MotoGP fansmeet star rider Marquez in Doha

BUSINESS | 21 SPORT | 33

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Prime Minister and Interior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani during the 33rd session of the Arab Interior Ministers’ Council, in Tunis, yesterday. Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince, Deputy Premier and Minister of Interior Prince Mohammed bin Naif bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and other top officials are also seen. → See also page 7

PM attends Interior Ministers’ meet

THURSDAY 3 MARCH 2016 • 23 Jumada I 1437 • Volume 20 • Number 6724 thepeninsulaqatar @peninsulaqatar @peninsula_qatar

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Emir presides over economic panel meeting

The Peninsula

DOHA: Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, who is Chairman of the Supreme Council for Economic Affairs and Investment, yesterday presided over its meeting at the Emiri Diwan.

This was the first meeting of the Council this year, reports Qatar News Agency (QNA).

Deputy Emir H H Sheikh Abdul-lah bin Hamad Al Thani, who is Vice-Chairman of the Council, attended the meeting along with its members. The Council gave its nod to form a company that would generate solar power, Qatar News Agency said.

To be known as Seraj Energy Company, it will be jointly owned by Qatar Petroleum (QP) and Qatar Electricity and Water Com-pany (QEWC). The Council is all for setting up electricity generation

projects via solar energy. The C ou nc i l ’s S e c re t a r y- G e n-eral and Minister of Finance, H E Ali Sherif Al Emadi told QNA later that the meeting discussed a number of topics on the agenda and took necessary measures.

He said the agenda included following up on previous decisions of the Council and the measures taken in this regard as well as developments related to energy and investment affairs.

Al Emadi said that also on the agenda was a discussion on the proposed solar power generation company Seraj, and the Council agreed to set it up.

The agenda also included Qatar Petroleum’s request to endorse an agreement on amending the finan-cial terms of the development and financial terms agreement of Bar-zan Gas Company Limited.

The Finance Minister said that the meeting approved the amend-ment agreement as well.

Meanwhile, media reports ear-lier suggested that the idea of the Seraj project was mooted based on the fact that producing solar power was cheaper than buying gas from the international market.

Detailed studies to assess the feasibility of the project have already been carried out and the company is in the process of being formed, said media reports.

Douglas Emmett and QIA acquire Westwood office The Peninsula

DOHA: Douglas Emmett, a real estate investment trust (REIT), yes-terday announced the acquisition of a 1,725,000 square feet office portfolio in a joint venture with Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) for $1.34bn. The portfolio consists of four Class “A” office buildings located in Westwood, a premier West Los Angeles submarket. The pur-

chase price was approximately $777 per square foot. Douglas Emmett plans to retain 20pc to 30pc of the equity in the joint venture, with the remaining being held by institu-tional partners. The joint venture has obtained a non-recourse $580m interest-only loan with a seven-year term. The interest rate is floating at Libor plus 1.40 percent, which has been fixed at 2.37 percent per annum for five years through an interest rate swap.

→ Continued on page 6

Emir gives hiscondolences to Ruler of AjmanDOHA: Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani sent yesterday a cable of condolences to Member of the UAE Supreme Council and Ruler of Ajman, Sheikh Humaid bin Rashid Al Nuaimi on the death of Sheikh Mohammed bin Nasser bin Rashid Al Nuaimi, son of the Deputy Ruler of Ajman, praying to Allah Almighty to have mercy upon him and grant solace and fortitude to his family, reports QNA.

Deputy Emir H H Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad Al Thani also sent a similar cable.

Council approves solar power firm — Seraj Energy Company

Assistant Foreign

Minister appointed

DOHA: Foreign Minister H E Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdulrah-man Al Thani has issued a decision appointing Sultan bin Saad Sultan Al Muraikhi Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs, reports QNA.

Hezbollah declared a

terrorist organisation

RIYADH: Gulf countries yester-day declared Lebanon’s Hezbollah a “terrorist” group, escalating tensions with the militant organi-sation that supports Syria’s regime. The designation is the latest step taken by Gulf states against Hez-bollah as ties between its main backer Iran and Saudi Arabia deteriorate. The GCC “decided to consider the militias (of Hezbol-lah) a terrorist organisation”, GCC Secretary General Abdullatif Al Zayani said.

→ See also page 7

New inter-city

buses launched

The Peninsula

DOHA: Mowasalat has introduced new buses on inter-city routes — for long distance trips with extra facilities.

The buses in which passen-gers are not allowed to stand have adjustable seats with arm-rests, luggage storage facilities, and stop announcement and elec-tronic display.

→ Continued on page 6

GOIC announces incentive package to facilitate user access

HOME02 THURSDAY 3 MARCH 2016

PM condoles

with Ajman Ruler

QNA

DOHA: Prime Minister and Inte-rior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani yesterday sent a cable of con-dolences to Member of the UAE Supreme Council and Ajman Ruler Sheikh Humaid bin Rashid Al Nuaimi on the death of Sheikh Mohammed bin Nasser bin Rashid Al Nuaimi, son of the Deputy Ruler of Ajman, praying to Allah Almighty to have mercy upon him and grant solace and fortitude to his family.

FM gets

call from OIC

secretary-general

DOHA: Foreign Minister H E Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdulrah-man Al Thani yesterday received a telephone call from Iyad Ameen Madani, Secretary-General, Organisation of Islamic Coopera-tion (OIC). They discussed issues of common concern, particularly those relating to an emergency Islamic summit to be held in the Indonesian capital Jakarta later this month.

Minister meets

ILO delegation

DOHA: Minister of Justice H E Dr Hassan Lahdan Saqr Al Mohannadi yesterday met an International Labour Organisation (ILO) del-egation headed by Ambassador Misako Kaji Talks dealt with the great progress made by Qatar in the field of labour and workers’ rights. Both sides also discussed legal and legislative cooperation between Qatar and ILO and issues of common concern.

By Fazeena Saleem The Peninsula

DOHA: H E Sheikh Joaan bin Hamad Al Thani, President, Qatar Olympic Committee (QOC), was honoured as ‘CSR Person of the Year 2015’ yes-terday. He was recognised for his significant role in supporting corpo-rate social responsibility (CSR) and being a role model in inspiring the youth of Qatar.

Sheikh Joaan was honoured dur-ing the launch of the fourth edition of the National CSR Report (Leaders’ Visions) by Qatar University (QU).

The was held under the patronage of Prime Minister and Interior Min-ister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani.

Several leading companies and community representatives were also honoured for their CSR role.

“QU has always been guided by social responsibility to achieve its academic goals, advance its stu-dents’ knowledge and build their capabilities. It continues to deliver on its mission of serving as a bridge between academia and society. It is also keen to lead the leaders’ visions, which are voiced in this report, towards institutional development through careful planning of new

programmes and their execution on the solid basis of social responsibility,” said Dr Hassan Rashid Al Derham, President, QU.

The report has documented achievements of several organisa-tions in CSR. It also conducted a study on ‘CSR in Qatar and Organisational Performances’ and found that average spending on CSR among the surveyed companies revealed that the majority of them spend more than QR1m annu-ally. The study also shows that the oil and gas sector contributes more than 15 percent of overall CSR activities in the country.

The report was prepared and pro-duced under the guidance of College of Business and Economics at QU with input from its students super-vised by the CSR Committee. It is part of a memorandum of understand-ing signed between QU and the CSR Network.

“The report is a valuable tool for achieving the vision of the university and its partners in line with the four pillars of Qatar National Vision 2030.

“It has also gained momentum through contributions of national institutions. We are proud of the suc-cess of our collaboration with Qatar CSR Network, primarily in develop-ing new partnerships with institutions from the public and private sector,” said Dr Al Derham.

The report will be distributed to all Qatari embassies around the world through the Foreign Ministry — one of the partners of the report.

“In its previous editions, the report highlighted the added value of social responsibility and suc-ceeded in providing an opportunity for local institutions to change their approaches and professional

techniques. The success was further enhanced by drawing participation of new institutions which benefitted from the leaders’ instructions, expe-riences and vision to serve society,” said Khalifa S Al Mohannadi, CEO, Qatar CSR.

Several leading organisations supported and contributed to the report, including the Foreign Ministry;

National Olympic Committee; the Ministry of Economy and Commerce; Logistic Committee; National Secu-rity Programme (Somod); Abdullah Bin Hamad Al Attiyah International Foundation for Energy and Sustain-able Development; Qatar Shell; INJAZ Qatar; Asthma Qatar Network; and the UAE, Swedish, Dutch and Ger-man embassies.

QNA

DOHA: Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of State for Cabinet Affairs H E Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid Al Mah-moud yesterday chaired the Cabinet’s weekly meeting at the Emiri Diwan.

The session approved a draft law amending some provisions of Law No. 18 of 1997 on Qatar Scouts and Guides Association, and decided to refer it to

the Advisory Council. The amendment requires that the

Ministry of Education and Higher Edu-cation oversees the association.

The Cabinet also approved the licence for the Economic Zones Com-pany (Manateq) to use the territories of the industrial zone in Al Rakiya and Al Karaana. It took steps to ratify an agreement between Qatar and Bosnia and Herzegovina on the organisation of the recruitment of workers from that country in Qatar.

The Cabinet approved a draft legal and judicial cooperation agree-ment between Qatar and Morocco. It also endorsed draft memorandums of understanding (MoUs) for cooper-ation in the field of transport, culture, sports, tourism and education between Qatar and Turkmenistan and a draft MoU for cooperation in the field of financial affairs between both for-eign ministries.

The session endorsed a draft MoU for cooperation in the fields of youth

and sports between Qatar and Azerba-ijan, and a draft MoU for cooperation in the field of transport between the concerned ministries of both coun-tries. The Cabinet also approved a draft protocol amending some provi-sions of an agreement between Qatar and Azerbaijan on exemption of dip-lomatic passports holders and private travel passports of requirements for obtaining a visa.

It also endorsed a draft MoU for cooperation in the legal field between

Qatar and Singapore, and a draft MoU for cooperation in the field of educa-tion between the concerned education ministries of both country.

The Cabinet reviewed a letter by the Governor of Qatar Central Bank and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Qatar Financial Markets Authority regarding a proposal for fee for Qatar Financial Markets Authority, Qatar Stock Exchange and Qatar Cen-tral Depository Securities, and took the appropriate decision.

Cabinet nod to amend law on Qatar Scouts and Guides Association

H E Sheikh Joaan bin Hamad Al Thani, President, Qatar Olympic Committee (QOC), with other officials at the event.

Sheikh Joaan CSR Person of the Year 2015

HOME 03 THURSDAY 3 MARCH 2016

The Peninsula

DOHA: Qatar Museums (QM) is launching the Healthy Food Initia-tive to raise awareness about healthy lifestyles and promote healthy eating.

The initiative, being launched in celebration of Qatar International Food Festival, has been developed under the guidance of H E Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khal-ifa Al Thani, Chairperson, QM, with support of Alain Ducasse, whose first Middle-Eastern restaurant, IDAM, is in Museum of Islamic Art (MIA).

To mark the festival, QM is organ-ising promotional events, talks and activities to encourage a widespread focus on healthy eating. MIA Café is launching recipes developed in col-laboration with lifestyle and food bloggers from the local community. The brand new, updated menu fea-tures healthy eating options.

The initiative is an innovative pro-gramme to increase awareness among Qataris about leading a healthier life-style. It seeks to highlight the link between overweight, diabetes and other illnesses. It also conveys pos-itive messages about healthy eating habits and demonstrates that healthy food can be easy and delicious too.

Sheikha Al Mayassa said: “The festival provides the ideal oppor-tunity to highlight the relationship

between food, healthy eating, exercise and wellbeing. We’re delighted that leading figures such as Alain Ducasse and Nasser Al Attiyah have chosen to back our initiative. With their involve-ment and support, we hope to engage as many people as possible in taking positive steps to eat well and lead a healthy lifestyle.”

Chef Ducasse said: “I am happy to support H E Sheikha Al Mayassa’s initiative. I am convinced that taste development is a significant lever for a good diet. Developing a wide and varied taste palette is the key to diver-sifying and enjoying a healthy diet.”

QM is organising a Healthy Food Show, including a full afternoon of panel talks, a debate with a leading nutrition expert, a conversation with Ducasse and a session on physical exercise with an international athlete. On March 25 from 4.30pm to 8.30pm QM will bring together three world-renowned experts to share dietary advice and promote physical exercise at the festival — doctor and nutrition-ist Valérie Espinasse, rally driving and ball trap champion Nasser Al Attiyah and Ducasse.

QM to raise awareness about healthy lifestyle

DOHA: Global lifestyle personality Martha Stewart and Australian MasterChef Judge George Calombaris are among celebrity chefs to feature at Qatar Inter-national Food Festival (QIFF), Qatar Airways (QA) has announced.

QA, the official co-host of the festival, is bringing back its popular Cooking Theatre, a signature event for festival-goers. This year the award-winning air-line will present culinary events at Museum of Islamic Art Park and Katara Cultural Village.

QA’s on board chef, the multiple award-winning Vineet Bhatia, will again create inspired cuisine for visitors to the airline’s live stage show. Returning to the festival from Canada, festival favourite and creator of Qatar Duty Free’s Soprafino Restaurant at Hamad International Airport, Chef Massimo Capra, will make appearances throughout the seven-day event.

Four international Michelin star-rated talents com-plement the exclusive line-up: Palate-pleasing Japanese chef Tagaki Kazuo; Australian chef Paul Bentley; Bang-kok legend Tim Butler; and celebrated pastry chef Jesus Escalera. Additional talents include Francisco Ruano, owner of one of the top five restaurants in Mexico and

former chef at world-famous Noma Restaurant, and fabulous chefs from the Arabic food channel Fatafeat; Daad Abu Jaber; Salma Soleiman and Mohamad Orfali.

HIA, partner of FC Bayern Munich, has secured the football club’s Head Chef Alfons Schuhbeck to partici-pate in the Cooking Theatre and fans can look forward to learning about the team’s food favourites.

QA Senior Vice-President Marketing and Corporate Communications, Salam Al Shawa, said: “QA is invit-ing visitors to take a global food journey at this year’s festival, courtesy of the most-talented chefs, who will inspire them with flavours that transport them to all corners of the world. Rashed Al Qurese, Chief Market-ing and Promotion Officer, Qatar Tourism Authority, said: “Hosting celebrity chefs from around the world is one of the festival’s attributes, allowing visitors to wit-ness up close skills and special ingredients that go into so many popular international dishes. We would like to thank our partners at QA for making these appear-ances possible and look forward to welcoming the culinary stars.” Children will enjoy the presence of the much-loved Kidzmondo characters who will appear at festival activities throughout the week.

Healthy Food Initiative marking Qatar International Food Festival, has been developed under the guidance of H E Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, Chairperson, QM, with support of Alain Ducasse.

Martha Stewart, QA Cooking Theatre to feature

at Qatar International Food Festival

The Peninsula

DOHA: Eric Chevallier, French Ambassador to Qatar, yesterday vis-ited The Peninsula offices.

He was welcomed by Dr Khalid bin Mubarak Al-Shafi, Acting Edi-tor in-Chief of the newspaper who

briefed the ambassador on the news-paper’s vision, focus and views after the relaunch at the start of this year.

Ambassador Chevallier said he was aware that The Peninsula was providing a wide coverage to news about his country and activities and events of the French embassy in Doha.

He said he looked forward to

further cooperation with the news-paper, especially as Qatar is home to a 5,000-strong French community.

The ambassador also toured the editorial section of the newspaper and met people on the news desk and members of the online editorial staff.

He praised The Peninsula, its cov-erage of local and international news, and its team and facilities.

Dr Khalid bin Mubarak Al-Shafi, Acting Editor-in-Chief, The Peninsula, holding talks with French Ambassador to Qatar Eric Chevallier at The Peninsula office yesterday. Pic: Baher / The Peninsula

French envoy visits The Peninsula and praises coverage of local and international news

The Peninsula

DOHA: Eleven universities from Lon-don showcased new technologies and opportunities for collaboration with institutions and individuals in Qatar, at an exhibition at Katara yesterday.

The exhibition by the London Universities International Partner-ship (LUIP) and backed by the £2m GREAT UK Challenge Fund, part of the UK Government’s GREAT Brit-ain Campaign, explored the role of knowledge and skills in the devel-opment of ‘smart cities’.

The innovative showcase fea-tures the River Thames Installation designed by Omid Kamravi, a Middle East graduate from the Architectural Association School of Architecture in the UK.

Depicting the flow of the Thames in London, the installation demon-strated how London’s universities are educating the next generation of city leaders, educators, plan-ners, creatives, medics, researchers and builders. It explored themes,

including building on the legacy of the London 2012 Olympic Games by working on projects to make com-munities healthier and draw on the creativity of the revitalised area around the Olympic Park in East London.

Other ideas included initiatives to build sustainable homes and work-places, projects to monitor the quality of food for humans and animals, and a programme about how schools can produce the leaders of the future.

“Collaboration between univer-sities in London and Qatar-based institutions and individuals continues to grow and we are keen to build on that relationship to forge more part-nerships in the future,” said Matthew Pencharz, London’s Deputy Mayor, Environment and Energy.

“It is the sharing of current thinking and research on smart cit-ies through to the teaching of the next generation of city planners — whether town planners, civil engi-neers or more likely technologists creating new apps and programmes — that will continue to have profound effects on today’s cities and how we

all live. “The showcase is a demonstra-

tion of the depth of creativity and ideas in London’s universities, which can assist Qatar.”

More than 100,000 students from over 200 countries choose to study in London each year. The British capital is a trusted destination for students and accreditations earned in the UK are recognised all over the world.

“The relationship between stu-dents from Qatar and the UK is strong and enduring. So many of Qatar’s leading figures have spent time stud-ying in the UK and I am delighted that each year this figure increases.

“I am sure this will continue to be the case as demonstrated by the high level of interest in the showcase.

“Britain is well placed through its world-class educational insti-tutions to assist Qatar in building a knowledge-based economy which is fundamental to delivering Qatar National Vision 2030. This is an important part of the partnership between the UK and Qatar, which I am committed to supporting,” said Ambassador Ajay Sharma.

British Ambassador Ajay Sharma addressing the event. Pic: Baher / The Peninsula

11 London varsities hold expo at Katara

HOME04 THURSDAY 3 MARCH 2016

QNA

GENEVA: Qatar reiterated keenness to promote national development in all axes while enhancing interna-tional development cooperation.

This came during a speech delivered by Faisal bin Abdullah Al Henzab, Qatar’s Permanent Repre-sentative to the United Nations Office in Geneva, before the annual high-level panel discussion on human rights mainstreaming at the 31st session of the UN Human Rights Council. He said: “We foresee with the start of the council’s second dec-ade of action a new era coinciding with implementation of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda we consider an important step towards a better world in which all peoples and individuals are equal in their right to live in dignity, development and prosperity.

“The agenda leads through its

objectives to one goal, promoting and protecting human rights, espe-cially if we look at development as a basic right and sustainable devel-opment goals as an integral part of the obligations stipulated by human rights agreements.”

The council represents the spearhead in efforts towards implementation of the agenda by supporting and urging member states to fulfil their obligations in this regard, he added.

He said Qatar has made great strides towards the enforcement of the Millennium Development Goals as part of Qatar National Vision 2030 and its institutional strategies, led by the National Development Strat-egy (2011-2016), which made big and concrete achievements, particu-larly in the areas of education and healthcare and raising the standard of living for individuals, placing the country in a leading position in the international human development indicators.

The Peninsula

DOHA: Ooredoo has announced that Ooredoo Mobile Money users can win an all-expense-paid trip to see the final of the sixth ICC World Twenty20 hosted by India, thanks to MoneyGram, the official money transfer part-ner of the ICC World Twenty20.

The ICC World Twenty20 is one of the highlights of the cricketing season and starts on Tuesday, with 16 teams playing in seven Indian cities during the tour-nament. MoneyGram and Ooredoo Mobile Money will give customers a chance to win a fully paid round-trip to Kolkata to watch the final match live on April 3.

Existing and new Ooredoo Mobile Money customers can enter by transferring money to India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal or Afghanistan via Money-Gram until March 18 to be eligible to win.

The prize will include an economy class return ticket, two night’s hotel accommodation, airport and venue transportation, and hospitality service by ICC’s official sponsors, MoneyGram. New customers can reg-ister for Ooredoo Mobile Money by dialling *140# and following instructions on their mobile phones USSD menu or download the free Ooredoo Money App.

Once registered, customers can deposit money into their mobile account using any of the 200 Ooredoo self-service machines across Qatar. Deposits can also be made through Ooredoo shops or direct transfer from QNB accounts using the QNB Mobile Payment service.

Winners of the MoneyGram ICC World Twenty20 2016 competition will be chosen through electronic draw and will need to apply independently for their visa to India. For the terms and conditions of the com-petition or details about Ooredoo’s Mobile Money, visit www.ooredoo.qa

The Peninsula

DOHA: Qatar Charity (QC) inau-gurated its electronic project ‘ShopAndAid.com’ considered the first of its kind in the region.

Developed and run by QC, the project is an opportunity for the public to give charity and support humanitarian projects implemented by QC around the world. Whenever they want to purchase items online, they could donate. No charges will be required. They could buy clothes, electronic devices, or anything they desire. It aims to encourage people to be involved in charitable work and offers a new method through the Internet to support relief and devel-opment programmes and projects for the needy groups.

Mohammed bin Abdullah Al

Yazidi, CEO, Financial Resources, QC, said, “QC supports and inaugurates creative and innovative projects that serve the field of humanitarian work.

It supports projects that would involve communities, their people and institutions, in charity and vol-untary work. QC uses technology and advancements in communication and the Internet to promote and finance relief and development programmes and projects which serve needy peo-ple around the world. It also does its best to facilitate the donation process.”

Al Yazidi encouraged online shop-pers to visit ShopAndAid.com and by from one of the most famous elec-tronic stores such as Amazon.com. ShopAndAid.com gives viewers the chance to find the best prices from global stores.

By selecting the product, a share of the profits of the company or store would be immediately allocated to

charity work. Shoppers will not be charged extra. “People would buy and give charity at the same time,” he added. Buyers can purchase items through ‘Shop & Aid’ website by accessing ShopAndAid.com website through any browser from computers or mobile phones, search for the prod-uct you wish to purchase; compare the prices, buy and pay. After that, a share would be transferred for charity work.

ShopAndAid.com has signed part-nership agreements with the world’s best stores. The deals state that every time someone buys anything through these stores, a share will be paid for charity work without charging the buyers. QC uses the donated money to finance projects that cover all fields such as water, healthcare, social matters, education and economic empowerment to enable poor com-munities to keep their dignity through relief and development projects.

Doha: The Ministry of Economy and Commerce, in collaboration with Al Attiya Motors and Trading Co., dealer of KIA vehi-cles, has announced the recall of KIA Soul mod-els of 2014 and 2015 as potential noise may occur while turning the steering wheel.

The ministry said the recall is within the frame-work of its efforts to protect consumers and ensure dealers follow up on vehicle defects and repairs.

The ministry said it will coordinate with the dealer to follow up on maintenance and repairs and communicate with customers to ensure nec-essary repairs are carried out. It urged customers to report any violations to its Consumer Protection and Anti-Commercial Fraud Department through hot-line: 16001; email: info@mec.gov.qa; Twitter: @MEC_Qatar; Instagram: MEC_Qatar; and the ministry’s mobile app for Android and IOS: MEC_Qatar.

Ministry recalls

KIA Soul models

of 2014-2015

Ooredoo and MoneyGram

offer chance to watch

T20 World Cup in India

The Peninsula

DOHA: The Annual Research Con-ference 2016 (ARC’16) — the flagship event of Qatar Foundation Research

and Development (QF R&D) — will be held under the theme ‘Investing in Research and Innovating for Society’.

Bringing together some of the world’s brightest minds, ARC’16 pro-vides a platform to highlight the importance of strategic investment in research and innovation for the ben-efit of Qatar’s society and address the country’s national ‘Research Grand Challenges’ on a global scale.

The annual event will take place on March 22 and 23 at Qatar National Convention Centre (QNCC).

The Qatar National Research Strategy provides the framework for QF R&D’s objectives and measures of performance by guiding decisions to invest in research and development programmes that highlight critical national priorities.

“Qatar’s research and develop-ment objectives are clear — invest in human capital by encouraging con-tinuous innovation and fostering a

culture of excellence for the benefit of society. The conference showcases these efforts and promotes closer engagement among national stake-holders and the wider research community. It is a tangible demon-stration of our dedication to drive research and development in Qatar,” said Dr Nabeel Al Salem, Executive Director, Outreach and Communica-tions, QF R&D.

Held under the patronage of H H Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, Chair-person, Qatar Foundation, the event will see participation of local and global experts to engage in progres-sive discussions on best practices to address national priorities and tackle the four research grand challenges: Water security, energy security, cyber security and healthcare.

The opening plenary will include a high-powered keynote panel discus-sion entitled ‘Strategic Investment in Research and Innovation for Society’.

Parallel discussions will follow, inves-tigating key topics in energy and environment; computing & informa-tion technology; healthcare; social sciences, arts and humanities; and innovation. ARC’16 will showcase important local and international collaborations. Guest speakers from Qatar Biomedical Research Institute, Qatar Computing Research Insti-tute, Qatar Environment and Energy Research Institute, Qatar National Research Fund, and Qatar Science & Technology Park — all members of QF — will lead discussions alongside local and international delegates. It will also include the announcement of success-ful grant applicants under QNRF’s flagship National Priorities Research Programme and the 8th Undergradu-ate Research Experience Programme competition, through which students gain research and development expe-rience under the guidance of faculty members.

QNA

DOHA: Minister of Justice H E Dr Hassan Lahdan Saqr Al Mohan-nadi yesterday issued a decision, nominating members of National Committee for International Human-itarian Law. The decision stipulates that the committee will be chaired by Undersecretary of Justice Sultan bin Abdullah Al Suwaidi.

The committee yesterday held its first meeting for the year at its head-quarters at the ministry. Brigadier Abdullah bin Saqr Al Mohannadi, from the Ministry of Interior was nominated as Vice-President of the panel. It reviewed proposals for its working system and identi-fied the terms of reference of the sub-committees.

The president of the committee briefed the new members on the National Committee for Interna-tional Humanitarian Law, referring to the Cabinet Decision No. 27 of 2012 establishing the national com-mittee. It reflects Qatar’s approach to resolving international conflicts and providing assistance to victims as part of its keenness in the inter-national humanitarian field, he said.

The president made the dis-tinction between the International Humanitarian Law, which applies in time of armed conflict, and the

International Human Rights Law, which applies in time of war and peace, pointing out that the com-plementarity between both aims to protect the lives, health and dignity of individuals.

This year, the national com-mittee aims to achieve the highest performance levels through activ-ities covering most of the terms of reference of the sub-committees being prepared by the rapporteur and the technical team, which will be presented to members.

The Cabinet approved last October 14 the allocation of a head-quarters for the committee at the new Ministry of Justice. The panel comprises Colonel Hadi Hadi Salem Al Marri of the Ministry of Defence; Sheikh Khalid bin Jassim Al Thani from the Foreign Ministry; Fatima Abdulaziz Bilal from the Minis-try of Justice; Saleh Ali Al Khalidi, from the Ministry of Administra-tive Development and Labour and Social Affairs; Mohammed Iskandar Al Qadhi, from the Ministry of Edu-cation and Higher Education; Abdul Latif Ali Al Abdullah, from the Minis-try of Public Health; Mohammed bin Khalid Al Ghanim, from the Advisory Council; Dr Talal Ahmed Abdullah Al Emadi, from Qatar University; Amal Abdullatif Al Mannai, from Qatar Foundation for Social Action; and Dr Fawzi Oosidik, from Qatar Red Crescent Society.

Qatar keen to promote international

development cooperation: Envoy

Members nominated for global

humanitarian law panel ARC’ 16 on March 22 and 23 ‘Investing in Research and Innovating for Society’ is the theme of Annual Research Conference 2016, a flagship event of Qatar Foundation Research and Development.

QC unveils ‘ShopAndAid.com’

The Peninsula

DOHA: Power supply to all parts of the Pearl-Qatar has been restored following an outage caused by a techni-cal snag to cables outside the Island on Tuesday, United Development Company (UDC), the master developer of the Pearl-Qatar, said yesterday. Supply was restored to almost all areas and precincts by 8am yesterday.

“We would like to thank all residents of the Pearl-Qatar for patience, understanding and cooperation over any inconvenience they may have faced due to the out-age. The root cause of the incident has been identified and rectified. Stringent measures are being put in place to prevent such incidents in the future, although it was beyond UDC control,” said a UDC spokesperson.

UDC expressed gratitude to all hotels and residency facilities that provided accommodation and services to host the Pearl-Qatar residents.

Power to all parts of Pearl-Qatar restored

Dr Sheikh Khalid bin Thani Al Thani honouring a graduate of the first batch of trainees who took part in the Social Psychiatry Counsellors’ Training Programme of the Mental Health Friends Association at the graduation ceremony yesterday .

Dr Sheikh Khalid honours graduate

HOME 05THURSDAY 3 MARCH 2016

The Peninsula

DOHA: Qatar Airways Cargo is transporting 118 of the world’s most admired show jumping and dressage horses from Liege, Belgium, to Doha, on board three chartered Boeing 777 freighters equipped with air stables to allow the precious cargo to travel in maximum comfort.

The horses, which will all take part in the international equine event, CHI Al Shaqab, taking place in Doha from 2-5 March, will be accompanied by a dedicated team of almost 90 vets and grooms as they undertake the jour-ney, alongside more than 30,000kg of equine equipment.

Ulrich Ogiermann, QA’s Chief Officer Cargo said: “Qatar Airways Cargo is proud to offer its support to this world-class equestrian event. We take great pride in pro-viding the highest standard of services on the ground and

in the air for our equine guests, and we are committed to ensuring that they are handled with the utmost care by our team, just as we do with everything that we trans-port. The team at Qatar Airways Cargo is well trained and works in line with IATA’s Live Animal Regulations to provide the most comfortable journey for the horses.”

With a team of dedicated equine experts, Qatar Airways Cargo offers a world class facility for the trans-portation of horses. The QR Equine service includes specifically designed aircraft, comprising both Airbus and Boeing freighters, featuring controlled temperature zones, spacious horse stalls and a team of dedicated grooms to accompany horses, ensuring their comfort, safety and smooth transportation. On the ground, at its state-of-art hub in Doha, Qatar Airways Cargo’s Live Animal Facil-ity offers an equally sophisticated environment with air conditioned holding stalls, a paddock and on-site veter-inary personnel.

The Peninsula

DOHA: Qatar Airways’ (QA) inaugu-ral flight to Sydney touched down at Sydney Airport yesterday.

A delegation of VIPs from Qatar, including QA Group Chief Executive Akbar Al Baker, were met from the aircraft by Sydney Airport Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Kerrie Mather; Official Secretary to the Governor of New South Wales, Colonel Michael Miller RFD; Destina-tion NSW Chairman, John Hartigan; and Tourism Australia Managing Director, John O’Sullivan.

QA now operates a Boeing 777-300 daily from Doha to Sydney connecting Australian passengers to its global network of more than 150 destinations. QA has been serving Australia since 2009 when it com-menced flights to Melbourne, later

adding flights to Perth in 2012.Al Baker said: “Touching down

here in Sydney for the first time today is an important milestone for QA and for the people of Australia. We are delighted to be able to offer passengers flying from Sydney the opportunity to connect to more than 150 places on our global network via our state-of-the-art airport in Doha. We look forward to taking the people of Sydney to the places they want to go on our modern aircraft, and giving them a taste of the Arabian hospital-ity and comfort that earned us the aviation industry’s most prestigious title of Skytrax Airline of the Year in 2015. The new route to Sydney is expected to generate an estimated 3,000 jobs in New South Wales and contribute more than AUD$240m to the local economy.

The new service will also provide 84 tonnes of cargo capacity per week in and out of the New South Wales

(NSW) capital, connecting Australia’s leading exporters to QA Cargo’s glo-bal network of more than 150 stations around the world. QA Cargo, the third largest international cargo airline, already carries 301 tonnes of freight in the belly hold of its Boeing 777 pas-senger aircraft into and out of Perth and Melbourne per week.

Sydney Airport Managing Direc-tor and Chief Executive Officer, Kerrie Mather said: “We’re thrilled to welcome QA to Sydney Airport. QA is a three-time Skytrax Airline of the Year winner and will provide pas-sengers with more choice, a quality product and seamless connectivity through Doha’s new Hamad Interna-tional Airport to destinations around the world.

“QA’s new daily service will boost tourism, providing an additional 245,000 seats per year, generating an estimated 3,000 jobs and contrib-uting more than AUD$240 million to the Australian economy.

“It will also foster trade, provid-ing greater air cargo capacity and access to the Middle East. Australian exports to Doha grew by 23 percent last year, and the State of Qatar’s high demand for livestock, cereal, meat, dairy products and crops provides a significant opportunity for Aus-tralian exporters.” NSW Minister for Trade, Tourism and Major Events, Stuart Ayres said: “I am delighted to welcome the first QA flight to Syd-ney, which will provide a valuable increase in aviation capacity from the Middle East and greater connec-tivity to Sydney and regional NSW, particularly for travellers flying from the United Kingdom and Europe via Doha.

The Peninsula

DOHA: Ooredoo has signed a major security agreement with Si, a pioneering solu-tions provider, which will position Ooredoo as the leader in Managed Security Services provision across the region.

The partnership, which was completed at Mobile World Congress in Barce-lona last week, will provide Ooredoo customers with an enhanced suite of online security services, includ-ing 24x7 security incident detection and response services, to keep their data and their businesses safe.

Companies and organ-isations in the region have come under increas-ing pressure in recent months as the volume of attempted cyber-attacks has increased.

Working with Si, Oore-doo will ensure that, even if there is a security breach, customers will receive an incident report within min-utes for serious threats so that they can react imme-diately to fix the problem.

Customers will be able to benefit from Security Information and Event

QA Cargo flying in 118 champion horses for equestrian event

QA’s inaugural flight touches down at Sydney Airport

The Qatar Airways’ flight arriving in Sydney yesterday.

Ooredoo in deal to deliver better cyber security

The Peninsula

DOHA: The Meteorology Department has fore-cast a change in weather conditions from Satur-day evening until Sunday evening, with chances of scattered rains.

Weather charts indicate a possibility of further rains on Tuesday night and until end of Wednesday.

Temperature in Doha today is expected to range between 17 degrees Celsius and 25 degrees Celsius.

Weather change

from Saturday

Management (SIEM) as a service, access-ing around-the-clock monitoring without the need for major hardware investment. In addition, Ooredoo and Si will also offer a Managed Firewall service, deploying the very best talent and technology in the security industry to protect customers’ networks and systems.

Yusuf Abdulla Al Kubaisi, Chief Oper-ating Officer, Ooredoo Qatar, said “We want our customers to be able to focus on their core services, and have the peace of mind of knowing that their systems are being protected and monitored by world-class security experts. This best-in-class agreement with Si means that we are able to offer incredible levels of security around the clock, and enable customers to access these resources through an affordable, scalable model.”

Feras Tappuni, Managing Director, Si company, said: “Our company works hard to deliver innovative projects in a simple way, so that customers know what they are getting and receive immediate and sustainable benefits. Ooredoo provides world-class networks supported by strong experience in integrated ICT provision, so together we will be able to deliver the highest level of security and service.”

SIEM as a Service from Ooredoo will offer real-time monitoring services that are scalable, compliant, cost effective, and available every minute of every day. The cloud-based service will be secured across Security Operations Centres (SOCs) in Doha.

The Managed Firewall service is cloud-based to offer a resilient and dependable service for corporate clients.

HOME06 THURSDAY 3 MARCH 2016

The Peninsula

DOHA: The Public Works Authority ‘Ash-ghal’ will implement a temporary diversion on the Water-filling Station Roundabout in Al Khor City, and open a single-lane dual carriageway section on Al Khor Road (Street No. 212) in front of Al Khor Sports Club for 700 metres in the direc-tion from Al Shamal Road to Corniche and

vice versa. The existing southbound lanes of Al Khor Road will be closed for the same length.

The diversion begins this evening for six months, in coordination with the traffic department. Traffic on the closed rounda-bout will be diverted to a new temporary roundabout with a bigger radius that was constructed on the same location to avoid traffic congestions.

Ashghal will install road signs to advice motorists of the diversion.

DOHA: Safari has announced ‘Gold Rush’ mega promotion from today until September 13 at its outlets across Qatar.

Customers who buy goods worth QR50 dur-ing the period at any Safari outlet will get a raffle coupon to enter the draw for ‘Win 6 Kilo Gold’ at Safari Mall. Three winners will get 1kg of gold every month: First winner 500grammes; second winner 300grammes and third win-ner 200grammes, Zainulabideen K (pictured), Director and General Manager, Safari Group, said in a statement.

The first draw will be held on April 5, sec-ond on May 5, third on June 5, fourth on July 5, fifth on August 7 and sixth on September 14.

He said: “To provide exciting, value added and customer-centric shopping experience and strengthening relationships, we have decided to launch this promotion and give away 6kg of gold to customers. Thanks to all Safari custom-ers and avid shoppers who have shown great

support and enthusiasm for our previous mega promotion with 18 Toyota Camry cars.

“Over last many years of operations, we have perfected our products and services to cater to the increasing needs of customers. We have made categories of quality products avail-able and affordable for customers through our ideally located outlets and are working on many more ways to serve our customers better. Our all previous mega promotions were appreciated by customers and we expect the new promo-tion will also be accepted and supported by our customers,” the statement said.

Safari has defined itself to be a trendsetter in the retailing industry in Qatar within a short period of operations.

Its frequent special price offers and mega promotions with bumper prizes aim to ensure quality products at most competitive prices and opportunities for customers win fabulous prizes.

Continued from page 1

Inter city routes in operation are Al Ruwais/Al Shamal, Al Thakhira, Dukhan, Mesaieed Industrial City, Abu Samra, Umm Garn village, Al Kheesa and Al Khor Community.

The corresponding bus routes are 100, 101, 102, 104, 104A, 109, 135, 137, 170, 172 and 102X. All the routes operate from the central bus terminal in Al Ghanim. The new buses are also used for the route from Hamad International Airport to West Bay via Corniche road/City Center mall, and the corresponding route number will be 777. Route 300 operating from Asian town to Abu Nakhla is now extended to

Al Shehaniya (Workers Camp) via Raw-dat Rashid. The extended service will be in operation from 4am to 11pm with a frequency of 30 minutes per trip. The last service from Asian town will be at 9pm and return from Al Shehaniya will be at 10.50 pm.

“We are receiving requests from vari-ous sources for route changes, additional routes and we evaluate the requirement to ensure the demand is met with increased ridership. Then the proposal is submitted to the Ministry of Transport and Com-munications to verify the feasibility of operating as per safety of the road con-ditions and we get our approval,” said Mowasalat CEO Khalid Al Hail.

Bus route 300 extendedOne of the long-route inter-city buses.

Safari begins ‘Gold Rush’ mega promotion

Ashghal announces traffic diversion

The Peninsula

DOHA: On a two-day visit to Qatar, Thailand’s Labour Minis-ter Sirchai Distakul praised the standards of Labour City.

‘This is one of the best and most well-equipped worker accommodation sites I have visited. I am pleased with the standard of welfare available to workers here. “Labour City is a clear indication that Qatar is determined to set the standard of worker welfare in this region.”

