Thai people.”

Another factor is the country’s long tradition of electoral irregularities. Only one inter-

tary, because of the buying of voters, because of stuffing of the ballots, all of that can happen - that could cause the losing side to take to the streets.”

Thailand’s army is frequently cited by analysts in possible worst case scenarios that could engulf the nation: their intervention to

A Thai street food vendor stands amid electoral posters in Bangkok yesterday. – AFP national monitoring group, and no foreign governments, will send observers to polling stations. Aswin Kongsiri, a Thai businessman on the board of several companies and the Stock Exchange of Thailand, said it was very important that the elections were seen to be “as fair as possible”. “If one side believes it is unfair, because of the intervention of the mili-

overthrow Thaksin in 2006 was just the latest of 18 actual or attempted coups since 1932.

Thaksin’s youngest sister Yingluck, a 44-yearold political novice and businesswoman, is the opposition’s candidate for premier.

Smiling and photogenic, she has quickly gathered momentum and taken the lead over Abhisit in the polls, including even in the cap-

ital - the establishment’s heartland. She is expected to clinch a minority win which would give her the chance to try to form a coalition government.

But the question remains whether Thailand’s elite would accept the return of Thaksin’s allies to power. His party has raised the possibility of a general amnesty for politicians, which would pave the way for his homecoming. From his base in Dubai, the former telecoms tycoon has repeatedly expressed his keenness to attend his daughter’s wedding in Thailand in December - a prospect that horrifies the elites. “It’s time to get rid of the poison of Thaksin,” Abhisit told a campaign rally recently, pointedly held at the main site of last year’s rival Red Shirt demonstration. If voters did not support the ruling party, “in the future Thai people will be held hostage by people who love violence,” Abhisit added, marking an aggressive turn in the campaign with a willingness to demonise the opposition. Among the scenarios that could prevent Thaksin’s allies from taking power would be a court decision that disqualified them from ruling. The Democrats could also put pressure on minority parties to refuse to work with Yingluck. A third politician from a minority group, not subservient to either of the two major parties, could also exploit the divisions to manoeuvre himself into the key post.

But beyond the partisan negotiations, the crucial player is the rich and powerful army.

“We must accept political reality,” said Pichai Chuensuksawadi, editor in chief of the Bangkok Post daily. “The military through the decade, in various degrees, has played a political role despite public declarations”, he said.

For the country to move forward, if the Puea Thai wins on Sunday, “an understanding needs to be reached with the military”. — AFP

Focus

Carrier will add to Asia tensions but no threat yet

By Ben Blanchard

C

hina’s expected launch soon of its first aircraft carrier will add to a growing military clout just as other powers in Asia are becoming uneasy about Beijing’s more strident claims over disputed seas in the region. In practical terms, though, it is likely to take the Chinese navy years to have a credible carrier operation in Asia’s seas, which have largely been the domain of the US navy since World War Two. The former Soviet carrier, once destined to become a floating casino, is part of President Hu Jintao’s push to modernise the navy and could be presented to the world as soon as this week to coincide with the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party on July 1.

China is already busy upgrading its destroyers and submarines to sail further and strike harder, building a “blue water” navy to project power far from its shores and to protect the sea lanes on which its trade-reliant economy depends. An aircraft carrier fits neatly into that strategy. It could end up being based in the southern island province of Hainan, which sits strategically atop the disputed and potentially energy-rich South China Sea. “It will be the clearest possible signal that China intends to operate at sea in a sustained fashion,” said Dean Cheng, a China security expert at the Washington-based Heritage Foundation.

“Given the ongoing tensions in the South China Sea, it is an unmistakable signal to Manila, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, as well as Hanoi and any other regional capitals that the Chinese are serious when they describe their maritime territories as ‘blue soil,’” he added. “Indeed, given the rising tensions, this is something that can be expected to ratchet up tensions.” Other powers in Asia are already alarmed at China’s growing military prowess - defence spending is growing fast and in January it confirmed it had held its first test flight of the J-20 stealth fighter jet. In recent weeks, China has been flexing its muscles more aggressively in the South China Sea, where a territorial dispute with Taiwan and several Southeast Asian nations, including Vietnam and the Philippines, has festered for years. Australian policy think tank the Lowy Institute warned yesterday that risks are growing incidents at sea involving China could lead to war in Asia, drawing in the United States and other powers.

Earlier this month, Chen Bingde, chief of the People’s Liberation Army’s general staff, confirmed via Hong Kong media that the country was indeed building a carrier. The 300-m Varyag is undergoing refit at a state-run shipyard in northeastern city Dalian, sources have told Reuters. Images of the rust-stained ex-Soviet ship have appeared on Chinese websites, apparently being refitted. A Chinese firm bought the thenengineless Varyag from Ukraine in 1998 for $20 million, planning to convert it into a floating casino in Macau, but it then ended up in the hands of China’s military.

China says it needs to upgrade its outmoded forces and that its plans are not a threat to any country, pointing out that its defence budget is far lower than the United States. Beijing in March said it would boost defence spending by 12.7 percent in 2011, for a total of 601.1 billion yuan ($92 billion), marking a return to double-digit growth. The cost of building a medium-sized conventionally powered, 60,000-tonne carrier similar to the Russian Kuznetsov class is likely to be more than $2 billion. China is likely to acquire at least two, sources say.

But China, which would be the third Asian country to have a carrier after India and Thailand, needs hardware, software and pilot training in order for the ship to present a credible deterrence. Chinese pilots have yet to master takeoffs and landings from carriers, and it is far from certain what aircraft would use it as a base. While they have been undergoing training, they have far fewer flying hours than their US peers and are in any case considered by analysts to be far more poorly trained overall.

“It could take up to five more years before you could say that thing is operationally deployed and then they have to learn how to do carrier battle group operations,” said Richard Bitzinger, a senior fellow and regional defence expert at Singapore’s S Rajaratnam School of International Studies. “The bottom line is, it’s going to take them a long time before they can say they have a fully operational carrier, and it’s going to take them a lot longer before they can actually say that PLA is a carrier-based navy.”

For Beijing, the rationale of an aircraft carrier is more than just about modernising a navy whose most notable engagements of the past few years have been skirmishes in the South China Sea with some of the other claimant nations. China’s sending of naval vessels further afield, to the waters off Somalia to fight pirates, and through the southern Japanese islands, has also partly been about ensuring trade routes are protected.

“We are a major trading nation and need to have the ability to ensure the security of the sea lanes,” said Xu Guangyu, a retired major general in the People’s Liberation Army who now works for the government-run China Arms Control and Disarmament Association. “(The carrier) is hardly going to be used to attack Tokyo, New Delhi or Hanoi”, he added.

To complain about the country’s naval air ambitions smacked of hypocrisy, Xu said. “The United States has 11 aircraft carriers and nobody makes a fuss about them ... But it will take time for other countries to become used to the idea of China having an aircraft carrier.” — Reuters

A

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WEDNESDAY, JUNE 29, 2011

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Former City captain dies LONDON: Former Manchester City and England international Mike D o y l e h a s d i e d a g e d 6 4 a f t e r b e i n g t re a t e d fo r l i v e r f a i l u r e, Manchester City said yesterday. Doyle was part of the City team that won the English League title in 1968, the FA Cup in 1969, and the European Cup Winners Cup and League Cups in 1970.

He scored City’s first goal in the 1970 2-1 win over West Bromwich Albion and skippered their 1976 League Cup winning side against Newcastle United, their last major honour until they won the FA Cup last month against Stoke City.

He is the third member of City’s successful team of that era to die in the past nine months following the deaths of coach Malcolm Allison last October and Neil Young, the scorer of the winning goal in the 1969 Cup final, in February. Doyle, a midfielder or defender, played more than 550 times for City between 1962 and 1978 and also won five England caps.—Reuters

Asian viewership grows SINGAPORE: Japan, China and South Korea fuelled the surge in the appetite for Asian football, viewership data of the 2011 Asian Cup revealed yesterday. The tournament’s viewership in Japan grew from 131 million in the previous edition to nearly 210 million, while the number improved from 29.5 million to 41 million in South Korea.

The total viewership in China, despite their national team’s early exit, was 156.6 million, according to a report collated by the CSM Media Research.

Japanese and Koreans made up just over half of the 63 million viewers who watched the semi-final between the two traditional Asian football rivals.

The final, in which Japan beat Australia

1-0, was the second most watched match of the tournament with 54.4 million viewers.

“The AFC Asian Cup 2011 delivered top class football and the significant television viewership achieved reaffirms its position as the top sporting event in Asia,” said Pierre Kakhia, president of World Sport Group (West Asia), the Asian Football Confederation’s (AFC) marketing and media partner.

“Asian football fans are incredibly passionate about their national teams and we are delighted to have delivered record multiplatform and live coverage for the fans as well as our marketing and broadcast partners across the Asia-Pacific region and most of the world.”—Reuters

Australia appoints Rixon as new fielding coach SYDNEY: Former Test wicketkeeper Steve Rixon has been appointed Australia’s new fielding coach and promised to set new standards for a country which has lost its reputation as the world’s best in that department. Rixon, who played 13 tests and six one-dayers for Australia in the late 1970s and early 1980s before going on to coach New Zealand and New South Wales, will accompany the team on tours of Sri Lanka and South Africa over the next six months.

Once one of their greatest strengths, the decline in Australia’s fielding standards contributed to their humiliating Ashes defeat at the turn of the year. “Fielding skills play such an important role in the modern game and often proves the difference between winning and losing,” Rixon, 57, said in a news release. —Reuters

Reds blank Rays, Indians win ST. PETERSBURG: Jonny Gomes homered against his old team to help the Cincinnati Reds to a 5-0 win over the Tampa Bay Rays in Major League Baseball interleague play on Monday.

Gomes, the former Rays’ outfielder playing at Tropicana Field for the first time since becoming a free agent after the 2008 season, hit a solo shot during a tworun four th that made it 4-0.

Brandon Phillips, who had four hits and two RBIs, added a runscoring single later in the inning.

Reds starter Mike Leake (7-4) went six scoreless innings with three strikeouts.

Rays starter Jeremy Hellickson (7-7) lost his fourth consecutive start, giving up four runs in six innings. Over his skid, Tampa Bay has been outscored 20-1.

SEATTLE: Mariners’ Ichiro Suzuki strikes out against the Atlanta Braves in the first inning of a baseball game.—AP

MLB results/standings Major League Baseball results and standings on Monday: Chicago Cubs 7, Colorado 3; Detroit 4, Toronto 2; Cincinnati 5, Tampa Bay 0; LA Dodgers 15, Minnesota 0; Cleveland 5, Arizona 4; LA Angels 4, Washington 3 (10 innings); San Diego 4, Kansas City 3; Atlanta 3, Seattle 1.

Philadelphia Atlanta Washington NY Mets Florida

National League Eastern Division 49 30 .620 45 35 .563 40 39 .506 39 39 .500 34 44 .436

Milwaukee St. Louis Cincinnati Pittsburgh Chicago Cubs Houston

Central Division 44 35 .557 41 38 .519 41 39 .513 39 38 .506 32 46 .410 28 51 .354

San Francisco Arizona Colorado LA Dodgers San Diego

Western Division 44 34 .564 43 37 .538 2 38 40 .487 6 36 44 .450 9 35 45 .438 1

American League Eastern Division NY Yankees Boston Tampa Bay Toronto Baltimore

W 45 45 44 39 35

L 31 32 35 40 40

PCT .592 .584 .557 .494 .467

GB 0.5 2.5 7.5 9.5

Detroit Cleveland Chicago W Sox Kansas City Minnesota

Central Division 43 36 .544 41 36 .532 38 41 .481 33 46 .418 32 45 .416

Texas LA Angels Seattle Oakland

Western Division 41 38 .519 40 40 .500 1.5 39 40 .494 2 35 44 .443 6

1 5 10 10

4.5 9 9.5 14.5 3 3.5 4 11.5 16

Indians 5, D’backs 4 In Phoenix, Orlando Cabrera homered with two outs in the ninth inning to give Cleveland a dramatic win over Arizona. snapped a three-game losing streak.

Cabrera, who entered the game in the seventh inning in a double switch, just cleared the fence in left field after Arizona had tied the game with Kelly Johnson’s RBI triple in the eighth.

Diamondbacks pitcher J.J. Putz (4-3) got two outs before giving up the home run.

Cleveland’s Rafael Perez (3-1) struck out the only batter he faced in the eighth to get the victory. Chris Perez threw a scoreless ninth for his 19th save in 20 opportunities.

Braves 3, Mariners 1 In Seattle, Freddie Freeman hit a tiebreaking two-run homer in the seventh inning that lifted Atlanta over Seattle. Mariners starter Erik Bedard (4-6) fooled most of the Braves lineup before trying to sneak a high fastball past Freeman.

Freeman’s homer made a winner out of Brandon Beachy (3-1), who struck out nine in six strong innings before turning it over to the Braves’ stellar bullpen.

Bedard was a hard-luck loser, notching his 12th straight start giving up three earned runs or less.

Angels 4, Nationals 3 In Anaheim, Maicer Izturis hit a bases-loaded single in the 10th inning to give Los Angeles a win that spoiled Davey Johnson’s debut as Washington manager.

SAN DIEGO: Kansas City Royals catcher Brayan Pena is slammed into by San Diego Padres’ Chase Headley in the third inning of a baseball game.—AP Sean Burnett (3-4) gave up a oneout single to Alberto Callaspo and a ground-rule double to Peter Bourjos — his fourth hit of the game — before an intentional walk set the stage for Izturis.

Scott Downs (5-2) got the victory with a hitless inning. The Angels were one out from winning in the ninth when closer Jordan Walden gave up a firstpitch homer to Danny Espinosa — the rookie’s third straight blown save. Johnson, who takes over the Nationals after Jim Riggleman’s abrupt resignation, is managing his fifth big league club at age 68 after stints with the Mets (1984-90), Reds (199395), Orioles (1996-97) and Dodgers (1999-2000).

Tigers 4, Blue Jays 2 In Detroit, Jhonny Peralta hit a tiebreaking triple in the eighth inning to lead Detroit over Toronto. With one out in the eighth, Magglio Ordonez singled off Marc Rzepcz ynski (2-2).

Shawn Camp relieved Rzepczynski and Peralta sliced a liner into the right-center gap.

After an intentional walk, Ryan Raburn beat out a double-play ball to drive in another run.

Victor Martinez drove in the earlier two runs for the Tigers, who won their third straight,

while ending the Blue Jays’ own three-game trot. Detroit reliever Joaquin Benoit (2-3) picked up the win with a scoreless inning.

Cubs 7, Rockies 3 In Chicago, Carlos Pena and Aramis Ramirez each homered twice to lead Chicago over Colorado. Ramirez hit a two-run homer in the first inning, doubled and scored in the fifth and homered leading off the seventh.

It was his 24th career multihomer gamer. Pena homered leading off the fourth and added a tworun shot in the fifth for his 20th career multihomer game. Pena and Ramirez both drove in three runs. Cubs starter Matt Garza (46) went 7 1-3 innings, allowing five hits. He struck out six and did not issue a walk. Rockies starter Jhoulys Chacin (8-5) lost for the first time in four decisions, allowing season worsts with six runs, three homers and seven extrabase hits in five innings.

Dodgers 15, Twins 0 In Minneapolis, Los Angeles responded to a growing off-field crisis with a defiant performance on the field, routing Minnesota.

The Dodgers filed for bankruptcy protection earlier in the day, blaming Major League Baseball for refusing to approve a

multibillion-dollar TV deal that owner Frank McCourt was counting on to keep the troubled franchise afloat. Chad Billingsley (76) combined with three relievers on Los Angeles’ seventh shutout of the season. He struck out four in six innings.

Casey Blake had a home run among his three hits for the Dodgers, who set season highs for runs and hits (25). Minnesota starter Nick Blackburn (6-6) lasted 4 1-3 innings, allowing eight runs as the Twins lost their sixth straight.

Padres 4, Royals 3 In San Diego, Ryan Ludwick hit a two-run homer for San Diego in the narrow win over Kansas City.

The Padres, coming off consecutive series victories against Boston and Atlanta, have won five of six. San Diego starter Mat Latos (5-8) allowed three runs in six innings, and struck out six to get his first win in four starts.

Heath Bell pitched the ninth for his 21st save in 22 chances, getting the final out after allowing consecutive two-out singles.

The Padres continued their domination of Jeff Francis (3-9), who allowed four runs in five innings. Francis dropped to 5-13 with a 5.65 ERA in 22 career starts against San Diego. —AP

Strong arm offers new life to India’s young NEW DELHI: Young men all over India are flexing their muscles in the hope that a strong arm will carry them into a money-spinning career in professional baseball in the United States.

Despite the lack of a baseball tradition in India, the dream is not an impossible one, as Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel proved in a tale that is being immortalised in a Walt Disney film. Singh beat 35,000 rivals three years ago in a talent-hunt in India dubbed “ The Million-Dollar Arm” (TMDA) and is tipped to break into Major League Baseball (MLB) after a spell with the minor-league Pittsburg Pirates.

Patel, second in the throwing contest, also earned a contract with the Pirates and, after a lucrative stint in the U.S. which included a meeting with President Barack Obama, is back home looking for a coaching job.

Now, India is looking for someone to follow in their footsteps, with the second TMDA contest beginning in Bangalore last week and due to trawl

60 cities, towns and villages in search of potential baseball talent.

“India’s rural belt has unbelievable potential,” said Vivek Daglur, vice president of Turn On, TMDA’s official partner in India. “So many are pursuing sports just to get a job in the army or the railways. Their dedication is unbelievable. Some I met could afford only one meal a day but still ran 20 kms just to be a marathon runner. “TMDA is the perfect platform for anyone with that simple thing. You just need to have a strong arm, nothing else. There are tremendous possibilities that we would take you and sculpt a champion out of you.”

The last contest changed the lives of Singh, son of a truck driver, and Patel, whose father was unemployed.

Both were javelin throwers nursing Olympic dreams before they won the chance to leave their homes near the north Indian holy city of Varanasi and go to the U.S. “I don’t know how to put it in words; I’m still living the dream,” the soft-spoken Patel told Reuters by

telephone. “I had not even seen a baseball before turning up for that talent show. Suddenly I found myself training in Los Angeles,” the 23-yearold added, briefly hesitating before abandoning broken English for fluent Hindi.

“One day, we went to Washington to meet President Barack Obama. You don’t get such opportunities. I did not say much, just met him, shook his hand and told him we are baseball players from India.

“He said something in English...we gave him a jersey with his name on the back.” Patel said he was proud to have been a pioneer. “It gives me tremendous satisfaction that we star ted the trend and many now dream of following us. Mark my words, you would soon have more Indians playing professional baseball.

“Already our story has spread far and wide and all the boys in my village are excited about TMDA’s second season. In fact, most youngsters who have read about us want to have a go at it. After all, baseball offers incredi-

ble money.

“I expect Rinku soon to make it to the major league and that would draw more youngsters to baseball.

We started the game so late, practised for about six months and were picked (by the Pirates). If an under-16 boy is picked and trained, I’m sure he would make it to the major league by the time he is 20 or 21.”

Daglur said the pair had lived out a rags-to-riches fairy tale. “They didn’t know English and walked into the White House and presented a jersey to the US president. Now, even someone like (top Bollywood actor) Shah Rukh Khan can’t meet Obama like that,” he said. “At times I wonder if these kids actually realise the extent of their achievement.”

Singh was primed for greater glory, Daglur agreed. “Rinku is doing extremely well. There is a very good chance that he would make it to the major league in the next two years, which would be unbelievable.

“Even when they were practising in the US, some top players would

come down to Los Angeles to see if these guys really existed or if it was just a story floating around. Sony Corporation bought the initial movie rights and then Walt Disney bought it from them. So Walt Disney is now making a movie on them,” Daglur added.

“The scriptwriter was in India last month and he came to Delhi and visited Dinesh’s house in Varanasi... it’s going to be a better film than ‘Slum Dog Millionaire’ and should be released by the end of next year.

“Rinku could not believe it when he got his first cheque of $100,000.

With MLB deciding to train the talenthunt winners in its Beijing academy, Indian players now have a global market and not just the US.” Patel did not reveal the amount of his first cheque but said he had spent his money on his family. “I married off my sister, renovated the house and built a proper bathroom,” he said. “I also bought another plot for a new house. Now I want to buy a bike for my brother, a good one.”—Reuters

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Eton’s ancient game thrives in Nigeria KATSINA: In a dusty Nigerian park, dozens of youths dodge goats and rusting cars to be first on to crumbling courts built to replicate the side of the chapel at one of England’s most elite public schools so that they can play the ancient game of Eton fives.

Introduced nearly a century ago by a former pupil of Eton College, this peculiar form of handball pulls in the crowds in impoverished Nigeria.

“An English schoolteacher may have brought the game here but Nigerians are the best now,” said Usman Yusuf, a civil servant and local Eton fives favourite in the northern state of Katsina, where many people live on less than $2 a day.

“We love it. Every day after school we

come here and fight to get on the court,” said Yusuf, standing in front of crowds of barefooted schoolchildren shouting instructions to players dashing around graffiti-covered courts.

In England, the game is played mostly by former or current public schoolboys who wear custom-made, padded gloves to smash a hard ball around a threesided walled court where it ricochets off ledges and steps reproduced in the mould of the original school ground.

Nigerians forgo the expense of gloves and make do with a tennis ball but the court retains the obstacles and idiosyncrasies that make a simple game into a skilful sport.

“It looks simple but it has subtle skills that take intelligence. This is why

Nigerians are so good at it,” Umar Kabir, the secretary to the Emir of Katsina state, told Reuters. “The Emir has a court in the palace and every evening he goes out to play. He still plays to win.”

While the popularity of Eton fives peaked in Britain in the 19th century, hundreds of people still attend competitive games in Nigeria and matches in the annual Sardauna Cup are followed by dinners, cultural dances and speeches.

Eton fives has been exported across the world but while it never caught on in New Zealand, Nepal or Argentina, Nigeria embraced its “minutes-to-learn, years-to-master” attraction.

“Nigeria is a great example of how bashing a ball against a wall can have mass appeal...Eton fives is just a very

good version of what millions of kids do naturally at school,” said John Reynolds, a former England national fives champion. “It’s now almost certainly more popular there than back in England. We can only dream of the crowds that state matches draw,” added Reynolds, who runs a rare fives court construction company. All students at Eton College-whose alumni include Britain’s Prince William, Prime Minister David Cameron, Belgian King Leopold III, James Bond author Ian Fleming and London Mayor Boris Johnson-don the gloves at some stage.

The ancient Egyptians played a form of fives, which is thought to refer to the number of fingers on your hand, as in “a bunch of fives”, while today spin-offs like handball in the United States and pelota

in parts of France and Spain are still popular. Authors Aldous Huxley and James Joyce mention the game in their most famous works and a recent biography of the former U.S. president Abraham Lincoln said he was passing the time playing fives when he received the presidential nomination.

Whether it is the ancient heritage, the simplicity or the low-cost of a tennis ball, fives has stood the test of time in northern Nigeria since former Eton student J.S. Hogben introduced the game while teaching here in the 1920s.

“Some people here don’t have much but you can see how the children are when they play the game, so we’ll always keep the courts ready for them,” Kabir said. “Nigeria loves fives.”—Reuters

90 years ago, Johnson sought his own pardon World’s first black heavyweight champion

HAMBURG: WBO and IBF champion Wladimir Klitschko and WBA champion David Haye (from left) stand face to face during a news conference ahead of their upcoming WBA heavyweight fight.—AP

Klitschko wants to make Haye a ‘better person’ HAMBURG: Wladimir Klitschko believes he is the perfect man to deliver the therapeutic beating he thinks David Haye needs to become a “better person” after their highly anticipated heavyweight fight on Saturday.

The fighters have been swapping threats that perhaps go beyond the often outrageous buildups to fights — both have predicted sending the other to hospital after the bout in Hamburg’s football stadium.

Haye’s antics seem to have irritated Klitschko, who says Haye needs a reality check and therapy for his big mouth. “My name is Dr. Klitschko. I am a therapist and on July 2 I am going to give you treatment. It is going to be reality rehab. I will knock you out into reality, which will be good for your life.

“You will be a better person and have better manners,” Klitschko told Haye, who was sitting next to him at a news conference on Monday.

The 35-year-old Klitschko, the IBF, WBO and IBO champion who has a 55-3 record with 49 KOs, has a doctorate degree in sports science. Haye, the 30-year-old WBA champion, appeared unimpressed, neither by Klitschko’s academic nor the boxing record.

“This is going to be the most brutal execution of a boxer that you’ve seen for many, many

years,” Haye predicted.

“I’m going to go out there and absolutely destroy him, really quickly.” The fight has been in the making for more than two years and Haye has used the time to repeatedly mock Wladimir and his older brother Vitali, the WBC champion.

He has worn a T-shirt depicting the image of himself holding the severed heads of the Klitschko brothers. Wladimir has promised to make him eat it after the fight. Haye has introduced a game app for smart phones called “David Haye’s Knockout,” with users playing as Haye aims to knock the head off a giant eastern European. Klitschko said he respects Haye as a fighter but not as a person.

“You have a certain attitude that is not so good for your life inside and outside the ring,” the Ukrainian said. Haye, a former cruiserweight fighter who has a 25-1 record, with 23 KOs, has called both Klitschko brothers “frauds,” who only fight “little fat puddings who turn up for a pay check.” Klitschko acknowledged that Haye looked superbly fit and confident ahead of the fight. “I am going to get challenged in the ring,” Klitschko said.

But he had no doubt that he would be the winner, promising to punish Haye for 12 rounds before knocking him out.—AP

NEW YORK: This undated file photo shows World Heavyweight Boxing Champion Jack Johnson. —AP

So far, so good as Evans eyes Tour

Hind Dehiba of France

Dehiba to run despite doping history LAUSANNE: French 1,500-meter runner Hind Dehiba has won a court ruling clearing her to run in tomorrow’s Diamond League meet in Lausanne despite a previous doping ban.

Meet spokesman Pierre-Andre Pasche said yesterday that Dehiba will be allowed to compete following a Lausanne court’s provisional decision in her favor. Dehiba went to a canton (state) court on Monday to challenge a policy of European athletics meetings that bars athletes who have received two-year doping bans from competing in their events. Dehiba’s lawyers contend the rule restricts her right to work. France’s athletics federation banned Dehiba from 2007-09 after she tested positive for the blood-boosting hormone EPO. She returned to win silver at the 2010 European Championships.

Dehiba’s ongoing case would not apply internationally, but is the latest to examine rules designed to exclude convicted

dopers from top - class spor t. The Lausanne-based Court of Arbitration for Spor t aims to rule by the end of September on the legality of the International Olympic Committee’s socalled “six-month rule.” It bars athletes who receive doping bans of more than six months from competing at the next Summer or Winter Games.

The United States’ Olympic body has challenged the rule, which currently prevents it from selecting 400-meter champion LaShawn Merritt to defend his title in London next year. Merritt’s 21-month ban for testing positive for a banned substance found in a male enhancement product expires in July.

CAS is scheduled to hear the “sixmonth rule” arbitration case on Aug. 17 and give a binding verdict within weeks.

The British Olympic Association also imposes a lifetime selection ban on athletes who fail drugs test.—AP

PARIS: Sickness, injury and bad luck have hampered Cadel Evans on previous major cycling races. This year, the Australian hopes the Tour de France will give him a maiden grand tour title. “So far, so good,” Evans said of his preparations after finishing second overall earlier this month at the Criterium de Dauphine.

Evans has had five top-five finishes in the Tour, the Vuelta and the Giro d’Italia. The Tour runner-up in 2007 and 2008, he set out in pursuit of a rare Giro and Tour double last year but ended up empty-handed.

“Last year I was sick during the Giro and I did not come out of it very well,” Evans told Reuters as he prepared for Saturday’s start of the French race.

“It was hard on my body because I was sick, sick too because of the effort, but I’m certainly a lot fresher this year.” Evans finished fifth in last year’s Giro after feeling ill during the race and he wore the leader’s yellow jersey on the Tour before breaking his elbow and dropping out of contention. “I had a really good Tour, I had 1:40 on (eventual winner Alberto) Contador going into the first mountain stages but without knowing I had broken my elbow the day before or so. That was a bit unfortunate but these things happen,” the 2009 world champion said. “But you put it behind you, keep it going.”Bad luck also struck the Australian in the 2009 Vuelta, when a puncture during the final climb in the Sierra Nevada ruined his chances as the neutral support crew were unable to change his wheel while the car of his own Silence-Lotto team was stuck in a traffic jam. This year on the Tour, with what he believes is a strong team and good preparation, Evans will be in top condition, having skipped the Giro. “(I did not change) a great deal actually,” he said of his preparations. “Last year the first part of my season was geared towards the Giro and then coming out of the Giro I geared towards the Tour.

“This year I had a solid build-up going towards the Tour and this (the Dauphine) is sort of a final touch-up in terms of competition towards the Tour and it gives you a little bit more time and capacity of controlling things a little bit better.”

At 34, Evans will not get many more chances to win a grand tour but he is confident about the ability of his one-year-old BMC Racing team. “This year I think we have an even stronger team than last year,” he said.

“Last year we had a good team and so on but it was a bit rushed in the end; seven months to build a Tour team is a bit of a rush.”—Reuters

WASHINGTON: US Congressional supporters of a pardon for Jack Johnson, the world’s first black heavyweight champion who was imprisoned nearly a century ago for his romantic relationships with white women, say his prosecution was racially motivated. Johnson made the same argument 90 years ago while in prison, records at the National Archives show.

In a March 25, 1921 letter to Attorney General Harry Daugherty, Johnson said the prosecutor in his trial made “flagrant appeals to passion, race hatred and moral infamies.” During his 10 months in prison, Johnson sought parole, filed an application with the president seeking clemency, and wrote letters to the attorney general seeking early release.

And he almost pulled it off. Daugherty publicly raised the possibility of letting Johnson out a couple of weeks early, before announcing on June 28, 1921 — 90 years ago yesterday — that Johnson would have to complete his sentence.

Now, under a black president and black attorney general, the Justice Department is against pardoning Johnson. In the last session of Congress, both houses of Congress passed a resolution urging a pardon pushed by Senator John McCain and congressman Peter King, “to expunge a racially motivated abuse of the prosecutorial authority of the federal government.”

But President Barack Obama has not acted on it.

While Obama hasn’t commented publicly on the matter, the Justice Department’s pardon attorney told McCain and King that the DOJ’s resources are best used for pardoning the living.

Still, the lawmakers are making another run at the pardon this year.

On June 23, 1921, The Associated Press reported that Daugherty was considering a pardon for the boxer in time for a heavyweight fight between Jack Dempsey and Georges Carpentier the following month. Eyeing a comeback, Johnson wanted to attend the fight, which would become the first $1 million gate in boxing history. “Mr. Daugherty said Johnson had been a model prisoner and a ‘liberty bonus’ has been suggested,” the story reported. “The Attorney General declared he would not consider pardon-

ing Johnson to enable him to attend the championship fight, but that, of course, if any clemency was extended, Johnson’s time would be his own.” But he changed his tune five days later.

According to an AP account, the AG said that “considering the crime he did not feel that the parole privileges should be extended merely to allow Johnson to witness the world’s title fight Saturday,” even though he had said just a few days earlier that wasn’t the reason he was considering letting Johnson out.

Johnson was hated by many white Americans, especially after retaining his title by defeating white boxer Jim Jeffries in the 1910 “Fight of the Century.” Jeffries had come out of retirement for the bout, and Johnson’s victory infuriated whites, setting off deadly race riots across the country.

Three years later, Johnson was convicted of violating the Mann Act, which made it illegal to transport women across state lines for immoral purposes. But the flamboyant boxer’s real crime had been flaunting white society by having romantic relationships with white women.

Authorities first targeted his relationship with Lucille Cameron, who later became his wife, but she refused to cooperate. They then turned to Johnson’s former mistress, a prostitute named Belle Schreiber, to testify that Johnson had paid her train fare from Pittsburgh to Chicago, for immoral purposes. An all-white jury convicted Johnson in 1913, and he skipped bail and fled the country. But in 1920 Johnson agreed to return and serve his sentence. Johnson was still in prison when Dempsey knocked out Carpentier in the fourth round in front of 80,183 fans on July 2. One week later, Johnson, 43, walked out of prison and told reporters he wanted to challenge Dempsey for the heavyweight title, brushing aside Dempsey’s vow to fight only white boxers.

“It doesn’t make any difference what Dempsey says about drawing the color line: The public wants Dempsey whipped,” Johnson said.

“And the public knows I am the one to do it.” But Johnson, who died in 1946, never got his shot at Dempsey.—AP

Wiggins ready to tackle Tour de France challenge PARIS: Having learnt from last year’s failure, Bradley Wiggins believes he is now fully ready to tackle a punishing Tour de France and become the first Briton to climb on to the podium on the Champs Elysees.

The Belgium-born Wiggins’s fourth place overall in the 2009 Tour came as a huge surprise, but the Team Sky leader was brought down to earth last year on a much more demanding route, finishing 24th.

“I needed a year of disappointment, a year to really settle down, get used to leading a team and that role. Because before I was just Brad the joker,” Wiggins told Reuters in an interview a few days before winning the Criterium du Dauphine, a prestigious warm-up race ahead of the Tour.

“I’ve got a new coach and a new sports scientist working with me; just got a more detailed plan of action as to how we gear up to the Tour de France, which I never had last year. “So we just worked back from the Tour, looked to the demands of the event and trained for the demands more this year of the Tour de France,” he explained.

Bradley Wiggins rides in this file photo

“It’s been much more enjoyable and it’s been working well, it’s been really satisfying this year because last year I tried to do my own training, I tried to do everything myself but I just messed it all up.” Three-times Olympic pursuit champion, Wiggins was not designed to repeat brutal efforts on mountain climbs.

Having shed 11 kilos since the 2008 Beijing Olympics, he does fare better in the mountains although last year he struggled to tackle multiple ascents in the same stage.

This year, he did not ride the Giro, which cost him a lot of energy last year. He has made sure he will be ready for Saturday’s Tour start. “I certainly, as it stands, have unfinished business with the Tour de France,” he said. “I don’t think I prepared for that at 100 percent (last time). “(There are) different demands (this year) so I prepared more for those demands and I’ve been training at altitude a lot this year which I never done in the past.”

