editor@pen.com.qa | adv@pen.com.qa Editorial: 4455 7741 | Advertising: 4455 7837 / 4455 7780www.thepeninsulaqatar.comFRIDAY 3 APRIL 2015 • 14 Jumada II 1436 • Volume 20 Number 6389

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British embassy marks Queen Elizabeth II’s birthday.

GCC rail network will boost cross-border, regional and global trade.

The GCC Beach Games began in Al Gharafa Club yesterday.

DOHA: The massive sandstorm that hit Qatar late on Wednesday led to chaos at emergency medical centres, flight delays and road accidents.

There was an unprecedented spurt in the sale of disposable dust masks, with the neighbourhood stores, or the baqalas, exploiting the situation and retailing them for QR2 each.

Pharmacies reported shortages of inhalers used by asthma patients as stocks were sold out by early yesterday.

Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) had to deploy additional staff at its evening clinics to deal with patients com-plaining of allergies.

Children were most affected as pae-diatric emergency department of HMC received 1,300 urgent cases between Wednesday night and yesterday afternoon.

HMC’s emergency department strug-gled as their staff had a hard time dealing with hundreds of people complaining of allergies.

Families and children who had been to Banana Island off the Cornish late on Wednesday evening were left stranded as there was no way they could be fer-ried back.

Al Sharq quoted one of the stranded as saying they were back only yesterday and somehow managed to get a room for over-night stay. The daily said revellers would do better to enquire about weather fore-cast before going to the island. “No one informed us of an impending dust storm,” one of the stranded men told the daily.

People had a hard time driving early yesterday to go to their offices as dusty and windy conditions prevailed with all intensity. Schools were closed.

In terms of weather conditions, the worst is over but the receding dust storm

will leave in its trail thin layers of dust in the air today, a forecaster said. As a result, it will be a less dusty day today with a little cleaner and cooler northwest-erly wind settling in to eventually end the nightmarish dust storm.

The weather forecasters and the Ministry of Interior have asked sea-goers to be careful today due to high tide and dusty and windy conditions.

“The sea will be choppy with north-westerly wind gathering speed from 18 to 35 knots (33km to 65km an hour),” said veteran weather forecaster said Abdullah Al Mannai.

Visibility will remain affected today but not to the extent that was witnessed late on Wednesday and early yesterday, he added. He said day temperatures were expected to be 32 degrees C today and at night the mercury will drop to 21 degrees on average.

Yesterday, flights from Doha were delayed by almost two hours with airlines asking travel agents to inform passengers to report to Hamad International Airport accordingly. Incoming flights were also affected but delays were for 30 minutes on average. For example, Qatar Airways flight QR1370 from Cape Town was expected at 11.15pm instead of 10.50pm. The KLM flight from Muscat, which was also affected by the sandstorm, was delayed by about 36 minutes.

Keeping weather conditions in mind and to prevent accidents, the ministry kept busy Doha roads out of bounds for trucks. Several accidents caused by low visibility were reported from different parts of the country, including one at Al Rafai Flyover near Umm Salal, but there were no casualties.

THE PENINSULA

GARISSA: Gunmen from the Islamist militant group Al Shabaab stormed a university in Kenya and killed at least 147 people yesterday, in the worst attack on Kenyan soil since the US embassy was bombed in 1998.

The siege ended nearly 15 hours after the Somali group’s gunmen shot their way into the Garissa University College cam-pus in a pre-dawn attack, sparing Muslim students and taking many Christians hostage.

Interior Minister Joseph Nkaissery said four gunmen strapped with explosives were

behind the attack, the same number that killed 67 people during the 2013 bloodbath at a shopping mall in Nairobi. “The operation has ended successfully. The terrorists have been killed,” held told Kenyan media.

Kenyan police chief Joseph Boinet said the attackers had “shot indiscriminately” when they entered the compound. Police and soldiers surrounded the campus and exchanged gunfire with the attackers throughout the day but were repeatedly repelled. At least 79 people were injured and many airlifted to Nairobi, the national disaster body said.

One image provided by a local journalist showed a dozen blood-soaked bodies strewn across a classroom. But some students escaped unaided.

“We heard some gunshots and we were sleeping so it was around five and guys started jumping up and down running for their lives,” an unnamed student said.

Grace Kai, a student at Garissa Teachers Training College near the university, said there had been warnings that an attack in the town could be imminent.

“Some strangers had been spot-ted in Garissa town and were sus-pected to be terrorists,” she said.

“Then on Monday our college principal told us ... that strangers had been spotted in our college... On Tuesday we were released to go home, and our college closed, but the campus remained in ses-sion, and now they have been attacked.”

Authorities offered a 20 mil-lion shilling ($215,000) reward for information leading to the arrest of a man called Mohamed Mohamud, described as “most wanted” and linked to the attack.

Boinet said Kenya had imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew on four regions near the Somalia border.

The attack undermined a

renewed drive by President Uhuru Kenyatta to persuade foreigners the country is now safe to visit.

Al Shabaab, who carried out the deadly attack on the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi in 2013, claimed responsibility for the raid on the campus in Garissa, a town 200km from the Somali border.

The group has links to Al Qaeda which bombed the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania on the same day in 1998, killing 224 peo-ple and wounding thousands.

The US condemned the latest attack and offered Kenya help in fighting Al Shabaab. AGENCIES

See also page 10

BY SATISH KANADY

DOHA: Lower oil prices will lead to a substantial deteriora-tion of the fiscal and external balances of Qatar.

The government budget could fall into a deficit from 2016 onwards and external sur-pluses will shrink substantially. Economic growth is expected to slow over the medium term as public investment growth tapers, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has noted.

In its ‘Qatar country report’ released yesterday, IMF said the country’s economic growth is expected to increase to about 7 percent in 2015 as the Barzan natural gas field starts production and authorities continue imple-menting the public investment programme.

“The short-term growth out-look is positive,” the report said.

The main risks to the macr-oeconomic outlook are the pos-sibility of lower-than-expected oil and natural gas prices and the possible side effects of public investments in the form of short-term overheating and medium-term excess capacity.

Growth will remain strong this year, but is expected to slow going forward. In the near term, it will be propelled by the public investment programme and a new natural gas field.

Non-hydrocarbon growth should stay in double digits, the report said.

Continued on page 3

THE PENINSULA

LAUSANNE: Iran and six world powers yesterday agreed on the framework of a potentially historic deal to curb Tehran’s nuclear drive after marathon talks in Switzerland.

It marks a major break-through in a 12-year stand-off between Iran and the West, which has long feared Tehran wants to build a nuclear bomb, and raised hopes the deal could help stability in the Middle East.

US President Barack Obama welcomed the “his-toric understanding” with Iran after decades of hostil-ity but cautioned that more work needed to be done.

“If Iran cheats, the world will know it,” he said in a televised address from the White House.

He invited key Arab allies to a spring summit at the presidential retreat at Camp David.

Iran agreed to sharply cur-tail its nuclear programme in return for the lifting of sanc-tions that have crippled its economy.

But Israel branded the deal a “historic mistake”.

The main outlines agreed after eight days of talks in the Swiss city of Lausanne have to be finalised in a com-plex agreement by June 30.

Failure may set the US and Israel on a road to mili-tary action to thwart Iran’s nuclear drive and keep

Tehran out in the cold on the international stage.

US Secretary of State John Kerry hailed a “big day” while Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said the drafting of a full accord would begin immediately to complete it by the deadline.

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said the US and the EU will lift nuclear-related sanctions once the UN atomic agency has verified that Iran has stuck to the deal.

And the US said all past

UN nuclear resolutions on Iran would also be lifted.

Kerry said Iran’s stocks of highly enriched uranium will be cut by 98 percent for 15 years and its Arak reactor will stop producing weapons-grade plutonium.

The Fordo facility, built deep into a mountain, will remain open but will not be used for enrichment but for research and development.

Iranian media said the deal will include Tehran slash-ing by two-thirds — to 6,000 from 19,000 — the number

of centrifuges, which can make fuel for nuclear power but also the core of a nuclear bomb. The so-called P5+1 group — the US, Britain, China, France and Russia plus Germany — hope the deal will make it virtually impossible for Iran to make nuclear weapons.

France, which has taken a hawkish line during the negotiations, warned that sanctions could be reimposed if Tehran does not fully keep its side of the bargain. AFP

See also page 5

ADEN: Yemeni rebels seized President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi’s palace in his former southern stronghold Aden and Al Qaeda militants freed hun-dreds of inmates in a jailbreak yesterday despite a week of Saudi-led air strikes.

The advance by Iran-backed rebels deep into Aden, the last bastion of Hadi supporters, appeared to further douse pros-pects of his returning any time soon from Saudi Arabia.

“Dozens of Houthi militia and their allies arrived in armoured troop carriers and entered Al Maashiq palace,” said a senior security official.

Heavy clashes erupted between the rebels and their opponents inside the compound, a cluster of buildings on a hilltop accessible by only one winding road.

At least 44 people were reported dead.

A defence ministry official said the palace was now controlled by forces loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, which have allied with the Houthis.

But Brigadier General Ahmed Assiri, spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition, said the situation was stable.

“Houthis are not in control of any government buildings in Aden.”

In the city of Mukalla, Al Qaeda rebels stormed a Hadramawt provincial prison and freed over 300 inmates, including one of their leaders.

Saudi Arabia announced its first casualties, with one soldier killed and 10 wounded by gunfire from across the Yemeni border. AGENCIES

See also page 8

Qatar’s growth to increase to 7 percent this year, says IMF

Al Shabaab massacres 147 at Kenya university

Rebels capture Hadi palace

Iran, West agree deal Sandstorm: Worst over, caution urged Nuclear framework pact reached; Obama hails understanding

People flash the ‘V for Victory’ sign as they celebrate on Valiasr Street in northern Tehran after the announcement of an agreement on Iran nuclear programme.

Boys wave from a vehicle as they flee Sana’a with their belongings yesterday.

02 HOMEFRIDAY 3 APRIL 2015

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QPO to perform at Education City todayDOHA: Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra (QPO) will play a variety of popular music in the Night of the Proms/British Festival concert at 7.30 pm at the Education City Ceremonial Court this evening.

Scottish conductor Bob Ross will return to Qatar to direct works from the United Kingdom and other parts of the world in the genres of opera, operetta, Broadway and film music. Soprano Felicitas Fuchs and Philharmonic cellist Kirill Bogatyrev will perform as soloists.

The British Council is spon-soring the concert under the banner of its ‘British Festival’, a month-long celebration of activi-ties promoting Britain in Qatar and cross-cultural relations.

Night of the Proms is modelled on the similarly entitled Last Night of the Proms, a programme that closes each season of the renowned BBC Proms Festival at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

The Doha concert will open with music by Emmerich Kálmán from The Gypsy Princess, con-tinue through George Frideric Handel’s Arrival of the Queen of Sheba from Solomon, and offer three works by George Gershwin: Summertime, The Man I Love and I Got Rhythm. Other highlights include Hedwig’s Theme from Harry Potter by John Williams and music from West Side Story and Candide by Leonard Bernstein.

Tickets are available at QR100 and QR150 through Virgin Megastore’s Villaggio and Landmark stores and online at tickets.virginmegastore.me.

THE PENINSULA

DOHA: British Ambassador Nicholas Hopton joined more than 2,000 guests of the British Embassy to cel-ebrate the birthday of Queen Elizabeth II, with the guests of honour being H E Sheikh Abdulrahman bin Khalifa bin Abdulaziz Al Thani, the Minister of Municipality and Urban Planning, and H E Ali Sherif Al Emadi, the Minister of Finance.

Also present were lead-ing British sporting figures involved in Qatar, such as dou-ble Olympic champion Dame Kelly Holmes, members of the British and Qatari communities, the diplomatic corps and inter-national business and govern-ment, media guests, plus staff from British schools in Qatar,

who also celebrated the strong partnerships between Britain and Qatar.

Guests were kept entertained by Qatar’s military band, Sonja Park and Dimitri Torchinsky from Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra, and the local band Groove Office, as well as British astronomer Dr Maggie Adernin Pocock, who presented two ses-sions in the evening.

Speaking at the reception, Hopton said, “I can say that across the board the bilateral relationship between Qatar and the UK continues to go from strength to strength.”

He added: “Looking forward to 2015 I am confident that the Qatar and the UK will continue to enjoy a strong and close part-nership. A partnership which

covers defence, foreign policy, culture, education, energy, trade and investment, to name just a few areas in which we will be working closely together.”

“On the home front, the UK will continue to offer strong support to Qatar as it works towards the successful delivery of the 2022 World Cup and its 2030 National Vision.”

On behalf of the British gov-ernment, he thanked repre-sentatives of British firms for supporting the Qatar-UK part-nership. “With your continued support I’m confident we will take this important relationship from strength to strength, and look forward to an ever-closer partnership between our two countries,” he said.

THE PENINSULA

DOHA: Qatar University’s College of Education (QU-CED) has launched two new pro-grammes — Bachelor in Special Education and Masters in Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment.

The two programmes tes-tify to the college’s capacity to address the national needs for qualified teaching professionals able to meet the requirements of students with special needs and for educators who are able to develop and implement qual-ity and sustainable curricula, instruction and assessment poli-cies. These programmes demon-strate the college’s leading role in the national education reform strategies.

The full-time four-year BA programme requires 120 credit

hours, including a significant field experience component. The language of instruction is Arabic. Students can select from three tracks — Early Childhood Special Education Services, School-Based Special Education, and Severe and Profound Disabilities.

Admission requirements include a minimum of 75 percent average at high-school level and a successful personal interview. Qatari students enrolled in the programme are funded by the Supreme Education Council. Graduates from the programme will be qualified for job opportu-nities in schools, kindergartens, special education centres, educa-tional institutions and education-based media organisations.

The MA programme is designed to meet the expected new roles

and tasks of educators in Qatari independent schools and other education-based institutions offering students the opportu-nity to develop in three important areas, curriculum, pedagogy and assessment through coursework. Students are required to complete a 20,000-word thesis in the final stage of their studies.

Commenting on the new pro-grammes, CED Dean Prof Hissa Sadiq said, “The College is com-mitted to being a key partner in education reform and continu-ous improvement of education in Qatar. These programmes pre-pare professionals who will add value to the national efforts in developing an educational system that meets international standard and best practices.”

THE PENINSULA

Shura Council

marks Autism

Awareness DayDOHA: The Shura Council yesterday observed World Autism Awareness Day with a number of activities in the city.

World Autism Awareness Day (WAAD) is observed on April 2 every year.

The United Nations General Assembly resolu-tion 62/139 designated the WAAD to highlight the need to help improve the quality of life of children and adults, who are affected by autism, so they can lead full and meaningful lives. It was adopted on December 18, 2007 after Qatar pro-posed it, supported by all UN member states.

On this day UN organi-sations, member states, NGOs and all private and public organisations par-ticipate in WAAD to raise awareness of autism on all levels in society.

In his WAAD 2015 mes-sage, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said, “This year, I am pleased to launch an employment ‘Call to Action’, inviting businesses to make concrete commit-ments to employ people on the autism spectrum.

“We encourage public offices, corporations, and small businesses to have a closer look at the way they perceive people with autism, to take the time to learn about the condition and to create life-changing opportunities.

“People with autism have enormous potential. Most have remarkable visual, artistic or academic skills. Thanks to the use of assis-tive technologies, non-ver-bal persons with autism can communicate and share their hidden capabilities. Recognizing the talents of persons on the autism spec-trum, rather than focusing on their weaknesses, is essential to creating a soci-ety that is truly inclusive.”

Despite increased aware-ness, more than 80 percent of adults with autism are unemployed.

QNA

Ambassadors given farewell

The Assistant Foreign Minister for Foreign International Cooperation Affairs held a farewell reception in honour of the ambassadors of Benin and South Korea, Saidu Baku Bukhara and Chung Keejong, respectively, whose tenure in Qatar is at an end. Several diplomats and Foreign Ministry officials attended the event.

QU launches two new programmesCourses will help cater to children with special needs

UK mission marks Queen’s birthday

H E Sheikh Abdulrahman bin Khalifa bin Abdulaziz Al Thani, Minister of Municipality and Urban Planning, H E Ali Sherif Al Emadi, Minister of Finance, and British Ambassador Nicholas Hopton at a reception hosted by the British Embassy to celebrate Queen Elizabeth II’s birthday.

HOME 03FRIDAY 3 APRIL 2015

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Continued from page 1

Over the medium term, headline growth is expected to slow down sig-nificantly as the public investment programme tapers off and the pri-vate sector offsets only some of the decline.

