qatar committed to patient prime minister meets …...2019/09/18 · the world patient safety day...

Volume 24 | Number 8018 | 2 RiyalsWednesday 18 September 2019 | 19 Muharram 1441 www.thepeninsula.qa

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BUSINESS | 01 SPORT | 09

Samba under no ‘pressure’ ahead of Doha Worlds

Kahramaa, QEWC and MHPS sign

MoU on internship program

Prime Minister meets Chairman of SIGA

Prime Minister and Interior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani met yesterday with the Chairman of the Sport Integrity Global Alliance (SIGA), Franco Frattini, and his accompanying delegation on the occasion of their visit to the country to participate in the Inter-regional Sports Integrity Summit held in Doha. They reviewed a number of topics of common interest.

Qatar committed to patientsafety and quality careFAZEENA SALEEM THE PENINSULA

Qatar’s commitment in embracing a patient safety culture that puts quality and patient safety at the forefront was highlighted during the of 5th Qatar Patient Safety Week (QPSW) which was inaugurated by Minister of Public Health H E Dr Hanan Mohamed Al Kuwari.

The Minister emphasised that the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) plays a crucial role in ensuring that the people living in Qatar receive the safest quality care available across the globe.

“The ambition comes from the visionary leadership of Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, as part of attaining Qatar National Vision 2030. Our healthcare system has progressed dramatically in the past few years, and the implementation of the National Health Strategy 2018-2022 shall make a remarkable difference to Qatar’s health journey,” said Dr Hanan.

“Patient safety has been identified as one of the pillars that guides the process of strategy development and implementation,” the Minister added.

The 5th QPSW organised by MoPH, coincides with the cele-bration of the first World Patient Safety Day, which was approved by the World Health Organi-sation this year to enhance global understanding and soli-darity to improve patient safety. The World Patient Safety Day was marked with slogan ‘Speak up for Patient Safety’.

“In May this year, the WHO endorsed the establishment of World Patient Safety Day (WPSD) to be observed annually on September 17.

“The WPSD is a campaign encouraging all stakeholders in the healthcare system to raise global awareness on patient safety and encourage global sol-idarity and action.

“As part of Qatar’s commit-ments to the Global Action on Patient Safety, this year Qatar Patient Safety Week shall be joining hands with the WPSD celebrations adopting their slogan ‘Speak up for Patient Safety’,” said Dr Hanan.

The Minister added: “Fear of speaking up is a persistent chal-lenge that needs to be addressed in our collective efforts to reduce patient harm. Silence between patients and providers, between healthcare professionals working within the same facility, between public and governing bodies can inadvertently lead to inevitable harm. �P2

H E Dr Hanan Mohamed Al Kuwari, Minister of Public Health, with Kithsiri Athulathmudali, Sri Lankan Ambassador to Qatar (second left) during the opening session of the 5th Qatar Patient Safety Week at Ritz-Carlton Doha yesterday. PIC:ABDUL BASIT/THE PENINSULA

MoI launches ‘Policeman My Friend’ websiteQNA DOHA

The Ministry of Interior (MoI) yesterday inaugurated the new website “Policeman My Friend”, which aims to promote traffic awareness among children and enhance their awareness of traffic culture in general.

The Director of Traffic Awareness Department at the Ministry of Interior Colonel Mohammed Radi Al Hajri, explained that the launching of the website with such capabil-ities and information serves traffic awareness, in particular, and awareness in general, and works to break the barrier between children and police as the website is full of children-friendly characters.

Al Hajri stressed that spreading traffic awareness among children is one of the goals of the Department, through the delivery of awareness message, among

children and the rest of the family members.

He pointed out that as children are the next generation of road users, whether they are pedestrians or drivers, paying attention to them has future advantages for traffic safety, adding that spreading traffic awareness is not only the responsibility of the Ministry of Interior, but a shared responsi-bility for all segments of society.

For his part, the Assistant Director of Public Relations Department of MoI Major Mubarak Salem Al Buainain said that the Ministry of Interior is always keen on keeping up with modernisation and continuous development of its awareness tools and employing modern technologies to serve the security.

The launch of the new website is a confirmation of these efforts to raise awareness among children as future leaders, he said. �P2

Qatar Visa Center to open in Manila this monthTHE PENINSULA DOHA

A new Qatar Visa Center (QVC) will be opened in Manila, the Philippines, in the next few days in order to simplify employment visa procedures and protect workers’ rights.

The Visa Support Services Department of the Ministry of the Interior (MoI) yesterday organised an introductory seminar for the Filipino com-munity on the procedures of recruitment through QVC.

The symposium was held in collaboration with the Min-istry of Administrative Devel-opment, Labour and Social Affairs.

Major Abdullah Khalifa Al Mohannadi, Director of the Visa Support Services Department at the MoI, reviewed the stages of recruitment procedures through the center that will be launched in the Philippine capital Manila at the end of this month, the Ministry of Interior said on its official website.

Muhammed Ali Al Meer, representative of the Ministry of Administrative Development, Labour and Social Affairs, said that the QVC in the Philippine capital Manila will be a new addition to facilitate the process of recruitment of workers, and the completion of procedures and legal requirements for expatriates to work.

Live testimonies about victims of Saudi arbitrary detention soon: NHRCQNA GENEVA

The Chairman of the National Human Rights Committee (NHRC) Dr. Ali bin Smaikh Al Marri revealed that representa-tives of families of arbitrarily detained Qatari nationals and victims of enforced disap-pearance in Saudi Arabia will present live testimonies of the victims’ suffering before the European Parliament, United Nations Human Rights Council and relevant international bodies soon.

Dr. Al Marri pointed out that NHRC will submit compre-hensive and documented files to the UN Committee on the Elim-ination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) and the UN Working Groups on Arbitrary Detention and Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances on the contin-uation of the Saudi violations

that affected a few Qatari cit-izens who were allowed to enter Saudi Arabia with security clear-ances before being arbitrarily detained. He pointed out that both UN Working Groups addressed an official letter to Saudi Arabia due to its continued arbitrary arrests and enforced disappearance of Qatari citizens.

This came during a meeting of NHRC Chairman with the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances and the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention during his current visit to Geneva.

During the meeting, Dr. Al Marri gave a briefing on the latest developments in the Qatar blockade crisis and the human-itarian consequences of the con-tinued violations by Saudi Arabia of the rights of citizens and res-idents of Qatar, as a result of the blockade since 5 June 2017.

Dr Al Marri appreciated the response of the Working Groups on Arbitrary Detention and Enforced and Involuntary Dis-appearances, as they addressed letters to Saudi Arabia, urging it to stop its violations immedi-ately and to disclose the where-abouts of detained Qataris in Saudi Arabia and release them. He also briefed officials of the Working Groups on the health situation of some detainees arbitrarily.

NHRC Chairman issued an urgent appeal to with the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances and the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, calling for concrete and strong steps to be taken to end the continuation of Saudi violations against Qatari citizens, in light of the continued detention of Qatari nationals by the Saudi authorities, without legal justification. �P2

White Paper on sport integrity in January, says SIGA ChairmanIRFAN BUKHARI THE PENINSULA

Praising Qatar’s efforts in promoting sports and sport integrity in the region, Chairman of the Sport Integrity Global Alliance (SIGA), Franco Frattini, said that the Alliance will present in Rome a White Paper on sport integrity in January next year.

“The next goal of the SIGA is to present proposals which can become one day binding rules at international level, applicable to all States in the international community. It is quite an ambi-tious goal,” said Frattini in an interview with The Peninsula.

Frattini was in Doha to par-ticipate in the Inter-regional Sport Integrity Summit on the topic ‘Sport Integrity – The

Power of Collective Action in the Middle East, Asia and Africa’.

He said that the SIGA is an international alliance which has got together sports institutions, States, public institutions and private sector. “Our idea is to bring together all those aimed at improving integrity in the field of sport, preventing illegality and fighting all kinds of criminal activities related to sport.”

Frattini served twice as Italian Foreign Minister (2002-2004 and 2008-2011), and as Vice-President of the European Commission and Commissioner for Justice, Freedom and Security (2004-2008).

Frattini said that the first regional summit in Doha was an important step towards achieving SIGA’s goal of adopting universal standards. �P5

Minister of Public Health, H E Dr Hanan Mohamed Al Kuwari, said: “Patient safety has been identified as one of the pillars that guides the process of strategy development and implementation.”

TODAY'S FIXTURESClub Brugge vs GalatasarayOlympiakos FC vs Tottenham Hotspur Atletico Madrid vs Juventus Bayer Leverkusen vs Lokomotiv MoscowBayern Munich vs Crvena ZvezdaDinamo Zagreb vs Atalanta PSG vs Real MadridShakhtar Donetsk vs Manchester City

02 WEDNESDAY 18 SEPTEMBER 2019HOME

Qatar condemns blast targeting election rally in AfghanistanDOHA: Qatar expressed its

strong condemnation and

denunciation of the explo-

sion that targeted election

rally of the Afghani Pres-

ident in Kabul, killing and

injuring several people. In

a statement issued yester-

day, the Ministry of Foreign

Affairs reiterated Qatar’s

firm stance on reject-

ing violence and terrorism

regardless of the motives

and causes. The statement

expressed Qatar’s condo-

lences to the families of

the victims and the Gov-

ernment and people of

Afghanistan, wishing the

injured a speedy recov-

ery. QNA

OFFICIAL NEWS

FM receives message from VenezuelaQNA/DOHA

The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, H E Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdul-rahman Al Thani, received a written message from the Minister of the People’s Power for Foreign Affairs of Vene-zuela, Jorge Arreaza Montserrat, pertaining to bilateral relations and ways of supporting and developing them. The message was handed to the Secretary-General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Ahmed bin Hassan Al Hammadi, during a meeting, yesterday, with the Ambassador of Venezuela to Qatar, Giuseppe Angelo Yoffreda Yorio.

Al Sulaiti meets envoys of China, Georgia

The Minister of Transport and Communications, H E Jassim bin Saif Al Sulaiti, with the Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China, Zhou Jian (left), in Doha, yesterday. H E the Minister also met with Nikoloz Revazishvili, Ambassador of the Republic of Georgia to Qatar. The two meetings discussed cooperation relations between Qatar and the two friendly countries in the fields of transportation and communications and means of further enhancing them.

Al Muraikhi receives Kosovo envoy QNA/DOHA

The Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, H E Sultan bin Saad Al Muraikhi, received yesterday a copy of the credentials of Ambassador of Kosovo to Qatar, Amir Ahmadi. H E the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs wished the new ambas-sador success in his duties, assuring him of all support to upgrade the bilateral relations between the two countries to a closer cooperation in various fields. A number of Foreign Ministry officials attended the presentation of the copy of the credentials.

Qatar calls for full protection for Syrian peopleQNA GENEVA

The State of Qatar urged the international community to uphold its responsibilities in providing full protection for the Syrian people and holding accountable all those respon-sible for crimes and human rights violations in Syria.

This came in a speech delivered by H E Ambassador Ali Khalfan Al Mansouri, Per-manent Representative of the State of Qatar to the United Nations Office and other inter-national organisations in Geneva, during the interactive dialogue with the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic, under item 4 of the 42nd session of the UN Human Rights Council.

At the beginning of the speech, H E thanked the Com-mission of Inquiry, saying “We call on the Syrian authorities to allow them to enter the country and enable them to carry out their mandate in the best pos-sible way.”

The Ambassador said the members of the International Commission of Inquiry pre-sented today before the meet-ing’s participants a new tes-timony in their report, which documents many of the grave violations and crimes com-mitted against the Syrian people, but there are still many questions that we cannot answer, including why do mil-lions of Syrians continue to be killed, tortured and displaced for more than eight years, and why there is no any

accountability so far for those responsible for these violations and crimes despite the availa-bility of sufficient evidence to convict them

“We agree with what the report said regarding the importance of reaching a peaceful solution,” he said, noting that the Syrian regime has pursued various policies to thwart political talks every time there is a hope for finding a political solution. “These pol-icies include military escalation, destruction of cities, deliberate and systematic targeting of civilians and civilian facilities, continued obstruction of humanitarian access, and the non-release of innocent detainees, especially women and children, who are subjected to the most heinous torture and oppression,” he said.

He pointed to what is hap-pening in Idlib governorate of bombing, destruction and dis-placement, deteriorating humanitarian situation and increasing violations against civilians in areas that have returned to the control of the Syrian regime.

Ambassador Ali Khalfan Al Mansouri called on the inter-national community to under-stand the game played by the Syrian regime and its allies, to assume all its legal and moral responsibilities in providing full protection for the Syrian people, and take the necessary measures and as soon as pos-sible to hold to account all those responsible to crimes and human rights violations in Syria, and bring them to criminal justice.

Qatar Rail extends registration for retail spaces in Doha Metro stationsTHE PENINSULA DOHA

Qatar Rail has announced an extended registration period to run until end of September for businesses entrepreneurs, and local companies seeking commercial spaces in Doha Metro network.

The final phase of the Doha Metro Retail features com-mercial retail shops at the Gold Line 10 stations running from Ras Bu Abboud to Al Aziziyah, the Green Line featuring Al Riffa station, and the Red line with five stations running from Katara to Lusail and Hamad International Airport station.

The retail units have com-petitive licensing rates which are

fixed for a period of five years. Unit licensing rates during this period will not be affected by fluctuation in the rental market. Additionally, these rates are also inclusive of utilities, water and electricity.

Also the retail units include ready flooring and shop shutter. The commercial outlets are dis-persed outside of the paid area in the stations reaching a wider customer segment.

All applications go through a comprehensive review based on experience, proposed business plan, proposed store concept and the nature of the activity whilst Qatar Rail aims to achieve diversity and integration between the various retail outlets to better service cus-

tomers and metro commuters.With over 9200 m2 of retail

space across 37 stations, these outlets are considered the first of its kind in Qatar since it pro-vides business access to railway commuters and neighborhood customers.

The stations provide con-stant significant foot fall and thus are premium locations for retail outlets. Stations will offer four main types of retail including services, food and beverage, convenience stores and general retail.

The online registration is open until September 26, 2019 Application for the retail spaces can be submitted in a few easy steps via Qatar Rail’s online retail portal at retail.qr.com.qa.

Live testimonies about victims of Saudi arbitrary detention soon: NHRCFROM PAGE 1

Dr. Al Marri added that fol-lowing the release of Qatari cit-izens in recent months, NHRC expected that the Saudi author-ities would stop their serious human rights violations, but NHRC was surprised by the con-tinued arbitrary approach, and the detention of Qatari citizens who were victims of enforced disappearance and arbitrary detention, without any legal explanations or justification for

their detention. The Saudi authorities even arrested a small number of Qatari citizens who were allowed to enter Saudi Arabia with security exceptions, before they were surprised to arrest some of them arbitrarily and without revealing their whereabouts so far, he further added.

He stressed that NHRC would continue to defend the victims of Saudi violations, adding that NHRC is in contact with Qatari families whose children have

been subjected to arbitrary detention and enforced disap-pearance and whose fate is still unknown because the Saudi authorities continue their approach. He explained that NHRC holds them fully respon-sible for the safety of these Qatari citizens who are supposed to have entered Saudi territory with security clearances, including citizens with property and “Halal” in Saudi territory.

NHRC Chairman stressed that these arrests prove beyond

any doubt, that the Saudi author-ities continue their repressive practices against Qatari citizens, especially against the intermar-riage families of citizens of the two countries, which increases the suffering of those families stranded by the Saudi violations that caused the tearing the social fabric.

Dr. Al Marri concluded that the continued violations by the Saudi authorities, including arbi-trary arrests and forced detention of Qatari citizens,

refute all the false reports and allegations made by Saudi offi-cials and media and their claims that Qatari citizens are welcome in the Kingdom. He explained that these violations also prove the fears of Qatari citizens to enter Saudi Arabia, whether to perform Hajj and Umrah or to visit their relatives and business practices, because the continu-ation of these violations send a message to Qataris and the world, that Saudi Arabia is not safe for Qatari citizens.

Qatar committed to patient safety and quality careFROM PAGE 1

“It is important to acknowledge eve-ryone’s role in bringing issues to light as soon as they are identified and acting proactively to mitigate risk.”

Following the official opening of the 5th QPSW and the accompanying con-ference, the Minister toured the exhibition hall, which includes pavilions of MoPH, Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) other health institutions and a poster exhibition.

In a continuous effort to improve quality and safety of patient services, the MoPH has developed many national guidelines and Virtual Reality videos sim-ulating different situations, said Director of the Public Health Department, Sheikh Dr. Mohammed bin Hamad Al Thani.

“Several projects and programmes implemented across healthcare facilities have made the healthcare system in Qatar safer for patients and employees. MoPH continuously work to increase patient safety. We have developed about 40 clinical and preventive guidelines hoping to increase it up to 80 for different ill-nesses including for obesity, diabetes and back pain. Every month we review and upgrade the guidelines,” said Dr. Al Thani, speaking to media on the sidelines of the opening session of QPSW.

The two-day conference being held at the Ritz Charlton Doha features a diversity of speakers and topics. The con-ference will discuss about local initiatives

encouraging speaking up for patient safety, national clinical guidelines and digital health in relation to patient safety, patient safety in areas with unique chal-lenges such as mental health and emergencies.

“Encouraging patients and family members to speak up when they perceive a potential harm adds a crucial safety net as well as it improves their relationship with the care team and builds trust in the system that acknowledges their role in the safety of their loved ones. To achieve this, the organisations should encourage

and empower both staff, patients and their families to speak up and voice their con-cerns if patient safety is at stake,” said Dr. Huda Al Katheeri, Acting Director, Healthcare Quality and Patient Safety Department at MoPH.

The opening session featured a keynote speech by the Director of Usher Institute at the University of Edinburgh and Adviser to WHO Professor Aziz Sheikh. He called on Qatar to seize the opportunity to play an international lead-ership role in ‘Speaking Up for Patient Safety’ on behalf of patients across Qatar

and indeed the world. “On this the first World Patient Safety

Day, I will make the case for developing a culture in which errors can be discussed without fear, consider the key challenges that need to be overcome and offer sug-gestions on how this might achieve this at scale,” said Professor Aziz.

While, a panel discussion highlighted on ‘Patient Safety and Quality of Care in Emergencies and Extreme Adversity.’ Speakers of the panel, included Kithsiri Athulathmudali, Sri Lankan Ambassador to Qatar; Dr. Mohammad Al Hajri from the MoPH; Dr. Abdelkader Wahelya Afrah from the Ministry of Health, Somalia; and Dr. Alaa Abouzeid from the WHO.

More than 1,000 participants attend the two day conference with about 50% from the private sector.

QPSW, which will continue until Sep-tember 21, is an annual event organised by the MoPH at the national-level as an initiative aimed at spreading the concept of patient safety among the public and healthcare workers.

Primary Health Care Corporation, Qatar Red Crescent Society HMC, Al Ahli Hospital, Doha Clinic Hospital and Aster hospital are all running their patient safety campaigns with varied focus on different patient safety aspects.

Several buildings including the MoPH, Aster Hospital, the Torch Hotel light up in orange color to show solidarity with the WPSD celebrations.

The Ministry of Public Health building lights up in orange to mark the ‘First World Patient Safety Day’. PIC: BAHER AMIN / THE PENINSULA

MoI launches ‘Policeman My Friend’ website

FROM PAGE 1The Head of the research

and studies section in the Public Relations Department at MoI, Sheikha Al Anoud bint Faisal Al Thani, said that the website, which was launched is an elec-tronic window containing many cultural activities that suit children and meet their need for knowledge, in order to teach and educate them through playing and to partic-ipate in interactive activities in the so-called (fun learning).

She pointed out that the website aims to strengthen the role of the police and its noble message in the minds of children and develop a sense of security among them, noting that the content of the website includes expressive stories and children’s creations and content related to policemen in the country to devote the concept of real citizenship in children. The inauguration of the website took place in the traffic village at the General Directorate of Traffic.

03WEDNESDAY 18 SEPTEMBER 2019 HOME

Cultural relations to get further boost

Qatar-France ties ever-growing in all aspects

RAYNALD C RIVERA THE PENINSULA

As 2020 nears, cultural ties between Qatar and France are expected to get a further boost with a slew of events and activities to be organised in both coun-tries in line with the Qatar-France 2020 Year of Culture.

The upcoming 2020 Year of Culture initiative of Qatar Museums to promote mutual understanding, recognition and appreciation between both sovereign nations reaffirms the deep bond that exists between Qatar and France.

Already, Qatar and France’s rela-tions are strong as evident in the French events and activities that have been hosted in Qatar, among which is the Francophonie Festival held every year.

The annual Francophonie Festival organised by the French Embassy in Doha and the French Institute of Qatar serves as an important link between French language loving people in Qatar. It is estimated that around 200,000 of Qatar’s population speak French.

As language is a chief means to convey and preserve culture, the fes-tival has played a vital role in the pro-motion of cultural nexus among peoples in Qatar and this year, the 11-day fes-tival witnessed activities and events which delved into various areas including performing arts, gastronomy, sport and speech competitions which made its debut at this year’s festival.

With the participation of many res-taurants in Qatar ‘Goût de France/Good France,’ one of the key elements of the festival, has successfully brought the finesse and flavour of French cuisine, which it has been globally known for, to the palate of Doha foodies.

A plethora of concerts and dance shows featuring talented French artistes have also been organised in Qatar in

the past years, the most recent of which was the unique show by the musical quintet called Cinq de Coeur who enter-tained the audience with their humor and vocal skills.

Just last year, acclaimed all-female hip hop dance company Swaggers mes-merized Doha with their uniquely crafted artistic dance show at Katara Drama Theatre.

In 2017, another French hip hop group of international renown, Pockemon Crew heated up the Katara Drama Theatre stage showcasing their originality blending cinema and dance in a spectacular show.

French musicians have also fea-tured in the annual Katara European Jazz Festival which in the past five years has celebrated jazz music through a series of concerts representing the various European embassies in Qatar.

In the field of art, the exhibition of more than 120 works of Pablo Picasso and Alberto Giacometti-two of the most important artists of the 20th century-was arguably one of the most important retrospectives in Doha in recent times, a first in the Middle East.

While these art and culture events have helped in strengthening the cul-tural bond of France with Qatar, they also promote people to people relations and a deeper understanding of each other’s cultures.

Substantial growth in trade volumeSACHIN KUMAR THE PENINSULA

The trade relations between Qatar and France have reached new heights and the relations are expected to strengthen further. The robust business ties are reflected in the strong growth in volume of bilateral trade. The volume of trade between the two friendly countries has grown from around QR9.14bn in 2016 to over QR14bn in 2018.