Wiggins will have to keep his composure in the toughest mountain stages which feature several intimidating climbs, such as the 18th stage when the riders will tackle the out-of-category ascents to the Col d’Agnel, Col d’Izoard and the Col du Galibier, where the day ends.

“Normally I just follow the best, that’s always been the way...it was for them to try and drop me,” said Wiggins. “I think it will always stay the same. “I’m not a pure climber like (Alberto) Contador or Andy Schleck, I have to be a bit smarter. I have to climb a bit more conservatively at times like I did on the Ventoux in 2009, and I kept coming up from the back, because I just could not follow those attacks.

“It’s normally a race against myself and try not to get dictated to by what the others are doing but that becomes more difficult to do when you’re in the yellow jersey because everybody is watching you.” Wearing the yellow jersey would fulfil one of Wiggins’s dreams, and the second-stage team time trial will provide the Briton with the perfect opportunity.

“I’d love to take the yellow, it would be a great start to the Tour and it’s a shame there’s not more time trialing,” he said. “In 1989, how many time trials ? The team time trial, the prologue and three time trials. I pray for a Tour like that one day.” Wiggins, however, will have less pressure than last year when he was overwhelmed by the hype surrounding the new Team Sky and crushed by the pressure of expectations. —Reuters

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Riots, mayhem threatens Copa America BUENOS AIRES: The mayhem that swept River Plate’s Monumental stadium following the famed team’s relegation to Argentina’s second division also threatens the future of club president Daniel Passarella and the upcoming Copa America.

Police officials on Monday said 89 people were injured and 55 detained in riots sparked by rampaging fans, humiliated by the club’s demotion despite a history that includes 33 league title — more than any other Argentine club.

The fallout from the loss has already cost jobs. Coach Juan Jose Lopez quit on Monday, the club said on its Website, and was replaced by former club midfielder Matias Almeyda. Passarella’s position as president is also under threat, but the 1978 World Cup winner says he won’t be quitting.

A prosecutor has ordered the stadium to be closed until the turnstiles can be inspected. He has suggested the legal capacity of 40,000 was exceeded by 12,000. The stadium, which also serves as Argentina’s national stadium, is set to hold the final match of the Copa America on July 24.

Argentina is the host nation for the Copa

America — the South American national team championship — with play starting Friday in La Plata, 60 kilometers (35 miles) southeast of Buenos Aires. Argentina and Brazil are the favorites to meet in the final, which could again test security at the aging stadium.

Prosecutor Gustavo Galante said the closure could last for a month, but also hinted it might take only a week to gather evidence. “We are going to look for evidence of what happened,” Galante told The Associated Press. “The stadium will remain closed until this is completed and all the evidence is in hand.” CONMEBOL, the governing body of South American football, insisted the match will go on.

“Fans can rest easily,” spokesman Nestor Benitez told The AP. “The Copa America final will be played at River Plate’s stadium.”

Ernesto Cherquis Bialo, a spokesman for the Copa America and the Argentine Football Association, said it was too early to know if the final would be moved. He also said AFA’s executive committee would meet Thursday and decide on sanctions against River Plate.

Sunday’s rioting was set off after River

Plate drew 1-1 with Belgrano in the second leg of a relegation playoff, which followed a 2-0 loss four days earlier. That match was suspended for 20 minutes when River Plate fans ripped through a fence and raced across the field to taunt their own players.

The chaotic scenes Sunday pitted River Plate hooligans known as “Los Borrachos del Tablon” — the Drunks in the Stands _ against a force of 2,200 police, the largest to ever patrol an Argentine football match.

Enraged fans were sprayed with high-power water hoses — inside and outside the stadium — with police using teargas, rubber bullets and hand-to-hand combat in a futile attempt to control the rioting.

Inside the stadium, fans ransacked concession stands, ripped the slats from seats and swung them at police. As fans scattered outside, they set fire to vehicles and rubbish bins around the stadium in the leafy suburb of Nunez, with many smashing windows and breaking into shops in upscale shopping areas.

The ugly images were shown on television worldwide, which is sure to take some luster off the Copa America and put pres-

sure on the Argentine Football Association and its president Julio Grondona.

Argentina’s interior ministry, after meeting with AFA, decided to play the match with fans in attendance. Others had suggested that was too dangerous and said the match should have been played in an empty stadium.

Anibal Fernandez, head of the Argentine government cabinet and senior assistant to President Cristina Fernandez, said Monday there was “no reason” to play without fans.

“These are not River fans, these are 300 vandals,” Fernandez told Telefe television. “They need to be identified, detained and never allowed back into the stadium.” River president Passarella said after the match he would not resign.

“They will take River’s presidency away from me over my dead body,” he said.

Passarella, the captain of the Argentina team which won the 1978 World Cup, will face huge problems trying to rejuvenate River Plate, which was relegated for the first time in its 110-year history.

The club has debts estimated at $19 million and is sure to experience a steep drop

in revenue in the second division. River Plate received about $7.5 million from TV rights in the past 12 months. In the second division, it will receive about $1 million.

Many of River Plate’s top players are sure to leave, joining other stars who have been sold in recent years to European clubs.

Sponsors may also seek new contracts at reduced rates.

“It is difficult to see them coming back immediately,” said Ricardo Caruso Lombardi, who has coached several second-division teams, “They need to reorganize the club in every way and get familiar with the second division. This is an unknown world to River.”

River Plate’s drop is viewed as incomprehensible, much like Real Madrid going down to Spain’s second division. The club, which has two Copa Libertadores titles, has won 10 more league championships than archrival Boca Juniors.

River Plate’s last league title was in 2008.

Violence is endemic in Argentine football.

The non-profit group “Let’s Save Football” says 14 people have been killed in footballrelated violence in the last 16 months. The group says 287 have died since 1924. —AP

The Copa — a century of Latin American rivalry

CAMPANA: Brazil’s Neymar attends a training session ahead of the upcoming 2011 Copa America in Campana, Argentina. Argentina will host the Copa America soccer tournament from July 1 to July 24. —AP

Revamped Brazil seeks third straight Copa title SAO PAULO: Many of the World Cup players are absent, leaving young talent in charge of bringing Brazil its third straight Copa America title.

The South American championship marks the first official competition for coach Mano Menezes since he took over following last year’s disappointing elimination in the World Cup quarterfinals in South Africa. The likes of Ronaldinho and Kaka from the team that lost to the Netherlands in the World Cup have not made the trip to Argentina.

The team will be led instead by youngsters such as Neymar, Alexandre Pato, Lucas and Paulo Henrique Ganso — who have a chance to brighten the future of Brazil. “These players need to be ready for the 2014 World Cup and playing in the Copa America will be extremely important to give them some much needed experience,” Menezes said.

“A good result will be important and we want to win the tournament, but I think one of the priorities for us with these young players will be to gain experience.” Neymar, who led Santos to the Copa Libertadores title last week, is the most talked about player in Brazilian football with clubs like Real Madrid, Barcelona, Chelsea and Manchester City reportedly trying to land the 19-year-old forward.

“I’ve always wanted to play in the most important championships in the world. Playing for Santos and in the national team allows me to fulfill this dream,” Neymar said. “My goal is to win a World Cup and I hope it happens in 2014.

But there is still a lot of work to do until then.”

Ganso, Neymar’s teammate at Santos, was not picked by Menezes in the preliminary squad preparing for the Copa America because of a muscle injury in his right thigh. But the 21-year-old playmaker recovered in time and has made the team. Menezes also will be able to count

on AC Milan striker Pato, who injured his right shoulder in the team’s final Italian league match but has also healed in time. Sao Paulo’s Lucas is another promising star playing in Brazil, and this year he teamed with Neymar to lead Brazil to the South American Under-20 championship. Menezes said he will have to mix in some experienced players in the squad, however, in order to have a shot at winning the title.

“It will be a very difficult tournament,” Menezes said. “Argentina hasn’t won the Copa America in several years and will be under pressure to win it at home, so we can’t take it lightly.” Goalkeeper Julio Cesar, right back Maicon, defender Lucio and striker Robinho are some of the experienced players who made the final squad.

Brazil played two friendlies at home before heading to Argentina _ drawing with the Netherlands 0-0 on June 4 and beating Romania 1-0 on June 7 in Sao Paulo. The match against Romania marked the farewell for former superstar Ronaldo, who retired from football this year. Playing at home and with Lionel Messi, Argentina seems to have an edge, but Brazil dominated the competition in the last decade.

It has won the last two tournaments and four of the last five since 1997.

Colombia won the 2001 Copa America at home to break Brazil’s dominance. Brazil beat Argentina in the last two finals. In Peru in 2004, striker Adriano scored in the last minute of regulation and Brazil won on penalties, while in Venezuela in 2007 the Brazilians routed the rivals 3-0 to clinch the squad’s eighth title.

Brazil will be in Group B along with Paraguay, Venezuela and Ecuador. The team’s first match will be against Venezuela on Sunday in La Plata. It then faces Paraguay on July 9 in Cordoba and Ecuador four days later, also in Cordoba.

“Argentina is the favorite, there is no doubt,” Menezes said. — AP

Greek club boss in custody on match-fixing charges ATHENS: Olympiakos Volos president Achilleas Beos has taken into custody pending trial along with two other prominent figures for alleged involvement in the match-fixing scandal which rocking Greek football.

Beos, who gave three hours of testimony on Monday evening denying all charges against him, was detained in the early hours yesterday.

He was the third person to be detained following the owner of seconddivision club Ilioupoli, George Tsakogianni, and bookmaker Vassilis Karakoulia. Another five people were bailed pending trial. A total of 83 suspects have been charged so far.

All three are accused of “directing a criminal organization, money laundering and criminal activity, repeated fraud over

and above the amount of 15,000 euros.”

In addition, charges of “extortion by threat of harm, repeated, bribery and corruption in altering the results of matches and participation in illegal betting” were also brought.

According to law the trio can be held for a maximum period of 18 months before facing trial. Doubts have now been cast over Olympiakos Volos’ participation in the Europa League.

The club is set to begin its campaign in the second qualifying round on July 14.

The Super League is set to hold a board meeting late yesterday where fresh announcements are expected following public appeals made by Panos Bitsaxis, the General Secretary for Sports, Panathinaikos and AEK Athens for president Vangelis Marinakis to resign. —Reuters

PARIS: Spanning a century of keen rivalry, suffused by politics and histor y — the Copa America, which kicks off Friday in Argentina, is where the cultural and sporting twain meet, uniting a continent in one of its most enduring passions.

It used to be only the world’s second oldest international football tournament - but after the 1980s demise of the old British Home Internationals it is the Copa, first held in 1916, which today can lay claim to that epithet.

While Latin America — (not just South, given a regular guest slot invite to Mexico) — remembers to offer an historic nod in the direction of the global game’s British inventors, with many top clubs given English names, the Latin game was quick to carve itself a continental identity well before the first World Cup of 1930.

British railway workers introduced locals to the game in Argentina, where the first recorded game was held in 1867, prior to the creation of the Argentine Football Association in 1893.

By 1910, the round ball had become a fixture with sports fans and Argentina invited Chile and Uruguay to a tri-nations tournament to commemorate the May Revolution of 1810.

Although that event was not officially sanctioned, by 1916 it had morphed into the Campeonato Sudamericano de Selecciones (South American championship of national teams), crucially adding Brazil into the mix.

Given that Brazil are on a hattrick of Copa crowns going into this year ’s edition, the Argentinians may reflect that might have been an invitation too many — but in reality they and Uruguay lead the honours board with 14 triumphs each to only eight for the ‘auriverde’.

Brazil can, of course, comfort themselves with five World Cups to two for their Copa-collecting neighbors. Uruguay, as would later happen with the World Cup in 1930, won the first edition at Argentina’s expense and then repeated the dose the following year, this time on home soil, before Brazil got off the mark, also at home, in 1919.

Until the tournament was formally baptised the Copa America in time for the 1975 event,

BUENOS AIRES: Argentina’s midfielder Ever Banega (center) controls the ball during a training session of the national football team in Ezeiza, Buenos Aires on June 27, 2011, ahead of the Copa America football tournament. —AP Argentina and Uruguay dominated the winners roster - a notable exception coming with minnows Bolivia triumphing in 1963 in their own landlocked country.

The early years of the Copa era followed that pattern, though Brazil did lift the trophy in 1989 after a 40-year gap, inspired by the predatory instincts of Bebeto - though it was Romario who hit the decider at a packed Maracana against Uruguay. But the selecao, perhaps galvanised by a fourth World Cup in 1994, then turned to redressing the balance nearer home and Brazil have won four of the last five editions Colombia interrupting the sequence in 2001.

The Copa has traditionally been a chance for the regional powerhouses to wean up-and-

coming talents — Brazil are hoping that the likes of Santos’ Neymar will set this edition alight, while Argentina will pray for some Barcelona-esque form from the peerless Lionel Messi. Despite the kudos that winning the tournament can bring — and putting Argentinian noses out of joint in their rivals’ backyard would be a sweet feeling for the Brazilians — coach Mano Menezes admits that the event is essentially a dress rehearsal for the 2014 World Cup, when the auriverde will welcome the world for the first time since 1950.

That extravaganza was all going to plan until Uruguay bagged a shock win in the final and the wound has not entirely closed, hence the need to look ahead. — AFP

Preview

AUGSBURG: Players of Norway’s women’s national soccer team stretch during training of Norway on the eve of the Group D match between Norway and Equatorial Guinea in the Women’s Soccer World Cup. —AP

Norway favored over Equatorial Guinea AUGSBURG: Norway will have all the pressure on them as they open their 2011 women’s World Cup campaign with a Group D clash against debutantes Equatorial Guinea here today.

The 1995 world champions Norway have never failed to reach the World Cup quarterfinals, and the Scandinavians know they can ill afford a defeat by the 2008 African champions with the likes of Brazil and Australia still to come.

“We know that Equatorial Guinea are physically strong, but we need to begin the tournament with a win,” said Norwegian captain Ingvild Stensland.

Eli Landsem’s side come into the World Cup in form, having held two-time reigning champions Germany scoreless for 79 minutes before giving up three goals in three minutes in a 3-0 friendly loss in mid-June.

“We showed for long periods against Germany that we could match them.

Admittedly they were a class above for the final 20 minutes, but the first 70 were very positive and we can go into the tournament with every confidence,” added Stensland.

Norway then last week upset title contenders the United States 3-1 in a friendly in Austria.

Besides four semi-final showings in five tournaments, the Norwegians also have two proven winners in the ranks as both Stensland and Isabell Lehn Herlovsen won the UEFA Women’s Champions League title with Lyon. “We have a proud history. I think we have a decent chance at the World Cup. Anything can happen, and I hope we’re within a shout of a medal. We could win gold, but everything would have to go our way for that to happen,” said midfielder Leni Larsen Kaurin. Equatorial Guinea, for their part, have nothing to lose as the African nation plays their first ever World Cup match. Coach Marcelo Frigerio’s team, who finished second in the 2010 African Championship to qualify for Germany, are still trying to get past the controversy of sisters Salimata and Bilguisa Simpore being kept off the team, because they have been accused of being men.

Striker Salimata was also accused of having played for both Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast before. Complaints for the African confederation to investigate the gender of the sisters were made by Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa and even Group D opponents Australia had also raised concerns about the Equatorial Guinea squad.

Forward Genoveva Anonma, who was also caught up in a gender row but remained in the squad as captain, said the team are nervous going into their first Cup and hope to use the experience to improve their careers.

“It’s very emotional because most players want to be in the position we’re in right now,” said Anonma, who was top scorer at German club FF USV Jena last season and secured a move to Champions League finalists Turbine Potsdam.

“I came here to improve my game a bit because playing in Africa isn’t the same as playing in Europe,” said Anonma. Six players on Frigerio’s team have no current club affiliation-behind only Canada’s tally of 11 players. But there is talent from the nation of 650,000 people.

Forward Jade Boho scored three goals in five games in the qualifying tournament and six in nine caps for the National Nzalang. Midfielders Dorine Chuigoue and Gloria Chinasa are also scoring threats for the Africans. Forward Jade Boho has been suspended by FIFA’s disciplinary committee for two months over eligibility matters, however, and has been replaced in the squad by Emiliana. —AFP

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ICC overturns World Cup minnows ban HONG KONG: World cricket’s governing body revealed yesterday that four nonTest playing nations would contest the next World Cup, in a U-turn of a controversial decision that had excluded the game’s minnows.

The International Cricket Council (ICC) said in a statement that its executive board had approved a 14-team contest in Australia and New Zealand in 2015, with 10 places going to the Testplaying nations.

The second-tier teams will have to pre-qualify for the remaining four places.

The ICC also announced the 2019 World Cup would be a scaled-down 10-team event, with the top eight places going to the top-ranked teams and two berths being awarded in a pre-qualifying tournament.

The about-face on the 2015 World

Cup reverses the ICC’s decision to limit the tournament to the sport’s 10 fullmember teams-which left countries such as Ireland, the Netherlands, Canada and Kenya on the sidelines.

“In Hong Kong today, the ICC executive board opted to retain the 14-team format that was used at the highly successful and universally acclaimed ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 in Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka with the 10 full members being joined by four associate or affiliate qualifiers,” the ICC said on its website.

ICC president Sharad Pawar had asked his board to discuss the matter at the conference, with the governing body looking to avoid a repeat of the seven-week World Cup, deemed unnecessarily lengthy by some critics.

Officials were previously believed to

have been in favor of retaining a 10team limit even if smaller countries were allowed into the World Cup. Ireland, who outshone many Testplaying nations at this year’s tournament, capping their performances with a stunning win over foes England in Bangalore, had been at the forefront of the campaign against ousting the minnows.

“I suppose the immediate reaction is one of relief, and that we can all now divert our energies in the significantly more proactive pursuit of trying to qualify,” said Cricket Ireland chief executive Warren Deutrom.

A 12-team format was given the goahead for the ICC World Twenty20 events in Sri Lanka next year and in Bangladesh in 2014.

The board also approved a recom-

mendation made by its chief executives’ committee on Monday to make the controversial Umpire Decision Review System (DRS) mandatory in all international Tests and one-day matches.

Hot Spot, the ‘thermal imaging’ technology now available and made mandatory in the DRS, will mostly be used for close catches and edges.

The ground-breaking deal means that India will, for the first time, agree to using the DRS in a Test series when they tour England from July. But the world champions remain against the Hawkeye ball-tracking system.

The board said the use of Hawkeye, which tracks the trajectory of each bowling delivery, would continue to depend on agreement between both teams in any match.

Lbw decisions will continue to be

governed by the on-field umpires. Under the agreement, teams will be allowed to make one incorrect challenge to an onfield umpire’s decision before all their referrals for that innings are used up.

The board also rubber-stamped a new future tours programme, confirming that England and Australia will play 10 back-to-back Ashes Tests from the English summer of 2013.

Today, the ICC executive board is expected to discuss moves, reportedly spearheaded by India and England, to scrap the ICC’s two-year rotational presidency, although details of any new system remain unclear.

Big changes will by met with vehement opposition from Pakistan and Bangladesh, who are scheduled to nominate the body’s next-but-one leader, to take power from 2014. —AFP

American sport mired in misery AMSTERDAM: Yang Peng of China (right) and Crista Cullen of England battle for the ball during their women’s Champions Trophy Group A hockey match. —AP

Koreans and Kiwis into Champions Trophy semis AMSTERDAM: South Korea and New Zealand did enough yesterday to qualify for the women’s Champions Trophy semifinals joining Argentina and the Netherlands.

The Koreans ground out a 1-1 draw with top-ranked Argentina, who have won the last three editions, while New Zealand held the Dutch to a scoreless draw.

Korea controlled the tempo of their game throughout, Park Mi-hyun breaking through to score with a drive past experienced Argentina goalkeeper Marian Succi towards the end of the first half.

Th e K ore a n s t h e n shu t u p sho p knowing that a draw would be good enough to see them into the final four.

They held on almost up to the final w hi s tl e wh e n D aniel a Sruo g a equalised for Las Leonas, scrambling in a rebound off the pads of Korea goalkeeper Moon Young-hui. “ The players did what I asked of them which was to get into the semifinal pool and I am satisfied with a draw against the world champions,” said Korean coach Lim Heung-sin.

Argentina’s coach Carlos Retegui, however, was less enthusiastic about the single-minded stonewalling tactics of the Koreans.

“By playing for a draw in the second half Korea come into the semifinal pool. We played to put on a good show b u t how cou ld we when al l Ko rea wanted to do was draw,” he said.

New Zealand had the better of the

first half against the Netherlands but the Black Sticks wre unable to convert any of their six shots on goal.

Netherlands changed tactics in the second half, controlled the midfield and earned two penalty corners but were unable to break the deadlock against a Kiwi team that is steadily improving.

“Ever yone should be aware that New Zealand can play very well and are a threat,” said Netherlands coach Max Caldas.

There was another goalless draw between England and China who both missed out on a place in the semifinal pool. Australia were the only side to manage a victory, defeating Germany 1-0 through Jodie Schulz’s low flick conversion of their sixth penalty corner late in the second half.

Germany hit the post in the last 10 seconds but veteran Natascha Keller could not reach the rebound. “ We moved the ball quickly and the players used their speed to link on angles with one another so I think today we took it to another level than previous games we are building nicely,” said Aussie coach Adam Commens.

Today is a rest day in the tournament fo l l owed on by th e star t on Thursday of the second set of pools. In the semi-final group, New Zealand meet South Korea and Netherlands play Argentina. The top two sides in this pool will meet in the final. The bottom four teams will battle it out for 5th to 8th. —AFP

WASHINGTON: These are the times that try the souls of American sports fans. NFL owners and players are mired in a lockout approaching its fourth month over how to divide $9.3 billion in annual revenue, the first shutdown since 1987 jeopardizing the September start of the 2011 campaign.

The NBA appears poised to follow the gridiron stars off the cliff into an owner-player deadlock, with the collective bargaining agreement set to expire tomorrow.

And that’s after German star Dirk Nowitzki led Dallas to a title over a Miami team with US standouts LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh.

The Los Angeles Dodgers, one of Major League Baseball’s most historical clubs, declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Monday and US squads have been humbled in the World Baseball Classic, both editions of which have been won by Japan’s stars.

The National Hockey League’s Atlanta Thrashers moved to Winnipeg, Canada, earlier this month and the Phoenix Coyotes remain wards of the league with their home city paying $25 million dollars a year to help offset losses.

US men’s golfers have gone five majors without a victory, the longest drought in history, and Europeans hold the top four spots in the world rankings while on the women’s side, only two of the top 10 are Americans.

“The world is a smaller place, so I think we’re going to have to get used to it,” US 2012 Ryder Cup captain Davis Love said.

“Look at the leaderboard every week on (the US PGA) tour. It’s a third US and a third European and then a third Asian or South African, Australian guys.”

US golf veteran Jim Furyk says non-US players moving to US homes and playing on the American tour are sort-of Americans. “I think American golf is probably a little better than

PORTLAND: Trail Blazers’ Raymond Felton looks down at the jersey as he holds it up during a news conference introducing the newest members of the NBA basketball team. —AP what it’s been given credit for, but obviously it’s a worldwide game,” Furyk said. “A lot of these international guys, I think of them as members of our tour.

“Vijay (Singh) is a neighbor of mine. I don’t really think of Vijay as from Fiji. He has lived in Ponte Vedra 20 years. He’s not American but I don’t really think of him as being foreign, if that makes sense.”

Last month saw the first week since tennis rankings began with no American man or woman in the top 10. Venus and Serena Williams have been injured and each crashed out in the fourth round at Wimbledon on Monday.

Where players like Pete

8 players suspended from Mexico team

Colombia ’keeper fails drug test at World Cup FRANKFURT: Backup Colombia goalkeeper Yineth Varon failed a drug test at the women’s World Cup and was provisionally suspended

by FIFA yesterday. Varon failed an out-of-competition doping control on Saturday in Leverkusen, Germany, the world governing body of football said.

Colombia played Sweden in its opener yesterday in Leverkusen with Sandra Sepulveda in goal, losing 1-0. Colombia coach Ricardo Rozo wouldn’t comment on Varon’s suspension after the game.

FIFA did not say what substance was involved, but that the player had the right for her “B” sample to be tested. FIFA medical chief Michel D’Hooghe later declined to comment.

The last doping case at the men’s World Cup was Diego Maradona, who was kicked out from the 1994 World Cup in the United States after testing positive for stimulants. He was banned for 15 months.

Last month, five Mexico players tested positive for clenbuterol in pre-competition testing at the Gold Cup. Football officials allowed Mexico to replace the players. FIFA president Sepp Blatter said on Saturday that contaminated meat was the cause. —AP

Sampras and Andre Agassi once ruled, the top US men are now No. 9 Mardy Fish and the fading No. 10 Andy Roddick, whose 2003 US Open crown is the most recent Grand Slam singles crown for an American man. “ We come from a country that’s used to winning and winning at a high level and at almost every sport,” Fish said.

“Tennis fans are used to seeing Americans win and play each other in Grand Slam finals. So it’s tough to come from an era where Sampras and Agassi are playing each other five or six times in major finals.”

Fish blames the vastness of the US sports scene for dwindling the

talent for tennis. “Our most important sports or our most popular sports are getting our best athletes,” Fish said.

Only once in the past eight seasons has an American racer captured the IndyCar Series season crown while US drivers have taken only two of the past 13 Indianapolis 500 titles.

Two of the first three Women’s World Cup football titles were won by America, but 2011 host Germany has taken the past two titles, the US settling for third place each time. Mexico last weekend captured a second consecutive Gold Cup title by defeating the host US men in the final.

Heavyweight boxing, once the realm of such American legends as Muhammad Ali and Evander Holyfield, now sees Ukraine stars Wladimir and Vitali Klitschko holding two major titles and Britain’s David Haye owning the other.

Rugby and cricket continue to struggle for attention in America while swimming and athletics gain regular attention only during the approach of the Olympics.

American men suffered their worst Olympic track and field showing in history at Beijing and once-mighty Michael Phelps, a 14-time Olympic champion, has been beaten in recent meets as he trains for the 2012 London Games.

Americans submitted a bid for the 2022 World Cup last year but saw Qatar win host rights in a vote by FIFA officials. Two years ago, Chicago was a candidate for the 2016 Olympics only to be the first city eliminated, the International Olympic Committee eventually naming Rio de Janeiro the winner.

So where in sport is US rule unchallenged? Try the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR), where American drivers have dominated and US star Jimmie Johnson is in the hunt for a sixth season title in a row. —AFP

NEW YORK: Boxers Floyd Mayweather Jr. (left) and Victor Ortiz face off during a news conference in New York. Ortiz is scheduled to defend his WBC welterweight title against Mayweather on Sept. 17, 2011 in Las Vegas. —AP

MEXICO CITY: Eight players from Mexico’s team for the Copa America were suspended yesterday for six months for violating team training rules.

Mexican federation officials said at a news conference they would not disclose details.

News reports in Mexico said the incidents took place in Ecuador during training and involved players having female guests in their rooms.

The players named are: Israel Jimenez, Nestor Vidrio, Jonathan Dos Santos, Marco Fabian, Jorge Hernandez, Javier Cor tes, David Cabrera and Nestor Calderon. Mexico is fielding a youth team for the Copa America without stars such as Manchester United striker Javier Hernandez.

Mexico’s Copa America team defeated Ecuador 1-0 on Saturday in its final warm-up match. The incidents are reported to have taken place after the match. “I am not going into details of what happened,” said Hector Gonzalez Inarritu, direc-

tor of national teams selection.

“The rules were broken, the code of discipline was broken and I have to act.” The players were also each fined $4,100.

They are expected to be replaced, with the Copa America opening on Friday in La Plata, Argentina, with host Argentina playing Bolivia. “ The players confessed,” Gonzalez added. “They are very hurt, very sorry and they have said they are sorry to their fans. ... They are assuming the consequences.” Mexico opens play on July 4 against Chile in Group C, which also includes Peru and Uruguay.

A similar incident took play in September 2010 when two players — Carlos Vela and Efrain Juarez — were suspended for six months following a par ty after an international friendly against Colombia in Monterrey, Mexico. Eleven other players were fined. The incident involved a late-night part y involving unidentified women.—AP

Reds blank Rays and Indians win

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Eton’s ancient game thrives in Nigeria Page 17

WIMBLEDON: Russia’s Maria Sharapova returns a shot to Slovakia’s Dominika Cibulkova during their match at the All England Lawn Tennis Championships. — AP

Sharapova storms into Wimbledon semis WIMBLEDON: Maria Sharapova looked like a champion under the Centre Court roof at Wimbledon, advancing to the semifinals at the All England Club for the first time since 2006 with a 6-1, 6-1 win over Dominika Cibulkova yesterday.

Sharapova, the only Wimbledon champion remaining in the women’s draw after the Williams sisters were eliminated a day earlier, won eight straight games to win the first set and take control of the second.

The fifth-seeded Russian has not lost a set at this year’s tournament, and she was nowhere near losing one yesterday. “It’s been a few years since I got past the fourth round, and now I’m in the semifinals,” said Sharapova, who won the tournament in 2004 and also reached the semifinals in ‘05.

“So this a great chance for me to take it a step further.” Sharapova will next face German wildcard entry Sabine Lisicki. She reached her first Grand Slam semifinal by beating 2007 finalist Marion Bartoli 6-4, 6-7 (4), 6-1 on another wet day at Wimbledon.

“This is a player that’s playing with a tremendous amount of confidence right now and playing really great grass-court tennis, so it’ll be a really tough match but I certainly look forward to it,” Sharapova said. Cibulkova held serve in the first game against Sharapova, but couldn’t hold another. The only hiccup in the match for Sharapova came in the third game of the second set when Cibulkova broke.

Sharapova won her first Grand Slam title at the All England Club when she was only 17. She

added the US Open title in 2006 and the Australian Open title in 2008, but has not won another since — mainly due to shoulder problems.

“Well, to be in the semis of Wimbledon is a bonus,” said Sharapova, who finished with 23 winners and five aces. “To be able to come back and play tennis after a big injury — I was just quite happy to be back on the court. So to achieve this is wonderful. But the tournament isn’t over.”

But with the Williams sisters, who have combined to win nine of the last 11 Wimbledon titles, both losing in the fourth round, Sharapova may be the one with the experience needed to win. The rain briefly delayed the start of play yesterday as the roof was closed, while the opening match on Court 1 started after a 21/2-hour delay.

Once it did, Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic reached the Wimbledon semifinals for the second year in a row, beating Tsvetana Pironkova of Bulgaria 6-3, 6-7 (5), 6-2. Pironkova, who eliminated Venus Williams from the tournament for the second straight, lost in the semifinals last year.

Later, Tamira Paszek was to play fourth-seeded Victoria Azarenka. The winner of that match will meet Kvitova in Thursday’s semifinals.

With heavy rain causing a racket as it pelted down on the retractable white cover over the court, Lisicki used drop shots to perfection in the first two sets, becoming only the second wildcard entry to reach the women’s semifinals at the All England Club. “I cannot explain how I feel at the moment,” said Lisicki, the first German

Grand Slam semifinalist since Steffi Graf in 1999.

“It was just such a tough road back and it’s so wonderful to be standing on Centre Court in Wimbledon which I love so much. I’m just so happy.”

Lisicki served for the match at 5-4 in the second and held three match points, but Bartoli saved them all. On the second, Lisicki went to her go-to drop shot but put it into the net.

Bartoli eventually broke back — when Lisicki double-faulted for the first time — and then won the tiebreaker.

“I was very disappointed with myself how I played at 5-4, that game, because I missed easily,” said Lisicki, who has won 15 of her last 16 matches on grass and eliminated French Open champion Li Na in the second round.

“I felt that I was the better player today and I knew I just had to focus and fight again in the third set to win it.” In the third set, Lisicki broke to take a 3-0 lead, and then again to make it 5-1.

She won when the tiring Bartoli put a forehand into the net.

“My mind was trying extremely hard, but just my body couldn‘t do anything anymore,” said Bartoli, who beat four-time champion Serena Williams in the fourth round. “I still fought very hard, especially in that second set. ... I have no regrets.”

Lisicki, who finished the match with 52 winners to Bartoli’s 12, reached the quarterfinals at the All England Club two years ago but lost to Dinara Safina. Lisicki survived a scare early in the match, but it had nothing to do with tennis or even her opponent. — AP

Sweden edge Colombia in Women’s World Cup LEVERKUSEN: Jessica Landstrom scored in Sweden’s labored 1-0 win over Colombia in hot conditions at the Women’s World Cup yesterday.

Colombia, playing in its first World Cup game, had a player suspended before the match when reserve goalkeeper Yineth Varon failed a drugs test taken on Saturday. Landstrom, the player of the match who had a number of chances, scored from close range in the 57th minute, set up by a fine cross from Lotta Schelin on the right wing.

“We won our opening match. It’s been a while since that last happened,” Sweden coach Thomas Dennerby said. Neither side were at their best before 21,106 fans at Bay Arena, their efforts drained by humidity and 32-degree (90-degree F) heat on the hottest day of the tournament so far.

Landstrom denied the heat was

an issue for the players. “We prepared ourselves in the best way possible,” she said. “We knew it was going to be warm weather so there’s nothing we would have changed.”

Spectators coped by dousing themselves with water. Sweden managed to keep Colombia’s star 17-year-old Yoreli Rincon in check, but Colombia coach Ricardo Rozo said he expects more from the teenager as the tournament progresses.

“If she goes on working properly she can show more than she showed today,” Rozo said. “Look at this girl _ she wants to be the best player in the world and she’s working on it!” He refused to comment on Varon’s suspension. In the other Group C match, the United States was playing North Korea. There was drama in the second minute when Schelin beat Colombia goalkeeper Sandra Sepulveda, only for her shot

LEVERKUSEN: Colombia’s Lady Andrade (left) and Sweden’s Annica Svensson challenge for the ball during the Group C match at the Women’s Soccer World Cup. —AP to be cleared off the line by Natalia Gaitan. Moments later, Caroline Seger set up Schelin, whose shot was parried by Sepulveda and

cleared off the line again despite a defensive mix-up between Andrea Peralta and Colombia captain Gaitan. — AP

DRESDEN: United States’ Shannon Boxx (left) and North Korea’s Kim Un Ju challenge for the ball during the Group C match at the Women’s Soccer World Cup. —AP

US blank North Korea DRESDEN: Lauren Cheney and Rachel Buehler scored in the second half yesterday as the United States won 2-0 against North Korea in its opening match at the women’s World Cup. Cheney scored in the 54th minute, taking a long cross from Abby Wambach right in front of the box and nodding the ball past goalkeeper Hong Myong Hui to set off a raucous celebration by the twotime World Cup champions.

