Volume 24 | Number 8015 | 2 RiyalsSunday 15 September 2019 | 16 Muharram 1441 www.thepeninsula.qa

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BUSINESS | 02 SPORT | 08

Neymar the saviour as PSG beat Strasbourg

Qatar Chamber panel examines

national strategic projects

Plans afoot to open several nurseries outside Doha

SANAULLAH ATAULLAH THE PENINSULA

The Director of Family Affairs Department at the Ministry of Administrative Devel-opment, Labour and Social Affairs, Najat Daham Al Abdullah, has said that the Department is working to open more new nurseries out of Doha.

“The number of nurseries in Qatar reached 191 which are enrolling a total of 4,858 children as of August 2019,” said Najat Daham Al Abdullah in an interview with The Peninsula. She said that a large number of nurseries are being opened across the country including in cities and remote areas.

Speaking about the steps of the Family Affairs Department on encouraging employers to open nurseries at work-places, Al Abdullah said: “Yes, we encourage establishment of nurseries at workplaces but they should comply with the required specifications and rules to suit specific work environment.”

She said that people can inform about activities of unlicensed nurseries by calling directly to Nursery Section at the Department or through the call centre of the Ministry or on its official website or visiting in person to Family Affairs Department at the Ministry.

Al Abdullah said that the Department of Family Affairs, which comprises five sections, including Family Development Section; Nurseries Section; Productive Families Section; Elderly and Special Needs Section and Juvenile Section, is responsible for development of the entire family and society.

She said that the Nursery Section launched several initiatives and made remarkable achievements. “The key ini-tiatives included The Healthy Teeth and

Eye Preservation Initiative for Kinder-garten Children in collaboration with the Primary Health Care Corporation (PHCC) in 2019, initiative to explain the law No. (1) for the year 2014 to regulate nurseries for operators and directors of nurseries in cooperation with the Department of Legal Affairs of the Ministry in 2018,” said Al Abdullah.

She added that the Nursery Section had launched the Healthy Nutrition Ini-tiative for Nursery Children in collabo-ration with a nutrition centre in 2017 and another initiative to celebrate the National Nursery Day in Public Parks in cooper-ation with the Public Parks Department in 2017.

Al Abdullah said Article No. 22 of Amiri Decree No 6 of 2016 on the admin-istrative structure of the Ministry of Administrative Development, Labor and Social Affairs specifies the functions of Family Affairs Department.

She said that the functions include implementing national family strategies, plans and policies; increasing community awareness of family and social challenges and issues, their effects and ways to prevent them.

“The Department is also responsible to implement projects and programmes for women empowerment and chil-dren’s creativity culturally, educa-tionally and recreational wise, in coor-dination with the competent govern-mental and non-governmental bodies,” said Al Abdullah.

She added that the Department also prepares and implements programmes to prevent juvenile delinquency, rehabil-itates delinquents and fights against social problems among juveniles, and supervise the social welfare homes allocated for their care and rehabilitation. �P4

QNB holds Open Career DayThe Minister of Administrative Development, Labour & Social Affairs, H E Yousuf Mohamed Al Othman Fakhroo; QNB Acting Group CEO, Abdulla Mubarak Al Khalifa, and other officials during QNB’s Open Career Day held yesterday.�Business 01, 03

HMC installs radio over-broadcastwarning system in 50 ambulancesFAZEENA SALEEM THE PENINSULA

The Hamad Medical Corporation’s (HMC) Ambulance Service has installed a new Emergency Warning System (EWS) in about 50 ambulances for a pilot phase of three months. The new radio over-broadcast system allows the ambulance crew to alert drivers up to 300 metres ahead.

The trial of the new system began on September 1, said Thomas Reimann, Executive Director of Healthcare Coor-dination and Support Services at HMC’s Ambulance Service.

“The system will interrupt the radio broadcast and switch over automati-cally to unused channel enabling drivers to listen to an audio message, “Warning, ambulance approaching. Give way”, in Arabic and English. The system has a technology that can

interrupt and switch over even if you are listening to a CD,” said, Reimann speaking to media persons on Thursday.

“The new system gives drivers more time to move safely and give way to an approaching ambulance. Drivers can hear our ambulance sirens and see their flashing lights up to 50 metres away, but the new warning system will enable us to give warning to drivers much further ahead,” he added.

The new system will compliment the usual lights and sirens on ambu-lances. At the end of the trial period, the HMC’s Ambulance Service will conduct a final assessment to find the efficiency of the system.

“Not to confuse the road users, EWS will choose the road that has the strongest signal and closer to the traffic signal. However the Ambulance Service will still retain the normal lights and sirens. Because there are

pedestrians and motorcyclist on the roads and all vehicles will not be playing the radio,” said Reimann. On a regular day, the Ambulance Service attends nearly 700 emergency cases and deploys about 130 ambulances.

“The new system is installed in 50 vehicles, which is about half of the total number of ambulances deployed each day. We test the new system in all scenarios in urban and rural areas. At the end of the trial period, we would analyse data, feedback from members of public, those from the ambulance service and find how efficient is the new system,” said Reimann.

The new EWS is expected to help manage the traffic flow, reduce risk of accidents and ambulance service to reach the emergency scene faster. At present the Ambulance Service reaches an emergency scene within six minutes in the urban areas and 10 minutes in rural areas. �P4

New Hyperbaric Therapy Unit can treat 18 patients simultaneouslyTHE PENINSULA DOHA

A new Hyperbaric Therapy Unit was officially opened as part of Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC)’s state-of-the-art Trauma and Emergency Center at Hamad General Hospital, recently.

Dr Kokash Osama, Senior Consultant, Anesthesia, and Head of HMC’s Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy Program, said while hyperbaric oxygen therapy has been available at HMC since 2013, the new Hyperbaric Therapy Unit has significantly increased capacity to provide the treatment.

He said the new 18-person hyperbaric oxygen therapy chamber is the largest in the country, and one of the first-of-its-kind in the region.

“There are two types of chambers used to administer

hyperbaric oxygen therapy – monoplace chambers that permit a single occupant at one time and multi-place chambers that allow multiple patients to be treated at the same time. Pre-viously we had a monoplace chamber. Our new chamber, which is a multi-place chamber, allows several patients to be treated at the same time. It also allows space for a healthcare professional to be inside the chamber caring for patients,” said Dr Osama.

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy involves sitting or lying inside a sealed chamber and wearing an air mask with two tubes attached - one providing pure oxygen, the other taking old air away. The therapy is painless and non-invasive. HMC’s new therapy chamber features both VIP and standard seating and can also accommodate an ICU bed. �P3

Qatar-Japan relations to widen: AmbassadorSACHIN KUMAR THE PENINSULA

The relations between Qatar and Japan are moving in the right direction. There is huge potential to further widen the growing relations between two countries, said Seiichi Otsuka, the outgoing ambassador of Japan to Qatar.

“We have seen Qatar-Japan bilateral relations steadily devel-oping and growing. The relations have grown not just in the field of energy, but we have diver-sified our relations,” Otsuka told The Peninsula.

“Both countries have agreed on widening the range of coop-eration, but we have to do more. The relations are going forward in right direction,” said Otsuka, talking on the sidelines of his farewell reception hosted by the Embassy of Japan on Wednesday.

The relations between Qatar and Japan are very strong which is evident by the growing trade volume.

At 17.4 percent, the share of Japan was the highest in Qatar’s total export in April-June quarter

of this year, according to the Quarterly Bulletin of Foreign Merchandise Trade Statistics for second quarter of 2019. The total export to Japan from Qatar was around QR11.63bn, as per the Planning and Statistics Authority data.

“Qatar is number one trade partner of Japan and Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) forms major part of this trade. Qatar is

number three crude oil supplier to Japan. We are importing helium and oil products,” he added.

There is immense potential for cooperation between the private sector of both countries.

“There is big potential of widening the range of cooper-ation between the private sector of both countries, particularly in

the field of technology,” he said. “Qatar is making grand

design of smart cities that require most high tech mobility system, for example. I think certain Jap-anese companies are very capable of providing such high technology for this project,” he added.

He praised the foreign policy of Qatar and said that the country is playing very important role in the region.

“Foreign policies of Qatar and Japan are very identical. We believe that the regional issues should be solved peacefully. We have same agenda. Qatar is playing a very important role in the region,” he added. “Middle East is very critical part of Japan’s diplomacy,” he said.

He said that FIFA World Cup in 2022 will be a big success and Japan can contribute in suc-cessful hosting of this mega event by sharing latest technologies.

He added that the movement of bilateral trade in 2019 will depend on the trajectory of world economy.

The number of nurseries in Qatar reached 191 which are enrolling a total of 4,858 children as of August 2019. A large number of nurseries are being opened across the country including in cities and remote areas.

We have seen Qatar-Japan bilateral

relations steadily developing and

growing. The relations have grown

not just in the field of energy, but we

have diversified our relations.”

02 SUNDAY 15 SEPTEMBER 2019HOME

03SUNDAY 15 SEPTEMBER 2019 HOME

‘US collaboration with Qatar on fighting human trafficking is strongest’THE PENINSULA DOHA

During his visit to Qatar, US Ambassador-at-Large to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, John Cotton Richmond, visited the Msheireb Museum and discussed the 2019 Traf-ficking in Persons Report with the Director of Msheireb Museum, Hafiz Ali.

The Ambassador Richmond met with Qatari officials and organisations to discuss efforts to combat human trafficking in Qatar, and Qatar’s efforts to end it.

The crime of human traf-ficking is global in scope, affecting every country on earth, including the United States and Qatar. Also known as modern slavery, it includes sex traf-ficking, forced labour, debt bondage, and domestic servitude.

The annual Trafficking in

Persons Report has become a significant part of the Msheireb Museum’s Library, specifically Bin Jelmood House, which pro-vides a space for reflection on slavery and how it has evolved into modern forms of human exploitation.

Every year, the US State Department releases the Traf-ficking in Persons Report, which examines the efforts made by governments around the world to fight this crime. Ending human trafficking globally requires a coordinated approach between the public and private sectors and civil society in all countries, and an important part of the strategy to combat modern slavery is raising public awareness. Bin Jelmood House provides an opportunity for vis-itors to make a personal com-mitment to joining the fight against all forms of human trafficking.

Hafiz Ali, said, “We are

honoured to add this copy of the report to our Museums library. Bin Jelmood House, part of Msheireb Museums in Msheireb Downtown Doha, provides an opportunity for visitors to make a personal commitment to stand against the various forms of human trafficking. As an educa-tional platform, the museum has been raising awareness, and gaining local and international attention.”

Richmond said, “The Msheireb Museum’s modern slavery exhibit highlights the importance of combating human trafficking in Qatar. The Bin Jelmood House paints a clear picture of Qatar’s trafficking trends and sheds light on this issue for thousands of visitors and Qatari nationals each year. The United States stands by Qatar in its efforts to raise public awareness and taking action to stop the crime of human traf-ficking, which affects not just our

two countries, but every country in the world. With sustained ini-tiatives, we hope the Bin Jelmood House will continue to do its part to help raise awareness of human trafficking in Qatar, and ultimately generate efforts to protect victims.”

The Ambassador noted that US collaboration with Qatar on fighting human trafficking is the strongest it has ever been. The US and Qatar signed a

Memorandum of Understanding on Anti-Trafficking in 2018, Since then, the two countries have worked with more than 30 implementing partner offices and organisations to implement over a dozen initiatives including capacity building, training, networking, exchanges, consultations, and awareness raising including events like this one.

The American Chargé

d’Affaires attended the July 30 conference on “World Day against Human Trafficking” hosted by the Qatari gov-ernment and the UN’s Interna-tional Labor Organization (ILO), which coincided with the opening of the first Trafficking in Persons (TIP) shelter for men and women in Qatar. The shelter opening is just one of several goals of the Memorandum of Understanding.

US Ambassador-at-Large to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, John Cotton Richmond, with the Director of Msheireb Museum, Hafiz Ali, during a visit to Msheireb Museum.

Shura Council to participate in APU sessionQNA DOHA

The Shura Council will partic-ipate in the 26th session of the Executive Committee of Arab Inter-Parliamentary Union (APU) and its meetings,

scheduled to be held in the Jordanian capital, Amman from today and will conclude on September 19.

The meetings of the session will discuss a number of pilot projects on the laws of women, children and terrorism, the study

of proposals to amend the rules of procedure of the Union, the reports of the committees of the Executive Committee and other related issues. The Shura Council is represented at this session by Hadi bin Saeed Al Khayarin, member of the Council.

Qatar reiterates commitment to promoting culture of peaceQNA NEW YORK

The State of Qatar has continued its efforts in promoting the values of tolerance and combating extremism, as Qatari institutions, including the Doha International Center for Interfaith Dialogue, continue to promote a culture of peace and capacity building in the field of dialogue and tolerance.

Qatar voiced its firm belief that nation-building begins with building human being and coop-eration for building a society based on mutual respect and coexistence in harmony and cohesion, and reiterated its com-mitment to continue to implement the United Nations Declaration and Program of Action on a Culture of Peace.

That came in a statement delivered by Permanent Repre-sentative of Qatar to the UN, H E Ambassador Sheikha Alya bint Ahmed bin Saif Al Thani, at the “High-Level Forum on the Culture of Peace” held on Friday by the UN General Assembly.

She pointed out that the Doha International Center for Interfaith Dialogue has been holding annual international interfaith confer-ences with the participation of religious leaders from different religions, noting the outcomes of

these conferences, which have actively contributed to promoting a culture of peace, providing a platform for constructive dia-logue in order to understand and accept differences, to focus on shared noble human values, to advance efforts to combat extremism and hatred, and to build bridges of cooperation and understanding among peoples. She added that as part of the State of Qatar’s continued efforts in this regard, the 14th Doha Interna-tional Interfaith Conference will be held in Doha in March 2020 under the theme: ‘Religions and Hate Speech Scriptures and Practice’.

She said that Qatar has adopted an approach based on addressing the root causes of violent extremism, especially among young people, pointing to the importance given to the path of education and employment, as the State has established many institutions and launched initia-tives in the field of education and employment at the national, regional and international level, at the top of which is the Edu-cation Above All Foundation which has a great achievement in cooperation with international partners in offering quality edu-cation services to ten million children and youth all over the world. The Permanent

Representative of Qatar to the UN also praised Qatar’s Silatech which actively contributes to tackling the problem of unem-ployment among youth through its training and employment pro-grams in the Arab region.

She stated that the Qatar is working in cooperation with South Korea in the Group of Friends of Education for Global Citizenship, out of their belief in the importance of establishing values, attitudes and behaviours in support of responsible global citizenship. She also referred to Qatar’s efforts at the international level to support the role of medi-ation and preventive diplomacy in preventing armed conflicts and solving them thorough peaceful resolution and dialogue in dif-ferent parts of the world, which have been and continue to be appreciated by the international community due to its positive and satisfactory results for all parties concerned. She reiterated Qatar’s commitment to continue imple-menting the UN Declaration and Program of Action on a Culture of Peace, harnessing all poten-tials and energies to promote a culture of peace, promoting respect for human rights and upholding the principles unani-mously agreed upon by the inter-national community in pro-moting a culture of peace.

Minister of Culture and Sports highlights importance of Sports Integrity SummitQNA DOHA

Minister of Culture and Sports H E Salah bin Ghanem Al Ali (pictured) stressed yesterday that Doha’s hosting of the Inter-regional Sports Integrity Summit tomorrow and on Tuesday is a continuation of the State of Qatar’s active role in promoting the noble values of sport in soci-eties.

H E the Minister of Culture and Sports welcomed the guests of Qatar from all over the world and expressed his happiness to sponsor the Inter-regional Sports Integrity Summit organised by the International Centre for Sport Security (ICSS) and Qatar Airways in cooper-ation with the Sport Integrity

Global Alliance (SIGA). He expressed hope that the Summit will achieve its goals, and become a milestone and cul-minate in international efforts to rid global sports of corruption and fraud and transcend all societies.

H E the Minister stressed the importance of teamwork in the Middle East, Asia and Africa. He added that hosting the summit was to complement the role of the State of Qatar in promoting the noble values of sports in societies.

He also drew attention to the efforts made by the Ministry of Culture and Sports in cooper-ating with the international community and its various organizations in order to fight corruption and promote the

principles of transparency and integrity in all sports domains locally, regionally and globally.

For his part, CEO of Qatar Airways Akbar Al Baker said that Qatar Airways is proud to be a partner of the event, given it is a major sponsor of many sports

clubs and events around the world.

Al Baker expressed his belief that good governance and integrity in sport at the highest levels are necessary to enable sport in the region and the world to achieve one of its goals as a platform to bring the people of the world together.

Meanwhile Sport Integrity Global Alliance (SIGA) Vice Chairman Mohammed bin Hanzab highlighted the impor-tance of the Summit, given it is the first of its kind in the region, which not only sheds light on the dangers of corruption in sports in the Middle East, Asia and Africa, but also develops profes-sional solutions that suit the fight against sports corruption in each country in the region through a

set of legislation that ensure the application of best governance rules. Bin Hanzab expressed his thanks to the Ministry of Culture and Sports for taking the initi-ative in all sports issues that are important to the world, expressing his thanks to HE the minister for supporting the summit held for the first time in the region.

Bin Hanzab emphasized the importance of cooperation between countries to combat organized and intercontinental crimes related to sports cor-ruption. He expressed pride in this regard that the ICSS is a founding member of (SIGA), which is leading the interna-tional efforts to promote Aspects of Integrity and Fighting Cor-ruption in Sport.

The agenda of the summit, which will be attended by the Minister will include a number of important topics in the presence of experts and spe-cialists in sport integrity from the Middle East, Asia and Africa. A total of 60 experts from around the world will attend.

The summit also aims to highlight the seriousness of cor-ruption in sport in the region, and to develop solutions by encouraging countries to adopt SIGA’s international standard legislation. Another topic dis-cussed will be the importance of collective action among the region’s countries to enact leg-islation on integrity and to combat corruption in sport, as its crimes has now become transcontinental in nature.

Hyperbaric Therapy Unit can treat 18 patients simultaneously

FROM PAGE 1

“With hyperbaric oxygen therapy, patients breathe pure oxygen while in a pressurised chamber. The rapid infusion of a high concentration of pure oxygen helps the growth of new blood vessels and promotes healing of ischaemic wounds. The therapy has an anti-inflammatory effect, which helps fight bacteria and stimulate the release of substances called growth factors and stem cells,” said Dr. Osama.

While the therapy is a well-established emergency medical treatment for conditions such as decompression sickness, a hazard of scuba diving, carbon monoxide poisoning, and air embolisms, it has also been shown to be an effective supplemental therapy for many chronic, non-emergency conditions such as slow-healing wounds, in particular, diabetic foot ulcers, and osteomyelitis.

“In addition to carbon mon-oxide poisoning and decom-pression sickness, there are a dozen conditions that the evi-dence shows benefit from hyper-baric oxygen therapy, such as treating damage resulting from radiation therapy, compromised skin grafts, and acute thermal burn injuries. There is also some evidence that it can be effectively used to treat neurological condi-tions associated with reduced oxygen levels, such as stroke and traumatic brain injury, and

neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease,” said Dr. Osama.

Dr Osama said the number of sessions a patient will require varies depending on the condition or illness being treated, with each treatment plan being tailored to the individual needs of the patient.

Dr. Osama notes that every patient who is prescribed hyper-baric oxygen therapy is required to complete a safety briefing where they are informed of the possible complications.

HMC’s new Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy Unit.

04 SUNDAY 15 SEPTEMBER 2019HOME

Qatar highlights innovation at UNWTO session in RussiaTHE PENINSULA DOHA

Qatar National Tourism Council (QNTC) concluded its active participation in the 23rd UNWTO General Assembly session, where it highlighted innovation and its long-standing relationship with UNWTO.

The General Assembly took place in St. Petersburg, Russia between September nine and 13, 2019, with QNTC represented by Akbar Al Baker, Secretary-General as well as Hassan Al Ibrahim (pictured), Assistant Secretary-General of QNTC. He addressed the First Plenary session as keynote speaker, where he focused on the impor-tance of the tourism sector to the economy, along with Qatar’s partnerships with UNWTO.

The following day, Al Ibrahim represented Qatar at a High Level Summit on Inno-vation and Sustainable Devel-opment in Tourism, both as keynote speaker, along with his participation in a Members States Panel.

Al Ibrahim presented a

keynote speech titled “Inno-vation from Policy Design to Implementation” where he spoke of Qatar’s commitment to innovation and the recognition that “development of any sort, particularly if it is to be econom-ically sustainable, must be underpinned by innovative policy that supports effective implementation and furthers our longer-term strategic goals.” Al Ibrahim went on to praise entities such as Qatar Foundation Research Development Inno-vation, Qatar Development Bank and Qatar Business Incubation Centre, which offer support to

innovators across sectors. He further spoke of QNTC’s

function to “facilitate public-private sector partnerships, and empower them to work together in developing new tourism products and projects. New laws and policies have led to a number of large-scale tourism projects being fast-tracked, with others being opened to both local and international private investors.” Qatar’s policies enabling business and innovation have helped garner it second place in the Middle East and North Africa in the World Economic Forum’s Travel & Tourism Competi-tiveness Report 2019.

The Assistant Secretary-General also referred to the long-standing relationship with the UNWTO: “We value our part-nership with UNWTO and are honoured to support their initi-atives as they innovate in the tourism sector... We are com-mitted to creativity and inno-vation, to solving world scale problems, harnessing our human capital while maintaining a bal-anced relationship with our environment.”

To illustrate this com-mitment, he touched upon the IE University|UNWTO Tourism Online Academy inaugurated the day before in the presence of Akbar Al Baker, and spoke of the first UNWTO Global Sports Tourism Start-Up Competition, supported by QNTC in collabo-ration with Futbol Club Bar-celona (FCB) Innovation Hub - the agreements for which were signed in April this year, when

Zurab Pololikashvili, Secretary-General UNWTO visited Qatar.

Al Ibrahim also represented Qatar in the Member States Panel, along with representatives from Chile, Columbia, Hungary and Macao. This Panel allowed Member States to share their experiences about projects developed in collaboration with UNWTO, and outline future objectives around innovation, investment and digital transfor-

mation in tourism. As a United Nations agency,

UNWTO is in charge of the pro-motion of responsible, sus-tainable and universally acces-sible tourism. UNWTO generates market knowledge, promotes competitive and sustainable tourism policies and instruments, fosters tourism education and training, and works to make tourism an effective tool for development.

The venue of the 23rd UNWTO General Assembly session, where QNTC marked its active participation, taking place in St. Petersburg, Russia.

US delegation meets NHRC officials in Doha QNA/DOHA

National Human Rights Committee (NHRC) Vice-Chairman, Dr. Mohammed bin Saif Al Kuwari, and Assistant Secretary-General, Sultan bin Hassan Al Jamali, met with a delegation of senior researchers and politicians in the US Congress. The US delegation’s visit to the committee was aimed

at encouraging the work of national human rights institu-tions, non-governmental organ-isations and community organ-isations to provide support and assistance to people whose rights may be violated.

