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TUESDAY, AUGUST 30, 2011

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SHAWWAL 1, 1432 AH

US, Saudi ‘persuaded’ Kuwait to build port Iraqi National Coalition blasts US, Iraq

Max 47º Min 27º Low Tide 06:31& 19:08 High Tide 00:40 & 12:14

By A Saleh

Kuwait Times Editor-in-Chief Abd AlRahman Al-Alyan wishes His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah AlAhmad Al-Sabah, HH the Crown Prince Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad AlSabah, HH the Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Sabah, Cabinet members, Heads of States around the world, Kuwaitis, expatriates and our valued readers Eid Mubarak.

Kuwait Times will not be published on Wednesday and Thursday.

Next issue will be published on Friday.

Syrian soldiers storm northern village, kill six BEIRUT: Syrian security forces pursuing anti-government protesters stormed several towns and villages yesterday, killing at least six people - including a child and wounding many others during raids and house-to-house searches, activists said. The largest operation appeared to be in Sarameen in the northern Idlib province, where the London-based Observatory for Human Rights said five people were killed and more than 60 wounded.

One person also died during raids in Qara, a suburb of the capital, Damascus.

Similar raids were reported in the village of Heet near the border with Lebanon, along with a military buildup just outside the central town of Rastan, which has become a hotbed of dissent against President Bashar Assad’s regime during the 5-month-old uprising. The prime minister of Turkey, a former Continued on Page 13

RIYADH: Saudis seen under a “Happy Eid” sign outside a government building in Riyadh’s Masmak quarter on the eve of the end of the fasting month of Ramadan. — AFP

Muslims celebrate Eid RIYADH: Saudi Arabia announced yesterday that the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, characterized by dawn-to-dusk fasting and heightened piety, has ended. The decision was made after sunset yesterday when the new moon was spotted. Muslims follow a lunar calendar. Saudi Arabia said the three-day Eid Al-Fitr holiday that marks the end of Ramadan will begin today. Saudi

Arabia is home to the main Muslim holy sites. Egypt and several other Arab countries said they, too, will observe Eid Al-Fitr starting today. The month of fasting and extended prayer began August 1. For many Muslims, Ramadan is a spiritual exercise, a lesson in self-restraint and a time for empathy and charity. It is observed by millions of believers around the world. — AP

MP demands details on cash withdrawals Interior denies MPs intervention for drug dealers

By B Izzak KUWAIT: Leading opposition MP Mussallam Al-Barrak yesterday demanded in a question to the prime minister, complete details on the cash withdrawals from the Central Bank of Kuwait during the past five years. In his question to Sheikh Nasser Mohammad AlAhmad Al-Sabah, Barrak demanded a list of all cash withdrawals from the central bank to all government bodies and agencies from April 1, 2006, just two months after the prime minister was appointed, until now.

He also demanded the value and date of each withdrawal, the employees who made the withdrawal for each government agency and the names of beneficiaries, MPs included, whom the money was paid to and for what reason, demanding supporting evidence for each transaction. The question comes amid a major controversy over the reported illegal deposits of around KD25 million into the accounts of two MPs which were

linked to political motives, specifically grillings in the National Assembly.

The deposits were reportedly made in cash and through transfers within a short period of time which aroused suspicions by local bank officials. The report prompted MPs to call for a swift investigation as they prepare to call for an emergency parliamentary session to debate the issue. The government has made a small reference to the issue by saying that the central bank has not received any notification from the public prosecution or local banks about any illegal deposits.

Barrak yesterday accused the government of being involved in the issue, adding that the silence of the governor of the central bank raises many question marks.

Bloggers and Twitter users have even mentioned the names of the two MPs who received the funds.

Islamist MP Jamaan Al-Harbash said the Reform and Development Bloc will prepare a request to call for an emergency parliamentary session to debate the issue and called on

Iraq mosque bombing kills MP, 29 others

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MPs to sign the request.

At least 33 MPs are required to sign for the session to be held.

Harbash warned that if the government foils the session or does not attend, the grilling of the prime minister will be inevitable.

Assembly speaker Jassem AlKhorafi meanwhile said on Sunday that the assembly cannot do anything because it does not have any document or evidence regarding the case. But several opposition MPs strongly criticized Khorafi for issuing such a statement, saying that the assembly must act quickly to clear the reputation of its members.

In another development, the interior ministry yesterday denied a report in Al-Qabas newspaper that unnamed MPs have mediated to secure the release of a number of people arrested on charges of drugs trafficking. A statement by the ministry insisted that no MPs have intervened in such cases and such mediations cannot take place in the interior ministry especially in cases related to drugs trafficking.

Lockerbie bomber in coma, nears death

KUWAIT: The Iraqi National Coalition has accused the United States and Saudi Arabia of persuading Kuwait to carry on with building the Mubarak Al-Kabeer port. It called on the Arab League to intervene to resolve the issue. Coalition member MP Qassem Al-Araji made the comment recently, adding that Kuwait’s insistence on completing the project in four phases will not bode well for the relationship shared between the two neighboring countries.

The Iraqi lawmaker underscored that Saudi Arabia has been backing Kuwait with the aim of weakening the Iraqi political regime. He accused the country of dealing with the subject from a biased point of view, driving a wedge between religious sects that populate Iraq. Al-Araji pointed out that the United States wishes to remain in Iraq for the longest possible period, thereby egging Kuwait on to construct the port, and that only the Arab League can intervene to resolve the problem between Kuwait and Iraq to improve relations.

He pointed out that Kuwaiti officials’ stance is contradictory, explaining that the country believes in hurting the Iraqi people and punishing Iraq for the atrocities committed by Saddam Hussein’s regime. Officials in Kuwait have said no undertaking has been signed pledging that it will not build the port. Reliable sources explained that when the Iraqi delegation visited the country to familiarize themselves with the project, Kuwait assured them that the project will help serve the two countries without affecting navigation in the area.

How far will phase four be affected? Does it mean that the undertaking should be canceled? Phase four concerns increasing the number of berths, depending on the requirement. The blue-print of the fourth phase indicates that it does not extend beyond the Kuwaiti border and will not affect Al-Fao Port which Iraq intends to construct in the future.

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Scandal rocks KAC Resign or be fired, Al-Falah told KUWAIT: Kuwait Airways chief Hamad Al-Falah has been reportedly given an open leave over a scandal in which he was accused of making derogatory remarks against Shiite faithful. Al-Falah admitted lobbying to sack Shiite staff members in Kuwait Airways.

According to the sources, Minister of Electricity and Water, Minister of Communication and acting Minister of Information Salem Al-Othaina summoned KAC President Hamad Al-Falah yesterday and confronted him after listening to a voice recording in which AlFalah made controversial remarks during a meeting with an unidentified person.

Al-Othaina gave Al-Falah two options to resign or be fired. However, HH the Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Sabah has decided to place Al-Falah on an ‘open leave’ until his term expires on September 26, 2011, after which his contract will not be renewed.

Meanwhile, according to Annahar report yesterday, KAC President Al-Falah stated that there are many problems which created a negative impact on the state’s largest corporation, including some conflicts between him and a group of friends, who he Continued on Page 13

Is chocolate good for your heart?

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Gaddafi’s daughter Aisha

Gaddafi family flees to Algeria ALGIERS: Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi’s wife, two sons and a daughter entered Algeria yesterday, the foreign ministry in Algiers announced. “The wife of Gaddafi, Safiya, his daughter Aisha, and sons Hannibal and Mohammed, accompanied by their children, entered Algeria at 08:45 am (0745 GMT) through the Algeria-Libyan border,” the ministry said in a statement published by APS news agency, giving no information on the whereabouts of Gaddafi himself.

“This information has been brought to the attention of the United Nations Secretary General, the security council president and Mahmud Jibril, president of the executive council of the National Transitional Council (NTC),” the interim administrative body set up by the rebels fighting Gaddafi for power in Libya, the ministry statement said.

There was no word on the whereabouts of his other children, including Seif al-Islam, his most prominent son, whom the rebels claimed to have captured, together with Mohammed, earlier this month. Seif alIslam mysteriously resurfaced, free, days later. But Italian news agency ANSA said Gaddafi’s youngest son, Khamis, had “almost certainly” been killed on the way from Tripoli southwards to Bani Walid.

The same source said Gaddafi himself and two of his other sons-Seif al-Islam and former footballer Saadi-were hiding south of Tripoli in the town of Bani Continued on Page 13

Richardson crowned hurdle king

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TUESDAY, AUGUST 30, 2011

local

TRACCS hosts ghabqa for flydubai KUWAIT: The Trans-Arabian Creative Communications Services (TRACCS) hosted a ghabqa at the Marina Hotel on behalf of its client flydubai, which featured a raffle draw on prizes that included tickets to Dubai. The event was attended by representatives from local press and media outlets, in addition to flydubai representatives.

Kuwait Banks Club concludes Ramadan activities KUWAIT: The Kuwait Banks Club concluded activities held for members during Ramadan, which included competitions in billiards, foosball, video games and table tennis, in addition to a Playstation 3 competition held for the first time for children aged six to ten. KBC officials including Deputy CEO Mahmoud Bastaki, treasurer Mohammad Al-Sayegh, assistant director Abbas Al-Blushi and head of the sports committee Khalil Al-Blushi rewarded the finalists.

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Cold starter

Christians and Muslims: Working for mankind’s spiritual dimension

By Jean-Louis Cardinal Tauran, President, Pontifical Council for interreligious dialogue, Vatican City Dear Muslim friends,

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Norwegian Poached Salmon and Black Caviar Ingredients for 4 servings Norwegian Fresh Salmon Black Caviar Asparagus Mango Mix Bell Pepper Canned Peach Mix Lettuce Salt Pepper

200grm 60grm 60grm 50grm 40grm 40grm 50grm 4grm 2grm

Preparation: Boil 5 cups of water add 2 small piece lemon wedge, 6 pieces black pepper whole, 1 shallot onion and 5 grams of salt. After boiling add the fresh salmon from 7 to 8 minutes.

Ingredients for 4 servings Fresh Dill Sauce Fresh Dill Olive Oil Mustard Salt Black Pepper

150grm 4 tablespoon 2 tablespoon 3grm 2grm

To prepare the sauce blend together all the ingredients.

Ingredients for 4 servings Fresh Strawberry Sauce Fresh Strawberry Olive Oil Salt Pepper

100grm 3tablespoon 2grm 1grm

To prepare the sauce blend together all the ingredients.

Arrange all of the ingredients on the plate and serve the rest of the sauce.

Dessert

Confetti Hazelnut Ingredients: (4 servings) 125grm Egg White 25grm Sugar 100grm Almond Powder 100grm Icing Sugar 100grm Hazelnut Powder Preparation: Whisk up egg with caster sugar. Incorporate white almonds/sugar mix powder and mix gently. Bake at 200?C for 5 mins. And then at 160?C for about 15mins. open key and set aside.

Ingredients: 125grm Butter 50grm White Almond Powder 25grm Pistachio Paste 25grm Pure Green Pistachio Paste 75grm Icing Sugar 200grm Whipping Cream 5grm Gelatin Preparation: Mix soften butter, almond powder, pistachio paste and icing sugar. Add kirch and mix with pastry cream.

Ingredients: 100grm Sugar 50grm Water 95grm Honey 110grm Egg White 75grm Nougat (Chopped) 8grm Gelatin 90grm Red Cherry (chopped) 350grm Cream 75grm Chop Pistachio Preparation: Cook at 124?C sugar with water and honey. Add whipped egg whites. Incorporate nougat cream and hydrated and melted gelatin. Mix slowly the cream at 27 degree C.

he end of the month of Ramadan offers the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue a welcome occasion for sending you our most cordial wishes, hoping that the efforts you have so generously made during this month will bring all the desired spiritual fruits.

This year, we have though to give priority to the theme of the spiritual dimension of the human person. This concerns a reality which Christians and Muslims consider to be of prime importance, faced as we are with the challenges of materialism and secularization. The relationship that every person has with the transcendent is not a moment in history, but a part of human nature. We do not believe in fate; we are convinced - moreover it is our experience - that God guides us on our path!

Christians and Muslims, beyond their differences, recognize the dignity of the human person endowed with both rights and duties. They think that intelligence and freedom are indeed gifts

which must impel believers to recognize these values which are shared because they rest on the same human nature.

This is why the transmission of such human and moral values to the younger generations constitute a common concern. It is our duty to help them discover that there is both good and evil, that conscience is a sanctuary to be respected, and that cultivating the spiritual dimension makes us more responsible, more supportive, more available for the common good.

Christians and Muslims are too often witnesses to the violation of the sacred, of the mistrust of which those who call themselves believers are the target. We cannot but denounce all forms of fanaticism and intimidations, the prejudices and the polemics, as well as the discrimination of which, at times, believers are the object both in the social and political life as well as in the mass media. We are spiritually very close to you, dear friends. We ask God to give you renewed spiritual energy and send you our very best wishes for peace and happiness.

Jean-Louis Cardinal Tauran

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TUESDAY, AUGUST 30, 2011

LOCAL

kuwait digest

in my view

No takers for financial disclosure law

Making sense of blocked content

By Dr Masoumah Ibrahim aws help organize the relationship shared between people and their government. The Kuwait Transparency Society (K TS) has charted out several transparency and anti-corruption regulations that provide strict ways of protecting national wealth.

The need to enforce these regulations is more urgent than ever before, given the current circumstances when the government faces challenges in the form of international economic setbacks. Public awareness should be spread on curbing corruption.

While the Kuwaiti government has approved many important laws, it has ignored the most important regulation: the financial disclosure law.

Passing this legislation would necessitate senior state officers including ministers and parliament members to disclose their wealth after assuming their duties. This allows the public, through its official and civil institutions, to place checks and balances on officials. The law, therefore, serves the interests of all the people involved, including state officials. It will protect them from future suspicions.

The government’s action of excluding the financial disclosure law is unjustifiable; especially because it complies with the United Nations Convention Against Corruption. Furthermore, the hesitance in adopting this significant law raises questions about the government’s seriousness on activating effective procedures. It draws concerns about its commitment to boost the integrity of the state’s wealth management and abuse of power.

The government has always been a strong advocate for democracy, and it’s our national duty as a citizen to support that. However, it is hard to understand how the government perceives the contradiction between supporting democracy and the lack of seriousness in adopting fully transparent measures. A democracy that fails to protect the state’s wealth and citizens’ interests transforms into a dictatorship.

Therefore, the government today is responsible for adopting the wealth disclosure law as part of anti-corruption measured. This is because the Anti-corruption Authority that His Highness the Amir called for cannot function properly unless this law is passed. — Al-Qabas

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By Lisa Conrad

lisa@kuwaittimes.net

ensorship in Kuwait is something that rarely comes up in day to day life (depending on your interests) but when it does, it’s almost always in a surreal, strange way. For example, the newest X-Men movie made no sense whatsoever because so many scenes were snipped out. The movie felt more like a guessing game than anything, as we tried to decipher what was going on and it was genuinely odd when the credits started rolling and key details still weren’t fitting together properly.

Entire scenes being cut are, at least, quite obvious for the viewer, so it’s clear that something was removed. The problem is when single lines or phrases have been cut. Suddenly an entire scene is thrown off balance and trying to figure out why one character is now attacking another is next to impossible to understand. I understand the censorship, but

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kuwait digest

Where are we heading to?

By A Aziz Al-Anjari f a CEO is appointed with one of the companies, it is only natural that it is part of his job profile to create an annual report. If there are some obstacles present, it will be mentioned in the report. If it is approved by the board of directors, it will be sent to the member of the General Assembly. If a financial report is not submitted and the CEO remains silent, a number of steps will be taken - freezing the company’s shares in the stock market and other penalties will be levied.

I am not criticizing anyone, but I am a member of the Kuwait General Assembly and I have not received from you, HH the prime minister cum CEO, any report on where we are headed to. If a private company that owns millions is taken to task, why aren’t you, the head of a country’s economic future not held accountable?

No one accept insults, and no one dares say

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that he enjoys the blame that others’ place. Your silence toward those who oppose you harshly should be interpreted as being an etiquette. What has been said will not prevent us from wondering until when your silence towards what the aid about your government will remain? Isn’t it better to acknowledge the pitfalls by holding others accountable, or resign if you are convinced that you have weaknesses?

During your tenure, the private sector’s wings were clipped, after going through a painful period of stagnation. There have been accusations about money laundering and nepotism.

For more than five years, we have been waiting to receive your annual report. If we have no right to question the authority of the Chairman, but we exercise the right to ask you. Where are we heading to?

Eid Mubarak!

kuwait digest

The real problem with bribes

By Ali Khajah news report published by Al-Qabas daily regarding a suspicious KD25 million deposit in two lawmakers’ bank accounts, has become the talk of the town, and drawn concerns about the integrity of the banking sector.

Since the news emerged, people have been wondering about the MPs who collected the alleged bribes, while anger has been spreading with demands for resignation from both the Parliament and Cabinet. People justify their anger by insisting that buying the allegiance of their representatives is unacceptable.

Though this resentment is understandable, it certainly is illogical and in fact reflects a hypocritical standpoint expressed by the public. After all, how many of us voted for a certain candidate who can help him get privileges such as appointments, allowances and treatment trips through ‘wasta’?

Let’s ask ourselves another question: How many of us know of a parliament member who can pass illegal transactions, or mediate to pass a legal one before other transactions ahead in line? How many of us have used the help of such MPs or at least recommended them to our friends and relatives? Why is it that all MPs, whether oppositionists or pro-government, are always active in helping citizens finalize transactions through illegal means? What do they benefit from it?

The point I’m trying to make is that when we vote for a candidate who can help us get a privilege that we don’t deserve, this makes corruption worse. When we fail to act while realizing that more than one third of the legislative authority members don’t hesitate to go above the law, this puts us on top of the list of corrupt people.

Everything comes at a price. When lawmakers are given the license to be corrupt, the cost for that will be taken from our wealth, or the wealth of the future generations. The current outcry over the alleged KD25 million bribes is form of expressing discontent with the huge number involved; nothing more, nothing less. But we ignore that fact, and pretend that we are angry over the aspect of buying lawmakers’ allegiances, when we were the first to do so. AlQabas’s report didn’t give anything new; just an overdose of existing corruption. —Al-Jarida

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‘Technology effortlessly surpasses the attempts of censorship on a day to day basis as loop holes expand into loop canyons, so it does seem quite odd that censorship is still attempting to reign in control over something that is so clearly uncontrollable.’ it really does make you spend more time deciphering than enjoying sometimes. If code breaking is your cup of tea, then you’ll certainly enjoy it.

The Internet censorship, however, truly confounds me. A few days ago, I was looking over a design blog trying to get interesting ideas for furnishing. The blog was really creative, interesting and provided a lot of inspiration. However, when I clicked to scroll onto the next page, the ‘blocked content’ page popped up. For an interior design blog? As much as I try I can’t come up with the link, what possible similarity or innuendo could interior design share with topics or content that require censorship? The worst part, however, wasn’t missing out on the design tips. It was that I was at a busy cafe when the infamous ‘Blocked Content ’ screen came up.

Perfect.

The censorship is understandable given the laws in Kuwait, but there is no way that it can ever be successful in filtering out targeted taboos. Technology effortlessly surpasses the attempts of censorship on a day to day basis as loop holes expand into loop canyons, so it does seem quite odd that censorship is still attempting to reign in control over something that is so clearly uncontrollable. I t seems unrealistic and, more impor tantly, inconvenient when you’re attempting to access perfectly innocent websites.

KUWAIT: A resident of Kuwait is changing a tire in the heart of the city midday.

—Photo by Yasser Al-Zayyat

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Hurricane puts spanner in US travelers’ plans No changes in flights to New York

By Nawara Fattahova KUWAIT: After Hurricane Irene hit New York City, news spread about all the major airports in New York being closed, flights being canceled and passengers being stranded or having to reconsider other options.

Despite this, there is a contradiction in news reports, as many relatives of passengers said that their family members were stranded in the JFK Airport for several days, while the travel agents in Kuwait ensured that all the flights are right on schedule.

The United States is one of the favorite destinations for Kuwait and GCC tourists.

Many Kuwaitis were planning to spend the

Eid holiday there, and the hurricane put a spanner in the works.

“All the main airlines kept their schedule the same without any changes. Kuwait Airways, Qatar Airways, Emirates Airlines and Etihad Airways flew to their destinations as usual” the reservation staff from the Vila Travel Agency told the Kuwait Times yesterday.

This unexpected situation didn’t make passengers from Kuwait change their mind and cancel their trip to New York though.

“None of the passengers who booked their flight to New York have canceled their trip.

And none of the air carriers from Kuwait, Qatar, or Emirates have changed their flights

to New York,” agreed Mohamed from the Bahman Travel Agency.

On the other hand, a member of an Indian family residing in Kuwait reported that her parents were stranded in New York for three nights as their flight was canceled. “My parents couldn’t fly from New York to Minneapolis because of the bad weather conditions and had to check in to a motel while their luggage was held up at the JFK Airport”.

She said that there was no guarantee that they would be able to board their flight even after the airport reopened since the authorities said that there was a massive backlog of people on the list they had to give first preference to.

MEW honors NBK KUWAIT: Ministry of Electricity and Water has honored National Bank of Kuwait (NBK) recently for its contribution in raising people’s awareness and promoting best practice efforts to reduce energy consumption through its energy conservation awareness campaign tagged “Put your energy into Saving Energy”.

NBK Public Relations Officer Yaqoub Al Baqer has received the honoring trophy from Ministry of Electricity and Water representative; Director of Technical Control and Chief of Union Banks Eng. Eqbal Al Tayyar who thanked NBK for its efforts and support with the ongoing nationwide electricity rationalization campaign.

Al Baqer said: “This new initiative is part of the ‘Think Twice’ environmental campaign NBK launched four years ago. NBK’s management has decided to stringently apply an all-inclusive rationalization of electricity consumption throughout all NBK’s premises and local branch network, particularly during evening shifts, adding that in concordance with these measures, NBK is in the process of launching an in-house and fully fledged awareness raising campaign to educate the Bank’s employees on the best methods and behaviors of rationalizing the consumption of electricity and water in both work places and houses”.

“NBK’s new in-house initiative is another testament of the important role played by the private sector institutions and organizations in respect of proactive involvement

KUWAIT: Yaqoub Al Baqer receives the honoring trophy on behalf of NBK from Eng. Eqbal Al Tayyar and Ministry of Electricity and Water representatives with the emerging crisis and challenges encountered by the society. By this new initiative, which is the natural outcome of NBK’s profound belief in its corporate social citizenship and the importance of social

constructive involvement and participation, the Bank is also setting forth a good example of corporate social responsibility for other public and private institutions and sectors,” Al Baqer concluded.

KUWAIT: His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah received at Seif Palace yesterday producer and director Walid Al-Awadhi and actor Saad Al-Faraj, who presented HH a copy of their film titled (Tora Bora). —KUNA

Taxes inapplicable for next 20 years KUWAIT: The top economic committee that consists of an elite team of experts who study ways to protect the national economy is taking into consideration enforcing taxes as an option to diversify sources of income.

Simultaneously, the committee didn’t overrule the idea that such conditions cannot be adopted in Kuwait within the next 20 to 25 years.

This estimation is given by committee insiders as they commented on the public objection to the notion of enforcing income taxes or valueadded taxes.

“The economic committee is consultative, which means that its job is to draw a roadmap for the future of the country’s economy while leaving the option open for the Cabinet and Parliament to follow it”, the sources said, reiterating assurances made by His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah when he chaired the committee’s first meeting, that a taxation law would not cover people with limited income.

And while criticizing the public outrage against the possibility of enforcing taxes “when subcommittees are yet to start meetings”, the sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity admitted that taxes must be enforced sooner or later, but

is inapplicable right now. “The subject might require 20 to 25 years before it is settled due to legislative, social and media demands required to prepare the suitable environment for a taxation law to be enforced”, the sources said, explaining that the project needs human resources in addition to effor ts to increase social awareness about the importance of taxes in diversifying national income.

Despite assurances that people with limited income will not be affected by taxations, the majority of those who rejected this notion when it first appeared in the press were people with limited pay.

“Whenever taxes are mentioned, people with limited income are the first to voice their objection despite the fact that the state would never enforce a taxation law by which they would be directly affected”, said the sources. Furthermore, the sources explain that the plan call for enforcing income taxes on companies only, and even if a value added tax is applied in the future, it would only cover accessories or international trademark brands. “For example, VAT will not be enforced on children’s clothes, but on international brands of jewelry and accessories”, they added. — Al-Rai

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Ministry denies report on MPs’ mediation in traffickers’ release Police prepare for bedoon protest KUWAIT: The Ministry of Interior strongly rejected news alleging that parliament members mediated the release of drug traffickers caught recently with large amounts of drugs brought from a neighboring country.

“Such practices cannot happen given the strict procedures that personnel of the Drug Control General Department are following to tackle drug smugglers and traffickers and protect the country from this destructive problem”, read an official statement from the ministry’s security media department which insists on the DCGD’s commitment to bring suspects in drug related cases to accountability. Al-Qabas daily report yesterday quoting a senior DCGD official, hints that a group of suspects were arrested last month after they

brought a large shipment of drugs from a neighboring country. The source who spoke anonymously added that intervention of MPs who tried to mediate in favor of the drug traffickers before they are put on trial, prevented the case from being brought to the local media’s attention. The same source also notes that cases in which lawmakers are mediating for drug traffickers have been increasing, which he says “helped drug trade to flourish despite the ministry’s efforts to tackle this problem”.

According to official statistics, 34 people have died in Kuwait this year as a result of a fatal drug overdose and 41 people died in 2010. Statistics also indicate that drug addicts in Kuwait increased in recent years to reach

nearly 20,000 according to most recent estimates.

In the meantime, security officers were given orders to take precautionary measures to handle a potential demonstration that stateless residents called to hold after the Eid Al-Fitr prayer on the morning of the first day of the Muslim holiday, which is today.

According to a news report, Ministry of Interior’s Undersecretary Assistant for Special Security Affairs Lieutenant General Sulaiman Al-Fahad gave instructions to security personnel to raise alarm levels in areas with a large community of bedoon residents. They are expected to hold a demonstration which activists highlighted on Facebook and Twitter. — Al-Qabas

Indian arrested for drugs

By Hanan Al-Saadoun KUWAIT: Narcotics officials arrested an Indian driver who works for a Kuwaiti family for possessing heroin and drugs with the intention of selling. Information was received by the narcotics department about the Indian expat trading in drugs. A team was formed to investigate information and upon confirmation, his room was raided and they found 100 pills and about 150 grams of heroin. He confessed that he dealt with drugs near the central market for some extra money without the knowledge of his sponsor. He was referred to concerned authorities.

Lebanese injured A car accident occurred at Independence Street opposite Fatima Complex. The accident

The arrested drug peddler.

Attempted assault on maid KUWAIT: An Asian who was in an inebriated state tried to assault his brothers’ maid. When the woman tried to escape, he tried to chase her, only to be arrested by police. His brothers did not use force because he was clearly inebriated. He was admitted to Jahra police station.

Teenager raped Two Arab youngsters kidnapped their 15-year-old Asian friend who accompanied him to Khaitan Mall. He was, however, taken to a remote area and repeatedly raped. Although the victim tried to resist, the duo overpowered him and raped him. The victim’s father approached the Khaitan police station and lodged a complaint. The two were arrested and referred to the

Juvenile Department.

Death threats A GCC citizen lodged a complaint against a compatriot for issuing death threats against him. An official said Sulaibiya police arrested the man, and learnt that he was unemployed. A source said that when he probed the reason behind the threat, he denied it.

Reportedly, the plaintiff deducted KD 150 from the purchase of a car they had bought together. Investigations into the case are underway.

Case of drug abuse A young man was referred to the General Department for Drug Control after he was caught abusing drugs at his Rumaithiya home.

resulted in a 42-year-old Lebanese expat’s fracture coupled with other injuries. He was taken to Al-Amiri Hospital. A car accident took place at the 5th Ring Road towards Salmiya before Al-Raqie bridge. A 24-year-old Kuwaiti man was left with a broken foot and was taken to Farwaniya Hospital. Another car accident occurred at Al-Shaab, near Al-Shaab traffic light. A 16-year-old Kuwaiti man suffered an injured back and was taken to Amiri Hospital. A 32-year-old Egyptian expat was trying to cross the street in Hawalli near AlKurd square when a passing car hit him resulting in injuries. He was taken to Mubarak Hospital.

Meanwhile, a fight broke out at Al-Dhajeej and resulted in different injuries to a 31-yearold Kuwaiti man. He was taken to AlFarwaniya Hospital.

Kuwait Towers, Khairan Resort celebrate Eid KUWAIT: The Kuwait Towers and Khairan Resort are ready to offer visitors a special experience during the Eid Al-Fitr holidays, a senior official from the Touristic Enterprises Company said.

“The Kuwait Towers administration prepared special reception programs for visitors throughout the day during the holiday ”, said Deputy Managing Director for Touristic Affairs Meshary Al-San’ousy, who said that the facilities’ restaurants are ready to serve lunch

Diving community unites to preserve marine environment KUWAIT: The picturesque coral reefs of the Arabian Gulf and its associated mangrove and sea grass habitats, are home to 13 of the world’s whale and dolphin species, several kinds of turtles, and hundreds of kinds of tropical fish.

Providing food and shelter for a diverse range of marine species, many of which are endangered, the reefs play important ecological, economic and recreational roles, protecting coastal areas from storm surge, preventing coastal erosion and supporting commercial fishing, as well as hosting an array of recreational activities becoming increasingly popular with residents and tourists alike.

However, the health of coral reefs has dropped over recent years.

Throughout the tropical and subtropical world, some 27 percent of coral reefs are already degraded and probably permanently lost.

Unfortunately, the Arabian Gulf appears to be one of the areas most severely affected. According to recent estimates, up to 35 percent of the region’s coral reefs may have been already lost; figures that disturbed the Dubai-based Emirates Diving Association (EDA). So much so, that they decided to do something about it. The EDA, a non-profit group comprised of volunteers, was founded in 1995 to conserve, protect and restore the UAE’s marine resources. EDA is accredited by UNEP as an International

Environmental Organisation.

Ibrahim Al Zu’bi, executive director of the association, is spearheading a research project that he hopes will make a difference, “The coral reefs of the UAE are unique and home to the UNESCO protected Marawah Marine area but it is a sad fact that this beautiful environment is literally flailing before our eyes and it is our responsibility to intervene”, he said.

The EDA is pinning its intervention hopes on an intensive reef check programme. Al Zu’bi, continued, “A comprehensive reef check is the first step to understanding the best ways to protect these at risk areas. It was very frustrating this time last year; we had plans in place and the passion and conviction to execute them, but we were lacking in funding, which is when we applied to the Ford Grants”. The Ford Motor Company Conservation and Environmental Grants is supported by UNESCO, and helps to support individuals and non-profit organizations that are working towards preserving the environment.

Larry Prein, managing director of Ford Middle East commented, “Without the work of non-profit organisations such as the EDA, many of the region’s natural wonders would remain hidden, unprotected and in danger of destruction.

We are delighted to be able to make a difference as we recognise such

groups and help further their initiatives.”

Al Zu’bi explains, “The rationale behind the reef check is that the better we understand our coral reefs and the numerous threats to its survival, the better we can act to conserve and restore it. A reef check is the easiest way to collect data concerning fish, corals and invertebrates that is relevant and useful to eco-managers”. Monthly data reports are currently being compiled by the EDA’s voluntary network, which will culminate in an annual report to be submitted to the Reef Check Foundation Headquarters for inclusion in the global database to understand and protect the world’s reefs.

With the Ford Grants helping to fund the project, the EDA has been moved by the sense of unity demonstrated by the local diving community; “The Ford Grants has helped us to fund training for dozens of volunteers from all walks of life and nationalities, all of whom just want to do their part to help preserve this incredible underwater landscape. Diving schools across the UAE have also pledged their support to provide facilities”, said Al Zu’bi. “The coral reefs of the UAE will do that to you; they are majestically beautiful, yet divers immediately appreciate the reefs’ vulnerability.

Once people see these reefs, they just want to protect them”.

The grant for EDA is one of many endowments that the Ford Motor Company Conser vation and Environmental Grants confer every year to empower individuals and non-profit organisations that are working towards preserving the environment. Since the year 2000, Ford has awarded more than $2,000,000 in grants to over 300 projects around the world.

In the GCC and the Levant, more than 130 projects have received $1,100,000 to date. The grant is reserved for those that really need it, to encourage grass-root level environmental projects that display the kind of dedication, practicality and originality required to make a necessary impact on the environment and its inhabitants.

and dinner buffets during the Eid, as well as take outside orders.

Al-San’ousy noted that Meshary Al-San’ousy the Khairan Resort prepares to host an entertaining program during the Eid, which includes special activities for children.

Kuwaiti pianist Lulwa Al-Shamlan

Nine-year-old Kuwaiti pianist enthralls experts worldwide KUWAIT: Arab and European musicians are enchanted by the magical performance of nine-year-old Kuwaiti pianist Lulwa Al-Shamlan.

Lulwa won a number of prizes in and outside Kuwait at a very young age, Lulwa’s father told KUNA. While competing in one of the tournaments, a Russian pianist, in his 30s, said that he first heard of Kuwait thanks to the young talented Lulwa.

Despite her peaceful nature, Lulwa’s cry for recognition was clear enough to earn her the respect of experts locally and internationally, her father said. He added that, she would also help her mother in teaching piano to beginners.

Having the ability to face crowds in live performances accounted for her success in a way, her mother Ofelia said.

Judges would compliment her ability to master hard pieces composed by pioneer pianists such as Chopin and Heyden at a young age, she added.

They would also note her ability to compose new pieces during competitions, as she (Lulwa) showed utter creativity, Ofelia noted.

It seemed that Lulwa, whose first concert was held at the age of five, had set a goal for herself to take part in prestigious concerts worldwide, she said.

The three-and-a-half hours of training paid well in 2008 as she was admitted into Wells Cathedral School, one of UK’s prestigious musical schools, she said.

Lulwa studied there for a year; nevertheless, was forced into leaving the school due to lack of resources, she said.

Since then, Lulwa was receiving finan-

cial support from Loyac - a center established to support youth -, the private sector and Kuwait’s National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters, she added.

Thanks to the financial support she received, Lulwa was back as a part-time student where she traveled to the UK every month where she receives instructions from music professors, Ofelia pointed out.

Lulwa’s professors shared their belief in the child’s promising talent and success, she said.

As for the prizes she won, Ofelia said that her daughter won first prize in Kuwait’s 5th International Chopin Competition in March 2010, along with winning an award for “Best Kuwaiti Pianist” in her group.

This was followed by securing second place in the 1st Gulf International Chopin Competition with competitors “up to 12 years of age,” she added.

Her first Arab competition came in July 2010, when she won third place in the 3rd Solhi Al Wadi International Piano Competition in Syria, she said.

She noted to the fact that the competition was grouping 51 participants, representing 15 countries “with Lulwa being the only Kuwaiti participant.” The year 2011 witnessed Lulwa’s success in winning first place in duet performance, as well as second place in her solo performance during Merignac Piano open, an international piano competition in France. Lulwa’s latest achievement was seen in June 2011, when she won third place in Concorso Argento International Piano Competition in Italy. — KUNA

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Japan’s finance minister to become latest PM

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Mosque attack kills MP, 29 others Nationwide violence leaves 35 dead BAGHDAD: Men gathered yesterday at Baghdad’s biggest Sunni mosque for the funeral of one of at least 28 people, including a lawmaker, killed in a suicide attack that has been blamed on Al-Qaeda. The blast was part of nationwide violence that left 35 dead on Sunday, just days before the conclusion of the holy fasting month of Ramadan and the Eid Al-Fitr festival that marks its end. An interior ministry official said 28 people were killed and 37 wounded in the attack late on Sunday. A defense ministry official yesterday put the toll at 30 dead and 34 wounded.

The suicide blast was quickly condemned by Prime Minister Nuri AlMaliki and parliament speaker Osama Al-Nujaifi. Among the dead were Khaled Al-Fahdawi, an MP from western Anbar province allied with the Sunni-backed Iraqiya bloc, the interior ministry official said. Elderly men and children were also among the casualties.

About 40 men gathered yesterday in a garden near the mosque to pray over the body of Abdel-Rizzak Mohsen Al-Samarrai, a staff member of the Sunni Endowment, which is responsible for Sunni Muslim religious sites across Iraq and is based at the blue -domed Umm Al-Qura mosque in west Baghdad that was targeted. His body, which was placed in an Iraqi flag-draped coffin, was then taken for burial.

Blood stained the walls inside the

mosque, while what appeared to be pieces of flesh, ceramic tiles, broken chairs and blood-soaked blankets used to carry the wounded were scattered across floor. Baghdad security spokesman Qassim Atta and Ahmed Abdulghafur al-Samarrai, the head of Umm Al-Qura and one of the founders of an anti-Qaeda militia force comprised of Sunni tribesmen in Baghdad, pointed the finger at AlQaeda.

“It is 100 percent certain that AlQaeda is behind this attack,” Atta told AFP yesterday. He added that the bomber “blew himself up in the middle of the people in the mosque to try to get the maximum number of casualties.” Samarrai, meanwhile, told AlSharqiyah television: “I am sure AlQaeda was behind this attack... We will continue our fight against those criminals and unbelievers. They tried to drag the country into sectarian war before.”

He said he had seen the attacker before at the mosque, describing him as an elderly visitor and adding: “That is why it was so easy for him to enter the mosque.” The suicide bomber walked up to a crowd, covered in bandages, as the mosque chief was giving a speech and detonated his explosives, according to Samarrai.

The death toll from the attack was the highest since August 15, when twin blasts in the southern city of Kut, also blamed on Al-Qaeda, killed 40 people. Samarrai is known for his ser-

mons against violent extremism. He was one of the founders of the Sahwa, or Awakening, movement in the mostly Sunni nor th Baghdad neighbourhood of Adhamiyah.

The Sahwa are comprised of Sunni tribesmen who joined forces with the US military against Al-Qaeda from late 2006, helping turn the tide of the insurgency. As a result, Sahwa fighters are despised by Al-Qaeda insurgents, and Samarrai has received several threats against his life. In addition to the Umm Al-Qura attack, separate bomb and gun attacks around Iraq on Sunday killed seven other people, among them three policemen, and left 26 others wounded, according to security officials. Meanwhile, gunmen using silenced weapons yesterday morning killed two police and one Sahwa member and wounded another policeman in an attack on a checkpoint in Baquba, north of Baghdad, a colonel in the Baquba operations command said.

And a roadside bomb in Zafraniyah in central Baghdad wounded one civilian, while another bomb in the same area targeted a police patrol, wounding three policemen and one civilian, an interior ministry official said. The violence comes after AlQaeda’s front group in Iraq threatened a campaign of 100 attacks, starting in mid-August, to avenge the death of Osama bin Laden in a US special BAGHDAD: Sheik Ahmed Abdul Gafur Al-Samarraie, center, the head of the Sunni Endowment, and others forces raid in Pakistan in May. — AFP pray at the funeral of Assad Abdul-Razaq at Um Al-Qura mosque in Baghdad, Iraq yesterday. —AP

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Calls to raise Israel-Egypt treaty troop limits JERUSALEM: A deadly attack on Israel from Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula has sparked calls to raise the number of Egyptian troops allowed in the area under the historic peace treaty with Israel, to counter a surge in Islamist militant activity. But some in Israel, afraid the recent revolt in Egypt might lead to the collapse of the pact, are wary of altering it in any way. Israel says Palestinian militants crossed from Gaza into Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, made their way along the Israel-Egypt border, crossed back into Israel, attacked Israeli vehicles and killed eight people on Aug 18.

The assault underscored the increasingly lawless situation in Sinai, where weak policing and difficult terrain may be letting it turn into the latest focus of Islamic militant activity in the region. A new attack alert led to the deployment of additional Israeli troops along the border, the military said yesterday. Israel’s insistence that the peninsula be significantly demilitarized was a key aspect of the 1979 accord between Israel and Egypt. The stipulation, essential for reassuring Israel back then, reflected skepticism that Egypt would remain eternally friendly.

Today, however, this provision makes it difficult for Israel itself to demand the Egyptians do a better job of policing the vast desert triangle that separates Asia from Africa. “Israel is sit-

ting on a time bomb,” said counterterrorism expert Boaz Ganor. “The fact that the peace border between Israel and Sinai ... is no longer a peace frontier requires Israel to regroup.” In the aftermath of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s fall earlier this year, Israel permitted Egypt to send in more troops than the 750 allowed under the treaty. Egyptian security officials said about 10,000 troops are already present in the 23,000 square mile (60,000 square kilometer) territory, and about 4,000 are posted along the Israeli border. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters.

Calls are mounting for permitting far greater numbers - if not totally freeing Egypt from any need to get Israel’s permission, which the Egyptian public had always considered an affront to its national pride and sovereignty. The matter generated discussion in the region over the weekend. In an interview with Dubai-based Al-Arabiya TV, Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby, a former Egyptian foreign minister, said the treaty with Israel was not sacrosanct, and provisions could be revisited including the limitations on troops.

On Sunday, a senior Israeli official said Israel should consider revising the provisions of the peace treaty to allow Cairo to deploy more troops. Many Israelis are leery, though, fearful that the Muslim Brotherhood that inspired

Gaza’s Islamic militant Hamas rulers could gain influence in Egypt after an election later this year, and that the peace treaty with Egypt would ultimately fall apart. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seemed cool to the idea in comments attributed to him Sunday.

“I am against the idea of changing the peace treaty,” a government official quoted Netanyahu as telling members of his ruling Likud Party. The prime minister also said if changes are proposed, he would bring them before a Cabinet body for approval. The 1979 peace accord - the first between Israel and an Arab nation - is one of the few achievements of decades of Mideast peace efforts. As part of that deal, Israel returned the Sinai, captured from Egypt in the 1967 Mideast war. That was a major strategic gain for Egypt, not only undoing a humiliating territorial loss but also restoring to Egypt total command over the Suez Canal, allowing it to reopen for global shipping.

In 1967, Egypt menacingly beefed up troops in the Sinai and used its control of the tip of the peninsula to close the Straits of Tiran, cutting off shipping to Israel from the south - and leading Israel to attack. In 1973, Egypt attacked, and the Sinai was the scene of bloody tank battles. Such scenarios seem a world away from the reality that has prevailed since the peace

treaty. Israel has kept few troops along that border. There was almost no military on the other side, the peninsula is sparsely populated, and the frontier was quiet for decades.

The bloody Aug. 18 attack shattered any sense of calm. The brazen attack on Israel and the deaths of several Egyptian police during the firefight strained relations between Israel and Egypt, prompting officials to examine security measures already being beefed up. Israel is speeding up construction of a fence along the 150-mile (230-kilometer) frontier, and Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Sunday it would be completed within a year or so. Additional visual and electronic intelligence-gathering devices have been put in place. The military has deployed hundreds more troops along the border, including elite forces, defense officials said.

Critics say the cross-border attack should have come as no surprise. In recent years, tens of thousands of illegal African migrants have shown how easy it is to sneak into the country over the porous frontier with Egypt. Further evidence comes from the thriving weapons and goods-smuggling trade Palestinian militants have set up with Sinai Bedouin to dodge the Israeli blockade of Gaza. The mountainous desert now harbors an array of militant groups, including Palestinian extremists and al-Qaida-inspired jihadists,

Egyptian and Israeli security officials say. In recent years radical factions, some of them Palestinian, attacked popular Sinai beach resorts, killing more than 120 people between 2004 and 2006. In 2007 and 2008, Palestinian militants attacked Israel twice from Sinai. In 2009, Egyptian authorities said they had uncovered a conspiracy by Lebanon’s Hezbollah guerrilla group to attack Sinai tourist sites. Since Mubarak’s fall, and despite the infusion of more troops, militants have repeatedly attacked Egyptian police facilities and a natural gas pipeline that supplies Israel and Jordan. Islamic radicals who fled Egyptian prisons during the chaos surrounding the revolution sought asylum in Sinai, hooking up with radical groups that already had built strongholds there.

All this places Israel in a very sensitive position regarding the Sinai, said Ely Karmon, senior research scholar at the Institute for Counter-Terrorism at the Interdisciplinary Center near Tel Aviv. “On the one hand, Israel has to operate resolutely against terror groups and rocket fire. It also has to ... cooperate with Egypt to prevent Sinai from becoming a center of global terror, and terror against Israel,” Karmon said. “I hope the introduction of forces into Sinai won’t become a security threat to Israel in the future. That is the risk Israel is taking.”— AFP

Lockerbie bomber in coma, nears death Calls for Al-Megrahi returned to prison increase

TRIPOLI: Mabrouk Kolu Maqmagny Hsalah looks out of a wondow at the high security wing of Tripoli Psychiatric hospital on Sunday. —AFP

Kafkaesque hell at Tripoli high-security psychiatric ward TRIPOLI: “I want to leave,” said the blind man, alone in Tripoli psychiatric hospital’s high-security ward since Muammar Gaddafi freed the other criminally insane to sow counter-revolutionary chaos. But soft-spoken Mabrouk Kolu Maqmagny Hsalah, 52, is neither insane nor dangerous. He is simply trapped in a Kafkaesque nightmare by Libya’s outdated 1951 mental health law and his family’s refusal to come and collect him.

“I was locked up on November 15, 2004,” the white-bearded Hsalah said firmly and in perfect English. “I have money and I want to go. This is a place for criminals.” Deemed mentally ill after allegedly burning his brother to death seven years ago, he is now better and a court acting on medical advice ordered him freed before the revolt against Gaddafi ‘s four-decade rule erupted in February. Despite the revolution, the 60year-old law that says his relatives must come and collect Hsalah in order for him to go free still stands and his family still considers him a pariah because of what he did.

While hospital staff are the first to admit that the law is outdated, the law is the law, and they fear they will go to prison if they break it. “We need a new law,” said a doctor who asked not to be named. Hsalah’s beard is matched by his white eyes, from when he went blind through untreated glaucoma four years ago. He sat on a sheetless bed in a large room with several other now-empty beds and two small iron-barred windows.

Apparently initially thinking that our unannounced visit was to move him to another hospital, Hsalah said in Arabic that he did not want to go “because I’ve

memorized this place, I know where the toilet and the shower is.” The former English teacher is peaceful and talkativein fluent Arabic, English and Finnish, after spending 10 years in the Nordic nation.

He shook an AFP correspondent’s hand warmly and said he would like to meet more journalists.

He comes from Bakki oasis, 1,000 kilometres (over 600 miles) south of Tripoli, insists he did not kill his brother and that he was made blind by “injections”. Asked whether he knows that Gaddafi has fallen, he rattled off a detailed and accurate account of the six-month revolution, right up to Tuesday’s bloody climactic assault on the leader’s Bab Al-Aziziya Tripoli compound. A doctor explained the painful irony of how Hsalah remains locked up, while the dozens of criminally insane previously sharing his ward were released on Gaddafi ‘s orders because their families turned up to collect them.

“That was around 35 people. They had committed crimes, including murder, they have psychosis, they’re schizophrenic,” he said. “We don’t know how to get them back, their families came to get them and now they’re all over the country.” The high-security section for criminal patients has two wings: one for political patients “who spoke against Gaddafi “ and another for the criminally insane.

Patients in the political wing were put there by Gaddafi ‘s feared internal security apparatus, which had its own doctors.

“The hospital would send a periodic report to internal security and they would decide to free them or not.” The political wing was guarded by armed internal security agents, but the doctor denied that the hospital was used as a repository for political prisoners.— AFP

Austria to send 160 troops to UN’s Lebanon mission VIENNA: Austria will send 160 peacekeeping troops to Lebanon as part of the United Nations’ mission there in October and November, Defence Minister Norbert Darabos said yesterday. The troops were due to help with supply logistics for the UNIFIL mission and would be deployed until the end of 2012, he told a press conference.

The decision must still be formally approved by parliament, but has the backing of the two ruling parties, the Social Democrats and conservative People’s Party, according to Darabos.

The minister announced last month that Vienna was considering sending troops

following a UN request. A first commando will be sent in late October and the contingent will be fully operational by the end of November, he said yesterday.

The Austrian troops will be stationed in Naqoura, in southwest Lebanon, near the Israeli border, he added. Austria already has a presence in the Middle East with nearly 400 soldiers participating in a UN mission in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. The UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), founded in 1978, counts some 12,000 troops from 35 countries and is tasked with overseeing a fragile peace along Lebanon’s southern border with Israel.—AFP

TRIPOLI: The Libyan man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing is in a coma and near death, his brother said yesterday, insisting he should not return to prison for the 1998 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, which killed 270 people. Calls that Abdel Baset AlMegrahi be returned to prison have increased in the US and Europe since rebel forces seized Tripoli last week. “He is between life and death, so what difference would prison make?” said his brother, Abdel-Nasser AlMegrahi, standing outside the family ’s house in an upscale Tripoli neighborhood.

Abdel Baset Al-Megrahi, who was convicted for the bombing in 2001, was freed from a Scottish jail on compassionate grounds in August 2009, after doctors estimated he had three months to live. He was greeted as a hero in Libya and appeared on TV in a wheelchair at a pro-Gaddafi rally.

His release, after serving eight years of a life sentence, infuriated the families of many Lockerbie victims, most of whom were American. Some critics of his release have long suspected it was motivated by Britain’s attempts to improve relations with oil-rich Libya. Two New York senators recently asked Libya’s transitional government to hold Al-Megrahi fully accountable for the Pan Am bombing. Under the terms of his release, the bomber was ordered to live at his home and provide a monthly medical report.

Yesterday, Scottish officials overseeing his parole said they had been in contact with his family, with the government saying in a statement that his “medical condition is consistent with someone suffering from terminal prostate cancer.” Yesterday, rebel Justice Minister Mohammed al-

TRIPOLI: A photo taken on September 9, 2009, shows freed Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet Al-Megrahi at a hospital in Tripoli. —AFP Alagi said there was no legal case he said, adding that he occasionfor al-Megrahi to be charged or ally awakes for a few minutes and deported to the West. But he also asks for his mother. “He doesn’t said the rebel government would move, not even in his bed.” He discuss all such issue with con- said his brother’s health required cerned governments once a dem- him to stay at home. “It is natural for him to be with his family and ocratic assembly was in place.

Abdel-Nasser Al-Megrahi, his mother,” he said. “Anyone, though, said his brother can bare- either Libyan or Scottish, would ly communicate. “He’s in a coma,” have mercy.” Little was known

about Al-Megrahi. At his trial, he was described as the “airport security” chief for Libyan intelligence, and witnesses reported him negotiating deals to buy equipment for Libya’s secret service and military.

But he became a central figure - some would say pawn - in both Libya’s falling out with the West and then its re-emergence from the cold. To Libyans, he was a folk hero, an innocent scapegoat used by the West to turn their country into a pariah - whose handover to Scotland in 1999 was seen as a necessary sacrifice to restore Libya’s relations with the world. In the months ahead of his release, Tripoli put enormous pressure on Britain, warning that if the ailing Al-Megrahi died in a Scottish prison, all British commercial activity in Libya would be cut off and a wave of demonstrations would erupt outside British embassies, according to leaked US diplomatic memos. The Libyans even implied “that the welfare of U.K. diplomats and citizens in Libya would be at risk,” the memos say.

But in the eyes of many Americans and Europeans, he was the foot-soldier carrying out orders from Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s regime. Tony Blair, Britain’s prime minister at the time of the conviction, said the verdict “confirms our longstanding suspicion that Libya instigated the Lockerbie bombing.”