Lauding Qatar for its strategy of diversifying its economy, IMF said : “Qatar is implementing an ambi-tious diversification strategy, while retaining its systemic role in the global natural gas market. Qatar accounts for one-third of global liq-uefied natural gas (LNG) trade and has emerged as an important global financial investor, labor importer, and donor. The authorities are executing a large public infrastructure program

to advance economic diversification and prepare for the FIFA 2022 World Cup”.

The economy has maintained strong growth momentum so far despite the large drop in oil prices since summer 2014. Real GDP growth has been stable at about 6 percent over the past three years, mostly driven by a double-digit expansion of the non-hydrocarbon sector. Falling global commodity prices have helped reduce inflation below 3 percent, despite a tight real estate market.

Consumer price inflation is con-tained, although real estate prices have grown quickly. CPI inflation has eased in recent months, as rent increases stabilized and tradables

inflation fell. In the short run, lower international commodity prices, including for food, and a strong U.S. dollar should reduce headline infla-tion despite the tight rental market. That said, real estate prices—espe-cially land prices—are increasing par-ticularly fast, and valuations appear on the upper end of a range consist-ent with fundamentals.

Consideration should be given to introducing a differentiated sched-ule of real estate transaction fees to deter speculators and taking further measures to increase land supply. Imposing rent controls could prove counterproductive. In case of exces-sive credit growth, further macro-prudential measures and liquidity

withdrawals should be deployed. If inflation accelerates, policymakers should slow public sector spending.

Banks remain sound and the financial sector regulatory agenda is moving forward, but emerging risks and vulnerabilities need to be care-fully monitored. Despite broadly sta-ble credit growth overall, potential emerging risks include the risk of falling liquidity due to the oil price drop, and rapidly-growing credit to selected sectors and across the bor-der. Although the banking system as a whole appears cushioned from real estate sector volatility, developments at weaker banks need to be closely monitored.

THE PENINSULA

DOHA: The Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) said yester-day that it had deployed addi-tional staff at its evening clinics to meet an increased influx of patients following the massive sandstorm on Wednesday night.

After the sandstorm hit, the HMC’s Paediatric Emergency Department received more than 1,300 urgent cases while the Emergency Department (ED) at Hamad General Hospital (HGH) has seen a number of visitors with eye, nose and throat (ENT) inju-ries. More than 300 people have been treated for respiratory issues, double the usual number, Dr Yousuf Al Maslamani, Medical Director of Hamad General Hospital (HGH) said in a statement.

On Wednesday night, HMC’s Ambulance Service recorded 634 calls, of which 480 were emer-gency calls. The majority of cases for which ambulances were called were respiratory conditions aggra-vated by dust.

During the same period, the main Paediatric Emergency Center at Al Sadd received more than 700 urgent cases, including 74 asthmatic patients, with 13 admitted for observation. Other PECs in Al Rayyan, Airport, Al Shamal and Al Daayen received more than 600 patients, including 53 asthmatic cases, with 14 admit-ted for observation.

The EDs in Al Wakra and Al Khor hospitals have also seen additional cases of respiratory diseases related to the sandstorm.

“More patients with similar

issues are expected to attend the evening clinics and HMC’s clini-cal leadership has ensured that additional staffing resources are in place to deal with the influx of patients,” said the statement.

HMC has advised the public to take basic health and safety precautions. Dust storms, which herald the transition to summer in Qatar, pose health hazards such as sinus allergies and respiratory infections.

Dust consists of tiny solid par-ticles floating in the air, which can get past the lungs’ natu-ral defences and harm sensitive lung tissue. Fine particles of dust can irritate the lungs and trig-ger allergic reactions or asthma attacks, and prolonged exposure to airborne dust can cause chronic breathing and lung problems, as well as heart disease.

Dr Al Maslamani has advised taking the following precautions during dust storms:

• Avoid going outside, espe-cially during high winds or low visibility, when dust levels are particularly harmful. If unavoid-able, spend as little time outside as possible, and avoid doing out-door exercise. Keep your windows and doors closed.

• Cover your nose and mouth with a mask or damp cloth to reduce inhalation of dust particles when going out.

• When driving, keep the car’s windows closed, and opt for air conditioning instead of fresh air.

• Avoid rubbing your eyes in order to prevent eye infection,

which is common during this sea-son. Wear protective gear such as airtight goggles. If your eyes become irritated, rinse with water. Be especially careful if you wear contact lenses.

• During hot weather, always carry a supply of water to avoid getting dehydrated.

• People who are prone to bad allergies should start using their antihistamines during this season, even before the symptoms start.

People at high risk of contract-ing respiratory infection include infants and young children, the elderly, people with a history of asthma, bronchitis, emphysema or other respiratory conditions, peo-ple with heart disease, pregnant women, and people who have to work outdoors, such as construc-tion or delivery workers. Those with chronic conditions should see their doctors as soon as possible if an infection occurs.

Those who show symptoms of allergies such as watering of the eyes, cough, wheezing or asthma have been advised to visit their nearest primary healthcare cen-tre. “Those who have severe trou-ble breathing or start coughing green sputum might have a lung infection and should go to the Emergency Department,” said Al Maslamani.

People living away from the city, where there is no structure or building to act as a barrier to the wind and reflect sunlight, are advised to avoid going out unless it is absolutely necessary.

THE PENINSULA

DOHA: Staff at the Emergency Department of the Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) had a hard time dealing with hundreds of patients rushed to the department follow-ing the massive sandstorm on Wednesday night.

Complaints have once again cropped up about long waiting time and shortage of doctors at the department which allegedly forced some patients to leave without getting the required treatment.

A patient told Al Sharq that he had to wait for long hours because there was only one doctor avail-able at the department. He said

he called up an ambulance when he developed breathing difficul-ties due to direct exposure to the sandstorm.

He said when he arrived at the department he found tens of peo-ple waiting in queue but there was only one doctor to deal with the large number of patients. Their number was growing fast and the place soon became full with patients waiting, said the daily.

Some of them were sitting on the floor and waiting to see a doc-tor. It was midnight. He had blood pressure and temperature tests as soon he reached the depart-ment but had to wait until 3am to see a doctor. The long waiting

forced many patients to leave the hospital without seeing a doctor or getting the required treatment, alleged the patient.

A nurse at the department was annoyed when people asked about the delay. Some patients left with-out seeing the doctor while some others slept on the chairs.

He urged the HMC to increase the number of doctors at the department to meet such emer-gency situations and give proper training to the staff on how to deal with patients in such circum-stances. There were many people who required immediate medical intervention, he added.

THE PENINSULA

DOHA: Istanbul has emerged as one of the most pre-ferred tourist destinations of Qataris. The number of Qatari tourists travelling to Turkey’s largest city in 2014 reached over 30,000, according to a senior official of Turkish Airlines.

“Istanbul has become one of the most favourite tourist destinations of Qatari nationals. We witnessed a remark-able 30 percent growth in the number of Qatari citizens who visited the historical city of Turkey in 2014 compared to 2013,” Mehmed Kursad Caymaz, General Manager of Turkish Airlines-Qatar was quoted as saying by Al Sharq.

Speaking at the airlines’ annual reception ceremony here recently, Caymaz said that Istanbul, the country’s economic, cultural and historical heart, was so popular among Qataris that many of them even spent their week-end holidays there.

He said: “Although there is stiff competition among the airlines, most citizens of Gulf Cooperation Council member countries, including Qatar, prefer to travel with Turkish Airlines due to several attractive factors, such as competi-tive pricing, promotional offers, luxurious hospitality and other value-added services.”

He noted that the timings of Turkish Airlines’ services from Doha to Istanbul and back were also important fac-tors, as they allowed travellers to spend more time in the Turkish city.

Caymaz said that keeping in view the growing number of passengers the airline had started four additional services to Turkey from Doha.

The carrier witnessed 11.8 percent growth in 2014 over 2013. However, the airline’s overall passenger growth in the GCC region was 6.44 percent in 2014 over 2013.

During the annual event held here recently, the airline honoured its local partners and travel agencies, including Dnata Travel, Regency Travel and Tours, United Tours and Travel and others.

THE PENINSULA

Qatari tourists visiting Istanbul in large numbers

People enjoy the comparatively fine weather yesterday on the Corniche after the sandstorm on Wednesday. SALIM MATRAMKOT

HMC deploys more staff after sandstormNumber of emergency cases surges; precaution urged

Patients return home due to long queues

Convict’s jail term reducedDOHA: A criminal Court of Appeals has reduced a convict’s jail term from seven years to one year in a case of attempt to murder.

A lower court had sentenced the convict to seven years in jail for attacking the victim with a butcher’s knife, Al Sharq reported. The convict challenged the verdict in the Court of Appeal.

Details of the case suggest that the victim had gone with two individuals to the house of the convict to resolve a minor issue caused by someone from his family.

Someone in the convict’s house had thrown stones into the house of the victim. As soon as the victim reached the house of the convict, the latter attacked him with a butcher’s knife, and the victim suffered injuries.

Since the upper court could not find any evidence that the convict intended to kill the victim, it reduced the jail term. The court also found that the duo did not have any enmity. So the court ruled that he could be held guilty of only assaulting a person and possessing a sharp weapon.

THE PENINSULA

IMF lauds Qatar’s strategy for diversifying economy

04 ISLAMFRIDAY 3 APRIL 2015

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BY DR MUZAMMIL H SIDDIQI

So glory be to Allah when you reach evening and when you arise in the morning.

Praise belongs to Him throughout Heaven and Earth, and during the night and when you are at your noon hour.

He brings the living from the dead and brings forth the dead from the living, and He revives the earth after its death. Thus shall you all be brought forth...

( Holy Quran Ar-Rum 30: 17-27)

Every system whether religious or secular has its worldview. The term “worldview” is taken from the German expression

Weltanschauung (image of the world) as was introduced by the famous phi-losopher Emmanuel Kant (d. 1804). Worldview denotes “a set of implicit or explicit beliefs or assumptions about the origin of the universe and the nature of human life.” These beliefs or assumptions affect people’s life and behavior.

Recently there is a debate going on concerning the Intelligent Design ver-sus the current theory of evolution. Some people think that evolution is the scien-tific way to understand this universe and any other belief about the origin of this world and especially human species is mythological and unscientific.

Serious students of this subject, how-ever, know that the current theory of evolution itself is based on a certain worldview. This worldview is known as “materialism.” Materialism is a phi-losophy that argues that matter is all that there is. It denies God’s existence or does not give much attention to God. According to materialists, the universe is self-existent. They assume that every-thing in the universe, including the life within it, is the product of blind, purpose-less forces of physics and chemistry.

Materialism denies the existence of the human soul too. According to this view, we are nothing but highly organized molecules, and our ideas, feelings, and emotions are simply chemical reactions inside our brain cells. The real issue is not whether some organisms have a com-mon ancestor or not. The real issue is whether life is created by Allah Almighty or evolved by itself.

Whatever worldview people have, it affects their thought andid action. Islam also has its worldview. The Qur’an con-tinuously draws our attention to the fact that this universe is created by a Powerful and Knowledgeable Creator (Al Zukhruf 43:9). here are many places in the Qur’an where Allah Almighty points towards the creation as “Aayat.” As there are Aayat (signs) in the Book of Allah, the Quran, so there are also signs in the Book of Nature. The Aayat of the Quran are called wahy matluw (recited revela-tion) while the Aayat in the universe are

called wahy mashhud, that is, witnessed revelation.

If we carefully study the “signs of Allah” in His Book and carefully inves-tigate and analyse the nature we should reach the same conclusion. In this way, Islamic position is that there is no inher-ent contradiction between religion and science. Authentic religion and proper scientific inquiries work with each other without any problem or difficulty. The difficulties come only when religion is mixed up with mythology or when science transgresses its limits and boundaries.

The Aayat from Surat Ar-Rum (30:17-27) give us a beautiful panorama of divine

signs in this world. They are given to cre-ate a worldview. Allah Almighty is call-ing us:

1. To glorify and praise Him (tasbih, hamd),

2. To reflect on His creation (tafakkur),3. To learn from observation and

research (`ilm),4. To listen to His words (sam`),5. And to use our reason (aql).There are seven important points given

in the verses as follows:1. Allah is the Creator. He creates out

of nothing. He gives life and He takes away life. All praise belongs to Him in the Heaven and on Earth. All praise is

for him in the morning, evening, noon time and at night.

So glory be to Allah when you reach evening and when you arise in the morning.

Praise belongs to Him throughout Heaven and Earth, and during the night and when you are at your noon hour.

He brings the living from the dead and brings forth the dead from the living, and He revives the earth after its death. Thus shall you all be brought forth.

(Ar-Rum 30: 17-19)2. Allah created human beings from

dust. He gave them beautiful shape and form and scattered them all over this earth. Allah created us as a special crea-tion. This is our honor. He, however, cre-ated us from dust and this means that we must not be arrogant. Dust also indi-cates the elements of the earth and so in our bodies we have the same substance as plants and animals. Our physiology resembles other creatures; but our nature is special and unique.

Among His signs is that He created you from dust; then you are spread out as human beings. (Ar-Rum 30: 20)

3. Allah created males and females with a proper proportion in nature and in human species. He made them suitable for each other. He created spouses and he also put love and mercy in the hearts of the spouses for each other. They have physical attraction and they have spir-itual links and thus they work with each other and take care of their children and other family members. Thus family is also the creation of Allah.

Among His signs is that He created spouses for you from among yourselves so that you dwell in tranquility with them. He has planted love and compassion between you; in that are signs for people who reflect. (Ar-Rum 30: 21)

It is not knowledge but the ignorance of this human diversity that creates prej-udices and divisions among peoples.

4. Human beings are many and diverse. Same type of mouth, tongue and jaws, but they have different voices and in different lands and cultures they speak different languages and dialects. The varieties of colors are immense. No two people have the same color even within the same family. Those who know this principle of variety learn how to live in peace, har-mony and justice with each other. It is not knowledge but the ignorance of this diversity that creates prejudices and divi-sions among peoples.

Among His signs are the creation of the Heaven and Earth and diversity in your tongues and colors. In that are signs for those who know. (Ar-Rum 30: 22)

5. Allah Almighty has also given us day and night for work and for rest. It is a sign of Allah Almighty that we go to work and earn for ourselves, for our families but we are also able to take rest. In this

are signs for those who hear. Those who hear the word of Allah Almighty they know the proper ways of work and the proper ways of rest and relaxation.

Among His signs are your sleeping at night and by day, and your pursuit of His bounty. In that are signs for any folk who listen. (Ar-Rum 30: 23)

This worldview is reasonable, logi-cal and scientific. There is no myth in this worldview; it is simple and clear. This worldview is comprehensive and universal.

6. Allah also tells us that thunder and lightening should remind us about Allah’s Power and Majesty. They have an ele-ment of fear but they also have a lot of advantages for us. With proper use of our intellect and reason we can take full advantage of these natural resources.

Among His signs is how He shows you lightening for both fear and anticipation. He sends water down from the sky so He may revive the earth with it following its death. In that are signs for folk who use their reason. (Ar-Rum 30: 24)

7. Finally we are reminded that we are not here forever. We shall die and Allah will resurrect us on the Day of Judgment. With one call we shall all come out. Thus we must remain conscious of Him and His guidance in this life so that we can find eternal bliss and salvation in the Hereafter.

Among His sings is that the Heaven and Earth hold firm at His command. Then whenever He calls you forth, out of the earth, you shall all come forth.

All those who in the Heavens and Earth belong to Him; all are subservient to Him.

He is the One who starts out the creation; then He shall repeat it again. It is simple for Him to do. For Him is the Supreme Example in Heaven and Earth; He is All Powerful, All Wise. (Ar-Rum 30: 25-27)

This is the Islamic worldview and this should affect our thought and action. This worldview is reasonable, logical and scientific. There is no myth in this worldview; it is simple and clear. This worldview is comprehensive and uni-versal. It covers all the basic aspects of human life: individual, family, economic and social. It answers all questions about where the life came from, where it will go and what is the purpose of life. This view makes human beings both humble and dignified. It satisfies the heart and mind. It provides guidance and helps human beings to live mor-ally and decently. It broadens the hori-zons of human beings and gives them the sense of belonging to each other. It fosters love, harmony and peace; it removes egotism and selfishness as well as racialism and rivalry.

I pray to Allah Almighty to help us with this worldview and adopt it fully in our thoughts and actions. Ameen.

www.onislam.net

The Quranic worldview

BY ROBERT D CRANE

The legacy of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) is a revival of the essence of all reli-

gions. He revitalised personal awareness and loving awe of God leading to piety, which is a core aspect of taqwa, and a resulting commitment to truth and justice.

