editor@pen.com.qa | adv@pen.com.qa Editorial: 4455 7741 | Advertising: 4455 7837 / 4455 7780www.thepeninsulaqatar.com

Thursday 21 March 2013

9 Jumada I 1434 - Volume 18

Number 5645 Price: QR2

C E R T I F I E D N E W S P A P E R

ISO 9001:2008

PM meets Deputy Mayor of London

The Prime Minister and Foreign Minister H E Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem bin Jabor Al Thani with Deputy Mayor of London, Sir Eduard Lister, in Doha yesterday. Bilateral relations and ways to boost them were discussed.

Business | 18 Sport | 26

Mannai Corpunveilsnew logo

Eljaish edge Lekhwiya to reach final

DOHA: The State Budget for the next fiscal year (2013-14) is expected to put added empha-sis on science and technology development, along with priori-tising public spending on social and economic development and sectors like health and educa-tion and the environment.

The State Cabinet, at its weekly meeting yesterday, approved draft budgetary estimates for the new financial year that begins from April 1, 2013, and lasts until March 31 next year, reports Qatar News Agency (QNA).

A highlight of the new budget-ary estimates is that allocations are made for various ministries and government agencies on the basis of how these entities have utilised the funds they had been allocated in the current year’s budget.

The estimates are crucial as they are a key step in the process of achieving the goals of sustainable development the country has set for itself over the long-term. The part of draft estimates that talk of spending on development projects has been referred to the Advisory Council for its opinion.

The economic and financial com-mittee of the Advisory Council is set to discuss the estimates at a special meeting on Sunday and give its recommendations so that the issue can be debated at length by the council at its regular session the next day, Monday. The council is likely to conclude its discussion on Monday since the new budget is to be unveiled on April 1.

THE PENINSULA

Schools restrict admissionsDOHA: The strict safety rules being imposed by the Supreme Education Council (SEC) have forced many private schools to restrict admissions, leading to long waiting lists of applicants.

Several Indian and Pakistani schools that are set to begin their new academic year next month are finding it hard to accommo-date new students, despite the huge demand, due to a severe space crunch.

Most of these schools are operating in full capacity and have limited scope for expan-sion in their existing premises, it is learnt.

The SEC has now banned portacabins in school premises due to safety reasons. Many schools that had been tradition-ally relying on makeshift cabins to accommodate new students are now left with no option but to limit admissions.

“Portacabins had been an easy way for schools to add new classes but they are no more permitted. Most schools have now shifted to purpose-built premises to meet the SEC requirements and have little scope for further expansion,” said an official of an Indian school in Abu Hamour.

All schools say they have long

waiting list of applicants but very few seats to offer.

“We have already closed admis-sions to KG classes and have very few vacancies in higher classes. We have taken a decision not to put more than 30 students in one class to ensure quality,” said Abdul Razaq, Academic Director of Scholar’s International, the newest Indian school that opened in Qatar last year.

He said majority of new appli-cants are not new-comers to the country but are those shifting from other schools.

THE PENINSULA Continued on page 6

Anti-corruption lessons inQU curriculumGovernment determined to fight graftDOHA: Qatar is taking its dogged fight against corrup-tion to its university education system as Qatar University has announced it planned to incor-porate studies about how to com-bat corruption and eradicate the evil from its social milieu, into its curriculum at all levels.

The university has also announced it hoped to set up a permanent chair dedicated to stud-ies concerning fighting corruption and its incumbent will be appointed later. The announcement was made at the conclusion of a seminar on anti-corruption at the university’s law faculty and star speaker was the Attorney-General, Dr Ali bin Futais Al Marri.

Al Marri told the seminar Qatar has a very stringent anti-corruption law and no one except The Emir, H H Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, and the Heir Apparent, H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, are immune.

Everyone except the Emir and the Heir Apparent found embroiled in a case of alleged cor-ruption can be prosecuted under the above law, said the attorney-general. He said there are cases of alleged corruption with the Public Prosecution and so far no one has ever tried to put any kind

of pressure on the Prosecution to brush a case under the carpet. “I challenge that there has never ever been an attempt by anyone howsoever influential to pressure us to go soft on a complaint of alleged corruption,” said Al Marri.

The fight against corruption must begin from family and soci-ety and from there it should go to schools and colleges, he said in his lecture. Corruption, according to Al Marri, is in human blood so cannot be eradicated 100 percent. But it can be fought.

“The fight against corruption should begin with one’s upbring-ing,” he said amidst thunderous applause. Many countries in the world are rich and resourceful but they have widespread poverty because of corruption, he said.

Qatar is considered to be the richest country in the world based on its high per capita income but the fact is that it ranks 59th in the world in terms of wealth. “There are 58 countries in the world that are richer than Qatar.”

“We have a long way to go as far as our fight against corruption is concerned,” said Al Marri. The Prosecution Department, he said, has 100 employees, some 18 of whom are foreigners, including Arabs.

THE PENINSULA

BY FAZEENA SALEEM

DOHA: Qatar Charity has unveiled a unique initiative, ‘Zawaj’, to prevent divorces and ensure marital happiness. ‘Co-living’ — a programme under ‘Zawaj’ — will provide pre-marriage counselling and courses in family life.

Counselling will also be pro-vided to newly-married couples as part of the programme launched on Tuesday at Aspire Zone.

Official statistics for 2009 show the number of divorces per 1,000 Qatari couples increased from 17.4 in 1995 to 19.2 in 2009, and 61 per cent of cases took place in the first five years of marriage.

‘Zawaj’ aims to create aware-ness about marriage and family

responsibilities and prepare cou-ples psychologically before mar-riage to meet Qatar Charity’s cultural and social objectives.

Ahmed Abdullah Al Mulla, Managing Director of the Associations Affairs at the Ministry of Social Affairs, Saud Al Abdul Hanzab, Chairman, Central Municipal Council, and Hilal Al Kuwari, Head of Aspire Zone, attended the launch.

“This (Zawaj) is a pioneering pro-gramme to support Qatari youth and help them get married and lead a happy married life, Hanzab said. “It will have a direct impact on people. Neighbouring countries could adopt it if they like,” he said.

THE PENINSULA Continued on page 2

Initiative to prevent divorces in Qatar

DOHA: The long-awaited health insurance law might see the light of day sooner than later as the State Cabinet yes-terday reviewed its draft.

Qatar News Agency (QNA) reported that the draft legisla-tion was reviewed and discussed by the State Cabinet at its weekly meeting yesterday.

A senior official of the Ministry of Labour recently announced in a media interview that the proposed law, once in force, would make it mandatory for private companies to provide free medical cover to all their employees while the government would ensure free health cover for Qatari citizens.

THE PENINSULA

Budget to focus on science and technology development

Long-awaited health cover law on cards

Obama warns SyriaJERUSALEM: US President Barack Obama pledged yesterday to hold Syria to account if it used chemical weapons and reassured Israel of US resolve against Iran as he tried to allay the security fears of the main US ally in the Middle East. Obama is visiting Israel for the first time as president.

Obama also expressed a desire for a resumption of Israeli-Palestinian talks but brought no new proposals and made no mention of Israeli settlement-building. He said he wanted to hear from each side before determining a way forward. He meets Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah today.

REUTERS See also pages 7 & 10

< US President Barack Obama takes part in a tree planting ceremony with Israeli President Shimon Peres at his residence in Jerusalem, yesterday. The tree is a magnolia from the White House which has been brought in by Air Force One.

02 HOMETHURSDAY 21 MARCH 2013

www.thepeninsulaqatar.com

Zawaj launch

Sheikh Faisal bin Qasim Al Thani (left) Chairman, Qatari Businessmen Association, Yusuf bin Ahmed Al Kuwari, CEO of Qatar Charity (centre) and Saud Al Abdul Hanzab, CMC Chairman, launching Zawaj programme. (ABDUL BASIT)

MADE OF FABRIC AND SOLID WOODMADE IN MALAYSIA

FIND YOUR STYLE MORE RANGE, MORE STYLES.

4 PCS BEDROOM SET 180x200 CONSISTING OF BED, 2 NIGHT

TABLES AND DRESSER WITH MIRROR

QR 1995

BEDROOM SET

(4 PCS)

CORNER SOFA SET QR 3950

CAR BED WITH REMOTE 90x190 QR 2595 BUNK BED QR

795

DINING SET 1+6 QR 1195

MADE OF SOLID WOODMADE IN MALAYSIA

MADE OF FABRIC

Tunisian president greeted on I-DayDOHA: The Emir H H Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani sent a cable of greetings to the President of Tunisia, Mohamed Moncef Marzouki, on his country’s Independence Day. The Deputy Emir and Heir Apparent H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister H E Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem bin Jabor Al Thani also sent greetings to the president.

PM sends message to SingaporeDOHA: Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has received a message form the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister H E Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem bin Jabor Al Thani on bilateral relations. The message was handed over by Qatar’s Ambassador Rashid bin Ali Al Khatir during a meeting with Director of the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia Department at the Singaporean Foreign Ministry Samuel Tan.

CMC to assist Qatar Charity in Zawaj programme

Continued from page 1

CMC will assist Qatar Charity in implementing the programme across the country.

Zawaj is an extension of a pre-vious initiative of Qatar Charity and Aspire Zone to provide free wedding tents to Qatari couples to reduce marriage expenses.

The programme is open to citizens, but couples must take part in the accompanying aware-ness programme.

It aims to hold at least 50 wed-dings a year. A reception marquee, dining marquee, sitting arrange-ments outside the marquee and video recording of the marriage will be done for free.

QNA/THE PENINSULA

Qatar Airways plans two more flights to IraqServices to start in June, AugustDOHA: Qatar Airways yesterday announced it would launch flights to two more destinations in Iraq starting this summer.

The addition of the port city of Basra in southern Iraq and Sulaymaniyah in the northern part of the country will take to five the number of des-tinations served by the airline across the country.

Flights to Basra are due to begin on June 3 with Sulaymaniyah starting on August 20. Both destinations will be served four-times-a-week non-stop from the airline’s hub in Doha.

Qatar Airways began opera-tions to Iraq last summer with flights to the capital Baghdad and Erbil, followed in January this year by new services to Najaf. The airline currently operates 12 flights a week across the three cities. The new capacity will take the frequency up to 20 weekly services across Iraq.

Fuelled by the reconstruction drive in the country and demand for more air services to Iraq, Qatar Airways is expanding its operations in Iraq in line with its strategy to enter underserved markets.

Qatar Airways Chief Executive Officer Akbar Al Baker (pictured) said: “With today’s announcement of flights starting to the cities of Basra and Sulaymaniyah this summer, Qatar Airways is offer-ing new travel options to the peo-ple of Iraq and for those involved

in the reconstruc-tion efforts of the country.

“After years of restricted air access for foreign airlines in many parts of Iraq, Qatar Airways has been working with the authorities to open up services and are delighted to have expanded our operations there in

such a short space of time, doing our bit in the coun-try’s rebuilding efforts.”

The convenient timings of the Doha–Basra and Sulaymaniyah flights will provide passengers with good connections to key des-tinations across the Middle East, Europe, Africa and Asia Pacific.

Both routes will be operated with an Airbus A320 featuring 144 seats in a two-class configura-tion of 12 seats in Business Class and 132 in Economy.

The Doha–Basra schedules: 4-times-a-week, effective June 3.

Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays QR448 departs Doha at 0725 hrs to arrive in Basra at 0905 hrs. QR449 departs Basra at 1005 hrs which will arrive in Doha at 1145 hrs.

The Doha–Sulaymaniyah schedules: 4-times-a-week, effec-tive August 20.

Mondays, Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays QR438 departs Doha at 1335 hrs to arrive in Sulaymaniyah at 1600 hrs and QR439 departs Sulaymaniyah at 1700 hrs to arrive in Doha at 1915 hrs.

THE PENINSULA

DIIFSD co-funds report onmodern day slavery in UKDOHA: In its quest to sup-port important local and inter-national research endeavours that impact the family as a whole, the Doha International Institute for Family Studies and Development (DIIFSD) has co-funded a prominent report by The Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) in the United Kingdom. The report, entitled ‘It Happens Here,’ brought to light the prev-alence of modern day slavery and human trafficking in the UK.

Launched last week the report revealed a litany of cases where adults and children are trafficked into and within the UK and sub-jected to forced labour, sexual exploitation, domestic servitude

and forced criminality (which includes benefit fraud, forced begging or pick-pocketing and drug cultivation). Among other findings, the report highlighted that more than 1,000 traffick-ing victims were found in 2012 in the UK, including a significant number of British children.

“Although the report focuses on findings in the UK, the issues of modern day slavery and human trafficking have become an esca-lating global debate. These occur-rences are worldwide,” said Noor Al Malki Al Jehani, Executive Director of DIIFSD.

“Progressing nations must, therefore, accept their collective responsibility to help uncover,

document and report these occur-rences in a transparent and fac-tual manner,” she added.

Citing widespread ignorance among police, social workers and immigration officers about the scale and nature of human traf-ficking in today’s world, the report presented a strong case of the urgency for authorities to start recognising these problems as criminal matters and not ones of immigration control. The report called for a Modern Slavery Act to bring all human trafficking and slavery offences together to ensure that victims do not face threat of prosecution and are encouraged to report abuse and seek help.

THE PENINSULA

Attiyah meets Iraqi ambassador

The Chairman of the Administrative Control and Transparency Authority, H E Abdullah bin Hamad Al Attiyah, received yesterday the outgoing Iraqi Ambassador, Dr Jawad Al Hindawi.

HOME 03THURSDAY 21 MARCH 2013

www.thepeninsulaqatar.com

HMC launches 2-year nursing strategyGCC Nursing Day celebrated at Hamad Medical CityBY FAZEENA SALEEM

DOHA: The nursing depart-ment at Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) yesterday launched a two-year nursing strategy to meet the increasing healthcare demands.

The strategy includes compre-hensive efforts, including invest-ment in targeted education and research programmes to develop Qatari nurse leaders of the future. It also has a provision to improve and provide most effective and caring services to patients.

“Nursing strategy will look at how nursing should develop in the next two years in education, research, developing Qatari nurses and supporting the sustainabil-ity of nursing in Qatar,” said Dr Ann Marie Cannaby, Executive Director of Nursing Department at HMC, on the sidelines of the

fourth GCC Nursing Day held at Hamad Medical City’s Club House yesterday.

HMC currently has a total of 8,500 nurses and looking to recruit highly trained specialist nurses for its upcoming new hospitals such as the Ambulatory Surgery Centre, new Women’s Hospital and Rehabilitation Centre.

“We have new hospitals open-ing and we will have more recruit-ments, said Cannaby.

The Nursing Department at HMC has a separate programme to attract more Qatari nurses by supporting them to improve their educational qualifications and paying special allowances. A career awareness campaign too is being held for secondary school students highlighting the poten-tials of a nursing career in Qatar.

GCC Nursing Day is celebrated on March 13 to commemorate the

establishment of the first nurs-ing facility in a tent by Rufaida Al Aslamiya, who is honoured throughout the Eastern world as a nursing pioneer. She attended to the wounded along with her colleagues during the great bat-tle of Al Khandaq in the time of the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH).

Different healthcare facilities under the HMC held their indi-vidual celebrations on March 13 and the collaborative event was held yesterday by the Nursing Department which celebrated the significant contribution of nurses.

The event was attended by nurses and healthcare teams across HMC and representatives from Primary Healthcare Centres.

The nursing team of Rumailah Hospital was awarded as the best among the HMC health care facilities.

THE PENINSULA

Dr Ann Marie Cannaby (inset) giving a speech during GCC Nursing Day celebrations at Hamad Medical City Club House yesterday. (ABDUL BASIT)

ExxonMobil to hold Instagram photo contest on horsemanshipDOHA: ExxonMobil yesterday launched a photography contest on Instagram where local pho-tographers will be given special event access to capture images which celebrate the tradition of Arabian horsemanship.

Professional and amateur pho-tographers are called on to par-ticipate in the competition during the four days of the CHI AL Shaqab, an international eques-trian event taking place at AL Shaqab from March 27 to 30.

Photographers are encouraged to register through www.photow-alk.qa, where they will receive special accreditation to access the event, the organisers said in a press release.

Participants will be able to sub-mit their photos using the hash-tag #CHIdoha2013 on Instagram to a panel of judges, including professional photographers and photojournalists who will shortlist entries every day and select three winners to be announced on the event’s final day.

“It is our hope that this Instagram photowalk contest will help connect the local com-munity to this world-class event and equestrian sports in general. It is one of the many activities we have planned to celebrate this inaugural event and Qatar’s rich equestrian heritage,” Saleh Al Mana, Vice-President and Director of Government and

Public Affairs for ExxonMobil Qatar, said.

The four-day festival will play host to an assortment of world-class show jumping, dressage, and endurance events with 170 riders from over 25 nations and 200 horses expected to participate. Over 10,000 visitors are antici-pated at this prestigious festival, including dignitaries from Qatar and other countries in the region.

The winners will have their photos published in the local media and receive the latest dig-ital camera from Samsung that allows real time photo sharing through Internet, a must have for any social photographer.

THE PENINSULA

04 HOMETHURSDAY 21 MARCH 2013

www.thepeninsulaqatar.com

Tourist bus to explore Doha

The Doha Bus Company (DBC) is launching a double-decker bus for tourists for the first time in the country. It will take tourists to popular destina-tions at a price of $50 (QR182.5) for one day, Mohammad Juma, General Manger of DBC, said. It will be officially launched during the second week of April, he said, adding that a guide will accompany the tourists. Students participating in the upcoming Kite Flying Festival, organised by A Flower Each Spring, will take a tour on the bus on Saturday.

Poor diet can be deadly, warn expertsWCMC-Q launches health journalDOHA: Qatar has overtaken the U S in the obesity stakes and people must do more to ensure a healthy future, free of diabe-tes and associated illnesses, for themselves and their children, a high-level symposium organ-ised by Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar’s (WCMC-Q) Department of Global and Public Health was told.

The event, co-sponsored by the Supreme Council of Health (SCH, was entitled Emerging Trends in Health Care and Lifestyle Diseases: A Special Focus on Qatar. The Department of Global and Public Health launched the Journal of Local and Global Health Perspectives during the event.

Dr Ravinder Mamtani, WCMC-Q’s Associate Dean for Global and Public Health and Dr Albert Lowenfels from New York Medical College are the joint edi-tors-in-chief of the international peer-reviewed, open access jour-nal from QScience.com. Its aims at providing a global perspective on health issues and to publish research into the application of public health strategies in diverse regions and environments.

The journal was welcomed by Dr Faleh Mohamed Hussain Ali, Assistant Secretary General for Policy Affairs at SCH, who deliv-ered the keynote remarks at the symposium.

“We are missing such journals and it is a welcome addition to the medical publications land-scape and will also be a great con-tribution towards the health of our nation as a whole,” Dr Faleh said. “This is something that shows perspective, both in local and international dimensions. Having something that looks at the scientific issues from a local and international perspective is a great benefit to us all.”

Dr Javaid Sheikh, Dean of WCMC-Q, delivered a speech on Optimising Health Care through Education, Research and Clinical Programmes, while Dr Mamtani

spoke on Chronic Disease Risk Factors in Qatar: Recent Findings.

Dr Mamtani said lifestyle dis-eases are of concern in Qatar as recent research shows. Obesity is an important risk factor and the number of people living in Qatar who are overweight is increas-ing. Obesity increases the risk of chronic diseases such as heart ill-ness, hypertension and diabetes.

“Globally, 63 percent of people die from non-communicable dis-eases. In these diseases the top four diseases are cardiovascu-lar diseases, cancer, respiratory diseases and diabetes and they constitute about 80 percent of mortalities,” Dr Mamtani said.

Prevalence of these diseases and risk factors are also widely prevalent in Qatar. About 70 per-cent of people in Qatar are over-weight and 41 percent are obese according to recent data provided by the SCH.

“These diseases, as science has shown, kill prematurely, they compromise quality of life and we also know they are influenced by behaviour,” Dr Mamtani added.

“Often we think that we need to do a lot to prevent these ill-nesses. That is not the case. Simply making some marginal changes will help. In the case of obesity, for example, as lit-tle as eight to 10 pounds reduc-tion in weight will contribute to improved health. Simple self-care approaches such as a healthy diet, regular physical activity and maintaining a normal body weight are immensely helpful in reducing the incidents of diseases such as diabetes.”

That message was echoed by Dr David Katz, the Director of Yale University’s Prevention Research Center and an internationally renowned expert on nutrition, weight management and chronic disease prevention.

He said that the problems Qatar faced were mirrored across the world.

THE PENINSULA

Rota-sponsored students attend TasmeemDOHA: Three Reach Out To Asia (Rota) students and two professors from Indonesia and Afghanistan took part at the recent Tasmeem Doha 2013 organised by Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar (VCU-Q).

The event from March 10 to 17 included a series of exhibitions, presentations by artists, design-ers and architects who have real-ised projects in the country, and a series of workshops and labs for students.

“It was a great opportunity for me to attend this workshop and conference as I learned lots of things and interacted with dif-ferent people from different cul-tures and developed networking. I learned a different prospective of miniature painting and Islamic art through witnessing work from

different part of the World,” said Mohammad Tamim Sahbbzada, a teacher of miniature painting working in calligraphy department in Murad Khane Institute, Kabul.

For Oktarina Isnaini, a grade X1 textiles student from a Rota-sponsored school in Bayat, Indonesia, taking part in Tasmeem Doha 2013 was a dream come true. “I wanted to have more knowledge about Qatar so that I could introduce diversity, culture, and art in Indonesia, especially in Bayat. This event has given me all that I have always yearned for,” said Isnaini.

Febriyani Eka Putri, another student from the Rota-sponsored school in Bayat, studying Ceramic, the experience of Tasmeem Doha 2013 will be long cherished expe-rience. “I wanted to have more in-depth knowledge about my

major (Ceramic Craft). This was a great opportunity to learn exactly that. Now I am more con-fident about my subject, courtesy Rota for bringing me to Qatar for Tasmeem Doha 2013,” said Putri.

Melanie McClintock, a BFA Fashion Design gradu-ate of Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia, now working in Indonesia, to lead an educational art project Indoartamiks in the nearby vil-lage of Bayat, Klaten, was one of high profile professional to take part in Tasmeem Doha 2013.

McClintock presented at Tasmeem about Indoartamiks, a dynamic new educational pro-gram focused on increasing the creative and entrepreneurial skills of vocational craft students and their community in Bayat, Java, Indonesia.

Indoartamiks was initiated as a direct response to a group of ceramic craftswomen request-ing ways to innovate their tradi-tional products in the increasingly competitive global economy. McClintock, then a volun-teer from VCUQatar, created an experimental, collaborative project between the craftswomen, vocational students (both ceramic and textile), and a group of estab-lished graffiti artists from the thriving street art scene in nearby Jogjakarta, a city renowned for their art and culture.

Upon successful completion of the pilot, the project received funding from ROTA and Vodafone and is now under the guidance of their local affiliate association, Titian Foundation, to continue as a two-year experimental program.

THE PENINSULA

Al Jazeera Network, NU-Q sign MoU

Sheikh Ahmed bin Jassim bin Mohamed Al Thani and Everette Dennis during the signing ceremony.

DOHA: Northwestern University in Qatar (NU-Q) and Al Jazeera Network signed a memorandum of under-standing (MoU) to facilitate collaboration and knowl-edge transfer between the two media organisations.

The agreement, which deepens ties between the two that have worked together since NU-Q’s inception, will allow professionals and budding journalists from both sides to benefit from the combined expertise of the institutions through joint research and strategic stud-ies projects, training workshops, a co-designed lecture series, internships and faculty contributions as well as journalist-exchange programmes.

NU-Q will conduct consultations with Al Jazeera lead-ership based on its faculty research interests and exper-tise in the American media industry, as the news network moves forward with it’s plan for Al Jazeera America.

The MoU was signed by Sheikh Ahmed bin Jassim bin Mohamed Al Thani, Director General of Al Jazeera Network, and Everette Dennis, Dean and CEO of NU-Q, recently. “Al Jazeera Network places the development of its team’s skills at the top of its priorities, to stay par with the great media-related feats Qatar has accomplished regionally and internationally,” said Al Thani.

Al Jazeera Network “has one of the world’s largest cadre of news professionals,” said Dennis. “That makes Al Jazeera a place of great interest for anyone who strives to under-stand the world’s media and for Northwestern students and alumni who will go on to work in the media industry.

THE PENINSULA

HOME 05THURSDAY 21 MARCH 2013

www.thepeninsulaqatar.com

Mubarak bin Nasser Al Khalifa, Secretary-General of the Ministry of Culture, Arts and Heritage, visiting the Al Asmakh International Art Symposium 2013 at Wyndham Grand Regency Doha yesterday. (KAMMUTTY VP)

40 paintings on Qatar to adorn Wyndham hotel22 artists create unique worksBY RAYNALD C RIVERA

DOHA: More than 40 paint-ings on Qatar created by 22 artists from 14 countries at the recent Al Asmakh International Symposium on Fine Art 2013 will soon adorn the walls of Wyndham Grand Regency Doha as the hotel’s initial step to be an art hub.

“We are going to display all these paintings in the hotel because we are aiming to divert our identity into arts and culture,” Ayman Lotfy, General Manager, Wyndham Grand Regency Doha, told The Peninsula during yes-terday’s reception to celebrate the conclusion of the week-long symposium and to showcase the outputs of the artists.

The subjects, techniques and media used in the paintings were varied yet the theme was centred on Qatar, making an impressive collection that would delight every guest to the hotel.

“The paintings are very power-ful because they were created by artists who are experienced and

renowned. People who are into arts, who have seen the paintings were all amazed by them,” said Lotfy, adding they are planning to do another edition next year.

During the week-long sympo-sium, the artists stayed in a camp at Sealine beach where they each created two paintings inspired by Qatar and its culture.

“At the beginning it was diffi-cult for us because it’s far away and we stayed in a tent but we loved it, we stayed as a family as we did the paintings,” said Lebanese painter Majd Ramadan, lauding the organisers of the unique event.

Ramadan, who has been recog-nised many times as a classical, surrealist and impressionist artist came up with paintings inspired by the national dress worn by women in Qatar and pearl and petrol — the country’s most pre-cious resources.

Dutch contemporary artist Marjolin Stolk said she would cherish the wonderful experience being with artists from all corners of the world, “working together

and sharing ideas and thoughts.”Stolk, who has been based in

Qatar for three and a half years, has always been fascinated by the wealth and diversity of the Arabian heritage.

“Qatar has inspired me cre-ating works based on what I see around me. I always have a camera with me to take pictures

of the things I see and later use them as basis of my paintings,” she explained.

For the symposium, she painted domes using acrylic paint com-bined with mixed media in vivid colours.

“I’m really fascinated by the domes because they possess a magical quality,” she said.

The artists came from Egypt, Lebanon, Sudan, Sweden, Syria, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Italy, Netherlands, India, Russia, Bangladesh and Morocco.

Under the motto of “Hand in Hand for One Art and One Destiny,” the symposium offered a diverse line-up of events for the artists including a series of

lectures, workshops and museum visits. The exhibition was opened by Mubarak bin Nasser Al Khalifa, Secretary General of the Ministry of Culture, Arts and Heritage along with Hassan Al Asmakh, Vice President/Business Development of Regency Group Holding.

THE PENINSULA

DOHA: As many as 11 major hotels in Qatar will switch off all non-essential lights to mark Earth Hour on March 23.

Grand Hyatt, Ritz Carlton, Four Seasons and Inter-Continental Doha will be among the many hotels that will go partly dark from 8.30pm until 9.30pm.

Ooredoo will also switch off lights and non-essential systems at both its tower in West Bay and Airport HQ. This is the fifth consecutive year Qatar will be a part of Earth Hour, the larg-est global voluntary action on

climate change. Ooredoo was the first company in Qatar to publicly commit to Earth Hour in 2009, taking part in the world’s larg-est mass participation event to demonstrate its commitment to protecting the planet.

Many other corporations are expected to join in soon, Ghazanfarulla Khan, coordinator of Earth Hour in Qatar told The Peninsula. “Almost all the major hotels are participating this year and I’m expecting other organisa-tions to confirm their participa-tion soon,” Khan said.

While Ritz Carlton will switch off lights of its main chandelier, W Hotel will organise candle light dinner for its guests.

The Aspire Zone Foundation (AZF), Pearl- Qatar and Tornado Tower are also set to mark Earth Hour. “Many organisations are not looking at Earth Hour as just another event. They see it as an opportunity to create more awareness about saving electric-ity, which is an important issue here,” Khan said.

Earth Hour is organised by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF)

Major Doha hotels to switch off lights for Earth Hourevery year, encouraging house-holds, businesses and schools to turn off lights for sixty minutes with an aim to share the oppor-tunities and challenges of creating

a sustainable world. Katara and Qatar University (QU) are also expected to increase public aware-ness about conserving energy by organising a series of events.

Many companies are encourag-ing their employees and people in general to show support for the planet by switching off lights at home. THE PENINSULA

QDA launches first diabetes support group ‘Sanady’DOHA: Qatar Diabetes Association launched the first step ‘Sanady’ support group, on Tuesday. The programme aims at creating awareness among the newly diagnosed type 2 dia-betic and the closest person to the patient.

The programme mission is to provide healthcare to people with diabetes by organising educational workshops, correcting some of the wrong conceptions that the soci-ety has about diabetes and follow-ing up with the patients through

the closest person nominated by them.

The participants had their first session with a medical team about diabetes self care, how to avoid its complication, and how to live with it. The workshop also included a discussion about some of the wrong conception about diabetes.

QDA Executive Director, Dr Abdullah Al Hamaq, said: “This programme aims to educate not only people with diabetes, but also the closest people for them

to enable them to support and help the patient as well as under-stand how to manage their blood sugar. Sanady is that person you depend on to encourage you and helps you through your battle with diabetes.”

“Besides the medication, healthy diet and sports, the sup-port by friends and family pro-vided to people with diabetes has a significant impact on the patient’s ability to live with dia-betes,” added Dr Al Hamaq.

THE PENINSULA

06 HOME / MIDDLE EASTTHURSDAY 21 MARCH 2013

www.thepeninsulaqatar.com

Iraqi Kurds celebrate Noruz

Iraqi Kurds ignite a bonfire to celebrate new year which marks the beginning of the Noruz spring festival in the northern city of Arbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdistan region, yesterday. The Persian New Year is an ancient tradition celebrated by Iranians and Kurds which coincides with the vernal (spring) equinox and is calculated by the solar calendar.

HIA runs final passenger check-in trialFirst aircraft to land at 12.20am, April 1DOHA: Qatar’s brand new Hamad International Airport (HIA) is gearing up to it’s soft-opening. The airport yesterday saw its final trial run which made sure everything is in place to receive the first batch of air-lines and passengers on April 1.

Sources told The Peninsula the first passenger airline will touch down on the new airport at 12.20am, April 1. The day will see 10 foreign airlines operating out of Concourse B. There will be around 32 passenger flights departing daily from HIA equat-ing to approximately 222 flights per week.

Passengers wanting a beverage or snack before they fly will be able to visit the cafe located in Concourse B at the far end of level 1. Before boarding, passengers can visit the express duty free store to browse through a wide range of products on offer.