The bombing that blew up Pan Am Flight 103 on Dec. 21, 1988, over Lockerbie, Scotland was one of the deadliest terror attacks in modern history. The flight was heading to New York from London’s Heathrow airport and many of the victims were American college students flying home to for Christmas.— AP

Saudi says it remains target for eterrorism’ RIYADH: Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz said in comments published yesterday that terrorism remains a threat for the Sunni Gulf kingdom and accused Shiite Iran of targeting it. “We will continue to be a target for terrorists, who will continue attempting to attack us, supported by other parties,’ Al-Eqtissadiya newspaper quoted Prince Nayef as saying. ‘Evil surrounds us from all sides,’ he said, citing unrest in neighboring Iraq and Yemen, as well as ìIran and its targeting of the kingdom.’ He did not elaborate. Saudi Arabia witnessed a wave of deadly attacks by Al-Qaeda between 2003 and 2006, which prompted a security force crackdown on the local branch of the jihadist network founded by Saudi-born Osama bin Laden. Al-Qaeda remains very active in neighbouring Yemen, where the Saudi and Yemeni franchises of AlQaeda joined forces under the banner of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

A suicide bomber from the group blew himself up in August 2009 in an abortive attempt on the life of Prince Nayefís son, Prince Mohammed, who leads the campaign against Islamist militants in the kingdom. Tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia rose sharply in March when Saudi troops intervened in Bahrain to help the Gulf kingdomís Sunni ruling family suppress month-long protests led by its Shiite majority community, triggering angry protests from Tehran.—AFP

RIYADH: Saudis walk on King Abdullah Street decorated with lights ahead of celebrations for Eid Al-Fitr which marks the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan. — AFP

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Storm causes US damage estimated at $7 billion Irene moves to Canada

MONTERREY: A Mexican flag waves as people demonstrate during a protest in Monterrey, northern Mexico, Sunday. Hundreds of people protested outside the state government offices in Monterrey three days after an arson attack on a casino killed some 52 people. Most demonstrators wore white shirts and held protest signs against political leaders. —AP

Battered state vows to solve Mexican security woes MONTERREY: Despite suffering one of the worst attacks on civilians in Mexico for years, the state of Nuevo Leon is undaunted because it believes a radical police overhaul will soon start winning the drug war. President Felipe Calderon declared three days of mourning after at least 52 people died on Thursday in an arson attack on a casino in Nuevo Leon’s capital Monterrey, a wealthy city that increasingly has fallen prey to the ravages of drug cartels.

Hundreds of protesters staged a demonstration outside government buildings in Monterrey on Sunday, calling on governor Rodrigo Medina to resign. Local media reported that two people had been arrested in connection with the attack. State and federal authorities could not immediately be reached for confirmation. In an interview with Reuters, Nuevo Leon Interior Minister Javier Trevino said the state had a plan to beat organized crime-starting with getting rid of half the police force, much of which had been corrupted by money from cartels.

“There are some municipalities here that used to have 800 (police officers) and now they have 80. Why? Because we started cleaning up and firing people and putting them in jail,” Trevino said late on Saturday. “ Then we started from scratch.” In 2009, when Medina became governor of Nuevo Leon, one of Mexico’s richest states, the municipal and state police numbered around 8,000, said Trevino. Today that total has fallen to

around 3,500, but Nuevo Leon aims to rebuild the force and raise the number of officers to 14,000 by the time Medina’s term ends in 2015. Still, rooting out corruption in the police has taken time, and the past two years have seen a sharp rise in drug-related killings in Nuevo Leon, notably in Monterrey, which was once seen as a role model for Latin American development. Many locals blame Medina for the jump in fatalities, and organizers said Sunday’s protest was the biggest to date against the governor.

“Impunity and crime have just increased under him,” local businessman Juan Romo said, after joining in shouts of “Medina, out, Medina out!” The situation in Nuevo Leon has coincided with a surge in violence across Mexico since Calderon sent in the army to crush the cartels when he took office in December 2006. In response to Thursday’s attack, Medina ordered a probe into local casinos, saying 12 in Monterrey were illegal and that no new licenses would be issued in the state.

Trevino insisted the state government was unfazed by the latest setback and that Nuevo Leon was ready to start putting its money where its mouth is on better policing. From 2011, minimum salaries for police officers have risen to 14,000 pesos ($1,120) from 9,000 pesos a month, he said. “If you go and see other states it’ll be around 6,000 or 7,000 pesos,” Trevino added. “Plus we’re paying benefits of 1 million pesos on (life) insurance.” — Reuters

Chavez set to begin new round of cancer treatment CARACAS: President Hugo Chavez thanked Venezuelans on Sunday for praying for his health as he undergoes a third round of chemotherapy at a military hospital in Caracas, this time getting the cancer treatment at home rather than Cuba. Chavez walked into the Dr. Carlos Arvelo Military Hospital accompanied by his daughter Rosa and aides late Saturday. He said his treatment has been going well and aims to prevent reappearance of cancer cells more than two months after he underwent surgery.

“From here, I join all these prayers and masses for the health of all of us,” Chavez tweeted Sunday. “God bless you!” “I want to salute and congratulate all the employees that work at our marvelous Military Hospital,” he added in another tweet. State television broadcast footage of a prayer meeting in Chavez’s home state of Barinas, where dozens of Venezuelans listened to a priest who urged government supporters to pray for the president’s quick recovery.

“We love you - your mother, your father and your brothers and all of your

family and friends,” Chavez’s father, Hugo de los Reyes Chavez, said at the prayer meeting. “All the people love you very much.” “Take care of yourself in this battle,” he added. Chavez, who often jokes about relatively serious personal matters, said he was enjoying the preparations before treatment. “I’m having fun here!

And finishing the preparations for my chemotherapy,” he said in a third tweet, apparently sent from the hospital before beginning the treatment.

Before entering the hospital, Chavez said on television Saturday that he and his team of Cuban and Venezuelan doctors decided it would be all right for him to undergo chemotherapy in Venezuela after his latest round of medical tests Friday. “I’m determined to continue living,” Chavez said at the hospital. “It’s not time to die. What we have to do still is a great deal.” Chavez, who was first elected in 1998, has vowed to bounce back and win re-election in 2012. Before going to the hospital, Chavez appeared on a balcony of the presidential palace waving to a crowd of cheering supporters. — AP

Chile president vows action on youth’s killing SANTIAGO: Chilean President Sebastian Pinera pledged Sunday to get to the bottom of the killing of a teen during a mass protest as student leaders agreed to meet with the president on their grievances. Manuel Gutierrez was shot to death Thursday during clashes between police and protesters in the town of Macul, east of Santiago, one of hundreds of places around the country where violence broke out during the general strike.

“The government is doing everything necessary to shed light on the circumstances and the responsibility for that death,” Pinera said at a public event.

Pinera’s conservative government has faced a wave of social protests, including massive marches by students demanding major educational reforms to make a free, quality university education available to all Chileans.

The unrest culminated in a 48-hour general strike Wednesday and Thursday called by the country’s largest labor federation that quickly turned violent. In addition to the death of the 16-year-old Gutierrez, hundreds of people were injured and 1,400 detained. Pinera called for a “constructive dialogue

aimed at finding solutions,” and announced he was rescinding a seven percent health insurance tax on the pensions of poor senior citizens.

The Confederation of Students of Chile accepted Pinera’s invitation to meet today. “We hope it is not just words and that the intention is to put something new on the table,” said Grigorio Jackson, a student leader. The student union called a day of “national mourning” for Gutierrez yesterday.

Camila Vallejo, another student leader, vowed to confront the government “face to face” over the death.

“They have to take responsibility for this, one way or another, because it cannot go unpunished,” she said. Witnesses said the youth was pushing his brother in a wheelchair on a crosswalk when he was hit in the chest by a bullet. His family blamed the police, but they denied it and turned over the weapons carried by the local police to investigators. The publicly funded National Human Rights Institute demanded an internal investigation by the Carabineros, Chile’s national police force, warning that public confidence in the police and the government was at stake. — AFP

NEW YORK: The remnants of Irene reached Canada yesterday after barreling through the northeastern United States where the storm claimed at least 18 lives and caused estimated economic damage of up to $7 billion. Millions of people were without power along the East Coast after the huge storm-now downgraded to a post-tropical cyclone-passed over the Big Apple and headed for Canada.

The Miami-based National Hurricane Center warned late Sunday of “major river flooding occurring in parts of the northeast,” after President Barack Obama cautioned that recovery efforts would last for “weeks or longer.” “I want people to understand that this is not over,” Obama said in a short statement in the White House Rose Garden. “I do want to underscore that the impacts of this storm will be felt for some time... Power may be out for days in some areas.”

The governor of Vermont, Peter Shumlin, said his state was in “tough shape” while New York state’s Andrew Cuomo warned of “tremendous flooding” in the Catskill Mountain area north of Manhattan. In New Jersey, Governor Chris Christie said roads and rails were “impassable” in some areas, and much of the state had seen “significant flooding.”

Localized flooding occurred in the south and east of Manhattan, with more serious incidents in Brooklyn, where the famed Coney Island amusement park took a battering and outlying beaches were swamped. There was heavy flooding along the low-lying

south shore of Long Island where high tides, rain and ocean surge drove waves right up against expensive beach houses. Floods were also reported far inland after torrential rain. At least 18 deaths were blamed on the storm, which first slammed into North Carolina on Saturday as a Category One hurricane, before turning north up the coast and weakening. The youngest victim, an 11-year-old boy, died when a tree crashed through his apartment building in Newport News, Virginia.

Jose Miranda, director of Eqecat Inc., a catastrophic risk management firm from Oakland, California, told The Los Angeles Times that the storm could cost insurers from $1.5 billion to $3 billion to cover claims for damaged homes, vehicles and businesses.

Total damage, including uninsured losses, could range from $5 billion to $7 billion, he said. By comparison, Hurricane Katrina which flooded much of New Orleans in 2005, reportedly cost more than $70 billion in insured losses alone, the paper noted.

“I think the damage is much less severe than had been feared and the economic impact will, therefore, be a lot smaller than people predicted,” The Times quoted Mark Zandi, chief economist at research firm Moody’s Analytics, as saying. The Federal Aviation Administration announced that New York area airports John F Kennedy International Airport, LaGuardia and Newark-would reopen yesterday. More than 10,000 flights were cancelled across the eastern United States.

The New York Stock Exchange said

it was set to reopen as normal yesterday morning. “The good news is the worst is over and we will soon return to restore and return mode,” New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said, announcing that 370,000 people ordered to evacuate could now go back home.

More than a million evacuees in New Jersey were also headed home, Christie said. City officials

and equipment. Irene also left swaths of territory without power, including one million in New York state, most of them on Long Island, according to Cuomo. In New Jersey, 650,000 people had lost power supplies, while in the greater Washington area, nearly two million people lost electricity.

In Massachusetts, 500,000 customers were without power.

NAGS HEAD: Billy Stinson (L) comforts his daughter Erin Stinson as they sit on the steps where their cottage once stood August 28, 2011 in Nags Head, North Carolina. The cottage, built in 1903 and destroyed yesterday by Hurricane Irene, was one of the first vacation cottages built on Albemarle Sound in Nags Head. —AFP however warned that commuting Virginia’s Governor Bob into New York could be a night- McDonnell told MSNBC his state mare this week with no firm indi- had seen the second biggest powcation of when public transport er outage in its history. would be back on track following “It’s going to be days, perhaps a an unprecedented shut-down just week, before all the power’s ahead of the hurricane. restored. We just ask people to be “You’re going to have a tough patient,” he said. About 200,000 commute in the morning,” mass households have lost power in transit chairman Jay Walder said. Canada, officials said. Some 65 Walder said buses could start run- million people live in the urban ning soon, but subway trains corridor from Washington north to needed extensive testing of lines Boston. — AFP

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South Africa to block streets ahead of Malema hearing Hearing fraught with risks for Prez Zuma

MILAN: Italian mayors take a picture during a protest in front of the headquarters of the Lombardy region yesterday.—AFP

Italian mayors protest austerity cuts MILAN: Hundreds of Italian mayors rallied in Milan yesterday to protest planned cuts in a new austerity package aimed at restoring Italy’s budget balance by 2013 and fending off financial market instability. Draped in Italian flags, smalltown and big-city mayors including some from Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s own party marched through central Milan.

The austerity plan “endangers basic public services,” Franco Roccon, the mayor of Castellavazzo, a town of 1,800 people in northeast Italy, and a member of Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party,

told AFP. “Public spending is due to bad management and the excessively high number of public officials, not small communes,” he said. Juri Mazzanti, the leftist mayor of Santo Stefano di Magra, a town of 9,000 people in northwest Italy, said the austerity budget was “irresponsible”. “Our only way out is to increase taxes or cut services,” he said.

He said the plan would force his town to increase the price of kindergartens and to cut subsidies for school canteens-on top of previous cuts in a package adopted last year that led him to cut the police force.—AFP

JOHANNESBURG: South Africa’s Youth League plans to bus in thousands of supporters of its firebrand leader Julius Malema for a vigil to put pressure on the ruling ANC ahead of a disciplinary hearing that could derail Malema’s political career. Malema and his spokesman have been charged with “sowing divisions” in the ranks of the African National Congress and bringing the party into disrepute. The hearing is expected to start today behind closed doors at ANC headquarters.

The hearing is fraught with risks for President Jacob Zuma, who rose to power with Malema’s support but has seen his rivals court Malema to try to seize control of the ANC. If Malema is suspended, Zuma can likely thwart his rivals but if he is exonerated, Zuma could be fighting for his political survival. Malema’s call to nationalise mines and seize white owned land has unnerved investors but struck a chord with poor blacks who see him as a future leader of Africa’s biggest economy.

He has taken shots at Zuma’s leadership over the past few months and his most recent spat with the ANC’s top officials came after the League called for the overthrow of the elected government of neighboring Botswana.”The disciplinary committee might feel some pressure which could influence their final decision but I don’t think it will have an effect on the proceedings,” said Dirk Kotze, a politics professor at the

Islamists probed over UN attack in Nigeria amid new violence ABUJA: Investigators probed a Nigerian Islamist sect yesterday over the suicide bombing of UN headquarters here that killed at least 21 people in one of the bloodiest attacks targeting the world body globally. Fresh violence hit Sunday when gunmen stormed the home of a local government chairman in the northeast and shot him dead. An attacker also threw a bomb onto the property of an exgovernment minister, but there were no injuries. The UN’s deputy chief held talks with Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan on Sunday and afterward said the “perpetrators must be brought to justice”, while vowing that the attack would not deter the work of the United Nations. Deputy UN Secretary General Asha-Rose Migiro was due to leave Nigeria yesterday morning, but United Nations security chief Gregory Starr would remain in the country for now as the probe continues, said UN spokesman Martin Dawes.

Police said an all-encompassing investigation was being carried out that would look at the Islamist sect known as Boko Haram, which has claimed responsibility, as well as a range of other factors and past attacks. “It’s a multi-dimensional investigation so that a complete stop can be put to these incidences,” said police spokesman Yemi Ajayi. “Boko Haram is still part of what we are looking at.”

No arrests had been made. He declined to reveal who was involved in the investigation, but the US embassy has confirmed that FBI agents were in Nigeria. The sect has claimed responsibility for the attack, but analysts have cautioned that while at least one faction of the Islamist group may be involved, it was too early to draw firm conclusions.

Friday’s attack saw the bomber make his way through two gates at the heavily guarded compound before slamming his car into the entrance of the building. In addition to the 21 killed, 73 have been confirmed injured.

Some 400 people from a variety of nationalities worked in the building.

Boko Haram has been blamed for scores of shootings and bomb blasts, mainly in Nigeria’s northeast, but it has not been known to target international institutions such as the UN. It claimed a bomb attack targeting national police headquarters in Abuja in June that killed at least two people.

There have however been growing fears over whether members of the sect have formed links with groups outside Nigeria, including Al-Qaeda’s

north African branch. There has also been intense speculation over whether some of the violence blamed on the sect has been politically linked, and Nigerians speak privately about their suspicions that politics somehow played a role in the UN bombing. Two incidents on Sunday were more typical of the attacks that have been blamed on Boko Haram, though authorities have not yet named suspects in those cases.

In one, gunmen stormed the home of a local government chairman in Nigeria’s northeast and shot him dead, according to a state official. The attackers killed Lawan Yaraye, chairman of Kukawa district in Borno state, where most of the attacks blamed on

the sect have occurred. His home was in the city of Maiduguri, the epicentre of the violence. The second incident saw a bomb thrown onto the property of Nigeria’s ex-police minister, but it exploded without wounding anyone, a police source said.

The incident on Sunday night in the northern city of Bauchi targeted the home of Ibrahim Yakubu Lame, who was police affairs minister during an uprising by Boko Haram in 2009 put down by a brutal military assault.

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation and the continent’s largest oil producer, has a population of some 150 million roughly divided in half between a mainly Muslim north and predominately Christian south.—AFP

SOWETO: A picture taken on May 15, 2011 shows the president of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) Youth League, Julius Malema, giving a speech during an ANC political meeting in Soweto. — AFP

Khodorkovsky debuts as prison chronicler MOSCOW: Russia’s most famous prisoner Mikhail Khodorkovsky began to publish a series of life stories of his fellow inmates yesterday, harking back to a tradition of Soviet prison camp literature. “Prison is a place where one can meet the most extraordinar y people,” Khodorkovsky wrote in the editorial for New Times magazine. “I will try to write about some people and situations, somewhat changing their names...”

Formerly Russia’s richest man and head of oil company Yukos, Khodorkovsky was sentenced in 2005 to an eight-year term in jail and is currently serving his second term in a prison camp in the northwestern Karelia region. The column titled “Prison Folk” bears the dateline “Correctional facility 7, Segezha, Karelia,” where he has been since mid-June. Prior to Karelia he has spent a long time in

Moscow prisons and a prison camp in Siberian Chita region.

Khodorkovsky begins his column with the grizzly tale of Kolya, who performed harakiri and threw his intestines at guards for being set up with a crime he did not commit: grabbing a purse from an elderly woman. “I would die anyway if convicted of stealing the old lady’s bag,” Khodorkovsky matter-offactly quotes Kolya, who was already ser ving time for other offences but professed great respect for the elderly.

Khodorkovsky has regularly written for both the domestic and foreign media about politics and his vision for Russia’s future, but this is the first time he has set out to chronicle life behind bars.

Gruesome tales of the daily gind of Russian prison camps have long been a tradition of Russian literature and created names for writers

such as Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Varlam Shalamov, both imprisoned during the Stalin era. The idea for the series was Khodorkovsky’s, said New Times editor Yevgenia Albats.

“I offered him in an official letter to become our columnist, and he came up with this theme, saying it would be very interesting,” she told AFP. Although the logistics of regular contribution may be difficult, the column will probably be published “every two to three weeks,” she said.

Russia’s prison system spokesman Alexander Kromin said Khodorkovsky was not infringing on any rules by becoming a magazine contributor. “Any convict is allowed to send letters... A convict is able to write to a newspaper, and an article is an issue between the convict and the publication that answers to media regulation laws,” he told AFP.—AFP

Islamist goes on trial in Germany over US killings

ABUJA: A nurse removes the breathing mask of a man injured in Friday’s suicide attack on United Nations headquarters so he can speak during a visit by UN Deputy Secretary-General AshaRose Migiro, unseen, in the intensive care unit of the national hospital in Abuja, Nigeria Sunday.—AP

Landslides kill at least 23 in Uganda: Red Cross KAMPALA: Landslides triggered by torrential rains killed at least 23 people in eastern Uganda early yesterday as mud engulfed homes and buried entire families, a Red Cross spokeswoman said. Local residents and Red Cross workers pulled 15 bodies from the rubble of Mabono village in Bulambuli district, about 270 kilometres (167 miles) northeast of Kampala, spokeswoman

University of South Africa.

If Malema is found guilty, he could be suspended from the party for several years after being found guilty of a similar offence last year. Malema, 30, has no direct policy-making power but his ability to influence the masses gives him sway over senior leaders seeking to secure political promotion. Zuma faces re-election as the head of the ANC at a party meeting next year and sidelining Malema for at least two years could help him win another term by neutralizing opponents who have been quietly courting Malema’s support. Since the ANC enjoys virtual one-party rule, its president is assured of the country’s leadership. Zuma became president in a little over a year after taking over the ANC in December 2007 from incumbent Thabo Mbeki.

But if Malema is exonerated, Zuma could find himself struggling for his political survival, trying to fend off the youth leader’s calls for a takeover of the mining sector-a move analysts say would bankrupt the country. They say South Africa cannot afford nationalization because the market capitalization of its listed mining firms amounts to about two-thirds of its gross domestic product and twice its annual national budget. If it tries to expropriate shares at a fraction of their value, the country could violate international investment guarantees that would trigger its global trading isolation.—Reuters

Catherine Ntabadde told AFP. Two people were rescued in Mabono, but eight others were confirmed dead following a mudslide in a second village in the same area, Ntabadde added. She said the death toll could rise. “We have sent teams to the affected areas and there are chances that more people will be found there,” Ntabadde said. Recent heavy rains in eastern Uganda has

also caused flooding and displaced hundreds of familises in the region.

Earlier this month, at least seven people were killed in a landslide in a village in northeastern Uganda. In one of the worst natural disasters to hit the east African region in years, some 350 people were killed last year when a mudslide swept through a village in the country’s eastern Mount Elgon region.— AFP

FRANKFURT: A 21-year-old Kosovan man goes on trial tomorrow charged with the murder of two US soldiers in a shooting that marked the first deadly Islamist attack on German soil. The March 2 assault occurred at Frankfurt airport, in western Germany, where Arid Uka is accused of opening fire on a group of US soldiers on their way to fight in Afghanistan. Two airmen were killed and two wounded.

“The investigation showed that the accused wanted to kill the soldiers because they belonged to US forces under the ISAF mandate in Afghanistan,” federal prosecutors said, referring to the NATO-led operation.

They say the accused was influenced by Islamic extremist appeals on the Internet calling for recruits in Germany to join a jihad against US forces because of their deployment in Afghanistan. A “saddened and outraged” US President Barack Obama said the day of the killings that Washington would “spare no effort in learning how this outrageous act took place.” Uka, who faces a possible sentence of life imprisonment for murder and attempted murder, was arrested at the scene as dozens of witnesses looked on. Prosecutors believe the young man, who was born in Mitrovica in northern Kosovo but who grew up in Frankfurt, acted alone and did not belong to a terrorist network. Uka’s family says it has no idea why he would have carried out such an attack. German newspapers describe him as a polite but reserved.

He is said to have done poorly at school, to be addicted to violent computer games, and to have sought out Islamist propaganda. He reportedly told investigators it was on the morning of the attack that he decided to go out and kill as many US soldiers as possible in revenge for the alleged rape of Afghan women by US troops, as claimed in an online video he had just watched. Early on the afternoon of March 2 he went to the airport, by public transport, carrying a pistol, ammunition and two knives in a backpack, according to media reports.

He picked out a group of US soldiers who had just flown in from Britain and who were about to travel by bus to the nearby US airbase at Ramstein from where many of troops continue on, by military transport, to Iraq or Afghanistan.

Uka cadged a cigarette from one of the soldiers and asked if they were on their way to Afghanistan. When the American said yes, he allegedly loaded his pistol and followed the men towards a waiting army bus.

At point-blank range, he is said to have fired into the back of the head of a 25-year-old soldier who died shortly afterwards. Shouting “Allahu Akbar” (God is great), he then rushed onto the bus and shot dead the 21-year-old bus driver before opening fire on two more soldiers, aged 21 and 25, who were both seriously wounded, prosecutors say. He is believed to have taken aim at another man cowering behind a seat, but his pistol misfired and he ran off into the airport terminal, pursued by another soldier.

Police arrested him shortly afterwards.A verdict is expected early next year. The shootings have been called the first jihadist attack in Germany. In 1986, a bomb in a West Berlin nightclub blamed on Syria killed two US soldiers. The September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States were planned in part in Hamburg by an Al-Qaeda cell led by the hijackers’ ringleader, and in 2007 police thwarted a major plot to attack US soldiers and and civilians in Germany.—AFP

MOGADISHU: Somali woman from southern Somalia holds her malnourished child at an old building in Mogadishu, Somalia on Sunday. The United Nations says famine will probably spread to all of southern Somalia within a month and force tens of thousands more people to flee into the capital of Mogadishu. —AP

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Qaeda No 2’s death not yet confirmed: Pakistan Zawahri relied heavily on Rahman DERA ISMAIL KHAN: Pakistan still had no confirmation yesterday that Al-Qaeda’s deputy chief had been killed in a recent US drone strike near the Afghan border, two days after American officials said his death was a major victory in the war against the group. Atiyah abd Al-Rahman, a Libyan national, rose to the number two spot when Ayman Al-Zawahri took the reins of Al-Qaeda after Osama bin Laden was killed in May in a US raid in Pakistan.

SRINAGAR: Members of the Association of Parents of Disappeared People (APDP) attend a protest rally to demand information of the whereabouts of missing relatives in Srinagar yesterday.—AFP

Indian Kashmir offers amnesty to ‘stone throwers’ SRINAGAR: Indian Kashmir has declared an amnesty for more than 1,000 youths alleged to have attacked security forces during pro-independence protests last year in which more than 100 civilians died. Kashmir was rocked for months last summer by clashes between stone throwing demonstrators and police and paramilitary troops, who used live fire to try to control massive rallies against New Delhi’s rule over the region.

About 110 protesters died in the violence, most of them young males hit by gunfire from security forces during some of the worst civil unrest in the region’s 20-year insurgency against Indian rule.

The government will drop the cases against the youths to give them “an opportunity to be responsible persons and lead a normal life”, Kashmir’s chief minister Omar Abdullah said in a statement released late Sunday.

Abdullah said the amnesty was “to remove the stigma on the character and behavior of these youths for being involved in stone-pelting” and that it would give them the chance to find employment. “The amnesty would be available to them as a one-time opportunity,” he said, adding about 1,200 people would be affected by the ruling which comes ahead of Eid al-Fitr, the Muslim

festival marking the end of the Ramadan fasting month. Abdullah urged those who had evaded arrest and were in hiding to report to police to register for the amnesty.

“The youth should consider this gesture of the government as the gesture of elders towards the young and as an Eidi (Eid gift),” Abdullah said, blaming separatist leaders for instigating the violence.

However, he said protesters accused of setting fire to government offices and vehicles during the disturbances would still be prosecuted. Eid will be celebrated on Wednesday or Thursday in Kashmir, subject to when the crescent moon appears. Reyaz Ahmed, 23, welcomed the announcement. “It is a big relief. I hope I will not have to appear in future court hearings,” said Ahmed, who was detained last year and released on bail.

Indian Kashmir remains under heavy military control but this summer has not seen the cycle of violence and strict curfews that have hit the disputed Himalayan region in recent years.

Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan, but claimed in its entirety by both nations. The dispute has triggered two of the three wars fought by the neighbors since independence from colonial rule in 1947. —AFP

US officials said he was killed on Aug. 22 in North Waziristan, a global hub for some of the world’s most dangerous militants, from Al-Qaeda figures to the Pakistani Taleban to veteran foreign fighters from the Arab world. Eliminating Al-Qaeda leaders operating along Pakistan’s unruly frontier with Afghanistan is a security priority for the United States, which has stepped up its drone attacks there under the Obama administration to achieve its goal.

Pakistani officials said they had no information that indicated that Rahman was killed in a drone strike three weeks before the tenth anniversary of the Sept 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. “We made checks but we have no confirmation from any source as yet about this death,” a senior military official said. His comments highlighted the deep intelligence deficit Pakistani officials often face in Nor th Waziristan and other parts of the northwest, where rugged mountain terrain and ties between a murky militant network and powerful tribal hosts make the area difficult to penetrate.

Militants often bur y their dead leaders quickly, making it hard to come up with evidence of their fate.

Pakistani officials don’t always agree with Washington’s assessment of the Al-Qaeda leadership structure. While one US official described Rahman as the AlQaeda second-in-command, the Pakistani military official said Islamabad was not so sure. “We don’t know even whether he was number two or not.” What intelligence officials can confirm is

NATO races to secure violent, porous Afghan-Pakistan border Afghans warn of hurdles, lack of equipment SPIN BOLDAK: Alim Mohammad surveys the stretch of land he has guarded for the last four years, squinting under the sunlight from a cliff overlooking what the United States calls the most dangerous place in the world. The AfghanistanPakistan border is porous, long and teems with illegal activity, from the Taliban insurgents who hop back and forth to the enormous amounts of weapons, explosives and narcotics that are smuggled across it.

“We have a really hard time,” said Mohammad, 23, flashing a set of rotten teeth and hoisting his assault rifle over his shoulder. Dressed in camouflage, he is one of 20,000 guards protecting the 2,640 km (1,610 mile) border along Afghanistan’s east. NATO has been beefing up security on the poorly marked frontier with new equipment and extended training, but border guards and Afghan officials worry it may not be enough in the face of escalating violence in a decadelong war.

Mohammad said he was recently ambushed three nights in a row by insurgents as they crossed the border at Spin Boldak in southern Kandahar province, the birthplace of the Taliban. “Other times, we see whole truckloads of suicide vests and explosives trying to pass through,” he told Reuters, pointing through a sandy haze across the suntorched landscape at the Pakistani border 3 km (2 miles) away. Spin Boldak is the second busiest crossing after Torkham, which is further up north in the Khyber Pass in Nangarhar province, near Kabul.

Appearing innocuous and sleepy, US officials warn the terracotta villages along the border harbour insurgents that launch

cross-border raids, something the guards know. “Al Qaeda and the Taliban flow over it all the time, but it’s our job to protect it,” said Zabihullah, 32, who only gave his first name. He is among the 130 recruits who on Saturday became the first to graduate an extended eight-week NATO border patrol training course.

Afghanistan and Pakistan regularly trade accusations over that. Pakistan’s military on Saturday blamed the “scanty presence” of NATO and Afghan forces for regular assaults like one that killed at least 36 people. “There has been an increase in the number of foreign terrorists and we are putting a lot of pressure on them,” Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak told Reuters last week in a jibe clearly aimed at Pakistan.

Zabihullah’s course was the first in Afghanistan to benefit from being extended by two weeks-a decision NATO made in May amid criticism from trainers that the six-week basic course for army and police was too short and not professional enough. But a lack of equipment and facilities plague the border patrol force, said Afghan General Mujtaba Patang, in charge of all police training. “We simply cannot sustain a good level of security without proper equipment. Many of our border police live in remote areas, with no computers or radios. They can’t communicate with each other,” Patang told Reuters. His concerns were echoed by guards, who said corruption among the force’s upper echelon worsened already bad conditions. “Some of the guys wear sandals at the border because their boots have been taken by officers who sell them,” said Mohammad.

Customs officials have said the Afghan government collects around a fifth of the revenue it should in Kandahar province a year due to corruption. Major General Walter Golden, deputy commander for police in the NATO training mission, acknowledged “pockets of corruption” exist, but said 85 percent of the force will be equipped by March. Between now and then, $2.7 billion worth of weapons, vehicles, aircraft and communications gear will be given to the Afghan security forces, Golden said, a significant increase over previous years.

A large, $23 million border crossing compound is also under way, expected to open in July next year in Spin Boldak.

A Romanian team taught Zabihullah and his fellow recruits combat techniques, vehicle search procedures, marksmanship and a basic literacy class in Spin Boldak in an adobe and stone fortress built by the British in the nineteenth century. On a baking hot day towards the end of the holy month of Ramadan, thirsty and fasting graduates showed off their skills for their NATO and Afghan trainers, acting out a scenario when they catch an insurgent planting a roadside bomb.

Around three-quarters of the border police have undergone basic training.

Well over half of the 170,000-strong Afghan army and 135,000 police are also trained, though the number of the forces will swell in coming years. NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) is racing to train Afghanistan’s army, police and border guards by the end of 2014, the deadline when all security responsibilities will have been handed over to the Afghans. —Reuters

Indian hunger striker’s health improving: Doctor NEW DELHI: Indian anti-graft activist Anna Hazare has begun to make a good recovery in hospital after ending his 13-day hunger strike, his doctor told reporters yesterday. Hazare, 74, embarked on a public fast in New Delhi to pressure the government into backing tough anti-corruption legislation, and attracted huge nationwide support for his cause. His doctor Naresh Trehan said that “there is a 30 percent improvement in his condition, which is quite satisfactory”.

“Normal recovery would be expected to take 2-3 days... he is still very weak,” he added. Hazare broke his fast on Sunday after parliament agreed in principle to his demands that all government officials

would come under a new anti-graft law currently being drafted and to a citizens’ charter promoting accountability. The activist, who lost 7.5 kilogrammes (16.5 pounds) during his hunger strike, was immediately taken to a private hospital outside Delhi for a comprehensive health check.

Trehan told reporters Hazare, who drank just water during his fast, would soon be put on a fruit diet. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government struggled to respond to Hazare’s campaign, which tapped into deep resentment among many Indians, who routinely have to pay bribes for everything from college admission to death certificates. —AFP

that a missile fired by a remotely piloted US drone struck a car near the North Waziristan town of Mir Ali on Aug 22, killing four militant followers of Hafiz Gul Bahadur.

He is the main Pak istani Taleban commander in the

raised hopes that the United States will now find it easier to locate Zawahri, a former Egyptian doctor who was often described as the brains behind Al-Qaeda , while bin Laden was seen as an inspirational figure.

“Osama bin Laden has been

groups.

“The death of bin Laden has done considerable damage to them (Al-Qaeda ). The drone strikes have also hugely weakened them as they have lost many people,” said a senior security official in Peshawar, capital

DERA ISMAIL KHAN: Officials of the Pakistan army show munitions confiscated from militants and criminals during a crack down operation in and around Dera Ismail Khan yesterday. They arrested two suicide attackers, official told to reporters. —AP region, with close ties to the Afghan Taliban. If confirmed, Rahman’s death could be a major blow to Al-Qaeda , which is still reeling from the killing of bin Laden by US Navy SEALs in a secret raid in the Pakistani garrison town of Abbottabad on May 2. US officials said Zawahri was “relying” heavily on Rahman to help guide and run Al-Qaeda after bin Laden’s death.

Locating Rahman may have

found here. Several senior AlQaeda leaders have been captured from here and if Atiyah abd al-Rahman’s presence and death are also confirmed, then it will prove that they all are here,” said Rahimullah Yusufzai, an expert tribal and militant affairs.

Pakistani officials don’t expect Rahman’s death to scare AlQaeda away from Pak istan, where it has spent years forging alliances with local militant

of the northwest. “But there is no evidence as yet to suggest that Al-Qaeda men are leaving tribal areas any time soon.”

Yusufzai said Al-Qaeda was on the run in Pakistan, a strategic US ally seen as critical to American efforts to pacify the Taleban in Afghanistan. “It’s very difficult for it to plan attacks from here. It is now a question of life and death for them here,” he said. —Reuters

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Khmer Rouge court told defendant has dementia PHNOM PENH: The only female Khmer Rouge leader on trial for genocide at Cambodia’s UNbacked war crimes cour t is suffering from dementia and memory loss, a health expert said yesterday. The medical assessment added to speculation that former social affairs minister Ieng Thirith, 79, could be deemed unfit to answer charges over the deaths of up to two million people during the regime’s 1975-79 rule of terror.

A court-appointed geriatrics expert told judges at a public hearing that Ieng Thirith, the sister-in-law of Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, had memory problems and needed further psychi-

atric assessment. “Dementia has a number of causes. The most common is Alzheimer’s,” said professor John Campbell, referring to the progressive brain disease that causes memory loss and behavioral changes.

Ieng Thirith’s trial alongside three other senior Khmer Rouge leaders on charges including war crimes and crimes against humanity officially opened in June but has been held up by health issues surrounding the defendants. Observers say the process to determine Ieng Thirith’s fitness could take months, likely delaying the trial until next year. Questions have long been raised over the mental state of the regime’s “First Lady”,

who famously lost her cool during a 2009 court appearance, telling her accusers they would be “cursed to the seventh circle of hell”.

In July, her lawyers said they were unable to take instructions from her, citing mental problems. “Brother Number Two” Nuon Chea, seen as the brutal regime’s chief ideologue, is also contesting his ability to stand trial, although Campbell said he found no major concerns. In a brief address to the court, during which he removed his trademark sunglasses, the 85-yearold accused said he had trouble concentrating and sitting for long periods.

He said Campbell had “failed to assess this

issue concerning my concentration” and asked to be examined by another specialist.

Co-accused Ieng Sary, the regime’s foreign affairs minister and ex-head of state Khieu Samphan are not contesting their ability to stand trial. In its historic first trial, the court sentenced former prison chief Kaing Guek Eav-also known as Duch-to 30 years in jail last year for overseeing the deaths of 15,000 people. The case is now under appeal. Led by “Brother Number One” Pol Pot, who died in 1998, the Khmer Rouge wiped out nearly a quarter of the population through overwork, starvation or execution in a bid to create an agrarian utopia. —AFP

8 children hurt in China day care centre attack Female worker uses box cutter to slash kids

TOKYO: Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda answers questions after being elected as the new leader of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) in Tokyo yesterday. —AFP

Japan’s finance minister to become latest PM TOKYO: Japan’s premier-designate Yoshihiko Noda yesterday vowed a safe pair of hands in rebuilding the country from its tsunami-nuclear disasters after he was elected the ruling party chief. The low-key, business-friendly finance minister is set to be confirmed as prime minister today by parliament, replacing the unpopular Naoto Kan to become the debt-laden nation’s sixth new leader in five years.

Known as a fiscal hawk, 54-year-old Noda has described himself as an ordinary man and pledged a moderate “middle -of-the -road” politics, while also promising to unite his divided Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ ).

Likening himself to a modest marine creature rather than a charismatic political star, Noda said in a final campaign appeal to DPJ lawmakers yesterday: “I am a loach. I can’t be a goldfish.” His election may cause ripples among Japan’s neighbors following his recent comments on the country’s World War II history.

Noda sparked a strong response from South Korea weeks ago when he said on the anniversary of Japan’s 1945 surrender that Class-A war criminals convicted by an Allied tribunal were in fact not war criminals. In Japan, the focus is on the pressing tasks of rebuilding after the March 11 calamity, ending the Fukushima nuclear crisis, revitalizing a stagnant economy and addressing the industrialized world’s largest public debt.

The countr y is still struggling to resolve the Fukushima disaster after reactor meltdowns forced more than 80,000 people from their homes and contaminated wide stretches of farmland, causing national food scares. On the economic front, years of pump-priming have left Japan saddled with a public debt that is more than twice the size of the economy and set to balloon further as a fast-ageing population increases welfare costs.

Last week, ratings agency Moody’s cut Japan’s credit rating, citing the huge public debt and the country’s revolvingdoor politics that have delayed essential reforms needed to alleviate it. Noda has advocated raising taxes rather than borrowing more money to pay for quake reconstruction and to bring down the debt, a position that has made him the favorite of financial markets, which ticked up yesterday. Noda yesterday noted that the debt and economic woes of the United States and Europe pose a

threat for Japan, which has been overtaken as the world’s second-biggest economy by China.

“In this global current, the question is who will be able to navigate this ship called Japan without losing its course, and say what Japan should say in the arena of international negotiations,” he told the DPJ lawmakers. On the question of nuclear power, which his predecessor Kan wanted to phase out following the Fukushima disaster, Noda has said that currently shut-down reactors should be restarted once they are deemed safe.

Noda emerged as the winner of the fiveway contest within the centre-left DPJ when he gained 215 votes in the secondround ballot, against 177 for the trade and industry minister, Banri Kaieda.

The contest was fought out mainly between factions rather than based on major policy differences or the candidates’ popular support. Kaieda came first in the initial ballot, but losing candidates then lent their support to Noda. The DPJ, which took power two years ago in a landslide election victory, ousting the long ruling conservatives, is deeply split between supporters and enemies of scandal-tainted Ichiro Ozawa, dubbed Japan’s “Shadow Shogun”. Ozawa commands the loyalty of about 130 lawmakers, many of whom he coached in electioneering and helped get elected.

The defeat of the Ozawa-backed candidate, Kaieda, was a setback for the powerbroker who last year lost a contest against Kan and has since been stripped of his party membership after being indicted over a funding scandal. The contest, in which the DPJ’s general membership could not vote, came amid public disenchantment over the government’s response to the March 11 disasters. Kan on Friday confirmed his resignation after less than 15 turbulent months in office, after his approval rating plummeted from a high of 65 percent to just 15 percent amid criticism of his handling of the disaster aftermath.

Hidekazu Kawai, emeritus professor of politics at Gakushuin University, said that, given Ozawa’s low popularity in Japan, “DPJ party members and also public opinion both acted to remove the influence of Ozawa in the end”. “One of the positive aspects of the DPJ is that there are many young politicians,” Kawai said. “We can expect Noda to show consistent and stable leadership in uniting the DPJ.”— AFP

SHANGHAI: Eight children were hurt yesterday when a staff member went on a stabbing spree at a day care centre for migrant workers’ children in the Chinese city of Shanghai, local media said. The female worker used a box cutter to slash at children aged between three and four years old at the “Little Happiness Star” nursery in an eastern suburb of Shanghai, the Xinmin Evening News said on its website. ”Adults and children were all screaming ‘Help’,” it quoted one witness as saying.

The incident was the latest in a series of violent attacks against children that have forced the authorities to increase security and brought calls for further investigation into the root causes of such acts in China’s schools. The suspect, who is believed to have suffered from

psychiatric problems, has been detained by police, the newspaper said. Her name was not given. One of the eight children was seriously injured in the attack, reports said. A local hospital official told AFP the hospital had received eight children from the school.

Worried parents gathered outside the day care centre after the incident in Shanghai’s Minhang district, home to many of the city’s migrant workers. District authorities could not immediately be reached for comment. At least five major attacks took place at schools in China last year, killing 17 people-including 15 children-and injuring more than 80. Two of the attackers were executed and two others committed suicide. The suspect in the fifth attack was sentenced to death in June 2010.

And in August last year, a man wielding a knife killed three children in a kindergarten in China’s eastern province of Shandong. Some of the attackers were known to have mental health problems, and experts say the assaults show that China is paying the price for focusing on economic growth while ignoring problems linked to rapid social change. Studies have described a rise in the prevalence of mental disorders in China, some of them linked to stress as society becomes more fastpaced and socialist support systems wither.

Reports said the day care centre where yesterday’s attack took place had more than 60 children and more than 20 staff. It was registered with authorities, and had been in operation for three years. — AFP

China jails Tibetan monk for 11 years

HANOI: Giang Son, vice chairman of the president’s office, announces the annual presidential amnesty at a press conference in Hanoi yesterday. —AFP

Vietnam pardons 10,000 prisoners, few dissidents HANOI: Two Vietnamese democracy activists were among more than 10,000 prisoners granted amnesty by Hanoi to mark the communist country’s National Day, officials said yesterday. One of the pair, Nguyen Van Tinh, was among a group of six jailed in the northeastern port city of Haiphong in October 2009 for hanging democracy banners and committing other acts against the state. Tinh, who was born in 1942, had been sentenced to three and a half years in jail.

A total of 10,244 serving prisoners were granted amnesty under a presidential order that took effect last Thursday, officials said at a news conference. These included people arrested for a range of crimes, including murder, drug trafficking, trafficking women, and bribery. The amnesty is an annual event to mark the country’s September 2 National Day. Last year more than 17,000 inmate were pardoned and about 5,000 were freed in 2009. “ This once again demonstrates the clemency policy of the Party and State and the humane traditions of the Vietnamese people”, Giang Son, vice-chairman of the president’s office, told reporters. The other activist freed under this year’s amnesty was poet Tran Duc Thach, who was also jailed in October 2009. A friend said at the time that he was jailed for three years on a charge under Article 88 of the Penal Code, which rights activists say criminalises

peaceful dissent. According to the USbased Human Rights Watch, Thach’s writings “condemn corruption, injustice, and human rights abuses”. The watchdog said last year that Thach, who is in his late 50s, had been arrested 10 times since 1978.

Tinh and Thach, who were convicted for “propaganda against the state”, were two of five people convicted of “national security crimes” who were released. Of the other three, one was convicted of a “security disturbance” and two were convicted of “disturbing national unity”. Deputy Minister of Public Security, Lieutenant General Le Quy Vuong, could not give a figure for the number of Vietnamese in prison for national security crimes but he said the total number of inmates was more than 100,000.

In April, rights group Amnesty International voiced concerns about the continuing detention of dozens of political critics and activists jailed since late 2009.

The release of Tinh and Thach follows international criticism of Hanoi over other recent rights cases. These include: the three-year sentence given to FrenchVietnamese lecturer and blogger Pham Minh Hoang this month; an appeal court’s confirmation, also this month, of a sevenyear jail term for prominent dissident Cu Huy Ha Vu; and the re-incarceration in July of a Catholic priest, Nguyen Van Ly, who has a brain tumor. — AFP

BEIJING: A Chinese court sentenced a Tibetan lama to 11 years in prison yesterday over the death of a fellow Buddhist monk who set himself alight in March, the state Xinhua news agency reported. The court in Sichuan province in southwestern China convicted the lama, identified as Drongdru, for “intentional homicide” for hiding the injured monk and ensuring emergenc y treatment did not reach him, Xinhua said.

The report contradicted earlier assertions by rights activists that monks at the monastery had rescued their wounded brother, Phuntsog, from police who began to beat him after extinguishing the flames. Phuntsog set himself on fire on March 16, the third anniversary of antigovernment rioting in Lhasa.

His death triggered protests and prompted a clampdown by authorities around the monastery in Sichuan province. Xinhua said the dead monk was a disciple and nephew of Drongdru, who kept him hidden for 11 hours before he was taken to hospital where he later died. During the trial, Drongdru, 46, pleaded guilty to the charges, voiced regret for his role and declined his right to appeal, it said, adding that two other monks linked to the case would go on trial today.

Officials at the court refused to comment on the case when contacted by AFP. Phuntsog was the second monk at Kirti to set himself on fire since the anti-Chinese riots in Lhasa of March 2008, the bloodiest in Tibet in 20 years. Xinhua said he was just 16 years old at the time of his death, though reports at the time varied and rights groups put the monk’s age at 20 or 21.

Earlier this month, another monk died by self-immolation in Sichuan. Campaigners said the 29-year-old at the Nyitso monastery drank petrol before setting himself alight.

Police and soldiers surrounded the monastery after his death. The London-based Free Tibet rights group, citing local contacts, said the monk was heard to shout “We Tibetan people want freedom”, “Long live the Dalai Lama” and “Let the Dalai Lama return to Tibet” before setting himself on fire.

Many Tibetans in China are angry about what they view as increasing domination by China’s majority Han ethnic group, and accuse the government of trying to dilute their culture. China, however, says that Tibetan living standards have improved markedly in recent decades, pointing to the billions of dollars it has spent on infrastructure and development projects. —AFP

Typhoon floods homes in Taiwan, heads for China TAIPEI: A typhoon that flooded homes, roads and farmland in Taiwan with more than 20 inches (half a meter) of rain left the island yesterday and headed to southeastern China. Typhoon Nanmadol stayed over Taiwan for only a few hours and was weaker than when it pummeled the Philippines, where at least 16 people died and another eight were missing.

One death in Taiwan was attributed to the storm - a motorcyclist hit by debris and disruption to everyday life was extensive.

Some 30,000 households in southern and eastern Taiwan lost power, 8,000 people were evacuated and scores of roads and bridges were closed due to the heavy rain. Offices and schools were closed in

the southeast as well as in the capital, Taipei, which escaped the brunt of the storm. In a southwestern county, civil defense crews used small boats to rescue people from communities inundated by flash flooding. Dozens of homes were flooded. CTI cable news station footage showed the aftermath of landslides in Pingtung township and several homes partially submerged by water.

Pingtung is just to the south of the mountainous regions where more than 500 people died two years ago in mudslides spawned by torrential rains associated with Typhoon Morakot, the most devastating storm to hit the island in half a century. A slow government response to that catastrophe prompted a fusillade

of criticism aimed at President Ma Yingjeou, who is up for re-election this January.

After Morakot, Ma said he was reorienting the major mission of the island’s armed forces toward disaster relief and away from defending against a possible Chinese invasion - the two sides split amid civil war in 1949. The change was evident over the weekend, as the military dispatched troops and rescue equipment to vulnerable areas, unlike during Morakot.

The typhoon, slow-moving with an enormous cloud band, drenched the northern Philippines for days before pummeling it with fierce winds. Landslides, flooding and collapsed walls caused many of the casualties, officials there said. —AP

BAGUIO CITY: Rescuers and volunteers carry a body which they recovered from piles of garbage in Baguio City, northern Philippines yesterday. —AP

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TUESDAY, AUGUST 30, 2011

NEWS

TRIPOLI: A rebel fighter gestures behind the eagle at the headquarters of the elite military unit commanded by Gaddafi’s son Khamis in Tripoli. — AP

Is chocolate good for your heart? It depends PARIS: Chocolate may be good for the heart but cardiologists are not giving you a license to indulge. New research presented at Europe’s biggest medical meeting on Monday suggested chocolate consumption might be associated with a one third reduction in the risk of developing heart disease. Just why there should be such a link was unclear, the European Society of Cardiology congress was told. There has been a string of scientific studies in recent years showing a potential health benefit from eating chocolate. Dark chocolate, in particular, contains compounds called flavanols thought to be good for the blood system.

In an attempt to paint a clearer picture, Oscar Franco and colleagues from the University of Cambridge pooled results from seven studies involving 100,000 people. Five of the studies showed a beneficial link between eating chocolate and cardiovascular health, while two did not.

Overall, the findings showed the highest levels of chocolate consumption were associated with a 37 percent reduction in cardiovascular disease and a 29 percent reduction in stroke compared with the lowest levels.

Franco said there were limitations with the pooled analysis, which did not differentiate between dark and milk chocolate, and more research was needed to test whether chocolate actually caused better health outcomes or if it was due to some other confounding factor.

“Evidence does suggest chocolate might have some heart health benefits but we need to find out why that might be,” said Victoria Taylor, of the British Heart Foundation, who was not involved in the research. “If you want to reduce your heart disease risk, there are much better places to start than at the bottom of a box of chocolates.”

Franco, whose findings were also published online in the British Medical Journal, said while it seemed chocolate had heart benefits, these could easily be outweighed by the unhealthy nature of much confectionery. “The high sugar and fat content of commercially available chocolate should be considered, and initiatives to reduce it might permit an improved exposure to the beneficial effect of chocolate,” the research team wrote. — Reuters

Gaddafi family flees to Algeria Continued from Page 1 Walid. Libya’s rebel leadership on Sunday said that Khamis, whose death has been announced several times since the conflict erupted, may have been killed in a clash with rebel fighters in the city of Tarhuna southeast of Tripoli.

Meanwhile, Libyan rebels said yesterday that strongman Muammar Gaddafi still poses a danger for Libya and the world, as insurgents closed in on his hometown Sirte a week after overrunning the capital Tripoli. Rebels were also battling to restore basic services in Tripoli, hit by cuts in the supply of water, electricity, petrol and even food after a week of fierce clashes.

The leader of the rebels’ National Transitional Council (NTC), Mustafa Abdel Jalil, urged in Doha yesterday no let-up in international action against Gaddafi. “Gaddafi’s defiance of the coalition forces still poses a danger, not only for Libya but for the world. That is why we are calling for the coalition to continue its support,” Abdel Jalil said at a meeting of chiefs of staff of countries militarily involved in Libya, including Qatar.

Another senior rebel leader, Jallal Al-Digheily-who holds the NTC’s defense portfolio-told the meeting coalition support was needed to eliminate the last pockets of resistance by Gaddafi’s loyalist troops. “We still need the support (of the coalition) to re-establish security and eliminate the sleeper cells and the remainder of Gaddafi’s regime,” said Digheily. The international coalition launched Operation Unified Protector in Libya on March 19 under a UN mandate which authorized air strikes to protect civilians in the country’s civil war which began with a peaceful revolt in mid-February.

Since March 31, the air strikes have been carried out under the command of NATO. Although Gaddafi’s whereabouts remain a mystery, there is widespread speculation he is holed up among tribal supporters in Sirte, 360 kilometers east of Tripoli. Rebels moved to within 30 kilometers of Sirte from the west and captured Bin Jawad 100 kilometers to the east, the rebel commander in Misrata, Mohammed Al-Fortiya said on Sunday.