The meeting dealt with the role of media in providing support to vulnerable people, including workers’ category, as well as the role of NHRC in

spreading culture of human rights and its working methods in receiving complaints and facilitating access to petitioners, whether through physical appearance, through the offices of the communities it estab-lished, or via its hotlines and official website, as well as its role in addressing human rights vio-lations resulting from the blockade.

The Vice-Chairman of National Human Rights Committee, Dr. Mohammed bin Saif Al Kuwari, and Assistant Secretary-General, Sultan bin Hassan Al Jamali, with a delegation of senior researchers and politicians in the US Congress during a visit to Doha.

Official: Several new nurseries to open outside DohaFROM PAGE 1

The department takes nec-essary measures to care and protect children of unknown parentage. “The department helps released prisoners and recovering addicts and their families to adapt for social inte-gration, and work to provide a safe environment and job oppor-tunities for the released to prevent their return to delin-quency, in coordination with the competent governmental and non-governmental bodies,” said Al Abdullah.

She said that the department proposes and implements national strategies, plans, pol-icies and programmes for the elderly and persons with disa-bilities. “It directs the efforts of the institutions concerned with women and the family, with the aim of establishing development projects to empower individuals and families economically, and

encourage them to become self-reliant.”

“The department develops and implements projects to support and develop productive families through training and the provision of support services. It

provides areas for marketing the products under programmes of productive families,” said Al Abdullah. She said that the department issues licenses for establishing nurseries and also supervises and monitor them.

HMC installs over-broadcast warning systemFROM PAGE 1

“In a medical emergency, it is very important that our par-amedic teams can get to the scene of the emergency as quickly as possible. The public is very supportive and under-stands our role as well as need to give way to ambulances on the road,” said Rashid Andaila,

Senior Manager of Communi-cation Technologies at HMC’s Ambulance Service.

“The Emergency Warning System will enable us to give warning to drivers 300 meters before the ambulance approaches and it could help to reach the emergency scene faster than before,” he added.

The Ambulance Service has

consistently promoted its ‘Know the 5 to Save a Life’ awareness campaign, which is designed to educate members of the com-munity on the correct action to take when calling an ambu-lance. The new warning tech-nology supports one of the cam-paign’s key messages, asking drivers to ‘give way to ambulances’.

70th anniversary of the founding of People’s Republic of China celebrated SIDI MOHAMED THE PENINSULA

The Chinese Embassy in Doha yesterday celebrated the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China in the presence of a large number of Chinese community members.

“In the past 70 years, China’s comprehensive national strength has achieved a historic leap, from a poor, weak country to the world’s second largest economy. At the beginning of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, China was starting in ruins, and the GDP was only over 60 billion yuan,” Ambassador of China to Qatar, Zhou Jian (pictured), said.

In his speech delivered at the occasion, the Ambassador said: “The annual per capita dis-posable income of urban and rural residents increased from less than 100 yuan and 50 yuan to 39,000 yuan and 15,000 yuan respectively. We bid farewell to the shortage of goods, replaced supply coupons by big shopping malls, endless

private cars, various restaurants, and high rises of residential buildings.” The event was held at JW Marriot City Center and the ceremony included the national anthem as well as some cultural performances.

About the China’s devel-opment in the field of technology, the Ambassador said China’s sci-entific and technological innova-tions are thriving, the number of scientific research personnel ranks first in the world for many years, and the number of

invention patent applications has long been among the best in the world. “Scientific and technological progress has not only enhanced China’s overall national strength, but also greatly advanced the development of human civilization.”

“During these 70 years, lives of the Chinese people have achieved a historic leap from lack of food and clothing to a comprehensive well-off society, from the beginning of the founding of the People’s Republic China to 2018 the per capita GDP increased from 119 yuan to 64,644 yuan,” he said.

Chinese community members during a reception organised to mark the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, in Doha yesterday. PIC: ABDUL BASIT / THE PENINSULA

The Ambassador appreciated the Chinese’s community help to their country in difficult times, saying, “We will not forget that in the era of wars, many overseas Chinese raised funds donated their lives to the country.”

“We will not forget that at the beginning of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, large number of overseas Chinese had given up their comfortable foreign life and decided to return to China to join the motherland,” he said adding that no one can forget that since the reform and opening up, vast number of overseas Chinese have offered capital, technology, management, and commercial invest in China, helping the country’s construction and economic and social development.

Najat Daham Al Abdullah

05SUNDAY 15 SEPTEMBER 2019 HOME

Northwestern climbs to No. 9 in US best universities rankingTHE PENINSULA DOHA

Since opening its campus in Doha in 2008, Northwestern University has seen its national ranking in the US climb from 14 to nine. Last year it moved into the top 10 of national universities in the US, joining the ranks of Harvard, MIT, Yale, and other illustrious American univer-sities.

“NU-Q is proud to be part of the long tradition of excellence that North-western University is known for. This ranking illustrates the quality of edu-cation our students receive. NU-Q’s pro-grammes of study in journalism and communication use the same cur-riculum as the home campus in the US. In addition, our faculty – several from our home campus – are internationally recognised scholars and media experts,” said Everette E. Dennis, Dean and CEO.

Northwestern’s international campus in Qatar was established in 2008 to educate the next generation of

media and communication professionals in the region.

NU-Q offers bachelor’s degrees from two Northwestern schools: the Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communication and the School of Communication. It also offers a Master of Arts degree in Sports Administration, in collaboration with Northwestern’s School of Profes-sional Studies.

All programmes are complemented with a strong foundation in the liberal arts in collaboration with the Weinberg

College of Arts and Sciences, which includes an array of courses in political science, literature, history, and economics.

Since 2018, media professionals in Qatar have also had access to executive education programmes and master-classes offered by NU-Q on topics that include data analysis for marketing and communication, implementing a suc-cessful social media strategy, and developing a corporate social respon-sibility strategy.

At NU-Q students have access to some of the world’s most advanced technology, including a fully-automated newsroom, editing suites, filming studios, and a two-story library.

Among the high caliber of faculty who educate the nearly 400 students are internationally recognised scholars, media experts, filmmakers, and jour-nalists. Graduates from NU-Q have pursued successful careers as media professionals, with many of them con-tinuing their studies at top global

institutions like Harvard, Oxford, Columbia, and NYU.

Students, faculty, and staff engage in myriad pioneering research projects, including a one-of-a-kind annual report on Media Use in the Middle East, an NU-Q flagship project that was launched during the wake of the Arab Spring.

Students and faculty travel the globe presenting their research and partici-pating in debates and panels that discuss

the status of media and communication in the region.

Commenting on the announcement of the new ranking, Northwestern Provost Jonathan Holloway said, “We see it as a wonderful external endorsement of what our extraordi-narily talented community of faculty, staff and students does every day to make Northwestern one of the leading research universities in the world.”

An external view of the Northwestern University in Qatar.

“NU-Q is proud to be part of the long tradition of excellence that Northwestern University is known for. This ranking illustrates the quality of education our students receive,” said Everette E. Dennis, Dean and CEO

Ambassador hails Qatar’s humanitarian projects in AfghanistanIRFAN BUKHARI THE PENINSULA

Afghanistan Ambassador to Qatar, Abdul Hakim Dalili (pictured), has lauded Qatar’s generous human-itarian projects in Afghanistan.

Speaking to media recently, the Ambassador said that it was pride for Afghanistan like other Arab and Islamic countries that Qatar was hosting 2022 FIFA World Cup.

Afghan Embassy and expa-triates will celebrate 100th anni-versary of Afghanistan’s Inde-pendence and National Day today at the Sheraton Hotel.

Speaking about Afghanistan’s independence in 1919, he said that the Afghan people were the people who always defended their dignity and independence and Afghanistan was among the coun-tries which could not be occupied by foreign forces for long. “Afghanistan is a country of one and a half million martyrs. After the withdrawal of the Soviet Union, we wished our brothers’ support but they left Afghanistan without support which led Afghanistan to the current situa-tions,” he added.

Regarding Qatar’s support to Afghanistan, the Ambassador said that during Soviet-Afghan War a large number of Afghan people were forced to take shelters in neighboring countries especially in Pakistan and Qatar provided generous support to

Afghan refugees.“The support included

humanitarian aid, relief goods and in field of education. The support which began at that time is still continued like the projects of Qatar Red Crescent Society including drilling of water wells, building institutions etc.”

He said that Qatari citizens also announced to invest in Afghanistan in many fields but war was delaying such projects. “If armed conflict in Afghanistan comes to an end tomorrow, the country can attract investments. Afghanistan has very strategic location which is close to GCC and Qatar and Afghanistan have similar culture and religion.”

The Ambassador said that Qatar offered scholarships to Afghan students. “We are expecting more scholarships in future. Qatar University gives two scholarships to Afghan students and also scholarships are given by the Religious Institute. I am one of the beneficiary of Qatar’s scholarships.”

He said that there are about 5,000 Afghan expatriates in Qatar who are enjoying good reputation according to Qatari officials. “My next plan is to convince Qatari authorities to ease the visa proce-dures for Afghan nationals. We have professionals like engineers, doctors and skilled workforce which can contribute to the devel-opment of Qatar if they get opportunity.”

On Qatar’s hosting 2022 FIFA World Cup, Abdul Hakim Dalili said that it was great that Qatar would host 2022 FIFA World Cup. “First time the FIFA World Cup will be held in any Arab and Islamic country. Afghanistan as an Islamic country feels very proud on it.” He said that Qatar had hosted many sports events successfully and FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 would be organized in a very unique way that would mesmerize the world and leave eternal memory on peoples’ minds across the world.

On Gulf crisis, the Ambassador said that GCC countries were very important for Afghanistan. “We wish for the solution of crisis as soon as possible.” He also said that the current Afghan gov-ernment had made a number of achievements for the people in the field of infrastructure devel-opment and education. “Women were previously denied access to schools. We have now 260,000 students in private universities.”

“In defense, we have a strong army at all levels. We have freedom of expression and our constitution is one of the best con-stitutions in the region,” he added.

Inter-school poem recitation competition at OIS, NuaijaOlive International School (OIS) Nuaija Campus hosted an Inter-school poem recitation competition on September 12, in which all the Indian schools in Qatar participated enthusiastically. The chief guest, Hameeda Kadar, the Principal of MES Indian School, enlightened the students with the real meaning of poetry. The first position in group recitation was bagged by Olive International School, Umm Salal, and the second was won by DPS Modern Indian School. OIS, Thumama, stood third in the group recitation. Bhavan’s Public School bagged 1st prize in solo recitation and the second was awarded to Olive International School, Thumama. The third in solo recitation was won by DPS Modern Indian School.

Ooredoo sponsors tourism videography contestTHE PENINSULA/DOHA

Ooredoo is the Exclusive Telecom-munications Sponsor of an exciting new contest being organised by Qatar Youth Hostels. “Lens of Tourism” is a contest for university students aimed at raising the profile of Qatar as a tourist desti-nation and showcasing the incredible talent pool here in Qatar.

Entrants must submit a short video — no more than three minutes in length — that high-lights Qatar’s touristic, cultural and historical sites, and shows just why Qatar should feature on must-visit lists for tourists.

First prize winner will walk away with QR10,000 and filming

tools, second prize will be QR8,000 plus filming tools and the third-placed entrant will receive QR7,000 as well as filming tools. The videographer whose work attracts the most votes on social media will win a new smart phone, while fourth to 10th place will receive QR500 shopping vouchers.

To participate, initial regis-tration is done via hi-qatar.com/tourist/lens. When ready, par-ticipants should send their movies by email to info@hi-qatar.com along with their name, name of their university and faculty, university ID number, mobile number and movie title.

Entries must be submitted by October 23, 2019 and screening

and judging will take place on Nov 2, 2019. Manar Khalifa Al-Muraikhi, Director PR and Cor-porate Communications at Ooredoo, said: “We’re delighted to be supporting Qatar Youth Hostels and the Ministry of Culture and Sports with this exciting new initiative. Promoting Qatari culture is a key focus of our company strategy, as is supporting our local communities, and this new videography contest is the ideal way for us to provide prac-tical support for our art and culture, encourage our university students to explore their artistic talents and showcase the many wonderful tourist attractions – and Qatari culture – has to offer.”

06 SUNDAY 15 SEPTEMBER 2019HOME

Renault delivers SYMBOL fleet to Al Sulaiman Rent-A-Car THE PENINSULA DOHA

Saleh Al Hamad Al Mana Co., Renault’s exclusive agent in Qatar, has recently delivered a fleet of Renault SYMBOLs to Al Sulaiman Rent A Car, a leading name in car rentals in Qatar.

“This contract takes the col-laboration between our com-panies to a new level and sets the stage for a new era in customer satisfaction,” said Saleh Al Hamad Al Mana Co. in a statement.

Al Sulaiman Rent-A-Car, a member of Al Sulaiman Holdings, is a prominent name in Qatar. The Company is known for high standards of service and a con-stantly diversifying fleet, which includes luxury cars and limou-sines, sedans, commercial and passenger transportation. The Company offers courteous and efficient services to corporate clients, business travelers and tourists to keep them on the move in the best of luxury and comfort.

Martin Aherne, General Manager - Automotive, Saleh Al Hamad Al Mana Co, said: “The Renault SYMBOL design and

attractive equipment package are the perfect answer for cus-tomers with an active lifestyle, looking for an affordable yet fully equipped B Sedan. With enhanced interior quality and practicality, this is one vehicle that asserts its popularity year after year.”

A range of advanced techno-logical, comfort and safety fea-tures in the Renault SYMBOL

deliver an even higher level of satisfaction during every single journey. With an elegant and robust personality, an unbeatable price-spaciousness ratio, it has all the ingredients to make it a hit with both individuals and families.

The interior quality level of the Renault SYMBOL is definitive to its class. The dashboard and interior door feature refined

touches of shiny chrome, satin chrome and film inserts.

The spacious interior com-bines utility and pleasure with generous seating room to com-fortably accommodate 5 adults. The boot space has a capacity of 510 litres, therefore placing the new Renault Symbol as the best-in-class choice for luggage transport in its category.

And the possibility to

increase it up to 1,257 litres with the rear bench seat folded, is stepping up this competitive advantage.

The Renault SYMBOL rede-fines comfort with an integrated rear- view camera, the new Media Nav 2.0 system, and driver’s side one-touch electric window. The wide dashboard is intended to give driver and front passenger a sense of safety and

protection. As Prabin Balan, Sales

Manager, Al Sulaiman Rent-A-Car sums it up: “Redolent of quality and strength, the Renault SYMBOL’s elegant interior is in perfect harmony with the model’s exterior lines. We are positive that our customers will appreciate this new addition to our fleet and enjoy miles of driving pleasure.”

Officials of Saleh Al Hamad Al Mana Co and Al Sulaiman Rent-A-Car pose for a group photo.

MES Indian School marks Hindi DayTHE PENINSULA DOHA

Intending to enhance students’ level of confidence and enthu-siasm and the ability to express ideas fluently in Hindi Language, MES Indian School celebrated Hindi Day on September 12 with various competitions and activ-ities such as make words, show and talk, copywriting , picture description, story writing, slogan writing, poem writing and hunting for answers.

The participants took part in these competitions with great enthusiasm reflecting their deep-rooted appreciation and admi-ration towards this national lan-guage of India. All the competi-tions were conducted during the CCA periods. Valuable quotes and thoughts about the glory and richness of Hindi language were displayed on the school bulletin boards.

On the occasion, Hameeda

Kadar, the Principal conveyed the message highlighting the importance of Hindi language and urged the students who have taken Hindi as their Second and Third Language study to use this popular and beautiful lan-guage extensively in their day-to-day life for speaking and writing.

Head of Section Boys’ offici-ating Mohammed Ilias also spoke

on the occasion. Various cultural presentations were also show-cased to add colour to the cele-brations. Winners of various competitions were honoured with certificates of merit and appreciation during the vale-dictory function.

Rajendran, senior teacher and convener of the Hindi Day celebrations introduced the pro-gramme. Master Syed

Mohammed Yasir of Grade 10 spoke on the importance of Hindi Language on the occasion. Miss Safura Kasu of Grade 9 wel-comed the gathering, while Master Mohd. Hamad Ashfaque of Grade 10 proposed a vote of thanks. Miss Alisha and Miss Fasiha, Grade 10 students com-pered the day’s programme. School officials and teachers were present.

Students of MES Indian School performing during the event held to observe Hindi Day.

Sheikh Jassim bin Mohammed bin Thani Holy Quran Contest is rescheduledTHE PENINSULA DOHA

The Organising Committee of Sheikh Jassim bin Mohammed bin Thani Holy Quran Contest at the Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs has made changes to the schedule of some of its branches.

The changes aim at devel-oping the competition and to achieve the interest and give the contestants inside and outside the country more time for learning the Holy Quran properly.

One of the highlights of the organisational plan is to amend the date of the international branch of Awal Awail (first tops) of second version to be held after the second half of the month of Sha’ban to the beginning of the holy month of Ramadan each year.

It should be noted that the international branch of Awal Awail of second version was sup-posed to be organised during November which was replaced by the organisation of the entire Holy Quran memorisation branch this year.

The entire Holy Quran mem-orization branch is scheduled to be announced on September 22 and registration will be during the period from October 13 to 17.

The first phase tests will start from November 16 and end on November 21, the second round

of test will be held from November 23 to 24 and the final round of test will be from November 25 to 26.

Minister of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs H E Dr Ghaith bin Mubarak Al Kuwari will honour the winners by the beginning of December 2019.

The organizing committee of Sheikh Jassim bin Mohammed bin Thani Holy Quran Contest set terms and conditions under which the first round contests of complete Holy Quran of two branches and Awal Awail will be held after mid of of Sha’ban each Hijri year, as first round after mid Sha’ban in two shifts morning and evening and last round in the beginning of Ramadan after Taraweeh prayer.

As per the rules of organi-zation the international branch of Awal Awail is the conversion of the Hijri date in full condition

and the convention, and therefore modify the condition of acceptance, which provides that the target group are the winners of international compe-titions for three years “Hijri” before the year of the competition.

The general regulations point out rectifying the situation of the winners during 2019, so that they will be allowed to participate in the third edition in 1444 AH / 2023 AD.

When scheduling tests for Shaaban and Ramadan, the schedules will be adopted as the month of Sha’ban (29) days. As the tests will be held only in the evening after Taraweeh prayer.

Based on the foregoing, the approved schedule of the Awal Awael branch of the second version 1441 AH will start from Wednesday Sha’ban 22 corre-sponding to April 15, 2020 as a

date for the reception and accommodation of the con-testants and in the period from Sha’ban 23 to 29, 1441 AH corre-sponding to the period from April 16 to 22.

The final round of test will be held from 1 to 3 Ramadan, cor-responding to April 23 to 25. The

final round will be followed by preparation for conclusion cer-emony which was scheduled to be held on Ramadan 5, 1441 AH corresponding to April 27.

The coordination was made for associated programs which include visits to the most prom-inent landmarks of Doha, the

capital of the State of Qatar to get acquainted with the country and its culture its achievements in the economic, tourism, social and cultural fields and urban development, customs and tra-ditions of the country derived from the Arab and Islamic heritage.

The entire Holy Quran memorisation branch is scheduled to be announced on September 22 and registration will take place from October 13 to 17.

Qatar Pavilion at Beijing Expo 2019 attracts over 1.8 million visitorsTHE PENINSULA/DOHA

Qatar Pavilion at the International Horticultural Exhibition 2019 (Beijing Expo 2019) attracted over 1.8 million visitors since its opening on April 29. The exhi-bition will conclude on October seven.

A delegation headed by the former Ambassador of China to Qatar, the President of the Inter-national Aviation Federation in Asia, the Vice-President of the Qatar Airways Office in Beijing, and 100 representatives tourism companies in China are among prominent visitors of the expo.

The Qatari pavilion managers, Dr. Fikra Ashkanani, Deputy Commissioner-General of the Qatar Pavilion at the Beijing Expo, Barghash Al Nuaimi, Ali Al Khayat, received the members of the visiting delegation, who were taken on an inspection tour inside the pavilion, to get acquainted with the projects and tourist

places available and identify close to Qatar and its most important features.

Qatar’s pavilion at the expo also attached great importance to children through the organisation of special activities, which is in line with the State of Qatar’s spon-sorship and interest in education and learning in all fields and in the environmental field in par-ticular. Due to the children’s activ-ities organised by the pavilion, the Qatari pavilion received wide attention from the families and their children.

The Future section, one of the pavilion’s sections, has also pro-vided visitors with an opportunity to learn about the country’s expe-rience in the urban development and to discover the engineering designs of the stadiums that will host Qatar 2022 FIFA World Cup, through the presentation of mini-models of stadiums, reflecting the determination that characterise the Qatar government and people.

The international branch of Awal Awail of second version was supposed to be organised during November which was replaced by the organisation of the entire Holy Quran memorisation branch this year. The final round of test will be held from 1 to 3 Ramadan, corresponding to April 23 to 25, to be followed by the conclusion ceremony which was scheduled to be held on Ramadan 5, 1441 AH, corresponding to April 27

07SUNDAY 15 SEPTEMBER 2019 HOME

QLC issues final admissions call for National Leadership ProgramsTHE PENINSULA DOHA

Aspiring participants have until September 22 to submit online applications for the Qatar Lead-ership Centre’s (QLC) pres-tigious programmes, which start in March 2020.

Both proven and promising Qatar leaders in the public, private, and government sectors still have the chance to apply for enrolment into one of QLC National Leadership Programs 2020-2021, providing a unique opportunity to develop their leadership abilities, which aid the State of Qatar’s rapid development.

Enrollment into QLC’s National Leadership Programs — Rising Leaders, Executive Leaders, and Government Leaders programmes is

determined through a stringent evaluation process spanning September 2019 to early 2020, where candidates will be assessed based on their work experience and academic background.

The admissions criteria are unique to each National Lead-ership Program, as they provide custom coursework that is aimed at bolstering specialist knowledge in various fields. Upon admission, successful candidates who meet the rig-orous standards for admission will benefit from the Centre’s curricula and the combined knowledge of their prestigious internat ional academic partners.

“Qatar Leadership Centre seeks to realise the full potential of Qatari leadership across all tiers of seniority and

industrial sectors. We strive to strengthen the country’s national workforce through the

development of their profes-sional skills, allowing them to fulfill their personal goals while ensuring that their respective organisations prosper,” said Sheikh Dr. Abdulla bin Ali Al Thani, Board Member and Managing Director of QLC.

“As per Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani’s vision, we have become a hub and a national platform of leadership development, helping the country realise the human development goals pre-scribed in Qatar National Vision 2030. We are more committed than ever to training present and future Qatari leaders, ensuring that the country sustains its rapid development for the fore-seeable future.”