Qatari investments in France include several sectors such as energy, real estate, hotels, financial services, transport, com-munications and sports.

France also remains one of the leading destinations for Qatari foreign investment, as Qatar’s investments in France were estimated to be around €30bn in 2018. There are a large number of French companies investing in the Qatari market. The number of French companies setting up business in Qatar is rising and the existing ones are expanding their operations here.

Some 200 French companies are working alongside public and private stakeholders such as the QFC on key projects in oil and gas, electricity and water, transport, urban development and other fields.

French investments in Qatar have been on the rise, reflecting the dynamism and the level of commitment of French companies operating in Qatar, some of which are operating here for decades.

One of the major factors behind the growth in bilateral relations are the events organised to encourage private sector of both countries. One such important event is Qatar-France Business and Investment Forum which was organised last year. The Qatar Financial Centre (QFC) participated in the Qatar-France Business and Investment Forum.

Organised by the Qatari Businessmen Association, Business France, the national trade and investment agency of France, the French Embassy in Qatar and MEDEF International, the French Business Con-federation, the event focused on

explaining the mechanisms for investing in the French economy as well as high-lighting selected investment projects in France.

Each year, delegations of busi-nessmen from both countries meet to explore potential bilateral investment opportunities. The French firms are eager to explore growing opportunities in Qatar, which has made its economy attractive of global investors.

There are around 5,500 French cit-izens working in Qatar who are playing a positive role in strengthening bilateral relations between the two countries.

Qatar and France earlier this year in February signed an a intent agreement for establishing strategic partnership dia-logue aimed at enhancing cooperation in different fields between the two coun-tries and address a broad range of regional issues. The strategic dialogue is going to cover various fields such as defence, security, health, education, culture, sports, economy, investment, combating terrorism and extremism.

Already, Qatar and France’s relations are strong as evident in the French events and activities that have been hosted in Qatar, among which is the Francophonie Festival held every year.


Vodafone simplifies recharge process for prepaid customersTHE PENINSULA DOHA

Vodafone Qatar has revealed a new and simpler way to recharge for its prepaid customers with the introduction of new recharge cards that allow services such as data, flex, credit or international calling, all from one card.

Customers can chose from a wide range of denominations that suit every budget from QR5 to QR100, then opt for a single benefit they want to use. For example, the new QR10 recharge card gives customers the choice of QR10 credit valid for 30 days or; 300MB of data for three days or; 70 flex valid for three days or; 18 International minutes

valid for 7 days. In addition, data and flex recharges have extra bonus for a limited period.

Shavkat Berdiev, Consumer Business Unit Director, Vodafone Qatar, said: “We’re delighted to introduce our new recharge cards that give Prepaid customers the choice to use any service they want, when they want, using the convenience of just one card. The new cards not only eliminate the need to buy different cards for the various services, but are also a far more cost effective solution. Vodafone Qatar has a long history of bringing the latest innovations and we are committed to con-tinue investing in solutions that enhance our customers’ experience.”

Culture Ministry hosts seminar on awards’ role in promoting creativityQNA DOHA

As part of the Qatari Forum for Authors’ initiatives in activating the cultural factor in society, the Forum organised a seminar entitled The Awards’ Role in Promoting Creativity at the Ministry of Culture and Sports’ headquarter in the presence of a number of intellectuals and interested parties.

A Professor at the University of Qatar, and a member of the media team of Sheikh Hamad Award for Translation and Inter-national Understanding, Dr. Imtenan Al Smadi, stressed importance attached by Qatar to preserving and disseminating sciences, arts, cultural and national heritage, and encour-aging scientific research in accordance with the provisions

of Article 24 of the Qatari Con-stitution, noting that this article has been implemented through a number of mechanisms, among

them are the announcement of awards, including the State Appreciation Awards in Arts and Science, and the State Award for

Children’s Literature by the Min-istry of Culture.

In addition to several awards by some institutions such as the Katara Prize for Arabic Novel and Katara Prize for Prophet’s Poets, Sheikh Ali bin Abdullah Al Thani Award in Islamic Sciences and Thought, Sheikh Hamad Award for Translation and Inter-national Understanding, as well as the Doha Award for Dramatic Writing by the Ministry of Culture and Sports this year. The State also sponsors many awards at the Arab level.

She also noted the impor-tance of the awards in honouring scientists, thinkers, researchers and creative talents financially and morally and promote their efforts at the international and regional levels to contribute to enriching the research effort, intellectual diligence and artistic

creativity, as well as creating a climate for creative and inno-vative scientific competition. Dr. Al Smadi also talked about the role of the jury and its moral and technical responsibility.

Dr. Hanan Al Fayyad, Pro-fessor at Qatar University and spokesperson of the Sheikh Hamad Award for Translation and International Understanding, delivered a detailed presentation on the award since it was estab-lished in 2015, saying it is an international award that seeks to honor translators and appre-ciate their role in strengthening the bonds of friendship and cooperation between the nations and peoples of the world, encouraging creativity, consol-idating lofty values, spreading diversity, pluralism and openness. It aspires to consol-idate the culture of knowledge

and dialogue, spreading Arab and Islamic culture, developing international understanding, and enhancing the role of translation in spreading peace and spreading knowledge, and the role of trans-lators in bringing the world closer.

Dr, Al Fayyad said that the prize, which will hold its fifth season this year, encourages translation from and into Arabic in more than one language, and adopts an international language every year besides English, pointing out that the Turkish lan-guage was chosen for the first year, Spanish language was chosen for the second year, French language was chosen for the third year, German language was chosen for the fourth year and Russian language was chosen for the fifth year, the current year.

Dr. Hanan Al Fayyad (centre), Professor at Qatar University, speaking during the seminar entitled ‘The Awards’ Role in Promoting Creativity’ at the headquarters of the Ministry of Culture and Sports. Dr. Imtenan Al Smadi (right), Professor at the University of Qatar, and Mohammed Al Sayegh, Cultural Researcher at the Ministry of Culture and Sports, were also present.

A-G meets French official

The President of the French Constitutional Council, Laurent Fabius, met yesterday with Qatar’s Attorney-General, H E Dr. Ali bin Fetais Al Marri. During the meeting, they discussed a number of topics of common interest, ways of boosting and developing the relations, especially in the legal and judicial fields, developing the Qatari academic capacity in law and justice and continuing cooperation in a number of bilateral initiatives and partnerships between the two countries. Both parties agreed to continue consultations on those topics. The meeting was attended by the Ambassador of the State of Qatar to the French Republic, Sheikh Ali bin Jassem Al Thani.

Heads of Jordan’s House of Representatives and Senate meet Qatari AmbassadorQNA AMMAN

The Speaker of Jordan’s House of Representatives, Eng. Atef Tarawneh, met with the Ambas-sador of the State of Qatar to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, Sheikh Saud bin Nasser Al Thani.

During the meeting, the Speaker of Jordan’s House of Representatives affirmed his country’s keenness on reaching the best levels in bilateral rela-tions to serve the interests of the two countries.

He stressed the importance of the joint parliamentary coor-dination between the two coun-tries, especially in the Palestinian issue and defending its cause in various international parlia-mentary forums.

For his part, the Ambassador affirmed that the State of Qatar seeks to strengthen the existing relations with Jordan in various

fields, pointing out that they are solid relations based on firm foundations and mutual respect.

The Ambassador said that the State of Qatar is working closely with Jordan to strengthen the relations between the two

countries and activate the joint coordination to face the chal-lenges in the region, adding that both countries seeks to jointly support projects and programs that contribute to the overall economic development of the

two countries.In a related context, the Pres-

ident of the Jordanian Senate, Faisal Al Fayez, met with Sheikh Saud bin Nasser Al Thani.

During the meeting, the President of the Jordanian Senate affirmed the strong relations between the two countries and Jordan’s keenness on main-taining and developing these relations in various bilateral fields, especially political, eco-nomic, investment and parlia-mentary, and enhancing coor-dination and consultation in the service of common interests.

He said that the current cir-cumstances that the Arab nation require strengthening the coop-eration and unity in order to face the challenges, stressing that his country is keen on the unity of the Arab rank, the promotion of Arab reconciliation and the acti-vation of joint coordination to serve the joint interests.

The Speaker of Jordan’s House of Representatives, Eng. Atef Tarawneh, with the Ambassador of the State of Qatar to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, Sheikh Saud bin Nasser Al Thani.

Woqod opens Ras Bu Abboud petrol stationTHE PENINSULA/DOHA

As part of its ongoing expansion plans to be able to serve every area in Qatar, Qatar Fuel (Woqod) opened the Ras Bu Abboud Petrol Station yesterday, raising its network of petrol stations to 88.

Saad Rashid Al Muhannadi, Managing Director & CEO,

Woqod, said: “We are pleased to open new fixed petrol station. Woqod aspires to expand its petrol station network to meet the rising demand for petroleum products and achieve the goal of providing customers with access to best-in-class products and services at their convenience and comfort.” The station is spread

over an area of 15,200 square metres and has three lanes with nine dispensers. The new stations offer round-the-clock services to residents, and include Sidra con-venience store, manual car wash, oil change and tire repair, and sale of LPG cylinders, in addition to sale of gasoline and diesel products for light vehicles. The newly-opened petrol station at Ras Bu Abboud.

Msheireb Properties recognised for best nationalisation efforts in GCCTHE PENINSULA DOHA

Msheireb Properties, the national real estate developer and subsidiary of Qatar Foundation, won a prestigious award during the efficiencies of the fifth meeting of the GCC Labor and Social Affairs Ministers, in Muscat, Oman last week.

The award comes in recog-nition of Msheireb Properties’ efforts and commitment to nationalise jobs, scoring the highest percentage of national hires during 2019.

Hamad Al Naemi, Senior Manager, HR and Corporate Services, who received the award on behalf of Msheireb Properties, said: “It is such an honor to receive this acknowl-edgment of our policies and hard work to create job opportunities for locals, help them diversify their knowledge, and enhance their skills. We are committed to continue on this path in alignment with our business strategy.”

Ali Al Kuwari, Acting CEO, Msheireb Properties, said: “We are very pleased with this prize, which demonstrates the effec-tiveness of our HR and

nationalisation policies. As a national real estate developer, we work towards achieving Qatar’s sustainable development goals and its 2030 vision by sup-porting Qatari talent and culti-vating opportunities for local calibers to develop.” Msheireb

Properties has won several awards earlier this year in rec-ognition of its exemplary prac-tices. Most recently, the company won the Gold RoSPA award, one of the most prestigious ones in the field of safety and security for the Zulal Health Resort.

Hamad Al Naemi, Senior Manager, HR and Corporate Services, receiving the award on behalf of Msheireb Properties during the fifth meeting of the GCC Labor and Social Affairs Ministers, in Muscat, Oman, last week.

Nominations for 2019 Digital GovernmentExcellence Awards launched THE PENINSULA DOHA

The Qatar Digital Government (QDG) Steering Committee has opened the door for nomina-tions for the 2019 Digital Government Excellence Awards.

The purpose of these Awards is to highlight the best government entities that make outstanding achievements resulting in a significant trans-formation in the daily opera-tions and growth of the nation’s digital economy.

The awards aim to instil a culture of excellence and pos-itive competition between gov-ernment entities in the field of digital transformation, by har-nessing modern communi-cation and information tech-nologies in order to provide the best digital services and solu-tions to the public.

Government entities can submit their entries on the Awards portal: www.qatardig-italawards.gov.qa, after checking the categories for the relevant Award. Nominations can be submitted until October 8, 2019.


Ooredoo launches tourist SIM for visitorsTHE PENINSULA/DOHA

Ooredoo announced yesterday it has launched a prepaid SIM card package specially designed for visitors to Qatar. The new Ooredoo Tourist SIM enables visitors to stay in touch with family and friends back home, as well as stay connected to the Ooredoo Supernet within Qatar, with a package that includes local and international calls, SMS and local data.

The Ooredoo Tourist SIM costs just QR35 (US$9.67) and includes 150 Flexi Points, which can be used for local and inter-national voice calls and SMS or local data of up to 1 GB, valid for 7 days. Or, visitors can choose the Mobile Broadband option at QR300 ($82.87) and get 40 GB local data valid for 30 days and a My-Fi device absolutely free.

The Ooredoo Tourist SIM is now available for purchase at Hamad International Airport, at the Baggage Collection area, Qatar Duty Free 24/7 shop— Arrivals area and the Ooredoo Kiosk— Arrivals area.

Manar Khalifa Al Muraikhi, Director PR and Corporate Com-munications at Ooredoo – said of the launch: “Staying connected is

vital for many of us in this digital age, especially when travelling, so we’re delighted to be able to offer visitors to Qatar a great-value, easily accessible, quick and easy way to do this. The new Ooredoo Tourist SIM offers value for money as well as flexibility, so visitors can tailor their package to suit their needs and enjoy the internet on our Supernet.”

Sheikh Faisal Museum tours Europe to spread dialogue of culturesTHE PENINSULA DOHA

Sheikh Faisal bin Qassim Al Thani Museum opened on Monday the international touring exhibition The Majlis -Dialogue of Cultures at Vienna (Austria) Museum.

Sheikh Faisal spoke about

his life journey and his passion for collecting artefacts through his visits with his father to the museums of Europe when he was young.

As well as, he shared his idea of carrying the museum and going to the people in their respective countries to leave a beautiful imprint entitled “Peace

in Every Country”.The Majlis–Dialogue of

Dialogue will offer European audiences the experience of a real majlis. Visitors will be encouraged to sit, listen to the stories and exchange ideas with each other.

The exhibition will continue until January 7 next year.

The Chairman of the General Authority of Customs, H E Ahmed bin Abdullah Al Jamal, with other officials during the two-day GCC Customs Union meeting in Riyadh.

GAC participates in GCCCustoms Union meetingQNA/DOHA

The General Authority of Customs (GAC) participated in the 22nd meeting of the GCC Customs Union, which was held in Riyadh for two days, with a delegation headed by Chairman of the General Authority of Customs H E Ahmed bin Abdullah Al Jamal.

The meeting discussed several issues, most notably the follow-up to the implementation of the decision of the Supreme Council in its seventeenth consultation meeting on the completion of the requirements of the Customs Union, the report of the Secretariat on direct automatic transfer of

customs duties, and the results of the meeting (20) of the Com-mission on the automatic transfer of customs duties, in addition to the developments of the study of the treatment of products factories established in economic gath-erings in the GCC countries with

Gulf investments.The meeting also discussed

the minutes of the 36th meeting of the committee in charge of reviewing the implementation of the Unified Customs Law of the GCC countries, the minutes of the 50th meeting of the Har-monised System Committee and the minutes of the first meeting of the technical team tasked with reviewing the lists of miscella-neous and restricted goods.

On the other hand, a joint meeting was held between the GCC Standing Committee for Combating Harmful Practices in International Trade and the Customs Union Committee.

Sheikh Faisal bin Qassim Al Thani speaking at a press conference in Vienna, yesterday.

Qatar and Serbia review ties

The Secretary-General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, H E Dr. Ahmed bin Hassan Al Hammadi, met yesterday with the Ambassador of the Republic of Serbia to Qatar, Jasminko Pozderac. They reviewed bilateral cooperation, in addition to topics of common interest.

The two-day meeting held in Riyadh also discussed the minutes of the 36th meeting of the committee in charge of reviewing the implementation of the Unified Customs Law for the GCC countries.

Franco Frattini, Chairman of SIGA and former Foreign Minister of Italy, speaking to The Peninsula. PIC: ABDUL BASIT/THE PENINSULA

White Paper on sport integrity in January: SIGA ChairmanFROM PAGE 1

“The first Summit was the American SIGA Summit, which was held in March this year. Doha’s Summit is the first inter-regional summit in the Middle East.”

He added that the SIGA would prepare a formal proposal in order to have universal standards to be accepted and applicable in States for sport gov-ernance. “Our aim is to finalize within few months a White Paper on sport integrity.” He said that suggestions for the White Paper would be collected from all the stakeholders such as States, sports federations, private and public institu-tions, to shape them into a final proposal.

Frattini said that the SIGA White Paper would most likely be formally presented in Rome next year sometimes in January. He said that a ‘Common Ver-ification System’ was already in place and very well operational. “Some entities decided to subscribe or accepted these standards to be applicable.”

Frattini — who also served as Pres-ident of the De Gasperi Foundation from 2011 to 2013—said that another extremely important idea of the SIGA was to propose to States that money confiscated from criminal organizations be reverted to good initiatives benefiting young generations, such as the con-struction of stadiums, courts, camps. “Every dollar confiscated should be re-used to implement these initiatives in the same country where it was con-fiscated,” he noted.

He said that sport has become a ‘sector at risk’ because of huge flows of money. “Match fixing, briberies, money

laundering through sports activities and criminal organisations are putting sport at risk”.

Another horrible crime is the exploi-tation of young athletes by unscrupulous clubs. “Many young athletes from Asia, Africa and Latin America are bought by unscrupulous clubs which bring them to Europe and later they treat them as trash,” he said, adding that a strong fight against this phenomenon is needed.

On SIGA’s achievement since it was founded in 2015, he expressed his com-plete satisfaction. “A number of new entities are asking to become full member of the SIGA. We have at present 115 members including States, sports federations, private and public

institutions.”He said that the SIGA had signed

memorandums of cooperation with many UN agencies and recently signed an agreement with US Sports Council. “The Summit in Doha is paving the way for expanding SIGA in the Middle East.”

Talking about other SIGA projects in the pipeline, Frattini said that the SIGA was set to launch the initiative ‘Sport Integrity and Diplomacy’ to attract ambassadors for the adoption of common binding rules worldwide. He said that this initiative would be launched by the beginning of next year.

To a question, he said that the role of all entities is important for sport integrity. “NGOs work on ground and

report illegalities. Sports bodies can prevent the spread of corruption within the organizations. States make laws.”

He said that the SIGA would give soon a presentation at the European Parliament. “I am also meeting soon the Commissioner for Sport in the European Commission with the aim to develop common rules in the European Union.”

Frattini said that he had high expec-tations with the summit in Qatar because it was being held for the first time in the Middle East. “It is a confirmation of the commitment to organize clean sport events in this part of the world.”

He said that Qatar had the capacity to organize clean sport events with no concerns and suspects. “Athletics Cham-pionship is set to start and then Qatar will host FIFA World Cup in 2022.”

Regarding the preparation of FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, he said: “They are simply amazing. I was the Foreign Minister of Italy when Qatar won the vote for hosting the 2022 World Cup. All preparations are very well-advanced. It will be a very successful sport event.”

He also praised Qatar for its efforts to become a sports hub in the region. “We need countries which can become sports hubs in the region, which is cur-rently critical for security and stability. Therefore the focus of the countries should be on sports instead of wars. It is better for everybody.”

He said that Qatar had undertaken many important initiatives for the well-being of its people. “Likewise, the Italian Government and the Embassy of Italy in Doha are extremely committed to promote wellbeing by raising awareness – especially among young generations – on the importance of sport and sport values to conduct a healthy lifestyle. This shared approach could lead Italy and Qatar to work together to devote terri-tories to sport and well-being by cre-ating districts renowned for wellness expertise and high quality of life. This project could make of Doha the first example of ‘Wellness City’, contributing to channelize and guide people through a wellness path. Sport is a life habit not only a competition.”

Franco Frattini praised Qatar for its efforts to become a sports hub in the region. “We need countries which can become sports hubs in the region, which is currently critical for security and stability. Therefore the focus of the countries should be on sports instead of wars. It is better for everybody.” Regarding the preparation of FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, he said: “They are simply amazing. I was the Foreign Minister of Italy when Qatar won the vote for hosting the 2022 World Cup. All preparations are very well-advanced. It will be a very successful sport event.”


Turkish Airlines offers special fares to Europe, US and CanadaTHE PENINSULA/DOHA

Turkish Airlines is helping more customers to capitalise on its unrivalled global network with special discounted fares to desti-nations across Europe, the United States and Canada.

Passengers flying out of Doha with the award-winning carrier can avail discounts on flights to selected cities across the airline’s North American and European network.

Passengers can benefit from generous discounts on flights to Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, Montreal, New York, San Francisco, Toronto and Washington. As well as Amsterdam, Athens, Bar-celona, Berlin, Brussels, Bucharest, Budapest, Copen-hagen, Dublin, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Geneva, Hamburg, Lisbon, London, Madrid, Malaga, Manchester, Milan, Munich, Oslo, Paris, Prague, Rome, Sarajevo,

Stockholm, Venice, Vienna and Zurich. Discounts also apply to the airlines base city, Istanbul, as well as North African desti-nations Casablanca and Tunis.

The offer is valid for passengers booking a flight between 5th of Sep-tember and 10th of October 2019, and is valid for a travel period of September 6, 2019 to May 15, 2020. Economy ticket from Qatar for the incredible lowest fares: Doha to Europe from QR2,100; Doha to the United States or Canada from QR3,700 and Doha to Istanbul Airport from QR2,325.

Turkish Airlines, one of the

fastest growing airlines in the world, has been providing excellent services to its pas-sengers through its Business Class offering, its flagship new lounges in the Istanbul Airport and its strong reputation for amazing Turkish hospitality and convenience on all levels.

There are currently three Turkish Airlines lounges available at the Istanbul Airport– the Turkish Airlines Business Lounge, Miles & Smiles Lounge and Domestic Lounge, with two more scheduled to be open before the end of the year.

PHCC appoints Shaikha bint Youssef bin Hassan Al Jufairi as ‘Screen for Life’ Ambassador

THE PENINSULA DOHA

In a move to further enhance its breast and bowel cancer screening aw a r e n e s s outreach, the Primary Health Care Corporation has joined hands with pioneering Central Municipal Council Member and Head of Legal Committee, Shaikha bint Youssef bin Hassan Al Jufairi (pictured), who takes up the role as a brand ambassador for PHCC’s ‘Screen for Life’ Program.

Shaikha Al Jufairi joins a selective group of high-profile personalities, who for years have supported the ‘Screen for Life’ cause, which aims to make every citizen of Qatar aware of the importance of timely screening for breast and bowel cancer.