“We are negotiating with the tribes for Sirte’s peaceful surrender,” Fortiya said, adding only tribal leaders were involved, and that to his knowledge no direct contact had been made with Gaddafi himself. General Suleyman Mahmud, deputy commander in chief of the rebel forces yesterday confirmed talks were being held for a peaceful solution. “There are still negotiations with elders and representatives of the city of Sirte.

We are trying not to engage anyone in fighting except with those who are with the tyrant Gaddafi. But the outcome of the negotiations is still not clear,” he told reporters in Tripoli. The rebels have offered a $1.7 milliondollar reward for Gaddafi’s capture, dead or alive. Fierce fighting also raged in the west of Libya as rebels trying to wrest control of the region from Gaddafi’s forces said they had fallen into an ambush in a town southwest of

Zuwarah.

Sirte has been targeted by NATO warplanes, which since Friday have destroyed more than 50 military vehicles, two shelters, an observation point, four radars and two surface to air missile systems, according to NATO statements. Some 70 percent of homes in central Tripoli have no running water because of damage to the network, but potable water is being distributed from mosques, giving priority to elderly and medical facilities, NTC officials said.

Abed Al-Obeidi, deputy chief of the transitional council in Tripoli, said the water problem was because of technical faults, denying sabotage by Gaddafi’s forces was to blame. But Faysal Gargab, a member of the capital’s stabilization team, said engineers who travelled to a” remote area” to connect water wells back to the grid were prevented from completing their work by Gaddafi’s forces.

“The security of the area deteriorated... The engineers had to flee because Gaddafi forces were disturbing the (sites),” he said without specifying when water would flow again or where exactly the wells were located.

A handful of garbage trucks were deployed for the first time since the capital fell to rebels. Some residents in central Tripoli tackled the problem with broom in hand but the outskirts were still flooded with rubbish.

Meanwhile, the only man convicted for the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jet which killed 270 people when it blew up over the Scottish town of Lockerbie is drifting in and out of a coma, his brother said yesterday.

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet Al-Megrahi, who has terminal cancer, “is in and out of a coma,” his brother Abdel Nasser told reporters outside the family home in a posh, treelined street of Libya’s capital. “His medicine was looted but he has new supplies now,” said Abdel Nasser, who came out to speak to journalists who had massed outside the family home in Dimashq neighborhood.

Advocacy group Human Rights Watch said yesterday that evidence indicates that retreating Gaddafi forces massacred dozens of detainees, after AFP had counted at least 50 human skulls in a makeshift jail. HRW said in a statement that it had inspected about 45 skeletons and two other bodies at the makeshift prison in Tripoli’s Salaheddin neighborhood. “Sadly this is not the first gruesome report of what appears to be the summary execution of detainees in the final days of the Gaddafi government’s control of Tripoli,” Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW’s Middle East and north Africa director, said in a statement. An AFP correspondent on Saturday counted at least 50 skulls in the ashes at the facility next to a base of the feared Khamis Gaddafi’s 32 Brigade in Salaheddin, a suburb just south of Tripoli. The International Committee of the Red Cross, meanwhile, said that Libyan rebels were holding “hundreds” of detainees, some of them foreigners. “Many of them are foreigners,” some of whom are from sub-saharan Africa, ICRC spokesman Steven Andersen told AFP without giving more details. — Agencies

Scandal rocks KAC Continued from Page 1 reportedly refused to appease “because [he] can’t hand the Amiri fleet to Shiite [staff members]”. Another news report said that Al-Falah confessed that he worked on firing his Shiite “friends” in the KAC after eventually learning about their faith.

According to the report, Al-Falah used a derogatory

term to describe a Shiite KAC officer, and used the same term to describe Islamist MPs who he said would cause trouble if he fails to fire the Shiite officials at the Amiri fleet. Al-Falah was also heard ‘expressing concern that a Shiite pilot in the Amiri fleet could land a plane carrying the Prime Minister or any minister in Iran’. — Agencies

‘Expel non-Muslims’, Al-Qaeda tells Saudi DUBAI: A senior Saudi member of Al-Qaeda yesterday warned the interior minister to expel nonMuslims from the kingdom, among other demands to stop considering him a target, in an online audio message. Ibrahim Al-Rubeish, a former Guantanamo detainee, addressed Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz with seven measures which he considered essential for “reform” in the ultra-conservative Gulf state and for the prince’s own safety, SITE Intelligence reported yesterday.

The measures included expelling non-Muslims from the Arabian Peninsula, repealing all man-made laws and instituting (Islamic) shariabased governance, the US-based monitoring service said. They also included releasing prisoners, allow-

ing preachers to speak with impunity and removing themselves as obstacles to those who wish to support Muslims in Iraq and the Palestinian territories, it added. “This is the path if you wish to survive. If you do this, I will guarantee that the mujahedeen will not prepare another trap for you and that you will sleep safely in your bed and you will go as you please without fearing anyone,” Rubeish said.

He was alluding to an incident earlier this month when a gunman fired at Prince Nayef’s palace near the Saudi Red Sea city of Jeddah.

Saudi Arabia witnessed a wave of deadly attacks by Al-Qaeda between 2003 and 2006, which prompted Prince Nayef to launch a security force crackdown on the local branch of the jihadist network

founded by Saudi-born Osama bin Laden. Al-Qaeda remains very active in neighboring Yemen, where the Saudi and Yemeni franchises of Al-Qaeda joined forces under the banner of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

A suicide bomber from the group blew himself up in August 2009 in an abortive attempt on the life of Prince Nayef ’s son, Prince Mohammed, who leads the campaign against Islamist militants in the kingdom. In comments published by Saudi daily Al-Eqtissadiya yesterday, Prince Nayef said that terrorism would remain a threat to the kingdom. “We will continue to be a target for terrorists, who will continue attempting to attack us, supported by other parties,” the newspaper quoted him as saying. — AFP

Syrian soldiers storm northern village...

Continued from Page 1 close ally, warned Assad that his regime could face a demise like those in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya if the violent suppression of protests does not stop.

Meanwhile, armored Syrian forces surrounded a town near Homs yesterday and fired heavy machineguns after the defection of tens of soldiers from the area, activists and residents said. Since the demise of Muammar Gaddafi’s rule over Libya, activists and residents have reported increasing defections among Syrian troops, as well as more intense street protests in a five-month-old popular uprising against the president.

They say there have been desertions in eastern Deir Al-Zor province, northwestern Idlib province, the Homs countryside and the outskirts of Damascus, where President Bashar Al-Assad’s forces fought gunbattles with defectors on Sunday. At least 40 light tanks and armored vehicles, and 20 buses of troops and Military Intelligence, deployed at 5:30 am at the highway entrance of Rastan, 20 km north of the city of Homs and began firing heavy machineguns at the town, two residents said.

“The tanks deployed at both banks of the highway, which remained open, and fired long bursts from their machineguns at Rastan,” one of the residents, who gave his name as Raed, told Reuters by phone. He said defections began in the town when it was stormed by tanks three months ago to crush large street protests against Assad in an assault that killed dozens of civilians.

Rastan, situated at the main highway leading to Turkey, is traditionally a reservoir of recruits for the mostly Sunni rank-and-file army that is dominated by officers from the Alawite minority sect to which Assad belongs, and effectively commanded by his younger brother Maher. Mustafa Tlas, who was Syria’s defense minister for three decades before retiring in 2006, is from the town, among ancient farmland near the Orontes river.

Troops backed by tanks also entered the town of Qara on the same highway south of the city of Homs, which has been scene of daily protests, killing one resident and arresting tens of people in house to house raids, activists said. “These armored assaults on outlying areas are designed to crush protests and to contain any defections in the army,” said a Syrian political analyst in Damascus, who did not want to be named because of fear for his safety. “The regime’s political control on the army had seemed unbreakable, but that is no longer the case, after soldiers saw mosques being stormed, worshippers attacked and minarets shelled,” he said.

The apparent fall of Gaddafi has coincided with increased international pressure on Assad for his repression of protests, with European Union sanctions on the oil sector that could come as early as this week. President Abdullah Gul of Turkey, once a strong supporter of Assad, told Turkish state -run news agency Anatolian in an interview the situation had reached a point where changes would be too little too late.

“We are really very sad. Incidents are said to be ‘finished’ and then another 17 people are dead. How many will it be today? Clearly we have reached a point where anything would be too little too late. We have lost our confidence,” Gul said. The Arab League said it was concerned “over the dangerous developments on the Syrian arena that had caused thousands

of casualties” and “stresses the importance of ending bloodshed and to resort to reason before it is too late”.

It also agreed to send its secretary-general to Syria to push for reforms.

At an Arab League meeting in Cairo, Syrian representative Youssef Ahmad said “the response of the Syrian leadership to the just popular demands has helped stop the popular movement in many cities and their decline in other areas”. He said the authorities were pursuing reforms but they will not “allow terrorism and extremism to target peaceful coexistence in Syria and the independence of its patriotic and national decisions”.

Assad’s forces k illed at least two protesters overnight in the town of Albu Kamal on the border with Iraq in stepped up assaults on pro-democracy demonstrations, local ac tivists said. “A crowd streamed out from the grand mosque to the main square when they were met by bullets fired by security police snipers. Three protesters were also wounded,” one activist said. Like numerous cities and towns across Syria, Albu Kamal, on the border with Iraq’s Sunni heartland, has been besieged by tanks for weeks to end demonstrations demanding an end to 41 years of Assad family rule. But protests have been breaking out daily in the town after the nightly Ramadan post break-of-fast prayers, residents said.

Citing witnesses, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, headed by dissident Rami Abdelrahman, said 15,000 people demonstrated overnight in the town of Saraqeb in the Idlib province that borders Turkey.

“This was the biggest demonstration in Saraqeb since the uprising. We also saw large night demonstrations in Deraa province and Damascus suburbs,” Abdelrahman said from London. “Oppressor, your reign is coming to the end. Prepare yourself for execution,” chanted a crowd in the town of Hirak in the southern Hauran Plain, according to video footage distributed by residents.

North of Rastan, on the same highway leading to Turkey, two people were k illed in an army assault on the town of K han Sheikhoun,on Sunday. Two local activists, Tareq AlNisr and Musaab Taha, were wounded, residents said.

“It was an assassination attempt. The security police and shabbiha (militiamen) are beginning to use targeted assassinations and arresting people in larger numbers,” said an activist who gave his name as Abu Wael.

In Damascus, dozens of soldiers defected and fled into Al-Ghouta, an area of farmland, after pro-Assad forces fired at a large crowd of demonstrators near the suburb of Harasta to prevent them from marching on the centre of the capital, residents said. “The army has been firing heavy machineguns throughout the night at Al-Ghouta and they were being met with response from smaller rifles,” a resident of Harasta said. A statement published on the Internet by the Free Officers, a group that says it represents defectors, said “large defections” occurred in Harasta and security forces and shabbiha loyal to Assad were chasing the defectors.

It was the first reported defection around the capital, where Assad’s core forces are based. “The younger conscripts who defect mainly go back to their town and villages and hide. We have seen more experienced defectors fighting back in the south, in Idlib, and around Damascus,” said an activist who gave his name as Abu Khaled. Syrian authorities have repeatedly denied army defections have been taking place. They have expelled independent media since the uprising against Assad began in March. — Agencies

14

TUESDAY, AUGUST 30, 2011

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Issues

Pakistan’s ten years of chaos

By Jennie Matthew he 9/11 attacks that thrust Pakistan into the war on terror have brought the nuclear-armed state to its knees, fighting Islamist radicals at home and risking pariah status abroad. It was already evening in Pakistan when television channels, recently deregulated by then president General Pervez Musharraf, began broadcasting the terrifying scenes from the twin towers in New York.

Few slept that night, realizing immediately that the world had changed forever and that Pakistan was in the eye of the storm after spending years fostering extremist movements for its own ends. “My immediate thought was ‘oh my God, more trouble coming onto Pakistan’,” said author Imtiaz Gul, who has written extensively about the subsequent war and its fallout at home. “My fears have been borne out... The 9/11 events shocked Pakistan into an unprecedented crisis of insecurity,” he said.

It didn’t take long for Musharraf to weigh up conditions imposed by Washington and announce on September 19 that Pakistan would offer its airspace, territory and capabilities to help the United States defeat terrorism. But as America put the finishing touches to its war plans, Pakistan desperately tried to persuade its Taleban allies in Afghanistan to give up Osama bin Laden and avert catastrophic military action, to no avail. Within weeks, bin Laden, his future successor Ayman al-Zawahiri and Taleban leaders had fled the American invasion into Pakistan.

And there in the northwestern tribal belt, which no government has been able to subjugate, they found refuge among an extremist support network dating back to the 1990s jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan.

They regrouped, forming bases used by the Taleban to direct the insurgency in Afghanistan and training camps for Al-Qaeda to brainwash young extremists from all over the world into carrying out terror attacks.

As a result, the last decade has made the only Muslim nuclear power more unstable than ever before in its bloody and chaotic 64-year existence. The watershed came in July 2007 when government troops cleared out extremists preaching hate from the Red mosque in the heart of the capital Islamabad. The militants declared war and in the past four years, around 500 bomb attacks have killed 4,600 people, according to an AFP tally.Just when it appeared things couldn’t get worse, this year the US discovered bin Laden living close to Pakistan’s equivalent of West Point, sending in Navy SEALs to kill him and sinking already fractured US-Pakistani relations.

“No doubt that this is absolutely the worst time for the country,” said Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid, whose book “Taleban” became an international bestseller after 9/11. Rashid describes Pakistan as “completely isolated” by a war that “brought terrorism, sectarianism, a weakening of the state (and) much greater ethnic insurgencies” within the country. But the blame-he says-is Pakistan’s for frittering away American aid money and refusing to realign its national security priorities. “Politically, the most far-reaching mistake was the hosting and relaunching of the Afghan Taleban by the military and the intelligence agencies. That was enormously detrimental and led to the growth of the Pakistani Taleban.” Pakistan routinely proclaims to have sacrificed the most of any country fighting terror. The government claims that 35,000 people have been killed. The army confirms the deaths of 3,019 soldiers since 2001 - more than the 2,684 Western soldiers to have died in Afghanistan. More than three million people have been displaced by violence and counter-terrorism activities in Pakistan since 9/11, according to International Crisis Group figures released in 2010.

The army says 147,000 troops are deployed in the northwest compared to 35,000 in October 2001, a drastic reversal from the previous concentration along the Indian border in the east. Yet extremism has increased. An average of one US drone strike every four days against militants in the tribal belt is raising fears that the campaign is recruiting a new generation of insurgents and suicide bombers. Jihadist groups-fostered by Pakistan’s security establishment to fight India in Kashmir and maintain Afghanistan as a strategic asset-have splintered, and increasingly turned the guns on their old allies in the state.

“Pakistan is a lot less secure country now than 10 years ago, because it has become a battleground, an extension of the Afghan war. Pakistan is now facing a serious threat for its stability,” said journalist Zahid Hussain. — AFP

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

Did hurricane of hype engulf New York?

By Sebastian Smith urricane I rene may have been a category one storm, but some wondered if hot air from the media and politicians wasn’t what really blew off the scale. New York is the biggest US city, media capital, financial powerhouse and one of the most photogenic places on Ear thHollywood’s favorite backdrop for disaster movies. So, given the chance to report on a rare named storm at their doorstep, TV networks headquar tered in Manhattan did not disappoint.

Beautifully coiffed and tanned weathermen competed to paint more terrifying scenarios.

Even before I rene was anywhere near New York, one big network aired a colorful report about a possible urban apocalypse, with JFK airport under 20 feet of water, Wall Street submerged, and the subway system “knocked out.” During the actual storm, mostly youthful T V repor ters-and stars like CNN’s Anderson Cooper-took the tone to yet another level. Dripping wet, wind scraping at their microphones, the reporters stood resolutely in the familiar pose of hurricane journalists-water every-

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where and bodies bent to the gale. Never mind that during one network’s report, ordinary people could be seen calmly walk ing around while the correspondent seemingly battled to stay upright.

Or that sometimes the extent of flooding shown in New York seemed to have been exaggerated through clever camera angles.

Then there was the indomitable reporter who did an entire standup while being lathered in a brown, foamy and ver y smelly substance that sounded suspiciously like sewage over flow.

“Conditions continue to deteriorate in a big way,” he declared, as he started to disappear under the mystery foam in front of a beach.

“Doesn’t smell great.”

As Irene faded from hurricane to plain windy day, the wall-towall coverage might have seemed overcooked.

M aybe not.

Journalists were following what politicians told them and politicians said they were following what the National Hurricane Center and other weather experts told them. President Barack Obama, fighting for reelection next year, quickly showed he was in charge. Breaking off a Martha’s Vineyard vacation with conference calls and emergency meet-

ings, Obama at least ensured he didn’t repeat George W. Bush’s mistake in 2005 of seemingly not paying enough attention to the truly deadly Hurricane Katrina.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, seen by some as a dark horse contender for Republican presidential candidate, confronted Irene in his own particular media savvy way. Not only did he order one million people out of their homes, he loudly told everyone to “get the hell off the beach.” They did, fleeing in droves-and Christie’s authority was boosted. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg-still stung by criticism that the city failed miserably in a huge snow storm last winter-shut down New York before so much as a rain drop fell.

In an unprecedented order he told 370,000 people in Brooklyn and other outlying neighborhoods they had to evacuate. Then he closed the entire Subway, train and bus system, turning the city into a ghost town. When Irene shuffled off Sunday, having caused minimal damage in New York, but leaving the transport system facing days of chaos, Bloomberg said he’d been proved right. “The bottom line is that I would make the same decisions again, without hes-

itation. We can’t just, when a hurricane is coming, get out of the way and hope for the best,” he said.

Although New York City escaped mostly unscathed, the storm did claim 18 lives and inflict billions of dollars of damage along the US east coast. Still, even that toll is unlikely to persuade critics that the hype matched reality.

“Cable news was utterly swept away by the notion that Irene would turn out to be Armageddon,” Howard Kurtz of the Daily Beast website said. “National news organizations morphed into local eyewitness-news operations... with dire warnings about what would turn out to be a category one hurricane, the lowest possible ranking.”

On the Forbes website, Patrick Michaels said weather journalists and politicians were to blame together.”With this level of noise, the political process has to respond with full mobilization,” he wrote. And persuading the public of danger next time around may be difficult-with deadly results, he warned. “How many people will the hyping of Irene have killed?”

Michaels asked. “ That ’s how Hurricane Hype followed by Hurricane Insanity leads to hurricane death.”— AFP

Noda faces tough hurdles as 6th Japan PM in 5 yrs

By Linda Sieg and Leika Kihara inance Minister Yoshihiko Noda, elected by Japan’s ruling party on Monday to become the nation’s sixth prime minister in five years, faces a long list of challenges from rebuilding from a devastating tsunami and the nuclear crisis it triggered to reining in huge public debt. Following are some implications of Noda’s election:

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SHORT-LIVED LEADER? Japan’s last five leaders have struggled to implement policies in parliament where the opposition can block bills, and the biggest risk is that Noda could also end up a short-termer. The ruling Democratic Party of Japan has a regular leadership election set for September 2012. “Unfortunately chances are ... that we’ll see the same debates in 12 months,” said Jesper Koll, director of equities research at JPMorgan in Tokyo.

Noda has called for a grand coalition with main opposition parties to break the parliamentary deadlock but such proposals got cool reception from the opposition.

BALLOONING DEBT Moody’s Investors Service cut its rating on Japan’s government debt by one notch to Aa3 on Aug. 24, blaming in part the revolving-door leadership that has hampered effective economic strategies to deal with public debt now twice the size of the $5 trillion economy. Noda has a reputation of a fiscal hawk, and indeed critics say he is too much under the thumb of finance ministry bureaucrats.

He has supported a plan to double the 5 percent sales tax by mid-decade to fund bulging social security costs of an ageing

society.

But while he was initially clear in calling for temporary tax hikes to fund rebuilding from the March tsunamiJapan’s biggest reconstruction project since right after World War Two - in the run-up to the party vote he struck a more cautious note, saying it was vital to achieve both growth and fiscal reform.

Still, bond markets will probably welcome the choice of the only candidate who has been consistently calling for Japan to face painful reforms to contain its debt.

YEN AND MONETARY POLICY Japan intervened in the currency mar-

ket and eased monetary policy by boosting the central bank’s asset buying program on Aug 4, but the measures have had only a limited effect in stemming yen rises. The government’s policy on monetary policy and yen rises will remain largely unchanged. Noda, as finance minister, has vowed to act, including intervening in the market, to stem excessive rises in the yen and will likely stick to that stance. While he has called for the Bank of Japan’s cooperation in dealing with the strong yen, he has refrained from pressuring the central bank for additional easing steps and has respected its independence-unlike other candidates.

TOKYO: A couple read an extra edition of The Daily Yomiuri newspaper reporting on Japanese Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda who was elected as the new leader of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan yesterday. — AFP

ENERGY POLICY Noda has distanced himself from outgoing Prime Minister Naoto Kan’s vision of a nuclear power-free society, saying trust in nuclear power needs to be restored. He wants to ensure a stable power supply by restarting halted reactors after confirming they are safe, but whether local authorities and residents will agree is unclear.

RULING PARTY RIFTS Noda takes over at the helm of a fractious ruling party. He won with support from critics of Ichiro Ozawa, who still wields power despite facing trial in a funding scandal. Ozawa and his backers are unlikely to bolt from the party any time soon, but they remain a considerable force and could still undercut the new leader’s efforts.

DIPLOMACY Efforts to tighten ties with security ally the United States, strained after the Democrats first swept to power in 2009, have been on hold due to Japan’s political paralysis and confusion. Relations with Beijing chilled last year when a territorial row flared up and policymakers have had little scope to forge a strategy to deal with Japan’s giant neighbor. Noda has stressed the importance of the USJapan security alliance as the core of Japan’s diplomacy. Noda recently reiterated his view that Japanese wartime leaders convicted of war crimes by an Allied tribunal after Japan’s defeat in World War Two were not “war criminals” under domestic law, something that may create frictions with Beijing and Seoul.

He has also said China’s rapid military buildup and expanding naval activities pose a serious regional risk.— Reuters

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TUESDAY, AUGUST 30, 2011

analysis

After Libya, the question: To protect or depose?

By Philippe Bolopion ATO’s military intervention in Libya was initiated under the principle of the “responsibility to protect,” a concept born from the ashes of the Rwandan genocide: that the world should not stand by while mass atrocities go on within a sovereign state. Though morally self-evident, this concept was slow to gain acceptance in the international community, particularly among developing countries, many of which saw it as a ploy by Western powers to meddle in the internal affairs of weaker countries.

After much lobbying, the principle was finally enshrined by the 2005 World Summit and successfully used to resolve dangerous crises in Kenya and Guinea. But never, until Libya, had its most controversial aspect - the use of force as a last resort been put to the test. In the eyes of many countries, NATO has failed that test. In March, as Muammar Gaddafi prepared to crush the rebel stronghold of Benghazi, the UN Security Council authorized military action in Libya. But it made clear that the point of the action was to protect the Libyan people.

Many countries that opposed the Security Council’s action, and even at least one that supported it, now believe the Western operation has gone far beyond merely protecting Libyans, and it is now widely seen as an action intended from the start to get rid of the Libyan ruler. However unpopular Gaddafi might be, the idea that NATO’s warplanes were trying to kill him has struck a nerve among countries allergic to regime change and already suspicious of the responsibility-to-protect concept, known in diplomatic circles as R2P. “Libya has given R2P a bad name,” India’s UN ambassador, Hardeep Singh Puri, said recently. Diplomats from South Africa, which unlike India supported UN Resolution 1973, have expressed similar

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concerns, saying they feel used and are indignant that the West ignored calls by the African Union for a cease-fire. One could argue that when a leader is bent on committing mass atrocities against his population, the only effective way to protect civilians is to bring down the tyrant.

Yet no NATO state has made this case

arbitrarily arrested and tortured thousands, including children, people are clearly in need of protection. If the Security Council were to take its responsibility to protect seriously, it would have long ago used the many nonmilitary tools at its disposal to put pressure on Bashar Assad’s regime.

It could have passed a resolution

TRIPOLI: Libyan rebel from Misrata takes rest as the temperature reaches 40 degrees in the camp set up in the abandoned summer home of Muammar Gaddafi’s wife Safiah in Tripoli. — AP openly; instead its members have gone to great lengths to assert their neutrality.

The Libya operation has strengthened the case of those questioning the concept that the world has a responsibility to protect citizens from their rulers, and the backlash is already contributing to tragic consequences. In Syria, where security forces have killed more than 2,000 protesters and

demanding an end to the violence, the creation of a commission of inquiry, an arms embargo or an array of sanctions targeting the leadership of the government or the oil sector. There are many reasons for this disturbing failure to act: the opposition of veto-wielding Russia and China, the silence of the Arab League, the presence in the Security Council of Lebanon, which is a vir-

tual hostage of Syria. But a crucial factor against action has been that key votes in the council - India, South Africa and Brazil are missing.

Behind closed doors, their diplomats have explained that they are reluctant to go down the Libya road again. Of course, nothing in a draft resolution initially offered by the Europeans even hinted at military action or regime change. But for India, South Africa and Brazil, it’s payback time. The Syrian people are paying the price for what some countries see as NATO’s overreaching in Libya. So here we are, once again, with the Security Council standing virtually idle while mass atrocities are being committed, the very situation the responsibility-to-protect concept was designed to avoid.

We will never know how many civilian lives would have been lost had NATO not intervened in Libya. What we do know is what happens when the international community takes a back seat in the face of mass atrocities. Up to 40,000 civilians, for example, were killed during the final months of war in Sri Lanka, while the best the Security Council could muster was holding an informal hand-wringing session in a U.N. basement, because of Russian and Chinese obstructionism, with too little protest from Western powers.

Countries that waged war in Libya under the banner of the responsibility to protect have a duty to explain themselves and accept a sober and critical look at their actions. They should not be seen as brandishing responsibility-to-protect when it’s politically expedient and ignoring it when it’s not. They should address the complaints of countries that genuinely supported action to protect civilians but felt alienated by the way military operations were conducted. It’s the only way to ensure that Libya’s legacy brings us closer to a world that does not tolerate mass atrocities ever again.— MCT

Israeli provides the theme song for Libyan rebellion

By Michal Levertov hen Tel Aviv-based musician Noy A l ooshe d e c i d e d to cre a te a re m i x of a sp e e ch by L i bya n leader Mua mm a r G a d d a f i , h e n e ve r imagin e d i t woul d b e co m e a h u g e YouTube hit in the Arab world. Not only has the video attracted more than 5.5 million hits, television footage showed Libyan rebels advancing into the capital Tr ipoli b e i ng gre e t i n g by th e l o ca l s chanting “zenga zenga,” the words of Alooshe’s remix.

The title “Zenga Zenga” comes from Gaddafi’s repetition of the Libyan word for “alleyways” in the speech used in the video clip. When Alooshe, 32, first posted the video in February, he had no idea what to expect. “The news reports from the revolution in Egypt stressed that this was a new world; that all the young people there are into Facebook and Twitter,” Alooshe said. “I was interested to see if youngsters in the Arab world really were so involved in the web and in its social networks.” At first, he sent the video to about 20 sites devoted to Arab opposition movements.

Withi n hour s, “ Ze n g a Ze n g a” h a d received more than 300,000 hits. Alooshe was surprised at the massive response.

“Most viewers were in Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Egypt,” he said. Once news of the video was reported by mainstream Israeli media, viewership took off internationally. Although Alooshe did not identify himself as Israeli when he posted “Zenga Zenga,” he noted that most viewers learned of his background by

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looking at his online profile.

“There were also many pleasant reactions: people who wrote saying how much they enjoyed the remix; Libyans who promised they would dance in the streets to this music when the country was freed; Iranians and Syrians requested such remixes of their own leaders,” he said. “People even wrote that they disliked Jews and Zionists but liked the

remix,” he commented. Alooshe said he’s heard that the video was even shown on Libyan state TV until someone realized it was m oc k i ng r at her t han glorifying Gaddafi.

Alooshe says he’s learned much from the responses he’s received from Arab viewers. “In Israel, the Arab Spring was depicted as a revolution doomed to be taken over by extremists such as the

Muslim Brotherhood,” he said. “But then, I suddenly saw a totally different picture one of people who are just like me. “All these years we were told that there are these enemy countries whose citizens hate us,” he said. “And then you get to talk to people from Saudi Arabia and Iran and other Muslim countries and you simply grasp that it’s nothing like what we were told all of those years.”— MCT

Someone wants war in Mideast

By Frida Ghitis omething extremely important and exceedingly dangerous is unfolding in a most explosive part of the globe, but it is receiving only minimal attention by the media and by world leaders. An outbreak of violence in Southern Israel, Gaza, and along the Egyptian border, triggered by a recent attack against Israelis civilians, could easily escalate into much more serious fighting.

A new war between Israelis and Palestinians right now would have immediate, horrific repercussions for the people who live there. It would also have potentially disastrous consequences for those who want freedom and democracy in the Middle East, as well as those in the West who would like to see a moderate Arab world emerge from the regional wave of popular uprisings. It began on Aug 18, when an attack against an Israeli passenger bus - terrorism by any definition - killed eight Israelis, four of them members of the same family.

Israel immediately shot back, killing the head of a group called the Palestinian Popular Resistance Committees (PRC). The attack left dead four PRC members and a young boy who was with them.

Since then, Palestinians have fired more than 160 rockets into Israeli cities. At least one Palestinian missile landed in Egypt, injuring an Egyptian woman. Israel has fired back, targeting other mili-

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tant leaders. More civilians have died on both sides. As always, Palestinians are aiming and occasionally hitting - civilian targets.

Israelis are aiming at militant targets, but innocent civilians are also getting killed by Israeli fire. A truce accepted by Israel and Hamas has not held. With every missile launched from Gaza, with hundreds of thousands of anxious Israelis rushing into shelters, there is more pressure on Israel to launch a larger offensive.

Somebody clearly wants to provoke a war between Israelis and Palestinians. The key question is: Who would benefit from war at this moment? The answer is long and troubling.

The list of potential beneficiaries of a Palestinian-Israeli war includes Syria’s Bashar Assad, the Iranian regime, Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbollah in Lebanon, possibly Hamas in Gaza, and certainly radical Islamists all over the Arab world. The list of losers from a new war includes, first of all, the civilian populations of Israel and Gaza.

Other losers would include those fighting to overthrow the regime in Syria, along with pro-democracy forces all over the Middle East and their supporters in the US, Europe and elsewhere.

The last thing Israel wants now is another war. Israel is worried about relations with Egypt, about Palestinian plans for a unilateral declaration of statehood at the United Nations, and about the turmoil in surrounding countries. It would have much to lose and little to gain in a major conflict.—MCT

Turkey running out of patience with Assad

By Fulya Ozerkan ngered at Syria’s indifference to its pleas to end months of bloodshed, Turkey is edging closer to following Western calls for its former ally President Bashar Al-Assad to quit, according to analysts. Turkey has so far held back from making an outright appeal for Assad to leave power but repeatedly called on the leadership to end the offensive against its people and initiate reforms. Ankara now feels that Assad has failed to keep his promises and President Abdullah Gul explicitly said Sunday that Turkey has lost confidence in the regime in Syria.

“It appears Turkey is gradually coming closer to following the suit of its Western allies,” said Ilter Turan of Istanbul’s private Bilgi University. “I think Turkish officials now see Assad’s remaining in power will lead to bigger problems.” Although the two neighbors came close to war in the 1990s over Syria’s harboring of the now imprisoned Kurdish separatist leader Abdullah Ocalan, relations since then have markedly improved.

As part of a “zero problems with neighbors” foreign policy, the two countries have fostered political and trade ties over the last two decades, abolishing the need for visas for cross-border travelers.

Before its relationship with Israel soured over the deadly commando raid on a Gaza-bound Turkish flotilla last year, Turkey also mediated several rounds of indirect peace talks between Syria and the Jewish state. “We have pursued an engagement policy with Syria since 2005, which turned out to be beneficial

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as the United States also appointed an ambassador to Damascus,” a Turkish diplomat said.

“We are currently at a point where the engagement is coming to an end,” said the diplomat who wished to remain anonymous. Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu held talks with Assad for more than six hours during a visit to Damascus early this month, urging him to end the deadly crackdown on opponents and pave the way to political

reforms. “Apparently Davutoglu failed to convince Assad,” columnist Semih Idiz wrote in daily Milliyet on Monday. “In short, we see a ‘dialogue of the deaf’ is taking place between the two countries.”

On August 18, US President Barack Obama made the first explicit call for Assad to resign over his regime’s attacks on protesters, which was swiftly echoed by the leaders of France, Germany and Britain. Some analysts believe Turkey has been dragging its heels on the Syrian cri-

DOUMA: Syrian soldiers gather at the backyard of the municipality of Douma on the northeastern outskirts of the capital Damascus yesterday, as rights groups said Syrian security forces killed six people and wounded dozens in raids in the northwest and around the capital. — AFP

sis. “Turkey should have said ‘go’ to the Baath regime long time ago and coordinated its steps with international actors,” said Osman Bahadir Dincer of the Ankara-based International Strategic Research Organization. Dincer said Turkey should give stronger support for the Syrian opposition. The unrest in Syria has triggered an inflow of refugees to bordering cities and also sparking fears of a Sunni-Shiite tension.

“We do not want a Sunni-Shiite tension in this geography,” said the Turkish diplomat. “If a sectarian clash happens, this will not be limited with Syria and instead will spread throughout the region.” Ankara believes if Assad had paid heed to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s call for more reforms in January, the situation would not have degenerated so badly. “Some steps were taken though but they were too little and too late. A crisis of confidence erupted between the Syrian leadership and its people,” said the diplomat. “We do not have a personal problem (with Assad).

This is a humanitarian matter.”

The uprising also occupies the agenda of the Turkish opposition as a group of lawmakers from the Republican People’s Party (CHP) will make a fact-finding trip to Syria on September 4, Faruk Logoglu, a party deputy said. “What happens at our doorstep in Syria is a top priority for us,” said Logoglu, hoping that the trip would contribute to shaping Turkey’s approach. The CHP delegation including Logoglu has not asked rendezvous from al-Assad and instead will hold talks with civil society groups and Syrian people, added the lawmaker.— AFP

Focus

New Libya leaders face harsh reality

By Samia Nakhoul s the euphoria subsides and the task of rebuilding Libya begins, the disparate rebel groups that overthrew Muammar Gaddafi are about to discover whether anything more unites them other than their hatred of the fallen dictator. Unlike Egypt and Tunisia, where the army took over control after the ousting of Zein Al-Abidine Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak, Libyans are waking up to the reality of what they are left with - a country awash with guns, armed rebels ruling the streets and no viable state institutions, police force or army to hold the country together.

The first priority of the National Transitional Council (NTC), analysts say, is to get the guns and garbage off the streets and restore basic services such as water, electricity and communications. The capital of two million is left with no effective political or security leadership. NTC leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil has yet to arrive to Tripoli to assume the command.

“There are lots of uncertainties on the way. The rebels fought and won their own liberation and that’s tremendous but things can go wrong. There could be lots of errors and mistakes on the way,” said George Joffe, a Libya expert at Cambridge University.

“A measure of the council success is how quickly it dissolves itself. There are disparate voices on the council that may cause problems,” he added. After getting Libya on its feet, the really difficult task of knitting together a country Gaddafi kept atomized begins and the question is whether Jalil is up to the task.

“The real question is whether the council has effective control and how quickly they can set up the interim government. An awful lot hangs on rebel leader Mustafa Abdul Jalil. If he can provide the leadership it will work. If he can’t there will be problems,” Joffe told Reuters.

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PROMISES, PROMISES Now the rebels, a melange of ex-Gaddafi officials, businessmen, dissidents in exile, must act swiftly to create what they had promised Libyans, a modern state that would compensate for what they never had-a democratic country with the rule of law and a strong government. “It is not a question of Libya breaking up into factions but how to create a viable administration that keeps the country together,” Joffe said.

Over the four decades of his autocratic rule, Gaddafi has destroyed all institutional life and prevented the emergence of all alternative centers of power, using his government as a facade to rubber stamp his decisions and policies. Libya watchers believe for the NTC to succeed it must quickly establish a government that is inclusive and representative of all the rebels from Jabal Nafusa, Misrata, Zawya who spearheaded the push into Tripoli and the toppling of Gaddafi on Aug 23.

Libyan political analyst Mustafa Fetouri foresaw problems ahead. “The current council will not be able to lead the country through a successful and short transitional period. It lacks vision, it lacks legitimacy and effective power on the ground.” “Those who have legitimacy are the people who fought and unfortunately those people are not coming from well experienced political background. They are naive politically.

Their main aim was to get rid of Gaddafi,” he added.

Jalil, who is trying to present his interim council as a credible temporary alternative to Gaddafi, said the council will work on holding elections after drafting the constitution, which he expects will take place in one year at most.

Potential problems include the rivalry between opposition leaders who remained in Libya and those returning from exile, as well as resistance from rebels in the Western Mountains to reconcile or work with former Gaddafi functionaries in a post-Gaddafi government. “I don’t think there is a dominant force. All these tribes in the east, west and south, have come together to get rid of the regime,” Joffe said. “On the army and security forces, they are not going to do another Iraq and disband the forces,” he said, refering to the dissolution of Iraq’s military after Saddam’s overthrow.

GUNS AND GARBAGE On the ground, the rebels are under pressure to deal with what is shaping up to be a humanitarian crisis. Corpses of fighters and civilians killed in the Battle of Tripoli are decomposing on the streets in scorching heat, awaiting local volunteers to bury them in mass graves. Mounds of rotten rubbish litter the streets with the overpowering stench filling the air. Most menial workers from other African countries who collected the garbage have long fled or stopped showing to work. In some neighborhoods, the rebels and residents have helped organize garbage collection and burning. They also set up a task force to bury the dead.

The capital remains tense and shut with people still not venturing out. Prices of food are sky-rocketing with prices for items doubling. Many Libyans are alarmed at the amount of weapons in the city and the sight of gung-ho rebels brandishing rifles, manning checkpoints and patrolling the streets. “The widespread presence of guns without any regulation, at random and in the hands of whoever is the big impediment that faces the council,” said Feitouni.

Mahmoud Shammam of the NTC on Sunday announced measures to tackle shortages of water, fuel and medicines and deploy police on the streets within weeks but said there was no magic wand.

“Tripoli was under the tight control of the dictatorship for 42 years. We are starting from point zero. We cannot make miracles, but we promise to try to make this difficult period as short as we can,” Shammam said. While the focus is on rebuilding a traumatized country from scratch, the fate of the fugitive Gaddafi seems less relevant. “He is not a priority,” Shammam said. “He’s running from place to place. We’re going to get Gaddafi, we are following him and we’re going to find him but we’re not going to stop everything waiting for the capture of Gaddafi or his sons.”— Reuters

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Russia lose first-choice keeper for qualifiers MOSCOW: Russia goalkeeper Igor Akinfeyev will miss next month’s Euro 2012 qualifiers against Macedonia and Ireland after suffering a serious knee injury in a league match on Sunday, his club CSKA Moscow said yesterday.

Akinfeyev, who has been Russia’s first choice since 2005, damaged meniscus and cruciate ligaments in his left knee following a collision with Brazilian striker Welliton in a heated Moscow derby against Spartak.

CSKA said on their website (www.pfccska.com) that he would undergo another medical in Germany in the next few days to reveal the exact extent of his injury amid fears that he could be out for several months. The 25-year-old underwent surgery on the same knee and was sidelined for more than six months after he tore ligaments four years ago. Russia coach Dick Advocaat has already called up Dynamo Moscow keeper Anton Shunin as a replacement for the home games against Macedonia on Sept. 2 and Ireland four days later. —Reuters

‘Tiger’ takes yachting plunge ALICANTE: A 37-year-old Chinese entrepreneur has given up business to become the first sailor from his country to compete in the Volvo Ocean Race.

Te n g J i a n g h e b u i l t u p h i s own construction company in Guangzhou but spent much of the last year learning the ropes yachting before landing a fiveweek trial with Team Sanya, the first Chinese entry in the competition.

The hard work has paid off and organisers on Monday announced that Teng, nicknamed ‘ Tiger ’, would become the first Chinese sailor to compete in the nine month, 39,000 nautical mile competition starting here on Oct 29.

“It’s a very special day for me-a dream come true,” Teng was quot-

Brewers tame Chicago Cubs MILWAUKEE: Corey Hart homered for the second time in as many days as the Milwaukee Brewers swept the Chicago Cubs with a 3-2 win on Sunday.

Zack Greinke (13-5) improved to 10-0 at Miller Park and didn’t allow a hit until Marlon Byrd’s fifth-inning effort. In the bottom of the inning, Greinke singled, stole a base for the first time in his career and scored on Hart’s blast.

Greinke struck out seven, scattering four hits and two walks. John Axford allowed a solo homer to Tyler Colvin in the ninth and third baseman Casey McGehee bobbled two balls before tagging out Byrd to end it. Axford got his 40th save.

The Brewers completed their second straight three-game sweep over the Cubs to improve to 21-5 this month, tying the

MILWAUKEE: Brewers starting pitcher Zack Greinke throws during the first inning of a baseball game against the Chicago Cubs. —AP franchise mark for most wins in a month set in June 1978. Cubs star ter Casey Coleman (2-7) took the loss.

D’backs 6, Padres 1 At Phoenix, Ian Kennedy pitched seven effective innings to become the National League’s first 17-game winner and the Arizona Diamondbacks beat the San Diego Padres for their sixth straight victory.

Collin Cowgill hit his first career homer during a four-hit game. He hit a solo shot off Cory Luebke (5-7) in the second inning and added a run-scoring double off Erik Hamren in the eighth. The NL West-leading Diamondbacks didn’t need much more with Kennedy (17-4) pitching.

The right-hander settled in after giving up a homer to Orlando Hudson in the second inning, allowing one run or less for the 13th time this season to complete the three-game sweep.

Astros 4, Giants 3 At San Francisco, Matt Downs delivered the winning hit in the 11th inning to

TUESDAY, AUGUST 30, 2011

give the Houston Astros a win at the stumbling San Francisco Giants.

Jose Altuve got things going with a one-out double against Ramon Ramirez (2-3) and Downs followed with a single up the middle. Altuve was forced into action after slugger Carlos Lee left in the top of the ninth with a sprained right ankle sustained sliding into second on a double.

Mark Melancon (7-4) pitched the 10th and got the win despite allowing Mark DeRosa’s tying single. David Carpenter finished for his first career save. The reigning World Series champions fell four games behind first-place Arizona in the NL West.

Reds 5, Nationals 4 At Cincinnati, Joey Votto led off the 14th inning with his second home run of the game, lifting the Cincinnati Reds over the Washington Nationals.

Votto hit a full-count pitch from Collin Balester (1-3) into the left-field bleachers to push the Reds over .500 for the first time since July 3.

His second career game-ending homer sent the Nationals to a sixth straight loss, tying their season high. Johnny Cueto and five Reds relievers combined for 19 strikeouts, tying the team record.

Bill Bray (4-2) allowed one hit in the 14th to get the win. Washington manager Davey Johnson and bench coach Pat Corrales and Reds manager Dusty Baker all were ejected.

Cardinals 7, Pirates 4 At St Louis, Kyle Lohse went a workmanlike five innings for his 100th career win as the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Lohse (12-8) gave up four runs, two of them earned. He allowed six hits, struck out four and walked two. Lohse also put the Cardinals ahead to stay, getting an infield single in the fourth and scoring on Allen Craig’s sacrifice fly for a 5-4 lead.

Pittsburgh has lost four of its last six and fell a season-high 18 games behind NL Central-leading Milwaukee. Lohse became the 36th active pitcher to reach 100-wins. He has 106 losses in his nineyear career.

Jason Motte picked up his first save of the season with a per fec t ninth. Jeff Karstens (9-8) gave up five earned runs in 3 2-3 innings.

Rockies 7, Dodgers 6 At Los Angeles, Kevin Kouzmanoff drove in his first four runs since joining Colorado this week , and the Rock ies needed five relievers to hold off the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Kouzmanoff hit a three-run double in the first inning as Colorado took a 5-0 lead. He later singled home a run, and the six-year veteran tied a career high with four RBIs. The Rockies got Kouzmanoff from Oakland on Tuesday for either a player to be named or cash. The Dodgers had won five in a row.

Jhoulys Chacin (11-10) gave up four runs, six hits and five walks in five-plus innings. Rafael Betancourt bounced back from Saturday’s blown save, getting three outs to record his fourth in eight chances.

Nathan Eovaldi (1-2) gave up five runs and six hits over four innings. —AP

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

Kansas City 2, Cleveland 1; Tampa Bay 12, Toronto 0; Cincinnati 5, Washington 4 (14 innings); Baltimore 2, NY Yankees 0; Milwaukee 3, Chicago Cubs 2; Minnesota 11, Detroit 4; St. Louis 7, Pittsburgh 4; Houston 4, San Francisco 3 (11 innings); Colorado 7, LA Dodgers 6; Chicago White Sox 9, Seattle 3; Arizona 6, San Diego 1; NY Yankees 8, Baltimore 3; Texas 9, LA Angels 5.

American League National League Eastern Division Eastern Division Philadelphia 83 46 .643 W L PCT GB Atlanta 79 54 .594 6 Boston 82 51 .617 NY Mets 62 68 .477 21.5 NY Yankees 79 52 .603 2 Washington 62 70 .470 22.5 Tampa Bay 73 59 .553 8.5 Florida 59 72 .450 25 Toronto 66 67 .496 16 Baltimore 53 78 .405 28 Central Division Milwaukee 81 54 .600 Central Division St. Louis 70 64 .522 10.5 Detroit 73 60 .549 Cincinnati 67 66 .504 13 Chicago White Sox 66 65 .504 6 Pittsburgh 62 71 .466 18 Cleveland 65 65 .500 6.5 Chicago Cubs 57 77 .425 23.5 Minnesota 56 77 .421 17 Houston 44 90 .328 36.5 Kansas City 55 79 .410 18.5 Western Division Western Division Arizona 75 59 .560 Texas 76 59 .563 San Francisco 71 63 .530 4 LA Angels 72 61 .541 3 Colorado 64 70 .478 11 LA Dodgers 62 70 .470 12 Oakland 60 73 .451 15 San Diego 60 74 .448 15 Seattle 56 76 .424 18.5

ed as saying in a statement.

Apart from other tricks of the trade, Teng is swotting up on a mixture of English and Maori, including ‘Kia Ora mate!’ (‘Greetings, mate!), from his New Zealand skipper Mike Sanderson and wants his compatriots to follow in his footsteps.

“I hope that many Chinese people will become inspired to learn to sail through my experience and I also hope that we can encourage many people to visit the tropical destination of Sanya by promoting the profile of Hainan and Sanya through our beautiful race boat colors.” Teng only sailed for the first time in May last year but managed to convince his captain to make him part of the crew.—Reuters

Renault gets Senna boost BRUSSELS: Renault are backing Bruno Senna to score points after the Brazilian’s roller-coaster debut for the Formula One team in Belgium at the weekend.

Senna, nephew of the late triple champion Ayrton, qualified an impressive seventh at Spa-Francorchamps but then made a mess of the start and was handed a drive-through penalty for causing a first corner collision.

He ended up in 13th place at the finish while Russian team mate Vitaly Petrov was ninth. “It’s mixed feelings...but he did a solid race, good pace, consistent enough,” Renault F1 team principal Eric Boullier told Reuters.

“He needs to improve on this but a good race. If he can deliver like he did this weekend in every race I think he will be good enough to bring points home.”

Senna raced for struggling HRT last season but has not been on the starting grid in November and recognised he had got his braking distances wrong with the car on a full fuel load. He apologised afterwards to Spaniard Jaime Alguersuari, the Toro Rosso driver he ploughed into and dumped out of the race. —Reuters

Price strikes down Blue Jays TORONTO: David Price struck out a franchise-record 14 in seven dominant innings, Desmond Jennings hit a pair of solo home runs and the Tampa Bay Rays beat the Toronto Blue Jays 12-0 on Sunday.

Price (12-11) broke the team mark for strikeouts shared by Scott Kazmir and James Shields.

Relievers Brandon Gomes and Cesar Ramos each struck out two.

Jennings homered on the first pitch of the game from Brandon Morrow (9-9) and got a career-high four hits. He drove in three runs, scored three, drew a walk and also stole a base from the leadoff spot.

Sean Rodriguez added a tworun homer and Matt Joyce doubled twice during a six-run ninth as the Rays improved to an AL-best 20-9 since July 28.

Price improved to 9-1 with a 1.99 ERA in 11 career starts against Toronto. The Blue Jays lost their fourth straight overall.

Rangers 9, Angels 5 At Arlington, Texas, Josh Hamilton broke out of a slump with a long two-run homer and the tiebreaking RBI single for AL Westleading Texas.

Hamilton’s homer in the third off Jered Weaver tied the game at 4, and his single in the seventh put the Rangers ahead 6-5. The reigning AL MVP had been 3 for 21 without an RBI the past four games.

Texas (76-59) had lost seven of 10 games, watching its division lead against the Angels shrink from seven games to two, before winning the finale against the Angels.

The AL West’s top two teams don’t play again until a three -game series on the West Coast to end the regular season.

Darren Oliver (5-5) pitched a scoreless inning in relief of starter Colby Lewis before the Rangers knocked Weaver (15-7) out of the game.

Orioles 2, Yankees 0 At Baltimore, Cur tis Granderson homered twice to take the major league lead with 38, rookie Ivan Nova won his 10th straight decision, and New York split a day-night doubleheader with Baltimore.

Granderson hit a three -run drive in the third inning and a solo shot in the seventh. He moved past Jose Bautista, who

has 37 homers, and assumed the major league lead in RBIs with 107.

Nova (14-4) gave up three runs and seven hits in seven-plus innings, striking out seven and walking two. The right-hander has won seven straight starts and is 10-0 in 11 outings since June 3.

Brian Matusz (1-7) allowed six runs and six hits - including three home runs - in 5 1-3 innings.

Adam Jones had two RBIs for the

Twins 11, Tigers 4 At Minneapolis, Luke Hughes hit two home runs to help the Minnesota Twins take out their hitting frustration on Brad Penny and the Detroit Tigers, ending a seven-game losing streak.

Hughes drove in five runs for the first time in his career, backing Brian Duensing (9-13) and sparking the Twins to just their fourth win against the Tigers in their last 19 meetings. Penny (9-

Th e n e w l y p ro m o te d r i g h t fielder singled in his first at-bat, then homered over the rightce n te r f i e l d fe n ce o f f J a s o n Vargas (7-12) the next time up.

Royals 2, Indians 1 At C l e ve l a n d, B r u ce C h e n overcame a shaky first inning to win his career-high fifth straight start and led the Kansas City R oy a l s ove r t h e C l e ve l a n d Indians.

TORONTO: Tampa Bay Rays catcher John Jaso (left) celebrates with Rays closing pitcher Cesar Ramos (right) after defeating the Toronto Blue Jays 12-0 during ninth-inning. —AP Orioles, whose six-game winning streak ended.

In the first game, Rookie Zach Britton (8-9) allowed four hits over seven innings, and Baltimore extended its winning streak to a season-high six games.

The Orioles had not won six in a row since April 2008. The game was scoreless until the seventh, when Nick Markakis doubled and Vladimir Guerrero singled.

It was Deter Jeter ’s 2,402nd game with New York, breaking a tie with Mickey Mantle for most in a Yankees uniform. Jeter went 0 for 4 as the designated hitter.

Bartolo Colon (8-9) has lost his last three starts.

10) gave up eight hits, seven runs and two walks in five innings. He struck out five.

White Sox 9, Mariners 3 At S e a t t l e, D ay a n Vi c i e d o made a sudden impact in his return to the majors, hitting a three -run homer in his season debut as the Chicago White Sox beat the Seattle Mariners.

Tyler Flowers connected for his first career grand slam, helping Gavin Floyd (12-10) cruise to vic tor y. Viciedo was called up f ro m Tr i p l e - A C h a r l o t te o n Saturday when the White S ox placed outfielder Carlos Quentin on the 15-day disabled list.