The National Leadership Programs were designed and

developed in conjunction with esteemed educational institu-tions, including University of Cambridge, University of Oxford, HEC Paris, Harvard University, Georgetown Uni-versity, Duke University, Uni-versity of Chicago, Civil Service College Singapore as well as International Advisory Group, Profiles International, and Al Jazeera Media Institute.

The programmes feature comprehensive course work, including modules on strategic corporate policymaking, crisis leadership, financial man-agement, negotiation and per-suasion skills as well as com-munication, branding, and positioning in competitive markets.

Notably, education of the participants of the programme extends beyond the classroom

as QLC regularly schedules exclusive meetings with influ-ential leaders in Qatar, the region, and throughout the world, allowing them to learn from experiences shaped in the highest-level boardrooms and offices in the public, private and government sectors.

The programmes also incor-porate their own annual week-long Learning Journey, as par-ticipants travel to meet leading executives and experts in important markets, such as Sweden, Japan, Singapore, the US and others. Due to the in-depth nature of these pro-grammes, participants are required to dedicate three to five days a month throughout the academic year.

To apply to one of the Cen-tre’s three National Leadership Programs, visit www.qlc.org.qa

Both proven and promising Qatar leaders in the public, private, and government sectors still have the chance to apply for enrolment into one of QLC National Leadership Programs 2020-2021, providing a unique opportunity to develop their leadership abilities, which aid the State of Qatar’s rapid development.

Aster Volunteers officially inauguratedTHE PENINSULA DOHA

Aster Volunteers, an international charitable initiative aims to reduce the gap between people who want to help and people who need help, was inau-gurated in Qatar as an associate organisation of Indian Community Benevolent Forum (ICBF) under the aegis of the Embassy of India to Qatar.

The official inaugural ceremony and oath taking of office bearers were held at Crowne Plaza, recently. P N Baburajan, President of ICBF, has flagged off the initiative in the presence of Dr. Sameer Moopan, Patron- Aster Volunteers; Dr. Krishna-bhaskar Mangalasseri, Global Head of Aster Volunteers; Avinash Gaikwad, General Secretary of ICBF; Nikhil Joseph, President of Aster Volunteers, representatives of other associations and organisations in Qatar. Dr. Krishnabhaskar delivered the keynote address and Vishnu Prasad K S delivered vote of thanks. Nayanedu Ananad, a registered volunteer and student of Birla Public School, did compering of the event.

P N Baburajan administered the oath of Nikhil Joseph. He adminis-tered oath of other office bearers including Rejil Jacob (Vice-President), Vishnu Prasad K S (General—Sec-retary), Reena Mary Rajy (Joint Sec-retary); Avinash Gowda (Treasurer), Dr. Mahesh Patel, Nasseebu Rahman, Rupesh, Rashmi Sanjeev, Joncy and Mithun Kumar (executive members).

During the inaugural speech, P N Baburajan said Aster Volunteers is an excellent platform for everyone to contribute their free time for helping

others and Aster Volunteers’ pro-gramme reinforces ICBF’s com-mitment to supporting the commu-nities it serves and recognises volun-teerism as a key pillar of giving.

During the keynote address, Dr. Krishnabhaskar stated that Aster Vol-unteers is started with a singular vision, to unite people from all walks of life in helping make the world a little better.

Now we have more than 20,000 dedicated volunteers across 10 coun-tries and Aster Volunteers’ work based on six pillars, including BLS training, mobile medical services, differently-abled recruitments and support, free investigations, procedures and sur-geries, medical camps and child health initiatives.”

Talking on activities, Dr. Sameer

Moopan, Patron of Aster Volunteers, said platform is a channel to con-tribute someone’s time for the benefit of the society in terms of health, social, economic, cultural and educational developments and assistance. We are obliged to the officials of Embassy of India to Qatar and managing com-mittee of ICBF for accrediting Aster Volunteers as an Associate Organisation.

Nikhil Joseph said it is a testimony to our effort to empower individuals who want to make a positive dif-ference in the society and extend support in terms of time.

The programme operates through an online portal. Anybody interested to be the volunteer of the programme can send a message to the official WhatsApp number +974 74799321.

The office-bearers of Aster Volunteers with P N Baburajan, President of ICBF, during the official inauguration of Aster Volunteers and oath-taking ceremony of office-bearers at Crowne Plaza, recently.

GAC trains its staff to activate procedures of TIR in Qatar QNA DOHA

The General Authority of Customs (GAC) has organised a training programme in cooper-ation with the International Road Transport Union (IRU) for the technical training of the bodies working to implement the International Road Transport Agreement (TIR) in

Qatar. The programme included training courses for the prepa-ration of trainers at GAC, the staff of Fahes company, to apply technical matters and the issuance of certificates of validity for the means of transport of Qatari goods exported from within the State of Qatar, which will depend on the implementation of the Convention.

On the sidelines of the training programme, the Chairman of GAC, Ahmed bin Abdullah Al Jamal , met with the delegation of the International Land Transport Union and hon-oured the members of the del-egation for their continuous efforts and cooperation in the implementation of the Convention.

TIR is one of the most

important agreements signed at the United Nations in 1975.

IRU is responsible for over-seeing the implementation of this agreement, which allows the international transportation of goods on the road from one customs office to another through any number of coun-tries, without any border customs procedures to inspect the goods transported in return for taking a set of precautionary measures on the goods, and within the framework of inter-national financial guarantees to cover any customs dues that may result from any customs breaches during the journey of

goods through the territories of the countries that pass through them.

The agreement aims to facil-itate the movement of goods by road to the maximum extent possible, while maintaining the security and customs dues of the

countries through which the goods transported by this system pass.

More than 65 countries, including the European Union and a number of Arab and Asian countries, have joined the agreement.

The Chairman of the General Authority of Customs, Ahmed bin Abdullah Al Jamal, with the delegation from the International Land Transport Union.

The staff of General Authority of Customs undergoing technical training for the effective implementation of International Road Transport Agreement.

The programme included training courses for the preparation of trainers at the General Authority of Customs, the staff of Fahes company to apply technical matters and the issuance of certificates of validity for the means of transport of Qatari goods exported from within the State of Qatar, which will depend on the implementation of the Convention.

Tunisians, whose mass mobilisation against unemployment and poverty set off the Arab Spring and inspired revolutionary and democratic change across the region less than a decade ago, have gradually become more and more disillusioned with the democratic process and its ability to resolve their most pressing socioeconomic problems.

THE WASHINGTON POST

08 SUNDAY 15 SEPTEMBER 2019VIEWS

Democracy will be the loser of Tunisia’s presidential election

Tunisians will head to the polls on September 15 to elect a new president in the second such vote since the country’s

2011 revolution. The upcoming election, however, is unlikely to cure the Tunisian population’s growing sense of disenchantment with the democratic process.

In the eight years since the end of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s authoritarian rule, Tunisia has achieved several democratic mile-stones, including the election of a con-stituent assembly, the drafting of a new constitution, and the organisation of several successful general and local elections. However, all these achieve-ments have been overshadowed by growing concerns over ideological polarisation, insecurity, terrorism, and a severe economic crisis.

Despite the efforts of successive governments, in recent years Tunisia’s national debt has reached 70 percent of the national GDP, inflation has risen to 6.7 percent, and the official unem-ployment rate has remained high, at 15.5 percent, reaching as much as 30 percent in the country’s interior.

Meanwhile, repeated terror attacks on popular tourist desti-nations have devastated the all-important tourism sector, causing further deteri-oration of the country’s already strug-gling economy. The drastic aus-terity measures that have been adopted by the Tunisia central banks and other government financial insti-tutions have increased economic pressure on ordinary

people and have fed into their resentment of the political elite.

As a result, Tunisians, whose mass mobilisation against unemployment and poverty set off the Arab Spring and inspired revolutionary and demo-cratic change across the region less than a decade ago, have gradually become more and more disillusioned with the democratic process and its

ability to resolve their most pressing socioeconomic problems.

A 2018 Afrobarometer survey found that only 46 percent of Tuni-sians believe that democracy is the most preferable form of government, down from 70 percent in 2013. And, perhaps more tellingly, the turnout of the last vote in 2018 in which Tuni-sians elected freely city mayors for the first time in their recent history, was remarkably low - at 36 percent. By comparison, the first post-revolution parliamentary election drew some 69 percent of the voters to the polls.

By all indications, this Sunday’s presidential election is only going to increase the Tunisian population’s alienation from the electoral process.

Twenty-six candidates, including a number of prominent figures, are running for president. Among them are Prime Minister Youssef Chahed, Defence Minister Abdelkarim Zbidi, jailed media mogul Nabil Karoui and Abdelfattah Mourou, the presidential candidate of the Islamist Ennahdha party.

Nevertheless, none of these candi-dates appears competent, experienced and trustworthy enough to reignite the flame of democracy in Tunisia and deliver much-awaited social and eco-nomic reforms that would solve the country’s many enduring problems.

Most of them made their person-ality, rather than their political and economic programmes, the focus of their presidential campaigns.

During the highly-anticipated presidential debates, which were broadcast on national TV and watched by more than three million Tunisians, most of the candidates talked about themselves rather than their policy plans and struggled to answer even the most basic and predictable ques-tions on national security, foreign relations and political policy reform.

The bad performance of the majority of the candidates and their failure to convince the viewers that they are prepared for the job caused the population to lose interest in the presidential election even more. Many Tunisians expressed their disap-pointment at the debates by taking to social media to poke fun at the candidates.

Analysts are already predicting low voter turnout on Sunday which could play into the hands of Nabil Karoui, a 56-year-old media tycoon who is running on a right-wing pop-ulist platform. He has managed to present himself as an anti-estab-lishment strongman who can deliver change and improve the lives of ordinary Tunisians. He opposes the abolition of capital punishment, gender equality in inheritance, and calls for the amendment of the consti-tution to give more power to the elected president. Karoui, who is the owner Nessma TV channel, was arrested three weeks ago on suspicion of tax evasion and money laundering. His party, Qalb Tounes (the Heart of Tunisia), claim that his arrest was politically motivated.

Although he lacks any political experience and had to campaign remotely from a prison cell, he is leading in the polls and given the widespread rejection of the Islamist and secularist camps that have so far dominated the political debates in the country, he actually stands a chance of becoming Tunisia’s next president.

He is popular not because he has presented a detailed economic plan to save the country from the ongoing crisis and improve the lives of ordinary people, but because he has cultivated the image of a successful businessman and generous philanthropist who dedi-cates much of his time to charity work through his Khalil Tounes Foundation and by giving away fridges and televi-sions on his TV channel.

He did not participate in any presi-dential debates and it is still unclear whether he will be released from prison if he makes it to the runoff. Since Thursday he has been on hunger strike demanding to be allowed to vote in Sunday’s election and on Friday, he was denied release from prison after an appeal was again turned down.

The popularity of Karoui is the result of the frustration of the Tunisian people with what they see as the failed politics of the mainstream parties which regularly engage in mean-ingless ideological quarrels instead of fixing high unemployment levels, inflation and insecurity.

HAYTHEM GUESMI AL JAZEERA

QUOTE OF THE DAY

A withdrawal of Nato forces from

Afghanistan could see the country falling

back under the strict rule of the Taliban.

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer

German Defence Minister

Rohingya are a people of nowhere. They shouldn’t be abandoned.

Two years ago,Myanmar’s military launched a crackdown of fire and violence against the Muslim Rohingya population of Rakhine

state in the western part of the country. In the attacks, which the United States has described as ethnic cleansing and UN investigators called possible crimes against humanity, civilians were killed, their villages burned to the ground and some 750,000 people fled for their lives.

Now, the displaced Rohingya languish in neighboring Bangladesh, a seething humanitarian challenge, while Buddhist-majority Myanmar, also known as Burma, tries to cover up and forget the destruction of Rohingya villages and homes.

Consider one of the most woeful days of the violence. On Sept. 2, 2017,10 Rohingya men from the village of Inn Din were roped together while watching Buddhist villagers dig a shallow grave. Before long, all 10 men lay dead in the grave. Two had been hacked to death by

the Buddhists, and eight were shot by the Burmese security forces, according to Reuters, which interviewed witnesses to the massacre and exposed it.

Recently, Jonathan Head, Southeast Asia correspondent for BBC News, was on a government tour of Rakhine state. Myanmar has refused to allow unfettered international investigations of the vio-lence against the Rohingya, and jour-nalists are not permitted to move about freely. The tour was tightly controlled and intended to show off Myanmar repatri-ation facilities. But Head found four loca-tions where police barracks, government buildings and refugee relocation camps have been built on what satellite images show were once Rohingya settlements. The government denies doing this.

One of the settlements was identified as Inn Din. The satellite imagery shows a Buddhist quarter untouched, quiet and peaceful. But “no trace of the Muslim quarter remains,” Head reported, saying that “when you reach where the Rohingya houses used to be, the trees

have gone, replaced by barbed-wire fences enclosing an extensive new Border Guard Police barracks.” The Bud-dhist residents “told us they would never accept Muslims living next to them again,” he said.

Meanwhile, the tormented Rohingya are facing additional difficulties in Bang-ladesh. The refugees have resisted two attempts to repatriate a handful of them back to Myanmar, where they have suf-fered persecution and second-class status for decades. The Bangladesh gov-ernment was rattled by a protest rally last month of some Rohingya to com-memorate the second anniversary of their flight and to demand repatriation to Myanmar with full citizenship. On Monday, the regional telecom regulator ordered network operators to halt all cellphone service in the area covering the Rohingya camps near Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh near the Myanmar border. The blackout will certainly raise tensions in the camps as the Rohingya feel more isolated than ever.

CHAIRMANSHEIKH THANI BIN ABDULLAH AL THANI

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

ACTING MANAGING EDITORMOHAMMED SALIM MOHAMEDm.salim@pen.com.qa

DEPUTY MANAGING EDITORMOHAMMED OSMAN ALI osman@pen.com.qa

ESTABLISHED IN 1996

EDITORIAL

Promoting peaceQatar has emerged as one of the world’s most proactive

mediators in the past two decades. Motivated by its neutral position, the country has positioned itself as a key mediator

in many successful mediations and peacemaking efforts by helping disputants to end regional conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa. Qatar’s efforts for peacemaking in Lebanon, Yemen, and border conflicts between Eritrea and Djibouti, and peace deal of East Sudan and Darfur was among the successful mediation proc-esses which has proved that Qatar is an influential mediator, capable to reduce tension and end conflicts.

The ongoing peace talks between the US and Taliban to settle one of the most complicated and prolonged wars of Afghanistan will definitely not be the last in Qatar’s efforts to make peace and it will continue its successful mediation when it is necessary and disputants reach a dead end. This because Qatar is “determined to be a force for good in the world, and to play an active role in promoting peace” as stated by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs H E Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdul-rahman Al Thani during his meeting with Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg in Brussels on March 13, this year.

One of the basic requirements for any mediator is neutrality, capability to host peace talks, ability to enhance peace when

parties come to an agreement by providing support for peace building and execution of rehabil-itation programmes in areas affected during the conflicts, and finally the commitment of the top leaders of the state. All these factors have made Qatar’s role effective and successful in peacemaking.

Qatar is also one of the good examples of a country accommo-dating communities that represent different cultures, religions, lan-guages and with high gender diversity, making it a haven for harmony and peace promoted by the state policy of coexistence of different cultures and religions.

Along this successful achievement in peacemaking, Qatar is sponsoring, for more than a decade, interfaith dialogue every year through Doha International Center for Interfaith Dialogue (DICID) to promote the values of tolerance and combating extremism.

The Permanent Representative of Qatar to the UN, Ambassador

H E Sheikha Alya bint Ahmed bin Saif Al Thani, at the “High-Level Forum on the Culture of Peace”, held yesterday at the UN General Assembly, highlighted Qatar’s continued efforts to promote a culture of peace and capacity building in the field of dialogue and tolerance through annual international interfaith conferences organized by DICID. She pointed out that the 14th DICID Inter-faith Conference will be held in Doha in March 2020 under the theme: ‘Religions and Hate Speech Scriptures and Practice’ with the participation of leaders from different religions.

Her Excellency stressed that Qatar has adopted an approach based on addressing the root causes of violent extremism, espe-cially among young people, and importance given to the path of education and employment. For this Qatar has established many institutions and has launched initiatives in the field of education and employment at the national, regional and inter-national level.

Qatar is also one of the good examples of a country accommodating communities that represent different cultures, religions, languages, and with high gender diversity, making it a haven for harmony and peace promoted by the state policy of coexistence of different cultures and religions.

Army soldiers standing guard as polling officials transport ballot boxes and election materials to be distributed to polling stations in Tunis, yesterday.

He has other options too. He might refuse to comply with Parliament’s order to delay Brexit, or resign, leaving Labour’s hard-left leader Jeremy Corbyn to try to stitch together a government to request an extension. And, there’s always the prospect that an EU outlier such as Hungary might block another Brexit delay, which requires unanimous approval.

09SUNDAY 15 SEPTEMBER 2019 OPINION

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“This is our home”: Kenya islanders demand say inforeign-backed projects

Boris Johnson still has a fighting chance

KIM HARRISBERG REUTERS

THERESE RAPHAEL BLOOMBERG

Armed with maps, activists on the tourist island of Lamu have managed to stall plans for Kenya’s first coal-

powered plant as local communities become more vocal about rising numbers of foreign-backed projects on their doorsteps.

Kenya’s government in 2016 granted a licence to Amu Power - a consortium involving Kenya’s Gulf Energy and Centum Investment , some Chinese companies as well as U.S. and Omani backers - to build the plant as demand for electricity soared.

But using smartphones and GPS trackers, activists collected infor-mation on wildlife and historical sites to highlight in court the impact the plant could have on the islanders’ environment and livelihoods.

“This is our home,” said Walid Ahmed, the secretary general of Save Lamu, an advocacy group which is part of the mapping campaign for the World Heritage Site’s protection.

“We do want development of course, but we also want to be informed about what this devel-opment will look like,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation from his Lamu office with walls covered in maps of the island.

In June a Kenyan environmental tribunal delayed the licence for the planned power plant, saying Kenya’s

National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) had granted the licence without a proper environ-mental study that consulted residents.

The court’s ruling was the latest in a long-running legal battle over the plant - with a Kenyan court last year suspending the project for a second time - and the latest dispute over a Chinese-backed project feared to impact local livelihoods.

Like many African countries, Kenya has courted foreign companies to invest in transport and energy projects, with China funding a quarter of infrastructure development in East Africa in 2018, according to interna-tional accounting group Deloitte.

But Cobus van Staden, a senior researcher from the South African Institute of International Affairs, said residents were increasingly demanding more of a say on devel-opment projects and how they could impact the lives of local residents.

Van Staden said Lamu island - the oldest Swahili settlement in East Africa - was caught up in “a tango between the desire to modernise, while protecting environmental and cultural heritage”.

“We need mechanisms in place to engage local communities and encourage public disclosure,” van Staden said in a phone interview.

The coal power plant was not the Lamu islanders’ first legal battle against foreign-backed development projects which they fear could harm the area’s cultural and environmental heritage.

In 2018 about 5,000 fishermen, again using maps, won 1.76 billion Kenyan shillings ($17 million) in com-pensation for the loss of traditional fishing rights due to constructing a major port at Manda Bay, near the islands of Lamu, Manda and Pate.

The port is part of the $26 billion

Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia Transport (LAPSSET) corridor that envisages, by 2030, a port, new roads, a railway and an oil-export pipeline linking Kenya with neighbouring South Sudan, Uganda and Ethiopia.

A consortium of companies led by China Communications Construction Company won the 41 billion Kenyan shillings contract to build the first three berths at Lamu port in 2013 where dhows - traditional sailing vessels - glide across the Indian Ocean. “The sea and this land are our wealth,” said Ahmed of Save Lamu, referring to the fishing, tourism, farming and pastoral activities which the island’s tiny population of about 120,000 rely on to live.

“At least 80% of our livelihoods in Lamu are part of a delicate balance with the blue economy,” said Mohamed Somo, chairman of the Lamu Beach Management Unit, referring to ocean resources.

The director general for LAPSSET did not respond to several requests for comment. The backers of the Lamu power plant said the project would help tackle Kenya’s frequent blackouts by increasing generation capacity by nearly a third and generating power that would cost about half what consumers cur-rently pay.

Cyrus Kirima, the consortium’s chief operating officer, said the power plant would be a “game changer” for the island and transform “one of the most marginalised areas in the country into an important economic zone”.

It would also create nearly 2,000 local jobs, he said in emailed com-ments. Unemployment on the island stands at 16%.

Kenya’s National Environment Management Authority declined to comment.

Is Boris Johnson about to be thrown into a Brexit briar patch - and is that just where he wants to be?

The story of Brer Rabbit is a well-known trickster tale in American folklore. In one episode, Brer Fox has finally got Brer Rabbit trapped and is deciding how to finish him off; he wants the worst possible fate for a foe who has constantly outwitted him.

Brer Rabbit begs for mercy. “Drown me! Roast me! Hang me! Only please don’t throw me into the briar patch,” he pleads. And that’s exactly what the fox does, to Brer Rabbit’s delight. You see, says a smug rabbit as he combs his fur later, “I was bred and born in the briar patch, Brer Fox.”

It’s far easier to picture the amply built, politically agile Boris Johnson as a bear, or even a fox, than a scrawny rabbit. But there’s no question that the British prime minister’s opponents appear to have him cornered. He seems to have miscalculated repeatedly as he tries to deliver Brexit by Halloween. He’s being forced to request a Brexit extension, is unable to call an election, is stuck without a majority and his party is in open warfare.

That’s not even all. Scotland’s high court declared his suspension of Par-liament illegal, leaving the UK Supreme Court to decide the matter next week. Thanks to another

constitutional sleight of hand, Johnson was also forced to release sensitive government information about the possible impact of a no-deal Brexit, including shortages of food, fuel and water, and public disorder.

This looks bad, politically fatal even. Johnson’s many opponents in Parliament have scored victory after victory. But assuming they’ve struck a killing blow is dangerous. While John-son’s opponents are celebrating his difficulties, they may be sending him straight to where he’s most com-fortable: His own version of the briar patch. The conventional wisdom is that if Johnson is forced to ask for, and accept, an extension to the Oct. 31 Brexit deadline, it would be a devas-tating climb-down after he said he’d rather be “dead in a ditch” than do so. But would British leave voters really blame Johnson? It’s not certain they would. Polls show a more polarized public, with Brexiters increasingly inclined to excuse almost any behavior to get the UK’s European Union departure over the line.

Johnson will look to weaponize any extension, claiming it is a remainer trick to stop the “will of the people.” The EU might even struggle to approve a delay if Johnson promises to be difficult, or risk looking as if it has taken sides in Brit-ain’s domestic political wars. Any of

that would help Johnson’s campaign of blame.

He has other options too. He might refuse to comply with Parliament’s order to delay Brexit, or resign, leaving Labour’s hard-left leader Jeremy Corbyn to try to stitch together a government to request an extension. And, as Bloomberg reported Thursday, there’s always the prospect that an EU outlier such as Hungary might block another Brexit delay, which requires unanimous approval.