Buehler hit the second goal of her career with a thunderous right-footed strike from 11 yards in the 76th minute.

Hong dived, but the ball rolled beneath her outstretched hand.

When the final whistle sounded, the US reserves ran onto the field to celebrate while the North Koreans stood just beyond midfield, watching. It was the fourth straight time the teams had met in group play at the World Cup, and the Americans have won all but one of the games. Still, the victory isn’t likely to end the questions about the Americans, who have been uncharacteristically inconsistent lately. After going more than two years without a loss, they dropped three games in five months, and looked decidedly unsettled against the North Koreans for much of the first half.

“It’s always good going forward,” US coach Pia Sundhage said. “Two great goals, and we’re moving on.” Despite their World Cup “reunions,” the previous games against North Korea were of little help to the Americans here.

Only two of the North Koreans had

played in a World Cup before, and just five had made more than 10 appearances with the senior national team.

Heck, 10 of the North Koreans were playing in the Under-20 World Cup just last year.

The mystery surrounding the North Koreans had been a concern for the Americans — and rightfully so. The US controlled the game early with crisp passing and good speed. But the North Koreans gained confidence as the game went on, and the U.S. was lucky to escape with the game tied 0-0 at the half. Their adjustments at halftime paid off, with the Americans dominating possession and chances. Cheney was in Hong’s face so often the North Korean goalkeeper will be having nightmares about the American for weeks, even though most of her shots found their way into Hong’s hands.

There was little she could do about Cheney’s goal, however. Abby Wambach, who had put a shot over the goal from the edge of the 6-yard box three minutes earlier, dribbled quickly up the left flank and took a step as if to move inside, spinning a North Korean defender around. She dribbled a few more steps before chipping in a perfect cross that Cheney nodded past Hong.

It was Cheney’s 14th goal in her 40th appearance for the United States.

Wambach hit the crossbar in the 65th and Amy Rodriguez put a shot wide in the 73rd before Buehler scored the insurance goal. — AP

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ATHENS: Protesters run away from riot police during a 24-hour general strike yesterday. —AFP

Greece gripped by general strike Moment of truth as protesters, police clash ATHENS: Riot police fired tear gas at youths hurling rocks near the Greek finance ministry yesterday, trying to quell the anger unleashed by a general strike as parliament debated new costcutting measures. The latest austerity measures must pass in two parliamentary votes today and tomorrow if Greece is to receive bailout funds from the EU and the IMF that will keep it from becoming the first eurozone nation to default on its debts.

The clashes with police came at the start of a two-day general strike called by unions furious that the government’s new $40 billion austerity program will slap taxes on minimum wage earners and other struggling Greeks. The measures come on top of other spending cuts and tax hikes that have sent the Greek unemployment rate soaring to over 16 percent. Hooded youths ripped up paving stones and set trash bins on fire in central Athens as police gave chase and fired tear gas and stun grenades.

Earlier, about 20,000 people had marched

peacefully in two separate demonstrations, while another 7,000 protested in the northern city of Thessaloniki without incident. Everyone from doctors and ambulance drivers to casino workers and even actors at a state-funded theater were joining the strike or holding work stoppages for several hours. Hundreds of flights were canceled or rescheduled as air traffic controllers walked off the job for four hours in the morning and were holding another walkout in the evening.

Strikes by public transport workers snarled traffic across the capital, while other protesters blockaded the port of Piraeus. “The situation that the workers are undergoing is tragic and we are near poverty levels,” said Spyros Linardopoulos, a protester with the PAME union at the Piraeus blockade. “The government has declared war and to this war we will answer back with war.”

Lawmakers began debating the latest austerity measures yesterday. The package and an additional implementation law must be passed so the European Union and the International

Monetary Fund release the next installment of Greece’s $156 billion bailout loan.

Without that $17 billion installment, Greece faces the prospect of a default next month - a potentially disastrous event that could drag down European banks, hurt other financially troubled European countries and even shock the whole global financial system. But even lawmakers from the governing Socialists have been upset over the latest measures demanded by international creditors, and Prime Minister George Papandreou has struggled to contain an internal party revolt. He reshuffled his cabinet earlier this month to try to ensure his party’s support for this vote, but the Socialists still only have a 5-seat majority in the 300-member Parliament.

Papandreou urged lawmakers Monday to fulfill a “patriotic duty” by voting in favor of the new measures, but two of his own lawmakers have suggested they won’t. European officials have also been pressuring Greece’s the main conservative opposition party to back the austerity bill.

Ambanis losing their shine with investors MUMBAI: India’s billionaire Ambani brothers are struggling to rediscover their Midas touch after a year in which they have been battered by investigations and investor skepticism about their businesses. Mukesh and Anil Ambani took over their father Dhirubhai’s conglomerate after his death in 2002 but an acrimonious five-year scrap over the assets forced their mother to intervene and carve up the empire into two. Elder brother Mukesh heads Reliance Industries, with assets in mostly the energy and petrochemicals sector while Anil created the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani group (ADAG), from its telecom, finance and utilities interests.

Shares in Mukesh’s firm hit a two-year low last week and are down 20 percent in 2011 so far, while Anil’s flagship Reliance Communication (RCom) shares have more than halved in the last 12 months. “Once ‘Dhiru’ shares were in almost every investor’s portfolio,” said Hemen Kapadia, chief executive of investment advisory firm Chart Pundit, using the nickname brokers gave the Reliance Industries stock under the Ambanis’ father. “But Reliance stocks have lost some of their gloss,” he said.

Mukesh’s Fortune Global 500 firm has been dragged down mostly by concerns about slowing gas output from its fields off India’s east coast, raising valuation worries for other still-to-be-explored

assets. Output from the KG-D6 field has tumbled nearly 17 percent to 50-51 million metric standard cubic meters a day (MMSCMD), from a peak of 60 MMSCMD last year. The group had been expected to get a major boost from a $7.2-billion deal with British energy giant BP to explore the Indian company’s existing and uncharted deepwater oil and gas fields.

But with gas output falling “the potential valuations for Reliance’s future oil reserves... is evaporating,” said one oil analyst with a Mumbai-based firm, who declined to be named. Another headache comes as the energy giant finds itself at the centre of controversy after the national auditor claimed that India’s oil ministry and regulator favored Reliance as it developed the KG-D6 field.

Reliance hit back in a letter to the oil ministry this week, saying its reputation was “severely impacted” by the allegations. Anil, meanwhile, saw ADAG removed from the leading Sensex index on the Bombay Stock Exchange last week, just as he was trying to revive its fortunes. The group has faced headwinds since April after federal police quizzed the tycoon and other executives as part of a probe into one of India’s biggest graft scandals, involving the awarding of telecom licenses in 2008.

Three senior executives from Reliance Telecom are on remand in prison facing

charges of cheating, forgery and criminal conspiracy in the high-profile case, which is thought to have cost the country billions of dollars. A cloud hangs over the group, particularly RCom, said Jagannadham Thunuguntla, head of research with SMC Global Securities in New Delhi. “Perception is weak, due to regulatory and financial concerns,” he said. Anil has for more than a year been trying to find a foreign investor to buy a 26-percent stake in RCom, which would help lower its ballooning debt of $7.18 billion.

RCom, India’s second-biggest mobile phone firm, with a 16.5 percent share, has recorded seven straight quarterly falls in profit, even though India is the world’s fastest growing mobile phone market, with 827 million subscribers at April-end, a 35 percent jump year-onyear. Competition is intense and margins are falling. To add insult to injury, rival conglomerate Tata Group became India’s biggest in terms of market capitalization last week, beating the combined value of the brothers’ companies.

The salt-to-steel Tata Group was worth 4.32 trillion rupees ($96 billion) while the combined worth of the two Ambani brothers groups was 3.46 trillion rupees.

Reliance Industries said it did not comment on share prices. ADAG was not available for comment.—AFP

“Both the future of the country and financial stability in Europe are at stake,” European Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn said. “I fully respect the prerogatives and the sovereignty of the Greek Parliament in the ongoing debate. And I trust that the Greek political leaders are fully aware of the responsibility that lies on their shoulders to avoid default.”

But conservative party leader Antonis Samaras has refused, arguing that while he backs some austerity measures, the overall thinking behind the package is flawed. Greece remains frozen out of bond markets and is surviving on the $156 billion in promised bailout loans. But the initial plan had assumed that Greece would be able to return to the markets next year.

That won’t happen, and a result Athens is negotiating for a second bailout, which Papandreou has said will be roughly the same size as the first. Papandreou said he hoped the terms would be better than those for the first bailout. “I call on Europe, for its part, to give

Greece the time and the terms it needs to really pay off its debt, without strangling growth, and without strangling its citizens,” he said.

Papandreou’s new finance minister, Evangelos Venizelos, said the government acknowledged the new cuts were “unfair” and that he hoped negotiations over a second bailout would be concluded by the end of the summer.

“These measures will take us from running budget deficits to achieving primary surpluses,” he said. “It’s a difficult but necessary step.”

But many Greeks insist they should not be forced to pay for a crisis they believe the politicians are responsible for. “We don’t owe any money, it’s the others who stole it,” said 69year-old demonstrator Antonis Vrahas. “We’re resisting for a better society for the sake of our children and grandchildren.” Even with the new austerity measures, many investors still believe that Greece is heading for some sort of default because its overall debt burden is too great. —AP

Lagarde poised to win IMF job WASHINGTON: French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde was poised to be named head of the International Monetary Fund as the global crisis lender’s board meets to replace Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Despite grumblings from emerging economies over Europe’s 65year lock on the executive director job, there was little doubt that the key IMF power, the United States, would support Lagarde, making it nearly impossible for Mexican challenger Agustin Carstens to win the position.

Choosing Lagarde would ease European concerns that the Fund’s crucial bailouts of Greece, Portugal and Ireland could be disrupted by the unexpected departure of Strauss-Kahn, who resigned May 18 to fight sexual assault charges. Lagarde picked up an endorsement from China Monday, confirmation that efforts to construct an emerging economy bloc to end Europe’s monopoly on the job had failed.

Speaking in London, China’s central bank chief Zhou Xiaochuan said Beijing had already expressed “quite full support” for Lagarde’s candidacy, according to Dow Jones Newswires. “Of course we still do not know what the final situation will be.

Currently, there doesn’t seem to be anything unclear about it,” he was quoted as saying. Since the race began in late May, 55-year-old Lagarde has been the strong favorite over Carstens, Mexico’s central bank chief, despite his formidable resume.

Few expected Washington to break the tacit pact, dating to the founding of the Fund and sister institution the World

Bank, that an American would run the Bank while a European headed the Fund.

On Monday US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner remained coy, while he praised what he called “an open, contested process” with “two excellent candidates”. “I’m sure we’re on the verge of hav-

Christine Lagarde ing somebody emerge that will come in very well-supported,” he said. “And that’s very important because this institution faces a lot of challenges, not least in Europe, and it’s a time we need strong leadership.”

The 187-nation Fund, which plays a

crucial but often controversial role aiding countries in financial straits, was left reeling after Strauss-Kahn resigned in the middle of tense negotiations over Greece’s massive bailout and tensions over other struggling European economies. Strauss-Kahn, whose arrest in May sent shock waves across his native France’s political landscape and the financial world, is accused of attempting to rape a Manhattan hotel maid. He has denied all charges against him. With their crisis festering, Europe’s powers aggressively put forward Lagarde.

Though not an economist, she has gained wide respect as France’s pointwoman during its leadership of the G20 as well as in European debt talks. Despite her strong suit, Lagarde toured the world to convince emerging economic powers like China and India that she would not be too biased to take tough stances on Europe’s bailouts of Greece, Ireland and Portugal. “I am not here to represent the interest of any given region of the world, but rather the entire membership,” she told the IMF board last week. Europe’s push frightened off at least two other potential non-European candidates, who declined to stand, saying Lagarde had the job sewn up.

Carstenss, 53, at first only getting an endorsement from a bloc of Latin American countries that notably did not include regional powers Brazil or Argentina. But on Friday he picked up surprise endorsements from Australia and Canada, which usually line up with Europe and Washington. —AFP

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BUSINESS

Maximum uncertainty

Oil gains ground

Saxo Bank Quarterly Outlook Q3 2011

Dollar weakness helps lift crude prices LONDON: Oil rose yesterday as an agreement by France to roll over holdings of mature Greek debt boosted appetite for riskier assets like commodities and helped lift the euro against the dollar. President Nicolas Sarkozy said French banks had reached a draft agreement with the authorities on a voluntary rollover of maturing bonds. This settled investor nerves as markets anxiously awaited the outcome of a vote in Greece to approve unpopular fiscal austerity measures. ICE Brent crude for August was up 68 cents to $106.67 a barrel by 0942 GMT after hitting an intraday high of $107.50. US crude added 35 cents to trader at $90.96. Oil was also supported as the euro gained and the dollar index fell as a weaker US currency makes it more attractive to holders of other currencies.

“If there’s a resolution to the situation in Greece, it will boost the euro and that will support oil as there’s such a strong FX component,” Harry Tchilingurian, oil analyst at BNP Paribas said. Investors were still watching to see if Greece’s parliament will approve austerity steps that are a precondition for international aid that the country needs to avoid a default.

Prices were expected to remain volatile as some investors were still worried about the result of the Greek vote, said Ken Hasegawa, a commodity sales manager at Newedge Japan.

“WTI (West Texas Intermediate, or US crude futures) may be supported around $90, but any upside will be limited because of concerns about the economy in the euro zone,” he said.

DEFAULT FEARED Without approval, the European Union

and the International Monetary Fund say they will not disburse the fifth trance of Greece’s 110 billion-euro bailout program.

Athens needs the aid to pay its bills next month and avert the euro zone’s first sovereign default. Investors are closely watching the impact of the release of 60 million barrels of oil from International Energy Agency reserves. South Korea will start to release 3.46 million barrels of oil, including 2 million barrels of crude and 1.46 million barrels of products by “today at the earliest,” a source at the economy ministry said.

Reac tions from members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, many of whom oppose the release, are also under scrutiny, analysts said. BP ’s chief economist told Reuters I nsider T V on M onday oil consuming

nations risk a long conflict with a trenchant OPEC by challenging the producers’ club on its own turf with a supply response to high prices, and the strategy could backfire.

Iran said yesterday there was no need for an OPEC emergency meeting as the oil market is balanced, the Oil Ministry website quoted Iran’s OPEC governor Mohammad Ali Khatibi as saying.

The market is also gearing up for crude inventories data in the United States in industry data. Analysts are expecting stocks to shrink for the four th week in a row.

Investors were also watching events in Libya, after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant on Monday for leader Muammar Gaddafi, and rebels trying to oust him said their forces had advanced to within 80 km of the capital. —Reuters

Gulf Bank red customers enjoy latest blockbusters KUWAIT: Gulf Bank continues to build on its summer campaign with the launch of its latest joint promotion with Kuwait National Cinema Company (KNCC). Through this exclusive partnership, the Bank’s red customers will be able to enjoy special discounts to watch the latest movies at KNCC every weekend during the month of July. red customers will be able to see the latest movie screening at only 500 fils instead of KD 3 by using their red ATM cards to purchase cinema tickets from ticket kiosks in all KNCC cinema theatres throughout Kuwait.

Yaser Sulaiman, Executive M anagerConsumer Banking Group at Gulf Bank said: “Our customers are, and will remain our top priority and we try very hard to listen to them and understand what they like. We were very excited at how popular this great offer was when we first launched it earlier in the year, so we have decided to introduce it again during the summer, to give even more red customers the chance to see the latest movies at a fraction of the full price. Our teams within the Bank will continue to develop new and attractive promotions that are perfectly suited for our customers’ needs.”

Gulf Bank’s red program caters to university and college students aged 17 to 24 years old.

There is no deposit required to open the account or no minimum balance charge. To join red program, current or new Gulf Bank customers can visit one of Gulf Bank ’s 54 branches or contact the Customer Contact Center on 1805805 for assistance and guidance. They can also log on to www.e-gulfbank.com, Gulf Bank’s bilingual website, to find all the information they need regarding the red program and its benefits.

Joyalukkas announces Easy Gold Plan winners KUWAIT: Joyaluk k as recently announced the winners of their Easy Gold Plan for the month of May. The Joyalukkas Easy Gold Plan is a unique installment based initiative for customers to save and buy jewelry of their choice in easy installments. The Joyalukkas Easy Gold Plan assures the customers of more value than their savings since Gold is considered one of the safest investment options today. Under the Joyalukkas Easy Gold Plan, customers can choose a monthly payment option starting from KD 10 and retain it for a period of 12, 18 or 24 months. At the end of the period customers can pick the jewelry of their choice from the Joyalukkas showrooms based on the value saved.

Most customers who have participated in the scheme have endorsed that the Joyalukkas Easy Gold Scheme has given them much better returns than Fixed Deposits. “Joyalukkas is committed to giving customers convenience,

value, choice and excellent service. The Easy Gold Scheme is part of our convenience initiative to make the purchase of jewelry very easy and secure for our customers. Besides assuring them returns, we give customers the flexibility of picking the jewelry they like and would love to own”, said Joy Alukkas, Chairman, Joyalukkas Group The winners for the last month under the Joyalukkas Easy Gold Scheme are Najeeba, EGP card no 1491002852 and Sajesh K, EGP card no 1491000447.

They each get to win gold coins from Joyalukkas. Joyalukkas is among the first ISO certified jewelry retailers in the Middle East and has also recently won the status of Superbrand in the UAE. In addition to this, Joyalukkas has been recognized with the Dubai Quality Awards certificate for its best practices in all aspects of jewelry retailing, and has also been awarded the status of Middle East’s Retailer of the Year by Retail ME.

Macro forecast Saxo Bank comments that the recent batch of weaker-than-expected economic data at the end of QE2 has jolted the markets into risk-off mode.

Uncertainty is running high, but from a fundamental perspective the analysts’ views are mostly unchanged since the Q2 Outlook. Saxo Bank stated then that slower growth was ahead, but not a new recession.

KUWAIT: Uncer taint y and erratic moves will be the norm rather than the exception repor ts Saxo Bank , the online trading and investment specialist, in its economic outlook for the third quarter of 2011. The second half of 2011 will be volatile and the uncertainty almost as great as during the financial crisis.

The most probable outlook for Q3 is that the world extends monetary stimulus across the global economies. This will bring marginal higher growth but also increase the burden on fiscal paym e nt s a nd a ne e d for s t r uc t ura l c ha nge s. A ny l ong-te r m s ol ut i on ne e d s to b e for wa rd l ook i ng a nd involve an agenda for dragging Europe out of the low growth stalemate. A solution based on buying more time will only take us closer to the feared full blown Crisis 2.0.

With this in mind three major themes are identified: ● The EU and US debt issue: time is up and decisions are needed ● Asia/China growth slows down as they turn to fighting inflation in earnest ● Social tension needs addressing other wise not only do we lose the young generation but we also fail to provide a sense of unity, the very basis for sustainable growth, peace and prosperity.

Commenting on the outlook, Steen Jakobsen, Saxo Bank’s Chief Economist said: “The financial crisis was an opportunity missed for the policymakers and politicians alike. Only in times of distress are there consensuses for change but world leaders instead chose to pile more debt onto debt, merely transferring risk from the financial sector to the public sec tor. Two years later, and almost to the day, such policy and economic errors have compounded with almost nothing to show in terms of key parameters for long-term economic growth, like housing and employment.”

“Demonstrations in the centres of Madrid, Athens, Lisbon and MENA are clear signs that something needs to be done to realign implemented policies with the required need for structural change. What the world needs to move forward is an agenda on growth and jobs, not on how to buy more time. The final six months of 2011 will be volatile and the only guarantee we can and will give is that uncer tainty and erratic moves will be the norm rather than the exception.”

FX Outlook Saxo Bank likens the outlook for the major economies for the next couple of quarters to a horse race in which the horses have all been maimed or sickened. Picking the winner is a choice between which horse looks the least likely to collapse before the finish line.

The U.S. economy headed south while the Federal Reserve must honour its QE2 exit deadline at the quar ter end.

Europe’s periphery is still a festering sore in need of fresh bailouts, Japan’s economy has been desperately disrupted by a natural disaster, and China is headed for a landing of one kind or another as it faces down inflationary overheating and a property bubble.

Equity Outlook The hangover for equities over the last three months, following the disaster in Japan, has turned into disappointment over economic data. Concerns about Europe’s sovereign debt situation with Greece on the verge of default further fuel anxiety. These events have reduced short-term visibility for stocks but the upward trend still prevails.

Despite the Bank’s slight downward revision to global economic growth, the ever benign valuation in equities means that it continues to be modestly optimistic about this asset class. The analysts expect it to emerge from the fog as the economy picks up speed in the second half of the year.

Commodity Outlook Oil markets will be watching economic developments closely due to concerns about OPEC’s recent failure to address a potential shortfall during the second half of the year. OPEC seems to be split between those who have spare capacity and those who do not. Apart from political differences, Saudi Arabia was looking to increase supplies amid autumn forecasts of a two million barrel-per-day deficit. The other bloc, led by Iran, which needs high prices and is already operating at full capacity, argued that demand for oil is set to soften due to weaknesses in the U.S. and other economies.

The Quar terly Outlook Q3 2011 focuses on the following areas:

Policy rates The futures markets have now come round to Saxo Bank’s belief that rates will be on hold well into H2 2012 and probably 2013. Saxo still feels QE3 is a distinct possibility in Q4 2011 or Q1 2012 - sooner, rather than later, in the event of dramatically weaker equity markets.

General Market Comment As the Saxo Bank Strategy Team expect the world to extend, stimulus across the global economies is the most likely outlook for Q3. This will result in acceptable growth but also an increased burden on fiscal payments and a need for structural changes.

EXCHANGE RATES Commercial Bank of Kuwait US Dollar/KD GB Pound/KD Euro Swiss francs Canadian Dollar Australian DLR Indian rupees Sri Lanka Rupee UAE dirhams Bahraini dinars Jordanian dinar Saudi riyals Omani riyals Philippine peso Egyptian pounds

.2710000 .4360000 .3870000 .3260000 .2750000 .2840000 .0040000 .0020000 .0745510 .7263240 .3810000 .0700000 .7120280 .0040000 .0430000 CUSTOMER TRANSFER RATES .2746000 .4383710 .3890530 .3281350 .2777520 .0521560 .0421720 .2869020 .0352580 .2211840 .0034000 .0000000 .0000000 .0000000 .0000000 .0747920 .7285750 .0000000 .0732460 .7134320 .0000000

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

.2770000 .4470000 .3970000 .3360000 .2850000 .2950000 .0072500 .0035000 .0753000 .7336300 .4010000 .0770000 .7191840 .0072000 .0530000 .2767000 .4417240 .3920290 .3306450 .2798770 .0525550 .0424950 .2890960 .0355280 .2228760 .0034260 .0061830 .0025330 .0032360 .0037650 .0753640 .7341470 .3913720 .0738060 .7188880 .0064350

Al-Muzaini Exchange Co. ASIAN COUNTRIES Japanese Yen Indian Rupees Pakistani Rupees Srilankan Rupees Nepali Rupees Singapore Dollar Hongkong Dollar Bangladesh Taka

3.437 6.121 3.207 2.511 3.835 222.850 35.451 3.700

Philippine Peso Thai Baht Irani Riyal - Transfer Irani Riyal - Cash

6.329 8.939 0.271 0.273 GCC COUNTRIES

Saudi Riyal Qatari Riyal Omani Riyal Bahraini Dinar UAE Dirham

73.629 75.866 717.160 733.360 75.184 ARAB COUNTRIES

Egyptian Pound - Cash Egyptian Pound - Transfer Yemen Riyal Tunisian Dinar Jordanian Dinar Lebanese Lira Syrian Lier Morocco Dirham

48.350 46.281 1.263 201.900 389.910 183.100 5.961 35.385

EUROPEAN & AMERICAN COUNTRIES US Dollar Transfer 276.000 Euro 392.470 Sterling Pound 442.290 Canadian dollar 280.770 Turkish lire 168.400 Swiss Franc 331.530 Australian dollar 288.250 US Dollar Buying 274.800 277.000 140.000 72.000

SELL CASH 291.000 732.180 3.930 282.600 540.800 36.600 53.700 167.800 48.280 397.300 36.030 6.300

0.033

389.110 0.185 92.980 3.840 224.400

Sterling Pound US Dollar

SELL DRAFT 289.500 732.180 3.690 281.100

222.900 46.196 395.800 35.880 6.120

Rate for Transfer US Dollar Canadian Dollar Sterling Pound Euro Swiss Frank Bahrain Dinar UAE Dirhams Qatari Riyals Saudi Riyals Jordanian Dinar Egyptian Pound Sri Lankan Rupees Indian Rupees

Pakistani Rupees Bangladesh Taka Philippines Pesso Cyprus pound Japanese Yen Thai Bhat Syrian Pound Nepalese Rupees Malaysian Ringgit

3.205 3.695 6.314 675.041 3.505 9.030 5.787 3.910 91.411

Kuwait Bahrain Intl Exchange Co. 714.910 3.215 6.310 75.730 73.510 222.890 42.670 2.507 441.700 331.600 5.500 9.090 74.960 275.300

TRAVELLER’S CHEQUE 441.700 275.300

Currency US Dollar Pak Rupees Indian Rupees Sri Lankan Rupees Bangladesh Taka Philippines Peso UAE Dirhams Saudi Riyals Bahraini Dinars Egyptian Pounds Pound Sterling Indonesian Rupiah Nepali rupee Yemeni Riyal Jordanian Dinars Syrian Pounds Euro Canadian Dollars

Rate per 1000 (Tran) 275.200 3.215 6.125 2.520 3.700 6.350 75.030 73.590 731.600 46.145 447.000 0.00003280 3.910 1.550 391.000 5.750 398.900 286.500

Al Mulla Exchange

Dollarco Exchange Co. Ltd

Bahrain Exchange Company COUNTRY Australian dollar Bahraini dinar Bangladeshi taka Canadian dollar Cyprus pound Czek koruna Danish krone Deutsche Mark Egyptian pound Euro Cash Hongkong dollar Indian rupees

0.033 0.240 0.240 3.500 390.720 0.186 92.980 47.500 4.320 225.900 1.867 51.500 715.090 3.310 6.540 76.160 73.510 222.890 42.670 2.648 443.700 43.700 333.100 5.500 9.370 198.263 75.060 275.700 1.200 GOLD 1,547.390

10 Tola

GOLD 20 Gram 10 Gram 5 Gram

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

Selling Rate 275.200 282.240 440.060 395.000 329.905 728.942 74.903 75.540 73.350 387.376 46.188 2.505 6.119

Currency US Dollar Euro Pound Sterling Canadian Dollar Japanese Yen Indian Rupee Egyptian Pound Sri Lankan Rupee Bangladesh Taka Philippines Peso Pakistan Rupee Bahraini Dinar UAE Dirham Saudi Riyal *Rates are subject to change

Transfer Rate (Per 1000) 274.850 395.500 441.500 280.900 3.425 6.112 46.140 2.505 3.675 6.310 3.200 731.800 74.900 73.475

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Kazakhstan wrestles with striking oil workers ALMATY: An unusual wave of strikes has swept energy-rich southwestern Kazakhstan where thousands of oil industry workers have been demanding higher wages for almost a month. Workers and their families in the southwestern Mangistau region on the shores of the oilrich Caspian Sea sometimes resorted to extreme measures-cutting their own stomachs, blocking roads, going on hunger strikes-to be heard by their employers. The strikes-the longest of which has already lasted for more than 40 days-are unlikely to pose a threat to the government but are a rare event in a country where the authorities show little tolerance of dissent.

“For now, the authorities chose tough measures to deal with the strikers. I don’t think this situation will grow into a social conflict, but it remains very tense,” political scientist Eduard Poletayev said. Kazakhstan has been ruled since even before independence by Nursultan Nazarbayev who

has turned his country into the most stable and prosperous state in Central Asia but has also been criticized for clamping down on human rights. Images of police dispersing striking workers outside the city administration building in Aktau were broadcast on the Kyrgyzstan-based K-Plus TV channel.

A city cour t found guilty Nataliya Sokolova, who provided workers with legal assistance, in “organizing an unsanctioned mass gathering” in front of police headquarters in the port city of Aktau. She was later charged with “inciting social hatred” which could send her to jail for up to seven years. More than 100 workers at Ersai Caspian Constractor, a Kazakh-Italian joint venture serving the oil industry, have been on strike since May 11. At its peak, the number of protesters reached 350 people, said the company’s spokesman Adilet Adam.

“I was put into such a situation that I will stand until the end,” said Vladislav Prokofiyev, a constructor at the Ersai. “You

may be kicked once, twice, three times, but at some point, it has to end. There must be some kind of justice,” he told K-Plus TV channel. Ersai, which produces pipe racks for the lucrative Kashagan oil field project, is owned by ERC Holdings of Kazakhstan and Italy’s oil and gas industry contractor Saipem. “How Astana will respond to these is a significant question,” said John Daly, a Central Asia labour expert at Central AsiaCaucasus Institute in Washington.

“It would seem likely that the Kazakh leadership is attempting first to accurately assess the current situation and second, to determine what minimal concessions might be offered to defuse it,” he said. On May 16, several hundred workers at Karazhanbasmunai Sino-Kazakh joint venture in Aktau went on strike, demanding a wage increase and the lifting of restrictions on the activities of independent trade unions in the region. Two workers publicly slashed their stomachs and four workers on

hunger strike have been hospitalized, according to footage broadcast on the KPlus TV channel.

Many workers resent higher wages of educated outsiders-be it workers from another country or management from another region in Kazakhstan. “The resentment against better-paid foreign workers is not new, but clearly, this is on a different scale than previously,” Svante Cornell, research director of the Central AsiaCaucasus Institute said. “I hardly believe it will grow a movement that could form a serious threat to the government. It is a challenge that it (the government) will need to find a way to respond to sooner or later,” he said.

Six hundred out of 9,000 workers at the Kazakhstan’s London-listed oil and gas firm KazMunaiGas Exploration Production’s Uzenmunaigas facility went on strike on May 26, demanding a new system of payment be introduced. The management at

Uzenmunaigas said the strike was illegal.

The company has fired 200 workers for failure to turn up to work, said Mikhail Dorofeyev, a spokesman for the KazMunaiGas Exploration Production. “The company believes that the demands of protesters are unfounded,” KazMunaiGas Exploration Production said in a statement.

It said it had begun, in accordance with the labor code, dismissing striking workers, but added it wants to settle disagreements once everyone returned to work.

In M a rc h 2010, a 19- d ay s t r i ke a t K azMunaiGas Exploration Production ended in an agreement between workers and employers. “As a national company we have to meet demands set to us by the stockholder, which is to receive the maximum profit, thus paying more taxes and other payment into the budget,” the c ha i r m a n of t he b oa rd of t he s t a te owned KazMunaiGas, Kairgeldy Kabyldin said. — AFP

StanChart heads for record profit Shares up 1.6%; India income falls

TOKYO: People walk on a street at Ginza shopping district in Tokyo, Japan yesterday. — AP

Japan utility keeps nuke despite shareholder ire TOKYO: The utility at the heart of Japan’s atomic crisis, Tokyo Electric Power Co, won institutional shareholder backing yesterday to keep its reactors in the face of anger from rank-and-file stockholders seeking an end to nuclear energy. A motion filed at the utility’s annual general meeting would have forced managers to scrap all nuclear reactors and stop building new ones, reflecting a wider debate in Japan and other countries over the future of atomic power generation.

Although put forward each year, the proposal this year took on greater resonance because radiation is still escaping from Tokyo Electric’s nuclear plant in Fukushima, 240 km north of the capital.

Overwhelming support for the proposal among thousands at the meeting in Tokyo did not sway institutional investors, such as Dai-ichi Life Insurance, who own most of the stock. Dai-ichi is the biggest shareholder with a 3.43 percent stake. “We lost today to the big investors, but our message was heard,” said Masafumi Asada, a 70-yearold from Fukushima, who introduced the anti-nuclear proposal on behalf of a group of 402 shareholders.

The motion’s defeat after a six-hour meeting triggered shouting and protests among people who had travelled to confront executives of the utility, known as Tepco, over the worst nuclear power accident since Chernobyl in 1986. “Japan has a lot of earthquakes and after this accident I just don’t think there is such a thing as safe nuclear power here,” said Takako Kameoka, who came from Saitama, near Tokyo. “It was obvious there was a majority here for the proposal and they didn’t tell us in advance how many proxy votes they had,” said Kameoka, originally from Fukushima.

The result of the vote will be a relief for Tepco, which relies on nuclear power for 30 percent of its output. It mainly serves the Tokyo area and has already warned of power cuts this summer as it tries to revive production. Nuclear power by May still supplied 20 percent of Japan’s power although 35 of Japan’s 54 nuclear reactors are shut.

“The question is, can Japan do without nuclear power?” said Mitsushige Akino, chief fund manager at Ichiyoshi Investment Management Co. “How much are the Japanese people willing to sacrifice in terms of standards of living? “The (antinuclear) sentiment is understandable,” Akino added, “but the reality is that this is difficult without considerable sacrifice to economic growth and activity.”

SCORN Shareholders at the rowdy meeting heaped scorn on executives running the utility over their handling of the disaster at the nuclear plant and the company’s subsequent slide to near bankruptcy. In May, Tepco reported an annual loss of $15 billion and since the disaster, its shares have plummeted 85 percent, its corporate rating has fallen to junk status and $36 billion has been wiped off the company’s market value.

Security was tight as shareholders and protesters converged on the Prince Park Tower Hotel. The meeting started with thousands of stockholders packed into the venue and several hundred unable to find seats to interrogate Tepco executives over their actions following the March 11 calamity. Three reactors went into meltdown after a massive earthquake and tsunami hit the plant, forcing 80,000 residents to evacuate as engineers battled radiation leaks, hydrogen explosions and

overheating fuel rods. The earthquake and tsunami left nearly 24,000 people dead or missing.

The utility’s chairman, Tsunehisa Katsumata, opened the meeting with an apology. “We’re working to get out of this crisis as quickly as possible,” he said to scattered applause and one angry stockholder who shouted at the board members.

Katsumata paused before answering hundreds of written questions from shareholders as one woman, who appeared on the verge of tears, shouted out that he should have quit on the day of the disaster. One attendee suggested the board “jump into the reactors and die,” before being forced by security guards to sit down.