Chen (10-5) allowed the first four batters of the game to reach base and walked Carlos Santana with the bases loaded to force in Cleveland’s only run.

The left-hander, who allowed five hits in 7 1-3 innings, is 4-0 in his last five star ts against the Indians.

M ike M oustak as’ RBI single broke a 1-1 tie in the third for the Royals, who held on to win after losing late leads in the first two games of the series.

Joakim Soria pitched a perfect ninth for his 24th save. Justin Masterson (10-8) allowed two runs in six innings and lost for the first time since July 24. —AP

Stoner tightens grip on MotoGP title INDIANAPOLIS: Australian Casey Stoner about the slippery track he labeled one of the dar and I can’t honestly say this is better than most of them. “We drive on some fantastic cirtightened his grip on the MotoGP title, blitz- worst on the MotoGP circuit.

But there was no hint of distress in the cuits; I don’t get a kick out of it just because I ing to victory at the Indianapolis Grand Pix on Sunday for his third consecutive win and sev- Australian’s performance as he neatly navigat- win.

“I was struggling a little bit with the grip ed the 2.61 mile (4.22 km) layout, which uses enth of the season. and didn’t feel comfortable Stoner, starting from but I suppose, compared to pole after destroying the everyone else, we felt prettrack record in Saturday ty good.” Both Pedrosa and qualifying, briefly surrenSpies agreed they had no dered the lead to Honda hope of reeling in Stoner. team mate Dani Pedrosa Pedrosa started behind but roared past the Stoner on the second row Spaniard seven laps later but shot into the lead on and then powered his way the first turn. Some early to a runaway victory. wobbles dropped Stoner Pedrosa, last year’s windown to third but the ner at the Brickyard, settled Australian stalked the leadfor second, crossing nearly ers and before the race five seconds back, while reached the midway point American Ben Spies gave was in complete comthe home crowd some mand. thing to cheer, taking third.

“I knew for the race pace With a 10th consecutive I was not there,” said podium finish, Stoner Pedrosa. “I did a couple of extended his lead at the good first laps but then top of the standings over Casey went by and started Spain’s world champion Jorge Lorenzo, who fin- INDIANAPOLIS: Casey Stoner, of Australia, celebrates after winning the to pull away. I kept focused on my rhythm and I was ished fourth, to 44 points Indianapolis MotoGP motorcycle race. —AP happy with my performwith six races to run. ance.”

“There are crucial points One rider not pleased with his day’s work throughout the whole season and we just part of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s have to make sure we keep our heads down oval on another sweltering day at the famed was seven-times world champion Valentino Rossi, who had a miserable weekend with a and keep trying to win races,” Stoner told Brickyard.

“I’m not like some other riders who just 10th place finish. reporters. “That’s what I enjoy most and it’s After crashing in qualifying, the Italian enjoy tracks because they win there,” said what we are here to do every weekend.”

It was another dominating display by Stoner, the 2007 world champion. “I’ve won started well down the grid and laboured to Stoner, who had complained bitterly all week on most of the circuits we have on the calen- his worst result of the season. —Reuters

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Spain favorite to retain European title BELGRADE: Packed with talent and experience, holders Spain look stronger than ever as they head into the European championship in Lithuania as favorites to retain their title and qualify for next year’s Olympic Games.

Six of the 12 players in Spain’s roster ply their trade in the NBA, including Los Angeles Lakers power forward Pau Gasol and new acquisition Serge Ibaka, an Oklahoma Thunder forward who was granted Spanish citizenship last month.

The Congolese -born Ibaka, who played in the Spanish league for three years before moving to the United States in 2009, was brimming with confidence after Spain, described as pundits as Europe’s “dream team,” won seven of their eight warm-up matches.

“I can already see myself playing the final because we are looking good,” Ibaka told reporters after Spain completed their build-up with a pair of emphatic wins over Australia.

“Everyone is motivated and for me it’s a living dream to play with one of the best forwards in NBA history,” said Ibaka, referring to Gasol who won the 2010 NBA title with the Lakers.

Ibaka’s inclusion has added more

depth to the already menacing presence Spain have in the paint, where Gasol’s younger brother Marc and veteran Felipe Reyes should constitute a wall for most of their rivals.

Their back-court looks just as impressive with point guards Ricky Rubio and Jose Calderon set to carve out clean-cut positions for Juan Carlos Navarro and athletic forward Rudy Fernandez, two of Europe’s most lethal perimeter shooters.

Still, having lost to Serbia in the quarter-finals of last year’s world championship in Turkey, Spain will be wary of underestimating any of the other medal contenders in Lithuania.

With only the winners and runnersup qualifying automatically for the Olympics, Spain know that any slip-up will once again be fatal in the Aug 31Sept 18 tournament.

Hosts Lithuania were the only team to beat Spain in the build-up to the European championship and the frenetic home support will add more wind to their sails.

Basketball is hugely popular in Lithuania, a Baltic nation of 3.2 million who won two successive European titles in the late 1930s before, having re-

emerged as an independent nation following the break-up of the Soviet Union, a talented generation clinched the third in 2003. Lithuania will play the Spaniards in the opening stage, featuring four groups of six teams, but both nations are likely to be among the top three in each group who advance.

The second stage is something of a phoney war as it features two groups of six with the top four in each group progressing to the quarter-finals, where the real business begins.

The whole knockout stage will be played in the impressive Zhaligiris Arena in Kaunas with a capacity of 15,442.

Lithaunia’s coach Kestutis Kemzura, who guided the team to a third-place finish in the 2010 world championship, acknowledged his weakened team would have to play stronger defence to challenge for a podium finish on home soil. “Last year, we had (forward) Linas Kleiza who was scoring 20 points per game and (guard) Jonas Macilulis but they are not with us and we are still struggling,” Kemzura said after a drubbing by Slovenia in last Friday’s friendly.

“We have to step up our defence and if we can stop our rivals from scoring more

than 70 points, we’ve got a chance.

“We had a stronger team spirit in Turkey but I don’t want to complain because we have good players here who need to learn to fight together as a unit and, to do that, winning the opening game against Great Britain will be vital,” said Kemzura.

Britain, already qualified for the Olympics as hosts, are unlikely to make an impact in Lithuania but facing Europe’s top sides should be a useful experience for the team whose outstanding player is Chicago Bulls forward Luol Deng.

France, on the other hand, could figure as the tournament’s dark horses if they advance from the toughest group in the preliminary stage also including Italy, Germany, 2009 runners-up Serbia, Latvia and Israel. The French have an outstanding starting five led by triple NBA champion Tony Parker of the San Antonio Spurs, but lack of depth on the bench could be a setback during a gruelling schedule of 11 games in 19 days for teams which reach the knockout stage. Germany, champions in 1993 and bronze medalists in 2005, will rest their hopes on talismanic power forward Dirk

Nowitzki, who led the Dallas Mavericks to a memorable 4-2 win over the Miami Heat in last season’s NBA finals.

Nowiztki, a versatile and unselfish team player who overshadowed Lebron James in the final series, is also capable of acting like a one-man army when the going gets tough for his team mates against stronger and more talented rivals. Those traits will be vital if Germany are to finish ahead of a strong pack chasing either a medal or a top-six finish, which secures an Olympic qualifying berth in next year’s playoffs.

It includes Italy and Greece, who both have two European titles to their name, 2007 winners Russia and 2001 champions Turkey, as well as all six nations from the former Yugoslavia.

Serbia appear to be the strongest in that contingent, but Croatia and Slovenia also have respectable squads capable of reaching the latter stages of the tournament. Montenegro, playing in their first major tournament as an independent nation, are an unknown quantity while Bosnia and Macedonia will start as underdogs along with Poland, Belgium, Bulgaria, Portugal, Finland and Ukraine.—Reuters

Lynx down Silver Stars SAN ANTONIO: Seimone Augustus scored 20 points and Maya Moore added 19 as the Minnesota Lynx clinched the top seed in the Western Conference with a 72-61 victory over the San Antonio Silver Stars on Sunday.

Minnesota (23-6) has won five straight games and swept the season series against San Antonio. It’s the first time in franchise history that the Lynx have earned the top seed in the West.

Ronneka Hodges led San Antonio (13-15) with 12 points, hitting 4 of 8 3-pointers. Jia Perkins and Tully Bevilaqua added 10 each for the Silver Stars, who have lost six straight. Over their last 12 games, the Silver Stars have lost 10 while the Lynx have won 10. San Antonio started the season 5-1 but is now is only 11/2 games up on Los Angeles for the No. 4 seed in the West.

COLOMBO: Sri Lankan cricketers Lahiru Thirimanne (left) and Angelo Mathews run between the wickets during a cricket practice match between Australia and Sri Lanka Board XI. —AP

Sri Lanka aim to put Australia in a spin GALLE: Sri Lanka will bank on its spinners in the first test match against Australia starting tomorrow in Galle, a pitch historically favoring turn, but the visitors’ debutant bowlers may cause trouble to the host nation’s batsmen.

Both nations, playing a test against each other for the first time since 2004, are lacking bowling quality they once had in the likes of Australia’s Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne and world record wicket-taker Muttiah Muralitharan and Chaminda Vass from Sri Lanka.

Australian pacer Mitchell Johnson and Sri Lankan spinner Ajantha Mendis have bowled impressively in patches in the past, but other bowlers are yet to show they can consistently take wickets tests.

Australia outperformed Sri Lanka in the five-match one-day series 3-2, despite pacer Lasith Malinga’s reverse swing hat-trick magic in the last ODI. The absence of Malinga through retirement from test cricket may be a relief for Michael Clarke’s team, but Sri Lanka still arguably have the edge in spin with Ajantha Mendis, Suraj Randiv, and Rangana Herath, who collectively have 46 test matches under their belts.

They also have the advantage of uncapped spinner Seekuge Prasanna who

bagged 3-for-32 in his one-day debut against Australia.

Galle’s wicket has historically has been a slow one with Muralitharan being the highest wicket taker with 111 to his name in just 15 tests. Mendis and Herath have taken 21 and 10 wickets respectively in four matches apiece.

Australia will rely on uncapped spinner Nathan Lyon and Michael Beer, who had just played one test match against England, capturing only one wicket. Clarke also has been a useful part time left-arm orthodox spinner.

“I think the wickets are going to spin a fair bit and spin bowling, how you play spin-bowling, is going to play a big part in the success of either team over here,” Clarke told reporters after the final one -day match.

Clarke will lead a new-look Australian test team for the first time since taking over from Ricky Ponting. “Right now we’re desperate to beat Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka in the Test series,” said Clarke. “We’re a long way from becoming the number one team in the world at this stage.

“We’re ranked five so our goal is to get to four and by beating Sri Lanka in this series I think we can. That’s our goal at this point.”—Reuters

Gallaher’s ghost touches All Blacks as WCup looms AUCKLAND: The legacy of Dave Gallaher, the man who helped establish the template for New Zealand’s enduring rugby success, touched the All Blacks side as they began their final preparations yestrday for the rugby World Cup. Fresh off the plane after successive losses in the Tri-Nations to South Africa and Australia, Richie McCaw’s team were presented to the New Zealand media at the Ponsonby Rugby Club, who gave the All Blacks their first captain.

“Dave Gallaher was a Ponsonby man and his photo is down the end there,” New Zealand Rugby Union president and former All Blacks winger Bryan Williams said of the framed photo in the clubrooms close to Auckland’s CBD. “He was our first All Black (and) was a very revered member of this club,” Williams added of Gallaher, who captained the hallowed 1905 ‘Originals’ side that toured Britain, France and North America. The team’s expansive play and black jersey led to the New Zealand side’s nickname.

The Originals played 35 games, losing just one, the famous 3-0 defeat to Wales that is remembered for the Bob Deans “non-try”. They scored 976 points while conceding just 59 and revolutionised the training techniques, playing style and tactics of the game. Gallaher was killed at

Passchendaele during the first World War and his legacy includes the Gallaher Shieldthe symbol of Auckland’s club supremacyand the Dave Gallaher Trophy, which is contested between New Zealand and France.

The link was poignant. France have become something of a nemesis for the All Blacks at the World Cup, coming back from susbtantial margins at halftime to knock the heavily favoured New Zealanders out of the 1999 and 2007 tournaments.

The two sides have been drawn together in Pool A and the All Blacks, who have failed to win the Webb Ellis trophy since they beat France 29-9 in the first tournament in 1987, will enter the World Cup again as favorites when they open the tournament on Sept. 9 against Tonga at Eden Park. However, their losses to the world champion Springboks and trans-Tasman rivals Australia in their final two games of the Tri-Nations have stalled the hosts’ momentum in the leadup.

All Blacks coach Graham Henry played down the significance of the two losses, saying they had helped shake any complacency out of their system. “We have had split goals over the last two or three weeks and they unfortunatley did not marry together,” Henry said, referring to a decision to split his squad and rest a number of key players for the South Africa test.—Reuters

Shock 83, Sun 72 In Tulsa, Oklahoma, Sher yl Swoopes scored 22 points to help Tulsa get its second straight win following a WNBA-record 20-game losing streak. Ivory Latta had 19 points and Tiffany Jackson added 16 points and 12 rebounds for her eighth double-double of the season as the Shock (3-25) won consecutive games for just the second time since moving to Tulsa before last season. Tina Charles had 21 points and 10 rebounds to lead Connecticut (18-11). Renee Montgomery added 12 points. The Shock, coming off a 77-75 win at Los Angeles on Friday night, last won consecutive games on May 29 and June 4 last year.

Mercury 86, Mystics 79 At Washington, Candice Dupree scored a season-high 27 points and

The Mercury (16-12) scored the game’s first points, led 11-1 less than 3 minutes in, and by 16 points

extend the advantage to 22 points.

Matee Ajavon’s 3-pointer with 13.8 seconds remaining pulled the Mystics to 84-79, but Taurasi followed with two free throws.

Crystal Langhorne had 27 points and 12 rebounds for the Mystics (523), who have lost eight straight matching the third-longest streak in franchise history.

Sky 74, Liberty 73 At Rosemont, Illinois, Epiphanny Prince hit a 3-pointer with 31 seconds remaining to lift Chicago over New York. Sylvia Fowles and Erin Thorn scored 17 points each to lead the Sky (14-15), and Prince finished with 10 points. Plenette Pierson scored 19 points, Nicole Powell had 15 and Cappie Pondexter 14 for the Liberty (16-13). After opening a 7060 lead, the Sky went scoreless for 5:34 as the Liberty scored 11 consecutive points to take a 71-70 lead on Essence Carson’s reverse layup.

Tamera Young’s free throw tied the score and Pondexter hit a jumper with 50 seconds to play to put New York up 73-71. After Prince put the Sky ahead, Pondexter missed a 3 with 1 second left.

SAN ANTONIO: Silver Stars’ Becky Hammon looks for room around Minnesota Lynx’s Seimone Augustus during the second half of a WNBA basketball game.—AP Diana Taurasi finished with 21 points as Phoenix bounced back from consecutive defeats.

in the first quarter. Phoenix, which led 43-34 at halftime, opened the second half with a 13-0 run to

Storm 65, Sparks 63 At Seattle, Sue Bird hit two free throws with 1.6 seconds left in the game to give Seattle victory over Los Angeles. Bird finished with 12 points and Lauren Jackson and Tanisha Wright led Seattle (17-12) with 14 points apiece. Candace Parker scored 19 points to lead Los Angeles (12-17) and made it a double -double with 14 rebounds.

Techia Penicheiro also had a double-double with 15 points and 10 rebounds.—AP

For tennis star Mardy Fish, fitness focused on court NEW YORK: Ahead of the start of the US Open Championships late yesterday top-ranked American tennis star Mardy Fish said anything to do with the sport holds center court in his workout routine. “I’d say three-quarters is tennis at this time of year,” Fish, who is ranked eighth in the world, said of his daily regimen. “A lot of it is playing matches. Obviously we’ll practice most every day if we’re not playing.”

On matchless days he’ll often hit the court for a two-on-one workout. “There are two guys on one side and I’m on the other and they’ll just run me from side to side,” he said.

During a match, he explained, players run in short, quick burstsback and forth and side to side-so that’s what he trains for.

“Then we have to recover in 20 seconds and do it all over again, for three hours,” Fish said.” We don’t run 400-yard (meter) dashes on the tennis court.”

Fortunately, Fish added, he’s been playing a lot of matches lately, so the downtime, which is usually no more than a week or two, is spent trying to stay healthy and consistent. “A lot is maintenance,” said the Minnesota-born righthander, who turned professional in 2000.

Fish is 25 pounds (11.3 kilos) lighter than he was when had knee surgery in 2009, explaining that he was too heavy to be at a high professional level in his sport.

“So I set out to change my diet and my lifestyle and make the right choices,” he said.

When he’s not on the court he’s routinely on the training table “rehabbing” his shoulders, knees

NEW YORK: Mardy Fish speaks during a news conference for the US Open tennis tournament. —AP

and legs. “They’re just little exercises that don’t take very long,” he explained. “But if I neglect them my shoulder will struggle with the heaviness of the ball.”

Fish, 29, describes his style of play as aggressive. “I’ve got a big serve, a hard serve, and quicker points as opposed to longer points,” he said.

And while he hasn’t gone to a gluten-free diet like his No. 1 ranked Serbian colleague Novak Djokovic, Fish insists on his chosen pre-match and post-match energy drinks. “I’m superstitious as far as

stuff around the courts,” he explained. “I’ll eat the same things and drink the same things, and have the same breakfast in the morning.”

In high school Fish played baseball, basketball and golf. He said while he never burned out on any of them, he doesn’t regret his decision to pursue the hardfocused life of a professional tennis player.

“I’m pretty lucky. I know I’m really good at what I do, and it’s fun for me,” he said. “I don’t look back.” But he is looking forward to

the 2011 Open, his hopes buoyed last week by a victory over 2010 champion Rafael Nadal in Cincinnati.

“I’m on a career high right now.

Anytime you can beat a player that’s going to go down as one of the best of all time, that’s a good win,” he said. “I’m playing better than I ever have.

When asked if he can go all the way, Fish was unequivocal.

“Of course,” he said. “I’ve been playing as well as anyone this summer. You’ve got to dream big.”—Reuters

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MotoGP could follow Formula One out of Indy INDIANAPOLIS: Motorcycles were the first to race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway more than 100 years ago and Sunday’s Indianapolis MotoGP could be the last with no deal in place to bring the series back to the Brickyard next year.

After just four years at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, MotoGP looks ready to follow Formula One and leave the home of American motor sport with the series having agreed to deals with Laguna Seca and the new Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas.

Dorna, the promoters and commercial rights holders for MotoGP, say they are confident the United States could support three races but have watched interest and attendance at Indianapolis drop off since the first

race in 2008, casting a shadow over the event’s future in the American Mid-West.

Javier Alonso, MotoGP events managing director, told Reuters Dorna had just signed a new two-year deal with Laguna Seca and earlier announced a 10-year agreement to stage races in Austin beginning in 2013.

“We’re still talking about what the future holds,” IMS president Jeff Belskus told Reuters. “I hope it (MotoGP) is back and I hope we can come to terms. “We would be disappointed to lose it but I think both sides will move on if that’s what it comes to.”

After watching Formula One walk away from the Brickyard in 2007, the departure of MotoGP would be another blow to the prestige of America’s

most famous racetrack.

The Indy 500 and NASCAR’s Brickyard 400 remain hugely successful events but the American Mid-West has never embraced international racing the same way.

IMS does not announce attendances but according to Dorna figures published in the Indianapolis Star, weekend ticket sales for the event have been on a steady decline from a high of 174,052 in 2008 to 146,680 in 2009 and 136,184 last year.

Alonso points out that Spain will stage four MotoGP races this season but conceded the appetite for the sport is not the same in both countries.

“It’s possible to have three races in the United States,” Alonso told Reuters. “We had only one race in

Spain 20 years ago. “It is important for us to be successful in America.”

The massive state-of-the-art media room at the Brickyard was packed for the MotoGP but the buzz was in Italian, Spanish, Japanese and many other foreign languages.

The race attracted only scant interest from domestic media outlets with only a handful of mostly local reporters sprinkled among the large international contingent.

“There are some differences (between European and American race fans),” admitted Belskus. “Are they less sophisticated, I wouldn’t say that but it’s the Mid-West and it’s different than Europe and California.”

The US, however, remains an important market for bike manufacturers and one Dorna wants to develop.

While American bike fans have had successful riders to cheer on such as Nicky Hayden and Ben Spies the emergence of some new young talent could help push the sport into the spotlight.

Looking to become MotoGP’s version to IndyCar success story Danica Patrick, 17-year-old Elena Myers was invited by the Suzuki MotoGP team to test one of their bikes this weekend while Shelina Moreda became the first woman to compete in a motorcycle race at the Brickyard in 102 years.

“It is important to be here for the manufacturers,” said Alonso. “We saw on Thursday a 17-year-old girl doing a fantastic demonstration. “She’s doing well. There are ways to improve the marketing of the MotoGP in America.” —Reuters

Power wins in Sonoma

ACK students witness Barcelona’s victory in Madrid As a token of appreciation for its students who have been outstanding at soccer, the Australian College of Kuwait organized a trip to Madrid, Spain to attend the final Real Madrid vs.

Barcelona game. The trip was the first of its kind in the College and the students were lucky to witness their favorite team (Barcelona) strike a wonderful victory against its opponent.

SPARC Acting Manager, Mrs. Jana Al Naqeeb stated that “the main goal of

organizing such trips is to support our students’ sports skills and capabilities and further develop them. In turn, it is expected that this will affect positively the academic portion of their overall college/university experience, and encourage our students to further involve themselves in ACK student activities and sports events. This experience generated a pleasant reaction amongst students, as it proved that ACK can indeed help its students turn their dreams into reality.

SONOMA: Pole-sitter Will Power held off a furious charge from teammate Helio Castroneves over the final seven laps following a late restart to become the first two-time winner at the Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma with a dominating performance Sunday.

Power led 71 of the 75 laps to earn his fifth victory of the year, one shy of the IndyCar single-season record. It’s also Power’s second straight win at Infineon Speedway, the same track where his career almost ended in 2009 following a horrific crash. The victory pulled the Australian within 26 points of series leader Dario Franchitti with four races to go.

Helio Castroneves and Ryan Briscoe completed a 1-2-3 sweep for Team Penske at the Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma on Sunday — the first for owner Roger Penske in nearly 20 years - but it was the job the two did on Franchitti that made the biggest difference.

Franchitti started fourth but couldn’t get around Castroneves or Briscoe, who formed the perfect blockade and allowed Power to post his fifth victory of the season. “I said before the race that if we could finish how we started, it would be a perfect weekend,” said Power, who became the first two-time winner of this event.

“Now we have a legitimate shot at the championship. Two more road courses, two more ovals and we can get this.”

Power led 71 of the 75 laps while winning his second consecutive race from the pole here at Infineon Raceway, the same track where his career almost ended in 2009 following a horrific crash.

Power has a career-high five victories, one shy of the IndyCar single-season record.

More critically, it sets up a wild run for the championship after Franchitti appeared to be comfortably ahead in the points race

SONOMA: Will Power, of Australia, races during the Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma. —AP six weeks ago. “There’s going to be days like this,” said Franchitti, who finished fourth ahead of Target Chip Ganassi teammate Scott Dixon. “I was pushing as hard as I could just to keep the Penske cars in sight. I was really on the ragged edge for pretty much the whole day really.”

Power held off a furious charge from Castroneves following a caution with nine laps to go.

Unlike two weeks ago in New Hampshire when a late accident involving Danica Patrick led to a controversial finish - and resulted in an angry Power making an obscene gesture toward race officials that later earned him a $30,000 fine - the ending was without much drama.

Power got the jump on Castroneves on the double-file restart, then ran comfortably ahead the rest of the way while cruising to his 14th career

IndyCar victory.

As he made his way to the winner’s circle, Power stopped to make another gesture with his hands. “I gave it two fingers up,” he cracked. “Not the middle ones, though.”

Power has a long history at this Northern California track.

Two years ago he had to be airlifted out by a helicopter after running into the stalled car of Nelson Phillipe. Power suffered a broken back in the accident and there was some question whether he would ever race again.

He came back strong in 2010 and won both the pole and the race before repeating the feat again this year. “It’s one of the tracks I seem to click with,” Power said. “It was very comforting to have Helio and Ryan behind me on the last restart, two guys you can totally rely on.”

Castroneves, who has had an

up-and-down season, and Briscoe did the rest. “We sort of got to a point in the race where our focus was just to hold off Dario,” said Briscoe, the only other driver to lead a lap. “We started 1-2-3 and we finished that way. Right now for this team to win the championship we need to keep Dario behind Will.”

It’s the first IndyCar sweep for Team Penske since Paul Tracy, Al Unser Jr. and Emmerson Fittipaldi placed 1-2-3 at Nazareth in 1994.

It’s also the first sweep of the top three positions by any IndyCar team since Andretti Autosport took the top four spots at St. Petersburg in 2005.

“It’s invaluable to have guys like that performing at the top level, taking points away from Dario,” Power said. “I expect them to be the same the next four races now that we’ve got a bit of momentum.”—AP

World’s fastest man takes his time

PARIS: Teddy Riner of France, reacts after defeating Andreas Toelzer of Germany during their men’s over 100 kg final at the World Judo Championships in this file photo. —AP

Olympic gold will make Riner a legend, says Yamashita PARIS: Teddy Riner may be a record five-time world judo champion but he still needs to add an Olympic crown before he can become a legend, according to Japanese great Yasuhiro Yamashita.

Riner completed a remarkable weekend on Sunday when we won the decisive fight to give France World Teams Championship gold just a day after he secured his record fifth individual title by winning the men’s over-100kg category. Yamashita, who was unbeaten in international competition, says Riner is head and shoulders above the competition but cannot become a legend until he becomes Olympic champion.

Yamashita himself won four world titles and gold at the Los Angeles Games in 1984.

Asked if Riner was well respected in Japan, the home and birthplace of judo, Yamashita said he would have to become Olympic champion first, but he said that is only a matter of time.

“He’s brilliant. Technically, physically and mentally he’s the best,” Yamashita exclusively told AFP. “He behaves like a

true champion. Teddy Riner will be Olympic champion in London, I’m sure of that.”

Here in Paris, Riner blitzed through the competition to win his fifth title, throwing five out of six opponents for the maximum ippon score and strangling the other one.

Yamashita, who remained unbeaten in 203 fights, believes Riner’s superiority is even more marked than his own was.

“I’ve never seen an athlete demonstrate such a noticeable difference between himself and the others,” he said.

“He’s better than he was before. The only way his opponents can beat him is if he’s injured or ill. “He has so much confidence in himself that as long as he’s in form and doesn’t lose his motivation, no-one can beat him.” That in itself is a remarkable statement for a Japanese former coach as well as athlete to make.

The Japanese have been by far the most successful nation in judo and almost always finish top of the medals table at major international competitions, even when they consider themselves to have failed.—AFP

DAEGU: For the world’s fastest man, Usain Bolt sure took his time in responding to the controversial disqualification which stripped athletics of its biggest name from its blue riband event.

It took the Jamaican around 18 hours to make any statement after falling on Sunday night to the one-false-start-and-you’reout rule in the world championships 100 metres final.

And when he did respond publically, he said very little. But what was there to say about a perhaps overly harsh rule which is sure to cause plenty of soulsearching among the sport’s highest echelons?

Bolt congratulated the new world champion, his understudy Yohan Blake, but there was no getting away from the fact that Blake’s crowning was very much an anti-climax.

“Firstly I would like to congratulate my team mate Yohan Blake and the other athletes who won the medals,” a statement released

by Bolt’s management team read.

“Of course I am extremely disappointed not to have had the chance to defend my title due to the false start. I was feeling great through the rounds and was ready to run fast in the final. I worked very hard to get ready for this championships and things were looking good. “However I have to move on now as there is no point to dwell on the past.

“I have a few days to refocus and get ready for the 200m (heats) on Friday. After this I have the 4x100m and a few other races

before the end of the season. I know that I am now in good shape and will focus on running well in the 200m.”

Under the rule introduced last year, athletes who false start are immediately disqualified. Prior to the new rule, one false start was allowed, with a second meaning the disqualification of the offender.

The no-second-chances rule was introduced by the world’s governing body in an attempt to speed up the sport for television and make it more attractive to spectators.

Instead on Sunday night broadcasters got a show missing its star turn. Although perhaps unsurprisingly winner Blake said he had no problem with the rule, other world class sprinters wanted it trashed.

“That false start (rule) is killing us,” silver medallist Walter Dix told reporters. “Hopefully it will change by London (2012 Olympics).”

Bronze medallist Kim Collins of Saint Kitts and Nevis, also wanted it overturned or at least modified.“At least give the field one false start,” Collins said.

“That was the previous rule.

The first false start went against the field with the offending party tossed out after the next.”

The International Association of Athletics Federations has said it is continuing to study the new rule but has no immediate plans to alter it, although that could change after a 100 metres final without Bolt. In addition to Bolt,

DAEGU: Jamaica’s Usain Bolt reacts as he is disqualified for a false start in the Men’s 100m final at the World Athletics Championships.—AP Britain’s Olympic 400 metres champion Christine Ohuruogu and sprinter Dwain Chambers have already have felt the full

force of the rule in these championships. Both were eliminated from the competition for leaving the starting blocks early.—Reuters

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TUESDAY, AUGUST 30, 2011

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Stars lured to Caucasus by Makhachkala millions MOSCOW: Until ver y recently, Anzhi Makhachkala were known best as a lower league club from one of Russia’s poorest regions that is forced to battle daily attacks from Islamist insurgents.

So why have names like Brazil’s Roberto Carlos and Cameroon’s Samuel Eto’o chosen to beat a hitherto untrodden path to the city of Makhachkala in the Russian Caucasus region of Dagestan on the Caspian Sea coast?

The answer is the seemingly limitless money and ambition of the club’s new billionaire owner Suleiman Kerimov, whose influence has led to many already describing Anzhi as the Manchester City of the Caucasus.

The club’s players live and train 1600 kilometres away in the Moscow region for security reasons and only fly to the still unstable capital city of Dagestan for home matches.

Anzhi, who were only founded 20 years ago, stunned the entire football world with the signing of four-time African Player of the Year Eto’o from Inter Milan in the highest-profile signing

ever by a Russian side.

“Eto’o’s transfer marks a very significant moment for Anzhi and Russian football as a whole,” says Anzhi coach Gadzhi Gadzhiev.

“He will definitely increase the sharpness of our team’s attack and add flavor to the Russia league.” The club finished 11th in the top flight last year and modestly declared avoiding relegation as their main goal for this season.

However, Anzhi’s medium-term ambitions were transformed after their takeover in January

by Kerimov, the oil and metals tycoon who according to Forbes magazine is Russia’s 19thrichest man with a $7.8 billion fortune.

Kerimov, a native of the region who represents Dagestan in the Russian Senate, first made his mark by signing veteran Brazilian Roberto Carlos on a two-and-a-half year deal.

The 38-year-old 2002 World Cup-winner was previously the league’s top earner with a reported annual salary of five million euros ($7.2m), and press reports claimed that he also received the gift of a new Bugatti Veyron sports car after put-

ting pen to paper.

Kerimov’s spending spree continued with the capture of another Brazilian international, midfielder Jucilei da Silva, from Corinthians for 11 million euros ($15.9m), before Moroccan international midfielder Mbarak Boussoufa was lured from Anderlecht and Hungarian international Balasz Dzsudzsak arrived from PSV Eindhoven.

Russia winger Yuri Zhirkov then returned to his homeland from English Premier League giants Chelsea on a four-year deal.

Kerimov also announced plans to build a new stadium in Makhachkala, and while exactly why he has suddenly fallen so in love with football remains unclear, the Russian authorities do look favourably on his bid to create a great club, and new focal point, in the war-torn region.

Anzhi were founded in 1991, the year the Soviet Union fell. However, they did not appear in the top flight until 1999 when Gadzhiev, who was an assistant coach to the USSR’s 1988 Olympic gold medal-winning team, led them to promotion.

They finished fourth in their first campaign among the elite and reached the final of the Russian Cup in 2001 but were relegated again in 2002.

After seven years in the second division Anzhi regained promotion in 2009 but failed to achieve any serious success before Kerimov’s takeover.

Huge financial injections and new signings not only boosted the club’s profile and self-confidence but also attracted new supporters to the stands of the 16,000-seater Dynamo Stadium in Makhachkala.

Club chiefs have already set their sights on the Champions’ League, although that dream may have to wait for another year as Anzhi currently sit fourth in the table, nine points behind leaders CSKA Moscow, and seven behind second-placed Zenit St Petersburg.

“He (Eto’o) will help our club to fulfil our ambitions of reaching the Champions League,” said Anzhi spokesman Alexander Udaltsov.”Our club is in the process of building a big team and signing Samuel is a big step ahead.” —AFP

Arsenal and Spurs pay for standing still

FRANCE: Lille’s Aurelien Fongang Chedjou (right) jumps with Franck Beria after he scored the third goal during his French Division One soccer match against Marseille. —AP

Lille battle past Marseille PARIS: Champions Lille continued Olympique Marseille’s winless start to the season but were made to work hard for their 3-2 victory as Paris St Germain struggled to overcome Toulouse on Sunday.

Marseille, the 2010 champions who finished second to Lille last season, have failed to win their first four matches and they were undone by Moussa Sow ’s penalty after coming from behind to lead 2-1. Last term’s league top scorer Sow scored the 15th-minute opener when he slid in before keeper Steve Mandanda to convert Franck Beria’s cross but Marseille were level when Mathieu Valbuena’s deflected 20-metre shot went in on 57 minutes.

The France winger doubled his tally five minutes later, only for Lille defender Aurelien Chedjou to equalise from Dimitri Payet’s cross before Sow slotted in the 75th-minute penalty after a needless foul on Eden Hazard by Rod Fanni.

Lille moved on to seven points ahead of the international break. French record signing Javier Pastore, making his first start for third-placed PSG, helped spark a

second-half revival in a 3-1 comeback win at Toulouse.

After a lacklustre first period, the Argentine, signed this month from Palermo for a reported 42 million euros ($60.31 million), set up Kevin Gameiro just before the hour to equalise Etienne Capoue’s 39th-minute opener.

Pastore was also involved in Mevlut Erding’s goal a minute from time and Jeremy Menez’s stoppage-time strike which took them to seven points and two behind leaders Montpellier, who lost 2-1 at second-placed Olympique Lyon on Saturday.

“My players showed a lot of character and quality to impose themselves against a Toulouse team who were in good form since the start of the season,” said PSG coach Antoine Kombouare.

“It is a great performance from my lads.” Stade Rennes, also among the seven teams on seven points, survived a second-half fightback by Caen to cling onto a 3-2 win and they were joined by Sochaux after a Ryad Boudebouz double helped them to a 2-1 victory against St Etienne. —Reuters

LONDON: North London rivals Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur were given stark reminders at the weekend that in the moneyfuelled Premier League you stand still at your peril. Both have suffered summers of discontent with their best players anxious to leave and a lack of major signings and both were still shell-shocked yesterday after humiliating defeats against teams they are supposed to be competing with.

They also seem to have been left behind

by Liverpool who have spent freely to revamp the under-achieving side inherited by Kenny Dalglish last season and who now, along with Chelsea, look best placed to challenge City and United for the title.

Arsenal, who have sold skipper Cesc Fabregas to Barcelona and Samir Nasri and Gael Clichy to Manchester City since finishing fourth last season, were outclassed 8-2 by champions Manchester United at Old Trafford.

It was the proud club’s heaviest league defeat since 1927 and raised further questions about manager Arsene Wenger’s philosophy of evolving teams rather than making the kind of marquee signings that have transformed Manchester City into title contenders.

United would hardly have been quaking in their boots after a glance at Arsenal’s lightweight starting line-up which was woefully ill-equipped to cope with the rampant Reds who have been bolstered by the signings of England midfielder Ashley Young and defender Phil Jones.

While they were not helped by the suspension of new signing Gervinho and absence of injured Jack Wilshere, striker Robin van Persie refused to make excuses for a performance which raised serious doubts about Arsenal’s chances of another top-four finish.

“I don’t think we can hide behind injuries or suspensions. It is no excuse. They had

injuries too, this is football,” Van Persie, who missed a penalty when his side trailed 1-0 at Old Trafford, told the club’s website.

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger “ This was the strongest team we had today. We gave our maximum but it was clearly not good enough.” Van Persie’s comment appeared to be a thinly-disguised demand for team strengthening but with just three days before the transfer window closes, Arsenal are running out of time to put together a squad capable of challenging for silverware.

A failure to do so would heap more pressure on the previously untouchable Wenger who is now 9-2 third favourite to be the next

Boca held by San Lorenzo

Man United youngsters named in England squad LONDON: Manchester United’s young uncapped trio of defenders Phil Jones, Chris Smalling and midfielder Tom Cleverley were included in the England squad on Sunday for the Euro 2012 qualifiers in Bulgaria and Wales.

The three started United’s 8-2 mauling of Arsenal on Sunday and would probably have been joined by team mate Danny Welbeck who limped off with a hamstring injury after scoring the first goal.

“It is not easy to find a player who is so young that can play with so much confidence,” England coach Fabio Capello told reporters of 19-year-old Jones ahead of naming his squad. “The talent is incredible. And when you find the talent, you need to use it.”

The rest of the squad is largely predictable with midfielders Jack Wilshere and Steven Gerrard and defenders Rio Ferdinand and Glen Johnson ruled out through injury.

Tottenham Hotspur trio Peter Crouch, Aaron Lennon and Michael Dawson also miss out as the Group G leaders head to Bulgaria on Friday and

meet Wales in Cardiff the following Tuesday.

Squad: Goalkeepers: Joe Hart (Manchester City), Robert Green (West Ham United), David Stockdale (Fulham, on loan to Ipswich Town) Defenders: Leighton Baines (Everton), Gary Cahill (Bolton Wanderers), Ashley Cole (Chelsea), Phil Jagielka (Everton), Phil Jones (Manchester United), Joleon Lescott (Manchester City), Micah Richards (Manchester City), Chris Smalling (Manchester United), John Terry (Chelsea) Midfielders: Gareth Barry (Manchester City), Tom Cleverley (Manchester United), Stewart Downing (Liverpool), Adam Johnson (Manchester City), Frank Lampard (Chelsea), James Milner (Manchester City), Scott Parker ( West Ham United), Ashley Young (Manchester United) Forwards: Darren Bent (Aston Villa), Andy Carroll (Liverpool), Jermain Defoe (Tottenham Hotspur), Wayne Rooney (Manchester United), Theo Walcott (Arsenal) —Reuters

Premier League manager to be sacked.

“If he doesn’t start addressing the faults that have been there for three years, I think there’s a chance he might be sacked,” former Arsenal player Frank McLintock told Sky Sports yesterday as the post-mortem began.

“I know that sounds almost impossible, but it depends what happens in the next month or two.” Things are hardly any more encouraging a few miles away at Tottenham who sit bottom of the league with no points from two games, albeit against United and City. While there were a few positive signs in the 3-0 defeat at Old Trafford, Sunday’s 5-1 home drubbing by Manchester City showed just how far Spurs have fallen behind the side they pipped to the Champions League in 2009-10.

Manager Harry Redknapp, well-known for his transfer dealings, admitted the continuing saga of playmaker Luka Modric’s desire to move to Chelsea had cast a shadow over the preparations of the new season. “ There’s been a feeling around the place...it’s not been right,” Redknapp said after admitting that Modric had been reluctant to even start on Sunday. “People going, people wanting to go. The place needs a lift and I’ve told the chairman.”

Tottenham appear to have gone backwards since qualifying for last season’s Champions League and reaching the quarterfinals. With the strikers continuing to struggle, fans can only cast envious glances at the firepower City displayed on Sunday when Carlos Tevez was not even required.

So confident are City now that they have allowed their Togolese forward Emmanuel Adebayor to join Spurs on loan-a situation unthinkable a year ago when the clubs appeared to be evenly-matched in the hunt for a top-four finish. —Reuters

MEXICO: Cruz Azul’s Gerardo Flores (left) is grabbed

by Pumas’ Dario Veron during a Mexican soccer league match. —AP

Cruz Azul snatch Mexico top spot MEXICO CITY: Cruz Azul beat 10-man Pumas UNAM 2-1 at the Olimpico to take over from them at the top of the Mexican Apertura championship on Sunday.

The new leaders have 14 points after seven matches, one point more than Guadalajara and Tigres UANL and two ahead of Monterrey with champions Pumas now fifth on 11 after two successive defeats.

Defender Gerardo Flores put Cruz Azul ahead after 18 minutes when he netted the rebound after Pumas goalkeeper Alejandro Palacios had parried a shot from Colombian Edixon Perea at a corner. Pumas hit back quickly, equalising four minutes later through Argentine striker Martin Bravo but they had Luis Fuentes shown a straight red card for a foul on Javier Aquino on the hour and Adrian Cortes hit the winner in the 76th from fellow defender Julio Dominguez ’s fine through ball.

Guadalajara lost their unbeaten record on Saturday when they lost 2-0 at San Luis. —Reuters

BUENOS AIRES: Boca Juniors were held 1-1 at home by San Lorenzo to leave promoted Atletico Rafaela as leaders of the Argentine Apertura championship after four rounds on Sunday.

Rafaela have nine points after a 3-1 home win over Olimpo on Saturday, one point more than Boca, Racing Club and Lanus, with title holders Velez Sarsfield on seven after a shock home defeat by modest All Boys on Saturday.

San Lorenzo, who also have seven points, went ahead with a fine free kick by midfielder Gabriel Mendez on the half hour just outside the box in a counterattack.

Mendez curled the ball left-footed over the wall and inside Agustin Orion’s left-hand post for the first goal conceded

by Boca’s goalkeeper in the championship.

Boca’s fans in a packed Bombonera lifted their team at the start of the second half with chants mocking their relegated arch-rivals River Plate and within five minutes they had equalised with a move started by Juan Roman Riquelme on the left wing.

The playmaker passed to Clemente Rodriguez, who crossed from deep on the left, Lucas Viatri rose to the head down at the far post and fellow striker Dario Cvitanich dived to head home from one metre.

Banfield coach Sebastian Mendez resigned after their fourth defeat in a row, 1-0 at Godoy Cruz on Friday. Media reports named former Mexico and Costa Rica coach Ricardo La Volpe, who began his career as a goalkeeper at Banfield in the 1970s, as favourite to take over.

Promoted Union took Sunday’s Santa Fe derby, the first to be played for eight years, with a 2-0 upset victory at Colon, who like Boca and Velez would have joined Rafaela at the top had they won.

Velez suffered their third successive upset by All Boys, who were promoted last year, and second at home in six months.

Midfielder Emmanuel Perea shot from a tight angle on the right and the ball

was deflected upwards and looped over goalkeeper Marcelo Barovero into the net for the only goal in just before the hour. All Boys were down to 10 men for 39 minutes after defender Carlos Soto was sent off for a second booking.

Off-form Estudiantes, winners of last year’s Apertura under present Argentina coach Alejandro Sabella, scored their first goals in the championship when they went two up against San Martin on Friday.

But the promoted side from the Andean province of San Juan fought back for a 2-2 draw, leaving Juan Sebastian Veron’s team one from bottom with two points. The equaliser was scored by former Estudiantes forward Maximiliano Nunez.

River notched their third successive win in the second-tier Nacional B division to lead with a maximum nine points. —Reuters

BUENOS AIRES: Boca Juniors’ Lucas Viatri (right) and San Lorenzo de Almagro’s Jonathan Botinelli compete for the ball during an Argentina’s league soccer match. —AP

Power wins in Sonoma

Lynx down Silver Stars

18

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TUESDAY, AUGUST 30, 2011

MotoGP could follow Formula One out of Indy Page 18 DAEGU: Cuba’s Dayron Robles (right) makes contact with China’s Liu Xiang (left) during the Men’s 110m Hurdles final at the World Athletics Championships . —AP

Richardson crowned hurdle king on day of high drama DAEGU: Dayron Robles was yesterday sensationally stripped of his world 110m hurdles title for obstruction, American Jason Richardson handed gold after a nerve-wracking race.

In another day of high drama at the world championships, just 24 hours after Jamaican sprint superstar Usain Bolt was disqualified for a false start, Robles made the fatal error of hitting rival Liu Xiang twice with his arm with the finish line in sight.

The contact made Liu check his stride into the final hurdle, which he then stumbled off after hitting it with his trailing knee.

The IAAF promptly disqualified Robles for obstruction, and rightly

rejected a Cuban counter-appeal.

Robles, the world record holder, was initially credited with having won the race that brought together the three fastest men of all time in the event (Robles, Liu and American David Oliver) for the first time. The Cuban shot out of the blocks and was immediately up on Oliver, but he faded midway through the race and had to rely on a quite amazing lift-off from his landing step on the final hurdle to edge out Richardson.

But the contact had been made, and Robles was disqualified, Richardson taking gold, Liu silver and Britain’s Andy Turner bronze.

“I wish that under different circum-

stances he (Robles) could have kept his medal,” said Richardson. “But rules are rules. I’m so happy to be a gold medallist. I’m the wedding crasher!”

In front of a packed Daegu Stadium, there was also heartbreak for Oscar Pistorius, making history as the first amputee to compete at the world championships.

There was more disappointment in the women’s 400m when American three-time 200m champion Allyson Felix, in her quest for a 200-400m double, could only finish with silver behind Amantle Montsho, winning a first ever world medal of any colour for Botswana.

“I felt I gave my all but came up

DAEGU: USA’s Carmelita Jeter celebrates winning gold in the Women’s 100m final at the World Athletics Championships. ñAP

short,” said Felix. “I’m happy that I still decided to go with the 400m. The final stretch was rough.”

Felix’s teammate Carmelita Jeter held off a strong field to claim gold in the women’s 100m at the world championships yesterday Jeter, a bronze medallist at the last two world champs, was locked with defending champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce of Jamaica right through until the line. “It really means a lot,” said 31-year-old Jeter. “My coach told me I needed a good start and I did just that.” The American eventually prevailed in 10.90sec, but Fraser-Pryce missed out on a podium after being trumped by late showings from

Jamaica’s 2005 world champion Veronica Campbell-Brown (10.97sec) and Trinidad’s Kelly-Ann Baptiste (10.98).

In the field, Valerie Adams of New Zealand retained her world shot title in emphatic fashion and there was a welcome return to form for Japan’s 2004 Olympic champion Koji Murofushi in the men’s hammer.

Poland’s Pawel Wojciechowski won the men’s pole vault title with a best of 5.90 metres on countback from Cuban Lazaro Borges, Frenchman Renaud Lavillenie taking bronze (5.85m).

British defending champion Jessica Ennis led the heptathlon after the first

Worlds dream over for ‘Blade Runner’ DAEGU: Double amputee Oscar Pistorius saw his world 400m dream extinguished yesterday as defending champion LaShawn Merritt eased into the final just a month after returning from a drugs ban.

The controversial South African ‘Blade Runner’, who runs with carbon fibre prosthetic running blades and was making history as the first amputee to compete at the worlds, finished last in his semi-final heat.

Pistorius received a huge cheer from the South Korean crowd and mouthed ‘thank you’ to the camera as he lined up to race but could not find the pace he needed, timing 46.19sec to finish 22nd out of 24 runners in the semi-finals.

“I would really have liked to have performed better tonight. My goal was to make the semi-final and I did that. It’s been a great experience. Even if I had run faster tonight I wouldn’t have made the final,” said an upbeat Pistorius.

“I have a lot of respect for the guys who have made the final. It’s been a great opportunity and I’ve learned a lot from this experience.

“I’m a realist so for me to make the

final, well I wasn’t running close to those times. I never had. This is the championship I have worked for for many years. It’s been a massive blessing.” Pistorius, whose time on Monday was well off his personal best of the 45.07sec that enabled him to qualify for the worlds, said he had found the race tough but competing had been “a dream absolutely come true”.

“I try harder than my competitors. I try to recover better, eat better,” he said, adding he would use the experience gained to improve as he targets next year’s London Olympics.

The issue of whether his blades give Pistorius, cleared three years ago to run against able-bodied athletes, an advantage is back in the spotlight following his qualification for the worlds.

But he again rejected suggestions that he has an advantage, saying that the technology behind his prostethic blades had not changed for many years. “I haven’t changed a bolt on my legs in seven years,” he said. “There’s no other Paralympic athlete running close to me. “It’s important for me to remain fair in my sports and I think I have done that.”

Pistorius, 24, had both legs amputated below the knee when he was 11 months old because of a congenital condition that meant he was born without fibulae-lower leg bones.

Yesterday’s 400m semi-finals were a different story for Merritt, who appeared in awesome form in qualifying quickest in 44.76sec, with what seemed to be plenty in reserve.

“It feels good to have qualified for the final and defend my title tomorrow. I have trained hard to come here and do what I am doing right now. I will give it all out on the track,” he said. “We shall see how the final unfolds. A medal is everybody’s goal.”

Also through to today’s final are Belgian twins Jonathan and Kevin Borlee, Grenadan pair Kirani James and Rondell Bartholomew, Tabarie Henry of the US Virgin Islands, Jamaica’s Jermaine Gonzales and Nigeria-born Femi Ogunode of Qatar.

European champion Kevin Borlee said: “It was not easy to run and times were not as good as yesterday. But I am in the final and I am happy.

Everything is possible in the final. I will give my best and hopefully I can get a medal.”—AFP

day, with 4,078 points after clocking 12.94sec for the 110m hurdles, 1.86m in the high jump, a personal best of 14.67m in the shot put and 23.27sec in the 200m.

Russian Tatyana Chernova sat in second with 3,927pts, with American Hyleas Fountain in third on 2,093 after a dreadful shot put in which she could only finish 23rd out of the 28 competitors.

“It’s been a stressful day,” said Ennis. “I knew it was going to be tough. It was hard. It was also hot.”I just need to believe that I can do it.”

The heptathletes today round off their efforts with competition in the long jump, javelin and 800m.—AFP

Nishikori suffers second US Open injury heartbreak

South Africa’s Oscar Pistorius

NEW YORK: Japan’s Kei Nishikori suffered injury heartbreak at the US Open for the second year in succession yesterday when he retired from his first round clash against Italy’s Flavio Cipolla.

The 21-year-old Nishikori called it quits after dropping the first two sets 6-4, 6-2. Twelve months ago, Nishikori, now ranked at a career-high 46 in the world, was forced to retire from his third round tie against Spain’s Albert Montanes with a groin injury.

That had happened after he had defeated Croatia’s Marin Cilic in a five-hour marathon in the previous round. Cipolla next faces either Alexandr Dolgopolov, the Ukrainian 22nd seed, or Portugal’s Frederico Gil for a place in the last 32.

Meanwhile, five-time champion Roger Federer was to launch his US Open campaign late yesterday, with the fortnight at Flushing Meadows his last chance to extend his streak of eight straight seasons with at least one Grand Slam title.

The Swiss great, seeded third behind Serbian Novak Djokovic and defending champion Rafael Nadal of Spain, hasn’t lifted a Grand Slam trophy since the 2010 Australian Open. Despite Djokovic’s dominance this season, and his own recent 30th birthday, Federer remained confident he has plenty of time to add to his tally of 16 Grand Slam titles.

“I’m still as professional. I’m still as hungry,” said Federer, who was to take on 54th-ranked Colombian Santiago Giraldo in the night’s final match on the Arthur Ashe Stadium court.

“It’s just a number that’s changed, you know. I feel my game allows me to still play for many more years because I have a relaxing playing style. “I’m confident I can still play for many more years to come at the highest of levels.” Federer has won at least one Grand Slam title from 2003-2010.

He won five straight US Open titles from 2004-2008, with Argentinian Juan Martin del Potro ending his streak in the 2009 championship match. Federer lost to Djokovic in last year’s semi-finals. —AFP

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India’s Maruti locks out workers over ‘sabotage’ Page 23

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Obama picks labor expert Krueger as top economist Page 25

US spending rebounds, calms recession fears Page 25

JEDDAH: Saudi men visit a store selling red and white traditional keffiyeh headdresses in this Red Sea port city yesterday before the start of Eid Al-Fitr, marking the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan. — AFP

Big Oil may have to give up Iraq gas Oil ministry may prevent rival bids to limit supplies DUBAI: Many of the world’s biggest energy companies may have to surrender most of the gas from Iraq’s vast southern oilfields to a processing and export project led by Shell, a final draft contract between Baghdad and Europe’s biggest company, obtained by Reuters, shows.