The Labour Party took the decision to deny Johnson an October election because it didn’t want to give him what he wanted: A national vote that could have galvanized Britain’s Brexiters into returning John-son’s Conservatives with a mandate to crash out of the EU if necessary. But an October election would have been awkward for the prime minister. He would have had to choose between a pact with Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party, which wants a no-deal departure, and retaining more moderate Tory voters.

The more time that passes, the more Parliament looks unable to decide what it wants - and the more Labour’s own Brexit divisions are exposed - the more Johnson’s appeal to get Brexit done may resonate with weary British voters.

Certainly Parliament’s suspension (or prorogation) has put Johnson back where he’s happiest, out of the House of Commons and in sole charge of the prime ministerial bullhorn. He can’t legislate, but he can make announce-ments and they’ll be reported by the media while MPs have lost their forum. He can engage in a flurry of diplomacy and make lavish spending promises.

A decision against his prorogation by the Supreme Court would be embarrassing, of course. It would make it harder to avoid the legislation demanding that he pursues a Brexit extension. But legal setbacks and moral outrage don’t necessarily translate into voter rejection. Indeed, a loss would let him portray the Scottish (and possibly English) judges as part of an anti-Brexit estab-lishment; and while a reconvened Parliament would bombard him with uncomfortable questions and com-mittee hearings, it would help his electoral platform (“the people versus Parliament”) to show lawmakers standing in the way of Brexit.

None of this suggests that Johnson, or his adviser Dominic Cummings, are

Like many African countries, Kenya has courted foreign companies to invest in transport and energy projects, with China funding a quarter of infrastructure development in East Africa in 2018.

at all happy with this state of affairs. They clearly blundered. Nor is this a healthy place for Britain’s economy or its polity.

Johnson’s team is betting that voters will reward him ultimately for showing leadership and doing whatever it takes to quit the EU. But that’s a huge gamble and would require the Tories to compensate for what will certainly be lost seats in Scotland, London and other remain-supporting parts of the country. Prorogation has also helped unite the opposition to no deal and it’s hard to rule out elec-toral pacts on that side.

Even Brer Rabbit foolishly got himself stuck and was at the mercy of Brer Fox. Much depends then on what his opponents do next. In an interview with the Evening Standard Thursday, the now exiled moderate Tory lawmaker Oliver Letwin dangled a possibility. He said a cross-party alliance is pre-pared to withhold an election until after either a deal is agreed or a second referendum held.

That’s an interesting propo-sition. In one scenario, Johnson would have delivered Brexit and could fight an election on centrist, pro-growth turf against a socialist opposition without having to worry as much about losing support to Farage. While the alter-native route of a new refer-endum may not be ideal, cam-paigning is where Johnson is hap-piest. The prime minister’s enemies may feel they have him where they want him, but Johnson’s hide is thick enough to withstand a few thorns. You can’t count him out yet.

Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaking during the Convention of the North at the Magna Centre in Rotherham, Britain.

10 SUNDAY 15 SEPTEMBER 2019GULF / MIDDLE EAST

Houthi drone strikes set Saudi oil facilities ablaze

Trump floats possible defence treaty with IsraelREUTERS WASHINGTON

US President Donald Trump said yesterday that he had spoken with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about a possible mutual defence treaty between the two nations, a move that could bolster Netanyahu’s re-election bid just days before Israelis go to the polls.

“I had a call today with Prime Minister Netanyahu to discuss the possibility of moving forward with a Mutual Defense Treaty, between the United States and Israel, that would further anchor the tremendous alliance between our two coun-tries,” Trump said on Twitter.

He added that he looked forward to continuing those dis-cussions later this month on the

sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly session in New York.

The timing of Trump’s tweet, just days before Israel’s election on Tuesday, appeared aimed at buttressing Netanyahu’s effort to remain in power by show-casing his close ties to Trump.

Opinion polls predict a close race, five months after an incon-clusive election in which Netanyahu declared himself the winner but failed to put together a coalition government.

Netanyahu’s Likud party is running neck-and-neck with the centrist Blue and White party led by Benny Gantz. Some Israeli offi-cials have promoted the idea of building on Netanyahu’s strong ties to the Trump administration by forging a new defence treaty with the US.

Turkey may buy Patriot missiles from US: ErdoganANATOLIA ANKARA

Ankara will discuss purchasing US Patriot missiles in a meeting between the two countries’ leaders later this month, Turkey’s President said on Friday.

“I said no matter what package of... S-400s we get, we can buy from you a certain amount of Patriots,” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told the Reuters news agency in an interview in Istanbul.

“But I said we have to see conditions that at least match up to the S-400s,” added Erdogan.

Erdogan had earlier talked about buying Patriots with US President Donald Trump in a tel-ephone call and the two will discuss the issue in more detail at the UN General Assembly meetings in New York later this month.

“In my opinion a country like the US will not want to hurt its ally Turkey any more. This is not a rational behavior,” Erdogan said, who expressed hope that his personal bond with Trump would overcome the current crisis between two countries.

“This is not an offense, but a defence system. Turkey’s needs such a defence system,” he said.

Underlining that Trump

blames the Obama adminis-tration for refusal to sign a deal with Turkey to sell the Patriot missile system, Erdogan said: “It is impossible to think that threats of sanctions reflect reality.” He also reiterated that Turkey would take care of itself if Washington continued its current stance on Turkey’s exclusion from the F-35 fighter jet program.

Highlighting that Russia sup-ports Turkey in the defence industry, Erdogan stressed that Russia offered Turkey to sell fighter jets Su-57 and Su-35.

In July, the US suspended Turkey’s involvement in a program for F-35 fighter jets, saying its purchase of the Russian S-400 missile defence programme could endanger the aircraft, a claim Turkey has con-sistently denied.

Turkey produces some parts of the F-35 jets and is a partner in the jet program. It has warned any effort to remove it from the

production chain would be very costly. “We support people from Idlib migrating at the moment as the Turkish Republic with Dis-aster Management Agency (AFAD) and Red Crescent by trying to deliver all kinds of aid,” Erdogan said.

He stated that there were already 3.6 million Syrian ref-ugees in Turkey and Ankara cannot host anymore migrants, and added the West had no such problem.

Erdogan emphasised Turkey would be holding an Idlib summit in Ankara on Monday where talks with Russia and Iran will be held on a lasting truce in Idlib. The aim was not just an instant truce, but one to end migration, provide a cease-fire and end the terrorist networks in the area, he said.

President Erdogan stated that the EU has not fulfilled its commitments on expenditures and Turkey would not remain silent in the face of the EU.

“This figure is now 3 billion euros. The EU had pledged €6bn ($6.6bn) aid to improve living conditions of Syrian refugees in Turkey, but only €2.22bn ($2.45bn) were disbursed as of this June, according to Turkey — 40 billion dollars we have spent so far,” he said.

He noted that he had a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel during the week and he also met French President Emmanuel Macron and that dis-cussions would continue in New York. He said creating a safe zone will ensure that the migrants in Turkey would return to their own land and that there would be all kinds of education,

health and shelter in their own land. “It is Turkey which is fighting with these terror groups, we are your partner in Nato.

“You give them the weapons for free that you will not sell for money to your Nato ally,” he said. “We are fed up with explaining this... I think Trump must understand us,” Erdogan added.

A Palestinian protester uses a slingshot to hurl stones during clashes with Israeli forces, in the southern Gaza strip.

OIC set to discuss Netanyahu’s remarksANATOLIA ANKARA

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) will hold an extraordinary meeting of foreign ministers today to discuss Israeli Premier Binyamin Netanyahu’s remarks on the intention to annex some parts of Palestine’s West Bank.

In a statement, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said the country would be represented by Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu.

Earl ier this week, Netanyahu, appealing to his voters ahead of polls slated for Sept. 17, said: “I announce my intention to apply Israeli sover-eignty to the Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea, if the Israeli cit-izens elect me.” Roughly 70,000 Palestinians — along with some 9,500 Jewish settlers – currently live in the Jordan Valley, which

is a large, fertile strip of land that accounts for roughly one-quarter of the West Bank’s overall territory.

Turkey, Arab League and European countries said they

were concerned by Netanyahu’s annexation statement, with UN secretary general’s spokesman Stephane Dujarric said annex-ation plan would violate inter-national law.

Australianheld in Iranidentified asvarsity lecturerAFP/SYDNEY

One of three Australians recently revealed to be detained in Iran was identified by her family yesterday as a Melbourne University lecturer.

Academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert, who specialises in Middle Eastern politics with a focus on Gulf states, has been held for a “number of months” in Iran on charges that remain unclear.

“Our family thanks the Gov-ernment and the University of Melbourne for their ongoing support at this distressing and sensitive time,” a statement released by Australia’s foreign affairs department on behalf of the family said.

“We believe that the best chance of securing Kylie’s safe return is through diplomatic channels.” Canberra first con-firmed last week that three of its citizens had been seized by authorities in Tehran.

Perth-based travel-blogging couple Jolie King and Mark Firkin, who has been doc-umenting their journey from home to Britain on social media, were revealed as two of those arrested.

Moore-Gilbert is the last of the three to be named. Her arrest is unrelated to that of the couple, whose charges also remain unclear.

Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne last week said Moore-Gilbert has been held for “a number of months”, while King and Firkin for “a number of weeks”.

“The government have been making efforts to ensure they are being treated fairly, humanely and in custom to international norms,” she told parliament last week.

Payne said diplomacy pre-sented the “best chance” for their release, with the foreign affairs department in talks with Iranian counterparts about both cases.

News of the arrests came after Canberra announced it would contribute a frigate and surveillance aircraft to a US-led mission to protect shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, with tensions high in the Gulf region.

Six dead innorthwestSyria despitetruce: MonitorAFP BEIRUT

Regime and Russian fire has killed at least six civilians in northwestern Syria’s Idlib province, a war monitor said yesterday, two weeks after Moscow declared a ceasefire in the region.

The truce, which brought a halt to four months of devas-tating bombardment on Idlib province by the government and its ally Russia, had largely held apart from sporadic artillery fire and air strikes.

But on Tuesday, Russia carried out its first air strikes in the area since the ceasefire began, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

On Friday, regime rocket fire on the towns of Maaret Al-Numan and Kafranbel in southern Idlib province killed five civilians including a child, the Observatory said.

A sixth civilian was killed in a Russian air strike in the rural west of the province, it added.

That brought to 11 the number killed since the ceasefire came into effect, according to the Britain-based monitor, which has a network of contacts across the war-torn country.

The Hayat Tahrir al-Sham alliance led by Al-Qaeda’s former Syria affiliate controls most of Idlib as well as parts of neighbouring Aleppo and Latakia provinces.

The region of around three million people, many of them displaced by fighting in other areas, is one of the last holdouts of opposition to forces backing Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad.

The Observatory yesterday reported regime fire in various parts of southern Idlib, including close to a Turkish mil-itary observation post.

Russian air raids have also targeted militants in Idlib’s western countryside and nearby parts of Latakia, it said.

AP DUBAI

Yemen’s Houthi rebels launched drone attacks on the world’s largest oil processing facility in Saudi Arabia and a major oil field yesterday, sparking huge fires at a vulnerable chokepoint for global energy supplies.

It remained unclear hours later whether anyone was injured at the Abqaiq oil processing facility and the Khurais oil field or what effect the assault would have on oil production. Rising smoke from the fires at the sites could be seen by satellites.

The attack by the Houthis in the war against a Saudi-led coa-lition comes after weeks of similar drone assaults on the kingdom’s oil infrastructure, but none of the earlier strikes appeared to have caused the same amount of damage. The attack likely will heighten ten-sions further across the Gulf amid an escalating crisis between the US and Iran over its unravelling nuclear deal with world powers.

First word of the assault came in online videos of giant fires at the Abqaiq facility, some 330km northeast of the Saudi capital, Riyadh. Machine-gun fire could be heard in several clips alongside the day’s first call to

prayers, suggesting security forces tried to bring down the drones just before dawn.

In daylight, Saudi state tele-vision aired a segment with its local correspondent near a police checkpoint, a thick plume of smoke visible behind him.

The fires began after the sites were “targeted by drones,” the Interior Ministry said in a statement carried by the state-run Saudi Press Agency. It said an investigation was underway.

Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil giant, did not respond to questions. The kingdom hopes soon to offer a sliver of the company in an initial public offering.

In a short address aired by the Houthi’s Al-Masirah satellite news channel, military spokesman Yahia Sarie said the rebels launched 10 drones in their coordinated attack after receiving “intelligence” support from those inside the kingdom. He warned that attacks by the rebels would only get worse if the war continues.

“The only option for the Saudi government is to stop attacking us,” Sarie said.

The rebels hold Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, and other ter-ritory in the Arab world’s poorest country. Since 2015, a Saudi-led coalition has fought to reinstate the internationally recognised

Yemeni government. The US Embassy in Riyadh said it was unaware of any injuries to Amer-icans. Saudi Aramco employs a number of US citizens.

“These attacks against critical infrastructure endanger civilians, are unacceptable, and sooner or later will result in innocent lives being lost,” US Ambassador John Abizaid, a former Army general, said.

Saudi Aramco describes its Abqaiq oil processing facility in Buqyaq as “the largest crude oil stabilization plant in the world.” The facility processes sour crude oil into sweet crude, then trans-ports it onto transshipment points on the Gulf and the Red

Sea or to refineries for local production.

Estimates suggest it can process up to 7 million barrels of crude oil a day. By comparison, Saudi Arabia produced 9.65 million barrels of crude oil a day in July.

The plant has been targeted in the past by militants. Al-Qaida-claimed suicide bombers tried but failed to attack the oil complex in February 2006.

The Khurais oil field is believed to produce over 1 million barrels of crude oil a day. It has estimated reserves of over 20 billion barrels of oil, according to Aramco.

Smoke is seen following a fire at an Aramco factory in Abqaiq, Saudi Arabia, yesterday.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan during the opening ceremony of 2019-2020 academic year at the Ataturk Science High School in Istanbul, in this September 09, 2019 file picture.

Erdogan and Trump will discuss the issue in more detail at the UN General Assembly meetings in New York later this month.

13 civilians deadin Yemeni fireAP SANA’A, YEMEN

Yemeni security officials said shelling by Houthi rebels has killed at least 13 civilians including women and children in the provinces of Hodeida and Taiz. The officials said yesterday the attacks killed at least 11 people, including six from one family, south of the Red Sea city of Hodeida in the past 24 hours. Another two children were killed by mortar fire on Friday in Taiz province.

11SUNDAY 15 SEPTEMBER 2019 MIDDLE EAST / AFRICA

Zimbabweans, foreign leaders bid farewell to MugabeAFP HARARE

Zimbabwe gave former president Robert Mugabe a state funeral yesterday with African leaders paying tribute to a man lauded as a liberation hero but whose 37-year rule was defined by repression and economic turmoil.

Mugabe, who died in Sin-gapore last week aged 95, left Zimbabwe deeply torn over his legacy as the country still struggles with high inflation and shortages of goods after decades of crisis.

He died on an overseas medical trip almost two years after former army loyalists forced him out in 2017, following a power struggle over what was widely perceived as a bid to position his wife Grace as his successor.

Mugabe’s casket, draped in the green, black, gold and red Zimbabwe flag, was marched slowly into Harare’s national stadium as a military band played and crowds chanted and drummed, though less than half of the 60,000 seats appeared taken.

African leaders and senior officials from Cuba, Russia and China all praised Mugabe as a

pan-African hero for his past as a colonial-era guerrilla leader.

“We honour and remember our African icon. He had many allies and followers... Our moth-erland is in tears,” Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnan-gagwa said.

Doves were released over the stadium before soldiers fired a 21-gun salute from artillery cannon.

Mnangagwa, a former Mugabe ally who turned against him, praised Grace in a signal of reconciliation, and called for sanctions on Zimbabwe to be lifted in the post-Mugabe era.

“We say give our country a rebirth and a new start. Remove the sanctions now, we don’t deserve them.” South African leader Ramaphosa’s speech was briefly interrupted by jeers and whistles from the crowds until he apologised for recent xeno-phobic attacks on African migrants, including Zimba-bweans, in Johannesburg.

As a former anti-colonial rebel, Mugabe is credited with helping to end white-minority rule in Zimbabwe.

But his nearly four-decade rule was marked by repression, the brutal silencing of dissent and violent seizure of white-owned farms, making him an international pariah.

Though still lauded as an African icon, at home many Zim-babweans will remember Mugabe more for the increas-ingly tyrannical rule and eco-nomic mismanagement that forced millions to flee the country.

Many are struggling to survive despite Mnangagwa’s vows of more investment and jobs in the post-Mugabe era.

“The fruits of his tenure are the shortages. That is what we remember him for,” said Steven, a consultant shopping near the stadium.

“He has made sure there is no opposition and he succeeded. There is no reason to go to his funeral.”

A young Mugabe was once jailed in the former British colony Rhodesia for his nationalist ideas. But he swept to power in the 1980 elections after a guerrilla war and sanctions forced the Rhodesian government to the

negotiating table.In office, he initially won

international praise for pro-moting racial reconciliation and for extending improved edu-cation and health services to the black majority.

“You can’t talk about Zim-babwe without Bob. Zimbabwe is Bob. It took a man like Bob, his bravery, to get independence,” said Norman Gombera, 57, a

school principal in Harare. “Bob did his best under the circum-stances. There is no country without a problem.” Always divisive in life, Mugabe’s funeral arrangements were also caught up in a dispute between Mnan-gagwa and the family over where and when the former leader should be buried.

His final burial at a national monument will only happen

after a new mausoleum is built in about 30 days. That decision was taken after his family ended a dispute with Mnangagwa over the date and place of the ceremony.

His family are still bitter over the role Mnangagwa played in his ouster and had pushed for Mugabe to be buried in his homestead of Zvimba, northwest of Harare.

Officials accompany the coffin of Zimbabwe’s former president Robert Mugabe at the start of his official funeral ceremony at the National Sports stadium in Harare, yesterday.

Ramaphosa apologises over attacksAFP JOHANNESBURG

South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa was jeered and whistled at yesterday during his speech at Zimbabwe’s former leader Robert Mugabe’s funeral before he apologised for recent xenophobic attacks.

At least 12 people have been killed this month in a surge in violence and mob attacks against foreign-owned businesses in and around Johannesburg, South Africa’s largest city.

A wave of jeers, boos and

whistles interrupted Ramaphosa at the Harare national stadium as he started his eulogy at the state funeral for Mugabe, who died age 95 last week.

“I stand before you as a fellow African to express my regret and apologise for what has happened in our country,” Ramaphosa said after one of the organisers tried to calm the crowd.

His comments were met with cheers and blasts of sound horns from the crowd.

South Africa, the continent’s second largest economy, is a

major destination for other African migrants. But they are often targeted by some locals who blame them for a lack of jobs.

But with shops and homes burned and looted and clashes between armed mobs of looters and police, hundreds of migrants from Mozambique as well as Zimbabwe have fled to shelters.

Nigeria’s government has flown around 600 of its citizens home from Johannesburg after some of them were targeted in the violence.

People gather and hold signs during a civil society group’s march against the recent rise of xenophobic attacks in South Africa, in Johannesburg’s Central Business District, yesterday.

Former DR Congo health minister held on graft chargeAFP KINSHASA

Former DR Congo health minister Oly Ilunga has been arrested over allegations he embezzled public funds to tackle the Ebola epidemic, police said yesterday.

Ilunga, who resigned as health minister in July after being removed as head of the country’s Ebola response team, was detained while hiding in an apartment in the capital Kin-shasa ahead of a bid to flee the country, officers said.

He is in custody due to “misdemeanors of the misman-agement of funds allocated to the Ebola response,” police spokesman Colonel Pierrot-Rombaut Mwanamputu said.

Ilunga will be referred to prosecutors on Monday, he added.

It comes after Ilunga was questioned in August as part of an inquiry into the management of funds to fight the outbreak, which has claimed more than 2,000 lives since August 2018.

Ilunga, 59, had already been banned from leaving the country.

He stepped down after crit-icising plans by the UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) to introduce a new, unlicensed vaccine to fight the epidemic.

Suspect funds used to sendmilitary gear to Sudan’s neighbours: Bashir trial witnessAFP KHARTOUM

A witness in the trial of Omar Al Bashir said yesterday that his army-owned firm had supplied military equipment to neigh-bouring countries using funds allegedly received illegally by the ousted Sudanese leader.

Bashir was deposed by the army in April following months of protests against his iron-fisted rule of three decades.

In August, he was charged with the illegal acquisition and use of foreign funds — offences that could land him behind bars for more than a decade.

Authorities had seized ¤6.9m , $351,770 and 5.7 million Sudanese pounds from Bashir’s home “which he acquired and used illegally”, a judge told the court on August 31.

But Bashir said the seized funds were the remainder of the equivalent of $25 million received from Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

The funds, he said, were part of Sudan’s strategic relations with Saudi Arabia and were “not used for private interests but as

donations”. A witness appeared to back Bashir’s claims, telling the court yesterday that his army-owned firm had received funds from the presidency.

“We received $1.2m. We sent military equipment purchased with these funds to neighbouring countries,” defence witness Sadiq Yakub, who represents a manufacturing unit owned by the Sudanese army, said at the fifth session of Bashir’s trial.

Bashir, sitting inside a black metal cage, heard the witness as his family members waved at him from the court room.

Yakub did not specify which countries received the equipment, or whether the sup-plies included weapons.

Since Bashir came to power in a coup in 1989, Sudan has been accused of supporting regional insurgencies in Eritrea, Ethiopia, Egypt and of having ties with countries like North Korea and Libya.

South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir had even accused Khartoum of backing his opponent Riek Machar in their deadly civil war that erupted soon after the south split from the north in 2011.

West African leaders discuss counter-terror measuresAP OUAGADOUGOU, BURKINA FASO

The heads of state from 15 coun-tries in the West African economic bloc known as ECOWAS met yesterday to discuss the fight against extremism and the impact of the G5 Sahel Joint Force set up to combat its spread.

Leaders from West Africa have long been warning that extremism, which is ramping up in Burkina Faso with more brazen attacks, threatens the entire region, and that the G5 Sahel force needs wider spread support. Established in 2017, the force — with troops from Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad, Mau-ritania and Mali — has been plagued with funding problems.

Niger Interior Minister Mohamed Bazoum said greater mobilization of resources is needed to combat extremism in the region.

It’s about “creating the con-ditions for greater mobilisation

on the part of ECOWAS member states in the fight against ter-rorism,” he told RFI on the side-lines of the meeting in Ouaga-dougou, Burkina Faso’s capital.

He said the forces’ resources need to be better managed, and other nations should be tapped who may have equipment like airplanes or helicopters that the Sahel force needs. He added there was also a greater need for intelligence and information sharing.

Burkina Faso President Roch Marc Christian Kabore stressed that both sustainable economies and military operations are needed to fight terrorism in the long run, and supported a new “Desert to Power” initiative by the African Development Bank in a summit Friday ahead of the ECOWAS meeting.