Dr Shaikha Abu Shaikha, PHCC’s Manager of Screening Programs, said: “As the first woman to gain voters’ trust for three consecutive sessions of the Central Municipal Council, Shaikha bint Youssef bin Hassan Al Jufairi is much admired, particularly within our target audience of those aged between

45 -69. Her influence therefore will go a long way to making people aware of our mission and we are extremely grateful to her for agreeing to be a part of Qatar’s national screening program.”A prominent Qatari politician who holds a Bachelor of Law degree from the Arab University of Beirut, Shaikha bint Youssef bin Hassan Al Jufairi has already used her influence to transform the traditional view of Qatari women.

Commenting on the appointment, Shaikha Al Jufairi said: “I readily accept the responsibility of this position to help drive con-

version to this vital and life-saving cause. Breast and bowel cancer are the most commonly diagnosed cancers in Qatar and a leading cause of death among men and women in the State. If my influence can help expand the highly proactive ‘Screen for Life’ campaigns by convincing members of the public to apply for screening at any of PHCC’s outstanding screening suites in Al Wakra, Leabaib and Rawdat Al Khail Health Centers, I feel gratified and honoured.”

The offer is valid for passengers booking a flight between 5th September and 10th October 2019, and is valid for a travel period till May 15, 2020.

Al-Ahli Hospital sponsors Qatar Patient Safety WeekTHE PENINSULA DOHA

Al-Ahli Hospital has partnered and supported this year’s Qatar Patient Safety Week (QPSW) as a sponsor. The 5th QPSW, held under the patronage of H E Dr Hanan Mohamed Al Kuwari, Minister of Public Health, is a national initiative created by the Healthcare Quality and Patient Safety Department (HQPS) of the Ministry of Public Health in collaboration with public and private healthcare providers from across Qatar.

Khalid Al-Emadi, Chief Exec-utive Officer of Al-Ahli Hospital, said that it gives pleasure to be part of this year’s Qatar Patient

Safety Week. “The hospital is eager to adopt, implement and promote international standards for patient safety and provide the highest quality of health care for patients. Voluntarily partici-pating in International Healthcare Accreditation and enhancing education and pro-fessional development for all of our team motivates and enables us to strive for excellence in eve-rything we do.”

Jamal Hammad, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Al-Ahli Hospital, said that the impor-tance of promoting patient safety cannot be underestimated. “Healthcare is a complex and highly technical industry, excel-lence in clinical outcomes and

enhancing the patient experience is at the core of our being at Al-Ahli Hospital. Achieving these objectives can only be done by investing in high performing health professionals, dedicated and competent support workers and a quality systems approach to everything we do.”

“Al-Ahli Hospital has a long history of promoting patient safety as a fundamental principle of the care we provide and is an important component of quality management. Maintaining full international healthcare accred-itation since early 2014 under the auspices of the Australian Council on Healthcare Standards International is one way of dem-onstrating our commitment to

continuous quality improvement resulting in optimal outcomes and overall improvements in patient safety” said David Miller, Director of Safety, Quality and Accreditation Systems.

“This year we welcome the first-ever Patient Safety Day on September 17 as part of a World Health Organization global campaign to create awareness of patient safety,” Dr. Abdul Azim Abdul Wahab Hussain, Chief of Medical Staff, said, “Increasing awareness of patient safety is critical and an essential component to helps us to continually enhance the quality and safety of the services we provide for the Qatar Community and beyond.”

MME and Carrefour launch campaign to curb single-use plastic bagsTHE PENINSULA DOHA

To mark ‘World Clean-up Day’, Carrefour in Qatar and the Ministry of Municipality and Environment yesterday launched a new campaign to curb the use of single-use plastic bags.

The event included distri-bution of awareness brochures and reusable bags to the public.

As per the campaign, on the third Tuesday of each month starting from yesteray, Car-refour will observe ‘No Plastic Tuesdays’ by eliminating single-use plastic bags from cash counters and offering cus-tomers eco-bags free of charge instead. Moreover, single-use plastic bags will be replaced with paper alternatives in the fruits and vegetables section. Carrefour will also reward its loyal MyCLUB members for each purchase with 10 MyClub points on each transaction.

Nawf Omar Bakhamis, Head

of Awareness at the Public R e l a t i o n s Department of the Ministry of Municipality and Envi-r o n m e n t , stressed the importance of e n h a n c i n g environmental e d u c a t i o n among all seg-ments of society and engaging them in more eco causes. She also said that the Ministry’s par-ticipation in today’s event reflects its support to the efforts and environmental initiatives of the civil society organizations adding that environmental well-being is a combined responsi-bility of all ministries, organiza-tions, companies and individuals.

Laurent Hausknecht, Country Manager of Carrefour in Qatar commented on the ini-tiative: “Sustainability is a core

element of our strategy and comes in line with Qatar’s National Vision for 2030. Fol-lowing the success of our pre-vious initiative on International Plastic Bag Free day, we chose to introduce No Plastic Tuesdays to maintain momentum. We encourage all our customers to visit our stores on the third Tuesday of each month to collect their complimentary eco-bags, but most importantly, we ask that they remember to bring it along during every trip so that we’re one step closer to ensuring a single-use plastic free Qatar.”

BPS celebrates Hindi DivasTHE PENINSULA DOHA

Hindi Divas is celebrated on September 14 every year in India as on this day the Constitutional Assembly of India adopted Hindi as country’s official language.

Birla Public School cele-brated Hindi Divas on Sep-tember 15 in the main campus as well as in the Primary 1 campus. In the Main Campus auditorium, the programme started with the lighting of the

lamp by Principal, A P Sharma. Vice Principal (Co-scho-

lastic) Rajesh Pillai addressed the august gathering with his inspiring words and emphasized the importance of Hindi lan-guage in daily life in India. The main attraction of the day was the street play (Nukkad Natak) “Hindi Bimaar hai” and the Hasya Kavi Sammelan (Humorous Poet Meet).

The students were shown a short documentary on the great Hindi poet, Harivansh Rai

Bachchan. Students recited Hindi poems as a tribute to the lan-guage spoken by most of the people in India. Vice Principal (CBQED), Bhavana V S also stressed about the significance of celebrating the Hindi Day and her kind words inspired the students with patriotic spirit and reminded students of their true identity.

In the Primary 1 campus, the theme of the day was ‘Jal hai to kal hai’ as the students of class 1 & 2 always focus on the pre-ciousness of water.

The students at the main section of Birla Public School during the celebration of Hindi Divas.

The officials of the the Ministry of Municipality and Environment and Carrefour in Qatar during the launch of the campaign to mark ‘World Clean-up Day’, yesterday.

ICC to stage musical programme todayTHE PENINSULA/DOHA

Indian Cultural Centre along with Keraleeyam Qatar will be conducting Musical Star event today evening at 7:30pm at the Ashoka Hall at the ICC premises.

Keraleeyam Qatar is an associate organisation of Indian Cultural Centre and a non-gov-ernmental organisation that is working to revitalize the

civilization, ancestry and archaeological aspects of art forms in India. This programme is an effort from Keraleeyam to deliver all-time hit songs of Indian movies and also feature mimicry and dance performance during the evening.

The programme is a contin-uation of the initiative by Indian Cultural Centre along with all ICC associate Organisations,

Indian schools and Indian cul-tural institutions in Qatar, to have cultural shows on every week at the Ashoka Hall in the ICC Premises.

Such programmes will also provide a suitable platform and opportunities for associate organisations of different states of India to showcase their culture. Admission will be free for all.

The participants at the event.

“We raised these issues and pressed [Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman] on Khashoggi and human rights,” Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, told me. “There’s work to be done. They understand the reputational hit they have taken.”

AFP

08 WEDNESDAY 18 SEPTEMBER 2019VIEWS

Congress presses Trump on human rights in the Gulf

When the crown prince of Bahrain visited the Oval Office on Monday, Pres-ident Donald Trump

praised the Gulf leader for his coun-try’s purchase of American military equipment, but said nothing about Bahrain’s downward slide on freedom and human rights. That’s par for the course for Trump; Congress, however, is insisting on making American values at the forefront of US-Bahrain relations.

With Iran (allegedly) launching attacks on Saudi oil infrastructure, and the president threatening to retaliate militarily, now may seem like an awkward time to talk about the sad state of human rights in Gulf monar-chies that also serve as US partners. But, in truth, partners who abuse their own people are less stable and less secure. That’s why it was a pillar of US foreign policy to urge Gulf allies to slowly liberalize - until Trump took office.

Trump’s proud disregard for America’s historic role as a defender of those suffering abroad - even in allied countries - has emboldened those regimes to go further than they would otherwise dare. Since Trump took office, the government of Bahrain, a small country that hosts the Navy’s

Fifth Fleet, has ordered a human rights leader to spend five years in prison over tweets, sen-tenced the main oppo-sition leader to life in prison, stripped hun-dreds of dis-senters of their citi-zenship, shut down the country’s last independent newspaper, and tortured

and executed dissidents after mass trials.

Three senators wrote to Trump asking him to raise these issues with Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa Monday, out of concern not only for Bahrain but also in the interest of regional and US security.

“We value the United States’ longtime partnership with Bahrain, which is why we remain deeply con-cerned about the monarchy’s sys-tematic elimination of avenues for

peaceful dissent,” wrote Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Chris Murphy, D-Conn. “We fear that continuing down this path will ultimately prove unsustainable and could lead to significant blowback to US interests and Americans in Bahrain.”

Specifically, they are asking Trump to ask the crown prince to release prisoners of conscience and re-engage with the political opposition in a credible way. Sitting next to the crown prince on Monday, Trump gave no indication that any of that was on his mind.

“We are doing a lot of business, they are buying a lot of things. I’ve heard $9 billion,” Trump said. “We have a tremendous relationship mili-tarily, but we also have a tremendous relationship economically.”

The crown prince touted Bahrain’s purchase of Patriot missile systems and said his goal was “to strengthen the relationship, which is based on shared values, where they overlap.”

For the senators, the strength of the relationship is shown by our will-ingness to stand up for our values when they don’t overlap with an increasingly brutal regime that we do business with. The crown prince’s visit is an example of when such issues should be raised.

“Just as I urged President [Barack] Obama to raise these issues, I couldn’t let this opportunity pass to remind Donald Trump of that obligation, given how repressive Bahrain’s leaders have grown in the past few years,” Wyden told me.

“It is in the United States’ national security interests to have a stable Bahrain that respects the fundamental rights of its citizens and respects freedom of speech,” Rubio told me.

“The [United States] has an obli-gation to stand up to repression wherever it happens in the world, especially when it involves our allies,” Murphy told me.

To see what happens when partner regimes no longer feel US pressure to adhere to human rights, one can look

to Bahrain’s larger neighbor, Saudi Arabia. After regime agents murdered Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi, long-simmering congres-sional anger over the Saudi military’s handling of the Yemen war spilled over.

The Senate passed legislation for the first time to end US aid for the Saudi mission in Yemen, although the president successfully vetoed it. But two senators who traveled to Saudi Arabia last week told me the Saudi government at least got the message.

“We raised these issues and pressed [Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman] on Khashoggi and human rights,” Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, told me. “There’s work to be done. They understand the reputa-tional hit they have taken.”

Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., told me he believed Saudi officials were reducing civilian casualties in Yemen and allowing humanitarian aid to reach the people there. He cautioned that Congress and the US government need to keep the pressure on to ensure Saudi Arabia and the UAE fulfill all their promises.

“Much of that improvement is a function of the sense by the Saudi gov-ernment that they had to improve,” he said. “There was a recognition that I had never seen before from Saudi leadership.”

Of course, congressional pressure can go only so far, and even incre-mental improvements by Saudi Arabia are not enough. The Saudi regime’s easing of some restrictions on women has come with the jailing of female activists and many other dissenters. The regime still refuses to hold Khashoggi’s murderers accountable or produce his body.

But the Saudi example should inform the Bahrainis and any other regimes taking advantage of Trump’s laissez-faire attitude on human rights that at least Congress is still watching. Lawmakers know that the more repressive a regime gets, the worse an ally it is. If only the president knew that, as well.

JOSH ROGIN THE WASHINGTON POST

QUOTE OF THE DAY

We need a strategy of de-escalation for

the area (Gulf region), and any move that

goes against this de-escalation would

be a bad move for the situation in the

region.

Jean-Yves Le Drian French Foreign Minister

US youngsters gear up for climate protests

For years, teenager Nora Gell from New York had learned about the environment and recycling at school, but her commitment to

protecting the planet ended there. “When we went home, it didnt

matter; it was a small issue that we could afford to ignore at that time,” the 14-year-old said. Now, she is a full-fledged activist, one of a growing number of youngsters embracing a climate movement that is demanding that world leaders act now to save the planet.

The teenager plans to skip school on Friday to take part in an environment demonstration for the first time, alongside young Swedish activist Greta Thunberg.

“I feel like I have an obligation to do something,” Gell says, fashioning card-board cutouts of waves to hold aloft during this week’s coordinated worldwide climate protests. She is in part inspired by 16-year-old Thunberg’s “Fridays for future” strikes which have seen students across Europe abandon

classrooms every Friday to call on adults to commit to saving the environment.

“I know the sacrifices I make for this are 100 percent worth it,” adds Gell.

She was one of several hundred youngsters who attended a workshop in Brooklyn on Sunday to make placards and banners for Friday’s protest.

The waves symbolise rising sea levels in the world’s oceans. Thousands are expected to take to the streets in Manhattan. The rally is due to start in Foley Square, in the south of the island, at noon. It is one of thousands of dem-onstrations happening around the globe ahead of a UN summit on zero emissions on September 23.

It is not known how many people will attend but celebrities and non-gov-ernmental organizations have called for large numbers of people to take to the streets.

Seventeen-year-old New Yorker Elijah Gutierrez will be there.

He has been handing out flyers at school and talking non-stop to fellow pupils to encourage them to join the march. “It’s just going to get bigger and

bigger,” Gutierrez, covered in blue paint from making waves, said of the global climate movement.

“As it gets bigger... the march on Earth Day 2020 is going to be huge,” he added, referring to the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, which organizers hope will be the biggest ever.

Gutierrez has been able to convince ten kids to attend so far, but hopes he can get 20 by the end of the week.

New York authorities have given their blessings to the one million children in over 1,700 schools in the US financial capital to miss school for the event.

Gutierrez will vote for the first time in next year’s presidential election and has been watching the Democratic debates closely to learn who is most committed to protecting the environment.

“Trump took us out of the Paris agreement... everything is kind of headed in the opposite direction we need to go,” he said. Gell doesn’t expect leaders to act immediately after Friday’s strike but expects they will be forced to in the long run.

CHAIRMANSHEIKH THANI BIN ABDULLAH AL THANI

EDITOR-IN-CHIEFDR. KHALID BIN MUBARAK [email protected]

ACTING MANAGING EDITORMOHAMMED SALIM [email protected]

DEPUTY MANAGING EDITORMOHAMMED OSMAN ALI [email protected]

ESTABLISHED IN 1996

EDITORIAL

Nurturing a fair sports culture

Qatar’s exemplary governance is known across the world for its integrity and transparency and the country is relentlessly promoting its values and

culture of a corruption-free administration at different regional and international forums.

The latest example of this continuous effort is the hosting of inter-regional Sports Integrity Summit in Doha. The two-day Summit, organised by the International Centre for Sport Security (ICSS) and Qatar Airways in cooperation with the Sport Integrity Global Alliance (SIGA), considered and discussed several pressing issues affecting the sport field such as, corruption, bribery, manipulation of results, money laundering and several related issues.

Mohammed Henzab, the Chairman and CEO of ICSS and Vice-Chairman of SIGA said that hosting such a summit for the first time in the Middle East, Asia and Africa region was a good decision for sports security and Qatar, adding that the state of Qatar is a pioneer in promoting integrity, transparency and fighting corruption in sports in the region and around the world.

Calling sports the identity of people, the SIGA Chairman, Franco Frattini, said that integrity is one of the core values of sports right from the first Olympics held in Greece in 1891, and it must be preserved in order to preserve the identity of future generations. Pointing to one of the major scourges that is vexing the modern-day sports scenario, Frattini said that organised crime must be com-bated in all its forms that seek rapid profit in various sport sectors.

Frattini hailed Qatar’s glo-rious efforts and great strides in achieving integrity in sports and the country’s preparations to host the 2019 World Athletics Championship in a few days. The CEO of SIGA, Emmanuel Medeiros, also praised Qatar’s sporting integrity, governance and the country’s revolution in infrastructure in preparation for

the FIFA World Cup 2022.Qatar has fast become a world sporting hub hosting a

myriad of tournaments or championships throughout the year. The country’s world-class sports facilities, modern stadiums, state-of-the-art training centres and the infra-structure, counted among the best in the world, are attracting the cream of the sports world in a variety disciplines, whether it is football, tennis, golf, volleyball, horse race, camel race or athletics, to the country.

Realising its great burden of responsibility, the State of Qatar has adopted every mechanism, legal or structural, to make the sports sector free of corruption, bribery and manipulation. The country’s stringent rules and standards coupled with sincere leadership and officials ensure that transparency and integrity in sports are held high and it is an assurance that the rest of the world can rely on its fairest sports culture.

The country’s stringent rules and standards coupled with sincere leadership and officials ensure that transparency and integrity in sports are held high and it is an assurance that the rest of the world can rely on its fairest sport culture.

A file picture of Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, and Republican Senator Mike Lee meeting before holding a news conference on ending US support for the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen, at the Capitol in Washington.

Politicians and parties who ignored revolutionary fervor and frustration did so at their own peril. And now they are paying the price. False promises, expedient political alliances, a thirst for power at the expense of the needs of the voting public will come back to haunt you—sooner rather than later in a democratic system.

09WEDNESDAY 18 SEPTEMBER 2019 OPINION

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Cameron should have paid attention to Merkel’sBrexit warnings

“The people want”: Democratic pandemonium in Tunisia’s presidential election

LEONID BERSHIDSKY BLOOMBERG

LARBI SADIKI

Perhaps the biggest problem with Brexit is that a con-stantly changing lineup of British negotiators just won’t

listen to what their European Union counterparts keep telling them over and over. Instead, they hope the EU will suddenly cave in to their demands at the 11th hour - because

isn’t that what the EU always does?In his just-published memoir,

David Cameron, who as U.K. prime minister called the Brexit refer-endum and resigned after Britons voted to leave, reveals that he more or less started this tradition.

Excerpts from the book published by The Times describe Cameron’s interactions with EU leaders after the vote. “I spoke to European leaders and to Obama,” Cameron wrote. “To each I said the same thing: ‘I had a strategy to keep Britain in the EU. I executed the strategy. It didn’t work. I’m sorry.’”

But he really wasn’t sorry. Else-where in the memoir, “For the Record,” he wrote:

On the central question of whether it was right to renegotiate

Britain’s relationship with the EU and give people the chance to have their say on it, my view remains that this was the right approach to take. I believe that, particularly with the Eurozone crisis, the organisation was changing before our very eyes, and our already precarious place in it was becoming harder to sustain. Renegoti-ating our position was my attempt to address that, and putting the outcome to a public vote was not just fair and not just overdue, but necessary and, I believe, ultimately inevitable.

This clearly means he failed to listen to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a sympathetic and far more experienced colleague, when she cau-tioned him against his “strategy” long before the Brexit referendum. The portion of Stephan Kornelius’s authorized biography of Merkel, pub-lished in 2013, the year Cameron called for the referendum, makes stunning reading today.

Merkel, according to Kornelius, was fond of Cameron and generally an Anglophile; she didn’t resent Cam-eron’s desire for the U.K. to win back some of the sovereignty it had given up to the EU. On the other hand, she disliked the idea of renegotiating EU treaties, and was even more opposed to the idea of a referendum not linked to any such renegotiation.

“Her warning to Cameron was this: only if treaties had to be renego-tiated could there be a vote for them,” Kornelius wrote. “And a vote was likely to turn out badly - of that Merkel was certain.”

Even then, Merkel worried about the possibility of the U.K.’s “accidental

exit” and about Cameron overplaying his hand after misinterpreting her warnings. Kornelius wrote:

Merkel also had another fear: Cameron might misread her signals and take advantage of the hard line that she was adopting with the crisis-hit countries, as well as her sympathy for his demand for a repatriation of powers.

If the British prime minister insisted too much on these demands, then ultimately she might be the only one who would be able to keep Britain in the EU. Cameron might exploit the fact that the Germans wanted to keep Britain in the EU at any cost, because it suited their interests. But Merkel doesn’t like veiled threats. If it reached that stage then she would decide whether the price was too high, and if in doubt she would decline.

Cameron knew all this as he was negotiating his February 2016 EU reform deal that preceded the refer-endum. He just believed Merkel would give him more concessions on the EU’s freedom of movement rules and other exceptions from EU treaties in order to keep the U.K. in the bloc. When the compromise she helped him get fell short of Brexiters’ expectations, he still went ahead with the referendum. Even when the vote didn’t go the way he’d hoped, he con-tinued believing in a deal that would keep the UK in the common market without freedom of movement.

In his memoir, Cameron revealed that at his last European Council meeting on June 28, 2016, Merkel told him the hopes had been futile.

Tunisia’s youth finally win. Beji Caid Essebsi died, taking with him remnants of the old regime. The elders left

behind—Rached Ghannouchi, Abdel-fattah Morou, and Moncef Marzouki included—miscalculated. Tunisians waited eight years to say “no” to the old order. They have shunted not only the old guard, post-revolution order and cadres included. Now is the time for real change.

Sunday’s election “earthquake” has catapulted two independent can-didates, law professor Kais Saied (19.5%) and jailed media mogul Nabil Karoui (15.5%) to the second round of the country’s presidential elections, according to polling by Sigma Conseil and Elmhrod consulting. Official results by the Independent High Election Commission are set to be released on Tuesday morning.

Pre-campaign polling had sig-naled Karoui as a frontrunner in the 26-candidate race. Apparently, his incarceration on charges of money laundering and tax evasion has not dented his popularity or his electability.

The real surprise, though, has been Kais Saied’s ascendancy. With his unassuming demeanor and his pristine classical Arabic, Saied seems to have connected with the demo-graphic that makes and breaks much in Tunisian politics (as in the rest of the region): the country’s youth. Reportedly refusing all campaign donations (including public funding allotted equally to each candidate), Saied, with his volunteer-staffed campaign appears to have struck a chord with the restive shabab al-thawrah who for eight years have seen parties and elections but not the shughl (jobs) and karamah (dignity) in the nascent democracy. Indeed, Kais’s campaign slogan is the well-known Arab Spring chant al-sha’b

yureed: the people want.The verdict is in: the country,

with a 45% turn-out rate, has gone anti-establishment. The political class, from the country’s leftists to its “moderate family” (a la Chahed and Ezbidi) to its Islamists, has been dis-credited. Not immune to the populist wave reaching Brazil, the Philippines, the UK and the US, Tunisia has chosen two candidates who are com-plete newcomers to politics, without clear political programs. Karoui and Saied stand apart from the country’s political elites, their failed “con-sensus politics,” their absent devel-opment plans.

