Al Rayyan and Al Sadd eye place in Qatar Cup final

Doha Bank records QR364m

net profit in Q1

Artistes perform during the opening of the Festival of the Latin American and Caribbean countries at Katara Drama theatre.Pic: Abdul Basit / The Peninsula → See also page 6

Cultural festival

BUSINESS | 21 SPORT | 28

Volume 22 | Number 7137 | 2 RiyalsThursday 20 April 2017 | 23 Rajab 1438 www.thepeninsulaqatar.com

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QNA

Qatar and the Republic of Uganda yesterday signed several Memorandums of

Understanding (MoU) aiming to enhance bilateral cooperation in several fields.

Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, and the visit-ing President of Uganda, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, who held a session of official talks at the Emiri Diwan yesterday, wit-nessed the signing of the MoUs.

The four MoUs signed between both the governments,

include cooperation agreement in the field of defense; a cooperation agreement on encouraging and protecting mutual investments; an agreement on economic, trade and technical cooperation, and an MoU on cooperating in the field of agriculture.

During the session, they reviewed bilateral relations and means of enhancing them in all fields, especially in the fields of defence, politics, economy, investment and agriculture.

The two sides also discussed the most prominent issues on the regional and international arenas.

The Emir and the President of Uganda also witnessed the sign-ing of an MoU on holding political talks between both countries' Foreign Affairs Ministries on issues of common interest.

From Uganda's side, the talks were attended by the mem-bers of the official delegation accompanying President Musev-eni. The Ugandan President was accorded an official reception at the Emiri Diwan. Later Emir hosted a luncheon banquet in honour of Museveni and his accompanying delegation.

→ See also page 2

Fazeena Saleem The Peninsula

In a major boost to the pharmaceutical industry in Qatar, Minister of Pub-lic Health H E Dr Hanan Mohamed Al Kuwari yes-

terday inaugurated expansion works and new production lines of Qatar Pharma.

The expansion includes addition of eight new produc-tion lines bringing the existing number to 14 which manufac-ture various types of pharmaceutical products. Qatar Pharma is a leader in infusion therapy and clinical nutrition supplier in the Gulf region.

Meanwhile, Qatar Pharma shares will be shortly listed on Qatar Stock Exchange.

“We are in the process of issuing Qatar Pharma's Initial Public Offering (IPO). We will start selling 15% shares as a foundation and 40% will be for the public,” said Dr Al Sulaiti, Chairman of Qatar Pharma while talking to media on the sidelines of the inauguration ceremony.

“The Ministry of Public Health is keen in supporting the pharmaceutical industry to expand. The quali ty

of pharmaceutical products manufactured in Qatar meet the best international standards although the industry is rele-vantly new in the country,” said Dr Hanan.

“We also work together with the private sector in enhancing the pharmaceutical industry to meet the needs of the local market,” she added.

Dr Hanan marked the offi-cial opening by unveiling the name plaque and toured Qatar Pharma’s pharmaceutical facil-ities and the manufacturing process of the new production lines.

Qatar Pharma is the first I.V (intravenous therapy) infusion factory in Qatar. Within I.V. generic drugs, Qatar Pharma is counted among the leading suppliers in the Gulf market.

→ Continued on page 4

Sidi Mohamed The Peninsula

THE General Directorate of Traffic Department yes-terday temporarily suspended the implemen-tation of the mandatory technical inspection every six months for vehicles older than 15 years.

A source at the Traffic Department told this daily that “The work related to the decision of inspecting vehicles older than 15 years every six months has been temporarily stopped until Sunday to revise cer-tain areas of the decision.”

He also said that the fee fixed at QR500 for inspection could be revised. The new changes and amendments are "good" and people will be happy about it. We are just waiting for the changes to be entered on the system before announcing it said the source.

Replying to a question about the current situation of vehicle owners if they went for technical inspec-tion, he said that they have to wait until next week then process will be ready at that time.

The Peninsula got a copy of circular sent from the Qatar Central Bank (QCB) to insurance com-panies asking them to comply with a rule announced by the General Directorate of Traffic at the Ministry of Interior.

The circular says that vehicles which are older than 15 years must pass technical inspection every six months for five years. After this period, the inspection will be every four months for the next five years, and then every three months for the com-ing five years.

Qatar and Uganda sign MoUs

Huda N V

The Peninsula

With temperature soar-ing and new regulations in place,

green air conditioners have hit the Qatari market. Despite being pricey, inquiries for the energy efficient air conditioners have significantly increased, accord-ing to market sources.

The Ministry of Municipality and Environment, in collabora-tion with the Ministry of Economy and Commerce, Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation (Kahramaa) and the Qatar Gen-eral Organization for Standardization (QS) had banned import and sale of all conventional air conditioners from July 1, 2016.

Meanwhile, AC dealers and retailers were given a grace

period until January 1, this year to dispose off their stocks of con-ventional air-conditioners.

“Last year the AC sales were badly hit, as the new regulations were issued during the summer months when we usually have peak sales. Now we do see a demand with the temperature already reaching 40 degrees Cel-sius,” Shanavas PM, Regional Manager, Lulu Group told The

Peninsula. “The market is now gearing up and we have already started our summer sales. The prices of these green ACs are higher, going up by QR500 to QR1,000 for normal 1 ton AC, while split ones can coast some-thing around QR2000,” he added. However, higher pricing does not deter customers from buying the green ACs.

“Customers are very much

aware of the new regulation. They come in enquiring about the star rated ACs and we have noticed that many of them go for higher rated ones as they can save more on elec-tricity bills even if they have to pay more when buying the units.

The prices are higher by 15 to 20 percent for the new ACs,” said Ashraf P, Buying Head, Quality Group.

→ Continued on page 6

Sanaullah Ataullah The Peninsula

A number of customers are driving more than 30km to central market in Umm Salal, which opened recently,

to buy large stock of fish from their favour-ite vendors. Many who visited the new market on Tuesday, were into surprise when they were offered fish at very low prices.

Many of the customers The Peninsula talked to stressed that they could find no alternative to the old central market at Abu Hamour, that was closed recently. Many used to frequent the old central market for fresh fish, which were available at a lower rate compared to commercial outlets.

Meanwhile, business is picking up at

the new fish market with sales reaching an average of QR2,000 per day for a vendor. However, vendors are unhappy over the per-formance of the market as the demands are very low in new market compared to the old market. “The sale of fish reached about QR3,000 in first two days and gradually declined," a vendor told The Peninsula.

"Yesterday we sold fish worth about QR2,000. . At the old market our sales used to be around QR7,000 in a day and during weekend it would go over QR10,000. We know this is just the beginning as it is new market. We do not expect demands of old market in new market, now itself, but we believe that over time demands will increase," he added.

→ Continued on page 6

Vendors at Umm Salal market call for more facilities

Qatar Pharma expands; plans to issue IPO

Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and President of the Republic of Uganda, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, holding talks at the Emiri Diwan yesterday.

Demand for green air conditioners on the rise

New rule for older vehicles temporarily suspended

Career Village for high school studentsQATAR Career Development Center (QCDC), a member of Qatar Foundation for Educa-tion, Science and Community Development (QF), is organis-ing Career Village initiative, which takes place at the Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU) Student Center on April 26 and 27.

QCDC has invited high school students to participate in the Career Village, where the first day of the event will be ded-icated to male students while female students will be wel-comed on the second day. Parents as well career and aca-demic counselors from independent schools across Qatar are invited to attend both days.

Minister of Public Health H E Dr Hanan Mohamed Al Kuwari yesterday inaugurates expansion works and new production lines of Qatar Pharma.

Mohammad ShoebThe Peninsula

President of the Repub-lic of Uganda, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, and his accompanying del-egat ion, which

included Finance Minister Matia Kasaija, Foreing Minister Sam Kutesa and scores of other sen-ior officials, met with prominent Qatari businessmen at Sheraton Hotel Doha yesterday. The meet-ing was jointly organised by Qatar Chamber and Qatar Busi-nessmen’s Association.

During the meeting, Presi-dent Museveni provided a detailed overview of the fast growing economy of Uganda, highlighting the “endless busi-ness and investment opportunities” in the African nation.

Museveni invited Qatari businessmen to his country to explore promising business opportunities, especially in the areas of food processing, mining and tourism sectors.

He also announced to open an office in Qatar very soon, which will be promoting invest-ments and tourism between the two countries.

“Uganda is a land of oppor-tunities. It has climatic conditions suitable to grow all kinds of fruits and vegetables on earth. We grow bananas, cotton, cocoa, tea, sugarcane, and almost all kinds of crops and cereals. In addition, we have a lot of minerals like iron ore, copper, tin, cobalt and oth-ers. Investing in food processing sector and mining-based indus-tries can be highly rewarding,” said the President.

He added: “We do not wish Qatari investors to take part in growing food and crops. We

want you to process food and produce items, such as steel, cop-per, and other finished and semi-finished products that can be consumed locally as well as exported to Africa, Europe, America and the Indian subcontinent.”

He highlighted that Uganda is endowed with both types of iron minerals (hematite and magnetite) which can be exploited for domestic and industrial purposes in the down-stream industries.

Museveni expressed his keen interest to promote Islamic banking and financial services in his country. He invited Qatari banks, especially the Shariah-compliant lenders, to explore opportunities in his country, which, according to him, have

strong appetite for interest-free banking.

Finance Minister Matia Kasa-ija, talking to The Peninsula on the sidelines of the meeting, said that both countries are working closely to enhance bilateral cooperation in a wide range of areas. And there are two more MoUs to be signed in the coming days which are related to avoid-ing double taxation and cooperation in aviation sector.

“We have taken a lot of measures to attract foreign investments, such as tax holidays for a period of up to10 years, capital mobility, opening of all sectors of the economy for 100 percent FDI, and constitutional provisions for the protection of private businesses and invest-ments,” added Kasaija.

02 THURSDAY 20 APRIL 2017HOME

Museveni invites Qatari businessmen to Uganda

Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and President of Uganda Yoweri Kaguta Museveni witnessing the signing of agreements between the two countries. BELOW: President of Uganda with Prime Minister and Interior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani.

03THURSDAY 20 APRIL 2017 HOME

H H Sheikha Moza bint Nasser with President of Uganda Yoweri Kaguta Museveni and Janet Museveni, the First Lady of Uganda and Minister of Education and Sports, at the Qatar Foundation office yesterday. During the meeting, they discussed means of providing vocational education and training for young people in Uganda.

Sheikha Moza meets Ugandan President and his wife

QNA

Prime Minister and Interior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani chaired yester-

day the Cabinet's ordinary meeting at its Emiri Diwan premises.

Following the meeting, the Deputy Prime Minister and Min-ister of State for Cabinet Affairs H E Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid Al Mahmoud said that the Cabinet reviewed topics on the meeting's agenda.

The Cabinet approved a draft law on the national system for the inventory and control of nuclear materials and approved its refer-ral to the Advisory Council.

The draft law stipulates that the National Committee for Pro-hibition of Weapons (NCPW) shall undertake the inventory and control works of nuclear materials, either used or pro-duced in all activities, including researches.

The draft law also set the terms of reference of the Com-mittee and the obligations of facilities and entities that use nuclear materials.

During the meeting, the Cab-inet approved a draft

Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on cooperation in the field of consumer protection between the Governments of the State of Qatar and the Sultanate of Oman and a draft MoU on cooperation in the field of energy between the Ministry of Energy and Industry in the State of Qatar and the Min-istry of Energy in the Republic of Bulgaria.

The Cabinet also approved a draft agreement between the Government of the State of Qatar and the Government of the Republic of Uganda on the regulation of the employment of Ugandan manpower in the state, a draft MoU on economic, commercial and technical coop-erat ion between the

Government of the State of Qatar and the Government of the Republic of Uganda and a draft MoU on cooperation in the field of higher education and scientific research between the Ministry of Education and Higher Education in the State of Qatar and the Ministry of Edu-cation and Research in the Kingdom of Sweden.

The first executive draft pro-gramme on the cooperation agreement in the field of higher education, scientific research and technology for cooperation between the Government of the State of Qatar and the Govern-ment of the Republic of Tunisia for the academic years (2017/2018, 2018/2019, 2019/2020) was also approved by the Cabinet.

The Cabinet, meanwhile, reviewed the draft decision of the Minister of Interior to amend some of the provisions of reso-lution No. (12) of 2008 on the insurance fees on non-Qatari mechanical vehicles and a memo of Minister of Adminis-trative Development, Labour and Social Affairs on the out-comes of the 86th session of the Arab Labor Organization (Cairo, March 2017), and took the appropriate decision thereon.

Cabinet nod for draft law on nuclear materials inventory

NCPW role

The draft law stipulates that the NCPW shall undertake the inventory and control works of nuclear materials.

Cabinet approval for MoU on regulation of employment of Ugandan manpower in Qatar.

Qatar takes part in meeting on anti-dumpingQNA

Qatar participated in the 15th meeting of experts in combating dumping, sub-

sidy and preventive measures which took place at the head-quarters of the Arab League.

Director of the Ministry of Energy and Industry's Industrial Development Department Eng Saeed Mubarak Al Kuwari rep-resented the State of Qatar's delegation.

The three-day meetings will hold talks on the General

Secretariat's memo creating a mechanism for commercial processors to combat dumping. The memo includes a number of measures, such as drafting a unified legislation by Arab coun-tries to establish an anti-dumping authority.

Kahramaa gears up for fifth anniversary of TarsheedThe Peninsula

Qatar General Electricity & Water Corporation (Kah-ramaa) is all set to

celebrate the Fifth Anniversary of the National Programme for Conservation and Energy Effi-ciency (Tarsheed) at Kahramaa Awareness Park (KAP) on April 24 with the slogan “one prom-ise, one journey’’.

This celebration will be attended by the Prime Minister and Interior Minister, H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khal-ifa Al Thani, Minister of Energy and Industry, HE Dr Mohamed bin Saleh Al Sada, Kahramaa’s President, Eng. Essa bin Hilal Al Kuwari, dignitaries, diplomats, high level officials from the gov-ernment and private sectors and

sponsors, media professionals, senior functionaries of Kah-ramaa, environment champions, school children, stakeholders’ representatives and others.

Kahramaa will announce the official opening of Kahramaa Awareness Park (KAP) and its further strategies, projects and achieved targets for the ongo-ing programme. Kahramaa, through Tarsheed, aims at rationalising the consumption of water and electricity and intensifying the culture of con-servation of vital resources in Qatar. In addition to it, Kah-ramaa at this grand occasion will felicitate the winners (indi-viduals and corporates) who have been selected under vari-ous categories against the entries sought for three

competitions being organised by Kahramaa’s Conservation and Energy Efficiency department. During the event, Kahramaa will announce Tarsheed’s new road map to achieve the objectives set out by Qatar National Vision (2030) and extended National Development Strategy.

The programme which was initiated as a National campaign for Efficient Use of Water and Electricity was launched for five years in 2012 on Earth Day which falls every year on April 22.

Kahramaa has joined hands with a number of organizations including schools to give impetus to the programme for its success-ful implementation across the country. It has also signed 54 of MoUs with various organisations to implement its objectives.

04 THURSDAY 20 APRIL 2017HOME

Minister of Foreign Affairs H E Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani with Ivory Coast Foreign Minister Abdullah Albert Toikeusse, who is currently visiting Qatar. The Ivory Coast Minister handed over a written message to Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani from President of the Republic of Ivory Coast Alassane Ouattara pertaining to relations between the two countries and means of enhancing them.

FM meets Ivory Coast counterpart

→ Continued from page 1The company is focused on

the Intravenous, Hemodialysis for diabetic patients and topical drugs therapy for the care of critically and chronically ill patients in and outside the hospital.

The opening ceremony was held at the Qatar Pharma in New Industrial Area and was attended by Dr Ahmed Moham-mad Al Sulaiti, Chairman of

Qatar Pharma and several other officials.

“As part of an expansion, we opened new production lines for Qatar Pharma. In Qatar, we cover the maximum government and private sector in supplying pharmaceutical products. How-ever, we mainly aim at exports. Last year, we supplied 10 per-cent of production within Qatar and 90 percent was exported,” said Dr Al Sulaiti, speaking on

the sidelines of the event.“We mainly export to GCC

and Arab countries and this year we aim at generating QR134m by exporting the products,” he added.

“We are in the process of making Qatar Pharma Initial Public Offering (IPO) and we will sell 15 percent shares as a foun-dation and 40 percent will be for the public,” said Dr Al Sulaiti.

The Peninsula

The Curve Hotel, one of Ezdan Holding Group hotels, has organised a

one-day blood donation cam-paign in cooperation with Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC). The hotel staff and guests have shown great inter-est in the campaign, in which significant number of donors flocked and actively

contributed. This drive is the Hotel’s first contribution in the field of social responsibility and community service since the announcement of its partial opening last year. The Curve management has allocated a hall for setting up the Blood Donation Unit, and provided all necessary facilities and support for HMC medical staff.

General Manager of Ezdan Hotels Hasib Kayali, said: “At

the Curve Hotel, we believe in the importance of making a positive contribution to the community, and not only lim-iting our activities and endeavors to reach excellence in the hospitality sector. From this point, we partnered with HMC to encourage our staff to donate and raise awareness on the benefit blood donation brings to our local community and beloved country.

Minister of Public Health H E Dr Hanan Mohamed Al Kuwari, and Dr Ahmed Mohammed Al Sulaiti, Chairman of Qatar Pharma, with other officials visiting the factory facilities during the inauguration of a new production line by the Ministry at Qatar Pharma building yesterday.Pic: Baher Amin / The Peninsula

Qatar Pharma exports 90% of output

SC awarded ISO 9001:2008 CertificationQNA

The Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy (SC) received the prestig-

ious Quality Management Award from the British Stand-ards Institution (BSI) in the Middle East and Africa, which

represents a new addition to SC.

Assistant Secretary-General for SC Institutional Affairs received the Award from Direc-tor of the British Standards Institution (BSI) in the Middle East and Africa, Omar Rashed, during at a special ceremony

held at Al Bidda Tower yesterday.

The ISO 9001:2008 Certifi-cation is an internationally recognized British award, which is awarded to companies and institutions that successfully implement Quality Management System (QMS).

120 leading Turkish firms take part in Expo TurkeyIrfan BukhariThe Peninsula

Expo Turkey by Qatar showcasing around 120 leading Turkish companies represent-ing various sectors

from real estate to food kicked off yesterday at Qatar National Convention Center.

Mohamed bin Towar, Vice Chairman of Qatar Chamber, Ambassador of Turkey to Qatar Fikret Özer, and Foreign Minis-ter of Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus were guests of honour at the opening ceremony.

QC Vice-Chairman Towar urged businessmen from both countries to start new partner-ships and joint ventures to explore new areas of coopera-tion for the benefit of both economies.

He said that Qatar's market would welcome more Turkish products and investments. “I

believe Turkey also welcomes more Qatari investments, espe-cially in the fields of industry and technology," he said, adding that the expo would enable compa-nies from both countries to achieve business objectives.

Turkish Ambassador Fikret Ozer said that the Expo Turkey by Qatar was being held as the lead-ers of both countries wanted to expand relations in all sectors.

“This expo will revive relations between two countries and two nations. Leading Turkish compa-nies are participating in the expo representing different sectors like communication, health, textile, construction, food, machinery, furniture, real estate etc.,” he said.

Ozer said that bilateral trade between two countries was growing year by year further expressing hopes that "soon our annual trade exchange will cross $2bn". He said that Turkish con-struction companies had done wonderful projects in Qatar like Hamad international Airport, Museum of Islamic Art and Qatar National Convention Center. He said that Turkish companies’ standards were in conformity with Qatar National Vision 2030.

He said that expo would pro-vide a platform to companies from both countries to get acquainted with each other and would provide an opportunity to share and exchange ideas and information.

Talking to The Peninsula, Ahmet Baser, Procurement and Logistics Manager of Tekfen Con-struction said that the expo would end slow trade between two coun-tries. “Both countries enjoy very good relations but they do not transform in our trade relations.