“To overcome terrorism in the Sahel, the operationalization of the strategy for the devel-opment and security of the G5 Sahel countries is extremely imperative and urgent.

Therefore, the building of transport, energy, water and tel-ecommunications infrastructure will help sustainable social and economic development,” he said.

On Friday, the five heads of state from the Sahel endorsed

the initiative to increase energy to their countries.

“The energy deficit is a hin-drance to the development of our states,” Kabore said. “Energy production costs should be cheaper, accessible to people.”

Presidents Ibrahim Boubacar Keita of Mali, Alassane Ouattara of Ivory Coast, Idriss Deby of Chad, Mahamadou Issoufou of Niger, Roch Marc Christian Kabore of Burkina Faso, Faure Gnassigbe of Togo, Macky Sall of Senegal and Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria pose after the opening ceremony of ECOWAS G5 security summit in Ouagadougou, yesterday.

Former Gambian president to face graft prosecutionAFP BANJUL, GAMBIA

The Gambian government has said it intended to prosecute former president Yahya Jammeh on allegations of theft and corruption.

Jammeh, who ruled the West African state for 22 years, fled the country in January 2017 after losing presidential elec-tions and initially refusing to step down.

The former president acquired more than 280 private and commercial properties, islands, forest parks, wetland and wildlife reserves during his time in power, according to a commission of inquiry cited by Justice Minister Abubacarr Tambadou.

Tambadou described it as an “unconscionable land grab”.

The commission was estab-lished by President Adama Barrow.

Libya airport hit by strikesAFP TRIPOLI

An airport near the Libyan capital was hit by a new round of rocket fire and air strikes, the UN-recognised government said yesterday, two weeks after it was closed due to repeated attacks. The Government of National Accord accused forces loyal to eastern-based strongman Khalifa Haftar of being behind the attacks on Mitiga airport, but did not report any casualties.

An air strike by “Emirati drones” hit the airport early Saturday morning, followed by “Grad rockets launched by (pro-Haftar) militia”, the GNA said on Facebook.

As a former anti-colonial rebel, Mugabe is credited with helping to end white-minority rule in Zimbabwe.

12 SUNDAY 15 SEPTEMBER 2019ASIA

India unveils packageto boost exports andrevive housing sectorIANS NEW DELHI

With the GDP growth sliding to a six-year low of 5 percent in the April-June quarter along with several sectors facing a slowdown, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman yesterday announced a fresh set of measures worth around Rs60,000 crore to boost exports and the housing sectors.

The key measures include extending the scheme of reim-bursement of taxes and duties for export promotion, fully auto-mated electronic refund for Input Tax Credits (ITC) in GST, revised priority sector lending norms for exports and expanding the scope of Export Credit Insurance Scheme (ECIS).

An inter-ministerial working group has also been formed to monitor export finance. Accord-ingly, the scheme for Remission of Duties or Taxes on Export Product (RoDTEP) was announced which will replace Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS) for textiles.

In effect, RoDTEP will more than adequately incentivise exporters than existing schemes put together. The revenue foregone on this account is pro-jected at up to Rs50,000 crore. However, existing dispensation in textiles of MEIS plus old ROSL scheme will continue up to December 12, 2019.

Textile and all other sectors which currently enjoy incentives upto two percent over MEIS will transit into RoDTEP from

January 1, 2020. Sitharaman also announced

that Export Credit Guarantee Corporation (ECGC) will expand the scope of export credit insurance service (ECIS).

Effectively, this will offer higher insurance cover to banks lending working capital for exports. Further, Sitharaman revealed that Priority Sector Lending (PSL) norms for export credit have been examined and that the enabling guidelines are under consideration of the RBI.

The new norms, if imple-mented, are expected to release an additional Rs36,000 crore to Rs68,000 crore as export credit under priority sector. Sitharaman announced to reduce turnaround time for exports by leveraging technology and benchmarking it to Boston and Shanghai ports.

F u r t h e r m o r e , t h e

government will provide Rs1,700 crore for export guarantees and to cut credit cost for the exporters.

Other measures like creation of Special dispensation for facil-itating and on-boarding ‘hand-icrafts artisans and handicraft cooperatives’ directly on e-com-merce portals for exports were also announced.

In addition, Sitharaman said that India will organise annual mega shopping festivals at four locations with four themes across the country in March, 2020. The minister came out with several measures to prop up the country’s housing sector which is considered as one of the main job creators.

Now there would be relaxed ECB norms for housing sector. Further, interest on house building advance would be lowered by linking it with 10-year government securities. Sith-araman said that there would be special window for affordable and middle-income housing.

Under this, a special window to provide last-mile funding for housing projects which are non-NCLT, non-NPA cases to com-plete unfinished projects. For this, a fund of Rs10,000 crore would be contributed by the government and “roughly the same size by outside investors.”

The fresh set of measures to boost the economy has come in the wake of sinking business sentiment across the industry. With most engines of growth stuttering, the Reserve Bank of India recently lowered its GDP forecast and pegged it at 6.9 per cent in 2019-20.

Floods in AllahabadA dumper truck is stuck on a road submerged in floodwaters from the Ganges river at Badara Sanuti Village, near Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, yesterday.

Govt clueless on economy: CongressIANS NEW DELHI

The Congress yesterday hit back at the Modi government after Finance Minister Nirmala Sith-araman announced a slew of measures to revive the economy, dubbing them as “cosmetic measures” and said the government was “clueless” over the economy which is in shambles.

Addressing a press con-ference, senior Congress leader Anand Sharma said: “India’s economy is in shambles, we are facing a grave situation but the government with its false promises and its outspoken min-isters, is not working towards stopping that.” Slamming the Finance Minister, Sharma said, “Sitharamanji just concluded a

press conference. It was disap-pointing looking at India’s eco-nomic situation, it was expected that the government would take steps to resuscitate the economy, increase investments, create jobs, and address issue of exports.” The Congress leader said that the Finance Minister did not announce any measures that would address the current eco-nomic situation. “The BJP and its ministers lack a vision to revive the economy,” he alleged.

Hitting out at the Finance Minister for blaming the youth and millennials for the economic slowdown, Sharma said: “The BJP ministers have been making shocking statements insulting the youth. The Finance Minister said that the millennials are respon-sible for the economic slowdown

and has not apologised for her statement so far.” Sharma also said the government has no con-crete plans to revive the economy.

He also said to improve the economy, the investment should come from the government.

“But no such announcements were made by the Finance Min-ister. And till the time public investment is not there economic revival is not possible,” he said.

He said the government is also low on reserves. Citing the figures of the government, Sharma said that in the last financial year, the government was Rs1.7 lakh crore in deficit. This year they have a target of Rs24 lakh crore, but in last five months they have only managed to get Rs 5.4 lakh crore.

Govt to take Hindi to new heightsIANS NEW DELHI

Announcing that ‘Hindi Diwas’ will be celebrated publicly from 2020, Union Home Minister Amit Shah yesterday said that Hindi would achieve new heights by the 2024 Lok Sabha election.

Shah appealed to citizens to get connected with the language and work towards making it the most widely used in the world. He also appealed to people to at least talk to their children in Hindi, saying any language will remain lively till the people speak it with pride.

He also informed how the number of official files put in front of him in Hindi has increased from 20 to 60 percent since he took charge as Home Minister in May after the Lok Sabha polls.

“This Hindi Diwas came just after I took charge as Home Min-ister. I assure that Hindi would have achieved new heights when we contest the next Lok Sabha election in 2024. The Hindi Divas Samaroh would be a public programme from next year, as Hindi belongs to the people. The government would take Hindi Diwas outside Delhi and would celebrate a ‘Hindi Saptah’ across the country,”

Shah said on the occasion of Hindi Diwas.

The minister, however, clar-ified that other languages of the country would not be sup-pressed for the growth of Hindi.

“Hindi has always moved forward with everybody’s support and it would grow fol-lowing a similar route. We would try to make it first with everybody’s acceptance and with honouring each language.” Shah said it would be the responsibility of the Department of Official Languages under the Home Ministry to let Hindi lan-guage reach every sector.

He said people in north-eastern states take tuitions to learn Hindi, adding that the Centre would further facilitate them to learn the language.

Remarking that even Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, who forged a united India, appealed to people to accept Hindi as the national language, Shah empha-sised Hindi as a factor that unites India.

Shah noted the unanimous consensus for Hindi as the national language in the Con-stituent Assembly, in spite of the Assembly’s sheer diversity. He said that this decision was an important factor in ensuring cul-tural unity of India.

New traffic violation penalties trigger rowIANS NEW DELHI

Unveiling of the new Motor Vehicle Act, which prescribes steep hike in the fine for traffic violations, has triggered a big controversy and an increasing number of states have decided not to implement it, arguing that it puts dispropor-tionate burden on the people.

The Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act, 2019 was passed by Parliament during the

last session and it came into effect on September 1.

The penalties are so high that a truck driver and its owner earlier this week had to shell out a whopping amount of Rs2 lakh in Delhi for overloading and some other violations.

Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari strongly justifies the steep hike in penalties, saying it is aimed at deterring motorists from violating the traffic rules as a huge number of people die in road acci-

dents every year in the country.However, a number of states

such as Gujarat, West Bengal and Uttarakhand have decided not to implement the new law while Maharashtra has requested the Centre to reconsider the charges. They feel the penalties are too high and would put a lot of burden on the people.

According to the new law, in case of dangerous driving, first-time offenders face impris-onment of six months to one year

and/or fine of between Rs1,000 and Rs5,000. For the second offence, the offender will be imprisoned for up to two years and/or will have to pay a fine of up to Rs10,000.

For drunken driving, a violator will have to face imprisonment up to six months and/or a fine of up to Rs10,000 in case of first time offense. For the second offense, there will be a prison term of up to two years and/or a fine of Rs15,000 will be levied.

Raising whiteflag, Pakistanretrieves bodiesof slain soldiersIANS NEW DELHI

The Pakistan Army has retrieved the bodies of two of its Punjabi soldiers killed recently by the Indian Army at the LoC after raising the white flag, Army sources said yesterday.

The bodies were retrieved by Pakistan on September 13 fol-lowing two days of unsuccessful attempts. An Army official said all attempts by Pakistan to take the bodies by force had been foiled.

However, the bodies of five Border Action Team (BAT) Special Services Group commandos killed during an infiltration attempt in the last week of July in the Keran sector of Jammu and Kashmir, still lie unclaimed by Pakistan.

“We allowed Pakistani sol-diers to claim the two dead bodies after they raised the white flag which is a gesture of peace. The first soldier had been killed around 10 Sep-tember. The other soldier was killed during an attempt to retrieve the dead body,” a senior Army official said.

City civil authority workers and volunteers pick up plastic waste during a clean-up drive led by lawyer and environmentalist Afroz Shah (not pictured) at the Versova beach in Mumbai, yesterday.

A clean-up act

NCP leader Udayanraje Bhosale resigns, joins BJPIANS NEW DELHI

In a major jolt to the NCP ahead of the Maharashtra Assembly elections, the party’s senior leader Udayanraje Bhosale yesterday resigned as a Lok Sabha MP and

joined the BJP saying he was inspired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership.

Earlier yesterday, Bhosale first met Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and submitted his resig-nation from the Lower House.

He then arrived at the

residence of Bharatiya Janata Party President and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, where he formally joined the BJP in the presence of Working President JP Nadda, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and several other senior leaders.

After joining the BJP, Bhosale, a descendant of Chhat-rapati Shivaji Maharaj, said: “I am inspired by the works and leadership of Modi, Shah and the BJP. I am happy to see that the BJP was following the paths of Shivaji Maharaj to strengthen the

country.” Bhosale also hailed the Modi government for revoking Article 370 from Jammu and Kashmir and said: “What nobody thought, they made it real by handling the sensitive matter in a very mature way to strengthen the country.”

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that India will organise annual mega shopping festivals at four locations with four themes across the country in March 2020. The Minister came out with several measures to prop up the country’s housing sector which is considered as one of the main job creators.

13SUNDAY 15 SEPTEMBER 2019 ASIA

Pakistan’s firebrand cleric quits politicsANATOLIA KARACHI

A firebrand Pakistani political leader and religious scholar Tahir-ul-Qadri (pictured) yesterday announced his retirement from politics.

On a video message from Canada, where he has been settled for several years, Qadri also announced to resign from the leadership of his Pakistan Awami Tehrik (PAT) party, which has a sizable vote bank in parts of northeastern Punjab, the country’s largest province.

“I am retiring from Pakistani politics, political activities, and my post as PAT chairman,” Qadri said without citing any

reasons. This is not for the first time, he has announced to give up politics. In 2004, Qadri had

resigned from the parliament and moved to Canada for “preaching” purpose.

Qadri made his comeback in Pakistani politics in 2012 when he together with thou-sands of his followers staged a four-day long sit-in outside the capital Islamabad to “save state, not system.” In June 2014, some 14 PAT activists were killed and over 100 injured when police opened fire to disperse activists during a drive against illegally established settlements outside his residence in Lahore city.

A couple of months after Lahore incident, PAT together with the then opposition and now ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) had besieged Islamabad for four months seeking resignation of then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif

over alleged rigging in 2013 general elections and killing of the party activists.

At least five people, including policemen, were killed and dozens injured in clashes between the activists and law enforcing agencies during the four-month long sit-in in the capital.

In April this year, an anti-terrorism court, sentenced over 100 activists of the PAT in jail for their involvement in violence during 2014 sit-in.

“Our legal battle for the Model Town incident will con-tinue till my last breath,” Qadri said, adding: “That is not a matter of politics, it is a matter of faith,” Qadri said in his

message. Once a close friend of jailed former premier Sharif, Qadri started off as a preacher at a mosque in Sharif family’s iron factory “Ittifaq Foundry” in late 1970s. Later, he founded Minhaj ul Quran — a non-profit providing education, religious and cultural services — in October 1981.

In 1989, he founded a political party, the PAT, which could not perform well in the parliamentary politics.

Qadri himself was the only PAT leader who could get elected as a member of the lower house — the National Assembly — in 2002 elections from Lahore, the capital of Punjab.

On a video message from Canada, where he has been settled for several years, Qadri also announced to resign from the leadership of his Pakistan Awami Tehrik (PAT) party, which has a sizable vote bank in parts of northeastern Punjab, the country’s largest province.

Demonstrators hold placards and shout slogans against the situation in Indian-administered Kashmir during a protest in Lahore.

Imran urges world to act on Kashmir issueINTERNEWS ISLAMABAD

The Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has warned about the renewed tensions over Indian occupied Kashmir spiralling out of control and said no rational human being can talk of nuclear war.

Comparing the Pakistan-India nuclear stand-off to the 1962 Cuban Missle Crisis, in an interview with RT, PM Imran said, India and Pakistan being pitted against each over the dis-puted region in a dangerous standoff. “No rational human being can talk of a nuclear war,” PM Imran said.

Urging the world com-munity to intervene in occupied Kashmir, the prime minister said the situation on the ground remains “explosive” and may escalate way beyond the Indian subcontinent.

He added any further esca-lation between the two coun-tries may lead to unimaginable fallout.

Vowing to “knock on every door” to get the issue of occupied Kashmir on the fore-front of the global agenda, the prime minister said, so far he feels underwhelmed by the

world community, after having “expected the world to react much more than it has.”

“This is the time to act. Inaction is not an option,” he stressed, suggesting that some may be dismayed by the risk of damaging their trade with India. He lamented that, to some, the markets and “material gains” are “much more important than human beings.”

Speaking about the rela-tionship with Moscow, PM Imran said, he hoped to change his relations with Russia.

“[Russian] President Vladimir Putin is a big voice in the world and the current occupied Kashmir crisis could be resolved if the big players - Russia, the US and China - “get together” to do it,” he added.

Indian fire leaves soldier, woman dead in disputed regionAP MUZAFFARABAD, PAKISTAN

India and Pakistan traded fire along their highly militarised frontier in the disputed Kashmir region yesterday, Pakistani offi-cials said, leaving a Pakistani

soldier and woman killed, and wounding six others wounded in separate incidents.

Pakistani local administrator Raja Tariq said shelling hit vil-lages in the Nakyal area yes-terday, killing a woman and wounding six others. Police and

local officials said Indian fire in other sectors of Pakistani-administered Kashmir also destroyed one house, partly damaged a school, and hit a shed for cows and goats resulting in the animals’ deaths. Pakistan’s military also said Indian troops

opened fire “unprovoked” in the Hajipir sector on Saturday, killing one soldier.

Tensions between the two nuclear-armed countries has increased since August five, when India downgraded the autonomy of its side of Kashmir.

Afghan govt says elections first, peace deal laterAP KABUL

The Afghan government will only consider making a “legitimate” peace with insurgents after national elections are held this month, an official told reporters yesterday, despite the atmos-phere of political uncertainty following the sudden halt in US-Taliban peace talks.

President Donald Trump abruptly called off talks to end American’s longest war last week. The Afghan government was largely shut out of the nego-tiations and concerned that any finalised US-Taliban deal would delay the elections while a national unity government was

formed, forcing the exit of Pres-ident Ashraf Ghani. “Nothing will impede the presidential election from happening,” said the Afghan presidential spokesman, Sediq Seddiqi.

He said that a peace deal with the Taliban could only come after holding the presidential election scheduled for Sep-tember 28. “Legitimacy of peace cannot be achieved without elec-tions,” he said.

Sediqqi also suggested that there will be a “big change” towards improving security across the country ahead of the voting and fears over more vio-lence. The Taliban, who consider the Afghan government a US puppet, have warned Afghans

not to vote and that polling sta-tions will be targeted.

Sediqqi pointed to a Taliban delegation’s visit to Russia, just days after Trump called off talks, to say the insurgents are faced with a “political failure” of their own. He added that the Taliban should hold talks directly with the Afghan government — which they have refused to do — rather than foreign powers.

On Friday, a Taliban negoti-ating team visited Russia, where they held consultations with Zamir Kabulov, President Vladimir Putin’s envoy for Afghanistan.

The Interfax news agency cited an unidentified Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman as

saying the meeting underlined the necessity of renewing talks between the US and the Taliban, and that the Taliban confirmed their readiness to continue dia-logue with Washington.

It was the Taliban’s first international visit following the collapse of talks with Wash-ington. The team was led by Mullah Sher Mohammad Stan-ikzai. Moscow has twice this year hosted meetings between the Taliban and prominent Afghan personalities.

Sediqqi said that the Afghan government has suspended its own peace efforts for now. After the elections, the “progress of the peace process” would be a pri-ority, he said.

Militant attacks leave 4 soldiers dead in PakistanAFP ISLAMABAD

Four Pakistani soldiers were killed in two different militant attacks in northwestern tribal regions near the Afghan border, the military said yesterday.

The incidents happened late on Friday night in North Waziristan and Dir, where several military operations have been launched in recent years against homegrown and foreign militants.

“Miscreants opened fire on a routine patrolling party of security forces near the Abba Khel area of North Waziristan, killing a soldier. In an exchange of fire, two miscreants were also killed,” the military said in a statement. Separately, it said three soldiers guarding a fence on the border with Afghanistan were killed and another was injured “when terrorists from across the border opened fire on them in Dir town”. Pakistan’s army launched a massive oper-ation in 2014 to wipe out mil-itant bases in North Waziristan and end a near decade-long insurgency that has cost thou-sands of lives.

Torkham border crossingto stay open for 24 hours ANATOLIA KARACHI

A key border-crossing between Pakistan and Afghanistan will stay open round-the-clock, a move which is likely to give a boost to a struggling trade between the two neighbours, an official said yesterday.

Torkham — one of the 18 border crossings between the two countries that connects Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber district with northeastern Nan-garhar province of Afghanistan — now stays open 24 hours for cross-border movement for the first time in the recent history, Mahmood Wazir, Khyber dis-trict’s deputy commissioner, said. The development came days after the US President Donald Trump suspended peace talks with the Afghan Taliban last week.

Previously, Torkham crossing remained operational for 12 hours only, which would cause night-long wait for the truckers on either sides of the frontier. Apart from truckers, patients from bordering Afghan provinces too had to suffer in case of an emergency due to border closure during the night.

The border has been oper-ational round-the-clock for the last five days on probationary basis, the official said, adding that over 1,600 additional trucks have crossed into the border from both sides only at night during this period. Prime Min-ister Imran Khan together with

senior Afghan officials, including governor of Nangarhar province, is expected to officially inau-gurate the 24/7 service on Sep-tember 18 at Torkhan border, Wazir said.

The premier, according to him, would also break the ground of a 16bn rupees ($120m) project for the extension of the Integrated Transit Trade Man-agement System aimed at further improving the one-window facilitation transit trade system. The project is scheduled to complete in 2022.

In addition, Pakistan has also established a state-of-the -art Pakistan-Afghanistan Friendship Hospital at Torkham border to provide medical facil-ities to the patients from Afghanistan.

The two sides have agreed to open “several” other crossings — including southwestern Chaman border — round-the-clock in near future, according to local broadcaster Dunya News. Escalating diplomatic ten-sions and frequent border clo-sures have had a chilling effect on Pakistan-Afghanistan trade in recent years.

Relations between the two neighbours have been rocky in recent years as both sides accuse each other of supporting and providing sanctuaries to the mil-itants. The latest move coincides with a nearly 50% reported decrease — from $2.7bn to $1.4bn — in bilateral trade between the two countries in the last two years.

Trump confirms death of Al Qaeda heir Hamza bin LadenAFP WASHINGTON

US President Donald Trump yesterday confirmed that Hamza bin Laden (pictured), the son and designated heir of Al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden, was killed in a counter-terrorism operation along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

US media reported in late July and early August, citing intelligence officials, that the younger Bin Laden had been killed sometime in the last two years in an operation that involved the United States.

Secretary of Defence Mark

Esper confirmed the death last month, saying it was “his under-standing” that Bin Laden was dead, but Trump and other senior officials had not publicly confirmed the news.

“Hamza bin Laden, the high-ranking Al Qaeda member and son of Osama bin Laden, was killed in a United States coun-terterrorism operation in the Afghanistan/Pakistan region,” Trump said in a brief statement issued by the White House.

“The loss of Hamza bin Laden not only deprives Al Qaeda of important leadership skills and the symbolic connection to his father, but undermines

important operational activities of the group.” The statement did not specify the timing of the oper-ation. The 15th of Osama bin Laden’s 20 children and a son of his third wife, Hamza, thought to be about 30 years old, was “emerging as a leader in the Al Qaeda franchise,” the State Department said in announcing a $1m bounty on his head in Feb-ruary 2019 — perhaps after his actual demise.

Sometimes dubbed the “crown prince of jihad,” he had put out audio and video mes-sages calling for attacks on the United States and other coun-tries, especially to avenge his

father’s killing by US forces in Pakistan in May 2011, the department said.

That work made him important in attracting a new generation of followers to the extremist group that carried out the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, which left nearly 3,000 dead.