Labour City can accommo-date some 70,000 workers, who come to the state to participate in its construction projects, such as those for the 2022 FIFA World Cup.

Labour City, 14km from Doha and covering an area of 1,100,000sqm is one of seven accommodation complexes the government is building for about 260,000 migrants.

There are over 40,000 Thai workers in Qatar, Minister for Development Planning, Labour and Social Affairs H E Dr Issa bin Saad Jaffali Naimi suggesting there should be more.

Naimi said: “We are extremely proud of the contribution Thai nationals make to Qatar’s devel-opment and growth. As we move towards realising Qatar’s National Vision 2030, we look forward to welcoming more highly-skilled individuals from Thailand over the coming years.”

The Peninsula

DOHA: Two local charitable organizations have come forward to provide physiological support to Syrian children living in refu-gee camps.

Sheikh Thani bin Abdullah Foundation for Humanitarian Services (RAF) and Abdullah Abdul Ghani Foundation for Cross-Cultural Understanding “Hadara” have readied 10,000 school satch-els containing books of short stories and pamphlets in Arabic language. The initiative aims to provide psychological support to the children affected by the ongo-ing conflict in Syria and help them imbibe social values.

Reports posted on the websites

of some global charities suggest that Syrian refugee children need psychosocial support as some of them suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.

There is a lack of necessary resources to address the needs of a staggering number of trauma-tized children.

“RAF gave priority to the issues of children in refugee camps by providing them psy-chological and educational support,” said Ali bin Yousuf Al

Kuwari, Director of Public Rela-tion Department of RAF.

Children represent half of the refugee population affected by the war in their home country, they are the weakest segments of soci-ety and most deserving people for such initiatives, said Al Kuwari.

He was speaking at a joint press conference organized by RAF and Hadara here yesterday.

“Hadara has published two famous books for children to be distributed as part of its ‘school

bags initiative’”, said Abdul Aziz bin Abdul Rahman Al Abdul Ghani.

One of them is entitled Al Janna Ajmal (the paradise is more beautiful) written by a famous scribe of United Arab Emirates (UAE), Mawza Al Jaberi.

The book has been translated into 12 languages. The second book is entitled “Tasali”. This book will not only provide knowledge to children but it will focus on other aspects like religion, behaviour and morality.

FROM LEFT: Raba Abdul Hameed, Abdul Aziz Abdul Rahman Al Abdul Ghani, Ali Yousaf Al Kuwari and Dr Walid Al Rafai during the press conference at RAF office yesterday. Pic: Abdul / The Peninsula

Physiological help for Syrian kids RAF and Hadara have prepared 10,000 school satchels containing books of short stories and pamphlets in Arabic language for kids at refugee camps.

The Peninsula

DOHA: Qatar represented by the Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation (Kahramaa) will today mark the Arab Water Day under the slogan “We must economize water to achieve sus-tainable development” .

The major aim of this day is to shed light on the Arab efforts to rationalize water consump-tion and conservation of drinking water under the current chal-lenges facing water resources in Arab countries, Kahramaa said yesterday.

Recognizing the importance

of water is one of the very essential elements to achieve susta inable development and support the economic renaissance the country is wit-nessing. Kahramaa has set plans to develop and renovate all water facilities to raise productivity and meet the increasing demands, said a statement.

Minister of Energy and Industry H E Dr Mohammed bin Saleh Al Sada said, everyone knows we are living in an area which faces scarcity of water resources and we are facing a number of challenges including rapid underground water deple-tion, increased salinity, scarcity of rains and steady increase

in demand due to population growth. The economic boom is necessitating the adoption of solutions which assure achieve-ment of sustainable development,

He said Qatar is keen to diversify the use of water by encouraging parallel means to reduce consumption and utiliz-ing all means to preserve water resources. “This year’s celebra-tion gives more importance to awareness about rationaliza-tion of water usage as one of the effective means to maintain water resources of the country,” said Al Sada. Taking into account of the fact that “per capita Arab water consumption is considered one of the highest in the world”.

Thai minister hails

guest worker

conditions in Qatar

Qatar to mark Arab Water Day

By Sanaullah Ataullah The Peninsula

DOHA: Fresh vegetables and fruits at the Central Market have become a little cheaper this year as compared to the same period of 2015, official fig-ures show.

Price trends of fresh vegetables and fruits in the third week of last month (from February 14 to 20) show that the former were four percent cheaper while the latter, six percent in a year.

Comparative prices of fresh vegetables and fruits ruling at the Central Market were given for the third week of February 2015 and 2016 by the Ministry of Economy and Commerce in a report yesterday.

But fish has become dearer now as compared to the corresponding period of last year, as reflected

by the ministry figures.Fish prices have risen 10 percent from a year ago

but the rates of the most popular fish Hamour and a delicacy loved by Qataris, fell by eight percent.

Some vegetables that have become expensive in a year include carrot, cucumber, Saudi cauliflower, Chinese garlic and Jordanian lettuce. The vegetables that witnessed a decline in pricing are Chinese gin-ger, Qatari Khoosa, tomato and capsicum.

The fruits that became dearer include Egyptian strawberry, Turkish lemon and Lebanese orange (Clementine) . However, American and Lebanese pear, Indian pomegranate, Philippines banana, Pakistani orange, and Chinese apple became cheaper. Fish such as Safi, Al Rabib, Al Shari, Al Balul, Al Khabat, Al Naisar and Al Khofar of local variety became expensive. Hamour fish recorded a decline in prices from QR32 per kg earlier last year to QR30 currently.

Fresh vegetables and fruits cheaper

GULF / MIDDLE EAST 07THURSDAY 3 MARCH 2016

Agencies

DUBAI: The six-member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) named Hezbollah a terrorist organisation yesterday, opening up the possibil-ity of further sanctions against the Iran-allied group that wields influ-ence in Lebanon and fights in Syria.

The Sunni Muslim dominated council — representing Saudi Ara-bia, the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar — already imposed sanc-tions on the Shia group in 2013 after it entered Syria’s war in support of President Bashar Al Assad.

In yesterday’s announcement, GCC Secretary-General Abdul-latif Al Zayani said the council would now “take the necessary measures to implement its deci-sion ... based on anti-terrorism laws applied in the GCC and sim-ilar international laws”. Zayani did not specify what action might follow,

but Saudi Arabia, the biggest power in the grouping, last week said it had blacklisted four companies and three Lebanese men for having links to Hezbollah. Zayani accused Hezbollah of committing “hostile acts” against GCC states, includ-ing recruiting young men to carry out “terrorist attacks, smuggling weapons and explosives, stirring up sedition and incitement to chaos and violence”.

Individual members of the Gulf Cooperation Council have already labelled Hezbollah a terrorist group.

There was no immediate reac-tion from Hezbollah. But a day earlier, its leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah had said Saudi Arabia had pushed Lebanon into a new phase of political conflict by announcing it was suspending an aid package to the Lebanese army.

Nasrallah also stepped up criti-cism of Saudi Arabia, accusing it of directing car bombings in Lebanon.

Leading Sunni power Saudi Arabia and its Shia regional rival Iran compete for influence across the region and back different fac-tions in divided Lebanon. Riyadh cut diplomatic ties with Tehran after demonstrators set fire to its embassy and a consulate following the Saudi execution of a prominent Shia cleric.

Former Lebanese Sunni prime minister Saad Al Hariri stopped short of publicly endorsing the Saudi deci-sion, but criticised Hezbollah for its involvement in Syria and its alleged involvement in Yemen which he described as “unlawful, criminal and terrorist”.

QNA

TUNIS: Prime Minister and Inte-rior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani took part in the meeting of the 33rd session of the Arab Interior Ministers’ Council, which kicked off here yesterday.

The event is attended by the interior ministers of Arab countries, high-level security delegations as well as repre-sentatives of the United Nations, the Arab League, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), the Arab Maghreb Union (AMU), the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol), United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and Naif Arab University for Security Sciences (NAUSS).

Participants will discuss in the session, which was opened by Tuni-sian President Beji Caid Essebsi. Prince Mohammed bin Naif bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Crown Prince, Deputy Premier and Minister of Interior of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Honorary Chair-man of the Arab Interior Ministers’ Council, Dr Nabil El Araby, Secre-tary-General of Arab League and Dr Mohammed bin Ali Kuman, Secretary-General of the Council, and several high-level officials are participating in the meeting.

Reuters

SYDNEY: Australia followed major world powers by lifting sanctions on Iran yesterday, after confirmation from the United Nations that Tehran had taken steps required to curb its disputed nuclear programme.

Under changes announced by the Australian government, businesses

will no longer need to seek approval for transactions of more than A$20,000 ($14,436) involving enti-ties from Iran.

While Australia has suspended some of the sanctions imposed on Iran auton-omously in 2008 because of the Islamic Republic’s nuclear programme, some non-nuclear sanctions remain in place, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) said in a statement.

Sanctions still in force against

Iran include restrictions on the trans-fer of proliferation sensitive goods, the arms and ballistic missiles embar-goes and sanctions against some designated persons and entities.

Australia’s anti-money laundering watchdog AUSTRAC expects report-ing entities to scrutinise all payments that are routed via third-party coun-tries to Iran or North Korea, which is also subject to sanctions due to its nuclear programme. AUSTRAC says

all transactions to those two countries should be considered as “high risk.” Iran has always denied its nuclear programme was aimed at obtaining an atomic bomb. The United States and other countries formally lifted banking, steel, shipping and other sanctions on Iran in January, giving one of the world’s major oil produc-ers access to international markets that it had been virtually shut out of for the past five years.

Australia softens sanctions against Iran

GCC declares Hezbollah terrorist group

Reuters

AMMAN: Jordan’s security services said yesterday they had thwarted a plot by sleeper cells of Islamic State mil-itants to blow up civilian and military targets in the US-allied Arab kingdom.

One of Jordan’s biggest security operations in years tracked down militants with suicide bomb belts to a hide-out in the northern city of Irbid near the Syrian border, according to a statement carried by the state news agency Petra.

Seven militants were killed in clashes that began on Tuesday night and lasted until dawn and a police officer was also killed, it said. Security forces seized automatic weapons, munitions and explosives from the Islamic State cell.

“After diligent and detailed intelligence gathering the intelligence department was able soon to thwart a crim-inal and destructive plot linked by the terrorist Daesh group aimed at destabilising national security,” the state-ment said, using the pejorative Arabic acronym for Islamic State. No details were given on the targets or the plot.

Two security sources said dozens of special forces had been involved in the operation and that the mili-tants had been holed up near a Palestinian refugee camp in the centre of Irbid.

Militants who refused to surrender engaged in heavy exchanges of fire with special forces that also injured five policemen, the security services statement said. “They showed heavy resistance with automatic weapons and so the security forces dealt with the situation with the necessary force.”

King Abdullah, a key Middle East ally of Western pow-ers against Islamist militancy who has also safeguarded Jordan’s peace treaty with Israel, has been among the most vocal leaders in the region in warning of threats posed by Islamic State, which has seized swathes of ter-ritory in Syria and Iraq.

The monarch, in ceremonial military attire, attended the funeral of the dead police officer along with several thousand people near the city of Zarqa.

Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour told lawmakers that the security operation had fully achieved its goals, saying the targeted “terrorist group” had forged organisational ties with Islamic State in an attempt to destabilise Jordan.

Jordan has tried and sentenced dozens of suspected militant, mostly Jordanians returning from neighbouring Syria’s civil war. Some of them were recruited by Syria’s al Qaeda offshoot Nusra Front or by Islamic State insurgents.

“We live in a neighbourhood that is full of terrorist organizations ... All of our effort is directed towards stop-ping these terrorist organizations from attacking us and undermining the security of our country,” government spokesman Mohammad Al Momani said.

PM attends Arab Interior Ministers’ meeting

Prime Minister and Interior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani attending the 33rd session of the Arab Interior Ministers’ Council, in Tunis, yesterday.

The two-day session will dis-cuss reports carried out by member states on the Arab security strat-egy, the Arab strategy for combating

terrorism, the Arab strategy to combat the illegal use of drugs and psycho-tropic substances, the Arab strategy for traffic safety, the Arab strategy

for Civil Protection (Civil Defense) in addition to the fifteenth annual report to follow up implementation of the Arab Convention against terrorism.

Dialogue open with Hezbollah: Hariri

Jordan foils plot to attack military targets

Kuwait’s National Assembly announced a new law yesterday aimed at criminalising expressions of support for Hezbollah on social media.

Lebanon’s former prime minister Saad Al Hariri (centre) looks on during the 36th presidential election session at the parliament building in Beirut, yesterday.

Reuters & QNA

BEIRUT: Former Lebanese prime minister Saad Al Hariri, a Sunni Muslim, said yesterday he would keep domestic dialogue open with rivals Hezbollah, after the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) designated the Shia group a ter-rorist organisation.

Hariri, who is backed by Saudi Arabia, told a news conference it was not up to him to agree or dis-agree with the terrorist listing, but that he wanted to continue meetings with Hezbollah “to avoid sedition” in Lebanon.

However, Hariri also criti-cised the group for its involvement in the Syrian war and its alleged involvement in Yemen as “crimi-nal, unlawful and terrorist”.

Meanwhile, Lebanese par-liamentarians missed another opportunity to elect a president

after only 72 of the 128 Members of Parliament (MP) showed up for the elections.

Speaker of the House, Nabih Berri, was obliged to postpone the session to March 23.

The country has been without a president since May 2014 and sys-tematic boycotts by the deputies have stopped the parliament from attaining the required quorum of 86 deputies to hold elections.

Saudi soldiers on armoured vehicles during the multi-national military exercise ‘North Thunder, at an undisclosed location in Saudi Arabia, yesterday. Some 350,000 military personnel and over 2,000 warplanes from 20 countries are participating in the war game.

Saudi-led military exercise

GULF / MIDDLE EAST08 THURSDAY 3 MARCH 2016

40 agreements signed on truce in Syria: Russia

Reuters

MOSCOW/GENEVA: Russia’s defence ministry said yesterday a total of 40 agreements had been signed on a ten-tative ceasefire in Syria and talks with other groups were ongoing, Russian news agencies reported.

“With the mediation of the Russian Federation, negotiations are continu-ing with the leaders of 11 more armed groups,” RIA news agency quoted the ministry as saying.

A senior US official said yesterday that the United States was work-ing with Russia to improve access to besieged areas in Syria and to stop the Syrian government from remov-ing medical supplies from aid convoys. Antony Blinken, deputy US Secretary of State, said that major and regional powers were monitoring a fragile ces-sation of hostilities that went into force on Saturday to “prevent any escala-tion” but it was a “challenging process”.

“At the end of the day the best pos-sible thing that could happen is for the cessation of hostilities to really take root, and to be sustained, for the humanitarian assistance to flow and then for the negotiations to start that lead to a political transition,” Blinken told a news conference.

The World Health Organisation said Syrian officials had “rejected” medical supplies from being part of the latest convoy to the besieged town of Moadamiya on Monday. WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said they

AFP

ALEPPO, SYRIA: Their guns propped up on a mattress nearby, Tarek Muhrem and his fellow Syr-ian rebel fighters plop down on their couch along Aleppo city’s front lines for an evening of football video games.

Instead of rifle triggers and walkie-talkies, they grasp small glasses of coffee and sweet tea between PlayStation sessions in their makeshift base in a battle-scarred neighbourhood.

Since a fragile truce came into effect across parts of the country on Saturday, rebels in Syria’s second city say the decrease in bombing has allowed them time to recover and visit their families.

“Things have gotten better over the past four days, as aerial bombardment of Aleppo city has stopped,” Muhrem, 35, says.

He heads the “Dawn of the Mar-tyrs” Brigade, which has signed on to the cessation of hostilities deal brokered by the United States and Russia. Although his fighters remain at the ready, anticipating possible regime violations, many are tak-ing the opportunity to recover from wounds or take a long-awaited break from clashes.

“Now, I spend my time checking up on the different forward positions that I’m responsible for to make sure fighters have everything they need

in terms of food and drink,” Muhrem says.

“We drink coffee late into the night and sometimes play PlaySta-tion together,” he says, smiling.

“Dawn of the Martyrs” militants are based in a crumbling apartment block in the Karam al-Turab neigh-bourhood of the city.

White sheets dotted with bullet holes hang across the neighbourhood streets to hide the remaining resi-dents from snipers.

Dressed in military gear, bored rebel fighters scroll through Face-book on their mobile phones and chat with family on the messaging application WhatsApp.

They sit in what appears to be an ornately decorated sitting room in the middle of a bombed-out dis-trict in Aleppo city.

Abu Nura, a 38-year old com-mander in the Jabhat Shamiyah rebel group, says he decorated the base himself in his spare time.

“The threat posed by the regime army on my front line has been nearly halved,” he says.

“Before the ceasefire, we clashed with the regime and exchanged artil-lery on a near-daily basis. But now there is a lot less shelling and there are no air strikes inside the city,” Abu Nura says.

Fighting has not stopped altogether.

Abu Nura accuses the regime of violating the truce in its first hours and says the rebels under his com-mand are even more vigilant than

ever before — even if they have more free time.

“Since the truce began, I spend some of my time drinking tea and chatting with my fellow fighters. The rest of the time, I go home and spend time with my four children,” he says.

Even pro-regime Facebook pages have posted photos of beaming gov-ernment soldiers, reclining on plastic chairs and sipping glasses of tea.

“Join us for a cup, it’s still our first one!” the caption reads, above several posts accusing opposition militants of truce violations.

Abu Fajr, a bald fighter of medium height with the Northern Division, says he spends his time reminiscing with his comrades about years of clashes in Aleppo.

Ahmad Jalal, meanwhile, uses his free afternoons to play football with the other fighters in his brigade.

“I think the war will last a long time and will not end soon, but I hope it will be over so I can go back to regular work and get married,” he says. Many fighters have dropped off their weapons for cleaning at local depots, says Oday, who manages an

ammunitions warehouse in the city.“The owners of these weapons

are now on break. This is why they left their weapons at the depot,” he says while wiping down a sniper rif le. Nearby in the rebel-held Ferdaws neighbourhood, rebel fighter Osama, 25, picks up small bags of vegetables from the souk for his wife.

Osama got married two months ago but has yet to take his honey-moon because of the intensity of the fighting around Aleppo city, partic-ularly in recent weeks.

AFP

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday he wants to expel to Gaza the fami-lies of Palestinian attackers who help in assaults as he came under increas-ing pressure over a five-month wave of violence.

Netanyahu asked the attorney general to examine the possibility of carrying out such expulsions, his office said, while rights groups imme-diately denounced the move.

“Expelling family members of Palestinians who aided attacks to Gaza will lead to a significant decrease in terrorist attacks,” a

spokesman for Netanyahu said on Twitter.

The proposal could prove to be a fresh source of tension ahead of a visit by US Vice President Joe Biden next week.

A wave of violence in Israel and the Palestinian territories since Octo-ber has killed 180 Palestinians as well as 28 Israelis, an American, a Suda-nese and an Eritrean.

Most of the Palestinians who died in the violence were killed by Israeli forces while carrying out knife, gun or car-ramming attacks, according to Israeli authorities. Others were shot dead by Israeli forces during clashes or demonstrations.

The Gaza Strip, hit by three wars with Israel since 2008 and run by

Islamist movement Hamas, is under an Israeli blockade that severely restricts the movement of people and goods.

It also has one of the world’s high-est unemployment rates, and the UN development agency said in Septem-ber that conditions in the strip could make it uninhabitable by 2020.

The Palestinian enclave, sepa-rated from the occupied West Bank by Israeli territory, has remained rel-atively calm during the current wave of violence.

Attorney General Avichai Man-delblit has reportedly said previously that such expulsions would violate both Israeli and international law.

Mandelblit was said to have made his recommendation after a member

of Netanyahu’s cabinet who is also a political rival of the prime minis-ter requested expelling relatives of attackers to Gaza or Syria.

Netanyahu has come under heavy pressure from right-wing members of his coalition over the continuing wave of violence.

Sarit Michaeli, spokeswoman for Israeli rights group B’Tselem, said “it seems obvious that the prime minis-ter is under a lot of pressure from the right now, from politicians accusing him of being soft against the wave of attacks.” “Any form of collective pun-ishment is illegal and in this case the point is trying to punish the relatives of attacks who aren’t actually accused of anything,” she said.

“This is a complete breach of

international law and the Geneva Convention.”

Legal analyst Moshe Negbi said he did not think the attorney general would agree to the proposal.

Expulsions of those directly involved in attacks had occurred in the past under defence regulations dating back to British mandatory Pal-estine, said Negbi.

“I find it hard to believe that the attorney general would agree to leg-islation which is even more draconian than the mandatory law,” he told pub-lic radio. Further violence occurred yesterday when two 18-year-old Pal-estinians were killed by Israeli troops after infiltrating a West Bank settle-ment and wounding a settler, the military said.

AFP

BRUSSELS: The European Union released ¤252.5m ($274m) in aid to support the Palestinian Authority’s health and education programmes and offer services to Palestinian refugees in the Middle East.

The European Commission, the executive of the 28-nation bloc, released the aid as it tries to help Palestinian institutions become more accountable and democratic to prepare them for running a future Palestinian state.

“Today the European Commis-sion has approved a 252.5 million euro assistance package for Pales-tine,” the commission said, adding it was the first part of its 2016 aid package.

“Through this package, the EU supports the daily lives of Pales-tinians in the fields of education and health, protecting the poorest families,” EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said, adding Palestinian refugees in the region would be given access to essen-tial services.

“But these steps are not enough; Palestinian institutions must continue to grow stronger, become more transparent, more accountable and more dem-ocratic,” Mogherini said in a statement.

“Viable and inclusive institu-tions, based on respect for the rule of law and human rights, are cru-cial in view of the establishment of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state.”

The European Union has long supported a two-state solution to the decades-old Palestinian con-flict, with a secure Israel existing alongside a viable Palestinian state.

But US-brokered peace talks collapsed in April 2014 and the prospects of fresh dialogue have appeared increasingly remote.

AFP

CIZRE, TURKEY: Residents of Cizre in southeastern Turkey began returning home after authorities partially lifted a curfew in place since December for a controversial operation against Kurdish rebels which left many homes destroyed.

Horrified residents found scenes of devastation and entire buildings in ruins following the clashes between the army and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) while others had their exterior walls blown out.

The regional governor’s office announced Tuesday that the cur-few in the mainly-Kurdish town -- in place since mid December -- would be lifted each day between 5 am and 7:30pm (0300-1730 GMT).

Thousands of residents carrying their belongings formed long queues at the entrance of the town where

checkpoints had been put up. “We fled on December 14 along

with our kids, only taking our clothes we wore. Nothing else,” said Hadi Akyurek, a local shopkeeper.

“Our house was destroyed. Our belongings remained under the rub-ble. We are left with nothing.”

The damage was even visible from the entrance of Cizre, with houses burned and shops destroyed.

People could be seen trying to recover their belongings from the rubble and checking for any corpses. In normal times, Cizre is home to some 100,000 people. Five corpses were pulled from the debris on Wednesday alone, two from base-ments and three from a garden.

Officials from the pro-Kurdish Democratic Peoples’ Party (HDP) have claimed at least 167 peo-ple were killed in three basements under buildings which were razed, with bereaved relatives weeping at the scene.

Netanyahu seeks to expel families of Palestinian activists EU releases €252.5m in aid for Palestinians

Tea breaks and video games:

Rebels use truce to relax

Residents return to Turkey town as curfew lifted

included emergency kits, trauma and burn kits and antibiotics.

“We are indeed very concerned about reports that medical supplies were removed from some of the aid

convoys. This is an issue that was brought before the task force,” Blinken said, referring to the International Syria Support Group (ISSG). “We are now working, including with Russia,

to ensure that going forward medical supplies remain in the aid convoys as they deliver assistance.”

Russian officials were not imme-diately available to comment.

“The removal of those supplies is yet another unconscionable act by the regime, but this is now before the task force and we will look in the days ahead as assistance continues to

flow to make sure that those medical supplies are in fact included,” Blinken said. The humanitarian task force, chaired by Jan Egeland, meets again in Geneva today.

Tarek Muhrem (right), head of the “Dawn of the Martyrs” Brigade and a rebel fighter, dressed in military gear play video-games as he sits in a room in his base in the middle of a bombed-out district in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, yesterday.

A senior official said the United States was working with Russia to improve access to besieged areas to stop the Syrian government from removing medical supplies from aid convoys.

ASIA / PHILIPPINES 09THURSDAY 3 MARCH 2016

Philippines

hunts tomb

raider priestPhilippines: Authorities said yesterday that they are looking for a parish priest who allegedly dam-aged part of a historic cemetery chapel in search of treasure. Father Nelson Silvela van-ished after the arrest of 10 men he alleg-edly hired to dig up the chapel known as the ‘Camposanto’, said Mayor Eduardo Servidad.

“We consider the Cam-posanto a holy place and we did not expect a priest like him to do a thing like this,” he said.

Two Tibetans set

themselves on fire

Beijing: Two Tibetans, a monk in China and a teenager in India, set themselves on fire on the same day to protest Bei-jing’s ironclad control of the Himalayan region, a rights group and reports said yesterday.

Kalsang Wangdu self-immolated in front of his monastery in a Tibetan area of Sichuan province.

The monk’s action was the first such pro-test in China this year, and brought the total number in the country to 144.

Reuters

MANILA: China sent several ships to a disputed atoll in the South China Sea, preventing Filipino fishermen from accessing traditional fishing grounds and raising tensions in the volatile region, Philippine officials said yesterday.

China had sent as many as seven ships to Quirino Atoll, also known as Jackson Atoll, in recent weeks, said Eugenio Bito-onon Jr, the mayor of nearby Pagasa Island in the Spratly Islands.

The Spratlys are the most con-tested archipelago in the South China Sea, a resource-rich region and crit-ical shipping lane linking North Asia to Europe, South Asia and the Mid-dle East.

“This is very alarming, Quirino is on our path when we travel from Palawan to Pagasa. It is halfway and we normally stop there to rest,” Bito-onon Jr said.

“I feel something different. The Chinese are trying to choke us by putting an imaginary checkpoint there. It is a clear violation of our right to travel, impeding freedom of

navigation,” he said. In Beijing, For-eign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said China’s Ministry of Transport had sent vessels to tow a grounded foreign ship and they had since left the surrounding waters.

“To guarantee safety of naviga-tion and of work conditions, China urged fishing vessels near the site to leave,” Hong said, adding that China had indisputable sovereignty over the atoll.

The Philippines Foreign Ministry said Chinese coast guard vessels had been seen at the atoll two weeks ago but were not in the area on yesterday.

“The Department is monitor-ing reports on the situation on the ground and reiterates its call for China to exercise self-restraint from the conduct of activities that could complicate or escalate disputes in the South China Sea and affect peace and stability in the region,” the min-istry said in a statement.

Earlier, the Philippine military said it was looking into the situation around Jackson Atoll, where a Chi-nese warship allegedly fired warning shots at Filipino fishermen in 2011.

“We know there are Chinese ships moving around the Spratly area,” spokesman Brigadier-Gen-eral Restituto Padilla said. “There are also ships around Second Tho-mas Shoal, so we want to make sure if the presence is permanent.”

Second Thomas Shoal is where the Philippine navy has been occu-pying and reinforcing a rusting ship that it ran aground in 1999 to bolster its claims to the disputed reef.

A military source from Palawan said a surveillance plane had seen four to five ships in the vicinity of Jackson Atoll last week.

“There are no indications China will build structures or develop it into an island,” said the source, who was not authorised to speak to the media about the South China Sea.

“The Chinese are trying to choke us by putting an imaginary checkpoint there. It is a clear violation of our right to travel, impeding freedom of navigation,” said Bito-onon Jr.

Beijing blocks access to sea in dispute: Manila

Reuters

JAKARTA: A massive quake struck yesterday off the Indonesian island of Sumatra, a region devastated by the 2004 Indian Ocean quake and tsunami, but initial fears of another region-wide disaster faded as tsu-nami warnings were cancelled.

Indonesian and Australian authorities called off their tsunami alerts within two hours of the 7.8 magnitude tremor, though it was still unclear if the quake had destroyed any buildings or killed people in Sumatra.

A National Search and Rescue Agency official gave an initial report of some deaths, but later withdrew those comments.

“Up until now, there is no

information about deaths,” said Heronimus Guru, the agency’s dep-uty head of operations. Any rescue operation will be hampered by the dark, which falls early in the tropi-cal archipelago.

There were no immediate reports of damage, but the shallower a quake, the more dangerous it is. The US Geological Survey originally put the magnitude at 8.2, revising it down to 7.8.

The epicentre was 808km south-west of the coastal city of Padang. It was 24km deep, it said, after first putting its depth at 10km.

“So far there have been no reports of damage,” Andi Eka Sakya, head of the National Meteorological Agency, said. “In Bengkulu (in southwest Sumatra) they didn’t feel it at all.”

The National Disaster Mitigation Agency said a tsunami was unlikely.

“Local governments of the city of Padang and some other areas in west Sumatra have said there was no tsu-nami and the warning can now be revoked,” spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said.

President Joko Widodo was stay-ing overnight at a hotel in Medan in North Sumatra and was safe, palace officials said. A Medan resident said he did not feel the quake.

Erwin, a resident of Mentawai, a chain of islands off Sumatra, said: “I am at the beach currently looking to see any tsunami sign with my flash-light. There’s nothing. A few minutes have passed but nothing, but many people have already evacuated to higher places.”

On Pagai, an island off the west coast of Sumatra, resident Jois Zalu-chu said by phone that there were no reports of damage or casualties there.

But Kompas TV said patients at hospitals in Padang were being evac-uated. A TVOne reporter said Padang residents were panicking and there were heavy traffic jams.

Indonesia, especially Aceh, was badly hit by the Indian Ocean tsu-nami in 2004.

A 9.15-magnitude quake opened a fault line deep beneath the ocean on Dec. 26, 2004, triggering a wave as high as 17.4 meters (57 feet) that crashed ashore in more than a dozen countries to wipe some communities off the map in seconds.

The disaster killed 126,741 people in Aceh alone.

Indonesia straddles the so-called “Pacific Ring of Fire”, a highly seis-mically active zone, where different plates on the earth’s crust meet and create a large number of earthquakes and volcanoes.

Residents use a variety of transport options as they rush to higher grounds in Padang late yesterday, after a powerful earthquake struck off the coast of the island of Sumatra in Indonesia.

7.8 magnitude tremor hits Sumatra

A general view shows a residential area following a fire in Manila, Philippines, yesterday. The fire left 60 families homeless.

60 families homeless in Manila fire

Agencies

UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations Security Council yesterday unanimously adopted a resolution that dramatically expands exist-ing UN sanctions on North Korea in response to its January 6 nuclear test, a measure largely negotiated by Washington and Beijing.

US President Barack Obama hailed the adoption of UN Security Council sanctions against North Korea, saying it sent a “simple mes-sage” that Pyongyang must abandon its weapons of mass destruction programs.

Obama said the unanimously adopted sanctions sent “a firm, united, and appropriate response by the international community” to a January 6 nuclear test and Febru-ary 7 missile launch.

US Ambassador Samantha Power said the new sanctions on Pyongyang go further than any UN sanctions regime in two decades and are aimed at cutting off funds for its nuclear and other banned weapons programs.

Under the sanctions, all cargo going to and from North Korea must be inspected and North Korean trade representatives in Syria, Iran and Vietnam are among 16 individuals added to a UN blacklist, along with 12 North Korean entities.

Previously states only had to inspect North Korean cargo ship-ments if they had reasonable grounds to believe they contained illicit goods.

“Virtually all of the DPRK’s (North Korea) resources are

channelled into its reckless and relentless pursuit of weapons of mass destruction,” Power told the council after the vote, adding that the cargo inspection provisions are “hugely significant.”

After nearly two months of bilat-eral negotiations that at one point involved US President Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jin-ping, China agreed to support the unusually tough measures intended to persuade its close ally North Korea to abandon its atomic weap-ons program.

North Korea has been under UN sanctions since 2006 because of its four nuclear tests and multiple rocket launches. The sanctions came in response to its recent nuclear test and February 7 rocket launch that Washington and its allies said used banned ballistic missile technology. Pyongyang said it was a peaceful satellite launch.

The list of explicitly banned luxury goods has been expanded to include luxury watches, aquatic recreational vehicles, snowmo-biles worth more than $2,000, lead crystal items and recreational sports equipment. The official North Korean news agency KCNA said on Monday the proposed sanctions were “a wanton infringement on sover-eignty and grave challenge to it.”

The proposal closes a gap in the UN arms embargo on Pyongyang by banning all weapons imports and exports. There is also an unprece-dented ban on the transfer to North Korea of any item that could directly contribute to the operational capa-bilities of its armed forces, such as trucks that could be modified for military purposes.

UN imposes harsh new

sanctions on N Korea

over nuclear launch

AFP

PHILIPPINES: Authorities yester-day probing an assassination attempt against an influential Saudi preacher who was on an Islamic State hit list, after the gunman was killed and two suspects arrested.

Preacher Sheikh Aaidh Al Qarni and Saudi diplomat Sheikh Turki Assaegh were both wounded in a shooting as they left a university auditorium in the southern port city of Zamboanga, where the cleric had given an address.

Their Filipino police escorts killed the lone assailant, while two other suspects who were seen with

the gunman were arrested as they tried to escape, police said.

“It all happened so fast. Suddenly there were gunshots,” local Muslim community leader Wakil Kasim, who was at the auditorium at the time of the incident, told reporters.

The gunman “popped up from the crowd, moved in close and shot the victim” as he was boarding his car, said city police spokeswoman Chief Inspector Helen Galvez, adding that the gunman then walked to the other side of the vehicle and shot the Saudi diplomat.

Qarni was shot in the right shoul-der, left arm and chest while Assaegh, a religious attache at the Saudi embassy in Manila, was wounded in his right thigh and left leg, according

to a police report. A student driver’s licence and a local government ID were recovered from the man, which identified him as a 21-year-old Fili-pino, but police said they were not ruling out forgery.

A uniform for engineering stu-dents in the Western Mindanao State University, where Qarni was speaking, was found hidden in his backpack, but university officials could not immediately confirm the gunman was enrolled in the insti-tution. Video reports on television showed the remains of the gunman, who was wearing a hoodie, sprawled face down on the ground beside the victims’ car. Authorities have not linked the incident with sympathis-ers of Islamic State Jihadists.

Attack on Saudi cleric under probe

The 12th annual Israeli Apart-heid Week (IAW) has been a remarkable success, with more than 250 cit-

ies worldwide marking the week of solidarity with the Palestinian people. Although it doesn’t please everyone, those who criticise IAW activities were brought abruptly to their senses last week when Israel demolished a Palestinian primary school in Al-Azariyeh, east of occu-pied Jerusalem. It is an action of the kind that highlights why IAW activ-ism remains essential.

Israel’s deliberate targeting of

the Palestinian education sector is, in fact, nothing new. During its 51-day war on the Gaza Strip in 2014, the Israel “Defence” Forces (IDF) com-pletely destroyed six government and private schools, eleven kinder-gartens and three higher education institutions. Around 450 other edu-cation facilities – more than half of them kindergartens – sustained minor, partial, major or severe dam-age; 83 UNRWA-run schools were also damaged.

At the time, the justification given was that the schools were either being used to store weap-ons or as bases from which to fire rockets at Israel. Of course, no rock-ets were ever fired into Israel by the Abu Al-Nawar Bedouin of Al-Azariyeh. Nevertheless, their school was demolished. The only differ-ence is that whereas F16 bombers were deployed to destroy educa-tion facilities in Gaza, bulldozers were used in Al-Azariyeh.

So why was the school knocked down by the Israelis? Did it pose a threat to Israel’s national security? Hardly. Palestinians believe it was because it was located too close for comfort to the illegal Ma’ale Adumim settlement, which Israel wants to expand still further. Even the most dedicated friends of Israel find the actions of its government revolting and indefensible in this respect. Brit-ain’s Prime Minister David Cameron described the settlements around Jerusalem last week as “genuinely shocking”.

There is no doubt that the sorry sight of children sitting on the ground in the bitter Jerusalem cold, or the image of them scurrying for shelter from the rain, brought back memories of the bad old days of South African apartheid. It is no wonder, therefore, that this year’s IAW was marked with 200 events at over 20 campuses in South Africa, and endorsed by more than 85

national organisations.Not satisfied with the demolition

of the Abu Al-Nawar School, the IDF confiscated its benches and tables, according to the school director Asma Sheha. While the demolition of a primary school is about as vile as it can get, taking its benches and tables speaks of an official mindset that is much worse; it is the sort of petty, vindictive action for which the white-run government in Pre-toria used to be reviled.

It is exactly 10 years since the Guardian’s Chris McGreal wrote his devastating two-part appraisal of South African and Israeli apartheid. He quoted John Dugard, the former UN human rights rapporteur in Pal-estine, who said that under South African apartheid the best parts of the country were reserved for the whites while blacks were sent to the least habitable and desirable areas: “One can draw certain par-allels with respect to South Africa that, during the heyday of apart-heid, population relocation did result in destruction of property, but not on the same scale as the devasta-tion in Gaza in particular, [or in] the West Bank.”

Having funded the Abu Al-Nawar School, the French gov-ernment rightly condemned its demolition by the occupation forces. A statement by the foreign minis-try deplored the demolition policy and called “on the Israeli authori-ties to end it.”

Unfortunately, “concern” and timid calls of this kind will not bring an end to the destructive campaign, which many view as a form of 21st century ethnic cleansing. Last week, the UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, Nikolay Mladenov, told the Security Coun-cil that since the beginning of 2016, Israel has demolished, on average, 29 Palestinian structures per week, three times the weekly average for

2015. Although 79 of the destroyed structures were funded by interna-tional donors, their response has not gone beyond verbal condemnation.

In Britain, the Conservative-led government has, despite the prime minister’s apparently genuine shock, moved to reward Israel by threaten-ing to withdraw funds from public bodies which support the inter-national Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions(BDS) campaign against the Zionist state. It is precisely because of this kind of calculated indifference and collusion by West-ern governments that International Apartheid Week has grown among caring citizens around the world; ordinary people are determined to make a difference by turning their backs on racism and reli-gious bigotry.

Like the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction campaign, Interna-tional Apartheid Week has provided a platform for people from across the political divide, of all racial back-grounds and faiths, including many Jews, to support what is right and just in Palestine.

The destruction of the Abu Al-Nawar School is a gross injustice and, above all, an act of naked racism, the type of which could only come out of an apartheid state. Israel’s claim that the inhabitants did not have a permit to build on the land epitomises its arrogance. It is Israel which is on the wrong side of the law. Thankfully, through the efforts of initiatives such as Israeli Apart-heid Week, the world has woken up to what is going on in the name of Israeli democracy. If you have any doubts about the travesty of the latter, just ask the children of Abu Al-Nawar School what they think.

The writer is the Director of Middle East Monitor (Memo).

By Jonathan Bernstein The Washington Post

We’re going to need some time to digest what hap-pened on Tuesday night

on the Republican side.Donald Trump won the most

votes. He won the most states. He won the most delegates. But did he move closer to winning the nom-ination? That isn’t so clear. Five Thirty Eight’s delegate maven, David Wasserman, said going in that “a disappointing night for Trump ... probably means anything less than 250” delegates won. It appears as if he’s going to wind up a bit over 250. This is fewer than half the del-egates up for grabs, however, so he’s not moving closer to an over-all delegate majority.

