It’s make or break for Qatar in AFC U23 play-off

BUSINESS | 14 SPORT | 23

Fed keeps rates unchanged and to

monitor global cues

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FRIDAY 29 JANUARY 2016 • 19 Rabia II 1437 • Volume 20 • Number 6690 thepeninsulaqatar @peninsulaqatar @peninsula_qatar

Independent schools to see major changes

The Peninsula

DOHA: With the abolition of the Supreme Education Council (SEC) and the establishment of the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, the state-run Independent schools are expected to see major structural changes.

The term ‘Independent school’ may be cancelled and facilities may remain as boys and girls schools, according to Al Sharq.

If this happens, the position of school operators may also be revoked and the schools will be headed by directors/principals, said the daily.

Quoting an official from the ministry, the daily said strategies and work plans set by the SEC will continue, including recruitment of teachers for the next academic year.

According to the plans, man-power requirements will be reported by March and April. The official

ruled out the possibility of a down-sizing of employees following the restructuring.

The Specification and Stand-ardisation Authority — which was under the Ministry of Environment and not mentioned in the new struc-ture of the Ministry of Municipality and Environment — is expected to become an independent entity, said the daily.

All new ministries will have an undersecretary and assistant undersecretaries. Nominations for the undersecretaries are expected to be forwarded to the Cabinet over the next two weeks.

The new Ministry of Public Health, which has taken over the responsibilities of the Supreme Council of Health (SCH), will also regulate the Primary Healthcare Corporation (PHCC) that runs the primary health centres across the country and Hamad Medical Cor-poration (HMC) that manages the public hospitals.

This ministry will have an undersecretary and three assistant undersecretaries for public health. The new structure includes 18 departments under five administra-tive offices, including the Minister’s Office.

The PHCC will continue provid-ing integrated primary health care services according to the ministry’s regulations and standards.

→ Continued on page 2

Reuters

KHARTOUM: Sudan’s President Omar Hassan Al Bashir ordered the opening of his country’s border with South Sudan for the first time since the south’s secession in 2011, paving the way for better economic links between both nations.

The border was closed when relations dete-riorated after the south seceded following a long civil war, taking with it three quarters of the country’s oil, estimated at five billion barrels of proven reserves, according to the US Energy Information Administration.

“President Omar Al Bashir issued a decree today ordering the opening of borders with the state of South Sudan and ordered the relevant

authorities to take all measures required to implement this decision on the ground,” Sudan’s state news agency SUNA said yesterday.

Michael Makuei Lueth, South Sudan’s gov-ernment spokesman, said: “This is a positive move in a right direction because this is what will lead to the normalisation of our relations with Sudan.” Khartoum accuses Juba, the cap-ital of South Sudan, of backing a rebellion in its

Darfur region and a separate but linked insur-gency in Blue Nile and South Kordofan. South Sudan denies the allegations.

South Sudanese President Salva Kiir had unilaterally announced a normalisation of relations on Tuesday in response to Al Bashir agreeing to cut the transit fees for South Suda-nese oil crossing Sudan’s territory via pipelines to the Red Sea last week.

The Peninsula & AFP

DOHA: Al Jazeera Media Network yester-day announced the release of Al Jazeera Arabic news team kidnapped in the city of Taiz in Yemen.

Correspondent Hamdi Al Bokari and his crew — cameramen Abdulaziz Al Sabri and driver Moneer Al Sabai — were released yesterday after disappearing 10 days back. The identity of the kidnappers is not clear, but the three were tortured psychologically on four occasions. “We are relieved that our colleagues Al Bokari, Al Sabri and Al Sabai have been released. They were doing their job of reporting the story from the besieged city of Taiz and covering ongoing events in Yemen,” said Dr Mostefa Souag, Act-ing Director-General, Al Jazeera Media Network.

“It is tragic to see that in times of

conflict, journalists continue to be targeted. Journalists should be able to do their work freely and without fear of harm, abduction or unlawful arrest,” he added.

Fighters loyal to Yemen’s President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi are battling Iran-allied Houthi militia and loyalists of the country’s former leader in a war that has raged for nine months and in which some 6,000 people have been killed.

Al Jazeera, whose reporting of the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings won it millions of viewers in the Middle East, has seen many of its journalists detained and killed in recent years in conflicts across the region.

Meanwhile, in the southern city of Aden, a suicide car bombing killed at least eight people at a checkpoint outside the presi-dential palace. The dead included soldiers and civilians and at least 12 were wounded.

→ See also page 4

Abducted Al Jazeera crew freed in Yemen

Sudanese President orders opening of border with South

Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani is welcomed by Italian President Sergio Mattarella at the Presidential Quirinale Palace in Rome yesterday. Both leaders held talks on relations between the two countries, means of enhancing them in various fields, especially the economy and investment sectors, and regional and international developments. → See also page 2

Emir meets Italian President in Rome

Al Rayyan’s player Mohammed Juma scoring an attempt against the Umm Salal team during their Qatar Stars League match at Al Gharafa Stadium yesterday. Al Rayyan won 2-0. Pic: Baher / The Peninsula → See also page 21

Al Rayyan beat Umm Salal in QSL

The term ‘Independent school’ and the position of school operators may be revoked

m

reak FC

QNA

DOHA: Asian Football Confed-eration (AFC) President Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim Al Khal-ifa renewed his full confidence in Qatar’s capability to organise the 2022 FIFA World Cup finals in accordance with the highest inter-national standards of regulation.

He stressed that the whole Asian family stands alongside Qatar in its efforts towards bet-ter organisation of the World Cup championship in the history of world football.

He was speaking during his participation in activities which held yesterday by the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy (SC) to highlight latest developments in preparations for hosting the global event .

Sheikh Salman expressed sat-isfaction over the pace of work on infrastructure projects and estab-lishment of football pitches for the event and said it reflected sound planning adopted by Qatar since it offered bid to host the tourna-ment until the present time.

He praised SC’s role in push-ing forward preparations for the World Cup and said the profes-sionalism in its work represents a fertile ground for the completion of all arrangements for the event.

AFC president renews support for FIFA 2022

HOME02 FRIDAY 29 JANUARY 2016

QNA

ROME: Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani met Italian President Sergio Mattarella at the Presidential Quirinale Palace in Rome yesterday.

Talks dealt with relations between the two countries and means of enhancing them in vari-ous fields, especially the economy and investment sectors.

Mattarella said Italy welcomes Qatar’s hosting of the FIFA World Cup 2022, expressing full support for such an important global sporting event and praising Qatar’s worthiness to win right to host it.

He also expressed his country’s keenness to cooperate in all that would lead to the success of the foot-ball tournament.

Both leaders also discussed regional and international issues, including developments in the Mid-dle East, especially the situation in Palestine, Syria, Libya and Yemen, and international efforts to combat the phenomenon of terrorism.

The meeting was attended by members of the delegation accom-panying the Emir and senior Italian officials.

The Emir was accorded an offi-cial welcoming ceremony on his

arrival at the palace. The Emir attended a luncheon

banquet hosted by Mattarella in his honour at the palace. The Emir’s del-egation and top Italian officials were present.

At his residence in the Italian capital of Rome, the Emir also met

President of Sardinia Region Franc-esco Pigliaru and reviewed bilateral relations and means of enhancing them.

The Emir also met Claudio Des-calzi, CEO of Eni, the energy and gas company, and discussed issues in the field of energy.

Several members of the Emir’s delegation attended the meetings.

The Emir also met Senate Pres-ident Senator Pietro Grasso, at Giustiniani Palace.

They reviewed prospects for strengthening cooperation between the two friendly countries in all

areas, especially economic, cultural, scientific and sports fields.

Grasso also affirmed full support of Italy to Qatar’s hosting of the 2022 FIFA World Cup.

Both sides exchanged views on latest regional and international developments, particularly the

situation in the Middle East, and ways to achieve security, stabil-ity and peace, in addition to global efforts to combat terrorism.

The meeting was attended by several members of the Emir’s del-egation and members of the Italian Senate.

The Peninsula

DOHA: To address obesity in the Arab world and improve public health in the region, Nadim Rifai, a Georgetown University in Qatar (GU-Q) graduate, has developed FitTastic, a device that innovatively blends technology, gaming and health to encourage people to become more active and healthy.

Rifai’s invention secured him a spot as one of the 12 final contestants on the Middle East’s lead-ing scientific reality TV show Stars of Science. The show, sponsored by Qatar Foundation, provides support and mentorship to participants through a network of experienced engineers, designers and business leaders.

Comprising a portable motion tracking sensor and an interactive smartphone application, FitTastic allows users to go beyond recording their workout progress with features such as live games, chal-lenges, rewards, and real-time online multiplayer competitions. “People like to be challenged. This is why we enjoy games, we want to compete with ourselves and others and be our best at something.

“FitTastic merges this concept with fitness to get people off the couch and become more active,” said Rifai. He began his career in Qatar working at a local cafe striving to support his bid to enrol at one of world-class universities. In 2008, GU-Q recognised his potential and offered him a schol-arship to begin his academic career majoring in international politics.

On how studying at GU-Q has enabled him to succeed, Rifai said: “Georgetown offers much more than a high-calibre academic programme. In addition to learning about global issues and world affairs, it instils within you the desire to be a pro-ductive member of your community and contribute to the development of society.”

Rifai works at Silatech, a social initiative ded-icated to addressing the youth unemployment challenge in the region. “Having learned about how talented young men and women in the region have difficulty securing meaningful employment, I decided to dedicate my career to provide them with similar opportunities I benefited from while living in Qatar.” He intends to continue developing FitTastic, an invention he says has the potential to revolutionise the fitness culture in the Arab world.

The Peninsula

DOHA: The Public Works Authority (Ashghal) has announced the open-ing of part of the new Al Khor Main Road adjacent to the current road, in the direction from Al Shamal Road to Water Filling Station Roundabout and vice versa.

The new road is 600-metre long and includes one lane in each direc-tion. The existing road will be closed as part of Al Haidan Street which leads to Al Khor Coastal Roundabout.

The closure is required to facilitate construction of a new sig-nal-controlled intersection near Al Khor Compound of Independ-ent Schools for Girls and works to develop infrastructure, storm water drainage network and road network in the area. The closure of the old road starts tomorrow and lasts six months. Motorists can use alterna-tive local roads in the area.

Ashghal will install signs to advise motorists of the diversion and has urged road users to abide by speed limits and follow signs to ensure their and others’ safety.

Ashghal opens part of Al Khor Main Road and closes Old Road

Nadim Rifai, a graduate from Georgetown University in Qatar, speaking during the Star of Science show.

GU-Q graduate develops FitTastic

Emir holds talks with Italian President in RomePresident Sergio Mattarella expresses Italy’s full support for FIFA World Cup 2022 to be hosted by Qatar

Continued from page 1

As per Emiri Decision No. 11 of 2016 regulating HMC, the Minister of Public Health is fully responsible and has the power for running the corporation.

HMC’s director-general will be under the supervision of the Minister.

The officials of the merged min-istries have started preparations for the restructuring in a way that do not affect work flow until the merger is fully accomplished.

The ministries have also started consultations for selection of undersecretaries and assistant undersecretaries.

The Ministry of Culture and Sports has four administrative units, including the Minister’s Office and

undersecretary’s office and offices for two assistant undersecretaries for culture and sports, respectively. Each will have separate departments under them.

The Ministry of Education will have five assistant undersecretaries, besides the undersecretary.

It includes 26 administrative offices for the Minister, undersec-retary and assistant undersecretaries and a training and development centre.

The Ministry of Transport and Communication will have four assistant undersecretaries, besides the undersecretary.

The Ministry of Administrative Development, Labour and Social Affairs will have four assistant undersecretaries.

Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani holds talks with Italian President Sergio Mattarella in the presence of their delegations at the Presidential Quirinale Palace in Rome yesterday.

The Peninsula & QNA

DOHA: The Republic of Azerbaijan will begin granting Qatari nationals single entry visa starting from Mon-day. The visa to be issued at airports in the country will be valid for 30 days, said an official at the Department of Consular Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Cold wave likely to continueDOHA: The cold wave since last night is expected to prevail today, with chances of temperature dropping to 10 degrees Celsius in some areas.

The Meteorology Department has forecast strong dust winds today resulting in low visibility in some places. It will be “relatively cold” by day and “very cold” by night, said a forecast issued by the depart-ment yesterday.

The day would remain partly cloudy and dusty.Temperature in Doha could dip to 12 degrees by

night while the maximum day temperature is expected to be 17 degrees, probably the lowest recorded this win-ter. Mesaieed, Al Wakrah and Al Khor would be colder with the minimum temperature at around 11 degrees and the maximum at 17 degrees. Dukhan and Abu Samra could experience the lowest temperature at between 10 and 16 degrees.

Northwesterly-northerly winds inshore would blow at speeds ranging from 18-28 knots to 38 knots in some places.

Qataris granted visa on arrival in Azerbaijan

Ministries begin consultations

for selection of top officials

The Peninsula

DOHA: The fifth edition of Run The World Fes-tival, organised by The Youth Company, started yesterday at Aspire Zone.

Participants aged 16-29 are taking part in sport and cultural events and activities during the three-day event. It features fun activities such as Sumo suit fighting, gladiator jousting, tug-of-war and extreme sports, scavenger hunt, fun run, street basketball, volleyball and human Foosball.

There are cultural performances such

as Dabkeh, Bhangra, Ardah and Bollywood dances, Youth Got Talent competition and a fashion show.

An international bazaar, food booths, car show, healthy lifestyle booths, graffiti show-case and workshops are among other features of the festival said to be the biggest of its kind in the region.

Over 120,000 youth have taken part in the festival since it started in 2011. The festi-val revolves around sports and culture of all mediums and serves as a platform for youth to celebrate their talents and capabilities, while stressing the importance of healthy living and leadership for a better society.

Participants in one of the activities at Aspire Zone yesterday. Pic: Baher / The Peninsula

Run The World Festival begins

On the valuable trust placed by

His Highness Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al ThaniEmir of the State of Qatar

upon

Her Excellency Hanan Mohammed Al Kuwari, PhDon her appointment as

The Minister of Public Health

Hamad Medical Corporation would like to congratulate Her Excellency and wish her all the best in her new role.

HOME / MIDDLE EAST04 FRIDAY 29 JANUARY 2016

Reuters & AFP

RABAT: Morocco will hold a par-liamentary election on October 7, the second ballot since the kingdom adopted constitutional reforms designed to calm pro-tests during the Arab Spring uprisings.

The Islamist Justice and Devel-opment party, known by its French acronym PJD, won elections in 2011 and has led the government since then. It was the first time King Mohammed had allowed an Islamist group to take power.

The reformed constitution has shifted some powers to the elected government but King Mohammed still retains ultimate authority.

“The next parliamentary elections will take place on Oct. 7, 2016,” a government statement issued after the weekly cabinet meeting said.

Analysts believe the PJD could win a second term in the 2016 elc-tion although austerity measures that the government launched to revive public finances have started to weigh on Prime Minister Abde-lilah Benkirane’s popularity.

Benkirane’s government may face even further pressure this year as weak growth is expected, with a drought looming after an exceptional cereal harvest in 2015. Agricultue accounts for more than 15 percent of the Moroccan economy.

The government sees gross domestic product (GDP) growing by only 3 percent in 2016, down from 5 percent last year, as agri-cultural output is expected to drop sharply. The central bank is fore-casting only 2.6 percent this year.

Suicide bombing near Yemen palace kills 8ADEN: A suicide car bombing claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group killed at least eight people yesterday outside Yemen’s Presi-dential Palace in the city of Aden, security and medical officials said.

IS said that one of its militants, apparently a Dutch national, car-ried out the attack on a checkpoint outside the palace in the main city of southern Yemen.

Both soldiers and civilians were among those killed, while at least 17 others were wounded, a medical source said.

A security source said the attack appeared to target the convoy of a local businessman who was entering the presiden-tial complex.

Sources had initially said the convoy was carrying Aden’s gov-ernor, Aidarus al-Zubaidi, but he later told AFP he was not in the area at the time of the attack.

Zubaidi survived a car bomb-ing earlier this month, after being appointed in December following the murder of his predecessor, Jaafar Saad, in an Aden bombing claimed by IS.

AFP

AMMAN/BEIRUT/GENEVA: The Syrian opposition said it will not attend peace talks due to begin in Geneva today, derailing the first attempt in two years to hold negotiations aimed at ending the five-year-long war.

An opposition council conven-ing in Riyadh said its delegation would “certainly” not be in Geneva on Friday, saying it had not received convincing answers to its demands for goodwill steps including an end to air strikes and blockades.

The failure to get talks off the ground on time reflects the chal-lenges facing peace-making as the conflict rages unabated on the ground. The Syrian government is clawing back territory from rebels with military help from Iran and Russia. It has said it is ready to attend the negotiations, which UN envoy Staffan de Mistura plans to hold in an indirect format. Another opposition

representative said the delegation might turn up if their demands were met in a day or two, but the chances of that appeared vanishingly slim.

The turn of events is a bitter blow to De Mistura, whose office had issued a video message that he had sent to the Syrian people, in which he said the talks were expected to hap-pen “in the next few days”.

A spokeswoman for his office, speaking before the opposition state-ment, said the talks would begin on Friday as scheduled. George Sabra, a member of the opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC), said: “For certain we will not head to Geneva and there will not be a del-egation from the High Negotiations Committee tomorrow in Geneva.”

Before agreeing to talks, the HNC had been seeking UN guarantees of steps including a halt to attacks on civilian areas, a release of detain-ees, and a lifting of blockades. The measures were mentioned in a Secu-rity Council resolution approved last month that endorsed the peace proc-ess for Syria. Sabra said a response from de Mistura was “unfortunately still ink on paper”. “We are not cer-tain that the opportunity is historic,” he told Arabic news channel Arabiya Al Hadath. Another HNC official said the opposition could attend if their demands were met “within two, three or four days.”

“Tomorrow will probably the start will be with those who attend but it has no value,” Monzer Makhous told Al Hadath. The talks were meant to start in Geneva on Monday but the United Nations has pushed them back to Friday to allow more time to resolve problems including a dispute over which groups should be invited to negotiate with the government.

Syria peace talks derailed as oppn stays away

AFP & QNA

JERUSALEM: Israel arrested a Pal-estinian parliamentarian from the Islamist group Hamas, the army said yesterday, raising the number of detained Palestinian lawmakers to seven.

Mohammed Abu Tir was taken to custody on suspicion of being “involved in terrorist activities”, an army spokeswoman said. He was arrested in an overnight raid in the east Jerusalem village of Kafr Aqeb, just south of the West Bank city Ram-allah. Abu Tir is a Hamas member of the Palestinian Legislative Council from east Jerusalem.

He was previously held by Israel for a year without charge, eventu-ally being released in 2012. Hamas confirmed on the Twitter account of its armed wing, Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, that Israeli forces “re-kid-nap Palestinian Legislative Council member” Abu Tir.

Six other members of the 132 member Palestinian Legislative Council are currently detained by Israel, according to the Palestinian human rights organisation Add-ameer. According to Addameer, three of them are Hamas members, one is from Fatah and two others from the leftist Popular Front for the Lib-eration of Palestine (PFLP), which Israel considers to be a “terrorist organisation”. The Hamas-domi-nated parliament has not met since the Islamist movement took over the Gaza Strip in June 2007, ousting Fatah forces loyal to Palestinian pres-ident Mahmoud Abbas.

Meanwhile, Israeli authorities demolished a home and the foun-dations of another in Jerusalem, Palestinian sources said. An Israeli police contingent, accompanied by bulldozers, broke into Shuafaat, a neighbourhood of Jerusalem, and demolished the house of Kefaya Resheq, a local Palestinian, under

the pretext of construction with-out a permit, according to Wafa correspondent.

Meanwhile, Israeli police demol-ished the foundations of a house under construction in Jabal Al Muk-abir area in Jerusalem, under the pretext of construction without a permit. The house belongs to Ibra-him Sarri. Issuance of construction permits by Israeli authorities for Pal-estinians in Jerusalem, unlike for Jewish settlers, requires unreason-able fees that most families cannot afford to pay, Wafa said.

Hamas said yesterday that seven members of the organisation were found dead after a tunnel collapsed in Gaza on Wednesday, Al Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing announced. Palestinian sources said that civil defense crews were able to lift some of the bodies of those killed in the east of Gaza City tunnel, point-ing out that work is underway to dig out the rest.

Morocco to hold parliamentarypolls on Oct 7

Korean artist Lee Nam to showcase selected worksBy Raynald C Rivera The Peninsula

DOHA: Art enthusiasts in Doha are in for a new experience as prominent South Korean media artist Lee Lee Nam makes his Doha debut with a selection of his works on display from Monday to February 14 at the Katara Art Centre (KAC).

Using digital technology, Lee breathes new life into art master-pieces from his home country and around the world.

Lee’s exhibition is brought to Doha through a partnership between Korean based Asan Gallery and KAC with support from Korean Embassy and Korean Trade-Investment Pro-motion Agency (KOTRA).

Speaking at a press conference yesterday, Asan Gallery CEO Soo Yeol

Kim said an agreement on exhibition exchange was signed between Asan Gallery and KAC.

“In November 2015 Asan Gal-lery hosted an exhibition which introduced famous Qatari artists in Korea. Through the exhibition many people came to know about Qatari art, praised the artworks and respect them and even loved them,” said Kim.

Bringing Korean artists to Qatar, he said , is part of the 14-year-old gal-lery’s strategy to introduce them to one of the world’s largest art collect-ing countries.

“One of the main reasons why we decided to host an exhibition in Qatar is because there is not much chances for Korean artists to exhibit in Qatar even though Qatar is very influential in the world of art globally,” he said.

He said Lee is an artist who rep-resents Korea who has created high level of international awareness

through exhibitions in famous art events around the world such as in Venice, Paris and London.

“We hope this will be a chance to show Qatar that Korean art is very experimental and conceptual and many people here will view and remember it,” he added.

Thanking Asan Gallery, Katara Art Centre CEO Tariq Al Jaidah, said “I hope this will be a start of a fruit-ful collaboration and cooperation. We hope to take more Qatari art-ists to Korea in the future to further enhance this relationship and I hope this exhibition will be successful commercially and artistically.”

South Korean Ambassador Heung Kyeong Park also attended yester-day’s press conference, during which the artist introduced some of his works and his artistic journey from visual to media art.

FROM LEFT: The Ambassador of South Korea Heung–Kyeong Park, Korean artist Lee Lee Nam, Founder of Katara Art Centre, Tariq Al Jaidah, and CEO of Asan Gallery, Soo Yeol Kim addressing the media at the Katara Art Centre in Doha yesterday. Salim Matrmkot/The Peninsula

Popular Pakistani singer Rahat Fateh Ali Khan visits Museum of Islamic Art yesterday. The singer is in town to perform at Asian Town tonight. Abdul Basit/The Peninsula

Pakistani singer visits MIA

AFP

BEIRUT: Suspected Russian air strikes killed at least 54 civilians in rebel- and jihadist-held areas of Syria in the past 24 hours, a moni-toring group said yesterday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said strikes on Wednesday had killed 29 civilians, including nine women and three chil-dren, in villages controlled by the Islamic State group in the eastern Deir Ezzor province and its provin-cial capital of the same name.

The strikes killed another 15 civilians, including five young broth-ers, in and around the city of Al Bab, an IS bastion in the northern prov-ince of Aleppo, the Observatory said.

Ten more civilians, including

seven children, were killed in Rus-sian strikes in Ghanto, a town held by Islamist rebels in the central prov-ince of Homs, it said.

The Britain-based monitor relies on a network of activists on the ground and says it distinguishes between Syrian, Russian and US-led coalition aircraft based on flight pat-terns, as well as the type of planes and ordnance used.

Russia launched air strikes in Syria in September in support of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, a key ally. The US-led coalition has been carrying out strikes against IS targets in Syria and Iraq since the summer of 2014.

Russian backing has helped Assad’s forces make significant advances in recent months and the Observatory said Thursday that regime troops had moved to within

eight kilometres (five miles) of Al Bab.It was the closest pro-govern-

ment forces had been to the city, a key IS stronghold in Aleppo, since 2012, it said. Al Bab, about 30km south of the Turkish border, fell to rebel forces in July 2012 and was taken over by IS in November 2013. Regime forces are seeking to sever IS-held territory in Aleppo province from that held by the group in neigh-bouring Raqa.

The Observatory said last week that Russian strikes in Syria had killed more than 1,000 civilians, including around 200 children, since September. Russia has denounced accusations that its raids have killed large numbers of civilians as “absurd”. The Observatory says the US-led strikes have killed 322 civilians, including more than 90 children.

AFP & Reuters

CAIRO: Egypt received three Rafale fighters from France yesterday, the military said, six months after Paris delivered the first three of a consign-ment of 24 of the warplanes. The delivery is part of a ¤5.2bn ($5.6bn) deal Cairo signed with Paris in February 2015 to purchase 24 Rafale multi-role combat jets, a frigate and missiles. “Egyptian armed forces have received the second batch of three Rafale fighter jets,” the country’s military spokes-man said on his Facebook page. The sale of Rafales to Egypt was the first such export order for French manufacturer Dassault Aviation. In July, France also delivered a 6,000-tonne multi-mission frigate to Cairo as Egypt seeks to boost its military capability in the face of instability in Libya and a jihad-ist insurgency in its Sinai Peninsula.

Bomb hoax at Cairo airport CAIRO: Egyptian security has found nothing suspicious on board a passen-ger plane that was held up for searches at Cairo airport yesterday afternoon following a bomb threat, security sources said. The EgyptAir plane had been due to depart for Istanbul at 1355 but was halted after the threat was passed on to Egyptian authorities by a foreign embassy, the sources said. The passen-gers were evacuated and the plane isolated while the search was conducted.

