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Bed-ridden, caged Mubarak on trial Trial of Egypt ex-leader grips the Arab world

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conspiracy theories

A lesson to be learnt

By Badrya Darwish

badrya_d@kuwaittimes.net

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nprecedented trial in the whole Arab world and in the Middle East started yesterday. It was a trial but it was not just any trial. It was the trial for the Egyptian ex-leader Hosni Mubarak who reigned in Egypt for almost 30 years with an iron fist with the intention to pass on the presidency to his son Jamal. Little did he know that a sudden social unrest and people’s power will take all of a sudden in Tahrir Square and change the agenda and the plan the man had worked out for years. This shuffled the cards to the other side in an amazing way.

I couldn’t believe watching the live TV broadcast trial. Definitely, all of you are watching the Egyptian news, you know that a bunch of famous businessmen were also in court. It was an amazing trial for the number of lawyers who attended. Every group of lawyers was filing a case against Mubarak and his sons for different reasons. Many of the accusations were against the killing of young men during the uprising which swept Cairo and other big cities like Alexandria, Suez and many other cities.

It looks like Mubarak is going to be accountable and responsible for the death of these people because he was the country’s leader at the time. The accusations went to say that Mubarak ordered the police and the army to kill demonstrators. That is not the major issue to me. The major issue is a president in the third world, in the Arab World who is being brought to justice.

I admired the way the court proceedings went. It followed rules and regulations. Such a trial should be included in the curriculum of Arab schools. It was a cultural and civilized trial giving both sides the right to defend themselves whether it is the defense or the defendant. It was not a military court as you would imagine take place when a president is toppled.

This is what was also unprecedented in the Arab world. Many lawyers barraged the court room and it took hours for the judge to resume the proceedings.

Of course, there were moments of chaos but it was controllable. This is Egypt. The great Egypt. I doubt that any other Arab country can come to that standard of democracy and civilization. It presented a civilized country. Of course, why not. Egypt is not a newborn country. It is a county with a thousand years of history and culture from the Pharaohs till now.

The trial would take months and maybe years, like all trials. At last, the man was brought to justice. The judiciary will have the final word if Mubarak is innocent or guilty. I hope that this trial will be a lesson for all leaders around the world that it doesn’t matter how long they rule sooner or later Judgment Day would come. I hope it is an example for the region we live in. I hope that leaders learn that only democracy can prevail and not tyranny. It was a lesson to be learnt. Have a good Ramadan!

CAIRO: This video images show 83-year-old former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak laying on a hospital bed inside a cage of mesh and iron bars in a Cairo courtroom yesterday. — AP CAIRO: Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak was wheeled into a al cage, as is customary in criminal trials in Egypt, apart courtroom cage in a hospital bed yesterday to face trial from a Mubarak-linked businessman who is being tried Ramadan Kareem for killing protesters—an image that thrilled those who in absentia. Another lawyer demanded that Mubarak be overthrew him and must have chilled other Arab auto- moved to Torah prison, where the other defendants are crats facing popular uprisings. If convicted, Mubarak held, from a hospital in Sharm El-Sheikh on the Red Sea could face the death penalty. The 83-year-old former where he has been since April. The state news agency, president, looking frail and gaunt, denied the charges, MENA, reported that Mubarak would stay in a hospital which could carry the death penalty. Mubarak is the first inside the Police Academy complex, where the trial is Arab leader to stand trial in person since popular upris- taking place, after yesterday’s court session. asting, is abstaining from eating, drinking and A military council led by a long-serving defense minings swept the Middle East this year.

The prosecutor said Mubarak “had the intention to ister, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, took over coitus from daybreak to sunset as a devotional kill” peaceful protesters during an 18-day revolt that when Mubarak quit. It has promised a transition to ritual. “O you who have believed, decreed upon toppled him on Feb 11 and during the previous decade. democracy in the Arab world’s most populous nation-a you is fasting as it was decreed upon those before He accused Mubarak of allowing former Interior process far from complete. Mubarak’s lawyer asked for you that you may become righteous.” [Quran; 2:183] Minister Habib Al-Adli to use live ammunition on pro- Tantawi to be summoned as a witness in the trial, echoThat is: that you may fear Allah, keep away from His testers, and also charged him with corruption and wast- ing a demand lodged by Adli’s counsel, who had also prohibitions, and fulfill His Commands. Prophet ing public funds. About 850 people were killed during asked for former intelligence chief Omar Suleiman and Muhammad (PBUH) said: “Whoever does not give up the unrest. A lawyer acting for families of the dead other political and military officials to testify. The trial, forged speech and evil actions, Allah is not in need of demanded execution for Adli, who is being tried along- televised around the world, transfixed Egyptians and his leaving his food and drink (i.e. Allah will not side Mubarak, the ex-president’s two sons Alaa and other Arabs, most of whom have spent their lives under accept his fasting.)” authoritarian systems shaken by this year’s “Arab Spring”.

Gamal, and six former officers.

Continued on Page 13 Continued on Page 13 The white-clad defendants were all held in a big met-

Significance of fasting

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Maid: Employer tried to gouge out my eyes Blinded maid seeks help, protection

By Ben Garcia KUWAIT: A Filipina domestic helper who was rendered blind by her sponsor sought assistance from the Philippines Embassy yesterday after making a miraculous escape on July 27. She worked with her employer for a year without being paid, enduring severe torture since she began working with the employer in August 2010. The housemaid, named Angela, 24, is a native of Lanao Del Sur Philippines. She formally lodged complaints with the local police station on Continued on Page 13

Angela

Biggest-ever cyber attacks uncovered BOSTON: Security experts have discovered the biggest series of cyber attacks to date, involving the infiltration of the networks of 72 organizations including the United Nations, governments and companies around the world. Security company McAfee, which uncovered the intrusions, said it believed there was one “state actor” behind the attacks but declined to name it, though one security expert who has been briefed on the hacking said the evidence points to China.

The long list of victims in the five-year campaign include the governments of the United States, Taiwan, India, South Korea, Vietnam and Canada; the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN); the International Olympic

Committee (IOC); the World Anti-Doping Agency; and an array of companies, from defense contractors to high-tech enterprises.

In the case of the United Nations, the hackers broke into the computer system of the UN Secretariat in Geneva in 2008, hid their unnoticed for nearly two years, and quietly combed through reams of secret data, according to McAfee. “Even we were surprised by the enormous diversity of the victim organizations and were taken aback by the audacity of the perpetrators,” McAfee’s vice president of threat research, Dmitri Alperovitch, wrote in a 14-page report released yesterday.

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in the

news Earth’s two moons?

Saudi Prince wins libel case

Bahrain detains MSF staff

WASHINGTON: Earth once had two moons, until one of them made the fatal mistake of smacking into its big sister in what is being called the “big splat,” some astronomers theorize. The result: The planet was left with a single bulked-up and ever-so-slightly lopsided moon. The astronomers came up with this scenario to explain why the moon’s far side is so much more hilly than the one that is always facing Earth. The theory, outlined in a research paper published yesterday in the journal Nature, comes complete with computer model runs showing how it would happen and an illustration that looks like the bigger moon getting a pie in the face.

Outside experts said the idea makes sense, but they aren’t completely sold yet.

This all supposedly happened about 4.4 billion years ago, long before there was any life on Earth to gaze up and see the strange sight of dual moons.

LONDON: A Saudi prince accused by a British newspaper of ordering police to gun down unarmed demonstrators during this year’s Arab uprisings won “substantial” libel damages yesterday over the allegations. Independent Print Ltd, publishers of The Independent newspaper, and its Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk expressed “sincere apologies” at London’s High Court over claims made against Prince Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud. The newspaper said allegations that the prince had ordered police to fire on protesters were published “in good faith” but accepted they had turned out to be untrue and based on a forgery. On April 15, The Independent published a feature article about the Arab Spring headlined “A long time coming”, in which Fisk claimed the prince had ordered police chiefs “to shoot and kill unarmed demonstrators without mercy”. Fisk, a veteran awardwinning correspondent, said the order was “extraordinary and outrageous” and should be investigated by the International Criminal Court at The Hague. The article, also published on the newspaper’s website under the heading “The Arab awakening began not in Tunisia this year, but in Lebanon in 2005”, was widely reproduced online and paraphrased in the Arab press, the court heard. Rupert Earle, representing the prince, told Justice Nicola Davies the claims derived from a fake “order” published online as Shiite protesters in Saudi Arabia were planning a demonstration in March.

DUBAI: Medical charity Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said yesterday Bahrain police stormed its offices last week, detaining one staff member and seizing equipment, and accused the Gulf state of violating the right to receive medical care. Bahrain crushed a pro-democracy protest movement earlier this year, calling in troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and using martial law for over two months, and has accused medical staff of backing protesters. MSF said a Bahraini volunteer, Saeed Mahdi, was arrested after he called an ambulance to treat a man who had come to MSF premises with a serious head injury. “It is MSF’s obligation to provide treatment regardless of a patient’s ethnicity, religion, or political affiliation,” MSF said, adding it had complained to the interior ministry. A Bahraini interior ministry spokesman did not respond to calls for comment. The government has accused the pro-democracy protesters, who came mainly from the majority Shiite population, of having a sectarian agenda backed by non-Arab Shiite power Iran, a charge they deny. Bahrain is home to the US Fifth Fleet. The government has also accused medical staff of a major Manama hospital of supporting the protesters and faking and worsening injuries in order to make security forces look bad. Some doctors are on military trial facing such accusations. Bahraini doctors have dismissed the charges as ridiculous. “It now appears that in Bahrain today, acting within the common boundaries of the duty of care principle ... is no longer possible without negative repercussions on MSF’s ability to work in the country,” MSF said.

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KUWAIT: Dates are on display at local markets during Ramadan, as citizens and residents across the country stock up with the always popular fruit throughout the holy month. Muslims traditionally break their long fast by consuming dates, a sweet fruit which contains high levels of sugar and carbohydrates that help make up for the lack of nutrition during the fasting hours.

— Photos by Joseph Shagra

Ramadan: A season for spirituality

By Hussain Al-Qatari

KUWAIT: Only in Ramadan does the number of slippers designated for the water fountain ablution area in the mosque seem to be insufficient for the number of worshippers, says Abu Abdullah, an Imam at a mosque in Salmiya.

“During the rest of the year, [the worshippers] are busy chasing after the matters of life, but with Ramadan, everything is put on hold, and they come to strengthen their relationship with God Almighty,” he says. The influx of worshippers, apparent on the night before Ramadan, calls for a list of special supplies, like extra tissue boxes, paper towels, slippers for the ablution or wuduu station.

Spirituality in Ramadan is in the air, says the imam. “All devils are chained during Ramadan, and the doors to blessings and good wishes are open,” he explains. Islamic tradition or hadith is highly eloquent, spoken in Arabic, a language rich in tapestries of allegory and symbolism.

“The devils symbolize negative energies, bad

influence, and the spread of sins. Islam wants people to focus their mind on positivity, kindness and generosity in Ramadan. That’s why it equates all people in their hunger, and Muslims from all social classes form rows in the mosque to pray and recite the Quran until the early hours of dawn,” he explains.

Abu Abdullah says he personally tries not judge people for only remembering spirituality during Ramadan. “I can tell you that it is weak of them to only remember their Almighty Creator during Ramadan and forget about Him during the rest of the year, but it is not my job to judge.

God will judge, and according to their effort, God will show them the way. According to their power of will, they will stick to the path of God, or sway. It is their fate, their effort, and it is the business of Allah Almighty,” he says.

Abu Abdullah says that nowadays many distractions create hurdles for Muslims, including harmful entertainment, music, and the commercialization of Ramadan. Something he finds very negative is the trend of setting up tents or gaze-

bos for shisha-smoking, music, and food all night during R amadan by restaurants and hotels. “They use Ramadan, a yearly occasion that draws worshippers to their Creator, to make profit. People go there to listen to music and stay up all night in this atmosphere of vice instead of going to the mosque. But still, compare the number of people who waste the nights of holy Ramadan in fake joy, to those who stay until dusk in worship and you will find that the latter group triumphs, thanks be to God Almighty,” he says.

Spirituality during Ramadan is present even in a commercial form. Some corporations and banks set up tents that distribute free iftar meals, while some catering companies distribute food to charities, and telecommunication companies make donating to charity accessible through sending text messages and offer to substitute ringtones with prayers and douaa.

Tariq, a Kuwaiti in his twenties, says this phenomenon of religiosity confuses him. Tariq, who describes himself as ‘moderately religious,’ says

the attempt of his colleagues at work to do good only during R amadan are absolute hypocrisy. “Some of these guys spend the rest of the year not caring at all about the teachings of religion, but as soon as Ramadan comes they immediately become religious and spiritual,” he says. He believes that the formula used by many people to abide by the rules of Islam for one month and then follow their hearts and desires for the remaining other 11 months is a bad idea.

“If something is good, you should do it all year round. You can’t be a hedonist and become religious only seasonally,” he says.

For Karen, a 32-year old American living in Kuwait, this temporary religiosity is a good thing. “My Muslim friends are more aware of what they’re doing during Ramadan. The ones who used to use curse words are now aware of when they do it, and you can see them trying to refrain from committing those sins. I think that their religiosity [during Ramadan does them good], even if only the effect is temporary only, it is still a positive effect,” she says.

Movenpick Al-Bida’a holds ghabqa KUWAIT: Movenpick Al-Bida’a Hotel and Resort held a ghabqa for the media on Tuesday. Journalists from Kuwait’s leading newspapers, TV and radio attended the fun-filled event. Winners of the raffle draw received tickets from KLM-Air France to various destinations.— Photos by Joseph Shagra

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Chef Raj

Bhatti Dhaniyawali soumf ka Jhinga

Fattoush salad with fresh pomegranate 1 red bell pepper, sliced 1 yellow bell pepper, sliced 1 cucumber, sliced 2 tomatoes, sliced 2 red onion, thinly sliced 1/4 cup fresh pomegranate 1/4 cup fresh mint 1/4 cup fresh parsley leaves 1/4 cup fresh watercress 3 teaspoons high quality olive oil 3 tablespoons of lemon juice, salt & sumac 1 toasted Arabic Bread, broken

1/4 cup red raddish How to prepare Salad In a large bowl, combine tomato, cucumber, yellow pepper, green peppers, onions, and parsley, mint watercress, red radish, together.

Dressing Mix in a small bowl the olive oil, lemon juice and sumac.

Pour dressing over salad and serve.

Fish Sultan Ibrahim with saffron Rice Tahina sauce 2 whole fresh sultan ibrahim fish 2 cup white Rice 3 cups Tahina sauce 1 Chopped onions 3 Tablespoon Vegetable oil 1 cup Lemon juice 1 tablespoon saffron powder 1 tablespoon Crushed garlic Salt & black pepper to taste

Add rice, and stir to coat. Stir in water, parsley flakes, saffron, and 3 drops of yellow food colouring. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 20 minutes.

Sultan Ibrahim Wash the fish and dry gently. And marinate the fish with flour and rosemary herbs, 2 tablespoons of the olive oil and lemon juice and garlic; season with the black pepper and keep warm over low heat.

Cook the fillets, skin side up, until nicely colored.

How to prepare Saffron Rice Melt butter or margarine in a medium, non-stick pot over medium heat. Cook and stir onion until golden.

Tahina sauce But in small bowl tahina and lemon, cold water, salt mixed well.

Usmaliyeh Bel Ashta

Fine vermicelli (kunafaa dough) 1 Batch of ashta or can be substituted by ricotta cheese SYRUP Sugar -1 1/2 cup Water-1 cup 1/2 lemon Juice Pistachio for decoration

How to prepare 1. Prepare sugar syrup with 1 cup of water and 1 1/2 cup of sugar along with lemon juice. Bring to boil, and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes until it forms a thick consistency.

2. Remove from heat allow cooling. Add rosewater, and keep aside.

3. Pre -heat the oven to 180 C∞.

4. In a large bowl gently loosen the kunafaa dough and mix well with the butter.

5. Melt the butter in the baking pan and place half the dough at the bottom press evenly.

6. Spread bits of ricotta cheese all over, and then cover with the remaining kunafaa dough, press gently.

7. Bake for about 30-40 minutes, until the surface is golden brown.

8. Remove from oven and pour sugar syrup all over hot kunafaa.Allow to cool completely.

9. Put on a serving plate. Decorate with pistachio nuts. Serve warm.

10. It is good to warm up before serving, because the cheese tastes better. It is a well known Arabic dessert all over the world and it is really delicious.

Ingredients: Yield: 1 portion 150 gms Prawns tail on(8/12) First marinade 10 gms Ginger paste 10 gms Salt 10 gms Garlic paste 10 gms Fennel seeds 05 gms Turmeric powder 10 gms Coriander seed 10 gms Salt 05 gms White pepper powder Second marinade 20 gms Plain yoghurt 10 gms Cream cheese 10 gms Cream UHT 05 gms Finely chopped ginger 10 gms Green chilly chopped 10 gms Coriander chopped 10 gms Cardamom powder Method 1. Clean the prawns and marinate it with first marinade at least for an hour.

2. Drain the prawns and put them into second marinade mixture for about an extra hour.

3. Grill the prawns in charcoal grill or in oven at 165 C and cook till golden brown.

4. Serve them hot garnished as per the picture.

Important: Drain the water from the yoghurt and after the first marinade drain the water too coming out from the marination.

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in my view

kuwait digest

Enforce the law completely!

Minus the make-up?

By Ali Khaja s long as we abide by the law, regardless of its constitutionality, we can consider ourselves true citizens. The segregation law is not an exception, rather it is one of the regulations approved by the National Assembly in 1996. I am sure we have not fully implemented the law because I am sure many of today’s MPs or even the education minister for that matter has read the text of the First Article 24/96. It reads as follows: “Article (1): In order to comply with Sharia form, the government, will, during a period of no longer than five years from the date this law comes into effect, renovate the current buildings of colleges, institutions and centers of Kuwait University and the Public Authority for Applied Education and Training (PAAET), in order to guarantee the gender segregation by designating special areas for female students in buildings, halls, laboratories, libraries, educational and administrative services and all facilities. The above-mentioned requirements should be followed when new buildings are designed.”

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By Lisa Conrad

lisa@kuwaittimes.net

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kuwait digest

‘I request for the law to be implemented completely, and kowtow to the whims of those that commercialize religion. Instead of designating halls for female and male students, special areas should be allocated for female students in all educational facilities.’

The law is explicit and cannot be manipulated, as it stipulates that a special place should be accorded to female students to build halls and other educational facilities. I studied in the Kuwait University much before the law was enacted. Back then, a special area was reserved for female students. This was the practice and there was no need for a law or legislation.

So, I request for the law to be implemented completely, and kowtow to the whims of those that commercialize religion.

Instead of designating halls for female and male students, special areas should be allocated for female students in all educational facilities. With this move, the situation will return to normalcy, and the Kuwait University’s capacity will increase. This is because instead of allocating two facilities for every subject to be taught, only one will be used. In this manner, all eligible students should be accepted, instead of rejecting 2,000 students simply because the upholders of religion interpret it the wrong way. — Aljarida

he question of whether women are prohibited from wearing make-up during Ramadan has sparked tempers and controversy with every woman I have asked. It seems that it’s a particularly sensitive topic among fasting women on both sides of the debate. A Syrian expatriate insisted that no, it’s not allowed because adornment is not permitted for Muslim women, in general, unless they are married. Throughout the year, she added, it is tolerated because it has become a cultural norm in the region but, during Ramadan, it should be abstained from.

A Lebanese expatriate expressed, passionately, that it’s a matter of personal choice for the woman who should make the decision alone. She added, however, that she’s been told that lipstick should be avoided in case of accidently licking one’s lips, thus inadvertently consuming some of it and breaking your fast. On the whole, she concluded that priorities have been skewed:

Mending troubled ties

By Khalifa Al-Khurafi efore the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait on August 2, to establish good relations between the people of 1990, the media from both countries would high- Kuwait and Iraq.

In order to build a better future for people from both light the deep relations shared between the two countries in the cultural, artistic, ideological, political and countries, coordination should be achieved at an economic fields. While the Iraqi people gleefully listened advanced level. It can start by ending the border conflict, to music of Kuwaiti artists and watched traditional and reaching an agreement on oil fields as well as over Kuwaiti TV shows, people in Kuwait loved to listen to the Mubarak Al-Kabeer port. Eliminating all sources of tensions will help solidify the poetry recitals by renowned Iraqi trust enabling both nations to poets. Al-Basra’s economy flourdevelop positive ideologies that ished through visits paid by ‘Repairing the relationship with set the foundation for a relationKuwaitis who were always welour brethren in Iraq requires that ship based on love, appreciation comed by Basra’s residents.

All that changed on the dawn people from both sides open a new and respect.

Iraq must become aware of of August 2, 1990, when Saddam chapter in their lives to ensure a the magnitude of the atrocities Hussein’s army launched a surbetter future for our generation’ committed by Saddam Hussein prise attack, turning the once and his army on Kuwait, as well close brotherly nations into bitas the major role played by ter enemies.

Twenty one years since, the relationship between Kuwait in liberating Iraq from Saddam. Furthermore, the people of the two nations has not been restored com- Iraqi government should work toward wiping out the pletely. Repairing the relationship with our brethren in delusion that some Iraqis have about Kuwait, and find Iraq requires that people from both sides open a new measures to tackle made to plant ‘evil seeds’ into the chapter in their lives to ensure a better future for our minds of Iraqi children. They will grow up harboring anigeneration. All the outstanding issues should be solved mosity towards Kuwait. This is a message from a Kuwaiti between the two countries, and through committees citizen who is eager to see mutual love and peace shared formed by competent wise men who have a true desire by people from both sides. — Al-Qabas

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in my view

Ramadan and the seasonal kindness of heart Hussain Al-Qatari

‘There are more important things for women to worry about than make-up during Ramadan.

Like dressing modestly. Even Western expats show respect during this month and tend to make sure sleeves reach at least until the elbows’ “There are more important things for women to worry about than make-up during Ramadan. Like dressing modestly. Even Western expats show respect during this month and tend to make sure sleeves reach at least until the elbows.”

My third opinion came from a Kuwaiti national, who said she’d never heard of such a rule. She concluded that such restrictions are all a matter of interpretation, with some decidedly creating rules that they deem appropriate: “I don’t see anything wrong with it, I wear make-up during Ramadan but it doesn’t mean I’m not fasting properly. Some don’t spray perfume for fears that a particle of it will fall on their lips or mouth, breaking their fast. Does that mean refraining from perfume is another solid rule during Ramadan?”

Was I the only one oblivious to this debate? Upon coming across the debate, I decided I would hit Avenues to see if women had come out, minus the make-up.

However, of course, by the time I can get to the mall, Iftar will already have come, fasts will have been broken and make-up will have had the opportunity to be freshly applied. However, a comment from an employee at one of Kuwait’s Universities implied that make-up is abstained from during Ramadan, but applied heavily during the rest of the year: “I didn’t recognize my students when I saw them yesterday. They looked totally different as they’d stopped wearing make-up during Ramadan. It honestly took me a second to realize who they were.”

hussain@kuwaittimes.net

hile Ramadan is a season of festivity and spirituality, it is slowly becoming transformed into an annual 30-day event of temporary religiosity. I notice this especially at workplaces. If you go to a ministry, you’ll notice that almost all the employees stop working to go to pray when it’s time for prayer, neglecting their job. Come to the same ministry any other day, and you’ll see only a handful go to pray when they hear the call for prayer. I don’t mean to belittle their dedication to religion, but I only wish to point out that it is obviously temporary.

Another thing that is highly inappropriate, in my opinion, is employees reciting the Holy Quran at their desk. If you do that, I’m sorry to say that I find it offensive to your piety and spirituality. You are supposed to clear your schedule and designate a slot for prayer and worship in the mosque or in your house. At work, practice your manners and show your dedication. I stood in line for two hours at a ministry trying to complete trivial paperwork. The employee kept sighing as if she is being forced to do her job, talking in such low and unenthusiastic voice as if she would die or faint, and when asked politely to speak loudly she acted defensively. It appeared as if by asking her to speak up she was asked to perform an impossible task. Another employee, a cashier at a co-operative society, cradled his Quran in his lap and kept reciting even after I put all the contents of my basket in front of him. I appreciate his religiosity, but he was not doing his job and that is rude.

While I know these actions stem from a deep core of kindness and a desire to do good, I wish that they would extend beyond the month of Ramadan. Being kind to people doesn’t have to be seasonal, and feeling hungry should have a positive effect on you, not make you sigh and huff and puff like you’re in big trouble. You’re hungry, and so are a lot of people. You’re hungry now and you’ll break your fast and have a satisfying meal later. Many can’t afford to eat, and they feel hungry longer than you do. Let the fasting teach you to be kind, and to stay kind.

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kuwait digest

Greed during Ramadan

By Dr Ahmad Al-Duaij e have criticized the Kuwait Municipality a long time for its obduracy. However, when the Municipality carries out its duties well, we thank its employees and appreciate efforts.

I went to buy some vegetables early Sunday morning in order to prepare for the holy month. The supermarket manager told me, “It is good that you came today, because tomorrow prices will rise sharply.” When I asked him the reason, he said this occurs every year during Ramadan.

One of the shoppers said, this is true, not only in Kuwait, but in most Muslim countries. The prices rise because greedy shop owners hoard foodstuffs during Ramadan. I am not going to ask what the Commerce Ministry has been doing!

Regarding the Commerce Ministry, the matter has nothing to do with citizens and expats’ interests. As far as the Cooperative Unions are concerned, I am convinced that it is a mafia that harbors deep secrets and should be thoroughly investigated by the minister of social affairs and labor. This is because he is responsible for creating this strange organization. It has been ruling the roost, without real supervision from the assistant undersecretary.

You may ask, why I am being so harsh against this ‘poor’ union. I think businessmen are meted out similar treatment, I do not know why!

The co-operative society exploits shoppers. They coordinate with business establishments to raise prices and introduce spoiled goods into the market. They brag about having reduced the prices of drinks. How does that benefit?

When I read Al-Watan report on the Municipality campaign that included four co-operative society. I found out why a bottled drink is sold for 120 fils in some co-operative societies and in some shopsfor 50 fils. It is clear that the discounted prices on Ramadan products will be recovered when spoilt food items are sold! — Al-Watan

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KUWAIT: The Public Authority for Youth and Sports inaugurated its new sports laboratory recently. It is equipped with state-of-the art medical equipment to achieve a quantum leap in athletes’ testing field. Sheikh Talal Al-Fahad AlSabah, Deputy Managing Director attended the opening ceremony.

Kuwait ready to meet increasing electricity demand KUWAIT: With the recent addition of a new 1,400 Megawatt (MW ) power plant, Kuwait appears ready to meet the increase in electricity demand that occurs every summer. Government authorities are also planning to bring additional capacity online over the next few years, with the private sector expected to play a major role in this expansion.

According to estimates from the Ministry of Electricity and Water (MEW), peak demand for power is expected to increase at a rate of 6-8% per annum over the next few years, reaching 14,256 MW by 2014. Peak demand usually occurs in summer, when heavy use of cooling systems can strain the power grid. According to some estimates, air conditioners account for around 70 percent of Kuwait’s peak power demand.

No electricity shortages are expected this summer, however. In March, the MEW’s Assistant Undersecretary of Planning and Training Mishan AlOtaibi, told the audience at the second Kuwait Electricity Conference and Exhibition, “Although we expect the increase of power consumption to be about 9 percent compared to last year, there will not be a shortage. Last year electricity consumption reached 11,000 MW and it is expected to reach 12,000 MW this summer. By the beginning of June the new power station will be operating according to our work plan.”

Indeed, in late June the first phase of the new power plant at Sabbiya, around 100 km north of Kuwait City, came online. Six gas-powered turbines have been activated, which will be able to generate 1,400 MW of electricity, equivalent to roughly 10 percent of Kuwait’s current total capacity.

The plant is expected to enter its full combined-cycle commercial operations in 2012, at which point its total capacity will be around 2,000 MW. A combined-cycle plant is more efficient because waste heat is recovered and converted into steam, which is then used to drive a steam turbine to produce additional power. Owned by the state, the facility will be operated and maintained by General Electric for a period of seven years from the commencement of full commercial operations.

Beyond Sabbiya, a number of other plants are in the works. Al-Otaibi told local press in March 2011 that some KD2 billion would be spent on power production projects that will be completed within the next three years,

including new plants at Al-Zour and Khairan. According to MEW projections, the country’s installed capacity will increase from 14,593 MW in 2011 to nearly 17,000 MW in 2014. Moreover, the government is eager to involve the private sector in this expansion. As AlOtaibi said during his opening remarks at the event in March, “The MEW is keen on joining the private sector in building and developing these new power stations, as the private sector is very important in Kuwait.”

Indeed, the public-private partnership (PPP) model appears to be the route the government will use to develop these plants. In March 2011 Adel Al Roumi, the head of the Partnerships Technical Bureau - the organization responsible for issuing and overseeing PPP projects - told the state news agency that all preparations had been completed for the establishment of the Northern Al Zour Power Generating Company, the shareholding firm that will be responsible for building and operating the country’s first independent water and power project (IWPP).

Although the IWPP model is used extensively elsewhere in the Gulf, it is new in Kuwait, where all water and power generation capacity is currently owned by the state.

The private sector strategic partner for the plant has not yet been determined, but the government tendered for the project on March 24. In an interview with Bloomberg in late March, Eyad Ali Al-Falah, the MEW’s Assistant Undersecretary for Technical Services, said that 11 companies had prequalified to bid. He added that the government would hold no more than 24 percent of the shareholding company, while the strategic investor would own no less than 26 percent. The balance of shares would be sold to the public in an initial public offering. The plant will have a capacity of 1500 MW, and is expected to become operational in 2014. Authorities eventually plan to locate four power plants in the Al-Zour area, with a combined capacity of 4800 MW. As the country’s first PPP power plant, the project will no doubt be followed closely by foreign investors. If successful it could generate substantial interest from the international investment community, and with the government planning significant capacity expansion in the future, there will almost certainly be additional opportunities for private sector involvement in the sector. — Oxford Business Group

How do HR manage dismissals and wasta employees?

The newly extended firing line

By Lisa Conrad KUWAIT: “You’re fired” is no longer the line of choice for human resources personnel when dealing with dismissing employees.

Mohammad, a seasoned expert in human resources currently working with a major corporation in Kuwait, said that multiple levels and structure have been introduced in the dismissal process, removing much of the drama and spontaneity of firing people. Lacking in dramatic value but of a much more diplomatic nature, the ‘levels’ leading to termination start with the humble word.

“The first step will be a verbal warning to inform the employee of the issue. If it persists, a written letter will follow, which tends to formalize everything more. Another written letter will follow after that, and if the employee still hasn’t remedied the issue it will usually be suspension followed by termination,” said Mohammad.

The levels lead underperforming employees down a slow but steady road to eventual termination, with the process spanning a three to six month period. If, during this time, the employees improve their behavior then they can escape from the path. Should they misbehave again, however, they’ll start back at square one, with a verbal warning. The sudden rollercoaster, which termination used to be, has seemingly been replaced by a comfortable, air-conditioned tram ride in which passengers can choose to alight at any time.

However, scriptwriters and tension enthusiasts need not mourn the loss of infamously abrupt “you’re fired” moments; there are still some misdemeanors that can see employees scooted out of their ex-office immediately. “Of course some actions do get people terminated immediately. Theft, sexual harassment, insubor-

KUWAIT: A new report from the State Audit Bureau (SAB) has strongly condemned the Kuwait Gulf Oil Company (KGOC), accusing the state body of squandering the state’s oil rights through its deployment of technically inferior equipment.

The KGOC, which was established in 2002 to represent Kuwait in the Divided Zone between Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, is accused by the audit bureau of taking no steps to prevent oil from escaping, with the report stating that a total of 502 million barrels or 11 percent of the area’s total output was lost between January 1, 1960 and January 1, 2009.

The SAB report is particularly damning of the Al-Khafji Joint Operations (KJO) company, a joint venture between KGOC

and Aramco, the Saudi state oil company, stating that the K JO’s discover y and development department still suffers from serious delays in receiving geological reports on wells, excavation and maintenance work in the North Safaniya oilfield.

The SAB blasted what it said was the lack of commitment shown by the KJO to executing discovery and production-related projects and to increasing the excavation of wells in the southern sector of the Khafji field, although there are many productive wells elsewhere in the field. Sixty percent of the total area of the Khafji field lies in the southern area, said the report, and increases in production operations elsewhere lead to increasing levels of oil migration from the field. — Al-Jarida

Registration for E-Dama tournament open KUWAIT: Those interested in participating in this year’s Late Sheikh Yousuf Saud Al-Sabah E-Dama Championship can now submit applications to the organizing committee of the Seventh Annual Tournament.

Forms can be submitted every day from 8:30 pm to 12 am at the Yacht Club of the Touristic Enterprises Company, located along the Gulf Road near the Sultan

Center Restaurant.

The tournaments is slated to begin on Wednesday under the patronage of Sheikh Ali Al-Yousuf Al-Sabah.

Enthusiasts of the traditional Kuwaiti board game can take part. Dr Nouri AlWattar, Head of the Organizing Committee had previously announced that the competition’s difficulty level will be raised.

norms surpass business objectives? “No. In this example they can’t,” said Mohammad. He added “When it comes to business you don’t discriminate over age, gender or nationality. Termination is the same regardless.”

Wasta Although age isn’t an influential factor, the infamous issue of ‘wasta’ (connections) continues to wield considerable power. Mohammad recalls: “In my experience with past employers, wasta played a key role in how people were treated. Generally speaking, wasta can let you get away with quite a bit. But it depends on the size of the company and the formality of the structures. But if your wasta is a partner, director, or, ironically, in the HR department, you’re more protected. Sometimes all consequences can be avoided, sometimes people have been transferred instead of fired due to their wasta.”

Ziad happily admits that his job was both obtained and maintained because of wasta: “I’m majorly under-qualified for my job, yes. I got it because of who my uncle is. I’ll also keep it, because of who my uncle is. I do go to work, which is more than many with wasta usually bother doing, but there are other people who could do my job much better than I do. No one got fired so I could take their place, but of course more deserving applicants lost out because I’d been given the position.”

If wasta hasn’t worked and termination is imminent, is there really an ideal way to deliver such devastating news? “Usually it’s an emotional reaction [from those being dismissed]; they tend to be more upset than anything. We always try and console them and make it easy for them.

Privacy is vital as well so terminations are always carried out in a private room away from other colleagues. If their reaction is extreme or violent, calling security would be the first step to take.”

Absenteeism marks beginning of Ramadan for public sector

Farhan Al-Farhan, Aisha Al-Rsheid, Anton Bara and Najla Al-Naqi. — Photos by Joseph Shagra

Gulf War reminisced bordering Khor Abdullah and Khor Thuwaini.

Dr Ayed Al-Manna, a KUWAIT: To mark the Iraqi writer said, “The situation invasion of Kuwait on has changed. Before the August 2, 1990, lawyer invasion, Iraq accused Najla Al-Naqi held a symKuwait and the United Arab posium at her place of resiEmirates of increasing oil dence in Salwa. Several production which led to political and cultural drop of prices. Does Kuwait activists attended the own the OPEC for it to event, reminiscing the war reduce oil prices?,” he quesand exchanging opinions tioned. “They ignored the about present issues.

Najla Al-Naqi fact that Al-Rumeila well is Journalist Aisha Allocated in proximity to AlRsheid started began by describing the threat posed by Iran on Riqqa Kuwaiti well. They accused us of Gulf region, “Our political system in one controlling the Iraqi well, and exploiting of the best in the Arab world, there are the Iraqi situation. These statements are people who follow alien systems create silly,” he added.

Kuwait has faced previous political problems. The events that took place in Bahrain serve as a warning to us. I think issues with Iraq, “Since Iraq was a kingthat our country is a safe haven for dom in the 1930s we were threatened.

Iranian intelligence, and we are in a dan- Then in 1963, Abdulkareem Qasim leader of Iraq entered into a conflict gerous position,” she pointed out.

“Iran has exerted its influence across with Kuwait, and finally recognized different Arab countries. In fact, Iran Kuwait as an independent country. An sponsored the revolution in Egypt. Also agreement was signed, which formed in Lebanon, they have spread their con- the basis for border demarcation trol to the south of the country. They between Kuwait and Iraq,” he noted.

“We should take examples from the want to build the Farsi empire, but this dream will not materialize. The invasion invasion, when the entire Kuwaiti nation should have taught us a lesson. We was unified and demanded the leadership of our Late Amir, Sheikh Jaber Alshould be united,” she added.

She also praised the TV drama(Al- Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah. The Kuwaitis Hasan and Al-Hussein) for its accurate worked jobs they never did before such description of history, “Iran protested as collecting garbage or baking bread,” against this drama, although they creat- highlighted Al-Manna. He went on to ed movies and TV series on the Prophet say, “This project is purely Kuwaiti that (PBUH) to provoke Muslims ever y- was built on its land. We have the right to realize it. If the Iraqis proved that this where,” pointed out Al-Rsheid.

Farhan Al-Farhan, a researcher in project causes them harm, the Kuwaiti Kuwaiti history spoke about the coun- government would devise a solution. try’s past. He also mentioned the bor- We won’t allow a repeat of the 1990 ders shared with Iraq - Mina Abdullah invasion,” he concluded.

By Nawara Fattahova

Audit Bureau accuses KGOC of squandering Kuwait’s oil rights

dination, absenteeism and intoxication are surefire ways to get fired on the spot,” said Mohammad, although he added, “Sexual harassment must be proven, either by video footage or witnesses, otherwise there’s really no way of knowing what really happened.”

Sabotage One recently dismissed employee, Hanan, felt, however, that her termination was wholly unjustified: “A few months after signing my contract, my boss took a sudden dislike toward me,” she said. “We’re the same age, same gender, and have very similar qualifications, so I think it was a matter of feeling threatened. She hunted for any flaw, and where she found none, she created them. Competition is ver y harsh between women in the Middle East sometimes; they all want to prove they’re as good as their male counterparts, but in doing so they often sabotage each other.”

Sabotage can cut a career short, but the probationary period which new employees go through also leaves them vulnerable to immediate termination since they don’t fit into the overall structure yet: “You can get fired for anything, for nothing, during your probationary period. It’s where competitive issues, prejudices and office politics have the chance to shine without repercussions,” warns Mohammad. If you’re training, however, there are some buffers: “Poor trainees usually get referred back to recruitment for transfer to another section. If that’s unsuccessful, the case will be referred to employee relations who will decide what to do.”

As with many aspects of business, culture and context can play a considerable role in how issues are approached and handled. Respect and reverence for those older than you is a common courtesy in the Middle East. But what if you have to fire someone older than you? Can cultural

KUWAIT: A massive 65 percent of Civil Ser vice Commission (CSC) staff took the first day of Ramadan off work, either taking sick leave or extending their holiday, despite public sector holidays ending before the beginning of the holy month.

Ramadan is an opportunity for Muslims to achieve mental peace which help them improve their performance in daily life activities. In Kuwait, however, there’s an additional and less welcome element, with a large number of public sector workers showing a distinct lack of enthusiasm for their work and many taking unauthorized sick leave during the first day of the holy month.

Fortunately, this period of laxity on the part of employees coincides with a period of generally reduced daytime activity, with many fasting preferring to leave official transactions until after the holy month if possible. Whilst the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor saw a 90 percent staff attendance rate in the first couple of days of the holy month, many employees there were left twiddling their thumbs as the usually crowded offices remained largely empty, with most of the public preferring to stay home during daytime hours unless absolutely necessary.

Similar scenes were seen at the Ministry of Electricity and Water’s consumer affairs department, with only a few members of the public coming in to conduct transactions, although the ministry employees were almost all present.

Again at the Ministry of Education offices members of the public were noticeable only by their absence, with listless front office employees spending hours communicating on their iPhones and BlackBerries to while away the time since, as one worker succinctly put it “there’s no work to do.” — Al-Qabas

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LOCAL

Kuwaiti student dies in Saudi accident KD100,000 worth of currencies stolen KUWAIT: One Kuwaiti student was killed and another injured in a car crash in Saudi Arabia as they were returning home for Ramadan from the United Arab Emirates where they were studying. According to the police report, the victims’ SUV overturned after the driver lost control of the vehicle. Paramedics pronounced the 19-year-old man dead at the scene, and rushed his 21-year-old friend to hospital. Meanwhile, a 28-year-old Bangladeshi man was pronounced dead on the Fahaheel Highway where he was hit by a car near Riqqa on Tuesday morning. The body was removed for autopsy and an investigation has been launched into the incident.

Teen stabbed A Lebanese teenager was rushed to Mubarak Hospital in a critical condition after a group of children found him lying unconscious in a pool of blood outside a building in

Nugra. The children immediately alerted his family, who rushed to the scene, and paramedics were quickly at the location, taking him to hospital. Early investigations suggest that the 18-year-old victim had got into an altercation with unidentified suspects, who attacked and stabbed him before fleeing. A hunt is underway for the attackers.

Currencies theft Police are looking for a thief who stole KD100,000 worth of various currencies from a bureau de change owner’s car. In his statement to police, the Iranian owner of the outlet said that he had left the case containing the cash — one million Saudi Riyals, 150,000 Qatari Riyals and 100,000 UAE Dirham — in his car, returning to find a side window smashed and the case missing. Crime scene officers removed fingerprints from the scene.

Police investigating the case believe that the

thief knows the shop owner or had been monitoring his movements.

Ban-breakers busted Ahmadi police arrested three Indian men at a bak ala (small grocer y store) in Mahboula on Tuesday after they were spotted breaking the public consumption ban imposed during Ramadan fasting hours. The three, who were seen drinking water and smoking cigarettes, have been referred to the relevant authorities.

Counterfeit cash A customer at a Salmiya bakala was arrested after he attempted to use a counterfeit KD10 note to pay for groceries. Police arrived quickly at the location after the store owner reported the incident, with the Indian customer being arrested at the scene.

—Al-Anba, Al-Watan

NBK donates $500,000 to Somalia famine victims KUWAIT: As part of its pan-Arab social responsibility and outreach, National Bank of Kuwait donated $500,000 to feed people in Somalia suffering from lack of food and water due to famine, among the worst hit are children.

NBK also launched an emergency donation campaign through all its branches and channels in collaboration with the Fundraising People’s Committee and Kuwait Red Crescent Society. A special NBK account number (1000354951) has been set up to channel donations.

NBK Group Deputy CEO Isam J. Al Sager met the Member of the Fundraising People’s Committee Qais N. Al Nusif to consider all means of support and assistance that NBK can provide for Somalia famine victims.

“This initiative is part of NBK’s corporate social responsibility to help people in crisis in the Arab world,” Al Sager said.

Al Sager indicated that all NBK branches, Call Centre and Watani Online (WOL) are ready to receive and channel the donations, as well as NBK account number (1000354951) that has been allocated for this purpose.

Al Nusif commended NBK’s social role and its humanitarian efforts to help Somalia’s people cope with the consequences of the drought and famine.

Al Sager expressed his sincere thanks and appreciation to the Fundraising People’s Committee and Kuwait Red Crescent Society for their active and prompt response to tackle famine in Somalia.

KUWAIT: NBK Group Deputy CEO Isam J. Al-Sager with Member of the Fundraising People’s Committee Qais N. Al-Nusif.

Gulf Bank launches Ramadan program Spoilt food: Municipality releases name-list

By Hanan Al-Saadoun KUWAIT: A list containing the names of business owners that sold foodstuffs before the completion of mandatory laborator y tests has been released.

Stringent measures were taken by Dr Fadhel Safar, Minister of Public Works and Municipality and the Director General Ahmad Al-Subaih to contain the harmful practice.

Istiqlal Al-Musallam Director of Imported Food Department at Kuwait Municipality said that preventive

inspection team confiscated a large quantity of sweets after results showed that they contained the banned E124 food coloring.

Meanwhile, Ahmad Al-Attar, the Follow up and Inspection Department Director said that the team confiscated 4.8 tons of spoiled food which did not contain expiry date labels. The team also issued three citations for operating a store without obtaining licenses from the Municipality, in addition to repackaging food items and transferring them to several stores.

KUWAIT: Gulf Bank announced its extensive program of special activities to be held throughout the holy month of Ramadan.

These activities aim at shedding light on the true Ramadan spirit and celebrating this special time of the year with the community.

This year, Gulf Bank will sponsor Iftar banquets for over 1,000 needy families across Kuwait in celebration of the holy month.

Following the annual hospital visits initiative, Gulf Bank employees will be distributing Girgiyan gifts to patients and their families in various hospitals creating a joyful

and exciting atmosphere. These hospitals include Ibn Sina, Jahra, Farwaniya, Zain, NBK hospital, Al-Razi and Al-Amiri.

A number of activities will take place during the hospital visits such as face painting, hair braiding, henna drawings, and singing traditional Kuwaiti songs with the opportunity to meet and interact with various cartoon characters. Furthermore, children with special needs at the Al-Kharafi Activity Kids Center will be treated to an exciting program of fun filled activities to be enjoyed by the entire family including competitions, draw prizes, henna drawings, and the opportunity to meet Gulf Bank’s

cartoon characters.

Aligned with the Bank’s Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives, Gulf Bank will also sponsor the publishing of a number of Holy Quran books in Braille for the blind society Gulf Bank continues to integrate itself within the Kuwaiti community. The Bank’s latest social initiative is aligned with its many ongoing social activities that place it in the heart of the Kuwaiti community.

It will feature the spirit of social solidarity and interac tion amongst the Kuwaiti society, and provide moral support to various underprivileged segments in the community.

Buresli forms team to handle commercial supervision KUWAIT: Minister of Commerce and Industry Amani Buresli instructed a team of ministry staff to handle affairs of commercial supervision and also to handle complaints filed by consumers.

A ministry statement said the team includes senior ministry officials and had already toured several commercial supervision centers over the past few days and had made several observations regarding the functioning of the centers and means to improve services provided to consumers.

The team’s visits shall continue throughout this month, with great care warranted since it is the conjunction of three important consumption seasons; Ramadan, Eid Al-Fitr, and the start of the school year. Such seasons often see illegal practices including tampering with goods, fraud regarding quality of produc ts, as well as unwarranted

increase in prices. The ministry’s inspectors work in three shifts across the country.

The latest busts by ministry inspectors was a quantity of spoilt foodstuff no longer fit for human consumption in AlAsema Governorate which was being readied for sale to the public at a number of outlets.

Head of commercial supervision in AlAsema, Eid Al-Rishidi, said the goods in question included 9 tons of olives and pickles and some 4 tons of Indian buffalo meat, the last shown by lab testing to be contaminated with Salmonella.

The official remarked that the fitting legal measures had been taken against those involved in this bust, and they are to face the commercial prosecution department. The ministry shall not slack in protecting the public from such violations, he stressed. — KUNA

KUWAIT: Kuwait Red Crescent Society launched yesterday the Ramadan Iftar project for the Somali people to help the hunger stricken nation during the holy month. KRCS President Barjas Al-Barjas said the project would hopefully try and help as much Somalis as it could during the course of the month. He stressed that the Kuwaiti initiatives were an important step to strengthen the hopes and morale of the drought-stricken Somali people.

KISR to oversee environment projects

KUWAIT: Maj Gen Anwar Al-Yaseen, assistant undersecretary for border security affairs with the Ministry of Interior, awarded officers Jarrah Al-Mutairi and Terki Al-Ajmi from the Salmi Border Force for their efforts, hard work and dedication.

Al-Yaseen, who felicitated them on behalf of Lt Gen Ghazi Al-Omar, the undersecretary, conveyed greetings to them from Sheikh Ahmad Al-Hmoud Al-Sabah, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior.

KUWAIT: The Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR) and the Central Committee for Overseeing the Environment Rehabilitation signed yesterday a contract upon which KISR will supervise all environmental projects of the Central Committee.

In a press statement, Acting Head of the General Secretariat of the Central Committee, Khaled Al-Khamis said that the five -year contract enhances the strategic par tnership between the

Committee and the Institute in executing projects aiming to protect the environment in Kuwait.

The planned projects include groundwater treatment, rehabilitation of oil-polluted coastal areas and cultivation of areas deserted following the war and areas affected by oil leaks etc. Khamis pointed out that the Institute will provide technical support for the KD9.6-million rehabilitation program, praising the role of the Institute in support of environmen-

tal causes and its proven experience in the rehabilitation of war-affected areas.

For his part, Chairman of the Institute, Dr Naji Al-Mutairi expressed pride of the Central Committee confident in the Institute, describing the protection of Kuwaiti environment and health of all who live in Kuwait as a national duty. The Institute is dedicating its expertise and capabilities, developed over many years, to help environmental projects prove success and achieve its objectives. — KUNA

THURSDAY, AUGUST 4, 2011

Timing of US drone strike questioned

US wants to keep secrets in FBI lawsuit Page 10

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TEHRAN: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaks at a parliament session yesterday. (Inset) Revolutionary Guards Commander Rostam Qasemi, nominated by Ahmadinejad as oil minister, addresses the parliament yesterday. — AFP

Guards commander new Iran oil minister TEHRAN: Iran’s conservative dominated parliament yesterday endorsed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s pick, a Revolutionary Guards commander targeted by international sanctions, to head the key oil ministry. Brigadier General Rostam Qasemi ran the sanctions-hit industrial wing of the elite Guards, Khatam AlAnbiya, which is highly active in the country’s oil sector. He secured 216 “yes” votes from 246 deputies present in the 290-seat Islamic republic’s legislative body.

Qasemi is on a list of Iranians subject to sanctions by the United States, the European Union and Australia because of their involvement in Iran’s controversial nuclear program.

Qasemi said the ministry will seek to “prioritise enhancing the status of Iran’s oil industry in the world and within OPEC, while seeking to acquire the world’s number two ranking in gas and becoming the region’s number one in refining.” Parliament speaker Ali Larijani, speaking before the vote, said: “From the moment he

was nominated for the oil ministry, a wave of opposition formed against the Guards and Mr Qasemi over the fact that his name is on the sanctions lists. “Majlis (parliament) will not pay any heed to such talk... we must symbolically vote for Qasemi.”

Ahmadinejad told parliament Qasemi was a “child of the revolution” with industrial as well as military experience. “He comes to the oil ministry with the mastery and full knowledge of this industry and wants to transform this complex in line with national interests,” Ahmadinejad said. While many lawmakers voiced support for Qasemi, one parliamentarian said his appointment was worrying. “The Revolutionary Guards, as a military power, should not get involved with political and economic power,” Ali Motahari, a prominent conservative who is an outspoken critic of Ahmadinejad, told the house. “Unlike in neighbouring countries where the military is withdrawing from the political arena, a reverse

trend has started in our country which does not seem to be an auspicious sign.”

Qasemi’s most important task will be to stem declining output from Iran’s mature oil fields and develop gas resources suffering from sanctions restricting foreign investment.

“Regardless of the efforts of some countries, we will try to maintain Iran’s status as OPEC’s second oil producer,” he told parliament. Iran is the second largest producer in oil cartel the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries and currently holds the rotating OPEC presidency. Oil revenues constitute around 80 percent of Tehran’s foreign exchange resources, and Iran owns the largest gas reserves in the world, still largely untapped. The oil ministry had been run by a caretaker, Mohammad Aliabadi, since May after Ahmadinejad unsuccessfully tried to take personal charge of the strategic sector, sparking a political showdown with parliament. The sanctions, which are mainly financial in nature, have not so far prevented

Israel had offered Mubarak asylum JERUSALEM: Several months ago, Israel offered embattled Hosni Mubarak asylum but the then-president of Egypt turned the offer down “because he was a patriot,” an Israeli lawmaker said yesterday.

Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, a longtime friend of the ousted Egyptian leader, told Army Radio he proposed that Mubarak seek asylum in Israel’s Red Sea port city of Eilat, which is located on Israel’s border with Egypt’s Sinai desert. The offer came up during a meeting between Mubarak and Ben-Eliezer in Sharm el-Sheikh, an Egyptian resort also on the Red Sea. “I met him in Sharm el-Sheikh and told him that the distance was very short, and perhaps this would be a good time for him to heal himself,” Ben-Eliezer said. “I am sure the Israeli government would have accepted him, but he refused because he is a patriot.” BenEliezer said the offer came from him and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. A Netanyahu spokesman was not able to immediately confirm that the offer had been cleared with the government. While Israel’s relations with Egypt have been chilly since the two nations made peace in 1979, Israel valued Mubarak as a source of stability with shared interests in containing Iran and its radical Islamic proxies in the region. Mubarak’s ouster in February after a nearly 30-year autocratic reign sent shudders throughout the Israeli political and defense establishment, which fears the loss of an important regional bulwark against radical Islam.

