6th Oct

ON IP TI SC R SU B

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2011

India launches ‘world cheapest’ tablet computer

Ivanovic dumps Zvonareva out of Beijing

150 FILS

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Protesters call for govt to quit, want action on graft

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NO: 15231

www.kuwaittimes.net

THULQADA 8, 1432 AH

Saadoun blasts ‘corruption pigs’, vows to oust govt

By B Izzak

conspiracy theories

Are protests a way of life now?

By Badrya Darwish

badrya_d@kuwaittimes.net

I

just returned from a 10-day trip abroad to find chaos engulfing the country in a mysterious way.

What’s happening in Kuwait? Why all these demonstrations? I don’t denounce demos. They are a healthy sign of democracy in any modern nation.

People have the right to hit the streets and protest peacefully if something is not right in the system.

Kuwait is not alone. Demonstrations are erupting across the Arab World as part of the so-called Arab Spring. But the way I see it, this spring is turning into a severe winter. The Arab Spring started in Tunisia, spread into Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain and Syria, and now it has reached the rest of the oil-rich Gulf nations. On Tuesday, protests took place in Saudi Arabia. Let alone Kuwait. The countries I mentioned have serious issues which force the people to come out in anger and protest for months, regardless of the results. These countries were ruled by dictators, and they suffered poverty and rampant corruption.

But what’s wrong in Kuwait. There’s corruption here too, I don’t deny it. We should come out and protest to correct things. But our demos lately have become ridiculous and without any serious reasons.

This is leading to a state of chaos, for which I blame both the government and the MPs. It looks like every other group agrees with each other to take to the streets tomorrow. As I was writing this piece and discussing the demos, my friend told me he had news that students in his son’s school will demonstrate today in front of the Ministry of Education.

Jokingly, I asked him if they were rallying in support of the MPs involved in the multimillion-dinar deposits scandal. He laughed and said no, it has nothing to do with money or politics. They will march in protest over the way the evaluation system has been changed to give theoretical tests more weight over oral tests. So they were advised by their teachers to demonstrate in front of the ministry. Isn’t this a joke? Of course students will love this, since they will get to miss class for a day. Just imagine, there are many examples like this. Demos are becoming a fashion, or trend, or even a way of life in the Arab world - with a fancy name like “Arab Spring”.

Max 36º Min 25º Low Tide 00:03 & 13:46 High Tide 05:18 & 20:35

KUWAIT: People gather for an anti-graft protest opposite the National Assembly yesterday. (Insets) MPs Ahmad Al-Saadoun and Khaled Al-Sultan address the crowds. — Photos by Yasser Al-Zayyat

KUWAIT: Speakers at a protest yesterday called for dismissing the government and the prime minister over an alleged corruption scandal and warned that failure to act could “widen the gap between the people and the regime”. At the second anticorruption rally attended by 3,000-4,000 protesters, MP Musallam Al-Barrak bluntly accused the government of paying millions of dinars in bribes to at least 11 MPs to win their votes in a bid to rescue the prime minister and other ministers who faced no-confidence votes following grillings.

Islamist Salafist MP Khaled Al-Sultan described the corruption case as “an unprecedented crime that must not pass without punishment”, saying that he believes the number of MPs involved in corruption will rise and that the amount of money involved will “be at least KD 80 million”. Sultan demanded that all people should know the names of MPs who received the money, the side that paid and the source of the funds, adding that “it is not logical to believe that the Central Bank does not know”. He also called for forming a parliamentary investigation committee in order to reveal the MPs involved and the source of the money, calling for a united action to force the government and the prime minister to leave.

Former MP Mohammad Al-Khalifa of the Popular Action Bloc appealed to HH the Amir to take action against corrupt elements, saying that this government has taken Kuwait to catastrophe. “All the governments in the world fight against corruption except our government,” Khalifa said.

Azzam Al-Omaim, representative of the Democratic Forum, said the corruption case is a massive scandal, a state security crime and a political graft case.

Continued on Page 13

Market fretting over regulator KUWAIT/DUBAI: Kuwait’s stock market regulator, touted as the saviour of an exchange plagued by a lack of transparency, has created disarray with new rules and management missteps that have pushed the share index to seven-year lows and prompted staff of the bourse to threaten a strike. The Capital Markets Authority (CMA) was formally launched in March, more than 30 years after the Kuwait Stock Exchange was established. It is meant to provide a steadying hand for the Gulf’s third largest stock market in terms of capitalisation, after Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

Instead, it has been beset with problems, including controversy over reports in Kuwaiti newspapers last month saying three of its five original commissioners had been removed, allegedly for holding other jobs in violation of CMA regulations. This raised questions about whether rules enacted under their tenure would be binding, after the trade ministry said such decisions were void. The CMA, which declined to comment, has not announced any removal of commissioners and has been reluctant to make public statements. Analysts and traders say the uncertainty puts the CMA’s credibility on the line.

“The first issue is that there is little definition of policy - there’s a lack of clarity within the policies themselves,” said a Kuwait-based trader who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue. “The CMA was established after a lot of the new laws were announced and have yet to be enforced, so investors don’t know whether they are doing things against the law or not. Will the new rules be retrospectively applied?”

Kuwait’s market is known for lax rules on what infor-

mation companies must disclose, and local newspapers are full of unsourced reports that move stocks but prompt no response from company officials. Trading in Kuwait has long been dogged by traders’ claims that big shareholders can manipulate prices. With the creation of the CMA, Kuwaiti financial institutions anticipated major reform to level the playing field and help attract new investors. Regulatory changes have included limits on ownership of stocks to discourage manipulation, and protections for minority shareholder rights when large stakes in companies are acquired.

“Generally, the CMA is a positive step, and we needed this healthy transformation,” said Hamad Al-Hamidi, director of funds at National Investments Co. “But part of the problem is the short period of time given for the implementation of the rules. And what accompanies it the drop we are seeing in the stock market.”

The main Kuwait stock index has fallen about 16 percent in 2011; only Bahrain and Oman, both of which have seen political unrest this year, have fared worse in the Gulf. Kuwait’s trading volumes have also plunged.

Last year Kuwait was often the most active Gulf market in terms of the number of shares traded daily, edging out Saudi Arabia, but daily volumes are down by nearly half this year compared to 2010.

The CMA has found it difficult to attract suitable people for key positions, and to establish new trading rules and communicate them to investors, many of whom now worry about being prosecuted for practices they once considered normal. “Investors are worried about this new Big Brother approach - what counts as manipulation and what is acceptable?” said the trader.

Continued on Page 13

Pak panel quizzes bin Laden’s family

Bahrain jails 19 Shiites over attack

Israel bombing killed captives in Lebanon

Crystal clarity wins Israeli chem Nobel

ISLAMABAD: An independent Pakistani commission investigating the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden questioned three detained widows and two daughters of the slain Al-Qaeda leader, a government statement said yesterday. The commission also interviewed Pakistani spy chief Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha and a doctor, Shakil Afridi, accused of helping American intelligence run a phony vaccination program that tried to obtain a DNA sample from bin Laden and his family, the statement said. Investigators interviewed Pasha, who heads the country’s powerful spy agency, known as the Inter-Services Intelligence, yesterday and planned to meet with him again meet with him today, the commission said. So far, the commission has visited bin Laden’s compound, and questioned civil and military officials.

DUBAI: Bahrain jailed 13 Shiite men for five years and another six for a year for trying to burn down a police station, state media said, extending a judicial crackdown on pro-democracy unrest criticised by governments and human rights groups. The convicted men attacked the police station “to achieve a terrorist aim, cause terror among the people and spark chaos”, the state news agency BNA said yesterday, adding they intended to use petrol bombs. Bahrain faces still almost daily protests by Shiites, angry over job dismissals for taking part in the earlier unrest and over government reform plans that fall short of giving full legislative powers to Bahrain’s elected parliament. At least 30 people were killed, hundreds wounded and more than 1,000 detained - mostly Shiites - during the uprising and a crackdown.

BEIRUT: Two Israeli soldiers whose capture by Hezbollah sparked a 2006 war and whose remains were returned to the Jewish state two years later were killed in an Israeli raid on Lebanon, a minister revealed yesterday. In excerpts of his memoirs of the July 2006 war, Lebanese Health Minister Ali Hassan Khalil - a member of the Hezbollah-allied Shiite Amal movement - said an Israeli air strike that month had killed soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev.

Khalil quotes a top aide to Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah as saying: “It’s ironic ... that Israel should kill the two soldiers it launched a war over ” in the excerpts, published by Lebanese daily As-Safir. The Israeli army dismissed what it called “blatant fabrications” as psychological warfare.

STOCKHOLM: Israeli scientist Daniel Shechtman yesterday won the 2011 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for discovering quasicrystals, an atomic mosaic whose existence was initially ridiculed before overturning theories about solids. Shechtman, aged 70, ran into fierce hostility among fellow chemists after making his eureka-like discovery in 1982 that at the time Shechtman was dismissed as laughable. Today, his work “has fundamentally altered how chemists conceive of solid matter,” the Nobel jury said. Quasicrystals are crystals whose atomic pattern is highly geometrical yet never repeats. To the untutored eye, they look strikingly similar to the tiled patterns of abstract Islamic art.

Erdogan labels nuclear-armed Israel a ‘threat’ PRETORIA: Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan yesterday branded Israel as a “threat” to its region, accusing it of owning nuclear weapons, in a defence of Palestinians. “I right now see Israel as a threat for its region, because it has the atomic bomb,” Erdogan said in a foreign policy speech during an official visit to South Africa. Israel has never officially admitting to Continued on Page 13

A graphic shows a monkey avatar with a virtual reality upper limb. — AFP

Monkey see, monkey feel Human cells ‘cloned’ PARIS: Monkeys implanted with brain electrodes were able to see and move a virtual object and sense the texture of what they saw, a step forward in the quest to help the severely paralysed touch the outside world once more. “Someday in the near future, quadriplegic patients will take advantage of this technology,” said lead investigator Miguel Nicolelis, a professor of neurobiology at Duke University in North Carolina. They will seek “not only to move their arms and hands and to walk again, but also to sense Continued on Page 13

in the

news

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2011

local Weight loss surgeries offer hope to obese adults

By Nawara Fattahova KUWAIT: In view of the fact that obesity has reached epidemic proportions in Kuwait, the Ministry of Health (MoH), schools and other organizations have been spearheading awareness campaigns to encourage weight loss among young adults. Those with wavering will power, however, choose an easy way out and opt for surgery instead.

Dr Mohammed Al-Jaralah, a surgeon and the former minister of health explained the different surgical options that exist, “First we measure the Body Mass Index (BMI) and then decide on a suitable form of surgery. So if the BMI of patient falls between 30 and 35 the patient can opt for the ‘balloon’ surgical procedure. For those whose BMI measures 40 and above the ‘ring’ is recommended. The ‘gastric sleeve’ has little side effects and the ‘bypass’ is more popular in the United States,” he told Kuwait Times.

After failing to keep her weight under check with diet and exercise, Sally a 28-year-old Lebanese national failed decided to find salvation in gastric sleeve surgery, “I’m very satisfied with the results although it’s not final. I weighed 116 kilograms in May when I decided to go for the surgery. Four months later, I weigh 87 kilograms and I’m still losing weight. I did diet many times but it didn’t work. I admit I’m lazy. After six months, I wish to reach a target weight. The doctor told me that after a year, my stomach may enlarge. I will eat a little more then,” she shared her experience.

“I didn’t experience any side effects, just the common recuperation problems associated with having undergone surgeries.

Sagging is definitely present. My body needs more food supplies. I took vitamin supplements for three months. I walk for 45 minutes.

I was advised to play sport for at least 20 to 30 minutes a day. Now I can wear clothes that are a size 16. Previously I wore size 22 or 24,” added Sally.

She went on to say, “It’s easy to diet if you weigh 70 kilograms.

You end up losing five kilograms. However, if weigh more than 100 kilograms, you lose as much as 10 kilograms. It’s a lot of hard work. I found that the surgery was an easy way out. I’m eating less.

Instead of a eating a plateful of rice, I eat two spoons. I suffered from high blood pressure and cholesterol. After the surgery my health improved. My parents opposed it in the beginning. But after the surgery, my father is very happy with the results,” she added.

Riham another 28-year-old did not find that the surgeries proved effective, “I love eating and it’s hard for me to stop. I weighed 105 kilograms and underwent surgery twice. It didn’t bring me the results I desired. I had the stomach ring surgery done and faced problems. I didn’t follow the doctor’s advice properly. In November 2010, the gastric sleeve was performed on me and I removed the ring from my stomach. Now I weigh 77 kilograms. I can’t eat as many chocolates as I would like to,” she stated.

1 dead, 4 injured in road accidents

By Hanan Al-Saadoun KUWAIT: An unidentified man was killed and a 41-year-old Pakistani man critically injured in a car crash on King Fahad Road yesterday. The injured man was rushed to Amiri Hospital whilst the body of the deceased was removed for autopsy.

In a separate incident, a 27-year-old Iranian man was rushed to the Amiri Hospital’s Intensive Care Unit after being critically injured when he was hit by a car early on Tuesday morning.

Meanwhile, a 69-year-old Kuwaiti man suffered fractures to his left leg when he was hit by a car in Sabah Al-Salem. He was taken to Adan Hospital.

Finally, a 19-year-old Saudi man was taken to Adan Hospital after a car crash left him suffering various minor injuries and complaining of back pain.

Fight club A 47-year-old Sri Lankan man was taken to Adan Hospital after sustaining head injuries in a fight in Fahaheel.

BELGRADE: Members of the NA delegation pictured with the Speaker of the Serb Parliament, Slavica Djukic-Dejanovic.

Kuwait speaker affirms desire to boost ties with Serbia BELGRADE: Visiting Kuwait National Assembly Speaker Jassem Al-Khorafi affirmed during a meeting with the Speaker of the Serb Parliament, Slavica Djukic-Dejanovic, yesterday, that his current mission was aimed at cementing the bilateral ties between Kuwait and Serbia.

The speaker of the Gulf state parliament also stated, during the meeting, held at the Great Hall of the People, that his visit was designed to activate the mutual cooperation in various sectors, particularly the parliamentary domain.

The National Assembly of Kuwait advocates exchange of visits by lawmakers of

the two countries for strengthening the bonds of friendship and mutual cooperation between the Serb and Kuwaiti parliaments, Al-Khorafi said.

He re-affirmed the desire to coordinate with the Serb legislators in preparation for the meeting of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), due in the Swiss capital on Oct 16. Current level of the economic and commercial ties between the two countries is lower than the aspired level, he said, indicating at various opportunities for economic and business cooperation between the two countries.

On Kuwait’s stance regarding the ques-

tion of Kosovo’s independence, the speaker re-affirmed that this stand was with harmony with that the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) that had recognized the Republic of Kosovo. However, he noted that Kuwait backed stability in the region, recalling the fact that both Serbia and Kosovo were parts of the defunct Yugoslavia.

For her part, Dejanovic welcomed the visiting Kuwaiti delegation, headed by the speaker, and hailed the distinctive ties bounding her country with the Gulf country. She expressed the desire to boost the relations with Kuwait and coordinate with the Gulf state during the upcoming IPU

meetings.

The meeting was attended by the Kuwaiti MPs, Dr Ali Al-Omair, Mohammad Al-Mutairi, Faisal Al-Duwaisan, the Kuwaiti ambassador to Serbia, Fawzi Al-Jassem, and members of the Serb Parliament.

The chief Serb legislator held a banquet, late on Tuesday, honoring Al-Khorafi’s delegation. The two sides exchanged memorial presents. Al-Khorafi stated, upon arrival in Belgrade on Tuesday, that Kuwait was seeking coordination with Serbia regarding amendment of the statute of the InterParliamentary Union (IPU), due to meet in the Swiss capital on Oct 16. — KUNA

Kuwait struggling to meet domestic gasoline demands Moves on to increase cooking gas prices KUWAIT: Despite sitting on top of the world’s fourth largest oil reserves, Kuwait could soon start importing gasoline due to the rapid surge in domestic demand that current local production rates barely meet, according to a senior official with the country’s state oil firm. “The oil sector is struggling to meet the demand for gas fuel due to the out-of-control increase in the number of vehicles driving on Kuwait’s roads,” the senior Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) official said.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official revealed that KPC is currently studying the possibility of importing 50,00060,000 tons of car fuel per day to compensate for the shortage created by the inability of local production to meet demand. KPC previously denied reports suggesting that indicators of fuel shortages were appearing on the local market.

Meanwhile, a government insider told the paper that the government plans to increase the price of Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG) canisters used for cooking by between 25 and 50 percent for domestic users and as much as 100 percent for com-

mercial users, such as restaurants or shops.

Also speaking on condition of anonymity, the official explained that the price increases are part of a comprehensive plan to revise prices on the services currently provided or subsidized by the state.

The government insider explained that the Cabinet feels that an increase in the fees charged for such services is essential in order to restore balance “following 15 years of increases in public sector workers’ salaries without a parallel increase in the prices of public services.”

The government came up with the idea of the price rises whilst considering the latest round of demands for increased salaries and allowances for public sector workers.

Meanwhile, Kuwait’s oil exporting operations are threatened by a strike planned by the labor union of the Customs General Department next Monday, according to staff there, who point out that oil exporting operations are amongst those supervised by the department.

“The government bears responsibility for the repercussions that will happen following our strike on October 10th”, said the

union’s president Ahmad Al-Enezi, warning that oil markets worldwide will be affected when exports of Kuwaiti oil are stopped. AlEnezi further noted that all of Kuwait’s outlets will be left almost completely paralyzed by the strike.

A similar threat to stop oil export was made by the labor union representing oil sector workers last month, forcing the government to approve the multimillion dinar pay rises that the workers demanded. The decision encouraged similar demands from many other state departments, with unions calling for increases in salaries and allowances, which they were previously denied, to ensure their members have parity with other public sector workers.

Late last month, the Cabinet assigned a special committee to carry out a threemonth study on introducing comprehensive changes to the public sector payroll, which would ensure that workers employed by different state bodies but in the same profession and performing the same duties would automatically receive equal pay.

On Tuesday, the Cabinet issued a decision to introduce legislation which would

limit labor strikes following an incident earlier this week in which protesting firefighters stormed into the Kuwait Fire Services Directorate (KFSD) headquarters after no official came out to discuss their demands.

Meanwhile, one Cabinet insider revealed that the committee studying this issue, which includes representatives from the Ministry of Finance, the Public Institute For Social Security and the Civil Service Council, is trying to ensure that no Kuwaiti public sector workers are left out of any decisions concerning financial bonuses, such as labor unions who opted against staging industrial action. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the insider admitted, however, that this decision will probably force the introduction of massive budget rises to cover the cost of increased allowances. The insider added that many of the state employees participating in labor strikes demonstrate little or no productivity in the performance of their duties, further hinting that a large number of these workers were appointed due to political pressures and are protesting to serve certain parliamentary agendas.

— Al-Qabas, Al-Rai

Wataniya discount on SMS to Egypt

Abdolaziz Al Balool

KUWAIT: Wataniya Telecom announced a special promotion to all its customers on the occasion of the celebration of Oct 6, the Armed Forces Day of Egypt. The promotion includes 50% discount on SMS sent to Egypt today where the Egyptian citizens commemorate the Egyptian Army’s successful crossing of the Suez Canal during the 1973 October War. In his words explaining the purpose behind the promotion, Abdolaziz Al Balool PR Director at Wataniya Telecom said: “I would like to begin by extending my best wishes to the Egyptians and Egyptian citizens living in Kuwait.” He added, “For Wataniya, we are always keen to celebrate with our customers their various celebrations and appreciating those moments is of great importance to us and this is why we have this special offer to our Egyptian community living in Kuwait, to give

them the chance to easily communicate with their families, friends and loved ones in all parts of Egypt in this important day of history in Egypt and the Arab world at large.”

Al Balool adds that the 50% discount on SMS will be valid for 24 hours starting Thursday. Wataniya has offered similar promotions to other communities in Kuwait such as the USA, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, India, and Bangladesh as well as many other countries, aiming at enjoying the special promotions to stay in touch with their families and friends at half the price.

Wataniya Telecom continuously aims to provide the best and most innovative services to its customers in fine qualities. The offer reinforces Wataniya’s social responsibility towards its customers and to pave the pathway for them to keep in touch with their loved ones in their home countries.

Dive team establishes coral colony at Al-Zoor KUWAIT: Kuwaiti divers have established a new coral colony at the Al-Zoor reefs, in which six different species of corals are being cultivated. The operation entered the fifth phase of the cultivation in Kuwaiti waters. The Kuwait Dive Team of the Environmental Voluntary Foundation has spearheaded the project.

“Following the damage that coral reefs sustained in recent years thanks to natural and man-made factors, the Kuwait Dive Team decided to devise plans to quickly make up for the loss in corals,” said the team’s Supervisor Mahmoud Ashkenani in a press statement.

These plans include two projects, the first of which is to cultivate corals at the natural locations of damaged reefs. Different species of coral near coral reefs should be cultivated to increase diversity in Kuwait’s waters.

Ashkenani further noted that the team passed a course in coral cultivation in the Maldives a couple of years ago, while indicating that their experience dates to 1999 when they first cultivated corals at the Um Al-Maradem Island. The supervisor further explained that the divers carefully select safe locations to cultivate corals so as to protect them from

boats, noting that Al-Zoor coral reefs is the best location in Kuwait for coral cultivation.

The six species of coral planted most recently are: Acropora clathrata, Psammocora contigua, Cyphastrea microphthalma , Platygyra daedalea, Porites lutea and Porites compressa.

KUWAIT: Minister Ahmad Al-Mulaifi pictured with students during the ceremony.

Al-Mulaifi hails vital role of teachers KUWAIT: Minister of Education and Minister of Higher Education Ahmad Al-Mulaifi called yesterday on teachers to do their best in performing their tasks and educating the youth, expressing deep admiration at their great role for progress of the society of Kuwait.

Speaking at a ceremony, held by the media committee of the Teacher’s Day, at the headquarters of the Ministry of Education, the minister called for “generous honoring” of the teachers who exert tremendous efforts for educating the young.

“The efforts and sacrifices of the teachers are so great and unlimited to the extent that we will never be able to pay them back what they deserve,” the minister said.

Following the ceremony, the higher committee for celebrating the Teacher’s Day held a meeting, under chairmanship of the Assistant Undersecretary for Students’ Activities, Duaij Al-Duaij, discussing preparations for the upcoming major festival for honoring teachers. — KUNA

GCC Customs heads intent on establishing new authority KUWAIT: Customs heads from all the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) nations are unanimous on the need to “establish the Gulf Customs Union Authority at the start of next year following the continuous efforts of special committees to write the rules and regulations of the union between member countries,” said a senior official from the GCC Secretariat General yesterday.

Abdullah Al-Shibli, the Assistant Secretar y General for Economic Affairs, revealed that specialist bodies have been asked to draw up recommendation for the governing standards and requirements for the new authority.

Al-Shibli said that a total of 811 products are exempt from customs fees in the GCC, adding that taxes vary from zero percent for exempted

goods to five percent for most, although tax on all tobacco products stands at 100 percent.

Work is currently underway on the project to create an electronic link-up between the various GCC nations’ customs bodies prior to the establishment of the new authority, said the senior official, adding that the customs union has gone through several changes since 2003.

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THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2011

local

Diabetes set to soar as Kuwait follows in US’s footsteps ‘Awareness, information, vital for prevention’ prevent the extreme increase in diabetes levels witnessed in the US, said Mandell, adding that these choices will determine KUWAIT: “Diabetes has become an epidemic.” This was the whether or not diabetes rates continue to soar here.

Another speaker at yesterday’s event warned, however, stark message delivered by American diabetes expert Andrew Mandell, also known as ‘Mr. Diabetes,’ yesterday. Speaking at a that Kuwait’s lifestyle and traditional foods could hinder press conference held at the American Embassy on the risks attempts to prevent diabetes. “Food is at the centre of socializof diabetes and the various preventative measures that can be ing in Kuwait,” said Farah Al-Rifaie, the Assistant Dietetics taken to reduce the incidence of the disease, Mandell, who Manager at Diet Care. “We meet to eat together, and even if has walked 10,030.3 miles along the borders of the US to raise food isn’t the central activity, it becomes involved somehow. awareness of diabetes, said that Kuwait is a “snapshot” of For example eating fatty, sugary snacks at the cinema.”

Al-Rifaie continued, “The Kuwaiti diet is usually also very where the US stood in relation to the condition 40 or 50 years ago, and is mirroring similar patterns to those seen in the high in simple carbohydrates, which should not be consumed in large amounts.” Mandell also noted that white foods - such States.

At present, 20-25 percent of Kuwaitis are already suffering as white rice, white pasta, potatoes and sugar - should be from Type 2 diabetes, not a long way from the 33 percent of avoided or consumed in moderation.

Modifying one’s lifestyle can greatly reduce the likelihood US children expected to develop the disease during their lifeof getting Type 2 diabetes, times. Given the current Mandell stressed, adding that prevalence of Type 2 diabetes between 90 and 95 percent of all in the US, the future looks cases of the condition could be grim: at present there are 27 prevented. He added that as million diabetics in the US, and Kuwait continues to develop, it 79 million pre-diabetics who must determine which of the will become diabetic in the influences, continually pouring next 10 to 15 years unless they into the country, are positive, do something to prevent it. and which are negative.

The condition is also responsiThe diabetes expert acknowlble for 110,000 amputations edged the temptations of foods per year. and sedentary lifestyles, citing Even more worrying, the infamous cliche, “Everything I Mandell added, is the fact that like is immoral, illegal or fattenlevels of Type 2 diabetes in ing,” but adding, “You must ask children are increasing. “It’s yourself ‘What is enough?’ If working its way down into eleyou’re eating just for taste, then mentary schools, and we’re make a small amount last.” The seeing kids develop Type 2 diasmall size of Kuwait means that betes. It’s vital to build positive habits early.”

KUWAIT: Andrew Mandell, aka ‘Mr Diabetes’, information can be spread faster and will resonate more He added that the responsispeaks at the US Embassy yesterday. with the population as a whole, bility for building such habits Mandell noted, saying that, by lies in the hands of adults and the media who must provide information to children so that contrast, while the US makes efforts to encourage diabetes they at least have the option of choosing how they manage prevention, the vast size of the country means that it’s increastheir health and avoid preventable ailments. At present, one ingly difficult to spread the word.

The overall message that Mandell is promoting is to call for out of every three children born in the US will develop diabetes during their lifetime. Parents, who are responsible for a restructuring of priorities and values. He noted that it is the fate of their child’s health when it comes to preventing increasingly common for people to focus all of their attention diabetes, need to learn to say no and avoid providing children on the health of others. Whilst this is an important issue, it is with extra pocket money that may be used to buy unhealthy also vital to lead by example and pay more attention to selffoods, Mandell added. Using the case of the US as a compari- maintenance. Diabetics, he added, should work out, eat well, son, he noted that Kuwait will be in ‘serious trouble’ if it fails to and visit their doctors on a regular basis to ensure they stay in good health. educate youngsters about the issue.

This level of focus on health and wellbeing can be key to The “serious trouble” Mandell referred to is twofold because, as well as the more obvious negative consequences preventing ever developing diabetes in the first place, for society of the continued prevalence of diabetes, the condi- Mandell concluded, saying, “We’re in a new world, and there’s tion also imposes considerable financial costs on govern- opportunity to make new ground and make an impact now.”

Further information on Diabetes prevention can be found ments, “The financial cost of diabetes is 225 billion dollars per year in the US. If pre-diabetics become diabetic, the Centers at: www.DefeatDiabetes.org, which also features a free online for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that the cost will assessment. Should the test indicate that you’re at risk of developing diabetes, Mandell recommends having an A1C rise to 3.3 trillion dollars per year by the year 2050.”

Kuwait is currently at a point where it can still take steps to test which will determine your risk level.

By Lisa Conrad

Youth launch ‘We Want It To Spoil’ campaign KUWAIT: The youth launched a campaign entitled ‘We Want It To Spoil’ on Twitter, asking people to refrain from buying fish owing to skyrocketing prices.

Interestingly, prices of some fish have dropped. A kilo of Zubaidi now costs KD 7. Baloul is now KD 6, Shuoum and Naqrour cost KD 4, Nuwaibi costs KD 3. The sales of these varieties have been marked by a dramatic dip. Obser vers

expect prices to nosedive if the number of those boycotting fish increase.

Fish vendor Akbar Aramigh feels that it is strange to see only small groups of customers. He being the fishing season, he argued, Kuwaitis buy a lot of fish. He added that prices were reduced because there were few buyers.

Bunasser said Kuwaiti and Iranian fish are more expensive

than the Saudi variety. He was optimistic because of the abundance of Kuwaiti fish, reported Al-Watan.

Vendor Ali Salam said that the campaign will be successful in reducing prices. The market will regain activity, “We are still at the start of season, and are seeing large quantities of fish.” About shrimps, vendor Abdelaziz Mohammad said that there are more Kuwaiti shrimps available.

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THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2011

LOCAL

in my view

in my view

Wheeling, charging, advancing

Our funny world

By Rupert Horsley

By Dr Wael Al-Hasawi

I

T

he exhilarating abandon with which cars are thrown around Kuwait’s immaculately surfaced roads arouses - in the mind of the newcomer - equal measures of admiration and disbelief. On my first hair-raising ride, a 7 am trip to the office, I witnessed two accidents and felt myself to be in constant peril of involvement in a third. By the time I had arrived, with a sweat soaked collar and a nervous tick, I saw for the first time in my life, the true value of a Humvee: invulnerability.

I still have a few days left in town and so, for the sake of my mental health, I shan’t be undertaking any statistical research into the subject of Kuwait’s road traffic. The readers will have to enlighten themselves. It’s easy to infer, however, from even the briefest of drives that they would not make very nice reading, and we will leave it at that. Any concrete figure would simply become a lever on which my terror - at any moment between hotel and office - could pull, tipping me into mental chaos.

For such fraught topics it is better, as a general rule, to turn instead to poetry. And, as such, it is through contemplation of the literary heritage of the people of Kuwait that I begin to understand the wondrous phenomena that occur, each day, on their roads. I am not, of course, referring to the ubiquity of texting mid high-speed maneuver.

There is no sensible explanation for this. Nor the absolute refusal of 50 percent of the road population to indicate, ever.

Nor the vague sense of which lane is meant for what. These are beyond the explanatory powers of poetry. However, when witnessing, from close up, an exuberantly high speed lane change on the approach to an exit, or a modern day knight pull a vertical wheelie at 90 on the Gulf Road in the midst of far larger and heavier vehicles, it might be enlightening - if you feel confused - to remember the following verse; Mikarrin mifarrin muqbillin mudbirrin ma’an! (wheeling, charging, advancing, retreating, all at once!) Thus the legendary pre-Islamic poet, Imru Al-Qays, described his steed mid-hunt. Is this what the youths in their lofty 4x4s have in mind as they speed so urgently along? If so, then they deserve great respect.

kuwait digest

Questionable candidates

By Ali Al Qallaf

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alking about the large amounts of money which may have mysteriously appeared, accidentally or on purpose, in some MPs’ bank accounts, has opened the door wide to our inner analysts.

I don’t believe I’m either an earthly angel or demon; I’m a human being who makes mistakes.

These MPs, however, are (or would like us to believe they are) all graduates from the school of angelic perfection incapable of mistakes or violations.

All of us without exception have became analysts, reaching our own conclusions in advance about the identity of the donors and recipients, the reasons behind the dodgy deals, who paid, who laundered, who helped out, etc. etc. etc. Based only on wild guesses, many have reached final conclusions, with some MPs pardoned as ‘good guys’ who received no bribes at all and intent only on fighting corruption.

I don’t believe I’m either an earthly angel or demon; I’m a human being who makes mistakes.

These MPs, however, are (or would like us to believe they are) all graduates from the school of angelic perfection incapable of mistakes or violations.

Given these obstacles to finding out what really happened, I shall, therefore, work even harder in the future to seek out the simple truth about candidates for political office in order to avoid voting for the wrong one in the next election.

Here are some questions for our current MPs to help us voters out as we consider future candidates: 1: Was the corruption in cash only?

2: What’s the difference between those who exert authority for the sake of money and those who want to appoint a leader, and those who want to have illegal transactions approved?

3: Should we automatically consider any person who agreed with the government previously to have been taking bribes?

4: My last question concerns our banking system, which has not previously been open to corruption. Should we trust it any longer? Are our banks connected with the MPs’ ‘personal interests’?

Until I receive convincing answers to these questions, all 50 of Kuwait’s MPs will be very much under a cloud of suspicion as far as I’m concerned. —Al-Anba

laughed very hard to know that the Ministry of Planning and Development employees staged a strike to demand financial privileges. They have every right to demand their rights, but I began wondering what exactly could happen if they downed tools? There would no longer be more planning.

Probably this is exactly what we need years and years of shoddy planning that has stopped Kuwait from moving forward towards development.

kuwait digest

The need for administrative reform

By Dr Mubarak Al-Therwa

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istory shows that people always act to obtain their civil and constitutional rights, instead of those rights being granted directly to them.

People throughout the ages instigated revolutions against tyrannical regimes, pushing for demands that include securing their daily bread, more public freedoms as well as a share of power.

Today as we ask ourselves why the labor strikes are increasing rapidly in Kuwait, we have to consider the fact that while a lot of people call for political, economic and even sports reform, few have called for administrative reform. A political decision or new financing procedures may help advance development plans. Without meticulous and successful management these reforms will have no solid foundations.

To shed light on Kuwait’s mismanagement problems, let’s consider this subject: Financial

demands by oil sector employees were enforced overnight, perhaps pushed by the importance of this sector and the high risk presented by the losses that could’ve been suffered during a labor strike.

While these demands are justified, the manner in which they were enforced exposes the lack of hesitant administrative decision, which usually needs to be backed by a political decision.

Decisions to enforce demands, such as labor allowances, tend to be left on standby for years until labor strikes force the political hand. This means that we have an administrative problem at hand, as the government lacks long term vision for the living conditions of state employees as well as a clear mechanism to maintain a financial equilibrium between Kuwaitis working in the public and private sectors. Demands for more financial privileges are increasing in the public sector as many labor unions

see that they are entitled to allowances or pay increases given to colleagues. The problem is snowballing as more unions became aware of the rules of the game: that strikes are the best way to force the state to grant their rights.

Who is responsible for this situation? It’s no secret that the government should’ve carried out studies for payrolls in the public sector to ensure just pay to all employees. It does not make sense that a law school graduate can obtain a special allowance if hired by the Kuwait Municipality. He wouldn’t obtain it if hired at ministries’ legal departments, for example.

Problems will continue in Kuwait’s labor sector unless the government comes up with a new strategy to ensure equality in financial privileges while taking into account the situation of the state’s budget as well as increasing living costs. — Al-Rai

kuwait digest

World teacher ‘torture’ day!

Conflicts over financing created delays in signing a contract to build the Jaber Causeway that will launch operations to establish the Hareer City mega project.

The plan also includes transportation projects including road projects and a monorail network. So far we’ve only seen closed roads for maintenance that remind us of the First Ring Road development project.

Do you remember the five-year development plan that was enforced a couple of years ago. The Parliament had passed a KD 35 billion budget?

Only five percent has been implemented during the first two years. The government spoke about building four new public universities as part of the plan, but then the Kuwait University confirmed that the new university project under construction in Shaddadiya cannot be completed before 2020.

While the plan includes building eight new public hospitals, we’ve only seen foundations being laid for the Jaber Hospital project.

Meanwhile, conflicts over financing created delays in signing a contract to build the Jaber Causeway that will launch operations to establish the Hareer City mega project. The plan also includes transportation projects including road projects and a monorail network. So far we’ve only seen closed roads for maintenance that remind us of the First Ring Road development project. I also laughed when I heard how the Minister of Oil Dr Mohammad AlBusairi justified the decision to enforce a general pay rise to employees of public firms in the oil sector.

The minister said that a labor strike would’ve cost the country a KD 230 million daily loss. What does the government do to prevent that loss? It enforces a KD 84 billion budget for pay raises - a number that equals to a year’s loss. What happens if Kuwait Airways Corporation staff decided to do the same as their peers. Is the government going to pay financial privileges that equals or exceeds the loss suffered from the work stoppage? What if teachers decided to stop teaching unless their demands are met?

I laughed when I saw the Minister of Education Ahmad Al-Mulaifi strongly defend a bonus concept that is based on paying allowances to teachers in accordance with their level of performance, only to see the government grant twice more than what the teachers ask for. — Al-Rai

By Dr Hassan Jouhar

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ome countries all over the world celebrated World Teachers Day considering it a national event, in appreciation of a significant role played by teachers.

The day is usually marked as an official day off throughout the country.

Individual teachers or teaching establishments are ‘human banks’ where the minds of communities’ largest segment aged between 4 and 18 are invested by teaching and educating them. They annually provide communities with wellqualified batches of students.

Starting with teacher training, school administration, curriculum and senior educational leaders and officials, teaching is surely a strenuous career that demands constant training for daily requirements. There is competition between international educational theories grant better education.

However, since mid 1970s, education in Kuwait is still considered an experimental field subject where individual or group suggestions are subject to a handful of influential officials at the Ministry of Education at the expense of a long-term strategy.

Teachers form the weakest link in the chain who are always blamed for failures. They are accused by senior officials and praised around the clock in all media; honored and rewarded upon leaving office despite the unbearable burdens they leave to successors!

Celebrating the day is done differently in Kuwait where everybody is talking about a new teachers’ union that has been turned into a political crisis by the government and administered so stubbornly that the ministry wasted time to prepare the so-called

bonus system instead of getting ready for the new school year.

It seems that there’s retaliation againt teachers because of the cadre demands are growing stronger. It has astonishingly begun in the form of annual

World Teachers Day is celebrated differently in Kuwait where everybody is talking about a new teachers’ union that has been turned into a political crisis by the government and administered so stubbornly that the ministry wasted time to prepare the so-called bonus system instead of getting ready for the new school year.

school curriculum changes, forcing teachers to attend random capsule training courses by the beginning of the year, accumulating more duties, especially by female teachers. Recently, kindergarten female teachers teach English and math to four-year-old children. It is a change of attitude after the ministry cancelled all forms of assessment for kindergarten and primary pupils until last summer.

Other forms of torture is teachers having to supervise services like the school kitchen, maintenance and repairs in worn-out school buildings, guarding pupils before and after school hours.

They consider this element as an integral part of teachers’ annual performance evaluation at a time when the ministry has promised that the parliamentary educational committee will recruit special staff members to work as an assistant teacher.

Therefore, I’d like to tell minister Al-Mulaifi that such sudden individually-made decisions and imposing them at a time when new schools are being opened in view of teacher shortage, cause a great deal of confusion to both educators and the educational process in general. We should, instead, have a more comprehensive clear view and prepare the staff members.

I’d also like to remind about the ministry’s gift to students on this day. Despite his promises to substitute school bags with Flash Memory Sticks, lugging along these bags have recently found a place in world records.

It qualifies for being classified as ‘child weight-lifting.’ Therefore, we urge the health minister to get ready to receive more back injury cases! — Aljarida

kuwait digest

Give the youth a chance

By Dr Ahmad Al-Duaij

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e may soon witness the Parliament’s dissolution and the government’s resignation.

Parliamentary elections will follow these developments, after which HH the Amir will select an individual to form a new government. Perhaps, the Prime Minister HH Shekih Nasser Al-Mohammed will return to form a new government. Perhaps HH the Amir will select another sheikh for the task.

Either way, Kuwait requires major - not deep-rooted-change. Deep-rooted change will come when a commoner is asked to form a government.

If HH the Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser AlMohammed is asked to form a government, let us hope that he reshuffles the major ministerial posts currently occupied by the sheikhs. He may assign Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Hamad while he remains the first deputy PM. There is also no need for Sheikh Ahmad Al-Humoud to become minister of defense. Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak enjoys attributes that other sheikhs do not. Given the sheikh’s wealth of experience, it would be suited for him to assume control of the Ministry of Interior. He alone can weather the tsunami of sit-ins and protests that are bound to preoccupy Kuwait.

Eleven years ago, on Aug 16, 2000 I wrote a column entitled ‘Give the elderly a chance’ in Al-Rai AlAam newspaper. The title referred to my plea to give the elderly of the ruling family a hand in running the state’s affairs. It seems only proper to allow the older generation to lead, for when they progress in years and their hair grays, it will be fitting to in turn ask the youth of the ruling family to serve. The younger generation is highly educated and aware. They should be given the opportunity to actively contribute to the running of the state’s affairs. This is a matter of necessity, for Kuwaitis currently require this younger generation’s efforts.

Let us also hope that state officials understand that the coming stage requires ministers of new blood that the policy of using the aid of former ministers (non-sheikhs) proved a highly unsuccessful endeavor. — Al-Watan

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local Kuwait participates in GCC youth media forum contest DUBAI: Young Kuwaitis competing with their peers from other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) council are hoping to achieve positive results in the media productions contest being held on the sidelines of the first GCC Youth Media Forum.

Speaking just after the opening of the forum, which began on Tuesday, one Kuwaiti participant at the threeday event, Nouf Al-Ammari, said that she is proud to be a member of the judging panel and wishes to see the event succeed, as well as praising the UAE’s hospitality and the excellent organization of the event.

One Kuwaiti entrant, Ahmad AlKhdheri, who is competing in the short radio segments competition, said this is the first time he’s taken part in any contest at GCC level, voicing hope that his contribution would be well received.

Young director Abdulrahman AlKhlaifi, meanwhile, has submitted a film documenting the joint Kuwaiti celebrations earlier this year of the 50th anniversary of independence, the 30th anniversary of liberation and the fifth anniversar y of His Highness Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah’s investiture as the state’s 15th Amir.

The eight-minute film, which includes references to the period of

the Iraqi occupation in 1990, reflects the lives and activities of Kuwaiti students abroad and was shot in London, Al-Khlaifi explained.

Another Kuwaiti director participating in the event, Ahmad Hajji, said that the two films he has entered in the competition emphasize the importance of ethics and positive values headed by patriotism. Like Al-Khdheri, Hajji revealed that this is also the first time he’s taken part in a GCC-wide contest.

The Kuwaiti delegation is headed

by Public Authority for Youth and Spor ts (PAYS) director Abdullah Abdul Rasoul, with Saud Al-Mzaiel responsible for organizing the delegates’ activities during the trip.

The forum is held in cooperation with the GCC Secretariat, with a number of highly qualified and experienced media personnel taking part in the event, along with the aspiring talented young people competing in the film production competition’s categories.

The forum features five seminars, three workshops, and contests for youth media productions in the categories of design, short films, and short radio segments. The entries are to be judged by a six-member panel featuring an expert from each of the six GCC states. — KUNA

DUBAI: Members of the Kuwaiti Youth Media Forum.

Kuwait to host ‘Crush It’ social media seminar Al-Zanki, Zain Telco to sponsor

By Ben Garcia KUWAIT: Zain Telecom Company in collaboration with Al-Zanki Enterprises announced that a social media seminar entitled ‘Crush It’ will be organized. Famous speaker, author on social media Gary Vaynerchuck will deliver the keynote speech. The seminar will be held at the Salwa Sabah Hall in Salmiya on Oct 25 announced Waleed Al-Khasti, Zain Corporate Communications and Relations Department Manager. A press conference was held yesterday to announce the event at Zain’s Telecom headquarters, Shuwaikh.”We believe in the power of social media,” Al-Khasti said. “There is too much emphasis placed on the importance and potential of social media today. Hosting a seminar, a famous author is really a great idea,” Al-Khasti added.

According to Al-Khasti, Zain Telecom Company has been harnessing the power of social media since its inception, “We have over 70,000 followers in Facebook and Twitter and we are using the Blackberry as well. We have thousands of followers from social media and it is growing daily,” he said. “This is part of our social responsibility to support such remarkable endeavors for the greater benefit of many. Everyone can make use of tools within our reach but we only have to know how.

Sponsoring a social media author like Gary Vaynerchuck is really worth it, let’s hear what he is going to say straight from well-experienced and expert,” he quipped. Vaynerchuck will be sharing his insights and secrets on how to harness the power of the Internet and social media and help turn passion into real business opportunities.

‘Crush it’ is the title of a book authored by Vaynerchuck which was launched in October 2009. It became a huge hit, climbing to number one on the Amazon Best Seller list just a few weeks after it was released. It also opened at number two on the New York Times bestseller list and number seven on the Wall Street Journal Bestseller List. The book encourages people to determine what truly makes them happy and pursue monetizing it online. It argues that because of recent social and technological trends the cost of producing content has been driven low enough that passion, knowledge, and effort, which the book calls ‘sweat equity,’ are now all one needs to build a brand and business.

Al-Zanki Enterprises Founder/CEO Khalid Al-Zanki told attending press that Vaynerchuck is not only a famous author and

Rome honors kuwait FM ROME: The Chairman of the Italian-Kuwaiti Friendship Committee has affirmed significance of the planned granting of the eminent award of Florence city, the “Leone del Marzocco” statue, to Kuwait’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Dr Mohammad Sabah AlSalem Al-Sabah saying the gesture would depict the deep-rooted ties of friendship between Kuwait and Italy.

Vanni Pierandrea, in a statement yesterday, marking the grand celebration for granting the award to Sheikh Mohammad, said it would signal particular concern on Italy’s part toward the State of Kuwait.

Florence, 20 years ago, witnessed signing a twining accord with Kuwait when the Gulf countr y was targeted with an aggression by forces of the ousted Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein, thus this agreement was intended to tangibly demonstrate solidarity with Kuwait against the aggressors.

Moreover, Florence, by granting this prominent award to Sheikh Mohammad, intended to re-affirm its deep commitment of cooperation with Kuwait, particularly at the cultural, social and economic levels, Pierandrea said.

Eugenio Giani, the Chairman of the Municipality of Florence, is due to award the eminent statue to Sheikh Mohammad, who would be the first Arab official to be accorded such highesteem honoring in this European nation. The ceremony will be held at the old palace in the city. It would be attended by Pierandrea and the advisor of the Italian prime minister of the Gulf affairs, Antonio Capuano, along with a number of eminent figures and notables. — KUNA

speaker but also a very good example of being a real entrepreneur. “We specially invited Vaynerchuck because of his track record; he is not merely a speaker out of his knowledge based on theory but he’s the real example of a person, sharing his personal experience. He has more than 900,000 followers in Twitter and mind you, he’s responding to it and interacting with them personally. That is the kind of person Vaynerchuck is.” The seminar offers Kuwait’s entrepreneurs a rare

opportunity to listen and speak to one of the great commentators on social media, and to find out how social media can help business grow, “‘Crush it’ seminar paves the way for all entrepreneurs and business developers to understand how to maximize the efficiency of the internet as a vital component of marketing strategies. We are excited to host Gary Vaynerchuck in Kuwait,” he added. “I want people to use social media and utilize them in a proper way,” he added.

KUWAIT: Khalid Al-Zanki, Waleed Al-Khasti and Burgan Bank PR Manager Fahad Rashid Al-Reshaid at the press conference yesterday. — Photos by Yasser Al-Zayyat

KUWAIT: The media attending the event yesterday.

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Three-member gang abducts Arab couple in Hawally Fraudster thief caught in Salmiya

KUWAIT: Nora Al-Othman, Kifayah Al-Alban and Rawan Al-Wugayan

KUWAIT: Participants of the planning meeting

‘Together for a Better World for all’ KUWAIT: Training Gate International’s Founder and General Manager, Kifayah Rashid Al-Alban, sends the First Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Defense, and President of the Public Authority for People with Disabilities, Sheikh Jaber Mubarak AlHamad Al-Sabah sincere thanks and gratitude for sponsoring the Celebration of International Day of Persons with Disabilities which will be held on Dec 2 and 3, with the participation of all schools, government and private agencies, and volunteer groups working in the field of individuals with disabilities in Kuwait and the Gulf Countries.

On Sunday, Oct 2, Training Gate International held the first planning meeting in its offices in the Panasonic Tower, with all organizations who will be participating to commemorate the 2011 International Day for Persons with Disabilities. Present were representatives of all schools and organizations working in the disability field in Kuwait. As well, Training Gate International is coordinating this event with the Gulf Society for the Disabled Executive Office in Kuwait in order

to invite participation from the GCC countries. The theme of the International Day of Persons with Disabilities for 2011 is: “Together for a better world for all: including persons with disabilities in development.” The celebration will begin on Friday, Dec 2, with an Open Forum featuring international professionals in the field, individuals with disabilities, educational leaders, teachers, specialists and representatives from the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor, the Civil Service Commission, universities, parents, advocates and all those working in the field.

On Sat, Dec 3, the community-wide celebration and expo will be held at the Discovery Center with opening speeches, booths, activities and presentations by students in the various schools and organizations, and there will be a special surprise for the audience.

Al-Alban sends thanks to all participants in the celebration, and emphasizes to the community the importance of supporting this international event which will serve to raise the name of our beloved country, Kuwait.

KCCI hosts Kuwait’s fifth Transparency Forum KUWAIT: The Kuwaiti Chamber of Commerce and I ndustr y (KCCI) announced yesterday that it is to host its fifth Kuwait Transparency Forum, beginning on October 10, with this year’s event tak ing place under the theme of ‘Transparency in the Private Sector.’

In a statement issued to announce the upcoming event, the KCCI revealed that a number of leading local firms are taking part in the forum, including the Kuwait Projec ts Company (KIPCO), Wataniya Telecom, the Kuwait Small Projec ts Development Company, and the Investment Companies Union, as well as a wide variety of private sector bodies.

Salah Al-Ghazali, the board chairman of the Kuwait Transparency Society (KTS), the event’s main organizer, meanwhile, urged all those interested in local economy issues to attend the forum in order to benefit from the seminars and workshops

being held on the sidelines of the event.

The fifth forum will be focusing on an integrated set of objectives including corporate governance, curbing corruption, stressing corporate social responsibility and accountability, and international conventions and agreements related to the forum’s mission and agenda, he noted. Al-Ghazali explained that the main areas of focus during the forum will be civil society’s contribution to efforts aiming to boost private sector transparency, private sector experiences with transparency, and the role of government in the implementation of integrity and accountability laws.

Other issues under discussion will be international indices and agreements on private sector transparency and the role of the Public Prosecution Service and the legal system generally in combating corruption. — KUNA

ICRC launches new food distributions in Somalia

KUWAIT: Police are hunting for three men who abducted an expatriate Arab couple on Tuesday after forcing them from their vehicle in a Hawally street. Police rushed to the scene after a shocked passersby reported the incident. The passerby, a Kuwaiti woman, told officers that she had seen the three men force the couple, a man and woman, out of their car and push them into another vehicle before driving away. The woman added that although the street was quite crowded at the time nobody had intervened to stop the men abducting the couple. The engine of the victims’ car was still running when the police arrived, and they were able to identify the car owner through the registration documents. Detectives are trying to trace the vehicle used by the abductors through the license plate number which was provided by the witness.

In a separate incident, this time in Salmiya, an Arab expatriate man was caught shortly after abducting his Palestinian former fiancee from outside a mall in the area. On being questioned, the man told officers that he had forced the young woman into his car to demand the return of gifts he had given her during their engagement.

He is being held in custody pending further action.

Fatal accidents A 31-year-old Egyptian man was killed and a bedoon (stateless) man critically injured in a car crash on Jahra Road on Tuesday. The injured man was rushed to hospital whilst the dead man’s body was removed for autopsy. An investigation has been opened into the cause of the accident. Meanwhile, a 49-year-old Kuwaiti man was pronounced dead at the scene after being hit by a car

“Forecasts for the deyr rainy season are optimistic. Although the season accounts for only 30 percent of annual food production, if the harvest goes well it will help Somalis recover from the devastating effects of the drought, “ said Ottavio Sardu, an ICRC agronomist.

“Somali farmers know how to produce their own food - all we have to do is provide them with the means. Supporting sustainable livelihood projects is the best way to fight the food insecurity in Somalia.”

A severe drought that began in October 2010 has aggravated the already dire humanitarian situation in Somalia resulting from more than 20 years of armed conflict. Food insecurity has been severe for months. In addition to the distributions, the ICRC provides support for 39 clinics, 27 outpatient therapeutic feeding centers and 12 mobile health clinics in southern and central Somalia, all of which are run by the Somali Red Crescent Society. More than 10,000 children are currently receiving treatment in the ICRC-supported facilities. — KUNA

Two rapes Police are hunting for a Kuwaiti man accused of abducting and raping his 21-year-old girlfriend, who is also Kuwaiti. The woman told officers at Jahra police station that the man had invited her to an apartment in Jabriya on the pretext of meeting his elderly mother there. When they arrived, however, the young woman discovered that he had been lying in order to get her alone so he could sexually assault her.

In a separate case, a young Kuwaiti man has denied allegations by a 21-year-old female compatriot that he raped her after plying her with alcohol at a deserted jakhour (livestock farm). The accused insisted that the woman had willingly spent the night at the farm with him, drinking alcohol and talking, but denied the rape accusation. The investigation is continuing.

Thief in custody Police have arrested a Kuwaiti man who posed as a detective to carry out a string of muggings in Salmiya. A team of detectives was assigned to investigate the case after several Asian residents reported that they had been stopped by

the man, who told them he was a police officer before demanding their wallets and mobile phones.

The thief was caught red-handed while carrying out his latest theft, admitting when questioned that he was responsible for the previous attacks. An investigation revealed that the man had a lengthy criminal record, including drug-related convictions. He was referred to the relevant authorities for further action.

Security crackdown Sixty expatriates were arrested during a security crackdown on illegal residents and others reported absent by their sponsors in Farwaniya and Khatain. During the five-hour operation, 33 residency violators and 27 individuals reported as being absentees were arrested. All were referred to the relevant authorities and face deportation.

Security breach Four workers at Ahmadi Port have been referred to the state security service for questioning after hi-tech cameras and GPS devices were found installed in their cars. State security officers monitoring the port noticed that an official there and three employees working in his office had installed cameras and GPS devices inside their vehicles, which is considered to be a security risk at the vital and sensitive site.

Friends fight A Ministry of Defense (MoD) ser viceman was arrested after assaulting an erstwhile friend, a police officer, in a dispute over a damaged car side mirror. After receiving a report of a fight in a Khaitan Street, police rushed to the scene to find the two men brawling. After inter vening to break up the fight, officers discovered that the serviceman, who was heavily intoxicated, had got into an argument with his erstwhile friend concerning a cell phone he had bought from him, smashing one of his car ’s side mirrors in revenge, which prompted the fist fight. The obstreperous serviceman was taken into custody to sober up and an investigation is underway into the incident.

Domestic assault A mentally ill Kuwaiti man was detained after physically assaulting both his wife and a police officer who attempted to restrain him.

Police immediately rushed to the scene after receiving reports of a domestic assault in the couple’s home in Ali Sabah Al-Salem, finding the man brutally beating his wife.

The man then turned on one of the officers who intervened to stop the assault and was restrained and put into a police vehicle, whilst his wife was taken to hospital. Shortly afterwards, another man, the attacker’s brother, arrived at the couple’s home with documents proving that his sibling suffers from schizophrenia. The assailant was taken to the psychiatric hospital where he is receiving treatment.

Assault allegation A Kuwaiti woman has brought charges against a female resident at a social care facility where she works. In her statement to officers at Shuwaikh police station, the complainant alleged that the woman had, for no reason, begun showering her with invective every time she came to work before eventually physically assaulting her, again for unknown reasons.

An investigation is underway.

— Al-Rai, Al-Qabas, Al-Anba, AlWatan

Kuwait opens more relief projects in Gaza GAZA: A delegation from AlRahma Charity for Relief and Development — a Kuwait-based non-government fund-raising agency and affiliate of the Social Reform Society — concluded a four-day visit to Gaza Strip on Tuesday with opening new relief projects in the Palestinian territory. The delegation, led by head of the Palestine office of the organization Dr Walid Al-Anjari, inspected a number of relief projects being financed by the charity in Khan Younis city, south Gaza Strip, Kuwait Hospital in Rafah city and a number of mosques under rehabilitation.

The delegation also visited several Palestinian houses, which were rehabilitated after being

totally or partially destroyed by the Israeli offensive on Gaza Strip more than two years ago, and visited several families of Palestinian martyrs and prisoners in Israeli jails.

The charity had set aside more than USD ten million to the rehabilitation process of the enclave.The delegation inaugurated a number of projects such as the central laboratory of the Islamic University in Gaza City, and water well in Sheikh Ejlain district, to the south of the city.

They also inspected the implementation of a project to distribute relief assistances to Palestinian families in the northern part of the Strip.

Speaking to reporters ahead

of leaving for home, Al-Anjari affirmed that Kuwait will continue offering assistance to the Palestinian people particularly those living in the besieged Gaza.

“During our tour in the Strip we saw the extent of the suffering of the families of the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails who started a hunger strike more than a week ago.,” he said.

“Their suffering was doubled by the destructive Israeli war on Gaza and the stifling embargo being imposed by the Israeli occupation authorities on the territory,” Al-Anjari added, voicing grave concern over the deteriorating humanitarian situation here.

On his part, Al-Rahma’s executive Dr. Ahmad Sharaf hailed the visit of the Kuwaiti delegation as indicative of the increasing international solidarity with the Palestinians.

Dr. Sharaf expressed gratitude to His Highness the Kuwaiti Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah and the Kuwaiti government and people for their “limitless suppor t to the Palestinian people.”

Six members of the delegation had been among the human rights activists aboard the Turkish MV Mavi Marmara vissel which led the Freedom Flotilla before being attacked by the Israeli Navy off Gaza on May 31, 2010. —KUNA

KUWAIT: Municipality officials destroy the expired food items after confiscating it from the food stores.