Russian raids kill 54 Syrian civilians

Israel arrests 7th Palestinian MP France delivers 3 more Rafale fighters to Egypt

An opposition council in Riyadh said its delegation would “certainly” not be in Geneva today, saying it had not received convincing answers to its demands for goodwill steps including an end to air strikes and blockades

ISLAM 05FRIDAY 29 JANUARY 2016

On the authority of Abu Saeed Al Khudree (may Allah be pleased with him) who said: I heard the Messen-ger of Allah (peace and blessings of

Allah be upon him) say, “Whosoever of you sees an evil, let him change it with his hand; and if he is not able to do so, then [let him change it] with his tongue; and if he is not able to do so, then with his heart — and that is the weakest of faith.” (Muslim)

This is an important hadith because it shows that Muslims should not be innocent bystanders — we are obliged to do something to stop wrongdoing. It also outlines to us the order in which we must do something.

If you see something wrong, the first point of call is to physically stop it (“…change it with his hand…”). For example, the Prophet (peace

be upon him) said: “The parable of myself and the people is that of a man who lit a fire. When it illuminated its surroundings, the moths and other creatures which are attracted to light began to fall into it. He began to pull them out of the fire, but they overwhelmed him and con-tinued to fall into it. I am the one pulling you away from the fire, but you keep going head-long into it.” (Bukhârî )

It is not enough for us to keep ourselves away from wrongdoing, we must help oth-ers as well, and stop them from falling into wrongdoing, and sins which could lead to the Hellfire. This part of the hadith also refers to stopping people from doing wrong to others or to yourself.

Nowadays, there are many people who will not raise a finger to stop anti-social behaviour — this is not the characteristic of the righteous Muslim. If we have the ability to stop a crime or offence, then we must, no matter how small the action.

If you are not physically able to change things or stop wrongdoings, then you must speak out against it, or advise against it, or advise a better way, or even call for help (“…let him change it with his tongue…”).

We shouldn’t remain silent when we have the ability to speak up. You can warn someone against doing wrong, advise them to change their ways.

Communication is not a pointless action – it can lead to bigger things. Campaigning can help but people do need to be focused on

campaigns that actual achieve something, rather than those that hit brick walls.

Finally, if you are powerless to act on any of the two methods above, then you must oppose it in your heart. As Muslims, we do not accept wrongdoings nor resign ourselves to living out lives where there is no opposition to wrongdoings.

We do not lie and let the wrongdoers roll over us, step over us and spread their mischief to others. Wrong is wrong and the moment you let go of this in your heart, then you lose sight of what is good and what is wrong. You stop seeing wrong as wrong and good as good – the lines become blurred and what is wrong becomes allowable.

If you hate the wrongdoing in your heart, then perhaps an opportunity will come in the future, where you can speak out or physically stop the wrong.

As Allah Says in the Quran:“Verily, with hardship there is relief” (Quran 94:6)

The point is that evil must be removed, whether by your hand or the hand of some-one else. If that is not possible then it must be done by your tongue (by your speaking out), and you should not worry whether they listen to you or turn away from you; all you have to do is convey the message.

Allah may sow the seeds of guidance in the heart of one of them because of your words, but the satan may also suggest to you that you should forget about denouncing them on the basis that they will not listen to you – so beware of that.

When you see a wrong, change it with your hand…

By Luzita Ball

If you have experienced and observed various countries, it will be clear to you that many of the major and minor sins are rife now especially in America, Aus-

tralia, and Europe, causing a very high crime rate and many broken families. Also, to a lesser extent this is starting to happen in some Muslim communities, in which learning and teaching about Islam is not a high priority in their lives. In addition, it is becoming abun-dantly clear that organisations claiming to act in the name of Islam, such as Boko Haram, Al-Shabab, Al Qaeda, Daesh (ISIS/ISIL) and others with similar tactics are all flagrantly and bla-tantly disobeying Allah (God) in almost every way. They seem to have little knowledge or care about Islamic morality. There is no way that these groups can claim to represent Islam. Many governments also seem to flout Islamic standards of morality and justice especially when dealing with their own populations, or building empires.

Muslims need to be fully aware that there are many people trying to stir up suspicion, blame, anger, despair, radicalisation and injus-tice between us, and by us against others, so that they can morally justify to their public, through the media, that these terrible extrem-ists must be stopped by all means. Also, many are trying to undermine the faith of Muslims and to get them to abandon their beliefs and way of life, or to change them to a different religion. Teaching each other in depth about the beliefs of Islam, and the Major and Minor sins seems to me to be a good way to prevent Muslims from succumbing to these pressures, and could contribute towards preventing extremist violence, and further bloodshed and destruction of Muslim countries in particular.

P Lack of knowledge about sinsNowadays many people in the West are

finding it hard to believe in ‘sins’, good and evil, angels and Satans, Paradise and Hell-fire. In the absence of any religion in some people’s upbringing, decisions are based upon whether something seems or feels good or bad for them, influenced by the current commonly held views of what is immoral or indecent, or upon their parents’ advice as they were bring-ing them up.

Sometimes we do something wrong out of ignorance, despite having good intention, which may be due to our parents and oth-ers not teaching us about what is right and wrong. This type of sin is partly our fault that we should have tried to use our God-given faculties including our conscience, and our opportunities, to try to find out the right way to live. Parents according to Islam,will be accountable to God for sins committed by their children before adolescence.

P Lack of knowledge about accountabilityChristianity teaches its followers to love

God, love Jesus, obey the Ten Commandments from Moses, and to love your neighbour as yourself. However it also tells them that by

believing that Jesus died on the cross as pay-ment for their sins, then they have already been redeemed and forgiven, and will have eternal life in Paradise, and some believe that Hellfire does not exist, only purgatory. These beliefs do not leave people with a clear incen-tive to strictly stick to the morals that Jesus (peace be upon him) lived by.

In Islam it is well known from the Quran and the Sunnah that beliefs alone cannot save us, and that it is through the grace and mercy of God that He forgives us and purifies us enough to enter Paradise. We will how-ever be mercifully and justly judged, but only upon our own intentions, words and deeds in the life that we lived, and we are not account-able for the sins of anyone else, except the children that we are bringing up. Before the Day of Judgement, Muslims are told to have faith that God will have forgiven everything that we sincerely repented from and asked forgiveness for, or were justly punished for during our lives.

P Lack of certainty that something is sinful or bad for us, or that we will be held to account

For a Muslim, at the moment of actually knowingly going against God’s commands, we are actually in a state of either not fully believing that we are sinning, or we think that God is not fully aware of what we are doing, or we have the idea that He will forgive us automatically. Often we are not believing with certainty that we are accountable to God, or that we will receive any negative consequence for doing a sin- perhaps doubting that God has power over, or that He controls everything in our lives.

P Not understanding all the consequences

of sins and all the benefits of not sinningSometimes we cannot fully understand

why or how much a minor sin is bad for us, and so sometimes this lack of conviction that Islam is the correct guidance perhaps can lead us to be tempted to be too relaxed and fall into at least the minor sins. We may also lack under-standing of the true benefits to ourselves and others, if we would stay away from the sin.

P Not listening to our conscience, but instead other voices

Sinning is made possible by not listening to the voice of our conscience or intuition, or God’s commands. Often we are denying the truth that we know, and instead prefer to listen to and obey something or someone else that is fallible and limited in knowledge and wisdom, including our own desires. Many are pushed towards a sin by peer pressure, by fearing the loss of something or someone. Sometimes it is just that we have strong desires that we are not in the habit of restraining, possibly due to being spoiled by people who never said ‘no’ to us. Conversely we may act out of a feeling of angry resentment and rebelliousness against the oppressive and domineering behaviour of someone towards us,in a bid for freedom, or out of an act of arrogance that we know bet-ter than our family, Islam or God.

P Considering sins to be insignificant or actually good

In most cases the wrong action seems at the time to somehow to be justified or belit-tled in our minds, or even made to seem cool and good. It is usually only afterwards that we start to realise or acknowledge that per-haps our ideas and those of our friends were

wrong, as we start to experience the negative consequences!

P Getting distracted or led by our emotionsSome sins are merely doing a normally

quite good thing at the wrong time, or in the wrong place, or to the wrong extent, such that we forget more important duties and responsi-bilities, which means we have been distracted or have got wrong or imbalanced priorities.

P Being labelled as badSome people while still young, get called

‘naughty’ and even worse things by their parents and others, until these negative descriptions become part of their identity, and they feel they have not got the ability to change. Sometimes they may think that they already have such a bad reputation that noth-ing they do can change this. So they just decide they will carry on with their wrong behaviour, feeling even that the alternative good path is too difficult for them. These people have a lack of hope in God and His forgiveness.

P Being complacent and deluded that you are so good and special that you cannot sin, are automatically forgiven, or do not need to follow certain rules

Conversely, some people think that they are already so good and spiritual, innately guided, automatically forgiven, or pure that they don’t need to worry about certain rules, and so they fall into sins due to their compla-cency and lack of carefulness and fear of God.

P Not knowing God, or the blessings of closeness to God

If we do not have a clear idea of who God

is, and what He is like, how can we know him, love him, or want to become closer to Him by pleasing Him?

P Forgetting our short time on this EarthForgetting that we cannot live forever, and

that we might very easily die tomorrow and stand before God to account for how we used our life, means that people can put off repent-ance, and doing what is right.

P Not encouraging good and forbidding evil

If we do not as a community encourage what is just and good and forbid what is unjust and evil, and do not behave according to the morals of Islam, then we are not and will not be the ‘best of peoples’. Race, class, or even religion- being a Muslim who practises the five pillars and saying ‘La illahi il-Allah’, are not enough to save us from punishment. Mus-lim parents, teachers, and the community in general need to fulfil their duty to try to be the best of examples of Islam in action, and to teach each other and especially children what Islam is all about, if we are to see any improvements.

Huthaifah (may God be pleased with him) reported: ‘The Prophet (PBUH) said, “By Him in Whose Hand my life is, you either enjoin good and forbid evil, or Allah will certainly soon send His punishment to you. Then you will make supplication and it will not be accepted’. (Hadith collection of At-Tirmithi)

Quran, Surah Al Imran (3) Ayat 104:‘Be a community that calls for what is good, urges what is right, and forbids what is wrong: those who do this are the successful ones.’

P The need to repent and reformIn any case if we are not careful about

minor sins, if committed ever more fre-quently, these can develop into bad habits that are quite hard to get rid of, such as smoking, eating excessively or backbiting. Step by step these bad habits can lead to a major sin being committed.

However, the extremist, Khawarij-like idea that a Muslim becomes a ‘Disbeliever’ if they sin, is not true- who can be perfect and sinless, even if they are a Muslim? Nobody should expect this- we cannot be angels. Even the sin of worshipping and obeying other than God can be forgiven if people repent and change before dying. God’s for-giveness and mercy are always open to us while we are alive, making it easy for us to repent and reform.

Quran Az-Zumar (39): Ayat 53: ‘Say, ‘[God says], My servants who have harmed your-selves by your own excess, do not despair of God’s mercy. God forgives all sins: He is truly the Most Forgiving, the Most Merciful.’

NEXT WEEK: How to stay away from sin

Luzita Ball is an English revert sister who has studied, researched, written and spoken about Islam for most of her life, since 1991. To contact the writer mail to: L.ball.articles@gmail.com

Why do we fall into sin?

This is an important hadith

because it shows that

Muslims should not be

innocent bystanders — we

are obliged to do something

to stop wrongdoing. It

also outlines to us the

order in which we must do

something.

Say: “O my Servants who have transgressed against their souls! Despair not of the Mercy of Allah: for Allah forgives all sins: for He is Oft-Forgiving Most Merciful. Holy Quran 39: 53

A prototype of the first Japan-made stealth fighter jet seen at a Mitsubishi Heavy Industries’ factory in Toyoyama town, Aichi Prefecture, central Japan, yesterday. Officials said the maiden test flight is scheduled in mid-February before delivery to the defence ministry by the end of March next year, The X-2 measures 47 feet long and 9.1 metres wide and was built as a successor to the F-2 fighter jets developed jointly with the United States. Presently, only the United States, Russia and China have been internationally recognised as having successfully developed and flown manned stealth jets, the agency said. Japan has reportedly spent about 39.4bn yen ($332m) to develop the aircraft.

Japanese Emperor Akihito (left) and Empress Michiko (second left) being greeted by Filipino students who previously studied in Japan, at the historic walled city of Intramuros in Manila yesterday. The Japanese royal couple are in Manila for a visit that coincides with the 60th anniversary of the normalisation of diplomatic relations between Japan and the Philippines after World War II.

Japan unveils first stealth fighter jet

Students greet Japanese royal couple

ASIA / PHILIPPINES06 FRIDAY 29 JANUARY 2016

Reuters

MANILA: Growth in the Philippine economy picked up late in 2015 as strong domestic demand and gov-ernment spending cushioned the impact of weak exports which are hurting many of its larger, trade-reli-ant Asian neighbours.

Even the severe El Nino dry spell, which hit farm output, failed to dampen the country’s momentum much. Southeast Asia’s fifth-largest economy grew 6.3 percent in the fourth quarter from a year earlier, faster than the 5.9 percent econ-omists had predicted and picking up from a revised 6.1 percent in the third quarter.

That brought full-year growth to 5.8 percent, national statistician Lisa Grace Bersales told a news confer-ence, which could mark one of the strongest expansions in the world in turbulent 2015. China has reported 2015 growth of 6.9 percent and Viet-nam 6.7 percent. On a quarterly basis, the economy once known as “the sick man of Asia” grew 2 percent in the fourth quarter from the previ-ous three months, slightly less than markets had expected but eclipsing China’s 1.6 percent.

“The Philippines is not as heav-ily leveraged to external growth as some other countries in the region, and domestic demand, predomi-nantly government spending and investment spending, is what really pushed up the growth numbers in the fourth quarter,” said Rahul

Bajoria, regional economist at Bar-clays Bank in Singapore.

The resilient performance appeared to support the central bank’s conviction that the economy does not need additional stimulus at the moment.

Main growth drivers in the fourth quarter were services, where growth accelerated to 7.4 percent on-year, and government spending, which surged 17.4 percent. Consumption also grew at its fastest annual rate in at least two years at 6.4 percent.

“We remain bullish. We are maintaining our expansion plans, opening new supermarkets, expand-ing our convenience stores and putting up new malls,” said Leonardo Dayao, president of Cosco Capital, the parent firm of the Philippines’ second largest supermarket chain Puregold.

Nearly $40bn worth of inflows from business outsourcing contracts and millions of Filipinos working overseas flood into the Philippines every year, lifting incomes and spur-ring demand for property, cars, consumer goods and services.

“We continue to see no need to adjust policy settings at the moment, given the healthy Q4 GDP...and an inflation outlook of a slow creep to within target over the policy hori-zon,” Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor Amando Tetangco said.

But in a sign that the consump-tion-led economy is not totally immune to the slowdown in China, economic planning secretary Arse-nio Balisacan said the Philippines would likely miss the top end of its 7-8 percent target for 2016.

Philippine exports were down 5.8 percent in the 11 months to November last year due to sluggish demand from top trading partners Japan, United States and China.

Growth also should be boosted this year from campaign spend-ing ahead of presidential elections in early May, though investors are likely to be cautious until the new leader’s policies are clear.

Under outgoing President Benigno Aquino, the economy grew an average of 6.3 percent annually, helping cut the once stubbornly high jobless rate to a record low of 5.6 percent. His efforts to collect more revenue by intensifying a campaign against tax evasion, as well as pri-oritising infrastructure, helped win the country investment grade ratings from major credit agencies.

Philippine growth acceleratesNearly $40bn worth of inflows from business outsourcing contracts and millions of Filipinos working overseas flood into the Philippines every year, lifting incomes and spurring demand for property, cars, consumer goods and services

AFP

TOKYO: North Korea may be pre-paring a long-range ballistic missile launch, Japanese media said yes-terday, following a nuclear test this month that raised international alarm and sparked a diplomatic clash between Washington and Beijing.

Imagery collected over the past several days suggested the launch from the western Dongchang-ri site could come in about a week, Kyodo News said, citing a Japanese govern-ment source it did not identify.

Increased movements of people and vehicles were seen around the launch site, which has now appar-ently been covered over, national broadcaster NHK said, citing a source familiar with Japan-South Korea relations.

The United States regularly mon-itors North Korea from space while Japan itself began its own satellite monitoring of the country in 2003.

North Korea is banned under UN Security Council resolutions from carrying out any launch using bal-listic missile technology, although repeated small-range missile tests have gone unpunished.

The development parallels events in December 2012, when Pyongyang put a satellite into orbit with its Unha-3 carrier. Eight days before the 2012 launch, the North also put up a covering over the facility to hide the work from the view of satellites, NHK said.

The international community condemned the 2012 launch as a disguised ballistic missile test, result-ing in a tightening of UN sanctions, despite Pyongyang’s claim that it was a scientific mission.

The reported preparation of a missile launch came amid a flurry of diplomatic activity over possible further sanctions against Pyongyang for conducting its fourth nuclear test earlier this month.

Pyongyang said the blast was a miniaturised hydrogen bomb, though

experts have largely dismissed the claim. Washington is pushing for a strong United Nations response, including enhanced sanctions.

But China, North Korea’s chief diplomatic protector and economic benefactor, is reluctant, despite ties becoming strained in recent years as Beijing’s patience wears thin with its neighbour’s ambitions for nuclear weapons.

US Secretary of State John Kerry met with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Beijing on Wednesday and said they had agreed to mount an “accelerated effort” to try to resolve their differences on a new resolution.

But Kerry, who said nuclear-armed North Korea poses an “overt threat, a declared threat to the world”, acknowledged that the two had not agreed on the “parameters of exactly what it would do or say”.

South Korean defence ministry spokesman Kim Min-Seok declined to confirm or deny the Japanese reports, saying the ministry did not comment on intelligence matters.

AFP

MANILA: Part of a ceiling col-lapsed in the Philippines’ biggest airport yesterday, slightly injuring a foreign passenger, the latest in a series of incidents at a facility seen as among the worst in the world.

The collapse at a restaurant at Terminal 3 of Manila airport “slightly scratched” a male foreign passenger, according to airport spokesman David de Castro.

He was treated for the injury but insisted on leaving on his flight for Japan hours later, de Castro said, declining to give more infor-mation on the passenger.

De Castro said the collapse did not involve the building’s con-crete ceiling but rather a facade on which the restaurant had affixed overhead lights. “They are allowed to make their own construction inside these restaurants,” he said, adding that airport authorities would investigate if substandard materials were used.

While Terminal 3 has not suf-fered any major incidents since it underwent a major rehabilitation in 2013-14, according to de Castro, Manila airport’s 34-year-old Termi-nal 1 has a much more unfavourable reputation. Passengers have com-plained of leaking ceilings, collapsed floors, malfunctioning equipment, congestion, dilapidated facilities and rude or corrupt personnel.

AFP

BEIJING: China’s controversial campaign to hunt down alleged white-collar criminals living abroad netted 857 fugitives last year, the country’s public security ministry said.

Beijing’s secretive “Operation Fox Hunt” has ruffled feathers in some countries that say Chinese law enforcement agents have been operating covertly on their soil with-out the approval or consent of local authorities. Few details of what extradition procedures are involved, if any, were given.

The drive largely focuses on suspected economic criminals, including corrupt officials, who have also been targeted by President Xi Jinping’s much-publicised anti-graft campaign. Of those repatriated last year, 366 turned themselves in, the ministry said in a statement on its website late on Wednesday — imply-ing that nearly 500 were seized against their will. It did not make clear who carried out the arrests.

The wanted individuals were

returned from 66 countries and regions, the ministry said, includ-ing the United States, Spain and Italy, and over 70 percent had lived out-side China for five years or more.

The ministry also announced the creation of a department of overseas fugitives affairs to oversee Operation Fox Hunt this year. Last August, the New York Times reported that Chi-nese agents were entering the United States on tourism or trade visas and using “strong-arm tactics” to com-pel their targets to return.

Concerns over extra-territo-rial Chinese activities have been heightened in recent weeks by the disappearance of five Hong Kong booksellers known for salacious titles critical of Beijing leaders.

Among them Lee Bo, a British passport holder, disappeared from a book warehouse in Hong Kong and resurfaced in China weeks later say-ing he was “assisting an investigation”.

Pro-democracy lawmakers and activists believe mainland agents kidnapped him despite having no right to operate in the city, which has a separate legal and political system from the mainland.

Images suggest North Korea may be preparing missile launch

Ceiling collapse

at Manila airport

injures passenger

AFP

MANILA: A Frenchman, his Fili-pina wife and their four-year-old son were found dead inside a pick-up truck on the popular Philippine tourist island of Palawan, police said yesterday.

The French embassy in Manila said it was in contact with the local authorities over the death of Jean Marc Messina, 54, his wife and their son, but the cause of death had yet to be confirmed.

The bodies of Messina, his 25-year-old wife Jewelyn Ven-turillo, and their son Guiliano, 4, were found Wednesday in a pickup truck on a street in Narra, a small town of 65,000 people on Pala-wan, Filipino police said.

Frenchman and family found dead in Palawan

857 ‘fugitives’ returned

to China: Government

ASIA / AFRICA 07FRIDAY 29 JANUARY 2016

AFP

YAOUNDÉ: A pair of women sui-cide bombers killed four people and left a trail of injury in north Cameroon yesterday, the second such attacks this week in a region targeted by Nigeria’s Boko Haram Islamists.

Only two attacks in the town of Kerawa were successful and three others were foiled, a mem-ber of a local vigilante group said. “There were new suicide attacks this morning in Kerawa,” said a regional security source. “Four civilians were killed. Many others were hurt.”

The member of the vigilante committee set up to ward off such attacks said the assailants were both women and confirmed that six people had died in all, includ-ing the bombers.

“Five women planned to blow themselves up in Kerawa today but two of them were arrested and the fifth is on the run,” the member said, adding that one of the arrested women “is the wife of a Boko Haram chief in the Ker-awa region.”

The security source said the attacks were carefully timed as members of the vigilante group had been called to a nearby town to receive silver medals from the local governor for their role in pre-empting Boko Haram attacks.

The attacks took place next to a school sheltering people displaced from their homes by Boko Haram’s six-year campaign of terror.

The jihadists initially confined their war to Nigeria but last year saw a sharp increase in cross-border attacks in Niger, Chad and Cameroon. Kerawa was the scene of one such assault in September in which 20 people were killed.

And on Monday, at least 37 people died in four suicide attacks at a market in Bodo, also in Cam-eroon’s extreme north.

Nearly 1,200 people have been killed since 2013 when Boko Haram began attacking Cam-eroon’s Far North region bordering the Islamist group’s stronghold in northeastern Nigeria, according to government spokesman, Com-munications Minister Issa Chiroma Bakary. “In total, 1,098 civilians, 67 of our soldiers and three police officials have been killed in these barbaric attacks by the Boko Haram terrorist group,” he said.

In that time, officials say there have been more than 30 suicide attacks blamed on Boko Haram, which has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) group.

In recent years, Boko Haram fighters had slipped back and forth across the frontier, often using Cam-eroon’s remote north as a rear base, acquiring arms, vehicles and sup-plies there. But since late November, the Cameroon army has carried out operations in several border areas aimed at weakening Nige-rian jihadists active in the region, with sources saying the raids have significantly weakened Boko Har-am’s capabilities.

AFP

THE HAGUE: Former Ivorian pres-ident Laurent Gbagbo (pictured) yesterday pleaded “not guilty” to four charges of crimes against humanity as his landmark trial opened five years after post-election violence ravaged his nation.

Gbagbo becomes the first ex-head of state to stand in the dock at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, in a case which will test the tribunal’s avowed aim to deliver justice to the victims of the world’s worst crimes.

Looking relaxed in a dark suit with a light blue shirt, the one-time west African strongman had arrived earlier in court, smiling and shaking hands with his defence team.

Prosecutors accuse Gbagbo and his co-accused, former militia leader

Charles Ble Goude, of orchestrating a plan to cling to power in the world’s top cocoa producer after being nar-rowly defeated by his bitter rival Alassane Ouattara in November

2010 elections. The ensuing violence claimed some 3,000 lives.

Gbagbo, 70, and Ble Goude, 44, both denied four charges of crimes against humanity, which accused them of organising “a common plan to maintain him as president by all necessary means”.

Over the weeks the “implementa-tion of the common plan had evolved to include an .. organisational policy to launch a widespread and systematic attack against civilians perceived to support Alassane Ouattara.”

Such crimes included murders, rapes, other inhumane acts and per-secution, the court registrar said yesterday, reading out the charges.

Amid lingering divisions over the events of 2010-2011, presiding Judge Cuno Tarfusser vowed the ICC would “not allow this trial to be used as a political tool or implement in any way whatsoever.” “I can assure you that the chamber will assess all

the evidence in a completely impar-tial fashion,” he said, adding it was their “task to determine ... whether the charges are well established or not.”

Abidjan, one of Africa’s most cos-mopolitan cities, was turned into a war zone between 2010 to 2011 as clashes flared between the rival forces in a deadly power struggle.

But the international commu-nity, including former colonial power France, backed Ouattara as the winner, and Gbagbo was eventually arrested by Ouattara’s troops aided by UN and French forces, and extradited to the ICC in 2011. Gbagbo’s defence lawyer, Emmanuel Altit, insisted on Wednes-day that it was “an important trial for Cote d’Ivoire and for Africa” and would help “clarify and understand the tragic events that occurred in that country.”

Gbagbo’s supporters accuse Paris of plotting to oust him, and charge that Ouattara’s camp has not been investigated for also carrying out

a string of abuses. Prosecutor Ben-souda said her investigations into other crimes committed during that period were launched last year and “intensifying.”

Rights groups say crimes were committed by both sides, and high-light that no charges have yet been brought against the camp of Ouat-tara — just elected to a second term as president. “The ICC’s ongo-ing investigation into crimes by the Ouattara side remains a critical ave-nue for victims to see justice,” stressed Param-Preet Singh, senior counsel for Human Rights Watch said.

Gbagbo’s defence has repeatedly denied there was an organised plan and insists the former trade union-ist played a key role in installing a multi-party system in his nation — a regional powerhouse once held up as a beacon of democracy and stability.

Hundreds of Gbagbo supporters from the country’s large diaspora

began descending on the new ICC building from before dawn yesterday. Draped in orange flags, they played drums and chanted slogans in sup-port of the former president.