Oil giants including Royal Dutch Shell, BP , USbased Exxon, China’s CNPC, and Italy’s Eni signed technical service contracts to develop three oilfields in southern Iraq in 2009-2010.

But the oil deals to develop the Zubair, Rumaila and West Qurna 1 fields near Basra oblige the big oil contractors to surrender the gas they do not use for reinjection or power generation to Iraq’s state-run South Gas Co (SGC). Under the $17-billion gas deal to be ratified by the Iraqi cabinet, Baghdad has pledged to do what it takes to ensure these fields supply the Shellled Basra Gas Company (BGC) joint venture with all the raw gas and natural gas liquids (LNG) it needs, including for an LNG export plant. “SGC shall procure that all raw gas produced from the dedicated fields (other than utilised gas but including all NGLs) ... shall, on

and from commencement of operations, be dedicated solely to the venture,” the contract reads. “The Ministry shall ensure that SGC fulfils its obligation to supply and make available to BGC all committed volumes and planned volumes of raw gas, including by making available deficit volumes as needed,” said a letter of confirmation from the energy ministry attached to the contract.

Under the terms of the oil contracts, SGC owns all the gas not used for oil recovery or power generation at the oil fields. With production from some of the world’s largest underdeveloped oilfields expected to surge over the next decade as Iraq boosts capacity towards 12 million barrels per day, there is likely to be much more gas than the country needs before long. The other big oil companies could propose alternatives for using some of it and some are understood to be considering their own gas projects. But the oil ministry’s confirmation letter attached to the deal said the government will make sure SGC meets its side of the supply deal and ensure that other

parties do not prevent it from doing so, including “not permitting any other entity to do a specified thing.” The quantities of raw unprocessed gas SGC will deliver to the Shellled joint venture, backed by minority partner Japan’s Mitsubishi , are not in the draft and will be revised in line with output from the oilfields.

But the signatories expect dedicated volumes at plateau of at least 2,000 million standard cubic feet per day (mmcfd) of raw gas to be available to the BGC project - a vital part of Iraq’s master plan to boost electricity and domestic industry output. SGC will be legally obliged to supply at least 85 percent of the agreed volumes, while BGC will be obliged to take and pay for, or pay for even if not taken, 90 percent of that volume, the contract says.

Providing Iraq’s own modest gas needs are met first, the contract gives BGC the right to build and operate a 4 million-tonne per year (mtpa) LNG terminal and, subject to government approval, another LNG export facility later. If BGC decides to go ahead with the LNG part, SGC has pledged to supply it with

enough raw gas to produce a minimum of 600 million cubic feet per day of LNG feedstock gas within four to seven years of the start up of the gas processing unit. A wholly-owned affiliate of Shell will buy all the LNG produced at market prices and would be able to sell it anywhere it chooses for at least 20 years, providing it is not to a country then embargoed by the government of Iraq.

A simplified official agreement presented to the Iraqi parliament and obtained by Reuters in early August indicated BGC would sell the dry gas back to SGC under a fuel-oil linked pricing formula. The full draft contract shows that, once investments by the private shareholders have matched the value of assets transferred from state-owned SGC, BGC would sell dry gas back to SGC at a price based on the average daily high and low quotations of spot High Sulphur Fuel Oil (HSFO) 180 FOB Arab Gulf in the previous quarter from pricing agency Platts. According to Reuters calculations based on an average daily closing price for Platts’ HSFO 180 CST FOB Arab Gulf in the second

quarter of 2011 of $647.77 per tonne, the reference price for gas sold to SGC would be $5.78 per million British thermal units (mmbtu) for the present quarter. This compares to current U.S. front month gas prices of around $4.4/mmbtu and UK prices of around $9.2/mmbtu. The Iraqi government has decided SGC will then sell the dry gas to Iraqi industry at just $1.04/mmbtu, according to the summary presented to Baghdad lawmakers, to ensure Iraq has cheap fuel it needs to be competitive in a region of subsidised gas supplies.

The price of any condensate BGC sells to SGC would similarly be priced off Platts’ spot Dubai crude assessments, while LPG prices would be based on Argus’ Asia Far East indices for propane and butane. The monthly pricing of raw gas from the dedicated fields that BGC will pay SGC is complicated. It would take into account BGC fuel and any power sales in the previous month and include a windfall adjustment for the difference between BGC’s dry gas revenue and a dry gas base price linked to Brent crude. —Reuters

Leading Greek banks announce merger, capital increase ATHENS: Greece’s second and thirdlargest lenders, Eurobank and Alpha Bank, announced yestrday they would merge and proceed with a 3.9-billion-euro ($5.7 billion) capital increase. Amid rising concern about Greek banks given the recession-hit economy and bank exposure to the sovereign debt of the government, the capital increase, led by a Qatari fund, will boost the merged lender’s top flight capital ratio to 14 percent.

“The boards of directors of Alpha Bank and Eurobank EFP announce that they have reached agreement on a combination of Alpha Bank and Eurobank EFG by way of a merger,” the banks said in a joint statement.

“We are announcing a marriage today, it creates the biggest bank in Greece,” said Alpha Bank chairman Yannis Costopoulos, who will head up the merged bank to be known as AlphaEurobank.

Greek stocks, which had soared in expectation of the merger announcement, extended their gains further to over 15 percent. Trading of Alpha Bank and Eurobank was temporarily suspended. The merger will be completed by a exchange of five new Alpha Bank ordinary shares for every seven Eurobank EFG ordinary shares, giving current Alpha Bank

shareholders 57.5 percent of the merged lender and Eurobank shareholders 42.5 percent. The capital increase will be undertaken by the three major shareholders of the merged bank, two Greek families and Qatar’s Paramount Services Holding Limited, the statement said without giving a specific breakdown.

“This is the first major investment in Greece for years and a vote of confidence for the country. We believe it will bring more,” said Costopoulos.

Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos, hailed the merger as a “positive development which attests to the dynamism and perspectives of the Greek banking system.” “It is also important that Qatar participates and invests in Greece, sending a message abroad of confidence” in the troubled eurozone member’s economy, the minister said in a statement.

The merger and investment follows Eurobank failing the latest EUwide bank stress tests last month, and a pledge by the bank to boost its capital.

The deteriorating state of Greek public finances has cast a pall on the country’s banking sector which has significant exposure to state debt.

Greek banks have seen their market

valuation nearly halve since the start of this year, helping send the Athens stock exchange to a 15-year low.

Lenders have suffered as a result of debt-hit Greece’s pariah status among creditors and have had to rely on the European Central Bank for fresh loans to keep them afloat.

Greek banks reportedly stand to lose some five billion euros as a result of a government debt rollover that is part of Greece’s second, 159-billion-euro EU-IMF bailout.

A top flight capital ratio of 14 percent would be double the 7.0 percent that banks are required to achieve under the new Basel III international banking regulations. The move also comes ahead of an audit of Greek bank holdings by BlackRock, the world’s largest money manager, at the request of the Bank of Greece, that is to begin next week.

The merger “...will offer great confidence and security to the deposit holders of these banks, in addition to greater liquidity which our economy needs,” analyst Haris Zamanis told Mega television. Costopoulos, long a proponent of consolidation, called the merger a “big step to rationalise the Greek banking system.”

Analysts said the merger could spark other consolidation initiatives.

ATHENS: A man withdraws money from a Eurobank ATM, next to an Alpha Bank cash machine, in central Athens yesterday. — AP

“This is a first move towards a slightly stronger sector,” said Alex Koagne, a Natixis banking expert on Greece. “It will enable the launch of a banking consolidation in Greece,” he told AFP.

Eurobank, which sold a Polish subsidiary, posted a net profit of 74 million euros in the first quarter of 2011 from 16 million euros a year earlier.

Alpha Bank, which saw its first quar-

ter net profit plunge 80 percent to 10.5 million euros, in February rejected a friendly merger offer from National Bank, the country’s leading lender.— AFP

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Qatargas plans several LNG outages in autumn DUBAI/DOHA: Qatargas will stop three of the world’s biggest liquefied natural gas (LNG) producing plants at different times during a rolling maintenance program planned for this autumn, the world’s largest LNG producer said yesterday. European gas prices leapt on Friday after traders with knowledge of the situation told Reuters Qatargas trains 5, 6 and 7 would shut consecutively for around two weeks each from mid September to early November when heating demand from big buyers in Europe and north-east Asia climbs as temperatures fall.

Qatargas did not give exact dates or durations yesterday for the closures of its three newest production lines - each able to produce 7.8 million tonnes a year (mtpa) of LNG but said it also planned to do work on parts of the 7.8 mtpa train 4 and 3.2 mtpa train 3. “Qatargas can confirm that the planned maintenance of its Trains 5, 6 and 7, as well as Qatargas 3 and 4 inlet receiving facilities will take place this autumn,” a spokesperson from Qatargas in a statement yesterday.

“Qatargas operates a rolling program of planned maintenance at its facilities. These necessary, planned and safe shutdowns are coordinated with all parties of our operations,

shipping and customers as part of our annual planning exercises. There will be no impact on our existing customer portfolio.”

On Friday, traders familiar with the plans said work at trains 5-7 was expected to last for about two weeks each, also reducing Qatari condensate production while the huge processing plants attached to Qatar’s vast North Field are down.

Qatargas did not comment on whether the inlet receiving facility work would require the complete shutdown of trains 3 or 4. Some inlet receiving systems can be bypassed so that production can be maintained, while others require a complete shutdown, an industry source said.

British benchmark front-season gas prices soared six percent on Friday on fears the maintenance could cut supply to nor th west European consumers already worried about Qatari LNG diversions to higher paying Japan, where gas demand has boomed since a March ear thquake shut nuclear power plants. Qatargas operates seven LNG trains with a capacity of 42 million tonnes per annum (mtpa), but has signed several deals since March to sell more LNG to new markets in addition to Japan. — Reuters

hile not all people are born movers and shakers who can influence, motivate and inspire by pure gut instinct, everyone can be empowered to tap into their natural leadership abilities to succeed in business and in life. While each leader will have a unique style and roadmap to success, there are some common traits that the most successful leaders share. Below the career experts at bayt.com look at some of these traits.

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3. Optimism and Enthusiasm Leaders inspire others with the very infectiousness of their enthusiasm and their disarmingly genuine keenness, passion and zeal for what they do. Rather than dwelling on problems they are solution-oriented and focus on how to make things work and succeed. They are willing to see the silver lining in every cloud and have a ‘can-do’ optimistic attitude that leaves no place for negativity.

1. Integrity Honesty and integrity are the cornerstone of sustainable success. In order for people to want to follow their leader they must have complete trust in his honesty, his dedication, his commitment and his unshakeable ethics and high standards and values. Leaders who are open, truthful and consistent in their behaviors are more likely to inspire trust, loyalty and commitment in their teams.

4. Commitment to Growth Leaders recognize that learning is a lifelong process and never stop doing what it takes to grow professionally and personally and maintain a grip with emerging trends and tools and business realities and technologies. The best leaders realize that to remain at the vanguard of their particular function or industry requires constant learning, enquiry, exploration and innovation as well as continuous self-scrutiny and analysis.

2. Willingness to take Risk Leaders are not afraid of taking risks or making mistakes. They take calculated as opposed to reckless risks and while they weigh their options and alternatives carefully they do not allow themselves to fall prey to the “analysis paralysis” syndrome. The best leaders learn from their mistakes and emerge from them resilient and ready to take on the next challenge.

5. Vision Leaders know precisely what they want and make clear detailed and achievable plans to get there. They are not vague or ambiguous in their goals nor do they leave anything to chance. Leaders are also able to articulate and communicate their vision clearly and in no uncer tain terms and

inspire and win others to their platform with their vision.

6. Emotional Intelligence Empathy, self-awareness, decisiveness, self-discipline, intuitiveness and social competence are all key to successful leadership and all are associated with high levels of emotional intelligence. Congeniality, the ability to put oneself in another’s shoes and relate with others, the ability to read between the lines and analyze the pulse of a relationship or situation, the ability to focus on the positive and refrain from negative and self-defeating attitudes and behaviors, are all elements of emotional intelligence that contribute to leadership success.

7. Ability to Engage Others A key leadership trait is inspiring, motivating, engaging and bringing out the best in others. The best leaders encourage leadership in all around them and strive to develop and empower others to assume roles of leadership and responsibility. They are able to propel others to elevated levels of performance through their own energy and enthusiasm and insight and can maximize the strengths and capabilities of their team for the benefit of the whole organization.

flydubai says Ahlan to Ahmedabad

Iran snubs Gazprom, mulls refineries sale TEHRAN: Iran has “excluded” Russia’s Gazprom from a major oilfield project, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported yesterday, in the latest snub to foreign investors that Tehran feels are not fulfilling their promises. But other reports suggest Iran is still seeking major investments from abroad, as well as seeking cash through a sell-off of its refineries.

“After several ultimatums and delays

by Russia’s Gazprom, this big global gas producing company has been excluded from the development plan of the Azar joint oil field,” the National Iranian Oil Company said in a statement reported by Mehr.

The Russian energy giant had not actually signed a contract to develop the on-shore field, on the border with Iraq where it is known as Badrah, but Iranian media reported in March 2010 that it was about to do so. Mehr said talks had broken down by March this year. “The Russian Gazprom was put out of the negotiations about the development of the Azar oil field six months ago, and any request by Gazprom to get back into the oil field’s development would require (new) examination and evaluation,” Hamid Karimi, an oil official overseeing the development of the field, was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency.

The comments by Iranian officials

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about the breakdown of talks with Gazprom come a few weeks after Iran’s new Oil Minister, Rostam Qasemi, took office, saying Iran had no need for foreign investment in its vital oil and gas industries.

With the withdrawl of western oil companies due to tighter US and European Union sanctions, analysts had forecast a bigger role for other players, but there have been few signs of increased investment and Qasmei has said they are not needed. Tehran has told the China National Petroleum Corporation it will be replaced by domestic companies if it does not step up work on phase 11 of the giant South Pars gas field.

But the English language Tehran Times reported yesterday that Iran and China would invest $12 billion over the next 10 years to develop the Azadegan oil field, also on the Iraqi border. In another sign Iran is seeking funding from outside government coffers, an official has announced plans to sell off oil refineries, with Iranian and international investors being invited to buy shares. “Seven of the country’s nine oil refineries will be ceded to the private sector by the end of the current Iranian year (March 19, 2012),” Ali Reza Zeighami, managing director of the National Iranian Refining and Oil Products Distribution Company, told an oil ministry website. — Reuters

KUWAIT: flydubai, Dubai’s pioneering low cost airline, inaugurated its third major Indian route yesterday Saturday with the start of operations to the world’s third fastest growing city - Ahmedabad. Flight FZ437 landed at Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport, expanding flydubai’s network to 39 operational destinations across the Middle East, Asia, Africa and the fringes of Europe. The new route also marks the airline’s entry into Gujarat, one of India’s most prosperous states with a per-capita GDP significantly above the country’s average at $59 billion. flydubai CEO, Ghaith Al Ghaith, said: “I would like to take this opportunity to extend my gratitude to the Indian authorities. Thanks to their strong support, the UAE is now connected to a city that is witnessing incredible infrastructure growth which in turn has led to a population increase. As a rising centre of education, information technology and scientific industries, Ahmedabad remains the cultural and commercial heart of Gujarat and much of western India and as a result we expect this route to prove very popular.”

By increasing the number of flights between Dubai and India, flydubai is supporting the growth of trade and tourism, while also providing convenient and affordable travel options for the considerable Indian expat community in the UAE and their families at home.

With a city population of approximately four million, Ahmedabad is the seventh largest city in India and the cultural and commercial heart of Gujarat. As the home of Mahatma Gandhi’s Sabarmati Ashram and the former capital of Gujarat, it continues to attract interest from both local and international travellers.

Ahmedabad is also a thriving centre for industry; the chemical and pharmaceutical sectors are particularly buoyant, with two of the biggest Indian pharmaceutical companies - Zydus Cadila and Torrent

Pharmaceuticals - based in the city. The area also serves as the corporate headquarters of the Adani Group, a leading multinational trading and infrastructure development company.

FZ437 depar ts Dubai Terminal 2 on Saturdays at 2210hrs, landing in Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport at 0250hrs local time on Sundays. Meanwhile, the return flight FZ438 leaves Ahmedabad at 0335hrs, arriving in Dubai at 0505hrs.

A one-way fare to Ahmedabad from Dubai starts at AED 550, and includes all taxes, one piece of hand luggage weighing up to 7 kg and one small handbag or laptop bag. Fares from Ahmedabad to Dubai are priced from AED 620. Checked baggage starts at AED 50 for 20 kg. A seat with extra legroom costs AED 100.

Sabarmati Ashram

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

.2695000 .4420000 .3920000 .3310000 .2750000 .2850000 .0040000 .0020000 .0734970 .7160490 .3810000 .0700000 .7011640 .0040000 .0430000

CUSTOMER TRANSFER RATES US Dollar/KD .2712500 GB Pound/KD .4444300 Euro .3944250 Swiss francs .3333540 Canadian dollars .2772950 Danish Kroner .0529350 Swedish Kroner .0433340 Australian dlr .2877420 Hong Kong dlr .0348060 Singapore dlr .2246000 Japanese yen .0035360 Indian Rs/KD .0000000 Sri Lanka rupee .0000000 Pakistan rupee .0000000 Bangladesh taka .0000000 UAE dirhams .0738800 Bahraini dinars .7197820 Jordanian dinar .0000000 Saudi Riyal/KD .0723530 Omani riyals .7048200 Philippine Peso .0000000

Al-Muzaini Exchange Co.

Japanese Yen Indian Rupees Pakistani Rupees Srilankan Rupees Nepali Rupees Singapore Dollar Hongkong Dollar

ASIAN COUNTRIES 3.632 5.917 3.130 2.476 3.710 227.330 35.009

.2760000 .4550000 .4010000 .3440000 .2850000 .2950000 .0072500 .0035000 .0749140 .7298540 .4010000 .0760000 .7146820 .0072000 .0530000 .2733500 .4478700 .3974780 .3359350 .2794420 .0533450 .0436700 .2899700 .0350760 .2263390 .0035630 .0060010 .0024950 .0031470 .0037190 .0744520 .7253550 .3866340 .0729130 .7102770 .0065080

Bangladesh Taka Philippine Peso Thai Baht Irani Riyal - Transfer Irani Riyal - Cash Saudi Riyal Qatari Riyal Omani Riyal Bahraini Dinar UAE Dirham

3.643 6.441 9.102 0.271 0.273 GCC COUNTRIES 72.776 74.986 705.730 724.860 74.312

ARAB COUNTRIES Egyptian Pound - Cash 47.250 Egyptian Pound - Transfer 45.801 Yemen Riyal 1.243 Tunisian Dinar 201.540 Jordanian Dinar 385.390 Lebanese Lira 183.100 Syrian Lier 5.892 Morocco Dirham 35.383 EUROPEAN & AMERICAN COUNTRIES US Dollar Transfer 272.800 Euro 396.950 Sterling Pound 450.800 Canadian dollar 282.400 Turkish lire 156.000 Swiss Franc 344.880 Australian dollar 288.300 US Dollar Buying 273.500

Sterling Pound US Dollar

Bahrain Exchange Company COUNTRY

SELL CASH

Australian dollar Bahraini dinar Bangladeshi taka Canadian dollar Cyprus pound Czek koruna Danish krone Deutsche Mark Egyptian pound Euro Cash Hongkong dollar Indian rupees

293.100 724.760 3.820 281.600 535.300 36.300 53.400 167.800 46.710 400.000 35.630 6.260

SELL DRAFT

291.600 724.760 3.655 280.100

227.400 45.764 398.500 35.480 5.950

0.033 0.239 0.237 3.650 386.630 0.184 93.880 47.100 4.200 234.100 1.848 50.900 707.820 3.230 6.580 75.390 72.760 227.370 40.700 2.610 451.200 43.200 342.600 5.600 9.510 198.263 74.300 272.900 1.210

0.033

385.150 0.183 93.880 3.730 232.000

341.100 5.600 9.570 74.200 272.500

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

Currency

Selling Rate

272.550 277.275 447.255 397.420 338.155 722.620 74.180 74.180 72.640 383.640 45.781 2.474 5.916

3.145 3.647 6.408 668.530 3.650 9.200 5.740 3.795 90.532

Rate per 1000 (Tran)

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

TRAVELLER’S CHEQUE 449.200 272.500

Dollarco Exchange Co. Ltd Rate for Transfer

Pakistani Rupees Bangladesh Taka Philippines Pesso Cyprus pound Japanese Yen Thai Bhat Syrian Pound Nepalese Rupees Malaysian Ringgit

Kuwait Bahrain Intl Exchange Co. 707.640 3.150 6.445 74.960 72.760 227.370 40.700 2.475 449.200

GOLD 1,866.830

10 Tola

GOLD 337.000 171.000 88.000

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

272.400 3.140 5.960 2.490 3.660 6.445 74.265 72.790 724.200 45.775 452.000 0.00003280 3.910 1.550 387.000 5.750 401.600 284.300

Al Mulla Exchange Currency

US Dollar Euro Pound Sterling Canadian Dollar Japanese Yen Indian Rupee Egyptian Pound Sri Lankan Rupee Bangladesh Taka Philippines Peso Pakistan Rupee Bahraini Dinar UAE Dirham Saudi Riyal *Rates are subject to change

Transfer Rate (Per 1000)

272.300 397.500 449.000 279.000 3.580 5.917 45.800 2.474 3.650 6.410 3.140 725.000 74.225 72.750

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Harmony between opponents modern world language ALSHALL WEEKLY ECONOMIC REPORT 1. Oil and Public Finance – Aug 2011 By the end of Aug 2011, the fifth month of the current fiscal year 2011/2012 has passed where, in its most part, Kuwaiti oil prices remained high -above the $100 per barrel-except for Wednesday August 10 when they scored $99.6 per barrel. Average Kuwaiti oil price for most of August scored about $104.3 per barrel, a noticeable drop by $4.9 per barrel below July’s price of $109.2 per barrel. As such, Kuwaiti oil average price for the first 5 months of the current fiscal year scored $108.6 per barrel, an increase by $48.6 per barrel (81 percent) over the new budget hypothetical price of $60 per barrel. This will be reflected positively on oil revenues.

The highest oil price recorded for the Kuwaiti oil during this FY was in April at $115.6 per barrel making August average price lower by more than $11 per barrel. August 2010 average price scored $72.5 per barrel. Kuwaiti oil average price for the past FY was $81.9 per barrel. Kuwait is supposed to have achieved during the first five months of this FY about KD 11.3 billion worth of oil revenues. Assuming production and prices would continue at the same rate which is an unrealistic assumption on the price side at leastprojected oil revenues for the entire fiscal year would score about KD 27 billion, which is KD 14.7 billion higher than the budget estimate. Adding KD 1.1 billion in non-oil revenues, total budget revenues for the current fiscal year would score about KD 28.1 billion versus KD 19.435 billion in expenditures allocations. The resultant will be achieving a hypothetical surplus by about KD 8.7 billion for the entire fiscal year 2011/2012.

2. Our New World and Neighborhood Relations In the late 1990’s and during a press conference between President Clinton and the Chinese President, where a rumor of a Chinese industrial espionage on the USA was at its peak, the American President was asked about his opinion on a tough dealing with China. He answered that his option is to develop the Chinese economic development despite his strategic knowledge that China might probably surpass the USA in the future because the other alternative is starving 1.3 billion people which will be devastating to the entire world.

After the 2008 global financial crisis when the Chinese President revisited the United States, he said that China would do whatever it could to support US’ recovery. And it really did so by buying the US bonds although it is its largest creditor by $1.2 trillion dol-

lars. It also bought bonds of defaulting European states. In a visit to China this current month, the American Vice President played on the same chord and conveyed a message of assurance to China about the huge USA economy -2.5 times the scale of the Chinese economy- and its sufficient solvency to pay its debts.

This harmony between opponents became our modern world language, which is irrelevant to the heart, but imposed by interests. The downfall of either means the downfall of the other under these circumstances, and the recovery of either means more recovery to the other.

We cite the above in an attempt to promote the neighborhood relations in our region. Misery and its impacts stated by the US President more than a decade ago applies much more to our region.

Intensifying disagreement by any party will make it its fuel, whereas prosperity of either moves to the other. Our and their wise people should take the initiative; history retells costs of inter-conflicts which transformed people of the richest countries to tramps and eventually led to endless violence.

There are contacts regarding some of the outstanding issues like Mubarak Port Project. We should keep these contacts quiet and use reason in our actions. The winner in the end will not be furious statements and ferocious events but the number of job opportunities created to us because of them and to them because of us, due to our joint transactions.

3. Burgan Bank Financial Results – 30 June 2011 Burgan Bank announced its results for the first half of the current year 2011 which indicate that after deducting taxes on its affiliates abroad and local due taxes the bank achieved KD 29.8 million profits, a rise

by KD 32.8 million, or 1095.1 percent, vis-à-vis KD 2.9 million losses for the same period 2010. The reason for that rise is due to reduced value of provisions by KD 36.7 million down to KD 13.7 million (KD 50.4 million for the same period 2010). The gross profit rate went up to 26.2 percent versus (-2.5 percent) for the same period 2010.

The bank’s operational revenues plunged to about KD 113.6 million (KD 118.4 million for the same period 2010), a drop by 4.1 percent. It came mainly from the drop in net investment revenues by KD 10.2 million (100.6 percent) to losses of about KD 64 thousand vis-à-vis KD 10.1 million for the same period 2010. Net revenues from interests item rose by 8.5 percent, or KD 4.3 million, to KD 54.3 million (KD 50.1

million for the same period 2010). That was attained due to a drop in interests’ charges by more than 12.2 percent. Net interest margin (the difference between the received and paid interests) scored 4.5 percent (4.7 percent for the same period 2010). Financial statements of the bank show that the bank’s total assets increased by about KD 4.5 million, or 0.1 percent, to KD 4151.9 million (KD 4147.5 million in the end of 2010). This rise would be bigger if we compared total assets with their counterpart value in the first half of 2010 and would score KD 91.2 million, or 2.2 percent growth rate. Total assets then scored KD 4060.7 million. Government assets (bonds and bills) dropped to KD 427.3 million (10.3 percent of total assets), a drop rate by 8.5 percent (KD 39.7 million) versus a total of KD 466.9 million (11.3 percent of total assets) in the end of 2010. Government assets dropped by 6.5 percent or KD 29.7 million when compared with KD 457 million in June 2010, (11.3 percent of total assets). The bank management increased volume of credits and advances portfolio by 0.8 percent and went up to KD 2152.3 million (51.8 percent of total assets) (KD 2135.8 million in the end of 2010) or 51.5 percent of total assets. If we compare volume of this portfolio with its counterpart value last year, we find it dropped by 0.76 percent as it equaled KD 2168.7 million (53.4 percent of total assets). Our analysis of the bank’s financial statements indicates that all profit indexes recorded a noticeable rise.

Return on equities index (ROE) went up from minus 1.2 percent in the end of 2010 to about 10.9 percent.

Similarly, return on assets index (ROA) scored about 1.4 percent up from minus 0.15 percent in the end of the first half 2010. Return on capital index (ROC) also increased to 40.5 percent (-4.3 percent in the same period 2010). Earnings per share (EPS) increased to 17.6 fils (-5.7 fils for the same period 2010). Price multiplier to book value (P/B) scored 1.4 times (0.8 time for the same period 2010).

4. Kuwait Stock Exchange Performance – Aug 2011 KSE performance during August was weak vis-àvis the preceding month due to the plunge in all main indexes: trading value index, number of deals index, trading volume, and value of the general index (AlShall Index). AlShall index closed at 444.6 points, a drop by 13.8 points (3 percent) compared with July when it closed at 458.4 points. The highest reading value for the index was at 468.3 points on August 3, 2011 and the lowest was on August 22, 2011 when at

scored 433.8 points. Price index dropped by 4 percent and the weight index dropped by 3.2 percent during August. Between the end of 2010 and the end of August 2011, AlShall Index decreased about 23.1 percent, the KSE Weighted Index by 16.9 percent and the KSE Price Index by 16.7 percent.

Value of traded stocks (in 21 work days) scored about KD 280.3 million, and about $1.030 billion, which is KD 35.8 million less than July value of KD 316.1 million and by a noticeable drop by about KD 515.3 million vis-à-vis August 2010. It is mentioned that the highest traded stocks value in one day occurred on Wednesday, Aug 17, 2011 when value of traded stocks scored KD 29.5 million and the lowest was on Monday August 29, the last working day before Eid Al-Fitr, when it scored KD 4.2 million, which is considered the lowest trading value since 16/09/2002 when it scored KD 3.2 million.

Daily average value of traded stocks scored KD 13.3 million, less by KD 1.7 million (11.3 percent) than July 2011 average value at KD 15.1 million and less by 61.4 percent of the daily average of trading value of the same month last year. Volume of traded stocks during the month also dropped by about 192.1 million stocks making the monthly total trading volume at 1594.8 million stocks vis-à-vis 1786.9 million stocks in July 2011. Daily average of traded stocks dropped by 9.1 million (10.7 percent) to 75.9 million shares compared with 85.1 million shares for last month, a drop by 62.3 percent below the daily average for Aug 2010. Number of concluded deals during the month plunged to 27.2 thousand deals, a daily average of 1299 deals, a drop by 21.7 percent vis-à-vis 1660 deals per day in July 2011. As for companies, total capital value of listed companies dropped as a result of a drop in stock prices of most companies. Market value of 215 companies scored about KD 29.101 billion a drop KD 937.5 million (3.1 percent) if compared with KD 30.038 billion on July 31, 2011. If we compare the market value with the end of 2010 (212 common companies in the two periods), we find it scored about KD 28.855 billion, a drop by 20.2 percent below the end of 2010 when it scored KD 36.169 billion.

Number of companies whose value went up in the past part of 2011 was 29 companies out of 212 companies, while the number of companies whose value dropped was 165 companies and value of 18 ones did not change. All the 8 sectors dropped; the investment sector achieved the biggest plunge by 30 percent, then the service sector by 28.7 percent and then the industry sector by 22.8 percent.

India’s Maruti locks out workers over ‘sabotage’ Third dispute to affect production in three months

Jazeera to introduce new onboard meals every month KUWAIT: While most airlines change their onboard meal selections twice a year in line with their schedule changes, award-winning Jazeera Airways announced yesterday that it is introducing a new on-board meal selection ever y month for both Business Class travelers and Economy Class travelers starting Sept 1. The airline said the new food selections will always include a vegetarian option for its vegetarian travelers.

Jazeera Air ways CEO Stefan Pichler said: “We want to keep our products and ser vices fresh and innovative, so we are very excited about our monthly changing menus for Jazeera Business and Economy Class. I am sure all our guests will value the new menus, especially our frequent travelers, who have come to rely on Jazeera Airways’ efficient booking process and leading on-time performance.”

Pichler said: “Students, business travelers, and weekenders are all market segments that make up a large share of the business on our regional network. Our goal is to always make their experience efficient, on-time, and enjoyable.

Changing Jazeera Airways’ on-board

menu on a monthly basis is the latest value -boosting feature that will enhance the Jazeera Airways experience for all customers.”

In July, Jazeera Airways launched the early check-in feature, enabling travelers from Kuwait to check-in up to 24 hours prior to the their scheduled time of departure. Earlier, the airline introduced a free baggage allowance of 40 kg for all passengers, free on-board meals in Economy Class and an a‘ la carte’ menu for Business Class guests. As a result, Jazeera Airways now offers some of the Middle East’s best value-for-money fares for Economy Class and for Business Class travel. Jazeera Airways’ Business Class offering includes a separate cabin for passengers, exclusive check-in counters, and business lounge access at airports.

Flying to 18 regional destinations, Jazeera Airways is the largest airline serving the region out of Kuwait according to the monthly market share figures issued by Kuwait’s Directorate General for Civil Aviation.

Jazeera Airways is an IATA member airline and operates one of the youngest Airbus A320 fleets in the Middle East.

MUMBAI: Production at a Maruti Suzuki plant halted yesterday as India’s top carmaker locked out its workers, demanding they sign a “good conduct” pledge following alleged sabotage, the company said. The Japanese-controlled company said it had asked all workers to sign what it called a “good conduct” bond, promising they would not sabotage production, resort to go-slow tactics or otherwise hamper output at its Manesar plant. “Production is right now at a stop,” said a company spokesman, who declined to be named, citing company policy. It was the third dispute to affect production at Maruti in three months.

The 2,000 workers were not being allowed back into the factor y, one of two operated by Maruti in the northern Indian state of Haryana, until they had signed the pledge, the company said. Workers denied the allegations of sabotaging production at the company which sells nearly half of all new cars in India. The company spokesman said 10 workers had been suspended and five fired last week for “sabotaging production and deliberately causing quality problems” at the Manesar plant, which rolls out 1,200 vehicles every day in two shifts.

The production problems were discovered during qualitycontrol checks and included doors falling off and dents in car bodies, according to the firm.

“We have done no such thing. It is completely baseless,” said Arvind Kumar, who is part of the unrecognised Maruti Suzuki

Employees Union (MSEU). In the three days to August 25, the company produced only 1,570 cars, less than half of the planned 3,700, said a company executive who spoke on condition of

In June, 11 days’ worth of production was lost, costing the company nearly $93 million, after workers downed tools demanding recognition of a new union and the reinstatement of dis-

percent.

Fresh unrest “is a matter of concern”, said Jagannadham Thunuguntla, head of research at New Delhi-based SMC Global Securities. “Low-cost, skilled

MANESAR, India: This June 16, 2011 file photograph shows Indian private security guards standing in front of the main gate of the Maruti Suzuki Production Facility.— AFP anonymity. Of these, only 969 cars were cleared after quality checks. Maruti produces the Swift and A-Star hatchbacks, and the SX4 sedan at the Manesar plant. “The situation had reached a stage where it was directly harming customers’ interest and trust,” the spokesman told AFP. “Talks are on but it is a very serious matter if buyers’ lives are at risk.”

missed workers. In July, production was again halted for a day due to a labour dispute at the plant. But it reported earlier this month that sales had fallen by 25.3 percent in July - its sharpest ever monthly fall - from a year earlier, hit by high interest rates which pushed up the cost of consumer car loans. Maruti shares ended flat at 1,080 rupees as the overall market rose nearly four

labour has been key to the success of India’s growth story. If labour problems persist or spread across industries, it is not good.” Automobile makers like Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India, Hyundai Motor India and General Motors India have also been hit by bouts of labour unrest, with workers mostly demanding higher wages and better working conditions. — AFP

Race to succeed Ratan Tata narrow

DAMASCUS: Syrian women shopping at Hamidiyeh, a popular old market, one day ahead of Eid Al-Fitr in the old city of Damascus yesterday. — AP

NEW DELHI: The race to succeed Ratan Tata as head of India’s giant steel-to-telecom Tata conglomerate has boiled down to around three candidates out of 11 shortlisted by a search panel, a report said yesterday. Ratan Tata, one of India’s most powerful industrialists who has propelled the group’s global expansion, is to retire in December 2012 at the age of 75. Business Standard, a leading Indian financial newspaper, quoted unnamed sources as saying Tata’s half-brother, Noel Tata, now heading Tata International, the group’s global trading arm, was one of the final candidates. Other contenders in consideration were senior Tata executives,

the report said.

A Tata spokesman was quoted as saying the firm would not comment on the fivemember search committee’s work except to say it was “fully aware of the relevant timeline”, referring to Ratan Tata’s retirement date.

Last August, the company named the panel to seek a successor to the man credited with transforming the sprawling conglomerate into a focused and profitable organisation.

Tata, who trained as an architect, has also won praise as the driving force behind the creation of the Nano, billed as the world’s cheapest “people’s” car. The newspaper said the search panel believed an outsider might

be a “misfit” as any successor to Ratan Tata would need time to settle into the culture of the group. Ratan Tata has said he hoped his successor would have “our value systems in the forefront,” a reference to the Tatas’ mantra of corporate social responsibility. The Tata group has been steered by a family member since its founding in 1868. For years, Noel Tata toiled out of the limelight, heading the group’s retail unit Trent, which contributes a small percentage of the multinational’s $75 billion annual revenues. But last year he was put in charge of Tata International, leading Indian media to suggest he was squarely in the running for the top job. — AFP

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Last minute deals lift KSE GLOBAL DAILY MARKET REPORT KUWAIT: The Kuwaiti bourse (KSE) advanced during the last session befor the Eid holiday. The market was in the red zone throughout the day but last minute deals helped the index to go up.

Services sector and its heavyweight companies were a great support for the market as the sector was the top gainer for yesterday’s session. It is worth mentioning that the vloume and value levels slumped during Monday’s session breaking the all time value low.

Sectors Wise Market sectors were evenly divided between advancers and decliners as four sectors advanced and four declined. The NonKuwaiti sector index was the top advancer in the market while the Food sector index was the biggest decliner for the day.

went up by 0.74 percent and closed at 777.99 points. Top gainer for the day, National Ranges Company contributed to the advance of the sector by adding 10.71 percent to its share value. Heavyweights Zain and National Mobile Telecommunication Company were also amongst the advancers for the day, adding 1.06 percent and 1.03 percent to their share prices to close at KD 0.950 and KD 1.960, respectively.

Global Non-Kuwaiti Index closed higher by 0.96 percent with 2 increasing stocks and only one decliner in the sector. The biggest gainer in the sector was Ahli United Bank (AUB) stock that closed at KD 0.194, which is 2.11 percent higher than its previous close. Fujairah Cement Industries followed with a daily gain of 1.69 percent to reach KD 0.060. On the other hand, United Gulf Bank was the only decliner in the sector as it went down by 1.71 percent compared to its previous close and closed at KD 0.230. Second in the list of advancers was the Services sector index. Global Services Index

On the other hand, Food sector was the top decliner in the market decreasing by 1.06 percent. Heavyweight Kuwait Foodstuff Company (Americana) solely pulled the sector index down. The scrip lost 1.32 percent from its share value and closed at KD 1.500. Heavyweight Global Banking Index was also seen amongst the decliners as the sector lost 0.15 percent from its value. Two banks ended the day down against another two that have increased.

Kuwait Finance House lost 1.12 percent from its share value while Ahli United Bank ended lower by 2.22 percent. Both closed at KD 0.880.

closed at KD 0.015, making it the biggest decliner in the market.

Market Indices Global General Index (GGI) ended the day up by 0.19 percent, at 177.84 point. Market Capitalization was also up for the day, reaching KD 29.10 billion. On the other hand, KSE Price Index closed at 5,791.30 point, adding 3.90 points (0.07 percent) to its previous close.

Market Breadth During the session, 81 companies were traded. Market breadth was skewed towards advancers as 34 equities advanced versus 24 that declined.

Daily Trading Activity Trading activity was down during the session.

Total volume traded dropped by 23.12 percent with 48.12 million shares changing hands at a total value of KD 4.24 million (40.99 percent lower compared to the day before). Services sector was the volume leader, accounting for more than half of the total volume (51.87 percent of total shares exchanges). Two services stocks made it to the top volume list for the day.

National Ranges Company was the session’s most traded stock with 16.40 million shares exchanged while Al Safwa Holding Group came in fourth place with 3.20 million shares changing hands. Banking sector was the value leader, having 35.59 percent of total traded value. National Bank of Kuwait (NBK) was the most active in terms of value traded, with KD 0.82 million worth of shares traded.

Top Gainers and Biggest Decliners In terms of top gainers, National Ranges Company was the top gainer for the day, adding 10.71 percent to its share value and closing at KD 0.0155. On the other hand, Gulf Franchising Company shed 6.25 percent and

Renaissance nears 3-wk high, Gulf markets up DUBAI: Oman’s Renaissance Services hit a near three week high yesterday as investors picked up the battered stock while other regional bourses edged higher in thin trade ahead of a long religious holiday, taking support from hopes there may be further measures in the United States to help the economy. The oil services firm jumped 6.1 percent, up for a fifth consecutive session. The stock had plummeted to a 2009-low after it discovered financial fraud at unit Topaz and reported a 77-percent drop in first-half net profit. I nvestors believe the sell-off was overdone.

“Interest in Renaissance Services picked up with the accumulation strategy of medium-to-long term investors,” said Kanaga Sundar, Gulf Baader Capital Markets head of research.

Banks also helped the index , which ended 1.1 percent higher at a four-week high. Analysts say local pension funds and foreign funds have come back strong in Oman and the bourse is expected to continue its uptrend. Bank Muscat gained 1.3 percent and Bank Sohar climbed 2.7 percent. “We do remain positive on Omani banks with valuations remaining attractive,” Sundar added.

Most Gulf bourses have recovered losses spurred by a US credit rating downgrade on Aug. 5 by Standard & Poor ’s, and are now back to levels prior to the ratings cut. Elsewhere, Dubai ’s index gained 1.2 percent, its highest close since Aug 4, but volumes remained low. Retail- driven stocks were among the most active, with Emaar Properties rising 1.8 percent, Drake & Scull advancing 1.3 percent and low-cost carrier Air Arabia adding

1.3 percent. Meanwhile Abu Dhabi’s benchmark ended on a near fourweek high, closing 0.5 percent up.

Dana G as and Aldar Proper ties accounted for half of the total shares traded on the index, gaining 1.8 and 2.5 percent respectively.

Gulf markets took support from global stocks, which jumped almost one percent on Monday while the dollar struggled af ter Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke lef t the door open for fur ther action to stimulate the US economy and fight unemployment. He said the central bank ’s polic y panel would meet for t wo days in September instead of one to discuss additional monetary stimulus, offering some hope to investors.

“People don’t want to take long positions before the Eid holiday,” said Rami Sidani, Schroders Middle East head of investment. “ We expect international events to continue to price performance in our markets, especially (in) places like UAE and Saudi Arabia.”

M asraf Al R ayan helped lif t Qatar’s index which ended 0.8 percent higher, also at a near-four week high. The investment firm rose 0.4 percent, accounting for nearly half of the shares traded.

O ther financial stocks also rose with Commercial Bank of Qatar gaining 1.3 percent and Qatar National Bank rising 0.8 percent.

Kuwait ’s index ended near-flat, edging higher for a fourth straight day. Gulf markets are closed from Aug 30 for Eid Al Fitr. Most bourses will resume trade on Sept 4, with Saudi Arabia’s market restarting on Sept 3. Bahrain’s bourse holiday is conditional on the first day of Eid, and will be closed for three trading days. — Reuters

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Joblessness in Merkel territory fuels far right STRALSUND, Germany: One in five people are on social welfare, 14 percent of teenagers drop out of school with no qualifications and unemployment is all but a certainty for many. In Gruenhufe, part of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s constituency in the northeast German state of MecklenburgVorpommern, the shrill slogans of the far right stir more emotion than anything as remote as debate over the euro crisis. Almost every street lamp bears posters of the National Democratic Party (NPD) in black and red, with slogans such as “Criminal foreigners out!” “Who asks the people what we want? Nobody. They just do whatever will get them reelected,” Thomas Wenk, a 54-year-old former shipyard worker, said in a housing estate in Gruenhufe. “The other parties play into the NPD’s hands by doing nothing for young people. The NPD takes the vacuum left by unemployment and low pay and fills it with slogans.”

With nearly 12 percent unemployment - three times the level of the wealthy south - and young people leaving the region to find work, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern is fertile ground for the far right, like several other former East German states. In

the historic town centre of Stralsund, the district that Merkel represents in the German parliament which includes Gruenhufe, colourful gabled houses nestle under towering redbrick gothic churches in the bustling Baltic port. Pride in their MP being the first woman and the first East German to be chancellor ensures Merkel a strong turnout when she returns for a campaign rally before an election on Sept. 4 for the MecklenburgVorpommern state parliament and premier.

But while her speech on the euro and budget discipline get loyal applause from the crowd in the cobbled Old Market, these are not the issues that seem to trouble local people. “When we ask people ‘what do you want from politicians?’ they say: We need work, and our children need work,” said Heike Carstensen, candidate for the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) who lead the state’s governing coalition with Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) but are unlikely to beat the CDU in Stralsund.

Merkel’s conservatives have been punished in a series of seven state elections this year and the SPD is threatening to push them out of their partnership in Mecklenburg-

Vorpommern, one of Germany’s smallest states by population with 1.6 million people. Another setback would undermine Merkel when her leadership in the euro crisis is being questioned by party barons and the general public, reducing her chances of a third term in 2013. Some polls see the SPD getting a record 38 percent and the CDU 10 points behind. With the former communist Left Party in line for 17 percent, the SPD threatens to revive the pre-2006 “Red-Red” coalition and snub the CDU. Merkel told supporters in Stralsund she opposed “governing with people who don’t even know if it was right or wrong to build the Wall 50 years ago. That is my message to the Social Democrats”, referring to some Left leaders’ recent expressions of nostalgia on the recent anniversary of the Berlin Wall. While MecklenburgVorpommern is known for its attractive coastline, islands and nature reserves, locals like Wenk say the former CDU chancellor Helmut Kohl’s promise of a “blossoming landscape” after unification rings hollow for them.

Among the grey and brown blocks of flats in Gruenhufe, with peeling tiles, mouldy balconies and over-

grown lawns, men with shaved heads and cigarettes walk fierce-looking dogs. NPD posters are everywhere.

The party got enough votes at the last state election in 2006 to sit in the regional parliament and receive state funding. With an aggressive campaign and vague slogans such as “Honest pay for honest work”, polls put the NPD half a point below the 5 percent threshold for a seat in the state assembly in Schwerin. But, as anti-NPD campaigner Julian Barlen says: “Last time they were also at this level in opinion polls and ended up with 7 percent. It may be that people willing to vote for the NPD don’t like to admit it.”

At a candidates’ debate chaired by the local DGB trade union chief Volker Schulz, only a dozen members of the public turn up because Merkel is speaking in town in an hour. The CDU do not show and the NPD are not invited. “We have to see how we can ensure the NPD does not get back into parliament,” said Shulz. The Left’s Karsten Neumann said the massacre in Norway by right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik showed how vital it was “to stand up for democracy”.

When a group of young men

campaigning for the NPD near where Merkel had spoken were asked for comment, they deferred to an unsmiling young man in spectacles and a black shirt. “We don’t give interviews, the press always twists what we say,” NPD local councillor Dirk Arendt, aged 35, told Reuters.

“You can write if you want that lots of people think like us but they dare not say it because they are afraid.”

Afraid of what? “Consequences,” he said, walking away.

With foreigners making up only 2.5 percent of the population in the state and less in Stralsund, anti-NPD campaigners say unemployment, poor pay and low educational levels are what help make the far right flourish. Merkel’s candidate for state premier, Lorenz Caffier, said the CDU, which has run the regional economy ministry in the state coalition, has almost halved unemployment.

Careful to take aim at both the far right and far left but also stating his support for a ban on the NPD, Caffier said all democratic parties needed to outflank the NPD’s aggressive tactics on core issues like unemployment. “If the NPD holds ‘surgeries’ for the unemployed , then the forces of democracy must do the same,” he

said. Caffier said the euro crisis was not a campaign issue because “people trust Angela Merkel, this is her constituency and they know she is fighting for the euro and a stable currency”.

But the SPD’s Carstensen said people were “simply too busy with their own problems, or just resigned.

Kohl talked about a blossoming landscape. There is no blossoming landscape”. Carstensen said it would be tough to beat the CDU in Merkel’s constituency, where “people say they’re proud of the chancellor even though she doesn’t come from here and never lived here”.

Merkel, who called Stralsund her political “Heimat” (home) twice in her speech, was born in Hamburg in the west in 1954 and brought up in East Germany in Brandbenburg state, nearer Berlin. Out in Gruenhufe, Wenk bristles at the suggestion he should be proud that the local MP is chancellor of Germany and possibly one of the most powerful woman in the world. “Why should I be proud of Angela Merkel?

She has done nothing concrete for Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, not for me or my family. Nothing that makes me proud of her.” — Reuters

US consumer spending rebounds, calms fears Largest gain in 5 months WASHINGTON: US consumer spending rose at its fastest pace in five months in July, supporting views the economy was not falling back into recession. The Commerce Department said yesterday consumer spending increased 0.8 percent on strong demand for motor vehicles, after slipping 0.1 percent in June.

Economists had expected spend-

December 2009, after being flat in June.

The data was the latest to suggest the economy started the third quarter with some strength after growth almost stalled in the first half of the year. It also offered hope that output would continue to expand, though at a moderate pace. However, the risks of a new recession have risen following a

point against that recession argument,” said Jeffrey Greenberg, an economist at Nomura Securities in New York. “It seems at least through July, the economy was not too poor.”

US stock index futures held onto earlier gains after the data, while US Treasuries prices added to losses. The dollar held steady versus the euro and maintained

MOUNTAIN VIEW, California: In this Aug 26, 2011 photo, shoppers unload their items at a Costco. —AP ing, which accounts for about 70 percent of U.S. economic activity, to rise 0.5 percent. When adjusted for inflation, spending rose 0.5 percent last month, the largest gain since a matching increase in

sharp drop in stock prices and the erosion of consumer sentiment. “If anybody was concerned about this recession risk people were taking about, this personal spending number seems to be another

slight gains versus the yen.

Industrial production, retail sales and employment data have so far been consistent with a slow economic growth scenario rather than an outright contraction in

Obama picks labor expert Krueger as top economist WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama said yesterday he has chosen Princeton University labor economist Alan Krueger to become the top White House economist. The selection signaled Obama’s attempt to make good on his promise to focus on the US economy and jobs with Americans deeply dissatisfied with his handling of those issues.

Krueger would succeed Austan Goolsbee as chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. The decision comes as Obama prepares to unveil a jobs package in a speech planned for shortly after the Sept 5 Labor Day holiday.

“As one of this country’s leading economists, Alan has been a key voice on a vast array of economic issues for more than two decades,” Obama said in a written statement. “Alan understands the difficult challenges our country faces, and I have confidence that he will help us meet those challenges as one of the leaders on my economic team.”

Obama’s public approval ratings have fallen to around 43 percent, close to the lows of his presidency, amid anxiety over the 9.1 percent unemployment rate and lackluster economic growth.

Krueger’s expertise in labor-market issues is in keeping with the administration’s efforts to underscore a focus on jobs. The formal announcement of the pick was to come later in the White House Rose Garden.

Goolsbee, one of Obama’s longest-serving advisers, left the administration earlier this month to return to his teaching job at the University of Chicago. The departure was a blow for the White House as Goolsbee had been a high-profile spokesman on the economy. Krueger served in the Obama administration as a Treasury Department economist but left that job to return to Princeton last fall. The nomination requires Senate confirmation but Krueger has an advantage because he has gone through the confirmation process before for his Treasury job.

At Treasury, Krueger was assistant secretary for economic policy and chief economist. He is also a veteran of President Bill Clinton’s administration, serving as chief economist for the Department of Labor from August 1994 to August 1995. Krueger holds a Bachelor of Science degree in industrial and labor relations from Cornell University. He earned his PhD in economics at Harvard University. While at Princeton, Krueger was a regular contributor to the Economic Scene column in The New York Times.

Krueger has written extensively on unemployment and the effects of education on the labor market. If confirmed as CEA chairman, Krueger would be the third person to hold that post under Obama.

Obama’s first CEA chairman, Christina Romer, left the post a year ago to return to the University of California, Berkeley. —Reuters

output. Consumer spending braked sharply to a 0.4 percent annual pace in the second quarter after advancing 2.1 percent in the first three months of the year. The overall economy grew at a 1 percent pace in the second quarter after expanding only 0.4 percent in the prior quarter.

Real spending on durable goods increased 2 percent last month, likely reflecting a pick-up in motor vehicle sales as the shortage of autos caused by the supply disruptions from Japan eased.