Through this expo, Turkish prod-ucts will be showcased to attract more clients from Qatar in almost all sectors from real estate to machinery,” he said, adding that the Syrian war was badly hitting trade between two countries as it had blocked the land trade route.

Zumrut Doyran, General Manager of a furniture company "Hotelya by Kolsan" said that her company was first time explor-ing Qatar’s market with high hopes. “Our 90percent furniture is for five star hotels. We hope to find new customers from Qatar."

Q-Post signs MoU with Turkish Post The Peninsula

On the occasion of the opening of Expo Tur-key by Qatar, Q-Post

signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on e-commerce roadmap with Turkish Post.

Q-Post and Turkish Post agreed on a "roadmap of designing a product sales plan" from Turkey to Qatar and from Qatar to Turkey benefiting their customers based in both countries.

The MoU was signed by Q-Post Chairperson and Man-aging Director Faleh Al Naemi and his Turkish counterpart Kenan Bozgeyik, Chairman and Director General of Turk-ish Post.

Terming the signing event “an important moment” between two countries, Bozgeyik said that the joint venture would be very fruit-ful and beneficial for Qatar and Turkey. “I congratulate both teams for reaching an agreement,” he added.

Call for more JVs

Businessmen urged to start new partnerships and joint ventures for benefit of both countries.

Turkish construction companies have done wonderful projects in Qatar: Ambassador

Vice-Chairman of Qatar Chamber, Mohamed bin Towar, and Ambassador of Turkey to Qatar, Fikret Ozer, and other dignitaries during the opening of the Expo Turkey 2017 at the QNCC yesterday. Pic: Salim Matramkot / The Peninsula

Curve Hotel organises blood donation driveThe HMC blood donation unit ambulance in front of the Curve Hotel.

05THURSDAY 20 APRIL 2017 HOME

President of the Republic of Croatia, Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, met with Qatar's Ambassador to Croatia, Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al Thani, in Zagreb. They discussed bilateral relations and ways of boosting them, in addition to issues of mutual interest.

Croatian President meets Qatar envoy

Qatar sends mega team for Arabian Travel MarketThe Peninsula

Qatar marks its largest participation in the Arabian Travel Market (ATM), with a delega-tion of 38 hotels, tour

operators and other industry service providers — a 26 percent increase in Qatar’s participants compared to last year.

As the Middle East’s leading platform for travel and tourism industry members, ATM to be held next week, presents the ideal opportunity for Qatar to highlight the latest developments in its tourism industry, and

showcase its newest tourism and hospitality offerings.

Visitors to Qatar’s stand (ME2010) will be invited to

sample Qatar’s heritage through experiential activities in addition to learning about the country’s top quality luxury accommoda-tion, cultural attractions, family entertainment, festivals and events, as well as great shopping, dining and leisure options. In addition, QTA and Qatar Airways will announce a new initiative that is designed to attract more stopover passengers and facili-tate their stay.

“2016 was an important year for policy developments in Qatar, particularly visa facilitation, and we are keen to share the fantas-tic opportunities created by

streamlined access to our desti-nation with visitors and trade partners at this highly-attended event,” commented Hassan Al Ibrahim, Chief Tourism Devel-opment Officer at QTA. “We are delighted to have a large cohort of partners from the private sec-tor with us to showcase Qatar’s increasingly diverse tourism offering.”

QTA officials will also be par-ticipating in high-level forums, including the UN World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) & ATM Ministerial Forum on tourism's contribution to sustainable and inclusive economic growth and

diversification in the Mena region.

“As we prepare to host the official celebration of the UNWTO World Tourism Day under the theme “Sustainable Tourism – A Tool for Develop-ment”, it is particularly important to begin this discussion with our partners,” added Al Ibrahim.

“Through a series of World Tourism Day events that will be held in Doha in September, we will be exploring with our part-ners across the region how plans for tourism in our countries can be rooted in sustainability, to ensure they meet the needs of

our society today, tomorrow, and for generations to come.”

This year’s ATM will be held in Dubai from April 24 to 27, bringing together over 2,800 products and destinations from around the world to more than 26,000 buyers and travel trade visitors. ATM is one of six annual, business to business events held across four continents as part of the World Travel Market events. Now in its 24th year, it generates more than $2.5bn worth of travel industry deals and attracts nearly 40,000 travel professionals, gov-ernment ministers and international press.

Huge contingent

Qatar marks its largest participation with a delegation of 38 hotels, tour operators and other industry service providers at Arabian Travel Market that will be held in Dubai from April 24 to 27.

Winners of young writers competition awarded Amna Pervaiz Rao The Peninsula

The US embassy, in partner-ship with the Ministry of Education and Higher Edu-

cat ion and Virg inia Commonwealth University in Qatar (VCUQatar), celebrated the winners of the Third Annual Young Writers Competition at VCUQatar in Education City, yesterday.

Nearly 300 essays were sub-mitted for this year’s competition and the top five writers from each grade were recognised at the event. The winning entries will also be featured in the Third Vol-ume of the “Young Writers Journal” which will be published by the US Embassy in July.

Dana Shell Smith, US Ambas-sador to Qatar, congratulated all the students who participated in this year’s competition and com-mended the efforts of teachers, especially, for their invaluable support.

Talking to The Peninsula Dana Shell Smith said: “Young Writers Program is an incredible programme started on very small scale but now reaches 80% of the Qatari schools. This is something we are proud of. The theme of this year’s competition was Shap-ing our World for the Better which speaks directly to the importance of education in shap-ing our world, and particularly our youth, for the better. Every year I get excited to hand over the certificates to the winners of the competition.”

“This year I experienced

something new, The piece writ-ten by Marah Ghazal made me and everyone sitting in the audi-ence cry. I told her it’s a very powerful piece of writing. Marah is a talented writer and her story was worth sharing with every-one. I congratulate every writer who participated in this compe-tition,” she added.

Dean Akel I Kahera of Vir-ginia Commonwealth University in Qatar, said: “We humbly appreciate Ambassador Smith and the Ministry of Education and Higher Education’s steadfast ded-ication to the Young Writers Program in its efforts to encour-age Qatar’s youth to read, write and think critically about impor-tant topics in society. In our eyes,

all of the students are winners, and we champion each one of them on pushing towards their goals.”

Meanwhile, during the event Marah Ghazal, Fifth grade stu-dent from Zaynab Bint Jahash Primary School for Girls, who stood first in grade five category read her emotions filled poem ‘Fireworks’ and Waseem Ragab Ayab, Eighth grade student from Osama Bin Zaid Preparatory School for Boys read his poem ‘Freedom Tree’ to the audience.

Maryam Al Hamadi, Student from Al Bayan Preparatory School for Girls, who was one of the winners told The Peninsula that: “ I was very confident that I will definitely score a position in

this competition because theme this year was easy to understand and clear. My essay was about how to create peace around the world as eventually everyone is quite busy creating their own world.”

The Young Writers Compe-tition is the central component of the larger Young Writers Pro-gram, which strives to encourage Qatar’s youth to read, write and think critically about important topics in their society, while improving their English literacy skills. According to many stu-dents who participate, the writing competition improves their imagination and gives them ideas on how to change the world through writing.

QBIC move: New ride-booking terminals unveiledThe Peninsula

Interactive ride-booking ter-minals are being rolled out in hotel lobbies and premier

residences throughout Qatar through ‘The Concierge’ con-c e p t l a u n c h e d b y locally-founded company, GORIDR via the tourism incu-bator at Qatar Business Incubation Center (QBIC).

It is also set to be placed in airports, restaurants, Qatar Airways and subsidiaries, resorts, corporates, towers, embassies, industrial areas, educational institutes, clubs, government locations, tourist spots, townships, smart cities and the offices of limousine companies progressively.

“Our goal is to deploy The Concierge at key locations, all around Doha to create nodes, all networked to each other and thus seamlessly manage the efficiency of Limo company fleets. We will also establish standards for the drivers and vehicles based upon the class of vehicle assigned, including catering for customers of spe-cial needs progressively. We will promote a reliable, safe, and efficient ride hailing serv-ice; On-Demand and Advance booking,” said GORIDR Co-founder, Saleh Al Marri.

Every reservation screen is co-branded for the specific location, with their logo and colors respectively. GORIDR signed up the prestigious group Le Mirage on April 17 as well as completed training with Le Mirage operating staff and Limo Company drivers on the

same day.“GORIDR’s reservation

portal with access to four classes of vehicles, is operable on any device be-it via the flagship touchscreen device or any other device. This flexibil-ity provides multiple touch-points on the Demand side spread over a networked deployment and thus has the ability to increase the effi-ciency of Limousine Companies tied to the platform by 300%," said Co-founder, Ashley Titus.

"Looking into the future, access could be made availa-ble on trains, as soon as the metro is launched, so that pas-sengers can arrange for a taxi to be waiting for them on the stops upon arrival,” said Titus.

For those without access to mobile data connections sim-ply put a booking app on their smartphones, ‘Call The Con-cierge’ enables practically any customer to hail a ride of their choice of class, by calling the nearest Concierge and provid-ing their name, mobile number, email address and payment choice.

Payments can be made with cash or charged to an account.

“The interface is user-friendly and simple, with just a few taps and information input. It saves time, is cost-effi-cient, and a value driven customer service portal for premier locations. Training of concierge operators, will be provided by GORIDR as well as support to our partners 24/7,” says Titus.

Dana Shell Smith, US Ambassador to Qatar, and Akel I Kahera, Dean of VCUQatar, with the winners of Third Annual Young Writers Competition yesterday. Pic: Abdul Basit / The Peninsula

More than 150 inspectors to monitor campers violating rulesThe Peninsula

The Ministry of Municipal-ity and Environment assigned more than 150

inspectors to conduct inspection visits and monitor campers vio-lating the camping rules.

Camps being set after the deadline of the camping season will be removed forcibly. The violators of the camping rules will be transferred to security authorities and then to environ-mental prosecution.

“The ministry also make procedures easy for campers to remove their camps and take back the winter camping insur-ance amount of QR10,000, which will be refunded elec-tronically after removing the camps,” said Saad Ibraheem Al Kaabi, General Coordinator for winter camping season.

Campers can go to any gov-ernmental services centre with the personnel ID of the camper, bank certificate and the camping board to get the money refunded. The camping season ended five days ago on April 15, and camp-ers were asked to remove their camps from all sites.

“Only seven environmental

violations were recorded in this season and it was successful than previous year,” Al Kaabi added.

“We appreciate the cooper-ation extended by campers to the ministry and their interest to maintain the environment clean. We also value other enti-ties which contributed in making the camping season suc-cess,” Al Kaabi said.

It's worth to note that dur-ing this season the ministry introduces an initiative to plant

five locally important trees such as Sidra, Al Ghaf, Al Gharat, and also more than 1,500 seedlings provided by the Public Parks Department have been distrib-uted to campers.

The number of campers totalled 2,058 in more than 23 sites. A total of 128 campers were blacklisted during the last two winter seasons for violat-ing rules, 43 campers last season and 85 in the previous season - and now all those are barred from obtaining licence.

10m vehicles visited The Pearl-Qatar last yearDOHA: More than 10 million vehicles have visited The Pearl-Qatar (TPQ) last year with the opening of new outlets, marking an increase in its retail activity.

A pickup in retail activity has been recorded, as wit-nessed by the number of vehicles entering The Pearl-Qatar. This is tracked through monitoring devices installed at the entrance of the island. From March 9 to April 8, a weekly average of 210,000 vehicles have entered TPQ, and more than 10 million vehicles have visited TPQ in the past year. TPQ has welcomed 25 new retailers — including sev-eral hospitality outlets — providing residents and vis-itors to the island with an exceptional leisure experience. Despite only having passed the first quarter of 2017, a large number of new outlets have established in Porto Arabia, Medina Centrale and Qanat Quartier, reflecting the success of master developer United Development Company (UDC), in attracting businesses to meet the requirements of the island’s residents.

Officials work at one of the camping sites.

06 THURSDAY 20 APRIL 2017HOME

LatAm & Caribbean fest at Katara begins The Peninsula

Curtains went up on the ‘Roots’ festival at the Cultural Village Foun-dation-Katara on Tuesday, an event

that will showcase Latin Amer-ican and Caribbean cultures through a series of exhibitions.

The festival is scheduled to last until April 22. The exhibition was inaugurated in the presence of the General Manager of the Cultural Village Foundation-Katara, Dr Khalid bin Ibrahim Al Sulaiti and a number of VIP dip-lomatic missions to Doha representing the twelve partic-ipating countries.

The ambassador the repub-lic of Ecuador, Kabalan Abi Saab, Deputy head of mission of Bra-zil, Joao Belloc, ambassador of Costa Rica, Luis Alberto Guillen Downing, Ambassador of Argen-tina, Rossana Surballe, Ambassador of Cuba, Eumelio Caballero Rodriguez, Charge D' Affairs, Giannina Maria Pana-meno Suazrez, Ambassador of Mexico, Francisco Javier Niem-bro Cibrian, Charge D' Affaires of Panama, Dr Oreste Del Rio Sandoval, Ambassador of Para-guay, Angel Barchini, Deputy Chief of Mission, Ruben Espinoza

Raymondi, Ambassador of Uru-guay, Jorge Antonio Seré Sturzenegger, Charge D' Affaires of Venezuela, Fatima Majzoub El-Majzoub were present at the occasion.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr Al Sulaiti said: “We are confident that this lively and colourful fes-tival will contribute to achieving the desired goals and will enhance the communication channels between people from all walks of life, while develop-ing in each person a deeper understanding and appreciation of the different art forms related to Latin America and the Carib-bean. Audiences throughout the festival are guaranteed a ring side view of the history and civ-ilisation of these ancient countries presented through a wide array of performances and exhibitions. The exhibition will be staged in building 19, and will run until the 29th of April, start-ing from 10am until 10pm.”

The Dean of Ambassadors of the Latin American countries and the Ambassador of Ecuador, Kabalan Abi Saab, said: “An array of 77 photographs and paintings are set to bring the sights and sounds of Latin America, to Qatar. Furthermore, I would like to exude my utmost

appreciation and gratitude to the Cultural Village Foundation- Katara, for its unceasing efforts done to host such a spectacular event, in an aim to bring closer the rich culture and traditions of Latina America to all Qatari cit-izens; noting that the Cultural Village is an authentic hub that build communication bridges between people from all walks of life.”

The inauguration of the fes-tival kicked off with the opening of the exhibitions that were divided into two halls. Visitors can view exhibitions that reflect the origins of Latin America and the Caribbean countries through photographs and painting exhib-its from Brazil, Costa Rica, EL Salvador, Panama, and Uruguay. The exhibition reflects the authentic culture of Latin

American and the Caribbean countries through an array of photographs that portray; tour-istic sites, animal habitat, individuals, nature landscapes, and Islamic architecture.

The Cultural Village Foun-dation-Katara has the honour of inviting the public to this festi-val where they can immerse themselves in an authentic Latin American experience.

Iraqi artist Azzam hosts art lessonsThe Peninsula

Acclaimed Iraqi portrait artist Ismail Azzam is hosting a series of art les-sons at Mathaf: Arab Museum of

Modern Art as part of the museum’s edu-cational and local community engagement programmes.

The art lessons, which run every Sun-day and Wednesday between 4pm to 7pm until Ramadan, and between 11am to 2pm during Ramadan in Manara, Mathaf’s Edu-cation Space, give participants a unique insight into the techniques used in por-traiture drawing using pencil, charcoal and paint.

Maryam Al Attiya, Head of Art Pro-grams at Mathaf, said: “Art education is a central activity at our museum, and we are proud to be able to offer these work-shops to the local community. This is a good opportunity for Qatar’s artistic com-munity to meet, learn from and be inspired by such a gifted and renowned Iraqi artist. Through workshops like this one, we aim to develop an engaged cul-tural audience and develop individuals’ interests in artistic practises.”

The art lessons are free to attend and are offered to people with basic to inter-mediate sketching and drawing skills. Participants are required to bring their own sketch book.

The artist held a major exhibition at

the QM Gallery in Katara back in 2015 entitled ‘For Them’, showcasing Azzam's distinctive ‘reverse charcoal’ portraits of painters and sculptors who made a sig-nificant contribution to the Arab Art world.

Though Azzam also uses oil and watercolour in many of his artworks, he is particularly highly regarded for his

mastery of the distinctive technique known as ‘reverse charcoal drawing’, which will be featured as part of the art lessons. During this process, the whole canvas is first covered in charcoal, then slowly etched away using a rubber to accentuate contrasting shades of light and dark and create a range of dramatic effects.

Qatar Academy celebrates World Heritage Day The Peninsula

Under the umbrella of Pre-University Educa-t i o n , Q a t a r

Academy-Doha celebrated the World Heritage Day on April 18 to raise awareness of the importance of protect-ing and preserving heritage and culture.

The event reflected Qatar Foundation’s vision and com-mitment to utilising opportunities that engage and educate community members to enrich their experiences in the host country.

Using hands-on activities, teachers were able to mingle with presenters and perform-ers and expertise from Nomas centre. These experi-ences will help faculty members understand their students’ culture and back-ground and enable them to integrate different elements within the curriculum.

The event included an exhibition of traditional crafts, sports, dances, food, camel riding, Majlis tent, shooting, coffee preparation, and traditional games. A spe-cial corner was also allocated for “Duha seat” to demon-strate the morning ladies gathering. The cultural day was organised by Sarah Al Hajri, Head of History Pro-gram, Academic Affairs, Pre-University Education, and Maha Al Romaihi, Dep-uty Director at Qatar Academy who retreated on the importance of culturally responsive teaching. She said: “This event comes as part of the collaboration between QAD and Nomas culture Youth club."

“This initiative will make students proud of their her-itage and culture. We plan to expand this opportunity to engage all QF school mem-bers. We encourage schools to provide such activities for new hires to enable them to understand the different dimensions of Qatari cul-ture,” added Sara Al Hajri.

“I’m very excited about this opportunity as these events brings a deeper understanding of the culture to our teacher and makes it easier for them to understand our students’ lives, as the majority of our students are Qataris," said Maha Al Romihi.

Artistes perform at the Festival of the Latin American and Caribbean countries at Katara Drama Theatre on Tuesday. Pic: Abdul Basit / The Peninsula

Wall-mounted split ACs highest in demand

Participants at the workshop.

→ Continued from page 1“The ACs had started mov-

ing even before the season began, and we are yet to start our summer sale. We are also getting more requests for quotations from some firms,” he added.

With the market abuzz with summer sales, companies have introduced ACs claiming to have additional perks as anti-micro-bial action, air purification, special fragrances, baby friendly, ionising and much more. “Wall mounted split units are highest in demand. There is lesser demand for window ACs now. The percentage of sales of win-dow and split ACs would be around 30 and 70 percent,” Ashraf added.

Similar view were aired by some of the major cooling com-panies and dealers. “Spilt ACs are highest in demand, and yearly we have a huge sale from these units alone,” said Azhar Maqbool Ahmed, Deputy GM, Alrais

Group. “New products in line with the Qatari standards are now available here. Currently our products are 5 to 7 star rated. By the end of may we will have 8 start appliances available,” Ahmed added.

“Most in demand is wall mounted split units. The new regulation is mainly targeting domestic AC. Most of the larger projects have been using these star rated or energy efficient coolers since long. The move was mainly environment friendly, countering global warming and ozone depletion among the oth-ers,” said Shoukathali, GM, Marine Air Conditioning Company.

Some of the local AC repair and servicing outlets The Penin-sula spoke to stressed that they are having lesser works. “We are getting much lesser request for AC maintenance and servicing,” said Sayed, who owns an AC service center in old airport area.

Vendors at Umm Salal voice concerns→ Continued from page 1"We have some loyal custom-

ers who visit our outlet as we received their calls inquiring the location. I shared location on Whatsup and IMO. Many of them visited already," said another vendor.

"We have two other issues more critical that the fish sales, which are accommodation and food. We are still living in same accommodation in Doha as the new market does not have hous-ing facility, and our travel expense has increased. And here is no proper restaurant inside the facil-ity so we have to order food from outside," the fish vendor said.