“Our dream to see our president walk free starts today,” said Marius Boue, who travelled from north-ern France. “He is truly a man of the Ivorian people.” One of the rally’s organisers, Abel Naki, said Gbagbo and been “kidnapped” and “deported” to the ICC. “It reminds us of the years of slavery and colonisation.”

During the course of what will be a lengthy and complex trial, prosecu-tors intend to present 5,300 elements of proof including hundreds of vid-eos, as well as 138 potential witnesses.

Gbagbo’s wife Simone is also wanted for crimes against human-ity by the ICC, but she was sentenced to 20 years in an Ivorian jail last year and the government refuses to hand her over.

Taiwan’s President Ma Ying-jeou (second right) walks on the disputed Itu Aba or Taiping island in South China Sea.

Ivory Coast ex-leader Gbagbo denies crimes against humanity

AFP

TAIPEI: Taiwan’s President Ma Ying-jeou defended his visit to a disputed island in the South China Sea yes-terday despite criticism from the United States and protests from the other claimants as tensions swirl in the region.

Taipei insists Taiping Island in the Spratlys is part of its territory, but the chain is also claimed in part or whole by Vietnam, China, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei.

“We have the same general direc-tion as the US and I don’t see how my visit will heighten tension. I didn’t go

there to scold other countries,” he told reporters on his return to Taipei Thursday evening, brushing aside rebukes from rival claimants.

The purpose of the trip was to visit Taiwanese personnel stationed there ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday, according to the presidential office, and Ma said the United States had been notified of the trip in advance.

“In the South China Sea if any country takes any action, many coun-tries will protest and we will keep monitoring... I really can’t see what they are protesting against,” he said.

In a speech earlier in the day on Taiping, Ma said the islands were “an inherent part of the Republic of China”, using Taiwan’s official title. “This is indisputable,” he added.

Taiwan has been boosting its presence on the island, inaugurat-ing a solar-powered lighthouse, and expanding an airstrip and a pier late last year.

But Washington, which has said it does not want to see an escalation of tensions in the region, said ahead of Ma’s trip it was “extremely unhelp-ful”, saying it would “not contribute to the peaceful resolution of disputes in the South China Sea.”

His visit comes as several other claimants have been beefing up their military presence in the dis-puted region. Beijing regards almost

Taiwan’s leader defends visit todisputed island

the whole of the South China Sea as its territory and other claimants have complained it is become increasingly aggressive in pressing its claim.

Ma made some effort at sound-ing reconciliatory yesterday, calling for the setting aside of disputes and proposing joint exploration of nat-ural resources the area is believed to harbour. “To resolve disputes in the South China Sea, the ROC gov-ernment will work to safeguard sovereignty, shelve disputes, pursue peace and reciprocity, and promote joint development,” he said. Ma faced an onslaught of criticism from other countries who make claim to the

islands, including Vietnam.“We resolutely oppose President

Ma’s action of going to Itu Aba,” Tran Duy Hai, representative of the Viet-nam Economic and Cultural Office in Taipei, said, using an alternative name for the island. Ma’s visit came weeks after Taiwanese coastguards drove off a Vietnamese fishing boat near Taiping Island. “The situation is already very tense. Each country shouldn’t take any unilateral action. His action doesn’t contribute to stabil-ity in the region,” Tran added.

The Philippines, meanwhile, warned Taiwan not to increase ten-sions in the disputed waters.

“We remind all parties concerned of our shared responsibility to refrain from actions that can increase ten-sion in the South China Sea,” foreign ministry spokesman Charles Jose said. China, which also regards Taiwan as part of its territory awaiting reuni-fication, gave a measured response to Ma’s trip.

“The Nansha (Spratly) islands have been Chinese territory since ancient times. The Chinese people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait all have the responsibility to safeguard the ances-tral property of the Chinese nation,” Chinese foreign ministry spokes-woman Hua Chunying told reporters.

Taipei insists Taiping Island in the Spratlys is part of its territory, but the chain is also claimed in part or whole by Vietnam, China, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei

Women suicide

bombers kill

four in north

Cameroon

AFP

NAYPYIDAW: President Thein Sein hailed the “triumph” of Myanmar’s transition of power yesterday, in a last address to a military-dominated parliament before it makes way for a historic new legislature led by Aung San Suu Kyi’s pro-democracy party.

The Southeast Asian nation, choked for decades under junta rule, is on the cusp of a remarka-ble political handover after Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) thundered to victory in November elections.

Myanmar’s people are hoping her government can reboot a country eviscerated by army rule that battered the economy and repressed dissent.

“Even though there were difficul-ties and challenges, we were able to bring a democratic transformation eventually,” Thein Sein said address-ing the military-stacked legislature for the last time.

“This is a triumph for all Myan-mar’s people,” he added. Thein Sein, who under drawn-out handover rules retains his post until the end of March, has been a key player in Myanmar’s astonishing reform process.

He was among a host of military figures who shed their uniforms to

Myanmar president hails ‘triumph’ of democratic transition

form a government in 2011. Initially that government was viewed with suspicion as a civilian front for the army’s continued domination.

While the army retains major clout — a quarter of parliamentary seats are ring-fenced for unelected soldiers — sweeping political and economic reforms have surprised the international community and

encouraged a flood of foreign investment. They also culminated in November’s polls which passed peacefully and saw Suu Kyi’s party scoop nearly 80 percent of elected seats in the national parliament.

The new NLD MPs, many of whom are political novices, will take their seats on February 1 following the final day of a lame duck session by

the outgoing parliament on Friday.Suu Kyi, 70, carries the nation’s

expectations on her shoulders, after a decades-long struggle against junta repression. The Nobel laureate faces a formidable challenge in an impover-ished nation, blighted by corruption and torn by ethnic minority civil wars and religious divisions.

She is barred from the presidency

by the junta-era constitution that many believe was designed specif-ically to exclude her, but has vowed to rule through a proxy, who is yet to be named in public.

Faced with Suu Kyi’s massive popular mandate, Thein Sein and powerful army chief Min Aung Hlaing have pledged to support the transition.

A flurry of political plays have dominated the days leading up to the handover, leaving analysts struggling to decipher their meaning in a coun-try where decision-making has long been made in secret.

Parliament yesterday approved a controversial bill that shields former presidents from prosecution for acts during their term in office, while granting them indefinite bodyguard protection. Observers say Suu Kyi, who held talks with Min Aung Hla-ing on Monday, is seeking to find ways to placate the military. But dealings with the army come fraught with anx-iety for the former political prisoner and her party.

The NLD is haunted by memories of its election landslide in 1990 that was ignored by a junta that went on to tighten its grip on power for two more decades. Thein Sein shrugged off the near-annihilation inflicted on his party at the polls, saying he had not launched the reforms in order to hold on to power.

Parliamentary members leave after the last day of Lower House regular session in Naypyidaw yesterday.

PAKISTAN08 FRIDAY 29 JANUARY 2016

Internews

ISLAMABAD: The Ministry of Inte-rior of Pakistan yesterday ordered the police and Rangers to beef up secu-rity at schools and other educational institutions across the country, a week after a brazen terrorist attack on the Bacha Khan University in Charsadda which left at least 21 dead.

The move came shortly after an official statement announced that all the schools run by the army across the country would remain closed until January 31. Shortly afterwards, it was announced that all the schools run by the Bahria Foundation would also remain closed till the end of the

month. The statement did not specify any reason behind the sudden closure of the schools. The move came a day after the Punjab government ordered schools to close down for five days, telling 22.5 million students to stay at home, not due to security fears but because of extreme weather.

Punjab Education Minister Rana Mashhood told the media that a large number of children were catching flu and pneumonia as temperature fell to as low as four degree Celsius in the provincial capital while severe gas shortages had complicated the issue.

“Two days ago, the parents com-plained about harshness of the weather and diseases to children,” he said. “The meteorological office, too, told the government that the

extreme cold wave would continue for another three to four days. We took all the stakeholders into confidence and made the decision to announce the holidays.”

The minister denied that more than 100,000 government and private schools in the province were closed down because of threats, despite recent warnings that militants were planning to attack educational insti-tutions. On the other hand, the Punjab government sealed several educa-tional institutions for lack of proper security arrangements.

Among them was the Sargodha Medical College which was sealed after inspection of a security team, while the district administration issued show-cause notices to seven

private schools in Sialkot over poor security arrangements.

Police also sealed the Islamia Uni-versity Bahawalpur’s Khawaja Fareed Campus for not adopting proper secu-rity arrangements. A police team led by DSP City Shafqat Ata sealed the cam-pus amid the resentment expressed by the Faculty of Pharmacy and Alterna-tive Medicines Dean Prof Dr Mehmood Ahmad and others. Talking to the media, the DSP said the IUB adminis-tration had been asked to adopt proper security measures but it failed to do so. Similarly, the students told the media that they were also scared of inade-quate security at the campus.

The DSP City also sealed the Gov-ernment Postgraduate College, One Unit Chowk, and Government College

of Technology for Women for the same reasons. In Multan, the Bahauddin Zakariya University (BZU) was closed down for two days amid high secu-rity alert, the varsity officials said. All the hostels and residences had been vacated and security agencies sealed the varsity while checking the premises, sources said.

BZU spokesman Prof Dr Ghulam Shabbir said that the university was closed for two days with all the classes scheduled for Saturday and Sunday cancelled. The Balochistan govern-ment announced that a special force would be formed to protect educa-tional institutions, while the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa decided to issue free weapon licences to teachers of state-run institutions.

Security officials check vehicles at the entrance of Bahauddin Zakariya University in Multan yesterday. Pakistani security officials arrested 11 people during an operation in the university. Many areas of Pakistan are increasing security at educational institutions. Security was also being enhanced in the largest province of Punjab in the east, where police were being enrolled to help train private security guards. RIGHT: School boys gather to witness counter-terrorism force skills during an exercise, in Peshawar.

Security beefed up at educational institutions The Balochistan government announced that a special force would be formed to protect educational institutions, while the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa decided to issue free weapon licences to teachers of state-run institutions

Lt General John ‘Mick’ Nicholson Jr, speaks during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Capitol Hill, in Washington, DC, yesterday.

Reuters

WASHINGTON: Lieutenant General John “Mick” Nicholson, the current head of Nato’s Allied Land Com-mand, has been chosen as the new commander of international forces in Afghanistan, the Pentagon said yesterday amid concerns about set-backs in the fight against the Taliban.

Nicholson, whose selection must be confirmed by the Senate, would replace General John Campbell, who has commanded US and interna-tional forces in Afghanistan for the past 18 months and is expected to retire. Nicholson is a veteran of mul-tiple deployments in Afghanistan. He commanded the Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment as well as the 82nd Airborne Division, Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook told a news briefing.

“He understands the importance

and complexity of our mission in Afghanistan,” Cook said, having served previously as chief of staff of operations for the International Security Assistance Force, ISAF, and US Forces Afghanistan.

The transition comes amid growing concern about the secu-rity situation in Afghanistan, where Taliban militants have caused large numbers of casualties among Afghan troops and Islamic State affiliates have made some inroads.

The Taliban seized the northern city of Kunduz last year before being driven out by the Army. They also seized districts in Helmand province and threatened the provincial capi-tal, Lashkar Gah. Brigadier General Wilson Shoffner, a spokesman for the international mission in Afghanistan, said last week that Afghan security forces had “mixed results” in their first year of carrying out the fight against the Taliban on their own.

Reuters

ISLAMABAD: The head of a powerful religious body said yesterday that he is willing to review Paki-stan’s harsh blasphemy laws that critics say are regularly misused and have led to the deaths of hundreds, to decide if they are Islamic.

Pakistan’s religious and political elites almost universally keep clear of debating blasphemy laws in a country where criti-cism of Islam is a highly sensitive subject. Even rumours of blasphemy have sparked rampaging mobs and deadly riots.

But Mu ha mmad Khan Sherani (pictured), chairman of a body that advises the government on the compatibility of laws with Islam, told Reu-ters that he was willing to reopen the debate and see whether sentences as harsh as the death penalty were fair.

“The government of Pakistan should officially, at the government level, refer the law on committing blas-phemy to the Council of Islamic Ideology. There is a lot of difference of opinion among the clergy on this issue,” Sherani said in an interview at his office close to Paki-stan’s parliament.

“Then the council can seriously consider things and give its recommendation of whether it needs to stay the same or if it needs to be hardened or if it needs to be sof-tened,” Sherani, dressed in a traditional black robe, said.

Sherani, who has hit the headlines in recent weeks after his council obstructed a bill to deter child marriages, did not disclose his own position.

Pakistan’s blasphemy laws mandate the death pen-alty, although no sentence has been carried out. Critics say the law is abused in poor, rural areas by enemies falsely accusing others to settle personal scores.

Presenting evidence in court can be considered a new infringement, so judges are reluctant to hear cases. Those acquitted have often been lynched.

Salman Taseer, a prominent liberal politician, was killed by his own bodyguard in 2011 after he had champi-oned the cause of a Christian woman sentenced to death

under the law.Sherani, a member

of parliament represent-ing Pakistan’s largest Islamist party, the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, for some embodies Pakistan’s struggle to balance modern, dem-ocratic ideals with pleasing conser va-tive religious bodies demanding the imposi-tion of strict Islamic law.

In recent years his 54-year old council has ruled DNA cannot be used as primary evidence in rape cases, and sup-ported a law that requires woman alleging rape to get four male witnesses to testify in court before a case is heard.

His members’ deci-sion this month to block a bill to impose harsher penalties for marrying off girls as young as eight or nine has angered human rights activists.

Senators have since debated whether the council, in its current form, is right for the modern democratic Paki-stan that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has said his country must represent.

Sherani, head of the council since 2010, defended its recommendations, saying it was his job, as mandated by the constitution, to ensure the laws of the land were in line with Islam. The council’s advice is not binding.

“The state should only be concerned up until a point with the question of marriage,” he said. “After reaching the age of maturity (puberty) the child has the right to reject a union.”

Three percent of girls in Pakistan are married before they turn 15 and 21 percent before age 18, according to Unicef.

Sherani said there were many un-Islamic laws on the statute book that he was advising the government to overturn, including presidential pardons for a murderer.

Many of Pakistan’s problems, including violence against religious minorities, were the result of the gov-ernment failing to be sufficiently Islamic and instead pandering to the West, he said.

“Pakistan’s present government is a defender of the interests of the West,” Sherani said. “Don’t equate what the government thinks to what Islam is.”

Cleric ‘willing’ to review harsh blasphemy laws

Internews

ISLAMABAD: Nearly 20 months after the military launched an operation in the tribal areas on the border with Afghanistan, terrorist groups have been dismantled and or purged from the region but the country still remains vulnerable to groups such as the Islamic State, a report said yesterday.

“Military operations have dis-mantled the militant networks in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata),” said Mansur Khan Mehsud, Director of the Fata Research Cen-tre (FRC) in Islamabad as the centre launched a new report.

“Mi l itant groups l ike Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Mehsud Taliban in South Waziristan, Lashkar-e-Islam, Jamaatul-Ahrar, Al Qaeda, East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) etc., have now shifted to safe havens in Khost, Paktika, Paktiya and Nangarhar provinces of Afghanistan.”

In its Annual Security Report, the FRC noted that attacks in the tribal areas fell by 40 per cent in 2015 as compared to 2014. Despite the fall in the number of attacks, it still presented a grim picture for the region which saw a total of 293 militancy-related incidents which left as many as 1,679 people dead and 561 injured.

According to the report, there were 13 target killings, 43 attacks on civilians, 60 ambushes on the military and 17 attacks on mem-bers of peace committees. Further, there were 13 cross-border attacks, four kidnappings and three clashes between various militant outfits.

Most of the casualties, 65 per cent, were militants at 1,463. Civil-ians came in second at 14 per cent with 313 casualties including 108 deaths and 205 injured. Security forces suffered nine per cent of all casualties with 78 deaths, 122 injuries. Peace committees lost 30 members and 17 suffered injuries.

Report says terror groups in tribal region dismantled

Seasoned veteran of Afghan

war picked for top command

Works by artists Shail Choyal and Swapan Bhandary are on display among others at the India Art Fair in New Delhi, yesterday. The exhibition for south Asian contemporary art runs until Sunday.

India Art Fair

INDIA 09FRIDAY 29 JANUARY 2016

Reuters

NEW DELHI: India named 20 cit-ies yesterday which it says will be provided with uninterrupted power and water supplies, proper sanita-tion and public transport in a $7.5bn makeover to turn them into smart cities with living standards comparable to Europe.

India’s cities lack basic infrastructure such as toi-lets and are bursting at the seams with the influx of tens of thousands of people from the countryside. Thirteen of them are in the WHO’s list of the 20 most polluted cities in the world, topped by the cap-ital New Delhi.

Prime Minister Naren-dra Modi has vowed to create 100 new smart cities by 2022 that will have internet con-nectivity, e-governance along with quality infrastructure

such as waste management and efficient public transport.

The plan is also intended to boost investment and create jobs for mil-lions of people, but it has faced criticism for being a slow starter.

The federal government has struggled to pass reform legislation making it easier to acquire land and build roads and it was not immedi-ately clear how it would be able to provide high-quality infrastructure to these cities within five years.

On Thursday, Urban Devel-opment Minister Venkaiah Naidu named the first set of cities that will be targeted for a transformation.

These include Chennai in the south, which was ravaged by floods last year because of flawed urban planning, as well as a part of New Delhi. Other proposed smart cities are the tourist destinations of Jaipur and Udaipur and Bhubaneswar in the east. “This game-changing mission marks the end of a busi-ness-as-usual approach,” Naidu told a news conference. About 35 million people live in the 20 cities.

IANS

NEW DELHI: The process of getting a fresh Indian passport has become easier with the government introduc-ing two significant changes to further liberalise the procedure.

“The first is that the ministry has implemented a solution whereby applicants can book their appoint-ments as per their choice,” external affairs ministry spokesman Vikas Swarup explained at a media brief-ing here yesterday.

“The new provision will allow applicants to choose any of the lat-est five available working days while scheduling or rescheduling an appointment for passport-related services,” he said.

Under the earlier system, the appointment was assigned by the Passport Seva system based on its availability and on first-in-first-out (FIFO) basis.

Swarup said that now an appli-cant can fill up his or her particulars online and pay the requisite fees.

“He or she will then be redirected to a ‘pay and book appointment’ screen allowing him or her to choose a date from the displayed calendar,” he said, adding that the calendar would display the latest five availa-ble dates at the Passport Seva Kendra selected.

“The second and more signifi-cant set of changes are in the police verification process,” the spokes-man said.

He said the digital integration of police districts into the Passport Seva Project (PSP) has resulted in the reduction of days taken to com-plete verification from 49 in 2013 to 34 in 2015.

“But now, under this system, nor-mal passport applications of all first time applicants who furnish three documents — Aadhar, electoral photo identity card and permanent account number or PAN card — and

an affidavit stating their address, cit-izenship and swearing that there are no criminal cases pending against them will be processed on a post-police verification basis without payment of any additional fees sub-ject to successful online validation of the Aadhar number,” Swarup said.

Basically, he said, a citizen who has these three relevant documents would be issued the passport “vir-tually immediately” and the police verification would follow later.

“The ministry has also launched an mPassport Police App which allows for police verification to enter the status of verification dig-itally and in real time, thus cutting down further on the time required for verification,” he said.

The changes have come into effect as of Wednesday which, Swarup said, was a Republic Day gift from the external affairs ministry.

As of December 31, 2015, 63.3 million Indians held valid passports, the spokesman added.

IANS

THRISSUR: A court here yesterday told Kerala’s vigilance department to file an FIR against Chief Minis-ter Oommen Chandy on corruption charges in the solar panel scam.

The Left immediately asked Chandy to resign. He refused to, say-ing he had done no wrong.

The Thrissur Vigilance Court also directed a First Information Report to be registered against Power Minister Aryadan Mohammed.

The direction followed a petition by activist P D Joseph after Saritha Nair, a key accused in the scam, told

the judicial commission probing the matter that she gave Rs19m in bribes to Chandy.

She said on Wednesday that this done in two instalments and was part of the Rs70m bribe demanded by Chandy through his then staff mem-ber Jikumon.

Saritha Nair said she also paid Rs4m to minister Mohammed.

In response to the court’s direc-tion, Chandy told reporters in Malappuram that he had a clear conscience.

“I have done no wrong. I will face the probe and cooperate with it,” he said. Asked if would resign, Chandy shot back: “For what?”

His ministerial colleague

Mohammad also said: “We have done no wrong. I will cooperate with the investigation that has been ordered.”

Meanwhile, CPM state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan told reporters that Chandy has to quit immediately.

“The court has made its intentions clear through the FIR, and Chandy has only one way now to go forward and that is to quit at the earliest,” said the Communist Party of India-Marx-ist leader.

The scam erupted in 2013 when a fradulent company, Team Solar, allegedly used two women to weave political contacts and duped several influential people of large sums of money by offering to make them busi-ness partners or by setting up solar

panels. Sources close to Chandy said that he was speaking to lawyers to prepare a legal response.

The corruption allegations threaten to derail the Congress-led United Democratic Front’s (UDF) bid to retain power in assembly elections to be held this year.

Congress leader and former Ker-ala chief minister A K Antony and party president Sonia Gandhi are reported to have discussed the issue along with Mukul Wasnik, who is in charge of the party affairs in the state.

State Congress president V M Sudheeran has held talks with Gan-dhi over phone while Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala has cancelled all his programmes for the day.

AFP

KOLKATA: An Indian court convicted six men yesterday of gang-raping and mur-dering a student as she walked home after an exam in 2013, in a case that sparked outrage over women’s safety.

Security was tight outside the court in the eastern city of Kolkata for the verdict, with chanting protesters demanding jus-tice and scuffling with police.

Senior public prosecutor Dipak Ghosh said that six accused were convicted of gang-raping the 21-year-old woman, as well as murder, interfering with evidence and other charges.

Judge Sanchita Sarkar told the packed court that two others “are acquitted due to lack of evidence”. “The... punishment will be announced after hearing the convicts today,” she said.

The six face punishments ranging from 20 years in jail to the death penalty.

The gang attacked the university student as she returned home to her village, 50km northeast of Kolkata, in June 2013.

The victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was grabbed after getting off the bus before being dragged to a nearby abandoned farm.

She was found gagged and laying in a pool of blood in a field the next morning. Evidence showed she had been repeat-edly raped.

The attack triggered anger in West Bengal state and came just months after the fatal gang rape of a student in Delhi in December 2012 that shone a global spot-light on violence against women in India.

The 2012 incident led to an overhaul of India’s rape laws including speeding up of trials and tougher penalties for offend-ers, but high numbers of assaults persist.

FIR ordered against Kerala CMIANS

MUMBAI: A magistrate’s court here yesterday slapped a fine of Rs3,000 on former civil aviation minister Praful Patel for repeat-edly seeking adjournments in a defamation case.

Metropolitan Magistrate V P Adone imposed the fine after reject-ing Patel’s lawyers’ plea seeking another adjournment in a defama-tion case filed by the former minister against ex-Air India executive direc-tor Jitender Bhargava.

The defamation case matter revolves around Bhargava’s contro-versial book entitled “The Descent of Air India” in which he had chron-icled the diminution of the national carrier through certain “reckless and motivated” decisions taken between 2004-2008.

In this period, Patel was the aviation minister while V. Thu-lasidas was the chairman of Air India. Bhargava had penned the book post-retirement.

Irked by the contents of the book, Patel filed a defamation case against Bhargava and the publish-ers, Bloomsbury, in October 2013.

“Though the publishers subse-quently withdrew the book from the markets around Janaury 2014, I stood my ground since everything in the book was based on docu-mentary evidence,” Bhargava said.

Since then, he said that about 10 dates for hearing were fixed by the court, but on each occasion, Patel’s side sought adjournments which were granted, said Bhar-gava, who is fighting his case himself, though not a lawyer.

Now the matter has been fixed for hearing on February 12, said Bhargava.

Government announces 20 smart citiesSmart cities will be provided with uninterrupted power and water supplies, proper sanitation and public transport in a $7.5bn makeover to turn them into smart cities with living standards comparable to Europe

10 facts on Smart Cities

The cities chosen are Bhu-baneswar, Pune, Jaipur, Surat, Kochi, Ahmeda-

bad, Jabalpur, Visakhapatnam, Solapur, Davangere, Indore, the New Delhi area, Coimbatore, Kakinada, Belgaum, Udaipur, Guwahati, Chennai, Ludhiana and Bhopal.

→ Thirteen of them are in the WHO list of the 20 most pol-luted cities in the world.

→ The 20 names were picked from a list of 97 cit-ies submitted by states during a competition last year. The choices were judged on service levels, infrastructure and track record. More than 2.5 million citizens weighed in on which urban problems needed to be solved first.

→ “The competition was as rigorous as the civil services exam,” remarked Union Urban Development Minister Venkaiah Naidu.

→ None of the cities are from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal. On the other hand, some states have two or more nominees - Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh.

→ To qualify, states and local administrations had to provide “smart answers” to a template with 43 questions.

→ The cities not named today will be asked to get their act together, focus on deficien-cies and prepare for Round 2 of announcements in April.

→ In December last year, 97 selected cities had submit-ted their plans to the ministry and were given Rs.2 crore each.

→ PM Modi has vowed to create 100 new smart cities by 2022 that will have inter-net connectivity, e-governance along with quality infrastruc-ture such as waste management and efficient public transport.

→ The prime minister had described Smart Cities as those with “very high quality of life comparable with any developed European city”. Minister of Urban Development

Venkaiah Naidu announcing the ‘Smart City’ project in New Delhi yesterday.

Defence ministry seeks CBI probe against 2 generals

NEW DELHI: In a possible first, the defence ministry has asked CBI to probe two serving major gener-als for posessing disproportionate assets and accepting bribes for promotions, sources in the min-istry said yesterday.

The two officers are Major Gen-eral S.S. Lamba of the Army Service Corps (ASC) and Major General Ashok Kumar of the Army Ordi-nance Corps (AOC), the sources said. According to sources, Defence Min-ister Manohar Parrikar has written to CBI for the probe.

Sources said the enquiry has been ordered on the basis of com-plaints received against the two officers.