Ben-Eliezer spoke shortly before the ailing, 83-year-old Mubarak was wheeled into a Cairo courtroom lying on a hospital gurney Wednesday at the start of his historic trial on charges of corruption and ordering the killing of protesters during the uprising that ousted him. The spectacle of the ashen-faced Mubarak lying inside a cage of mesh and iron bars was the first look the Egyptian people has had of their former leader since he delivered a defiant speech on Feb. 10 refusing to resign. The ensuing uproar forced him to step down the following day and flee the Egyptian capital. — AP

Iranian officials from travelling abroad, including to Europe. Khatam Al-Anbiya and its principal subsidiaries are on a list of Iranian institutions subject to United Nations sanctions, which were strengthened in 2010 by a strict embargo adopted by Western powers. The giant conglomerate, formed after the 1980-88 war with Iraq to enable the Guards to help rebuild Iran, was originally involved in constructing roads and infrastructure.

But in recent years Khatam Al-Anbiya has specialised in mechanical engineering, mining, telecommunications and defence, as well as in oil and gas. In 2010, it joined the development of the giant offshore South Pars gas field in the Gulf, following the withdrawal of Western oil majors - including Shell and Total - because of international sanctions. In addition, three important members of the Iranian government are also under international sanctions over their roles in the nuclear program. Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi is blacklisted by the EU,

Defence Minister Ahmad Vahidi is targeted by US and EU sanctions, and vice president and nuclear chief Fereydoon Abbasi-Davani appears on the UN, US and EU sanctions list. The elite Revolutionary Guards are also in charge of Iran’s ballistic missile program, a mounting source of concern in the West.

Western powers suspect Tehran seeks an atomic weapons capability under the guise of its civilian space and nuclear programs. Iran vehemently denies the charges. Lawmakers also endorsed Ahmadinejad’s choice for the industry, mines and commerce ministry, Mehdi Ghazanfari, a former commerce minister, while ex-labour minister Abdolreza Sheikholeslami secured the welfare and social affairs portfolio.

Former cooperatives minister Mohammad Abbasi was confirmed for the newly formed Sports and Youth Ministry. Yesterday’s vote, which cuts down Ahmadinejad’s cabinet to 18 ministries from 21, is in line with Iran’s development plan for 2010-2015. — Agencies

Pak ups security as Karachi toll hits 58

CAIRO: An Egyptian man holds up a noose as riot police stand by outside the court set up in the Cairo Police Academy yesterday for the trial of Egypt’s ousted president and his two sons. — AFP

KARACHI: Hundreds of extra paramilitary troops have been deployed in Pakistan’s economic capital Karachi which is struggling to end violence that has killed 58 people in five days, officials said yesterday.

Authorities are battling to halt gunfights raging across the key port city used by NATO to ship supplies to Afghanistan - where political, ethnic and criminal rivalries left more than 200 people dead last month. The provincial government is offering 10 million rupees ($115,000) to citizens who provide information leading to arrests of those responsible for the violence, at its worst since 1995.

Local government official Sharfuddin Memon told AFP the extra paramilitary soldiers and policemen entered the city’s troubled western neighbourhoods on Tuesday night. “Some suspects have been detained,” after conducting house to house searches, he added. The death toll on Wednesday reached 58, after 35 people were killed in the space of 24 hours. Wajid Durrani, police chief of the southern Sindh province, of which Karachi is the capital, said police had made 24 arrests and some officials said calm had been restored.

Much of the fighting has been blamed on supporters of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) political party representing the Urdu-speaking majority, and the rival Awami National Party (ANP), which represents ethnic Pashtun migrants. MQM

KARACHI: Pakistani workers of Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) arrange the portrait of self-exiled London-based chief Altaf Hussain during his telephone address yesterday. — AFP chief Altaf Hussain, who lives in exile in London, addressed his followers by telephone and invited the military to come to Karachi and see who is involved in “the ongoing terrorism”. “I also request the international community to use its influence on the Pakistani government to restore law and order in Karachi,” he added, warning that the situation could worsen if not “tackled seriously”. —AFP

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As Ramadan begins, Yemen protesters cling to hope SANAA: As the rain pours down on their battered tents, tens of thousands of Yemenis gather for a feast to celebrate Ramadan, defying increasingly miserable conditions as they pray that the holy Muslim month will revive a flagging protest movement. They have staged a sitin for six months in “Change Square,” near the University of Sanaa where protests to end the 33-year rule of President Ali Abdullah Saleh began. But the veteran leader is still in power, albeit in Saudi Arabia, where he was removed for treatment after being badly hurt in a June bomb attack in the Yemeni capital.

Protesters are clinging to hope that they can revive low spirits in their camps with communal meals to break their daily Ramadan fast, as well as more rallies and marches during a period when large crowds head to the mosque to pray, offer-

ing natural gathering opportunities. They have their work cut out.

Outside the festive atmosphere of the square residents trudging through flooded streets wonder if the struggle against Saleh’s rule has been wor th the price in a country where more than 40 percent of the population lives on less than $2 a day.

Food costs in the Arab world’s poorest country are skyrocketing, fuel is scarce, and electricity lights the capital Sanaa for barely an hour a day as Yemen’s already weak economy and infrastructure crumble.

“Our situation before was fine. They wanted a revolution, and now petrol is 175 rials (72 cents) a litre when before it was 70. Our electricity used to go out only one or two hours a day, now we barely have electricity for an hour and a half,” grumbled Sanaa taxi driver Mohammed. “You can’t help but

wonder if things weren’t better before.”

But to protesters, the very fact that they have remained in the streets despite bloody attacks on their demonstrations and fierce clashes between the government and armed opposition groups is reason enough to celebrate. They vow to increase the intensity of their protests, mirroring similar plans by protesters in Syria. “Ramadan will only make us stronger,” said protester Ali Al-Khoulani, as he huddled inside his tent, waiting to break the daily fast. “We have all become one family and I expect the triumph of our revolution this month because this is the month of victor y for Muslims.”

Foreign powers fear protests will push fractious Yemen, also plagued by regional insurgencies and an active local Al-Qaeda wing, into a failed state on the doorstep of Saudi

Arabia, home to the world’s biggest oil reserves. Washington and Riyadh continue to back a Gulf-brokered power transition, which Saleh has backed out of three times and has instead vowed to return to Yemen and lead a dialogue. In a Ramadan greeting to his countrymen, he reiterated the call to dialogue - the opposition has ignored his offer, sticking to the streets.

Before praying and breaking the fast, protester Zakaria Abdulfattah and his friends volunteer to stack cement blocks to raise the tents above rising waters. “ The rains won’t be able to bother us, just like the regime has not been able to force us out of this square,” he said, as thousands lined up to pray, k neeling and rising in unison.

Protesters say they’ve prepared for R amadan meals by gathering donations from businessmen and charities, as well as scraping

Iraq to open talks with US on training mission Three police killed in liquor store blasts BAGHDAD: Iraq will open talks with Washington over a military training mission to last beyond a 2011 pullout deadline, Baghdad’s Foreign Minister said yesterday, after months of US appeals for a decision. The move is a key first step to reaching an agreement on the future of the American troop presence here, but any final deal still needs to resolve contentious details such as the size of the force, the duration of their stay and whether they would enjoy immunity from prosecution.

Separately, successive bombings targeting an alcohol shop on Baghdad’s western outskirts killed three policemen at the beginning of Ramadan, a security official said yesterday. An Iraqi policeman was also killed by an improvised explosive device (IED) yesterday, while an army officer and two members of an anti-Qaeda militia were killed in attacks the day before. The blasts at the alcohol shop occurred late on Tuesday in the suburb of Rasala and also left 14 other people wounded, including three policemen, the interior ministry official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. At around 10:00 pm (1900 GMT), a roadside bomb initially detonated near the store, wounding nine people. When police arrived at the scene, another explosion took place. “ The political blocs have agreed to let the government start negotiations with the American side only on the issues of training,” Hoshyar Zebari told AFP, following an hours-long closed door meeting of Iraqi politicians, including Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, in Baghdad. “This is a declaration of intent to let the government start the negotiations,” added Zebari, who took part in the meeting, before noting that there were as yet “no details about the numbers or about new agreements.” It was not immediately clear when the discussions would begin.

President Jalal Talabani, who hosted the talks, said in a statement that there was a general consensus on opening the negotiations, except for representatives of radical anti-US cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s parliamentary move-

ment. Sadrist officials did not immediately comment on the talks, which began on Tuesday evening. Sadr’s Mahdi Army fighters engaged in bloody battles with the US army in the years following the 2003 invasion, though the militia has since been deactivated.

“We appreciated the comments... this evening, as well as the support expressed by most political leaders at the meeting

and the US military in Iraq did not immediately reply to requests for comment from AFP. Approximately 47,000 US troops remain stationed in Iraq, all of whom must leave by the end of the year under the terms of a bilateral security pact signed in 2008, which remains in force if a deal for a training mission ultimately not agreed.

Yesterday’s decision follows a visit to Iraq by Mullen, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff,

BAGHDAD: An Iraqi woman buys two carps at a stall which she will cook for iftar yesterday. The carp will be grilled in the traditional “masguf” style, mounted on stakes close to an open fire and cooking slowly from the emanating heat. —AFP held by President Talabani,” a US embassy official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “We are reviewing the decision by the government of Iraq to discuss an ongoing partnership for military training.”

The Pentagon in Washington declined to respond to the news,

during which he insisted US forces needed a decision “now”. “Time is quickly running out for us to be able to consider any other course,” Mullen told reporters at a news conference at the US military’s Victory Base Camp on the outskirts of the Iraqi capital on Tuesday.

Mullen, who met Maliki and

Talabani during his two-day trip, also insisted that any deal would require parliamentary approval stating that US soldiers stationed in Iraq would enjoy immunity from prosecution. When asked if the issue of immunity was raised at the meeting, Nasser Al-Ani, head of Talabani’s presidential office, responded: “We only focused on discussing the issue of training.” US and Iraqi military officials assess Iraq’s security forces to be capable of maintaining internal security, but note the country is lacking in terms of defending its borders, airspace and territorial waters.

Iraq’s top military officer Lieutenant General Babaker Zebari has repeatedly said that his forces will require training for another decade before they are fully capable of securing the country. Baghdad has restarted talks with the United States on the purchase of 36 American F-16 fighter jets, double the figure that had originally been mooted. Iraq and the US had been close to a final agreement on the F-16s deal earlier this year, but nationwide protests forced the Baghdad government to divert funds earmarked for the warplanes to programs to help the poor.

Yesterday’s news comes days after the US Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, Stuart Bowen, warned in a report that the country was less safe than one year ago and that security was deteriorating. Figures released on Monday showed the number of Iraqis killed as a result of violence in July declined from the previous month, but still marked the second-highest such toll for 2011. —AFP

Israel ‘uprising’ activists enraged by housing bill JERUSALEM: Activists from Israel’s social protest movement reacted furiously yesterday after parliament passed a housing bill that they say will favour the rich and endanger the environment. Police said that hundreds of demonstrators blocked intersections in cities across the country, ranging from the southern deser t city of Beersheva to Kiryat Shmona in the far north. Others stopped traffic in downtown Tel Aviv. A police spokeswoman said that six people were arrested, three in Tel Aviv and three in Beersheva. Public radio said that protesters blocked a total of 10 major junctions nationwide.

Protest leaders are calling for mass rallies to be held on Saturday, a week after an estimated 100,000 Israelis took to the streets across the country in some of the largest demonstrations ever seen in the Jewish state. They railed against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has defended the bill as a measure that will help bring down housing costs, accusing him of ignoring their protests.

“Even though the people of Israel are out on the streets, despite the huge demonstrations (last) Saturday night, Netanyahu and his government are not heeding the voice of the people,” stu-

dent organiser Yotam Brum told public radio. “They carry on and pass a law which is not acceptable to us, a law which will benefit big capital and not the citizens of Israel,” he said. “We shall continue to escalate our struggle until Netanyahu and his government

comed the bill’s passage. “ The state of Israel today opened the taps for all those thirsting for accommodation at a reasonable price,” he said. “The act will fasttrack thousands of apartments and bring down prices.”

But opponents of the law,

JERUSALEM: Israeli student demonstrators block the main entry to the Knesset (parliament) yesterday during a protest against a government housing bill.—AFP understand that they serve the people and not the tycoons.”

Parliament’s website said that the government-sponsored bill to streamline planning and building formalities passed by 57-45 votes.

In a statement, Netanyahu wel-

including much of the protest movement that has shaken the country in recent weeks, fear it will mainly encourage big developers to build luxury projects rather than affordable housing. Green campaigners also say that stream-

lining planning procedures could result in construction without proper environmental safeguards.

Delegates from the various groups involved in the cost-of-living campaign continued working on Wednesday to draw up a common list of demands from the government on issues including affordable housing, taxation, child care and reforms to health and education. “We agreed on taxes, and discussions will continue on Wednesday over our demands on health and education,” student union leader Itzik Shmuli told army radio.

The Jerusalem Post newspaper published a poll yesterday saying that if a “social party” representing the protest movement were to enter politics it could win 20 of parliament ’s 120 seats and become the second-largest party, with Netanyahu’s Likud projected to take 22. The survey was conducted by Smith Research Institute with a sample of 500 people and a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points. The protest movement has snowballed since it leapt last month from a call on Facebook onto the streets of Tel Aviv and across the country, tapping into deep frustration over the cost of living and income disparity. —AFP

together their own savings.

At local restaurants, volunteers stir massive metal pots of vegetable soup and prepare large platters of rice, lamb and chicken while protesters break their fast with dates. The cost of those dates has shot up some 50 percent this Ramadan, as has sugar to make traditional sweets. Even simple necessities such as bread have risen 30 percent. Some residents in Sanaa say despite their frustration, they blame the government for economic conditions, which had been deteriorating even before protests.

They accuse officials of raising prices to increase resentment of the protesters. “They’re trying to turn the people’s anger over living conditions against those calling for the regime to leave, instead of allowing resentment to build because the government couldn’t meet our needs,” said Waddah

Shaibany, a businessman in Sanaa.

For many protesters, it was exasperation with the faltering economy that drove them to the streets - a third of Yemen’s 23 million people were already suffering chronic hunger. Yemenis faced soaring unemployment of around 40 percent due to rampant corruption. But Sanaa resident Mohammed AlAwadi said this Ramadan will be incomparably bleaker than past years. During Ramadan, families normally gather daily to break their fast over large meals in front of televisions playing new soap operas made especially for the occasion.

Instead, Awadi and his family will share a sparse meal in the dark. “I have eight people to feed and it is so expensive we’ve been forced to give up a lot of things for Ramadan like sweets or meat,” he said. “We’ll barely manage to buy the basic necessities.” —Reuters

W Bank murder smashed lie of ‘honour killings’ SURIF: Aya’s remains were found bound, ing to do with honour,” insisted her mother, decomposed at the bottom of a well more Fatima. “These are a bunch of criminals.” The than a year after she vanished without a motive behind the crime is still unclear. Some trace, leaving her family beside themselves reports suggested Aya was killed because with worry. The university student’s disap- she refused a proposal from her uncle’s son, pearance in April 2010 left her relatives while security sources said the uncle held increasingly ostracised in their southern ultra-conservative views and was dead set West Bank village, an area known for its against her quest for education.

As details of Aya’s murder became public, deeply conservative traditions and morals.

Neighbors assumed the worst - that their it sparked a wave of outrage that spread daughter had run away with a lover. But the across the southern West Bank, with people mystery was solved in May when police taking to the streets to demand changes to found her bones several miles from the fami- the law. Thousands turned out to mourn at ly home in Surif, northwest of the city of her funeral, and the ceremony was covered Hebron - and triggered an unprecedented live on Palestinian television, a first for such a crime. It was during the broadcast that a top public outcry.

Within days the story emerged: her uncle Palestinian official rang through to pledge and two of his friends apparently slayed the 21-year-old student of English in what he claimed was an “honour killing” - murder in the name of protecting a family’s reputation.

The uncle, Ekab Al-Baradiya, and his alleged accomplices were arrested and are awaiting trial. “This is an atrocious crime,” said Hebron police chief Ramadan Awad. “They tied her to the back of the car and dragged her to the well before beating her, tying her up and throwing her into the well, still alive,” he said.

Such murders are not uncommon within conservative Palestinian society where close contact between men and women is frowned upon, and where the law affords leniency to a father, brother or uncle who kills a close female relative in order to “protect” the family’s honour. But an unanticipated wave of outrage followed this particular murder, and forced president Mahmud Abbas to amend a decades-old law under which those citing “honour” as a defence could expect to receive a jail sentence of no more than six months.

SURIF: The parents of Palestinian Aya AlAya Al-Baradiya had been tied up Baradiya, 21, sit under her portrait at their and thrown down the well while she house in this village near the West Bank was still alive, police said, in a grue- city of Hebron on May 21, 2011. —AFP some death sentence for a lively and ambitious young woman who loved to that Abbas would change the law, in a move paint. The last time she was seen alive was that won the backing of three-quarters of when she left to sit an exam at Hebron the Palestinian population, a poll taken in University where she was studying English June showed.

“Because we spoke out and knocked on literature. The news broke the family, their grief and outrage spilling out into the local doors, people are showing solidarity in Aya’s community and moving them to action - in case, which has now become a case for all complete contrast with the wall of silence girls,” said family member Yasser Al-Baradiya. and shame that normally surrounds such “If we hadn’t, this crime would have been ignored like all the others.” It was a step crimes.

The family have absolutely no doubt that women’s campaigners have been fighting to she was wrongly accused. Walking haltingly achieve for years. Statistics compiled by camtowards the well where her sister’s remains paigners show 29 women in the West Bank were discovered, 25-year-old Hanin could not were killed in such circumstances between hold back her grief. “Aya’s honour was as pure 2007 and 2010. And in the same period, nine as this cloth,” she screamed, tears coursing more women saw no option but to take their down her face. “She was pure - this had noth- own lives for fear of family reprisals. —AFP

REBELS REPEL ZLITAN ATTACK MISRATA: Libyan rebels said yesterday they had fought off an attack on positions around Zlitan, contradicting government claims of victory in a town insurgents hope will pave the way for an advance on the capital. Tuesday’s assault by forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi led to fierce street battles that killed at least eight rebels, exposing the fragility of gains by rebels who are fighting on several fronts but are frequently out-gunned and out-manoeuvred. Five months into their uprising, despite winning increasing international support and enjoying the backing of NATO bombing raids on pro-Gaddafi forces, the easternbased rebels have failed to make a breakthrough in ending Gaddafi’s 41-year rule.

As diplomacy appears to have ground to a halt, rebel pushes around Zlitan and the oil town of Brega, both to the east of Tripoli, and the Western Mountains, near the border with Tunisia, have been overshadowed by reports of divisions and the slaying of their top military chief in shadowy circumstances. General Abdel Fattah Younes’s death, apparently while in the custody of fellow rebels bringing him back from the front line for unspecified questioning, raises the question of stabili-

ty in the oil-rich country, even if Gaddafi, who has vowed to fight to the death, is defeated.

In recent days, rebels have inched towards Zlitan, a town 160 km east of Tripoli and near rebel-held Misrata, Libya’s third-largest city, pushing the frontline to the eastern outskirts. Some 34 rebels have been killed in the advance. Video footage of Tuesday’s fighting, seen by Reuters, showed rebels firing rocket-propelled grenades and heavy anti-aircraft guns at Gaddafi loyalists in eastern Zlitan.

“We allowed them to get closer to our positions before we fired heavily at them to repel their advances. Our forces have not moved back and we have kept our ground,” one local commander told Reuters, asking not to be named. Another commander said he had lost two men in the fighting but also said the pro-Gaddafi forces had been driven back. Moussa Ibrahim, a spokesman for the Libyan government, said the rebels had been “defeated at the gates of Zlitan” and were pushed back to Dafniya, to the east.

Hospital sources said no injured fighters had arrived yesterday, so the front appeared to be quiet. —Reuters

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THURSDAY, AUGUST 4, 2011

Years

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

Uganda’s first white politician plans progress KAMPALA: It was Uganda’s ubiquitous potholes that first made Ian Clarke want to stand to become the country’s first ever elected white politician. Now, after winning a landslide victory to become the mayor of one of the capital city’s five sprawling districts, they are the first thing that the Irish doctor is planning to fix. “The potholes are a metaphor for Uganda and for the state of Kampala,” Clarke told AFP, pointing at a group of labourers that had started work filling in one of the city’s rutted roads. “If we can demonstrate that we can overcome the potholes and keep our streets clean then we can show that things can change,” he added.

He may not speak Kampala’s predominant language - Luganda - but that does not mean that Clarke, 58, is not at home in the capital of the East African nation.

Originally from County Armagh in Northern Ireland, Clarke first arrived in Uganda over two decades ago in the wake of the country’s brutal civil war. Since then the wiry Irish physician has founded Uganda’s leading private hospital and started writing a weekly column for a national newspaper.

He is also in the process of gaining Ugandan citizenship and has been given a

local name, Busuulwa. Just over two months after starting his new job Clarke admits that while winning the election might have been difficult, negotiating the bureaucratic minefield of Kampala’s political system is proving equally tough. “The election wasn’t easy, in that it was long and there were a lot of campaigns and rallies and there was the language problem,” Clarke said.

“This now is frustrating - but every little bit is at least something that wasn’t done before,” he added. As Clarke makes his way through the Kampala’s Namuwongo slum area to inspect a new latrine that is being built, some of the roughly 400,000 residents that he represents are clearly pleased with the progress that is already being made.

“Everything is good and things are changing - the doctor is changing everything,” said Andrew Muyonji, a local community worker. “ The sanitation, the roads...they have star ted to improve,” Muyonji added. But while those he represents might welcome the change after years of neglect, Clarke says that his nononsense approach has already begun to rock the boat among the capital’s political

One year on, rescued miners tackle real life COPIAPO, Chile: Most have travelled for the first time and some have tasted fame, but only a few of the 33 Chilean miners miraculously rescued one year ago after a disastrous cavein have turned their lives around.

Invitations and offers of publicity poured in after the miners emerged from the San Jose copper and gold mine in northern Chile after 69 days trapped underground, in scenes watched by millions around the world on live television. Seven of the 33 are still signed off on sick leave one year later, badly suffering from sleeping disorders, Alejandro Pino, a doctor from the Chilean Association of Security, told AFP. The rest “are living normal lives, while some are being treated for minor problems at home”, Pino said.

But most of the miners say they are struggling to recover from the experience, with a large number still without stable work. “Some have problems with their memories and they’re suffering,” said miner Luis Urzua, the head of shift on Aug 5, 2010 - the day the mine collapsed - and the last freed in a dramatic rescue operation. “We don’t all have the same capacity to bounce back.” Once outside, the world’s media shone the spotlight on the group of men who survived more than two months some 700 m underground in unbearable heat and darkness, barely eating for the first 17 days. Since then, separately or together, they have traveled to more than 14 countries, rubbed shoulders with celebrities and accepted various invitations to recount their incredible tale of survival. “This story united a world that wasn’t used to these kinds of good things happening,” Urzua said, one year on. After the initial frenzy of activity, the last months have been relatively calmThe first anniversary of the collapse - to be commemorated in a religious ceremony on Friday - finds them trying to rebuild their lives.

Most still live near the San Jose mine, in the city of Copiapo, some 800 km north of the capital Santiago.

Many have sporadic jobs far removed from tough mining work, making the

most of donations received since the rescue. Four teen asked for early retirement because they feel unable to return to work. The government is still studying the request. Authorities also face a multi-million-dollar negligence case filed by the mine workers, who are each seeking $500,000 in compensation.

Urzua and coworkers Samuel Avalos, Jorge Galleguillos, Omar Reygadas and Claudio Yanez have all given motivational speeches and talks about security in the workplace. But Mario Sepulveda - the most theatrical of the 33, who brought stones from the bottom of the mine as presents and his wife have set up a company to give motivational speeches which this week sent him to the United States.

He also oversaw a campaign to build homes for people affected by a massive earthquake in Chile six months before the mine collapse. “It’s been great for me because I’m hard-working and I know that you have to know how to make the most of circumstances in life,” he told AFP several months ago.

On a different path, Osman Araya and Dario Segovia both now sell fruit and vegetables in a Copiapo market.

Pablo Rojas, Claudio Acuna, Florencio Avalos and Victor Segovia braved a return to mining work, while Pedro Cortez is studying. Franklin Lobos, a former footballer, now leads lower divisions of the Copiapo Sports football club while the only foreigner of the group, Bolivian Carlos Mamani, rejected a job at home and returned to Chile, where he is seeking stable work.

Yonni Barrios, famed for nursing his trapped companions, has tested positive for a harmful lung disease that is typical among miners. The mine’s owners, who have made public apologies, now face a trial and possible compensation and rescue costs of about $20 million. The victims have still not revealed exactly what happened inside the mine, but have created a company to protect and exploit the rights in films, books and other products. — AFP

Noriega set for Panama return PARIS: Panama’s former strongman Manuel Noriega looked set yesterday to finally return home - and go straight to jail there - after more than two decades in foreign prisons, as France ordered his extradition. The pockmarked 77-year-old general known as “Pineapple Face”, deposed by US troops who invaded Panama in 1989 to put an end to his drug-running activities, could be back in his native land as early as next month.

French Prime Minister Francois Fillon signed the extradition order a month ago and Noriega was notified of it last Friday, officials said. Noriega has one month to appeal the decision, but his lawyer said he does not plan to do so.

A legal hearing has been set for Sept 8 to finalise the execution of the extradition order, lawyer Yves Leberquier told AFP. If Noriega does arrive back in Panama, he is expected to go straight to jail to serve out the lengthy sentences he received in absentia there. He has three convictions for human rights violations, including the death of a military commander, dating to his military rule from 1983 to 1989. Each conviction carries a 20-year prison sentence.

The one-time strongman was a key asset for the US Central Intelligence Agency but fell out with Washington when he turned his strategically important country into a drugs hub. He was sentenced by a Paris court in July last year to seven years in jail for laundering the equivalent of Ä2.3 million (then $2.8

million) from the Medellin drug cartel through French banks. The drug money transited through the now-defunct Bank of Credit and Commerce International in the late 1980s and was used by Noriega’s wife and a shell company to buy three luxury apartments in Paris.

A French court had previously sentenced Noriega to 10 years in jail when he was tried in absentia in 1999 on the same charges, but he was given a re-trial as part of the terms for his extradition from the United States last year. Noriega had served 20 years in a US jail in Miami after convictions for drug trafficking and money laundering - before being extradited to France. — AFP

A file picture taken on May 20, 1988 shows Gen Manuel Antonio Noriega speaking during a military ceremony. — AFP

KAMPALA: Picture taken on July 29, 2011 shows Ian Clarke, mayor of Makindye, one of the five districts of Kampala, visiting the site of a road improvement project near Namuwongo market. — AFP establishment. During the election cam- Now that he is in power there are suggespaign some of his opponents said that see- tions that his skin colour has seen him get ing a white man running for power was a special treatment from the central governbitter reminder of Uganda’s colonial past. ment. For now, his counterparts around the

city put any disagreements down to Clarke’s inexperience, and say that he still has a lot to learn about how politics functions in Uganda. “The rest of us we are seasoned politicians, and we know how things are supposed to operate here,” said Benjamin Kalumba, the mayor of one of Kampala’s other districts. Clarke has high ambitions. While he is starting with fixing potholes, clearing the streets of garbage and unblocking the drains, he says he hopes in future to make Ugandan politics more accountable. “I’ve been in office for a short while and there has already been a measurable difference in terms of the physical changes,” he said. “So over five years, we definitely have to see that there is a cultural change as well,” he added.

But a more immediate problem will be managing expectations of the people who voted him in. As Clarke wanders past the ramshackle shacks and piles of garbage, a passerby stops to express gratitude for the work being done. “Thank you so much for the good work in filling in the potholes,” the man said to the smiling Clarke. “Now all we need is for you to set up the streetlights and keep them working,” the man shouted over his shoulder. — AFP

US govt wants to keep secrets in FBI lawsuit US Muslims optimistic, but face discrimination LOS ANGELES: US Attorney General Eric Holder has invoked state secrets rules to prevent information from being released in a lawsuit filed by Southern California Muslims who claim the FBI monitored their activities solely because of their religion. In a legal declaration filed late Monday, Holder makes a rare assertion of the state secrets privilege, arguing that it could cause significant harm to national security if the government is forced to reveal the subjects of a mosque-surveillance operation in 2006 and describe how the monitoring was carried out.

A judge must weigh the request, which comes after many details from the investigation, dubbed Operation Flex, have already been made public. The key informant in the case, Craig Monteilh, turned against the FBI and described how his agency handlers taught him to ingratiate himself into the Orange County Muslim community then secretly gather cell phone numbers, email addresses and record conversations.

Monteilh claims the FBI even told him to talk openly about jihad in an attempt to solicit terrorist sentiments from community members. But instead of responding to his violent rhetoric, mosque-goers called the FBI to say they were worried about his statements.

Holder’s declaration came in a motion to dismiss the bulk of a lawsuit filed against the FBI in Februar y by the ACLU of Southern California and the Los Angeles office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Many of the allegations were based on Monteilh’s claims. The FBI has said it does not initiate counterterrorism operations based solely on a group’s religion.

In its filing, the agency said a range of details Monteilh provided for Operation Flex remain properly protected counterterrorism investigative information. “This includes ... precisely what that investigation entailed and why it was undertaken, the identity of particular subjects, and the reasons they were investigated,” the document states. Holder goes on to argue that if individuals knew they were under surveillance, they could “anticipate the actions of law enforcement and intelligence officers, possibly leading to counter-surveillance that could place federal agents at higher risk.” The Department of Justice said in a statement Tuesday it conducted a thorough

FLORIDA: Muslims pray together on the evening of the first day of Ramadan at the Islamic Center of Greater Miami on Aug 1, 2011. — AFP review “to provide greater accountability for the use of privilege” by invoking it only in seeking dismissal of Monteilh’s claims of illegal electronic surveillance. “Officials specifically looked for a way to allow this case to proceed while carving out national security information, and concluded that some information about the allegations could be made available without compromising sensitive national security information,” the statement said.

ACLU attorney Peter Bibring said it was extremely unusual for the government to invoke the state secrets privilege, especially in a domestic case being investigated by a domestic law enforcement agency. The secrecy rules are usually only requested in extraordinary matters overseas, such as the targeted killing by drones or extraordinary rendition.

“The government’s position here is the FBI’s conduct should be beyond the review of the courts, which would render the protections of the constitution meaningless,” Bibring said.

“Following the government’s argument, any domestic law enforcement operation deemed to effect national security would be beyond review.” Bibring said the ACLU would oppose the government’s motion.

Meanwhile, a poll found Tuesday that US Muslims are more optimistic about the future than other faith groups, but while they over-

Norway gunman’s demands puzzling OSLO: To be named head of the army or force the king to abdicate: the man behind Norway’s July 22 attacks has made a number of outlandish demands, and according to a report yesterday considers himself the commander of an anti-communist resistance. “Breivik. Commander. Involved in the anti-communist resistance against Islamisation. Mission accomplished and I will surrender to the Delta force:” were the words the 32-year-old rightwing extremist used in a call to the police emergency number 112 on July 22, the Verdens Gang (VG) daily reported.

Breivik had just gone on a nearly 80minute shooting rampage on Utoeya, where the ruling Labour Party’s youth movement was hosting a summer camp, killing 69 people and injuring dozens of others, many of them teenagers. Another eight people were killed earlier in the day, when he set off a car bomb outside government offices in Oslo. The call, which came shortly before Breivik was arrested by special Delta forces, lasted only three seconds, according to VG, which added that police attempts to get the killer back on the line had failed. Police confirmed to AFP that a call was made from Breivik’s phone shortly before his

arrest, but would not confirm that the killer himself made the call or the words used. The report fits well with a string of strange and outlandish demands made by the gunman since he was taken into custody. Before his only court appearance to date, behind closed doors on July 25, Breivik had asked to appear in uniform and to speak English. Both requests were denied. “He did not say why” he wanted to speak English, prosecutor Christian Hatlo told a news conference Tuesday.

Breivik has also requested that a Japanese, rather than European, psychiatrist examine his mental state, according to his lawyer. “This wish has to do with the concept of honour. He believes that a Japanese person will understand him better than someone from Europe,” defence lawyer Geir Lippestad told financial daily Dagens Naeringsliv Tuesday. And over the weekend, Norwegian media revealed that Breivik, who has said he is on a “crusade” against Islam and multiculturalism, first told investigators he would only talk once the country’s centre-left government and its military top brass had resigned and King Harald V abdicated. He had also insisted to be placed in charge of Norway’s armed forces. — AFP

whelmingly reject terrorism, nearly half report discrimination. The survey was carried out ahead of the 10th anniversary of the Sept 11 attacks and looked at how well integrated the 2.6 million Muslims living in the United States are in the wake of the “war on terror ” launched by former president George W Bush after the deadly plane hijackings.

It found that Muslims tend to be more optimistic about both the economy and politics following the election of President Barack Obama, who enjoys 80 percent approval among Muslims, higher than from any other major faith group. Sixty percent of Muslims said they were “thriving” in the United States, compared to 61 percent of Jews, 54 percent of Catholics and 52 percent of Protestants, according to the poll. Only 37 percent of Muslims said they were “struggling”, less than both Christian groups but a single percentage point higher than Jews, while just three percent of Muslims said they were “suffering”.

Fifty-four percent of Muslims said the US economy was “getting better”, a far higher percentage than any other religious group. “Muslim Americans are satisfied with their current lives and more optimistic than other faith groups that things are getting better,” said the report, which did not distinguish between different Muslim groups. — Agencies

Tajikistan bans minors from entering mosques DUSHANBE: Tajikistan’s authoritarian leader has approved a law barring minors from praying in mosques, state television reported yesterday, as his secular government seeks to minimize the rising influence of Islam in the Central Asian nation. President Emomali Rakhmon signed the bill Tuesday despite vocal resistance from rights activists and the opposition Islamic Revival Party.

The law requires people under the age of 18 to study in secular schools, thus barring thousands of students from attending religious schools seen by authorities as a breeding ground of Islamism.

The new law does not contain specific sanctions for parents that fail to ensure that their children abide by the rules, but authorities insist that legislation like this will help prevent the spread of religious fundamentalism.

Rakhmon’s government has already taken steps to curb what it calls the Islamization of Tajikistan - it has closed down numerous private mosques, forcibly repatriated Tajik nationals studying at Muslim universities abroad and has compelled preachers to adhere to government-issued guidelines. A lawmaker with the opposition Communist Party hailed the new law saying that the prevalence of Islamic schooling is putting unacceptable pressure on the younger generation. “Even little schoolchildren here are running off to the mosque after they finish their studies, and the government must react against this without fail,” Shodi Shabdolov said. An opposition leader said, however, that the parental responsibility law contradicts the constitution. “This law limits people’s rights,” said Rakhmatullo Zoirov of the Social Democratic Party. “Visiting religious institutions is part of person’s social life and cannot be regulated by legal norms.” The impoverished and predominantly Sunni Muslim nation shares a long and porous border with Afghanistan. It was ravaged in the 1990s by a civil war between government forces and a loose alliance of Islamists and democrats. — AP

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Timing of US drone strike questioned CIA hits a source of tension

ISLAMABAD: The American ambassador to Islamabad phoned Washington with an urgent plea: Stop an imminent CIA drone strike against militants on the Pakistani side of the Afghan border. He feared the timing of the attack would further damage ties with Islamabad, coming only a day after the government grudgingly freed a CIA contractor held for weeks for killing two Pakistanis. Ambassador Cameron Munter’s rare request - disclosed to AP by several US officials - was forwarded to the head of the CIA, who dismissed it. Some US officials said Leon Panetta’s decision was driven by a belief that the militants being targeted were too important to pass up, but others suspected that anger at Pakistan for imprisoning Raymond Davis for so long played a role.

The deadly March 17 attack, which the Pakistanis claim killed 38 civilians, helped send the USPakistan relationship into a tailspin from which it has not recovered. The timing of the strike - and others that followed - outraged Pakistani officials, complicating US efforts to win Pakistani cooperation on the Afghan war and retain support for the drone program. Newly revealed details of the drone strikes were provided by U.S. and Pakistani officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the program.

Among them were attacks that followed an April visit by Pakistan’s spy chief to Washington as well as trips here by Sen John Kerry and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton after the American raid that killed Osama bin Laden in a Pakistani military town in May. The latest strike occurred Tuesday while the US special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, Marc Grossman, was visiting Islamabad. Seven years into a secret program that has killed scores of Al-Qaeda and Taleban fighters, there are increasing questions over whether it is worth the diplomatic backlash in Pakistan.

President Barack Obama has dramatically ramped up the program, unleashing more than 200 strikes

since he took office compared to fewer than 50 during the Bush administration.

The Pakistani government is widely believed to have supported the program in the past and even allowed the drones to take off from bases inside Pakistan, but that support has waned as relations between the two countries have soured. The attacks have also strained the relationship between the US State Department and the CIA, where officials argue that killing militants who threaten US interests should take priority over political considerations, said US officials.

That tension was clearly visible between Ambassador Munter and the CIA station chief in Islamabad, who recently left his post because of illness, said a senior Western official in the region. “When the doors are closed they are shouting at each other, but once the doors are open they are congenial in front of the embassy staff,” said the official. The hard-charging station chief also clashed with the head of Pakistan’s main intelligence agency, the ISI, over drone strikes, said a Pakistani official. The CIA does not comment on the drone program.

A US official familiar with the issue played down the tension. “It is very, very rare for the chief of mission to express concern about any particular operation,” the official said, referring to the ambassador.

“When concerns are raised, they’re always given close consideration.”

Munter must sign off on every planned drone attack in Pakistan, although he rarely voices an objection, said a former aide to the ambassador. If Munter disagrees with a planned strike, the CIA director can appeal to him, said two US officials, providing the most detailed description of the process to date.

Clinton can also weigh in, and has done so at least once, one US official said. On March 17, Munter used the embassy’s secure line in an attempt to stop an imminent drone strike.

His concern was that the strike - a day after the release of the CIA contractor Davis - would set back Washington’s already shaky relations

PESHAWAR: In this April 23, 2011 photo, Pakistani women take part in a rally against the US drone strikes in Pakistani tribal areas. — AP with Islamabad, said the former aide and a senior US official. The Davis case had left bad feelings on both sides. On Jan 27 in Lahore, Davis shot to death two Pakistanis who he said were trying to rob him, enraging many people in a country where anti-American sentiment is high. The US insisted Davis had immunity from prosecution, but he was not released until March 16 under a deal that compensated the victims’ families. Pakistan’s security agencies came under intense domestic criticism for freeing him.

Munter’s request went to the State Department and was forwarded to then-CIA director Panetta, now secretary of defense, who insisted on going ahead, said the officials. It is unclear whether Clinton was involved in the decision. The former aide said the strike reflected the CIA’s anger at the ISI, which it blamed for keeping Davis in prison for seven weeks. “It was in retaliation

This combo shows file photos of Pakistan’s then-People’s Party (PPP) leader and candidate Benazir Bhutto (left) casting her ballot during the general elections on Nov 16, 1988, in Nao Dero, Sindh Province; Thailand’s next leader Yingluck Shinawatra (center) gesturing during a press conference at the Puea Thai Party headquarters in Bangkok on July 8, 2011; and Philippine President Corazon Aquino (right) saluting as 1986 graduates of the elite Philippine Military Academy pass in review at a commencement exercise in Baguio, north of Manila, in March, 1986. — AFP

Asia’s top women keep it in the family for now BANGKOK: Thailand’s first female prime minister will this week join a long list of Asian women leaders whose power stems from family ties, with analysts saying the trend is a mixed blessing for equality. Political novice Yingluck Shinawatra went from virtual unknown to election victor in a matter of weeks after her brother, fugitive former leader Thaksin, endorsed her Puea Thai party’s candidacy, assuring voters she was his “clone”.

Her stellar rise, set to be formally completed this week, mirrors stories from across Asia, with a collection of women whose family names - and often the death of a male predecessor - propelled them to power. The assassination of a husband saw Sri Lanka’s Sirimavo Bandaranaike become the world’s first female premier in 1960 and, more than two decades later, thrust Filipino housewife Corazon “Cory” Aquino into the limelight. In India, Indira Gandhi inherited leadership from her father, Jawaharlal Nehru - a route also taken

by Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto and Indonesia’s Megawati Sukarnoputri.

Aung San Suu Kyi would have followed in the footsteps of her independence hero father, but Myanmar’s junta disregarded her party’s 1990 election win. Analysts believe the phenomenon has much more to do with the prevalence of political dynasties in the region than improvements in gender equality.

Paul Chambers, senior research fellow at Payap University in the Thai city of Chiang Mai, said traditionally Asian women were “not supposed to be political leaders” in the region’s “macho”, patriarchal culture. But “under-developed” political parties that enable wealthy families to dominate have created opportunities for women - as a last resort. “Heredity is important because party leaders prefer to trust their relatives to keep party leadership within the family.

Where male party leaders do not have male relatives available, they will turn to daughters,” he said.

Bridget Welsh, Associate Professor in Political Science at Singapore Management University, stressed that men - such as Bhutto’s husband, current Pakistan leader Asif Ali Zardari - had also come to power this way. “The fact is that these systems are dominated by elites and men and women both gain power from the elite,” she said.

Political dynasties are seen in other parts of the world but Asia is striking for the lack of female leaders who have come to power in any other way. In Thailand, analysts said Yingluck was boosted by voters attracted to the novelty of her gender, relative youth and good looks.

Welsh said she would ultimately be judged on her performance, adding that once given the opportunity to govern, Asia’s female leaders had left a “mixed” legacy. Yingluck was a

respected businesswoman before coming to power in a country that boasts the greatest percentage of women in senior management in the world, according to research by consultancy Grant Thornton earlier this year. But her election win under the party slogan of “Thaksin thinks, Puea Thai does” - was seen more as a victory for her brother than a leap forward for feminism in Thailand. Female political representation lags in the country with women winning just 13 percent of seats in Thailand’s lower house in the last election in 2007, according to figures from the InterParliamentary Union. The IPU puts the world average at 19.5 percent, while in Asia it is 18.3 percent and in the Pacific 12.4 percent.

Appearances can be an asset for women politicians, such as when India’s press was thrown into breathless excitement during a recent visit

by Pakistan’s glamorous new 34year-old foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar. Mass circulation Hindi newspaper Navbharat Times said India was “sweating over model-like minister”, as Khar - whose uncle was once chief minister of Punjab province - had an instant impact on one of the world’s most tense bilateral relationships.

Regional neighbours New Zealand and Australia have seen women rise to lead their countries on their own merits. — AFP

for Davis,” the aide said. “The CIA was angry.” AUS. official said all decisions on strikes are driven only by intelligence. That official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss matters of intelligence.

The CIA also believed it was vital to kill the militants targeted in the strike in the Datta Khel area of North Waziristan, said the senior US official.

But other US officials agreed with Munter that it wasn’t worth the political blowback, the official said.

At about 11 am, two pairs of missiles were fired three minutes apart, hitting several dozen tribesmen meeting in the open in Shiga village near the Afghan border. Pakistani officials and local tribesmen said four Taleban fighters and 38 innocent people were killed.

The CIA claimed they were all militants, but villagers and Pakistani officials said the group was holding a community meeting, or jirga, to resolve a local mining dispute. A

tribal elder, Malik Dawood, had purchased rights to cut down and sell a large tract of oak trees, said 40-yearold farmer Gul Ahmed. But he subsequently realized the land contained chromite and argued with the landowner about whether he could mine it, he said.

Four Pakistani Taleban militants were attending the jirga to guarantee any decision made because of their control over the area, said the villagers and Pakistani officials. US officials said the CIA tracked the militants driving to the meeting and decided rather than targeting just the car, they would wait to get the entire assembled party. The strike killed the militants, along with six tribal policemen and 32 other tribesmen, according to Ahmed, who provided the names of the dead and attended their mass funeral. A senior official in the area confirmed the death toll.

In a rare public statement,

Pakistan’s powerful army chief, Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, said the jirga “was carelessly and callously targeted with complete disregard to human life”. US intelligence officials brusquely dismissed the Pakistani claims. “There’s every indication that this was a group of terrorists, not a charity car wash in the Pakistani hinterlands,” said one official at the time. ISI chief Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha took the strike as a personal insult because he had stepped in to get Davis released, Pakistani officials said. The strike hampered counterterrorism cooperation between the CIA and the ISI, and the Pakistani government started sending US military trainers home - a process that accelerated after the raid that killed bin Laden.

Pasha made a personal trip to Washington in April in an attempt to repair relations. The ISI chief said he would work to let in more CIA operatives if the US would consider including Pakistan in the process of drone strike targeting, said US officials at the time. But before Pasha had returned home, two US missile strikes killed six suspected Taleban fighters in the South Waziristan tribal area. Pakistani officials said the attacks were seen as another slap to Pasha and made it impossible for him to raise the CIA’s requests with the army or the government.

This pattern continued after the US raid that killed bin Laden in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad on May 2. The operation outraged the Pakistani government because it was not told about it beforehand.

Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, visited in mid-May trying to salvage the relationship. He made some progress but just as he left on May 16, the CIA launched a missile strike in North Waziristan, killing seven suspected militants. In response, Pakistani army chief Kayani and President Asif Ali Zardari sent Kerry angry messages that he received when he touched down in Dubai, said Kerry’s spokeswoman Jennifer Berlin, confirming details that first appeared in The New York Times Magazine. — AP

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Hong Kong professionals form anti-slavery club HONG KONG: Hong Kong entrepreneur Ken Law runs a successful information technology business, but the bespectacled 35-year-old now has a second job - anti-slavery activist. Law is one of dozens of Hong Kong professionals lawyers, bankers and IT experts - who have formed the Mekong Club, a group dedicated to waging a war against human trafficking across Asia. Billed as the first business-driven group to tackle slavery, the club, which was launched in July, wants to tap top brains in the business world - with their expertise, skills and contacts to help save trafficking victims.

“I remember a trip to China four years ago where I saw many ‘professional’ beggars - they were just six, seven-years-old,” Law told AFP, from his office in a science and technology park on the city’s outskirts. “I thought to myself they must have been sold into this. Since then I have been thinking how we can help them,” said the chief executive of ‘MotherApp’, which rolls out the latest mobile applications for firms across the globe. Around 26 million people live in slavery globally, with more than nine million of them in Asia, according to United Nations estimates, in a lucrative global trade with profits worth over $30 billion.

Many of the victims are brought from impoverished countries and sold by human traffickers to factories, sweat shops or fishing vessels, while women are forced into the sex trade and children are used as child labour. “The outcome of trafficking is a situation where a person doesn’t get pay, loses control of their lives and that is slavery,” said Matthew Friedman, head of the Bangkok-based UN Inter-Agency Project on

Human Trafficking (UNIAP), which mooted the idea of the club. “The philosophy behind the Mekong Club is we want to change the game.

We want to use this brain power in the private sector to tackle human slavery.

“The Mekong Club is the interface between the private sector and the counter-trafficking world, so we want to bring them together,” he told AFP during a visit to Hong Kong. Unlike the official agencies battling slavery, these suit-clad professionals plan to wage their war from Hong Kong’s glitzy skyscrapers.

Among the club members, lawyers will use their expertise to tackle slavery court cases, telecom experts will set up cross-border hotlines for victims and bankers will trace traffickers’ illicit proceeds. “I believe there are many ways to help these victims of human slavery. I hope we can play our part,” said Law, whose firm has agreed to develop a new mobile application to help victims. The application, which is being tested, will come in different languages and contains a set of simple questions which aim to break down communication barriers when trafficking victims are rescued by enforcement officers.

UNIAP has long been working with groups like the UN Office on Drugs and Crime and the International Labour Organization on human trafficking in six Mekong countries - China, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia While these groups have been drawing attention to the problem for decades, tapping the business community is a new take on an old problem.

“We are going to ask business to do what they do best every day rather than to change

HONG KONG: This photo taken on July 28, 2011 shows Hong Kong entrepreneur Ken Law posing for pictures at his office at a “science park”. — AFP

what they do,” said Jude Mannion, co-founder of the club and head of a consultancy firm on corporate social responsibility. “If they are in the IT industry, they are asked what kind of IT system would connect all the countries that have human slavery that could be more powerful in reporting or tracking these cases. If it’s a telco company, we could ask them to come out with one call line across Asia (to report human trafficking cases),” said Mannion.

UNIAP’s Friedman said the response has been encouraging, with some members offering “extremely interesting” ideas about how to tackle the trade.

“Hong Kong has this incredibly glitzy, money, wealthy image but businesses are now given the opportunity on how do we use these skills to change the game for human slaver y,” said Mannion. “I think Hong Kong businesses are ready to stand for something.” — AFP

South Korea offers flood aid to North Cross-border tensions easing SEOUL: South Korea offered aid worth 5 billion won ($4.7 million) to flood-hit North Korea yesterday, its first such proposal since Pyongyang’s deadly island attack last November sent relations into deep freeze. The North, which even in normal times struggles to feed its people, has reported dozens of casualties, thousands homeless and large areas of farmland flooded following a storm and torrential rain this summer. The South’s offer came amid signs of an easing of high cross-border tensions. Nuclear negotiators from the two sides held rare talks last month on the sidelines of a regional security meeting in Bali.

Seoul’s unification ministry said the offer of medicine and daily necessities was made through the South’s Red Cross. If the North accepted it, talks would be held on shipping arrangements across the tense border. Ministry officials said the new aid package would not include rice and cement. Official media in the communist state has said a tropical storm and heavy rain in June and July left dozens either dead, injured or missing, destroyed 2,900 homes and flooded more than 60,000 hectares of farmland. Floods are common in North Korea, mainly because of its lack of disaster-control infrastructure and severe deforestation of hillsides. Ties

have been icy since the South accused its neighbour of sinking a warship in March 2010 with the loss of 46 lives. Despite that incident, for which the North denied responsibility, the South in September 2010 promised a 10 billion won flood aid package. But it suspended shipments after the North killed four South Koreans in a bombardment of a border island last November. A global relief agency said separately it has allocated more than $590,000 to help the flood victims.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said on its website it has released more than 450,000 Swiss Francs to help over 15,000 people through the North’s Red Cross. The unification ministry, which must by law authorise all contacts with the North, has also given the go-ahead for a private group to deliver flour aid. The Korean Council for Reconciliation and Cooperation has sent six members across the border to check that shipments are being delivered to needy children and not diverted to the military.

The council so far has delivered 600 tonnes of flour and plans to send a total 2,500 tonnes of flour by the end of August. The South in 2008 stopped an annual government shipment of 400,000 tonnes of rice to its impoverished neighbour as relations began to sour. Authorities

allowed some civilian groups to keep sending aid, but suspended approval of flour shipments after the island attack. The reconciliation council’s initial shipment on July 26 was the first flour aid since the suspension. Seoul officials believe flour can easily be diverted to the North’s powerful military unless deliveries are monitored.

The North has relied on international aid to help feed its people since a famine in the 1990s killed hundreds of thousands. This year it asked the United States and other nations for food assistance. United Nations agencies estimate that six million people there are in urgent need of food. UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, quoted

by Yonhap news agency from New York, appealed Tuesday for more food help. “The UN views North Korea’s food conditions as being at a serious level and hopes for the international community’s active contributions,” he said.

Ban also, however, said that the United States and North Korea remain far apart after exploratory talks on Pyongyang’s nuclear disarmament, but conceded that both sides are trying to narrow the gap. North Korea’s first vice foreign minister Kim Kye-Gwan held talks in New York with US officials last Thursday and Friday as part of diplomatic efforts to restart long-stalled sixnation nuclear negotiations. — AFP

Refugees in Malaysia see grim future

HYDERABAD: An Indian worker dries seviiyan - thin vermicelli - which is used for the preparation of ‘sheerkhorma’, a traditional sweet dish prepared by the Muslim community during the holy month of Ramadan at a food factory yesterday. — AFP

Malaysia Ramadan TV ads axed over ‘racism’ KUALA LUMPUR: A Malaysian television station axed a series of commercials to mark the Muslim month of Ramadan after angry viewers complained the ads insulted non-Muslim ethnic minorities. The three commercials began airing recently to remind viewers of Ramadan, which began Aug 1. Ethnic Malay Muslims, who make up nearly two-thirds of Malaysia’s 28 million people, refrain from eating and drinking from dawn until sundown during the month.

A 30-second clip depicted an ethnic Chinese girl eating while Muslims watching her, another showed her wearing a sleeveless blouse and in the last one, she was shouting at a stall owner. The scenes were followed by messages urging viewers to show respect for Ramadan by not eating in public, wearing revealing clothing or being loud. Viewers including Muslims slammed private station 8TV for the ads, which they said stereotyped minority Chinese and imposed Islamic practices on non-Muslims. Religion is a sensitive subject in this multiethnic country, where ethnic Chinese and Indians who mainly practice Buddhism, Christianity and Hinduism are

the largest minorities. Some called for a boycott of the station. “8TV, are you trying to tell us, we Chinese don’t respect Ramadan month or my Malay friends?” Yee Shan Shan wrote on 8TV’s facebook page.