Most of fish vendors have also urged the authorities concerned to open wholesale vegetable and fruit market and its auction in the facility of new central market to attract the customers in a bid to increase the fish demands.

The customers residing in neighbouring areas and villages of Umm Salal Central Market wel-comed the government decision for opening such facility closer to them.

The new central market also houses other business activities like fruits and vegetables outlets, shops for live chicken and a slaughterhouse for fresh meat. It also has a nursery offering fresh home decoration plants with other necessary equipment and fertiliser for home garden.

Abattoir is yet to open as some final works are still going on. Shops for live chicken have opened but they are not allowed to house live chicken at the

facility due to some technical issues, which is expected to be solved soon. So vendors are sell-ing chilled chicken, which again is not moving due to lesser cus-tomers at the facility. Vendors expect that they would be able to start their main business of sell-ing the live chicken.

“I was a regular customer of Abu Hamour Fish market because of fresh supply on low rate. I used to visit there at least once a week to buy fish in large quantity for my family," Imam of a mosque in Freej Halal told The Peninsula.

"Prices of fish are as normal but some species are very low today like Safi that is available at QR12 per kg. The normal price of this fish is about QR30," said the Imam.

“We went Al Khor to buy fish and other groceries but with the new central market here, I can avoid driving long destination,” said a resident of Umm Qaran.

“I bought fish, fruits and veg-etables. Fish is significantly cheaper there isn't much differ-ence in the prices of fruits and vegetables,” he added.

A vendor at the Umm Salal Central Market await visitors.

07THURSDAY 20 APRIL 2017 HOME

NBK Automobiles launches E-Class Coupe The Peninsula

Nasser Bin Khaled Automobiles, the authorised general distributor of Mer-cedes-Benz in Qatar,

presented the new E-Class Coupe at the seventh edition of Qatar Motor Show 2017.

With its expressive coupé proportions, clear and sensual design and long-distance com-fort for four people, the new E-Class Coupé combines the beauty and classic virtues of a grand tourer with state-of-the-art technology.

The interior of the new E-Class Coupé embodies the syn-thesis of sporty emotion and luxurious intelligence. The instrument cluster in the driver's direct line of vision shows vir-tual instruments which can be represented in three different styles: "Classic", "Sport" and "Progressive".

High-grade materials and contemporary colour landscapes come together to create a sporty, contemporary luxury. Especially for the E-Class Coupé, there is a choice of two new, light wood trim packages in open-pore and high-gloss finishes. Precisely executed seams give emphasis to the seat design. The interior lighting makes exclusive use of durable, energy-saving LED technology. The same applies to the optionally available

enhanced ambient lighting with 64 colours.

With a length of 4826 mm (+123 mm), a width of 1860 mm (+74 mm) and a height of 1430 mm (+33 mm), the new E-Class Coupé clearly outstrips its pred-ecessor in terms of length, width and height. The principal bene-ficiary of the wider track, with 1605 mm at the front (+67 mm) and 1609 mm at the rear (+68 mm), is the driving dynamics.

The significantly larger foot-print compared with the previous model is to the benefit of passengers with extra spa-ciousness and comfort. They profit especially in terms of rear knee room, front and rear shoul-der room as well as rear

headroom. In each of the four fully fledged seats with coupé-specific individual seat character, the driver and passengers enjoy genuine comfort on long jour-neys as well as the classic virtues of a grand tourer.

Powerful and efficient pet-rol and diesel engines, all equipped with the ECO start/stop function and complying with the Euro 6 emission standard —among them a new four-cylinder diesel engine — make for lively performance and driving enjoyment.

The dynamic body control suspension with adjustable damping is available as optional equipment. This suspension is likewise lowered. Using a switch

in the centre console for the dynamic select system included as standard, the driver can vary the damping characteristics of this suspension. Three modes are available, offering a wide range of adjustment options: "Comfort", "Sport" and "Sport+".

Alternatively, the new E-Class Coupé can be equipped with multi-chamber air suspen-sion, including all-round roll/pitch/heave stabilisation. Advan-tages of this system: three chambers of different size in the spring struts of the rear axle and two in the spring struts of the front axle make it possible to control the hardness of the sus-pension in three stages. In this way, the occupants enjoy soft

basic suspension, along with the secure feeling of good handling stability at higher speeds.

The multi-chamber air sus-pension is augmented by a continuous, electronically con-trolled adaptive damping system. The damping at each individual wheel is adjusted fully automat-ically to suit the current driving situation and condition of the road – such as in the case of eva-sive maneuvers or on rough tracks. The system, therefore, delivers good ride comfort along with excellent driving dynamics.

Using the dynamic select switch, the driver can also select different suspension character-istics in combination with the air

body control system: "Comfort", ECO, "Sport", "Sport +" and Individual.

Whereas the familiar Live Traffic Information was previ-ously reserved for COMAND Online, the new E-Class Coupé offers this function with Audio 20 USB with the Garmin MAP PILOT System. Live Traffic Infor-mation allows the reception of up-to-date and precise traffic information in real time, with significant benefits for dynamic route guidance and precise cal-culation of estimated arrival time. Other new features in con-junction with COMAND Online include a Free Flow display —green lines clearly show the driver where traffic is currently flowing freely — as well as the display and consideration of traf-fic information away from the main roads.

As a member of the current E-Class family, the new Coupé is significantly more intelligent than its predecessor. It comes with all the features of the E-Class, the most intelligent executive saloon. Active Brake Assist comes as standard. It is able to warn the driver of an imminent collision, provide optimum support with emergency braking and, if nec-essary, also autonomously apply the brakes. In addition to slower-moving, stopping or stationary vehicles, it can also detect pedes-trians crossing in the danger zone ahead of the vehicle.

The new E-Class Coupé combines the beauty and classic virtues of a grand tourer with state-of-the-art technology. The interior of the new E-Class Coupé embodies the synthesis of sporty emotion and luxurious intelligence.

Alfardan Automobiles hosts Middle East debut of BMW M3 and M760LiThe Peninsula

The first day of the Qatar Motor Show saw the offi-cial BMW Group importer

in Qatar, Alfardan Automobiles, reveal for the first time in the Middle East, the latest BMW M3. Attendees also had the opportu-nity to see a brand-new model from the 7 Series, the BMW M760Li. Additionally, various other BMW models are on dis-play for the motor show.

Ihab Allam, General Manager of Alfardan Automobiles, said: “The Qatar International Motor Show is one of the most recog-nisable yearly automotive events in the region. This year, we have the BMW M3 make a regional premier for the first time in Qatar. As the biggest market for the M models in the Middle East, this is a suitable location to make its first appearance. We are also very excited to showcase the BMW M760Li as it highlights the ability of the brand to combine the highest levels of both luxury and performance.”

The latest BMW M3's minor cosmetic changes have been influenced from the BMW M4. Adaptive full-LED headlights will be fitted on the Life Cycle Impulse (LCI) BMW M3 along with updated M emblems on the front seats, chrome trimmings, electroplated detailing, and updated taillights.

The BMW 7 Series was also a head turner during Qatar Motor Show. Headlined by its excep-tional enhancement and supreme power delivery at all times, the 12-cylinder petrol engine with M Performance TwinPower Turbo technology under the bonnet reinforces the new car’s range-topping status. The boldly dynamic driving characteristics of the BMW M760Li xDrive also offers a high level of superior ride comfort, resulting in a compel-ling statement and a completely new benchmark in the luxury sedan segment.

Launched in Doha earlier this year, the all-new BMW 5 Series Sedan also garnered the attention of attendees. The 7th

generation 5 Series offers indus-try-first assistance systems with a sporty, elegant and stylish figure.

Also, other BMW models

made a preview at the motor show including the BMW 6 Series Gran Coupe, the BMW X5 M and the BMW X6 M, the BMW i8, and BMW M2.

The latest BMW M3 and the new model from the 7 Series, the BMW M760Li, are on display at the Qatar Motor Show.

MINI Countryman delights crowds at Qatar Motor ShowThe Peninsula

The first day of the Qatar Motor Show saw guests delighted by the new

MINI Countryman, thanks to Alfardan Automobiles, the offi-cial BMW group importer in Qatar. The seventh edition of the Qatar Motor Show allows MINI enthusiasts to experience the biggest and most versatile model in the brand’s 57-year history.

The all-new MINI Country-man has pursued its path to success both on and off-road. The large tailgate, five seats and optional all-wheel drive now gives an additional boost to the brand's advance into the pre-mium compact segment. The latest generation of the MINI Countryman goes even further in terms of the model’s versa-tility, agility and premium character.

Thanks to its powerful pro-portions, the new MINI Countryman has a particularly distinctive presence. Its unmis-takable aura is defined by an extended ground clearance and raised seating position, further emphasised by the MINI ALL4 exterior look and high roof rails.

Ihab Allam, General Man-ager of Alfardan Automobiles, commented: “It’s been a great first day at the Qatar Motor Show and we are excited to

have brought another great model to the region, further highlighting the importance of the Qatar market for the MINI brand. MINI being present at the Qatar Motor Show this year is a great step to further high-light the brand’s strong presence in Qatar which saw sales increase by 7% in 2016.”

Besides the all-new MINI Countryman, versatile MINI Clubman also gave fans of the brand a hands-on experience at the motor show. Also on display was the MINI Convertible with exterior design that comprises a balance between top-class ele-gance and sporty flair. Maintaining the classic MINI design features, the MINI Con-vertible is further enhanced with circular headlamps and rear lights with chrome surrounds, hexagonal radiator grille, black peripheral body surround, side turn indicator elements and a large selection of body finishes including the variant of Carib-bean Aqua metallic.

The Qatar Motor Show is taking place at the Doha Exhi-bition and Convention Center. It will conclude on Saturday and it brought together some of the most notable interna-tional carmakers highlighting their latest models as well as car accessory companies highlight the latest in auto and perform-ance trends.

All-New Land Rover Discovery on displayThe Peninsula

Alfardan Premier Motors Co, the exclusive retailer of Land Rover in Qatar,

has unveiled the full-sized, three row, seven-seat All-New Land Rover Discovery SUV during the Qatar Motor Show.

The All-New Discovery clearly embodies Land Rover’s drive to go Above and Beyond, combining British desirability with an unstoppable spirit of adventure. The fifth-generation model benefits from Land Rov-er’s strong, safe and light full-size SUV architecture, deliv-ering comfort and adaptability like no other.

Speaking at the launch, Rabih Ataya, General Manager for Alfardan Premier Motors,

said: “Since its reveal, the All-New Discovery has been highly anticipated by customers here

in Qatar. We have already received a number of orders for the vehicle mirroring the

outstanding response the new model has received from enthu-siasts all over the region. An iconic Land Rover vehicle, we expect the All-New Discovery to continue driving traffic to our showrooms.”

Bruce Robertson, Managing Director, Jaguar Land Rover Middle East and North Africa, added: “Created as a highly desirable, extremely versatile and hugely capable premium SUV, the All-New Discovery is leading the next chapter of the Land Rover Discovery family with revolutionary design and engineering. A nod to our brand heritage and DNA, this new model fully demonstrates the spirit of adventure that has always been at the heart of the Discovery family."

Officials with the All-New Land Rover Discovery SUV at the Qatar Motor Show. Pic: Salim Matramkot / The Peninsula

Officials with the all-new MINI Countryman at the show.

08 THURSDAY 20 APRIL 2017MIDDLE EAST / AFRICA

Ameen Mukdad, a violinist from Mosul who lived under IS rule for two-and-a-half years where they destroyed his musical instruments, performs at Nabi Yunus shrine in eastern Mosul, Iraq, yesterday.

Performing in ruins

Istanbul

AP

Turkey's electoral board yesterday rejected petitions by opposi-tion parties to annul the outcome of a

recent referendum on expand-ing presidential powers because of voting irregularities.

The request was rejected in a 10-1 vote, said Mehmet Had-imi Yakupoglu, the main opposition Republican People's Party's representative at the High Electoral Board. Two other opposition parties' requests were also rejected.

Before the electoral board's announcement, Prime Minis-ter Binali Yildirim said that the opposition had the right to file objections, but warned that calling for street protests was unacceptable. Opposition par-ties have complained of a series of irregularities, particularly an electoral board decision to accept ballots without official stamps, as required by Turkish law. Yakupoglu said they would take the decision to the consti-tutional court and then to the European Court of Human Rights if necessary.

Earlier, Yildirim said that "the path to seek rights" should be limited to the courts.

"Calling people to the street is wrong and is outside the line of legitimacy," Yildirim said, add-ing, "we expect the main opposition party's leader to act more responsibly."

Thousands have protested in Istanbul and Ankara since Sunday's referendum, which has set into motion the trans-formation of Turkey's system of government from a parlia-mentary to a presidential one.

Unofficial results show a narrow win for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's "yes" cam-paign, which garnered 51.4 percent of the vote.

"The main opposition party not recognizing the results is not an acceptable thing," Yildirim said. The Istanbul Bar Association filed a criminal complaint against electoral board head Sadi Guven for "wrongful conduct" and "alter-ing the result of the election."

Riyadh

AFP

The United States wants to see a strong Saudi Arabia, Defence Secretary Jim

Mattis said during talks aimed at reinvigorating the Riyadh-Washington alliance.

Mattis, meeting top officials in the Saudi capital, also hinted that President Donald Trump could visit the kingdom, a long-time US ally which has welcomed Washington's firmer line against common adversary Iran.

"It is in our interest to see a strong Saudi Arabia," Mattis said at the start of talks with Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the defence minister, pointing to the country's

"military security services and secret services."

"What we can do here today could actually open the door possibly to bringing our presi-dent to Saudi Arabia," Mattis said. Mattis, a retired four-star Marine general, earlier met Cus-todian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud at Al Yamama Palace, where he told the monarch: "It's good to be back."

Mattis commanded troops during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

He arrived in the kingdom on Tuesday afternoon to listen to Saudi leaders and learn "what are their priorities," an Ameri-can defence official said earlier. The United States and Saudi Arabia have a decades-old

relationship based on the exchange of American security for Saudi oil. But ties between Riyadh and Washington became increasingly frayed during the administration of president Barack Obama.

Saudi leaders felt Obama was reluctant to get involved in the civil war in Syria and was tilting toward Riyadh's regional rival Iran. The kingdom "felt marginalised" during interna-tional negotiations on a nuclear accord with Iran, the defence official said. That deal, signed in July 2015 by the Obama admin-istration, saw the lifting of international sanctions in exchange for guarantees that Tehran would not pursue a nuclear weapons capability.

US woman freed from Egypt prisonCAIRO: The lawyer of Egyp-tian-American charity worker Aya Hijazi says she has been released from prison after nearly three years of deten-tion. Taher Abol Nasr said she was released, two days after a court acquitted her of charges of child abuse that were widely dismissed as bogus by human rights groups and US officials. Hijazi and her husband had established a foundation to aid street chil-dren, but were arrested along with six others in 2014. It was not immediately clear whether her co-defendants were also released.

Policeman dead in Sinai shooting CAIRO: A policeman was killed and three others wounded yesterday when gunmen opened fire on a checkpoint near St Cather-ine's monastery in Egypt's Sinai, the interior ministry said, in an attack claimed by Islamic State militants. "A number of gunmen... facing one of the checkpoints on the road to St Catherine's in south Sinai shot at security forces at the checkpoint," the inte-rior ministry said in a statement on its Facebook page. Security forces returned fire, wounding some of the attackers and "forcing them to flee", it said.

Israel soldiers shoot dead PalestinianJERUSALEM: A Palestinian crashed a car into a bus stop at a tense junction in the occupied West Bank yester-day, wounding one person before soldiers opened fire and killed him, Israel's mili-tary said. The wounded civilian was taken for medi-cal treatment, the army said. Medics said he was a 60-year-old man with a head injury. The incident occurred at a major junction near the Gush Etzion bloc of Israeli settlements in the West Bank outside Jerusalem. The junc-tion has seen a series of similar incidents. A wave of unrest which erupted in Octo-ber 2015 has claimed the lives of 261 Palestinians.

Rashidin, Syria

AFP

Evacuations of thousands of besieged Syrians resumed yesterday with tight security

in place after a weekend bombing against those leaving government-held areas killed dozens, including nearly 70 children.

A large convoy of buses set out from the government-held towns of Fuaa and Kafraya in Idlib province, carrying 3,000

people to the rebel-held transit point of Rashidin near Aleppo, a correspondent said.

At the same time, 11 buses car-rying around 300 people left rebel-held Zabadani, Serghaya and Jabal Sharqi in Damascus province, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said.

In Rashidin, security was tight after a devastating bomb attack on evacuees at the site on Saturday that according to the Observatory killed 126 peo-

ple, including 68 children.Most of the dead were from

the two Shiite-majority towns, with a handful of aid workers and rebels guarding the convoy also killed. Dozens of wounded were taken to hospitals in nearby rebel-held territory, while others were taken to Aleppo, which government forces regained full control of late last year. Armed rebels were standing guard at Rashi-din and carefully inspecting

vehicles arriving in the area."We chose a different loca-

tion as the gathering point for fighters from Fuaa and Kafraya with their families, because we are obliged to protect them until they leave here," said rebel fighter Abu Obeida al-Shami.

Buses were parked in a semi-circle, forming a makeshift barrier around an area in the centre of a lot where evacuees including dozens of children milled.

Kinshasa

AFP

THE UN said yesterday it had found a further 17 mass graves in the Democratic Republic of Congo's central Kasai region, an area plagued by violence between tribal militias and security forces.

Fighting erupted in Kasai after government troops last August killed tribal chief Jean Pierre Mpandi, also known as Kamwina Nsapu, who had launched an uprising against President Joseph Kabila.

Yesterday's announce-ment by the UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, raises to 40 the number of mass graves discovered in Kasai. Two United Nations researchers, who had been sent to investigate violence in the region, were found in a grave 16 days after they were abducted last month.

If the government does not take such action he would not hesitate to "ask the inter-national community to support an inquiry, which could include the Interna-tional Criminal Court", Hussein added.

Ramallah

AFP

Palestinian leaders yester-day denounced Israel's refusal to negotiate with

Palestinians on hunger strike in Israeli jails, warning of a "new intifada" if any of them die. Some 1,500 Palestinian prisoners have joined the hun-ger strike that began Monday, according to Issa Qaraqe, head of detainees' affairs for the Pal-estinian Authority.

The hunger strike has been led by prominent prisoner and popular Palestinian leader Mar-wan Barghouti, who is serving five life sentences over his role in the second Palestinian inti-fada, or uprising.

The prisoners have made a range of demands, from better medical care to access to tele-phones. Some 6,500 Palestinians are currently detained by Israel for a range of offences and alleged crimes. Around 500 are held under administrative deten-tion, which allows for imprisonment without charge.

Palestinian prisoners have mounted repeated hunger strikes, but rarely on such a scale. Qaraqe said the strike

followed months of attempts at negotiations with Israeli authorities. "If their demands are not met, more prisoners will join the strike," he said.

"We have asked the inter-national community and the UN to intervene immediately."

He added that if prisoners die, "that could lead to a new intifada."

Israeli officials have vowed not to negotiate with the hun-ger strikers, with Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan on Tuesday calling them "ter-rorists and incarcerated murderers."

Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked said that authorities "would not hesitate to imple-ment the law which authorises the force-feeding of detainees".

The controversial law passed in 2015 concerns hun-ger strikers whose life is deemed in danger.

Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said he wanted to take the approach of former British prime minister Marga-ret Thatcher, who publicly refused to accede to the demands of IRA hunger strik-ers in 1981, 10 of whom died.

Kampala

AP

Uganda's military announced yester-day it is ending its pursuit of internationally known warlord Joseph

Kony, saying its mission "has now been suc-cessfully achieved" even though the rebel leader remains at large. The decision means the manhunt for one of the world's most notorious fugitives is effectively over. Uganda has started pulling its forces from Central

African Republic, which for years had been the base for troops chasing the rebels, mil-itary spokesman Brig. Richard Karemire said.

The news comes shortly after the United States' decision last month to pull out of the manhunt for Kony, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court, saying the active membership of his Lord's Resistance Army is now less than 100. The US depar-ture left only Uganda in the manhunt.