14 SUNDAY 15 SEPTEMBER 2019ASIA

Skirmishes break out in HKmall amid counter ralliesAP HONG KONG

Skirmishes broke out yesterday at a shopping mall in Hong Kong between supporters of the ongoing protests for democratic reforms in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory and people backing the central government in Beijing.

Hundreds of pro-Beijing demonstrators sang the Chinese national anthem, waved red flags and chanted slogans at Amoy Plaza in the densely packed Kowloon district. Opposing pro-testers quickly gathered there, sparking tensions as the two camps heckled each other.

The situation turned chaotic as groups of people traded blows and some used umbrellas to hit their opponents. Police later moved in to defuse the situation, with several people detained.

The clashes amid the mid-autumn festival holiday came after several nights of peaceful rallies that featured mass singing at shopping malls by supporters of the months-long pro-democracy protests.

Thousands of people also carried lanterns with

pro-democracy messages in public areas and formed illumi-nated human chains on two of the city’s peaks on Friday night to mark the major Chinese festival.

Protesters have refused to yield despite the Hong Kong gov-ernment’s promise to withdraw an extradition bill that triggered the protests. They have widened their demands to include direct elections for their leaders and police accountability.

Many saw the extradition bill, which would have allowed some Hong Kong suspects to be sent to mainland China for trial, as an example of Hong Kong’s autonomy eroding since the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

Shops closed at Amoy Plaza after the brawls. The atmosphere remained tense as pro-democracy protesters jeered at police, some of whom were seen

hitting detainees with batons to subdue them. Local media showed minor scuffles con-tinuing outside the mall as people left.

In the northwestern suburb of Tin Shui Wai, several hundred people marched, carrying pro-democracy posters and waving American flags, in defiance of a police ban on a rally in the area. Riot police intercepted them and prevented them from marching to a park.

Some 200 high school stu-dents staged a sit-in at a downtown public square yes-terday. Many students have formed human chains outside their schools as classes resumed two weeks ago after the summer break.

“Many students feel angry and unhappy. Today’s gathering is a platform for us to vent our frustrations,” said Lia Ng, 14.

More than 1,300 people have been arrested since the protests began in early June. Clashes have become more violent in recent weeks, with riot police firing tear gas as protesters vandalised subway stations, set fires and blocked traffic.

The unrest has further

battered Hong Kong’s economy, which was already reeling from the US-China trade war.

At a netizens news con-ference earlier yesterday, activists warned that violence could escalate if the government continues to turn a deaf ear to citizens’ demands. They wore face masks to shield their identity

for fear of reprisals from the government.

One of the activists said it was “natural behaviour that people escalate their ways” if peaceful means failed to elicit any response.

Police have banned a major rally planned in central Hong Kong today, but protesters have

vowed to turn up anyway. Some others are also planning to march to the British Consulate, after a similar march to the US Con-sulate last weekend. China’s ruling Communist Party said in a commentary on social media on Friday that Hong Kong pro-testers should not turn to the west to resolve their problems.

Police leaving Amoy Plaza after fights broke out between pro-Chinese supporters and anti-government protesters in the Kowloon Bay district in Hong Kong, yesterday.

Thailand’s northeast inundated after rainsAFP BANGKOK

Floods in northeastern Thailand have submerged homes, roads and bridges, leaving more than 23,000 people in evacuation shelters as anger grows over the government’s “slow” emergency response.

Torrential rain has lashed the country for the last two weeks, causing flash floods and mudslides in almost half its provinces, with families evac-uated from their homes in boats or makeshift rafts.

Since August 29, 32 people have been killed in the deluge, s a i d a s t a t e m e n t

from the disaster department yesterday that also gave the number of people staying in emergency shelters.

Two weather events are behind the widespread floods, the department said — Storm Podul and a tropical depression that formed over the South China Sea called Kajiki.

Local media reports from the worst-hit province of Ubon Rat-chathani showed people wading through chest-deep water and rescuers in boats trying to steer buffalo to higher ground.

Flooding in the province, which borders Laos and Cam-bodia, has been exacerbated by rising water levels in the Moon

and Chi rivers. “It will take three weeks to drain the floodwater” from up to 90 percent of inun-dated households, said pro-vincial governor Sarit Witoon.

“The water has slightly receded about four centimetres today and I think it will keep going down,” he added.

But the situation is already “unlivable” for families in one-storey homes, said Pongsak Saiwan, local director of oppo-sition party Future Forward.

Access to an entire district is currently cut off due to flood waters, which are about two metres deep in the main town, while three major bridges are “impassable”, he said.

An aerial view of a flooded area in Thailand’s northeastern province of Ubon Ratchathani, yesterday.

Malaysia’s top oppn parties forge allianceAP KUALA LUMPUR

Two major opposition parties in Malaysia forged a political alliance yesterday to consolidate support from the country’s majority ethnic Malay Muslims, a move that could threaten Prime Minister Mahathir Moha-mad’s government in the next general election.

Mahathir’s alliance scored a surprise win in May 2018 general elections, unseating the National Front coalition that had led since the country’s inde-pendence from Britain in 1957. But many Malay Muslims, who account for 60 percent of the country’s 32 million people, still support the parties what is now the opposition.

The linchpin of the National Front, the United Malays National Organization, and the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, said they inked a pact yesterday that they say will unite Malay Muslims. The two parties secured 75% of Malay votes in the last election but that didn’t translate into a majority of seats in part because they fielded competing candidates for many seats and split the Malay vote.

The two parties have now agreed not to contest against each other, paving the way for straight fights with Mahathir’s Hope Alliance in the next election, which is due by 2023.

“Now that they are formally allied and switched to a more effective election strategy of pooling together electioneering resources and putting forward the most winnable candidates from either party, they pose a substantially clear and present electoral threat” to the Hope Alliance, said Oh Ei Sun, a senior fellow at the Singapore Institute of International Affairs.

The defeat of the UMNO-led National Front was attributed to anger over a massive corruption scandal involving former Prime Minister Najib Razak. Najib is currently on trial after being charged with multiple counts of corruption linked to the multi-billion-dollar looting of the 1MDB state investment fund.

UMNO’s President Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, a former deputy premier who took over the party after Najib stepped down, has also been charged in a separate graft case.

Zahid said in a speech yes-terday that the new union will uphold Islam but that it will not cause racial enmity as he promised to respect the rights of other races.

“We are confident that this national cooperation pact, it will inspire us further in our joint cause,” he told thousands of sup-porters. PAS currently controls the legislatures in two of Malay-sia’s 13 states, while UMNO con-trols none.

US asserts freedom of navigation in S China SeaBLOOMBERG SINGAPORE

The US Navy has asserted that the recent passage of its guided-missile destroyer USS Wayne E Meyer in waters near the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea is consistent with its stance on international law that allows freedom of navigation, according to a statement yesterday.

“China, Taiwan, and Vietnam each claim sovereignty over the Paracel Islands,” the US Navy said. “The unilateral imposition of any authorisation or notification requirement for innocent passage is not per-mitted by international law, so the United States challenged these requirements.”

The comments were in response to an earlier statement issued by the People’s Liber-ation Army Daily stating that the US vessel had entered Chinese waters surrounding the islands and had ignored China’s objection to the move.

4 soldiers hurt in Kazakhstan depot blastQNA NUR-SULTAN

Four soldiers were injured in a small explosion at a weapons depot in the south of the country, the Kazakh Defence Ministry announced yesterday.

The ministry said in a statement that a fire broke out at a weapons depot in the southern city of Arys and was brought under control, adding that during the clean-up oper-ations of the burned ware-house, a small explosion hap-pened, and four soldiers were injured. Without providing details of the causes of the fire, or the losses left behind.

On June 24, a series of explosions rocked ammunition depots belonging to a military unit stationed in the city of Arys.

The authorities declared a state of emergency and decided to evacuate local residents.

The explosions had killed one person and injured 70 others.

Indonesia seals off 30 firms over forest firesAP JAKARTA

Indonesia has sealed off 30 companies amid a row with Malaysia over forest fires that are spreading a thick, noxious haze around Southeast Asia, officials said yesterday.

The plantation companies, including a Singapore-based company and four firms affiliated with Malaysian corporate groups, are under scrutiny and waiting for decisions on possible punishment, said Sugeng Riyanto, the law enforcement director at Indonesia’s Forestry and Environment Ministry.

Nearly every year, Indonesian forest fires spread health-damaging haze across the country and into neighbouring Malaysia and Singapore. The fires are often started by small-holders and plantation owners to clear land for planting.

Indonesia’s forestry and environment minister, Siti Nurbaya Bakar, told reporters on Friday that the government will prosecute a number of companies as a deterrent to setting fires.

The move came days after she disputed that the smoke was coming from Indonesia, noting that hotspots were also detected in Malaysia’s Sarawak state.

Malaysia’s environment minister, Yeo Bee Yin, responded immediately, telling Indonesia “not to be in denial.” She cited data that showed that the haze impacting parts of

Malaysia originated in Indonesia. The head of Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency, Dwikorita Karnawati, dis-missed claims by Malaysia that haze from Indonesia has drifted to the neighboring nation for days. She said the haze began to enter the area above peninsular Malaysia and Serawak state on Thursday morning.

She said the agency’s satellites and its Geohotspot analysis on Thursday detected 1,231 hotspots on Sumatra island and 1,865 on Borneo. It also detected 412 hotspots in Malaysia’s state of Serawak and 216 in Sabah.

Officials have said Malaysian Prime Min-ister Mahathir Mohamad would write to Indo-nesian President Joko Widodo to press for urgent action to tackle the cross-border haze. Many areas of Indonesia are prone to rapid burning because of the draining of swampy peatland forests for pulp wood and palm oil plantations.

Poor visibility caused by smoke had caused delays of several flights and prompted authorities to shut schools in some parts of the two countries this week.

A man rides his scooter past a fire in peatland in Palangkaraya, Indonesia, yesterday.

Singapore smog worst in three yearsREUTERS SINGAPORE

Singapore’s air quality deteri-orated to “unhealthy” levels yesterday for the first time in three years, data from the National Environment Agency (NEA) showed, threatening to deepen a regional dispute over forest fires.

The 24-hour Pollution Standards Index, which Singa-pore’s NEA uses as a benchmark, was in a range of 87-106 in the afternoon. A reading above 100 is con-sidered unhealthy.

This is the first time the 24-hour benchmark has breached 100 since August 2016, data shows.

More than 1,300 people have been arrested since the protests began in early June.

15SUNDAY 15 SEPTEMBER 2019 EUROPE

Italy allows rescue ship to disembark migrantsAFP ROME

Italy yesterday agreed to allow rescue ship Ocean Viking to disembark 82 migrants on southern islands Lampedusa after six days at sea following a European deal to distribute them.

“The Ocean Viking just received instructions from the Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre of Rome to proceed to Lampedusa,” SOS Mediterranee tweeted.

“An ad hoc European agreement between Italy, France, Germany, Portugal and Luxembourg has been reached to allow the landing,” said French Interior Minister Chris-tophe Castaner, referring to the division of the migrants between the five countries. “We now need to agree on a genuine tem-porary European mechanism.”

France and Germany have agreed to take 25 percent of the migrants each, with Italy to take 10 percent.

The offering of a safe port to the Ocean Viking is a reversal of the hardline stance taken by the country’s former interior min-ister Matteo Salvini last year.

Under far-right leader Salvini, charity vessels with rescued migrants on board faced fines of up to a million euros as well as the arrest of the captain and impounding of the boat.

“Here we go, ports open without limits,” Salvini tweeted

after the safe port announcement.

“The new government is reo-pening the ports, Italy returns to being the refugee camp of Europe. Abusive ministers who hate Italians,” wrote Salvini, who pulled the plug on the previous government in August in the hope of snap elections.

His move backfired and the League leader is now in oppo-sition after previous ally the Five Star Movement and the centre-left Democratic Party agreed a coalition.

Italian Foreign Minister and M5S leader Luigi Di Maio, Sal-vini’s former ally, said that “the safe port was assigned because the European Union agreed to our request to take most of the migrants.”

Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), which runs the ship jointly with SOS Mediterranee, said the group comprised 58 men, six women and 18 minors.

“They tell our medics their skin was burned with melted plastic and they were beaten with wooden or metal sticks,”

MSF said of the migrants who departed from chaos-wracked Libya.

“Many carry psychological wounds or trauma,” MSF tweeted.

Italy is trying to set up an automatic system for distributing migrants rescued in the Medi-terranean between European countries, diplomatic sources said recently.

Such a deal would put an end to the case-by-case negotiations over who will take in those saved during the perilous crossing from North Africa, which has seen vulnerable asylum seekers trapped in limbo at sea for lengthy periods.

France and Germany have reportedly given their green light to the new system, which could also involve Luxembourg, Malta, Portugal, Romania and Spain.

German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said that under the possible future agreement, Germany would take 25 percent of rescued migrants landing in Italy.

“That won’t be too much for our immigration policy,” See-hofer told Sueddeutsche Zeitung daily, adding that it was time to end the “painful process” of hag-gling over each boatload of rescued migrants.

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte is expected to discuss the plan with France’s President Emmanuel Macron when the latter visits Rome on Wednesday.

Austria’s far-right party elects new leaderAFP GRAZ

Austria’s far-right party yesterday formally elected Norbert Hofer to lead it into national elections later this month.

Hofer took over the Freedom Party (FPOe)’s leadership in May after Heinz-Christian Strache resigned, both as party head and Austrian vice-chancellor, in the wake of the “Ibiza-gate” cor-ruption scandal.

That scandal brought down the government, a coalition formed in late 2017 between the FPOe and the People’s Party (OeVP) of then chancellor Sebastian Kurz, with fresh elec-tions set for September 29.

Yesterday, FPOe delegates formally elected Hofer, Strache’s former deputy, to head the party.

“It is our goal to become Austria’s strongest party — because we are able to do so and because Austria needs us,” Hofer told the party convention in the

city of Graz in southeastern Austria.

Despite the scandal, the FPOe stands at around 20% in voter polls, neck-to-neck with the Social Democrats (SPOe). The OeVP remains the strongest party but unlikely to be able to form a majority government by itself, according to polls.

Hofer said his party would would take on new themes, such as protecting the environment.

“I will take the necessary steps to bring this party forward.”

Newly elected Federal Party Chairman of FPOe (Austrian Freedom Party) Norbert Hofer signs an autograph during the 33rd Ordinary Federal Party Congress in Graz, Austria, yesterday.

Former British PM Cameron ‘sorry’ for Brexit divisionsAP LONDON

The British prime minister who called the Brexit referendum and then saw the public vote to leave the European Union said he is ‘sorry’ for the divisions it has caused.

David Cameron (pictured)said in an interview published yesterday that he thinks about the consequences of the Brexit referendum “every single day” and worries “desperately” about what will happen next.

“I deeply regret the outcome and accept that my approach

failed,” he said. “The decisions I took contributed to that failure. I failed.”

He admitted that many

people blame him for the Brexit divisions that have deepened since the referendum and will never forgive him, but he defended his decision to call the vote.

He spoke to The Times news-paper to promote his soon-to-be-published memoir. Cameron, who had supported remaining in the EU, resigned the morning after the 2016 referendum. He has stayed out of electoral pol-itics since then and largely kept out of the public eye.

His two successors — first Theresa May and now Prime Minister Boris Johnson — have

wrestled with the Brexit issue and have thus far been unable to win parliamentary backing for an exit plan agreed with EU leaders.

Johnson faces an October 31 deadline for leaving the EU and has been instructed by Par-liament to seek an extension, which he says he will not do despite concerns that leaving without a deal would cause severe economic problems and possible food and medicine shortages. He will meet with European leaders today to search for some compromise.

The 52-year-old Cameron

attacked former allies Johnson and Michael Gove, who helped spearhead the “Leave” campaign.

Cameron said they “left the truth at home” during the cam-paign, citing among other things the claim that Britain could save 350 million pounds per week that was being sent to the EU and could use that money to improve the National Health Service.

He said the referendum turned into a Conservative Party “psychodrama” and that he had been “hugely depressed” about leaving his post as prime minister.

Floods in Spain claim sixth victimAGENCIES ORIHUELA

A 41-year-old man was found dead in southeastern Spain yesterday, the local government said, bringing to at least six the death toll inflicted over the past two days by record-breaking rain.

More than 1,100 military personnel have been deployed to the regions of Murcia and Valencia to help rescue people isolated by the deluge and evacuate thousands to safety after a river burst its banks and cascades of water submerged highways.

The most recent victim was

from the town of Orihuela, around 55km from the seaside town of Alicante, where acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez visited the emergency response command centre after observing the damage from a helicopter flying over the region Valencia.

“Sadly, we mourn another fatality in Orihuela,” Sanchez said on Twitter.

Three men were found dead on Friday, including one who tried to drive through a flooded tunnel, and two siblings perished on Thursday when their car was carried away by water.

The national weather agency maintained its weather risk alert at the third-highest level on a

four-point scale for several areas in the centre and south of Spain.

Spain’s King Felipe VI lamented the loss of life and the damage.

“May we all, with the help of all, be able to overcome the despair that now weighs on so many homes and families,” he tweeted late on Friday.

In addition to some 1,500 people who were evacuated earlier, officials on Friday removed another 2,000 resi-dents of the town of Santomera in the region of Murcia as a pre-caution due to a controlled release from a local dam to avoid overflowing, the interior min-istry said.

Spain’s Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, flying on an helicopter over flooded areas near Orihuela, yesterday.

The offering of a safe port to the Ocean Viking is a reversal of the hardline stance taken by the country’s former interior minister Matteo Salvini last year.

Activists charged over coal protest in PolandAFP WARSAW

Greenpeace activists who blocked a coal delivery in Poland this week risk up to 10 years behind bars after prose-cutors pressed charges, the global environmental group and officials said.

“Prosecutors charged 28 people for participating in a peaceful operation,” Greenpeace Polska spokeswoman Katarzyna Guzek said.

The activists on Wednesday climbed cranes at the Polish port of Gdansk to block the unloading of coal from Mozambique, calling on the Polish government to move to renewable energy.

They were charged with “trespassing” and “impeding the operation” of important port equipment, Gdansk prosecutors said in a statement.

The charges carry jail terms of up to 10 years, they added.

Guzek called the charges “absurd” and confirmed that all the activists had been released from custody.

The group also attempted on Monday to prevent the Indian Goodwill cargo vessel carrying the coal from Mozambique from docking by blocking it with its iconic Rainbow Warrior ship.

Armed border guards inter-vened, hauling the Greenpeace boat out of the port and detaining the captain and another activist early on Tuesday.

They released 16 other activists on board after identity checks, and the vessel anchored outside the port.

Greenpeace wants Poland’s right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) government to abandon burning coal by 2030 — the European Union’s target date for phasing out coal use.

The PiS plans only a gradual reduction in dependence on coal for electricity production, from around 80 percent today to 60 percent in 2030.

Under the 2015 Paris climate treaty, the EU pledged to reduce its carbon emissions by 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030.

Poland along with Hungary have rejected an EU bid for zero net greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, insisting this would hamper their economies.

European Commission pres-ident Ursula von der Leyen has pledged to propose a “green deal” for Europe in her first 100 days in office, which would see a carbon-neutral continent by 2050.

Hungarian writer & dissident Gyorgy Konrad dies at 86AP/BUDAPEST

Gyorgy Konrad, a writer and sociologist who was an iconic figure of Hungary’s dissident movement while the country was under communist rule, has died. He was 86.

Konrad’s family said he had been gravely ill and died on Friday at home in Budapest.

Known internationally for books like his 1969 novel “The Case Worker” and “A Guest in My Own Country: A Hungarian Life,” a memoir published in 2007, Konrad was considered a steadfast advocate for indi-vidual freedoms.

Born to a prosperous Jewish family on April 2, 1933, in Debrecen, eastern Hungary, Konrad and his immediate family survived the Holocaust.

He was president of the writers’ association PEN Inter-national from 1990 to 1993 and president of the Academy of Arts in Berlin in 1997-2003.

Blast in Sweden leaves one deadAFP STOCKHOLM

A young woman was seriously injured yesterday by a blast in southern Sweden, police said, describing it as deliberate as the country battles an increase in criminal use of explosives.

A woman in her twenties, who was passing when the explosion occurred in the centre of the city Lund around 2.30am, was found injured at the scene and taken to hospital.

Police Evelina Olsson said she had “serious but not life-threatening injuries”. The blast was believed to be intentional.

“We have reports that windows as far as 100 metres away have been damaged,” Olsson said, adding that they had started an investigation for “causing bodily injury” and “destruction causing public endangerment”.

16 SUNDAY 15 SEPTEMBER 2019EUROPE

Russia’s floating nuclear plant arrives in port

AFP MOSCOW

Russia’s world first floating nuclear power station yesterday completed a 5,000km Arctic transfer to the country’s far east, the Rosatom nuclear agency said.

“The Akademik Lomonosov floating nuclear plant arrived ... at Pevek, in the autonomous dis-trict of Chukotka,” where it is to start operating by year end once connected to the local electricity grid, Rosatom said.

What will be the world’s northernmost nuclear power plant left Murmansk in Russia’s far north on August 23 after being loaded with combustible nuclear fuel.

The 21 tonne, 144 metre long and 30 metre wide platform, which is designed to meet the energy needs of remote com-munities, was towed into Pevek by a clutch of vessels.

The station houses two 35-megawatt reactors, more in line with the power of nuclear-powered ice breakers than typical new generation nuclear plants boasting nearer 1,000

MW capacity. The Akademik Lomonosov

is to provide energy for around 100,000 people and also power oil platforms as Russia develops extraction of natural resources in a mineral-rich area whose eastern tip is a few dozen kilo-metres from Alaska.

“It is perhaps a small step towards sustainable development in the Arctic — but it’s a giant step towards decarbonisation of remote, off-grid zones and a turning point in the global devel-opment of small modular nuclear plants,” Rosatom head Alexei Likhachev said in a statement.

Environmental groups led by Greenpeace Russia have, however, long criticised the project warning it will have “serious consequences” for a fragile ecosystem in case of storms or accidents.

Greenpeace has warned of the risk of a “nuclear Titanic” and “Chernobyl on ice” and environmental fears were heightened following an August explosion at a nuclear research facility in Russia’s far north which saw local radiation levels briefly spike.

The industry has been cheered by strong demand notably for nuclear-powered submarines as well as ice-breakers and aircraft carriers, increasingly destined for iso-lated and infrastructure-poor regions.

Climate protests hit Frankfurt auto showBLOOMBERG FRANKFURT

Thousands of climate protesters marched past the Frankfurt auto show yesterday, highlighting the simmering tensions between the German car industry and the country’s environmentalists as Angela Merkel prepares to take action to curb runaway carbon-dioxide emissions.

“Make love not CO2” read one protester’s banner as activists from Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth joined scores of cyclists to demand that Germany take action to cut the number of cars on its roads, with some calling for an outright ban on SUVs and other large vehicles. The protest comes as the chan-cellor convenes a climate cabinet tasked with cutting emissions from Germany’s transport and heating sectors.