These two pillars of Islam and of every world religion rein-force each other. The neglect of either one can result in extrem-ism. Without love and mercy, the pursuit of justice can result in cruelty and oppression. And without commitment to truth and justice, one’s love of God is powerless in the world. The two basic philosophical principles of Islam are known as monotheism and balance.

Monotheism refers to the concept that everything in the universe is interrelated with everything else in a coherent whole, and that this unity is the inevitable result of the oneness of the ultimate, the Creator of all, whom Muslims refer to as Allah (God).

Balance, the second philosoph-ical principle, emanates from the first one. Since God created the universe as a balanced whole, a task of every human is to help maintain this perfect balance by avoiding extremism.

RIGHTS, RESPONSIBILITIES

A framework for maintain-ing balance in life is provided

by Islamic law and is its very purpose. This framework is a hierarchical system of human responsibilities and rights. For example, one has a responsibility to defend one’s family and com-munity, and one has an equal responsibility to respect indi-vidual human life. Therefore, those who kill innocents in the alleged defense of their commu-nity clearly have lost balance. This violates the design of God. It is extremist and therefore immoral.

The indignities of miserable poverty and political oppres-sion can produce alienation, desperation, and extremism. Unfortunately, Muslims have suffered more than their share of both these causes and effects; but regardless of how understand-able the source of extremism, the resulting indiscriminate vio-lence and aggression is immoral and Islamically abhorrent. Extremism does not have to result from indignities, but it all too often does unless there is a source and framework for hope. The source must be spiritual, based on piety.

The framework must be a coherent body of human respon-sibilities and rights, based on a mutually reinforcing com-bination of divine guidance through revelation, and natu-ral law (signs of divine order in the universe). Without this intellectual framework, people wander in an intellectual void, and this, in turn, can produce

a spiritual malaise.Over the long run, the most

productive initiative, available to the still largely silent majority of Muslims, to marginalize and disempower extremists is to fill the intellectual and spiritual void that serves as an ocean in which the extremists can sail.

One way to fill that void is to ally with like-minded Americans of other faiths to create mutual understanding of how classical Islamic ideals, as all classical religious princi-ples and values, are consonant with classical American ide-als, even though many people do not understand or live up to the respective ideals.

Emphasising that the founders of America and the great schol-ars of Islam shared a similar vision for a society based upon truth, justice, and mercy is one good way to nurture a common-ality of purpose in life.

FRAMEWORK OF JUSTICE

Justice is the will and design of God. It is also the underpin-ning for the body of Islamic normative law which provides the intellectual framework to understand and address all of reality. Muslims need to empha-size the universal Islamic prin-ciples, known as the “Maqasid Al Shariah,” which spell out pre-cisely the human rights.

These principles, following the methodology instituted by the Prophet (peace be upon him) are considered to consist of 7

responsibilities, the practice of which actualise the correspond-ing human rights.

The first one, known as Haqq Al Din, provides the frame-work for the next six in the form of respect for a transcend-ent source of truth that guides human thought and action. God instructs us in the Qur’an: “…and the word of your Lord is perfected in truth and justice.” (Quran, 6:115)

Next is Haqq Al Nafs or Haqq Al Ruh, which is the duty to respect the human person. The spirit of every person was cre-ated by God before and outside of the creation of the physical universe and is constantly in the presence of God. This is the basis of the intimate relationship between God and the individual as expressed in the Qur’anic verse: “We are closer to him than is his own jugular vein.”

(Quran, 50:16)The next universal principle

is the duty to respect the fam-ily and the community at every level, all the way to the commu-nity of humankind as an impor-tant expression of the individual. This principle teaches that the sovereignty of the person, subject to the ultimate sovereignty of God, comes prior to and is supe-rior to any alleged sovereignty of the secular invention known as the State.

This principle teaches also that a community at the level of the nation, of a people who share a common narrative of the past,

common values in the present, and common hopes for the future, such as the Palestinians, Kurds, Chechens, Kashmiris, the Uighur in China, and the Anzanians in the Sudan, have legal existence and therefore legal rights in international law. This opposes any national or international entity that oper-ates on the principle of “might makes right.”

The fourth is the duty to respect the rights of private property in the means of pro-duction. This requires respect for institutions that broaden access to capital ownership as a univer-sal human right and as an essen-tial means to sustain respect for the human beings.

The last three universal prin-ciples in Islamic law primarily concern what we might call the quality of life. The first is the right of freedom, which requires respect for self-deter-mination of both persons and communities through political freedom, including the concept that economic democracy (which includes such ideas as giving citi-zens a voice in economic deci-sion-making and ensuring that the collective well-being is not subordinated to private profit) is a precondition for the politi-cal democracy of representative government.

The secondary principles required to give meaning to the parent principle of right of free-dom and carry it out in practice are: The ultimate accountability

of both the ruled and the ruler to God; mutual consultation, to ensure the responsiveness of the ruler to the ruled, which must be institutionalized in order to be meaningful; the duty of policy makers, by engaging in consulta-tion, to reach a consensus on any specific issue; and an independ-ent judiciary.

Another principle is respect for human dignity. The two most important requirements for indi-vidual human dignity are reli-gious freedom and gender equity.

The last universal or essential principle at the root of Islamic jurisprudence, which can be sustained only by observance of the first six principles and also is essential to each of them, is respect for knowledge.

This framework for human rights is at the very core of Islam as a religion. Fortunately, this paradigm is now being revived by what is still a minority of courageous Muslims. They are determined to fill the intellec-tual gap that has weakened the Muslim nation for more than 600 years. This revival can be part of a spiritual renaissance in all faiths, a reawakening that can transform the world.

Dr Robert Dickson Crane is the former adviser to the late US President Richard

Nixon. A convert to Islam, Dr Crane has authored or co-authored more than

a dozen books on comparative legal systems, global strategy and informa-

tion management.

Courtesy: messageinternational.org

The legacy of truth and justice

MIDDLE EAST 05FRIDAY 3 APRIL 2015

www.thepeninsulaqatar.com

Iran, world powers lay groundwork for N-deal

RIYADH: The spectre of an atomic arms race in the world’s most vola-tile region has heightened the stakes in Iran’s nuclear talks after Saudi Arabia’s repeated hints it would seek its own atomic weapons if Tehran ever did the same.

Riyadh’s unprecedented action in assembling a coalition of other Sunni Muslim countries to bomb Tehran’s Houthi allies in Yemen this week has shown how seriously it takes the threat from Iran, and how much more assertive its foreign policy has grown.

For the kingdom’s Al Saud dynasty, locked for the past decade in a regional tussle with Iran’s revolutionary theo-cratic rulers, the prospect of Tehran gaining a nuclear bomb, which it denies

seeking, is a nightmare scenario.But it is far from clear whether the

Western-allied Al Saud would really risk their country becoming a pariah state by aggressively pursuing a course of action that would bring down demands for sanc-tions, or whether it is a bluffing.

Top Saudi princes have repeat-edly said that Riyadh will push for the same nuclear rights world powers agree with Iran in the talks taking place in Lausanne, but have also hinted that if negotiations fail to stop Tehran acquiring nuclear weapons, they will do the same.

“If Iran possessed a nuclear bomb, Saudi Arabia would have to think very seriously about offsetting that. Saudi Arabia would not sit idly by,” said Abdulaziz Al Sager, head of the Gulf

Research Centre based in Jeddah and Geneva. The knowledge that the ultra-conservative Islamic kingdom and other Middle East countries could seek the same terms as Iran for their own pro-posed civilian nuclear programmes has weighed on countries negotiating a deal.

“If a deal is seen as giving Iran some-thing that is not expected, it will become the new international standard and clearly other countries, including Saudi Arabia, will seek the same. It’s why we’re so concerned,” said a diplomat in Riyadh.

Saudi Arabia’s proposed nuclear power programme has stalled in recent years over arguments over how extensive it should be and which government agency should control it, but Riyadh has still signed atomic cooperation deals with

several countries. That Riyadh consider-ing a nuclear weapons programme is even taken seriously is evidence of how far its relationship with the United States has changed in recent years after disagree-ments over Egypt and Syria following the Arab Spring.

Although it still regards Washington as a close ally, Saudi Arabia no longer believes it can count on the United States to defend it, and its allies, against what it sees as Iranian expansionism in Arab countries since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 to topple Saddam Hussein.

Its action in Yemen is seen within the kingdom as evidence that a more forth-right, assertive era is emerging in Saudi foreign policy, one that is based on it orchestrating direct action against Iran

instead of relying on Western help.“If it happens, as probably, that we

win in Yemen, it will mark the end of Iran’s decade of strength in the region and Saudi influence will become stronger and stronger,” said Saud Al Sarhan, a researcher at the King Faisal Centre in Riyadh.

“Now the gloves are off,” he added. A central element of this more aggressive Saudi posture is its relationship to other Sunni states in the region, particularly its security ties with Egypt and nuclear power Pakistan.

Both Egyptian President Abdel Fatteh el-Sisi and Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif visited Riyadh as King Salman worked to build a regional Sunni coalition to counter Iran. REUTERS

Egypt delays ending on-arrival visas for lone travellersCAIRO: Egypt yesterday post-poned a deadline to stop issuing on-arrival visas for lone travel-lers until the creation of an elec-tronic visa system, after critics said the move could damage tourism.

Government officials said last month that starting from May 15 on-arrival visas would be granted only to groups travelling with tour operators.

Lone travellers would be required to apply for visas at Egyptian consulates, in a move aimed at bolstering border security.

But the deadline has been “postponed” until an elec-tronic visa system is in place, the foreign ministry said in a statement.

“The purpose of this measure is to organise the process of foreign-ers entering the country within a framework that respects national sovereignty, considers national security, and at the same time does not affect tourism,” the min-istry said.

It gave no timeline for when the electronic visa system might be in place.

Egypt is trying to woo back tourists after almost four years of unrest hit the once-thriving industry and as it battles mili-tants who have killed scores of security personnel.

About 10 million tourists vis-ited in 2014, down sharply from a 2010 figure of almost 15 million people drawn to the country’s archaeological sites and Red Sea resorts.

AFP

CAIRO: Militants in Egypt’s Sinai killed 15 soldiers and two civilians in attacks on check-points yesterday, security offi-cials said, the deadliest in months despite a massive army campaign against the insurgents.

The gunmen, believed to be members of the Islamic State group’s Egypt branch, simulta-neously opened fire with assault rifles and grenade launchers at five checkpoints in the restive north of the peninsula, the secu-rity officials said.

Medics confirmed 15 soldiers and two civilians were killed in the attacks. Military sources said 15 militants also died in an exchange of fire but the toll could not be verified by medics.

It was the deadliest attack in Sinai since suicide car bombers and gunmen killed more than 30 soldiers at a military base in North Sinai’s capital El-Arish in January, prompting Egypt’s president to shakeup the mili-tary command. The army has since claimed it killed more than 170 militants in air strikes and ambushes.

Thursday’s attacks suggested the jihadists were still capable of conducting large scale attacks in broad daylight despite a massive army deployment.

In a separate incident, a mor-tar shell fell on a house east of El Arish, wounding three civilians, police and health officials said.

Ansar Beit Al Maqdis — Partisans of Jerusalem in English — changed its name last year to the Sinai Province after pledging

allegiance to IS, which controls territory in Iraq and Syria.

The group, which has claimed several sophisticated attacks in Sinai and the Nile valley, now wants to establish a province of the self-declared IS “caliphate”.

After the army ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013, militants claimed a string of deadly attacks against secu-rity forces which they claimed were in retaliation for a deadly government crackdown against Islamists. Ansar Beit Al Maqdis had also claimed deadly cross border raids against Israel before Morsi’s overthrow, and repeatedly bombed a gas pipeline leading to the Jewish state.

Most of their attacks have targeted police and soldiers, but the group also took responsibil-ity for a 2014 suicide bombing aboard a tourist coach that killed three South Koreans and their Egyptian driver.

President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, the former army chief who ousted Mursi, has pledged to eradicate the militants believed to be led by a mysterious Egyptian cleric known as Abu Osama Al Masri.

The militants, who have drawn recruits from Sinai’s long-mar-ginalised Bedouin, have taken advantage of the peninsula’s desert and mountain terrain to survive. Yesterday’s attack came as the US pledged to free up a delivery of F-16 fighter jets to Egypt and channel military aid into secur-ing the strategic peninsula Egypt regained from Israel in 1981 follow-ing a peace treaty. AFP

JERUSALEM: Israeli security forces were sweeping villages yesterday near Hebron in the southern West Bank fearing that a missing Israeli may have been kidnapped by Palestinian militants, the army said.

The army is “performing exten-sive searches... following a police report of the suspected abduction of an Israeli citizen in the area,” a military statement said.

Local media said the man was travelling with another Israeli when their vehicle suffered a flat tyre. One of them went for help while the other remained in the

vehicle and called police when his companion did not return after around 30 minutes, they reported.

Last June, the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers in the Hebron area triggered a series of events that led to a war in the Gaza Strip. The incident sparked a massive manhunt in which hun-dreds of Palestinians were arrested and at least five killed.

In July, 16-year-old Palestinian Mohammed Abu Khder was kid-napped from east Jerusalem and burned to death in a suspected Jewish revenge attack.

Meanwhile, Israeli troops

arrested Palestinian legislator Khalida Jarrar yesterday for posing unspecified “substantial security risks,” a military spokes-woman said.

Jarrar is a senior member of the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), deemed a “terrorist organisation” by the Israeli justice ministry.

Last August, she was served an Israeli order banning her from her home in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah and send-ing her into internal exile in the town of Jericho.

AFP

Militants kill 15 soldiers in Sinai

LAUSANNE: Iran and world powers agreed yesterday on the framework of a potentially historic deal aimed at curbing Tehran’s nuclear drive after marathon talks in Switzerland.

It marks a major breakthrough in a 12-year standoff between Iran and the West, which has long feared Tehran wants to build a nuclear bomb. Iran has agreed to curtail its nuclear programme in return for the lifting of punish-ing sanctions, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said after eight days of talks.

The main outlines agreed now have to be finalised in a highly complex agreement by June 30.

US Secretary of State John Kerry hailed a “big day” while Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said the drafting of a full agreement would begin immedi-ately with the aim of completing it by the June 30 deadline.

Kerry tweeted that the glo-bal powers and Iran “now have parameters to resolve major issues on nuclear programme. Back to work soon on a final deal”.

Iranian media said the deal will include Iran slashing by two-thirds, to 6,000 from 19,000, the number of centrifuges, which can make fuel for nuclear power but also the core of a nuclear bomb.

Mogherini, in a joint press statement with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, also said that the design of a new reactor will be changed so that no weapons-grade plutonium can be produced.

The Fordo facility, built deep into a mountain, will remain open but will not be used for enrich-ment but for research and devel-opment. In return, Mogherini said, nuclear-related US and EU sanctions will be lifted once the UN atomic watchdog has veri-fied that Iran has implemented its promises.

The powers hope that the deal will make it virtually impossible for Iran to make nuclear weap-ons under the guise of its civilian programme and end a crisis rag-ing for 12 years. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said however that there was still work to be done.

A successful implementation could put Iran and the United States on the road to better rela-tions after 35 years of animosity.

In addition, the powers and Iran hope will finally silence all talk of military action by the United States and Israel against Iran. Israeli Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz, whose country is widely assumed to have the

bomb, warned before Thursday’s announcement that the “military option is on the table”.

Brigadier General Hossein Dehghan, the Iranian defence minister, said that similar com-ments on Tuesday by Pentagon chief Ashton Carter were “designed to affect the rational atmosphere” of the nuclear talks.

The White House had said overnight that it was prepared to walk away from the talks in Lausanne.

Iranian negotiators have been under pressure from domestic hardliners not to give too much away — while also delivering on Rouhani’s promise to win the lift-ing of sanctions..

US President Barack Obama also needs a deal which he can sell to hostile Republicans in Congress, who remain sceptical of Iran’s pledges and are threat-ening to push for new sanctions from April 14.

Republicans and US allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia fear that if too much of Iran’s nuclear programme is left intact, it will still have the ability to obtain a nuclear bomb.

With the world’s fourth big-gest oil and second biggest gas reserves, the energy indus-try is the cornerstone of Iran’s

economy, but it was hit hard by the American and European embargo imposed in 2012.

The sanctions sent the economy of the Opec member state into recession but it is now reporting growth again.

A preliminary nuclear accord struck between Iran and world powers provides a good basis to reach what could be a “very good” comprehensive deal,

British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said.

Hammond said a fuller deal that kept to the agreed param-eters of the initial agreement would provide reassurance that Tehran’s nuclear programme was peaceful, but said intensive talks to thrash out the “fine detail” now lay ahead. “This is well beyond what many of us thought possible even 18 months ago and a good

basis for what I believe could be a very good deal,” Hammond said in a statement. “But there is still more work to do.”