I’ve been looking at Trump’s overall vote percentages to see if he was picking up support as the

Republican field narrowed or if he would have trouble increasing his vote totals.

Overall, his Super Tuesday results were mixed and not espe-cially impressive. His apparent polling surge last week seems either to have dissipated or wasn’t real to begin with.

Ted Cruz won in Texas, his home state, and in neighbouring Okla-homa, and he was the spin winner of the night, judging by what the talking heads said on Tuesday night.

But Cruz failed to pick up any other wins in what should have been his strongest region. Some South-ern states have yet to vote, and it’s easy to underestimate how many conservative voters there are out-side of the South -- at least as a percentage of voters in Republi-can primaries. This was supposed to be Cruz’s big chance at winning delegates, however, and he appears to have fallen short.

Marco Rubio finally won a state,

Minnesota. He came close in Vir-ginia. He continues to do well with late-deciding voters. While he fell behind Cruz in delegates on Tues-day night, he should have a clearer playing field ahead. And help is on the way.

He spent relatively little on these states, but his super-PAC has been raking in plenty of money, and will presumably blast Trump in each coming primary.

But Rubio failed to perform his biggest task of the day: Knocking out Cruz. It’s possible John Kasich will drop out, but it may be too late. Kasich probably accounted for the difference between a decent night and a disappointing one for Rubio. Had Kasich dropped out after South Carolina and Nevada, the Florida senator would likely have won in Virginia, might have won in Ver-mont (where Trump and Kasich were running neck and neck), and probably would have crossed the thresholds needed to gain delegates

in three states where it appears he will fall just short.

Now, perhaps, everyone stays in, and Trump keeps winning most states. It’s even possible -- though unlikely - that they will carve up the map and each take a slice (with Kasich staying in and winning only Ohio), and we will get a contested Republican convention after all, with no candidate ending the pri-maries and caucuses with at least half of the delegates.

More likely, one candidate will wind up winning states in the lat-ter stages of the election calendar and reap plenty of delegates. This is what has happened before. Even front-runners who wind up winning are usually below the 50 percent mark at this stage in their delegate count. And on the Republican side, the rules make it easy for anyone who wins big to get a lot of dele-gates quickly.

So that’s what will happen this time. Right?

OPINION10 THURSDAY 3 MARCH 2016

Like the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction campaign, International Apartheid Week has provided a platform for people from across the political divide, of all racial backgrounds and faiths, including many Jews, to support what is right and just in Palestine.

A ferocious battle for the White House between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton has almost become a certainty as both leapt further ahead in the battleground states of a marathon Super Tuesday. Super Tuesday is the first day in which the US

presidential candidates participate in a primary that includes 12 states.

In the Republican race, Trump won seven states, with victories stretching into the Deep South and as far north as Massachusetts, adding to the momentum he had built last month by winning three of the first four contests. In the Democratic race, Clinton defeated Vermont senator Bernie Sanders in seven of the 11 states, including the delegate-rich prizes of Texas, Georgia, Massachusetts and Virginia.

As the battle heats up, attention will now focus on Trump whose march has baffled the Republican leadership as well as the American public, the former racking their brains on how to thwart the demagogue’s advance. With his incendiary and obnoxious remarks on immigrants, Muslims, women and on a host of other issues, Trump was initially written off as a blip but that indifference has now given way to dismay and desperation as the Republican hopeful strides steadily towards his goal.

Trump has been so divisive and an anathema to his own party that his victory has left Republicans in disarray while

Democrats coalesced around Clinton. Some Republican stalwarts have even raised the possibility of the party splitting if Trump wins the nomination. “I think that’s a very real possibility. There are a lot of people who just cannot see themselves supporting Trump,” said Christine Todd Whitman, a former New Jersey governor, summing up the general mood.

Americans and the rest of the world will be watching to see whether Trump sticks to all his hatred, or mellow down as he moves closer to the White House. But he continues to be as unpredictable and mysterious as ever. Several experts believe that the compulsions of office will force Trump to change his positions

if he gets elected and if that doesn’t happen, America will cease to exist as we know now.

Clinton and Trump have started sizing up each other. “I’m going to be going after Hillary Clinton – if she is allowed to run,” Trump said, sharpening his attack. Trump wants to make America great again, while Clinton wants to make America whole again. The world will expect both of them to make America great and whole again because what we see today is a weakened Washington that’s not bold enough to perform the seminal role it has been playing until now, and the country remains divided more than ever before, with racism, anti-immigrant rhetoric and Islamophobia at their peak.

Super Trump

A ferocious battle for the White House between Trump and Clinton has almost become a certainty after their Super Tuesday victories.

Quote of the dayAs a country combating terrorism for a long time now, every reprehensible terrorist attack that takes place here in Nigeria deeply hurts our heart.

Recep Tayyip ErdoganTurkish President

E S TA B L I S H E D I N 1996

CHAIRMANSHEIKH THANI BIN ABDULLAH AL THANI

ACTING EDITOR-IN-CHIEFDR. KHALID BIN MUBARAK AL-SHAFIeditorinchief@pen.com.qa

ACTING MANAGING EDITORHUSSAIN AHMADhussain@pen.com.qa

Israeli democracy is a travesty

By Dr Daud Abdullah

The most confusing Super Tuesday ever

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All thoughts and views expressed in these columns are those of the writers, not of the newspaper. All correspondence regarding Opinion page should be mailed to the Editor-in-Chief.

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ASIA / AFRICA 11THURSDAY 3 MARCH 2016

A man getting a bicycle from the popular shared public rental “YouBikes” at Xindian district in New Taipei City, Taiwan, yesterday. The International Cycle Show has started yesterday and will continue till Saturday.

Taiwan cycle show

Mob burns 7

to death in

witchcraft case

Malawi: A mob in south-ern Malawi burned seven men to death for allegedly possess-ing human bones for use in witchcraft, police said yesterday.

A traditional chief said local suspicions were aroused as a result of the movements and tel-ephone conversations of one of the seven, who was found to have a bag containing the bones.

“He was chased and arrested,” chief Tengani, who only uses one name, said. “The man is said to have confirmed that his bag contained human bones and that’s when the mob began rounding up the seven and burned them, one by one.”

Bird-hit Nepal

plane makes

emergency landing Kathmandu: A plane with nine passengers on board was forced to make an emergency landing at Kathmandu airport yes-terday, an aviation official said. It was a week after two deadly crashes high-lighted Nepal’s dismal air safety record. The plane was taking off for Lukla when a bird struck its right wing, No passengers were harmed. Birds pose safety concern for airport.

Agencies

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: At least half of the population or 2.5 million people in the Central African Republic are facing a hunger crisis, in a situation that has become dire, the World Food Programme said.

Bienvenu Djossa, WFP country director in CAR, said yesterday that the number of people battling hunger had doubled from 2015 and serious interventions had to be implemented to ensure the crisis did not deterio-rate. “It is serious. The situation is worse than last year,” Djossa said a statement.

“It is crucial that we continue helping the most vulnerable, who need emergency food assistance to survive. This is the time when people need the maximum help possible as it is also the lean season, when peo-ple struggle to have enough food to eat before the next harvest.”

Three years of bloodshed and the

displacement of nearly one million people from their homes have dis-rupted harvests and sent food prices soaring in the volatile country.

The WFP’s call for CAR not to be forgotten comes as the UN revealed that overall crop production in 2015 remained 54 percent below the pre-crisis average.

“Some 75 percent of people in CAR depend on agriculture, and with the planting season starting in less than two months, boosting agri-culture now is crucial to revitalising the economy and to stability in the country,” FAO Country Representa-tive Jean-Alexandre Scaglia said in a press release on Monday.

The WFP said that families are so short of food that children receiv-ing school meals under the WFP’s emergency programme put part of their serving in a plastic bag to take home. Families have been forced to sell their possessions, pull their chil-dren out of school and even resort to begging. The country suffered the worst crisis in its history in early 2013 when mainly Muslim Seleka fighters toppled then leader Francois Bozize. Christian militias responded by attacking the Muslim minority.

Killing and looting had almost halved the number of cattle and reduced the number of sheep and goats by almost 60 percent, the UN said. Damage to infrastructure and insecurity had also hit fishing.

An escalation of violence in Sep-tember helped exacerbate a massive increase in food prices, the agencies said, with the price of beef almost double pre-crisis levels.

WFP said it had only secured about half the $89m it needs until the end of July to respond to the needs of 1.4 million people in CAR.

Three years of bloodshed and the displacement of nearly one million people from their homes have disrupted harvests and sent food prices soaring in the volatile country.

UN warns of dire hunger crisis in CAR

A group of women wearing traditional Korean ‘Hanbok’ dresses pose for a selfie at Gyeongbokgung Palace in central Seoul yesterday.

Selfie in Hanbok dresses

Reuters

SYDNEY: Parts of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef face permanent destruc-tion if the current El Nino, one of the strongest in two decades, does not ease this month, scientists said yes-terday.

The El Nino is a result of a warm-ing of the ocean in the western Pacific—ideal conditions for coral bleaching, where coral expels living algae, causing it to calcify. Coral can only survive within a narrow band of ocean temperature.

The scientists said areas of the Great Barrier Reef, a world herit-age site, are experiencing the worst bleaching in 15 years.

Coral around Lizard Island off the tropical city of Cairns has seen the most widespread bleaching, with 80 percent of its coral bleached under unrelenting sunlight, Dr Anne Hog-gett, director, Lizard Island Research Station told Reuters.

“Bleaching is a clear signal that living corals are under physiological stress. If that stress is bad enough for long enough, the corals can die,” said Dr Russell Reichelt, chairman of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park

Authority said. “What happens now will be entirely dependent on local weather conditions,” said Reichelt.

Scientists said the Great Barrier Reef needs a break in El Nino condi-tions within weeks if some coral areas are to survive.

The Australian Bureau of Meteor-ology’s most recent forecast calls for a continuation of El Nino conditions.

This year will be the hottest on record and 2016 could be even hot-ter due to the El Niño weather pattern, the World The Great Barrier Reef stretches 2,000km along Australia’s northeast coast and is the world’s largest living ecosystem. It brings in

billions of dollars a year in tourism revenue.

UNESCO’s World Heritage Com-mittee last May stopped short of placing the Great Barrier Reef on an “in danger” list, but the ruling raised long-term concerns about its future due to climate change.

While the El Nino is set to ease by the middle of 2016, according to the BOM, the weather system - which brings hot, dry conditions to Australia’s east coast - is seen as fore-shadowing the likely impact of future climate change. “Coral is the canary in the mine,” said Hoggett of the looming threat from climate change.

Great Barrier Reef faces destruction

AFP

SOUTH AFRICA: The world’s largest rhino farm looks like a vast fortress and is guarded by a private army.

At night a helicopter fitted with an infrared camera circles over the 8,000 hectares electric-fenced ranch in South Africa, and by day armed men in military fatigues are on patrol.

Their sole mission: to protect 1,200 rhinos from poachers, who killed 1,175 of the horned beasts across the country last year.

Rhinos are being slaughtered in record numbers to meet the insatiable demand for their horns in countries such as China and Vietnam, often for

use in traditional ‘medicines’. The horn is mainly hard keratin, the same substance found in human nails, but on the black market where it is sold in powdered form it is believed to cure cancer and other diseases.

It can fetch as much as $60,000 per 1kg, more than gold or cocaine. Clad in khaki shorts, blue shirt and sandals, wealthy South African busi-nessman and rhino farmer John Hume says he has bred 600 rhino since 2008, but his target is to breed 200 each year.

“The way we are going to save the rhino from extinction is to breed more and protect them, and that is what I am trying to do here,” said Hume. His next battle is to secure the legalisation of international trade in horns, which

has been outlawed since 1977. Horns peddled on the black market are from dead rhinos but, if trade is allowed, demand would be fed from live ones. Just like nails, cut horns will regrow.

“We can supply horns from live rhinos, while now every single horn that you are supplying to the demand is coming from a dead rhino. Surely that is stupid. It absolutely flummoxes me,” said Hume.

Plans to legalise the trade are controversial, however, and are fiercely debated by conservationists.

Hume opened the farm in 2008 after selling hotels he owned. Today he employs around 60 full-time staff-ers plus his “army”, whose strength he refuses to divulge on the grounds that it is “too sensitive.”

Even the exact location of the farm -- where he spends some $170,000 (156,000 euros) a month in security costs -- is kept secret, to pro-tect it from poachers ravaging game parks elsewhere across the country.

On the plains of South Africa’s North West province where the farm is located, a dozen rhinos were due for dehorning. Standing at the back of a pick-up truck, Menard Mathe used a pair of binoculars to identify the ani-mals earmarked for dehorning.

In front of the vehicle, veterinar-ian Michelle Otto drew her gun and darted one animal with a powerful anaesthetic.

A few minutes later, the gigantic animal began to stagger. Otto cau-tiously walked towards it, and another

worker secured its hind legs with a rope, forcing it to fall limply to the ground.

Quickly the rhino’s eyes were cov-ered with a piece of mutton cloth and old socks used for makeshift earplugs. The horns are measured and a line is marked precisely where it will be cut, making sure blood vessels are not touched.

Then a handheld power saw cuts through the horn. The procedure is painless for the animal. “We trim their horns for their safety and to deter poaching,” said Otto. Despite the dehorning and the massive security cordon around the ranch, 39 rhinos have been poached there since 2008. Back at the farm building, the horns are weighed.

AFP

TOKYO: A Japanese court has told Internet giant Google to hide man’s criminal past from its search results, saying he has “the right to be for-gotten” to rebuild his life, according to reports.

The ruling parallels a move by the European Court of Justice, which said in 2014 that individuals have the right to ask Google to delete per-sonal data produced by its search engine.

Local media said it was Japan’s first court decision that recognised “the right to be forgotten” in con-nection with Internet search results, though successful bids to remove results have previously been made citing a right to privacy.

The Saitama District Court,

north of Tokyo, in December upheld an earlier, temporary injunction against Google to delete search results about a man convicted of child prostitution and pornogra-phy-related offences and who was fined $4,400, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported yesterday.

Presiding judge Hisaki Koba-yashi said that depending on the nature of the crime offenders have the “right to be forgotten about past crimes, after passage of a cer-tain period of time”, the Yomiuri reported, without naming the man or details of the crime.

The Internet company has appealed the case to Tokyo High Court, the Yomiuri said.

The district court declined to comment on reports on the closed-door session and Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Tokyo court tells Google to

hide man’s criminal past

S African private army protects world’s largest rhino farm

PAKISTAN12 THURSDAY 3 MARCH 2016

Migrants from Pakistan arrive at the Greek island of Lesbos, Greece, yesterday. Due to restrictions along the so-called Balkan route, a group of 150 migrants from Pakistan are going to be deported to Turkey today.

Migrants’ woe

AFP

JALALABAD: Gunfire and an explo-sion echoed yesterday as militants attacked India’s consulate in the east-ern Afghan city of Jalalabad, killing three people in the latest in a string of assaults on Indian installations in the country.

No group has so far claimed the brazen attack, which coincided with a Nato change-of-command ceremony that saw US army general John Nichol-son take charge of international troops in Afghanistan.

Indian diplomats were not hurt, the foreign ministry in New Delhi said, after a suicide bomber blew himself

up at the consulate’s entrance and four other attackers breached the compound.

“All four of them were killed by our security forces,” government spokes-man Attaullah Khogyani said after the two-hour assault ended.

“Three others — two civilians and one policeman — were killed and 19 other people were left wounded.”

The powerful explosion sent a col-umn of smoke rising in the sky and blew out windows of nearby buildings, as Afghan troops hauled away bod-ies from the area littered with charred debris.

The attack highlights the worsen-ing security situation in Afghanistan as Taliban insurgents step up nationwide attacks and Islamic State jihadists make inroads in the volatile east.

“There is still much work to be done. We now find ourselves at an inflection point in our campaign,” out-going Nato commander General John Campbell told reporters in Kabul.

“(Afghan security forces) have come far but they still need our help. (Their) desire to improve and their resilience warrants our continued support in the critical years ahead.”

Yesterday’s assault was reminis-cent of a 25-hour gun and bomb siege near the Indian consulate in the north-ern city of Mazar-i-Sharif in January.

India has been a key supporter of Kabul’s post-Taliban government, and analysts have often pointed to the threat of a “proxy war” in Afghanistan between India and Pakistan.

Pakistan — the historic backer of the Taliban —has long been accused of assisting the insurgents, espe-cially with attacks on Indian targets in Afghanistan, but denies the claims.

Direct peace talks are expected to start this week in Islamabad between the Western-backed Afghan govern-ment and the Taliban, which has been waging a deadly insurgency for more than 14 years.

Delegates from Afghanistan, China, the US and Pakistan recently met in Kabul for a fourth round of talks aimed at paving the way for the nas-cent peace process.

But the Taliban have intensi-fied their insurgency in an apparent attempt to gain leverage before the planned negotiations.

Nangarhar province, of which Jalalabad is the capital, also faces an emerging threat from loyalists of the Islamic State group, which controls territory across Syria and Iraq and is making gradual inroads in Afghan-istan -- challenging the Taliban on their own turf.

The jihadists have managed to attract disaffected Taliban fighters

increasingly lured by the group’s signature brutality. In January IS fighters claimed responsibility for a deadly gun and bomb siege of the Pakistani consulate in Jalalabad, the

first major attack by the group in an Afghan city.

The violence tearing the country apart is having a devastating impact on Afghan civilians.

A recent UN report highlighted more than 11,000 civilian casualties in 2015 including 3,545 deaths, a new record since 2009 when the agency began tabulating the statistics.

Reuters

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani police are hunting a 29-year-old man who shot his two sisters dead in a sus-pected honour killing, officials said yesterday, two days after a Paki-stani filmmaker won an Oscar for a documentary on such murders.

More than 500 men and women died in honour killings last year, the Human Rights Com-mission of Pakistan says. Many of these crimes, carried out by rela-tives who say their mostly female victims have brought shame on the family, are never prosecuted, observers say.

Police named the suspect as Muhammad Asif, saying he has been on the run since Tuesday night, after murdering his sisters Fozia Bibi, 22, and Suriya Bibi, 24, in the eastern province of Punjab.

“Muhammad Asif killed his two sisters last night over their character and lifestyle, which he didn’t like,” police officer Tariq Mehmood said. “Fozia was shot in her chest and Suriya was shot in her waist.”

Police said neighbours and rel-atives had told them the deaths were honour killings, over Asif’s suspicions that his sisters were having affairs.

Police said Asif was jailed after having murdered his mother four or five years ago, but set free after being pardoned by his family, but declined to provide details.

P a k i s t a n i f i l m m a ke r Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy won an Oscar on Sunday for a docu-mentary about honour killings, prompting activists to call for changes in laws to punish those who kill women deemed to have disgraced their families.

Pakistani law allows criminal cases against those charged with a killing to be dropped if the fam-ilies of their victims forgive them, or accept a “blood money” offer-ing instead. The forgiveness option in the law can effectively waive a complainant’s right to seek the punishment of the accused, even in the case of attempted murder.

Changing the law to remove the possibility of “forgiveness” could help cut the number of hon-our killings in Pakistan. Domestic abuse, economic discrimination, honour killings and acid attacks make Pakistan the world’s third most dangerous country for women, a 2011 Thomson Reuters Foundation poll showed.

Reuters

ISLAMABAD: A faction of the Paki-stani Taliban claimed responsibility yesterday for a roadside bombing that killed two Pakistani employees of a US consulate.

The Jamaat-ur-Ahrar said it detonated the remote-control-led explosive device on Tuesday in the Mohmand agency of Pakistan’s

Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), about 170km from the capi-tal, Islamabad. “Jamaat-ur-Ahrar’s mujahideen carried out a remote-controlled bomb attack that sent a FATA secretariat employee and his driver to hell,” said a statement emailed to Reuters.

Faisal Khan and Abid Shah were killed while on a drug eradication mission, the US State Department said. Khan was identified by US authorities as the most senior

Pakistani employee at the US Consu-late in Peshawar. Shah was identified as the driver, having joined the con-sulate in 2009 as a security specialist.

Four other Pakistanis were wounded in the blast, the Taliban said.

Pakistan’s volatile tribal areas have been home to an insurgency by Islamist militants under the banner of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) since 2007.

The tribal areas, including Moh-mand, have seen multiple rounds of

military operations reduce the TTP’s capacity, but targeted attacks against state and civilian targets are common.

Mohmand has seen increasing violence in recent weeks. On Feb-ruary 18, Jamaat-ur-Ahrar gunmen killed nine Pakistani paramilitary sol-diers in two separate attacks.

State Department spokesman John Kirby said the incident occurred when the two Pakistani employees were travelling in a Pakistani govern-ment Anti-Narcotics Force convoy in

Ambar tehsil, in the Mohmand Agency of FATA. “The US government strongly condemns the attack,” Kirby said, adding that the United States was offering its assistance to Pakistan in investigating the incident and bring-ing the perpetrators to justice.

Kirby said he said not know whether the consulate employees were the targets of the attack, which came during a visit to the United States by Pakistan’s national secu-rity adviser Sartaj Aziz.

Internews

ISLAMABAD: Though the gov-ernment of Pakistan has fixed the minimum wage at Rs13, 000 ($125), as many as 16,000 people are working for Pakistan Post Office Department (PPOD) as extra depart-mental staff (EDS) at the monthly remuneration of as low as Rs650 to Rs2,600.

This was revealed in a writ-ten reply submitted by the ministry of communication to the National Assembly in reply to a question by MNA Sahibzada Mohammad Yaqub of the Jamaat-i-Islami. The reply said the PPOD utilised the services of EDS and paid them fixed wages.

Extra-departmental postmas-ters and sub-postmasters are paid Rs2, 600 per month, branch postmen Rs1300, delivery agents Rs1, 060 and Rs650 are paid to the stamp vendors.

It may be noted that the post office department was established by the British government in the 18th century. It is one of the oldest government departments. In 1947, it started functioning as the depart-ment of post and telegraph.

In 1962, it was separated from the telegraph and telephone depart-ment and made as an independent attached department.

MNA Yaqub said that though he already knew that the staff mem-bers working in the post offices were underpaid, he was shocked to see the documents which showed that they were getting such a low remuneration.

“That is why the matter has been referred to the standing committee on communication. People have been working for Rs1, 200 and Rs650 per month which is nothing but an insult to human being.

“They should get at least the minimum wage even if they are over

60 years of age and those who have been working as extra-postmasters should be given a salary equal to the Basic Pay Scale 11 officials,” he said.

An official of the PPOD request-ing anonymity said senior officers in the department never tried to address the issues faced by the employees.

“Officers who are placed in the Postal Services Group after the Cen-tral Superior Services (CSS) exams are considered as inferior among the bureaucrats in other service groups.

“In return, these officers never pay attention to the staff and the department. In fact, they mistreat the subordinate officials.”

He said the department was spending 79pc of its funds on sala-ries. However, the management has started thinking that if it does not take steps to address the issues the department will be closed. So some steps are being taken to compete with the private sector and advanced technology is being used in the post offices, he said.

When contacted, Additional Director General (admin) Pakistan Post Dr Naseer Ahmed Khan said that 47,000 people had been work-ing with the department out of whom 16,000 were EDS. “EDS are not considered as employees of the department. The British government introduced EDS to ensure that letters and money orders reached villages located in far-flung areas where it was not viable to open post offices.

They hired people who were retired persons, ex-army officials or influential personalities of the areas to hand over consignments to the local people,” he said.

“That system is still in place. We have hired people as postmasters, sub-postmasters, branch postmen and delivery agents and by paying just a few thousand rupees to them, letters and money orders are deliv-ered in villages.”

Militants attack Indian consulate in Afghanistan

Afghan security officials inspect the scene of an attack by suspected militants at the Indian consulate in Jalalabad, yesterday.

Internews

LAHORE: The Punjab province government in Pakistan yesterday announced reduction in transport fares for multiple transport catego-ries after the decrease in fuel prices.

According to a notification issued by the Punjab Transport department, the fares for public transport vehi-cles using petrol have been reduced up to 11.9pc and fares for diesel vehi-cles have been reduced up to 6.6pc.

“The fares have been reduced for

two categories of non-AC intercity routes stage carriages and non-AC intracity stage carriage transport (diesel) and third non-AC intrac-ity stage carrier transport (petrol),” reads the notification.

The decision was made at a meet-ing presided over by Punjab Food Minister Bilal Yasin and attended by transport department officials and transport owners.

During the meeting, a commit-tee of four members, including two transport owners, was also consti-tuted to formulate regular schedule of reduction in fares.

The minister issued directives to all the divisional commissioners and district coordination officers (DCOs) to get the notification implemented across the province.

LTC: The Lahore Transport Com-pany (LTC) revised fares on the all urban and semi-urban public trans-port routes, according to an LTC spokesman.

According to a notification, the minimum fare/first stage (0 to 4km) of non-AC intracity diesel/minibuses, would be Rs9 and the maximum will be Rs28up for up to sixth stage (30.1km and above).

Punjab reduces transport fares after drop in oil prices

Man shoots dead sisters in suspected honour killing

16,000 underpaid staff working for Pakistan Post

Taliban claims responsibility for US consulate blast

Three people and four militants were killed after a suicide bomber blew himself up at the entrance of Indian consulate in Jalalabad.

INDIA 13THURSDAY 3 MARCH 2016

Security personnel use water cannons to disperse protesting Youth Congress activists as they try to cross a police barricade in New Delhi, yesterday.

Wet lash

Student charged with sedition gets interim bail

IANS

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court yesterday granted six-month interim bail to JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar, arrested for sedition, but imposed restrictions on him.

Justice Pratibha Rani ordered the bail after asking the Jawahar-lal Nehru University Students Union (JNUSU) president to furnish a surety of Rs10,000.

The judge said Kanhaiya Kumar — arrested on February 12 on charges of shouting anti-national slogans, a charge he has denied — should not take part in any “anti-national activity” actively or passively.

And as head of the JNUSU, “he will make all efforts within his power to control anti-national activ-ities in the campus”, she added.

The bail order triggered wild

celebrations in JNU campus where hundreds of students, dominantly from leftist groups, celebrated, shouting slogans hailing Kanhaiya Kumar.

“We are happy, we are happy,” a group of students said loudly.

Lawyer Vrinda Grover said she was happy with the bail order but said the surety would be provided only today when Kanhaiya Kumar is expected to walk out of Tihar Cen-tral Jail.

Special Public Prosecutor Shailendra Babbar told journalists that police would decide the next line of action after seeing the bail order.

“The order cleared one thing that we have some evidence to prove the charges framed against Kanhaiya,” he said.

“If there had been no ground in our evidence, Kanhaiya would have been given a proper bail instead of an interim bail.”

In Kanhaiya Kumar’s hometown Begusarai in Bihar, family members and supporters burst crackers and hailed the court order. They also dis-tributed sweets to residents.

On Monday, Delhi Police had opposed the bail plea, saying if Kan-haiya Kumar was released, incidents of the kind he has been accused of would get a boost.

Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) students and their supporters at a protest march to demand the immediate release of student Kanhaiya Kumar, in New Delhi, yesterday.

The police had been claiming for weeks that they had irrefutable evi-dence of Kanhaiya Kumar raising anti-India slogans but failed to pro-vide this to the court.

In the meantime, at least two of the seven video clips on the basis of

which sedition charges were slapped against him were found to be doc-tored after the Delhi government sent them for forensic tests.

Kanhaiya Kumar’s case led to a bitter war between the government and the opposition, particularly after

he was beaten up on February 15 and 17 when he was taken to the Patiala House Court.

Also on February 15, many JNU students and journalists, including an IANS reporter, were thrashed by some lawyers.

Police have also arrested two other JNU students on charges of sedition for having raised supposedly anti-national slogans at a meeting in the JNU campus to mark the execu-tion of parliament attack convict Afzal Guru.

Rahul Gandhi goes ballistic at Modi in Lok SabhaIANS

NEW DELHI: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was yesterday at his sarcas-tic best as he attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi on a host of issues ranging from his policies on Pakistan and black money to the JNU row and the Nagaland accord.

Speaking amid thumping of desks by Congress MPs and incessant boo-ing from the treasury benches, Gandhi spoke both in Hindi and English to accuse Modi of disrespecting Indian interests by going to Lahore to meet his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif without consulting even his ministers.

“Pakistan directly attacked this country in Mumbai. They trained and sent killers into Mumbai. And what does the PM do? He decides to go to Pakistan and have a cup of tea with Nawaz Sharif, without any vision,” Gandhi said in a 31-minute speech in

the Lok Sabha punctuated by witty remarks. Modi, Gandhi alleged, let Pakistan “out of the little cage” it had been put in after the Mumbai terror attack of 2008 which left 166 Indians and foreigners dead.

“He destroyed six years of our hard work. He gifted them (Paki-stan) a status and put them out of the cage we had put them in,” Gandhi said. “He disrespected the national flag, those who died in Mumbai, those who died in Pathankot, the talent of our bureaucrats (whom he did not

consult).”Looking at the BJP benches, Gan-

dhi said Modi did not share his Lahore visit of December 25 with even Exter-nal Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Home Minister Rajnath Singh. The remark drew loud protests from BJP MPs.

Gandhi went on: “The PM has to listen to others. Listen to Rajnath Singhji, Sushma Swarajji, Advaniji “… Listen to your MPs. We don’t hate you. Listen to your own people, listen to the voice of next generation.”

The prime minister was not in the House when Gandhi spoke.

The Congress vice-president appeared unruffled despite the repeated attempts to interrupt him. At one stage, he looked at the BJP MPs, smiled and said: “Bolne do bhai.”

Gandhi accused Modi and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley of going back on their election pledge and helping the rich to convert their black money into white.

“Nobody who has black money will be jailed under Modi’s ‘Fair and Lovely’ scheme,” he said, sparking laughter. “All those who have black money can make it white under this scheme.”

Gandhi, taking part in a discus-sion on the motion of thanks to the President’s address to parliament, was referring to Jaitley’s amnesty scheme on black money.

Pointing out that Modi had in 2014 vowed to jail those with black money, he said Modi had also failed to bring back black money stashed abroad.

Gandhi pulled up Modi for not speaking to the mother of Dalit research scholar Rohith Vemula after his suicide in Hyderabad — and his silence on the issue as well as the attacks on JNU students and journal-ists at a Delhi court last month.

Gandhi said he heard the entire speech of now jailed JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar. “Not a word was anti-national.”

The Congress leader also attacked Modi for signing a peace pact with the NSCN without consulting Home Minister Rajnath Singh and chief min-isters of Nagaland and neighbouring states. Where is the accord now, Gan-dhi asked. “It has vanished into thin air.” When BJP members interrupted him, Gandhi hit back saying he made mistakes “because I am not from the RSS”. “I don’t know everything. I lis-ten to the people, then speak.”

In contrast, he alleged, that those with the RSS do not bother about oth-ers’ views. “The country is not the PM, the PM is not the country,” he added.

Court sets aside order

against Pachauri IANS

NEW DELHI: A sessions court here yesterday set aside a magistrate court order asking TERI executive vice chairman R K Pachauri to fort-feit his surety bond and said one-day extension of Pachauri’s Sharjah trip was “neither deliberate nor inten-tional”.

Sessions Judge Raj Kumar Tri-pathi set aside a magisterial court order of February 19 and said: “Extension of one day schedule of return of revisionist (Pachauri) was beyond his control and his act was neither deliberate nor intentional, therefore, learned magistrate was not justified to dismiss the applica-tion of revisionist on February 19 and forfeit the surety bonds furnished by revisionist at the time of his travel.” A magistrate court on Febru-ary 19 ordered Pachauri to fortfeit his surety bond of Rs400,000 after fail-ing to return to India on February 18.

The court on February 15 granted permission to Pachauri to go to Shar-jah from February 16 to 18 where he

was to be conferred with Lifetime Achievement Award.

However, there was change in the date of arrival of Pachauri from Sharjah. Therefore, his counsel Ashish Dikshit filed an applica-tion for giving intimation to the court regarding change of his date of arrival on February 18, which was dismissed on a next date by a magistrate.

A chargesheet was filed by police in a sexual harassment case against TERI Executive Vice-Chairman R K Pachauri on Tuesday.

Pachauri was accused of harass-ing a woman colleague in 2015. He stepped down as chairperson of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Cli-mate Change in February last year and proceeded on leave from TERI where he was the director general.

In November, the woman researcher who accused him of har-assment quit her job at TERI, alleging she was treated badly.

TERI denied the charge.On February 8, Pachauri was

appointed the executive vice chair-man of the organisation.

Mulayam warns govt on quotasIANS

NEW DELHI: Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav yesterday warned the central gov-ernment of bad consequences if it decides to reconsider the issue of reservation as suggested by RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat.

“You (government) can’t recon-sider the issue of reservation as suggested by RSS chief. If you reconsider, it will be a blunder,” Mulayam said in the Lok Sabha while participating in the debate on motion of thanks on President’s Address.

He also took on the govern-ment over its promises made during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

“Farmers, labourers, students, teachers and intellectuals have been against the government. This is a serious concern. You made lots of promises during your election campaign but not even a single promise was fulfilled. You had promised two million jobs every year. You had promised to bring back black money but nothing happened,” he said.

“The countdown of this gov-ernment has begun,” he added.

Mulayam, however, showered some praise on Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his efforts on the international front.

Jubilation in JNU as Kanhaiya Kumar set to be released today

File picture of Narendra Modi, left, and Rahul Gandhi.

Two arrested for restaurant owner’s murderIANS

LUCKNOW: Uttar Pradesh Police yesterday claimed to have cracked the murder case of Ritz restaurant owner Bobby Khanna, with the arrest of two sharpshooters from Azamgarh.

Senior Superintendent of the Special Task Force (STF), Amit Pathak said the killing was exe-cuted for a sum of Rs5.7m.

The conspiracy was hatched by a city dentist who is now being interrogated. The STF has also stumbled upon many trails, sug-gesting shady deals of the slain restaurant owner.

A typist plies his trade on the sidewalk near the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court in Mumbai, yesterday. Many citizens work and offer their services in the street to make a living with the skills they have.

Street scribe

A man pushes a cycle rickshaw loaded with empty cooking oil containers at a roadside workshop in Kolkata, yesterday.

Container cargo

INDIA14 THURSDAY 3 MARCH 2016

CBI director ticks off bank heads for scams

IANS

MUMBAI: CBI Director Anil Sinha yesterday gave an earful to chiefs of top banks and financial institutions for the crises and scams plaguing the country’s banking and financial sectors.

In a no-holds barred speech in the presence of Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, the Central Bureau of Investigation chief said the crisis in the banking and financial system ‘runs deep’.

He said there was growing anguish among the public that while banks were strict on small/retail borrowers, the big borrowers and those who committed fraud on a large scale not only escaped the law but enjoyed the fruits of their crimes.

“Something is seriously wrong. While bank loan defaults can hap-pen due to business risk and reasons beyond the control of banks, bor-rowers and regulators, yet a significant part of the defaults are wilful and fraudulent.

“What causes greater concern is that a major part of the Non-Productive Assets and frauds are in large-value accounts,” Sinha asserted as top banking and finan-cial institutions’ heads listened in rapt attention.

Added to this was the “unduly

slow and long process” by which such loans and advances are ‘red-flagged’, declared NPAs, wilful defaulters and finally as fraudulent by the banks, Sinha said at the 7th conference of CBI and Indian Banks Association on ‘Combating Finan-cial Crimes’.

“This whole process is so time consuming that it allows such large borrowers ample time to walk away with the funds. A large part of such funds move outside the country to tax havens through hawala and other unofficial channels,” Sinha said.

Under such circumstances, coupled with “weak and diffused accountability mechanisms in banks and financial institutions”, CBI inves-tigations are grossly hampered and “no one seems accountable”, the central agency’s chief said.

“The message to the public is that the rich and powerful are able to avoid consequences of cheating and fraud, while the ordinary citizens are promptly booked. This undermines the faith of people in the rule of law, which has dangerous consequences in democracy,” Sinha said.

Quoting statistics, he said the gross NPAs of public sector banks shot up from Rs449.57bn in 2009 to Rs3000bn in 2015.

The level of gross NPAs as per-centage of gross advances also went up by more than double from 2 per-cent to 4.36 percent, without taking into consideration huge amounts tied up in accounts under restructuring.

Frowning upon the “delays in identifying and reporting frauds” by banks, allowing borrowers to siphon off funds before investi-gations are initiated, monitoring end-use of funds, especially in large-value accounts, or diversion for non-sanctioned purposes, the CBI chief cited two glaring cases it is investigating.

Trooper who shot dead two claims harassmentIANS

RATNAGIRI: A CISF trooper deployed at the Ratnagiri power plant who gunned down two colleagues and injured himself and his pregnant wife here, has claimed he lost his mental balance as he was “professionally harassed”.

Speaking to the media from hos-pital in Chiplun, Harishkumar Goud, 36, alleged that he and some others were being perpetually put on night duty by their seniors and subjected to harassment at work, resulting in the extreme step out of frustration late

on Tuesday night.He further claimed that he did

not fire at his pregnant wife and she was accidentally injured by a bullet when she got in the way. He said his complaints to seniors went unheeded.

The incident happened at the Ratnagiri Gas & Power Pvt Ltd when Goud got into a heated argument and shot two of his colleagues around din-ner time, an official of Guhagar Police told IANS.

The dead are assistant sub-inspector Balu G Shinde, 58, of Malangaon in Sangli district of Maharashtra and P Raneesh, 29 of Kerala.

After the firing, Goud allegedly

threatened an on-duty Central Indus-trial Security Force (CISF) official Balwan Bajesingh to keep his mouth shut.

Later, when his colleagues brought Goud’s 30-year-old wife, Priyanka, in an advanced stage of pregnancy, to calm him, he report-edly got into a fierce argument with her for almost an hour.

Suddenly, Goud fired and injured his wife and also shot himself. Later, his colleagues rushed the couple to a hospital in Chiplun early yesterday.

Goud and his wife are now out of danger and recuperating in a private hospital.

Ratnagiri police have lodged

cases including that of murder, attempt to murder and arms act against Goud, who hails from Mad-hya Pradesh.

An official of RGPPL — formerly known as Enron Power Project — said that Goud was under psychi-atric treatment since sometime but denied knowledge of his allegations of ‘professional harassment’ at the workplace.

However, the official could not explain how Goud was deployed with arms when he was under psychiatric treatment and said it was the CISF’s responsibility.

Senior CISF officials rushed to the site to probe the tragedy.

IANS

KOLKATA: To ensure the smooth conduct of West Bengal assembly polls, the Election Commission (EC) yesterday said poll day complaints would be addressed immediately and action taken report made available online.

“The Samadhan app will work as a multiple mode of receiv-ing complaints where besides in writing, video clips can also be uploaded for the purpose of regis-tering a complaint,” said Additional Chief Electoral Officer Dibyendu Sarkar during a media workshop.

“There are provisions to for-ward a complaint immediately to a flying squad, and complaints regarding votes on the polling day will be attended within 30 min-utes,” Additional Chief Electoral Officer Dibyendu Sarkar said dur-ing a media workshop.

“In case of poll day complaints regarding voting issues, a flying squad will be immediately dis-patched to the area concerned to take photo and video evidence and act accordingly,” he said.

Through the Samadhan, the complainant will also be able to track the status of complaints and the action taken report will also be made available online.

Conceding that the app may be used for making false or friv-olous complaints, the EC official said there are checks and balances to ensure that the platform is not misused repeatedly.