Upon entering the HIA, pas-sengers can see signage directing

them to the eastern side of the short-term car park located opposite the passenger terminal complex.

There will be pick-up and drop-off areas located on the departure and arrival floors and a bus pavil-ion located outside Concourse A for passengers using the public bus or the shuttle bus provided by Doha International Airport (DIA).

Passenger facilities available at HIA include a male and female prayer room and a smoking room located in Concourse B. In addi-tion, HIA will offer all passen-gers and visitors free WIFI to access from their personal devices throughout the airport.

For families travelling through HIA, there are two specially desig-nated areas located in Concourse B. Families with young children will be able to utilise baby stroll-ers available at HIA on a com-plimentary basis from airport customer services.

THE PENINSULA Passengers at the check-in area of Hamad International Airport on the final day of trial run yesterday.

QR996.3m real estate deals last weekDOHA: Real estate transac-tions totalled QR996.3m last week (between March 10 and 14), compared to the previous week when it was QR585.5m, said a report posted on the web-site of the Ministry of Justice.

Real estate deals worth QR199.2m were signed per day last week while it was not more than QR117.1m in one day the previous week, Ezdan said in its weekly report.

Doha Municipality ranked first with 53 deals worth QR687.5m last week compared to 54 deals worth QR350m previous week. The highest deal struck in Doha Municipality was a plot of land in an area of 2,708sqm worth QR100m. The plot is located in Najma.

The most expensive land availa-ble for sale is at Al Saad as QR1,750 per square metre and cheapest one is in Al Ruwais as QR115 per square metre. However, a plot of land reserved for hotel at Old Salata was recorded the highest rate QR2,800 per square metre.

5,000 plots of land for Qataris in Al WakraDOHA: The Ministry of Municipality and Urban Planning will soon start distrib-uting 5,000 plots of land among citizens in Al Wakra city, exactly behind Al Wakra Hospital.

The beneficiaries will get the plots with an area of 1,000 square meters each, Al Sharq reported yesterday. The new distribution will clear the huge numbers of applications in pending for long.

The new allotments will also help citizens to build their houses at Al Wakra out of the crowded Doha city. THE PENINSULA

Evening shift to attract more customers to fish marketDOHA: The decision to intro-duce evening shift at the central fish market is expected to boost sales and attract more custom-ers to the market, but several traders believe that they will have to employ more workers to make the experiment a success.

The evening shift from 6pm to 11pm has been introduced on a trial basis for one month, begin-ning today.

For several years the market had been operating in a single

shift in the morning, from 6am to 12 noon. Since Sunday, the market has also introduced auc-tions in the evening, besides the morning auctions.

Several expatriates working in the market are worried that the evening shifts would put addi-tional burden on the them, if more workers are not employed by the traders.

“We start working from early morning. Although the official working hours end at 12 noon,

the sales continue until 1pm. We are working almost eight hours in the morning. If evening shifts are introduced we may be forced to work five additional hours, if new people are not employed,” said an Indian expatriate

Most outlets in the market are working with four or five people and to employ more people, they require sufficient sales in the evening shifts.

He said a possible solution is to reschedule the morning shifts

reducing one or two hours“The evening shifts may attract

more customers to the market but it may not be in huge num-bers, because many people now prefer the hypermarket to the central market to buy fish and vegetables,” said a vendor.

The market has been witness-ing stiff competition from the mushrooming fish outlets in cozy shopping centres and commercial centres.

Some citizens meanwhile

called on the authorities to cur-tail the middlemen in the market to ensure a fair revenue for the Qatari fishermen.

They proposed to set up fish markets similar to the Mazroua vegetable market in Umm Salal, where fishermen can directly sell the catch to the customers. The major share of the profit now goes to the expatriate traders and mid-dlemen who dominate the auction and the retail sale, they point out.

THE PENINSULA

Many Arab students prefer Indian schools

Continued from page 1

School sources say the SEC is not so strict about the number of students in each class but techni-cally it is not possible to put more than 40.

“All private schools are required to update students data in the beginning of the academic year and the SEC database will not accept more than 40 students in one class. Schools are also required to provide information about expected vacancies every year,” said an official of Ideal Indian School.

The high number of applicants has forced some Indian schools to restrict admissions to only Indian students.

“We have more than 150 Arab students on the waiting list, mostly Sudanese and Egyptians. We don’t have enough seats even for Indian applicants. So we have been forced to restrict admissions to a few Indian students,” said an official.

He said many Arab students were opting for Indian schools due the relatively low fees and the high emphasis on English language and core subjects.

A senior official of the Pakistan Education Center said the school had witnessed a surge in the number of admission-seekers this year.

“We have closed admissions to KG classes and a few seats are available in some higher classes. We are taking students after a thorough screening to ensure quality.”

The severe shortage of seats has left many parents disappointed.

“My two children are studying in an Indian school and I want to put my third child there. But the management says there is no vacancy,” lamented an Egyptian parent.

THE PENINSULA

Iraqi tells London inquiry of ill-treatment by British troops LONDON: An Iraqi man told a public inquiry in London yester-day that he was beaten, threat-ened with a metal tent pole and subjected to sleep deprivation by occupying British troops.

Madhi Jasim Abdullah Al Behadili, 26, is the first of nine Iraqi former detainees who will give evidence at the Al Sweady inquiry into alleged crimes by British troops after the battle of Danny Boy on May 14, 2004.

“I felt they were out to kill us,” Al Behadili told the inquiry on the 10th anniversary of the US-led invasion of his country,

describing a moment when he was questioned and beaten while blindfolded shortly after arriving at Camp Abu Naji, a British base.

“From the way they treated us and from the violence, I wouldn’t think otherwise. I would never think they would have any mercy on us,” he said, speaking through an interpreter.

A large number of Iraqis from the area where the battle took place, near the southern town of Majar Al Kabir, say a group of men captured alive were mur-dered or tortured in detention.

The British military deny the

allegations, which they say were part of a propaganda campaign against Iraq’s occupation.

There is no agreement on the number or identities of the alleged victims. The inquiry says it aims to establish the circumstances of 28 deaths.

The issues of how and why Britain got involved in the Iraq invasion and how the war was conducted are still matters of lively public debate in Britain and Al Sweady is one of three major public inquiries.

Al Behadili said he had found himself in the area where the

battle took place, near the Danny Boy checkpoint, because he was working on a farm there.

He denied having any weapons with him. Shown photographs of weapons including rocket pro-pelled grenade launchers and Kalashnikov rifles, which the military say were found where he was captured, he denied any knowledge of them.

He also said he was alone when he was arrested, but the inquiry was shown pictures of him lying on the ground with his face down and his hands tied behind his back, alongside three other Iraqis.

The military say he was found in a ditch with another Iraqi while another two people were in a nearby ditch.

The Al Sweady inquiry, ordered by the government in 2009, began public hearings this month after three years of preliminary detec-tive work. It has already cost the British taxpayer £16m.

Al Behadili is the third of 15 key Iraqi witnesses who will be flown to London to give evidence. Then a further 45 will be flown to Beirut to testify by video-link from the British embassy there.

REUTERS

MIDDLE EAST 07THURSDAY 21 MARCH 2013

www.thepeninsulaqatar.com

Obama vows undying support to IsraelJERUSALEM: Making his first official visit to Israel, US President Barack Obama pledged yesterday unwavering commitment to the security of the Jewish State where concern over a nuclear-armed Iran has clouded US-Israeli relations.

He also stressed the need for Middle East peace at the start of a three-day trip, which is aimed at resetting strained rela-tions with both the Israelis and Palestinians, but is not expected to provide new initiatives or sub-stantial policy moves.

Descending from Air Force One in bright Spring sunshine, Obama briefly embraced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with whom he has notoriously testy ties, before offering smiles and handshakes to waiting ranks of ministers. “I see this visit as an opportunity to reaffirm the unbreakable bond between our nations, to restate America’s unwavering commitment to Israel’s security and to speak directly to the people of Israel and to your neighbours,” Obama said at a red-carpet welcoming ceremony at Tel Aviv airport.

“I am confident in declaring that our alliance is eternal, is for-ever,” he said, adding the Hebrew word for forever — “Lanetzach” —to emphasis the upbeat message.

Obama faces strong doubts among Israelis over his pledge to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran and concerns that the civil war in neighbouring Syria might spill over the border, with Western powers reluctant to get involved.

The US president said last week he believed Iran was still more than a year away from developing an atomic weapon and is counselling nervous Israelis to show patience, vowing to use all options to stop a nuclear-armed Tehran. Shortly after leaving Air Force One, Obama was told by an official to “follow the red line”

marked on the tarmac as he set off to see an Israeli-made Iron Dome anti-missile battery.

Standing alongside Netanyahu, Obama joked: “He’s always talk-ing to me about red lines” — a reference to Israel’s demand that Washington establish a red line for Iran’s nuclear programme. “So this is all a psychological ploy,” he added.

In his own welcoming remarks, Netanyahu cited an Israeli right to self-defence, which he said Obama supported. The Israeli leader had some fence-mending

of his own with Obama after the 2012 US presidential cam-paign during which Netanyahu appeared to favour Obama’s oppo-nent, Republican Mitt Romney.

“Thank you for unequivocally affirming Israel’s sovereign right to defend itself by itself against any threat,” the right-wing Israeli leader said. Speaking on the tar-mac, Obama voiced his hopes for peace — without directly men-tioning Palestinians, whom he will meet with today in the occupied West Bank. “We stand together because peace must come to the

Holy Land,” Obama said. “Even as we are clear eyed about the dif-ficulties, we will never lose sight of the vision of an Israel at peace with its neighbours.”

US-sponsored peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians have been stalled since 2010 in a dispute over Israeli settlement-building in the occu-pied West Bank. The White House has deliberately minimised hopes of any major breakthroughs, a reversal from Obama’s first four years in office when aides said he would visit the Jewish state only

if he had something concrete to accomplish. With both Obama and Netanyahu just starting new terms and mindful that they will have to work together on volatile issues for years to come, they will be looking to avoid the kind of public confrontation that has marked past encounters.

QUIET STREETS

Shortly after landing in Tel Aviv, Obama’s entourage flew by helicopter to nearby Jerusalem and then drove to his city cen-tre hotel. Hundreds of banners boasting of “an unbreakable alli-ance” hung from lampposts, but only sparse crowds turned out to watch the president’s motorcade drive through shut-off streets.

Seeking to connect directly with an often sceptical Israeli public, Obama will make a speech to a group of carefully screened students this afternoon where he is expected to touch on major topics of concern, including Iran.

Israel and the United States agree that Iran should never get a nuclear bomb, dismissing Tehran’s assertion that its atomic programme is peaceful. However, the two allies are at odds over how fast the clock is ticking down on the need for preventative military action should diplomacy fail.

US officials say Obama, the fifth sitting US president to travel to Israel, will urge further cau-tion, with Washington worried that a threatened Israeli unilat-eral strike might drag the United States into another Middle East war. Obama will fly by helicop-ter the short distance between Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Ramallah today to meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, avoiding having to cross the Israeli separation barrier that divides the two cities.

Abbas’ allies have expressed bitter disappointment over the lack of fresh US moves. “It’s not

a positive visit,” said Wasel Abu Yousef, a senior official in the Palestine Liberation Organization, led by Abbas. Netanyahu told Obama at the airport that he was committed to securing peace with the Palestinians, but Western diplomats in Jerusalem remain largely sceptical. The Israeli leader has just forged a coalition government containing fervent supporters of settlement building in the West Bank, which the US has strongly criticised as a major impediment to lasting peace with the Palestinians.

Along the reception line, Obama stopped only briefly to shake hands with pro-settler leader Naftali Bennett, but had a long exchange with new Finance Minister Yair Lapid, who heads a centrist movement and has said peace-making is a priority.

Netanyahu said he was “abso-lutely convinced” that US President Barack Obama was determined to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.

Obama, speaking beside the Israeli leader at a joint news con-ference in Jerusalem, said “there is not a lot of daylight” between the allies’ individual assessments of the status of Iran’s nuclear programme. “Each country has to make its own decisions when it comes to the awesome decision to engage in any kind of military action,” Obama said. “And Israel is differently situated than the United States.”

Obama also said Israel and the United States are to “begin dis-cussions” on extending US mili-tary aid to Israel beyond 2017 on his first visit to the Jewish state since taking over the White House. Speaking at a joint new conference in Jerusalem, Obama said that despite a budget crunch in Washington there would be no interruption to funding of Israel’s vaunted Iron Dome anti-missile system. REUTERS/AFP

ISTANBUL: A radi-cal Turkish Marxist group claimed responsibility yester-day for twin attacks on the justice ministry and the head-quarters of the ruling party in a statement posted on their Internet site.

“Our warriors hit the justice ministry and the AKP headquar-ters... at the heart of Ankara on March 19,” the outlawed Revolutionary People’s Liberation Front (DHKP-C) said on their Halkin Sesi website. Turkish authorities had already blamed the group for the simultaneous grenade and rocket attacks late on Tuesday against the buildings, in which one person was slightly wounded.

In an apparent warn-ing to the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), the group said there would be fur-ther attacks against “the castles of oppression.”

Speaking during a visit to Denmark, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the police were on the hunt for the perpetrators, whom he said were linked to “Ergenekon”, a shadowy criminal gang

involving prominent military and political figures. “We will move on our path decisively,” Erdogan was quoted by Anatolia news agency as telling reporters in Denmark. “We will not back-track or postpone the process.”

The fiercely anti-United States and anti-government DHKP-C has also claimed a February 1 suicide bombing at the US embassy in Ankara, where a security guard was killed. Deputy Prime Minister

Bulent Arinc said the DHKP-C had suffered a setback in recent weeks with the arrest of hun-dreds of alleged militants in large police operations across Turkey.

AFP

JERUSALEM: US President Barack Obama lost his first choice of wheels yester-day, after one of his hulking armoured limousines broke down in Israel.

The US Secret Service was forced to fly another vehicle in from Jordan where it was waiting for the US leader, who will travel to the neighbouring country tomorrow after wrap-ping up his visit to the Jewish state.

“One of our protective vehi-cles experienced mechani-cal problems in Israel earlier today,” said Edwin Donovan, a secret service spokesman.

“This is why we bring multiple

vehicles and a mechanic on all trips,” Donovan said, while say-ing the president’s itinerary was not affected by the break-down, which happened before he arrived in Israel.

Some Israeli media reports suggested that the car conked out after it was filled with die-sel fuel rather than gasoline, but Donovan said the Secret Service did not yet know what the problem was.

Obama uses a variety of bullet proof rides, including a design known as “The Beast” which is built by GM and is nominally a heavily remodelled Cadillac.

The Secret Service flies

multiple presidential vehicles around the United States and across the world when Obama travels, using huge US Air Force transport planes which hop ahead of Air Force One.

The specifications of the car are kept secret, but there have been reports it has its own oxygen supply, carries hi-tech communications scrambling equipment and has special rein-forced tyres and wheels.

It was not the first time that Obama had car trouble abroad.

In 2011, a presidential limo, which was a backup car and not “The Beast” got stuck on a bump as it left the US embassy in Ireland. AFP

Obama hit by car trouble

US determined to prevent nuclear Iran: Netanyahu; Washington may extend Israel aid deal beyond 2017

US President Barack Obama with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres during the welcoming ceremony at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv, yesterday.

Turkish Marxist group claims twin attacks

US Ambassador to Turkey Francis Ricciardone (left) leaves after a visit at the headquarters of the ruling Justice and Development Party, hit by a rocket attack, yesterday.

Palestinians stage tent protest RAMALLAH: Palestinians pitched a protest camp yester-day on the site of a contested Jewish settlement, in an act of defiance as US President Barack Obama began a visit.

Israel’s plan to build in a strip of West Bank land outside Jerusalem called E1 has sparked a major international backlash, with experts saying it could wipe out hopes for the establishment of a viable Palestinian state.

Around 200 Palestinians erected some 15 tents on the con-troversial site to send a “message to Obama to tell him: Obama — enough with bias and support for Israel,” said one of the organisers, Abdullah Abu Rahma.

AFP

E S TA B L I S H E D I N 1 9 9 6

CHAIRMAN

SHEIKH THANI BIN ABDULLAH AL THANI

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

KHALID AL SAYED

khalid@pen.com.qa

ACTING MANAGING EDITOR

HUSSAIN AHMAD

hussain@pen.com.qa

EDITORIAL

TEL: 44557741 / 44557743

FAX: 44557746 / 44557758

P. O. BOX: 3488, DOHA, QATAR

E-MAIL: editor@pen.com.qa

ADVERTISING: TEL: 44557837 / 780 FAX: 44557870

CLASSIFIED: 44557857 E-MAIL: adv@pen.com.qa

SUBSCRIPTION / HOME DELIVERY

TEL: 44557809 /839 FAX: 44557819

E-MAIL: distribution@al-sharq.com

SUBSCRIPTION RATES: ANNUAL QR 675

6 MONTHS QR 340

Cartoon Arts International / The New York Times Syndicate

BY JANINE ZACHARIA

T HIS trip — the timing and the script — makes no sense. And even more than simply being a

big waste of Obama’s time at a moment when he has little time to waste, it’s burning crucial American political capital that ought to be reserved for moments that truly warrant it.

The White House says the presi-dent is going to hear out what the newly appointed Israeli government has planned. Here’s a quick preview: Defence Minister Moshe Ya’alon wants to bomb Iran and Housing Minister Uri Ariel wants to build new settlements. If Obama wants to talk about drafting ultra-Orthodox Jews into the Israel

Defense Forces or the price of apartments in Tel Aviv, he’ll find an audience. Those relatively mar-ginal issues are what dominated Israel’s recent election, not the future with the Palestinians.

Three years a go , Vi c e President Joe

Biden went to Israel tasked with a similar mission — reassure Israelis that Obama loves them. Biden hit all the right notes, saying that the bond between Israel and the United States was “unshakeable” and “unbreakable” so many times that we reporters who covered that trip started keeping a running tally. Then as the vice-presi-dential motorcade was leaving the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum, news that Israel’s Interior Ministry had authorized 1,600 housing units in East Jerusalem destroyed what should have been a pure celebration of American-Israeli ties. Biden returned to his hotel to consult with the White House on what to say, leaving Netanyahu waiting awkwardly at his residence for an hour and a half for dinner. When Biden arrived, he

issued an unprecedented rebuke that embarrassed the Israeli prime minister as they sat down to eat.

American-Israeli ties remained sour. Two months after Biden’s visit, Obama refused to hold a photo op with Netanyahu when he visited the White House. The next year, when the presi-dent agreed to share the stage with Israel’s prime minister, Netanyahu lec-tured him before the cameras in the Oval Office on why Obama’s (hardly original) idea that the 1967 borders could be a baseline for peace negotia-tions with the Palestinians was bunk. In 2012, Netanyahu — frustrated that he couldn’t goad Obama into saying when the US would bomb Iran — publicly suggested the president had no “moral right” to stop Israel from taking action itself. All the while, Netanyahu, over the past few years, did nothing to further peace with the Palestinians. He floated via surrogates that he thought Obama was naïve on the Middle East. And he left the strong impression last year that he was rooting for Mitt Romney to win the US presidential election.

In spite of all this, the president is vis-iting Tel Aviv. The anti-Obama peace-process skeptics can’t help but gloat. As Barry Rubin, a conservative, pro-Israel American pundit put it on his Facebook page: “I think we have just won a huge victory . . . Obama has admitted defeat on trying to bully, manipulate or pres-sure Israel.”

The White House doesn’t want this trip to be about Netanyahu or his new government. That’s why Obama will address Israeli college students in a convention hall rather than speak to politicians in the Knesset. But when it comes to how this trip will be perceived in Israel, it will be all about Netanyahu and his political fortunes. Netanyahu will be seen as the victor in his bat-tle with Obama, rewarded not only for defying — or standing strongly against, depending on one’s political perspec-tive — an American president. And Netanyahu will learn one powerful les-son from Obama’s visit: I don’t have to do anything on the Palestinian issue.

I can continue to expand settlements, focus solely on Iran, and insult the US president, and he will still come and thank me with a two-day dog-and-pony show.

It’s clear why the White House wants to avoid the thorny Israeli-Palestinian disputes of Jerusalem, settlements and refugees. Past presidents have expended enormous time and energy on the mat-ter and failed miserably. The last time Obama tried to articulate some guiding principles on borders, he got shouted down by Bibi. The United States “will always continue to be engaged in this process in terms of trying to move it forward,’’ Rhodes told reporters in a pretrip briefing that illustrated just how radically Obama has scaled back his ambitions since September 2010, when he said he thought peace could be achieved within a year.

So why is Obama going? Is it really an attempt at “repairing relations with America’s primary Middle East ally” as The Washington Post’s Scott Wilson wrote? Or as Jeffrey Goldberg wrote in a column for Bloomberg, to reintroduce himself to Israelis and convey to them that he understands their situation? Perhaps. But if it is, then this is truly a waste of time.

Just as Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel — whose nomination was held up by those who worried he wasn’t pro-Israel enough — wasn’t running for Israeli defense minister, Obama isn’t running for Israeli office (or any office for that matter). And anyone who knows Israelis and their current mind-set on the Palestinians (Palestinians, who?) knows that a little ego stroking isn’t going to get that population behind a peace deal.

That doesn’t mean the trip couldn’t do some good. While the president is there ostensibly repairing the relation-ship with Israelis who’ve felt jilted, Obama may be sending an important signal to Tehran. The message: Just because I can’t stand Bibi doesn’t mean I won’t stand with him in preventing you from getting a nuclear weapon.

WP-BLOOMBERG

Why Obama’s Israel trip is a mistake

Once, we establish the facts, I have made clear that the use of chemical weapons is a game-changer. Use of such arms by Bashar Al Assad’s forces would be a grave and tragic mistake.

Quote ofthe day

Barack Obama US President

Obama has admitted defeat on trying to bully, manipulate or pressure Israel.

B ARACK Obama arrived in Israel yesterday on his first visit since becoming US president more than four years ago. Interestingly, he is being called a tourist. Columnists and officials have placed him

under the tourist category because the president is coming without any specific agenda, except a willingness to listen. The president must be thanking his stars for being able to undertake a journey to a hotspot and be unconcerned about the outcome of the visit. The broad smile on his face and sangfroid he displayed after arrival are proofs of the informality of the whole exercise. The White House itself has billed the trip as a listening exercise by the White House, which has been anxious to set low-to-zero expectations of tangible outcomes.

The purpose of his visit was to declare that the relationship between the US and Israel was eternal. “I see this visit as an opportunity to reaffirm the unbreakable bond between our nations, to restate America’s unwavering commitment to Israel’s security and to speak directly to the people of Israel and to your neighbours,” Obama said at a welcoming ceremony at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport.

Despite the president’s unwillingness to wade into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, there has been a chorus of demand

from certain quarters for the president to intervene. Some of those who made this demand are more pro-Israeli than pro-Palestinian and their demand is born of the realisation that Israel is scripting its own disaster with its unfettered settlement expansion. But Obama knows he is as powerless as those who mooted the idea in reining in Netanyahu.

The current tour means nothing to Arabs. Undoubtedly, Arab faith in Obama is on the decline and is

likely to aggravate. The president too doesn’t seem to bother. And the biggest losers of this indifference are people in our region. The purpose of the Israeli visit is to unequivocally make clear what every US president has been unequivocally making clear: that the US relationship with Israel is ‘eternal’ and no force can change it. Obama even failed to mention Palestinians by their name. He referred to them as ‘neighbours’ in his arrival statement.

As for Palestinians, they need to read the writing on the wall, if they haven’t already. Expecting Washington to intervene as an honest broker will be akin to waiting for Godot. Expecting Netanyahu to cede an inch of confiscated land will be asking for trouble. Both the US and Israel don’t find the need to upend the status quo.

If Palestinians want a state, the onus is on them to take the initiative. If Fatah and Hamas can’t agree on a state for all Palestinians, blaming Obama for taking a backseat is nothing but passing the buck •

Obama in Israel

There is a general consensus that the US president is visiting the Jewish state as a tourist.

Editorial

08 VIEWS THURSDAY 21 MARCH 2013

www.thepeninsulaqatar.com

On February 25th, I had parked my car in front of a restaurant on Mirqab Street in Doha, waiting for a Nokia store to

open. I was sitting in the driver’s seat of my car, a 2012 Honda Accord that I had bought just two months ago. As I was sitting there listening to the radio and drinking tea, I saw through the rear view mirror a BMW sedan speeding in that single lane road and veering away from a car taking a U-turn in front of it. Seconds later, the BMW slammed into the left side of my car. It felt like an explosion as win-dows shattered, metal crumpled and the side airbags burst open from the force of the impact. Neither I nor those around could believe that I had come out of the

wrecked car alive. I was extremely lucky.Minutes later, the police arrived with

a camera crew to record what had hap-pened. Since I don’t speak Arabic, I was not able to follow what they were saying. The police collected the required infor-mation and told me to go to the traffic department to get a report which I would have to take to the insurance firm.

The insurance firm gave me a paper to take to the Honda service station, saying they needed an estimate of how much the repairs would cost. The estimate was QR70,000. Honda was willing to negotiate and reduce the amount. The insurance firm, though, wasn’t interested in negotiating. They told me they would cancel the car’s registration and pay me

QR60,000. I protested, saying I had paid QR76,000 for the car just two months before the accident, but they didn’t care. I went to the insurance firm’s manager. After hearing me out, he said the maxi-mum amount they would pay me was QR65,000. They would also take owner-ship of the damaged car, which, by the way, was still intact except for the two left doors, the side airbags and the front bumper. The engine and everything else was still new and, based on what I had gathered from the damage assessor at Honda, the car was still worth at least QR40,000. I tried to convince the insur-ance firm to be more realistic and give me an amount that would enable me to replace the car I had lost, but they

wouldn’t budge. In fact, the manager said I could sue if I wanted and that it would take at least a year for the lawsuit to be resolved. In the end I agreed to take the QR65,000 and left.

Discussing this with my colleagues at Qatar University, I learned that this par-ticular insurance firm was notorious for forcing people to accept payments that were much lower than the value of their cars, especially if they happened to be a certain class of people or someone like myself who didn’t speak Arabic.

What happened to me was nothing short of robbery by a company operating with a mandate to compensate people the fair value of damaged vehicles.

FASIL YITBAREK, DOHA

LettersAn insurance firm that is robbing its customers

Qa t a r G e n e r a l E lectr ic i ty and Water Corporation (Kahramaa) is fac-

ing many challenges which, in turn, give a hard time to its customers, particularly in sum-mer. These challenges stem from factors that are putting increas-ing pressure on the electricity network, leading to outages in various areas.

Although there are many rea-sons for these outages, including the destruction of power cables, partitioning of homes comes at the top of these reasons. Some homeowners increase the load on the mains distribution board without informing Kahramaa. Tenants also increase the load, and few landlords care to moni-tor practices in this regard. Worse still, some landlords give

their tenants a carte blanche to make changes to the wiring and power supply systems in their flats, or to even sublet these flats. This is how the number of rooms in flats increases. Some flats are partitioned into ten or even 15 rooms.

This, however, raises the load on the power supply system as each of the newly created rooms may contain an air conditioner and several electrical appliances. Unfortunately, those in the home leasing business sometimes make radical changes to electrical sys-tems in homes without inform-ing the authorities concerned.

Such practices not only put pressure on the electricity

network but also endanger the lives of the tenants as the electri-cal system may collapse or catch fire if the changes made are not compliant with specifications in this regard. This makes homes unsafe as they do not meet safety and security requirements.

Partitioning of homes has attracted many people because of its profitability. For exam-ple, partitioning an apartment into ten rooms, small toilets and kitchens to house ten families can bring the original tenant up to QR30,000 in monthly rev-enues even as he may be paying QR10,000 to QR15,000 as rent every month.

Unfortunately, some landlords

agree to lease their homes to people who re-lease them after doing the necessary partitioning. By doing this, they get a monthly income that is higher than that of some civil servants.

I strongly call for fighting this phenomenon. This needs con-certed efforts by the authorities concerned. Kahramaa has to monitor irregularities and the authorities should criminalise such dangerous partitioning of homes, which turns some homes and apartments into time bombs that can explode any time, espe-cially in summer, when the load on the electricity network increases.

Partitioning of homes a dangerous practice

QATAR PERSPECTIVE 09 THURSDAY 21 MARCH 2013

www.thepeninsulaqatar.com

The government makes great efforts to bene-fit from civil servants and use their skills in the best possible

way in the light of plans that are in line with Qatar National Vision 2030. One of these plans is to offer these employees ambi-tious job opportunities. This, in turn, will help them contribute to implementing the comprehensive development plans adopted by our country in all fields.

These plans, however, face some obstacles that hinder the realisation of this development. One of these obstacles is that facing Qatari civil servants who are exposed to pressures that

affect their performance nega-tively. These pressures are being put on them under the excuse that Qatari civil servants do not want to improve, do not abide with work regulations or work-ing hours, or do not do their jobs as required.

The notable fact, however, is that these pressures are being put in front of their Qatari bosses. Sometimes the situation gets worse for employees in ways that force them to seek early retire-ment or resign in a humiliat-ing manner. The increase in the number of advisors in state insti-tutions and ministries has become phenomenal in our country. This bulge finds its fodder in the arro-gance of some officials and bosses. The advisors had once been out-standing managers.

But the fact is that officials who were stripped of their professional integrity have fanned this trend, not knowing that by giving former managers advisory jobs they are ignoring the capacities of other Qatari nationals under the excuse that the former managers are part of the old guard.

Unfortunately, we have begun to suffer from the growing number of unwelcome advisers, although these advisers may be graduates of prestigious interna-tional universities with a lot of experience, and may outperform their bosses.

I hope some reformist meas-ures are taken in order to curb this phenomenon. Those who discourage national competencies should be dealt with firmly so that they realise that there are people

willing to extend their hand to help hard-working and diligent Qataris who want to serve their country.

In my view, the problem will get worse if we do not find a way to deal with people who discourage

national talent. In addition, we will suffer in the future from the accumulation of a “discouraged” national workforce. Then we can have a ministry for discouraged Qatari workers! This will not be surprising then.

I say to every government official who contributes to putting stumbling blocks in the way of Qatari employees: “You should feel afraid of God. You should realise that your job will not last forever, because

the only thing that lasts is how people remember you and your actions. So, try to be the person who gets praise behind his back. If the exact opposite happens, there will be no consolation for this person.

Discouraging national talent

KHALED AL JABER

Prisoners of opinion in the Gulf

“We were once proud that we did not have politi-cal detainees in the Gulf region. Today, how-ever, we are the fiercest chasers of tweeters in the world”, said a Gulf politician, describ-

ing the state of freedom of expression and opinion in the region, which reflects the reality of a new phase that is different from the past.

This indicates that things here are moving towards more esca-lation as Arab movements have managed to raise the ceiling of political, constitutional, economic and social demands. All these have their impact on the situation in the GCC states and create a formidable challenge for these countries in many respects. The measures taken by these countries have been described as attempts to muzzle the opposition and restrict freedoms instead of keeping up with the Arab Spring, which is pushing towards more democracy.