Six found guilty of rape and murder of student

All India Progressive Women’s Association (AIPWA) activists shout slogans against Bengal government as they demand death penalty for the accused at the session court during verdict in Kolkata yesterday.

Getting passport becomes easier

Praful Patel fined for seeking adjournments in defamation case

VIEWS10 FRIDAY 29 JANUARY 2016

By Marc Champion

Bloomberg

The large turnout in Istanbul for the funeral of Mustafa Koc, along with the thousands of

tributes on social media, says a lot about what has been hap-pening in Turkey during the past decade. These days, prom-inent businessmen usually don’t draw such affection.

Koc, who died of a heart attack last week, ran a com-pany that claims to account for 8 percent of Turkey’s economy and 14 percent of its exports. The Koc group, which produces everything from cars to petro-leum products, grew during the country’s military and secular-ist-dominated era — from its beginnings in 1926, soon after Mustafa Kemal Ataturk formed the Turkish Republic, until the election of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s religious conservative Justice and Devel-opment Party in 2002. The business has continued to pros-per since.

In a country where secu-lar and religious conservative companies have formed sep-arate associations (Tusiad and Musiad, respectively), and where consumers choose

even chocolates according to whether they are manufactured by “secular” Eti or conserva-tive Ulker companies, Koc’s continued success was never a given. And the government con-trols many of the contracts and privatisations on which con-glomerates such as Koc rely for growth.

Since coming to power in 2003, Erdogan has sought to shift the disproportionate amount of wealth accumu-lated by secularist business families toward his religious conservative allies. This was to be expected, given the way secularist parties had previ-ously disfavoured conservative companies.

But he has also taken puni-tive action against some secularist businesses. He charged the Dogan group — a conglomerate with large media and energy assets — with tax fines and interest of $3.2bn (most of the charges were even-tually thrown out in court).

Erdogan felt strongly that Istanbul’s secular aristocracy — so-called White Turks — had treated him, a “Black Turk” from the streets, disrespect-fully when he was the city’s mayor in the 1990s. As recently as 2013, he suggested that busi-ness leaders of that era should face trial for the role he sus-pects they played in the “soft” coup of 1997, which toppled an Islamist-led government and led to Erdogan’s being jailed. So it was a smart move for Koc’s father, Rahmi to hand control of the company to his son in 2003, the year Erdogan became prime minister. Mustafa Koc could deal with the new leaders with less personal baggage than his father or Aydin Dogan, who

kept control of the Dogan group until 2010. And for the most part, he managed to maintain good relations with the new regime. In 2005, for example, Koc was able to buy a 51 percent share of the oil refiner Tupras, the country’s largest single enterprise, paying the govern-ment $4.1bn.

For Turkish secularists, Koc’s success was important. So long as Koc and other secu-lar-era conglomerates run a big share of the economy, there is a large safe space in which sec-ularists can work and advance at good jobs even if they — and their spouses — don’t wear head scarves. Among the trib-utes to Koc that poured in after his death came one from UN Women, the United Nations entity devoted to promot-ing women’s empowerment, to which Koc was deeply commit-ted. In Turkey, gender equality is a defining political issue. Erdogan is just as committed to his belief that men and women have been created for separate, unequal roles.

News of Mustafa Koc’s death caused the company’s share price to fall by more than 5 per-cent, though it has recovered since.

While Koc may have been one of Erdogan’s most power-ful natural opponents, he was always respectful towards him in public and avoided diving into Turkey’s culture wars, even in private discussions I had with him. At the same time, he wasn’t a pushover. When, during the 2013 Gezi Park demonstrations against Erdogan, protesters sought refuge from police tear gas and batons in Koc’s swanky Divan hotel, the doors opened, and first aid was provided.

Erdogan was furious, promising punishment for the “crime” of abetting “terrorists.” As many as 200 tax inspectors descended on Koc’s energy companies and the government cancelled a ¤1.5bn ($1.64bn) naval contract it had previously awarded to the company.

Koc didn’t overreact, but neither did he roll over. When evidence emerged of wide-spread government corruption, he called for Erdogan to clear up the charges for the sake of investor confidence, rather than bury them (as the government did). Slowly, Erdogan came around, seeming to recognise that destroying the Koc group would damage Turkey itself. The day before Koc suffered his heart attack, the two men were again talking about defence contracts.

Erdogan attended Koc’s funeral along with leaders of the secularist opposition. The death of a man who was able to walk such a fine line with a government that too often sees its opponents as terrorists is an enormous loss. Turks who came to pay their respects for Koc understood this.

Why a businessman’s death meant so much to the Turks T

he decision of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to probe alleged war crimes during the brief war between Georgia and Russia in 2008 is a welcome step. Though it can be argued that the decision of The Hague-based court comes somewhat late, it is hoped that investigations by prosecutors will work towards

bringing to justice perpetrators of widespread abuses that may have been committed during the conflict in which Russia waded into, taking the Georgian government by surprise. The ICC has said that it is reasonable to believe that crimes against humanity and war crimes were committed during the conflict. On August 7-8, Georgia’s then President Mikheil Saakshvili sent forces into the breakaway republic of South Ossetia that borders the Russian region of North Ossetia.

More than 6,000 alleged victims petitioned the ICC in December last year. It is likely that the ICC’s first investigation outside of Africa will see many skeletons tumble out of the cupboard.

As the Kremlin struggles to deal with an economy being buffeted by Western sanctions, and President Vladimir Putin desperately tries to consolidate power, the ICC probe has opened up another front which the

Russian government has to find ways to deal with.

On the other hand, Georgia will find it increasingly difficult to face a probe that is likely to open up old wounds of the former Soviet Republic. There have been allusions to war crimes on both sides.

The people of South Ossetia are ethnically and linguistically different from Georgians and it has also been alleged that Georgian civilians were killed by South Ossetian forces during the conflict. Georgia, under Saakshvili who enjoyed the support of Western governments, lost the war after which Russia officially recognised South Ossetia — along with the breakaway

Georgian region of Abkhazia — as independent states. Thus, Moscow consolidated its hold on the two territories. In keeping with the Kremlin’s policy of using frozen conflicts to spread its influence in the region, the Russian government was able to intimidate another of its neighbours.

The conflict in Ukraine that saw Moscow occupy and then annex Crimea has echoes of the situation in South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Georgia has been trying to come to terms with political instability making its nascent polity susceptible to course changes. Saakshvili, who is credited with introducing a zero-tolerance policy against corruption, lost elections as the country grappled with widespread poverty. The US-educated lawyer who went onto exile after losing his presidency, now heads a province of eastern Ukraine. The ICC probe that will go into the details of the purported war crimes and abuses by both sides is going to roil the politics of the volatile South Caucasus region.

Opening old wounds

Quote of the day

The debate tonight will be a total disaster. Low ratings with advertisers and advertising rates dropping like a rock. I hate to see this.

Donald TrumpUS presidential candidate

The ICC probe into war crimes during the Russia-Georgia war will serve the cause of justice.

Among the tributes to Koc that poured in after his death came one from UN Women, the United Nations entity devoted to promoting women’s empowerment, to which Koc was deeply committed.

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When Trump hit out at those who duck debates

By Callum Borchers

The Washington Post

Like so many other Donald Trump manoeuvres, his withdrawal from today’s Fox News Channel debate is a contra-

diction. During the last presidential election cycle, he criticised Republican candidates Mitt Romney, Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann for refusing to participate in a December 2011 debate sponsored by Newsmax that Trump himself planned to moderate.

What’s more, he levelled that criticism dur-ing an interview with none other than — wait for it — Megyn Kelly, the Fox News host and

debate moderator that Trump now derides and wants removed from the stage in Des Moines before he would participate.

“Not lots of courage,” Trump said of skit-tish candidates at the time. “You know, these Republicans, they’re supposed to be brave.”

Trump ultimately stepped down as mod-erator, saying he wanted to reserve the right to enter the race later. He didn’t. But he told Kelly in that interview that he wouldn’t be as good at moderating debates as she is.

“I could never beat you,” Trump said. “That wouldn’t even be close. That would be no con-test. You have done a great job, by the way, and I mean that.”

Fox News, which critics often accuse of being in the tank for Republican candidates,

has been consistently tough on Trump during the current presidential primary season, even as he dominates polls. Kelly’s opening question to the real estate mogul during the first GOP debate in August marked the beginning of an increasingly tense saga; she rattled off a series of disparaging remarks Trump has directed at women and asked whether he possesses the “temperament” to be president.

Fox News — and Kelly, in particular — have been in Trump’s crosshairs. On social media, he frequently complains about cover-age that he considers unfair. It wasn’t so long ago that Trump, Fox and Kelly seemed down-right friendly. And it wasn’t so long ago that Trump seemed to think candidates who duck debates are cowards.

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

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

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ACTING MANAGING EDITORHUSSAIN AHMAD

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EDITOR IAL

OPINION 11 FRIDAY 29 JANUARY 2016

Cruz in style war with Trump

By Will Leitch

Bloomberg

Roughly 45 minutes before Don-ald Trump’s campaign would announce on Tuesday that he was skipping Thursday night’s

Fox News debate, as always giddily tip-ping the Republican race into chaos in a yet another pique of strategic petulance (or is it petulant strategy?), Ted Cruz was chugging along as usual, at a rally in Ottumwa, Iowa.

Cruz has a precise, meticulous way of speaking that is as regimented as Trump’s is scattershot and freewheeling. Report-ers who have attended multiple Cruz

speeches have noted, with a mixture of awe and alarm, how he is able to hit the exact same beats at the exact same points of every speech, at every stop, in a way unusual even for politicians. His stump speech is deceptively artful in its dull sci-ence. You listen to him like you listen to an air conditioner hum, always able to imper-ceptibly move up or down one degree to meet the needs of his audience but never once straying off beat.

It is perfect and unceasing and sort of amazing. The fact that Cruz is a cham-pion debater has been long discussed, but it’s always brought up in the context of actual debates. But his ability to stay singu-larly focused without wavering is a public speaking skill that doesn’t require others on stage with him.

He is, simply, a machine. During his entire 45-minute speech at Ottumwa’s Bridge View Center, he never said the word “um” at all, and he only stuttered and stumbled over a word once.

He had his stump speech down cold, but in a way that was clearly segmented into chunks and able to move around in his brain and rejiggered as he saw fit. Move the prayer section here, shift “ripping up the Iran deal” over there, drop in the “inves-tigate Planned Parenthood” right there in the middle.

When taking questions from the audi-ence at this town hall, you can almost see his brain click and whirl, like a jukebox selecting the correct 45.

When he received an odd question about whether he would “toss those United Nations jerks out of our country,” he seg-ued seamlessly into a five-minute anecdote about his time taking on the World Court in the Medellin case like he was reading it off a teleprompter. Cruz’s ability to convert a complicated world into a singular world-view without it ever appearing strained is unerring. It is his oratorical superpower. He is Cruz Bot.

A perfect illustration of this arrived later at the next event, in Fairfield, when he was able to effortlessly absorb the big news of the evening — Trump’s refusal to take the debate stage with Megan Kelly — and convert it into campaign energy, completely seamlessly. Cruz’s speech was almost exactly the same, with one addition: A Trump section, delivered as effortlessly as if it had been given 100 times before like the rest of it. It included a debate challenge to Trump, “mano a mano,” that Cruz had apparently come up with in the campaign bus on the way over.

Just like that, Cruz had turned a story that had nothing to do with him and made it his; every story about Trump’s decision now includes an item about Cruz and his challenge. Cruz takes in new informa-tion, processes it and instinctively churns it into part of his travelling roadshow as if it were there the whole time. He is the political Borg.

Cruz was introduced in Ottumwa by Bob Vander Plaats, President and CEO of The Family Leader and a kingmaker in evangelical Iowa politics. (He supported Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum the last two cycles, two devout men who also hap-pened to win the last two caucuses.)

Vander Plaats had spent the day being hammered by Trump because his endorse-ment had gone to Cruz, and the former gubernatorial candidate spent his intro-duction pointing out not only Trump’s failings — hammering him for, in order, boasting about never asking God’s for-giveness, belittling John McCain’s time in prison, and making fun of a New York Times reporter with a disability — but boosting Cruz as the true Christian con-servative candidate in the race.

Vander Plaats showered Cruz with affection, calling him a “once in a gener-ation conservative,” though it was clear Vander Plaats was still smarting from Trump’s barbs, sneaking in “the sanctity of human life is not up for the art of the deal” in the middle of some more Cruz praise.

Cruz and Trump are, reasonably, lumped together as the “outsider” candi-dates, yet it’s difficult to imagine two more different human beings. Whereas Trump embraces his wacked-out opulence, Cruz is dorky in a believable way. His light blue sweater is rumpled and doesn’t quite fit right; his blue jeans are a little too wide and a little too high; his pant cuffs hang slop-pily over work boots. (Cruz looks like one of Trump’s accountants, albeit the one who is secretly orchestrating his boss’ downfall behind the scenes.) The contrast between Cruz and Rick Perry, who gave Cruz his introduction at the Ottumwa town hall was jarring, Perry with his bomber jacket and his Joe Maddon glasses and his haunched swagger, Cruz with his wonkish inability to quite look normal.

He’s not charming in the way Perry is, and his attempts to come across as a reg-ular person are the one flaw in his matrix. He has a bad habit, his tell: Right after delivering a line he believe has scored-which is generally every one of them-he bites his bottom lip and emits a silent click of a giggle, with a little hop that seems to be his internal voice saying, “Nailed it!” It sometimes makes him look like a Muppet Babies version of a supervillain.

But as relaxed as Perry was on stage, Cruz is obviously the more accomplished speaker. He clicks into place like an old grandfather clock. He is forceful, assured, and comfortably simple: The crowd isn’t necessarily inspired by him, but they still

hang on every word. He may not be loved by people who have worked with him, but he knows how to give a crowd like this exactly what it wants. And perhaps most impressive: He’s able to do it in a way that benefits him, exclusively.

Perhaps the most artful part of Cruz’s speech is its closing. Cruz quotes from Scripture and-not coincidentally-he turns to Second Chronicles, bringing to mind the book of the Bible Trump famously mispronounced as “Two Corinthians” rather than “Second Corinthians” at Lib-erty University. Cruz has been making hay of Trump’s mistake for a few days, and Vander Platts had mocked him for it earlier as well. This time, though, Trump didn’t even have to be mentioned. He instead pointed out that 2 Chronicles 7:14 was the verse Ronald Reagan had his hand on when he was sworn into office a second time, and then began to recite from memory. By the time he was halfway through the verse, the audience began to join him.

In one move, Cruz managed to por-tray himself as humble and regular folk, remind Iowans that he is the most devout person in the race, position himself as the natural successor to Ronald Reagan and get in a dig at Donald Trump without ever having to say his name. And he even got the audience to sing it along with him. It was a virtuoso work of political the-atre — Cruz Bot, operating at maximum capacity. It is a most formidable machine.

Reporters who have attended multiple Cruz speeches have noted how he is able to hit the exact same beats at the exact same points of every speech, in a way unusual even for politicians. His stump speech is deceptively artful in its dull science. You listen to him like you listen to an air conditioner hum, always able to imperceptibly move up or down one degree to meet the needs of his audience without straying off beat.

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz (centre) talks with audience members after a campaign event at Bogie’s Steakhouse in Albia, Iowa.

Iowans give Hillary Clinton their polite applause

By Albert Hunt

Bloomberg

The challenge facing Hillary Clinton’s well-oiled presiden-tial campaign was on display

on Wednesday at the Fun and Family Bowling Alley in Adel, Iowa: enthusi-asm or, more precisely, the lack of it.

The leading Democratic candidate gave a polished 45-minute speech, focusing on her economic policies and ripping into Republicans before

a capacity audience of over 200. It was well received, particularly when she blasted companies like Johnson Controls, an auto supply company based in Wisconsin, for planning to relocate overseas for tax purposes.

But interviews with a dozen Iowa voters in attendance underscored her campaign’s chief concern: a lack of pas-sion among her supporters. Polls show she is locked in a tight race with Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders in Iowa, which has its first-in-the-nation con-

test on Monday. He has generated lots of enthusiasm.

Dana Brown, a graphic arts designer who came out to see Clinton, said she supported the former secre-tary of state for “practical” reasons. But Brown said she’s “not sure” she’ll attend a caucus to cast a vote on Mon-day night.

Bonita Boughman, a retiree in Adel, said she’ll probably turn out for Hillary next week, but added, “There’s a lot of Bernie Sanders support out here.”

O n e of t ho s e Sanders sup-porters was Nadia Igram, a lawyer from nearby Wau-kee, there with her hus-band and two children. She said she likes Clin-ton but leans to Sanders because she favours some of his “socialist ideas” and thinks he may be better on social justice issues. But as the event began, she said, “If Clinton says something that strikes a spark, I might change my mind.”

There were exceptions, Tim Sny-der, a retired John Deere employee from Dallas Center, said he’s “an enthusiastic Hillary person.” Praising the possibility of electing the nation’s first woman president, he added: “She has all the tools to get the job done. Females multitask better.”

O t h e r s in the crowd said they were there out of curiosity. One young woman said she’ll def-initely caucus on Monday night — for a Republican, Marco Rubio. Clinton laid out her eco-nomic plan, which she said

emphasised the middle class. She promised to create more jobs, higher incomes and more spending on infrastructure, while not raising taxes on anyone mak-ing less than $250,000 a year. She lauded President Barack Obama, who defeated her in Iowa eight years ago, on the way to winning the Democratic nomination.

She also, perhaps with Sanders in mind, struck a decidedly populist tone both on American companies located overseas and the tax policies

that encourage them to move. She promised to be tougher on Wall Street, which she claimed was taking aim at her campaign. She said the nation prospers more under Democratic Presidents, comparing economic performance under Obama and her husband, Bill Clinton, favourably to the administrations of George W and George H W Bush.

She made only a fleeting mention of Sanders, charging that his plan to replace the US healthcare system with European- style government insurance would “lead to deadlock” and potentially undo the benefits of Obama’s Affordable Care Act of 2009.

No matter what happens in Iowa or on February 9 in the primary in New Hampshire, where Sanders cur-rently enjoys an advantage, Clinton remains the favourite to win the nom-ination. But if she loses the first two contests, it would virtually assure a longer, costlier and conceivably more acrimonious battle.

As she was leaving the event, Igram said she thought Clinton was “really good.” She also said she’s sticking with Sanders.

Whereas Donald Trump embraces his wacked-out opulence, Ted Cruz is dorky in a believable way. His light blue sweater is rumpled and doesn’t quite fit right; his blue jeans are a little too wide and a little too high; his pant cuffs hang sloppily over work boots. Cruz looks like one of Trump’s accountants.

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

Hillary Clinton

A soldier from reconnaissance battalion 6 ‘Holstein’ with a ‘Mikado’ drone during a press event in Eutin, Germany, yesterday. Up to 650 German soldiers were preparing for their upcoming mission to Mali.

German military prepares for Mali mission

EUROPE12 FRIDAY 29 JANUARY 2016

AFP

STOCKHOLM: Sweden said it expects to expel up to 80,000 migrants whose asylum requests will likely be rejected, as another 24 people includ-ing children drowned off Greece yesterday in the latest tragedy in the Mediterranean.

As the continent grapples with efforts to stem a record flow of migrants, Swedish Interior Minis-ter Anders Ygeman said the mass expulsions of people who arrived in the Scandinavian country last year would require the use of specially chartered aircraft.

The deportations would be stag-gered over several years, Ygeman said.

“We are talking about 60,000 people but the number could climb to 80,000,” he told Swedish media.

The country of 9.8 million is among the European Union states with the highest proportion of refu-gees per capita. Of the 58,800 asylum requests handled by Swedish migra-tion authorities last year, 55 percent were accepted. Many of those requests were however submitted in 2014, before the large migrant flow began.

Ygeman said he used the 55 per-cent figure to estimate that around half of the 163,000 asylum requests

received in 2015 would likely be rejected. Migration Minister Morgan Johansson said authorities faced a dif-ficult task in deporting such a large number of migrants, but insisted the rejected applicants would have to return home.

“Otherwise we would basically have free immigration and we can’t manage that,” he told news agency TT.

However, 7,590 people who had their asylum applications rejected last year went underground, and for the period 2010-2015 their number totalled 40,345, according to the migration agency.

More than one million people travelled to Europe last year — the majority of them refugees fleeing conflict in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan — in the continent’s worst migration crisis since World War II.

Most cross by boat from Turkey to Greece and the United Nations said yesterday that more than 50,000 people have turned up on the EU member’s beaches so far this year, while 200 people died making the dangerous journey.

Flimsy boats packed with migrants are still arriving on Greek beaches every day, undeterred by Europe’s wintry conditions.

Yesterday, the bodies of 24 migrants, including 10 children, were discovered off the Greek island of Samos after their boat capsized and 11 others were still missing, the coastguard said, a day after seven other bodies were found near the island of Kos.

With the influx showing little sign of abating, many countries — includ-ing Austria, Germany, Denmark, Sweden and France — have tightened asylum rules in a bid to discourage new arrivals.

Reflecting the mounting ten-sions, Brussels on Wednesday blasted Greece’s handling of the crisis and warned it could face border controls with the EU’s passport-free Schengen zone if it does not protect the bloc’s frontiers.

Athens is worried its border with Macedonia will be closed, leaving

Sweden may expel up to 80,000 migrants

Syrian children sleeping outside the Swedish Migration Board in Marsta, outside Stockholm. Sweden is preparing for the expulsion of up to 80,000 people whose asylum bids have been rejected, a cabinet member said yesterday.

refugees trapped in the country. After having closed its border for several hours last week, Macedonia again blocked refugees from entering from Greece for several hours overnight.

An interior ministry official said that was because 600 people were queuing at Macedonia’s northern bor-der to cross into Serbia.

Several hours later the refugees were allowed on their way and the situation returned to normal. Some 3,000 people were on Thursday wait-ing at the Macedonian border on the

Greek side, police there said. Greece is not the only country

under fire — Denmark has faced heavy criticism after lawmak-ers passed a bill this week allowing authorities to seize valuables from refugees in a bid to deter new arrivals.

Some have likened the move to the Nazis’ confiscation of gold from Jews during the Holocaust, with Human Rights Watch denouncing the bill as “despicable”.

Neighbouring Sweden has seen the number of new migrants entering

the country plunge since it brought in systematic photo ID checks on trav-ellers on January 4.

Concerns have grown over con-ditions in Sweden’s overcrowded asylum facilities, however, and offi-cials have called for greater security after an employee at a refugee cen-tre for unaccompanied youths was stabbed to death earlier this week.

A 15-year-old male allegedly attacked the 22-year-old employee, Alexandra Mezher, at the centre in Molndal on Sweden’s west coast.

Her death has led to questions about conditions inside some centres, with too few adults and employees to care for the children, many trauma-tised by war.

Sweden took in around 35,400 unaccompanied minors in 2015, nine times more than in 2014. National Police Commissioner Dan Elias-son earlier this week requested 4,100 additional officers and sup-port staff to help counter terrorism, deport migrants and police asylum facilities.

With the influx showing little sign of abating, many countries — including Austria, Germany, Denmark, Sweden and France — have tightened asylum rules in a bid to discourage new arrivals

AFP

PARIS: A man carrying two hand-guns, ammunition and a Holy Quran was arrested yesterday at a hotel in Disneyland Paris, and his girlfriend was also held, police sources said.

The man was “detected upon his arrival at the Disneyland hotel where he had a reservation. Hotel security found two handguns, a Koran and ammunition on him”, said the source.

A separate police source said that the metal detector had rung out as the man passed through. Police were called and arrested the suspect while they secured his vehicle. They then tracked down his girlfriend who was also taken into custody.

Papers found on the suspect indicated that he lived in Paris, however no further details were available about him.

Disneyland Paris is situated about 30km east of the French capital and is the most visited theme park in Europe, with some 10 million visitors in 2014, accord-ing to that year’s Global Attractions Attendance Report.

France is on high alert after a devastating terror attack in November saw Islamic State group gunmen and suicide bombers target Paris cafes, a concert hall and the Stade de France national stadium, leaving 130 dead and hundreds injured.

The bloodshed was the second major attack in France within a year, as the country has become a prime target for the jihadist group operating out of Iraq and Syria.

In January 2015, three days of terror gripped Paris as a series of attacks left 17 people dead, including an attack on the satiri-cal newspaper Charlie Hebdo.

Reuters

BRUSSELS: Nato defence cuts slowed sharply in 2015, alliance data showed yesterday, also revealing a split between big-spending eastern European nations fearful of Russia and others such as Italy that are still reducing their budgets.

Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, fail-ing states on Nato’s borders, and the spread of Islamic militancy have refocused govern-ments on the need to defend home territory after more than a decade of Nato-led opera-tions in Afghanistan.

Nato’s defence spending as a share of eco-nomic output fell 1.5 percent in 2015, the sixth

straight year of cuts, dragged down by a 12 per-cent decrease in Italy, the US-led alliance said in its annual report. The 2008/09 financial crisis and the ensuing euro zone crisis forced many Nato allies into drastic measures to reduce their budget deficits, leading to sometimes sharp cuts in defence spending.

But Nato Secretary-General Jens Stolten-berg welcomed the data showing total defence budget reductions outside the United States, which accounts for almost three-quarters of Nato military spending, fell just 0.3 percent last year. Overall, the alliance’s total cuts were the mildest in four years.

“We have started to move in the right direc-tion,” Stoltenberg told a news conference, saying that 16 allies spent more on defence in real

terms in 2015 and there was also an increase in spending on new equipment. “The cuts have now practically stopped among European allies and Canada.”

Poland’s decision to increase defence spend-ing by almost a quarter, as well as a strong showing in the Baltic nations that want more Nato troops in the region, helped offset the decrease in Italy and smaller reductions in Brit-ain, Belgium and France.

Stoltenberg said Nato was now facing “the biggest security challenges in a generation”, pointing to potential risks from its former Cold War adversary Russia as well as on its south-ern flank, ranging from Libya to Iraq and the wider Middle East.

He cited the need to invest in modern

equipment and also more surveillance and intel-ligence to counter cyber attacks.