—Photos by Hanan Al-Saadoun

Municipality bolstering inspections

By Hanan Al-Saadoun

GENEVA: The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has started to distribute food with the aim of assisting some 1.1 million drought-and war-affected people across the hardest-hit areas of southern and central Somalia, it was announced here yesterday.

The first round of distributions, currently taking place in the Gedo region, is providing 72,000 people with enough beans, oil and rice to cover their needs for one month. Several more rounds are planned to take place until December.

While food distributions are needed to relieve immediate suffering, the ICRC also aims over the medium term to give the population the means to sustain their own livelihoods. It is therefore providing seeds and fertilizers for 240,000 farmers ahead of the planting season.

Maize, sorghum, cowpea and sesame should be ready to be harvested by the beginning of 2012. This ongoing operation is being conducted by the ICRC with the support of volunteers from the Somali Red Crescent Society.

on Mesilla Street. Although paramedics were quickly at the accident location, the man was pronounced dead at the scene. The driver of the vehicle was taken into police custody, whilst the dead man’s body was removed for autopsy.

Paramedics and police rushed to the place of the accident after the Kuwaiti driver who hit the victim reported the incident. The 49-yearold victim’s body was referred to the forensic department after he was pronounced dead. The driver was taken into custody to face legal action.

KUWAIT: Kuwait Municipality stressed it is tightening inspections at all land, sea, and air ports to avoid entry of spoilt food items that would threaten the health of consumers, with all items subjected to lab tests and violators being handed fines and all related laws implemented in full.

Municipality Director General Ahmad Al-Subih said yesterday inspection rounds are around the clock, in all governorates, with no exemptions, and all confiscated items are destroyed with fitting legal action taken against those responsible.

Al-Subih praised the efforts of field teams who are the public’s line of defense.

Mubarak Al-Kabir Governorate Municipality Director Shereedah Al-Mtairi said surprise inspections are conducted at foodstuff facto-

ries, individual shops, and restaurants. Among the latest busts was quantities of food items in a factory in Sabhan with expiry dates of 2008 and 2009, and some expired in April. The items were

destroyed at a landfill and a legal notice was issued against the violating establishment, he added.

Mubarak Al-Kabir Emergency Team Chairman Abdullah AlLmei’ remarked that inspections

have dual focus; inspectors check expiry date of all food items used and sold at the concerned establishments, and then the actual handling and processing of the foodstuff at the establishments and whether it fits health requirements is also ascertained. There is also checking of whether all employees have clean bills of health while employed in this industry.

The inspectors have revealed an appalling degree of neglect and slack at some factories with no care for possible health risks to consumers, the official pointed out. The official stressed that while consumers must check expiry and consumption dates for all purchases, it is also their shared responsibility to report any fraud or violation to the nearest municipal branch so that appropriate action be taken and penalties issued.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2011

A Seattle homecoming for Knox after 4-year ordeal

Karzai reassures Pakistan over India alliance

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Syria hails ‘historic’ Russia, China vetoes Vetoes were a ‘vote against the Arab Spring’ Two dead in US quarry shooting LOS ANGELES: A disgruntled employee killed two people at a California quarry and injured seven in two separate shootings yesterday, triggering a police manhunt and alerts at nearby schools, a spokesman said.

Six people were injured, including two seriously in the initial incident at the Hanson

NEW YORK: In this image released by the UN October 4, 2011 shows UN Security Council members vote on a resolution calling for an immediate halt to the crackdown in Syria against opponents of the government of President Bashar Al-Assad, at the United Nations headquarters in New York. —AFP DAMASCUS: A senior aide to Syria’s embattled President Bashar al-Assad yesterday hailed “historic” Russian and Chinese vetoes of a UN resolution against his regime’s deadly crackdown on protests. But Syria’s newly united opposition said that by voting against the European-proposed resolution at the UN Security Council, Russia and China risked provoking opponents of Assad’s regime to resort to violence.

The double veto was both condemned and lamented in Western capitals, with the United States saying it was “outraged” and France bemoaning it as a “sad day” for Syria’s people and the Security Council.

“This is a historical day that Russia and China as nations are standing for the people and against injustices,” the presidential adviser, Bouthaina Shaaban, told AFP in Damascus. “I think that all the Syrians are happy that now there are other powers in the world to stand against hegemony, against military interference in the affairs of countries and people.

“I feel that the veto that Russia and China have used... is a veto that stands with the Syrian people and gives the time for us to enforce and enhance reforms,” she added. Nine countries voted late Tuesday in favour of the draft resolution which had called for “targeted measures” if Assad pursues his clampdown, which the UN says has left at least 2,700 people dead.

Russia and China voted against, killing the resolution because of their veto powers as council permanent members. South Africa, India, Brazil and Lebanon abstained, reaffirming a divide in the 15-member body since NATO launched air strikes in Libya using UN resolutions to justify the action.

In Paris, the opposition Syrian National Council formed in Istanbul on Sunday, uniting groups across the political spectrum, warned the Russians “are truly encouraging violence.” “Supporting Bashar al-Assad in his militarist and fascist project will not encourage the Syrian people to

stick to a peaceful revolution,” SNC president Burhan Ghalioun told AFP. “To avoid the slide towards violence, the international community needs to act differently and realise what are the risks and the dangers of this moment in history,” said Ghalioun.

“I think the international community has not yet lived up to its responsibilities,” the Paris-based academic said.

The resolution was drawn up by Britain, France, Germany and Portugal.

British Foreign Secretar y William Hague said: “Those who blocked it (the resolution) will have this action on their conscience.”

France’s UN envoy Gerard Araud said the vetoes were a “vote against the Arab Spring.” And French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said the move marked a “sad day for the Syrian people” and for the council itself, while vowing to keep supporting the “Syrian democrats’ struggle for freedom.”

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said despite the failure of the resolution, his government would press ahead with its own sanctions against Assad’s regime. “(The veto) does not constitute an obstacle,” Erdogan said, adding that along with European nations, Turkey will “inevitably impose right now a package of sanctions.”

In New York, Russia’s UN envoy Vitaly Churkin said the draft resolution was “based on a philosophy of confrontation,” and that the threat of action was “unacceptable.” Many opponents raised the air strikes in Libya and fears of more in Syria to justify their votes. China said it exercised its veto because the resolution would have “blindly” pressured the Arab nation and not helped.

“Some countries submitted a draft resolution to blindly impose pressure and even threatened sanctions against Syria. This would not help to ease the situation,” said foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu. US ambassador Susan Rice labelled the comments a “cheap ruse by those who

would rather sell arms to the Syrian regime than stand with the Syrian people.”

Rice called on the council to impose “tough, targeted sanctions” and an arms embargo against Syria.

“The United States is outraged that this council has utterly failed to address an urgent moral challenge and a growing threat to regional peace and security,” she said. But the foreign ministry in Moscow, which had proposed an alternative resolution also condemning all violence, said it would receive a delegation from Syria’s opposition later this month.

“In October we intend to receive in Moscow two Syrian opposition delegations-one from the domestic wing of the opposition based in Damascus, and the second from those who declared the so-called national council in Istanbul,” said ministr y spokesman Alexander Lukashevich.

European nations have vowed that the Russian resolution will not come to a vote. Western governments and human rights watchdogs have expressed mounting criticism of the council’s failure to adopt any resolution on Syria, which has since midMarch been shaken by an unprecedented protest movement Assad has sought to crush using deadly force.

Amnesty International described the Chinese and Russian vetoes as a “shocking betrayal”. “It is shocking that after more than six months of horrific bloodshed on the streets and in the detention centres of Syria, the governments of both Russia and China still felt able to veto what was already a seriously watered down resolution,” it said.

In violence on Tuesday, at least 11 people were shot dead by security forces, including six in central Homs province and two in the northwest, said the Syrian Obser vator y for Human Rights. The other three were killed in various protest centres across the country, the Britain-based group said. —AFP

Permanente quarry in Cupertino, south of San Francisco, said Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Jose Cardoza.

A short time later the suspect shot a woman in the leg at a parking lot nearby after an attempted carjacking, before fleeing on foot in Sunnyvale, near the head-

quarters of computer giant Hewlett Packard, he said.

“He is armed, he is dangerous, so we are urging the public to be very cautious,” Santa Clara County Sheriff ’s Office spokesman Jose Cardoza told AFP, in a mid-morning update. —AFP

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US veterans say Iraq, Afghan wars not worth it WASHINGTON: A third of US military veterans who have served in the armed forces since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks think the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were not worth fighting, a poll released yesterdayday showed.

The poll by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center found that these veterans held somewhat more positive views of those two wars that the general public in the United States but still harbored deep misgivings about the conflicts.

Thirty-three percent of the post-9/11 veterans who took part in the poll said

neither of those two wars was worthwhile considering the costs versus the benefits to the United States. That compared to 45 percent of nonmilitary poll respondents who said neither war was worthwhile.

US forces were sent into Afghanistan in the weeks after the 2001 attacks on the United States to topple that country’s Taliban leaders who had harbored the al Qaeda leaders responsible for 9/11.

The United States led an invasion of Iraq in 2003, toppled Saddam Hussein’s

government, but then faced a protracted insurgency. The main justification for the war offered by the United States before the invasion was the threat posed by Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. No such weapons were found.

More than 4,400 US troops have been killed in Iraq and almost 1,700 killed in Afghanistan, Pentagon figures show. Looking at each war individually, 50 percent of the post-9/11 veterans said the war in Afghanistan has been worth fighting and 44 percent said the

same thing about the Iraq war, according to the Pew Research Center.

In comparison, 41 percent of the US public found the Afghanistan war worth the costs and 36 percent believed the Iraq war was worthwhile. Among the post-9/11 veterans, 34 percent held the view that both of the wars were worthwhile, compared to 28 percent of the general public, according to the Pew Research Center.

The poll found that 96 percent of these veterans expressed pride in their military service. But 44 percent reported

difficulties in readjusting to civilian life and 37 percent reported suffering from post-traumatic stress related to their service.

The findings were based on two nationwide surveys conducted between July 28 and Sept. 15, one involving military veterans and the other involving the general public, Pew Research Center said. It said 1,853 veterans were surveyed, including 712 who served in the military after the 2001 attacks. The general public survey involved 2,003 US adults. — Reuters

Libyan government forces push into centre of Sirte Battle for city entering its final hours

JERUSALEM: An ultra-Orthodox Jewish man swings a chicken, later to be slaughtered as part of the Kaparot ritual, in which it is believed that one transfers one’s sins from the past year into the chicken, in Jerusalem’s religious Mea Shearim neighborhood, yesterday. — AP

Iraqi leaders want US trainers, reject immunity BAGHDAD: Iraqi leaders have said they need US military trainers to stay beyond a year-end deadline for American forces to leave but that the troops should not be granted immunity from prosecution. The late Tuesday evening announcement was significant in that the Iraqi leaders were clear on the need for further help.

But it raised questions about the feasibility of ironing out an agreement when the immunity of American troops remains such a contentious issue.

“The head of the political blocs met today ... to discuss the training of Iraqi forces with the help of the American side,” said Deputy Prime Minister Roz Nouri Shawez in a statement after the meeting held at the home of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. “The leaders agreed on the need to train the Iraqi forces and to complete equipping the force as soon as possible,” he said, flanked by some of the main Iraqi political leaders.

But Shawez said the blocs did not want to give troops immunity, as has been demanded by the US “The heads of blocs agreed on the necessity of not granting the immunity,” he said, adding that the training should occur only on Iraqi bases.

Immunity from prosecution is a key issue for the Pentagon, which would not risk American forces ending up in an Iraqi court.

Last August, the then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, said the US would only consider an immunity deal if it were passed by the Iraqi parliament. But for Iraqis who are trying to regain their sovereignty, the immunity issue is equally contentious.

The political coalition loyal to antiAmerican cleric Muqtada al-Sadr objected to any American presence. “From the first meeting as a Sadrist Trend we showed our absolute rejection to keeping of the forces whether it is as trainers or others, whether it is with immunity or without immunity, and this rejection is fixed forever,” said Sadrist Bahaa al-Araji.

A US Embassy official speaking on condi-

tion of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation said the embassy was “reviewing the statement.” The official said the embassy would “talk with leaders on what this means specifically.” Iraqi political leaders have been wrestling for months with whether to ask some American forces to stay past their Dec. 31 departure date. There are currently about 43,500 American troops in the country. Under a 2008 security agreement, all are required to leave by the end of this year.

Privately, Iraqi and American leaders acknowledge that Iraqis still need help with certain tasks such as defending their borders and airspace. But publicly, most Iraqi leaders except for the Kurds have tried to distance themselves from any request for American help since it is an unpopular stand in a country that has gone through nearly nine years of warfare. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who attended the meeting, has been adamant that he would only support having an American military presence in the country into next year if he had the support of a wide swath of the Iraqi political community, indicating the risk to his standing should he try to pursue the issue alone.

Iraqi leaders announced back in August that they were opening talks with the United States on having some sort of training presence in the country past this year. But there has been little traction since then as the US military continues to draw down its forces.

Shawez did not mention in his statement how many trainers might be needed, for how long they would stay or what they would do.

Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the number of trainers would be decided according to Iraqi needs.

The Obama administration is considering 3,000 to 5,000 troops for an Iraqi training mission, according to officials in Washington familiar with the discussions. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information. — AP

TAIZ: Yemenis gather outside of sewing shop damaged during recent clashes between armed tribesmen and security forces in Taiz, Yemen, yesterday. A Yemeni activist and a medical official say that shelling by government forces fighting armed tribesmen has killed eight people and wounded more than 150 in the past 24 hours in the southern city of Taiz. — AP

Attacks kill six in Yemen ADEN: Rival attacks by suspected Al-Qaeda militants and pro-government militiamen east of the Yemen’s main southern city Aden yesterday killed six people, tribal sources said. “Militiamen supporting the army attacked a public building in (the Abyan provincial capital) Zinjibar killing four Al-Qaeda militants, including a Pakistani doctor,” one tribal source said.

Two of the attackers were wounded, he added. In a separate incident, a bomb planted by suspected Al-Qaeda militants exploded near a checkpoint in the nearby town of Loder set up by a local committee formed to assist the government in its bat-

tle against the Islamists, another tribal source said.

Two of the committee members were killed and nine wounded, the source said.

Al-Qaeda’s Yemen branch has taken advantage of the weakening of central authority by nearly nine months of deadly protests against veteran President Ali Abdullah Saleh to bolster its presence in several southern provinces. Hundreds of militants from the Al-Qaeda linked Partisans of Sharia (Islamic law) group overran Zinjibar in May, and the city and adjacent towns have since been the scene of bitter fighting with the army. — AFP

SIRTE: Libyan government forces fought their way, street by street, into the centre of Muammar Gaddafi’s birthplace of Sirte yesterday after their commanders said the battle for the city was entering its final hours. Taking Sirte would be of huge symbolic importance to Libya’s new rulers because it would dispense with the biggest pocket of pro-Gaddafi resistance, and allow the interim government to switch its focus to preparing democratic elections.

The battle for the city has come at a high cost for civilians. They have been trapped by the fighting with dwindling supplies of food and water and no proper medical facilities to threat the wounded.

Yesterday, the heavy artillery and rocket fire from Gaddafi loyalists that had been keeping fighters with the National Transitional Council pinned down on the outskirts of the city subsided, allowing the NTC forces to move in.

“More than half the city is under the control of the (anti-Gaddafi) rebels,” said Adel Al-Hasi, a local NTC commander. “In two days, God willing, Sirte will be free.” A Reuters reporter near the centre of Sirte said she could hear the occasional thump of mortars landing near NTC positions, but that pro-Gaddafi forces had now resorted to using small arms as they switched to close-quarter fighting.

The NTC advance took them towards Sirte’s government quarter, a grid of expensively built hotels, villas and conference centres where Gaddafi used to host foreign leaders. One group of anti-Gaddafi fighters positioned themselves in a luxury hotel on the Mediterranean coast, using it as cover to fire on loyalists in a residential area about 300 metres (yards) away.

Built for Gaddafi and his guests, according to rebels posted there, the brand new hotel had jacuzzis, flat-screen televisions and mahogany furniture in the rooms. The building though was now riddled with holes from bullets and rocket-propelled grenades. Smashed glass lay on the floor and there were bloodstains on the stairs.

“We didn’t yet take the centre of Sirte yet,” said another NTC commander in the city, Colonel Ahmed Al-Obeidi. “There are still clashes in the streets. They have a few mortars, not a lot ... They still have snipers.”

International aid agencies have warned of a humanitarian catastrophe unfolding inside Sirte.

They say people are dying from wounds in the hospital because they cannot be treated properly, while residents are falling ill from malnutrition and drinking tainted water. Robert Lanknau, an aid worker with the International Medical Corps, said he was working at a field hospital near Sirte that was each day treating up to 100 civilians who were fleeing from the bombardment.

“A lot of them seem to be shell-shocked,” he said.

“The women especially. Down the road, mental health is going to be the biggest lingering health issue.”

Some people in Sirte have directed their anger at NATO, saying the alliance’s warplanes were striking residential areas of the city. A NATO spokesman said its aircraft had not carried out strikes on Sirte since the weekend and were sticking to their mandate to protect civilians.

“The situation is very difficult and potentially confusing for the civilian people in Sirte at the moment,” the spokesman, Roland Lavoie, said in a statement.

“NATO aircraft overhead, while not striking during the close fighting in the city, are continuously conducting surveillance and reconnaissance missions to monitor the situation,” said Lavoie.

On the Western edge of Sirte, a delegation from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was waiting for a break in the fighting, and agreement from the two sides, to send in a convoy of two

There was no evidence of the Gaddafi loyalists responding with their own heavy weapons. That may be the result of days of bombardment of loyalist positions by NTC artillery batteries, and earlier strikes

by NATO aircraft. There was no sign either of civilian vehicles leaving, in contrast to previous days when hundreds of families have driven out of the city to seek refuge elsewhere.

The NTC-anxious not to be seen using the same violent tactics that Gaddafi employed against rebel strongholds earlier in the conflict-says it delayed its final push into Sirte until all the civilians who wanted to leave were out. But residents of the city voiced anger and resentment at the anti-Gaddafi forces, saying they have shelled indiscriminately.

Many people in Sirte are members of Gaddafi’s tribe and still support him, testing the commitment

SIRTE: Libyan revolutionary fighters load munitions to be fired during an attack for the city of Sirte, Libya, yesterday. Rebels use tanks and heavy artillery towards loyalist positions inside the home town of Libya’s ousted leader Muammar Gaddafi. — AP trucks with supplies. “We are concerned about the civilian population. Our priority concern is care of the wounded and sick. We want to make sure they have proper care,” said ICRC official Hishem Khadrawy.

“We are trying again to do another operation for relief. We have had dialogue with all parties in the conflict and they assure us of their support,” he said.

On a ridge near the spot where the Red Cross convoy was waiting, two NTC tanks were lined up and firing shells into the city. Each shot sent up a cloud of dust and shook the small trees nearby. Off in the distance, columns of smoke rose up from where the shells hit.

by Libya’s new rulers to seek reconciliation with all sections of Libyan society, including those that backed Gaddafi. “Let them look for Muammar, but do not kill 50,000 people to change the regime,” said a resident who gave his name as al-Fatouri. “It is not worth it that thousands die in Sirte for Muammar. This is what saddens us.”

Another resident, who did not give his name, demanded: “What did America and NATO bring to us? Did they bring apricots? No, they brought us the shelling and the strikes. They terrorised our kids.” —Reuters

Three Egyptian columnists protest military censorship CAIRO: Three Egyptian columnists withheld their regular commentaries in an independent daily yesterday to protest what they said was censorship by the country’s military rulers. The three columnists - Belal Fadl, Omer Taher and Nagla Bedir - left their columns blank, publishing only a few words explaining their decision.

“I withhold my writing today to protest the barring, impounding of newspapers and the presence there of military censorship,” the three wrote in place of their columns. The protest by the three coincides with growing criticism of the military’s handling of Egypt during its transition period following the February ouster of President Hosni Mubarak and dissatisfaction over a timetable floated by the ruling generals for handing over power to a civilian government.

The timetable has proposed presidential elections for the end of 2012, meaning the generals would be in power for nearly two years before they step down, rather than the six months they had initially set as a deadline when they took over from Mubarak following an 18-day uprising. The three writers publish their daily columns in the independent Al-Tahrir, a post-Mubarak publication edited

by Ibrahim Eissa, who has long been one of Mubarak’s most vocal critics. Eissa, like the three columnists, has been critical of some of the military’s policies. The newspaper is named after the central Cairo plaza that saw the birth of the anti-Mubarak uprising.

Authorities last week stopped the publication in an independent weekly newspaper of an article critical of Egypt’s intelligence service, which is traditionally led by a military officer. The newspaper’s editor, Abdel-Halim Qandil, said officers of the intelligence service stopped the printing of the newspaper after the presses had begun running. Qandil said he replaced the offending article, but only after intelligence officers oversaw the destruction of some 100,000 copies.

The article was critical of the leadership of Mubarak’s intelligence service under Omar Suleiman, a close confidant of the ousted president who was named vice president shortly before Mubarak stepped down on Feb. 11.

Suleiman is a career army officer. Also last week, two other publications were subjected to censorship. One was ordered not to publish the second part of an investigative report claiming that Mubarak had instructed authorities to drop a case against an alleged Israeli spy. —AP

GAZA STRIP: Palestinians shout slogans during a protest calling for the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails, yesterday near the Erez crossing with Israel in the northern Gaza Strip. — AFP

Israel dismisses deputy envoy to US over media leak JERUSALEM: Israel has dismissed its deputy ambassador in Washington over a leak to the media about secret discussions involving the United States, diplomatic sources said yesterday. They said the removal of Dan Arbell, formerly the deputy director for North American affairs at Israel’s Foreign Ministry, was announced in an internal memorandum to diplomats on Tuesday following an investigation.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Ilana Stein said: “A senior official is being returned after his tenure was brought to an end”. She described the move as unusual, but declined to elaborate on the circumstances or the identity of the official.

Israel’s bedrock alliance with the United States has been bolstered by common

worries about Iran, but cracks have appeared as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Barack Obama disagreed on how to pursue IsraeliPalestinian peace.

Israeli media published closed-door comments last year by Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador to Washington, describing “a crisis of historic proportions” in bilateral ties after the Obama administration censured Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank. Netanyahu has described such reports as overblown, noting Obama’s public support for Israel’s military build-up and, last month, its diplomatic campaign against a Palestinian bid to sidestep stalled peacemaking by appealing for UN membership. — Reuters

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US tests plan to speed up airport security checks MIAMI: Frequent flyers in the United States who undergo prior government background checks are being allowed through airport security screening faster under an initiative being developed by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). The PreCheck program, whose goal is to speed up the airport security process, is being tested in Miami, Dallas, Detroit and Atlanta for the moment, but could be expanded to other cities if successful, TSA officials said.

Fewer than 10,000 travelers are now participating in the program, which allows selected frequent flyers boarding

American Airlines and Delta Air Lines flights to use express security lanes-and avoid the hassle of having to remove coats and shoes when they pass through detectors and screening devices.

The participating passengers, who must be US citizens, have undergone prior background security checks. “It’s a faster process” said TSA’s Federal Security Director Mark Hatfield. “Your laptop can remain in your bag, your see-through liquids bag can stay as well. You don’t have to do all the break down and separation,” he said. The PreCheck program reflects efforts by the TSA to address passengers’ frustra-

tion included travel history and dates of birth, but TSA officials declined to spell out all of the qualifying details for security reasons. They said however that the scheme would extend to other airlines and other cities if the logistics were successful and if enough passengers agreed to go through background checks. “When this program is fully up and running and populated we could expect throughput at the PreCheck lane ... to exceed throughput at other lanes,” Hatfield said.

Travel industry representatives welcomed the initiative. “We are encouraged to see (TSA) Administrator (John) Pistole

tion at, and criticism of, stringent airport security checks. Other initiatives include a proposal to spare small children from patdowns. TSA officials said that background checks would help focus agency resources on high risk individuals, while making it easier for low risk travelers to board their flights, because sufficient data about them would already be on file.

Participants in the first phase of the PreCheck program, were invited to join the program by Delta and American Airlines after the companies had determined they were frequent travelers who fit a series of characteristics. The criteria and informa-

moving away from one-size-fits-all screening procedures toward a risk-based approach” said Roger Dow, president and CEO of the US Travel Association.

At Miami airport, some passengers said they would be willing to submit to prior background checks to be able to get through airport security quicker. “I think it will be awesome for anyone who travels frequently,” said Delys Llerandi, an airline employee who said she takes domestic flights about once a week.

“As long as it’s for the safety of the passengers I’m willing to do whatever it takes” she said. — Reuters

A Seattle homecoming for Knox after 4-year ordeal Emotional pressure eases as Knox gains freedom

BRUSSELS: United States Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, center, speaks with Italian Defense Minister Ignazio La Russa, left, during a round table meeting of NATO defense ministers at NATO headquarters in Brussels yesterday. — AP

US military can’t make up NATO shortfalls BRUSSELS: Facing deep budget cuts, the US will no longer be able to make up for the significant shortfalls that have plagued NATO’s operations in Libya and Afghanistan, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned yesterday, exhorting allies to work together or risk losing the ability to take on such missions.

In a carefully calibrated speech just before the opening of a NATO defense ministers’ meeting, Panetta praised the broad effort that has come together in Libya. But he said the allies must better share the security burden in order to survive global financial pressures that are slicing into defense spending.

Just three months into the job, Panetta stopped short of the blistering critique delivered by his predecessor, Robert Gates, in June, when Gates questioned the alliance’s viability and bluntly warned that it faces a “dim, if not dismal, future.”

But Panetta echoed many of the same frustrations. “There are legitimate questions about whether, if present trends continue, NATO will again be able to sustain the kind of operations that we have seen in Libya and Afghanistan without the United States taking on even more of the burden,” Panetta told the Brussels-based organization Carnegie Europe. “It would be a tragic outcome if the alliance shed the very capabilities that allowed it to successfully conduct these operations.”

With the Pentagon facing $450 billion (Euro 337 billion) in budget cuts over the next 10 years, allies can’t assume that the US will be able to continue covering NATO’s shortcomings, Panetta said. And with other countries facing similar pressures, he said the nations must coordinate cuts and pool their capabilities in order to continue.

“We cannot afford for countries to make decisions about force structure and force reductions in a vacuum, leaving neighbors and allies in the dark,” Panetta said.

America’s alliance with Europe emerged out of necessity in the Cold War era, but it has lost support and many, particularly in the United States, question its purpose.

But while Western nations are no longer faced with the threat of a Soviet invasion, escalating terrorist threats, possible cyberwarfare and rising nuclear worries about Iran have elevated fears and propelled the alliance into new and changing conflicts.

A political awakening rippling across the Middle East has touched off uprisings, including the one in Libya. And while the

US took a larger role early on in the conflict to protect Libyan citizens, over time others stepped in.

Now, with ousted Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi in hiding and the opposition forces banging at the door of one of his strongholds, NATO can finally point to fragile progress in the 6-month -old mission. France and Britain have now flown a third of the overall sorties and attacked 40 percent of the targets, Panetta said. Smaller nations, such as Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Romania and Bulgaria, have contributed airstrikes and ships for the arms embargo.

The battle, however, has reinforced the need to involve non-NATO allies to spread the burden. To face the growing threats, Panetta said, NATO must address some of the problems that have dogged the Libya and Afghanistan military campaigns. In Libya, he said, there has been a big shortage of intelligence and surveillance capabilities, including drones and experts who can interpret data and translate it into targeting lists.

The US has had to shift drones from other critical regions in order to meet the needs of the Libya mission. In addition, Panetta pointed to shortages of ammunition and supplies as well as refueling tankers - all gaps the US had to fill.

And he repeated well-worn complaints that allies have failed to provide needed trainers and money to the war in Afghanistan. While the war is being run under NATO’s flag, the US has carried the bulk of the load - deploying nearly 100,000 troops there during the difficult years of the surge in order to stamp down Taliban violence. The allies, meanwhile, have struggled to maintain a force of about 40,000.

“We are at a critical moment for our defense partnership,” Panetta warned, stressing the need for other nations to share the burden. “While these warnings have been acknowledged, growing fiscal pressures on both sides of the Atlantic, I fear, have eroded the political will to do something about them.”

Looking ahead to the planned NATO summit in Chicago in May, Panetta said the allies must pool their resources and hammer out multinational solutions to face the next generation of threats. “I am convinced that we do not have to choose between fiscal security and national security,” he said. “But achieving that goal will test the very future of leadership throughout NATO.” — AP

BERLIN: Andreas Baum (L), Marina Weisband (C) and party chairman Sebastian Nerz (R) of Germany’s Piratenpartei (Pirate Party) pose during a press conference yesterday in Berlin. The Pirate Party spectacularly won its first seats in a German state parliament during regional elections in Berlin which took place on September 18, 2011. The party clinched around nine percent of the vote. — AFP

SEATTLE: Amanda Knox was expected to lay low following her return home yesterday after being acquitted of murder and sexual assault in Italy, as speculation mounted about possible book and film deals. Fighting back tears, the 24year-old US student thanked her supporters on Tuesday and said it felt unreal to be back in her hometown of Seattle after a four-year ordeal behind bars.

“I’m really overwhelmed right now. I was looking down from the airplane and it seemed like everything wasn’t real,” Knox said as she addressed supporters and media at Seattle airport shortly after her plane landed. “What’s important for me to say is just thank you to everyone who’s believed in me, who’s defended me, who has supported my family,” she said in her first public comments since being freed, brushing away tears. “My family’s the most important thing to me right now. I just want to go be with them. So thank you for being there for me.” Her parents, Kurt Knox and Etta Mellas, also offered their thanks, as they accompanied their daughter off the plane and back home.

Lawyer Theodore Simon said Knox had been through “a trying and grueling four-year nightmarish marathon that no child or parent should have to endure.” The family has said little about her immediate plans, but reports suggest she will try to lie low in Seattle and take time to readjust to normal life, despite the huge media interest here.

Experts say she could earn millions of dollars in book, TV or film rights for the story of her ordeal. “Amanda Knox is going to be big, because she is so young and she’s so all-American looking, and we go by how things look,” said Charlotte Gusay, a Los Angeles literary agent.

Knox left Rome swiftly after the decision was handed down by an Italian court, first heading for London to board a connecting flight to Seattle on the US west coast.

She had been convicted along with two others and sentenced to 26 years in prison over the murder and sexual assault of her British housemate Meredith Kercher, then 21, who was found stabbed to death in the cottage they shared.

Knox’s ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, who also had appealed his conviction on the same charges, was likewise acquitted Monday in the

university town of Perugia in central Italy where Knox and Kercher were studying. Kercher was found in a pool of blood on the floor of her bedroom. Her body was covered in dozens of knife wounds and bruises and investigators found evidence of sexual assault.

The only person now convicted of the crime is local drifter Rudy Guede, who is serving 16 years after his earlier appeals were rejected. Though she was cleared of murder and sexual assault, Knox was found guilty of slander for incriminating the owner of a local bar where she worked as a waitress in her first interrogation just days after the murder. She was sentenced to time already served and will have to pay compensation to the unjustly accused man, Patrick Lumumba, as well as his legal fees. Prosecutor Giuliano Mignini said he will petition against the acquittal in Italy’s highest appeals court to “ensure justice is done.”

But an appeal by the prosecution would probably have to be held in Italy in absentia as the United States does not extradite its citizens for trials. The still-pending legal action in Italy could

pose a problem for any deal for her story, says Sandra Dijkstra, whose San Diego-based literary agency is one of the biggest on the West Coast.

“The legal question has to be resolved that she is free to tell her story without jeopardizing her future,” said Dijkstra, while adding that a book could earn her “several million dollars, with world rights included.” Kercher’s mother, brother and sister, who traveled to Italy to hear the verdict, said the truth of what really happened on the night their loved one was killed on November 1, 2007, had suddenly been thrown into doubt. “We’re back to square one. The search goes on to find out what really happened,” Kercher’s brother Lyle said at a press conference in Perugia. Italian newspapers said the acquittals were inevitable given the problems with the investigation highlighted during the appeal, but there was still no convincing picture of what had happened to Kercher.

“This is not a victory for justice. It’s an acquittal that leaves a bitter aftertaste,” La Stampa daily said in an editorial. — AFP

SEATTLE: Surrounded by family members Amanda Knox makes a few comments during a news conference shortly after her arrival at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport yesterday, in Seattle. — AFP

Putin is no Brezhnev, aide tells Russians MOSCOW: Vladimir Putin’s spokesman says his boss seeking to return to the Kremlin for a third term is no Leonid Brezhnev, the much-ridiculed Soviet leader who overstayed his welcome with the people.

Speaking two weeks after Putin stunned the country by announcing he would run for president again, Dmitry Peskov sought to quash growing comparisons between the strongman prime minister and Brezhnev, whose 18year rule ended with his death in 1982.

“You know, Brezhnev is not a ‘minus’ for our country’s history-it is a huge plus,” Putin’s suave, smooth-talking spokesman said an interview on Dozhd (Rain) Internet television late Tuesday.

“Putin in any case is no Brezhnev, even though the latter was a strong politician,” Peskov added, speaking to AFP yesterday. Peskov was responding to snowballing fears that Putin, who has been in power since 1999 as president and then prime minister, could usher in economic decline and stagnation.

Putin’s protege, current President Dmitry Medvedev, announced at the ruling United Russia party convention on September 24 that he would step aside to let his mentor, a former KGB officer, run in March presidential polls. Long accustomed to poking fun at their leaders, Russians responded with a barrage of political jokes and visual gags comparing 58-year-old Putin to Brezhnev, who in his later years himself became the butt of jokes for his unintelligible speech, fondness for awarding himself medals and allegiance to staid Soviet protocol.

One cartoon making the rounds on the Russian Internet depicts a digitally aged Putin wearing the green uniform of his Kremlin predecessor, his chest festooned with a row of Hero of the Soviet Union medals, the former top state honour. Putin’s decision to reclaim the presidency could keep him in power for another 12 years and make him Moscow’s longest-serving leader since Joseph communist dictator Josef Stalin.

Putin has remained Russia’s most popular politician throughout the past decade and is almost certain to win an election that some critics see as little more than a coronation. Peskov, who has remained at Putin’s side throughout much of his Moscow career, admitted that some Russians, mostly the liberal-leaning middle classes in affluent Moscow, were unhappy to see Putin return but insisted that the majority needed Putin.—AFP

Somali militants vow to up attacks after bombing MOGADISHU: Al-Qaeda-linked militants threatened more terror attacks that will “increase day by day” after a suicide bomber killed 72 people.

Mourners transported coffins atop cars yesterday to funerals for those who perished in alShabab’s deadliest bomb attack in Somalia. A truck loaded with drums of fuel exploded Tuesday at the gate of a building housing several government ministries in a busy street in the capital where tens of thousands of famine victims have fled. The attack came more than a month after most al-Shabab fighters melted away from Mogadishu amid a pro-government offensive, and showed that the insurgents remain a severe threat.

“At this time, when the country is in the midst of a worsening humanitarian crisis, the terrorists could not have attacked the Somali people at a worst time,” Information Minister Abdulkadir Hussein Mohamed said. Al-Shabab spokesman Ali Mohamud Rage identified the suicide bomber as Somali student Bashar Abdullahi Nur. He said the attack was a warning to those who thought the group had left Mogadishu for good in August. “We wish to inform the Muslim people that the campaign against infidels will be back-to-back and by God’s grace will increase day by day and will increase in the coming hours,” Rage said. “I will give a good tiding to the infidels: You will face big and broad blows.” In a prerecorded farewell interview with al-Shabab radio station, the bomber said: “It will be a big blow to the heart of the enemy.”

Tuesday’s thunderous blast covered the city in dust more than a half-mile (800 meters) away and left blackened corpses sprawled amid burning vehicles and dozens wounded. Somalia’s Ministry of Health said in a statement Wednesday that 72 people had been killed and more than 100 were wounded, including 38 still in serious condition.

“May Allah put them in hell,” one Somali woman sobbed as a young man tried to comfort her. She then collapsed near the coffin of her dead son that was placed by a sandy grave.

Sadiya Omar, who lost her husband in Tuesday’s bombing, left the scene of the funeral before he was interred, saying it was more than she could bear. “The world will get no peace while killers like al-Shabab are still here,” she cried, her tears

dripping through her black veil. President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed declared three days of mourning and vowed late Tuesday that his government would put in place security measures to avert future bombings.

“I’m sure the crime they committed against the Somali people will not go unpunished,” Ahmed said of the al-Shabab militants. “God will punish them and the government will take appropriate measures to save the Somali people from those dangers.” However, Ahmed’s government does not have sufficient troops or police to secure the capital city, and neither does the more than 9,000 strong African Union peacekeeping force that supports his regime.

Somali expert Ken Menkhaus said in a recent interview that al-Shabab’s withdrawal from the city would overextend the AU forces, exposing the government’s inability to hold and govern territory and allowing the militants to mount hitand-run attacks. The head of the African Union peacekeepers appealed for more troops in August to secure Mogadishu following the alShabab’s withdrawal. Maj. Gen. Fred Mugisha said that since the withdrawal, his forces cover a larger area and risk being overstretched. He said the deployment of 3,000 extra troops authorized by the UN Security Council should be hastened.

Tuesday’s blast killed students and their parents who were gathered around a notice board to learn about the result of scholarships offered by the Turkish government. “It shows their barbarism and how hell-bent they’re to hit the public where it hearts most,” he said. “We can certainly say their ideology is directed at annihilating Somali people. What they’re targeting is the education.”

Mugisha, the commander of the African Union Mission to Somalia force, known as AMISOM, said the attack targeted several Somali government institutions. Al-Shabab said it was striking government officials and foreigners referring to AU peacekeeping troops.

The U.N. Security Council called the attack a “heinous crime.” In Washington, White House press secretary Jay Carney said it was a “despicable and cowardly act.” Somalia has been mired in violence since 1991, plunging the country into a chaos that sprouted militants and piracy off the coast of Horn of Africa nation. — AP

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Digging for truth in Kashmir’s unmarked graves SRINAGAR: The last time Bilkees Manzoor saw her father was 10 years ago on a snowy January night when a dozen soldiers took him from their family home in Srinagar, capital of Indian Kashmir. “ They said he was needed for questioning and would be released in a couple of hours. We never saw him again,” she said.

Rights groups say as many as 8,000 people, mostly young men, have been “disappeared” by the security forces in Indian Kashmir since an armed insurgency against Indian rule erupted in the Muslim-majority region in 1989.

Manzoor insists her father, who ran a small medical business, had no links to any militant group and she has never been told why he was taken into custody. For years, she and many others have campaigned to find out what happened to their missing relatives.

Now, for the first time, an answer may be in reach. Last month, Kashmir’s State Human Rights Commission surprised everyone-not least the Indian authorities-when it submitted a report detailing the existence of 2,730 bodies lying in unmarked graves in northern Kashmir.

Crucially the report said 574 bodies had been identified as those of local residents-a finding that directly challenged the long-held official insistence that any unmarked graves could only be those of foreign militants.

The commission recommended DNA testing to determine the identity of the remaining 2,156 bodies and the creation of an independent body to monitor the process. The graves are not mass graves of the sort uncovered after the Balkans conflict, but individual plots in rural town graveyards.

The report marked the first time a state -funded body has formally acknowledged their existence. “It’s a big victory. They have taken one step, a big step. We can only hope they take more,” she said. “I have the right to know if my father’s alive and where he is, or if he’s dead where he’s buried.”

The state government has yet to endorse the commission’s findings, but in the state legislature last week, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah promised DNA tests would be carried out. “We are not here to conceal the truth,” Abdullah said. Allegations of rape, torture and extrajudicial killings have been levelled at the security forcesarmy, paramilitaries and police-in Kashmir for years, and detailed in reports by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

But the few cases taken up by the judicial system have gone nowhere, largely because of special emergency powers that require the government in New Delhi to sanction the prosecution of military personnel.

Bashir ud-Din, the chairman of the

State Human Rights Commission, admits he has no way of knowing whether the recommendations of his report will be properly implemented.

had been the default response to serious charges of rights abuses levelled against the security forces. “The fact is that those who matter, at the state or

SRINAGAR: In this photograph taken on October 2, 2011 Bilkees Manzoor (L) and Jana Begum, 42-year old wife of Manzoor Ahmad Dar, hold his pictures at a residence on the outskirts of Srinagar. — AFP “We have done what we can. Now it is up to others. If they don’t want to do anything, what can I do? My conscience is clear,” the retired High Court judge told AFP in his office in Srinagar.

Until now, he said, official inaction

central level, have yet to be sensitive enough to respond in a way that would at least instil some confidence ... that the system is there to bring wrongdoers to justice,” he said.

The old adage of the truth being

the first casualty of any conflict rings particularly true in Kashmir, a region of striking Himalayan beauty divided between India and Pakistan and the trigger for two wars between the South Asian rivals. The official Indian view on the armed separatist movement is that of a largely Pakistan-sponsored insurgency fuelled by “jihadist” militants from as far afield as Afghanistan, Chechnya and Tajikistan.

The counter-narrative has India’s only Muslim-majority state run as a giant army camp, where the security forces act with total impunity to violently repress Kashmiris’ desire for selfdetermination. Estimates for the number killed since 1989 vary from 40,000 to 70,000 and the breakdown of those figures-militants, security personnel, civilians-is bitterly contested. Kashmiri human rights campaigner Khurram Parvez says the state commission report is the “biggest breakthrough” of the past 20 years, but he also believes its findings are just the “tip of the iceberg”. His organisation, the Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society, claims it has proof of thousands more unmarked graves in other areas of Kashmir. “But for us, figures are immaterial,” he told AFP. “We are not fighting to prove figures. We just want the state to acknowledge the phenomenon of enforced disappearances and begin delivering justice.” — AFP

Afghan president reassures Pakistan over India alliance Pakistan appears more isolated after pact

KATHMANDU: Nepalese Hindu devotees stand in a queue outside a temple to offer prayers during Dashain festival in Katmandu, Nepal, yesterday. The festival commemorates the slaying of a demon king by Hindu goddess Durga, marking the victory of good over evil. Animals are sacrificed at Hindu temples during this festival. — AP

Six held over plot to kill Karzai: Kabul KABUL: Six people have been arrested after an alleged Al-Qaeda plot to assassinate Afghan President Hamid Karzai involving one of his bodyguards was foiled, officials said yesterday. Those detained, who also included a university lecturer and students, were found with suicide vests and had been to North Waziristan in Pakistan’s tribal belt for training, officials said.

They did not reveal how far advanced the plot was but the men were arrested a week ago and were said to have carried out training for the attack last month. The news highlights Karzai’s fragile position following a string of recent assassinations of his key allies including peace envoy Burhanuddin Rabbani last month.

Officials do not believe the plot was linked to the Taleban, leaders of an insurgency targeting Karzai’s government and 140,000 foreign troops stationed in Afghanistan. “A week ago, the National Directorate of Security arrested six people in connection with a plot to assassinate President Karzai,” said Lutfullah Mashal, a spokesman for the NDS, Afghanistan’s intelligence service.

“These six people were introduced and recruited to Al-Qaeda by Sayed Aqa, a religious teacher at Kabul Medical University.”

The news was confirmed by the Afghan interior ministry’s spokesman Siddiq Siddiqui. Mashal said the Karzai bodyguard implicated in the attack, Muhibullah Ahmadi, came from the same village as Karzai-Karz in the southern province of Kandahar. Aqa was in contact with an Egyptian and a Bangladeshi in North Waziristan, Mashal said, adding that all of

the group except Muhibullah had visited North Waziristan a month ago where they were given suicide vests and received weapons training.

The group also had access to a bank account with around $150,000 in it which was used to transfer money to the Egyptian, named as Saifullah. An Afghan government official speaking anonymously to AFP said the NDS was still hunting for other people allegedly involved in the plot, including teachers, students, civil servants and a journalist.

Karzai’s powerful brother Ahmad Wali Karzai was killed by a security guard at his home in the southern city of Kandahar in July. And senior presidential adviser Jan Mohammad was murdered less than a week later.

Afghanistan’s policy for talking peace with the Taliban is currently in turmoil following the killing of Rabbani amid tensions with its neighbour Pakistan over denied allegations that it is linked to militants.

Karzai is currently on a visit to India, where he has signed a new strategic partnership deal with New Delhi while trying to reassure Pakistan about the alliance with its historic foe. “Pakistan is a twin brother, India is a great friend. The agreement that we signed yesterday with our friend will not affect our brother,” Karzai said.

The NDS has charged that Rabbani was killed by a Pakistani and that the murder was planned in Pakistan. Karzai survived an assassination attempt in 2008 at a military parade and now leaves the closely-guarded surroundings of the presidential palace in Kabul relatively rarely. — AFP

NEW DELHI: Afghan President Hamid Karzai sought yesterday to reassure Pakistan about his country’s new strategic partnership with India, which risks raising fears in Islamabad of encirclement. The alliance sealed between Afghanistan and India on Tuesdaythe first such pact between Kabul and another country-deepens already friendly ties and aims to boost trade, security and cultural links. It will see India, which has given more than $2 billion in aid to the wartorn country, take a bigger role in training Afghan troops and security forces.

“Pakistan is a twin brother, India is a great friend. The agreement that we signed yesterday with our friend will not affect our brother,” Karzai told an audience in New Delhi.

Indian involvement in Afghanistan is extremely sensitive because of the delicate and often deadly power games in South Asia, with Pakistan vehemently opposed to its arch-foe meddling in what it considers its backyard. Some observers worry that greater involvement by India will lead to a “proxy war” on Afghan soil between it and nuclear-armed Pakistan, which is accused of using militant groups to attack Indian targets. C. Raja Mohan, senior analyst at the Centre For Policy Research think-tank in New Delhi, said Karzai’s speech was clear in its message that Pakistan would need to be brought on board for peace to prevail. It “highlights one point very clearly: That India and Afghanistan will have to find ways to deal with Pakistan,” he told AFP. “Both countries are facing enormous difficulties in dealing with Pakistan.”

Afghanistan and India both suspect Pakistan of supporting militant groups such as the Haqqani network and the Afghan Taleban, which is thought to plan attacks from across the border.

Indian Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna said yesterday that his country’s commitment to Afghanistan remained steadfast “despite persistent attacks on Indian interests engineered by forces inimical to the India-

Afghan friendship.” The Afghan-Indian deal is part of Karzai’s strategy of building up alliances to help stabilise his country ahead of the 2014 withdrawal of NATO forces after more than a decade of fighting. He is also in talks with the European Union, the United States and Russia. “The signing of the strategic partnership with India is not directed against any country. It is not directed against any other entity. This is for Afghanistan to benefit from the strength of India,” Karzai added. Karzai stressed that the focus of his efforts in bringing peace to his country would now be on talking to the government in Islamabad, which he said had “unfortunately not yet received the

NEW DELHI: Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai (R) meets Indian Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna during the RK Mishra Memorial Lecture in New Delhi yesterday. Karzai sought to reassure Pakistan about his country’s new partnership deal signed with India, which will see New Delhi help train Afghan security forces. — AFP

Australian pleads guilty in US to Afghan corruption WASHINGTON: An Australian national pleaded guilty in a federal court in the US capital to accepting bribes for steering USfunded contracts in Afghanistan, the US

Department of Justice said Tuesday. Neil Campbell, 61, a native of Queensland, Australia, pleaded guilty to one count of accepting a $10,000 bribe as an agent of an

Thai premier meets Myanmar president YANGON: Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra met Myanmar’s president yesterday during her first visit to the military-dominated country since she took office in August. Yingluck was received

by Thein Sein at his official residence in the capital Naypyidaw, according to a Myanmar government official who did not want to be named. It was unclear what was discussed.

She was not expected to meet prodemocracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi during her one-day visit, a second official said. While Western nations have imposed sanctions on resource-rich Myanmar because of its poor human

rights record, Asian neighbours such as Thailand, China and India have forged close economic ties, particularly in oil and gas. In March, Myanmar’s regime handed power to a new government whose ranks are filled with former generals, including Thein Sein, previously the junta prime minister. Thein Sein has recently shown signs of reaching out to opponents including Suu Kyi, whom he met in August for the first time.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner was released from house arrest last November, shortly after an election marred by complaints of cheating and intimidation. — AFP

result that we want”. The assassination of Kabul’s peace envoy to the Taleban last month forced Karzai to re-examine his longrunning strategy of trying to broker contacts with the Islamist militant group to open negotiations.

But relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan are severely strained after Karzai accused his neighbour of playing a “double-game” because of its links to militant groups. “We have now decided not to talk to the Taleban because we don’t know their address. When we find them, we will talk to them. Therefore we have decided to talk to our brothers, our neighbours, in Pakistan,” Karzai said. — AFP

SRINAGAR: Supporters of Kashmir’s main opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) shout slogans during a protest march in Srinagar, India, yesterday. The PDP held a protest march demanding a high level probe into the custodial death of a governing party worker after the disputed region’s top elected official handed him over to investigators for probing charges that he took money from people promising to get them nominated as lawmakers. — AP

organization receiving federal funds, the Justice Department said in a statement.

Campbell worked in Afghanistan in 20092010 as an agent for the International Organization on Migration (IOM), a group that has received more than $260 million in US funds since 2002 to build hospitals, schools and other facilities.

Campbell admitted “that in July 2010, while in Afghanistan, he solicited a onetime cash payment of $190,000 from a subcontractor ... as a reward for funneling more than $15 million in reconstruction projects to that subcontractor,” the statement read.

The following month an undercover US agent posing as the subcontractor’s representative paid Campbell $10,000 cash, and promised to pay the remainder in India. But when Campbell flew to New Delhi, agents of India’s Central Bureau of Investigation arrested him.

Campbell was charged in August 2010 and extradited from India to stand trial in February. “This conviction ... shows the seriousness of our commitment to protecting the American taxpayer,” said US Attorney Ronald Machen.

“There is zero tolerance for such abuse of federal funds,” added US Agency for International Development (USAID) Inspector General Donald Gambatesa.Campbell faces up to 10 years prison and a $250,000 fine when he is sentenced on December 14. He also agreed to return the $10,000 from the bribe he received. — AFP

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US says mulling further Taiwan arms sales WASHINGTON: The Obama administration is weighing fresh arms sales to Taiwan as part of a sweeping effort to deter any Chinese attack on the self-ruled island that Beijing claims as its own, administration officials told Congress late Tuesday.

Such supplies would be on top of plans sent to Congress on Sept. 21 to sell Taiwan $5.85 billion in new hardware and defense services, including upgrades for Taiwan’s 145 F-16 A/B fighter aircraft, bought in 1992.

Beijing deems Taiwan arms sales a grave interference in its domestic affairs and the biggest obstacle to improved relations between the world’s two largest economies. “We

are consulting with Taiwan on a full range of capabilities so they ’re aware of the threat and they can undertake the defensive preparations,” Peter Lavoy, acting assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific security affairs, testified before the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee.

Lavoy declined to discuss details of a potential follow-up sale. But he said the administration was still considering Taipei’s five-year-old request for 66 new late-model Lockheed Martin Corp F-16 C/D fighters, valued at $8.3 billion, in addition to the pending upgrade of its F-16 A/B models.

Beijing’s sustained investment in

armed forces across from Taiwan continues to shift the military balance in its favor across the Taiwan Strait, he said. China has deployed as many as 1,200 short-range ballistic missiles and growing numbers of medium-range ballistic missiles plus land-attack cruise missiles opposite the island, Lavoy added.

The planned F-16 retrofit, he said, would provide “real and immediate” contributions to Taiwan’s security and amounted to the “best bang for the buck at this time.” The United States will continue to build militaryto-military ties with Taiwan, Lavoy said, “to ensure Taiwan has the ability to defend itself today and in the future.”

Kurt Campbell, assistant secretary of state for the region, faulted Beijing for failing to renounce the possible use of force to bring Taiwan into its fold, for instance if the island took steps seen by China as meant to block unification.

China’s armed deployments across from Taiwan “contradict Beijing’s stated commitment to the peaceful handling of cross-Strait relations,” he said. The administration faced criticism from virtually all lawmakers present at the hearing for its delay in selling new F-16s even as Lavoy and Campbell outlined an expanding U.S. drive to help offset China’s growing military might with a greater U.S. presence in the region.

“ Taiwan needs our help,” said committee chair woman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican. “China is on the march in Asia, and its primary target remains democratic Taiwan.” The panel’s top Democrat, Howard Berman, said Taiwan needed late -model F-16s to defend itself from China “and it needs them soon.”

Campbell said the Obama administration was updating the US defense posture in Asia to be “more geographically distributed, politically sustainable and operationally resilient.” The Obama administration also is ac tively exploring ways to raise the level of its meetings with Taiwan, he said.

US ties with Taiwan have been unofficial since 1979, when Washington switched diplomatic recognition to Beijing. The United States is required by the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act to provide sufficient arms for Taiwan’s defense.

Under President Barack Obama, Campbell said, “we have not only improved relations with both China and Taiwan, but this approach has also contributed to historic levels of cross-Strait stability.”

Representative Gerald Connolly asked whether Beijing’s stiff opposition to US arms sales to Taiwan played any role “whatsoever” in the decision to withhold new F-16s. “It did not,” Campbell responded. —Reuters

Philippine police capture suspected beheader Soldier killed in new clash with Abu Sayyaf MANILA: Philippine police have arrested an Abu Sayyaf gunman who allegedly helped behead seven Filipino workers while singing a militant song in a grisly 2007 crime, officials said yesterday.

Police said Adzhar Mawalil was captured Tuesday by government forces on southern Jolo island.

Mawalil, 32, has also been implicated in the 2000 kidnappings of 21 mostly European tourists from a dive resort in neighboring Malaysia and the 2009 abductions of three Filipino, Italian and Swiss aid workers for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Jolo, national police spokesman Agrimero Cruz said.

All the captives from the Malaysian resort and the Red Cross were eventually freed, reportedly after large ransom payments. Mawalil appeared in a video circulated by Abu Sayyaf militants showing them beheading six road project workers and a factory worker while singing a song in a Jolo jungle in 2007. The video helped authorities identify and capture Mawalil in Sulu province’s Jolo town, two security officials said.

The two officials, who help oversee assaults against the Abu Sayyaf, spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to talk to the media.

The seven workers were killed by

the Abu Sayyaf after the construction company refused to pay a ransom demanded by the militants, officials said at the time.

Their heads were dumped by the militants near the gates of a Jolo army detachment to mock government troops.

The Abu Sayyaf, which is listed

by Washington as an al-Qaedalinked terrorist organization, has been blamed for deadly bombings, abductions and beheadings.

It has been the target of a decadelong US-backed Philippine military offensive on Jolo and the nearby island province of Basilan.

Army scout rangers battled about 50 heavily armed Abu Sayyaf members yesterday in a for-

est near Basilan’s Al Barka town in fierce fighting that killed a soldier and wounded two others. Several militants were believed wounded but were dragged away by their companions, who retreated after three hours, army spokesman Maj. Harold Cabunoc said.

Reinforcement troops were pursuing the militants, Cabunoc said. Nearly 400 Abu Sayyaf gunmen remain at large in the jungles of Jolo, an impoverished Muslim region about 590 miles (950 kilometers) south of Manila, and in Basilan and outlying islands.

Washington has offered large rewards for the capture of the Abu Sayyaf’s remaining top commanders. —AP

Malaysia PM orders 125 freed in reform drive

CALUMPIT: Philippine President Benigno Aquino III, in yellow shirt, rides as he surveys the flood-hit area of Calumpit, Bulacan province, north of Manila, yesterday. Flooding from back to back typhoons have affected more than half a million people in northern Philippines. —AP

Pakistan ‘crackdown’ over Shiite killings QUETTA: Pakistani police said yesterday they had launched a crackdown on Sunni militants, detaining scores of suspects after being criticised for inaction over increased sectarian killings. “We have rounded up about 100 people. They are being interrogated,” senior police officer Hamid Shakeel told AFP in Pakistan’s southwestern province of Baluchistan, where Shiite Muslims have increasingly come under attack.

Residents said police conducted raids after hundreds of people staged a protest rally condemning police inaction.

Gunmen on Tuesday attacked a bus of Shiites from the minority Hazara ethnic group on the outskirts of Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province.

The death toll from the attack rose to 14 as another victim died overnight, officials said. Two people are still in a critical condition in hospital. On September 20, gunmen killed 26 Shiite pilgrims after ordering them off their bus in Mastung district, then shot dead three of their relatives en route to collect the bodies.

Human rights organisations con-

demned the attacks and accused the government of not taking steps to prevent sectarian murders. “The targeted killings of Shia (Shiites) are a barbaric attempt at sectarian and ethnic cleansing,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

“The government’s failure to break up the extremist groups that carry out these attacks calls into question its commitment to protect all of its citizens,” he said.

Amnesty International said ethnic, political and sectarian killings raise “serious questions about the will or ability” of Pakistani security forces to protect the people of Baluchistan.

The province, which borders Afghanistan and Iran, has become an increasing flashpoint for sectarian violence between majority Sunni Muslims and minority Shiites, who account for around a fifth of Pakistan’s 167 million population.