Human Rights Watch, a body for monitoring the human rights situation across the world, has reported that persecution of political activists has recently increased in the Gulf region. The organisation also said that authorities in the GCC states have pursued, prosecuted and jailed activists who called for political reforms and freedom of the press.

CNN reported that there were more than 300 detainees who had made comments in social media in a GCC country that used to be described as an oasis of democracy.

In other GCC countries, tweeters are being arrested at air-ports, even during transit. This has led the head of a human rights body to call for having a separate law for electronic crimes, as is the case in many countries.

It is not acceptable to see someone who sent a text message, tweeted, or commented in the media to be convicted by a secu-rity court.

In fact it is not only limited to detention, but includes other violations, as the detainees are not allowed to contact their lawyers or to be visited by their families and friends, and no one knows about their legal status or psychological and physi-cal condition.

Some detainees are kept in secret locations as if they have been kidnapped rather than detained. There are also attempts to extract confessions from suspects under torture. Local or international human rights associations and organisations are not allowed to visit them or know their condition.

In my view, the problem will get worse if we do not find a way to deal with people who discourage national talent. In addition, we will suffer in the future from the accumulation of a “discouraged” national workforce.

I got the chance to meet a host of media personalities from Qatar and outside when I accepted an invi-

tation from the Doha Centre for Media Freedom (DCMF) to attend a seminar on media freedoms last Thursday titled ‘Media Freedoms for Women in the Gulf ’, held on the occasion of International Women’s Day.

The meeting that had an additional exceptional value impressed me: every Qatari who attended the event was a brain-child of Qatari media, regardless of any intervals.

Qatari media is strongly focused on its goals. These goals stand for the dreams and aspi-rations of our society. We have achieved many goals so far. Despite this, there is much to be achieved in the near future.

As a matter of fact, I enjoyed every second of the meeting. It managed to throw light on a wide range of the problems we suffer from, giving attendees the chance to suggest solutions.

The meeting was well-organised and coordinated. All supervisors, organisers and

coordinators made their contri-bution, such as journalist Lamis Nasser, who paid attention to every guest and contributed to making the event memorable.

The guests were all media persons, some working for tel-evision networks, others for the print media, while some others were working in other electronic media. This variety enriched the friendly discussions and formed the basis for exchange of profes-sional experiences and stories of success. The time was too short for all stories and experiences to be shared.

These stories, however, con-firmed the need for similar semi-nars in future. Such gatherings give journalists the chance to meet, know each other, share experiences, strive to find solu-tions to challenges, and harness the energies of everybody work-ing in this field.

The need to know one’s col-leagues gives such gatherings additional value. We relate to

our colleagues only formally, but we can achieve so much when we get together and unite. Our achievements will get a multi-plier effect. Individual achieve-ments barely make a difference compared with teamwork.

When I met with my media colleagues, I soon found that our aims were convergent, although some aims might be dominated by personal interests. This, in fact, is affected by the serious-ness of each individual and the extent to which he/she is aware of the nature of what he/she is looking for.

Undoubtedly, teamwork will provide our society with a com-plete and full working environ-ment that will heavily contribute to promoting and developing our society in ways that make it better.

The discussions that took place at the seminar were both rich and exciting, although talk on TV and radio eclipsed everything else, including print media, which has

a value that cannot be ignored by any means.

Seminars should shed light on all media in order to create a complete state of mind that can be relied upon in the future.

I have the impression that somebody is pushing us into the trap of focusing on select topics. Unfortunately, print media oper-atives can only invite the atten-tion of seminar organisers to the importance of the print media. Everybody works tooth and nail to cope with the fast pace of news.

Every pen has a lot in it. We are badly in need of time, but with perseverance and teamwork everything will be possible. It is important for everybody to know that development takes more than just one person to happen. This development needs each and every one of us. So, may Allah guide and help us.

I would like to thank media persons Lamis Nassar and Amal Abdul Malek and everybody else who brought us together with love to know more about each other and realise our goals. I would like to extend special thanks to Zahabiya Jabi.

Journalists should work together for society

The views expressed in the articles on this page do not reflect the viewpoint of the

newspaper.

JABER MOHAMED AL MARRI

DR ABDULLAH ASSA’DY

SALHA AHMED

10 MIDDLE EASTTHURSDAY 21 MARCH 2013

www.thepeninsulaqatar.com

Car bomb attack

Iraqi civilians inspect the damage of an overnight car bomb attack in Kirkuk, 240km north of Baghdad, that killed one and wounded several others.

ISTANBUL: At least 12 key members of Syria’s National Coalition said yesterday they had suspended their member-ship in the main opposition body amid a row over the deeply divi-sive election of the first rebel prime minister.

The group of 12 included the Coalition’s deputy Soheir Atassi and spokesman Walid Al Bunni.

Their decision came amid bit-ter disagreement over the election of Ghassan Al Hitto as the first opposition premier. Other mem-bers who said they had “frozen” their membership in the Coalition included Kamal Labwani, Marwan Hajj Rifai, Yehia Al Kurdi and Ahmad Al Assi Jarba, with sources saying more such announcements were expected.

Though the dissenting mem-bers said they had different rea-sons for their decisions, some expressed their opposition to Hitto’s election, and the process by which he was chosen.

“The Coalition is a non-elected body, and as such it does not have a right to choose a prime minister on a majority vote. There should have been consensus,” Labwani said. Hitto was elected on Tuesday by 35 of approximately 50 Coalition members present in Istanbul, after some 14 hours of consultation. Some members who opposed his election walked out before the vote.

“We Coalition members weren’t elected to represent the Syrians. So the only person Hitto repre-sents is the 35 Coalition members who voted for him. This govern-ment is a gift to (President) Bashar Al Assad’s regime,” Labwani said. “The key issue is the timing and way in which the voting took place. The Coalition pushed for a majority in a group that was not elected,” Bunni said.

“Each of us had different rea-sons for freezing our membership. We will release a statement that represents us all in the com-ing days,” Bunni added. Atassi

announced her decision on her Facebook page: “Because I am a Syrian citizen, I refuse to blindly follow and to be an accessory. I announce I am freezing my mem-bership in the National Coalition.” Atassi could not be reached for comment.

A secular female activist, she was praised for her key role in the Coalition when the group was formed in Doha in November, amid concerns the opposition was dominated by men and Islamists.

Hitto, a former IT executive who has lived in the United States for decades, is expected to name a technocratic government that will move inside Syria, attempt-ing to bring rule of law and basic services to large swathes of rebel-held territory. Other Coalition members sought to downplay the differences. Mustafa Nawaf Ali, a member based in the Syrian city of Raqa, described them as “part of the democratic process”.

“Imagine if there were dif-ferences of opinion over an Assad-appointed prime minister. Dissidents wouldn’t survive,” he said. Salem Al Moslet, a Coalition member and contender for the prime minister’s post, said he was concerned about what such differ-ences would mean for the formal opposition’s future.

“There are many pressures on the Coalition. I have hope we will move forward,” Moslet said.

But after the election of a prime minister, “it is heartbreaking to watch this happen,” he added.

Meanwhile, Washington’s envoy to Syria Robert Ford told US law-makers yesterday that the new Syrian opposition prime minis-ter Ghassan Al Hitto “is more Texan than Muslim Brotherhood,” Dismissing concerns at a hear-ing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Ford insisted that Hitto, narrowly elected by the Syrian National Coalition as interim premier, was “not a reli-gious extremist — far from it.”

REUTERS/AFP

Court overturns freeze on assets of 23 investors CAIRO: An Egyptian court overturned yesterday a public prosecutor’s decision to freeze the assets of 23 investors and officials, including several from the Gulf, who are under investi-gation for alleged stock market manipulation.

The criminal court ruling was announced by Judge Assem Abdel Hamid Nasr. Earlier this month, the public prosecutor’s office ordered the freeze on assets of the investors while it investigated the 2007 sale of Egypt’s Al-Watany Bank to National Bank of Kuwait (NBK), an official in office said.

Egyptian state media said the investors included five Saudis and two from the United Arab Emirates, as well as employees of a number of banks and the Egyptian stock exchange.

Kuwait toughens tweeter’s jail term KUWAIT CITY: Kuwait’s appeals court yesterday tough-ened the jail term of an oppo-sition tweeter to five years for calling for a coup and insulting the emir of the Gulf state.

Bader Al Rasheedi was jailed on November 28 after the lower court gave him a two-year term, but the appeals court decided to increase this to five years, direc-tor of the Kuwait Society for Human Rights Mohammad Al Humaidi said.

Rasheedi was charged with instigating to overthrow the regime, spreading false news about the emirate abroad and writing tweets deemed offensive to the ruler of the Opec member state, Humaidi said.

The tweeter has the right to appeal the sentence in the supreme court, where rulings are final. In another ruling, the appeals court overturned a two-year jail term against stateless activist Abdulhakeem al-Fadhli and acquitted him from charges of organising protests and instigating stateless people to demonstrate.

Egypt seeks prisoner swap with LibyaCAIRO: Egypt is seek-ing to swap four members of Muammar Gaddafi’s regime arrested in Cairo with a group of Egyptians detained in Libya, two Egyptian judicial sources said yesterday.

A source at the Libyan justice ministry said the idea had been raised in talks on judicial coopera-tion between Libyan officials and the assistant Egyptian prosecutor general, Hassan Yasine, who has been on an official visit to Tripoli this week.

Among those arrested in Egypt on Tuesday was Gaddaf Alddam, one of Gaddafi’s cousins. Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan has called for the immediate handover of the wanted men.

The Egyptian judicial sources said the Libyans were among 36 members of the late dictator’s administration whom the new Libyan government believe to be living in Egypt.

State-run Al Ahram newspa-per said Libya had asked for other measures including that Cairo stop anti-revolution Libyan TV stations from being broadcast via an Egyptian satellite.

Sudan ready to talk with rebels KHARTOUM: Sudan made its first offer to hold direct talks with rebels on its border with South Sudan yesterday.

Sudan Defence Minister Abdel Raheem Mohammed Hussein said Khartoum would be willing to have discussions with the SPLM-North rebel group in its Blue Nile and South Kordofan states, pro-viding the dialogue was based on protocols set out in a 2005 peace agreement with South Sudan.

“We are ready to meet with the northern sector (of the SPLM), on the condition that the dialogue and discussion is based on the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and the protocol for the two areas as a reference,” Hussein told reporters at Khartoum’s airport yesterday.

AGENCIES

DAMASCUS: Syria’s embat-tled President Bashar Al Assad paid an unexpected visit to an educational centre in the capi-tal Damascus yesterday, the presidency said on its official Facebook page.

“President Assad made a sur-prise visit to the Educational Centre for Fine Arts where the education ministry was honour-ing the families of students who were martyred as a result of ter-rorist acts, to honour the parents himself,” the presidency wrote, alongside photos of Assad at the centre.

The visit appeared to be Assad’s first public appearance

since he attended prayers at a mosque in a northern district of Damascus to mark the Prophet Mohammed’s (peace be upon him) birthday on January 24th.

Before that he had not been seen in public since a rare speech to supporters on January 6, in which he dismissed calls for his removal and said he had no part-ners with whom to negotiate for an end to the conflict.

In photos posted on the presi-dency page, Assad is shown meeting with relatives of those killed in the violence that has enveloped his country, killing more than 70,000 people accord-ing to United Nations estimates.

In one, he is shown looking at a poster featuring photos of vic-tims, and in another, talking to a group of women, one of whom is clutching his hand.

The education centre spe-cialises in training teachers of the fine arts, and is in the Tijara neighbourhood of east-ern Damascus, near Jubar dis-trict, where fighting has raged for months between regime and rebel forces.

The visit came a day after the regime accused opposition forces of using chemical weap-ons in their battle to oust Assad, a charge the rebels denied.

AFP

Syrian President Bashar Al Assad during his surprise visit to the Educational Centre for Fine Arts in Damascus, yesterday.

Key Syria dissidents quit coalition

Assad in surprise public visit

Row over election of interim PM

Saudi prince jailed in UK for murder flies home LONDON: A Saudi prince jailed for life in Britain for murdering his servant has been flown home to serve the rest of his sentence, the British government said yesterday.

Prince Saud bin Abdulaziz bin Nasir, a grandson of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, was jailed in 2010 for killing Bandar Abdullah Abdulaziz in a London hotel after subjecting him to a “sadistic” campaign of violence and sexual abuse.

But Britain’s Ministry of Justice confirmed that the 36-year-old royal flew back to Saudi Arabia on Monday after he was granted a transfer to a prison in his homeland. Details of the transfer were announced last month.

“We have a prison transfer arrangement with Saudi Arabia which allows nationals of either country to serve their prison sentence in their home state,” a ministry spokeswoman said.

“Prince Saud has now returned to Saudi Arabia to serve the rest of his sentence. He was transferred in the same way that all prisoners are returned home and is the first prisoner to transfer under this arrangement.”

Saud’s trial at England’s Old Bailey central criminal court in London heard that he had ordered escorts and had frequently looked at websites for massage parlours and escort agencies.

The prince denied being gay and his lawyers argued that he could face the death penalty in Saudi Arabia over the allegations of homosexuality.

The jury heard that the prince beat and strangled Abdulaziz to death on February 15, 2010, fuelled by champagne and cocktails, after the pair returned from a Valentine’s Day night out.

A post-mortem found that Abdulaziz had suffered heavy blows to the head, injuries to the brain and ears, and severe neck injuries consistent with strangulation by hand.

Prosecutors said bite marks on his cheeks showed a clear “sexual element” to the killing. AFP

RIYADH: Tensions between Saudi Arabia and its Shia minority could worsen if 16 detained Shias are charged with spying in a case linked to Iran, community leaders said yesterday.

The government has blamed unrest among Shias in the Qatif district of oil-producing Eastern Province on an unnamed foreign power, seen as code for Iran, something local activ-ists have denied. Sixteen people have been killed in Qatif in clashes with police in the past two years.

Shia activists said several mem-bers of their community had been

arrested in the past four days across Saudi Arabia and their families had not been able to contact them.

Late on Tuesday the Interior Ministry said the intelligence service had detained an Iranian, a Lebanese and 16 Saudis for spying. Sunni dominated Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran are rivals for influence across the region.

Those detained included two cler-ics, a banker, a paediatric doctor and a university professor, Shia activists said. They were arrested in Riyadh, Makkah, Jeddah and Eastern Province.

“These people are not at all known as politically active. They are active only in normal religious practices. So these accusations are really strange. This whole story is damaging rela-tions with the community,” said one Shia leader, Jafar Al Shayeb.

Shayeb said suspects’ houses had been raided and their computers and phones taken by security forces.

The Interior Ministry said the men “were gathering information about installations and vital areas in the country” and that they were “working for a foreign country”.

REUTERS

No evidence of chemical weapons use: US envoy WASHINGTON: The US ambassador to Syria said yes-terday there is no evidence so far to back reports that chemi-cal weapons were used in Syria on Tuesday, but the United States has a large team investi-gating the issue.

“So far, we have no evidence to substantiate the reports that chemical weapons were used yes-terday. But I want to underline that we are looking very carefully

at these reports,” Robert Ford, who was recalled from Damascus in February 2012, told a hearing of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee.

Separately, US and European officials said there was no confir-mation that either the forces of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad or his rebel opponents had used chemical weapons, as each side had asserted.

“We can’t corroborate the CW

claims at this point,” one US offi-cial said, speaking on condition of anonymity. If confirmed, it would be the first use of such weapons in the two-year-old conflict.

Lawmakers also expressed concern about growing Iranian military support for Assad’s gov-ernment, and they pressed Ford on how the United States is push-ing Baghdad over Iranian weap-ons pouring into Syria through Iraq.

“We have had very direct conversations with the Iraqis,” Ford said, listing meetings in Washington and the Iraqi capital. “We have been very direct with them about the importance of not allowing Iran to exploit the crisis in Syria, and how that is not help-ful to Iraqi interests, as well as the region’s interests.”

Ford also said repeatedly in response to lawmakers’ ques-tions that the US policy is not to

provide military aid to the rebels. Assad’s government and rebels

accused each other of launching a deadly chemical attack near the northern city of Aleppo on Tuesday. Both sides demanded international investigations. [

The White House and the State Department expressed deep skepticism over the Syrian gov-ernment’s claims regarding the rebels.

REUTERS

Arrest of Shias may worsen tensions

French hostage ‘executed’ in Mali

Royal visit

An undated handout image released by Al Andalus, the media branch of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Magreb (AQIM) to the Agence Nouakchott Informations (ANI) shows French nationals Philippe Verdon (right) and Serge Lazarevic (left) being held by AQIM at an undisclosed location. Both were captured in Hombori in Northern Mali on November 24. Verdon has been executed in Mali, a man claiming to be a spokesman for Al Qaeda in North Africa told Mauritania’s ANI news agency yesterday.

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth speaks with Mike Brown, Managing Director of London Underground, during her visit to Baker Street underground station in London, yesterday. The visit marked the 150th anniversary of the London Underground.

INTERNATIONAL 11THURSDAY 21 MARCH 2013

www.thepeninsulaqatar.com

VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis yesterday promised “friendship and respect” for all faiths at a meeting with representatives of major world religions in the Vatican in which he said he felt “close” to non-believers.

The Roman Catholic Church would “promote friendship and respect between men and women of different religions,” the Pope said, a day after his formal inau-guration in St Peter’s Square.

“We can do a lot for the good of people who are poor, who are weak, who suffer... and to promote recon-ciliation and peace,” the Pope told other Christian leaders and repre-sentatives of Buddhism, Islam and Judaism in an ornate Vatican hall.

Latin America’s first pontiff said all religions should be united against “one of the most danger-ous pitfalls of our time — reduc-ing human beings to what they produce and what they consume”.

“I very much appreciate your presence and I see in it a sign of mutual respect and of cooperation for the common good of human-ity,” he said.

This was particularly impor-tant in a world of “divisions, con-frontations and rivalries”, he said.

Francis also told Jewish leaders that he wanted to continue “a fra-ternal dialogue” that began with the reformist Second Vatican Council of the 1960s. The 76-year-old Pope also said he felt “close” to those people who “do not rec-ognise themselves in any faith but are in a search for truth, for good-ness and for beauty, which is God.”

The reference echoed a “silent blessing” that Francis made on Saturday to non-believers at a

meeting with journalists from around the world. “You are all children of God,” he said.

Vatican expert Sandro Magister, who writes for the Italian weekly L’Espresso, said the references show “an atten-tion to people without a religion” that was particularly significant as the Church struggles with ris-ing secularism in many countries.

The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I, the spiritual leader of the world’s 250 million Orthodox Church, opened yesterday’s meeting. Bartholomew was the first patri-arch of Constantinople to attend a papal inauguration since 1054 when the eastern and western halves of Christendom split in the “Great Schism”.

In his address, Bartholomew referred to Francis’s experience as an archbishop in Argentina during that country’s devastat-ing economic crisis. The world economic climate “demands humanitarian action for which you already have great experi-ence,” he said, referring to the “high, grave and difficult task” that Francis will face.

He said Christian unity was “our first and most important concern” and called on the Pope to “correct worldly tendencies” in Christianity. Francis assured Bartholomew — whom he referred to as his “brother” — of his “firm willingness to continue with the path of ecumenical dialogue”.

Francis also met with Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, who leads the country with the highest number of Catholics in the world.

AFP

LONDON: The British govern-ment has insisted that bloggers and posts on social media would not be caught by a new system of press regulation, but cam-paigners warned the new rules could be open to interpretation.

Britain’s newspapers are urgently considering whether to sign up to the new system agreed by political leaders on Monday in the wake of a phone-hack-ing scandal at the now defunct Rupert Murdoch-owned News of the World tabloid.

The new watchdog, under-pinned by law, would have the power to issue harsh sanctions on misbehaving publications, includ-ing fines of up to £1m ($1.5m).

While the Leveson Inquiry into press standards resulting from the hacking scandal did not cover online publishing, the new royal charter hammered out by political leaders specifically

covers “news-related” websites too, sparking uncertainty.

Meanwhile newspapers have railed that details of court rulings preventing them from publishing stories about celebrities have been openly circulated online, effectively making a mockery of the rulings.

Though the Department for Culture, Media and Sport stressed that small-scale bloggers and comments on Twitter and Facebook would not be subject to the new royal charter regulating publishers, campaigners feared that the new system could still be ambiguous. “It won’t affect blog-gers,” a DCMS spokesman said.

“What Leveson was talking about was newspapers — national and local — and newspaper-type websites. It’s not people who are writing a blog.” To be considered a news publisher under the charter, outlets must meet each of three tests. They must be “publishing

in the course of business”; publish news-related material written by a range of authors; and be subject to editorial control.

National and local papers and their online editions fall under the remit, as do lifestyle magazines and “online-only edited ‘press-like’ content providers”, such as the Huffington Post, said the DCMS.

Those outside the boundary include “news aggregators and social networking sites”, small special interest publishers, stu-dent and not-for-profit community newspapers, scientific journals and broadcasters’ websites, such as the BBC’s online arm.

“Ultimately, it is a matter for the court to decide on the defini-tion of a relevant publisher based on assessment of the facts, in accordance with the three inter-locking tests (course of business, range of authors and editorial control),” DCMS said. AFP

NEW YORK: An alleged vet-eran of Al Qaeda’s fight against US soldiers in Afghanistan who went on to plot a bomb attack on US diplomatic facilities in Nigeria was charged yesterday in New York.

Ibrahim Suleiman Adnan Adam Harun, also known as “Spin Ghul”, was charged by a grand jury with conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to bomb American diplomatic facilities, as well as providing material support to Al Qaeda. Harun was born in Saudi Arabia but claims Nigerian citizenship, according to court documents.

The charges allege that Harun traveled to Afghanistan in 2001 and after receiving “military-type training at Al Qaeda train-ing camps,” went to war against US-led forces that invaded the country in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

“Harun allegedly attempted to kill United States military per-sonnel in Afghanistan between 2002 and 2003,” the Brooklyn federal prosecutor’s office said.

In 2003, Harun allegedly under-went training to attack US diplo-matic facilities in Nigeria, where he also conspired to bomb the sites.

After an alleged co-conspirator was arrested in 2005, Harun left Nigeria, spending several years in custody in Libya, then after his 2011 release attempting to enter Italy aboard a ship filled with refugees.

It was then that he fell into the hands of Western authorities fol-lowing an altercation with Italian authorities on the refugee ship, the prosecutor’s office said.

“As alleged, Harun not only intended to, but did commit acts of terrorism against Americans. Now he is subject to the American justice system,” FBI Assistant Director George Venizelos said.

AFP

Saudi-born man charged with jihad in New York

Pope promises ‘respect’ for all world religionsFrancis to promote reconciliation

ROME: Italian President Giorgio Napolitano began con-sultations with political leaders yesterday to try to find a way of forming a government after the deadlocked election last month left no party with a majority in parliament.

Senate speaker Pietro Grasso said after meeting Napolitano the president was determined to reach an accord, saying there was “an absolute necessity to give the country a government” but the parties were deeply divided before talks opened.

Italy’s political stalemate and the prospect of months of uncer-tainty has created alarm across Europe just as the standoff over bank deposits in Cyprus reawak-ened fears that the eurozone debt crisis could flare up again.

Centre-left leader Pier Luigi Bersani, who won a majority in the lower house but not in the Senate, commands the largest bloc in parliament but cannot govern unless he has support from

one of the other parties. However, there has been no sign

that an accord is possible with either former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s centre-right alliance, the second biggest force in parliament, or the anti-estab-lishment 5-Star Movement led by ex-comic Beppe Grillo, which holds the balance of power.

Berlusconi said only a broad cross-party alliance was capable of addressing the problems fac-ing Italy but has been rebuffed by Bersani. “We have declared ourselves open to this but Bersani and his supporters keep stub-bornly paying court to Grillo and the ‘Grillini’ even though they only keep getting rebuffed,” he told his own Italia 1 television.

If no agreement can be struck, Italy faces the prospect of a brief period under a caretaker govern-ment followed by a return to the polls, possibly as early as June or after the summer holiday months, in September or October.

Napolitano also meets minor

parties, including Prime Minister Mario Monti’s centrist group on Wednesday before the main meet-ings on Thursday when he sees representatives from the 5-Star Movement, Berlusconi’s People of Freedom (PDL) party and Bersani’s Democratic Party (PD).

Bersani, 61, received a small boost at the weekend when his candidates were elected the speakers of the two houses of par-liament, despite the centre left’s lack of a Senate majority.

Bersani is proposing to present a limited package of reforms aimed at fighting corruption and creating jobs that he hopes can be backed by the 5-Star Movement.

Given the fractious climate, the prospects of a minority govern-ment surviving more than a short time are slim but Bersani has lit-tle alternative. “The PD is not changing our line, we’ll go to the consultations with the proposals which were voted by the party leadership immediately after the election,” he said. REUTERS

BELFAST: Two Irish nation-alists were found liable for the 1998 Omagh bombing by a Northern Irish High Court yes-terday and ordered to join two others in paying damages for the worst single attack during decades of violence.

Colm Murphy and Seamus Daly faced retrial after successfully appealing two years ago a find-ing that they were responsible for the bombing in which 29 people, including a woman pregnant with twins, were killed, and more than 200 were injured.

Relatives took the civil action after police failed to secure any criminal convictions over the bombing. The only man to stand trial on a murder charge was acquitted in 2007 and families said they would ask authorities to take a second look.

The Omagh bombing occurred just months after a peace deal was struck which largely ended more than three decades of vio-lence between mainly Catholic Irish nationalists seeking union with Ireland and predominantly Protestant unionists who want to remain part of the United Kingdom.

“It’s a great judgement for the families,” Michael Gallagher, whose son died in the bomb-ing, said after leaving the court. “We are going to write to the Chief Constable and the Public Prosecution Service and ask them to look at this judgment and the evidence and see if there is any way they can use it to bring them before the criminal courts.”

The two men, along with Michael McKevitt and Liam Campbell, were ordered to pay relatives of some of the dead £1.6m ($2.4m). Neither Murphy, a builder and publican, nor Daly, a bricklayer, were in court to hear the verdict, nor had they turned up to give evidence at the hear-ing which started in January and ended last month.

AFP

Students protest Harlem Shake sackingLONDON: Oxford University students have lodged a protest about the “hugely unjust” sacking of a librarian who failed to stop about 30 students performing the Harlem Shake in a college library. They claim that Calypso Nash, a graduate student of St Hilda’s College, had nothing to do with the filming of the Internet dance craze on February 17 but just happened to be there at the time. “We feel the librarian has been treated unfairly, thus we call for her rein-statement,” student leader Ellen Gibson said. The video reportedly attracted more than 5,000 views on YouTube before being taken down. The video showed a man in a helmet dancing alone in a library full of students working quietly. Then it cut to a scene where everyone in the room is wearing fancy dress and dancing like crazy.

Two more self-immolations in BulgariaSOFIA: Two more people have set themselves on fire in Bulgaria, bringing to seven the number of self-immolations amid grow-ing despair over poverty, state BNR radio reported yesterday. A 41-year-old unemployed father doused himself with fuel and set himself ablaze in the northeastern village of Sitovo yesterday. He was hospitalised with burns over 90 percent of his body but was conscious, telling doctors that he did it out of despair, BNR added. A 59-year-old miner was also fighting for his life with 30-percent burns after setting himself on fire in the small mining town of Bobov dol, in eastern Bulgaria. Five other people have set them-selves ablaze in the past month. Four of them — three men and a woman — died of their injuries.

South African oppn leader bitten by ratJOHANNESBURG: South African opposition leader Helen Zille said she has been bitten by a rat outside her home in Cape Town. “The weirdest thing just happened. I went to fetch the newspa-pers at the gate when a rat darted out, and bit me on my toe!” the head of the Democratic Alliance, the main opposition group, said on Twitter. She posted a photograph of her bloody toe after Tuesday’s incident. When a reader asked why she did not blame the ruling African National Congress for the incident, she replied: “Damn, why didn’t I think of that!!”.

UK horror writer James Herbert dies LONDON: Best-selling British horror writer James Herbert, who penned novels such as The Rats and The Fog, has died suddenly at the age of 69, his publisher said. Herbert’s editor at publisher Pan Macmillan, Jeremy Trevathan, said the writer died yesterday morning in bed at his home in Sussex. Herbert wrote 23 novels, was published in 34 languages and sold more than 54 million copies worldwide during a writing career which spanned nearly 40 years. Four of his novels were made into films: The Survivor, Fluke, Haunted and The Rats, whose silver screen title was Deadly Eyes.

Diana dresses raise £862,000 LONDON: Ten dresses owned by Princess Diana, including the one worn when she danced with actor John Travolta at a White House dinner, sold for £862,800 at a London auction. The most iconic item — the strapless dark blue velvet gown worn at a 1985 dinner thrown by US president Ronald Reagan in honour of the Prince and Princess of Wales — raised £240,000 ($363.000). The dress was bought “by a British gentleman who said he wanted to buy it as a surprise to cheer up his wife”, explained auctioneer Kerry Taylor.

AGECNIES

UK reassures bloggers on press rules

Omagh bombing case: Two Irish nationalists toldto pay damages

Talks to form Italy govt begin

Eight Filipinos charged over incursion KUALA LUMPUR: A Malaysian court yesterday charged eight Filipinos with terrorism-related offences, pun-ishable by death, over an incur-sion that has left scores dead, the national news agency said.

Malaysian security forces have been pursuing more than 200 followers of a self-proclaimed Filipino sultan, many of whom are believed to be armed, who entered Sabah state on Borneo island last month to resurrect long-dormant land claims.

Clashes between the gun-men and Malaysian forces, who launched a military attack on their hideout two weeks ago, have led to at least 70 deaths, mostly of militants.

The eight men are among more than 100 arrested under a secu-rity law and are the first to face the court.

They were charged with “har-bouring people committing ter-rorist acts” and “waging war” against the country’s king, which is punishable by a life-term imprisonment or death, Bernama news agency reported.

The men from the southern Philippines, aged between 17 and 66, did not enter pleas, it said.

They were charged in front of a judge, who came to the heavily guarded police station in Lahad Datu town, which is near palm oil estates and coastal villages where security forces are still chasing some remaining militants.

A total of 800,000 Filipinos live in Sabah, making up about a quar-ter of the population of the state, near the southern Philippines.

AGENCIES

BEIJING: China yesterday vowed a “steadfast” military defence of its territorial integ-rity, after a report said Japan and the US will draft a plan to counter any Chinese invasion of disputed islands.

Japan’s Nikkei newspaper, cit-ing a US Pentagon source, said Japanese and US officials will come up with the joint military plan on retaking the outcrops in the East China Sea if China seizes them.

The joint preparations, to be finished by the summer, will be the first by the allies to address the threat of attack on a specific area held by Japan, the respected business daily said.

The report added that it was intended as a deterrent against Beijing over its claims to the Japanese-controlled islands, known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China.

Tensions over the dispute have mounted in recent months, with Beijing repeatedly sending ships to waters around the islands to intensify its claims. Tokyo has

alleged that a Chinese frigate locked its radar on a Japanese destroyer in January.

China’s defence ministry said it had seen the report and reit-erated Beijing’s stance that the islands belong to China.

Washington has repeatedly said the Japan-US defence alliance applies to the islands, meaning US troops would act with their Japanese counterparts if China physically takes them over.