“We see a more assertive Russia to the east, a Russia that has invested heavily in defence over several years and which has also shown the will to use military force to change borders in Europe,” he said, referring to Crimea.

NATO and its biggest contributor, the United States, have warned European allies since the 2008/09 financial crisis that the alliance’s military power and influence is at risk while countries such as China and Russia increase their budgets.

Britain, Poland, Greece and Estonia are the only European nations to meet a Nato goal of spending at least 2 percent of gross domestic product on defence.

AFP

PARIS: More than 20 schools in France, Italy and Britain were placed on alert yesterday after receiving threatening phone calls, following a wave of hoax bomb scares earlier this week.

French education authorities said there were “no bomb alerts but threats” at five of the most prestig-ious schools in Paris, without giving further details. The schools were placed under police surveillance.

A French high school in Rome was evacuated as was a trilingual creche, after similar threats, accord-ing to letters sent to parents.

Meanwhile in Britain, police said they were probing threats at 14 schools in central England believed to be “false and malicious.”

“At this stage there is nothing to suggest there is any credible threat to any of the schools,” said Detec-tive Inspector Colin Mattinson of the West Midlands police, the force that covers the city of Birmingham.

British media said four schools in London had been evacuated, although this was not confirmed.

The threats come two days after six Paris schools and 14 in Britain were evacuated following hoax bomb threats. Those threats were claimed by a Twitter account call-ing itself the Evacuation Squad, with a profile picture of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The account featured previous messages in support of Syr-ian President Bashar al-Assad.

“We are six individuals based internationally,” reads the profile blurb, advertising its services to call in bomb threats. The account has since been suspended.

Both France and Britain are on high alert after again being threat-ened by the latest Islamic State group propaganda video, released on Monday showing the jihadists who attacked Paris in November.

The IS group’s French-language magazine Dar Al Islam called in its November edition for its followers to kill teachers in the French edu-cation system, describing them as “enemies of Allah”.

Europe’s defence cuts slow over Russia fears: Report

French and British schools

on alert after ‘threats’

Man arrested in

Disneyland Paris

hotel with two

handguns: Police

Houses are seen hanging over a cliff in Pacifica, California. Storms and powerful waves caused by El Nino have been intensifying erosion along nearby coastal bluffs and beaches in the area.

Snow removal continues nearly a week after the area was hit by a major snow storm, in Washington, DC, yesterday. The East Coast is still digging out from the large storm that hit last weekend, breaking snowfall records, causing 29 storm-related deaths, and serious flooding in coastal areas.

Houses hanging over a cliff

Snow removal continues

AMERICAS 13FRIDAY 29 JANUARY 2016

AFP

GENEVA: The Zika virus is “spread-ing explosively” in the Americas and the region may see up to four mil-lion cases of the disease strongly suspected of causing birth defects, the World Health Organisation said yesterday.

As the number of suspected cases of microcephaly — thought to be linked to the virus — surged in Bra-zil, WHO head Margaret Chan said an emergency committee would meet on Monday to determine whether the outbreak amounts to a global health emergency and how the world should respond.

The number of cases of micro-cephaly, which causes babies to be born with an abnormally small head, has soared in Brazil from 163 a year on average to more than 3,718 sus-pected cases since the outbreak, and 68 babies have died, according to the health ministry.

Colombia, Ecuador, El Salva-dor, Jamaica and Puerto Rico have warned women to avoid getting preg-nant for the time being, while France has urged women not to travel French overseas territories in South Amer-ica and the Caribbean.

Chan told an assembly of WHO member-states in Geneva that the severity of the current outbreak was unprecedented in recent decades.

For decades after Zika was first discovered in Uganda in 1947 the mosquito-borne virus was of little concern, sporadically causing “mild” illness in human populations.

“The situation today is dramati-cally different. The level of alarm is extremely high,” she said, with Zika also possibly linked to a neurolog-ical disorder called Guillain-Barre syndrome.

“A causal relationship between Zika virus infection and birth malfor-mations and neurological syndromes has not yet been established, but is strongly suspected,” Chan said.

She told WHO members that the virus “is now spreading explosively,” in the Americas, where 23 countries and territories have reported cases.

Marcos Espinal, the head of com-municable diseases and health analysis at the WHO’s Americas office, said the region could see between three to four million cases of Zika.

That projection applied to the next 12 months and was based largely on historical spread patterns of sim-ilar mosquito-borne diseases like Dengue fever, said Sylvain Aldigh-ieri a WHO epidemic expert in the Americas.

Espinal drew a contrast with Ebola, which is transmitted through the bodily fluids of infected people and those who have died from the disease.

Zika “will go everywhere the mosquito is.” Espinal said. “We should assume that. We should not wait for it to spread,” he added, stressing that controlling the carrier mosquito was crucial to controlling the outbreak.

WHO has previously said that it expects Zika to spread to every coun-try in the Americas except Canada and Chile.

There have not yet been any cases of local transmission of Zika virus within the United States, although infected travellers have returned to the country after visiting other areas.

However, a recent study in The Lancet suggests that Zika virus could reach regions of the United States in which 60 percent of the population

lives, or some 200 million Americans.Chan explained that the February

1 emergency meeting would assess the severity of the outbreak and what response measures might be taken.

It will also aim to identify priority areas for urgent research, Chan said, after US President Barack Obama called for swift action, including better diagnostic tests as well as the development of vaccines and treatments.

Brazil has been the country hardest hit so far, and concerns are growing about this summer’s Olym-pic games, which are likely to attract hundreds of thousands of visitors to host city Rio de Janeiro in August. Six months from the opening cere-mony, the government has promised to attack mosquito breeding sites and protect visitors from the virus, from which there is no known prevention method aside from avoiding mos-quito bites.

WHO’s deputy chief Bruce Ayl-ward told reporters that it was “very, very unlikely” the UN agency would issue warnings against travel to Bra-zil, including for the games. The head of the International Olympic Committee, Thomas Bach, said it will “do everything” in its power to keep the Games safe from the Zika.

Honduras also said it had reg-istered 1,000 cases of Zika, which is transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, the species that also car-ries Dengue, chikungunya and yellow fever.

Aylward warned that any coun-tries in the Dengue belt — the tropical areas worldwide that are also asso-ciated with malaria — “should be concerned about ... the possibility of the Zika virus arriving.” The virus takes its name from Uganda’s Zika forest, where it was first discovered.

Chan stressed that previous beliefs about the disease have been challenged by the fresh outbreak and that WHO needed better information as quickly as possible. “The level of concern is high, as is the level of uncertainty. Ques-tions abound,” she said. “We need to get some answers quickly.”

Zika virus ‘spreading explosively’: WHOMarcos Espinal, head of communicable diseases and health analysis at the WHO’s Americas office, said the region could see between three and four million cases of Zika

AFP

MEXICO CITY: Mexican authori-ties yesterday deported a US teenager known for using an “affluenza” defence in a fatal Texas drunk-driving accident, a month after the fugitive was caught in a resort.

The National Migration Institute released a video showing agents escorting a bearded Ethan Couch, 18, into a plane flying from Mexico City to Dallas, Texas, after he dropped an appeal against his deportation.

Couch, who had spent 28 days in a detention facility, will be met by US authorities in Dallas “because he faces several charges,” the institute said in a statement.

Couch and his mother, Tonya, were detained by Mexican author-ities in the Pacific resort of Puerto Vallarta on December 28 following an international manhunt.

The young man had disappeared late last year after missing a man-datory meeting with his probation officer. Couch apparently vanished after the emergence of a video show-ing him at a party taking part in a drinking game, which violated the terms of his probation.

Tonya Couch was deported from Mexico on December 31 and was promptly arrested by US authori-ties to face charges of hindering his apprehension. Her son had lodged an appeal that could have delayed his deportation for months, but he dropped it on January 15.

In 2013, the teen crashed his pickup into a group of pedestrians in Texas and another vehicle, leaving four dead and several seriously injured. Couch, who was 16 at the time, had a blood-alco-hol level nearly three times the legal limit for an adult.

The son of millionaire parents made headlines during his trial when a psychologist testifying on his behalf claimed he suffered from “affluenza.” The term, coined from affluence and influenza, implied that financial priv-ilege made him unable to understand the consequences of his actions.

Couch pleaded guilty to intoxica-tion manslaughter. Prosecutors had sought a 20-year prison term, but the court handed him a surprise sentence of mental health treatment and a dec-ade of probation.

Mexico deports US ‘affluenza’ teen

AFP

DES MOINES: With just days to go before the first US presidential nominations contest in Iowa, Don-ald Trump is raising the stakes in the Republican campaign, defiantly refusing to debate his rivals Thurs-day and instead hosting an event for veterans.

The 69-year-old real estate tycoon left the Republican Party dumbfounded with his bombshell announcement late on Tuesday that he will not participate in the debate in Des Moines, Iowa because of his toxic relationship with Fox News.

Twisting the knife, he will instead

hold a “special event” to benefit vet-erans groups at the same time as the debate, and in the same city.

All eyes are on the heartland state, where the 12 Republican candi-dates and three Democratic hopefuls including Hillary Clinton are vying for bragging rights and the lead in the primary race heading to subsequent votes in New Hampshire, South Caro-lina and Nevada.

Trump, who has never held elected office, showed no signs of wavering. “The ‘debate’ tonight will be a total disaster — low ratings with advertisers and advertising rates dropping like a rock. I hate to see this,” Trump tweeted yesterday.

“I hope @CNN has enough band-width tonight because not many will

be watching @FoxNews,” he added, also claiming two of his rivals had asked to attend his event.

Trump has accused Fox News, and especially debate moderator Megyn Kelly, of being biased against him.

“Trump knows a bad deal when he sees one,” his campaign team said, after Fox took the unprecedented step of mocking Trump for asking his nearly six million Twitter follow-ers to weigh in on whether he should attend the debate.

Fox shot back that it would not give in to “terrorisations”, after it accused Trump’s campaign manager of threatening Kelly — one of the most watched anchors on US cable news, and the target of derisive comments by the candidate.

The Republican National Commit-tee appeared eager to distance itself from the Trump-Fox war. “We’d love all the candidates in,” RNC spokes-man Sean Spicer told CNN.

But “at the end of the day, each campaign has to make up their own mind as to what’s in their best inter-est, and so we respect that decision.”

Trump has a genuine battle on his hands in Iowa with ultra-conserva-tive Senator Ted Cruz, his nearest GOP rival, trailing by about five percentage points in the RealClearPolitics aver-age of recent Iowa polls.

According to Cruz, the race is dead even. Nationally, however, Trump is far ahead. A new CNN/ORC poll of Republican voters has Trump at 41 percent to 19 percent for Cruz, with

more than two-thirds of Republicans saying they believe the billionaire will be the party’s presidential candidate.

Florida Senator Marco Rubio is a distant third, at eight percent, fol-lowed by retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson at six percent and former Flor-ida governor Jeb Bush at five percent.

Cruz warned evangelical pastors in Iowa that if Trump manages to win there and then in New Hampshire, he could prove “unstoppable.”

With Trump absent, Cruz will be centre stage with six other Republi-cans in Des Moines, totally changing the debate dynamics. Cruz hit out at his rival, accusing him of being “afraid” to take part in the debate and challenging him to a one-on-one debate.

AFP

LOS ANGELES: US officials yes-terday arrested five people in connection with the escape of three inmates from a southern Cal-ifornia prison nearly a week ago.

The trio rappelled off a roof using knotted bed sheets when they fled the Orange County Men’s Cen-tral Jail in Santa Ana on January 22.

“We have made around five arrests and we are going to make additional arrests throughout this evening and probably into tomor-row,” said Orange County Sheriff Sandra Hutchens. The suspects “have some connection to the indi-viduals who have escaped,” she said.

Police say that one of the fugi-tives, 20-year-old Jonathan Tieu, who was serving a murder sentence, was a member of a Vietnamese gang. The other men who fled were identified as Hossein Nayeri, 37, who was serving time for kidnapping and torture, and 43-year-old Bac Duong, convicted of attempted murder.

Police believe the men are dan-gerous, likely armed, and possibly being hidden by Vietnamese accom-plices. “We are continuing to focus on a Vietnamese gangs,” Hutchens said. The sheriff said investigators believe the escapees must have had “outside help” in obtaining cutting tools for the jailbreak.

The Federal Bureau of Investiga-tion has offered a reward of $20,000 for information leading to their recapture, and the sheriff’s depart-ment has also offered $30,000 — $10,000 for each fugitive.. The three prisoners had apparently accessed the jail’s plumbing system, used tools to cut through metal bars and made a rope from bed sheets to escape through the prison roof, officials said.

Reuters

WASHINGTON: US authorities failed to conduct proper back-ground checks before releasing undocumented migrant children to guardians, who in some cases exploited them, a bipartisan US Sen-ate investigation found.

Republican Senator Rob Portman opened a hearing yesterday on the findings saying the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) lacked proper procedures to protect undocumented children entering the US without an accompanying adult.

The Senate investigation was prompted by a case in Portman’s home state of Ohio in which at least six chil-dren from Guatemala were forced to work long hours on egg farms in Marion County. Six people have been

charged in the case, Portman said. That could have been prevented had HHS adopted commonsense measures for screening sponsors and checking on the well-being of at-risk children, Portman said.

HHS Acting Assistant Secretary Mark Greenberg said in prepared testimony the agency has instituted new procedures aimed at prevent-ing abuse of minors once they are released by the government.

He noted the number of immigrant children temporarily cared for by HHS has skyrocketed, from an average of around 6,000 a year to 57,496 in fiscal 2014 and 33,726 in fiscal 2015, which ended last September 30. The probe cited additional cases of children exposed to abuse following release, which are under investigation by the Permanent Subcommittee on Inves-tigations, said Portman, the panel chairman.

Trump raises campaign stakes with Republican debate boycott

US failed to protect migrant

kids from traffickers: Probe

Five arrested over California prison escapes

Facebook quarterly profit doubles as user ranks grow

PAGE | 15 PAGE | 15

Toyota showcasing hybrid technology at

Qatar Motor Show

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Fed keeps rates unchanged and to monitor global cuesBloomberg

WASHINGTON: US Federal Reserve officials left interest rates unchanged and said they still expect to raise borrowing costs at a “gradual” pace while watching to see how the glo-bal economy and markets impact the US outlook.

The Federal Open Market Com-mittee is “closely monitoring global economic and financial developments and is assessing their implications for the labour market and inflation, and for the balance of risks to the outlook,” the central bank said in a statement following a two-day meeting in Wash-ington. The Fed omitted a line from the previous statement in December.

Since the Fed raised interest rates

last month for the first time in almost a decade, turmoil in financial mar-kets and a dimming of the outlook for global growth have spurred investors to expect a slower rise in borrowing costs. The median projection of policy makers’ forecasts in December called for four quarter-point rate increases in 2016; futures markets indicated ahead of the FOMC statement that traders see just one or two hikes coming.

Stocks fell immediately after the announcement, erasing earlier gains, as policy makers gave no concrete signal that additional rate increases would be delayed. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index was little changed at 1,904.08 at 2:23 pm in New York after having been up as much 0.7 per-cent earlier in the day.

US Fed Chair Janet Yellen

(pictured) and her Fed colleagues, explaining their unanimous deci-sion to leave the target range for their benchmark federal funds rate at 0.25

percent to 0.5 percent, said that infor-mation “suggests that labour market conditions improved further even as economic growth slowed late last year.”

Reiterating the interest-rate out-look from the December statement, the FOMC said that it “expects that economic conditions will evolve in a manner that will warrant only grad-ual increases in the federal funds rate.”

Household spending and business fixed investment have been growing at “moderate rates in recent months,” the FOMC said, after labeling such gains “solid” in the December statement.

The Fed stuck to its projection that the pace of price gains will rise to 2 percent over the medium term but stated that inflation “is expected to remain low in the near term, in part because of the further declines in energy prices.”

Market-based measures of infla-tion expectations have “declined

further,” while survey-based meas-ures were “little changed” in recent months, the FOMC said.

Yellen won’t hold a post-meeting press conference and isn’t scheduled to speak publicly until she appears before the House Financial Services Committee on February 10 to deliver the Fed’s semi-annual monetary pol-icy report to Congress.

Since the FOMC met on December 15-16, the US labour market showed more of the improvement that encour-aged the Fed to raise interest rates. Employers added 292,000 new jobs in December, bringing the 2015 total to 2.65 million. Wages also showed tentative signs of accelerating, pro-viding good news for a Fed hoping to see inflation move closer to its 2 per-cent target this year.

Doha Bank unveils ‘Win

Your Car Loan Back’ offerThe Peninsula

DOHA: Doha Bank has announced its latest car loan offer at an unbeat-ably low financing cost for new and existing customers of the bank.

The announcement was made on the occasion of the ongoing Qatar Motor Show, which kicked off yes-terday at the Doha Exhibition and Convention Center.

In a statement yesterday, the Bank said its latest car loan offer allows residents in Qatar to get behind the wheel of their coveted car at highly competitive financing cost.

The new offer allows customers to avail finance up to 100 percent of the car value — for both brand new and pre-owned cars – at flat annual interest rates starting at 1.99 percent and includes a complementary dis-count voucher worth QR1,500 from Zeibart along with a great chance to ‘Win Your Car Loan Back’, up to QR100,000.

“Our new car loan offer is

designed to provide new and exist-ing Doha Bank customers with the chance to own their dream car with the fastest loan approvals and the lowest equated monthly install-ments,” said Dr R Seetharaman, CEO of Doha Bank.

He added: “Our car loan offer comes with a significant discount of up to 25 percent on your car insurance from DBAC (Doha Bank Assurance Company), free 24-hour roadside assistance for the first year and a chance to win a whopping QR50,000 on your car insurance.”

Qatari and expat residents will be able to avail car loans from Doha Bank as early as their first salary is credited to their account, with a maximum loan amount of QR750,000 for Qataris and QR350,000 for expatriates.

Customers availing Doha Bank car loans will also receive a pre-approved credit card in addition to a pre-approved personal loan, which makes this car loan offer seriously unbeatable.

Samsung Electronics profits dip 40% in Q4AFP

SEOUL: Slowing global demand for smartphones and memory chips dealt a blow to Samsung Electronics as it reported a 40 percent on-year drop in fourth-quarter net profit.

The world’s top handset maker continued to be squeezed at both ends of the lucrative smartphone market with high-end competition from arch-rival Apple matched by cheaper players like China’s Hua-wei and Xiaomi.

But Samsung was not alone, with Apple reporting earlier this week that sales of its popular iPhone rose slower than ever last quarter, raising questions about the future of the saturated smart-phone market.

Net profit for October to December stood at 3.22 tril-lion won ($2.7bn), below analyst expectations and down 39.7 per-cent from a year ago, the company said in a statement.

Operating profit rose 16.1 per-cent on-year to 6.1 trillion won, in

A woman looks at Samsung Electronics’ Galaxy Note5 at the company’s showroom in Seoul yesterday.

line with its earlier estimate.In a statement, the South Korean

giant said 2016 was expected to throw up continued challenges to main-taining earnings “due to a difficult

business environment and slowing IT demand”. Fourth-quarter earnings were down in the face of “global eco-nomic headwinds” including a sharp fall in oil prices, as the components

side of the business was impacted by weakened prices for DRAM chips and LCD panels due to overall softer demand in the IT market and personal computers.

The Peninsula

DOHA: Qatar Financial Markets Authority (QFMA) in collaboration with the Interna-tional Organisation of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) organised a training seminar for capacity building on “Risk Based Supervision and SME Financing Through Capi-tal Markets”.

The seminar is primarily targeted at IOSCO AMERC Members, then the other IOSCO mem-bers and international and local entities relating to capital markets, said a statement yesterday.

The objective of this seminar is to pro-vide the best international practices and the

practical experience for the current and future critical regulatory and supervisory issues on securities markets through hosting number of experts approved by the IOSCO from eight countries through which represent four regions and capital markets in various stages of development in order to increase the depth of the value of workshop and its sessions to exchange diverse practical experiences.

The seminar topics included the mecha-nism of risk-based supervision, systemic risk management, practical approaches to design-ing and conducting inspection programmes, SME financing – its environment, regulations, elements of success and innovative solutions, including the role of Islamic Finance.

QFMA organises training seminar Dhofar Global in deal with Carind TissueThe Peninsula

DOHA: Dhofar Global, a leading supplier of hygiene care products in the Middle East, has announced its new partnership with Carind Tissue, a leading tissue paper con-verting company.

Under the terms of this new alliance, the company will be the exclusive distributor of Carind’s tis-sue products in Qatar and the rest of the GCC region.

The company has worked closely with Carind since 2007. The two companies’ mutual goals and visions

for the cleaning and hygiene industry have resulted in this new exclusive distributorship agreement for Qatar.

Chandan Singh, Group Chief Operations Officer, Dhofar Global, said, “We are proud to announce this new partnership, which is widely known for its diverse portfolio of tis-sue products. This new and exclusive agreement will allow us to distrib-ute Carind products across Qatar — meeting the growing demand for cleaning and hygienic products. This newly formed alliance demon-strates our continuing commitment to provide our customers with top-of-the-line world class products.”

Airbus signs Iran

deal for 118 planes

worth $25bn

PARIS: Airbus yesterday signed a deal to sell Iran 118 passenger planes worth $25bn in an agree-ment much talked about in the industry since Western sanctions were lifted against Tehran.

The planemaker said the deal, signed amid a raft of others during a visit by President Hassan Rou-hani, was conditional on getting US export licences because more than 10 percent of their parts were made in the United States. Airbus said the order included 73 wide body and 45 narrowbody jets and comprised 12 A380s, 16 A350-1000S, 45 A320S, and 45 A330s.

BUSINESS 15FRIDAY 29 JANUARY 2016

Toyota showcasing hybrid technology at motor show

The Peninsula

DOHA: Abdullah Abdulghani & Brothers Company (AAB), the offi-cial dealer of Toyota automobiles in Qatar, is demonstrating the auto-giant’s hybrid technology, the All New Toyota Prius, through different activ-ities at Qatar Motor Show 2016.

The company is showcasing its unique features, where the visitors can enjoy a unique personalised experi-ence, allowing them to closely witness and experience the hybrid technology.

In addition, Toyota is also dis-playing a variety of vehicles from its best-selling SUV and sedan range, including the latest versions of Land Cruiser, Rav 4, Camry, Avalon, New Prius and the Concept FT1 at its stand (at Hall No 1) which features the com-pany’s new global stand design in the form of a Wave in motion, said in a statement yesterday.

The stand design is dynamic and simple, energetic and pure and is an illustration of the Japanese princi-ple of Seijaku, the “active calm” or serenity in the midst of activity. The stand creates an immersive environ-ment that guides the visitors on an exciting journey through state-of-the-art technology: from the large, impressive staging to the small playful design details on to a tangible expe-rience of the product itself.

Abdul Rahman Abdul Jalil Abdulghani, Vice Chairman of AAB said: “On behalf of Toyota, Abdullah

Abdulghani & Brothers Company, I have the pleasure to welcome you all to the TOYOTA Booth that has been built under the WAVE concept which conveys a feeling of dynamic vibrancy.”

“In line with Toyota’s brand prom-ise of Waku Doki - Fun to Drive, Stylish, Youthful and Innovative, we are revealing today, and for the first time in Qatar, the All New Toyota Prius that has rewritten the Hybrid Rule Book it had created nearly two decades back. Toyota engineers understand that today’s customers want all the traditional benefits of a hybrid, but don’t want to compro-mise on looks and performance. So they have upgraded the earlier Prius inside and out to deliver the complete package - emotional styling, smarter technology and impressive mileage, in a vehicle that’s more fun to drive than ever,” he added.

“The new Prius’ premium interior

Officials with the all-new Prius at the Qatar Motor Show 2016.

debuts advanced technology com-plemented by features that are functional, fun and also delight the eyes. The wrap-around dash design, form-hugging seats, ease of controls and enhanced visibility combine to make the new Prius a highly engaging

automobile. Prius has set the global benchmark for hybrids, but now is breaking its own boundaries with more engaging style and fun-to-drive dynamics.”

The FT-1 concept’s design is a bril-liant fusion of both emotional and

rational factors that delivers an excit-ing and dramatic design expression with a unique Toyota identity. This new interpretation of the FT-1 with its sensational visual presence will set the stage for more from Toyota in our efforts to create the best in car design.

Facebook quarterly profit doubles as user ranks growAFP

SAN FRANCISCO: Facebook quar-terly profit more than doubled as its ranks swelled during the past year to a mammoth user base of nearly 1.6 billion, it said. “Our community continued to grow and our business is thriving,” said Facebook Co-founder and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg in releasing quarterly results for the world’s biggest social network which comfortably exceeded expectations.

It reported a profit of $1.56bn in the final three months of 2015 as com-pared with making $701m in the same period a year earlier.

Revenue in the quarter that ended on December 31 rose to $5.84bn from $3.85bn the prior year. The results showed Facebook’s growing power in online advertising, especially on mobile devices. Mobile accounted for about 80 percent of the network’s ad revenue in the quarter.

Net profit for the full year climbed to $3.7bn from $2.9bn in 2014, while revenue jumped to $17.9bn from $12.5bn. “2015 was a great year for Facebook,” Zuckerberg said.

“We continue to invest in better serving our community, building our business, and connecting the world.”

An average of 1.04 billion people used Facebook daily in December in a 17 percent rise from the same month the prior year.

The number of monthly active

users in December was 1.59 billion, in a 14 percent climb from a year ear-lier, according to the social network.

California-based Facebook has been relentlessly innovating to keep its social network tuned to Internet-age lifestyles.

The company has been working its way into online commerce, hon-ing in ad technology, ramping up video, and even dabbling with build-ing machine smarts in its Messenger smartphone messaging application.

Facebook-owned Oculus this month began taking orders for much-hyped Rift virtual reality head gear, set to begin shipping later this year.

Also this month, Facebook announced a drive to be a place for sports, with a new online hub for news and sharing on sporting events.

The “Facebook Sports Stadium” will offer live updates of scores, posts from friends and commentators, as well as information on where to watch games live.

Facebook a lso recent ly announced an agreement with Nielsen to improve how it measures the social media impact of TV shows, a useful means of assessing the size of an audience.