While Samadhan will act as a citizen interface, the political parties and candidates can avail the ‘Suvidha’ single window per-mission system for holding public meetings, rallies, use of a helicop-ter, making of a helipad etc.

Ad commercials try to move consumers with social messagesIANS

NEW DELHI: Why should laundry be a woman’s job? asks a new TV commercial for a detergent. Featur-ing the father of a young, working woman who gives voice to inequal-ity in homes, the video is one of the growing number of similar ads that are touching upon social issues like gender stereotyping while marketing products, and hitting a chord among audiences.

So are Indian ads coming of age as far as gender sensitivity is concerned? Yes, say many, although there are still those fairness ads that equate success and happiness with the skin tone of

a woman. Or a man. But coming to the ones that have positive messages riding on them, the latest ad of Ariel’s “Share the Load” campaign has gone viral on the social media, a testimony to its popularity. Sharat Verma, asso-ciate brand director of Fabric Care, P&G India, said that commercial approach is a part of a bigger move-ment of making ads that are more purposeful and meet the needs of consumers.

“According to a study by a pri-vate agency that we have supported, two out of three children in India agree that washing clothes is only their mother’s job. And 73 percent married women agree that mothers teach household chores to only their daughters, not sons. But ironically,

79 percent fathers would want to get their daughters married to a man who will help with household chores. This campaign therefore takes the conver-sation on social inequality within households forward,” Verma said.

The best ads also avoid a sermon-ising tone.

“There are 10,000 videos released in a day around the world. To make your presence felt in such a rush, you have to connect to the audience. We try to identify a conflict, like gender stereotyping or gender inequality in education, and resolve it. The brand does well commercially because it touches the people, and the social message also goes through,” Paul said.

BBDO’s ad for Visa Debit Card was another video that challenged

one to think of solutions to age-old problems. Set in a village in Rajas-than where girls drop out of school because they have to walk miles to get water, the protagonist purchases sewing machines online, and then gets tailor-made saris for the young women with alphabets on them. This way they can learn to read from each other’s saris while going to get water.

K V Sridhar, chief creative officer, SapientNitro India, says that Indian advertising has come a long way and with people wanting to break norms and challenge stereotypes, the ad world has started reflecting it. “A campaign is all about treatment and if a big brand is able to treat bold con-cepts subtly, then the message will be disseminated in a better way,” he said.

“It will also encourage smaller brands to follow suit,” he added.

Ragini Sharma, an advertising professional, however opined that ads such as the ones mentioned or which have a social message, do not neces-sarily imply that change had arrived. “But there is definitely a shift. I mean, for every one ad that touches you or makes you think, there will be three others that, well, don’t. There’s how-ever no denying that movement ads are becoming very popular,” she said.

Paul agrees and adds that the ad world is moving ahead from slo-gan chanting to becoming platforms of unmet needs. “Honestly, you don’t know what will do well. With social media, you now get immedi-ate reaction.”

Maharashtra lawsuit over Muslim heroes IANS

MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court has been petitioned against a Mahar-ashtra government order leaving out Muslims from its new list of national leaders and heroes for celebrating their anniversaries and special days.

The government circular, Ja Pu Ti-2215/279/PrKr/285/29, was issued on November 30, 2014, with a list of 26 days when celebrations and functions would be held in honour of various national leaders/heroes.

Senior activist-journalist Sar-faraz Arzu has filed the public suit, naming Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, Minority Affairs Minis-ter Eknath Khadse and Chairman of State Minorities Commission Amir Hussain among the respondents.

“It is unfortunate that the

government has not been able to find a single great figure from the Muslim community...It’s in national interest that students and the masses should know that Indian Muslims have done service to the Mother-land and humanity, but somehow what the people come to know is the gloomy past of some misguided Muslims, creating a false Islamopho-bia,” the petition said.

It pointed out that the govern-ment has become completely blind to freedom fighters like Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Dr Zakir Hussain, Dr A P J Abdul Kalam, Paramvir Chakra awardee Company Havildar Major Abdul Hamid, religious leaders like Khawaja Garib Nawaz, Maulana Shaukat Ali, Shahnawaz Khan, Sir Badruddin Tyebji, Tipu Sultan, Baha-dur Shah Zafar, Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan, Ashfaqulla Khan and many more.

Big defaulters getting away as small customers face music, says Sinha

Bengal election

panel chief vows

quick action after

complaints

Rain clouds sweep across the city of London, Britain, yesterday.

Cloudy weather in London

A worker removes decorations in Red Square, with the Spasskaya Tower of the Kremlin seen in the background in central Moscow, Russia, yesterday.

Removing decorations

EUROPE / UK 15THURSDAY 3 MARCH 2016

Kenny’s centre-right Fine Gael party is set to fall about 30 seats short of the 80 needed to form a majority in parliament.

Reuters

DUBLIN: Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny (pictured) said yesterday for the first time that he would be open to talking to his party’s arch rival Fianna Fail about the possible formation of a new government after his previous coa-lition was voted out of office last week.

Kenny’s centre-right Fine Gael party is set to fall about 30 seats short of the 80 needed to form a majority in parliament with counting almost complete, leaving its historic rival as the only obvious partner to form a

stable government.He told reporters that all the

available options of forming a gov-ernment were difficult, but that he

was committed to try.“As the leader of the largest party,

and as the Taoiseach (prime minister) it’s my responsibility to work to see that that process is put in place, and

that includes talking to the Fianna Fail party,” he said.

Kenny described the election, in which voters complained of a recov-ery that has not trickled down to poor and rural areas, as “bruising” and said none of the deputies in parliament wanted a re-run. With both parties completely ruling out a coalition with the third-largest party, left wing nationalists Sinn Fein, analysts say that leaves two main options: a formal coalition between Fine Gael and Fianna Fail or a minority Fine Gael government with support from Fianna Fail on a vote-by-vote basis.

Senior members of both Fine Gael

and Fianna Fail have voiced opposi-tion to both routes.

Fianna Fail lawmaker Dara Cal-leary told state broadcaster RTE yesterday that a formal coalition was a “dreadful prospect”, saying the last government had presided over an unbalanced recovery.

Fine Gael Minister Simon Cov-eney, asked about the possibility of a minority government, told RTE the country did not need a government “that is weak, that is not stable, that is likely to fall at any time.”

Senior Fine Gael members are due to meet today , a week before the par-liament resumes, to formulate a set of

principles to guide its participation in a future government.

Fianna Fail has said it will put leader Micheal Martin forward as an alternative prime minister on March 10, but it is unlikely that either Mar-tin or Kenny would garner enough support to win the vote without cooperating.

Martin raised the prospect of a more protracted delay on Monday by calling for a cross-party deal on reforming parliament before any coa-lition talks.

Several commentators have sug-gested a new government before the end of March is unlikely.

Irish PM says open to talks with rival Fianna Fail

AFP

MADRID: Spain’s Socialist chief Pedro Sanchez failed yesterday in his bid to form a new government and end weeks of political stale-mate after both main rival parties voted against him in a vote of con-fidence.

He was defeated with 219 votes against, 130 in favour and one abstention. Sanchez, whose party came second in an inconclusive general election on December 20, will face a second vote tomorrow in which he just needs more votes in favour than against in order to become prime minister.

Earlier in the day, Sanchez endured a barrage of attacks in par-liament as lawmakers from the left and right dismissed his bid to form a new government. Acting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, whose con-servative Popular Party (PP) came first in an inconclusive December general election but lost its absolute majority, mocked Sanchez’s candi-dacy as “fictitious, unreal” because it has no chance of success. “We are going to vote against your investiture because what you have presented here is a fraud,” he said.

“And above all because you plan to eliminate what was achieved in Spain throughout these past four years which prevented this coun-try from needing a bailout, created jobs, improved its competitiveness and caused it to grow economically.”

Spain’s economy grew 3.2 per-cent in 2015, one of the fastest rates in Europe, although the unemploy-ment rate remains high at 20.9 percent. The December 20 elec-tions resulted in a hung parliament divided among four main parties—none of which won enough seats to govern alone.

Rajoy gave up attempts to form a government after he failed to win support from other parties, fed up with years of crisis-sparked austerity

and corruption scandals plaguing his party. So King Felipe VI then asked runner-up Sanchez, whose Socialists scored their worst result in history with just 90 seats out of 350, to attempt to form a government.

To become prime minister Sanchez needs to win an absolute majority in the first round of vot-ing in the 350-strong lower house of parliament.

But the Socialists have only the support of new market-friendly party Ciudadanos, which has 40 seats — not enough to see them through. New anti-austerity party Podemos, which with its 65 seats would be a valuable partner for Sanchez, immediately suspended its talks with the Socialists over their deal with Ciudadanos, which it con-siders too liberal.

Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias said his lawmakers too would be voting against Sanchez because the Socialists did not appear set to lead a genuine leftist government.

“Negotiate with us, stop obeying the oligarchs,” the pony-tailed polit-ical science professor said.

Iglesias recalled that during the 1939-75 dictatorship of General Francisco Franco “being a Social-ist would lead you to jail not to the boardrooms of big companies.”

Franco banned the Socialist party in 1939 and it was only legal-ised again in 1977, two years after his death. Sanchez appealed to leftist lawmakers to join in alliance to oust the PP, arguing in the assembly that Spain voted decisively for change in last year’s election.

He said a Socialist-led gov-ernment would enact progressive measures such as a minimum wage increase and a gender wage-gap law, and stressed that all sides would need to compromise as no single ideological group has enough seats for a majority.

“Why don’t we get together and pass as many reforms as possible to solve the most urgent problems of Spaniards?” he asked the assembly.

Norway denies

inhuman

treatment to

killer BreivikReuters

OSLO: Norway said yesterday it was not violating mass killer Anders Behring Breivik’s human rights by keeping him in isolation, ahead of a lawsuit he is bringing to change the conditions of his detention.

Breivik, who killed 77 peo-ple in a bomb attack and shooting spree in 2011, argues his effective solitary confinement makes him a victim of inhuman treatment.

“There is no evidence that the plaintiff has physical or men-tal problems as a result of prison conditions,” the Office of the Attor-ney General, the Norwegian state’s legal office in civil lawsuits, wrote in a document sent to the Oslo Dis-trict Court.

The Norwegian Correctional Service denies Breivik is held in solitary confinement, preferring the phrase “excluded from the company of other prisoners”. There is no maximum time for how long he can be held in such “extra high security”, a service official previ-ously told reporters.

Breivik, who has been held alone since his arrest, argues the regime is degrading and is a breach of the European Conven-tion on Human Rights.

The hearing, scheduled for March 15-18 in the gym of Skien prison where Breivik is held, has prompted renewed soul-searching in a country where many want to move on from the killings.

According to the Attorney Gen-eral’s document, Breivik has access to three different prison cells —for living, study and exercise — between which he can move freely. He can take walks in a yard and can cook his own food and do his laundry.

Reuters

PARIS: Instead of closing ranks behind President Francois Hollande’s reform drive, his Socialist party is embroiled in a very public fight over his policies just as the battle for the 2017 presidential election kicks off.

Hollande’s sweeping labour reform plans have drawn howls of dismay from the party’s far left with youth organisations threatening to take to the streets.

Discontent is now at such a pitch that the already deeply unpopular president could well face a fight for the party nomination rather than benefit

from the usual shoo-in for incumbents.Faced with an outcry, Hollande’s

government has postponed its final draft of the labour reform plans by two weeks —but this seems unlikely to do much to repair the damage done to party cohesion.

Martine Aubry, a former party head and architect of the 35-hour working week who is influential among those uneasy with Hollande’s pro-business switch, accused him of betraying left-wing values and tak-ing steps that would weaken France.

“The party is in danger, that’s for sure. It’s like a collective sui-cide,” former culture minister Jack Lang told Le Parisien daily, accusing Aubry of back-stabbing which he said

had “left the party in tatters.”Aubry’s comments had the same

ring as those of Syriza in Greece, Podemos in Spain, Britain’s Jeremy Corbyn or the United States’ Bernie Sanders, though traditional parties in France are still well entrenched in the political landscape and hold the key to who eventually runs in elections.

Elected in 2012 Hollande outed himself as a social-democrat at the start of January 2014, embarking on a series of corporate tax cuts to boost investment. His four years in power have been dogged by inability to tackle high unemployment. Despite some rumblings, the party, has often split by acrimonious fighting between various factions.

Reuters

LONDON: Britain’s former chief rabbi Jonathan Sacks won the 2016 Templeton Prize, worth 1.1m pounds ($1.5m), for his efforts to help steer young people away from the mes-sage of extremists by encouraging religions to connect with them.

The US-based John Temple-ton Foundation said Sacks, 67, was ahead of his time with his central message of respect for all faiths and his argument that only by recognis-ing the values of each of them could violence and terrorism be countered.

The prize, awarded to an indi-vidual who has made “exceptional contributions to affirming life’s spir-itual dimension”, is one of the world’s richest. Sacks said he was “knocked sideways” to have won.

“It just felt very thrilling and

so my wife and I did a little dance together,” he said. “Not something we do that often, but it was lovely.”

As chief rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Com-monwealth, Sacks was the leading spokesman for British Jews from 1991 until 2013, leading what many considered to be the revitalisation of Britain’s Jewish community.

The Templeton Foundation praised his work tackling the spread of religious violence which he argued had been sparked by Western secu-larisation that had failed to address young people’s search for meaning, belonging and identity.

“Today the most powerful reli-gious voices are coming from the extremes and I think that is terri-bly dangerous. They are speaking to young idealistic kids and turning them really into murderers and we can’t sit still and just let that hap-pen,” Sacks said.

Infighting among French Socialists hurts Hollande’s re-election bid

Former British chief rabbi

wins $1.5m Templeton Prize

Spain’s Socialists lose

first parliament vote

to form government

Female passengers hold flowers presented to them by metro workers, prior to International Women’s Day in Kiev, Ukraine, yesterday.

Honouring the womenkind

EUROPE16 THURSDAY 3 MARCH 2016

It is for the first time humanitarian cash has been used within Europe instead of outside the bloc.

AFP

BRUSSELS: The EU yesterday unveiled a €700m emergency aid plan for Greece and other states hit by the migrant crisis, in what would be the first time humanitarian cash has been used within Europe instead of outside the bloc.

The United Nations has warned of a looming humanitarian crisis as thousands of refugees are stuck in wintry misery at the Greece-Mace-donia border after a domino effect of Balkan border closures.

Greece is the main entry point for the 1.13 million migrants who have landed since the start of 2015 in the European Union, which has been divided and weakened by the biggest wave of refugees since World War II.

“No time can be lost in deploy-ing all means possible to prevent humanitarian suffering within our own borders,” EU Humanitarian Aid Commissioner Christos Stylianides said as he announced the aid plan.

The funds would be allocated over three years, with €300m ($32m) in 2016, and €200m in each of the following years under the plan,

which must be approved by member states and the European Parliament.

The EU would also work directly with the UN and other aid agencies in Europe, in another first.

Greece—which insists it will not become “Europe’s Lebanon” by hosting all of the migrants com-ing to the continent—has asked for around €480m ($520m) to help shel-ter 100,000 refugees.

The crisis is particularly acute at the Greek border crossing of Idomeni where 10,000 are camping in the open after Balkan states including Macedonia imposed tight controls.

Macedonia yesterday allowed some 170 Syrian and Iraqi refugees to cross, the first group since Monday when Macedonian police teargassed migrants, including children, after some tried to ram their way through the fence.

Bleak scenes saw the refugees stranded in mud-soaked fields and fighting over food distributed from the back of a van, as aid agencies warned of a lack of supplies and the threat of illness.

“We have been waiting for six days,” said Farah, a 32-year-old Syr-ian woman. “The food is not enough, everyone is lying to us and we are desperate.”

The effects of the migrant cri-sis continue to be felt across the EU, stirring discord between mem-ber states and rising populism. The United Nations said more than 131,000 migrants have crossed the Mediterranean to reach Europe so far this year, more than the total number for the first five months of 2015. Last year a total of one million entered Europe.

KIEV: It was only a minor tweak in the spelling but a historic change when a Ukrainian village yes-terday renamed a street, which honoured Soviet founder Lenin, after The Beatles’ John Lennon.

Perhaps no name change is more symbolic than the one made in Kalyny, a village of about 5,000 people 19 km from the European Union’s eastern border.

Regional Governor Gennadiy Moskal said he had made the decision “at my own discretion” to change Lenin Street to Lennon Street, in honour of the Beatles co-founder who was shot dead outside his New York apartment in 1980.

German leader

Kohl to sue

writer today

BERLIN: German ex-chan-cellor Helmut Kohl plans to sue his former ghost-writer today for at least €5m ($5.4m) for pub-lishing an unauthorised biography.

In 2001-02, Kohl taped more than 630 hours of interviews with journalist Heribert Schwan for a multi-vol-ume memoir project that was scrapped.

Over a decade later, Schwan, 71, used the material to co-author the biography “Legacy: the Kohl Protocols”, published in late 2014 -- infuriating Kohl, who last year won a court case banning fur-ther print runs.

Russia seeks

23 years jail for

Ukraine pilot

MOSCOW: Russia’s state prosecutor yesterday demanded a 23-year prison sentence for Ukrainian pilot and law-maker Nadiya Savchenko accused of killing two Russian journalists in war-torn Ukraine.

After more than a year in detention, the aviator was put in the dock last summer in Russian town of Donetsk on the border with eastern Ukraine.

The trial is now drawing to a close and Savchenko is expected to make her last address to the court today.

Ivory Coast

toxic spill victims

launch Dutch suit

THE HAGUE: Thousands of Ivorian victims of a deadly 2006 toxic waste spill are suing Dutch multinational oil trader Trafigura to demand com-pensation, their lawyers announced yesterday.

The class-action lawsuit before the Amsterdam district court is the second in the Neth-erlands from Ivory Coast’s economic capital Abid-jan who claim to have been affected by the spill. Law firm Beer Advocaten said summons had been issued on behalf of Dutch group Stichting Victimes des Dechets Toxiques Cote d’Ivoire (Victims of Toxic Waste in Ivory Coast).

Ukraine renames

street after

late Lennon

Reuters

IDOMENI: The number of migrants awaiting passage to central and northern Europe swelled on Greece’s border with Macedonia yesterday as the frontier remained shut, adding to a humanitarian crisis and deep fissures within the European Union.

Aid workers said the situation at Ido-meni, a small border town in northern Greece, could easily spin out of control with no let-up in the number of refugees gathering for passage into Macedonia.

Living in filth, families with small children jostled for space in

waterlogged fields, waiting for a crack in the border fence, which Macedo-nian authorities opened intermittently.

By midday the border had opened once, Greek police said, allowing 170 people through. “There are 11,000 peo-ple here and conditions are very bad,” said Antonis Rigas of charity Medicins Sans Frontieres.

“We worry that if it exceeds 12,000 the situation might get out of hand,” he said.

Macedonian authorities have defended their stance. “Our daily admittance of migrants will depend on how many will be accepted in EU countries,” Interior Minister Oliver Spasovski, told reporters in Skopje.

“It is very important to secure humane treatment and admit these people, but it’s no less important that we protect the Macedonian citizens and police.”

Macedonian police fired tear gas to disperse hundreds of migrants who stormed the border from Greece on Monday, tearing down a metal gate.

The European Union has called an emergency summit with Turkey on March 7, hoping for a consensus to implement an accord on the distribu-tion of refugees and migrants fleeing conflict and poverty in the Middle East, North Africa and beyond. Many arrive in Greece on small, unsafe, boats from Turkey.

Reuters

ROME: Italy is considering recalling a legal team sent last month to Cairo to investigate the murder of an Italian graduate student because Egyptian authorities are not cooperating, a judi-cial source said yesterday.

Giulio Regeni, 28, disappeared in January and his tortured, bat-tered body was found in a ditch on the outskirts of the Egyptian capital on February 3.

The case has stirred outrage in Italy and strained relations between two countries that share major stra-tegic and economic interests, with widespread speculation in the media that Regeni was killed by either police or security services.

Egypt has denied any such sug-gestion. The case has put a spotlight on alleged police brutality in Egypt, a strategic ally of the United State and other Western powers.

The Egyptian authorities invited Italian police to join the inquiry, but the judicial source said there was lit-tle point in keeping the team in Cairo because they had not received any relevant evidence to work with.

In particular, the investigators have not received Regeni’s mobile phone records and cell data that would allow them to pinpoint Rege-ni’s movements before his January 25 disappearance.

The murder of Regeni, who was studying Egypt’s independent labour

unions and wrote critical articles about the government, continues to be followed closely by Italian media.

Milan officials yesterday, hung a banner from city hall reading “The Truth for Giulio Regeni”, in response to a campaign by human rights group Amnesty International. Other cities around the country started to follow suit.

Calling the legal team home would be a joint decision by the Rome court that is leading the Italian investigation and the government, the source said, because it would sig-nal growing frustration with Egypt - an important Arab ally for Italy.

A spokesman in Prime Minis-ter Matteo Renzi’s office said he did not know whether the investiga-tors would be brought home, while a spokesman for the Foreign Minis-try did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

An Egyptian forensics official has told the public prosecutor’s office the autopsy he conducted showed Regeni was interrogated for up to seven days before he was killed.

The findings, which were denied by Egypt’s Justice Ministry, are the strongest indication yet that Regeni was killed by security services because they pointed to interroga-tion methods which human rights groups say are their hallmark.

With no sign of the furore abating soon, the case has caused serious fric-tion between Egypt and Italy, though it looks unlikely to drive a permanent wedge between two countries.

Reuters

KARLSRUHE: The top judge at Germany’s Constitutional Court yes-terday rejected some objections by the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD) to legal moves to ban it as a threat to the state and ordered that hearings go ahead.

Lawyers for the NPD, a fringe radical party, said that hearings

would include details from state-paid informants - an argument that led to the collapse of a previous attempt to outlaw the party in 2003. They ques-tioned official assurances that ties had been cut to informants among the party’s top officials.

But Court President Andreas Vosskuhle, on the second day of hear-ings, said: “We have consulted and come to the view that currently there is nothing to stop the proceedings.”

The case will now centre on

whether the NPD aims to damage or eliminate the democratic order or jeopardise Germany’s existence - as the federal states, which have initi-ated the court action, allege.

The domestic intelligence agency says the party, which has only 5,200 members, has close links to neo-Nazis and has branded it anti-Semitic, racist and revisionist. The case is particularly sensitive when a debate is raging in Germany over the impact of a high influx of migrants.

Reuters

BUDAPEST: Public support for Hun-gary’s ruling Fidesz party dipped in February, a poll by the Median insti-tute said, after months of growing or stable backing boosted by the hard-line handling of the migrant crisis.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s combative style has served him well since he swept back to power in 2010 with a large majority and he won a second four-year term in 2014 but disputed education reforms seem to be sapping his support, Median said.

Orban reversed a slide in support for Fidesz last summer by taking an especially tough stance on migration,

vowing to protect Hungary from an influx of migrants fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and Africa.

By October, his government had built a razor wire fence on the bor-der with Serbia and Croatia, which shifted the route of migrants south-wards, and boosted Orban’s support at home.

However, the support declined

in February according to a poll by Median published yesterday on web-site hvg.hu. Median said support for Fidesz among all voters dropped to 32 percent in February from 34 per-cent in January, while far right Jobbik increased to 16 percent from 14 and the Socialists rose to 10 percent from 9 percent.

This is the first poll conducted by

Median that recorded a drop in sup-port for Fidesz since last summer. Backing among voters with a declared party preference for Fidesz dropped to 46 percent in February from 53 in January.

“Something broke, but this does not mean that there is a big turn-around,” Endre Hann, director of Median, told reporters.

EU unveils huge migrant aid plan for Greece

11,000 people still stranded on closed Greece-Macedonia border

Migrants watch burning shacks in the ‘Jungle’ migrant camp, Calais, northern France, yesterday.

Italy may recall murder

probe team from Egypt

Court rejects NPD’s objections

Public support for Hungarian PM’s party drops in February: Poll

AMERICAS 17THURSDAY 3 MARCH 2016

A member of the Mexican immigrant welfare agency Grupo Beta rides an all-terrain vehicle past the skeleton of a cow during a search for potential border crossers between Mexico and the US, on the outskirts of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, yesterday.

On a mission

Called “Hack the Pentagon,” the programme will give cash awards to participants who can spot weaknesses on public web pages.

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton proved themselves undisputed front-runners.

Reuters

WASHINGTON/ HOUSTON: Repub-lican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton (pictured) took big steps toward securing their parties’ presidential nominations on Tuesday with a series of state-by-state victo-ries, but their rivals vowed to keep on fighting.

On Super Tuesday, the 2016 cam-paign’s biggest day of nominating contests, Trump, 69, and Clinton, 68, proved themselves the undisputed front-runners. Now they are under pressure to show they can unify vot-ers in their respective parties and

avoid a potentially disastrous split in their ranks that could hurt them in the November 8 election.

US networks projected Trump won seven states with victories stretching into the deep South and as far north as Massachusetts, add-ing to a sense of momentum he had built last month by winning three of the first four contests.

Clinton’s victories in seven states

were just as impressive but in many ways predictable, propelled by Afri-can-American voters in southern states like Arkansas, where she and former President Bill Clinton began their political careers.

Trump’s rivals Ted Cruz, a US sen-ator from Texas, and Marco Rubio, a senator from Florida, emphasised their determination to remain in the race.

Cruz, 45, won his home state of

Reuters

WASHINGTON: US Republicans have only themselves to blame for Don-ald Trump, a “monster” spawned by their constant partisan opposition to all major Obama administration initiatives, Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said yesterday.

“Republicans created him (Trump) by spending seven years appealing to some of the darkest forces in America,” said Reid. He spoke on the floor of the US Senate a day after presidential candidate Trump won a string of primary con-tests and consolidated his status as front-runner to be the Republican nominee in the November election.

Trump’s rise has alarmed many establishment Republicans, who are both critical of his positions and skeptical he can win the White House. Reid, known for occasionally delivering controversial statements on the Senate floor, said Trump was now the Republican standard-bearer, but he could destroy the party.

“The reality is that Republican leaders are reaping what they’ve sown,” Reid said, recounting seven years’ worth of staunch Republican opposition to Obama’s initiatives.

Republicans had decided from the start of Obama’s presidency in 2009 that he was an “illegitimate” president, said Reid, who would retire at the end of this year.

Democrat Obama, the first African-American president, is in

the final year of his second four-year term. His presidency has been marked by bitter battles with Repub-licans over fiscal affairs, a landmark law to expand healthcare coverage for the uninsured, immigration, banking reform and policies to tackle climate change.

Republicans have controlled the House of Representatives since 2011. And while they took control of the Senate in 2015, they previously used their minority status deftly to chal-lenge Obama.

Some Republicans, such as Sen-ator Lindsey Graham, have been outspoken in their opposition to Trump as the prospective party nom-inee, saying the New York billionaire’ s inflammatory rhetoric will lead to defeat in the general election.

Texas, neighboring Oklahoma and Alaska, bolstering his argument he had the best chance to stop the brash billionaire. Rubio, favorite of the Republican establishment, was projected the winner in Minnesota, his first victory.

Clinton’s rival Bernie Sanders, a dem-ocratic socialist US senator from Vermont, also won his home state along with Colo-rado, Minnesota and Oklahoma and vowed to pursue the battle for the nomination in the 35 states yet to vote. He lost to Clin-ton in Massachusetts, a fifth state he had hoped to win.

Super Tuesday was the biggest single day of state-by-state contests to select party nominees for the Nov. 8 election to succeed Democratic President Barack Obama.

At a news conference in Florida, Trump dismissed criticism aimed at him by estab-lishment Republicans.

Faced with a party in turmoil over his ideas to build a wall between the United States and Mexico, deport 11 million illegal immigrants and bar Muslims from enter-ing the country, Trump declared he had expanded the party by drawing in disaf-fected blue-collar Democrats who like his tough-on-trade rhetoric.

Republican Party and everybody get together and unify and when we unify, there’s nobody that’s going to beat us.” The rivals of both Trump and Clinton aim to knock them off their pedestals in contests ahead in Michigan, Florida and Illinois.

Trump waved off criticism from the Republicans, House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, over his delayed disavowal of an endorse-ment by David Duke, a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist group.

“I’ve disavowed,” Trump said. “I’m going to get along with Congress, okay? Paul Ryan, I don’t know him well, but I’m sure I’m going to get along great with him. And if I don’t, he’s going to have to pay a big price, okay?” Trump said in remarks that could further inflame party tensions.

Clinton, who still faces a well-funded Sanders despite having taken control of the Democratic race, was eager to assail Trump as a way of getting Democratic vot-ers used to the idea of her as the nominee.

“The stakes in this election have never been higher and the rhetoric we’re hear-ing on the other side has never been lower,” Clinton told supporters in Miami. “Trying to divide America between us and them is wrong, and we’re not going to let it work.”

Sanders thanked cheering supporters in his hometown of Burlington, Vermont.

AFP

WASHINGTON: Ever wanted to hack Uncle Sam? Provided you’re American and can pass a background check, go right ahead, the Pentagon said yes-terday .

The US Department of Defence is inviting vetted hackers to test its cybersecurity under a pilot pro-gramme that is the first of its kind in the federal government.

Called “Hack the Pentagon,” the so-called bug bounty programme will give cash awards and other recog-nition to participants who can spot weaknesses on the Pentagon’s pub-lic web pages.

“I am always challenging our peo-ple to think outside the five-sided box that is the Pentagon,” Defence Secre-tary Ashton Carter said.

This “initiative will strengthen our digital defences and ultimately

enhance our national security.”The pilot programme is modeled

after similar competitions con-ducted by major firms to improve network and product security. The project would be a cost-effective way of recruiting non-malicious “white hat” hackers to probe Pentagon vulnerabilities.

“We want to bring in great talent, we want to take advantage of peo-ple who have the ability to help the Department of Defence and the coun-try,” the official said.

He noted that if successful, the programme could be more broadly expanded across the federal government.

The Pentagon did not announce how much money would be paid out,

but suggested that the bigger the vul-nerability a hacker finds, the bigger the reward. The Pentagon announced the initiative while Carter visited Sil-icon Valley in California yesterday.

It is his third trip to the world’s tech heartland and he has repeatedly stressed the need for the Pentagon to innovate and work with tech partners.

Carter also announced plans to establish a “Defence Innovation Advi-sory Board” that will be chaired by Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Alphabet, Google’s parent company.

The board will give Pentagon leaders independent advice on ways to address “future organizational and cultural challenges, including the use of technology alternatives,” Penta-gon press secretary Peter Cook said.

Reuters

WASHINGTON: The US Supreme Court yesterday appeared closely divided as it considered its first major abortion case in nearly a dec-ade, with pivotal Justice Anthony Kennedy giving little indication how he would rule in a challenge to a Texas law imposing strict regula-tions on clinics and abortion doctors.

Kennedy, who often casts the deciding vote in close cases, at one point suggested sending the case back to a lower court for further evi-dence to be introduced on the law’s impact, including an assessment of the ability of Texas clinics to meet the demand for abortions.

That could mean the case might not be resolved for years. Some jus-tices also questioned the lack of evidence on why specific clinics closed after the law was passed. Abortion providers assert that the law caused 22 of 41 clinics to close, but the state contests those numbers.

The state contends the law, passed in 2013 by the Republican-controlled Texas legislature and signed by a Republican governor, protects women’s health. The abor-tion providers who have challenged it assert that it is aimed at shutting down their clinics.

With the court one member short after the Feb. 13 death of conserva-tive Justice Antonin Scalia, it could be split 4-4 in the case.

A 4-4 decision would let stand a lower-court ruling that affirmed the Texas law, but no nationwide legal precedent would be set on whether other states could enact similar measures. If Kennedy, a conserv-ative, sides with the court’s four liberals, the court could either send the case back to the lower court or

strike it down.During an extended 85-minute

oral argument, the liberals, led by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, indi-cated hostility to the law. Ginsburg questioned the need for one of the provisions at issue in the case, which requires clinics to have costly, hos-pital-grade facilities.

“What was the problem the legislature was responding to?” she asked. Justices on the court’s conservative wing were more sym-pathetic to Texas, raising questions about whether the law had closed down as many clinics as abortion providers had said.

Like Kennedy, Justice Samuel Alito faulted the lack of evidence on reasons for specific clinic closures, saying U.S. District Court Judge Lee Yeakel could have been more thor-ough in handling the case.

At one point, Kennedy expressed some discomfort with a possi-ble increase in surgical abortions because the law placed new restrictions on medically induced abortions. He said that outcome “might not be medically wise.”

Scalia’s death means the court no longer has five conservatives who might support more restrictive abor-tion regulations nationwide.

Hundreds of activists on both sides of the issue gathered outside the white marble courthouse on a chilly, blustery day.

Anti-abortion lawmakers including Republican House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan addressed the crowd.

The Supreme Court legalised abortion in 1973.

But abortion remains a disputed issue in the US, as it does in many countries, and some states have passed laws aiming to place a variety of restrictions on a woman’s ability to terminate a pregnancy.

Senior Facebook

executive freed

SAO PAULO: A senior Facebook Inc executive was released after nearly 24 hours in a Brazilian jail due to a disputed court order demanding data from the company’s WhatsApp messaging service for a confidential drug-trafficking investigation.

An appeals court judge overturned a lower court decision to arrest Diego Dzodan, Facebook’s vice president for Latin America, court officials said. Law enforcement officials withheld further information about the nature of their request to the messaging service acquired by Facebook in 2014, saying it could compromise an ongoing criminal investigation.

“Diego’s detention was an extreme, disproportionate measure, and we are pleased to see the court in Sergipe issue an injunction ordering his release,” a Facebook spokesperson said.

Trump and Hillary score big wins

Trump a ‘monster’ spawned by US Republicans: Reid

Pentagon invites hackers to attack its websitesApex court divided in Texas abortion case

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AFP

DZHEZKAZGAN: US astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko returned to Earth yesterday after spending almost a year in space in a ground-breaking experiment fore-shadowing a potential manned mission to Mars.

The 340-day mission saw Kelly claim the record for the longest sin-gle stay in space by a US astronaut, while Kornienko is now fifth on the list for lengthiest mission by a Russian cosmonaut.

“We have landing,” Russian Mission Control confirmed after the trio touched down southeast of the settlement of Dzhezkazgan in central Kazakhstan at around 0430 GMT.

After returning from his lengthy stint in space Kelly was clearly in high spirits as he was lowered to the ground

by burly Russian rescue workers at the landing site.

“The air out here feels great. I’ve no idea why you guys are so bundled up,” Nasa TV reported him as saying as he sat upright in a chair on the steppe in temperatures just below zero degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit).

Kelly and Kornienko returned with Russia’s Sergei Volkov, who was sta-tioned at the ISS for over five months and was met upon landing by his father, retired cosmonaut Aleksandr Volkov.

The “one-year crew” mission -- which began on March 27 last year -- was the longest by any astronauts aboard the ISS and seen as a vital chance to measure the effects of a pro-longed period in space on the human body. “Scott Kelly’s one-year mission aboard the International Space Sta-tion has helped to advance deep space exploration and America’s Journey to Mars,” Nasa administrator Charles Bolden in a statement.

“Scott has become the first Ameri-can astronaut to spend a year in space, and in so doing, helped us take one giant leap toward putting boots on Mars.”

The pair were subjected to a battery of tests before and after their ascent towards the ISS and underwent more tests soon after landing.

Weightlessness reduces muscle mass and bone density and is believed to diminish eyesight by increasing cer-ebrospinal fluid around the optic nerve. Kelly, 52, was also part of an experi-ment comparing his development and changes in space with his identical twin brother -- Mark -- back on Earth.

He will now arrive by chartered flight in Houston for a Nasa medical examination.

In his year aboard the space sta-tion Kelly has been an avid Internet poster, capturing stunning views on his Instagram page and tweeting regu-larly to nearly a million followers while

travelling some 230m kilometres. In one particularly eye-catching stunt, the bald-headed astronaut posted a short video of himself dressed up in a gorilla suit and floating through the ISS in pur-suit of a colleague.

“Needed a little humour to lighten up a year in space,” he wrote on Twit-ter on February 23, when he posted the video.

One image Kelly tweeted captured the economic divide between North and South Korea as visible from space, with the South aglow with electric lights and the North cast in a blanket of darkness.

Another impressive shot was one of the Milky Way which Kelly described as “old, dusty, gassy and warped. But beautiful.” “Spaceflight is the biggest team sport there is, and it’s incredibly important that we all work together to make what is seemingly impossi-ble possible,” Kelly said when handing over command of the ISS to fellow Nasa astronaut Tim Kopra on Monday.

ISS crew land on Earth after a year

AFP

TAIWAN: An 82-year-old might be an unlikely poster boy for Taiwan’s flourishing cycling scene, but King Liu (pictured) has never been afraid to go against convention.

The Taiwanese founder of the world’s biggest bicycle maker Giant Manufacturing Co only got seriously into the sport at the age of 73, after years out of the saddle.

And he did not do it by halves, tak-ing on a 927-kilometre ride around the island’s rugged coastline as his first major ride. That epic journey took 15 days. Liu did the same loop again to cel-ebrate turning 80, this time in just 12 days. “I was an old man contemplating retirement, but funnily enough, I instead discovered a brand-new me,” Liu said of the first trip. “It boosted my self-con-fidence, my health, and I became more willing to learn new things, to take on new challenges.”

The inspiration he felt from the ride which takes in rice paddies, tough mountain climbs, aboriginal com-munities and Taiwan’s scenic Pacific east coast -- is now being experi-enced by a growing numbers of cyclists from around the world. Bike fans are

increasingly attracted by Taiwan’s pris-tine landscape and remote corners, and cycling is fast becoming a key element in the island’s push to attract more international visitors. King has been part of that push -- after his first round-the-island ride he started Giant’s travel branch in 2009, one of Taiwan’s first dedicated cycle tour operators. Thou-sands of cyclists now ride the loop each year, either through tour opera-tors or independently. The government

officially named it “Cycle Route Number One” at the end of last year, linking its paths and marking the route with signs for the first time. “Driving is too fast, walking is too slow. By riding a bike, you can deeply immerse in Taiwan and appreciate the land,” said Liu, who fuels his rides with coffee and local snacks.

With Giant pulling in $2bn a year in sales and churning out millions of bikes annually, Liu says he sees himself as a “missionary” spreading cycle culture.

Taiwan’s octogenarian bike pioneer on pedal power mission

AFP

LONDON: The Rolling Stones yesterday announced a free con-cert in Cuba in what is likely to be one of the biggest shows ever both for the island and the rock legends.

The March 25 concert will take place four days after a his-toric visit by US President Barack Obama, a powerful sign that the communist state is joining the global mainstream after dec-ades of tension with Washington.

The Rolling Stones will play their first-ever concert in Cuba at the open-air sports complex Ciudad Deportiva in the capital Havana. “We have performed in many special places during our long career but this show in Havana is going to be a land-mark event for us, and, we hope, for all our friends in Cuba too,” the band said in a statement.

Cuba has a famously rich musical heritage but revolution-ary leader Fidel Castro banned rock and roll in 1961, fearing a degenerate influence from the US-born art form.

The island eventually relaxed its ban but missed the full force of the “British inva-sion” by bands such as The Rolling Stones and The Beatles. Cuban rock fans had to resort to black-market recordings as Castro railed against youth who listened to “imperialist” music on transistor radios.

But Western musicians have increasingly flocked to Cuba in recent years, especially since 2014 when Obama and leader

Raul Castro, the ailing Fidel’s brother, launched the reconcil-iation push.