At the peak of its powers, the rebel group was known worldwide for its cruelty against

civilians in Uganda, Congo, Central African Republic and what is now South Sudan. In 2012, the US-based advocacy group Invisi-ble Children made a highly successful video highlighting the LRA's alleged crimes, includ-ing the abduction of children for use as sex slaves or fighters.

Kony, a former Catholic altar boy whose rebel movement aspired to rule Uganda according to the biblical Ten Command-ments, is wanted by the ICC for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

US wants strong Saudi Arabia: Mattis

Israel slammed for refusing talks with hunger strikers

The Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia with US Defence Secretary James Mattis in Riyadh, yesterday.

Evacuations resume in Syria after bombing

Turkey rejects referendum plea by oppn

17 mass graves found in DR Congo: UN

Mission to pursue warlord Kony is declared over

No annulment

Petitions by opposition parties to annul the referendum results were rejected in a 10-1 vote by Turkey's electoral board.

09THURSDAY 20 APRIL 20170 ASIA

No more VIP red beacons from May 1 NEWS BYTES

KOLKATA: At least 100kg of cannabis was seized by the Border Security Force (BSF) officials in West Bengal's North 24-Parganas district yesterday, an official said. Acting on a tip-off, the Ramchandra Pur outpost troopers mounted a spe-cial vigil near the International Border, the official said. "The BSF personnel challenged some unidentified men with head loads and seized the Hemp cannabis wrapped in 47 plastic packets," Deputy Inspector General R P S Jaswal of the BSF's South Bengal Frontier said.

100kg cannabis seized by BSF

NOIDA: At least six persons were killed and six others injured in a massive fire at an electronics factory yesterday, police said adding that several persons were missing in the incident. Ten fire tenders and hydraulic cranes were pressed into service to control the inferno at the factory of Excel Greenwich com-pany in sector 11 of the industrial township, adjacent to the national capital. Six badly-charred bodies have been recov-ered from the remains of the factory, an official said. Police suspect that an electrical short triggered the fire.

Six dead in Noida factory fire

NEW DELHI: An Indian court yesterday acquitted a French consular official of raping his three-year-old daughter, the embassy in New Delhi said. Pascal Mazurier was arrested in June 2012 after his Indian-origin wife accused him of raping their daughter, and was tried in a court in the southern city of Bangalore. "We confirm that (Mazurier) was acquitted in the first instance by the Bangalore court," said a diplomatic source, confirming Indian media reports. Mazurier, who was working in the French consulate in Bangalore when he was arrested, had always denied the charge.

French official acquitted of assaultNew Delhi IANS

The central government yes-terday announced no dignitary will be allowed

to flaunt red beacons atop their vehicles from May 1, and neces-sary changes in the laws for the purpose are being brought about. The Congress termed the decision "ridiculous" and as a mere "symbolic politics". The decision was taken by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who

informed the cabinet about it. "From May 1, no red beacon

will be allowed atop any official vehicle. There will be no excep-tions," Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told reporters here after the cabinet meeting.

"It is more precisely the Prime Minister's decision. He only informed the cabinet about it," Jaitley told reporters after the cabinet meet. Vehicles involved in emergency and relief and res-cue services, ambulances, and fire services, will, however, be

allowed to put blue beacons, the minister said. Jaitley said the government will bring about the necessary amendment to the Central Motor Vehicle Rules, 1989, in this regard.

"Rule 108 deals with use of red, white and blue lights on vehicles. Rule 108-1 (III) says the Centre and states can specify dignitaries who can use beacons on their (official) vehicles. It is a central rule and is being abol-ished from the rule book," Jaitley said. He said it means no

dignitary at the Centre or in states could henceforth use bea-cons on their vehicles.

Asked if there would be exceptions like the President or the Prime Minister for the use of red beacon on their cars, Jaitley said there can't be any excep-tions "when the rule itself is not there in the rule book".

The minister said Rule 108 (2) that empowers the Centre and state governments to use blue beacons with flasher is also being changed.

NEW DELHI: Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu yesterday flagged-off a passenger train for Kerala, along with 45 freight terminals envisaged under 'Mission Hundred' -- an objec-tive as per the 2016-17 Budget. "Kerala is a state with high population density with not much urban-rural divide, so demand for public transport is high. Providing intercity transport for Kerala is important," said a statement cit-ing the minister, who inaugurated these services through video-conferencing here.

Prabhu flags-off train for Kerala

BSF dismisses trooper after viral video

AIADMK factions in talks for unification

New Delhi IANS

BSF trooper Tej Bahadur Yadav — who triggered a political uproar when

his video clip on "substand-ard food" served to BSF men went viral in January— was yesterday dismissed from service, an official said.

Yadav said he will approach the government and move the court if he fails to get justice. He has the option to appeal his dismissal, which came after a BSF court found him guilty of indiscipline, in a higher court within three months. The video clip had triggered an uproar across the country, with the Prime Min-ister's Office and the Home Ministry seeking detailed reports from the BSF.

New Delhi IANS

Former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister O Panneersel-vam yesterday said the

ouster of the rival AIADMK faction's two leaders - V K Sasikala and her nephew T T V Dinakaran - was the first victory in the "dharma yudh" and both factions would hold unification talks.

Dinakaran said that since everyone had decided to keep him out of the party affairs, he had decided to stay out. Panneerselvam said the war for justice would continue "till the main goal is achieved".

His comments came a day after Tamil Nadu Finance Minister D Jayakumar announced that AIADMK ministers had decided to keep jailed AIADMK General Sec-retary V K Sasikala and her nephew and party Deputy General Secretary Dinakaran and their family members out of the party.

Panneerselvam reiterated that AIADMK founder and former Chief Minister M G Ramachandran and his suc-cessor J Jayalalithaa led the party as a movement of cad-res. He said that after Jayalalithaa died, the AIADMK had "gone into the hands" of Sasikala's family.

China gives six places its own names in ArunachalItanagar

IANS

China has given its own names to six places in Aru-nachal Pradesh, which it

calls "South Tibet", in a move to reaffirm its territorial sover-eignty over the Indian state.

The Ministry of Civil Affairs announced on April 14 on its website that it had standardised in Chinese characters, Tibetan

and Roman alphabet the names of six places, the state-run Glo-bal Times reported on Tuesday.

The six names are Wo'gyainling, Mila Ri, Qoidên-garbo Ri, Mainquka, Bümo La and Namkapub Ri. The report did not say which six places in Arunachal Pradesh it was referring to.

"The standardisation came amid China's growing under-standing and recognition of the

geography in South Tibet. Nam-ing the places is a step to reaffirm China's territorial sovereignty to South Tibet," Xiong Kunxin, a professor of ethnic studies at Beijing's Minzu University of China, told the daily.

"These names have existed since ancient times but had never been standardised (ear-lier). Therefore, announcing the names is like a remediation," said Guo Kefan, a research

fellow at the Tibet Academy of Social Sciences.

He added: "Standardising the names from the angles of cul-ture and geography could serve as a reference or leverage when China and India negotiate bor-der issues in future."

On April 5, China's Foreign Ministry criticised India for invit-ing the Dalai Lama to Arunachal Pradesh, an action which it said will "bring no benefits to India".

"The Dalai Lama's visit to Arunachal Pradesh severely damages China's interests and Sino-Indian relations," said Hua Chunying, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson.

Hua added that arranging "his activities in this sensitive area where China and India have territorial disputes not only vio-lates India's commitment on Tibet-related issues, but also fuels the border dispute".

Labourers transporting bamboo logs down the Longai River near the Tripura-Mizoram state border in Damchara, yesterday.

Log driving

New Delhi AFP

Three senior members of India's ruling nationalist party including a cabinet minister should face

trial over the demolition of a mosque a quarter of a century ago, the Supreme Court ruled yesterday.

The three are accused of inciting Hindu zealots to pull down the 16th century Babri mosque in Ayodhya in 1992, igniting one of India's most explosive religious disputes in which thousands died.

India's top court said govern-ment minister Uma Bharti, former deputy prime minister L K Advani, and M M Joshi— all senior mem-bers of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) — should face crimi-nal conspiracy charges.

The ruling came after a lower court dropped the charges brought against them by India's Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), kicking off a series of appeals and counter-appeals.

"We have allowed the CBI

appeal against the Allahabad High Court judgement with cer-tain directions," the Press Trust of India news agency quoted the Supreme Court judges as saying.

The demolition of the mosque in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh sparked nation-wide riots in which thousands were killed, most of them Muslims.

It marked the culmination of a virulent campaign led by the BJP, which recently won elec-tions in the state, India's largest.

Many Hindus believe the

Babri mosque was only built after the destruction of a tem-ple that marks the birthplace of their god Ram and the issue remains hugely divisive.

Some BJP leaders including Bharti want a temple to Ram to be built on the ruins of the razed mosque -- an idea that horrifies Uttar Pradesh's significant Mus-lim minority. Bharti, India's water resources minister, said after the ruling she was "ready to hang" for the temple cause and would travel to Ayodhya tomorrow.

"There was no conspiracy. Everything was out in the open for everyone to see," she told reporters.

"I am absolutely clear about one thing — I have always been very proud of my participation in the Ram temple movement.

"I am ready to hang, to go to jail for this."

Advani, now 89, has consist-ently denied a criminal conspiracy to destroy the mosque. The former leader of the BJP was in Ayodhya on the day of the demolition and his campaign for the temple came to define his political career.

SC restores trial of BJP leaders in Babri case

Rescue personnel standing amid wreckage and victims after a bus accident, in Shimla, yesterday.

44 dead in Himachal bus accidentShimla

AFP

At least 44 passengers were killed when a private bus fell into a river in

Himachal Pradesh's Shimla dis-trict yesterday, police said. Two people, including the bus con-ductor, managed to escape by jumping off the bus even as it skidded off the road.

The bus, with 46 people on board, was on its way to Tuini from Vikas Nagar town (both in Uttarakhand), via the state, when the bus skidded off the mountain road and fell into Tons river, more than 250 metres below the road. Deputy Commissioner Rohan Thakur confirmed the toll.

"So far, 17 bodies have been identified. Ten of the victims belonged to Uttarakhand and

the remaining were from Himachal Pradesh," Thakur said over phone from the spot. He said the cause of the accident was yet to be ascertained. The victims included 11 women and three girls, the official said.

The accident occurred near Rohana in Nerva tehsil, some 190 km from the state capital. It is one of the remotest places in the state, bordering Uttarakhand.

Criminal conspiracy

The Supreme Court said government minister Uma Bharti, former deputy prime minister L K Advani, and M M Joshi — all senior members of ruling Bharatiya Janata Party — should face criminal conspiracy charges.

Anies Baswedan, a former Indonesian education minister, has won the race for Jakarta’s governor after a heated and polarizing campaign, defeating his rival Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, known by his

Chinese nickname as Ahok. Anies won with 58 percent of the votes versus 42 percent for his rival in an unofficial quick count yesterday because the official results will be announced only in May.

Elections for Jakarta’s governor are normally an Indonesian affair. But this year, the race attracted international attention and generated plenty of heat domestically because of the religious and ethnic controversies it created. Purnama is a non-Muslim, and thousands of people took to the streets late last year to urge voters not to elect him.

One person died and more than 100 were injured in one the protests which turned violent. Purnama is supported by President Joko Widodo’s ruling party, while Baswedan is backed by a retired general, Prabowo Subianto, who narrowly lost to Widodo in a 2014 presidential vote and is expected to challenge him again. Indonesia is known as a tolerant country where people of all faiths live in perfect harmony, and the controversy surrounding Purnama’s candidature was seen as tarnishing that image.

But the controversy must be seen as a strength of Indonesian democracy though religious hardliners

have whipped up religious and ethnic passions. People have finally voted and they chose Baswedan after considering the pros and cons. The fact that Purnama was the candidate of President Joko Widodo’s ruling party shows a vast majority of people and the country’s leaders remain as secular and tolerant as ever.

Tolerance and harmony are inextricably woven into Indonesia’s social fabric and have been nurtured for centuries for a few hardliners to disturb them. Also, the candidate who won, Baswedan, is known as a moderate and he is also a respected scholar. During campaigning, he focused on improving public education, providing no-deposit home loans for low income groups and opposing a giant seawall in Jakarta Bay which Purnama has advocated.

Now that he has won, Baswedan must work hard to heal the divisions and unite people. He struck a conciliatory tone at a news conference after the results came in, vowing to safeguard diversity and unity. Purnama too congratulated the winner and promised all support. “We all want a better Jakarta, we want Jakarta to be our home together,” he said. Widodo also called for the mending of political divisions. “Political differences should not break our unity,” he said. “We are all brothers and sisters. Whoever is elected, we must accept.”

10 THURSDAY 20 APRIL 2017VIEWS

E S T A B L I S H E D I N 1 9 9 6

CHAIRMANSHEIKH THANI BIN ABDULLAH AL THANI

EDITOR-IN-CHIEFDR. KHALID BIN MUBARAK AL-SHAFI

editorinchief@pen.com.qa

ACTING MANAGING EDITORMOHAMMED SALIM MOHAMED

msalim@pen.com.qa

A vote for governance

QUOTE OF THE DAY

We have elements that will allow us to show that the regime knowingly used chemical weapons. In a few days I will be able to bring you the proof.

Jean-Marc AyraultFrench Foreign Minister

After a divisive and polarising election campaign, Anies Baswedan has been elected as Jakarta governor.

On Sunday, 58 million people in Tur-key voted in a referendum that will change the way the country is governed.

According to official results, supporters of the constitutional changes that seek to extend the powers of Turkey’s presiden-tial office have won the historic vote with 51.3 percent to 48.7 percent. On Monday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who had long been cam-paigning for a “Yes” vote, declared his victory in a passionate speech in Ankara.

But as much as this referendum will shape Turkey’s domestic politics in the years to come, it will also have a significant effect on its for-eign relations, as well. So what can we expect from Ankara’s post-referendum foreign policies?

Persisting tensions with EuropeOver the past year, Turkey’s relations with

the European Union have gradually worsened. The ongoing crisis in relations is a side effect of the Turkish government’s tendency to use for-eign policy as an instrument for success in domestic politics.

In his post-referendum speech, Erdogan mentioned that the “Yes” campaign won the referendum in spite of facing attacks from “the crusader mentality” in the West, and “the serv-ants of this mentality within Turkey” — making it clear that he is not reluctant to use the esca-lation with the EU to garner domestic support for his policies in the future.

In his speech in Ankara on Monday, Erdogan once again said that Turkey will consider rein-stating the death penalty — even though he knows that this move can potentially end the EU membership negotiations for good.

Under these circumstances, it is logical to expect Turkey to continue following an aggres-sive foreign policy towards its European Nato allies. The crisis between the EU and Turkey has been limited to rhetoric up to this point, but after the referendum, we can expect deeper — legal and institutional — clashes between the two.

Following the referendum result, Turkey will work towards transforming its relationship with the EU, which was fully institutionalised as a result of Turkey’s decades long EU candi-dacy, into a transactional one.

Turkey will stay in the European Customs Union for the foreseeable future and the trade between the two parties will continue, but their relationship will be limited to “business”.

The crisis between the EU and Turkey will not affect Nato, at least for now, because the United States finally made it clear that it is not ready to discard this alliance just yet.

What’s next for Turkey in the Middle East?Prior to the referendum, projections for the

future of Turkey’s position in the Middle East-were negative for the most part. In Syria, Turkey is stuck between Russia and the US. It failed to form a strong alliance with the new US administration and convince Donald Trump to support Turkey’s interests in the region. Also, the much-celebrated reconciliation between Turkey and Russia did not live up to Ankara’s

Post-referendum Turkey: Renewed conflicts & new alliesDr Metin GurcanAl Jazeera

expectations. Moscow did not alter its strat-egy in Syria to accommodate Turkey’s interests.

Both the US and Russia are still sup-porting PKK-affiliated Kurdish groups in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) in Syria, even though Turkey emphasised — time and time again — that it considers this issue to be a red line.

In Iraq, Turkey is also facing problems due to the confrontation between the Kurdistan Regional Government, a Turk-ish ally, and the Turkmen groups that have been under Turkish protection.

Now the question is whether the result of the referendum is going to help Turkey get out of this foreign policy quagmire.

The US, as usual, is sending mixed mes-sages about Turkey’s constitutional referendum. President Donald Trump con-gratulated Erdogan on his referendum victory in a phone call, but his press sec-retary, Sean Spicer, said the US will not be commenting on the referendum result “until an international commission pub-lishes its report on the referendum process in the next 10 to 12 days”.

The contradiction between Trump and Spicer’s statements about Turkey’s refer-endum result can be viewed as another indication of the lack of strategy plaguing the US administration at the moment. For now, in my opinion, Trump is eager to empower Erdogan and legitimise his new mandate, while the US establishment is sceptical and cautious about the changes taking place in Turkey. We don’t know which side is going to be dominant in the end. So we still do not know what is in the cards for Turkey’s relations with the US and whether the referendum result is going to have an impact on the US’ view of Turkey.

On the other hand, it is possible that the referendum result is going to help strengthen Turkey’s relations with Russia. Putin and Erdogan may form some sort of a “strong-man brotherhood” and create a unified front against Western criticisms regarding their domestic and foreign policies.

Also, Trump’s decision to bomb the Shayrat military base in Syria in reaction to the chemical attack in the town of Khan Sheikhoun — and his recent about-face regarding Bashar Al Assad’s future in Syria — undoubtedly got Russia worried and may

push Moscow to seek a stronger relationship with Turkey in the region.

While it would be too optimistic to expect this r e f e r e n d u m t o

end diplomatic scuffles between the two countries regarding Syria, it is possible to say that Putin is going to be more inter-ested in having a stronger relationship with Ankara.

On Monday, Erdogan signalled that Turkey may soon embark on a new cross-border operation by saying that the Euphrates Shield is not going to be Tur-key’s final operation in the region. The president did not give a timeframe or a location for the upcoming operation.

The public support for the Euphrates Shield Operation, which was launched in northern Syria on August 26, did not fall below 75 percent until the end of the oper-ation last month. This means that the majority of the Turkish public would sup-port another cross-border operation — especially if it is against the PKK or a PKK-affiliated Kurdish militia.

It is highly likely that Erdogan is plan-ning another military operation given the domestic success of Euphrates Shield to rally up support for his domestic politics.

There are four potential targets for this operation: the area west of the Euphrates river, the area east of the Euphrates river, Sinjar or northern Iraq. The area west of the Euphrates river is now under Russian control and Russia is not likely to allow Turkey to move in freely — even if these two countries decide to develop closer relations following the referendum result.

Thea area east of the Euphrates river, on the other hand, is under control of the US. At the moment, the US is preparing for the upcoming Raqqa operation and it is unlikely to allow Turkey to come in and disturb the balance in this area.

So the reality on the ground dictates that if Turkey is going to embark on a new cross-border operation in the near future, its target is going to be Iraq.

Iraq’s Sinjar has an outstanding stra-tegic importance and Turkey would love to take control over it. But a potential oper-ation by Turkey targeting this region — which acts as a natural bridge between Iraq and Syria — would give it the oppor-tunity to be influential in both the Raqqa and Mosul operations. The US wants to be in control of the outcome of both of these operations, so it is highly unlikely that it would give Erdogan its blessing for such an incursion.

But there is another area in Iraq where Turkey can operate without upsetting nei-ther the US nor Russia: PKK-dominated areas in northern Iraq, like Metina, Ava-sin-Basyan and Hakurk near the Turkish border. If Turkey can quickly solve its problems with the Kurdish regional leader Massoud Barzani regarding Kirkuk, it can make an incursion in to northern Iraq strictly against PKK targets in the coming month. But whether or not Turkey decides to embark on a new cross-border opera-tion, we can be certain that it will continue to be an active player in the region in the post-referendum period.

The writer is a Turkish security analyst and research fellow at the Istanbul Policy Centre (IPC), Sabanci University.

Following the referendum result, Turkey will work towards transforming its relationship with the EU, which was fully institutionalised as a result of Turkey’s decades long EU candidacy, into a transactional one.