Azrul Mohamad Khalib said fasting was about discipline, empathy and solidarity and “not about imposing your will on others.” The TV station withdrew the clips and issued an apology late Tuesday. “The message was not meant to offend anyone, race or creed in any way. This is an honest mistake involving a very small amount of humor that was misinterpreted which led to concerns,” it said on its Facebook page.

Last September, another private station TV3 was also forced to scrap a Muslim commercial amid complaints it appeared influenced by Christmas and Santa Claus.

The government has struggled in recent years to boost racial relations after a series of grievances over racial and religious rights.

Minorities say efforts to bolster Islam have undermined their freedom to practice their faiths amid disputes such as whether non-Muslims can use the word “Allah” to refer to God. — AP

KUALA LUMPUR: When Myanmar refugee Joseph Peng Ceu fled political persecution in his home country in 2001, he envisaged a bright future in Malaysia. Instead, he became part of Malaysia’s nearly 100,000-strong refugee population with no rights to jobs and education. As a stateless person who is not recognised by the Malaysian authorities, Peng cannot get a proper job and lives hand-to-mouth with his wife and two-year-old son in a tiny flat shared with 10 other people. The prospect of arrest and deportation is a constant worry for the 36-year-old ethnic Chin refugee and he has little hope for the future. “When my child grows up, he has to live in terror just like me,” Peng, who works illegally as an electrician, told Reuters as he taught his son to write. “If I could, I would go home.”

The plight of refugees such as Peng has thrown the spotlight on Malaysia’s treatment of asylum seekers, as the Southeast Asian country prepares to receive the first batch of refugees under a swap deal with Australia aimed at helping both sides to tackle a rising influx of refugees. Under the agreement, Malaysia will receive 800 unprocessed asylum seekers from Australia which in return will accept 4,000 refugees whose claims have been approved for resettlement. The deal, as well as Malaysia’s treatment of asylum seekers, has drawn sharp criticism from rights groups who say that the country’s refusal to ratify the United Nations refugee convention robs refugees of their basic rights. The UN refugees convention is a global treaty that spells out the rights and obligations between host countries and refugees.

The UN says that 148 states or three-quarters of the world’s countries are signatories to the convention. Critics say Malaysia’s refusal to ratify the UN convention has led to mistreatment including caning and denial of basic rights for the 93,600 refugees in the country, who come from Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan. “They do not have any access to legal processes, so they endure horrific conditions with intense human rights violations,” said Irene Fernandez from Malaysian rights group Tenaganita.

Many refugees seek jobs illegally and often fall prey to unscrupulous employers. Others resort to begging on the streets. Under the deal with Australia, the 800 refugees sent to Malaysia will be granted access to jobs, education and healthcare. But rights groups say this is not enough when the much larger population of refugees already in the country do not have these basic rights. “This exchange of refugees does not facilitate a process whereby Malaysia moves towards greater protection of refugees and this is not acceptable, it’s like trading in human beings,” said Fernandez.

Malaysia’s government has defended the deal, saying it has limited means to help the growing number of refugees.

“Malaysia is not signatory to the UN refugee convention because it cannot afford to give access to education, work, shelter and food to the refugees,” Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said when signing the arrangement with Australia. —Reuters

TOKYO: Farmers hold banners to protest against the nuclear accident in Fukushima prefecture in front of the headquarters of the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) yesterday. — AFP

Japan moves closer to nuclear payout TOKYO: Japan’s government moved a step closer yesterday to multi-billion-dollar compensation payouts for the victims of the country’s enduring nuclear crisis, but angry farmers demanded faster action.

Parliament passed a law to create a statebacked entity that would help embattled operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) pay the compensation bill for the disaster, estimated to reach tens of billions of dollars. Japan’s government has agreed to help TEPCO compensate evacuees and other victims, conceding in the law that the state is partly responsible because it has promoted nuclear energy for decades.

TEPCO also said in a short statement that it will move forward with “fair and prompt compensation” under the law and “with help from the government”. But almost five months since Japan’s worst quake on record and a massive tsunami hit the Fukushima plant, the crisis is continuing and authorities have no way yet of assessing how many people will eventually deserve compensation. TEPCO detected lethal hotspots at the crippled plant this week, with radiation so high that it would kill a person within weeks if they were exposed to it for one hour.

Meanwhile a food safety crisis is widening, with beef shipments banned from four regions over the past fortnight after meat was found to be contaminated with caesium that rained onto the hay that the animals were fed. The ban follows restrictions on some vegetables, dairy products, river fish, tea and other produce. Radiation has also been found in wheat, and the government is now testing rice fields in several prefectures. While families across Japan have worried about the safety of their food, the crisis has crippled agriculture in the disaster-hit northeast, as demand for its farm and fisheries produce has all but collapsed.

About 300 farmers came to Tokyo yesterday, some bringing dairy cows in trailers, to stage a noisy protest outside the headquarters of TEPCO, near the capital’s central government district. “Return our lives, return a green Fukushima,” they yelled, waving signs that read: “No excuse, show your sincerity and compensate us.” Rice and vegetable farmer Toshihide Kameda, 63, from Fukushima prefecture, said orders this year were less than 20 percent of normal levels and gloom was spreading, with alcoholism on the rise among dispirited farmers. “A growing number of people are killing themselves in Fukushima,” he told AFP. “We are suffering from mental agony.

We don’t know when we can return home, and we can’t work even though we want to.” Farmer Mitsuyo Tarukawa, 61, whose husband committed suicide in the wake of the nuclear accident, said: “Please clean up the contaminated soil. The soil is everything for farmers like us. Without it we can’t do anything.” As part of the compensation plans, the government will pitch in an initial 2 trillion yen ($26 billion) in the form of special government bonds, Kyodo News has reported, while TEPCO and other atomic power companies will also pay. The law did not, however, spell out how much money each entity would contribute. Although it called for “cooperation from shareholders and other interested parties”, it did not say what this would mean in detail.

It said TEPCO, whose share price has plummeted 80 percent since the quake, would have to eventually pay back all funds, and that it would be restructured under government supervision. TEPCO has set itself the target of bringing all reactors to stable cold shutdown by January, and is now working to clean and recycle contaminated water from reactor cooling operations. — AFP

Confessions raise war crimes issue in Australia SYDNEY: Confessions by a former refugee that he is a killer responsible for scores of deaths in Myanmar have raised questions about whether other possible war criminals are living in Australia undetected. Myanmar-born Htoo Htoo Han, now an Australian citizen, has lived in the country for more than decade and is a father to three school-aged children. But he claims to have a dark past, saying he infiltrated the student movement in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, in the late 1980s and provided information to an army death squad.

Han says he killed 24 young men him-

self with bullets to the back of their heads, and was implicated in the deaths of more than 100 others. “I like to say sorry for what I done,” the 44-year-old told AFP, saying he went public with his story because he could no longer live with the guilt. “I not torture. But the policy was, we had to destroy the evidence. I am guilty, I kill a lot of people, I’m a bad guy.”

Within days of Han’s story gaining media attention, another former refugee from Myanmar came forward to say he too had been involved with the military in his homeland and was responsible for the deaths of up to 50 people. —AFP

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‘Deranged’ cop slays 4 KUWAIT: A police officer went on the rampage during the first day of Ramadan, shooting dead four people in three different locations, in one of the most horrific crimes in Jahra’s peacetime history. Police received an emergency call at 7:00 pm on Monday night from the driver of a water tanker who reported finding two Asian men dead at a jakhour (livestock farm) in Kabad where he had gone to deliver water.

The two victims were pronounced dead at the scene from fatal gunshot wounds to the head and chest, with the killer shooting them at least 12 times. While police were still investigating the horrific scene at the farm, they received a call that a man had killed an Asian man at a home in Saad AlAbdullah and attempted to kill a female domestic worker there. Officers rushed to the scene, discovering shortly afterwards that the house was owned by a Ministry of Interior

Sergeant Major whose father owned the jakhour.

They also learnt that the young officer had been on a two-year leave period to receive treatment at the Psychiatric Hospital after being diagnosed with a mental illness. The officer was tracked down by GPS and arrested near the hospital, with the murder weapon being found near his car.

During questioning, the killer told detectives little, except to say that he was suffering from a psychological illness, which had worsened after his wife left him, taking their seven children with her and returning to her family’s home.

Meanwhile, the emergency services hotline received a call the next day to report the discovery of the body of an Asian man beside a major thoroughfare. On removing the body, emergency services personnel discovered that the man had been killed by four gunshots to the head. Police ques-

tioned the officer in custody about the gruesome find and he admitted that he had selected the victim randomly before cold bloodedly killing him.

During the questioning, which was led by Brigadier General Mahmoud AlTabbakh, the Acting Director of the Criminal Investigation Department, the killer admitted that he shot the first two victims at the jakhour, attempting to justify his murderous actions by claiming that he had found them eating before it was time for the Iftar, fastbreaking meal.

After this, he said, he headed to his home and killed his third victim. He attempted to kill the maid at his home as well, he continued, but she locked herself in her room and he was unable to break the door down. It remains unclear whether the killer shot his fourth victim whilst on his way back to his house or whilst heading to the hospital. He is currently remanded in custody pending trial.

CAIRO: Anti-Mubarak protesters take part in a mock funeral outside the Police Military Academy complex in Cairo yesterday during the trial session of Egypt’s ousted President Hosni Mubarak. — AP

Biggest-ever cyber attacks uncovered Continued from Page 1 “What is happening to all this data ... is still largely an open question. However, if even a fraction of it is used to build better competing products or beat a competitor at a key negotiation (due to having stolen the other team’s playbook), the loss represents a massive economic threat.” McAfee learned of the extent of the hacking campaign in March this year, when its researchers discovered logs of the attacks while reviewing the contents of a “command and control” server that they had discovered in 2009 as part of an investigation into security breaches at defense companies.

It dubbed the attacks “Operation Shady RAT” and said the earliest breaches date back to mid-2006, though there might have been other intrusions as yet undetected. (RAT stands for “remote access tool,” a type of software that hackers and security experts use to access computer networks from afar). Some of the attacks lasted just a month, but the longest- on the Olympic Committee of an unidentified Asian nationwent on and off for 28 months, according to McAfee.

“Companies and government agencies are getting raped and pillaged every day. They are losing economic advantage and national secrets to unscrupulous competitors,” Alperovitch said. “This is the biggest transfer of wealth in terms of intellectual property in history,” he said. “The scale at which this is occurring is really, really frightening.”

He said that McAfee had notified all the 72 victims of the attacks, which are under investigation by law enforcement agencies around the world. He declined to give more details, such as the names of the companies hacked. Jim Lewis, a cyber expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, was briefed on the discovery by McAfee. He said it was very likely that China was behind the campaign because some of the targets had information that would be of particular interest to Beijing.

The systems of the IOC and several national Olympic Committees were breached in the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Games, for example. And China views Taiwan as a renegade province, and political issues between them remain contentious even as economic ties have strengthened in recent years. “Everything points to China. It could be the Russians, but there is more that points to China than Russia,” Lewis said.

He added that the US and Britain have capabilities to

pull off this kind of campaign, but said, “We wouldn’t spy on ourselves and the Brits wouldn’t spy on us.”

McAfee, which was acquired by Intel Corp this year, would not comment on whether China was responsible.

Security researchers who work for large corporations are often reluctant to link governments to cyber attacks out of fear it could hurt their business in those countries.

The UN said it was aware of the report, and that it has started an investigation to ascertain if there was an intrusion. “The idea is to look into the entire Geneva network,” said Farhan Haq, Deputy Spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General, adding that it was difficult to quantify the potential damage without knowing exactly what had been attacked.

He declined to be drawn on who might be behind the attacks. When asked what would happen if it turned out to be China, he said: “We’ll have to cross that bridge once we find out what happened to our network.” McAfee released the report to coincide with the start of the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas yesterday, an annual gathering of security professionals and hackers who use their skills to promote security and fight cyber crime.

In the scorching desert heat, they will meet to talk about a series of recent headline-grabbing hacks, such as on Lockheed Martin Corp, the International Monetary Fund, Citigroup Inc, Sony Corp and EMC Corp’s RSA Security. Experts will disclose security vulnerabilities in commonly used software, computers, services and electronics to help companies and governments combat criminal hackers. The activist groups Anonymous and Lulz Security have recently grabbed the spotlight for temporarily shutting down some highprofile websites and defacing others.

But attacks like Operation Shady RAT are far more costly and often undisclosed, as victims fear reputational damage or attention from other hackers. McAfee sees Operation Shady RAT as the tip of the iceberg. “I am convinced that every company in every conceivable industry with significant size and valuable intellectual property and trade secrets has been compromised (or will be shortly), with the great majority of the victims rarely discovering the intrusion or its impact,” Alperovitch wrote in the report. “In fact, I divide the entire set of Fortune Global 2000 firms into two categories: those that know they’ve been compromised and those that don’t yet know.” — Reuters

Significance of fasting Continued from Page 1 This means that Allah does not want us to abstain from eating and drinking only, rather, He wants us to refrain from evil deeds and vileness too. The Prophet (PBUH) instructed that a fasting person, if offended or abused, should say: “I am fasting.” By this, as though the fasting person says: “It is because I am fasting I do not return your abuses.” The offender at that point may feel embarrassed, and desist.

The purpose of fasting The purpose of fasting is not physical training to endure hunger, thirst and exhaustion; rather, it is disciplining the ego to relinquish the loved for the sake of the Beloved. The loved are the desires of eating, drinking, sexual activities etc., while the Beloved is Allah, the Exalted. Hence, it is imperative to keep in mind when we observe fasting that we do so only for the sake of Allah. It becomes imperative on us to try our best to observe the rites that reflect our obedience to Allah, such as the remembrance of Allah, reading the Quran, supererogatory prayers, charitable deeds and donations, good manners, etc. Fasting has great significances and aims, which, if carefully considered, instill in us much surprise. Among these significances, we mention the following: First significance Fasting is linked with true faith in Allah, the Most Exalted; that is why it has been reported that fasting is a secret act of worship since a person may break his fast, if he wishes, by eating, drinking or simply by not making the intention to fast (in which case his fast will not be accepted even if he remains fasting the whole day).

Fasting, then, is a hearty, secret worship that concerns only the servant and his Creator. When the servant knowingly gives up the things and acts that nullify the fast, despite his ability to reach them in secret, he gives indeed strong evidence of his certain belief that Allah, the Almighty, watches over him in both his manifest and secret deeds. There is no doubt that in this kind of conduct is a significant training to strengthen faith in Allah.

Second significance Fasting is also training for the servant to aspire to the Hereafter since, by fasting, he gives up some of the worldly matters, looking forward to Almighty Allah’s

reward. By observing the fast, he weighs the profit in terms of the condition in the Hereafter. However, those who measure things in materialistic terms are only concerned with the worldly aspect of fasting. As a result, they think of it as merely deprivation of the pleasures of life, which please the self and satisfy the body. They are not in the least concerned with the other aspect of its significance in the hereafter that constitutes the real reward and the genuine perpetuity. This attitude of their hearts weakens their aspiration for the hereafter and its eternal enjoyment.

Third significance Fasting is a practical embodiment of submission and servitude to Allah, the Exalted, that the servant manifests by eating and drinking at night only in response to the call of his Lord, Allah Who Says in the Noble Quran (what means): “And eat and drink until the white thread of dawn becomes distinct to you from the black thread [of night].” [Quran; 2:187]. That is why the fasting Muslim should eat at Iftar (breakfast) time, at sunset, and just before dawn (Suhoor, or the per-dawn meal) because continuous fasting (day and night) is forbidden in Sharia (Islamic law).

The act of eating is, therefore, a form of worship of Allah, the Almighty. When dawn starts, Muslims discontinue eating and drinking (and having sex with their spouses) in compliance with Allah’s order, for He Says (what means): “...Then complete the fast until the night [i.e. sunset].” [Quran; 2:187]. In this way, the Muslim is educated about complete servitude to Allah, the Most High, in such a way that when his Lord commands, he complies. It is, therefore, not simply a matter of personal taste, whim and disposition, but a matter of obedience to Allah and implementation of His Commands.

Fourth significance Fasting is similarly a form of education to the whole society since when the fasting Muslim feels that people around him are all fasting, he finds fast no longer difficult, but feels that he is in harmony with the society to which he belongs through worship, the unifying factor of the whole community. Whoever compares voluntary fasting to the obligatory fast in the month of Ramadan perceives a certain difficulty in the former and easiness in the latter due to the aforementioned reasons. That is why Muslims find it very difficult to spend the month of Ramadan away from Muslim environments. www.islamweb.net

Can chewing more help you eat less?

NEW YORK: People who chew their food more take in fewer calories, mainly because more chewing is related to the levels of hormones that regulate appetite, according to a Chinese study. Chewing food 40 times instead of a typical 15 times caused the study participants to eat nearly 12 percent fewer calories, the study-published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition-said.

“Compared with lean participants, obese participants had a higher ingestion rate and a lower number of chews per 1 g of food,” wrote lead researcher Jie Li and colleagues from Harbin Medical University in China.

“Regardless of status, the subjects ingested 11.9 percent less after 40 chews than after 15 chews.” Li’s team gave a typical breakfast to 14 obese young men and 16 young men of normal weight to see if there were differences in how they chewed their food.

They also looked to see if chewing more would lead subjects to eat less and would affect the levels of blood sugar or certain hormones that regulate appetite.

Several previous studies have found that eating faster and chewing less are associated with obesity, while others have found no such link. But in the current study, the team found a connection between the amount of chewing and levels of several hormones that “tell the brain when to begin to eat and when to stop eating, said coauthor Shuran Wang in an email.

More chewing was associated with lower blood levels

of ghrelin, a hormone that stimulates appetite, as well as higher levels of CCK, a hormone believed to reduce appetite. These hormones may represent “useful targets for future obesity therapies,” Wang added, since regulating their levels may help people control their appetites.

The authors found no difference between the size of bites taken by obese or normal-weight men, and no link between chewing duration and blood sugar or insulin levels in any of the men.

Since the study was small and only included young men, it does not necessarily predict how extended chewing will affect the calorie intake of other people, the authors noted. But the 12 percent calorie reduction for the group who chewed their food 40 times could potentially translate into significant weight loss-with average people who cut their calorie intake by that much losing nearly 25 pounds in a year, said Adam Drewnowski, director of the University of Washington Center for Obesity Research in Seattle.

But since the typical diet includes foods that are not chewed, such as soup and ice cream, the actual amount of weight one is likely to lose by chewing more is much less, he warned. “I suppose that if you chew each bite of food 100 times or more you may end up eating less, However, I am not sure that this is a viable obesity prevention measure,” said Drewnowski, who was not involved in the study. — Reuters

Maid: Employer tried to gouge out my eyes Continued from Page 1 Tuesday, acting on the advice of the embassy’s Assistance to National unit.

According her account, she endured ruthless treatment under the hands of her employer. “My female employer attempted to gouge out my eyes with her fingernails several times,” a visibly somber Angela told Kuwait Times yesterday. “My eyes were severely bleeding, I can see only darkness. They took me to a hospital for treatment. Both my eyes were hurt. I didn’t know what to do that time. All I ever wanted to do was to escape. I have no other chances as all the doors were locked,” she said.

Angela recalled being treated like an animal, with her sponsors slamming her head against the wall, strangulating her, pounding her feet until it bled, burning her with flat iron, constant kicking and depriving her of food. She also suffered from serious emotional trauma

due to death threats issued to her and not being in touch with family members. Angela also claimed to never have received monthly salary although her employer asked her to sign an undertaking stating that she received it.

On July 27, Angela escaped when her employer forgot to close the main door. An Asian couple helped her and brought her to the embassy. Old and fresh bruises are still evident on her body. Both of her hands are still swollen, there were burn marks, broken and swollen fingers, feet, face, broken nose and the most brutal act attempt to blind her with fingernails, leaving her partially blind.

She believes that she was deliberately blinded by her employer because two of her sons were blind. Angela’s health condition deteriorated after performing backbreaking work to satisfy her bosses. Philippine Labor Attaché to Kuwait David Des Dicang promised to assist Angela and ensure that justice is meted out.

Bed-ridden, caged Mubarak on trial Continued from Page 1 “I’m so happy. I feel tomorrow will be better and that the next president knows what could happen to him if he goes against his people,” Ahmed Amer, 30, a water utility employee, said outside the Cairo courtroom, where crowds had gathered to watch proceedings on a giant screen erected outside. Pro- and anti-Mubarak protesters faced off, some hurling stones. Hundreds of police tried to calm them down. At a small pro-Mubarak rally, people chanted: “Oh Mubarak, hold your head high” and “We will demolish the prison and burn it down, if Hosni Mubarak is sentenced.” Counter-chants of “Raise your voice, freedom will not die,” rose from nearby group hostile to Mubarak.

Inside, Judge Ahmed Refaat called for order. “All of us will face God with sound hearts and this is what we hope. May God help us,” he said at the start of the trial.

Speculation had swirled before the trial about whether Mubarak would turn up in the Cairo court. Ahmed Farghali, 24, among protesters who had gathered outside the Sharm El-Sheikh before Mubarak was flown to Cairo, said he could not believe he would see the president locked in a cage. “It was beyond my wildest dreams,” he said.

Tunisian President Zine Al-Abidine Ben Ali, the first Arab leader to be ousted this year, was tried and sentenced to jail in absentia. He fled to Saudi Arabia. Earlier Iraq’s Saddam Hussein was toppled by US-led forces, then tried and hanged in 2006. For some of his opponents, Mubarak’s appearance smacked of political theatre to gain sympathy. “Why is he on a stretcher? Is he handicapped? This is a playing on people’s emotions so we can all start crying over an old man,” Mohamed Naguib, 32, said in Sharm el-Sheikh, where some chanted: “The people want the execution of the killer.”

Security was tightened in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. Police and military officers in riot gear were deployed there, with dozens of police trucks and a few army armored personnel vehicles. Protesters had camped out in Tahrir for three weeks in July seeking a swifter trial for

Mubarak and other reforms. They feared the ruling generals would use Mubarak’s illness as a ploy to avoid publicly humiliating the war veteran and ex-president who ran Egypt for 30 years until Feb. 11.

In his only public comments since quitting, Mubarak vowed in April to clear himself and his family from accusations of corruption. Few Egyptians believed they would see him in court. “If you feel sympathy for any dictator broken and standing in a cage, remember him when he was unjust on the throne,” Marian wrote on Twitter, using the website that became a tool in rallying the masses during the 18-day uprising against him.

The defendants were caged in a hall that can seat hundreds of people in the Police Academy, where Mubarak had praised the police just two days before demonstrations erupted on Jan 25. Police used live ammunition, rubber bullets and teargas on protesters in Cairo and other cities. In Suez, an effigy of Mubarak hangs from a lamp-post near the police station that was gutted by fire during street battles that raged there.

Egyptians blame Mubarak for economic policies they say filled the pockets of the rich while many of the nation’s 80 million people scrabbled in squalor to feed their families. They are also angry at his repression of any opposition. Yet some are reluctant to see a man who was a bomber pilot and then leader of the air force in the 1973 war with Israel put in the dock. Others are simply tired of the disruption protests have cause and want to return to their daily lives.

Activist and director Mohamed Diab wrote on Twitter that the trial was “likely to cause a big rift, just like after his second speech. Imagine Mubarak with white hair, weeping and collapsing in court”. Mubarak, who dyed his hair as he aged in office, had won over some Egyptians with his final speeches that focused on what he described as a lifetime of service. Others were angered by what they saw as his paternalistic and patronizing style. When the army finally stepped in to take control and he was flown off to internal exile in Sharm El-Sheikh, the streets of the capital and other cities erupted into euphoria. — Reuters

14

THURSDAY, AUGUST 4, 2011

opinion

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Issues

Debt ceiling - What about a war ceiling?

By Tom Engelhardt n July 25, while John A Boehner raced around the Capitol desperately pressing Republican House members for votes on a debt ceiling bill that Harry M Reid was calling dead-on-arrival in the Senate, the new US ambassador to Afghanistan, Ryan C Crocker, took his oath of office in distant Kabul. According to news reports, he then gave a short speech warning that Western powers should not “rush for the exits” in withdrawing from the war.

In Afghanistan today, after almost a decade of US-led war, there is no sign of a rush for the exits. The airstrikes, night raids, assassinations, roadside bombings, and soldier and civilian deaths continue, and will until 2014 and beyond. And the war, despite the panic in Washington over debt payments, will be waged at an enormous cost.

In Iraq, meanwhile, in year eight of America’s armed involvement, US officials are still determined to keep significant numbers of US troops stationed there beyond an agreed end-of-2011 withdrawal date.

And the State Department is preparing to hire a small army of 5,000-odd armed mercenaries (with their own mini air force) to keep the American “mission” in that country humming along to the tune of billions of dollars. In Libya, the American/NATO war effort, once imagined as a brief spasm of shock-’n’-awe firepower that would oust autocrat Muammar Gaddafi in a nanosecond, is now in its fifth month, with neither an end nor a serious reassessment in sight, and no mention of costs there either. In Yemen and Somalia, the drones, CIA and military, are being sent in, and special operations forces built up.

Meanwhile, back in Washington, national security spending still seems to be on an upward trajectory. At $526 billion (without the costs of the Afghan and Iraq wars added in), the 2011 Pentagon budget, is, as Lawrence Korb, former assistant secretary of defense under President Reagan, has written, “in real or inflation adjusted dollars ... higher than at any time since World War II, including the Korean and Vietnam wars and the height of the Reagan buildup.” And the 2012 Pentagon budget is slated to go even higher.

Sen. John S. McCain recently raised the question of Pentagon spending in tight times with Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, the newly nominated chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He asked about a plan proposed by President Obama to cut $400 billion in Pentagon funds over 12 years, as well as proposals kicking around Congress for cutting up to $800 billion over the same period. Dempsey replied: “I haven’t been asked to look at that number. But I have looked and we are looking at $400 billion. Based on the difficulty of achieving the $400-billion cut, I believe achieving $800 billion would be extraordinarily difficult and very high-risk.”

In little of the reporting on this was it apparent that Obama’s $400 billion in Pentagon “cuts” are not cuts at all _ not unless you consider an obese person, who continues eating at the same level but reduces his dreams of evergrander future repasts, to be on a diet. The “cuts” in the White House proposal, that is, will be only from projected future Pentagon growth rates.

So here’s a question at a moment when financial mania has Washington by the throat: How would you define the state of mind of our war-makers, who are carrying on as if the only sensible role for the United States is to eternally police the planet? When I was kid, I used to be fascinated by a series of ads filled with visual absurdities, in which, for instance, five-legged cows floated through clouds. Each ad’s tagline went something like: What’s wrong with this picture?

Now consider the actions of elected officials in Washington. America’s credit rating is in danger of being downgraded, jobs are disappearing, infrastructure is eroding, homeownership levels are falling rapidly, foreclosures are sky-high, times are bad, and even the president admits that the political system designated to make things better is “dysfunctional,” yet Congress and the president remain committed to guarding those global ramparts, fighting those wars, and continuing to build and feed a massive national security complex - larger than anything ever imagined when the US still faced a nuclear-armed superpower enemy. Tell me: What’s wrong with this picture?

Americans have been focused on raising that debt ceiling, as onscreen countdown clocks ticked away to disaster. In the process, few have asked the obvious question: Isn’t it time to lower America’s war ceiling?— MCT

O

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.

Decades-old auditor ties under scrutiny in US

By Dena Aubin oldman Sachs has stuck with the same auditing firm since 1926, Coca Cola since 1921, General Electric since 1909 and Procter & Gamble since 1890. That’s going back 85, 90, 102 and 121 years. Each has relied on a different one of what are known today as the Big Four accounting firms. And now some US accounting reformers are thinking that perhaps enough is enough: the time has come to rotate auditing firms.

Quashed a decade ago during US congressional audit reform debates, the hot-button topic of auditor rotation is back, setting up a potential clash between reformers and the firms themselves.

Broached at a meeting of the US Public Company Accounting Oversight Board in March, mandatory auditor rotation is expected to be part of a “concept release” due soon from the PCAOB, which is looking for ways to assure tougher, more independent audits. While the partner on an accounting job must be switched every five years, there are no term limits on the audit firms themselves-a policy that has left intact long-term client relationships and raised questions about how independent such auditors can be.

“It’s not to say that anyone who has had the same auditor 20 years or longer is corrupt, or the auditor is not doing what they should be doing,” said Mark Grothe, an analyst at Glass Lewis, an investment research and proxy advisory firm. Yet after 50 years “there’s no way you could think the auditor is remaining as skeptical as a new auditor coming in,” he said. “They’re almost an outsourced part of the accounting department at that point.”

Strong pushback is expected from the audit industry, which could be forced to surrender some of its most lucrative clients if the PCAOB were to require mandatory auditor rotation. Any rule change is far from certain at this point. The PCAOB has yet to issue a concept release; that would have to be followed by a proposed rule and

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then a final rule, which would have to be approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

client does- their operations, their industry-and a lot of that knowledge is cumulative,” he said.

FRAUD LINK TO LONG STINTS About 175 companies in the S&P 500 index have had the same auditor for 25 years or more, according to data compiled by Audit Analytics at the end of last year. Seven companies have had the same auditor for over a century.

Ultra-long auditor stints have for years been a concern to investor groups. Entrenched audit firms were linked to some of the biggest financial frauds of the past. “When you look at some of the big audit failures over the years, whether it’s Enron or Waste Management, you find instances where they’ve had the same auditor for in some cases decades,” said Barbara Roper, head of investor protection for the Consumer Federation of America.

Auditors might be inclined to perform tougher audits if they knew their work would be checked when their term ends and a new audit firm comes in, said Lynn Turner, head of a PCAOB subcommittee that recommended mandatory rotation. Rotation could also take pressure off auditors, who would not have to worry as much about losing their firms’ longest-standing clients, he said. “If you’re a partner on one of these big clients’ audits, that’s a big part of your billings for the year,” he said. “If you lose that client, you may very well see your compensation cut at the firm.”

Others say the need for rotation is questionable because audits have improved and frauds are much rarer than in the past. “I don’t know that the lack of skepticism is as high as they (proponents) are suggesting to warrant a complete upheaval of the entire industry,” said Charles Mulford, an accounting professor at Georgia Institute of Technology. “It’s strictly a cost-benefit trade-off that doesn’t work.” Switching audit firms too frequently would be disruptive, said Scott Magnuson, senior principal at GHP Horwath. “To do a good audit, an auditor has to really have a good, detailed understanding of what that

LIMITED CHOICES FOR MULTINATIONALS Switching auditors also may be difficult for the largest companies, given that only the Big Four auditors-Deloitte, PwC, KPMG and Ernst & Young-have the resources to audit big, multinational firms, some experts said. “Your universe in these large, multinational companies gets limited,” said Jeffrey Weiner, managing partner at accounting firm Marcum LLP. “There could be issues of lack of choice, and mandatory firm rotation might be difficult.” Upfront costs would also increase because of the time needed to screen new clients, get familiar with their operations and create new audit files, he said.

“There’s a benefit and detriment,” he said. “The question is, does the attempt to assure greater independence and objectivity outweigh the cost of switching?”

Congress considered auditor firm rotations during debates over the sweeping 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley reform act. The issue was shelved for more study and a 2003 report from the US General Accounting Office concluded that rotation might not be the best way to strengthen auditor independence.

Eight years later, however, PCAOB officials say the idea needs another look. “Too often, PCAOB inspectors find that auditors have failed to exercise the required skepticism,” PCAOB Chairman Jim Doty said in a speech in June.

Though he stopped short of endorsing auditor rotation, Doty said the PCAOB at least needs to take up the debate again. From the auditors’ perspective, it would be a bitter pill. “It would be weird to go into any business and say, “Your best clients, the ones you have had for 20-plus years - you have to get rid of all of those,” said Glass Lewis’s Grothe. On the other hand, some would argue that investors, not companies, are an auditor’s true clients, he said. “It’s under that thinking that mandatory rotation makes more sense.”— Reuters

Spanish banks risk new financing threat

By David Williams

pain’s banks may have to run to the European Central Bank for financing if the risk premium on government debt reaches a critical level of 450 basis points, analysts warn. The risk premium on Spanish bonds-the extra return demanded by investors compared to safe-bet German debt-surged to a euro-era record of 407 basis points yesterday.

Although the surge increases the cost of borrowing for Spain’s government, it also poses a new threat to banks weighed down with bad loans from the 2008 property bubble collapse.

Many of the banks raise shortterm financing on London’s LCH Clearnet-a major debt clearing house-by providing Spanish government bonds as collateral. If the risk premium on those bonds rises to 450 basis points compared to a basket of AAA-rated government bonds, the clearing house can demand an extra 15 percent downpayment to let the trade go ahead. “We would generally consider a spread of 450 basis points over the 10-year AAA benchmark to be indicative of additional sovereign risk,” the LCH Clearnet policy says. At this point, it says, the clearing house could ask for an extra 15 percent margin, and more if the risk premium deteriorates further.

LCH Clearnet, which needs the margins because it has to pay the other side of the deal in case of a

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default, had already demanded additional 15 percent margins from banks using Irish and Portuguese bonds when their risk premiums hit 450 basis points.

Soon after, both Ireland and Portugal had to be bailed out.

“What does that mean? It means that they have to post more collateral. Since they are already very, very, very stretched it becomes too much,” said Barcelona-based independent economist Edward

Hugh. Since 2007 Spanish banks had been unable to obtain substantial, economically viable financing on the wholesale debt markets, he said. As a result, they had accumulated a large quantity of short-term borrowing.

If LCH Clearnet demands higher margins the banks are likely to go running to the European Central Bank for short-term financing, Hugh said, warning that if the ECB could not cope it may

even have to call in the European Financial Stability Facility, used in the Greek, Irish and Portuguese bailouts. “Spain is getting closer to the trigger level of an additional LCH haircut,” said a report by Bank of America Merrill Lynch European economist Laurence Boone and rates strategist Sphia Salim.

“Spanish banks will have to turn to the ECB to cover the funding gap and the prospects of similar deterioration in funding availability for

MADRID: Police officers detain a protester while riot police try to dismantle a demonstration at Puerta del Sol Square in Madrid. Hundreds of protesters crammed into each of the sidestreets leading to the central square of Puerta del Sol, birthplace of a nationwide protest against the suffering caused by Spain’s economic blight. — AFP

Italian banks would severely impede the functioning of the Eurozone interbank market,” they warned.

Nuria Alvarez Anibarro, financial analyst at online brokerage Renta 4, said the scenario of a European rescue because of an extra margin call by the LCH was somewhat extreme. Spanish banks had a large book of assets that could be used as collateral to raise liquidity from the European Central Bank, she said. If the banks were asked to provide an extra 15percent margin on the London markets, they would have to weigh up whether it made more sense to go the ECB for financing.

Major banks BBVA and Santander had huge margins of collateral, Alvarez said.

A key question in such a scenario would be whether the risk premium remained above 450 basis points for a brief period of a month or so, or for a longer period of year or more. “It also depends a lot on the banks’ debt repayment schedule. Almost all Spanish banks have their repayments covered for 2011. They don’t need to go to the markets as such,” Alvarez said. If record risk premiums of 450 basis points or more carried on into 2012 and banks were shut out of the markets for many months with repayment deadlines looming, the situation would be more serious, she said. But “it is a bit soon to make that guess when we have only just reached 400 points.”— AFP

15

THURSDAY, AUGUST 4, 2011

analysis

In Afghanistan, young love doesn’t stand a chance

By Sayed Wahed Hashemi li Ahmad, 19, and Samira, 18, were walking down a street in Herat in western Afghanistan when a police car drew up in front of them. The police wanted to know the nature of their relationship and why they were together.

The couple explained that they were engaged and due to marry soon. They said they had come together, with the permission of both their families, to discuss their future lives together.

The answers prompted the police to arrest both of them, sending Ali Ahmad to a detention center and Samira to a juvenile reform unit. Ahmad’s father, Gholam, said his son had wanted to meet his fiancee before their arranged marriage, and this had been their second encounter. “My son is still imprisoned,” he said. “I don’t know what’s happening with the case or when the court order is going to be issued.” Mohammad Hassan, the lawyer representing Ahmad, said that the young man had been initially detained on a charge of suspected “fornication.” Conviction could send him to prison for five to 15 years.

The case of Ahmad and Samira is hardly an isolated one. One local lawyer said that at least 14 cases of intended fornication had been referred to court in Herat over the past four months. Gen Sayed Aqa Saqeb, the police chief in Herat, said his officers respected everyone’s rights, but at the same time had to give priority to Islamic law and to prevailing social attitudes. “Police must have the right to ask anyone to identify themselves and state where they are going,”

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he said. “We want families to be able to go out freely for sightseeing and picnicking without any harassment, but anything that is against the law and sharia is unacceptable.” But some are asking whether the police have overstepped their bounds.

the law,” he said. “Arresting such individuals is therefore against the law, and no punishment can legally be imposed.”

Erfani said the issue had already been referred to Afghanistan’s Supreme Court, which ruled in a previous case that, while it was sinful for unrelated men and

ARGHANDAB VALLEY: Afghan women and children arrive on a motorcycle driven transport at Haji Baba Wali shrine for pilgrimage in Arghandab district, a southern Afghanistan former stronghold of Taleban. —AFP Mohammad Alef Erfani, the head of the defense lawyers’ association in Herat, said the police had no basis for detaining the couple just because they were together. “By law, there is no crime in girls and boys being together, and people can only be arrested if they commit actions that are deemed crimes under

women to be alone together, if unaccompanied, no legal restrictions could be applied.

Dad Mohammad Wahedi, a university lecturer in Islamic sciences, said the actions by the police reminded him of the days when the Taleban ruled Afghanistan, and women were forbidden

to leave home unless accompanied by a male family member. “We cannot build a wall between men and women as the Taleban government did, when schools and universities were closed to girls,” he said. “We have thousands of male and female students in Afghanistan, who are with one another inside the university and in the classrooms. They’re also able to meet each other outside study time.

Should we arrest all of them?”

Human rights organizations were equally critical of the police’s behavior.

Sharifa Shahab, who is in charge of monitoring police activities with the Independent Human Rights Commission’s Herat branch, said personal freedoms were enshrined in the constitution, but this did not stop police harassing couples - even married ones.

“It’s an offense to human dignity,” she said. “We urge police not to offend people’s honor. They must respect people’s freedoms. They must act in accordance with the laws of the land.”

The recent rash of arrests has many young people in Herat on edge. “No one is legally allowed to interfere in people’s personal affairs without a judicial order or a legal complaint, or to interrogate people about their relationships,” said Rahmatullah, who is studying law and political science at Herat University. “If they do so, it’s a breach of the law.”

Shabnam Soraya, a teacher at a private school, said officials needed to be educated about the rights of members of the public. “The police are not entitled to move against young people,” she said.

“They must only take action when there’s an obvious crime.”—MCT

India, Iran buy time to find other oil partners

By Nidhi Verma and Krittivas Mukherjee ndia and Iran’s mechanism to end a seven-month-old stalemate over oil payments could keep US pressure at bay long enough for the two countries to work out a long-term separation that would change oil routes through Asia and the Middle East. Refiners, which have been importing oil from Iran without paying since India’s central bank scrapped a clearing mechanism in December 2010, have started to clear over $5 billion of debts for 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) through Turkey’s Halkbank. But analysts are sceptical over the durability of the new system in the face of a slew of global sanctions on Iran and Washington’s continuing drive to isolate Tehran over its nuclear program.

“The durability depends on to what extent the US government can be open on its support for a mechanism,” said Samuel Ciszuk, senior Middle East & North Africa Energy analyst at IHS Energy. The Reserve Bank of India’s decision to halt use of the Asian Clearing Union for payments seven months ago won praise from Washington and a later attempt to use a bank based in Germany fell apart after the US pressed Berlin to intervene. It is unclear how Washington views the new payment arrangement, finalised while Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was in India. Officials said Washington had been working with New Delhi to find a solution.

Clearing the debts should defuse Iran’s threat to halt supplies and ease concern of disruption in the market. The mechanism gives a pivotal role to Turkey, which Clinton last month said was a natural ally despite its trade ties to Iran and opposition to more sanctions. “While Turkey would be open to scrutiny (if the US wants), it will not allow unreasonable blocking-so that’s a good combination. Turkey and Iran have flourishing trade,” said Kanwal Sibal, a former Indian foreign secretary.

But any softening in Washington’s stance could be shortlived, analysts said, as the US would send a signal that endorses one form of trade with Iran while it seeks to sanction others. “The problem for the US government is that the more openly it supports a particular mechanism, the less credibility its efforts to isolate Iran in other areas enjoy and the higher the domestic political cost,” said Ciszuk. “Any particular conduit is unlikely to have a particularly long life-span in the current climate and within six to nine months it would be likely that Iran and India will have to move on to a new mechanism,” he added.

Indian refiners had already started making arrangements last month and this month to replace lost barrels from Iran with supplies from its Middle East neighbors and further

I

afield such as South America, and there are signs these efforts will continue. US ally and Iranian rival Saudi Arabia has sold three million barrels of extra crude to India for August after 2.7 million barrels sent in July. Iran’s biggest Indian client, Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd , has signed an annual deal with Kuwait and opened channels of discussions with the United Arab Emirates for enhanced supplies. “Depending on Iran may create a problem in future because Iran is going ahead with its nuclear program ...

Suppose there is military intervention by a country in Iran, the entire supply from that country will be disrupted,” said D H Pai Panandikar, head of private think tank RPG Foundation.

He added that India was looking at other sources, particularly

in Africa and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), besides the Middle East. Latin American grades could be too costly, given the distance involved, even if Indian refineries upgrade to process them.

For Tehran, backlogs of its crude could be put in floating storage and may eventually flow to its biggest customer, China, where rising needs over time might absorb what was being shipped to India-especially if attractive discounts are offered. Stagnant demand and the likelihood of sanctions would make it progressively more difficult for European companies to raise intake of Iranian oil. Italy is already reducing volumes. “My feeling is that this is a short-term (arrangement) to get rid of the $5 billion (arrears),” Sibal said.— Reuters

What next for Korea six-party talks?

By Jeremy Laurence orth Korea says it is willing to resume regional nuclear disarmament talks at an early date and without preconditions after holding bilateral exchanges with South Korea and the United States. Here are some questions and answers on the process, known as the six-party talks: WHAT ARE THE SIX-PARTY TALKS? The six-party talks opened in August 2003 at the behest of China, and involve the two Koreas, the United States, Japan and Russia. The talks produced the Sept. 19 Agreement in 2005, which spells out a process in which North Korea will scrap its nuclear programs in exchange for economic and energy aid and diplomatic relations with the United States and Japan.

WHY DID THEY STOP? The last round of talks ended in a stalemate in December 2008 after Pyongyang failed to agree a verification protocol.

In April 2009, a few days after conducting a long-range missile test, the North quit the talks. It said it would reverse the ongoing disablement process and restart its Yongbyon nuclear facilities. International weapons inspectors were expelled. The following month it conducted a second nuclear test. The United Nations voted unanimously to expand sanctions.

ARE SIX-PARTY TALKS BACK IN THE FRAME? North Korea indicated last year it wanted to rejoin the sixparty process, but Seoul, Washington and Tokyo have doubted that it is serious, citing its unveiling of a uranium enrich-

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ment programlast November as proof. Two attacks which killed 50 South Koreans, and which Seoul blamed on the North, have further complicated any return to six-party talks.

The South demands an apology, and Washington says the two Koreas must resolve this issue first. In a surprise move last month, the two Koreas’ nuclear envoys had a two-hour meeting and their foreign ministers had an informal chat. A week later the North’s nuclear negotiator visited the United States for the first time in four years. All parties said the talks were “constructive”. Seoul and Washington said the talks can only move forward once the North takes concrete steps toward denuclearization. They say talks must resume where they left off and can only reconvene once international inspectors have returned. The North’s uranium enrichment program must also be “addressed”. Pyongyang wants the talks to start immediately.

WHAT CAN SIX-PARTY TALKS ACHIEVE? It is widely believed the North will never give up its nuclear weapons program because it serves as a bargaining chip in negotiations. The atomic bomb is also the ultimate deterrent against attack, the North’s gravest fear. The North argues the talks call for the complete denuclearization of the peninsula, which includes offshore American nuclear weapons. Washington provides Seoul a security guarantee under its nuclear umbrella. Analysts say the process itself serves a purpose as it helps to stem the North’s proliferation of nuclear materials and know-how. Additionally, while all parties are at the negotiating table, the North is less likely to carry out an attack against the South— Reuters

Troubled waters between Lebanon and Israel

By Jocelyne Zablit dispute between Lebanon and Israel over their maritime boundary has heated up and sparked fears of conflict as both countries move to assert sovereignty over an area potentially rich in gas. Tension rose last month after Israel’s cabinet approved a map of the country’s proposed maritime borders with Lebanon and submitted it to the United Nations, which has been asked to mediate. The map conflicts with one submitted by Lebanon to the UN last year and that gives Israel less territory. The Lebanese say their map is in line with an armistice accord drawn up in 1949 and not contested by Israel.

They also challenge Israel’s assertion that an accord signed in 2007 between Cyprus and Lebanon sets the same boundaries as those agreed between the Jewish state and Cyprus in 2010. Neither side for now appears willing to budge on the issue, especially given the discovery of important energy reserves near the disputed area which could generate billions of dollars. Energy Minister Gebran Bassil said that Lebanon’s new cabinet, in which the militant group Hezbollah plays a key role, was rushing to approve a decree setting out the country’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

An EEZ is a sea zone that gives a state the right to explore its maritime resources.

“Israel cannot arbitrarily flout international law and aggress Lebanon by creating a zone of conflict in our waters,” Bassil said.

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“It’s not simply a question of them tracing a line and stating what’s theirs.” Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, whose party fought a devastating war with Israel in 2006, also waded into the dispute last week warning the Jewish state against any attempt to plunder Lebanon’s offshore gas and oil reserves. The United Nations and diplomats are urging both sides to exercise restraint and to resolve the matter at the negotiating table. The disputed zone

consists of about 854 square kilometers.

“It is common to the point of routine for neighboring countries to have ... overlapping claims,” a senior State Department official said, asking not to be named.

“There are many mechanisms available to both countries to resolve this problem peacefully,” he said. “These mechanisms range all the way from direct negotiations to binding arbitration.” He and other diplomats interviewed by AFP said that

ISRAEL-LEBANON BORDER: Israeli soldiers deploy on the IsraeliLebanese border following an exchange of fire between Lebanese and Israeli troops on their often tense border. —AFP

even though the rhetoric over the border was heating up, it was in no one’s interest to start a conflict given the economic interests at stake. They also pointed out that companies involved in gas exploitation will shun the area should the dispute escalate. “Companies that do this kind of work avoid working in troubled waters like the plague,” said the State Department official. “They are not looking for legal problems or to be in the middle of a dispute.” Another Western diplomat in Beirut said that although legally Lebanon’s case appears stronger than that of Israel, it was unlikely the issue would be resolved anytime soon. Hampering progress is the fact that both countries are technically still at war and as such will not negotiate face to face. Lebanon also has yet to begin underwater energy exploration-even in territory not contested-to determine what lies under its seabed.

“Lebanon is lagging way behind Israel on this,” the Western diplomat said. “It needs to set up the legal framework to begin exploration and research.”

Diplomats said the best way to proceed for Lebanon and Israel at this point is to let mediation run its course while exploring for gas and oil outside the contested area. “Clearly, there has got to be a process in the future where Lebanon and Israel resolve this (maritime) line,” the State Department official said. “In the meantime, both countries are perfectly free to move for ward with hydro-carbon exploitation in areas that are not under dispute.”— AFP

Focus

Honeymoon over, Yingluck treads Thai political tightrope

By Martin Petty unning a real estate business in the middle of a building boom is one thing. Running a country that’s embroiled in a bloody political crisis may be a little more challenging, as Thailand’s Yingluck Shinawatra is about to discover. The honeymoon is over for the 44-year-old political novice, about to become Thailand’s first female prime minister.

Millions of poor supporters expect great things from her, while the country at large wants an end to a political crisis dating back to a coup that toppled her brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, in 2006.

It was thanks to Thaksin that Yingluck was catapulted from relative obscurity as president of SC Asset to stardom within days of her May 16 nomination to lead the campaign of the Puea Thai Party in the July 3 election. But as she prepares to follow in Thaksin’s footsteps after a parliamentary vote on Friday, it is her brother’s perceived influence over the incoming government rather than her inexperience that could prove her downfall.

“The degree of her independence (from Thaksin) will determine the degree of acceptance of her,” said David Streckfuss, an American academic at Khon Kaen University in northeastern Thailand. “Because Puea Thai won so convincingly, Thaksin’s opponents will have to rethink their plans, so a lot depends on what Thaksin does and whether Yingluck is seen to be in charge.” Thaksin bring out strong emotions on both sides. For his poor supporters, he was seen as the first Thai leader to address the needs of millions in the countryside, with cheap healthcare and village development funds.

For his opponents, he was not only corrupt and authoritarian but had republican leanings-a charge he has repeatedly denied but one that has tainted him in a country that reveres its king. Thaksin has made little effort to show he is not pulling the strings and has met ministerial hopefuls in Brunei and Dubai in recent weeks, forcing an embarrassed Yingluck to reject suggestions he will micro-manage her government. If Thaksin is seen to be running the show from exile, Puea Thai could be in for a rocky ride.

Pro-Thaksin parties have dominated every Thai election in the past decade, but since 2005 each has been hamstrung by street protests, court decisions that have banned their leaders or dissolved them, or military intervention. Puea Thai’s parliamentary clout - 265 of the 500 seats- has eased fears of immediate turmoil: the size of the victory makes it highly risky for behind-the-scenes players to engineer judicial or military intervention without a public backlash. That has been reflected in a jump in the baht since Puea Thai’s win and a reversal in the fortunes of the stock market , which went from being Southeast Asia’s worst performer in June to its best in July, gaining 8.7 percent with a net $1.2 billion in foreign inflows.

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LEGITIMATE CHALLENGE? Most analysts believe Thaksin’s opponents will neither relent nor compromise, but will have to wait for the government to slip up to give a pretext for intervention. “Yingluck’s win was one of the strongest ever in Thai elections so to block her now is not possible,” said Somjai Phagaphasvivat, a professor at Bangkok’s Thammasat University.

“Any move against this government has to be calculated. They must wait for missteps and mistakes but there must be a legitimate cause, otherwise it would result in turmoil.” What such a cause might be is open to interpretation. During his two terms in office, Thaksin derived legitimacy from his huge electoral mandates, but those who plotted his overthrow in 2006 justified their actions as a move to rescue the country from entrenched corruption and cronyism.

The weight of expectation will be on Yingluck, not just to deliver on a wave of big-spending, populist policies without damaging the economy but to govern transparently, without the corruption scandals, conflicts of interest and media censorship that critics say characterized Thaksin’s governments. Many politicians, businessmen, police officers and army generals who stuck by Thaksin after he was pushed out might now be expecting promotions, concessions or cabinet portfolios. The pro-Thaksin “red shirt” movement that battled troops in Bangkok last year has a dozen of its leaders in parliament. Their supporters say some deserve cabinet posts and could withdraw their backing from Yingluck if she does not deliver.

But if she plays along, Bangkok’s middle class will be outraged, seeing it as rewarding people who went on a rampage of rioting and arson after their protest was put down last May. The release on bail on Tuesday of red shirt leader Jatuporn Prompancharged with lese-majeste, or offences against the monarchy, but also facing terrorism charges relating to the protests-is a case in point. His presence in parliament is provocation enough for some Bangkokians, the suggestion he could become a minister an anathema. But the biggest test for Yingluck is how she handles the issue of Thaksin’s return. He wants to come home without having to serve a two-year jail term for abuse of power, but any early move to give him an amnesty could be political suicide. Somjai of Thammasat University reckoned Puea Thai would work to ensure political and economic stability and only then draw up plans for a general amnesty to be put to a referendum to ensure it was both legal and accepted by the majority of Thais.

“Thaksin’s return is Puea Thai’s main agenda, so it wants to tread carefully and first make sure the political climate is right before it pursues an amnesty,” he said. Others believe there will be no right time for his return. Thaksin is such a divisive figure that any attempt to arrange his homecoming is likely to revive the “yellow shirt” movement that paralyzed the last two governments he controlled. “I think Thaksin’s return would trigger serious unrest, no matter when it comes,” said Joshua Kurlantzick, a Southeast Asia specialist at the US-based Council on Foreign Relations.—Reuters

THURSDAY, AUGUST 4, 2011

sp orts Harbhajan, Yuvraj ruled out NEW DELHI: India yesterday suffered a twin blow when Harbhajan Singh and Yuvraj Singh were ruled out of the remaining two Tests of the four-match series against England due to injuries.