General Shigeru Iwasaki, chief of staff of the Japanese Self Defence Forces Joint Staff, will meet with Admiral Samuel Locklear, commander of the US Pacific Command, in Hawaii this week to discuss the plan, the Nikkei said.

Japan and the United States already have such joint action plans to deal with possible crises in the Korean peninsula or in the Taiwan Strait, the newspaper noted.

Last Sunday, China’s newly installed President Xi Jinping said he would fight for a “great ren-aissance of the Chinese nation”, in comments seen as promoting patriotism under the one-party

rule of his communist regime.Japan too has expressed a new

strain of nationalistic rhetoric under its hawkish prime minis-ter, Shinzo Abe, who last Sunday called on new graduates of the National Defence Academy to guard the country against “provocations”.

THAW SIGNALXi’s appointment of two top

diplomats last week displays a desire to repair relations Japan after months of disruption, while keeping the US and its strategic pivot to Asia at bay.

Yang Jiechi, a former ambas-sador to Washington, has been named the state councillor in charge of the foreign ministry, its top post.

He believes the US should stay out of regional Asian affairs such as the South China Sea dispute.

New Foreign Minister Wang Yi is in charge of repairing ties with Tokyo.

This week, Xi heads to Russia for his first diplomatic foray as president, reinforcing a

Xi vows defence Military forces to safeguard China’s sovereignty

New paramilitary recruits take part in their first shooting practice with real ammo at a base in Nanjing, Jiangsu.

12 ASIA / PHILIPPINESTHURSDAY 21 MARCH 2013

www.thepeninsulaqatar.com

DHAKA: Bangladesh President Zillur Rahman (pictured), a veteran ruling party politician named president in 2009, died yesterday in a Singapore hospi-tal, officials said. He was 84.

Rahman, who was suffering from kidney and respiratory prob-lems, was flown to Singapore’s Mount Elizabeth Hospital by air ambulance on March 10 after his conditions worsened.

The nation declared three days of mourning after his death in early evening and Prime Minister

Sheikh Hasina expressed her “profound shock” and lamented “an irreparable loss to the coun-try and its people”.

Rahman’s Secretary Shafiul Alam said the close aide of the nation’s founding leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman had been suffer-ing from “old age complications”. He is survived by a son, who is a lawmaker, and two daughters.

The body of the former deputy chief of the ruling Awami League will be flown back to the country today, he said, with his funeral

and burial taking place tomorrow afternoon.

A lawyer by profession and one of the longest serving lawmakers of the country, who first joined parliament in 1973, Rahman made his name as an activist who pushed for Bangladesh to break free from Pakistani rule.

As a student leader and politi-cal organiser he played an active role in the Language Movement in 1952 for the establishment of Bengali as a state language, a cru-cial campaign that helped cement

the idea of Bangladeshi statehood. He played a key role in keep-

ing the party united after Hasina was arrested by a military-backed government in 2007.

The Awami League won a land-slide victory in the December 2008 elections and Rahman became an MP for the sixth time and took the oath as the 19th President on February 12, 2009. His wife Ivy, a politician, died in August 2004 after she was injured in a grenade attack on a League rally that also killed 20 others. AFP

SEOUL: The South Korean military raised its cyber attack warning level yesterday after com-puter networks crashed at major TV broadcast-ers and banks, with initial suspicions focused on North Korea.

The state-run Korea Internet Security Agency said computer networks at KBS, MBC and YTN as well as Shinhan and Nonghyup banks had been “par-tially or entirely crippled”. LG Uplus, an Internet service provider, also reported a network crash.

An investigator from the specialist cyber wing of the national police agency said the shutdown appeared to have been triggered by a “virus or malicious code”, suggesting a concerted hacking operation.

The Defence Ministry said it had raised its five-level “Infocon” cyber threat alert status from four to three. “We do not rule out the possibility of North Korea being involved, but it’s premature to say so.”

SANCTIONS TALKSOfficials from South Korea and the US began

talks on how to beef up punitive sanctions against North Korea for its recent nuclear test. Talks between South Korea’s chief nuclear envoy Lim Sung-nam and US Treasury sanctions chief David

Cohen come days after the US imposed its sanc-tions on the Foreign Trade Bank of North Korea, Pyongyang’s primary foreign exchange bank, and four officials responsible for the country’s ballistic missile programme.

North Korea, meanwhile, condemned training flights by nuclear-capable US B-52 bombers over the Korean peninsula as an “unpardonable provocation” and threatened military action if they continued.

The Pentagon says at least one B-52 has flown over South Korea in recent weeks as part of joint military exercises Pyongyang has denounced as rehearsals for invasion.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un supervised a drone attack on a simulated South Korean target, Pyongyang’s KCNA news agency reported, and the armed forces shot down a target mimicking a cruise missile.

Meanwhile, China’s new President Xi Jinping told his South Korean counterpart that Beijing is will-ing to help reconciliation between South and North Korea, the foreign ministry said.

“China is willing to provide assistance to advance South-North cooperation,” Xi told President Park Geun-Hye in a phone call, acording to a statement on the ministry website. AGENCIES

Bangladesh president dies in Singapore

HK light pollution ‘world’s worst’HONG KONG: Hong Kong is one of the world’s worst cities for light pollution with night skies around 1,000 times brighter than globally accepted levels, researchers said yesterday ahead of this year’s Earth Hour event. A study by Hong Kong University found that brightness levels in the popular shopping district of Tsim Sha Tsui were 1,200 times greater than the global dark sky standard, a measurement void of manmade light. The city of seven million, full of residential high rises, towering office blocks and neon advertisements, has no laws to control external lighting.

Statue of hope in tsunami townTOKYO: A giant statue from Chile’s Easter Island was unveiled in Tokyo yesterday before it is erected in a small tsunami-devastated northeastern Japanese town as a symbol of recovery. The three-metre (9.8-foot) Moai statue is a gift from Chile, which pledged to supply a new statue to the fishing community of Minami Sanriku after the town’s original was destroyed in the March 2011 quake and tsunami. “I want people to see this new statue and feel hope for the future,” the town’s Mayor Jin Sato said.

Seven Komodo dragons hatch SURABAYA, INDONESIA: Seven rare Komodo dragons have hatched under a breeding programme at an Indonesian zoo, an official said yesterday, a success story that raises hope for the endangered lizard. Twenty-one eggs from two Komodo dragons were placed in incubation at the Surabaya Zoo in eastern Java, the first batch in September and the second in October, with seven hatching on March 10. “Some of the eggs from the first Komodo did not hatch, which is normal. We’re hoping for another seven or eight from the second clutch, which are due to hatch around April or May,” zoo spokesman Anthan Warsito said.

Video puts state boss in spot KUALA LUMPUR: Corruption watchdog Transparency International yesterday asked the powerful boss of a Malaysian state to step aside after a video purportedly linking him to abuse of power went viral online. The clip produced by London-based NGO Global Witness allegedly depicts a “sting”, in which a per-son posing as a foreign businessman is seen negotiating with cousins and associates of Sarawak state chief Taib Mahmud. Taib, 76, has headed resource-rich Sarawak on Borneo island as Chief Minister since 1981 and has for years faced, and denied, allegations of corruption and nepotism.

Dollar surrogate abolishedYANGON: Myanmar yesterday announced the abolition of its US dollar proxy currency, in the latest step towards economic normalisation as the country opens to the world. More than $30m worth of Foreign Exchange Certificates will be phased out of existence, Finance Minister Win Shein said, without giving a timeframe for the move.

Largest quake monitor in China BEIJING: Chengdu Institute of Care-life, which studies earth-quakes in Chengdu, southwest Sichuan province, has built the largest quake monitoring and early warning system in the world. It covers 400,000 square km and is about 30,000 sq km larger than that in Japan, China News Service said. AGENCIES

Seoul on alert after hacking

Manila seeks UN protection for peacekeepers

Fukushima cooling systems restart after outage

relationship with Cold War roots which is finding shared strategic and business interests.

Xi will visit Moscow from tomorrow for talks with President Vladimir Putin.

The two countries enjoy

expanding commercial relations — China is the world’s biggest energy consumer and the largest trade partner of Russia, one of the biggest oil producers.

They co-operate on several issues at the UN and in advance

of his trip, Xi called Russia “our friendly neighbour”, adding his visit underscored the “great importance” China placed on relations. Putin and Xi will also oversee the signing of many agreements. AGENCIES

MANILA: The Philippines has asked the UN to provide more protection to its peace-keeping forces, Manila said yesterday after announcing its troops would remain in the Golan Heights after a recent abduction.

The foreign department said the Philippines’ permanent repre-sentative to the UN wrote to the UN Security Council to express

Manila’s “grave concern” over the March 6-9 detention of 21 Filipino UN peacekeepers.

The Philippines’ UN repre-sentative, Libran Cabactulan, also urged the council to exert its influence on all parties in the Syrian conflict to ensure the peacekeepers’ freedom of move-ment, a foreign department statement said. “The members of the Council... wield considerable

influence over the parties in the region. Our communication to the Security Council is meant to high-light this vital role of the Security Council,” Cabactulan added.

About 300 Filipinos serve in the UN Disengagement Observer Force, which has been in the Golan Heights since 1974, moni-toring a ceasefire between Syria and Israel.Twenty-one of the Filipinos were held for three days

earlier in the month by Syrian rebels who demanded a pullback by Syrian government forces in the area. The unit was later freed unharmed.

Manila said last week that it would keep its UN contingent in the Golan Heights following the abductions. The UNDOF force of fewer than 1,000 troops also comprises troops from Austria and India. AGENCIES

VIENNA: The UN atomic energy agency said yesterday the cooling systems at all spent fuel pools at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan had resumed opera-tions after a power outage earlier this week.

Tokyo Electric Power Co lost power used for cooling spent uranium fuel rods at its Fukushima Daiichi plant, illustrating the chal-lenges the Japanese utility faces in trying to

shut down the facility after meltdowns two years ago.

The company, also known as Tepco, said on Tuesday there was no immediate threat of overheating or radiation releases after the loss of electricity on Monday. It partially restored power by Tuesday afternoon, the firm said.

But the power loss showed that the plant remained in a precarious state after an

earthquake and tsunami in March 2011 dam-aged the plant, causing the world’s worst nuclear accident in 25 years.

The Vienna-based IAEA said in a statement: “Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) has informed the International Atomic Energy Agency that cooling systems at all spent fuel pools at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station have resumed operation.” AGENCIES

Friendly visitor

A Pakistani child stands behind a machine gun, during a visit to an army camp displaying weapons ahead of the ceremony for Pakistan’s National Day, along the Chaman border near Afghanistan, yesterday.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan will go to the polls on May 11, the presidency announced yes-terday, in an historic general election marking the first dem-ocratic transition of power in the country’s 66-year existence.

President Asif Ali Zardari, who confounded critics by keeping his fractious coalition together for a full five-year term, announced the date days after the 342-member national assembly dissolved at the end of its term.

“The president announced today that general elections to the national assembly will be held on May 11,” his spokesman Farhatullah Babar said.

The vote will mark the first time that an elected civilian gov-ernment hands over to another in a country that has seen three military coups and four military rulers since partition from India and the end of British rule in 1947.

But Taliban attacks and record levels of violence directed against the Shia minority have raised fears about security for the polls in the nuclear-armed country of 180 million, a key but troubled US ally.

A parliamentary committee has

until Friday to select a candidate to head a caretaker administra-tion until the polls. The election commission should then announce a full schedule for the campaign.

Zardari’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and the opposi-tion Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) led by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif are likely to dominate the race, while former cricket star Imran Khan will compete in an election for the first time.

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the son of Zardari and of assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, is co-chairman of the PPP but cannot stand because he will not reach the minimum age of 25 until September.

Separate elections will also be held for regional assemblies in Pakistan’s four provinces but Babar said there was no decision yet on which day.

Political analyst Hasan Askari said that by setting a date, the president had gone some way towards curbing conspiracy theo-ries about a possible delay.

“The dust should settle now... it is clear the election will be held but distrust or doubts will go

away when the caretaker prime minister is chosen,” Askari told reporters.

Sixty seats in the national assembly are reserved for women and 10 for non-Muslim religious minorities.

Under reforms introduced by the outgoing government, politi-cal parties can for the first time contest elections in the tribal belt, a den of Taliban and Al Qaeda militants on the Afghan border.

But there are no seats in the tribal belt reserved for women.

Once the national and provin-cial governments are formed, fed-eral and regional lawmakers will elect a new president.

Analysts praise Zardari for lasting the course, passing key legislation and relinquishing his powers to strengthen democracy, but say his rule has been marked by chronic mismanagement, eco-nomic decline and worsening security.

They credit his full term not just his wheeler-dealer talents, but also the army chief of staff ’s determination to keep to the sidelines and the opposition’s unwillingness to force early elections.

Apart from a military opera-tion that pushed the Taliban out of the Swat Valley in 2009, the government has failed to crack down on the plethora of extrem-ist groups blamed for violence in Pakistan, Afghanistan and India.

Pakistan has hosted no inter-national sport since gunmen attacked the Sri Lankan cricket team in 2009. Religious violence has reached dizzying levels, most recently against Shias, who account for about 20 percent of the population.

Karachi, the largest city and business hub, is suffering from record killings linked to political and ethnic tensions, with more than 2,000 dead in 2012.

The government has also done little to come up with long-term solutions to a crippling energy crisis or introduce desperately needed tax reforms. Ministers have been tainted by accusations of brazen corruption.

After the elections, Pakistan is expected to have little option but to seek another bailout package from the International Monetary Fund, given its yawning budget deficit.

AFP

KABUL: Afghanistan and Nato-led forces have reached a deal on foreign troops leav-ing a key strategic district near Kabul, coalition forces said, but a controversial expulsion order against US special forces from the entire province remained unclear.

An Afghan defence minis-try spokesman told reporters in Kabul that the elite American force would quit the whole prov-ince of Wardak within a few days, despite US concerns that their departure would leave a security vacuum.

The Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), however, said that Afghan forces would only take over from foreign troops in the small restive district of Nerkh, and that “the remain-der of the province will transition in time”.

Afghan officials have expressed fears that insurgents might use

Wardak, 40-minute drive from Kabul, as a launch pad for attacks on the capital.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai expelled the elite American force from Wardak and Logar prov-inces last month, after villagers accused them of torturing and killing civilians, an allegation the US special forces denied.

Despite the deadline for their departure expiring over a week ago, US special forces tasked with fighting the Taliban are still operating there, US and Afghan officials say.

Their continued deployment has angered Karzai, who has become increasingly critical of his Western allies operating in the country ahead of the departure of most foreign combat troops by the end of next year.

Karzai and Nato Commander Joseph Dunford reached an agreement on Wardak yesterday, the two sides said, although the

extent of the foreign troop with-drawal and the time-frame was vague.

ISAF said in a statement that under the agreement, Afghan forces would soon take over secu-rity from foreign forces in Nerkh, a known hiding place for Taliban and Hezb-i-Islami militants. The district comprises about 10 percent of Wardak, and borders Kabul and Logar provinces.

The statement made no men-tion of US special forces.

“I am pleased to announce that following a very constructive series of talks with the president ... we have come to agreement on a plan for Wardak that contin-ues the transition of this critical province and meets the secu-rity needs of the people and the requirements of our mission,” Dunford said.

“This solution is what success looks like as we continue the tran-sition to overall Afghan security

lead.” ISAF said the Afghan gov-ernment would determine the timeline for the takeover.

The Wardak issue, along a series of inflammatory remarks by Karzai deriding the United States and other foreign forces, has strained already fraught ties between the president and Western allies.

Opposition politicians say Karzai’s order to expel the US special forces was a political move intended to bolster his party’s support base ahead of a presiden-tial election next year. Karzai is not allowed to stand again.

Some in Wardak however are furious US special forces are still operating in the province, and about 1,000 residents con-verged on the capital on Saturday demanding they leave.

US special forces are expected to play a major role in Afghanistan after most Nato combat troops withdraw by the end of next

year, and Karzai’s decision to expel them was seen as compli-cating talks between the US and Afghanistan over the scope of US operations after the pullout.

In recent weeks Karzai has been staking out increasingly nationalist ground, deepening a war of words that threatens to derail Nato attempts to ensure a smooth security transition before most Western troops leave next year.

But the agreement, which left many questions unanswered and made no explicit mention of special forces, will be seen as a compromise for Karzai and as a further sign of his government’s reliance on the US-led coalition.

Nerkh is only one of eight dis-tricts in Wardak. ISAF said the “remainder of the province will transition over time” but no dates were announced and Afghan offi-cials were tight-lipped on the details. AGENCIES

UNITED NATIONS: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that there was a deeply disturbing “pervasive climate of impunity” in Afghanistan for the abusers of women and girls and he called on Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s government to take action.

Despite a fall in civilian casualties in Afghanistan for the first time in several years, the United Nations said last month more than 300 women and girls were killed and more than 560 injured in 2012, a 20 percent increase from 2011.

Activists and some lawmakers have blamed the rise in violence against women on what they say is the Karzai administration’s waning interest in women’s rights, a claim Karzai denies.

“I remain deeply disturbed that despite some improvements in pros-ecuting cases of violence, there is still a pervasive climate of impunity in Afghanistan for abuses of women and girls,” Ban told a UN Security Council debate on Afghanistan. “They have an inviolable right to live free of fear or attacks. And women and girls are key to a better future for Afghanistan. Protecting them is central to peace, prosperity and stability for all people in the country,” he said.

Ban called for Kabul to strictly implement a 2009 law on the elimina-tion of violence against women, which made child marriage, forced mar-riage, rape and other violent acts criminal offenses. REUTERS

ISLAMABAD: Two suicide blasts by the Ansarul Islam (AI) and bombardment from military jets claimed the lives of at least 33 militants, including a key commander of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), and injured many in Khyber tribal region, sources said yesterday.

Militants of the banned TTP occupied a centre of the Ansarul Islam in Bagh-Maidan area of Khyber tribal region’s Tirah val-ley on Mar 18.

A hidden suicide bomber blew himself up killing and injuring several militants. Another suicide bomber detonated his explosives during rescue efforts for the vic-tims of the first blast.

Twenty-five militants, includ-ing a key militant commander of the TTP, were killed in the two blasts whereas many were injured.

A few hours later Pakistan military jets bombarded a nearby area killing eight more suspected militants.

Tribal sources reported 33 mil-itants as dead and numerous oth-ers as injured in all three attacks.

Most of the victims were asso-ciated with the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan militants organisation, sources added.

At least 60 suspected militants were taken into custody by secu-rity forces from Darra Adamkhel over involvement in the Taliban’s Mar 17 attack on the Judicial Complex in Peshawar.

INTERNEWS

Pakistan’s historic polls on May 11Zardari’s PPP and Sharif’s PML-N parties likely to dominate the race

Pedestrians walk past a banner featuring portraits of Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari (centre) and Bhutto family members (top) along a street in Islamabad, yesterday.

Kabul and Nato agree on Wardak pullout

33 rebels killed in Khyber tribal region

KABUL: Almost 3,000 Afghan police and soldiers have been killed in the last 12 months, nearly the same as the number of Nato deaths in Afghanistan in the last 11 years of war, Kabul said Wednesday.

In statistics marking the end of the lunar year, the interior and defence ministries said 2,983 security personnel — 1,800 police and 1,183 soldiers — lost their lives between March 2012 and March 2013.

According to the independent website, icas-ualties.org, 3,270 coalition troops, including 2,190 Americans, have died since the invasion started in late 2001.

Afghan police and soldiers have been set

up and trained by Nato to take on increas-ing responsibility for security as Nato combat troops gradually withdraw from the country by the end of 2014.

Numbered at 330,000 and due to reach a target of 352,000, they have been increasingly targeted by Taliban insurgents fighting to evict the Western-backed administration in Kabul.

“It is a pity but understandable why we have witnessed such a huge loss of life and increase in ANSF (Afghan security force) casualties since they started taking responsibility from international troops,” said analyst Jawed Kohistani.

“Given the fact that there has not been any

effective strategy from the Afghan defence or interior ministries to deal with Taliban gue-rilla warfare tactics, we can expect more loss of life,” he added. In 2012, 402 Nato members died in Afghanistan, the lowest number since 2008.

Meanwhile, a Polish soldier died when a mine exploded on a road in the south-east, Poland’s defence ministry said. Pawel Ordynski, 29, whose vehicle struck the mine in the province of Ghazni, is the 39th Pole to die in Afghanistan, the ministry said.

Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said Poland would downsize its Afghanistan troops to 1,000 from 1,800 in October. AGENCIES

3,000 Afghan troops die in 12 months

Ban urges action againstabusers in Afghanistan

PAKISTAN / AFGHANISTAN 13THURSDAY 21 MARCH 2013

www.thepeninsulaqatar.com

US seeks deal on transfer of prisonersISLAMABAD: The US has called on Pakistan to sign a Council of Europe convention on the transfer of prisoners or convicts, officials said yes-terday. It follows a request for the repatriation of Pakistani prisoners in US jails. The Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons, 1985, signed and ratified by 64 countries, allows foreigners convicted of a criminal offence to serve out their sentences in their home countries. “We sought a no objection certifi-cate from the Foreign Office for an agreement with the US,” said Additional Interior Secretary Saud Mirza. The ministry wrote to the office after the US showed will-ingness to cooperate with Pakistan over the exchange of prisoners. Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf endorsed the ministry’s suggestion for Pakistan to sign the Council of Europe Convention to take up the case of Dr Aafia Siddiqi, as well as other pris-oners. After seeking the interior ministry’s consent, the foreign office moved a summary to the prime min-ister earlier this year. The issue of an agreement was formally taken up with Washington some four years back when the then interior minister Rehman Malik and US Attorney General Eric Holder met to discuss mat-ters related to prisoners, including Dr Aafia, Mirza had informed a Senate panel while explaining the matter. Pakistan is also considering signing the Inter-American Convention on Serving Criminal Sentences Abroad.

Four shot dead in HelmandKANDAHAR: Four peo-ple were shot dead yester-day when dozens of Afghan villagers clashed with police over alleged desecration of the Holy Quran. Officials said clashes broke out in Musa Qala, a town troubled by insur-gent violence in the southern province of Helmand. “Seven people, including two police-men, were shot and injured,” said provincial spokesman Ahmad Zeerak. He said it was unclear whether police bullets caused the casual-ties and that officers had been forced to intervene after “Taliban fighters hiding among protesters opened fire on police first”.

AGENCIES

Complete shutdown

Troops patrol during a shutdown in Srinagar, Kashmir, yesterday. The strike was observed in response to a call given by a group of separatists demanding return of the bodies of two Kashmiri separatists hanged and buried in New Delhi’s Tihar jail.

14 INDIATHURSDAY 21 MARCH 2013

www.thepeninsulaqatar.com

Delhi vows UN push against LankaNEW DELHI: India prom-ised yesterday to push for a “strong” UN resolution urging Sri Lanka to investigate alleged war crimes, a day after the issue caused a split in the ruling coalition.

The United States is drafting a resolution against Sri Lanka at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva which is expected to be voted today and is bound to anger Colombo.

F i n a n c e M i n i s t e r P Chidambaram said India would propose amendments to the draft resolution being negotiated, but he denied that India was trying to water it down — as was claimed in some media reports.

“India’s position has always been and remains that the UNHRC should adopt a strong resolution that would send a res-olute message to Sri Lanka and goad Sri Lanka to accept an inde-pendent and credible investiga-tion,” Chidambaram said.

India’s ruling coalition was rocked on Tuesday by the resig-nation of a party from southern Tamil Nadu state, which accused the government of being too soft and demanded that the resolution refer to the “genocide” of ethnic Tamils.

International rights groups estimate that 40,000 civilians died in the final months of fight-ing when government troops launched an onslaught on sep-aratists fighting for a Tamil homeland.

Sri Lanka has denied that its forces killed civilians and has resisted calls from the UN and

Western powers for an independ-ent international investigation into the conduct of its army.

Sri Lanka’s top general, who led the campaign against the Tamil Tiger rebels, said Tuesday the government should accept a probe but he rejected any sugges-tion of genocide.

“Some people have questions.

Some people have doubts. Some people want to know what hap-pened,” Sarath Fonseka, who has become a top opponent of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, told the Foreign Correspondents’ Association.

“We will have to justify the actions taken by us. I am ready to answer anyone. I am ready to

clarify any doubts.”India, home to millions of

Tamils who share links with their counterparts in Sri Lanka, risks a further worsening in relations with its southern neighbour over the UNHRC resolution.

Leader of the ruling Congress party, Sonia Gandhi, said on Tuesday that India was “most

pained” that Tamils in Sri Lanka were being denied their rights and New Delhi was “anguished by reports of unspeakable atrocities”.

Thousands of Tamils held pro-tests in Tamil Nadu yesterday as well as in the commercial capi-tal Mumbai, holding up pictures of alleged victims of Sri Lankan soldiers.

India has also postponed sched-uled defence cooperation talks with Sri Lanka this month, offi-cials told AFP.

In Sri Lanka, dozens of Buddhist monks demonstrated outside the Indian embassy in Colombo for a second straight day yesterday.

The country has lodged a com-plaint with India and warned its pilgrims against travelling to Tamil Nadu because of repeated physical attacks against them.

In another move likely to deepen the discord, Chidambaram stressed that the Indian govern-ment was consulting other parties about a parliamentary resolu-tion which would also call on Sri Lanka to investigate the alleged war crimes.

The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, which quit the coali-tion on Tuesday, has hinted that it might return to support the gov-ernment if a resolution is passed by parliament.

Without its 18 lawmakers in the Lower House, the left-lean-ing government, dominated by the Congress party, is more vulnera-ble to falling before the scheduled date for elections in the first half of 2014. AFP

Minister denies reports government trying to water down resolution; thousands protest

A demonstrator holds a placard during a protest against Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapaksa in Mumbai, yesterday.

5 Maharashtra legislators suspended for assaulting copMUMBAI: The Maharashtra legislature yesterday suspended five of its members, including one each from the BJP, Shiv Sena and MNS, for assaulting a police officer within the legisla-ture premises.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Harshwardhan Patil announced the suspension of the five legisla-tors from the house till the end of the year.

The five are independent legis-lators Kshitij Thakur and Pradeep Jaiswal, Shiv Sena’s Rajan Salvi, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena’s (MNS) Ram Kadam, and the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Jaykumar Rawal.

They were booked by police late on Tuesday night for thrashing Assistant Police Inspector Sachin Suryawanshi on the first floor of the Maharashtra Vidhan Bhavan Tuesday afternoon.

The provocation for the attack was an incident on Monday when Suryawanshi allegedly stopped the vehicle of independent leg-islator Kshitij Thakur and fined him for violating the speed limit on the Rajiv Gandhi Bandra-Worli Sea Link. Suryawanshi slapped a fine of Rs700 on Thakur, which resulted in a heated argument between them. The independ-ent legislator from Nala Sopara (Thane) constituency alleged that Suryawanshi misbehaved with him.

Thakur recounted the inci-dent in the house on Tuesday and moved a breach of privilege notice against the police official, who was in the visitors’ gallery to answer the charges against him.

After Thakur’s detailed account, several legislators cut-ting across party lines demanded Suryawanshi’s suspension for mis-behaviour with a lawmaker.

Just then, some legislators saw Suryawanshi, who was allegedly gesticulating at the members below from the visitors’ gallery.

Thakur recognised him and along with some other legislators, rushed outside to chase and catch Suryawanshi on the first floor. There, they slapped, punched and kicked him. Not taking the inci-dent lying down, several top IPS officers of Maharasthra, includ-ing city Police Commissioner Satyapal Singh, called on Chief Minsiter Prithviraj Chavan and demanded action. IANS

Early elections unlikely as govt needs time for reformsNEW DELHI: The Indian gov-ernment is unlikely to call a snap election despite its biggest ally abruptly quitting the rul-ing coalition, as it needs time to implement flagship welfare schemes and hopes the econ-omy will improve, government sources said yesterday.

The withdrawal of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) has rattled markets, which are worried that it has left Prime Minister Manmohan Singh una-ble to pass reforms needed to turn around the worst economic

slowdown in a decade. That, in turn, has fired speculation that the government, which is in a minority in parliament and relies on the support of powerful but unpredictable regional parties to stay in power, could call a quick election before its term officially runs out next year.

However, leaders in the ruling Congress party told Reuters the government will wait in order to pass legislation aimed at shoring up its popularity, which has been punctured by corruption scandals and anger over high prices.

“We have been given a man-date for five years and we intend to ensure that it is not aborted,” Jairam Ramesh, rural develop-ment minister, told Reuters.

But big-ticket economic reforms such as opening the pensions and insurance sectors to foreign investors are likely to face stiff opposition in parliament, analysts said. A major regional party that often votes with the government said on Tuesday it would oppose the measures.

In particular, the government wants to pass a bill ramping up

food subsidies for hundreds of millions of poor who form its core vote base and helped it win back-to-back general elections. It also wants to widen a system — cur-rently being rolled out in different parts of the country — of handing out money to poor families to pay for essentials such as cooking gas.

“We are not looking to hold early elections. We want to do the full term not just to pursue our welfare programmes but also to allow the economy to revive,” said a senior Congress party official.

REUTERS

A student holds a poster with Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s picture at a protest in Chennai, yesterday.

Supreme Court ruling on Mumbai 1993 blasts todayNEW DELHI: The Supreme Court will today pronounce its verdict on the 124 cross appeals by those convicted by a special court for the 1993 Bombay serial bomb blasts, including film star Sanjay Dutt, as well as by the Maharashtra government challenging some acquittals and seeking enhanced sen-tences for other guilty.

A bench of Justice P Sathasivam and Justice B S Chauhan had heard the spate of cross petitions by the convicts

and the state of Maharashtra over ten months. The hearing that commenced on November 1, 2011, concluded on August 29, 2012. The judgment is divided into six parts. Justice Sathasivam will pronounce judgment on appeal against death sentences and life imprisonments in parts 1 and 2 respectively.

He will also pronounce judgment under part 6 deal-ing with cases of conviction under the Arms Act/Explosive Substances Act. This part will deal with the appeal of

Sanjay Dutt challenging his conviction under the Arms Act that led to a six-year jail term. Justice Chauhan will pronounce verdicts on the appeals covering vary-ing terms of imprisonment in part 3, judgments deal-ing with appeals by accused challenging their conviction in part 4, and finally verdicts dealing with the appeals filed by the Maharashtra govern-ment against the acquittal of accused in part 5.

IANS

Suspected criminal killed in shootout with police NEW DELHI: A suspected criminal was killed in a daylight shootout between a police team and five men on a national high-way on the outskirts of Delhi yesterday afternoon, police said.

Three others, including one carrying a reward on his head, were arrested. The driver of the car escaped.

“Five armed men in a car opened fire at a team of Delhi Police’s Crime Branch officials in the Alipur area after they were asked to stop,” said a police officer.

Police retaliated and appre-hended the criminals after a short chase.

“A criminal, Rakesh, was killed in the shootout. Three have been arrested and one managed to flee,” Additional Commissioner of Police Ravindra Yadav said.

Rakesh from Bahadurgarh in Haryana, was wanted in two mur-der cases in Haryana and Punjab. After the shootout, during which he was injured, he was taken to Babu Jagjivan Ram Hospital where he died during treatment.