ED ITOR IAL

11THURSDAY 20 APRIL 2017 OPINION

is, far too often, the Facebook way.Remember just after the presidential election

when Zuckerberg shrugged off the importance of the hyperpartisan lies in the form of news stories - like Pope Francis supposedly endorsing Donald Trump?

“Personally I think the idea that fake news on Facebook, which is a very small amount of the content, influenced the election in any way — I think is a pretty crazy idea.”

In time, he changed his mind about that, and Facebook, to its credit, has made some significant moves to flag, limit and remove financial incen-tives for lies and misinformation that spread like a disastrous oil spill during the campaign.

But Facebook still hasn’t come to terms with what it really is — a media company where people get their news and which, especially because of the year-old Facebook Live, generates news content. Since it began, rape, a horrible attack on a disabled person, and more than one suicide has been live-streamed.

“The crux of this is what is Facebook’s true nature: a technology that enables anyone to pub-lish anything? Or a self-regulating media company with enforced standards?” Emily Bell, director of the Tow Center for digital journalism at Columbia University, told me Monday evening.

Facebook’s answer became clear Tuesday morning.

With its nearly 2 billion monthly active users and more than $10 billion in annual profits, Face-book is better at making money and capturing eyeballs than at owning its equally huge power and responsibilities.

David Clinch, global news editor of the verifi-cation site Storyful, put it this way: “They have to take this issue very seriously and deal with it urgently, or they will surely face more calls for Facebook Live to be put on hold until far more robust controls are put in place.”

So far, that’s not happening.In recent months, Facebook has gone out of its

way to avoid acknowledging the obvious: It is a media company, not simply a platform its billion-plus users to share their lives with family and friends. (I called last year for the company to hire an executive editor, as one step, partly a symbolic one, in that direction; that was shortly after a

UK’s snap elections: The Corbyn factor

In the week leading up to France’s elections, Prime Minister Theresa May has ordered a snap general election for June 8 in Britain.

May is out to neutralise a few problems. First of all, the Crown Prosecution Service is

looking at prosecutions affecting two dozen Con-servative MPs. That number is greater than her parliamentary majority of 17. Second, May’s adminis-tration is hamstrung by its weak majority, as witnessed in a recent U-turn over an attempt to raise taxes for the self-employed. Above all, May is out to finish the left-wing opposition leader, Jeremy Corbyn.

Indeed, the election looks dire for Corbyn, cur-rently at 25 percent in the polls. But why does it seem so much worse than that of France’s radical left pres-idential candidate, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, on 19 percent? Why is Melenchon a threat, while Corbyn looks threatened?

The first part of the answer is that Corbyn doesn’t lead a radical split off from social democracy, as Melenchon does. While the latter leads a politically and ideologically coherent organisation, with plenty of media savvy, Corbyn leads a traditional social democratic party.

This didn’t happen because of overweening left-wing power, but because of the exhaustion of the old party elites, part of a wider social democratic decline. Those elites never adjusted to the new reality, and Corbyn had no choice but to work with them. They are now stuck with each other, neither willing to give up Labour, and neither able to claim complete

control.This gave Corbyn certain advantages, such as the

support of long-entrenched institutions with money and influence, such as the trade unions. He leads not a radical fringe party but the official opposition, to which he has recruited hundreds of thousands of members. But it has limited his repertoire and locked him into a toxic internal spiral of constant war. Melenchon has been free to bash Nato, the World Bank, and the rich.

Corbyn has been obliged to look over his shoul-der. He can’t withdraw from Nato and the World Bank, no major tax hikes on the rich will be announced, and energy nationalisation has been dropped. Yet, he is still too left-wing for his critics, who were in more or less open revolt from day one.

The second part of the answer is Brexit. Melen-chon may need less than 25 percent of the vote in the first round to have a serious chance of winning. This is because of the breakdown of the traditional centre parties — both his former party, the Socialists, and the right-wing party Les Republicains, each of which he has overtaken.

In Britain, however, Brexit has electorally

consolidated the right-wing vote, with former UKIP voters deserting the party for a Conserva-tive Party. Meanwhile, it has exacerbated the fragmentation of the left vote. In the aftermath, moreover, the Labour establishment moved to overthrow Corbyn. They hoped, through a string of resignations and timed media statements, to create an intolerable climate for him. However, they misunderstood him: he hadn’t won by climbing the greasy pole. As long as members and the unions backed him, he didn’t have to go any-where: and he knew it.

Finally, they tried to oust him with another elec-tion, just one year after he was voted in. None of this worked, but it was incredibly self-destructive. At a crucial moment for the country, Labour was embroiled in factional warfare. The party plummeted in the polls. And this snap election gives Corbyn’s rivals another chance to, they hope, finish the job.

It should be easy. The Conservatives enjoy a mountainous 20 percent poll lead. On a uniform swing, that would translate into 393 seats for the Conservatives and 166 seats for Labour. May, by exploiting this opportunity, hopes to break Labour as

Facebook’s existential crisis arrived with a vengeance this week. But Mark Zuckerberg didn’t want to talk about it much.

Yes, as he took the stage Tuesday in San Jose for his keynote address at a Facebook conference, he nodded to what had happened just two days before: A coldblooded killing posted for millions to see, with live-streamed commentary from the killer soon after.

“Our hearts go out to the family and friends of the victim in Cleveland,” Zuck-erberg said. “We’ll do all we can to prevent tragedies like this from happening.”

But then Facebook’s founder and chairman dived right into an extended discussion of the next Facebook fron-tier - augmented reality, which integrates digital information with the user’s experience in real time. His

mention of the killing, while seemingly sincere, still felt like a kiss-off. But it’s not surprising. Denial

Facebook lets streams of depravity flow freely

The photo shows opposition Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn speaking during Prime Ministers questions in the House of Commons in London.

Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph was deleted by Facebook.)

But there are, of course, business reasons not to accept that. As soon as Facebook acknowledges that it is a pub-lisher and not a platform, it may open itself up to lawsuits that could cut into profits fast.

Better, the thinking apparently goes, to stress techno-logical advances and the ability to connect the whole world with virtual reality, baby pictures and exploding watermelons.

And its Facebook Live has been a force for good, too. Last year, Diamond Reynolds live-streamed the police shooting in Minnesota of her boyfriend, Phi-lando Castile. It was important piece of bearing witness, made poignant by the presence of Reynolds’ tiny daughter.

At this crucial moment, Facebook’s language often sounds clueless, with its combination of stilted corporate euphemism and childlike wonder about “community” and “sharing.”

Following the Cleveland slaying, which remained on the site for hours, a Facebook statement put it like this: “This is a horrific crime and we do not allow this kind of content on Facebook.” Later, a Facebook vice president made a seemingly more thoughtful effort to describe the ways the company would use artificial intelligence and a better “reporting flow” to address the problem.

But none of this was specific enough, or serious enough. Nor did Zuckerberg’s brief mention help.

As Clinch wrote on Twitter: “There’s no algorithm for this and there is no cheap way to do this with community monitoring and inexperienced staff.”

Facebook is immensely and increasingly profitable — it made more than $10 billion last year, up dramatically from 2015. More than four of every five dollars comes from mobile ads, which makes video a more and more essential to corporate success.

But this can’t go on forever.Bell summed it up: “If Facebook is really interested in

the unbiased nature of discourse it would know that totally unmoderated systems favor the authoritarian bully, and suppress free speech rather than enable it. Ask Twit-ter.” An innocent man and his killer — who committed suicide Tuesday — are dead. But that can’t be the end of the story.

The writer is The Washington Post’s media columnist. Previously,

she was The New York Times public editor, and the chief editor

of The Buffalo News, her hometown paper.

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an instrument of opposition for the foreseeable future.

Many on the Labour right hope that will break Corbyn: resignations designed to damage him have begun anew. Even if this happens, however, it may not work. Not because, as some Conservatives ludicrously claim, his supporters think defeat is noble. It is because Corbyn’s Labour critics don’t understand why he is there.

He was elected to address a cri-sis in social democracy from the left, when all else had failed. He would not be where he was if the people now attacking him hadn’t lost all credibility. Their plotting merely makes them look like they have no answers and dislike democracy. Members will appor-tion much of the blame for defeat to them. The only way the old guard could guarantee victory against Corbyn would be to engi-neer a more competent coup.

They would have to ensure that the majority of members and trade union affiliates never had the chance of voting for Corbyn. But then they face a new dilemma. If they revert to the old pattern, where do they think that will lead? If they drive out the only new members they have recruited in years, where will renewal come from?

The writer is an author and broad-caster based in London. He has written for The Guardian, the Lon-don Review of Books and many other publications.

Richard SeymourAl Jazeera

Corbyn has been obliged to look over his shoulder. He can’t withdraw from Nato and the World Bank, no major tax hikes on the rich will be announced, and energy nationalisation has been dropped. Yet, he is still too left-wing for his critics, who were in more or less open revolt from day one.

Margaret SullivanThe Washington Post

Facebook is immensely and increasingly profitable — it made more than $10 bn last year, up dramatically from 2015. More than four of every five dollars comes from mobile ads, which makes video a more and more essential to corporate success.

12 THURSDAY 20 APRIL 2017ASIA

South Korea presidential poll debate

Hong Kong gangster dies behind barsHong Kong

AFP

AN infamous Hong Kong gang-ster, who specialised in armed jewellery heists and became the city's most wanted fugi-tive after a dramatic prison escape in the 1980s, died of cancer in custody yesterday.

Yip Kai-foon who was re-captured in a hail of bullets in 1996 after years on the run, was a symbol of a more vio-lent time in Hong Kong, which was rife with triad gangs -- organised Chinese criminal networks steeped in murky traditions and violent histories.

He and his gang were known for stealing millions of Hong Kong dollars in mer-chandise per heist and spraying bullets at police as they made their getaway.

He was 55 when he died in the early hours of Wednes-day, a government statement said, without naming Yip.

"During hospitalisation, his condition deteriorated and he was certified dead" today the statement said, adding he was serving his term for illegal possession of arms and ammunition and escape from legal custody.

His criminal exploits were portrayed in crime drama Trivisa which won best pic-ture at this month's Hong Kong Film Awards.

Safety woes: Chinese firms reduce tripsBeijing

AP

SOME Chinese tourism compa-nies are eliminating or offering fewer trips to neighboring North Korea as regional tensions and safety worries dampen demand.

Representatives of tour com-panies Ctrip, Caissa and China Youth Travel Service said yester-day they are no longer organising trips to North Korea.

State-run media in China and members of the public have been critical of hostile statements from North Korean leaders as the nation pursues a nuclear arsenal.

Caissa sales manager Zhao Cuili says most tourists are unwilling to go because of safety concerns. The two biggest com-panies, China International Travel Service and China Travel Service, say they still offer multi-day trips to North Korea.

China International Travel sales manager Zhao Haiwei says passengers must take North Korean airlines after the Civil Aviation Administration of China suspended flights.

US ready to counter any North Korea attackYokosuka

AFP

The United States will counter any North Korean attack with an "overwhelming and effective" response,

Vice-President Mike Pence vowed yesterday, as he stood on the deck of a massive American aircraft carrier docked in Japan.

Donald Trump's deputy is in the region to reassure allies fret-ting over Pyongyang's quickening missile programme, and its apparent readiness to carry out another banned nuclear test in its quest to develop an atomic weapon that can hit the US mainland.

Pence, whose visit started in South Korea the day after the failed launch by North Korea of what analysts said could have been a new missile, described the threat from the isolated regime as growing.

Aboard the USS Ronald Rea-gan, the vice-president, adopting a Churchillian tone, told troops he was there as "storm clouds gather on the horizon" of North-east Asia.

"North Korea is the most dangerous and urgent threat to peace and security in the Asia-Pacific," Pence said.

But, "we will defeat any

attack and meet any use of con-ventional or nuclear weapons with an overwhelming and effective American response," he added.

Pence's comments come after a senior North Korean offi-cial warned the regime had no intention of dialling down its missile programme, pledging weekly tests and threatening "all-out war" if the US took any action against it.

That kind of rhetoric has unnerved allies in Japan and South Korea, who would be at the sharp end of any North Korean response.

Seoul, the South Korean cap-ital, is just 56km away from the military demarcation line that splits the Korean peninsula, and

is within easy range of North Korean long-range artillery.

The Ronald Reagan, whose home port is Yokosuka in Japan, is part of the Seventh Fleet and is regularly deployed around the western Pacific.

The Navy had said earlier this month that a strike group led by the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vin-son had been ordered to "sail

north" as a warning to Pyongyang.

Pentagon chief Jim Mattis also said the Vinson was "on her way up" to the peninsula, while Trump said an "armada" had been dispatched, adding fuel to already rising tensions.

But a defence official said that the group of ships was still off the northwest coast of

Australia and would soon begin heading to the Sea of Japan (East Sea). But it would not arrive until next week at the earliest given the vast distance.

Wearing a green flight jacket, Pence also sought to reassure jit-tery allies -- who have seen Trump call into question dec-ades-old mutual defence treaties -- of America's commitment.

Late Thai king to be cremated on October 26Bangkok

Reuters

Thailand's late King Bhu-mibol Adulyadej will be cremated on October

26, a government official said yesterday, adding that the king's funeral will take place over a five day period.

Confirmation of the cre-mation date sets a timeframe for the coronation of Bhumi-bol's son, King Maha Vaj iralongkorn, who ascended the throne in December but whose formal coronation has been put on hold until after his father's funeral.

Political observers say the new king's coronation will formally kick-start politics following a year-long mourn-ing period and a general election should follow soon after.

"The palace has con-firmed that the king agrees with the government's plan. The cremation day will be October 26," a senior govern-ment official, who declined be named because of the sen-sitivity of the matter, said yesterday.

"The funeral will take place over a five day period," Deputy Prime Minister Wis-sanu Krea-ngam, said yesterday.

King Bhumibol died in October 2016 at the age of 88 following a long illness.

His death ended a seven-decade reign that saw the king become a rare unifying figure in an otherwise deeply polarized nation.

Officials have said king Bhumibol's cremation will be a lavish affair befitting of a much-loved monarch.

No budget has been pub-licly released for the funeral which is expected to attract huge crowds.

Thai Buddhists often wait a week or more before cre-mating their dead but royal funerals are exceptional.

The last royal funeral in Thailand was in year 2008 for King Bhumibol's elder sister Princess Galyani Vadhana.

That funeral followed a 100-day mourning period.

The king's cremation will take place at a public square in Bangkok, where an enor-mous wooden funeral pyre is being erected.

Muslim candidate wins Jakarta electionJakarta

Reuters

A former Indonesian edu-cation minister won the race for Jakarta governor

yesterday after a polarising campaign that cast a shadow over Indonesia's reputation for practicing a tolerant form of Islam.

Anies Baswedan won with 58 percent of the votes versus 42 percent for Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, known by his Chinese nickname as "Ahok", based on 100 percent of the votes in an unofficial "quick count" by Indikator Politik. Other poll-

sters showed similar results.The national elections com-

mission will announce official results in early May.

"Going forward, the politics of religion is going to be a potent force," said Keith Loveard, an analyst at Jakarta-based Concord Consulting and an author of books about Indo-nesian politics.

Baswedan's huge margin of victory was surprising since opinion polls in the run-up to the election had pointed to a dead-heat. Purnama won the first round of voting for gover-nor in February in a three-way race.

Mongolia launches first satelliteUlaanbaatar

Reuters

Mongolia launched its first satellite yesterday, part of its efforts to make use

of new technology to diversify its resource-dependent economy.

The 1,227-megahertz satel-lite, called Mongol Sat-1, will help landlocked Mongolia expand its television, telecoms and broadband services,

according to a video posted on the official website of Mongo-lia's parliament .

The satellite was launched in partnership with Asia Broad-cast Satellite (ABS), a telecoms and broadcast provider for the region. No details about the cost of the satellite and the launch were provided, and government agencies could not be immedi-ately reached for comment.

"The project that began over 10 years ago has been finally

accomplished," said Parliament Speaker Miyeegombo Enkhbold in a meeting with ABS Chief Executive Officer Thomas Choi at the satellite's launch.

"This is a historic advance, and we are proud that Mongo-lia sends its first satellite off into space."

Enkhbold said the satellite would also be used to help with space research, map making and with preparing for natural disasters.

China to launch first cargo spacecraft todayBeijing

Reuters

China will launch its first cargo spacecraft today, state media said, taking

another step towards its goal of establishing a permanently manned space station by 2022.

President Xi Jinping has prioritised advancing China's space programme to strengthen national security and defence.

The Tianzhou-1 cargo resupply spacecraft will be launched at 7:41pm, borne aloft on a Long March-7 Y2 rocket from the Wenchang Satellite Launch Centre in the southern island province of Hainan, the Xinhua news agency said yesterday.

It is designed to dock with the Tiangong 2 space labora-tory, or "Heavenly Palace 2", where two astronauts spent a month in space last October in China's longest ever manned space mission.

The mission will provide an "important technological basis" for the construction of China's space station, Xinhua added recently.

"The spacecraft can carry 6 tonnes of goods, 2 tonnes of fuel and can fly unmanned for three months," the state media have said.

Despite the advances in its space programme for military, commercial and scientific pur-poses, China still lags the United States and Russia.

Jakarta governor-elect Anies Baswedan (right) and his deputy governor-elect Sandiaga Una during a press conference in Jakarta, yesterday.

Effective response

North Korea is the most dangerous and urgent threat to peace and security in the Asia-Pacific. But, we will defeat any attack and meet any use of conventional or nuclear weapons with an overwhelming and effective American response: Pence

US Vice-President Mike Pence addressing service members on the flight deck of the Navy's forward-deployed aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan, yesterday at Yokosuka, Japan.

South Korea presidential candidates attend a joint debate forum for the upcoming May presidential election, in Seoul, yesterday.

13THURSDAY 20 APRIL 2017 ASIA

Seeking justicePakistan aims to crack down on illegal visitorsIslamabad

Internews

Days after banning the issuance of landing permits, the interior ministry of Pakistan decided

yesterday to proceed against all visitors coming to Pakistan without valid visas.

It was decided during a meeting presided over by Inte-rior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan that those entering the country without completing the immigration process would be proceeded against under the law of Pakistan, which could include arrest and prosecution.

Recently announcing the decision to suspend visas on arrival for foreigners, including dignitaries, the minister had dis-closed that some 34,000 visas had been issued since year 2007.

Before that the minister had expressed his displeasure over the arrival of an advance team of a dignitary from the United Arab Emirates, comprising Indian nationals, at a small air-port in Sindh without visas,

bypassing immigration processes.

Taking note of visa irregu-larities and breach of security protocols by the advance teams and accompanying staff of var-ious hunting parties, especially

from the Middle East, the min-ister ordered the interior ministry, Federal Investigation Agency and Civil Aviation Authority to put in place an effective system for streamlin-ing and checking any violation of law.

He ordered his ministry to identify all airports and landing strips where delegations arrived for hunting, devise standard operating procedures for immi-gration and customs clearance at the places lacking these facil-ities and also to evolve a robust mechanism of information shar-ing among the immigration department, interior ministry and the aviation division.

He said the process should be completed within a week.

He said that the FIA, CAA and the ministry should ensure that no plane was allowed to land in the country without prior clearance of interior ministry.

The minister asked the avi-ation division and the FIA to also ensure that landing permission be only granted after ascertain-ing the number of people onboard, their nationality and the nature of their visas.

Fighting continues near US blast site in AfghanistanJalalabad

AFP

FIGHTING was still ongoing near the site in eastern Afghan-istan where the US dropped a massive bomb on an Islamic State group stronghold six days ago, a Nato spokesman said.

Security forces have denied access to residents and media to the area where the US military dropped its GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast, dubbed the "Mother of All Bombs" and used in combat for the first time on April 13.

The target was caves and hideouts being used by the jihadist group in Nangargar province.

The blast triggered shock-waves which residents said they felt miles away.

The Afghan defence min-istry has said it killed at least 95 militants, including some IS commanders and foreign fighters, but no civilians.

The statement could not be independently verified.

"We are still engaged in active combat with the enemy" in the area, Captain Bill Salvin, a spokesman for Nato's Resolute Support mis-sion in Afghanistan said yesterday.