Off-spinner Harbhajan and all-rounder Yuvraj, who suffered the injuries during the second Test at Trent Bridge, were replaced with middle-order batsman Virat Kohli and left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha.

“Yuvraj has fractured his left index finger and Harbhajan has a Grade I abdominal muscle strain,” Indian cricket board secretary N. Srinivasan said in a statement. “While Yuvraj’s injury may take around four weeks to recover, Harbhajan is likely to recover in three weeks’ time.

“The selection committee has picked Virat Kohli and Pragyan Ojha as their replacements. Both players will join the Indian team at the earliest.” The third Test starts in Edgbaston on August 10 and the last match at the Oval on August 18. Harbhajan, struggling on the tour, took just two wickets in the opening two matches while Yuvraj, who scored a half-century in the first innings of the second Test, was struck on the finger while batting in the second innings. —AFP

Iwata beat Independiente SHIZUOKA: J-League Cup winners Jubilo Iwata defeated Copa Sudamericana champions Independiente 4-2 in a penalty shootout yesterday to win the Suruga bank championship. Former Japan international goalkeeper Yoshikatsu Kawaguchi stopped two shots and victory was sealed when Yoshiaki Fujita slammed home his shot to secure the match. It was Iwata’s first international title since they won the Asian club championship in 1999, and came only after regular time ended in a 2-2 tie.

“This is a title won by everybody’s hard work. I want to keep the momentum for the J-League. We took the lead and then went down, but our players played patiently to make it 2-2,” said Kawaguchi. Independiente took advan-

tage of superior speed to largely control the game in the first half, but surrendered an own goal when midfielder Roberto Miguel Battion mis-cleared a free kick hit by Yuichi Komano in the 11th minute. Forward Facundo Manuel Parra’s spectacular overhead shot was saved by Kawaguchi, but the visitors soon evened the score at one-all in the 33rd minute. Hernan Gabriel Fredes hit a right corner and defender Maximiliano Nicolas Velazquez changed the course with a header, allowing Eduardo Nicolas Tuzzio to hit a sizzling right-footer from close range.

Independiente got off to a flying start to the second half when Parra beat Iwata’s defenders to hit a shot that flashed past Kawaguchi into the net in the 48th minute. —AFP

Hamilton eyes Ferrari move MADRID: McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton refused to rule out a future move to Ferrari, saying in an interview published yesterday that he had no plans to join the team “but you never know what could happen in the future”.

Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali has said the team could look to sign the 26-year-old Briton, who won the world title in 2008, despite already having Spain’s Fernando Alonso locked into a long-term deal.

Hamilton and Alonso had a troubled relationship at McLaren in 2007, with the pair bickering openly over who was the British team’s number one driver. Asked by Spanish sports daily AS if he would like to drive for Ferrari one day, Hamilton said: “At the moment I don’t have any plans to do so, it is not something I desire or feel that I have to do.” “But we are talking about a fantastic team and you never know what could happen in the future,” he added. Hamilton said said he had learned how to become a better driver during his time with double world champion Alonso at McLaren.

“Alonso is a very, very fast pilot, incredibly fast, with extraordinary talent and incredible speed. You know that he will always give his best,” he said. —AFP

Red Sox stay ahead in tight AL East race

NEW YORK: Boston Red Sox’s Adrian Gonzalez follows through on an RBI triple during the first inning of a baseball game. —AP

D’backs level with Giants SAN FRANCISCO: The Arizona Diamondbacks moved level with San Francisco for first place in the National League West division standings by beating the Giants 6-1 on Tuesday.

Paul Goldschmidt and Justin Upton both hit two-run homers as the Diamondbacks won their fourth straight to grab a piece of the division lead for the first time in five weeks. Ryan Roberts had two hits and drove in a run.

Arizona starter Daniel Hudson (11-7) allowed just one run and one walk over eight innings while striking out five. Giants starter Tim Lincecum (9-9) lasted seven innings, giving up two runs in the fifth.

Phillies 5, Rockies 0 In Denver, Kyle Kendrick tossed eight sparkling innings to steer Philadelphia over Colorado Rockies in the National League on Sunday, extending their winning streak to five games.

Kendrick (6-5) struck out a career-high seven in his longest outing in 11 starts this season. Ryan Howard homered twice, Hunter Pence doubled twice and Shane Victorino and Raul Ibanez each singled and scored a run for the Phillies. Rockies starter Aaron Cook (2-6) pitched four innings before leaving with muscle spasms in his neck.

Cardinals 8, Brewers 7 In Milwaukee, Lance Berkman singled in Matt Holliday for the winning run with two outs in the 11th inning, giving St. Louis victory over Milwaukee in a clash of NL Central contenders that turned testy as the night wore on.

Sluggers Albert Pujols of the Cardinals and Ryan Braun each were hit by a pitch in the seventh, and St. Louis catcher Yadier Molina became so incensed after he was ejected in the 10th that the plate umpire had to wipe his face during the argument.

Holliday sparked the Cardinals’ winning rally by hitting a groundball to shortstop with two outs. Holliday then swiped second for his first stolen base of the season and scored when Berkman hit a shallow shot to left against Marco Estrada (2-7).

Cardinals reliever Kyle McClellan (8-6) allowed a one-out single in the 11th, but earned the victory after Octavio Dotel got the final two outs for his first save in the NL this year.

Nationals 9, Braves 3 In Washington, Rick Ankiel kept up his sudden power surge, hitting a grand slam that sent Washington over Atlanta for its fourth straight win.

The Nationals have their longest winning streak since Davey Johnson became manager on June 27. Atlanta has lost three straight.

Ankiel, who homered twice Monday against the Braves, went long in the fourth inning against Derek Lowe (6-10) to turn a one-run deficit into a 6-3 lead.

Washington starter John Lannan (8-7) struck out a season-high eight and improved to 3-0 against Atlanta this year.

He gave up three runs in 6 2-3 innings.

Marlins 4, Mets 3 In New York, rookie second baseman Justin Turner committed a crucial throwing error in the ninth inning, allowing Florida to score two runs and rally past New York.

Mets closer Jason Isringhausen (2-2) hit a batter with a pitch to load the bases, and Florida’s Bryan Petersen hit a slow grounder toward second base. Turner charged the ball and the runner from first stopped in the middle of the basepath, so Turner tossed to first but his throw went high and wide,

handing Florida a 4-3 lead.

Omar Infante hit a pair of solo shots for the Marlins, but star shortstop Hanley Ramirez left the game after spraining his left shoulder while diving for a ball in the outfield.

Steve Cishek (2-1) pitched two scoreless innings for the win as Florida get back to .500 for the first time in seven weeks.

Cubs 11, Pirates 6 In Pittsburgh, Alfonso Soriano hit two of Chicago’s season-high six home runs and the Cubs had 21 hits in a victory over fading Pittsburgh. Soriano hit solo shots in the third inning off Kevin Correia (12-9) and the fourth. Aramis Ramirez hit a three-run homer, Geovany Soto had a two-run blast and Marlon Byrd and Tyler Colvin also connected.

The home run barrage sent the Pirates to their fifth straight loss, and they fell back to .500 at 54-54. Cubs starter Randy Wells (3-4) went six innings, allowing two runs while striking out seven.

Dodgers 1, Padres 0 In San Diego, Hiroki Kuroda pitched seven scoreless innings to guide Los Angeles past San Diego. Kuroda (7-13) snapped a four-game losing streak.

Matt Kemp had two hits and an RBI for the Dodgers. San Diego starter Mat Latos (5-11) went seven solid innings while yielding one run, but was pulled for a pinch hitter in the seventh.

Reds 5, Astros 1 In Houston, Edgar Renteria hit a grand slam in the fifth inning to lift Cincinnati over Houston.

Chris Heisey and Ramon Hernandez sparked Cincinnati’s big inning with consecutive doubles, making it 1-0. Wandy Rodriguez (7-8) walked two batters to set up Renteria’s ninth career grand slam. Reds starter Homer Bailey (6-5) allowed one run over eight innings to take the win. —AP

BOSTON: Jarrod Saltalamacchia dived across home plate to score the winning run in the ninth inning to give the Boston Red Sox a 3-2 win over the Cleveland Indians on Tuesday, maintaining their one-game lead in the American League East division. Pinch-runner Saltalamacchia scored on Jacoby Ellsbury’s single to keep Boston’s nose in front of arch rival New York. Red Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon (3-0) got the win after shutting down the Indians on just 10 pitches in the ninth.

Boston posted its six walk-off win of the season.

Cleveland’s Vinnie Pestano (1-1) got the loss.

Tigers 6, Rangers 5 In Detroit, Brennan Boesch hit a solo home run amid an eighth-inning rain shower, lifting Detroit over Texas. Texas reliever Mike Adams (0-1) was making his debut for the Rangers after being traded from San Diego and got the first out of the eighth, but as the rain became heavier, Boesch connected for a shot over the wall in right field.

Jose Valverde pitched the ninth for Detroit, earning his 29th save in as many chances. Detroit pitcher Joaquin Benoit (3-3) took the win despite blowing a 5-2 lead in the top of the eighth.

Yankees 6, White Sox 0, 61/2 innings In Chicago, Mark Teixeira set a major league record by homering from both sides of the plate in the same game 12 times in a season as New York beat Chicago in a rain-shortened game. Teixeira broke the record he had shared with Eddie Murray and Chili Davis, who each performed the switchhitting feat 11 times in a season. New York pitcher Phil Hughes (2-3), who spent nearly two months on the disabled list this season, pitched six scoreless innings to guide the Yankees to their fifth straight win. The White Sox have lost four straight. Chicago starter Jon Danks (4-9) suffered his first loss since May, giving up four runs in six innings.

Blue Jays 3, Rays 1 In St Petersburg, Florida, Toronto pitchers limited Tampa Bay to just three hits. Blue Jays starter Ricky Romero (9-9) did not allow a hit until the sixth, and got seven strikeouts. Closer Jon Rauch allowed two singles with two outs, but induced a flyball to end it. Toronto, which is three games over .500 (56-53) for the first time since April 8, got homers from Yunel Escobar and Jose Bautista, who had his 32nd long shot of the season. Rays starter David Price (9-10) gave up three runs in 6-2/3 innings to suffer his first loss to Toronto in ten starts.

Angels 5, Twins 1 In Anaheim, Ervin Santana threw another complete game to lead Los Angeles over Minnesota.

Santana’s bid to duplicate Johnny Vander Meer’s feat of back-to-back no-hitters in 1938 ended in the second inning when he gave up a leadoff single. Still, Santana (7-8) got the win with another fine per formance to add to his 3-1 gem last Wednesday at Cleveland. Torii Hunter and rookie Mark Trumbo homered for the Angels. Minnesota’s Brian Duensing (8-9) gave up eight hits in six innings.

Mariners 4, Athletics 2 In Seattle, Casper Wells hit a two-run homer in his third game with Seattle, helping the Mariners beat Oakland. Brendan Ryan sparked the Mariners’ offense with some nifty baserunning in a win over Oakland. Wells, acquired Saturday in a four-player trade with Detroit, connected on a full-count pitch from Rich Harden (2-2) in the sixth inning. Seattle

BOSTON: Cleveland Indians’ Kosuke Fukudome swings for a strike as Boston Red Sox catcher Jason Varitek waits for the ball during the sixth inning. —AP grabbed a 2-0 lead in the first inning, helped by alert baserunning from Ryan. He reached first on a single and as he wandered back to the base, he noticed second base completely uncovered so he took off and made it without a throw. He popped up immediately and noticed the same lax defense at third, sliding in safely again without an throw.

Seattle starter Felix Hernandez (10-9) allowed two runs, struck out nine in 6 1-3 innings.

Orioles 8, Royals 2 In Kansas City, Mark Reynolds drove in five runs as Baltimore beat Kansas City in a game played in

stifling temperatures. Reynolds hit his 24th home run of the season in the ninth with two runners on board to effectively end the contest. Chris Davis also homered in the ninth. Reynolds, who leads the Orioles with 60 RBIs, also drove in two runs with a two-out double in the third. His five RBIs matched a career high, done three times previously. Baltimore starter Alfredo Simon (3-4) curbed the Royals over seven innings to pick up the victory. Kansas City starter Bruce Chen (5-5) did not make it out of the fifth, requiring 115 pitches in 4 2-3 innings. He gave up three runs and four walks. — AP

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

Detroit 6, Texas 5; Washington 9, Atlanta 3; Chicago Cubs 11, Pittsburgh 6; Florida 4, NY Mets 3; Boston 3, Cleveland 2; Toronto 3, Tampa Bay 1; Cincinnati 5, Houston 1; NY Yankees 6, Chicago White Sox 0; Baltimore 8, Kansas City 2; St. Louis 8, Milwaukee 7 (11 innings); Philadelphia 5, Colorado 0; LA Dodgers 1, San Diego 0; LA Angels 5, Minnesota 1; Seattle 4, Oakland 2; Arizona 6, San Francisco 1.

American League Eastern Division W L PCT Boston 67 41 .620 NY Yankees 66 42 .611 Tampa Bay 56 52 .519 Toronto 56 53 .514 Baltimore 43 63 .406 Central Division Detroit 58 51 .532 Cleveland 54 53 .505 Chicago W Sox 52 56 .481 Minnesota 50 59 .459 Kansas City 46 63 .422 Western Division Texas 61 49 .555 LA Angels 60 50 .545 Oakland 49 61 .445 Seattle 47 62 .431

GB 1 11 11.5 23 3 5.5 8 12 1 12 13.5

National League Eastern Division Philadelphia 70 39 .642 Atlanta 63 48 .568 NY Mets 55 55 .500 Florida 55 55 .500 Washington 53 56 .486 Central Division Milwaukee 61 50 .550 St. Louis 58 52 .527 Pittsburgh 54 54 .500 Cincinnati 54 56 .491 Chicago Cubs 45 65 .409 Houston 36 74 .327 Western Division San Francisco 61 49 .555 Arizona 61 49 .555 Colorado 51 59 .464 LA Dodgers 50 59 .459 San Diego 47 64 .423

8 15.5 15.5 17 2.5 5.5 6.5 15.5 24.5 10 10.5 14.5

Fit Tiger feels no rust from layoff

AKRON:Tiger Woods (right) walks up the fairway with his swing coach, Sean Foley, on the first hole during a practice round for the World Golf Championships Bridgestone Invitational at Firestone Country Club. —AP

AKRON: Former World No 1 Tiger Woods said he felt as physically fit as he has been in years and not rusty following a nine-hole practice round Tuesday ahead of his first event after an 11-week injury layoff.

The 14-time major champion, chasing the record 18 major titles won by Jack Nicklaus, will return today in the first round of the World Golf Championship Bridgestone Invitational paired alongside British Open champion Darren Clarke. “I’m ready to go,” Woods said.

“Doctors gave me the clearance to go, so here I am. Started back practicing a couple weeks ago, which was nice. I feel good now and here I am.”

Woods, who has not won a title in 22 months and slid to 28th in the world rankings, is a seven-time winner at Firestone Countr y Club, although he posted his worst 72-hole pro score the last time he played the course.

Woods has not played a competitive round since withdrawing after the first nine holes of the Players Championship last May, when Woods aggravated left knee and Achilles tendon injuries that he suffered last April at the Masters.

With boyhood pal Bryon Bell serving as his caddie in the wake of his firing of long-time bagman Steve

Williams, Woods toured the familiar course early in the morning and said he felt in solid form. “The shots felt ver y crisp, ver y clean. I was ver y pleased,” Woods said.

“My start lines were good. They were nice and tight, which was good.

Everything we have been working on we’re very pleased with. Just got to keep working at it.”

Woods sent encouraging text messages to Clarke ahead of the Ulsterman’s final round at last month’s British Open, words of encouragement that remain between the two but ones Clarke cited as inspirational in his triumph. “He has always been a great friend to me,” Woods said.

“It was great to see Darren play well. He’s gone through a lot in his life and to see him win an Open Championship, the one that he covets the most, that’s very special.”

Woods said he has already had “a ton” of applicants for the caddie job that Bell takes over on a temporary basis this week and next week, when Woods bids for a 15th major title at the PGA Championship at Atlanta Athletic Club.

“I thought it was time for a change,” Woods said of firing Williams.

“I felt that Stevie and I have had just an amazing run. Steve is a hell of a

caddie, there’s no denying that. He’s helped my career, and I think I’ve helped his. “We’ve had a great partnership for 12 years, won a bunch of tournaments, but I just felt it was time to change things up a little bit. I felt very comfortable with the move.”

Asked about Williams saying he felt like he had wasted the past two years of his life sticking with Woods in the wake of a 2009 sex scandal, Woods said, “Well, that’s what he says and what he feels.”

Woods said he has no timetable for naming a new caddie but wants someone with experience at dealing with pressure of top-level golf and noted that he hopes to qualify for the 125-man US PGA playoffs that start later this month. “(I want) someone that obviously understands the pressure of the game coming down the back nine, someone who probably has been there before and who understands it and can deal with that,” Woods said.

“That’s something that I will definitely be looking for.” Woods said his expectations remain the same as ever, to win any event he enters. England’s World No 1 Luke Donald, who won the WGC Match-Play crown in February, will be paired with Masters champion Charl Schwartzel of South Africa for the first two rounds.

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Lynx beat Mercury, boost WNBA lead NEW JERSEY: New York Jets special teams assistant coach Ben Kotwica (center) talks to his team during NFL football training camp. —AP

Browns punter Hodges likely out for season NEW YORK: Cleveland Browns punter Reggie Hodges will likely miss the 2011 National Football League (NFL) season after he tore the Achilles tendon in his left leg during practice on Tuesday. “It’ll probably prevent him from playing this year,” Browns coach Pat Shurmur told reporters. “We’re going to look for the best possible replacement that we can and we’re going to quickly address that.

We’ll have some guys in tomorrow and will have a tryout going.” The 29-yearold Hodges, who was entering his third season with the Browns, was one of the NFL’s top-rated punters last season. He punted 78 times and averaged 43.9 yards, dropping 29 punts inside the 20yard line and 15 inside the 10, which was third best in the NFL. In other NFL news, the Philadelphia Eagles continued their frenzied attack on the free agent market by agreeing to terms with running back Ronnie Brown on a one-year deal. Brown, drafted second overall by the Dolphins in 2005, has amassed 4,815 rushing yards and 36 touchdowns as well as 1,491 receiving yards though has had trouble avoiding injury. In six seasons in Miami, Brown

has played in all 16 games just twice.

“Ronnie is an all-around running back with a versatile skill set,” Eagles general manager Howie Roseman said in a statement. “He can run the ball, catch it, and does very well in pass protection.”

Brown rushed for 734 yards on 200 carries and gained 242 yards on 33 pass receptions last season. Last week, the Eagles signed prized cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha, defensive linemen Cullen Jenkins and Jason Babin and quarterback Vince Young and traded for cornerback Dominique RodgersCromartie.

The Dolphins traded for former New Orleans Saints running back Reggie Bush last week, and also took running back Daniel Thomas from Kansas State in the second round of the draft. The Seattle Seahawks signed a pair of free agents on Tuesday, one on offense and the other on defense. Seattle agreed to terms with tight end Zach Miller, who made the Pro Bowl last season with 60 receptions and five touchdowns with Oakland, and defensive end Jimmy Wilkerson, who played last year with New Orleans.— Reuters

Jeremy Wariner

Injured Wariner to miss world championships RALEIGH: Former Olympic and world 400 meters champion Jeremy Wariner will miss this month’s world championships with a foot injury, his agent said on Tuesday. Wariner, a three-time 400 meters global champion and a key player in the United States’ Olympic and world 4x400 meters relay victories, tore a ligament in the second toe of his left foot while training in July, his agent Deon Minor told Reuters. “Jeremy said he felt a pop while he was training,” Minor said in a telephone interview. “Then it was like he could not even work out.” The injury will not require surgery, but recovery time of eight to 12 weeks will be needed, Minor said. Wariner, 27, had hoped to compete in both the 400 and 4x400 relay at the Aug. 27-Sept. 4 world championships in Daegu, South Korea.

“He really wanted to get back out there because it has been a tough year,” Minor said of the small injuries that have plagued Wariner. The world’s top-ranked 400 meters runner in 2010, Wariner had

just the 12th fastest time this season and was beaten in the US championships/world trials by collegian Tony McQuay. “I am disappointed that I will not be able to try to regain the world title in the 400 meters in Daegu,” Wariner said in a statement. “Right now my focus is to get healthy, prepare for the 2012 season and try for my second Olympic gold medal in the 400.”

Wariner won the 2004 Olympics 400 meters title and followed that with world championships in 2005 and ‘07. He was runner-up to fellow American LaShawn Merritt at the 2008 Olympics and ‘09 world championships. He also helped the Americans to 4x400 relay gold at the 2004 and 2008 Olympics and the 2005, ‘07 and ‘09 world championships.

Wariner is expected to be replaced on the US team by fourth-placed trials finisher Jamaal Torrance. Merritt, who is returning from a doping suspension, McQuay and Greg Nixon also will run the event for the Americans.— Reuters

MINNEAPOLIS: The Minnesota Lynx extended its lead atop the WNBA standings thanks to a fourth quarter surge that set up a 90-73 win over the Phoenix Mercur y on Tuesday.

Minnesota led by five after three quarters and began the final period with a 14-2 surge to take control. Maya Moore scored 22 points and Seimone Augustus finished with 21 for the Lynx, who have won seven straight games to move three games clear atop the Western Conference standings. Diana Taurasi had 20 points for Phoenix despite being plagued by foul trouble much of the night. The Mercury played without starting center Kara Braxton due to a family matter.

Storm 78, Silver Stars 64 In Seattle, the hosts moved into a share of third place in the Western Conference by downing San Antonio. Sue Bird scored 17 points and Swin Cash added 16 for the Storm, who have won six consecutive home games to move level with Phoenix. Ruth Riley scored 12 points for the Silver Stars, who cut an 18-point first-half deficit to one point late in third quarter before the Storm pulled away with a 17-2 run.

Liberty 85, Dream 75 In Atlanta, New York solidified its hold on third spot in the Eastern Conference by beating Atlanta. Pienette Pierson scored 20 points and Leilani Mitchell sank four 3-pointers - all in the final period - for the Liberty, who are now 2-1/2 games clear of fourth-placed Chicago and 3 games clear of the Dream. Angel McCoughtry had 24 points to lead Atlanta.— AP

Diana Taurasi in action in this file photo

Bundesliga coaches pick Bayern as favorite FRANKFURT: For Bundesliga coaches, it will be business as usual when the new season starts this week - beating Bayern Munich is the aim again. A vast majority of the 18 coaches believe Bayern is the overwhelming favorite for the title - as it is most seasons. But despite being Germany’s richest club and able to outspend the rest of the field by far, Bayern doesn’t always win the championship. The team has won five of the last 10 titles but they have roughly come every second year or so. Borussia Dortmund dominated last season, clinching the title with three rounds to spare as Bayern went through a turbulent time with the firing of coach Louis van Gaal.

Dortmund coach Juergen Klopp, like most of his colleagues, puts Bayern in front of his own club as favorite. “We are probably the first champion in the history of football that goes into the next season as a challenger,” said Klopp, one of 16 of 18 coaches to pick Bayern in a poll as the title favorite.

“What we did last season will be very hard to repeat, let alone top.”

Bayern didn’t even come second last season, finishing third behind Bayer Leverkusen. Leverkusen’s former coach, the veteran Jupp Heynckes, is back at Bayern for a third stint and hoping to steer the club into calmer waters. The big goal is to reach the final of the Champions League, which will be played at its stadium.

Heynckes may be the Bundesliga’s third-highest scorer in history but he believes in a solid defense. Bayern conceded 44 goals last season, about 15 too many, according to Heynckes.

“The attack wins games, the defense championships. We have to be more stable in defense,” Heynckes said.

The club has spent lavishly on defenders, dishing out an estimated ?44 million ($62.35 million) to bolster its back line. The biggest signing was Germany goalkeeper Manuel Neuer from Schalke, who is expected to be replicate former ‘keeper Oliver Kahn’s dominance and be the No 1 for the next decade. Bayern also signed Brazilian defender Rafinha from Genoa and Germany defender Jerome Boateng from Manchester City. Both have previously played in the Bundesliga and know German football well. The club also brought in striker Nils Petersen from the second

division and Japanese striker Takashi Usami on loan. Usami has shown plenty of promise in warm-up matches.

Bayern has released striker Miroslav Klose, who signed for Lazio, and will rely on Mario Gomez. The Germany striker topped the Bundesliga with 28 goals last season.

He is set to be partnered in attack by Ivica Olic, who returns from a knee injury. But Bayern’s hopes are mostly pinned on its wingers, Arjen Robben and Franck Ribery. Both are prone to injuries, with Ribery especially having just had a season to forget, and they both injured an ankle in warm-up matches and may not be ready when Bayern hosts Borussia Moenchengladbach in its opener on Sunday.

Heynckes’ first match in charge was a 3-0 victory over second-division club Eintracht Braunschweig in the first round of the German Cup. Bayern was solid but not spectacular - and that may be the the team’s style this season, although Leverkusen played entertaining football in the two season under Heynckes. Heynckes believes Dortmund is strong as a unit “while I am new in Munich.” Bayern president Uli Hoeness agrees, saying Dortmund “very clearly will be our biggest challenger.” Creative midfielder Nuri Sahin has left Dortmund for Real Madrid but Klopp has signed 20year-old Ilkay Guendogan, another player with Turkish roots who may become a German international.

Japan attacking midfielder Shinji Kagawa is back from injury and has shown some good form in friendlies.

Dortmund won the title with the youngest side in the league that has now gained valuable experience.

Most experts think Leverkusen is the only other team with an outside chance of upsetting Bayern or Dortmund. But new coach Robin Dutt’s team lost in the first round of the German Cup to second-division club Dynamo Dresden.

The team has lost midfielder Arturo Vidal to Juventus but added Germany striker Andre Schuerrle. Goalkeeper Rene Adler is recovering from knee surgery and won’t be available early in the season. Veteran Michael Ballack could again be used mostly as a substitute.— AP

KBC indoors soccer tourney kicks off KUWAIT: The fourth annual KBC Futsal Tournament kicks off this Saturday, August 6, 2011 at the Ahmad Beshr Al-Roumi High School Hall in Al-Da’iya at 9:00 pm under the patronage of CEO of the Kuwait Banks Club, Hisham Al-Bu’aijan.

This was announced by head of the KBC’s sports committee Khalil AlBloushi, who further indicated that “valuable prizes” have been allocated for the top three finalists, in addition to other prizes allocated for the audience through raffle draw.

Hisham Al-Bu’aijan

Sagan ends Kittel’s run in Tour of Poland WARSAW: Slovakian rider Peter Sagan ended a run of three successive stage wins by Marcel Kittel of Germany yesterday as he took the fourth stage of the Tour of Poland, a 176.9 kilometres ride from Cieszyn to Oswiecim.

The 21-year-old Slovak - winner of the Tour of Sardinia this year - also took over the overall leader’s jersey from Kittel as the talented Sagan gained a valuable boost in a race he is using as a warmup for next month’s Tour of Spain.

Kittel had a wretched day as he came in over seven minutes behind the stage winner and slipped from top of the standings to 104th place. Meanwhile, a Dutch cyclist who was a teammate of Lance Armstrong has disputed a claim by a Dutch magazine that he admitted in an interview to taking the performance-enhancing drug EPO. The magazine NUSport quoted Max van Heeswijk as answering “yes” when asked during an interview in June whether he had used the drug.

But the retired cyclist said the journalist misunderstood him, and that he was referring to vitamins that he took in preparation for a race. Van Heeswijk broke down in tears during a television interview broadcast yesterday, claiming that he was being caught up in doping accusations when he was actually “one of the cleanest ones.”“Why would I admit to such a thing?” he told NOS television, saying he would have had nothing to gain. Reporter Nando Boers said the conversation came during a long interview during which he told the cyclist that part would not be published.

Both Van Heeswijk and the magazine’s editor say the cyclist destroyed the reporter’s recording after the discussion. Van Heeswijk, who quit cycling three years ago, said he was angry that the interviewer only wanted to talk about doping. “He rode in Armstrong’s team and we wanted to know from Max all the stories that were going on about drug use in the team,” editor Richard Plugge said. According to Boers’ report, he asked Van Heeswijk if he had ever taken EPO himself. “‘Yes.’ Silence fell. He looked at me deeply,” Boers said. When asked how often, the cyclist said a few times. Van Heeswijk rode with the US Postal Service team from 2003 to 2006.—Agencies

Jamaica’s Olympic 100m champion Usain Bolt

Athletics star Bolt eyes soccer career MADRID: Olympic track and field champion Usain Bolt, the world’s fastest man, says he would like to play football when he retires from the track. “I am serious, I believe I could be good at football, I think I could compete well,” the 24-year-old Jamaican said in an interview published on Wednesday in Spanish sports daily Marca.Asked if he was eyeing a career with a team in a top flight league like the English Premier League or Spain’s La liga, he said: “It is difficult to think of plans with a first-level team.”

“Maybe in the future one of those teams will invite me to play for them. But I think that first I need to play a few charity matches to see how I develop,” he added. Bolt stormed to Olympic gold at the 2008 Beijing Games in a world record time of 9.69 seconds and then bettered that to 9.58sec when winning the world title in Berlin a year later. He mirrored that feat in the 200m, also setting world records, latterly of 19.19sec in the German capital. Bolt, a Manchester United fan, met with the Red Devils at their training ground in 2009. He was a defensive midfielder when he played football in high school.— AFP

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Zvonareva cruises into round of 16 in Carlsbad

Kimiko Date-Krumm in action in this file photo

Ageless Date-Krumm shines in San Diego SAN DIEGO: Japan’s 40-year-old wonder woman Kimiko Date-Krumm beat newlymarried Argentine Gisela Dulko 7-5, 6-0 Tuesday in a post-honeymoon wake-up call to reach the second round of the San Diego Open. Date-Krumm won the event in 1996 back in her first tennis life and just before she retired to eventually spend 11 years out of the game. Her victory in just under 90 minutes with six breaks of the distracted Dulko got DateKrumm off to a much more promising start at this edition after losing in qualifying rounds here a year ago.

She was joined in the second round by Japanese compatriot Ayumi Morita, a winner over Australian Jelena Dokic 6-1, 4-6, 7-5 and second-round opponent for Serbian fifth seed Ana Ivanovic. The 15thseeded Italian Sara Errani continued the misery for injury victim Sania Mirza 6-2, 63, with the Indian last winning a match in mid-June.

Date-Krumm, who took five-time champion Venus Williams to three sets in their Wimbledon second-round encounter in June, said that she had some luck in victory over Dulko, who married a Real Madrid footballer a few weeks ago. “I was confused a bit in the first set,” admitted the Japanese winner, who returned to tennis in 2008 and got back into WTA play by mid-2009 after years of encouragement from her German husband. “I knew her game and how she wanted to play. When I was down 3-5 I started a small comeback. I had some mistakes but that was the start.” Date-Krumm said she never reflects

upon the fact that she won the trophy a decade and a half ago.

“It was a long time ago. I had a lot of confidence then. Of course I was much young and all of the muscles and the shots - they were better then than now.

But I’m enjoying my tennis more now than I did back then,” she confessed. The event lost sixth seed Dominika Cibulkova, who withdrew with an existing left abdominal muscle strain. The Slovak may have risked it uselessly on Monday night when she threw out a ceremonial first pitch at a local baseball game. “I was really hoping that it would heal fast and I would be able to play,” said Cibulkova.

“Unfortunately it’s still a problem and I have to withdraw.” No 11 Maria Kirilenko beat Rebecca Marino 6-3, 6-2, with the Canadian troubled by back pain and needing a medical timeout.

Italy’s Alberta Brianti defeated 10thseeded compatriot Flavia Pennetta 1-6, 62, 6-2 while Germany’s Wimbledon semifinalist Sabine Lisicki, the 12th seed, hammered Greta Arn of Hungary 6-0, 6-2. “I didn’t have much time to adapt. I only got here two days ago,” said 25th-ranked Lisicki, a semi-finalist last weekend in Stanford against Serena Williams. “I’m happy with how I played.” New Zealand’s Croatian-born Marina Erakovic upset Russian No. 14 Elena Vesnina 6-1, 6-2.

Austrian Tamira Paszek, a Wimbledon quarter-finalist, rallied to get past Romanian Simona Halep 0-6, 6-4, 7-5.

Third seed Agnieszka Radwanska became the first into the third round as she beat Brit Elena Baltacha 6-0, 7-6 (7/4). — AFP

CARLSBAD: Vera Zvonareva converted the only two ser vice breaks of the match, enabling her to beat veteran qualifier Jill Craybas 6-4, 7-5 on Tuesday night to progress to the round-of-16 at the Mercury Insurance Open. The No 3-ranked and top-seeded Russian, playing her opening match, had more trouble than expected against the American, who had the benefit of two qualifying matches to get into the main draw, then a first-round match on Monday.

The pair were on serve in the first set when Zvonareva broke to take a 5-4 lead. Craybas, ranked No. 125, wasted two break points in the next game before dropping the set with a backhand into the net. Zvonareva broke late in the second set to take a 6-5 lead and served out for the win. Zvonareva’s next opponent will be either No 16 seed Polona Hercog of Slovenia or Russian compatriot Vera Dushevina. Second-seeded Andrea Petkovic also had a straight-sets win, defeating Alexa Glatch of the US 6-3, 6-4. She will next take on either Virginie Razzano of France or New Zealand qualifier Marina Erakovic.

In the other second-round match, thirdseeded Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland cruised early then fought off Britain’s Elena Baltacha 6-0, 7-6 (4). Radwanska, who also received a bye into the second round, saved two set points at 5-4 in the second set before Baltacha saved one match point to force the tiebreaker. In the round-of-16 the Pole will face either American Christina McHale or Russian Alla Kudryatseva, who beat No.13seeded Jarmila Gajdosova of Australia.

Gajdosova was one of three seeded players to be bundled out in first-round matches: Erakovic upset No 14 seed Elena Vesnina of Russia 6-1, 6-2 and Alberta Brianti was a 1-6, 6-2, 6-2 winner over 10th-seeded Italian compatriot Flavia Pennetta. No 11 seed Maria Kirilenko of Russia cruised to a 6-3, 6-2 win over Canada’s Rebecca Marino; 12th-seeded

CARLSBAD: Andrea Petkovic of Germany lunges to return a forehand to Alexa Glatch during the Mercury Insurance Open. —AFP Sabine Lisicki of Germany beat Italian Greta Arn 6-0, 6-2; and No. 15 seed Sara Errani of Italy defeated Sania Mirza of India 6-2, 6-3.

Radwanska, runner-up in the finals here last year to Svetlana Kuznetsova, was in quite a struggle after an easy first set. “I was serving very aggressively really playing my game,” Radwanska said. “She was serving much better in the second set and it was hard to break her.” Kirilenko did not face a break point on her serve as she hit 75 percent of her first serves.

She also took advantage of a back injury Marino suffered in the first set. Kirilenko, who lost to eventual champion Serena Williams in the quarterfinals last week at Stanford, was rarely pushed by her Canadian

Ronjan takes aim at London medal

Peng hopes to match trailblazer Li’s heroics SAN DIEGO: China’s Peng Shuai entered the US hard court season with a careerhigh ranking and now holds hopes of some day matching the heroics of her trailblazing countrywoman, Li Na. Li became the first Chinese to win a grand slam singles title when she took the French Open in June, winning worldwide acclaim and marking another milestone in China’s rapid rise as a force in the women’s game. Twenty-five year-old Peng, long a stable-mate of Li’s in their country’s rigid Soviet-style sport system, has taken heart at her compatriot’s triumph at Roland Garros at the age of 29, and believes she might be in for some late blooming herself.

“I think Asian players grow up later,” Peng, who has soared to 17 from a world ranking of 72 at the start of the year, told a small group of reporters at the San Diego Open. “It took me five years to break the top 20 but I’m really happy I never gave up.” Like lion-hearted Li and Zheng Jie, who became China’s first grand slam singles semi-finalist at Wimbledon in 2008, Peng has prospered from the Chinese Tennis Association’s landmark decision in 2009 to allow its top women players to organize their own touring, coaches and training programs.

Where all but a handful of elite Chinese athletes are subject to grueling training regimes and must surrender a large share of their earnings to the state that nurtured their careers, Peng can keep most of her winnings and has enjoyed renewing her relationship with coach Alan Ma. Ma guided a teenaged Peng into the top 50 in his first coaching stint in 2004-05 and has helped her become the third Chinese player after Li and Zheng to crack the top 20 since taking over again last July.

“The last few years weren’t stable for me because I had injuries and changed coaches so many times, but now it’s all coming together,” said Peng, who broke now ground for herself by making the fourth rounds of the Australian Open and Wimbledon this year. “Alan and I understand and trust each other a lot. The coach is the mirror [of yourself ].” Peng said Li’s win at Roland Garros was huge in her country and had inspired a lot of people to take up the sport. She now hopes her hard-hitting game can help China break new ground at the US Open starting Aug. 29, where no Chinese has made the last four. “A grand slam title is every player’s dream but I really just want to try my best,” said Peng. — Reuters

Pele plays down feud with Teixeira LONDON: Brazil great Pele played down his feud with Brazilian FA chief Ricardo Teixeira on Tuesday, saying the most important thing was that his country stage a memorable World Cup in 2014. Speaking at the announcement of an opus for his former club New York Cosmos in London, the 70year-old also said he was confident Brazil’s preparations to stage the tournament were on track despite some “scares” regarding stadiums and transport. Pele, arguably the best player ever, was initially snubbed by Teixeira for the draw for the preliminary rounds of the World Cup in Rio de Janeiro on Saturday. However, Pele did play a role after being appointed his country’s international World Cup ambassador

by Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff.

“Everybody has enemies, even when you don’t know,” Pele told reporters in the Dorchester Hotel. “The most important thing is that we have an excellent World Cup in Brazil. This doesn’t affect the football, we are just going to work hard. “( Teixeira) has some small problems with journalists but so does Mr Blatter and FIFA is still there. I just want to make it clear, I haven’t had an argument with Teixeira.

I respect him.” Earlier this year Pele said Brazil risked “embarrassment” after delays in building stadiums, particularly the Corinthians Stadium in Sao Paulo which is planned to host the opening match, and improving the country’s rickety transport system. While still concerned, Pele sounded more upbeat on Tuesday. — Reuters

opponent. “I played great today,” Kirilenko said. “I did everything that we planned. I was happy with that. I tried to mix my game because she is tall.”

Both players sought injury treatment at the end of the first set. The Russian saw a trainer for a pain in her left leg, Marino for a lower back injury. “I did a couple of drop shots and I could see that she was running a little bit (slower),” Kirilenko said.

Lisicki, who lost to Maria Sharapova in the Wimbledon semifinals, was pleased with her overall game. “I didn’t have too much time to adapt because I just came here two days ago,” she said. “A little bit different conditions (than last week at Stanford), so I was happy with the way I played.” — AP

HAINING: China’s Zhang Bo (left) plays against Australia during the FIBA Stankovic Continental Cup in Haining, east China’s Zhejiang province. Australia beat China 69-62. —AP

NEW DELHI: Ronjan Sodhi is a hard man to please and the Indian shooter insists he will not rest on his laurels after rising to number one in the world rankings and is setting his sights on a medal at next year’s London Olympics. The 32year-old Punjab shooter has been a consistent performer at international level and the bronze medal he won at last month’s World Cup in Slovenia put the 2010 Asian Games gold medallist on top of the latest double trap rankings.

Ronjan, however, said he was chasing an Olympic medal which would stay with him forever, unlike the constantly changing nature of the rankings. “It’s a nice feeling of course and I’m happy too. But at the same time I know it’s a momentary phase,” Ronjan told Reuters in a telephone interview. “I’d like something that stays with me forever, like an Olympic medal, and I’m going to give my best in London to get one.

“Any athlete will tell you that an Olympic medal is the biggest thing in his or her life. That’s the ultimate recognition, the pinnacle of sports,” Ronjan said from Italy where he is practicing for next month’s shotgun World Championships in Belgrade. Ronjan has already booked a berth for the London Olympics through the silver medal he won at the Beijing World Cup earlier this year, avoiding the pain he endured three years ago. Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, who won silver in 2004 Athens Olympics, was awarded the quota place for the Beijing Games while Ronjan, despite having broken two world records, was not even awarded a wild card.

“I did not get to compete in Beijing despite being the world number three shooter then. I always thought the Olympics was for the top shooters and it felt strange not to be there. “I didn’t get a quota place and I remember NRAI (National Rifle Association of India) asking for a wild card.

But it didn’t stop me there. I always knew my time would come. “It happens in an athlete’s life, such ups and downs...

I watched the competition on TV and felt I should have been there. But one has to move on in life, you can’t keep (complaining).”

India’s shooters will bear the weight of expectation for success in London, hardly surprising after Abhinav Bindra (10m air rifle) captured the second most populous country’s first individual Olympic gold at the 2008 Games. Ronjan accepts that emulating his compatriot’s triumph would be a difficult task. “You can’t guarantee a medal in London. It all depends on your form on that particular day. If sports was so predictable, it would have no charm,” he said. “There are a lot of factors involved. I can only assure that I will give my 100 percent when it comes to determination and dedication but there are other factors too. “Everyone now expects us to win at the Olympics, Asian Games and Commonwealth Games. The government has spent a lot and I’m fortunate to have the backing of the Mittal Champions Trust as well. “But in London, apart from the Americans, the English shooters will be a big challenge. They will be eager to do well in front of a home crowd. “Although that can be a disadvantage as well... under pressure at home. It should be interesting but frankly speaking, there are at least 10-12 shooters who can win on the day.” — Reuters

Chievo fined, Serie B player banned ROME: Serie A team Chievo were fined 80,000 euros yesterday for their role in the calcioscommesse betting scandal that has blighted Italian football all summer.

Vittorio Micolucci, a defender with Serie B side Ascoli, struck a deal with prosecutors and received a reduced ban of 14 months.

Another seven people have also been banned from football.

Chievo are one of two Serie A sides in the dock in Rome over the football betting scandal, the other being newly-promoted Atalanta.

There are 18 teams, including two amateur sides, and 26 people including players, former players, presidents and directors due to be judged by federal prosecutor Stefano Palazzi.

The scandal came to light at the end of last

season following the revelation of an investigation by the Prosecutor of Cremona that started in November 2010.

Chievo were fined over the behaviour of Stefano Bettarini, who was registered on their books as a player in a publicity stunt-he never actually played for the club.

Bettarini had retired from football in 2005 and had not played since, instead forging a career in television, but joined Chievo in October 2010 as a player but apparently to act as a consultant.

He was charged with trying to manipulate matches to fix bets and was banned for 14 months. Micolucci’s ban is for association with illicit betting activities but was reduced from the three years requested by prosecutors due to his collaboration with investigators.

The biggest bans so far, of three years, were handed to Gianfranco Parlato, a coach at third division Viareggio, and Gianluca Tuccella a player at amateur side Cus Chieti.

Federico Zaccanti, a player with third division Virtus Entella, and Ivan Tisci, who is currently without a team, were both hit with year-long bans.

Claudio Furlan of third division Portogruaro was suspended for six months while sports director Mauro Gibellini of Verona, also in the third division, has been banned for five months and fined 10,000 euros.

The best known individual caught up in the scandal is former Italy and Lazio striker Guiseppe Signori, accused of being one of the heads of the criminal gang fixing matches. —AFP

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China scents new start as cash pours in GUANGZHOU: Serious money is being pumped for the first time into football in China, where the top league has long been dogged by corruption and the much-maligned national team derided as a huge embarrassment. Spurred by football-loving tycoons with cash to blow, the sport, which threatens to usurp basketball as the most popular in China now that superstar Yao Ming has retired, is undergoing a renaissance after years in the doldrums. Guangzhou Evergrande, who sit unbeaten at the top of the Super League, China’s top club competition, last month smashed the national transfer record when they unveiled Argentinean midfield schemer Dario Conca for $10 million.

The 28-year-old, signed from Brazilian giants Fluminense, joins

the swelling ranks of foreign players, coaches and referees now plying their trade in the improving Super League, which is seeing attendances rise sharply.

Guangzhou, who have been linked with an audacious bid for Manchester United’s South Korean star Park Ji-Sung, have averaged gates of 45,000 this season as they take the Super League by storm, not losing in 17 games. The southern Chinese club is par t of the Evergrande Real Estate Group, one of the country’s top property companies, with its owner Xu Jiayin reportedly one of China’s richest tycoons.

Wang Jianlin, chairman of Dalian Wanda real estate company, has been dubbed “China’s Abramovich” in reference to Chelsea’s multi-bil-

lionaire Russian owner Roman Abramovich, who has spent lavishly on the Premier League side.

Chinese media drew the comparison after Wang last month agreed to pour in 500 million yuan ($77.3 million) over three years to boost football in China at grassroots, league and national level. It was touted by state media as a turning point for Chinese football, but Wang was more circumspect. “I am not a savior. I am just an entrepreneur who still has a passion for soccer and hopes to do something for the game here during its hardest time,” Wang told reporters.

He bristles at comparisons to Abramovich. “I feel ashamed to be mentioned with him,” said Wang, who does not own a club, but founded Dalian Wanda, now called

Dalian Shide. “He treats soccer as a kind of amusement in his luxury life, while I am really concerned about the sport’s poor situation in the country. I am keen to lift it from the valley.” One sports marketing expert, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the subject, said Wang’s hefty cash injection could be linked to crucial changes at the very top of China’s ruling communist party.

Xi Jinping, the vice-president who is widely expected to take over as president next year, is believed to be a football fan. Wang returned to the footballing fold after previously saying he wanted nothing more to do with the game in China after damning evidence emerged of corruption that was rife, right up to the highest echelons of the sport. The

government launched a wide-ranging investigation in 2006 that over several years unearthed graft at almost every level of the game.

Several high-level Chinese Football Association (CFA) figures were arrested, along with scores of players, referees and coaches over gambling, match-fixing and a host of other misdemeanors. CFA officials allegedly routinely fixed matches at national, league and even international level by buying off teams or referees. State media last year said pay-offs and bribes determined who won Chinese championships and who was relegated. When police raided the Beijing villa of Nan Yong, former head of the CFA, they discovered gold, diamonds and watches that the Shanghai Oriental Sports Daily said Nan confessed he

accepted as bribes.

But a year on, the mood has lifted markedly, leading to hopes that even the national team might finally come good. China’s football team, currently ranked 73rd in the world by FIFA, has for years been a great source of shame to a government that is acutely concerned about how the country is viewed on the international stage.

However, Arie Haan, who was national coach from 2002 to 2004 and is now in charge of Super League side Tianjin Teda, warned there were no quick fixes-no matter how much money was thrown around. After the Wang windfall the Dutchman told the China Daily: “I think after a few years you will get results, but it takes a lot of time.” —AFP

Japan players in shock as Matsuda battles for life TOKYO: Japan’s top players were in shock yesterday after former international team mate Naok i M atsuda was rushed into intensive care after he collapsed during training. Medical personnel rushed to the 2002 World Cup player ’s aid early on Tuesday after he collapsed with suspected heatstroke. H is JFL team M atsumoto Yamaga later said he had gone into cardiorespiratory arrest. Doctors put 34-year-old Matsuda on an artificial respirator and described his conditions as “extremely critical.” Yamaga manager Yoshiyuki Kato told a news conference yesterday: “He was stable this morning but there was no change in his condition.”

Former Japan team mate Shunsuke Nakamura rushed to the hospital to see Matsuda, spending 20 minutes looking through the window of the intensive care unit. “I heard he’d collapsed but didn’t hear any details,” the Yokohama midfielder told Wednesday’s Nikkan Sports newspaper.

“But I saw him and believe he will recover.”

Former Japan captain Yuji Nakazawa, part of Yokohama’s back-to-back title winning teams of 2003 and 2004 alongside Matsuda in defense, was stunned by the news.

“I can’t believe it,” he told the Sankei Sports. “I had only heard he fainted. “I hope he recovers consciousness quickly and we

can hear his voice again soon.”

Doctors suspect the player may have suffered a heart attack after he arrived at hospital unconscious and not having responded to heart massage, his club said.

Record temperatures across Japan have caused a rise in heatstroke cases with 43 deaths in the two months through the end of July, Kyodo news agenc y repor ted.

“Matsuda is the sort of player who has enormous influence over a team,” said Yamaga president Hiroshi Otsuki. “I and fans all over Japan am praying for his full recovery.” Matsuda has played 40 times for Japan and made 385 appearances for Yokohama F-Marinos. —Reuters

Venezuela courts controversy with sports law

LONDON: Manchester City’s new defender Stefan Savic (right) trains with teammates at the Etihad Stadium. Manchester City will play Manchester United in the Charity Shield soccer match in London, Sunday.—AP

Italian season starts with AC Milan derby in China BEIJING: Having traveled 8,000 kilometers to face its city rival AC Milan in this weekend’s Italian Super Cup, Inter Milan will be aiming to improve on its previous result in Beijing two years ago.

While the grand San Siro stadium the two clubs share sits idle in Milan this weekend, the fierce rivals will be playing in Beijing’s Bird’s Nest stadium for the Super Cup - the traditional curtain raiser for the Italian season, played between the previous season’s Serie A winners and Coppa Italia victors.

Inter played in the same fixture at the same venue two years ago and lost 2-1 to Lazio, and the team’s new manager Gian Piero Gasperini - who has taken over from Leonardo - is aiming to go one better on Saturday. “I don’t have a crystal ball but we are here to try to win the Super Cup that Inter could have taken home two years ago in Beijing. And to play against AC Milan makes the event even more prestigious,” Gasperini told SNT V. Inter Milan and AC Milan jointly share the Super Cup record, both winning the cup five times.

Last season, AC Milan beat Inter twice in the league en route to taking the title, but manager Massimiliano Allegri said last season’s edge will not necessarily extend into the new cam-

paign. “Last season was the past. It doesn’t mean we have an advantage this time,” said Allegri. “Inter and us are considering the Super Cup match very seriously. It is an important trophy we are eager to win. We will do all we can do on Saturday.” Inter midfielder Wesley Sneijder has been linked with a move to Manchester United, but Gasperini played down the rumors. “There is no Sneijder problem. He is playing for us, training with us and he will play on Saturday. That is all I can say about him.”

Inter captain Javier Zanetti, replacing the injured Yuto Nagatomo, joined in a training session in Beijing on Tuesday, but his fellow Argentines Diego Milito and Esteban Cambiasso were still on holiday after playing in last month’s Copa America. Another Argentine, Ricardo Alvarez, joined Inter this summer from Velez Sarsfield, and the 23year old midfielder is eager to claim his first trophy for his new club. “It’s a hugely important achievement for me to be playing for Inter, and it’s an honor to be representing the club in China. I hope that Inter can do well in the Super Cup, in fact I’m sure they can,” he said. Three of the next four Italian Super Cups will be played in China to help promote Italian football in Asia. —AP

CARACAS: Venezuela is on collision course with world soccer governing body FIFA and the International Olympic Commission after its parliament approved a controversial sports law that threatens the autonomy of its sports federations. The bill passed by the national assembly on Tuesday would allow the country’s athletes to vote for officials in their federations, while setting up a “sports justice commission” that could undermine the Venezuelan Football Federation (FVF).

The law, which still needs President Hugo Chavez’s approval, would also establish a sports development fund that would slap a one-percent tax on companies that post annual profits exceeding 1.5 million Venezuelan Bolivars ($350,000).

“The law could become a new and heavy burden on Venezuelan firms by establishing an obligatory contribution,” the country ’s biggest industrial union Conindustria said in a statement. The legislation has rankled Venezuelan firms which are already subject to paying compulsory taxes to a number of local bodies, including a national anti-drugs association. Chavez’s government has invested huge sums in sport and many leading sportspeople like Formula One driver Pastor Maldonado enjoy support from state firms. “The law could be considered a direct interference by the government in affairs that are exclusive to the

FVF,” FIFA warned in a statement last week.