Candidates who banked on foreign money, support, and spon-sorship failed. Gulf wealth, and the well-oiled media machinery televi-sions all failed to push contenders among the new post-2011 political elite, to the second round of an unpredictable contest. Money did not tip the balance. People, and their frustrated revolutionary demands for employment, livable wages, social protection, basic infrastructure, against marginalization and socio-political exclusion, matter.

Politicians and parties who ignored revolutionary fervor and frustration did so at their own peril. And now they are paying the price. False promises, expedient political alliances, a thirst for power at the expense of the needs of the voting public will come back to haunt you—sooner rather than later in a demo-cratic system. Parties, the entire political spectrum included, tried to become “kings” and “king-makers”. In this they failed.

Dire economic conditions com-pounding Tunisia’s extensive devel-opment needs--soaring public debt, unemployment at over 15% nationally and twice that in some region, even higher among the

country’s youth—were already slated to make the next presidency and government a difficult one. Karoui’s unprecedented, unclear legal status, and its political implications, only adds to the conundrums facing the nascent democracy.

It may not be surprising that can-didates from the splintered Nidaa and its spinoff parties (Chahed, Ezbidi, Marzouk, etc.) failed to garner enough votes to make it to round two of the race to Carthage.

But for the country’s best organized political party known for its fixed base (usually estimated at about 35%), Abdelfattah Morou’s failure to advance in the elections should come as a piercing wake-up call. The outcome forces questions about voting discipline within Ennahda. The myth of a united and coherent movement-party has been shattered.

The party’s leadership should take this electoral beating as an opportunity for deep soul-searching and reflection. Nahda’s founding duo in particular should seize the moment and hold themselves accountable to the party’s members, to its base, to all of Tunisia. It is one thing to lead a movement in exile, under siege from Ben Ali. Planning the democratization process and designing political strategies is another ballgame altogether. The discourse of “wlaidatee” (collo-quially, my children) is not politics.

What has Ennahda offered to Tunisians since their crowning achievement, five years ago, of helping hammer out the constitution of the second republic? When Ennahda joined hands with Essebssi and came up with its “consensus” innovation, did the party downsize itself? Neither majority party, nor opposition, nor, since 2016, political Islam. Eight years after the revo-lution, who is Ennahda?

The question now for the party is this: is its entire project a failure, sunk by the Tunisian electorate? Or tactical blunderings by Ennahda’s leaders and their advisers? The time has come for the Shaykhan Ghan-nouchi and Morou to make a graceful exit from politics. Handing over the party’s leadership to the younger generation is long overdue. New blood, new opinions, new political programs in. Old leadership out? “Game over”?

Uncertain times lie ahead for Tunisia. One candidate in jail, the other with zero political experience and alliances! Whether the remnants of Nidaa, the country’s leftists, and its veteran democrats will regroup before the next round, and before the parliamentary elections in November, time will tell. Whether a

This clearly means he failed to listen to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a sympathetic and far more experienced colleague, when she cautioned him against his “strategy” long before the Brexit referendum.

possible President Karoui will make good on his promise for “a just country” and a “better future,” as his Facebook declaration pro-claimed today, nobody knows. Whether a possible President Saied can really be “loyal to the blood of the martyrs” and lead the country’s youth “from despair to hope,” is also an open question.

Tunisians are right now caught in the maelstrom of democrati-zation (a good problem!). However, will the electoral process involve court battles should jailed Karoui maintain his lead over Morou? Will Ennahda exploit this situation to save face? Or will it cut its losses? If the results remain unchanged, how will the post-independence estab-lishment cope with its political downfall?

Saied and Karoui’s dark horse nominations and contest of the presidency, their lead in the biggest twist in the country’s politics since the 2011 revolution, and their climax of victory (yet to be confirmed) for round two of the elections, have all spawned shock (within the old guard) but also merriment (among the country’s youth) and one of the most dramatic political develop-ments in the history of Arab elections.

One thing is for sure: Tunisians remind us today that revolutions are no joke. Democracy is not just elec-tions. The people want is serious business. Politicians, new and old, take heed.

Larbi Sadiki, Professor, International Affairs Department, Qatar University, Non-Resident Scholar Brookings Doha Centre

A screen displays results released by the Independent High Electoral Commission, Kais Saied led with 18.4% of the vote while Nabil Karoui had 15.58%.

Call for extension of UNRWA term

10 WEDNESDAY 18 SEPTEMBER 2019GULF / MIDDLE EAST

Iran’s supreme leader: No talks with the US at any levelAP/DUBAI

Iran’s supreme leader said yesterday “there will be no talks with the US at any level”- remarks apparently meant to end all speculation about a possible US-Iran meeting between the two countries’ pres-idents at the UN later this month.

Iranian state TV quoted Aya-tollah Ali Khamenei, who’s been personally sanctioned by the Trump administration, as saying this is the position of the entire leadership of the country and that “all officials in the Islamic Republic unanimously believe” this. “There will be no talks with the US at any level,” he said.

His comments come as Iran faces allegations it is behind a devastating weekend attack on a Saudi oil field and the world’s largest crude oil processing plant that knocked out 5.7 million barrels of crude oil production per day, or about 5% of the world’s daily production. It also took out 2 billion cubic feet of daily gas production. Oil prices have soared worldwide amid the damage in Saudi Arabia.

Aramco, the Saudi oil company targeted, said no workers were injured in the attack. The attack early Saturday on the kingdom’s facilities in the east was claimed as multiple drone strikes by Iranian-allied Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Saudi Arabia, however, says the attack did not come from Yemen and said initial investi-gations show Iranian weapons were used. The kingdom, though, has not yet said where the attack was launched from or what kind of weapons were involved.

Saudi Arabia yesterday called on the international com-munity “to shoulder its respon-sibility in condemning the per-petrators” and “clearly con-fronting” those behind the attack. The government’s state-ments were carried in state-run

media following a weekly Cabinet meeting that was overseen by King Salman, who was quoted saying Saudi Arabia is capable of defending against such “cowardly attacks.”

Current tensions stem from President Donald Trump’s decision to pull the US out of the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers. He also re-imposed and escalated sanctions on Iran that sent the country’s economy into freefall, including targeting its oil exports.

Khamenei said the US wants to prove its “maximum pressure policy” against Iran is successful. “In return, we have to prove that the policy is not worth a penny for the Iranian nation,” Khamenei said.

“That’s why all Iranian offi-cials, from the president and the

foreign minister to all others have announced that we do not negotiate (with the US) either bilaterally or multilaterally,” he said. There had been reports about a possible meeting between Trump and his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani, during the upcoming UN General Assembly next week in New York.

Trump declared on Monday it “looks” like Iran was behind the explosive attack on the Saudi oil facilities. But he stressed that military retaliation was not yet on the table in response to the strike against a key US Mideast ally.

Trump, alternating between aggressive and nonviolent reac-tions, said the US could respond “with an attack many, many times larger” but also “I’m not looking at options right now.”

Israeli Arabs vote during Israel’s parliamentary election at a polling station in Haifa, yesterday.

ANATOLIA/JERUSALEM

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned his supporters that the Arab Joint List would win 15 seats in yester-day’s parliamentary elections.

According to the Israeli media, a Likud spokesperson pub-lished details from a meeting hosted by Netanyahu at his resi-dence warning the Arab list could warn more seats than expected in the polls. “Prime Minister Netanyahu expects the Joint Arab List to win 15 Knesset seats,” the spokesperson said.

Hadash-Taa’al alliance and United Arab List-Balad, which formed the Arab Joint List, had won 10 seats in total in previous polls. The Arab Joint List group announced on Tuesday that voting rates had increased slightly in Arab localities relative to elections this April.

AFP/JERUSALEM

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his main chal-lenger Benny Gantz were neck and neck in the country’s general election after polls closed yesterday, exit surveys showed.

Three separate exit polls carried by Israeli television sta-tions showed Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud and Gantz’s centrist Blue and White alliance with between 31 and 34 parliament seats each out of 120.

Ex-defence minister Avigdor Lieberman’s nationalist Yisrael Beitenu party, who could play a kingmaker role, had between eight and 10 seats, according to the polls. The polls showed Likud with 33, 32 or 31 seats compared to Blue and White’s 34, 32 and 33 seats.

If the exit polls are rea-sonably accurate — and they have in the past been signficantly off base — either Netanyahu or Gantz will face tough negotia-tions to form a government.

Yesterday’s elections came only five months after polls in

April. Netanyahu’s Likud along with its right-wing and religious allies won a majority of seats then, but the prime minister failed to form a coalition and opted for an unprecedented second election.

Lieberman recommended Netanyahu for prime minister after the April vote, but it is not clear he will do so again.

Turnout as of 8:00 pm (1700

GMT) was at 63.7 percent, higher than the April elections by that time, official figures showed. Netanyahu, the longest serving leader in Israeli history was seeking a fourth consecutive term in office and fifth overall. But he faced a stiff challenge from retired military chief Benny Gantz, whose centrist Blue and White party is running even with Netanyahu’s Likud.

PM predicts 15 seats for Arabs

NEW YORK/BLOOMBERG

President Donald Trump said he doesn’t want to meet with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani at a summit next week in New York.

“I’m not looking to meet him. I don’t think they’re ready yet. But they’ll be ready,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One. “At the right time, they’ll be ready. I never rule anything out, but I prefer not meeting him.”

Trump and Rouhani are both expected to attend the United Nations General Assembly next week. The U.S. president had entertained the idea of meeting his Iranian counterpart to try to open new talks on the 2015 nuclear deal Trump abandoned.

Trump says he doesn’t want to meet Rouhani in New York

REUTERS/WASHINGTON

The United States believes Saturday’s attack on Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities originated in southwestern Iran, a US official said.

Three officials, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said the attack involved both cruise missiles and drones, indi-cating the attack involved a higher degree of complexity and sophistication than initially thought.

US believes attack on Saudi Arabiaoriginated in southwestern Iran

Attack on weapons depot in eastern Syria, 10 deadAP/BAGHDAD

Unknown aircraft attacked a weapons depot belonging to Iranian-backed paramilitary forces in an eastern town near the Iraqi border early yesterday,

killing at least 10, a Syria war monitor and an Iraqi security official said.

The airstrikes took place in Boukamal, in the eastern province of Deir Al Zour. An Iraqi security official said the

strike hit weapons depots belonging to Iraqi factions oper-ating under the banner of the Popular Mobilization Forces, the name given for the mainly Shia militias in Iraq that Iran supports.

Exit polls show Netanyahu and Gantz in tight race

Arrest warrant for Lebanese-American who worked for IsraelAP/BEIRUT

A Lebanese judge issued an arrest warrant yesterday for a Lebanese-American who confessed he’d worked for Israel during its occupation of Lebanon for nearly two decades, Lebanese judicial officials said.

The officials said acting mil-itary investigative judge Najat Abu Shakra postponed the ques-tioning of Amer Fakhoury at the Military Court in Beirut pending permission from Lebanon’s Bar Association for an American lawyer to attend.

The officials said Fakhoury told the judge he wants the American lawyer to be present and since she had no permission from the Bar Association, the judge decided to postpone the questioning. No date has been set for the next session, said the officials who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

Fakhoury was detained after returning to his native Lebanon

from the U.S. earlier this month. He had worked as a senior warden at the Khiam Prison in southern Lebanon that was run by an Israeli-backed militia, known as the South Lebanon Army, until Israel ended an 18-year occupation of the area in 2000. “The Department of State does not comment on cases involving American citizens due to privacy considerations,” a State Department official said.

Outside the court, scores of people gathered, including former Khiam prison detainees, some of whom demanded the death penalty for Fakhoury.

“First of all we want the mil-itary court to deliver the death sentence by hanging for Amer Fakhoury and all those like him, whether they are inside Lebanon or outside, who are trying to erase their history and to return to Lebanon,” said Firyal Hammoud, former inmate of Khiam prison. “We do not accept less than a public death sentence.”

Dutch court hears Gaza war crime case against GantzAFP/THE HAGUE

A Dutch court heard preliminary arguments yesterday in a case about a deadly 2014 Israeli air strike, in which Israeli prime ministerial candidate Benny Gantz is one of two named defendants.

A Dutch-Palestinian seeking justice for his relatives killed in the air strike urged the court to go ahead with a trial for war

crimes. This preliminary hearing to determine whether or not it should try the case started as Israelis go to the polls to elect a new government -- with Gantz a leading candidate for the prime minister’s post.

Gantz, 60 was the chief of general staff of the Israeli defence force at the time of the Gaza bombing as part of Oper-ation Protective Edge, in which

Ismail Ziada said six of his rela-tives were killed. The second defendant is former Israeli air force chief Amir Eshel, 60.

“I am seeking justice,” Ziada told judges at The Hague’s District Court. He would not get a fair hearing before an Israeli court, he argued, because it “discriminated against Palestinians seeking accountability for war crimes”.

Ziada’s mother, three

brothers, a sister-in-law, a young nephew and a friend were killed in the strike on Bureij refugee camp in Gaza on July 20, 2014.

Israel said it launched Pro-tective Edge at the time to stop rocket fire against its citizens and destroy tunnels used for smug-gling weapons and militants.

“As a Palestinian, my client has no access to a partial and independent judge” before an

Israeli court, Ziada’s lawyer Liesbeth Zegveld told the judges.

“In other words, it’s impos-sible for him to take his claim anywhere else,” she said.

During an emotional statement, Ziada showed pic-tures of his dead relatives, telling the judges “much depends on the outcome of this judicial process”, which he called a “David versus Goliath” legal battle.

Iraq parliament strips outspoken liberal MP of immunityAFP/BAGHDAD

Iraq’s parliament stripped an outspoken liberal lawmaker of his immunity from prosecution yesterday following accusa-tions he praised Saddam Hussein’s Baath party, despite his long history of opposing the executed dictator.

A constant critic of Iraq’s endemic corruption, Fayeq Al Sheikh Ali won a parliamentary seat last year after promising to counter Islamists’ efforts to ban alcohol in the country.

In a television appearance last month, he railed against Iraqi politicians in general, saying: “Let them hear me: Ahmad Hassan Al Bakr’s shoe is cleaner than all of them put together.” A leading member of the Baath party, Bakr served as Iraq’s fourth president from 1968 to 1979, overseeing a period of economic revival before Saddam took over.

In contrast to current “lowly” politicians, Bakr and Saddam had distributed land freely, Sheikh Ali said. The MP had himself gone into exile in the 1990s because of his opposition to Saddam and returned after the dictator was ousted in the US-led 2003 invasion. But a host of MPs said the comments amounted to “glorifying the Baath” — a pun-ishable offence in post-Saddam Iraq -- and voted to lift his par-liamentary immunity. One MP, speaking on condition of ano-nymity, said the move was also triggered by a personal spat with Hanan Al Fatlawi, a former Shia MP known for her divisive sec-tarian rhetoric.

Palestinian girls gather at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) building during a demonstration demanding the extension of term of office of UNRWA, in Gaza City, yesterday.

11WEDNESDAY 18 SEPTEMBER 2019 AFRICA

Saied, Karoui to contest Tunisia presidential runoff voteAFP TUNIS

Tunisia’s electoral commission confirmed yesterday that a pres-idential runoff vote will pit law professor Kais Saied against detained media mogul Nabil Karoui.

The result from Sunday’s vote, thrusting two political out-siders to the fore, was a shock to a political establishment in place since the 2011 fall of dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

Saied led the first round of polling on Sunday with 18.4 percent of the vote against Karoui’s 15.6 percent, taking both through to an October run-off, said the electoral commission, ISIE.

It said turnout reached 49 percent in Sunday’s election, markedly down from the 64 percent at the country’s first free presidential polls in 2014.

Abdelfattah Mourou, a first-ever presidential candidate from the Islamist-inspired Ennahdha party, came third.

Shortly before the official results were announced, Ennahdha congratulated the two winners, implicitly dispelling rumours that Karoui would be disqualified over alleged viola-tions during his campaign.

Any such disqualification would have seen Mourou qualify

for the final runoff. ISIE has said it is investigating alleged elec-toral violations, including by media mogul Karoui’s Nessma TV.

“There have of course been violations and the judiciary will respond. But cancelling a vote is even more serious,” ISIE chief Nabil Baffoun said.

“The violations were not decisive and the votes of the electors must be respected.” Observers from the European Union said the first round has been “transparent”.

But it called for the candi-dates to have the “same oppor-tunities” to campaign, in an apparent allusion to Karoui.

Depending on potential appeals, the second round could be organised for October 6, the same day as legislative elections, or on October 13, ISIE said.

The two candidates, though very different, have both drawn on “anti-system” sentiment among the electorate, spurred by exasperation with the status quo.

Unemployment runs at around 15 percent, particularly affecting young graduates, while inflation eats away at already low incomes.

“With these presidential polls, we’re back to the situation in 2011,” said Mohamed Marzouk, the head of civil society organi-sation Murakiboun, which has been observing the elections.

“The voters’ message is: ‘Eve-rybody out, and then we’ll see’,” he said.

The two leading candidates “have been preparing the ground for years. They have shown that elections don’t happen on Facebook — at least not only,” Marzouk said.

Le Quotidien newspaper earlier said Tunisian voters had “preferred to venture into the unknown rather than extend a hand again to those who betrayed their hopes”.

Saied, a fiercely independent academic aged 61, advocates a radical decentralisation of power, with local democracy and the ability to remove elected offi-cials from office during their mandates.

He is also perceived as very conservative on social issues.

Three weeks ahead of the parliamentary polls, he said yes-terday he would not be aligning himself with any political party.

“There is no alliance between

political parties, or with a party or a coalition of parties, there is a project,” he told the press.

“Anybody who wants to join can do so.” Karoui, a 56-year-old media magnate, is under investigation for alleged money laundering and has been in pre-trial detention since August 23.

Karoui’s arrest in the runup to the election cemented his

status as an outsider, despite being a longtime supporter of president Beji Caid Essebsi, whose death on July 25 brought forward the polls.

Appeals to have Karoui freed before the election were rejected, but his lawyers were planning to refile for his release after the results were confirmed.

Karoui remains eligible to

run despite his imprisonment, as long as any conviction does not also specifically deprive him of his civil rights, according to ISIE.

Ennahda leader Rached Ghannouchi yesterday urged his supporters to turn out en masse for the parliamentary polls on October 6, in which he is running for the first time.

Nabil Bafon (right), the chairman of the Independent High Elections Commission of Tunisia, announcing results for the first round of polls at the Conference Palace in Tunis, yesterday.

South Sudan may plunge back into conflict: UNBLOOMBERG JUBA

South Sudan, where warring parties agreed to end five years of conflict, could return to bloodshed despite recent commitments by its leaders to form a power-sharing government, the United Nations has warned.

Both armed opposition groups and the government are forcibly recruiting children in Juba and Western Bahr el Ghazal, and in Greater Bahr el Ghazal, respectively, according to Yasmin Sooka, chairwoman of the UN Human Rights Com-mission for South Sudan.

“Ironically, the prospect of a peace deal has accelerated the forced recruitment of children, with various groups now seeking to boost their numbers before they move into the cantonment sites,” Sooka said in a statement on Monday.

Warring parties are scheduled to form a unity gov-ernment by November 12 and prepare for democratic elections in the following 36 months.

Previously planned for May 12, the joint administration was delayed for six months when they failed to agree on key issues

and end the crisis that left 400,000 people dead, displaced 4 million others and exacerbated a reduction in crude production.

Hardliners unwilling to compromise on key issues — the number of states, their boundaries, and security arrangements — might sabotage progress toward implemen-tation of the agreement, Sooka said.

“Clearly time is rapidly running out for this to happen and if the resources, including the government’s commitment of $100m for the implemen-tation of the agreement, are not made available, these issues will remain unresolved, with the potential to plunge the country into full-scale war once again,” she said.

Algerians protest against plannedpresidential vote in DecemberAFP ALGIERS

Protesters massed in the Algerian capital yesterday to demand the cancellation of a controversial presidential election planned for December 12.

Interim leader Abdelkader Bensalah announced the poll on Monday in a bid to resolve the political deadlock gripping the country since the April resig-nation of longtime president Abdelaziz Bouteflika.

But activists have demanded political reforms and the removal of Bouteflika loyalists including powerful army chief Ahmed Gaid Salah before any vote takes place.

Led by students, protesters yesterday shouted slogans against “the gang” and demanded: “Hey Gaid Salah, forget the elections!” The general, who has become a key powerbroker since Bouteflika’s departure, has led the push for polls by the end of the year in keeping with the constitution.

But Hamid, a 57-year-old public servant who took part in the protest, insisted that would not happen.

“We will cancel the December 12 vote just like we cancelled the July 4 election,” he said. After Bouteflika resigned in the face of mass protests in April, presidential elections were called for July 4.

However the vote was post-poned due to a lack of viable candidates, leaving a political vacuum in the North African country.

Protesters have held mass rallies every Tuesday and Friday since 11 February, calling for key

regime figures to step down.“Students represent the

majority of voters and we will not participate” in the election, said Samia, a law student at Tuesday’s demonstration.

Police detained at least 10 protesters in central Algiers and confiscated mobile phones of people who filmed the arrests, according. Samia said: “How do they expect us to participate in a democratic election when they keep arresting protesters and activists?”

Demonstrators shout slogans during a protest against the announcement to hold presidential polls in December, in Algiers, yesterday.

DR Congo’s former minister to be probed over Ebola funds AFP KINSHASA

Former DR Congo health minister Oly Ilunga was trans-ferred to the public prosecutor’s office yesterday, three days after being arrested over accu-sations he embezzled $4.3m in Ebola funds, his lawyers said.

Ilunga, who resigned as health minister in July after being removed as head of the country’s Ebola response team, was arrested in Kinshasa on Saturday.

He is due to be questioned by an investigating magistrate, lawyer Guy Kabeya said.

Ilunga’s lawyers have rejected the embezzlement claim, saying accounts prove that public funds were used “exclusively” in the fight against the Ebola virus, which has claimed more than 2,000 lives since August 2018.

They have also rejected a police statement that the former minister was planning to leave the country to escape justice.

Ilunga, 59, was also ques-tioned in August over the man-agement of Ebola funds.