Nielsen created an indicator called the Nielsen Twitter TV Ratings in 2013 after long being criticized for failing to adapt to the changing ways in which people watch television.

It allowed Nielsen to measure the number of Internet users sending tweets while watching a programme,

Facebook Co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaking during an event at the Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, California.

and also the number of people who see those tweets. Now this tool is being expanded to include Facebook comments. Industry tracker eMar-keter expects Facebook to continue

to dominate when it comes to online display advertising. It expected Face-book to bring in $9.86bn in US display ad revenue this year, capturing 30.6 percent of the money spent on those

types of ads in the country.“Everything we hear from agen-

cies and marketers is positive,” said eMarketer principal analyst Debra Aho Williamson.

The all-new Toyota Prius will be on display at Qatar Motor Show

UK announces help for North Sea oil industry

AFP

LONDON: Britain announced yes-terday a £250m package of funding to boost the oil industry in northeast Scotland, which has been hit hard by slumping prices.

At the same time, Prime Minis-ter David Cameron is to visit the oil city of Aberdeen and meet indus-try bosses for talks on the current situation.

Global oil prices fell by more than 30 percent in 2015 and have dropped by another 20 percent this year amid increasing production and weaker demand.

In London, Brent North Sea crude for March, the European benchmark for crude oil, is currently at $33.10 a barrel, down from highs of over $100 in 2014.

“Oil and gas is a crucial sector not just for the northeast of Scot-land but for the whole of the UK,” Britain’s Scottish Secretary David Mundell said, confirming the move.

“I know it’s a very tough time for people who work in the industry and their families and I am determined the UK government will do what it

can to support them.”The funding is expected to be

used to help the oil and gas industry export its expertise globally as well as encouraging economic diversifi-cation in northeast Scotland.

It has been committed equally by the government in London and the devolved Scottish administration based in Edinburgh and led by the pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP).

Speaking in the House of Com-mons on Wednesday, Cameron vowed that the falling oil price would not affect Scots thanks to the “broad shoulders of the United Kingdom”.

But he warned that it would have been “a very, very dark day indeed” if prices had fallen this much and Scotland had voted for independence from Britain in a 2014 referendum.

Oil and gas production in Britain rose by over seven percent last year, the first increase in over 15 years, trade body Oil & Gas UK said this month.

But its chief executive Deidre Michie warned that “times are really tough” for the industry.

“We will continue to see job losses as we move into 2016,” she added.

Alibaba delivers on revenue but feels China slowdownReuters

BEIJING: Strong holiday sales helped e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd beat forecasts yesterday with a 32 percent rise in third-quar-ter revenue, but it was not immune from China’s slowdown.

Alibaba’s results also reflected a weakening of the Chinese economy, with so-called gross merchandise volume (GMV) rising by its slowest annual rate in more than three years.

As Chinese growth fell to its weakest pace in 25 years, Aliba-ba’s GMV — the total value of goods transacted on its platforms — rose 23 percent to 964bn yuan ($147bn).

Alibaba’s US-listed shares fell by 2.1 percent to $68 at 1458 GMT (9:58 am ET) following the results. “Rev-enue was better than expected,” Wedbush Securities analyst Gil Luria said. “The flip side is the vol-ume growth was less than expected.”

Luria said volumes might have been hit by Alibaba’s efforts to clean up its marketplaces, which have been plagued by merchants faking transactions to get better rankings,

which can in turn boost sales. Ali-baba is trying to replace decelerating volume growth in online shopping by expanding in other areas such as online video and local services. But the majority of Alibaba’s revenue still comes from China’s online shoppers buying from domestic businesses, a business driven by growth in GMV.

Executive Vice Chairman Joe Tsai said Alibaba was buoyed by two trends that were running coun-ter to the larger China economy, namely strong retail sales growth and deepening online penetration.

“Consumption as a share of GDP is becoming higher, so we benefit from that,” Tsai said.

That means what happens in the broader Chinese economy will have less effect on Alibaba, said Tsai.

Alibaba highlighted plans to develop e-commerce in rural areas and to encourage more foreign mer-chants to sell products into China via its platforms, but CEO Daniel Zhang said earlier this year a key focus for 2016 would be to deepen its already-strong position in China’s biggest cities.

NEW YORK: Europe’s biggest lender HSBC will no longer pro-vide mortgages to some Chinese nationals who buy real estate in the United States, a policy change that comes as Beijing is battling to stem a swelling crowd of citizens trying to get money out of China.

An HSBC spokesman in New York said that the new pol-icy went into effect last week, roughly a month after China sus-pended Standard Chartered and DBS Group Holdings Ltd from con-ducting some foreign exchange business and as authorities try to limit capital outflows.

China’s stock market slump, slowing economic growth and weak real estate prices have encouraged Chinese individu-als and companies to try to shift money offshore for higher returns, a headache for Beijing as the cap-ital outflows undermine efforts to prop up the yuan and domes-tic investment.

Realtors of luxury property in cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Vancouver, said more than 80 percent of wealthy Chinese buyers have ties to China.

In the United States, real estate agents and regulators say Chinese buyers often prefer to buy property in cash and they are the biggest foreign buyer.

Data from the country’s National Association of Realtors shows they bought $28.6bn of property in 2015, up from $22bn in 2014.

HSBC declined to clarify which clients would be affected by the change beyond describing the policy as impacting some Chi-nese nationals.

Luxury homes news web-site Mansion Global, which first reported the HSBC policy change, said it would affect Chinese nationals holding temporary vis-itor ‘B’ visas if the majority of their income and assets are maintained in China.

In Vancouver, an HSBC spokeswoman said HSBC’s Cana-dian arm already had similar policies in place and was actively reviewing those policies in the context of the local regulatory environment to determine if and what changes are necessary.

She added that the bank has a very conservative risk appetite and favors customers with strong ties to Canada, or who are build-ing strong ties to Canada.

China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange said late last year it would soon launch a sys-tem to monitor foreign exchange businesses at banks and put peo-ple who tried to buy more foreign currency than is allowed on a watch list.

Employees work at an Alibaba Group warehouse on the outskirts of Hangzhou, Zhejiang.

HSBC curbs

mortgages

to Chinese

citizens in US

Bloomberg

MANILA: Most emerging-market stocks rose and currencies gained as bets that the Federal Reserve will refrain from raising inter-est rates in the next few months boosted risk appetite.

Industrial and energy compa-nies advanced the most as Chinese shares traded in Hong Kong rose along with equities gauges in the Philippines, Taiwan, and Thailand. Technology shares slumped after Samsung Electronics Co’s earnings missed forecasts, dragging down South Korea’s won. Malaysia’s ring-git climbed for a fifth day, its longest winning streak since September, and was the biggest gainer among 20 developing-nation exchange rates tracked by Bloomberg.

The MSCI Emerging Markets Index swung between gains and losses, and was headed for its big-gest monthly decline since May 2012 following a volatile start to a year. The Fed’s first statement since its December interest-rate increase noted policy makers are “closely monitoring” developments from China to Europe and lower oil prices for any adverse impact on the US economy. Chinese stocks fell for a third day, sending the Shanghai Composite Index toward the long-est stretch of losses in three weeks, on concern the nation’s economic slowdown will hurt earnings and worsen outflows.

“Global risks remain fluid and this is evident in the wild swings seen in markets,” said Jonathan Ravelas, the Manila-based chief market strategist at BDO Unibank Inc., the largest Philippine bank by

assets. “The U.S. has reiterated it will stay on the course of gradual rate increases, but this doesn’t mean the end to the volatility. The swings are an opportunity to accumulate on the downside amid prospects that things will be better in the sec-ond half.”

The MSCI index was little changed at 715.62 as of 1:12 pm in Hong Kong, after climbing as much as 0.2 percent and retreating 0.5 percent. Seven of the 10 industry groups advanced. China Railway Group Co climbed 5.6 percent, pac-ing gains in the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index of mainland companies listed in Hong Kong, which rose 0.3 percent. The Shang-hai Composite Index fell 1 percent.

The developing-markets gauge is heading for a 9.9 percent loss in January and trades at 10.5 times projected 12-month earnings, a

29 percent discount to the MSCI World Index’s 14.7 multiple. The MSCI World Index has declined 7.9 percent this year, also poised for its largest monthly loss since May 2012.

South Korea’s Kospi index rose 0.3 percent following Wednesday’s 1.4 percent gain as Samsung Life Insurance Co climbed 8.5 percent after a report by Chosun it will be restructured into a financial hold-ing company. Samsung Life denied the report. Samsung Electronics fell 2.6 percent after reporting a 39 percent drop in fourth-quarter profit. The Korean conglomerate warned of slowing demand and economic turbulence, joining Apple Inc. in foretelling a downbeat 2016 for the technology sector.

The Philippine Stock Exchange Index surged 0.8 percent to a three-week high after a report showed

economic growth quickened to 6.3 percent in the fourth quarter, the fastest in a year and surpassing the median estimate of 5.9 percent in a Bloomberg survey. Taiwan’s Taiex Index rose 0.7 percent.

Bloomberg’s gauge of emerg-ing-market currencies rose for a third day, climbing about 0.04 percent.

The ringgit advanced 0.8 per-cent, outpacing gains of 0.2 percent each in Taiwan’s dollar and Mex-ico’s peso. The won’s 0.5 percent drop was the steepest.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak announced a revised 2016 budget yesterday to take into account the slump in oil revenue for Asia’s only major net oil exporter.

The authorities lowered employees’ pension fund contribu-tions and eased visa requirements for Chinese visitors to boost growth.

BUSINESS16 FRIDAY 29 JANUARY 2016

QE Index 9,272.01 3.26 %

QE Total Return Index 14,412.01 3.26 %

QE Al Rayan Islamic Index 3,263.23 2.08 %

QE All Share Index 2,458.99 3.02 %

QE All Share Banks & Financial Services 2,520.39 3.08 %

QE All Share Industrials 2,775.04 2.74 %

QE All Share Transportation 2,138.48 0.05 %

QE All Share Real Estate 1,942.99 3.42 %

QE All Share Insurance 4,032.31 8.04 %

QE All Share Telecoms 972.96 2.24 %

QE All Share Consumer Goods & Services 4,952.25 1.35 %

QE INDICES SUMMARY QATAR STOCK EXCHANGE

QE MARKET SUMMARY COMPARISON

GOLD AND SILVER

WORLD STOCK INDICES

28-01-2016 Today 27-01-2016 Previous dayIndex 9,272.01 8,979.50

Change 292.51 230.88

% 3.26 2.64

YTD% 11.1 13.9

Volume 12,075,606 7,051,940

Value (QAR) 396,849,885.86 213,149,532.84

Trades 5,260 4,091

Up 28 | Down 10 | Unchanged 03

GOLD QR131.6171 per grammeSILVER QR1.6910 per gramme

Index Day’s Close Pt Chg % Chg Year High Year LowAll Ordinaries 5028.071 27.281 0.55 5379.6 4857.9

Cac 40 Index/D 4329.8 -50.56 -1.15 4586.11 4084.68

Dj Indu Average 15944.46 -222.77 -1.38 18351.4 15370.3

Hang Seng Inde/D 19195.83 143.38 0.75 21794.84 18534.3

Iseq Overall/D 6255.66 -86.3 -1.36 6791.68 6146.61

Karachi 100 In/D 31193.73 92.35 0.3 33304.4 29785

Nikkei 225 Index 17041.45 -122.47 -0.71 18951.12 16017.26

S&P 500 Index/D 1882.95 -20.68 -1.09 2134.72 1812.29

EXCHANGE RATECurrency Buying Selling

US$ QR 3.6305 QR 3.6500

UK QR 5.1723 QR 5.2455

Euro QR 3.9509 QR 4.0058

CA$ QR 2.5424 QR 2.5925

Swiss Fr QR 3.5707 QR 3.6208

Yen QR 0.0304 QR 0.0310

Aus$ QR 2.5497 QR 2.6010

Ind Re QR 0.0529 QR 0.0539

Pak Re QR 0.0344 QR 0.0351

Peso QR 0.0755 QR 0.0770

SL Re QR 0.0250 QR 0.0257

Taka QR 0.0460 QR 0.0469

Nep Re QR 0.0332 QR 0.0339

SA Rand QR 0.2208 QR 0.2252

Bloomberg

MUMBAI: India’s rupee dropped to the lowest level in more than two years on speculation oil importers stepped up dollar pur-chases to pay mont h-end bills.

T h e rupee fell 0.3 percent to 68.2250 a dol-lar in Mumbai, according to prices from local banks compiled by Bloomberg. It declined to 68.2575 earlier, the weakest level since September 2013. Sovereign notes declined.

The Indian currency has weakened over 3 percent this month in Asia’s worst performance as global stock markets plunged and oil fell below $30 a barrel. India’s benchmark equities gauge, which dropped 0.1 percent yesterday, has lost more than 6 percent this year. There’s a growing chance the central bank will cut lenders’ reserve ratios, Radhika Rao, a Singapore-based econ-omist at DBS Bank Ltd, wrote in a research note.

“The month-end demand for dollars continues,” said Paresh Nayar, the Mumbai-based head of currency and money markets at the local unit of South African lender FirstRand Ltd. “Sentiment remains weak after the cur-rency breached the 68 level, indicating the central bank isn’t protecting any level.”

The yield on the government notes due May 2025 rose two basis point to 7.81 percent, according to prices from the Reserve Bank of India’s trading system.

Indian stocks dropped for the first time in four days in volatile trading amid expiry of derivatives contracts and as investors awaited quarterly earnings reports from some of the nation’s largest companies. The Sensex lost 0.1 percent at the close in Mumbai, after changing direc-tion at least 20 times.

Indian rupee dips to two-year low on dollar buying

The rupee fell 0.3% to 68.2250 a dollar in Mumbai as oil importers stepped up dollar purchases to pay month-end bills

INTERNATIONAL MARKETS - A LIST OF SHARES FROM THE WORLD

A C C-A/D 1220 -10.9 10679

Aban Offs-A/D 186.55 -0.05 172301

Aegis Logis-B/D 92.75 -0.6 31892

Alembic-B/D 40.5 0.15 445944

Alok Indus-A/D 5.22 -0.02 1754936

Apollo Tyre-A/D 146.8 0.8 169813

Asahi I Glass-/D 152.15 -3.9 1985

Ashok Leyland-/D 88.2 0 548154

Bajaj Hold-A/D 1470 8.1 4420

Ballarpur In-B/D 15.95 -0.35 213451

Banaras Bead-B/D 58.9 5.15 82955

Bata India-A/D 479.05 -1.5 38372

Beml Ltd-A/D 1064.3 -21.55 14818

Bh Electronic-/D 1231.2 24.2 23972

Bhansali Eng-T/D 20.1 -0.2 85124

Bharat Bijle-B/D 847 -3.5 5560

Bharatgears-B/D 77.25 0.25 3480

Bhartiya Int-B/D 532.5 11 14823

Bhel-A/D 136.85 -2.75 535169

Bom.Burmah-B/D 401.6 -4.1 3459

Bombay Dyeing-/D 53.1 0.2 348305

Camph.& All-B/D 505 11.25 1211

Canfin Homes-B/D 1053.2 33.3 16522

Caprihans-Xc/D 91 -0.65 2251

Castrol India-/D 418.3 -7.35 92828

Century Enka-B/D 171.2 0.7 3748

Century Text-A/D 508.8 -10.4 72552

Chambal Fert-B/D 56.75 0.1 10768

Chola Invest-A/D 631.75 9.25 1087

Chowgule St-T/D 18.75 0.15 1301

Cimmco-B/D 83 0.5 15157

Cipla-A/D 578 -2.5 39160

City Union Bk-/D 79.15 -0.5 13371

Colgate-A/D 851.3 -3.65 55660

Container Cor-/D 1198.3 -10.25 7818

Dai-Tichi Kar-/D 399 -20.8 3146

Dhampur Sugar-/D 62.15 -0.05 64912

Dr. Reddy-A/D 2988 20.3 29047

E I H-B/D 119 -1.15 6274

E.I.D Parry-A/D 185.25 1.45 39336

Eicher Motor-A/D 15972.6 -238.45 3181

Electrosteel-B/D 22.8 0 71135

Emco-B/D 27.15 -0.15 18947

Escorts Fin-B/D 5.02 0.23 29740

Escorts-A/D 131.3 -2.4 86052

Essar Oil-T/D 260.3 1 23686

Eveready Indu-/D 250.25 -0.2 12553

F D C-B/D 194.45 -2.55 4237

Federal Bank-A/D 46.45 -1 744695

Ferro Alloys-B/D 6.4 0 26092

Fgp Ltd-B/D 3.83 0 1099

Finolex-A/D 305.65 -0.3 13342

Gail-A/D 361.05 2.8 70340

Galada Power-B/D 14.65 -1.4 14690

Gammon India-T/D 18.75 0.3 350343

Gangotri Tex-T/D 1.72 -0.09 2251

Garden P -B/D 24.9 -0.2 7162

Godfrey Phil-B/D 1211 -12.45 14587

Goodricke-B/D 169.5 0.2 15942

Goodyear I -B/D 494 12 3502

Hcl Infosys-B/D 44.4 -0.65 379934

Him.Fut.Comm-T/D 20.85 -0.1 2211346

Himat Seide-B/D 193.05 -1.05 45932

Hind Motors-T/D 5.93 -0.2 229385

Hind Org Chem-/D 14.7 -0.05 24243

Hind Unilever-/D 790.9 23.15 94290

Hind.Petrol-A/D 816.65 19.15 78241

Hindalco-A/D 69.75 -1.5 834013

Hous Dev Fin-A/D 1148.2 -19.5 127127

I F C I-A/D 22.25 0 854082

Idbi-A/D 59.95 0.75 897990

India Cement-A/D 89.85 1.2 306554

India Glycol-B/D 85.4 0.2 2587

Indian Hotel-A/D 111.8 1.15 23651

Indo-Tcount-T/D 1050 11.3 7827

Indusind-A/D 907.85 -0.15 36948

J.B.Chemical-B/D 256.4 -0.1 6339

Jagatjit Ind-X/D 67.5 -0.15 1710

Jagson Phar-B/D 44.2 1 67470

Jamnaauto-B/D 143.4 -1.5 167787

Jbf Indu-B/D 223.55 1 9179

Jct Elect P -B/D 0.36 0.01 33968

Jct Ltd-B/D 7.68 0.36 739367

Jenson&Nich.-B/D 10.1 -0.5 57907

Jik Indust-T/D 1.09 0.03 3374

Jindal Drill-B/D 119.7 1.7 2079

Jktyre&Ind-A/D 91.35 1.4 212881

Jmc Projects-T/D 214 2.7 21447

Kabra Extr-B/D 87 2.5 4052

Kajaria Cer-A/D 956 2.25 5465

Kakatiya Cem-B/D 134.7 3.7 1071

Kalpat Power-B/D 196.95 0.45 8893

Kalyani Stel-T/D 148.6 1 67288

Kanoria Chem-B/D 64.6 1.75 18849

Kg Denim-B/D 52 0 6237

Kilburnengg-Xd/D 70.8 1.45 2092

Kinetic Eng-B/D 100.8 4.8 14912

Kopran-B/D 57.85 0.9 123728

Laxmi Prcisn-B/D 50.8 4.6 46097

Lgb Broth-B/D 466.25 -0.75 4033

Lloyd Metal-B/D 8.53 -0.61 2480

Lok.Hous&Con-B/D 6.68 -0.08 25499

Lupin-A/D 1707.05 17.25 26991

Lyka Labs-T/D 95.7 1.9 120246

Mafatlal Ind-B/D 300.5 -5.5 2872

Mangalam Cem-B/D 177.9 -0.1 1324

Maral Overs-B/D 32.75 0.55 4370

Mastek-B/D 136.2 -2.5 34506

Max India L-A/D 378.2 -19.9 18450

Mrpl-A/D 64.75 0.25 32043

Nahar Spg.-B/D 103.6 -1.3 7781

Nation Alum -A/D 34.4 -0.25 128558

Navneet Edu-B/D 88.8 0.4 3957

Nepc India-T/D 2.08 -0.06 22560

Neuland Lab-B/D 683.25 -9.5 7531

O N G C-A/D 219.8 1.4 497765

Oil Country-B/D 29.55 1.75 5847

Onward Tech-B/D 86 5.5 17103

Orchid Pharm-B/D 44.5 -0.8 239210

Orient Hotel-T/D 23.65 -0.4 4998

Oudh Sugar-B/D 39.15 -0.05 12137

Punjab Chem.-B/D 150.6 -0.9 4339

Radico Khait-B/D 111.5 -1.85 12297

Rallis India-A/D 163.9 -1 6597

Rallis India-A/D 163.9 -1 6597

Reliance Indus/D 366.5 10.75 195206

Ruchi Soya-B/D 24 0.05 79528

S Bk Bikaner-B/D 485.6 -13.25 1790

Salora Inter-B/D 51.25 4.6 2709

Saur.Cem-B/D 54.65 0.4 185767

Tanfac Indust-/D 31.6 -0.95 1899

Tanfac Indust-/D 31.6 -0.95 1899

Thirumalai-B/D 191.7 2.1 5115

Til Ltd.-T/D 426 5 2318

Timexgroup-T/D 30.7 0.45 23592

Tinplate-B/D 68 1.15 44147

Ucal Fuel-B/D 112.1 -1.7 6071

Ucal Fuel-B/D 112.1 -1.7 6071

Ultramarine-B/D 110.2 0.6 7917

Unitech P -A/D 5.63 -0.15 11934199

Univcable-T/D 77.4 -0.1 5172

Uppergsugar-T/D 74.75 0.3 2061

3I Group/D 436.9 -2.7 706535

Barclays/D 177.446 -4.35 13813853

Bg Group/D 1035.5 6 6052903

Bp/D 363.2425 0.35 16610606

Brit Am Tobacc/D 3767.5 3.5 823680

Bt Group/D 469.05 -9.25 4055149

Centrica/D 200 -10.1 16086898

Gkn/D 278.4 -2 1233057

Hsbc Holdings/D 477.35 -2.75 11854697

Imperial Tobac/D 3639 -28 479427

Kingfisher/D 320.2 -0.2 2683917

Land Secs Grou/D 1074 -12 611562

Legal & Genera/D 234.7 -2.7 4078141

Lloyds Bnk Grp/D 63.59 -1.33 37592388

Marks & Sp./D 419.7 -7 1695745

Next/D 6830 -115 149028

Pearson/D 774 2.5 1066532

Prudential/D 1308.5 -26 1150180

Rank Group/D 280.8 -0.6 88595

Rentokil Initi/D 154.5 0 2065195

Rolls Royce Pl/D 539.5 0 1821703

Rsa Insrance G/D 405.9 -5.9 888330

Sainsbury(J)/D 235.4 -0.1 879775

Schroders/D 2651 -26 52102

Severn Trent/D 2120 -30 272530

Smith&Nephew/D 1148 -15 644401

Smiths Group/D 905.36 -3.5 420825

Standrd Chart /D 460.1 -11.25 2799760

Tate & Lyle/D 602 1 339506

Tesco/D 162 1 6100144

Unilever/D 2966.5 -38.5 693884

United Util Gr/D 935 -11.5 322186

Vodafone Group/D 217.35 -5.85 17623556

Whitbread/D 3972 -12 143711

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LONDON

Most emerging stocks rise as ringgit tops currency

BUSINESS VIEWS 17FRIDAY 29 JANUARY 2016

Apple loses lustre on fears that ‘wow’ days over for nowBy Glenn Chapman

AFP

Apple’s image took a bruising amid signs of a shift from wowing the world with wonders to making steady money from

lovers of its devices.Apple shares were down 6.5 percent to

end at $93.80 as investors grappled with news of slowing sales growth of iPhones that have driven many booming quarters for the Cali-fornia tech giant. Apple raised the spectre of the end of a technological era after reporting on Tuesday the slowest growth sales ever of its market-leading, life-changing iPhone and warning it expects worse to come.

The California technology colossus said it expects to see its first decline in iPhone sales in the current quarter on a year-over-year basis. Some of the softness comes from a strong US dollar and other global economic challenges, Apple said. The company sold a record 74.8 million iPhones in the December quarter, but the growth pace of two percent was the weakest since the 2007 launch of the device. Many analysts say Apple is evolving

from a device-making superstar racking up dizzying financial quarters to a company that can make a sizable and steady income from selling apps, digital music and more to the huge number of people using its devices.

“Apple currently is still viewed as a hard-ware company, with majority of their revenue coming from one product — the iPhone,” Phil-lip Capital said in an analyst note. “While it is not wrong to view them currently as such, Apple has taken strides to transition them-selves into a service company.”

Apple services include iTunes, iCloud, Apple TV, and the App Store along with Apple Pay. Apple reported that, over all, a billion iPhones, iPads, Macintosh computers, iPod touch devices, Apple TV units, and Apple Watch wearable computers had “engaged” with its services in the past three months.

The banking firm Morgan Stanley said in a research note that “Apple has the world’s most valuable technology platform” and is thus “best positioned to capture more of its users’ time in areas such as health, autos and home, as these platforms expand in the Inter-net of Things computing era.”

Investors drawn to Apple by its ability to

wow the world with must-have new gadg-ets and dazzle Wall Street by trouncing sales expectations might be put off by the idea the company could evolve into a predictable maker of money from services and content.

“This is not Steve Jobs’s Apple, which had hit after hit,” said independent technology industry analyst Rob Enderle. “There may be good news in the Apple Watch and Apple TV, but because they don’t break them out in earnings results you can’t tell.” And Apple Watch remains tethered to the iPhone, ana-lysts noted. Apple is widely expected to release new versions of the iPhone this year in a move that typically delivers a sales bump.

The company also saw tremendous potential remaining in the smartphone mar-ket and would continue investing in the China market. Revenue in “Greater China” was up 14 percent for Apple but weaker in the US and Japan. “We remain very bullish on China, and, you know, don’t subscribe to the doom and gloom kind of predictions frankly,” Apple chief Tim Cook said during the earnings call. “India is also incredibly exciting.”

Apple also has a war chest of some $215bn in cash and securities, most of it overseas.

Cook said the company would invest in research and innovation through the down period in the global economy.