The Stones’ lead singer Mick Jagger visited Havana in Octo-ber with one of his sons, fueling speculation that a gig could be imminent.

A journalist spotted the 72-year-old singer attending a concert of Bamboleo, a well-known band of the timba genre which is similar to salsa.

The Rolling Stones, one of the top-grossing acts in music, have a strong following in Latin America where the band is now touring, with the next show due Wednesday in Porto Alegre, Brazil.

Havana is now the final stop on the tour. The Rolling Stones said they would also use the visit to distribute instruments to Cuban musicians donated by major makers.

The latest tour is also ticking off the list three other coun-tries where the septuagenarian rockers had not previously per-formed -- Colombia, Peru and Uruguay.

The Rolling Stones may be one of a series of superstar acts to come to Cuba. An article in Granma, the official newspa-per of the ruling communist party, said that former Beatle Paul McCartney and Irish rock-ers U2 were both interested in coming, although neither act has confirmed plans. Sting is also interested in playing Cuba and may try to come before The Roll-ing Stones, Dominic Miller, the Argentinian-born guitarist who has long toured with the former Police frontman said.

Rolling Stones plans free concert in Cuba

WASHINGTON: US actor George Kennedy, who won an Academy Award for playing a hulking chain gang convict who pummels Paul Newman in the 1967 film “Cool Hand Luke” and later earned laughs in the “Naked Gun” com-edy films, has died, media outlets reported on Monday. He was 91.

The Hollywood Reporter and Variety, citing a Facebook post made by Kennedy’s grandson, said the actor died on Sunday morning in Boise, Idaho. Reuters could not independently verify the reports.

A versatile character actor, the husky 6-foot-4 Kennedy also was known for roles in the four “Air-port” disaster films of the 1970s and the popular TV series “Dallas.”

He appeared in innumerable films and TV shows and initially played a lot of villains. His brea-kout role was as the prisoner Dragline in “Cool Hand Luke,” set in the US South in 1948. His character at first mercilessly bul-lies Newman’s Luke, a newcomer to the chain gang, but eventually comes to revere him.

In one scene, he gets to clobber Newman, perhaps the world’s big-gest movie star at the time. Luke is bloodied and battered by Dra-gline in a makeshift boxing match but refuses to stay down.

US actor George

Kennedy dies

Russia’s Soyuz TMA-18M space capsule carrying the International Space Station (ISS) crew of US astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonauts Mikhail Kornienko and Sergei Volkov lands in a remote area outside the town of Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, yesterday.

INSTAGRAM OF THE DAY

Minister of Economy and Commerce H E Sheikh Ahmed bin Jassim Al Thani with Danish Minister for Business Affairs and Growth Troels Lund Poulsen yesterday in Doha. They reviewed bilateral relations and aspects of mutual cooperation, particularly in the economic, commercial and investment affairs, and means of developing them. Trade volume between Qatar and Denmark stood at QR389m in 2015.

Minister of Economy meets with Danish Minister

QDB to hold meet on govt procurement and contracting

PAGE | 22 PAGE | 24Jeeves of Belgravia

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GIS plans to invest QR1.9bn in 5 years

By Sachin Kumar The Peninsula

DOHA: Gulf International Services (GIS) is planning to invest around QR1.9bn over the next five years. These investments will generate additional revenue for the company.

“Despite the current muted eco-nomic environment, GIS is embarking a selective capital expenditure pro-grammes together with suitable business development opportunities. GIS believes that continued invest-ment in operating assets are essential to remain competitive in business and

will continue to invest when the right opportunity becomes available,” said Khaled bin Khalifa Al Thani, Chair-man of the Board of Directors, GIS while speaking at the 8th Annual General Assembly Meeting held. “With the total capex of QR4.3bn since its inception in 2008 to-date, the group expects to further invest QR1.9bn over the next five years. These investments are expected to generate additional revenue. I believe these investments will further strengthen the group’s competitive position as the premier service pro-vider in the region,” he added.

The Board recommended a divi-dend distribution for the year ended December 31, 2015 equivalent to a payout of QR1 per share and repre-senting 23.2 percent of the group’s net profit.

He said that financial year 2015 was expected to be challenging for a number of reasons, including the consequences of QP’s procurement mechanism and its impact on some group companies together with unfavourable economic environ-ment driven by a significant fall in the crude oil prices, due to which the group companies within GIS had to

inculcate new thinking, new way of working to stay ahead of uncertain economic environment and the com-petition while maintaining the costs at the lowest.

“The group, therefore, embarked on a number of cost improvement and optimisation programmes those sup-ported and will continue to support the group’s performance during the current and future turbulent economic period,” said the chairman. “I can assure you that together with my fel-low Board of Directors, we will put our whole hearted effort in ensuring that GIS will continue to be the flag ship service provider especially in oil and gas field within the region and con-tinue to add value. I am confident that we together with the senior manage-ment of the group companies develop sustainable long-term strategies and business development programs to overcome all the obstacles currently faced due to the unfavorable market conditions,” he added.

He said that results were sig-nificantly impacted due to the year-on-year reduction in profits of the group’s subsidiaries namely Gulf Drilling International and Gulf Heli-copters Company.

GOIC announces incentive package to facilitate user accessThe Peninsula

DOHA: The Doha-headquartered Gulf Organisation for Industrial Con-sulting (GOIC) decided to reduce the subscription price of the IMI Plus Por-tal, making it accessible for a large number of industrial investors, busi-nessmen, experts, researchers and journalists etc.

Abdulaziz bin Hamad Al Ageel (pictured), GOIC Secretary Gen-eral, stated: “The new price bundle allows users to access key up-to-date information. In fact, GOIC deployed huge efforts to establish and develop a comprehensive set of databases to

reflect the socio-economic status in the GCC. The IMI Plus is important because it is the first of its kind in the region to include four databases: Gulf industries, foreign trade, socio-economic indicators and investment

opportunities in the Gulf. It also fea-tures several search and query options, in addition to the capacity to print reports.”

Al Ageel said: “The IMI Plus prod-ucts, such as reports and control panels, allow users to carry out fea-sibility studies using accurate and updated information, identify prom-ising investment opportunities in member states, determine the mar-ket size for a specific product, identify commercial exchange between GCC countries and other countries all over the globe or according to country group classification, determine imports and exports, net imports, design capac-ities and the market size for goods in accordance with customs tariffs.”

By Satish Kanady The Peninsula

DOHA: The Middle East and North-ern African (Mena) sovereigns are expected to borrow an equivalent of $134bn from long-term commercial sources in 2016.

This compares with borrowing of $143bn in 2015, which was more than double the $68bn that the region is expected to be borrowed in that year, Standard and Poor’s “Mena Sovereign Debt Report 2016” noted.

However, the ratings agency noted that its updated estimate for 2015 includes an additional $30bn in borrowing by Iraq. It has included Iraq in the survey for the first time, having assigned it sovereign credit

ratings in September 2015.S&P assumes that the GCC’s

emerging fiscal deficits would be wholly financed by drawing down on assets. However, in the case of Saudi Arabia, although the sovereign did liquidate some assets, it estimates that the government also borrowed $26bn dollar equivalent in 2015.

All in all, it is estimated that GCC countries’ borrowing at $40bn in 2015 rather than the $5bn S&P projected in March 2015.

“We believe a 9 percent decrease in long-term commercial debt issu-ance in 2016 compared with 2015 will largely result from a decline in bor-rowing by the Egyptian government, due to what we expect will be mod-est fiscal consolidation.

About 40 percent, or $53bn, of the sovereigns’ gross borrowing will

be to refinance maturing long-term debt, compared with $61bn in 2015, resulting in an estimated net borrow-ing requirement of $81bn”, the ratings agency said.

The commercial debt stock of the Mena sovereigns rate is expected to reach an equivalent of $667bn by the end of 2016, up by $85bn, or 15 percent, from 2015. Adding in bi- and multilateral debt, the total stock will reach $814bn, a year-on-year increase of $116bn, or 17 percent.

The share of noncommercial official debt (bi- and multilateral) in total sovereign debt is set to rise to 22 percent of total debt as of year-end 2016, from 20 percent in 2015. S&P expects that outstanding short-term commercial debt will reach $163bn at year-end 2016.

Globally, S&P forecasts a $154bn

(2 percent) decrease in commercial borrowing by the 131 sovereigns we currently rate, to reach $6.7 trillion in 2016.

The US and Japan will again be the most prolific borrowers this year, accounting for 58 percent of the total, followed by China, Italy, and France.

Absolute debt levels continue to increase. The total outstanding glo-bal sovereign commercial debt stock is projected to rise during 2016 by almost $1 trillion to reach $42 tril-lion by the end of this year.

In a breakdown by region, Asia-Pacific sovereigns are expected to borrow $2.5 trillion, 37 percent of the total amount, mostly by Japan and, to a lesser extent, China and India. In contrast, borrowing by sovereigns in Africa and the Middle East is negligi-ble by global comparison.

Mena sovereign borrowings rise sharply

GIS is embarking a selective capital expenditure programme together with suitable business development opportunities.

Officials at the 8th Annual General Assembly Meeting.

Mena soverign total commercial debt in 2016 by rating catogory

BUSINESS22 THURSDAY 3 MARCH 2016

Ooredoo signs key cyber security deal with Si

The Peninsula

DOHA: Ooredoo has signed a major security agreement with Si, a pio-neering solutions provider, which will position Ooredoo as the leader in Managed Security Services provi-sion across the region.

The partnership, which was com-pleted at Mobile World Congress in

Barcelona last week, will provide Ooredoo customers with an enhanced suite of online security services, including 24x7 security incident detection and response services, to keep their data and their businesses safe.

Companies and organisations in the region have come under increas-ing pressure in recent months as the volume of attempted cyber-attacks has increased. Working with Si, Oore-doo will ensure that, even if there is a security breach, customers will receive an incident report within minutes for serious threats so that they can react immediately to fix the problem.

As part of the agreement, cus-tomers will be able to benefit from Security Information and Event Man-agement (SIEM) as a service, accessing around-the-clock monitoring with-out the need for major hardware

investment. In addition, Ooredoo and Si will also offer a Managed Firewall service, deploying the very best talent and technology in the security indus-try to protect customers’ networks and systems.

Yusuf Abdulla Al Kubaisi, Chief Operating Officer, Ooredoo Qatar, said: “We want our customers to be able to focus on their core serv-ices, and have the peace of mind of knowing that their systems are being protected and monitored by world-class security experts. This best-in-class agreement with Si means that we are able to offer incredible levels of security around the clock, and enable customers to access these resources through an affordable, scalable model.”

Feras Tappuni, Managing Director, Si, said: “Our company works hard to deliver innovative projects in a sim-ple way, so that customers know what

they are getting and receive immedi-ate and sustainable benefits. Ooredoo provides world-class networks sup-ported by strong experience in integrated ICT provision, so together we will be able to deliver the highest level of security and service.”

SIEM as a Service from Ooredoo

will offer real-time monitoring serv-ices that are scalable, compliant, cost effective, and available every minute of every day. The cloud-based service will be secured across Security Oper-ations Centres (SOCs) in Doha.

The Managed Firewall service is also cloud-based, to offer a resilient

and dependable service for cor-porate clients. Ooredoo and Si will provide the resources and expertise to constantly monitor and manage companies’ firewalls, blocking unau-thorised access while at the same time enabling secure and uninterrupted outward communication.

The Ooredoo and Si teams on the sidelines of Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Partnership will provide customers with an enhanced suite of online security services.

Jeeves of Belgravia brings advanced fabric care solutionsThe Peninsula

DOHA: Jeeves of Belgravia, the prestigious London-based garment care company offer-ing dry cleaning and laundry service,is bringing its advanced and modern fabric care solutions to Doha, Qatar to capitalise on the growing local and regional demand for world-class dry cleaning and laundry services from the afflu-ent market.

Located on 30La Croisette, The Pearl-Qatar, the respected boutique provides its complimen-tary collection and delivery services as well as its finest hand valeting to the capital city’s thriv-ing market.

Through its renowned ‘Green Earth®Cleaning’ technology, the company will also offer its most advanced, eco-friendly tech-niques in fabric care to local clients. Jeeves of Belgravia, which serves top clientele in the fash-ion industry, has held a Royal Warrant for dry cleaning services to the Prince of Wales and his family for the past 34 years.

Tim Grice, General Manager, Jeeves of Bel-gravia-Doha, said: “Bringing our operations to Doha establishes our presence in the local and regional markets where demand for garment care is high. We will provide requisite skills, equipment and facilities to extend the best possible services. Jeeves of Belgravia, which is known for its close personal attention to details, has mastered the techniques required for such care. With our expertise, we will deliver unri-valed services to our discerning clients.”

At Jeeves of Belgravia, garments undergo a seven-step process to ensure thorough assessment of each item. The process includes ‘Detailing,’ which involves careful inspection of the garments; ‘Stain Removal,’ performed by professionals using proven traditional and advanced modern techniques; ‘Clean-ing,’ using the finest, purest and eco-friendly solvents; ‘Hand Finishing’ to meet the client’s specific requirements; ‘Minor Repairs’ to check for loose hems, open seams, and loose or miss-ing buttons; careful garment ‘Inspection’ before delivery; and ‘Packaging’ to protect the quality of the garments.

Cleopatra Travels Managing Director Yousef Abdulla Al Sai and Himalaya Airlines Commercial General Manager Raju Bahadur K C at the GSA agreement signing ceremony.

Himalaya Airlines appoints Cleopatra Travels as Qatar GSAThe Peninsula

DOHA: Himalaya Airlines,a Nepal-China joint venture airline, has announced the appointment of Cleo-patra Travels as its General Sales Agents (GSA) passenger and cargo for Qatar.

The GSA will be responsible for the airline’s sales and marketing, market development, reservations, ticketing services representing the airline in Qatar. This appointment will ensure easy access for Qatari, Nepalese citizens, and other trave-lers to the airline’s services.

Himalaya Airlines has sched-uled its flight by A320-200, with eight business and 150 economy

class seats, to Doha from April 12 onwards. The service will operate on a daily basis, departing at 20:00 pm from Kathmandu, and landing at 22:30pm in Doha. Similarly, the flight will depart at 23:30pm from Doha and land in Kathmandu at 07:15am the next day.

The airline has acquired a brand new A320 committing high level of reliability and punctuality to its pas-sengers. The flight timings have been planned with utmost passenger con-venience in mind.

Commenting on this appoint-ment, Raju Bahadur KC, General Manager – Commercial, said, “We are pleased to announce the appoint-ment of Cleopatra Travels as GSA to represent Himalaya Airlines and we look forward to their support in

helping the airline to increase sales in this important market. We are hon-oured to serve the Qatari market with very competitive pricing and delight-ful service.”

Himalaya Airlines, a full-service carrier established in August 2014, has planned to start international flights operation from April 12. The airline has made full preparation in terms of training flight crew and maintenance personnel and has in place systems, people and infrastruc-ture to start commercial flights. The airline has scheduled its first desti-nations at Doha and Delhi followed by Lhasa Chengdu and Beijing a few months later.

Over the coming five years, the airline aims at acquiring 15 Airbus 320 family aircraft.

‘Qatar economy is sustainable in long term’The Peninsula

DOHA: Qatar’s huge reserves will help it to withstand lower energy prices. Qatar economy is sustainable in the long term amidst short term challenges, said Dr R Seetharaman, CEO of Doha Bank. He was speaking at the ‘Lunch Talk’ organised by The Asian Ambassadors’ Group.

Dr Seetharaman spoke on the topic “Qatar 2016 Budget and the Sustainability of Qatar’s Economy for 2016 and Beyond”.

“According to recent S&P report, Qatar has “significant” strength in defending its fixed exchange parity with the dollar due to availability of reserves to cover the monetary base and current account payments over the next four years. Qatar economy is sustainable in the long term amidst short term challenges. Qatar also has AA’ long-term rating from S&P, with a stable outlook. Qatar is a resilient economy,” said Dr Seetharaman.

The Asian Ambassadors’ Group under the chairmanship of the Ambassador of Malaysia, Dato’ Ahmad Jazri Mohd Johar organised an inaugural ‘Lunch Talk’ on Monday.

The members of the Asian Group consist of 20 Ambassadors including the seven ASEAN embassies in Qatar namely Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam and is currently chaired by Singapore and Malaysia as the Vice Chairman.

“Qatar’s 2016 growth is expected

to be 4.3 percent. Qatar’s fiscal and external positions to shift to deficits from 2016. However Qatar has built a large net asset position that will help it weather the current lower hydro-carbon price environment,” he said.

“Qatar has budgeted for reve-nues of QR156bn and expenditures of QR202.5bn in 2016. Health, edu-cation and infrastructure accounted for the largest share of the 2016 expenditure. Major infrastruc-ture expenditures amounting to QR50.6bn would include railways, the new Doha port, several large roadways and the expansion of elec-tricity, water and sewage networks,” he added.

Dr Seetharaman said “Even after seven years since the Global finan-cial crisis the sustainable growth is not visible in global economy. Mon-etary easing had continued since the global financial crisis from US, Eurozone and Japan Central Bank. The Fed had commenced rate hike last December and it needs to be seen whether it will continue with so much volatility in global finan-cial markets this year and uneven US economic recovery”.

“Qatar Banking Balance sheet growth was more than 10 percent YTD (Year to Date) in December and loan growth was more than 15 percent YTD. The real estate sector lending was more than 27 percent YTD, retail sector was close to 17 per-cent, contracting sector more than 23 percent and service sector was more than 6 percent,” Dr Seethar-aman added.

The Peninsula

DOHA: The Qatar Financial Cen-tre (QFC) announced the launch of its mobile phone application, a free interactive tool that allows access to its services including company registration, licensing and immigration. The new appli-cation features a multi-touch menu which allows customers to learn more on how to set-up at the QFC and make payments for immigra-tion services among others.

“We are always looking for new ways to enhance our clients’ experience” said QFC CEO You-suf Mohamed Al Jaida. “The QFC mobile app is yet another way for us to engage with our firms, and provide them with a fast and easy way to access our services at the touch of a button,” he said.

Raed Al Emadi, Chief Commer-cial Officer said: “The launch of this app is an excellent example of the best-in-class services we provide our licensed firms.” He added: “This app complements our QFC Client portal and covers the wide spec-trum of services we offer pre, during and post the licensing phase.”

The mobile application builds on QFC’s commitment to offer its customers time-saving serv-ices and amenities, and further reinforces the organisation’s dedi-cation to supporting its firms.

This latest step follows on pre-vious services the QFC has made available to clients. In 2014, the QFC was the first entity in the region to make its tax guidance material available online, and in 2015 it cre-ated an online tax treaty database. The app is available on Apple’s “App Store” and Google’s “Play Store.”

Officials at the opening.

Qatar Financial

Centre launches

mobile application

Gulf Air increases

Saudi operations

The Peninsula

DOHA: Gulf Air, Bahrain’s national carrier, is set to increase its Riyadh service with an increase of four additional afternoon flights per week effective today, taking the airline’s weekly flights between Bahrain International Airport and King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh from 28 to a total of 32.

“Today, Gulf Air operates direct flights to five destinations within Saudi Arabia: Dammam, Riyadh, Madina Al Munawarah, Jeddah and Gassim. The enhanced Gulf Air service give travellers an additional afternoon flight, sup-plementing our existing, multiple daily schedule,” said Gulf Air A/Chief Commercial Officer Ahmed Janahi.

BUSINESS 23THURSDAY 3 MARCH 2016

Despite oil woes, QIF optimistic on Qatari market

The Peninsula

DOHA: Despite the wide-rang-ing impact of low oil prices on GCC economies, the London-listed Qatar Investment Fund (QIF) is bullish on Qatar.

“The Qatar market sell-off looks over-done with excessive pessimism priced in. Qatari equities are trading at a market discount to their historical

average. We remain optimistic about growth prospects in the medium to long term”, Nicholas Wilson, Chair-man, QIF said.

The Fund’s investment adviser believes that Qatari equities have already priced in excessive pessi-mism and relative valuations retain attractive. The market is trading at a discount to its historical average. The QE Index is currently trading at a trailing twelve months P/E ratio of 10.79x (as on December 31, 2015) vs its 10-year historical average of 12.3x, a discount of 14.5 percent, thus provid-ing a good entry point to investors.

The fall in oil and gas prices will continue to impact the Qatari econ-omy as certain lower priority projects may be deferred. However, the fund expect economic growth will continue at over 6 percent in the coming years, the highest in the GCC region.

Continuing weakness in the oil price weighed on sentiment during the period as Qatar’s GDP growth expectations were revised down. The banking sector, including financial services remains QIF’s largest single sector with a 43.2 percent exposure at the end of 2015. In December, QIF had a total of 17 holdings, all in Qatar.

On the fund’s outlook, the chair-man said the sharp fall in oil and gas prices will continue to impact the Qatari economy as certain lower priority projects may be deferred. However, Qatar is the world’s largest exporter of LNG and although lower prices have been negotiated. Qatar is defending its market share. In addi-tion, the diversification polices of government over recent years had placed Qatar in a strong position rel-ative to other Gulf countries with arguably over 60 percent of GDP

currently derived from the non-hydrocarbon sector. This, contained with continuing population growth, improving demographics and an extensive infrastructure pipeline, should see continued GDP growth.

In the second half of 2015, the Qatar market has shown resilience compared to other GCC markets. In the 18 months to December 31, 2015, Qatar fell 9.2 percent and was the sec-ond best performer after Abu Dhabi (down 5.4 percent).

During this period, the price of a barrel of Brent crude fell 66.8 percent. Over the 18 months, the Saudi market fell 27.3 percent, Dubai 20.1 percent and the Oman and Kuwait markets dropped 22.9 percent and 19.5 per-cent, respectively.

“Our investment adviser believes that the Qatar market sell-off is overdone and remains optimistic

on Qatar over the medium to longer term, because of its superior growth prospects and an expanding non-hydrocarbon sector.

The recent 2016 state budget focuses on long term development of the Qatari economy, with capital spending remaining strong. Infra-structure, healthcare and education sectors remain the key areas of focus with over 45 percent of the total budg-eted expenditure earmarked for the same.

Further, projects worth over $200bn have been planned over the next 10 years with $72bn worth of government projects already under-way. Strong project spending coupled with a steady rise in population should continue fuelling growth in the non-hydrocarbon sector.

QIF believes that the liquid-ity concerns in the Qatari banking

system are likely to continue in the near term. However, Qatari banks are expected to slowly overcome these by issuing bonds and as public sec-tor deposits coming back to Qatari banks. The fund said its investment adviser reassessed valuations in the banking sector and performed its own stress testing on banking mod-els and found that despite liquidity concerns, banking sector valuations appear attractive.”

Qatari banking sector growth was the fastest in the GCC region. The sec-tor grew at a CAGR of 15.3 percent from 2010-2014.

Over the period, banking asset penetration in Qatar improved from 125 percent to GDP to 132 percent. With Qatari banking asset growth expected to remain faster than GDP growth, the asset penetration is likely to continue to increase.

Porsche Centre Doha unveils state-of-the-art service facilityThe Peninsula

DOHA: Continuing its commitment to providing unrivalled customer service and satisfaction, Porsche Centre Doha, Al Boraq Automobiles Co., opens its new service centre in Qatar. Located on Street 16 in the Industrial Area, the state-of-the-art facility offers direct, congestion-free access for all visitors and raises the bar for After Sales care as Porsche extends its heritage of automotive excellence in Qatar.

The landmark facility covers more than 3,600 sqm and com-prises both technical workshop and customer service areas, designed

and built to the highest specifica-tions. A total of 18 work bays, all fully equipped with custom made workshop benches designed and manufactured to Porsche standard, will be utilised by 54 technicians and service advisors who will deliver the very best in After Sales care to cus-tomers across Qatar.

As well as housing four Direct Dialogue Bays, one of which fea-tures a Test Lane, the new facility also includes a Porsche Drivers Selec-tion display section. Eight months in the making, the service centre sees the introduction of 42 new Porsche employees in Qatar, with a total of 54 employees being based at the new location.

Salman Jassem Al Darwish,

Chairman and CEO of Porsche Centre Doha, said: “Unparalleled customer service and an extension of the unique Porsche ownership experience into After Sales care are at the heart of our operations all over the world, and no less so in Qatar. Our third service centre in the country opens in line with the growth we have seen in the market over recent years and the demand we place on ourselves to ensure our customer service keeps up with that growth.”

“Customer satisfaction and engagement is of the upmost impor-tance to us and so is investing in our people to ensure that we continue to offer the very best-in-class service, reflective of the Porsche brand,” he added. The new Porsche Service Centre is located on Street 16 in the Industrial Area.

Qatari equities are trading at a market discount to their historical average.

BUSINESS24 THURSDAY 3 MARCH 2016

QC Chairman meets WTO Director-General

The Peninsula

DOHA: Qatar Chamber (QC) Chair-man Sheikh Khalifa bin Jassim Al-Thani met with the World Trade Organization (WTO) Director Gen-eral Roberto Azevedo here yesterday.

The two officials discussed the Chamber’s role in WTO’s initiative and the outcomes of the tenth min-isterial meeting of the organisation held in Nairobi.

Sheikh Khalifa reiterated that Qatar Chamber has adopted

international trade agenda initiative in 2011 in collaboration with the Inter-national Chamber of Commerce Qatar (ICC) to push the stalemate of Doha Round of negotiations, QNA reported.

Backed by the wise leadership of the State of Qatar, the Chamber adopted and prioritized the outcomes of the WTO ministerial conference held in Bali in 2013. The results facil-itate global trade agreement the spur cross border commerce and create many jobs in developing countries, the chairman said.

WTO Director General Roberto Azevedo described the ministerial conference in Nairobi as “successful and positive”, and discussed several topics including the impact of reduced government subsidies for goods and services for member countries.

In his report to the General Council on February 24 as chair of the Trade Negotiations Commit-tee, Azevedo urged WTO members to “deepen their dialogue with each other” about how to advance the work of the WTO and to build on the recent

success of the Ministerial Conference in Nairobi.

The Doha Round is the latest round of trade negotiations among the WTO membership. Its aim is to achieve major reform of the

international trading system through the introduction of lower trade barri-ers and revised trade rules. The work programme covers about 20 areas of trade.

The Round is also known as the

Doha Development Agenda as a fun-damental objective is to improve the trading prospects of developing coun-tries. It was officially launched at the WTO’s Fourth Ministerial Conference in Doha, Qatar, in November 2001.

QDB to hold meet on govt procurement and contractingThe Peninsula

DOHA: Qatar Development Bank (QDB) yesterday announced the first Government Procurement and Contracting Confer-ence & Exhibition, ‘MOUSTARAYAT,’. The event will take place for three days from March 8.

The aim of ‘MOUSTARAYAT’ is to strengthen coopera-tion between private and public sector companies in Qatar, in addition to bolstering collaborations between local SMEs and important stakeholders.

Abdulaziz bin Nasser Al Khalifa, CEO of Qatar Development Bank, said over 20 exhibitors would attend the event opening up opportunities for an estimated 400 contracts with a com-bined value of QR2bn.

The event will also aimed at offering support for SMEs as part of the boosting the country’s ongoing economic diversi-fication process.

QDB supports SMEs on local and global levels, and ‘MOUS-TARAYAT’ is one of the many ways we provide support to this sector, as we provide low risk purchasing opportunities, link-ing SMEs with major stakeholders and promoting competitive business environments, he said.

Through the exhibition, QDB is keen on finding new ways to empower the country’s sustainable government procurement system, prepare SMEs to meet their goals and requirements and further strengthen the local market, QDB CEO added.

Qatar Chamber Chairman Sheikh Khalifa bin Jassim Al Thani and other officials with the WTO Director-General Roberto Azevedo in Doha yesterday.

Sheikh Khalifa discusses Chamber’s role in WTO’s initiative with Roberto Azevedo.

Officials with the WTO Director-General Roberto Azevedo in Doha yesterday.

China eyes 13% money supply growthReuters

BEIJING: China plans to target broad-based money supply growth of around 13 percent this year, sources said, a signal that further monetary policy easing is likely during a pain-ful economic restructuring that could see millions of workers losing jobs.

Top leaders have already pledged “supply-side structural reforms” to tackle excess factory capacity and “zombie firms”, and are also expected to lean more on fiscal stimulus as they seek to avert a hard landing for the world’s second-largest economy.

“A 13 percent rise in M2 is suffi-cient for keeping liquidity flush in the near term, but we may see faster rises later this year as the central bank is likely to loosen policy further,” said one of the sources.

The target, which is set to be

announced by Premier Li Keqiang at the annual parliament session that opens on Saturday, was endorsed by top party leaders at a closed-door Central Economic Work Conference in December, said a number of peo-ple with knowledge of the outcome of the meeting.

The sources also said the infla-tion forecast for this year was set to be around 3 percent, more than dou-ble the actual rate in 2015.

China’s top economic planner has said the government would tar-get economic growth of 6.5-7 percent this year, confirming a Reuters report, and the sources said the money sup-ply and inflation forecasts are in line with that target.

The State Council Informa-tion Office did not respond to faxed requests for comment. The money-supply targets are subject to last-minute revisions before being submitted to the largely rubber-stamp

parliament for approval. Flush credit conditions will be vital for the government to cut taxes and keep up infrastructure spend-ing to compensate for the effects of tackling overcapacity, including unemployment.

There are plans to lay off 5-6 million workers from “zombie enter-prises” over the next two to three years as part of efforts to cut indus-trial overcapacity and pollution, two sources with ties to the country’s leadership said this week.

The central bank resumed its eas-ing cycle on Monday, cutting bank reserve requirements to pump the equivalent of around $100bn into the banking system.

“The target for M2 is likely to be 13 percent this year. They need to keep appropriate liquidity con-ditions, credit and money supply growth to meet the need for supply-side reforms,” said another source, a

policy adviser.Advisers expect the central bank

to deliver more cuts in bank reserve requirements in the coming months, though there is less room to cut inter-est rates. The central bank is also expected to pump out more cash via policy tools such as the stand-ing lending facility (SLF) and the medium-term lending facility (MLF), they said.

M2 money supply expanded an annual 13.3 percent in 2015, beating the government’s money supply tar-get of around 12 percent, due to a raft of easing measures.

China’s 13th Five-Year Plan, a blueprint covering 2016-20, will also be announced at the parlia-ment meeting. President Xi Jinping has said China needs annual average growth of at least 6.5 percent over the next five years to hit a goal of dou-bling gross domestic product and per capita income by 2020 from 2010.

The Peninsula

DOHA: The Qatar national committee for coordination on matters related to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) met yesterday with WTO Director General Roberto Azevedo at Qatar Chamber (QC) premises. The meet-ing discussed coordination between the two sides in organising workshops and forums, facilitating global trade and removing technical obstacles.

The two sides also discussed issues related to specifications and

standards and the importance of being in line with those of Arab coun-tries, QNA reported.

They also discussed ways of cooperation between the two sides in terms of holding workshops and conferences on WTO’s systems and regulations so as to enhance the expe-rience and knowledge of Qatari youth working in this field on certain mat-ters handled by the organisation.

The deputy head of the national committee briefed the WHO Direc-tor-General on the activities of the national coordination committee.

Qatar committee holds talks with WTO chief

FROM LEFT: Badar Shaheen Al Kuwari, Business Development Bank (QDB); Abdulaziz Zeid Al Rashid Al Taleb, Director of Government Procurement Regulations at the Ministry of Finance; Abdulaziz bin Nasser Al Khalifa, CEO, QDB; and Hamad Khamis Al Kubaisi, Executive Director of Advisory, QDB, at a press conference in Doha yesterday. Pic: Salim M/The Peninsula

SYDNEY: Australia’s economy strengthened last year supported by consumer and government spending, data showed, with the better-than-expected figures raising expectations the resources-dependent nation is emerging out of a recent slump.

Economic growth expanded by 0.6 percent in October to Decem-ber to take the annual rate of expansion to a surprise 3.0 per-cent, figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed.

The surprise improvement beat market expectations of fourth-quarter growth of 0.4 percent for year-on-year growth of 2.5 per-cent, and sent the Australian dollar jumping almost half a cent to 72.19 US cents.

“Today’s December quar-ter national accounts show once again that Australia continues to successfully manage the transi-tion from the largest resources investment boom in our history to broader-based growth,” Treas-urer Scott Morrison told reporters in Canberra.

“We are growing faster than every economy in the G7, growing well above the OECD average. We are growing faster than the United States and the United Kingdom. More than twice the pace of com-parable resource-based economies like Canada.”

The healthy figures were fur-ther supported by an upwards revision of the September quar-ter growth rate from 0.9 percent to 1.1 percent, the strongest three-month reading since March 2012.

Household spending contrib-uted 0.4 percentage points to the December quarter growth while public gross fixed capital forma-tion added 0.2 percentage points to GDP, the data showed.

The Australian economy has slowed as the country exits an unprecedented mining invest-ment boom that has helped it avoid a recession for 24 years, with the jobless rate rising above a decade-high, subdued wage growth and tepid business investment outside the resources sector.

The Reserve Bank of Aus-tralia has been cutting interest rates since November 2011, with the last cut in May 2015 taking it to a record-low of 2.0 percent, as it sought to boost growth in non-mining sectors. The central bank kept the cash rate on hold on Tues-day. But the labour market showed signs of strengthening in late 2015, while consumers appeared to be more willing to open their wallets amid a booming residential hous-ing sector.

“The latter half of last year looks a fair bit stronger than was realised at that time,” JP Morgan senior economist Ben Jarman told AFP. “A lot of the most recent strength comes from consumer spending.”

TOKYO: Toyota Motor Corp announced an overhaul of its cor-porate structure yesterday as the world’s biggest-selling carmaker seeks to streamline decision-making and improve the way it manages its production as output hits record highs.

Effective April, the number of business divisions will be increased to nine from the present four, with the aim of creating a company “built around product-based rather than function-based organisa-tions,” it said in a statement.

Three new divisions will sepa-rately focus on compact, mid-size and commercial vehicles, along-side divisions dedicated to connected cars and to research and engineering.

The company will maintain its premium Lexus division, along with its two region-based divisions overseeing geographical markets, while it will also have a dedicated power trains division.

Managing officer Shinya Kot-era will become senior managing officer and will lead the com-pany’s division which oversees China, Asia, and other regions. The remaining divisions will be led by existing senior managing officers.

Kotera, 54, previously headed the company’s operations in East Asia and the Oceania region.

Toyota’s sharper focus on end products comes after it posted glo-bal sales of 10.1 million vehicles in 2015 and begins vehicle production using its new, standardized engi-neering platform, under which vehicles will share more common parts according to their size, cut-ting production costs by as much as a fifth. Toyota’s revamped Prius, which began production in Decem-ber in Japan, is the first model produced under Toyota’s New Global Architecture platform. The compact saloon will be followed by a new C-HR crossover model which was unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show this week and which will be produced in Turkey.

Toyota shakes

up corporate

structure to focus

on product lines

Australia’s

economy

expands faster

than expected

Malaysia’s Petronas Twin Towers rise behind a Petronas logo at a fuel station in Kuala Lumpur yesterday. Petronas is cutting as many as 1,000 jobs as it reorganises its businesses and trims the fat to counter a slump in the price of crude oil.

Petronas to cut 1,000 jobs

BUSINESS 25THURSDAY 3 MARCH 2016

AFP

TIANJIN: Europe’s largest aircraft manufacturer Airbus started con-struction yesterday on a new facility to deliver wide-body planes in China, as it faces off against bitter US rival Boeing for market share in the world’s second-largest economy.

At a ceremony in the northern port of Tianjin, Airbus CEO Fabrice Bregier and Chinese officials officially broke ground for the completion and delivery centre that will produce two A330 planes per month.

The centre is an expansion of the firm’s existing final assembly plant for A320 single-aisle aircraft in the city.

It comes with China’s economic growth at its weakest in a quarter of a century and concerns over its outlook sending shivers through global stock exchanges. But Bregier said that “this is not true for our market”, adding that increased middle-class incomes and easing visa rules were driving a boom

Airbus starts work on new China facility

Aviation Industry Corp of China (AVIC) President Lin Zuoming speaks during a ground-breaking ceremony for the Airbus A330 completion and delivery centre in Tianjin, China, yesterday.

in Chinese air travel.The world’s second-largest econ-

omy is already Asia’s biggest aircraft buyer as a growing middle class takes to the skies in ever-increasing num-bers. The country is forecast to have 1.7 billion air passengers by 2034, and is poised in the next two decades to become the largest civil aviation mar-ket in the world.

The new $150m centre is the com-pany’s first such facility for wide-body aircraft outside Europe, and “marks a new milestone for Airbus’ inter-national footprint”, Bregier said. It

will take flyable unpainted aircraft from their headquarters in Toulouse, France and add cabins, furnishings and paint, before they are delivered to customers.

Boeing also plans to open a com-pletion centre in China, it announced last year. The company sold 300 air-craft worth a record $38bn during President Xi Jinping’s visit to the US in 2015. The two firms have been in a fierce battle for market share in China, where Airbus says it has gone from 27 percent in 2004 — before it opened the Tianjin final assembly line

— to roughly 50 percent today. The country is now Airbus’ larg-

est market, accounting for nearly a quarter of the planes it delivered in 2015. Days before the ground-break-ing, Air China announced orders for 12 wide-body aircraft for $2.9bn. “I understand that our competitor is try-ing to mimic” the Airbus strategy by opening a facility, CEO Bregier said in Tianjin, but added: “It’s not really state-of-the-art.”

A Boeing spokesman retorted: “Partnership is defined by more than a few buildings,” calling its

relationships in the country “second to none” in supporting the develop-ment of Chinese aviation.

Beijing has made building up its aerospace industry a strategic prior-ity, considering it a crucial component of an advanced economy.

Investing in new plants in China is not only a way to increase production, but also a way to win the approval of the government, which controls the airline industry. “Our industrial cooperation serves a purpose, and that purpose is to facilitate our sales... to China,” said Andreas Ockel, gen-eral manager of the Tianjin assembly facility. “It’s a give and take.”

The Airbus A320 assembly plant is a joint venture in which Chinese stakeholders control 49 percent, and the European firm has joint oper-ations with partners across China manufacturing doors, wings, and other parts for A320 family aircraft.

“In China the sales are not limited purely to the commercial dimension,” said Eric Chen, president of Airbus China. “You need also to explore industrial cooperation to reinforce the relationship.”

For its part Boeing has joint ven-tures in Boeing Tianjin Composites and Boeing Shanghai Aviation Serv-ices as well as a manufacturing innovation centre. But even while it has encouraged partnerships with foreign firms the government is investing heavily in building up domestic champions such as state-owned Commercial Aircraft Corp. of China (COMAC).

Airbus’ Bregier acknowledged the threat of future Chinese compe-tition, adding that co-operation only went so far. “We will try to make their life as difficult as possible,” he said. “I exclude in principle to support the development of a competitor.”

At a ceremony in the northern port of Tianjin, Airbus CEO Fabrice Bregier and Chinese officials broke ground for the completion and delivery centre that will produce two A330 planes per month.

Reuters

LONDON: Oil fell further below $37 a barrel yesterday as US crude stockpiles rose to a new record, underlining the extent of a supply glut and countering support from producer efforts to tackle it.

Crude inventories rose by 10.4 million barrels, the US gov-ernment’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in its weekly report, much more than analysts had expected.

Global benchmark Brent crude was down 45 cents at $36.36 a barrel by 1548 GMT. On Tues-day, it reached $37.25, the highest in almost two months. US crude, also known as WTI, was down 55 cents at $33.85.