He stepped down from his role after criticising plans by the UN’s World Health Organi-zation (WHO) to introduce a new, unlicensed vaccine to fight the epidemic.

Tourist boat capsizes in Senegal, four deadAFP DAKAR

At least four people died and three were missing after a boat carrying dozens of tourists capsized under heavy storms in Senegal, authorities and emer-gency services said yesterday.

The boat was carrying 24 Senegalese nationals, six French people, two Germans, two Swedes and one person from Guinea-Bissau, when it turned over in driving rain and a heavy swell, fire department chief Papa Angel Michel Diatta said.

The identities and national-ities of the victims are not yet known.

The boat was heading for the Madeleine islands, site of an off-shore national park popular with tourists who travel from Dakar, coastal capital of the West African country.

Emergency services con-tinued to look for those missing yesterday. AFP journalists saw a

dozen divers at the scene.Distressed families were

waiting on the shore to get news of their loved ones.

“The gendarmerie called us at 5:00 am (GMT and local time). My brother was on the boat. The worst thing is not knowing,” said Aminata Diop, who was among the relatives on the beach.

There are “four dead bodies and between three and four people are missing. Thirty-five people were on the boat. Search and rescue operations are con-tinuing this morning,” Interior Minister Aly Ngouille Ndiaye said.

The causes of the accident were unclear. The interior min-ister told Senegalese media over-night that several tourists were worried about the heavy rains and wanted to return to the pier but others wanted to stay on the boat.

The survivors spent the night on the island, Ndiaye told local radio on Tuesday. Blankets and

food were sent to them and they were to be ferried back to the mainland in the morning, he added.

The rainy season arrived late

this year and heavy storms have resulted in several casualties this month. Two fishermen were killed on their canoe in the same area nearly two weeks ago.

Senegalese emergency workers prepare their boats to leave for a rescue and search mission on a beach of Dakar, near the Madeleine islands, yesterday, after a tourist boat capsized.

Zimbabwe:Doctors seek helpto find leader

BLOOMBERG/JOHANNESBURG

A medical-doctors’ union in Zimbabwe has appealed for assistance to find its leader, who has been missing for more than two days.

Doctors and other health professionals held protests in the capital, Harare, on Tuesday calling for help in locating Peter Magombeyi who “remains missing for more than 48 hours,” it said.

As head of the Zimbabwe Hospital Doctor’s Association, which has 1,500 members, Magombeyi is one of the key organizers of a strike over poor remuneration that began earlier this month. He went missing on Saturday. Doctors in Zimbabwe earn a monthly salary of Z$1,400 ($111) and have demanded that the amount be increased to Z$18,000.

Belgium, Congo restore tiesAP BRUSSELS

Officials from Belgium and Congo have signed agree-ments aimed at normalising relations between the former European colonial power and the African nation during an official visit of Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi to Belgium.

Belgium’s foreign affairs ministry said officials met yes-terday to agree to restore their ambassadors in both countries as they tried to put an end to a two-year diplomatic crisis that was triggered by the per-ceived interference of Belgium in Congo’s internal affairs.

Saied led the first round of polling on Sunday with 18.4 percent of the vote against Karoui’s 15.6 percent.

The chief of UN Human Rights Commission for South Sudan said armed opposition groups and the government are forcibly recruiting children in some areas.

12 WEDNESDAY 18 SEPTEMBER 2019ASIA

India expects to havephysical jurisdiction overPoK one day: MinisterIANS NEW DELHI

India yesterday made its position on Kashmir very clear, stating that revocation of Article 370 was a purely internal affair which it would not discuss with Pakistan, and that it expects to one day to have “physical juris-diction” over Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, addressing his first press conference on completion of 100 days of the Modi 2.0 gov-ernment, minced no words in stating that the only issue India would discuss with Pakistan would be of cross-border terrorism.

He virtually ruled out talks with Pakistan on Kashmir, saying the August 5 revocation of Article 370 that gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir was India’s internal issue, and did not concern Islamabad in any way.

“First of all 370 is not a bilateral issue, 370 is an internal issue. With regard to Pakistan, the issue is not 370, the issue with Pakistan is terrorism,” he said.

“There is no change.. (on Pakistan policy) We must make the world realise (about Pakistan fomenting terrorism). Show me one country that openly con-ducts terrorism against its neighbour as part of what it con-siders its foreign policy... What should come on the table first of all is the terrorism issue. Because

that is the root cause of this. There has to be a recognition,” he said.

To a question on Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, in the backdrop of Union Defence Min-ister Rajnath Singh and Home Minister Amit Shah, among others stating that the only talks with Islamabad would now be on PoK, Jaishankar said: “Yes, our position on PoK is, has been, and will always be very clear. PoK is part of India, and we expect one day that we will have physical jurisdiction over it.”

On revocation of special status for Kashmir, he empha-sised that Article 370 was a tem-porary provision of the Indian

Constitution and it had to end someday. This is what India has been telling the world.

“It was a temporary pro-vision and the meaning of tem-porary is that it has to come to an end. This provision had actually become dysfunctional, that it was being arbitraged by a narrow set of people for their own gains, and that was leading to lack of development. The lack of development was feeding a sense of separatism, and that separatism was being utilised by Pakistan to carry out its cross border terrorism.” He said that most of the world understood this logic.

To a question on talking with Pakistan, with the Pakistani establishment stating that it has offered dialogue to India but to no avail, he said: “Part of the problem is that Pakistan is only doing talking. It has not been doing anything other than this.

“They think that nice words are an answer to the real problem, but the real problem is the dismantling of this industry (cross border terror) that they have created.

“The question is not whether what can you talk about.. it’s not an India issue. Show me a country in the world that can accept that it’s neighbour can conduct terrorism and then it will go and talk to them.

“Our position is completely normal, rational. They are the set of people whose behaviour is an aberration,” he said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi interacting with his mother Heeraben on the day of his birthday at her residence at Rysan village, near Gandhinagar, some 30km from Ahmedabad.

Modi turns 69, says J&Kdecision inspired by PatelIANS KEVADIA/GUJARAT

Jammu and Kashmir seems to be on top of Prime Minister’s mind, even on his birthday. In a direct reference, resurrecting Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel’s vision, Modi basked in the glory of the recent abrogation of Article 370 ending special powers to Kashmir.

Standing in vicinity of the Sardar Sarovar Dam, Modi said, “Country is witnessing fulfilment of Sardar Patel’s dream of ‘Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat’. “Have

a look at the majestic ‘Statue of Unity’, India’s tribute to the great Sardar Patel,” he tweeted.

In a direct reference to Kashmir and the abrogation, the Prime Minister said: “India is trying to complete the works that were left incomplete after Inde-pendence. People of J&K, Ladakh faced discrimination for 70 years and the country had to bear its consequences in form of sepa-ratism and violence.”

Modi spent his 69th birthday morning at Kevadia Eco Park, where Modi was overwhelmed by the beauty of river Narmada.

He said, its his privilege to start the day with this visit.

Talking about conservations, he said: “In our culture it is believed that development can be done while protecting the environment, and it is evident here. Nature is dear to us, it is our jewel.”

The Prime Minister also visited the Ekta Nursery, situated in close proximity to the iconic Statue of Unity. The nursery man-ufactures various traditional eco-friendly products and offers a live demonstration of their manufac-turing process to the visitors.

Mamata to raise bank merger, PSU issues with Prime MinisterIANS KOLKATA

Describing her trip to Delhi to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi as “routine” and a “consti-tutional obligation”, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee yesterday said she would raise the issue of bank merger, BSNL salary issues and disinvestment of PSUs like Air India.

Banerjee is slated to meet Modi at 4.30pm today.

“At times we have to go to Delhi on government work as it is the national capital. I have to go there from time to time in connection with the affairs of the state. It is a routine thing,” Banerjee said while leaving the state secretariat Nabanna on way to the Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport.

Banerjee reminded the reporters that she hasn’t visited Delhi for a long time. “I am going there because some money, which my state is due to get, is pending,” she said.

Banerjee said the issues of PSUs like BSNL, Air India and Railways will figure during the talks. “They are facing lot of problems. They have nowhere to go. So they come to us. I will speak for them.”

Wedding bells for Kashmiri youthA groom is being garlanded by relatives and friends before leaving for his bride’s home in Kashmir’s Baramulla district, north of Srinagar.

‘Ramayan’ epic solution to all global problems: ShahIANS NEW DELHI

At a time when the top court of the country is seized of the title suit dispute over Ayodhya, the Modi government has given a push to ‘Ram’, ‘Ramayan’ and ‘Ramrajya’.

Speaking at the fifth edition of the Ramayana Festival, BJP President and Union Home Min-ister Amit Shah called Ramayana, the Hindu epic, as the solution of all global problems.

“Ramayan is the solution to your personal, social, national and global problems,” said Shah.

The reference to Ram was recurring and the veiled ref-erence to ‘Ramrajya’ was also clear enough to understand.

When Shah was talking about “sushasan” (good gov-ernance), something that the Modi government boasts of pro-viding India with, he was making a veiled reference to the utopian “Ramrajya”.

The three-day event that he inaugurated will see foreign del-egations performing and pre-senting their interpretations of Ramayan.

The college of dramatic arts under Bunditpattanailpa

Institute of Thailand, a dance guild from Sri Lanka, Cam-bodian Artist Troupe, Notre Dame Kali Maa Mandir Asso-ciation from Mauritius are some of the many interna-tional delegations taking part i n t h i s R a m a y a n extravaganza.

No wonder Shah called it the “Cultural ambassador of India” in foreign countries. The fact that even Islamic nations like Indonesia and Bangladesh have sent their teams to present their version of Ramayana gives cre-dence to Shah’s claim.

But beyond the cultural showmanship and high profile attendees, what this event has helped in doing is to give a subtle push to Ram, Ramayana and Ramrajya as the Supreme Court is deciding on who owns the dis-puted land of Ayodhya that Hindus claim is the birthplace of Lord Ram.

Earlier, ICCR President Vinay Sahasrabuddhe claimed that the international delega-tions will also visit Ayodhya and offer prayers at the disputed sight.

“Needless to say, it will be a huge endorsement of the claims made by the Hindus as well as the stated position of the BJP that the land belongs to “Ram Lalla”.

14 more bodies retrieved from Godavari, toll hits 26IANS RAJAHMUNDRY

The death toll in Sunday’s boat tragedy in Andhra Pradesh’s East Godavari district rose to 26 with rescue workers yesterday pulling out 14 bodies from the Godavari river, officials said.

About 20 people are still missing as the search operation

continued around the accident site and downstream for the third consecutive day.

The tourist boat, with more than 70 people, overturned near Kuchuluru village on Sunday afternoon while on its way to the picturesque Papikonda hills.

Officials said 27 people were rescued by local villagers.

As many as 12 bodies were

found at Devipatnam near the accident site. Two bodies which had washed away were retrieved from Dowaleswaram barrage.

Personnel of the Indian Navy, National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) and fire services are partici-pating in the search operation.

The rescue workers con-tinued their efforts to locate the boat, which is believed to be stuck at a depth of 315 feet. Due to the strong water current and winds at the accident site, they are finding it difficult to carry out search operation.

Officials said believe that there may be some bodies in the boat as it turned upside down.

Salve blames Supreme Court for economic slowdownIANS NEW DELHI

Senior advocate Harish Salve has blamed the Supreme Court for pushing the country into the economic slowdown, citing its judgements in the 2G spectrum case. Salve said the economic slowdown begun with the 2G case order when the apex court in one stroke cancelled 122 spectrum licences issued to telecom operators.

In an interview to a legal website, Salve said, “I squarely blame the Supreme Court.” Though, he acknowledged that he could understand holding people responsible for the wrongful dis-tribution of the licences in 2G spectrum allocation.

“Blanket cancellation of licences...when a foreigner invested, it was your rule that said he must have an Indian partner. The foreigner didn’t know how the Indian partner got a licence.

Foreigners invested billions of dollars, and with one stroke of the pen, the Supreme Court knocked all of them out”, he said.

The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) in its 2010 report concluded that the 2G spectrum allocation method had led to Rs 1.76 lakh crore loss to the exchequer. A charge-sheet was filed by the CBI in April 2011. In February 2012, the top court cancelled 122 licences.

Salve had appeared for telecom companies in the case. In

December 2017, the CBI trial court acquitted former Union Ministers and key accused A. Raja and Kan-imozhi, along with 15 others.

Emphasising on the nature of foreign investment, he said it turned risky after the retrospective changes in the Vodafone case. The great strength of India was the people’s belief in its judiciary that it would deliver justice, he said and added the Vodafone case dealt a blow to that. “People now had to factor in — you win in the tribunal,

they will make a retrospective law and change it”, said Salve.

Salve said the apex court was inconsistent in dealing with com-mercial cases and that was a matter of huge concern for investors.

Referring to the apex court’s judgement in the coalmine allotment case, he said, “You can-celled coalmines (allocation) by one stroke of the pen, without exam-ining the merits of every case. Much genuine foreign investment in the coal industry went flat...”

“This provision (Article 370) had actually become dysfunctional, that it was being arbitraged by a narrow set of people for their own gains, and that was leading to lack of development. The lack of development was feeding a sense of separatism, and that separatism was being utilised by Pakistan to carry out its cross border terrorism.”

13WEDNESDAY 18 SEPTEMBER 2019 ASIA

48 dead in Taliban attacks ahead of Afghan polls AFP KABUL

Taliban suicide bombers killed at least 48 people and wounded dozens more in two blasts yesterday — one at a campaign rally for the president and the other in Kabul — with the insur-gents warning of more violence ahead of elections.

The first attack saw a motor-cyclist detonate a suicide bomb at a checkpoint leading to a rally where President Ashraf Ghani was addressing supporters in central Parwan province, just north of the capital, killing 26 and wounding 42.

Just over an hour later another blast also claimed by the Taliban rocked central Kabul near the US embassy. Authorities initially did not give casualty figures, but later said 22 people had been killed and a further 38 wounded. The explosions came

after US President Donald Trump abruptly ended talks with the Taliban earlier this month over a deal that would have allowed the US to begin withdrawing troops from its longest war.

In a statement sent to media claiming responsibility for both blasts, Taliban spokesman Zabi-hullah Mujahid said the attack near Ghani’s rally was deliber-ately aimed at disrupting the September 28 elections.

“We already warned people not to attend election rallies, if

they suffer any losses that is their own responsibility,” the statement said.

An AFP image from the scene near Ghani’s rally, roughly an hour’s drive north of Kabul, showed the remains of a burnt motorcycle, with a body on top, covered by a blanket and next to a badly damaged police car.

Women and children were among the causalities, Parwan hospital director Abdul Qasim Sangin said.

The president, who was

speaking to his supporters at the time of the blast, was unhurt but later condemned the attack, saying the incident proved the Taliban had no real interest in reconciliation.

“As the Taliban continue their crimes, they once again prove that they are not interested in peace and stability in Afghan-istan,” said Ghani in a statement.

Sixty kilometres away in Kabul , a shopkeeper, Rahimullah, said he had been sitting inside his shop when the second blast came.

“The wave broke all the windows,” he said.

“I rushed outside and saw several bodies just across the street. This is the second time in less than a month that a blast has broken our windows. I just fixed them a week ago.” The UN’s mission in Afghanistan also slammed the Taliban, accusing them of showing “despicable dis-

regard for civilian life & funda-mental human right to partic-ipate in democratic process”.

The elections will see Ghani face off against his own Chief Executive, Abdullah Abdullah, and more than a dozen other candidates, including former warlords, ex-spies, and onetime members of the country’s former communist regime.

For weeks, the election had been sidelined by the US-Taliban talks, with many Afghans and observers expecting the vote to be cancelled if a deal was agreed. Even candidates did little in the way of campaigning.

But with the deal off, Ghani and his rivals have begun the race.

Ghani is seeking a clear mandate they can use to nego-tiate with the insurgents on a lasting peace in Afghanistan.

Trump’s declaration that the US-Taliban talks were “dead”

spurred the insurgents to declare last week that the only other option was more fighting.

“We had two ways to end occupation in Afghanistan, one was jihad and fighting, the other was talks and negotiations,” Mujahid said last week.

“If Trump wants to stop talks, we will take the first way and they will soon regret it.” Observers had warned the Taliban, who hope to weaken the future president, will do anything they can to upend the election.

On the first day of cam-paigning in July, suicide attackers and gunmen targeted the Kabul office of Ghani’s running mate, Amrullah Saleh. At least 20 people died in those attacks.

Turnout in the elections is set to be low, with experts citing fear of violence and a loss of hope among voters following wide-spread fraud allegations during the 2014 election.

Afghan security forces keep watch at the site of a blast in Kabul, yesterday. RIGHT: An Afghan family walking out from the site of the blast in Kabul.

The first attack saw a motorcyclist detonate a suicide bomb at a checkpoint leading to a rally where President Ashraf Ghani was addressing supporters in central Parwan province, just north of the capital, killing 26 and wounding 42. Just over an hour later another blast also claimed by the Taliban rocked central Kabul near the US embassy.

Outcry forces NW Pakistan officials to scrap veil orderAFP PESHAWAR

Pakistan education authorities have reversed a decision making it compulsory for female students in two major north-western cities to wear veils, one day after the move sparked a rights outcry on social media.

District education officials in Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Haripur, another city in the conservative province, had announced that girls must cover themselves fully

“to protect them from any unethical accident”.

But the directive, first announced last week, triggered a nationwide backlash, as social media users and activists con-demned the move as yet another curb on women’s rights in a deeply misogynistic country.

“So the burden of unethical behaviour lies on schoolgirls and not the pervs who harass girls, regardless of them being covered,” tweeted one social media user, Naila Inayat, in a typical comment. The backlash

resulted in a reversal by author-ities. “The directive is hereby withdrawn,” a new order issued yesterday said.

However leading Pakistani women’s rights activist Tahira Abdullah warned that the attempt “did not enhance the image of Pakistan”.

“While the rest of the world is moving forward with its chil-dren’s education, protection and development, Pakistan is defi-nitely moving backwards,” she said.

However some residents in

the region defended the move. One provincial legislator, Siraj-ud-din Khan, warned that his radical Jamaat-e-Islami party would protest and “force the government to enforce this order in the whole of the province”.

Local shopkeeper Jameel Ahmad and teacher Ameen Sadiq also vented their anger at the government’s decision to reverse the order, saying that under Islam and Pashtun tribal tra-dition dominant in the northwest women must be properly covered.

IMF delegation in Pakistan to review programme progressINTERNEWS ISLAMABAD

The International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Middle East and Central Asia Director Jihad Azour along with an eight-member delegation arrived in Islamabad yesterday to hold formal talks with top government functionaries.

Amid his arrival, the gov-ernment stepped up efforts to recover about Rs85bn additional revenue from the electricity and gas consumers and firm up a road map to bridge gaps in tax collection.

The visit is being described as “routine” by both sides. A finance ministry representative said the delegation, headed by Azour and Mission Chief to Pakistan Ernesto Ramirez-Rigo, is here “to review the pro-gramme as per schedule.”

On its first day, the team held informal meetings with Adviser to the Prime Minister on Finance Abdul Hafeez Shaikh and Federal Board of Revenue

(FBR) Chairman Shabbar Zaidi. As per the proposed schedule of the visit, the delegation will remain in Pakistan until Sep-tember 20.

Another official said the del-egation will hold marathon meetings with Hafeez Shaikh and top officials of the Ministry of Finance, Planning Minister Khusro Bakhtyar, Planning Commission officials and the Minister of Economic Affairs Hammad Azhar and his team.

The delegation will also meet with the chairpersons and members of the National Elec-tronic Power and Regulatory Authority (Nepra), Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) and Securities and Exchange Com-mission of Pakistan before trav-elling to Karachi to hold discus-sions at the State Bank of P a k i s t a n a n d o t h e r stakeholders.

The delegation will also interact with National Assem-bly’s Standing Committee on Finance led by former finance minister Asad Umar.

Sri Lanka PM faces party challengeAFP/COLOMBO

Sri Lanka’s ruling coalition became embroiled in a power struggle yesterday as two chal-lengers came forward to oppose Prime Minister Ranil Wickremes-inghe to be candidate for a looming presidential election.

Wickremesinghe had been the clear frontrunner to be the United National Party (UNP) candidate

until parliament speaker Karu Jayasuriya and deputy party leader Sajith Premadasa threw their hats into the ring. The UNP dominates the ruling coalition and is expected to nominate its can-didate for the election to be held between November seven and December seven. Voting already risks controversy with Gotabaya Rajapakse, younger brother of Sri Lanka’s former strongman

president Mahinda Rajapakse, leading the opposition bid despite outstanding court cases and criminal inquiries. Jayasuriya, 78, who played a key role in ending a political crisis last year, said he wants the top office so he can scrap the presidential system which he accused of centralising power. “I will enter the contest with the intention of abolishing the executive presidency,” he said.

UN experts urge Bangladesh to probe deaths of RohingyaANATOLIA DHAKA

UN human rights experts on Monday called on Bangladesh to look into the deaths happened in Rohingya refugee camps in the country’s Cox’s Bazar district.

In a statement, the UN human rights experts expressed its “deep concerns” over the recent restrictions imposed by the government and increased military presence at the refugee camps after a massive “Gen-ocide Day” protest held last month. “We urge the Bangla-deshi Government to carry out an independent, impartial and effective investigation into all deaths that have occurred with regards to this case,” the statement said.

It noted that some 200,000 refugees gathered for the “Gen-ocide Day” rally in Cox’s Bazar to mark the second anniversary of their exodus from Myanmar. They called for Myanmar citi-zenship rights and other guar-antees before they agree to return.

Nepali climber set for final push in record 14-peak bidAFP/KATHMANDU

The current record for climbing the world’s 14 tallest peaks is almost eight years. Nepali climber, Nirmal Purja, who served in the British Special Forces, has a target of seven months.

On Monday Purja arrived at the advance base camp of the 8,201-metre Cho Oyu, ready for the final phase of the last three peaks in his feat of astonishing endurance. “Nobody believed I could do this when I first said it... I’m so glad to be inspiring gen-erations of all ages through this endeavour. This is what keeps me going,” Purja said. “This is not about me... it is to show what the

human body can do. To establish a paradigm shift in perception of

human potential,” Purja said. Only a teenager when he joined

the British Gurkhas, Purja or “Nims dai” climbed both the 8,848-metre Everest and Lhotse at 8,516 metres in a record 10 hours and 15 minutes in 2017.