Areas being focused on by Apple include electric cars and virtual reality, according to hires and widespread reports the company has declined to comment upon.

“Apple’s slowdown is completely normal and priced in as the ending iPhone 6 replace-ment cycle is making it very difficult to grow revenues beyond current levels,” said Edi-son Investment Research analyst Richard Windsor. He was among a group of ana-lysts that saw the sink in Apple shares as an opportunity.

Edison portrayed Apple shares as “one of the cheapest technology stocks available in the market” and maintained that the slow-down was more than reflected in the price.

“However, the shares are unlikely to race away again before a new avenue of growth is found and of this there is little sign,” Edi-son said in a note.

“Consequently, we think that Apple remains a great place to hide for anyone fear-ful of a volatile market but it is not the place to be when looking for upside.”

By Thomas Biesheuvel

Bloomberg

A century of first-hand experience in the art of managing markets is

helping diamond producers accomplish what the rest of the mining industry has been unable to during the commod-ity collapse: shut down supply.

When diamond prices plunged 18 percent last year, the most since 2008, a quarter of world supply dis-appeared as the biggest producers, De Beers and Alrosa PJSC, cut output and sales. That wasn’t true for mines unearthing everything from iron ore to copper, where companies like Rio Tinto Group and BHP Billiton Ltd spent billions on expansions over the previous decade and were reluctant to respond to surpluses even during pro-longed bear markets.

De Beers has been a dom-inant force in the diamond industry since the early 1900s, when it had a virtual monop-oly on global supply. It now shares control with Russia’s Alrosa, the second-largest producer, and together they provided almost two-thirds of the world’s gems in 2014. Their moves to cut supply last year prevented an even big-ger meltdown, according to RBC Capital Markets. And now, while base metals continue to slump, diamond prices have probably bottomed, Petra Diamonds Ltd. predicted this week. “You’ve got two produc-ers which account for more than half the world’s produc-tion,” said Kieron Hodgson, an analyst at Panmure Gordon & Co. “It’s very easy to have a common ground. They real-ised that the industry was in dire straits and efforts needed to be taken.”

Over the past year, every commodity has been affected by the global economic slow-down, particularly in China, the world’s biggest user of many raw materials. The coun-try is the second- largest jewelry market. Rough-dia-mond prices are the lowest in six years, data from from UK-based WWW Interna-tional Diamond Consultants show. Aluminum slid 19 per-cent last year, copper and tin fell 25 percent, zinc dropped 26 percent, and iron ore plunged 39 percent. As prices declined, diamond supplies were cut by 25 percent last year with reduced production

and mines withholding stones from the market, according to estimates by Panmure. At the same time, iron-ore out-put was reduced by just 10 percent, while production of nickel, copper, zinc and alu-minum fell even less, Morgan Stanley estimates.

“There’s been a much swifter response in our indus-try in terms of supply than you’ve seen in other indus-tries,” Johan Dippenaar, the chief executive officer of Johannesburg-based Petra, said. Prices may be firmer in the next six to 12 months.

De Beers, 85 percent owned by Anglo American Plc, spent much of last cen-tury controlling supply and prices under the management of the Oppenheimer family. To maintain its market power, the company that began mining South Africa’s vast Kimber-ley deposit in the late 1800s would buy up stones it didn’t mine and stockpile them when demand softened. Its monopoly was challenged by new supplies found out-side Africa and finally ended in 2004, when the company pleaded guilty to price- fixing following a decade-long legal battle with the US.

“The diamond-trading mar-ket is relatively small and self- contained compared to other raw-material sectors,” said Anish Aggarwal, a partner at Antwerp-based industry consultant Gemdax. “A release of too much product when demand was lower could have destabilized and devalued the product for a number of quar-ters. The main objective of producers was to create price stability.”

Jewelry retailers have been feeling the pinch. Tiffany & Co last week lowered its full-year profit forecast after holiday sales fell. Chow Tai Fook Jew-ellery Group Ltd, the biggest jeweller, has slowed expan-sion plans amid a challenging retail market.

De Beers, which says it matches production to demand, cut its output target three times in 2015, reduc-ing the goal by as much as 15 percent to 29 million carats. It mined 32.6 million carats in 2014. The 26 million carats forecast for this year will be the least since 2009. Alrosa, based in Siberia’s Yakutia region, sold half the stones it mined in the third quarter. The company said that it sold 30 million carats of the 38.3 mil-lion carts it mined in 2015.

Diamond diggers show other miners how to handle glut

Digital ads help Adidas cut ties to sports bodies

By Emma Thomasson

Reuters

If Adidas ends its funding of the athlet-ics governing body, it would not just be a reaction to doping but also a sign of a shift towards spending on individual sports stars and teams who can pro-

mote brands directly to fans via social media.The BBC said the German sportswear

firm, whose 11-year deal made it the biggest sponsor of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), had decided against continuing with the contract as a direct result of doping and corruption alle-gations that emerged in December.

Neither Adidas nor the IAAF would con-firm the report, but such a move would fit in with a trend towards sponsors like Adi-das feeling less bound to sports governing bodies as the ultimate gatekeepers to fans.

The rise of social media has meant mar-keting budgets have moved away from tel-evision and towards online advertising, with top sports stars now able to directly promote their chosen brands to mil-lions of fans who follow their feeds.

“The advent of dig-ital means there is less need for the event plat-forms. Fans don’t interact with the governing bod-ies. They engage with the sport, the teams and the individuals,” said Rupert Pratt, co-founder of sports agency Generate.

Adidas is locked in a global battle with Nike for brand supremacy. But its pockets are not as deep as its US arch rival — despite a recent hike its marketing budget is still about 50 percent less — increasing the need for it to be more discriminating rather than fight for every deal.

Under former boss Horst Dassler, Adidas practically invented the idea of long-term deals with sporting federations like FIFA and the Olympics to get its logo onto the field. It is now focusing more on contracts with the highest-profile players, clubs and national teams and less on federations. This trend was shown last year when Adidas decided against renewing its contract with the US National Basketball Association (NBA) so it could invest more in players like James Harden of the Houston Rockets, who struck a 13-year deal worth a reported $200m.

Although Adidas has been the official kit provider to the last three Summer Olympics, it decided against sponsoring the 2016 Rio Games, saying it had already done a lot to boost the brand in Brazil at the 2014 World Cup and will still use the Games as a plat-form to launch new products.

In the case of the Rio Games, Nike swooped in to fill the role, as it will with the NBA contract from 2017.

As part of its targeted strategy, Adidas is fiercely defending its leading position in soccer, the most popular sport in its Euro-pean home territory, and focusing on the biggest teams.

It agreed to pay €750m ($1.1bn) to replace Nike as sponsor of English soc-cer side Manchester United for a decade, a record kit deal for the sport. It has also taken over from its US rival at Italian champions Juventus, while extending its contract with Germany’s No.1 team Bayern Munich.

An Adidas spokeswoman said deals with sports federations were assessed on

The rise of social media has meant marketing budgets have moved away from television and towards online advertising

This is not Steve Jobs’s Apple, which had hit after hit. There may be good news in the Apple Watch and Apple TV, but because they don’t break them out in earnings results you can’t tell

Adidas is locked in a global battle with Nike for brand supremacy. But its pockets are not as deep as its US arch rival — despite a recent hike its marketing budget is still about 50 percent less

a case-by-case basis depending on how likely they were to drive sales, noting it had decided to take over the partnership with North America’s National Hockey League from Reebok.

And the company has no intention of ditching soccer governing body FIFA given the appeal of the World Cup, despite draw-ing criticism for being less vocal than other sponsors in criticising the organisation over its corruption scandal.

But it does plans to lower the share of its marketing budget that goes on sports deals to below 45 percent in 2020 from about half now, as it increases spending on pushing the brand directly on social media, in stores and at grassroots events.

A store of German sport goods manufacturer “Adidas” is pictured in Oberhausen, western Germany.

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SPORT20 FRIDAY 29 JANUARY 2016

Djokovic storms into final as Serena crushes Radwanska

Reuters

MELBOURNE: Novak Djokovic hit some spectacular shots and showed true grit to hold off a Roger Federer fightback as he reached the final of the Australian Open for the fifth time in six years with a 6-1, 6-2, 3-6, 6-3 victory yesterday.

For the first two sets, 17-times major champion Federer looked as powerless as Agnieszka Radwanska had earlier on the same court when the Pole was taken apart 6-0, 6-4 by the reigning women’s champion Ser-ena Williams.

Federer restored some pride by taking the third set and made the champion work hard through some breathtaking rallies in the fourth before the Serbian took his place in a title decider against Andy Murray or Milos Raonic.

“These were probably the best two sets I’ve played against (Roger) over my career,” said 28-year-old Djokovic, who will be bidding for a record-equalling sixth Australian Open title on Sunday.

“This was I think a different level than from before. I’m just very, very pleased that I was able to perform the way I did from the very beginning till the end.”

Williams was in similarly domi-nant form in her semi-final as she set up a date on Saturday with Germa-ny’s Angelique Kerber, who reached her first Grand Slam final by ending Briton Johanna Konta’s run 7-5, 6-2.

The 45th showdown between Djokovic and Federer, the best two hardcourt players of their generations, was always going to be the highlight of day 11 of the tournament.

Four days after he racked up 100 unforced errors in a messy fourth round win over Gilles Simon, Djok-ovic started brilliantly and played 55 minutes of near flawless power ten-nis to take a commanding two sets to nil lead.

With the crowd making clear their desperation for the Swiss to avoid a humiliating defeat, however, Fed-erer managed to find another gear to his serve, charged the net more fre-quently and snatched the third set.

Now playing under a closed roof, Djokovic took some time to regain his level in the fourth but grabbed the crucial break for a 5-3 lead and served out comfortably to reach his fifth straight grand slam final.

“You’ve got to try and stop the bleeding at some point,” said Fed-erer. “It was tough to get back into it but I found a way and made some-thing of a match of it. But clearly I’m still disappointed.”

Williams’ 20-minute first set against Radwanska was as short as Djokovic’s start against Federer and only slightly less impressive because of the Pole’s lack of Grand Slam pedigree.

“There was just no mistake,” said fourth seed Radwanska. “Unbelieva-ble serve. Everything, she was going for it. Yeah, I couldn’t do much. Not at all, actually.

“I don’t think anyone can really play on that kind of level at all.”

Radwanska made the second set more of a contest but she had neither the power nor the skill to prevent the world number one marching on to her 26th grand slam final.

“I’ve always said that when I’m playing at my best, it’s difficult to beat me,” said 34-year-old Williams, who has won all six of her previous finals at Melbourne Park.

Kerber stands between Williams

and a 22nd Grand Slam singles title, which would allow the American to match the record of the German’s compatriot, childhood hero and men-tor Steffi Graf.

The 28-year-old seventh seed raced to a 3-0 lead in the open-ing set of her match against Konta but the Briton shed her early nerves and won the next four games to get back on serve. Kerber kept her own nerve, however, and secured a deci-sive break for 6-5 in the first set before overwhelming the world number 47 in the second.

“I’ve had a lot of ups, I had a lot of downs. I think the final cames to the right moment,” said Kerber, the first

German in the women’s final at Mel-bourne Park for 20 years. “I am a top player right now. I’ve been working very hard in the last few years. Here I am. I’m in the final for my first time. I will for sure try and enjoy it.”

Konta was the first British woman into the last four at the Australian Open for 39 years after a remarka-ble run on her main draw debut at Melbourne Park.

The Sydney-born 24-year-old had no complaints about her defeat, however.

“I played against a better player today who earned her right to a grand slam final,” she said. “But I’m really taking a lot of positives out of it.”

The world number one reaches the Australian Open final for the fifth time in just six years with easy win over tennis icon Roger Federer

Tennis queen Serena trying to keep calm ahead of final in Melbourne AFP

MELBOURNE: Serena Williams (pictured) said yesterday she was trying to block out her chances of equalling Steffi Graf’s Open-era record of 22 Grand Slam titles, not needing the extra stress as history again beckons.

The dominant world number one surged into her 26th major final by dismantling Polish fourth seed Agnieszka Radwanska 6-0, 6-4 at the Austral-ian Open, with her first set near flawless.

A win in tomorrow’s decider against seventh seed Angelique Kerber would see her match Graf’s mark that has stood since the German great’s last major win at the French Open in 1999.

But the American is trying to keep it off the radar, saying the pressure she was under when try-ing to equal Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert’s 18 titles in 2014 was unbearable and not something she wanted again.

“I definitely block it out,” she said of the Graf record. “I was one off last year, too. If I don’t win on Saturday, I’ll still be one off.

“It took me forever to get to 18. I was so stressed out. I don’t want to relive that at all.”

Williams won her 17th title at the 2013 US Open but then went three Grand Slams, with the pressure building, before finally making it 18 a year later at Flushing Meadows.

Regardless of what happens on Saturday, Wil-liams is already assured of being remembered as one of the best players the game has seen.

Yet despite being the undisputed world number one, winning eight of the last 14 Grand Slams, she said she did not allow herself to reflect on her record or relax.

“Not really, not yet,” she said, when asked the question.

“I feel like when I play tougher opponents, when I play people that have beaten me in the past, is capable of doing so again, that I just have to be more focused.

“I’ve always said that when I’m playing at my best, it’s difficult to beat me. Have I played at my

best my whole career? I don’t know. But I’ve been definitely trying to put in a lot of work and trying to get there.”

Williams missed out on a 22nd title at the US Open last year after winning all three other Grand Slams in 20015 -- the Australian and French Opens and Wimbledon.

After a devastating US Open semi-final defeat to Roberta Vinci, which ended her pursuit of a calen-dar Grand Slam -- not achieved since Graf in 1988 -- a drained Williams took a break from the game, only returning this month.

“I definitely think I needed the time off,” she

said. “I’ve been going and going and going for a long time. Been really going hard since probably before the Olympics in 2012. That’s a long time.

“So I felt like I really committed myself, and I need to commit to myself and my body and take some time off, restart.”

The break has worked wonders with the 34-year-old back with a bang at Melbourne Park.

Against Radwanska, she played a first set that was as near perfect as you can get, with the Pole hailing it as the best tennis she has ever faced.

Other opponents have also paid tribute to Wil-liams, sentiments the veteran said were rewarding.

“It’s awesome. It’s really cool,” she said. “And I could tell everyone is really motivated because when they’re playing me they give maximum effort and maximum everything.

“It actually makes me a better player, too, because I’m going up against these players that are playing at their peak. So I have to be at my peak, as well, for every single game.”

Meanwhile, Angelique Kerber said yesterday she feels a responsibility to protect her fellow Ger-man Graf’s Grand Slam record from Williams, but admits the job in front of her is formidable.

Seventh seed Kerber this week credited 22-time major winner Graf with giving her the self-belief to put together her career-best season after hitting with the former great early last year.

Asked by a courtside interviewer if she would be seeking Graf’s advice ahead of her showdown with the American world number one, she laughed: “Steffi, write me please!” Graf must have been watching as Kerber revealed a text landed for her soon after, without revealing what it said.

“I think she wrote me, but I was not able to check it right now. I just saw that,” Kerber said in her post-match press conference. “I think she sent me a text message, but I don’t know what she wrote me yet. I think she heard what I said on the cen-tre court.”

Kerber is going to need all the help and advice she can get against the imposing Williams who is in her 26th Grand Slam final after sweeping aside fourth seed Agnieszka Radwanska with ease.

AFP

MELBOURNE: Roger Federer (pictured) blasted critics who say he’s too old and insisted he was confident of beating Novak Djokovic again at a Grand Slam after his four-set defeat in the Australian Open semi-finals yesterday.

The 34-year-old Swiss great was flattened by Djokovic in the opening two sets before he finally went down 6-1, 6-2, 3-6, 6-3, in his eighth loss to the Serb in their last 10 Grand Slam meetings.

Federer hasn’t bested the runaway world number at a major since the Wimbledon semi-finals in 2012, when he last won a Grand Slam title. But when asked if he could beat Djokovic again on the big stage, he bristled.

“Best-of-three, best-of-five, I can run for four or five hours. It’s not a problem. I prove it in practice again in the off-season no sweat. So from that standpoint I’m not worried going into long rallies,” Federer said.

“I know you guys (media) make it a different case. I get that, because you think I’m old and all that. But it’s no problem for me. But it doesn’t scare me when I go into a big match against any player who’s in their prime right now.”

The world number three is redefining the career trajectory for men’s tennis as he remains among the elite at a time when most players his age have faded or already retired. But Federer, now working with Ivan Ljubi-cic -- who has an intimate knowledge of Djokovic’s game -- is getting no closer to solving the riddle of beating the Serb, who won two Grand Slam finals against him last year.

The 17-time Grand Slam-winner hit out at “stupid questions” when he was asked if Djokovic, now 28 and with 10 major titles, could take an even tighter grip on the sport than the Swiss did in his prime.

“I think it’s hard to keep up that level of play. What he’s been doing is amazing. I was very happy how I’ve been able to keep up my level,” he said.

“Is it better or not? I don’t know. I think we’re both, all of us, with Rafa (Nadal), Novak, me, (Andy) Murray, you name it, Stan (Wawrinka), we’re all very happy with our careers.” But he took solace from another deep run at a Grand Slam tournament, which left him just two wins short of becom-

ing the oldest Australian Open champion since a 37-year-old Ken Rosewall in 1972.

“It’s disappointing, but at the same time I’m going deep in Slams right now. I’m having great runs. I thought I had a tough draw here, so I’m actually pleased where my level’s at .. at the beginning of the season,” Federer said. “Novak right now is a reference for everybody. He’s the only guy that has been able to stop me as of late, and Stan (Wawrinka) when he was on fire in Paris,” he added, referring to his loss to Wawrinka in last year’s French Open quarter-finals.

“It’s okay. I wish I could have played a bit bet-ter, and who knows what would have happened. Today Novak was very, very good. There’s no doubt about it.”

Serbia’s Novak Djokovic

celebrates after winning his semi-

final against Switzerland’s Roger Federer

at the Australian Open at

Melbourne Park, Australia,

yesterday. INSETS: Federer

and retired tennis star Boris Becker

in Melbourne yesterday.

Australian Open results Men’s singles

Novak Djokovic (SRB x1) bt Roger

Federer (SUI x3) 6-1, 6-2, 3-6, 6-3

Women’s singles

Semi-finalsSerena Williams (USA x1) bt Agnieszka

Radwanska

(POL x4) 6-0, 6-4

Angelique Kerber (GER x7) bt Johanna

Konta (GBR) 7-5, 6-2

You think I’m old? Federer says he’ll beat Djokovic again

SPORT 21 FRIDAY 29 JANUARY 2016

Al Wakrah stun Al Sadd, Al Rayyan win

The Peninsula

DOHA: Qatar Stars League leaders Al Rayyan, defending champions Lekhwiya and Al Wakrah all picked up full points while registering con-trasting wins.

Al Rayyan helped by two second half goals picked up their 15th win in Round 16 match to cement their place at the top. Al Rayyan put in a profes-sional display to defeat Umm Salal 2-0 Umm Salal at Al Gharafa Stadium.

Goals from Korean midfielder Koh Myong-jin and a sixteenth goal of the season from captain Rodrego Tabata ensured all three points for the Lions.

Al Rayyan now have a 14 point lead at the top of the QSL standings, and with rivals El Jaish dropping points it will be considered a step closer to their first falcon shield since the 1994/1995 season.

Meanwhile, Al Wakrah pulled off one of the shocks of round 16 defeat-ing Al Sadd 3-1 at Al Wakrah Stadium.

Al Wakrah made an ideal start to proceedings when Argentine striker Sasha’s tap in effort just crossed the line to give the Blue Waves an early

goal on the 8th minute. ed to stand.Shocked by the opener Sadd

sprang into action, and eventu-ally found the back of the net and a deserved equaliser from Qatari inter-national captain Hassan Al Haydoos.

Many would of expected Sadd to push on in the second half, but it was the home side who edged ahead in the second half. In the 56th minute a thunderous strike from Portuguese midfielder Rúben Amorim hit the cross bar and striker Mahir Youseff was free to nod in the rebound.

Al Sadd pushed hard for an equalizer, but hit their third goal of the game on the break on the 83rd minute. A long goal kick and a uncharacteristic slip from defender Mohammed Kasola gave striker Sasha all the time in the world to grab his second goal of the match.

Elsewhere, Qatar Sports Club and Al Arabi share the spoils in the one-all draw, while Lekhwiya con-tinued their impressive run to defeat Al Kharaitiyat 3-2 in a high scoring match at Al Khor Stadium.

Sebastian Soria of Al Rayyan attempts to break through Umm Salal defence during their Qatar Stars League match at Al Gharafa Stadium yesterday. Picture by; Baher/The Peninsula

New Zealand

vs Pakistan ODI

washed out

Reuters

NAPIER: The second One-Day International between New Zea-land and Pakistan in Napier was abandoned without a ball being bowled due to heavy rain and a wet outfield yesterday.

The calling off means Paki-stan, who lost Monday’s first one-dayer by 70 runs, can now only hope to level the series when the teams play the third and final match at Auckland on Sunday.

Heavy rain rendered the out-field too wet for any play and the umpires finally decided to call off the match after several inspections through the day.

New Zealand had earlier won the three-match Twenty20 inter-national series 2-1.

Grounds staff mop up the water on the covers before the start of the second One-Day International match between New Zealand and Pakistan at McLean Park in Napier yesterday. The match was abandoned without a ball being bowled due to heavy rain and a wet outfield.

New Zealand apologise for Amir cash tauntAFP

WELLINGTON: New Zealand Cricket has apologised to the tour-ing Pakistan team after a ground announcer taunted paceman Mohammad Amir by playing a cash register sound during a Twenty20 match.

The announcer has been cen-sured and told it was “inappropriate and disrespectful” to goad the fast bowler on his return to international cricket after serving a five-year ban for spot-fixing.

Amir has also been subjected to abuse by spectators but New Zealand Cricket chief executive David White stopped short of asking fans to leave the 23-year-old alone.

Amir is on his first tour since serving a prison term and ban for his role in a 2010 spot-fixing scandal.

During the third Twenty20

in Wellington last Friday, ground announcer Mark McLeod played the sound of a cash register when Amir was running in to bowl.

“I think it was inappropri-ate and disrespectful, and has the effect of trivialising one of the biggest issues facing cricket at the moment,” White told Fairfax Media yesterday.

“I’ve contacted the Pakistan team management to apologise, and to assure them there will be no repeat.”

On Monday, during the first one-day international between New Zealand and Pakistan, senior Pakistan player Mohammad Hafeez complained to the umpires about the treatment Amir was receiving from spectators, according to Pakistan media reports.

Money was allegedly being waved at Amir amid chants of “I’ve got a dollar for you”.

Refugee team to compete

at Rio Games, says IOC

Agencies

ATHENS: A cross-nation team of ref-ugees will participate in this year’s Rio Olympics to send a “message of hope”, International Olympic Committee chief Thomas Bach said yesterday.

“The IOC has decided to invite the highest-qualified refugee ath-letes to the Olympic Games in Rio,” Bach said at the Eleonas camp in Athens, a facility housing hundreds of migrants hoping to find passage to northern Europe.

The refugee team, around five to ten strong, will participate as a dele-gation in its own right and be lodged at the Olympic Village with the rest of the athletes, Bach said.

“We want to send a message of hope and confidence to the refugees and turn the attention of the world to the fate and problem of the 60 million refugees of the world,” the German said.

In December, the IOC said it had already identified three athletes who had fled their home countries and could qualify for the Games in August.

They are a Syrian swimmer

currently training in Germany, a Congolese judoka who found refuge in Brazil and an Iranian taekwondo athlete in Belgium, the IOC said.

Yesterday, Bach took down the details of Farhad Takallo, an Iranian man at the camp who said he was a shooting champion.

While he welcomed the prospect of training in Greece, Takallo asked Bach to help him reach Germany.

Only war refugees -- at present Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans -- who reach Greece are allowed to continue the journey to northern Europe.

Bach added that the Olympic torch relay, beginning in ancient Olympia in April, will pass from the Eleonas camp and a refugee will carry the flame.

The torch will be lit in Greece’s ancient Olympia on April 21 before leaving for the South American country 12 days later.

It will arrive in Brazil on May 3 to start its 100-day relay across the country.

Greece became the main gate-way for more than a million refugees who began arriving in Europe last year, most fleeing war and perse-cution in countries like Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

President of the Algerian Football Federation, Mohamed Raouraoua, during his visit to Aspetar, the world’s leading specialised orthopaedic and sports medicine hospital, in Doha yesterday. Raouraoua, was given a comprehensive tour of the hospital’s facilities and the newly built extension that is dedicated exclusively to athletes. Aspetar provides medical support to the Algerian national football team. Experts from Aspetar also accompanied the Algerian team to the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa and the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazi. Algeria was the only team from the Arab world that played in both championships.

President of Algerian FF visits Aspetar WADA requests Russia to have new doping setup in place

AFP

TOKYO: The chief of the world’s anti-doping organisation said yes-terday it could take months before Russia re-establishes a credible anti-doping body following alle-gations of state involvement in the practice.

Russia was banned from international competitions by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) in November after a World Anti-Dop-ing Agency (WADA) independent commission found evidence of “state-sponsored” doping in the country The country’s anti-doping body RUSADA was declared non-compliant by WADA after it was discovered that positive drug tests had been covered up and samples destroyed.

“We are asking Russian authorities to re-establish a new agency with proper people in charge,” David Howman, WADA director general, said in an inter-view on the sidelines of a seminar in Tokyo.

QATAR STARS LEAGUEWednesday’s ResultsAl Ahli 0 Al Gharafa 1

Al Sailiya 3 Mesaimeer 1

Al Khor 1 El Jaish 0

ResultsAl Kharaitiyat 2 Lekhwiya 3

Umm Salal 0 Al Rayyan 2

Al Arabi 1 Qatar SC 1

Al Wakrah 3 Al Sadd 1

Action from the QSL match between Lekhwiya and Al Kharaitiyat yesterday. Lekhwiya won 3-2.