Hammond’s intervention came after Iran and world powers reached a framework deal on curb-ing Tehran’s nuclear programme at marathon talks in Switzerland on Thursday that will allow further negotiations towards a final agree-ment. AFP/REUTERS

Saudis watch Iran talks with own atomic plans in mind

Iran to slash number of centrifuges to 6,000 from 19,000

FROM LEFT: US Secretary of State John Kerry, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini arrive to deliver a statement in Lausanne, Switzerland, yesterday.

Soldiers search for a missing Israeli near the West Bank city of Hebron, yesterday.

Israel launches West Bank manhunt over kidnap fears

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Cartoon Arts International / The New York Times Syndicate

BY MEGAN MCARDLE

IS Obamacare enrollment stalling?

That’s the suggestion of a recent New York Times article that basi-cally looks at the enrollment differ-

ences between the Affordable Care Act’s state and federal exchanges. Many states that had good enrollment for the 2014 season saw little increase in 2015. The federal exchanges did better -- but that might just be catch-up as they enroll folks they would have picked up earlier had the exchanges not melted down.

Robert Laszewski, author of the Health Care Policy and Marketplace Review blog, argues that if true, it will have pretty serious implications for the long-term health of the exchanges.

Remember, the prices we’re see-ing right now don’t necessarily reflect what the price will be over the long term, because there are all sorts of temporary cross-subsidies that will expire at the end of 2016. The future path of prices will depend on a lot of things, but one very important factor is the size of the insurance pool.

The magic of statistics tells us that larger

insurance pools make for more stable outcomes, because the larger the popu-lation in the pools, the more that ran-dom variances in outcomes will tend to average out. If your market only has a few thousand people in it, it’s easier to get a few more cancer patients than you expected, whacking you with big, unex-pected costs. The more people you add, the larger the number of people it will take to make your outcomes measurably different from actuarial expectations ...

and so the less likely this becomes.Even worse, the smaller the pool,

the more likely it is that you’re get-ting adverse selection. Who is most likely to go without insurance? That’s right: people who aren’t spending very much on health care right now. A few of those people deciding to forgo insurance doesn’t matter much.

But if you end up enrolling only 50 percent of the eligible population, it’s a fairly safe bet that the missing 50 per-cent are disproportionately healthy, and that number is large enough to throw off your projections. This is potentially a recipe for the dreaded “death spiral,” in which the healthiest people drop out, raising the average cost of health care for the remaining sick people, forcing insurers to raise prices, so the healthier folks decide to drop out. So if the fears expressed in the Times are correct, it’s potentially a very big deal.

But are they correct?One potential piece of supporting evi-

dence: A new report from consultancy Avalere says the exchanges are strug-gling to sign up the middle class. People with incomes close to the poverty line and who can buy exchange policies for just a few dollars a month are eagerly snapping up the product. More than three-quarters of the eligible folks mak-ing less than 150 percent of the federal poverty line have enrolled. But as you get north of 150 percent of the poverty line, the numbers start rapidly declin-ing: Less than half the eligibles between 150 and 200 percent have enrolled, and by the time you get to 400 percent of the poverty line (about $47,000 for an individual), only 2 percent of those eli-gible have signed up. Avalere says that 83 percent of 2015 enrollees make less than 250 percent of the federal poverty line, which equates to less than $30,000 a year for a single individual.

What does that tell us? People don’t seem to want exchange policies unless there’s a substantial subsidy. Which means that at higher income levels, there could be substantial adverse selec-tion. But it’s a little early yet to worry. Obamacare isn’t all carrots; there are

also some big sticks, in the form of mandate penalties. And many of those higher-income folks, who are actually calculating the expected value of buy-ing a policy rather than snapping up a nearly free good, haven’t yet heard about the mandate penalties. They’ll find out when they file their taxes — and they’ll probably find that the penalty is bigger than they’re expecting.

Moreover, that penalty will continue to get bigger for several years, because it was designed with a phase-in; it starts low, then rises to something significant. As more people get hit with bigger pen-alties for going without insurance, at least some of them will sign up.

Will that be enough to make the insurance pools stable? It’s way too early to say. But by the same token, it’s way too early to say that enrollment is falling short. We’ll find out in three or four years, when the temporary sub-sidies and the phase- ins have ended, and the program has settled down into something more like its final form.

— Megan McArdle is a Bloomberg View columnist who writes on econom-ics, business and public policy.

WP-BLOOMBERG

NIGERIA has passed the most critical political stress test it has faced in decades. Last weekend,

Africa’s most populous nation held its most competitive race ever for president. Shrugging off a six-week postponement, fears of widespread political violence, ongoing terrorism by the Islamist militant group Boko Haram and doubts about the readiness of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Nigerians staged a credible and generally peaceful contest that has set the stage for a democratic change of power. With numerous critical elections set to occur

over the next year and a half across Africa, the outcome offers an important and positive example of a working democracy.

For the first time since Nigeria’s return to civilian democracy in 1999, an opposition candidate for president unseated the incumbent. The electoral commission declared Wednesday that retired Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari defeated President Goodluck Jonathan by a decisive margin.

The election was not without prob-lems: Electronic card readers in some areas malfunctioned, and there was evidence of inflated voter turnout in Jonathan’s strongholds. At least 56

people were killed in incidents around the country, including in attacks by Boko Haram. However, none of these factors called the results into question. The outcome was independently veri-fied using statistical technology, leading to a more transparent process.

Buhari inherits massive challenges. Nigerians will expect their military to improve the effectiveness of its cam-paign against Boko Haram. At the same time, the new administration must address the long-standing underdevel-opment and poverty in Nigeria’s north-ern states that helps fuel the insurgency and also find a way to assist the almost 2 million Nigerians internally displaced

as a result of Boko Haram’s violence. Plummeting oil prices mean a grim out-look for the country’s economy. Buhari has also promised to tackle Nigeria’s deeply entrenched political corruption.

The United States has a major inter-est in the new government’s success. It is the biggest foreign investor in Nigeria, home to Africa’s largest economy, and its past efforts to cooperate on secu-rity affairs while also promoting human rights have often ended in frustration. For now, this is a moment to salute the Nigerian people, many of whom patiently waited for hours to register and cast ballots.

The Washington Post.

Healthcare enrollment in America awaits a verdict

We have never been so close to a deal preventing Iran from having nuclear weapons.

Quote ofthe day

Angela MerkelGerman Chancellor

The other side

The magic of statistics tells us that larger insurance pools make for more stable outcomes, because the larger the population in the pools, the more that random variances in outcomes will tend to average out.

Obamacare isn’t all carrots; there are also some big sticks, in the form of mandate penalties. And many of those higher-income folks, who are actually calculating the expected value of buying a policy rather than snapping up a nearly free good, haven’t yet heard about the mandate penalties. They’ll find out when they file their taxes — and they’ll probably find that the penalty is bigger than they’re expecting.

AL SHABAAB has done it again. In a horrendous display of egregious intentions topped by reprehensible ideology, the Islamist militant group from Somalia has killed 147 people in Kenya.

This time it wasn’t a mall or a diplomatic mission, but a seat of learning. The defiant militants targetted a university in the east African country that saw the group attack a mall in 2013. Students sleeping in the hostels of Garissa University College were woken up by gunfire and grenade blasts in a pre-dawn attack. In a 15-hour siege,four Shabaab members strapped with explosives shot their way into the university after killing the two guards. They took hostages inside the campus and attacked students after finding out their faith.

Photographs of students being escorted out of the university in their nightwear told a sordid tale.The gruesome assault had snuffed out the lives of 147 people in a siege meant to show the power of the group as a militant force in east Africa.

Al Shabaab, which has for years been fighting the government of Somalia in an attempt to overthrow the government, has ties to Al Qaeda. Insurgency in Africa has been gaining ground despite bouts of frailty when governments under public censure and international pressure hit back.

The Garissa University attack is the biggest on Kenyan soil after the US embassy was bombed in Nairobi in 1998. The Westgate mall attack in Nairobi in 2013 was perpetrated by

four Al Shabaab militants who killed 67 people. The Somalia-based militant group claims to be at war with the Kenyan government, which has sent troops into the country to fight its advance.

The Kenya carnage comes at a time of sporadic attacks by Islamist groups in many parts of the world. The rise of Al Qaeda and the later surge of Islamic State has inspired many a militant group with narrow sectarian aims to keep going despite challenges. Africa has lately seen a number of terror groups supported by Al Qaeda raise their

heads in countries with weak institutions and frail democratic structures. It was only on Wednesday that Nigerian president-elect Muhammadu Buhari vowed the full force of the state against Boko Haram, the militant group that is giving Nigeria a tough time. Al Qaeda may have been weakened at the core by the death of Osama bin Laden, but the militant group has spawned a number of franchises in parts of east, west and north Africa. Mali, Chad, Senegal, Morocco, Mauritania, Libya, Nigeria, Somalia, and Kenya have been fighting groups that have declared allegiance to Al Qaeda.

Western powers led by the United States are spreading their resources thin in helping other governments fight insurgencies.The international community needs to close ranks in fighting flagship terror groups like Al Qaeda that inspire smaller outfits.

University carnage

The attack on a Kenya university by Somalia’s Al Shabaab shows that the militant group remains potent.

Editorial

06 VIEWS FRIDAY 3 APRIL 2015

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Nigeria’s day in the sun

VIEWS 07FRIDAY 3 APRIL 2015

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Reality alters Greece, and Syriza’s promises The bad GOP vs the good GOPBY LEONID BERSHIDSKY

Reality does depressing things to dreams. It kills them off quickly and mer-

cilessly, and because people have short memories and dreams are short-lived, we often forget what they were like when they began. This is why it’s worthwhile to compare Greece’s first “full summary” of reforms, released Thursday, to be undertaken so the country can unlock financing from international creditors, with the election programme that the ruling Syriza party announced last September.

In the initial plan — the so-called Thessaloniki programme — Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras, still four months from becom-ing prime minister, promised a bold strategy consisting of four “pillars”:

— confronting the humanitar-ian crisis;

— restarting the economy and promoting tax justice;

— regaining employment;— transforming the political

system to deepen democracy.The first pillar contained meas-

ures costing a total of ¤1.882bn (yes, it was calculated with that kind of professional-looking pre-cision). It included free electricity for households below the poverty line; rent, meal, transportation and medical care subsidies for the poor; and the reintroduction of the “Christmas bonus” for 1.3 million retirees with low pensions. The current reform programme abandons most of these measures, clinging only to the Christmas bonus at a cost of ¤600m, and asking for another 152 million for two other technical adjustments to pension legislation not men-tioned in the original programme. Free meals and energy are off the table.

The second pillar of Syriza’s campaign platform was all about alleviating tax pressure on the

middle class. Tsipras proposed replacing Greece’s universal property tax with a levy on big properties only, at a cost to the government of ¤2bn a year. Other ideas included bringing back the ¤12,000 annual income tax thresh-old (at a cost of ¤1.5bn per year) and allowing people to pay their tax debts in instalments (benefit of ¤3bn in the first year). The last two proposals remain in the Greek government’s current pro-posal, but the numbers attached to them are much smaller. The reintroduction of an income tax threshold and changes to the number of brackets are supposed to cost ¤300m to ¤400m in 2015 and ¤400m per year onwards. Those exact amounts are sup-posed to be recouped through the instalment scheme, allowing some of Greece’s 3.5 million insolvent taxpayers to start paying down their debts.

Last year, Tsipras vowed to restore collective bargaining agreements and make people harder to fire. He promised an employment programme to cre-ate 300,000 jobs, worth ¤3bn the first year. The first promise is there in the current government

programme, but formulated so as not to alarm the creditors: Greece is about to “include establishing minimum employment terms” through a national collective labour agreement and start work-ing to increase the minimum wage (with a “negligible” fiscal impact). The massive job creation pro-gramme is gone.

The political pillar, consisting of nebulous measures to enhance the Greek democracy, was sup-posed to be fiscally neutral, so it’s not part of Greece’s discussion with its creditors.

The Thessaloniki programme was based on a Syriza govern-ment’s ability to negotiate a partial debt write-off, a tem-porary moratorium on debt servicing and a link between eco-nomic growth and debt service. But the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund have not agreed to those things, and Greece has had to accept a continuation of the current bail-out programme, with the credi-tors periodically reviewing the progress of reforms. Tsipras entered the negotiation unable to walk away from the table, and

that quickly eroded his bargaining power. That was the first reality check.

Back when Tsipras made his bold election promises, he did not foresee having to act under extreme financial constraints, with funding about to run out almost every day. His govern-ment has had to raid social secu-rity funds to pay pensions and salaries, and bank runs have made Greece’s banking sector desperate for more ECB assistance.

The second reality check must have been domestic: The shock of finding out how things really stood from a government’s prospective. Like any opposition party in a badly managed, non- transpar-ent country, Syriza had only an approximate idea of the costs and benefits of its proposed meas-ures — or, indeed, of why previ-ous governments hadn’t done all these nice, kind, sensible things for the Greek people. It turns out it wasn’t because those governments were just evil and criminal.

Tsipras’s administration has produced its reform programme only after two months of inces-sant nagging from the euro area’s finance ministers for more details and quantitative goals. The gov-ernment needed time to figure out what it could realistically do. While the Thessaloniki pro-gramme had everything added up to the last thousand euros, the current plan has no such preci-sion. Its projected positive fiscal impact ranges from 3.5 billion to 5 billion. The best thing a new party can really promise voters is the purity of its intentions. The specif-ics will always be tied to necessity and constraints. That’s why the Greek opposition, led by Antonis Samaras, is now offering Tsipras help in the event his concessions to creditors make it impossible for him to hold his ruling coalition together. Reality is harsh, but it can’t be tuned out.

WP-BLOOMBERG

BY STEPHEN STROMBERG

The Obama administration officially committed the United States this week

to cutting greenhouse-gas emis-sions by 26 percent to 28 percent within 10 years. This is the sort of US leadership necessary to keep major emitting nations moving toward significant curbs on the gases that cause global warming, a world effort that negotiators hope to formalise at a major con-ference in Paris this year.

As you might expect, much of the Republican reaction was irre-sponsible and counterproductive. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky, for one, tried to sabotage the incipient global carbon effort: “Considering that two-thirds of the US federal gov-ernment hasn’t even signed off on the Clean Power Plan and 13 states have already pledged to fight it, our international part-ners should proceed with caution before entering into a binding, unattainable deal,” he said. In other words, McConnell coun-seled other countries that the United States wasn’t likely to keep its promises . . . because of opposition from McConnell and his party.

That’s not to say that Republicans have to accept the Obama administration’s policy without criticism or objection. Here, for example, is Sen Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn, on Tuesday’s announcement: “The Obama administration’s national energy policy is practically a national windmill policy — which is like going to war in sailboats when nuclear warships are available. If the administration is serious about achieving energy inde-pendence and protecting our

environment, it should work with Congress to unleash the clean, cheap, reliable sources of energy we need to power our 21st-century economy. That means doubling government-sponsored energy research, building more nuclear reactors, ending Washington’s obsession with wasteful subsi-dies like the wind production tax credit and solving our country’s nuclear waste stalemate.”

Alexander didn’t challenge the need to cut carbon dioxide emissions. He didn’t argue that American leadership will be use-less because other nations won’t follow. He didn’t even object to President Obama’s topline goal to cut emissions 26 percent to 28 percent. Alexander criticised the way the president wants to get there, and he offered an alternative.

The wisdom of his alterna-tive is debatable. But that’s just the sort of discussion the country should have been hav-ing for years — about how, not whether, to cut emissions. The GOP has been nearly absent on that question.

Research suggests that the glo-bal warming issue is now a matter of political-cultural identity and loyalty, with Republican climate change doubters resolutely resist-ant to evidence-based appeals from outsiders. It might be that only Republicans can move their party in a more productive direc-tion. All the more reason for GOP leaders, who should know bet-ter, to behave more like Lamar Alexander and less like Mitch McConnell.

Stephen Stromberg is a Washington Post editorial writer. He specialises in domestic policy, including energy, the environment, legal affairs and public health.

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Iran talks show Obama believes he can

BY GREG JAFFE

Much of President Barack Obama’s foreign policy agenda has been foisted upon him dur-

ing his six years in office. He inherited two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, nei-ther of which he’s been able to end. He’s had to react to chaos in the Middle East and a Russian incursion in Ukraine.

The negotiations with Iran over its nuclear programme are different. They are Obama’s choice, and he’s fought to keep them moving forward since the beginning of his presidency despite setbacks and second-guessing from Republicans, fellow Democrats and long-time foreign allies.