This inspired the 36-year-old to start “Project Possible”, scaling the 14 peaks — all higher than 8,000 metres — in seven months.

But doing so is radically ambitious. In the 1980s, it took Polish climber Jerzy Kukuczka seven years, 11 months and 14 days. South Korean climber Kim Chang-ho managed it in about a month less — although he did, unlike Kukuczka and Purja, do it without supplementary oxygen. Before he set off on his first expedition, Purja had a detailed tattoo of the 14

mountains engraved on his back, with colourful prayer flags tracing his journey to the peaks.

Swapping his army boots for crampons, Purja quit the military after 16 years of service and re-mortgaged his house to begin his expedition and start raising funds. Purja began his attempt in April with the 8,091-metre Annapurna, checking the illus-trious “8,000ers” Dhaulagiri, Kanchenjunga, Everest, Lhotse and Makalu off his list in only a month to finish his first phase.

“My life story tells anyone who doesn’t have privilege to dream about bigger things. Any-thing is possible if you put your heart and mind and give 100 percent to it,” he said.

Mountaineer Nirmal Purja speaks as Nepali mountaineer Mingma David Sherpa (right) looks on during a press conference in Kathmandu.

14 WEDNESDAY 18 SEPTEMBER 2019ASIA

20 dead in road accident in southern PhilippinesAP MANILA

Twenty villagers were killed and 14 others were injured when the truck they were riding in lost control and fell off a cliff yesterday in a remote mountain village in the southern Philip-pines, police and the Red Cross said.

Provincial police chief Joel Limson said the truck was negotiating a downhill road in Tboli town in South Cotabato province when its brakes apparently failed and plum-meted down a ravine, pinning 15 people to death. Five other victims later died in hospitals, Limson said.

Police, Red Cross volun-teers and villagers retrieved the 15 bodies from the wreckage at the bottom of the ravine. Some of the dead included children returning from a family reunion at a beach resort, Limson said by phone.

Red Cross leader Erwin Rommel del Carmen said several passengers survived by jumping off the wayward bus.

Widodo: Indonesia doing everything to put out fires AFP PEKANBARU, INDONESIA

Indonesia is battling forest fires causing toxic haze across southeast Asia with aircraft, arti-ficial rain and even prayer, Pres-ident Joko Widodo said during a visit to a hard-hit area yesterday.

Forest fires are raging on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra, sending a choking fug across the region — including towards neighbours Malaysia and Singapore.

During a visit to Riau province in central Sumatra Tuesday, Widodo said nearly 6,000 troops had been sent to hot spots to help put out fires.

“We have made every effort,” he said.

As well as firefighters on the ground, dozens of aircraft were being used to seed clouds and bomb blazes with water, he said.

“We have also prayed,” he added, after a visit to Amrulloh

Mosque in Pekanbaru. The toxic smoke caused by deliberate burning to clear land for planta-tions is an annual problem for Indonesia and its neighbours, but has been worsened this year by particularly dry weather.

Authorities on Monday said they had arrested nearly 200 people suspected of being involved in activities that led to the out-of-control fires.

Four corporations were also being investigated, authorities said.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) meteor-ological agency said Tuesday the number of hotspots had stabi-lised, but a thick haze continued to cloak the region.

On Borneo island, which Indonesia shares with Malaysia and Brunei, pollution levels were “hazardous”, according to envi-ronment ministry data. Hun-dreds of schools across Indonesia were shut.

In peninsular Malaysia, the met office and air force were working together to seed clouds with chemicals in the hope that rainfall would clear the haze.

But hundreds of schools

were closed yesterday, affecting more than 350,000 students.

Air quality was at “unhealthy” or “very unhealthy’ levels in many parts of penin-sular Malaysia and Sarawak state

on Borneo, officials said.Air quality improved in Sin-

gapore and was in the “mod-erate” range after slipping to “unhealthy” levels over the weekend, officials there said.

Taiwan’s flag lowered in Solomons; police on alertAFP HONIARA

Police maintained a strong presence on the streets of the Solomon Islands’ capital Honiara yesterday but reported no unrest following the troubled Pacific nation’s decision to switch diplo-matic allegiance to China from Taiwan.

The move, revealed late Monday when officials in Taipei pre-emptively severed ties with Honiara, prompted a peaceful pro-Taiwan protest on the island of Malaita.

“We’ve spoken to the police chief there and there were no incidents,” a police spokesman said.

In Honiara, a group of bystanders — some waving

Taiwanese flags — watched as Taipei’s embassy lowered its flag for the final time.

The issue has stirred pas-sionate debate in a country long mired in corruption, with many viewing diplomatic manoeuvring as an attempt by the political elite to feather their own nests.

“This switch has been pushed by a few members of parliament, backed by foreign influences,” one man, who did not want to be named, said on the streets of Honiara yesterday.

“It doesn’t reflect what we the people of this country would have chosen.” Honiara’s Chi-natown has borne the brunt of mob violence in the past, most recently when Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare was elected in April this year.

Its prosperous Chinese pop-ulation — some who have been resident for generations -- has long been a target for lingering resentment, exacerbated by increasing numbers of more recent migrants who locals feel

are taking a stranglehold on the capital’s economy.

Chinese-owned shops were largely closed yesterday as news sank in that 36 years of diplo-matic ties with Taiwan had ended. Police said they had extra officers on patrol to keep the peace and meetings were underway with community groups.

“We’re reminding people not to take the law into their own hands and reminding them what’s happened in the past when protests have happened,” a police spokesman said.

As well as closing its embassy, Taipei will also scrap aid programmes focused on agri-culture and health, while the Solomon Star Times reported 125 students currently on

scholarships in Taiwan will have to return home.

“It is indeed regrettable that their unfinished cooperative projects must come to an end, and it is a loss for Solomon Islands people,” Taiwan’s Pres-ident Tsai Ing-wen said in a statement that expressed “strong regret and condemnation” over the decision.

The Solomons’ government has not made any official statement on its decision and Sogavare cancelled a planned media conference yesterday, citing a busy schedule.

Local media reported that the lawmakers voted 27-0 in favour of recognising China, with six abstentions.

It leaves Taiwan with just 16 nations left that recognise it.

Indonesian President, Joko Widodo inspecting the damages from the ongoing forest fires in Pekanbaru, yesterday. Indonesian authorities have arrested nearly 200 people over vast forest fires.

Hong Kong leader to hold dialogue to ease tensionsREUTERS HONG KONG

Hong Kong’s leader, Carrie Lam, said yesterday that she and her team would begin dialogue sessions with the community next week, while reiterating that violence that has roiled the city over three months of protests must end.

Lam, who is under pressure from Beijing to defuse the public anger stirring the protests, said the dialogue sessions would be as open as possible, with members of the public able to sign up to attend.

“Hong Kong society has really accumulated a lot of deep rooted economic, social and even political issues, I hope these different forms of dialogue can

provide a platform for us to discuss,” Lam told reporters at a weekly briefing.

She said the issues included housing and land shortages in one of the world’s most densely populated cities of 7.4 million. Young people are particularly frustrated by the high cost of finding a place of their own to live.

“But I have to stress here, dialogue platform doesn’t mean we don’t have to take resolute enforcement actions. Sup-pressing the violence in front of us is still the priority,” she said.

The former British colony has been roiled by nearly four months of sometimes violent protests.

The trigger for the unrest was an extradition bill, now

withdrawn, that would have allowed people to be sent from Hong Kong to mainland China for trial.

But the demonstrators’ demands have broadened to include universal suffrage and an independent inquiry into their complaints of excessive force by the police.

Hong Kong returned to China in 1997 under a “one country, two systems” formula that guar-antees freedoms not enjoyed on the mainland — including a much-cherished independent legal system.

But many residents complain about what they see as creeping interference by Beijing in Hong Kong’s affairs despite the promise of autonomy.

Lam, who has been a focus

of protesters’ anger, capitulated to one of their main demands on September 4, announcing the full withdrawal of the extradition bill.

But the protests have continued.

Police on Monday said 89 people were arrested over the weekend after “radical pro-testers” attacked two police officers on Sunday evening, hurling petrol bombs and bricks.

Brawls also broke out between anti-government pro-testers and others who support Beijing.

Nearly 1,500 people have been arrested since the protests intensified in June.

The turmoil is also beginning to hit the economy of the financial hub.

A Mass Transit Railway (MTR) train is seen derailed on the East Rail line in Hong Kong, yesterday. Some 500 passengers were evacuated from the train.

Train derails in Hong Kong during rush hour, 8 injuredAFP HONG KONG

A passenger train derailed during the morning rush hour in Hong Kong yesterday, leaving eight people injured, authorities said.

Images from the scene showed three carriages off the tracks and zigzagged across the rails near Hung Hom station in Kowloon — a busy interchange that provides services to mainland China.

Passengers had to leave the train through a broken door and cross tracks on the East Rail Line to make their way to safety.

Five hundred passengers had been evacuated from the train. Eight passengers reported injuries when they arrived at the con-course of the station, according to authorities.

The cause of the derailment

was still under investigation but there was no immediate sug-gestion of foul play after previous attacks by pro-democracy pro-testers on the city’s mass transit system.

“We would not rule out any possibility but at this stage we won’t speculate on any particular suggestions,” the city’s transport chief Frank Chan told reporters.

Lau Tin-shing, operations director of the city’s only rail company, the MTR Corporation, told media that short section of the track nearby had been replaced on Monday and the con-dition of the replacement is “not unusual”, according to his visual assessment.

Subway services between two stations on the line were sus-pended and intercity services to mainland Chinese cities were can-celled for the day.

Philippine govt attacks drug war film as ‘propaganda’AFP MANILA

A new documentary that takes a fiercely critical look at the Philippine government’s deadly drug crackdown has come under attack, with President Rodrigo Duterte’s spokesman yesterday slamming it as “prop-aganda” aimed at gullible foreign viewers.

“On The President’s Orders” is a gritty, cinematic depiction of the campaign, in which police have killed thousands, told from the perspective of authorities, and families of the dead. The documentary has won plaudits from rights cam-paigners and one film review called it a testament of “our dark age of cruelty and dehumanisation.”

Duterte spokesman Sal-vador Panelo said the film was being used to “espouse a one-sided information bordering to black propaganda aimed at gul-lible foreign audiences who know little or zero-knowledge about the Philippines”.

Panelo said any questions the film raised about the drug war were based on the film-makers’ effort to create a “thrilling” film.

Four dead in Kyrgyz-Tajik border clashesAFP BISHKEK, KYRGYZSTAN

A shootout at the contested frontier between Central Asian Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan killed three Tajik and one Kyrgyz border officer, authorities said yesterday, as tensions in the region escalate.

Flare-ups are common at the border, where large areas are not demarcated and com-petition for scarce land and water pits ethnic groups against each other.

Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan accused each other of opening fire first on Monday, with Kyr-gyzstan saying fighting broke out after the Tajik side erected a “military observation point” without agreement.

Tajik authorities said three officers were killed in the clashes and were buried yes-terday, the Tajik service of Radio Free Europe reported.

Earlier, they said “several” Tajiks had been injured in the shootout.

Kyrgyzstan said that 13 of its citizens were injured as well as the 40-year-old officer who was killed.

The country’s foreign min-ister said yesterday it had called in Tajik ambassador Sukhrob Olimzoda to protest the “illegal actions” of Tajikistan’s border service.

Kyrgyz Prime Minister Mukhammetkalyi Abylgaziev travelled to the remote region following the clash.

Kyrgyz leader Sooronbai Jeenbekov met with Tajik coun-terpart Emomali Rakhmon in July at talks hailed as historic, but no further progress has been made on demarcating the frontier.

As well as closing its embassy, Taipei will also scrap aid programmes focused on agriculture and health, while the students currently on scholarships in Taiwan will reportedly have to return home.

15WEDNESDAY 18 SEPTEMBER 2019 EUROPE

UK top court hears challenge to Parliament suspension REUTERS LONDON

Boris Johnson could recall Parliament if Britain’s highest court rules he unlawfully suspended it, a government lawyer said yesterday, after judges heard the prime minister wanted a shutdown because it was an obstacle to his Brexit plans.

Johnson announced on August 28 that he had asked Queen Elizabeth to prorogue, or suspend, Parliament for five weeks from last week until October 14. He said the shutdown was necessary to allow him to introduce a new legislative agenda.

Opponents said the real reason was to prevent scrutiny and challenges by Parliament — where he now has no majority — to his Brexit policy, especially his promise to leave the European Union by October 31 even if no divorce deal has been agreed.

They want the Supreme Court, the United Kingdom’s highest judicial body, to rule Johnson’s actions were illegal. Critics, including rebels thrown out of his Conservative Party over Brexit, say he should resign if that is its decision.

“The consequence (of his advice to the monarch being ruled unlawful) could be that he goes to the queen and seeks the recall of parliament,” Richard

Keen, the government’s chief law officer in Scotland, told the court. However, Keen was unable to rule out that Johnson might then look to suspend par-liament again. In a damning judgement last Wednesday, Scotland’s highest court said the suspension was unlawful and an “egregious” attempt to stymie parliament.

However, a week earlier the High Court of England and Wales rejected a similar case, saying the matter was political and not something judges should interfere in.

All 11 judges on the Supreme Court will now decide on a crucial question: how far Brit-ain’s unwritten constitution limits the power of the prime minister and whether Johnson’s advice to the queen was therefore illegal.

“That this is a serious and difficult question of law is amply demonstrated by the fact that three senior judges in Scotland have reached a different con-clusion from three senior judges in England and Wales,” said Brenda Hale, president of the Supreme Court. Illustrating the deep social divisions wrought by

the EU issue, angry groups of rival Brexit and pro-European supporters shouted abuse at each other outside court.

Launching the legal chal-lenge to Johnson’s decision — by a mixture of anti-Brexit cam-paigners and opposition law-makers — David Pannick said there was strong evidence the prime minister wanted to silence parliament because he saw it as an obstacle.

No premier had abused the prorogation power in this way for at least 50 years, Pannick told the court. “He... wished to avoid what he saw as the risk that par-liament would take action to frustrate or damage the policies of his government,” he said.

He said it was “remarkable” Johnson had not provided a witness statement spelling out his reasons for the prorogation and that the court could draw adverse inference from that.

Johnson has said the current session of parliament was longer than any since the English Civil war in the 17th century, and that lawmakers would have plenty of time to discuss Brexit again after an EU summit on October 17-18.

Demonstrators protesting outside the Supreme court in central London on the first day of the hearing into the decision by the government to prorogue the Parliament, yesterday.

‘No-deal Brexit like burning your house down’AFP BOURNEMOUTH, UNITED

KINGDOM

Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson warned in her party conference speech yesterday that a no-deal Brexit would be like “burning your house down” as she pledged to cancel Britain’s departure from the EU alto-gether.

The pro-EU Lib Dems have capitalised on the squabbles within the two main parties over Brexit, seeing their polling numbers soar after pitching

themselves as the party to overturn the result of the 2016 referendum.

“The first task is clear. We must stop Brexit,” said Swinson during her maiden conference speech as party leader.

“We are crystal clear: a Liberal Democrat majority gov-ernment will revoke Article 50 on day one,” she added, referring to the legal mechanism that has set in motion Britain’s departure from the European Union.

“There is no Brexit that will be good for our country.” The party came second in the recent

European parliamentary elec-tions, leapfrogging both the gov-erning Conservatives and oppo-sition Labour Party.

Its unequivocal support for the EU was demonstrated when prominent MEP Guy Verhofstadt, who has been heading up the European parliament’s efforts on Brexit, was invited to give a con-ference speech earlier in the week. The Lib Dems have wooed MPs who support EU mem-bership from both main parties and is set to perform well in a general election which many believe is imminent.

Renzi to leave Democratic PartyREUTERS ROME

Former Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi announced yesterday he was leaving the centre-left Democratic Party (PD) to set up a new party, in a move that raised tensions in the new ruling coalition and could undermine its stability.

Renzi, who led a PD gov-ernment from 2014-2016, had a leading role in forming the coa-lition this month after Matteo Salvini’s hard-right League walked out of an alliance with the 5-Star Movement in the vain hope of triggering an early election.

Renzi stressed that his new party would continue to back the government, but his former col-leagues and Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte were still dis-mayed by a decision analysts say may threaten the government’s medium term prospects.

“I have decided to leave the Democratic Party and to build a new house together with others”, Renzi wrote on Facebook.

The 5-Star/PD coalition will now have to rely for their majority on a new party with its

own agenda, complicating policy negotiations.

“This is not a mortal threat to the government yet, but it increases fragmentation and makes its prospects less rosy,” said Francesco Galietti, head of political risk consultancy Policy Sonar.

The spread between yields on Italian benchmark bonds and German Bunds widened to 140 basis points from 133 on Monday.

Conte, a technocrat close to 5-Star, said he was “puzzled” by Renzi’s move, which altered the political balance in parliament and was badly timed just after the government was formed, according to a statement issued by Conte’s office.

However, in an interview with la Repubblica daily, Renzi said his new party would enlarge the government’s majority.

Earlier this week two PD deputies close to Renzi said he could attract lawmakers from Silvio Berlusconi’s centre-right Forza Italia party, whose support has plunged since 2018 elections, leaving space in the political centre-ground.

Renzi’s supporters hope to fill that room ahead of a widely

expected proportional reform of the electoral law which is seen enhancing the bargaining power of small parties.

Renzi said he would take some 30 lower house deputies and senators with him. The coa-lition, which also includes the left-wing LEU party, is just eight votes above the minimum threshold in the upper house Senate, where the PD has 51 lawmakers.

It has a much more com-fortable majority in the Chamber of Deputies, where the PD has 111 seats.

“We are sorry, breaking up the PD is a mistake”, PD leader Nicola Zingaretti, who is from the PD’s left, wrote on Facebook.

Culture minister Dario Franceschini, one of the PD’s most influential figures, com-pared his former leader’s breakaway to the political divi-sions that led to fascism in the 1920s.

5-Star leader and Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio made light of his move, telling the Ansa news agency it was “no sur-prise.” Renzi has had an abrasive relationship with his former party.

A military vehicle is parked at the scene where an Italian soldier was stabbed outside the central station, in Milan, Italy, yesterday.

Italy police probe attack on soldierAFP ROME

Italy’s anti-terrorism police opened an investigation yesterday into the stabbing of a soldier by a Yemeni man, who has been arrested, Italian media said.

The 23-year old attacked the soldier outside Milan’s central station, lightly wounding him in the neck before being detained

by other soldiers who were patrolling the area, the reports said. While some media said he was wielding a paperknife, the Repubblica daily said he used a pair of scissors and stabbed the soldier, 34, in the back as well as the neck. The wounds were superficial, the daily said.

The man had been reported to police on Monday after allegedly trying to attack people in the station with a pen, the reports said.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel shaking hands with King Abdullah II of Jordan after they gave a joint press conference following bilateral talks at the Chancellery, in Berlin, yesterday.

Merkel criticises Netanyahu’s plan to annex Jordan ValleyREUTERS BERLIN

German Chancellor Angela Merkel yesterday criticised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s announcement last week that he intended to annex the Jordan Valley in the occupied West Bank, saying it hurt efforts to negotiate a peace deal.

“The German government backs an internationally nego-tiated peace solution in the sense of a two state solution.

“Annexations are always det-rimental to peace solutions. They do not help and therefore we do not agree,” said Merkel at a news conference with Jordan’s King Abdullah.

The plan announced by Netanyahu, who faced a closely fought election yesterday, was “a disaster for any attempt to push two-state solution forward”, said King Abdullah.

Italy insists Malta take in migrants it wanted rescuedAFP ROME

Valletta yesterday appeared to refuse to take in around 90 migrants it had asked the Italian coastguard to rescue in Malta’s own Mediterranean search and rescue area, officials said.

“Last night a rescue oper-ation was carried out at the Maltese authorities’ request of a small boat with around 90 migrants which was fully in Malta’s area of (search and rescue) responsibility,” the Italian coastguard said in a statement.

“The Maltese search and rescue coordination centre offi-cially said it was taking respon-sibility for the coordination and asked Italian authorities about the availability and use of naval means,” it said.

The Italian coastguard went to the migrants’ rescue, took them on board and then requested a rendez-vous with a Maltese vessel to transboard or disembark “but did not obtain it,” the coastguard said.

“So far there’s no per-mission,” a Maltese coastguard spokeswoman confirmed, asking not to be named.

Italy and Malta frequently complain of having to take unfair responsibility for migrants making the perilous journey from North Africa as they are the first countries they will likely reach. Both countries have previously adopted hardline attitudes against charity vessels which rescue migrants who mostly depart from Libya in flimsy dinghies.

Under international law, a country is not obliged to allow rescue vessels operating in its search and rescue area to dis-embark on its own territory.

Italian flagged vessels are also considered Italian territory under international law.

“Italian coastguard vessels with the rescued migrants on board are heading for Maltese territorial waters pending receiving instructions from the Maltese authorities,” the Italian coastguard said.

Russian guards injured in clash with N Korean poachersAFP/MOSCOW

Three Russian coast guards were injured yesterday in a clash with North Korean fishing boats in the Sea of Japan, after which 80 fishermen were detained, Russia’s FSB security service said.

The FSB security service, which controls the border and coast guard, said in a statement that guards observed two fishing vessels and 11 motor boats while on duty in Russian waters of the Sea of Japan.

The larger boat’s crew attacked officers who boarded the vessel, and three officers received injuries, the FSB said.

Both vessels were even-tually detained.

Johnson says parliament’s shutdown was necessary to allow him to introduce a new legislative agenda, but opponents say the real reason is to prevent scrutiny and challenges by parliament to PM’s Brexit policy

16 WEDNESDAY 18 SEPTEMBER 2019EUROPE

House of Ukraine’s former top central banker set on fireAP MINSK

The home of Ukraine’s former central bank chief has been burned to the ground, the third chilling incident involving the banker over the past few weeks.

Police said in a statement yesterday that they are investi-gating a suspected arson attack late Monday on the house of Valeria Gontareva outside the capital, Kiev.

An unknown assailant is said to have hurled a gasoline bomb over the fence of her property. Firefighters were unable to put out the blaze.

Gontareva, who is currently a senior policy fellow at the Institute of Global Affairs in London, was also hit by a car at the end of August, and earlier that month a car registered to her daughter-in-law was set on fire in Kiev.

Gontareva has said she has received threats from Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoyskyi, who lost his PrivatBank to a gov-ernment nationalisation that was carried out while Gontareva was at the helm of the central bank in 2016.