Lekhwiya leave it late to down Al Kharaitiyat, Qatar SC and Al Arabi share spoils in QSL

SPORT22 FRIDAY 29 JANUARY 2016

I controlled the flight of the ball pretty well, says Lawrie

The Peninsula

DOHA: Former Open Champion Paul Lawrie yesterday fired a bril-liant six-under-par 66 to lead at the halfway stage of the Commer-cial Bank Qatar Masters and boost his hopes of becoming the first three-time winner of the Mother of Pearl Trophy.

After carding an overall tally of 11 under par 133, Lawrie said he was pleased with his performance in the tournament so far.

Here’s a quick Q & A with Lawrie:

Question. A 66 - scintillat-ing stuff. What were you most pleased about with your game?

Paul Lawrie: It was pretty much the same as yesterday to be honest. Played nicely tee-to-green. Hit a lot of good shots. Only made one mistake, which was 3-putt from 20 feet at 15. Same as yes-terday, 3-putted the first, the only mistake I made. When you play nicely as that and control the flight of the ball like I did yesterday, you know you’re going to hole a few putts, you’re going to shoot low. So it was a good day.

Q. The forecast was for it to blow from the get-go and it didn’t. What’s the mind-set then that you carry into; do you change your strategy a bit?

Lawrie: Well, they put the tees forward today, obviously think-ing that the wind is going to blow pretty hard, and this morning it was dead calm. So I got a lit-tle frustrated after 15, because I thought, you’re not taking advan-tage of the conditions today. Then played some nice golf and made a few birdies.But you’ve just got to do your game plan and kick on, and it’s going to change every now and again with the weather.

Q. Inevitably with the late tee time you’ll have, the wind will be stronger tomorrow; it is going to blow hard. What’s the strategy when you get conditions like that?

Lawrie: My attitude is nor-mally pretty good when it gets blowy, because if you get a bit grumpy and a bit grizzly as I tend to do, when it’s windy, you’re going to struggle. So I tend to sort of accept things a bit better when it’s windy, and that’s what you’ve got to do. I think a lot of guys kind of struggle to accept the condi-tions. They are not going to change. You’ve just got to get on with it.

Q. Thrilled with the way that you’re playing over these two days so far?

Lawrie: Yeah, I played nicely again. I controlled the flight of the ball pretty well, which is what you’ve got to do when it’s windy. Hit a lot of really nice knock-down shots today. Got the ball pin-high a lot and rolled it, again, really well a lot on the greens. Apart from 15, only mistake I made. Same as yes-terday with a 3-putt.

Q. These conditions are chal-lenging, as we said yesterday, but they have made sure that those greens aren’t as fast as they can be in this part of the world I guess.

Lawrie: They have certainly slowed them down, which is a good idea, because if you get greens rolling at 10 or 11 on the Stimp and it’s blowing a gale, you can’t keep the ball on the green. They are pretty slow to be fair. Last week was very quick greens and this week they are pretty slow. That’s all part of what we have to do to adapt.

Q. We’ve certainly spoken about your putting over recent years so much. I take it that this is a further indication that things are going very much in the right direction.

Lawrie: Marc Warren had a look at me when I missed the cut in Abu Dhabi, and he said the same as everyone else: My putting stroke is too long, needs to be a little shorter and a little quicker. So I’ve kind of been working on it the last couple days and certainly feels as though I’ve got it. I hit a lot of putts when I missed the cut last week. All day Sunday I did a lot of work, and then came here. I’ve hit, I don’t know, thousands of putts since I got here. So it’s only taken a couple days and it feels comfortable.

Birdie blitz helps Lawrie grab lead at Qatar Masters

By Rizwan Rehmat

The Penisula

DOHA: A birdie blitz yesterday helped two-time champion Paul Lawrie of Scotland grab the lead with an impressive card of six under par 66 at the $2.5m Qatar Masters.

Winner in 1999 and 2012, the Doha Golf Club (DGC) visitor fired six birdies to supplement his five under par 67 in round 1 for an overall card of 11 under par 133 at the halfway stage of the desert challenge.

Belgium’s Nicolas Colsaerts fin-ished a shot behind Lawrie after carding a 4 under par 68 for an over-all score of 10 under par 134.

The big-hitting Belgian birdied his last hole at nine.

England’s Andrew Johnston, Spain’s Rafa Cabrera-Bello and Frenchman Gregory Bourdy are tied for third place with overall scores of 9 under par 135.

Johnston couldn’t match his six under par 66 in the first round as the Briton yesterday suffered a double bogey on hole 3 on way to a card of 3 under par 69.

Cabrera-Bello remained steady yesterday with 4 under par 68 while Bourdy enjoyed a hole-in-one on 8 for his only eagle of the day.

The Frenchman carded 4 under par to score an overall tally of 9 under par 135 after two rounds.

Former champion and title favourite Sergia Garcia sneaked up on his rivals to be tied for sixth place with overall card of 8 under par 136.

An eagle on hole 16 supplemented

by four birdies helped Garcia - cham-pion in 2014 - to close round two at six under par 66.

England’s Tommy Fleetwood (69), Sweden’s Johan Carlsson (67), compa-triot Pelle Edberg (66) and Denmark’s Thorbjorn Olesen (69) are tied with Garcia at 8 under par 136.

Overnight leader Pablo Larraza-bal (72) of Spain endured a horrible day with four bogeys to be tied for 11th spot with an overall card of 7 under par 137. Larrazabal is tied with a group of eight other golfers that also includes defending champion Branden Grace of South Africa (67).

South Africa’s Louis Oosthuizen is 6 under par 138 after carding 73 following three bogeys in round two.

Lawrie - who fired birdies on holes 4, 7, 9, 10, 12, 16 and 18 - said he was pleased with his second day’s performance.

“It was pretty much the same as yesterday, to be honest. Played nicely tee-to-green. Hit a lot of good shots. Only made one mistake, which was 3-putt from 20 feet at 15,” Lawrie said yesterday.

“Same as yesterday, 3-putted the first, the only mistake I made. When you play nicely as that and control the flight of the ball like I did yesterday, you know you’re going to hole a few putts, you’re going to shoot low. So it was a good day,” Lawrie added.

“They put the tees forward today, obviously thinking that the wind is going to blow pretty hard, and this morning it was dead calm. So I got a little frustrated after 15 because I thought you’re not taking advantage of the conditions today,” Lawrie said.

“Then (I) played some nice golf and made a few birdies. But you’ve just got to do your game plan and kick

on, and it’s going to change every now and again with the weather,” Lawrie said.

Colsaerts, who is a shot behind Lawrie at 10 under par 134, said it was a tough day at the office.

“A bit more of a grind to be fair. Front nine was a bit scruffy. Missed a few. There’s probably a few shots that I would like to have back or have again,” Colsaerts said.

“And then (I) made a fantastic eagle on the first, my 10th, that sort of got me back into the rhythm that I was kind of hoping for, then I played pretty steadily for the rest of that side. 4-under is a pretty decent score today I think,” the Belgian said.

Will it be difficult going forward? “No, probably not. I’ve played

quite well in the last couple years here. I mean, it seems like I know what to do on certain key holes and

key shots,” Colsaert said in reply. “The back nine is probably a little more scorable, so you kind of -- if you get off to a good start and keep the rhythm going, you can actually play quite well out here,” he said.

Johnston is mighty pleased sitting pretty at 9 under par 135.

“Yeah, it’s a good start, and pleased with the two days. Drove the ball well. Kept it in play. I’ve hit a lot of good sort of iron shots right side of the pin, and I’ve putted well,” Johnston said.

When asked about the strong winds battering DGC, Johnston said: “I haven’t really thought about it that much. I’ve just sort of played and sort of taken every hole as it comes. Holed some good putts at good times for birdies and hit some good shots at other good times. It’s sort of gelled well together.”

The two-time champion from Scotland is on top of the leaderboard after second day’s play at windswept Doha Golf Club

Quotes of the day at Doha Golf Club“It’s got to help that you know you’ve won this tournament twice

before. It’s nice to go back to places that you know you can play well on and have done in the past. You see your name on the board a couple of times and you walk past it every day at the range. It all helps.”

Paul Lawrie

“Probably from the 17th hole onward, I hit six really good putts that looked like they were going in and they didn’t. I ended up making a huge putt on eight, although I think that celebration is going to look a little bit funny on TV. Tomorrow, I’ll try to play within myself, obviously keep the ball down, which I know I can do, and just be patient.

Sergio Garcia (pictured)

“I don’t know, it was a slow start. I think it was just a little bit early, 7.00 tee time. But yeah, I just picked it up there. I hit a couple of really close -- missed a short one on 9. Hit some really good shots there on 10 and 11. I don’t know, I just hit better golf shots in the wind. I don’t know why. Yeah, we got a good break there. The first nine holes, there’s not much wind, but (I) didn’t really take advantage of it. But (I) started play-ing well in the last nine holes.”

Thorbjorn Olesen

“Yeah, it’s always nice to get a hole-in-one. It’s my, I would say, only third on Tour, but it’s good enough. Yeah, it’s great actually. I missed a few birdies before the 8th, and then yeah, straight in with a 6-iron. So it was like two bird-ies straight. Yeah, it’s always a nice feeling to get a hole-in-one.”

Gregory Bourdy

“Yeah, (that eagle on 10) cer-tainly got my rhythm back on. The front 9 was a bit on and off. I hit a few holes and maybe thought I could have just slipped the score under par on the front, which I didn’t. But the eagle on the first, my 10th, was certainly the rhythm-kicker that I was hoping for. And then the rest -- played well the rest of that side, which made me come back in 4-under which is good.”

Nicolas Colsaerts

An anemometer being used to check wind speeds at the Doha Golf Club yesterday. RIGHT: Andrew Johnston of Britain talks to his caddie during yesterday’s action. Pic: Qassim / The Peninsula

Paul Lawrie (in black) and

Belgium’s Nicolas Colsaerts (inset) in action during the second day’s play at the $2.5m Qatar Masters at Doha Golf Club

yesterday.

Second-round scores at Doha Golf ClubDoha: Leading scores yesterday after the second round of the Qatar Masters counting towards the European PGA Tour (Gbr & Irl unless stated, par 72): 133 Paul Lawrie (SCO) 67 66

134 Nicolas Colsaerts (BEL) 66 68

135 Andrew Johnston 66 69, Gregory Bourdy (FRA) 67 68, Rafael Cabrera-Bello (ESP) 67 68

136 Tommy Fleetwood 67 69, Sergio Garcia (ESP) 70 66, Thorbjorn Olesen (DEN) 67 69, Pelle Edberg (SWE) 70 66, Johan

Carlsson (Swe) 69 67

137 Jens Fahrbring (SWE) 69 68, Maximilian Kieffer (GER) 69 68, Kristoffer Broberg (SWE) 67 70, Joost Luiten (NED) 70 67,

Jorge Campillo (ESP) 69 68, Branden Grace (RSA) 70 67, George Coetzee (RSA) 67 70, Pablo Larrazabal (ESP) 65 72,

Brett Rumford (AUS) 68 69

138 Ricardo Gouveia (POR) 67 71, Lucas Bjerregaard (DEN) 68 70, Alex Noren (SWE) 69 69, Louis Oosthuizen (RSA) 65 73,

Lee Slattery 69 69, Robert Rock 68 70, Ernie Els (RSA) 68 70, Bernd Wiesberger (AUT) 68 70, Gregory Havret (FRA)

71 67, Bradley Dredge 71 67

139 Soren Kjeldsen (DEN) 70 69, Prom Meesawat (THA) 72 67, Bjorn Akesson (SWE) 66 73, Mikko Ilonen (FIN) 71 68

140 Ben Evans 69 71, Richie Ramsay 71 69, Roope Kakko (FIN) 69 71, Marcel Siem (GER) 69 71, Brandon Stone (RSA) 72

68, Joakim Lagergren (SWE) 72 68, Mikko Korhonen (FIN) 72 68, Clarke Lutton 68 72, Thongchai Jaidee (THA) 68 72,

James Morrison 70 70, Robert Karlsson (SWE) 73 67, Alejandro Canizares (ESP) 73 67

Birdie blitz helps Lawrie grab lead at Qatar Masters

PAGE | 20 PAGE | 22

Djokovic storms into final as Serena

crushes Radwanska

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It’s make or break for Qatar in play-off

The Peninsula

DOHA: Qatar will seek to put the disappointment of their semi-final defeat to Korea Republic behind them, says coach Felix Sanchez, to secure a berth at the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro today against Iraq.

Qatar and Iraq meet in the third place play-off with the winner claim-ing the continent’s sole remaining place at the Olympic Games after Japan and Korea Republic advanced to the final of the AFC U23 Champi-onship and took the first two tickets for Brazil.

“Nobody likes to play in a third place game, but this is a special case because we still have the opportu-nity to qualify for the Olympics,” said Sanchez.

“The players were not happy (after losing to Korea Republic), but they are aware and very motivated because it’s a very good opportunity for us to go to Rio, so the players are fully moti-vated for the game.”

Both coaches declared their teams fully fit for the crucial game, with Qatar’s influential captain Abdulkarim Hassan available despite some concerns while Mohamed Mun-tari returns from suspension for the host nation. Safa Jabbar and Saif Sal-man will be available for Iraq after missing the 2-1 loss to Japan.

“After five games in a short period

of time, fitness is an important point in the game,” said Sanchez.

“We hope we are going to face this game in good condition. Physically, technically and tactically the players are motivated and I’m sure they are going to give 100 percent.”

As the host nation, Qatar can expect to have the backing of the majority of the crowd at Abdullah Bin Khalifa Stadium on Friday evening, but Iraqi coach Abdulghani Shahad is confident his team will not be affected by the relative lack of support for his team.

“It can have an impact and be an advantage for the Qatar team,” said the coach.

“But our team they are used to focusing when they are playing with-out fans or with a few fans and they are used to putting on a good game.

“Both teams have the same feel-ings. Both are coming from a shock after the defeat in the semi-final but for the Iraq team the main target is to get one of the three tickets for Rio.

“So our main focus is on our team and the Qatar team and how to pre-pare the team and to realise our goal.”

Iraq have a strong track record at the Olympic Games, having reached the semi-finals in 2004 when they joined Japan and Korea Republic as one of the continent’s three repre-sentatives in Athens.

They also narrowly missed out on a place in Atlanta in 1996, losing to Japan in the third place play-off.

“In the last game we provided a good performance and we had the possibility to qualify for the final,” said Shahad.

“I was sure that both Arabic teams could reach the final, but this is foot-ball and we are now ready for the next game.

“We had a meeting with the play-ers, we spoke with them and told them this is the last game and we have to go for the victory.”

The match kicks off at 5.45pm. The championship final takes place tomorrow.

We have prepared well, says SanchezThe Peninsula

DOHA: Qatar coach Felix Sanchez (pictured) said yesterday his team was ready for do-or-die battle against defending champions Iraq in the third-place play-off at the AFC U-23 Championship.

The winner of the match on Fri-day at Jassim Bin Hamad Stadium will qualify for the 2016 Olympic Games.

“We have prepared well for this crucial match,” Sanchez said yesterday.

“In what will be our last game at this event, it is clear that we will push our opponents all the way to get a win,” Sanchez said.

“This is clearly the most impor-tant game in the lives of our young players,” he said.

“We have played two very tough matches so we feel confident going into the clash on Friday,” the Qatar coach said.

“We have given a good account of ourselves but we need to finish off with a win,” he said.

“We have played two games of high intensity and one match went into extra time,” Sanchez said.

“We are not happy about our last result (loss to South Korea in the semifinals) but we have played well overall. The players are better and fitter than they were sometime back,” Sanchez said.

“I hope we get a full-house for the game. We need the fan support,” Sanchez said. “I am sure we will see a great match,” he said.

Japan and South Korea have already qualified for the final to be played on January 30.

Qatar U23 players training in Doha ahead of their AFC U23 Championship third-place play-off match against Iraq today.

Ninth edition of Aspire Football Dreams concludes in DohaThe Peninsula

DOHA: Aspire Academy on Wednes-day night held a closing ceremony in the Academy’s auditorium to celebrate the conclusion of the ninth edition of Aspire Football Dreams – the world’s largest football scouting programme.

This latest edition of ASPIRE Football Dreams covered 16 coun-tries across three continents – Asia, Africa and Latin America.

During the final stages of this year-long programme, 36 talented players born in 2002 visited Aspire Academy and starting training from January 10 and which ended yesterday.

Players participating on the pro-gramme have come from countries including Thailand, Costa Rica, Guate-mala, Vietnam, Paraguay, Cameroon, Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, Gambia, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Uganda and Guinea-Bissau.

This final stage of the recruit-ment process marked the conclusion of a year-long search for talent that involved more than 420,000 young-sters playing around 60,000 games organised on more than 1,200 pitches spread throughout the 16 countries. Registration to take part was free.

More than 4,000 volunteers

worked closely with highly qualified professional coaches and scouts to identify the most promising young-sters in these groups to recruit them for the programme.

During this final stage, the 36 highest performing players were

brought to Qatar to participate in a three-week-long trial and condensed training programme.

This included friendly games against Aspire Academy football stu-dents as well as a visiting youth team from FC Barcelona.

During their time at the Academy, they also met 54 young players from previous editions of Aspire Football Dreams, born in 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2001.

During the players’ visit to Qatar, Aspire Academy’s football coaching

staff worked hand-in-hand with the programme’s scouts and country coordinators, headed by Programme Director Josep Colomer.

They introduced the players to the latest coaching methods and techniques.

The closing ceremony was held on Wednesday, during which the 36 promising young talents were presented with certificates of achieve-ment in front of an audience made up of Ambassadors and Chiefs of Mis-sion from those countries involved in the project that have embassies or representative offices in Doha. They were joined by senior leaders from Aspire Zone Foundation and its Mem-ber Organisations.

Commenting on the ninth edition, Dr. Andreas Bleicher, consultant for international football affairs at Aspire Academy, said: “Everyone in football is aware of the significant football-ing talent that exists in developing countries and also of the challenges that can prevent these players from reaching their full potential. Aspire offers a new window of hope and opportunity for those players who have the talent and dedication nec-essary to succeed at the highest levels of international football. To reach this objective, Aspire cooperates closely with various national football asso-ciations in those countries involved in the programme and supports the players in playing for their relevant national teams. In this way, the pro-gramme directly benefits the players’ home countries from a sporting point of view.”

The players and officials pose for a group picture at Aspire Academy’s auditorium to celebrate the conclusion of the ninth edition of Aspire Football Dreams in Doha on Wednesday night.

2016 Olympic Games ticket at stake as Qatar take on Iraq in the third-place play-off at Jassim Bin Hamad Stadium today

The Rio qualifiers so farDoha: Continental powerhouses

Japan and South Korea Republic

have confirmed their places at this

summer’s Men’s Olympic Football

Tournament in Rio de Janeiro.

The one remaining berth will go to

the winner of today’s AFC U23 Cham-

pionship clash for third and fourth

place between defeated semi-final-

ists Iraq and Qatar.

Here is the current list of the teams

who will be playing at the Olympics in

Rio: Asia: Japan, Korea Republic and

Iraq or Qatar.

Africa: Algeria, Nigeria and South

Africa.

Europe: Denmark, Germany, Portugal

and Sweden.

North, Central America And Carib-

bean: Honduras, Mexico – USA to

play-off against Colombia

Oceania: Fiji

South America: Brazil (hosts), Argentina

– Colombia to play-off against USA

icr

at

Spanish actress Penelope Cruz poses for photographers during the presentation of the short film ‘Soy Uno Entre Cien Mil’ (I Am One Among a Hundred Thousand) in Madrid, Spain, yesterday. RIGHT: Actors Joel Edgerton (left) and Natalie Portman attend the New York premiere of “Jane Got A Gun” hosted by The Weinstein Company with the Cinema Society and Serpent’s Bite at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Stars and style

Participants dressed as Vikings go around their longboat during the annual Up Helly Aa festival in Lerwick, Shetland Islands. The festival celebrates the influence of the Scandinavian Vikings in the Scottish islands and culminates with up to 1,000 ‘guizers’ (men in costume) throwing flaming torches into their longboat and setting it alight.

Fired up Vikings

MORNING BREAK24 FRIDAY 29 JANUARY 2016

FAJR

SHOROOK

ZUHR

ASR

MAGHRIB

ISHA

04.59 am06.18 am

11.47 am02.54 pm

05.18 pm06.48 pm

Minimum: 12o C Maximum: 17o C

HIGH TIDE 08:00 - 20:30 LOW TIDE 01:00 - 15:15

Strong wind and expected poor visibility at

places due to blowing dust.

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Geese soaking up the sun at the Doha Golf Club course during the Com-mercial Bank Qatar Masters 2016. Photo: Qassim /The Peninsula

World’s oldest tea found in Chinese emperor’s tomb

AFP

PARIS: The tomb of a Chinese emperor who lived more than 2,100 years ago has yielded the oldest remains of tea, said researchers who used it to re-date part of the ancient Asian Silk Road.

The plant remains were retrieved

from burial pits around the tomb of Liu Qi, the fourth emperor of the Han dynasty who lived between 188 and 141 BC, and his wife, a team of researchers from China and Brit-ain wrote in the journal Scientific Reports.

The oldest written reference to tea is from the year 59 BC.

And the oldest physical remains

ever discovered were hundreds of years younger than the new find — dating from the northern Song Dynasty (AD 960-1,127).

“Our study reveals that tea was drunk by Han Dynasty emperors as early as 2,100 years BP (before present),” wrote the team.

They compared this tea to res-idues unearthed among burial

artifacts at Gurgyam Cemetery in Tibet, and dated to about the second or third century AD.

This revealed that tea was already transported from China to central Asia and the Tibetan Plateau several hundred years earlier than previously recorded — by around 1,800 years ago, said the researchers.

Tea does not grow in Tibet.

Film festivals would win over smartphones: Berlinale chiefAFP

BERLIN: Film festivals still have a bright future in a world in which more audiences watch movies and television series on smaller and smaller devices, the veteran head of Germany’s Berlinale says.

The pageantry of stars on the red carpet, the magic of a premiere with a giddy crowd, the glory of a big screen and surround sound — Berlin film festival director Dieter Kosslick said true cinema-lovers would in the long run never settle for anything less.

“Our huge ticket sales show that there is still a strong desire to see films in a theatre with other people, and to share reactions to it afterwards,” he told AFP, pointing to the more than 500,000 seats filled during last year’s 11-day event.

In an interview ahead of the February 11-21 festival, Europe’s first major cinema showcase of the year, Kosslick said that younger viewers who grew up binge-watching television series were actually developing longer atten-tion spans thanks to multi-chapter plot lines.

He said a hunger for rich stories and elaborate pro-ductions were in many cases luring audiences away from smartphones and tablets.

“There’s a lot in our society that could stand to be slowed down,” he said.

“And that will create a reverse trend. It can’t be that everyone stays addicted to a little machine they carry around in their pockets.”

Sweet-talking Streep Kosslick, 67, said the Berlinale was appealing to an

evolving audience by also putting a spotlight on ambitious TV series, while giving them the full cinema treatment on big screens in darkened theatres.

“At the same time, there are feature films that really take their time to tell a complete story,” he said, pointing to a trend towards longer movies such as “The Revenant” which led this year’s Oscar nominations, and Quentin Tarantino’s opus “The Hateful Eight”, which was made to be seen in a giant format.

Kosslick is credited with strongly boosting the inter-national profile of the Berlinale since he took the reins in 2001, winning fans for his quirky humour and stellar connections in Hollywood.

The Berlinale, now in its 66th year, is the only major festival to sell tickets for all of its featured films to the public.

It will open with Joel and Ethan Coen’s all-star romp “Hail, Caesar!” and screen movies with Colin Firth, Nicole Kidman, Jude Law, Emma Thompson, Don Cheadle, Kirsten Dunst and Adam Driver, to name a few.

However he admitted that persuading Meryl Streep

to head up this year’s Berlinale jury was likely the big-gest feather in his cap.

“Meryl Streep has been a guest of the festival several times and when we gave her the Honorary Golden Bear in 2012 for lifetime achievement, she told me she’d like to stay in Berlin at some point for a bit longer,” he said.

“Of course that means for a festival director: ask her! She could have said no but we got lucky — we didn’t know if she would have two weeks free for us.”

Kosslick said beyond the German capital’s reputa-tion for creative buzz, the festival’s own standing as a key launchpad for topical international cinema had likely also appealed to the three-time Oscar winner.

“If you know her career, you know she’s a politically engaged actress and so perhaps she thought that the Ber-linale wouldn’t be a bad festival to be jury president for the first time.”

Last year’s Golden Bear for best picture went to Iranian dissident director Jafar Panahi for “Taxi”, an innovative movie made in defiance of an official ban.

A woman successor? In light of a raging debate about sexism and unequal

pay in the movie business, Kosslick said festivals too had a responsibility to ensure diversity.

Of the 18 films vying for this year’s Golden Bear, two were made by women.

As his tenure winds down, Kosslick called it “prob-lematic” that in the history of the A-list festivals since World War II, including Cannes, Venice and Berlin, none had had a female chief.

“I think it is our duty as cultural institutions to stand up for equality,” he said. “I believe in quotas for women — not because I think quotas are intelligent but because it’s the only thing that works.”

Algerians jailed for Cannes jewellery heistAFP

GRASSE: Three Algerians were handed jail sentences of up to 14 years on Wednesday for stealing jew-ellery worth ¤500,000 from Swiss luxury jeweller Chopard during the 2013 Cannes Film Festival.

Djelloul Mezzouar, 44, was jailed

for 10 years by a court just outside Cannes on the French Riviera.

He had been caught red-handed during another theft a month after the Cannes heist, at a luxury hotel on the Spanish island of Mallorca.

The getaway driver, 38-year-old Samir Guerroum, was jailed for seven years by the court in the town of Grasse. A third member of the gang

— Mohamed Marref, 46, who is cur-rently in Algeria — was sentenced in absentia to 14 years.

Mezzouar’s former girlfriend Farida Saddouki, also Algerian, was jailed for two years for receiving sto-len goods. Chopard was one of the victims of a particularly lucrative string of robberies in Cannes during the 2013 festival.

Director of the Berlinale film festival, Dieter Kosslick.