Another said the board would have been forced to perform ritual disembowelment had they lived in an era when such actions were deemed necessary to preserve honor. Nearly 70 percent of Japanese oppose the restart of nuclear reactors halted for maintenance work, a poll showed on Monday, even at the cost of power blackouts during the summer months when Japanese demand reaches a seasonal peak.

The Fukushima crisis has prompted a rethink of energy policy in Japan and around the world. Germany has vowed to abandon nuclear power and Japan has pulled back from a commitment to build new reactors.

NEW BOSS Greenpeace was among groups intent on voicing anger at Tepco. The environmental group asked demonstrators to meet in front of the hotel as shareholders arrived. The meeting approved appointments to the 17 member board including Toshio Nishizawa, allowing the board to formally name him as the company’s next president. His predecessor, Masataka Shimizu, quit to take responsibility for the crisis, which damaged the livelihoods of business people, farmers and fishermen in the Fukushima region.

When asked about corporate responsibility, Katsumata deferred the question to Shimizu, eliciting a laugh from the audience. Tepco faces a compensation bill to those victims that analysts say could exceed $100 billion. The government approved a taxpayer bailout for the utility this month, although the proposal faces weeks of wrangling in parliament as opposition politicians and some ruling-party lawmakers seek to either amend or scuttle it. Tepco will struggle to make payments if the bailout plan is not implemented. The appointment of Nishizawa, an insider who has worked at Tepco since graduating from college in 1975, may disappoint shareholders seeking to clean house at the utility.

Nishizawa’s approval, which many of the rank-and-file shareholders in the hall voted against, was greeted with groans and shouting from the packed crowd. “A fundamental structural overhaul is needed at the board level to enable Tepco to rebuild its reputation and recover financially,” said Glass Lewis, a US proxy voting company that advises institutional investors which own more than $17 trillion in assets. Glass Lewis released the statement on its website ahead of the meeting. Katsumata provided little cheer to Tepco’s shareholders. When asked for some “hope” by one, the chairman replied: “Unfortunately, there is no clearly visible hope right now.” Shares of Tepco ended trading in Tokyo unchanged from yesterday’s close of 316 yen, compared with a 0.7 percent gain in the benchmark Nikkei 225 index. — Reuters

HONG KONG: Staff cuts coupled with growth in Hong Kong and other key Asian markets have put Standard Chartered Plc on track for record profits in the first half of this year, up over 10 percent on a year earlier. The Asiafocused bank yesterday said income and profit were up over 10 percent in the first five months of the year and cost growth would be broadly in line with income growth in the first half. “It’s a very positive statement and an improvement on the Q1 stage, as they’ve clearly improved the situation on the cost to income line,” said Mike Trippitt, analyst at Oriel Securities in London, keeping a “buy” stance on the stock.

By 0730 GMT Standard Chartered’s London shares were up 1.6 percent at 15.64 pounds, outpacing a 0.8 percent rise by the European bank index . Cost growth rising faster than income growth, known as “negative jaws”, has dogged StanChart for the past year as it battles rivals such as HSBC Holdings Plc to keep and retain talent in key fast-growing Asian markets such as China and Hong Kong.

Analysts had expected costs to outpace income again in the first half and be broadly flat for the full year.

Finance Director Richard Meddings said the bank had cut 1,300 staff in the first five months of the year, after adding 7,000 staff last year to give it 85,000 employees.

Investment and hiring will pick up in the second half, he said, resulting in a net increase in staff for the full year in line with previous guidance of a 1,000 rise or slightly fewer. “We have a relatively high attrition rate consistent with the financial services industry, so when people leave us we are able to manage the pace at which we rehire,” Meddings told reporters on a conference call. “We will accelerate investment in the second half,” he added, aiming to keep cost growth in line with income growth for the year.

Meddings said the London-headquartered bank, which makes over four-fifths of its profit in Asia and other emerging markets, would

SINGUR: In this file photo, cattle roam in front of a factory shed at the Tata Motors factory complex at Singur, some 32kms north of Kolkata. India’s Tata Motors said it had filed a case in the Supreme Court to block plans to hand back land it acquired for its aborted low-cost Nano car factory in the east of the country. — AFP keep its capital level “above the fray” of minimum global standards, and remained a net provider of liquidity to the interbank market.

But it has withdrawn liquidity provided to euro zone banks in the last 18 months as the region’s problems have deepened, and directed the funds back to Asian clients. Meddings said a UK bank levy was likely to cost $190 million this year and the bank assumed a $95 million cost in the first half, even though it was unlikely to account for the levy until later in the year.

A strong per formance in Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, China and Indonesia

helped offset a weaker showing from Indiawhich was its biggest market last year-and Africa, the bank said. Standard Chartered is expected to make a profit of $6.9 billion this year, up 13 percent from $6.1 billion last year, according to the average of 22 analysts polled

by Thomson Reuters. That would mark a ninth successive year of record profit. Its Londonlisted shares are down 9 percent this year, valuing the bank at about 37 billion pounds.

Its shares have fallen from its all-time high of 19.75 pounds in November on worries about rising costs and as its shares trade a significant premium to most rivals. — Reuters

Iran’s fuel exports to East Asia surge

Dubizzle.com eyes growth for Kuwait online marketplace KUWAIT: Dubizzle.com-the region’s leading online classifieds and community portal-has announced plans to extend their offerings across digital platforms following rapid growth in both user traffic and content listings in Kuwait. The website has already made great strides in a number of regional markets, with Dubizzle.com currently welcoming over one and a half million unique visitors a month and more than 70 million page views from across the Middle East and North Africa.

Since its unveiling earlier this year, visitor traffic to Dubizzle.com Kuwait has been increasing by over 60% and 400,000 page views monthly. As local consumers choose to go online to buy, sell, and find things within their community, Dubizzle.com has built its reputation in Kuwait by offering all its

services free to the end-user, with individuals never having to pay to sell items or to respond to listings. Over 2,000 listings from Kuwait were added to the site in May alone, both from individual users as well as leading real estate, automotive and recruitment groups. Broadening its offerings across devices and digital platforms, the company has revealed plans to launch a mobile version of its website, giving consumers in Kuwait the ability to easily access Dubizzle.com services from their mobile devices while on the go.

A beta version is currently available in English, with the company planning to develop mobile platforms in Arabic and French later this year. Smar t phone apps for Apple and Android devices are also said to be in development.

SINGAPORE: Iranian fuel oil exports to east Asia surged to a record of over 1 million tons in June because of a tight market, particularly for on-specification cargoes, traders said yesterday. The bulk of the cargoes, mainly of the 380-centistoke (cst) grade loaded from Iran’s Bandar Abbas port, were delivered by three Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCCs). That’s the highest number of supertankers from the country to reach East Asia in one month, Reuters data showed.

Another 500,000-550,000 tons, on board two supertankers, are expected to arrive in July, with the total for the month at 750,000-800,000 tons so far, they added.

“We have never seen so much Iranian volumes in a single month, ever,” a Singapore-based Asian trader said.

“It was only mid last year when Bandar Abbas cargoes started finding their way here. The heavy flows were drawn by the tight market here.”

The cargoes, a combination of 380-cst and straightrun 280-cst from Bandar Mahshahr, were transacted at premiums of $1.00-$2.00 and around $10.00 a ton, respectively, to Singapore spot 180-cst quotes on a cost-and-freight (C&F) basis. The cargoes were all purchased on a C&F basis, delivered by three supertankers owned by the National Iranian Oil Co’s (NIOC) shipping arm. It was not immediately clear who the buyers were, traders said.

The first VLCC, Hatef, reached Singapore on June 6.

The second, Mayzonah, arrived on June 19 and discharged off Pasir Gudang in neighboring Malaysia and the third, Huwayzeh, landed on Monday and is discharging off the Indonesian ship-to-ship transfer point of Karimun. May volumes were also heavy, with the arrival of two VLCCs from Iran, up from one a month since around the third quarter of last year. The June volumes of 1.2 million tons lifted the monthly average inflows to 640,000-645,000 tons, almost doubling last year’s average of 335,000-340,000 tons.

Despite the heavy Iranian arrivals, the market has stayed strong throughout the month, with fuel oil’s front timespread averaging at a backwardation of $5.28 a ton from June 1 till Monday, up from May’s average of $3.51. It was balanced by 16-month low Western supplies, at 2.8-2.9 million tons, for June-arrival as well as below-average arrival volumes of Saudi, Kuwaiti and Indian fuel oil cargoes. — Reuters

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Stocks succumbed to selling pressure GLOBAL DAILY MARKET REPORT KUWAIT: Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE) ended yesterday’s session sharply lower, reaching its lowest level since July 22, 2010. Stocks succumbed to the selling pressure. The market has been on a bear run for a while now, and yesterday’s losses accumulated the Global General Index losses YTD to 14.23 percent.

Market Indices Global General Index (GGI), market weighted, ended the day down by 0.61 percent, at 191.72 point. Market Capitalization was down for the day at KD31.32bn. On the other hand, KSE Price Index closed at 6,226.8 point, shedding 26.70 points (0.43 percent) to its previous close.

Market Breadth During the session, 97 companies were traded. Market breadth was skewed towards decliners as 59 equities retreated versus 13 that advanced.

Daily Trading Activity Trading activity was mixed this session.

Total volume traded was down by 2.82 percent with 77.67mn shares changing hands at a total value of KD25.77mn (58.86 percent higher compared to the day before). The services sector was the volume leader today, accounting for 19.87 percent of total shares.

The banking sector was the value leader, with 33.55 percent of total traded value. Zain Company was the most active in terms of values traded during yesterday session, with 4.35mn shares exchanged at an aggregate value of KD4.44mn.

Top Gainers and Biggest Decliners In terms of top gainers, Boubyan International Industries Holding took the top spot for the day, adding 7.69 percent and closed at KD0.112. On the other hand, Pearl of Kuwait Real Estate Company shed 9.26 percent and closed at KD0.025, making it the biggest decliner in the market.

Sectors-Wise On a sector by sector basis, four out of the eight sectors of the market edged lower.

Banking stocks shouldered the retreat, with the sector index dropping by 1.70 percent with the big drop attributed to the share price of National Bank of Kuwait (NBK )

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 29, 2011

besides five other banks share prices ending at lower levels. NBK saw its share value depreciate by 3.39 percent in the day.

Non-Kuwaiti stocks were notable decliners, shedding 1.13 percent in sector losses.

Gulf Finance House retreated by 7.69 percent.

Gulf Cement Company followed, shedding 5.68 percent at KD0.083. The Share price of National Investment Company reported 0.86 percent drop, sending the Global Investment Index down by 0.37 percent. Elsewhere in the sector, the AGM of Al Mal Investment Company was held and approved non-distribution of profits for the year ended December 31, 2010. The scrip closed down by 6.10 percent at KD0.077. On the other side of the spectrum, Global Services Index was the biggest advancer, adding 0.82 percent in gains. Zain share price witnessed a 1.96 percent growth by the end of the session. Agility

was another gainer. The scrip closed up by 1.52 percent at KD0.335.

Oil News The price of Kuwaiti crude oil came down $1.70 to reach $99.35 per barrel (pb) on Monday, said Kuwait Petroleum Corporation yesterday. The crude was trading at $101.05 pb on Friday, witnessing a severe drop of $3.60, compared to Thursday’s trading which reached USD 104.65 per barrel..

Corporate News Fitch Ratings-London-28 June 2011: Fitch Ratings has affirmed Gulf Bank Long-term Issuer Default Rating (IDR) at ‘A+’ with a Stable Outlook, Shor t-term IDR at ‘F1’, Support Rating at ‘1’ and Support Rating Floor at A+’. The Individual Rating is affirmed at ‘D/E’.

World stocks edge higher HONG KONG: World stock markets edged higher yesterday as investors welcomed signs that French banks could give Greece more breathing room on its debt, although worries about longer-term problems with the country’s embattled economy still lingered. The dollar weakened against the yen and euro while crude oil rose hovered around $91 a barrel.

News that French banks are planning to accept slower repayment of Greece’s debt gave a lift to European shares in early trading.

Britain’s FTSE 100 rose 0.7 percent to 5,763.44 and Germany’s DAX rose 0.4 percent to 7,138.38. In Paris, the CAC-40 rose 0.8 percent to 3,826.16.

Wall Street was set to open higher, with Dow Jones industrial futures rising 0.1 percent to 12,000 and S&P 500 futures up 0.1 percent to 1,277.50. In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei 225 climbed 0.7 percent to close at 9,648.98. But shares on South Korea’s Kospi fell 0.4 percent to 2,062.91.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 0.3 percent to 22,114.23. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 closed 0.3 percent higher at 4,474.30.

Investors are concerned a Greek debt default could bring down other highly indebted neighboring countries and trigger a financial panic in Europe, similar to the credit crunch following the collapse of US investment bank Lehman Brothers back in 2008. French banks hold $21.3 billion in Greek government debt and the plan would give Greece more time to meet its other financial obligations.

Lawmakers in Athens are set to start debating a new round of austerity reforms aimed at helping the country get additional rescue loans to avoid bankruptcy.

But many investors believe that even if Greece is able to get its financial act together, it still has to deal with rising unemployment and social

unrest, problems that the reforms might exacerbate. “It’s a short-term fix for a long-term problem,” said Samuel Le Cornu, a portfolio manager at Macquarie Funds Management.

“I think the broader audience is looking through real underlying structural problems and essentially they’re saying this is going to take more than a one-off event.” Mainland Chinese shares rose, offsetting morning losses, as cement shares rallied on news of government plans for massive construction of public housing.

The Shanghai Composite Index edged up less than 0.1 percent higher to 2,759.20 after dipping nearly 1 percent earlier in the day. The Shenzhen Composite Index gained 0.3 percent to 1,152.00. Shares in cement and water conservancy contractors led the gains. “I was surprised to see the gains today, despite reports that first-half financial results may be disappointing and the continued worries over higher inflation in June,” said Yang Yining, an analyst at Capital- edge Investment & Management Co, Ltd, based in Shanghai. Fujian Cement Inc gained 5.3 percent while Qianjiang Water Resources Development Co Ltd gained 3.4 percent.

On Wall Street on Monday, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 108.98 points, or 0.9 percent, to close at 12,043.56. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose 11.65, or 0.9 percent, to 1,280.10.

The Nasdaq composite index rose 35.39, or 1.3 percent, to 2,688.28.

Benchmark oil for August delivery was up 42 cents to $91.03 in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 55 cents to settle at $90.61 on Monday. The euro rose to $1.4276 from $1.4266 late Monday in New York while the dollar fell to 80.82 Japanese yen from 80.97 yen. — AP

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BUSINESS

Markets on guard as Italy readies austerity plan

BRUSSELS: European Council President Herman Van Rompuy (center), European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso (left) and European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek address the audience on the outcome of last week’s European summit at the European Parliament in Brussels yesterday. —AP

MILAN: The Italian government is preparing to adopt an austerity plan tomorrow worth more than 40 billion euros ($57 billion) in a bid to calm markets amid major internal political divisions. The plan aims to bring Italy’s public deficit to just 0.2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2014 from 4.6 percent in 2010 but a previous smaller round of austerity approved last year sparked a wave of social protests.

The centre-right government is also now in a weaker position after suffering defeats in local elections and a round of referendums and the backdrop of Greece’s sovereign debt crisis has investors on edge across the eurozone. Italy came out of the global economic crisis in better shape than expected and its public deficit was lower that in many other European countries but its public debt is one of the biggest in the world at around 120 percent of GDP. Ratings agencies Moody’s and Standard and Poor’s have both warned they could downgrade Italy’s sovereign credit rating due to doubts about the government’s ability to slash deficit and concern about the economy’s low growth rate. The Italian economy grew

by just 0.1 percent in the first quarter this year. Jitters coursed through Italian financial markets last Friday amid a series of market rumors and fears of contagion from Greece, with shares in Italy’s biggest bank UniCredit plunging by 5.54 percent and bonds under pressure.

Italian business daily Il Sole 24 Ore called the market action “a midday of fire” and said there had been “panic” and “schizophrenic” trading in Milan. A reflection of investor concern has been the sharp rise in the difference between the yield, or interest rate, on Italian government bonds and that on German bonds-a level that has risen to record highs in recent days. “The locusts of speculation are only waiting for the right moment to jump on the prey that shows the first sign of weakness,” Berlusconi told parliament last week, assuring deputies that his government would show “discipline”. But the cracks have been showing inside Berlusconi’s coalition.

In a recent development, junior defense minister Guido Crosetto on Sunday accused Finance Minister Giulio Tremonti of plunging the economy into “a coma” and saying the austerity plan “should be analyzed by a psy-

chiatrist”. Newspapers on Monday speculated Berlusconi may have been behind the attack after the premier’s coalition partner, the populist Northern League party, voiced opposition to planned budget cuts and criticized Tremonti. Northern League leader Umberto Bossi is against an increase in the pension age in the plan and has hinted in the past he could pull out of the coalition if his demands are not met-a move that would bring down the government.

Among the measures planned for tomorrow would be increasing the retirement age for women in the private sector to 65 in line with that of men and implementing a pension reform based on life expectancy in 2013 instead of 2015. The government is also expected to prolong a freeze on salaries and hirings in the public sector instituted last year, lower health expenditures in less financially responsible regions and reduce privileges for politicians. The government is also planning a reform for tomorrow that would reduce income tax, making up for the shortfall by raising value-added taxes in some sectors, cutting tax exemptions and increasing taxes on financial revenues. —AFP

Germany, China target 200 billion euro trade Wen voices confidence in crisis-hit euro zone BERLIN: Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Germany’s Angela Merkel aim to boost trade between the world’s two biggest export nations to at least 200 billion euros ($283.8 billion) in the next five years, they said at a meeting in Berlin yesterday.

Wen also took the opportunity to express his confidence in the euro zone, saying the debt crisis of some member countries such as Greece was only of a “temporary nature”.

About a quar ter of China’s record foreign currency reserves of more than $3 trillion are estimated to be held in euros and China has reiterated its confidence in the euro since the debt crisis began, as well as pledging to buy euro zone debt. German

it to Europe. “It’s true that right now some European Union countries are encountering economic problems. These are, however, of a temporary nature,” Wen told the first ever full ministerial consultations between China and Germany. The Chinese pre-

TRADE FOCUS Wen’s visit comes just days after the release of dissident artist Ai Weiwei and writer Hu Jia and Merkel was expected to raise China’s human rights record with her counterpart. A Brussels thinktank, the European Council on

BERLIN: German Chancellor Angela Merkel (center) and Prime Minister of China Wen Jiabao (second from left) pose for a group photo with their delegations at the chancellery in Berlin yesterday. —AP officials expected Wen and Merkel, the German chancellor, to talk about the euro and the G8 agenda for global currency reforms, which is seen as a path towards boosting the Chinese yuan’s profile on foreign exchange markets.

China’s intentions for its euro holdings and investments in the sovereign debt of euro zone countries has been the subject of much speculation in Wen’s vis-

mier said the EU was “fully in a position to overcome the present challenges”. European Central Bank polic ymaker Juergen Stark cautioned on Monday that he did not see China as a “rescuer” of the euro, nor did he believe the currency needed to be rescued. “If China did decide to buy Greek government debt, that would be a decision for the Chinese leadership,” said Stark.

Foreign Relations, said China’s new effective status as “a lender of last resort” had “serious implications for Europe’s ability to present a united front to China” on such delicate issues. One German television channel ran an unscientific telephone poll during Wen’s visit, with 81 percent of Germans who responded saying their country was growing “too dependent” on China. But German Foreign Minister Guido

South African govt denies Swaziland bailout reports JOHANNESBURG: South Africa denied reports yesterday it had approved a $1.2 billion bailout loan for neighboring Swaziland, which is Africa’s last absolute monarchy and mired in an acute cash flow crisis. “While the South African government is in receipt of a loan request from Swaziland, as confirmed last week, no loan has been agreed to or granted to Swaziland,” the Treasury said in a statement.

The Swaziland Communist Party (SCP), an underground movement based mostly in South Africa, said this week it had received “credible reports” Pretoria had thrown a lifeline to King Mswati III, who is ploughing through central bank reserves to keep his unelected government afloat. The SCP declined to say how it had obtained the information. Mswati, who has at least a dozen wives and an estimated fortune of $200 million, turned to Pretoria after the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said he must do more to slim down Africa’s most bloated bureaucracy if he wanted any aid.

A collapsing Swaziland-a landlocked nation of 1.4 million people-is not in the interests of South Africa, the continent’s largest economy, but helping Mswati is politically very sensitive for the ruling African

National Congress. It is inconceivable that the ANC, a self-proclaimed champion of democracy in the region, would write a blank cheque to a country that has served as a long-running diplomatic and political headache right on its doorstep. South Africa’s powerful COSATU union federation, which loathes Mswati, and opposition parties have made clear any assistance should only be granted in the interests of regime change and restoring democracy.

Swaziland’s chronic fiscal crisis-the IMF puts its budget deficit at 14.3 percent of GDP, similar to Greece-stems from a sharp decline in receipts from a regional customs union that has normally provided it with two-thirds of its revenue. The budget crunch and prospect of a civil service overhaul has sparked rare protests against Mswati, whose security forces have responded with water cannon, rubber bullets and the arrest of prominent students and activists. So far, the government has kept its head above water by eating into central bank reserves and running up at least $180 million in unpaid bills, although there are doubts about its ability to pay public sector salaries in the next few weeks. —Reuters

Westerwelle said China’s rapid growth and burgeoning influence on the world stage “need not be at Germany’s expense but to our benefit ” if his countr y managed it cleverly, though he acknowledged there were differences between the two governments on human rights.

Wen made it clear that the main point of the meeting between Chinese and German ministers and economic officials in Berlin was to “boost the growth potential of bilateral trade ... and to once again double our bilateral trade volume in five years”. Merkel said she expected bilateral trade to reach about 200 billion euros over that period, from 130 billion euros in 2010 when trade has already surged 34 percent on the previous year.

Germany hopes for a rebalancing of investments between the two countries, with Germany’s direct investments in China now standing at 20 billion euros compared to Chinese investments in Germany of only about 600 million, German officials said.

Among the contracts due to be signed by the two leaders may be a Chinese order for dozens of Airbus jetliners, although a spat between China and Europe over aviation carbon tariffs could cloud such prospects. China’s German investments have to date focused on small and mediumsized firms, though media have speculated on a possible tie-up between Opel and China’s Beijing Automotive Industr y Holding Co (BAIC). The German carmaker already works closely with another Chinese firm, SAIC Motor Corp, via parent General Motors Corp. —Reuters

C&W worldwide CEO Marsh quits Shares down 16 percent LONDON: Cable and Wireless Worldwide’s Chief Executive Jim Marsh resigned yesterday paying the price for a string of mishaps at the corporate telecoms group after it issued another profit warning just 10 weeks into its financial year. The firm, which has had a torrid year since the former Cable & Wireless split in March 2010, said core earnings would be between 5 percent and 10 percent below market expectations as British industry and government cut spending.

Chairman John Pluthero, who was known for turning around the original C&W, said he was taking over as chief executive after Marsh understood there was a “course of action he had to take” so the business could move on.

“Clearly it has been a very difficult 12 months and it is now important that we take the necessary steps to ensure future growth,” Pluthero said in a call with reporters.

“There is a wider set of underlying weaknesses (in the UK economy) which is unlikely to improve, certainly to impact this year.” C&W Worldwide, which competes with BT, provides voice, data and IP based services to multinational companies and governments after it demerged from Cable & Wireless Communications , which is focused on the Caribbean. Its shares have slumped from a peak of 98.5 pence shortly after the demerger as it has been hit by a combination of UK government spending cuts, pressure on pricing and long-term decline in its voice traffic. —Reuters

KOLKATA: An Indian hand rickshaw puller carries a passenger on rickshaw during seasonal rain downpour in Kolkata yesterday. India’s weather office last month forecasted a ‘normal’ monsoon this year that could boost food production and ease high inflation. —AFP

Carpetright sees no let-up in Britain’s economy woe Shares down 3.2 percent LONDON: Carpetright, Britain’s biggest floor coverings retailer, said it was bracing itself for two more years of tough trading conditions as cash-strapped consumers decide a new carpet is not a priority. Shares in the firm, which has issued three profit warnings this year, fell over 3 percent yesterday after it posted an expected 40 percent slump in 2010-11 profit and said it would not pay a final dividend. “I think it’s the most difficult times we’ve been through,” Chairman and Chief Executive Philip Harris, who has been selling carpets for 53 years, told reporters.

“You’ve got very high inflation and you’ve got very low pay increases so the consumer’s got less money to spend,” he said. “I think it’s going to be two years before we see any recovery. We might come through after the (London) Olympics next year but I think until then, until you get certainty you’re going to have problems.” Harris would not say if he thought the British government should change course and delay its rapid deficit cuts, which opposition politicians and some economists believe are endangering economic recovery. “ We were in debt when the Conservatives took over. We’ve got to reduce the debt, I think it will take longer than people think,” he said. Many UK retailers, particularly those selling discretionary items, have been struggling as consumers grapple with rising prices, subdued wages growth, a stagnant housing market, government cutbacks and fears of interest rate rises. In the last week three retailers have gone into administration - home furnishings firm Habitat UK, HomeForm, the owner of Moben Kitchens and Dolphin Bathrooms, and women’s fashion retailer Jane Norman. Prior to yesterday’s

update, shares in Carpetright, which has America’s richest man Bill Gates as a 6 percent shareholder, had lost 7 percent of their value over the last three months. The stock was down 22 pence at 665.5 pence at 0816 GMT, valuing the business at about 451 million pounds ($721 million). “ There is a constant fear that Phil Harris (whose family own a quarter of the equity) will take the company private at some point... but he doesn’t look like a man who would willingly do that at this point in the cycle,” said Arden Partners analyst Nick Bubb. Carpetright, which trades from about 700 stores in Britain, Ireland, Belgium and the Netherlands, made an underlying pretax profit of 16.9 million pounds in the year to April 30.

That compares with analysts’ average forecast of 17 million pounds, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S data and 28.2 million pounds made in 2009/10.

Revenue fell 5.8 percent to 486.8 million pounds, with sales at UK and Ireland stores open over a year down 6 percent.

Carpetright ended the year with net debt of 65.7 million pounds. With no final dividend, the full-year payout is 8 pence, down from 16 pence in 2009/10. With markets tough the firm will focus on “self-help measures” to improve its performance. These include exiting up to 75 UK stores as leases expire over the next two years, downsizing its Ireland operations, expanding its bed business and further developing its website. The firm has also extended its main 90 million pounds bank facility to 2015. “Although we’re not doing very well, and I admit that 100 percent, I think we’re holding our (market) share, I think we’re doing the right things and we will come out of the end of it much stronger,” added Harris. —Reuters

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WEDNESDAY, JUNE 29, 2011

business

Oil consumers risk ‘war of attrition’ with OPEC Greece ‘overrated’ as factor on oil markets

KABUL: Afghan men walk past the Da Afghanistan Bank building in Kabul yesterday. Afghanistan’s central bank governor Abdul Qadir Fitrat (inset) has resigned and fled to the United States, saying his life is in danger over a corruption probe targeting influential figures connected to the government. — AFP

Afghan central bank governor flees to US President slams ‘runaway governor’ KABUL: Afghanistan’s central bank governor has resigned and fled to the United States, saying his life is in danger over a corruption probe targeting influential figures connected to the government. President Hamid Karzai’s government yesterday dismissed the claims made by Abdul Qadir Fitrat, chairman of Da Afghanistan Bank, insisting his life was not under threat and calling him a “runaway governor”. “I announce my resignation from the position of governor of the central bank of Afghanistan immediately,” Fitrat said in a statement issued as he visited the United States, where he reportedly has permanent residency.

“Unfortunately, central bank’s independence on regulatory and supervisory matters has recently been undermined by the repeated interference of high-level political authorities,” he said. The governor has claimed his role in an investigation into the near-collapse last year of Kabul Bank, the war-torn country’s largest private lender, had put him in peril.

“My life was completely in danger and this was particularly true after I spoke to the parliament and exposed some people who are responsible for the crisis of Kabul Bank,” he was quoted as saying by the BBC. In April, Fitrat named in parliament highprofile figures who were allegedly involved in corruption scandal amounting to nearly $1 billion at Kabul Bank, which handles the pay of thousands of Afghan civil servants. The bank was founded in 2004 by Sherkhan Farnood, a leading international poker player.

Its co-owners included Mahmood Karzai, a brother of President Hamid Karzai, and a brother of Vice President Mohammad Qasim Fahim.

The scandal has highlighted chaos and corruption in Afghanistan’s financial system at a time when US-led combat troops are due to start leaving the country, a decade after ousting the fundamentalist Taleban regime. Some foreign troop withdrawals are due to start next month, with 10,000 United States forces scheduled to leave by the end of this year.

President Karzai’s spokesman Waheed Omer angrily dismissed Fitrat’s claims. “We don’t think that’s very valid. He never actually told anyone in the government that his life was in danger,” Omer said.

“This is basically an escape, not a resignation... the formal procedures have not been

adhered to. He’s not a governor but a runaway governor.” Omer indicated that Fitrat may have been trying to escape from “legal implications” surrounding the Kabul Bank scandal, without giving any details. The spokesman insisted that Fitrat’s departure was “not going to have a major impact” on Afghanistan’s ability to resolve the Kabul Bank crisis.

Last year’s near-collapse of the bank led to long queues of nervous investors forming outside banks across Kabul and news of Fitrat’s resignation prompted anxiety about the state of the financial system among some Kabulis. “I will not withdraw my money yet, but I am concerned,” said Fazull Rahman, a teacher and foreign currency exchanger, speaking outside a branch of Kabul Bank in the city. “The fact that the chief of the central bank has been threatened and been forced to quit shows that corrupt strongmen are still in control, they will not allow reforms in the banking system. I am disappointed and worried.”

The lender was taken over last year by Afghanistan’s central bank after claims that executives granted themselves off-the-book loans worth a reported $900 million that were partly used to buy luxury properties in Dubai.

The International Monetary Fund wants the Karzai government to take steps to ensure a similar scandal does not happen again before it approves a new assistance program for the desperately poor country. With tensions high between Kabul and the IMF, the impasse has already seen hundreds of millions of dollars in international aid money to Afghanistan being withheld this year.

“We take note of Governor Fitrat’s decision to step down as central bank governor,” IMF spokesman Raphael Anspach said, according to the Wall Street Journal. “We look forward to continue discussing with his successor ways to improve the Afghan banking system in the period ahead.” Fitrat is reportedly holed up in a hotel in Washington’s Virginia suburbs and refusing to return to Afghanistan. US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland confirmed Fitrat was in Washington, adding: “If there were to be a change of leadership at the Afghan central bank, we would continue to encourage that government to take all the necessary steps to reform and strengthen the financial sector.”— AFP

BOI terminates offer on the Bristol & West bond DUBLIN: Bank of Ireland (BoI) terminated a heavily discounted debt-for-equity offer on a junior bond yesterday due to administrative difficulties, paving the way for a new offer at a future date. The bond, originally sold by the Bristol & West Building Society, which was taken over by BOI in 1997, has a face value of 75 million pounds ($119.9), representing just over 3 percent of the junior bondholders the bank is imposing losses on.

The bank raised nearly half of the 4.2 billion euros ($6 billion) of additional core Tier 1 capital it is required to find by end-July after 74 percent of the bondholders took part in an early offer of the debt swap. BOI had initially given holders of the Bristol & West bond more time to accept or reject the offer because they held the security in certificated form but terminated that offer after just

12 percent of holders had replied by June 24.

“The Bank currently intends to instigate a new offer ... at a future date. In so doing, the Bank will seek to address the unique difficulties that have been highlighted with regard to participation in the terminated offers,” BOI said in a statement. The bank, which is launching a government-underwritten rights issue and a potential state stock placing in its bid to find more capital, also said it had resolved a legal action being taken against it by a holder of one the bonds.

British pensioner Albert Kempster was set to take the bank to court this week to prevent his savings from being wiped out by the debt restructuring plans.

“Proceedings have been resolved to the parties’ mutual satisfaction,” a spokesman for Bank of Ireland said. — Reuter

TAQA’s CEO steps down DUBAI: The chief executive of Abu Dhabi National Energy Co ( TAQA) will step down to focus on his role at the emirate’s water and electricity utility, the statecontrolled firm said yesterday. Abdulla Saif Al Nuaimi’s departure is effective July 1. It is the second high profile departure from a major Abu Dhabi entity this week after Abu Dhabi National Oil Company’s (ADNOC) long-standing chief executive resigned and was replaced by his deputy.

TAQA said in a statement that Carl Sheldon, its general manager and a recent board appointee, will lead the company and oversee its global operations. Nuaimi, who is a director general of Abu Dhabi Water & Electricity Authority (ADWEA), will remain vice-chairman of

TAQA’s board.

Last month, TAQA, which is 75-percent owned by the Abu Dhabi government, named Stephen Kersley as its new chief financial officer, replacing Doug Fraser.

TAQA plans to invest $2 billion per annum in the short-term in capital investment excluding acquisitions. The company was hit by a lawsuit in September, after its former chief executive sued in a US court, alleging he was forced out for trying to stop “kickbacks, bribery, accounting fraud and corruption” at the energy firm. TAQA, which has concentrated on building up assets in mature offshore fields that other, bigger oil companies have discarded, has bought a series of North Sea oil interests in recent years.— Reuters

MOSCOW: Oil consuming nations risk a long conflict with a trenchant OPEC by challenging the producers’ club on its own turf with a supply response to high prices, and the strategy could backfire, BP’s chief economist said.

Christof Ruehl, chief economist at the British oil major, said the International Energy Agency’s decision to launch a coordinated release of emergency oil reserves could create upward pressure on prices if OPEC cuts supply in kind. “The single biggest risk up is that there is a war of attrition between OPEC and the IEA which goes on for a long time and leads nowhere,” Ruehl told Reuters Insider. “The biggest single risk down is there is overshooting, that they don’t trust each other, both say they will produce more, both do produce more and all of a sudden prices go to lower levels and the OPEC countries breach their discipline.”

That, he said, could leave OPEC producers, some of them fiscally stretched by increased budget spending to quell the popular dissent spreading through the Middle East, competing with one another for shrinking revenues from oil exports. “That is how the cartel eventually breaks up and prices go to lower levels for awhile,” Ruehl said. But he said he was looking at “theoretical extremes” when he spoke of a war of attrition between OPEC and the interests of the consumer countries represented by the IEA. “I think at least for the medium term we will see a settlement in between the peaks the oil price had recently and what seems to have been OK with major consumer companies about a year ago.”