“Today’s EIA data will do very little to help oil’s recent bounce,” said Chris Jarvis, ana-lyst at Caprock Risk Management in Frederick, Maryland. “In short, it’s difficult to make a bullish case. Signs that the glut in oil and reversal of the building trend will subside any time soon seems distant.”

The inventory rise was even larger than the 9.9 million-bar-rel increase reported on Tuesday by industry group the American Petroleum Institute (API). The API report had weighed on prices ear-lier in the session.

Brent has risen 34 percent from a 12-year low of $27.10 hit on January 20, adding to expec-tations that further declines may not be on the cards. An analyst at the International Energy Agency said on Tuesday prices appeared to have bottomed.

Crude has collapsed from more than $100 in mid-2014, pressured by excess supply and a decision by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to abandon its traditional role of cutting produc-tion by itself to boost prices.

After more than a year of fail-ing to agree any steps, Opec and outside producers have stepped up diplomatic activity to fix the supply glut. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Venezuela and non-Opec pro-ducer Russia said on February 16 that they would freeze output.

The four countries have agreed to meet again in mid-March, Ven-ezuelan Oil Minister Eulogio Del Pino said last week. The location for the talks has yet to be decided, Opec delegates say.

Reuters

FRANKFURT: Germany’s cartel office is investigating Facebook for suspected abuse of market power over breaches of data protection laws in the first for-mal probe of the social network for violating competition rules.

The watchdog said it suspected that Facebook’s terms of service with its users regarding how the company makes use of their data may abuse the company’s possibly dominant position in the social net-working market.

Facebook, the world’s big-gest social network with 1.6 billion monthly users, earns revenues from advertising based on data it gathers about its users’ social connections, opinions and activities in their post-ings. “For advertising-financed

internet services such as Facebook, user data are hugely important,” Federal Cartel Office President Andreas Mundt said.

The cartel office said it had con-siderable doubts about whether Facebook users had been properly informed about how their data were used, which it said could violate stringent German data protection laws.

“There is an initial suspicion that Facebook’s conditions of use are in violation of data protection provisions,” the regulator said in a statement announcing the probe.

Facebook is nearly the twice the size of the world’s second larg-est social network, Tencent’s QQ of China. Nearly 84 percent of Face-book’s members are outside the United States and Canada.

The company has faced strong criticism from politicians and

regulators in Germany, where data protection is strongly regulated, over its privacy practices.

Co-founder and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg visited Berlin on a charm offensive last week. A Face-book spokeswoman said: “We are confident that we comply with the law and we look forward to work-ing with the Federal Cartel Office to answer their questions.”

The regulator said it was inves-tigating whether Facebook abused its market power by failing to ade-quately inform its users of the scope and nature of data collection on their Internet surfing habits.

Facebook owns four of the top eight social network services globally including its core profile service, two separate instant messaging services, WhatsApp and Facebook Messen-ger, and its picture-sharing service Instagram.

AFP

FRANKFURT: The United States overtook France to become Germa-ny’s most important trading partner last year for the first time in 40 years, official data showed yesterday.

The development, which had already started to become discern-ible in the middle of last year, was confirmed by provisional data pub-lished by the federal statistics office Destatis: for the first time since 1975, France is no longer Germany’s big-gest trading partner.

Exchange rate fluctuations and the vigour of the US economy are largely behind the change in rank-ing. But the development appears to carry special political resonance at a time when Europe is fighting to hold together against the backdrop of the refugee crisis.

France has always been seen as Germany’s primary trading part-ner in the past, underlining the close political and economic ties between Europe’s number one and number two economies.

But the weakness of the euro against the dollar and the pick-up in the US economy has boosted Ger-many’s transatlantic trade.

“According to provisional data, goods worth a total ¤173.2bn ($188bn) changed hands between Germany and the US in 2015,” the federal statistics office Destatis calculated.

“That meant the US was Ger-many’s most important trading partner in 2015, followed by France

with ¤170.1bn worth of goods and the Netherlands with ¤167.6bn,” the statement said. In terms of exports, the US was the biggest foreign buyer of German-made goods in 2015, with exports amounting to ¤113.9bn last year. Exports to France, the country to which Germany has exported the most every year since 1961, amounted to ¤103bn. The UAE followed in third place, with exports totalling ¤89.3bn.

On the import side, Germany imported the most goods from China last year — ¤91.5bn in all. The Netherlands and France followed in second and third places with imports of ¤88.1bn and ¤67bn respectively, Destatis calculated. Anton Boerner, president of the German exporters’ federation BGA, saw the develop-ment as a “turning point, a long-term phenomenon,” even if France would definitely remain “a very important partner, and politically the most important one” for Germany.

Chancellor Angela Merkel is scheduled to travel to Paris on Fri-day to meet with President Francois Hollande, ahead of a crucial EU summit on refugees next week. For France, Germany remains its biggest trading partner, with 16 percent of French exports destined for its Euro-pean neighbour and 17 percent of its imports coming from the other side of the Rhine.

But in the US, the economic upturn there has led to a rise in demand for German-made goods, with chemical exports to the US ris-ing by 10 percent, machinery exports up 12 percent, cars and car parts up 23 percent.

AFP

BRUSSELS: Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos warned yesterday that his country’s massive bailout pro-gramme could fail if the EU and IMF persist in delaying the completion of a crucial review.

“We haven’t got endless time,” Tsakalotos told law-makers at a European Parliament committee hearing in Brussels, sharply criticising that teams from the EU and the IMF had not returned to Athens in a month.

Greece’s international creditors — the EU, European Central Bank and IMF — completed a first phase of the review on February 5, but there has been little progress

since. “That time is in danger of making a self-fulfilling prohecy that the Greek programme fails, for no reason that I can understand either as an academic economist or as a minister of finance,” Tsakalotos told MEPs.

The IMF worked with the EU on two previous bail-outs for Greece since 2010 but the Washington-based lender has said it will not participate in the third rescue plan without credible reforms and an EU agreement to ease Athens’ debt burden.

A major sticking point is the pension reforms planned by Greece’s leftist government which the IMF has found insufficient. The IMF also questions Greece’s budget esti-mations, a crucial piece of data that helps determine if Athens has delivered on the austerity reforms promised in its ¤86bn bailout programme.

Oil below $37

amid record

US inventories

LONDON: Gold rebounded yester-day as global shares turned lower after a fall in oil prices, shrugging off a steadier dollar following better-than-expected US economic data.

Spot gold, lower initially, rose 0.5 percent to $1,237.71 an ounce by 1515 GMT, while US gold futures for April delivery were up 0.5 per-cent at $1,237.10 an ounce. Bullion has rallied about 16 percent this year in the face of tumbling equities and fears of a global slowdown.

Gold rebounded even as the dollar gained 0.1 percent against a basket of currencies, after data showed the US private employers added 214,000 jobs in February, above economists’ expectations.

Platinum fell 0.6 percent to $936.20 an ounce, while silver gained 0.7 percent to $14.93 and palladium dropped 0.6 percent to $512.96.

France no longer Germany’s

biggest trading partner

Gold prices rebound

Germany takes on Facebook in first-ever competition probe

Huge bailout risks failure: Greece FM

Bloomberg

NEW YORK: Treasuries slid after a jobs report bolstered specula-tion that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates this year, while US stocks fluctuated follow-ing a rebound in crude prices and energy shares.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to the highest in a month, while a bond-market measure of inflation expecta-tions climbed for a ninth day after a private payrolls report showed companies added more work-ers than projected last month. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index retreated 0.1 percent after the benchmark’s rally yesterday.

Markets are taking cues from the potential for more central-bank

stimulus and signs economic pes-simism that dominated the start of the year was overdone.

The private payrolls report follows data on Tuesday that signalled manufacturing was steadying. Citigroup Inc’s US Economic Surprise Index, which measures whether data beats or misses estimates, is at the high-est level since November. In China, moves such as ruling out the possibility of a one-off yuan devaluation and a new head of the securities regulator are also help-ing investors win back confidence.

The S&P 500 traded near 1,977 at 1:20pm in New York, after the benchmark gauge on Tues-day posted its best session in a month. Energy shares and banks were the best-performing groups, while retailers and raw-mate-rial companies were the biggest

drag on the index. The Chicago Board Options Exchange Index, the gauge of market turbulence known as the VIX, fell a second day after sliding yesterday to the lowest level this year.

Traders have raised the odds for rate increases this year, with a 40 percent probability for a June boost in borrowing costs, up from about 26 percent a week ago. Chances for a December move have increased to 68 percent from 42 percent last Wednesday.

Investors are also weighing results from Super Tuesday after Hillary Clinton dominated Dem-ocratic Party primary contests, beating rival Bernie Sanders, while Donald Trump boosted his chances of securing the Republican Party presidential nomination.

The Stoxx Europe 600 Index

added 0.7 percent. Since slumping to a 2013 low on February 11, it has rebounded 12 percent amid ral-lies in banks, carmakers, miners and energy. The US dollar climbed 0.1 percent to $1.0853 against the euro, while the greenback fell 0.3 percent to 113.66 yen.

The Aussie strengthened for a third day, climbing 1.4 percent versus the greenback. Australia’s commodity-dependent econ-omy expanded 0.6 percent in the fourth quarter from the previous period. Brazil’s real and Britain’s pound added at least 0.8 percent.

The yuan traded in Hong Kong fell 0.09 percent to 6.5541 per dol-lar. The People’s Bank of China lowered its reference rate by 0.16 percent. China’s credit-rating out-look was lowered to negative from stable at Moody’s Investors Serv-ice, citing concerns about rising

government debt and falling cur-rency reserves in its decision to reduce the outlook.

The rate on 10-year US Treas-uries increased two basis points to 1.85 percent, after surging nine basis points on Tuesday. Gov-ernment bonds retreated in the UK, Germany and France, with 10-year yields climbing at least five basis points.

The MSCI Emerging Markets Index climbed 2.1 percent to the highest since January 5, as bench-mark gauges in India, South Korea and the Philippines rose at least 1.6 percent. Stocks from develop-ing economies are trading at 11.7 times estimated profits, the highest valuation so far of 2016. The Shang-hai Composite Index jumped 4.3 percent and the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index in Hong Kong climbed 3.8 percent.

BUSINESS26 THURSDAY 3 MARCH 2016

QE Index 10,014.43 0.45 %

QE Total Return Index 15,863.29 0.45 %

QE Al Rayan Islamic Index 3,711.55 0.90 %

QE All Share Index 2,713.7 0.15 %

QE All Share Banks & Financial Services 2,720.85 1.04 %

QE All Share Industrials 3,014.82 0.44 %

QE All Share Transportation 2,403.56 0.13 %

QE All Share Real Estate 2,260.91 0.69 %

QE All Share Insurance 4,245.65 4.26 %

QE All Share Telecoms 1,024.51 4.31 %

QE All Share Consumer Goods & Services 6,285.99 0.57 %

QE INDICES SUMMARY QATAR STOCK EXCHANGE

QE MARKET SUMMARY COMPARISON

GOLD AND SILVER

WORLD STOCK INDICES

02-03-2016 Today 01-03-2016 Previous dayIndex 10,014.43 9,969.25

Change 45.18 76.93

% 0.45 0.78

YTD% 3.98 4.41

Volume 12,751,995 13,337,279

Value (QAR) 412,597,167.24 606,299,453.29

Trades 5,681 5,196

Up 25 | Down 10 | Unchanged 04

GOLD QR144.5670 per grammeSILVER QR1.7440 per gramme

Index Day’s Close Pt Chg % Chg Year High Year LowAll Ordinaries 5083.452 93.852 1.88 5379.6 4762.1

Cac 40 Index/D 4409.6 2.76 0.06 4586.11 3892.46

Dj Indu Average 16865.08 348.58 2.11 18351.4 15370.3

Hang Seng Inde/D 20003.49 596.03 3.07 21794.84 18278.8

Iseq Overall/D 6362.36 -0.78 -0.01 6791.68 5611.89

Karachi 100 In/D 31772.9 263.79 0.84 33304.4 29785

Nikkei 225 Index 16746.55 661.04 4.11 18951.12 14865.77

S&P 500 Index/D 0 0 0 2134.72 1810.1

EXCHANGE RATECurrency Buying Selling

US$ QR 3.6305 QR 3.6500

UK QR 5.0658 QR 5.1380

Euro QR 3.9288 QR 3.9842

CA$ QR 2..6820 QR 2.7350

Swiss Fr QR 3.6207 QR 3.6744

Yen QR 0.0316 QR 0.0322

Aus$ QR 2.6053 QR 2.6577

Ind Re QR 0.0535 QR 0.0545

Pak Re QR 0.0345 QR 0.0352

Peso QR 0.0763 QR 0.0778

SL Re QR 0.0249 QR 0.0255

Taka QR 0.0460 QR 0.0469

Nep Re QR 0.0336 QR 0.0342

SA Rand QR 0.2298 QR 0.2344

Reuters

DUBAI: The Saudi Arabian and Dubai stock markets pulled back yesterday as they digested gains made over the past several days, but trading volumes were active and general sentiment was positive because of the recent bounce of oil prices.

The Saudi stock index rose as much as 0.7 percent in early trade but closed 0.2 percent lower at 6,170 points. The petrochemical sector fell 0.8 percent and Al Tay-yar Travel dropped 2.6 percent. But some speculative small-caps continued rising with National Agricul-ture Development surging 7.6 percent. Islamic insurer SABB Takaful climbed 3.3 percent in unusually heavy trade after as it announced the appointment of Steven Cosgrove as chief executive, taking over from Adrian Flowers, who held the post for five years.

Dubai’s index, which had climbed 1.5 percent on Tuesday, dropped 1.9 percent as Arabtec, the most heav-ily traded stock, tumbled 9.1 percent to Dh1.50.

Blue chip Emaar Properties failed a test of technical resistance on its December peak of Dh5.88, dropping 1.9 percent to Dh5.75. But Abu Dhabi’s index rose 0.2 percent as Aldar Properties gained 1.2 percent. RAK Cement jumped 6.2 percent after saying it had bought back a further 950,000 of its shares on Monday.

Qatar fell in early trade but closed 0.5 percent higher as Vodafone Qatar, the most heavily traded stock, surged 4 percent. Ooredoo dropped 6.4 percent.

Egypt’s index rose in early trade as several invest-ment banking and financial services firms attracted interest after Beltone Financial signed a share purchase agreement this week to buy CI Capital, the investment banking arm of Commercial International Bank.

Beltone again jumped its 10 percent limit on Wednesday, bringing its gains since Feb. 9 to 230 percent. This helped to pull fresh buying into other members of the sector, including EFG Hermes and Prime Holding.

HIGHLIGHTSSAUDI ARABIA: The index edged down 0.2 percent

to 6,170 points.EGYPT: The index fell 0.6 percent to 6,077 points.DUBAI: The index dropped 1.9 percent to 3,226 points.ABU DHABI: The index rose 0.2 percent to 4,380 points.QATAR: The index climbed 0.5 percent to 10,014 points.KUWAIT: The index rose 0.5 percent to 5,262 points.OMAN: The index was down 0.1 percent to 5,411 points.BAHRAIN: The index rose 0.2 percent to 1,173 points.

Qatar Exchange index climbs 0.5%

INTERNATIONAL MARKETS - A LIST OF SHARES FROM THE WORLD

A C C-A/D 1242.95 12.2 13056

Aarti Drugs-B/D 484 8.9 3429

Aban Offs-A/D 164.25 2.15 317486

Ador Welding-B/D 267 10 1340

Aegis Logis-B/D 91.15 1 15099

Alembic-B/D 36.2 1.15 51473

Alok Indus-A/D 4.05 0.17 1564541

Apollo Tyre-A/D 165.2 6.5 242061

Asahi I Glass-/D 150.75 -0.05 3819

Ashok Leyland-/D 93.5 2.6 1290573

Ballarpur In-B/D 12.54 0.21 325670

Banaras Bead-B/D 38.5 0.65 1710

Bata India-A/D 472.8 8.8 39201

Beml Ltd-A/D 1029.95 39.95 37975

Bh Electronic-/D 1053.45 11.45 30320

Bhansali Eng-T/D 17.7 0.85 65081

Bharat Bijle-B/D 722.5 1 6110

Bharatgears-B/D 61.05 4.05 5808

Bhartiya Int-B/D 471.9 6.2 14760

Bhel-A/D 97.25 4.55 2601743

Bom.Burmah-B/D 350 7.1 5959

Bombay Dyeing-/D 43.35 1.85 152688

Camph.& All-B/D 471.4 22.6 2706

Canfin Homes-B/D 1014.95 24.95 6495

Caprihans-Xc/D 81 1.3 8640

Castrol India-/D 367.95 2.65 85822

Century Enka-B/D 158.2 4.5 15936

Century Text-A/D 455.25 17.55 187831

Chambal Fert-B/D 55.05 1.7 44881

Chowgule St-T/D 15.9 0 5850

Cimmco-B/D 72.05 -1.4 8932

Cipla-A/D 525.15 7.65 745711

City Union Bk-/D 89 2 12914

Colgate-A/D 830.4 6.9 26848

Container Cor-/D 1208.65 23.15 21315

Dai-Tichi Kar-/D 317.9 8.1 7816

Dhampur Sugar-/D 56.6 -1.65 48211

Dr. Reddy-A/D 3014.4 -13.6 35725

E I H-B/D 106 -1.6 4190

E.I.D Parry-A/D 175.5 2.2 42476

Eicher Motor-A/D 19274.65 91.65 4078

Electrosteel-B/D 18.75 0.85 186730

Emco-B/D 24.5 0.5 10936

Escorts Fin-B/D 3.98 0.1 10057

Escorts-A/D 132.45 0.65 120570

Eveready Indu-/D 228.5 5.8 23399

F D C-B/D 186 3.1 2178

Federal Bank-A/D 50.3 2.65 237328

Ferro Alloys-B/D 5.23 0.52 50387

Fgp Ltd-T/D 3.23 0 2860

Finolex-A/D 335.2 19.7 36502

Gail-A/D 323.5 3.6 77505

Galada Power-B/D 13.85 1.1 4846

Gammon India-T/D 14.8 0.7 43805

Garden P -B/D 23.2 0.35 3281

Godfrey Phil-B/D 1159.6 -22.4 60912

Goodricke-B/D 167.2 4.1 24628

Goodyear I -B/D 475.5 20.6 15803

Hcl Infosys-B/D 38.2 1.2 803478

Him.Fut.Comm-T/D 17.85 -0.25 1687048

Himat Seide-B/D 168.4 11.3 101671

Hind Motors-T/D 5.07 0.06 81618

Hind Org Chem-/D 13.35 0.35 15909

Hind Unilever-/D 847.5 22.5 164161

Hind.Petrol-A/D 729.15 7.4 116086

Hindalco-A/D 74.8 4.6 2195421

Hous Dev Fin-A/D 1100.25 31.5 91383

I F C I-A/D 23.35 1.55 1789878

Idbi-A/D 64 4.5 2899363

Ifb Ind.Ltd.-B/D 294 -6.2 5562

India Cement-A/D 72.95 3.2 354628

India Glycol-B/D 71.2 2.1 6092

Indian Card-B/D 207 4.7 4565

Indian Hotel-A/D 100.35 0.2 43381

Indo-Tcount-T/D 916.1 20.6 16173

Indusind-A/D 885.25 25 1810102

J.B.Chemical-B/D 266.65 7.35 44489

Jagatjit Ind-X/D 62.8 1.2 4755

Jagson Phar-B/D 36.15 1.4 20570

Jamnaauto-B/D 133.1 5.3 171909

Jbf Indu-B/D 176.9 -0.5 23755

Jct Elect P -B/D 0.35 0.01 30511

Jct Ltd-B/D 4.98 0.23 126584

Jenson&Nich.-B/D 7.38 -0.26 46501

Jktyre&Ind-A/D 79.95 3.3 323923

Jmc Projects-T/D 200 5.4 3705

Kabra Extr-B/D 79.5 3.25 1379

Kajaria Cer-A/D 935 57.5 217713

Kakatiya Cem-B/D 127 3.9 7168

Kalpat Power-B/D 174.55 1.65 257476

Kalyani Stel-T/D 142.5 5.1 45981

Kanoria Chem-B/D 55.35 2.45 13691

Kg Denim-B/D 51.5 2.5 30350

Kinetic Eng-B/D 79.2 1.65 1348

Kopran-B/D 47.5 2.65 144903

Lakshmi Elec-B/D 358.9 23.9 5049

Laxmi Prcisn-B/D 31.8 1.5 1989

Lloyd Metal-B/D 17.55 0.6 171296

Lok.Hous&Con-B/D 5.6 0.24 38483

Lumax Ind-B/D 396.8 9 3063

Lupin-A/D 1782 21.25 95626

Lyka Labs-T/D 66.55 0.6 199956

Mafatlal Ind-B/D 229 9.3 1408

Mah.Seamless-B/D 138 1.9 1386

Mangalam Cem-B/D 187.4 15.9 11595

Maral Overs-B/D 24.6 1.4 33751

Mastek-B/D 120.8 3.9 28602

Max Financial-/D 330 5.1 14641

Mrpl-A/D 57.2 -2.45 95573

Nagreeka Ex-B/D 23.6 0.7 1544

Nagreeka Ex-B/D 23.6 0.7 1544

Nahar Spg.-B/D 86.5 2.95 21489

Nation Alum -A/D 33.5 0.7 569743

Navneet Edu-B/D 84.45 0.2 5929

Nepc India-T/D 1.61 0.07 6098

Neuland Lab-B/D 557.25 2.5 7555

O N G C-A/D 195 3.5 1025698

Oil Country-B/D 25.25 0.85 22548

Onward Tech-B/D 70.25 4.1 5845

Orchid Pharm-B/D 37.4 3.1 245665

Orient Hotel-T/D 21.25 0.9 4360

Orient.Carb.-T/D 395 -4.5 6908

Orient.Carb.-T/D 395 -4.5 6908

Oudh Sugar-B/D 39.8 -0.25 7879

Pacific Indu-B/D 114 -4.8 4091

Punjab Chem.-B/D 131.5 13.3 30120

Radico Khait-B/D 93.6 -3.15 57289

Rallis India-A/D 150.55 2.05 38625

Rallis India-A/D 150.55 2.05 38625

Reliance Indus/D 391.6 8.5 175750

Ruchi Soya-B/D 24.9 0.1 49092

S Bk Bikaner-B/D 489 21.3 15018

Saur.Cem-B/D 43.55 0.75 70709

Tanfac Indust-/D 27 1 4470

Thirumalai-B/D 140.4 10 8389

Timexgroup-T/D 30.3 1.2 34186

Tinplate-B/D 62.5 3.05 30924

Ucal Fuel-B/D 98.45 5.35 82314

Ucal Fuel-B/D 98.45 5.35 82314

Ultramarine-B/D 111.4 2.3 11672

Unitech P -A/D 4.56 0.44 14653133

Uppergsugar-T/D 61.75 1.7 1953

3I Group/D 448.9 1.2 289511

Assoc.Br.Foods/D 3373 -72 181032

Barclays/D 156.249 -1.95 40227232

Bp/D 347.95 -2.7 10374189

Brit Am Tobacc/D 3994.5 -5.5 1674348

Bt Group/D 484 -12 7313432

Centrica/D 209.9 -2.3 4652194

Gkn/D 283.7 1.7 1330485

Hsbc Holdings/D 471.3 10.35 15863443

Kingfisher/D 344.6 2.8 1384541

Land Secs Grou/D 1044.7 5 735654

Legal & Genera/D 236.8 0.5 5506171

Lloyds Bnk Grp/D 72.7337 -0.36 40291019

Marks & Sp./D 430.5 -0.1 1141709

Next/D 6665 -70 138182

Pearson/D 859 -11.5 1399866

Prudential/D 1324.5 17.5 2259826

Rank Group/D 246.3 -3.3 625069

Rentokil Initi/D 166.15 -1.3 629404

Rolls Royce Pl/D 675.5 -7.5 1824410

Rsa Insrance G/D 446.6 2.1 1893024

Sainsbury(J)/D 262 2.6 1350263

Schroders/D 2726 39 97841

Severn Trent/D 2131 -12 127406

Smith&Nephew/D 1171 -7 888692

Smiths Group/D 1002 -3 258287

Standrd Chart /D 444.2 12.25 4514616

Tate & Lyle/D 579.5 -10 181046

Tesco/D 180.55 -3.4 6652559

Unilever/D 3101.5 -47 808883

United Util Gr/D 925.5 -6.5 346614

Vodafone Group/D 220.9 -1.7 13431577

Whitbread/D 4100 57 223883

COMPANY CLOSE NET VOLUME

NAME CHG TRADED

COMPANY CLOSE NET VOLUME

NAME CHG TRADED

COMPANY CLOSE NET VOLUME

NAME CHG TRADED

COMPANY CLOSE NET VOLUME

NAME CHG TRADED

LONDON

Treasuries fall and stocks fluctuate after jobs data

BUSINESS VIEWS 27THURSDAY 3 MARCH 2016

Spectre of joblessness puts focus on Beijing as it sets new 5-year planReuters

JOB destruction from a slowing Chinese economy and reform of bloated state enterprises will put pressure on poli-cymakers to come up with measures

to create employment as Beijing finalises its plan for China’s development over the next five years. The release of the 13th Five-Year Plan will coincide with the start of the annual meeting of parliament on March 5 where thousands of delegates will gather in Beijing.

Premier Li Keqiang is expected to announce China’s economic goals - includ-ing the government’s gross domestic product target for 2016 — in his yearly work report. The world’s second-largest economy grew 6.9 percent last year, the slowest in more than two decades, and analysts see a further cooling to around 6.5 percent this year. Some China watchers believe real growth is already much weaker than official data suggests.

China’s central bank on Monday injected another $100bn worth of long-term cash into the economy to cushion the pain from expected job layoffs and bankruptcies in

some industries. If China follows through on its promises and starts to cut its indus-trial overcapacity, workers in provinces such as Shanxi, Hebei and the “rustbelt” region in the northeast are likely to bear the brunt of the pain.

China expects to lay off 1.8 million workers in the coal and steel industries, the government said, without giving a timeframe. Beijing has said it will allocate 100bn yuan ($15bn) over two years to relocate workers laid off in sectors including steel.

Duan Tinglin, from the northeastern industrial powerhouse of Heilongjiang, has been coming to Beijing every winter to look for work. This year’s job hunt is much harder than in previous years, said the 39-year-old unemployed migrant.

“To find a job that is really fit for someone is quite difficult,” said Duan. “Why? Because I’m just an average labourer, and in the capi-tal, supply exceeds demand for your average labourers.” Chinese factories shed jobs at the fastest rate in seven years in February as weaker orders forced them to downsize and cut costs, according to a private busi-ness survey by Caixin and Markit on Tuesday.

China says its urban jobless rate has

remained largely stable in recent years. It was at 4.05 percent at the end of 2015, despite the slowing economy. Many economists believe the real jobless rate is far higher, but note sev-eral factors have been working to keep the headline figure down, including China’s one-child policy, which has led to a steady drop in the population of working-age adults.

Analysts also say local officials have been keen to claim they are still keeping people employed, pressuring companies to refrain from cutting staff in the name of social sta-bility, even if they have to idle workers on half-pay or deferred pay.

Still, the government admits China’s investment-fed model of growth has reached its boundaries, and it has put sharp reductions in industrial overcapacity and high debt lev-els at the top of its agenda. Beijing has also vowed to shut perennially loss-making “zom-bie” firms. The tricky part is to do all that without risking massive layoffs that could trigger widespread social unrest.

Unemployment is an important issue for the Communist party, whose economic pol-icies have increased the material well-being of a generation of people unaccustomed to the poverty and deprivation their parents and

grandparents faced. In the factory town of Changping in Guangdong province, scores of migrant workers were returning to work on production lines after the long Lunar New Year break. “A lot of factories are closing, and it’s not so easy to find a job now that is stable,” said Yin Jun, a 23-year-old from Sichuan province.

The government has urged migrant work-ers — totalling more than 200 million — and China’s large number of college graduates to be self-employed. That includes starting their businesses in smaller cities or rural areas.

“The employment of migrant workers, growth is around zero which means employ-ment didn’t increase in 2015,” said Ernan Cui, a Beijing-based analyst at Gavekal Dragon-omics. Unlike manufacturing, the services sector has been steady job creator and fits into Beijing’s goal of having consumption drive a larger share of economic growth, but work-ers cannot easily move from one sector to another without retraining. “Most service sec-tor jobs are in retail and catering, working in restaurants,” Cui said. “For those two sectors, new job creation has been growing extremely fast in recent years.” “But we can’t tell whether a person who loses a job in a coal mine will be able to find a job in a restaurant.”

By Eric Knecht and Maha El Dahan Reuters

A GLOBAL grain glut should make purchasing wheat cheap and easy for Egypt, the world’s biggest importer, but

traders say one bureaucrat has made it anything but.

Saad Moussa, the head of the agricultural quarantine agency, refuses to let in a single grain of wheat infected with ergot, a common fungus that can lead to hallucinations and irrational behaviour in large quantities but at trace levels is of no harm to humans.

Confusion over Egypt’s posi-tion on ergot levels has disrupted wheat tenders, raising the possi-bility of a shortage of grain which could pose a political problem for President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi as the impoverished population relies on highly subsidised bread.

Officials at Moussa’s quar-antine authority use a 2001 regulation, which Reuters has seen, stipulating zero tolerance for ergot as their main guide, according to a quarantine offi-cial who declined to be named. They first used the rule to reject a wheat shipment in December.

Moussa has told Reuters in January: “Any wheat that we inspect that has any level of ergot will be rejected...it would be very harmful if any level of contam-ination reached plants in Egypt.”

Moussa reports to Agricul-ture Minister Essam Fayed but a spokesman for the agriculture ministry said he had no knowl-edge of the 2001 regulation Moussa was relying on.

“I don’t know anything about this topic, the last thing I have is what was announced by the agri-culture minister and the minister of supply that they would accept 0.05 percent,” spokesman Eid Hawash said. Officials at the Sup-ply Ministry were not available for comment for this story.

Most Egyptian officials fol-low a different specification issued in 2010 by the Egyptian Organisation for Standardisa-tion and Quality allowing trace levels of 0.05 percent, the com-mon worldwide standard and the one stipulated by Egypt’s grain-importing body, the General Authority for Supply Commod-ities (GASC).

“I am bound by the Egyp-tian specifications,” Mamdouh Abdel Fattah, vice-chairman of GASC, told Reuters when asked about the contradiction between the two, stressing that the 2010 specifications are more recent than the 2001 regulation and is

accepted internationally.Panic began to spread among

traders after a 63,000-tonne French wheat shipment purchased by GASC was rejected by the quar-antine agency in December for containing trace levels of ergot.

GASC was forced to cancel two tenders after rattled trad-ers and suppliers stayed away, uncertain that their shipments would be ergot free and fearing the heavy cost of having a ship-ment rejected.

After weeks of confusion Minister Fayed and Supply Min-ister Khaled Hanafi tried to reassure the market in a joint press conference on February 7 that Egypt would accept all ship-ments with less than 0.05 percent ergot.

The following day Moussa’s agency rejected a shipment of Canadian wheat, further baf-fling the market. “This was a big surprise. It was one day after the TV announcement of both min-isters...and all of a sudden the vessel is rejected. So do we have two different decision makers in the same (agriculture) ministry?” the Cairo-based trader said.

According to documents, the shipment had a far lower ergot reading than 0.05 percent. The lack of successful sales pros-pects to a huge buyer along with record global wheat supplies has weighed on Benchmark global grain prices and curbed export prospects for European Union producers. That should have cre-ated ideal conditions for Egypt to buy wheat at great prices.

GASC successfully pur-chased 300,000 tonnes of wheat last week. But with less than half the usual number of suppliers opting to make bids during the tender, the uncer-tainty was still front and centre.

“The risk is still incalculable,” said a Cairo-based trader that sat out of the tender. All traders interviewed for this story asked to remain anonymous. Wheat traders are generally banned from speaking to the media by the companies they represent.

Traders who sat out the latest tender said they would remain on the sidelines, at least for now. “(Moussa’s) def-initely not changed his mind at all — he’s even lobbying all the research centres in the country and now they are all convinced with the zero,” said another trader. Hanafi said on Friday that Egypt has enough wheat supplies to last until the mid-dle of June. But should the crisis deepen, it could hurt Egypt President Abdel fatta Al Sisi’s credibility at a time of waning popularity and with the econ-omy struggling after years of political turmoil.

Old fungus law holds Egypt’s wheat supplies hostage

Wall Street’s big short:President Donald J Trump

By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss and David Randall Reuters

ADD the juggernaut that is Donald J Trump to the list of what-ifs that is worrying Wall Street. A growing realisation that the unpredictable New York real estate developer is in

a position to win the Republican nomination and then battle Hillary Clinton for the White House in November’s election has caused some investors to sell US stocks. They fear having such a wild-card president could trig-ger trade wars, hurt the economy and add a lot of market volatility.

“As the market rarely feasts on lack of pre-dictability - Trump represents a nightmare for investors this year,” said hedge fund manager Douglas Kass of Seabreeze Partners Man-agement Inc, who said last week that he was adding to his existing short bet on the US stock market in part because of Trump’s increas-ingly strong position in the race.

Trump’s statements on business and Wall Street don’t neatly fit into one ideo-logical worldview, but if anything, they are seen as isolationist in a globally connected

world. He can also sud-denly pick on businesses over various issues, such as his call for a boycott of Apple Inc’s products after the tech giant refused to help the FBI unlock the iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters.

“The election this year is the height of uncer-tainty,” said Phil Orlando, a senior portfolio man-ager and chief equity strategist at Federated Investors in New York, which manages $351bn. He said political concerns

— personified by Trump’s

emergence as a frontrunner — are one of the main reasons why he began reducing equity exposure in mid-January.

Trump’s rhetoric mixes populist criticism of immigration policy, Wall Street behaviour, and other countries’ trade policies, while also citing support for business-friendly efforts such as lower taxation. The lack of detail from Trump about his policies and how he would implement them is a partic-ular worry for investors.

“Trump has been light on policy sub-stance so it’s very difficult for the markets to handicap,” said Dave Lafferty, chief market strategist at Natixis Global Asset Management. Some investors are particu-larly concerned about Trump’s nationalist rhetoric, saying it is potentially destructive to a global economy that is already strug-gling. If it reduces trade flows then it could also hamper US and global growth and hurt US company profits.

The real estate investor proposes labeling China a currency manipulator and ending what he calls China’s illegal export subsi-dies and theft of US intellectual property. He also wants to penalise companies who move jobs from the US to Mexico by hitting them with high tariffs if they want to export back to the US, as well as build a wall at the Mexican border to prevent the flow of ille-gal immigrants.

In response, Trump’s spokeswoman Hope Hicks said that the same crowd criti-cising the Republican Party’s top candidate had been responsible for causing the last worldwide recession and economic melt-down in 2007-2008. “They have zero credibility,” said Hicks. “Trump will restore confidence to the global markets by ending runaway spending and borrowing, restor-ing trade balance and fairness, and bringing wealth to America’s middle class.”

Investors had, for some time, been concerned about the strength of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders’ insurgent cam-paign for the Democratic nomination against former Secretary of State Clinton, given he declares himself to be a democratic socialist and has said Wall Street’s business model is

Investors fear having such a wild-card president could trigger trade wars, hurt the economy and add a lot of market volatility.

The release of the 13th Five-Year Plan will coincide with the start of the annual meeting of parliament on March 5 where thousands of delegates will gather in Beijing.

fraudulent. With recent losses to Clinton in Democratic contests in South Carolina and Nevada, he is now seen as less likely to win the nomination.

Trump’s plans include ideas that tradi-tionally come from Republican candidates, such as lowering the corporate tax rate, sim-plifying the tax code, and as his web site puts it, cutting the deficit through “eliminating waste, fraud and abuse” and “growing the economy to increase tax revenues”.

“I think markets will like Trump on the taxes issue since he favors lower rates and a permanent change in repatriation rules,” said David Kotok, chairman and chief investment officer at Cumberland Advisors in Sarasota, Florida, which man-ages $2bn in assets. Still, financial advisers say that Trump’s plans to do away with the so-called carried interest tax loop-hole — which gives hedge fund and private equity managers preferential tax treat-ment on much of their income — would prompt more selling if he begins to climb in national polls against Clinton.

Jeffrey Gundlach, the co-founder and CEO of bond investing and trading power-house DoubleLine Capital, said that Trump has a history of being “comfortable with a lot of debt and leverage,” and that won’t impede him from spending heavily. He said he believes Trump’s pledge to spend heavily on the military makes defense stocks a good investment play.

Others see such spendthrift tendencies more darkly. David Ader, chief government bond strategist at CRT Capital Group in Stamford, Connecticut, said Trump’s his-tory raises questions about his ability to run an organization as unwieldy and com-plex as the government. The businessman has in the past filed for Chapter 11 bank-ruptcy protection for the Trump Taj Mahal casino and Trump Plaza Hotel.

Ader says the uncertainty would cause investors to flock to safe-haven U.S. Treas-uries should Trump take office. “It’s one thing to run casinos that have gone bank-rupt, it’s another to run a country and its foreign policy,” he said.

Republican US presidential candidate Donald Trump reacts to the results of Super Tuesday primary and caucus voting during a news conference in Palm Beach, Florida.

BUSINESS28 THURSDAY 3 MARCH 2016

ECB plays down effects of negative rates on banksAFP

FRANKFURT: The European Central Bank yesterday sought to counter claims by eurozone banks that negative interest rates are hurting their profitability. ECB executive board member Benoit Coeure told a financial congress in Frankfurt that “we need to qualify the narrative that banks’ challenges flow largely from our monetary policy”.

Coeure conceded that “the business environment con-fronting the European financial sector today is evidently chal-lenging.” Banks’ earnings were weak and with cost-cutting and rationalisation ongoing since 2008, further cost savings were harder to achieve.

Against this backdrop, “a concern has built up that, as central banks lower interest rates into negative territory, the impact of monetary policy on banks is becoming increas-ingly adverse,” Coeure said.

As part of a long and broad offensive to push inflation in the single currency area back up to levels that it considers to be healthy for economic growth, the ECB has slashed its key interest rates to new all-time lows, with one of them, the so-called deposit rate, entering negative ter-ritory. That means that the ECB effectively charges banks for parking their cash with it overnight.

So far, banks have largely steered clear of passing on

those charges to clients. But banks and insurers regu-lar complain that the current environment of extremely low interest rates makes it difficult for them to offer attractive yields to customers. “Let me underline that we are well aware of this issue,” Coeure insisted.

“We are monitoring it on a regular basis and we are stud-ying carefully the schemes used in other jurisdictions to mitigate possible adverse con-sequences for the bank lending channel,” Coeure said.

Nevertheless, many banks had been able to more than off-set declining interest revenues with higher lending volumes, lower interest expenses, lower risk provisioning and capital gains, the ECB official argued.

Overall, euro area banks’ aggregate net interest income had actually increased last year, Coeure said. Further-more, “negative interest rates are complementary to our asset purchase programme, which has had clearly positive effects on asset prices, credit risk and intermediation volumes. This has to be set against the direct costs from our measures to net interest margins,” he said.

Another question to be con-sidered was the potential costs for the financial sector if mon-etary policy had not responded, Coeure said. “We have seen from the recent sharp fall in bank equity prices that the sector is highly sensitive to a weaker-than-expected eco-nomic outlook,” he said.