More than 4,000 people have been killed in outbreaks of sectarian violence between Sunni and Shiite militant groups since the late 1980s. —AFP

JAKARTA: Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (3rd L) inspects special forces command (Kopassus) soldiers during the 66th anniversary ceremony for the Indonesian armed forces in Jakarta yesterday. Indonesia’s military has been extricating itself from politics since the downfall of dictator Suharto in 1998, but during the strongman’s 32-year rule the military wielded tremendous power both politically and socially in the world’s fourth most populous nation. —AFP

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia will immediately release 125 people held under a tough security law, Prime Minister Najib Razak said yesterday as he pressed a pre-election drive to improve civil liberties. Najib, who is widely tipped to call snap polls soon, last month unexpectedly announced plans to scrap a range of decades-old draconian laws long criticised as oppressive and outdated.

The moves come as Najib tries to boost his United Malays National Organisation’s uncertain re-election hopes three months after police used tear gas and water cannon to crush a street rally calling for electoral reform. He told parliament’s lower house that curbs imposed by the Restricted Residence Act-which allows police to banish criminal suspects to remote areas and restrict their movements-would be lifted at once.

“I hereby announce that the Home Ministry will free all 125 individuals being held under the Restricted Residence Act with immediate effect,” he said. More than 200 unserved warrants issued under the act also would be quashed. Najib introduced a motion on Monday to repeal the law along with another that allows banishment of non-Malaysians from the country. They marked the first steps in Najib’s vow to repeal or soften authoritarian laws headed by the notorious Internal Security Act (ISA), which allows detention without trial and has been used against government opponents.

Government officials have said the ISA repeal would get under way next year. Najib said his government was committed to a system in which punishment “must be based on the directive of a court”. Neither the ISA, residence or banishment acts are subject to court oversight.

The ethnic Malay-dominated governing coalition now headed by Najib that has ruled Malaysia since its 1957 independence has employed a range of tough laws to maintain order in the Muslim-majority but multi-racial country. But the laws have sparked growing condemnation by critics who call them inhumane and prone to government abuse to stifle legitimate dissent.

While welcoming the release of the 125 suspects, veteran opposition lawmaker Lim Kit Siang said proof of the government’s commitment to change will be seen in how the repeal of tougher laws like the ISA is handled. “The question remains as to whether they will really abolish the ISA and other laws that impinge on civil liberties and the freedoms of speech and assembly, and whether the replacement laws will be any better,” he told AFP. Najib has said the ISA would be replaced by new, albeit less restrictive, laws. Government officials say most of those targeted by the residence act were suspected of vice offences and lesser crimes and were not serious security threats.

Parliament was expected to easily pass the repeals of both the residence and banishment acts. Najib is required to call new polls by early 2013 but is widely expected to call them sooner.

The opposition alliance is fractured yet potent and achieved historic gains in 2008 parliamentary polls. —AFP

VOLKA: Picture taken on September 24, 2009 shows Belarussian soldiers near an S-300 surface-to-air missile complex using during the joint RussianBelarussian military exercises “West-2009” some 230km southwest of Minsk near the village of Volka. Russia has arrested a Chinese national who was trying to secure secret documents about the country’s S-300 missile systems, the FSB federal security service said yesterday. —AFP

Russia claims China spy arrest MOSCOW: Russia yesterday announced the arrest of a Chinese national who was allegedly trying to secure secret documents on S-300 missile systems while posing as an official interpreter.

The Federal Security Service (FSB) said the arrest was made on October 28 last year but did not explain why it had failed to report the incident.

The announcement was made just a week before Prime Minister Vladimir Putin begins a two-day state visit to Beijing aimed at reaffirming the neighbours’ joint diplomatic clout and economic importance.

The FSB domestic security service identified the man as Tong Shengyong and said his case had been forwarded by prosecutors to the Moscow City Court on Tuesday. “The investigation established that the Chinese national (was) working on assignment from the M inistr y of Public S ecurit y of the People’s Republic of China,” FSB said in a statement.

I t said the man had posed as an interpreter for “official delegations” and tried to purchase his data from Russian nationals. The espionage charge carries a prison sentence of 10 to 20 years. The S-300 system is an older version of Russian sur face -to-air missiles that Moscow has produced since the Soviet era and has since replaced with the more modern S-400.

China has a decades-long history of military ties with Russia and is one of its largest arms purchasers alongside India. But Beijing has more recently launched the development of its own

missile systems similar to those it used to purchase from Moscow.

Putin will in a week visit Beijing for two days for talks with counterpart Wen Jiabao and President Hu Jintao in his first foreign trip since he announced plans to return next year to the Kremlin post he has already held in 2000-2008. China and Russia have enjoyed close diplomatic and trade relations in the past decade while seeking to put behind them the border and other disputes that simmered in the Soviet era.

The two this week jointly vetoed a UN Security Council resolution condemning the Syria crackdown and share a deep-seated suspicion of foreign inter ference in their internal affairs. China’s growing reliance on its own weapons systems is one area hurting Russia directly as it struggles to keep its Soviet-era clients despite its waning list of modern technology.

The Chinese embassy in Moscow could not be reached for comment but analysts said they found the case mystifying because its delayed announcement and reference to an old weapons.

“The S-300s have been delivered to different countries including China,” said Alexander Konovalov of the Institute of Strategic Assessment.

“This is not how it usually happens,” he added in reference to the delayed announcement. The FSB statement said the alleged spy was also tr ying to secure system repair manuals that apparently were not a par t of the Chinese arms purchase contract. —AFP

LIBO: In this picture taken yesterday, rescuers remove the bodies of the miners killed at the Anping Coal Mine in Libo, southwest China’s Guizhou province. At least 13 workers were killed after an explosion in a coal mine in southwestern China, state media said, in the latest mining accident to hit the country. —AFP

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BANI WALID, Libya: A camel walks past a tank as fighters from the Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC) take position with their tanks along the northern outskirts of Bani Walid yesterday. — AFP

Saudi town ‘calm’ after Shiites riot RIYADH: A Saudi Shiite village where protesters clashed with police was calm yesterday as a prominent cleric urged his followers to avoid the use of firearms and fingers of blame were pointed at Iran. “The situation is calm now in the village” of Al-Awamiya in eastern Saudi Arabia, said Human Rights First Society head Ibrahim AlMughaiteeb, after 14 people -including 11 policemen were injured in rioting.

At a mosque in the village late on Tuesday, Sheikh Nimr Nimr, appealed on fellow Shiites “not to respond to bullets with bullets,” according to the text of his sermon published online. Saudi “authorities depend on bullets ... and killing and imprisonment. We must depend on the roar of the word, on the words of justice,” Nimr said following two days of clashes between Shiite protesters and security forces.

But Mughaiteeb said “this is the first time” that protesters had used firearms rather than stones and Molotov cocktails. A video posted on YouTube dated October 4 showed a group of masked men clashing with police in one of the village’s streets as the sound of gunfire rang out. Another video on the same web-

site showed demonstrators chanting “Down with Mohammed bin Fahd,” the governor of the Eastern Province and son of Saudi Arabia’s former ruler, the late King Fahd.

The interior ministry of the predominantly Sunni Muslim kingdom blamed the unrest on a “foreign country”, in apparent reference to Shiite Iran across the Gulf. Shiite activists in Arab states of the Gulf are regularly accused of links with their co-religionists in Iran.

“Iran is trying to export its problems to avenge what happened in Bahrain, and reduce pressures on Syria,” Tehran’s Arab ally, said Anwar Eshki, director of the Saudi-based Middle East Institute for Strategic Studies.

Iran is concerned about the possible collapse of the regime in Damascus, steering clear of condemning the bloodshed in Syria where the United Nations says 2,700 people have been killed amid mass protests since mid-March. In Sunni-ruled Bahrain, authorities backed by Saudi-led Gulf troops in March crushed a protest led by the country’s Shiite majority. The crackdown soured relations between Iran and the Arab monarchies of the Gulf. — AFP

Monkey see, monkey feel Continued from Page 1 the texture of objects placed in their hands, or experience the nuances of the terrain on which they stroll with the help of a wearable robotic exoskeleton”.

Publishing their work yesterday in the British journal Nature, Nicolelis’s team implanted multiple electrodes in both brain hemispheres in two rhesus monkeys.

Using brain power, the monkeys manipulated a virtual paw to reach up to three identical objects displayed on a computer screen.

Touching one of the objects that had a specific tactile feedback - in essence, getting a sensation of its “sur face” - gave the monkeys a reward of fruit juice. Holding the virtual paw over the wrong object cancelled the trial. It took one monkey only four attempts, and the other nine attempts, before they figured out how to select the right object.

Scans of brain activity showed that they were actually sensing the object and not selecting it randomly.

The work adds an important dimension to the search, still confined to laboratories, to restore control over objects to paralysed individuals by connecting their brain to computers and control machinery.

Instead of a “brain-machine” interface, the possibility now is of a “brain-machine-brain” interface, or BMBI, say the scientists. In the case of the monkeys, a population of 50200 cells in the primary motor cortex controlled the avatar arm.

At the same time, the monkeys were getting electrical feedback of the texture of the object through the implants in the primary somatosensory cortex. It is this simultaneous move-and-touch that is the breakthrough, said Nicolelis.

“Such an interaction between the brain and a virtual avatar was totally independent of the animal’s real body, because the animals did not move their real arms and hands, nor did they use their real skin to touch the objects and identify their texture. It’s almost like creating a new sensory channel through which the brain can resume processing information that cannot reach it anymore through the real body and peripheral nerves.”

The fact that this was achieved with non-human primates makes it doubly exciting. In the not-too-distant future, Nicolelis hoped, it may be possible to create a robotic external skeleton that not only restores movement by direct control of the brain but also gives sensation of surfaces. An international scientific team called the Walk Again Project has proposed carrying out a demonstration of a BMBI exoskeleton at the opening match of football’s 2014 World Cup in Brazil, Duke University said in a press release.

Separately, US scientists for the first time have used a cloning technique to get tailor-made embryonic stem cells to grow in unfertilized human egg cells, a landmark finding and a potential new flashpoint for opponents of stem cell research.

The researchers were tr ying to prove it is possible to use a cloning technology called somatic cell nuclear transfer, or SCNT, to make embryonic stem cells that match a patient’s DNA. The achievement, also published yesterday in the Nature, is significant because such patient-specific cells potentially can be transplanted to replace damaged cells in people with diabetes and other diseases without rejection by the immune system. This technique could ignite new controversy because some opponents consider it to be cloning, which they fiercely oppose. “This paper will be seen as significant both by those who are trying to use SCNT to produce human patientspecific embryonic stem cell lines and by those who oppose human ‘cloning’ experiments,” said Professor Robin Lovell-Badge, a division head at Britain’s National Institute for Medical Research.

Stem cells are the body’s master cells, the source material for all other cells. Proponents of embryonic stem cells say they could transform medicine, providing treatments for blindness, juvenile diabetes or severe injuries. Normally, SCNT involves removing genetic material from the nucleus of the host egg cell and replacing it with the nucleus from adult cells, the technique used to clone animals such as Dolly the sheep in 1996. But scientists so far have failed to get these cells to

grow and divide beyond a very early stage in humans and non-human primates.

Scientists in this study, led by Dieter Egli and Scott Noggle at The New York Stem Cell Foundation Laboratory in New York, kept the genetic material from the host egg and simply added the nucleus from the adult cells. “Rather surprisingly as this means that they are creating an embryo with too many copies of each chromosome - these constructs developed well and efficiently to the blastocyst stage (the stage just before implantation, where the embryo is about 80 to 100 cells),” Lovell-Badge said in a statement.

She said the result falls short because the scientists did not obtain useful cell lines, but they may help explain why other techniques have failed.

Embryonic stem cells are made from embryos that are just a few days old, but have been a point of controversy for some religious conservatives, who believe the destruction of any human embryo is wrong.

Scientists typically harvest embryonic stem cells from embryos leftover at fertility clinics, but the eggs in this study came from women who were paid around $8,000, roughly the same rate women are paid for egg donations for in-vitro fertilization.

Scientists have debated whether researchers should pay women for eggs used in stem cell research for fear the payments would act as an inducement to women to donate their eggs, a procedure and can take weeks, can cause discomfort and has some risk. The goal of these studies is to work out the best ways to create cells that are “pluripotent” -meaning they can be used to form any other kind of cell in the body.

Embr yonic stem cells have this capability, but these cells cannot be tailored to match a specific patient’s DNA, and treatments made from these cells might face rejection from the body, much like transplanted organs. In 2006, scientists discovered a new way creating embryonic-like stem cells in the lab using patients’ own skin cells and a potent mix of genes or “factors” that can turn back the clock on the adult cells, restoring them to a pluripotent state. — Agencies

Erdogan labels nuclear-armed Israel...

Continued from Page 1 possessing nuclear weapons, but is widely believed to be the only Middle East country to have them. Others including Iran, Iraq, Syria and Libya are suspected of trying, or having tried in the past, to follow suit.

Turkey downgraded relations with onetime ally Israel after the latter refused to apologise for its raid on a Gaza-bound Turkish aid flotilla, in which nine Turkish activists died on May 31, 2010. Last month, Turkey expelled the Israeli ambassador and froze military ties and defence trade deals. Ankara has also threatened to send warships to escort any Turkish vessels trying to reach Hamas-ruled Gaza.

Erdogan’s remarks came in response to comments from an Israeli embassy diplomat in South Africa, who blamed radical Islamic organisation Hamas for launching rocket attacks into Israeli territory. “I have asked many Israeli officials, how many Israelis, have been killed by rockets launched from Gaza and Palestine. I could not get an answer,” Erdogan said. “Yet tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed from bombs that have rained down on them from Israel. You sleep at night peacefully and secure,” he told the diplomat, to applause by South African foreign affairs officials and members of the diplomatic corps. Yet Palestinians can’t find a single trace of peace in Palestine.”

Erdogan also accused Israel of committing “state terrorism”, saying Israel had attacked the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip as well as the UN buildings in Gaza with phosphorus bombs. Erdogan in the past has accused the West of “double standards” in the way that it has tried to ban Iran from building nuclear weapons without taking similar measures against Israel. He echoed

those remarks on Tuesday at a press conference, where he said the United Nations had failed to implement its resolutions against Israel. “Here I am talking about 89 resolutions of the UN Security Council and 247 resolutions of the General Assembly, none of which are implemented,” he said. “On the other hand you have resolutions for example about Iran, the Sudan and Palestine which are implemented.”

But Erdogan said the Security Council should have approved a European-sponsored resolution condemning Syria’s deadly crackdown on protests, which Russia and China blocked on Tuesday. “The Syrian administration should have received a warning,” he said. “The people of that country do not need to endure a merciless, shameless, tyrannical regime that bombs its own country from the sea.”

He declined to criticise his host South Africa for abstaining from the vote, but said: “My heart remains with those struggling for freedom. South Africans have been in that position.” “But this does not constitute an obstacle,” he said, adding that “Turkey like some other European Union countries will take steps on this issue”.

“We will inevitably impose right now a package of sanctions,” he said.

In recent months, the United States has been alarmed at the estrangement between Turkey and its closest Middle East ally Israel. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is expected to urge Turkey to defuse tension and repair strategic ties with Israel when she visits Istanbul to attend a conference on Afghanistan next month. Clinton will visit Turkey on Nov 2, Marc Grossman, US special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, was quoted as saying in the Turkish media. — AFP

Market fretting over regulator Continued from Page 1 He cites the example of a Kuwaiti man who traded from his brokerage account as well as those of his wife and children, selling a few shares from one account to another. “If this is about the only trade in a small-cap stock and the price goes up, is that manipulation? What if the price goes down? And what if the same trade is made on a stock that sees hundreds of thousands of shares changing hands daily?” he said.

From March 2012, funds cannot hold more than 10 percent of their capital in a single stock. Such is the Kuwait market’s opacity, institutions have generally been willing to invest in only a handful of the more than 200 listed companies. That means many have been holding up to about 30 percent of their assets in a single name such as National Bank of Kuwait or telecom operator Zain.

Investors fear that abiding by the new rules to limit stakes will lead to a market sell-off as funds rebalance their portfolios. Because of protests from investors, the deadline for

compliance with the rules was extended by six months to March 2012; it is unclear if it might be extended again.

With individual investors spooked by the new rules and international players giving Kuwait a wide berth, local funds are finding it tough to adjust their positions at valuations they consider reasonable. Kuwait’s index slumped to a seven-year low in August, while NBK is down about 19 percent and Zain down 39 percent.

Meanwhile, the CMA is embroiled in its own internal issues. Kuwait Stock Exchange employees, whose contracts must now be transferred to the CMA, postponed strike action in late September over legal issues surrounding their employment, giving authorities three weeks to meet their demands. Earlier this year, the CMA and the Central Bank agreed to split regulation of investment firms, depending on their investment and financing activities. “There is a clear power struggle between the CMA and other authorities in the country including the stock market manage-

ment,” said Naser Al-Nafisi, general manager at the Al Joman Center for Economic Consultancy in Kuwait.

Unpopular moves such as banning brokerages from employing part-time traders have also irked the securities industry. Part-time work is a common practice in Kuwait, where the market closes at 12.30 pm; some traders work another job in the afternoon or evening, often within the government. “If that is enforced, then half of the people on our floor could be out of a job,” said the Kuwait trader.

All funds were required to register with the CMA by September; a local fund manager said that process involved red tape, delays and uncertainty. “Funds had to produce a prospectus in line with new CMA rules, appoint a board of directors that includes two independent directors and then hold an AGM (annual general meeting),” he said.

“The CMA has been slow in responding to enquiries and it’s now next-toimpossible to establish a new fund the CMA is very thinly staffed.

Everything is in limbo.” — Reuters

Protesters call for govt to quit, want...

Continued from Page 1 He said that corruption has penetrated the country and has become widespread, adding that there are “whales of corruption who are behind spreading graft”.

Dhari Al-Rujaib, representative of the Progressive Movement, called for dismissing this government and forming a reformist government that should first expose those responsible for the corruption scandal.

Islamist MP Jamaan Al-Harbash stressed that the “continuity of Sheikh Nasser’s government is an insult to the Kuwaiti people” and wondered how MPs who are implicated in corruption cases are going to vote on anticorruption legislation. He said that the unified opposition will continue its struggle until it succeeds in the removal of the prime minister. Khaled Al-Khaled, chairman of the National Democratic Alliance, called for ending disputes within members of the ruling family, saying such disputes represent part of Kuwait’s problems. MP Barrak vowed he will release documents he has that will be evidence of the involvement of the government in corruption. The opposition also agreed to hold their next rally on Oct 19.

Meanwhile, leading opposition figure and veteran

MP Ahmad Al-Saadoun yesterday launched one of the strongest attacks yet on what he described as “corruption pigs” and vowed the opposition will continue to bring down the government “which poses the most serious threat to Kuwait”. Addressing a press conference at the National Assembly, Saadoun said that the value of contracts awarded by the government to certain influential people exceeds KD 2 billion and these are the “corruption pigs”, adding that they look strong but in reality they are mere dummies and can be dismantled easily.

Saadoun said that Kuwait is strong and capable of facing all the risks but said that the warnings published on WikiLeaks that there are fears that Kuwait may not exist after 2020 “have been caused by big influential and corrupt people” who are preventing the government from even discussing these remarks. The lawmaker also warned that Kuwait oil revenues may not be sufficient to meet expenditure after a few years. He said that in the current fiscal year, wages and subsidies account for KD 13 billion and that in 2029/2030, it is forecast to grow to KD 53 billion if no measures were taken. To meet this spending, Kuwait will require to produce 3.5 million barrels per day at a price of $150 a barrel.

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THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2011

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Issues

Christie move sets 2012 field, boosts Romney

By John Whitesides fter months of turmoil and uncertainty, the Republican 2012 presidential race finally appears to have a settled field of candidates - with Mitt Romney solidifying his perch at the top of the pack. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s decision not to seek the presidency ends the “willhe-or-won’t-he” phase of the campaign, when a parade of Republicans rejected pleas to run from party insiders unhappy with the field. Three months before the first votes are likely to be cast, it also solidified Romney’s role as the reconstituted front-runner and eliminated a potential threat to his hold on the party’s pragmatic, moderate wing. Christie would have crowded Romney’s middle-of-the-road path to the nomination, which the former Massachusetts governor has had to himself while a half-dozen rivals carved each other up for the allegiance of social and religious conservatives. “Christie would have been a real threat to Romney,” said Republican strategist Todd Harris.

“He would have had the potential to steal Romney’s base and at the same time consolidate the anti-Romney vote.”

Christie’s decision eliminates the last realistic contender who might still get in the presidential race other than 2008 vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, who few believe will launch a White House bid. Palin has not ruled out a presidential run but has made no public effort to get ready for a campaign less than a month before the first key state filing deadlines. “The reality is the field is set.

The campaigns that are in the race have been operating as such, and anyone out there who is still thinking about running is delusional,” said Republican strategist Jim Dyke. “To raise the money, put together the organization and sustain the aggressive inspection of one’s policy positions over the years ... you have to be delusional to think you could pull it off in a few months,” he said. Unhappy with their choices, some Republican activists have been seeking a savior for months. Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour and House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, among others, also decided against challenging President Barack Obama in 2012. “Now we can move from soap opera to classroom,” Dyke said. “We can get back to focusing on the economy and the Republican vision for that, rather than the idea that somebody will come in on a flying carpet and lead us to victor y.” Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and the early frontrunner, had seen his lead evaporate after Texas Governor Rick Perry entered the race in August. But Perry has struggled, and Romney has moved back into the poll lead despite continued conservative doubts about the depth of his views and his backing of a state healthcare plan that was a precursor to Obama’s national healthcare reform legislation.

Christie is also a moderate governor from the Northeast with establishment backing and a potentially strong donor network, although he has less experience on the national stage than Romney, who ran unsuccessfully for the White House in 2008.

Kevin Madden, a Romney aide in 2008 who is ser ving as an informal adviser in 2012, said Romney would not have needed to change strategy if Christie had run. “The campaign was built to accommodate any challengers. You recognize it’s going to be competitive no matter who gets in,” Madden said. “I would disagree that this is a big plus for Romney.” In making his decision, Christie might have been guided by the failures of other candidates with strong credentials who came late to a presidential race - Democrat Wesley Clark in 2004, Republican Fred Thompson in 2008 and Perr y this year. After quick star ts, Clark and Thompson fell flat and Perry has struggled. “This idea that it’s easy to run for president - Rick Perry is showing that it’s a lot harder than it looks,” said Fergus Cullen, former chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party. — Reuters

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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.

Spotlight on Italian police methods

By Barry Moody he overturning of the murder conviction and jail sentence against Amanda Knox has shone a spotlight on the methods of Italian police, accused of botching the investigation. The acquittal on appeal of the American student and her former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito of the murder of British fellow student Meredith Kercher is largely the result of an independent forensic inquiry that left the case against them in tatters. Knox’s family, backed by a expensive publicity campaign and top lawyers, persuaded the Perugia appeal court to have the original scientific evidence reviewed by two independent experts, Carla Vecchiotti and Stefano Conti.

Their conclusions at the end of June drove a coach and horses through the police case, saying alleged DNA evidence of Kercher’s blood on a kitchen knife handled by Knox and of Sollecito on the victim’s bra clip was unreliable. In a damning conclusion they said that some of the evidence could have been contaminated. “International procedures for inspection and protocols for collection and testing of the evidence were not followed,” they said.

Italian media revelled on Tuesday in US praise for a justice system that allowed the case to be reviewed and overthrown.

A commentary in the New York Times said “Bravo for Italy” and noted that in America Knox could even have ended up executed rather than acquitted. But there was less pride about the methods of police and the way in which the media can cover every step of a criminal case and report on leaked evidence. “Embarrassment on world TV for justice,” said a headline in the Libero newspaper.

With their scientific evidence torpedoed - a point driven home by the Knox campaign - the Perugia prosecutors could only resort to what some called a medieval view of women.

They dubbed Knox a sex-obsessed “she-devil” who had

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manipulated Sollecito into helping murder Kercher, while offering very little evidence to back this up.

Italy has seen other cases in which investigators appeared to have decided early on who was guilty and then tried to build a case around their suspicions - resulting in dizzying twists and turns as different suspects were arrested and then released. In the notorious “Monster of Florence” case, eight couples were murdered outside the central city between 1968 and 1985. Four men were at various times convicted of the grisly murders and several other suspects arrested and released. Many Italians believe the real culprit was never found. It is said to have been the longest and most expensive criminal investigation in Italian history.

One of the prosecutors in that case, Giuliano Mignini, also won the original conviction and 26-year sentence against Knox and said on Tuesday he would appeal against her acquittal to Italy’s highest appeal court. There have been several other cases of multiple arrests or long unsolved murders that cast doubt on investigators’ methods and training. With no contempt of court protections, the names and even photographs of suspects frequently appear in newspapers long before their trials while under the Italian system public prosecutors and judges often share offices - meaning they can easily discuss cases before they come to court. The latter problem is something intended to be changed under a sweeping legal reform planned by the administration of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, although the reform has been discredited by suggestions that the real aim is to protect him from a string of fraud and sex cases. Luciano Garofalo, former head of the Carabinieri paramilitary police scientific squad and now a professor of forensic investigation, told Reuters that police in every country had to improve the quality of evidence collection and analysis. He pointed to the Innocence Project in the United States which has used DNA testing to review previous

convictions, resulting in the exoneration of 273 people. “This shows that judicial errors are made all over the world and all over the world you can make mistakes,” he told Reuters.He did concede, however, that Italy may be behind some other countries in the training of first response units to a crime, be they police or emergency services, who can contaminate the scene if they follow the wrong procedures.

“We must spend more resources on this. But really it is a world problem - the application of proper protocols at the scene of a crime. We must all create real experts who go to the scene of a crime and then in a laboratory do the analysis. And the laboratories must conform to the highest standards of quality,” he told Reuters. In the Knox case, he believes there is a question over whether the independent experts were in fact more qualified than the scientific police, without excluding that mistakes were made by the latter. “Who says these two (the independent experts) have a level of competence enough to give us the certainty that everything was mistaken?” he asked. “We must not give exclusive importance to what the independent experts said.”

Garofalo said he also believed, from his own investigations, that the evidence from the bra clip and knife was “very limited” but said there was other material including blood found in the bath of the apartment where Kercher was killed that could have thrown more light on who was responsible. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the acquittal, the collapse of the police case has left the Kercher family still racked by uncertainty over how Meredith died. Ruede Guede, an Ivoirian drifter and drug dealer, is the only person convicted in a crime which investigators believe was committed by several people, some of whom held Kercher down while she was stabbed and had her throat cut. “Of course if those released yesterday are not the guilty party, we are now obviously left wondering who is the other person or people,” her brother Lyle said.— Reuters

Yanukovich hides his hand on Tymoshenko

By Richard Balmforth ill he? Won’t he? Ex-Soviet Ukraine stands at a fork in the road as President Viktor Yanukovich weighs a decision on the fate of his arch-rival Yulia Tymoshenko. The question of whether he will spare the former prime minister and opposition leader from jail will weigh heavily on the speed with which Ukraine joins Europe’s mainstream. The Kiev court judging her is now in recess, ostensibly considering the prosecution’s call for her to be jailed for seven years on a charge of abuse of office.

But in reality it is waiting for a pointer from Yanukovich, whom everyone recognises as the only real arbiter in the affair.

The court will re-convene on Oct 11 - or perhaps later - for a verdict to be announced. But there’s still no indication of which way Yanukovich will jump. Usually easy to read, he is hiding his hand this time in a game of very high stakes. The pundits are divided. Some say pressure from the European Union and the United States will carry the day. They say the trial is politically driven and casts doubts on Yanukovich’s commitment to democracy. They want Tymoshenko released.

Others say Yanukovich, a big-built, macho figure from a tough mining region of eastern Ukraine, cannot afford to lose face with his constituency. Nor can he break faith, they say, with the industrial barons who put him in office. Most of them would like Tymoshenko - a self-styled scourge of the ‘oligarchs’ - extinguished as a political force. The EU has brushed aside Yanukovich’s arguments that he is allowing the courts to do their job. They have warned him a key association agreement will be in jeopardy if she goes to jail. But EU officials add they are not sure he has “got the message”.

Even Russia’s leaders who have an interest in the outcome because the charge against her relates to the price Tymoshenko negotiated for Russian gas in 2009, seem to be in the dark. “ The answers ... are in Yanukovich’s head,” Yulia Mostovaya, chief editor of the influential weekly Dzerkalo Tyzhnya wrote.

It is hard to exaggerate the animosity between Yanukovich and Tymoshenko whose political paths fatefully crossed in the

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2004-5 “Orange Revolution” street protests.

A slight figure who wears a peasant-style hair-braid as her trademark, Tymoshenko’s PR savvy and rhetoric galvanised thousands on the streets and doomed Yanukovich’s first bid for the presidency. Though Ukraine’s highest court quashed his election, he contends to this day that Tymoshenko and her cohorts robbed him of his right to the presidency.

Their later face-off for the presidency in Feb 2010 was a brutal affair in which Tymoshenko heaped invective on her opponent. For weeks, she refused to recognise his victory. The bitterness between them rules

Russian early in his presidency, Yanukovich has refused Moscow’s entreaties to join a Russia-led customs union. He seems firmly committed to taking Ukraine into mainstream Europe and strengthening ties with the 27-member bloc in an association agreement due to be signed at the end of the year. A proposed free trade zone with the EU holds out huge promise for the business interests of Yanukovich’s powerful backers like steel billionaire Rinat Akhmetov.

EU leaders have warned Yanukovich that if Tymoshenko is jailed there is no chance of any agreement being ratified by EU member parliaments. “I strongly believe that there

Policemen stand near a poster where Yulia Tymoshenko’s supporters count her days in jail in front of Pechersk district court in Kiev on Sept 30, 2011. — AFP out charity: Tymoshenko has been held in a prison cell overnight since Aug 5 for contempt of court and the authorities have passed up several chances for relenting.

With the popularity of Yanukovich’s Regions Party dipping as the run-up starts to a parliamentary election next year, there is every reason politically for him to keep the populist Tymoshenko out of action.

Equally, though, EU pressure cannot be underestimated. Despite being tagged pro-

will be no chance of this (if Tymoshenko is jailed),” Oleg Rybachuk, a chief-of-staff under former President Viktor Yushchenko, told Reuters. The EU has handed Yanukovich what they see as a way-out. They want him to push through legislation to “decriminalise” the abuse-of-office charge under which Tymoshenko is being tried, allowing her to go free.

Yanukovich, sensing this would represent a dangerous loss of face, told EU officials in

Warsaw last week that she would first have to ask him for a pardon. Secondly, he said, she would have to pay out $200 million to compensate the Ukrainian energy firm Naftogaz for estimated financial losses from the 2009 gas deal with Russia’s Gazprom.

The fiery Tymoshenko, who has denounced the court hearing as a “lynching” trial, has herself ruled out asking her nemesis for a pardon. “That would be like recognising a dictatorship in our country,” she told the court.

To date, while some parts of the criminal code are being re-classified, there is no move to dilute the Tymoshenko clause.

Indeed, one Yanukovich adviser has ruled this out. “Articles 365 and 364 do not qualify for ‘decriminalisation’”, Andrei Portnov told Channel 5 television on Monday. But most commentators feel the potential harm to Ukraine’s international image means Yanukovich will go some of the way to meeting the EU’s demands.

Imprisoning Tymoshenko would rebound on him, for instance, ahead of next year’s Euro-2012 soccer tournament when, as co-host, Yanukovich will seek to showcase Ukraine as a bridge of democracy between east and West. “If he (Yanukovich) puts her in jail she will become at a stroke the most famous dissident in Europe, and who needs that?,” analyst Viktor Nebozhenko said last week.

He can take heart too from opinion polls that suggest he might not have much to lose by releasing her. They show that political martyrdom has not bolstered her ratings - though the trial is causing some re-alignment in opposition ranks. Nor does there seem to be a real risk of mass protests.

Hundreds of her supporters have campaigned from a tent encampment in Kiev centre through summer in solidarity with her. But there is no sign their cause could ignite mass unrest. “The authorities at the highest level must free Tymoshenko. It is common sense. They have to find a way of freeing her because with every day that she is in prison the more problems multiply for them,” said analyst Mikhail Pogrebinsky.

Rybachuk said: “I am convinced there is a lot of negotiating going on. I am not sure that things will be resolved in the court next week.” — Reuters

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UEFA plans 6 straight days of internationals

Windies will not miss Gayle DHAKA: West Indies are happy to build a team around youngsters and will not miss former captain Chris Gayle in the upcoming series against Bangladesh, coach Ottis Gibson said yesterday.

Gayle, who played 91 tests, scoring two triple-centuries, and 223 one-day internationals, has not played for West Indies since the World Cup this year after a breakdown in his relationship with the board and Gibson.

Asked if he thought the absence of Gayle would hurt the team in the series starting next week, Gibson emphatically said “No”. “We are not going to miss him because he is not here,” the coach told a news conference.

In an interview with Jamaican radio station KLAS Sports in April, Gayle questioned his treatment by board members and Gibson after he picked up an injury during the World Cup. “Some people will think we need him. We believe we are building a team. Of course, like I said, we need senior players that are committed to mix with the youngsters and guide the youngsters,” added Gibson.

“Some of the youngsters have taken the opportunity very well and done very well for us. As we continue to build for the future, we build around those young guys and some of the senior guys are here.”

West Indies will play a Twenty20, three one-day internationals and two tests against Bangladesh, hoping to reverse the fate they suffered against the same opponents at home in 2009. —Reuters

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2011

sp orts

LONDON: UEFA members have agreed to a scheduling overhaul that would see international matches played on six consecutive days, general secretary Gianni Infantino said yesterday.

Currently, international doubleheaders are usually played on Fridays and Tuesdays, but UEFA’s 53 member nations have backed a plan for tournament qualifiers to be spread from Thursdays to Tuesdays.

Infantino said that will prevent other sports from exploiting the absence of football on Saturdays during international windows as well as maximizing television coverage. “The week of football is somewhat of a new concept to promote national team football,” Infantino said at the Leaders in Football conference. “The chances are quite high

this will be the format of football in the future ... if we leave the weekend to other sports in the medium and long term it will be damaging.”

UEFA centralized control of commercial rights earlier this year and this move will help European football’s governing body sell the television rights to its members’ qualifiers since matches won’t be bunched on single days.

“We will go to the market in the first quarter of next year (to sell the rights),” Infantino said. “With the week of football you can offer many more opportunities to the broadcasters.”

While the change was unanimously approved by UEFA’s 53 members in Cyprus last month, it would still need to be ratified by UEFA’s executive committee.—AP

Button signs new contract WOKING: Formula One driver Jenson Button signed a new multi-year contract with McLaren yesterday. The 31-year-old former world champion joined McLaren at the beginning of the 2010 season and his deal was due to expire this year - though the English team had an option to extend it until 2012.

“I’ve never felt more at home at a team than I do at McLaren,” Button said.

“I’ve won four of the greatest races of my life here, I’m currently lying second in the drivers’ world championship, and I feel that I’m driving better than ever.

“I’ve made no secret of my ambition to continue winning races and world championships, and I fully believe this is the place where I can achieve those aims.”

The Englishman, who won the world title with Brawn GP in 2009, is currently second in the drivers’ standings behind runaway leader Sebastian Vettel with five races to go.

He had been in negotiations to extend his deal with McLaren for some time but will now continue his partnership with Lewis Hamilton next season.

“Jenson is a great driver and a great guy,” team principal Martin Whitmarsh said. “I can safely say that he’s one of the most capable and respected drivers we’ve ever had, and I’m therefore absolutely delighted that he’ll continue to work with us into the future.” —AP

Rangers eliminate Rays

ST LOUIS: Cardinals’ Albert Pujols doubles during the fifth inning of Game 3 of baseball’s National League division series against the Philadelphia Phillies. —AP

Francisco lifts Phillies to win over Cardinals ST. LOUIS: Charlie Manuel disregarded the numbers. He knew Ben Francisco was the right man for the job. Ryan Madson, too.

Francisco came on with a pinch-hit, three-run home run to provide the only offense the Philadelphia Phillies needed in a 3-2 win over the St. Louis Cardinals on Tuesday night that gave them a 2-1 lead in their NL division series. Madson got the last five outs to save Cole Hamels’ seventh postseason win.

S o much for the fac t none of Madson’s 32 saves this season lasted more than an inning. S o much for Francisco’s postseason futility and his lack of success against Jaime Garcia before his game-changer.

“All that matters is we’re here today and whatever you do today is going to pretty much define you,” Francisco said.

“Charlie put me up there and I got a big hit.”

The Phillies, favored to win it all after a franchise-record 102 wins, can finish off the wild-card Cardinals in Game 4 late yesterday, with Roy Oswalt opposing Edwin Jackson and 19-game winner Roy Halladay on deck.

“We have two Roys going for us if we need to get to that second one and you have to feel pretty good about your chances when that’s the case,” reliever Brad Lidge said. “But you can’t take these guys lightly at all because they show why they’re such a tough team.”

Cardinals manager Tony La Russa’s decisions in the crucial seventh inning were ripe for second-guessing. He let Garcia bat in the sixth with two men on and then let Garcia keep pitching, and both moves backfired.

Garcia struck out on Hamels’ 117th pitch to end the six th and keep it scoreless, and just a few minutes later served up a fat pitch that Francisco hammered over the left field wall and into the visitor’s bullpen.

“Well, it didn’t work, so that’s bad managing,” La Russa said. “I’m watching him pitch and was really pleased. I thought he was the guy to continue pitching and I k new the matchups were in our favor. It didn’t work.”

Even Garcia dissociated himself from the call to intentionally walk Carlos Ruiz before Francisco’s homer. “That wasn’t my idea,” Garcia said. “ That’s what (La Russa) wanted to do and that’s what we did.”

Second baseman Chase Utley was perfectly positioned to turn a double play to end the eighth on Allen Craig’s sharply hit grounder with the bases loaded. M adson allowed Yadier Molina’s RBI single in the ninth before earning the save.

“That was a lot of fun, a lot of fun,” Madson said. “I wish I was a lot better but I guess I was good enough and that’s all that matters.”

After stranding 14 runners to frustrate a season-best crowd of 46,914, the Cardinals are in an yet another winor-else predicament. They won the NL wild card on the final day of the season, erasing a 10 1/2-game deficit on Aug. 25 to overtake the Braves.

“Somebody was going to be up 2-1 after this game anyway, so the series doesn’t end just because they’re up 21,” Lance Berkman said. “We’ll come back out tomorrow and see what happens.”

Several Cardinals said it was no coincidence that neither team scored the first six innings. Shadows during games with late-afternoon start times have bedeviled the hitters and Berkman joked that when he learned Game 3 would begin at 4:07 p.m. CDT, “I threw a tantrum, stomped my feet and stuff like that. Didn’t do any good.”

Francisco’s shot on a 1-0 fastball from Garcia was only his second hit in 19 postseason at-bats. He hit six homers this season, the last on May 25 against the Reds.

“I didn’t know it was a homer, I knew I hit it good,” Francisco said. “I saw it bounce over the fence and just pure excitement, pure joy.”

Hamels struck out eight in six scoreless innings and reversed a disturbing trend after allowing nine homers in September, with a pair of doubles by Pujols the only extra-base hits. He’s a franchise-best 7-4 in the postseason with a 3.09 ERA. Pujols and Ryan Theriot had four hits apiece for St. Louis with Pujols getting his 22nd career multihit game in the postseason. The Cardinals came up empty despite three hits in the eighth, including a pinch-hit single by Matt Holliday in only his second appearance of the series.

Holliday, still bothered by an inflamed tendon in his right middle finger, wasn’t sure whether he’d be ready to start in Game 4. He said he hadn’t tried to throw. —AP

ST. PETERSBURG: Adrian Beltre stood off to the side of the interview room, drying his face with a giant towel. The Texas Rangers were celebrating another playoff series win, and their hot-hitting, championship-seeking third baseman relished being in the middle of the party.

The two -time All-Star had moments like Tuesday in mind when he joined the defending AL champions in the offseason, although it’s difficult to imagine anyone foreseeing him putting on a power show that few in major league history have matched to help the Rangers beat the Tampa Bay Rays 4-3 in the clincher of their division series.

“From my point of view, Texas gave me the best chance to put a ring on my finger,” Beltre said after homering three straight times to help the Rangers advance again.

“And I am just two steps away from it. Hopefully that happens.”

Ian Kinsler also homered, going deep on the second pitch of the game to help Texas take the bestof-five series 3-1 and end Tampa Bay’s remarkable run to the wildcard spot.

Next up, the Rangers will play the winner of the ALDS matchup between the Detroit Tigers and New York Yankees for the pennant.

“We’ve done this a lot over the past couple of years, but we’re looking forward to a little more of it,” designated hitter M ichael Young said in the midst of the celebration in the visitors clubhouse at Tropicana Field. “We know it’s going to be tough. We know we’re going to play a good team next round.”

Beltre, playing in the postseason for just the second time in a 13-year career, came into the game in a 1-for-11 slump. He broke loose with a 413-foot homer to left in the second inning, a 381foot shot in the fourth and another that traveled 384 feet in the seventh. By his own account, it probably was Beltre’s best day as a pro.

“I think besides my first big league hit, this is right up there,” said the slugger, who’s in the playoffs for the first time since 2004, when he was with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

“Amazing. ... We’ve been waiting for the middle of our lineup to get started, and today he stepped up and put us on his back and hit three home runs against pretty good pitching,” Texas manager Ron Washington said. “That’s not easy to do. ... He’s been big for us all year. And today he was bigger than big. He was huge.”

It was the seventh time a player has homered three times in a postseason game - Adam Kennedy was the last to do it, for the Angels in 2002. Babe Ruth did it twice, while Reggie Jackson, George Brett and Bob Robertson also are on the list.

Beltre connected in his first three at-bats. Given a chance to tie the big league record of four homers in a game, he hit a routine flyout with two men on in the eighth against Wade Davis.

“I was just trying to get a run there. Hit a line drive somewhere, maybe in the gap because they were tr ying to come back . ...

Winning the game was more important for me than to hit the (fourth) homer,” Beltre said.

“He’s just a phenomenal baseball player ... He has power to all fields. He showed that again,” said Rays manager Joe Maddon, who has followed Beltre’s career since the R angers star was with the Dodgers and Maddon was a coach with the Los Angeles Angels. “He’s one of the better fielding third basemen in the game. Always believed that. He has a joy for the game, too.”

Neftali Feliz gave up a run in the ninth inning before closing for his third save of the series, preserving the victory for Matt

first pratfall.

Te x a s re a c h e d t h e Wo r l d Series for the first time last year, but lost to San Francisco. Down 2 - 0 e a r l y, t h e R ays l i te r a l l y rammed their way back into the game.

Sean Rodriguez drew a oneout walk in the second and took off when Matt Joyce lined a twoout double to the gap in rightcenter field. Rodriguez barreled around third base and plowed into catcher Mike Napoli, jarring t h e b a l l l o o s e. R o d r i g u e z k n o c k e d N a p o l i b a c k w a rd, s c r a m b l e d to h i s fe e t a n d touched the plate with his hand.

It was the second plate collision in the playoffs this year. St. Lo u i s’ J o n J ay r a n ove r Philadelphia’s Carlos Ruiz in an unsuccessful attempt to score

Maddon called it a “beautiful collision because nobody got hurt and the Rays scored a run.”

“We’ll probably laugh about it the next time we see each other.

It’s the same as if he came into second and he took me out; I’m not going to be upset at him,” R o d r i g u e z s a i d. “ I k n o w h e’s going to try to block the plate, which he’s supposed to do to try to prevent guys from scoring.”

The play energized the crowd of 28,299, about 4,000 less than Monday night, which was announced as a sellout. Casey Kothcman added RBI singles in the fourth and ninth innings, but it wasn’t enough to prolong the season.

The Rays certainly gave their faithful, and fans everywhere, quite a ride in the final month. They over-

ST PETERSBURG: Members of the Texas Rangers celebrate their 4-3 win over the Tampa Bay Rays in Game 4 of baseball’s American League division series. —AP Harrison. Texas won for the fifth straight time on the road overall - all at Tropicana Field - in the o p e n i n g ro u n d. Th e R a n g e r s e l i m i n a te d Ta m p a B ay i n f i ve games last year, winning three times in the Rays’ home stadium.

Beltre hit his first two homers o f f ro o k i e J e re my H e l l i c k s o n , then added another solo drive against Game 1 winner Matt Moore in the seventh. “We can b e a t yo u i n m a ny w ays,” Washington said, “and today it was the long ball.”

Th e R ays we re n’t t h e o n l y ones who had trouble keeping up with Beltre - a television cameraman trying to run alongside Beltre to capture the image as the star jogged home did a face-

during Game 2 of the Cardinals’ matchup against the Phillies.

Washington and the Rangers trainer left the dugout to check o n t h e wo oz y N a p o l i , w h o remained in the game. Napoli got more attention in-between innings and stayed in the lineup.

There appeared to be no hard fe e l i n g s b e t we e n N a p o l i a n d Rodriguez, who played together when both were in the Angels system.

“I’m going to go in hard, too, if I have a chance and the game is on line like this one,” Napoli said. “That’s the right way to play the game. There are things you need to do in this game. I don’t have any problems with what he did.”

came a nine-game deficit against Boston in the wild-card standings, then rallied from seven runs down to beat the Yankees on the last day of the regular season and reach the playoffs for the third time in four years despite a small payroll.

“It’s sour the way it ended. You feel like you have done more. We really, really have nothing to hang our heads about,” said Evan Longoria, whose 12th-inning homer beat New York and put the Rays in the postseason. “ We had our oppor tunities.

Our bullpen and starting pitchers gave us a chance,” added Longoria, who was 0 for 8 with five strikeouts in Games 3 and 4.

“It came down to offensively not getting it done.”—AP

Beijing event good for the sport: Millar BEIJING: Leaving his three-week-old son and his wife behind to ride in the Tour of Beijing was not easy for David Millar but the Briton is happy to witness the development of cycling in Asia, where he spent his teenage years.

Millar, who moved to Hong Kong to join his father when he was 13, took second place yesterday in the opening time trial of the new Tour of Beijing, a stage race that has been included in the elite World Tour calendar.

“I appreciate being here, because the atmosphere is relaxed, it’s the end of the season. It’s a great experience to stroll in this city, to go to the Silk Market, to go near the Forbidden City,” Millar, who rides for American

team Garmin-Cervelo, told Reuters after being beaten by world champion Tony Martin by 17 seconds.

“If I had been told, when I was riding through the Hong Kong park, that I would take part in one of the biggest races of the world in Beijing in 2011, I wouldn’t have believed it,” Millar said.

“To me, it was something meant to happen to the future generations, not mine. It’s funny how cycling has developed in the past 10 years.” The 34-year-old Millar confessed that he had initially not been keen to travel to China at the end of a long, eventful season.

“I feel very tired, I did not really want to

come here at first,” said Millar, who this year published his autobiography and welcomed his first son.

“2011 has been an eventful year for me. I wrote my book. It’s a book meant for those who don’t understand cycling and will discover our lives (as riders). Then my first son, Archibald, was born three weeks ago. He was ill before I left for China and I almost did not make the trip. It’s not easy for my wife who’s on her own in Spain.

“But by making this race a World Tour event, the International Cycling Union made the ProTour teams’ presence mandatory, that’s the reason why I’m here.” —Reuters

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THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2011

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Tiger’s return: A comeback or a cameo?

SAN MARTIN: This might be more of a cameo than a comeback for Tiger Woods. Or maybe a little of both. When he tees off in the Frys.com Open, Woods will have gone 54 days without having hit a meaningful golf shot. That’s the longest stretch of his career without competition when he wasn’t dealing with some form of rehab.

The buzz for his return is predictable. The tournament is close to a sellout, with ticket sales already five times higher than a year ago. There remains no greater draw in golf.

Less predictable is what Woods will do on the course. He is capable of winning at CordeValle, because no matter what he has or hasn’t done in the last two years, he is capable of anything. “I think this is a fresh start,” swing coach Sean Foley said Tuesday. And then, Woods will stop again.

What makes this feel like a cameo appearance is Woods has been gone for seven weeks, and after the Frys.com Open, he won’t compete again for a full month when he plays in the Australian Open. He has the inaugural Tiger Woods Invitational next week at Pebble Beach — essentially a fundraiser for his foundation — and most likely has his two children the following week. His schedule was set long before Woods knew how this season would pan out.

After the Australian Open is the Presidents Cup, and then a week off before Woods ends his season at the Chevron World Challenge.

That’s four tournaments over the final three months of the year, hardly the kind of schedule for a player to build any momentum, even a guy who rarely plays more than about 20 times a year even in the best of times. The best measure of any comeback won’t start until 2012.

One television promotion trumpeted coverage of all four rounds of Woods’ return, forgetting perhaps that unlike his last return at Firestone, the Frys.com Open has a 36-hole cut. Does anyone expect Woods to be gone by the weekend? He was the last time he played, at the PGA Championship.

But what does anyone really know of Woods’ game after a year like this? There was some good.

He shot 30 on the front nine of Augusta National in the final round of the Masters and was briefly tied for the lead until he stalled on the back nine by missing short putts and tied for fourth. That was his best finish this year.

There was plenty of bad, from his 74-75 weekend at Torrey Pines to his nine-hole 42 before withdrawing from The Players Championship to his 77 in the opening round of the PGA

Championship, the first time ever in a major that he finished out of the top 100. Mostly, though, this year gets an “incomplete.”

Woods has played only 117 holes over three tournaments since the Masters. He missed three months, including two majors, this summer when he wisely decided to stop playing until his left knee and Achilles tendon were fully healed. He now says his left leg feels the best it has in years.

Why should anyone expect something different from Woods at a course he has never played than at Firestone, where he had won seven times?

Woods said he feels more prepared this time.

In a conference call last week for the Presidents Cup, he said he was excited to get back to golf “knowing that I’m finally healthy enough to do it now, and I’ve practiced, something I had not done in preparation for Akron and the PGA.” “But now that I’ve actually practiced, I’ve gotten even stronger in my lifting sessions, so things are definitely shaping up quickly,” he added.

Foley said Woods practiced for about 10 hours before showing up at Firestone, where a good opening round (68) turned into another mediocre week (tied for 37th). He went home for a few days before going to Atlanta Athletic Club, where he fueled more speculation that his best golf was

behind him. “Here you’ve had all this time off as he was trying to do a new swing,” Foley said. “He was quite ingrained when he took time off before and came back to it because it was the swing he was doing. This is really the perfect storm ‚Ä” injured, changing his swing, not being able to put a lot of time into it. That’s the perfect storm for not playing to the level you can.” “I believe in the direction we’re headed,” he said. “And I obviously believe in how great he is.”

The latest tease was Woods breaking the course record at The Medalist last week with a 62.

It was just a practice round with friends, and with no pressure. Then again, Foley points out 100 PGA Tour players have been on Greg Norman’s course in South Florida without doing better than 64.

That really doesn’t matter.

Foley said he gets stopped 500 times a week by people asking about his most famous client, all but a few of them wishing for the best and hopeful that Woods can return to his game. That doesn’t matter, either, nor do the remarks from two or three others who make obnoxious comments. Ultimately, all that matters is the score on Woods’ card, and that won’t be determined until he tees off Thursday at CordeValle. And then he’ll be gone for a month. — AP

NBA talks break down, games in jeopardy NEW YORK: Unable to reach a deal, NBA owners and players walked away from the table and don’t know when they will meet again. If it’s not in the next few days, they can forget about playing 82 games.

Without an agreement by Monday, the beginning of the regular season will be canceled, and both sides will lose millions of dollars and perhaps countless fans.

“We’re ready to meet and discuss any subject anyone wants to talk about,” Commissioner David Stern said. “We’d like not to lose the first two weeks of the season, but it doesn’t look good.”

Though the financial gap closed slightly, once the players’ association said it wouldn’t entertain the idea of a 50-50 revenue split, the league canceled the remainder of the preseason Tuesday and will wipe out the first two weeks of the regular season if there is no labor agreement by Monday. “ We were not able to make the progress that we hoped we could make and we were not able to continue the negotiations,” Stern said after nearly four hours of talks between owners and players ended without gaining ground on a new deal.

No further meetings are scheduled union executive director Billy Hunter said it could be a month or two until the next one - making it even more likely the league will lose games to a work stoppage for the first time since 1998-99, when the season was reduced to 50 games.

Stern and Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver said owners offered players a 50-50 split of basketball-related income. That’s still well below the 57 percent that players were guaranteed under the previous collective bargaining agreement, but more than the 47 percent union officials said was formally proposed to them.

The only numbers that matter now, however, are the millions that stand to be lost when arenas go dark. “The damage will be enormous,” Silver said.

Players had offered to reduce their BRI guarantee to 53 percent, which they said would have given owners back more than $1 billion over six years. They say they won’t cut it further, at least for now.

And they insist the 50-50 concept wasn’t an even split, because it would have come after the league had already deducted $350 million off the top.

“Today was not the day for us to get this done,” players’ association president Derek Fisher said. “We were not able to get close enough to close the gap.”

With superstars like Kobe Bryant, Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett standing behind him, Hunter said the players’ proposal would have made up at least $200 million per season - a sizable chunk of the $300 million owners said they lost last season.

“Our guys have indicated a willingness

to lose games,” Hunter said. The sides are also still divided on the salary-cap structure. Training camps were postponed and 43 preseason games scheduled for Oct. 9-15 were canceled on Sept. 24.

Both sides said they felt pressure to work toward a deal with deadlines looming before more cancellations would be necessary.

Stern said the owners had removed their demand for a hard salary cap, were no longer insisting on salary rollbacks, and would have given players the right to opt out of a 10-year agreement after seven years. But the money split was always going to be the biggest hurdle in these negotiations, with owners insistent on the ability to turn a profit after the league said 22 of its 30 teams lost money last season.

“We want to and have been willing to negotiate, but we find ourselves at a point today where we in some ways anticipated or expected to be, faced with a lockout that may jeopardize portions if not all of our season,” Fisher said.

After hardly budging off their original proposal for 11/2 years, owners finally increased their offer to players from 46 to 47 percent of BRI. It was then that the top negotiators discussed the 50-50 concept, and while Stern sounded disappointed that it didn’t work, Silver was more frustrated.

“I am not going to get a good night sleep,” he said. “After this afternoon’s session, I would say I’m personally very disappointed. I thought that we should have continued negotiating today and I thought that there was potentially common ground on a 50-50 deal. I think it makes sense, it sounds like a partnership.

There still would have been a lot of negotiating to do on the system elements, but I’m personally very disappointed.”

On what both sides stressed was an important day, the owners’ entire 11-man labor relations committee came to New York to meet with 11 players. They could still work something out before Monday’s deadline, but neither side sounded optimistic. “Right now, we had our committees, we gave it a really good run, and it didn’t work,” Stern said.

Hunter said the union would hold regional meetings with its players, set up workout centers and help in other ways.

And many players - including Bryant, who has been in talks with an Italian team - will have to decide if they want to explore playing overseas.

And without a deal, the battle could go to the courts. Hunter said the union would have to consider decertification, and on Tuesday a federal court judge scheduled a hearing for Nov. 2 to hear arguments in the league’s lawsuit against the players seeking a declaration that the lockout doesn’t violate antitrust laws. All things both sides hoped to avoid Tuesday.

“It wasn’t to be, and we don’t have any plans right now,” Stern said. — AP

NEW YORK: NBA Commissioner David Stern (right) listens as deputy commissioner Adam Silver speaks during a news conference following NBA labor talks meeting between basketball players and owners. — AP

HILVERSUM: Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland tees off in this file photo. — AP

McIlroy aiming for Korea Open title SEOUL: US Open champion Rory Mcilroy will be aiming to better his third place of 2009 when he tees off in the Korea Kolon Open at Woo Jeong Country Hills Club in Cheonan today.

To take the trophy, the Northern Irish star will not only have to defeat defending champion and local hero YE Yang in his own backyard, he will have to fend off a strong challenge from other Korean, Australian and Chinese rivals at the OneAsia event.

McIlroy arrived in Korea after finishing second in the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship in Scotland on Sunday. “I am excited to be back for the first time since 2009. I went close last time and finished third, so it would be nice to come back and do better,” McIlroy said.

“I remember the course, but the thing I remember most is that the par threes are tough, especially on the back nine. All aspects of your game have to be in shape every week, but especially iron play this week considering the tough par threes we will have to play.”

Yang, the only Asian player to win a major after defeating Tiger Woods at the PGA Championship in 2009, is always well-supported in his homeland and thrilled fans by taking the 2010 title. “I have good memories of the course from last year. I enjoy this tournament and I know that Korean fans look forward to this week,” said Yang.

“Rory is a good player and I am looking forward to playing against him this week. I lost to him at the US Open so I would like to beat him, but he is the highest ranked player in the field this week.”

There are other local stars expected to mount a challenge. Kim Kyung-tae of South Korea, ranked 22 in the world is also among the favorites as is Noh Seung-yol who let a five-shot lead slip in the 2010 tournament.

“I’m sure YE Yang has great memories of last year, but I don’t and I hope he will feel my pain this time around,” said Noh. “I play the Korea Open every year and I am looking forward to

playing alongside top quality players.” 2010 PGA Tour Rookie of the Year Rickie Fowler is another of the high-profile contenders.

China has sent a 16-strong contingent to challenge the likes of Mcilroy and Yang for the title with Wu Ashun and Zhang Xinjun leading the charge Like Mcilroy, Australia’s Andre Stolz was in action in Scotland last weekend and is also ready to take a third professional title of the year after triumphing at the Thailand Open and Indonesia PGA Championship.

Such successes have moved Stolz to the top of the OneAsia Order of Merit ahead of Kim Kyung-tae. Although the Koreans have home advantage, Stolz is hoping that his local knowledge and experience will help.