Brent crude was trading in the neighbor-

MIAMI: Carmel Cine fills her tank up at a local gas station in Miami. — AP hood of $80 in the second quarter of 2010.

Ruehl said the IEA stock release would cover the loss of expor ts from Libya, where a standoff between the government of Muammar Qaddafi and rebel forces has left the country’s export outlets dry.

“Will it be enough to satisfy the other 2 billion barrels (of additional demand)? That is the question,” Ruehl said. “If markets had stabilized at $110-$115, people don’t realize

that it would have been the highest average annual oil price ever in nominal terms and real terms this year. This century it was never above $100. So that threatened the US recovery. Concerns about Greek debt and its influence on eurozone demand are overrated, he added. “The eliminations of many subsidies from Chinese demand are going to dwarf anything that happens in Greece,” he said.— Reuters

Hong Kong tailors tighten belts as wool costs rise

MADRID: Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero gestures during the annual debate on the state of the nation in the Spanish Parliament yesterday. — AP

Bankia IPO key for Spain socialists and opposition MADRID: Political and corporate Spain is willing the initial public offering of savings bank Bankia to go ahead, despite dire market conditions, but not at any price, political and banking sources say. Spanish savings bank Bankia is likely to publish the prospectus for its initial public offering either today, a source close to the operation said yesterday, after delaying the publication from last week. The minority Socialist government is keen for the deal to go through, as it is a measure of the success of its wide-ranging reform of the banking sector, started last year to ward off fears about the stability of the financial system.

The opposition conservative Popular Party also wants the listing to complete before the summer lull, as they would be lumbered with the unsold bank if they win possible early elections in November, as expected. “It would be like a hot potato falling into their lap,” said one banking source. The lender aims to raise between 3 and 4 billion euros by listing around 30 percent of its share capital to plug a capital hole in order to bring its solvency ratios up to strict new government minimum levels.

Bankers are pricing the deal at an up to 55 percent discount, sources told Reuters last week. One banking source said it would be negative for Spain’s banks for the biggest savings bank by assets to be sold at a rock bottom price.

However, one Madrid-based banker said a competitively priced deal may show Spain is facing up to market reality.

“One thing that investors have struggled with so far in Spain is prices. Spain has not adjusted to the new reality like Anglo-Saxon countries. If you see a big, well-publicized IPO going cheap it’s no bad thing,” he said. The merger of seven savings banks, led by heavyweight Caja Madrid, delayed publishing the prospectus last week with market nerves over Greece’s debt crisis pushing Spain’s borrowing costs up to euro era highs.

Bankia could potentially postpone the stock market flotation until after the summer lull, in September or October, but it has no guarantee that the Greek situation will have improved by then and the market may be further complicated if there are early elections in Spain. Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero says he wants to serve out his term until March next year, but pressure from within his Socialist party for him to call early elections could mount if the Bankia IPO does not go through, reviving doubts among investors about the viability of Spain’s financial sector reforms.

“Bankia not going through would be unlikely to trigger early elections by itself, but would certainly be a contributing negative factor for the government,” said one Madridbased banker. Bankia has until the end of March 2012 to carry out the listing, under Bank of Spain rules. Market watchers see it as a key deal for Spain, with implications for the pricing of other caja IPOs such as Banca Civica, private equity deals with cajas and other IPOs planned for later this year including the state-owned lottery.— Reuters

HONG KONG: Just as customers had begun returning to Vijay Sadhwani’s Hong Kong tailor shop after the spasms of the world financial crisis, his business suffered another setback-the rocketing price of wool. Growing demand from newly wealthy places such as China and crunched supply caused by years of farmers abandoning the sector because of its poor rewards have resulted in a doubling in the price of wool over the past 12 months.

“This time it’s quite serious actually-the price of wool, cotton, everything has gone up,” Sadhwani, who owns OM Custom Tailors in Hong Kong’s Kowloon district said.

“It’s had a big impact on us and we have to absorb a lot of the increase.” Customers at Hong Kong’s myriad tailors range from onehit backpackers on their way to an English teaching job in Asia, to high-flying city types who need wardrobes full of tailored threads.

Prices for a made-to-measure suit start at US$250 and climb steeply, depending on the quality of the fabric. And those prices are coming under pressure as the value of woolthe dominant material in a suit-continues on its heady trajectory.

According to figures provided by the International Monetary Fund, the price of fine wool traded on the Australian Wool Exchange almost doubled between May 2010 and May 2011 to more than $17 per kilogram ($7.70 per pound). Decades of low prices for the material have driven farmers in wool-producing nations such as Australia and New Zealand into alternative, more profitable, land uses. Then China got interested in wool as a luxury product and a sudden boom in demand ran straight into a dip in supply, sending prices through the roof.

Wool farming has been in the doldrums for at least the past 15 years, said Martin Paterson, chairman of the New Zealand Wool Classer Association and a South Island wool farmer whose family has been in the industry since 1864. With a two-year lead-in from when a sheep is born to when it can produce a full-sized fleece, the upfront costs can be difficult to bear, he said. Add to this the vulnerability of the animal to parasites and it makes the industry very labor intensive-and very costly.

Paterson said fine wool, like that Sadhwani uses, has been selling at below cost for more

than a decade. As a result, wool flocks in New Zealand and Australia, the world’s biggest wool producer, have shrunk dramatically, with farmers moving into more profitable areas such as dairy cattle, sheep meat or grain. Annual wool output in Australia now stands at about 340 million kilograms well below the 1.05 billion kilograms of two decades ago.

Peter Morgan, executive director of the Australian Council of Wool Exporters and Processors said a decade-long drought in the country had also taken its toll on the industry.

“Supply is tight because for most of the past 20 years, wool prices have been at the bottom end of the scale... and the drought has been very important because that has led people to reduce their stock numbers by sending sheep for slaughter,” he said. In China, this shrinking production has collided with a growing demand for wool. Zhang Dapeng, an executive with maozhi.com.cn, an industry website based in south China, said: “It is certainly increasing. Raw material prices are changing every day.”

The price he pays for yarn ranges from 80 yuan ($12) to more than 100 yuan per kilogram, depending on the wool content, he said, adding a wool sweater can retail for around 1,000 yuan in a Chinese department store. Morgan said while demand for wool was growing strongly, particularly from China, he did not expect output to increase significantly in the next financial year. “I don’t know any wool buyer who’s bearish at the moment,” Morgan said. “It doesn’t mean they are not cautious, but no one’s bearish. “And I don’t think anybody expects any downward pressure on the market for the foreseeable future. We expect supply to remain tight.

Sheep meat is still so attractive and grain is attractive too.”

Michael Creed, agribusiness economist at the National Australia Bank, said he expected wool output would eventually increase as a result of the higher prices but this could take some time. “Our expectation is that in the coming year global wool output will lift, prices will ease a little but still stay very high,” he said. On his New Zealand farm, Paterson said the current price made wool production sustainable, but needed to be maintained to make the industry viable. —AFP

Kirkuk buys electricity from Kurdish region KIRKUK: Iraq’s oil-rich Kirkuk province has started buying electricity from a private supplier in autonomous Kurdistan, its governor said yesterday, after a spat with Baghdad over power shortages. “We have a signed contract to solve the electricity problem in Kirkuk during the summer through buying 200 megawatts from a supplier in Kurdistan,” said Rakan Saeed Al-Juburi, the governor of Kirkuk.

Jaburi said supplies had already started this month with 100 megawatts, which would double by the end of July, adding the contract was signed with Ahmed Ismaeel, one of the biggest private power suppliers in Kurdistan.

Kirkuk, which produces more electricity than it is allocated by Baghdad, in January briefly stopped supplying power to the national network. It resumed only after officials agreed to immediately increase Kirkuk’s quota by nearly 50 percent, still leaving the province woefully short of 24-hour power. Jaburi said the final price had still not been agreed, but authorities in Kirkuk were negotiating for $0.06 per kilowatt. The governor said supplies would be paid for with revenues from the Petrodollar agreement, through which Kirkuk receives $1 from the central government for every barrel

of oil it exports, amounting to about $1.7 million dollars a month. Massud Barzani, the president of the autonomous Kurdistan region, said yesterday he hoped the deal would relieve some of his people’s suffering, and reiterated Kurdistan’s claim over the province. “I understand your suffering very well, in the field of electricity and other services,” he said in a statement.

Supplies would continue until Baghdad honors agreements and “returns all these areas to the Kurdistan region.” “We insist that Kurdistan takes care of the beloved Kirkuk province, and insists in helping it, especially during this hot season,” Barzani added.

Kirkuk’s three power stations produce about 500 megawatts of electricity, with the majority of that sent to Baghdad, Salaheddin and Dohuk provinces. Residents in Kirkuk have been contending with only about 12 hours of state-supplied electricity a day.

With the exception of Kurdistan, Iraq’s power supply remains drastically short of demand, with homes and businesses nationwide suffering daily cuts and relying on generators to fill the gap, as the war-ravaged country struggles to boost capacity. —AFP

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WEDNESDAY, JUNE 29, 2011

TECHNOLOGY

Microsoft puts Office in the ‘cloud’, confronts Google

Google facing damages From claim by French company 1PlusV BRUSSELS: French search engine company 1PlusV said it is suing Google for 295 million Euros ($417.7), alleging the company used its market dominance to block the development of alternative services. The French company is one of four, including Microsoft , that has accused Google of abusing its dominant position by demoting rival sites in search results and giving preference to its own services. The allegation has triggered an investigation by the European Commission.

1plusV, which runs the Ejustice.fr legal website and search engine, says that Google prevented it from developing specialized “vertical” search engines and crippled its ability to generate business and advertising and the claim is for lost profits. “Between 2007 and 2010, no less than 30 vertical search engines created by 1plusV were black-listed, some of which showed significant business potential,” it said. A lawyer for 1PlusV said Google had been served notice of

the damage claim on Monday. The claim will be filed with the Paris commercial court late yesterday or today and piles on more scrutiny of Google following the opening last week of a formal probe into its business by the US Federal Trade Commission.

1plusV accused Google of suffocating rivals through its policy of tying its advertising service Adsense to its own search engine. Google’s Adsense allows adver tisers to buy keywords which when typed in as a search query produce a commercial link alongside the search results. Thus rival search engines wanting to access vital clients and revenue were forced to adopt G oogle technology. The European Commission is now investigating the complaints. The European Union executive, with the power to fine companies up to 10 percent of their global turnover for breaching EU rules has hit Microsoft with total fines of more than 1 billion Euros. —Reuters

BALTIMORE, Maryland: Miller, left, and Adam Zilberbaum are co-founders of a new start-up company called “Parking Panda.” Their friend Mark McTamney is dressed in the panda suit, May 23, 2011, in Baltimore, Maryland. Parking Panda is a smartphone app that helps people rent out their parking spots. —MCT

Social gaming a big winner in the smartphone boom SINGAPORE: More virtual livestock looks set to be traded and petulant fowl hurled at targets as social gaming takes hold in the booming mobile phone market, industry experts say. Social gaming, made popular by titles such as “Farmville” and “Angry Birds”, was one of the closely followed topics at last week’s CommunicAsia trade fair in Singapore, where telecom executives meet annually to check on new trends.

Internet-enabled smartphones as well as tablets are liberating social gamers from the physical confines of home and office, and more titles specifically designed for handheld devices are on their way.

Asia-Pacific smartphone sales are expected to reach 200 million a year by 2016, a third of all mobile phones sold in the region, according to telecom consultancy Ovum. “At least 90 percent of gamers will be on mobile in the future,” said Jeffrey Jiang, a director at Singaporebased Touch Dimensions, which develops games for various platforms. He said his firm’s clients now favor social games designed for mobile phones rather than personal computers or consoles such as the Xbox 360. “When I started in the industry, all the projects are mostly PC, hardly any mobile.

But now most of the projects that people ask from us is about mobile,” he said.

Jiang, whose firm creates games for mobile brands such as the iPhone, Android and Nokia, said light social gamers rather than hardcore videogame players would be the drivers of developer industry growth. “The majority of the population are going to be casual gamers and casual gamers are not really that willing to play their games just on the PC... Everyone has mobile devices so it’s the logical shift.”

“Farmville”, which enables players and their friends to turn themselves into rural folk ploughing fields and trading pigs and cows, is the most popular game on Facebook and has made its developer Zynga a fortune.

With Zynga preparing to offer its shares soon, The Wall Street Journal has quoted sources as saying the developer could be valued at $7 billion to $9 billion after making $400 million in profit on approximately

$850 million in revenue last year. More than 250 million people a month play Zynga games which also include “CityVille”, “FrontierVille”, “CafÈ World”, “YoVille” and “Vampire Wars”, according to the developer. In “Angry Birds”, developed by Finnish company Rovio, players catapult birds at enemy pigs which have stolen their eggsplayers post their scores and discuss the game on social media sites. Social game developers make money by selling their games as paid applications on mobile platforms such as Apple’s AppStore, with various upgrades available as users become more addicted. Advertising space is also available within their virtual worlds.

David Ko, senior vice president for Zynga, said some 1.1 billion smartphonesmobile devices with features such as video cameras and Internet capability-are expected to be shipped worldwide in 2015, double this year’s forecast. This creates a “tremendous opportunity” to reach more players, he said. Ko said gamers have pressed Zynga to devote more resources to mobile platforms, “so an important part of our strategy is making sure that we have mobile extensions of all of our IPs (intellectual properties) going forward.”

Nokia, the world’s leading mobile phone maker, said gamers were the biggest customers of its applications store Ovi. At Apple’s AppStore, mobile games are the best-selling items, filling nine out of the top 10 slots.

Even BlackBerry, a brand more synonymous with businessmen rather than the gaming fraternity, showcased the gaming capabilities of its first tablet model, the Playbook at CommunicAsia. It set up four flatscreen televisions connected to Playbooks enabling players to compete in the racing game “Need for Speed”. Thomas Crampton, a Hong Kong-based media consultant, said the rise of the smartphone made social gaming viable. “The connectiveness to the Internet is important because it gives you that social link and the social aspect of gaming is really going to be a huge driving factor,” said Crampton, Asia-Pacific director of Ogilvy Public Relations’ global social media team.—AFP

SEATTLE: Microsoft Corp is making its biggest move into the mobile, Internet-accessible world of ‘cloud’ computing this week, as it takes the wraps off a revamped online version of its hugely profitable Office software suite. The world’s largest software company is heaving its two-decade old set of applications-including Outlook email, Excel spreadsheets and SharePoint collaboration tools-into an online format so that customers can use them on a variety of devices from wherever they can get an Internet connection.

It wants to push back against Google Inc, which has stolen a small but worrying percentage of its corporate customers with cheaper, web-only alternatives, which remove the need for companies to spend time on installing software or managing ser vers. “It ’s obvious that Microsoft has to do this if they’re going to remain competitive with Google,” said Michael Yoshikami, chief executive of money manager YCMNET Advisors. “It’s something they have to do.”

Microsoft shares rose 3.7 percent on Monday, the largest gain in a single trading day since September, partly buoyed by hopes that it can ultimately boost profits by extending its software dominance to the growing cloud sector. “If they execute effectively and it’s adopted, it could be a game changer,” said Yoshikami. “Whether or not that will happen is a whole other story.” Microsoft has offered online versions of some Office programs chiefly Outlook email for its corporate customers for several years, and last year rolled out free versions for individual home users. Chief Executive Steve Ballmer is set to present an overhauled and updated set of offerings collectively called Office 365 at an event in New York City, underlining the company’s newfound online focus.

GROWING MARKET The market for web-based software services is heating up, and every company, government department and local authority is getting pitches from Microsoft and Google whenever they

reevaluate their office software.

It’s a new challenge for Microsoft, which built itself up on expensive versions of software installed on individual computers. That business model turned the Office unit into Microsoft’s most profitable, earning more than $3 billion alone last quarter.

Microsoft’s plan is to make up for smaller profit margins from web-based applications due to the cost of handling data and keeping up servers by grabbing a larger slice of companies’ overall technology spending. Last October, when it rolled out a test version of the new ser vice, Microsoft said it planned to charge from $2 per user per month for basic email services to $27 per user per month for advanced offerings. Google charges a flat fee of $50 per user per year for its web-based Google Apps product, which offers email, calendars, word processing and more online.

Microsoft, like Google, will host users’ data remotely, and maintain all the servers in vast data centers. Unlike Google, it will also allow companies to put their

data on dedicated servers if they choose, or keep the data on their own premises. The full launch of Office 365 will spice up the lively competition with Google for new users. Earlier this month, Google snagged InterContinental Hotels Group as a major customer, moving 25,000 of its employees onto Google email from Outlook.

Google, which has had the most success in the small and medium-sized business range, says there are now 40 million users of online Google Apps suite. Microsoft does not publish equivalent numbers, but research firm comScore has estimated 750 million people worldwide use Office in some form. But Internetcentric Google-whose success is based on its dominance in web search-is confident it has the upper hand in the cloud.

“Compared to what they (Microsoft) have in the market today, they have nowhere to go but up,” said Dave Girouard, head of Google’s worldwide enterprise business. “We feel we’re years ahead of them in terms of building a viable cloud solution that just works.” —Reuters

‘South Korean girls are tops in digital literacy’ PARIS: Young South Koreans, and girls, learn the best from computers and the Internet according to a survey of 15 year-olds in 19 countries, the OECD said yesterday.

The OECD, which groups 34 of the world’s most advanced economies, tested the digital literacy of students in 16 member countries as well as Colombia and the Chinese cities of Hong Kong and Macao as part of its Program for International Assessment. In most countries, the results were in line with the results of a 2009 survey in print reading skills, the OECD said. But students performed “significantly better” in digital reading than print in Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Iceland and Macao, the survey demonstrated. The opposite was true in Poland, Hungar y, Chile, Austria, Hong Kong and Colombia.

The Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said that boys improved their performance when compared to the print survey, but still trailed the girls.

When using computers, “girls scored an average of 24 points more, compared to a difference of 39 points in print, the equivalent to one year of schooling,” the OECD said. The OECD said computer use at school had a small impact on results, while home-use proved influential.

Educators should better integrate computers into curricula and classrooms and policy-makers should invest more “in training teachers to use computers for teaching,” the organization said.

“Digital technologies provide a great opportunity to make students more active participants in classroom learning,” Barbara Ischinger, director of education at the OECD said. —AFP

companies face IT security threats regularly: Study DUBAI: That is just one of the results of the ‘Global IT Security Risks’ survey conducted by K aspersk y Lab in par tnership with B2B International, a global research agency, specializing in business research. More than 1,300 IT professionals in 11 countries participated in the survey.

The most common security threat comes in the form of viruses, spyware and other malicious programs. 31% of malware attacks resulted in some form of data loss, with 10% of companies reporting the loss of sensitive business data.

Only 70% of companies have implemented anti-malware protection fully across their businesses; 3% have no protection at all. The level of anti-malware implementation varies from country to country: in emerging markets 65% of companies have adopted it, while in the UK and US levels of implementation stood at 92% and 82% respectively. Despite this, the vast majority of companies still experienced an IT security breach in the last 12 months, and almost a third lost business information.

“Such an attitude is surprising when you know that almost half of all organizations see cyber-threats as one of the top-three emerging risks: IT strategy is ranked even higher than financial, marketing and human resources strategy,” said Alexander Erofeev, Director of Market Intelligence & Insight at Kaspersky Lab. “The most likely explanation is underinvestment in IT security.” Indeed, the study shows that every second company evaluates its IT security budget as insufficient, and estimates that an increase of 25% or more is required. Currently, the average investment in IT security is reported to be $8,055 for small businesses, $83,200 for medium-sized companies and $3,263,476 for large corporations.

TOKYO: A man looks at a Sony’s Bravia flat panel TV sets at an electronics retail store in Tokyo, Japan, yesterday. —AP

Sony faces jittery shareholders after cyber attack TOKYO: Sony Corp Chief Executive Howard Stringer credited ‘very loyal’ PlayStation Network gamers for flocking back to the service in big numbers, as he sought Thursday to reassure shareholders following a series of embarrassing hacker attacks. Stringer apologized for the data breach in April, which compromised personal data from more than 100 million online gaming and entertainment accounts. Sony was subsequently criticized for lax security and acting too slowly to inform customers as it grappled with one of the largest-ever security thefts.

Stringer said at an annual shareholders meeting held at a Tokyo hotel that as many as 90 percent of subscribers have come back since the Japanese company began restoring service last month. “Our brand perception, you’ll be happy to know, is clearly improving again,” he told a less-than-happy crowd. Executives faced harsh questioning from individual shareholders, who expressed frustration and anger over the hack. One man even asked for Stringer to step down. Though his suggestion generated scattered applause, it ultimately went nowhere.

Sony’s stock price has fallen 30 percent this year, compared with a roughly 6 percent decline in the benchmark Nikkei 225 stock average. The Tokyo-based company estimates the hacks will cost 14 billion yen ($173 million) in increased customer support costs, freebie packages to welcome back customers, legal fees, lower sales and measures to

strengthen security. Stringer said he believes Sony was attacked because it tried to protect its intellectual property, lending credence to widespread speculation that the moves were meant to punish the company for suing hackers like George Hotz.

Known as ‘Geohot,’ Hotz broke into the PlayStation 3 operating system and posted the steps online. “These are our corporate assets, and there are those who don’t want us to protect them,” Stringer said. Executives reiterated that the attacks have not derailed Sony’s core strategy of more deeply connecting its hardware, content and services. “My foremost responsibility to the board and all of you is to further advance the transformation process, firmly establish Sony’s position as a global product, content and service leader in the networked digital era and ensure our continued development and growth,” Stringer said.

Sony is forecasting a return to profit for this fiscal year after logging three straight years of red ink. Along with the data breaches, the company has been battling production delays and sales losses after supplier factories were damaged by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. It expects an 80 billion yen ($989 million) profit for the current fiscal year. In a statement later Tuesday, Sony released executive compensation figures for the last fiscal year through March 31.

Stringer received 345 million yen ($4.3 million), along with stock options worth 518 million yen. —AP

Israel innovators build a new ‘Silicon Valley’ JERUSALEM: With a concentration of start-ups just behind that of Silicon Valley and an impressive pool of engineers, Israel is becoming the new standard for high-tech, with a unique business model. Internet-related activities contributed 9 billion euros ($12.6 billion) to the Israeli economy in 2009, representing 6.5 percent of GDP, according to a report from management consultancy McKinsey.The sector is worth more than the construction industry (5.4 percent of GDP) and almost as much as health (6.8 percent).

The web economy has also created a total of 120,OOO jobs, accounting for 4 percent of the country’s workforce, McKinsey says. From Microsoft to Intel through Google, IBM and Philips, almost all the giants of the Internet and technology have set up important research and development centres in Israel, spawning products and systems used worldwide. “Israel is the country with the most engineers in its population, and it ranks second behind the United States in the number of companies listed on

Nasdaq,” said David Kadouch, product manager at Google Israel, which opened its R&D operation in 2007 and currently has 200 employees.

“It’s really a second Silicon Valley. Besides the multinationals, all the major American investment funds are present,” he said. “The scientific community is very active, there is plenty of manpower and especially an entrepreneurial culture.

There is a huge ecosystem around high tech, and what is fundamental is that here we think global.” Some 500 start-ups are created every year in the country of 7.7 million people, which grew by 4.7 percent last year according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development against an average of 2.8 for its member countries.

The OECD forecast for Israel in 2011 is 5.4 percent. Israel’s higher education institutions, particularly the Technion, the prestigious technological university in the northern city of Haifa, must take a large share of the credit for this creativity. —AFP

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H E A LT H & S C I E N C E

‘Do Life’ urges Americans to turn things around WASHINGTON: Can a blog by an overweight, depressed American introvert who reinvented himself as an Ironman and public speaker start a grassroots campaign that leads to lasting lifestyle changes in a country known for excess?

The latest test, on June 22, gathered nearly 75 strangers in Washington, DC who finished an unofficial 5K race around the US capital’s National Mall park. And this was no ordinary congregation-among the participants, they have lost a collective 1,350 pounds, quit smoking, changed careers, removed themselves from debt and ended drug and alcohol addictions. It’s only the early days of a 31-city summer tour to create a support network for people trying to reclaim their lives in a nation with well-documented weight and addiction problems.

After four hours, 3.1 miles and a bonding dinner, the DC runners left as friends. They are members of the “Do Life” movement, an idea founder Ben Davis says is about using health and fitness to find happiness, connect with family and friends and start lifelong relationships.

Davis, 25, began the Tumblr blog “Ben Does Life” in December 2008 to document his weight loss.

Soon, he found that his ongoing transformation from 358-pound depressed introvert to 230pound marathon runner, Ironman and public speaker had inspired thousands worldwide to change their lives.

Davis and other participants in the DC 5K event stressed, however, that “doing life” is a universal concept. “Not everybody needs to lose 150 pounds,” Davis said. “Some people have other addictions, other things in life that they’re struggling with, and we found that in a lot of ways, you have to find a way to replace those areas of your life with something positive.”

George Washington University student Estee Gabel, who began following “Ben Does Life” after watching Davis’ popular inspirational YouTube video, applies this motto on the water. “(Doing life) definitely is rowing for me, because even though that’s how I get my exercise, it’s also when I have the most peace of mind and when I have the most time to focus on

WASHINGTON: Life movement and Do Life 5K Tour merchandise is displayed on June 22, 2011 on a bench before the 5K run/walk in Washington, DC. — AFP

Benefit of mammograms even greater than thought CHICAGO: The longest-running breast cancer screening study ever conducted has shown that regular mammograms prevent deaths from breast cancer, and the number of lives saved increases over time, an international research team said yesterday. The study of 130,000 women in two communities in Sweden showed 30 percent fewer women in the screening group died of breast cancer and that this effect persisted year after year. Now, 29 years after the study began, the researchers found that the number of women saved from breast cancer goes up with each year of screening. “We’ve found that the longer we look, the more lives are saved,” Professor Stephen Duffy of Queen Mary, University of London, whose study was published in the journal Radiology, said in a statement.

Dr Stamatia Destounis, a radiologist at Elizabeth Wende Breast Care in Rochester, New York, who was not involved in the study, said radiologists have been quoting results of the Swedish study for years and the new findings show breast cancer screening is “even more of a benefit than we understood.” She said sweeping changes in the US screening guidelines two years ago that scaled back recommendations on breast cancer screening caused a lot of confusion among doctors and patients about the benefits of mammograms. “We’ve had to do a lot of education of the patients and their doctors. This will help for that,” Destounis said. In the study, women were divided into two groups, one that received an invitation to have breast cancer screening and another that received usual care.

The screening phase of the trial lasted about seven years. Women between 40 and 49 were screened every two years, and women 50 to 74 were screened roughly every three years. “Our results indicate that in 1,000 women screened for 10 years, three breast cancer deaths would be prevented,” Duffy said, adding that most of the deaths prevented would have occurred more than a decade

after the screening had started. “This indicates that the long-term benefits of screening in terms of deaths prevented are more than double those often quoted for short-term follow-up.” The new data adds to evidence on the long-term benefits of regular mammography screening.

US SCREENING CONTROVERSY New breast screening recommendations issued in 2009 by the US Preventive Services Task Force, an influential advisory group, recommended against routine mammograms for women in their 40s and said women in their 50s should get mammograms every other year instead of every year. The guidelines contradicted years of messages about the need for routine breast cancer screening starting at age 40, eliciting protests from breast cancer experts and advocacy groups who argued the recommendation for fewer screenings would confuse women and result in more deaths from breast cancer.

The changes were meant to spare women some of the worry and expense of extra tests needed to distinguish between cancer and harmless lumps. But the latest results from the Swedish study show the rate of false positive results was low. “We saw the actual number of overdiagnosed cases was really very small-less than 5 percent of the total,” Robert Smith, director of cancer screening at the American Cancer Society and one of the study’s authors, said in a telephone interview.

Many groups, including the American Cancer Society, have stuck by their longstanding recommendations of a yearly breast exam for women starting at age 40, stressing that the breast X-rays have been proven to save lives by spotting tumors early, when they are most easily treated. “I think for anybody who was beginning to have their faith shaken in the value of mammography, these data show mammography is quite valuable as a public health approach to reducing deaths from breast cancer,” Smith said.— Reuters

myself,” she said. Others, like Avi Kempler, use the mantra as a second chance. Kempler joined Weight Watchers in 2007 after his father was diagnosed with cancer. “I was ashamed to go be with my family because I didn’t want them to know how big I was,” he said. “I missed a lot of memories with my father and my grandmother, who died five months apart from each other. Be active and do whatever you can to be happy, because you know, life is really just too short.”

For Kempler, “doing life” is really about taking responsibility for decisions and making the necessary changes in all aspects of life. “It doesn’t matter if you’re losing weight like Ben says, or trying to get off drugs or drinking or smoking or get out of debt,” he said. “Everything is about taking that first step. I was 396 pounds. I was $20,000 in credit card debt. I was a smoker, smoked a pack and a half a day. Now, I have no credit card debt, I weigh 230 pounds and I haven’t smoked for three years.” To spread the movement, Davis-along with his father, John, and brother, Jed-founded Do Life, Inc. in January.

“Anybody can take this message and apply it to their life, and so we turned ‘Ben Does Life’ into ‘Do Life’,” Davis said.

“It became sort of a message and a motto that people have applied to their lives and said, ‘This is how I’m doing life. Maybe I’m not running a marathon but I’m out there every day with my kids, walking and jogging,’ and that’s what it’s about.” This summer, the three Davis men are driving 12,000 miles across America and Canada to host the first annual Do Life Tour from June 18-July 27. The tour is a series of free, untimed run/walk 5K events in 31 cities that invite people to meet for exercise and a post-run meal. Davis said the 5K distance works into the Do Life message in that it’s a good starting goal, and that it is the first race for many tour participants, however unofficial.

The tour’s estimated 420 attendees through nine cities have lost a total of 7,883 pounds, according to Davis, who is surprised and humbled by the enthusiastic response and said the DC event “blew all of our expectations out of the water.” “Honestly, for a grassroots movement, this was phenomenal,” Kempler said. “For about 70 people to come out, do a 5K together, come to eat, hang out-I mean, we’re DC-everyone’s busy. “This is a big city, and for this many people to show up because of a website, Ben’s gotta feel good about that, and I hope he does, because there’s such camaraderie just talking with everybody. It’s such a blast.” — AFP

Swine fever may hit all European Russia MOSCOW: African Swine Fever (ASF), lethal to pigs though harmless to humans, has reached central Russia and may spread to all European parts of the country, the country’s chief veterinarian said yesterday.

“We are on the verge of a new wave of proliferation of the virus,” Nikolai Vlasov, who is also deputy head of the animal and plant health watchdog Rosselkhoznadzor, told reporters.

He said that outbreaks of ASF, which has no cure, have been registered this year at five small farms in the central Russian region of Tver bordering the Moscow region.

Medium and large Russian pig breeding farms are well protected against ASF and other diseases.

It is mainly small farms that are affected by the contagious virus, which is spread partly by wild boars.

ASF, which was confirmed for the first time in Russia in 2007, has so far been found mainly in the south of the country. It continues spreading due to delays in the adoption of efficient measures to prevent its proliferation.

Three years ago the disease was discovered outside the Southern Federal Disrict only twice. In the first six months of this year the virus was found in five regions outside the district, in north-western and central Russia, Vlasov said.

“We give instructions, which are ignored,” he said. The watchdog earlier this year proposed a program to eradicate the pig killer within seven years, costing around $400 million. The government has so far failed to approve it.

“If things continue to go as they do now in the Tver region, where wild boars are plentiful, the northwest of the country may soon start resembling the south,” Vlasov said.

“Wide proliferation of any infectious disease in Russia is a global problem due to its colossal territory and the huge number of countries it has borders with,” he added. — Reuters

DJIBOUTI: Dockers unload cargo in Djibouti harbor, June 14, 2011. —AFP

Drought hits Horn of Africa GENEVA: Ten million people in the Horn of Africa have been hit by the worst drought in 60 years, with the situation deteriorating to the point of famine in some areas, the UN said yesterday. “Over 10 million people are affected by the drought in one way or other,” said Elisabeth Byrs, spokeswoman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

“We believe that the drought situation in certain regions is the worst in 60 years. In several regions, we can speak of famine,” she said, adding that the areas further away from the coast were hardest hit. A poor rainy season coupled with rising food prices have led to severe food shortages in countries including Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Uganda. In certain areas in

Kenya, grain prices are up to 80 percent higher than the five year average, while in Ethiopia, the consumer price index jumped about 41 percent.

As a result, malnutrition rates are also rising, the UN agency said. In the worst affected areas, they are at more than twice that of the emergency threshold of 15 percent.

Eleven districts in Kenya have also reported malnutrition rates above the emergency threshold. Byrs called for donors to increase financing in order to scale up aid. At the moment, the Djibouti drought appeal has only received 30 percent of funds sought, while appeals for Somalia and Kenya are only about half funded. “If we do not tackle the situation as soon as possible, it could become worse,” said Byrs. — AFP

SYDNEY: A Tasmanian Devil stands on a tree trunk at Taronga Zoo’s Tasmanian Devil Breeding Centre in Sydney in 2010. — AFP

Gene machines may help save endangered Tasmanian devil CHICAGO: Scientists are using high-tech gene sequencing machines in a desperate attempt to save the Tasmanian devil from an infectious cancer called devil facial tumor disease that is threatening to wipe out the species. “The disease is like nothing we know in humans or in virtually any other animal. It acts like a virus but it actually is spread by a whole cancerous cell that arose in one individual several decades ago,” Penn State University’s Stephan Schuster, who is working on the project, said in a statement.

The cancer, first observed just 15 years ago, is quickly spreading among populations of the already endangered Tasmanian devil, the world’s largest surviving carnivorous marsupial that lives on the Australian island state of Tasmania. Devil facial tumor disease disfigures the victim and causes death from starvation or suffocation. “It has 90 to 100 percent lethality in a few months. In many regions of Tasmania, it is completely lethal,” said Schuster, who worked on the study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Conservation experts have been isolating and breeding a population of healthy animals and plan to release them in the wild once the cancer runs its course. To help select the best animals for the effort, a team led by Schuster and Webb Miller of Penn State and Vanessa Hayes of the Venter Institute in San Diego sequenced two Tasmanian devils, Cedric and Spirit, from the extreme northwest and southeast regions of Tasmania, respectively, to determine the genetic diversity of the animals.