By Andreas Cremer Reuters

BUGATTI unveiled the world’s fastest road car at the Geneva auto show this week: The ¤2.4m ($2.6m) Chiron with a 1,500 horse-

power engine that can hit 420km per hour. Also on display is the Lam-borghini Centenario, almost modest by comparison with a 770 horse-power engine, a price tag of ¤1.75m and a top speed of around 350km per hour.

One thing the supercars have in common is that they are both made by Volkswagen, the German car-maker facing billions of dollars of fines and years of damage limita-tion after cheating diesel emissions tests in the United States.

For some analysts, the extrava-gance is misplaced at a time Europe’s largest carmaker has been forced to postpone its 2015 results while it tries to put a price on the emissions scan-dal, and its core VW brand steps up cost saving plans.

Volkswagen (VW) has pledged to pull funding from all non-essential projects and Chief Executive Matth-ias Mueller said in October it would examine the profit contribution of each of its over 310 models as part of the company’s belt tightening.

Bernstein Research in 2013 said the Chiron’s predecessor — the Veyron — was one of the six “most loss-making European cars of modern times”, esti-mating the loss per car at nearly five times its original sale price of ¤1m.

Hanover-based NordLB analyst Frank Schwope said the French brand Bugatti, which has never been profit-able since VW bought it in 1998, “is a superfluous asset and its role must be

Volkswagen flaunts supercars at Geneva Motor Show

NAME IN THE MARKET: RETIREMENT

TOP TWEETS BLOGS AND VIEWS Market Talk

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3/6 — Dev & human-itarian groups have long worked sepa-rately. It’s time to work together. -@JimKim_WBG | #dev4peace

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BACK TO BUSINESSsight

A Bugatti Chiron car model on display at the Geneva Motor Show.

questioned even more in tough times”.Some analysts say selling Bugatti

or Italian supercar brand Lam-borghini makes more sense for VW, to help it pay fines and legal costs linked to its emissions test-rigging scandal.

But to a certain extent, the deci-sion has already been made. When the diesel scandal broke, CEO Mueller vowed not to sell any of VW’s brands and the Chiron, which had been in development for years, remained on course for its launch in Switzerland.

A source at VW said there was some criticism within top man-agement as to whether the Bugatti supercar should be pushed to such extremes in light of the post-diesel-gate environment, but Mueller himself agreed the work should continue.

The argument internally is that the engineering work carried out by Bugatti is a testing ground for

technologies used in relatively more accessible brands such as Porsche and Bentley, which do contribute to the bottom line.

Porsche is the second biggest con-tributor to VW’s operating profit after Audi, VW sources say technical insights on the durability and stability of mate-rials and components gathered by Bugatti are used directly by Porsche and Bentley. “Of course, the critics at VW asked whether we need such a car,” Bugatti’s Chief Executive Wolf-gang Duerheimer said. “But it would have been unwise to stop this project.”

Besides the technological spin-offs, continued spending by the super-rich in the United States, China and Europe may encourage VW to press ahead with the super-car extravaganza. Deliveries of cars priced at ¤250,000 or more may increase 12 percent to 8,014 vehicles

by 2020 from 7,182 this year, accord-ing to research firm IHS Automotive.

At Geneva, VW’s Bentley flaunted an all-new extended wheelbase ver-sion of its flagship Mulsanne saloon, especially catering to Chinese buyers with 250 millimetres (9.8 inches) of extra rear leg room and airline-style extending legrests.

Lamborghini said it would only make 40 Centenarios, which is the most powerful car in its 53-year his-tory, and they were all sold before the doors to the Geneva car show opened.

A third of the planned 500 models of the Chiron had also been snapped up before the supercar’s unveiling.

“It’s part of human nature to break boundaries and to reach new records,” said Bugatti’s Duerheimer, who is also head of motorsports at VW. “People are driven by their aspi-rations, and so is Bugatti.”

Park seeks win on return to happy hunting ground

PAGE | 31 PAGE | 34

THURSDAY 3 MARCH 2016 • 23 Jumada I 1437

www.thepeninsulaqatar.com

@peninsulaqatar @peninsula_qatarthepeninsulaqatar

El Jaish’s striker Abderrazzaq Hamed-Allah (left) vies for the ball with Al Ain’s Ahmed Barman during their AFC Champion’s League match played at the Abdullah Bin Khalifa Stadium in Doha yesterday.

Second successive victory for El Jaish

The Peninsula

DOHA: El Jaish recorded their second victory in the Group Stage of the AFC Champions League yesterday when Moroc-can striker Abderrazzaq Hamed Allah scored one and set up the other to down Al Ain a 2-1 at the Abdullah Bin Khalifa Stadium in Doha yesterday. The Group D fixture also saw the inaugural champions falling to a second consecutive loss.

The visiting Al Ain side were determined to take their revenge after their loss in the hands of Qatar Stars League side eight days ago in UAE. They dominated the opening 45 minutes, but a goal four minutes into the second half from the former Guangzhou R&F forward and a second by Yasir Isa with 11 minutes remaining, ensured El Jaish defeated the visiting 2003 champions again.

Saeed Al Katheeri’s 86th minute header proved to be lit-tle more than a consolation for Al Ain, who are yet to pick up a point in their 2016 continental championship campaign.

After the disappointment of last week, it was Al Ain who were on top throughout the first period, dominating possession and racking up chance after chance.

Mohamed Abdulrahman fired over the bar in the 20th minute after Mohamed Ahmed’s lay-off and, seven minutes later, Mohamed Abdulrahman was involved again, this time call-ing El Jaish goalkeeper Khalifa Ababacar into action with an effort from the tightest of angles.

Soon after Mohamed Abdul-rahman turned provider, clipping the ball into the path of the onrushing Douglas, but he squandered the chance when he fired high over the bar. Al Ain’s

best opportunity of the first half came 32 minutes into the game when Omar Abdulrahman’s cor-ner to the far post was headed back across goal by Mohanad Salem to Fellipe Bastos, only for the Brazilian to send his header to the wrong side of the post.

The visitors continued to push forward, with Omar Abdulrahman releasing Lee Myung-joo into the area, only for the South Korean to shoot across the face of goal, with Douglas narrowly mistiming his slide towards the ball at the far pot.

But within four minutes of the restart, Al Ain had been flat-tened by Hamedallah’s sucker punch as the Moroccan hit the former champions on the break, forcing the defence to backpedal as he ran from deep before strik-ing his right foot shot across Khaled Eisa and into the bot-tom corner.

Mohamed Abdulrahman’s poor finishing continued to cost Al Ain at the other end as the forward curled his low effort just wide of the goal soon after the hour mark, while Douglas’ 70th minute header was straight at goalkeeper Ababacar.

With 11 minutes to go, El Jaish killed off the game thanks, once again, to their ruthless-ness on the counterattack as Hamedallah turned provider, playing a killer pass through to Isa who skipped past the Al Ain goalkeeper before slotting the ball into the unguarded net.

Al Katheeri gave Al Ain a glimmer of hope with four minutes remaining when he headed in from eight yards out, but it was not enough to spark a late revival and El Jaish took all three points.

FOOTBALL: AFC CHAMPIONS LEAGUE

By Rizwan RehmatThe Peninsula

DOHA: Frenchman Kevin Staut yesterday savoured an amazing run with ‘reliable mare’ Elky van het Indihof Hdc to claim victory in the feature event on day one of the CHI Al Shaqab.

The veteran rider guided his 12-year-year-old mare to top the 150cm class.

Elky van het Indihof Hdc clocked a time of 55.85 seconds as Staut picked up the top prize of €24,000.

Ireland’s Bertram Allen finished in second place after his ride Molly Malone clocked a time of 56.93 sec-onds. Allen won €18,400.

Belgium’s Gregory Wathe-let enjoyed a neat routine with Oh d’Eole, clocking a time 58.14 sec-onds to finish third. Wathelet won €13,800.

“When you have a win like this so early at the start of a competition like this, you get a lot of motivation,” Staut said.

“I am really happy for my mare. It was a difficult routine but she man-aged it so well,” the Frenchman said. “I am very happy to get this win,” he added.

“When you start like this, it is a good thing for the rest of the days,” Staut said. “It gives me a good rhythm for the weekend,” the Frenchman said.

“I know I have a very reliable, very competitive mare. I am happy,” Staut said.

Roger Yves Bost (Sydney Une Prince, 59.03 seconds) and Olivier Philippaerts (H&M Challenge V. Begijnakker, 59.11 seconds) and completed the top five in the fea-ture event.

Earlier, Irish rider Allen guided Quarto Mail to a credible win in the 1.45cm class to claim the top prize of €6250.

Quarto Mail clocked an impres-sive time of 26.53 seconds in the two-phased run.

Qatar’s Rio-bound riding star Bassem Hassan Mohammed pro-duced a neat run with Argelith Squid who finished second in a time of 26.73 seconds.

Mohammed picked up €5000 for his remarkable routine.

Germany’s Hans-Dieter Dreher also produced a flawless routine with Colore to grab the third spot worth €3750.

Saudi rider Abdullah Alshar-batly (Wasabi, 27.70 seconds) and Belgium’s Pieter Devos (Equipharma Dax van d’Abdijhoeve, 28.38 sec-onds) completed the top five.

Alsharbatly won €2500 while Devos bagged €1750.

Earlier in competition 2 which was part of the QNB Doha Tour series, Ali Al Khorafi guided Cheril to a convincing winning run in the 1.45cm class.

Cheril clocked a time of 60.42 seconds as Al Khorafi claimed the top prize of €6250 to go along with the sum of €2400 he picked up the first competition of the day.

Saudi duo of Khaled Abdulaziz Al Eid and Ramzy Hamad Al Duhami grabbed the second and third places respectively.

Al Eid, astride Valuta S, finished in second spot. Valuta clocked a time of 60.52 seconds while Al Duhami guided Al Capone to the third place in a time of 60.93 seconds.

Al Eid picked up €5000 while Al Duhami took home €3750.

Qatar’s Hamad Nasser Al Qadi (S I E C Lonnie, 63.77 seconds) and Frenchman Frederic David (Balo-ussini, 63.94 seconds) completed the top five in the 1.45cm class.

Al Qadi won €2500 while David got €1750.

In competition 1, which was also part of QNB Doha Tour series, Qatar’s Saeed Naser Al Qadi kicked off the proceedings with a near-perfect rou-tine with Jessico to claim the honours in the day’s opening context.

Jessico clocked a time of 24.12 seconds to top the field in the 44-entry competition as Al Qadi sealed the deal with his prize money of €3000.

Ali Al Khorafi, riding under the FEI banner, guided Ungarin 4 to the second spot in a time of 25.27 sec-onds in the 1.30cm class.

Egypt’s Saed Saad emerged a surprise podium finished after guid-ing Benshouf to third spot in a time of 26.39 seconds.

Al Khorafi picked up €2400 for his second-place finish while Saad got richer by €1800.

Qatar’s Salman Mohammed Al Emadi - astride Lucky Lady - and Saudi rider Bader Mohammed Alfard completed the top-five in the first competition.

Al Emadi picked up €1200 while Alfard got richer by €840.

Staut savours sublime run with‘reliable’ mare on opening dayWorld’s best riders regale fans with neat routines on day one of CHI Al Shaqab

COMPETITION S01 - CSI3* TWO PHASES

(274.5.3) 1.30M (QNB DOHA TOUR)

Saeed Nasser Al Qadi, Jessico, 24.12, €3000

Ali Al Khorafi, Ungarin 4,25.27, €2400

Saed Saad, Benshouf, 26.39, €1800

Salman Mohammed A S Al Emadi,

Lucky Lady, 27.26, €1200

Bader Mohammed Alfard, Cover Girl G, 27.46,

€840

COMPETITION S02 - CSI3* TABLE A

(238.2.1A) 1.45M (QNB DOHA TOUR)

Ali Al Khorafi, Cheril, 60.42, €6250

Khaled Abdulaziz Al Eid, Valuta S, 60.52, €5000

Ramzy Hamad Al Duhami,

Al Capone, 60.93, €3750

Hamad Nasser Al Qadi,

S I E C Lonnie, 63.77, €2500

Frédéric David, Baloussini, 63.94, €1750

Hamad bin Abdul Rahman Al Attiyah, President of Qatar Equestrian Federation, (left) watching the action during the first day of CHI Al Shaqab 2016 yesterday.

The winner of the feature event on day one of the CHI Al Shaqab, Kevin Staut clears a hurdle astride Elky van het Indihof Hdc yesterday. RIGHT: Omar Al Mannai, Event Director, CHI Al Shaqab (right) congratulates Staut after the presentation ceremony. Pictures by: Salim M/The Peninsula

H E Sheikh Joaan bin Hamad Al-Thani, Qatar Olympic Committee President watches riders in action during the first day of CHI Al Shaqab.

PAG

www

Suarez sale gives Liverpool

£60m profit

COMPETITION S03 - CSI5* TWO PHASES

(274.5.3) 1.45M

Bertram Allen, Quarto Mail, 26.53, €6250

Bassem Hassan Mohammed, Argelith Squid, 26.73,

€5000

Hans-Dieter Dreher, Colore, 27.14, €3750

Abdullah Alsharbatly, Wasabi, 27.70, €2500

Pieter Devos, Equipharma Dax van d’Abdijhoeve,

28.38, €1750

COMPETITION S04 - CSI5* TABLE A (238.2.1A)

1.50M

Kevin Staut, Elky van het Indihof Hdc, 55.85 seconds,

€24,000.

Bertram Allen, Molly Malone V, 56.93, €18,400.

Gregory Wathelet, Oh d’Eole, 58.14, €13,800.

Roger Yves Bost, Sydney Une Prince, 59.03, €9200

Olivier Philippaerts, H&M Challenge V. Begijnakker,

59.11, €6440

CHI AL SHAQAB: RESULTS ON DAY ONE

SPORT30 THURSDAY 3 MARCH 2016

Rio will have pro boxers: AIBA chief

Reuters

LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND: Pro-fessional fighters will feature at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics as long as a constitutional change goes through in June, the president of the international boxing federation AIBA said yesterday.

Last month’s decision by AIBA to begin procedures to open the door for pro boxers to compete alongside amateurs at the Games means the sport could get increased exposure with potentially big-name fighters

taking part. The move, though, has also earned a lot of criticism as many argue it would be unfair to the thou-sands of amateurs who have trained for the Games for years and now have to possibly make way for the pros.

“Professional boxers will be at Rio. I don’t know how many but they will be,” AIBA boss Ching-Kuo Wu said.

“But they will have to go through the same procedures as everyone else.

“What we have to do is just amend the constitution of AIBA and we will do that at an extraordinary congress in June. The constitution is the only thing blocking this at the moment.”

Boxers qualify for the Games in a series of regional events, many start-ing later this month.

Wu said after the constitutional amendment goes through, profes-sionals could book their tickets for Rio at the final world Olympic qual-ifying tournament in Azerbaijan in mid-June.

There are doubts, however, over whether professional world champi-ons would want to jeopardise their careers by taking part in three-round contests that bear little resemblance to paid bouts.

“Everyone will need to qual-ify, they will need to be picked by their own federations so there are things that need to happen first. They don’t get in just like that,” Wu said yesterday.

“What AIBA wants to do is open the door for professionals. Boxing is probably the only sport in the Olym-pics not represented by pros.”

Under Wu’s leadership, AIBA set up the semi-professional World Series Boxing in 2011 in which fighters earned money competing for city-based teams.

He also helped introduce wom-en’s boxing to the Olympics in London four years ago.

Amateur boxing has had its share of Olympic champions who have gone on to become top professionals, among them Muhammad Ali, Joe Fra-zier, George Foreman and Vladimir Klitschko.

The Rio Games will be held in August.

Meanwhile, for the first time in 32 years male boxers will be able trade punches without any headgear at this year’s Rio Games after the Interna-tional Olympic Committee sanctioned

a change introduced by world boxing federation AIBA.

AIBA adopted the change for ama-teur fighters some three years ago but needed to bring it to the IOC Executive Board, which noted it without objec-tion, essentially rubber-stamping the decision and clearing the way for Rio.

The IOC said AIBA had presented medical research that showed concus-sions were less likely to occur without headgear than with.

“AIBA provided medical and tech-nical data that showed the number of concussions is lower without head-gear,” IOC spokesman Mark Adams said.

“They have done a lot of research in the last three years. The rule will go ahead for Rio.”

Boxers have been wearing head-guards since the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.

The last Games without them were in Moscow 1980.

Women boxers, who first com-peted at the 2012 Olympics, will continue wearing their protective gear.

Also yesterday, in Manila, boxing great Manny Pacquiao said yesterday

it would be an honour to fight for the Philippines at this year’s Rio Olym-pics, where professional fighters could be allowed to compete for the first time.

The eight-time world champion said he had been “personally invited” to the Rio de Janeiro Games by Wu Ching-Kuo, president of AIBA.

“It would be my honour to rep-resent the country in the Olympics,” Pacquiao said in a statement. “If I would be asked to represent boxing, why not? I would do everything for my country.”

The 37-year-old, one of the world’s wealthiest boxers, made the comments while training for what he said would be his last professional fight, an April 9 Las Vegas rematch with American Timothy Bradley.

Wu said Switzerland on Monday that AIBA would vote within three months on proposals that would allow all professional fighters to compete in the Olympic Games, including in Rio.

Wu said proposed changes to AIBA statutes, set to be put to a vote at a special congress of AIBA confed-erations at the end of May, could leave Olympic eligibility in the hands of the

national boxing federations. Qualify-ing for the 2016 Rio summer games that begin on August 5 is already under way, but Wu noted that there were still opportunities for profes-sionals to qualify.

Spokesmen for the Philippine Olympic Committee had no com-ment on Pacquiao’s statement.

Pacquiao has posted a 57-6-2 win-loss-draw record in a glittering 21-year pro career that began in Jan-uary 1995.

He never competed in the Olym-pics, although he did act as the country’s flag-bearer in the 2008 games.

Already an elected member of the House of Representatives, he is run-ning for a Senate seat in May elections -- with an eye on an eventual pres-idential bid.

His Olympic comments came after he touched off a global firestorm with controversial comments describing homosexual couples as “worse than animals”.

The comments, for which he has made a qualified apology, cost him his long-term association with major global sponsor Nike.

Boxing star Manny Pacquiao says he wishes to feature at the Olympic Games if given an opportunity by the Philippines

Boxing superstar Manny Pacquiao with Yousuf Ali Al Kazim, President, Qatar Boxing Federation, and Dr Ching-Kuo Wu, President, AIBA, in this October 2015 file photo taken in Doha.

Canelo Alvarez and Amir Khan are seen during a press event at the Empire State Building in New York City. Former world champion Khan will fight above welterweight for the first time in his career at a catchweight of 155lbs, officially middleweight, to challenge Alvarez for the Mexican’s WBC title in Las Vegas on May 7.

Young ‘fools’ behind Kenya

doping woes, says Rudisha Reuters

MELBOURNE: Kenya’s doping prob-lems were caused by “foolish” young athletes desperate to win races and cash in on the sport, David Rudi-sha (pictured) said yesterday, but the Olympic 800 metres champion hopes his country is on the right track to restoring its reputation.

The 27-year-old, who lit up the 2012 London Games with a brilliant world record performance in the 800m final, has been distressed by the allegations of doping and corrup-tion that have rocked the East African country’s athletics programme.

Kenya has been hugely successful in middle and long-distance running for decades and remains a global leader on the track and in big-city marathons, but some 40 of its ath-letes have been banned for doping in the last three years.

The World Anti-Doping Agency has given the country an April dead-line to implement new anti-doping measures or risk non-compliance, which could pave the way for a ban on its track and field athletes com-peting at the Rio Olympics.

“It’s really sad, it’s really unfortu-nate that this is happening because Kenya previously has a really good reputation,” reigning world champion Rudisha said in an interview in Mel-bourne yesterdday.

“And for many years Kenya has been doing well on the athletics stage, winning championships without this problem. A few years ago this prob-lem has been coming.

“But it’s really tough. Because these young athletes who are desper-ate to make money, to win races, they end up being fools and getting into

these drugs.” Allegations of corrup-tion also hit the national governing body, mirroring the wider scandal that plunged the International Asso-ciation of Athletics Federations into crisis last year and triggered Rus-sia’s suspension from international athletics.

Athletics Kenya (AK) Chief Exec-utive Isaac Mwangi was provisionally suspended by the IAAF last week after two local athletes accused him of seeking bribes to reduce doping bans. Three other senior AK officials were suspended in November, includ-ing former president Isaiah Kiplagat, over corruption allegations.

As Kenya’s preeminent track star and a pin-up for world athlet-ics, Rudisha’s ineligibility to compete at Rio under a blanket ban would be a massive blow for the sport and the Games, not to mention the runner’s personal aspirations.

Rudisha told reporters that he did not feel the doping problem was widespread in Kenya, but said the

country lacked infrastructure to monitor the thousands of runners.

“A lot of education needs to be done,” he said. “Like some of the countries which are not having a lot of infrastructure -- we don’t even have a lot in Kenya -- and you find that it’s very difficult for the anti-doping agency to control this sit-uation because there are thousands and thousands of Kenyans training out there and only a few of them are on the WADA list.

“You can imagine how difficult (that is).”

Rudisha would not comment directly when asked whether he was confident his title defence would go ahead but said he was hopeful Kenya and the sport’s reputation could be restored.

“We hope that things are in place,” he said of Kenya’s battle to become WADA-compliant before the deadline. “We are optimistic that these things are going to be wiped out completely so that our sport will be clean and athletes can compete fairly. So we can all celebrate that every-body who has worked hard deserves what he gets.”

Rudisha’s world record of one minute 40.91 seconds at London broke his own mark set in 2010 and was described at the time by British middle-distance great Sebastian Coe, a former 800m world record holder and now the embattled president of the IAAF, as “the performance of the Games”.

Rudisha, who will open his sea-son at the IAAF Melbourne World Challenge on Saturday, said his Lon-don time would be hard to beat.

“It’s tough, we can’t be seeing a world record every day, it’s something special,” said Rudisha,

Olympic gold medal gymnast Kohei Uchimura takes part in a training session at the National Training Center in Tokyo, Japan, in this February 26, 2016, file photo.

Uchimura craves for team gold, not own record, at Olympics Reuters

TOKYO: Kohei Uchimura could become the first man in over 40 years to win back-to-back Olympic all-around titles in Rio but the Japa-nese gymnast says his first priority is team gold, not personal glory, at the Summer Games.

Uchimura won silver in the all-around at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 but was on top of the podium four years later in London.

At Glasgow last year, Uchimura won a record sixth world title and he heads to Rio heavily tipped to become the first winner of consecutive gold medals in the event since 1972 when compatriot Sawano Kato pulled off

the feat in Munich. Winning the team title at last year’s world champion-ships after a 37-year drought fulfilled one dream for Uchimura, but now he wants the same thing at the Olympics.

“I feel the individual all-around isn’t something I should even think about until after the team event,” Uchimura said after a recent train-ing session in Tokyo.

“All I can think about is how much I want team gold. That’s everything.”

Japan managed to take the team gold at five successive Olympics from 1960 to 1976 but had to wait until Athens in 2004 to reach the top of the podium again.

In Beijing and London, they had played second fiddle to China, whose

risky moves often outshine the more cautious Japanese approach. Uch-imura agrees China is their biggest rival, followed by the United States and Great Britain, and said Japan had to step outside their comfort zone to push for gold in Rio.

“The difficulty of Japanese rou-tines hasn’t been as high as China’s but we’ve emphasized perfection, which is, I think, why the team won in Athens, and that’s something I think we need to continue,” said Uchimura, who so far is the only gymnast guar-anteed a team place for Rio.

“We’ll raise our difficulty level a bit but I think it’s best if we empha-size perfection ...

“We need to aim for beauty and perfection.”

SPORT 31THURSDAY 3 MARCH 2016

AFP

LONDON: Craig Gardner’s sublime free-kick prevented Leicester City

going five points clear in the Premier League as West Bromwich Albion held the leaders to a 2-2 draw on Tuesday.

After Salomon Rondon put West Brom ahead, Leicester hit back through Danny Drinkwater and Andy King, only for Gardner to earn the vis-itors a point by arcing a free-kick into the top-left corner in the 50th minute.

Tottenham Hotspur can go above Leicester on goal difference if they win at West Ham United yesterday while Arsenal will be just three points behind them if they overcome Swan-sea City.

Leicester made two changes to the team that had edged Norwich City at the weekend, Danny Simpson

and King replacing Daniel Amartey and the injured N’Golo Kante, and fell behind in the 11th minute.

Darren Fletcher’s through-ball released Rondon and the Venezuelan striker shrugged Robert Huth to the ground before steering a shot beneath Leicester goalkeeper Kasper Sch-meichel. Drinkwater equalised on the half-hour with a shot that deflected off Jonas Olsson and looped over Ben Foster and after Jamie Vardy had headed against the bar, Leicester went ahead in first-half stoppage time.

Marc Albrighton’s crossfield pass from the left was audaciously back-heeled into King’s path by Riyad Mahrez and the Welsh midfielder

swept home. But five minutes into the second half Gardner levelled after Mahrez had been penalised for handball, caressing the ball over the wall and past a flat-footed Schmeichel from around 22 yards.

Leicester piled on the pressure in the latter stages, Shinji Okazaki heading against the bar and Foster thwarting substitute Jeff Schlupp, Vardy and Wes Morgan, but they could not find a way through.

Chelsea extended their unbeaten run to 12 league games with a 2-1 win at Norwich City that saw them climb from 11th place to eighth, five points below the European places.

Kenedy put the visitors ahead

after just 39 seconds, the Brazilian wide man drilling home left-footed from outside the box to claim the fast-est goal of the season to date.

Bernard Traore freed Diego Costa to lob John Ruddy and make it 2-0 in first-half stoppage time, with Nathan Redmond reducing the arrears in the 68th minute.

Fabio Borini struck a stunning last-minute equaliser to earn Sunder-land a 2-2 draw at home to Crystal Palace that lifted Sam Allardyce’s side out of the relegation zone.

After Dame N’Doye’s deflected shot put Sunderland ahead, Connor Wickham struck twice against his former club to put Palace in front,

only for Borini to smash home from a seemingly impossible angle at the death. Everton ushered bottom club Aston Villa a step closer to relegation with a 3-1 win at Villa Park that left Remi Garde’s side eight points from safety.

Goals from Ramiro Funes Mori, Aaron Lennon and Romelu Lukaku put Everton in control, before Rudy Gestede headed in a 79th-minute con-solation. Meanwhile, seventh-place Southampton squandered an oppor-tunity to close on the teams above them in a 2-0 loss at south-coast rivals Bournemouth, who prevailed through goals in each half from Steve Cook and Benik Afobe.

Gardner pegs Leicester back, Chelsea up to 8thGardner’s free-kick prevents Leicester City going five points clear as Albion hold leaders to a 2-2 draw

Craig Gardner (left) scores the second goal for West Brom through a free kick in their Barclays Premier League football match against Leicester City at King Power Stadium on Tuesday.

Hiddink sets sights on overhauling United AFP

NORWICH: Guus Hiddink (pic-tured) has set Chelsea the target of over-taking Manchester United by the end of the Premier League cam-paign.

Winning the Champions League and the FA Cup are the top priori-ties for last season’s champions, who moved up to eighth place in the table thanks to a 2-1 win at Norwich City on Tuesday.

A top four finish has long been established as the norm at Stamford Bridge in the Roman Abramov-ich era, but Hiddink knows that it remains a tough task to achieve that aim this term. United, in fifth, seem more catchable and are cur-rently five points ahead, although that could change when they play Watford yesterday. Fifth spot will qualify the team that finishes there for the Europa League, as will win-ning the FA Cup.

“Are they catchable?” said Hid-dink when asked about United. “Well, first of all, we’re happy. It’s not Chelsea standard to be happy to be out of the relegation zone, and sit back and relax a bit.

“We have to set new targets now with the ambition of Chelsea in the direction of Europe.

“We have a tight schedule - Stoke, PSG, Everton - and the squad is not very, very broad, so we hope everyone is on board.

“If everyone is available, we’d like to go as high as possible towards the European spots.”

Chelsea took the lead at Norwich after just 39 seconds when Kenedy scored and Diego Costa doubled the lead in first-half stoppage time, albeit from an offside position.

That gave them enough of a cushion to repel a spirited fight-back from Norwich, who saw Nathan Redmond pull one back.

Hiddink made it clear he was happy with the result but the per-formance could have been better.

“We have now won a few games in a row, which gives satisfaction of course,” he said.

“But I think we were a bit sloppy in the finishing in the first half.

“We had a splendid start through Kenedy, a beautiful goal, but after that we had some options to get a second.

“We did in the end, but we should have killed it off already by then. I’m satisfied with the result, but I like to be critical that we didn’t finish it off early.”

It wasn’t the first time this season that Chelsea have benefited from an offside goal and Hiddink sympathised with the Canaries, who dropped into the bottom three.

“I haven’t seen it yet but, if so, I can understand people are frustrated in the other dressing room,” he said.

“If that’s the case, I can under-stand their feelings.”

Norwich manager Alex Neil was confident that the players would not be affected by the current league table.

“I don’t think psychologically it will have a part,” he said.

“We have Swansea on Saturday, Man City and then games against teams around about us. We’re capa-ble of winning those games. We need to win games to stay in this league. The fact we’re in the bot-tom three now has no bearing. We’ve been there or about all sea-son. We have to win games to get us out of there.”

Neil was frustrated that the rele-vant linesman did not spot that Costa was offside for the second goal.

“I made them aware that he’d got it wrong at half-time,” he said. “The guy’s made an honest call and got it wrong. It happens.

“I won’t lambast him for that. Of course we’re disappointed and frus-trated, but there we are.”

Norwich midfielder Alex Tettey was taken to hospital for an X-ray on a leg injury, while Robbie Brady and Gary O’Neil were hurt when they collided in the second half.

Suarez sale gives Liverpool £60m profit

Atletico to join Juventus,

Spurs in Australia

Arsenal midfielder Cazorla

suffers injury setbackAFP

LONDON: Liverpool made a pre-tax profit of £60 million ($83.8 million, 77.1 million euros) in 2014-15, the club announced on Tuesday, thanks largely to the sale of Luis Suarez to Barcelona.

Uruguay striker Suarez left Liverpool for the Camp Nou in a reported £75 million deal in July 2014, with then-manager Brendan Rodgers reinvesting the money in eight new signings and contracts for several players.

Liverpool’s profit for the pre-vious financial year had been just £900,000.

“We continue to make solid financial progress and reported growth in our commercial, media and match-day revenues, which continues to add strength to our financial position,” said chief exec-utive Ian Ayre in a statement.

“Last year we saw a small profit for the first time in seven years, which demonstrated our recent progress.

“This year the profit reported has significantly increased, which is mainly a result of the sale of Luis Suarez in July 2014 and that has already been reinvested into the playing squad.

“Our real financial position is closer to break-even and it is the underlying revenue growth that’s

important and provides us with the long-term stability.”

British press reports on Tues-day suggested that Jurgen Klopp, Rodgers’s successor, will be given substantial funds to spend in the 2016 close-season transfer window.

The announcement of 12 new partnerships and the opening of 180 new retail outlets around the world saw Liverpool’s commercial reve-nue increase by 12 percent to £116.3 million in 2014-15.

Media revenue rose from £100.9 million to £122.6 million, due in part to Champions League participation and runs to the FA Cup and League Cup semi-finals.

Liverpool’s success in cup com-petitions helped match-day revenue climb by 15.9 percent to £59 million.

Meanwhile, the accounts show that American owners Fenway Sports Group (FSG) wrote off a £69 million loan by turning it into equity.

FSG also invested £49 million in the expansion of Anfield’s Main Stand, which is due to re-open in time for the start of next season.

Liverpool are struggling to qualify for next season’s Champi-ons League via the league and were knocked out of the FA Cup by West Ham United last month.

They reached the League Cup final, losing on penalties to Man-chester City at Wembley on Sunday, and face Manchester United in the Europa League last 16.

AFP

MELBOURNE: Spanish giants Atletico Madrid were Wednesday unveiled as the fourth side to play in this year’s International Champi-ons Cup in Australia, joining Italian champions Juventus and England’s Tottenham Hotspur.

Melbourne Victory will also compete in the Australian leg of the global pre-season club competition

at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in July.

“This competition will form a key part of our pre-season training and will be a great opportunity for me to put my players through their paces ahead of the new sea-son,” said Atletico coach Diego Simeone.

The tournament debuted last year with a total of 221,000 fans at the MCG across the event week to watch Real Madrid, Manchester City and AS Roma.

Reuters

LONDON : Injured Arsenal mid-fielder Santi Cazorla has suffered an Achilles problem in training which will delay his return to first-team action, manager Arsene Wenger has said.

The influential Spaniard was expected to return this month after undergoing surgery for a knee prob-lem suffered in Arsenal’s 1-1 draw with Norwich City in November.

“Santi is not doing too well. He has some Achilles problems that hold him back,” Wenger told Brit-ish media.

“His knee is doing well but his Achilles has inflamed a little bit and we have to put him off impact (training).”

Wenger added that midfielder Jack Wilshere, who is yet to feature for the Gunners this season, would miss England’s friendlies against Germany and Netherlands this month as he continues his rehabili-tation from a broken calf bone.

Wenger said he expected the 24-year-old would have plenty of time to prove his fitness ahead of the June 10-July 10 European Cham-pionships in France where England have been drawn in Group B along-side Russia, Wales and Slovakia.

“Jack is doing quite well but has

still not been outside yet. Running, I think, starts again this week. Three to four weeks (until he is back),” Wenger said.

“I can understand you worry for the England team. I worry as well. I’m a supporter of England.”

Third-placed Arsenal can close the gap on Premier League leaders Leicester City to three points with victory over relegation-threatened Swansea City later yesterday.

Arsenal midfielder Santi Cazorla

Barcelona’s Uruguayan striker Suarez

The Peninsula

DOHA: The 4th annual Asian Communities Football Tourna-ment (ACFT) will kick-off today at Qatar Football Association’s (QFA) Football Development Depart-ment, Pitch 1.

The opening fixture will see India take on Thailand at 7pm, followed by the second match in

which Nepal takes on Japan at 8.30pm.

Twelve Asian communities are participating in this year’s tourna-ment where each team will play five matches during the group stage.

A total of 37 matches will be played during this year’s tour-nament with matches being scheduled for Thursdays and Fridays.

The semi-finals will be played

on May 6 and the grand final will be taking place on may 13, the same day which will see this year’s Emir Cup semi-finals.

Organised by the QFA, the tournament is one of the many events that will run alongside this year’s Emir Cup and it will also make fans aware and exited

ahead of the Emir Cup final match.

QFA also recognises the Asian communities’ enthusiasm towards attending the Emir Cup matches and thus is constantly aiming to involve all Asian com-munities who are loyal fans of the most prestigious tournament in Qatar.

The venues hosting the matches this year include QFA’s Football Development

Department’s pitches, Al Sadd Sports Club’s main pitch, and Al Sadd Sports Club’s training site. Official referees from QFA’s Ref-eree Committee will officiate at all matches to ensure the teams abide by the laws of the game.

This year’s tournament fea-tures two groups. Group A includes Lebanon, India, Jordan, China and Thailand. Group B includes Nepal, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, South Korea, Philippines, Japan, and Singapore.

SPORT32 THURSDAY 3 MARCH 2016

ASIAN COMMUNITIES FOOTBALL

TOURNAMENT

Asian Communities Football Tournament kicks-off today Action from last

year’s Asian Communities

Football Tournament.

Atletico ease past Sociedad to reduce Barcelona’s lead

AFP

MADRID: Atletico Madrid closed the gap on La Liga leaders Barcelona to five points with a routine 3-0 win over Real Sociedad on Tuesday.

A bright start from the hosts was rewarded when Diego Reyes turned

Koke’s low cross into his own net after just eight minutes. Saul Niguez’s acrobatic volley doubled Atletico’s advantage a minute into the sec-ond-half before Antoine Griezmann’s penalty rounded off the scoring.

Barca can restore their eight-point lead when they travel to Rayo Vallecano on Thursday looking to set a Spanish football record by stretch-ing their unbeaten run to 35 games.

Third-placed Real Madrid are now seven points adrift of Atletico ahead of their trip to Levante yesterday.

Buoyed by coming out on top against Real in the capital city derby on Saturday, Atletico started full of confidence and should have killed the

game off before half-time. The opener arrived when Koke’s dangerous low cross from the right caused confusion between Reyes and Geronimo Rulli and the Mexican defender shanked the ball into his own net.

Diego Godin should have made it 2-0 moments later when he blasted over Jose Maria Gimenez’s flick-on from Koke’s corner.

Rulli then redeemed himself with smart saves from Griezmann and Luciano Vietto, although in truth both strikers placed their shots too close to the keeper.

Atletico did finally get the second goal with the first attack of the sec-ond half as Vietto’s lofted cross picked out Saul’s late run into the box and his bicycle-kick had too much power for Rulli.

The only slight concern for Atletico boss Diego Simeone was the

sight of Godin having to be replaced by Lucas Hernandez shortly after-wards, with the vital return-leg of their Champions League last-16 tie with PSV Eindhoven just two weeks away.

Griezmann was Atletico’s hero at the weekend and he won the chance to round off the scoring against his former club when he was tripped inside the area by Antonio de la Bella on the hour mark.

The French international dusted himself off to send Rulli the wrong way for his 21st goal of the season.

Griezmann was then also with-drawn with a meeting against Gary Neville’s Valencia on Sunday in mind.

Sociedad began to threaten for the first time in the match in the final half hour as Carlos Vela fired just wide before Jonathas headed against the post.

An own goal, Niguez’s acrobatic volley and Griezmann’s penalty cause nightmare for Sociedad

SPANISH LA LIGA

Menez hits brace as Milan end 13-year wait for Cup final AFP

MILAN: Jeremy Menez ended an 11-month goal drought with a brace as AC Milan booked their first Ital-ian Cup final in 13 years with a 5-0 rout of third division Alessandria on Tuesday.

Milan, 6-0 winners on aggregate, last featured in the Cup final in 2003 when they won it for the fifth time.

After a comprehensive victory which included a brace from centre-back Alessio Romagnoli and a late goal from on-loan Liverpool striker Mario Balotelli, the Rossoneri are now expected to meet Juventus in the May 21 final at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome.

Holders Juventus travel to Inter Milan yesterday, three days after outclassing Roberto Mancini’s men 2-0 in Turin to boost their Serie A title bid, and with a comfortable 3-0 cushion from the first leg.

Menez emerged to become one of Milan’s most valuable players when he joined the struggling Serie A giants from Paris Saint-Germain in 2014, only to be sidelined with injury at the end of last season.

The 28-year-old returned to Sinisa Mihajlovic’s side recently with a series of cameo substitute appearances, but capitalised on his first start for the Rossoneri since April 2015 to underline his attack-ing credentials in timely fashion as they look to secure a top three fin-ish this season.

Alessandria headed to the San Siro with a sizeable travelling sup-port but their dream of a fairytale final with Juventus was compounded from the 20th minute onwards.

Menez broke the deadlock in clinical fashion when he collected a pass inside the area to beat Gian-marco Vannucchi with a low angled strike.

Milan doubled their lead only four minutes later when Romagnoli tapped the ball home from a corner that had been headed towards the back post by Rossoneri midfielder Juraj Kucka.