Venezuela’s sports minister Hector Rodriguez has further fanned the flames, dismissing the statement as “lies”. “There were some big lies saying we would be disaffiliated from inter-

Dispute resurfaces

BEIJING: AC Milan’s coach Allegri Massimiliano (center) holding the Italian Super Cup trophy, poses for photographers with his players Pato (left) and Alessandro Nesta after a training session. AC Milan will play a soccer match against their city rival Inter Milan at the Italian Super Cup. —AP

world governing body suspended Belize from international soccer in June over government interference in the national federation but lifted the ban provisionally less than a month later to allow the team to play a World Cup qualifier. —Reuters

MIAMI: This photo made Tuesday, Aug., 2, 2011 shows FC Barcelona soccer player Xavi Hernandez getting a ride on a dolphin at the Miami Seaquarium as teammates look on. (From left) looking on are Pedro Rodrigues, David Villa and Sergio Busquets. —AP

Italian players hint at strike MILAN: Italian Serie A footballers have hinted that they could go on strike this month after a dispute over players’ rights resurfaced. The Italian Players Union (AIC) said the Serie A league has still not signed an agreement reached with the players last year after intense negotiations, during which strikes were twice narrowly averted. “The collective contract must be signed and it needs to be done before the start of the championship,” said Damiano Tommasi, the new head of the AIC, in a television interview. “It’s difficult for the players to not go on to the pitch, but it’s necessary to have this in black and white,” added Tommasi, a former Roma and Italy midfielder who played at the 2002 World Cup. “I’ve visited 90 per cent of the teams’ pre-season training camps and there is unity among the players.” An old collective agreement expired at the end of the 2009-10 season and talks for its renewal

national events. Today we can see that all those lies fell under their own weight,” he said.

Venezuela has previously been threatened with suspension by FIFA when a civil court interfered in elections for the FVF chairman in 2005. The

dragged on for the whole of last season. The union was especially unhappy about clubs trying to force players to move in the last year of their contracts. The matter came to a head in September and December when strikes were called off at the last minute, in the latter case with only two days to spare.

A last-minute deal meant all players with first-team contracts would be allowed to train with the main squad while rules to avoid discrimination were agreed for unwanted players who are put up for sale. The AIC said it had signed the deal then but was still waiting for the league to add its signature. “I keep hearing them say that there what we’re nearly there, but that little bit that is missing on the League’s part never arrives,” said Tommasi. “Last season, we decided not to stop the championship while it was still in progress but if we don’t arrive at a conclusion this time, it will not get under way.” —Reuters

German players can eat during Ramadan BERLIN: Germany ’s Central Council of Muslims said it was advising Islamic professional football players that they need not fast during Ramadan, ahead of the regular season resuming tomorrow. “The professional player can make up the fasting days during periods when there is no match and in that way show his respect for God and the holy month of Ramadan,” council president Aiman Mazyek said in a statement.

During Ramadan, observant Muslims fast from dawn to dusk. Several Bundesliga players are Muslim, including many players of Turkish origin and Bayern Munich’s French international Franck Ribery. A dispute over the issue in Germany began when the second- division team FSV

Frankfurt gave three Muslim players an official warning in October 2009 for fasting during Ramadan and failing to inform their managers.

The German Football Federation (DFB) reached an agreement with Muslim leaders on fasting in 2010 allowing players to respect one of the five pillars of Islam while fulfilling their professional obligations. The council had initiated talks with the country’s leading professional football associations last year and sought the advice of Islamic scholars to resolve the issue. The AlAzhar University in Cairo concluded that an exception to the strict Ramadan fasting rules could be made for professional players so their performance would not be compromised.—AFP

Red Sox stay ahead in tight AL East race

THURSDAY, AUGUST 4, 2011

Ageless Date-Krumm shines in San Diego

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GUANGZHOU: Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo, scores a goal against China’s club team Guangzhou Evergrande’s goalkeeper Yang Jun during a friendly match. Real Madrid won 7-1. —AP

Real thrash Chinese league leaders

GUANGZHOU: Karim Benzema netted a classy brace and Cristiano Ronaldo scored a cheeky back-heel as Real Madrid thrashed Chinese league leaders Guangzhou Evergrande 7-1 yesterday in a pre-season friendly.

Benzema, who has struggled to establish himself in the Spanish capital, was at the centre of everything that was good about a rampant Real before he was taken off on the hour, earning a pat on the back from boss Jose Mourinho.

The Portuguese supremo was full of praise for his men, saying that despite far inferior opposition-and stifling humidity-the team had performed as if it was a league fixture.

The win also means Real are unbeaten in the build-up to a season in which Mourinho will be fully expected to dethrone great rivals Barcelona, both in domestic competition and in Europe. “I’m happy but I’m not so concerned if we win or lose or draw, the result doesn’t matter,” said Mourinho. “What matters is that the team is improving in every game, the players are getting fitter and stronger and showing more quality with every game, this is what matters. “The players are working hard as a

team, not for themselves, and for the name of Real Madrid. They’re happy, and I’m happy.”

Frenchman Benzema crossed for German international Sami Khedira to head in totally unmarked and put the Spanish giants, who started with more or less their full-strength side, on their way after only seven minutes.

Real went 2-0 up just after the half-hour mark when the home defence went AWOL and Khedira’s international teammate Mesut Ozil rounded the keeper before walking the ball in.

A rout was on the cards by the 39th minute when Benzema fired low past keeper Yang Jun, who ought to have done far better.

There was even time for Ronaldo to rattle the bar just before the break with Yang again well beaten. It was more of the same in the second period as Real looked to put on a show at a virtually full Tianhe Stadium in the major southern city of Guangzhou.

Benzema grabbed his second three minutes after the break and Ronaldo’s extravagance made it 5-0 on 56 minutes.

Real made wholesale changes on the hour, but it made no difference as Evergrande-who are unbeaten in the Chinese Super League this

season-were simply out-classed.

Substitute Jese made it 6-0, fellow sub Angel Di Maria made it seven, before Yang Yihu grabbed a consolation with three minutes to go for the biggest cheer of the night.

Real, who are competing with a number of other major European clubs to establish themselves as a fans’ favorite in fast-developing China, continue their tour of the country with a game in Tianjin, near Beijing, on Saturday.

Meanwhile, angry Chinese journalists and football fans yesterday lambasted an “arrogant” Cristiano Ronaldo after the Real Madrid superstar’s surly performance at a pre-match press conference.

The Spanish club are on a tour to China designed to promote the Real brand in the world’s second biggest economy and tap into the burgeoning wealth of its 1.3 billion population, where football and European clubs are hugely popular.

But some observers said Ronaldo’s behaviour at the press conference on Tuesday in the major southern city of Guangzhou-where he gave often mumbled one-sentence answerscould have the very opposite effect.

Colombia blank Mali, reach knockout stage

the Chinese players. Asked later about his impressions of Guangzhou, he said that it was very hot.

“The questions he was asked didn’t have much to do with football. Chinese fans are different from European fans. Chinese are more into the personal lives of their icons,” Yan said.

China’s massive Internet population-the world’s largest at 485 million also got stuck into the 26-year-old Portuguese. “I don’t know whether Ronaldo can be the World Footballer of the Year, but I am just sure he will be condemned for what he did at the news conference,” web user “wangjihe” wrote on the sports channel of popular web portal Netease.

“Ronaldo is really good at football, and good-looking, but he is really not that modest,” wrote another fan on the website, using the number 7726693116 as a web handle.

“He should hire a public relations company to teach him how to cope with the media.” A third observer, named 9513638962, was more blunt, writing simply: “Look at you! C. Ronaldo, just go home!” Real’s promotional tour in China next moves to the city of Tianjin, close to Beijing. —AFP

PSG under huge pressure to win French league title

BOGOTA: Colombia defeated Mali 2-0 on Tuesday to become the first team to win its opening two matches and guarantee a place in the knock-out phase of the Under-20 World Cup.

Under-20 World Cup Jose Valencia scored in the 23rd minute and James Rodriguez added another in the 90th, giving Colombia six points from two matches following a 4-1 opening victory over France.

The 42,000-strong sellout crowd produced non-stop noise with vuvuzelas — made infamous in the 2010 World Cup in South Africa — and exploding fireworks to welcome the team to the field.

Colombia has emerged as a genuine contender for the title along with teams such as Spain, Brazil, Nigeria and six-time champion Argentina. Colombia finishes up play in Group A against South Korea at Bogota tomorrow, when Mali faces France in Cali.

France and South Korea have three points apiece and Mali has lost its first two matches.

The top two teams in each of the six groups advance to the knockout stage and are joined by the top four third-place teams. The group stage ends Saturday. Colombia has surely been helped by the thin air in the Colombia capital, which has an altitude of 2,600 meters. Bogota is

“He always seems selfish and arrogant,” said Yan Qiang, vice-president of Titan Media, one of China’s leading sports publishers, noting the flying winger is one of the most popular players in China, along with Kaka and Lionel Messi. “His behaviour won’t help his cause in China,” Yan told AFP, suggesting that the negative reaction to his appearance on the eve of a friendly with Guangzhou Evergrande might also hurt the prospects in China of his backers Nike.Asked at the press briefing about the condition of his injury-prone teammate Kaka, Ronaldo, who became the world’s most expensive player when he left Manchester United for Real in 2009 for £80 million, answered: “Perfecto.”

In an attempt to lift the mood, another Chinese journalist asked Ronaldo, who last year became a father, whether he changed his son’s nappy. “Of course, as a father it is normal to change the baby’s nappies,” an unamused Ronaldo replied in English. And asked by AFP if he might ever return to United or English football, he said: “Maybe, why not? You never know.” He was also quizzed about his interest in table tennis and whether he knew any of

BOGOTA: Colombia’s Jeison Murillo (left) and Mali’s Adama Toure eye the ball during a U-20 World Cup Group A soccer match. —AP also the site of the Aug 20 final. Colombia dominated play in the first half and probably could have scored two or three with Rodriguez and Luis Muriel coming close. The South Americans broke through when Valencia took a through ball, raced into the area and stepped around goalkeeper Cheick Sy. Mali defender Moussa Coulibaly stopped the first shot with his leg, but Valencia regained control and drilled the

rebound into the net. Rodriguez sealed the victory with a sizzling shot in the final minute. He ran to the far end of the field to celebrate and was swarmed by celebrating fans who ran onto the field briefly to mob him. The home team got a break in the first half when Juan Cabezas picked up only a yellow card lucky to avoid a red — for a reckless tackle from behind on midfielder Adama Toure. —AP

PARIS: Big-spending Paris Saint-Germain is under huge pressure to bring the French league title back to the capital for the first time since 1994. With massive Qatari backing and players joining in droves, PSG has no excuse to fail this time. Ravaged by football violence over the past few years, PSG’s problems off the field frequently overshadowed its title frustrations and systematic failure to even reach the Champions League, let alone perform well in it.

But a new chapter is there to be written, starting with Saturday’s home match against Lorient at Parc des Princes. “I think this team is ready for the league with the squad we have in place, given the number of players we have and their experience,” PSG sporting director Leonardo said. Prince Sheik Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani, whose Qatar Sports Investments owns 70 percent of the club, has used his funds to make PSG an attractive destination. Leonardo took the bait, leaving his job as Inter Milan coach to oversee PSG’s long-term plan for domestic and European success.

Several players have already joined, and Palermo playmaker Javier Pastore said he is arriving for a reported fee of euro43 million ($61.1 million), surpassing the euro33.5 million ($47.6 million) PSG paid for Real Madrid for striker Nicolas Anelka in 2000. Pastore’s transfer, set to be made official this week,

would place PSG alongside Manchester City which paid slightly more for Argentina striker Sergio Aguero. Yet, former star David Ginola said ambitions count for little if team spirit is lacking among PSG’s highly-paid stars. “No matter how much you earn per week, doesn’t make any difference,” Ginola told The Associated Press in a recent interview. “I’ve been in this situation in the past, in clubs where there is a lot of money. It doesn’t bring you the dressing room. The dressing room is something special.” PSG has signed goalkeepers Nicolas Douchez and Salvatore Sirigu, defender Milan Bisevac, midfielders Blaise Matuidi and Mohamed Sissoko, winger Jeremy Menez and striker Kevin Gameiro.

“Everyone is expecting something from us after we invested a lot of money,” PSG coach Antoine Kombouare said. “They (the players) haven’t won anything yet. They have to make their own history.” Matuidi, Menez and Gameiro are in France’s squad, while Sirigu has broken into Italy’s team and been compared to a young Gianluigi Buffon. All are 24 years old, and should form PSG’s spine for many years - if they stay. “We all talk about how much money you have got in the club to buy players, but it doesn’t mean that the player will settle in the club, like the club, like his teammates and do everything to bring success,” Ginola said. —AP

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SEOUL: Currency traders monitor exchange rates in a dealing room at the Korea Exchange Bank in Seoul yesterday. South Korean shares closed 2.59 percent lower in line with other Asian markets over concerns about the weakening global economic outlook and fresh euro-zone debt fears. —AFP

US to borrow $72bn in debt auctions Treasury advisers see no US downgrade imminent WASHINGTON: The government will borrow $72 billion in debt auctions next week now that Congress has raised the nation’s borrowing limit. The Treasury Department says it will sell 3-year notes, 10-year notes and 30-year bonds to raise the money. About one-third will go to repay debts that are due on Aug. 15.

President Barack Obama cleared the way for the auction on Tuesday when he signed into a law a bill that raises the debt ceiling and promises more than $2 trillion in cuts to government spending over the next decade. The US government currently borrows 40 cents of every dollar that it spends. An initial debt ceiling increase of $400 billion took effect immedi-

ately on Tuesday. That will allow the nation to borrow what it needs through September, the Treasury Department estimates. The next $500 billion boost will occur after lawmakers vote on resolutions stating they approve of the increase. The votes are mainly ceremonial, because the president can veto the resolutions.

The final $1.5 trillion increase will occur after a bipartisan committee of lawmakers from both chambers identifies how the government can cut $1.5 trillion from the federal deficit over the next ten years. If the committee’s fails to agree on the cuts, the borrowing limit will rise by between $1.2 trillion and $1.5 trillion. Treasury’s advisory group of private

bond sellers agreed that credit rating agencies are unlikely to downgrade the nation’s sterling credit rating soon. However, they said that Treasury should continue to focus on selling longer-term bonds to minimize the threat of a downgrade based on high future deficits.

Meanwhile, a committee of private financial advisers to the US Treasury does not believe that the country’s credit rating will be downgraded in the near future, the Treasury said yesterday. “None of the members” of the Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee, which met Tuesday, “thought that a downgrade was imminent,” the Treasury reported, as speculation grew that Standard & Poor’s might

cut the country’s AAA rating for the first time in history because of its yawning fiscal deficit.

A Treasury official who declined to be identified added that even if there was a sovereign downgrade, the committee’s members did not think there would be much impact on demand for us debt, and some dismissed the ratings agencies as having low credibility.

The committee, which helps the Treasury set its borrowing plans, is comprised of members of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association. The meeting took place before two of the three large sovereign debt raters, Moody’s and Fitch, reaffirmed the United States’ top grade rating Tuesday after-

noon following the passage into law of a new long-term plan to cut the country’s deficit.

The plan also raised the US debt ceiling, allowing the Treasury to increase borrowing and avoid a looming default on its debt and other obligations.

All three agencies had warned that not increasing the debt ceiling by August 2 could force a downgrade. But S&P also said that if the US did not craft a “credible” plan to slash its deficits and debt over the long term, it would cut the country’s rating anyway. S&P had suggested that a plan that would pare the deficit by $4 trillion over 10 years would be adequate to avoid a default. — Agencies

Gold at record as debt worries mount, central banks buy LONDON: Gold hit a record for a second straight day yesterday, driven by deepening fears over the spread of the European debt crisis and its impact on regional growth, while data showed a number of central banks bought gold in June.

The United States managed to avert an unprecedented debt default on Tuesday after lawmakers agreed to raise the country’s borrowing limit. But, the focus turned to credit ratings agencies, which have warned the country could lose its top-notch rating as its finances remain fragile.

The nervousness over the US economy was compounded by the latest developments in Europe, where Italian bond yields rose to their highest in over a decade above 6 percent, a level widely viewed as unsustainable, adding to the lure of gold as a safe-haven investment.

Meanwhile, the International Monetary

Fund’s monthly report on central bank reserves showed Thailand, Russia and Kazakhstan, among others, added to their holdings of gold two months ago, prolonging the trend in the official sector to put more of their reserves into bullion rather than hard currencies. Spot gold was last quoted at $1,665.65 an ounce, up 0.4 percent on the day at 1125 GMT, having hit a record $1,672.65 earlier. US gold futures were last up 1.5 percent at $1,669.50 an ounce.

“If you look at the European bond markets, you will see yields on Italian and Spanish bonds are back above 6 percent, so this crisis, unfortunately, seems to be spreading to Italy and Spain, which is also potentially more serious than Greece, because they’re much larger,” said Jesper Dannesboe, senior commodities strategist at Societe Generale. “Gold is reacting to this and that is the main driver right now,”

GIC raises $254m from ringgit sukuk KUALA LUMPUR: Kuwait’s Gulf Investment Corporation (GIC) has issued 750 million ringgit ($253.5 million) of five-year sukuk at 4.90 percent, the deal’s sole lead manager AmInvestment Bank said yesterday.

The announcement yesterday confirmed an earlier Reuters report that GIC had sold the five-year Islamic bonds under an existing 3.5 billion ringgit funding program.

The sukuk is the second tranche to be issued under the program in 2011, with the first tranche of 600 million ringgit in 5-year paper sold at a yield of 5.25 percent.

“We anticipate more issuers from the GCC region following suit in tapping into non-traditional sources to obtain long term funds,” Hisham Al-Razzuqi, the chief executive officer of GIC, said in a statement. The sukuk program has been assigned a long-term rating of AAA by Malaysia’s RAM Rating Services, and would enable GIC to tap the Malaysian market for long-dated funding, AmInvestment said. — Reuters

he said. Further unnerving the financial markets was the Swiss National Bank’s decision to cut rates to fight the strength of the currency , which set the price of gold in Swiss francs on course for its biggest one-day gain since May. The IMF data showed Thailand boosted its gold reserves for the third time in the last year, by 18.66 tons in June to 127.524 tons. Korea said earlier this week it bought gold for the first time in over 10 years in June and July.

Gold is set for a 17 percent gain in 2011, which would mark an eleventh successive year of price rises. This increase has been driven largely by the US Federal Reserve’s ultralow monetary policy and concern that slow growth and the burden to the economy from the country’s debt could derail the recovery process of the last two years. Gold is on course for its strongest quarterly performance since the second quarter of last year. —Reuters

World’s private sector falls as debt crisis bites LONDON: The world’s economy moved closer to stagnation last month as firms in Asia and Europe reined back in the face of an ongoing debt crisis and signs of a new US slowdown, business surveys showed yesterday. The euro-zone’s dominant service sector grew at its weakest pace in nearly two years, Italy’s suffered a deepening contraction and Spain’s moved into negative territory. Published the day after a lastgasp deal to avoid a US default, the surveys followed figures on Monday which painted no brighter a picture for the manufacturing sector.

“Italy and Spain softening is to be expected due to nerves but it makes

the fiscal challenge facing them look even more difficult, particularly if we see the numbers stay around these levels for several months,” said Victoria Cadman, economist at Investec. Markets are squarely targeting Italy, the euro zone’s third-largest economy, concerned by its weak growth and political instability.

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is due to speak to parliament to try and calm fears that have led the country to the edge of a Greek-style financial crisis. Italy’s economy would be too big for the euro zone’s existing rescue funds to bail out and the turbulence has caused alarm across the euro zone and beyond. —Reuters

Kuwait banking system stable, states Moody’s KUWAIT: Moody’s Investors service has changed its outlook for the Kuwaiti banking system to stable from negative to reflect its expectation that the banking sector’s fundamentals will continue to improve over the outlook horizon. This outlook expresses its expectations for the fundamental credit conditions in this system over the next 12 to 18 months.

Increased government spending will likely drive Kuwait’s economic recovery in 2011 and 2012, leading to an improved operating environment for the banks. “We expect that asset quality will gradually improve and that the banks’ net profits will be higher in 2011 compared with 2010, partly due to receding credit charges for loan losses. The government’s strong fiscal position, benefiting from high oil prices, provides ample capacity to support the economy. Even though the government is unlikely to fully meet its ambitious spending targets, we project an acceleration in real economic growth to more than 5% this year and the next. Over the outlook horizon we expect government spending to continue to support the non-oil sector of the economy, which is the operating

domain of banks,” it said in a report.

These positive factors are balanced by its view that 1) Legacy problem loans will remain high, posing a risk to a few banks that exhibit limited gross-of-collateral loan-loss reserves; (2) High single-borrower and industry concentrations will persist; and (3) Unresolved problems in the investment companies sector, the sub-par performance of the real-estate sector and securities lending, will continue to pose residual credit risks.

Kuwaiti banks’ high capital buffers act as a considerable mitigant for the above structural weaknesses. Under our base and stress-case scenarios, most Kuwaiti banks have the earnings, provisions and capital to absorb expected losses. Although certain banks have yet to build-up sufficient provisions (gross of collateral), following the sharp increases in problem loans during the financial crisis and 2009 recession, rated Kuwaiti banks’ aggregate tier 1 capital adequacy ratio declines to 9.5% under our stress-case scenario, a still healthy level, the report added.

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Ali Dashti, Assistant General Manager, South District at Gulf Bank

BMW takes 3 category prizes in Automotive Brand Contest 2011 DUBAI: BMW has scooped up no fewer than three of the coveted awards presented by the German Design Council in the Automotive Brand Contest, the new international brand and design competition launched this year.

The winner of the “Architecture & Events” category was the SESTOSENSO light installation created in collaboration with FLOS and light designer Paul Cocksedge, while the BMW 328 Hommage won the “Concept & Study” category. The new BMW 6 Series Coupe also came away with a prize in the “Exterior” category. With these three accolades, the German Design Council pays tribute to the outstanding level of BMW Group design. The presentation ceremony will be held on 13 September 2011 as part of the Automotive Designers’ Night during the Frankfurt International Motor Show (IAA).

With its Automotive Brand Contest, the German Design Council recognizes the pivotal significance of the brand and brand design as key success factors in the motor industry. The Automotive Brand

Contest 2011 is the first competition to honour outstanding achievements in the areas of brand management, brand communications and design exclusively in the automotive sector. The focus here is on the all-round presentation of a brand that embraces all media and products. The judges evaluated submissions for a total of 15 competition categories ranging from exterior and interior to brand design and advertising campaigns.

Prize-winners are automatically nominated for the Design Award of the Federal Republic of Germany, likewise run by the German Design Council.

For the 2011 Salone del Mobile, BMW and FLOS joined forces with Londonbased light designer Paul Cocksedge to create an installation that centres on the magical effect of light. The point of departure for his SESTOSENSO installation is the

than aluminum. High-grade leather, polished aluminum in matt or high-gloss finish and a carbon interior eloquently reflect the purist, pared-down roadster character of the sports car from the past.

The new BMW 6 Series Coupe presents itself as a sports car for aesthetes who delight in luxury and advanced technology. The Coupe impresses with its alluring design, while compared to its predecessor it boasts further enhanced dynamics, palpably honed comfort features and extended space. Its coupling of superior sporting attributes with exclusive long-distance comfort and a 460litre boot is highly persuasive. The lighting of the BMW 6 Series Coupe features a striking innovation in the shape of adaptive LED Headlights. This cutting-edge technology creates a bright white light to ensure especially intensive and even illumination of the road ahead. It makes its debut as a standard feature on the BMW 6 Series Coupe, while allowing an arresting reinterpretation of iconic BMW styling cues such as the round headlights and the tail lights.

new BMW 6 Series Coupe - the first BMW to feature LED headlights as standard. Red and white conical lamps are suspended low from the ceiling; as with the headlamps of the BMW, the light source remains concealed here as well. Pop your head inside any of the red lamps of SESTOSENSO, and you will see a video of the BMW 6 Series Coupe on an expansive white wall.

With the BMW 328 Hommage, BMW presents a very special model that occupies a dynamic field of tension between tradition and modernism. This concept vehicle translates the principles and character of the historic model into the present. Today, however, large parts of the exterior and interior of the BMW 328 Hommage are made of carbon fibre-reinforced plastic (CFRP), a material that offers the optimum ratio of weight to tensile strength and is lighter yet more stable

Gulf Bank celebrates Girgean with KOC employees KUWAIT: Gulf Bank announced yesterday that it will celebrate Girgean with Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) employees through its KOC branch between 14 August and 16 August 2011.

As the holy month of Ramadan approaches, Gulf Bank created this initiative to share the happiness of the ‘month of giving’ with KOC employees. Girgean gift bags will be distributed through the Bank’s KOC branch to all the KOC employees celebrating both Ramadan and the Kuwaiti tradition ‘Girgean’.

Ali Dashti, Gulf Bank’s Assistant General Manager, South District said: “The holy month of Ramadan awakens a sense of kindness and giving within the hearts of all people. Among the many activities that Gulf Bank has planned throughout Ramadan, this initiative of presenting KOC employees with Girgean bags comes from our appreciation for placing their loyalty and trust in Gulf Bank and its services.”

Gulf Bank has tailored a special salary package of unique banking services to address daily needs of KOC employees.

Abraaj Capital issues sustainability report DUBAI: Abraaj Capital, the leading private equity and alternative asset management group in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia (MENASA), yesterday issued its first integrated sustainability report.

In keeping with international best practice, Abraaj Capital’s integrated sustainability report provides depth and context to the group’s performance last year and identifies how sustainability is central to the group’s culture and business. The report was prepared using the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) G3 guidelines and evaluates the progress Abraaj Capital has achieved on its economic, social and environmental commitments in 2010. The report has been assessed as application level B+ from GRI and received a limited assurance state-

ment from KPMG. Abraaj Capital believes that by embedding sustainability management into its business and adopting global best practice environmental, social and governance principles (ESG), it is possible to enhance long-term value creation for investors, shareholders and wider stakeholders. Abraaj Capital has refined its sustainability initiatives to include social investing, transparency and good governance, and environmental stewardship as pillars of its strategy.

“We are very pleased to publish our first integrated sustainability report which highlights Abraaj Capital’s commitment to incorporating sustainability principles into the core of our business.

We believe that private equity groups like Abraaj Capital can and should play

a pivotal role in highlighting the longterm benefits of considering ESG factors in investments, given the diverse range of our portfolio companies, and our ability to influence the value creation process at every step,” said Arif Naqvi, Founder and Group Chief Executive Officer of Abraaj Capital.

“This integrated sustainability report provides a measurable, transparent and balanced review of the impact of Abraaj Capital’s business on the markets in which it operates. The report will drive new disclosure standards for the private equity sector and set a precedent for other organizations to follow”, said Professor Sherif Kamel, Dean of the School of Business at the American University in Cairo.

Frederic Sicre, Partner at Abraaj Capital and Head of the Abraaj

Strategic Stakeholder Engagement Track (ASSET ) added, “As this report makes clear, Abraaj Capital is committed to making a sustained and positive contribution to the communities in which we operate. In the spirit of transparency and disclosure, we will report on our ESG performance on an annual basis and look forward to sharing knowledge and best practice with our industry peers”.

The John D Gerhart Center of Philanthropy and Civic Engagement at the American University in Cairo worked with Abraaj Capital in preparing the report. The report was prepared as per GRI G3 guidelines. GRI is the world’s most widely used sustainability reporting framework, developed through a consensus-seeking, multistakeholder process.

IKEA Kuwait completes preparations for Ramadan Tent KUWAIT: IKEA Kuwait is now welcoming its visitors to enjoy a true Ramadan hospitality. IKEA Kuwait has prepared a Ramadan tent which is located inside the IKEA Restaurant and Café that will serve complementary Arabic coffee as well as dates. This token of appreciation is aimed at celebrating the true spirit of Ramadan, while enjoying a friendly and relaxing atmosphere.

IKEA Kuwait is urging its visitors to make use of this tent after they have enjoyed their delicious Iftar meal at the IKEA Restaurant and Café. During the Holy Month of Ramadan, IKEA Kuwait will be operating from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm. The store will resume work from 7:30 pm to 12:30 am.

EXCHANGE RATES Commercial Bank of Kuwait US Dollar/KD GB Pound/KD Euro Swiss francs Canadian Dollar Australian DLR Indian rupees Sri Lanka Rupee UAE dirhams Bahraini dinars Jordanian dinar Saudi riyals Omani riyals Philippine peso Egyptian pounds

.2700000 .4410000 .3840000 .3470000 .2820000 .2940000 .0040000 .0020000 .0739140 .7201210 .3810000 .0700000 .7059470 .0040000 .0430000

.2765000 .4580000 .3990000 .3590000 .2940000 .3030000 .0072500 .0035000 .0746570 .7273590 .4010000 .0770000 .7130420 .0072000 .0530000

CUSTOMER TRANSFER RATES .2722500 .2743500 .4432770 .4466970 .3963500 .3893300 .3494640 .3521600 .2849290 .2871270 .0518590 .0522590 .0430830 .0434150 .2966160 .2989040 .0349360 .0352050 .2259900 .2277330 .0035240 .0035510 .0000000 .0062350 .0000000 .0025110 .0000000 .0031750 .0000000 .0036920 .0741520 .0747240 .7224360 .7280080 .0000000 .3880480 .0726190 .0731800 .7074180 .7128750 .0000000 .0065710

US Dollar/KD GB Pound/KD Euro Swiss francs Canadian dollars Danish Kroner Swedish Kroner Australian dlr Hong Kong dlr Singapore dlr Japanese yen Indian Rs/KD Sri Lanka rupee Pakistan rupee Bangladesh taka UAE dirhams Bahraini dinars Jordanian dinar Saudi Riyal/KD Omani riyals Philippine Peso

Al-Muzaini Exchange Co.

Japanese Yen Indian Rupees Pakistani Rupees Srilankan Rupees Nepali Rupees Singapore Dollar Hongkong Dollar Bangladesh Taka

ASIAN COUNTRIES 3.563 6.180 3.150 2.493 3.891 227.420 35.125 3.654

Philippine Peso Thai Baht Irani Riyal - Transfer Irani Riyal - Cash

6.481 9.198 0.271 0.273 GCC COUNTRIES 73.003 75.220 711.060 727.120 74.544

Saudi Riyal Qatari Riyal Omani Riyal Bahraini Dinar UAE Dirham Egyptian Pound - Cash Egyptian Pound - Transfer Yemen Riyal Tunisian Dinar Jordanian Dinar Lebanese Lira Syrian Lier Morocco Dirham

ARAB COUNTRIES 48.300 45.944 1.253 199.740 386.590 1.824 5.910 35.093

EUROPEAN & AMERICAN COUNTRIES US Dollar Transfer 273.650 Euro 389.130 Sterling Pound 446.870 Canadian dollar 287.150 Turkish lire 161.350 Swiss Franc 354.150 Australian dollar 297.760 US Dollar Buying 272.450

Sterling Pound US Dollar

Bahrain Exchange Company COUNTRY Australian dollar Bahraini dinar Bangladeshi taka Canadian dollar Cyprus pound Czek koruna Danish krone Deutsche Mark Egyptian pound Euro Cash Hongkong dollar Indian rupees

SELL CASH 302.200 727.410 3.860 289.800 537.300 36.400 53.800 167.800 47.970 393.500 35.790 6.500

SELL DRAFT 300.700 727.410 3.658 288.300

228.600 45.933 392.000 35.640 6.190

0.033 0.241 0.238 3.630 388.590 0.185 95.160 47.200 4.210 243.700 1.855 52.000 710.420 3.290 6.620 75.670 73.030 228.580 43.240 2.631 450.400 44.500 353.400 5.600 9.540 198.263 74.570 273.900 1.200

0.033

386.570 0.184 95.160 3.900 242.200

351.900 5.600 9.390 74.470 273.500

TRAVELLER’S CHEQUE 448.400 273.500

Selling Rate 272.950 287.750 448.881 398.614 336.036 723.683 74.287 74.920 72.747 384.203 45.810 2.490 6.230

3.163 3.652 6.476 669.512 3.571 9.218 5.739 3.937 90.730

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) 273.400 3.165 6.195 2.505 3.665 6.550 74.565 73.135 727.200 45.945 452.700 0.00003280 3.910 1.550 388.600 5.750 393.100 293.300

Al Mulla Exchange

Dollarco Exchange Co. Ltd Rate for Transfer US Dollar Canadian Dollar Sterling Pound Euro Swiss Frank Bahrain Dinar UAE Dirhams Qatari Riyals Saudi Riyals Jordanian Dinar Egyptian Pound Sri Lankan Rupees Indian Rupees

Pakistani Rupees Bangladesh Taka Philippines Pesso Cyprus pound Japanese Yen Thai Bhat Syrian Pound Nepalese Rupees Malaysian Ringgit

Kuwait Bahrain Intl Exchange Co. 710.240 3.170 6.510 75.240 73.030 228.580 43.240 2.492 448.400

GOLD 1,655.890

10 Tola

GOLD 297.500 150.000 77.000

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

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) 273.050 391.800 448.200 288.100 3.550 6.180 45.935 2.494 3.658 6.502 3.160 727.350 74.400 72.950

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Ali Alghanim & Sons Automotive celebrates arrival of Ramadan Free warranty, servicing and registration costs

Ali Alghanim & Sons Automotive’s BMW Range

BMW Sedan Range KUWAIT: To celebrate the commencement of the holy month of Ramadan and in line with its commitment to provide its customers with a convenient ownership experience, Ali Alghanim & Sons Automotive has announced the launch of its Ramadan offer, enabling customers to enjoy worry-free ownership when purchasing selected BMW vehicles.

The exclusive importer of the BMW Group in Kuwait is offering customers the chance to buy a new BMW vehicle throughout the month of Ramadan and receive a free warranty up to five years or 150,000 km (whichever comes first) and a four-year free servicing package, valid up to 84,000 km. In addition, all registration costs will be paid by Ali Alghanim & Sons Automotive, giving customers a convenient and hassle-free start to their BMW

ownership. Yousef Al Qatami, General Manager of Ali Alghanim & Sons Automotive said: “Customer satisfaction is always our number one priority, and regardless of the season or occasion we strive to make our customers’ buying experience a special one. There is particular focus during the holy month, as customers look forward to seeing what exciting offers and benefits we have to offer them. This year’s Ramadan campaign covers almost every angle that could potentially be considered as an additional cost, giving our customers true peace-of-mind.”

Ali Alghanim & Sons Automotive has had a busy first half to the year with three new model launches: the BMW 6 Series convertible, BMW X3 and the MINI Countryman. Further launches are planned for the remainder of the

Jet Airways unveils ‘Epicurean Series’ with first class suites MUMBAI: Jet Airways, India’s premier international airline, is launching an allnew in-flight dining service ‘Epicurean Series’. Partnering with renowned gastronomic brands to offer fine dining experience for connoisseur travellers, the series will inaugurate onboard its long haul Boeing 777300ER aircraft on the Hong KongMumbai route.

This is the first time for Jet Airways to team up with another internationally acclaimed establishment to offer the finest food and service in the skies to its passengers. The first partnering restaurant will be Man Ho of Hong Kong SkyCity Marriott Hotel, the signature Chinese restaurant brand of Marriott International, famous for dishes from the Pearl River Delta.

As part of the airline’s continuous endeavor to offer world class service for its guests, a range of varied and delectable Indian and International menu options will be offered onboard its First and Premiére (business) class starting from August this year.

Passengers departing from Hong Kong will be served with Man Ho’s designed menu highlighting an array of sophisticated “Oriental Flavours”.

Veteran Chinese Chefs with 51 years of culinary experience between them, Chef Marco Cheng - Executive Chef, and Chef Ricky Wu - Executive Chinese Chef of Hong Kong SkyCity Marriott Hotel, exclusively created and designed the airline’s first Epicurean Series. Featuring Canton and Sichuan inspired cuisine as well as fusion creations distinct and unique to Man Ho -

Hong Kong SkyCity Marriott Hotel’s signature restaurant - Signature dishes includes Wok-Seared Fillet of Fish With Soy Sauce And Creamy Egg White Served With Pink Basil Noodle, Baked Duck Rolls With Asparagus And Mixed Vegetable Gratin in Curry Sauce And Served With Braised E-Fu Noodles And Eggplant, and Steamed Seafood Rings, Braised Brassica and Chinese Mushrooms With Oyster Sauce And Served With Fried Rice And Conpoy.

Both passengers in First class and Premiére Class (Business Class) will be delighted by the 5-star quality in-flight meal options accompanied by an extensive selection of award-winning in-flight wines. The menu will be updated regularly to surprise passengers.

The luxurious in-flight dining experience will be enhanced by a new line of bespoke crockery from the house of William Edwards - one of Britain’s leading and awarded ceramic designers.

The design elements of the new crockery incorporate the traditional hand decoration techniques of English potters in the Stoke-On-Trent area, handed down from generations. Working mainly on special commissions, the William Edwards hand wrought tableware for Jet Airways sets the airline’s hallmark onboard service to a new level.

Jet Airways also raises the standard of luxury, privacy and comfort for passengers on its Hong Kong-Mumbai route by upgrading to its wide-body Boeing 777-300ER aircraft with deployment on 21st August.

Time Warner profit beats Street on ad sales NEW YORK: Time Warner Inc posted better-than-expected quarterly results, helped by stronger advertising, and ratcheted up its full-year outlook.

For the second quarter, the parent of CNN, HBO, Time magazine and Warner Bros studios, reported adjusted earnings per share of 60 cents, ahead of the average analyst forecast of 56 cents, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. Revenue rose 10 percent to $7.03 billion, driven by a 9 percent rise in revenue at its cable networks unit, the company said yesterday. Cable’s advertising sales were boosted by sports programming including the NCAA basketball championship. Warner Bros revenue rose 13 percent helped by growth in video games

like Mortal Kombat 9 and LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean as well as DVD sales of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1.” Publishing revenue at its publishing unit Time Inc rose 3 percent as subscription revenues rose. “These were pretty solid results in line with our expectations,” said Collins Stewart analyst Thomas Eagan. “The profit margins were hurt slightly by the NCAA costs but we expect them to widen in the current quarter.”

The New York-based company said it now expects its full-year percentage growth in net income per share to be “at least low teens.” Previously, the company had said profits would grow in the “low teens”. — Reuters

NEW YORK: Pedestrians walk past “The Best Buddies Friendship Bear” a sculpture by Brazilian artist Romero Britto on display outside the Time Warner Center in New York. Media conglomerate Time Warner said yesterday, its second-quarter net income grew, thanks to higher revenue from its TV channel business and movies such as “The Hangover Part II.”— AP

year including the BMW 6 Series coupe, BMW M5 and all-new MINI Coupe.

Ali Alghanim & Sons Automotive reported a 13% growth for BMW and MINI sales for the first half of 2011 compared to the same period last year, signalling the strength of the brands in the Kuwaiti market.

The offer runs until the end of the holy month of Ramadan at Ali Alghanim & Sons Automotive’s BMW showrooms in Shuwaikh and KFH. Ali Alghanim & Sons Automotive’s sales team will be available during the special Ramadan working hours from Saturday to Thursday from 10:00 AM - 1:00 PM and from 8:30 PM - 11:30 PM. While the after sales units will operate Saturday to Thursday between 08:00 AM - 2:00 PM and from 8:00 PM - 11:30 PM.

BMW X Range

Kuwait eyes record KD19.4bn budget Large increases in wages and salaries, and another large surplus KUWAIT: Kuwait’s Ministry of Finance has recently approved a record budget of KD 19.4 billion for fiscal year 2011/12 (FY11/12) which started last April. The approved budget reveals an increase of 20% in spending from last year. The full budget details were not released yet, but the summary numbers reveal that the spending categories deemed more significant to growth are also up a good 20%.

In FY 2011/12, revenues are projected up 38% mostly on the back of the higher oil price assumption. Oil revenues saw an increase of 43%. The assumed price of oil in the budget is $60 pb compared to $43 pb in FY 2010/11.

Non-oil revenues show a more subdued increase of 3%. The weak business environment still weighs on company earnings and income tax revenues are budgeted to drop 26%. On the other hand, service charges reveal an increase of 4% mostly in water and electricity and transportation services.

However, most of the increase seems to come from miscellaneous revenues (KD 206 million), likely led by UNCC payments.

Total expenditures are up 20% (KD 3.2 billion). KD 1 billion, or 31%, of the total increase in spending was allocated to total wages and salaries (chapter 1 plus military wages).

Growth in capital expenditures makes up 10% of the total increase in spending. The remaining 59% went to other spending categories, namely transfers and other miscellaneous expenditures.

Spending on chapter 1, wages and salaries, is projected to grow a record 24%, totaling KD 4.4 billion. The government had approved a series of salary hikes that added to the normal annual salary increases. The ministries of interior and education, as large employers, received the biggest increases in absolute terms.

Chapter 2, goods and services, is projected to grow 3%, amounting to KD 3 billion. The Ministry of Electricity and Water show a slight drop in expenses, despite a higher assumed price for oil. Oil expenses for the MEW usually

NBK ECONOMIC REPORT

take up more than two-thirds of chapter 2 spending.

Spending on chapter 3, vehicles and equipment, saw a jump of 71% (KD 160 million), but remains the smallest chapter with a total of KD 385 million.

Chapter 4, projects maintenance and land purchases, is anticipated to grow a good 16%, totaling KD 2.4 billion. This comes after a remarkable 66% hike in the previous year’s budget. Spending on this chapter in FY 10/11 was higher than previous years indicating a better commitment on the government’s behalf to its development plan. If spending on projects picks up momentum, actual on-budget capital spending should exceed KD 2 billion in the current fiscal year.

Chapter 5, transfers and miscellaneous expenses, is budgeted to total KD 9 billion, up

UAE du’s Q2 profit jumps 51%, gains market share LONDON: UAE telecoms carrier du yesterday said its second-quarter net profit rose 51 percent, beating analysts’ expectations, as customers increased spending and it gained more market share from former monopoly Etisilat.

The operator, which ended Etisalat’s domestic monopoly in 2007, reported a second-quarter net profit of 207.2 million dirhams ($56.4 million) after provisioning to pay 50 percent of its profit in royalties in 2011. This net figure is up from 137.4 million dirhams in the year-earlier period. Four analysts polled by Reuters forecast du would make a quarterly profit of between 188 million and 235 million dirhams. “These look like a good set of results-revenues, EBIDTA, customer share and free cash flow continue along a good trajectory,” said Martin Mabbutt, Nomura telecoms analyst.

“Du is addressing a market that is not very competitive - Etisalat has traditionally earned a very high return, with margins of more than 60 percent, so it’s quite an easy target.”

Etisalat’s second-quarter profit fell 14.9 percent, its second straight quarter-

ly decline. Du’s second-quarter mobile revenue rose 32 percent to 1.66 billion dirhams, with the Dubai-based carrier now claiming 44 percent of the UAE’s mobile subscriptions, up from 41.6 percent in the first-quarter. “More than a quarter of the growth in mobile revenue can be attributed to an increase in ARPU (average revenue per user), driven by increased usage by our customers,” said chief executive Osman Sultan.

Contract mobile customers, which typically spend more than those with pre-paid subscriptions, contributed 44 percent of mobile revenue growth, despite only representing 7 percent of du’s 4.78 million mobile subscribers. The latter is up by 171,100 from the first quarter. Mobile ARPU was 118 dirhams in the second-quarter, up from 111 dirhams a year earlier. Data revenues gained 74 percent over the same period to provide 9.1 percent of mobile revenue.

Du’s total revenue for the quarter rose 28 percent to 2.17 billion dirhams, while cost of sales increased 25 percent to 719.3 million dirhams, du said in a statement to the Dubai bourse. — Reuters

25% on the year. Full details on this chapter are not yet available. Large increases are allocated to the Ministry of Finance public account, and to the Ministry of Defense. The additional allocation of KD 157 million for the Ministry of Defense can be largely attributed to the approved increases in military wages.

While the Finance Ministry increase is likely to fund transfers to social security PIFSS. The government projects a budget deficit of KD 6 billion for FY11/12. However, this is based on a very conservative oil price assumption compared to current oil prices, $60 versus prices currently over $100. And with actual spending typically coming slightly lower than budgeted, we project a surplus for FY11/12 to come close to KD 9-10 billion. This would be Kuwait’s 13th consecutive budget surplus.

Investcorp FY net income rises 37% DUBAI: Investcorp, the Bahrain-based alternative investment manager, yesterday said its net income for the fiscal year 2011 rose 37 percent, aided by profitable portfolio exits and strong performance at its corporate and real estate investment divisions.

Investcorp, which once floated luxury brands Gucci and Tiffany & Co, posted a rise in net income for the fiscal year ending June 30 to $140.3 million from $102.2 million for the year-ago period, it said in a statement.

“We continue to see appetite from Gulf-based investors for alternative investments that help mitigate risks and provide consistent returns,” Chief Financial Officer Rishi Kapoor said in a conference call to discuss the results.

The company’s board has recommended resumption of dividend payments to shareholders at the rate of $15 per share, Investcorp said. Investcorp halted dividend payment over the last couple of years following the financial crisis, Kapoor said in the call.

In March, Investcorp sold quality and safety services firm Moody International for $730 million after it purchased the business in 2007 for $311 million.

The company will continue to look at exit opportunities going forward, the CFO stated. Investcorp said it realized more than $1 billion in proceeds from alternative investments during the fiscal year and its assetbased income, which includes its hedge funds, corporate and real estate investment business, rose 52 percent to $216.2 million. — Reuters

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KSE stocks close mixed GLOBAL DAILY MARKET REPORT KUWAIT: Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE) closed on mixed note yesterday, tracking the weak data showed in the international markets. Trading activity is still deteriorating as investors remained away due to the slow corporate results announcements.

Global General Index (GGI) ended the day up marginally by 0.07 percent, at 186.45 point. Market Capitalization was up for the day reaching KD30.51bn. Showing a negative note, KSE Price Index closed at 6,067.6 point, shedding 7.20 points (0.12 percent) from its previous close.

Market breadth During the session, 77 companies were traded. Market breadth was skewed towards decliners as 33 equities retreated versus 12 advanced.

Trading activity was down this session. Total volume traded was down by 32.61 percent with 68.01mn shares changing hands at a total value of KD10.21mn (36 percent lower compared to the day before). The real estate sector was the volume leader yesterday, accounting for 42.15 percent of total shares.

The banking sector was the value leader, with 29.36 percent of total traded value. Kuwait Finance House (KFH) was the most active in terms of values traded during the session, with 2.28mn shares exchanged at an aggregate value of KD2.09mn. The scrip closed up by 3.33 percent at KD0.930.

In terms of top gainers, Kuwait National Cinema Company was the top gainer for the day, adding 9.09 percent and closed at KD0.1.200.

On the other hand, Egypt Kuwait Holding Company shed 6.94 percent and closed at KD0.335, making it the biggest decliner in the market.

Sector-wise Sectors’ performance was mainly negative with five sectors closing with a negative note, one sector advancing and two unchanged sectors. Global Banking Index was the sole gainer for the day as it went up by 0.9 percent and closed at 331.22 point. The index was pushed up by two advanced banks.

Commercial Bank of Kuwait closed at KD0.920, adding 5.75 percent to its share price while Kuwait Finance House, closed at KD0.930 with an advance of 3.33 percent.

Services sector went down by 0.44 percent affected by the decline of the share price of heavyweight Zain and other several serv-

THURSDAY, AUGUST 4, 2011

business

ices companies. Zain closed down by 1.0 percent at KD0.990. On the other hand, the sector included the top two gainers in the market.

Continuing its positive performance for the third day, Burgan for Well Drilling Company went up by 9.09 percent during yesterday’s session and closed at KD0.300.

Kuwait National Cinema Company also added 9.09 percent to its share price, closing at KD1.200.

Global Non-Kuwaiti Sector Index was the biggest loser for the session with a drop of 1.54 percent.

The decliners have dominated the sector with six decliners and two advancing companies. Egypt Kuwait Holding Company and

Fujairah Cement Industries Company were among the top decliners in the market after shedding 6.94 and 6.35 percent to close at KD0.335 and KD0.059, respectively.

Oil news The price of OPEC basket of twelve crudes stood at $111.85 a barrel on Tuesday, compared with $113.57 the previous day, according to OPEC Secretariat calculations. The price of Kuwait crude oil dropped $2.72 to reach $109.42pb on Tuesday, compared to $112.14pb on the day before, said Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) yesterday.

Oil slips on economic troubles, US woes LONDON: Crude oil prices fell yesterday with investors fretting about falling demand as top oil user the United States and the euro-zone face the prospect of long-term economic and fiscal challenges.

Worries are growing that major economies may slip back into recession as Europe’s debt crisis deepens and after global manufacturing data proved disappointing. The slowdown is having a direct impact on US oil demand as consumer spending and gasoline use crumble.

Brent was $1.03 cents lower at $115.43 a barrel by 1229 GMT, almost $12 below this year’s peak above $127. US crude shed 59 cents to $93.20 a barrel, the lowest intraday price since June 29.

Prices were off earlier lows after data showed US private employers added more jobs than expected in July, but analysts said the focus remained on the longer term challenges for the world’s largest economy and the euro zone’s troubles. “ This is transitory,” said Bob Andres, chief investment officer at Merion Wealth Partners in Berwyn, Pennsylvania. “The broader picture is still that unemployment looks to be heading up and we don’t have an economic base here to bring unemployment down. The simple answer is this number is meaningless.”

Disappointing economic data this week, and a last-minute agreement to avoid a US debt default have encouraged investors to reduce exposure to risk and seek the safe havens of the Swiss franc and gold. “ The markets have already moved on to their next source of concern - a world without growth”, PVM’s David Hufton wrote in a note. “‘It’s the global economy stupid’ is on everyone’s lips, along with alarm at the failure of the euro zone agreement to draw a line under Europe’s debt crisis”.

Spanish and Italian 10-year government bond yield spreads over the benchmark German bund

widened further on Wednesday as contagion from the euro zone debt crisis continued to spread.

In Spain, data from the dominant services sector showed a sharp contraction in July, mirroring the weakness in factory output and signalling that the fragile economy could contract in the third quarter.

Moody’s Investors Service late on Tuesday confirmed its AAA rating of the United States, citing the decision to raise the debt limit, but assigned a negative outlook that could pressure lawmakers to cut the deficit.

The decision by Moody’s came a few hours after rival Fitch Ratings upheld its AAA rating of the United States.

Fitch also warned the world’s largest economy must cut its debt burden to avoid a future downgrade. The greater need for fiscal discipline comes as the slowdown of the US economy intensifies.

US consumer spending dropped in June for the first time in nearly two years and incomes barely rose, signs the economy lacked momentum as the second quarter drew to a close. The nation’s retail gasoline demand fell 3.1 percent in the week to July 29 from a year earlier, as price gains since the beginning of July weighed on consumption, MasterCard said.

Industry group the American Petroleum Institute on Tuesday said gasoline stocks jumped a biggerthan-expected 2.5 million barrels and distillate stocks rose in line with forecasts by 1.4 million barrels. US crude inventories unexpectedly fell 3.3 million barrels last week.

Inventory statistics from the US government’s Energy Information Administration will follow yesterday.

Tuesday’s data followed weak manufacturing readings from the US, Europe and China and last week’s disappointing second-quarter US GDP estimate, which reinforced fears that slowing economic growth threatens to dampen oil demand. — Reuters

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Italy, Spain in turmoil Euro-zone in ‘meditation’ as debt crisis deepens LUXEMBOURG: Italian Finance Minister Giulio Tremonti and euro-zone chief Jean-Claude Juncker had little to offer after talks yesterday as Italy and Spain risk being swamped by the euro-zone debt crisis. Despite mounting pressure on debt bonds issued by Italy, the European Union’s third-biggest economy, the two officials emerged with little but an enigmatic pledge to “continue our meditation.” But in Rome and Madrid, the Italian and Spanish prime ministers were sending strong signals that they are acting in response to the pressures.

Manny Fontenla-Novoa, former CEO of travela and tourism group Thomas Cook. Thomas Cook’s chief executive resigned yesterday following a disastrous year for Europe’s second largest travel firm, the company announced in a statement. —AFP

Thomas Cook CEO resigns LONDON: Shares in Thomas Cook, one of Britain’s largest tour operators, have jumped 5 percent after the company announced that its chief executive officer is stepping down.

The company said Manny Fontenla-Novoa is stepping down with immediate effect. The company has issued three profit warnings in the last year and is struggling to improve its UK business.

Fontenla-Novoa became chief executive in 2007. His deputy Sam Weihagen will take charge until a permanent replacement is found. Thomas Cook said in a statement accompanying news of Fontenla-Novoa’s resignation that it expects to meet its full year operating profit forecasts of 320 million pounds ($524 million), the targets mentioned in its last warning. Thomas Cook shares rose to 63.95 pence. —AP

Northern Rock slashes losses as sell-off looms LONDON: Nationalized British lender Northern Rock posted a smaller first-half loss of 78.8 million pounds ($128 million) and said it continued to work on plans for its eventual sale back to the private sector.

Last year it made a first-half loss of 140 million pounds, and the company said it now expected to start trading profitably sometime in the second half of 2012.