He was shot in his waist, police said.

One of the arrested, Manoj Morkheri, had a reward of Rs100,000 on his head and was wanted in various cases of abduc-tion for ransom, extortion and attempt to murder in Delhi, Haryana and Rajasthan, Yadav said. A resident of Haryana’s Rohtak, Morkheri had killed retired inspector Ramkishan in Haryana in January as both were sworn enemies. IANS

Bracing for Holi

A labourer packs coloured powder, known as “gulal”, to be used during the forthcoming spring festival of Holi, near Siliguri, yesterday. Holi will be celebrated on March 27.

PETA protest

Activists of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), dressed like prison inmates, protest outside the office of Air India, in Bangalore, yesterday. They claimed that the airline transports animals to pharmacuetical laboratories, where they are caged, poisoned, cut, and killed.

INDIA 15THURSDAY 21 MARCH 2013

www.thepeninsulaqatar.com

Campaigners hail stricter anti-rape lawNEW DELHI: Campaigners wel-comed a toughening of laws in India yesterday for sex crimes but said they were not enough to tackle a crisis underpinned by cultural attitudes, including from “sexist” lawmakers.

India’s Lower House on Tuesday passed a bill increasing punishment for sex offenders, including the death penalty if a victim dies, three months after the fatal gang-rape of a student on a bus in Delhi sparked nationwide protests.

Women’s rights activists hailed the legislation for broadening the definition of sexual assault to include molestation of private parts and for doubling the minimum prison sen-tence for gang-rape to 20 years.

It also allows for the death sen-tence if a rape victim dies or is left in a persistent vegetative state. Under existing laws, rapists face a minimum seven-year jail term.

Ranjana Kumari, director of the non-profit Centre for Social Research, praised the decision to include a penalty for police officials who fail to register assault or harass-ment cases filed by women.

“This will go a long way in ending the culture of shame that surrounds victims of sexual crimes, so they don’t feel afraid to approach police when they are attacked,” Kumari told AFP.

But the bill still had huge holes, she added, citing lawmakers’ refusal to criminalise marital rape or raise the punishment for acid attacks, from a minimum seven-year jail term to a proposed life imprisoment.

“Their failure to increase punish-ment for such a gruesome and com-monplace crime like acid attacks, where a woman suffers every day for the rest of her life clearly sends a message that they don’t take it seri-ously,” she said. The new laws also make no special provision for incest and fail to meet demands from some lawmakers for tougher sentences for child trafficking.

The Criminal Laws (Amendment) Bill, which must now be approved by the Upper House, was passed the same day that a British tourist jumped off her hotel balcony in the

Taj Mahal city of Agra in a bid to escape an alleged sex attack.

That incident came just days after a Swiss cyclist was gang-raped in the state of Madhya Pradesh on Friday night in a brutal assault observers said underscored risks women face in the country of 1.2 billion people.

“These attacks put India in a very bad light, letting the whole world know that we cannot provide safety, either to our own women or to for-eign visitors,” Kumari said.

The legislation also creates pen-alties for newly-defined offences including stalking and voyeurism, in a move attacked by leading parlia-mentarians who said such actions did not merit punishment.

“Who amongst us have not fol-lowed girls?” Sharad Yadav, a veteran politician from the regional Janata Dal (United) party said, evoking laughter from his fellow male MPs.

Female Communist Party law-maker Brinda Karat excoriated the remarks, saying “parliament shamed India yesterday with its highly sexist, regressive commentary during the discussion on the bill”.

“It just shows how far-distanced lawmakers are from actual social realities,” Karat told AFP.

Some analysts have raised con-cerns, however, that the rush to put tougher penalties in place and defuse public anger over the issue, may create further problems for India’s already beleaguered justice system.

Supreme Court lawyer Nikhil Mehra, who earlier sat on a govern-ment-appointed panel looking into sex crime, said the new legislation carried risks of “improper applica-tion” by poorly-trained police offi-cials. “The police officials don’t even understand what stalking means, and they are going to penalise it, without adequate monitoring of the suspect, without proof? It creates many pos-sibilities for error,” he told AFP.

“You need large-scale structural reform in this country to remedy this crisis. Unless you can provide police with better training and massively increase the number of legal officers, you are not going to fix anything.”

AFP

Concerns remain over enforcement

Hotel staff deny harassing UK womanAGRA: Two men appeared in a court yesterday accused of harassing a British tour-ist who jumped off her hotel balcony fearing a sex attack, with their lawyer saying they denied the charges.

The manager of the three-star Hotel Agra Mahal, Sachin Chauhan, and another member of staff were produced before the local magistrate in the northern city of Agra and were remanded in judicial custody for 14 days.

Prakash Narayan Sharma, lawyer for the hotel manager, told AFP his client would enter a “not guilty” plea before the court today and apply for bail.

The woman was admitted to hospital on Tuesday with minor leg injuries sustained as she fled the hotel after the men allegedly tried to force their way into her room in the middle of the night.

Sharma said his client was being framed and that the woman had cooked up the story.

“The woman herself asked for a wake-up call as she had to catch an early morning train to Jaipur. The manager, along with the hotel’s security guard, went to the room and knocked on the door.

“When they did not get any response, they opened the room with the hotel key. The woman then, for reasons best known to her, jumped off from the bal-cony,” he told AFP.

He also claimed it was a con-spiracy concocted by tourism authorities in New Delhi to tar-nish the image of Agra, which is home to the Taj Mahal and is a three-hour drive from the capital.

The incident came just days after a Swiss cyclist was

allegedly gang-raped in the cen-tral state of Madhya Pradesh by a group of villagers late on Friday, while on a cycling trip with her husband that was meant to include a stopover in Agra.

That attack re-focussed attention on the country’s poor record on safety for women, after thousands took to the streets in nationwide protests following the fatal gang-rape of an Indian student on a bus in New Delhi in December.

The British woman was due to return home after recording her statement in court.

“She has spoken to her family in the UK and her mother will be coming here to take her back home,” deputy superintendent of Agra police Swaranjeet, who uses just one name, told AFP.

“The girl is much better, she is safe. She is still here.”

The woman, in her early 30s, has told police the hotel man-ager had been pestering her with offers of a massage and then tried to force his way into her room at 4am on Tuesday.

“I was too scared to leave my room as he was waiting outside. I was kicking the door and shouting for help but no one came,” the woman was quoted as saying in a police statement, according to Britain’s The Daily Telegraph newspaper.

“I shouted at them to stop harassing me but it continued,” she said.

Lawyer Sharma said her alle-gations were baseless since the hotel did not have a licence to offer massage services.

Meanwhile, the Indian tour-ism ministry moved swiftly to suspend the three-star rating of the hotel, while police in Agra sealed the premises. AFP

Egypt likely to introduce visa on arrival for Indians NEW DELHI: Visas on arrival, more direct flights and cultural exhibitions across India are some of the steps Egypt will take to woo Indian tourists, it was announced yesterday.

“India has a huge middle class and upper middle class willing to spend disposable income on travel. We have to focus on this audience,” Egyptian Tourism Minister Hisham Zaazou said here. Zaazou is part of the del-egation of Egyptian ministers and business leaders led by President Mohammeed Mursi.

“We are looking at granting visa on arrival to Indian tour-ists as well as (have) more direct flights from Delhi,” said Zaazou.

At present, four direct flights operate weekly to Egypt but only from Mumbai.

In addition, festivals that will offer potential Indian travellers a taste of Egypt’s culture with food, dance, handicrafts, clothes and leather products will begin in major cities in three-four months, Zaazou told IANS.

Quoting UN figures, Zaazou said the number of Indians who visited Egypt in 2010 was over 114,000.

However, political unrest in 2011 brought this down to 73,000. It went up marginally to 82,000 in 2012. George Nader El Beblawy of the Egyptian Tourism Federation admitted that more money should be pumped in promotional activi-ties to promote Egypt in India.

IANS

Auditor detects numerous mistakes in Kerala LotteriesKOCHI: State-owned Kerala Lotteries has never made a loss since its inception in 1967, but the latest report of the CAG reveals that all’s not well with the department.

In its report released on Tuesday, the Comptroller and Auditor General covered an audit period from 2006 to 2011. Numerous defects like multiple claims, mistake in publication of prize-winning ticket and absence of validation controls, among others, were found.

The most curious case that surfaced was one in which the second prize for the Onam Bumper Lottery-2011 was

published as ticket number TH-339602, but the real winner was ticket number IR-339602.

When the published ticket holder came to receive the prize, the department realised the mistake. Taking into account the mental agony suffered by the claimant for non-disbursal of his claim, the government gave him Rs200,000 as special compensation.

“The department said that this occurred due to a mistake in the computer system and measures were being taken to ensure correct results are uploaded,” the CAG statement read.

“The fact remains that in addition to the mental agony suffered by the incorrect claimant, it resulted in a com-pensation of Rs200,000 paid by the department,” the CAG commented.

According to the govern-ment, Kerala Lotteries is head-ing for an all-time high sale of tickets, expected to exceed Rs25bn.

The lottery has around 40,000 authorised agents and over 1,00,000 retail sellers of its tickets in the state. These are people whose livelihood depends on the lottery.

IANS

MORNING BREAK16THURSDAY 21 MARCH 2013

www.thepeninsulaqatar.com

Gig cancelled over gallery damage fear LONDON: Britain’s pres-tigious Victoria and Albert Museum said yesterday it had been forced to cancel a concert by “grind metal” band Napalm Death because of fears that the music will quite literally bring the house down.

The British band had been scheduled to play a daring con-cert at the museum tomorrow through a ceramic sculpture which — if all had gone to plan — would have exploded under the force of their music. But the museum has now concluded that not only would the ceramic sculpture explode, but chunks of the rest of the 150-year-old building might come down with it. “It is with regret that we have taken the decision to can-cel the one-off Napalm Death performance in collaboration with our ceramic artist-in-residence Keith Harrison,” it said in a statement.

“This was due to take place in the Europe Galleries which are currently being refur-bished and a further safety inspection has revealed con-cerns that the high level of decibels generated by the concert would damage the historic fabric of the building.”

The V&A said that while it wanted to stage “exciting” events, “the safety of our visi-tors and building remains our priority at all times”.

The band, whose albums include titles such as “From Enslavement to Obliteration”, were not available for com-ment. Vocalist Mark “Barney” Greenway said before the can-cellation that the band liked to explore the concept of “sound as a weapon”.

“The noise element of music should never be under-stated and this exhibition at the V&A will hopefully dem-onstrate that music can do interesting things beyond the realms of clipped production techniques,” he said. AFP

PARIS: Fancy watching a movie on your mobile phone, where figures leap out from the screen in 3D, rather as Princess Leia did in that scene from “Star Wars”?

That’s the claim made by US researchers, who yesterday reported they had made a display which gives a three-dimensional image that can be viewed without special glasses and is intended for cellphones, tablets and watches.

Unlike the holographic projec-tion used in George Lucas’ movie fantasy, their small prototype dis-play is flat and backlit.

It uses a technology called dif-fractive optics to give 3D images that can be viewed from multiple angles, even if the device is tilted.

“Unlike a lot of technology out there that only does so-called horizontal parallax, which means that you only see 3D when you move your head left and right, we actually are talking about a

technology that gives 3D for full parallax,” said David Fattal, who led a team at Hewlett-Packard Laboratories in Palo Alto, California.

“For example, if you were to display a 3D image of Planet Earth with the North Pole facing out from the screen, by turning your head around the display, you would actually be able to have a view of any country on the globe, you would be able to see all the way around,” Fattal told journalists in a telebriefing. Diffractive optics meet a challenge posed by the human anatomy, according to the study, published on Wednesday by the journal Nature.

Humans view the world stere-oscopically, meaning that our two eyes see two slightly different images because they are sepa-rated by about six centimetres (two and a half inches).

2D screening provides only a single flat image, which means

the two eyes both see the same picture on the screen. 3D imaging, therefore, has to present a slightly different image to each eye.

Glasses-based systems work by having two lenses that each polarise the light in different directions, or by having cheap-and-cheerful — and headache-inducing — lenses of red and green. In the first case, the dis-play has two simultaneous images, each with different polarisation; in the second, the two images have red and green outlines.

Current glasses-free systems, including some mobiles, use thin lenses called lenticules or paral-lax barriers that send an image towards each eye.

But the 3D effect is limited and can only be perceived if the viewer is positioned in a narrow zone so that the correct eye gets the cor-rect image. The best option would be Princess Leia-style holography. But right now, this cannot be used

for images displayed at a normal video rate, as the demands in pixel density are just too great.

The new “autostereoscopic multiview display” uses a back-light whose surface has been etched with tiny refractors.

Each of these microscopic deflectors send individual points of light in specific directions. These individual pixels, put together, comprise the different images sent to each eyeball.

The demonstration models can send light in 14 distinct viewing directions, providing the 3D effect in an angle of 90 degrees at a dis-tance of up to a metre (3.25 feet). Tests have been carried out with images or footage, at 30 frames per second, of flowers, a turtle or a corporate logo. The scientists said the design can be ramped up to produce up to 64 directions, further widening the viewing zone. Using glass of high refrac-tive index, the field of view could

be “close to 180 degrees,” they add.“This current prototype is com-

pletely transparent and we think that even using a modulating device to achieve video rates, we can still retain most of the trans-parency,” said Fattal.

In commentary also carried by Nature, University of Cambridge computer specialist Neil Dodgson said major challenges lay ahead before the exploit would be com-mercially viable. The new illumi-nation system has much smaller pixels than mobile devices today, so more work has to be done to ensure that picture quality — which depends on pixel density — is not lost.

Another hurdle is to have the device manufactured “reliably, robustly and in quantity,” which may take years, said Dodgson, who also pointed to the expense of providing content filmed in 3D in order to provide the multiple images. AFP

Coming... glasses-free 3D for cellphone

Spring spirits

A honeybee approaches a snowdrop flower in Klosterneuburg, Austria, on the first day of spring, yesterday.

Measles contagious on planes: Study SYDNEY: Measles can be spread on planes in rows far beyond infected passengers, a Australian study showed yesterday, raising questions over control guidelines for the disease.

Australian policy, which is similar to that of the United States and Europe, calls for travellers seated in the same row, and in two rows in front of and two rows behind the patient, to be contacted.

But new research published at the annual scientific meeting of the Australian Society for Infectious Diseases in Canberra shows that this approach may be missing half of the cases transmitted on flights.

The research by Gary Dowse from Western Australia’s Communicable Disease Control Directorate and colleagues said there was a low risk of catching measles on a plane in Australia, where the disease has been eliminated. But in those cases where an infection was transmitted, it took an average of eight days before the patient was diagnosed, health officials informed, airlines and customs contacted and the passengers’ details retrieved.

By this time, the window in which to administer a vaccine or other preventative medical help had been lost, Dowse said. “So in most instances our policy is ineffective because we find out too late,” he said ahead of the release of the study. “And despite the policy, more than half the secondary cases that are going to occur are seated outside the two rows.” The study looked at all measles cases notified in Australia between January 2007 to June 2011 in which the patient was likely to have been infectious while travelling on a plane. AFP

Daily Variety goes out of print after 80 years LOS ANGELES: The vener-able Hollywood trade magazine Daily Variety published its last printed edition on Tuesday, end-ing an 80-year era by beckoning readers to a recently revamped website and announcing plans to launch a new weekly version of the publication.

The glossy magazine, under new ownership since last autumn, bid farewell to its daily paper-and-ink audience in a front-page inset headline. “This marks the last official print version of Daily Variety, which reported what happened yesterday,” the maga-zine said. “For news of what happened two minutes ago, keep going to Variety.com, which will be updated constantly.”

Long considered the bible of the entertainment industry, Variety said it would merge the editorial content and staff of Daily Variety and its weekly international sister publication, known simply as Variety, to form a new weekly printed edi-tion that will debut on March 26 and publish every Tuesday. Variety said its new weekly publication and the website would continue the daily magazine’s insider emphasis on the business of entertainment, with expanded in-depth coverage.

The move reflects forces shap-ing much of American print-based journalism, as an increasing number of newspapers have either shifted all their content online or stopped publishing a physical edition on a daily basis. Variety’s website was relaunched on March 1 with a new format eliminating the subscription “pay wall” and providing free access to all its content. Variety was founded in 1905 in New York as a weekly publication covering the vaude-ville circuit and in 1933 spawned Daily Variety in Hollywood, where it grew into the entertainment industry’s leading paper of record.

REUTERS

Fajr (Dawn) 4:21

Shorook (Sunrise) 5:38

Zuhr (Noon) 11:41

Asr (Afternoon) 3:08

Maghrib (Sunset) 5:46

Isha (Night) 7:16

PRAYER TIME

Weather Conditions:Cloudy with chance of scattered rain may be thundery at times becoming partly cloudy later with slight dust.

High: 25° Low: 21°

High:28° Low: 19°

High:28° Low: 21°

Partly cloudyPartly cloudy Chance of rain

Today Friday Saturday

SUNRISE | SUNSET

05:38 17:46 00:15&00:00 16:45&00:00 10-18/25 KT

HIGH | LOW WIND

SUN TIDE SEA

TODAY TOMORROW

HI/LO WEATHER HI/LO WEATHER

THE REGION

TODAY TOMORROW

HI/LO WEATHER HI/LO WEATHER

THE WORLD

DOHA - SUN & SEA

WEATHER

MUSCAT 35/24 Mostly cloudy 33/23 Partly cloudy

MAKKAH 32/20 Clear 33/25 Clear

KUWAIT 25/18 Clear 27/19 Clear

BAHRAIN 27/20 Chance of rain 27/20 Clear

SANAA 24/12 Chance of storms 25/12 Chance of storms

RIYADH 25/11 Chance of rain 27/13 Partly cloudy

DUBAI 30/21 Chance of rain 26/20 Partly cloudy

BAGHDAD 25/13 Clear 27/15 Mostly cloudy

ATHENS 19/11 Chance of rain 17/09 Clear

WASHINGTON 05/-1 Cloudy 09/01 Mostly cloudy

SYDNEY 32/21 Chance of rain 30/18 Chance of rain

LONDON 08/04 Partly cloudy 07/01 Cloudy

PARIS 10/04 Cloudy 12/08 Partly cloudy

ISTANBUL 18/11 Cloudy 13/04 Chance of rain

MANILA 33/25 Partly cloudy 33/25 Partly cloudy

DHAKA 36/22 Partly cloudy 36/23 Partly cloudy

DELHI 34/20 Clear 33/20 Partly cloudy

ISLAMABAD 28/14 Partly cloudy 28/18 Partly cloudy

CHART: 1

Sources : http://www.qtel.qa/

�

�

�

�

�

��8.2 8.1

7.77.0

7.4

2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2011

6.8

2010

7.5

Source : http://www.qsa.gov.qa/

News in Numbers INFANTMORTALITY RATE

Infant mortality rate per thousand live births during (2005 to 2011)

7.4 in 2011

The rate of infant mortality per thousand live births declined from 8.2 deaths per thousand

live births in 2005 to

Qatar Steel report bags accolades

Thursday 21 March 20139 Jumada I 1434

Volume 18Number 5645

Price: QR2

editor@pen.com.qa | adv@pen.com.qa Editorial: 44557741 | Advertising: 44557837 / 44557780www.thepeninsulaqatar.com

Business | 18

DOHA: Qatar has been ranked as the country where Islamic banking assets grew fastest in 2012.

The country’s Islamic banking assets were estimated to have grown by more than 23 percent during last year. Qatar’s regula-tory clarity has helped its Islamic banks to achieve the high growth rate, said the report by the Ernst & Young Global Islamic Banking Center.

There is potential for a strong Islamic capital market play in Qatar in future. Barring the

conventional industry leader, Islamic banks are comparable in size to conventional peers. Large infrastructure spend will fuel continued profitable growth for the banking industry, the report noted.

The E&Y estimated that Shariah-compliant assets at com-mercial banks in the GCC region climbed 14.1 per cent from a year earlier to $445bn at the end of 2012. While Islamic banking assets posted solid growth the conventional banking assets grew by only 8.1 per cent .

The Global Islamic banking assets with commercial banks reached $1.8trn in 2013, repre-senting average annual growth of 17 percent. Islamic banking growth outlook continues to be positive, growing 50 percent faster than overall banking sec-tor in several core markets. Top 20 Islamic banks make up 55 per-cent of the total Islamic banking assets and are concentrated in 7 countries, including GCC.

The report said several Arab spring markets are expected to launch Islamic banking initiatives.

Based on current growth forecast, Islamic financial institutions will require at least $400bn of short term, credible, liquid and secu-rities for liquidity and capital management purposes, by 2015. Market opportunity will drive more Islamic banks to set up international platforms to offer Islamic fixed income advisory services.

Ashar Nazim, the partner at E&Y Global Islamic Banking Center said he expected a rela-tively positive outlook for the Islamic banking industry in the

GCC. “Quality of growth remains under pressure and we expect more Islamic banks initiating an honest introspection of their operating model, especially with regards to the weak data manage-ment infrastructure,” he noted.

Previously, the consultancy had estimated the Islamic institutions accounted for about a quarter of the entire banking industry in the GCC.

“Inability of most Islamic banks to generate accurate data and on time remains a serious concern for the management, the board

as well as the regulators. Where such information is available, the analysis remains very rudimen-tary and has not really translated to a true competitive advantage,” remarked Nazim.

On the Gulf ’s Islamic banks’ operating model he said in com-parison to their conventional banking peers, Islamic banks remain technologically disadvan-taged as software systems are primarily designed for financial institutions based on conventional banking frameworks.

THE PENINSULA

Rapid growth in Islamic banking assetsQatar’s transparent regulatory environment helped Islamic assets grow by 23pc last year: Ernst & Young report

Australia’s LNG ambitions

An Australian LNG vessel sails off the coast of Western Australia. Australia has surpassed Qatar as the largest LNG supplier to Japan, the world’s single biggest buyer of the super-cooled fossil fuel, and with another $100bn of projects under review, it could well become the Saudi Arabia of LNG.

DOHA: Qatar imported more automobiles in the fourth and last quarter (October to December) of 2012 than the previous three-month period even as its foreign trade sur-plus fell slightly in that quar-ter over the third one.

A highlight was that more cars were imported in the last quarter with the imports rising QR236m ($64.65m) to QR2.66m ($728m) from QR2.42m ($663m) in the previous three months of July to September.

Qatar’s foreign trade sur-plus was marginally down to QR96.7bn ($26.49bn) in the final quarter, from QR99.2bn ($27.17bn) in the July to September period.

Preliminary estimates released by the national sta-tistics agency show that auto-mobiles were the largest item of imports in the two quarters (third and fourth) followed by aircraft and helicopter accesso-ries. Imports totalled QR23.74bn ($6.5bn) in the final quarter, slightly up over the previous quarter (QR23.27bn), with the US, China and Japan ranking as the first three top destinations

from where the imports were accessed. The UAE which is responsible for large volumes of re-exports maintained its fourth position among the exporters to Qatar, followed by Germany.

Liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports, the mainstay of Qatari exports, dipped marginally in the last quarter to QR43.3bn ($11.86bn) from QR47.13bn ($12.91bn) in the previous one.

Crude oil export volumes were almost half of those of the LNG, at QR22.74bn, and were slightly less than the third quarter fig-ure of QR23.22bn, according to the Qatar Statistics Authority.

The third largest items of imports were condensates, fol-lowed by propane, naphtha and butane and low and high den-sity polyethylene (LDPE and HDPE) that find widespread industrial use.

Exports totalled QR120.4bn ($33bn), reflecting a marginal drop of 1.6 percent over the third quarter but showing a high 9.9 percent year-on-year growth. Japan, South Korea and India were the three largest destinations of Qatari exports.

THE PENINSULA

Qatar imported more cars in Q4 last year

DOHA: QNB has been announced as the agent for pay-ing out Al Meera dividend for the financial year 2012

Al Meera’s Ordinary General Assembly Meeting held on March 11 approved the distribu-tion of 80 percent of the nomi-nal share value as cash dividend. Shareholders who are holders of the company's shares at the end of the trading on March 10 are entitled to receive their dividends.

Al Meera said yesterday shareholders who are registered with QNB’s electronic dividend receipt service or Qatar Exchange will have their dividend entered directly into their accounts. All shareholders will be able to receive their dividends in cash for a maximum of QR100,000 at all branches of QNB today or they can submit a request to transfer their cash dividend directly into their accounts at QNB or other

local and international banks according to the relevant terms and conditions.

For cash dividend of more than QR100,000 shareholders can receive their cash through QNB shareholders services centre in Qatar Sports Club. Shareholders have to produce all the necessary documents to prove their rights to receive dividend when they are going to any branch of QNB.

THE PENINSULA

ABU DHABI: Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) has recommended that Shell win the multi-billion dollar project to develop its Bab gas field, but the UAE’s higher authorities have yet to rule on it, industry sources said yesterday.

Industry news le t ter International Oil Daily reported on Tuesday that state-run ADNOC had recommended that the Supreme Petroleum Council (SPC) pick Royal Dutch Shell

ahead of rival French bidder Total to develop the ultra-sour gas project the United Arab Emirates needs to temper grow-ing gas imports.

Three industry sources con-firmed yesterday that ADNOC had recommended Shell ahead of Total to tackle Bab’s potentially deadly gas.

The SPC and EC usually agree with ADNOC decisions, but as of Wednesday neither had ruled on whether to officially award Shell

a project which has been valued at $10bn.

“Shell’s selection is recom-mended to the higher authori-ties,” a senior source at ADNOC said.

The Bab ultra-sour gas deal would give Shell, which many had expected would win the contract to develop Abu Dhabi’s Shah gas field in 2011 but which lost out to Occidental Petroleum , a show-case project for Shell gas treat-ment technology. REUTERS

QNB agent for Al Meera dividend

UAE mulls awarding Bab gas project to Shell

DUBAI: A fund manage-ment venture set up in Dubai this month is taking aim at one of the great backwaters of the Middle Eastern economy: Islamic endowments, which control tens of billions of dollars of assets around the region.

The endowments, known as Awqaf, receive donations from Muslims to operate specific social projects, such as mosques, schools and welfare schemes.

Over the past few decades, as Middle Eastern populations have grown and the Gulf ’s oil industry has boomed, Awqaf have amassed a vast array of assets, from real estate to cash holdings, equities and even valuable books.

But the management of these assets has failed to keep up with their expansion; money is often tied up in property or bank deposits that earn miniscule or even zero returns, analysts of the industry say.

That imposes a heavy eco-nomic cost on a region which is

struggling to boost private sector growth.

A movement to apply mod-ern management techniques to Awqaf is now emerging and if it succeeds in boosting returns, Middle Eastern financial markets and economies could benefit.

Basic changes in asset man-agement methods could improve Awqaf yields globally by between 1.5 and 2 percentage points, according to consultants Ernst & Young.

This could see up to $2.5bn of additional returns from Awqaf assets ploughed back through Islamic financial institutions every year, said Ashar Nazim, Islamic financial services leader at the firm.

“Awqaf can be a source of long-term liabilities that the industry is desperately seeking,” he said.

Awqaf reached their heyday during the Ottoman empire, which ruled much of the Middle East for centuries. Historians estimate that an one stage, the

endowments owned over 50 per-cent of real estate in major cities and a third of farmland. Some imperial awqaf even functioned as an early form of social security.

The endowments waned in the 19th and early 20th centuries as the Ottaman state and other authorities increasingly inter-vened in their operations. But they are still important; Safa Investment Services, a Swiss-Saudi venture which caters to them, estimates Awqaf in Saudi Arabia alone now control between $100bn and $250bn of assets.

There is little data on the extent to which endowments’ returns lag professionally man-aged funds, because the vast majority of Awqaf do not disclose full financial figures.

But since Awqaf have tra-ditionally been run mainly by administrators rather than return-maximising investment managers, the underperform-ance is believed to be consider-able. REUTERS

Dubai plans to modernise management of Awqaf

18 BUSINESSTHURSDAY 21 MARCH 2013

www.thepeninsulaqatar.com

IMPORTANT NOTE: Published by HSBC Bank Middle East Limited, P O Box 57, Doha, Qatar which is licensed and regulated by Qatar Central Bank and Jersey Financial Services Commission. Information quoted is from publicly available sources or proprietary data and subject to change. HSBC accepts no liability for any loss or damage arising out of the use of all or part of this material. This information is general and does not take into account individual circumstances, objectives or needs. The price of bonds can and does fluctuate. The secondary market for bonds may not provide significant liquidity or may trade based on prevailing market conditions. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance. You should consider these matters and consult your financial advisor prior to making any investment decisions.

*Periodic Distribution Amount

QATARI MARKETBond Coupon Maturity Currency Mid-Price Yield Moody’s S&P

Qatar Govt 5.15% 4/9/2014 USD 104.69 0.62 % Aa2 AA

Qatar Govt 3.125% 1/20/2017 USD 105.94 1.52 % Aa2 AA

Qatar Govt 6.55% 4/9/2019 USD 124.25 2.24 % Aa2 AA

Qatar Govt 5.25% 1/20/2020 USD 117.13 2.51 % Aa2 AA

Qatar Govt 4.5% 1/20/2022 USD 112.06 2.94 % Aa2 AA

Qatar Govt 9.75% 6/15/2030 USD 169.50 4.09 % Aa2 AA

Qatar Govt 6.4% 1/20/2040 USD 128.75 4.54 % Aa2 AA

Qatar Govt 5.75% 1/20/2042 USD 120.00 4.50 % Aa2 AA

Qatari Diar 3.5% 7/21/2015 USD 105.13 1.26 % Aa2 AA

Qatari Diar 5% 7/21/2020 USD 114.00 2.87 % Aa2 AA

Comqat 5% 11/18/2014 USD 105.75 1.45 % A1 A-

Comqat 3.375% 4/11/2017 USD 104.63 2.18 % A1 A-

QIB 3.856% 10/7/2015 USD 104.50 2.03 % NR NR

QNB 3.125% 11/16/2015 USD 103.75 1.67 % Aa3 A+

QNB 3.375% 2/22/2017 USD 104.63 2.14 % Aa3 A+

Doha Bank 3.5% 3/14/2017 USD 104.75 2.25 % A2 A-

Qtel 3.375% 10/14/2016 USD 105.63 1.74 % A2 A

Qtel 7.875% 6/10/2019 USD 130.94 2.48 % A2 A

Qtel 4.75% 2/16/2021 USD 111.63 3.08 % A2 A

Qtel 5% 10/19/2025 USD 110.75 3.91 % A2 A

Rasgas 5.5% 9/30/2014 USD 106.75 1.00 % Aa3 A

Rasgas 5.832% 9/30/2016 USD 108.13 3.37 % Aa3 A

Rasgas 5.298% 9/30/2020 USD 111.38 3.56 % Aa3 A

SOVEREIGNSBond PDA* Maturity Currency Mid-Price Yield Moody’s S&P

Abu Dhabi Govt 5.5% 4/8/2014 USD 105.13 0.53 % Aa2 AA

Abu Dhabi Govt 6.75% 4/8/2019 USD 125.75 2.18 % Aa2 AA

Dubai Govt 6.7% 10/5/2015 USD 110.50 2.39 % NR NR

Dubai Govt 4.9% 5/2/2017 USD 107.25 3.01 % NR NR

Dubai Govt 7.75% 10/5/2020 USD 124.25 3.99 % NR NR

Dubai Govt 6.45% 5/2/2022 USD 117.31 4.15 % NR NR

Qatar Govt 4% 1/20/2015 USD 105.63 0.90 % Aa2 AA

Bahrain Govt 6.273% 11/22/2018 USD 115.31 3.29 % NR BBB

Bahrain Govt 5.5% 3/31/2020 USD 110.00 3.86 % NR BBB

Egypt Govt 5.75% 4/29/2020 USD 92.50 7.11 % B3 /*- B-

Morocco Govt 4.5% 10/5/2020 EUR 106.38 3.53 % NR BBB-

DOHA: Islamic International Rating Agency (IIRA) has assigned a national scale rating of A+/A-1 (QR) (A plus/A-one) to Qatar International Islamic Bank (QIIB). On the international scale, IIRA has assigned a foreign cur-rency and local currency rating of A-/A-1 (A minus/ A-one). Outlook on the rat-ing is ‘Stable’.