The latest setback came when the White House agreed to suspend its self-imposed March 31 deadline for an agree-ment with Iran and keep talking in the hope that remaining differences might soon be resolved. Significant gaps, how-ever, remained.

The president’s desire to keep nego-tiating reflects both the importance he has placed on the talks and his particu-lar view of how American leadership, persistence and engagement with deter-mined enemies can change the world.

Obama often talks about moments in which American leadership can “bend the arc of human history.” An Iran accord represents exactly such an opportunity, as well as one of the most risky foreign policy gambles of his presidency.

The talks revolve around an issue — nuclear proliferation — that has been a major focus for Obama since he first arrived in Washington. As a senator, he called for a world without nuclear weap-ons. As president, his first foreign policy speech focused on the dangers that a ter-rorist group, such as Al Qaeda, might someday acquire a nuclear bomb.

“If we believe that the spread of nuclear weapons is inevitable,” he told a crowd of thousands in Prague’s main square, “then in some ways we are admitting to our-selves that the use of a nuclear weapon is inevitable.”

The Iran negotiations also reflect Obama’s abiding belief that the best way to change the behaviour of hostile governments with spotty human rights records isn’t through isolation or the threat of military force, but persistent engagement. In recent years, Obama has pushed to open up trade and diplomatic relations with countries such as Cuba and Myanmar, also known as Burma.

“He believes the more people inter-act with open societies, the more they will want to be part of an open society,” said Ivo Daalder, Obama’s former Nato ambassador and head of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

Iran, a longtime enemy and sponsor of some of the world’s most potent mili-tias and terror groups, is the biggest and boldest test of Obama’s theory. “It’s not like we are all waking up in a cold sweat worried about Burma and Cuba,” said Julianne Smith, a former deputy national security adviser to Vice President Joe Biden and senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. “This is the crown jewel of six years of diplomatic effort, and the president has worked it.”

Even if the United States and its allies secure a deal with Iran, the accord could backfire. Iran could cheat, although evad-ing intrusive inspections will be difficult for the Islamic republic, said White House officials. If US allies, such as Saudi Arabia, think that the accord doesn’t do enough to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, they could start their own programme, triggering an arms race in one of the most dangerous and unsta-ble regions of the world.

The most immediate concern is that

an emboldened Iran will use the financial windfall that comes with the easing of economic sanctions to boost support to its proxy militias in a region that’s already being torn to pieces by sectarian war.

Obama has acknowledged those risks but insists that the alternatives to an Iran deal — tighter sanctions or military strikes — would be much worse. As the negotiations have progressed, Obama has become more personally involved in the talks, said current and former aides. He can describe in minute detail the number and type of centrifuges that Iran would be allowed to retain under a deal.

In public comments, he often has put the chances of striking an accord at less than 50 percent. Privately, aides said, he has demanded briefings on every minor setback and reversal.

His personal involvement demon-strates how important the negotiations have become to his presidency.

Obama and senior aides have bemoaned the tendency in Washington to look first to the military to solve America’s most vexing foreign policy problems. “The debates around the Middle East don’t seem to recognise that the Iraq war took place,” said Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser to the president.

There continues to be “an instinctive reach for military solutions as the only sign of America’s seriousness,” he said.

The Iran negotiations, for Obama, offer a new model. The talks have played down threats of US military force and instead placed a heavy emphasis on American diplomacy and statecraft. The United States has acted as part of a broad inter-national coalition that includes Russia and China, a change from an earlier era in which Obama insisted the United States had too often ignored its allies and tried to go it alone.

The negotiations are also personal for the president. Obama was dismissed as dangerously naive in 2007 by then-candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton for suggesting that he would engage in “aggressive personal diplomacy” with Iran. More recently, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint meeting of Congress, where the Israeli leader levelled the same charge. Netanyahu’s speech infuriated the White House. Two weeks later, 47 Republicans sent an open letter to Iran’s leaders say-ing that they would seek to undo any agreements that the administration and its partners reached with Tehran.

“There’s a determination to prove the Republicans wrong,” said Smith, “and to prove the world wrong.”

A successful accord with Iran also would give credence to Obama’s core belief that the United States must be open to negotiations with its enemies. In 2007, then-presidential candidate Obama said it was a “disgrace” that the Bush administration hadn’t done more to talk with America’s enemies in the Middle East.

“The notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them — which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration — is ridiculous,” he added.

In Iran, Obama has chosen to negotiate with one of America’s biggest and most destabilising enemies. Iranian money, weapons and combat advisers have helped President Bashar Al Assad cling to power in Syria. In Lebanon and Yemen, Iranian-backed militias have sown unrest against US allies. Iran’s support has helped Hamas launch deadly attacks on Israel, America’s closest ally in the region.

Although Iran is working alongside the United States in Iraq to destroy Islamic State insurgents, Iranian-backed militias were responsible for some of the deadliest attacks on US troops prior to 2011.

WP-BLOOMBERG

As the negotiations have progressed, Obama has become more personally involved in the talks, said current and former aides. He can describe in minute detail the number and type of centrifuges that Iran would be allowed to retain under a deal.

US President Barack Obama (left) receives an update on Wednesday in the Situation Room of the White House in Washington from Secretary of State John Kerry during the Iran nuclear talks.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras speaking in parliament in Athens.

08 MIDDLE EASTFRIDAY 3 APRIL 2015

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Oman ready to help peace talks in YemenMUSCAT/ADEN/RIYADH: Oman is ready to help the United Nations mediate in Yemen’s war, the foreign min-ister of the neighbouring sul-tanate said yesterday, but the combatants show no signs they are ready to hold talks on end-ing the week-old war.

Yusuf bin Alawi said Oman had previously passed messages between Yemen’s Houthis and their Saudi foes, but neither had sought out such contact since Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations began air strikes against the Houthis on March 26.

Although Oman could help the United Nations bring the foes to a “roundtable”, he said peace efforts should be taken up at the UN Security Council, the world’s top security body, and hosted some-where outside the Middle East.

“The UN is an organisation that has been tasked to main-tain peace for all the powers involved, although we will not hesitate to play a role in order to help Yemenis, to help the United Nations, to encourage both par-ties involved in the crisis to come to a roundtable and discuss their own future,” he added.

Oman, which traditionally seeks to play a conciliator role in a turbulent region, is the only Gulf Arab country to sit out the Saudi-led bombing campaign. The Houthis regard it as neutral and hence potentially as an acceptable mediator.

“Oman has distanced itself

from the war, and this is a wise decision,” a member of the Houthi politburo, Mohammed Al Bukhaiti, said. Saudi Arabia said yesterday a soldier was shot dead and 10 wounded by gunfire from across the Yemen border, its first casualties since launching an operation against Shia rebels a week ago.

The Border Guards at a post in the kingdom’s southwestern Asir region came “under fire from a mountainous interior zone,” the interior ministry said in a state-ment on the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA).

Saudi Arabia has 150,000 troops and 100 warplanes assigned to the Yemen operation, according to a Saudi adviser, but says it has no plan for now to send ground forces into the neighbouring country.

Last Friday a US defence official said two Saudi pilots who ejected from their F-15 jet off Yemen’s coast had been rescued.

The Saudi-led coalition is aim-ing to defeat the Houthi rebels who seized power in the capi-tal Sana’a in February, and who Riyadh feared would take over the entire country and shift it into Iran’s orbit.

In Jizan region, a border dis-trict adjacent to Asir, the closure of 49 schools will be extended for a week beginning on Sunday as a “precautionary measure” because of their location near the Yemeni frontier, the SPA said, citing an education official.

Houthi fighters and their allies seized a central Aden district yesterday striking a heavy blow against the Saudi-led coalition which has waged a week of air strikes to try to stem advances by the Iran-allied Shia group.

Hours after the Houthis took over Aden’s central Crater neigh-bourhood, unidentified armed men arrived by sea in an area of the port city which the Iran-allied Shia fighters have yet to reach.

A Yemeni official denied that ground troops had landed in Aden and a port official said they were armed guards who had disem-barked from a Chinese ship trying to bring aid or evacuate civilians.

The Houthis and their sup-porters swept into the heart of Aden despite an eight-day air campaign led by Riyadh to stem their advances.

The southern port city has been the last major holdout of fight-ers loyal to the Saudi-backed President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi, who fled Aden a week ago and has watched from Riyadh as the vestiges of his authority have crumbled.

The Houthis, who took over the capital Sana’a six months ago in alliance with supporters of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, turned on Aden last month and have kept up their advances despite the Saudi-led interven-tion which aims to return Hadi to power.

Residents of Aden’s cen-tral Crater district said Houthi

TUNIS: Tunisia yesterday accused Turkey of facilitating the transit of fighters bound for neighbouring Syria and Iraq, where thousands of its citizens have joined the ranks of jihadist groups.

The accusation by Foreign Minister Taieb Baccouche comes just two weeks after the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for a deadly attack on tourists at the Bardo National Museum.

Tunisia says 3,000 of its citizens are fighting alongside militant groups in Syria, Iraq and Libya, and that 500 battle-hardened

veterans have returned to the country where they are consid-ered a security threat.

“We have asked our ambassa-dor in Turkey to draw the atten-tion of the Turkish authorities to the fact that we do not want a Muslim nation such as Turkey to help directly or indirectly ter-rorism in Libya by facilitating the movements of terrorists,” Baccouche said.

He said Turkey was a “pas-sage point” for fighters who go to Syria or for those who travel to Libya and then infiltrate across the porous border into Tunisia.

Tunisia has said that the two gunmen who had killed 22 foreign tourists and a policeman at the Bardo on March 18 had trained on the use of weapons in Libya, where IS has gained a foothold in recent months.

The two assailants were them-selves gunned down, and on Sunday Tunisia said it had killed the alleged leader of the jihadists behind the massacre, Algerian Lokmane Abou Sakhr. Ankara has reported a number of arrests in recent months and insists it is doing all it can to control the bor-der. AFP

Tunisia accuses Turkey of facilitating militants’ transit

BEIRUT: President Bashar Al Assad’s regime was reeling yes-terday from a series of military setbacks after rebels seized a major provincial capital and a key border post in less than a week.

Experts said the losses were a reflection of the regime’s weari-ness after more than four years of civil war and increasing regional efforts to counter Iran’s backing for Assad.

The taking by rebels late on Wednesday of the last border crossing with Jordan in loyal-ist hands and three days earlier of provincial capital Idlib have dealt major blows to the regime, experts said.

And Wednesday’s seizure of parts of a Palestinian refugee camp inside Damascus by the Islamic State group has shown the growing reach of a militant force already in control of large parts of Syria and Iraq.

“It’s indicative of a problem the regime has that has been increas-ingly obvious — it has a manpower shortage,” said Noah Bonsey, a Syria expert at the International Crisis Group.

“It has constraints on how much ground it can gain and how much it can hold outside of its core areas.”

Rebels seized the border cross-ing with Jordan after heavy fight-ing, leaving the government with no presence on a key frontier.

It was the latest regime loss in the southern Daraa province, after rebels took the ancient town of Bosra Al Sham last week and seized an important army base in January.

And Saturday’s capture of Idlib in northwestern Syria by

Al Qaeda’s affiliate, Al Nusra Front, made it the second pro-vincial capital in rebel hands after IS-controlled Raqa.

By taking the city, Al Nusra was able to consolidate its hold over a large area of Syria bor-dering Turkey after heavy street fighting and regime air strikes that reportedly killed at least 130 people.

Yezid Sayigh, senior associ-ate at the Carnegie Middle East Centre, said the military setbacks are “significant losses for the regime” even if “they don’t change the overall strategic picture”.

“The regime still retains impor-tant assets, while the rebels are still limited by organisational and manpower problems.

“But the real implication is that both are badly weakened and unable to achieve a decisive breakthrough anywhere,” he said.

‘MESSAGE’ TO IRAN

Bonsey said the losses in Daraa and Idlib were part of “a larger pattern” of the regime being pushed out of areas where it can-not commit significant forces or count on backing from its regional allies, Iran and Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah movement.

“The regime is increasingly dependent on Hezbollah, foreign fighters and non-Syrian militias facilitated by Iran to accomplish military objectives,” he said.

“But in places like Idlib, Hezbollah and Iran are not will-ing to invest with boots on the ground.”

Sayigh said Al Nusra “has emerged as a backbone of the armed rebellion, especially in Idlib province” and noted that the group has a “superior organisation

and battle command”.“In Syria we see a trend

towards three main armed camps: the regime, ISIS (IS), and other groups that are gradually draw-ing under an umbrella in which Nusra is the leading group.”

Increasing support for rebels from some of Syria’s neighbours, like Jordan and Turkey, and Gulf countries is another key factor behind recent gains, experts said.

“There has been a regional decision between Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan and Turkey to stop the Syrian regime from advanc-ing,” said Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel Rahman.

He said the rebels had been recently supplied with new weap-ons from Jordan and Turkey.

“Regional powers want to retake the initiative. It’s a mes-sage that they want to stop advances by Iran, the regime’s ally, in Syria but also elsewhere like Yemen” where a Saudi-led coalition is bombing Tehran-backed rebels, he said.

Assad’s regime has been bat-tling a wide-ranging insurgency since an Arab Spring-inspired uprising in March 2011 evolved into a full-scale civil war that has now left more than 215,000 dead.

Secular rebels have been increasingly pushed aside in the opposition by jihadists, in particu-lar IS, which declared an Islamic “caliphate” straddling territory it controls in Syria and Iraq.

The IS threat to the regime was highlighted Wednesday when the group’s fighters for the first time seized territory inside Damascus itself at the Yarmuk Palestinian refugee camp. AFP

fighters and their allies were in control of the neighbourhood by midday on Thursday, deploying tanks and foot patrols through its otherwise empty streets after heavy fighting in the morning.

It was the first time fighting on the ground had reached so deeply into central Aden. Crater is home to the local branch of Yemen’s central bank and many commercial businesses. “People are afraid and terrified by the

bombardment,” one resident, Farouq Abdu, told Reuters by tel-ephone from Crater. “No one is on the streets - it’s like a curfew”.

Another resident said Houthi snipers had deployed on a moun-tain overlooking Crater and were firing on the streets below. Several houses were on fire after being struck by rockets, and messages relayed on loudspeakers urged residents to move out to safer parts of the city, he said.

Hadi’s rump government has appealed for international ground forces to halt the Houthis.

A diplomat in Riyadh said Aden had come to symbolise Hadi’s fad-ing authority, meaning that Saudi Arabia could not afford to allow it to fall completely under Houthi control. But he said Riyadh’s air campaign was so far geared more towards a slow war of attrition than an effective defence of the southern city. AGENCIES

Saudi soldier killed, Houthis seize Aden district

Syrian regime reels from setbacks as rebels score wins

Supporters of Yemen’s Southern Separatist Movement drive a tank in the Khor Maksar neighbourhood of southern port city of Aden as they fight against the Shia Houthi advance in the city yesterday.

A member of Jordanian security signals to the photographer as he walks near the main Jaber border crossing in the Jordanian city of Mafraq, yesterday. Jordan said it had temporarily closed its border with Syria because of violence on the other side of the frontier.

MISRATA: Militants with the Islamic State group killed seven fighters with the Islamist-backed Libya Dawn militia in an attack on a checkpoint near the city of Misrata, a militia spokesman said yesterday.

Wednesday’s “attack on the checkpoint killed seven from Libya Shield Force south of the city,” the spokesman said, refer-ring to a part of the Libya Dawn alliance.

IS said in an audio recording posted online that it was behind the attack on the checkpoint, about 200km east of capital Tripoli. Last week, five Islamist-backed Libya Dawn fighters were killed when IS attacked a check-point in the Libyan city of Sirte.

Libya Dawn militiamen have been engaged in sporadic fight-ing with IS jihadists around the city, the home town of slain dic-tator Muammar Gaddafi, whose

regime was toppled in a 2011 Nato-backed revolt. Last month at least 12 Libya Dawn militiamen were killed in clashes with IS near Sirte. Fourteen Egyptian fisher-men held for entering Libyan waters without permission were meanwhile released Thursday after three months in detention.

A Libyan maritime official said the release came after coor-dinating with their families and Egyptian authorities. Libya has

been plagued by chaos since the end of the revolt that toppled Gaddafi with heavily armed militias bat-tling for control of its cities and oil wealth and rival governments and parliaments vying for power.

The country has had two gov-ernments and parliaments since Tripoli was seized in August by Libya Dawn and the internation-ally recognised government fled to the country’s far east.

AFP

Seven Libya militiamen killed in IS attackBahrain arrests prominent Shia activistDUBAI: Bahraini authorities arrested prominent Shiite activist Nabeel Rajab yesterday for spreading false news and defaming a state institution, the interior ministry said.