Northern Rock was fully nationalized three years ago after nearly collapsing during the credit crunch. British finance minister George Osborne said in June that he aimed to find a buyer for it this year.

Aggressive lending practices caused the bank’s near collapse in 2007 when borrowing dried up and Britain propped up Northern Rock with 1.4 billion pounds of taxpayers’ money during the crisis. It had liquid assets of 5.9 billion pounds at the end of 2010, and posted a loss of 232 million pounds for that year.

The company has also had to cut jobs as part of its restructuring. In March, Northern Rock announced 680 job losses, and Chairman Ron Sandler said more could follow. “We most certainly have not ruled out further job cuts,” he told reporters on a conference call.

Britain’s banks have announced thousands of job cuts over the last month as they look to control costs.

HSBC will axe 30,000 jobs, Lloyds Banking Group plans to cut 15,000 jobs, while Barclays will shed about 3,000.

Northern Rock was Britain’s first major bank casualty of the credit crisis. Thousands of customers queued up to pull money out of the bank in September 2007 on concerns over its financial position.

After its near-collapse, Northern Rock was split into a “good bank” comprising new mortgages and savings, and a “bad bank” holding its toxic assets. The good bank is the part being sold, while the government continues to wind down and run off the bad bank’s toxic assets, though these could also be sold to a private party.

The Northern Rock sale is being handled by Britain’s UKFI organization, which was set up to manage the state’s holdings in banks bailed out during the crisis, such as Lloyds and Royal Bank of Scotland , in which Britain finished up with stakes of 40.6 percent and 83 percent. —Reuters

Global markets are in a state of anxiety over debt and growth prospects in the euro-zone and United States, despite a last minute US deal to raise the borrowing limit and cut spending, signed by President Barack Obama.

Investors are again highly nervous about euro-zone debt, barely two weeks after an emergency euro-zone summit in Brussels struck a deal for a second bailout of Greece intended also to stop contagion to Italy and Spain.

Emerging after an almost two-hour meeting, Juncker who is Luxembourg prime minister and heads the 17-nation eurogroup of finance ministers, said: “We had a long discussion visiting all the problems the euro-area is facing.”

“We will continue our meditation in calm.”

“I agree,” added Tremonti. “It was a long and fruitful discussion.” The talks followed a new day of drama on financial markets as Italy and Spain faced soaring borrowing costs that threaten to sweep the euro-zone’s third and fourth-biggest economies into a widening Greek-style debt crisis.

As global stocks tumbled on fears of a resurgence of euro problems, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero delayed vacation plans and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was to address parliament in a bid to unite Italy in efforts to stabilize the country’s strained public finances.

The euro-zone crisis has already sent Greece, Ireland and Portugal running for bailouts from the European Union and International Monetary Fund. But Italy is twice as big as the three combined and has a public debt that amounts to 120 percent of its gross domestic product, way above the EU limit of 60 percent.

“Despite numerous attempts, the European authorities have still not done enough to satisfy a skeptical bond market and the debt crisis looks far from over,” said Juliet Tennant, economist at

LISBON: Brokers work in the trade room of a Portuguese bank yesterday. Portugal has raised euro 750 million ($1 billion) in a short-term debt auction yesterday, and its borrowing rate dipped slightly despite market fears that Spain or Italy may be next in line for a European bailout. —AP Goodbody Stockbrokers in Dublin. The July 21 summit agreed a 160-billion-euro ($226 billion) rescue of Greece-involving the private sector for the first time-and also agreed to boost the scope of its rescue fund, the European Financial Stability Fund (EFSF).

Amid growing concerns that the 440billion-euro fund would be insufficient to rescue countries the size of Italy or Spain, European Union President Herman Van Rompuy stepped in on Tuesday to try to reassure markets.

were tight-lipped late on Tuesday about what action Rome could take.

Financial market contagion is driving demands for a dramatic centralization of economic management by euro-zone members. But a spokeswoman for Economic Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn said that rescue planning for Italy, Spain and Cyprus was “certainly not on the table.” However, “all scenarios have become a possibility, even the most dramatic ones,” said Rome economics professor Pierpaolo Benigno. —AFP

Sanctions trap billions of Iran petrodollars in Korea

MasterCards are displayed in Montpelier, Vt. MasterCard Inc said yesterday, its second-quarter profit rose 33 percent, as cardholders used their plastic more during the spring months. —AP

Next says UK consumer outlook won’t darken LONDON: Next, Britain’s No 2 fashion retailer, provided a glimmer of hope for struggling store groups, saying it did not see life getting any tougher for consumers and cost pressures hitting the industry should ease next year.

The firm, which runs over 500 stores in Britain and Ireland as well as the Directory home shopping business, kept its full-year profit forecast yesterday after posting first-half sales towards the top end of company guidance. “My view is that the underlying economy remains subdued.

There’s nothing in any of the numbers that I look at, whether it be inflation, or employment or unemployment numbers, that would suggest that the situation’s going to get any worse,” Chief Executive Simon Wolfson told Reuters.

He predicted pressure from rising costs, like higher cotton prices, would ease next year, and said price cuts for shoppers were a possibility.

Next’s average selling prices rose about 7 percent in its first half to July 30 and Wolfson expects them to be up about 8 percent in the second half.

“We cannot underline enough that the situation in Greece is unique and is not comparable to those in other euro-zone countries,” Van Rompuy wrote in a commentary in Le Monde newspaper.

“Current evaluations of risk on the markets do not correspond at all to fundamentals and it is ridiculous that ... these countries are considered the most likely to default on loan obligations,” he added.

Sources contacted by AFP at the Italian government, the European Commission and in Juncker’s entourage

But he said the combination of a sharp reduction in cotton prices, an easing of manufacturing capacity constraints in the Far East and the annualizing of the January 2011 VAT sales tax rise mean selling prices were unlikely to rise further in spring 2012.

“It’s too early to say that prices will fall, I think the best that we can say is that prices won’t rise.

Having said that, if we do get input cost price improvements we will pass those on to consumers rather than take more margin,” he said.

His comments were welcomed by analysts. Shore Capital analyst Clive Black said that for the retail trade and consumer alike they represented “sight of the tunnel if not the light at the end?”

Next shares, which have risen by a fifth over the last six months, were up 0.7 percent at 2,378 pence at 0858 GMT, outperforming a 1.2 percent fall in the FTSE 100 index and valuing the business at about 4.1 billion pounds ($6.5 billion).

Britain’s retailers are mostly struggling as shoppers grapple with cutbacks in government spending, higher fuel and utility bills, subdued wages growth,

limited credit, a stagnant housing market and fears of eventual rises in interest rates.

But Wolfson, who was made a Conservative working peer in May 2010, said he did not think the British government should change course and delay its rapid deficit cuts. Opposition politicians and some economists fear the policy is endangering economic recovery.

“I do think the course is right,” he said. “The trouble is that any help the government gives is only going to put the government further into debt. The one thing that our economy desperately needs is a solvent, stable government.

“You’ve only got to look at places like Greece, Ireland and Portugal to see how dangerous things get when people begin to lose confidence in government finances.”

Next, which battles in the midmarket with sector leader Marks & Spencer (M&S) , said total sales rose 3.2 percent, excluding VAT sales tax, in the 26 weeks to July 30.

That compares with a company forecast of a rise of 1.5-4 percent and first-quarter growth of

5.2 percent-an outcome boosted by exceptionally warm weather over Easter and spending ahead of the Royal Wedding holiday weekend. First-half sales at Next’s stores fell 1.7 percent, while Directory sales leapt 15.1 percent. Last month M&S reported flat non-food sales for the 13 weeks to July 2.

Arden Partners analyst Nick Bubb said Next’s figures were sound enough but he cut his rating on the shares to “neutral” from “add,” saying they had already risen recently and are trading at a higher multiple of forecast earnings than M&S, which he believes has greater medium-term growth prospects.

Next said its full-year profit forecast remained in line with previous guidance before adjusting for the sale of its customer services business Ventura last month.

The firm is forecasting a pretax profit of 527-577 million pounds, excluding Ventura, implying a range of down 3 percent to up 6.2 percent on the 2010-11 result.

It forecast basic earnings per share of 230-250 pence, assuming 225 million pounds of share buybacks. —Reuters

SEOUL: Iran could have nearly $5 billion of cash trapped in South Korea by the end of the year as sanctions stop it repatriating money from oil sales, Korean government sources with direct knowledge of the situation told Reuters yesterday.

Sanctions do not penalize non-US refiners from buying Iranian crude, but they make it hard for foreign banks to pay the Islamic Republic the hard currency that makes up around 50 percent of government revenue. Just this week, Indian refiners began paying around $5 billion of oil debts after struggling for seven months to find a way to get money to Tehran.

Washington wants to isolate Tehran over its nuclear program, which it believes Iran is using to develop weapons. Tehran says it needs nuclear power. South Korea is one of Iran’s top crude buyers, importing around 230,000 barrels per day on average, based on total imports in the first half of the year.

Its refiners are paying Iran for oil into bank accounts in South Korea.

The trapped cash pile has already reached up to 4 trillion won ($3.82 billion), according to one of the sources, who could not be named due to the sensitivity of the issue. That could reach 5 trillion won ($4.76 billion) by the end of the year, the source added.

Seoul last year allowed Iran’s central bank to open accounts denominated in Korean won after South Korea blacklisted the Seoul branch of Bank Mellat and 101 other Iranian companies as part of international sanctions handed down over Iran’s nuclear development plans.

Iran can use the won funds to buy goods from South Korea but runs a trade surplus with Asia’s fourth-largest economy amounting to around $400 million a month, according to official Korean data.

South Korea has almost no natural resources so is heavily dependent on oil imports.

A source at the South Korean central bank confirmed that Iran cannot repatriate the funds due to international sanctions but declined to confirm the amount. “Iran’s central bank keeps that money it has received from Korean buyers, including oil refiners, hoping that it can bring out the money later when sanctions are lifted,” the source at the Bank of Korea said by telephone.

“Iran’s central bank cannot transfer won funds out of South Korea even if we exchanged the money into other currencies because international banks would not handle the transfer under the sanctions,” the source said. Iran’s central bank has the won accounts at Industrial Bank of Korea and Woori Bank, both owned by the Korean government. Officials at the banks declined to comment.

South Korea, the world’s fifth-largest crude oil importer, bought about 9 percent of its total crude imports of 2.54 million bpd from Iran in the first half of the year, data from state -run Korea National Oil Corp showed. South Korea boosted imports of crude by some 9 percent in the first half of this year as refiners produced more fuel to plug a shortfall in supply of oil products in the region after a quake and tsunami hit Japan in March. —Reuters

Moody’s warns Turkey on economic imbalances ISTANBUL: Turkey’s growing domestic and external imbalances could affect its positive rating outlook if they are left unaddressed, Moody’s warned yesterday, calling for government action. “Growing domestic and external imbalances will, if left unchecked, begin to adversely affect Turkey’s rating trajectory,” Moody’s Investor Service said in a statement.

“The resilience of Turkey’s economic and fiscal fundamentals during the global financial crisis has underpinned the positive outlook on the country’s Ba2 rating but a lack of corrective action on domestic and external imbalances could stall positive rating momentum,” it added.

The global economic crisis saw the Turkish economy slump 4.7 percent in 2009 but it grew by 8.9 percent last year,

higher than government expectations.

“Turkey’s large current account deficit is a particular issue, as the government is now financing its deficit using sources of capital that are more volatile” Moody’s said.

This leaves Turkey “susceptible to sudden shocks or shifts in investor sentiment,” it added.

Turkey’s immediate challenge is “to strengthen its resilience to external shocks by restraining domestic demand,” it said, calling on the government to fix the situation especially since the June 12 elections are now behind it.

The Islamist rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP), which has won kudos for its business-friendly policies in the past, won a third straight term by a landslide in June elections. —AFP

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Retro revival as Royal Enfield bikes take off NEW DELHI:“The fundamentals have finally clicked.” So says the Detroit-trained boss of the world’s oldest motorcycle company, the long struggling but now thriving Royal Enfield.

The India-based group is an essential piece of two-wheeler history and its main product the “Bullet” is a design classic, dating back to 1932 when it was unveiled for the first time by the original British manufacturer. In 1949, the bikes came to India under a contract for the army and manufacturing has continued ever since, in glorious isolation and long after the British bike died out.

Chief executive Venki Padmanabhan told AFP in an interview from company headquarters in the southern port city of Chennai that the group had turned a new page in its illustrious history.

“Finally the things that needed to be cleaned up got cleaned up and they have had a very subtle but very significant impact,” he said. The problem-or beauty, as some fans would say-was that Enfields had remained largely unchanged in 50 years, with the factory in Chennai churning out small variations of the original Bullet model.

The gearbox was agricultural and oil leaks, along with regular trips to the mechanic, were as much a feature of the

single-cylinder engine as its deep thumpthump sound.

But in what will likely be seen as a watershed moment in the history of the firm, Enfield dared to offend the purists by overhauling the engine in 2009, launching the brand-new Classic.

Initial orders for the bike, which retails at 150,000 rupees ($3,500), were expected to be 150-200 a month, but the company quickly found itself processing about a hundred a day.

Suddenly, the previously niche manufacturer had an eight-month waiting list and production at the creaking factory in Chennai-described as a “relic” by Padmanabhan-has since been ramped up by 40 percent. The chief executive-who previously worked for Chrysler, General Motors and Mercedes-arrived at the firm just before the Classic hit the market.

He compares managing the company, owned by the Indian industrial group Eicher for the the last 16 years, to caring for a Chinese bamboo tree.

“You have years and years of experimenting and figuring out what works, working out how to protect the plant. And then finally it grows eight feet.”“I think this is what we are beginning to see,” he says. “The fundamentals have finally clicked.” Demand

NEW DELHI: Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Royal Enfield R L Ravichandran poses with a Royal Enfield Classic 500 motorcycle during its unveiling in New Delhi. — AFP is so great that Eicher, which came close to shutting Enfield at one stage, has agreed to invest in a new 1.0 billion rupee ($22 million) Greenfield factory near Chennai that will double production capacity from 70,000 bikes a year to 150,000 in 2013.

The expansion plans are ambitious: the company is taking the export market seriously for the first time, building overseas sales networks in Britain, the United States, Germany and France. In India, the potential is huge as the company draws riders trading

up from smaller motorbikes and wealthier car-owning customers looking for a thrill at the weekend or on holiday tours.

Though foreign luxury bike brands such as Harley-Davidson, Triumph and BMW are increasingly investing in India, Royal Enfield expects this to raise awareness about leisure biking rather than reduce its own sales.

The key to the success of the new model was keeping enough of the old features to retain the heritage of Royal Enfield, while removing the problems that turned off potential buyers, says Padmanabhan. He cites BMW’s successful re-engineering of the classic Mini Cooper as another success story of breathing new life into an old brand, though the redesign of the Bullet is far less radical.

“We converted over from the cast iron engines. We have our own engine now that is modern in a retro sense. It doesn’t have all the niggly things,” he says. Even though some critics say the new Classic sounds tinny compared to older models, Padmanabhan reasons that this is a small price to pay for greater reliability and better fuel efficiency. “At some point, you don’t love something so much if it’s off the road all the time,” he says. — AFP

China says US fails to defuse ‘debt bomb’ Beijing to diversify its holdings away from dollar BEIJING: China warned yesterday that tortured efforts to raise the US limit on borrowing had failed to defuse Washington’s “debt bomb”, and signalled it would further diversify its holdings away from the dollar.

After months of bitter negotiations with his Republican rivals, US President Barack Obama finally signed an emergency bill on Tuesday that averted what would have been a disastrous debt default for the world’s biggest economy. But in a blistering commentary, China’s official Xinhua news agency ridiculed the US political process and warned that the deal had done nothing to change the country’s addiction to borrowing. “ The months-long tug of war between Democrats and Republicans... failed to defuse Washington’s debt bomb for good, only delaying an immediate detonation by making the fuse an inch longer,” the commentary said.

It described the negotiations between the Republicans and Democrats as a “madcap farce of brinkmanship”, and lectured US politicians to take more responsible measures to fix their

country’s economic problems. In the first official reaction from a Chinese government body, China’s central bank delivered a more measured statement and welcomed the deal.

But it nevertheless said it would continue to diversify its foreign currency investments.

“China’s foreign exchange reserves will continue following the principle of diversified investment, enhancing risk management and minimizing the negative impact of volatility in global financial markets,” People’s Bank of China governor Zhou Xiaochuan said in a statement.

“Large fluctuations and uncertainty in the US treasury bond market will affect the stability of international monetary and financial systems, which will hurt the global economic recovery.”

Also yesterday, the Chinese ratings agency Dagong downgraded the United States for the second time since November, with a continuing negative outlook. China, sitting on the world’s biggest foreign exchange reserves of around $3.20 trillion as of the end of June, is the largest holder of US Treasury bonds and has previously

BEIJING: A man walks past a newly opened restaurant in Beijing yesterday. China warned that tortured efforts to raise the US limit on borrowing had failed to defuse Washington’s ‘debt bomb’, and signalled it would further diversify its holdings away from the dollar. — AFP

Strong yen threatens Japanese exporters TOKYO: Japan’s faster-than-expected recovery from the impact of the March earthquake and tsunami has been overshadowed by a soaring yen that threatens the post-disaster rebound of exporters, say analysts.

The unit’s surge to around 77 to the dollar amid worries over US and European debt has pressured companies that earlier assumed an average rate of around 82 in their annual forecasts, according to the Bank of Japan. A strong yen erodes repatriated earnings and makes it harder for companies to make money on products made in Japan and sold overseas.

Japanese officials have upped their verbal threats to intervene and weaken a unit they say is overvalued and divorced from fundamentals, as investors plunge into the “safe haven” currency from the weaker dollar and euro. But having defied power and parts shortages to restore output crippled by the March disasters, Japan’s exporters may have to shift towards more overseas production due to the unit’s strength, meaning fewer jobs at home, say analysts.

“The stronger yen poses the question as to whether or not Japanese companies should move production bases abroad,” said Masatoshi Sato, senior strategist at Mizuho Investors Securities.

Japan’s biggest automaker Toyota on Tuesday raised its full-year profit outlook 39 percent on a faster-than-expected output recovery after the March disasters forced it to

halt assembly lines and shutter plants.

“The yen’s current level is really hard for exporters like us. The level is beyond the limit,” Toyota senior managing officer Takahiko Ijichi said this week.

The yen’s rise cut operating profit by 50 billion yen ($648 million) in the quarter and Toyota is considering importing more foreign parts for domestic car assembly, having already moved some production to places such as Thailand.

Annual auto output in Japan was 30 percent lower in 2010 from its 1990 peak, according to the Nikkei business daily. Post-March 11 power shortages and supply chain problems sent Japanese production plunging, helping tip the economy into a technical recession.

While analysts expect the economy to have contracted further in April-June, export demand and reconstruction projects are seen spurring growth in the second half as firms get back on track. But their efforts could be undermined by the yen, say experts, amid calls for authorities to intervene for the first time since G7 nations moved to counter the unit’s postwar high of 76.25 to the dollar in March. However, with any intervention expected to have only a temporary effect due to the weakness of the dollar and euro, Japanese firms will be “forced to review their business structure,” said Hideki Matsumura, senior economist at Japan Research Institute Ltd. — AFP

expressed concerns over its investments.

China Investment Corp, set up in 2007 to invest a chunk of the country’s hefty foreignexchange stockpile, has been trying to diversify since the global financial crisis struck in 2008.

The $400-billion sovereign wealth fund has been increasing its already substantial holdings in European bonds to get better returns and prop up debt-laden euro-zone countries, which are major buyers of Chinese exports.

Exact figures on the size of China’s euro holdings are hard to find, but analysts estimate its stockpile is relatively small, with most holdings in large countries such as Germany and France However, analysts said China had no choice but to continue buying US debt in significant amounts for the time being. “I’m sure they are looking into diversification but it’s only going to be at the margins,” IHS Global Insight analyst Alistair Thornton told AFP. “In reality it is very hard for China to diversify away from buying US debt without fundamentally changing its whole economic model... no other market is as liquid as the US debt market.”

Yin Zhentao, an economist with the Chinese Academy of Social Science, also said China had few other avenues. “China’s central bank has to mop up liquidity and the US Treasuries are the most important option,” Yin told AFP. Dagong, which has links to the government, said in a statement it had downgraded the United States’ local and foreign currency credit rating from A+ to A, with a negative outlook.

Raising the US debt ceiling will “further deepen” the country’s economic woes,” said Dagong, adding that the “interest and safety” of creditors was not guaranteed.

Dagong has little financial muscle outside of China but has made a name for itself by accusing its three Western rivals-Moody’s, Fitch and Standard & Poor’s-of causing the financial crisis by not properly disclosing risk. The big three agencies have consistently awarded Washington their highest possible ratings-allowing the United States to take on more debt at lower cost, which China has blamed for fuelling inflationary pressures.

Dagong’s chairman, Guan Jianzhong, is a paid adviser to China’s government, but insists his agency is fully independent. —AFP

SocGen profit hit by Greek debt, shares fall PARIS: French banking giant Societe Generale said yesterday its second-quarter net profit slumped 31 percent as it took a charge for its exposure to Greek debt and warned of a difficult 2012.

The warning on its 2012 outlook sparked a sharp drop in the share price, with Societe Generale stock slumping nearly 7.0 percent at the opening in Paris where the wider market was down 1.16 percent.

The bank said its three months to June net profit came to 747 million euros ($1.07 billion) after it set aside 395 million euros for losses on its holdings of Greek government bond. If the Greek provision is excluded, the results were roughly in line with analyst forecasts from Dow Jones Newswires for a net profit of 933 million euros. Societe Generale also downgraded its outlook, saying that its forecast for a 2012 net profit of 6.0 billion euros “looks difficult to achieve.”

Societe Generale said that despite concerns over the 2012 outlook, it remained confident of achieving a 9.0 percent core capital level by 2013.

The new Basel III accords on banking sector reserves fixes a core capital requirement of 7.0 percent but some banks may have to set aside up to 2.5 percentage points more depending on their size and influence in the financial system. Societe Generale said most units posted an improved performance, with its investment banking division contribution to the results up 9.0 percent on the back of a sharp increase of 72 percent in stocks trading activity. Net banking income, however slipped 2.6 percent to 6.5 billion euros. — AFP

NEW DELHI: Chairman and Managing Director of Bharti Airtel, Sunil Bharti Mittal, poses after unveiling the new company logo in New Delhi. — AFP

Bharti Q1 net down 28%, tariff hike boosts prospects NEW DELHI: India’s Bharti Airtel is set to see an improvement in profit margins ahead on recent increase in call rates, after losses in Africa and costs related to 3G network in India dragged it to its sixth straight quarterly profit fall.

Analysts expect near-term earnings of Bharti to remain subdued due to high interest costs related to its Africa foray and its 3G network in India, but the recent tariff increases by mobile firms in India have eased some concerns on the sector. “From call rates point of view, I think we have seen the bottom and big players like Bharti will be the major beneficiaries of the revival in the pricing power,” said Jagannadham Thunuguntla, head of research at SMC Global in New Delhi.

“Africa will be a key element of growth for Bharti in the next one or two years. In the shortterm, the costs related to the (Africa) acquisition will continue to weigh on the bottomline.”

India’s long-suffering telecoms sector is back on investor radar after firms including Bharti raised call prices recently - the first such increase in at least two years - as a vicious price war in the 15-player market had strained their profits. With more than 850 million mobile connections, India is the world’s second-biggest mobile phone market after China and is adding subscribers at the fastest pace.

The market, however, offers some of the world’s cheapest call rates as carriers have traditionally sacrificed profits to chase growth.

Shares in Bharti, which reported a biggerthan-expected 28 percent fall in June-quarter profit, dropped as much as 4.6 percent soon after the results, but pared some its losses later to trade down 1.8 percent by 0838 GMT. New Delhi-based Bharti Airtel, India’s top mobile phone carrier, had 221.2 million mobile users at the end of June in 19 countries across Asia and Africa.

Bharti last year ventured into Africa at a time when growth on its home turf was slowing, by acquiring most of the African mobile operations

of Kuwait’s Zain to become the world’s fifthbiggest mobile carrier by subscribers.

But high costs in Africa have kept the firm’s margins under pressure and it has yet to turn a profit there, although company officials have said the African business is improving.

Bharti’s revenue in Africa rose 6 percent from the previous quarter to $979 million (43.78 billion rupees). But, its overall Africa-related net loss in the June quarter was at 3.02 billion rupees.

Bharti, which started with just one license to operate a mobile network in Delhi, has cut call prices in several African markets to boost usage.

The company, which spent $3.5 billion in an Indian auction last year to buy 3G and broadband airwaves, is betting on a pickup in premium data services to boost margins in a market where voice calls bring in over 85 percent of the sector’s revenue. “In India, the company’s efforts in the area of cost efficiencies have helped arrest the margin decline,” Bharti Airtel Chairman Sunil Mittal said in a statement.

“Overall, 2011-12 promises to be an exciting year of transformation.” Mittal, who started his career selling bicycle parts, saw an opportunity in telecoms in the mid-1990s when India was opening up the sector for private participation.

Bharti, nearly a third owned by Southeast Asia’s biggest phone firm, SingTel , said consolidated net profit fell 28 percent in its fiscal first quarter to 12.15 billion rupees ($274 million).

Revenue rose 39 percent to 169.75 billion rupees. A Reuters poll of brokerages had expected net profit of 15.18 billion rupees on revenue of 168.87 billion rupees.

Monthly average revenue per user (ARPU), a key metric for telecom carriers, from Bharti’s Indian operations fell an annual 12 percent to 190 rupees for the quarter. Africa ARPU saw a drop of 2 percent on year to $7.3. Stiff competition in India’s mobile market is abating and consolidation in the crowded market is imminent, Mittal had said in the company’s annual report released this week. — Reuters

MUMBAI: An Indian stockbroker reacts as he watches share prices on his computer during intraday trade at a brokerage firm in Mumbai yesterday. Indian shares slid as much as 1.23 percent and below the 18,000-point level in early trade yesterday, tracking regional markets on concerns of a weakening global outlook. — AFP

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TECHNOLOGY

Phishing attacks on Facebook and Habbo intensify DUBAI: Kaspersky Lab presents its spam report for June 2011. The volume of spam in mail traffic increased slightly compared to May and averaged 83.3%. The most popular topics were Osama bin Laden’s death, the last Harry Potter movie the anniversary of Michael Jackson’s death.

The amount of phishing emails remained unchanged and accounted for 0.02% of all mail traffic. However, there was a considerable increase in the amount of phishing attacks on social networks Habbo and Facebook, increasing by 6.25 and 4.07 percentage points respectively, pushing the sites up to third and fourth places in the list of organizations attacked most. The experts at Kaspersky Lab also predict a surge in spam linked to Google+ after recent signs that spammers have begun exploiting the

growing interest in the new social network.

“We expect an increase in unsolicited emails exploiting the new Google social network. They will most likely contain both phishing links and malicious code,” says Maria Namestnikova, Senior Spam Analyst at Kaspersky Lab. PayPal and eBay had the unenviable distinction of attracting most attention from phishers in June.

June saw the fight against spammers continue. Microsoft, which managed to block the Rustock botnet together with US law enforcement agencies, is keeping the pressure on cybercriminals. A recent Microsoft blog stated that the company intended to initiate a legal case against the Russian citizens suspected of creating and maintaining Rustock, even going as far to

say that a criminal case could be brought in the framework of the Russian legal system.

The Russian legal theme continued with the arrest of Pavel Vrublevsky, the owner of the international online payment service ChronoPay, in June at Moscow ’s Sheremetyevo airport. He was charged with organizing DDoS attacks against a competitor. The arrest was in no way attributed to his spamming activity - Vrublevsky is widely believed to be the founder of the large pharmaceutical affiliate program Rx-promotion. Meanwhile, Japan was the latest world power to combat the distribution of unwanted emails at the legislative level. As of June, the creation, distribution, purchase and storage of malicious programs as well as the distribution of pornographic spam is a criminal offence in the country.

Sources of spam India remained the most popular source of spam in June. Brazil returned to second place with an increase of 4.4 percentage points compared to May. The most noteworthy changes saw South Korea fall from second to fourth in the rating that tracks where spam originates, while Russia dropped two places to seventh.

Malware in mail traffic There was a slight decrease in the amount of malware blocked in mail traffic in June. Malicious files were found in 3.8% of all emails, a decrease of 0.3 percentage points compared with the previous month.

There were no major changes to the Top 10 countries where mail antivirus detected malware most frequently. Italy moved up

from sixth to fourth place following an increase of 1.5 percentage points. TrojanSpy.HTML.Fraud.gen still occupies first place among the Top 10 malicious programs distributed via mail traffic.

Trends in spam Statistics show that almost a third of all English-language spam was fraudulent and was either sent with the intention of extorting money from users or contained a malicious attachment or a link to malicious code. Pharmaceutical spam was the second most popular category.

Offers of quick earnings and dubious personal loans, various goods and services along with fake designer goods were among the other most prominent categories of spam in June.

South Korea fines Apple $2,855 over location data iPhone, iPad to launch a class action suit against Apple SEOUL: Apple Inc’s South Korean unit has been fined 3 million won ($2,855) by the country’s communications regulator after the iPhone and iPad maker collected location data from users without proper authorization.

The fine, though small, marks the first time Apple has been punished by a regulator over the controversial location data collection which has sparked criticism in the United States and elsewhere. The revelation in April that Apple’s iPhones collected location data and stored it for up to a year-even when location software was supposedly turned off-has prompted renewed scrutiny of the nexus between location and privacy.

Apple has since issued a patch to fix the problem. Some 27,800 South Korean iPhone and iPad users are planning to launch a class action suit against Apple over the matter, while two separate US groups have sued Apple, alleging that certain software applica-

tions were passing personal user information to third-party advertisers without consent.

The Korea Communications Commission (KCC) ordered corrective measures on the South Korean operations of Apple and Google Inc , saying it has found loopholes in systems supposed to protect location information. It ordered the technology giants to encrypt location data stored in smartphones.

Apple Korea could have had its business suspended or been fined 3 percent of its location information revenue for failing to encrypt location data, or been fined up to 10 million won for collecting data without permission, the KCC said. “Apple is not tracking the location of your iPhone. Apple has never done so and has no plans to ever do so,” said Steve Park, a spokesman for Apple Korea.

Google Inc, a fierce competitor of Apple in mobile computing, has also faced criticism over reports that Android-based phones track the locations of users. Google said that

location-sharing on its Android mobile platform was strictly opt-in. “We are currently reviewing the KCC’s decision,” Google Korea said in a statement. “We have been cooperating closely with the KCC to answer their questions, and look forward to continuing to work with them in the future.”

In June, Apple paid a Korean lawyer 1 million won in a court ruling regarding its location data collection, the first payout by the US tech giant over these complaints. The lawyer, Kim Hyung-suk, is leading the class action against Apple, seeking 1 million won in compensation for each of the 27,800 iPhone and iPad users who applied to join the suit. “I am planning to file the lawsuit by next week,” Kim told Reuters yesterday. US lawmakers have accused the technology industry of exploiting location data for marketing purposes - a potentially multibilliondollar industry-without getting proper consent from phone users. — Reuters

China’s Huawei launches cloud-computing smartphones

TOKYO: Japanese electronics Hitachi’s television sets are displayed at an electronics store in Tokyo yesterday. Japanese high-tech maker Hitachi said yesterday it is considering shifting all television production to foreign outsourcing firms by March as part of a broad strategy to increase profitability.

— AFP

AOL launches personalized magazine app for iPad SAN FRANCISCO: Internet company AOL is trying to snatch a larger portion of the tablet computer audience by launching free iPad software that presents a customized, daily e-magazine that draws in content from all over the Web. Called Editions, the software is similar to news-aggregating mobile apps such as Flipboard and Pulse, but more focused on bringing users a finite, tailored amount of content that updates once per day. AOL’s app is being released yesterday.

David Temkin, AOL Inc.’s head of mobile products, said the Editions team spent much of the past year trying to create an app that was like a morning newspaper, but more “sci-fi.” As a result, Editions includes a variety of default sections such as top news, sports, technology and business that users can tweak.

Users can edit preferences within each section down to the celebrities, companies and tech gadgets they enjoy reading about. Like a newspaper or magazine, stories in Editions are ranked in

importance by their size on the page, except it uses software rather than human editors to do so.

The app has a retro-styled design that starts up to show a closed magazine lying atop a wood-grained background.

Each day, the latest version of Editions sports a different cover story. A small address label includes the user’s name, location and local weather. Users can decide what time they’d like Editions to be delivered, and they can flip through about a week’s worth of back issues.

Because Editions doesn’t have licenses with content publishers, the app typically takes users to the publisher’s website to read the full stor y. The app does include some full articles from AOL owned websites such as news hub The Huffington Post, which AOL bought in February. “This app is meant to drive traffic to publishers’ websites,” Temkin said.

“This is not meant to scrape text off them and deprive them of their ad views.” The app will begin carrying ads in a few months. — AP

SHANGHAI: This photo taken yesterday shows a visitor looking at a character model from the movie “Finding Nemo” during an exhibition of the animation film studio Pixar in Shanghai. Animation pioneer Pixar studios, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, has produced a dozen full-length feature films consisting entirely of computer graphics which have raked in $6.5 billion and won 26 Academy Awards. — AFP

BEIJING/HONG KONG: China’s Huawei Technologies Co Ltd , the world’s No. 2 network equipment maker, unveiled its cloud-computing mobile phones yesterday in an attempt to replicate its telecom gear success in the smartphone market.

The company, known for its low costs, is betting its cloud-computing smartphones will help the Shenzhenbased firm grab market share from the likes of Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics , analysts say.

Global sales from Huawei’s devices division, which sells consumer products such as smartphones, mobile phones, tablets and wireless cards, grew by 64 percent to $4.2 billion in the first half of the year from a year ago.

Shipments jumped nearly 40 percent to 72 million units, Huawei said in a statement yesterday. Huawei launched its “Vision” smartphones at a media event in Beijing, with the new 9.9-mm, 121-g phone running on Google’s Android 2.3. Cloud computing refers to data and software stored on computer servers rather than individual PCs and accessed over the Internet.

Cloud computing smartphones will allow users to download applications without needing much storage space on their devices.

Last month, China’s Alibaba Group launched its first self-developed mobile operating system and smartphone running on its cloud computing-based operating system.

“Obviously you have to retrieve the data from the web. On that, the US is much easier to do this. In emerging markets like China, it will probably be still some time away off,” said Alvin Kwock, an analyst at JPMorgan in Hong Kong.

Founded in 1987, Huawei has grown rapidly. The company reported revenue of $28 billion last year. It aims to boost revenue to $100 billion in the next 10 years.

“We are striving to become one of the top three global brands for mobile phones by 2015,” Huawei Device CEO Wan Biao said in the statement. The unit contributed about 17 percent to total revenue.

In July, Huawei Device executives said the firm aimed to ship 20 million smartphones this year, higher than a previous target of 12 million-15 million units. In June, Huawei unveiled its MediaPad, a 7-inch Android-based tablet computer in Singapore, and is also developing a 10-inch device to be launched this year.

The privately-held company employs more than 110,000 people, about half of whom are based outside China. Huawei’s US expansion plans in the network equipment sector have hit roadblocks on suspicions the company maintains links with China’s military. Ren Zhengfei, Huawei’s low-profile founder who started the company with just 21,000 yuan ($3,200), served in the People’s Liberation Army until 1983. — Reuters

‘Significant’ new round of funding for Twitter WASHINGTON: Twitter announced it has closed a deal for a “significant” round of new funding led by Russian investment company Digital Sky Technologies (DST ). Twitter did not reveal the amount raised for the wildly popular real-time micro-blogging service but the technology blog All Things Digital reported last month that the deal would be worth $800 million and value the company at $8 billion.

According to All Things Digital, $400 million of the total investment will go to the company and $400 million will be used to cash out current investors and employees. In a blog post, Twitter said it has grown from 250 people a year ago to 600 and was delivering 200 million of the short messages known as “tweets” a day, up from 65 million a day a year ago. “ We’ve come ver y far in a shor t time,” the San Francisco-based Twitter said. “Now we have an opportunity to expand Twitter’s reach with a significant round of funding led by the venture firm DST Global, with the participation of several of our existing investors,” it said. “ We will use these resources to aggressively innovate, hire more great people and invest in international

expansion,” Twitter said. “We can’t wait for you to see what we have planned to make Twitter even better.” DST, owned by Internet tycoon Yury Milner, has also made investments in Facebook, Swedish online music service Spotify, daily deals site Groupon and Zynga, creator of the popular online games “Mafia Wars” and “FarmVille.”

Milner, in a statement, described Twitter as “one of the few companies that has truly changed the world.

“Twitter’s astonishing growth is a testament to how important it is becoming to more people every day, and why we couldn’t pass up the chance to be a bigger part of its future,” he said.

Twitter has enjoyed explosive growth since it was founded in 2006 but it is unclear how successful it has been in translating its popularity into profit. Twitter chief executive Dick Costolo, speaking at the For tune Brainstorm Tech conference in Aspen, Colorado, last month, declined to reveal whether the privately held company is profitable.

But he said the number of advertisers on the platform is up 600 percent this year over last year, when it numbered in the hundreds. — AFP

In this product image provided by Acer Inc., the Acer Revo RL100 is shown with keyboard. Putting a PC in the living room and controlling it from the couch has been daunting, particularly because PC makers haven’t shown much interest in making PCs for this purpose. Acer gives it a shot with the Revo, a slim, quiet model with a pop-out wireless keyboard. — AP

LATEST GADGETS

New touchscreen BlackBerrys NEW YORK: Research In Motion is unveiling five new BlackBerrys with touchscreens, as it hopes to revive the line’s dwindling appeal in the face of competition from the iPhone and Android smartphones. The new phones had been expected earlier this year, but were delayed.

Those delays have weighed heavily on Research In Motion Ltd.’s stock price, which is at its lowest level since 2006.

RIM, which is based in Waterloo, Ontario, is updating its high-end Bold models to include touchscreens. It’s also launching two Torch models with no physical keyboards. The phones run a new version of the BlackBerry operating system, which RIM says run much faster.

AT&T Inc. said it would launch one of new Torch models this month, and another Torch and Bold model later this year. — AP

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health & science

PCs another pest for Australian wheat growers PARKES: Outback Australian farmers - hardened from dealing with extreme weather, fires and pests - now have to wrestle with modern trading tools and technology after a tough day tilling the land as they adapt to the rigours of a deregulated market.

For many, especially older farmers facing a bewildering host of new choices, the changes mean they may miss out on the best prices or even come under pressure to sell up to bigger farmers or foreign investors. Farmers visited during a Reuters crop tour in eastern Australia last month had mixed feelings on the ending of the monopoly held by the Australian Wheat Board (AWB), which meant they now had to keep close tabs on day-today global prices.

Wayne Dunford, 60, who grows wheat near Parkes in central-west New South Wales state, said many farmers faced an uphill task coping with the new system. “They’re not used to things like forward selling, futures and hedging, preferring the old system where they just delivered to the wheat board under the single desk system,” said Dunford.

Some older farmers were also less technologically savvy than younger farmers or lacked the business skills required to market wheat on their own after the single desk system ended three years ago. For nearly 60 years until 2008, AWB had sole marketing rights over the country’s wheat export sales. When restrictions were eased, commodities giants such as Cargill Inc and Glencore

International swooped on the world’s fourthlargest wheat exporter, eyeing it as an opportunity to gain a new source of grain. Canada, the world’s second largest wheat exporter, is the last major western supplier to operate a wheat marketing monopoly through the Canadian Wheat Board that has had sole marketing rights since World War Two. But the country’s conservative government plans to abolish the system in August, 2012.

Australia’s decision to free up the market was one many smaller farmers opposed, as they liked the system that allowed them to deliver into AWB pools while concentrating on growing grain.

“Under the old style wheat board you knew what you were going to get (in terms of price). Our wheat board was very efficient as they knew how much wheat they had and how much they had to sell,” said Brian Johnston, 55, who farms an area some 400 km north of Sydney.

He said farmers now had to fire up their personal computers virtually everyday in an effort to get the best rates in a volatile wheat market. “I can’t work a computer so my wife does all that-the young blokes can handle them ... they’re computer literate but not me,” said Johnston who has worked on his property since he was 15.

Global wheat prices have been volatile this year.

The Chicago Board of Trade’s spot month contract hit a high above $8.93 per bushel in February on concerns of dry U.S. weather, but struck a low near

$5.65 at the start of July as Russia and Ukraine relaxed export restrictions.

Prices have climbed back to above $7.00 since then, in line with rising corn prices. Other farmers have got used to the new system, though they are still building up expertise. “There’s hedging products-risk management stuff-you can sell any amount of grain forward but that’s pretty tricky at this time of the year when you don’t know how much will be produced,” said Jock Coupland, one of the largest grain growers in the Condobolin district of the NSW mid-west.

Australia starts harvesting in October. The government’s chief commodities forecaster estimated in June that the 2011/12 harvest could be 26.2 million tonnes, near the record 26.3 million tonnes in 2010/11, though some private estimates were lower. “I used to deal with AWB until they abandoned the single desk but I don’t mind it-in fact I quite like the new system,” said Coupland.

But Adam Davis, a senior commodities trader at Merricks Capital, said the new system had some deficiencies. “There’s a plethora of so-called risk management and consultants out there to advise whether to put your grain into a pool, and which one, or sell to a trader,” said Davis.

“I don’t know how a farmer can work out what he can get from a pool or whether he should wait to harvest before selling. It must be very confusing,” he said. Davis added that farmers had expect-

ed better prices because of competition among buyers but these gains had been whittled away by supply chain inefficiencies.

Lack of capacity at country silos has forced farmers to store more grain on farms, adding to costs while insufficient rail capacity means using higher cost road transport. Davis said farmers were being forced to rethink how they did business.

“We’re going through that generation change where you are just going to see the big guys get bigger and obviously the number of farms are going to shrink,” said Davis.

Foreign interest in Australian farmland is on the rise as countries such as Qatar seek to secure food supplies, while existing farmers are buying more land to achieve economies of scale, allowing them to use more machinery and less labour. Some farmers, struggling to make a return because of prices, new marketing options and adverse weather, have been tempted to sell, realising they either have to get bigger or leave their land.

“There’s a lot of land up for sale because the older guys are selling up and there’s not a lot of us younger farmers,” said Grant Orr, 26, a grain farmer near Parkes, which is about 480 km west of Sydney. “There’s no neighbours around here anymore. There’s an Englishman who has bought up a lot of land around here as an investment I suppose but he only comes once or twice a year,” Orr said. —Reuters

Scientists find superbug strain of salmonella Experts call for surveillance to limit international spread LONDON: Scientists have identified an emerging “superbug” strain of salmonella that is highly resistant to the antibiotic Ciprofloxacin, or Cipro, often used for severe salmonella infections, and say they fear it may spread around the world.

The strain, known as S. Kentucky, has spread internationally with almost 500 cases found in France, Denmark, England and Wales in the period between 2002 and 2008, according a study in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.

French researchers who led the study also looked at data from North America and said reports of infection in Canada and contamination of imported foods in the United States suggest the strain has also reached there.

The study was published yesterday as US health officials reported a multi-state outbreak of another strain of antibiotic-resistant salmonella-called S. Heidelberg-which has so far made 77 people sick and killed one.

Salmonella infection is a major public health problem worldwide. There are an estimated 1.7 million infections in North America each year and more than 1.6 million cases were reported between 1999 and 2008 in 27

European countries.

Although most salmonella infections produce only mild gastroenteritis with stomach cramps, fever and diarrhoea, older people or those with weaker immune systems are particularly at risk of life-threatening infections.

These cases are typically treated with drugs in a class of antibiotics known as fluoroquinolones, which includes the commonlyused medicine ciprofloxacin. Cipro was originally developed by Bayer and is now available as a generic.

But as with many bacteria, multi-drugresistant, or “superbug”, strains of salmonella infection have developed as the bacteria has found new ways of outfoxing the drugs, and these can spread in food and from person to person.

In the French-led study, Francois-Xavier Weill and Simon Le Hello from the Institut Pasteur looked at surveillance data from the European countries and the United States and found 489 reported cases of the superbug S.Kentucky strain. Case numbers rose every year from 3 cases in 2002 to 174 cases in 2008.

They said the earliest infections seemed to have been picked up mainly in Egypt

between 2002 and 2005, but since 2006 the infections have also been acquired in various parts of Africa and the Middle East. “The absence of reported international travel in approximately 10 percent of the patients suggests that infections may have also occurred in Europe through consumption of contaminated imported foods or through secondary contaminations,” they wrote.

As part of the study, multi drug-resistant S. Kentucky was also isolated from chickens and turkeys from Ethiopia, Morocco, and Nigeria, suggesting “poultry is an important agent for infection” the researchers said, adding the common use of fluoroquinolone antibiotics in chicken and turkey production in Nigeria and Morocco “may have contributed to this rapid spread”.

They said the study highlights the importance of public health surveillance in a global food system. “We hope that this publication might stir awareness among national and international health, food and agricultural authorities so that they take the necessary measures to control and stop the dissemination of this strain before it spreads globally,” the researchers said. — Reuters

Moon’s mountains made by slow motion crash

HARARE: In this photo taken July 19, 2011, newly born babies are seen in a government hospital in Harare. Zimbabwe’s health sector is divided into public and private sectors, with the government owning around 70 percent of health facilities in the country, while the private sector owns about 30 percent. — AP

Suicide, mental health linked to sex abuse SYDNEY: Women who have experienced rape or other abuse have far higher rates of mental disorders and are up to 20 times more likely to attempt suicide than other females, an Australian study showed yesterday.

The findings, reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association, showed a very strong association between exposure to gender-based violence and mental disorder, said study leader Susan Rees.

“Based on other studies, we expected there to be a correlation and an association, but the strength of it was particularly concerning,” said Rees, from the School of Psychiatry at the University of New South Wales. “Not only was there a higher rate (of mental disorder) but there was also a greater severity.”

Researchers analysed the results of a national survey of 4,451 women aged 16 to 85 conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in 2007. They looked at the four more common types of abuse-physical violence by an intimate partner, rape, other sexual assault and stalking-and the rate of mental disorders such as anxiety and depression, and substance abuse. “For women exposed to two types of gender-based violence the lifetime rate of mental disorder was 69 percent and for

three or more types of gender-based violence, it was 89.4 percent,” Rees said. “This compares with a rate of 28 percent for women who have not experienced violence.” Attempted suicide figures were alarming with a 1.6 percent attempted suicide rate for women never exposed to gender-based violence rising to six percent for women who had experienced one type and 34 percent for those enduring three or four types. Rees, a senior research fellow at UNSW’s Psychiatry Research and Teaching Unit, said the analysis was the most comprehensive done in a nationally representative sample and would therefore have relevance to other countries.

The data, which showed about 15 percent of Australian women had reported sexual assault of some sort and eight percent had reported being raped, was comparable with other countries, she added. “Gender-based violence is considered a human rights violation against women,” she told AFP. “We really did the research to find out: is there anything that’s working to address this? And if so, what is it?”

“There’s not enough information out there about the effectiveness of programmes and intervention. For all of us, we should be looking globally at trying to address this.” — AFP

PARIS: The Moon’s highlands, long a mystery, may have been thrown up billions of years ago by a slow-motion collision with a smaller companion moon knocked off its orbit, says a study released yesterday.

With mountain ranges topping 3,000 metres (10,000 feet) and deep craters, the farside of the Moon bears scant resemblance to the smoother surface and shallow lava-filled maria, or “seas”, on the nearside visible from Earth. Scientists have proffered many explanations for this split personality, also known as the “lunar dichotomy”.

Some point to uneven tidal heating, the process by which energy from rotation and orbit deform a planet’s outer crust. Others argue that lopsided bombardment by asteroids and comets explain our Moon’s Janusfaced exterior. But a pair of researchers from the University of California at Santa Cruz, Martin Jutzi and Erik Asphaug, have proposed a new storyline for the sculpting of the lunar landscape, one that reaches back to the Moon’s very origins. Their findings, published in Nature, tie up loose ends that other theories cannot account for, they said.

Not long after Earth took shape more than four billion years ago it was likely struck a glancing blow by a Mars-sized body, an event called the giant-impact hypothesis. The Moon is thought to be composed of the debris cast off by that collision, which probably created other, smaller, moon-like bodies as well.

As our solar system evolved toward its current configuration, none of these lesser orbs were likely to have survived very long-unless they landed in a sweet spot called an EarthMoon Trojan point. At least one such minimoon, about a third the diameter of the one we see today, could have been suspended between the gravitational pulls of the Moon and Earth for tens of millions of years, they calculated. Eventually, however, it would have lost its moorings and crashed into the Moon, which was covered at that point by a magma ocean topped by a crystallised crust. At high speed, planet-scale collisions create monstrous craters and vast amounts of vaporised debris, mostly melted by the intense heat.

But because the mini-moon, due to its position, would have been moving at a much slower speed-about two-to-three kilometres per second-the impact would have left a rim of mountains. “According to our simulations, a large ‘moon-to-Moon’ size ratio and a subsonic impact velocity lead to an accretionary pile rather than a crater,” Jutzi and Asphaug concluded. —AFP

DADAAB: A malnourished child reacts as he is measured at a field hospital of the International Rescue Committee, IRC, in Dadaab, Kenya, yesterday. — AP

Long life is in the genes: Study Secrets to longevity WASHINGTON: Israeli researchers studied a population of Ashkenazi Jews who have lived to age 95 and older and found that their eating and lifestyle habits were no better than those of the general population. In fact, men in the long-lived group drank slightly more and exercised less than their average counterparts, said the findings in the online edition of Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

“This study suggests that centenarians may possess additional longevity genes that help to buffer them against the harmful effects of an unhealthy lifestyle,” said senior author Nir Barzilai, director of the Institute for Ageing Research at Yeshiva University’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

The study involved 477 Ashkenazi Jews aged 95-122 who were living independently. A total of 75 percent were women. All were enrolled in an ongoing study that aims to uncover the secrets to longevity. Ashkenazi Jews were chosen because they are more “genetically uniform than other populations, making it easier to spot gene differences that are present,” said the study.

Overall, the elder group had similar habits in terms of height-weight ratio,

smoking, exercise level and diet as similarly matched people in the general population. Data on comparison subjects came from 3,164 people who had been born around the same time as the centenarians and were examined between 1971 and 1975 while participating in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.

Twenty-four percent of long-living men drank alcohol daily, compared to 22 percent of the general population, while 43 percent of the older group exercised regularly compared to 57 percent of regular men. While people in both groups were just as likely to be overweight, the longer-living group was less likely to reach higher levels of obesity. But researchers cautioned that the older set’s secrets are not a good fit for most.

“Although this study demonstrates that centenarians can be obese, smoke and avoid exercise, those lifestyle habits are not good choices for most of us who do not have a family history of longevity,” said Barzilai. “ We should watch our weight, avoid smoking and be sure to exercise, since these activities have been shown to have great health benefits for the general population, including a longer lifespan.” — AFP

Animal rights groups welcome bullfight ban PANAJI: Animal rights campaigners have welcomed an Indian government ruling that has torpedoed efforts to revive traditional, local-style bullfights in the resort state of Goa. The country’s environment ministry has added bulls to a list of animals in the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1960, outlawing their use for entertainment.

The list already includes bears, monkeys, tigers, panthers and lions.

The chairman of the Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations, Chinny Krishna, said the “landmark” ruling, brought in last month, means bulls cannot now be used in races in south India or bullfighting in Goa. Unlike in Spain or Portugal, where bullfighting is widely regarded as an integral part of cultural heritage, the Goan version does not usually involve seriously injuring or killing bulls.

Instead, the only human involvement is to hit, push and cajole the two bulls as they charge and butt each other in open fields during bloody fights that can last for hours until one of the beasts limps away in defeat.

“Hundreds of bulls are tortured in barbaric events like jallikattu (bull wrestling) and rekla races in south India and the dhirio (bullfighting) of Goa,” Krishna said. “With this notification bulls are to be considered performing animals for the purpose of such events.”

Bullfighting was once a way of life in Goa, with thousands of people gathering on Sundays and public holidays to cheer on the animals as they locked horns. The controversial tradition was banned in the former Por tuguese colony in 1998 but attempts were made in 2009 to bring back the practice after a local politician vowed to campaign against the ban.

The bid led to protests from animal rights groups, including the global People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and ultimately failed to get state sanction.

Bullfights, however, have continued illegally in certain places, with police being paid off to turn a blind eye. Big money is staked on the fights, often through foreign-based betting syndicates. — AFP

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H E A LT H

Dropping weight not harmful for elderly - study NEW YORK: Dieting to lose weight may not help older overweight adults to live any longer, but losing a little weight on purpose also does not seem to cause any harm, according to a study. Previous studies had raised concerns that losing weight might be harmful to older adults, since some research had linked dropping weight to a higher rate of death.