K o l o m o y s k y i , w h o

previously publicly promised to send a plane to London to bring Gontareva home, has denied involvement in the incidents. He insisted that his comments in an interview about “helping” Gon-tareva back home were not a threat.

Gontareva has been at log-gerheads with Kolomoyskyi after she proposed to nationalize

PrivatBank. The government ended up injecting $6bn into the struggling lender following the move.

Iuliia Mendel, spokeswoman for Ukrainian President Volo-dymyr Zelenskiy, said in a tweet Tuesday that the president “expects the relevant agencies to investigate this provocation as soon as possible.

The arrival of Zelenskiy has stoked speculation that the decision to nationalise the bank could be reviewed.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk yesterday dismissed reports that the gov-ernment is considering reversing that decision though he said it looking into how the nationali-zation was conducted.

A law enforcement officer walks at a site of a burnt house, which is reportedly owned by former Governor of the Ukrainian Central Bank, Valeria Gontareva, in Kiev, yesterday.

Greta Thunberg wins Amnesty’s highest human rights awardAFP WASHINGTON

Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg and the Fridays for Future youth movement received Amnesty International’s “Ambassadors of Conscience” award yesterday, days before a major UN climate summit in New York.

The 16-year-old, who is taking a year out of school, received a standing ovation from students at The George Wash-ington University in US capital where the ceremony was held.

“The politics required to take on this crisis simply doesn’t exist today,” Thunberg said, standing on a step to reach the microphone.

“That is why every single one of us must push from every pos-sible angle to hold those respon-sible accountable and to make the people in power act.”

She added that the prize was not just for her but the millions of youth who have taken part since last year in weekly school strikes held every Friday, inspired by the sit-in she began outside Sweden’s parliament in

August last year.The next of these will be held

on September 20, a day when Thunberg and thousands of New York students are expected to pour into the streets as part of a “global climate strike” along with other protests around the world.

That will be followed on Sat-urday by the first Youth Climate Summit at the UN and the Climate Action Summit on Monday, which the UN chief has convened because the world’s biggest polluters remain woe-fully behind their greenhouse gas emissions targets.

Thunberg spoke forcefully yesterday about the “destruction” of the planet and the large scale deaths that would come about as a result of climate change, water and air pollution and the destruction of food chains.

But she said she also saw an “awakening.”

“Even though it is slow, the pace is picking up and the debate is shifting,” she said, before con-cluding “See you on the street!”

Earlier, Kumi Naidoo, the secretary-general of Amnesty International, said that Thunberg and other youth activists had

already had a significant impact and that the UK’s parliament declared a climate emergency after the teen met with British political leaders.

“The award is about acknowledging that they’ve already done something that many of us who’ve been involved for decades have not been able to do, they’ve been able to actually inspire a much larger number of people,” he said.

“These young, high school students are playing a very important role in educating their own parents.”

EU’s Tusk backs North Macedonia’s membershipANATOLIA ANKARA

Outgoing European Council President Donald Tusk yesterday reiterated his strong support for the accession of North Macedonia to the bloc.

“I expressed my personal views clearly back in June: your country, within the last two years, has done everything that was expected of you for the EU to be able to launch the nego-tiations in line with the European Commission’s recommendation.

“That continues to be my strong conviction. Your country has done everything,” Tusk said after meeting with North Mac-edonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev.

Tusk — due to be succeeded this December by Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel — praised North Macedonia’s efforts over the past years, including the name dispute with Greece.

He also said that there is no doubt in Brussels about North Macedonia’s political com-mitment to the rule of law and

to fighting corruption.“Skopje is the best possible

place where I would like to appeal to the leaders of the European Union: Now you do your share. Because North Macedonia has already done its

share,” Tusk said.North Macedonia, formerly

known as Macedonia, changed its name under a June 2018 agreement with Greece, ending a longstanding dispute between the two countries.

In June, the EU Council wel-comed the historic Agreement and took good note of the EU Commission’s recommendation to open accession negotiations with North Macedonia, and also Albania.

REUTERS MADRID

Spain is on course to hold its fourth election in four years as a deadline approaches for forming a new government without any sign of agreement.

Politicians and sources on all sides cast doubt on the chances of breaking five months of deadlock since an inconclusive election before next Monday’s deadline.

If there is no breakthrough, a new election will be held on November 10. Although the economy has not suffered greatly, economic analysts say further delays in implementing reforms in areas such as labour and pensions could finally start to bite.

Spain, which has the fourth largest economy in the European Union’s euro currency zone, has been in political limbo since Pedro Sanchez’s Socialists emerged as the biggest party in April’s election but failed to secure a parliamentary majority.

Party leaders have spent more time publicly blaming each other for the impasse than negotiating, and a flurry of last-minute calls and initiatives failed to achieve a breakthrough.

“It’s meant to show that they tried until the end,” a source close

to the talks said.The centre-right Ciudadanos

party offered on Monday to help Sanchez secure parliament’s con-firmation as prime minister if certain conditions were met, but Sanchez said his party was already meeting the conditions.

Ciudadanos accused him of lying in his response and said it could back him only if he complied with all their demands.

“His response ... is a joke on all Spaniards. I’m asking him to rectify, to go back to constitutionality and allow to unblock Spain,” Ciu-dadanos leader Albert Rivera wrote on Twitter.

Opinion polls show a new election might not end the impasse, with the Socialists still unable to win enough seats in the 350-seat parliament to secure a majority on their own.

The conservative People’s Party (PP), which was second in April’s election, said it would vote against Sanchez.

All the main party leaders met or were due to meet King Felipe VI today and were expected to tell him whether they would back Sanchez’s bid to become premier.

Pablo Iglesias, leader of far-left Unidas Podemos, reaffirmed after meeting the king that he would support Sanchez’s confirmation only if he agrees to a coalition gov-ernment. The Socialists have ruled out a coalition government with Podemos.

Iglesias said it would be “rea-sonable” for King Felipe to allow more time for talks but EFE news agency cited sources close to the king saying there would be no delay.

Russia says no threat after blast in laboratory holding smallpox virusAFP MOSCOW

Russia has said there is no threat of contamination after an explosion and fire at a Soviet-era biological weapons facility in Siberia that stocked samples of the Ebola and smallpox viruses.

The blast happened on Monday at “Vector”, a state-run virus and biotechnology research centre that is one of only two locations in the

world to hold the smallpox virus. The Russian health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor said a fire broke out when a gas cylinder exploded, injuring one worker at the facility.

Glass was broken but the structure of the building remained intact and there were no biohazardous mate-rials in the room where the explosion happened, the watchdog said.

T h e b l a s t n e a r

Novosibirsk, the country’s third most populous city, is the latest to hit Russian state facilities this year.

In August, one person died and thousands had to be evac-uated because of a fire at a Siberian ammunition depot that set off a series of dra-matic explosions.

Later the same month, an explosion at a missile testing site in the far north killed five nuclear agency staff and caused a spike in radiation.

Spain looks set for new election as talks stall

Police clear major migrant camp in northern FranceAFP GRANDE-SYNTHE

French police began clearing around 1,000 migrants from a gymnasium near the northern port of Dunkirk yesterday after a court ruled it was a health and security hazard.

The mayor of Grande-Synthe in December last year opened up the sports hall to migrant families seeking shelter from the cold.

Since then, it has grown into a makeshift camp with around 800 people sleeping in tents pitched around the crammed gymnasium where some 170 people to reach Britain had been sheltering.

Young men travelling alone were the first to board buses that will take them to shelters around the region, where they can apply for asylum.

Families were to be moved later.

A court in the regional city of Lille ordered the gym-nasium shut on September 4 following complaints from local authorities and residents about violence, garbage and the presence of people-smug-glers among the migrants.

North Macedonia’s Prime Minister Zoran Zaev (left) welcomes European Council President, Donald Tusk, upon his arrival in Skopje, yesterday.

Slovak PM survives no-confidence voteREUTERS BRATISLAVA

Slovak Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini survived a no-confi-dence vote yesterday, days after losing his formal majority in parliament and as revelations about the reach of the main suspect in the murder of a jour-nalist shake his government.

The 2018 killings of investi-gative reporter Jan Kuciak and his fiancee Martina Kusnirova shone a spotlight on corruption in Slovakia and sparked huge protests that forced then-Prime Minister Robert Fico to resign.

Kuciak had uncovered fraud cases involving politically con-nected businessmen. A subject of his reportage was Marian Kocner, one of five people now awaiting trial for the killings and an acquaintance of politicians from various parties.

Four of those charged, including Kocner, have pleaded not guilty, while the fifth has confessed to shooting Kuciak.

Special prosecutors said last month that Kocner’s phone showed communications with

“representatives of state bodies and the justice system”. A deputy justice minister resigned this month after her mobile phone was seized by the police, although she denied any con-tacts with Kocner.

Two deputy general prose-cutors had already resigned over their contacts with Kocner or a woman also charged in the case.

Slovak media published parts of messages Kocner allegedly exchanged with the charged woman and with business allies in which they discuss his alleged contacts among the authorities.

Pellegrini has not been shown to have been in contact with Kocner but opposition parties called a no-confidence vote when he refused to remove the deputy minister who later quit.

He won yesterday with support from independents after the departure of two lawmakers from a junior coalition party this week cost the government its formal majority in the 150-member parliament. Of 131 law-makers present, 62 voted against Pellegrini while 66 backed him.

The conservative People’s Party, which was second in April’s election, said it would vote against Pedro Sanchez.

17WEDNESDAY 18 SEPTEMBER 2019 AMERICAS

Data breach exposes millions of EcuadoriansAP QUITO

Millions of Ecuadorians are at risk of identity theft because a security breach exposed a trove of data including names, phone numbers and birth dates, a cyber security firm said.

Researchers at vpnMentor said the problem stemmed from an unsecured server located in Miami that contained infor-mation on over 20 million indi-viduals, most of whom reside in Ecuador.

The small South American nation is home to just over 17 million people, meaning nearly

everyone could have been exposed.

Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno said he would push through legislation to ensure stricter data security, while Interior Minister María Paula Romo vowed to hold those responsible accountable.

“The information we’ve received is very serious,” she said.

Experts said Ecuador does not have mechanisms in place requiring companies to protect personal data.

According to vpnMentor, the server in question is owned by Ecuadorian company Novaestrat,

which did not respond to requests for comment.

It wasn’t immediately clear if anyone had wrongfully accessed the data. And while vpnMentor said the breach was closed on Wednesday, it also noted the impact can be long lasting.

The information could potentially be used to commit everything from phone scam to business fraud.

“A malicious party with access to the leaked data could possibly gather enough infor-mation to gain access to bank accounts and more,” the firm said in a statement.

The data includes national identity card numbers, tax iden-tification numbers and even names of relatives.

The researchers said WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is among those in the database. The Ecuadorian gov-ernment granted Assange citi-zenship during his nearly seven-year stay at the nation’s London embassy. According to the firm, researchers found his name and what is believed to be a national identity number.

The breach is one of several large-scale security lapses exposing the personal data of millions this year.

US, Belarus to restore ambassadorsAFP MINSK

The United States and Belarus are preparing to exchange ambassadors after more than a decade-long freeze, a senior US diplomat said yesterday.

US Undersecretary for Political Affairs David Hale met with Belarusian President Alex-ander Lukashenko as Wash-ington looks to improve ties with the isolated regime in Minsk.

In a statement released by the US embassy after the talks, Hale said US-Belarus relations were at a “historic juncture”.

“It is my honour to announce that we are prepared to exchange ambassadors as the next step in normalising our

relationship,” he said.Hale did not say when the

ambassadors, who were with-drawn from both capitals in 2008 in a row over sanctions, might return.

Washington eased sanctions against Belarus in 2016.

Hale said that if Minsk shows more progress during upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections “we can discuss further easing of sanctions”.

Belarus will hold parlia-mentary elections this year and presidential polls in 2020.

Often dubbed “Europe’s last dictatorship”, Belarus has been the target of Western sanctions over its poor rights record and lack of fair elections.

Hale also pointed out that

Washington did not ask Belarus “to choose between East and West,” saying it respected Bela-rus’s “desire to chart its own course”.

T h e 6 5 - y e a r - o l d Lukashenko is a key ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarus’s improvement in ties with Washington comes amid apparent Kremlin pressure for closer ties between Moscow and Minsk.

During the talks with Hale yesterday, Lukashenko also said he wanted to improve ties with Washington.

Hale’s visit follows a trip to Belarus last month by then-national security advisor John Bolton aimed at improving US relations with Minsk.

Lewandowski defends Trump at impeachment hearing

Belarusian President, Alexander Lukashenko (left) meets with US Undersecretary for Political Affairs, David Hale, in Minsk, yesterday.

New parent charged in admissions scam, linked to $400,000 bribeAP BOSTON

A woman accused of paying $400,000 to get her son into the University of California, Los Angeles, as a fake soccer recruit has become the 52nd person charged in a sweeping college admissions bribery scheme, according to an indictment unsealed yesterday.

Xiaoning Sui, 48, of Surrey, British Columbia, was charged with a single count of conspiracy and fraud in the indictment unsealed in Boston’s federal court. Authorities said she was arrested in Spain on Monday night and was being held there while authorities seek to

extradite her to the US.Sui is the first person to be

charged since June, when parent Jeffrey Bizzack pleaded guilty to paying $250,000 to get his son into the University of Southern California as a fake athlete. Dozens of others were charged in March when authorities announced the investigation.

Prosecutors said Sui paid $400,000 to a sham charity operated by admissions con-sultant William “Rick” Singer as part of a scheme to have her son admitted to UCLA as a fake soccer recruit. Sui is accused of pro-viding Singer her son’s transcript and photos of him playing tennis.

Singer worked with Laura Janke, a former assistant soccer

coach at USC, to fabricate an ath-letic profile depicting Sui’s son as a top player on two private soccer clubs in Canada, prose-cutors said. Both Singer and Janke have pleaded guilty.

Sui’s son was admitted to UCLA as a soccer player in November 2018, authorities said, and was awarded a 25% schol-arship. It is unclear whether her son still attends the school.

The scandal has ensnared dozens of wealthy parents accused of paying bribes to rig their children’s SAT and ACT scores or get them admitted as recruited athletes to elite schools across the nation, including Yale, Stanford and Georgetown universities.

Bolsonaro set to resume dutiesBLOOMBERG/BRASILIA

Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro was released from hospital in Sao Paulo and will return to work today, a day earlier than planned, according to a statement from the presidency.

A tweet by Government Secretary Luiz Ramos showed Bolsonaro landing in Brasilia on Monday afternoon.

Presidential spokesman Otavio Rego Barros had said that Bolsonaro would rest for two days in Alvorada. But the office of the presidency issued a statement after Bolsonaro’s arrival in Brasilia saying he would resume his duties today.

Trump rallies backers in New Mexico in bid to turn state redAP RIO RANCHO

President Donald Trump made a pocketbook appeal for re-election in the Democratic-leaning state of New Mexico, telling voters that his energy policies have made the state wealthier and warning that the gains could disappear if the proposal knows as the Green New Deal takes effect.

“The Democrats want to completely annihilate New Mex-ico’s economy,” claimed Trump, who boasted that an oil and gas boom during his administration has helped increase the state’s revenues. “The Democrats will never get the chance because New Mexico will never give them that chance.”

Trump went to New Mexico, which has not backed a Repub-lican for president since 2004, to try to turn the state red and expand his grip on the Electoral College in next year’s presi-dential election.

“It’s been quite a while since a Republican won this state,” Trump told supporters, who greeted him with chants of “USA, USA.” ‘’I think we’re going to do great here. We’re here because we really think we’re going to turn this state and make it a Republican state.”

Trump’s rally in Rio Rancho,

in suburban Albuquerque, is the first stop on a three-day swing that will also take him to Cali-fornia for fundraisers expected to raise more than $15m.

Trump has generally held his rallies in Republican-friendly terrain.

Yesterday’s rally represents a striking departure from that practice and demonstrates a campaign with the resources to try to turn a few Democratic-leaning states his way, similar to what happened in 2016 with Michigan and Wisconsin.

Trump captured just 40% of the state vote in 2016, as com-pared to the 48% that went for Hillary Clinton. She did not visit the state during the 2016 campaign.

Still, campaign officials said a Trump rally in nearby El Paso, Texas, last February was well attended by female and Hispanic voters and travelers from New Mexico, indicating to them that New Mexico is in play.

Hundreds of people showed up early Monday to claim a place in line ahead of the evening event in Rio Rancho.

Trump’s efforts in New Mexico will provide a test of how well his often-harsh rhetoric about immigrants will play with Hispanic voters, who comprise nearly 40% of New Mexico’s electorate.

REUTERS WASHINGTON

Corey Lewandowski, President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager and close confidant, yesterday vigorously defended his former boss and lashed out at Democrats but repeatedly avoided answering their questions during a chaotic hearing before a US congres-sional panel considering whether to impeach Trump.

Lewandowski, who is con-sidering running for a US Senate seat from New Hampshire, tangled with Democratic members of the House of Rep-resentatives Judiciary Committee and told the panel he would refuse to answer any questions about his conversations with Trump. The president’s fellow Republicans unsuccessfully sought to have the hearing adjourned shortly after it began.

Lewandowski was the first impeachment witness to appear before the committee since former Special Counsel Robert Mueller testified in July about his inquiry that detailed Russian 2016 election interference and Trump’s actions to impede the investigation.

“We as a nation would be better served if elected officials like yourselves concentrated

your efforts to combat the true crises facing our country as opposed to going down rabbit holes like this hearing,” Lewand-owski said in his opening remarks to the Democratic-led panel.

The White House on Monday told Lewandowski not to discuss conversations he had with Trump after he became president including an exchange that Dem-ocrats view as evidence that Trump committed obstruction of justice by trying to interfere in a federal investigation and may need to be impeached.

White House lawyers sat behind Lewandowski during the hearing.

Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, a Democrat, began the hearing by slamming the White House’s legal team for instructing Lewandowski to limit the scope of his testimony by invoking a doctrine called executive priv-ilege. “We should call this what it is: an absolute cover-up by the White House,” Nadler said.

“The White House is advancing a new and dangerous

theory: the crony privilege,” Nadler added. “... Where are the limits?”

Lewandowski repeatedly avoided answering questions from Nadler and other Demo-crats, citing the White House’s instructions that he not discuss post-election interactions with Trump beyond those already detailed in Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the election.

Lewandowski sparred with Democratic Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, accusing her of delivering a “rant.” Jackson Lee said Lewandowski was avoiding questions and inter-rupting her. Lewandowski faced friendlier questions from Repub-lican lawmakers.

Lewandowski assailed the federal investigation into Russian interference in the 2020 election.

“It is now clear the investi-gation was populated by many Trump haters who had their own agenda — to try and take down a duly elected president of the United States. As for actual ‘col-lusion’ or ‘conspiracy,’ there was

none. What there has been however, is harassment of the president from the day he won the election,” Lewandowski added.

Trump said on Twitter that Lewandowski had given a “such a beautiful” opening statement. Trump in August sought to boost Lewandowski’s potential Senate bid, calling his former aide “a

fantastic guy” who would make a “great senator” and that “I like everything about him.”

Democrats asked Lewand-owski about the president’s effort to persuade then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to redirect the Mueller probe away from the 2016 Trump election campaign. The episode is among a number of incidents contained in

Mueller’s 448-page investigative report made public in April that Democrats view as evidence that Trump obstructed justice.

Democratic Representative Steve Cohen asked Lewand-owski, “You didn’t think that it was illegal to obstruct justice?”

“The president never asked me to do anything illegal,” Lewandowski said.

Corey Lewandowski is seated to testify before the US House Judiciary Committee’s first hearing of US President Donald Trump’s impeachment investigation on Capitol Hill, in Washington, DC, yesterday.

We as a nation would be better served if elected officials like you concentrated your efforts to combat the true crises facing our country as opposed to going down rabbit holes like this hearing: Corey Lewandowski

18 WEDNESDAY 18 SEPTEMBER 2019AMERICAS

Trudeau reassures allies over intelligence breachAFP OTTAWA

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau yesterday sought to reassure Canada’s allies over security after a senior police intelligence officer was accused of stealing highly classified materials that, if released, could be “potentially devastating.”

Cameron Ortis served as the director-general of national intelligence coordination for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) before his arrest last Thursday.

The next day he was formally charged with accessing secrets and unauthorised communi-cation of special operational information.

Trudeau, campaigning for re-election, told reporters at a

small train station in St. John’s, Newfoundland that Canadian officials had reached out to allies about the security breach.

“We’re working with them to reassure them, but we want to ensure that everyone under-stands that we’re taking this sit-uation very seriously,” he said.

A senior police intelligence officer, Ortis was undone by US authorities’ discovery of an internal police document in

criminal hands, said Canadian media.

The daily Globe and Mail said US authorities discovered in 2018 the RCMP document on the seized laptop of a Vancouver businessman with ties to organized crime, triggering the investigation that led to Ortis.

Ortis had reportedly emailed Phantom Secure Communica-tions founder and key adminis-trator Vincent Ramos in 2018, to offer him “valuable” information, said public broadcaster CBC.

Ramos, whose company police estimate made more than $80m selling encrypted mobile phones to drug traffickers and money launderers between 2008 and 2018, pleaded guilty to rack-eteering in an American court in May and was sentenced to nine years in prison.

The RCMP looked at anyone with access to the internal doc-ument, eventually focusing on Ortis.

Ortis “had access to infor-mation the Canadian intelligence community possessed,” RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki said in a statement Monday. “He also had access to intelligence coming from our allies both domestically and internationally.”

“We are aware of the potential risk to agency opera-tions of our partners in Canada and abroad,” the statement said, adding that the investigation is ongoing.

Lucki did not specify which foreign organisations may have been exposed to the theft of secrets, which allegedly took place between 2016 and 2019, though Canada is a member of

the “Five Eyes” intelligence alliance with Australia, New Zealand, Britain and the US.

Ortis had access to material that could cause a “high” degree of damage to the country and its allies, if released, with “poten-tially devastating” consequences, the CBC said, citing a report pre-pared by Canadian intelligence services.

“Analysis of the contents of the reports could reasonably lead a foreign intelligence agency to draw significant conclusions about allied and Canadian intel-ligence targets, techniques, methods and capabilities,” the report said.

“This type of information is among the most highly protected of national security assets, by any government standard and goes to the heart of Canada’s sover-

eignty and security,” it said.The Globe and Mail reported

Saturday that Ortis’s arrest was linked to a major investigation into the laundering of stolen Russian funds.