“I’ve played this course before so I know where I’m going and what to expect,” he said.

“The challenge will be my late arrival from the Dunhill Links and not having had a practice round before the tournament.”— AP

England captain Cook brace for new ODI rules HYDERABAD: England captain Alastair Cook said yesterday he hoped to use two practice games ahead of the limited-overs series against India to adjust to new rules introduced by the ICC. “We are not quite sure how the rules will be effective in the conditions here,” Cook said. “Our two practice games will be useful because I feel the side which can adapt to the rule changes better will have an advantage.”

According to the revised rules for one-day internationals, two new balls will now be used one from each end. A new restriction on the use of power plays also comes into force. After the mandatory 10-over powerplay at the beginning of the innings, the batting and bowling powerplays of five overs each must be used between the 16th and 40th overs.

Teams will now have to do without runners for injured batsmen and umpires may give a batsman out ‘obstructing the field’ if he significantly changes his direction in an attempt to avoid being run out.

The new rules also allow a bowler more time to attempt a run out of the non-striker before delivery in order to deprive the runner of any unfair advantage.

“Both our warm-ups are day-night games, which give us a chance to adjust well. The 10 days of preparation we will have ahead of the series will be very useful,” said the 26-year-old Cook, who has played in only 36 ODIs for England despite being a mainstay of the test

side. England, which arrived in India for its fivematch ODI series on Tuesday, plays practice games against two yet-to-be-named sides on Oct. 8 and 11 in Hyderabad.

It will then play one-day internationals at Hyderabad (Oct. 14), New Delhi (Oct. 17), Mohali (Oct. 20), Mumbai (Oct. 23) and Kolkata (Oct. 25). The tour culminates with a solitary twenty20 game in Kolkata (Oct. 29).

Cook said England’s 3-0 win over India in a five-game home series last month would not have a bearing on the matches.

“I don’t see any relation between the two series. Historically India has always been strong at home. It is an extremely tough challenge but we know we can cope with it,” Cook said.

He said India would be formidable despite the absence of several senior players.

“Their players know the conditions well,” he said. “But yes, compared to the past, they are an inexperienced side and the bowling in particular looks depleted in the absence of Zaheer Khan and Harbhajan Singh.”

India selectors have dropped off-spinner Harbhajan in the squad named for the first two ODIs, while pace spearhead Zaheer is among several seniors ruled out, due to injuries suffered on his ankle and hamstring.

Star batsman Sachin Tendulkar (toe), Virender Sehwag (shoulder), Yuvraj Singh and Rohit Sharma (both finger) and Munaf Patel (ankle) are the other prominent players out with injuries. — AP

HYDERABAD: England cricket team captain Alastair Cook bats during a practice session. The England team is in India to play five one-day international matches and one Twenty20 cricket match. — AP

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THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2011

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Extended time off for Cowboys after big collapse

Kohei Uchimura in action in this file photo

Talk is cheap, US has to deliver at gym worlds TOKYO: As he waited to take his turn on pommel horse, two-time world champion Kohei Uchimura looked down at the opposite end of the floor, curious to see what the US men were up to. Maybe there’s something to that big talk by the Americans, after all.

A year after finishing a close fourth at the world gymnastics championships, the US men believe they can be on the podium this year. And not clinging to the bottom step, either. This team, they insist, can contend for the world title.

“You have to go to a competition knowing you’re going to do everything and that you can win,” two-time Olympic medalist Jonathan Horton said yesterday. “So my entire career, we’ve gone to the world championships and the Olympic Games thinking anything can happen and we can win. We’ve always had that, ‘We hope it happens, we know it can happen.’ “Now,” he said, “we are prepared for it to happen.”

Overtaking the Chinese and the Japanese is going to be a tall order, however. The teams have combined to win the last three Olympic titles, and China has had a stranglehold on gold at the world championships since 2003.

Japan has been runner-up at the last three worlds, and was the silver medalist in Beijing.

And there’s nothing to indicate it will be any different here.

China’s team owns more precious metal than a jeweler, with five members back from last year’s world champions including Lord of the Rings Chen Yibing, a double Olympic gold medalist, and Teng Haibin, the 2004 Olympic champ on pommel horse. Japan lost only one key member from last year’s team that finished 1.228 points behind China, the closest anyone has gotten to the Chinese since their meltdown at the Athens Olympics.

“China and Japan are one league maybe,” said Germany’s Philipp Boy, the defending silver medalist in the all-around. “Then the Germans, the American guys, Korea. ... So we have to fight for the third place.”

The Americans haven’t won a team medal at worlds since 2003, when Olympic champion Paul Hamm was in his heydey, finishing one spot short both last year and in 2007.

But there is something different about this US team. They are a confident, tight-knit bunch, and they’ve been feeding off of one another for several years now. New US champion Danell Leyva kicked it up a couple of notches in his pursuit of Horton, the bronze

all-around medalist at last year’s world, and both are now medal contenders in multiple events. John Orozco isn’t far behind and, in only his first full year as a senior, might very well end up overtaking both.

Two years after going to the world championships and never seeing the competition floor, Jake Dalton wowed the international judges with his polish and precision at the American Cup. Shoved into the lineup as a last-minute alternate, Dalton wound up third, ahead of Boy. Steve Legendre has made the floor final at the last two world championships, and Alex Naddour puts up such high scores on pommel horse someone needs to check his passport.

“I don’t think we’re cocky at all. I think we’re very confident,” Horton said. “We know our abilities, and we’re not focusing on anybody else. We’re going to focus on ourselves.

We’re well aware that this is probably the best team we’ve ever had on a world championships floor for the US.” But it’s one thing for a team to think those things. It’s quite another to actually believe it.

The transformation started in Beijing, when the US men won a bronze medal despite losing Hamm and his twin brother Morgan - the only two members of the team with Olympic experience - to injuries. Horton went on to add a silver on high bar, and the medals were tangible proof the Americans had the depth - and talent - to contend with the best in the world.

Fast-forward to this summer’s Japan Cup. With all of the world’s top teams there except Germany (China did send its B squad), the Americans finished second, less than a point behind Japan. Equally telling was that the Americans won pommel horse, their worst event - by far - for the last few decades. Won it by a wide margin, no less. “We turned the corner this summer at training camp, where it felt like all of the things we’d been working on started to become a reality,” national team coordinator Kevin Mazeika said. “We came out of that training camp like, ‘All right, we know we can do this. Then Japan Cup was a good affirmation of that work. ... That really bolstered our confidence.”

But the Americans have made bold statements before and failed to deliver. This is their chance to back up their big talk. “I’ll say it,” Horton said. “I think it would be a big disappointment for us to not walk away with one of the top medals.”—AP

BEIJING: Spain’s Sanchez Gonzalez Samuel of the Euskaltel Euskadi team sprints over the finish line during the first stage of the inaugural Tour of Beijing cycling race. —AFP

Farah and Savinova win European awards LONDON: Britain’s M o Farah and Russia’s Mariya Savinova have been named men’s and women’s European Athletes of the Year after their performances at the world championships. Somalia-born Farah claimed gold in the 5,000m in Daegu to cap a stunning season for the 28-year-old who also set a European 10,000m record at a Diamond League meeting

in Eugene, Oregon, in June.

He was the first European for nearly two decades to win the 5,000m world title. Savinova, 26, suffered one defeat in 10 outings over 800m and won gold in Daegu in the fastest time by a European runner for nine years. The awards are voted for by fans, media and European Athletics member federations as well as a panel of experts.—Reuters

IRVING: So much for Tony Romo and the Dallas Cowboys getting extra time to savor something good. Instead of a three-game winning streak, Dallas (2-2) began its bye week - and now excruciating extra time before playing again - after the biggest collapse in the team’s 52-season history with coach Jason Garrett again having to defend his quarterback after another turnoverplagued finish.

“Certainly, Tony has had a lot of really good games for us. He’s had some games where things haven’t gone well also. In recent weeks, I think we’ve seen each of those kinds of games,” Garrett said Monday.

“Even the best ones have games that end like this. Tony will learn from this. He goes about it the right way, and we will be better as a football team because of this.”

The worrisome part for the Cowboys (2-2) has to be how the latest meltdown, blowing a 24-point lead over the last 25 minutes in a 3430 loss to Detroit, is eerily similar to how the season began.

In the season-opening loss at the New York Jets, Romo had an interception and lost a fumble at the 3 as Dallas blew a 14-point fourth-quarter lead to lose for the first time in franchise history.

Against Detroit on Sunday, the Cowboys led 27-3 after Romo threw his third touchdown early in the third quarter. He followed with three interceptions, the first two returned for touchdowns and the third setting up the Lions’ game-winning score with 1:39 left.

“Certainly the thing that we’ll continue to emphasize to our football team, and he’s a big part of that, is playing winning football and doing the things that help you win games, and the last couple of weeks he’s done those things,” Garrett said.

“In this game against Detroit and the earlier game against the Jets he didn’t do those things. Hopefully, he’ll learn from those experiences.”

A week after the loss to the Jets, Romo threw for 201 yards in the fourth quarter and overtime of a win at San Francisco despite suffering a fractured rib and punctured lung early in the game The Cowboys then had an 18-16 win over NFC East rival Washington, the first time in 10 years they won without scoring a touchdown.

Before losing to the undefeated Lions (4-0), the biggest lead blown by the Cowboys in a loss was against Washington on Nov. 28, 1965, when they had a 21-0 lead in the second quarter and lost 34-31. That was exactly four months before Garrett was born, and during the franchise’s sixth season before Dallas had ever been in a playoff game.

Players had their scheduled day off Monday, then will practice Tuesday and Wednesday before getting a four-day weekend. Their next game is Oct. 16 at New

England.

“You can’t forget about this. You want to remember these types of losses. This is something you definitely want to learn from,” linebacker Anthony Spencer said after the game.

“We have to realize we were up and we didn’t finish the game. We know that this can’t keep happening throughout the season and if it does we’re going to be the mediocre team that we don’t want to be.”

Tight end Jason Witten described the loss as “frustrating” and “disappointing.” He said the team will stay together and believe in each other with three-fourths of the regular

A short video clip shows Jones patting Romo on the shoulder pads and then reaching for the quarterback’s jersey while apparently offering encouragement. Romo pulled away and kept walking.

Jones never addressed that brushoff after the game, when he quickly defended the quarterback. The owner said he had “a lot of faith in Romo” and nothing had changed that.

Since leading the Cowboys to their first playoff victory in 13 seasons at the end of the 2009 season, Romo is 3-8 in his past 11 starts, including his abbreviated 2010 season.

“I think he’s a very good starting quarter-

ARLINGTON: Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo warms up before an NFL football game. —AP season still left to play.

Even after missing a chance to be 3-1, the Cowboys have one more win than at this point last season. They were 1-7 and lost Romo to a broken collarbone before Wade Phillips was fired and Garrett promoted. “We must and we will look ahead,” owner Jerry Jones said after the game.

“We know how for it to be worse than this.

We’ve experienced it, a lot of this same group has experienced it. So we’ll get in here, take our bye, get well and come back and try to do something very special.”

There was an awkward moment on the sideline Sunday between Jones and Romo after Detroit scored its go-ahead touchdown.

back,” Garrett said.

“I played next to a Hall of Fame quarterback in this organization (Troy Aikman) for a long time and each and every day he came in to learn and get better. That’s what the best ones do in football and do in life. I’d expect Tony to continue to do that.”

Romo also got a show of support Monday from Dallas Mavericks star Dirk Nowitzki, who tweeted “Dear tony romo. Don’t worry abt all the critics. I heard that same garbage for a long time. Keep working hard and keep improving.”

Nowitzki and the Mavericks won their first NBA championship in June after many seasons of playoff struggles.—AP

Olympic marathoner Hall seeks his stride NEW YORK: Ryan Hall’s long-distance achievements don’t sync up well with his countrymen’s notoriously short attention spans. Keep an eye out for him this weekend, anyway. You just might see America’s best hope for a medal in next summer’s Olympic marathon hit his stride.

Hall is a devout, pencil-thin 28year-old who’s already covered 26.2 miles faster than any American ever - a 2:04:58 time at the Boston Marathon in April that didn’t count as a US record because the course does not meet specifications. On top of that, he came in fourth, trailing two Kenyans and an Ethiopian.

In Sunday’s Chicago Marathon, Hall figures to again have his hands full with the five Kenyans including favorite Moses Mosop two Ethiopians, a Brazilian and Japanese ranked alongside him in the top 10.

“The marathon is like boxing, anything is possible on any given day,” Hall said Tuesday.

“Sometimes a guy who hasn’t built a resume yet hits that magical day where everything clicks.”

An American hasn’t had a day like that at the Olympics since Frank Shorter won gold in 1972, then came back four years later for a silver. The only medal won by an American since came in 2004 when Meb Keflezeghi took silver in Athens.

And Keflezeghi - who moved to the United States at age 12 and began racing in junior high, but didn’t become a naturalized citizen until graduating from UCLA in 1998 - was able to win silver only after leader Vanderlei de Lima was ambushed by a protester late in the race.

Hall finished 10th at the Beijing Olympics. On the heels of his performance in Boston, a win in Chicago would give him momentum going into next January’s U.S. Olympic trials. It would also be the first win in a major race by an American since Keflezeghi claimed the 2009 New York City Marathon.

“Somebody could write a dis-

sertation about all the things we’ve been doing wrong,” said Greg Meyer, who was the last American to win the Boston Marathon - in 1983 - and will work the radio broadcast for the Chicago race.

“Running in college now is mostly about time trials, and if you do reach world-class levels, the economics of the sport are such that the top guys don’t need to race much. Maybe it’s sour grapes from an old man, but with our shoe contracts, maybe half the money was bonuses based on appearances. We had to run to make a living. ...

“Compare that with the Kenyans. Growing up, we ride school buses, they run to school. A lot of promising guys here get college degrees, give running a shot, right, and if it doesn’t produce results right away, they look for something else to make a living. In Kenya, if you show promise, running is your best, maybe only shot to make a living.

“There’s a certain amount of learning that only comes with racing ... but it’s like we’ve looked around at all the great African runners and just conceded, “This is who we are. We’re not going to win on this stage.’”

Hall doesn’t buy into that last bit, though in order to climb up the sport’s ladder, he’s had to learn to run like the Africans.

Hall’s strength, since he began running seriously at age 14, has been eating up miles at a steady clip like a metronome. His toughest competitors, on the other hand, surge several times over the course of a marathon, breaking away in small packs for the lead, then surging again to test one another as the finish line approaches.

“I’m realizing more and more how important it is for me to maintain contact. That’s something I did well at Boston this year, where guys would get away from me,” he said in an interview this summer with a Stanford alumni magazine.

BOSTON: This April 19, 2010, file photo shows Ryan Hall sprinting to the finish during the 114th running of the Boston Marathon. —AP “That’s how I stay in the front, but how do I win the race? That’s a whole different question,” he added. “That’s what I’m starting to address now.” It hasn’t been a smooth progression.

Hall began running in eighth grade, when his size - 5-feet and barely 100 pounds - narrowed his choice of spor ts, but he loved competitive racing from the very start. He’s 5-10 and 140 pounds now, but still loves to run, maybe too much.

After years of training maniacally and often racing both spring and fall marathons, he’s finally begun taking adequate

time off to rest and let his body heal. Hall learned the dangers of overworking a year ago, when nagging injuries forced him to pull out of the Chicago race, leaving him with another score to settle.

“Dropping out turned out to be good. I learned a lot about myself, and what my body can take. Now that I have my health squared away, the sky is the limit. I believe my best days are not only in front of me,” he said, “but maybe in front of for a long time.” We may find out if he’s right as early as Sunday.—AP

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THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2011

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Sinner? Matador? Kickers strut odd stuff at RWC

DUNEDIN: England rugby player Jonny Wilkinson takes a kick in this file photo. —AP

Boston Bruins have two No.1s BOSTON: Tim Thomas won the Vezina Trophy, the Conn Smythe Trophy and the Stanley Cup last season - everything he could, it seems, except the job as the Boston Bruins’ No. 1 goalie.

“We have two No. 1s,” Bruins coach Claude Julien said Tuesday as the team met with the media two days before it opens the season and its title defense.

Julien said he will start the season with Thomas and Tuukka Rask sharing time as the starter, but the coach left open the possibility that one would run off with the job as Thomas did last season with a dominating performance that earned him honors as the playoff MVP and the NHL’s top goaltender. “ There are two goalies on the team, and we don’t think of ourselves as No. 1 and No. 2,” Thomas said. “If the team’s on a roll and both goalies are winning, obviously you play both goalies.”

Thomas had been the Bruins’ top goalie to start the 2009 season earning a spot on the US Olympic team - but a bad hip hindered him the second half of the year, and by the time the playoffs came around, Rask had inherited the starting job.

Thomas didn’t play at all in the postseason, when the Bruins collapsed against the Philadelphia Flyers.

The Bruins tried to trade Thomas in the offseason, but they were glad they kept him. Rask struggled down the stretch while Thomas got stronger, cruising to 35 wins in 55 starts, a 2.00 goals-against average and a .938 save percentage that is a modern record. He was even better in the playoffs, with a 1.98 goalsagainst and a .940 save percentage that improved to .967 in the Stanley Cup finals.

Thomas had four shutouts in the playoffs, two against the Vancouver Canucks as the Bruins won their first NHL championship since 1972. Rask didn’t play in the postseason.

“It was great to watch him play,” Rask said. “Knowing the guy he is, it was great to see him have that success.” But it was also a tough year for Rask, 24, who even as the playoffs started had been expected to - at the very least - compete with Thomas for playing time.

“I’m not used to sitting on the bench a lot and not playing,” he said.

“But I realized that no matter what your role is, you’ve got to be one of the guys. I learned that support is a

good thing for the hockey club.”

Rask had surgery to repair a torn meniscus in his left knee in the offseason and pronounced himself ready to play. Thomas is expected to play the opener against the Flyers on Thursday, though Julien doesn’t announce the starting goalie in advance.

“They’re still, in my mind, No. 1caliber goaltenders. But as you saw Timmy just took off and we had to ride the hot hand,” Julien said. “Will Tuukka play a bigger role? We hope so. But it’s not going to take away from the strength of the team.” Rask said he is ready.

“You always approach a season the same way: you have to be ready to play a lot,” Rask said. “We’re privileged to have two good goalies.”

Whoever is in the net, it will be an emotional night for the Bruins as they raise their sixth championship banner above the TD Garden ice. At media day on Tuesday, new banners were in place to replace the previous five, with each banner now bearing the logo that the team wore in the year it was won.

The Bruins also trotted out the Stanley Cup - newly engraved with the names of last season’s roster on it - for a news conference with state officials and fans. On Tuesday night 505 members of the organization received their championship rings in a ceremony at a downtown Boston hotel.

There are more than 300 diamonds in the ring, which features diamond set images of the Bruins’ logo and the Stanley Cup. The logo and Cup are surrounded by six diamonds representing the six Stanley Cup championships the organization has won; the words “Stanley Cup” and “Champions” surround the crest.

The players’ name and sweater number are featured on one of the shoulders of the ring, while the years the Bruins won the Cup and another depiction of the Cup reside on the other shoulder.

“It’s something very special and to have something like that,” center Patrice Bergeron said. “First of all, it’s a dream come true to win a Stanley Cup. But to actually have a ring, it’s amazing.”

All of last year’s players who are still with the team, plus Michael Ryder, Mark Recchi and Shane Hnidy attended the event. “It came out better than I thought it could be,” forward Brad Marchand said.—AP

BOSTON: Bruins centers Tyler Seguin (left) and Brad Marchand (right) display their Stanley Cup championship rings to members of the media, following the unveiling of the rings during ceremonies for the NHL hockey team. Seguin also holds a miniature Stanley Cup piggy bank.—AP

WELLINGTON: Before taking his place kicks, England flyhalf Jonny Wilkinson squats down, clasps his hands and bows his head as if in contrition.

Then there’s Australia’s Quade Cooper. He looks like a matador holding an invisible cape as he addresses the kicking tee. When teammate James O’Connor steps in for his kicks, his pre-kick ritual could resemble somebody showing a kid how the choo-choo trains work.

At this Rugby World Cup, there’s been no shortage of quirky place-kicking routines.

Some players, like Irish kicker Ronan O’Gara, incorporate graceful turns into his. Others look like they’re playing a flute, or dancing a jig. With each progressive tournament, it would seem, the place kicking routines get a little more ... idiosyncratic.

But these highly rehearsed routines can also bring success. Wilkinson has been unusually out of form with the boot, successful with less than half his shots at goal at this World Cup, but he remains within striking distance of becoming the most prolific scorer ever in international rugby.

So what is the rationale behind these routines? Ken Hodge, an associate professor of physical education at the University of Otago who also trains top athletes to help enhance their mental skills, said it has little to do with biomechanics.

“From the outside, it looks like a physical routine - which it is - but it’s much more than that,” he said. “Kicking is a lot more controllable than general play. It’s a repeatable skill.

The challenge is to maintain concentration and let the body do what it’s good at.”

He likened goal kicking to golf, a sport in which many players have pre-shot routines.

Hodge said the physical routines are developed through trial and error and help players stick to parallel mental routines. He said it’s imperative for kickers to eliminate thoughts that might intrude - like the crowd noise, a recent muffed play, or self-doubt.

“It’s all about keeping the mind quiet,” he said. “It’s keeping the chatter out of it and sticking to useful, positive thoughts.”

Hodge said former All Blacks kicker Grant

DUNEDIN: England’s goal kicker Jonny Wilkinson (left) passes the kicking tee to Paul Stridgeon during their match against Romania at the Otago stadium. —AP Fox has described reducing his thoughts down to just two: Head down. Follow through.

“Like physical skills, some players have more natural ability with mental skills,” Hodge said. “I’ve found over the years that some athletes learn the mental side quickly, while for others, it takes a while.”

When The Associated Press asked the Australian place kickers how they developed their odd arm movements, Cooper laughed, turned to O’Connor, and quipped: “He copied me.” O’Connor shot back: “He thinks he’s Superman.” Then Cooper feigned falling asleep from boredom while O’Connor tried to answer more seriously.

“I guess it’s to put yourself in a good position. I don’t know what Quade’s one does for

him, I think it turns his corner a little bit as well,” O’Connor said. “It’s to get you in the right position to strike the ball.”

O’Connor credited South African kicking guru Braam van Straten with helping him develop his style and ability over the past two years.

“Technically, there’s no one better than Braam,” O’Connor said. “He knows his stuff, and it’s his passion, goal kicking, so if you could kick all day long, he’d be there with you.

He’s had a big influence on us.” In the end, says Hodge, the best athletes are able to combine their mental control with their innate physical ability. Having just one is never enough, he says. For instance, take his own golf game. “I have a fantastic mental game,” Hodge said. “But my swing’s awful.”—AP

NHL season opens with bid to head off severe injuries WASHINGTON: A crackdown on severe hits to the head and the return of the Winnipeg Jets mark the major changes for the National Hockey League ahead of today’s start of the 2011-2012 season.

Brendan Shanahan, the NHL’s new vice president of hockey operations, has already imposed nine suspensions for a total of 31 games based only upon pre-season hits as protecting players from concussions becomes a top priority.

“Change is always hard, but what we want is for the number of head injuries to come down,” said Shanahan, who played 21 NHL seasons. “We’re determined to stick with it.”

For a major reason why, look no further than opening night. The Pittsburgh Penguins will play at Vancouver, where Penguins’ captain Sidney Crosby scored the goldmedal goal in over-time for Canada in the 2010 Winter Olympic final against the United States.

But superstar Crosby will not play for Pittsburgh, having not recovered from a concussion suffered in a game last January. Crosby is on injured reserve and has not even returned to contact drills in workouts.

Not surprisingly, Crosby is a believer in the crackdown on head blows. “Whether it’s accidental or not accidental, you’ve got to be responsible out there,” Crosby said. “You can do a lot more good than what it’s going to take away from the game.”

Opening night also features the Boston Bruins celebrating their first Stanley Cup title since 1972 when they entertain Philadelphia and Canada’s oldest NHL rivalry renewed when the Toronto Maple Leafs play host to Montreal.

The Bruins won the best-of-seven NHL Final in a seventh game last June at Vancouver, where the outcome triggered a riot by disappointed Canucks fans, hoping to see their club take its first crown.

Friday and Saturday will feature regular-season games in Europe, with the New York Rangers facing Anaheim and Los Angeles in Stockholm and the Buffalo Sabres playing Anaheim in Helsinki and Los Angeles in Berlin.

Sunday will see the Winnipeg Jets play host to Montreal as fans in the hockey-mad central Canadian city enjoy the return of an NHL club for the first time since the original Jets left for Phoenix in 1996.

NHL owners approved the move of the Atlanta Thrashers to Winnipeg in the off-season. While the Jets will remain in the Southeast division this season, realignment for next season is on the agenda for an owners meeting in December.

Two issues could have an impact on realignment-the Phoenix Coyotes remain a ward of city officials who are funding the team on a year-to-year basis and the NHL’s bargaining agreement with players, forged after a lockout wiped out the 2004-2005 NHL campaign, expires next September 15.

Pittsburgh, sparked by Russian playmaker Evgeni Malkin, and Boston, backstopped by Tim Thomas with giant Zdeno Chara on defense, will remain among the NHL’s top Eastern Conference contenders this season.

Washington, ignited by Russian speedster Alex Ovechkin, and Tampa Bay, with 21-year-old scoring leader Steven Stamkos, should be playoff contenders again.

Brad Richards joins Marian Gaborik to make the Rangers a threat with noise from Buffalo, featuring stingy Ryan Miller in goal, and revamped Philadelphia, hoping for a spark from 39-year-old Czech right wing Jaromir Jagr. In the Western Conference, Vancouver had the best record in the regular season but barely ousted 2010 champion Chicago in the first round. Both will be Stanley Cup threats again, the Blackhawks thanks to star frontliners Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane and Patrick Sharp while Vancouver is powered by Swedish siblings Henrik and Daniel Sedin and goaltender Roberto Luongo.

Detroit, guided by veteran Swedish backliner Nicklas Lidstrom and left wings Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk, and San Jose lead the best of the rest in the West.—AFP

ITALY: Red Bull driver Sebastian Vettel of Germany steers his car during practice in this file photo. —AP

Vettel to make his point in Japan GP SUZUKA: Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel is almost certain to be crowned Formula One’s youngest double world champion in Japan this weekend, even if he suffers his worst result of the year.

In fact, such is the 24-year-old German’s advantage that he could probably stay in bed on race day and still win the title.

Vettel, the man who has won nine of 14 races and not finished lower than fourth in any grand prix since last October, needs just a single point to be sure of his second successive crown.

He will not need even that if McLaren’s Jenson Button fails to win. The Japanese circuit is a track almost tailor-made for the Red Bull’s characteristics and one where Vettel has triumphed from pole position for the past two years.

“Suzuka is one of my favorite tracks, it really couldn’t have been built any better,” said the German, who arrives in Japan on a roll after winning the last three races in Belgium, Italy and Singapore.

“The 130R is legendary. It’s great fun to drive straight through this left-hand bend.

I’m not the only one who loves this track and our car normally loves it too.”

The only man who can stop him is Button and there is about as much likelihood of Britain’s 2009 champion doing that as there is of Vettel packing a bucket and spade and spending the next couple of months on the beach.

Button, who has a Japanese girlfriend, a passion for the country and an army of local fans, has only once stood on the podium for what he considers a second home race. In 11 attempts, he has never won it.

He must pull off a first on Sunday, though, to have any chance of making Vettel wait to become only the ninth driver to take back-to-back titles. “I think it will be a great race for everyone,” said Button, who recognised it would be an emotional experience to race in Japan for the first time

since the devastating earthquake and tsunami in March.

“In the last few races, I think we’ve shown that we have extremely good pace and that we’ve been the team most able to take the fight to Red Bull.

“On paper, I think it’s a circuit that will suit the Red Bulls, particularly in the highspeed sweeps that make up the first sector of the track. But I certainly don’t think people should under-estimate our package.”

Given that Vettel can finish 10th and still celebrate the championship, Button will be looking at the race in isolation and thinking more about an individual victory rather than the overall picture.

Apart from the two Red Bulls, with Vettel’s Australian team mate Mark Webber still seeking his first win of the season, Button faces stiff opposition from his own team mate Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso.

The real battle among these men is to finish the season as runner-up, and in Hamilton’s case not be beaten by a team mate over the course of a year for the first time in his Formula One career.

“I think Suzuka will play to my strengths,” said the 2008 world champion, whose season has been beset by crashes, collisions and controversies over his aggressive driving with a further furore after Singapore.

“It’s a track that really requires you to drive in an attacking way to be able to get a good lap time. It’s an uncompromising place.”

Red Bull could also seal the constructors’ title in Suzuka if they get a one-two finish and closest rivals McLaren score no more than nine points.

That battle looks more likely to go on to South Korea, however, with Button on the podium in his last four races and one or other McLaren driver in the top four in every grand prix this season. —Reuters

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sp orts

Football not set to get goal-line aids until 2013 LONDON: Goal-line technology is unlikely to be introduced in football matches until 2013, a member of the sport’s rule-making body said yesterday.

The English Premier League had hoped to have high-tech aids for referees in place by August 2012, but tests with about nine systems are only now about to start in stadiums across Europe on non-matchdays. The International Football Association Board, which met on Tuesday, will not be able to approve any of the systems for use in professional matches until July. “I think that’ll be too late for season ‘12-13,” IFAB member and English Football Association general secretary Alex Horne said. “I think it’ll be ‘13-14 because there’s then a big capital decision-making process for any league or any competition who want to apply it.

“Do you have one technology for a competition, do you have multiple technologies for multiple competitions? There are big, big decisions for competitions to take.” Nine systems

were previously tested at FIFA headquarters before the last annual IFAB meeting in March but some manufacturers were unhappy that they were not in stadium conditions and the accuracy of the results was not deemed to be acceptable.

The Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology will oversee the new wave of tests. “There’s a phase of testing that will run up until March that will establish in basic principles whether technology can actually achieve reasonable accuracy - 90 percent, 99 percent, maybe 100 percent,” Horne said at the Leaders in Football conference. “It’s happening live in stadia all around Europe. They can simulate light, they can simulate dark, they can simulate balls rolling across the line, balls being fired in from all different angles.

“Once they’ve established that, there’ll be a second phase of testing against similar conditions, I believe ... if we can be clearly convinced that the technology all works under those con-

ditions then that’s good enough.”

Hawk-Eye, the Sony-owned company whose ball-tracking technology is used in tennis and cricket, is seen as a

front-runner. But Horne said he hopes there will be competing systems that leagues and competitions can eventually chose from. “Eight or nine are test-

LONDON: Chelsea’s Fernando Torres speaks to referee Mike Dean during their English Premier League soccer match in this file photo. —AP

ing at the moment,” he said. “If they’re all successful, they’re all valid. There’s not going to be one technology for all of world football.

“Multiple technologies, if they meet the criteria, will be available then to go into the market and people will buy.

IFAB will license them as successful products and other products could join in later if they can reach the standards. It’ll be a market competition.”

The IFAB panel is composed of four FIFA officials and the four British associations, with six votes required to pass a motion.

FIFA President Sepp Blatter reversed his opposition to tests after England was denied a goal in its second-round loss to Germany at last year’s World Cup. Blatter has said the technology could be in place at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, though that plan will likely be opposed by UEFA President Michel Platini. The former France great said he favors employing additional assistant referees beside each goal. —AP

France stay upbeat despite injury woes

TEHRAN: Iran’s Mohammad Ghazi (left) jumps to head the ball with Palestinian midfielder Mali Kaware during their friendly football match at Azadi Stadium.

Iran won 7-0. —AFP

Greece treating qualifier as Croatia ‘cup final’ ATHENS: Greece are treating Friday’s Euro 2012 qualifier at home to Croatia as a cup final and are poised to sharpen their attack by handing striker Fanis Gekas a first appearance since he quit the national team last year.

The top two in Group F meet in Athens with a point between them as Croatia coach Slaven Bilic’s leaders look for a win to reach the finals while the hosts must avoid defeat to stay in the hunt for first place before the last group games on Oct. 11.

“When the draw was made we said that the two games with Croatia would be the most important and so it has proved,” Greece coach Fernando Santos told reporters.

“After the 1-1 draw in Croatia we knew it was a very good result because it meant we kept our destiny in our own hands.” Santos has sprung a few surprises with his squad selection, bringing back 31-year-old Euro 2004 hero Angelos Charisteas and Gekas, who retired from international soccer in September 2010.

Gekas publicly apologised for what he called an “error of judgment” in a statement he issued on his return to the squad.

The Eintracht Frankfurt striker is expected to spearhead the attack supported on the flanks by Giorgos Samaras and Dimitris Salpigidis in a 4-3-3 formation. Greece, unbeaten in 14 matches since Santos took over from Otto

Rehhagel after the 2010 World Cup, are aiming for nothing less than three points in their final home match. “The match against Croatia is like a cup final for us and we all believe we will win it,” defender Socrates Papastathopoulos said. “I think we’ll be in the Euro 2012 finals automatically.” A stubborn defensive display allowed Greece to come away from Zagreb with a point when the teams met last September.

Neither team can finish below second place in the group, which at worst would lead to a spot in the qualifying playoffs for next year ’s finals in Poland and Ukraine. “Defeat would not be the end of the world. Whoever happens to lose this game will still end up second and will get another chance,” Bilic said.

There were no major changes to Croatia’s squad from their last game against Israel on Sept. 6 with the only surprise being Bilic’s decision not to call up forward Ivica Olic who was deemed unfit following a hip injury sustained in August. The only key player unavailable for selection is captain Darijo Srna, who is suspended.

Striker Eduardo skipped Monday’s training session due to a minor injury and Vedran Corluka had a slight ankle problem but both are expected to have recovered by tomorrow.

Croatia’s final qualifier is at home to Latvia next Tuesday, while Greece travel to Georgia. —Reuters

PARIS: France coach Laurent Blanc has sounded remarkably calm for a man who has lost possibly six players from his squad for tomorrow’s Euro 2012 qualifier at home to Albania, where anything other than a win could knock Les Bleus down to second in Group D. The 1984 and 2000 winners lead Bosnia by a point but with their rivals hosting Luxembourg on Friday before coming to Paris on Tuesday for a potential automatic qualification shoot-out in the last group game, Blanc could have done without injuries.

Franck Riber y and K arim Benzema, arguably France’s best two attackers, were called up last week but injuries sustained while with their clubs have ruled them out of both matches alongside midfielder Blaise Matuidi and defender Bacary Sagna.

Striker Kevin Gameiro also looks set to sit out the Albania game with a knee problem while Eric Abidal has a knock, not to mention the likes of Philippe Mexes and Yoann Gourcuff who never made the squad because of long-standing injuries.

Blanc, though, is not looking for excuses despite Benzema’s absence meaning he may consider his changing system and playing two up front. “ The preparation for the match will be the same. I don’t see why I would have any more worries,” the coach told reporters.

“They will be two very different matches but with the same

objective; to take the points and win both games. Albania are less strong than Bosnia but I’ll wait to see who I can pick.”

France won 2-1 in Albania last month but the comfort of being on familiar turf at the Stade de France is tempered slightly by the fact their only defeat this campaign was at home to the

know, a far way off, but yes Europa League is the target in the next 4-5 seasons.

“We should have beaten Everton and won one of the other games.

Should have had at least one more victory. We hope the full team will be up and running when premiership resumes,” Kean added. “There could be some changes at the top, but I am very much confident that the owners have faith in me.”

Kean, whose side will become the first Premier League club to play in India, also praised his owners. “They are passionate about the club,” he said. “They are here for the long haul and I am sure they will drive us forward.”

The club will play local team Pune FC on Friday after a preseason match scheduled for July 22 was put off over security fears following three bomb blasts in Mumbai in which 26 people died on July 13. —AP

Domenech amid the mutiny scandal and Nicolas Anelk a’s banishment.

The loss and draw with Belarus, the 0-0 draw in Romania last time out and the racism allegations which briefly engulfed Blanc in May are the only blots on his record but any slip-up over the next week, irrespective

PARIS: French players run during a training session in Clairefontaine, southern Paris ahead of the Euro 2012 qualifier match against Albania. —AFP unheralded Belarus, 1-0 in their group opener last year.

The injur y crisis has been eased somewhat by late call-ups for striker Djibril Cisse and uncapped Valencia defender Jeremy Mathieu but predicting

Tuesday.

Failure is unthink able for France, who have steadily improved under Blanc following the ignominy of being eliminated at the 2010 World Cup group stage under Raymond

of injuries, would leave him exposed.

With France great Zinedine Zidane saying this week that he would not rule out one day coaching the national side, Blanc has been warned. —Reuters

Germany pursue perfection BERLIN: Three-time European champions Germany are keen to notch their ninth win in as many Euro 2012 qualifiers when they take on Turkey tomorrow as they

seek to become the first German team to go through a qualifying campaign without dropping a point.

Despite already qualifying for

Blackburn management to sort out issues in India PUNE: Blackburn manager Steve Keane is hoping to sort out issues relating to the Premier League club’s poor form when he meets the team’s owners tomorrow on the sidelines of a friendly.

“All the fans cannot be happy at one time but I am sure there are issues and we need to sort them out,” Kean said. “I am sure something will be discussed but I am not running away from responsibility.”

Blackburn, which is owned by Pune-based poultry firm Venky’s, narrowly avoided relegation last season and has lost five of its seven games so far this season.

Some fans have called for the firing of Kean, who replaced Sam Allardyce soon after Venky’s bought the club last year.

“We have a long term plan and our owners know it very well,” Kean said.

“Our target is to play in the Europa League. Champions League, it is, I

Blanc’s team for Friday will be difficult for Albania’s Bosnian boss Dzemal Mustedanagic.

He will be trying his utmost to do his homeland a favour but even if France win as they should, Bosnia can still take it to the wire with victor y over Luxembourg, setting up a mouthwatering clash next

PORTO: Iceland’s Gylfi Sigurdsson (right) and goalkeeper Gunnleifur Gunnleifsson jog the ball during a training session ahead of tomorrow’s Euro 2012 Group H qualifying soccer match against Portugal. —AP

next year’s tournament as Group A winners with 24 points from eight games, Germany are not prepared to take their foot off the gas in their remaining two fixtures against Turkey and then Belgium on Oct. 11.

“We want to go through this campaign undefeated and will try to win the remaining two games,” coach Joachim Loew told reporters. “We want to set an historic milestone with ten wins out of as many games.”

Loew said he would not experiment with his team and his lineup would remain largely unchanged from the previous qualifiers, also because there was still a lot at stake for both Belgium, in third place, and second-placed Turkey. “Especially the game against Turkey (in Istanbul) will be marked by a lot of emotions. The fans will do everything to stand behind their team as an extra player,” he said.

“I will most certainly not make seven or eight changes to positions as I did (in a friendly game) against Poland for example,” Loew added.

With the only major absence being midfielder Toni Kroos, Loew’s sole concern is likely to be who starts in attack. Mario Gomez seems to have gained an edge over Miroslav following a top-scoring last season and spectacular start to the new campaign with Bayern Munich.

However, Klose has battled back in recent weeks, scoring regularly for new club Lazio and saying he was not afraid of the challenge his former Bayern team

mate presented.

Klose, with 62 goals in 112 internationals, is chasing Gerd Mueller’s all-time German record of 68 international goals. Turkey coach Guus Hiddink said his team had their fate in their own hands.

“We said we wanted to be in control. We can see this continuing as we reach the end of the qualifying stage. We are in control and we are continuing on our way,” Hiddink told reporters on Monday.

Turkey are second on 14 points, two ahead of Belgium, who host bottom-placed Kazakhstan and any slip-up against Germany could prove costly. The best second-placed team of all groups qualifies automatically while the remaining runners-up teams contest twolegged playoffs.

“We have to accept that this is going to be a very difficult match.

I don’t think that I’m a pessimist but we need to know that our job will be hard when playing teams like these. We need to face the realities,” Hiddink said.

Fenerbahce defender Gokhan Gonul said Turkey wanted to get at least a draw against the Germans and win their final qualifier at home against Azerbaijan on Oct. 11 when Belgium travel to Germany. “ We know that at the very least we need to get four points from two games. We know Germany ’s strength. They are undefeated. Their whole squad is here. We know it is going to be difficult but it is also not impossible,” he said. —Reuters

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France stay upbeat despite injury woes

England captain Cook braces for new ODI rules

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THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2011

Vettel to make his point in Japan Grand Prix Page 18

BEIJING: Serbian Ana Ivanovic serves to Vera Zvonareva of Russia during a women’s singles tennis match of the China Open tennis competition. —AP

Ivanovic dumps Vera out of Beijing BEIJING: Ana Ivanovic demolished third seed Vera Zvonareva 6-2, 6-1 as the upsets continued at the China Open yesterday, where Agnieszka Radwanska ended home hopes on the women’s side of the draw.

A revitalised Ivanovic, 23, became the first player into the quarter-finals as she showed the kind of scintillating form that once made her the highest-ranked player on the women’s tour.

“The beginning of the season was tough for me, I had a few injuries.

But since Wimbledon I’ve had a new

team with me, new coach and fitness coach,” the Serb said.

“Things are much better. I really feel I’m on the right path,” said the number 18, who won her last two career titles in November 2010, at Linz, Austria, and Bali.

“I’ve had some great weeks and great tournaments. I can already see progress in my game since I started implementing these things.”

The former world number one has struggled badly to repeat the success she achieved when she won Roland Garros three years

ago. She has also been through several coaches in recent years in hopes of finding a winning combination. R adwansk a meanwhile beat the remaining Chinese Zheng Jie 6-1, 6-4 to break home hearts.

The 11th seed took an hour and a quarter to win in the Chinese capital’s showcase event, saving five of six break points in the match and breaking Zheng four times.

Radwanska is bidding for a second consecutive Asian title after winning the Pan Pacific last week

in Tokyo. “I had to be focused right from the beginning and I did that,” said Radwanska, who is competing in both singles and doubles this week.

“I was playing really good in the first set but in the second set she started to play much better. We had a tight game and it gave me trouble. I’m glad to have won in straight sets.”

Local fans were pinning their hopes on Zheng after French Open winner and national sporting heroine Li Na, ranked sixth in the world,

crashed out in the first round of the ATP-WTA event.

Her victor, Romanian Monica Niculescu, proved her performance was no fluke, advancing to the third round after defeating recent Guanghzou title winner Chanelle Scheepers of South Africa 6-2, 6-1.

Second seed Victoria Azarenka also went through at the National Tennis Centre, with a 7-6 (10/8), 6-3 vic tor y over Polona Hercog of Slovenia.

German number nine Andrea Petkovic reached the last eight as

she beat French eighth seed Marion Bartoli 4-6, 6-4, 7-5.\ In the men’s draw, third-seeded Tomas Berdych, who has been battling a shoulder problem since the summer, advanced at the expense of German Philipp Kohlschreiber, 6-2, 6-0.

Unseeded Spaniard Fernando Verdasco defeated Italy’s Flavio Cipolla 2-6, 6-1, 6-2. The 2004 finalist M ik hail Youzhny also went through to the third round when he beat Feliciano Lopez, 6-7 (5/7), 6-2, 7-5. —AFP

‘Rampant corruption’ in Pakistan cricket case

TOKYO: Andy Murray of Britain hits a return against Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus in the first round of the Japan Open tennis tournament. —AFP

Murray survives scare TOKYO: World number four Andy Murray suffered a major scare before finally beating a dogged Marcos Baghdatis to reach the second round of the Japan Open yesterday in Tokyo.

The 24-year-old Briton, fresh from victory at the Thailand Open last week, needed a tough two hours and 33 minutes to see off the big-serving Cypriot 7-6 (7/4), 2-6, 6-4.

“That was very tough and long. I did a lot of running, especially in the first two sets,” said Murray, after only his second win over Baghdatis in five meetings.

He said it was difficult to adjust after organisers were forced to close the roof on centre court because of persistent rain. “I think he played very well under the conditions. It took me a little bit longer,” said Murray.

“We were playing good tennis in the third set, but in the first two sets he definitely played better than me. It’s lucky that I got the first-set tie-break.

“He’s a very, very good player. He’s a very tough guy to play against. “He has a lot of talent and he has a big serve.”

Murray got off to a slow start, going down 0-2 in the first set before battling back to go a set ahead on the tie-break. He went down 0-4 in the second set and never recovered, as

Baghdatis made it one set all.

The second-seeded Murray was again 1-3 down in the final set. But he managed to make it even at 3-3 with a break in the sixth game and went on to take a 5-4 lead as the two men held their serves.

Murray’s backhand went long on his first match point and, after repeating deuces five times, Murray had another match point when Baghdatis hit a double fault.

Murray clinched his ticket to the second round when Baghdatis, a finalist in Malaysia last week, hit a backhand out.

In the second round he will take on American Alex Bogomolov Jr, who defeated Jarkko Nieminen of Finland on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Janko Tipsarevic of Serbia, who defeated Baghdatis in the Malaysian Open final, failed to keep the momentum, losing to Dmitry Tursunov of Russia 7-6 (8/6), 6-7 (3/7), 7-5 in just over three hours.

In second-round action, American fourth seed Mardy Fish whipped Ernests Gulbis of Latvia 6-2, 6-4 to reach the quarter-finals, while Australian Bernard Tomic downed Japan’s Tatsuma Ito 6-7 (4/7), 6-1, 7-5.

Fifth seed Radek Stepanek of the Czech Republic was a 7-5, 6-7 (5/7), 6-1 winner over Marco Chiudinelli of Switzerland. —AFP

LONDON: Pakistan players took bribes to bowl deliberate no-balls during a match against England in a case that exposes “rampant corruption” at the heart of international cricket, a court heard yesterday.

Former captain Salman Butt, 26, and fast bowler Mohammad Asif, 28, deny charges of conspiracy to obtain and accept corrupt payments, and conspiracy to cheat at gambling, relating to the fourth Test at Lord’s in August 2010.

A third Pakistan player, prodigal young bowler Mohammad Aamer, and Butt’s British agent Mazhar Majeed have also been charged with the same offences but they are not standing trial alongside Butt and Asif in London.

“This case reveals a depressing tale of rampant corruption at the heart of international cricket, with the key players being members of the Pakistan cricket team,” prosecutor Aftab Jafferjee said in his opening statement to Southwark Crown Court.

“It is the prosecution’s case that all four men were involved-and by the time the last Test match at Lord’s took place each of them was well at it-the two bowlers being orchestrated by their captain, and the captain’s agent Majeed, to bowl three no -balls at a pre arranged point in the game,” he said.

Jafferjee added: “Their activity represents, say the Crown, a betrayal by them of their own team, their own board of cricket, and most damaging of all a betrayal of the sport of cricket itself-and

all for greed.”

The allegations of so-called “spot-fixing” stem from an investigation by the Rupert Murdochowned News of the World tabloid, which was closed down in July when it became engulfed in Britain’s phone-hacking scandal.

The paper’s former undercover reporter Mazher Mahmood-nicknamed the “fake sheikh” for sometimes wearing Arab dress-learned of allegations that Majeed was

try-primarily the betting industry overseas, which in turn was centred in the Asian sub-continentinvolving India, Pak istan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, and the Far East.”

He said the amounts of money turned over in the sub-continent were “simply breathtaking... in the region of $40 and $50 billion (30 to 37 billion euros)” per year.

Asif sat in cour t wearing a brown pinstripe suit and a white

LONDON: Former Pakistan cricket captain Salman Butt (center) leaves Southwark Crown Court in central London yesterday on the second day of his corruption trial. —AP involved in fixing and decided to investigate while posing as a member of a betting syndicate, Jafferjee said. The case showed the influence of the betting industry and that the “vast” sums of money it deals with were threatening the integrity of the game, prosecutor Jafferjee said.

“That which underpinned all of this activity was the betting indus-

shirt, with a white folder on his lap.

He listened to an Urdu-speaking translator sat to his left.

Butt sat to Asif’s right wearing a charcoal grey jacket and blue jeans.

Butt told British police in an interview that the timing of the no-balls exactly when Majeed told the journalist they would be bowled was “a series of freakish

occurrences”, the prosecutor said.

Asif told detectives it was “just chance”, he added. The case started late after a new jury had to be sworn in yesterday when a member of the previous jury fell sick.

Butt and Asif stood in court to confirm they had no objection to the jurors.

In his statement, Jafferjee also sought to play down concerns about the News of the World’s involvement in the case. “ Whatever views one might hold about that publication,” Jafferjee said, “Were this investigation not to have been permitted, the activity of ‘fixing’ would almost certainly have continued-unabated, unaccountable-and beyond the reach of the law.”

He added that he had to assume that some members of the jur y did not k now the rules of cricket, especially the no-ball rule, and showed them a diagram featuring the popping crease line.

A no-ball is called if the bowler’s front foot lands ahead of it, he said, adding: “Which is why it is so attractive to fixing, because the answer is ‘whoops.’”

The charges against the pair carry maximum sentences of seven years and two years in prison respectively. At the time of the alleged offences, Butt was captain of Pakistan’s Test side and had won plaudits for his leadership of the team.

Asif was the team’s senior pace bowler, while teenage left-arm swing bowler Aamer was regarded as one of the hottest properties in world cricket. —AFP

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Libya’s oil-rich east bids for power Page 22 Greek strike grounds flights, shuts schools Page 23

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2011

Faith in US economy fades ahead of vote

Page 26

Trichet set to leave ECB with bigger, riskier role Page 26

MUMBAI: A company official walks past the newly unveiled Rolls-Royce Ghost Extended Wheelbase during a media preview of the car yesterday. The fully hand-crafted made-to-order Ghost Extended Wheelbase is the latest Rolls-Royce in the range of pinnacle luxury cars having a waiting period of around six-months. — AFP

Humbled Dubai looks to Arab world Post-crisis, Dubai relies on real economy, trade DUBAI: Nearly two years after it was forced to go cap in hand to neighbor Abu Dhabi for a bailout, a chastened Dubai has ringfenced vulnerable assets, forced banks to bolster reserves and deferred debt maturities. A more modest approach to businessin contrast with the excesses of its earlier modelcoupled with strengths in logistics and trade, and a growing focus on its own region, mean that Dubai’s dreams of being a top financial centre are still just about alive.

Luck certainly seems to be in its favor: the Gulf emirate has proven an oasis of calm amid the chaos of the Arab Spring, which saw rebellion in countries as far apart as Tunisia and Syria and, crucially, rival Bahrain. “In Dubai 2.0 we’re likely to see what we didn’t see earlier more Arab traffic and more Arab business,” said Florence Eid, CEO at research firm Arabia Monitor. “There’s going to be more regionalization of the region. They used to send petrodollars to the US and Europe and some people used to go to Asia. Now we’re seeing Arabs investing in other Arab countries-Dubai epitomizes all of that, even more than ever now, as a locus for this activity.”

Dubai’s boom-and bust-were closely linked to its real estate market. The market is still plagued by oversupply, but there’s a sense that when a recovery eventually happens, it will be based on firmer ground. “The speculation has disappeared-it’s a purely organic story and demand is still weak compared to when there was an influx of expats,” said BoA Merrill Lynch economist Jean-Michel Saliba,

who estimates that 20 percent of residential property, and 40 percent of commercial property, remains vacant. He expects the property market to return to normal by 2015 because “the history of real estate bubbles suggests a five- to seven-year cycle”.

No Arab spring, but more Arabs Although only 12 percent of citizens in the United Arab Emirates are eligible to vote, Dubai has seen none of the violence that has roiled the region, thanks to high per capita incomes and subsidies. Its hotel, retail and residential real estate sectors are enjoying a boost from the emirate’s status as a sanctuary from unrest. “Interest from those displaced by the Arab Spring or looking for safehaven residential properties in Dubai is reported to be particularly strong for upmarket villas in iconic projects such as Palm Jumeirah,” said consultancy Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL).

Anecdotal evidence suggests that rich and even middle class Arabs are buying Dubai property to hedge their risks in other countries.

“We’re seeing some clients from Yemen, Syria, Egypt and Libya,” said a Dubai-based real estate agent. “They have no liquidity in their home markets and are moving money from one place to another.” A JLL report found sale prices for the high-end villa segment were trending upward, and rentals in this segment were starting to increase in some areas, even though apartment rents were continuing to fall. Dubai’s malls are

teeming with visitors from the region. In particular, there is a weekend spike in Saudi visitors, who earlier probably used to make the much shorter drive to Bahrain.

A Western expatriate was forced to vacate a five-bedroom penthouse on the Palm Jumeirah early this year because his Saudi landlord wanted to relocate the family to Dubai. A salesman selling rare pashmina shawls in Souk al Bahar, which adjoins Burj Khalifa-the world’s tallest buildingsaid it was mainly Saudi and Kuwaiti customers who were buying the most expensive scarves, which can cost more than 6,000 dirhams ($1,635).

Western banks operating in Dubai are alive to the opportunities that Arab millionaires present, shifting their focus back to wealth management at the cost of research and investment banking. UBS and Deutsche Bank have recently hired new regional heads for wealth management. Deutsche is expecting to add more private bankers before year-end, a person familiar with its plans said.

In arid climes, green shoots?

The new Dubai is a quieter version of the overthe-top desert metropolis that attracted Western bankers in droves in the last decade, only to fall apart spectacularly when real estate prices dived and top firms were unable to meet debt commitments. Some of the signs are promising, even though economic problems in Europe and the United States could yet cast long shadows.

Passenger traffic at Dubai International Airport

End in sight to Lebanon’s crippling Internet problem BEIRUT: For Sara Darwiche, it has been more than problematic running her fastpaced Internet company out of Lebanon, a country with Internet access that is among the worst in the world.

The “invite only” website ChouChic.com gives its members the opportunity to buy surplus stocks of fashionable clothes at discounted prices. It works on the idea that the scarcity of the clothes coupled with the time limit on sales — 48 hours to a week-will nurture impulse buying and push up sales. The strategy is called flash selling.

But for ChouChic’s main customers, who are Lebanese, there is nothing flashy about buying online here.

“Sometimes the website cuts and people think the sale is over. It really affects the quality,” she told Reuters. “We open our sales everyday at noon and for some reason the Internet usually cuts out then for five minutes.” For a company aiming to sell the majority of stock in the first ten minutes of a sale opening, connectivity issues can be devastating.

“We needed a lot of modifications to compensate for the slow Internet,” she said, adding that the website was now hosted in the United States. “For luxury fashion, it needs to look like the goods are in front of you so the resolution of the photos needs to be high. But we had to lower the resolution as upload speeds were too slow.”

Lebanon is regarded as a fortress of Arab entrepreneurship, with a vibrant services sector and a business community that is famed for its unyielding tenacity even during the depths of war.

But sluggish and expensive Internet has been an embarrassing blot on the economy, and Internet-based companies such as ChouChic are rare.

On Saturday, the Ministry of Telecommunications introduced a new, high-speed and cheaper Internet plan for private Internet Service Providers (ISP) to sell on to customers. The plan aims to reduce end-user prices for digital subscriber lines (DSL) by 80 percent, while raising speeds up to eight times. If it is implemented smoothly, the plan will provide relief to hundreds of thousands of Lebanese Internet users and could boost economic growth. But for years to come, the economy may bear the scars of the political bickering, vested financial interests and negligence that kept Lebanon in the slow lanes of the information superhighway.

Missed opportunities “While other countries in the region have capitalized on (the Internet), we have missed it,” said Nassib Ghobril, chief economist of the Byblos Bank Group.

“They have moved ahead of us and now have a comparative advantage. A lot of companies that rely on the Internet look

elsewhere to base themselves.” Ookla, a company that tests Internet speeds around the world, has often ranked Lebanon last on its global Net Index, and the country has generally been lower down than many less developed nations such as Afghanistan and Burkina Faso.

“Lebanon is a services economy and society. Not having Internet is like not having foreign languages,” Khaldoun Farhat, CEO of private ISP provider Terranet, said at his offices opposite Beirut’s port. Farhat has repeatedly tried to bypass what he calls a “narrow view” of the Internet by the Ministry of Telecommunications. He bought Internet capacity from satellites, made failed requests to buy bandwidth from nearby Cyprus, and tried to import his own Internet equipment which got stuck at customs, he says, for over a year.

“When I wake up, the first thing I think about is, will we get increased capacity today?” he said. Businessman Mark Daou spent the last few months campaigning for faster internet through a Facebook group titled “Lebanese Want Fast Internet”, which has almost 50,000 supporters. “Slow speeds affect me in the advertising business as all our resources are on the Internet. Especially now as many of our clients are asking for a lot of online advertising,” he said. — Reuters

rose 9.7 percent to a monthly record of 4.7 million people in July, while year-to-date traffic jumped 9 percent.

Hotel occupancy stood at 86 percent in the first quarter of 2011 compared with 75 percent in the third quarter of 2008, when the global financial crisis deepened. The loan-to-deposit ratio at banks fell to 94 percent in July 2011 from 110 percent in January 2009, according to Bank of America-Merrill Lynch. Analysts estimate unrest-hit Bahrain suffered $20 billion in capital outflows in the first quarter of this year, and some of that money headed to Dubai. Dubai’s debt insurance costs have narrowed since Dubai World reached a deal with creditors last year, and they hit pre-crisis levels in June this year. The government launched a $500 million bond this year, its second since the debt crisis. Flagship airline Emirates’ $1 billion bond issue in June was oversubscribed six times, and has been resilient even in markets spooked by the euro zone sovereign debt crisis and the specter of a US sovereign credit rating downgrade. The carrier’s massive expansion plans and wide reach are the envy of others in what is a struggling sector globally.