Overall spending in July was lifted by a 0.3 percent rise in income as employers stepped-up hiring.

Income rose 0.2 percent in June and economists had expected a 0.3 percent increase last month.

Disposable income increased 0.3 percent, but when adjusted for inflation fell 0.1 percent - the first decline since September.

With spending outstripping real disposable income, savings fell to an annual rate of $582.8 billion from $638.6 billion in June.

The report also showed inflation pressures remain elevated. The personal consumption expenditures price index, or PCE, rose 0.4 percent after slipping 0.1 percent in June. Compared to July last year, the index was up 2.8 percent, the largest increase since October 2008, after advancing 2.6 percent in June. The core PCE index excluding food and energy - rose 0.2 percent for the second straight month. The core index, which is closely watched by Federal Reserve officials, increased 1.6 percent in the 12 months through July, the largest increase since May 2010, after rising 1.4 percent in June. The Fed would like to see it close to 2 percent. —Reuters

ZOUPING , China: Chinese customers select mooncakes at a supermarket in east China’s Shandong province yesterday. A decision by Beijing authorities to impose tax on mooncakes, a delicacy given to staff for the mid-Autumn festival, has sparked an outcry in the Chinese capital, reports said. —AFP

Bank of America to sell shares in China’s CCB NEW YORK: Troubled US financial giant Bank of America said yesterday it will sell about half of its 10 percent stake in China Construction Bank for approximately $8.3 billion in cash. The sale will help BofA strengthen its capital base and move closer to the Basel III standards imposed by global regulators, said Bank of America, which has suffered a steep decline in its share price in recent weeks.

“Our partnership with China Construction Bank has been mutually beneficial,” Bank of America chief executive Brian Moynihan said in a statement. Bank of America did not identify who was acquiring its shares of CCB, describing the buyers only as “a group of investors”.

The New York Times reported on Friday that BofA was in talks with a group of Asian sovereign wealth funds and private

equity firms like Blackstone and KKR about buying the stake. Under the terms of the deal, which is expected to close in the third quarter of 2011, BofA will sell 13.1 billion shares of CCB and make an after-tax gain on the sale of $3.3 billion, the bank said.

The largest US bank in terms of deposits, BofA has struggled to recover from the 2008 financial meltdown. It posted a $9.1 billion loss last quarter, mostly caused by a huge $8.5 settlement to resolve claims stemming from its issuance of mortgage-backed securities that went sour during the crisis. Until yesterday, Bank of America had refused to comment on speculation that it was considering a sale of its stake in Beijing-based CCB, which is majority-owned by the Chinese government. —AFP

Fresh critical audit for Greece amid uncertainty ATHENS: Greece heads into a key EU-IMF evaluation of its ailing finances this week amid growing uncertainty over a crucial debt rollover, bickering among its European peers, and its fragile recovery sputtering. Senior representatives from the European Union, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank will finalise a scheduled quarterly audit needed to unlock the latest portion of Greece’s first rescue loan agreed last year. After 15 months of austerity, the situation in Athens still looks bleak. Held down by cutbacks, the Greek economy is shrinking at an alarming rate. Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos last week said output will likely contract by more than 4.5 percent in 2011, up from a 3.5 percent forecast.

The public deficit - the source of Greece’s economic ills - is also running dangerously high, coming in at 14.69 billion euros ($21.3 billion) in the first half of 2011 compared to a target of 16.68 billion for the entire year. To make up the shortfall, the authorities on Thursday will hike sales tax for food at restaurants and hotels by ten points to 23 percent. The government also faces tight deadlines for an unpopular

privatisation program adopted in return for more EU loans, plus a cacophony in Europe over a controversial cash collateral deal that Finland brokered in return for Helsinki’s portion of a second bailout.

Addressing the European parliament on Friday, the EU’s economic and monetary affairs commissioner Olli Rehn suggested that the privatisation targets - complicated by falling stock exchange prices in Athens- could be “revised”. “The value of some of the assets earmarked for privatisation has been declining in recent quarters,” Rehn said. “In case of difficulties in meeting the targets, the rhythm of disposal of stateowned assets and the stakes offered for sale could be revised in order to ensure the quarterly privatisation targets are achieved,” he added.

In July, the EU approved 109 billion euros in fresh aid for Athens and another 50 billion from private sector groups, mainly banks and insurance companies, who agreed to rollover some of their Greek government bonds. But Finland insists on its collateral deal with Greece, and some eurozone members have attacked its stance as a dangerous precedent that could threaten last month’s rescue pack-

age as a whole. “The dynamic of the July 21 decision is being lost,” a source close to the new package told To Vima daily on Sunday.

Adding to the confusion, there has been little visible progress on a voluntary rollover of Greek debt that is an integral part of the new rescue. The government this week warned that if 90 percent of eligible bonds coming to maturity in 2020 were not included in the rollover, Greece “would not proceed with the transaction”a move that could jeopardise the whole bailout. Greek accumulated public debt totals around 350 billion euros, or 155 percent of GDP, way above the EU limit of 60 percent and at a level that many analysts believe will mean it cannot ever be repaid in full.

The EU-IMF audit entering its final phase yesterday will determine whether Athens will receive next month a sixth tranche of funds under its original bailout, set in May 2010 at 110 billion euros. In the upcoming talks with Greece’s creditors, Venizelos last week said the government “would like to review the macroeconomic data (with them)... and evaluate the budget objectives” in view of the deeper-thanexpected recession. —AFP

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BUSINESS

Damage from Irene appears to be less than feared WASHINGTON: Tropical Storm Irene’s trek up the East Coast caused less damage than many had feared, a bit of reassuring news for a fragile economy. Insured damages from the storm will likely range between $2 billion and $3 billion, and total losses will likely be about $7 billion, according to preliminary

estimates from Kinetic Analysis Corp, a consulting firm. Both figures are lower than had been expected, suggesting that the storm poses little threat to the nation’s $14 trillion economy. Some economists said that, as with past hurricanes and earthquakes, the recovery could end up boosting growth in the

coming months. Demand for building repairs might help the depressed construction industry, for example.

“Irene left several places with black eyes, but it doesn’t seem to have delivered an economic knockout,” said Ryan Sweet, an economist at Moody’s Analytics. In the short

NEW YORK: People exit the Wall Street subway station early yesterday. —AP

run, the costs will grow as stormravaged areas deal with lost business, dislocated workers and transportation delays - damage that will take months to understand. And in some areas, the impact will be measured in lost tourist dollars, canceled flights and shuttered stores. Irene slammed into a region that’s vital to the economy’s health.

The mid-Atlantic and New England account for about 16 percent of the nation’s economic output and about 14 percent of its workforce, Sweet said.

But Kinetic’s estimates suggest that Irene will have caused far less insured damage than the $6 billion the insurance industry paid out after Hurricane Isabel struck the East Coast in 2003. Other analysts agreed broadly with Kinetic’s early estimates, saying insured losses are unlikely to exceed $4 billion. Other consultants will release their own projections this week. Sweet said small businesses on the Nor th Carolina coast will likely lose two weekends of tourist activity, including the travel-heavy Labor Day weekend. Beach communities spanning the East Coast face the same threat.

For ordinary people in hard-hit areas, Irene’s costs could run high.

Victims of natural disasters often lack the insurance they need to recover their losses and return to work quickly, said Susan Voss, Iowa’s top insurance regulator and

president of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. People who lose homes can end up in temporary housing far from their homes and workplaces.

Many don’t realize that flood damage isn’t covered by standard homeowner’s insurance policies, Voss noted. A standard homeowner policy covers damage caused by wind or by rain through a damaged roof. A separate flood insurance policy would be needed to cover damage from rising water, such as from the storm surges unleashed

by Irene. Economists said that reconstruction from Irene could increase US economic growth in the October-December quarter, though the benefits will be limited by the relatively slight damage the storm caused. “ This region is ver y highly insured, so a lot of money will start pouring in, and that should re employ a lot of construction workers who are now out of work,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. Zandi said. He said the benefits from rebuilding might extend into next year ’s January-March quarter. “That will put some people back to work, at least temporarily,” said David Kotok, chairman of Cumberland Advisors.

For now, power outages and flooding will close some businesses, costing workers pay and likely increasing some temporary layoffs.

Transportation and shipping may also be disrupted. The length of the outages and the extent of public transportation problems in cities like New York will help determine the costs, analysts said. Such disruptions will emerge in economic data starting this coming week, when the government reports how many people applied for unemployment benefits as the storm bore down on the Southeast.

Economists expect a post-storm rise in applications.

One concern is that weak economic data, even if blamed on a natural disaster, could weigh on consumer confidence and make businesses reluctant to spend. But major fixtures of the economy are already returning to normal. The New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ are preparing to open Monday.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg lifted an evacuation order for lower Manhattan as of 3 pm Sunday.

Airlines planned to resume some flights into and out of East Coast airports yesterday. Crews are already restoring power in Southern states hit by the storm and are starting work in the northeast.

And Irene will add only about 15 percent to insurers’ weather-related payouts this year, if the current cost estimates hold. Tornadoes, flooding and droughts in the Midwest and South have forced the industry to handle about $17 billion in weather-related claims this year. —AP

N Zealand news agency closing after 132 years NZPA simply squeezed out WELLINGTON, New Zealand: When New Zealand’s homegrown news agency transmits its last story tomorrow, it will mark the end of a 132-year-old institution that has helped shape the identity of this remote nation.

The New Zealand Press Association (NZPA) is closing its doors Aug 31, a victim of changing technology and media consolidation. Two Australian media empires have bought up most of New Zealand’s newspapers, and

end, the agency was simply squeezed out. “It’s a tough thing when any news agency disappears,” said Bill Mitchell, the leader of entrepreneurial and international programs at the Poynter Institute for journalism in St. Petersburg, Florida. “It means there’s one less voice in providing a range of coverage.”

The agency’s tenure spanned coverage of New Zealand becoming the first self-governing nation in modern times to give

well for 100 years,” said Kevin Norquay, editor of the agency, whose staff has dwindled to 42.

The model began to break down, Norquay said, when newspapers consolidated and the Internet came to the fore. With newspaper chains able to make stories instantly available to a wide audience online, the agency’s role became less clear. In 2005, most newspapers stopped filing stories to the agency. The final blow came in April when Fair fax

WELLINGTON: New Zealand Press Association’s editor Kevin Norquay stands in the main newsroom yesterday. —AP the papers in each chain share stories with each other, reducing their need for an outside news service.

News agencies such as NZPA typically sell their news services to newspapers, broadcasters and online providers rather directly to readers. Like other such agencies, NZPA has tried to adapt in recent years by seeking new broadcast and online customers outside of its traditional base of the newspaper chains, which are also the agency’s main owners under a cooperative model. But in the

women the vote in 1893 to the first ascent of Mount Everest in 1953 by one of its most famous citizens, the late Edmund Hillary, to the countr y ’s ban on US nuclear ships in 1985. In its heyday in the 1980s and 1990s, NZPA employed dozens of journalists, including correspondents in London, Sydney, Hong Kong and Washington DC. New Zealand newspapers also filed stories of national interest to the agency, which would then distribute them to other papers.

“It was a situation that worked

Media, an Australian-based group that owns more than 70 newspapers in New Zealand, decided to end its business relationship with NZPA and go it alone.

Author and historian Ron Palenski, who worked for the agency for a dozen years until 1984, said its stories helped establish New Zealand’s identity by bringing common concerns to people across the sparsely populated country of 4 million people.

“For it to be taken away by foreign ownership of two newspa-

per companies is very sad,” he said.

Some see the move as yet another example of the increasing control that Australian companies are exerting over New Zealand business. Australianbased companies now dominate New Zealand’s media and banking sectors and are making inroads into retail. The two countries enjoy close economic ties, which make it relatively easy for corporations to set up shop in the neighboring land.

Paul Thompson, the executive editor of Fairfax, said little will be lost.

“NZPA was a key part of the industry for decades and a fantastic servant,” Thompson said. “But the situation changed.”

In recent years, the agency did not do much original reporting, he said. He added that Fairfax’s team of 400 reporters would more than fill the gap. Fairfax and rival APN, which publishes the New Zealand Herald, are each adding staff to offset the agency’s demise. APN started its own news service last week with 17 employees. It will serve its newspapers as well as a handful of independent ones. “We’re genuinely excited by this new project in journalism,” said Chris Reed, editor of the new service.

Meanwhile, a third big player is expanding in the market. The Australian news agency, AAP, is increasing its New Zealand reporting staff from one to nine to serve the Australian market. The US-based AP has business relationships with Fairfax, APN and AAP. “We were buying the service from NZPA and suddenly found ourselves without New Zealand news,” said Bruce Davidson, the chief executive of AAP. He said the new landscape won’t mean that New Zealand is being underreported - but rather, the opposite.

“Sadly, from my perspective, we are now going to have a situation where we have three agencies and quite a large element of duplication,” he said. “It’s a bit silly in the long run.” —AP

Guessing game begins on Irene insured losses NEW YORK: Hurricane Irene is expected to have caused substantial property losses, though figures are still hard to come by because of uncertainty about wind damage, catastrophe modeling company Eqecat said yesterday. Analysts at FBR Capital Markets said the storm may have been something of a worst-case scenario for large US property insurers like Allstate Corp and Travelers Companies Inc - enough to wipe out most or all of their third-quarter earnings, but not enough to cause an industry-wide increase in prices after years of weakness.

Yet shares in Allstate rose 4.2 percent and Travelers rose 3 percent in early trading, in line with European insurers who rose on relief that the damage from Irene was not as bad as had

been feared. Other insurers were also higher, in line with gains in the broader market. Millions of people throughout the northeastern United States were still flooded and without electricity yesterday morning, particularly in rural Vermont and suburban New Jersey. Totaling those losses is expected to take time, as is the process of figuring out how many of the affected had government-backed flood insurance.

By some accounts, the insured losses in the Carolinas were as little as $200 million after the storm made landfall there Saturday, but impacts appear to have been far worse as the storm rolled up the coast. “Irene is a major event and will be responsible for significant levels of insured losses to property and people,” Eqecat said in a loss report early Monday

morning. It expects to have more figures later in the day.

Before the hurricane, some feared Irene could be a $10 billion event or more. Analysts and insurance executives suggested something above $15 billion could bring a structural change to the insurance market, pushing prices higher around the world after three years of weakness. It is unclear if Irene can hit that market. Between the Caribbean and the Carolinas, Eqecat has estimated losses of no more than $1 billion. Its competitor AIR Worldwide has forecast losses of $1.1 billion just for the Caribbean, though. The third key player in catastrophe modeling for the insurance industry, RMS, has not weighed in with a figure. —Reuters

TARPLEY, Texas: In this Aug 25, 2011 photo, Don Davis is seen with some of his herd on a parched meadow at his ranch. —AP

Drought, high demand make hay hard to find OMAHA, Nebrask a: A scorching drought in the southern Plains has caused hay prices to soar, benefiting farmers to the north but forcing many ranchers to make a difficult choice between paying high prices or selling their cattle. Ranchers in much of Texas, Oklahoma and even Kansas are having to pay inflated prices for hay and then shell out even more to have it trucked hundreds of miles from Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska or South Dakota. Their only other options are to reduce the size of their herds or move cattle to rented pastures in another state. “It’s pretty ugly,” said Don Davis, who raises grassfed beef on his ranch about 75 miles northwest of San Antonio.

Davis said he used to think last year’s dry weather couldn’t get worse, but this year’s record-setting drought has put even more pressure on ranchers. Parts of Texas haven’t received any rain since last fall, and forecasters predict the drought will linger at least through September. The situation isn’t much better in western Oklahoma, southern New Mexico and par ts of southern Kansas. Officials say only a handful of Texas’ 254 counties received enough rain to grow hay this year, so significantly less is available at the same time demand has skyrocketed because pastures are parched.

That’s why the average price of hay climbed to $170 per ton this summer from $112 per ton last July, according to US Department of Agriculture statistics. But many ranchers are paying much more because the price doesn’t include shipping costs. “Hay has gone up tremendously in price, and it’s hard to get,” said Jay O’Brien, who runs a ranch near Amarillo, Texas. Some farmers have turned to social networking to find hay. The Hay Connec tion, a Facebook site started by two Oklahoma brothers, matches buyers and sellers and had more than 7,500 fans by midday Sunday.

Farmers in Iowa and Wisconsin banded together last week to donate several truckloads of hay to ranchers in Texas and Oklahoma, but those donations are likely to offer only a temporar y reprieve. Nebrask a hay farmer

Cory Banzhaf said he’s shipped about 80 percent of his crop - roughly 2,000 tons - south to Kansas and Oklahoma this year because of the drought.

Banzhaf said trucking the hay grown near Pleasanton, Neb., adds $50 to $70 to the cost of each ton, leaving ranchers with bills of between $225 and $270 a ton. “It’s great if you’re selling it, but horrible if you’re buying it,” said Banzhaf, who can sympathize because he also raises about 1,000 cattle.

Continuing to buy hay at those prices could be a recipe for bankruptcy, so ranchers have been selling off calves and cows of calf-bearing age even though they know it will be costly to rebuild their herds later. Davis said he had to truck in hay from Nebraska this year at a total cost of about $240 a ton to supplement the emergency supply he had in his barn. Normally, he relies almost entirely on pastures to feed his cattle. The cost led to his decision to sell off more of his cattle this year, even though he estimates his herd is about 40 head smaller today than it was in 2008. “I don’t know that anyone could significantly plan for a drought like we’ve had,” Davis said.

Texas AgriLife Extension Ser vice drought specialist Travis Miller said many livestock auctions in the state are so busy right now that they’ve been turning cattle away. Ranchers have been selling off cattle at double or triple the normal rate. “ We’ve been culling and culling heavily,” Miller said.

Scott Dewald, executive vice president of the Oklahoma Cattlemen, said the southwest and northwest corners his state are in especially bad shape, forcing ranchers to bring in hay from as far away as South Dakota.

Many ranchers also have lost access to water because ponds have dried up, adding to the need to reduce the size of herds or even sell all their cattle, he said. For tunately, prices paid have largely remained strong because of high demand from foreign markets and other factors, enabling ranchers to make some money on the sales. “At least we didn’t have the added insult of selling into a down market,” Dewald said. —AP

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TECHNOLOGY

Apple after Jobs: Will it continue to thrive?

SAN FRANCISCO: You might have to go back as far as Henry Ford to find a revolutionary company that was as closely associated with its visionary founder as Apple Inc was with Steve Jobs. So the question everyone was asking after Jobs’ resignation late Wednesday was whether a company that has done so much to shape our digital world could continue to thrive now that its inspirer-in-chief has relinquished day-to-day control of his vision. The initial assessment of the market was not encouraging. Within minutes of the announcement, Apple’s shares plummeted 6 per cent in afterhours trading, indicating investor nervousness about Jobs’ longtime deputy Tim Cook taking over as chief execu-

tive. It was easy to understand their reaction even if cooler heads might see it as a knee-jerk reaction.

Jobs has time and again proved himself as the top entrepreneurial innovator of the digital age, first popularizing personal computers, then the graphical user interface and mouse, then the first successful digital music ecosystem, not to mention smart phones and tablet computers that changed the way people use technology. Such innovation has made more than 350 billion dollars for Apple stockholders, and quite a few for Jobs himself - despite him taking only a dollar in salar y ever y year. It’s an unequalled record in recent history and one that might never be matched

again. So those who are looking for that kind of innovation as Apple moves forward might be missing the big picture, according to technology analyst Carmi Levy. He argued that Jobs built a strong foundation for the company with dominant positions in the smart-phone and tablet markets, and huge expansion opportunities in China, India and South-East Asia.

What’s needed now is just someone who can execute Jobs’ vision, Levy said.

“He’s still going to be the big idea guy, and that’s what Steve does best,” Levy said, referring to Jobs’ plan to stay on as chairman. “Not having the weight of the day-to-day responsibility could free Steve. This could be his next

chapter, not his last chapter.” Levy also put the stock price drop in perspective.

“Six per cent is nothing compared to how the stock has risen in recent years,” he said.

The bigger question people should be asking is whether Jobs would continue to play an active role as chairman, he said: “Is Steve’s move him deciding to focus, or is it him preparing for the end?” Either way, Levy said he believes Apple would continue to thrive under the management team that Jobs put in place.

“If he was so smart to facilitate the creation of the iPhone, the iPod, the iPad, then you have to assume that he is smart enough to have created a succession plan and have enough smart

people who can carry on after he’s gone,” Levy said. “He’s been sick since 2004, and it’s been on his radar since then.”

Leander Kahney, who runs the website Cult of Mac, concurred that Apple would do fine without its iconic leader.

“It’s a sad day.

It’s a terrible day for technology,” he told cnet.com. “The products he’s pioneered have become as big as the telephone, the car.” But Kahney’s confidence in Apple without Jobs was unflagging: “I think the company is going to be bigger than ever. I think Apple’s just on this roller coaster ride and will continue to dominate tech for the next 10 years whether [Jobs is] there or not.” — dpa

Wild computer conversions winning fame among gamers

NEW YORK: In this file photo taken June 29, 2010, the Apple iPhone 4 is shown at the Apple Store, in New York. A new app, ‘Nexercise’, offers rewards for exercise. — AP

New iPhone app offers rewards for exercising TORONTO: Need some motivation to hit the gym? Perhaps some free merchandise will do the trick. At least this is the premise that Nexercise is built upon, a free iPhone app that tracks activities ranging from running and weightlifting to fencing and polo and rewards users with free and discounted merchandise in the hopes that users will adopt longterm exercise habits. “We’re trying to create a lifestyle - not a quick fix,” said cofounder Benjamin Young. “We don’t focus on how many miles you ran or how many pounds you’ve lifted. You get points in the game for healthy behaviors.” Users can accumulate points based on the length of their workouts and for other behaviors that reinforce frequent exercise habits. Exercising with a friend or on a rainy day, for instance, allows users to accumulate bonus points.

“A lot of it is driven by research studies. If you exercise with someone, you’re more likely to continue to exercise.” said Young. Receiving prizes is more of a lottery rather than direct redemption. Users with more points have greater chances of winning prizes, and those that have reached higher levels have access to more valuable prizes. According to Young, the chances of winning a prize at the lowest level are about 25 percent, with prizes ranging from $5 gift cards and coupons for items such as energy bars, up to $250 gift cards. Recent integration earlier this month with Kiip, a San

Francisco-based advertising startup, provides access to prizes from retailers such as makeup company Sephora and vitamin and supplements maker GNC among many others.

Having recently completed an experimental run at the University of Maryland, the app is still quite new and has some kinks. It has been criticized for the quality of its rewards, which Young said have improved with its recent integration with Kiip, and will continually improve as the app matures. “It’s a function of growth.

We’re growing and the more we grow, the more likely we’ll have bigger vendors getting on board,” he explained. Another common complaint is that the app can’t run in the background, which means the app has to be open at all times in order to fully track physical activity. Young said the problem is scheduled to be fixed in the fall. Other upcoming plans for the app include a contextual notification system to increase engagement. For instance, if the app detects that a user is motivated by competition, it will notify them when their friends have surpassed them in the game. A similar app called Earndit is also available on the App Store and has partnered with some of the same prize providers. Other popular fitness apps include Runkeeper and Nike+, which count calories and map trails, but do not provide prizes as incentives.

Nexercise is available worldwide on the App Store. — Reuters

Irene cuts multiple East Coast cellphone services NEW YORK: Wireless networks fell quiet Sunday in some coastal areas of North Carolina and southern Virginia, but calls were going through in most areas affected by Tropical Storm Irene, the Federal Communications Commission said. In Lenoir, Greene and Carteret counties of North Carolina, 50 percent to 90 percent of cell towers went offline, said Rear Adm. Jamie Barnett, head of the public safety bureau of the Federal Communications Commission. About 400 cell towers were offline in North Carolina and Virgina, with power outages the chief reason. Another 200 towers were running on backup power by Saturday night and could go silent as their backup batteries or generators run dry, Barnett said.

Landline phone service failed for about 125,000 households on the coast, the FCC said. Another 250,000 have lost cable service, and some of them could have phone service from the cable company, which would then also be out. FCC

Chairman Julius Genachowski said the 911 system has held up well. There were no reports of call-center outages or call congestion, he told The Associated Press.

Public-safety networks for police, firefighters and ambulance crews also were working. Networks in the biggest population center in the path of the storm, the greater New York metropolitan area, were largely spared. And Verizon Wireless spokesman Thomas Pica said most of its customers haven’t experienced any disruptions.

“The Verizon Wireless network continues to perform well all along the East Coast, including in the many affected communities,” Pica said in an emailed statement. “Some cell sites in communities that have lost commercial power are operating on our own emergency backup generators to help us continue providing wireless ser vice to our customers.” In New York City itself, Barnett said, only 1 percent of cell towers went off the air. — AP

VERONA: Benjamin Heckendorn takes the average videogame system or computer, tears it apart and transforms it into a work of art.

Anything from a Commodore 64 to Microsoft’s Xbox 360 is fair game. He can turn an ancient Atari 2600 into a handheld or morph Sony’s state-of-the-art PlayStation 3 into a laptop. “It is mostly about rearranging things,” Heckendorn said. “I used to play Tetris a lot when I was younger. ... I think that helped me a lot for like arranging things and making them fit - at least I like to tell myself that to justify the time spent.” His craft is called modding - derived from the word modify - and Heckendorn is a king among modders.

Heckendorn’s creations are so coveted they can fetch thousands of dollars, and he picks his projects from the hundreds of requests pouring in over e-mail.

Suggestions range from the absurd - an Xbox combined with a Nintendo GameCube built into a refrigerator, for example - to the sublime, such as a one-handed Xbox controller that was requested by a serviceman injured in Iraq. That one-handed controller gained so much attention that eDimensional Inc., a peripherals company in Jupiter, Fla., teamed up with Heckendorn to manufacture the device. No price or ship date has been set yet, but the company should be taking orders in a few weeks, according to Michael Epstein, CEO of the firm. “We thought it was an interesting opportunity ... to cater to a market not being addressed at all,” said Epstein, noting that the players requesting it include those with cerebral palsy, motorcycle accident victims and others with limited manual mobility.

“We don’t know how big the market is, but we wanted to go forward and help out a lot of enthusiastic gamers who have no option.”

Heckendorn’s projects are chronicled on technology enthusiast Web sites such as Engadget.com, where the bloggers and other fans drool over his devices. “That’s right folks it’s the Xbox 360 Elite laptop,” the site cooed, gushing over a project he revealed in February “We’re not even going to try and pretend to understand how an individual could go about creating this kind of extreme mod to the Microsoft console.” Heckendorn, who is often called Ben Heck by his fans, started seriously experimenting with techy toys eight years ago, when he made a portable version of an Atari 2600. “I thought it would be fun to do the old Atari from the 1970s,” said Heckendorn, 32. “It’s almost as old as I am. “I didn’t know much about electronics then,” he said. “I don’t know that much more now. Back then I was a complete newb, as they say. I kind of looked at it and reverse engineered it and figured out how to make it portable.”

For the last four years he’s earned a comfortable living tinkering for money from his basement workshop, a high-tech larder stocked with boxes of circuit boards, the husks of old game systems and game controllers tucked in the rafters. “I don’t have a real day job,” he said. Heckendorn made a Web site about the Atari project after he finished it, and the response from the online community was overwhelming as word of his work spread across the Internet. “All of a sudden I started getting all these requests and e-mails, and I

am like, Wow, people actually care about this kind of stuff,” he said. Many customers are traveling professionals, technology enthusiasts, collectors and teenagers who “like the old stuff,” he said, noting they are often into the nostalgia of reviving their old game systems in sleek new shells. “Personally, I really don’t see the need for it,” Heckendorn said. “I know ... you wouldn’t expect me to say that. If people want it for whatever reason, then fine.”

Ian Baronofsky, a 37-year-old doctor in Chicago, owns more than a dozen of Heckendorn’s devices. His collection includes “at least” four portable Atari 2600s, a portable Super Nintendo, a portable Nintendo Entertainment System and a portable, custom-built Jaguar system. “Initially, I thought that the portable units would be ideal for some bedtime gaming, not to mention that they have a great look to them,” Baronofsky said. “When it comes to Ben’s stuff, I went a little overboard, and I’ve managed to collect his creations as part of my classic video game collecting.” Baronofsky says his Heckendorn creations are made well but are also quite delicate, noting that one device cracked a corner after a 2-inch fall. Still, he noted: “Ben has the technical chops to hack systems, the design sensibility to make nice-looking units and access to the routing equipment to actually implement his designs.

“He may not be the first hardware hacker or portable case hacker, but he is the first to be as prolific and consistent in the hobby,”

Baronofsky said. Other customers are a bit more casual, such as Bill Grittinger of Verona, who wanted an old Atari 2600 adapted so it would be easier to connect to a modern TV. Grittinger, 48, isn’t too into games but likes hanging out with his sons Harrison, 13, and Riley, 11, when they play. “My boys always liked playing with it,” Grittinger said of the Atari, which isn’t getting as much action now that the boys have discovered the game Guitar Hero. “They like the fact it was mine when I was a kid,” he said.

Heckendorn’s list of hits is long and has earned him a worldwide following: A portable ColecoVision with a 5-inch screen, custom controllers and an audio-visual out port so it still works on a TV. The “NES Micro,” which is a pocket-size Nintendo Entertainment System that uses the original game cartridges from the full-size console. An Apple IIGS laptop. Using an original motherboard, this laptop has a 15-inch color screen, a CompactFlash-based hard drive and a glowing blue logo that flashes when the disk is being accessed. The Apple IIGS laptop is Heckendorn’s favorite, he said, “although it’s not as sexy” as his 16-pound PlayStation 3 laptop, which has a 17-inch screen, a built-in keyboard, stereo speakers and a headphone jack.

The PS3 laptop, which took about 14 months of “on-again-off-again work,” was a special request from his pals at Engadget.com, which auctioned it on eBay recently to benefit the National Cancer Coalition. —MCT

VERONA: Ben Heckendorn plays his custom PS3 that he modded into a laptop case.

Heckendorn is an expert and professional “modder,” a hobbyist and tinker who takes existing video game hardware and customizes it, turning it into different devices. — MCT

New tech products BERLIN: Television series hero McGyver would have loved this new toy as an LED flashlight also serves as a Bluetooth loudspeaker and hands-free set with a lithiumion rechargeable battery. Trekstor developed the Bluetooth Multispeaker 4in1, which is about 15-centimetres-long and which can be attached in a car or on a bike. It also includes a built-in USB power charging station for smart phones, MP3 players and other devices. The Multispeaker costs 60 euros (87 dollars).

New triple core APU MUNICH: AMD has launched a new processor with a triple core as part of their A series.

The A6-3500 is built similarly to the four-core A6-3600 but AMD has removed one of the cores. The processor operates at a 2.1 Ghz clock speed with a Turbo Core frequency up to 2.4 Ghz. The A6-3500 utilizes 320 Radeon GPU cores and runs at 443 MHz. AMD’s recommended price is 95 dollars.

New in-ear headphones BERLIN: Beyerdynamic promises powerful

and balanced sound in their new in-ear headphones as both the DTX 41 iE and the MMX 41 iE headset have a sound pressure level of 114 decibels. Both models are available in Racing Green and Virginia Rose colours and three different sizes, and cost 39 euro or 49 euro. The MMX 41 iE also includes various adaptors to connect to mobile devices or computers.

Wireless keyboards with touchpad and solar power MUNICH: Logitech has launched a new wireless keyboard with a built-in touchpad with the compact K400 featuring a range of 10 metres. Logitech is also offering the solarpowered wireless keyboard K750 for Mac users. Once charged, the built-in battery can last up to three months. The K750 runs for 80 euros while the K400 costs 40 euros.

New Vostro business laptop FRANKFURT: Computer manufacturers Dell have reworked their Vostro business laptop series and unveiled the successor to the V130 as the V131. The new laptop slims

down from 2.1 centimetres to 1.6cm but retains its 13.3 inch HD anti-glare display with an 847 Intel Celeron Dual Core or support for second generation Core i processors.

The V131 also includes a full HD webcam and two USB 3.0 ports as standard. Among the options are a keyboard backlight, mobile broadband connectivity, a fingerprint reader and an SSD hard drive. With the standard four-cell battery the laptop weighs 1.64 kilograms and 1.82 kg with the optional six-cell battery. Dell charges at least 498 euros for the new Vostro laptop.

Bluetooth loudspeaker with solar power FRANKFURT: Telefunken has presented a wireless solar-powered Bluetooth loudspeaker with the new Sound Mobile. It takes about 10 hours to charge the battery by sunor daylight and the battery lasts up to eight hours at maximum volume. The Sound Mobile weighs 1.4 kilogram and can also be charged by USB power supply. The device hits the market in September and will cost 149 euros. — dpa

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New Bristol, Pfizer clot drug saves lives in study PARIS: An experimental anti-clotting drug from Bristol-Myers Squibb and Pfizer saved more lives than standard treatment warfarin in a major study, giving it an edge over rivals in an emerging multibillion-dollar market. Although Eliquis will be third to market among a wave of new oral anticoagulants, the data presented on Sunday at Europe’s biggest medical meeting means it could now be viewed as the best in class. People with dangerously irregular heart rhythms given Eliquis were 21 percent less likely to suffer strokes than those on decades-old warfarin, a problematic drug first developed as rat poison that requires regular blood tests. It also produced a 31 percent relative reduction in the risk of major bleedingespecially bleeding in the brain-and an 11 percent reduction in risk of death from any cause, results from a 18,000-patient study lasting nearly two years showed.

The mortality benefit only just reached statistical significance but the finding puts Eliquis ahead of its two key rivals by demonstrating superiority to warfarin on all three counts of effectiveness, safety and saving lives. That is likely to be seized on by Bristol and Pfizer in an upcom-

ing marketing fight with Boehringer Ingelheim’s Pradaxa- currently the only approved alternative to warfarin in stroke prevention-and Xarelto, from Bayer and Johnson & Johnson , which is expected to be approved shortly. “It gives a lot of confidence when you see a drug that reduces mortality. That’s another feather in the cap,” Dr Chris Granger of Duke University Medical Center, who led the study, told Reuters. The result means that giving Eliquis rather than warfarin for 1.8 years-the average length of the study-would prevent eight deaths for each 1,000 people treated.

All three new drugs are vying for a share of a warfarin-replacement market that industry analysts estimate could be worth $10-$20 billion a year by the end of the decade.

Currently, analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters Pharma expect 2015 sales of $1.6 billion for Eliquis, or apixaban, which is due to be submitted for approval later this year. That is less than the $3 billion forecast for Xarelto and some predict the balance in future may shift more towards Eliquis and away from Xarelto given the latest strong data. Excitement over Eliquis has grown since June when headline results showed

it was better and safer than warfarin. How much better, however, only became clear on Sunday when the data was unveiled at the European Society of Cardiology annual meeting and published in the New England Journal of Medicine. In an editorial in the journal, Dr Jessica Mega of Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital said the results were “impressive” but she cautioned it was difficult to make comparisons between different drugs, due to variations in the clinical trials.

Death of warfarin?

Doctors attending the ESC meeting said the new drugs would upend the landscape for treating patients with atrial fibrillation, whose irregular heartbeats can cause blood to pool, increasing their risk of blood clots and strokes. “It is another dagger in the heart for warfarin as an anticoagulation treatment for patients with atrial fibrillation to prevent stroke,” said Dr Ralph Brindis. Brindis, a senior adviser for Northern California Kaiser Permanente and immediate past president of the American College of Cardiology, said Eliquis had scored a “home run”, although it and the other new anticoagulants still faced chal-

lenges. In particular, he is concerned about adherence to medical treatment among elderly patients, as doctors may be less able to ensure they are taking drugs correctly once they do not need regular blood tests. For such patients, oncedaily Xarelto may be a better bet than twice-daily Eliquis or Pradaxa. Larry Biegelsen, an industry analyst at Wells Fargo, writing ahead of release of the results, said Pradaxa might have most to lose from Eliquis as Xarelto’s once-daily dosing would help it carve out a niche.

In a discussion at the congress, Dr Michael Ezekowitz of the Lankenau Institute for Medical Research in Pennsylvania said the Eliquis trial results were a “landmark” that confirmed a new wave of drugs was about to change the medical landscape. “We’re in a new era,” Ekekowitz, who was not involved in the latest research, told a packed conference hall in Paris. Still, many cardiologists said they would not rush to switch existing patients who are well-controlled on warfarin-a cheap generic medicine-to the new and expensive branded products. Pradaxa costs $6.75 wholesale for a day’s treatment in the United States, although it is much less in other markets. — Reuters

Medical train only hope for Indians left behind Medical train providing treatment for over 20 years

BOURBONNAIS: Noah Egler, 13, of Bourbonnais, Illinois, holds a prosthetic leg during a workshop on electronic prosthetics at the Indiana University Northwest medical school in Gary, Indiana. Because of his love for science and electronics, Egler was invited by the director to participate in the summer program. — AP

Unusual invite gives gifted boy an opportunity to belong INDIANA: He is about half the age of other students in the room. Yet 13-yearold Noah Egler is completely in his element, wearing powder blue medical scrubs and answering questions with an enthusiasm that draws smiles from those around him. They are amused by his presence, but also inspired. Young Noah, meanwhile, is content, though a little nervous to be taking part in a workshop usually reserved for medical students, not for precocious eighthgraders. He is here because he was invited, because the director of the summer program at the Indiana University Northwest medical school saw something in this young man - perhaps a bit of the boy he himself once was, a kid who also liked reading and studying more than sports.

“I’m technically a nerd, and I hang out with other people who are technically nerds,” Noah will tell you. He says it in a matter-of-fact, Dr Spock kind of way. The invitation came at a good time. “He was losing his optimistic outlook,” says his mother, Cindy Egler, who worries that school has become too little a challenge for her son. Also, some of his peers have been increasingly giving him a hard time. They aren’t always sure what to make of this quirky but good-natured boy who was diagnosed when young with Asperger’s syndrome, a form of high-functioning autism that Noah talks about freely.

There’ve been signs of it since he was a baby, when his father would put him in a backpack carrier and mow the lawn, just to get him to take a nap. The noise, they say, drowned out the distractions for a mind that, even then, was curious and difficult to settle. By now, he says Asperger’s simply makes him. But he’s also had a hard time fitting in. His parents hoped this chance to go to college, even for just a few days, might give their only child a glimpse of a world where that could happen. At the Eglers’ home in Bourbonnais, a small Illinois town south of Chicago, there is no cable television, by choice. There are, however, plenty of books, full of experiments for “mad scientists” or the principles of electronics or detailed explanations of dinosaurs or the human body. Upstairs in his bedroom, Noah has a poster of the periodic table of elements on one wall, along with ribbons from science fairs and Boy Scout merit badges. The book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” rests on his night stand. As he gives a tour of the house, Noah often pauses to search for words, as if he can’t quite keep up with all the thoughts racing through his head. Staying focused, he says, remains a constant challenge.

He runs off to his room to find something, then returns. “Two signs that you have Asperger’s. You can’t find your planner and when you do, it has Boolean logic written on it,” he says, laughing, and then sits down at the

kitchen table to show drawings that depict the mathematical system used in such fields as computer science and electronics. In the corner of the same page on that planner, he has scrawled a recipe for crepes, which he’s been learning to make with the help of some old Julia Child videos. It’s part of his parents’ plan to encourage their son to round out his interests. He has a black belt in karate. He went to Boy Scout camp this summer and “spent a lot of time kayaking,” he says, sighing as if it were a bit of an inconvenience.

Always, his attention comes back to science and electronics. His basement “play room” is filled with electronic devices he’s made and a computer he’s taken apart to examine. This fascination with how things work began early on.

As a toddler, his mom remembers observing Noah repeatedly dipping his fingers into his bath water, then studying them.

“What is he doing?” she asked his dad, Mark, a chemical engineer. “He’s looking at the refractions,” he replied. It was this kind of curiosity that caught the attention of Ernest Talarico, an assistant professor of anatomy and cell biology at Indiana University Northwest medical school in Gary. He and Noah met this winter at a memorial service for a mutual family member. Talarico noticed Noah quietly tinkering with an electronic device he’d brought with him to the service. It was an alarm he’d invented to detect flooding in his grandparents’ basement.

“I was fascinated,” Talarico says. “I couldn’t build something like that now, let alone at his age.” He asked Noah how the device worked and how he’d built it. Further conversation revealed that Noah also had an interest in electronic prosthestics, “bionic” arms and legs and the like, a topic covered in the very medical school seminar Talarico oversees each summer. He asked Noah’s parents if they would let him attend this summer’s prosthetics workshop, and they said yes.

“I was speechless,” Noah says of that initial meeting. “I actually met somebody who was a scientist. It was really kind of amazing.” He took on the task of preparing for the first day of the seminar seriously, studying college level anatomy textbooks. At one session, students were reviewing the inner workings of the upper limbs when Talarico asked them which nerve serves the biceps and other muscles. “The musculocutaneous nerve!” Noah shouted before anyone had a chance to answer.

“He just blurted it out like an expert,” Talarico said, smiling. At another session, Noah had the chance to bond with his lab partner, a 23-year-old biomedical engineer from suburban Indianapolis named Jarod Markley.

Markley, who also grew up in a small town, told Noah how he often felt like an outsider in school. — AP

JAGDALPUR: Dozens of elderly villagers, tribal tattoos marking their scrawny arms, sit in a dimly lit hall. Hidden behind large sunglasses or with white bandages wrapped across one eye, they’re all recovering from cataract surgery. Most have never seen water gush from a faucet or pressed a switch to flood a room with light. Until their surgery a few weeks ago, they had never met a real doctor. When a fivecoach train with specialist doctors and operating rooms rolled into the town of Jagdalpur last month, it brought both hope and an acute reminder of all that is missing here. The deprivation has turned this forested eastern area into a stronghold of the country’s thriving Maoist insurgency. Advocates for the poor say the government’s utter neglect of the region pushes its inhabitants into the arms of the militants.

The Lifeline Express, a charitable mobile hospital, is the closest the nearly 1.4 million people of this area will come to a functioning hospital. For the last 20 years the medical train has traveled to India’s poorest and most backward areas to provide basic surgeries from cataract procedures to correcting club feet and polio deformities. Bastar district, where Jagdalpur is located, certainly meets all the criteria for the Lifeline Express’ charity. It falls among the bottom five of India’s 643 districts for development and health. It’s so uncharted and remote that gathering accurate data is as hard as getting social and health services to the district. But this much is known: It’s the most backward area in the state of Chhattisgarh, where one in four children under the age of four suffers from acute undernutrition and more than half the adolescent girls are anemic, according to UNICEF. The powder blue train, decorated with pictures of rainbows and clouds, arrived at the Jagdalpur train station in July. In just over three weeks, the team operated on nearly 2,500 people for cataracts and on 20 others to fix twisted limbs so they could walk. “They would have lived and died with their problems but never managed to get help,” without the medical train, said Dr. Rajnish Gourh, supervisor for Impact India Foundation, the Mumbai-based charity that created the service. The train and its medical miracles allowed the elderly tribal woman Pacho to see again.

And the train gave 1-year-old Bhumika, born with a club foot, the promise of one day being able to run with her friends.

“There is only a nurse in our area and she doesn’t even see us anymore. She said there was nothing she could do for us,” said Bhumika’s father Channu, looking anxious as he rocked the sobbing child to sleep in the spotlessly clean and air-conditioned waiting area on the train ahead of her surgery. In the hundreds of small communities in Bastar’s dense forests, villagers like Pacho and Channu live in a time warp with almost no comprehension of basic amenities that even the poor in most other parts of India can take for granted. In these villages, all visible indicators of governance like electricity, drinking water, schools and hospitals vanish, and a new power center emerges. This territory is controlled by the Maoist rebels known as Naxals, for the eastern village of Naxalbari

where the movement was founded in the late 1960s. The rebels have tapped into a deep dissatisfaction among India’s rural poor as a rapidly burgeoning economy brings very visible wealth to only parts of the country, with shiny new malls and luxury cars crowding a few big cities even as malnutrition plagues 50 percent of India’s children and hundreds of debt-ridden farmers commit suicide every year.

activist, said the government’s neglect of the region creates a fertile ground for the rebellion to grow. “The Naxals are present because the government is absent,” he said. “Does the government even know who these people are? Whether they have food to eat or clothes on their backs?” The government in turn blames the Maoists’ violence for blocking efforts to help the villagers. “They don’t want

JAGDALPUR: An Indian patient lies at the run down Jagdalpur District Hospital, the region’s main health facility, in Jagdalpur, Chattisgarh state, India. The Lifeline Express, a five-coach train with specialist doctors and operating rooms, is the only hope for the nearly 1.4 million people of this forested eastern area stuck between Maoist violence and government apathy. For the last 20 years the medical train has traveled to India’s poorest and most backward areas to provide basic surgeries, from cataract procedures to correcting club feet and polio deformities. — AP The rebels routinely ambush police, destroy government buildings including schools and abduct officials. Just a few short miles from the train station and the cheerful train with its well- equipped operating rooms and its team of smiling volunteers lies the Jagdalpur District Hospital, the region’s main health facility. Flies buzz around open garbage cans where food and medical waste fester. Dozens of terrified-looking villagers squat on the filthy floors besides sick relatives.

The paint peels off the walls and the window panes are caked in grime. Most surgeries cannot be performed here because the hospital either lacks the equipment or the specialist doctors required. But at least Jagdalpur has a hospital. The hundreds of villages that surround it are lucky to get occasional visits by nurses who can administer vaccines to their infants or health workers trained to be the first line of defense against cerebral malaria that is endemic to the region.

Some areas can only be reached by boat during the monsoon season or by a few days trek through the forests. Local health workers struggle with the dialects spoken by the adivasis - or “original” people - as the tribes people are called. “What life was like 30 or 40 years ago in India ... it’s still like that in these villages,” said Ajay Singh, a health worker in Kondagaon, a group of villages in the district.

Pratap Narayan Agrawal, a lawyer and rights

to see roads and buildings. Whether it’s a health center, a school or a hospital,” said P. Anbalagan, the district’s top administrator.

“They don’t allow roads to be constructed. If there are no roads how will doctors reach villages?”

The government has struggled to contain the insurgency with little success. Two years ago the federal government’s “Operation Green Hunt” was supposed to flush the rebels from forest hide-outs. In the ensuing months, the rebels killed nearly 100 troops in two separate attacks. Agrawal, the local activist, dismisses the government’s attempts as ineffectual and says that with each passing year of neglect, the tribal villagers are pushed closer to the rebels.

“If I have all the basic amenities that I need, why would I choose to support a violent rebellion? They are left with no choice,” he said. “The government talks about the rights of the Adivasis but they don’t really care about them.” After his baby girls club foot is corrected, Channu only shrugs his shoulders over questions about the government, the rebels and the region’s lack of development.

He says he never thinks about things like that.

But he does know that the only time someone was able to solve one of his substantial problems, it was aboard the medical train. “I want the train to keep coming back,” he said. “They care about people like us.” — AP

UN warns of possible bird flu resurgence, new Asian strain ROME: The United Nations warned yesterday of a possible resurgence of the deadly bird flu virus, saying wild bird migrations had brought it back to previously virus-free countries and that a mutant strain was spreading in Asia. A mutant strain of H5N1, which can apparently sidestep defenses of existing vaccines, is spreading in China and Vietnam, The UN Food and Agriculture Organization said in a statement yesterday. It urged greater surveillance to ensure that any outbreaks are contained. Last week, the

World Health Organization reported that a 6-year-old Cambodian girl had died Aug. 14 from bird flu, the eighth person to die from H5N1 avian influenza this year in Cambodia. Vietnam suspended its springtime poultry vaccination this year, FAO said. Most of the northern and central parts of the country where the virus is endemic have been invaded by the new strain.

Elsewhere, FAO says bird migrations over the past two years have brought H5N1 to countries that had been virus-free for several

years, including Israel, the Palestinian territories, Bulgaria, Romania, Nepal and Mongolia.

“Wild birds may introduce the virus, but people’s actions in poultry production and marketing spread it,” said FAO’s chief veterinary office Juan Lubroth in urging greater preparedness and surveillance. WHO says globally there have been 331 human deaths from 565 confirmed bird flu cases since 2003 when it was first detected.

The virus was eliminated from most of the 63 countries infected at its peak in 2006, but it remained

endemic in six countries: Bangladesh, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia and Vietnam. The number of outbreaks in poultry and wild bird populations shrank from a high of 4000 to 302 in mid-2008, but outbreaks have risen progressively since, with almost 800 cases reported in 2010-2011, FAO said.

“The general departure from the progressive decline in 2004-2008 could mean that there will be a flare-up of H5N1 this fall and winter, with people unexpectedly finding the virus in their backyard,” Lubroth said in a statement. — AP

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Moms’ smoking habit linked to psychiatric meds in kids: study Further associated consequences being investigated NEW YORK: Children whose mothers smoked while pregnant were more likely to end up on medications such as antidepressants, stimulants and drugs for addiction, according to a study from Finland that hints at smoking’s affect on a baby’s developing brain. While the findings don’t prove that cigarette smoking during pregnancy causes changes in children’s brains or behavior, they offer one more piece of evidence that should encourage women not to smoke while pregnant, the researchers wrote in the American Journal of Epidemiology. “The exposure was significantly associated with the risk for all medication use and for both single- and multiple-drug consumption even after adjustment (e.g. mothers’ severe psychiatric illnesses,” wrote lead researcher Mikael Ekblad, at the Department of Pediatrics at Turku University Hospital.

“These findings show that exposure to smoking during pregnancy is linked to both mild and severe psychiatric morbidity.”

Ekblad and his colleagues used Finnish data for 175,000 children born in the country between 1987 and 1989. At that time, midwives had asked all new mothers if they

smoked during pregnancy. The researchers then matched those birth records to a nationwide database of prescription drugs covered by insurance between 1994 and 2007 - when the children were between five and 20 years old. One in 11 children was prescribed a psychiatric medication at some point during that period, including anti-anxiety drugs, antipsychotics, antidepressants, stimulants and drugs for addiction. Of children and teens whose mothers didn’t smoke during pregnancy, 8 percent were on at least one of those drugs during the study period. That compared to 11 percent of those whose mothers smoked fewer than 10 cigarettes per day, and close to 14 percent whose mothers had lit up more than 10 times a day.

The link remained when researchers left out babies who were born early or very small, which are other factors that could affect future mental health. It also stuck when they looked at each class of drugs on its own, and was strongest for stimulant drugs that target attention problems and hyperactivity, and drugs for addiction. The study is “entirely consistent with a large and

still-growing research literature on the effects of prenatal and secondhand smoke exposure on the mental health of children,” said Michael Weitzman, who studies that topic at New York University Medical Center and was not involved in the study. “I find it very interesting and very important.” Exactly how smoking may change a growing baby or child’s brain is unclear. It’s possible that nicotine could affect brain development, or that access to oxygen during pregnancy might be reduced when the mothers smoke, the researchers said. Weitzman, who said he thought the research was the first he knew of that looked specifically at the use of psychiatric medications in children whose mothers smoked, added that he thought it was “new and intriguing” that depression medications were also linked to smoking.

But the study had its limitations. Ekblad and his colleagues couldn’t take into account whether the mothers had been on psychotropic medications themselves, or if they used alcohol or illicit drugs during pregnancy. They also didn’t know which fathers smoked while the children were in

LOS ANGELES: Kim McAuliffe injects insulin to her stomach in a motel room, provided by a recuperative care program, after being released from a hospital in Los Angeles, California, August 19, 2011. — MCT the womb, or if either parent smoked after the babies were born, when their brains would still have been developing. Weitzman

Al-Seef AlSeef Hospital For the t first time in Kuwait

added that it can be hard to disentangle the effects of parental smoking during pregnancy from smoking when children are growing

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W H AT ’ S O N

Birthday Greetings

Iftar Party by ‘The Madiner Pathe’

M Happy Birthday Teju From Dad - G.Kumar Raju, Mom - G.Chandra Kala, family and friends.

izanur Rahman held an Iftar party at Rajdani Hotel Kuwait city on Friday, 26th of August. The programme was presided by Sharif Mohd Mizanur Rahman, Editor of this Magazine.