GENETIC DIVERSITY Then they compared the range of genetic diversity to that of humans, the most studied species on the planet. “In the case of the

Tasmanian devil, those two only have 20 percent of the genetic diversity that living humans have,” Schuster said in a telephone interview. The study is one of the first to use whole genome sequencing as a tool to conserve an endangered population, Schuster said. Whole genome sequencing technology allows researchers to read all the little bits of code-the A, C, T, G sequences- that are the building blocks of DNA. It took 10 years and $3 billion for the international Human Genome Project to get the first draft of the human genome a decade ago. The scans now cost $10,000 to $20,000 each, but companies such as Illumina, Life Technologies Corp, Pacific Biosciences and Roche Holding are working hard to bring the cost down even more. Schuster’s scan of the two Tasmanian devils showed the population already had low genetic diversity, which likely made them vulnerable to the infectious cancer, which is spread by skin-to-skin contact.

“Transmission is through biting, fighting and mating,” he said, and the disease has the potential of “burning through the entire population within a decade.”

Using the genetic code from the two animals, the team devised a test that could look for specific genetic differences within the species to find the most genetically diverse animals for the breeding program. “It costs $150 per animal, whereas the sequence of the complete genome is in the $10,000 range,” Schuster said. The team used a new gene sequencing platform from Roche Holding AG, which helped pay for the research. Schuster said the findings show that whole genome sequencing can be a useful tool in conservation. He said future studies are planned in cattle and other domestic animals. — Reuters

TV junk-food ads do boost kids’ appetites NEW YORK: Television ads for junk food really do make children hunger for those treats, especially if they watch a lot of television, according to a study.

The findings, published in Pediatrics, come amid growing calls to ban junk food advertisements aimed at children in order to combat obesity-most recently from the American Academy of Pediatrics, which issued a policy statement on junk food ads on Monday.

In tests with 6- to 13-year olds, researchers led by Emma Boyland of the University of Liverpool in the UK found that a DVD featuring commercials for fast food and junk food seemed to whet children’s appetites for sweet and high-

fat fare. “Exposure to television food commercials enhanced high television viewers’ preferences for branded foods and increased reported preferences for all food items (branded and unbranded) relative to the low television viewers,” she wrote.

The children involved in the research reported a greater desire for sweet and fatty foods after viewing the junk-food ads compared to days when they watched commercials for toys.

This was especially true for children who usually watched a lot of TV in their everyday lives, with “a lot” defined by the researchers as over 21 hours a week.

On average, kids wanted more high-

carb, high-fat foods after watching food commercials.

But researchers said the effects of the food ads were modest, making only a small difference in the average number of food items the children said they wanted “right now.”

In real life, as well, a lot of other factors would be at work, including parents’ willingness to buy those foods.

“It will never be possible to demonstrate in an experimental study that food advertising contributes to obesity. There are simply too many variables to take into account,” Boyland wrote in an email to Reuters Health.

On the other hand, a number of stud-

ies have no shown that children tend to want more, and eat more, tasty treats after seeing ads for them.

With older children, who often make their own food choices, that could translate into more french fries and chocolate bars. Even young children have “pester power,” with studies suggesting they are more likely to use that power if they see a lot of food commercials.

“This study confirms the cumulative, sustained effect of food marketing on TV: the more children watch TV, the more susceptible they are to advertising,” said Lori Dorfman, who directs the Berkeley Media Studies Group in California and has studied food market-

ing to children. “This might not be so bad if food marketers put their best foods forward, but they don’t,” Dorfman, who did not take part in the study, told Reuters Health by email. Dorfman noted that children now watch TV on their computers and mobile gadgets as well as at home on TV, which can add up to a lot of hours.

Dorfman said that parents should limit TV time, but added that they need help. “It’s simply not fair to expect parents alone to counter the $2 billion food companies spend each year targeting their kids with fun, irresistible ads for sugary, high-fat, salty foods,” she added.— Reuters

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he a lt h & s c ie n c e

Asian ‘megapest’ chomping up US orchards WASHINGTON: A stink bug from Asia is chomping up US vegetable fields, orchards and vineyards, causing experts to scramble through an arsenal of weapons to try and halt this stealthy, smelly predator. Pesticides, parasites and traps have all been tried but none have succeeded in killing off the brown marmorated stink bug, Halyomorpha halys, which first surfaced in the northeastern United States in 1996 and has since spread to 33 of the 50 states.

After having tried just about everything, farmer Bob Black said he sometimes resorts to a known weapon-his fist. “I smash ‘em, I am so mad at ‘em,” he said. “The thing stinks, it’s terrible... they emit this defensive odor system and that is why nothing will eat them.” Black, who runs Catoctin Mountain Orchard in Maryland, saw big damage to his fruit business last year and is trying to avoid more this year by allowing scientists to research the bugs on his land and by spraying more pesticides.

He rarely sees the insects themselves, leading him to believe they may siphon the life out of his fruit at night, like vampires. “The way they feed with their hypodermic needle mouth is they pierce down into any product, skin or tree up to three-eighths of an inch and suck the juices out so it becomes a dry area,” Black said. It’s hard to put a dollar figure on

how much is at stake, or how much has been lost nationwide because the scourge is so new, experts say.

According to Black, some of his crops last year were cut by 15-20 percent. Others, like all of his nectarines, were donated to a food bank because they had stink bug damage-still edible but with bruises and dry patches. Shoppers only want to pay for perfect fruit, he said. The stink bug can live off any one of 300 host plants, including grapes, peppers, apples, corn, and tomatoes. Birds, bats, spiders, and praying mantises will eat them, but the stink bugs are so fertile that they can outbreed any potential villains, according to Tracy Leskey, a research entomologist at the US Department of Agriculture. “A single female can lay on average about 200-250 eggs in her lifetime,” Leskey said. “Some females can lay up to 400 eggs.”

The bug likely made its way accidentally into the US in a shipment from Asia, and over the years has experienced a major population boom. Last year, Leskey said one of her small-scale trapping experiments ended up snaring 15 gallons of them. “We are just learning more about their movement pattern, when they start to invade, and also we are learning more about the better pesticides,” said Leskey, who

New New e H Hope ope …

New Life

helped create a task force in 2009 of about 100 experts who meet regularly to share their research.

In recent weeks, the bugs that Americans may have seen in their homes taking shelter over the winter have moved outside to breed, and around now their eggs are likely hatching. Some pesticides that are already on the market can kill the bugs, but the timing has to be just right, and the solutions have to be rotated to avoid creating resistance. The Environmental Protection Agency said it is considering an emergency appeal to authorize a pesticide called dinotefuran, already approved for vegetables, grapes and cotton, to protect fruit in Virginia.

“EPA recognizes the significant impact of the stink bug on agriculture,” a spokeswoman said. “The agency believes this exemption would be needed approximately by mid-July. EPA will make sure a decision is made before that time frame.” Another trick would be getting just the right parasite in high enough numbers to eat away at the stink bugs. In Asia, a parasitic wasp does the work nicely, but the North American types are only successful in killing a small percentage of them. A US government lab is cultivating a collection of parasitic wasps from Asia, but it will be several years before they may be unleashed because of the high risks of upsetting the

ecosystem further with another invasive creature.

“It is so seldom that we get a pest of this magnitude that affects so many things, that it has really shifted a lot of our research activity,” said Doug Pfeiffer, a professor of entomology at Virginia Tech University. “It is really a megapest compared to our native stink bugs.”

And with increasing global trade, the epidemic of invasive insects around the world is only likely to get worse. “International movement of pests is a twoway street,” said Pfeiffer, pointing to the damage done by the Colorado potato beetle in Eastern Europe and a pest called the American white moth that is killing sections of forest in China.

In the United States, the creature is called a fall webworm, and it makes harmless webs on tree branches, but was “introduced into China without the natural enemies that help suppress it here,” he said. For farmer Black, the march of the stink bug has put him on the defensive. He is spraying more pesticide than before, using more costly fuel, and tossing out more fruit, meaning his prices will have to go up. “This could actually affect the food supply in the whole nation,” said Black, 60. “It is the most challenging thing that I have ever had to deal with.”— AFP

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W H AT ’ S O N

Kids World Nursery and KG celebrated graduates of the 2010/2011 school year in a ceremony that held various activities.

Congratulations to Marina Karam Al-Omar honoring a student.

KFH honors Faculty of Engineering students

K Marina with her mother Neeveen Aziz, sister Sarah and her aunt Mirvet her father’s picture.

H

er grade average is 97.62, and she said her father’s image did not leave her mind. “I thank my mother for her efforts and I will study dentistry” said outstanding student Marina Karam Georgi, from Fajr Al-Sabah Private School, Science disci-

pline. The new graduate dedicated her success to the soul of her father whose image never left her. She also dedicated the success to her country Kuwait and her school which was a “major support at all moral and scientific levels” she said. Marina said she will

Marina Karam Georgi study dentistry in Kuwait or Egypt. She also lauded her mother’s efforts who provided her with continuous love and support for her to focus on her studies without distraction.

“It was my father’s wish for me to become a dentist” she said.

uwait Finance House (KFH) CEO Mohammed Al-Omar stressed that KFH is keen to support and encourage scientific initiatives and innovations made by Kuwaiti youths, since they form the platform to launch innovative projects that assist in the development of Kuwait. He highlighted the importance of collective efforts to develop those promising skills.

During the honoring of the Faculty of Engineering and Petroleum students and the designing exhibition, Al-Omar stated that KFH sponsors Kuwait University’s graduates in several fields, since it firmly believes that those graduates are Kuwait’s source of power, since they will be the future leaders in the economic and social fields. He went on to say that

after visiting the engineering design exhibition and seeing the innovative projects, Kuwait can take pride in possessing such minds and prestigious educational institutions. He noted that those initiatives deserve to be sponsored and supported to execute them as projects that can play a role in overcoming existing challenges.

He hoped the fresh graduates would quickly join the labor force and learn from the more experienced engineers.

It is worth noting that KFH that has been keen to sponsor the graduation ceremony of this faculty and the exhibition has chosen the la-coast marina and Kuwait mail projects. The event was attended by Minister of Electricity and Water Salem Al-Ozaina and the faculty’s dean.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

Contact John Morley johnmorley@hotmail.com Fahaheel Sailing Club (see Dive Caroline) 2371 9289 www.horn3.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

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

Sheikha Squash www.sheikhasguash.com Health Club 2474 2000 Crowne Plaza Hotel, Farwaniya

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Embassy Information

Burgan bank launches summer training program

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urgan Bank announced that the Bank started its summer training program for the talented students. The program, which is set to take place at the bank’s head office as well as different branches, covers classroom sessions on introduction to the banking sector, branch training, strengthening communication skills as well as experiencing first hand work across various departments.

Shireen Cooper, Burgan Bank’s Human Resources & Development Assistant General Manager said: “The bank aims, through these innovative programs, at improving and developing its human resources and encouraging the youth to join the Burgan Bank family. The bank is offering a range of opportunities to benefit from such training programs that will ultimately contribute to increasing their practical expe-

rience. The summer training commenced on the 19th June 2011 for the first group and will resume on the 10th of July 10th for the second group of students.”

Burgan Bank continues to open new chapters in its commitment and dedication towards all sectors of the society, reaffirming its position as a socially dedicated leading Kuwaiti financial institution.

Scientific Center launches summer camp

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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.

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Aware Arabic courses “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

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EMBASSY OF AUSTRALIA The Embassy encourages all Australians to register their presence in Kuwait through Smartraveller Online (see link below).

Australians who are registered are asked to update their details. The information provided will assist us in contacting you in an emergency. www.smartraveller.gov.au Kuwait citizens can apply for and receive visit visas to Australia online at www.immi.gov.au.

This usually takes two working days. All others visa applications are handled by the Australian Visa Application Centre Tel. 22971110. Witnessing and certifying documents are by appointment only, please contact the Embassy on 2232 2422. The Australian Embassy is open from 8.00am to 4.00pm, Sunday to Thursday.

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Salmiya region Malayalam classes ala, Kuwait free Malayalam classes began June 25th in the Salmiya zone as informed by Salmiya regional Bhashasamithi.

A bhashasamithi was formed which was inaugurated by General Convenor P.K.Janardhanan. Kala Central Committee members Shinoj Mathew and J.Saji also attended the meeting. Rajesh P.R was selected as the Salmiya regional Convenor followed

by Reji.K.Jacob and Madhusoodhanan as Joint Convenors and Sailesh Kannoth, Suresh Babu, Kunjumon, Manoj Mathew Thomas, Rajan C. Kulakkada, Shinoj Mathew, J.Saji and PR Kiron as other Samithi members.

For registrations and other information kindly contact: 66767297, 66081623 or 97496171.

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.

Wataniya Telecom sponsors College of Political Sciences Graduation ceremony

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ataniya announced its intentions of sponsoring graduation ceremonies in several schools across Kuwait. To continue on its quest of supporting and encouraging the youth, Wataniya has gone the extra mile by also sponsoring the graduation ceremony of the prestigious College of Political Science at the University of Kuwait. The promising students convened on 19th of June at the Arraya Ballroom for the ceremony.

The event was held under the patronage and presence of Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed Sabah Al-Salem Al-Sabah, Dean of Social Sciences Faculty Dr. Abdulredha Asiri and Head of Political Sciences Department Dr. Abdullah AlShayji. Public Relations assistant manager of Wataniya Hamad Al-Matar was also present at the event.

Representatives from Wataniya were present at the event to congratulate the students and participate in this joyous occasion. Wataniya has taken up several initiatives to support the education sector and youth programs via job fairs, school events and several other interactive events.

Abdolaziz Al Balool, Public Relations Director of Wataniya Telecom elaborated on the company’s initiative to promote education by saying, “Investing in young talent and supporting them at every level of their education and career formulate the core of our strategy. By sponsoring the graduation of the class of 2011 for the Political Science Department at Kuwait University, we want to inspire these promising students who will become future leaders and successful entrepreneurs.”

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.

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EMBASSY OF CANADA The Embassy of Canada is located at Villa 24, Al-Mutawakel St., Block 4 in Da’aiyah.

Please visit our website at www.Kuwait.gc.ca.

Canada offers a registration service for all Canadians travelling or living abroad. This service is provided so that Consular Officials can contact and assist Canadians in an emergency in a foreign country, such as a natural disaster or civil unrest, or inform Canadians of a family emergency at home. The Embassy of Canada encourages all Canadian Citizens to register online through the Government of Canada Travel Website at www.voyage.gc.ca. The Canadian Embassy in Abu Dhabi provides visa and immigration services to residents of Kuwait. Individuals who are interested in visiting, working or immigrating to Canada are invited to visit the website of the Canadian Embassy to the UAE at www.UAE.gc.ca.

Effective January 15, 2011, the only Temporary Resident Visa (TRV) application form that will be accepted by CIC is the Application for Temporary Resident Visa Made Outside of Canada [IMM 5257] form. All previous Temporary Resident Visa application forms will no longer be accepted by CIC and instead will be returned to applicants. Should old applications be submitted prior to January 15, 2011 they will continue to be processed.

To ensure that the most recent version of the Temporary Resident Visa application form is being utilized, applicants should refer to the CIC website.

As of January 15, 2011, forms are to be filled in electronically. The Embassy of Canada is open from 07:30 to 15:30 Sunday through Thursday.

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EMBASSY OF GERMANY The Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Kuwait wishes to announce that as of 1 May 2011, the external service provider Al Qabas Assurex is operating a Visa Application Centre in support of the German Embassy. Short-term visa applications for travels to Germany (e.g. for tourism, visits, business) are to be submitted to the service provider Al Qabas who for your convenience will ensure that all relevant documents are included in your application. Your personal appearance at the Application Centre is not required. Address of the Visa Application Centre: Al Qabas Assurex Sanabel Tower (Al-Babtain) Mezzanine (M3) opposite Sharq Mall Kuwait 22924444 Fax: 22924442 Further information are available on the following websites: www.kuwait.diplo.de www.qavisa.com

Adopt a pet Astrix the Pup

strix is a nine-month old German Shepherd-Saluki mix pup. He is gentle, friendly and likes to observe the world with his charming caramel eyes. Astrix will be a great companion and loves a good belly rub. To adopt Astrix, contact K’S PATH at www.kspath.org.

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EMBASSY OF KENYA The Embassy of the Republic of Kenya wishes to request all Kenyans resident in or training through Kuwait to register with the Embassy. We are updating our database. This information is necessary in order to facilitate quick assistance and advise in times of emergency. Kindly visit in person or register through our website www.kenyaembkuwait.com. The Embassy is located in: Surra Area - Block 6 - Street 9 Villa 3 Tel: 25353362 - 25353314; Fax: 25353316.

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EMBASSY OF NIGERIA The Nigerian embassy has moved its office to Mishref. Block 3, Street 7, House 4. For enquires please call 25379541. Fax25387719. Email- nigeriakuwait@yahoo.com or nigeriankuwait@yahoo.co.uk

Nancy the Kitten Nancy is a pretty three-month old kitten who loves petting. She is friendly, energetic and purrs for attention. Nancy will be a great addition to a family with children aged 12 and above. To adopt Nancy, contact K’S PATH at www.kspath.org.

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Kuwait Autism Soceity organized the late Shareefa Al-Sabeeh Holy Quran competition, as 21 students from three schools participated.

EMBASSY OF SLOVAK REPUBLIC On the occasion of the Day of the Apostles St. Cyril and St. Methodius, the Embassy of the Slovak Republic will be closed on Tuesday, July 05, 2011, and will resume its duties on Wednesday, July 06, 2011, the Business hours of the Consular Section is from Monday to Wednesday from 10:00 till 13:00 hrs.

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00:45 Dogs 101 01:40 Untamed And Uncut 02:35 Life Of Mammals 03:30 Wildest Africa 04:25 Lions And Giants 05:20 Animal Cops Houston 06:10 Dogs 101 07:00 Lemur Street 07:25 The Really Wild Show 07:50 Jeff Corwin Unleashed 08:15 Natural Born Hunters 08:40 Breed All About It 09:10 Dogs/Cats/Pets 101 10:05 Dogs 101 11:00 Animal Cops Miami 11:55 E-Vets: The Interns 12:20 Wildlife SOS 12:50 Last Chance Highway 13:45 Animal Cops Houston 14:40 Penguin Safari 15:30 Echo And The Elephants Of Amboseli 16:00 The Really Wild Show 16:30 The Planet’s Funniest Animals 17:25 Extraordinary Dogs 17:50 Project Puppy 18:20 Breed All About It 18:45 Planet Wild 19:15 Penguin Safari 20:10 Cats 101 21:05 Austin Stevens Adventures 22:00 Planet Earth 22:55 Buggin’ With Ruud 23:50 Penguin Safari

00:00 00:30 01:15 02:10 03:05 03:35 04:05 04:35 04:55 05:15 05:40 05:55 06:15 06:35 07:00 07:20 07:40 08:05 08:20 08:40 09:00 09:25 09:40 10:40 11:25 12:15 12:45 13:15 14:10 15:40 16:30 17:15 17:45 18:15 19:10 20:00 20:45 21:15 21:45 22:35 23:35

00:05 00:45 01:35 02:20 02:45 04:10 04:40 08:25 08:55 09:45 10:05 11:35 12:00 12:25

Keeping Up Appearances The Weakest Link Holby City Moses Jones Eastenders Doctors Keeping Up Appearances Fimbles Balamory Teletubbies Gigglebiz Fimbles Balamory Teletubbies Fimbles Balamory Teletubbies Gigglebiz Fimbles Balamory Teletubbies Gigglebiz Keeping Up Appearances The Weakest Link Sahara Doctors Eastenders Holby City Keeping Up Appearances Sahara The Weakest Link Doctors Eastenders Holby City Sahara The Weakest Link Doctors Eastenders Casualty Bleak House Keeping Up Appearances

Cash In The Attic USA Come Dine With Me The Home Show Cash In The Attic USA Cash In The Attic USA Daily Cooks Challenge Daily Cooks Challenge Daily Cooks Challenge Antiques Roadshow Cash In The Attic USA Cash In The Attic USA New Scandinavian Cooking New Scandinavian Cooking Antiques Roadshow

13:15 14:00 14:45 15:35 17:25 18:10 18:35 19:00 19:50 20:35 21:20 22:10 23:00 23:45

Cash In The Attic Bargain Hunt Come Dine With Me Cash In The Attic USA Rhodes Across China New Scandinavian Cooking New Scandinavian Cooking Antiques Roadshow Cash In The Attic Bargain Hunt Come Dine With Me The Home Show Design Star Design Star

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 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

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 29, 2011

TV PROGRAMS 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 Inside Africa World Report Backstory World Report World Sport News Special World Business Today World One World Sport Talk Asia Piers Morgan Tonight News Stream World Business Today International Desk The Brief World Sport Prism International Desk News Special 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 14:10 15:05

Dirty Jobs The Next Great Baker Ultimate Survival Battle Machine Bros Mythbusters How It’s Made How It’s Made Dirty Jobs Battle Machine Bros Street Customs How It’s Made Mythbusters Cake Boss Border Security Time Warp The Next Great Baker LA Ink Ultimate Survival LA Ink Dirty Jobs

BLOOD AND BONE OSN ACTION HD

16:00 16:55 17:50 18:45 19:10 19:40 20:05 20:35 21:00 21:55 22:50 23:45

Battle Machine Bros Mythbusters Extreme Fishing Cake Boss Border Security Time Warp How It’s Made How It’s Made Science Of The Movies Mythbusters The Future Of...

Extreme Fishing

00:30 The Gadget Show 00:55 Kings Of Construction 01:45 When Weather Changed History 02:35 Through The Wormhole With Morgan Freeman 03:25 How Stuff’s Made 03:50 Scrapheap Challenge 04:45 What’s That About?

05:40 Patent Bending 06:10 Superships 07:00 Da Vinci’s Machines 07:55 Head Rush 07:58 Sci-Fi Science 08:25 Weird Connections 08:55 Super Comet: After The Impact 09:45 The Gadget Show 10:10 The Gadget Show 10:35 Engineered 11:25 Savage Planet 11:50 Da Vinci’s Machines 12:40 Patent Bending 13:05 Sci-Fi Science 13:30 Sci-Fi Science 13:55 Space Pioneer 14:45 Kings Of Construction 15:35 The Gadget Show 16:00 Head Rush 16:03 Sci-Fi Science 16:30 Weird Connections 17:00 Brainiac 17:50 Sci-Fi Saved My Life 18:40 How It’s Made 19:05 How It’s Made 19:30 How Stuff Works 20:20 Sci-Fi Science 20:45 How Does That Work?

21:10 The Gadget Show 21:35 The Gadget Show 22:00 How It’s Made 22:25 How It’s Made 22:50 How Stuff Works 23:40 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 08:20 08:45 09:10 09:20 09:30 09:55 10:05 10:25 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 18:05 18:15 18:35 19:00 19:20 19:45 19:55 20:05 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 Jungle Junction Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Timmy Time Handy Manny Jake & The Neverland Pirates The Hive Handy Manny Mickey Mouse Clubhouse The Little Mermaid Little Einsteins Jungle Junction Lazytown Imagination Movers 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 Lazytown Jungle Junction Special Agent Oso The Hive Little Einsteins Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Jake & The Neverland Pirates The Little Mermaid Handy Manny Timmy Time 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 09:00 The Suite Life Of Zack And Cody 09:25 The Suite Life Of Zack And Cody 11:30 Pair Of Kings 11:55 Phineas And Ferb 12:20 Phineas And Ferb 12:45 Kid vs Kat 13:50 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 The Suite Life Of Zack And Cody

16:50 Cody 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

The Suite Life Of Zack And Kick Buttowski Kick Buttowski Kid vs Kat 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 Style Star 01:25 E!es 02:20 E! Investigates 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 Kourtney And Kim Take New York 09:45 Kourtney And Kim Take New York 10:15 40 (More) Crimes Of Fashion 12:05 E! News 13:05 Holly’s World 14:05 Kourtney And Khloe Take Miami 14:35 E!es 15:30 E!es 16:25 Behind The Scenes 16:55 THS 17:55 E! News 18:55 Khloe And Lamar 19:55 E!es 20:55 Chelsea Lately 21:25 Kimora: Life In The Fab Lane 22:25 E! News 23:25 Chelsea Lately 23:55 Kourtney And Kim Take New York

LEAP YEAR ON OSN CINEMA 00:15 Untracked 00:40 Mantracker 01:30 World Combat League 02:20 Untracked 03:10 Fight Girls 04:00 Final Fu 04:50 Mantracker 05:40 World Combat League 06:30 FIA European Drag Racing 2008 08:00 Quattro Events 2009 08:25 X-Traordinary 09:15 Lucas Oil Ama Motocross Championships...

10:05 Lucas Oil Ama Motocross Championships...

10:55 Ride Guide Mountainbike 2009 11:45 Fantasy Factory 12:35 Untracked 13:25 Mantracker 14:15 World Combat League 15:05 Ride Guide Mountainbike 2009 15:30 Ride Guide Mountainbike 2009 15:55 Fantasy Factory 16:45 Quattro Events 2009 17:10 X-Traordinary 18:00 Lucas Oil Ama Motocross Championships...

19:40 Mantracker 20:30 Untracked 21:20 I’ll Do Anything 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 10:20 11:10 12:00 12:50 13:40 14:30 15:20 16:10 17:00 17:50 18:40 19:30 20:20 21:10 22:00 23:40

Ghost Lab Psychic Witness Deadly Women The Prosecutors Dr G: Medical Examiner Crime Scene Psychics Ghost Lab Mystery ER Forensic Detectives Murder Shift Mystery ER Real Emergency Calls Fugitive Strike Force FBI Files On The Case With Paula Zahn Solved Mystery ER Real Emergency Calls Fugitive Strike Force Forensic Detectives Murder Shift FBI Files Mystery ER Real Emergency Calls On The Case With Paula Zahn Solved I Almost Got Away With It Dr G: Medical Examiner

01:05 01:20 02:45 04:15 05:55 07:25 08:55 10:30 12:05 13:35 15:05 16:40 18:20 18:35 20:20 22:00 23:30

Big Screen - 4 Jackson County Jail Extremities Dirty Pictures Staying Together Sheba, Baby Breakheart Pass Mystery Date Who Was Geli Bendl?

By Duty Bound A Star For Two Mr. Majestyk Big Screen - 4 Tune In Tomorrow Bojangles Soldier Boyz Child In The Night

00:00 01:00 09:00 10:00 10:30 11:00 11:30 12:30 13:30 14:00 14:30 15:30 16:00

Cruise Ship Diaries Cruise Ship Diaries Cruise Ship Diaries Bondi Rescue David Rocco’s Dolce Vita Exploring The Vine Cruise Ship Diaries Banged Up Abroad Madventures Madventures Banged Up Abroad Destination Extreme Bondi Rescue

16:30 17:00 17:30 18:30 19:30 20:30 21:30 22:00 22:30 23:00 23:30

David Rocco’s Dolce Vita Exploring The Vine Cruise Ship Diaries Banged Up Abroad Madventures Banged Up Abroad Destination Extreme Bondi Rescue David Rocco’s Dolce Vita Exploring The Vine Cruise Ship Diaries

00:00 Orphan-18 02:00 Blood And Bone-18 04:00 Battlestar Galactica: The Plan18 06:00 Fast And Furious-PG15 08:00 Mortal Kombat-PG 10:00 The Betrayed-PG15 12:00 The Stepfather-PG15 14:00 Mortal Kombat-PG 15:45 Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen-PG15 18:15 The Stepfather-PG15 20:00 Signs-PG15

01:00 Whiteout-18 03:00 Remember Me-PG15 05:00 MacHEADS-PG15 07:00 Batman: Under The Red Hood-PG 09:00 Remember Me-PG15 11:00 The Nutty Professor-FAM 13:00 All About Steve-PG15 15:00 A Christmas Carol-PG 17:00 Me And Orson Welles-PG 19:00 Clash Of The Titans-PG15 21:00 Leap Year-PG15 23:00 Paranormal Activity-PG15

00:30 The Daily Show With Jon Stewart 01:00 The Colbert Report 01:30 Boondocks 02:00 The Cleveland Show 02:30 Party Down 03:00 Rita Rocks 03:30 Hope And Faith 03:30 Party Down 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 Seinfeld 08:30 The New Adventures Of Old Christine 09:00 Rita Rocks 09:30 Will And Grace 10:00 According To Jim 10:30 Seinfeld 11:00 Family Biz 11:30 The Tonight Show With Jay Leno 12:30 The New Adventures Of Old Christine 13:00 Hope And Faith 13:30 Will And Grace 14:00 According To Jim 14:30 Raising Hope 15:00 Seinfeld 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 Hope And Faith 19:00 Parks And Recreation 19:30 The Simpsons 20:00 The Tonight Show With Jay Leno 21:00 The Daily Show With Jon Stewart 21:30 The Colbert Report 22:00 Louie 22:30 Party Down 23:00 Boondocks 23:30 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

Body Of Proof House The Ellen DeGeneres Show Hawthorne The View Good Morning America Detroit 1-8-7 Emmerdale Coronation Street The Ellen DeGeneres Show

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

01:00 03:00 18 05:00 07:00 09:00 11:15 13:15 15:00 17:15 19:30 21:00 23:00

00:00 02:00 04:00 PG15 06:00 PG15 08:00 10:15 12:00 PG15 14:00 16:00 18:00 20:00 22:15

The Martha Stewart Show The View Body Of Proof Hawthorne Live Good Morning America Grey’s Anatomy The Ellen DeGeneres Show Emmerdale Coronation Street Terriers Supernatural Mildred Pierce Grey’s Anatomy Detroit 1-8-7

The Ruins-R Battlestar Galactica: The PlanMidnight Meat Train-18 House Under Siege-PG15 Enemy Of The State-PG15 Shinjuku Incident-PG15 Echelon Conspiracy-PG15 Enemy Of The State-PG15 King Arthur-PG15 Fast Lane-PG15 The Cottage-18 El Orfenato-18

Houseguest-PG15 PJ Gallagher: Just Jokes-18 Revenge Of The BridesmaidsGhosts Of Girlfriends PastKeeping The Faith-PG15 Monsters vs. Aliens-PG A Low Down Dirty ShameWho’s Your Caddy?-PG15 Houseguest-PG15 Unmade Beds-PG15 Renaissance Man-U Women In Trouble-PG15

01:00 Game Of Four-PG15 03:00 Synecdoche, New York-18 05:00 My Sister’s Keeper-PG15 07:00 Sugar-PG15 09:00 Phoebe In Wonderland-PG 11:00 Mee Shee-PG 12:45 Carnera: The Walking Mountain-PG 15:00 Where The Wild Things ArePG 16:45 Finding Forrester-PG 19:00 The Informant!-PG15 21:00 The Waterdance-18 23:00 I Love Your Work-18

01:00 Malibu’s Most Wanted-PG15 03:00 The Sorcerer’s ApprenticePG15 05:00 Bandslam-PG15 07:00 9-PG 09:00 At Risk-PG15 11:00 Good Hair-PG15 13:00 Maneater: Part I-PG15 15:00 Maneater: Part II-PG15 17:00 At Risk-PG15 19:00 The Private Lives Of Pippa Lee-PG15 21:00 Leap Year-PG15 23:00 Observe And Report-18

02:00 Scooby-Doo And The Ghoul School-FAM 04:00 Daddy Day Care-PG 06:00 Nanny Mcphee And The Big Bang-PG 08:15 The Amazing Zorro-PG15 10:00 Cars-PG 12:15 Homeward Bound II: Lost In San Francisco-FAM 14:00 Nanny Mcphee And The Big Bang-PG 16:00 The Princess And The FrogFAM 18:00 The Country Bears-PG15 20:00 Nativity!-PG 22:00 Homeward Bound II: Lost In San Francisco-FAM

00:00 01:45 03:30 05:45

Dolan’s Cadillac-PG15 American Teen-PG15 Passing Strange-PG The Blind Side-PG15

08:00 Stomp The Yard 2: Homecoming-PG15 10:00 Winning Time-PG15 11:45 The Blind Side-PG15 14:00 My Son, My Son, What Have You Done?-PG15 16:00 Stomp The Yard 2: Homecoming-PG15 17:30 Avatar-PG 20:15 Public Enemies-18 22:30 Another Year-PG15

00:00 Golfing World 01:00 Super 15 03:00 Futbol Mundial 03:30 NRL Full Time 04:00 European PGA Tour Highlights 05:00 Trans World Sport 06:00 Weber Cup Bowling 07:00 AFL Highlights 08:00 Ironman 09:00 Super Rugby Highlights 10:00 ICC Cricket World 10:30 World Hockey 11:00 Trans World Sport 12:00 NRL Full Time 12:30 AFL Highlights 13:30 Mobil 1 The Grid 14:00 ICC Cricket World 14:30 Super Rugby Highlights 15:30 Super League 17:30 Trans World Sport 18:30 NRL Full Time 19:00 Darts UK Open 23:00 Super Rugby Highlights

00:00 ICC Cricket World 00:30 Masters Football 03:30 Super Rugby Highlights 04:30 Futbol Mundial 05:00 Rugby Junior World Championship 07:00 Golfing World 08:00 NRL Full Time 08:30 Masters Football 11:30 Mobil 1 The Grid 12:00 European Senior Tour Highlights 13:00 Golfing World 14:00 Weber Cup Bowling 15:00 Ironman 16:00 Asian Tour Golf 16:30 Asian Tour Highlights 17:30 Golfing World 18:30 Weber Cup Bowling 19:30 European Tour Weekly 20:00 Ladies European Tour Highlights 21:00 ICC Cricket World 21:30 IronMan China 22:30 Trans World Sport 23:30 Mobil 1 The Grid

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

UAE National Race Day Series WWE SmackDown V8 Supercars Championship UFC Unleashed WWE Vintage Collection City Centre Races Duathlon Full Throttle Aquabike World UAE National Race Day Series Le Mans Series Mobil 1 The Grid WWE NXT WWE Vintage Collection Le Mans Series Full Throttle Intercontinental Le Mans Cup V8 Supercars Championship WWE NXT UFC Brown V Anttonito UFC Wired UFC Unleashed

01:45 Light In The Piazza 03:25 The Swan 05:10 Edward, My Son 07:00 Father’s Little Dividend 08:20 The Naked Spur 09:50 Boys’ Night Out 11:40 Meet Me In St. Louis 13:35 Hot Millions 15:20 Seven Brides For Seven Brothers 17:00 Marlowe 18:35 Lady L 20:20 Skyjacked 22:00 My Favorite Year 23:30 Westworld

Classifieds WEDNESDAY, JUNE 29, 2011

Personal T Trainer rrainerr

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As you begin to exercise

Getting ready for a match or game Source: JoAnn Dahlkoetter iin R T i thl t News N Runner Triathlete

© 2011 MCT Graphic: Paul Trap

ACCOMMODATION

Week ending June 28, 2011

#1 Album

Top tracks

ek’s ranking in top top five e ( ) Last week’s

United State States es es Moves Like Jagger Ja agger 0DURRQ 0DURRQ

Bon Iver Bon Iver

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&ROGSOD\ Every Teardrop Teardro e op Is a Waterfall Waterfall a &ROGSOD\ Way Lead the W ay ay &DUORV -HDQ Source: iT iTunes unes

4 5 © 20 2011 011 MCT

Spacious bedroom with separate bathroom available for sharing in a two bedroom two bathroom flat in Abbasiya, near United Indian School for Keralite couples from June 5 onwards. Contact: 66846299. (C 3484) 29-6-2011 Spacious hall available from July onwards near Edee Stores, Salmiya, suitable for classes like Breathing/ Aerobics etc.