Fighting was ongoing, he said, and there are a "lot of IEDs (improvised explosive devices)".

Panama Papers case verdict due todayArmy chief signs death warrants of 30 militants

Bangkok

Reuters

A string of bomb and gun attacks killed two peo-ple in southern Thailand

late yesterday and wounded three others, a senior military spokesman said.

The attacks took place in 11 districts in Narathiwat, Pattani and Songkhla provinces near the border with Malaysia.

The region has seen a long-running separatist insurgency: more than 6,500 people have died in separatist violence since

2004, when resistance to Bud-dhist rule flared up.

"The attacks yesterday tar-geted security forces, including police and troops, and civil-ians," a spokesman for the military said.

"This is the work of people who want to cause chaos. It looks like their intention wasn't to kill but rather to cause dis-order," Colonel Yutthanam Petchmuang, a spokesman for the Internal Security Operations Command, said.

As of yesterday, no group had claimed responsibility.

Pakistan envoy honours Turkish writerAnkara

Anatolia

Pakistan’s ambassador to Ankara yesterday hosted a ceremony at the embassy

complex to honour Turkish pro-fessor and writer Halil Toker, who received an award from Pakistan’s president last month.

Mahmoud said he is pleased that well-known writer, poet, historian and professor received the Star of Excellence called ‘Sitara-i-Imtiaz’.

Pakistan’s President Mam-noon Hussain had conferred Sitara-i-Imtiaz, the country’s third highest honour and civil-ian award, on the Turkish writer

on March 23, 2017.Toker, who has a distin-

guished career, took part in researches, book writing, arti-cles and translation studies for over 30 years.

The scope of his work is enormous, the ambassador said. Mahmoud said Pakistan is proud of Toker’s work.

Islamabad

AFP

Pakistan's powerful army chief has confirmed the death sentences passed

by military courts on 30 mili-tants, some of whom were involved in the country's worst-ever extremist attack, authorities said yesterday.

The military did not give a date for the executions, but when the army chief has given such orders in the past the hangings have usually been carried out within 24-48 hours.

"These terrorists were involved in committing heinous offences relating to terrorism," a military statement said yesterday.

It listed a string of offences including a Taliban assault on a school in Peshawar in 2014 in which more than 150 people -- mostly children -- were killed in Pakistan's deadliest-ever such assault.

The statement did not name the militants, specify what role they had played in the attacks, or say who was involved in which assault.

Islamabad

Internews

Fingers are crossed and speculation is rife after the Supreme Court of Pakistan

revealed that it would hand down an anxiously awaited ver-dict in the Panama Papers case today.

The judgement will be announced by a five-member larger bench, headed by Justice Asif Saeed Khosa, in the Court-room No. 1 at 2pm, though the hearing was mainly held in the relatively smaller Courtroom No. 2.

The publication of the sup-plementary cause list brought

to an end the gossip and theo-rising that had dominated discussion across the country for the past several weeks.

Observers feel that the ver-dict may run into hundreds of pages, with additional notes by a number of judges and, possi-bly, one or two dissenting opinions.

But no one is certain whether it will be a unanimous judgement, with most practi-tioners saying it’s very difficult to guess what dimension of the case the bench will consider.

However, legal experts are of the view that certain adverse observations and directions may be in store for the National

Accountability Bureau (NAB) and the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) for their inaction over the Panama Papers leaks.

One heartening aspect is the resolve, expressed by every party involved in the Pan-amagate hearing, to accept and respect the decision of the court, no matter who it favours.

“Finally, the anxiety has come to an end. The entire nation, including all political parties, has gone through a test-ing time over the past two months and has been awaiting this day,” senior PTI leader Ishaq Khakwani said.

“This is a defining moment for Pakistan".

Stricter rule

It was decided that those entering the country without completing the immigration process would be proceeded against under the law of Pakistan, which could include arrest and prosecution.

Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan ordered the interior ministry, Federal Investigation Agency and Civil Aviation Authority to put in place an effective system for streamlining and checking any violation of law.

Students from Peshawar University protest to condemn the killing of Abdul Wali Khan university student Mashal Khan, after he was accused of blasphemy, yesterday.

Colombo

AFP

Sri Lanka yesterday ended the grim search for survi-vors five days after a huge

garbage mountain collapsed onto a slum, killing 32 people and forcing the evacuation of hundreds of residents.

Another 11 people were injured when the 90-metre-dump partially collapsed on Friday as Sri Lankans celebrated their traditional new year.

"We are still carrying out clearing operations," said

military spokesman Roshan Seneviratne. "The final death toll is 32 and a handful of people who were listed as missing are now accounted for."

Yesterday, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe prom-ised survivors permanent housing within a couple of months.

He also promised to shift the garbage dump and move the residents to safer locations.

Parliament had earlier been warned that the vast tip posed a serious health hazard, and that a long-term solution was

needed to dispose of trash.A night of heavy rain, fol-

lowed by an outbreak of fire, destabilised the 23 million-tonne garbage heap at Kolonnawa, causing its collapse.

Garbage has been piling up since Friday in the capital, home to 700,000 people, after the dump was shut down.

The Colombo Municipal Council had promised to remove the rotting piles of rubbish along the streets by noon yesterday, but residents said it remained uncleared.

Sri Lanka garbage toll rises to 32Sri Lanka's Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe visits the site of the collapse of a garbage mountain in the Meethotamulla suburb of Colombo, yesterday.

Firm critic found dead in MyanmarYangon

Reuters

A Myanmar publisher whose magazine has criticised the military,

political and business estab-lishment was found stabbed to death in his office at the week-end, police said.

Wai Yan Heinn, 27, was stabbed 15 times with a knife in his chest and abdomen, police captain Yin Htwe said.

"We're now investigating his death and awaiting the results of the autopsy".

Journalists and activists are often targeted in Myanmar, where freedom of speech still faces considerable obstacles, more than a year since Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi took power after a landslide election win.

In the past three months, a prominent lawyer who worked to change the mili-tary-drafted constitution was assassinated, and a journalist was threatened after speak-ing out against nationalist Buddhists.

Wai Yan Heinn published

a weekly news magazine called Iron Rose which, according to frontpage images available online, has run sto-ries criticising Myanmar's former ruling generals and businessmen connected to them.

One headline described Suu Kyi, who is the country's de facto leader but under the constitution is barred from the presidency because her two sons are foreigners, as a "drone president", implying she con-trols the government from the back seat.

Two dead after wave of bombings in Thailand

14 THURSDAY 20 APRIL 2017ASIA

Duterte offers bounty for capture of rebelsManila

AP

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte (yes-terday) offered a bounty yesterday for the capture of

extremists behind a foiled attack on a central resort island, and said he ordered the navy to bomb militants who travel by boat in search of kidnap victims.

The tough-talking leader told reporters during a visit to central Bohol province that he was considering to arm civilians there so they can help the gov-ernment fight terrorists and drug suspects, adding he pre-fers outlaws dead than alive.

"I encourage civilians also to kill because these are wanted dead or alive with a reward, but I prefer them dead because if they're alive I would have to feed them ... and that's very expensive," Duterte said.

His visit came a week after troops, backed by airstrikes, bat-tled Abu Sayyaf fighters, leaving four militants, three soldiers, a policeman and two villagers dead.

Troops are hunting several

extremists who escaped."The $20,000 reward is for

information that would allow the military or police to capture the fleeing militants," Duterte said.

He said informants' identi-ties would be kept confidential.

Military officials said the extremists traveled far from their jungle bases in Sulu prov-ince to carry out kidnappings for ransom and bombings for the first time in Bohol, a popular tourism destination for its white-sand beaches, waterfalls,

caves and wildlife.Asked what could be the

specific target of the militants, Duterte said they might be plot-ting to disrupt a two-day meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which started in Bohol's resort island of Panglao yesterday and "cre-ate a disaster for all of us."

Duterte inspected several areas in Bohol and gave assur-ances the province is secure, saying, "We have more than enough officers to fight for one year, if need be, so you are safe."

The president warned the militants the government would now try to track them, includ-ing by satellite, to prevent them from venturing far from their southern island and create trou-ble elsewhere.

US remains committed to Asia pivotDarwin

Reuters

US Marines deployed to Australia's northern city of Darwin reflect Presi-

dent Donald Trump's continued commitment to a security "pivot" to Asia at a time of heightened tensions, the Marines' commander said yesterday.

Some 1,250 Marines began arriving in Darwin by plane on

Tuesday for joint training manoeuvres under a 25-year programme started by former US President Barack Obama in 2011 as a part of his "pivot" to Asia policy.

"The deployment of a Marine Air Ground Taskforce to Australia certainly continues to communicate a sustained com-mitment to the region, I believe that's why we continue to see the growth and the evolution of the (taskforce)," Marines'

commander Lieutenant Colonel Brian Middleton said.

"I'm well aware of all the tensions, certainly, there's no lack of activity and things to keep either Australian or Amer-ican attention in the Pacific area of influence here."

The strength of this year's contingent lags well behind the initial plan to reach 2,500 Marines this year, but Middle-ton said the aim remains to grow the force.

Duterte's drug war approval rating slipsManila

Reuters

Satisfaction in the Philip-pines with President Rodrigo Duterte's war on

drugs declined in the first quar-ter this year, a survey showed yesterday, with opinions split about police accounts that the drug suspects they killed had resisted arrest.

Seventy-eight percent of 1,200 people surveyed by Social Weather Stations (SWS) said they were satisfied by the government's crackdown on illegal drugs, down from 85 percent in a similar poll in December last year.

The number of dissatis-fied respondents rose from eight percent to 12 percent.

Almost 9,000 people, many small-time users and dealers, have been killed in the Philippines since Duterte took office on June 30. Police say about a third of the vic-tims were shot by officers in self-defence during legiti-mate operations.

Human rights monitors believe many of the remain-ing two thirds were killed by paid assassins operating with police backing or by police disguised as vigilantes - an

accusation the police deny.The SWS survey on anti-

drugs campaign included questions on "extrajudicial killings", a term the govern-ment and police strongly object to, insisting no such killings have taken place.

The latest poll was con-ducted from March 25 to 28 and showed 73 percent of Fil-ipinos were worried that they, or someone they know, would be a victim of extraju-dicial killing.

Ninety-two percent said it was important authorities captured drug suspects alive rather than killed them.

About a fifth of respond-ents felt police were "probably" telling the truth about circumstances behind their killing of drug suspects, while 14 percent believed they were "definitely" lying.

Forty-four percent of respondents were undecided. Those who said they "defi-nitely" believed police were truthful fell from nine percent in December to six percent in the latest survey.

"This is a black eye for the Philippine National Police," said Ramon Casiple, head of the Institute for Electoral and Police Reforms.

Taiwan denies asylum bid forChinese touristTaipei

AFP

TAIWAN said yesterday it has rejected a political asy-lum application from a Chinese tourist, reportedly an anti-corruption campaigner who has spent time in a mainland prison.

Zhang Xiangzhong arrived on the island on April 12 for an eight-day holiday but left his tour group the next day.

Self-ruling Taiwan does not grant political asylum to Chinese citizens but instead offers "permanent residence for political consideration" in special cases.

Dhaka trains teenage girls to fight cyber crimeDhaka

AFP

Bangladesh began training thousands of teenage girls to fight cyber crime, citing

an "alarming" rise in social media-related abuses mostly targeting adolescents.

Police said online harass-ment had grown alarmingly with the rise in smart phone use in Bangladesh, and teenage girls

were the main targets.More than 10,000 school-

age girls will take part in government workshops around the country in April and May to teach them what to look out for and how to respond.

"Every day, we have 10-12 complaints of cyber crimes. Some 90 percent of these vic-tims are pre-teen and teenage girls," Nazmul Islam, a deputy commissioner of Dhaka Metro-

politan Police, said.Police said girls were being

tricked into posing for intimate photographs and video footage that were later posted on social media or used for trolling.

"Sometimes these photos and videos are being used by boyfriends to emotionally black-mail the girls or their families".

Bangladesh in 2013 set up a special trial court to deal with social media-related crimes and

since then more than 450 cases have been heard.

"(The) majority of the victims are young girls. In many cases, once they were married, they found that their former lovers posted their intimate photos to social media," prosecutor Nazrul Islam Shamim said. "In one inci-dent, a young woman committed suicide after her lover sent some of her intimate photos to her mobile phone".

Calls for calm over Taiwan pension chaosTaipei

AFP

Taiwan's leader called for calm after violent protests over pension reforms out-

side parliament saw scores of demonstrators scuffling with police and politicians.

The rallies were staged as parliament began reviewing controversial bills which are designed to stop the struggling pension system from collapsing but are expected to hit nearly 500,000 civil servants and teachers.

President Tsai Ing-wen vowed to press ahead with the changes despite a recent string of protests and said her government would not tolerate violence.

"Intentionally causing con-flicts will not deter the

(government's) determination for reforms... our urgent task is to bring the pension system back from the brink of bankrupcy".

Anger has been mounting among public-sector workers

and retirees as the government unveiled draft bills aimed at reducing their pensions and phasing out a special savings rate for them which pays 18 per-cent interest.

Australia's visa reform gets mixed responseBeijing

AFP

China confirmed yesterday that Interpol has issued a "red notice" for Guo

Wengui, a real estate kingpin and outspoken critic of the rul-ing Communist Party.

"What we understand is that Interpol has already issued a 'red notice' for criminal sus-pect Guo Wengui," foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said.

A red notice is a "request to locate and provisionally arrest

an individual pending extradi-tion," according to the Interpol website.

Citing sources briefed on the notice, the South China Morning Post reported Tues-day that Guo is suspected of paying 60 million yuan ($8.72m) in bribes to disgraced former state security vice-min-ister Ma Jian, with whom he has been linked.

Guo, who has made allega-tions of high-level corruption against Communist Party offi-cials, has lived abroad since leaving China two years ago.

Sydney

AFP

Australia's controversial decision to scrap a visa programme for tempo-

rary foreign workers got a mixed response yesterday, with critics slamming it as spin over sub-stance and pandering to anti-immigration rhetoric.

The "457 visa" allows busi-nesses facing skills shortages to employ labour from overseas, but has been slammed by unions amid claims that bosses were abusing it and local workers were missing out.

Independent anti-immigra-tion politician Pauline Hanson

took credit for the announce-ment, which drew comparisons to moves by US President Don-ald Trump to tighten

skilled-worker visa rules.The Australian Chamber of

Commerce and Industry wel-comed the changes.

"Public confidence in the skilled migration system is vital, and this announcement will help to achieve that confidence," said acting chief Jenny Lambert.

But the Labour opposition, which has long called for reforms to the 457 visa scheme to protect local workers, said the changes did not go far enough.

"If you're asking me what do I think about renaming one cat-egory of visa into two different categories of visas, well that's just shifting deckchairs isn't it, on the proverbial sinking ship,"

its leader Bill Shorten said yesterday.

The Australian Council of Trade Unions echoed the call for independent research into labour shortages and described the changes as "more spin than substance".

Greens Senator Sarah Han-son-Young said on Twitter the reforms were "more like a name change, and re-tune for the rac-ist dog whistle".

The four-year visa would be replaced by a two-tier system -- valid for either two years or four years -- of skilled temporary work permits, and would include tighter requirements for lan-guage and work experience.

Foiled isle attack

The $20,000 reward is for information that would allow the military or police to capture the fleeing militants.

He was considering to arm civilians in Bohol so they can help the government fight terrorists and drug suspects, adding he prefers outlaws dead than alive.

US Marines Commander Lieutenant Colonel Brian Middleton with Australian Army officer Brigadier Mick Ryan after arriving for the sixth annual Marines' deployment at Darwin.

Protesters walk past a poster that shows Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen outside the parliament, in Taipei, yesterday.

China confirms 'red notice' issued for tycoon

The "457 visa" allows businesses facing skills shortages to employ labour from overseas, but has been slammed by unions amid claims that bosses were abusing it and local workers were missing out.

15THURSDAY 20 APRIL 2017 EUROPE

Most teenagers 'relatively' happy: OECD surveyParis

AFP

Despite the danger of exces-sive Internet use and the threat of bullying, most

teenagers around the world are "relatively" happy with their lot, a major OECD survey showed yesterday.

Asked to rate their satisfac-tion with life on a scale of 0 to 10, some 370,000 15-year-olds gave a mean score of 7.3, the Paris-based group said.

The respondents were among

540,000 from 72 countries that took part in a larger survey con-ducted by the OECD's Programme for International Students Assess-ment (PISA) in 2015. The survey found great disparities between countries, with fewer than four percent of students in the Neth-erlands saying they were "not satisfied" with life, a figure that rises to more than 20 percent in South Korea and Turkey.

Boys were happier overall, with 39 percent reporting being "very satisfied" compared with 29 percent of girls, the

Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development report said.

However the gap is minimal between high- and low-achiev-ing students.

Bullying is "perhaps the most distressing threat to students' well-being," according to the study, which asked students how they felt about their achievement at school, their relationships with peers and professors, their home life and their leisure activities.

In 34 of the countries stud-ied, more than 10 percent of the

students said their classmates make fun of them several times a month.

Around four percent reported being hit or pushed sev-eral times a month, while 7.7 percent said they were victims of physical harassment several times a year.

Among those who reported frequent harassment, 42 percent said they felt like outsiders at school. The study also warned about excessive Internet use, saying more than one in four (26 percent) of respondents spent

more than six hours a day con-nected at the weekend, and 16 percent said they devoted simi-lar chunks of time online on weekdays.

"These 'extreme internet users' are more likely to feel lonely at school, have low expec-tations of further education, and tend to arrive late for school," the report said. "There are no quick fixes for the risks of the digital era, but schools can create opportunities for students to use the Internet more responsibly," PISA coordinator Andreas

Schleicher said in the report. Sources of stress include anxiety about schoolwork and income inequality.

Students believing them-selves to be less wealthy than most of their classmates tend to report lower satisfaction with life, the report said.

But disadvantaged students with wealthier classmates who have "pro-school attitudes and high expectations for them-selves... tend to develop higher ambitions for their future," the report concluded.

MPs back May's bid for June snap voteLondon

AFP

British lawmakers yes-terday overwhelmingly backed Prime Minister Theresa May's call for a snap election, paving

the way for a June vote she hopes will give her a "mandate to com-plete Brexit".

The House of Commons voted by 522 to 13 to hold a gen-eral election on June 8 — plunging Britain back into political uncertainty just weeks before the start of negotiations on leaving the European Union.

May stunned the country on Tuesday when she announced her plan for an early vote, despite having repeatedly said she would wait until the next election scheduled in 2020.

In fiery exchanges in the House of Commons yesterday, May said an early election would strengthen her hand against domestic critics seeking to "frustrate the process" of Brexit, which formally began last month. "I will be asking the British people for a mandate to complete Brexit and to make a

success of it," the Conservative leader said, to cheers from her lawmakers sitting behind her.

Riding high in the opinion polls, May is seeking to increase her slim majority of 17 in the 650-seat Commons before the battles begin with the EU over Britain's exit bill and future trade and immigration ties.

She insists an early election would provide "certainty and stability" in the negotiations, which will now start after the vote. In a sign of the key cam-paign issues ahead, May traded barbs in the Commons with opposition Labour leader

Jeremy Corbyn, whose party is deeply divided and languishing up to 20 points behind the Conservatives.

Corbyn accused the govern-ment of "broken promises" on health, education and the econ-omy during its seven years in office. May hit back that Labour offered only "bankruptcy and chaos", but denied she was complacent, saying: "We will be out there fighting for every vote."

British elections are fixed in law but can be changed with a two-thirds majority in the Commons — a threshold eas-ily passed during yesterday's vote.

All sides are now gearing up for the fourth major election in four years, after last June's shock referendum vote for Brexit, the 2015 general election, and the 2014 Scottish independ-ence vote.

Brexit will dominate the campaign, with May — who took office after David Cameron resigned following the EU vote — seeking public backing for her plan to pull UK out of Europe's single market.