“A lot has changed, including the way Dubai Inc is structured, the bankruptcy law, greater provisioning at the banks and harmonization of bad debt rules. And there’s a realization that you need a cash rationale for expanding real estate-that if you build, sometimes they won’t come,” said Daniel Broby, Chief Investment Officer at Silk

Invest. Developer Nakheel, builder of artificial islands in the shape of palm trees and the world map, has been brought under direct government control, and further changes to top management at other companies are expected. “The good cashflow earners have been ringfenced sufficiently to drive Dubai 2.0,” said Broby.

The emirate’s sovereign wealth fund, Investment Corporation of Dubai, repaid in full and on time a $4 billion loan due in August after having secured commitments to part-refinance it. “If more restructuring is to come, there is a precedent.

There’s comfort that there’s a kind of rulebook we can use,” said Georges Elhedery, HSBC’s head of global markets for the Middle East and North Africa. Big redemptions of government-related debt coming up will be a challenge. The International Monetary Fund estimates nearly $30 billion in repayments will be due before the end of 2012. Completed and ongoing restructuring negotiations are merely pushing back full repayments by between four and eight years.

Good economic growth would help. Dubai’s economy expanded by 2.8 percent in real terms last year, faster than previously expected, as growth in trade and the retail sector helped it recover from its contraction in 2009, according to preliminary data. Some analysts expect growth of around 4 percent next year. The economy in Abu Dhabi, now seen by investors as a backstop for Dubai, has been underpinned by a strong oil price. — Reuters

On way to Wall Street, confronting a protest NEW YORK: Almost 90 minutes into his commute from the New Jersey suburbs, Michael Devaney has nearly reached his job on Wall Street. But first he threads through a sea of occupied sleeping bags, around protesters crawling from under plastic tarps in search of cigarettes and coffee, and past a sign on a pole protruding from a suitcase.

“Billionaires,” it warns, “Your Time is Up!” It is 7:45 am, and another day in the capital of capitalism has begun.

The scene has been repeated now for most of three weeks, as the regular workers of Wall Street arrive to meet protesters demanding an end to the financial system as we know it. The bankers, lawyers and others climbing from the subways, briefcases in hand, seem largely unperturbed sympathetic, even - to those who call them the enemy. Mostly, though, as the protest spreads from a Manhattan park to cities around the United States, Wall Streeters sound confused. What exactly, they ask, do the protesters want? “They definitely have a right to be here, but they don’t seem to have a goal. What is it, to put Wall Street people in jail?” Devaney, who works in information technology at one of the financial district’s many banks, asked Tuesday after crossing narrow Zuccotti Park on his way to the office.

Devaney’s uncertainty about the protesters’ message is echoed by some of the protesters themselves. The Occupy Wall Street protests, which began Sept 17, have spread this week from Los Angeles to

LOS ANGELES: Anti-Wall Street demonstrators march in downtown Los Angeles. — AP Chicago and other cities. Protesters have spoken out about the nation’s lack of jobs, blaming President Barack Obama and members of Congress. They have criticized corporate lobbyists and employers. But they have reserved most of their criticism for Wall Street. On Monday, when protesters dressed as corporate zombies marched past the New York Stock Exchange clutching fistfuls of money, some bystanders shouted, “Get a job!” But others smiled at the street theater.

“It’s nice to see that people can come

here and say what’s on their mind. People can’t do that in a lot of countries,” said Gary McFelia, a technology consultant. Many of those who work in the fabled center of American commerce say they don’t take the protests personally. Some even sympathize. “It’s really incredible to me, the passion and conviction these people have,” said Lou Crossin, who works for a company that sells corporate governance research to large investors. “I don’t think these are violent people. They’re just standing up for their beliefs.”—AP

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THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2011

business

Libya’s east bids for power ‘Where are the oil fields?’

GCC markets mostly negative last month KUWAIT: The S&P GCC managed to eke out a gain of 0.36 percent last month after tumbling 5.12 percent in August. However, the majority of indices still had a highly negative month, led by a 7.35 percent decline in Bahrain amid renewed political tensions. The S&P GCC index was bolstered by a 2.23 percent gain in Saudi while Kuwait’s weighted index was up 1.56 percent.

News in the region included: A report

by SAMA indicated that the Kingdom’s banks were well-capitalized and protected against shocks to the system. Over the past two years, the banks have undergone a high degree of provisioning, bringing coverage of NPLs to 118 percent, according to the head of the central bank.

According to the Ministry of Finance, Kuwait needs a breakeven oil price of $75/bbl for the current budget. A KD 6 billion deficit has been budgeted for the fiscal year 2011/2012, but given the high oil prices during the year, this will be another surplus year for the country. The first quarter of the fiscal year showed a surplus of almost KD 6billion ($20 billion). The ministry went on to say that while they were monitoring the situation in the Eurozone, more substantial exposure was in the US. Liquidity was up in September due to strong trading in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, where value traded was up 30 percent and 69 percent, respectively. GCC value traded increased 25 percent to $22 billion while volume was up 40 percent to 11.5 b billion.

GCC Value Traded in the YTD period is at $254 billion. On a quarterly basis though, value traded was down by 41 percent across the GCC led by a 42 percent drop in

Saudi Arabia value traded for 3Q11.

Risk in the GCC (as measured by the Markaz Volatility Index - MVX) was down 17 percent last month after jumping 28 percent in August, with the Q3 change coming in at 7 percent. The highest monthly jump was in MVX Bahrain, whose MVX more than tripled on account of renewed political tension. On a quarterly basis, MVX Dubai saw the highest decline of 44 percent while MVX Kuwait was up 34 percent.

Global markets review Monthly returns were highly negative across the board; the worst performance came from Asia ex. Japan, falling nearly 14 percent followed by MSCI Europe down nearly 12 percent for the month after declining 10.4 percent in August. The least losses were in India (-1.3 percent) and Japan (-2.8 percent).

Monthly returns World markets saw even steeper declines last month as the Eurozone debt crisis intensified, with a Greek default seemingly imminent. Investors remain concerned that the crisis could have severe global implications on an already weakening economic recovery.

Markets have become hypersensitive to European cues; the S&P500 shed 13 percent in 3Q11, the worst decline since the last quarter of 2008. More than $ 10 trillion was wiped from world markets during the third quarter of the year while VIX shot up 160 percent. The broad World index tumbled by 9.4 percent for the month bringing the YTD loss to 13 percent.

BENGHAZI: Libya’s eastern city of Benghazi would risk fading back into obscurity after a sixmonth interlude as the seat of the rebel government were it not for one powerful asset: oil.

Benghazi residents are struggling to convert their wartime sacrifices into economic clout to restore the status of a city once deemed on a par with the capital, Tripoli, and rescue it from its relative obscurity in the Muammar Gaddafi era. Under Gaddafi, Benghazi was at the mercy of Tripoli for its share of state funding, even though most of this is generated from nearby eastern oil fields.

Libya’s economy is almost entirely reliant on oil and gas revenue.

Cradle of the anti-Gaddafi revolt, Benghazi had languished low on the deposed ruler’s list of spending priorities, which many see as punishment for a tradition of eastern resistance to his 42 years of one-man rule-and to Tripoli’s dominance.

“There’s a feeling of entitlement in Benghazi and they want rewards. They held the fort for six months and this came on the back of a period of repression,” said a Libyan oil industry source in the city where the interim National Transitional Council (NTC) set up its headquarters early in the revolt. Youssef Mahmoud, an engineer at Jowef Oil, a subsidiary of the state National Oil Corporation (NOC), typifies the sort of grassroots resource regionalism that has the potential to shake up the North African country’s bedrock industry.

He heads a group of about 4,000 state oil workers called the Feb. 17 Oil Committee, and is lobbying Libya’s interim rulers for a “greater say in oil policy” that would be symbolised by moving NOC headquarters from Tripoli to Benghazi.

“Gaddafi took it (the NOC) to Tripoli because he wanted control. But where are the fields?” complained Mahmoud, jabbing his finger at a map of Libya, showing a large clump of black circles representing oil fields in the eastern Sirte Basin.

The east supplies more than 60 percent of oil exports and much of Libya’s untapped oil is thought to be in this region, including the virgin Kufra Basin near the Sudanese border. Libya has Africa’s largest oil reserves. Benghazi residents hope oil revenue, worth around $130 million a

day at current Brent prices, can fuel an economic revival in the east, from cleaning up the streets to promoting new industries such as tourism. “It’s not just oil, we have beautiful places,” said Ali, who works in a youth hostel in Benghazi. Old postcards in hotel cabinets remind visitors of the city’s former charms. One shows the long, crescent-shaped Italian ‘Lungomare’, or seaside promenade, with its Doric columns and distinctive double-domed Catholic cathedral. Another pictures Juliana Beach full of happy, paddling children. Today, seafront visitors encounter the near-ubiquitous smell of sewage and rusting carcasses of broken-down cars.

Point of no return It may be hard for Libya’s new rulers to ignore Benghazi’s demands, given the role the city played in initiating the revolt against Gaddafi in February and spearheading a NATO-backed military campaign that has pushed his troops back to Sirte. Eastern Libya’s many former rebel brigades will not want to see their region lose out in the post-Gaddafi era-although fighters from the Western Mountains and Misrata may be just as keen to turn their military exploits into political power. Benghazi’s trump card, however, is oil.

“When armed local stakeholders, and perhaps militias, start saying this oil is on our territory, it becomes an emerging political risk,” said Henry Smith, Libya analyst at London-based consultancy Control Risks.

Besides the city’s well-documented political and military roles, the Benghazi-based Arabian Gulf Oil Company (Agoco) played a vital role for Libya in selling oil and buying fuel when international sanctions had incapacitated the NOC. This inverted the relationship between the parent company and its subsidiary, perhaps irreversibly.

A senior NOC source said plans were in place to wrest control back from Agoco by midOctober, but added that the relationship between the two firms would likely have to alter.

“There will be a struggle for power. The NOC wants to go back to its old role and Agoco is saying that it supported the revolution so it wants a bigger say,” he said. “It wants a commercial basis.

Agoco wants to get some profits from the operations.” In an indication of the simmering tensions, a source within Agoco referred to the NOC as “Bab al-Aziziya for the oil sector”-the name of Gaddafi’s fortified compound in Tripoli.

Old and new rivalries Healing the historical east-west rifts, and new ones that have emerged during the revolution, will be a key test for interim rulers in the factionalized and heavily-armed country. Cultural divisions between Tripoli and Benghazi pre-date Roman times when Tripolitania and Cyrenaica were separate provinces. Libya’s Senussi kings were from the east and Benghazi was seen as Tripoli’s equal before army officers led by Gaddafi toppled King Idris in 1969. Months of conflict have reinforced a sense of distance between Tripoli and Benghazi, 1,000 km (625 miles) apart.

Poor telephone links mean Libyans must dial internationally between the two cities. Gaddafi forces are still holding out in the coastal city of Sirte, impeding traffic on the main east-west highway and forcing travellers to fly via a NATO air corridor in the Mediterranean or to go by ship.

Benghazi’s ambitions for economic power in the new Libya may sound aspirational, but some politicians may be listening. All three foreign leaders who visited Libya in September-French, British and Turkish-chose to visit the city. “(French President Nicolas) Sarkozy has given a message by coming to speak in Benghazi. He is saying that Benghazi should not be ignored,” said Nasser Ahdash, head of the National Forum, a political group which has helped organise marches to back demands that Benghazi should be Libya’s economic capital. In another nod to the eastern city, NTC leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil, from eastern Libya himself, has not yet moved to Tripoli from Benghazi. Initially, his foot-dragging was seen as linked to security concerns. Now it looks more political. The NTC’s vice-chairman and spokesman, Abdel Hafiz Ghoga, said the move would not happen until Libya is fully “liberated” from Gaddafi and that the NTC would not abandon Benghazi. “We will keep a base for the NTC. Benghazi is necessary.” — Reuters

Takaud announces senior appointments KUWAIT: The Takaud Savings & Pensions Company - the MENA region’s new personal pension and savings company - has announced its first two senior appointments.

Abdallah Kubursi has been appointed as Chief Executive Officer. Kubursi joins the company from ACE Life where he was Regional Managing Director for the MENA region. Prior to this, he was Regional Vice President for the Middle East, Mediterranean and South Asia region at AIG. Jonathan Kemp has also been appointed, as the company’s Chief Actuary. Kemp joins Takaud from MSV Life plc, where he was Chief Actuary. In his new capacity, Kemp will be responsible for product development, technical financial support and long-term strategic planning.

The appointments follow the official approval last month from the Central Bank of Bahrain for Takaud Savings & Pensions to

begin its operations. Takaud is incorporated in Bahrain and aims to launch its initial product range in selected MENA countries at the beginning of next year. The company is a member of the KIPCO Group.

Samer Khanachet, Takaud’s Chairman, said the company will change the way people save for their future: “We are delighted to welcome Takaud’s new CEO and

Chief Actuary. They both have extensive experience and expertise in the region’s personal finance industry. Their appointment - and the other team appointments that will follow in the coming weeks means that Takaud will soon launch the MENA region’s first range of personal pension and savings products. Through this product range, people in our region will

Abdallah Kubursi

Jonathan Kemp

soon have new ways to secure their future and save for their retirement.

This will give consumers in our region real choice for the first time.”

Kubursi said: “I am thrilled to have joined Takaud as we begin the process of transforming the region’s personal finance industry.

We will do this by providing individuals and businesses with the means to create future retirement income through secure financial products.

This is a very exciting time for our industry and I’m very pleased to be part of this new venture.”

Kemp said: “I am delighted to have joined Takaud. As the first company of its kind in the MENA region, Takaud will create a new way for people to save and enjoy their hard-earned retirement. By doing so, we will change the region’s personal finance industry and I’m very happy to joining the team that will do this.”

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

.2740000 .4240000 .3650000 .2970000 .2600000 .2610000 .0040000 .0020000 .0749970 .7306780 .3810000 .0700000 .7162980 .0040000 .0430000

CUSTOMER TRANSFER RATES US Dollar/KD .2762500 GB Pound/KD .4266960 Euro .3677160 Swiss francs .2995880 Canadian dollars .2620470 Danish Kroner .0494060 Swedish Kroner .0401460 Australian dlr .2635980 Hong Kong dlr .0354900 Singapore dlr .2112650 Japanese yen .0036020 Indian Rs/KD .0000000 Sri Lanka rupee .0000000 Pakistan rupee .0000000 Bangladesh taka .0000000 UAE dirhams .0752420 Bahraini dinars .7330500 Jordanian dinar .0000000 Saudi Riyal/KD .0736860 Omani riyals .7178120 Philippine Peso .0000000

Al-Muzaini Exchange Co. ASIAN COUNTRIES

Japanese Yen Indian Rupees Pakistani Rupees Srilankan Rupees Nepali Rupees Singapore Dollar Hongkong Dollar Bangladesh Taka Philippine Peso Thai Baht Irani Riyal - Transfer Irani Riyal - Cash

3.638 5.643 3.175 2.1.540 3.555 212.760 35.681 3.681 6.319 8.921 0.271 0.273

.2806000 .4355000 .3745000 .3120000 .2710000 .2715000 .0072500 .0035000 .0757510 .7380220 .4010000 .0760000 .7234970 .0072000 .0530000 .2783500 .4299390 .3705120 .3018650 .2640390 .0497820 .0404510 .2656020 .0357600 .2128710 .0036300 .0057160 .0025330 .0031900 .0037160 .0758140 .7386230 .3937060 .0742460 .7232690 .0064360

GCC COUNTRIES Saudi Riyal Qatari Riyal Omani Riyal Bahraini Dinar UAE Dirham

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

74.070 76.319 721.450 737.740 75.633

ARAB COUNTRIES Egyptian Pound - Cash 49.500 Egyptian Pound - Transfer 46.562 Yemen Riyal/for 1000 1.271 Tunisian Dinar 192.810 Jordanian Dinar 392.240 Lebanese Lira/for 1000 1.863 Syrian Lier 5.996 Morocco Dirham 33.573 EUROPEAN & AMERICAN COUNTRIES US Dollar Transfer 277.650 Euro 371.500 Sterling Pound 430.360 Canadian dollar 264.930 Turkish lire 146.930 Swiss Franc 302.450 Australian dollar 264.880 US Dollar Buying 277.350 GOLD 300.500 151.250 87.000

20 Gram 10 Gram 5 Gram

COUNTRY

Australian dollar Bahraini dinar Bangladeshi taka Canadian dollar Cyprus pound Czek koruna Danish krone Deutsche Mark Egyptian pound Euro Cash Hongkong dollar Indian rupees 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

SELL CASH

268.500 738.020 3.890 266.600 545.100 36.900 51.400 167.800 47.970 373.500 36.300 5.900 0.032 0.239 0.241 3.720 393.970 0.188 89.640 46.200 4.270 214.800 1.798 48.900 720.810

SELL DRAFT

267.000 738.020 3.680 265.100

213.100 46.547 372.000 36.150 5.645 0.032

10 Tola

75.560 277.500

Dollarco Exchange Co. Ltd Selling Rate

US Dollar Canadian Dollar Sterling Pound Euro Swiss Frank Bahrain Dinar UAE Dirhams Qatari Riyals Saudi Riyals Jordanian Dinar Egyptian Pound Sri Lankan Rupees Indian Rupees Pakistani Rupees Bangladesh Taka Philippines Pesso Cyprus pound Japanese Yen Thai Bhat Syrian Pound Nepalese Rupees Malaysian Ringgit

277.400 264.215 429.730 371.555 301.395 735.485 75.500 76.140 73.935 390.475 46.558 2.514 5.651 3.184 3.685 6.309 680.444 3.715 9.005 5.840 3.625 92.145

Currency

Transfer Rate (Per 1000)

268.96 266.96 305.16 372.02

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 Yemeni Riyal Jordanian Dinars Syrian Pounds Euro Canadian Dollars Nepali rupee

277.400 3.170 5.640 2.525 3.690 6.335 75.630 74.130 737.500 46.560 433.900 3.190 1.550 394.100 5.750 375.000 268.900 3.690

Al Mulla Exchange

UAE Exchange Center WLL Australian Dollar Canadian Dollar Swiss Franc Euro

430.87 3.67 3.714 5.614 2.517 3.549 3.170 75.52 738.00 46.61 394.72 721.07 76.51 74.08

432.50 3.62 3.710 5.930 2.621 4.200 3.220 75.70 738.00 48.50 393.97 720.81 76.77 74.09

Kuwait Bahrain Intl Exchange Co.

TRAVELLER’S CHEQUE 430.500 277.500

Sterling Pound US Dollar

Currency

720.630

303.700 5.700 9.110

Sterling Pound Japanese Yen Bangladesh Taka Indian Rupee Sri Lankan Rupee Nepali Rupee Pakistani Rupee UAE Dirhams Bahraini Dinar Egyptian Pound Jordanian Dinar Omani Riyal Qatari Riyal Saudi Riyal

Currency

392.230 0.187 89.640 3.560 213.300

3.185 6.310 76.340 74.090 213.070 36.900 2.514 430.500

GOLD 1,693.580

Rate for Transfer

Bahrain Exchange Company

3.220 6.590 76.770 74.090 213.070 36.900 2.621 432.500 41.600 305.200 5.700 9.330 198.263 75.660 277.900 1.220

268.50 266.60 305.20 373.50

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)

277.050 371.800 430.300 264.700 3.645 5.630 46.525 2.514 3.655 6.300 3.177 737.900 75.500 73.050

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THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2011

business Saxo Bank Q4 Outlook 2011

Fasten your seatbelts, we are heading to Crisis 2.0

T

he next few months will see desperate moves by policymakers to save the financial system, according to Saxo Bank. In their Q4 financial outlook, the online trading and investment specialist says that this eventually will lead to Crisis 2.0. In the past few months, the global economy has moved from bad to worse. Growth prospects have soured and governments and central banks are pulling out the stops to save the system once again. In Europe, renewed efforts to save the European Union from its debt crisis are foundering as EU governments have reached an all-time low in solidarity and an all-time high in playing to more domestic national agendas. However, for the first time in months, Saxo Bank is optimistic and says that Crisis 2.0 could result in a real confrontation between the Western world’s debt demons and bad practices and lead to unfettered markets and allocation of capital based on gaining the highest marginal return.

Commenting on the outlook, Steen Jakobsen, Saxo Bank’s Chief Economist said: “Policymakers’ efforts in the developed world to salvage the economy with bailouts, stimulus and money printing have failed to build a sustainable recovery since the financial crisis in 2008. It seems policymakers and central banks have hardly learnt anything from their past mistakes. In fact, it appears they are ready to double down on their previous efforts, a state of affairs we call ‘Maximum Intervention’, which we believe will lead us towards Crisis 2.0.

“On a positive note, we believe Crisis 2.0 could result in a real confrontation with our debt demons and bad practices, eventually replacing the extend and pretend routine we’ve seen since the global financial crisis got under way.

Now, more than ever, would be the time in which we ponder the true meaning of the word crisis: a turning point, not an extended period of doom and gloom. However, for now investors should fasten their seatbelts because we are in for a rough ride - one that will very hopefully see us in a better place when we finally land”. The Quarterly Outlook Q4 2011 focuses on the following areas: Macro outlook Though the world economy will see robust growth of 3.8 percent this year this figure papers over a chasm between developed and emerging countries. While the developed economies led by the heavyweights (US and Eurozone) are struggling to cope with the drag from deleveraging, emerging markets have hiked rates as inflationary pressures have mounted due to strong domestic demand. Domestic demand in emerging countries remains strong and should offset weakening foreign demand from developed economies.

Monetary policy Saxo Bank expects the Fed’s “Operation Twist” to be the next step towards “QE Infinite”, with the next instalment being QE3, probably in Q1 2012. The Bank also expects that before year-end the ECB will reintroduce the provision of unlimited, fixed rate, long-term liquidity to banks, flushing the system with liquidity and forcing actual market rates lower than the current refinance rate at 1.5 percent which may further go down. The analysts maintain their call for unchanged Japanese rates throughout 2011 and 2012, and feel further quantitative easing is very likely.

Similarly, the Bank feels that QE2 in the UK is likely before Christmas and rates are not going to rise before 2013.

FX outlook Saxo Bank suspects a further tightening in yield spreads between the dollar and other currencies will continue to unwind the carry advantage built up against the dollar last year and at the beginning of 2011. The Euro could see a shor t-term relief rally if the EU manages to muddle through with the solidarity enforced by the market’s discipline. NOK appears to be the safer harbor than SEK, but it is unlikely to replicate the CHF’s previous performance.

Also, the Aussie’s and Kiwi’s remain to appear extremely overvalued, and trading is expected to become more sidewise.

FX options Despite current high levels of volatility, Saxo Bank is cautious towards any short EUR downside option positions, and would rather lean towards a long option position aimed at benefitting from a lower EURUSD spot. If selling downside options, the Bank would much rather enter a conservative strategy such as selling EURCHF put spreads, rather than selling plain vanilla options. This would allow the investor to control the potential risk through 1.20.

Asia The report suggests that China is facing an erosion of its global competitiveness with wage pressures linked to high-flying inflation being the dominant factors. The Chinese currency, and its gradual revaluation, is also playing its part and China’s loss of competitiveness may be seen as a helpful factor in the global rebalancing process.

But Chinese authorities do not see any need to panic. If they can succeed in pulling off the latest Five-Year-Plan then this development, and its impact on the trade balance, will not be a major issue.

Equity outlook The bank’s analysts do not recommend investors go allin on equities despite compelling underlying fundamentals. It is more meaningful to keep some powder dry if stocks continue lower due to unpredictable events, and to increase exposure there if stocks tumble. This sounds nerve-racking for most investors but it is the most profitable strategy to keep increasing exposure in risky assets.

If there are surprises in economic data going forward the biggest winners will be stocks in the financial, materials and industrial sectors. Investors that are willing to take on risk should consider those sectors as that is where the largest potential risk-reward ratio exists.

Commodity outlook Commodity markets will continue to be driven by worries about the potential impact of a slowing global economy. Cyclical commodities like energy and base metals have suffered as a consequence while safe haven flows and adverse weather have been the main reasons for gains across precious metals and agricultural commodities. Saxo Bank believes that renewed dollar strength during September will continue into the last quarter and this could potentially have a dampening effect on the performance of commodities, ensuring a relative flat 2011 performance of the major commodity indices.

Advance Emerging Capital eyes Qatar, Saudi Arabia Fund remains positive on China DOHA: Frontier and emerging markets are the best investment choices for investors, despite the financial crisis, as their economies will continue to grow, the head of London-based investment firm Advance Emerging Capital said. The firm’s emerging markets fund is down about 20 percent this year, with its frontier markets fund down about 10 percent, said Slim Feriani, chief executive and chief investment officer of the emerging and frontier markets firm.

“The emerging markets world has been hit very hard. We are very cautious on North Africa right now. We

reduced our exposure to Tunisia from 5 percent to 1 percent in January. “But our frontier fund has been a bit more resilient, and places like Qatar have helped.” Qatar represents the firm’s biggest exposure in frontier markets, accounting for 8.5 percent of its fund.

GCC countries as a whole comprise about 20 percent of the fund, with Saudi Arabia at 6 percent.

“Qatar has particularly deep pockets. They keep saving, and they have a lot to invest. Even if we have a depression-type situation, we know these guys are going to spend.” “Overall, emerging and frontier markets are in a

far, far better place than they have ever been. We believe that the future of frontier and emerging markets is much brighter than that of the Western world.”

Feriani described his outlook for the remainder of the year as “cautiously optimistic”. “ There are a lot of dark clouds out there. The darkest is the European debt situation, but the US is also worr ying. There are concerns about Chinese growth slowing down, but we remain quite positive on Chinamore than the market seems to think,” he said. “These things can’t be fixed with a magic wand, but as long as we

don’t have a disorderly event such as a Greek default that brings down with it other countries, we remain of the view that the politicians won’t drag us into another depression.”

Feriani said he did not anticipate further consolidation across the industry. “We think that there will be more boutique firms born, and the number of funds will increase. Because frontier and emerging markets will continue to grow, they will attract more fund managers, particularly focused on Africa and frontier markets generally. “Once the dust settles, more funds will emerge.” — Reuters

CFC offers commercial services to businesses

Air Arabia gets new aircraft KUWAIT: Air Arabia, the first and largest low cost carrier in the Middle East and North Africa, announced yesterday it has received its fourth aircraft of 2011, bringing its global operating fleet to 29 aircraft.

The latest Airbus A320 arrived on schedule from Airbus facility in Toulouse, France marking the delivery of a total of six out of 44 A320 aircraft ordered back in 2007. The new aircraft has gone straight into service across Air Arabia’s 67 destination network served from the carrier main hubs in UAE, Morocco and Egypt.

The delivery of the 44 new aircraft will be completed by 2016, and will more than double the size of Air Arabia’s fleet, in line with its aim to increase its total operating fleet to more than 50 aircraft. The carrier expects to take delivery of two more A320s by the end of the year.

“Over the past eight years, Air Arabia has remained focused on growing its fleet to offer customers wider network at great value” said

Adel Ali, Group Chief Executive Office at Air Arabia. “As we continue to expand our fleet, we look forward to growing our operations across the Pan Arab, Europe and Africa region delivering great service and exceptional value to more and more customers around the world.”

The world’s best selling commercial jetliner ever, the A320 Family includes the A318, A319, A320 and A321 and is recognized as the benchmark single -aisle aircraft family.

Across its 29th aircraft, Air Arabia aircraft interior cabin is fitted with a world-class comfort seats offering highest seat pitch of any economy cabin across the globe and therefore, offering passengers extra leg room to sit back and relax during their flight.

From its three main hubs, Sharjah in the UAE, Casablanca in Morocco and Alexandria in Egypt, Air Arabia serves a network of 67 international routes spread across Europe, the Middle East, the Indian Subcontinent, Central Asia and North Africa.

S Sudan isolated by poor trade links KOSTI: Standing by his truckful of onions at the bustling Nile port of Kosti, Sudanese trader Omar Sheikh hopes shipping his goods to newly independent South Sudan will justify the bureaucratic hassle. Nearly three months after the south split from the north after decades of civil war, no comprehensive trade agreement exists between them, hampering the flow of goods to the poor, isolated and underdeveloped south, which has only a little more than 50 kilometers (31 miles) of paved roads.

“In the south there is big demand for all sorts of goods,” Sheikh said as he waited for his customs papers to be cleared. “But we need agreements between the governments to facilitate trade. Without such agreements, there will be no trade.” Commerce on South Sudan’s southern flank is hindered by tribal violence and the world’s youngest country must rely on one of the oldest trade routes, the Nile, as its main link to foreign markets.

That forces it to deal with the north, but relations have been frosty since they split on July 9, and arguments over oil revenue and their common border have pushed the vital question of trade down the agenda. Both countries have launched new currencies without any coordination. The south issued its pound in July, forcing the

north to launch its own new currency as it feared being swamped with old notes hoarded in the south.

The barges that travel up the White Nile are loaded in Kosti, a dusty, lowrise town on the river’s western bank 300 km south of the North Sudanese capital Khartoum. The rusty boats sag in the Nile’s pungent waters as they fill with food, consumer goods, luggage and equipment for United Nations staff working in the south.“ Trading just resumed. In the south they want many products, such as food, juices, lentils and other items,” said Babiker Alsayer, an export trader in Kosti’s port. It is around 1,000 km straight overland from Kosti to the southern capital Juba.

The Nile bends and twists through the arid landscape as it wends its way south, making for a river trip of up to two weeks. Trade almost ground to a halt in the run-up to southern independence as violence broke out along stretches of the poorly marked joint border, cutting off food supplies to the south. Southern inflation soared to 57 percent in August as a result. Northern port officials say bilateral trade has grown since the two states signed a limited agreement last month to facilitate trade and travel. Since then, about ten or more trucks have been arriving every day in Kosti, port officials and traders say. — Reuters

KUWAIT: In a further step to reach out to its clients across Kuwait, Commercial Facilities Company (CFC) is offering a range of commercial services to small and medium businesses across Kuwait at competitive interest rates with quick procedures and easy loans. This is an attempt to boost business operations and enhance corporate growth through pioneering concepts. Business commercial loans are now made easier and availability is within reach in no time. Thanks to its 34 years of loaded experience in the market and profound understanding of its clients’ needs, the company is offering a practical initiative to continue simplifying its clients’ daily operations through convenient finance solutions. The services that CFC offers through the Commercial Loan vary in the fields of asset finances, vehicles, heavy equipment and appliances that connect to the operational divisions of a company. These services provide active solutions to increase company profits and market share and are easily accessible across 30 different points of sale.

“Our business motto which earmarks the convenience and promptness of our services entailed such an important step to be taken to reflect our consumer-based mission” said Mohammed Al-Qattan, Manager Ser vice Development, Commercial Facilities Company. “Contributing to our customers’ growth through commercial loans is another brick in a milestone. We also provide financial consultancy to our customers as an added value service. We have been in the market for many years and are pleased to be taking the steps of national economic growth.”

“After thoroughly studying the market based on our strategic agenda to identify business niches and corporate needs, it was well comprehended that

Mohammed Al-Qattan there was a need to provide special financial services to commercial loan applicants”. “Our well-trained customer support team is happy to cater to all clients through any means chosen; either by visiting any of our branches and 30 points of sale, or by calling our Call Centre, or even quicker by contacting us through CFCOnline. The latter provides financing applications, paying online installment, plus a financing calculator, all which have been truly lauded by our customers,” further concluded Al-Qattan Commercial Facilities Company works with 30 different points of sales, where numerous services and benefits are offered including a grace period of 2 months before paying the first installment upto 48 months to pay back the entire loan. In addition to providing asset loans, the company also offers installment credit facilities to finance consumer and commercial products. CFC was established in 1977 as the first Kuwaiti financing institution.

Greek strike grounds flights, shuts schools ATHENS: Airliners were grounded, trains halted and tax offices shut yesterday as Greek state workers walked off the job to protest against austerity, defying a plea by the government to rally behind its effort to fend off national bankruptcy. Hospitals ran on emergency staff and some state schools closed in the first nationwide strike against EU/IMF-prescribed salary cuts and layoffs after a summer lull. In Athens’ airport, more than 400 domestic and international flights were cancelled, an airport spokeswoman said. The country ’s main labour unions ADEDY and GSEE expect hundreds of thousands of people to strike and thousands to take to the streets, while EU and IMF inspectors continue an inspection of Greece’s finances that will decide on the release of an aid tranche Athens needs to pay wages and bills. “Unfortunately the new measures are just extending the unfair and barbaric policies which suck dry workers’ rights and revenues and push the economy deeper into recession and debt,” GSEE spokesman Stathis Anestis told Reuters.

“With this strike, the government, the EU and the IMF will be forced to reconsider these disastrous policies.” The Greek government shocked international financial markets this week by announcing that it would miss 2011 deficit targets set as conditions of a bailout aimed at staving off bankruptcy, despite a series of tax hikes and spending cuts. Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos said on Tuesday Greek finances for this year could slip still further if the country failed to rally round the reforms and show “national cohesion and solidarity”. State workers, students and pensioners will start gathering in central Athens at 0800 GMT. A few hours later they will march on the capital’s central Syntagma Square and protest outside parliament. “If we don’t take our lives back into our own hands and go on strike, how will we survive?,” said Athens resident Maria Bargiadaki, a public sector worker.

Communist union group PAME is expected to stage a separate rally. Police, fire brigade and coastguard unions said they would join the central Athens demonstrations.— Reuters

Toyota Innova 2012 facelift: Stay cool on the school run KUWAIT: Innova is a successful product and is preferred by families having a large number of family members. Toyota has decided to introduce new 2012 Toyota Innova with new features. It is to provide more comfort to users. Entering the 2012 version, Toyota Innova 2012 brings some improvements in terms of interior-exterior design. Redesigned tail lights are

divided into three parts instead of two e. Inside, Only two thin strips of wood surrounding the panel for air conditioning systems and entertainment is used, apart from the redesigned steering wheel.

There are new bumpers included in the rear. This new design will provide a stylish look than earlier van-like look. Dual tone interiors are included in 2012

Toyota Innova. For better comfort to passengers, third row seat can be pushed back by a few centimeters. It can compromise little luggage space. In addition, there will be a steering mounted audio controls and Bluetooth facility. iPods and USB sticks can be used to power the most modern music system used in this vehicle.

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THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2011

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KSE ends trade on mixed board

Cheap markets need good global news to rebound

GLOBAL DAILY MARKET REPORT

Economic growth in region still solid

KUWAIT: Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE) took a sideways pattern yesterday. Investors were on standby mood until they get some sizzling news. Eyes are focused on 3Q2011 financial results announcements for blue chips, which might provide some motivation to investors and portfolios. Nonetheless, Europe’s debt crisis is still a big concern on the trading floor.

Market indices Global General Index (GGI) ended the day down by 0.04 percent, at 179.72 point. Market capitalization was also down for the day, reaching KD 29.30 billion. On the other hand, KSE Price Index closed at 5,819.6 point, adding 15.30 points (0.26 percent) to its previous close.

Market breadth During the session, 111 companies were traded. Market breadth was skewed towards advancers as 44 equities advanced versus 27 that declined.

Daily trading activity Total volume traded was up by 68.08 percent with 151.71 million shares changing hands at a total value of KD 20.24 million (85.72 percent higher compared to Tuesday’s session). Services sector was the volume leader, accounting for 42.32 percent of total shares exchanges. Al-Safat Energy Holding Company was the session’s most traded stock with 13.12 million shares exchanged. The same sector was the value leader, having 53.98 percent of total traded value.

Top gainers and biggest decliners In terms of top gainers, First Dubai For Real Estate Development Company was the top gainer for the day, adding 10 percent to its share value and closing at KD 0.028. On the other hand, Eyas Higher & Technical Education Company shed 13.33 percent and closed at KD 0.260, making it the biggest decliner in the market.

Sectors wise Sector wise, Global indices ended on a mixed note. Out of eight indices, three indices

went up led by Global Real Estate Index, which was the biggest gainer for the day, adding 1.29 percent.

Mabanee Company, which increased by 2.47 percent closing at KD 0.830, helped the index to end in green. First Dubai For Real Estate Development Company was the highest gainer in the market posting 10 percent gain , to close at KD 0.0275.

Global Industrial Index was the second higher gainer yesterday. The index increased by 0.37 percent backed by National Industries Group (Holding), heavy weight stock, which continued its positive trend for the second consecutive day gaining 1.83 percent, to close at KD 0.222.

On the other side, Global Food Index posted the steepest decline for the day, shedding 1.01 percent of its value, as it was affected by Kuwait Foodstuff Company (Americana), which dropped by 1.35 percent, to close at KD 1.460.

Corporate news Kuwait’s International Leasing and Investment Company (ILIC), plans to reduce its capital to write off accumulated losses and then increase it by $50 million in compliance with the central bank’s requirement. This move will hinge on the central bank’s rescinding its previous decision to bar ILIC from its register [of investment firms], Mashael AlNamash, the company’s chairman and managing director, said.

Oil news The price of Kuwaiti crude oil slipped $1.03pb to come to $96.22pb on Tuesday, compared to Monday’s $96.22pb, said Kuwait Petroleum Corporation yesterday. The drop in oil prices comes on the backdrop of increased anxiety over the European sovereign debt crisis and after an announcement by the Greek government it would not be able to meet its financial objectives next year or even the year after.

DUBAI: Gulf stock markets are so cheap that they have good potential for a rebound, but they are unlikely to start recovering until there are signs that policymakers are bringing the European debt crisis under control, fund managers say. “I think if international markets continue to fall apart and oil prices keep falling, our markets can’t be immune from the prevailing negative sentiment,” said Rami Sidani, Schroders Middle East head of investment.

“But if European policy makers were to structure a solution, global markets will see a relief rally.” Nadi Bargouti, head of asset management at Shuaa Capital in Dubai, said stocks in the United Arab Emirates were now trading at about 9.7 times last year’s earnings, making the UAE the cheapest significant market in the world except for Russia.

Economic growth in the UAE and elsewhere in the Gulf has remained fairly resilient. The HSBC UAE Purchasing Managers’ Index, which measures the performance of the UAE’s manufacturing and services sectors, rose to 52.11 points last month from August’s 15-month low of 50.95, according to a survey of 400 private sector firms published this week. The 50-point level separates growth from contraction.

But Bargouti and others said stock market turnover was likely to remain too thin to suppor t any extended rally until there was a sense that disaster in Europe had been averted.

“We should begin to see interest from foreign funds, given the (regional) fundamentals,” said Bargouti. “ The economic growth here is not being reflected in the capital markets. There is just a lack of confidence...Once we have it back, we will see liquidity come back.”

The main Dubai stock index sank to a fresh seven-month low this

week and is down 15 percent since the start of this year. On Sunday, daily trading volume was just 19.4 million shares, the lowest in at least two years. “Selling is a little bit overdone,” Ibrahim Masood, senior investment officer at Mashreq bank in Dubai, said of the region’s markets.

“I think it’s only a matter of days that we get some policy-driven news, some clarity on what the plan is for tackling Greece and issues in Europe...that’s the real driver.” A Doha-based trader said of Qatar’s market , down about 6 percent this year after hitting a six-week low this week: “You’ll see solid money pumped in should the markets take another 1 to 2 percent off the index.”

Egypt Egypt’s stock market is expected to stay sluggish as investors shy away from equities because of political uncer tainty, analysts said.

Foreign investors who fled Egypt during the political and economic turmoil that followed the ousting of President Hosni Mubarak seem loath to venture back without more clarity on prospects for a peaceful transition to civilian rule. “Volumes will remain low because of concerns about how the political environment will pan out and the extended election timetable,” said Michael Millar, head of research at Naeem Holding.

Egypt starts voting in a parliamentary election on Nov 28; another round will begin on Jan 29, and while a date for the presidential race has not been set, analysts say it may not take place until the end of 2012 or the start of 2013. The Egyptian market was also hit this week by the threat of a possible strike by brokerage employees. The stock exchange issued a statement yesterday saying its head Mohamed Omran had met with traders and discussed their concerns. —Reuters

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THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2011

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China’s Wen sees progress in inflation fight BEIJING: Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said his government has scored initial success in taming inflation, and told banks to lend more to small firms and tolerate high levels of bad debt from them, official media reported yesterday. Wen made the remarks while visiting Zhejiang province in eastern China, where reports have said a string of private entrepreneurs starved of formal bank credit have gone into hiding to avoid repaying high-interest informal loans. Wen said despite those strains and a worrisome international economic outlook, China’s economy is “basically in good shape,” the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

China had tilted fiscal policy more towards cooling price rises and has “tentatively contained the trend towards excessively fast price rises, with the economy maintaining stable and relatively fast growth,” said Wen. China’s annual inflation rate eased to 6.2 percent in August from a three-year

high of 6.5 percent in July. It is widely expected to cool for the rest of 2011, though it may remain elevated. Wen did not mention fleeing businessmen in his published remarks, but the problem appeared to lie behind his calls for regulators to ensure banks lend more to small and mediumsized firms and also get a tighter grip on informal credit.

“Small and medium-sized businesses play an irreplaceable role in expanding employment and promoting growth,” said Wen, according to a Xinhua news agency account of his visit to Zhejiang on Monday and Tuesday. The government must “improve incentives and barriers to encourage all kinds of financial institutions to provide better financial services to small businesses,” said Wen, who added that there should be clear demands for the amount of bank credit that goes to such smaller businesses.

“Raise the level of tolerance of non-performing loans from small and medium-sized enterprises,” Wen also said. Wen’s demand that banks do more to help smaller private businesses underscored the growing sensitivity of tight credit controls and Chinese banks’ general preference to lend to bigger firms, especially state-owned ones. Many cashstrapped firms have been unable to borrow from banks during a credit clampdown by Beijing, and some have turned to China’s underground lending market, which pools money from individuals and firms and lends it out at annual interest rates as high as 100 percent.

Such high informal rates, more than 15 times China’s benchmark lending rates, have pushed some firms beyond the limit, especially in Zhejiang province, a hub of private enterprise. According to local media reports, the private lending rates, set at between 6-10 percent a month, have driven some

smaller property developers into bankruptcy and triggered a string of Chinese entrepreneurs to go into hiding to avoid repaying loans. Outstanding private loans in Wenzhou, a coastal business city in Zhejiang, rose to 110 billion yuan ($17.2 billion) this year, up from 80 billion last year, according to Chinese central bank estimates.

Wen also demanded tighter controls on informal lending. But the premier stopped short of outright condemning all non-bank loans. He told officials to “effectively prevent financial risks,” said Xinhua. “We must strengthen oversight of private lending, and leading it into the daylight so that it can develop in a regulated way and play its positive role,” said Wen. “Vigorously clean up to restore financial order, and take effective measures to stamp out the trend towards usurious loans, and use the law to attack illegal fund collection,” he also said. — Reuters

Korean govt in crisis mode as markets tumble Bond data shows Europeans lead pullout

SYDNEY: This file picture shows Alan Joyce, CEO of Qantas Airways, standing before the jet turbine of Qantas’ newest aircraft, a Boeing 737-800 at Sydney International Airport. — AFP

Qantas executives in bitter strike row SYDNEY: Qantas boss Alan Joyce has received a death threat, managers have been sent menacing letters and strike-breaking workers bullied amid a bitter industrial dispute, the airline said yesterday. Qantas is facing industrial revolt from all three of its staff unions-the Transport Workers Union and those representing pilots and engineers-after announcing plans to cut 1,000 workers as it focuses business towards Asia. The carrier said Joyce had been the victim of threats, without going into details, but one letter reportedly told the Irish chief executive: “It’s coming soon Paddy. You can’t even see it.”

“The Unions will fight you... Qantas is our airline, started & staffed by Australians, not foreign filth like you,” the Sydney Daily Telegraph reported the typed threat as reading in part. The letter said Joyce’s “evil plans” would come back to haunt him and he would be kicked out of the country, the Telegraph reported. The paper also said senior Qantas staff had their car windows smashed and houses damaged after refusing to strike.

A spokeswoman for the airline confirmed that Joyce had received a death threat but added: “We can’t go into any details.” Qantas corporate affairs director Olivia Wirth, who admitted she had also received threats, said workers who chose not to take part in strike action had been bullied and intimidated.

Joyce said Qantas management had “received menacing correspondence, including to their homes” in what he described as “abhorrent, and illegal” acts. “Those who are in the business of using threats, violence and intimidation to obtain their industrial ends should know this: these tactics are cowardly and deplorable,” Joyce wrote in a memo to 35,000 staff. “They will not work. Anyone who is caught will face the full consequences.”

Unions are locked in protracted contract talks

with Qantas and its Asia restructuring plans have inflamed tensions, with workers demanding guarantees on pay and conditions under the airline’s new strategy. Qantas doubled its annual net profit to Aus$250 million ($239 million) in August and upped Joyce’s pay by 71 percent to Aus$5 million, angering staff facing job cuts.

But the unions denied any involvement in the threats and questioned Qantas’ decision to make them public. Union officials have also been on the receiving end of threatening messages, Transport Workers Union (TWU) national secretary Tony Sheldon said. Sheldon showed nine emails to reporters in Sydney, including one which read: “You lazy dirty bunch of scabs. Pulling strikes at this time of year has finally made all TWU members the most hated in the country.” Another said: “The next bus leaves at midday BE UNDER IT.” Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association federal secretary Steve Purvinas said threatening behavior was unacceptable and should be taken to the police.

He said it was “a possibility” the threats had been concocted to garner public support for the airline, which is considered a national icon. “But I don’t think that Alan (Joyce) has written a letter to himself for that purpose,” he told ABC Radio. Without naming the company or people involved, New South Wales police said they had investigated a threatening letter sent to a senior executive in May. “The author was identified and the matter finalized,” a spokeswoman said. Police were still investigating an incident last month in which an employee received a threatening letter and several phone calls at their home address which were hung up once answered, she said.

Officials are also attempting to confirm reports of malicious damage to cars at a company car park, she added. — AFP

IMF seeks radical change in euro crisis strategy BRUSSELS: The International Monetary Fund, a key player in eurozone bailouts, yesterday pushed for radical changes in the way the region’s debt crisis should be handled. Antonio Borges, the head of the IMF’s Europe program, said the eurozone’s bailout fund should get more firepower and new tools. To help, he said the IMF could intervene in bond markets to keep the crisis from engulfing large economies like Italy and Spain. The surprise proposal would profoundly alter the fund’s role in the crisis. It has so far contributed close to euro80 billion ($105 billion) to eurozone bailouts, about a third of the total, but never intervened in open markets.

“We have a whole set of options that could be put on the table to restore confidence in those countries,” Borges said at a news conference in Brussels. His comments are the first open acknowledgment of a radical change in approach by the IMF to the eurozone’s debt crisis. The currency union’s debt troubles have intensified severely as most investors expect a default

by Greece and fear much larger Italy and Spain will be dragged into the crisis.

In public statements until now, IMF officials had insisted on agreements made at a eurozone summit in July, which gave a first range of new powers to the region’s bailout fund and tentatively offered a second, euro109 billion bailout for Greece,

with modest losses accepted by banks on their Greek investments. But Borges made clear yesterday that those decisions were no longer sufficient. He said that the euro109 billion figure was an estimate based on conditions that have since changed, adding that a new program needed bigger focus on Greece’s massive debt and growth. He said that didn’t necessarily entail bigger losses for banks and other private Greek bond holders. Borges also piled pressure on Greece to take more stringent measures to get its economy back on track, saying there was no rush to take a decision on the payment on the next slice of bailout money because the country doesn’t face a big bond repayment deadline until December.

Athens has said it will start running out of money to pay salaries and pensions in mid-next month if it doesn’t get the euro8 billion ($11 billion) installment of its first euro110 billion ($145 billion) bailout. The increasing uncertainty over Greece’s fate have increased market volatility and destabilizing the banking sector. Belgium and France are fighting for the survival of Dexia, the first potential failure of a big European bank since the credit crunch of 2008. To build confidence, Borges backed a push to boost the impact of the eurozone’s bailout fund by using its resources more creatively. —AP

SEOUL: South Korean stocks extended their slide yesterday and the won remained under pressure as the government revived weekly crisis management meetings to try to stem capital flight from its highly vulnerable financial markets. The government had stopped holding crisis meetings in December last year after starting them during the global credit crunch. But a slide of about 20 percent in stocks over the past two months and about 10 percent in the currency have raised alarm. The euro zone debt crisis and concern the US economy is slipping in another recession have prompted a global sell-off in riskier assets, including in emerging markets.

Foreign investors were net sellers of Korean bonds in September for the first time in eight months, data showed.

“The government is not just sitting idle with arms crossed, but it has already firmly established lines of defense against all possible scenarios,” Finance Minister Bahk Jae-wan said in a scheduled speech before business executives, hours after presiding over the reconvened crisis meeting. Seoul stocks failed to find any uplift from a late rally on Wall Street and closed down 2.3 percent, adding to Tuesday’s 3.6 percent drop. The won snapped a three-day decline but rose only 0.3 percent against the dollar, after a near 2 percent loss over the previous three sessions.

Korea, whose export-focused economy is highly dependent on global trade, once again underperformed other Asian markets. The MSCI Asia Pacific excluding Japan index rose a modest 0.5 percent. It has been particularly hit because of concerns that Korean banks carry a heavy load of short-term debt. Liquid markets mean foreign investors can move in and out quickly, making them vulnerable to capital flight.

Minister Bahk, a scholar-turned-politician who took office four months ago amid public criticism about government failure to contain inflation, admitted the high vulnerability of South Korean markets was “inevitable for an open economy”. So far, capital flows out of South Korea have not matched the levels seen at

the height of the 2008 global financial crisis. But the government has spent billions of dollars in currency intervention to support the won.

FOREIGN RESERVES FALL That was partly reflected in central bank data yesterday that showed foreign reserves fell $8.81 billion in September to $303.4 billion, the biggest monthly drop since a more than $11 billion decline in late 2008. The central bank did not comment on intervention but economists

Europeans, data showed yesterday, a sign of stresses related to the euro zone debt crisis as investors sought to bolster their cash positions.

Britain and France topped the list, extending their selling binge to a third straight month.

Korean authorities are sensitive to movements in the won because of its potential impact on the economy, which boasts some major exporters such as Samsung Electronics and Hyundai Motor. A sharp won drop can help exports but also lift import prices that feed

SEOUL: A currency trader reacts at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Korea Exchange Bank headquarters yesterday. — AFP said about half the decline in reserves could be attributable to official won buying.

“Adjusting for valuation effects, we estimate the actual fall in FX reserves was around $3-4 billion, much lower than market expectations,” Barclays Capital said in a research note, adding the central bank probably unwound some of its long dollar/won forward contracts as well. Korea has reduced its short-term debt burden since the 2008 financial crisis and increased regulation of capital flows. But short-term debt is still equal to almost half of the country’s official foreign reserves, twice as high as rival exporter Taiwan.

The net selling by foreigners of Korean won bonds as well as stocks in September was led by

through into inflation, a key risk for a country that imports many of its commodities. A fall in the won also adds to the cost of servicing overseas debt. Taiwan, another exporting country vulnerable to any slowdown in global growth, reported that foreign exchange reserves fell slightly to $389 billion in September, the lowest level since January. The central bank cited increased demand for US dollars as foreign investors pulled out of the stock market. Data from Nomura International (HK) Ltd showed on Monday that Taiwan and South Korea lead the major Asian equities markets, excluding Japan, in net foreign selling for the 12 weeks to Sept 30. — Reuters

S&P staffer ‘bowed to bankers’: Court SYDNEY: A Standard & Poor’s employee accused a colleague in 2007 of bowing to banks and over-rating debt products that collapsed in the build-up to the global economic crisis, an Australian court heard yetserday. The lawsuit represents the first time any of the big three credit risk agencies have been held to account in court for giving top ratings to products that later turned toxic, triggering the 2008 financial crisis. The case is being brought on behalf of 13 mostly mining and farming towns that lost Aus$15 million (US$14.3 million at current rates) when the Constant Proportion Debt Obligation notes (CPDOs), also known as “Rembrandts”, crashed.

The councils accuse S&P of “significant errors” by giving the notes a top-notch triple-A rating. One S&P employee was so unimpressed with the credit notes, he accused a colleague of “bending over in front of bankers and taking it”, the Federal Court of Australia heard. “You rate something AAA, when it is really A-?” the employee, Sebastian Venus, wrote in a 2007 email tendered to the court.

According to a lengthy summary of the claim lodged with the court and seen by AFP, S&P relied heavily on the Rembrandts’ creator, RBS subsidiary ABN AMRO, in its rating process, using ABN’s own modeling to judge the notes’ integrity. ABN AMRO employee Paul Silcox wrote to his colleague Mike Drexler in late 2006 asking whether it was “normal for ratings agencies to allow banks to build their own models for S&P to use to rate them”.

Drexler replied: “No! It is not normal and highly weird. An opportunity, however.” In another email exchange tendered in the towns’ case, ABN’s David Poet likened the notes to the “old casino strategy” where a gambler would double their bets every time they lost hoping for a major win. “My instinctive worry is that doubling up on losses could, in a realistic bad trend, knock you

out quite easily: i.e. might be a cash-out enhancer and so not work too well with S&P’s rating approach,” Poet wrote.

Colleague Jamie Cole, who will be called as a witness in the case, responded: “Perhaps we go and flog this for all its worth.” One of S&P’s managing directors Elwyn Wong told Perry Inglis, European head of CDOs and credit derivatives, said that the firm had been “sandbagged a little bit” by ABN AMRO on the credit notes. That was supported by an email from S&P to ABN the same day, October 26 2007, expressing the view that due to tightening market credit the product was no longer of AAA quality.

“Notwithstanding, four days later S&P informed ABN AMRO’s Australian office that it had assigned a AAA rating to the Rembrandt notes,” the councils’ statement of claim said. The councils were sold the notes

by Australian firm Local Government Financial Service (LGFS) in late 2006, assured they had a less than one percent chance of failing. Within two years the synthetic derivatives had crashed.

The councils in populous New South Wales state want their Aus$15 million dollars back, with interest, claiming the CPDOs’ premium rating led them to believe it was a safe, conservative investment. S&P has said the lawsuit, which is expected to last 10 weeks, “lacks merit” and has pledged to defend itself vigorously. S&P and ABN AMRO are both contesting the case, and have also filed counter-suits against one another.

S&P is also facing a US Securities and Exchange Commission probe into a rating it gave on a package of collateralized debt obligations in 2007, which together with credit default swaps were widely blamed for the financial crisis. The US-based agency is further the subject of a separate SEC investigation over its decision in August to downgrade the US government’s credit rating for the first time ever-a decision that panicked world markets. — AFP

TOKYO: A Japanese restaurant chef displays 18 carat gold ‘jubako’ boxes, used for holding traditional Japanese food during their new year, at a department store yesterday. Osechi is served in the boxes weighing 3.35kg and priced at 18.9 million yen (245,000 USD) to celebrate Japanese new year. — AFP

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Faith in US economy fades ahead of vote Federal reserve predicts high unemployment, slow growth

MOSCOW: A man walks past a display of a currency exchange office. Russia reported $18.7 billion in capital outflows in the third quarter, far more than state estimates and underscoring the uncertainty that has gripped the country in recent months. — AFP

Russia capital flow reaches $50 billion MOSCOW: Russia on Tuesday reported $18.7 billion in capital outflows in the third quarter that far outweighed state estimates and underscored the uncertainty gripping the country in recent months. The Central Bank said the poor quarter came on top of $30.6 billion (23 billion euros) that had left Russia between January and June, bringing the nine-month total to $49.3 billion-three times the $16 billion seen one year ago. Government officials have blamed the capital flight on a fragile business climate in which investors complain of red tape and the inability to defend their rights in court.

But economists said even more money headed for safer harbors in the second half of the year while investors waited for Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to announce whether he planned to grab back the presidency he held in 2000-2008. Putin on September 24 ultimately disclosed plans to return in March polls that will almost certainly see him replace his hand-picked successor Dmitry Medvedev as head of state.

But the market’s relief over that announcement was followed by the shock resignation days later of Russia’s respected finance minister Alexei Kudrin.

Emerging Portfolio Fund Research said some $443 million had been pulled out of funds that invested in Russia that week compared to $164 million that left on week ending September 21. The veteran fiscal conservative’s brief has since been handed to First Deputy Finance Minister Igor Shuvalov-another Putin ally who previously oversaw Russia’s industrial policies. The English-speaking Shuvalov has a reputation for being a consummate political insider who is responsible for restoring Russia’s image at international forums such as the G8.

Yet he is also seen as a more pliable figure who may be more willing to fit the country’s tight budget in line with Russia’s plans to boost expenditure on the military

and other pricey projects. Shuvalov told a US investment forum on Tuesday that his government was open for business despite Russia’s reputation for corruption and graft.

But he also urged patience and stressed the importance of social stability a mantra of Putin’s rule that worries some investors.

“Improving the country’s business climate is a long-term process,” Dow Jones Newswires quoted Shuvalov as telling a US-Russian Business Council in Chicago on Tuesday. “It’s impossible to change the country very quickly,” said Shuvalov. “It’s very hard work that will need time. In order to have that time we need social stability.”

The Central Bank figures were reported only moments after Shuvalov spoke and no Russian official has yet referred to them directly or tried to explain the enormous jump.

Officials had earlier predicted $36 billion in total capital outflows for 2011. The Central Bank meanwhile also gave estimates for the capital position dependent on the price of oil-a key export earner for Russia and crucial for the public finances. It said an oil prices average of $75 per barrel in 2012 would still see $15 billion in net outflows as the export income generated continued to leave the country.