Rajab, who has already been sentenced to prison for his remarks on Twitter in a separate case, is a member of Bahrain’s Shiite major-ity which has held protests against the Gulf kingdom’s Sunni rulers since 2011.

The activist said in a video posted on YouTube after his latest arrest that he was the victim of an “attempt by the authorities to deprive me of my right to free expression”.

His family said Rajab was arrested for posting comments on Twitter denouncing alleged torture in a prison where Shiite activists are held.

In January the activist was sentenced to six months in prison for insulting public institutions in his tweets. He is awaiting the result of an appeal in that case. AFP

INTERNATIONAL 09FRIDAY 3 APRIL 2015

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Cameron poll campaign visit

Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron talks with pupils during a general election campaign visit to the King’s Leadership Academy in Warrington, northwest England, yesterday.

WASHINGTON: The Muslim and Christian populations could be nearly equal by 2050, with Islam expected to be the fastest-growing faith on the planet, according to projections released yesterday.

The Pew Research Centre’s religious profile predictions assessed data from around the world on fertility rates, trends in youth population growth and reli-gious conversion statistics.

“Over the next four decades, Christians will remain the larg-est religious group, but Islam will grow faster than any other major religion,” according to the report.

The authors predicted there will be 2.76 billion Muslims on the planet by then, and 2.92 bil-lion Christians. Those figures would correspond to about 29.7 and 31.4 percent of the world pop-ulation, respectively. There were 1.6 billion Muslims on the planet in 2010, compared to 2.17 billion Christians.

“The number of Muslims will nearly equal the number of Christians around the world,” it added. Hindus will be third, mak-ing up 14.9 percent of the world’s total population, followed by people who do not affiliate with any reli-gion, accounting for 13.2 percent.

The Asia-Pacific region will remain the most popular for Muslims, bolstered by a youth-ful population with high fertility rates. The study predicts that India will have the largest Muslim population — though it will retain a Hindu majority — surpassing Indonesia.

Muslims are expected to account for 10 percent of Europe’s overall population, Pew added. If the trend continues, Islam will be the most popular faith in the world after 2070, it said.

Authors said the projections, compiled over the past six years,

are merely “what will occur if the current data are accurate and the trends play out as expected.”

“Many events — scientific dis-coveries, armed conflicts, social movements, political upheavals, natural disasters and changing economic conditions, to name just a few—can shift demographic trends in unforeseen ways.”

The authors said religious conversion data came from only 70 countries, not including the world’s most populous countries, India and China.

The report predicts the number of people with no religious affili-ation will make up a declining share of the world’s total popu-lation, though in some countries — such as the United States and France — the number of atheists and agnostics is expected to rise.

Buddhism is the only faith that is not expected to increase its fol-lowers, due to an ageing popula-tion and stable fertility rates in Buddhist countries, such as China, Japan and Thailand.

In Europe, the only region where the overall population is expected to shrink, the Christian population will drop from 553 mil-lion to 454 million.

Similarly, in the United States, Christians will decline from more than three quarters to two thirds in 2050. Islam is expected to sur-pass Judaism as the most popular non-Christian faith in the United States.

The researchers gathered data from more than 2,500 censuses, surveys and population registers from 175 countries, covering 95 percent of the world’s population.

The projections considered the size and geographic distribution of the world’s major religions, age differences, fertility and mortality rates, international migration and patterns in conversion.

AFP

NEW YORK: Two New York women inspired by Al Qaeda and fanatics in Syria were arrested yesterday, charged with planning to build a bomb and carry out a terror attack, prosecutors said.

Noelle Velentzas, 28, and Asia Siddiqui, 31, risk facing the rest of their lives behind bars if convicted of conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction in the US.

The pair, roommates in Queens, were shadowed for nearly two years by an undercover FBI agent and are scheduled to appear before a magistrate at the federal district court in Brooklyn yesterday.

Siddiqui was “in possession of multiple propane gas tanks, as well as instructions for how to transform propane tanks into

explosive devices,” a copy of the complaint states.

Prosecutors say the pair sup-ported violent jihad, with Siddiqui writing a poem in an Al-Qaeda magazine as early as 2009 and Velentzas calling Osama bin Laden one of her heroes, allegedly keeping a picture of the Al Qaeda mastermind on her mobile phone.

Velentzas recently described the two women as “citizens” of the Islamic State (IS) extrem-ist group fighting in Iraq and Syria, prosecutors said. They communicated with Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which is based in Yemen, and watched vid-eos of beheadings carried out by IS extremists in Syria, the com-plaint said.

Velentzas allegedly said she did

not understand why people were travelling overseas to fight when “there were more opportunities of ‘pleasing Allah’ in the United States,” prosecutors said.

She was Facebook friends with former US Air Force mechanic Tairod Pugh, 47, who pleaded not guilty in a separate IS alleged plot before a Brooklyn court last month. John Miller, deputy commissioner of intelligence and counter-terrorism of New York police, confirmed that two women were arrested early yesterday.

In a self-proclaimed effort to “make history,” prosecutors said the pair researched previous attacks and acquired some com-ponents of bombs used in the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing, the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing

and the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.

As with the ethnic Chechen brothers accused of bombing the Boston Marathon in April 2012, the women allegedly had online jihadist instructions on how to make explosive devices.

“We remain firm in our resolve to hold accountable anyone who would seek to terrorize the American people,” said Loretta Lynch, Attorney General nomi-nee and current US attorney for the eastern district of New York.

Siddiqui was also allegedly close to Pakistani-American citi-zen Samir Khan, who went on to edit Al Qaeda’s English-language “Inspire” magazine and was killed in a US drone strike in 2011.

AFP

Islam to be the most popular faith on planet Pew Research Centre releases report

Two NY women charged in US bomb plot

BRUSSELS: A former Belgian socialist leader apparently com-mitted suicide yesterday fol-lowing revelations he would be tried for rape, reports said.

Divers found the body of Steve Stevaert, the former leader of the Flemish socialist party SPA, in a canal linking the cities of Antwerp and Liege, Belgian media said.

The 60-year-old politician’s jacket and bicycle had been found hours earlier on the canal’s banks near his home. “We are all today very affected and distraught by the far too premature loss of Steve,” SPA said on its website that also listed a hotline for people who might be contemplating suicide.

The Flemish newspaper Het Belang Van Limburg reported Stevaert had left a farewell let-ter. Born April 12 1954, Stevaert had opened a cafe in the north-eastern Flemish-speaking city of Hasselt in the 1970s before launch-ing his political career. As mayor of Hasselt from 1995, he became famous in Flanders two years later when he decided to offer free pub-lic transport in his city. He retired from political life in 2011.

On March 23, he was ordered to stand trial for rape and inde-cent assault, prosecutors in Brussels said, confirming a news-paper report. The alleged crimes occurred in September 2010 in the capital Brussels but the vic-tim only brought charges against him three years later, said pros-ecutors who had until now kept a lid of secrecy on the case.

Belga news agency added that they occurred after Flemish tel-evision recorded a debate on sexu-ality that Stevaert and the young woman attended. During the investigation, Stevaert admitted having had a sexual relationship with the woman but added that she had consented, Belga said.

AFP

MOSCOW: A fishing trawler sank in freezing waters off Russia’s Far East yesterday, killing at least 56 people and setting off a frantic search for survivors that led to dozens being rescued alive.

In the worst such accident in recent Russian history, some 132 people were on board the Dalny Vostok when it went down at around 6:30am in the Sea of Okhotsk off the Kamchatka peninsula, possibly after a collision. A local governor speculated that the vessel had been overloaded.

Sixty-three people were rescued while 13 were still missing and rescuers halted active search operations as night fell. The emergency ministry put the death toll at 56. Seventy-eight of those on board were

Russians, mostly from the Far Eastern region, and there were 42 Myanmar nation-als, five from Vanuatu, three Latvians and four Ukrainians.

World leaders expressed their condo-lences to President Vladimir Putin, includ-ing German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who said she had learned of the sinking “with dismay” and wanted to express her “sincere sympathy”.

All the survivors were taken aboard a ship. A helicopter with a medic on board made a failed attempt in two-metre waves to airlift those seriously injured to hospital in the city of Magadan, 250km to the north. It was set to make a fresh attempt early today. “Nine people are in grave condition,

some are unconscious and some in a state of shock,” said Tatyana Yukhmanova, a spokeswoman for the emergency ministry in the Kamchatka region.

“Although they were wearing wetsuits, they suffered hypothermia because the water temperature is around zero degrees Celsius,” she said. The uninjured survivors and the victims’ bodies will be transported to the port of Korsakov on the island of Sakhalin, but the journey will take three days, the state RIA-Novosti agency said.

The Soviet-built trawler dates from 1989 and is a 5,700-tonne, 104-metre long fac-tory ship is designed to be at sea for several months at a time. It was purchased only last year by Magellan and before that was

operated by a Baltic marine fishing com-pany and was called Stende.

Speculation mounted on the possible rea-sons for the accident. The ship apparently sank so quickly that the captain did not manage to make a distress call.

Russian investigators launched a probe into a possible violation of safety measures.

They seized documentation from the ship’s owners and conducted searches in the vessel’s home port in Nevelsk as well as in the far eastern port city of Vladivostok from where the ship departed on January 3.

“The investigation plans to question members of the crew and company man-agement shortly,” investigators said.

AFP

MARSEILLE: The co-pilot suspected of deliberately crash-ing an airliner in the French Alps searched online for infor-mation about suicide and cock-pit doors, prosecutors said yesterday, as it emerged the plane’s second black box had been found in “usable” condition.

Authorities are hoping to unearth more clues about the dis-aster from the black box, which French prosecutors said was found buried and blackened after a nine-day search of the wreckage of the Germanwings plane.

The first voice recorder, found almost immediately after the March 24 crash, suggested that co-pilot Andreas Lubitz, 27, locked the pilot out of the cabin and sent the plane into a descent into the mountains.

French prosecutor Brice Robin told reporters that the condi-tion of the second box “gives

us reasonable hope that it can be used.” The second black box measures data such as speed, alti-tude and pilot action and will be an “indispensable” element in the investigation, Robin said.

All 150 people on board Flight 4U9525 from Barcelona to Duesseldorf were killed when it crashed into the Alps last week in the bloodiest such disaster on French soil in decades.

Robin said 150 DNA strands had been isolated but stressed this did not necessarily mean all the victims had been identified. Identifying the remains of every-one on board would take “three to five weeks,” he said.

The breakthrough discovery came as German prosecutors revealed details of the browser history of the tablet computer found in Lubitz’s Duesseldorf flat.

It indicated the user had been researching “medical methods

of treatment”, “ways to commit suicide” as well as “cockpit doors and their security provisions”, the prosecutor’s office in the western city said. German prosecutors have said Lubitz was diagnosed as suicidal “several years ago”, before he became a pilot.

The first black box, which recorded conversations between Lubitz and the pilot, showed the German co-pilot was alone at the time of the crash. Lubitz apparently took advantage of the captain’s brief absence to lock him out and send the plane on its deadly descent.

According to prosecutors, the voice recorder suggested that the passengers were unaware of what was going to happen to them until the very last seconds, when screams were heard. Rescue workers have since been sifting through the wreckage for days trying to identify body parts and victims via their DNA. AFP

Pictures of the second black box from the Germanwings plane that crashed in the French Alps last week are displayed for journalists in Marseille, southern France, yesterday.

Co-pilot ‘researched suicide and cockpit doors online’

Belgian politician commits suicide after rape ‘charge’

Trawler sinks in freezing waters off Russia, 56 killed

10 ASIA / AFRICAFRIDAY 3 APRIL 2015

www.thepeninsulaqatar.com

MANILA: The Philippines issued warnings of possible land-slides and storm surges, with typhoon Maysak set to strike eastern coastal areas, where many resorts are located, over the Easter weekend.

In storm-wrecked areas of Micronesia, residents appealed for help yesterday as a clean-up began on the worst affected islands after Super Typhoon Maysak swept through the region on its way towards the Philippines.

Maysak, initially a top-rated category 5 typhoon, has weakened to category 4 as it lost strength over the water. It is expected to further lose strength as it hits the mountains of northeastern Philippines tomorrow or the day after, the weather bureau said.

But authorities are concerned foreign and Filipino tourists spending the long Easter weekend on the beaches along the eastern coasts of the main Luzon island may ignore warnings. The typhoon is expected to make landfall within 72 hours. The Easter holidays

began yesterday in the Philippines.“This will bring waves which

our surfers really like. But this is a typhoon we are facing, even if we say it may become just a storm...The waves will be strong and it will be dangerous for our fellowmen in the eastern coasts,” Esperanza Cayanan, an officer at the weather bureau, said in a tel-evised disaster briefing.

Officials of Aurora prov-ince northeast of Manila esti-mate about 10,000 tourists were expected to troop to its Baler Bay, a popular spot for surfers.

Storm surges three to four metres high were expected along eastern coasts, Cayanan said.

Maysak, packing winds of 175 kilometres per hour near the centre and gusts of up to 210 kph, entered Philippine territory late on Wednesday.

The typhoon was spotted 995 km east of Catarman in Northern Samar province southeast of Manila before noon yesterday, and was moving northwest at 19 kph.

Heavy rainfall was expected

within a radius of 150 to 200 km from the eye of the storm, Cayanan said.

A state of emergency has been declared in Chuuk, the largest region in the Federated States of Micronesia, where five people were killed and houses and crops destroyed by Maysak.

The super typhoon took three days to cross the central Pacific archipelago before heading out to sea, but relief workers said it could be a year before some land was restored enough to plant crops again.

The Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) sent an air-craft to survey the damage on Ulithi atoll which was hit hard when the eye of the storm passed over on Tuesday night with sus-tained winds of 260 kilometres per hour.

Most concrete structures with-stood the fury but everything else was damaged, PMA Pacific admin-istrator Melinda Espinosa said in an email.

AGENCIES

BANGKOK: The Thai junta’s decision to lift martial law was denounced by critics yesterday as cosmetic, with Washington, the EU and the United Nations warning that replacement secu-rity measures would not loosen the military’s grip on power.

In an announcement late on Wednesday, Thailand’s gener-als officially lifted martial law 10 months after seizing power in a coup. But the controversial law was replaced with a new executive order retaining sweeping powers for the military and junta chief Prayut Chan-O-Cha.

Those measures were passed under Section 44 of the junta-written interim constitution, a controversial provision hand-ing Prayut power to make any executive decision in the name of national security.

The new order includes a con-tinuance of a ban on political gath-erings of more than five people, while the military retains the right to arrest, detain and pros-ecute people for national security crimes or those who fall foul of the country’s royal defamation laws.

A new rule also appears to deepen censorship of the media, by allowing military officers to stop the publication or presentation of any news they deem to be “caus-ing fear or distorted information”.

The UN’s human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein described the new powers as “even more draconian” than martial law.

He added he was “alarmed” by the move “which bestows unlim-ited powers on the current prime minister without any judicial over-sight at all”.

A US State Department offi-cial said Washington expected the Thai military to end trials of civil-ians in military courts, detention without charge and to allow people to express their opinions freely.

“We are concerned that moving to a security order under Article 44 will not accomplish any of these objectives,” the official said.

Those views were echoed by the European Union, which has repeatedly called for the restora-tion of democracy.

“The replacement of martial law ... does not bring Thailand closer to democratic and accountable government,” a spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogerhini said in a statement.

Thai analysts and critics pillo-ried the measures as martial law in all but name.

“When they ask for the martial law to be lifted, what the public is really asking for is the return of basic rights and liberties to Thais. Prayut fails to understand that,” said constitutional scholar Khemthong Tonsakulrungruang of Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University.

But the junta defended the order saying the potential remained for anti-coup protests to upset an uneasy peace imposed since the military power grab.

“There have been movements from groups of people who lost power... groups of people who want to create disorder,” Deputy Prime Minister Wissanu Krea-Ngam told reporters.

“The lifting of martial law will ease concerns from the people and the international community.”

AFP

N Korea expels country head of German NGOSEOUL: North Korea has expelled without explana-tion the country director of Welthungerhilfe, one of the few foreign aid groups operating in the isolated country, draw-ing protest from the German government.

North Korea asked country director Regina Feindt to leave in late February, without giving prior warning or giving an explanation, Welthungerhilfe said in a state-ment yesterday.

“Welthungerhilfe does not see anything in Mrs Feindt’s behav-iour that would have justified an expulsion,” Welthungerhilfe said in the statement.

A spokesman for the German Foreign Ministry said the govern-ment was aware of the expulsions and, in response, had summoned North Korea’s ambassador to Berlin on two occasions. The German ambassador to North Korea had also lodged a protest with the Foreign Ministry in Pyongyang.