Sturgeon rails at attempt to block Scottish independenceLondon

Reuters

Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said yes-terday that success for her

Scottish National Party in a snap election on June 8 would make it impossible for British Prime Minister Theresa May to stop a new referendum on Scottish independence.

Scotland voted against inde-pendence in 2014, but voted to remain in the European Union in 2016 while the United King-dom as a whole voted to quit the bloc. Sturgeon says this means Scotland should have another chance to vote on secession.

“If the SNP wins this election

in Scotland and the Tories (Con-servatives) don’t, then Theresa May’s attempt to block our man-date to give the people of Scotland a choice over their own future when the time is right will crumble to dust,” Sturgeon told reporters in London.

The Scottish parliament last month backed Sturgeon’s bid to hold a new referendum in 2018 or 2019, but May rejected the proposal.

Polls suggest Scots do not believe the timing is right for another referendum, and although support for independ-ence itself has been broadly steady at around 45 percent or more the SNP is predicted to win most Scottish seats in the snap

poll. May’s decision to push for a national ballot will exacerbate tensions within the historic union of England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.

Scots are disgruntled at the idea of a Brexit they rejected while Northern Ireland, which also voted to stick with the EU, is mired in a political crisis made tougher to resolve by the fray of campaigning.

“I don’t see that Scotland has featured in May’s calculations at all, and she has most certainly ignored Northern Ireland,” said Professor Michael Keating of the University of Aberdeen, adding May’s proposal could backfire in Scotland.

“The Prime Minister is

seeking a UK-wide mandate for her version of Brexit. If the SNP gets between 50 and 59 seats it will be difficult to deny that they have a Scottish mandate for their vision.” The SNP currently has 54 of Scotland’s 59 seats in the British parliament in Westmin-ster. May’s Conservatives, which had their lowest share of vote in Scotland in a general election in 2015, have just one Scottish seat but hold an overall majority in the 650-seat House of Commons.

May told Sturgeon last month that now was “not the time” to discuss independence with Brit-ain’s relationship with the EU in the balance.

But Sturgeon shot that

argument back at May, pointing out that the prime minister was calling a national election despite having previously insisted it would be wrong for the country. In the event they win seats from the SNP, the Conservatives are likely to seek to portray it as evi-dence that nationalists are losing momentum.

The Scottish Conservatives’ leader Ruth Davidson said in a newspaper column yesterday that having “traded successfully on a sense of momentum and inevitability” for years, the elec-tion would show the SNP was now “going downhill.”

Davidson led the Conserva-tives to second place in 2016 Scottish parliament elections.

Brexit challenger launches crowdfunding campaignLondon

Reuters

Gina Miller, the London investment manager who led a success-ful legal challenge over the triggering of Britain’s exit from the European Union, launched a crowfunding bid yesterday to back

opponents of a “hard Brexit” in the planned June election.Miller, who in January won a Supreme Court case to force the gov-

ernment to seek parliamentary approval before triggering Brexit, said her new “Best for Britain” campaign would raise money to support election candidates who promised to hold a full vote on May’s final Brexit deal.

“How people decide to vote is vital,” Miller said in a statement. “If the deal the next government negotiates doesn’t match up to our cur-rent terms, MPs should do what’s best for Britain and reject it.”

She said she wanted to instigate the “biggest tactical voting” effort in British history to prevent a “hard Brexit”.

Aalborg

AFP

A Danish court yesterday ordered the extradition of the daughter of Choi

Soon-Sil, the woman at the centre of a corruption scan-dal that led to the impeachment of South Korea's president.

Chung Yoo-Ra, the 20-year-old daughter of the woman dubbed South Korea's "Rasputin", is one of the fig-ures in the influence-peddling scandal that led to huge street protests demanding the removal of President Park Geun-hye.

Chung was detained in Denmark on January 1 for overstaying her visa, after South Korean authorities issued a warrant for her arrest.

Seoul then sought her extradition, which the Dan-ish public prosecution authority approved on March 17. Chung then took her case against extradition to the Aal-borg district court.

"The district court con-firms decision from the Director of Public Prosecu-tions. Ms Chung is to be extradited," the prosecution authority wrote on Twitter.

Prosecution spokesman Simon Gosvig said that Chung, who has denied any wrongdoing, had immedi-ately filed an appeal with the court in Aalborg.

An equestrian who has reportedly bought horses and trained in Denmark in the past, she has told police she was in Denmark because of her involvement in the sport.

Madrid

AP

Spain's King Felipe VI has inaugurated a meeting of mayors and civic groups

from across the world to dis-cuss possible solutions to extremism and violence in cities.

The three-day first World Forum on Urban Violence was proposed by the mayors of Madrid and Paris follow-ing the jihadi attacks in the French capital in 2015.

Organisers said yesterday that cities are the settings for many types of violence, including terrorism, gang and gender violence, and they need to find new ways to address these issues through education and dialogue.

The forum brings together some 100 mayors from cities including Durban, La Paz, Montreal, Rome and Tripoli.

Riding high in the opinion polls, May is seeking to increase her slim majority of 17 in the 650-seat Commons before the battles begin with the EU over Britain's exit bill and future trade and immigration ties.

Britain's Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (Brexit Minister) David Davis leaves in a car from the Houses of Parliament in London, yesterday.

British Prime Minister Theresa May (left) greets Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko at 10 Downing Street in central London as he arrives for talks, yesterday.

Denmark to expel S Korean 'Rasputin' daughter

Forum on urban violence opens in Madrid

16 THURSDAY 20 APRIL 2017EUROPE

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev gives a speech during a session at the State Duma, the Lower House of Parliament, in Moscow, yesterday.

Medvedev speaks at Duma

AfD co-leader won't lead party in vote

Berlin

Reuters

Frauke Petry, co-leader of the Alternative for Germany (AfD), said yesterday she would not lead the anti-

immigration party’s campaign for a September 24 federal elec-tion — a shock announcement from the woman seen as the face of the party.

Opinion polls show the AfD winning enough votes to enter the Bundestag Lower House of

Parliament for the first time. But the AfD has lost about a third of its supporters as migrant arriv-als to Germany have eased and the party has also been hit by infighting and controversy over its attitude to the Nazi past.

Petry caused controversy by tabling a motion for a party congress next weekend in which she said the AfD — which is shunned by other parties — should be ready to join coalitions in future. She also said some senior AfD members such as Alexander Gauland wanted it to be a “fundamen-tal” opposition party.

Speaking in a video mes-sage posted on her Facebook page, Petry said she had been accused of making the proposal solely to become the party’s top candidate despite her not men-tioning that idea in her motion.

“In order to put an end to all speculation in this regard, I am using the opportunity of this video message to clearly state that I am neither available for a lone lead candidacy nor for par-ticipation in a top team,” she said. The AfD, which rails against Chancellor Angela Merkel’s deci-sion to allow more than a million migrants into Germany since mid-2015, is due to decide on its election leadership line-up at its weekend gathering in the west-ern city of Cologne.

Petry’s camp wants to expel from the party a senior mem-ber, Bjoern Hoecke, for calling Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial a “monument of shame” and say-ing history books should be re-written to focus more on German victims of the Nazis.

Belligerent crowd greets Tusk in PolandWarsaw

AP

Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, was met at Warsaw's

main train station yesterday by hundreds of people — both sup-porters and angry opponents — as he arrived to testify in an investigation.

The mood at the train sta-tion was tense, with supporters of the former Polish prime min-ister carrying EU and national flags and chanting "Donald, we are with you!" while opponents hurled accusations of crimes and of hurting Poland's interests. One detractor held up a large mock-up photo depicting him in striped prison garb.

Tusk is only a witness in the current case — an investigation by military prosecutors into alleged secret illegal contacts between Polish and Russian intelligence officials at a time when he was still prime minister.

"I have no doubt this is a part of political witch hunt," Tusk told reporters while walking to the prosecutors' office surrounded by bodyguards. He wore a daf-fodil on his jacket, in honour of the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising against Nazi occupiers.

However, many see his questioning as part of a larger attempt by Poland's nationalist government to discredit a polit-ical foe by linking him to scandals and perhaps imprison him eventually.

Tusk has also been accused by the Defence Minister Antoni Macierewicz of treason in another matter, the handling of the aftermath of the 2010 plane crash in Smolensk, Russia, that killed Polish President Lech Kaczynski.

Prosecutors have not revealed details of the alleged illegal contacts, but they are investigating whether the heads

of the intelligence had neglected their obligation to seek Tusk's approval for cooperating with foreign intelligence.

Polish media reports say the deal was aimed at allowing Polish investigators working on the Smolensk crash to operate on Russian soil.

"I have no reservations as to the work of the (special) serv-ices," Tusk said.

Poland's current ruling party, Law and Justice, is led by the late president's twin brother, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, a national-ist politician who is a long-term political rival of Tusk's.

Kaczynski drove the failed effort last month to block Tusk from getting a second term as head of the European Council. Only Poland opposed Tusk's re-election, with 27 other EU members supporting another term for him.

In their chants, Tusk's sup-porters said he beat Kaczynski 27-1.

Kaczynski and others accuse Tusk of failing to oversee proper security for the presidential flight. They also fault Tusk for letting the Russians carry out the

main investigation and for fail-ing to get the wreckage back.

Supporters of the govern-ment also blame Tusk for

pro-business policies that they feel hurt the country. Those pol-icies helped drive strong economic growth, but many Poles felt left out by the eco-nomic boom.

"Tusk should face justice for having brought Poland to ruins, for closing shipyards, scandals, for Smolensk, for working together with Russia. We still can't bring the wreckage back," said Halina Wojcicka, 74, a retired office clerk.

Those who rallied to support Tusk expressed opposition to Poland's larger political direc-tion under Kaczynski, which opponents view as xenophobic and having authoritarian tendencies.

"I can see that harm is being done to Poland. The state of law is gone. The country is run by one person, driven by hatred," said Iwona Guz, a 60-year-old economist. "I am here to show that I want Poland to be in Europe, not in the East."

European Council President Donald Tusk (centre) walks amid a crowd on his way to the prosecutor's office in Warsaw, Poland, yesterday.

Budapest

AP

Hungarian lawmakers began debating a draft bill yesterday seen as

meaning to intimidate non-gov-ernmental organisations which receive foreign financing.

Among other conditions, NGOs getting more than 7.2 mil-lion forints ($24,600) a year from abroad would have to reg-ister with the courts and identify themselves as being foreign-funded on their websites and publications. Failure to comply could lead to fines or termina-tion of the groups.

Lawmakers from Prime Minister Viktor Orban's Fidesz party said that the only aim of the law was to achieve greater transparency in the civil sector.

Fidesz claims that some of the NGOs in question, like rights advocate the Hungarian Hel-sinki Committee and corruption watchdog Transparency Inter-national, are "foreign agents" and part of a network financed

by billionaire George Soros to influence Hungarian politics.

"The Soros empire set out to promote the cause of migrants and mass migration," Orban said Sunday on state radio. "This is now about the security of the Hungarian people, the security of Hungary, the protection of the borders, public security and ter-rorism. On this there can be no compromise."

Orban is staunchly anti-migration, with Hungary building razor-wire fences on its southern borders in 2015 to stop the flow of migrants pass-ing through the country on their way to Western Europe.

The Helsinki Committee, for example, has earned the gov-ernment's wrath because it offers legal counsel to asylum-seekers and recently represented two men from Bangladesh who won a judg-ment against Hungary at the European Court of Human Rights after they were expelled illegally to Serbia in 2015.

Members of the opposition compared the legislation

to similar rules introduced in Russia and efforts by Hungary's communist regime, which ended in 1990.

"This law not only wants to make enemies of the civic groups but also seeks to destroy them morally," said Erzsebet Schmuck of the green party Pol-itics Can Be Different.

Religious and sports organ-isations, as well as certain funding received from the Euro-pean Union would be exempt from the law, expected to be passed next month.

The NGO law comes on the back of amendments to a law on higher education, passed two weeks ago, which were seen as targeting Budapest-based Cen-tral European University, founded by Soros in 1991.

The US State Department, the Hungarian Academy of Sci-ences, as well as hundreds of Hungarian and foreign academ-ics and dozens of universities protested the "lex CEU," which opposi t ion lawmakers announced they would appeal in the Constitutional Court.

Hungary lawmakers debate bill seen as targetting NGOs

Moscow

AP

The Russian counterin-telligence agency, the FSB, said yesterday that

its agents have killed two men suspected of planning to carry out terror attacks in Russia.

The FSB said the suspects, both from Central Asia, were killed in a shootout when they resisted arrest in a home in the Vladimir region east of Moscow. They were in con-tact with recruiters from international terror organi-sations, had shown an interest in making bombs and expressed a readiness to carry out attacks in Russia, it said in a statement.

The agency has appeared eager to demonstrate its abil-ity to prevent attacks following this month's suicide bombing on the St Petersburg subway that killed 14 passen-gers. The bomber was from Kyrgyzstan, one of the impov-erished, predominantly Muslim former Soviet repub-lics in Central Asia that are seen as fertile ground for Islamist extremists.

The FSB didn't identify the suspects killed, saying only that they were citizens of one of the Central Asian countries. An FSB video broadcast on state television showed the bodies of the two men, one with a Kalashnikov automatic rifle lying next to him. The video also showed what were described as components for making explosives.

Helsinki

Reuters

Finland’s centre-right gov-ernment is planning to give authorities new powers to

monitor citizens online in a fast-track legislative move aimed at countering threats like terror-ism and spying.

The draft law, presented yes-terday, would allow the Finnish intelligence service to monitor citizens’ data communications beyond Finnish borders if there is a suspicion of a “serious threat” against national security.

Currently, the service is allowed to gather information

only on an individual crime sus-pect inside Finnish borders.

Finland raised its terrorist threat level in 2015 to “low” from “very low” and has grown more concerned after recent attacks in neighbouring Sweden and Russia.

The new plan requires changes to the constitutional law

on privacy protection and the government wants to push it through in an accelerated pro-cedure, which needs the backing of five-sixths of the deputies in parliament.

“Our operating environment has changed rapidly ... It is clear that these amendments mark a big change in the society, this is

a sensitive issue, but this change has become necessary,” Interior Minister Paula Risikko told jour-nalists. A working group behind the proposed measures under-lined that all intelligence would be carefully targeted, and in most instances, permits would be applied for in advance from a court.

File picture of AfD party chairwoman Frauke Petry.

German politics

Opinion polls show the AfD winning enough votes to enter the Bundestag Lower House of Parliament for the first time.

Tusk has also been accused by the Defence Minister Antoni Macierewicz of treason in another matter, the handling of the aftermath of the 2010 plane crash in Smolensk, Russia, that killed Polish President Lech Kaczynski.

Two terrorism suspects die in shootout with Russia sleuths

Finland plans new law to monitor citizens online abroad

17THURSDAY 20 APRIL 2017 EUROPE

Top UN court rejects plea against Russia

The Hague AFP

The UN's top court yester-day rejected a bid by Kiev for emergency measures

to halt Russia's alleged funnel-ling of money and arms into Ukraine's war-torn east, but warned Moscow to protect eth-nic rights in Crimea.

The complicated interim ruling by 16 judges at the Inter-national Court of Justice in The Hague came as the conflict in eastern Ukraine enters its fourth year.

"Both parties shall refrain from any action which might aggravate or extend the dispute before the court or make it more difficult to resolve," the judges ordered.

More than 10,000 people have died in the fighting between pro-Moscow rebels and Ukrainian government forces since it erupted after the ouster of a Kremlin-backed regime in Kiev in February 2014.

Seeking to bring stability to its east, Ukraine had sought an urgent interim court order demanding Russia refrain from "any action which might aggra-vate or extend the dispute" such as allegedly pumping money, weapons, equipment and per-sonnel to the rebels.

And it urged the tribunal to order Moscow to control its borders with eastern Ukraine and halt racial discrimination in Crimea — particularly against Tatars — which Russia annexed in March 2014.

But the judges found that so far Kiev "has not put before the court evidence which affords a sufficient basis" to show that any funds from Moscow were used "to cause death or serious bodily harm to a civilian."

Therefore "the conditions required for the indication of provisional measures" on whether Moscow had broken an international convention on

terrorism financing "are not met". However, they did agree with a second Ukrainian request to stop what Kiev called "racial discrim-ination" against minority groups in the Russian-occupied Crimea peninsula.

"The court is of the opinion that Crimean Tatars and ethnic Ukrainians in Crimea appear to remain vulnerable," said presid-ing judge Ronny Abraham, saying the court believed there was "an imminent risk" of "irreparable prejudice to the rights invoked by Ukraine."

Moscow must "refrain from maintaining or imposing limita-tions on the ability of the Crimean Tatar community to conserve its representative institutions," the judges ordered.

Russia must further "ensure

the availability of education in the Ukrainian language" on the peninsula.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, speaking on a visit to London, welcomed the interim ruling, describing it as "very promising."

"The international court in The Hague recognised its juris-diction over both court cases. We are confident that today we are pursuing the right course, and hope for a successful hearing of these cases," he added.

The ICJ, which was set up in 1945 to settle disputes between countries in line with interna-tional law, has yet to decide whether it will take up the main case lodged by Kiev in January this year. Moscow has denied Kiev's allegations that it has

violated both the Terrorism Financing Convention and an international treaty against racial discrimination.

In its filing, Ukraine charged Russia with "sponsoring terror-ism" by financing pro-Russian separatists and failing to stop mil-itary aid from seeping across the border into eastern Ukraine's Donbas region.

It called on the court's 16 judges to rule that "the Russian Federation bears international responsibility" for "acts of terror-ism committed by its proxies in Ukraine".

These include the shelling and bombing of civilians and the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, shot down by a Rus-sian-made Buk-missile over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014.

Rome

AFP

Unesco awarded its prestigious peace prize yesterday to

migrant rescue association SOS Mediterranee and the mayor of Lampedusa, the tiny Italian island on the frontline of the refugee crisis.

The Felix Houphouet-Boigny Peace Prize goes to the European NGO and mayor Giuseppina Nico-lini "for their work to save the lives of refugees and migrants and welcome them with dignity," the UN cultural body said in a statement. The plight of migrants constitutes "one of the crucial issues of our day, notably in the Medi-terranean where nearly 13,000 men, women and children have perished in shipwrecks since 2013," said acting jury head Joaquim Chissano, former p r e s i d e n t o f Mozambique.

Lampedusa, Italy's most southerly outpost, was the first port of arrival for thousands of migrants setting off from North Africa in the first years of the crisis, which began in 2011 and has developed into the worst since World War II.

SOS Mediterranee res-cues hundreds of men, women and children each week from flimsy dinghies and boats in the Mediter-ranean along with other NGOs.

Nicolini was recog-nised for "her boundless humanity and unwaver-ing commitment to refugee crisis manage-ment and integration in response to the arrival of thousands of refugees on the shores of Lampedusa and elsewhere in Italy".

"I dedicate this prize to all those who did not make it across the sea because they were swallowed up, and also to Gabriele Del Grande," said Nicolini, referring to an Italian jour-nalist arrested in Turkey this month while research-ing the lives of Syrian refugees.

"He was the first to count the Mediterranean's dead on a website, back when nobody even knew people were dying in the Mediterranean. He is now a prisoner in Turkey," she said, calling on the govern-ment to "bring him home".

Macron holds on to lead as French election loomsParis

Reuters

Centrist Emmanuel Macron clung on to his status as favourite to win France’s

presidential election in a four-way race that is too close to call, as the camp of far-right chal-lenger Marine Le Pen ramped up its eurosceptic rhetoric in a row with Brussels.

A closely-watched Cevipof opinion poll published yester-day showed frontrunners Macron and Le Pen both losing some momentum ahead of Sun-day’s first round, and conservative Francois Fillon and far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon still in contention for the second round run-off.

With millions of French vot-ers still undecided or planning to abstain, the vote is the most unpredictable in France in dec-ades and investors are nervous about potential last minute sur-prises that could trigger market turmoil.

Le Pen and Melenchon, who both pitch themselves as

defender of French workers, say they could take France out of the European Union and the euro currency. Banks have requisi-tioned their staff to be at their desks through the night on Sun-day to enable them to respond fast to the outcome.