“The automotive industry makes money by destroying the environment,” Marion Tiemann, transport expert at Greenpeace and one of the event’s organ-izers, said at the protest. “We’re in the midst of a climate crisis.”

Germany has pledged to cut carbon emissions by 55% by 2030, compared with 1990 levels. But by the end of this year, the country will have reduced CO2 output by only 30%, with transport emissions rising steadily. Record-breaking heat-waves, the dwindling of the Rhine river and a series of pow-erful storms have turbocharged the climate debate in Germany and lifted the environmentalist Green party to second place in election polls.

“In the last 50 years, storms, hot spells and floods have

increased threefold in Germany,” Merkel said in her weekly podcast yesterday. “We must act.”

Merkel faces a balancing act when she chairs the first meeting of her high-level climate cabinet on September 20. The chancellor is trying to thrash out a common position between squabbling ministers from her coalition’s conservative and social dem-ocrat parties. The outcome of the negotiations could have pro-found consequences for the country’s economy as signs of a looming recession mount.

“Of course — and we can’t beat about the bush — climate

protection comes at a price,” Merkel said. “But I’m convinced if we don’t put this money in the right place, the price that we’ll pay later will be much higher.”

Cars are an obvious target for climate protesters who yesterday paraded effigies of Volkswagen AG, BMW AG, Daimler AG and Toyota Motor Corp executives. Other banners called for “Clean air for all” as a giant, black, inflatable upturned car drifted over those gathered around Hauptwache, a square that borders Frankfurt’s main shopping street.

“Our message to the auto-makers is: Stop selling sports

utility vehicles,” said Juergen Resch, executive director of Deutsche Umwelthilfe, an envi-ronmental group that’s brought lawsuits against German cities where nitrous oxide pollution has exceeded legal limts. “They’re climate killers.”

Some protesters in Frankfurt yesterday called for the German government to go further and ban all cars from city centers. They’d also like Germany to invest billions of euros in its rail network and plot an eventual exit from the internal com-bustion engine, similar to the country’s decision to quit coal-fired power generation by 2038.

Fraudsters wanted in US arrested in BudapestAFP BUDAPEST

Hungarian police said yesterday that two suspected fraudsters, a French-Israeli and a US citizen, wanted in the US over separate multi-million dollar fraud rackets have been arrested in Budapest.

A 28-year-old unnamed French-Israeli dual citizen was

arrested on Friday in the Hun-garian capital in a joint operation with the FBI, according to a statement on the Hungarian police website.

The man is suspected of belonging to an international criminal gang that defrauded tens of thousands of Americans, predominantly pensioners, of savings by telephoning victims

from “call centres” in Mauritius and Ukraine.

Callers aggressively per-suaded victims to make non-refundable transfer payments on the promise of one-off high returns that were never paid, said the police statement.

The losses are estimated at $145m. If convicted, the man could face up to 20 years in jail.

In a separate case, police said an unnamed 44-year-old US male also wanted by the US authorities on suspicion of defrauding $3.5m from American investors was arrested Sep-tember 4 in Budapest, also with the cooperation of the FBI.

A Budapest court will decide later on the suspects’ extradition to the US, the statement said.

The Akademik Lomonosov is to provide energy for around 100,000 people and also power oil platforms.

Rescue challengeRescuers taking part in a rescue challenge scenario organised by the World Rescue Organization (WRO), bringing together some 50 international teams competing around two disciplines, Road Rescue and Emergency People Rescue, in La Rochelle, western France. The 20th edition began on September 12 and ends today.

Greenpeace activists stand on Volkswagen (VW) cars holding posters that read, “Climate Killers” as they demonstrate after the official opening of the International Auto Show (IAA) in Frankfurt am Main, in western Germany.

Police face protesters in Nantes as ‘yellow vest’ marches resumeREUTERS NANTES

Hundreds of demonstrators faced police in a tense stand-off in the French city of Nantes yesterday as revived “yellow vest” protests against the government of President Emmanuel Macron took place across the country.

Police responded with tear

gas after some protesters threw projectiles. A spokesman with the local prefecture said 21 people had been arrested.

Television footage showed groups of black-clad protesters trying to break into shops, while police trucks carrying water cannon were seen arriving on scene.

The Gilets Jaunes (yellow vest) protests, named after

motorists’ high-visibility jackets, began over fuel tax increases but morphed into a sometimes violent revolt against Macron and a government they see as out of touch.

The president has sought to ease tensions with 18.82bn of countermeasures to boost the monthly minimum wage, remove some taxes, and offer relief to poor retirees. But he faces a new

round of anger with a long-awaited reform that seeks to merge France’s 42 different pension systems into a single points-based system.

On Friday, Parisian com-muters faced travel chaos as transport workers went on strike over plans to reduce their retirement privileges in a chal-lenge to Macron’s pension reform plans.

Ten out of Paris 16 subway lines and two major regional train lines were totally shut as the morning rush hour got underway, leaving commuters scrambling to find alternatives to get to work.

The government did not waver in the face of rolling strikes last year over a reform of the state rail company, but Macron has since been

weakened politically by a series of anti-government protests at the end of 2018 and early this year.

Those protests, which shocked the nation with some of the worst street violence in decades, were triggered by con-cerns over falling living standards and also concerns Macron was pushing his reform agenda too hard.

Spain in last-chance bid to avoid electionsAFP MADRID

Spain’s Pedro Sanchez has just nine days left to resolve a political crisis that could drag the country to its fourth elec-tions in as many years. Every-thing hinges on him securing support from the far-left Podemos.

He has until September 23 to be confirmed as premier — or Spain’s deeply-fragmented par-liament will be dissolved once again and a new general election held on November 10.

Sanchez’s Socialists won the last elections in April but fell far short of a majority, leaving him dependent on the backing of Podemos as well as several smaller regional parties.

Without that, he cannot win the backing of parliament and formally begin a new term at Moncloa, the official residence of Spain’s prime minister.

Back in July, Sanchez made two attempts to secure confir-mation by the assembly but failed following a dispute with Podemos and its leader Pablo Iglesias that has yet to be resolved.

The Socialists had initially agreed to form a coalition, albeit reluctantly, with the radical leftwing party, offering it several government portfolios, but Podemos refused, saying the posts did not carry enough political clout.

Now Sanchez has taken the offer of a coalition off the table, offering Iglesias only talks on a joint policy programme in the hope of establishing a minority government with ad hoc parlia-mentary support from the party.

And six weeks on, the situ-ation remains deadlocked.

Iglesias has insisted on his party entering government but faced with Sanchez’s intransi-gence, he on Friday suggested forming a “temporary coalition government” that would be able to approve the state budget.

If Sanchez was unhappy with the result, Podemos could then withdraw, while retaining his majority in the chamber, he said.

But government spokes-woman Isabel Celaa dismissed the idea as “absurd” saying the country needs a “solid gov-ernment” and not one “subject to any test period”.

“It is highly unlikely they will reach an agreement,” said Ernesto Pascual, professor of political science at the Open University of Catalonia.

In a bid to break the deadlock, King Felipe VI will tomorrow begin two days of meetings with party leaders, meeting Iglesias and Sanchez on Tuesday.

As head of state, only he can give a formal mandate to Sanchez to once again present his candidacy as head of gov-ernment to parliament, should an agreement be found.

Amsterdam museum stops using ‘Golden Age’ for 17th century

AP/AMSTERDAM

A museum in Amsterdam is facing criticism for its decision to stop using the term “Golden Age” to describe the 17th century, when the Netherlands was a global mercantile, military and artistic superpower.

Amsterdam Museum curator Tom van der Molen said the term is strongly linked to national pride over prosperity and peace but “ignores the many negative sides of the 17th century, such as poverty, war, forced labor and human trafficking.”

Education Minister Arie Slob said, “I’m a bit tired of dis-cussions about one term.”

In a tweet, populist law-maker Thierry Baudet calls the move “pure brainwashing.”

In recent years, activists have pushed for more recog-nition of the dark side of 17th-century Dutch prosperity.

17SUNDAY 15 SEPTEMBER 2019 AMERICAS

Actress jailed in college admissions scandal

Bernie Sanders accuses Joe Biden of distorting ‘Medicare for All’ planAP CARSON CITY

Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders (pictured) accused former vice-president Joe Biden of distorting his proposal to provide single-payer, universal health care through “Medicare for All.”

The 78-year-old Vermont senator said one of the things that “disturbed” him about Thursday’s debate was that he was hoping “to have a serious discussion about the health care crisis in America.”

“I was not pleased that vice-president Biden distorted what Medicare for All is and, in fact, simply parroted the line coming from the health care industry,” Sanders told about 300 people at a town hall meeting at the Carson City Convention Center.

“Apparently the vice-pres-ident thinks it is just wonderful for people to be paying $1,000 a month ... just for health care premiums. Having deductibles of $4,000 or $5,000 or more —not a problem. Paying the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs — not a problem. Well, I think those are problems,” he said.

Sanders took heavy fire on his single-payer health insurance proposal at Thursday night’s debate in Houston, with Biden and others hammering the Vermont senator for the cost and the political palatability of effec-tively eliminating the existing private insurance market.

The former vice-president went hardest at Sanders when the senator argued that the esti-mated $30 trillion cost over a

decade is cheaper than the “status quo,” which he put at $50 trillion — with most of the money being what Americans spend privately on premiums, copays and out-of-pocket costs. Sanders’ argument is that most US households would pay less overall under his system, even if their taxes go up.

Biden said Sanders would effectively be handing Americans a pay cut, arguing that employers who now pay a share of workers’ premiums would pocket that money instead of giving workers raises if the government were to cover all health care costs.

Sanders repeated his refrain that health care is a human right and that Medicare for All would cover every man, woman and child in the country. It requires no premiums, no deductibles and no out-of-pocket costs and would expand Medicare to include such things as dental care, hearing aids and home health care, he said.

“It’s not a terribly radical idea because in one form or another it exists in countries all over the world, including Canada,” Sanders said. “Is it free? No. It is funded out of the general fund in a progressive manner.”

AP SANDSUKY

Ohio’s US senators want Congress to rename a Nasa research facility in Ohio after astronaut Neil Armstrong.

Republican Rob Portman and Democrat Sherrod Brown introduced the legislation to honour the Ohio native by renaming the Nasa Plum Brook Station in Sandusky.

Portman said he raised the

idea with Armstrong in 2012, a year before Armstrong’s death. The senator added that Arm-strong, the first man to walk on the moon, wasn’t comfortable with the attention it would bring, adding that he has since

spoken with Nasa and Arm-strong’s family and they support renaming the facility.

Brown said it would be a fitting tribute given Armstrong’s contributions as a test pilot and astronaut.

Ohio Senators propose renaming Nasa site after Neil Armstrong

Woman arrestedafter throwing red liquid on Senate

AP SACRAMENTO

California police have arrested a woman who threw a device containing “what appeared to be blood” onto the floor of the state Senate, splashing onto lawmakers and forcing them to finish their work in a committee room on the final day of the legislative session.

Senators had just finished taking a vote about 5:14pm on Friday when a woman tossed the substance onto the floor of the Senate from the public gallery, saying: “That’s for the dead babies.”

The California Highway Patrol identified the woman as 43-year-old Rebecca Dalelio. She faces several charges, including assault, vandalism and disrupting “the orderly conduct of official business” at the state Capitol.

Authorities said Dalelio walked out of the gallery and did not resist when she was arrested.

The news release did not give a motive, referring to the woman as a “demonstrator.” But the action came as hun-dreds of people protested at the Capitol against a signed state law seeking to crack down on fraudulent medical exemptions for vaccinations. Several lawmakers sought to link the woman to the pro-testers, including Sen Richard Pan, who last month was shoved in the back by a pro-tester as he was walking near the Capitol.

“This incident was incited by the violent rhetoric per-petuated by leaders of the antivaxx movement,” Pan said in a news release.

“As their rhetoric esca-lates, their incidents of vio-lence does as well. This is an attack on the democratic process and it must be met with strong condemnation by everyone.”

BLOOMBERG WASHINGTON

A US House committee subpoenaed the acting director of national intelligence over a whistleblower complaint, saying that he was improperly with-holding the complaint from Congress.

Representative Adam Schiff, a California Democrat and the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, issued the subpoena to the acting director, Joseph Maguire, “to compel the

production of a whistleblower complaint that the Intelligence Community” inspector general “determined to be credible and a matter of ‘urgent concern,”’ the committee said in a statement.

In a separate letter to Maguire, Schiff said, “This raises grave concerns that your office, together with the Department of Justice and possibly the White House, are engaged in an unlawful effort to protect the president and conceal from the committee information related to his possible ‘serious or

flagrant’ misconduct, abuse of power, or violation of law.”

It was unclear what the com-plaint was about, or who filed it, but a subpoena of a high-ranking official like Maguire was highly unusual.

In the statement, the com-mittee said that the complaint “involves confidentially and potentially privileged commu-nications by persons outside the intelligence community” and that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence “refused to rule out that the underlying

conduct relates to an area of active investigation by the com-mittee, raising serious concerns that the whistleblower complaint is being withheld to protect the president or other administration officials.”

The move by the committee comes as it has active inquiries on several fronts involving Pres-ident Donald Trump’s financial dealings, and connections, and other matters tied more directly to the administration and intel-ligence agencies. Those include an ongoing look at the early

stages of investigations into Russian efforts to interfere with the 2016 presidential election.

In the statement, the com-mittee said that directors of national intelligence had “never prevented” a creditable whistle-blower complaint from being forwarded to Congress.

Trump chose Maguire to become the acting director of national intelligence when Dan Coats stepped down last month. Maguire had been the chief of the National Counterterrorism Center.

AFP BOSTON

Actress Felicity Huffman was given two weeks jail time for paying bribes to help her daughter gain admission to a prestigious American university, the first high-profile figure to be sentenced in a cheating scandal that rocked America.

The “Desperate Housewives” actress, wearing a navy blue dress and cardigan, looked ashen-faced as she left the federal courthouse in Boston, Massachusetts, clutching the hand of her husband, actor William H. Macy.

Huffman, 56, was the first parent to be sentenced among 50 people indicted in an elab-orate and wide-ranging scam to help children of the elite secure places in top US colleges.

The Oscar nominee pleaded guilty in May during a tearful court appearance to paying $15,000 to boost her daughter’s SAT college entrance exam score.

Judge Indira Talwani told Huffman it was important to send a message to other parents

that they can’t use their wealth to cheat more deserving students.

“I think without this sentence you would be looking at a future with the community around you asking why you had gotten away with this,” she said, according to media outlets in the courtroom.

The judge said Huffman can rebuild her life after serving the sentence, which also includes a fine of $30,000 and 250 hours of community service.

“After this, you’ve paid your dues,” she said.

Huffman must report for prison on October 25.

The actress apologised to students and parents and said she accepted the judge’s decision.

“I broke the law. There are

no excuses or justifications for my actions. Period,” the actress said in a statement.

“My hope now is that my family, my friends and my com-munity will forgive me for my actions,” Huffman added.

Federal prosecutors had asked that Huffman be given a month in jail.

Her defense team recom-mended a sentence of a year’s probation and a $20,000 fine.

Her guilty plea avoided what would have been a well-publi-cised trial and potentially lengthier jail sentence.

The crime is punishable by up to 20 years in prison and a fine of as much as $250,000.

Huffman announced her intention to plead guilty in April, saying she was “ashamed” of what she had done.

The scandal erupted in March when the ringleader behind the scam, William “Rick” Singer, admitted running the elaborate system which ranged from cheating in entrance exams to bribing coaches to help non-athlet ic s tudents get scholarships.

Authorities said he was paid about $25m to bribe coaches and university administrators. He has pleaded guilty and is cooperating with authorities.

His sentencing will take place on September 19.

In June, a former Stanford University sailing coach was the first to be sentenced, receiving two years of supervised release.

John Vandemoer, 41, had pleaded guilty in March for

accepting payments to the program totaling $610,000 “in exchange for corrupting the admissions process of a major university,” prosecutors said.

A Chinese family admitted to paying Singer $6.5m to guar-antee their daughter admission to Stanford, with Vandemoer’s help, though the mother said she was duped into believing the sum was a charitable donation.

Besides Stanford, some of

the universities targeted in the elaborate cheating scam include University of Southern Cali-fornia, Yale, Georgetown and UCLA. None of the schools or the students have been charged in the case.

Actress Lori Loughlin from 1980s to 1990s sitcom “Full House” has also been accused. She and her husband have pleaded not guilty and are awaiting trial.

Felicity Huffman and husband William Macy exit John Moakley US Courthouse in Boston.

House panel subpoenas intelligence director over whistleblower

New tropical storm lashes BahamasREUTERS NASSAU

Tropical Storm Humberto lashed already devastated parts of the Bahamas with heavy rain and strong winds yesterday, and forecasters said it was likely to become a hurricane before the end of the weekend.

The storm is expected to leave the northwestern Bahamas today and then will move well

offshore of the east coast of Florida and into the Atlantic Ocean through early next week, according to the US National Hurricane Center.

Humberto had maximum sustained winds of 85kph with higher gusts, and was expected to become a hurricane by Sunday night, the Miami-based NHC said yesterday.

Dorian slammed into the Bahamas on September 1 as a

Category 5 storm, one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes ever to hit land, packing top sus-tained winds of 298kph.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres arrived in Nassau yesterday in a show of international support. He met with evacuees at a shelter and told reporters Dorian should be a wake-up call for the world about the dangers of climate change.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres talks to the media outside Kendal Isaacs Gymnasium, which is serving as an evacuation center, in Nassau, Bahamas, yesterday.

Judge Indira Talwani told Huffman it was important to send a message to other parents that they can’t use their wealth to cheat more deserving students.

18 SUNDAY 15 SEPTEMBER 2019AMERICAS

California hit with biggest wildfire of the yearBLOOMBERG SACRAMENTO

California’s biggest wildfire of the year has already burned more than 50,000 acres of timber and grass as Nasa scien-tists said climate change is making such blazes more likely and harder to stop.

It’s a sobering scenario for the US state with the highest wildfire risk, where land damaged or destroyed by fire has expanded fivefold over the last four decades. Almost a half-million homes worth an esti-mated $268bn are threatened, according to Zillow.

At 78 square miles, the area

being torched is about a quarter the size of New York City.

“We’re living in a warming and a drier world, and with climate change we’re going to continue to see conditions that make fire s more likely,” Doug

Morton, chief of the Biospheric Sciences Laboratory at Nasa’s Goddard Space Center, said in a broadcast this week. “They’ll be definitely harder to suppress.”

The Walker fire, within the Plumas National Forest northeast of Sacramento, has been burning since September 4 and became California’s biggest of the year on Friday.

Nasa satellites show plumes of smoke blowing east into Nevada and crossing Pyramid Lake. The National Interagency Fire Center expects above-normal conditions for large fires in California through October.

California leads the nation in wildfire risk, with more than a

quarter of the state’s properties considered at high-to-extreme peril, according to the Insurance Information Institute, a New York-based industry group.

California’s fire season has expanded by 75 days across the Sierras and corresponds with an increase in the extent of forest fires across the state.

Last year, California accounted for about a fifth of the 8.8 million acres burned nationally, according to the Fire Center. The US spent more than $3.1bn fighting fires last year.

“As climate conditions make vegetation and other fuels that are on the ground today more flammable, it’s likely we’ll see

more fires, and the fires that do start will be more extreme,” Morton said from the center in suburban Washington.

Global warming also con-tributes to an increase in wild-fires in regions such as the Amazon, the scientists said. In the first eight months of 2019, Brazil had almost 94,000 fires, the most since 2010. More than half have been in the Amazon, an including the massive fire the started in August and triggered a state of emergency in Brazil.

Swept-up smoke from those fires created “among the most unhealthy air quality conditions” anywhere in the last month in downwind areas of Brazil, Peru

and Bolivia, Morton said.In the US, Nasa and the

National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration this year are sending a fleet of science aircraft to analyze smoke chemistry far downwind from fires in the west and agricultural fires in the southeast.

Nasa also studied Alaska’s 2015 fire season, in which a record 5.1 million acres burned. The researchers found an unu-sually high number of lightning strikes, generated by warmer temperatures that cause the atmosphere to create more con-vection — thunderstorms —which contributed to a larger burned area.

Top Canadian police officer arrested on spying chargesAFP OTTAWA

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said that they had arrested a senior intelligence officer for allegedly stealing sensitive documents.

Cameron Ortis faces five charges under Canada’s criminal code and its Security of Infor-mation Act, the federal police agency said in a statement.

“The allegations are that he obtained, stored, processed sen-sitive information, we believe

with the intent to communicate it to people that he shouldn’t be communicating it to,” prosecutor John MacFarlane.

Canada’s Global News reported that Ortis was a top adviser to former RCMP com-missioner Bob Paulson, and had control over counter-intelligence operations.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who is campaigning for a second term in office, told reporters at an election rally “I can assure you that the author-ities are taking this extremely

seriously,” without commenting further.

His opponent Conservative leader Andrew Scheer said it was “extremely concerning that a senior RCMP intelligence officer has been arrested for leaking national security information.”

“This is another reminder of the threats we face from foreign actors,” said Scheer, who is tied in the polls with Trudeau.

The RCMP fears Ortis stole “large quantities of information, which could compromise an untold number of investigations,”

according to Global News, which first reported the arrest.

Canada is a member of the “Five Eyes” intelligence alliance with Australia, New Zealand, Great Britain and the US.

The public broadcaster Radio-Canada said Ortis is a spe-cialist in East Asia, critical infra-structure and online “bots.”

On the LinkedIn social network, the account of a person named Cameron Ortis indicates that he has worked for the Canadian government since 2007 after receiving a doctorate

in international relations and political science at The Uni-versity of British Columbia.

The account also says he speaks Mandarin, the main lan-guage of China, with which Canada is in the midst of an unprecedented diplomatic crisis.

Beijing last December detained two Canadian nationals in apparent retaliation for Can-ada’s arrest of a Chinese tech executive on a US warrant.

China has also blocked Canadian agricultural shipments worth billions of dollars.

The Walker fire, within the Plumas National Forest northeast of Sacramento, has been burning since September 4 and became California’s biggest of the year on Friday.

Brazil’s Amazon chief tapped for Nobel Prize nominationREUTERS BRASILIA

A group of Brazilian anthropol-ogists and environmentalists has put foward Chief Raoni Metuktire of the Kayapó tribe as a candidate for the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize for a lifetime of work protecting the Amazon rainforest.

Raoni, an unmistakable Amazon icon with his large lip plate, yellow macaw-feather headdress and earrings, became known internationally as an environmental campaigner in the 1980s with musician Sting at his side.

At 89, Raoni took to the road again this year seeking help to stop a surge in fires destroying the forest, which he has blamed on the plans of right-wing Pres-ident Jair Bolsonaro to develop the Amazon economically and assimilate its indigenous people.