Respectable guests were Ataul Gani Mamun president of Comilla Probashi Parishad, Kuwait, Eng. Habibur Rahman, Jahangir Hussain Patwary, Chairman of Diamond Foodstuff Co, Abdul Kashem Quddus. Businessman & Advisor of “The Madiner Pathe” Nurul Islam Sohail Chy,

Managing Editor of “The Madiner Pathe” Mizanur Rahman, Businessman Akbar Hussaain, Businessman & Advisor of “ The Madiner Pathe” Md. Yakob, Bureu Chief, The Ajker Surjooday, Jalal Ahmed Chunnu Molla, Businessman & Organisator Habib Mostafa M.Sc. Advisor of “The Madiner Pathe” Naser Ahmed Advisor of Comilla Probashi Parishod Husasain & Ali A. Wahid Vice President Comilla Probashi Parishod Dulal Hussain Bhuiyan Acting G.S. of Comilla Probashi Parishod Rafiqul Islam Bhulu President of

Awami Foundation Azad Noor President of Manikgonj Somitee Sher Ali, G.S. of “Poet Kazi Nazrul Moncho” Colonel Dawla Colonel Mosaddik attended in this party. The Journalists were Main uddin Sumon, President of Bangladesh Repoters Unity, Kuwait, A. K .M Azad, Editor “The Probash Bangla”. Abdur Rouf Mawla, Editor of Morolekha, Masud Karim Editor of Shadesh, Jahangir Hossain Bablu, Editor of ‘The Ekoshe Bangla’ Shelkh Ehshanul Hoque Khokon, G.S of Bangladesh Reporter Unity

Announcements 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.

Indonesian embassy hosts Eid celebration

T

KDNA elects office bearers

K

ozhikode District NRI Association Kuwait (KDNA) unanimously elected office bearers for the year 2011-2012 in the General Body meeting held at Hi Dine Restaurant Auditorium.

Kozhikode District NRI Association, which is formed with prime motto of creating a common unified platform for all the residents of Kozhikode district above religious, cast and political- ideological views, will uphold cultural and unique traditional identity of Kozhikode and will work accordingly.

Zubair MM was elected as President, Suresh Mathur as General Secretary, Santhosh Punathil as Treasurer.

Other office bearers are Kalathil

Abdurahiman, Azeez Thikkodi & Asha Premraj (Vice presidents) Rasheed Payanthong (Secretary Organizing & Media) Rafie Kallai (Secretary Arts & Culture) Nisar KV (Secretary Academic) Ilyas Thottathil (Secretary Investment & Benefits) K Ali Koya (Secretary Charity & Welfare) Sathyan Varunda (Secretary Membership & Data) Naser Thikkoki (Secretary Web & IT) Zaheer Arakkal (Secretary Sports) Mohammed Vazhayil ( Secretary Employment) R.N. Shoukath (Joint Treasurer) Abdurahiman KP (Joint Secretary Arts & Culture) Karunakaran V (Joint Secretary Benefits & Investment).

Krishnan Kadalundi, Prem Raj Nadakavu, Shamshuddin AM, Ubaid

Chakkalakkal, Raveendran, Gafoor Moodadi, Zachariah Kurian, Swapna Santhosh, Safeera Rasheed, Shahina Zubair, Jisha Suresh, Sofia Rahman, Shajna Nisar, Rejitha Thulasi are elected as Executive Members.

Zubair MM addressed the Meeting and explained the objective & vision of the Association especially to laymen from Kozhikode District,Kerala.

Krishnan Kadalundi, Kalathil Abdurahiman, Rasheed Payanthong, Kalathil Abdurahiman, K Ali Koya, Raveendran, Naser Thikkodi, Rafie Kallai, Muhammed Vazhayil, Asha Premraj spoke on the occation.

Suresh Mathur proposed welcome speech and Santhosh Punathil proposed the vote of thanks.

Embassy of US Eid Al-Fitr, Labor Day Holiday

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he Embassy of the United States of America will be closed from today, (August 30, 2011) to Sunday September 4, 2011, in observance of Eid Al-Fitr Holiday in Kuwait and Labor Day in the U.S. The Embassy will Reopen for normal business on Monday, September 5, 2011. Regular working hours are 8:00 am - 4:30 pm, Sunday to Thursday. The Embassy’s telephone number is 2259-1001; fax number is 2538-0282.

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ala-Kuwait requested the newly appointed Indian Ambassador to Kuwait, His excellency Sathish C Mehta to open “Counselors Services” centre at Abbasiya, given that Abbasiya is has the largest concentration of Indians in Kuwait. Kala put forth the request to the ex-ambassador, Ajai Malhothra, which was accepted.

Currently this service is being provided at Kuwait City and Fahaheel. Many are finding it very difficult to find the centers, which is why Kala has requested the embassy to open them in Abbasiya and Jahra, where more Indians reside.

Kala also presented an overview of many other issues faced by the Indians in Kuwait.

Kala-Kuwait, general secretary R.Naganathan, Acting President K.Vinod, Sports wing Secretary Johnson George, Thomas Mathew Kadavil, T.V, Hikmath, and J.Albert were present representing Kala during the meeting.

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.

NAFO Onam celebration NAFO Kuwait to celebrate Onam on September 30, 2011 at the Indian Community School (Senior for Girls) auditorium Salmiya.

Cultural activities such as dance,skit, nadan pattukal, vallapattukal etc will be held which will be followed by the traditional onasadhya. All NAFO members are requested to make this program a grand success by participating in various activities. Please register your name at Contacts@nafoglobal.com.said the convener of the program R ajasek aran Nair. For details please contac t Nandakumar 99559416, Udayakumar 66464577 or Rajasekharan Nair 97824780.

he Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia has, on the occasion of the Eid al Fitr Celebration, organized a social gathering with Indonesian Communities in Kuwait hosted by the Indonesian Ambassador. Following the gathering, the Ambassador also invites the ASEAN member states Ambassadors in the event of strengthening relationships, as it is a duty for Indonesia to keep unity of the member states of ASEAN as the capacity of the chairman of the ASEAN 2011. The said occasion will take place on 30th August 2011 (said designated date is subject to be amended in accordance to the Kuwait Government Official Notification Date of 1st Syawal 1432 H-Eid Fitr Day) at the Residence of Indonesian Ambassador. Further to inform that the timing for the Ambassadors and other VIP guests, as written at the invitation is on 11.30 AM, while the Indonesian Community will be received from 10.00 AM - 1 PM.

Kala-Kuwait asks Indian Embassy to open help centers

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.

Arpan Onam on Sept 23 Arpan Kuwait will celebrate Onam, Kerala’s harvest festival, on September 23 at the Indian Community School, Salmiya (Senior Girls) from 10 am onwards. Various cultural programs have been scheduled to make the celebration a success. Traditional attrac tions like athap pookkalam, mohiniyattom, kaikottikali, folk songs, dance and songs and skits will be presented by Arpan members. A program committee headed by K Mahadevan is overseeing the preparations. The celebration will come to an end with a sumptuous ‘Onasadya.’

Mahmudur Rahman, Representative of “Khobor Bureu” Jalal Ahmed, Representative of “Probashi Kontho” attended this party.

Bangladeshi dignitaries from social & cultural organizations political leaders, professionals attended the party.

IMAX film program Effective 4th September 2011 to 10th September 2011 Sunday Sea Rex 3D: 10:30am, 6:30pm Born to be Wild 3D: 11:30am, 1:30pm, 2:30pm, 3:30pm, 4:30pm, 7:30pm,9:30pm Arabia 3D: 12:30pm Journey to MECCA 3D: 5:30pm Legends of Flight 3D: 8:30pm

Born to be Wild 3DL: 11:30am, 1:30pm, 2:30pm, 3:30pm, 4:30pm, 6:30pm, 9:30pm Arabia 3D: 12:30pm Sea Rex 3D: 5:30pm, 8:30pm Wednesday Born to be Wild 3D: 10:30am, 1:30pm, 2:30pm, 3:30pm, 4:30pm, 5:30pm, 7:30pm, 9:30pm Sea Rex 3D: 11:30am, 6:30pm Legends of Flight 3D: 12:30pm Journey to MECCA 3D: 8:30pm

Monday Born to be Wild 3D: 10:30am, 1:30pm, 2:30pm, 3:30pm, 4:30pm, 5:30pm, 8:30pm Legends of Flight 3D: 11:30am Sea Rex 3D: 12:30pm, 9:30pm Journey to MECCA 3D: 6:30pm Arabia 3D: 7:30pm

Thursday Legends of Flight 3D: 10:30am, 5:30pm Born to be Wild 3D: 11:30am, 1:30pm, 2:30pm, 3:30pm, 4:30pm, 6:30pm, 8:30pm Sea Rex 3D: 12:30pm; 9:30pm Arabia 3D: 7:30pm

Tuesday Legends of Flight 3D: 10:30am, 7:30pm

Friday Fires of Kuwait: 2:30pm

Born to be Wild 3D: 3:30pm, 5:30pm, 7:30pm, 9:30pm Journey to MECCA 3D: 4:30pm Legends of Flight 3D: 6:30pm Sea Rex: 8:30pm Saturday Born to be Wild 3D: 10:30am, 1:30pm, 3:30pm, 6:30pm, 8:30pm Legends of Flight 3D: 11:30am, 5:30pm, 9:30pm Sea Rex 3D: 12:30pm, 7:30pm Journey to MECCA 3D: 2:30pm Arabia 3D: 4:30pm Notes: All films are in Arabic EXCEPT “Fires of Kuwait” For English, Headsets are available upon request Film schedule is subject to changes without notice.

For information call 1 848 888 or visit www.tsck.org.kw

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Embassy Information EMBASSY OF ARGENTINA In order to inform that 23rd of October 2011, will be Argentine national election where all Argentinean citizen residents permanently in Kuwait can vote only if they are registered at the Electoral Register of the Argentine Embassy. The procedure of inscription ended on 25 of April 2011. To register it is necessary that Argentinean citizens should come personally at the Argentinean Embassy (Block 6, street 42, villa 57, Mishref ) and present the DNI and four personal photos (size 4x4, face should be front on white background). For further information, contact us on 25379211. nnnnnnn

Bangladesh Social Welfare Association hosts Iftar and prayer mahfil

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ignitaries as well and Bangladesh Community leaders and expatriates from every walks of life participated in the program. The program was presided over by the Association’s President Abdul Kader Mulla and it was commenced with the recitation of verses from the Holy Quran recited by Alhaj Moulana Rezaul Karim. K.M.Ali Reza- the Honorable First Secretary (Labor) of Bangladesh Embassy in Kuwait, and Country manager of Biman Bangladesh Airlines- A.S.M.Nazrul Islam s presence had graced the event. Among the dignitaries, notables respectively Dr.Shahjahan, Ashraf Uddin President B.N.P Kuwait. Abdul Khalik Chowdhury, Moazuddin Ahmed, Shaikh Akramuzzaman President Bango Bandhu Parishod. Soeb Ahamed, Moulana Obayed Quan Prosikhon Kendro, Faiz Kamal, Mahmud Ali President Jaytio Party, Rabiul Alam Rabi, Chunnu Mulla, Sultan Faruk, Engineer Abdur Rahim, Engineer Habibur Rahaman, Engineer Rafik, Kazi Gulam Mustafa- director Sheraton Hotel. Renowned businessman Mohammad Makki, Jahangir Hosen Patwary, Zafar Ahmed, Ataul Gani Mamun, Mahfuzur Rahaman, Shafi Ahmed had participated in the program. Along them with were leaders of various political, social, cultural, literary and journalist organizations.

Accordingly the Bangladesh Social Welfare Association extended hearty thanks and appreciation as well as wished Happy Eid in advance to

Bangladesh Awami League, Bangladesh Nationalist party (B.N.P) and their respective co-organizations, Jatiya Party, Zaker Party, The Quran Proshikkon kendro, Dhaka Samity,

Sankskritik Angon, Jatiya Kabi Nazrul Mancho, Barnomala Sankskritik Sangsad, Rabindra-Nazrui Sankskritik Goshti, Sahujbangla Sankskritik Goshti, Rangdhanu Shulpangan, Boishakhi

Kuwaitnamely Ridoyer Katha, Marulekha, Kabikantha,Padakkep, Syamol Bangla, Probas Bangla, Melbondhon executives and electronic media journalists.

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Jalalabad Samaj Kalyan Samity, Chittagong Samity, Comilla Probasi Parisad, Noakhali Samity, Faridpur Samity, Barisal Samity, Manager’s Association, Manikganj Somobai Samity, Nirjhor Sankskritik Goshti, Rituranga Sankskritik Goshti, Ankur

Marami Shilpi Goshli, Swariipi Sankskritik Goshti, Ridoye Bangladesh Natya Sangsta, Jatiya Kabita Parisad, Writers Forum, Sangbadik Parisad, Sommilito Media group, Khabor group, Ajker Surjodhoy, Probasi Kantha, and Bangla periodicals published from

Afore Iftar a solemn prayer - lead by Hafez Maoulana Abu baker Mohammed Arif was offered. The event was cordially conducted by the General Secretary of the Society Maynul Al Islam and well wisher Al Amin Chowdhury Swapan.

Salmiya Eid Gah

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he Salmiya Eid Gah will be conducted as usual on Amman Street. Arrangements for the Eid Gah are in full swing, said a press release by Kerala Islamic Group, Salmiya.

The Eid Gah to be held at the ground opposite Al Rashid Hospital would start at 5.39am led by Janab Anees Farooqi, said the organizers.

Ambassador of Bangladesh hosts ‘Open House’

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mbassador of Bangladesh will host an “Open House” program from 09:30 am to 01:00 pm at Bangladesh house (Qortuba, Block 2, Street 5, House 5) on the Eid Day.

Burgan Bank to resume normal working hours

Sahara Resort ready for Eid

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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

ork teams at the Sahara Resort finished preparations at all of its facilities including the spa, the villas and the golf academy, to provide best quality service to customers during the Eid Al-Fitr holiday.

Restaurants at the resort prepare to serve items from local, regional and international cuisines, prepared by an elite team of senior chefs. Furthermore, visitors can enjoy services that include indoor and outdoor pools, Jacuzzi, gyms, tennis and squash courts, in addition to

the resort’s trademark golf course.

“The distinguished atmosphere provided by the resort give a special feeling of tranquility to visitors during their stay”, said managing director Hassan Bairly in a press release, insisting on their “exceeding guests’ expectations” as their goal.

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urgan Bank will start resuming its normal working hours, effective after the Eid Al-Fitr holiday, the branch timings including the Head office will be as follows: 8:30 am to 3:00 pm.

Meanwhile, the branches located at the malls, Shuwaikh industrial, Fahad Al-Salem Street, Farwaniya Branch, Hawally branches, and branches in commercial areas will continue to be open in the morning and afternoon. The new timings will be from 9 am to 1 pm and 5 pm - 7 pm from Sunday to Wednesday and 9 am - 1 pm on Thursday. The Airport branch will continue to be open seven days a week from 08:00 am to 10:30 pm. On this occasion, Burgan Bank extends its best wishes and greetings to the public on the coming of Eid Al-Fitr.

EMBASSY OF CANADA The Embassy of Canada is located at Villa 24, AlMutawakel St., Block 4 in Da’aiyah. Please visit our website at www.Kuwait.gc.ca.

Canada offers a registration service for all Canadians travelling or living abroad. This service is provided so that Consular Officials can contact and assist Canadians in an emergency in a foreign country, such as a natural disaster or civil unrest, or inform Canadians of a family emergency at home. The Embassy of Canada encourages all Canadian Citizens to register online through the Government of Canada Travel Website at www.voyage.gc.ca. The Canadian Embassy in Abu Dhabi provides visa and immigration services to residents of Kuwait. Individuals who are interested in visiting, working or immigrating to Canada are invited to visit the website of the Canadian Embassy to the UAE at www.UAE.gc.ca.

Effective January 15, 2011, the only Temporary Resident Visa (TRV) application form that will be accepted by CIC is the Application for Temporary Resident Visa Made Outside of Canada [IMM 5257] form.

All previous Temporary Resident Visa application forms will no longer be accepted by CIC and instead will be returned to applicants. Should old applications be submitted prior to January 15, 2011 they will continue to be processed.

To ensure that the most recent version of the Temporary Resident Visa application form is being utilized, applicants should refer to the CIC website. As of January 15, 2011, forms are to be filled in electronically. The Embassy of Canada is open from 07:30 to 15:30 Sunday through Thursday.

Consular Services for Canadian Citizens are provided from 09:00 until 12:00 on Sunday through Wednesday.

The forms are available on the internet at: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/pdf/kits/forms/IMM5257E. PDF. A guide explaining the process can be found here: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/pdf/kits/guides/5256E.PDF. 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 During the holy month of Ramadan, the office timings of the Indian Passport and Visa Service Centres of BLS International Visa Services Co., Kuwait, situated at (a) Emad Commercial Centre, Basement Floor, Ahmed Al Jaber Street, Sharq, Kuwait, and (b) Mujamma Unood, 4th floor, Office No. 25-26 Makka Street, Fahaheel, Kuwait, will be from 8 am - 3 pm from Saturday to Thursday (i.e. six days a week). Embassy of India, Kuwait, will maintain its usual working hours. nnnnnnn

India medical tourism destination event

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he Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI), along with Trident Exhibition Pvt. Ltd., and supported by Ministry of Tourism, Ministry of Health and Ministry of Commerce, and Government of India, is organizing an event entitled “India-Medical Tourism Destination 2011”. The event will run from 14th 15th September 2011 at the Kuwait International Fair (KIF) Ground, Mishref, Kuwait. The objective of the event would be to highlight the benefits of medical tourism and to emphasize India’s role in providing affordable and quality healthcare to the Kuwaiti people. Healthcare is an essential need. However, quality

healthcare facilities are not available everywhere. And if at all available, the cost is exorbitantly high in most parts of the world.

With a large pool of highly trained doctors and affordable treatment cost, the Indian healthcare sector aims to replicate the success of the Indian software sector. Over the past few years, the medical tourism story has changed dramatically in India. Private enterprises including corporate hospitals, chemists, freelance agents are all working in tandem to build a thriving ecosystem that educates, facilitates and ferries medical tourists from across the world. In the year 2010, this system brought around

600,000 patients from over 30 countries around the globe, mainly from USA, Canada, UK, Russia, the Middle East and Africa to India who spent Rs.4,500 crores (US$1 billion) in treatments. Advantages for medical tourists in India include reduced costs, availability of the latest medical technologies and growing compliance of international quality standards and absence of language barriers.

The most popular treatments sought in India by medical tourists are transplant surgeries (liver, kidney, heart) cardiac bypass surgery, eye surgery, orthopedic surgery and spinal surgery. India is known in particular for heart surgery, hip and

knee resurfacing and other areas of advanced medicine and alternative medicines. As per the latest report, over 10,000 Kuwaiti nationals went to India in 2010 for treatments related to cardiac, spinal, cosmetic and various other surgeries.

An advance team lead by Dr. Narottam Puri, Advisor - Health Services, FICCI and Chairman, National Accreditation Board for Hospitals & Healthcare Providers, visited Kuwait from 10 - 12 July 2011 for holding preliminary discussions on the event. They called on Mr. Vidhu P. Nair, Charge d’ Affaires of the Indian Embassy who promised to extend all assistance for the successful conduct of the event.

EMBASSY OF KENYA The embassy of the Republic of Kenya wishes to inform the general public that it will be closed from today (30th August 2011) until Thursday the first of September 2011 for Eid Al-Fitr Holiday. 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 SOUTH AFRICA On the occasion of Eid-ul-Fitr, the South African Embassy will be closed from today, (30 August 2011) to Sunday, 4 September 2011. The Embassy will resume its normal working hours on Monday, 5 September 2011, from Sunday to Thursday. Please note that the working hours will be from 8:00 am to 4:00 pm and the Consular Section operation hours will from 8:30 am to 12:30 pm.

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00:45 01:40 02:35 03:30 04:25 05:20 06:10 06:35 07:00 07:25 07:50 08:15 08:40 09:10 10:05 11:00 11:55 12:20 12:50 13:45 14:40 15:30 16:00 16:30 17:00 17:25 18:20 18:45 19:15 20:10 21:05 22:00 22:55 23:50

Dogs/Cats/Pets 101 Untamed And Uncut Crocodile Feeding Frenzy Killer Whales I’m Alive Animal Cops Houston Cats Of Claw Hill Cats Of Claw Hill Meerkat Manor The Really Wild Show Jeff Corwin Unleashed Safari Sisters Breed All About It Dogs/Cats/Pets 101 Dogs/Cats/Pets 101 Michaela’s Animal Road Trip Meerkat Manor Wildlife SOS New Breed Vets With Steve Irwin Animal Cops Houston Animal Precinct RSPCA: On The Frontline The Really Wild Show Farm Life Safari Sisters Dogs 101 Breed All About It Gorilla School Crocodile Hunter Dogs/Cats/Pets 101 Killer Crocs Of Costa Rica Ray Mears’Wild Britain Buggin’With Ruud Planet Earth

00:00 My Family 00:30 The Weakest Link 01:20 Holby City 02:10 Children, The 03:00 Eastenders 03:30 Doctors 04:00 My Family 04:30 Tweenies 04:50 The Roly Mo Show 05:05 Me Too 05:25 Forget Me Not Farm 05:40 Spot’s Musical Adventures 05:50 Tweenies 06:10 The Roly Mo Show 06:25 Me Too 06:45 Forget Me Not Farm 07:00 Tweenies 07:20 The Roly Mo Show 07:35 Me Too 07:55 Forget Me Not Farm 08:10 Spot’s Musical Adventures 08:20 Tweenies 08:40 The Roly Mo Show 08:55 Me Too 09:15 Forget Me Not Farm 09:30 Spot’s Musical Adventures 09:40 My Family 10:40 The Weakest Link 11:25 Untold Stories of a Royal Bridesmaid 12:15 Doctors 12:45 Eastenders 13:15 Holby City 14:10 My Family 15:40 Untold Stories of a Royal Bridesmaid 16:30 The Weakest Link 17:15 Doctors 17:45 Eastenders 18:15 Holby City 19:10 Untold Stories of a Royal Bridesmaid 20:00 The Weakest Link 20:45 Doctors 21:15 Eastenders 21:45 Holby City

00:40 01:35 02:30 03:25 03:55 04:20 05:15 05:40

Dirty Jobs Miami Ink Ultimate Survival Wheeler Dealers On The Road Fifth Gear Mythbusters How Do They Do It? How Does It Work

06:05 Dirty Jobs 07:00 Wheeler Dealers On The Road 07:25 Fifth Gear 07:50 Street Customs 2008 08:45 How Does It Work 09:10 Mythbusters 10:05 Cake Boss 10:30 Border Security 10:55 Auction Kings 11:25 Deadliest Catch - Best Of Season 6 13:15 Ultimate Survival 14:10 Miami Ink 15:05 Dirty Jobs 16:00 Wheeler Dealers On The Road 16:25 Fifth Gear 16:55 Mythbusters 17:50 Deadliest Catch Behind The Scenes 18:45 Cake Boss 19:10 Border Security 19:40 Auction Kings 20:05 How Stuff’s Made 20:35 Cash Cab (US) 21:00 LA Ink 21:55 Animal Cops South Africa 22:50 Pit Bulls And Parolees

00:05 00:55 01:45 02:35 03:25 04:15 04:45 05:40 06:10 07:00 07:55 08:50 09:15 09:40 15:45 16:10 17:00 17:50 18:15 18:40 19:30 20:20 21:10 21:35 22:00 22:50 23:40

Smash Lab Extreme Engineering Mighty Ships Kings Of Construction Da Vinci’s Machines How Stuff’s Made Extreme Engineering One Step Beyond Nextworld Da Vinci’s Machines Building The Biggest The Gadget Show The Gadget Show Scrapheap Challenge Weird Connections Da Vinci’s Machines Alien Planet Sci-Fi Science The Gadget Show Bad Universe How The Universe Works Smash Lab The Gadget Show The Gadget Show Bad Universe How The Universe Works The Gadget Show

00:15 Come Dine With Me 00:40 Come Dine With Me 01:05 New Scandinavian Cooking With Andreas Viestad 01:25 What Not To Wear 02:15 Come Dine With Me 04:20 New Scandinavian Cooking With Andreas Viestad 04:45 Daily Cooks Challenge 06:10 Come Dine With Me 07:00 New Scandinavian Cooking With Andreas Viestad 07:25 Daily Cooks Challenge 10:25 What Not To Wear 11:15 Rhodes Across China 12:00 Cash In The Attic 12:45 Antiques Roadshow 13:40 New Scandinavian Cooking With Andreas Viestad 14:05 Holmes On Homes 14:50 What Not To Wear 15:40 Rhodes Across China 16:30 Cash In The Attic 17:15 Antiques Roadshow 18:05 New Scandinavian Cooking With Andreas Viestad 18:30 Holmes On Homes 19:20 Rhodes Across China 20:10 Cash In The Attic 20:55 Antiques Roadshow 21:45 New Scandinavian Cooking With Andreas Viestad 22:10 Holmes On Homes 23:00 New Scandinavian Cooking With Claus Meyer 23:25 New Scandinavian Cooking With

TUESDAY, AUGUST 30, 2011

TV PROGRAMS Claus Meyer 23:50 New Scandinavian Cooking With Claus Meyer

00:05 00:30 00:55 01:45 02:10 02:35 03:00 03:25 03:50 04:15 04:40 05:05 05:30 05:50 06:35 07:00 07:50 08:15 08:40 09:05 09:30 09:55 10:20 10:45 11:10 11:35 12:25 12:50 13:15 13:40 14:05 14:30 14:55 15:20 15:45 16:35 17:00 17:25 17:50 18:15 18:40 19:05 19:30 20:20 20:45 21:10 21:35 22:00 22:50 23:15 23:40

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Menace II Society on OSN Movies Action

Luke Nguyen’s Vietnam Good Eats - Special Paula’s Party Ten Dollar Dinners Ten Dollar Dinners Lidia’s Italy Lidia’s Italy Boy Meets Grill Boy Meets Grill Good Eats - Special Unwrapped Ten Dollar Dinners Paula’s Best Dishes Paula’s Party Barefoot Contessa Chopped Guy’s Big Bite Everyday Italian Good Deal With Dave Lieberman Ten Dollar Dinners Paula’s Best Dishes Barefoot Contessa Aarti Party Boy Meets Grill Unwrapped Paula’s Party Everyday Italian Paula’s Best Dishes Good Deal With Dave Lieberman World Cafe Asia Luke Nguyen’s Vietnam Good Eats - Special Unwrapped Boy Meets Grill Chopped Guy’s Big Bite Barefoot Contessa Paula’s Best Dishes Aarti Party World Cafe Asia Luke Nguyen’s Vietnam Good Eats - Special Food Network Challenge Guy’s Big Bite Guy’s Big Bite World Cafe Asia World Cafe Asia Food Network Challenge Barefoot Contessa Barefoot Contessa - Back To Basics World Cafe Asia

Morning Drive Golf Central International Softball 360 Major League Baseball Lucas Oil Motorsports Hour PGA Tour Highlights Golf with Style The Golf Fix Morning Drive Golf Central International Playing Lessons LPGA Tour PGA Tour Highlights Champions Tour Lucas Oil Motorsports Hour American Drag Racing League Major League Baseball The Clipper Round

The Haunted A Haunting Stalked: Someone’s Watching Who On Earth Did I Marry?

Street Patrol Real Emergency Calls Dr G: Medical Examiner Black Museum The Haunted Mystery ER Undercover Forensic Detectives Street Patrol Real Emergency Calls Mystery ER Disappeared

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FBI Files True Crime With Aphrodite Jones I Almost Got Away With It Mystery ER Street Patrol Real Emergency Calls Disappeared FBI Files Forensic Detectives Undercover Real Emergency Calls Mystery ER Street Patrol True Crime With Aphrodite Jones I Almost Got Away With It Deadly Women Couples Who Kill Dr G: Medical Examiner

00:00 Lonely Planet: Roads Less Travelled 01:00 Don’t Tell My Mother 01:30 Don’t Tell My Mother 02:00 Word Travels 02:30 Market Values 03:00 The Best Job In The World 03:30 Madventures 04:00 Which Way To...

05:00 Word Travels 05:30 Market Values 06:00 Lonely Planet: Roads Less Travelled 07:00 Don’t Tell My Mother 07:30 Don’t Tell My Mother 08:00 Word Travels 08:30 Market Values 09:00 The Best Job In The World 09:30 Madventures 10:00 Which Way To...

11:00 Word Travels 11:30 Market Values 12:00 Lonely Planet: Roads Less Travelled 13:00 Meet The Natives 14:00 Banged Up Abroad 15:00 Danger Men 16:00 Weird & Wonderful Hotels 16:30 By Any Means 17:30 Earth Tripping 18:00 A World Apart 19:00 Meet The Natives 20:00 Banged Up Abroad 21:00 Danger Men 22:00 Weird & Wonderful Hotels 22:30 By Any Means 23:30 Earth Tripping

00:00 Dangerous Encounters With Brady Barr 01:00 Caught In The Act 01:55 Planet Carnivore 02:50 The Invaders 03:45 Zambezi 04:40 Wild Detectives 05:05 Wild Chronicles 05:35 Sea Strikers 06:30 Dangerous Encounters With Brady Barr 07:25 Secrets Of The Mediterranean 08:20 California’s Wild Coast 09:15 Restless Planet 10:10 The Invaders 11:05 Zambezi 12:00 Caught In The Act 13:00 The Living Edens 14:00 Moray Eels: Alien Empire 15:00 Hooked 16:00 Dangerous Encounters With Brady Barr 17:00 The Invaders 18:00 Kalahari 19:00 The Living Edens 20:00 Moray Eels: Alien Empire 21:00 Hooked 22:00 Dangerous Encounters With Brady Barr 23:00 The Invaders

00:45 02:30 PG15 04:15 06:15 08:15 10:15 13:00 16:00 18:00 20:00 22:00

30 Days Of Night: Dark Days-18 Universal Soldier: Regeneration-

01:15 03:00 05:00 07:00 09:00 11:00 13:00 FAM 15:00 17:00 19:00 21:00

Bustin’Down The Door-PG15 Leap Year-PG15 On Broadway-PG15 Dean Spanley-PG A Christmas Carol-PG The Eclipse-PG15 Ponyo On The Cliff By The Sea-

What Lies Beneath-PG15 Courage Under Fire-PG15 Ransom-PG15 Independence Day-PG15 Pearl Harbor-PG15 Ransom-PG15 The Truth About Charlie-PG15 Brotherhood-PG15 Ong Bak 2-PG15

Home Run-PG15 Easy Virtue-PG15 Crazy On The Outside-PG15 My Name Is Khan-PG15

00:00 Seinfeld 00:30 The Daily Show Global Edition 01:00 The Colbert Report Global Edition 01:30 The New Adventures Of Old Christine 02:00 Comedy Central Presents 02:30 Comedy Central Presents 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 Will And Grace 06:00 Coach 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 Will And Grace 09:30 Traffic Light 10:00 Cougar Town 10:30 Coach 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 Will And Grace 14:00 Coach 14:30 Traffic Light 15:00 Cougar Town 15:30 The Daily Show Global Edition

16:00 The Colbert Report Global Edition 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 Cougar Town 19:30 Raising Hope 20:00 The Tonight Show With Jay Leno 21:00 The Daily Show With Jon Stewart 21:30 The Colbert Report 22:00 The Cleveland Show 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 02:30 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

Downton Abbey Criminal Minds In Treatment In Treatment The Closer Cold Case Covert Affairs Downton Abbey Happy Endings Coronation Street Huge Covert Affairs The Closer Cold Case Happy Endings Coronation Street The Ellen DeGeneres Show Huge Downton Abbey Happy Endings Coronation Street The Ellen DeGeneres Show Huge Grey’s Anatomy Private Practice House Criminal Minds Covert Affairs

01:00 03:00 05:00 07:00 09:00 11:00 13:00 15:00 17:00 19:00 21:00 23:00

Outpost-18 Menace II Society-18 Dead Snow-PG15 Shanghai Knights-PG15 Unbreakable-PG15 The Box-PG15 Batman: Under The Red Hood-PG Unbreakable-PG15 Signs-PG15 Paranormal Activity-PG15 Ong Bak 2-PG15 Fear Island-PG15

00:00 Sweet Liberty-PG15 02:00 Fierce Creatures-PG15 04:00 Under The Tuscan Sun-PG15 06:00 Houseguest-PG15 08:00 A Simple Wish-FAM 10:00 Alvin And The Chipmunks: The Squeakquel-FAM 12:00 The Big Green-PG 14:00 Hey Hey Its Esther Blueburger 16:00 Sweet Liberty-PG15 18:00 The First $20 Million Is Always The Hardest-PG15 20:00 My Sassy Girl-PG15 22:00 Man About Town-18

01:15 I Like It Like That-18 03:15 Le Premier Jour Du Reste De Ta Vie-PG15 05:15 Lean On Me-PG15 07:15 Tuck Everlasting-PG 09:00 Primo-PG15 10:45 Guarding Tess-PG 12:45 Witness To Jonestown-PG15 14:45 Simon Birch-PG 16:45 The Knot-PG15 19:00 The Damned United-PG15 21:00 The Blind Side-PG15 23:15 The Taking Of Pelham One Two Three (1974)-PG15

00:45 Ghost-PG15 03:00 All About Steve-PG15 04:45 The Great Debaters-PG15 07:00 The Sorcerer’s Apprentice-PG15 09:00 Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time-PG15 11:00 The Country Bears-PG 12:30 Glorious 39-PG15 15:00 Like Mike-PG 17:00 Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time-PG15 19:00 The Last Airbender-PG15 21:00 My Name Is Khan-PG15 23:45 My Sassy Girl-PG15

01:00 The Amazing Zorro-FAM 03:00 The Archies In Jugman-FAM 05:00 Treasure Island-PG 07:00 Scooby-Doo! Abracadabra-DooFAM 09:00 Babe: Pig In The City-FAM 11:00 Barney’s Great Adventure-FAM 13:00 Globehunters-FAM 15:00 Planet 51-PG 17:00 Barney’s Great Adventure-FAM 19:00 Gold Diggers: The Secret Of Bear Mountain-PG 21:00 Globehunters-FAM 23:00 Planet 51-PG

00:00 Don’t Look Up-18 02:00 District 9-PG15 04:00 Fly Me To The Moon-PG 06:00 Inside Job-PG15 08:00 Carnera: The Walking Mountain10:15 Arthur And The Revenge Of Maltazard-PG 12:00 Moon-PG15 14:00 StreetDance-PG15 16:00 Carnera: The Walking Mountain18:15 Coyote County Loser-PG15 20:00 Grown Ups-PG15 22:00 The Other Guys-PG15

00:00 01:00 03:00 06:00 07:00 08:00 10:00 11:00 13:00

WWE Vintage Collection NRL Premiership UFC 134 Trans World Sport WWE NXT NRL Premiership Trans World Sport International Rugby Union Le Mans Series Magazine

Ransom on OSN Action HD 13:30 14:00 16:00 18:00 21:00 22:00

Powerboats F1 NRL Premiership WWE SmackDown!

UFC 134 Speedway Tri-Nations

00:00 International Rugby Union 02:00 Golfing World 03:00 European PGA Tour Highlights 04:00 Scottish Premier League Highlights 04:30 Currie Cup Rugby Union 06:30 ICC Cricket World 07:00 Rugby World Cup Classics 07:30 Futbol Mundial 08:00 NRL Premiership 10:00 AFL Highlights 11:00 AFL Premiership 13:30 Trans World Sport 14:30 ICC Cricket World 15:00 World Hockey 15:30 AFL Highlights 16:30 Mobil 1 The Grid 17:00 Premier League Snooker 19:00 International Rugby Union 21:00 Scottish Premier League Highlights 21:30 FEI Equestrian World 22:00 Spirit of Yachting 22:30 Rugby World Cup Classics 23:00 Futbol Mundial 23:30 European PGA Tour Highlights

OSN SPORT 3 00:00 AFL Highlights 01:00 European PGA Tour Highlights 02:00 Tri Nations 04:00 Rugby League Challenge Cup 06:00 AFL Highlights 07:00 Golfing World 08:00 European PGA Tour Highlights 09:00 SPL Highlights 09:30 World Hockey 10:00 FEI Equestrian World 10:30 Spirit of Yachting 11:00 Trans World Sport 12:00 Futbol Mundial 12:30 Rugby World Cup Classics 13:00 Golfing World 14:00 AFL Highlights 15:00 Currie Cup Rugby Union 17:00 European PGA Tour Highlights 18:00 NRL Full Time 18:30 Golfing World 19:30 SPL Highlights 20:00 FIVB Beach Volley Ball 20:30 Futbol Mundial 21:00 Rugby World Cup Classics 21:30 NRL Full Time 22:00 Trans World Sport 23:00 AFL Highlights

01:00 02:00 03:00 05:00 06:00 07:00 08:00 10:00 11:00 11:30 12:00 13:00 14:00 16:00 16:30 17:30 18:00 20:00 21:00 22:00 23:00

Speedway WWE Vintage Collection WWE SmackDown!

UFC Unleashed UFC Unleashed WWE NXT WWE SmackDown!

Speedway Powerboats F1 Highlights Mass Participation Modern Pentaholn Modern Pentaholn V8 Supercars Championship Mass Participation Speedway Le Mans Series Magazine WWE SmackDown!

WWE Vintage Collection UFC Wired UFC The Ultimate Fighter UFC 134 Prelims

01:35 The Sisters-FAM 03:10 It Happened At The World’s FairFAM 04:55 That Midnight Kiss-FAM

06:30 TCM Presents Under The Influence-PG 07:00 San Francisco-PG 08:55 The Hucksters-PG 10:50 Kismet-FAM 12:30 Little Women-FAM 14:20 Pick A Star-FAM 15:30 The Sandpiper-PG 17:25 Escape From Fort Bravo-FAM 19:00 Hearts Of The West-PG 20:40 Bad Day At Black Rock-PG 22:00 All Fall Down 23:50 Point Blank

00:00 01:00 02:00 02:30 03:00 03:55 05:00 06:00 07:00 08:00 08:30 09:00 09:55 11:00 12:00 13:00 14:00 14:30 15:00 15:55 17:00 18:00 19:00 20:00 20:30 21:00 21:30 22:00 23:00

Life After People Ice Road Truckers Pawn Stars Pawn Stars Lock N’Load With R. Lee Ermey Mega Movers Ax Men Life After People Ice Road Truckers Pawn Stars Pawn Stars Lock N’Load With R. Lee Ermey Mega Movers Ax Men Life After People Ice Road Truckers Pawn Stars Pawn Stars Lock N’Load With R. Lee Ermey Mega Movers Ax Men Life After People Ice Road Truckers Pawn Stars Pawn Stars Pawn Stars Pawn Stars American Pickers Lock N’Load With R. Lee Ermey

00:00 Jerseylicious 01:00 Fashion Avenue 01:30 Fashion Avenue 01:55 Big Boutique 02:25 How Do I Look?

03:20 Whose Wedding Is It Anyway?

04:15 Whose Wedding Is It Anyway?

05:10 Homes With Style 05:35 Area 06:05 Clean House 07:00 Big Boutique 07:30 Big Boutique 08:00 Homes With Style 08:30 Homes With Style 09:00 Fashion Avenue 09:25 Fashion Avenue 09:55 How Do I Look?

10:50 Whose Wedding Is It Anyway?

11:50 Clean House: Search For The Messiest...

12:50 Clean House 13:45 Clean House Comes Clean 14:15 Mel B: It’s A Scary World 14:45 Jerseylicious 15:40 Ruby 16:35 Giuliana & Bill 17:30 Clean House Comes Clean 17:55 Clean House Comes Clean 18:25 Top 10 18:55 Top 10 19:25 Big Boutique 19:50 Fashion Avenue 20:20 Clean House 21:15 Whose Wedding Is It Anyway?

22:10 Jerseylicious 23:05 Giuliana & Bill

00:00 01:00 02:00 03:00 04:00 05:00 06:00 06:30 07:00 08:00

Planet Food Essential Specials Cruising The Spirit Of Adventure People Of The Sea Globe Trekker Planet Food Dream Destinations Dream Destinations Globe Trekker Rivers Of The World

09:00 10:00 11:00 11:30 12:00 12:30 13:00 13:30 14:00 15:00 16:00 17:00 17:30 18:00 18:30 19:00 20:00 21:00 22:00 22:30 23:00

Cruising The South China Sea Planet Food First Class South Africa First Class South Africa Globe Trekker Travel Today Flavours Of Scotland Flavours Of Scotland Rivers Of The World Essential Specials Globe Trekker Dream Destinations Dream Destinations Flavours Of Scotland Flavours Of Scotland Globe Trekker Inside Luxury Travel-Varun Sharma Secrets Of Bangkok Trabant Trek Word Travels Globe Trekker

00:00 01:00 02:00 07:00 09:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 13:00 14:00 15:00 17:00 18:00 19:00 20:00 21:00 22:00 23:00

Music For The Masses Greatest Hits VH1 Music VH1 Hits Aerobic VH1 Hits Music For The Masses Top 10 Music For The Masses VH1 Pop Chart VH1 Hits Music For The Masses VH1 Superchart Guess The Year Music For The Masses VH1 Loves VH1 Pop Chart Cover Power

00:15 00:35 01:00 01:25 01:50 02:15 02:35 03:00 03:25 04:15 04:35 05:00 05:25 05:50 06:35 07:00 07:25 07:50 08:15 09:00 09:20 09:45 10:05 10:30 10:55 11:20 11:35 12:00 12:10 12:20 12:30 12:40 12:50 13:10 13:35 13:50 14:15 14:35 15:00 15:25 15:45 16:10 16:30 16:55 17:20 17:50 18:20 18:45 19:10 19:35 20:00

Sonny With A Chance Good Luck Charlie Shake It Up Hannah Montana Sonny With A Chance Wizards Of Waverly Place Jonas Kim Possible Fairly Odd Parents Stitch Stitch Replacements Replacements Emperor’s New School Stitch Stitch Replacements Replacements Fairly Odd Parents Emperor’s New School The Suite Life Of Zack And Cody Phineas And Ferb Wizards Of Waverly Place Suite Life On Deck Good Luck Charlie Fish Hooks Splits Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Jake & The Neverland Pirates Splits Jungle Junction Splits The Hive Handy Manny Splits Jake & The Neverland Pirates Splits Sonny With A Chance The Suite Life Of Zack And Cody Phineas And Ferb Splits Shake It Up 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 Cody Fish Hooks Hannah Montana Hannah Montana Suite Life On Deck Fish Hooks Shake It Up Jake & Blake Wizards Of Waverly Place

Classifieds TUESDAY, AUGUST 30, 2011

ACCOMMODATION I The cost to repair the Pentagon after the 9/11 attacks (including demolition of damaged areas) was about $500 million.

I The 9/11 attacks occurred on the 60th anniversary of the Pentagon’s groundbreaking ceremony.

“Islam is peace, against killing, murder and the terrorists. The people that do it in the name of Islam are wrong. And if I had a chance, I’d do something about it.”

Sharing accommodation available for decent Indian Christian couple or bachelor in Salmiya. Behind Mr. Baker from 1st September 2011. Dish TV and landline facility available. Contact: 97233167. (C 3593) 29-8-2011

— Muhammad Ali, during the 2001 telethon “America: A Tribute to Heroes,” as reported by ABC News.

— http://pentagon.osd.mil/ september11.html

HANDOUT/MCT

Sportskool offers free instructional videos on a wide range of sports, including golf, surfing, football and soccer.

S C OT T S T R A Z Z A N T E / C H I C AG O T R I B U N E / M C T

An inscription details one of the flights that crashed on 9/11 at the National September 11 Memorial in New York City. Bronze panels that ring the memorial’s two pools bear the names of all 9/11 victims, as well as those who died during the 1993 World Trade Center attack.

Memorials become focal points in national 9/11 observances On the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 tragedy, the victims and heroes are being honored and remembered.

Nearly 3,000 people were killed in the attacks in New York City, Shanksville, Pa., and near Washington, D.C. A presidential proclamation has made Sept. 11 a National Day of Remembrance.

Communities across the nation will remember those lost in the terrorist attacks by holding public ceremonies, having silent moments of remembrance, gathering privately, singing songs and talking about their memories. Many are expected to gather at the sites of the three attacks: Ground Zero in New York, the Pentagon just outside Washington in Arlington, Va., and in an open field in Shanksville.

S C OT T S T R A Z Z A N T E / C H I C AG O T R I B U N E / M C T

A woman sits at the 9/11 memorial outside the Pentagon, located just south of Washington, D.C., in July. Each Memorial Unit is a cantilevered bench with the name of a victim engraved on the end. The benches are aligned by age and the direction they are read shows whether the victim was in the building or on Flight 77.

BUILDING A TRIBUTE During the past few years, work has begun to rebuild ground zero. Plans include four new business towers and a memorial to the victims.

The tallest of the buildings, the Freedom Tower, will stand at 1,776 feet tall. Its height represents the year 1776, when America signed the Declaration of Independence.

In August, National Geographic released “A PLACE OF REMEMBRANCE: Official Book of the National September 11 Memorial” to mark the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

You can find the book dedicated to the 2,983 men, women and children killed in the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11 in bookstores or online at 911memorial.org for $19.95. Proceeds from the book will be used to support the National September 11 Memorial in New York. © 2011 Time Inc. All Rights Reserved.

TIME FOR KIDS and Timeforkids.com are registered trademarks of Time Inc.

J O S H U A Q U AT T L E B AU M / M C T

The newly constructed visitor shelter and gateway of the Flight 93 memorial in Shanksville, Pa., as seen in July. Phase 1 of the memorial is scheduled to be dedicated on Sept. 10, with a 10th anniversary commemoration the following day.

Sports instruction when you want it When it comes to sports, the difference between an average player and a good player usually lies in attention to detail. Knowing and executing the fundamentals can mean all the difference in a competitive contest. As the school year begins, brush up on the basics of your favorite sport at the Sportskool website (http://www.sportskool.com).

Sportskool features free video tutorials from celebrity athletes. You can get football throwing advice from veteran NFL quarterback Doug Flutie and scoring tips from soccer star Mia Hamm, or review hitting mechanics with 15-time MLB all-star Tony Gwynn and more. Nothing’s better than learning tricks-of-the-trade from the best in their field.

The tutorials stress fundamentals, the building blocks of any skill set. Whenever an athlete does or says something important, an on-screen graphic pops-up summarizing the main point.

When a key move is demonstrated, it’s shown multiple times from different camera angles. In addition to covering the basics, the instructional videos also include drills you can practice on your own.

Besides traditional sports like baseball and basketball, the site includes tutorials on extreme sports such as skateboarding and snowboarding, with tips from pros like Mike Vallely and Shaun White.

Sharing accommodation available in Khaitan in a studio flat with a Mangalorean R/C bachelor, close to bus stop and Jamiya. Rent KD 25. Contact: 66036893.

(C 3591) Sharing accommodation available one room with separate bathroom available in old Riggae for family, working women, executive bachelor. New C-A/C 2 bedroom & maid room spacious flat near Al Dallah Supermarket closer to Avenues. Interested please contact: 55114836 / 99065356. (C 3592) 28-8-2-2011 One room available in two bedroom flat in Farwaniya behind Crowne Plaza in front of Dar Al-Quran.

Please call: 50129393.

(C 3589) 25-8-2011

SITUATION WANTED

Engineer with 4 years experience as Data Analyst / operation support (Telecom / Retail). Good working knowledge in Oracle, Unix and MS Office. Contact: 65794224. (C 3583) MBA (Finance) with bachelor’s degree in Engineering and 2 years experience in Kuwait looking for further experience in Finance.

Contact: 67731590. (C 3584) 22-8-2011

FOR SALE Fridge, cupboards, double bed, dining table, sofa set, T V-2 Nos for sale. All in good condition. Contact: 24340141 / 99818982.

(C 3594) Mitsubishi Galant 2008 model, 2400 CC, liquid silver color, single owner accident free, Al-Mulla maintained, service history available upon request, full option, serious buyer contact: 97264236.

(C 3595) 30-8-2011

A SITE FULL OF WARM FUZZIES We all have those days where we wish we never got out of bed.

Cute Overload (http://www. cuteoverload. com) is for those times when we are in need of a smile.

Filled with photos of adorable pets, HANDOUT/MCT it's enough to Cute Overload features make your teeth photos of cuddly animals hurt. It's hard to stay blue looking in adorable poses. at pictures of puppies with big, pleading eyes and kittens curled in furry balls. Cute Overload offers a quick pick-me-up when you’re feeling down.

— Eric Goodwin, MCT

CHANGE OF NAME

No: 15196

I, Thiru V. Muthu Kumar (Hindu) son of P. Veeraperumal born on 2nd May 1984 residing at No: 8/59, Madhavan Street, Paramakudi, Ramanathapuram - 623707, has converted to Islam with the name of V. Muthu Mohamed. (C 3587) 23-8-2011

Beat the late bell Karaoke on the go Be prepared for long car rides with the compact iKaraoke from Griffin Technology. The microphone plugs into your iPod and lets you belt out your favorite songs. It fades the song's lead vocals, so it's just you and the music.

Everyone will hear your "new and improved" version of the song when you connect your iPod to your FM radio, stereo

system or iPod speaker dock.

If you don't know all the lyrics to your songs, you'll need to call up the words on your iPod and read along. Griffin Technology also offers TunePrompter, downloadable software that lets you make karaoke videos with music and lyrics from songs on your computer.

Amazon.com sells the

Find your way through the maze to get to school on time.

MATRIMONIAL

P R OV I D E D B Y G R I F F I N TECHNOLOGY/MCT

Sing to your favorite tunes with iKaraoke.

iKaraoke microphone and cables for about $40.