Le Pen has pressed hard her

anti-immigration, anti-globali-sation message as she seeks to mobilise voters.

As she prepared for the last big rally of her campaign in the Mediterranean city of Marseille, her camp became embroiled in an angry Twitter exchange with the European Commission.

Reacting to Le Pen’s refusal to appear on France’s TF1 tele-vision channel on Tuesday unless the EU’s yellow-starred blue flag was removed, the Com-mission tweeted: “Proud of our flag, a symbol of unity, solidar-ity and harmony between the people of Europe. Let’s not hide it.” Le Pen’s deputy Florian Philippot fired back: “You’ll see, we’ll soon be sticking your oli-garchic rag in the cupboard.”

The election race for a suc-cessor to the deeply unpopular Francois Hollande has become increasingly tense as the gap between the leading candidates shrinks.

The Cevipof poll of 11,601 people showed first round sup-port for Le Pen falling 2.5 percentage points since early April to 22.5 percent and back-ing for Macron down 2 points to 23 percent.

Melenchon, a firebrand left-winger who has surged in recent weeks, was on 19 percent, while Fillon, whose campaign has been hurt by a financial scandal, received 19.5 percent of support.

Macron would win a head-to-head contest against National Front chief Le Pen, the poll showed. It projected an absten-tion rate of 28 percent - near a record level that helped Marine’s father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, make it to the runoff in 2002.

Another poll, a daily survey by Opinionway, gave similar projections to Cevipof for the top candidates and projected Macron beating Le Pen in the May 7 sec-ond round by 65 percent to 35.

Fillon, 63, an ex-prime min-ister whose campaign was derailed by an embezzlement inquiry targeting him, his wife and children, got last-minute public endorsements from ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy and ex-prime minister Alain Juppe - two men he beat to win the presidential race ticket of his party, The Republicans.

Fillon, who says he is victim of a “dirty tricks” campaign, said in newspaper comments that he would work to ensure France’s institutions better protected the confidentiality of sensitive information.

Rome

AFP

Italy's health minister has taken the unusual step of criticising national broad-

caster Rai's coverage of a vaccine against a cancer-caus-ing virus, sparking a row about media freedom and misinformation.

The minister, Beatrice Lorenzin, accused the team behind the popular Rai3 docu-mentary series, "Report", of "spreading fear by propagating unfounded and unscientific theories" about the human pap-illomavirus (HPV) vaccine in a programme broadcast on Monday.

The programme began with

a disclaimer saying it was not questioning the efficacy of the vaccine, which has significantly reduced the incidence of cer-vical cancer, a disease that kills more than 250,000 women annually around the world.

The programme went on to highlight Danish research on potential side effects of the drug and a related complaint to the European Medicines Agency (EMA) over its handling of safety issues related to the vaccine and potential conflicts of inter-est for some of its staff.

The Nordic Cochrane Cen-tre, the independent research group that filed the complaint, said yesterday it was still await-ing a response from the EMA on most of the issues it had raised.

Paris

AFP

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen is a front-runner with just days to go until France votes in the first round of its presiden-

tial election.On the campaign trail Le Pen has posi-

tioned herself as a protector of France who would pull the country out of the EU, slash immigration, make it harder to get French nationality and crack down on suspected Islamists.

"French people have the feeling of being dispossessed of their identity, of their social security system and their sovereignty," the National Front (FN) leader told BFM televi-sion yesterday.

Even though she is widely expected to lose in the May 7 run-off if she makes it that far, her strength in the polls has left many worried about the future of France and the European Union.

Le Pen supporters across are steadfast

in her support. "I'm not racist, but when I see our parents working like dogs only to end up with nothing at the end of the month, while unemployed immigrants are walking around with iPhones...," said Yoan Jenais, 19, who runs a clothing stall in Saint Raphael in southern France.

"We don't want to be better than other people, we just want equality," he added.

Daniele Pubert, a retired 65-year-old cleaner from La Roche-sur-Yon in Brittany, western France, said she is voting FN because she wants "a big change".

"We, the French, are no longer the pri-ority," she said.

"Marine will be able to get the country back on its feet. Migrants are in unfortunate (situations), but there are people from France struggling and they must be helped urgently. To not do so would be an injustice," said Dor-othee, 38, a prison guard in the northern town of Bapaume.

There is "a feeling of being pushed aside, abandoned".

Ukraine crisis

The complicated interim ruling by 16 judges at the International Court of Justice in The Hague came as the conflict in eastern Ukraine enters its fourth year.

Roman Kolodkin (right), head of the legal department of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Olena Zerkal, Deputy Foreign Minister of Ukraine (left), listen on during the ruling of the International Court of Justice, in the Hague, yesterday.

French presidential candidate for the right-wing Debout la France (DLF) party, Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, during a campaign rally at the Cirque d'Hiver in Paris, yesterday.

Promise of change propels Le Pen

An election poster showing Marine Le Pen is plastered along a wall in Henin-Beaumont, yesterday.

Italy row over 'fake news' on cervical cancer vaccine

Unesco Peace Prize for migrant rescue body

18 THURSDAY 20 APRIL 2017AMERICAS

NEWS BYTESAnother planet found that may be just right for lifeWASHINGTON: Astronomers have found yet another planet that seems to have just the right combination to support life. This new big planet is rocky, like Earth. It’s not so hot and not so cold. And it’s not so far away, either. Harvard astronomer David Charbonneau said what makes this planet so exciting is that it is rocky and regularly passes in front of its star. That means in the next several years, new telescopes can spy its atmosphere in a targeted search for signs of life. With this new discovery, astronomers have identified 52 potentially habit-able planets and more than 3,600 planets outside our solar system. The latest discovery is described in the journal Nature.

11 dead and 20 missing in Colombia floodsBOGOTA: Flooding and mudslides in central Colombia have killed at least 11 people, the Red Cross said yesterday, causing alarm in a country still recovering from mudslides that killed hundreds. At least 20 people are missing after torrential rains lashed the city of Manizales, officials said, raising fears the death toll could soar as it did earlier this month in the south-ern city of Mocoa. There, at least 323 people including more than 100 children were killed when heavy rain caused three mountain rivers to flood on March 31, hurling a tidal wave of mud and boulders into the city. Manizales “is literally cut off by rock slides, mudslides, floods,” Mayor Jose Octavio Car-dona said. President Juan Manuel Santos suspended his official agenda to travel to the city, the capital of Caldas department — which is, like Mocoa, a remote and difficult region to access.

Death toll rises to 113 in Peru floods and mudslidesLIMA: The death toll from flooding and mudslides plagu-ing Peru since the start of the year has risen to 113 people, including five killed last weekend, officials said. The natural disasters, which scientists blame on a climate phenomenon called “coastal El Nino,” have also left more than 178,000 people homeless, the National Center for Emergency Oper-ations said in its latest update. Another one million people’s homes have been partly damaged, and more than 2,500km of roads have been destroyed. President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski has said the South American country will need some $9bn to rebuild and modernise the affected areas. Heavy rains have been lashing Peru all year, triggering flash floods and land-slides known in the indigenous Quechua language as “huaycos”. The problem has also struck Colombia, where three rivers flooded and sent a wall of mud and boulders smashing into the southern town of Mocoa on March 31, killing 323 people, including more than 100 children, according to a new toll.

Elder Bush hospitalised with mild pneumoniaWASHINGTON: Former US president George H W Bush, patri-arch of a dynastic political family, is in a hospital recovering from a mild case of pneumonia, his office said. The 41st presi-dent, age 92, “was admitted to Houston Methodist Hospital on Friday for observation due to a persistent cough that prevented him from getting proper rest,” the office said in a statement released by Bush spokesman Jim McGrath. Doctors later deter-mined Bush had a mild case of pneumonia, “which was treated and has been resolved,” the statement said. Bush, who suffers from Parkinson’s disease which has left him in a wheelchair, spent two weeks in January in the same hospital where he was treated for bacterial pneumonia. Bush served as US commander-in-chief from 1989 to 1993, and is the oldest of the five living former US presidents. He is father to former president George W Bush and former Florida governor Jeb Bush.

Caracas

AFP

Clashes broke out yes-terday at massive protests against Ven-ezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, as

riot police fired tear gas to push back stone-throwing demonstra-tors and a young protester was shot and wounded.

Violence erupted when thou-sands of opposition protesters tried to march on central Cara-cas, a pro-government bastion where red-clad Maduro support-ers were massing for a counter-demonstration.

The marchers were forced back by lines of soldiers and police deployed to contain what the opposition has vowed will be the “mother of all protests.”

On the capital’s northwest side, a 19-year-old man was shot in the head and badly wounded by motorcycle-riding gunmen who also threw tear gas canis-ters into a crowd of protesters, witnesses said.

The opposition has repeatedly accused the government of send-ing groups of armed thugs to

attack protesters. The security forces do nothing to stop them and themselves repress peaceful protesters, opponents say. This is the largest day of demonstrations in more than two weeks of vio-lent protests that have left five people dead and more than 200 arrested since moves by Maduro to tighten his grip on power esca-lated the country’s political and economic crisis.

“We have to end this dicta-torship. We’re fed up. We want elections to get Maduro out, because he’s destroyed this coun-try,” said protester Ingrid Chacon, a 54-year-old secretary.

Maduro has urged his sup-porters, the military, and civilian

militias to defend the socialist “revolution” launched by his predecessor Hugo Chavez in 1999. Venezuela’s crisis escalated on March 30, when the Supreme Court tried to take over the pow-ers of the National Assembly.

The assembly has been the only lever of power Maduro’s camp does not control since the opposition won a landslide in legislative elections in 2015.

Pressure on Maduro has increased as falling prices for Venezuela’s crucial oil exports have aggravated an economic crisis, creating severe shortages of food and medicine in the state-led economy. The center-right opposition has called for the military—a pillar of Maduro’s power—to abandon him.

“It is the moment for the armed forces to demonstrate that they are with the constitution and with the people,” legislative speaker Julio Borges said Tuesday. But the defense minister, General Vladimir Padrino Lopez, has pledged the army’s “unconditional loyalty,” while Maduro blasted Borges for inciting a “coup.”

The president has sought to rally his troops this week,

sending the army into the streets and ordering pro-government militias to be expanded to half a million members, “each with a rifle.”

“The hour of combat has arrived,” Maduro said.

On Tuesday night he activated a military, police and civilian oper-ation called the “Zamora Plan”

aimed at combatting a supposed coup attempt—which the presi-dent says is being orchestrated by Venezuela’s opposition and the United States.

Brasilia

Reuters

The Brazilian govern-ment yesterday agreed to lower the minimum

retirement age for police officers in its pension reform proposal, a day after mem-bers of their unions stormed Congress to protest the con-troversial bill.

In the reform draft, con-gressman Arthur Maia, a government ally in charge of making changes to the origi-nal proposal, reduced the minimum retirement age for police to 55 from 60.

After he revealed the details of his proposal on Tuesday, hundreds of police unions dressed in black shirts broke the windows of the main entrance of the legisla-ture in Brasilia and clashed with congressional guards.

The violent clash, during which the guards used pep-per spray and stun grenades to disperse the protesters, illustrated the unpopularity of the reform proposal that is central to President Michel Temer’s austerity agenda.

The protest was the latest in what is expected to be months of street demonstra-tions by workers’ unions even after Temer has repeatedly watered down the proposal, which aims to reduce some of the world’s most generous pension benefits. Maia is scheduled to read his full reform draft at a special lower house commission.

Little Rock Reuters

Arkansas plans to carry out its first executions in a dozen years today by kill-

ing two inmates who claim they are innocent and have launched last-minute appeals to have their lives spared.

Convicted murderers Stacey Johnson, 47, and Ledell Lee, 51, each are seeking DNA testing their lawyers argue could prove they did not commit the crimes that sent them to death row.

But the state is pressing ahead with its efforts to put the men to death in back-to-back lethal injections today night at its Cummins Unit in the town of Grady, about 75 miles southeast of Little Rock. If the executions are carried out, they would be the first dual U.S. executions in 17 years.

Arkansas had sought to exe-cute eight inmates over 11 days in April, the most of any state in as a short a period since the U.S. death penalty was reinstated in 1976. Governor Asa Hutchinson

set the unprecedented schedule due to one of the drugs in the state’s lethal injection mix expir-ing at the end of the month.

A blizzard of legal challenges resulted in three of the execu-tions being halted and raised broader questions about the lethal injection drug mixes and death chamber protocols in U.S. executions, which hit a quarter-century low in 2016.

The last time two executions were attempted in one night was in 2014 in Oklahoma, when prison staff bungled the first and

the state called off the second one.

Johnson was convicted in Arkansas of the 1993 murder and sexual assault of Carol Heath. Prosecutors said he beat, stran-gled and slit Heath’s throat while the victim’s 6-year-old daugh-ter watched.

Johnson’s lawyers said experts have proven the child’s testimony was unreliable. They also said the execution should be put on hold to allow for newer types of DNA testing that were previously unavailable.

Fresno

AP

The black gunman sus-pected of randomly shooting three men to

death in downtown Fresno told police he wanted to kill as many white people as possible before he was captured, authorities said. The victims happened to be on the same block at the same time on Tuesday but had no known connection to each other or to Kori Ali Muhammad, Police Chief Jerry Dyer said. “These were unprovoked attacks,” Dyer said.

One victim, a 34-year-old father of two preschoolers, was shot in the passenger seat of a Pacific Gas & Electric utility truck. The driver was not hit and sped toward the police department,

but his partner could not be saved. Another victim, a 37-year-old man, had just gone shopping at a Catholic Charities building when he was gunned down. His body was draped in a blanket on the sidewalk leading to Stephen Hughes’ home.

The third victim, a 59-year-old man, was gunned down in the parking lot of the charity’s build-ing. Two Latina women and a child also crossed paths with Muhammad, who pointed the gun at them as they sat in their car try-ing to flee, but he did not shoot. Muhammad, 39, was arrested shortly after the rampage. He was expected to be charged with four counts of murder — one each for Tuesday’s three victims plus the slaying of a white Motel 6 security guard who was killed last week.

Police had been looking for Muhammad in the death of the guard, 25-year-old Carl Wil-liams. Muhammad said seeing his name and picture in a news release on Tuesday morning helped spur the attacks in which he fired 16 rounds in less than two minutes at four places within a block.

“I did it. I shot them,” Muhammad told officers as they arrested him, according to the chief. Muhammad told his fam-ily there was a war going on between blacks and whites in America.

Muhammad’s father, Vin-cent Taylor, told the Los Angeles Times that his son believed that he was part of an ongoing war between whites and blacks and that “a battle was about to take place”.

Two inmates appeal against their executions

Brazil agrees to lower ageof police retirement

Fresno gunman targetting whites chose three men at random

A road is block by police tape after a multiple victim shooting incident in downtown Fresno, California, yesterday.

Demonstrators clash with riot police during the so-called "mother of all marches" against Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro in Caracas, yesterday.

Protester shot as clashes erupt in VenezuelaAnti-Maduro protest

Violence erupted when thousands of opposition protesters tried to march on central Caracas.

On the capital’s northwest side, a 19-year-old man was shot in the head.

19THURSDAY 20 APRIL 2017 AMERICAS

US President Donald Trump smiles after signing S.544, the Veterans Choice Program Extension and Improvement Act, at the White House in Washington, yesterday.

Trump signs Veterans Act

Washington

AFP

Republicans were dealt an unwelcome reminder of Donald Trump’s unpopular-ity yesterday after a

young Democrat’s inconclusive but rousing first round victory in a race for a congressional seat long held by the president’s party.

Jon Ossoff, 30, fell just short of an outright win with 48.1 per-cent, but came in first by a wide margin in a crowded field of candidates in Georgia’s conserv-ative 6th district, where Tuesday’s vote was seen as an early test of strength for the president.

That sets the stage for a bat-tle royale June 20 when Ossoff faces off against second place finisher Karen Handel, a Repub-lican who won just 19.8 percent of the vote but will almost cer-tainly benefit from her party coalescing around her.

Ossoff, a documentary film-maker and former congressional aide, told energized supporters before all the returns were in that he and Democrats “shat-tered expectations” with their performance.

“There is no doubt that this is already a victory for the ages,” Ossoff said. Trump, his political brand at stake, jumped into the race as voters went to the polls, attacking Ossoff and urging Republicans to vote in a burst of tweets and robocalls.

“Despite major outside money, FAKE media support and eleven Republican candi-dates, BIG “R” win with runoff

in Georgia. Glad to be of help!” he tweeted after the results came in. Handel said Trump called yesterday to congratulate her and to let her know “it’s all hands on deck for Republicans” going into the runoff.

Democrats still hope Ossoff can capitalize on Trump’s lack-luster popularity—his poll numbers lag at around 40 per-cent, a record low for an incoming president.

As they see it, a win in Geor-gia could jumpstart efforts to retake control of the House of Representatives in next year’s midterm elections.

“I’d rather be Jon Ossoff than Karen Handel right now,” Tom Perez, the Democratic National Committee chairman, told CNN. “The progressive energy out there is palpable and the volun-teers are out there. The DNC is

all in and other partners all in. I feel good.”

Georgia’s 6th district is in the relatively affluent and conserv-ative suburbs of Atlanta. It has remained a Republican fortress since 1978 when it was won by Newt Gingrich. The special elec-tion is being held to replace congressman Tom Price, who resigned to become Trump’s health secretary.

In the run-up to Tuesday’s vote Ossoff had marshalled an army of volunteers, and report-edly amassed millions of dollars in out-of-state contributions by Democratic groups.

Liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org in a statement called Ossoff’s first-place finish “a huge triumph for the Resist-ance and for progressives.” “The reason is clear: voters are reject-ing Trump and his policies.”

Part of what is fueling Dem-ocratic excitement about the race is that while Trump won Georgia by six percentage points, the district that Ossoff seeks to win supported Trump by barely one point over Dem-ocrat Hillary Clinton.

It has many well-educated voters who are reliably Repub-lican but frustrated by Trump.

“This is a Republican district but it is not a strongly Trump district just as there are Demo-cratic districts that are Trump districts,” said Tom Cole, a Republican leader in the House of Representatives.

“It does tell you this is the kind of seats that Democrats would and should focus on and where they need to win. Last night they weren’t able to do that.

Dubai

AP

Dubai government-owned airline Emirates said yes-terday that it is cutting

flights to the United States because of a drop in demand caused by tougher US security measures and Trump adminis-tration attempts to ban travellers from Muslim-majority nations.

The decision by the carrier is the strongest sign yet that the new measures imposed on US-bound travellers from the Mideast are taking a financial toll on fast-growing Gulf carri-ers that have expanded rapidly in the United States.

Dubai was one of 10 cities in Muslim-majority countries affected by a ban on laptops and

other personal electronics in carry-on luggage aboard US-bound flights.

Emirates’ hub at Dubai International Airport is a major transit point for travelers who were affected by President Don-ald Trump’s executive orders temporarily halting entry to cit-izens of six countries.

The latest travel ban sus-pended new visas for people from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, and froze the nation’s refugee pro-gram. Like an earlier ban that also included Iraqi citizens, it has been blocked from taking effect by the courts.

Emirates said the reductions will affect five of its 12 US des-tinations, starting next month. It called the move “a

commercial decision in response to weakened travel demand” in the three months since Trump took office.

“The recent actions taken by the US government relating to the issuance of entry visas, heightened security vetting, and restrictions on electronic devices in aircraft cabins, have had a direct impact on consumer interest and demand for air travel into the US,” the carrier said.

The cuts will reduce the number of US-bound flights from Dubai to 101, down from 126 currently. Twice daily Emir-ates flights to Boston, Los Angles and Seattle will be reduced to once a day. Daily flights to Fort Lauderdale and Orlando will be pared down to five per week.

Emirates trims US flights

Georgia run-off sets new test for Trump

First round victory

Jon Ossoff, 30, fell just short of an outright win with 48.1 percent, but came in first by a wide margin in a crowded field of candidates in Georgia’s conservative 6th district.

A win in Georgia could jumpstart efforts to retake control of the House of Representatives in next year’s midterm elections.