The fiduciary score has been assessed in the range of ‘70-75’, reflecting strong fiduciary standards wherein rights of fund providers are adequately defined and pro-tected. The fiduciary score is an aggregation of scores assigned to its three sub-sections, namely Corporate and Shariah Governance, and Asset Manager Quality. The fiduciary score captures the role of the management of the institution as Mudarib, the entity’s governance prac-tices and compliance with Shariah principles adopted by the bank.

Incorporated in 1990, QIIB is one of the four Islamic banks in Qatar, with a market share of 4 percent in terms of country-wide deposits. The largest shareholder of the bank is Sheikh Thani bin Abdullah Al Thani family, a prominent business family in Qatar, while the other significant shareholder is the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), the investment arm of the Qatar government, IIRA noted.

Ratings assigned are pri-marily driven by robust asset quality, a low administrative cost structure and consist-ent operating profitability. Ratings also draw on sponsor strength and the strong pos-sibility of support available to the bank if needed. Business diversification both in terms of fund sourcing, asset selec-tion and cultivating ancillary sources of income would add to the institution’s resilience.

THE PENINSULA

IIRA assigns fiduciary ratings to QIIB

DOHA: Qatar Steel was recently awarded, among some leading industrial companies in Qatar, for excellence in sustain-ability reporting.

The awards ceremony was held under the auspices of the Minister of Energy and Industry, and Chairman of and Managing Director of Qatar Petroleum H E Dr Mohammed bin Saleh Al Sada.

Qatar Steel, among seven large-scale leading industrial companies in Qatar, was awarded the runner-up certificate for its commitment towards sustainable development, and for the quality and credibility of its sustainable report.

Qatar Steel’s 2012 sustain-ability report included a com-prehensive demonstration of the company’s performance in environmental, social and eco-nomic domains. The report was

produced as per the directives of the company’s board in this respect, demonstrating the com-pany’s commitment to the long-term growth and development, as well as various sustainability ini-tiatives and projects undertaken by Qatar Steel.

Ali bin Hasan Al Muraikhi, Director and General Manager of Qatar Steel said that ward-ing Qatar Steel for excellence in sustainability report is certainly attributed to the continual sup-port and wise directives of Qatar Steel’s Chairman and Board of Directors that helped achieve the highest performance levels in producing the report.

“Such an award reflects our relentless commitment to sus-tainable development, and our constant efforts to preserve the environment, in line with Qatar National Vision 2013, and the

National Development Strategy 2011-2016. In this respect, we are keen to turn all our industrial operations to be environment-friendly, by reducing its envi-ronmental impact through using state-of-the-art production tech-nology and continuous improve-ment of efficiency,” he added.

Ahmed Abdul Aziz Al Ansari, Commercial Division Manager at Qatar Steel, said that honouring participants in the sustainable development report is a pride to all local industrial companies, and it is distinct evidence that this sector is totally committed to sustainable development.

“No doubt that launching sus-tainability awards for excellence in sustainable reports, would encourage companies to produce more productive, creative and innovative reports in the future,” he added. THE PENINSULA

Qatar Steel honoured for sustainability reporting

The Minister of Energy and Industry and Chairman and Managing Director of Qatar Petroleum, H E Dr Mohammed bin Saleh Al Sada, presenting the award to a Qatar Steel executive.

DUBAI/DOHA: Renewed selling pressure from foreign investors dragged down Egypt’s bourse to a 14-week low yes-terday on the back of a gloomy economic backdrop, while other regional markets were mixed.

Qatar Exchange traded in the green area yesterday adding 8.23 points (or 0.10 percent) to advance to 8,578.37 points from 8,570.14 Tuesday.

The volume of the shares traded fell to 2,992,836 from 5,636,569 on Tuesday, and the value of shares decreased to QR140,362,435.88 from QR317,128,950.72 on Tuesday.

Among the top gainers were Industries Qatar which was up 1.04 percent to QR156, Qatar Insurance rose 0.98 percent to QR51.50, Qatar Navigation gained 1.06 percent to QR67 and National Leasing was up by 0.70 percent to Q35.75.

The Banking and Financial sec-tor index was fell 0.17 points while Consumer Goods and Services sector index added 0.03 points. The industrial sector was gained 0.46 points while insurance sector rose 0.63 points.

Elsewhere, Egypt’s government is battling a budget deficit and currency crisis and investors are becoming increasingly sceptical over the prospects of the coun-try obtaining a multi-billion dol-lar loan from the International Monetary Fund.

Cairo’s main benchmark dropped 1.6 percent to its lowest close since December 13. Foreign investors were net sellers, accord-ing to bourse data. Heavyweight Orascom Construction Industries and Commercial International Bank fell 1.7 and 1.8 percent respectively. Orascom Telecom lost 2.4 percent.

In Saudi Arabia, petrochemical stocks helped lift the measure to

a three-month high. Saudi Basic Industries Corp, the world’s larg-est chemicals producer, gained 0.8 percent. Yanbu National Petrochemical climbed 2.4 percent and National Industrialization (Tasnee) advanced 1.3 percent.

Despite weak earnings growth in 2012 and worries of slowing global demand, investors are bull-ish on the petrochemical sector in the medium-term.

The index added 0.3 percent. It has been trading within a tight range, lagging gains on global markets but has upside potential, Waheed added.

Markets in the UAE declined as short-term traders locked in gains from an early-year rally.

Dubai’s index slipped 0.7 per-cent. It has been trading in a 100-point range since hitting a 39-month peak on February 24.

Retail investors are book-ing profits intermittently, with the benchmark up 17 percent this year. Abu Dhabi’s measure retreated 0.7 percent, but is up 14.7 percent year-to-date. First Gulf Bank weighed yesterday, dropping 1.9 percent.

REUTERS/QNA

Day of mixed trading for GCC boursesQatar, Bahrain, Saudi indexes gain

YESTERDAY’S HIGHLIGHTS QATAR: The index gained 0.1 per-

cent to 8,578 points.

SAUDI ARABIA: The index climbed

0.3 percent to 7,095 points.

BAHRAIN: The index gained 0.3

percent to 1,119 points.

DUBAI: The index slipped 0.7 per-

cent to 1,898 points.

ABU DHABI: The index declined

0.7 percent to 3,018 points.

KUWAIT: The index advanced 0.09

percent to 6,826 points.

OMAN: The index edged up 0.03

percent to 6,133 points.

EGYPT: The index fell 1.6 percent

to 5,162 points.

BY MOHAMMAD SHOEB

DOHA: Mannai Corporation QSC (Qatar Exchange: MCCS), yesterday unveiled its new logo after 60 years at the its Annual General Assembly (AGM) meeting.

The new logo, that represents Mannai Corporation’s global aspi-rations, was unveiled by Sheikh Suhaim bin Abdulla bin Khalifa Al Thani, Vice Chairman of the Company and Alekh Grewal, Group CEO and Director of MCCS.

The General Assembly Meeting, which took place at Grand Hyatt Hotel, was Chaired by Sheikh Suhaim. During his address to the shareholders of the company,

he highlighted the financial per-formance of Mannai in 2012. The Extraordinary General Assembly meeting was also held after the General Assembly meeting at the same venue.

The company’s net profit for the financial year ended December 31, 2012, increased by 43 percent to QR400m compared with QR279m in 2011, according to the financials of the Company.

The company also registered a sharp increase in its revenues by 108 percent to QR4.77bn in 2012 as compared to QR2.29bn during the corresponding period in 2011. The earnings per share (EPS) was up by 16 percent to QR10.43 compared to QR9.01 in 2011.

The meeting also reviewed the

board of directors’ proposal for the distribution of cash dividend of 47.5 percent (QR4.75 per share) on the increased share capital of QR456.19m.

For the sharp increase in its profits, the group attributed to the acquisition of a stake in Damas in the second quarter of 2012.

On behalf of Sheikh Hamad bin Abdulla bin Khalifa Al Thani, Chairman of the Company, Sheikh Suhaim said that the board’s medium term strategy, has three main aims: To maintain a strong capital base for growth, expansion of the company’s overseas earn-ings and the continued develop-ment of its core business in Qatar.

THE PENINSULA

Mannai unveils new logo

The Vice Chairman of Mannai Corporation, Sheikh Suhaim bin Abdulla bin Khalifa Al Thani (fourth left), along with other directors, pose after the AGM of the company in Doha, yesterday. SALIM MATRAMKOT

DOHA: Capital Intelligence (CI), the international credit ratings agency, has affirmed Doha Bank’s Long- and Short-Term Foreign Currency Ratings (FCR) at ‘A’ and ‘A2’, respec-tively, reflecting the Bank’s intrinsic financial condition, the continued strong economic growth in Qatar.

Based on the strength of the Qatari government’s balance sheet and Qatar Investment Authority’s (QIA’s) significant shareholding in the bank, the Support Rating is affirmed at ‘2’. A ‘Positive’ Outlook is appended to the Long-Term FCR to reflect the expected improvement in DB’s overall credit profile upon completion of the rights issue currently in process and the anticipated GDR placements.

The Financial Strength Rating (FSR) is affirmed at ‘A’, on ‘Stable’ Outlook, based on the anticipated improvement in the capital posi-tion, improved asset quality and loss reserve coverage, and the Bank’s domestic and international franchise.

The FSR remains constrained by: tight liquidity, particularly in terms of a still high net loans to customer deposits ratio, with some dependence on interbank borrow-ings; by market pressure on net interest margins; and by low inter-nal capital generation due to high dividend payouts. Robust economic conditions provide significant sup-port to the ratings, despite the small size of the Qatari banking market in terms of population.

Doha Bank is raising additional capital through a rights issue, likely to be followed by a further 25 percent increase through a GDR placement, which is expected to allow the bank to grow its loan assets and gross income at a higher rate. THE PENINSULA

Doha Bank’s FCRs affirmed by ratings agency

Main stay of Wichita economy

Cessna employee Ralph Hughes works on some switches on the Cessna Caravan business aircraft assembly line at their manufacturing plant in Wichita, Kansas. Aviation has been a central part of Wichita’s economy since the first commercially built aircraft in the US were produced at the plant in the 1920s.

19BUSINESS THURSDAY 21 MARCH 2013

www.thepeninsulaqatar.com

• Bullion - Mumbai Gold (10 gm) Standard Rs. 29695

Silver (1 kg) Rs. 54980

• Indian Rupees QR1 = 14.84• Sensex BSE 18884.19

NSE 5694.40

• Short-term investment plan from LIC International upto 6.4 percent return

p.a. (in dollar)

• Housing loan from HDFC LTD• Mutual Fund: Buy & Sell: SBI MF, HDFC MF, UTI MF, Birla Sun Life MF,

Tata MF, Reliance MF etc.Contact: Investec, Tel: 44325060/44365060 email: investec@qatar.net.qa

NICOSIA: Cyprus closed its banks this week to avert a run on savings and secure a bailout for its near-bankrupt economy, but the move has dealt another blow to companies already hit by the global financial crisis.

Banks in debt-hit Cyprus will stay closed until at least Tuesday, a Central Bank official said after the authority issued a decree stating banks will not open their doors today and tomorrow.

With Monday a scheduled bank holiday, the official said there was no prospect of banking resuming before Tuesday.

Cyprus banks have now been closed since Saturday to prevent a run on accounts after the govern-ment clinched a deal for a bailout that slapped a one-time levy of up to 9.9 percent on bank deposits.

“We cannot buy, we cannot sell,” said Costakis Sophoclides, the director of a frozen goods com-pany who usually goes to banks in order to pay his suppliers.

“A lot of my customers are hotels and restaurants... and we cannot supply them... I have 25 employees now but next week I will have no products in my stores.

“What will happen? We don’t know when we will get paid and if we will get paid,” said the

businessman whose products are imported from Europe, including Germany and the Netherlands.

Before dawn on Saturday, after about 10 hours of negotiations, the eurozone and the International Monetary Fund agreed to provide ¤10bn ($13bn) to bail out Cyprus.

But under the deal, Nicosia had to come up with ¤5.8bn of its own by imposing a one-off levy of between 6.75 and 9.9 percent on all bank deposits, sparking outrage among savers.

With banks closed on Saturdays, Cypriots panicked and rushed to cash points, some of which were depleted within hours over the long holiday weekend before being refilled on Tuesday. Banks have remained shut for another two days as the government scram-bled to drop the levy on deposits under ¤20,000, but even that was flatly rejected by furious members of parliament.

To prevent a run on the banks, the Cypriot authorities have also blocked online electronic funds transfers. After being closed for six days, it is still uncertain when the banks will reopen.

The authorities are working on legislation to restrict the outflow of cash from the country once they do open their doors again, and

splitting the sector into good and bad lenders, state radio reports. “I can’t make any transactions with my account,” lamented Gatienne Thibaut, who runs a French res-taurant. “I will lose the confidence of my suppliers in France. They’ll say ‘Even if she wants to pay me, she can’t’.

“We have been taken hostage when we have nothing to do with it,” she said furiously.

Alexandros Mitides, who runs a family business that sells mar-ble, said he had already been hit hard by the crisis over the “last two, three years. I used to have 15 employees for many years and today only two, and they work half days. Nobody is paying,” he said, adding: “We are just trying to survive.”

Co-operative Societies chief Constantinos Lyras said the clo-sure of banks is crippling the Cypriot economy. “The more days the banks remain closed, the more the uncertainty increases,” he told the official CNA news agency.

“My opinion is that banks should open as soon as possible. I hope the right decisions are taken, because if the haircut is not approved, without any other solution there will be heightened panic.” AFP

Banks deal blow to Cyprus businessesAuthorities block online electronic fund transfers GENEVA: The global airlines

body IATA predicted yesterday that the industry would increase profits by 58 percent this year, driven by growing passenger and cargo demand in emerging markets and better prospects for the world economy.

But IATA, the International Air Transport Association, warned that the spin-off from the Cyprus banking crisis and its effect on the stability of the euro could reverse the upward trend in total indus-try revenues.

The grouping which represents some 80 percent of global carriers, said it expects them to make a net profit of $10.6bn in 2013, up from an earlier forecast of $8.4bn and well above the $6.7bn achieved in 2012.

“Against a backdrop of improved optimism for global economic prospects, passenger demand has been strong and cargo markets are starting to grow again,” Tony Tyler, IATA’s director general and chief execu-tive, told a news conference.

“It’s a small step in the right direction. It will raise the airline industry’s net profit margin to 1.6 percent,” he said. In 2012, profit-ability was just one percent.

Leading the field in expected absolute revenue growth, based on figures for the first quarter, are airlines in the Asia-Pacific region where China’s domestic travel market is expanding rapidly, said the body’s chief economist Brian Pearce.

Overall revenue for the indus-try is now expected to hit $671 billion this year, $12bn up on the earlier forecast issued at the end of 2012, and versus $637bn in 2012. But costs — mainly related to fuel — were also expected to rise by $9bn to $10bn, according to IATA.

The Geneva-based body said passenger traffic is expected to rise by 5.4 percent compared with the previous prediction of 4.5 per-cent and the 5.3 percent growth of 2012. Cargo, which saw negative growth of 1.5 percent last year, is likely to be up 2.7 percent, 1.3 percent more than forecast last December in IATA’s year-end review. REUTERS

Airlines see profits rising 58 percent this year

LONDON: Britain will stick firmly to a barrage of auster-ity measures, finance minister George Osborne insisted yes-terday in a budget that also slashed economic growth fore-casts, while offering plans to boost the weak economy as the eurozone crisis re-ignites.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Osborne, who is facing calls from within his own Conservative party to reduce deep cuts to state spending in a bid to fuel growth, told parliament that Britain “must hold to the right track.”

“We are slowly but surely fixing our country’s economic problems,” Osborne said, as he unveiled a series of measure aimed at boost-ing growth, including far-reach-ing infrastructure projects, while insisting that Britain was set to escape a new recession.

“We have now cut the (inher-ited) deficit, not by a quarter but by a third,” the chancellor said as he outlined his tax and spending plans for 2013-14.

“Despite the progress we have made there is much more to do and today I am going to level with

people... It is taking longer than anyone hoped but we must hold to the right track.”

Osborne was referring to his so-called Plan A — backed by Prime Minister David Cameron — to drive down a record budget def-icit inherited from the previous Labour administration in 2010. Osborne’s insistence on driv-ing down state borrowing comes despite the chancellor announcing that the government was halving its economic growth forecast for 2013.

Gross domestic product (GDP)

was expected to grow by just 0.6 percent this year compared with a previous forecast of 1.2 percent, according to estimates issued by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) yesterday.

Economic growth guidance for 2014 was also cut to 1.8 per-cent from the previous estimate of 2.0 percent that was given in December.

The OBR meanwhile hiked its forecasts for government borrow-ing, stating that it would stand at £108bn ($164bn) in the year to April 2014 from a previous

estimate of £99.3bn. Osborne said that the problems in euro-zone member Cyprus, where sav-ers are threatened with helping to fund an international bailout, “are further evidence that the cri-sis is not over and the situation remains very worrying”.

“Another bout of economic storms in the eurozone would hit Britain’s economic fortunes hard. Forty percent of all we export... (is) to the eurozone.”

Britain is a member of the European Union but not the sin-gle currency bloc. AFP

Britain sticks to austerity path in budget

DUBAI: Dubai’s government-owned commodities centre is launching a Shariah-compliant commodity trading platform which Islamic banks in the Gulf could use to manage their short-term fund flows.

The Tradeflow platform developed by the Dubai Multi Commodities Centre (DMCC) allows trading of warehouse receipts, which represent own-ership of commodities stored at warehouses.

Islamic banks cannot use con-ventional interbank money mar-kets because of Islam’s ban on interest, so they have struggled with a shortage of instruments to manage liquidity.

The DMCC hopes its platform can be part of the solution to this problem, since warehouse receipts are based on actual trading of physical assets, an important principle in Islamic finance.

“What we have built is a com-pletely different alternative to what is out there. Assets are really owned, really transferred — scholars can check these and all contracts are standardised,” Tradeflow director Paul Boots said.

“We realised that there was a shortage of sharia-compliant money market instruments, which means Islamic banks end up with large concentrations of cash.”

The DMCC has operated a conventional trading platform for commodity receipts for years; the Islamic platform now being launched tracks the ownership of commodities in a way which gives assurance that a “true sale” of commodities is occurring. That assurance is necessary for Islamic banks to enter into murabaha contracts with each other to place their surplus funds. REUTERS

WASHINGTON: The US will become a net oil exporter late this year as domestic crude production surpasses imports for the first time in 18 years, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said yesterday.

Helped by a surge in shale-based output in North Dakota and Texas, monthly crude production has pushed past seven million barrels a day and could reach eight million barrels a day by the beginning of 2014.

Imports meanwhile have dropped below eight million barrels a day and should fall below domestic output by the end of 2013, the EIA said.

The EIA said that based on current projections, by the end of 2014 the US could be producing two million barrels a day more than it imports, a huge turnaround in the country that, until China passed it just recently, was the world’s largest oil importer.

The “unconventional” recovery of oil from dense rock strata like shale has driven a leap in domestic production in the past three years. Average production rose from 5.5 million barrels a day for the full year 2010 to 6.5 million last year and is projected to average 7.3 million this year.

Imports meanwhile have fallen from 9.2 million barrels in 2010 to a forecast average of 7.6 million for this year.

The gains in US crude production, as well as that of Canada, have contributed to softer global prices and cut into sales by the Opec oil cartel, for decades the dominant power in world energy markets.

Last week Opec, which accounted for around 35 percent of world supply in 2012, raised its expectation of production growth by non-Opec suppliers in 2013 by 11 percent to 1.0 million bar-rels a day, with the growth mainly coming from North America.

“As in the previous year, US oil supply in 2013 is expected to achieve the highest growth among all non-Opec countries,” the report said.

Last November the International Energy Agency predicted that rising production could by 2020 push the United States past powerhouse Saudi Arabia as the world’s largest oil pro-ducer, topping 11 million barrels a day, also counting natural gas liquids as well as crude.

Meanwhile, Andarko Petroleum announced on Tuesday that it had made a major discovery in deepwater Gulf of Mexico with its Shenandoah-2 well. AFP

US oil output to surpass imports this year: EIA

DMCC to launch Islamic commodity trade platform

BRENT

$108.84

DUBAI

$107.18

QATAR EXCHANGE | DAILY TRADING REPORT | 20-03-2013

INTERNATIONAL MARKETS A List of Shares from the worldCOMPANY 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

COMPANY CLOSE NET VOLUME NAME CHG TRADED

COMPANY CLOSE NET VOLUME NAME CHG TRADED

A B G INFRA-B/d 48.4 -4.4 5595

A C C-A/d 1148.15 -47.95 44444

AARTI DRUGS-B/d 191.05 -6.05 3615

ABAN OFFS-B/d 272.45 -10.4 41040

ADOR WELDING-B/d 115.1 -1.95 1657

AEGIS LOGIS-B/d 128.3 -6.55 17127

AHMED.FORG-B/d 115.15 -2.7 28971

ALEMBIC-B/d 16.7 0.1 51817

ALOK INDUS-B/d 7.69 0.01 1481806

ANDHRA PAPER-B/d 181.3 -3.5 18521

APOLLO TYRE-A/d 83.5 -1.15 113696

ASAHI I GLASS-/d 49.3 -2.4 61656

ASHOK LEYLAND-/d 22.65 -0.45 329198

BAJAJ HOLD-A/d 902.45 9.2 1571

BALLARPUR IN-B/d 17.25 -0.35 23982

BANNARI AMAN-B/d 900.05 0.05 2271

BATA INDIA-A/d 696.6 -16.55 39487

BAYER CROP-A/d 1080.5 -5.05 1929

BEML LTD-B/d 163.25 -9.45 41166

BHANSALI ENG-B/d 13.48 -0.07 3815

BHARAT BIJLE-B/d 457.05 -3.75 3417

BHARATGEARS-B/d 38.6 -1.4 2080

BHARTIYA INT-B/d 205.9 -4.2 9017

BHEL-A/d 182.15 -4.15 713824

BOM.BURMAH-B/d 106.7 -5.95 17063

BOMBAY DYEING-/d 85.2 -3.45 140533

CABLE CORP.-B/d 18.75 -0.25 2057

CANFIN HOMES-B/d 146.85 -5.9 5061

CASTROL IND-A/d 311.25 -9.85 25821

CENTURY ENKA-B/d 100.3 -6.9 43561

CENTURY TEXT-A/d 293.65 -2.25 143222

CHAMBAL FERT-B/d 48.9 -2.85 246705

CHOLA INVEST-B/d 274.5 -6 3069

CHOWGULE ST-B/d 11 -0.33 10656

CIPLA-A/d 388.9 5.65 340082

CITY UNION BK-/d 52.05 -0.5 52536

CMC LTD-B/d 1306.95 -23.65 1540

COLGATE-A/d 1317.4 -15 8690

DAI-BICHI KAR-/d 40.8 -0.95 1401

DCM SHRAM IND-/d 39.1 -1.25 14014

DHAMPUR SUGAR-/d 44 -2.9 15092

DR. REDDY-A/d 1799.75 5.45 7743

E I H-B/d 58.25 -1.55 14330

E.I.D PARRY-B/d 156.7 -6.45 10586

EICHER MOTOR-A/d 2752.15 2.15 3320

ELECTROSTEEL-B/d 18.3 -0.2 130948

EMCO-B/d 20.3 -0.95 233856

ESCORTS-B/d 53.85 -1.35 146701

ESSAR OIL-A/d 77 -2.4 944252

EVEREADY INDU-/d 18 0.9 296439

F D C-B/d 91.8 -0.4 7797

FEDERAL BANK-A/d 480.45 -6.85 20227

FERRO ALLOYS-B/d 5.47 -0.1 13753

FINOLEX-B/d 94.5 -0.7 148086

FORBES-B/d 639.85 10.85 16578

GAIL-A/d 318.65 -3.75 64743

GAMMON INDIA-B/d 23.4 -1.75 42666

GARDEN P -B/d 51 -1 5426

GOODRICKE-B/d 130.6 -0.75 2304

GOODYEAR I -B/d 253.2 -11.85 6084

HCL INFOSYS-B/d 38 -1 150500

HIM.FUT.COMM-B/d 7.87 -0.33 268551

HIMAT SEIDE-B/d 32.75 -0.55 13342

HIND MOTORS-B/d 8.98 -0.38 150933

HIND ORG CHEM-/d 11.42 -0.68 63419

HIND UNILEVER-/d 468.7 15.3 173666

HIND.PETROL-A/d 291.9 -1.5 71653

HINDALCO-A/d 90.4 -2.6 1270089

HOUS DEV FIN-A/d 780.95 -3.2 45032

I F C I-A/d 26.65 -1 3183402

IDBI-A/d 83.15 -2.55 333848

IFB AGRO-B/d 157.55 -7.55 1349

IFB IND.LTD.-B/d 83 -1.95 39234

INDIA CEMENT-B/d 82.55 -1.75 89254

INDIA GLYCOL-B/d 127.7 -2.65 14992

INDIAN CARD-B/d 104.8 -1 1773

INDIAN HOTEL-A/d 54.65 -0.75 147892

INDO-BCOUNT-B/d 11.2 0.29 1824

INDUSIND-A/d 403.4 -6 183277

J.B.CHEMICAL-B/d 74.85 -5.55 24558

JAGATJIT IND-B/d 50.55 -1 4529

JAGSON PHAR-B/d 10.3 -0.69 1676

JBF INDU-B/d 99.75 -2.1 20838

JCT ELECT P -B/d 0.38 -0.01 34100

JCT LTD-B/d 0.98 -0.05 96576

JENSON&NICH.-B/d 2.99 -0.26 13243

JIK INDUST-B/d 1.1 -0.05 25663

JINDAL DRILL-B/d 202.8 -4.2 1503

JKTYRE&IND-B/d 102.85 3.55 27251

KABRA EXTR-B/d 28 -0.25 6704

KAJARIA CER-B/d 187.65 4.05 35466

KALPAT POWER-B/d 74.9 -3.5 15834

KALYANI STEL-B/d 38.05 -1.7 26571

KG DENIM-B/d 13.72 -0.22 6773

KILBURNENGG-B/d 11.99 0 4760

KIN.MOTOR-B/d 7.65 -0.3 11455

KLG SYSTEL-B/d 13.51 -0.46 4135

KOPRAN-B/d 14 -0.4 176501

LAKSHMI ELEC-B/d 150.1 -2.6 1552

LAKSHMI MACH-B/d 1915.6 -75.2 5229

LAXMI PRCISN-B/d 27.05 -1.95 2635

LLOYD STEEL-B/d 11.2 -0.15 294378

LLOYDSFIN.-B/d 0.89 -0.02 5257

LOK.HOUS&CON-B/d 16.9 -0.85 58093

LUPIN-A/d 626.55 6.9 89723

LYKA LABS-B/d 9.03 -0.15 13179

MAFATLAL IND-B/d 104.5 0.5 14002

MAHA SCOOTER-B/d 396.05 -12.9 4685

MAX INDIA L-A/d 218.7 -4.95 48945

MRPL-A/d 52.25 0.4 102045

NAGREEKA EX-B/d 18.3 -1.4 1331

NAHAR SPG.-B/d 71.5 -5 5805

NATH SEEDS-B/d 4.62 0.26 1612

NATION ALUM -A/d 37.1 -0.7 222791

NAVNEET PUB.-B/d 58.35 -1.65 145258

NEPC INDIA-B/d 2 -0.04 5120

NEULAND LAB-B/d 92 4.2 8438

NRB BEARINGS-B/d 31.35 -1.1 21253

O N G C-A/d 301.15 -8.55 263822

OCL INDIA-B/d 149.1 -1.35 21598

ORCHID CHEM-B/d 67.45 -6.6 594033

ORIENT.CARB.-B/d 94.8 0.1 35547

ORIENT.CARB.-B/d 94.8 0.1 35547

PATSPIN INDIA-/d 3.99 -0.93 183743

RADICO KHAIT-B/d 131.85 -2.2 120074

RALLIS INDIA-B/d 117.3 -2.35 25478

RALLIS INDIA-B/d 117.3 -2.35 25478

RELIANCE INDUS/d 333.6 -12.4 49642

RUCHI SOYA-B/d 65.7 4.6 235876

TIMEXGROUP-B/d 14.55 -1.2 53896

UB ENGINEER-T/d 23.05 -0.55 13892

UB ENGINEER-T/d 23.05 -0.55 13892

UCAL FUEL-B/d 51.4 -3.75 10115

UCAL FUEL-B/d 51.4 -3.75 10115

UNITECH P -A/d 24.75 -1.9 7259683

3I GROUP/d 321.8 0.3 728708

ASSOC.BR.FOODS/d 1889 10 187442

B SKY B/d 892.5 -7 959663

BARCLAYS/d 297.1 -0.4 24816058

BG GROUP/d 1178 -9 2168535

BP/d 449.35 -0.35 6791928

BRIT AM TOBACC/d 3522.5 16 945739

BT GROUP/d 273.2 3.2 4314614

CENTRICA/d 350.9 -4.1 4089022

GKN/d 274.744 2.6 2061214

HSBC HOLDINGS/d 718.5 2.1 7478882

IMPERIAL TOBAC/d 2355.443 14 547675

KINGFISHER/d 286 -0.5 1922310

LAND SECS GROU/d 819.5 5 360715

LEGAL & GENERA/d 170.6 0.2 3456643

LLOYDS BNK GRP/d 49.27 -0.135 56314715

MARKS & SP./d 392.8 -5.3 1698570

NEXT/d 4142 32 312666

PEARSON/d 1172 -19 2551142

PRUDENTIAL/d 1112 2 1434946

RANK GROUP/d 175.65 -0.4 45199

RENTOKIL INITI/d 99.45 0.55 1594458

ROLLS ROYCE PL/d 1123 14 2149690

RSA INSRANCE G/d 117.6 2.3 6393306

SAINSBURY(J)/d 373.9 2.5 6194039

SCHRODERS/d 2128 30 189438

SEVERN TRENT/d 1660 -13 165282

SMITH&NEPHEW/d 739 -0.5 464001

SMITHS GROUP/d 1319 1 598623

STANDRD CHART /d 1728 7.5 950037

TATE & LYLE/d 843 5 321978

TESCO/d 381.4 1.35 4301013

UNILEVER/d 2768 15 1017965

UNITED UTIL GR/d 698.5 3 2461266

VODAFONE GROUP/d 186.3 -1.3 30918575

WHITBREAD/d 2567 -4 89674

LONDON

EXCHANGE RATE

GOLD & SILVERWORLD STOCK INDICES

CRUDE OIL

Buying Selling

QE Market Summary Comparison Today Previous day

20-03-2013 19-03-2013

Index 8,578.37 8,570.14

Change 8.23 44.00

% 0.10 0.51

YTD% 2.63 2.53

Volume 2,992,836 5,636,569

Value (QAR) 140,362,435.88 317,128,950.72

Trades 2,102 4,231

Up 14 | Down 18 | Unchanged 05

INDEX Day’s Close Pt Chg % Chg Year High Year Low

20 MARKETTHURSDAY 21 MARCH 2013

www.thepeninsulaqatar.com

GOLDQR188.7473

SILVERQR 3.3895

US$ ..........................QR 3.6305 QR 3.6500

UK ...........................QR 5.4615 QR 5.5377

Euro .........................QR 4.6832 QR 4.7482

CA$ ..........................QR 3.5199 QR 3.5895

Swiss Fr ..................QR 3.8311 QR 3.8852

Yen ..........................QR 0.0378 QR 0.0385

Aus$ ........................QR 3.7450 QR 3.8195

Ind Re ......................QR 0.0664 QR 0.0678

Pak Re .....................QR 0.0367 QR 0.0375

Peso ........................QR 0.0886 QR 0.0904

SL Re .......................QR 0.0285 QR 0.0292

Taka .........................QR 0.0460 QR 0.0469

Nep Re ....................QR 0.0417 QR 0.0425

SA Rand ..................QR 0.3874 QR 0.3968

All Ordinaries 4982.559 -21.797 -0.44 5174.4 4664.6

Cac 40 Index/D 3811.81 36.06 0.96 3871.58 3600.81

Dj Indu Average 14455.82 0 0 14539.3 12035.1

Egypt Cma Gn Idx 1026.29 32.57 3.28 999.95 312.38

Hang Seng Inde/D 22256.44 214.58 0.97 23944.74 21997.72

Iseq Overall/D 3981.24 44.64 1.13 3960.4 3396.67

Karachi 100 In/D 17753.97 60.6 0.34 18312.65 16036.31

Nikkei 225 Index 12468.23 247.6 2.03 12560.95 10398.61

S&P 500 Index/D 0 0 0 1563.62 1266.74

Straits Times/D 3248.4 -20.73 -0.63 3319.19 3160.83

Straits Times/D 2989.31 24.69 0.83 3035.78 2657.77

QE Indices SummaryQE Index 8,578.37 0.10 %

QE Total Return Index 12,111.41 0.10 %

QE Al Rayan Islamic Index 2,560.85 0.19 %

QE All Share Index 2,151.97 0.13 %

QE All Share Banks & Financial Services

2,044.15 0.17 %

QE All Share Consumer Goods & Services

5,176.54 0.03 %

QE All Share Industrials 2,929.61 0.46 %

QE All Share Insurance 1,911.63 0.63 %

QE All Share Real Estate 1,528.85 0.10 %

QE All Share Telecoms 1,171.29 0.21 %

QE All Share Transportation 1,482.93 0.53 %

23SPORT THURSDAY 21 MARCH 2013

www.thepeninsulaqatar.com

Dominicans reign supremePuerto Rico lose 3-0 in the all-Caribbean World Baseball Classic final SAN FRANCISCO: The Dominican Republic capped off an unbeaten campaign by defeating Caribbean neighbours Puerto Rico 3-0 to win the World Baseball Classic yesterday.