The Darcy Ribeiro Foun-dation, named after one of Bra-zil’s first anthropologists,

announced this week that it had formally proposed Raoni’s name to the Norwegian Nobel Com-mittee, which decides who wins the annual award.

The foundation has also written to French President Emmanuel Macron to call for his endorsement of the nomination. Raoni met twice this year with Macron, who led criticism of Brazil’s environmental practices at the recent Group of Seven wealthy nations summit in Biarritz.

A spokesman for the foun-dation, Toni Lotar, said yes-terday that the nomination had been initially accepted by the committee, but the foundation has yet to complete the full nom-ination process.

“Chief Raoni is a living symbol of the fight to protect nature and the rights of indigenous people in the Amazon,” Lotar said. “He is respected worldwide for a life dedicated to the survival of our planet that is so threatened by climate change.”

Cuba’s acute fuel shortage begins to biteREUTERS HAVANA

Cubans queued for hours for public transport at peak times in Havana, sweating in the heavy heat, while queues at gas stations snaked several blocks long, as a fuel shortage that the government blames on US sanc-tions began to bite.

Inspectors flagged down workers with state cars or trucks to get them to pick others up after President Miguel Diaz-Canel’s exhortation for Cubans to show solidarity in these times of crisis and everyone do their bit to improve fuel efficiency.

He warned Cubans on Wednesday on state television of difficult times ahead as US attempts to block fuel shipments to Communist-run Cuba meant there would be less diesel than usual available this month.

The government has agreed a series of measures to ensure basic services, he said. Some energy-intensive investments would be postponed, some train and bus services would be sus-pended and those who could work from home should.

The crisis should only be

temporary though, he assured, with shipments for October guaranteed.

“The transport situation is getting ugly, even if the state says it is only temporary,” said Alexei Perez Recio, 55, who was fixing up a bicycle he had not used since the economic depression in Cuba following the fall of former ben-efactor the Soviet Union when public transport collapsed. “I have to have (my bike) ready.”

The Communist government has assured Cubans this is not a

return to those dark days as the economy is more diversified now, having opened up to tourism and foreign investment, and developed its own oil industry.

Still, this is a sign of the wors-ening of Cuba’s economic situ-ation. The government started rationing energy several years ago due to a decline in subsidized oil shipments from leftist ally Venezuela, cutting street lighting and the use of electricity in state-run institutions.

The Trump administration’s tightening of the decades-old embargo on Cuba’s already inef-ficient state-run economy has only worsened its economic sit-uation and ability to pay for energy from elsewhere.

New US sanctions imposed on Venezuela’s state-run oil firm PDVSA in January have also made it harder for it to send oil shipments to Cuba.

Cuba and Venezuela’s joint company, Transalba, for leasing and operating vessels covering the route between the two nations, has struggled to find enough tankers, captains and crew willing to work with two sanctioned countries, according to shipping sources involved in the trade.

Some PDVSA ships, including the Manuela Saenz, Icaro, Tere-paima and Yare, have had to complement the fleet.

As such the flow of Vene-zuelan crude and fuel to Cuba has remained mostly stable this year, averaging 55,300 barrels per day (bpd) from February through August, according to Reuters cal-culations based in Refinitiv Eikon vessel tracking data and PDVSA’s export programs.

People enter a public bus in Havana, Cuba, yesterday.

Hawaii governor decries death threats over telescopeAP HONOLULU

Gov.David Ige said he and other state employees received death threats amid the heated debate over building a giant telescope on the state’s highest peak.

Ige disclosed the threats as he and his cabinet members held a news conference asking people on all sides of the issue to be careful with their language.

Attorney-General Clare Connors played a voicemail recording in which an uniden-tified man told a state employee, “I hope you die.”

She showed reporters a social media post offering a $5,000 reward for the identity of a law enforcement officer involved in last week’s demo-lition and removal of a small wooden house built by demon-strators near the camp where they are blocking the telescope’s construction.

“I hope that we can all agree that putting a bounty on the head of law enforcement officer is disturbing and deeply

concerning,” Connors said. “It’s dangerous. This law enforcement officer showed up to work that day and was doing his job when he found himself in an untenable situation.”

The issue of the 30 metre Telescope issue has engulfed Hawaii since mid-July when the state announced construction would begin after a decade-long permit and appeals process. Protesters have blocked the road to Mauna Kea’s summit for the past two months, preventing the building from getting underway.

Ige said there’s been improper language on both sides, noting he’s seen “terrible and racist” things written about protesters in the comment sec-tions of news sites online.

“Whatever happens to this project, those kinds of postings are not acceptable here. They don’t represent who we are and I urge the public to completely reject them,” Ige said.

William Aila, the chairman of the state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, said he fears the rhetoric will incite someone to do harm.

California woman sickened by mercury-laced skin creamAP SACRAMENTO

A California woman is hospi-talised in a semi-comatose state after using a skin cream from Mexico that was laced with toxic methylmercury.

California health officials said that the 47-year-old woman from Sacrament bought the cosmetic at a Jalisco pharmacy.

She was hospitalized with numbness in her hands and face, slurred speech and problems walking but her con-dition worsened.

Her son tells KCRA-TV she’s been hospitalized since July.

Mercury is sometimes used to lighten skin and eliminate age spots, although it’s poisonous.

Authorities say the woman had 2,630 micrograms of mercury per liter in her blood — more than 500 times the acceptable level.

Sacramento County health officials say in the past nine years in California, there have been more than 60 poi-sonings linked to mercury-bearing foreign, unlabeled or homemade skin creams.

Both mercury and lead are highly toxic even at low levels, are well-studied neu-rotoxicant, and recognized e n d o c r i n e d i s r u p t i n g chemicals.

The World Health Organ-ization has listed lead and mercury among the “10 chemicals of major public health concern.”

Pro-migrant rallyActivists dressed up as US President Donald Trump and Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador protest with migrants from different nationalities outside the Siglo XXI immigrant detention center, demanding from Mexican migration authorities to speed up their humanitarian visas to cross the country towards the US, in Tapachula, Mexico, yesterday.

19SUNDAY 15 SEPTEMBER 2019 HOME

WISH facilitates NU-Q students to participate in mental health journalism program in USTHE PENINSULA DOHA

Two students from Northwestern University in Qatar (NU-Q) – a Qatar Foundation (QF) partner university, have been selected to be student scholars of the Rosalynn Carter Fellowship for Mental Health Journalism Program.

They will travel to The Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia, to join established journalists from around the world for a series of work-shops and presentations, which will be overseen by Rosalynn Carter, former first lady of the US.

During their visit to The Carter Center, the students will also be guests at a special event where they will have the opportunity to ask questions to former President Jimmy Carter and Rosalynn Carter.

The mental health journalism program was launched in 1996 to provide training and support to professional journalists writing about mental health.

In 2018, and as part of an ongoing part-nership, the World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH), an initiative of QF – worked with The Carter Center to develop a new track within the main program designed to train stu-dents at universities in Qatar on how to report ethically and accurately on topics related to mental health and mental illness, in prepa-ration for their professional careers.

The two selected NU-Q journalism stu-dents, Maryam Al Badr and Muhammad Saad Ejaz, will follow in the footsteps of the inaugural 2018 cohort, Ayilah Chaudhary (NU-Q) and Asma Al Jehani (Georgetown University in Qatar – also a QF partner university).

Following the meeting in Atlanta, which runs from September 16 to 18, the students will be expected to undertake journalism projects throughout the academic year that shine a spotlight on mental health.

The students will work closely with their professors and established journalists in both the US and Qatar, in order to gain the skills and knowledge that will enable them to produce balanced and accurate reports on mental health issues, in their areas of interest.

Nicholas Bradshaw, Director of Part-nerships and Outreach at WISH, said,

“WISH’s partnership with The Carter Center underscores both organizations’ longstanding commitment to raising awareness of issues around mental health.

The student program we’ve developed together provides participants with an oppor-tunity to fast-track their understanding of the importance of sensitive and accurate reporting around mental health.

Our fervent hope is that the students are encouraged to become valuable media advo-cates for people dealing with mental health issues once they embark on their professional careers.”

Kari Cobham, Senior Associate Director of the Rosalynn Carter Fellowships for Mental Health Journalism and Media at The Carter Center, said: “We are excited to work with the student scholars on their mental health projects and hope they will pave the way for future reporting on such an important topic. Their training and work will have a huge impact on their careers as well as on their communities.”

Former US First Lady Rosalynn Carter and Nicholas Bradshaw, Director of Partnerships and Outreach, WISH; with last year’s student fellows.

The students will travel to The Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia, to join established journalists from around the world for a series of workshops and presentations, which will be overseen by Rosalynn Carter, former first lady of the US. During their visit to The Carter Center, the students will also be guests at a special event where they will have the opportunity to ask questions to former President Jimmy Carter and Rosalynn Carter.

CROSSWORD

A filmmaker stands trial when a costume assistant on his movie accuses him of rape.

SECTION 375

Note: Programme is subject to change without prior notice.

Pailwaan (2D/Kannada) 2:30 & 11:00pm; Gang Leader (2D/Telugu) 5:30pm; Ittymaani (2D/Malayalam) 3:00 & 8:30pm; The Big Trip (2D/Animation) 4:45 & 6:30pm;Love Action Drama (2D/Malayalam) 6:00 & 11:30pmSivappu Manjal Pachai (2D/Tamil) 2:15pmIT: Chapter 2 (2D/Horror) 8:15pmPorinju Mariam Jose (2D/Malayalam) 8:15 & 11:15pm

Chhichhore (2D/Hindi) 11:15am, 5:30 & 11:45pm; Saaho (2D/Hindi) 10:30am & 5:45pm; Ittymaani (2D/Malayalam) 12:00, 6:00pm & 12:00am; IT: Chapter 2 (2D/Horror) 2:15 & 8:30pm; Brothers Day (2D/Malayalam) 3:00, 9:00 & 11:30pm;Playmobil The Move (2D/Animation) 3:30pm;Just A Stranger (2D/Tagalog) 9:00pm

LANDMARK

AL KHOR

Love Action Drama (2D/Malayalam) 5:45, 8:30, 9:30 & 11:15pm; Ittymaani (2D/Malayalam) 10:00pm; Gang Leader (2D/Telugu) 7:00pm; Dreamgirl (2D/Hindi) 6:30pm;Pailwaan (2D/Kannada) 6:30 & 9:30pm

ASIAN TOWN

ROXY

FLIK Mirqab Mall

Brothers Day (2D/Malayalam) 1:40, 8:10 & 11:30pmGang Leader (2D/Telugu) 12:30, 3:15, 6:00, 8:45 & 11:40pm; Ittymaani (2D/Malayalam) 11:00am, 1:00, 5:10, 8:30, 10:30 & 11:40pm; IT: Chapter 2 (2D/Horror) 6:00 & 11:15pm; Love Action Drama (2D/Malayalam) 11:00am, 12:30, 1:45, 3:15, 4:30, 6:10, 7:15, 8:45, 10:00 & 11:30pm;Playmobil The Move (2D/Animation) 10:30am, 12:30, 2:20 & 4:20pm;Strange But True (2D/Thriller) 8:20 & 10:10pm;The Big Trip (2D/Animation) 12:30, 4:30, 6:30 & 8:30pm;The Goldfinch (2D/Drama) 11:00am 1:00, 2:00, 2:10, 4:00, 4:10, 5:00, 7:00, 8:00, 10:30 & 11:00pm

47 Meters Down: Uncaged (2D/Adventure) 10:20am & 10:30pm; Aladding 4:30 & 8:00pm; Angel Has Fallen (2D/Action) 11:00am, 12:10, 1:20, 2:30, 3:40, 4:50, 6:00, 8:20 & 10:40pmDora And The Lost City Of Gold (2D/Adventure) 10:35am, 12:20, 1:00pm; IT: Chapter 2 (2D/Horror) 10;40am, 1:50, 5:00, 7:10, 8:10, 10:20 & 11:20pm; Lion King 7:00pm; Love Action Drama 3:55, 6:50 & 9:45pm; Official Secrets 10:10am, 2:10, 4:20, 6:30 & 8:40 Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (2D/Comedy) 5:00pm, Playmobil The Move (2D/Animation) 11:00am, 12:35, 1:55pm Section 375 (Hindi) 5:50 & 11:15pm; The Angry Birds Movie 2 10:05am, 12:00noon & 2:35pm; The Goldfinch 11:20am, 3:00 & 8:25; Welad Rizk 2 (2D/Arabic) 10:50pm & 12:20am

The Big Trip (2D/Animation) 2:30 & 4:30pm; IT: Chapter 2 (2D/Horror) 8:00pm; Love Action Drama (2D/Malayalam) 6:30 & 9:00pm; Dream Girl (2D/Hindi) 4:30 & 11:30pm; Pailwaan (2D/Kannada) 2:15pm; Chhichhore (2D/Hindi) 7:00pm; The Goldfinch (2D/Drama) 8:15pm; Gang Leader (2D/Telugu) 5:15 & 11:00pm; Sivappu Manjal Pachai (2D/Tamil) 2:00 & 11:15pm; Strange But True (2D/Thriller) 9:30pm;

ROYAL PLAZA

The Big Trip (2D/Animation) 2:15pm; Pailwaan (2D/Kannada) 2:00pm; Gang Leader (2D/Telugu) 2:30pm; Love Action Drama (2D/Malayalam) 3:45 & 11:30pm; Dream Girl (2D/Hindi) 6:15 & 9:00pm; Itty-maani (2D/Malayalam) 8:45pm; Chhichhore (2D/Hindi) 5:30pm; IT: Chapter 2 (2D/Horror) 8:00pm; The Gold-finch (2D/Drama) 11:00pm; The Lion King (2D/Drama) 5:00 & 7:00pm; Official Secretes (2D/Drama) 7:00pm; Section 375 (2D/Hindi) 11:30pm.

MALL

20 SUNDAY 15 SEPTEMBER 2019MORNING BREAK

WEATHER TODAY

Courtesy: Qatar Meteorology Department

Minimum Maximum32oC 39oC

HIGH TIDE 04:43 – 17:09 LOW TIDE 00:33 – 11:46

Relatively hot daytime with slight dust at

times, humid by night.

FAJRSHOROOK

04. 03 AM05. 20 AM

11. 29 AM02.57 PM

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MAGHRIBISHA

PRAYER TIMINGS

Fireworks explode next to the Macau Tower during an international fireworks contest on the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival in Macau, China on Friday. The Mid-Autumn Festival is a harvest festival traditionally celebrated by the Chinese.

Tiananmen Square‘Tank Man’ photographer diesAFP JAKARTA

The photographer who snapped the defining image of China’s Tiananmen Square crackdown — a solitary man defiantly blocking the path of a column of tanks — has died in Indonesia, according to US officials.

American authorities confirmed the death of 64-year-old Charlie Cole in Bali, where the Texan had been a long-time resident. “We offer our sincerest condolences to the family on their loss,” a State Department official said.

Cole won the 1990 World Press Photo award for his picture of a man in a white shirt, carrying a shopping bag in each hand, striding out into the road the day after troops killed hundreds of pro-democracy protesters in the heart of Beijing. The man, whose identity remains unknown, stopped in front of a column of tanks and armoured vehicles stretching far down the road, later climbing onto the vehicle to engage in a conversation with one of the tank crew as gunshots crackled in the air.

“Tank Man” has become one of the defining images of the 20th century, but the image remains largely unrec-ognised in China due to censorship of the image and the wider crackdown.

His mystique has been reinforced by his subsequent disappearance, probably at the hands of Chinese security forces. Several photographers captured Tank Man’s lone figure on film that day. A picture of the scene by Jeff Widener of the Associated Press, snapped from the balcony of the Beijing Hotel, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

Mid-Autumn Festival

Solid gold toilet stolen from stately homeAFP LONDON

A gang of thieves yesterday stole an 18-carat gold toilet from Britain’s Blenheim Palace, police said, causing flooding that damaged the world-famous stately home.

The fully-functioning toilet, dubbed “America”, was created by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan and estimated to be worth around £1m.

A 66-year-old man was arrested fol-lowing the burglary, which took place before dawn at the 18th-century estate near Oxford, southern England.

The toilet was one of the star attrac-tions in an exhibition of Cattelan’s works that opened on Thursday at the palace, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Visitors were able to book time slots to use it — but only for three minutes each, to limit the queues.

More than 100,000 people used the loo during the year it was on display at New York’s Guggenheim Museum.

“The offenders broke into the palace overnight and left the scene at about 4.50am (0350 GMT). No-one was injured during the burglary,” police said in a statement.

Detective Inspector Jess Milne of Thames Valley Police said she believed “a group of offenders used at least two vehicles” — and left a mess behind them.

“The piece of art that has been stolen

is a high-value toilet made out of gold that was on display at the palace,” she said.

“Due to the toilet being plumbed into the building, this has caused significant damage and flooding.” Blenheim Palace said it was “saddened by this extraor-dinary event, but also relieved no-one was hurt”.

It closed on Saturday but said it would reopen on Sunday.

The palace is home to the 12th duke of Marlborough and his family, and was also the birthplace of British wartime leader Winston Churchill.

The duke’s brother, Edward Spencer-Churchill, who founded the Blenheim Art Foundation, said last month he was relaxed about security around the gold toilet.

“It’s not going to be the easiest thing to nick,” he told The Times newspaper.

“Firstly, it’s plumbed in and secondly, a potential thief will have no idea who last used the toilet or what they ate. So no, I don’t plan to be guarding it.”

He added: “Despite being born with a silver spoon in my mouth I have never had a shit on a golden toilet, so I look forward to it.”

Cattelan, who is known for his pro-vocative art, has previously described the golden toilet as “one-percent art for the 99 percent”.

The Guggenheim had offered the loo on loan to US President Donald Trump, but he declined.

The Italian artist’s exhibition at Blenheim runs until October 27 and includes a taxidermied horse hoisted onto the ceiling of an ornate reception room.

Blenheim has previously hosted exhibitions of work by Ai WeiWei, Yves Klein, Jenny Holzer, Michelangelo Pis-toletto and Lawrence Weiner.

Police said they were looking at CCTV footage to help them in the search for the gold toilet, adding that nothing else was believed to have been stolen.

A file photo taken on September 15, 2016, shows the fully functioning solid gold toilet, made by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, going into public use at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

MoviePass cinema service to shut downAFP NEW YORK

The owner of cinema subscription MoviePass said on Friday it was shutting down the service which allowed users to see as many films as they want for a flat monthly fee.

Helios and Matheson Ana-lytics (HMA), which owns Mov-iePass, said in a statement it was also seeking to sell the unit’s other assets including the film ticketing website Moviefone.

The statement said the service would be shutting down effective yesterday.

MoviePass, founded in 2011, generated buzz two years ago when it lowered the price of its all-you-can-watch service to $9.99 per month, which was less than the price of a single ticket in many cases.

But some theater chains refused to honor the MoviePass vouchers, and the company often lost money from covering the costs of tickets.

HMA said it formed a com-mittee to review options including a sale of the company or some of its assets.

Moviefone was launched in 1989 as a phone-based ticket service and later sold to AOL and then to MoviePass’s owners.

Cats, dolphins and ravens — CIA’s secret animal spiesAFP WASHINGTON

In early 1974, Do Da was top in espionage class, on the way to becoming a high-flying CIA agent: he handled himself better in the rough, carried heavier loads, and could brush off attackers.

But on his toughest-yet spy school test, he disappeared — done in by some of his own kind: ravens.

The bird was a central figure in a decade-long US Central Intelligence Agency program to train animals as agents, helping Washington fight the Cold War against the Soviet Union.

On Thursday, the CIA released dozens of files from its tests on cats, dogs, dolphins and on birds from pigeons to some of the smartest: ravens and crows.

It studied cats as possible loose-roaming listening devices — “audio surveillance vehicles” — and put electrical implants in dogs’ brains to see if they could be remotely controlled.

Neither of those programs went very far. More effort was put into training dolphins as potential saboteurs and helping spy on the Soviet

Union’s development of a nuclear submarine fleet, perhaps the most potent challenge to US power in the mid-1960s.

Projects Oxygas and Chir-ilogy sought to see if dolphins could be trained to replace human divers and place explo-sives on moored or moving vessels, sneak into Soviet harbors and leave in place acoustic buoys and rocket detection units, or swim alongside submarines to collect their acoustic signatures.

Those programs, too, were given up, left to the US Navy which to this day makes use of dolphins and seals.

But what also grabbed the US spy chiefs’ imagination in the Cold War days was birds — pigeons, hawks, owls, crows and ravens, and even flocks of wild migratory birds.

For the latter, the agency enlisted ornithologists to try to determine which birds regularly spent part of the year in the area of Shikhany in the Volga River

Basin southeast of Moscow, where the Soviets operated a chemical weapons facility.

The CIA saw the migratory birds as “living sensors” which, based on their feeding, would reveal what kinds of substances the Russians were testing, in their flesh.

In the early 1970s, the CIA turned to birds of prey and ravens, hoping they could be trained for “emplacement” mis-sions like dropping a listening device on a windowsill, and photo missions.

In project Axiolite, bird trainers working on San Cle-mente island off southern Cali-fornia taught the birds to fly miles over the water between a boat and land.

If the training went well, a chosen candidate would have a tough mission: being smuggled to Soviet Russia, where it would be released secretly in the field, tasked to fly 15 miles carrying a camera to snap pictures of a radar for SA-5 missiles, and fly back.

They had red-tailed and Har-ris’s hawks, great horned owls, a vulture, and a cockatoo.

It was not easy. A cockatoo was “a clever flyer” but “maybe too slow to avoid gull attacks.”

Two falcons died from illness; another promising candidate lost feathers and trainers had to wait for it to molt and grow them back.

The most promising flyer was Do Da, the raven. In just three months, Do Da went from a successful 3/4-mile trip to six miles from shore to boat, and then four miles back to shore on the same day.

He was the most promising candidate for the Russia mission, the “star of this project,” one sci-entist wrote, who figured out the right altitudes in the right winds, and acquired “sufficient guile to outwit the native ravens and gulls,” which hid for attacks on him.

But on a training mission he was attacked by “the usual pair” of ravens — and was not seen again.

The scientists were deeply dismayed. “He had a large bag of tricks and was loved by all,” one wrote.

The other major effort was with pigeons, used for over two millennia as messengers and to take photographs during World War I. The challenge was that pigeons work from home coops or roosts, places they are familiar with.

A man walks over the seal of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the lobby of CIA Headquarters in Langley, United States.

Disney chief exits Apple board as firms become rivalsAFP/SAN FRANCISCO

Disney chief Bob Iger resigned from Apple’s board of directors as the companies are poised to launch rival online streaming services, according to a filing with US regulators.

Iger’s departure came the same day that the iPhone maker announced that its Apple TV+ subscription service with a budding library of original content will go live interna-tionally on November 1, according to paperwork filed by Apple with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Apple unveiled iPhone 11 models this week with a price cut for the most basic models while also laying out plans for streaming and gaming services, as it bids to weather the slump in the global smartphone market.