— Michaelle Bond, MCT

E R I C G O O DW I N / M C T

Proposals are invited for a born again girl, 5.3”, 29 yrs, working as an Admin Professional with a reputed company in Kuwait. Email: lyndakuruvilla@gmail.com (C 3585) 22-8-2011

DIAL 161 FOR AIRPORT INFORMATION

Airlines RJA JZR THY KAC THY ETH UAE DHX ETD MSR JZR FDB GFA QTR AFR JZR KAC JZR JZR KAC BAW KAC FCX JZR KAC KAC KAC FDB KAC KAC UAE IRA QTR ABY QTR ETD GFA IRA ABY MEA JZR JZR MHK JZR FDB KAC MSR UAL RJA KAC FDB QTR SWT KAC KAC SVA KNE

Flt 642 267 772 1502 5400 620 853 370 305 614 269 67 211 138 6700 529 544 505 555 412 157 416 201 1541 206 302 332 53 352 284 855 605 132 125 6130 301 213 619 1121 404 165 121 711 201 8053 672 610 982 640 512 57 140 93 562 546 500 745

Arrival Flights on Tuesday 30/8/2011 Route AMMAN BEIRUT ISTANBUL BEIRUT ISTANBUL ADDIS ABABA DUBAI BAHRAIN ABU DHABI CAIRO BEIRUT DUBAI BAHRAIN DOHA PARIS ASSIUT CAIRO LUXOR ALEXANDRIA MANILA / BANGKOK LONDON JAKARTA / KUALA LUMPUR BAHRAIN CAIRO ISLAMABAD MUMBAI TRIVANDRUM DUBAI COCHIN DHAKA DUBAI ISFAHAN DOHA SHARJAH DOHA ABU DHABI BAHRAIN LAR SHARJAH BEIRUT DUBAI BAHRAIN BAGHDAD / NAJAF DAMASCUS DUBAI DUBAI CAIRO WASHINGTON DC DULLES AMMAN TEHRAN DUBAI DOHA DUBAI / KANDAHAR AMMAN ALEXANDRIA JEDDAH JEDDAH

Time 0:05 0:35 1:15 1:15 1:20 1:45 2:25 2:55 2:55 3:05 3:05 3:10 3:15 3:20 3:25 3:35 4:40 5:50 6:10 6:15 6:30 6:35 7:00 7:10 7:15 7:50 7:55 7:55 8:05 8:10 8:25 8:55 9:00 9:10 9:10 9:30 9:35 9:40 10:30 10:55 11:10 11:15 12:20 12:45 12:50 13:15 13:20 13:30 13:35 13:40 13:50 14:15 14:15 14:20 14:30 14:30 14:55

KAC KAC UAE JZR QTR JZR KAC MHK IRC ETD UAE GFA SVA JZR JZR ABY JZR FDB RBG ALK JZR KAC KAC KAC KAC KAC KAC KAC KAC KAC KAC JAI SIA FDB FDB OMA MEA KAC MLR SYR MSR DHX KLM UAE JZR GFA QTR UAL AIC JZR JZR MEA MSR DLH ALK AXB JZR THY PIA

1672 746 3853 257 134 535 118 712 6793 303 857 215 510 777 239 127 213 63 3555 227 177 104 166 502 542 618 786 614 674 774 790 572 458 61 8067 647 402 552 1405 341 618 372 443 859 183 217 136 981 981 135 787 406 612 636 506 389 539 5402 205

DUBAI ABU DHABI / DAMMAM DUBAI BEIRUT DOHA CAIRO NEW YORK NAJAF MASHAD ABU DHABI DUBAI BAHRAIN RIYADH JEDDAH AMMAN SHARJAH DEIREZZOR DUBAI ALEXANDRIA COLOMBO / DUBAI DUBAI LONDON PARIS / ROME BEIRUT CAIRO DOHA JEDDAH BAHRAIN DUBAI RIYADH MEDINAH MUMBAI SINGAPORE / ABU DHABI DUBAI DUBAI MUSCAT BEIRUT DAMASCUS COLOMBO / DUBAI DAMASCUS ALEXANDRIA BAHRAIN AMSTERDAM DUBAI DUBAI BAHRAIN DOHA BAHRAIN CHENNAI / AHMEDABAD BAHRAIN RIYADH BEIRUT CAIRO FRANKFURT LONDON KOZHIKODE / MANGALORE CAIRO ISTANBUL LAHORE / PESHAWER

14:55 15:05 15:10 15:10 15:15 15:50 16:15 16:20 16:45 16:50 16:55 17:15 17:20 17:25 17:35 17:40 17:50 17:55 17:55 18:00 18:00 18:35 18:40 18:45 18:50 18:55 19:00 19:20 19:25 19:25 19:30 19:35 19:35 20:00 20:05 20:10 20:15 20:15 20:50 20:55 20:55 21:00 21:05 21:15 21:15 21:25 21:35 22:00 22:05 22:10 22:20 22:45 22:50 23:00 23:05 23:10 23:30 23:45 23:55

Airlines JZR DLH AIC BBC PIA THY THY ETH UAE FDB DHX ETD MSR QTR AFR JZR RJA GFA JZR KAC JZR BAW FDB JZR KAC KAC JZR KAC KAC UAE ABY IRA KAC QTR ETD GFA KAC IRA QTR ABY KAC MEA KAC JZR JZR JZR KAC MHK KAC FDB JZR MSR RJA FDB KAC

Departure Flights on Tuesday 30/8/2011 Flt Route 1540 CAIRO 637 FRANKFURT 976 GOA / CHENNAI 44 DHAKA 240 SIALKOT 773 ISTANBUL 5401 ISTANBUL 620 BAHRAIN / ADDIS ABABA 854 DUBAI 68 DUBAI 371 BAHRAIN 306 ABU DHABI 615 CAIRO 139 DOHA 6700 DUBAI / HONG KONG 164 DUBAI 643 AMMAN 212 BAHRAIN 200 DAMASCUS 545 ALEXANDRIA 120 BAHRAIN 156 LONDON 54 DUBAI 534 CAIRO 671 DUBAI 745 DAMMAM / ABU DHABI 256 BEIRUT 511 TEHRAN 561 AMMAN 856 DUBAI 126 SHARJAH 604 ISFAHAN 101 LONDON / NEW YORK 133 DOHA 302 ABU DHABI 214 BAHRAIN 1671 DUBAI 618 LAR 6131 DOHA 1122 DUBAI 165 ROME / PARIS 405 BEIRUT 541 CAIRO 776 JEDDAH 212 DEIREZZOR 238 AMMAN 501 BEIRUT 712 NAJAF / BAGHDAD 785 JEDDAH 8054 DUBAI 176 DUBAI 611 CAIRO 641 AMMAN 58 DUBAI 789 MEDINAH

Time 0:20 0:40 0:50 1:00 1:10 2:15 2:20 2:30 3:45 3:50 3:55 4:05 4:05 5:00 5:10 6:55 7:00 7:10 7:15 7:40 8:20 8:25 8:40 8:50 9:00 9:05 9:10 9:15 9:15 9:40 9:50 9:55 9:55 10:00 10:15 10:20 10:35 10:40 10:40 11:10 11:45 11:55 12:00 12:00 12:05 12:10 13:00 13:10 13:30 13:35 13:40 14:20 14:30 14:35 14:40

Directorate General of Civil Aviation Home Page (www.kuwait-airport.com.kw)

UAL KAC KAC KAC KAC KNE SVA KAC QTR KAC UAE JZR VOS VOS JZR MHK ETD QTR IRC UAE GFA ABY JZR RBG SVA FDB JZR JZR ALK KAC KAC JAI FDB FDB JZR KAC KAC OMA MEA SIA MLR SYR MSR DHX KLM JZR UAE GFA FCX QTR KAC KAC JZR JZR KAC UAL MEA MSR

982 551 673 1501 617 746 501 773 141 613 3854 538 82 82 182 713 304 135 6794 858 216 128 266 3556 511 64 786 134 228 283 361 571 62 8058 528 343 351 648 403 457 1405 342 619 373 443 240 860 218 102 137 301 205 502 554 411 981 407 613

BAHRAIN DAMASCUS DUBAI DOHA DOHA JEDDAH JEDDAH RIYADH DOHA BAHRAIN DUBAI CAIRO BAGHDAD BAGHDAD DUBAI NAJAF / BAGHDAD ABU DHABI DOHA MASHAD DUBAI BAHRAIN SHARJAH BEIRUT ALEXANDRIA RIYADH DUBAI RIYADH BAHRAIN DUBAI / COLOMBO DHAKA COLOMBO MUMBAI DUBAI DUBAI ASSIUT CHENNAI COCHIN MUSCAT BEIRUT ABU DHABI / SINGAPORE COLOMBO DAMASCUS ALEXANDRIA BAHRAIN BAHRAIN / AMSTERDAM AMMAN DUBAI BAHRAIN BAHRAIN DOHA MUMBAI ISLAMABAD LUXOR ALEXANDRIA BANGKOK / MANILA WASHINGTON DC DULLES BEIRUT CAIRO

14:45 14:55 15:10 15:35 15:35 15:40 15:45 16:05 16:15 16:20 16:40 16:40 17:00 17:00 17:05 17:10 17:35 17:45 17:50 18:05 18:15 18:20 18:30 18:35 18:35 18:40 18:40 19:10 19:10 19:30 20:20 20:35 20:40 20:50 20:50 21:00 21:05 21:10 21:15 21:20 21:50 21:55 21:55 22:00 22:05 22:20 22:25 22:30 22:30 22:35 22:45 22:55 23:05 23:10 23:40 23:40 23:45 23:50

34

TUESDAY, AUGUST 30, 2011

stars CROSSWORD 425

STAR TRACK

CALVIN & HOBBES

Aries (March 21-April 19) This could be a challenging day, so keep that sense of humor of yours and do not take things people say during a busy time too seriously. You can demonstrate great understanding and sensitivity to the needs of others—keep this uppermost in your mind. If you take on the frustrations of others as your own, there could be trouble—easy does it. In a word, it is your emotions and gusto that can make or break you today. There are opportunities to make good decisions and there are clear choices available to you. You are at your most practical and what happens with your emotions during this busy day may have a lasting effect on the direction of your work.

Laughter this evening is a must and contagious!

Taurus (April 20-May 20) A sense of humor is important today, for yourself as well as others. As usual, when you need it, it is available. Being on the go and keeping a finger to the winds of change make you feel in touch. Learning and communicating is important and if you are in real estate, you may happen on a buyer without realizing it. You may prefer a career that accents your own devotion to your ideals and dreams. Working with groups in a spirit of cooperation and communion is a natural for today. Many things need attention and the group you are in today is bent on completing every task. Things are happening and your career or path depends on your own enthusiasm and drive—which are strong now. Keep to your old positive self and all opportunities will become clear.

POOCH CAFE ACROSS 1. A unit of surface area equal to 100 square meters.

4. Naked freshwater or marine or parasitic protozoa that form temporary pseudopods for feeding and locomotion.

9. A worker (especially in an office) hired on a temporary basis.

13. United States liquid unit equal to 4 quarts or 3.785 liters.

14. Of a strong pink to yellowish-pink color n 1.

15. English essayist (1775-1834).

16. A rapid bustling commotion.

17. Of or relating to or characteristic of Morocco or its people.

18. A Scottish word.

19. Cause to go crazy.

21. Having hair on the cheeks and chin.

23. A particular geographical region of indefinite boundary (usually serving some special purpose or distinguished by its people or culture or geography).

25. A period marked by distinctive character or reckoned from a fixed point or event.

26. A sweetened beverage of diluted fruit juice.

28. The blood group whose red cells carry both the A and B antigens.

29. A public promotion of some product or service.

31. A soft white precious univalent metallic element having the highest electrical and thermal conductivity of any metal.

33. Type genus of the Alcidae comprising solely the razorbill.

36. Inspired by a feeling of fearful wonderment or reverence.

40. The compass point that is one point east of due south.

42. A soft silvery metallic element of the alkali earth group.

45. The compass point that is one point east (clockwise) of due north.

47. English theoretical physicist who applied relativity theory to quantum mechanics and predicted the existence of antimatter and the positron (1902-1984).

48. A trivalent metallic element of the rare earth group.

50. A tax on employees and employers that is used to fund the Social Security system.

51. A Turkish unit of weight equal to about 2.75 pounds.

54. Wool of the alpaca.

57. (Akkadian) God of wisdom.

59. The atomic weight of an element that has the same combining capacity as a given weight of another element.

60. Any of a number of fishes of the family Carangidae.

61. A decree that prohibits something.

63. A small cake leavened with yeast.

64. (Akkadian) God of wisdom.

65. (of champagne) Moderately dry.

69. Light informal conversation for social occasions.

70. (Judaism) Sacred chest where the ancient Hebrews kept the two tablets containing the Ten Commandments.

71. A number that is added to another number (the augend).

72. A loose sleeveless outer garment made from aba cloth.

DOWN 1. Small terrestrial lizard of warm regions of the Old World.

2. Measuring instrument in which the echo of a pulse of microwave radiation is used to detect and locate distant objects.

3. Submerged freshwater perennials.

4. The highest level or degree attainable.

5. An utterance expressing pain or disapproval.

6. To make a mistake or be incorrect.

7. African tree having an exceedingly thick trunk and fruit that resembles a gourd and has an edible pulp called monkey bread.

8. Genus of erect herbs of the Middle East having showy flowers.

9. A drop of the clear salty saline solution secreted by the lacrimal glands.

10. Escape, either physically or mentally.

11. A runner in a one-mile race.

12. A genus of Ploceidae.

20. An informal term for a father.

22. A flat wing-shaped process or winglike part of an organism.

24. The cry made by sheep.

27. A river in central Europe that arises in northwestern Czechoslovakia and flows northward through Germany to empty into the North Sea. 30. A Chadic language spoken south of Lake Chad.

32. A unit of magnetomotive force equal to 0.7958 ampere-turns.

34. A white metallic element that burns with a brilliant light.

35. A folded part (as a fold of skin or muscle).

37. A city in east central Texas.

38. The square of a body of any size of type.

39. An official prosecutor for a judicial district.

41. Half the width of an em.

43. (psychology) An urge to accept or approach a situation or an object.

44. A constellation in the southern hemisphere near Telescopium and Norma.

46. A small ball with a hole through the middle.

49. A circumscribed inflammatory and often suppurating lesion on the skin or an internal mucous surface resulting in necrosis of tissue.

52. Cubes of meat marinated and cooked on a skewer usually with vegetables.

53. Jordan's port.

55. A large indefinite number.

56. In bed.

58. A small pellet fired from an air rifle or BB gun.

62. A condition (mostly in boys) characterized by behavioral and learning disorders.

63. The blood group whose red cells carry both the A and B antigens.

64. Title for a civil or military leader (especially in Turkey).

66. An intensely radioactive metallic element that occurs in minute amounts in uranium ores.

67. An associate degree in nursing.

68. A sliver-white metallic element of the platinum group that resembles platinum.

Yesterday’s Solution

Gemini (May 21-June 20) There are good practical job-related thoughts and ideas available today. The ability to communicate with superiors or describe what you see comes easily as well. A greater appreciation for things of value may be on your mind this day. This could be a period of great material gain; it is certainly a time when material things have a great deal of attraction for you. CAREFUL—this could turn out to be a negative since some unexpected expenses may come up in the next few days. If you feel strongly about an expensive item, confer with others that might be knowledgeable of your purchase. Matters that need change may come to your attention and a great deal of intensity and purpose may arise. You could be a spokesperson for a cause.

Cancer (June 21-July 22)

NON SEQUITUR

The atmosphere is improving around the work arena today.

This may mean emotional as well as physical comfort. Because of your cooperation with some difficult situation, you may find that by mid-morning something breaks the spell and life is once again—easy. You may even wonder what had really happened over the last few days. When it comes to images and finding a connection you are fun to work with and can teach the art of being flexible. The tendency to see unity in the world around you sets the tone for you at this time. There is every chance of having what you might call a lucky afternoon. You or a close friend or partner could be the lucky winner and whoever wins is happy to share! Dinner away from home is a possibility.

Leo (July 23-August 22) You are more interested in seeking out your dreams than you are in financial prosperity. However, you will find that the right financial investments will bring enough financial rewards to be very helpful toward reaching your dreams. This is a most beneficial time for you to secure, concentrate, change or otherwise find ways to make steady a good income. You are an intuitive, rather than a rational thinker—psychological thought through the psyche; mysticism and religion are natural for you. Place yourself in a position that will give you opportunities for expression. This is a very nice day, perhaps filled with some renewed appreciation for what you have gained in life. Your taste in art and appreciation are heightened.

ZITS

Virgo (August 23-September 22) This is a great time to be with others and to work together. You may be sought after as just the person for a particular job. Your directional abilities are in high focus. This is a perfect time for new ideas, a breakthrough in thinking; a novel approach. Your goals come to mind this evening and deciding the path to take in obtaining your goals could be a problem. The rebel in you likes to ignore your dreams and just let come what may. You enjoy your freedom and independence and pursue it at the expense of what you know you really want. It may now be time to reassess just exactly what the steps are in getting your goals accomplished. A few new life experiences would be grand! No more talking . . . dive in and start swimming!

Libra (September 23-October 22)

MOTHER GOOSE AND GRIMM

Habits are in a cycle of change; variety satisfies a deep inner need. Being on the go and keeping a finger to the winds of change make you feel in touch. Learning and communicating about what you have learned is a fascinating project you enjoy and find yourself repeating often. You work to remember the source and often will ask for a source when receiving information. You may have decided this weekend to get in on some missionary group project. You create ways to make your ideas work. Making things work, healing past relations, creating harmonious surroundings will be the goals you will work hard to achieve now. This is a good day, filled with some renewed appreciation for all that is beautiful and fine. This evening is for planning.

Scorpio (October 23-November 21) Your mind is sharp and ready to solve problems today. Ideas are flowing and come to you easily. You can make many suggestions but it might be better to fine-tune your thoughts and put them in writing.

Your ideas are excellent but higher-ups want to see the money and if you can show how something will benefit the company, you are talking their language.

You are aggressive in the pursuit of gaining insight into all that is new, different and out of the ordinary. Electronics, computers, communications and telecommunications, etc., could be a big part of your life now. You are an expert at working with communication technology. You would make an excellent teacher for you cannot help but enchant all who come to know you.

Sagittarius (November 22-December 21) You could find yourself mentally acute and in a problem-solving mood. A new pattern of doing things may be a bit difficult to handle but you seem to catch on fairly quickly. You find yourself diving in to help others—at least until the routine is understood. Easy does it—sometimes a slow start ends with an accurate and good outcome. You could be most persuasive with others and expressive in your abilities to make your presentation heard; this is where you may find yourself today: making speeches, presentations or just airing your views to listeners. The situation is a natural for self-expression and people are listening to your particular ideas. If needed, there is much support available to you now. Relax this evening with a loved one.

Capricorn (December 22-January 19)

To

Your inner resources and emotions are accented. Expect a sense of support and goodwill from those around you. You are at your most practical when it comes to dealing and working with others. You know just what to do and can act without haste and emotion. You may be called on to make use of your natural abilities and common sense. This afternoon you may find yourself just plain witty. Conversations with friends will have ideas rolling off your tongue. This is a good time for communication—by phone, letter or in person. Your home environment, friends and surroundings in general become uncomplicated and receive encouragement. Your work or career is in real harmony with the rest of your life. You gain from young people tonight.

Yesterday’s Solution Yester

Aquarius (January 20- February 18) Communication, particularly with authority figures, could prove rewarding. You may find that you have something to say; others listen. Do not try to push your ideas—the people that needed to hear will hear and will respond in positive ways. You hate the lack of clarity and may have found a good way to clear away any difficulties. Perform your own research, ask questions and get instructions on paper, if possible—proof of your own ideas. You enjoy discipline and any limitations are seen as opportunities rather than as handicaps. You enjoy working with your mind and can usually find a solution to even the worst problems. There are puzzles and dilemmas for you to solve today. You will enjoy a positive evening with loved ones.

Pisces (February 19-March 20)

Word Sleuth Solution

Work and career are the primary focus at this time. There are several opportunities opening up to you to make good decisions—clear choices come easily. Trust in your choices. You are at your most practical now. The things that take place today have a lasting effect on your life direction. Your love of job and practical skills makes you a fine business person. You bring a great deal of love to your work. You are excellent at manipulating a situation to the benefit of all concerned and this is where most of your energies are directed this afternoon. You are too sensitive to be subjected to ill-mannered people and you enjoy time with a hobby after your workday has ended. You love the young people in your life and may help them learn a hobby as well.

A

y

e niv rsar n

Years

TUESDAY, AUGUST 30, 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

INTERNATIONAL CALLS

22613623/0

Gynaecologists & Obstetricians DrAdrian arbe

23729596/23729581

Dr. Verginia s.Marin

2572-6666 ext 8321

Endocrinologist 25340300

25710444

Dr. Sohail Qamar

22621099

Dr. Snaa Maaroof

25713514

Dr. Pradip Gujare

23713100

Dr. Zacharias Mathew

24334282

(1) Ear, Nose and Throat (2) Plastic Surgeon Dr. Abdul Mohsin Jafar, FRCS (Canada)

Dr Anil Thomas

3729596/3729581 22641071/2

22655539

Dr. Majeda Khalefa Aliytami

25343406

Dr. Anesah Al-Rasheed

22562226

Dr. Ahmad Al-Khooly

25739272

Dr. Abidallah Al-Amer

22561444

Dr. Salem soso

22618787

Dr. Faysal Al-Fozan

22619557

Dr. Abdallateef Al-Katrash

22525888

Dr. Amer Zawaz Al-Amer

22610044

Dr. Abidallah Al-Duweisan

25653755

Dr. Mohammad Yousef Basher

25327148

Dr. Bader Al-Ansari

25620111

Neurologists

Dr. Adnan Ebil

22639939

Dr. Sohal Najem Al-Shemeri

25633324

Dr. Mousa Khadada

22666300

Dr. Jasem Mola Hassan

25345875

Gastrologists

25728004

Dr. Nadem Al-Ghabra

25355515

Dr. Sami Aman

22636464

Dr. Mobarak Aldoub

24726446

Dr. Mohammad Al-Shamaly

25322030

Dr Nasser Behbehani

25654300/3

Dr. Foad Abidallah Al-Ali

22633135

Soor Center Tel: 2290-1677 Fax: 2290 1688

info@soorcenter.com www.soorcenter.com

Dr. Kamal Al-Shomr 25329924 Physiotherapists & VD Dr. Deyaa Shehab

25722291 22666288

Rheumatologists:

Dr. Fozeya Ali Al-Qatan

Dr. Latefa Al-Duweisan

Dr. Ahmad Al-Ansari 25658888

Dr. Musaed Faraj Khamees

Dentists

Internists, Chest & Heart

25339330

25655535

Dr. Shamah Al-Matar

General Surgeons

Dr. Abd Al-Naser Al-Othman

Dr. Naif Al-Mutawa, Ph.D. 2290-1677 Susannah-Joy Schuilenberg, M.A. 2290-1677

Dr. Adel Al-Awadi

25330060

Dr. Khaled Al-Jarallah

25722290

Internist, Chest & Heart DR.Mohammes Akkad

24555050 Ext 210

Dr. Mohammad Zubaid MB, ChB, FRCPC, PACC Assistant Professor Of Medicine Head, Division of Cardiology Mubarak Al-Kabeer Hospital Consultant Cardiologist Dr. Farida Al-Habib MD, PH.D, FACC Inaya German Medical Center Te: 2575077 Fax: 25723123

2611555-2622555

William Schuilenberg, RPC 2290-1677 Zaina Al Zabin, M.Sc. 2290-1677

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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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y

A

36

e niv rsar n

Years

TUESDAY, AUGUST 30, 2011

LIFESTYLE G o s s i p

Garfield gets Spider Man wish

Gallagher rules out Oasis reunion

iam Gallagher won’t reform Oasis for people who hate him. The singer insists he has no intention of getting the group back together following his brother Noel’s departure in August 2009 for music fans who he thinks don’t like him.

Liam would rather continue with his new band Beady Eye - who he formed with the other members of Oasis, Gem Archer, Andy Bell and Chris Sharrock, in the aftermath of the split. He told Q magazine: “There are some nights when you think this is bad. But then you had those days in Oasis. Some people are taking time to catch on. The Scottish got it, Ireland was a bit slow.

L

People say about getting Oasis back together, but why should I sing those songs to the 70 per cent of people who don’t like me? To me, this is the best thing I’ve ever done.” Although Liam isn’t prepared to get back together with Noel he did this week drop his legal action against him. The 38year-old rocker had served papers against his 44-year-old sibling accusing him of releasing false statements about the end of the band, including a comment Liam didn’t play the second night of their headlining slot at the V Festival in Chelmsford, England, in August 2009 because he was ill from drinking. The ‘Bring The Light’ singer with-

drew his legal action after guitarist Noel admitted his brother did have laryngitis before the scheduled concert. Noel said: “For the record, it is a fact that he was diagnosed with laryngitis and it is a fact that he had a doctor’s note to prove it. I’d just like to say that if he gets offended by my opinions on such things then I apologize. It’s all getting a little silly and out of hand and it’s not very cool.”

ndrew Garfield wanted to play Spider Man since he was two years old. ‘The Amazing Spider Man’ actor landed his dream role playing the superhero, but was hesitant to take the part as fame “terrifies” him. He told the Los Angeles Times newspaper: “It terrifies me. I just saw that I was given an opportunity to play a part that I’ve been wanting to play since I was a two-year-old. “I don’t want the rest of it. The visibility thing was the one thing that deterred me.

“That was absolutely the one thing I questioned. I thought about it for a month, constantly.” The actor also studied the eight-legged creatures his character takes his name from in order to understand their movements and properly prepare for his part. He added: “I studied spiders, I studied their movements and how they operate in the world and I tried to incorporate as much of that as I could. “He’s a boy/spider in terms of how he moves and not just in the suit. “A spider moves up, down, side-to-side, all around. He’s not linear and with the knowledge of that spatial awareness and the fact that he can be here and then over there incredibly fast. The stillness of a spider and the lightness I found all of that very interesting to explore as well.” ‘The Amazing Spider Man’ - which tells the story of the character’s origins - will be released next year.

A

Aniston and Theroux

Robert grumpy during shoot obert Downey Jr was “grumpy” when he first started shooting ‘Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows’. The 46-year-old actor - who reprises his role as Arthur Conan Doyle’s legendary detective in the second film in the franchise - enjoyed the “brutal” schedule of the first movie, and was disappointed the action shots were left to the end in the second installment. He told Empire magazine: “We had a brutal schedule last time, but it was so much fun, and we were kind of wondering if we could catch this thing on fire and make it work. And pretty early on we figured we were on to something. And this time around, we only really started the action last week, which had me a little grumpy for a minute.” Director Guy Ritchie accepts there was a “lot of wafflage” in the early days of the filming, while Robert’s co-star Jude Law - who plays Holmes’ sidekick Dr Watson - admits the shooting schedule on the sequel was entirely different to the first film. Guy said: “We shot a lot of waffle straight away.

There was a lot of wafflage.” Jude added: “It’s been completely the other way round this time. The first time, we got into the action from the get go, and at the end we were in New York shooting all the interiors. This time we were in Baker Street from day one. “We’re joining dots.”

‘Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows’ is due to be released in December.

R

move in together ennifer Aniston and Justin Theroux have moved into a two-bedroom home. The couple are reportedly renting the small $3 million property in Hollywood after the ‘Hollywood Bosses’ actress sold her lavish Beverly Hills mansion for $38 million. A source told Us Weekly: “One bedroom is the master and the other is currently furnished as a guest room. “It is a really romantic house with great views and a warm feeling in every room. If they decide they like it, it’s also for sale.” According to X17 Online, Jennifer and Justin’s new home boasts hardwood floors, vaulted ceilings, a pool, hidden garden and a garage which has been converted into a family room. The source added: “They’re really excited about it.” The small property may surprise some people as the couple had been seen viewing a number of mansions to replace the one Jennifer sold, and in late July were looking at up to six a day, including Ellen DeGeneres and Portia De Rossi’s house. In April, the former ‘Friends’ beauty purchased the 17th and 18th floors of an apartment building in New York for more than $7 million.

J

Lovato’s

Kasabian

daily batttle

are the ‘last’ rock band left

emi Lovato admits her recovery is a “daily battle”.

The ‘Skyscraper’ singer - who entered rehab last November for three months to receive treatment for an eating disorder and self-harming - is thankful for the support she has received from her loved ones and tries to surround herself with people who can help her stay on the right path. She said: “I surround myself with people that are beneficial in my recovery and my recovery is still a daily battle and I definitely hang out with people that support me in making the right decisions.

“I’m a happier and healthier person today because of the choices I’ve made. “Having the support of other artists and musicians and actors is really incredible and I’m thankful for that. I’m thankful to have that kind of support from people I look up to.” Among those who have supported Demi is newly-married Kim Kardashian, who the 18-year-old star describes as a “big sister”. She told E! News: “She’s been a friend of mine for a little bit and she’s like a big sister to me. So, when she got to announce me performing at the Do Something Awards it was really cool, and we actually got glam together.”

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he ‘Days are Forgotten’ rockers are hoping they can take their success to the next level with their new album ‘Velociraptor!’ as they feel they are the only English rock group to have any longevity over the last decade. When asked if they are hoping to achieve superstardom, guitarist Serge Pizzorno said: “I think so, yeah. We are. We’re the last band left, really. There are not many rock bands left. So it’s up to us in a lot of ways.” The group are hoping to raise themselves from cult band status to “conquer” mainland Europe too, by embarking on a rigorous touring schedule. Singer Tom Meighan added: “I just love the fact that we’re going out there to try and conquer it. It’s great because we’ll headline V Festival and then play Switzerland at 6pm on the other stage. “We’re a bit of a cult band in Europe, but I think things are starting to look better.

The Arctic Monkeys are the same as us out in Europe and other bands apart from the obvious giants like Coldplay, U2 or Kings of Leon.”

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Reid didn’t plan

Hathaway’s

wedding ara Reid didn’t plan to marry Zack Kehayov. The ‘American Pie’ actress - who wed the finance worker on the Greek island of Santorini last week after a whirlwind three-month romance - admitted the couple had no intention of taking their relationship to the next level, but it just “felt right”. She said: “You know when they say, ‘You just know’? That was it for me. I knew. It was love. The wedding wasn’t planned. We didn’t go on holiday to get married. “But, when he proposed, it felt right and we just thought, ‘Let’s do it now’. We both wore white clothes and just did it on the beach. It was so romantic.” Tara - who has been engaged twice before - is planning to start a family in the future and “can’t wait” to get fat. In an interview given before she entered the ‘Celebrity Big Brother’ house in the UK, Tara said: “We’ll definitely have kids but not just yet. I can100 per cent see myself as a mother. I can’t wait to get fat and have that belly. I think it looks really cute.”

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British music education nne Hathaway learned about British music while shooting ‘One Day’. The 28-year-old American actress spent time in the UK while filming the movie, and particularly enjoyed the film’s soundtrack and learning about cult hits in the country from her British co-star Jim Sturgess. She told BANG Showbiz: “ I knew about S Club 7 before and I mainly know about Robbie Williams from his episode of ‘Cribs’. But when we were doing the scene when Jodie Whittaker sings his song ‘Angels’, I was actually the only person who didn’t know it. And then ‘Sex Bomb’ came on. I got quite an education from Jim! He turned me on to Stone Roses.” Anne has been spotted at underground events in Dalston, East London, since filming the movie, and she admits she loved getting the chance to experience a different side to the British capital. She added: “The best thing was I got to make so many new friends and explore areas of London I’ve never seen before. There’s a really wonderful creative scene here that I found very nourishing.” —Bang Showbiz

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Jane Fonda biography full of drama or sheer drama, the life of Jane Fonda, 73 years in the making and still going strong, outshines her commendable filmography. True to her subtitle, author Patricia Bosworth centers her insightful book “Jane Fonda: The Private Life of a Public Woman” on the woman more than the performances of the two-time Oscar winner. The Vanity Fair writer knows a good personal story when she hears one, and how to tell it with spark and meaning. Fonda has put as much or more energy into creating and recreating herself off-screen as on. Just as her characters in “Julia” and “Coming Home” reinvent their lives or find new purposes, so has Fonda, shifting her focus from acting to activism to fitness to faith and, facing fresh challenges as a septuagenarian, back to fitness.

She struggled to come to terms with her father, Henry Fonda, a cold and distant man who withheld outward signs of approval and love. Yet, Jane Fonda could be cold, too, dropping friends and lovers when they no longer fit into the life she was pursuing at the time. To fill the void created by an emotionally stunted father and a mentally ill mother, a suicide when Fonda was not yet a teenager, she turned to strong-willed if flawed men.

As Bosworth notes in surprising detail, there were many lovers in Fonda’s early life. Keeping pace with her would have worn out Barbarella, the intergalactic siren she portrayed in a 1968 sci-fi spoof. Fonda eagerly followed the lead of those she married - French director Roger Vadim, activist Tom Hayden and broadcast tycoon Ted Turner - a twist of sorts when one thinks of Fonda as an independent woman who came of age politically with the dawn of feminism.

If feminism boils down to women having choices, Fonda has been a model for her generation. Even when her actions have gone awry - sitting on an anti-aircraft gun in North Vietnam may stand as her biggest blunder - she has kept trying to figure out what her life could be and should be about. While a friend of her subject, Bosworth does not ignore Fonda’s many stumbles along the path of self-discovery or excuse the pain she has caused others with her single-minded and self- centered pursuits. Hers has been a remarkable journey, unique for an American woman, and a life Bosworth explores with honesty and empathy in a book as striking as its subject. Douglass K Daniel is the author of “Tough as Nails: The Life and Films of Richard Brooks” (University of Wisconsin Press). —AP

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A journalist photographs the new wax figure of Barbadian singer Rihanna at Madame Tussauds wax museum in Berlin yesterday. —AFP

‘The Stranger You Seek’ not for the squeamish

t the start of Amanda Kyle Williams’“The Stranger You Seek,” readers are in the head of a serial killer ready to strike. It’s a short passage made all the more powerful by the information it conveys: The killer plans these crimes meticulously, and can gain access to just about anyone.

By the time ex-FBI profiler Keye Street arrives at the crime scene, readers have learned two more things: The killer is extraordinarily sadistic and spends a good deal of time writing a knife play fetish blog, in which past and present crimes are recounted. And we’re off on a creepy, suspenseful, breathtaking ride as Street, now running a PI business and tracking bail jumpers on the side, assists the Atlanta police in finding the killer dubbed “Wishbone” by the media before the death toll rises, and it’s not long before the killer starts taunting and threatening Street herself. Street is a unique and worthy addition to the rich tradition of damaged and tough private detectives: She’s an adopted Chinese-American with typically Southern parents; is dealing with a failed marriage and an exhusband who still has a hold on her; and is a recovering alcoholic - the cause of her dismissal from the FBI. Williams dispatches each of the crime-scene descriptions with a flair for the graphic and grisly.

“The Stranger You Seek” is not a book for the squeamish, and the fetish blog entries in particular may include triggers for survivors of sexual assaults. There’s a romantic subplot that doesn’t quite have the right buildup for its ultimate payoff, and the mystery’s solution might be a bit of a letdown for eagle-eyed readers, but these are slight criticisms for what is otherwise a fantastic mystery-thriller debut in what will assuredly be a successful series. —AP

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n March of 2009, when the Annenberg Space for Photography opened in Century City in Los Angeles, the most remarked-upon guest at the gala was David LaChapelle’s date, Courtney Love. I thought of Love during an unveiling of images late last week at the Annenberg-all taken over the last two decades

by Motley Crue bassist Nikki Sixx-when he put up a photo of a homeless woman holding a sign reading, “I’m Not A Bad Girl, I Just Made Bad Decisions.” Anyone wondering about the wisdom of the Annenberg’s decision to feature the art of Sixx was happily surprised. Not only was his camera work fascinating and its variety a bit dazzling, but the rocker’s world view as he answered questions from moderator Kristine McKenna and the audience was quite compelling.

Sixx, 51, said he’d been fascinated by the medium since the late ‘80s, but his interest didn’t truly flower until around the time he got sober in 2001, after a long series of addictions, including a near-death by overdose, chronicled in his

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book “The Heroin Diaries.” “I’m very passionate about what I wrap my hands around,” Sixx said. “The recovery wants me to engage; the addiction made me disengage.”

What recovery gives one, he added, is that “it allows your heart to soften.” He noted that the subjects of his images range all over because “my life isn’t consistent. My life is chaotic. Rock ‘n’ roll is chaos.” Sixx-who also has a new book and album out, both titled “This Is Gonna Hurt”-alluded not just to his sobriety but to his struggle to show his individuality growing up, starting with a rough upbringing that included a “sorta” homeless delinquent stage.

“I was a gnarly little kid, a fighter,” he told the crowd. “I try to hold on to that edge. “If you’re Bill Gates,” he added, individuality “is okay- in the beginning he was (called) a whack job.” His pictures, many of them in brooding black-andwhite-like a delicate study of a wet street in Prague at 3 am- were often grabbed on the run as he toured. He’s asked for a portrait of many a prostitute in the world’s capitals, but a certain gentleness emerges in the shots of the homeless-or even of a shy hotel maid who said she was too ugly to photograph. “I said, ‘I’m gonna take a picture and show you you’re beautiful.”“ The resulting image did just that. “I’m an emotional terrortist,” Sixx said. “If I see you have pain, I’m gonna pull it out of you.” Sixx’s appearance was part of the Annenberg’s “Iris Nights” lecture series and is linked to the gallery’s “Beauty Culture” exhibit, which runs through November 27. —The Wrap

TUESDAY, AUGUST 30, 2011

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Beyonce arrives at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards.

Britney Spears holds her Best Pop Video Award and her Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award.

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eyonce and Jay-Z’s offspring doesn’t even have a name yet, but it was the indisputable breakout star of Sunday’s MTV Video Music Awards, upstaging everyone, even Katy Perry’s win for video of the year.

Perry, who had the most nominations coming into the show with 10, came away with three moonman trophies, including video of the year for the inspirational clip “Firework.” “I feel like I’m doing something right when I sing that song,” said Perry, conservatively dressed in a cotton-candy pink jacket, a skirt and something best described as a Green Bay Packer cheesehead decoration.

But the night’s big news came from Beyonce, who stole the show before it even began when she announced on the black carpet that after more than three years of marriage, the dazzling couple had produced the ultimate allstar collaboration. Dressed in a loose-fitting, off-the-shoulder red gown, she clutched the baby bump that so many celeb-watchers had been predicting since the two wed.

Later, Beyonce performed “Love on Top,” and if Twitter hadn’t already spread the news, her outfit gave clues to her impending motherhood; instead of her typical sexy outfits, she dressed in conservative spangled tux - but still danced around in her signature stilettos.

Beyonce didn’t utter a word about the pregnancy, but ended the number by taking off her jacket and rubbing her swollen belly; in the audience, an elated Jay-Z hooted and clapped for his wife as Kanye West hugged him. In an instant, Beyonce and her soon-to-be child (Jayonce?) managed to overshadow the night’s events. Lady Gaga’s much-hyped opening number, during which she performed as a greasy, leather-jacketed male alter-ego during a performance of “You and I,” became less interesting. So did the evening’s meticulously planned wild moments, from Nicki Minaj’s origami-like outfit to a dance-off between the members of Odd Future and Jack Black, Will Ferrell and Seth Rogen.

There was one apparently unscripted moment during Jay-Z’s performance with Kanye West of “Otis,” off their chart-topping joint album “Watch the Throne.” Near the end of the song, someone tried to walk on the stage, but was quickly apprehended by a crew member as a bemused Jay-Z looked on. It was the second time Jay-Z had someone walk on unannounced during an MTV performance; two years ago, it was Lil Mama. Britney Spears captured the night’s first award, for best pop video, and later was honored with an MTV Video Vanguard award for her visual legacy. Lady Gaga, sticking to her gender-switch shtick, leered at Spears as she paid tribute to her.

“She’s a pop music legend, and the industry would not be the same without her,” Gaga said.” Later, Gaga fished for a kiss, but as Spears leaned in, she quickly pulled back, reminding viewers, “I’ve done that before.” The show had no official host, though comedian Kevin Hart delivered an opening monologue and was featured in a series of vignettes during the show. Adele had perhaps the highlight of the night as the seven-time nominee delivered a powerfully understated performance of “Someone Like You,” off her top-selling “21” album; she came away with three trophies on the night, tying with Perry.

Chris Brown also wowed with an aerial number, soaring above the crowd in between high-stepping choreography.

Russell Brand provided the evening’s rare poignant moment during a tribute to his late friend, Amy Winehouse, who died a month ago after struggling for years with drug and alcohol abuse. Brand urged people to remember the 28-year-old for her music, and urged others suffering to get help.”A lot of people just get the disease, not many people get the incredible talent that Amy was blessed with,” said Brand, who successfully battled drug addiction himself. “Let’s remember there is a solution.

That solution is available.” Tony Bennett, who joined Winehouse in what is believed to be her last song on his upcoming “Duets II” album, showed the audience a clip of the pair singing “Body and Soul.” Moments later, Bruno Mars sang one of her hits, “Valerie,” but closed the song out with the refrain “Amy, we’ll miss you baby.”—AP

Katy Perry holds her three awards in the press room at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) August 28, 2011 at the Noika Theatre in downtown Los Angeles, California. Perry won Video of the Year, Best Collaboration and Best Special Effects.— AFPphotos

Tyler, The Creator, accepts the award for best new artist.

Katy Perry and Russell Brand

Foo Fighters accept the award for best rock video for “Walk”.

Lady Gaga presents Britney Spears with the Video Vanguard award.

Lady Gaga poses backstage with the best video with a message and best female video awards.

Justin Bieber accepts the award for best male video for “U Smile”.

Musicians Joel Madden and Benji Madden

Demi Lovato and Chord Overstreet are seen onstage.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 30, 2011

lifestyle A W A R D S

(From left) Sammi, “Sweetheart” Giancola, Cloris Leachman, Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi, Jenni “JWOWW” Farley and Deena Nicole Cortese present the award for best female video.

Kim Kardashian presents the award for best male video.

Miley Cyrus arrives at the MTV Video Music Awards.

Young the Giant perform at the MTV Video Music Awards.

Winners at the MTV Video Music Awards Video of the Year Katy Perry, “Firework” New Artist Tyler, the Creator, “Yonkers” Pop Video Britney Spears, “Till the World Ends” Rock Video Foo Fighters, “Walk” Hip-Hop Video Nicki Minaj, “Super Bass” Female Video Lady Gaga, “Born This Way” Male Video Justin Bieber, “U Smile”

Collaboration Katy Perry, featuring Kanye West, “E.T.” Video with a Message Lady Gaga, “Born This Way” Choreography Beyonce, “Run the World (Girls)” Cinematography Adele, “Rolling in the Deep” Direction Adele, “Rolling in the Deep” Editing Adele, “Rolling in the Deep” Special Effects Katy Perry featuring Kanye West, “E.T.”—Reuters

Bruno Mars per forms during a tribute for Amy Winehouse.

Beyonce performs on stage .

Adele performs on stage.

Selena Gomez and Taylor Lautner present the award for best new artist.

Ne-Yo and Pitbull

Nicki Minaj poses with the award for best hip-hop video for “Super Bass”.

Kanye West, left, and Katy Perry after accepting the best collaboration award for “E.T.”

Presenter Chris Brown

Jay-Z and Kanye West

(From left) Will Ferrell, Jack Black and Seth Rogan are seen on stage.

Lady Gaga with Brian May on guitar perform on stage.

Jared Leto and Zoe Saldana present a performance.

Katy Perry accepts the award for video of the year for “Firework”.

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Attendees embraced after prayer as hundreds of Kansas City-area Muslim devout gathered to recognize the end of Ramadan by celebrating Eid Al-Fitr, the “Festival of Breaking the Fast”.—MCT

Heat makes Ramadan fasting a greater challenge I

magine going a whole day without anything to eat or a drop to drink during these long, hot summer days. This is what Muslims had been preparing to start on Monday and continue during the month of Ramadan. Fasting is one of the five pillars of Islam.

Farrukh Hasan of Shawnee, Kan, said it is definitely a challenge because the days are so long, and the weather is so hot.

Thirst and exhaustion are especially a challenge for Muslims who work outside in the excessive heat, Server Sheriff of Kansas City said. Hasan said, “Even though I have air conditioning, I miss water because I usually drink a lot of water.”

“I’m from India, and most people don’t have air conditioning there,” Hasan said. “This makes us think of how fortunate we are in this country. Even our cars are air-conditioned.” When she was growing up in India, she and her schoolmates would fast along with the adults. People got used to it, even in the hot months.”It’s amazing the tolerance of our bodies,” Hasan said. Yet she conceded this week that she’s always a bit nervous before the start of Ramadan that she can do the fast.

“I’m getting older, but I’m thankful that I am healthy,” she said. During Ramadan, she and her husband start their day with a small meal before dawn.

They eat again after sunset and then go to the mosque for an extra prayer. They go to bed at about midnight, so Muslims are not only food-deprived but also sleepdeprived, unless they can catch a nap during the day.

Fasting helps get rid of bad eating habits, Hasan said, and it’s a confirmation of her strength. “It is very satisfying to know that if I want to do something, I can do it,” she said. “It shows you that you can handle the difficulties in life. I come out of Ramadan stronger.”

Another positive side of Ramadan in the summer is that the children are out of school, Qurat Mir of Leawood, Kan., said.

“They get to spend the extra-special nights of Ramadan basking in the love of friends and family, worshipping in the masjid and staying up late for night prayers, reading of the Qur’an and occasionally a pickup basketball game or hang-out session.” Many Muslims say fasting brings them closer to God. “When we fast, we also are supposed to stay away from a lot of immoral things and think more about God,” Riyaz Lareef of Olathe, Kan, said. The intention is that if Muslims abstain from harmful things during Ramadan, they can keep it up the rest of the year.

“During Ramadan, we are to stop doing any kind of sins as much as we can, not just stop eating and drinking,” he said. “The purpose is to teach us to stay away from doing any sins throughout the year.” Also, he said, researchers have discovered medical benefits from fasting, such as ridding one’s body of toxins. “These medical benefits are not the reason to fast but a side benefit,” he said.

When Christians ask Khaldoun Ahmad, a doctoral student at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, why he’s not eating, it gives him the opportunity to tell them about Islam, he said. For him, fasting teaches patience, and he likes getting together with friends who invite him to their homes to break the fast.

Tanveer Papa of Leawood said the first couple of days are always difficult because of the lack of water.

Also, he’s a coffee drinker, plugging in the coffeepot before he starts getting ready for work. Now that first cup is at about 4:15 am instead of 6 am. He also downs a lot of water each day before fasting and a lot after fasting.

Mir emphasized that Ramadan is not just about fasting. It’s about worship, prayer, reading the Qur’an and breaking fast as a community and within families, she said. Also, “we focus on the spiritual, and we turn our attention away from the worldly,” she said. “It is a way to detox both our bodies and our souls from unhealthy

things and to recharge our bodies and souls with good clean nourishment of family, home-cooked meals and spiritual centeredness.”

Sheriff said that from a spiritual point of view, he gains “tranquility, peace of mind and a sense of achievement at successfully meeting one of the basic tenets of Islam. Physical gains may differ from person to person, the most important being self-control.”

Giving alms to the poor is one of the five pillars of the faith. Although it is not specifically to be done at Ramadan, feeding the poor and hungry have become good works associated with the month, Mir said. “This year our attention turns to Somalia and the parts of Africa in which the reported drought is taking lives,” she said. “We will also focus on the problem of hunger locally as well.

“We plan and hope this year that my son and I have the opportunity to volunteer at Harvesters, and I would like to take him to a soup kitchen to help now that he will be 8 years old.” Hasan said that during Ramadan, Muslims consciously look for people to help. “If you live in Johnson County, you may think everybody is all right, but this is not true,” she said. “I call relatives in India to find out who is in a worse situation and try to help.” She said she recalls beggars coming to their door each day and her mother giving out food she had prepared. “I wish I didn’t live so isolated,” she said. “I feel that I’m not doing enough.” One reason more charity is performed during Ramadan is that the Prophet Muhammad said Muslims will receive more rewards for charity during that month, Papa said.

Food drives will take place this month, Lareef said, and the food will be distributed locally and globally.

The local chapter of the Islamic Circle of North America feeds the homeless downtown every two weeks throughout the year. “During Ramadan, people give more than they ordinarily would to a charity,” Papa said.

“The altruistic nature comes out. It would be very

unusual during Ramadan for someone not to give you anything if you were in need.

“As human beings, we need to do this throughout the year. At Ramadan we practice it even more, and hopefully it will become a year-round habit.”

Learn more about ramadan Q: What is Ramadan?

A: Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar. Since a lunar month is about a day shorter than a solar month, the lunar year is shorter, and Ramadan comes about 11 days earlier each year.

Q: When does Ramadan begin this year?

A: According to the calculations of the Fiqh Council of North America, the first day of fasting was Monday.

These calculations are accepted by the Islamic Society of North America.

Q: When does Ramadan end this year?

A: Fasting ends at sunset Aug 29, and the next day marks Eid ul-Fitr, the Feast of Breaking Fast. This is a time when Muslims gather for prayer and celebration.

Q: What are the requirements for Ramadan?

A: Fasting is from dawn to sunset and includes abstaining completely food, drink and sex during those hours. During Ramadan, Muslims are to refrain from impure thoughts and spend more time in prayer, reading the Qur’an and striving to grow closer to God. Persons who are ill, pregnant, elderly or traveling may fast the same number of days at another time. If they are unable to do this, they are encouraged to feed a needy person for each day missed.

Q: What important event do Muslims believe happened during Ramadan?

A: Muslims believe Ramadan was the month the Qur’an was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad.

Muslims call the night that the Qur’an was revealed “The Night of Power” or “The Night of Destiny.”

Traditionally, this is celebrated on the 27th night of Ramadan.—MCT

In Cairo, keeping a musical tradition alive “M

agdi, Magdi,” the kid yells, running in off the street. A bottle of water flies up to the loft and Magdi Ali catches it and shouts thanks. The child disappears through the sawdust and back into the sunlight. Ali scrapes his planer, pale curls weightless as snow tumble around his sandals, his glue pot simmers on a stove. He tightens strings of copper and silk until the pluck-pling of ancient music rises from his worn hands and drifts out the door. A single note.

Then it vanishes.

“I don’t play, really, I just make.”

Ouds. He has made thousands over the years. A stringed instrument with a shell shaped like a polished turtle, it’s the Arabic cousin of the lute. Its rhythms and laments have played through the centuries, from caravans to palaces to the orchestras of belly dancers and divas. It was once as prevalent as the call to prayer, a sound engrained, especially here on Mohammad Ali Street, where musicians reigned until they began slipping away years ago to clubs and cabarets out near the pyramids.

The oud makers stayed. Ali works in the Gamil Georges shop, founded in 1906 in a brick building with a wrought iron arch. Georges is dead and his son is 86 and doesn’t come in so much anymore.

The red and white letters spelling out Gamil Georges on the window are fading. The shop is pretty much run these days by Ali and Eid Mohamed, filling orders from France, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Australia and the guy in Texas who requests two ouds each year.

Mohamed works downstairs, unfinished ouds of beechwood, oak and mahogany tacked up by the dozens on walls of grit and dust. Ali, who Mohamed says is the best oud maker there is, rules the loft, climbing a ladder, scrunching through a

passageway and then standing in the breeze of ceiling fans. Ali had his own shop, but says taxes, bureaucracy and the “unsecure nature of Egypt’s musical industry” led him here a decade ago.

He prefers not to talk when he works, hovering over his bench, his untucked shirt swaying, his dark eyes narrowing, focusing on his tools and wood that seems to float through his fingers. His ouds sell for $100 to more than $1,000, depending on the quality of wood and intricacy of design. The company pays him $5 for each one. He must be doing all right, though; he smokes Western cigarettes, not the cheaper local Cleopatras.

A man who makes instruments is sensitive to change, the way the world shifts beyond his steel wool and chisels. There are fewer calls for his handiwork coming in from cities and deserts across the Middle East. It’s nerves, wars, the whims of global finance, all those newspaper stories the men read in the teahouse next door. The sweet things in life, the ones that show us the better part of ourselves, he thinks, get tucked away and sometimes forgotten against the worry of living.

“The turning point was the first Gulf War in 1991. Orders began to drop,” says Ali, who was born in the Nile Delta but raised in these alleys.

“Most of our clients were from gulf countries. They once had the money and the mood. They loved music. Some didn’t even play, but they’d buy five ouds just to hang in their homes. But after two wars and stresses and politics, they grew insecure and lost the mood.”

A veiled woman strolls into the shop with a boy.

Mohamed pulls down a finished oud, shining amber and brown, the color of tree sap. He shows another and another. Fingers strum the 11 strings, dance up the oud’s neck to its bent nose. The

woman and the boy leave, handing back an instrument inspired millennia ago by Lamak, the sixth grandson of the biblical Adam and a direct descendant of Cain. This music goes back to the pharaohs, says Mohamed, his work clothes streaked with months of stains.

“The most important thing is the balance between neck and nose. This must be precise or the sound is off and any musician would hear such an imperfection. My father was ultra-religious. He forbade music and never listened to it. He would never have approved of my making ouds. I had to wait until he died.”

The oud, which in Arabic means “wood,” lent a storied legacy and an unmistakable sound to the era of composers and musicians such as Mohamed Abd Elwahab, Farid Atrash and Umm Kulthum, the Egyptian singer with the sunglasses whose voice played for decades on radios across the Arab world.

“You can barely find an Egyptian song with an oud anymore,” says Ali, 46. “It used to be every Arab composer would begin with the oud, sounding out his song. Now, it’s all electric and technology music. This mingling of the oud with Western computer music, it’s not Arabic, it’s not Western. I don’t know what it is but it’s not for me. I listen to the old stuff.”—MCT

Eid Mohamed makes ouds, the Arabic cousin of the lute, a he Gamil Georges shop in Cairo that has made the musical instruments since 1906.—MCT