Ortis, 47, as recently as August was said to be overseeing a probe into whether some of the money was funneled through Canada.

According to the newspaper, the corruption investigation was looking at a $230m fraud scheme allegedly run by senior Russian interior ministry and tax officials.

Ortis, who has worked for the RCMP since 2007, faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted of the five charges brought against him under Canada’s criminal code and its Security of Information Act.

Venezuela government, oppn leaders agree on new dialogue processANATOLIA ANKARA

The Venezuelan government and five opposition party leaders announced they agreed on starting a new dialogue process to tackle problems in the nation.

Main opposition leader Juan Guaido was not part of the new deal announced yesterday and he said the Norway-mediated negotiations are ‘’finished.’’

The development comes six weeks after President Nicolas Maduro’s government walked away from negotiations, citing the US administration’s mounting sanctions on the OPEC nation.

‘’I welcome the signing of the agreements reached at the Dia-logue Table with the opposition,’’ Maduro wrote on Twitter in cele-bration of the new agreements.

‘’It is a step to move towards living together and peace. All the doors of dialogue will remain open for the tranquility of all Venezuelans,’’ he added.

The Mesa Nacional, or

National Table, process will reportedly focus on future elec-tions, prisoner release and a united opposition to the US blockade.

Opposition deputy Timoteo Zambrano of Cambiemos, and Claudio Fermin from Solutions for Venezuela party voiced support to the agreements, saying that both parties joined talks in a bid to ‘’remove the obstacles that damage democracy’’ of Venezuela. They also said they reject hostile measures against Venezuela.

“We’re betting on peace for a concerted effort; Venezuelans are not going to allow the country to miss this opportunity for dialogue,” Fermin said after signing of the agreement before slamming Guaido for wasting an opportunity in Norway.

“The deputy Juan Guaido, as we have witnessed, has had an extraordinary opportunity with the dialogues in Norway … what does he propose? Violence? Crossing his arms? Surrender to the will of external forces?” she

said, according to the TeleSur TV channel.

Felipe Mujica, MAS; Fermín, Luis Romero, Avanzada Pro-gresist,; Pedro Veliz, Bandera Roja and Zambrano signed the agreement on behalf of their parties.

Turkey was one of the first countries to hail the agreement

reached between the gov-ernment and opposition parties in Venezuela.

A statement from the foreign ministry yesterday focused on Turkey’s ‘’principled position for the resolution of the current dis-agreements in Venezuela through the preferences of the Venezuelan People’’ since the

start of the current political crisis in the country in January.

‘’We welcome the agreement reached between the Venezuelan Government and several oppo-sition parties yesterday in Caracas. We consider this devel-opment as a significant and encouraging step towards a solution,’’ it read.

Venezuela’s Vice-President Delcy Rodriguez (left) and Venezuelan opposition deputy Timoteo Zambrano after signing an agreement for the government’s return to Parliament, during a meeting at the Foreign Ministry in Caracas, yesterday.

Teen sentenced to 20 years for terror linkAP FORT WORTH

A Texas teenager has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for recruiting fighters on behalf of a Pakistan-based terrorist organisation.

Eighteen-year-old Michael Kyle Sewell was sentenced in federal court in Fort Worth after pleading guilty in May to a charge of conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization.

Authorities said Sewell tried to recruit a fellow American to join Lashkar-e-Taiba, the mil-itant group behind a 2008 attack in India’s financial capital of Mumbai that killed 166.

Sewell put the person in contact with someone he thought would facilitate overseas travel to join the terror group. But authorities said that third person was an undercover FBI agent .

The Canadian media reported that Cameron Ortis was undone by US authorities’ discovery of an internal police document in criminal hands.

US narcotics agent admits role in drug trafficking schemeAP NEW YORK

A federal narcotics agent scheduled to stand trial this month has pleaded guilty to participating in a decadelong drug conspiracy that involved the smuggling of thousands of kilograms of cocaine from Puerto Rico to New York.

Prosecutors said Fernando Gomez, a former US Marine, infiltrated the Drug Enforcement Administration in 2011 and remained a federal agent until his arrest last year, even as he assisted a drug trafficking ring

known for slaughtering its rivals.Gomez, 42, faces up to 20

years in prison and is scheduled to be sentenced November 21 in US District Court in Manhattan. His guilty plea happened last month but had not previously been reported.

A message was left with his defense attorney seeking comment.

A newly released transcript shows Gomez, in pleading guilty, admitted selling firearms to a high-volume cocaine trafficker drug dealer, Jose Martinez-Diaz, while Gomez was working as a police officer outside Chicago.

Martinez-Diaz, a member of La Organizacion de Narcotrafi-cantes Unidos, pleaded guilty this summer to distributing more than 5,000 kilograms of cocaine, drugs he smuggled from the Dominican Republic by boat.

Prosecutors said Martinez-Diaz encouraged Gomez to apply to the DEA in 2010 to further his drug trafficking.

Gomez became an agent the following year after lying during his employment screening about whether he had ties to criminals, authorities said.

As an agent assigned to the DEA’s Chicago field division,

Gomez helped Martinez-Diaz avoid detection from law enforcement and also improperly accessed DEA records about a cooperator he believed to have information about his co-conspirators, pros-ecutors said.

Gomez told US District Judge Jesse Furman he once picked up money for the drug ring that he should have known “came from illegal means.”

“DEA Special Agent Fernando Gomez violated the very laws he swore to enforce,” Manhattan US Attorney Geoffrey Berman said in a statement.

Tropical Depression Eleven forms near Texas coast: NHCREUTERS/ARANSAS COUNTY

Tropical Depression Eleven has formed near the Texas coast and is expected to produce heavy rainfall and flooding, the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said yesterday.

The depression is located about 25 km south-southwest of Freeport, Texas, packing maximum sustained winds of 55kph, the NHC said in its latest advisory.

“The center of the depression will move inland over the Upper Texas coast later today, and move farther inland Tuesday night and Wednesday,” the weather forecaster said.

Brazil’s former president Temer admits coup against Rousseff ANATOLIA ANKARA

Former Brazil president Michel Temer said the impeachment of his predecessor Dilma Rousseff was in fact a ‘’coup’’.

Speaking to TV Cultura, Temer said he “never supported or made a commitment to the coup” and even tried to stop it.

Supporters of Rousseff have long been saying that the former president’s 2016 impeachment is a ‘’masquerade’’ and her ouster a “coup” by the political rivals of popular Workers’ Party.

Temer replaced Rousseff in 2016 in a Senate-imposed mandate after his right-wing party helped impeach President Rousseff over weak claims of corruption related to irregular allocation of public funds. Rousseff did not lose time to slam Temer after he tried to whitewash his role

in the coup process. After informing her followers on

Twitter about the coup confession by former president, Roussef said: ‘’Temer did not say, however, that the 2016 coup was to frame Brazil in neoliberalism. And of course Temer denied having directly participated in the coup’’.

Temer was the vice-president of a coalition between Rousseff’s Workers’ Party and the centrist Brazilian Demo-cratic Movement party.

Temer himself has been charged many times in connection with various cor-ruption investigations and was jailed for five days in March.

The Workers’ Party ruled from 2002 until 2016 when Rousseff, the first female president of Brazil and a long-time comrade of former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva, was removed

from office through impeachment two years into her second term.

Both Lula and Rousseff have called

what has been going on in Brazil since 2016 impeachment a coup against elected leaders.

Brazil’s former president Dilma Rousseff (right) with France’s leftist party La France Insoumise (LFI) president Jean-Luc Melenchon during her visit at National Assembly’s office in Paris, yesterday.

Power outage hitsfour nations in Central AmericaAP TEGUCIGALPA

A failure in Central America’s electrical grid left millions of people without power for hours in at least four countries yesterday.

Honduras was the country hardest hit, with the entirety of its territory and its more than 9 million inhabitants affected. Traffic snarled as more than 600 stoplights went dark in the capital, Tegucigalpa.

Leonardo Deras of Hon-duras’ state electric company said at a news conference that the problem arose from an overload at a substation on the Caribbean coast.

Salvador Mansell, president of Nicaragua’s state power transmission company, Enatrel, said the blackout hit his coun-try’s capital, Managua, and its main departments, or provinces.

There are about 600,000 paying customers for electricity in the country. Internet service and water distribution in parts of the capital, which relies on pumps, were also knocked out.

Power began to be restored in the afternoon.

Honduras’ government said the process would take three or four hours.

El Salvador and Guatemala also had partial outages.

The four nations plus Costa Rica and Panama have shared a linked electrical network since the late 1980s.


HMC and Sidra Medicine highlight need for pediatric sepsis awareness

THE PENINSULA/DOHA

In recognition of World Sepsis Day, held annually on September 13, staff from Hamad Medical Corpo-ration (HMC) and Sidra Medicine have joined forces to raise awareness of the life-threating condition and to empower both medical professionals and members of the general public, specifically parents of young children, to recognize the signs of sepsis.

Dr Ibrahim Fawzy Hassan, Director of the Medical Critical Care Division and Chair of the Sepsis Steering Committee at HMC said that some people have a higher risk of developing sepsis than others.

“Sepsis happens when the immune system goes into overdrive and attacks the body’s organs and tissues. The condition can happen as a result of an infection and while anyone can develop sepsis, those with a compromised immune system, such as small children, the elderly, patients with chronic diseases and people who are on immunosuppressing medi-cation, are more prone to develop sepsis,” said Dr Hassan.

Last week Sidra Medicine hosted the 6th National Sepsis Sym-posium, in collaboration with HMC. The multidisciplinary educational event was developed for healthcare providers involved in the care of pediatric patients and highlighted recent developments in sepsis care.

Dr Mohammad Janahi, Senior Attending and Chief of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Sidra Med-icine said sepsis can be difficult to diagnose in children as the signs can be subtle. He said it’s important to ensure that both medical profes-sionals and parents have the infor-mation they need to recognise sepsis and that parents are encouraged to speak up if they are concerned.

“While anyone can develop sepsis, it’s more dangerous in children, particularly premature babies and infants as they can be more susceptible to developing sepsis due to their immune system not being fully developed. What

makes sepsis so dangerous is the simple fact that there is a lack of knowledge and awareness about the condition. We urge parents who have a child that is sick and not getting better to contact their doctor immediately so their child can be assessed. Individual symptoms don’t always mean the child has sepsis, but it is important for parents to trust their instincts if they are concerned,” said Dr Janahi. The signs and symptoms of sepsis can include fever or low temperature, fast heart rate, fast breathing, feeling cold (cold hands and feet), clammy and pale skin, confusion, dizziness, dis-orientation, shortness of breath, extreme pain or discomfort, and nausea and vomiting.

Dr Ahmed Labib, Senior Con-sultant at the Medical Intensive Care Unit at Hamad General Hos-pital and the National Sepsis Program Lead said sepsis awareness remains relatively low

among the public. He said that a lack of knowledge and awareness among patients, family members, and healthcare staff makes sepsis the number one cause of pre-ventable deaths worldwide.

“For the past five years, we have been working on developing a standardised care pathway for patients with suspected sepsis. The program has been adopted by the Ministry of Public Health as the national program for sepsis treatment and is being rolled out across Qatar’s public sector healthcare providers,” said Dr Labib.

The World Sepsis Day was established in 2012 as an initiative of the Global Health Alliance. The global annual campaign, which is supported by Qatar’s public healthcare sector, advocates pre-vention education alongside pro-moting early detection and com-prehensive evidence-based treatment measures.

The officials during the Sixth National Sepsis Symposium, hosted by Sidra Medicine in collaboration with HMC, recently.

The World Sepsis Day was established in 2012 as an initiative of the Global Health Alliance. The global annual campaign, which is supported by Qatar’s public healthcare sector, advocates prevention education alongside promoting early detection and comprehensive evidence-based treatment measures.

CROSSWORD

Rambo: Last Blood (also known as Rambo V and Rambo V: Last Blood) is a 2019 American action thriller film directed by Adrian Grunberg and co-written by Sylvester Stallone.

RAMBO: LAST BLOOD

Note: Programme is subject to change without prior notice.

Pailwaan (2D/Kannada) 2:30 & 11:00pm; Gang Leader (2D/Telugu) 2:30 & 5:15pm; Rambo: Last Blood (2D/Action) 8:00, 9:45 & 11:30pm; Ittymaani (2D/Malayalam) 3:00pm; Love Action Drama (2D/Malayalam) 6:00 & 11:15pmSivappu Manjal Pachai (2D/Tamil) 3:00pmPorinju Mariam Jose (2D/Malayalam) 8:30pmAd Astra (2D/Adventure) 8:30 & 11:00pm

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) 2:15 & 4:30pm; Rambo: Last Blood (2D/Action) 8:00, 9:45 & 11:30pm;Love Action Drama (2D/Malayalam) 4:00, 6:30 & 9:00pm; Dream Girl (2D/Hindi) 5:30 & 11:30pm; Chhichhore (2D/Hindi) 6:15pm; Gang Leader (2D/Telugu) 2:30pm; Sivappu Manjal Pachai (2D/Tamil) 2:00pm; Ad Astra (2D/Adventure) 8:45 & 11:15pm

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) 6:15pm; Ittymaani (2D/Malayalam) 8:45pm; Chhichhore (2D/Hindi) 5:30pm; Rambo: Last Blood (2D/Action) 8:00, 9:45 & 11:30pm; The Goldfinch (2D/Drama) 11:00pm; The Lion King (2D/Drama) 5:00 & 7:00pm; Ad Astra (2D/Adventure) 9:00 & 11:15pm

MALL

20 WEDNESDAY 18 SEPTEMBER 2019MORNING BREAK

Summit praises Qatar’s sport integrity and governanceQNA DOHA

The Inter-Regional Sports Integrity Summit ‘Doha 2019’ underlined that the State of Qatar has exerted huge efforts to achieve integrity and fighting corruption, and that hosting the summit in Doha affirms its ability to create all means of success for any inter-national event organised on its soil.

At the conclusion of the two-day summit, the Summit praised Qatar’s sports integrity and the sports governance it applies, as well as the coun-try’s sports revolution at the level of infrastructure in prep-aration for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2020.

CEO of the Sport Integrity Global Alliance (SIGA), Emmanuel Medeiros said that the Summit resulted in achieving a clear progress in the area of sports integrity, noting the signing of several cooperation agreements and partnerships with many bodies a n d i n t e r n a t i o n a l organisations.

Medeiros extended his gratitude to organisers of the event saying that their efforts and cooperation with SIGA and International Centre for Sport Security (ICSS) contributed to the success of the Summit, adding that the continued work by all sides in Doha, especially the Ministry of Culture and Sports, Ooredoo and Qatar Airways, provided the awesome atmosphere pre-vailed during the Summit.

Medeiros said that the Inter-Regional Sports Integrity Summit in Doha represents an

opportunity that must be seized in order to establish binding laws to fight cor-ruption in sport. The Inter-Regional Sports Integrity Summit condemned the piracy on beIN SPORTS channels launched by Saudi BeoutQ channels, during a panel dis-cussion titled “Media Rights and Digital Piracy, a Hot Issue in Sports Integrity”.

Speakers at the session said that beIN SPORTS invests at least $15bn in broadcasting rights, and called on all sports federations to take a firm stand against these thefts which harm the common rights of broadcasting and affect the revenues of the federations and channels that employ hundreds of employees, tech-nicians and photographers, which in turn may affect the quality and restructuring.

Speakers called on FIFA to address the phenomenon of piracy through the direct contact of FIFA President Gianni Infantino with the heads of states that carried out piracy operations at 2018 FIFA

World Cup Russia, where the broadcast of 64 games were stolen, and that FIFA should play a bigger role against Saudi Arabia.

SIGA CEO Emmanuel Medeiros called for holding anyone behind the piracy of beIN SPORTS channels accountable, noting that a session will be organised on September 25 with all the parties, led by UEFA, with which SIGA signed a memo-randum of cooperation com-mitting them to the need to adhere to the terms of sports integrity, as well as the European Commission and beIN SPORT, officials, organ-izers and a number of unions in order to reach a realistic ini-tiative to address this piracy.

He stressed that SIGA will demand an investigation and a firm stand to confront piracy and preserve the rights of the parties concerned because these rights constitute 90% of

the official income of organ-izers and workers in the sports sector.

On the sidelines of the Inter-Regional Sports Integrity Summit, International Centre for Sport Security (ICSS) and the United Nations Interre-gional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI) signed a cooperation agreement and a partnership to work together to develop the field of sports safety and security in major sporting events.

The agreement was signed by UNICRI Director Bettina Tucci Bartsiotas and ICSS Chairman Mohammed bin Henzab. The agreement comes less than a month after the ICSS signed a partnership agreement with the United Nations Office of Counter-Ter-rorism. The agreement is the first of its kind signed by the Washington-based UN body with a civil society

organization. ICSS Chairman Mohammed bin Henzab said that the agreement with UNICRI complements the agreement with the UN Office of Counter-Terrorism.

UNICRI Director Bettina Tucci Bartsiotas praised the efforts exerted by the ICSS in the field of sports safety and security and expressed confi-dence in the Center and its chairman, noting the strong relations between the two sides and looking forwards to work together to coordinate the efforts relating to sports safety and security and major sporting events around the world.

For his part, Mohammed bin Henzab welcomed the UN official and said that signing agreements with international organizations gives the ICSS great responsibilities, espe-cially as these agreements relate to specialised profes-sional work on the ground.

Panellists speaking at a session during the Sports Integrity Summit Doha 2019.

The Inter-Regional Sports Integrity Summit condemned the piracy on beIN SPORTS channels launched by Saudi BeoutQ channels, during a panel discussion titled “Media Rights and Digital Piracy, a Hot Issue in Sports Integrity”.

An Indonesian man works at a salt harvesting pond in Sidoarjo, East Java province. Salt evaporation ponds are shallow, artificial basins designed to extract salt from seawater through natural evaporation.

World’s migrant population now at 272 millionAFP UNITED NATIONS

Europe and North America have absorbed the largest share of the world’s 272 million migrants, a population that has grown by 23 percent over the past decade, according to a UN report published yesterday.

The report found that there were 82 million migrants living in Europe and 59 million in North America in 2019, fol-lowed by northern Africa and western Asia with 49 million each.

There were 51 million more migrants in the world in 2019 than in 2010, a 23 percent increase, according to the report prepared by the popu-lation division of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs. It said migrants account for 3.5 percent of the world’s population today, com-pared with 2.8 percent in 2000.

The report said the esti-mates were based on official national statistics on the foreign-born or the foreign population obtained from pop-ulation censuses, population registers or nationally repre-sentative surveys.

“These data are critical for understanding the important role of migrants and migration in the development of both countries of origin and desti-nation,” said Liu Zhenmin, UN under-secretary-general for Economic and Social Affairs.

The UN’s country-by-country analysis shows that half the world’s 272 million migrants live in just 10 countries, with the United States in first place with 51 million. Germany and Saudi Arabia were next with 13 million each.

WarnerMedia acquires ‘The Big Bang Theory’ for HBO MaxAFP NEW YORK

W a r n e r M e d i a g r o u p announced yesterday that it had secured the rights for “The Big Bang Theory” on its upcoming online platform HBO Max, the latest move in the fight for back catalogs between streaming services.

All 279 episodes of the comedy show, stretching across 12 seasons, will be available when HBO Max launches in spring next year, the company said in a statement.

Classic television series have become a hot com-modity in the escalating battle for streaming supremacy.

The Wall Street Journal reported that WarnerMedia, a subsidiary of telecom operator AT&T, had agreed to pay $500m over five years for “The Big Bang Theory.” WarnerMedia refused to confirm the sum.

“It’s one of the biggest shows on broadcast television of the last decade, and the fact that we get to bring it to a streaming platform for the first time in the US is a coup for our new offering,” said Robert Greenblatt, Warner-Media Entertainment chairman.

WarnerMedia has already agreed to shell out $425m over five years to acquire “Friends” for the new

platform. Netflix said on Monday it had acquired the global rights to popular sitcom “Seinfeld” from 2021, without revealing the value of the transaction.

It came after the streaming giant lost the rights to “Friends” and the American version of “The Office” — the two most-watched series it has on offer.

NBCUniversal is paying $500m over five years for “The Office.” Major players like Netflix and Amazon are keeping an eye on Apple and Disney, which will launch their streaming services later this year, and then NBCUni-versal and WarnerMedia in 2020.

NBCUniversal said Tuesday that its new platform would be called “Peacock” and would be available from April 2020.

The streaming service will air classic NBC comedies such as “30 Rock,” “Cheers,” and “Will and Grace,” the enter-tainment giant said in a statement.

Streaming platforms are spending billions of dollars creating new content but are also expanding their offerings by snapping up back catalogs of popular old shows.

Netflix is also soon to lose the rights to the catalog of “Star Wars,” Pixar and Marvel superhero films, which belong to Disney.

NBC names its new streaming service ‘Peacock’AFP NEW YORK

NBCUniversal said yesterday its new streaming television service is being called “Peacock” and will include original shows including a new “Battlestar Galactica” along with programs from its own content library. Peacock, using the longtime NBC logo, is set to launch in April 2020 and compete against streaming giants such as Netflix and Amazon and upcoming services from Walt Disney Co. and Apple.

The company, a unit of Comcast, offered no details on pricing.

Shows will include a “reboot” of the science fiction series “Battlestar Galactica” as well exclusive rights to longtime pro-grams such as “Parks and Recreation” and “The Office,” according to an NBCU statement.

“The name Peacock pays homage to the quality content that audiences have come to expect from NBCUniversal — whether it’s culture-defining dramas from innovative creators like (Battlestar pro-ducer) Sam Esmail, laugh-out-loud com-edies from legends like Lorne Michaels and Mike Schur, blockbusters from Uni-versal Pictures, or buzzy unscripted pro-gramming from the people who do it best at Bravo and E!,” said Bonnie Hammer, chairman of direct-to-consumer and digital enterprises at NBCU.

Salt harvesting

WEATHER TODAY

Courtesy: Qatar Meteorology Department

Minimum Maximum28oC 38oC

HIGH TIDE 06:45 – 18:08 LOW TIDE 01:43 – 13:47

Misty to foggy at places by early morning

becomes relatively hot daytime with slight

dust at times, relatively humid by night.

FAJRSHOROOK

04. 04 AM05. 21 AM

11. 28 AM02.55 PM

05. 37 PM07. 07 PM

ZUHRASR

MAGHRIBISHA

PRAYER TIMINGS

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