Please contact: 55394933.

(C 3479) Sharing accommodation available for RC Goan or Mangalorian bachelor in a flat near Khaitan Jamiya.

Rent KD 40/-. Contact: 99453500. (C 3480) 28-6-2011

Separate room in Mulhak at Al-Jabriya near Al-Hadi Hospital for single Muslim bachelor, kitchen & phone, satellite facilities, semi furnish. Rent KD 70 per month from July 2011. Contact: 99546413.

(C 3476)

No: 15134

FOR SALE Pajero Jeep - 2002, silver color, 4 doors (6 Clr) - CC 3000, KD 1,750/-. Contact: 66729295. (C 3481)

other items. Tel: 66603401 27-6-2011

Honda City 2009, white color, 16,000km, KD 2,350/-.

Contact: 55323839.

(C 3482) 28-6-2011

TUITION

For sale, dining table, 4 chairs, wooden, all Center Point, iMac computer, 21”, JVC hi-fi 5DVD and many

Tutoring available for all subjects including English, Math and Science by certified experienced American teacher with many years of experience. Call: 66616900.

(C 3483) 29-6-2011

34

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 29, 2011

stars CROSSWORD 363

STAR TRACK

CALVIN & HOBBES

Aries (March 21-April 19) You could be receiving attention from your superiors today.

You review, preview and work on a presentation that represents your point of view. This could even be the time to draw up a proposal for that raise or advancement to another part of the company? Your expectations are reasonable and you may be ready to move into new territory soon. You are a natural architect and builder in the way that you are able to use your mind to make decisions in matters of form and function. A firm sense of direction will help you succeed. The goal and the way to get to it may be the same thing. You like to build each step and have each decision be an end in itself. Bring more energy to your love life now—perhaps through sharing ideas for the future.

Taurus (April 20-May 20) You are sociable, even to the point of bringing out the performer in others. You somehow manage to find a creative environment or the creative in any environment. You are great with kids and big on animals, sports and the outdoors. You are an instant umbrella of warmth, friendship and self-expression. It is quite possible to find you in a job that requires a good deal of being out-of-doors. You may be awed when you find yourself involved with some influential individuals. This afternoon will present opportunities for group sports. Your friends, partners and relationships mean a lot to you—they are a primary source of strength, support and encouragement and vice versa. You and a loved one may enjoy a movie tonight.

POOCH CAFE ACROSS 1. Inquire about.

4. A midnight meeting of witches to practice witchcraft and sorcery.

10. Light informal conversation for social occasions.

13. Aircraft landing in bad weather in which the pilot is talked down by ground control using precision approach radar.

14. Paralysis of the vocal cords resulting in an inability to speak.

15. Title for a civil or military leader (especially in Turkey).

16. The most common computer memory which can be used by programs to perform necessary tasks while the computer is on.

17. (Russian) Small fruit or meat turnover baked or fried.

18. God of the earth.

19. Cause to be embarrassed.

21. Any of various units of capacity.

23. An important seaport on the Island of Cebu in the Philippines.

24. A gradual decline (in size or strength or power or number).

26. Transient cessation of respiration.

29. Of or relating to the philosophical study of ethics.

33. The father of your father or mother.

36. (Hindu) A manner of sitting (as in the practice of Yoga).

37. Stable gear consisting of either of two curved supports that are attached to the collar of a draft horse and that hold the traces.

38. East Indian tree bearing a profusion of intense vermilion velvet-textured blooms and yielding a yellow dye.

40. Having undesirable or negative qualities.

41. How long something has existed.

42. English theoretical physicist who applied relativity theory to quantum mechanics and predicted the existence of antimatter and the positron (1902-1984).

46. A town and port in northwestern Israel in the eastern Mediterranean.

50. The capital and largest city of Yemen.

53. Dyed with henna.

56. An Arabic speaking person who lives in Arabia or North Africa.

59. A master's degree in business.

60. The compass point that is one point east of northeast.

61. Incapable of or resistant to bending.

62. A decree that prohibits something.

63. A person of French descent.

64. Sluggish tailless Australian arboreal marsupial with gray furry ears and coat.

65. A loose sleeveless outer garment made from aba cloth.

DOWN 1. A city in northern India.

2. Someone who works (or provides workers) during a strike.

3. God of love and erotic desire.

4. A person who lacks good judgment.

5. American prizefighter who won the world heavyweight championship three times (born in 1942).

6. Found along western Atlantic coast.

7. An indistinct shapeless form.

8. Metal or plastic sheath over the end of a shoelace or ribbon.

9. Of or relating to or characteristic of Thailand of its people.

10. Mentally or physically infirm with age.

11. American novelist (1909-1955).

12. A small cake leavened with yeast.

20. The place where some action occurs.

22. Wading birds of warm regions having long slender downcurved bills.

25. God of wealth and love.

27. Capital and largest city of the Czech Republic.

28. A language unit by which a person or thing is known.

30. A compartment in front of a motor vehicle where driver sits.

31. (Irish) Mother of the ancient Irish gods.

32. A boy or man.

34. A public promotion of some product or service.

35. An informal term for a father.

39. A Bantu language spoken by the Chaga people in northern Tanzania.

43. Airtight sealed metal container for food or drink or paint etc..

44. A brief description given for purposes of identification.

45. A state in midwestern United States.

47. A Bantu language spoken by the Kamba people in Kenya.

48. Cubes of meat marinated and cooked on a skewer usually with vegetables.

49. A city in southern Turkey on the Seyhan River.

51. A particular geographical region of indefinite boundary (usually serving some special purpose or distinguished by its people or culture or geography).

52. (Babylonian) God of wisdom and agriculture and patron of scribes and schools.

54. Morally bad or wrong.

55. A quantity of no importance.

57. (Judaism) Sacred chest where the ancient Hebrews kept the two tablets containing the Ten Commandments.

58. The former capital and 2nd largest city of Brazil.

Gemini (May 21-June 20) Regardless of interruptions or amount of difficulty—the work you set out for yourself this morning seems to get completed quickly. You may find yourself writing or involved in a creative activity this afternoon. You like to work with words and ideas and have a natural appreciation of most literary or artistic endeavors. Perhaps a book is in the works? Your sense of artistic balance is refined. You are painstaking and deliberate when it comes to partnerships, lovers—relationships of all kinds. You tend toward long-lasting friendships and are very loyal. You may find yourself counseling or helping a friend in crisis or working out sensitive issues this evening. You are intuitive and can ask all the right questions. Relax to the sounds of beautiful music.

Cancer (June 21-July 22)

NON SEQUITUR

Outer circumstances are favorable today and you find yourself taking advantage of the good day to push forward with most any project. A co-worker or teammate is efficient and always full of good spirits. You might even feel as though you should be more like this person because he or she doesn’t seem to have any problems at all. It is good to stretch and see things positive but not knowing the facts can keep you frustrated, if you allow it. This is a time when there is a tremendous need for clarity. Just relax and enjoy what comes. At home, a disagreement or misunderstanding with an older person can be corrected. A healing is taking place. You may be moved to appreciate and discover more beauty in your life.

Leo (July 23-August 22) You could be presented with the unexpected at this time; however, with your lawyer-type of mind, you will be able to quickly size up a problem and come up with a solution. Using your mind to negotiate and handle dilemmas—whether they are yours or not—is a great talent. You have an innate ability to guide and lead others through the hassles of life. Do not forget that you can use this talent for yourself as well. You are very gifted, having great magnetism and warmth and also a keen and powerful mind. You can do anything you want to do in this life, if you can manage to get moving in one direction and keep at it. This is a very fortunate chart, but one that may result in laziness. You may find yourself involved in your favorite past-time this afternoon.

ZITS

Virgo (August 23-September 22) You may find yourself counseling or ministering to others this Tuesday. This may mean you will be helping or guiding young people, lecturing, tutoring or giving some orientation presentation. You could feel great support from those around you: teamwork. A report or result from some investment or the realization that you finally have enough funds for some particular item sends you on a whirlwind shopping trip this afternoon.

Slow down and take notes on prices, ask questions and compare manufacturers or authenticity, etc. In other words, it pays to be cautious. Your time will be well worth the effort. A talented individual comes to your attention this evening and you have the opportunity to encourage them forward.

Libra (September 23-October 22)

MOTHER GOOSE AND GRIMM

Scorpio (October 23-November 21) You always manage to unravel even the worst problems; however, this morning you may find that you need to seek the opinion of a co-worker or supervisor. Perhaps there is an issue that is in need of being discussed and put into better focus—you are enthusiastic. You can make lasting impressions and generate positive changes. Try not to take words too personally and make every effort to remain in a positive frame of mind. It is good that you are not ashamed to ask questions. Others admire you for stopping to get help. Friends are waiting after work to get together for some exercise or team sports game. You become more actively involved on a social level now, taking a bigger part in collective events and developments.

Sagittarius (November 22-December 21) Your love of authority figures, plus an appreciation for authority and your elders makes you welcome at any social, personal or business meeting today. You experience life mostly through your emotions and how you feel about someone or something. Your intuition is strong and can guide you accurately in making decisions. You have a natural psychological ability, particularly when working with the public. Your sensitivity makes you recoil from aggressive types, however, and you should be careful what you say to someone that could be taken the wrong way. You can handle emotional issues and vulnerable areas, where angels fear to tread. People sense this about you and trust you with sensitive matters.

Capricorn (December 22-January 19)

To

Yesterday’s Solution

This has the makings of an exciting and profitable day. You manage to come across as intense and personal when communicating and presenting yourself to others. Others can be fascinated by the way you conduct business. Working with—rather than against—the flow should be easy to do. You have a natural sense of what the public wants. Ideas and interaction with older people this afternoon will get good results. People that have had difficulty coming to a decision will find a better understanding with your help.

You may find yourself in the middle of a garage sale or block party this afternoon. You enjoy and value your own life and surroundings—perhaps with friends or loved ones as well. Someone may compliment you tonight.

Yesterday’s Solution Yester

You could have difficulty getting your ideas across to others. Sometimes you have feelings of inadequacy in matters that require logic or the use of your mental powers. Give yourself more credit! Your fear of being left out or not being fully used in this life can be alleviated by jumping into life with both feet. Put your thoughts into action now. You may have doubts about those who talk too much. Emotionally, you are able to handle subject matters that others would never come near. You are ready, willing and able to solve the sensitive issues. This amounts to a passion within you and can involve personal, city or community matters just now. Do practice patience and a listening attitude for the young ones around you.

Aquarius (January 20- February 18) The price of success could mean that the ideas and methods of communication you are happy with become ignored or set back. There is time to think these things over and create a new proposal or method of operation. You could gain from subordinates or young people during this time.

There will soon be an opportunity to take control and become more disciplined— a chance to see your own solutions develop and succeed. You may find that your personal growth depends on how you can handle some very sensitive psychological material you encounter within your relationships. You will benefit from analytical insights, getting to the heart of things. You are looking forward to family gettogethers this summer and may be planning one at your own home.

Pisces (February 19-March 20)

Word Sleuth Solution

You have the mind of a lawyer, always able to size up a problem and come up with a good solution. You may find yourself as a guide or teacher to others today. You have an innate ability to guide and lead others through the hurdles and hassles of life. This could mean a counselor to others. You are good at solving problems. This afternoon is a positive time to surround yourself with friends and young people. This evening you give yourself some time to do a little research for a report of some sort. Use feedback to put together the final outline, case notes or essay. Take periodic breaks to let things sink in, to recover and refresh, to reward a successful action. Reward yourself by setting your deadline to a reasonable time.

A

y

e niv rsar n

Years

i n f o r m at i o n

FIRE BRIGADE

STATE ST TAT TE OF KUW K KUWAIT WA AIT

112

Tel.: T el.: e 161

DIRECTORA DIRECTORATE AT TE GENE GENERAL ERAL OF CIVIL A AVIATION V VIA AT TION METEOROLOGICAL DEP D PA ARTMENT DEPARTMENT DA AY: Y Monday DAY:

WWW .MET.GOV V..KW W WWW.MET.GOV.KW

Very V ery e hot h with light to moderate nor north rth westerly wind, with spee speed ed of 15 - 38 km/h

BY Y DA DAY: AY:

Relatively moderate Relativ vely hot with light to modera ate north westerly wind, with h speed of 12 - 35 km/h

NIGHT:: BY Y NIGHT

For labor-related inquiries and complaints: Call MSAL hotline 128

No Current W Warnings aarnings

WARNING W A ARNING STATION ST TAT TION

MAX. EXP EXP. P.

MIN.. REC.

KUW WA AIT CITY KUWAIT

47 °C

35 °C

24812000

KUWAIT KUW WA AIT AIRPORT AIRPOR RT

47 °C

27 °C

Amiri Hospital

22450005

NUWAISEEB NUW WA AISEEB

44 °C C

28 °C C

Maternity Hospital

24843100

WAFRA WA AFRA

47 °C

26 °C

Mubarak Al-Kabir Hospital

25312700

SALMI

45 °C

27 °C

Chest Hospital

24849400

ABDAL LY ABDALY

47 °C

26 °C

Farwaniya Hospital

24892010

ALIY YA AH JAL ALIYAH

47 °C

28 °C

Adan Hospital

23940620

FA AILAKA FAILAKA

46 °C

30 °C

Ibn Sina Hospital

24840300

POR RT AHMADI PORT

44 °C

35 °C

Al-Razi Hospital

24846000

Physiotherapy Hospital

24874330/9

M UMM AL-MARADEM

37 °C

32 °C

WA ARBA A - BUBYAN BUBY YA AN WARBA

46 °C

28 °C

Hospitals

Clinics 4732263

Roudha

22517733

Adhaliya

07:00

Issue T ime Time

Expected Weather Weather for the Next 24 4 Hours

website: www.moi.gov.kw

Rabiya

Ext.: 2627 262 27 - 2630

Fax: 24348714

27/06/2011 27/06/201 1

Ministry of Interior

Sabah Hospital

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 29, 2011

SFC. CHAR CHART T

27/06/20 0000UT TC 0000UTC

4 DA DAYS AY YS FORECAST T emperratures Temperatures DATE DA AT TE

WEA WEATHER AT THER

22517144

Tuesday Tuesday

28/06

n areas hot +dust over open

47 °C

31 °C

NW

15 - 40 km/h

Khaldiya

24848075

Weednesday Wednesday

29/06

du ust hot + raising dust

46 °C

33 °C

NW

20 - 48 km/h

Keifan

24849807

Thursday

30/06

du ust hot + raising dust

47 °C

33 °C

NW

25 - 50 km/h

Shamiya

24848913

Friday

01/07

dusty

46 °C

34 °C

NW

25 - 50 km/h

Shuwaikh

24814507

Abdullah Salim

22549134

Al-Nuzha

MAX.

PRAYER PR RA AY YER TIMES

MIN.

Wind Wind Speed

Wind Wind Direction Direction

RECORDED D YESTERDAY YESTERDA AY A AT T KUW KUWAIT WA AIT T AIRPOR AIRPORT T

22526804

Fajr

03:15

MAX. MA AX. Temp.

Temp.

46 °C

Sunrise S i

04 50 04:50

MIN. Temp.

MI IN T IN. emp.

28 °C

Industrial Shuwaikh

24814764

Zuhr

11:51 11:51

MAX. RH M

24 %

Al-Khadissiya

22515088

Asr

15:25

MIN. RH M

02 %

Dasmah

22532265

Sunset

18:51

MAX. Wind MA AX. W ind

N 39 km/h

Bneid Al-Ghar

22531908

Isha

20:24

TOTAL RAINFALL T OT TA AL L RAI INF FA ALL L IN 24 HR.

Al-Shaab

22518752

Al-Kibla

22459381

Ayoun Al-Kibla

22451082

Al-Mirqab

22456536

Sharq

22465401

Salmiya

25746401

Jabriya

25316254

Maidan Hawally

25623444

Bayan

25388462 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

DAY DA AY

Mishref

Al-Madena

un nless otherwise stated.

All times are local time unless

Al-Madena Police Station Al-Murqab Police Station Al-Daiya Police Station Al-Fayha’a Police Station Al-Qadissiya Police Station Al-Nugra Police Station Al-Salmiya Police Station Al-Dasma Police Station

22434064 22435865 22544200 22547133 22515277 22616662 25714406 22530801

THE PUBLIC AUTHORITY FOR CIVIL INFORMATION Automated enquiry about the Civil ID card is 1889988

00 mm

27/06/1 1 02:34 UTC 27/06/11

V1.00

T1.06

PHARMACIES

AIRLINES

ON 24 HRS DUTY GOVERNORATE

PHARMACY

ADDRESS

PHONE

Ahmadi

Sama Safwan Abu Halaifa Danat Al-Sultan

Fahaeel Makka St Abu Halaifa-Coastal Rd Mahboula Block 1, Coastal Rd

23915883 23715414 23726558

Jahra

Modern Jahra Madina Munawara

Jahra-Block 3 Lot 1 Jahra-Block 92

24575518 24566622

Capital

Ahlam Khaldiya Coop

Fahad Al-Salem St Khaldiya Coop

22436184 24833967

Farwaniya

New Shifa Ferdous Coop Modern Safwan

Farwaniya Block 40 Ferdous Coop Old Kheitan Block 11

24734000 24881201 24726638

Hawally

Tariq Hana Ikhlas Hawally & Rawdha Ghadeer Kindy Ibn Al-Nafis Mishrif Coop Salwa Coop

Salmiya-Hamad Mubarak St Salmiya-Amman St Hawally-Beirut St Hawally & Rawdha Coop Jabriya-Block 1A Jabriya-Block 3B Salmiya-Hamad Mubarak St Mishrif Coop Salwa Coop

25726265 25647075 22625999 22564549 25340559 25326554 25721264 25380581 25628241

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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

22613623/0

Gynaecologists & Obstetricians DrAdrian arbe

23729596/23729581

Dr. Verginia s.Marin

2572-6666 ext 8321

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)

25655535

Dentists Dr Anil Thomas

3729596/3729581 22641071/2

Dr. Fozeya Ali Al-Qatan

22655539

Dr. Shamah Al-Matar

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

General Surgeons Dr. Amer Zawaz Al-Amer

22610044

Dr. Abidallah Al-Duweisan

25653755

Dr. Mohammad Yousef Basher

25327148

Dr. Bader Al-Ansari

25620111

Neurologists

Internists, Chest & Heart Dr. Adnan Ebil

22639939

Dr. Sohal Najem Al-Shemeri

25633324

Dr. Mousa Khadada

22666300

Dr. Jasem Mola Hassan

25345875

Dr. Latefa Al-Duweisan

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. Naif Al-Mutawa, Ph.D. 2290-1677 Susannah-Joy Schuilenberg, M.A. 2290-1677

INTERNATIONAL CALLS

Endocrinologist Dr. Abd Al-Naser Al-Othman

25339330

Dr. Ahmad Al-Ansari 25658888 Dr. Kamal Al-Shomr 25329924 Physiotherapists & VD Dr. Deyaa Shehab

25722291

Dr. Musaed Faraj Khamees

22666288

Rheumatologists: 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

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y

A

36

e niv rsar n

Years

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 29, 2011

lifest yle G o s s i p

L

iv Tyler is “obsessed” with high-heeled shoes. The actress - who stands at 5ft 10in tall - has not always been comfortable with her height but now embraces it because she feels fine about her statuesque physique. She said: “I’m obsessed with wearing heels all the time now, these Louboutin heels.

They’re really comfortable. “I was this tall when I was, I think, 11? So at 11 I was five feet 10 inches and I had size 10 shoes. This came to me like a light bulb recently, like, ‘Why am I so shy when I’m tall?’ and ‘Why do I feel better in flats and Converse?’ “ The 33-year-old star now believes she stopped wearing the glamorous shoes because she had been stuck thinking the same

way she did as a child. She added to Nylon magazine: “It’s because I was a giant at 11 years old and I was so much taller than everyone. All the boys! But today I feel happy to be tall.” Despite her love for heels, Liv has previously revealed she likes to kick off her shoes and her clothes after an event and be “comfortable”.

She said: “I really enjoy dressing up but the moment I get home I take everything off and put my sweats on or my pyjamas - I like to be comfortable. I still have my original pair of Converse trainers from when I was a teenager somewhere in my closet.”

P

Hilton’s mother upset by split

aris Hilton’s mother is “heartbroken” over her split from Cy Waits. The socialite called time on her relationship with nightclub owner Cy after 18 months last week, leaving her mother, Kathy, upset for them both.

Speaking about Cy, she told the E! news service: “He really is an angel. I do adore him. My heart is broken. That’s why I don’t like getting close to the boyfriends because they become like a part of the family.” Kathy added she has advised her eldest daughter - who split with Cy as he couldn’t handle her celebrity lifestyle - not to look for another boyfriend, and instead concentrate on spending some quality time with her family. She added: “I think it’s very hard to be with somebody that’s in the limelight when you’re really

T

he ‘Forget You’ hitmaker - who was born in Atlanta, Georgia has no permanent base at the moment because of his busy working schedule so currently lives out of a designer Louis Vuitton suitcase, although he would love to put down roots in Switzerland in the future. When asked where he would most like to live, Cee Lo said: “Somewhere in Switzerland. It’s beautiful. I don’t live anywhere at the moment. I live out of a Louis Vuitton suitcase.” While the singer - real name Thomas DeCarlo Callaway is currently without a home, he has splashed his cash on a luxury car. He said: “I bought myself a 2009 Bentley Azure. I had it custom-made from scratch, every nut and bolt and thread I designed. It cost $400,000. It’s a copper color, the color of a penny. It’s beautiful.” Cee Lo divorced Christina Johnson in 2005 with whom he has son Kingston - and although there is no one special in his life at the moment, he feels love would improve his life. He explained in an interview posted on the Guardian website: “Love [would improve the quality of my life], but love would also complicate it.”

K

atie Holmes loves Britain’s Duchess of Cambridge’s style. The ‘Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark’ star admires the styling of Catherine Middleton - who became a duchess in April when she married Prince William, the second in line to the English throne - as well the way her sister, Pippa, dresses. Speaking at the film’s premiere in Los Angeles on Sunday, Katie told Usmagazine.com: “I love both Kate’s and Pippa’s style and I think they are incredible. I’m so happy for Kate - I wish them the best!” The 32-year-old star was also full of praise for her husband, Tom

not into that. “The thing is, she goes from one boyfriend to the next. I think she will be single for a while. I told her, you need girlfriend time right now and family time. We don’t need to just put a Band-Aid on this.” Kathy is also a huge fan of traditional family values, and was left shocked when a few months ago Paris, 30, told her she thought she may be pregnant with Cy’s baby. She explained: “It was very emotional. For my children, I dreamed of the wedding first and then children. “I’m a traditional girl. I met my husband at 15, got married at 19, got pregnant a year later and then had three children after that.”

Wilson and Duell split O

wen Wilson has reportedly split from his girlfriend Jade Duell. The 42-year-old actor who has six-month-old son Robert Ford with Jade, who he has been with for a year-and-a-half allegedly did not want to make a long-term commitment to her, forcing the couple to separate because she wasn’t “willing” to let the ‘Zoolander’ star do “what he wanted”. A source told National Enquirer magazine: “Owen wanted the freedom to do what he wanted with his friends, both male and female, while remaining a family unit with Jade and the baby. “But Jade wasn’t willing to go along with that, so Owen decided to end things with her.” He was expected to make an appearance at his son’s christening in New York City on June 12, but pulled out at the last minute. The source added: “Owen had every intention of being there, but when it

Cruise, whom she revealed is newly buff for his role as tattooed musician Stacee Jaxx in ‘Rock of Ages’. She said: “His body looks great and I’m so excited for him playing this character. It is also possible Katie and Tom may get to meet the duke and duchess, through their mutual friends David and Victoria Beckham. The royal couple invited the Beckhams to their wedding and are likely to meet with them in coming weeks when their first royal tour together makes a stop.

M

adonna has reportedly rekindled her romance with Brahim Zaibat. The ‘Celebration’ singer was spotted with the hunky French dancer in Paris this weekend, enjoying a meal at The Ritz hotel’s Espadon restaurant on Friday. Madonna was then spotted visiting a flea market on her own the following day, before meeting back up with Brahim for a private dinner and heading to trendy nightspot the VIP Room, where the couple were seen kissing at the back of the club. The next day they left the Ritz to catch the Eurostar train to London. The couple got together last September after Madonna had split from Brazilian model Jesus Luz, introduced by a mutual friend who had asked Brahim to dance at one of the singer’s events.

Brahim insists he was never nervous about meeting the worldwide star, saying: “She was a woman almost like any other woman. I was

J

really happy to meet her but I did not stress about it.” Although Brahim, 24, is a lot younger than the 52-year-old ‘Material Girl’ singer he also maintains he has a say in what happens in their relationship, adding: “I am not the jealous kind. As long as I feel I am in control, everything goes smoothly. I cannot deal with external authority. Madonna and I are very alike when it comes to that.”

Madonna and Brahim were initially thought to have split in May after his family said they didn’t want him attending meetings held by religious group Kabbalah - of which Madonna is a devotee - instead urging him to stick to his Muslim roots. — Bang Showbiz

came time to board his flight at Los Angeles Airport, he couldn’t do it. He left the airport and drove around Santa Monica for hours.” Owen - who has previously dated Kate Hudson and Sheryl Crow has previously stated he thought of Jade as an ideal partner for him because he was open to “listening” to her. He said: “When you stop talking about yourself and you’re more open to listening to what they’re interested in and what they want to talk, that’s how you know. “Maybe you’re more open to even renting a movie like ‘Steel Magnolias’. Before you know it, you’re getting late fees for ‘Sleepless in Seattle’.”

ennifer Aniston stays slim by avoiding junk food. The ‘Horrible Bosses’ star insists she doesn’t stick to a strict diet to maintain her stunning figure and just limits her intake of fatty meals.

She said: “I’ve never been a fanatic when it comes to what I eat.

I’ve always discovered that I can stay fit by avoiding junk foods and eating healthily, while running or exercising regularly. I don’t have any formula.” The 42-year-old actress’ favorite exercise is yoga and she works out every day because she feels more energetic after working out. She revealed to new! magazine: “I love to do yoga. I have more energy if I can do workout for 20 minutes every day. If I exercise enough I can eat what I want and not worry about my weight or how I look. If I put on a few pounds, I just eat more fish and salads for a week and exercise four or five times a week as opposed to two or three times. The important thing is to stick to a healthy routine. I feel better after a good workout and it gives you more energy for the entire day. I try not to worry or stress about things anymore I just like to get on with my life.”

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Years

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 29, 2011

lifestyle F a s h i o n

Thatcher’s famous

handbag sells for £25,000 M

argaret Thatcher’s famous handbag which struck fear into the hearts of British ministers during the former premier’s rule sold at a charity auction for £25,000 ($40,350, 28,000 euros) Monday. Thatcher frequently used the black Asprey bag on important occasions, such as summits with then US president Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev during her 1979-1990 premiership. The former leader dubbed the “Iron Lady” donated the bag to her Conservative Party’s ex-lawmaker and author Jeffrey Archer for a charity auction held at Christie’s in London. Proceeds from the bag’s sale will go to armed forces charities Combat Stress and The British Forces Foundation and to Debra, a charity helping sufferers of the genetic skin blistering condition Epidermolysis Bullosa.

H

Kate Middleton

P

rince William’s bride Kate Middleton is a distant relation of British novelist Jane Austen, genealogy website Ancestry.com said yesterday.

Ancestry.com said that the new Duchess of Cambridge and the author of “Pride and Prejudice” are 11th cousins, six times removed due to their 15th century common ancestor Henry Percy, who was the 2nd Earl of Northumberland. The family history research group said the connection was fitting given Austen’s many female characters who fall in love with, or aspire to marry, men of higher rank.

Middleton, 29, a commoner with no aristocratic background, married Prince William-second in line to the British throne in April after a nine-year romance.

She is now formally k nown as Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge.

“Finding this connection between the Duchess of Cambridge and Jane Austen is very exciting since, in many ways, Catherine is the modern Jane Austen heroine: a middle class girl marrying the future King of England,” said Anastasia Harman, lead family historian for Ancestry.com. “Jane Austen may have written about happily-everafter but it seems Catherine has found a nonfiction hero to spend her life with-far past the epilogue,” Harman added. Born in England in 1775, Jane Austen is one of the best-known novelists and social satirists in the world with works like “Sense and Sensibility”, “Emma” and “Persuasion.” She never married. — Reuters

S

Cartoonists often portrayed Thatcher clobbering opponents with the blunt instrument while Lord Kenneth Baker, who served in Thatcher’s cabinets from 1985 to 1990, called the bag her “secret weapon”. Thatcher often placed her handbag on the cabinet table as a symbol of her authority and “would usually get from it some paper with a conclusive argument,” Baker recalled. Archer’s auction realized £402,100 in total, with the stopwatch which timed British runner Roger Bannister’s first four minute mile going for £97,250, the evening’s top price. Other celebrity donors included guitarist Eric Clapton, F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone and former England rugby star Lawrence Dallaglio. — AFP

is hair is disheveled; his red polo shirt stained. He’s prone to shuffling when he walks and wears an oversized cowboy hat embroidered with jellybeans. “Now who here likes candy?” he asks, his voice both raspy and childish.

The group of preschoolers who arrived with their mothers stare at the peculiar stranger and realize he is speaking their language. David Klein leads the way through his small Covina, Calif., factory, where giant bags of dextrose and malic acid line the hall.

As he points out the barrels of powdery sugar “sand,” he tosses chewy sour balls, licorice wands dipped in sugar nuggets and candy shaped like sushi into the children’s plastic sacks. It’s the tame end of Klein’s inventory-around him are specimen cups brimming with lemon-flavored candy urine, anatomically correct gummy hearts that gush cherry-flavored “blood” and fruity sugar pebbles called “Farts”-fare that he sells wholesale. Midway through the tour, Klein stops and his tone shifts. He can’t resist. “Does anybody know what candy I created a long time ago?” They wait. “Jelly. Belly. Jelly beans.”

An awed oooh is the response from the mothers who know well the confection that had America falling in love. And then come the confused looks. The man who inspired the Jelly Belly empire is now in this no-frills candy factory, giving midday $5 tours to stay-at-home moms and their tots? The way Klein tells it, it’s a frustrating tale of a legacy lost. Now, years out of the limelight, he’s convinced a comeback is right around the corner, arriving in the shape of that old friend: the jelly bean. But this will be no ordinary bean. So spectacular and scrumptious, he believes, it’s bound to turn a foray gone bitter into something marvelously sweet.

They once were unremarkable globs of pectin coated in sugar, known for their ability to last for months in candy dishes. In the spring, they surfaced to line the bottoms of Easter baskets. The rest of the time, they lived a life as simple penny candy. Then, in 1976, Klein was living in Temple City, Calif, and working as a distributor for Garvey Nut & Candy when he dreamed up a mini version with shells and insides that would burst with flavors like cream soda and watermelon-exotic at the time. It would be marketed as a gourmet treat and sell for $2 a pound, a costly sum for a jelly bean. To bring his vision to life, Klein, 30, ordered a batch from the Herman Goelitz Candy Co, a San Francisco Bay area manufacturer whose products he sold.

Goelitz developed recipes for his desired flavors, made the beans and shipped them to him. He dubbed the candy Jelly Belly-inspired by folk and blues musician Lead Belly.

Klein rented a corner of Fosselman’s Ice Cream store in Alhambra, Calif., to hawk his beans and commissioned the niece of one of its owners to design the logo: a bright-red bean with yellow highlights and its name across the middle. The ice cream shop had a flow of steady customers, but Jelly Belly was considered ludicrously priced. Klein

An employee poses with a handbag owned by former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher for over thirty years at Christie’s auction house. — AFP

had 300 pounds of candy and no takers.

“As soon as you walked in the door it was to your right and that man would pounce on you,” recalled Alhambra resident Rose Marie TurneyMarkus, a frequent customer at the time. “He was so energetic and wanted you to try this and that.”

Klein was a showman. After persuading an Associated Press writer and photographer to visit the ice cream shop, he arranged for family and friends to form a line snaking out the door.

Within days, customers began calling Fosselman’s. Candy boutiques clamored for bulk orders, the gourmet jelly beans were tucked into gift baskets and sought out for Mother’s Day presents. Aficionados mixed flavors to create jelly bean cocktails Klein was suddenly on talk shows and posing

But Klein was an idea man, not a candy maker, and left it to Goelitz to cook up the Jelly Belly recipes. He relished marketing and playing the role of Mr Jelly Belly, the company face at events and promotions, but it left him little time to step back and understand where the company was headed.

He also had kept his job as a distributor. In the fall of 1980, several Goelitz executives flew down with a proposition. They would give him and a partner he had taken on $10,000 apiece every month for 20 years in exchange for the trademark to Jelly Belly.

Klein refused. But then he said he got the sense that the company would continue making the beans without him. Klein did not have the formula and was not versed in manufacturing. Taking his business elsewhere seemed daunting and futile.

David Klein, 64, inventor of the Jelly Belly jellybean, finds an opening in a sea of jellybeans at the Garvey Nut & Candy headquarters in Pico Rivera, California. —MCT shirtless in a tub filled with jelly beans for People magazine. Inside his home was a dedicated “bean room” with boxes of orders to be shipped.