Milan put the tie beyond reach six minutes before half-time when Menez struck Andrea Poli’s delivery first time past Vannucchi after Keis-uke Honda’s clever ball on the right.

Menez was replaced by Carlos Bacca with 15 minutes remaining, the Frenchman leaving the pitch to an ovation.

Alessandria thought they had reduced arrears soon after but Mat-tia De Sciglio produced a spectacular clearance inches from the goal-line after a shot had trickled under Christian Abbiati and beyond the goalkeeper’s reach.

Two minutes later, Romagnoli had his second from a near carbon copy of his first goal, the defender firing home at the back post from a corner to leave a desperate Vannuc-chi pushing the ball out of the net.

Balotelli punished the visitors when he collected Honda’s ball to power down the middle and fire through Vannucchi’s legs.

Gerrard’s woe as Galaxy thrashed in CONCACAF Champions League AFP

LOS ANGELES: Steven Gerrard’s hopes of leading the Los Angeles Galaxy to CONCACAF Champions League glory came to an abrupt end on Tuesday as Mexican sides dominated against their American quarter-final opponents.

Gerrard partnered new Gal-axy signing Nigel De Jong in the Los Angeles midfield as the Major League Soccer side traveled to Torreon in Mexico to face Santos Laguna after grinding out a 0-0 draw in last week’s first leg.

But Galaxy’s hopes of advancing to the semi-finals of North Ameri-ca’s most prestigious continental club competition were wrecked in little over half an hour as Santos roared into a 3-0 lead to settle the contest.

Another Galaxy new signing, Ashley Cole -- missed the tie after flying back to Rome for the birth of his first child. His absence was all too evident as Santos punished some shambolic defending to take a stran-glehold on the tie.

Martin Bravo shot Santos into the lead after 19 minutes, hooking home a volley from the edge of the six-yard box after Galaxy failed to deal with a corner. Ulises Davila doubled the lead four minutes later when his shot from outside the area deflected off Jelle van Damme and looped past Los Angeles goalkeeper Dan Kennedy.

It got worse for Los Angeles on 36 minutes when Cape Verde interna-tional Djaniny steered a header into the far post after more defending to make it 3-0.

Bravo grabbed his second on 61 minutes to complete the scoring on a night to forget for the visitors, who

looked desperately short of match practice as they prepare for the start of the new MLS season this weekend.

Earlier, another Major League Soccer side exited when DC United could only draw 1-1 with Queretaro to go out 3-1 on aggregate.

DC United’s slender hopes of overturning their 2-0 first leg def-icit were dealt a devastating blow after only four minutes in a sparsely populated RFK Stadium as the Mex-icans took the lead.

A swinging cross into the area was met by Edgar Benitez who deftly cushioned his header into the path of Angel Sepulveda who drilled a low shot into the bottom left hand corner.

The home side pulled a goal back on 84 minutes when German-born midfielder Julian Buscher lashed in a swerving long-range effort that ripped into the top corner, but it was too little too late.

Fans’ flare hits home bench in Hanover AFP

BERLIN: The German FA is expected to hand out hefty fines to both clubs after a flare fired from the Wolfs-burg’s fan block hit the underside of the Hanover bench on Tuesday.

The firework was one of several fired by visit-ing Wolfsburg fans from the away team’s block at Hanover’s HDI Arena before

Tuesday’s German league game, but initial reports sug-gest no one was hurt.

This is not the first time the use of pyrotechnics has marred a Bundesliga match between the north German neighbours recently.

In December 2014, Wolfsburg fans also fired four flares and set off a smoke bomb in the away section of Hanover’s stadium.

Both clubs were fined 6,000 euros ($6,500) at the time.

Wolfsburg fans light flares before the German Bundesliga soccer match between Hannover 96 and VfL Wolfsburg in Hanover, Germany on Tuesday. The German FA is expected to hand out hefty fines to both clubs after a flare fired from the Wolfsburg’s fan block hit the underside of the Hanover bench on Tuesday.

Real Sociedad’s defender Diego Reyes (bottom) causes an own goal during the Spanish Primera Division soccer match against Atletico Madrid at Vicente Calderon stadium in Madrid, Spain on Tuesday.

SPORT 33THURSDAY 3 MARCH 2016

MotoGP fans meet star rider Marquez in DohaThe Peninsula

DOHA: Domasco, the exclusive dis-tributor for Honda in Qatar,organised an exciting evening recently for bike enthusiasts and MotoGP fans in Qatar to meet Marc Marquez, the star Span-ish rider and senior officials from the Honda Repsol team.

Commenting on this event, Faisal Sharif, Managing Director at Domasco said: “At Domasco we pursue to create enjoyable and memorable experiences for our customers and this special event that occurs annually captures that.’’

During the Q&A session, fans had the chance to interact with Marquez.

After an interesting Q&A with the rider, thrilled guests lined up for auto-graphs and he obliged and gamely posed for photographs.

Marquez first made his mark by becoming the youngest rider in his-tory to win a MotoGP race.

He then shocked the sporting world when he became the world’s youngest ever MotoGP champion in

2013 and went on to win again in 2014. Greig Roffey, Head of Sales &

Marketing for Honda said: “We are overjoyed with the huge turnout this evening for Honda local community. Our special guests have received a very warm welcome from the broad masses of fans in Qatar.’’

Expressing his happiness, a

MotoGP fan who attended the event, said: “I am thrilled to take part in this exciting evening. On behalf of my bike enthusiasts’ friends, I would like to thank Domasco for giving us every year, the chance to meet the top Honda riders.”

The riders are in Doha for the final round of testing before the new Qatar Grand Prix season which kicks off on March 17 at the Losail international racing circuit.

Doha Marketing Services Com-pany WLL (Domasco) is a leading multi-brand company in Qatar with a diversified portfolio representing some of the world’s most visible and award-winning brands such as Honda, Volvo, GAC, CMC, Mastergas, Carrier, Raymond Weil, Titan, Police, Gant and many more.

Domasco has more than 25 directly-operated showrooms and shops as well as a presence in numer-ous dealer stores in Doha.

A major retail and service com-pany, Domasco is renowned for its exceptional after sales services for all the reputed brands it represents in Qatar.

Spanish MotoGP rider Marc Marquez signs an autograph for a young fan during an event organised by Domasco in Doha recently. Pics: Baher Amin/The Peninsula

Spanish MotoGP rider Marc Marquez speaks during an event organised by Domasco in Doha recently.

Spirited Bangladesh knock Pakistan out to reach final

IANS

MIRPUR: Bangladesh produced a superb all-round performance to outclass Pakistan by five wickets in their Twenty20 clash to enter the final of the Asia Cup at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium here yesterday.

Hosts Bangladesh will meet India in the final on Sunday.

Pakistan’s hope of making it to the Asia Cup final has been dashed.

Batting first, Pakistan scored 129/7 in 20 overs.

In reply, Soumya Sarkar struck an impressive 48 as Bangladesh success-fully chased the target scoring 131/5 in 19.1 overs.

Chasing a challenging target of 130, the home side got off to a good start with openers Tamim Iqbal (7) and Sarkar striking the ball quite well to stay ahead in the run chase.

But Mohammad Irfan brought in the first breakthrough for Pakistan by taking the wicket of Iqbal.

But Sarkar played some good shots, hitting one six and five fours, to help team to a comfortable posi-tion. He was well accompanied by Sabbir Rahman (14) and Mushfiqur Rahim (12).

But after the dismissal of both the batsmen, incoming batsmen Mah-mudullah (22 not out) and Mashrafe Mortaza (12 not out) held on till the

end to steer the home side to victory.Earlier opting to bat, Pakistan got

off to a disappointing start, losing first three batsmen for just 18 runs within five overs.

Incoming batsman Sarfraz Ahmed (58 not out) and Umar Akmal (4) aimed to take charge of the game thereof, but Akmal stay in the crease was cut short by pacer Taskin Ahmed. Pakistan were reduced to 28-4 in the ninth over.

But young Sarfraz and experi-enced Shoaib Malik (41) held on to

add some crucial runs to help Paki-stan cross the 90-run mark.

But Bangladesi bowlers came back well to take wickets of Malik and skipper Shahid Afridi (0) to not allow Pakistan cross the 130-run mark.

Al Amin Hossain (3-25) and Ara-fat Sunny (2-35) were the pick of the Bangladesh bowlers.

Meanwhile, English county side Sussex yesterday signed Bangladesh left-arm seamer Mustafizur Rahman as their second overseas cricketer for 2016.

The pacer will feature in 50-over and Twenty20 cricket for the club. The 20-year-old will be following in the footsteps of Shakib Al Hasan and Tamim Iqbal who have earlier played in county cricket.

Mustafizur stormed onto the international scene last year as he bagged two five-wicket hauls in his

first two One-Day Internationals. His performance also helped Bangladesh earn their first-ever bilateral series win over India.

“I’m very excited to get an oppor-tunity in county cricket,” Mustafizur was quoted as saying in a report.

“It has always been an ambi-tion of mine to play in England and I am thankful to Sussex for this opportunity.”

“I hope I can repay the faith they have shown in me with my perform-ances on the field,” he added.

Energised Steyn

returns to boost

South Africa

Reuters

CAPE TOWN: An “energised” Dale Steyn has passed his fitness tests and will play for South Africa in their three-match Twenty20 Inter-national series against Australia starting in Durban tomorrow.

Steyn, one of the world’s lead-ing pacemen, has missed most of South Africa’s season with groin and shoulder problems but is ready to face Australia in the warm-up series for the World Twenty20.

“A hungry, fit, energised Dale is a massive plus for us,” South Africa coach Russell Domingo told reporters on Tuesday.

“He hasn’t played for South Africa for a long period of time and he has come here with a great attitude.

“He is desperate to play, des-perate to do well, he wants to win a World Cup, he wants to be involved in all formats of the game, so his energy levels are right up there and that bodes really well for us.”

Steyn has not featured in the 20-over format for his country since the last World Cup in Bang-ladesh in 2014 after a self-imposed exile but is making a return to add experience ahead of the next tour-nament in India starting on March 8.

“The big thing for these type of players is making sure the hun-ger and passion is there. He has definitely got that at the moment,” Domingo said.

“His skills are always going to be there, he is desperate to play for South Africa, and that is great news as a coach.”

South Africa start the series against Australia in Durban on Friday before moving on to Johan-nesburg on Sunday. They complete the series in Cape Town on March 9.

The Proteas open their World Twenty20 campaign against Eng-land on March 18 and will also play Sri Lanka and West Indies in their pool.

India aim to continue winning run IANS

MIRPUR: India will aim to maintain their all-win record when they meet minnows United Arab Emirates (UAE) in their final group game of the Asia Cup at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium here today.

India top the pool table with six points after winning all their three matches so far -- against hosts Bang-ladesh, arch-rivals Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

The men in blue have assured

themselves a place in Sunday’s final after the five-wicket win over the Lankans on Tuesday and even an unlikely defeat against the UAE will not hamper them.

India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni may decide to make a few changes in the line-up in order to give match practice to some of the players who have not featured in the tourna-ment till now.

“We’ll definitely make a few changes in the coming games. How many we can, that’s something we will have to see. Because we still want

the strength and the composition of the side to be very good,” Dhoni told reporters here.

“I think most of the players will definitely get a chance in the next game. Whether all the people who are sitting outside will get a chance, we’re not sure. But we will try to make as many changes as possible,” he added.

The Indian team management may consider including the likes of Ajinkya Rahane, Harbhajan Singh, Pawan Negi and Bhuvneshwar Kumar in the line-up for the UAE game.

Among the four, Rahane is the

one who has the best chance to be selected. The right-hander has been in good form in recent months and may be included in place of the off-colour Shikhar Dhawan.

The Indian-think tank may also decide to rest veteran pacer Ashish Nehra in order to keep him fresh for the final. The 36-year-old Nehra has been in excellent form, picking up five wickets.

If the Indian team management does decide to rest the Delhi pacer, Bhuvneshwar Kumar may be included in his place.

India’s captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni (left) shakes hands with Virat Kohli after winning the Asia Cup match against Sri Lanka in Dhaka on Tuesday.

Hosts to meet India in March 6 clash for title after five-wicket victory over Shahid Afridi’s side in Dhaka

ASIA CUP: INDIA TO TAKE ON UAE TODAY

Bangladesh captain Mashrafe bin Mortaza (centre) celebrates with team-mates after the dismissal of unseen Pakistan batsman Mohammad Hafeez during their Asia Cup T20 match at the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium in Dhaka yesterday.

PAKISTANK Manzoor c Rahim b Al-Amin 1

Sharjeel Khan b Sunny 10

Mohd Hafeez lbw Mortaza 2

Sarfraz Ahmed (not out) 58

Umar Akmal c Shakib b Taskin 4

Shoaib Malik c Sabbir b Sunny 41

Shahid Afridi c Sabbir b Al-Amin 0

Anwar Ali c Sabbir b Al-Amin 13

Total (for 7 wkts in 20 over) 129Fall of wickets: 1-1, 2-12, 3-18, 4-28, 5-98,

6-102, 7-129.

Bowling: Taskin 4-1-14-1, Al-Amin 4-0-25-3,

Sunny 4-0-35-2, Mortaza 4-0-29-1, Shakib

4-0-26-0.

BANGLADESHTamim Iqbal lbw Irfan 7

Soumya Sarkar b Amir 48

Sabbir Rahman b Afridi 14

Mushfiqur Rahim lbw Malik 12

Shakib Al Hasan b Amir 8

Mahmudullah (not out) 22

Mashrafe Mortaza (not out) 12

Extras (LB-4, W-2, NB-2) 8

Total (for 5 wkts in 19.1 overs) 131Fall of wickets: 1-13, 2-46, 3-83, 4-88,

5-104.

Bowling: Amir 4-0-26-2(w1), Irfan 4-0-23-1,

Sami 4-0-30-0 (nb2), Afridi 4-0-20-1, Ali 2.1-

0-25-0 (w1).

SCOREBOARD

SPORT34 THURSDAY 3 MARCH 2016

This combination of pictures created yesterday shows (from left) World No.1 tennis player Novak Djokovic, Caribbean sprint king Usain Bolt and football giant Leonil Messi. The trio is among the six nominees for the Laureus Awards in the category of Best Male Athlete of 2015, the foundation announced yesterday. Djokovic, who won three Grand Slam titles, Bolt, who won three gold medals at the World Athletics Championships, and Messi, who won the 2015 Ballon d’Or, are joined by Formula One’s Lewis Hamilton, American basketballer Stephen Curry and golfer Jordan Spieth. US tennis star Serena Williams, who came close to winning all four Grand Slam titles, is among the six nominees for the women’s trophy. New Zealand’s rugby team, the All Blacks, are in the running for the team award having successfully defended their crown at the 2015 Rugby World Cup hosted by England.

Djokovic, Bolt and Messi lead Laureus nominees

Park seeks win on return to happy hunting ground

Reuters

SINGAPORE: Still searching for consistency after suffering a back injury, Park In-bee is delighted to be in familiar surroundings as she embarks on her defence of the HSBC Women’s Championship in Singapore this week.

Park went bogey-free over 72 holes at the demanding Serapong Course to see off Lydia Ko a year ago, kickstarting a season that would add four more wins, including her sixth and seventh majors, and the Korean will be hoping for a repeat on Sunday.

“I really love this golf course and I know I can do it. So I have good levels building up now... hopefully this week can give me a lot of confidence,” Park told reporters yesterday.

“This tournament was a lucky charm last year, so I would like to get that going this week as well. Even if I don’t end up holding the trophy, I would like to take something from this tournament,” she added, while explaining how frustrating her injury had been.

“I wish I was better prepared but I just came back to competition after

about of month out with the injury,” the 27-year-old added.

“I feel like I’m definitely in bet-ter shape than I was last week or a month ago. It’s just getting better and better but I just don’t want to rush for anything.”

Park admitted that the tropical heat of Singapore was better for her back than playing in chillier climes and the city-state’s tight courses seemed to help keep her fully focused over four rounds.

“Singapore golf courses never seem to be too wide, so you need to be

pretty accurate off the tee and to the second shots to the green. Obviously the greens are pretty grainy here with the tropical weather,” she added.

“But last year was special. I never had a tournament where I didn’t make a bogey for 72 holes before and I had all my family here with me, so that made it even better. I always enjoy coming here and playing good golf

definitely helped the trip,” said the South Korean.

She edged out world number one Ko by two strokes in 2015 but Park refused to single out the only woman above her in the rankings as the player to beat. “There are 80 peo-ple in the field trying to win this week, so I’m not worried about just one of them,” she said.

“It’s more likely you’re playing your own game. If I play my perfect game, I can win the tournament. I think golf is just trying to bring that out of yourself.”

Park In-bee of South Korea in action during the US Women’s Open Championship at Pine Needles Lodge & Golf

Club in Southern Pines, North Carolina, in this July 2007 file photo.

GOLF: HSBC WOMEN”S CHAMPIONSHIP

South Korean golfer eyes to regain form after injury as she defends HSBC title in Singapore this week

Singapore

wind to test

Lydia Ko’s

chill factor

Tadese joins

elite World

Half Marathon

field

AFP

SINGAPORE: World number one Lydia Ko said yesterday that it will take smart golf to beat the unu-sually windy conditions at this week’s HSBC Women’s Champi-onship in Singapore.

The 18-year-old New Zea-lander has held the top ranking for 19 consecutive weeks and is look-ing for a maiden win at the tricky Serapong course on Sentosa Island.

She is looking to turn the tables on world number two and defend-ing champion Park In-Bee of South Korea, who edged the teenager by two strokes last year.

Ko, known for a laid-back demeanour which has served her well in a phenomenal early career, arrives on the back of a strong start to the season.

In February, she defended the New Zealand nationals, finished second at the Australian Open and tied for third at the Coates Golf Championship in Florida.

But she cast a wary eye on the winds blowing over Serapong that are not showing any sign of abating. Ko said it will make the narrow course and its wide greens a lot trickier.

“You just have to be smart here,” said Ko.

“It has been really windy the last few days. So I am imagining it will be the same in the next cou-ple of days.

“I think that plays a huge fac-tor, especially around some of the holes where we’re by the water or where there are no trees and there is nothing blocking them,” said the top golfer.

Reuters

LONDON: Half Marathon record holder Zersenay Tadese of Eritrea has joined Britain’s Mo Farah and Kenya’s reigning champion Geof-frey Kamworor in an elite field for the world championships in Car-diff on March 26.

Tadese, 34, has held the record of 58 minutes 23 seconds since March 2010.

The athlete will be chasing his 14th world Half Marathon champi-onship medal in a career haul that includes six golds.

The Eritrean won a total of four successive individual titles between 2006 and 2009 and took a fifth in 2012.

Five Eritrean runners fin-ished in the top 10 in Copenhagen two years ago and their team for Cardiff will include Nguse Amlo-som, who was fifth, and Samsom Gebreyohannes, who was eighth, as well as Tadese.

Kamworor is hoping to join Tadese and Kenya’s Paul Tergat as only the third man to win back-to-back Half Marathon titles, and is also eyeing the Eritrean’s record on the streets of the Welsh city.

Kenya will also be looking to Bedan Karoki, silver medallist at the 2015 world cross country championships, who is unbeaten in four Half Marathons.

Farah, the double Olympic 5,000 and 10,000 metres cham-pion who is expected to defend his titles in Rio in August, is aiming to become the first British male run-ner to win the world Half Marathon title since the event started back in 1992.

Season over for injured Vonn AFP

PARIS: Lindsey Vonn’s hopes of winning a fifth World Cup overall title lay in tatters yes-terday after she announced that her season is over due to a knee injury sustained in a fall last weekend.

“Today I am making the difficult decision to end my season and leave the World Cup cir-cuit due to an injury I suffered last Saturday,” she wrote on her Facebook page.

“Because I am currently leading the Over-all World Cup standings, this is one of the toughest decisions of my career.”

The 31-year-old American speed queen sustained a hairline facture to her left knee when she fell while competing in a World Cup super-G in Andorra.

She did compete at the same venue the fol-lowing day in a super-combined, but further

medical tests on the knee this week showed that the injury was worse than at first thought.

“Those images showed that there was not just 1 hairline fracture, but in fact 3. And the fractures are not hairline, but instead they are significant enough that they are not suf-ficiently stable to permit me to safely continue skiing,” Vonn said on Facbook.

“Further damage to any of the fragments could result in a serious surgery that would risk my future in ski racing.

“With the World Championships in St. Moritz next year and the Winter Olympics in South Korea the following year, I cannot take that risk.”

Vonn’s lead in the overall World Cup standings over closest rival Lara Gut is just 28 points with several races still to come, mean-ing that the Swiss skier, barring injury, looks sure to overtake the American in the race for the Crystal Globe.

“I am very proud of what I have been able

to accomplish this year: 9 World Cup victo-ries, breaking the World Cup downhill win record, breaking the World Cup Super G podium record, and winning the most World Cup discipline titles--20--of any skier, male or female,” she said.

“While I am confident that I’m making the right decision, it still doesn’t make this decision any easier.” Considered one of the greatest skiers of all time, Vonn has won Olympic and world titles in the speed disciplines during the course of her career and she has taken the overall World Cup crystal globe four times, the last being in 2012.

But she has been beset by knee injuries since then, missing most of the 2013 and 2014 seasons to undergo surgery.

However, she had been back to near her best this year and last month claimed her 76th World Cup victory, taking her closer to the overall record of 86 held by Sweden’s Inge-mar Stenmark.

Lindsey Vonn of the USA in action during the Super G race of the women’s Combined competition at the FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup in Soldeu-El Tarter, Andorra, yesterday.

Agencies

LOS ANGELES: Centre Connor McDavid scored 3:48 into overtime to give the Edmonton Oilers a 2-1 win over the Buffalo Sabres on Tuesday night.

It was McDavid’s second goal of the game.

The game showcased the top two picks of the 2015 draft, McDavid and Sabres centre Jack Eichel, and the finishing sequence appropriately fea-tured both players.

Capitals 3, Penguins 2Defenceman Matt Niskanen deliv-

ered a power-play goal with 6:22 remaining as the Washington Cap-itals rallied from a two-goal deficit to defeat the Pittsburgh Penguins 3-2 on Tuesday.

In a hard-fought contest, Pitts-burgh centre Evgeni Malkin drew a high sticking penalty with 7:15 left, and the Capitals immediately took advantage, putting pressure on Penguins rookie goalie Mat-thew Murray.

Niskanen boomed one shot from the blue line that Murray fought off, and when Niskanen received the puck once again, he did not miss, scoring his fourth goal of the season.

Hurricanes 3, Devils 1Left winger Joakim Nordstrom

scored with 1:29 remaining in regu-lation to give the Carolina Hurricanes a 3-1 victory against the New Jersey Devils at Prudential Center on Tues-day night.

Nordstrom’s ninth of the season was the result of some strong work by center Elias Lindholm, who snapped a shot from between the circles that was stopped but led to a big rebound.

Devils defenceman John Moore fanned on a clearing attempt, allow-ing Nordstrom to beat Schneider to stick side for the winner.

Bruins 2, Flames 1Cashing in on a late too-many-

men-on-the-ice penalty on Calgary, the Boston Bruins got a power-play goal from center Patrice Bergeron and edged the Flames 2-1 on Tues-day night. Bergeron took a pass from fellow center Ryan Spooner and sent

a 40-footer past goaltender Joni Ortio with 3:24 left for Boston’s first power-play goal in five games.

The Bruins were in an 0-for-13 slump with the man advantage, and they recorded only their fifth goal in 56 power plays over the past 16 games.

Blues 4, Senators 3Patrik Berglund scored in the

11th round of a shootout to give the St. Louis Blues a 4-3 win over the Ottawa Senators on Tuesday night at Canadian Tire Centre.

Two goals in the final 2:41 of the third period by center Jean-Gabriel Pageau completed a dramatic come-back for the Senators, who trailed 3-0 just past the midway point of the game.

Wild 6, Avalanche 3In what felt like a playoff game

for both teams, the Minnesota Wild took a big step toward post-season

play on Tuesday, beating the Colorado Avalanche 6-3 with a trio of third period goals. Centre Charlie Coyle scored twice in the final period for Minnesota, which trailed early, then got goals from right winger Nino Niederreiter, left winger Jason Pom-inville and center Erik Haula to take a 3-1 lead. Colorado rallied to tie, but Coyle’s game-winner plus an empty-net goal -- Niederreiter also scored an empty-netter -- pulls Minnesota even with the Avalanche in the race for the West’s final playoff spot.

Predators 5, Stars 3Calle Jarnkrok, Shea Weber and

Mattias Ekholm scored consecutive goals in the second period, leading the Nashville Predators to their fifth straight win with a 5-3 victory over the Dallas Stars on Tuesday night.

Craig Smith and James Neal also scored for the surging Predators (32-21-11), who improved to 7-0-3 in their last 10 games.

Antoine Roussel, Jason Spezza and Vernon Fiddler scored for the Stars (38-20-7), who suffered their fourth straight loss.

SPORT 35THURSDAY 3 MARCH 2016

NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE ROUND-UP

Warriors stay perfect at home

AFP

LOS ANGELES: The Golden State Warriors struggled without NBA Most Valuable Player Stephen Curry on Tuesday, but held on to beat Atlanta 109-105 in overtime to stay perfect at home this season.

The Warriors have won all 25 games on their home court in Oakland, California, this season and 43 straight regular-season games at Oracle Arena dating back to last season.

But with Curry sidelined by a sore ankle and Andre Iguodala -- last sea-son’s NBA Finals MVP -- also absent, it was a close game.

“Terrific victory,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. “Our guys stayed with it. Every single guy who played con-tributed. Great team effort.”

Draymond Green beat the shot-clock with an awkward three-pointer with 40.2 seconds left in overtime to give the Warriors a 107-103 lead.

Golden State’s Australian centre Andrew Bogut had saved the ball from going out of bounds and swatted it to Green, who leapt and released his shot.

Thompson’s three-pointer with 2:54 remaining in overtime had put the

Warriors up by one and Bogut tipped in a Green miss to make it 104-101.

The Hawks narrowed the gap to one point with Paul Millsap’s layup before Green’s off-balance shot, and Thompson capped the scoring with a step-back jump shot with 11.4 sec-onds left.

Thompson scored seven of his 26 points in the extra session as the War-riors improved to 54-5 with their fifth overtime win of the season.

“What a game,” Thompson said. “No excuses, but we were down two MVPs. It feels good to win -- any means necessary.”

Bogut scored 19 points on eight-of-nine shooting, while Green added 15 points, 13 rebounds and eight assists.

“I thought everybody was aggres-sive, and that was the key,” Kerr said.

Today the Warriors host Oklahoma City with a chance to tie the Chicago Bulls’ record 44-game home winning streak, set over two seasons in 1995 and 1996.

The Miami Heat were on fire, con-necting on a club record 67.5 percent of their shots in a 129-111 victory over the Chicago Bulls.

The Heat’s shooting percentage was not only the best in franchise

history, but also the best in the NBA this season. Miami centre Hassan Whiteside had a career-high 26 points with 14 rebounds and four blocks -- all game highs. It was Whiteside’s sixth straight double-double, all of them off the bench.

Forward Joe Johnson, playing his first home game in Miami in his second contest since signing with the Heat at the weekend, scored 24 points. Luol Deng, a former Bulls standout, had 20 points, Goran Dragic had a double-double of 17 points and 11 assists and Dwyane Wade added 18 points and seven assists for Miami, who improved to 34-26 and are in fourth place in the East.

Bulls point guard Derrick Rose, back after missing three games with a hamstring injury, scored 17 points, but Chicago allowed more than 100 points for the 14th straight game.

The Bulls fell to 30-29 and ninth place in the Eastern Conference -- half a game behind Detroit for the eighth and final playoff spot.

In New York, Portland’s Damian Lillard scored 30 points to lead the Trail Blazers to their 10th win in 12 games, by a score of 104-85 over the Knicks. Lillard scored 24 points in a dominant first half -- including 14 in less than three minutes late in the sec-ond quarter. C.J. McCollum helped the Trail Blazers distance themselves fur-ther after the interval, scoring 21 of his 25 in the second half.

Carmelo Anthony led the Knicks with 23 points and 10 rebounds, but Anthony was visibly frustrated in a game in which the Knicks again heard boos from their home fans.

Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green (left) breaks away on a loose ball from Atlanta Hawks forward Paul Millsap during the first half of their NBA game at Oracle Arena in Oakland, California, USA, yesterday.

Golden State struggle in absence of Curry to register an 109-105 overtime victory

Miami Heat forward Amar’e Stoudemire (5) ducks the ball past Chicago Bulls centre Pau Gasol (16) during their NBA game at American Airlines Arena on Tuesday. The Heat won 129-111.

Oilers edge Sabres, Hurricanes win

MLB’s Rays to play

in Cuba during

Obama’s visit

AFP

NEW YORK: The Tampa Bay Rays will become the first Major League Baseball team since 1999 to play in Cuba when they face the Cuban national team in an exhi-bition game during US President Barack Obama’s visit to the com-munist-ruled island.

The game set for March 22 at Estadio Latinoamericano in Havana was officially announced on Tuesday by Major League Baseball and the MLB Players’ Association.

The last major league team to visit Cuba was the Baltimore Ori-oles, who played an exhibition against the Cuban national team on March 28, 1999.

“During a time of historic change, we appreciate the con-structive role afforded by our shared passion for the game, and we look forward to experiencing Cuba’s storied baseball tradition and the passion of its many loyal fans,” Major League Commis-sioner Robert Manfred said in a statement.

Obama will become the first US president to visit Cuba in almost a century when he and First Lady Michelle Obama travel there March 21-22. Obama has championed engagement with Cuba, and dip-lomatic relations between the Cold War foes were restored in July of last year.

The last American leader to visit Cuba while in office was Calvin Coolidge in 1928. Baseball is a shared passion between the United States and Cuba, but also a source of acrimony in their dec-ades-long estrangement.

Ongoing trade restrictions mean Cuban players cannot play in the United States without defect-ing, and there is no mechanism for their Cuban teams to be compen-sated by any American team that might eventually hire them, as Jap-anese clubs are compensated when their stars seek a move to the US.

Cuba has won three Olym-pic baseball titles and 25 Baseball World Cup crowns, but its national baseball commissioner Heriberto Suarez has said the game is being “lacerated” by defections -- with more than 100 players fleeing the country last year hoping to play for foreign clubs.

Meanwhile, New York Yankees pitcher Aroldis Chapman was hit with a 30-day ban on Tuesday over a domestic violence incident in which he allegedly choked his girlfriend before firing off gun-shots into his garage. A statement from Major League Baseball said the 28-year-old closer had agreed to the suspension for violating the league’s joint domestic violence, sexual assault and child abuse policy. It followed an incident in October in which police were called to Chapman’s Miami-area home after an altercation between the player and his girlfriend.

New York Islanders goaltender Thomas Greiss (1) stops a shot on net as Vancouver Canucks forward Bo Horvat (53) screens during the second period of their NHL game at Rogers Arena on Tuesday.

NBA RESULTSCharlotte 126 Phoenix 92

Miami 129 Chicago 111

Portland 104 NY Knicks 85

Dallas 121 Orlando 108

Golden State 109 Atlanta 105

LA Lakers 107 Brooklyn 101

36 THURSDAY 3 MARCH 2016

Action from the GCC Golf Championship at the Doha Golf Club yesterday. Hosts Qatar have seven golfers taking part in the event, in which all the eight GCC nations are taking part. Qatar senior team consists of Abdulrahman Al Shahrani, Saleh Al Kaabi, Ali Al Shahrani and Ghanim Al Kuwari while the Qatar junior team is made up of Saoud Al Muhannadi, Sami Hussam and Arnev Jain. The junior event ends tomorrow while the senior event will end on Saturday.

GCC Golf Championship 2016 at Doha Golf Club

MotoGP: Aprilia unveils new bike as final pre-season test kicks off in Qatar

The Peninsula

DOHA: Aprilia has formally launched its all-new RS-GP during the third and final pre-season test at the Losail International Circuit, declaring its 2016 MotoGP challenger the “most ambitious project” it has ever under-taken.

The Italian manufacturer returned to MotoGP with a Gresini-run factory programme in 2015, but its bike was largely based on the ART superbike regulations.

Alongside what it dubbed a ‘lab-oratory season’, Aprilia developed its maiden thoroughbred MotoGP bike, which turned its first laps last month at Aragon.

It completed its first full test in Qatar last week, and race riders Ste-fan Bradl and Alvaro Bautista will join the full field for this week’s final pre-season test.

Aprilia, which has amassed a number of 125cc and 250cc world championship titles in the past dec-ade, made its return to the premier

class of motorcycle racing in 2015, with a factory effort run by Gresini Racing.

Bautista raced for the manu-facturer for the entire campaign, finishing 16th overall, with Stefan Bradl joining him in place of Marco Melandri at the halfway point.

“The upcoming season will be a very important one for us,” Aprilia racing manager Romano Albesiano said.

“The new bike reflects recent

Aprilia Racing tradition, reinter-preting every concept without compromise, and it is the most ambi-tious project our racing department has ever undertaken.

“The first responses from test-ing have been positive. We received very positive feedback from both rid-ers specifically from a dynamics point of view.

“In any case, this is the beginning of a long path and we are well aware of the inevitable difficulties that come along with any new project.”

“I believe that, after the initial finetuning phase, we’ll be able to set our sights on respectable results.”

Bradl joined Aprilia midway through the 2015 season, replacing Marco Melandri.

“The first contact with the new bike was definitely positive, despite the fact that it’s still too early to take a position,” he said. “Now our job will be to explore the potential of the RS-GP lap after lap.

“We really have a lot on our plate, but we also have a wide margin for improvement.

“For the first time in my career I’m working on an official team with the job of developing a new project.

“I think that this is the greatest condition possible for a rider who wants to set his sights on staying out front.”

British Moto2 star Sam Lowes is also set to play a role in developing the RS-GP this year, before joining Aprilia as a race rider in MotoGP in 2017.

Meanwhile, injured Danilo Petrucci is the only competitor not present for the third official test, fac-tory test rider Michele Pirro taking his place, while Aprilia is re-joining its rivals after skipping Phillip Island in favour of a private (Losail) test for the new RS-GP.

Marc Marquez of Repsol Honda Team in action during the third and final 2016 MotoGP pre-season test at the Losail International Circuit in Doha yesterday.

Riders Alvaro Bautista and Stefan Bradl to represent the Italian team at this year’s championship

Valentino Rossi of Movistar Yamaha MotoGP in action at Losail.

Qatar colts set

for long summer

football training

The Peninsula

DOHA: Qatar juniors will train in Croatia from April 21 to 28, Qatar Football Association (QFA) announced.

Prior to the Croatia trip; the U-19 squad will take on Costa Rica and Ivory Coast in two friendlies, both matches will take place in the Spanish coastal city of Malaga.

The trip to Croatia will be part of a long summer training series planned for Qatar juniors.

Qatar, coached by Oscar Cano, last week underwent a highly suc-cessful training in Morocco where they played two friendlies also.

Qatar will also play two friendlies during their trip to Croatia, QFA said.

In May and June, Qatar juniors will undertake a separate train-ing trip to Belgium. The camp will start on May 27 and end on June 3.

Qatar will play friendlies also during their camp in Belgium.

After Ramadan, Qatar team will launch another European training camp, preferably in Swit-zerland, officials said on Sunday.

The national juniors are also listed to feature in four friendly tournaments: first one to be held from July 24 to August 4 in Spain and the second one from August 5 to 21 in Ecuador.

A third event – from August 28 to September 9 – will also be put on the list of Qatar juniors, QFA said.

The fourth event – from Sep-tember 19 to 26 – will also be on the agenda for Cano’s boys.

Qatar are preparing for the U-19 Asian Cup to be held in Bahrain this year. Qatar are the defending champions.

QSL announces

venue change

The Peninsula

DOHA: Qatar Stars League (QSL) has announced a venue change for the upcoming round 21 clash between Al Rayyan and Al Wak-rah.

The match will now take place at the Jassim Bin Hamad Stadium, the home of Al Sadd.

The match will kick off at the same time of 18:00pm on Satur-day, March 5.

Al Rayyan are currently top of the QSL league standings and only need one more point to confirm their status as QSL champions for the first time since the 1994/1995 season.

Meanwhile. Lekhwiya have been granted 24 hours rest by head coach Djamel Belmadi ahead of their round 21 clash against Umm Salal on Sunday evening after their AFC Champions League clash.

Bottas pips Hamilton to top testing times in Barcelona AFP

BARCELONA: Finland’s Valtteri Bottas recorded the fastest time for Williams on day two of the second pre-season test in Barcelona as double world champions Mercedes enjoyed another promising session.

Bottas posted the fifth fastest

time through six days of testing and the second quickest on the supersoft compound in 1min 23.261sec.

Hamilton was just over three tenths of a second back on a slower setup as he was released onto the soft tyres for the first time after piling up huge mileage in the W07.

However, the Englishman’s time was six tenths of a second down on

the best lap posted by Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg on the soft tyres on Tuesday.

Hamilton and Rosberg combined for another mammoth 164-lap day with the German completing a race simulation in the afternoon, albeit with only the ninth fastest lap time on the day.

Kevin Magnussen provided more

hope for Renault ahead of their return to the sport as a constructor with the third quickest time and an impres-sive 126 laps.

Sebastian Vettel posted Ferra-ri’s best time of testing so far on the medium compound in fourth, whilst the Italian giants also ironed out a few reliability problems from Tuesday to post 151 laps.

There was also encouragement for McLaren-Honda as Jenson But-ton enjoyed a relatively trouble-free day with 121 laps.

However, Button’s best time on soft tyres was 1.5 seconds down on Hamilton to again show the gulf the Woking-based team have to breach to get back to the front of the grid.

2016 MOTOGP TEST IN QATAR1. Andrea Iannone (ITA) Ducati Team)1m 56.509s

2. Maverick Viñales (ESP) Team Suzuki Ecstar 1m 56.656s

3. Scott Redding (GBR) Octo Pramac Yakhnich 1m 56.736s

4. Jorge Lorenzo (ESP) Movistar Yamaha MotoGP 1m 56.874s

5. Valentino Rossi (ITA) Movistar Yamaha MotoGP 1m 56.927s

6. Pol Espargaro (ESP) Monster Yamaha Tech 3 1m 56.935s

7. Marc Marquez (ESP) Repsol Honda Team 1m 57.015s

8. Andrea Dovizioso (ITA) Ducati Team 1m 57.136s

9. Aleix Espargaro (ESP) Team Suzuki Ecstar 1m 57.187s

10. Cal Crutchlow (GBR) LCR Honda 1m 57.315s

11. Dani Pedrosa (ESP) Repsol Honda Team 1m 57.914s

12. Stefan Bradl GER Factory Aprilia Gresini 1m 58.066s

13. Tito Rabat (ESP) Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS 1m 58.136s

14. Yonny Hernandez (COL) Aspar MotoGP Team 1m 58.689s

15. Hiroshi Aoyama (JPN) Honda Test Rider 1m 58.744s

16.Eugene Laverty (IRL) Aspar MotoGP Team 1m 58.864s

17. Jack Miller (AUS) Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS 1m 58.935s

18. Michele Pirro (ITA) Octo Pramac Yakhnich 1m 59.413s

19. Loris Baz (FRA) Avintia Racing (Desmosedici 1m 59.419s

20. Hector Barbera (ESP) Avintia Racing 2m 0.210s