The oil income would balance the capital outflows at $100 per barrel while a price of $125 would result in a capital gain for the year of $10 billion-still a very small figure compared with actual energy earnings.

The estimates highlight the importance of energy exports even as Putin and Medvedev have stressed the need to wean Russia off them and modernize its economy. V TB Group Chief Financial Officer Herbert Moos said oil price shocks now posed one of the biggest risks to foreign investors in Russia. “There is no large manufacturing, banking or financial sector (in Russia) that could absorb the shock” of plunging oil prices, Moos told the RIA Novosti news agency. — AFP

Nigeria to end fuel subsidies ABUJA: Nigeria plans to end costly fuel subsidies in the 2012 fiscal year to release funds for infrastructure projects and to create jobs, while overall spending next year is likely to rise, according to plans sent for lawmakers approval.

Subsidizing the cost of fuel, mainly diesel, petrol and kerosene, costs the government 1.2 trillion naira ($7.5 billion) in lost revenues but removing the support will be unpopular with many Nigerians who see it as the only benefit they gain from living in an oil-rich country. Previous efforts to remove subsidies have resulted in nationwide strike action in Africa’s most populous nation, where most people live on less than $2 a day. There have been several protests this year in anticipation of deregulation.

“A major component of the policy of fiscal consolidation is the government’s intent to phase out the fuel subsidy beginning from 2012 fiscal year,” said a 2012-2015 Medium Term Fiscal Framework (MTFF) and Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) paper.

“This will free up about 1.2 trillion naira in savings, part of which can be deployed into providing safety nets for poor segments of society to ameliorate the effects of the subsidy removal,” the federal government document said.

The document is with the national assembly. How quickly lawmakers pass the plans will give an indication of how soon and the next budget will be ready for implementation. The 2011 budget process was chaotic after lawmakers inflated spending plans before the president reduced them again, finally passing the budget in May. Finance Minister and Coordinator of the Economy, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has pledged to avoid the problems of the 2011 budget by getting the spending plans organized earlier.

The fiscal strategy paper hints that the government will forward a 4.8 trillion naira budget for 2012 to the national assembly later this month, up from around 4.5 trillion in this year’s budget passed in May. Nigeria only spends around a quarter of its budget

on capital expenditure, meaning most of the billions of dollars it earns in oil revenues are spent keeping its government running. However, capital expenditure looks set to rise slightly to 1.32 trillion naira in 2012 as a component of the overall budget, while this should improve as overhead allocations are to be frozen until 2015, the documents showed.

“Although aggregate expenditure is expected to increase from 4.8 trillion in 2012 to 5.18 trillion in 2015, concerted efforts are being made to make savings from overheads as allocations will be frozen till 2015,” it said. Okonjo-Iweala will need to persuade lawmakers to get the budget passed when it arrives at the national assembly but they have previously fought hard to defend recurrent expenditure levels, some of which make up their large wages and expenses.

The former World Bank chief has pledged to keep the fiscal deficit under 3 percent and if the MTFF is adhered to the deficit would be reduced to 2.69 percent next year. “The Increase in capital expenditure is a welcome development, given the excesses of the recent past, in which recurrent spending was increased greatly, to the detriment of Nigeria’s oil savings and wider macroeconomic stability,” said Razia Khan, Head of Africa Research at Standard Chartered. “Even more positive is the proposal to remove the fuel subsidy put to national assembly. The subsidy was expensive, responsible for significant distortions and rent-seeking opportunities in the Nigerian economy, with little overall benefit.”

The 2012 budget will be based on the assumption of an ambitious average oil production of 2.48 million barrels per day and a benchmark price of $75 dollars per barrel. Nigeria’s current oil output is around 2.5 million bpd and the projections leave little room for maneuver should Nigeria suffer outages, common in the past, while global economic uncertainty by no means guarantees oil prices will stay high. — Reuters

WASHINGTON: It is easy to imagine the gasps of horror rising from the White House. Sometime in the not too distant future-perhaps just weeks before the November 2012 presidential electionthe semi-official National Bureau of Economic Research declares the US economy is back in recession. It is a scenario that a growing number of economists believe is probable and which could hand President Barack Obama the single biggest challenge of his reelection campaign.

“The US economy is indeed tipping into a new recession. And there’s nothing that policymakers can do to head it off,” said the Economic Cycle Research Institute, a respected body which for the last year has resisted predicting a double-dip recession.

“It’s important to understand that recession doesn’t mean a bad economy-we’ve had that for years now,” the ECRI added to remind everyone concerned of the stakes. “It means an economy that keeps worsening, because it’s locked into a vicious cycle. It means that the jobless rate, already above nine percent, will go much higher, and the federal budget deficit, already above a trillion dollars, will soar.” A recession is far from a foregone conclusion. But with the Federal reserve predicting high unemployment and slow growth for years to come, even optimists are tweaking the chances of a renewed downturn.

Leading Goldman Sachs economist Andrew Tilton predicted this week that the chances of a recession are now around 40 percent. Bookies at Intrade now put the odds at 48 percent. “It would be a real blow to Obama,” said Republican Matt McDonald, who worked on George W. Bush’s 2004 reelection campaign and was a senior advisor to John McCain’s campaign in 2008. “An official recession makes it very difficult to convince people that things are getting better, that despite problems the ship is pointed in the right direction.”

According to McDonald-now with the consultancy Hamilton Place Strategies a recession would all but shatter Obama’s hopes of making the election a choice between two candidates rather than the Republicans’ preferred framing: a referendum on Obama’s policies. Like administrations before them, Obama’s team has largely dodged handicapping the chances of another recession.”We’re not in a double-dip recession,

Italy brushes off Moody’s downgrade MILAN: Italy brushed off yesterday a stinging ratings downgrade from Moody’s over gloomy growth and debt financing prospects, with investors joining a market’s rally on signals of an EU-wide bank rescue plan. Milan’s FTSE Mib index jumped 1.84 percent at the open, despite the larger-than-expected Moody’s downgrade from Aa2 to A2 which came after markets closed on Tuesday. The gain shrank to 1.14 percent in late morning trade. Moody ’s said the downgrade “reflects ongoing economic and financial risks in Italy and in the euro area.”

It warned it may cut Italy’s rating further given that uncertain market environment and risk of further deterioration in investor sentiment could constrain the country’s access to public debt markets. “If such risks were to materialize and the long-term availability of external sources of liquidity support were to remain uncertain, the country’s rating could transition to substantially lower rating levels,” Moody’s said. The downgrade delivered a fresh blow to Silvio Berlusconi’s fragile coalition government, which downplayed Moody’s decision, saying it was “expected”.

The government pledged to work “with even greater determination to achieve our objectives for the public finances.” Rome aims to adopt new measures to spur growth by mid-October, after having recently cut over 100 billion euros ($133 billion) in spending over the next few years to bring its budget back into balance by 2013. Anemic growth hinders Italy’s ability to stay on top of its debt mountain, which is expected to climb to 120 percent of GDP this year from 104 percent at the start of the global financial crisis.

ING Rates Strategy analyst Alessandro Giansanti noted that Moody ’s action brings it down to the same level as fellow ratings agency Standard & Poor’s, which cut its Italy sovereign debt rating two weeks ago citing economic, fiscal and political weaknesses. “Italian spreads are already implying a BBB credit rating and we don’t expect huge reaction from the market to this Moody’s action,” he said.

With Italy planning to tap the markets for 15.8 billion euros in net new borrowing this month it will need continued ECB support to keep its borrowing rates at affordable levels, Giansanti added. The ECB stepped into the secondary bond markets in August after investors dumped Italian and Spanish and sent their borrowing rates to levels that threatened to push them into bailouts.

The ECB has bought about 85 billion euros in eurozone government bonds since then, bringing its total holding to 160.5 billion. — AFP

but we’re not at a point of the kind of robust recovery we should be at to bring employment to the levels that the American people expect,” White House budget director Jack Lew said last month. Obama himself has touted his $447 billion jobs bill-currently stuck somewhere between the White House and Congress-as “insurance against a double-dip recession.”Like George H. W. Bush in 1992 and his son George W. Bush in 2004, a catering economy could ultimately force Obama to pivot from the economic to social and security issues, but for now the president appears content to push his jobs plan.

On Twitter and in a speech on Tuesday Obama called on supporters to press to get it through Congress. The plan, according to Mark Zandi of Moody’s Analytics, would add two percentage points to GDP, add 1.9 million jobs and cut the unemployment rate by a percentage point.

That would make a dent in the estimated eight to nine million jobs lost since the latest

recession began, but would do little if anything to stem contagion from Europe’s debt crisis or Congressional brinkmanship which economists say now pose the greatest recession risks. Even absent an “official recession” as judged by NBER, any temporary slide back to negative growth or a single month of severe job cuts could spell trouble for the incumbent president, tipping voters from gloom to outright anger. According to pollsters at Gallup six in ten Americans already fear that the economy will not get better in the next year.

This is no longer the America of the 1980s or 1990s-a brash and confident hyper-power standing over the world and oblivious to the possibility of failure. “It feels like the die has been cast, and that has left the White House to think about how to frame the election and make it a choice rather than taking steps to implement,” said McDonald. “It is an odd place for us to be as a country.” — AFP

NEW YORK: Specialist Michael Gagliano (foreground right) calls out prices at his post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. — AP

Trichet set to leave ECB with bigger, riskier role FRANKFURT: Jean-Claude Trichet, the euro’s chief guardian, will this month leave the European Central Bank in a very different place from when he took the helm in 2003, with a dramatically expanded role to fight the government debt crisis. The bank has gone from arbiter of interest rates to chief firefighter in the crisis, government creditor and even political enforcer of budget cuts on elected governments. It’s a role that Trichet, who today will chair his last monthly ECB news conference, took on with reluctance and, many say, with little choice.

The bank’s bold steps against the debt crisis have so far kept the eurozone from a widespread collapse of government and bank finances. But those emergency measures, particularly the purchases of troubled governments’ bonds, mean long-term risks for the bank’s credibility as the key institution behind Europe’s 12year-old shared currency. It is even still possible that Trichet’s legacy could be marked by unforeseen events in the final three weeks of his eightyear term, which ends Oct 31. The crisis is still alive with worries that Greece might default, which would rock Europe’s banking sector.

Many expect it will be years before it is clear if the path Trichet has led the ECB down was the right one. “The book is very much still open and the assessment of the ECB policies during this crisis will only be possible in quite some time,” said Marie Diron, senior economic adviser to Ernst & Young. “But on the whole he probably leaves the ECB in a stronger position.” The 68year-old Trichet will start saying his public goodbyes today at his final post-meeting news conference after a meeting of the bank’s 23-member governing council in Berlin. Mario Draghi, currently head of the Bank of Italy, was chosen by eurozone leaders as his successor and takes over Nov 1. “The ECB has played probably a much bigger role during this financial crisis than

BRUSSELS: European Central Bank President Jean Claude Trichet listens to questions during his last appearance in front of the finance committee at the European Parliament, Tuesday, Oct 4, 2011. — AP

it had itself would have envisaged at the beginning,” she said, “by the broad nature of the interventions that it had to take, the size of the interventions that it had to take, and the political roles that it had to play in negotiations on debt restructuring and fiscal policies.” One token of the bank’s burgeoning role can be seen in the detailed letter Trichet and Draghi wrote in early August to Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi.

The two unelected central bankers pushed Berlusconi hard to move quickly on cutting Italy’s deficit, and urged specific changes such as cuts in public employee wages, according to a leaked text published in Italy’s Corriere della Sera newspaper. Trichet says there was no “negotiation” with governments over the terms of the bank’s help. But the fact remains that the ECB and the bond purchases, which drove down interest rates on government debt after they were launched Aug. 8, were, and still are, the only thing between Italy and a possible death spiral of higher borrowing costs.

Similar spirals based on bond market fear of default earlier pushed Greece, Ireland and Portugal to seek bailouts. But Italy and Spain are considered too big to bail out. In effect, by pushing for government policies in exchange for help, the ECB was taking on an enforcer’s role more typically played by the International Monetary Fund.

The bond purchases led to strife on the ECB board; chief economist Juergen Stark is retiring in apparent disagreement, and Axel Weber, head of Germany’s Bundesbank, earlier this year abandoned a bid to succeed Trichet over disagreement with the board’s decision on bond purchases. Trichet, whose position has less direct authority than that of the US Federal Reserve chairman, has had to build consensus.

He steered a course between strict bailout opponents such as Stark and Weber, and outside economists who have urged him to buy the bonds by creating new money, a potentially unlimited source of financial firepower but also potentially inflationary. The ECB has refused, although the Fed and the Bank of England have done so.

Trichet’s own summing up in recent speeches focuses more on the bank upholding its mandate to keep inflation under control, as spelled out in the 1993 Maastricht Treaty that created the euro. With the debt crisis, he said Tuesday before a European Parliament committee, “it is sometimes forgotten that our primary objective is to maintain price stability.” “This is what the Treaty demands from us. This is what the citizens of the euro area expect from us. And this is what we have delivered.”

He stressed one number: 2.01 percent, the annual inflation rate over the life of the euro despite sharply higher oil prices over the period.

That is better, he says, than member states were able to achieve under their separate currencies over the previous 50 years. Yet with the crisis now threatening the existence of the euro itself, the most intense discussion is now about the bank’s efforts to douse the crisis. Risks include potential losses on the €160 billion ($211 billion) in government bonds it has bought, some €40 billion to €50 billion from Greece.—AP

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THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2011

TECHNOLOGY

India launches ‘world’s cheapest’ tablet for $35 NEW DELHI: India unwraps what has been dubbed the world’s cheapest tablet computer yesterday, to be sold to students at the subsidized price of $35 to expand digital access in the Asian giant that lags peers such as China and Brazil in connectivity. The government says the device, called Aakash, which means sky, will initially be available in a pilot run of 100,000 units before being rolled out to millions of students over the next few months.

“Soon, a $35 computer will be made available to ever y child in school. The tablet shall help enhance

the quality of learning of children,” Telecoms and Education Minister Kapil Sibal told reporters last week. The tablet will be officially launched later yesterday, by the minister and DataWind, the small British-based company that developed it. The expected price tag is 1,750 rupees.

Two years in development, the Aakash is due to be assembled in India and may help the government’s goal of incorporating information technology in education, although critics were doubtful the device would live up to expectations.

India trails fellow BRIC nations

towns. Bharat Mehra, an expert on the use of communications technology for development, said the budget tablet could be used to deliver distance learning in rural areas and among students.

“If they are able to deliver what they promised it will make a huge difference,” said Mehra, who teaches at the University of Tennessee. The launch last week of Amazon’s Kindle Fire shook up the global tablet market, with its $199 price tag and slick browser a serious threat to Apple Inc’s iPad. Like the Kindle Fire, the Aakash uses the Google Android operating

Brazil, Russia and China in the drive to get its 1.2 billion population connected to technologies such as the Internet and mobile phones, a report by risk analysis firm Maplecroft said this year. The number of Internet users grew 15-fold between 2000 and 2010, according to another recent report.

Still, just 8 percent of Indians have access. That compares with nearly 40 percent in China.

Some 19 million people subscribe to mobile phones every month, making India the world’s fastest growing market, but most are from the wealthier segment of the population in

system, but market watchers were sceptical the Indian-made device will have mass appeal.

Full specifications were not available pre-launch, but low-end devices often use resistive LCD displays rather than full touch screens. Media reports said the device will connect via wireless broadband, unavailable in most areas. “The thing with cheap tablets is most of them turn out to be unusable,” said Rajat Agrawal, executive editor at technology reviewers BGR India. “They don’t have a very good touch screen, and they are usually very slow.” — Reuters

Samsung targets iPhone 4S sales ban in France, Italy Plans to take similar actions in other countries

CALIFORNIA: Apple’s Phil Schiller talks about the iPhone Touch during an announcement at Apple headquarters in Cupertino, Calif, Tuesday. —AP

A buyer’s guide to the new iPhone 4S NEW YORK: Apple is trotting out a new iPhone on Oct 14, but it’s not the iPhone 5 some were expecting. Instead, it’s a more modest upgrade, the iPhone 4S. Here are some facts to help you decide if it’s time to make the plunge. If you own an iPhone 4: The new phone will have a faster processor and a sharper, more responsive camera. Otherwise, it’s pretty much the same. It will come with improved software, but you’ll get that as a free update on your iPhone 4, too.

As an iPhone 4 owner, you should consider the 4S only if you absolutely must have the latest and greatest, or if your old phone is broken. Since the 4S is less than two years old, your carrier will probably make you pay more than the $199 base price if you upgrade, because you haven’t “paid off ” the subsidized price of your old phone yet.

There’s speculation that the more significant iPhone 5 upgrade may be less than a year away, and it could add important new features that are worth waiting for. If you own an older iPhone: Apple’s new software, iOS 5, will work on the iPhone 3GS, but not the original iPhone or 3G. Take the launch of the iPhone 4S as a good opportunity to upgrade to a faster, more responsive phone, with a sharper screen.

The big cost of owning an iPhone isn’t in the purchase price, it’s in your monthly service fees. Upgrading your phone every two years is a minor cost compared to paying your monthly bill over the same period. So take advantage of your carrier’s phone subsidy and let it treat you to a new iPhone. Because Apple charges about $600 for a phone that costs $199 in the store, it’s the phone company that eats most of the upfront cost of the phone.

If you don’t have a smartphone: iPhones are still the kings of the smartphone world, with unsurpassed access to high-quality applications. But they’re also expensive.

That may not be immediately obvious in the cellphone store, where their $199 price tag (or, in the case of the iPhone 3GS, $0 price tag) looks comparable to many other phones. Carriers require contracts when selling iPhones at that price, and the available plans aren’t cheap, in part because you’ll need a data plan. In effect, you’ll be paying off that expensive phone over two years, through your monthly bill.

If you want a smartphone for less, look at getting a handset that runs Google Inc.’s Android software from a no-contract carrier like Virgin Mobile, MetroPCS or Cricket. You’ll be paying $149 and up for the phone, but the monthly cost will be lower. The biggest

weakness of Android phones is that there are fewer good third-party applications available for them, but you’ll get roughly 80 percent of the functionality of an iPhone for 50 percent of the cost.

If you’re a Sprint subscriber: If you’ve nursed a longing for an iPhone but haven’t yet moved over to AT&T or Verizon, now’s your chance ... probably.

Sprint hasn’t yet said what kind of plans will be available for the iPhone. It’s also not clear if Sprint will sell only the 4S or also the cheaper 4. But it’s a fair bet that Sprint will keep its unlimited data plans as a way to lure subscribers from Verizon and AT&T, which cap monthly data usage on smartphones.

It’s worth noting that the iPhone won’t support “Sprint 4G,” which is what Sprint calls Clearwire Corp.’s high-speed data network. Sprint sells a number of other smartphones that can access this network for faster Web browsing, downloads and uploads, for no additional cost.

On the other hand, the Sprint iPhone 4S will most likely be able to roam internationally, a very rare feature on Sprint smartphones.

If you’re an AT&T subscriber: The Big Orange was the first carrier to place caps on the monthly data consumption of its iPhone subscribers, to keep them from overloading its network. The addition of Sprint to the stable of iPhone carriers will probably give you the option to jump ship and get an unlimited data plan, but Sprint hasn’t confirmed this yet. On the other hand, Sprint’s data speeds are lower than AT&T’s, and it doesn’t have the network of Wi-Fi hotspots that AT&T does.

AT&T will still be the only US carrier to sell the iPhone 3GS, a two-year old model. The price will be cut to nothing, from $49. But AT&T still won’t sell the phone for use on prepaid plans, which could yield substantial savings. If you’re a Verizon subscriber: One thing that’s missing from the iPhone 4S is the ability to tap into Verizon’s latest high-speed data networks, which uses the so-called “LTE” technology. That feature might arrive in the next iPhone, which presumably will be the iPhone 5. There’s speculation that we might not have to wait until next summer to see that model.

Apple is usually conservative about adding new wireless technology to its phones, but Verizon has been selling LTE phones for half a year already. If you travel a lot, it might be worth upgrading from the 4 to the 4S because you’ll be able to use it on wireless networks in other countries. But the upgrade will be expensive, because Verizon iPhones are so new. You haven’t yet “paid it off ” through your monthly service fees. —AP

SEOUL: Samsung Electronics said it will file patent-infringement claims in France and Italy to ban the sale of Apple’s new iPhone less than a day after it was unveiled, intensifying a legal battle between the two top brands. It will also file legal cases in other countries to stop the sale of the iPhone 4S after further review, the South Korean maker of Galaxy smartphones and tablets said in a statement.

Samsung has emerged as a credible challenger to Apple’s mobile devices and the two companies are battling over patents in courtrooms around the world. They have sued each other in 10 countries involving more than 20 cases since April. The latest salvo from Samsung comes hours after Apple’s newest iPhone launch left investors and Apple fans wishing for more than a soupedup version of its previous device introduced more than a year ago. Apple shares fell as much as 5 percent before recovering to close down 0.6 percent on Tuesday.

“Apple has continued to flagrantly violate our intellectual property rights and free-ride on our technology,” the South Korean firm said in a statement. “We will steadfastly protect our intellectual property.” Samsung said preliminary injunction requests for a ban on iPhone 4S sales will be filed yesterday and each case involves two patent infringements related to its wireless technology. Under French and Italian laws, companies can seek and courts can order a ban on sales of a product even before it hits the market, Samsung spokesman James Chung told Reuters.

Apple and Samsung are vying for the top spot in the global smartphone market. But the intensifying legal battle with Apple threatens to derail Samsung’s telecoms and component businesses. Apple is Samsung’s biggest customer, buying mainly chips and displays. On Tuesday, Apple rejected an offer from Samsung to settle a tablet computer dispute in Australia, possibly killing off the

commercial viability of the new Galaxy tablet in that market. Samsung is set to report sharply lower quarterly earnings on Friday on persistent declines in chip prices, while investors look for signs its telecom business can sustain its booming growth.

Samsung’s intensifying attack comes after a series of setbacks in Europe and Australia.

Apple and Samsung are due to meet again in cour trooms in the United States, the

SEOUL: Visitors look at mobile products near the Samsung Electronics smart phone Galaxy S II at a showroom in Seoul, South Korea on Monday. —AP Netherlands and South Korea next week.

Apple says Samsung’s Galaxy line of mobile phones and tablets “slavishly” copied its iPhone and iPad. Samsung, widely expected to overtake Apple as the world’s No.1 smartphone vendor in unit terms in the third quarter, rejects the claims. Samsung accused Apple of not paying

New technology helps Hispanics trace roots MIAMI: Programs such as NBC’s “Who Do You Think You Are?” and PBS’ “Faces of America” are helping fueling the trend in genealogy.

But for many Hispanics, tracing the family tree hasn’t been so easy. Now that’s changing for America’s largest minority group as a wealth of genealogical data, including a landmark 1930 census in Mexico, is going online.

Discovering information about one’s greatgreat grandparents and other relatives could be keystrokes away for many of the nearly 32 million Mexican-Americans - a group long left out of the sleuthing done largely by European-Americans and some AfricanAmericans.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, long America’s largest aggregator of genealogical records, this year completed its more than three-year-old project to create a searchable digital index of Mexico’s massive 1930 census. It has also made the information available to the Internet genealogy company, Ancestry.com. The Church first began collecting the Mexican records in the early 1950s, but it wasn’t until 2007 that it began the laborious process of transferring microfilm versions to a searchable online database, or index, at its free research site FamilySearch.org. The original documents are also available. Previously, individuals generally had to go to one of the Church’s FamilySearch centers to view the documents.

Through the work of volunteers, the Church completed the online work in May. Ancestry.com’s user-friendly site put the

information out in September in Spanish and English, making the research even easier.

“Knowing family history is an important piece of our identity. Knowing where we came from and the forces that brought us to where we are today - it goes beyond our immediate story,” said Eduardo Obregon Pagan, a history professor at Arizona State University who teaches genealogical research methods. He has painstakingly traced his own Puerto Rican and Mexican roots.

He said he eagerly awaited the records, adding that while Latinos have historically had strong family ties, they have mostly relied on oral histories to know their roots. For younger generations who have less access to those connections, the records play an increasingly important role. Latter-day Saints, also known as Mormons, have long prioritized genealogy because they believe even the dead can be baptized and thus put on the path to heaven. And ancestors can’t be baptized if their names aren’t known.

As the Church has expanded globally and sought to attract new US immigrants, it has increasingly acquired demographic records from countries around the globe. Its web site has many local records from across Latin America, including down to the local Catholic parish, with Baptism and marriage records that can provide clues about older generations not even listed in the census.

FamilySearch.org is also now in the process of indexing many of its Asian documents to make online searching easier. — AP

EMC unveils new proven solution and best practices for Oracle DUBAI: At Oracle OpenWorldrecently, EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC) announced a new EMC Proven Solution, as well as a best practices white paper developed by EMC IT that can help dramatically improve Oracle customers’ database performance and accelerate their journey to the cloud. Based on EMC VNX unified storage and using EMC FAST Cache, an extendable cache with up to 4TB of Flash drives that automatically responds to busy workloads, the new EMC Proven Oracle Performance Solution can double Oracle transactions per minute with up to 80% faster response times, while generating up to 170% more IOPS in both phys-

ical and virtualized Oracle Database 11g RAC environments. It maps out a logical approach to combine EMC VNX unified storage with Oracle’s Direct NFS feature to increase performance of Oracle databases on both physical and virtual machines.

The white paper illustrates how EMC experienced dramatic data growth in its 15 TB Oracle Database 11g Global Data Warehouse, and after deployingthe EMC Greenplum Data Computing Appliance, achieved up to 13x faster queries for Big Data applications and

licensing fees for some of its patents before it started selling iPhones in 2007. Apple argues Samsung never demanded a licence fee until 2010 and before that Samsung remained silent because Apple is an important customer.

The iPhone 4S adds to Apple’s iPhone 3G, 3GS, iPhone 4 and iPad 2 products that Samsung claims infringed its wireless-technology patents. Samsung’s latest Galaxy

decreased data load times from six days to just 29 minutes. The visualization of Big Data analytics enabled faster identification of trends and issues with the ability to now create dashboards automatically, on-the-fly versus compiling point-in-time batch reports.

EMC Symmetrix VMAX enterprise storage systems and software are widely deployed in physical and virtualized, missioncritical Oracle database and application environments. EMC has numerous EMC Proven solutions and whitepapers

designed to help customers maximize performance, scalability, availability and ease of management of their Oracle infrastructure with Symmetrix VMAX. Learn more about these solutions.

EMC also announced that it has been named by customers as the #1 storage choice for Oracle and other mission critical environments according to a new survey by IDCπ.The survey ranks the storage vendors based on how end-users are deploying their technology with enterprise applications and it shows that more customers choose EMC storage than any other storage for their Oracle environments.

tablets, powered by Google’s Android operating system, have already been blocked in Germany. So too have some smartphone models in the Netherlands. Shares in Samsung closed up 1.7 percent yesterday after the new iPhone failed to wow fans and investors, leaving Android rivals better placed to grab market share. — Reuters

‘iPhone 5’ on sale now in China BEIJING: Several Chinese online stores are offering die-hard Apple fans the opportunity to buy the much-anticipated next-generation iPhone 5. There’s just one catch-the US tech giant hasn’t released it yet. The fake smartphones are available for as little as 200 yuan ($31) on hugely popular websites such as China’s largest online marketplace Taobao.com, which has 370 million registered users.

Customers who left comments online appear to have brushed aside the fact that Apple failed to unveil the iPhone 5 on Tuesday, despite expectations it would. It instead launched an updated, improved version of the iPhone 4. “It’s really great, I’ve already used it for a few days and it’s good value for money,” one customer who purchased a fake iPhone 5 said on Taobao.

Some of the smartphones offered are billed as “HiPhone 5” in a bid to avoid accusations of counterfeiting, but photos of the devices show the Apple logo on the back of the phones and “iPhone 5G” printed in the battery compartment. Even before Tuesday’s launch of the iPhone 4S at Apple headquarters in California, Chinese authorities had seized fake versions of the US firm’s supposed latest offering.

Commerce department inspectors in the southeastern city of Fuzhou found 61 iPhone 5s on sale that featured new capabilities such as dual sim cards, the official Xinhua news agency reported earlier this week.

Vendors said the phones had been manufactured in the southern boomtown of Shenzhen, the report said. The Fuzhou trade and commerce bureau was unavailable for comment.

The craze for all things Apple in Chinawhich has the world’s largest online population with over 500 million users-has triggered widespread cloning of iPhones and iPads. In July, an American blogger even uncovered fake Apple stores in the southwestern city of Kunming. Even staff working there did not appear to know the shops were fakes. Some Chinese fans queue for days to get their hands on the latest Apple products.

Apple has five official stores in mainland China-two in Beijing and three in Shanghaialthough more shops are authorized to sell its products, while others offer those smuggled in from overseas markets. —AFP

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health & science

Fighting diabetes with prevention

By Brian Kennedy CALIFORNIA: An epidemic of diabetes is assaulting the Middle East, a victim of its own success. Over the last 30 years, the Arabian Gulf people have gone from being fishermen and traders, with active lifestyles and nutritious diets, to a much more sedentary, fast foodfocused society, thanks to the global appetite for their oil and natural gas.

Countries in the Gulf have invested generously in programs to combat diabetes, but their approaches have been flawed. As in the US, most of these efforts are targeted at treatment of existing cases, with very little allocated for prevention. A more proactive and assertive strategy focused on stopping the onset of diabetes is essential. Policy makers in the Gulf should borrow a page from Cuba s playbook on control-

ling lifestyle-related diseases.

Cuba, a poor country with a population of 11 million, has an almost identical life expectancy as that of the US despite the reality that the US spends roughly thirty times more than Cuba on each citizen for health related services.

Cuba, however, focuses on preventive medicine to maintain a healthy population, with an emphasis on health education and healthy diet. Children are taught from a young age the importance of a healthy diet, regular exercise, and overall fitness; that investment in health education has earned solid, measurable returns.

During a recent trip to the Arabian Gulf, I was repeatedly confronted with disturbing statistics: in the Middle East alone, 9.2% of the population is believed to be affected- the highest regional incidence in the world; even

more disturbingly, in Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE almost one in tour residents are diabetic. Unchecked, this figure is expected to rise to a third of the population in little over a decade - with severe economic and social consequences to young nations already facing serious health challenges.

Why is diabetes so much more prevalent in the Arabian Gulf than in the rest of the world? The Gulf has perhaps become a victim of its own success. Flush with oil and natural gas money, the last three decades have transformed the Gulf region into one of the world s richest on a per capita basis.

As an observer, I found the number of fast food outlets in Kuwait City shocking - surely as many or more than found in any American city of similar size. Likely as a consequence of this imported unhealthy diet and lack of

exercise, Arabian Gulf citizens are becoming progressively fatter and are increasingly contracting type II diabetes. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE, and Qatar have all experienced this same rapid increase in wealth that has accelerated the penetration of diabetes.

Medical research reinforces the importance of acknowledging diabetes as the severe medical and social adversary it is. It has long been known that diabetes increases the risk of heart disease, stroke, blindness, renal failure, and amputation. It is estimated that obesity and diabetes each reduce a patient s life by about 8 years, with the accompanying tragic results for the entire extended family.

But now diabetic patients have one more thing to worry about: a very recent study has confirmed the suspicion that diabetics may also be at

increased risk of Alzheimer s and other dementias.

Beyond the devastating individual price of this disease, the growing prevalence of diabetes in the Gulf could well slow or even cripple national development plans. A war against diabetes must be declared, using prevention as the primary weapon of choice. Of necessity, the public sector must lead the campaign of education concerning the importance of exercise and diet, as Cuba has done. Reducing consumption of fast food should be a focus. Time is running out - without question for individual health, but arguably for the societal and economic health of Gulf nations as well.

Brian K Kennedy, PhD is the President & CEO Buck Institute for Research on Aging in Novato, California. www.thebuck.org

In US, debate roils over male circumcision Bid to vote to make procedure a crime blocked SAN DIEGO: In this photo provided by the San Diego Zoo, a Parma wallaby in the nursery at the San Diego Zoo is bottle fed by senior keeper Janet Hawes Monday in San Diego, Calif. This is one of four feeding the joey receives each day. The joey, named Trinka, an aboriginal word for daytime, is also given time out of the pouch in a play pen in the nursery. —AP

Health

in brief

Smoking to cause up to 40m TB deaths by 2050: Study PARIS: Lung damage caused by smoking could cause an additional 18 million cases of tuberculosis and 40 million extra deaths from TB by 2050, according to a study published on Tuesday in the British Medical Journal (BMJ ). The estimates derive from a mathematic model of smoking trends and smoking’s impact on TB risk. Africa, the eastern Mediterranean and Southeast Asia will see the biggest rise in smoking-linked TB, the study says. “Aggressively lowering the prevalence of tobacco smoking could reduce smoking-attributable deaths from tuberculosis by 27 million by 2050,” according to the paper, headed by Sanjay Basu of the University of California at San Francisco.

Over 380,000 Malawians on free HIV drugs: Officials BLANTYRE: AIDS-ravaged Malawi has 383,000 people on free anti-retrovirals (ARVs), up from 5,000 when the program started seven years ago, health authorities said yesterday. “I am pleased to report that 74,000 new patients were put on antiretroviral therapy putting the number of patients ever started on ART at 383,000,” Thomas Bisika, director of the National AIDS Commission said in a statement.

Around 14 percent of the country’s 13 million citizens are infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, according to official figures. Malawi launched the free anti-AIDS drugs scheme in 2004 with 5,000 initial beneficiaries. The poor southern African nation has 90,000 new annual infections, largely among young people and women, according to UNAIDS. The World Bank gave Malawi a $30-million (20.3-million-euro) grant two years ago to prevent HIV infections and speed up the roll-out of free drugs.

Thailand rushes condoms to flood victims BANGKOK: Thailand scrambled yesterday to airlift condoms and other emergency health supplies to victims of its worst floods in decades to prevent a feared surge in unplanned pregnancies.

Five helicopters began transporting medicine and other provisions from the Public Health Ministry in Bangkok to seven locations in the central province of Lop Buri, which has been severely inundated. “Local volunteers told us that villagers have nothing to do during the floods, so to prevent a baby boom we added condoms too,” an official at the Emergency Medical Institute of Thailand told AFP. The unusually severe monsoon floods have killed 237 people and affected three-quarters of the country, including the northern city of Chiang Mai and the ancient capital of Ayutthaya, both popular tourist destinations. Millions of people have suffered damage to their homes or livelihoods because of the floods, which are several metres deep in places.

The military has been deployed to help victims and army camps are being opened to evacuees.

Authorities were battling to stop the floods reaching the centre of low-lying Bangkok, as forecasters warned of more stormy weather to come.

Science and technology minister Plodprasop Suraswadi admitted the government was fighting a losing battle. “We can’t stop it raining and it’s difficult to drain water into the sea. We have done everything we can but it’s not enough,” he told reporters.

WASHINGTON: In the United States, a vocal movement of “intactivists,” or people who oppose male circumcision, is engaged in a fierce debate with doctors over the practice of clipping baby boys’ foreskins. Actor Russell Crowe may be the most famous of them. Earlier this year he declared on Twitter: “Circumcision is barbaric and stupid,” before swiftly tweeting sorry to anyone who thought he was “mocking the rituals and traditions of others.”

Over the weekend, California’s governor blocked a bid by opponents of circumcision to have voters decide if local governments could make it a crime for doctors to perform the procedure unless medically necessary.

But the movement has vowed to keep fighting against a medical practice that is done to about 57 percent of American boys-down from more than 80 percent in the 1980s according to US health authorities-yet remains rare in most of Europe, Asia and Latin America.

Defense of circumcision typically tends to come from Jews and Muslims who say it is part of their belief set, though opponents say religious circumcision actually makes up less than one percent of all operations.

Increasingly, support for the practice has come from US doctors who warn of the potential risks of not doing it, including more likely cases of sexually transmitted diseases and HIV. “Based on the medical evidence, banning infant male circumcision would deprive parents of the right to act on behalf of their children’s health,” wrote Johns

Hopkins University epidemiologists Aaron Tobian and Ronald Gray in Tuesday’s Journal of the American Medical Association. “Three randomized trials in Africa demonstrated that adult male circumcision decreases human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) acquisition in men by 51% to 60%,” the pair wrote, also citing research that suggests lower rates of other sex diseases. “If a vaccine were available that reduced HIV risk by 60%, genital herpes risk by 30%, and HR-HPV (high-risk human papillomaviruses) risk by 35%, the medical community would rally behind the immunization and it would be promoted as a game-changing public health intervention.” The pair acknowledged concerns that some of the Africa studies may not be applicable to the United States, where sexually transmitted infections (STIs) “are a persistent problem” despite high circumcision rates.

However they concluded that in all, evidence to support the practice has “increased substantially during the past five years.” They also raised new concerns about what could be a drop in circumcisions among the poor due to the recent uptick from 16 to 18 states that do not allow Medicaid to cover the cost.

That would adversely affect underprivileged and minority communities, “especially for those at the highest risk for these infections,” they wrote. But opponents, like Georgann Chapin, executive director of the privately funded advocacy group Intact America, say the doctors’ arguments are unfounded. “There is no evidence anywhere that countries with lower circumcision rates

have public health problems related to the fact that the men are intact,” she told AFP. And further, since the United States bans any genital modification to little girls, the same protection under the law should be afforded to little boys, she said.

“Could you take your daughter in to the doctor and say ‘Cut her finger off?’ Of course not. Could you take her to the dentist and say ‘Pull all of her teeth out, I am afraid she is going to get cavities?’ “If doctors went by the principle that the baby is the patient and the baby cannot give consent... they would say ‘I can’t do it.’”

A steady voice in what often becomes an emotional debate should come from the American Academy of Pediatrics, which is at work on a new policy statement about male circumcision to come out early next year.

The group’s current position paper takes a middle-ofthe-road stance. “Existing scientific evidence demonstrates potential medical benefits of newborn male circumcision; however, these data are not sufficient to recommend routine neonatal circumcision,” it says.

Chapin said her group’s supporters intend to press the issue at the AAP’s upcoming conference later this month in Boston, and will publish an open letter asking doctors to “put down the knife.” “I think people know this is a really weird and messed up thing to do to children-but there is such a defensiveness about it,” said Chapin. “I believe what we are seeing here is kind of a last-ditch effort to protect a practice that people in their hearts know is wrong.” —AFP

Higher testosterone may equal lower heart risks

Dr. Alaa Tosson

Dr Faisal Al Saqabi

Dr Akeel Al Muhana

Abbott to host Awareness Campaign on Rheumatoid Arthritis in Kuwait KUWAIT: Abbott announced yesterday that it will be hosting an Awareness Campaign on Rheumatoid Arthritis, in support of World Arthritis Day, on 12th October 2011. The theme of the campaign, “Move to improve “, is in parallel with the global initiative, and aims to provide patients with key methods for daily life.

The campaign will feature a wide range of renowned rheumatologists who will discuss various aspects of Rheumatoid Arthritis. Topics will include the importance of early diagnosis, the burden of Rheumatoid Arthritis if left untreated, the impact of Rheumatoid Arthritis on pregnant women, possibilities of complications during pregnancy, Rheumatoid Arthritis in children, as well as features of the disease.

The primary purpose of Abbott from supporting such awareness campaigns is to provide health education information on diseases that can be of benefit for the patients and their caregivers,” said Dr. Alaa Tosson, General Manager, Abbott Kuwait.

“Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic, systemic inflammatory disorder that may affect many tissues and organs, but principally attacks synovial joints. The process produces a chronic inflammatory response of the synovium (synovitis) leading to the development of a pannus in the synovium. The pathology of the disease process often leads to the destruction of articular cartilage and ankylosis of the joints,” added Tosson.

Dr Faisal Al Saqabi, Consultant Rheumatologist at Al Sabah Hospital mentioned that early treatment of arthritis is very important to lead to complete remission. Once the disease sets in and causes damage to the joints, treatment becomes more complex. Appropriate treatment is also important to prevent destruction, and there has been a therapeutic revolution in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis over the past 15 years, which is characterized by moving away from the oral immunosuppressive drugs towards the parenteral targeted biologic therapy.”

“There is a prevailing sense that sustained remission may be a realistic goal in the future. The aim of the treatment is to reduce symptoms, slow or arrest joint

damage and prevent functional disability. The future is promising with biologic therapy,” added Saqabi.

Dr Akeel Al Muhana, Specialist Rheumatologist at Mubarak Hospital noted that more than 10,000 Rheumatoid Arthritis patients are amongst the Kuwaiti population. Rheumatoid Arthritis tends to strike in the prime of life between the ages of 30-50 and can have a devastating impact on the quality of life and people’s ability to carry out everyday tasks. However, simple lifestyle changes along with an effective treatment program can help make daily life easier and help stop the progression of the disease.

Rheumatoid Arthritis usually affects joints on both sides of the body equally. Wrists, finger, knees, feet and ankles are the most commonly affected. Symptoms include joint pain, stiffness and fatigue. Other symptoms also include weight loss, anorexia, low grade fever.

Brazil approves obesity drug banned in US, Europe BRASILIA: Brazil on Tuesday approved the use of an anti-obesity medication, sibutramine, which has been banned in Europe and the United States, officials said. The National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa) said it would halt sales of weight-loss medications which are based on amphetamines, but allow sibutramine under heightened surveillance.

The drug will be allowed to be prescribed to patients seeking to lose weight but only if they do not have cardiovascular problems, Anvisa director Dirceu Barbano told the state news agency Agencia Brasil.

But one Anvisa board member, former health minister Agenor Alvares, dissented. “If a number of countries took this off the market based on scientific evidence, we cannot ignore that evidence,” Alvares said. — AFP

NEW YORK: Elderly men with naturally higher levels of testosterone may be less likely to suffer a heart attack or stroke than those men with lower levels of the hormone, according to a study. Findings published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology showed that of 2,400 Swedish men in their 70s and 80s, those with the highest testosterone levels were less likely to suffer a heart attack or stroke over the next several years than men with the lowest levels.

But the results do not prove that testosterone itself deserves the credit, and it’s too soon to recommend testosterone replacement to try to lower heart risks.

“What we can say is that elderly men with high testosterone levels are relatively protected against cardiovascular events, and therefore lower testosterone is a marker for increased cardiovascular risk,” said Asa Tivesten, at Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Goteborg, Sweden, who led the study.

It’s known that any serious health condition can lower testosterone levels, as can obesity. But in the study, the researchers accounted for a number of health factors- including the men’s weight, blood pressure and any diagnoses of diabetes, heart disease or stroke at the outset. Of 604 men in the bottom quarter for levels of the “male” hormone at the study’s start, 21 percent had a heart attack, severe chest pain or stroke over roughly five years.

That compared with roughly 16 percent of the 606 men who started out with the highest testosterone levels. Even accounting for health factors, men in the highest-testosterone group still showed a 30 percent lower risk of heart disease or stroke compared with the other three-quarters of the study group. But that doesn’t rule out the possibility that something other than testosterone may be at work, said JoAnn Manson, chief of preventive medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, who was not involved in the study.

“Low testosterone may be a marker of other health conditions that put men at higher risk of cardiovascular disease,” she said. Potential reasons for why higher natural testosterone levels may be good for the heart include the fact that higher testosterone generally means less body fat and more lean muscle. What’s needed, she added, is evidence from clinical trials that actually test whether testosterone replacement in older men cuts the risk of heart disease and stroke.

Those trials are ongoing and so far, she noted, the results are mixed on whether testosterone replacement improves “intermediate” outcomes like cholesterol or blood sugar levels. No one yet knows if it affects the ultimate outcomes of cardiovascular disease and lifespan.

“There are many unanswered questions, and I don’t think this means that men should be trying to boost their testosterone with testosterone replacement therapy,” she said. The experience with hormone replacement therapy (HRT) in women offers a cautionary tale. Before 2002, many women used HRT in the hopes of warding off heart disease and osteoporosis. Then a large US clinical trial found that women given pills containing estrogen and progesterone actually had higher risks of blood clots, heart attack, stroke and breast cancer than women given placebo pills. — Reuters

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THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2011

Mental health tests don’t catch all troubled troops NEW YORK: Mental health assessments given to all soldiers after deployment may miss many cases of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a US study. The research, published in the Archives of General Psychiatry, involved about 3,500 soldiers who were in Iraq in 2007 to 2008 for their third deployment in six years. Before they returned to Fort Stewart, Georgia, they completed a standard, computer-based post-deployment health assessment, which includes questions on PTSD and other mental health problems. This is not anonymous, and is meant to spot problems and help connect them with care when they get home.

But when returning soldiers took the screening

tests anonymously, they were between twice and four times as likely to report mental health problems and to say they needed help, said the study. “There is concern about the impact of seeking help on their career and on how others will perceive them,” said Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Warner, one of the study’s authors, with the US Army Medical Activity Alaska, at Fort Wainwright. “(The study) tells us that we need to continue to work and to seek different mechanisms that will encourage soldiers to get help and understand that (getting treatment) is a strength, not a weakness.”

About half the soldiers returning from deployment also completed an anonymous paper questionnaire

with the same mental health screening questions.

Just over four percent of the returning troops met the criteria for depression or PTSD based on their standard health assessments. When they did the survey anonymously, though, 12 percent screened positive for at least one of the conditions.

Soldiers were also four times more likely to say they had thoughts of suicide on anonymous assessments. Warner and his colleagues said that the findings don’t show that the normal post-deployment screening test doesn’t work, but that additional strategies are needed to encourage returning soldier to get the mental health care they need. Some might not report depression or PTSD because they

aren’t confident that good services will be available to help them anyway, they added.

Warner said that in the past few years, the military has stepped up its efforts to make mental health services available in a range of settings, from primary care offices to over the phone. “What we don’t want to happen, is a soldier who asked for help once, and for any reason doesn’t follow through with their care,” he said.

But he added that the current study shows that more work is needed to continue to expand those opportunities for soldiers to get care for mental health problems, and to reverse the stigma associated with their care. —Reuters

Planet ‘far away’ on climate goals: Study PANAMA CITY: The world remains far away from meeting UN-backed goals on holding back climate change, setting the stage for major damage without more ambitious efforts to cut emissions, a study said Tuesday.

Scientists who support climate action said that China, the largest source of carbon blamed for rising temperatures, is on track to surpass its own targets but warned that its overall emissions are growing more quickly than thought.

The controversial UN-led Copenhagen summit in 2009 agreed to limit global warming to 2.0 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, a goal some environmentalists say is already too timid.

At the latest UN talks underway in Panama City, the Climate Action Tracker, which aims to keep track of countries’ efforts, found a yawning gap between governments’ pledges and their track records when added together. A study by the group found that the world at current rates would emit 54 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide or its equivalent in 2020, a gap of 10 to 14 billion tonnes with what is needed to meet the goals.

The planet is “very, very far away” from meeting the 2.0-degree goal, said co-author Bill Hare, a lead writer of the major 2007 UN scientific report on climate change and director at

Potsdam-based research group Climate Analytics. “We are heading towards a warming of well over 3.0 degrees at present unless there are major improvements in the pledges,” Hare, who has advised environmental group Greenpeace, told a news conference.

Hare said that while even 2.0degree warming is problematic, the higher rate puts the world at risk to major problems such as more frequent wildfires and rising sea levels-a top concern for low-lying nations.

“The warming levels that we’re heading towards — 3.0 degrees-could easily result in massive damage to vulnerable ecosystems from one end of the planet to another,” Hare said. “ We would see, particularly in Africa, very dangerous threats to food production and availability if present agricultural practices don’t change fast enough,” he said. The week-long talks in Panama aim to prepare for the upcoming conference of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Durban, South Africa, where governments will face hard questions on future climate action.

The Kyoto Protocol’s requirements to cut carbon emissions-which apply only to wealthy nations-expire at the end of 2012. China, which has surpassed the United States as the top emitter, has resisted a binding inter-

national treaty but has pledged to reduce the amount of carbon it produces per unit of gross domestic product by 40 to 45 percent by the end of 2020.

The Climate Action Tracker said that China was poised to do better than its own target as it is taking action to save energy and switch from carbon-intense fossil fuels to wind and other renewables. But the study said that China was meeting its own goals also in part because it had used conservative forecasts for economic growth. China’s efforts “constitute a major effort. That is very positive,” said Niklas Hoehne, director of energy and climate policy at consultancy Ecofys. “But still emissions are in total higher than expected before because of this rapid economic growth,” he said.

In the United States, President Barack Obama has promised to reduce emissions by 17 percent from 2005 levels but faces staunch opposition from the rival Republican Party. A number of Republicans question scientists’ findings on climate change and say that major reductions in the use of oil and other fossil fuels would cause a new burden for the troubled US economy. The Climate Action Tracker also expected “significantly higher” emissions than previously estimated from Brazil. — AFP

SAN SALVADOR: A male foal Zebra (Equus quagga burchelli) is seen with its mother at the National Zoo of San Salvador on Tuesday. This zebra -less than a week old, was the first to be born in the National Zoo and the public will be able to see it in some ten days. —AFP

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W H AT ’ S O N

Announcements BEC T10 Cricket tournament The BEC T10 Tennis Ball Cricket Tournament will be organized & played from 7th October to 11th November, 2011.

The Tournament being organized by RED N BLACK CRICKET CLUB and sponsored by BEC EXCHANGE will be played out in Abu Halifa cricket grounds. For registration and other queries please mail at mail@rednblack.org or call 66820148/ 66130940/ 66841653.

NSS Kuwait Vidyarambham event planned for tomorrow NSS-KUWAIT (National Service Society) will be organizing its 9th Vidyarambham (Ceremonial initiation for kids to the world of alphabets) tomorrow at United Indian School Auditorium, Abbassiya from 4.30 AM till 6.00 AM. The ritual will start with Ganapathy Homam and Saraswathi Pooja at 4.00 AM followed by the Vidyarambham which will be graced by Sri. KP Balakrishnan Nair, a Teacher by profession and a well known writer. The day is freely open for all Kids from all religions and casts. For online registration and further details, please contact Telephone No. 99282573/ 97861393 OR email to nsskuwait@gmail.com in advance.

Laif annual convention Here comes LAIF Annual Convention. The Life Abundant International Fountain Kuwait is holding its first annual convention at the National Evangelical Church, Kuwait (Neck Compound-Hall of Faith), Near Parliament House, Kuwait City from Thursday, October 6-9, 2011. It will commence on Thursday at 7 pm, Friday at 10 am, Friday at 10 pm, Saturday at 6 pm and Sunday at 6:30 pm. For more information, contact and transport, call 66332844 50611737, 66922052, 665SO209 or e-mail: laifkuwait@yahoo.co.uk, www.facebook.com/L.A.I.F.CHURCH. 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 Sachu65044521,97862115 Farwaniya, Abbassiya, Shuwaikh & Khaitan: Sathyanarayana- 66585077 Sanath Shetty67712409.

Brain Bang Calling all students aged 11 and above, Support Group for Accelerated learning under the umbrella of FOCC (Friends of CRY Club, Kuwait), BRAIN-BANG invites you to join us in our fortnightly Friday Class from 11.45 am to 13.45 pm in Salmiya starting October 7th for the next 6 months.

Successfully running for the seventh consecutive year.

Areas of development are : lMemory tools to Understand and Learn Better lTools and Techniques to empower your mind lActivity, fun, games and worksheet based assignments lPractical Experiments lMind Gymnastics lApplication of Learning Techniques to conventional study. Register before October 5th 2011. Limited seats.

Register early to avoid disappointment. Website: www.focckwt.org E-Mail: brainbang@focckwt.org Phone no: 25660835/25618471/97677820

K’s path to hold 2nd annual charity golf tournament

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’S PATH (Kuwait Society for the Protection of Animals and Their Habitat) in association with Gulf Bank , will hold its 2nd Annual Charity Golf Tournament on Saturday, 29th October 2011 at the Sahara Golf Club. The tournament is a fundraising event with all proceeds going towards K’S PATH programs.

“Our 2nd Annual Charity Golf Tournament builds upon the encouraging response that our first such tournament received last year”, says K’S PATH Chairman Ayeshah Al Humaidhi. “There’s a growing community of golf lovers in Kuwait and our fundraising tournament is an opportunity for families and friends to have a great time while supporting a great cause. We’d like to thank Gulf Bank and Sahara Golf Club for their contribution to this much-awaited fundraising tournament.”

Taking the format of a 4-man Texas Scramble with exciting prizes for the winning team and a special ‘nearest the pin’ prize, the tournament will tee off at 8.30 am at Sahara’s lush green golf course. Sahara Club members, and non-members, are invited to join the tournament for varying fees. Those who don’t play golf are welcome to join as spectators (at a lesser fee) and root for teams at Sahara’s grand terrace overlooking the golf course. The tournament will be followed by an award ceremony and lunch. To register, email golf@kspath.org or visit www.kspath.org K ’S PATH’s 2nd Annual Charit y Golf Tournament tournament celebrates the spirit of spor tsmanship and drive to transcend challenges, virtues reflected in K’S PATH’s organizational philosophy to champion animal welfare and habitat protection in Kuwait.

Write to us Send to What’s On upcoming events, birthdays or celebrations by email: local@kuwaittimes.net Fax: 24835619 / 20

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he 5th batch in Graduate of Theology (G.Th) run by Faith Theological Seminary Manakala, Kerala), Extension Centre, Kuwait Chapter (under Sharon Fellowship), was inaugurated by Rev Joy Thomas on 1st October, 2011. The occasion was blessed by the pastors and students from various churches across Kuwait. Sources told that registration still continues and the classes will start tomorrow, October 7.

AUK to host exclusive art exhibition featuring the works of Matt Lamb

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he American University of Kuwait will host an exclusive Art Exhibition featuring the works of Matt Lamb from October 9-13, 2011. Alongside the exhibition, special workshops will also be conducted on all days, dedicated to Matt Lamb Umbrella for Peace SMproject. The exhibition and workshop will be open to the general public on Thursday, October 13 from 10 am - 9 pm.

The Matt Lamb Umbrellas for PeaceSMproject is a global art project involving painting and decorating umbrellas by children and adults. The individual will artistically design umbrellas that represent their personal values of world peace. A subsequent parade happens throughout their neighborhoods or campus. This is a manifestation of the individual bringing peace throughout their world that they live in.

AUK invited Matt Lamb as well as the Matt Lamb Umbrella for PeaceSM projectto raise awareness among our student body as well as the rest of the country on issues of peace. This event goes hand in hand with AUK’s liberal arts values and gives AUK the opportunity to showcase a great artist as well as a

great cause.

“The message of peace through art is a great way for AUK to encourage students to be active and socially aware citizens,” said AUK President Dr. Winfred

Thompson.

AUK will bring the Matt Lamb Umbrellas for PeaceSMproject for the first time to Kuwait. The Project has been conducted inArgentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy,

Japan, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Panama, Philippines, Poland, Slovenia, Russia, Singapore, Spain, United Kingdom, USA, Thailand and Vietnam.

Matt Lamb is an internationally recognized, self-taught painter whose works are represented in public and private collections throughout the world. He calls the world his home and travels extensively among his studios and art exhibitions while tirelessly campaigning for world peace. As an artist, sculptor, philosopher, and unstoppable globe-trotting dynamo, Matt Lamb is one of the most intriguing, confounding, pigeonhole-defying phenomena in contemporary art.

The American University of Kuwait is a liberal arts institution, based on the American model of higher education. It is dedicated to providing students with knowledge, self-awareness, and personal growth experiences that can enhance critical thinking, effective communication, and respect for diversity. AUK seeks to create leaders and life-long learners who aspire to the highest standards of moral and ethical responsibility in their societies.

Awami League Kuwait chapter organizes discussion, Milad Mahfil

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n the occasion of the 65th birthday of the honorable and respected people’s leader, daughter of Banghubandhu Skh Mujibur Rahman, the father of the nation, the president of Bangladesh Awami League, the Prime Minister of the Peoples’ Republic of Bangladesh, Skh Hasina Wajed, Bangladesh Awami League Kuwait chapter organized a discussion and Milad Mahfil in the premises of Fahaheel restaurant, Fahaheel.

Huge gatherings of Awami League workers, and others were present. The meeting was presided over by freedom fighter Engr. Abdul Rab, the founder and present President of Bangladesh Awami League Kuwait Chapter.

Special guests were Rab Mawla, Editor Maru Lekha, Masud Karim President Secha Sebak League and Joybangla Sankskrit Ayikka Jote, Jahangir Hussain Bablu president Kabita Parisad, Nurul Amin Sr Vicepresident, Samim Ahmed VP, Haroon VP, Habib resident Fahaheel branch, Kabir G G Fahaheel branch Obaidur joint Secy, Abul Bashar President Mahbula Br, Samim President Banghabandhu Parisad Fahaheel branch, Engr. Riaj joint secy and Others present were Mahiuddin Lal, Imam, Deepankar, Siddique,

Kuwait Times sponsors

‘Most Beautiful Egyptian Child’ contest

By Sherif Ismail

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he ‘Bawabat Al-Masreyeen’ (Egyptians Gate) Facebook page in Kuwait launched a course in operating the Photoshop program which deals with editing pictures and preparing designs.

There is also a contest for the picture of the most beautiful child among Egyptian community children in Kuwait. The contest started on the 29th of September. The results will be announced on Saturday, October 15 wherein, Toqa Mustafa, superwiser of compitetion says the top three winners will grace the Kuwait Times office to be awarded for their prizes which include free lunch/dinner date at Swiss-Belhotel and a luxury wristwatch (First Prize), free lunch/dinner at Swiss-Belhotel and a food processor (Second Prize); free lunch/dinner at Swiss-Belhotel plus a coffeemaker (Third Prize).