“There is a general sense in geriatrics... that weight loss is a bad thing,” said study author Stephen Kritchevsky, at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. “There’s been a little bit of a conundrum on whether it’s a wise thing or not to ask an overweight older adult to lose weight.”

But Kritchevsky added that research linking older adults and weight loss to the higher rates of death may well be due to the fact that unintentional weight loss in the elderly is often due to an underlying

illness. For the study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Kritchevsky and his colleagues looked at data from a past study of overweight and obese adults with high blood pressure, some of whom had received training and counseling to help them lose weight and keep it off.

Participants in the weight-loss group lost close to 10 pounds, on average, while those who were told to modify the amount or salt in their diets or to not change their diets at all lost about two pounds. Twelve years later, the researchers used national death records to figure out which of the original participants were still alive. By then they would have been in their late 70s, on average.

Out of about 600 people split between the weight-loss and nonweight-loss programs, about 50 died in each group. When the researchers took into account fac-

tors such as age, race and smoking, participants assigned to lose weight weren’t any more or less likely to die during the follow-up than those not in the weight-loss group.

When analyzed separately from women, men from the weight-loss assignment group did seem to have a lower risk of death than those who hadn’t tried to drop any extra pounds. But the researchers weren’t sure why that was the case and warned it would have to be tested again in a larger study.

For now, Kritchevsky said the findings were a “reassuring message that weight loss is potentially beneficial regardless of your age, if you’re overweight or obese.” He added that even if losing weight doesn’t add years to an elderly person’s life, it can have many other health benefits, such as easing disease risks, making activities like walking up the stairs easier, and reducing osteoarthritis pain. — Reuters

Toxic chemicals found in kids’ car seats: Study WASHINGTON: More than half of children’s car seats sold in the United States contain hazardous chemicals, according to a study published yesterday by a non-profit environmental group. Sixty percent of 150 car seats tested by the Michiganbased Ecology Center were found to contain chemicals that can be harmful to human health such as bromine and chlorine, which points to the presence of polyvinyl chlorate (PVC).

Studies in lab animals have found that bromine-containing flame retardants can permanently affect the developing brain, while PVC has been classified by the US Environmental Protection Administration as a known human carcinogen.

When PVC is burned or dumped in landfills, dioxins-highly toxic chemicals that build up in the food chain and can cause cancer, as well as harm the immune and reproductive systems-are released into the air and water.

“Heat and UV-ray exposure in cars can accelerate the breakdown of these chemicals and possibly increase their toxicity,” the Ecology Center said in a statement. “Babies are

the most vulnerable population in terms of exposure, since their bodily systems are still developing and they spend many hours in their car seats.”

Ecology Center researchers compiled a list of the best and worst car seats in terms of the chemicals found in them, and posted it on the HealthyStuff.org website. Levels of bromine varied between different models of the same make of car seat, with the source usually being a flame retardant used in the upholstery or cushioning, research team leader Jeff Gearhart told AFP. The least toxic infant seats were Italian brand Chicco’s KeyFit 30 in the Limonata color scheme, Graco Snugride 35 in Laguna Bay and Combi Shuttle 33 in Cranberry Noche. Two Graco infant seats with different upholstery-the Snugride 35 in Edgemont Red/Black and Snugride 30 in Asprey-were meanwhile among the most toxic. Using an x-ray fluorescence machine, which identifies the make-up of materials in less than 60 seconds, the Ecology Center has conducted more than 20,000 tests for toxic chemicals on some 7,000 consumer products since 1997. — AFP

A Al-Seef Hospital Hospital Diabetes Di iabetes & Endocrinology Endocrinnology Unit Offering Off fering the following ser services vices under the super supervision vision of the t best consultants :

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Announcements Together magazine TIES center invites you to the launch of its quarterly publication “Together Magazine”. On 5th August 2011 at 5:30pm - 8pm, at the TIES Center, Shuhada (Block 4, Street 413, Villa #67). Come and be the first to get the first copy of Together Magazine. The magazine covers various topics including the Kuwait culture and way of life, cooking tips on various cuisines, personal development and empowerment plus many more topics. For more information please contact us on info@tiescenter.net or 25231015/6, 97228860.

Ernakulam iftar Kuwait Ernakulam Residents’ Association (KERA) iftar on August 13, at Rhythm auditorium, Abbassiya, from 5.30 pm onwards.

‘Kalajatha’ begins as part of free Malayalam classes

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s a result of the joint efforts of Kerala Art Lovers Association, KalaKuwait and Mathrubhasha Samithi, free Malayalam classes are progressing successfully in different regions of Kuwait. The arts wing of Kala has organized a

unique art presentation named Kalajatha to be presented in all the classes. The “Kalajatha” marked its initial performance at the class which is held at Kala Centre. Kalajaatha is composed of an interesting mixture of interesting poems, short stories,

proverbs and magic and which will be helpful for the children to gain knowledge along with fun.

Mathrubhasha Samithi General Convenor P.K.Janardhanan inaugurated the Kalajatha at Kala centre in which Kala president Sam

Pynumood presided the meeting.Samithi Joint Convenor Sathar Kunnil, Kala-Kuwait Joint Secretary Saji Mathew and Thomas Mathew felicitated the event. Sudheer, Vinu Kalleli, Ramesh Perumbavoor, Joji Iyype, Noushad Kanoor, Aravind,

Nabeel and Sharath Chandramonhan are presenting the KalaJatha. The function was led by Central committee members Salim Raj, Nadeshan and Manoj. Sasidharan welcomed all and Sudheer rendered the vote of thanks.

Greetings

Happy birthday to Serah! Blessed are we to have our little princess. You bring smiles with all your vibrancy. May God bless you long life.

Wishing a great first birthday to our Serah.

Love, mom & dad, near and dear ones.

Squash tournament

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nce again this year, the stage is set for the third annual ‘Ramadan Stars Squash Tournament’ to be held from 15th August to 22nd August at the Kazma Sporting Club, Adailiya.

Abdulrahim Al Awadi, the Chairman of the Higher Organizing Committee has announced that doors are now open for registration to all those who are interested in participating, stating that the deadline for registration will be 13th of August.

The participation in this tournament is open to all and will fall under three categories this year. The first category is for amateurs from ages 17 and above, second category is for professional players from ages 20 and above and the third category is for ladies 17 and above.

Following its last two years of grand success, the 3rd annual Ramadan Stars Squash Tournament is being organized during Ramadan for squash lovers who will have an opportunity to practice the sport while being encouraged to develop their skills in a healthy and competitive environment.

Al Awadi, the Chairman of the Higher Organizing Committee, commented, “In our last two tournaments, we have received very positive feedback and have witnessed a huge number of interested participants thus giving us immense encouragement to hold an exciting tournament this year. The 2011 squash tournament offers a great opportunity to all squash players to accept another challenge and build on their sports skills in midst of a friendly atmosphere. I highly encourage all interested players to maintain their level of activity during Ramadan while balancing fitness and fasting and to register before the deadline ends”.

All details pertaining to the tournament and means to participate can be found on the tournaments facebook page under ‘Ramadan Stars Squash Tourney’. The registration is taking place at GO SPORTS located at The Avenues Mall.

Alawadi also pointed out the great interest the ‘Ramadan Stars Squash tournament’ received from the private sector, where companies took the initiative in sponsoring the tournament. Alawadi expressed his gratitude and thanks to Go Sports, Comtel, Right Guard, TRACCS Public Relations, and Unite Colors, guaranteeing unique prizes for all winners.

For details contact Sarah Saeed TRACCS Tel: 22916093/ 66491539 Fax: 22916095. E-mail: sarah.saeed@traccs.net

Don Bosco Oratory announces cricket tournament

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on Bosco Oratory is pleased to announce its Major 7-a-side ‘Box Cricket Tournament’ in Kuwait. This event is for the cricket lovers in Kuwait and will be played on a League cum Knock out basis at the IEAS Indoor grounds at Salmiya. The last date for entries for participation is August 9th. Entries are accepted on a first come first serve basis. Draws will be announced on 10th August. We wish all teams the very best and request to help us in succeeding to organize this major event.

When: The tournament begins on August 13 We request all interested teams to contact the organizer at the school grounds between 7-8 pm Mon - Thurs or: Philip: 6604-7730, Alex: 66069282, Liston: 9984-9649

Safir Hotel & Residences host ghabka for local media

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afir Hotel & Residences Fintas, celebrated the beginning of the Holy Month of Ramadan by hosting the local media to a Ghabka. The event witnessed the attendance of guests and local media who gathered to enjoy the hospitable atmosphere of the event.

Upon arrival, guests were welcomed by the entire management team and were greeted with hot Arabic coffee and dates. Mr. Urs

Weisskopf, General Manager, Safir Hotel & Residences- Fintas wished the guests a Ramadan Kareem and invited them to enjoy the rest of their night at the newly opened ballroom. They were welcomed to an evening of traditional Middle Eastern hospitality reflected by a range of sumptuous buffet tables laden with superb Arab delicacies and other cuisines from the live cooking stations. The special Ghabka buffet also comprised of a

large array of food, drinks and desserts to be the perfect place for such a meaningful night during this holy month.

Spend your evenings at “Al Seif Ballroom” for Ghabka or Suhor with oriental music, LCD screens, Shisha, live cooking stations including pasta, Saj, Shawarma and Ouzi.

Lucky guests throughout the month have a chance to win a free night stay at any of Safir Group and more.

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 dis-

tances of 100m. There are also a number of outdoor exercise machines located near the start and the end of the track.

Please note, however, that the track is more of a horseshoe shape rather than a complete circuit as there is a gap of at least a mile between the start and finish.

Decide how far you want to walk, walk half the distance and then turn back.

There are roads to cross so take care if you have young children with you. Despite all of this, it’s still very worthwhile going along and trying it out.

HASH HARRIERS 23982219 Social jogging on Thursday and Saturday evenings. Hash Harriers has been operating around the world since 1938. Hash is for a mixture of abilities from walkers to experienced runners. It is social rather than athletic. Length of course depends on time of year. Contact Gerry Burton on the above number or on 99764028. www.hasher.net SAILING The Arabian Gulf waters are an ideal environment in which to learn to sail. Offshore the seas are seldom rough and there is often a moderate breeze. Many of the sea clubs organize sailing activities.

CATAMARAN SAILING 66587737 Dive Caroline Beach Fafaheel The Kuwait Catamaran Club is a group of enthusiasts who love sailing on fast cats in the Arabian Gulf’s waters around Kuwait.

Usually an informal group sail on Friday afternoons. Boats are privately owned but visitors are very welcome and can be taken out as crew. Boats for hire, a Dart 18 and Hobie 16.

Contact John Morley johnmorley@hotmail.com Fahaheel Sailing Club (see Dive Caroline) 2371 9289 www.horn3.com KOSA 23983365

99745383 The Kuwait Offshore Sailing Association (KOSA) meets on the first Tuesday of each month (except July and August) at the Dive Caroline clubhouse, which is located at the Fahaheel Sea Club. Fortnightly racing plus International events in Bahrain and Dubai. Boats often require crew and will take you if you turn up! Catamaran racing is arranged after KOSA morning races, followed by a sunset barbecue on the beach. An Annual Regatta, usually during April, is also organised. www.kospg8.com SCUBA DIVING The Arabian Gulf is the perfect place in which to learn to scuba dive. Although dive sites are not as spectacular as those in the Red Sea and Thailand, the local environment is conducive to teaching youngsters who wish to do fairly shallow dives and build up their confidence. A parent/guardian is required to accompany all children between the ages of 10-12.

Thereafter the child may be accompanied by a diving instructor. It is a good idea for adults to attend the theory classes with their children.

DIVE CAROLINE 2371 9289 Fahaheel Sea Club, Fahaheel Dive Caroline is a friendly sailing and diving club with pool, beach, sauna, steam room, fitness and social areas. Scuba diving training and equipment sales; skippered sailing yacht charter for up to 8 passengers; fishing charters (up to 6 passengers with a max. of 2 trawling lines); skippered power boat hire for 6, 8 or 14 passengers. Birthday parties are hosted at the DC pool for children 8 years old and over (maximum of 16 children).

Swimming lessons for children as well as private lessons for adults. Banana boat rides, water skiing, kayaking. 10% dIscount for BLS Members (and friends) on stock purchases and on training courses for groups of 6 or more participants, Medic First Aid courses and Paedlatrlc First Aid courses. www.divecaroline.com

Attention kids!

CEF VBS 11 starting from August 22. Six exciting days of singing, games & bible stories for children of all ages. Hurry !!!. Limited Seats. Register Online: www.cefkuwait.org Tulukoota talent hunt Tulukoota Kuwait will hold a “Talent Hunt 2011” a chance to prove an inborn trait in you that confirms your individuality, uniqueness. So step forward to grab this opportunity to show your caliber and entertain. Dance, music, art or any special talent- now is your chance to showcase it - and be part of this year’s Talent Hunt & Tulu Parba. Talent Hunt event is open to all Tuluvas.

For more information and registration form kindly log on to our Website: www.tulukootakuwait.org or visit our facebook page - Tulukoota Kuwait Talent Hunt 2011. You could also email your form request to: secretary@tulukootakuwait.org or contact our area coordinators mentioned below. Mangaf, Fahaheel, Abuhalifa : Ronald Dsouza- 60035824, Shalini Alva- 23726164, Suma Bhatt- 97834578 Salmiya & Hawally: Swarna Shetty- 99006934, Kripa Gatty- 66044194 Kuwait City, Jahra, Sharq : Rekha Sachu- 65044521,97862115 Farwaniya, Abbassiya, Shuwaikh & Khaitan: Sathyanarayana- 66585077 Sanath Shetty67712409.

Pathanamthitta Onam The executive committee of Pathanamthitta District Association has decided to hold 2011 Onam Festival celebrations on Friday October 28, 2011 with a grand public function attended

by Member of Parliament from Pathanamthitta Loksabha Constituency, Anto Antony and other prominent dignitaries from Kerala and Kuwait.

All residents of Pathanamthitta District and persons of Pathanamthitta District origin are hereby invited to attend this function and friends and families.

Art salon Bouhshari Art Gallery Exhibition runs through 15 September. Daily working hours: 10am 1pm and 5 - 9pm, except on Friday and on Thursday evening.

Indian bowling league Indian Bowling League Season 2 would like to invite you and your families to participate in an Indian bowling event where all nationalities, the young and the old can have fun playing an enjoyable game while meeting new people in a healthy competition from July 12th - August 15th For more details contact: Uly 99503348, Amaldo 66052062, and Nasha 99516960. If anyone is looking to assist them in this event with sponsors, they will be really obliged to have your help to make this event a success.

Registrations are open.

Rink soccer Don Bosco Oratory is pleased to announce its Major 4-A-Side “Rink Soccer Fiesta” in Kuwait!

This event is for the soccer lovers in Kuwait and will be played on a League (round robin) cum knock out basis from August 2nd at the IEAS Quadrangle in Salmiya. For details contact Chris: 6651-9627, Alex: 66069282 from 6-9pm.

Konkani musical show Comedian Philip, the 1st NRI Goan comedian, is all set to entertain you with a Konkani music show titled “Ani, Anik Zaiem?” to be presented by the United Friends Club on September 9 at 4pm at the AIS (American International School) Auditorium, Maidan-Hawalli. This is Kuwaitbased comedian Philip’s third musical show after the overwhelming success of staging “Tum Vhoir Aum Sokol” and “Hem Kazar Koslem” in Kuwait and overseas.

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 lIntroductory to Level 4 Arabic language basics lBetter prepare you for speaking, reading and writing Arabic lCombine language learning with cultural insights lTaught in multi-nationality group settings lProvide 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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THURSDAY, AUGUST 4, 2011

Embassy Information EMBASSY OF ARGENTINA In order to inform that 23rd of October 2011, will be Argentine national election where all Argentinean citizen residents permanently in Kuwait can vote only if they are registered at the Electoral Register of the Argentine Embassy. The procedure of inscription ended on 25 of April 2011. To register it is necessary that Argentinean citizens should come personally at the Argentinean Embassy (Block 6, street 42, villa 57, Mishref ) and present the DNI and four personal photos (size 4x4, face should be front on white background). For further information, contact us on 25379211. nnnnnnn

EMBASSY OF BANGLADESH The Embassy of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh in Kuwait will follow office hours during the holy month of Ramadan. Sunday to Thursday : 09:00 A.M 3:00 PM. Friday and Saturday : Weekly Holidays.

This is for information of all concerned. l The Embassy of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh in Kuwait will remain closed on Monday, 15 August 2011 on the occasion of the National Mourning Day, the 36th Death Anniversary of the Father of Nation - Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. The Embassy will arrange the following programmes to observe the National Mourning Day, the 36th Death Anniversary of the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on Monday, 15 August 2011 at the Chancery. The programme on this occasion will be as follows: 0830 hrs Roof top Hoisting of the National Flag at half-mast 1630 hrs First Floor Recitation from the Holy Quran one-minute silence in honour of the martyrs.

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EMBASSY OF BRITAIN The Visa Application Centre (VAC) will be closed on the same dates above. The opening hours of the Visa Application Centre are 0930 - 1630 Application forms remain available online from the UKBAs’ website: www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk or from the Visa Application Centre’s website: www.vfs-ukkw.com. And also, from the UK Visa Application Centre located at: 4B, First Floor, Al Banwan Building (Burgan Bank Branch Office Building), Al Qibla area, opposite Central Bank of Kuwait, Kuwait City. For any further inquiries, please contact the Visa Application Centre: Website: www.vfs-uk-kw.com E-mail:info@vfs-uk-kw.com Telephone:22971170.

The Consular Section will also be closed on the same dates. For information on the British Embassy services, visit the British Embassy website: www.ukinkuwait.fco.gov.uk nnnnnnn

NBK Pediatric Hospital holds activities for children

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he General Electric Group for Voluntary Work held an activity at the Al-Sabah Hospital and the NBK Pediatric Hospital for children suffering from chronic diseases. The one-day event featured many activities that were organized in cooperation with the Kuwait Association for the Care of Children in Hospitals (KACCH).

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. nnnnnnn

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 nnnnnnn

EMBASSY OF INDIA The Embassy of India will remain closed on the following dates on August 15, 2011 (Monday) - ‘Independence Day’ and August 22, (Monday) - ‘Janamashtami’. nnnnnnn

EMBASSY OF IRAN The embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Kuwait announced their official working hours during the holy month of Ramadan, which will go between 9:00 am and 2:00 pm on weekdays. The Iranian embassy extends will wishes to His Highness the Amir, the government as well as the people of Kuwait on this occasion. nnnnnnn

EMBASSY OF NIGERIA The Nigerian embassy has its new office in Mishref. Block 3, Street 7, House 4. For enquires please call 25379541. Fax25387719. Email- nigeriakuwait@yahoo.com or nigeriankuwait@yahoo.co.uk nnnnnnn

EMBASSY OF SLOVAK REPUBLIC The Embassy of the Slovak Republic to the State of Kuwait would like to inform the public that from 8th August 2011, the working hours of the Consular Section will be on Monday and Wednesday from 10:00 till 13:00 hrs.

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00:45 Cats 101 01:40 Untamed And Uncut 02:35 Austin Stevens Adventures 03:30 Planet Earth 04:25 Human Prey 05:20 Animal Cops Houston 06:10 Dogs/Cats/Pets 101 07:00 Meerkat Manor 07:25 The Really Wild Show 07:50 Chris Humfrey’s Wildlife 08:15 Chris Humfrey’s Wildlife 08:40 Breed All About It 09:10 America’s Cutest...

10:05 Cats 101 11:00 Michaela’s Animal Road Trip 11:55 Meerkat Manor 12:20 Wildlife SOS 12:50 Animal ER 13:45 Animal Cops Houston 14:40 Animal Precinct 15:30 SSPCA: On The Wildside 16:00 The Really Wild Show 16:30 Crocodile Hunter 17:25 Must Love Cats 18:20 Breed All About It 18:45 Orangutan Island 19:15 Crocodile Hunter 20:10 Dogs 101 21:05 Big Five Challenge 22:00 Chris Humfrey’s Wildlife 22:25 Chris Humfrey’s Wildlife 22:55 In Search Of The Giant Anaconda 23:50 Chimp Family Fortunes

00:10 00:40 01:25 02:20 02:50 03:20 03:50 04:20 04:30 04:50 05:10 05:40 05:50 06:10 06:30 07:00 07:20 07:40 08:10 08:20 08:40 09:00 09:30 09:40 10:40 11:25 12:20 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 22:40 23:30

One Foot In The Grave The Weakest Link Casualty Bleak House Bleak House Eastenders Doctors Charlie And Lola Tweenies Balamory Tikkabilla Charlie And Lola Tweenies Balamory Tikkabilla Tweenies Balamory Tikkabilla Charlie And Lola Tweenies Balamory Tikkabilla Charlie And Lola One Foot In The Grave The Weakest Link Born And Bred Doctors Eastenders Casualty One Foot In The Grave Born And Bred The Weakest Link Doctors Eastenders Casualty Born And Bred The Weakest Link Doctors Eastenders Casualty Ray Mears’ Wild Foods One Foot In The Grave

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

Come Dine With Me New Scandinavian Cooking What Not To Wear Masterchef Australia Masterchef Australia Come Dine With Me Daily Cooks Challenge Masterchef Australia Masterchef Australia Bargain Hunt Daily Cooks Challenge Daily Cooks Challenge What Not To Wear Sweet Baby James

11:05 11:30 12:15 12:55 13:25 14:20 14:45 15:10 15:35 16:20 17:05 17:35 18:30 18:55 19:20 20:05 20:50 21:15 22:05 23:00 23:25 23:55

Sweet Baby James Cash In The Attic Bargain Hunt New Scandinavian Cooking Britain’s Dream Homes What Not To Wear Sweet Baby James Sweet Baby James Cash In The Attic Bargain Hunt New Scandinavian Cooking Britain’s Dream Homes Indian Food Made Easy Indian Food Made Easy Cash In The Attic Bargain Hunt New Scandinavian Cooking Come Dine With Me Britain’s Dream Homes Masterchef Australia Masterchef Australia Come Dine With Me

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 Sport Today 02:00 BBC World News 02:30 Asia Business Report 02:45 Sport Today 03:00 Newsday 03:30 Asia Business Report 03:45 Sport Today 04:00 Newsday 04:30 Asia Business Report 04:45 Sport Today 05:00 Newsday 05:30 Asia Business Report 05:45 Sport Today 06:00 Newsday 06:30 Hardtalk 07:00 BBC World News 07:30 World Business Report 07:45 BBC World News 08:00 BBC World News 08:30 World Business Report 08:45 BBC World News 09:00 BBC World News 09:30 World Business Report 09:45 Sport Today 10:00 BBC World News 10:30 World Business Report 10:45 Sport Today 11:00 BBC World News 11:30 Hardtalk 12:00 BBC World News 12:30 World Business Report 12:45 Sport Today 13:00 BBC World News 13:30 World Business Report 13:45 Sport Today 14:00 GMT With George Alagiah 14:30 GMT With George Alagiah 15:00 BBC World News 15:30 World Business Report 15:45 Sport Today 16:00 Impact With Mishal Husain 17:30 World Business Report 17:45 Sport Today 18:00 BBC World News 18:30 Hardtalk 19:00 The Hub With Nik Gowing 20:30 World Business Report 20:45 Sport Today 21:00 World News Today With Zeinab Badawi 22:30 World Business Report 22:45 Sport Today 23:00 BBC World News America 23:30 Hardtalk

00:40 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

Dirty Jobs Miami Ink Ultimate Survival Wheeler Dealers Mythbusters How Do They Do It? How Does It Work?

Dirty Jobs Wheeler Dealers Street Customs How Does It Work?

Mythbusters Cake Boss Border Security

THURSDAY, AUGUST 4, 2011

TV PROGRAMS 10:55 11:25 12:20 13:15 14:10 15:05 16:00 16:55 17:50 18:45 19:10 19:40 20:05 20:35 21:00 21:55 22:25 22:50 23:45

Auction Kings Science Of The Movies The Future Of...

Ultimate Survival Miami Ink Dirty Jobs Wheeler Dealers Mythbusters Survivorman Cake Boss Border Security Auction Kings How Does It Work?

How Do They Do It? Chris Ryan’s Elite Police Sons Of Guns Sons Of Guns Frontline Battle Machines...

Survivorman

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

Smash Lab Man Made Marvels Asia What’s That About?

Weird Connections Weird Connections Junkyard Mega-Wars How Does That Work?

Man Made Marvels Asia One Step Beyond Engineered Junkyard Mega-Wars Race To Mars The Gadget Show The Gadget Show Superships Superships Weird Connections Junkyard Mega-Wars How The Universe Works Sci-Fi Science The Gadget Show Prototype This Bang Goes The Theory Bang Goes The Theory Smash Lab The Gadget Show The Gadget Show Prototype This Bang Goes The Theory Bang Goes The Theory The Gadget Show

00:15 00:35 01:00 01:25 Cody 01:50 02:15 02:35 03:00 03:25 03:50 04:15 04:35 05:00 05:25 05:50 06:15 06:35 07:00 07:25 07:50 08:15 08:35 09:00 09:20 Cody 09:45 10:05 10:30 10:55 11:20 11:30 11:35 12:00 Splits 12:10 12:20 12:30 12:40 Splits 12:50 13:10 Cody 13:35 13:50

REMEMBER ME ON OSN CINEMA

Sonny With A Chance Good Luck Charlie Shake It Up The Suite Life Of Zack And Sonny With A Chance Wizards Of Waverly Place Jonas Kim Possible Fairly Odd Parents Fairly Odd Parents Stitch Stitch Replacements Replacements Emperor’s New School Emperor’s New School Stitch Stitch Replacements Replacements Fairly Odd Parents Fairly Odd Parents Emperor’s New School The Suite Life Of Zack And Phineas And Ferb Wizards Of Waverly Place Suite Life On Deck Good Luck Charlie Fish Hooks Splits Mickey Mousekersize Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Jake & The Neverland Pirates Jungle Junction Splits The Hive Handy Manny Splits Jake & The Neverland Pirates Sonny With A Chance The Suite Life Of Zack And Phineas And Ferb Splits Shake It Up

14:15 14:35 15:00 15:25 15:45 16:10 16:30 Cody 16:55 17:20 17:50 18:20 18:45 19:10 19:35 20:00 20:25 20:50 21:15 21:45 22:10 22:35 23:00 23:25 23:50

Hannah Montana Suite Life On Deck Wizards Of Waverly Place Sonny With A Chance Good Luck Charlie Phineas And Ferb The Suite Life Of Zack And Wizards Of Waverly Place Hannah Montana Hannah Montana Suite Life On Deck Fish Hooks Shake It Up Jake & Blake Wizards Of Waverly Place Hannah Montana Fish Hooks Hannah Montana Shake It Up Suite Life On Deck Good Luck Charlie Wizards Of Waverly Place Jake & Blake Hannah Montana

06:00 American Dragon 06:20 Kick Buttowski 06:40 Pokemon Dp: Sinnoh League Victors 07:00 Kick Buttowski 09:00 Zeke & Luther 09:25 Zeke & Luther 09:50 I’m In The Band 10:15 The Super Hero Squad Show 10:40 Suite Life On Deck 11:05 Suite Life On Deck 11:30 Pair Of Kings 11:55 Phineas & Ferb 12:45 I’m In The Band 13:10 Kid Vs Kat 13:50 The Suite Life Of Zack & Cody 14:30 Phineas & Ferb 14:50 Zeke & Luther 15:15 Kick Buttowski 15:35 Pokemon Dp: Sinnoh League Victors 16:00 Suite Life On Deck S3 16:25 Suite Life On Deck 16:50 Zeke & Luther 17:40 Phineas & Ferb 18:30 Escape From Scorpion Island 18:55 Kick Buttowski 19:20 American Dragon 19:45 Aaron Stone 20:15 Kid Vs Kat 20:40 Suite Life On Deck 21:05 The Avengers: Earths Mightiest Heroes 21:30 Zeke & Luther 21:50 The Suite Life Of Zack & Cody 22:15 The Super Hero Squad Show

00:05 Jungle Junction 00:15 Little Einsteins 00:40 Higglytown Heroes 00:55 Higglytown Heroes 01:10 Jo Jo’s Circus 01:30 Special Agent Oso 01:45 Special Agent Oso 02:00 Jungle Junction 02:15 Jungle Junction 02:25 Little Einsteins 02:50 Higglytown Heroes 03:05 Higglytown Heroes 03:20 Jo Jo’s Circus 03:40 Special Agent Oso 03:55 Special Agent Oso 04:10 Jungle Junction 04:25 Jungle Junction 04:35 Little Einsteins 05:00 Higglytown Heroes 05:15 Higglytown Heroes 05:30 Jo Jo’s Circus 05:50 Jungle Junction 06:00 Jungle Junction 06:15 Higglytown Heroes 06:30 Higglytown Heroes 06:45 Handy Manny 07:00 Special Agent Oso 07:15 Jungle Junction 07:30 Jungle Junction 07:45 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 08:08 Special Agent Oso 08:10 Timmy Time 08:20 Handy Manny 08:30 Jake And The Neverland Pirates 08:45 Jake And The Neverland Pirates 08:55 Special Agent Oso 09:47 Special Agent Oso 09:50 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 10:15 The Little Mermaid 10:40 Little Einsteins 11:05 Jungle Junction 11:20 Lazytown 11:45 Handy Manny 12:00 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 12:23 Special Agent Oso 12:25 Jake And The Neverland Pirates 12:40 The Little Mermaid 13:05 The Hive 13:15 Special Agent Oso 13:25 Little Einsteins 13:47 Special Agent Oso 13:50 The Little Mermaid 14:15 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 14:40 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 15:03 Special Agent Oso 15:05 Handy Manny 15:20 Handy Manny 15:30 The Hive 15:40 Jake And The Neverland Pirates 15:55 Imagination Movers 16:20 Lazytown 16:42 Special Agent Oso 16:45 Jungle Junction 17:00 The Hive 17:10 Little Einsteins 17:30 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 17:55 Jake And The Neverland Pirates 18:08 Special Agent Oso 19:02 Special Agent Oso 19:05 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 19:25 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 19:50 Jake And The Neverland Pirates 20:00 Jake And The Neverland Pirates 20:10 The Hive 20:20 Timmy Time 20:27 Animated Stories 20:30 The Little Mermaid 20:55 Little Einsteins 21:20 Jake And The Neverland Pirates 21:35 Jungle Junction 21:50 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 22:15 Timmy Time 22:25 Handy Manny 22:40 Jungle Junction

22:55 23:20 23:35 23:50

Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Special Agent Oso Special Agent Oso Jungle Junction

00:15 Man’s Work 00:40 Mantracker 01:30 World Combat League 02:20 Glutton For Punishment 02:45 Man’s Work 03:10 Kick Ass Miracles 04:00 I’ll Do Anything 04:50 Mantracker 05:40 World Combat League 06:30 Ride Guide Mountainbike 2007 08:00 Cape Epic 08:25 IFMXF 2011 09:15 Lucas Oil Ama Motocross Championships...

10:05 Lucas Oil Ama Motocross Championships...

10:55 Eds Up 11:20 Eds Up 11:45 Fantasy Factory 12:35 Man’s Work 13:25 Mantracker 14:15 World Combat League 15:05 Eds Up 15:30 Eds Up 15:55 Fantasy Factory 16:20 Fantasy Factory 16:45 Cape Epic 17:10 IFMXF 2011 17:35 IFMXF 2011 18:00 Lucas Oil Ama Motocross Championships...

18:50 Lucas Oil Ama Motocross Championships...

19:40 Mantracker 20:30 Man’s Work 21:20 FIM World Motocross MX3 Championships...

22:10 World Combat League 23:00 Kick Ass Miracles 23:25 Kick Ass Miracles 23:50 Man’s Work

00:25 Kendra 00:55 Then And Now 01:25 E!es 02:20 THS 03:15 25 Most Stylish 04:10 Sexiest 05:05 Extreme Hollywood 06:00 THS 07:50 Behind The Scenes 08:20 E! News 09:15 Khloe And Lamar 09:45 Khloe And Lamar 10:15 THS 12:05 E! News 13:05 Fashion Police 13:35 Extreme Close-Up 14:05 Keeping Up With The Kardashians 15:00 E!es 15:30 THS 16:25 Behind The Scenes 16:55 Holly’s World 17:25 Holly’s World 17:55 E! News 18:55 THS 19:55 Kimora: Life In The Fab Lane 20:55 Chelsea Lately 21:25 Khloe And Lamar 21:55 Khloe And Lamar 22:25 E! News 23:25 Chelsea Lately 23:55 Keeping Up With The Kardashians

00:30 Ghost Lab 01:20 A Haunting 02:10 I Almost Got Away With It 03:00 I Almost Got Away With It 03:50 Dr G: Medical Examiner 04:45 Ghosthunters 05:15 Ghost Lab 06:10 Life Or Death: Medical Mysteries 07:00 Murder Shift 07:50 Forensic Detectives 08:40 Street Patrol 09:05 Real Emergency Calls 09:30 Life Or Death: Medical Mysteries 10:20 Royal Inquest 11:10 FBI Files 12:00 On The Case With Paula Zahn 12:50 Undercover 13:40 Life Or Death: Medical Mysteries 14:30 Street Patrol 14:55 Real Emergency Calls 15:20 Royal Inquest 16:10 FBI Files 17:00 Forensic Detectives 17:50 Murder Shift 18:40 Real Emergency Calls 19:05 Life Or Death: Medical Mysteries 19:55 Street Patrol 20:20 On The Case With Paula Zahn 21:10 Undercover 22:00 True Crime With Aphrodite Jones 22:50 True Crime Scene 23:40 Dr G: Medical Examiner

00:00 Meet The Amish 01:00 Amazing Adventures Nobody: Europe 01:30 Amazing Adventures Nobody: Europe 02:00 Destination Extreme 02:30 Destination Extreme 03:00 Endurance Traveller 04:00 Departures 05:00 Departures 06:00 Meet The Amish 07:00 Amazing Adventures Nobody: Europe 07:30 Amazing Adventures Nobody: Europe 08:00 Destination Extreme 08:30 Destination Extreme 09:00 Endurance Traveller 10:00 Departures 11:00 Departures 12:00 Meet The Amish 13:00 David Rocco’s Dolce Vita 13:30 Bondi Rescue 14:00 Bondi Rescue 14:30 Travel Madness 15:00 City Chase Marrakech 16:00 Perilous Journeys 17:00 Ultimate Traveller 18:00 Meet The Natives: USA 19:00 David Rocco’s Dolce Vita 19:30 Bondi Rescue 20:00 Bondi Rescue 20:30 Travel Madness

Of A Of A

Of A Of A

CASUALTIES OF WAR ON OSN MOVIES ACTION 21:00 City Chase Marrakech 22:00 Perilous Journeys 23:00 Ultimate Traveller

00:00 02:00 04:00 06:00 08:00 10:00 12:00 14:00 16:00 PG15 18:00 20:00 22:00

The General’s Daughter-18 8 Mile-18 From Paris With Love-18 Bangkok Adrenaline-PG15 Shanghai Knights-PG15 Ghost Town (TV Movie)-18 I, Robot-PG15 Shanghai Knights-PG15 Stonehenge ApocalypseI, Robot-PG15 The Spirit-PG15 Let Me In-R

01:00 The Tempest-PG15 03:00 Easy Virtue-PG15 05:00 The Front-PG15 07:00 The Sorcerer’s ApprenticePG15 09:00 Easy Virtue-PG15 11:00 On Broadway-PG15 13:00 Winx: Secret Of The Lost Kingdom-PG 15:00 Echelon Conspiracy-PG15 17:00 Furry Vengeance-PG15 19:00 Remember Me-PG15 21:00 The Spy Next Door-PG15 23:00 Winter Of Frozen Dreams-18

00:30 The Daily Show With Jon Stewart 01:00 The Colbert Report 01:30 The New Adventures Of Old Christine 02:00 Louie 02:30 Rita Rocks 03:00 Just Shoot Me 03:30 Just Shoot Me 04:00 Two And A Half Men 04:30 The Tonight Show With Jay Leno 05:30 Tyler Perry’s House Of Payne 06:00 Seinfeld 06:30 The Drew Carey Show 07:00 Late Night With Jimmy Fallon 08:00 Two And A Half Men 08:30 Just Shoot Me 09:00 Tyler Perry’s House Of Payne 09:30 The Simpsons 10:00 Parks And Recreation 10:30 Seinfeld 11:00 The Drew Carey Show 11:30 The Tonight Show With Jay Leno 12:30 Two And A Half Men 13:00 Just Shoot Me 13:30 Tyler Perry’s House Of Payne 14:00 Seinfeld 14:30 The Simpsons 15:00 Parks And Recreation 15:30 The Daily Show With Jon Stewart 16:00 The Colbert Report 16:30 The Drew Carey Show 17:00 Late Night With Jimmy Fallon 18:00 Just Shoot Me 18:30 Just Shoot Me 19:00 Happy Endings 19:30 Community 20:00 The Tonight Show With Jay Leno 21:00 The Daily Show With Jon Stewart 21:30 The Colbert Report 22:00 State Of The Union 22:30 Rita Rocks 23:00 The New Adventures Of Old Christine 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 09:30 10:00 11:00 12:00 13:00 14:00 16:00

Supernatural Terriers Private Practice Warehouse 13 Strong Medicine Good Morning America The Event Emmerdale Coronation Street Never Trust A Skinny Cook Huey’s Cooking Adventure The Martha Stewart Show The View Supernatural Warehouse 13 Live Good Morning America Strong Medicine

17:00 18:00 18:30 19:00 20:00 21:00 22:00 23:00

The Ellen DeGeneres Show Emmerdale Look-A-Like Bones White Collar Burn Notice The Good Guys The Event

00:00 01:00 02:00 03:00 04:00 05:00 06:00 07:00 07:30 08:00 09:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 12:30 13:00 14:00 15:00 16:00 16:30 17:00 18:00 19:00 20:00 21:00 22:00 23:00

Smallville Lie To Me Supernatural Warehouse 13 Terriers Detroit 1-8-7 Smallville Sons Of Tucson Coronation Street No Ordinary Family Detroit 1-8-7 Warehouse 13 Supernatural Sons Of Tucson Coronation Street The Ellen DeGeneres Show No Ordinary Family Smallville Sons Of Tucson Look-A-Like The Ellen DeGeneres Show No Ordinary Family Bones White Collar Burn Notice The Good Guys The Gates

01:00 Armored-18 03:00 30 Days Of Night: Dark Days-18 05:00 John Carpenter’s Ghosts Of Mars-PG15 07:00 Jesse Stone: No Remorse-PG15 09:00 The Fan-PG15 11:00 Courage Under Fire-PG15 13:00 Ransom-PG15 15:00 The Fan-PG15 17:00 The Sum Of All Fears-PG15 19:15 Casualties Of War-18 21:15 The Boondock Saints 2: All Saints Day-18 23:15 Snow White: A Tale Of Terror-18

00:00 Nativity!-PG 02:00 Wake-PG15 04:00 Happy Ever Afters-PG15 06:00 America’s Sweethearts-PG15 08:00 Cop And A Half-PG 10:00 Woke Up Dead-PG15 12:00 Chasing Papi-PG 14:00 Ice Age 3: Dawn Of The Dinosaurs-FAM 16:00 Nativity!-PG 18:00 The Last Supper-PG15 20:00 The Ugly Truth-PG15 22:00 Aim Low: The Very Best Of Dylan Moran-18

01:30 03:15 05:30 07:45 PG15 09:00 11:00 13:00 15:15 16:45 18:45 21:00 23:00

Confidences Trop Intimes-18 The Fisher King-18 Seven Years In Tibet-PG15 The Young Black Stallion-

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

Garage Days-18 Malibu’s Most Wanted-PG15 Everybody’s Fine-PG15 Sleepover-PG15 500 Days Of Summer-PG15 Hachiko: A Dog’s Story-PG15 Catch That Kid-PG My Sister’s Keeper-PG15 500 Days Of Summer-PG15 The Maiden Heist-PG15 The Spy Next Door-PG15 The Final Destination-18

Rudy-PG Amelia-PG15 Seven Years In Tibet-PG15 Enid-PG15 Alice In Wonderland-PG Romeo + Juliet-PG15 The Headless Woman-PG15 The Public Eye-PG15

01:00 Zorro’s Secrets-PG 03:00 Last Of The Mohicans-PG 05:00 Legend Of Sleeping Beauty-PG 07:00 Inspector Gadget’s Biggest Caper Ever-FAM 09:00 Ponyo On The Cliff By The SeaFAM

11:00 Alvin And The Chipmunks: The Squeakquel-FAM 13:00 Casper Haunted ChristmasFAM 15:00 Ace Ventura : Pet Detective Jr.PG15 17:00 Alvin And The Chipmunks: The Squeakquel-FAM 19:00 Tooth Fairy-PG 21:00 Casper Haunted ChristmasFAM 23:00 Ace Ventura : Pet Detective Jr.PG15

00:00 Powerboats UIM Class One Highlights 00:30 Speedway 01:30 Powerboats F1 03:30 Trans World Sport 04:30 Intercontinental Le Mans Cup 05:30 Aquabikes 06:00 WWE Vintage Collection 07:00 Darts World Match Play 09:00 Trans World Sport 10:00 Tri Nations 12:00 Speedway 13:00 ITM Cup Rugby Union 15:00 Super League 17:00 UFC 133 Countdown 18:00 WWE Vintage Collection 19:00 WWE NXT 20:00 UFC The Ultimate Fighter 21:00 UFC 132

00:00 European Tour Weekly 00:30 NRL Premiership 02:30 Rugby World Cup Classics 03:00 Golfing World 04:00 Currie Cup Rugby Union 06:00 FIVB Beach Volley Ball 06:30 European Tour Weekly 07:00 Rugby World Cup Classics 07:30 Mobil 1 The Grid 08:00 Trans World Sport 09:00 Golfing World 10:00 European PGA Tour Highlights 11:00 European Tour Weekly 11:30 AFL Highlights 12:30 Rugby World Cup Classics 13:00 NRL Premiership 15:00 Darts World Match Play 17:00 FIVB Beach Volley Ball 17:30 Trans World Sport 18:30 Futbol Mundial 19:00 AFL Highlights 20:00 Total Rugby 20:30 FIVB Beach Volley Ball 21:00 NRL Full Time 21:30 Live RFL Championship 23:30 Darts World Match Play

00:00 Trans World Sport 01:00 European Tour Weekly 01:30 AFL Premiership 04:00 Masters Football 07:00 Golfing World 08:00 ITM Cup Rugby Union 10:00 Scottish Premier League 12:00 ICC Cricket World 12:30 Total Rugby 13:00 Trans World Sport 14:00 Asian Tour Golf 14:30 Golfing World 15:30 European Tour Weekly 16:00 ITM Cup Rugby Union 18:00 Mobil 1 The Grid 18:30 Asian Tour Golf 19:00 Golfing World 20:00 Trans World Sport 21:00 Rugby World Cup Classics 21:30 European PGA Tour Highlights 22:30 AFL Highlights 23:30 ITM Cup Rugby Union 00:00 01:00 02:00 03:00 05:00 07:00 09:00 10:00 10:30 11:00 12:00 13:00 14:00 16:00 17:00 18:00 19:00 20:00 21:00

UFC The Ultimate Fighter UFC Unleashed Intercontinental Le Mans Cup Modern Pentaholn UFC Unleashed WWE SmackDown!

WWE Bottom Line Powerboats F1 Highlights Le Mans Series Magazine Modern Pentaholn WWE Vintage Collection WWE Bottom Line Powerboats F1 Modern Pentaholn UFC 133 Countdown Intercontinental Le Mans Cup WWE NXT UFC The Ultimate Fighter UFC 132

Classifieds THURSDAY, AUGUST 4, 2011

Science Matters

The first ‘printed’ airplane Using a device that can make complex plastic shapes, researchers designed, built and flew a small airplane in less than a week.

Southampton University Laser Sintered Aircraft Radio receiver

‡ )OLHV PSK NSK

‡ IW P ZLQJVSDQ ‡ 5DGLR FRQWUROOHG

Batteries

V-shaped tail

Fuselage is stiffened by complex diagonal “geodetic� bracing

Electric motor

Healthy Living

Propeller

What’s on your plate?

Plastic sintering: Fast 3-D printing

1

Computer-guided laser moves over plastic powder tray

2

3

Laser light and heater melt plastic grains into a solid

To help combat obesity, the U.S. Agriculture Department – with help from the first lady – is promoting a new food icon and a user-friendly nutrition website.

Center piston moves down a small distance

Laser tracks Movable infrared laser Leveling roller

Heater

Powder

Powder container Piston

Healthier choices

NOTE: Diagram shows cross-section of sintering process

‡ The new food guidelines DGYLVH PDNLQJ KDOI \RXU SODWH IUXLWV DQG YHJHWDEOHV PDNLQJ DW OHDVW KDOI \RXU JUDLQV ZKROH JUDLQV DQG HDWLQJ IDW IUHH RU ORZ IDW GDLU\

Powder container Piston

Object Center piston

4

Side pistons push more powder upward; roller spreads it

5

‡ Avoid supersized portions

Laser traces out another horizontal slice of object

6

‡ Choose packaged foods, VXFK DV VRXSV DQG IUR]HQ PHDOV WKDW DUH ORZHU LQ VDOW DQG GULQN ZDWHU LQVWHDG RI VXJDU\ GULQNV

When object is complete, loose powder shaken off

Source: University of Southampton Computational Engineering and Design Research group, Materialise Graphic: Helen Lee McComas

Š 2011 MCT 6RXUFH &KRRVH0\3ODWH JRY *UDSKLF 3DW &DUU

Š 2011 MCT

DIAL 161 FOR AIRPORT INFORMATION In case you are not travelling, your proper cancellation of bookings will help other passengers to use seats Airlines RJA JZR BBC THY ETH KAC UAE DHX ETD MSR FDB GFA QTR THY JZR FCX JZR KAC BAW JZR KAC KAC KAC KAC FDB KAC KAC KAC UAE QTR ABY ETD GFA MEA JZR MSR JZR SYR KAC MSR UAL SHY RJA MSR FDB OMA JZR KAC KAC SVA KAC KAC KNE

Flt 642 267 45 772 620 1708 853 370 305 614 67 211 138 770 503 201 555 412 157 1541 206 382 302 332 53 352 284 362 855 132 125 301 213 404 165 623 561 341 672 610 982 4125 640 621 57 645 357 562 546 500 552 788 745

Arrival Flights on Thursday 4/8/2011 Route AMMAN BEIRUT DHAKA ISTANBUL ADDIS ABABA JEDDAH DUBAI BAHRAIN ABU DHABI CAIRO DUBAI BAHRAIN DOHA ISTANBUL LUXOR DUBAI ALEXANDRIA MANILA / BANGKOK LONDON CAIRO ISLAMABAD DELHI MUMBAI TRIVANDRUM DUBAI COCHIN DHAKA COLOMBO DUBAI DOHA SHARJAH ABU DHABI BAHRAIN BEIRUT DUBAI SOHAG SOHAG DAMASCUS / DEIREZZOR DUBAI CAIRO WASHINGTON DC DULLES ANTALYA AMMAN ASSIUT DUBAI MUSCAT MASHAD AMMAN ALEXANDRIA JEDDAH DAMASCUS JEDDAH JEDDAH

Time 0:05 0:35 0:40 1:15 1:45 1:50 2:25 2:55 2:55 3:05 3:10 3:15 3:20 4:10 5:15 5:25 6:10 6:15 6:30 7:10 7:15 7:20 7:50 7:55 7:55 8:05 8:10 8:20 8:25 9:00 9:10 9:30 9:35 10:55 11:10 12:10 12:30 13:00 13:15 13:20 13:30 13:30 13:35 13:40 13:50 14:00 14:10 14:20 14:30 14:30 14:35 14:40 14:45

JZR QTR JZR KNE KAC MLR ETD UAE KAC GFA SVA JZR TAR JZR ABY FDB ALK JZR RBG KAC KAC KAC KAC KAC KAC KAC KAC JZR SIA JAI IRA FDB VOS OMA MEA KAC KAC MSR DHX KLM UAE GFA JZR JZR QTR UAL AIC JZR JZR MSR MSR DLH AXB JZR PIA

257 134 535 789 118 403 303 857 154 215 510 777 327 239 127 63 227 177 3555 104 502 542 618 786 774 614 674 1779 458 572 617 61 93 647 402 1714 178 618 372 445 859 217 203 1779 136 981 981 135 185 606 612 636 389 539 205

BEIRUT DOHA CAIRO JEDDAH NEW YORK COLOMBO / DUBAI ABU DHABI DUBAI ISTANBUL BAHRAIN RIYADH JEDDAH TUNIS / DUBAI AMMAN SHARJAH DUBAI COLOMBO / DUBAI DUBAI ALEXANDRIA LONDON BEIRUT CAIRO DOHA JEDDAH RIYADH BAHRAIN DUBAI JEDDAH SINGAPORE / ABU DHABI MUMBAI AHWAZ DUBAI KANDAHAR / DUBAI MUSCAT BEIRUT JEDDAH GENEVA / FRANKFURT ALEXANDRIA BAHRAIN AMSTERDAM DUBAI BAHRAIN DAMASCUS JEDDAH DOHA BAHRAIN CHENNAI / AHMEDABAD BAHRAIN DUBAI LUXOR CAIRO FRANKFURT KOZHIKODE / MANGALORE CAIRO LAHORE

15:10 15:15 15:50 16:00 16:15 16:40 16:50 16:55 17:00 17:15 17:20 17:25 17:30 17:35 17:40 17:55 18:00 18:00 18:05 18:35 18:45 18:50 18:55 19:00 19:10 19:20 19:25 19:35 19:35 19:35 19:45 20:00 20:00 20:10 20:15 20:25 20:45 20:55 21:00 21:05 21:15 21:25 21:30 21:35 21:35 22:00 22:05 22:10 22:35 22:45 22:50 23:00 23:10 23:30 23:55

Airlines AXB JZR DLH AIC KLM PIA BBC THY ETH UAE FDB DHX ETD MSR QTR THY JZR JZR RJA GFA KAC JZR BAW FDB JZR KAC KAC KAC KAC JZR KAC UAE ABY KAC QTR ETD GFA KAC MEA JZR KAC JZR KAC MSR KAC JZR SYR KAC MSR SHY RJA FDB MSR

Departure Flights on Thursday 4/8/2011 Flt Route 394 COCHIN / KOZHIKODE 1540 CAIRO 637 FRANKFURT 576 GOA / CHENNAI 447 AMSTERDAM 216 KARACHI 46 DHAKA 773 ISTANBUL 620 BAHRAIN / ADDIS ABABA 854 DUBAI 68 DUBAI 371 BAHRAIN 306 ABU DHABI 615 CAIRO 139 DOHA 771 ISTANBUL 560 SOHAG 164 DUBAI 643 AMMAN 212 BAHRAIN 545 ALEXANDRIA 356 MASHAD 156 LONDON 54 DUBAI 534 CAIRO 787 JEDDAH 153 ISTANBUL 671 DUBAI 551 DAMASCUS 256 BEIRUT 561 AMMAN 856 DUBAI 126 SHARJAH 101 LONDON / NEW YORK 133 DOHA 302 ABU DHABI 214 BAHRAIN 165 ROME / PARIS 405 BEIRUT 776 JEDDAH 541 CAIRO 238 AMMAN 501 BEIRUT 624 SOHAG 785 JEDDAH 176 DUBAI 342 DEIREZZOR / DAMASCUS 1713 JEDDAH 611 CAIRO 4126 ANTALYA 641 AMMAN 58 DUBAI 622 ASSIUT

Time 0:15 0:20 0:40 0:50 0:55 1:10 1:35 2:15 2:30 3:45 3:50 3:55 4:05 4:05 5:00 5:10 5:55 6:55 7:00 7:10 7:40 8:20 8:25 8:40 8:50 8:55 8:55 9:00 9:10 9:10 9:15 9:40 9:50 9:55 10:00 10:15 10:20 11:45 11:55 12:00 12:00 12:10 13:00 13:10 13:30 13:40 14:00 14:15 14:20 14:30 14:30 14:35 14:40

Directorate General of Civil Aviation Home Page (www.kuwait-airport.com.kw)

UAL OMA KAC KNE KAC KAC JZR SVA JZR KAC JZR KNE VOS ETD MLR QTR UAE GFA TAR ABY JZR JZR SVA FDB RBG ALK JZR KAC KAC JAI FDB IRA KAC KAC OMA MEA SIA JZR KAC MSR DHX KLM UAE GFA FCX QTR KAC KAC JZR JZR KAC UAL MSR MSR KAC

982 646 673 746 617 773 1778 505 202 613 538 790 82 304 404 135 858 216 328 128 184 266 511 64 3556 228 134 283 361 571 62 616 331 351 648 403 457 1778 543 619 373 445 860 218 102 137 301 205 502 554 411 981 607 613 415

BAHRAIN MUSCAT DUBAI JEDDAH DOHA RIYADH JEDDAH JEDDAH DAMASCUS BAHRAIN CAIRO JEDDAH BAGHDAD ABU DHABI DUBAI / COLOMBO DOHA DUBAI BAHRAIN TUNIS SHARJAH DUBAI BEIRUT RIYADH DUBAI ALEXANDRIA DUBAI / COLOMBO BAHRAIN DHAKA COLOMBO MUMBAI DUBAI AHWAZ TRIVANDRUM COCHIN MUSCAT BEIRUT ABU DHABI / SINGAPORE JEDDAH CAIRO ALEXANDRIA BAHRAIN BAHRAIN / AMSTERDAM DUBAI BAHRAIN BAHRAIN DOHA MUMBAI ISLAMABAD LUXOR ALEXANDRIA BANGKOK / MANILA WASHINGTON DC DULLES LUXOR CAIRO KUALA LUMPUR / JAKARTA

14:45 15:00 15:10 15:30 15:35 15:50 15:50 16:00 16:05 16:20 16:40 16:45 17:00 17:35 17:40 17:45 18:05 18:15 18:20 18:20 18:25 18:30 18:35 18:40 18:45 19:10 19:10 19:30 20:20 20:35 20:40 20:45 21:00 21:05 21:10 21:15 21:20 21:35 21:55 21:55 22:00 22:05 22:25 22:30 22:30 22:35 22:45 22:55 23:05 23:10 23:40 23:40 23:45 23:50 23:50

34

THURSDAY, AUGUST 4, 2011

stars CROSSWORD 399

STAR TRACK

CALVIN & HOBBES

Aries (March 21-April 19) Your desires are strong and you will want to enjoy yourself with some fun entertainment. Awareness of the nature of time: this is the keynote of your deepest feelings. There may be a tendency to be too strict with yourself and to insist that what does not contribute to security and other long-term goals is trivial; ambition is intensified. Study and research could enter into your work now— perhaps you feel that statistics will help back your actions—they will. Real estate and/or home and family planning take on greater importance for you soon. You may not feel that time is slipping away but you have an urge to build your support group and have roots. This is a very nice day, filled with the opportunity to renew an appreciation for the unique and beautiful.