The Dominicans made up for their first-round exit in the 2009 tournament by taking their record to 8-0 after the title game, five pitchers combining for a three-hit shutout on a rainy, chilly night at AT&T Park before a crowd of more than 35,000.

Closer Fernando Rodney struck out Luis Figueroa for the final out to spark a celebration on the mound which continued with the players parading a huge Dominican flag around the field.

Robinson Cano was named Most Valuable Player of the tour-nament after hitting .469 with two home runs, six runs batted in and six runs scored. The New York Yankees second baseman later fielded a phone call from the president of the Dominican Republic.

After Cano handed the phone off to Jose Reyes at the post-game news conference, he was asked how he felt about returning to spring training after experiencing the high of WBC triumph.

“Tonight we’re going to cel-ebrate. Tomorrow we’re going to celebrate and Thursday we’ll worry about spring training,” Cano said with a laugh.

The Dominicans wasted no time getting on the scoreboard with a two-run double by Edwin Encarnacion off losing pitcher Giancarlo Alvarado giving them a 2-0 lead in the first inning before they added another run in the fifth on Erick Aybar’s double.

Starter Samuel Deduno and four relievers stifled the Puerto Rican lineup in a decisive vic-tory that made the Dominicans champions of baseball’s top inter-national tournament.

Rain started falling at the start of the fourth and had picked up intensity by the bottom half of the inning, sending some fans to seek shelter while others donned ponchos and began cracking open umbrellas.

Footing became a problem for the players on the diamond dur-ing the middle innings with the grounds crew called out to repair

Pakistan fall back on kabaddi to build rugbyLAHORE, Pakistan: Pakistan’s rugby union chiefs are hoping to exploit the tra-ditional tag-wrestling sport of kabaddi as they try to boost the game and build the coun-try’s fledgling international team.

Kabaddi, in which players hold their breath and try to tag an opponent before making it back to their half of the field, involves many of the skills needed for rugby -- speed, strength, tackling and evasive running.

In a country where anything other than cricket struggles to get a look in, the Pakistan Rugby Union (PRU) has grown rapidly since it was founded 10 years ago and now boasts more than 3,000 regular players.

And after the launch of a new “Super League” last month, PRU president Fawzi Khawaja said he now hopes to tap the reservoir of kabaddi talent.

The traditional team sport is very popular, particularly in Punjab, and last year Pakistan were winners of the Asia Cup and runners-up in the World Cup against arch-rivals India.

But Khawaja said that while there were national-level kabaddi players in the police rugby team, it was hard to lure people from what is a lucratively paid profes-sional sport.

“If and when we can graduate to paying our players I’m sure we can attract a lot of kabaddi play-ers,” he said.

The new league started on a sunny spring Sunday in Lahore, Pakistan’s second largest city. The posts were lengths of bam-boo taped to football goals and the groundsmen were still paint-ing lines on the pitch 10 minutes before kick-off.

But the competition in the four-team top division was fierce, with the opening round pitting the Army against Lahore, and Islamabad against the Defence Housing Association, a govern-ment department team.

While the Lahore-Army clash showed some early-season rusti-ness, fumbles and tactical naivety, the game was also packed with blood-curdling tackles, two sin-binnings and a suspected dislo-cated shoulder. AFP

the pitcher’s mound and home plate area.

The rain lightened up later in the game and salsa music contin-ued to blare from the bandstand beyond the bleachers, punctuated by air horns and drums played by the fans themselves.

By then, the Dominicans were in command.

Jose Reyes led off the game for them by cracking a long double off the brick wall in right and moving up on a sacrifice bunt by Erick Aybar. After an intentional walk to Cano, Encarnacion dou-bled to right-center scoring both baserunners.

They added some cushion in the fifth with help from a field-ing gaffe by Puerto Rican second baseman Irving Falu.

After an infield single by Alejandro De Aza, Reyes grounded

to Falu, who stood with the ball as De Aza stopped in the middle of the baseline.

Instead of going toward him to tag him out, Falu threw to first base in hopes of getting a double play, but De Aza made it safely to second and scored on a double by Aybar to make it 3-0.

Reliever Pedro Strop squelched a potential Puerto Rican rally in the seventh after a lead-off single by Mike Aviles and a walk to Alex Rios issued by Octavio Dotel.

Strop struck out Carlos Rivera and Andy Gonzalez and retired Jesus Feliciano on a twisting catch of a foul pop by third base-man Miguel Tejada to end the threat.

“Obviously, we wanted to win,” said Puerto Rico manager Edwin Rodriguez. REUTERS

Dominican Republic’s Robinson

Cano, the tour-nament MVP,

and teammate Jose Reyes

(right) celebrate their win.

Dominican Republic relief pitcher Fernando Rodney (centre) is flanked by Jose Reyes (left) and Miguel Tejada and other team-mates as they celebrate after defeating Puerto Rico to win the World Baseball Classic final in San Francisco, California, yesterday.

Pens’ extend winning streak to 10PITTSBURGH: Matt Niskanen’s goal and a key penalty kill kept the Pittsburgh Penguins’ winning streak going.

Niskanen scored the go-ahead goal in the third period and Sidney Crosby had two assists and Pittsburgh Penguins extended their winning streak to 10 games with a 2-1 victory over the Washington Capitals yes-terday. Goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury made 28 saves in his NHL-leading 16th win of the season.

Crosby picked up his league-leading 36th and 37th assists for the Penguins, who were with-out reigning MVP Evgeni Malkin (shoulder) for the sixth game in a row. The Penguins were also without defenseman Kris Letang (lower body injury).

“Obviously it’s an impor-tant time in the game and I thought the penalty kill did an amazing job of stepping up to the chal-lenge,” Niskanen said. AGENCIES

Indiana Pacers’ for-ward Paul George

(right) drives on Orlando Magic forward Maurice Harkless dur-

ing the second half of their NBA game in Indianapolis, Indiana,

yesterday.

NBA: Nuggets silence ThunderOKLAHOMA CITY, Oklahoma: Ty Lawson scored 25 points and Andre Miller added 20 off the bench to spark the Denver Nuggets to their 13th NBA victory in a row, a 114-104 triumph yesterday at Oklahoma City.

Kenneth Faried added 13 points and 15 rebounds for the Nuggets, who improved to 47-22 and closed their gap on the Northwest divi-sion-leading Thunder to 50-18.

The Nuggets’ win streak set a record for the team’s NBA his-tory, although the club has its roots in the now-defunct rival American Basketball Association where they once won 15 games in a row.

NBA scoring leader Kevin

Durant netted 34 points for Oklahoma City and Russell Westbrook added 25 in a losing cause. It was only the fifth home loss of the season for the Thunder.

While the reigning NBA cham-pion Miami Heat have run off the second-longest win streak in NBA history at 23 games, the Nuggets have enjoyed their success in rela-tive anonymity.

“Miami can have all that atten-tion. We don’t need it right now,” Faried said.

“We want to keep the streak going. We’re not content at all. We want to play each and every game like it’s our last.

“While they want to keep their streak going loudly, we want to keep our streak going quietly.”

The Nuggets opened the second half with an 11-2 run for a 76-68 lead and held off the Thunder down the stretch to secure the victory. Denver players listened to an inspiration speech by coach George Karl before the game to win for the second time in as many days.

“Before the game, he said, ‘This team says they are the best in the West. Everybody that gets in, play their hardest and contribute,’” Faried said. AFP

NHL ResultsNY Rangers 3 New Jersey 2

Ottawa 5 NY Islanders 3

Florida 4 Carolina 1

Columbus 4 Nashville 3

Buffalo 3 Montreal 2

Pittsburgh 2 Washington 1

Winnipeg 3 Boston 1

Vancouver 3 St Louis 2

Los Angeles 3 Phoenix 2

NBA ResultsIndiana 95 Orlando 73

Milwaukee 102 Portland 95

Denver 114 Oklahoma City 104

Sacramento 116 LA Clippers 101

SPORT24 THURSDAY 21 MARCH 2013

www.thepeninsulaqatar.com

DOHA: The 11th International Friendly Tournament will begin from today the Qatar Football Association (QFA) announced here yesterday.

Addressing a press conference on the eve of the tournament, the organisers informed that four teams namely hosts Qatar, Morocco, Turkey and Iran will be taking part in the tournament.

All the matches of the tournament will take place at Grand Hamad Stadium of Al Arabi Sports Club.

The tournament will follow a round-robin schedule in which each team meets all other teams in turn.

Kick-starting the tournament today will be the match between Morocco vs Iran, fol-lowed by Qatar vs Turkey. On March 23, Iran will take on Qatar and Turkey will play against Morocco. The tournament will con-clude on March 25 with Qatar competing against Morocco and Iran against Turkey.

“The tournament organised for the U-23 teams is an excellent opportunity for the teams to showcase their talent and sports-manship, making them the ideal role model for the youth of Doha,” said Hamad Saleh Al Mannai, Chairman of the organising committee.

“The winning team will get $50,000, besides there are four different awards: Best Player Award, Best Goalkeeper Award, Best Team, and Top Scorer,” he added.

Khalid Al Kuwari, Director of Marketing and Communications, QFA said: “We are very pleased to organize and promote the tournament once again to allow the U-23 teams to exhibit their skills This is another testimony for QFA to demonstrate our commitment to developing the skills of the young football stars locally and regionally.”

“Fans can enter the stadium for free as QFA has decided not to charge fans for tick-ets,” the QFA official said.

“We are expecting Iranian, the Moroccan and Turkish communities to come and sup-port their Olympic squads,” he added.

Coached by Dutchman Marcel Van Buuren, the Qatar Olympic squad is cur-rently busy with extensive training pro-gramme ahead of the tournament. Backroom

staff involving coach Van Burren, Joseph Adam, Hassan Ibraheem and Mohammed Zayed are busy dealing with player training. The squad is undergoing physical fitness tests and training drills every day.

Qatar Squad: Abdul Aziz Ansari, Yahya Saleh Bader, Musab Kamal, Muhannad Naeem, Hilal Mohammed, Abdul Rahman Al Nasser, Hisham Kamal, Ahmed Saleh, Abdulla Maarfee, Younis Yaqoob, Ahmed Fathi, Ahmed Yousef, Nasser Khalfan, Mohammed Khalifa Al Kuwari, Abdul Ghani Munir, Ali Ahmed Qadri, Fahd Younis, Mohamed Shaaban, Ahmed Fadel, Saud Al Khater, Hamad Al Obeidi, Abdullah Alawi, Mohammed Saleh, Ahmed Alaa, Mohamed Alaa Abdel Megid, Sayyaf Karbi and Saeed Al Haj. THE PENINSULA

Four-nation International Friendly Tournament begins in Doha today

Marcel Van Buuren (centre), coach of Qatar Olympic team speaking to journalists during a press conference in Doha, yesterday, ahead of the Qatar International Friendly tournament which begins today. Ali Al Salat (left), Media Coordinator at Qatar Football Federation, and Hamad Al Obaidi, captain of Qatar team are also seen. PHOTO BY: KAMMUTTY VP

International Friendly Tournament Fixtures

March 21: Morocco vs Iran 5.00pm

Qatar vs Turkey, 7.15pm

March 23: Qatar vs Iran,5.00pm

Turkey vs Morocco, 7.15pm

March 25: Qatar vs Morocco,5.00pm

Iran vs Turkey, 7.15pm

Venue: All matches at Grand Hamad Stadium

Demanding circuit to test the driversF1 teams arrive at Sepang for race twoKUALA LUMPUR: Kimi Raikkonen ignited the Formula One season with a stunning win in Australia but the “Iceman” will feel heat from his rivals this weekend at the notoriously demanding Malaysian Grand Prix.

Masterful tyre-management in a surprisingly quick Lotus put the colourful Finn top of the podium in Melbourne, with Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso second and Sebastian Vettel, gunning for his fourth straight world title, third.

“Finntastic” trumpeted Australian press, and “Finn puts party back into Formula 1”, as media welcomed a challenge to the accepted order at the start of the new season.

Three championships in three years have already placed Red Bull’s German pilot Vettel, 25, among the sport’s greats, but the return of the party-loving Raikkonen, world champion with Ferrari in 2007, has proved invigorating.

And after rain storms wiped out Saturday qualifying in

Australia, teams will be braced for another tough weekend at Malaysia’s Sepang Circuit, where tropical downpours played havoc last year and in 2009.

A year ago, Raikkonen marked his return to Malaysia after a two-year stint in rallying by handing out ice-creams, a nod to an episode on his previous visit in 2009, when he coolly snacked on a Magnum during a rain delay.

The 33-year-old has twice been a winner on the long straights and tight hairpins of the Sepang cir-cuit, built on former jungle near the Malaysian capital, but has also failed to finish four times and was fifth last year.

His ability to maintain Pirelli’s new, deliberately fast-wearing tyres was critical in Melbourne, but he will face an entirely dif-ferent test in Malaysia’s heat, humidity and possible rain come race day Sunday.

“I had a good feeling that we would be OK with the tyres after practice,” Raikkonen told the team website after the Australian race.

“The team got the strategy perfect. Apart from maybe Force India I don’t think the others looked like they could do the same thing.”

Lotus boss Eric Boullier admit-ted it was team policy to give leeway to the famously brusque Raikkonen, who memorably snapped “Just leave me alone, I know what I’m doing”, over the team radio last year en route to victory in Abu Dhabi.

“I don’t think there is anybody on earth who can tell Kimi what he should do, so I am not going to start,” Boullier said, according to the Autosport website.

Vettel will hope to do better with his tyres in the warmer conditions and put his stamp on the season much earlier than in 2012, when he did not win until the fourth race and trailed in the standings as late as October.

“We had a good day with a pole and a podium -- but in the race we were a little too aggressive with the tyres and lost the front and the rears, while others did a little better,” Vettel said. AFP

Ferrari Formula One driver Fernando Alonso of Spain rides his bicycle at the Sepang International Circuit, ahead of the Malaysia F1 Grand Prix in Sepang, yesterday.

Pennetta sets up Serena clash in MiamiMIAMI: Italy’s Flavia Pennetta booked herself a second round clash with World No. 1 Serena Williams at the WTA and ATP Masters Miami hardcourt event after a 6-4, 6-1 first-round vic-tory yesterday over Swede Johanna Larsson.

Pennetta, ranked 103rd, will meet Williams tomorrow in a second-round match at the $8.5m event, which awarded byes to all 32 seeded players in both the men’s and women’s draws.

The third-round foe for Williams if she beats Pennetta will be either 31st seed Yanina Wickmayer of Belgium or Japan’s Ayumi Morita, who outlasted Britain’s Heather Watson 1-6, 7-5, 6-4.

Williams will try to become the first six-time winner at Miami in her first event since reclaim the top ranking, while World No. 1 Novak Djokovic of Serbia tries to claim his fourth Miami crown.

Williams, a 15-time Grand Slam singles champion, won at Miami in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2007 and 2008.

Williams’ 19th-seeded sister Venus, a former World No. 1 with seven Grand Slam singles crowns, will open against Japan’s Kimiko Date-Krumm, who ousted South Africa’s Chanelle Scheepers 6-2, 6-0.

Defending champion and fourth seed Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland will open against Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-Wei, who downed Ukraine’s Lesia Tsurenko 6-4, 7-6 (17/15). AFP

WTA and ATP Masters Miami Results

MIAMI: Results on Tuesday from the first day of the $8.5m WTA and ATP Masters Miami hardcourt tournament:

Women First Round: Ajla Tomljanovic (CRO) bt Ksenia Pervak (KAZ) 6-2, 6-2; Hsieh Su-Wei (TPE) bt Lesia Tsurenko (UKR) 6-4, 7-6 (17/15); Ayumi Morita (JPN) bt Heather Watson (GBR) 1-6, 7-5, 6-4; Kristina Mladenovic (FRA) bt Aleksandra Wozniak (CAN) 7-5, 6-2; Irina-Camelia Begu (ROM) bt Marina Erakovic (NZL) 6-1, 4-6, 6-4; Flavia Pennetta (ITA) bt Johanna Larsson (SWE) 6-4, 6-1; Kiki Bertens (NED) bt Anna Tatishvili (GEO) 6-0, 1-0, retired; Peng Shuai (CHN) bt Sofia Arvidsson (SWE) 6-3, 6-2; Kimiko Date-Krumm (JPN) bt Chanelle Scheepers (RSA) 6-2, 6-0; Andrea Petkovic (GER) bt Bojana Jovanovski (SRB) 6-3, 6-1.

Chinese Ye enters the record booksBEIJING: Twelve-year-old Ye Wocheng became the youngest golfer to qualify for a European Tour event when the Chinese schoolboy survived a late wob-ble to grab a place at the Volvo China Open yesterday.

Ye’s two round two-under-par total of 142 at the Western China qualifier earned him a spot at the May 2-5 European and OneAsia Tour event and his participation will see him better the mark of his compatriot Guan Tianlang, who competed last year as a 13-year-old.

The amateur who lives in the industrial city of Donggaun in Guangdong province and is a

member of the local Hillview Golf Club had his father caddying for him as he belied his age and lack of experience to claim one of the three places on offer.

After shooting an opening four-under 68 on Tuesday, Ye raced to the turn in his second round leading the field on seven-under after four birdies yesterday, but the pressure began to tell on a tumultuous back nine. Shots were dropped at the 11th and 14th before he appeared to settle down with a birdie two at the 15th only to rack up a horror eight at the par five 16th. The 19th edition of the Volvo China Open will take place in north-east China. REUTERS

US reduce 2014 Ryder Cup captain’s picks to threeMIAMI: The United States are trimming their captain’s selec-tions for the 2014 team to face holders Europe from four to three players, Ryder Cup cap-tain Tom Watson said yesterday.

“Giving our players one more opportunity to earn a spot on merit, I believe, is the right thing to do,” Watson was quoted as say-ing on the official Ryder Cup web-site (www.rydercup.com).

Watson will take the top nine players from the Ryder Cup standings and make his three picks ahead of the 40th Ryder Cup. REUTERS

Tiger Woods of the United States during the pro-am for the 2013 Arnold Palmer Invitational Presented by Mastercard at Bay Hill Golf and Country Club in Orlando, Florida, yesterday.

25SPORT THURSDAY 21 MARCH 2013

www.thepeninsulaqatar.com

Hussey, Ponting rule out Ashes return SYDNEY: Ricky Ponting and Mike Hussey yesterday ruled out shock comebacks to the Australian Test ranks for the Ashes tour of England after the team’s troubled series in India.

With Australia 3-0 down in India and the first of back-to-back Ashes series rapidly approaching, coach Mickey Arthur has indicated he would be open to Hussey returning to the national set-up.

But the 37-year-old, who bowed out of Test cricket in January, said while he was flat-tered to be considered, he had retired from the international game.

“It’s extremely flattering,” said the 79-Test veteran, who has been in fine form for Western Australia in the domestic Sheffield Shield.

“But I’ve moved on and I really don’t want to be back in that pressure-cooker environ-ment, particularly leading into the Ashes. It’s going to be an extremely stressful time for all the boys. I’m really looking for-ward to having a winter at home and just having some time with the family and being part of some normal life.”

On top of trailing the series in India, there has been mas-sive upheaval in the team with the suspensions of Shane Watson, James Pattinson, Usman Khawaja and Mitchell Johnson for indiscipline.

Vice-captain Watson has returned to the fold after being axed for one Test but skipper Michael Clarke remains short of experience leading into the

Ashes, having leaned heavily on Ponting until he called it quits last December.

Like Hussey, Ponting has been in sparkling form since quitting international cricket in December after 17 years and 168 Tests and was yesterday named the Sheffield Shield Player of the Year.

But the 38-year-old also ruled out a return to the Australian team.

“International cricket’s long passed me by,” he said in his Sheffield Shield accept-ance speech.Hussey suggested Twenty20 captain George Bailey

could be a good addition to the Test team for the Ashes.

“He’s done well in the one-day arena for Australia and he knows his game pretty well,” Hussey told reporters.

“He’s played a lot of first-class cricket, and having that under-standing of your own game is really important when you come into the pressure-cooker situa-tion of a Test match.”

Two editions of the Ashes series against Australia are being played back-to-back this year to avoid a clash with the 2015 World Cup, with the first beginning on July 10. REUTERS

England’s Nick Compton dives during a practice session ahead of the final cricket Test against New Zealand in Auckland yesterday. The final Test begins tomorrow. The first two Tests ended in draws.

England, Kiwis eye win in third TestWe’ll find the best way to win, says Cook

England’s Graham Onions (left) and Jonny Bairstow during a fielding session in Auckland yesterday.

AUCKLAND: New Zealand and England face off in a win-ner-takes-all third and final Test this week, with both sides vowing to press for a series-clinching victory at Auckland’s Eden Park.

After rain-affected draws in Dunedin and Wellington, hopes are high for a result in the match beginning tomorrow, as New Zealand eye a rare series win and England seek to cement their position as the number-two ranked Test nation.

Clear weather is forecast for the Test and Eden Park’s drop-in wicket promises more bounce than the docile pitches seen in the opening two fixtures, which have drawn criticism from the England camp.

“In an ideal world a pitch with more pace and bounce would make for a more exciting wicket,” England captain Alastair Cook said. “But whichever pitch we get in Auckland we’ll try to find the best way to win the game.”

New Zealand, ranked eighth in Test cricket, have not won a series against England since 1999, with their sole series victory on home soil back in 1984.

Skipper Brendon McCullum, whose only other Test series since taking the helm late last year resulted in two innings defeats to South Africa, said a victory would provide a huge boost for his team.

“We go into every game try-ing to win. Certainly, for us, it’s not about trying to hang on for a draw,” he said.

“We see this as a great opportu-nity to clinch a series win against England and that’s something that we’d all hold very fondly.”

England are short-priced favourites to prevail in Auckland and anything less against the

unfancied Black Caps would be widely regarded as a failure.

Victory would also maintain their momentum with back-to-back Ashes series against Australia looming later this year, although Cook said his side had to ignore the pressure and simply play according to the conditions in Auckland.

“It’s now a one-match Test series and you can’t go into the game fretting about the outcome from the start,” he said.

“You need to set up the game then worry about the result. There are no easy matches in international cricket.”

Few pundits predicted a close series when the tourists arrived,

with England tipped to continue the dominant form they showed in India. Instead, the early tour jitters that have plagued England in recent years emerged as their powerful batting line-up self-destructed with a succession of rash shots trying to bludgeon the Black Caps into submission.

Rain delays meant New Zealand ran out of time chasing victory in Dunedin and the situ-ation was reversed in Wellington, where England had the Black Caps on the ropes only for the weather to intervene again.

Neither side are expected to make major changes to their starting teams in Auckland.

REUTERS

Stars speak at Yuvraj’s book launch in DelhiNEW DLEHI: Star India batsman Sachin Tendulkar has said he was scared of breaking down in front of Yuvraj Singh when they met in London after Yuvraj’s treatment for a rare germ cell cancer in the United States. Tendulkar was speaking in Delhi at the release of Yuvraj’s book The Test of My Life: From Cricket to Cancer and Back.

“When I went to meet him in London, I was telling my wife that I don’t want to break down when I see him,” Tendulkar said. “I met him and gave him a tight hug. We enjoyed a meal, and from the way he ate I was convinced that he was back on track.

“When I saw my wife discussing

medical terms with Yuvraj, I realised what he had been going through. He is like my younger brother and I would ask God why it (the illness) had to happen to Yuvraj.”

Yuvraj recollected his first meeting with Tendulkar.

“My first conversation was when I was looking at him in awe at the dressing room, suddenly he said, ‘please pass on the biscuits.’” To this Tendulkar replied, “I have not got those biscuits till now.”

Apart from Tendulkar, India captain MS Dhoni also spoke about Yuvraj’s fight with cancer.

Dhoni said he knew about Yuvraj’s situation even before he was told about

it. “When his test reports came, someone told me he has cancer,” Dhoni said. “I just said ‘are you sure?’ The person repeated that Yuvraj has cancer. I was shocked.”

Following his return from the US after his treatment for mediastinal seminoma, Yuvraj set up a cancer charity called Youwecan, which focuses on spreading cancer awareness and early detection.

Several players who spoke at the event in conversation with Yuvraj and Harsha Bhogle said they had seen Yuvraj cough and throw up repeatedly during the 2011 World Cup, but assumed they were throat or stomach problems.

Yuvraj was named Player of the Tournament for the World Cup and

described the moment after Dhoni hit a six to win the final for India.

“I was running towards Mahi to hug him and he was running towards the stumps,” Yuvraj said in a story posted on cricinfo.com

Dhoni had said he’d made a run for the stumps because otherwise the rest of the players would make a grab for them.

During his stay in Indianapolis for can-cer treatment, Yuvraj said he had fol-lowed India’s matches in Australia and admitted to feeling “sad” at not being involved.

“I would watch videos of my batting until one day Anil Kumble came to visit me and shut my laptop. He said I should

forget about cricket and concentrate on my recovery.” The only time Yuvraj found himself “jumping” with excitement and joy during two difficult months of chem-otherapy was on hearing about Virat Kohli’s century in Adelaide.

The India team and support staff were called onto the stage for photographs, but as the players went up Virender Sehwag stayed seated.

Yuvraj called out to him and said, “Veeru, main bhi team main nahin noon, tum bhi team main nahin ho - chal aa jaa )I’m also not in the (Test) team, you’re also not in the team - come on up).” Sehwag did with a smile on his face.

AGENCIES

SL officials raise security concern COLOMBO: Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) officials yesterday raised concerns over the safety of its national players who are to take part in the Indian Premier League (IPL) T20 tournament next month following the recent spate of attacks against Sri Lankans in Tamil Nadu.

The Sri Lanka Cricket Players’ Association (SLCPA) has writ-ten to its parent organisation, the Federation of International Cricketers’ Association (FICA), to assess the safety of its players during the IPL, starting April 3, and to determine a course of action that will ensure the crick-eters’ safety, Xinhua reports.

The IPL matches will be played in several key Indian cities, including Chennai, where ten-sions against Sri Lankans have risen after two Buddhist monks and several Sri Lankan tourists were assaulted by Tamil groups.

Ten IPL matches are scheduled to be played in Chennai.

SLCPA chairman Ken de Alwis said that the association was awaiting a response from FICA.

Following a rise in the number of incidents of violent assaults against Sri Lankans in Tamil Nadu, the Sri Lankan govern-ment on Tuesday requested all its nationals to exercise caution

when undertaking visits to Tamil Nadu. In the event of urgent vis-its, Sri Lankan nationals were requested by the government to keep the Sri Lanka Deputy High Commission in Chennai informed well in advance.

Sri Lanka’s national airline also announced Tuesday that it was halving the number of flights to south India following the inci-dents. Sri Lankan Airlines said it had observed a drop in traffic between Chennai and Colombo due to recent developments in Tamil Nadu, hence it decided to reduce frequency of flights to Chennai from 28 to 14 per week.

Meanwhile, Raipur and Ranchi will make debuts as IPL host cit-ies in the 2013 edition, according to the tournament schedule.

Raipur will act as a second home venue for Delhi Daredevils, while Ranchi will host two of Kolkata Knight Riders’ matches.

The schedule also confirmed that the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur will host all of Rajasthan Royals’ home games.

Earlier, the BCCI had relocated Royals’ games to Ahmedabad and Rajkot, following a prolonged standoff between the Rajasthan Cricket Association and the Rajasthan state sports council.