“We consider these incidents neither helpful with regard to the NGO’s efforts to improve the situ-ation of DPRK citizens nor to our bilateral dialogue in general,” the spokesman, Konrad Lax, said in an emailed statement to Reuters.

The NGO said Feindt left North Korea on February 26. One of her colleagues, Karl Fall, who had worked in the country for 12 years, left of his own volition on March 19.

Welthungerhilfe has worked in North Korea since 1997, spend-ing more than €60m on projects designed to improve food, sanita-tion and water supply. REUTERS

BEIJING: China protested yes-terday after two American jet fighters landed at an airbase in Taiwan, which Beijing regards as its own territory, reportedly for the first time in 30 years.

Two US F-18 fighter jets made an emergency landing at an air force base in the southern city of Tainan on Wednesday, with US officials saying one of the planes had suffered a mechanical failure.

“We have launched solemn representations with the US,” Hua Chunying, a foreign ministry spokeswoman, told a regular brief-ing in Beijing.

“We require the US to abide by the ‘One-China Policy’ and the three joint communiques between China and the US and to prudently deal with the relevant issue,” she added, referring to agreements between the two that recognise Beijing as the sole government of China.

Taiwanese media described the landing as the first of its kind since the mid-1980s and speculated that it could have been a US reaction to a People’s Liberation Army Air Force exercise over the western Pacific Ocean east of Taiwan.

Several Chinese aircraft on

Monday flew over the ocean for the first time via the Bashi Channel, which runs between Taiwan and the Philippines, Beijing’s official Xinhua news agency said.

Mark Zimmer, spokesman for the American Institute in Taiwan — the de facto US embassy — said the planes had been on a “routine flight” when one encountered a mechanical problem and requested an emergency landing.

The two planes were flying over waters east of Taiwan escorting an EA-6B Prowler, an electronic warfare aircraft, on its way to the Philippines. AFP

GARISSA: An explosion fol-lowed by gunfire woke students at Garissa’s Moi University in Kenya before dawn yesterday morning.

At around 5.30 am an unknown number of masked gunmen began an assault by tossing explosives at the main gate before storming a nearby girl’s hostel.

More than 800 students attend the university and sleep in dormi-tories on the sprawling campus on the outskirts of the town in northeast Kenya.

“We were sleeping when we heard a loud explosion that was followed by gunshots and every-one started running for safety,” said student Japhet Mwala.

“There are those who were not able to leave the hostels where the gunmen headed and started fir-ing, I am lucky to be alive because I jumped through the fence with other students,” said Mwala.

Another student, Katherine — who did not want to give her full name — said that when she first heard the explosion and gunfire,

“we thought that it was power problems”.

But soon the horror of being caught up in the latest attack by the Al Qaeda aligned mili-tants from neighbouring Somalia dawned on her.

“We started running away,” she said. Katherine and other stu-dents fled their hostels and ran to nearby fields, where they hid as the gunfire continued.

Rosalind Mugambi also fled to the fields with other students and “bullets following us”. She said some of her friends were injured by the gunfire.

“We saw some bloodstains and they were shot,” she said.

Garissa, around 150 kilome-tres from the Somali border, has suffered chronic insecurity for years, fuelled by political and business rivalries, and the conflict in neighbouring Somalia, which has driven hundreds of thousands of refugees to live in the nearby Dadaab camps.

Numerous grenade attacks have been blamed on Shebab, but

yesterday’s attack was the first time Shebab gunmen have carried out an armed assault in the town. After moving into the university the attackers separated some students according to religion, allowing the Muslims to leave and taking an unknown number of Christians hostage.

Students said that notices had been posted around the cam-pus warning that an attack was possible.

“There were reports of an attack the whole week and even the university administration was informed,” said Nicholas Mutuku.

“But it is like everyone didn’t take it seriously, because it was not the first time such reports were emerging.”

Some who saw the warning notices a day ahead of the attack thought they were an April Fool’s prank.

“Yesterday there were those notices, but as it was April 1, we just thought that it was fooling,” said Katherine.

AFP

Philippines braces for typhoon over EasterStorm-wrecked Micronesia appeals for help

A woman reacts as she is rescued from a building where she was held hostage, after Kenyan soldiers entered Garissa University in Garissa town, near Kenya’s border with Somalia, and engaged in gun battles with attackers.

Witnesses recount horror of Kenya university attack

US, UN slam new Thai security measures

China objects after two US fighter planes land in Taiwan

Protest in Seoul

Relatives of those missing following the Sewol ferry’s sinking have their heads shaved during a protest on Gwanghwanmun Square in Seoul yesterday. They are demanding the vessel’s recovery and the truth behind the accident on April 16, 2014, which left more than 300 people dead.

Canadian jailed for abuse in IndonesiaJAKARTA: A Canadian administrator was jailed yes-terday for 10 years for sexu-ally abusing children at an elite Jakarta international school, despite the institution and pupils’ parents strongly backing his claims of innocence.

Neil Bantleman, who also holds British nationality, was found guilty of abusing three young boys at the Jakarta Intercultural School, which has for decades been favoured by expatriates and wealthy Indonesians in the capital.

Also standing trial for abusing the children is Ferdinand Tjiong, an Indonesian teaching assistant at the school. A verdict on his case was to be handed down later yes-terday. AFP

Japan unveils plans for fund to tackle child povertyTOKYO: Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe unveiled plans to set up a fund to help alleviate child poverty yester-day, in a country where one in six children is classed as poor.

The move follows a law passed by parliament last year aimed at tackling an issue that critics say has long been swept under the carpet in the country.

“We need to support the inde-pendence of financially-con-strained single parent families or families with many children,” Abe told a meeting of politicians, busi-nessmen and non-profit groups.

A memorandum adopted at the meeting called for the formation of a privately-financed fund to help groups providing education and other services for children

facing poverty, news reports said.The document did not specify

how much money would be placed in the fund, but Abe pledged to secure revenues for the pro-gramme by December.

“The fact that the govern-ment recognises child poverty as a national issue is a big step,” Aya Abe, a professor at Tokyo Metropolitan University who has been researching child poverty in Japan, said.

In 2012, a record high 16.3 per-cent of children aged 17 or under were living in poverty — defined as surviving on funds half that of the average disposable income.

That compares with 9.8 percent in Britain and 21.2 percent in the United States.

AFP

11PAKISTAN / AFGHANISTAN FRIDAY 3 APRIL 2015

www.thepeninsulaqatar.com

Training exercise

Smoke rises from a building as Afghan Crisis Response Unit (CRU) personnel take part in a training exercise in Kabul yester-day. The unit personnel are trained by US and British forces in counter-terrorism and drug enforcement duties.

KHOST: A suicide bomber killed at least 16 people yesterday and wounded 40 others, includ-ing a prominent lawmaker, at an anti-corruption rally in eastern Afghanistan, the latest casualties ahead of the Taliban’s expected spring offensive.

The attack comes just a week after Washington announced it would not be halving the 9,800 US troops still in Afghanistan by the end of the year, back-pedalling on previous plans.

The Taliban, waging a deadly insurgency since they were ousted from power in late 2001, warned that the US troop announcement would damage any prospects of peace talks as they vowed to con-tinue fighting.

Yesterday’s attack targeted an anti-graft demonstration outside the residence of the acting gov-ernor of restive Khost province, sending terrified, blood-soaked victims fleeing for cover.

Severed limbs and body parts lay strewn around the area after the powerful blast, according to witnessses at the scene.

The area was cordoned off by security officials as yellow-helm-eted firefighters used water hoses to douse the smouldering scene of the explosion.

“Today morning, a suicide attack was carried out by the enemies of peace and stability of Afghanistan at a rally in the city of Khost, in which 16 people were martyred, and 40 others were wounded,” said Abduljabar Naeemi, the acting governor of

Khost province, which borders Pakistan.

Humayoun Humayoun, a well-known MP from Khost prov-ince, was among those wounded, Naeemi added in his statement.

The interior ministry in Kabul said 17 civilians were killed and 37 others were wounded in the explosion, adding that it “strongly condemns the terrorist attack”.

President Ashraf Ghani also condemned the “cowardly attack during a peaceful protest — which is the civil right of our people”.

Protesters accusing Naeemi of rampant corruption and land grabbing have staged demonstra-tions outside his residence for nearly a week.

The Taliban denied responsi-bility for the blast, spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on the group’s official Twitter account, but suicide bombings have long been a weapon of choice for the militants in their 13-year battle against the government and its foreign backers.

The bombs often target Afghan security forces, but they have also taken a heavy toll on civilians.

The number of civilians killed and wounded in Afghanistan jumped 22 percent in 2014, a recent UN report said, as Nato troops withdrew from combat.

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan attributed the rise to an intensification in ground fighting, resulting in a total of 10,548 civilian casualties last year.

It condemned yesterday’s blast,

Afghan suicide blast kills 16Prominent lawmaker wounded

Afghan residents attend to a child who was wounded by a suicide attack at a medical facility in Khost yesterday.

saying “such an attack deliber-ately targeting... civilians is an atrocity”.

US President Barack Obama last week reversed plans to with-draw around 5,000 US troops from Afghanistan this year, an overture to the country’s new reform-minded leader, President Ashraf Ghani.

A large section of Afghan society welcomed the decision, with many fearing that without

continued international military support, Afghanistan — like Iraq — could spiral into chaos.

Afghan forces are bracing for what is expected to be a bloody summer push by the Taliban and the government has also raised the ominous prospect of the Islamic State jihadist group mak-ing inroads into Afghanistan.

Taliban insurgents have already stepped up suicide attacks on government targets following

an Afghan army offensive which began in southern Helmand prov-ince more than two months ago.

A roadside bomb killed Hekmatullah Haqmal, the police chief of Gereshk district of opium-rich Helmand late Wednesday, according to local officials. He was part of a convoy of reinforcements heading to a village to launch a retaliatory attack against Taliban insurgents after they raided police checkpoints. AFP

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s new military courts have sentenced six men to death for involve-ment in terrorism and a seventh to life imprisonment, the mili-tary spokesman said yesterday.

“Army Chief confirms death sentence of six hard core terror-ists tried by the recently estab-lished military courts,” Major General Asim Bajwa said in a message on Twitter.

“Seven hardcore terrorists involved in committing heinous offences relating to terrorism, men slaughtering, suicide bomb-ing, abduction for ransom, colossal damage to life and property were tried by military courts,” the mili-tary said in a subsequent statement that named the seven men.

It said those convicted could take their cases to the court of appeal. Pakistan established nine military courts in January after Taliban gunmen attacked a school in Peshawar, killing 134 pupils and 19 adults. The courts expanded the military’s powers, giving them the authority to try civilians accused of terrorism.

Critics say the new rules cede too much ground to the military, which towers over Pakistani pol-itics despite the country’s first ever handover of power from one civilian government to another two years ago.

A recent Reuters investigation into military trials under the old system found frequent allegations of torture. Families of defendants claimed the accused were some-times not given lawyers or access to evidence.

It also found that military offi-cials could dissolve courts whose verdicts they disagreed with and retry the defendants. Appeals took place after the military chief had confirmed the death sen-tences, meaning any appeal judge who granted clemency would have to overrule a powerful figure.

The Interior Ministry said last month more than 50 cases had been sent to the military courts. It did not release details. The military is holding thousands of people in internment camps, according to a senior military official. It is not clear when or if they will be tried.

REUTERS

ISL AMABAD/BEIJING: Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif (pictured) has approved a deal “years in the making” to buy eight submarines from China, a Pakistani government official said yesterday, in what could be one of China’s largest overseas weapons sales once it is signed.

The official, who was present at Tuesday’s meeting of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Defence which was briefed by the Navy, said the deal to buy the diesel-electric submarines would likely be signed by Chinese President Xi Jinping when he vis-its, “but that is still not final”.

Xi was due to travel to Pakistan this month, the government in Islamabad has said. China has said Xi would visit this year, but given no time-frame.

China and Pakistan call each other “all-weather friends” and their close ties have been under-pinned by long-standing wariness of their common neighbour and rival, India, and a desire to hedge against US influence across the region.

“The prime minister has approved buying eight subma-rines from China and these would

be used to bolster Pakistan’s strength,” the official, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters.

He added that “last-minute homework is pending”.

“Some officials are travelling to China even today. Work is ongo-ing,” he said. “This deal is years in the making.” He said Pakistan was looking at S20 and Yuan class diesel-electric vessels.

A former senior Pakistan navy officer with knowledge of the negotiations told the Financial Times the contract could be worth $4 billion to $5 billion.

Asked about the submarines, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokes-woman Hua Chunying said China

and Pakistan were friendly neigh-bours and that the two sides had normal military exchanges.

“I can tell you, relevant coop-eration does not violate interna-tional convention and accords with China’s three principles on military exports,” she told a daily news briefing.

China is Pakistan’s top sup-plier of weapons, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), which tracks global arms sales, selling 51 percent of the weapons Islamabad imported in 2010-2014.

China has also surpassed Germany to become the world’s third largest arms exporter, SIPRI said in a report last month. Little is known about China’s arms exports because the country does not pub-lish data on such sales.

The Pakistani official also said that Pakistan had been in talks with France to buy new sub-marines, but the proposal was declined by the French.

A top US Navy admiral said in February that, though they were technologically inferior, China’s submarine fleet now outnumbered that of the United States.

REUTERS

Sharif approves deal to buy eight Chinese submarines

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan will hold a special session of par-liament on Monday to debate whether to join the Saudi-led coalition against anti-gov-ernment rebels in Yemen, the prime minister’s office said.

Islamabad, a close and long-standing ally of Saudi Arabia, has so far resisted Riyadh’s demand for it to join the group of Arab nations trying to prevent Shia Houthi rebels from taking over in Yemen.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif chaired a meeting on the Yemen crisis yesterday after a high-level political and military delegation returned from a fact-finding trip to Saudi.

A statement released after-wards reiterated the govern-ment’s stance that any breach of Saudi “territorial integrity”

would bring a “strong response” from Pakistan. It also condemned “actions by non-state actors in Yemen to overthrow a legitimate government,” but stopped short of committing to join the kingdom’s coalition at this stage.

“The prime minister... empha-sised that all decisions in the mat-ter will be taken in accordance with the wishes of the people of Pakistan,” the statement said.

“To this end, the prime min-ister is advising the president to convene a joint session of par-liament on Monday (April 6) to discuss this matter of national importance.”

The Pakistani foreign ministry said late on Thursday that Sharif would visit Turkey to meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to “exchange views on the situation relating to Yemen”.

“They will also discuss how the two countries can be helpful in addressing the issue,” it said in a statement.

Pakistan faces a tricky dilemma over the intervention in Yemen. It enjoys long military ties with Riyadh and has benefited hugely from the kingdom’s largesse over the years. Like Saudi, Pakistan is majority Sunni Muslim, but 20 percent of its population is Shia and it is wary of fanning sectarian discord at home.

Pakistan also borders Iran, which has strongly criticised the Saudi-led strikes on Yemen.

Moreover, concerns have been voiced in Pakistan about joining the Yemen intervention, seen by some as a “foreign” war, when the army is already stretched at home fighting Taliban militants.

AFP

Yemen crisis: Pakistan to debate joining Saudi-led coalition in House on Monday

Pakistani activists from the Muslim Students Organisation (MSO) shout slogans during a rally in support of the government of Saudi Arabia over the situation in Yemen, in Islamabad yesterday

Military courts sentence six to death

MUZAFFARABAD: Azad Kashmir is set to expel some 11,000 illegal Afghan refugees under a national anti-terror plan announced in the wake of the country’s worst ever militant attack, police said yesterday.

There are an estimated three million Afghan refugees living in Pakistan, either officially or unofficially. “Under the National Action Plan against terrorism, some 11,000 Afghans would be expelled from Azad (independ-ent) Kashmir,” senior police offi-cial Faheem Abbasi said.

The plan, which involved the outlawing of militant groups, registration of seminaries and crackdown on hate speech, was announced in the wake of a Taliban massacre that killed 154 people, mostly school children, in December. AFP

Azad Kashmir to expel 11,000 Afghans

12 INDIAFRIDAY 3 APRIL 2015

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Kashmir unrest

Army soldiers patrol near the site of a gunbattle at village Hardshoora in Kunzar, 35km north of Srinagar, yesterday. An Army trooper and a policeman were killed, while another trooper and a civilian wounded in a fight with militants. Police said militants managed to escape fol-lowing the stand off.

NEW DELHI: Another batch of over 300 Indian nationals will be ferried to safety from Yemen, the government said, as 358 Indians who arrived from the strife-torn country in two aeroplanes early yester-day expressed relief to be back home and away from the con-stant bombings.