Taurus (April 20-May 20) This is a good time at work; however, concentration and complacency are not friends; careful. Ideas and interaction with authority figures or older people may be quite productive. You become better with your work as you work with the flow of energy. This is a good day to get many things accomplished. A sustained effort makes almost any task run well. Circumstances can throw you into positions where you must use your mind and deal with communications, service or enclosed hidden interests. You make your way through ideas, concepts and your ability to express them to others. This may be a good time to consider teaching a continuing education class or tutoring. There is time this evening to relax and refurbish your energies.

POOCH CAFE ACROSS 1. An anxiety disorder characterized by chronic free-floating anxiety and such symptoms as tension or sweating or trembling of light-headedness or irritability etc that has lasted for more than six months.

4. Relating to or near the radius.

10. A periodic paperback publication.

13. Title for a civil or military leader (especially in Turkey).

14. Consider or describe as similar, equal, or analogous.

15. Used of a single unit or thing.

16. Large family of important mostly marine food fishes.

18. American professional baseball player who hit more home runs than Babe Ruth (born in 1934).

20. The biblical name for ancient Syria.

21. (pathology) An elevation of the skin filled with serous fluid.

23. South African term for `boss'.

24. A flat wing-shaped process or winglike part of an organism.

25. The 7th letter of the Greek alphabet.

27. A flat-bottomed volcanic crater that was formed by an explosion.

34. The doctrine or belief that there is no God. 36. The capital and largest city of Bangladesh.

38. Ditch dug as a fortification and usually filled with water.

39. A member of the Siouan people living in the Yazoo river valley in Mississippi.

40. A city in northeastern Ohio.

41. The executive agency that advises the President on the federal budget.

45. A white metallic element that burns with a brilliant light.

46. A pale rose-colored variety of the ruby spinel.

54. (Babylonian) God of storms and wind.

58. A river in north central Switzerland that runs northeast into the Rhine.

59. A special way of doing something.

60. Cubes of meat marinated and cooked on a skewer usually with vegetables.

61. A benevolent aspect of Devi.

62. A tall perennial woody plant having a main trunk and branches forming a distinct elevated crown.

63. A city in central New York.

64. A light touch or stroke.

DOWN 1. Mentally or physically infirm with age.

2. Any culture medium that uses agar as the gelling agent.

3. An informal term for a father.

4. Having any of numerous bright or strong colors reminiscent of the color of blood or cherries or tomatoes or rubies.

5. Jordan's port.

6. A prearranged fight with deadly weapons by two people (accompanied by seconds) in order to settle a quarrel over a point of honor.

7. A state in midwestern United States.

8. A highly unstable radioactive element (the heaviest of the halogen series).

9. A unit of length of thread or yarn.

10. God of death.

11. Small buffalo of the Celebes having small straight horns.

12. Family based on male descent.

17. A hostel for pilgrims in Turkey.

19. A loose sleeveless outer garment made from aba cloth.

22. A piece of furniture that provides a place to sleep.

26. The present time or age.

28. (physics and chemistry) The smallest component of an element having the chemical properties of the element.

29. According to the Old Testament he was a pagan king of Israel and husband of Jezebel (9th century BC).

30. The rate at which energy is drawn from a source that produces a flow of electricity in a circuit.

31. A unit of area (4840 square yards) used in English-speaking countries.

32. (computer science) A graphic symbol (usually a simple picture) that denotes a program or a command or a data file or a concept in a graphical user interface.

33. (Irish) Mother of the Tuatha De Danann.

35. A sodium salt of carbonic acid.

37. Jordan's port.

42. An associate degree in applied science.

43. (astronomy) The angular distance of a celestial point measured westward along the celestial equator from the zenith crossing.

44. An emblem (a small piece of plastic or cloth or metal) that signifies your status (rank or membership or affiliation etc.).

47. The sixth month of the civil year.

48. A narrow way or road.

49. Agitation resulting from active worry.

50. A small cake leavened with yeast.

51. (computer science) A data transmission rate (bits/second) for modems.

52. God of love and erotic desire.

53. An Arabic speaking person who lives in Arabia or North Africa.

55. A Kwa language spoken by the Yoruba people in southwestern Nigeria.

56. A religious belief of African origin involving witchcraft and sorcery.

57. (British) A waterproof raincoat made of rubberized fabric.

Yesterday’s Solution

Gemini (May 21-June 20) Today is a problem-solving day. You may feel that all your coworkers bring you their work and are not able to stand on their own merit. There is one thing that you can do . . . put in for a raise and become editor of reports. It will improve the overall business of your company. For stress relief, consider a meditation technique. Read as many techniques for meditation styles as you can— find and stay with one method. You could even teach one or two methods to a friend and enjoy the time of quietude. Use this often to gain a focus into solving problems.

Much of your problem-solving abilities come from psychic insights; a focused and clear vision can be quite beneficial. SMILE! You may spend generously on education— it will be paying off in big ways!

Cancer (June 21-July 22)

NON SEQUITUR

This is an easy but busy day that runs along quite smoothly.

There is a greater appreciation for things of value. Be careful that you do not overspend or indulge too much just now—investments are important but can be overdone. This is certainly a time when a natural transformation is taking place. You could find the changes sudden but welcomed. If you have been involved in a long-time negative situation, you will experience a wonderful improvement and perhaps a healing or closure to a difficult situation. You cease to waste time and money acquiring that which is worthless. You are developing an eye for that which is lasting and worthwhile. New and perhaps unusual ways of appreciating and loving may be possible now.

Leo (July 23-August 22) A friend or co-worker may come to you for your advice and counsel regarding very personal and emotional issues. You will be able to be understanding and helpful when the need arises. You are able to cut through the red tape and find the real truth. There are good practical job-related ideas and you confidently communicate what you see to your superiors. Your ambition is intensified and you will find rewards for your hard work. You will gain support from others and circumstances may dictate your taking action. You feel healthy and natural and able to cope with anything that comes your way. Your timing should be perfect and those around you should find you most natural. Artwork brings monetary rewards—if that is what you wish.

ZITS

Virgo (August 23-September 22) You enjoy working hard and being organized and you exercise skill and discipline in any activity that affects your career and reputation. This is a perfect combination for an excellent manager. There may be a sticky situation coming to your attention this afternoon—you find excellent results with your strong will to succeed. You always seem to come up with the real meaning of a matter.

Your imagination reaches beyond differences and manages to solve problems well.

You are enchanting, able to point to the unity that binds all things together. You have a natural sense for communicating with people of any age. Clear thoughts about the past may be flowing in today as you visit an old friend. A good conversation with those you love is possible.

Libra (September 23-October 22)

MOTHER GOOSE AND GRIMM

There is a tendency to be too strict with yourself as your ambition seems intensified just now. There is a yearning for the stimulation of new ideas. Communication, education and travel may be a part of this new and worthy ambition. For now, it would be wise to build your financial reserves. A new goal or new friends will take most of your attention this afternoon; the old is suspect; the new seems to hold all the answers. Someone may push you for a little input into your personal thoughts, but it may seem too much like gossip. You usually decline from getting too personal—preferring to keep sensitive matters at a distance. You have a clear vision into your own sense of values: how you appreciate and love. Enjoy your loved one(s) this evening.

Scorpio (October 23-November 21) You might like to ignore responsibilities this morning, but necessity demands that you tend to business. Obstacles that have previously been confounding should find easy explanations, so don’t be too worried of repeat failures. You are in a win-win situation at this time. You love large-scale organization and this type of career or business will always be close to your heart. Your sense of discrimination is excellent and you value clearheaded thinking in others. This afternoon, obtaining and exchanging information take on a great deal of importance.

Being more involved with neighbors or sibling(s) this evening is satisfying in that you feel included and can help others feel the same. Your loving attention to a needy family member will be rewarded.

Sagittarius (November 22-December 21) Positive progress in a personal relationship today gives you a kind of social confidence. Look deeper into all your relationships today—you will find most positive connections. Instead of standing alone—you learn to blend and grow. Fortunately, this is a very lucky day for making plans or decisions and finding your way through just about any problem you may discover. You feel successful and able to handle difficult situations. Good advice from an older person may be forthcoming. This may turn out to be a very lucky day. You gain a new customer and a thankful co-worker, etc. Your need to be respected will certainly be met. You are a good worker, always thinking and caring for things. At home, a new project makes your heart sing!

Capricorn (December 22-January 19) Forget twiddling your thumbs today. This is a day for hard work and duty. There will be plenty of opportunities to show off your skills.

Later this afternoon a co-worker brings a business idea to your attention—your opinion is needed. What may seem like an outlandish idea to your way of thinking may be quite reasonable to someone else, so be thoughtful in how you relate your impressions at this time. The spending of money could be a little too easy to do this afternoon—you may appreciate the beauty and value of everything you encounter just now. You could feel loving and warm to those around you—and you are appreciative of your own life. There is time for a movie or some form of fun entertainment this evening—perhaps a play.

To

Yesterday’s Solution Yester

Aquarius (January 20- February 18) Travel and other contacts with faraway people and places will play a bigger role for you now. Such things bring love and gain in one way or another. You will find that you can really think things through and use your mind to make clear choices. Career decisions are straightforward and easy to make.

Your communication skills are good and you are able to make your way through ideas and concepts, with the ability to communicate and express them to others. Higher education or philosophical and perhaps religious contacts could have a part in making good things happen. There is a greater appreciation for things of value—and the idea of value itself. This could be a period of great material gain; it is certainly a time when material things are important.

Pisces (February 19-March 20)

Word Sleuth Solution

There is an emotional seriousness to being focused—you work quickly now. Gathering and exchanging information is part of the problem-solving process you will be experiencing. You are most persuasive with others and may find higher-ups calling on you in order to gain new customers. The situation is a natural for self-expression and lends itself to your particular ideas. There could be challenges but this only helps to fine-tune the details of a particular project. Easy does it . . . take your breaks and allow others to contribute toward the outcome of the day. This afternoon you may find yourself being put to good use by your friends, which may mean someone is moving.

Finances are improved now.

A

y

e niv rsar n

Years

THURSDAY, AUGUST 4, 2011

i n f o r m at i o n

FIRE BRIGADE

112

Al-Madena

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

24812000

Al-Jahra

25610011

Amiri Hospital

22450005

Al-Salmiya

25616368

Maternity Hospital

24843100

Mubarak Al-Kabir Hospital

25312700

Chest Hospital

24849400

Farwaniya Hospital

24892010

Adan Hospital

23940620

Ibn Sina Hospital

24840300

Al-Razi Hospital

24846000

Physiotherapy Hospital

24874330/9

Ministry of Interior website: www.moi.gov.kw For labor-related inquiries and complaints: Call MSAL hotline 128

Hospitals Sabah Hospital

POLICE STATION 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

Clinics Rabiya

4732263

Roudha

22517733

Adhaliya

22517144

Khaldiya

24848075

Keifan

24849807

Shamiya

24848913

Shuwaikh

24814507

Abdullah Salim

22549134

Al-Nuzha

22526804

Industrial Shuwaikh

24814764

Al-Khadissiya

22515088

Dasmah

22532265

Bneid Al-Ghar

22531908

Al-Shaab

22518752

Al-Kibla

22459381

Ayoun Al-Kibla

22451082

Al-Mirqab

22456536

Sharq

22465401

Salmiya

25746401

Jabriya

25316254

Maidan Hawally

25623444

Bayan

25388462

Mishref

25381200

W.Hawally

22630786

Sabah

24810221

Jahra

24770319

New Jahra

24575755

West Jahra

24772608

South Jahra

24775066

North Jahra

24775992

North Jleeb

24311795

Al-Ardhiya

24884079

Firdous

24892674

Al-Omariya

24719048

N.Kheitan

24710044

Fintas

3900322

22434064 22435865 22544200 22547133 22515277 22616662 25714406 22530801

THE PUBLIC AUTHORITY FOR CIVIL INFORMATION Automated enquiry about the Civil ID card is 1889988

PHARMACIES

AIRLINES

ON 24 HRS DUTY GOVERNORATE

PHARMACY

ADDRESS

PHONE

Ahmadi

Sama Safwan Abu Halaifa Danat Al-Sultan

Fahaeel Makka St Abu Halaifa-Coastal Rd Mahboula Block 1, Coastal Rd

23915883 23715414 23726558

Jahra

Modern Jahra Madina Munawara

Jahra-Block 3 Lot 1 Jahra-Block 92

24575518 24566622

Capital

Ahlam Khaldiya Coop

Fahad Al-Salem St Khaldiya Coop

22436184 24833967

Farwaniya

New Shifa Ferdous Coop Modern Safwan

Farwaniya Block 40 Ferdous Coop Old Kheitan Block 11

24734000 24881201 24726638

Hawally

Tariq Hana Ikhlas Hawally & Rawdha Ghadeer Kindy Ibn Al-Nafis Mishrif Coop Salwa Coop

Salmiya-Hamad Mubarak St Salmiya-Amman St Hawally-Beirut St Hawally & Rawdha Coop Jabriya-Block 1A Jabriya-Block 3B Salmiya-Hamad Mubarak St Mishrif Coop Salwa Coop

25726265 25647075 22625999 22564549 25340559 25326554 25721264 25380581 25628241

Kuwait Airways Jazeera Airways Jet Airways FlyDubai Qatar Airways KLM Air Slovakia Olympic Airways Royal Jordanian Reservation British Airways Air France Emirates Air India Sri Lanka Airlines Egypt Air Swiss Air Saudia Middle East Airlines Lufthansa PIA Alitalia Balkan Airlines Bangladesh Airlines Czech Airlines Indian Airlines Oman Air Turkish Airlines Aeroflot

22433377 177 22924455 22414400 22423888 22425747 22434940 22420002/9 22418064/5/6 22433388 22425635 22430224 22425566 22438184 22424444 22421578 22421516 22426306 22423073 22422493 22421044 22414427 22416474 22452977/8 22417901/ 2433141 22456700 22958787 22453820/1 22404838/9

PRIVATE CLINICS Ophthalmologists Dr. Abidallah Al-Mansoor 25622444 Dr. Samy Al-Rabeea 25752222 Dr. Masoma Habeeb 25321171 Dr. Mubarak Al-Ajmy 25739999 Dr. Mohsen Abel 25757700 Dr Adnan Hasan Alwayl 25732223 Dr. Abdallah Al-Baghly 25732223 Ear, Nose & Throat (ENT) Dr. Ahmed Fouad Mouner 24555050 Ext 510 Dr. Abdallah Al-Ali 25644660 Dr. Abd Al-Hameed Al-Taweel 25646478 Dr. Sanad Al-Fathalah 25311996 Dr. Mohammad Al-Daaory 25731988 Dr. Ismail Al-Fodary 22620166 Dr. Mahmoud Al-Booz 25651426 General Practitioners Dr. Mohamme Y Majidi 24555050 Ext 123 Dr. Yousef Al-Omar 24719312 Dr. Tarek Al-Mikhazeem 23926920 Dr. Kathem Maarafi 25730465 Dr. Abdallah Ahmad Eyadah 25655528 Dr. Nabeel Al-Ayoobi 24577781 Dr. Dina Abidallah Al-Refae 25333501 Urologists Dr. Ali Naser Al-Serfy 22641534 Dr. Fawzi Taher Abul 22639955 Dr. Khaleel Abidallah Al-Awadi 22616660 Dr. Adel Al-Hunayan FRCS (C) 25313120 Dr. Leons Joseph 66703427 Psychologists /Psychotherapists

Paediatricians

Plastic Surgeons Dr. Mohammad Al-Khalaf

22547272

Dr. Abd Al-Aziz Al-Rashed

Dr. Abdal-Redha Lari

22617700

Dr. Zahra Qabazard

Dr. Abdel Quttainah

25625030/60

Family Doctor Dr Divya Damodar

23729596/23729581

Psychiatrists Dr. Esam Al-Ansari

22635047

Dr Eisa M. Al-Balhan

22613623/0

Gynaecologists & Obstetricians DrAdrian arbe

23729596/23729581

Dr. Verginia s.Marin

2572-6666 ext 8321

Endocrinologist 25340300

25710444

Dr. Sohail Qamar

22621099

Dr. Snaa Maaroof

25713514

Dr. Pradip Gujare

23713100

Dr. Zacharias Mathew

24334282

(1) Ear, Nose and Throat (2) Plastic Surgeon Dr. Abdul Mohsin Jafar, FRCS (Canada)

Dr Anil Thomas

3729596/3729581 22641071/2

22655539

Dr. Majeda Khalefa Aliytami

25343406

Dr. Anesah Al-Rasheed

22562226

Dr. Ahmad Al-Khooly

25739272

Dr. Abidallah Al-Amer

22561444

Dr. Salem soso

22618787

Dr. Faysal Al-Fozan

22619557

Dr. Abdallateef Al-Katrash

22525888

Dr. Amer Zawaz Al-Amer

22610044

Dr. Abidallah Al-Duweisan

25653755

Dr. Mohammad Yousef Basher

25327148

Dr. Bader Al-Ansari

25620111

Neurologists

Dr. Adnan Ebil

22639939

Dr. Sohal Najem Al-Shemeri

25633324

Dr. Mousa Khadada

22666300

Dr. Jasem Mola Hassan

25345875

Gastrologists

25728004

Dr. Nadem Al-Ghabra

25355515

Dr. Sami Aman

22636464

Dr. Mobarak Aldoub

24726446

Dr. Mohammad Al-Shamaly

25322030

Dr Nasser Behbehani

25654300/3

Dr. Foad Abidallah Al-Ali

22633135

Soor Center Tel: 2290-1677 Fax: 2290 1688

info@soorcenter.com www.soorcenter.com

Dr. Kamal Al-Shomr 25329924 Physiotherapists & VD Dr. Deyaa Shehab

25722291 22666288

Rheumatologists:

Dr. Fozeya Ali Al-Qatan

Dr. Latefa Al-Duweisan

25339330

Dr. Ahmad Al-Ansari 25658888

Dr. Musaed Faraj Khamees

Dentists

Internists, Chest & Heart

Dr. Abd Al-Naser Al-Othman

25655535

Dr. Shamah Al-Matar

General Surgeons

INTERNATIONAL CALLS

Dr. Naif Al-Mutawa, Ph.D. 2290-1677 Susannah-Joy Schuilenberg, M.A. 2290-1677

Dr. Adel Al-Awadi

25330060

Dr. Khaled Al-Jarallah

25722290

Internist, Chest & Heart DR.Mohammes Akkad

24555050 Ext 210

Dr. Mohammad Zubaid MB, ChB, FRCPC, PACC Assistant Professor Of Medicine Head, Division of Cardiology Mubarak Al-Kabeer Hospital Consultant Cardiologist Dr. Farida Al-Habib MD, PH.D, FACC Inaya German Medical Center Te: 2575077 Fax: 25723123

2611555-2622555

William Schuilenberg, RPC 2290-1677 Zaina Al Zabin, M.Sc. 2290-1677

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0093 00355 00213 00376 00244 001264 001268 0054 00374 0061 0043 001242 00973 00880 001246 00375 0032 00501 00229 001441 00975 00591 00387 00267 0055 00673 00359 00226 00257 00855 00237 001 00238 001345

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00236 00235 0056 0086 0057 00269 00242 00682 00506 00385 0053 00357 0090392 00420 0045 00246 00253 001767 001809 00593 0020 00503 0044 00240 00291 00372 00251 00500 00298 00679 00358 0033 00594 00689

y

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36

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Years

THURSDAY, AUGUST 4, 2011

lifest yle G o s s i p

Campbell engaged aomi Campbell is reportedly engaged. The British model and her long-term boyfriend, Russian billionaire Vladislav Doronin let off £50,000 of fireworks while on holiday in Greece and “hinted” they were now set to wed. A guest at the Elounda Beach hotel in Crete, where the couple moored their boat, said: “Naomi and her boyfriend set of £50,000 worth of fireworks over a 20 minute period.

“She was brimming with excitement and hinted they were engaged. She was telling guests it was time to celebrate ‘their little secret’. Naomi had the most

N

atie Holmes is terrified of raccoons. The ‘Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark’ actress admits she has a phobia of the cute-looking animals because they don’t show any fear and recently had a scary encounter with one - but came up with a novel way to frighten the creature away. She told TV talk show host Jay Leno: “Well, you know everybody always says spiders ... or a dog [and how] they’re more afraid of you than you are of them and I don’t find that with raccoons. “I was recently sitting on a side and this raccoon comes right up and I’m expecting it to be more afraid of me and I’m staring at it and it’s staring right back like he’s going to kick my butt!

So I didn’t know what to do so I just stood up

K

incredible ring on.

Everyone was commenting on how genuinely excited she seemed.”

Fellow holidaymakers also got to enjoy the display in the Mediterranean Sea, with the guest adding it was the most amazing they had ever seen. The visitor told the Daily Star newspaper: “She said they were celebrating something that would send their message to the stars with a spectacular display of fireworks. “People came out of the hotels all around the bay and up the

mountain to watch. It was the most incredible display I’ve ever seen.” The 41-year-old beauty has previously professed a love of strong men, admitted she is attracted to people who know their own minds. She said: “I like men that are strong. I like the men to wear the pants. I like strong men that know what they want, know what they are doing, that tell me what to do. I cannot tell Vlad what to do.”

and I barked at him and he ran away!” Katie is not the only celebrity to suffer from a fear of an animal - Rupert Grint recently revealed he suffers from arachnophobia. The ‘Harry Potter’ actor is so terrified of spiders he checks his shoes every day before he puts them on to make sure there are no unwanted creepy crawlies inside. He said: “I’m arachnophobic. It’s really affected my life. I check my shoes every time I put them on. I check my bed sheets and pillows. “I’m going to Australia in a few weeks. I’ve never been before spiders have always stopped me.”

ustin Bieber gave girlfriend Selena Gomez a bottle of his own fragrance as a gift.

The 17-year-old singing sensation - who released his debut fragrance, ‘Someday’ earlier this year is a “romantic” boyfriend but the singer-and-actress admits she doesn’t wear his present every day. She said: “Yeah, he is romantic. He gave me a bottle of his new perfume the other day. I’m not really a one-fragrance kind of girl though. I like all kinds. “I really love Summer of Love by Anna Sui, it smells so good.” Selena will soon release a single ‘Love You Like a Love Song’ and is also starting work on a new movie, so she says she and Justin won’t find time for a holiday together in the coming months. She told more! magazine: “No, we’re not going away, I’m working. I’m doing my tour all summer and then I’m filming for a movie.” The 19-year-old star also insisted ‘Love You Like a Love Song’ is not about her famous boyfriend. She explained: “The whole song is about the interpretation of love. It’s about having a crush on somebody and that new beginning feeling. “It feels so good, you just want it to come again and again and again.”

aris Hilton has taken up Pilates. The 30-year-old heiress credits the body conditioning regime for her more slender, toned figure, as well as following a healthy eating plan. She said: “I’ve been working out and eating healthier and it feels great. “I’ve been doing Pilates to help keep my body toned and cardio in the gym. “I’m also eating a lean diet with lots of organic fruits, veggies and vitamin juices. I have so much energy and feel amazing.” Paris - who has been linked with ‘The Hangover’ director Todd Phillips since splitting from Cy Waits in June - says she is “very happy” with her life at the moment and is enjoying the summer. She told Now magazine: “I’m feeling really great right now and very happy. “I’m having just an amazing summer.” The reality TV star has previously credited Cy for getting her more interested in health and fitness. She said: “He explains everything to me. He makes me watch documentaries on food and he explains things are good for your body because he’s very into that.”

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ianna Agron has had a nose job.

The ‘Glee’ actress - who plays cheerleader Quinn Fabray in the musical comedy drama - confessed she had her nose fixed after breaking it twice, once after getting caught up in the middle of an argument at a high school party and again years later. She told chat show host David Letterman: “The first time I didn’t go to the doctor because I didn’t want to tell my mom what had happened and she would never let me out of the house. “I couldn’t get it fixed because we were in the middle of doing this concert tour and we were filming. We had a day off and I met up with some of my friends and we were dancing. And again, there was another collision of sorts - I must be turning too quickly, people don’t see me coming or something - but it’s fixed now!” Dianna, 25, recently cut her signature blonde locks short and while she is has already altered the style several times, she much prefers her new cropped look to her old long tresses.

She said: “I’ve probably cut and trimmed it six times and it’s changing slightly every time but I love it. “I’d been dying to cut my hair for so long.”

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nne Hathaway’s boyfriend “totally ruined” her plans to be single. The ‘One Day’ star - who has been dating actor Adam Shulman for three years -had been “looking forward to a little alone time” after her ex-boyfriend Raffaello Follieri was imprisoned for four-and-a-half years in 2008 after pleading guilty to cheating investors out of millions of dollars. She said: “I am very much in love.

Adam totally ruined my plan. I was really actually looking forward to a little alone time and then I fall in love like a fool. “It’s three years.

It’s serious!” Despite now being in a happy relationship with Adam, the 28-year-old actress confessed she dealt with her heartbreak over Raffaello’s incarceration by making a “joke” about it on US TV shows ‘Saturday Night Live’ and ‘The Late Show’. In an interview with Britain’s Marie Claire magazine, Anne added: “That was how I got through my pain. I wrote funny songs about it. That’s always been the way I deal with things. You make a joke of it.”

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risten Stewart “can’t stand” being called “hot”. The ‘Twilight’ actress - who was voted sixth sexiest woman in the world in an FHM magazine poll last year - hates it when people praise her for her appearance, insisting she doesn’t feel as attractive as she is perceived to be. When asked how she feels about being called “hot,” Kristen replied: “I can’t stand that. What does that even mean? I don’t feel hot.” The actress - who is dating

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Argon got a nose job

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Bieber gives Gomez his perfume

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her ‘Twilight Saga’ co-star Robert Pattinson -gets self conscious of people when she is out in public, although she admits she would do the same if she saw a celebrity in the street. She told Closer magazine: “I have to pick and choose where I’m going. I have can become very reclusive. Sometimes I’m like, ‘Oh, I can’t deal with anything right now, I can’t see anybody.’ “I know what I’m like, and if I knew that an actor was nearby, I’d be interested. “I’m a

people watcher and I’d definitely choose that person to watch. It’s human nature to look at others and everyone is the same. So for a while I was definitely a bit self conscious.”— Bang Showbiz

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hina’s legion Harry Potter fans will at last see the final chapter of the film franchise on Thursday, when a 90-minute epic about the history of the Communist Party gives way to the boy wizard. The mainland is by far the world’s fastest growing film market, with box office takings up 64 percent last year, as the country’s burgeoning consumer class takes to the movies. However, its film industry is protected by a system that only allows around 20 foreign movies to be screened a year, allowing homegrown directors to create Hollywood-style blockbusters without the threat of major competition.

Since late June, theatre operators have been forced to screen “The Beginning of the Great Revival”a cinematic celebration of the Communist Party that state-run studio the China Film Group predicted would gross 800 million yuan ($124 million).

Special screenings organized for last night in China’s biggest cities are expected to attract hordes of spellbound Potter fans. The hotly anticipated Chinese release comes weeks after the movie hit US screens and is even later than its Indonesia debut-where it was put off for three weeks due to a tax row between US studios and the government. The long delay has seen Potter fans go online in droves to vent their anger. Some have voiced suspicion it was a deliberate move to boost ticket sales for “The Beginning of the Great Revival”, which had disappointing takings.

Even before the release of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2,” which has already booked $1 billion in ticket sales around the world for Warner Bros, several Hollywood hits had out-grossed the Chinese epic. After just over a week on screens, Hollywood action sequel “Transformers: Dark of the Moon,” took 361.9 million yuan on 6,500 screens. That was roughly the same as the “The Beginning of the

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Great Revival” made on 7,800 screens over six weeks.

The latest Harry Potter film this week became only the ninth movie in history to gross $1 billion. It is sure to perform well in China, where local consumers are richer than ever and are flexing their muscles at the box office, with local fare often treading over familiar, safe and tired ground.

“From the very first film, I was excited by the idea of a wizard,” said Han Liyuan, 30, a Chinese language teacher who has read all the Potter books by JK Rowling on which the films are based, in English and Chinese. “I’d never heard of a wizard before 2001. They are people who are special who are among all of us.”

Han and her husband, a subway engineer who did not much like the movies at first, will use a movie card he got from his company to see the film in a nearby theatre. This despite having a big screen TV at home and knowing how to download the easily accessible illegal copies online. “The visuals and the feeling can’t be captured. It’s not the real thing unless you see it in the theatre,” said Han, who chose her English name, Audrey, in honor of Hollywood icon Audrey Hepburn.

Industry analyst Rance Pow of Shanghai-based Artisan Gateway, said China’s movie-goers were becoming choosier about what they paid to see.”It’s not a matter of where the films are coming from, per se, it’s just that Chinese consumers are growing more discerning and are voting with their wallets for stories they think are worth paying top yuan for,” he told AFP. China’s passion for movies pushed box office sales up 64 percent in 2010 to $1.5 billion, the fastest growth anywhere in the world. Property developers and theatre chains are installing new theatres as fast as they can, passing some of the costs to consumers in high ticket prices that can rival New York’s.In reaction, Chinese consumers often go to the movies on

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half-price Tuesdays, and increasingly band together to buy cheap tickets. Group buying website Tuan800.com says six percent of tickets sold in the first half of the year were bought en masse.

This has resulted in average ticket prices of 42 yuan, well below the 120 yuan often charged for a 3D screening on a giant IMAX screen. The State Administration of Radio Film and Television recently said ticket sales in the first half of 2011 were 5.7 billion yuan ($876.7 million), putting the market on track for another record-breaking year. As the sector booms, Harry Potter could serve as China’s latest reminder that Hollywood still dominates, despite a rise in the number and quality of Chinese-language films.

The first Harry Potter film grossed 56 million yuan in China in 2002 and the last hit 213 million yuan in 2010. But Pow said this was “not an apples and apples comparison,” given the growth in the number of cinemas. “It’s a reasonable guess ‘Harry Potter’ will release on as many screens as ‘Transformers’ and, since it’s the last film in a very popular series, it could conceivably do as well or better.”—AFP

A woman walks past a billboard advertising the latest Harry Potter movie ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2’ in Shanghai yesterday. — AFP

Sheen withdraws lawsuit over NY hotel incident ourt records show a judge has granted Charlie Sheen’s request to dismiss a lawsuit filed against a woman who locked herself in the bathroom of an upscale New York hotel room that the actor left in tatters.

Sheen claimed Capri Anderson locked herself in the bathroom of the Plaza Hotel because she had taken one of his watches valued at $165,000. His lawsuit sought reimbursement. Anderson told police the

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he son of Farrah Fawcett and Ryan O’Neal is in jail in Southern California after police stopped him for a traffic violation and allegedly found heroin in his car.

Santa Monica police Sgt. Richard Lewis says Redmond O’Neal was pulled over about 8:30 am Tuesday after an officer saw him fail to stop for a red light.

Police say a search of his car uncovered the drug. O’Neal, who is on probation in a previous drug case, was jailed without bail.

His lawyer, Richard Pintal, declined to comment. The 26-year-old has a history of substance abuse problems. He completed a drug diversion program last year but remains on probation for bringing drugs to a Los Angeles County jail in 2009. Tuesday’s arrest was first reported by the website RadarOnline.com.

— AP

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Redmond O’Neal appears at the courthouse in Malibu.—AP

Faye Dunaway and her son Liam O’Neill.—AP

New York City landlord is suing Faye Dunaway, claiming the actress’ rent-stabilized apartment is not her primary residence. The suit also names the actress’ son, Liam Dunaway O’Neill, as a subtenant of the Manhattan apartment. The New York Times says the housing court suit was filed Tuesday.

The suit says the “Bonnie & Clyde” actress owns a house in West Hollywood, California, and has her voter and car registrations there. Rent sta-

op princess Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream” reached a new height this week as “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)” became the album’s fifth single to reach the top of Billboard’s pop songs chart, marking the first time any album has amassed such a feat in its 19-year history.

If Perry’s newest No 1 also lands atop the Hot 100 later this week, “Teenage Dream” will be the only album other than Michael Jackson’s “Bad” to generate five separate No 1s.

“Bad” was released in 1987, before Billboard began issuing the pop song chart.

Prior to “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)” reaching No 1, “Teenage Dream” was tied with Justin Timberlake’s

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Singer Katy Perry attends the premiere of “The Smurfs” at the Ziegfeld Theatre. —AP

Gotti film casts John Jr but Lohan role in doubt Capri Anderson, the woman who was found locked in a bathroom of actor Charlie Sheen’s hotel room on Oct 25, 2010.—AP

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actor put his hands around her throat during the raucous evening in late October, but she managed to slip away.

Sheen sued Anderson for attempted extortion in November after she recounted her version of events on “Good Morning America.” Court records show Sheen’s attorney were granted a dismissal of the case without prejudice on Friday, which means the actor could re-file. — AP

bilization rules require tenants to use those apartments as a primary residence, not a second home. The suit says she pays $1,048 monthly for the one-bedroom apartment. The Times says similar apartments in that neighborhood rent for about twice that. The 70-year-old actress and her son didn’t return calls seeking comment, and the landlord’s lawyer declined to comment.—AP

ctor Ben Foster has landed the lead role in the upcoming movie about crime boss John Gotti and his son, producers said on Tuesday. But Lindsay Lohan’s role in “Gotti: In the Shadow of My Father” appeared to be in doubt after producers said she had not officially signed onto the movie and they were still in talks with her.

Foster, 29, best known for roles in “The Messenger” and 3:10 to Yuma”, will play John Gotti Jr. opposite John Travolta, who has already been cast as the late head of New York’s powerful Gambino family, John Gotti.

Lohan’s casting as Kim Gotti, the wife of John Gotti Jr, was announced in May. But Steve Honig, a spokesman for both Fiore Films and Lohan said on Tuesday that “the producers of the film and Lindsay’s representation have not yet worked out an agreement for her to appear in the movie. At this point, we cannot provide a definitive answer either way.

“Fiore is still very much in talks with Lindsay Lohan to play the role of Kim Gotti,” Honig added. Lohan, 25, whose career has been derailed by repeated trips to jail and rehab since 2007, has not had a movie role since the low-budget 2010 release “Machete.” The Gotti film, because of its high profile and Lohan’s ongoing recovery, was thought to be a positive step in her return to Hollywood’s A-list.

Producers declined to comment on the

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apparent stumbling block. But it follows a change of director from Nick Cassavetes to Barry Levinson, and a lawsuit brought by actor Joe Pesci last week who claimed his part had been changed and his pay cut. Lohan’s legal woes-she remains on probation for a January jewelry theft and has still to complete community service-are not thought to be an issue.

Pesci’s role is also undetermined following his lawsuit, which producers Fiore Films have said has “no merit”. Pre-production on “Gotti: In the Shadow of My Father” starts in September and shooting is due to start in January. Levinson described Foster as “one of the few young actors who can literary transform himself from role to role, from light comedy to a deadly gunslinger...I think he can bring something very memorable to the role of Gotti Jr.” Fiore Films acquired from John Gotti Jr the rights to the story of his life with his father in what is the first deal between a Gotti family member and a major movie producer. The senior John Gotti was known as the “Teflon Don” for his ability to evade conviction before eventually being convicted of murder, racketeering and extortion. He died of cancer in 2002 while serving a life sentence. Al Pacino and Kelly Preston have also signed deals to appear in the film.—Reuters

“FutureSex/LoveSounds” (2006-07) and Lady Gaga’s “The Fame” (2009) which both had four singles snag the top spot.

“Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)” became not only Perry’s fifth No 1 off “Teenage Dream” but her seventh overall, tying her with Lady Gaga for second-most No 1s since the chart’s inception. Rihanna currently holds the record with eight. —Reuters

Bollywood personalities Manoj Bajpayee, Prateik Babbar, Deepika Padukone and Amitabh Bachchan pose during a press conference to promote the forthcoming movie ‘Aarakshan’ in Mumbai on August 2, 2011. — AFP

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Photo shows guitars from the group Alabama on display.

Visitors look at plaques in the Hall of Fame.

Ram Bhagat, of Drums No Guns, performs with young participants at the 2008 National Folk Festival.

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ashville has no theme park, no beach and no casinos. But it has music. Lots of it. The National Folk Festival, which is coming to Nashville Labor Day weekend, caps off several months of major events held here that validate Nashville’s self-proclaimed moniker “Music City USA.” The free, 73rd folk festival Sept 2-4 is to feature more than 250 of the country’s finest traditional performers and craftsmen, with simultaneous performances on six stages throughout the Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park. An estimated 60,000 to 80,000 attendees are expected.

Audiences will be treated to authentic blues, gospel, jazz, cowboy, bluegrass, klezmer, Cajun, rhythm and blues, mariachi, Western swing, zydeco and more. Even polka. Yes, in Nashville, the city famed for fiddles and fringe.

Performances will celebrate the cultures of Native American, Celtic, Acadian, Middle Eastern, Caribbean, East Asian, Appalachian, Hispanic, Eastern European, African and Pacific Island.

Organizers also promise “a delicious variety of ethnic and regional food specialties.”

If Southern food is more appealing, Nashville has plenty of fried chicken, country ham, pork barbecue, collard greens, red-eye gravy, grits and fried green tomatoes. Wash it down with sweet tea. Gov Bill Haslam, in announcing the folk festival, said it “preserves and celebrates the roots and variety of American culture we have here in our state.” The festival will take place a few blocks away from the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum (a city shrine) and a dozen or so raucous honky-tonks where hot guitars compete with cold beer for popularity.

If visitors want a taste of American culture, there’s a Hard Rock Cafe on the downtown waterfront. And a Hooters. The festival has been produced since 1934 by the National Council for the Traditional Arts. With such a long run, the festival has transcended country music, Big Band, rock ‘n’ roll, disco and rap.

A sampling of scheduled acts this year: La Excelencia, doing salsa; Samba Mapangala &

National Folk Festival next month

Orchestre Virunga, doing East African rumba and soukous; the Massive Monkeys, doing breakdance; Lloyd Arneach, a Cherokee storyteller.

Nashville, which already has 11 million tourists a year, beat out more than 40 other cities to host

the event for the next three years. The festival is projected to pump $10 million into the local economy each year. The festival will follow in the impressive cowboy bootsteps of a myriad of recent musical treats.

The four-day CMA Festival in June at the Tennessee Titans’ LP Field had daily attendance of 65,000 exuberant fans to see an array of country performers including Taylor Swift, Lady Antebellum, Brad Paisley, Keith Urban and Reba McEntire. That event left approximately $30 million in direct visitor spending in the city. The Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival, held at the same time 60 miles away on a 700-acre field near Manchester, Tenn., sold all 80,000 tickets.

And there’s been more.

There are four Grand Ole Opry shows each week, weekly bluegrass performances and the production “Always...Patsy Cline,” which wrapped up summer weekend shows July 24. U2 performed before 45,000 at Nashville’s Vanderbilt Stadium July 2. Lady Gaga and Jimmy Buffett also performed in the city recently. More music is coming soon and it’s not just country weepers.

In September alone, Journey with Foreigner and Night Ranger have a show on the books Sept 13. Swift is to perform two nights, Sept 16-

17. Last December, Garth Brooks performed nine sold out shows over seven nights in Nashville, raising $5 million for flood relief in Tennessee.

“Playing music has never felt better or ever felt more right,” he said after the shows. Has there been too much music? Too much of a good thing? Mayor Karl Dean, ever a Southern gentleman, says no. “The more we have, the better,” he said, adding: “No city in the United States can match our city for the raw talent, creativity and long history of making music.” — AP

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ational folk festival: Sept 2-4, Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park in Nashville; http://www.nationalfolkfestival.com/ .

Free admission. Festival features more than 250 traditional performers and craftspeople on six stages, plus a marketplace, children’s activities, workshops and food.

Cathy Bartnick, of Albuquerque, NM, photographs Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park in Nashville.

Visitors look at records on display at the Country Music Hall of Fame.

This image courtesy the National Folk Festival shows the Sounds of Korea performing at the 2009 National Folk Festival in Richmond, Va. —AP photos

Plaques in the Hall of Fame at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.

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Waiting for restorations, one of the courtyards of the famed 150-year-old Lin Family Mansion is seen. — AP photos

Lanterns decorate the restored wooden panels.

Ornate doorways of the Lin Family Mansion.

A 19th century ornate clock is seen in a restored sitting room.

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Restored ornate carvings and paintings line rooftops.

A restored theater is seen in the main courtyard.

Traditional red rooftops of the famed 150-year-old Lin Family Mansion.

wenty-seven years in the making, the $45 million renovation of a 150year-old Taiwanese homestead is finally nearing completion. The Lin Family Mansion - a complex of five buildings on 7.4 acres (3 hectares) - is one of Taiwan’s most important historical sites, a rare example of the ornate architectural style favored by nobles from southern China in the waning years of the Qing dynasty.

The renovation has been a painstaking process, with workers facing a variety of challenges - not least a devastating earthquake - to return the 19th-century structures to their original glory. The complex in Wufeng, an hour by highspeed rail from Taipei, is expected to open to the public at the end of 2011. It sits near a scenic mountain and a lake retreat. Members of the Lin family still live in the mansion and will share their quarters with what the government expects will be an onslaught of tourists.

A family of unrivaled wealth and political influence in central Taiwan, the Lins began building their homestead in 1858.

Like many early immigrants to the island off China’s coast, the ancestors of the Lin family arrived from Fujian province in southern China. To construct their homes they brought workers from their native province as well as building materials including cedar wood and large slabs of granite.

The main structure in the original complex - the Gongbao Official Residence - was built by military strongman General Lin Wen-cha, who gained fame leading militiamen against pirates in Taiwan and then, on the Chinese mainland, fighting rebel forces in the Taiping Rebellion. Lin died there in battle in 1864, and his son - also a general - completed the homestead’s construction.

The Gongbao Official Residence consisted of five courtyards and 108 rooms a scale reserved for top officials. It was characterized by elaborately painted and meticulously carved doors, with pillars extending up to the ceilings. The main reception area was adorned by impressive portraits, beautiful calligraphic scrolls and other high end works of art.

A central element in the residence was an exquisite theater and a grand banquet hall, which served as the center of the Lin family’s social life. Though Lins continued to live in the complex, through the Japanese occupation of the island and the Nationalist Party takeover

in 1945, decades of neglect had reduced it to a shadow of its former self by the 1960s. Today, the mansion is the largest 19th-century structure left on the island.

Renovation work funded by the government began in 1984. When work began, the theater, whose wooden beams locked seamlessly without nuts and bolts, was in ruins. Lai Chih-chang, a member of the National Taiwan University team that took the lead in the restoration, said he had no idea how to replicate its former glory.

But in the attic of one of the houses, he found three dusty trunks containing glass negatives of the original structures that enabled architects to draw up a plan. The restored theater features the original’s upward sloping roof and a raised platform with gilded, intricate wood carvings. Under the ceiling is a multilayered, octagonal dome that projects the building’s acoustics from stage to audience.

Lai said the restoration has helped preserve an important regional style.

“This is the one mansion that has integrated various building arts in southern China,” he said. The project was nearly abandoned following a 7.6-magnitude earthquake that hit central Taiwan in 1999, when the work was nearly complete. The government wanted out, but architects and art lovers intervened, and the work continued, with additional government funding.—AP

Lanterns decorate the restored courtyards of the famed 150-year-old Lin Family Mansion.

Restored carvings line the courtyards.

Restored ornate doorways line the courtyards of the famed 150-year-old Lin Family Mansion.

A restored theater is seen in the main courtyard.

Restored ornate carvings hang in the eaves.

A gardener maintains the lawns in the restored courtyards.

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Demi Moore arrives at “CNN Heroes: An All-Star Tribute” awards show in Los Angeles. — AP photos

Demi Moore at the 64th Annual Academy Awards in Los Angeles.

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s a young teenager, before the fame, kids, paparazzi and front-row seats at fashion shows, Demi Moore regularly passed an Ann Taylor store at a local mall, taking note of the clothes. In the years since, she’s been a red-carpet rebel, jeans-wearing mom, bikini globetrotter and Versace model. Now her style evolution has come full circle, and Moore is the star of the Ann Taylor fall ad campaign. She is the latest Hollywood connection for a company that previously tapped Katie Holmes and Naomi Watts to court its shoppers. “I feel like I’ve known Ann Taylor since I was a kid.

I’ve watched the clothes move into support for the working woman,” said Moore, 48, during a break at a recent photo shoot in LA. “It used to be a lot of suiting. I’ve seen as we’ve changed, that they’ve changed, reflecting on how we live as modern women, which is wearing things that take us from day to night, from workout to work to weekend.” Looking at Moore’s own fashion history, she’s changed a lot, too. She has done the menswear thing, the retro siren and many plunging necklines. She’s been bald and buff - and totally bare. (Remember the Vanity Fair cover when she was pregnant in 1991?)

In recent years, she has developed more of a signature look - one that’s both sophisticated and sultry - which has won her praise from fashion insiders. “We have to remember it’s OK to take risks. Sometimes it will work and sometimes it won’t. For me, I know there’s a certain kind of balance of criteria. I like things that are classic. I want to know that I’ll look in my closet five years from now and that piece still has a place. I don’t have room or time for something’s that just absolutely of the moment.” She has no problem taking some cues from the past, though. “I look at Katharine Hepburn, from the ‘30s and ‘40s, and the women of the ‘70s, Bianca Jagger,” said Moore.

“When we’re young, we’re finding ourselves, what we like. I can say there are certain things that remain a constant.

I’ve always loved vintage. I’ve rested in a place that’s classic, with a twist.” That’s the look you see in the Ann Taylor ads, shot by top photographer Patrick Demarchelier at one of Rockefeller Center’s rooftop gardens in New York City against a backdrop of towering buildings. In one ad, the star of movies “Ghost” and “A Few Good Men” stands confidently, hands on her hips, wearing a ‘60s-esque beige wool cape and a black blouse edged in lace. In another shot, she sports a sexy-chic long V-necked grey sweater accented by faux fur.

Moore hadn’t worked with Demarchelier since he photographed her as the cover of an issue of Harper’s Bazaar in the ‘90s, one of her favorite shoots, she said.

The collection also includes animal-print jackets, tai-

Demi Moore in an image from the Ann Taylor fall ad campaign.

ne of the earliest films made by British master director Alfred Hitchcock has been found in New Zealand, researchers said yesterday. The New Zealand Film Archive said the first three reels of the six-reel feature “The White Shadow” were found in a cache of ageing nitrate prints given to the archive in the 1990s.It said the silent-era film, made in 1923, was believed to be the oldest surviving feature

by Hitchcock, who went on to conquer Hollywood with classic thrillers such as “Psycho”, “Vertigo” and “North by Northwest”.

The archive described the film as “a wild atmospheric melodrama” about two sisters, one angelic and the other without a soul. No other copies are believed to exist. “This is one of

the most significant developments in memory for scholars, critics, and admirers of Hitchcock’s extraordinary body of work,” David Sterritt, chairman of the US National Society of Film Critics, said. Sterritt said Hitchcock, who died in 1980, wrote the film’s scenario, designed its sets, edited the footage, and was assistant to the British film director Graham Cutts, who bristled with professional jealousy toward the gifted upstart.

“These first three reels of ‘The White Shadow’-more than half the film offer a priceless opportunity to study his visual and narrative ideas when they were first taking shape,” Sterritt said. The reels were among a treasure trove of silent films giv-

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lored tweed, wide-legged pants and bling-y statement jewelry. Moore added her own creative slant to the ads, suggesting the pairing of a leopard-print shirt with khaki pants, and the faux fur-trimmed sweater. “That was actually one of my favorite pieces, when I first looked through the collection,” said Moore. Married to actor Ashton Kutcher, with three daughters from her ex-husband Bruce Willis, Moore said she definitely identified with Ann Taylor’s working-mom demographic. Looking like a casual mom herself during her break

going outside your comfort zone. When you get too confined to ‘This is what I know works and looks good,’ I think you also don’t stay fresh and current.”

Moore still can push the envelope. For example, to this spring’s Costume Institute Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, she wore a strapless Prabal Gurung gown dripping in black feathers topped by a Philip Treacy head piece. “Some of the kind of unspoken rules of what we’re allowed to do at this age, and what you can get away with, really comes

Bruce Willis and actress Demi Moore, who stars in “A Few Good Men,” as they arrive to the movie’s premiere at the Ziegfeld Theater in New York (file). on the LA photo shoot, she charmingly wore Harry Potter-ish designer black round glasses and loose-fitting jeans. On set, she transformed, moving fluidly into poses, doing yoga stretches between takes.

There’s back-and-forth style advice between her and her daughters, including oldest Rumer Willis, a budding actress featured in ads for Badgley Mischka’s spring 2011 collection.” There are things that I might wear with flats that they would put with heels,” said Moore. “They definitely stay at a kind of cutting edge because they’re still in that experimental stage, which is important to remember. You keep

down to what’s in your comfort zone, what makes you feel good about you,” Moore said. “I think a part of it is on average we’re living 34 years longer, so it’s really changing, how we look at ourselves at different times. There might have been a time when we would say, ‘Post 40, dress above the knee, I shouldn’t be doing this.’ But that depends on the person.

Fashion style really comes from the inside out.”— AP

Demi Moore arrives at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute gala benefit, celebrating the “Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty” exhibition in New York.

en to the film archive in 1993 after the death of former projectionist Jack Murtagh, who worked at a cinema in the town of Hastings in the first half of the 20th Century. At the time, cinemas were supposed to destroy film prints at the end of their distribution run but Murtagh instead hoarded them in his garden shed, preserving many works that would otherwise have been lost to history.

The archive is methodically working to preserve Murtagh’s collection of delicate nitrate prints, which in 2009 also yielded the only known copy of US director John Ford’s comedy “Upstream”. The films were not seen as valuable in Murtagh’s day and his grandson Tony Osborne said many viewed his col-

Demi Moore arrives at the 2007/8 Chanel Cruise Show presented by Karl Lagerfeld in Santa Monica.

lection as eccentric. “He would be quietly amused by all the attention now generated by these important film discoveries,” Osborne said. The Hitchcock feature will be preserved at Wellington’s Park Road studio, which has also done post production work on modern movies, such as New Zealand director Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy. The whereabouts of the final three reels of the film remain a mystery.—AFP

This handout images received yesterday from the New Zealand Film Archive shows a still from what is thought to be a lost film made in 1923 by British master director Alfred Hitchcock. — AFP photos