It is worth mentioning that the Gate began dealing with the community’s problems two weeks ago, as it presents them to concerned officials, and the most important problem is that of Egypt Air so far. http://www.facebook.com/egykwt

Congratulations to Hossam and his wife on the arrival of their new baby boy Adam. From uncle Sherif Ismail

Amjad, Momin, Ibrahim, Bachu, Eng R Asraf, etc. The meeting started with the recitation from holy Quran.

The meeting was directed by Omar Farook, organizing secy. The speakers were Omar Farook, Nurul Amin,

Masood Karim, Jahangir Hussain Bablu, Obaid, Samin, the speakers all prayed to Allah for longer life of the beloved leader. The meeting was concluded by culling a big cake and a dinner party.

Prominent Pianist at Swiss-Belhotel Plaza Kuwait

AUK Professor, Ghazi Nassir Authors New Book

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ssociate Professor of English Language and Literature at the American University of Kuwait Dr. Ghazi Nassir has authored a new book titled ‘Culture and Customs of Iraq’ to be released January 31, 2012

by Greenwood Press.

The book, made of eight chapters, provides an overview but concise look at the history, religion, education, economics and government of the Iraqi people. It also surveyed the roles of literature, media, cinema, fine arts, architecture, music, and dance as well as discussed Iraqi cuisine, traditional dress, gender, marriage, family, social customs and lifestyles. This volume is written from what might be called a double perspective; Iraq is viewed both from the outside and from within. It describes, and analyzes its history, people, religions, and social systems, and how these systems are shaped by traditional factors. It seeks to provide students and other readers essential, accurate, and solid informa-

tion to understand the Iraqi people and their culture. Particular attention is devoted to the land and the people who make this culture, their backgrounds, vital rituals and central beliefs, practices, and moral values.

Culture and Customs of Iraq comes in at a crucial juncture in history. The Iraqi culture stems from three main

sources: family, religion (Islam), and language (Arabic). To understand Iraqis, one must understand these three sources adequately. The kinship trait includes a set of group interactions that are built around the family.

Each Iraqi family member is responsible for the integrity of his or her family and for the behavior of other members. Their religion is an ultimate expression of the idealism of the Iraqis. Iraqis generally are moderately a religious and conservative people, and religious principles (Islamic or non-Islamic) are quite noticeable in their daily lives. Their language exerts tremendous influence on their personal interaction and emotional tone.

For the Europeans in general and the Americans in particular, this is a must to understand Iraqi culture and customs, especially important at present because it can provide a basis for our own interactive behavior with Iraqis as well as a basis for interpreting their behavioral characteristics.

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normous Performance & Perfect Ambiance with the Prominent Pianist at Swiss-Belhotel Plaza Kuwait. Swiss-Belhotel Plaza Kuwait announced the launch of extremely gifted pianist with nuanced tone & vitality. Guest will have a repertoire of pop classics, jazz, evergreens and movie theme songs.

Nina Neycheva has been in the music scene for more than ten years. Nina is a first sight reader and she also writes and arranges musical pieces for string ensembles. Her deftness in twinkling the grand piano is remarkably well and has refined and polished her playing at the very beginning days of playing. She handles the instrumental numbers with great feel and improvises the arrangements to suit her style. She plays Mainstream Jazz, Jazz Standards, Classical Pieces and Lounge numbers. She has mastered the numbers and can present pieces from early twenties till today.

She has performed in, Tunisia, Qatar, Jordan and China. Quench your thirst at the end of the day at our Le CafÈ enjoying the live piano every Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursdays in Swiss-Belhotel Plaza Kuwait from 07:30 pm - 10:30 pm mezzanine floor.

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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

Mehta inaugurates Saradhi Onam

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aradhi Kuwait celebrated its 12th anniversary and Onam 2011 on 23rd September at AIS Auditorium, Maidan Hawally. The Ambassador of India to Kuwait Sri Sathish C Mehta was the chief guest who inaugurated the function by lighting the lamp. Satish Mehta was offered a grand reception in traditional Kerala style with thalapoly accompanied by Chenda Melam.

In his inaugural speech, Mehta reiterated the importance of such gatherings in maintaining harmony and continuing the legacy and tradition of Kerala, which

stands unique.

The inaugural ceremony was presided over by Saradhi President C G Vidyananda Babu. General Convener Suresh K welcomed the guests and audience.

Felicitations were made by General Secretary K R Aji, Saradhi Trust Chairman Adv Sasidhra Panicker, Vanithavedi Chair person Smt Manikkutty Raju, and Advisory Board member Kochappilly Vijayabhanu.

Program Convener Sreekumar expressed vote of thanks. Thomas Chandi MLA released the Souvenir by presenting a copy to the Souvenir Committee Convenor

Madhukuttan. Academic excellence awards were distributed to children who topped the first three positions in 10th and 12th classes of CBSE exam.

The day long festivities included presentation of various art forms like Thiruvathira, classical dances, cinematic dances, skits , kavitha etc by Sardhi’s in-house talents and were well received by the audience.

Ganamela led by the famous playback singers from Kearla, Devanand, Gaytri Asok and Vipin Xavier was the highlight of day, holding back the over filled gathering within and outside the auditorium.

EMBASSY OF BRITAIN The Visa Application Centre (VAC) will be closed on the same dates above. The opening hours of the Visa Application Centre are 0930 - 1630 Application forms remain available online from the UKBAs’ website: www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk or from the Visa Application Centre’s website: www.vfs-ukkw.com. And also, from the UK Visa Application Centre located at: 4B, First Floor, Al Banwan Building (Burgan Bank Branch Office Building), Al Qibla area, opposite Central Bank of Kuwait, Kuwait City. For any further inquiries, please contact the Visa Application Centre: Website: www.vfs-uk-kw.com E-mail:info@vfs-uk-kw.com Telephone:22971170. The Consular Section will also be closed on the same dates. For information on the British Embassy services, visit the British Embassy website: www.ukinkuwait.fco.gov.uk nnnnnnn

NAFO celebrates Onam anniversary

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AFO Kuwait (National Forum Kuwait) celebrated Onam and 8th anniversary on Friday, September 30, 2011, at the Indian Community School Auditorium (Sr Girls), Salmiya. Started with the floral decoration by Vice-President O N Suresh Kumar and his team, elder members of NAFO family lighted the traditional lamp marking the opening of Onam and anniversary celebrations. Followed by the invocation

by NAFO ladies, Joint Secretary Subbaraman and his team presented the rituals of Onam depicting the reign of Mahabali.

Cultural Secretary K C Gopakumar welcomed the audience. The Indian Ambassador Sathish C Mehta was the chief guest on the happy occasion. In appreciation of the ongoing support from the high office of Indian Embassy, President, B S Pillai, handed a memento to His Excellency, on behalf of NAFO. Advisory Board Member P V Ramachandran Nair was then honored with traditional Ponnada and

Memento by the Indian Ambassador, in appreciation of his valued contribution and dedication towards NAFO activities since its inception. Former President Dr T S Srikumar read the profile of P V R Nair and in return, P V R Nair thanked NAFO for this kind gesture.

NAFO President delivered ONAM message and Murali S Nair, Secretary-General Affairs briefed the last year Activities of NAFO through his Anniversary Message. K G Nair, Advisory Board Member felicitated the gathering. Program Convener Rajasekharan Nair extended vote of thanks.

Prayer rendered by Dr Anitha Unnikrishnan, Radhika Madhu and Jyothy Sreekumar which followed with ‘Onasmruthi’, presented by A R Subbaraman and NAFO children. Invocation dance “Rangapooja by Parvathi Sudheer Nair, Bharathanatyam recital by Meenakshi Suresh, Fusion Dance by Sneha Sashikumar, Pair dances by Anamika Anilkumar & Vrichika Vinayan Nair, “Group Dance” by Nafo kids, Group Songs by Nafo

Children’s Wing, Solo songs by Dr M. Sreekumar, Anil Attuva, Anamika Anil, Sreela Raviprasad, Varun Menon, Amalendu Anil, Anjana Raviprasad, Athira Raviprasad, includes the attractions of the day.

The traditional Thiruvathirakali, presented by Radhika Madhu, Smitha Shashikumar, Smruthi Vinayan, Sindu Rajeev, Anitha Murali, Bindu Vipin, Sreeja Narendran, Reshma Vijayan, Geetu Vipin & Joshiba mesmerized the entire audience.

The spell-binding Dance Ballots “Krishnaleela” & “Agrapshyami” respectively presented by Praseetha Pramod and her daughter Meghana Pramod, Smruthi and Radhika turn up as the prime cultural feast of the day.

Aranmula Vallamkali & Vanchipattu led by Captain Sreekumar pillai & team, Comedy Skit by Madhu Menon, Premraj, Pradeepkumar, and Rajkartha & Prabhakaran Nair were the most highlights of the program.

AUK launches strategic planning process

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merican University of Kuwait President, Dr Winfred Thompson appointed a Mission Review Committee comprised of faculty, staff, alumni and Board members and charged it with the review of the University’s Mission Statement and Values. This comes after the AUK Board of Trustees approved a review of the current Mission Statement as the initial step of AUK’s Strategic Planning Process.

As the University nears its ten year

anniversary, it is reflecting upon the successes and challenges of the first ten years and planning strategically for the decade ahead.

In his address to University faculty and staff at the beginning of the Academic Year, Dr. Thompson said, “the importance of the University’s Mission Statement, is that it defines out origin and has frame our goals and objectives since the founding.” He added that as AUK approaches its decennial anniver-

sary, there is a significant need to determine the Mission’s appropriateness and ensure that University departments and divisions are indeed, in line with the Mission and Values of the University.

During the Fall 2011 semester, the Committee will conduct a communitywide review of the University’s Mission Statement and Values in light of the growth and development of the University and its aspirations for the future. The Committee will also solicit

input on developing a Vision Statement.

The Committee will seek to involve the entire University community with the intent to recommend changes if deemed necessary, as participation by and feedback from members of the AUK community are essential to the success of this process.

For more details please visit the AUK website at the following: http://www.auk.edu.kw/about_auk/stra tegic_plan.jsp

EMBASSY OF CANADA The Embassy of Canada is located at Villa 24, Al-Mutawakel St., Block 4 in Da’aiyah. Please visit our website at www.Kuwait.gc.ca.

Canada offers a registration service for all Canadians travelling or living abroad. This service is provided so that Consular Officials can contact and assist Canadians in an emergency in a foreign country, such as a natural disaster or civil unrest, or inform Canadians of a family emergency at home. The Embassy of Canada encourages all Canadian Citizens to register online through the Government of Canada Travel Website at www.voyage.gc.ca. The Canadian Embassy in Abu Dhabi provides visa and immigration services to residents of Kuwait. Individuals who are interested in visiting, working or immigrating to Canada are invited to visit the website of the Canadian Embassy to the UAE at www.UAE.gc.ca.

Effective January 15, 2011, the only Temporary Resident Visa (TRV) application form that will be accepted by CIC is the Application for Temporary Resident Visa Made Outside of Canada [IMM 5257] form.

All previous Temporary Resident Visa application forms will no longer be accepted by CIC and instead will be returned to applicants. Should old applications be submitted prior to January 15, 2011 they will continue to be processed. To ensure that the most recent version of the Temporary Resident Visa application form is being utilized, applicants should refer to the CIC website. As of January 15, 2011, forms are to be filled in electronically. nnnnnnn

EMBASSY OF GERMANY The Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Kuwait wishes to announce that as of 1 May 2011, the external service provider Al Qabas Assurex is operating a Visa Application Centre in support of the German Embassy. Short-term visa applications for travels to Germany (e.g. for tourism, visits, business) are to be submitted to the service provider Al Qabas who for your convenience will ensure that all relevant documents are included in your application. Your personal appearance at the Application Centre is not required. Address of the Visa Application Centre: Al Qabas Assurex Sanabel Tower (Al-Babtain) Mezzanine (M3) opposite Sharq Mall Kuwait 22924444 Fax: 22924442 Further information are available on the following websites: www.kuwait.diplo.de www.qavisa.com nnnnnnn

EMBASSY OF INDIA The Embassy of India will remain closed on the following dates during the month of October 2011. October 6, 2011 (Thursday) - Dussehra; and October 26, 2011 (Wednesday) - Diwali.

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EMBASSY OF KENYA The Embassy of the Republic of Kenya wishes to request all Kenyans resident in or training through Kuwait to register with the Embassy. We are updating our database. This information is necessary in order to facilitate quick assistance and advise in times of emergency. Kindly visit in person or register through our website www.kenyaembkuwait.com. The Embassy is located in: Surra Area - Block 6 - Street 9 Villa 3 Tel: 25353362 - 25353314; Fax: 25353316.

Study in Canada Fair 2011

O Voice Kuwait youth wing celebrates anniversary

V

oice Kuwait Youth Wing celebrated its 1st anniversary at United Indian School Abbassiya. P Dileep Kumar first president of VOICE KUWAIT inaugurated the function. Youth Wing President Baiju Vijayan presided over the

function. Surendhran Mathur,P G Binu,K.Chandra Mohanan, Raghunathan Achari, Gireesh Wayanad, Saritha Rajan, Mini Krishna made felicitation speech.

After that there was a classical recitation by Karala sangeetha nadaka

Akkadami winner & Kanchi Kaamakodi Asthana Vidhvan Prof: Ayamkudi Mony.

His accompanying team of professional instrumentalists in the program have been from Kuwait: Violin by Karunagapalli Balamurali, Mrudangam

by Arun Arunapuram, Ghatam by Aranmula Harilal,Morsing by Manoj Mavelikkara. Program convener Daneesh T welcomed all the guests and Gen: Secretary V Shanil gave vote of thanks.

rganized by the Embassy of Canada, the sixth annual Middle East Education Initiative (MEEI) will be visiting Kuwait from Oct 1 to 4, 2011. Representatives of 20 leading Canadian universities and colleges will be available to meet students, parents, teachers and guidance counsellors to present the advantages of studying in Canada. The Canadian institutions will also be visiting local schools to speak to interested students about opportunities to study in Canada.

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00:45 01:40 02:35 03:30 04:25 05:20 06:10 07:00 07:25 07:50 08:40 09:10 10:05 11:00 11:55 12:50 Irwin 13:45 14:40 Baker 15:30 16:00 16:30 17:25 18:20 19:15 Baker 20:10 21:05 22:00 22:55 23:50

Cats 101 Galapagos Wildest Africa Untamed & Uncut Killer Crocs Cats 101 K9 Cops Monkey Life The Really Wild Show Growing Up...

Breed All About It Bad Dog Cats 101 Animal Cops Houston Michaela’s Animal Road Trip New Breed Vets With Steve Galapagos Weird Creatures With Nick Monkey Life The Really Wild Show Baby Planet Cats 101 Must Love Cats Weird Creatures With Nick Cats 101 Mutant Planet Swarm Chasers Untamed & Uncut I Shouldn’t Be Alive

00:00 Keeping Up Appearances 00:30 Keeping Up Appearances 01:05 The Weakest Link 01:50 Casualty 02:40 Full Circle With Michael Palin 03:30 Doctors 04:00 Keeping Up Appearances 04:30 Balamory 04:50 Gigglebiz 05:05 Me Too 05:25 Tellytales 05:35 Tellytales 05:45 Poetry Pie 05:50 Balamory 06:10 Gigglebiz 06:25 Me Too 06:45 Tellytales 06:55 Poetry Pie 07:00 Balamory 07:20 Gigglebiz 07:35 Me Too 07:55 Tellytales 08:05 Tellytales 08:15 Poetry Pie 08:20 Balamory 08:40 Gigglebiz 08:55 Me Too 09:15 Tellytales 09:25 Tellytales 09:35 Poetry Pie 09:40 Keeping Up Appearances 10:40 The Weakest Link 11:25 Lark Rise To Candleford 12:15 Doctors 12:45 Eastenders 13:15 Casualty 14:10 Keeping Up Appearances 15:40 Lark Rise To Candleford 16:30 The Weakest Link 17:15 Doctors 17:45 Eastenders 18:15 Casualty 19:10 Lark Rise To Candleford 20:00 The Weakest Link 20:45 Doctors 21:15 Eastenders 21:45 Incredible Journeys With Steve Leonard 22:40 Life On Air 23:30 Elephant Diaries

00:10 01:00 01:50 02:35 03:30 04:20 04:45

Come Dine With Me What Not To Wear Fantasy Homes By The Sea Antiques Roadshow Masterchef Australia The Naked Chef Come Dine With Me

05:35 What Not To Wear 06:25 Daily Cooks Challenge 07:00 The Hairy Bikers Ride Again 07:25 Raymond Blanc’s Kitchen Secrets 07:50 The Hairy Bikers Ride Again 08:20 The Naked Chef 08:45 James Martin’s Brittany 09:10 The Naked Chef 09:35 Come Dine With Me 10:25 James Martin’s Brittany 10:50 Fantasy Homes By The Sea 11:35 Antiques Roadshow 12:30 Bargain Hunt 13:10 Daily Cooks Challenge 14:40 Bargain Hunt 15:25 Antiques Roadshow 17:10 Come Dine With Me 18:00 Raymond Blanc’s Kitchen Secrets 18:25 The Hairy Bikers Ride Again 18:50 Rhodes Across Italy 19:40 James Martin’s Brittany 20:00 Come Dine With Me 20:50 Antiques Roadshow 21:40 Antiques Roadshow 22:30 Bargain Hunt 23:15 Masterchef Australia

00:00 BBC World News 00:30 World Business Report 00:45 Sport Today 01:00 BBC World News America 01:30 Asia Business Report 01:45 Sport Today 02:00 BBC World News 02:30 Asia Business Report 02:45 Sport Today 03:00 Newsday 03:30 Asia Business Report 03:45 Sport Today 04:00 Newsday 04:30 Asia Business Report 04:45 Sport Today 05:00 Newsday 05:30 Asia Business Report 05:45 Sport Today 06:00 Newsday 06:30 Hardtalk 07:00 BBC World News 07:30 World Business Report 07:45 BBC World News 08:30 World Business Report 08:45 BBC World News 09:30 World Business Report 09:45 Sport Today 10:00 BBC World News 10:30 World Business Report 10:45 Sport Today 11:00 BBC World News 11:30 Hardtalk 12:00 BBC World News 12:30 World Business Report 12:45 Sport Today 13:00 BBC World News 13:30 World Business Report 13:45 Sport Today 14:00 GMT With George Alagiah 15:00 BBC World News 15:30 World Business Report 15:45 Sport Today 16:00 Impact With Mishal Husain 17:30 World Business Report 17:45 Sport Today 18:00 BBC World News 18:30 Hardtalk 19:00 The Hub With Nik Gowing 20:30 World Business Report 20:45 Sport Today 21:00 World News Today With Zeinab Badawi 22:30 World Business Report 22:45 Sport Today 23:00 BBC World News America 23:30 Hardtalk

00:20 00:45 01:10 01:35 02:00 02:25 02:50 03:00 03:25

Droopy: Master Detective The Flintstones Johnny Bravo Duck Dodgers King Arthur’s Disasters The Scooby Doo Show Popeye Classics Tom & Jerry Popeye

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2011

TV PROGRAMS 03:50 04:15 04:35 05:00 05:10 05:35 06:00 06:15 06:30 06:55 07:20 07:45 08:00 08:25 08:50 09:15 09:40 10:05 10:30 10:55 11:20 11:35 12:00 12:15 12:40 12:55 13:20 13:45 14:15 14:40 15:05 15:30 15:55 16:20 Doo 16:45 17:10 17:35 18:00 18:25 18:50 19:00 19:25 19:50 20:15 20:45 21:10 21:35 22:00 22:25 22:55 23:05 23:30 23:55

The Jetsons The Flintstones Looney Tunes Pink Panther & Pals Tex Avery Yogi’s Treasure Hunt The Garfield Show New Yogi Bear Show The Scooby Doo Show Tom & Jerry Looney Tunes Popeye Classics Pink Panther And Pals Puppy In My Pocket The Garfield Show Dastardly And Muttley The Flintstones Tom & Jerry Pink Panther And Pals Top Cat New Yogi Bear Show Puppy In My Pocket Popeye Classics Looney Tunes Wacky Races The Jetsons Duck Dodgers Looney Tunes Scooby Doo Where Are You! Tom & Jerry The Perils Of Penelope Pitstop Droopy: Master Detective Wacky Races Scooby-Doo And ScrappyDastardly And Muttley Tom & Jerry Puppy In My Pocket The Garfield Show The Flintstones Pink Panther & Pals Looney Tunes Yogi’s Treasure Hunt Top Cat Wacky Races Tom & Jerry The Scooby Doo Show Dastardly And Muttley Tom & Jerry Johnny Bravo Dexters Laboratory The Garfield Show Scooby Doo Where Are You! The Perils Of Penelope Pitstop

00:05 Robotboy - Elements 00:30 Squirrel Boy 00:55 George Of The Jungle 01:20 Cramp Twins 01:45 Chop Socky Chooks 02:10 Best Ed 02:35 My Gym Partner’s A Monkey 03:00 Ben 10: Ultimate Alien 03:25 Generator Rex 03:50 Adventure Time 04:15 Flapjack 04:40 Chowder 05:05 Powerpuff Girls 05:30 Ed, Edd n Eddy 05:55 I Am Weasel 06:20 Squirrel Boy 06:45 Cow & Chicken 07:00 Eliot Kid 07:04 Cow & Chicken 07:12 Eliot Kid 07:25 Angelo Rules 07:50 Best Ed 08:15 Flapjack 08:40 My Gym Partner’s A Monkey 09:05 The Grim Adventures Of Billy & Mandy 09:30 Courage The Cowardly Dog 09:55 Cow & Chicken 10:20 I Am Weasel 10:35 Adventure Time 11:00 Ben 10 11:25 Bakugan Battle Brawlers 11:50 The Secret Saturdays 12:15 Samurai Jack 12:40 Ben 10: Alien Force 13:05 Codename Kids 13:30 Skunk Fu! 13:50 My Gym Partner’s A Monkey 14:15 The Amazing World Of Gumball 14:40 Ed, Edd n Eddy 15:05 Camp Lazlo 15:30 Chowder 15:55 The Grim Adventures Of Billy

& Mandy 16:25 Cow & Chicken 16:50 Courage The Cowardly Dog 17:15 I Am Weasel 17:40 George Of The Jungle 18:05 Casper’s Scare School 18:30 Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated 18:55 Ben 10: Ultimate Alien 19:20 Generator Rex 19:45 Star Wars: The Clone Wars 20:10 Hero 108 20:35 Bakugan: New Vestroia 21:00 Total Drama Island 21:25 The Amazing World Of Gumball 21:50 Billy And Mandy 22:00 Ben 10 22:25 Bakugan Battle Brawlers 22:50 The Secret Saturdays 23:15 Samurai Jack 23:40 Megas XLR

00:00 Backstory 00:30 World Sport 01:00 The Situation Room 02:00 World Report 03:00 World Business Today 04:00 Piers Morgan Tonight 05:00 Anderson Cooper 360 06:00 World Sport 06:30 Talk Asia 07:00 World Report 07:30 Backstory 08:00 World Report 09:00 World Report 10:00 World Sport 10:30 Eco Solutions 11:00 World Business Today 12:00 American Morning: Wake-Up Call 12:30 Living Golf 13:00 World One 14:00 Piers Morgan Tonight 15:00 News Stream 16:00 World Business Today 17:00 International Desk 18:00 The Brief 18:30 World Sport 19:00 Prism 20:00 International Desk 20:30 Living Golf 21:00 Quest Means Business 22:00 Piers Morgan Tonight 23:00 Connect The World With Becky Anderson

00:15 00:40 01:35 02:30 03:25 04:20 05:15 05:40 06:05 07:00 07:25 07:50 08:45 09:10 10:05 10:30 10:55 11:25 12:20 13:15 14:10 15:05 15:30 16:00 16:25 16:55 17:50 18:45 19:10 19:40 20:05 20:35 21:00 21:30 22:25 23:20

Swamp Brothers Extreme Fishing The Future Of...

Dirty Jobs Ultimate Survival Mythbusters How Do They Do It? How Stuff’s Made Dirty Jobs Wheeler Dealers Fifth Gear The Future Of...

How Do They Do It? Mythbusters Cake Boss Border Security Auction Kings Dual Survival Ultimate Survival Ultimate Survival Extreme Fishing Swamp Brothers Cash Cab Us Wheeler Dealers Fifth Gear The Future Of...

Mythbusters Cake Boss Border Security Auction Kings How Stuff’s Made How Do They Do It? Cash Cab Us One Man Army Ultimate Survival Kidnap And Rescue

00:05 The Tech Show 00:30 Kings of Construction 01:20 Stunt Junkies 01:45 Killer Outbreaks 02:35 Brainiac 03:25 The Gadget Show 04:15 How Stuff’s Made 04:45 Kings of Construction 05:40 One Step Beyond 06:10 Engineered 07:00 Thunder Races 07:55 Moon Machines 08:50 The Tech Show 09:15 Weird Connections 09:40 The Gadget Show 10:35 Engineered 11:30 Sci-Fi Science 11:55 How Stuff’s Made 12:25 Killer Outbreaks 13:15 Moon Machines 14:05 One Step Beyond 14:30 Stunt Junkies 14:55 Kings of Construction 15:45 Weird Connections 16:10 Scrapheap Challenge 17:00 Brainiac 17:50 Sci-Fi Science 18:15 The Tech Show 18:40 Invisible Worlds 19:30 Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman 20:20 Ecopolis 21:10 The Gadget Show 21:35 The Gadget Show 22:00 Invisible Worlds 22:50 Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman 23:40 The Gadget Show

ALIVE ON OSN ACTION HD

00:00 00:25 01:15 02:00 02:50 03:35 04:25 05:15 06:00 06:20 Cody 06:45 07:05 07:30 07:55

Kim Possible Fairly Odd Parents Stitch Replacements Emperor’s New School Stitch Replacements Fairly Odd Parents Emperor’s New School The Suite Life Of Zack And Phineas And Ferb Wizards Of Waverly Place Suite Life On Deck Good Luck Charlie

08:20 08:35 09:00 10:25 10:50 11:35 12:25 12:45 13:10 13:30 13:55 14:55 15:20 15:45 16:10 16:35 Cody 17:00 17:25 17:50 18:15 18:45 19:35 20:00 20:25 20:50 21:15 21:35 22:00 22:25 Cody 22:50 23:15 23:35

Fish Hooks Suite Life On Deck Beauty And The Beast Fish Hooks Good Luck Charlie Phineas And Ferb Wizards Of Waverly Place Good Luck Charlie Hannah Montana Suite Life On Deck Wizards Of Waverly Place Good Luck Charlie Phineas And Ferb Fish Hooks Shake It Up The Suite Life Of Zack And Wizards Of Waverly Place Good Luck Charlie Fish Hooks Shake It Up Suite Life On Deck Good Luck Charlie Wizards Of Waverly Place Jake & Blake Hannah Montana Sonny With A Chance Good Luck Charlie Shake It Up The Suite Life Of Zack And Sonny With A Chance Wizards Of Waverly Place Jonas

00:25 Kendra 00:55 Then And Now 01:25 E!es 02:20 THS 03:15 25 Most Stylish 04:10 Sexiest 05:05 Extreme Hollywood 06:00 THS 07:50 Behind The Scenes 08:20 E! News 09:15 Khloe And Lamar 09:45 Khloe And Lamar 10:15 THS 12:05 E! News 13:05 Fashion Police 13:35 Extreme Close-Up 14:05 Keeping Up With The Kardashians 14:35 Giuliana & Bill 15:30 E!es 16:25 Behind The Scenes 16:55 Holly’s World 17:25 Holly’s World 17:55 E! News 18:55 THS 19:55 Giuliana & Bill 20:55 Chelsea Lately 21:25 Bridalplasty 22:25 E! News 23:25 Chelsea Lately 23:55 Keeping Up With The Kardashians

00:30 01:15 02:05 02:50 03:40 04:25 05:15 06:10 07:00 07:45 08:35 09:20 09:45 10:05 10:50 11:40 12:25 13:15 14:00 14:50 15:15 15:35 16:20 17:10 18:00 18:45 19:10 19:55 20:20 21:10 22:00 22:50 23:40

Ghost Lab A Haunting I Almost Got Away With It I Almost Got Away With It Dr G: Medical Examiner A Haunting Ghost Lab Mystery Diagnosis Murder Shift Forensic Detectives Mystery Diagnosis Real Emergency Calls Street Patrol Ghost Lab FBI Files Murder Shift On The Case With Paula Zahn Fugitive Strike Force Mystery Diagnosis Street Patrol Real Emergency Calls Ghost Lab FBI Files Forensic Detectives Murder Shift Real Emergency Calls Mystery Diagnosis Street Patrol On The Case With Paula Zahn Fugitive Strike Force Cuff Me If You Can Forensic Justice Dr G: Medical Examiner

00:00 Danger Men 01:00 Destination Extreme 01:30 First Ascent 02:00 Chasing Che: Latin America On A Motorcycle 02:30 Chasing Che: Latin America On A Motorcycle 03:00 Endurance Traveller 04:00 Departures 05:00 Departures 06:00 Danger Men 07:00 Destination Extreme 07:30 First Ascent 08:00 Chasing Che: Latin America On A Motorcycle 08:30 Chasing Che: Latin America On A Motorcycle 09:00 Endurance Traveller 10:00 Departures 11:00 Departures 12:00 Danger Men 13:00 David Rocco’s Dolce Vita 13:30 Bondi Rescue 14:00 Bondi Rescue: Bali 14:30 Travel Madness 15:00 City Chase: Argentina 16:00 Adventure Wanted 17:00 Ultimate Traveller 18:00 Meet The Natives 19:00 David Rocco’s Dolce Vita 19:30 Bondi Rescue 20:00 Bondi Rescue: Bali 20:30 Travel Madness 21:00 City Chase: Argentina 22:00 Adventure Wanted 23:00 Ultimate Traveller

00:00 02:00 04:00 06:00 07:45 10:00 PG15 11:30 14:00 16:15 17:45 20:15 22:30

Dead Presidents-18 Jason X-18 Ninja Assassin-18 Deceit-PG15 Lost In Space-PG15 Jesse Stone: No RemorseIndependence Day-PG15 Lost In Space-PG15 Fast Lane-PG15 Independence Day-PG15 Alive-PG15 The Thin Red Line-18

PLANET 51 ON OSN CINEMA

01:30 Assassination Of A High School President-18 03:15 Bustin’ Down The Door-PG15 05:15 On Broadway-PG15 07:15 The Eclipse-PG15 09:00 Bustin’ Down The Door-PG15 11:00 The Greatest-PG15 13:00 Planet 51-PG 15:00 Citizen Jane-PG 17:00 The Open Road-PG15 19:00 My Bollywood Bride-PG15 21:00 Takers-PG15 23:00 A Perfect Getaway-18

00:30 The Daily Show With Jon Stewart 01:00 The Colbert Report 01:30 Neighbors From Hell 02:00 Louie 02:30 Entourage 03:00 Friends 03:30 Friends 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 Weird Science 07:00 Late Night With Jimmy Fallon 08:00 Two And A Half Men 08:30 Friends 09:00 Will And Grace 09:30 The Simpsons 10:00 Parks And Recreation 10:30 Coach 11:00 Weird Science 11:30 The Tonight Show With Jay Leno 12:30 Two And A Half Men 13:00 Friends 13:30 Will And Grace 14:00 Coach 14:30 The Simpsons 15:00 Parks And Recreation 15:30 The Daily Show With Jon Stewart 16:00 The Colbert Report 16:30 Weird Science 17:00 Late Night With Jimmy Fallon 18:00 Friends 18:30 Friends 19:00 Outsourced 19:30 Wilfred 20:00 The Tonight Show With Jay Leno 21:00 The Daily Show With Jon Stewart 21:30 The Colbert Report 22:00 Funny Or Die Presents 22:30 Entourage 23:00 Neighbors From Hell 23:30 The Tonight Show With Jay Leno

00:00 01:00 02:00 03:00 04:00 05:00 07:00 08:00 08:30 09:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 13:00 14:00 16:00 17:00 18:00 18:30 19:00 20:00 21:30 22:00 23:00

Terra Nova Supernatural Scoundrels Warehouse 13 One Tree Hill Good Morning America The Good Guys Emmerdale Coronation Street The Ellen DeGeneres Show The Martha Stewart Show The View Terra Nova Warehouse 13 Live Good Morning America One Tree Hill The Ellen DeGeneres Show Emmerdale Turn Back Your Body Clock Bones The X Factor (US) Look-A-Like Treme The Good Guys

00:00 01:00 02:00 03:00 04:00 05:00 06:00 07:00 07:30 08:00 09:00 10:00 11:00 12:00

Psych Any Human Heart Terra Nova Supernatural Warehouse 13 Terriers Psych According To Jim Coronation Street Body Of Proof Terriers Terra Nova Warehouse 13 According To Jim

12:30 14:00 15:00 16:00 18:00 19:00 20:00 22:00 23:00

Coronation Street Body Of Proof Psych According To Jim Body Of Proof Bones The X Factor (US) Treme No Ordinary Family

01:00 30 Days Of Night: Dark Days-18 03:00 Universal Soldier: Regeneration-PG15 05:00 The Rig-18 07:00 Altitude-PG15 09:00 Wyatt Earp-PG15 12:15 The Day After Tomorrow-PG15 14:30 Bangkok Adrenaline-PG15 16:00 Wyatt Earp-PG15 19:15 Tracker-PG15 21:00 Zombieland-18 23:00 The Collector-18

00:00 How To Go Out On A Date In Queens-PG15 02:00 Sweet Home Alabama-PG15 04:00 16 To Life-PG15 06:00 The Ramen Girl-PG15 08:00 Not The Messiah: He’s A Very Naughty Boy-PG15 10:00 12 Men Of Christmas-PG15 12:00 Valentine’s Day-PG15 14:15 Ghosts Of Girlfriends PastPG15 16:00 How To Go Out On A Date In Queens-PG15 18:00 When In Rome-PG15 20:00 The Broken Hearts Club-18 22:00 Head Over Heels-PG15

01:30 03:00 05:15 07:00 09:00 11:00 13:00 15:00 17:00 19:00 19:30 21:30

PVC-1-PG15 The Italian Job (1969)-PG Not Since You-PG15 When We Were Kings-PG15 North-PG Witness To Jonestown-PG15 Not Since You-PG15 Rudy-PG My Sister’s Keeper-PG15 Babel-U Crazy Heart-PG15 A Prophet-18

01:00 PG15 03:30 05:30 07:30 09:00 11:00 13:00 15:00 17:00 19:00 21:00 23:00

The Fighting Temptations-

00:15 02:00 04:30 06:15 08:15 10:00 12:00 14:00 FAM 16:00 18:00 20:00 22:15

Globehunters-FAM The Karate Kid-PG Christmas In New York-PG Toy Story 3-FAM The Archies In Jugman-FAM Shrek Forever After-FAM Garfield-PG Barney’s Great Adventure-

District 9-PG15 Dean Spanley-PG My Last Five Girlfriends-PG15 17 Again-PG15 Hachiko: A Dog’s Story-PG15 One Hot Summer-PG15 Freestyle (2010)-PG15 17 Again-PG15 Nine-PG15 Takers-PG15 The Maiden Heist-PG15

Delgo-FAM Shrek Forever After-FAM Tooth Fairy-PG The Archies In Jugman-FAM

00:00 The Private Lives Of Pippa Lee-PG15 02:00 Calvin Marshall-PG15 04:00 Celine: Through The Eyes Of The World-PG15 06:00 Legendary-PG15 08:00 Cats & Dogs: The Revenge Of Kitty Galore-PG 10:00 The Lizzie McGuire Movie-PG 12:00 Goodbye Solo-PG15 14:00 Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel-PG15 16:00 The Lizzie McGuire Movie-PG 18:00 Sounds Like Teen Spirit-PG15 20:00 Inception-PG15 22:45 Greenberg-18

00:15 02:30 03:30 04:00 05:00 07:00 11:30 12:00 12:30 13:30 14:30 15:30 19:30 20:00 21:00 22:00 23:00

Rugby World Cup Trans World Sport Le Mans Series Magazine WWE Tough Enough WWE SmackDown Rugby World Cup Power Boats F1 Highlights Le Mans Series Le Mans Series Highlights Trans World Sport RWC Weekly Highlights Live PGA European Tour Le Mans Series Magazine The Ultimate Fighter UFC 136 Countdown RWC Weekly Highlights WWE NXT

01:00 Trans World Sport 02:00 The Challenge Series Golf 02:30 Asian Tour Golf Show 03:00 European Tour Weekly 03:30 FEI Equestrian World 04:00 Currie Cup 06:00 RWC Highlights 06:30 Beach Volley Ball 07:00 Golfing World 08:00 Super League 10:00 Total Rugby 10:30 World Hockey 11:00 Ladies European PGA Tour Highlights 12:00 Golfing World 13:00 Spirit of Yachting 13:30 FEI Equestrian World 14:00 Darts Grand Prix 19:00 Total Rugby 19:30 Scottish Premier League Highlights 20:00 Trans World Sport 21:00 Live Darts Grand Prix

00:30 Futbol Mundial 01:00 Ladies European Tour Highlights 02:00 Premier League Snooker 05:30 European PGA Tour Highlights 06:30 European Tour Weekly 07:00 Darts Grand Prix 12:00 Total Rugby 12:30 RWC Weekly Highlights 13:30 The Challenge Series Golf 14:00 Golfing World 15:00 European Tour Weekly 15:30 Live European PGA Tour 19:30 Asian Tour Golf 20:00 RWC Weekly Highlights 21:00 Futbol Mundial 21:30 Live Premier League Snooker

00:00 01:00 02:00 03:00 04:00 05:00 06:00 07:00 09:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 13:00 14:00 15:00 16:00 17:00 18:00 19:00 20:00 21:00 22:00 23:00

Le Mans Series Highlights V8 Supercars Championship Speedway FIM World Power Boats F1 WWE Tough Enough UFC 136 Countdown UFC Unleashed WWE SmackDown WWE Bottom Line WWE Tough Enough Le Mans Series Highlights WWE Vintage Collection WWE Bottom Line V8 Supercars Championship Power Boats F1 Speedway FIM World Le Mans Series Highlights WWE Vintage Collection WWE NXT UFC The Ultimate Fighter UFC 136 Countdown Speedway FIM World Live European Challenge Cup

01:35 The Liquidator-PG 03:15 The Band Wagon-FAM 05:05 The Charge Of The Light Brigade-FAM 07:00 Saratoga-PG 08:35 Bhowani Junction-PG 10:25 Cimarron-FAM 12:50 Flipper-FAM 14:20 Girl Happy-FAM 15:55 Raintree County-PG 18:45 On The Town-FAM 20:20 Skyjacked-PG 22:00 The Wheeler Dealers-FAM 23:45 Clash Of The Titans

Classifieds THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2011

G A hippopotamus yawning is actually a warning to stay away! They kill more people in Africa than any other wild animal.

G The Nile crocodile sometimes eats stones — they help the crocodile stay on the bottom of the river or water hole when it stalks its prey.

“I like his music and I like him.

And I thought, why not have a street in my hometown named after my favorite singer?”

— Caroline Gonzalez, 11, on naming a street in Forney, Texas, after Justin Bieber when she was appointed “mayor for a day,” to E! Online.

— World Almanac for Kids

BY AIDAN KRUMHOLZ, FRANCESCA MOLLO, DANIELLE FERRANDINO SCHWARTZ AND VICTORIA ZEMAN Newsday

We met Australian singer Cody Simpson before a recent concert in Manhattan to ask him a few questions.

Q: When you write music do you like writing

about what’s going on in your life?

CODY: I do. I like to write about lots of things in real life that people can relate to.

Q: What has been your weirdest

run-in with a fan?

CODY: I have lots and lots of weird experiences. This sounds weird, but some of my concerts have been kind of dangerous sometimes. I’ve had a few girls actually sent to the hospital because they faint and all that kind of stuff, which is really, really weird to me. ... I’m not sure, but I guess they’re enjoying it.

Q: How was it to work with Flo Rida, Justin

Timberlake, Bieber and Jessica Jarell?

CODY: They’re all very nice people. ... Actually I haven’t worked with Justin Timberlake yet. But I spent the most time with Jessica Jarrell and Flo Rida.

Flo Rida was on the first song I put out “iYiYi.” It was super cool (working with) Flo Rida ... I guess you can say he’s a bit of (a) gentle giant. He’s definitely real tough and he’s very tall, but he’s a real nice guy and very talented at that.

Jessica Jarrell is one of the nicest people I’ve ever met and she, the same with Flo Rida, they’re very talented people and Justin is too.

Q:

What is the hardest part of performing in front of a crowd?

CODY: I don’t really think there’s a hard part of performing in front of a crowd. ... It’s hard to explain what it feels like unless you’ve actually been up there and done it. ... It’s lots of fun.

Q: Are you in school?

CODY: I am. I do school (work) every day for about 3-4 hours when I’m not performing or recording. I have my tutor that travels with me everywhere I go.

Q: We saw that you won

two gold medals at the Queensland swimming championships and that you prequalified for the 2012 summer Olympics. Do you still want to compete?

CODY: That is still a big dream of mine. Swimming is definitely a big passion ... It was a hard decision to move to the U.S. to get into music, but I was grateful I had two choices and many things to do.

Q: Do you think

you sound different because of your accent?

CODY: No. My accent fades away I guess when I sing.

It’s real weird. I guess singing is pretty much a universal language, like you sing however everyone else sings, and that’s with an American accent. I sound very different when I talk.

Q:

What is your favorite song?

CODY: It is “On My Mind,” which is the new single.

Q: Would you like to be acting?

Q: Is it true you

CODY: Definitely. As soon as I make a name for myself in the music industry and as soon as I get my album out there, I definitely want to start branching out to other things like acting.

broke into the music business by posting songs on YouTube?

CODY: It is. I posted songs when I was 12. ...

It was definitely a cool experience having a music producer discover me on YouTube. It was just for fun. It was my friend that posted the video. It wasn’t really something I planned to do, but it just happened.

Q:

How do you feel about being compared to Justin Bieber?

CODY: I met Justin many times. He’s a really nice guy.

Very supportive of me and I’m a big fan of his. I guess it’s flattering because he’s been real successful. I come from the beach. So there’s a bit of a difference.

Q: Which celebrity

Q: Is there a favorite

word of advice someone has given you?

CODY: My dad pretty much told me to treat others like you want to be treated. And I know that’s a very popular quote, but I feel like it really helps.

Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Sept. 15 to Oct. 15

P H OTO C O U RT E S Y O F C O DY S I M P S O N . C O M

do you look up to?

CODY: I’d say Justin Timberlake only because he started when he was 14. And ... I’m 14 right now and I’m beginning. He’s had such a long career and he’s never done anything bad, anything to ruin or slow down his career.

From mid-September through mid-October, America recognizes the contributions, culture and heritage of Hispanic Americans. The monthlong celebration began Sept. 15, the anniversary of independence for five Hispanic countries: Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. Mexico achieved independence on Sept. 16 and Chile on Sept. 18.

35 million Number of U.S. residents, age 5 and older, who spoke Spanish at home in 2009.

HONORING ‘THE DAY OF THE RACE’

The celebration extends into October to mark “El Dia de la Raza,” or “The Day of the Race,” on Oct. 12.

El Dia de la Raza is observed throughout most of Mexico and Latin America. The day celebrates the many nationalities present in the history of Mexico, Central 20 percent America and South AmerPercentage of ica. These nationalities inHispanic elementary and clude Native Americans high school such as the Mayas, Aztecs students and Incas; and European in 2009. nationalities such as Spanish, Portuguese and French.

HISPANIC HERITAGE HISTORY

Hispanic people were among the earliest European settlers in the New World, what is today the United States. Hispanic Americans have roots in Europe, Africa, and South and Central America and close cultural ties to Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America, South America and Spain.

Today, the Hispanic or Latino population in the U.S. is estimated at 50.5 million people. According to the U.S. Census, the country’s Hispanic population grew by 43 percent from 2000 to 2010, making it the largest and the fastest growing minority group in the country.

FAMOUS HISPANIC AMERICANS

From sports to government to entertainment and science, Hispanic Americans have played important roles in America’s MCT P H OTO S history, its values and culture.

They include Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor (above), baseball star Alex Rodriguez (left), journalist Geraldo Rivera, astronauts Michael Lopez-Alegria and Ellen Ochoa, authors Isabel Allende and Julia Alvarez, and actors George Lopez, America Ferrera and Selena Gomez (right). As of 2002, more than 63,000 Hispanics were on active duty in the Armed Forces according to the U.S. Census.

EVERYONE CAN CELEBRATE

Hispanic Heritage Month is celebrated with community festivals, government gatherings and educational activities. Many schools celebrate the month by learning about contributions of Hispanic Americans both past and present. © 2011 Time Inc. All Rights Reserved.

TIME FOR KIDS and Timeforkids.com are registered trademarks of Time Inc.

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Indian male, well experienced

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DIAL 161 FOR AIRPORT INFORMATION

Airlines JZR THY ETH UAE QTR ETD DHX FDB GFA THY JZR FCX JZR KAC BAW KAC KAC KAC FDB KAC FDB IRA KAC KAC KAC UAE QTR ABY ETD GFA MEA JZR MSC KNE MSR JZR SYR KAC MSR UAL SHY RJA MSR FDB OMA JZR SWT QTR KAC SVA KAC

Flt 267 772 622 853 138 305 370 67 211 770 503 201 555 412 157 206 382 302 53 332 53 605 352 284 362 855 132 125 301 213 404 165 9621 789 623 561 341 672 610 982 4125 640 621 57 645 357 93 140 562 500 546

Arrival Flights on Thursday 6/10/2011 Route BEIRUT ISTANBUL ADDIS ABABA DUBAI DOHA ABU DHABI BAHRAIN DUBAI BAHRAIN ISTANBUL LUXOR DUBAI ALEXANDRIA MANILA/BANGKOK LONDON ISLAMABAD DELHI MUMBAI DUBAI TRIVANDRUM DUBAI ISFAHAN COCHIN DHAKA COLOMBO DUBAI DOHA SHARJAH ABU DHABI BAHRAIN BEIRUT DUBAI ASSIUT JEDDAH SOHAG SOHAG DAMASCUS/DEIREZZOR DUBAI CAIRO WASHINGTON DC DULLES ANTALYA AMMAN ASSIUT DUBAI MUSCAT MASHAD DUBAI/KANDAHAR DOHA AMMAN JEDDAH ALEXANDRIA

Time 0:35 1:15 1:45 2:25 2:40 2:55 2:55 3:10 3:15 4:10 5:15 5:25 6:10 6:15 6:30 7:15 7:20 7:50 7:55 7:55 7:55 8:00 8:05 8:10 8:20 8:25 9:00 9:10 9:30 9:35 10:55 11:10 11:15 11:20 12:10 12:30 13:00 13:15 13:20 13:30 13:30 13:35 13:40 13:50 14:00 14:10 14:15 14:15 14:20 14:30 14:30

KAC KNE JZR QTR JZR KAC MLR ETD UAE GFA SVA JZR TAR JZR ABY RBG FDB JZR ALK KAC MSC KAC KAC KAC KAC KAC KAC JAI SIA JAI IRA FDB OMA JZR MEA KAC MSR DHX KLM UAE GFA QTR UAL AIC JZR MSR JZR JZR MSR DLH AXB JZR PIA

788 745 257 134 535 118 403 303 857 215 510 777 327 239 127 3553 63 177 227 154 9623 104 542 618 614 674 774 572 458 572 617 61 647 179 402 178 618 372 445 859 217 136 981 981 135 606 513 185 612 636 389 539 205

JEDDAH JEDDAH BEIRUT DOHA CAIRO NEW YORK COLOMBO/DUBAI ABU DHABI DUBAI BAHRAIN RIYADH JEDDAH TUNIS/DUBAI AMMAN SHARJAH ALEXANDRIA DUBAI DUBAI COLOMBO/DUBAI ISTANBUL/BEIRUT SOHAG LONDON CAIRO DOHA BAHRAIN DUBAI RIYADH MUMBAI SINGAPORE/ABU DHABI MUMBAI AHWAZ DUBAI MUSCAT DUBAI BEIRUT GENEVA/FRANKFURT ALEXANDRIA BAHRAIN AMSTERDAM DUBAI BAHRAIN DOHA BAHRAIN CHENNAI/AHMEDABAD BAHRAIN LUXOR SHARM EL SHEIKH DUBAI CAIRO FRANKFURT KOZHIKODE/MANGALORE CAIRO LAHORE

14:40 14:45 15:10 15:15 15:50 16:15 16:40 16:50 16:55 17:15 17:20 17:25 17:30 17:35 17:40 17:50 17:55 18:00 18:00 18:30 18:30 18:35 18:50 18:55 19:20 19:25 19:25 19:35 19:35 19:35 19:45 20:00 20:10 20:10 20:15 20:45 20:55 21:00 21:05 21:15 21:25 21:35 22:00 22:05 22:10 22:15 22:20 22:35 22:50 23:00 23:10 23:30 23:55

Airlines AXB DLH AIC KLM PIA THY ETH UAE FDB DHX ETD THY JZR JZR GFA KAC KAC JZR BAW FDB JZR KAC KAC IRA JZR KAC UAE ABY KAC QTR ETD GFA KAC MEA JZR KAC KNE JZR MSC MSR KAC JZR SYR MSR SHY RJA FDB MSR UAL OMA KAC

Departure Flights on Thursday 6/10/2011 Flt Route 394 COCHIN/KOZHIKODE 637 FRANKFURT 976 GOA/CHENNAI 447 AMSTERDAM 216 DAMMAM/KARACHI 773 ISTANBUL 622 BAHRAIN/ADDIS ABABA 854 DUBAI 68 DUBAI 371 BAHRAIN 306 ABU DHABI 771 ISTANBUL 560 SOHAG 164 DUBAI 212 BAHRAIN 153 BEIRUT/ISTANBUL 545 ALEXANDRIA 356 MASHAD 156 LONDON 54 DUBAI 534 CAIRO 787 JEDDAH 671 DUBAI 606 MASHAD 256 BEIRUT 561 AMMAN 856 DUBAI 126 SHARJAH 101 LONDON/NEW YORK 133 DOHA 302 ABU DHABI 214 BAHRAIN 166 ROME/PARIS 405 BEIRUT 776 JEDDAH 541 CAIRO 790 JEDDAH 238 AMMAN 9622 SOHAG 624 SOHAG 785 JEDDAH 176 DUBAI 342 DEIREZZOR/DAMASCUS 611 CAIRO 4126 ANTALYA 641 AMMAN 58 DUBAI 622 ASSIUT 982 BAHRAIN 646 MUSCAT 673 DUBAI

Time 0:15 0:40 0:50 0:55 1:10 2:15 2:30 3:45 3:50 3:55 4:05 5:10 5:55 6:55 7:10 7:35 7:40 8:20 8:25 8:40 8:50 8:55 9:00 9:00 9:10 9:15 9:40 9:50 9:55 10:00 10:15 10:20 11:45 11:55 12:00 12:00 12:05 12:10 12:15 13:10 13:30 13:40 14:00 14:20 14:30 14:30 14:35 14:40 14:45 15:00 15:10

Directorate General of Civil Aviation Home Page (www.kuwait-airport.com.kw)

KNE KAC JZR SVA KAC JZR QTR KAC JZR VOS ETD MLR QTR UAE GFA ABY TAR JZR JZR RBG SVA FDB ALK JZR KAC MSC KAC JAI FDB IRA KAC KAC OMA MEA SIA MSR KAC DHX KLM UAE FCX GFA QTR KAC KAC JZR JZR MSR UAL KAC KAC MSR

746 617 178 505 773 512 141 613 538 82 304 404 135 858 216 128 328 184 266 3554 511 64 228 134 283 9624 361 571 62 616 331 351 648 403 457 619 543 373 445 860 102 218 137 301 205 502 554 607 981 411 415 613

JEDDAH DOHA DUBAI JEDDAH RIYADH SHARM EL SHEIKH DOHA BAHRAIN CAIRO BAGHDAD ABU DHABI DUBAI/COLOMBO DOHA DUBAI BAHRAIN SHARJAH TUNIS DUBAI BEIRUT ALEXANDRIA RIYADH DUBAI DUBAI/COLOMBO BAHRAIN DHAKA ASSIUT COLOMBO MUMBAI DUBAI AHWAZ TRIVANDRUM COCHIN MUSCAT BEIRUT ABU DHABI/SINGAPORE ALEXANDRIA CAIRO BAHRAIN BAHRAIN/AMSTERDAM DUBAI BAHRAIN BAHRAIN DOHA MUMBAI ISLAMABAD LUXOR ALEXANDRIA LUXOR WASHINGTON DC DULLES BANGKOK/MANILA KUALA LUMPUR/JAKARTA CAIRO

15:30 15:35 16:00 16:00 16:05 16:05 16:15 16:20 16:40 17:00 17:35 17:40 17:45 18:05 18:15 18:20 18:20 18:25 18:30 18:30 18:35 18:40 19:10 19:10 19:30 19:30 20:20 20:35 20:40 20:45 21:00 21:05 21:10 21:15 21:20 21:55 21:55 22:00 22:05 22:25 22:30 22:30 22:35 22:45 22:55 23:05 23:10 23:15 23:40 23:40 23:50 23:50

34

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2011

stars CROSSWORD 460

STAR TRACK

CALVIN & HOBBES

Aries (March 21-April 19) Your positive outlook is catching! Your intuitive powers are strong toward making things work in your favor. This is a good time to ask for a raise. Your ideas are very well-received at this time. Your enthusiasm is strong and can win the support of a valuable ally. There are upcoming opportunities to meet your special love this week. Those of you that have experienced problems in your love relationship will find answers this week. A deepening and more concrete foundation is in the works. Find ways that you can appreciate just who you are and what you are doing with your life now. The happier you are with your life and your accomplishments, the happier the people around you will become. Give careful attention to the everyday relationships now.

Taurus (April 20-May 20) The energies are right today for team effort. People just want to add their energy to a project . . . everybody wants to be included! It is easy for you to make correct decisions. Problems seem manageable and easy to solve. Even though the intensity of this period diminishes fairly soon, you will continue to feel that easy manner you have now, throughout the rest of this year. Exercise or some team sports competition may not go as well as you expected this afternoon.

You may feel that you are not able to hold up to the stamina that is required of you just now. Set reasonable fitness goals and concentrate on releasing tension and stretching. A good conversation with those you love is possible this evening. This is a satisfying day.

POOCH CAFE ACROSS 1. A fine grained mineral having a soft soapy feel and consisting of hydrated magnesium silicate.

5. Type genus of the Vespidae.

10. A white linen liturgical vestment with sleeves.

13. A state in the western United States.

14. (Old Testament) The second patriarch.

15. A toilet in England.

16. The face or front of a building.

18. Date used in reckoning dates before the supposed year Christ was born.

20. A particular environment or walk of life.

21. Tall feather palm of northern Brazil with hard-shelled nuts yielding valuable oil and a kind of vegetable ivory.

23. Jordan's port.

26. A logarithmic unit of sound intensity.

27. A very poisonous metallic element that has three allotropic forms.

28. A correctional institution used to detain persons who are in the lawful custody of the government (either accused persons awaiting trial or convicted persons serving a sentence).

31. Nocturnal mouselike mammal with forelimbs modified to form membranous wings and anatomical adaptations for echolocation by which they navigate.

32. A public promotion of some product or service.

34. (Irish) Mother of the ancient Irish gods.

40. A port city in southern Kenya on a coral island in a bay of the Indian Ocean.

42. A small pellet fired from an air rifle or BB gun.

43. A light touch or stroke.

44. A small cake leavened with yeast.

45. A cgs unit of work or energy.

47. Being ten more than one hundred ninety.

48. A long thin fluffy scarf of feathers or fur.

49. An organization of countries formed in 1961 to agree on a common policy for the sale of petroleum.

54. A flat-bottomed volcanic crater that was formed by an explosion.

58. The basic unit of money in Macao.

61. The elementary stages of any subject (usually plural).

62. (Greek mythology) One of the three Graces.

65. 30 to 300 gigahertz.

66. The syllable naming the sixth (submediant) note of a major or minor scale in solmization.

67. Any of several plants of or developed from the species Dahlia pinnata having tuberous roots and showy rayed variously colored flower heads.

68. An audiotape recording of sound.

DOWN 1. A soft porous rock consisting of calcium carbonate deposited from springs rich in lime.

2. Essential oil or perfume obtained from flowers.

3. A cord that is drawn through eyelets or around hooks in order to draw together two edges (as of a shoe or garment).

4. Thorny shrub or small tree common in central Argentina having small orange or yellow flowers followed by edible berries.

5. Compete for something.

6. A radioactive transuranic element produced by bombarding plutonium with neutrons.

7. A midnight meeting of witches to practice witchcraft and sorcery.

8. Large burrowing rodent of South and Central America.

9. A radioactive element of the actinide series.

10. By bad luck.

11. Any of various perennial South American plants of the genus Loasa having stinging hairs and showy white or yellow or reddish-orange flowers.