And then Jelly Belly got its biggest boost. A devotee became president of the United States.

For years, Ronald Reagan had eaten ordinary jelly beans after initially turning to them to curb his pipe smoking habit. While governor of California, he received shipments from Goelitz. Then Goelitz began producing Jelly Belly and Reagan became a fan.

Goelitz shipped 7,000 pounds of red, white and blue beans to the White House for Reagan’s inauguration in 1981. For Klein, it should have been a brilliant moment. Except by then he had given up all rights to the candy.

Even Klein has trouble comprehending whywhy someone who studied economics at UCLA, earned a law degree and was obsessed with candy agreed to relinquish his own flourishing product.

His partner was ready to retire, and urged him to sign the agreement.

Klein said he caved. And regretted it an instant later. Herman Rowland Sr, head of Goelitz, said Klein appeared happy with the deal. Goelitz had struggled before Jelly Belly and poured everything it had into the product. Rowland found Klein to be likeable but unreliable when it came to business and he worried about the company’s future.

“It was really a time of turmoil and we were on a shoestring-we had nothing to stand on,” Rowland said. The company wanted to offer Klein a generous deal before being forced to create a competing jelly bean, Rowland said. The company, Rowland said, credits Klein with the name and the idea of using natural flavors and purees but believes he has greatly exaggerated his involvement. Goelitz eventually changed its name to Jelly Belly Candy Co. Its annual net profit is estimated by Candy Industry magazine to be about $193 mil-

lion. There was no mention of Klein in the company’s 30-year anniversary fact book. And its website makes only a vague reference to an early relationship with an unnamed candy distributor. Mr Jelly Belly is now a cartoon character shaped like a jelly bean. Jelly Belly, Klein came to believe, ruined his life.

He had been an off-beat, fanciful father who would take his children to amusement parks and buy up a bundle of balloons just to hand out to other kids. Sometimes he would rent an ice cream truck to distribute free treats. But when the jelly beans slipped through his fingers, Klein sank into depression.

“I remember so much happiness in the house, when my dad was on TV,” recalled Bert Klein, who said his relationship with his dad changed when he was a grade-schooler. “When he lost Jelly Belly, it was like parting with a child. I knew very little, but I knew it made him an unhappy person, which drove me away.”

Klein’s buoyancy and verve were gone, replaced by bitterness and insecurity. He said he couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d been coerced into giving up but believes he might have gotten over it had the company lauded him at Jelly Belly events.

The buyout money was nice, he said, although it never made Klein and his wife rich. After a while he simply stopped telling people about his past.

Klein is 64 now, living in Glendora, Calif., with his wife, Rebecca. Once a week he goes to his modest factory which is overseen by his daughter Roxanne.

Most of the time he brainstorms ideas for candy at his red-brick home, surrounded by packages of freeze-dried pineapple powder, empty soda bottles, boxes of gummy confections and his grandchildren’s toys.

He cuts an odd figure, scuffling around outdoors in black socks, using his shirt as a napkin, writing notes to himself on a stack of paper plates, running fingers through unkempt hair. Last year, Bert, an animator for Disney, released a documentary about his father’s connection to Jelly Belly.

When Bert had children of his own, he said he wanted to understand exactly what his father had lost.

“Candyman: The David Klein Story” portrays an eccentric, obsessive nobody crushed by a corporation. The film and the fans who saw it and have since tracked him down have invigorated Klein.

One executive even came to him and said he would bankroll his next candy. Sure, he thinks it would be grand to come up with a bestselling chocolate bar or a triumphant taffy, but Klein can’t shake the need to prove he’s still a genius when it comes to jelly. — MCT

Fashionable holidays with Centrepoint!

ummer is an ideal time to go out for long holidays or outdoor picnics. Juniors, Lifestyle, Splash and Shoe Mart at Centrepoint make your vacations a lot easier with its 2011 travel essentials. Juniors the leading regional retailer in children’s items ranging from new born to 16 year olds launches an array of travel essentials for your little ones to make it a hassle-free gateway for you and your family. The travel collection comprises of all the necessary children’s items, from travel pillows to baby carriers and from travel cots to trolley bags, beach wear, swimming accessories and toys; every detail required to plan a trip with your little ones that will surely keep your kids happy and tied up.

The entire collection has been designed keeping in mind the child’s safety and parents’ comfort. Be it trekking, camping or a beach side picnic both parents and the young ones can relax and enjoy without any hassles and have fun. When out

on walks with your infant, baby slings and carriers keep your little one snug and your hands free. For the free-spirited traveler Splash presents an attention grabbing collection which is unrestrictive. A formulaic gusto with keen eye to the new season’s must haves detailed with vibrant color riots from azure blue to yellow, fuchsia and earth tones, the clothes veered to stylish freedom with more fashion attitude and choices.

The focus remains squarely on combination and styling, a breezy mix with plenty of movements, keeping in mind the urban look that doesn’t need to be less ordinary. The collection is thoughtful and interesting while never sacrificing comfort and wearability. Splash’s appeal is the versatility of pieces, unfussy but special and appropriate for a wide variety of customers.

Lifestyle will leave you spoilt for choice this summer holiday with its Wax Lyrical’s Timeless collection and its Fiorelli

2011 collection. The compilation of fragranced candles, room mists and reed diffusers of truly unique fragrances have been formed to soothe and revive and are the perfect remedy for the daily stresses and strains of modern life. Lifestyle offers a variety of Timeless products in soothing and romantic fragrances to create a relaxing and rejuvenating ambiance in the home.

The Fiorelli 2011 collection showcases a stunning range of handbags perfect for travel. Capturing the key summer tones, the range features sleek handbags in edgy camel tones or feminine lavenders and graceful rose tones. A burst of color is introduced with the use of exciting blues - spring, aqua and denim.

With a range like no other, the travel trendy Shoe Mart’s 2011 collection is inspired by the past, present and future that rings in a world of fascinating looks and wondrous styles that

will get feet tapping. Elegance is found in the back to nature trend. With soft pastels and candy colors still in vogue this season, this collection has a focus on sensuality.

Bling is back on footwear and the trend is about sparkle and statement shoes. This collection ranges from gorgeous flat toe posts and gladiators to sexy platform and heeled sandals that will make you standout in a crowd. Tribal influences are still around this season and animal prints continue to be best sellers. Shoe Mart collection walks high in style with sexy silhouettes and great styling and fabrications. Visit Juniors, Splash, Lifestyle and Shoe Mart located in Centrepoint showrooms at Al Rai, Hawally, Salmiya, Kuwait City, Fahaheel, Jahra and Fintas and start planning a fun filled holiday!

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CHARITY ISLAND: As plants go, this island’s feathered, slightly scrubby, threatened Pitcher’s Thistle isn’t much to look at. It sits there in the sand, planning to bloom in, oh, five or seven years, while I surreptitiously check my cell phone to see if I have service, 17 miles out in Saginaw Bay. Then I turn around.

My mouth drops at the view-the stately lighthouse, its red-roofed keeper’s house, the fields and flowers, and the blue bay beyond. It looks like Maine or maybe a peaceful dream. The dappled sun creates glares and shadows. The tall reeds swish on the shore, whispering secrets only the birds can hear, but I suddenly hear them, too.

Relax, stop awhile. Why are you in such a hurry? Charity Island is proof that peace and quiet sometimes win out. In the 1990s, it was scheduled to become a big real estate development with 24 mega-houses. Luckily, today it remains wild and cherished, with only a tiny human footprint-a lighthouse, a house, a path, one rental cottage, a small marina-and a chance for tourists to visit, lightly.

“I had 15 people pay deposits to buy property, but then I thought, the last thing I want are houses out here,” says Robert Wiltse, a real estate broker. He gave up his plans in favor of something much simpler-live in the lightkeeper’s house himself and run day cruises from the mainland to bring tourists to the island. It is less than 3 hours north of Detroit. Visitors arrive from either East Tawas (a 55-minute, 17mile boat ride) or Caseville (10 miles). The tours are held only in good weather with calm waters, because Saginaw Bay can get choppy and rough.

Robert and Karen Wiltse are Charity Island’s only full time residents, but their grandchildren often come to stay with them.

After a refreshing ride, the boat maneuvers through unseen channels between the shoals and into the manmade harbor. There, visitors are picked up in motorized carts and driven through the fragrant woods to the lighthouse.

After an explanation of the Native American and natural history of the island and a chance to see the house and lighthouse, an elaborate lunch or dinner is served on a broad deck.

Dinner cruisers return on the boat as the sun sets.

Charity Island has hosted weddings, parties, nonprofit events, student field trips and many private visitors, especially people from the Saginaw Bay region who have wondered all their lives what was on Charity Island. Last weekend (June 17-18) it hosted a special event, with speaker Dennis Hale, the only survivor of the Daniel Morrell freighter sinking in Lake Huron in 1966.

Charity Island, once called Shawnagunk (“Green Place Where Seagulls Live”) now is nearly entirely owned by the US Fish and Wildlife Service as part of the Michigan Islands National Wildlife Refuge. But back in the 1980s, it was for sale for $750,000 to anybody who wanted it. It was named Charity Island because sailors relied on the charity of the island to help them navigate the rocky shoals of Saginaw Bay. In 1993, Standish real estate broker Wiltse and investors bought it, and the first thing

Charity Island, in the middle of Saginaw Bay, is a tourist destination off the beaten path.

allowed off shore. Part of the Michigan Islands National Wildlife Refuge. For permission, contact Shiawassee@fws.gov or call 989-7775930.

Charity Lodge: $200 a night with minimum 3-night stay. Sleeps four. Transportation from mainland provided. For more, see www.charityislandlodge.com or call 989-3872758.

Marina: Can privately dock boat in marina and come ashore for dinner, but you need to call Charity Island Dinner Cruises in advance to make arrangements. — MCT

In 1993, Standish real estate agent Bob Wiltse bought Charity Island with the intention of turning it into a real-estate development.

The lighthouse on Charity Island is owned by the Nature Conservancy, but the lightkeeper’s house is owned by Bob Wiltse.

they did was blast a harbor. It took 60,000 pounds of dynamite and 16 weeks, but the result was a lovely, square-shaped sheltered spot surrounded on all sides by high rock, connected to the lake by a channel. Then ...

Wiltse changed his mind about the island’s commercial future. In 1997, he sold most of the 300-acre island to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The non-profit Nature Conservancy bought a few more acres from Wiltse and bought the lighthouse from the government.

The Wiltses kept just five acres, including the humble lighthouse keepers’ house, which had collapsed.

In 2003, architects told them there was no way to save the original 1916 house as they’d planned. They tore it down and built a new one atop the old foundation and basement. It is white, with a bright red metal roof that can be seen far out in the bay. One thing that has turned out to interest tourists most? The Wiltses’ basement.

It holds a 1,500-gallon stone cistern that stores water pumped in from the lake.

Original to the 1916 house, it was so well-built that it was left intact. The house also has an ingenious power supply-a large set of batteries. When the power gets low, a propanefueled generator switches on outside.

Robert Wiltse and his wife, Karen, cheerfully tell all these stories to visitors, who are free to wander through their house, use the bathroom, peer into the cistern, or just sit on the wide porch that faces the lake. There also is a small gift shop. The Wiltses also won’t stop brave visitors from climbing the lighthouse with its shaky steps and no handrail (they don’t own it, so they can’t control access).

Nobody has restored the lighthouse yet. That may be their next project, if Robert Wiltse can talk the Nature Conservancy into selling the lighthouse to him.

But plans can change. In fact, when they rebuilt the keepers’ house, the Wiltses had every intention of renting it out to tourists.

“Then when it was done, we thought, life is so short, why are we renting it?” Robert Wiltse says. “We own a house on an island. Let’s go live out there. We can bring people here on the weekends, and we can stay here. And we feel like the luckiest people in the world.”

Instead, he encouraged his brother to build the only other structure on the island-Charity Island Lodge, a cottage that sleeps four.

Anyone who hears the message of those whispering reeds-relax, stay awhile-can do just that.

If you go Charity Island is in the middle of Lake Huron’s Saginaw Bay. The island is also known as Big Charity Island (there is a Little Charity Island nearby that is off-limits as a bird and wildlife sanctuary).

Charity Island Dinner Cruises: Lunch cruise leaves at 10 am and dinner cruise leaves at 4 pm Runs every Saturday now through July 1, then every Friday and Saturday in July through mid-August, then every Saturday through Sept 1. Anyone with a group of 24 or more can make arrangements for a private group trip. Check the schedule for East Tawas and Caseville departures. Dinner cruises, $79 per person, include boat ride, tours and meal (call 517-579-3182 or visit www.charityisland.net).

US Fish and Wildlife Service: Owns about 285 acres of the 300-acre island. No camping or campfires; permit required to visit. Fishing

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he yellow roller coaster is approaching a steep hill, and it looks like a slow, machinery-clanking climb almost straight up is ahead.

But whoosh! Suddenly the train shoots forward like a rocket, hitting 60 mph. As each car goes over the top, its riders lift off their seats in unison for a glorious second or two, then Cheetah Hunt, Busch Gardens’ newest coaster, plunges down the other side.

Sixty-five miles away, the revamped Star Tours ride has opened at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, featuring the befuddled pilot C-3PO fleeing Imperial Stormtroopers, with a rebel spy and the park’s guests along for a jarring ride.

Those two rides, plus the Wild Africa Trek at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, and Grand Reef at Discovery Cove, are the highlights of what’s new at Central Florida’s theme parks for 2011.

It’s a relatively quiet year, coming the summer after Universal Orlando opened the Wizarding World of Harry Potter and its signature ride, widely acclaimed for its combination of technology, creativity and all-around wizardry.

More than the new attractions of 2011, what’s on the minds of many theme park fans is what’s coming up: Legoland is building its second US theme park in Winter Haven, 35 miles from Orlando, slated to open Oct 15.

On the Wild Africa Trek at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, guests cross a rickety bridge about 30 feet above waters infested with crocodiles and hippos.

Disney is well into its Fantasyland expansion, castle tops peeking over a construction wall, with Phase 1 scheduled to open late next year. Universal Studios has announced a ride, based on the movie Despicable Me, to open next year.

The Kennedy Space Center has begun work on a master plan revolving around space shuttle Atlantis, which is scheduled to make its last flight in June, then become the centerpiece of a whole new wing of the visitor’s center.

But for people planning visits to the parks this summer, the season brings a few new thrills.

Busch Gardens Cheetah Hunt opened May 26, the first launch coaster and the longest track (4,429 feet) of any coaster at Busch/SeaWorld’s 10 US parks. The coaster uses the force of repelling magnets to launch uphill in three bursts of speed. The first takes the train from zero to 38 mph in two seconds. Then twice more, on two hills, the trains rocket up to 60 mph in two seconds.

Cheetah Hunt, designed to simulate a cheetah chasing prey across the park’s Serengeti Plain, is surprisingly smooth.

Even with one inversion, the queasiness

factor is moderately low. Maximum speed is 60 mph, making it the second fastest coaster at the park after SheiKra, which briefly hits 65 mph. The longest dive is 130 feet, far less than SheiKra’s 200-foot dive.

“Unlike SheiKra, which was built to be the biggest, baddest, steepest coaster, Cheetah Hunt didn’t aim for that,” said Jill Revelle, park spokeswoman. “We wanted to create something that was a little friendlier to young teens who had outgrown Sand Serpent or Scorpion but weren’t quite ready for SheiKra.” Busch also wanted to duplicate the successful combination of thrill ride and animal encounters that its sister park, SeaWorld Orlando, accomplished with its Manta roller coaster, which winds around a series of aquariums showcasing manta rays and other sea life.

The roller coaster is paired with Cheetah Run, habitat for 13 cheetahs new to the park . Their large, grassy enclosure has glass walls that allow the big cats and park visitors to check each other out — and they do: Some of the cheetahs come right up to the glass to get a closer look at the humans. Several times a day, visitors can watch the cats, fastest of all land mammals, sprint after lures set up by their trainers.

The completion of Cheetah Hunt also allowed for the reopening of Skyride, one of Busch Gardens’ oldest attractions.

The Cheetah track weaves around the towers and cables of the gondola ride, which was closed while the coaster was being built.

Also new to Busch Gardens in the last 12 months is Walkabout Way, which has an aviary with kookaburras and other birds from Down Under, and a separate habitat with about 40 kangaroos and wallabies. For $5, visitors can buy a cup of feed pellets and hay for the critters, who sit by the fence, lips extended like they’re ready for a big kiss, when they see the potential for a snack.

The park has a new show, Cirque Dreams Jungle Fantasy, a combination musical and acrobatics production, that replaced KaTonga at the Moroccan Palace Theater. The show, in which the jungle and its creatures come to life, features contortionists, jugglers, acrobats, aerialists and musicians. It runs until Labor Day. There’s also been a little fine-tuning of other rides. The trains on Gwazi, a bone-jarring wooden coaster, were traded out for new cars with articulated axles that bend and make the ride smoother. And Cheetah Chase, a wildmouse coaster, was renamed Sand Serpent so that it wouldn’t be confused with the new coaster named after the big cat.

Disney Disney’s biggest news this year is the opening of the revamped Star Tours attraction, a raucous and sometimes funny motion-simulator ride that nominally features C-3PO, but the real stars are the vivid Dolby 3-D and the synchronized movement of the spaceship.

Star Tours: The Adventures Continue, which opened May 20 at Hollywood Studios, uses the same building and ride vehicle as the original attraction, which opened more than 20 years ago, but incorporates current technology as well as an updated plot, which falls between Episode III: Revenge of the Sith and Episode IV: New Hope .

What starts out as a routine flight on a Starspeeder 1000 turns into a wild chase after Darth Vader and the Empire learn that a rebel spy is on board. In a nice touch by Disney Imagineering and Lucasfilm, the plot has 11 mix-andmatch options, so a guest might meet Darth Vader and Princess Leia and go to Tatooine and the underwater world of Naboo on one ride, then run into Stormtroopers and Yoda and see the jungles of Kashyyyk and the Death Star the next. Whatever you see through the window of the Starspeeder, the motions of the ride are synchronized with that sequence.

A word about motion: There’s a lot.

Imagine the platform is balanced on a giant ball bearing. Although it does not

“One Ocean” is the new killer-whale show at Shamu Stadium at SeaWorld Orlando. go from Point A to Point B, it does jerk mightily up and down, side to side.

Without a seatbelt, you would fly-or fallout of your seat. Queasiness factor: moderate to moderately high .

The queue has fun details: A clueless baggage inspector sees an X-ray of a suitcase full of guns and wonders aloud why someone travels with so many hair dryers. Rex, the droid pilot voiced by Paul Reuben (Pee -Wee Herman) in the original Star Tours, now lies on the scrap heap, labeled “Defective. Return to factory.”

Outside, kids too little to ride (height minimum is 40 inches) might be loaned robes and light sabers and invited to take part in the Jedi Training Academy.

Character meet-and-greets have become hugely popular at the Disney parks, which in recent years have added more characters, more designated meeting spots and more scheduled appearances. Walt Disney World now has 60 locations throughout the parks where guests can meet characters.

The most popular is Mickey, and he has a new meet-and-greet spot in Magic Kingdom where fans can find him all day-and sometimes Minnie, too. And for the first time, they can get FastPass tickets to come back at a specified time and bypass the queue. The setting is Town Square Theater, where Mickey is the star of a magic show; Magician Mickey meets fans backstage.

Guests can also get a FastPass here to meet the Disney princesses-Belle, Cinderella and Aurora (from Sleeping Beauty) — who eventually will get their own meet-and-greet spots in the Fantasyland expansion.

Animal viewing gets a little more intense on Wild Africa Trek, an extra-fee three-hour adventure that is part walk, part truck ride through the Animal Kingdom’s Africa section. It is, in essence, a private tour of Harambe Wildlife Reserve, with no more than 12 guests per tour.

Visitors hike through the forest, and stand on the edge of embankments high above a river inhabited by crocodiles and hippos. They cross rickety rope bridges that hang about 30 feet over the animals. Participants are buckled into vests with safety harnesses that are attached to an overhead cable or other device to keep them from becoming a crocodile’s lunch (the hippos usually stick to a vegetarian diet).

Part Two of the trek is a ride in the back of a truck through the “savanna,” similar to the Kilimanjaro Safari, which is included with admission. However, on the Wild Africa Trek, the truck makes more stops to see animals, and the guides have more time to talk about specific ones.

There’s also a stop at a “boma,” an open-air, roofed platform on a hilltop with a panoramic view of the savanna. A light lunch or breakfast, included in the price and one of the better meals you’ll find in any of the parks, is served here.

The price, which varies with the season, currently is $189, in addition to park admission. Animal Kingdom added this adventure in January, and despite its steep cost, has steadily increased the number of slots to keep up with demand. By July, there will be 12 treks on a typical day, staggered at 45-minute intervals.

Discovery Cove The Grand Reef, a 2 {-acre saltwater pool intended to replicate a coral reef, opened June 10. About 10,000 animals, representing 125 species of fish, rays and sharks, live there.

The Grand Reef has shallow waters where guests can touch rays and tropical fish swimming among artificial coral, and deeper canyons for snorkeling, as

well as an expansive beach and eight new cabanas available for an extra fee.

With the opening of Grand Reef, Discover y Cove also launched SeaVenture, an underwater walking tour of the reef that costs $59. Guests wearing dive helmets attached to air hoses climb about 12 feet down a ladder to the reef floor, then walk along the bottom holding a handrail. There, they encounter sea life, can feed fish and watch zebra, nurse, blacktip and whitetip reef sharks through an 8-by-21foot window.

Snorkelers will also have underwater access to view the shark tank, while other guests can watch the sharks from above without getting wet. There’s also a new home for eels in the reef’s canyonsbut behind glass. About 60 venomous lionfish, non-indigenous pests taken from local waters, will be housed behind glass under the reef ’s dock, where guests can see but not touch them.

The set-up is different from Tropical Reef, Discovery Cove’s old saltwater pool, which was closed when The Grand Reef opened. There, the only way to see sharks was by snorkeling, said Reid Miller, director of zoological operations.

The Grand Reef also has more variations in depth to make the experience comfortable for guests who don’t like being in deep water, he said.

from going into the water with the orcas since the death.

The stadium has a colorful new backdrop and video screens where cute caricatures of sea creatures invite guests to text them, then welcome them by name.

After some guests complained that they didn’t get wet during the show, even though they were sitting in the “splash zone,” fountains were installed around the edge of the pool to accomplish what the slap of a whale’s tail might not.

Gatorland The Screamin’ Gator Zip Line opened June 16 at Gatorland, a 110-acre park in Orlando with all things gator (and crocodile) — breeding marsh, gator wrestling show, gator encounters, train ride and splash park.

The zip line, Gatorland’s first, takes riders over the animals. There are five sections, starting with an introductory run at 15 mph, with each sequence longer and faster than the last, ending with dual zip lines where two guests race at speeds that can top 30 mph.

There’s also a scary swinging bridge that participants cross on foot. On average, the riders are about 35 feet above the gators. Cost of riding the zip line is $69.99, which includes admission to the park.

The new Cheetah Hunt roller coaster at Busch Gardens Tampa Bay features three launches and one inversion.

Discovery Cove will renovate Tropical Reef with an as-yet-undisclosed attraction expected to open next summer. The lazy river, freshwater Serenity Bay and the dolphin encounter pool remain open and are unchanged.

Seaworld Orlando SeaWorld introduced its killer-whale show, One Ocean, in April at a jazzed-up Shamu Stadium. The message of the show, which features the park’s seven orcas, is that animals and humans are part of one world, with one ocean, that is our responsibility to protect. With whales as ambassadors of the sea, the show is intended to tell kids that they can make a difference, said Kelly Flaherty Clark, director of animal training. It’s a bit heavy-handed, but the speeding, leaping, splashing, kissing orcas are as captivating as ever.

Performing whales include Tilikum, who returned to the show less than three months ago after drowning its trainer at SeaWorld in February 2010.

However, trainers-who used to surf on top of the whales-have been barred

The Starspeeder 1000 takes guests on a bumpy ride on Star Tours: The Adventures Continue at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.

Kennedy Space Center A new exhibit, Sci-Fi Summer: Where Science Fiction Meets Science Fact, opened this month at the center’s visitor complex. The exhibit celebrates the last 50 years of human spaceflight and science fiction and features a display of props, costumes and other artifacts from the Star Trek movies and television shows. There is also a live show and the Star Trek Shuttlecraft Adventure Simulator. — MCT

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In this publicity image released by Paramount Pictures, Optimus Prime is shown in a scene from “Transformers: Dark of the Moon.”—AP

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ome conspiracy theorists say the 1969 moon landing was staged on one of Walt Disney’s movie sets. And even if it really happened, other doubters say, the climactic moment of the space race was intended to 1) score Cold War propaganda points, 2) maintain funding for NASA or 3) distract from the Vietnam War. But they couldn’t possibly have known the real motive behind the flight of Apollo 11: that Neil Armstrong, Mike Collins and Buzz Aldrin were actually sent to investigate the 1961 moon crash of a Cybertronian spaceship, which was carrying technology crucial to the survival of the Autobots, who were then on the verge of losing their war against the Decepticons.

The whole thing will no doubt become crystal clear. “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” opened yesterday in 3-D and IMAX; opening wide today at midnight. Given that the “Transformers” series so far has been close to a parody of what makes summer movies so silly-noisy, violent, based on a toy, and with machines that have had more pizzazz than the people-the idea of putting a fauxhistorical spin on the narrative isn’t the worst idea. Or, at least, the most absurd idea.

Despite the cold clang of the robots-which has meant the warm sound of ka-ching! for DreamWorks (unless something goes horribly wrong, “Dark of the Moon” will take the franchise well across the billion-dollar mark) — the project

has offered no shortage of human drama. Shia LaBeouf, who’s played Sam Witwicky since the series premiered in 2007, says he won’t be back for a fourth go-round. Neither will director Michael Bay. And Megan Fox, who played LaBeouf’s love interest, Mikaela, in 1 and 2, didn’t even make it to No 3: Her public comments about Bay acting like “Hitler” on the set of 2009’s “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” prompted executive producer Steven Spielberg to have her promptly fired.

Which would seem to put no end of pressure on Fox’s replacement, Rosie HuntingtonWhiteley, the English-born Victoria’s Secret model, who’s never made a movie and will be under the microscope of media scrutiny. Nervous?

“Yeah!” she said, with a tone appropriate to a ridiculous question. “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel under scrutiny or under pressure. But I think it comes when you accept something like this. I think everybody’s waiting to see who the new girl on the block is, and ‘Are you going to like me?’

Some people will and some people won’t, and there’s really not much you can do about that. I’ve spent the last year trying to get my head around things, but as long as the people involved are happy with it, and I’m happy with it, that’s good.”

It’s daunting for a 24-year-old newcomer like Huntington-Whiteley to step into an ongoing phenomenon like “Transformers” (“I had no idea

how they made these movies,” she said). But it isn’t all that much easier for a hardened vet like John Turturro, who returns for his third “Trannie” as the alien expert Agent Simmons, and who had a short explanation for his presence in the new film: “I did the other two.”

“It’s probably the last one I’ll do,” he added.

“But I got to work with Fran (Frances McDormand) and (John) Malkovich, who are friends, so that was good. I had a bigger role in the second one. Now it’s become something a little bit more than I thought it would be.”

Meaning the cultural impact of Autobots and Decepticons? “Meaning it’s like a whole other kind of movie,” said Turturro, who is far better known for his own and others’ independent films.

“You almost have to learn how to do it. It’s a whole different skill-if you have kids, it’s helpful, because maybe you played with them with robot figures and stuff like that. I just imagine, when I have to do the stuff with robots, that I’m playing with my kids. “Other times,” he said with a laugh, “I’m thinking about the adults who have to watch it, and try to put in a little something for them.”

Just as Huntington-Whiteley will no doubt use “Dark of the Moon” as a launchpad for an acting career, “T3” enables Turturro to pursue more personal projects-ie, “Passione,” his cinematic love letter to the city, and the music, of Naples. “It’s something I was invited to do because ‘Romance

& Cigarettes’ did very well there,” he said, referring to his 2005 musical melodrama. “They wanted to do a sort of ‘Buena Vista Social Club’ type of thing, but I said, ‘Well, maybe you’d be interested in something that tells a little bit about the city, but is really about the music-you know, so instead of having talk, they’d sing.’ So we did that. And basically, we did the whole thing in 21 days.”

Which is a far cry from the estimated $200million-budgeted “Dark of the Moon,” which began preproduction in fall 2009 and shooting in May of last year. The success of “Avatar” (released in December 2009) certainly was a factor in Bay’s decision to make “Dark of the Moon” in 3-D, while intending to make a film with deeper, darker and more human elements. Huntington-Whiteley, although she’s obviously partial, says he succeeded. “I think people will be surprised by it,” she said.

“It’s got a lot of heart and intensity and it’s a bit darker. We’re really led to believe this is the end of the world.”

Ken Jeong is not naked in “Transformers: Dark of the Moon.” This may sadden fans of “The Hangover” and “The Hangover Part II,” in which he plays the comical gangster Mr Chow. But nothing can dampen Jeong’s spirits. “I can’t believe I’m in this movie. I’m still in awe,” he says. “Four years ago, I was still practicing medicine, working in an HMO near where I live, and if you told me then I’d be in a ‘Transformers’ movie with Michael Bay and

Myanmar deports ‘blacklisted’ Yeoh

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ollywood star Michelle Yeoh, who plays pro-democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi in an upcoming film, has been deported by army-dominated Myanmar and blacklisted, an official said yesterday.

“She did not have the chance to enter Myanmar again. She was deported straight away on the first flight after arriving at Yangon International Airport,” a Myanmar official, who did not want to be named said.

“She’s on the blacklist now,” a second official said, declining to say why.

The Malaysian-born former Bond girl met the Nobel Peace Prize winner at her Yangon home in December after shooting scenes with French director Luc Besson in Thailand for the production, which has been kept under close wraps. The film is expected to be released later this year. Suu Kyi was freed in November after seven straight years of house arrest, less than a week after an election that critics said was a charade aimed at preserving military rule behind a civilian facade in Myanmar.

Suu Kyi, who turned 66 this month, has won international acclaim for her peaceful resistance in the face of oppression. In 1990 she led her National League for Democracy party to a landslide election win that was never recognized by Myanmar’s military rulers. She boycotted last year’s vote, saying the rules were unfair. Yeoh, 48, a former Miss Malaysia, shot to international fame when she co-starred with Pierce Brosnan in the 1997 James Bond film “Tomorrow Never Dies” as a tough but beautiful Chinese spy. She then starred in Ang Lee’s “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”-a Chinese-language martial arts epic that was an international hit-and “Memoirs of a Geisha” based on the best-selling novel

by Arthur Golden. — AFP

File photo shows Malaysian actress Michelle Yeoh as she arrives for the ceremony for the Golden Lion for lifetime achievement to John Woo at the 67th Venice Film Festival at Venice Lido. — AFP

B

ollywood star and former Miss World Aishwarya Rai Bachchan has put her latest film on hold due to her pregnancy, its producers said yesterday. “At this point nothing is more important than Aishwarya’s well-being and good health,” UTV Motion Pictures, which is making the drama “Heroine”, said in an emailed statement. “In that context, we have all mutually agreed that the best step would be to avoid shooting further, rather than proceeding with an incredibly demanding schedule over the coming months.”

File: Bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai Bachchan attends the ‘Big Star Entertainment Awards’ ceremony in Mumbai. — AFP

Shia LaBeouf, well, I certainly wouldn’t have believed it.”

Jeong really is a doctor, but even while practicing never quite quit his college hobby of standup comedy. He gradually segued into movies and TV, where he now finds himself in a kind of blissed-out moment of career satisfaction: one blockbuster, one blockbuster-to-be and a successful TV show (“Community”).

What the heck is he doing in “Transformers 3”?

“I play a co-worker of Shia LaBeouf who’s a big conspiracy buff and that’s all I can say, really. I think everything’s well-guarded for a reason.” Like John Turturro, he is a bit amazed by the process, and requirements, of making 3-D robot movies.

“I really felt like I was getting a chance to watch the big boys play,” he said. “You get an appreciation of how difficult doing all this is, even as an actor. If I’m doing a scene with Zack Galafianakis (a la “The Hangover Part II”), it’s very easy to react off of that. But if I’m acting with CGI without any actors, it’s a whole other ballgame.”

Jeong has taken some heat for what some have seen as the perpetuation of Asian stereotypes via Mr Chow, but he doesn’t let that bother him. “I’m just very grateful for the roles,” he said. “For me, it’s all a dream come true.”— MCT

News of the 37-year-old’s pregnancy was announced last week when the actress’ fatherin-law, Bollywood screen legend Amitabh Bachchan, expressed his excitement at becoming a grandfather on Twitter and his blog. Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, who won the Miss World title in 1994, is married to Bachchan’s 35-year-old actor son, Abhishek.

The former model, who has starred in more than 40 Indian movies, had been at the Cannes Film Festival with UTV chief executive Ronnie Screwvala last month to promote “Heroine”. Indian media reports had speculated that she might be replaced in the lead role after her pregnancy was revealed. — AFP

R

&B pop singer Alicia Keys is the latest music star to back a Broadway production, according to a statement issued by producers on Monday. The 30-year-old US singer-songwriter will co-produce the play, “Stick Fly,” a comedy about an affluent black family who come together for a weekend on the posh island of Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts. She follows the likes of rapper Jay-Z and Elton John to back Broadway shows in recent years.

“This is a story that everybody can relate to,” Keys said in a statement. “I’m passionate about this play because it is so beautifully written and portrays Black America in a way that we don’t often get to see in entertainment. I know it will touch all audiences, who will find a piece of themselves somewhere inside this house.”

It was not clear if Keys, who has acted in films and television in the past and gave birth to her first child last October, would be part of the cast, which was not announced. The play

by Lydia Diamond will open Dec. 8 with previews starting in November.

Music stars have had mixed success on Broadway in recent years. Jay-Z was a producer for the successful “Fela!” while Elton John wrote the music to the hit “Billy Elliot: The Musical” and produced the 2010 Tony-nominated play, “Next Fall.”

However, rockers U2 are currently struggling to turn “Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark” into a success after the music and elements of the show were panned by critics. —Reuters

Alicia Keys performs at the BET Awards on Sunday in Los Angeles. —AP