AGENCIES

Dhawan out of Delhi Test, Raina is back MUMBAI: Man-of-the-Match in the third Test, Shikhar Dhawan, was ruled out of the fourth Test against Australia, scheduled to be played in New Delhi between March 22-26, after he sustained a fracture in the left hand.

Dhawan, who hit a record breaking 187 in his maiden Test innings in Mohali, will be out of action for six weeks, announced a Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) statement late on Tuesday.

BCCI’s All India Senior Selection Committee had replaced Dhawan with Gautam Gambhir and brought in Suresh Raina to the squad for the fourth Test.

However, Gambhir was diag-nosed with jaundice after under-going a blood test earlier Tuesday. He will not take part in the fourth match.

Ajinkya Rahane is most likely to replace Dhawan as an opener while Raina might have to sit out as a change is unlikely to be made in the middle-order. India lead the ongoing series 3-0.

Squad: M S Dhoni (Captain), Murali Vijay, Cheteshwar Pujara, Sachin Tendulkar, Virat Kohli, Ravindra Jadeja, Harbhajan Singh, Ravichandran Ashwin, Pragyan Ojha, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Ajinkya Rahane, Ashok Dinda, Suresh Raina, and Ishant Sharma. REUTERS

Australian batsman Ricky Ponting (right) celebrates with his team-mate Mike Hussey after making 200 runs on day two of the fourth Test match against India in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy Series at the Adelaide Oval in this January 2012 file photo.

SPORT26THURSDAY 21 MARCH 2013

www.thepeninsulaqatar.com

DOHA: The country’s top ‘speed merchants’ will battle for the honour of the fastest driver or rider at this week’s Qatar Mile to be held at Al Khor Airstrip, a top official of Qatar Racing Club (QRC) said

“We will see who can join the 300kmh club,” Fahad Behzad, the CEO of QRC, told The Peninsula yesterday.

“This event is open to fans who loved speed. We urge fans to come with their cars, bikes or SUVs and be part of the two-day event,” Behzad said.

This week’s event will be the second leg to be hosted by QRC.

The first edition of ‘Qatar Mile’ was held at Al Khor Airstrip on November 30 and December 1.

The event opens at 9:00am and ends at 5:00pm tomorrow and the day after.

According to QRC chief, a rider or driver could have as many turns as possible to increase his or her chances of winning the top prize.

“The bottom-line is to break the 300-kmh barrier. I think this can be done,” Behzad added.

Behzad said the two-day event will be run on a simple formula: whoever drives or rides the fastest

goes home with the top cash prize in various categories.

Car events (8, 10 and 12 cyl-inders and SUVs) will be split into three categories: unlim-ited, modified and stock, Behzad informed.

The 4x4 SUV category event will also be run in similar classes, he added.

“In the bike class, the catego-ries are Bike V twin and Bike Inline,” Behzad explained.

The top QRC official said the winner in the car category will walk away with the top prize of QR 15,000 while the best rider at ‘Qatar Mile’ will go home with a cash prize of QR 10,000.

“Qatar Mile is an event designed to see who has got the fastest car in the Arab region,” event coordinator Nick Cheliotis said.

“I am sure the spectators will enjoy seeing the cars and bikes on the track,” Cheliotis added.

“We have also made arrange-ment for family fan. It will be a great day out for the family,” he said.

“The reason we have taken the event to the Al Khor Airstrip is because we have a larger area to play with.

“At the Qatar Racing Club track, we organise (drag) races that are run for 400 metres. At the Al Khor Airstrip, our speed fans will race over a distance of 800 metres,” Cheliotis explained.

“Besides the bigger space avail-able to us, we opted for the Al Khor Airstrip because of the asphalt surface. For the event like the ‘Qatar Mile’, this surface will encourage speeding,” Cheliotis explained.

“We are expecting a large crowd since this event is for everyone who loves speed. We have arranged for more than 1000 VIP seats.

“Catering is taken care of for the participants as well as the fans who turn up at the venue,” Cheliotis said.

Behzad said entry fee for those taking part is fixed at QR 200.

He said owners of Harley Davidsons, Ducati or Suzuki bikes are expected to register for the event. Entry for the public is free, Behzad said.

Auto Gyro plane show is also part of the two-day event.

QRC hosted its inaugural edi-tion of the Qatar Mile in February 2009 in which over 100 overseas and local racers took part.

Behzad said the event is open

to fans from across the region though he expected mostly Qatari entries in action in the first round.

“Our message to motor sport fans is whoever is interested in racing without inhibitions, should come and join us at the Al Khor Airstrip.

“Our venue is the place for you to test your skills and race against others,” Behzad added.

“We are doing this because we want speed riding done in a secure environment. We don’t want youngsters speeding on roads and streets in the city,” he added.

“You are a professional or an amateur does not matter. All you have to do is bring your car or bike and we will see if you can take your vehicle on to our cir-cuit,” Behzad said.

The QRC official said every car entry has to undergo a technical inspection before it is allowed to take part in the event.

“We have made arrangements to make the outing at QRC a fun time for fans of all ages,” Behzad said.

Drifting and Freestyle Drifting are some of the other events organised by QRC.

THE PENINSULA

Riders get ready with their bikes at the first round of Qatar Mile, an event for ‘speed merchants’ in the country and the region. The second leg will be held tomorrow and the day after.

Second leg of Qatar Mile at Al Khor Airstrip this week

Eljaish edge Lekhwiya to reach Qatar Stars Cup final

Football FixturesToday

International FriendliesItaly vs Brazil 19:30

Ecuador vs El Salvador 21:30

Tomorrow

FIFA World Cup Qualifying - European Region

Group A

Croatia vs Serbia 17:00

Macedonia vs Belgium 19:45

Scotland vs Wales 20:00

GROUP B

Bulgaria vs Malta 16:00

Czech Rep. vs Denmark 19:30

GROUP C

Kazakhstan vs Germany 18:00

Austria vs Faroe Islands 19:30

Sweden vs R of Ireland 19:45

GROUP D

Andorra vs Turkey 18:15

Hungary vs Romania 19:30

Netherlands vs Estonia 19:30

GROUP E

Slovenia vs Iceland 17:00

Norway vs Albania 18:00

GROUP F

Israel vs Portugal 12:45

Luxembourg vs Azerbaijan 19:15

Northern Ireland vs Russia 19:45

GROUP G

Liechtenstein vs Latvia 18:30

Slovakia vs Lithuania 19:10

Bosnia-H vs Greece 19:45

GROUP H

Moldova vs Montenegro 19:30

Poland vs Ukraine 19:45

San Marino vs England 20:00

GROUP I

Spain vs Finland 19:45

France vs Georgia 20:00

International FriendliesJapan vs Canada 16:00

March 23

FIFA World Cup Qualifying -

European Region GROUP E

Cyprus vs Switzerland 16:30

March 26

FIFA World Cup Qualifying -

European Region GROUP A

Serbia vs Scotland 19:30

Belgium vs Macedonia 19:45

Wales vs Croatia 19:45

GROUP B

Armenia vs Czech Rep. 16:00

Denmark vs Bulgaria 19:15

Malta vs Italy 19:45

GROUP C

Germany vs Kazakhstan 19:45

R of Ireland vs Austria 19:45

GROUP D

Estonia vs Andorra 17:00

Turkey vs Hungary 18:30

Netherlands vs Romania 19:30

GROUP F

Azerbaijan vs Portugal 17:00

Northern Ireland vs Israel 19:45

GROUP H

Ukraine vs Moldova 19:00

Poland vs San Marino 19:45

Montenegro vs England 20:00

GROUP I

France vs Spain 20:00

Anderson nets winner; Lucescu’s side to take on Al Arabi in title clashDOHA: Eljaish booked their place in the Qatar Stars Cup final with a hard-fought win over Lekhwiya.

Razvan Lucescu’s side needed 120 minutes to join Al Arabi in Sunday’s final after the match finished goalless following the regulation 90 minutes.

But a 104th minute strike from Eljaish captain Anderson made sure of victory as Eljaish gave themselves the possibility of win-ning silverware on Sunday.

Lucescu and his players will be thrilled with the evening’s work but in truth this was a match that never really got going.

Both teams struggled to find a rhythm and chances were few and far between for the entire match.

Nam Tee-He went close with a free-kick which bounced inches wide of the post after 25 min-utes. It was the first real chance of a game that had started very low-key.

The next best chance came when Karim Ziani forced a finger-tip save from Likomt Klud Amin with a terrific shot from 25 yards.

Three minutes into the second

half Ziani again threatened but after bursting into the box, his cross was clawed away by Ahmad Mohd Abel Maksoud.

With 52 minutes gone Simon Dia wasted a great chance to open the scoring but his shot from just inside the box was easily held by Zeab Hassan Alinabi.

Seu Lke Ko thought he had won the match with his low drive from the edge of the box but his shot was deflected and flew wide.

Adil Ahmed Mohamed went even closer right on the 90 minute mark with a ferocious drive that dipped and swerved before crack-ing the base of the post. It was a real let off for Eljaish and the last real chance of the game in regula-tion time.

The deadlock was finally bro-ken right at the end of the first period of extra-time. Jaish cap-tain Anderson collected a deep cross and smashed a shot into the back of the net.

That was enough to set up Sunday’s final showdown with Al Arabi, who defeated Al Gharafa 24 hours earlier.

THE PENINSULA

Brazil a good test for the Confed Cup, says BuffonMILAN: Italy will have one eye on the Confederations Cup this June when the Azzurri take on Brazil in a friendly today, says Juventus and Italy keeper Gianluigi Buffon.

In a match which also doubles as a pretext to Italy’s 2014 World Cup qualifier away to Malta on Tuesday, the Italians, four-time World Cup winners, face the five-time champions on neutral terri-tory in Geneva.

In keeping with his rejuvena-tion policy, Italy coach Cesare Prandelli could hand a first cap to on-form Torino midfielder Alessio Cerci.

Prandelli, who against all odds took Italy to the final of Euro 2012 where the Azzurri were humbled by Spain, also recalled Genoa defender Luca Antonelli almost three years after he made his debut against Estonia, in 2010.

Apart from the omission of Paris Saint Germain midfielder Marco Verrati, who levelled for Italy in a 1-1 friendly draw against the Netherlands last

month, there were few other surprises.

AC Milan striker Mario Balotelli, who has scored seven goals in six games since joining the Rossoneri from Manchester City in January, is likely to start up front, possibly with teammate Stephan El Shaarawy. For Buffon, one of several experienced heads and one of eight Juve players in the 27-man squad, the trip will not be seen as a distraction.

“The friendly will be a good test for us,” Buffon told reporters.

“We have three months to pre-pare for the Confederations Cup and we want to win it.”

While Italy top their qualifying group B on 10 points, Brazil do not take part in World Cup qualifiers as hosts of the 2014 showpiece and also the Confederations Cup later this summer.

But Luiz Felipe Scolari, who has returned for his second spell as coach of the Selecao in a bid to turn Brazil into a side capable of triumphing on home soil in 2014, needs results after a 2-1 defeat by

England at Wembley in his first game back in charge.

Selected for that game, former Barcelona and AC Milan star Ronaldinho saw a 19th minute penalty saved by England ‘keeper Joe Hart and was then withdrawn at half-time.

The former World Player of the Year has since been left at home as Scolari looks to strik-ers Neymar, of Santos, and Zenit Saint-Petersburg’s Hulk for goals.

While Scolari said Ronaldinho may well form part of his future plans, all eyes could be on Neymar -- who has so far flattered to deceive for the national team.

Brazil legend Pele recently said that while Neymar is “spectacular” with his club, “he becomes ordinary when playing for Brazil”.

Several of Brazil’s players ply their trade in the English Premier League, including midfielders Ramires and Oscar and centre-back David Luiz of Chelsea, as well as Queens Park Rangers ‘keeper Julio Cesar. AFP

Ali Sanad Al Nuaimi (centre) of Eljaish is challenged by

Lekhwiya’s Ahmad Adel Maksoud

during their Qatar Stars Cup match at Qatar Sports Club yesterday. Eljaish won 1-0. Eljaish will clash with Al

Arabi in the final on Sunday.

PICTURE BY: ABDUL BASIT

Germany to burn midnight oil in KazakhstanBERLIN: Germany’s players will be going to bed at dawn and training just before midnight as they prepare for their soc-cer World Cup qualifying game in Kazakhstan tomorrow, the team said yesterday. With a five-hour time difference between Germany and Kazakhstan, the team have been advised not to change their watches to local time once they arrive but instead stick with German time so as not to interrupt their rhythm on such a short trip.

“We have a five-hour time difference and that normally needs about five days to adapt,” said team doctor Tim Meyer. “We do not have that time and we have to go straight back to German time. Our clocks will be on German time, and the schedule with things like eating and sleeping also on German time. We have a kick-off which is good for German time but it is midnight in Kazakhstan,” Meyer said. AFP

German national team head coach Joachim Loew juggles with the ball during his team’s training session in Frankfurt Main, Germany, yesterday.

27 SPORT THURSDAY 21 MARCH 2013

www.thepeninsulaqatar.com

English soccer player David Beckham in action during a game with Chinese students of a middle school in Beijing, China, yesterday. Beckham arrived in Beijing to begin his role as China’s first global soccer ambassador.

Super-fit Beckham has no plans to quitNew Chinese Super League ambassador lands in Beijing BEIJING: Sporting legend David Beckham raised the pros-pect of one last stop on his glo-bal football journey yesterday, refusing to rule out playing in China after his contract with Paris Saint-Germain ends.

Speaking at a news conference unveiling him as an ambassador for the Chinese Super League (CSL), the former England cap-tain left open the possibility.

“I am continuing to play now. So if I continue to stay fit, if I continue to progress as a player because I still feel that I can learn from playing the game, who knows?” he said, after being asked whether he might play in China.

“People keep saying it will be my last club and my last season but I continue to play and I love playing, so we’ll see.”

Beckham, now 37 and near-ing the end of his career, joined Paris Saint-Germain in January on a short-term deal until the end of the season after leaving Los Angeles Galaxy in December.

As his time in the US drew to a close, Beckham said he wanted “one more challenge” before retiring, sparking a clamour for his signature from teams across Europe and Australia.

Chinese media reports at the time suggesting he could join the domestic league proved unfounded, but the country’s cash-rich clubs commonly make their star signings in the summer, when top overseas players become available.

He is scheduled to pay two more visits to China during the season from March to November to promote the Chinese league,

whose image has been battered by corruption scandals.

A three-year inquiry resulted last month in 33 people receiv-ing lifetime bans and Shanghai Shenhua, the former club of Ivorian striker Didier Drogba, being stripped of its 2003 league title.

The former England interna-tional’s new role has been widely seen as an ambitious attempt by the league to improve its image.

But Beckham said his focus would be on developing the sport in China at grassroots level. “What has gone on in the past? I am not a politician so I have noth-ing to do with it,” he said.

“I am helping in the education for young kids and young aspiring

footballers. It’s as simple as that. I am not here to clear up anything. I am here to educate the children and give them a chance of becom-ing professional footballers.”

Beckham, who is known as “Little Becks” in China, also said he was not being paid for his new role.

Chinese media have quoted Chinese Super League officials as saying he would receive a salary of two million euros ($2.6m) from one of the world’s biggest sports agencies.

But he said: “There are no fig-ures attached. I am here as an ambassador, simple as that. There is always figures thrown about what I am doing with my life, but right now I am playing football for

free in Paris and I am here as an ambassador.”

He was again asked if he was being paid, and responded: “Right here, right now? No!”

Chinese football fans have been eagerly anticipating Beckham’s arrival.

He looked relaxed and smartly-dressed in a tailored grey suit as he took questions from Chinese school pupils, telling the young audience his favourite Chinese food was noodles and his favour-ite singer was “Posh Spice” -- his wife Victoria.

Beckham will be visiting sport schools and youth football projects in Beijing, the eastern city of Qingdao and the central city of Wuhan before returning to Paris on Monday, officials said.

He immediately launched into his duties after meeting journal-ists, joining in a six-a-side game at Beijing’s Number 2 primary school, still wearing his suit trou-sers and shiny black shoes.

Beckham was mobbed after the game by schoolchildren, with many of the boys wearing foot-ball tops from his previous clubs, while screaming girls clutched placards reading “I love you” or with his face imprinted on.

As well as the corruption issues, Chinese football has endured a torrid time on the pitch, with the national team crashing out of qualifying for the 2014 World Cup.

Beckham has visited China sev-eral times in the past, mainly on football tours with his previous clubs which include Real Madrid and Manchester United. He also featured at the closing ceremony of the 2008 Olympics. REUTERS

Former England captain David

Beckham hugs a student after she

presented him a pin

during a news

conference at a primary

school in Beijing

yesterday.

US players critical of Klinsmann coaching, says online report DENVER, COLORADO: Three days before the United States plays a key World Cup 2014 qualifying home match, a Sporting News online report yesterday said several US players have problems with coach Jurgen Klinsmann.

The report says 11 players in the US national team pool and 11 oth-ers connected to the programme, none of them identified by name, say there are major rifts within the team and confidence and faith is dimming in Klinsmann.

“Things are boiling over,” one source told the Sporting News. “The feeling now is that this is (Klinsmann’s) last chance against Costa Rica.”

Much of the criticism is aimed at the former German national team coach, who was hired to take over the US programme in July of 2011 and will field his 24th different line-up in as many games when the Americans face Costa Rica in Denver.

“We do all this stuff. OK, it’s good for us and it’s scientifically proven,” a US player told the Sporting News. “But in the end it’s a round ball. The Peles and the Maradonas in the world weren’t doing all these things.

“We spend more time worrying about gyms and nutrition, and we don’t do enough of what we need to do on the field.”

A 2-1 loss last month at Honduras in the North American final round 2014 World Cup qualifying opener brought issues to a boiling point, the story said, because captain Carlos Bocanegra was benched, and Klinsmann slighted Bocanegra in telling players the veteran was being relegated to a reserve role.

“He already broke Carlos’ heart. Why drive the knife in and twist it?” a source said in the report.

Bocanegra, not on the roster for the US matches tomorrow and next Tuesday at arch-rival Mexico, expressed his feelings in a diplomatic posting on his Facebook page on Tuesday night.

“During the last 18 months Jurgen has introduced a lot of new ideas to the team and has a vision of how he wants to grow the program,” Bocanegra wrote.

“Every coach around the world has his own style and methods. He has always been up front with players about where they stand and where he sees them going. Not every player is going to be happy with all of the decisions and methods, but he will tell you to your face where you stand.

“From a coach, that is the best thing you could ask for. One of the greatest strengths of this team has always been our unity and spirit, and we all remain committed to the cause of qualifying for the World Cup.”

Klinsmann spoke to the Sporting News about the criticism uncov-ered for the story and defended taking players out of a comfort zone and keeping them uncertain if they will start or who they might be partnered with, saying it makes players better.

“All those elements we throw at them now, because if we don’t do it, it’s too late in the World Cup,” Klinsmann said.

“I take this conversation as a positive also with the players, talking more about this process to them... The only way we get them to that next level is to run them through this uncomfortable period, and they have to learn and they have to swim in the cold water. And we’re going to convince the world later.”

Players told the Sporting News they found the last-minute ouster of Bocanegra “a bit disturbing” and “to not have him in a game like that was really peculiar.”

“It was just everyone on their own terms. Everyone was doing their own thing. And it showed.”

A player said that, “sometimes a coach’s biggest mistake is trying to get in who he sees as the best 11 players on the field. But they don’t have to be. You have to have 11 players on the field who are going to work well with each other and be good for each other.”

A player called Klinsmann “scatterbrained” while another said “cer-tain players aren’t in the same situation and on the same page on the field. It’s frustrating.”

Some players were critical of the role played by German-born sons of US soldiers within the team and one player said Klinsmann was trying to turn a scrappy US side into a technical side like Germany, Brazil or Spain.

“We work hard, we fight and we compete,” the player said. “We have great athletes, and we’re a good counterattacking team. Maybe we need to go back to what we’re good at.” REUTERS

2014 World Cup final draw set for December 6 : Officials ZURICH: The draw for the 2014 World Cup finals will be made on December 6 at the Brazilian holiday seaside resort of Costa do Sauipe it was announced by FIFA after a meeting here yesterday with the Brazilian organisers.

“It was confirmed at the meeting that the draw for the 2014 World Cup finals would take place at Costa do Sauipe, in Bahia State, at 1300 local time (1600GMT) on December 6 2013,” FIFA said in a statement yesterday.

After the meeting FIFA President Sepp Blatter had expressed his confidence Brazil would be ready in time to host the finals despite the continual delays in constructing the stadia and that the finals would be ‘formidable’.

After Brazil, Russia will stage the 2018 edition followed by the World Cup in Qatar in 2022 when the most popular sport on earth comes to the Middle East for the first time ever. REUTERS

Platini accuses Blatter of attacking European soccer BERLIN: Michel Platini has accused FIFA president Sepp Blatter of attack-ing European soccer while defending UEFA’s decision to stage Euro 2020 across the continent and its right to question FIFA’s reform process.

UEFA’s 57-year-old French president, who is likely to stand for FIFA’s top job, possibly against Blatter, in 2015, was reacting to recent criticism from the FIFA president.

Platini made his comments to German magazine Kicker in an interview to be published today.

Although he said he got on “perfectly well” with Blatter, Platini was clearly unhappy with the 77-year-old Swiss who

said last week that holding Euro 2020 in 13 cities across Europe would mean a championship “that lacks heart and soul”.

Platini explained that both decisions were taken after exhaustive dialogue and that 52 of UEFA’s 53 members supported the idea of a pan-European championship.

“At UEFA, all our major projects, such as Euro 2020 or financial fair play, are the fruit of extensive dialogue and a collective decision taken by all those involved.

“I am not sure that this is how (former Libyan leader) Colonel Gaddafi did things. On the contrary, I think we are a model of what good governance should be.

“An attack on Euro 2020 may well be

aimed at the UEFA president but, in fact, it is really an attack on 52 out of 53 European football associations.

“Everyone has the right to an opin-ion on UEFA projects. I have no prob-lem with that, and I respect everyone’s opinion, including, of course, that of Mr Blatter, with whom -- contrary to what I have read in some places -- I get on perfectly well. Our relationship is intact, even though we obviously cannot always agree on everything.

“What I can say about Euro 2020 is simply that there was lengthy consulta-tion with all those concerned, and that in the end, 52 of the 53 UEFA member association presidents enthusiastically

supported this new concept, which will make Euro 2020 the first Euro with shared responsibility and solidarity - an innovative and visionary project in the eyes of many.”

Last month Blatter, speaking in Johannesburg, also took a swipe at UEFA saying it was attempting to block his reform process to make’s soccer’s world governing body more transparent and less prone to corruption.

In January, UEFA rejected a proposal to limit executive committee members to two four-year mandates and called for the FIFA president to serve for a maxi-mum of 12 years instead of the eight pro-posed by the reform working group, the

Indepenmdent Governance Committee. Platini told Kicker: “Ultimately, the European associations unanimously sup-port over three-quarters of the reforms proposed by FIFA.”

He added: “The very few proposals that did not meet with unanimous support either had nothing to do with good gov-ernance (because they were to do with purely sports-political matters), or were simply not precise or clear enough. In any case, it is ridiculous to accuse the European associations of being conserv-ative, because they themselves started this reform process and have also made numerous additional reform proposals.”

REUTERS

LATEST NEWS UPDATES IN TAMIL

Tel. : +974 44557622 / 44557623Fax. : +974 44557759email: fpadmin@qatar.net.qa

TAMIL TIMES WEEKLY NEWSPAPER

Available every Wednesdays in all leading supermarkets and shops in Qatar & Bahrain

Thursday 21 March 20139 Jumada I 1434

Volume 18Number 5645

Price: QR2Sport

editor@pen.com.qa | adv@pen.com.qa Editorial: 44557741 | Advertising: 44557837 / 44557780www.thepeninsulaqatar.com

Sport | 25 Sport | 27

England, Kiwis eye win in the series decider

US players ‘critical of Klinsmann’

������������������������ ��� �������������������������

� ��������������� ������������������������������������� !"#$%&'(")"*+&,)+("

�%-%!%&.�-"&/0"/,�#"%-1�&,23!"!,*�!04-%35,#� *.$��")"*6

Middle East Edition

Pietersen to miss Test, IPLTop English batsman struggling with knee injury, say team officials AUCKLAND: England bats-man Kevin Pietersen will miss the last Test against New Zealand and the Indian Premier League due to a knee injury which may sideline him for up to eight weeks, officials said yesterday.

“The injury is likely to require ongoing assessments and a likely 6-8 week period of rest and reha-bilitation,” the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) said in a statement, two days before the start of the series-deciding game.

The ECB said the 32-year-old suffered pain in his right knee while fielding earlier this month in preparation for a warm-up game in New Zealand, before the Test series began.

“This has failed to resolve sat-isfactorily,” it said.

Recent scans confirmed bone bruising and possible cartilage damage to the kneecap, and Pietersen would return to Britain “for further investigations and specialist review”.

He had been withdrawn from all cricket including the Indian Premier League, it said.

New Zealand will eye a rare series win and England will try to cement their position as the number-two Test nation in the third and final Test starting tomorrow in Auckland, following rain-affected draws in the first two games.

Pietersen made 0 and 12 in the first Test at Dunedin but came back with 73 in Wellington.

The estimated recovery period makes him a doubtful starter for the return series in England against New Zealand beginning on May 16.

England will be hoping that Pietersen, who in 2009 was forced out of the Ashes with an Achilles injury, will be fit in time for this summer’s Champions Trophy and Ashes series.

Pietersen returned to the England fold last October.

The Surrey batsman was cast into international exile last

August after sending text mes-sages to touring South African players that contained criticism of then-England captain Andrew Strauss during the Test series.

Clarke is pretty confident of his chances: Cowan NEW DELHI: Opening bats-man Ed Cowan yesterday backed Shane Watson to lead Australia in the fourth and final Test against India starting tomor-row if skipper Michael Clarke is unfit and also hoped the team would bounce back after three consecutive defeats.

“Firstly, it is important to know that Michael is expected to play, so at the moment Shane Watson isn’t the captain of the team. If that happened, the team is very happy with that because he is the vice-captain of the tour and there are expectations that the

vice-captain steps up if the cap-tain is injured. I guess we know that was always going to be a pos-sibility,” Cowan told reporters at the Feroze Shah Kotla after a practice session.

An out-of-form Watson has been in the centre of controversy after he was sidelined for the third Test in Mohali along with three others over a breach of dis-cipline last week.

Watson was angry and left for home to be with his wife Lee, who delivered baby boy Will last Thursday. Watson, who left India contemplating retirement, however, returned in time to be with the team for the fourth Test starting here tomorrow.

Cowan said Watson is a “great player and a good leader.”

“Shane is quite a good player and a good leader in his own right, so it will be a good opportunity for him if he gets that opportunity. He (Watson) has probably decided to come back with a full focus and we will accept him because he is

such a great player and a good leader,” Cowan said.

“He is a senior player around the group and it is important those kinds of players are on board because we need those guys for this team to be the best team in the world.”

Cowan said Watson was differ-ent from Clarke, who is struggling with back pain.

“He is a very different leader to Michael but we’re hoping Michael is fine for this Test. He (Clarke) is such a great batsman and we need his runs and his leadership,” he said.

Asked about Clarke’s chances, Cowan said: “He basically said that he has got the best possible medical team working over time on his back, it is a condition that he has got for a long time and he has not missed a Test yet so he is not expecting to miss this. He is pretty confident and I guess because he is so familiar with it and it is something that he deals on a daily basis. AGENCIES

Two wickets for Gabriel stems bright Zimbabwe startBARBADOS: West Indies pace-man Shane Gabriel grabbed two wickets in his first two overs to stifle a quick start by Zimbabwe on the opening morning of the second Test at Windsor Park in Roseau, Dominica yesterday.

Gabriel came on as first change as Zimbabwe raced to 50 runs from the first eight overs and quickly applied the brakes with the wickets of openers Tino Mawoyo and Vusi Sibanda.

Mawoyo shouldered arms to a ball that crashed into his off stump to give Gabriel a wicket at the end of his first over and three balls later Sibanda was caught.

Sibanda had played some flow-ing strokes as he raced to 32 off 29 balls but will feel he threw his wicket away in chipping a full toss from Gabriel to Kemar Roach at mid-on. Spinner Shane Shillingford, playing on his home ground, also took a wicket in his first over as he clean bowled Hamilton Masakadza. At lunch, Zimbabwe had reached 92-3.

REUTERS

EPL will accept winter World Cup: RichardsLONDON: Outgoing English Premier League Chairman Dave Richards believes his organisa-tion will have to drop its resist-ance to the idea of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar being played in the European winter.

English football is unusual among the continent’s major leagues in having no winter break and many Premier League offi-cials are determined nothing will happen to disrupt the lucrative competition from running as normal.

But there is growing global momentum behind the idea the intense heat in Qatar during June and July, when a World Cup might usually be expected to be staged, risks the heath of both players and fans exposed to tem-peratures of 50C and so makes a switch to a ‘winter’ date all the more inevitable.

Richards, speaking to Sky Sports News at the Securing Sport conference in Qatar, said: “I think they will play (the World Cup) at a time that is proper for football but they will have to speak to the leagues in Europe. They will have to agree proper times when we can start and finish.”

He added: “At the moment it has a tremendous amount of implications for Europe. For us, at this minute, the answer is no. But, if we take a proper view, we have to find a way to have a win-ter spell where we don’t play and I think common sense will prevail.

Richards explained: “We’ve got FIFA now saying that medi-cal people are saying that they can’t play in Qatar in the sum-mer because of the heat, which is probably right. I think over the next few years, things will change and they will come to a compromise.”

However, Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore has always been adamantly against such a switch and a Premier League spokesman said on Tuesday their position had not

altered. “The Premier League’s view remains unchanged. We are opposed to the concept of a winter World Cup for very obvi-ous practical reasons that would impact on all of European domes-tic football.”

Earlier this month Jerome Valcke, general secretary of FIFA, became the first official from foot-ball’s world governing body to accept there was a case for mov-ing the World Cup.

“The FIFA ExCo (execu-tive committee) has the power to make decisions and if at the FIFA ExCo this issue starts to be a real point for discussion then why not, and then again maybe the FIFA ExCo will say based on medical reports or whatever we really have to look at playing the World Cup not in summer, but in winter,” he said.

“I am not saying that the case

is closed, but what I’m saying is as long as we have not fixed the international calendar all alterna-tives are open.”

UEFA president Michel Platini has reiterated his call to move the Qatar tournament to winter and Valcke said the fact the inter-national calendar had not been fixed beyond 2018 made moving the 2022 finals possible.

“Qatar has to tell us, ‘we want to move the World Cup from sum-mer to winter’,” Valcke said.

“I can tell you there is no working group within FIFA thinking and working on what it means to move the World Cup from summer to winter for the time being.

“The international calendar has been agreed for 2015-2018, meaning that we kept open all potential for period 2019 to 2022. We have time.” REUTERS

Mohammed Hanzab (right), President of International Centre for Sports Security, and Sir David Richards, Chairman of English Professional Football Leagues (EPFL) shake hands after signing an MoU during Sport Security 2013 at Katara Cultural Village on Tuesday. PICTURE: SHAIVAL DALAL