12. A small round soft mass (as of chewed food).

17. East Indian tree bearing a profusion of intense vermilion velvet-textured blooms and yielding a yellow dye.

19. An imaginary elephant that appears in a series of French books for children.

22. A bachelor's degree in religion.

24. Lower in esteem.

25. A state in southwestern Germany famous for its beer.

29. Small buffalo of the Celebes having small straight horns.

30. A metrical unit with unstressed-stressed syllables.

33. An informal term for a father.

35. A white soft metallic element that tarnishes readily.

36. A unit of information equal to one million (1,048,576) bytes.

37. The blood group whose red cells carry both the A and B antigens.

38. A compartment in front of a motor vehicle where driver sits.

39. A loose sleeveless outer garment made from aba cloth.

41. An indehiscent fruit derived from a single ovary having one or many seeds within a fleshy wall or pericarp.

46. Fallow deer.

50. A metabolic acid found in yeast and liver cells.

51. Make an etching of.

52. Mentally or physically infirm with age.

53. Made of fir or pine.

55. In bed.

56. A Loloish language.

57. A flat float (usually made of logs or planks) that can be used for transport or as a platform for swimmers.

59. Someone who is morally reprehensible.

60. The cry made by sheep.

63. A gonadotropic hormone that is secreted by the anterior pituitary.

64. Being one more than one.

Yesterday’s Solution

Gemini (May 21-June 20) You might feel that some avenues of support have been cut off or blocked today. This is a temporary situation, so stay to yourself as much as possible for the duration of the morning. Do not pick out that new car today because your sense of value may be stressed. Although you shy away from challenges, you cannot escape facing a few of them. Challenges are what help us grow and learn about ourselves. Challenges also help to improve our problem solving skills. You may be called on to do some community work this evening—this is a positive move, take advantage of the opportunity. Your intuitive and psychic abilities are enhanced at this time—you may find it easier to understand a loved one just now.

Cancer (June 21-July 22)

NON SEQUITUR

Vacation time will be the most comfortable if taken or begun today. It is possible that you will be traveling in order to tend to business. Who owes what, who owns what and who decides these things are some of the major issues for you now. Understanding inner motivations and seeing through to the core is your real path of power. You may find that you can really use your mind to think through things and make clear choices. Career decisions are straightforward. You make your way through ideas, concepts and your ability to communicate and express them to others. Make this evening a time of relaxation—a massage could be quite enjoyable. Pay attention to community activities where you could volunteer your creative talents.

Leo (July 23-August 22) You may find it an easy effort to obtain a loan today. You could be most persuasive with others. You are in a good position to communicate and could even be lecturing or teaching today. There are all sorts of opportunities for you to express yourself—you may see many areas of your life improve now. Obtaining and exchanging information takes on more emotional significance for you. Being more involved with neighbors or siblings this evening satisfies a deep emotional need. Communicating feelings becomes most important now and it seems your patience over the last few days has paid off—others are listening. A good conversation with a loved one is possible this evening. If you are not married, plans can now be arranged for the ceremony.

ZITS

Virgo (August 23-September 22) If professional advice is needed, today is the most productive time to seek advice. You could find a teacher or guide, a new approach to your career, etc. Career insights and breakthroughs are possible. Your ambition is intensified. You might discover that exceptional solutions to life’s problems or new directions and paths are in order. Emotional seriousness, a sober orientation and a practical awareness of the nature of time are all keynotes of your mind-set.

There is a tendency to be too strict with yourself and to insist that whatever does not contribute to security and other long-term goals is trivial. Your inner resources and emotions are accented. Expect a sense of support and good will from those around you. Relax this evening—exercise, etc.

Libra (September 23-October 22)

MOTHER GOOSE AND GRIMM

Today brings with it opportunities to understand and heal most any situation. You help to change attitudes and bring new goals into focus. The energies are working with you to bring about a balance in any area you feel needs your attention. The ultimate answers are unavailable to the strictly secular or rational approach, because the whole is a lot more than just its parts. Financial gain and material well-being are among the brighter prospects looming before you now, as you focus in on how much things really mean to you. Consider including a neighbor in your exercise routine this afternoon—to keep each other motivated. This is a good time for making corrections, cleaning and sorting out things that have been thrown in a drawer, closet or refrigerator.

Scorpio (October 23-November 21) 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 management and directional abilities are in high focus. You are pleased to be approved for this next project and your efforts will be successful. You may be helpful in setting prices or scheduling people. Understanding inner motivations, seeing through to the core and finding clarification is a real path of power. Surround yourself with the most positive people. These are the people that help you stretch and encourage you to reach your highest potential. They may be people that could be mentors to you through just observing their behavior. Enjoy young people tonight—everyone will benefit.

Sagittarius (November 22-December 21) You may find that your mind is overworked today. Yesterday was history—tomorrow is a mystery—but today is the gift! Use today to the best of your ability and change those worries into positive actions. Tear it down and build it up again, reach in and pluck out the offending element: that’s what this dayís energy involves. Power becomes a compelling idea, perhaps even an aphrodisiac—you have a stronger than usual supply of it now. Use it—do not abuse it, you might find that it’s a two-edged sword! Others value you for your ability to make practical decisions and clear decisions affecting others could be made now. You have a disciplined approach to work, health and life’s other essential routines that are especially important now.

Capricorn (December 22-January 19)

To

You are trying to understand big business today. You may even be thinking of ways that you could go into business for yourself. The power of organization on a social scale—business, political, etc.—seems to take on a larger-than-life feel today. It’s as if ambition and authority are answers in themselves, rather than only a means to an ideal objective. This can lead to confusion and ambitious schemes that tend to become lost along the way. Real power is always hidden— finding it means delving into the secret places and that’s where you are bound to look now. If you are still yearning for Mr. or Ms. Right, do not waste time reminiscing.

Instead, become involved in creative or pleasurable situations. Someone exceptional will come to your attention soon.

Yesterday’s Solution Yester

Aquarius (January 20- February 18) You tend to be radical when it comes to self-analysis, which includes health care, food and physical well-being. Serving and caring for yourself and others is a primary source of inner growth and change. You are sensitive to criticism. Today, at work, you may have to make some adjustments— someone could be in a criticizing mood. Decide to make whatever changes you need and then move forward. This evening a loved one or friend is receptive and will listen to your words. You love social life and relationships of all kinds—partners, marriages, teachers and such. You are very responsive yourself and value this in others. You do not play favorites and are quite impersonal when it comes to your responsibilities.

Young people learn from you.

Pisces (February 19-March 20)

Word Sleuth Solution

This is a high-energy day where many doors of opportunity are opened and many unfinished projects can be completed. When you least expect it, there will be a little boost, some sort of extra support or recognition from those around you. You may feel that you are in touch with others and everything is working in your favor. The support you need is available. You develop a knack for organizing things and people as a sense of ambition and practicality takes hold. Work, achievement and ambition are the things that mean a lot to you. Take a little trip, or get outside during the day. You may want to break your routine. This will take you away from the stress and help you to regain a focus. Be more involved in recreational activities each evening.

A

y

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Years

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 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

THE PUBLIC AUTHORITY FOR CIVIL INFORMATION Automated enquiry about the Civil ID card is 1889988

AIRLINES

PHARMACIES 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

Psychologists /Psychotherapists

22547272

Dr. Abd Al-Aziz Al-Rashed

Dr. Abdal-Redha Lari

22617700

Dr. Zahra Qabazard

Dr. Abdel Quttainah

25625030/60

Family Doctor Dr Divya Damodar

23729596/23729581

Psychiatrists Dr. Esam Al-Ansari

22635047

Dr Eisa M. Al-Balhan

22613623/0

Gynaecologists & Obstetricians DrAdrian arbe

23729596/23729581

Dr. Verginia s.Marin

2572-6666 ext 8321

Endocrinologist 25340300

25710444

Dr. Sohail Qamar

22621099

Dr. Snaa Maaroof

25713514

Dr. Pradip Gujare

23713100

Dr. Zacharias Mathew

24334282

(1) Ear, Nose and Throat (2) Plastic Surgeon Dr. Abdul Mohsin Jafar, FRCS (Canada)

Dr Anil Thomas

3729596/3729581 22641071/2

22655539

Dr. Majeda Khalefa Aliytami

25343406

Dr. Anesah Al-Rasheed

22562226

Dr. Ahmad Al-Khooly

25739272

Dr. Abidallah Al-Amer

22561444

Dr. Salem soso

22618787

Dr. Faysal Al-Fozan

22619557

Dr. Abdallateef Al-Katrash

22525888

Dr. Amer Zawaz Al-Amer

22610044

Dr. Abidallah Al-Duweisan

25653755

Dr. Mohammad Yousef Basher

25327148

Dr. Bader Al-Ansari

25620111

Neurologists

Dr. Adnan Ebil

22639939

Dr. Sohal Najem Al-Shemeri

25633324

Dr. Mousa Khadada

22666300

Dr. Jasem Mola Hassan

25345875

Gastrologists

25728004

Dr. Nadem Al-Ghabra

25355515

Dr. Sami Aman

22636464

Dr. Mobarak Aldoub

24726446

Dr. Mohammad Al-Shamaly

25322030

Dr Nasser Behbehani

25654300/3

Dr. Foad Abidallah Al-Ali

22633135

Soor Center Tel: 2290-1677 Fax: 2290 1688

info@soorcenter.com www.soorcenter.com

Dr. Kamal Al-Shomr 25329924 Physiotherapists & VD Dr. Deyaa Shehab

25722291 22666288

Rheumatologists:

Dr. Fozeya Ali Al-Qatan

Dr. Latefa Al-Duweisan

25339330

Dr. Ahmad Al-Ansari 25658888

Dr. Musaed Faraj Khamees

Dentists

Internists, Chest & Heart

Dr. Abd Al-Naser Al-Othman

25655535

Dr. Shamah Al-Matar

General Surgeons

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

INTERNATIONAL CALLS

Paediatricians

Plastic Surgeons Dr. Mohammad Al-Khalaf

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

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

22434064 22435865 22544200 22547133 22515277 22616662 25714406 22530801

Dr. Naif Al-Mutawa, Ph.D. 2290-1677 Susannah-Joy Schuilenberg, M.A. 2290-1677

Dr. Adel Al-Awadi

25330060

Dr. Khaled Al-Jarallah

25722290

Internist, Chest & Heart DR.Mohammes Akkad

24555050 Ext 210

Dr. Mohammad Zubaid MB, ChB, FRCPC, PACC Assistant Professor Of Medicine Head, Division of Cardiology Mubarak Al-Kabeer Hospital Consultant Cardiologist Dr. Farida Al-Habib MD, PH.D, FACC Inaya German Medical Center Te: 2575077 Fax: 25723123

2611555-2622555

William Schuilenberg, RPC 2290-1677 Zaina Al Zabin, M.Sc. 2290-1677

Afghanistan Albania Algeria Andorra Angola Anguilla Antiga Argentina Armenia Australia Austria Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bermuda Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia Botswana Brazil Brunei Bulgaria Burkina Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Canada Cape Verde Cayman Islands

0093 00355 00213 00376 00244 001264 001268 0054 00374 0061 0043 001242 00973 00880 001246 00375 0032 00501 00229 001441 00975 00591 00387 00267 0055 00673 00359 00226 00257 00855 00237 001 00238 001345

Central African Chad Chile China Colombia Comoros Congo Cook Islands Costa Rica Croatia Cuba Cyprus Cyprus (Northern) Czech Republic Denmark Diego Garcia Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic Ecuador Egypt El Salvador England (UK) Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Falkland Islands Faroe Islands Fiji Finland France French Guiana French Polynesia

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THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2011

LIFESTYLE F e a t u r e s

African Swahili music lives on in Oman he coastal Arab nation of Oman is the unlikely centre of a thriving African music scene with roots stretching back centuries and across the seas to Zanzibar. The Omani empire in the 18th and 19th century ruled much of East Africa’s coast and the islands of Zanzibartoday a semi-autonomous part of Tanzaniawith sailors bringing back instruments, music, dance and the language.

That is why in the nation hugging the edge of the Arabian Peninsula, musicians wearing traditional Omani long white robes and hand woven hats beat African rhythms on their drums, swaying to music more easily found on the African continent than in the Middle East. “The music runs deep in us and is embedded in our culture, passed on by our ancestors,” said Kareema Ismail, a singer and dancer. “The Swahili beats in our music is a long tradition from Zanzibar. It is not something that will be replaced by contemporary music.”

The oldest independent state in the Arab world, Oman has been ruled by the alSaid family since 1744. Zanzibar became a major trade hub, a slave centre and the economic engine for the Omani empire. Its most powerful ruler, Sultan Said bin Sultan al-Said, made the archipelago the capital of

T

Head of Sotheby’s Chinese Ceramics Department, Nicolas Chow, displaying a Ming Dynasty blue and white vase with fruit sprays during a press preview in Hong Kong.—AFP

Oman in 1840.

Reflecting its history and relative openness, thanks to its long history as a seafaring nation, all of the music of Oman blends different traditional music and Arabic pop, as well as classical music, promoted by its biggest fan in Oman, the ruler Sultan Qaboos bin Said. Much of the music in Oman can only be found in live performances, played in parks, weddings, hotels, concert halls, sports events and cafes.

“Swahili music” is kept alive by a looseknit community of musicians who constantly join and leave various bands. The bands still tend to be overshadowed by more commercially successful Omani bands, such as folklore group Al Majd or the traditional music band Bin Shamsa from southern Oman, which sell CDs and upload performances to YouTube.

But Saleh al-Zadjali, a musician in Muscat and owner of the Musicology record label, is part of a new generation mixing traditional Omani sounds-including Swahili music-with modern music, creating a new art form that is slowly gaining in popularity. Zadjali sings of complicated relationships, backed by a Lebanese pop beat.

“The influence of African music will be

there forever in Omani traditional music,” said Zadjali, whose dream is to sell his music in Egypt, Lebanon and the West.

“Like some of the beats in Omani music are African, and some of the melodies as well. The influence is there, and we are proud of it.”

‘Like food without salt’ Further down the coast from the capital of Muscat is the harbour town of Sur, considered the heart of Swahili music in Oman.

“Sur bila ngoma kama chakula bila chumvi (Sur without drums is like food without salt)”, says Sbet al-Ghelani, a security officer and musician in Sur, reciting in Swahili.

African instruments are handed down from generation to generation as family treasures, played by family members only at special occasions or weddings.

Prominent among them is the tanbura, a string instrument played by beating the strings with the end of a bull’s horn. Other African instruments are the misundu, a class of tall, cylindrical, single-headed drums characterized by a skin fitted by wooden wedges to the conical body. The misundu is beaten either with a stick or hands.

Sur was a major port in the 17th and

18th centuries, when traders exported dried fish, dates, mats, carpets woven from sheep wool and frankincense to East Africa and India. “These people, from the color, their features, they have clearly an African ethnicity. But they tell you no, we are actually Arab,” said Majid al-Harthi, assistant professor of music and ethnomusicology at the Sultan Qaboos University. Ghelani and his band Shamail have managed to find a wider audience, and often travel to the neighbouring United Arab Emirates to play at weddings.

In Zanzibar, elements of Arabic music have been preserved over the centuries in Taarab music. “I still find it amazing how strongly not only the Arabic influence but also the Egyptian influence has remained,” said Hildegard Kiel, founder of the Dhow Countries Music Academy in Zanzibar, pointing out that Taarab music is based on Arabic scales and that the Arabic instruments oud and qanun are key to the Taarab sound. Taarab comes from the Arabic word meaning “to be moved with joy or grief” or “to be delighted”. —Reuters

WILLIAMS JR APOLOGIZES for Obama-Hitler comment

Ming vase sells for record $22m in Hong Kong

country music singer Hank Williams Jr. said on Tuesday he was “very sorry” for any offense caused by his remarks on Fox News Channel this week comparing President Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler. His apology was posted on his website a day after the Disney-owned cable sports channel ESPN pulled Williams’ theme song from its popular “Monday Night Football” broadcast in a rebuke to the country star for his Hitler remark.

Appearing on Fox News Channel’s morning program “Fox & Friends” on Monday, Williams said he thought that a June 18 golf summit pairing Obama with Republican House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner in the midst of the congressional budget standoff had “turned a lot of people off.”

Asked what he didn’t like about the friendly bipartisan golf match, Williams replied, “Come on! It’d be like Hitler playing golf with (Israeli

US

blue-and-white Ming vase fetched nearly US$22 million in Hong Kong yesterday, setting a new record at auction for porcelain from the ancient Chinese dynasty. An unidentified bidder paid HK$168.7 million ($21.7 million) for the 15th century imperial vase at the sale

by Sotheby’s auction house, more than double the lower pre-sale estimate of HK$80 million. Thirty-two pieces in the sale went for a total of HK$560 million, again far above preauction estimates, it said.

Hong Kong has emerged as the world’s third-largest auction centre after New York and London, thanks in large part to China’s rapidly growing number of millionaires.

Mainland Chinese regularly snap up the top lots at auctions of art, jewelry and wine and Hong Kong has positioned itself as the gateway to China’s vast market. In April, Sotheby’s said it sold a record HK$3.49 billion worth of Asian and Chinese art, fine wines, watches and jewels at an eight-day Hong Kong auction. —AFP

A

Hank Williams

Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu.” He went on to refer to Obama and Vice President Joe Biden as “the enemy.”

After his “All My Rowdy Friends” song was yanked from the “Monday Night Football” opening by ESPN later that day, Williams issued a statement acknowledging that his “analogy was extreme” but insisting it was intended to illustrate how ludicrous he thought it was for Obama and Boehner to team up at golf.

Williams, 62, was scheduled to return to the Fox News Channel with an interview on Tuesday on the “Hannity” show, but the network told Reuters the singer decided to cancel. Hours later, Williams posted another statement, saying: “I have always been very passionate about politics and sports, and this time it got the best or worst of me.”

“The thought of the leaders of both parties jukin and high fiven on a golf course, while so many families are struggling to get by simply

made me boil over and make a dumb statement, and I am very sorry if it offended anyone,” he wrote.

He concluded, “I would like to thank all my supporters.This was not written by some publicist.” The statement was posted just below a link to a video clip from the ABC daytime TV talk show “The View” in which host Whoopi Goldberg suggested Williams was judged too harshly.

“Hank is a musician, and he’s always been provocative,” Goldberg said on the show. “He could have chosen his words more wisely, but as someone who steps in it quite often, we all do it. Those among us who are without sin, cast the first stone.” Reporting on Williams’ apology on its own website Tuesday night, ESPN said it had no comment on whether his song would be used on future telecasts. —Reuters

MICHAEL DOUGLAS’ son testifies at NYC drug trial T

he imprisoned son of actor Michael Douglas testified Tuesday that he would have been better off staying in jail rather than being freed on bail after he was arrested in New York on drug charges two years ago. Cameron Douglas, 32, told a federal jury in Manhattan at the trial of his alleged drug supplier that he learned only when he returned to federal prison that the US Bureau of Prisons treats drugaddicted inmates when they arrive.

Instead, he was freed on bail after his arrest in July 2009 for dealing methamphetamine from a high-end Manhattan hotel.

He said he had been addicted to heroin for five years when he went to stay at his mother’s Upper East Side apartment as part of his bail package after a brief stop at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, a federal lockup next to the downtown courthouse. “They provide you with methadone when you’re a heroin addict. I would have been better off if I had stayed at the MCC. I didn’t know that they provided methadone at the MCC until I got back there,” he said. The son of the Oscar-winning actor eventually pleaded guilty to charges and agreed to cooperate in a deal that secured him a five-year prison term, well short of the mandatory minimum of 10 years in prison that the charges against him otherwise called for.

Douglas was called by the government as part of his deal to testify against a man he claims supplied him with large quantities of drugs. Wearing a short-sleeve

Michael and Cameron Douglas shirt that revealed his tattooed arms, Douglas stayed calm on the stand as he was questioned by a prosecutor and a defense lawyer. Douglas described distributing about 20 pounds (9 kilograms) of crystal meth in 2006 and 2007 before he said he became disenchanted with selling drugs.

Defense lawyer Louis Aidala confronted Douglas repeatedly about his own failings in a bid to discredit his testimony for the jury. At one point, he asked if he ever worried that his father might be affected by his drug dealing when he was accepting payments for drugs while he was staying at a home his father rented in California. “I don’t really have an answer for that,” Douglas said. Douglas said his father provided some money when he tried to become involved in a nightclub in midtown Manhattan, but the younger Douglas ended up losing about $150,000 in the venture.

Douglas conceded that his life could have turned out much better. “I definitely had the opportunity to and I was too immature, too reckless,” he said. “At some point, those opportunities were closed to me.” Last year, Michael Douglas told NBC’s “Today” that he believes his son’s prison sentence might help him beat the drug habit that has plagued him since he was 13. “He was going to be dead or somebody was going to kill him,” Douglas said. “My son was a drug dealer, and he tried to kill himself for a while, and I can’t condone his behavior.” —AP

Icelandic artist Erro (born Gudmundur Gudmundsson) holds the catalogue of the exhibition “Erro. Portrait and Landscape” as he poses in front of his work “Fishscape” (1974) yesterday at the Kunsthalle Schirn museum in Frankfurt/M, western Germany. On the occasion of Iceland’s turn as guest of honor at the Frankfurt Book Fair, the Schirn will show Erro’s series “Scapes” and, for the first time, the artist’s entire cycle of “Monsters” from 1968 during the show running from today to January 8, 2012. —AFP

Stars of science series 3 hits the road competition show Stars of Science returns for a third series at 10pm KSA today, broadcast exclusively on MBC4. Stars of Science is the region’s first pan-Arab docureality TV program dedicated to innovation. Episodes one and two show highlights of a regional casting tour in Qatar, Kuwait, Tunisia, Jordan, KSA, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon. The best candidates with the most promising project ideas are invited to a further selection that takes place during episode three in Doha. The show was launched in 2009 by the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development (QF).

This year, candidates are seeking to impress two permanent jury members who are experts within the fields of Science & Technology - Engineer Mohamad Al Kuwari, General Manager of EADS Competence Center of Qatar; and Professor Fouad Mrad, Executive Director of the Regional Technology Center-United Nations - ESCWA; as well as a third, local juror who joins them in each of the coun-

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tries on the tour.

Stars of Science involves a three-step selection process, beginning with an online application via the program’s website (www.starsofscience.com or www.nojoumeloloum.com). Candidates must be aged between 18 - 30 years old, and of Arab nationality. A committee of up to 20 product development experts examines all the applications to establish a shortlist who are invited to pitch their project ideas during the casting tour. The committee bases its selection on the complexity of the project or invention; on its potential usefulness for society; on the likely demand and marketability of the eventual product; and on whether the idea includes a novel scientific feature.

A variety of nationalities were represented at the casting sessions, including Iraq, Syria, KSA, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Sudan, Egypt, Bahrain and Qatar. In Qatar, the two permanent judges were joined at Texas A&M University at Qatar by Dr Adnan Abu Dayya, Executive Director of Qatar University Wireless Innovation Centre. The

University. And in Jordan, Dr Sa’ed Salhieh, Associate Dean and Product Design Lab Director at the University of Jordan, joined the permanent jurors at the Royal Scientific Society in Amman.

In Saudi Arabia, the casting took place at King Saud University where Dr Adel AlShayea joined permanent judges Dr Fouad and Engineer Mohamad Al Kuwari. The next stop was in Lebanon where the guest local juror was Dr Oussama Jadayel, flight engineer at the University of Balamand.

In Cairo, the casting Kuwait casting local and permanent judges took place at the American University of Cairo, where the local guest juror was Dr In Tunisia, casting took place at the Maher Younan. The journey ended in Syria National Engineering School of Tunis, at the University of Qalamoon with local where the guest local juror was Dr Meriem juror Dr Nawar Al-Awa. Jaidane-Saidane, a Professor at Tunis local juror at the University of Kuwait was Dr Mohamad Al Fares, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering.

Project ideas in the casting sessions sprang from a wide range of scientific fields including: Veterinary Medicine, Biofuels, Robots and Electronic Operations, Heating and Cooling, Telecommunications and Global Positioning, Electronic Tools, Medical Equipment, Steering Systems, Smart Computer Software and Construction Techniques.

While some candidates are Ph D and masters students who have been working on project ideas prior to the program, others are amateur science and technology enthusiasts hoping for a major break. The program also accepts a number of ‘walkins’ who missed the application deadline, adding an element of surprise to these early episodes. The main requirements are to have a passion for science, technology and innovation, and to have faith in an original idea.

Permanent judge Engineer Mohamad Al Kuwari, General Manager of EADS Competence Center of Qatar says: “As a strong supporter and advocate of the role that young people can play in the develop-

ment of innovation in the region, I was honored to be asked to become a permanent jury member for series three of Stars of Science. I particularly like the fact that, in the first two episodes, we meet such a wide variety of young hopefuls from across the Arab world, from such a diverse range of disciplines, showcasing everything from the strange and lighthearted side of innovation to the more serious candidates who have exceptional project ideas, making it an exciting and entertaining program which the whole family can enjoy.”

Fellow permanent jury member Professor Fouad Mrad, Executive Director of the Regional Technology Center-United Nations - ESCWA added: “I have been a science advisor to the program since 2009 and I always enjoy the casting tour as it gives me a window into the minds of young Arab innovators from across the region. This year the standard has been exceptionally high and I feel privileged to be a part of the first Pan-Arab TV show to shine a spotlight on the region’s young inventors.”

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In this undated publicity photo released by Fox, characters from the animated series, “The Simpsons,” from left, Maggie, Marge, Lisa, Homer and Bart, are shown. —AP

is in danger in 23rd year

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hen powerful men amass their armies and go to battle in a tight political race, even the most idealistic and fervent political junkies may find their faith tested, if not obliterated. It is an ugly, cynical business, full of ambitious people who will do whatever they must to survive. This is the not-so-shocking point of “The Ides of March,” the latest film George Clooney has directed, based on the 2008 play “Farragut North.” It’s meaty and weighty and relevant, exactly the kind of material that appeals to Clooney, and to fans of Clooney. But it doesn’t tell us much that we didn’t already know, or at least suspect, about the people we place our trust in to lead us in the right direction come election time. And it features a major and distracting twist that undermines all the serious- mindedness that came before it.

Clooney is such an excellent actor himself, though - here he plays a supporting role as a Pennsylvania governor seeking the Democratic presidential nomination and he’s such a smart, efficient director, he really knows how to get the best out of his cast. And it would seem difficult to go wrong with a cast like this. Philip Seymour Hoffman tears it up as the governor’s gruff, no-nonsense campaign manager, a veteran who’s seen it all and still continues to come back for more. Paul Giamatti is reliably smarmy as Hoffman’s counterpart for the rival Democratic candidate, and watching these two acting heavyweights eyeball each other backstage at a debate provides an early, juicy thrill. (Jennifer Ehle is unfortunately wasted in just one scene as the governor’s dutiful wife.)

But the real star is Ryan Gosling as Stephen Myers, a young, up-and-coming strategist and press secretary who works for Clooney’s Gov. Mike Morris. As he did earlier this year in “Crazy Stupid Love,” Gosling radiates charisma, schmoozing and charming reporters and staffers with equal ease.

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‘THE SIMPSONS’ n its 23rd year on TV, “The Simpsons” could be on the endangered species list. The show’s producer said Tuesday the show can’t continue under its current financial model, following a report that big pay cuts are being sought for the actors who provide voices for Homer, Marge and Bart Simpson and other characters. “We believe this brilliant series can and should continue, but we cannot produce future seasons under its current financial model,” said Chris Alexander, spokesman for 20th Century Fox Television. He said producers hope a deal can be reached.

The animated series is a fixture on Fox’s Sunday night schedule, and

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critics consider it one of the best shows in the medium. But like many programs that have been on the air for a long time, the cost of making it has become prohibitive.

The Fox network reportedly loses money each year on new episodes, even as all the old episodes run in perpetuity in reruns and are a cash cow for producers and creators. The Daily Beast reported Tuesday that producers are demanding a 45 percent pay cut from the six voice actors, who reportedly make nearly $8 million each for a season. The website said the voice actors have offered to take a 30 percent pay in return for a portion of the show’s syndication

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and merchandise revenue. Allan Mayer, a spokesman for one of the show’s voice actors, Harry Shearer, said he had no comment on the talks. The manager for Dan Castellaneta, the voice of Homer Simpson, told The Associated Press she didn’t know about the negotiations, and creator Matt Groening didn’t immediately return a phone call.

“The Simpsons” is averaging 7.1 million viewers for its new episodes this fall, down 14 percent from last year. Back in the 1991-92 season, an average of 21.7 million people watched it every week, Nielsen said. The median age of the show’s viewers back two decades

ago was 23, and this season it is still very young for a TV show - 32, Nielsen said. That’s an indication of how the show has regenerated its audiences as the years go by. “It’s still a very young and male audience, which is difficult to reach on broadcast TV,” said Brad Adgate, a researcher for Horizon Media. “Its longevity is due to that. They can charge a premium to reach that audience, and they do.” —AP

ADELE

bows out of US tour rammy award-winning soul diva Adele has been forced to cancel a planned US tour for a second time due to a hemorrhage in her vocal cord, promoters for the British singer said Tuesday. The “Rolling in the Deep” and “Someone Like You” songstress had been set to launch almost a month of 10 sold-out US dates on October 7 in Atlantic City, New Jersey, rescheduled after she bowed out

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of a tour earlier this year.

Doctors have ordered Adele, known for her powerful voice, to rest in order to recover. The British pop singer earlier posted comments on her website about her health and the cancellations.”Singing is literally my life, it’s my hobbie, my love, my freedom and now my job. I have absolutely no choice but to recuperate properly and fully, or I risk damaging my voice forever,” she

wrote.”I have great confidence in believing you know how much this upsets me, how seriously I take it and how truly devastated and annoyed I am by this.

Wanting to do something so bad and not being able to is the most frustrating thing as I’m sure you know!”My voice is weak and I need to build it back up,” she added. —AFP

Girlfriend recalls ‘COUGHING’ as Jackson lay dying cocktail waitress and friend of Michael Jackson’s doctor Conrad Murray recounted Tuesday how she heard mumbling and coughing while on the phone to him at around the time the singer was dying. Sade Anding testified that Murray called her at 11:51 am on June 25, 2009, when she was in Houston and he was at Jackson’s rented mansion, trying to help the star get to sleep.

About five or six minutes into the conversation she realized that Murray was no longer answering, and the sound became muffled, as if the telephone was in a pocket. “I said ‘Hello, Hello,’ and I didn’t hear anything .. I pressed the phone to my ear,” she told the LA Superior Court. “I heard mumbling of voices . ...and I heard coughing,” she added.

She listened to the muffled noises for about three to four minutes before hanging up, she said, adding that she tried twice to call him back, but got no answer. Murray is accused of involuntary manslaughter over the singer’s death, allegedly by administering an overdose of the powerful sedative propofol while trying to help Jackson with his insomnia. The trial has already heard from paramedics who arrived at Jackson’s Holmby Hills mansion at 12:26 pm after receiving a 911 call at 12:21 pm-about 20 minutes after the mysteriously-ended phone call with Anding. Anding had met Murray in February 2009 at a steakhouse restaurant in Houston, where the doctor came in as a guest.

The pair stayed in touch over the next four months, up to Jackson’s death, the court heard.

She said the pair were friends, although Murray once “playfully” referred to her as his girlfriend. The waitress recalled how the following month she was told that LA detectives

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were trying to contact her.

She called Murray to tell him about the interest from the LA Police Department (LAPD). “He told me, ‘Why are they calling you? I’m so sorry they’re contacting you’,” she said, before giving her his lawyer’s details, and telling her to call the attorney before getting back to the LAPD. The court also heard Tuesday from Nicole Alvarez, who was living with Murray and had a son by him in March 2009, and still lives with him in her apartment in Santa Monica. Alvarez, a 29-year-old actress who met Murray in a club in Las Vegas in 2005, described how Murray would routinely leave at around 9:00 pm to look after Jackson, and return the next morning.

The trial has heard testimony about how the 58-year-old medic would stay at Jackson’s mansion overnight to care for the singer, who was also regularly seeing a dermatologist and was found to be on a cocktail of drugs when he died. Alvarez also told of her excitement when the doctor surprised her by introducing her to Jackson. I was speechless when I met him. I couldn’t believe I was meeting Michael Jackson,” she said, an excited smile on her face.

Jackson was “interested” in her baby son, who was born three months before the star’s death. “He wanted to schedule visits so that he could see my son,” she told the court. In the final months of his life they were busy preparing to leave for London, to accompany Jackson on his “This Is It” series of concerts at the O2 Arena, for which he was rehearsing when he died. “I thought I was going to see the show,” she said, adding: “I never finished packing.” —AFP

Jackson doctor ordered gallons of killer drug ichael Jackson’s doctor faced mounting scrutiny yesterday after a pharmacist said he had ordered over 250 vials of a powerful sedative in the two months before the star’s 2009 overdose death. Pharmacist Tim Lopez said on Tuesday that Conrad Murray, on trial for involuntary manslaughter, never told him he was Jackson’s personal physician and did not say who the sedative, known as propofol, was for. Murray placed the orders for the drug, and a number of other medications including a skin-whitening cream, with his company Applied Pharmacy Services, Lopez told the Los Angeles Superior Court.

“He asked me specifically to find pricing and availability of propofol and normal saline IV bags,” he said, before detailing a string of orders from April to June which included 255 vials of propofol, or several gallons of the drug. He also said Murray did not tell him that the address to which he was shipping the orders was not a Los Angeles clinic he ran, as suggested, but was the apartment of his mistress in Santa Monica. Murray went on trial last week over the singer’s death, accused of administering an overdose of the powerful sedative propofol while trying to help Jackson for insomnia. Jackson was rehearsing for a series of comeback shows in London when he died on June 25, 2009 at his rented Holmby Hills mansion. Murray’s lawyers claim the star took extra doses of medicine while the doctor was out of the room. The court also heard Tuesday from Nicole Alvarez, who was living with Murray and had a son by him in March 2009 and still lives with him in her apartment in Santa Monica. Alvarez, a 29-year-old actress who met Murray in a club in Las Vegas in 2005, described how Murray would routinely leave at around 9:00 pm to look after Jackson and return the next morning. The trial has heard testimony about how the 58-year-old medic would stay at Jackson’s mansion overnight to care for the singer, who was also regularly seeing a dermatologist and was found to be on a cocktail of drugs when he died. —AFP

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But beneath that slick exterior, his character is a true believer. And Morris, with his great looks, smooth voice and progressive platitudes, seems to him like the real deal.

Finally. “The Ides of March,” which Clooney co-wrote with his frequent collaborator, Grant Heslov, and “Farragut North” playwright Beau Willimon, follows the final, frantic days before the Ohio Democratic primary. The nuts-and-bolts grunt work and the daily machinations and manipulations of a political campaign consistently ring true. Clooney is as interested in process as personalities, which was evident in the last film he directed, 2005’s “Good Night, and Good Luck,” and that balance gives his work an authenticity. With “The Ides of March,” he is once again opening a portal to a specific world that he clearly takes seriously and cares a great deal about.

That’s why it’s such a letdown when the whole endeavor turns tawdry toward the end. We won’t give away the details of the twist, but let’s just say it involves a sexy, 20-year-old intern played by a coolly seductive Evan Rachel Wood. The actions and motivations in this subplot are entirely unbelievable, and the very idea of it feels like an easy way to inject melodrama. And that’s a problem, since this character’s choices are crucial to a series of events that culminate in the film’s climax. If “The Ides of March” had just been about intense, powerful people and the conflict between ideals and reality, it would have provided vital and vibrant entertainment. Still, Gosling’s journey feels believable, despite the narrative potholes along the way. The lost, disillusioned look on his face in the film’s final shot - especially in contrast with the confidence he exuded in a similar closeup at the start - says it all. “The Ides of March,” a Columbia Pictures release, is rated R for pervasive language. Running time: 98 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.—AP

interview

EVAN RACHEL WOOD on ‘IDES OF MARCH’ ex, interns, politics and backstabbing are the highly combustible elements that form the backdrop for “The Ides of March,” the new political drama co-written and directed by George Clooney which opens in theaters on Friday. Clooney also portrays an ethically-challenged governor running for president in the tale about an idealistic press spokesman (Ryan Gosling) whose clandestine affair with a sexy young intern (Evan Rachel Wood) compromises the campaign.

“Ides of March” wowed critics and fans at festivals in September, and even though Clooney tops marquees and Gosling is the key character, the plot truly revolves around the intern Molly, portrayed by Wood. The actress, 24, who has starred in films such as “The Wrestler” and on TV’s “True Blood,” spoke with Reuters about “Ides” and working Clooney and Gosling.

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Q: Molly’s father is a big political figure and she’s this very complicated mix of maturity and naivete, isn’t she?

A: “Exactly, and one of my favorite characters ever.

She’s grown up in this political world around men, so she’s not intimidated by any of them, and she throws them all off their game. She’s very cool, collected and witty, but underneath she’s still young, barely 20, and gets in way over her head.

Q: How much of you is in her?

A: “A lot. We’re very similar. I grew up in a very male-dominated world too. I always feel like one of the guys and very un-intimidated too.”

Q: She’s really the pivotal character. Did you feel a lot of pressure to perform well?

A: “George and I discussed her a lot, and we wanted to show that she was in control of all her decisions. She wasn’t manipulated, and I think she’s one of the only honest characters in the whole movie. Everyone else is basically a liar, or out for themselves, and she’s the one who ends up getting punished for her honesty. It’s very sad.”

Q: How much research into the whole

backroom political machinery did you do?

A: “George gave us all these great documentaries to watch ‘The War Room’ about Bill Clinton’s campaign, and others about what the interns and press and candidates go through, and it was fascinating. I’d never seen that side of it before.”

Q: Any surprises working with George?

A: “It was my first time, and he’s just what you’d expect or better, really. He’s very easy going, easy to work with, and all about making a great film but also making it a great experience. He really takes care of everyone.”

Q: Ryan Gosling seems perfectly cast as the spokesman.

A: “You couldn’t ask for a better leading man. We hung out a lot in rehearsals and laughed a lot, so by the time we began shooting it we knew each other quite well. Playing opposite him is like playing a great tennis player.

He’s got great rhythm.”

Q: “Ides” paints a pretty unflattering picture of what really goes on behind the scenes. Did you come away feeling cynical about the whole political process?

A: “Unfortunately I was already pretty cynical (laughs). We tried to make a political film and shady dealings go on in every type of business. The big question we dealt with here is, when you find yourself in a moral dilemma, do you compromise your integrity and everything you believe in just to win, and for the ‘greater good’?”

Q: You come from an acting family and have been in the business since you were five. Was there ever a time when you felt, ‘What I really want to do is be a truck driver,’ or did acting feel almost predestined?

A: (Laughs) “It kind of felt predestined and it’s something I’ve always done. I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t acting. I have taken time off to figure out if it’s what I really want to do, and it is. The only other job I’d want is to be a psychologist, as I spend most of my time analyzing people and emotions. They’re kind of similar professions in that regard, but acting’s more fun.” —Reuters

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Models present creations by Italian designers Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Picciolo for Valentino during the Spring/Summer 2012 ready-to-wear collection show in Paris. —

efore Britain’s royal wedding, when the identity of the designer behind the dress Kate Middleton would wear to the alter was still the best-kept secret in the kingdom, some in the fashion world cast doubt on the rumors pointing toward Alexander McQueen, saying the label’s aesthetic was too dark for a princess-to-be known for her demure style. Though McQueen creative director Sarah Burton did end up scoring the plum commission, the label’s spring-summer 2012 ready-to-wear collection Tuesday served as a reminder of just how somber the house’s look really is. Nip-waisted skirt suits borrowed elements from bondage gear, while stunning pearl and mother-of-pearl covered gowns felt like beautiful straitjackets.

There was nothing constricting about the Valentino collection, where the airy concoctions of organza and lace were as light as a whisper. Karl Lagerfeld said that with everyone and their mother churning out knockoff Chanel skirt suits in heavy-duty tweed, he’d decided to send out the label’s iconic suits in the lightest of high-tech materials.

Lagerfeld bragged that his iridescent sheath dresses, made from Space Age polyester shot with fiberglass and paper - “not that horrible polyester from the seventies” “weigh literally 3 grams.” Beyond the technical virtuosity of the materials, Chanel impressed with its ever-awesome set.

This time, the luxury powerhouse - which has just about the deepest pockets in the industry - transformed the steeland-glass domed Grand Palais into a pristine seabed, its sand-strewn catwalk dotted with towering clumps of seaweed and coral made from bright white fiberglass. New beginnings dawned at Paco Rabanne, the iconic sixties label that relaunched its shuttered women’s line after a yearslong hiatus, and at Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, where a new owner has resulted in uncharacteristic austerity.

After eight grueling days under the blazing sun of a freak Paris Indian summer that finally broke on Tuesday, the collections come to a much-anticipated end yesterday, with Prada second line Miu Miu and Elie Saab, the Lebanese designer who’s omnipresent on red carpets the world over.

But before breathing a sigh of relief, fashionistas were setting multiple alarms to be sure to make the Louis Vuitton, which is, cruelly, in the 10:00 am time slot. Unlike pretty much every other show, where a half-an-hour late start is considered on time, Vuitton actually starts at what the rest of the world would consider promptly, and sometimes early, even. Last season, stragglers made a blind dash for their seats when the lights went down and the music came up two minutes ahead of time. Rumor has it that Vuitton will start a full five minutes early this season.

seashell and salmon pinks, with a sprinkling of gold. While these looks are not for everyone - actually, they’re meant pretty much exclusively for very young women with sticks in the place of legs - they have a very distinct and delicate beauty all of their own.

PACO RABANNE The message going out over the Surrealist satellite dish hats at Paco Rabanne was loud and crystal clear: “Paging Lady Gaga,” the headgear, with almond-shaped eye holes, seemed to insist. “We’ve got something for you.” If she’s having trouble finding outfits that can top a meat dress and frankly, who wouldn’t? - the pop star need look no further than the newly revamped and relaunched Paco Rabanne, which shot the futuristic legacy of the legendary ‘60s house back into orbit.

There were second-skin sheath dresses with sharp shoulders and protruding hips that looked like the uniforms of a flight crew on a spaceship and a catsuit in gold lame that was hung with thick metal coils and tangled chains, like so much space debris. Foil candy-wrapper dresses were kitted out with sculptural whorls of fabric - shaped like the rings of Saturn - that enveloped the models, turning them into prisoners of their own dresses. One model even had to fold her hands behind her in backward prayer to order not to muss the rings.

Variations on Rabanne’s iconic chain mail dresses - made from plastic trapezoids linked together with metal rings were served up in bustier dresses, pencil skirts and even a slinky hooded catsuit worthy of a Space Age Joan of Arc. It was a super debut from Delhi-based madcap Manish Arora, who, as the new creative director, is charged with rebuilding the historic brand. Founded by a Spanish designer of the same name, Paco Rabanne shot into the fashion stratosphere in the mid-1960s with futuristic designs that cleverly incorporated metal and plastic. The house’s fortunes later dwindled, and its current owners, cosmetics and high-end clothing company the Puig Group, shuttered the ready-towear line several years ago to focus on its lucrative perfume operations. Arora, whose demented styles for his signature line have garnered considerable critical praise, seemed on paper like just the man to revive the house, and Tuesday’s show confirmed as much. Sure, you could not sit down, walk, use your hands or even breathe in most of the looks on the revamped Rabanne runway. But walking, talking, gesticulating or breathing are simply besides the point as far as these kind of clothes-as-talking-pieces are concerned.

Just ask Gaga, or Katy Perry, or Beyonce or any of the other superstars whose name the collection was calling. — AP

ALEXANDER McQUEEN The ivory silk wedding dress that Kate Middleton chose for her date with history was, of course, Alexander McQueen, but it was hard to imagine the demure nowDuchess of Cambridge sporting the S&M-infused black teddy, the head-enveloping lace-and-leather face masks or any of the other extreme looks that came down the label’s runway Tuesday. The house was built on just such harsh beauty, but following the Feb. 2010 suicide of its namesake and founder, it appeared as if his successor would steer the label in a softer, more consensual direction. For her debut as creative director one year ago, Burton delivered a collection that loosened the screws on McQueen’s punishingly nipped waists and smoothed out some of his harshest angles.

And then there was the dress, the wedding down that saw Middleton transformed from commoner into royalty the single most coveted commission in recent fashion history. Kept under the strictest of wraps up until Middleton alighted at Westminster Abbey on April 29 - before some 2 billion spectators worldwide - the simple-lined, long sleeve concoction became an instant legend and unleashed a bridal wave of copycats. But the Duchess of Cambridge has notoriously low-key style, and trying to imagine her in anything from the spring-summer collection was absurd. After all, what would she do with her luscious locks - not to mention her face - in one of those lacy pantyhose head masks that topped off all the looks? (Covered in pearls or sporting a metal beard made out of what appeared to be straight pins, they were the world’s chicest and most twisted Mexican lucha libre masks).

With Tuesday’s collection, Burton’s third as creative director, she tightened the screws again. Suits with flippy skirts and shrunken jackets were cinched at the waist with oversized belts with kinky lace-up detailing. Evening gowns entirely covered in pearls or mother-or pearl scales were ravishing, but looked about as conformable as straitjackets. The show elicited among the most positive reactions of any of the Paris collections, and Burton looked almost embarrassed by all the hubbub as she ducked onstage for a bow.

VALENTINO Valentino’s concoctions of lace and tulle had all the delicate transparency of exotic jellyfish, their luminous membranes pulsating gently in deep-sea depths. For spring-summer, the design duo that has remade the Italian label in its featherlight image following the retirement of founder Valentino Garavani continued to refine their now-signature airy looks, sending out a collection of seethrough dresses in lace, tulle and organza. Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli delivered chemisier dresses embellished with dramatic flame-shaped panels of lace, A-line bustier dresses like frothy millefeuilles of chiffon and organza and the simplest of ankle-length gowns, with a slight seventies vibe. Besides a couple of the long dresses in the shade of lipstick red that was so synonymous with the label under Garavani’s tenure that it earned the title “Valentino red,” the rest of the looks were in the kind of makeup shades Piccioli and Chiuri have favored in recent seasons buff, ivory, Models wear creations by Indian fashion designer Manish Arora for Paco Rabanne.

Models present creations

by Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen during the Spring/Summer 2012 ready-towear collection show, in Paris.

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he dress worn by the former Kate Middleton when she married Prince William fueled a surge in regal tourism with 600,000 flocking to see the gown on display at Buckingham Palace, it emerged Tuesday. Hordes of enthusiasts queued for hours to see the Alexander McQueen ivory and white satin-gazar dress, designed by Sarah Burton, swelling palace visitor numbers by 50 percent. The figure dwarfs the previous record set in 1994, the year the iconic London landmark was first opened to

the public to help pay for damages sustained in the Windsor Castle fire.

Visitors to the palace, which closed its doors to the public on Monday after a 73-day open season, stumped up £18 ($27.8, 20.8 euros) to see the dress, although many plumped for the £32 ticket which also covered the royal mews and Queen’s gallery.

Money raised by the annual opening of the grand gates goes towards maintaining the Royal Collection buildings and works of art. “We’ve enjoyed welcom-

ing visitors from all over the world to Buckingham Palace in record numbers this summer,” a spokeswoman for the Royal Collection said.

“It has been an incredibly busy few months and we’re delighted that it’s been such a huge success.”

Around one million people lined the streets of London to see the couple, now titled the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, marry on April 29, but few will have had the opportunity to study the gown’s intricacy at close quarters. The lace applique on the

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erched side-saddle on a old-fashioned merry-go-round, Louis Vuitton’s belles for next spring came wrapped in broderie anglaise in soothing tones of cupcake or candyfloss, as Paris’ nine-day fashion marathon drew to a close yesterday. Marc Jacobs-one of the world’s most talked-about designers since he was tipped to succeed the disgraced John Galliano at Christian Dior-was in the spotlight as he unveiled what may be his swansong at Vuitton in the courtyard of the Louvre Museum.

Broderie anglaise, a type of embroidery with little eyelets edged in buttonhole stitches, was the keystone of the look, with innocent-looking outsized flowers adorning buttoned-up collars, blouses, skirts and dresses. Baby blues and pinks, soft yellows and greens defined the look, alongside a small handful of tone-on-tone greys, blacks or navies, where bright white underskirts peeped through the flower-shaped holes. Backstage, the New York designer-who conjured up saucy hotel chambermaids for his last Vuitton ready-to-wear collection-said he went this time for a look that was “soft, soothing, gentle, light, tender, feminine, airy, loving.”

“A frosted sugary, sponge sugar type of feeling-like wrappers on a candy,” he summed up.

The merry-go-round itself was “a metaphor for fashion,” how it endlessly recycles and renews itself: “It’s good that there is no end! It’s such a joy, it never ends,” quipped the designer.

Pretty, gentle-cut skirts, some overlaid with a tone-on-tone sheer veil, fell just the right side of prim, swelling gently out from the waist, skimming the curve of the hip before stopping at the knee or just below. Matched with buttonfront white blouses, or short jackets nipped in at the waist, over pointed heels in black or white, the look was innocently feminine, with hair pulled back into chignons under thin tiaras.

Dresses were cut in a demure empire line, sleeveless or with short silk sleeves, while a final

series in sequined ivory broderie anglaise was overstitched with ostrich feathers in fluttering blue, pink or yellow. And for the fairytale finale, in a creamy ivory bubble dress cut high on the thigh, there was Kate Moss in a shimmer of fluffy white feathers, the icing . — AP

Models present creations by US designer Marc Jacobs for Louis Vuitton during the Spring/Summer 2012 ready-to-wear collection show, yesterday in Paris. — AFP

bodice and skirt was made by cutting out individual lace flowers and sewing them in a unique design onto ivory silk-tulle, using tiny stitches every two or three millimeters. In an interview after the wedding, Burton explained that Catherine had asked for a dress which acknowledged the past, yet looked to the future. — AFP

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Palestinian Joudeh Hirbawi inspects a machine sewing iconic black-and-white keffiyehs, worn by the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, at his small factory in the West Bank city of Hebron. — AFP photos

Yasser Arafat’s favorite scarf maker gets Internet lifeline J

oudeh Hirbawi is not sure why young Palestinians do not want to wear the iconic black-and-white keffiyeh scarves his factory makes. But he has found another way to stay afloat. Instead of selling to a dwindling local market of old men and young activists, he is working with a group of Palestinians overseas to market the scarves abroad, even harnessing social media to connect with customers. For decades, the keffiyeh has been an international symbol of the Palestinian people and their cause. It was most famously worn by the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, whose carefully-styled headdress served as both a fashion statement and a political one.

A Palestinian woman puts the final touches to the iconic black-and-white keffiyeh scarves, worn by the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

At one time, the factory that Hirbawi’s father started in the southern West Bank city of Hebron in the 1960s was churning out around 500 keffiyehs a day to meet demand.

During the first intifada, or uprising, between 1987 and 1993, the scarf was the garb of

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pain’s fabulously wealthy 85-year-old Duchess of Alba marries a civil servant 25 years her junior yesterday in a story of love and riches that has gripped the nation. The twice-widowed aristocrat, renowned for her frizzy hair, glamorous social life and colorful dress sense, is tying the knot in the chapel of her 15th century Palacio de las Duenas in Seville. Guests of the duchess, who as head of the house of Alba is said to have the right to enter Seville cathedral on horseback, will be restricted mostly to family-reportedly 30-60 people.

It is a dramatic change from Maria del Rosario Cayetana Fitz-James-Stuart’s first marriage in October 1947 when the 21-year-old bride had 1,000 guests and wore gems reportedly worth 1.5 million dollars even then. A report in the New York Times at the time described those nuptials as “Spain’s most elaborate social event since the end of the monarchy”. A red carpet was laid out to welcome the guests to the wedding which is scheduled for 1 pm (1100 GMT) and barriers were set up to keep journalists at bay.

A crowd of about 50 people, including several women in their Sunday best and well coiffed hair gathered outside the entrance to the palace to try to get a glimpse of the festivities. “I like these sort of things and here we love her very much,” said

choice for the thousands of Palestinians who took part in demonstrations across the occupied territories. “Everyone was in the streets protesting. We were the only people in the country who were staying indoors because we were making the keffiyehs,” Hirbawi said.

But the factory, the only one in the Palestinian territories to make the scarves, found sales waning as younger Palestinians turned away from traditional garb in favour of modern fashions, and as cheaper Chinese products flooded the market.

“In the old days, everyone used to wear them, especially in winter when it gets cold here and they kept people warm,” Hirbawi said, seated in a small office in the factory.

“But now it’s really something that you only see older Palestinians wearing,” he said. “And the competition from Chinese products is simply more than we can take on.” ‘We make a product that is a symbol of Palestine’ Chinese-made keffiyehs began flooding into the Palestinian territories after the Oslo peace agreement was signed with Israel in 1993, lifting trade barriers. The scarves are thin and lower quality, the Hirbawis say, but they also cost a lot less than their homegrown counterparts. At wholesale, the Hirbawis sell their keffiyehs for around 11 shekels ($3/2.10 euros) a piece, while the Chinese ones sell for seven ($1.9/1.35 euros).

In the past, the factory’s competition came primarily from Syria, but the prices and quality was comparable, meaning the Hirbawis were able to compete. But with demand down and competition on the rise, the factory has cut staff from four people to one parttimer, and most of its 15 Japanese automatic looms lie dormant, some covered in years’ worth of dust and cobwebs.

Inside the dark warehouse, the almostdeafening clack of the few machines in operation bounces off the walls as threads are thrown across scarves in an array of different colors and patterns. Several machines are hard at work churning out the traditional

Esperanza Azanon, 68, who came to the gates of the palace with two friends. Spain’s media, particularly the lively gossip shows and press, are devouring every detail. Several television stations broadcast live from outside the palace. Gossip web site Divinity said the couple would offer guests a wedding meal with Spanish and British-inspired dishes including gazpacho soup, rice with spicy lobster, beef Wellington and rice pudding.

But it is the story of the love match and the suspicions of the duchess’ children that her beloved may be a gold digger that has really fascinated Spaniards.

The noblewoman has said she had to work hard to overcome her offspring’s objections to her plans to marry 60-year-old bachelor Alfonso Diez. She showered her five sons and one daughter several months ago with much of her estate-palaces, mansions and treasures including masterpieces by artists from Goya to Velazquez, Murillo, Rembrandt and Rubens.

But she kept control over the assets, ranging from the palaces to lavish estates reputedly worth between 600 million and 3.5 billion euros ($850 million and $5.0 billion), until her death. As a strict Roman Catholic, the duchess said in an interview on the eve of the wedding that she had no choice but to marry. “I am anti-divorce, anti-abortion, anti all those atrocities,” she said in an interview with the Spanish

black-and-white keffiyehs, while others weave the red-and-white version associated with Jordan. A few work on strictly non-traditional keffiyehs-some multicoloured, others in blue, burgundy and white intended to appeal to the firm’s foreign clients.

Hirbawi and his lone employee dart from loom to loom, manually untangling threads and slicing off loose ends with a pocket knife.

Each scarf is finished in a second warehouse across the street, where three women add tassels and a label showing the scarf is “Made in Palestine.”It is a method of manufacture that cannot compete with Chinese mass-production, so the family approached the Palestinian Authority for help.

Chinese-made scarves have flooded the market “We’re not asking them to ban imports, we’re not asking them for money, we’re just looking for them to impose some kind of tax on imports so we can compete,” he says. “We make a product that is a symbol of Palestine.

More than that, we could provide revenue for the government, we could employ people,” he says. “But they aren’t interested.” Instead, the factory has found a lifeline from outside, in the form of a group of activists of Palestinian origin who reached out to the family, fearing the family-run business was on the brink of closure.

“This is something that we’re doing for the keffiyeh itself,” said Noora Kassem, one of the Young Professionals for Palestine group. “The Palestinian keffiyeh is a really strong political symbol and that’s one of the reasons that we decided to focus on it,” she told AFP by telephone from Amman where she is based. “It would be a real tragedy if the keffiyeh itself is no longer made in Palestine.” The group reached out to online retailers, setting up a website and eventually a Facebook group called “The Last Keffiyeh” where customers from Europe, the United States, Latin America and elsewhere can place their orders.

The Hirbawis were “hesitant at first,” she

A Palestinian man works a machine at a small factory manufacturing the iconic black-and-white keffiyeh scarves. admits.”What they want to do is focus on making their scarves, that’s their business and that’s fine,” she said. “We are doing what we can from out here, which is the marketing side.” So far, the collaboration has been a success, with Hirbawi saying the factory has seen its overseas business grow steadily, now accounting for hundreds of keffiyehs each month. Kassem and her colleagues are now working to locate wholesalers who will buy the keffiyehs in bulk, to streamline the delivery process, and to ensure the factory is not overwhelmed by large orders.”We’re trying to slowly bring them into the fold of global marketing tools but at the same time not overwhelm them,” she says. — AFP

news agency EFE. “I am a Catholic and I practice it.

That is why I am marrying for a third time,” said the duchess. “Unfortunately my previous two husbands died.” The duchess, who has more titles than any other noble on Earth according to Guinness World Records, said there had been opposition to the marriage from her children and friends “until they realized the calibre of the man he was, he is”.

But according to the Spanish press, the duchess’s daughter and one of her sons will not be attending the wedding. Her daughter Eugenia Martinez de Irujo has come down with chickenpox while the son, Jacobo Fitz-James Stuart, will be away on a business trip he could not postpone, according to the reports.

Adding to the scandal over the family intrigue, Spain’s racy magazine Interview this week published a 30-year-old photograph of the duchess as she sunbathed topless in Ibiza. “We are considering suing for interfering with her rights to privacy,” her friend and lawyer Javier Saavedra was quoted as telling show business news site Vanitatis. — AFP

Spain’s Duchess of Alba, Maria del Rosario Cayetana Fitz-James-Stuart and her husband Alfonso Diez walk towards photographers after their wedding ceremony at the Palacio de las Duenas in Sevilla yesterday. — AFP