Two C-17 Globemaster trans-port planes arrived in India — one landed in Mumbai with 190 people on board, while another with 168 Indians went to Kochi in Kerala.

External affairs ministry spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin tweeted that Indian naval ship INS Sumitra has docked in the western Yemeni port of Al Hudaydah in order to pick up the waiting Indians. “Evacuation of 300-plus Indian nationals from Yemen underway,” he said.

Defence ministry spokesper-son Sitanshu Kar tweeted that one more C-17 Globemaster III aircraft of the Indian Air Force has departed from Jamnagar for Djibouti to bring back the stranded Indians. The first Globemaster plane carrying 168 people, mostly nurses from Kerala, landed at Kochi airport around 2am, while the second transport plane carrying 190 Indians landed in Mumbai at 3.25am.

Yemen has been rocked by fighting since January 22 when Shia Houthi rebels took over Sana’a. President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi who was in Aden

flew off to Riyadh. Yemen has been facing continuing air strikes by a coalition of 10 countries led by Saudi Arabia.

India has initiated a highly coordinated operation to evacu-ate its nationals. The returnees expressed happiness to be back home, but were concerned about their future. “We are really happy to be with our near and dear ones,” said a nurse who was elated over her safe return to Kochi.

“The bigger question is what will happen to our future... We want a job, but do not know where it will come from, as we have fam-ilies to look after,” said the nurse.

The number of Indian nation-als in Yemen, which was estimated around 14,000 in 2010, declined to an estimated 5,000 by June 2011 following political instability and violence in the country. However, only around 3,000 Indians are reg-istered with the embassy in Sana’a.

Most of the Indians living in Yemen comprise nurses, hospital staff, university professors, pro-fessionals, white collar workers, IT professionals and managerial and clerical staff in the private sector. A vast majority of them hail from Kerala but a few belong to other states like Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal.

Recalling the horror, a returnee said: “The situation in Yemen is getting worse day by day as there are frequent bombings. Bombs

were dropped around 200 metres from where I stayed. The most affected are the children.”

Another returnee said: “Communications are also break-ing down and then it becomes tough for Indian Embassy officials to get in touch with Indians.”

Kerala’s Minister for Diaspora K C Joseph said that they were in constant touch with the external affairs ministry and with Indian officials in Yemen and Djibouti.

“Diplomatic efforts managed to break ice with Saudi Arabian authorities to clear the way for a free air zone to ensure our flights land in Yemen and then return through their air space.

“But talks with Iranian authori-ties are on as their permission is also required. There are another 2,500 Keralites including nurses and teachers,” said Joseph. The Kerala government has given a token amount of Rs2,000 to each of them. Joseph said Kerala will press the central government to ensure that diplomatic talks are held to ensure the return of Indians.

He said the state government will look into providing jobs to the nurses who have returned. “There are practical difficulties to find jobs for around 2,000 nurses, but our government will do every-thing possible,” said Joseph.

India has also agreed to requests from neighbours Bangladesh and Sri Lanka to assist in evacuation of their nationals from Yemen.

IANS

300 more to be ferried to safety from YemenReturnees express relief to be back home LUCKNOW: Even as the Uttar

Pradesh government of Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav claims in big newspaper advertisements that it has brought about rapid improvement in the law and order situation in the state dur-ing its rule, 42 murders in three months, 20 major robberies, a bank heist that left three people dead has led to many here call-ing Lucknow not only the admin-strative capital but the “crime capital” of Uttar Pradesh.

While police officials admit that serious policing has been hit hard in the city, Lucknow’s Senior Superintendent of Police Yashaswi Yadav insists that the law and order situation has actu-ally improved. Inspector General of Police Zaki Ahmed admits to a spurt in crime in Lucknow, but says “serious efforts are on to check them”.

Other police officers say that notwithstanding the crime graph, Yashaswi Yadav remains a favour-ite of Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav. While poor law and order has been the Achilles’ heel for the Samajwadi Party government in the past three years, the sudden spurt in crime in the capital has shocked even the most loyal gov-ernment supporters.

Police have failed to crack many cases and to meet deadlines set by the chief minister to bring the situation under control. A senior police official here said that “seri-ous policing has gone for a toss” in Lucknow and “all that is hap-pening is an eyewash”.

Insiders in the police depart-ment accuse Yashaswi Yadav of browbeating some of his colleagues and breaking the hierarchy.

Records show that there have also been 30 attempts to mur-der, ATMs have been robbed of crores of rupees and 125 thefts have taken place, besides many other crimes.

Since Tuesday alone, a headless body was found in a drain near the office of the director general of police, a semi-naked body was recovered elsewhere and a state secretariat employee was shot at.

Under similar conditions, sen-ior policemen have been normally shunted out or suspended. But Yashaswi Yadav has come out unscathed. The officer, however, rebuts charges of soaring crime. “Except in the case of murders, crimes under various heads have come down,” Yadav said.

“Most major cases have been worked out and in the ones that have not yet been, we are in the right direction,” he added.

IANS

BHOPAL/NEW DELHI: Congress president Sonia Gandhi yesterday dismissed union minister Giriraj Singh’s “racist” remarks as stemming from a “narrow mindset” even as party members staged pro-tests while the BJP sought the matter to be closed as he had expressed regrets.

Gandhi, who visited Madhya Pradesh to meet farmers whose crops have been damaged in the recent untimely rains, expressed ignorance about the remarks.

“What did he say,” she asked reporters in a brief interaction during her visit, and after having been told, conveyed her disdain.

“It is not appropriate to respond to or comment on people

with such narrow mindset. This is my answer,” Gandhi said.

Singh, who is union minister of state for micro, small and medium enterprises, had told reporters in Patna on Tuesday that he won-dered if former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi had married a non-white Nigerian woman, would the Congress still have accepted her as its president.

Singh, who has caused embar-rassment to Bharatiya Janata Party earlier also, had to express regret over his remarks with the party leadership conveying its dis-pleasure to him.

Sources said party president Amit Shah had spoken to Singh on Wednesday and pulled him up over the comments.

Congress leaders have strongly denounced Singh’s remarks and demanded that Prime Minister Narendra Modi should dismiss him and apologise to the nation.

Former union Minister Kapil Sibal accused Modi of being silent on Singh’s controversial remarks. He said that it was part of BJP’s strategy that “intemperate com-ments” were made, then someone from the party conveys disap-proval but Modi remains silent.

He also took a dig at BJP over the party’s good governance pitch. “People of the country will decide if there will be Giriraj or Ramraj,” he said. Congress spokesperson Sanjay Jha accused the BJP of being “casual and indifferent” on the issue and said Singh was

a “repeat offender”. “Despite his previous observation on the campaign trail in 2014 where he asked all non-Narendra Modi supporters to leave India and go to Pakistan, he was rewarded by a post in the cabinet.

“If Modi remains silent this time as well, he is providing ammunition to many others in the party who are prone to making pedestrian remarks against Congress lead-ers,” Jha said. Congress workers protested in New Delhi against Singh’s remark. Holding post-ers and shouting slogans against Singh, they demanded that Modi should act against the minister.

In Bengaluru, hundreds of cad-res and supporters of the ruling Congress protested on Thursday,

demanding that the minister be sacked. The Congress cadres took out a rally from their party office, shouting slogans against Giriraj Singh, garlanding his por-trait with footwear and burning his effigies. In Bihar, a Congress leader on Thursday filed a court case against Giriraj Singh.

“I have filed a case in the chief judicial magistrate’s court against Giriraj Singh for his racist remark against Sonia Gandhi and for insulting and hurting the sen-timents of women,” said Sanjay Kumar Singh, a Congress leader from Muzaffarpur district. BJP leaders, however, said the issue should be treated as closed after the minister expressed his regret.

IANS

LUDHIANA: An NRI, hav-ing eye and heart complications besides difficulty in walking even a few steps, successfully underwent a newly-introduced External Counter Pulsation (ECP) therapy, a hospital claimed here yesterday.

According to hospital authori-ties, Mohan Singh, 45, working in Dubai for decades, was having dif-ficulty in walking even a few steps. He underwent angiography in 2010 and three stents were inserted in his coronary arteries. After a brief spell of relief, he had to undergo coronary artery bypass surgery again. But there was no respite for him despite the treatment.

Mohan Singh came in contact with a patient, who once had a similar medical condition but ben-efitted from ECP and Chelation Therapy — a medical procedure involving the administration of chelating agents to remove heavy metals from the body — in India.

Though Mohan Singh suffered initial reservation about the new technology, his health complica-tions compelled him to travel to India and meet S S Sibia, an ECP expert at Sibia Medical Centre.

According to Sibia, not many people prefer undergoing ECP as the technology is new. For this, the confidence has to be built. He said in an ECP session, the patient lies on a padded table and four pairs of

large inflatable cuffs — similar to blood pressure cuffs — are strapped around the calves, lower-thighs, upper-thighs and arms.

“The patient’s heart is moni-tored by an electrocardiograph display in the ECP machine, which through the computer, regulates the inflation and defla-tion of the cuffs,” Sibia said. The ECP generally involves one-hour treatment, given 35 times, and it effectively dilates coronary blood vessels, opens dormant collater-als and stimulates creation of new blood vessels, he added.

After a non-invasive heart flow mapping test — Cardio-vascular Cartography, Sibia suggested that Singh should try the therapy which he finally did. “I am fully satisfied with the treatment. It has helped me overcome my health complica-tions to a great level,” the NRI said.

Sibia said that after undergoing the therapy, Singh’s health condi-tion improved and he was able to walk without discomfort.

According to Sibia, several studies have confirmed that ECP is effective in patients suffering from angina, a condition marked by severe pain in the chest. Researchers reported that patients not only maintained the gains they made during treatment, but con-tinued to improve even after the treatment completed.

IANS

NEW DELHI: The coal minis-try will put up 16 mines in the third round of auction starting third week of April, of blocks whose earlier allotments were cancelled by the Supreme Court.

“Third tranche of coal block auction, 11 in regulated and five in unregulated sector, to commence from third week of April,” Coal Secretary Anil Swarup tweeted.

Mines in auction for the regu-lated power sector go through a process of reverse bidding to ensure that a lid is kept on power tariffs. “No revenue gain for the Centre. The entire amount out of coal block auctions will go to the states. Cooperative federalism at its best,” Swarup tweeted.

“First tranche amount of Rs466 crore goes to the states by way of upfront payment received from bidders in coal block auctions,” he added. Last week, according to the provisions of the coal ordi-nance now made into law by par-liament, the government allotted 37 mines to central and state-run power units, and one to the Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL).

All the previous allottees of coal mines are required to remove the dry fuel extracted till March 31 by April 8 to ensure their smooth handover to successful bidders at the recent coal auctions. IANS

BENGALURU: The BJP yes-terday took a jibe at Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, wondering if he was really set to return and attend an April 19 rally against the land acqui-sition legislation.

Asked about Gandhi, who is expected to come back from his sabbatical and address a rally against the government’s land acquisition bill, party spokesman Syed Shahnawaz Hussain said: “Are you serious? Is he coming back?”

“We do not know if reports about the date are true. No

Congress spokesperson has made any statement to this effect, this is what you (media) are saying,” he said.

“Is his vacation finally over,” asked Hussain. Ahead of the first phase of the budget session of par-liament, Rahul Gandhi took “leave of absence” to reflect on a series of electoral defeats and deliber-ate on the future course of the 130-year-old party.

The BJP has criticised the Gandhi scion for remaining miss-ing from action during the cru-cial parliament session. Rahul Gandhi’s whereabouts during the

leave period have not been dis-closed by the Congress.

Congress leaders have said he is likely to join back soon and will address the proposed rally against the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (Amendment) Bill, 2015.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said newly added BJP members, the number of which was reaching 10 crore, should be converted into “party workers”. The prime minister said it was “good that voters are becoming members”, sources said.

IANS

42 murders in 3 months make Lucknow UP’s ‘crime capital’

Giriraj’s racist remarks narrow mindset, says Sonia

New therapy helps NRI overcome diabetes

16 coal mines up for auction in third round

Will Rahul Gandhi return, asks BJPBJP National President Amit Shah (left) and Prime Minister Narendra Modi (second left) attending the National Executive Meeting in Bengaluru yesterday.

13BUSINESS FRIDAY 3 APRIL 2015

www.thepeninsulaqatar.com

WASHINGTON: The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits unex-pectedly fell last week, suggest-ing the labour market continues to expand at a solid clip even as economic growth has stalled.

Sustained labour market strength supports views that the sharp slowdown in activity is prob-ably temporary. A host of factors ranging from bad weather to a strong dollar sucked momentum from the economy in the first quarter. “While the economy has decelerated, the fundamentals remain strong and the labour mar-ket points to a pick-up in overall activity in the second quarter,” said Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at McGladrey in New York.

Initial claims for state unem-ployment benefits dropped 20,000 to a seasonally adjusted 268,000 for the week ended March 28, the lowest level since January, the Labour Department said yesterday. Economists had forecast claims at 285,000. The four-week moving average of claims, considered a better measure of labour market trends as it irons out week-to-week volatility, fell 14,750 to 285,500.

The bullish labour market tone was also underscored by signs that more people are coming off the unemployment benefits rolls.

The number of people still receiv-ing benefits after an initial week of aid fell 88,000 to 2.33 million in the week ended March 21, the lowest reading since December 2000.

The strong labour market, together with an anticipated accel-eration in consumer spending sig-nalled by a surge in auto sales last month, should keep the Federal Reserve on track to start raising interest rates this year.

The US central bank has kept its short-term interest rate near zero since December 2008. Prices for US Treasury debt fell, while stocks on Wall Street rose. The dollar slipped against a basket of currencies.

While the claims data has no bearing on today’s March employ-ment report as it falls outside the survey period, it should help allay

fears of a long-lasting moderation in growth. Nonfarm payrolls likely increased 245,000 last month, with the unemployment rate holding steady at a more than 6-1/2-year low of 5.5 percent, according to a Reuters survey of economists.

The economy, which has been hampered by weaker global demand and a now-settled labour dispute at the West Coast ports, as well as a strong dollar and a harsh winter, also got a boost from an unexpected rise in factory orders in February.

In a separate report, the Commerce Department said new orders for manufactured goods increased 0.2 percent, ending six straight months of declines. Orders excluding transportation rose 0.8 percent, the biggest gain in eight months.

Downbeat first-quarter growth estimates got a lift from a sec-ond report from the Commerce Department showing the trade deficit narrowed 16.9 percent to $35.4bn in February, the smallest since October 2009. When adjusted for inflation, the deficit narrowed to $50.8bn in February from $54.6bn the prior month.

Goldman Sachs raised its first-quarter growth forecast by three-tenths of a percentage point to a 1.0 percent rate, while forecast-ing firm Macroeconomic Advisers lifted its estimate to a 1.2 percent rate from 0.9 percent. The econ-omy grew at a 2.2 percent rate in the fourth quarter. The buoyant dollar and sluggish global demand combined with better domestic con-sumption suggest the smaller trade deficit is probably temporary.

“We will be looking for imports to pick up in the coming months, as consumer spending gains some momentum in the midst of rising employment levels,” said Anthony Karydakis, chief economic strate-gist at Miller Tabak in New York.

In February, imports tumbled 4.4 percent to their lowest level since April 2011. Imports of petroleum products were the lowest since September 2004, with the average import price for crude oil at a near six-year low. REUTERS

Officials pose for a group picture.

DOHA: The upcoming high-tech rail network being developed in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region will not only bring the member states more closer but will also facilitate cross-border, regional and international business and trade in a big way, said a statement issued by Qatar Rail yesterday.

Qatar Rail, the host of the 1st International Conference on Railway Interoperability, Standardisation and Harmonisation in the Middle East, concluded the two-day event successfully. The aim of the event was to assist in developing a coherent, integrated, and competitive rail transport system to serve the region’s economy and society.

Organised by UIC, the International Union of Railways; UIC Middle East; OTIF, the Intergovernmental Organisation for International Carriage by Rail; CIT, the International Rail Transport Committee; and hosted by Qatar Rail, the conference pro-vided a unique opportunity to discuss the lat-est developments in optimising international cross-border rail transport.

Commenting on the event’s success, Abdullah Abdulaziz Al Subaie, Managing Director of Qatar Rail, said that as expected,

UIC RAME event gave all participating companies from the Middle East region the chance to bring together their views and plans on the objective of the event.

“At Qatar Rail, we envisage the develop-ment of a Long Distance Rail that will form part of the planned GCC cross-border rail-way network that will enable a higher level of cooperation between the member states. We were happy to exchange expertise and thoughts with stakeholders and push fur-ther towards Qatar’s national transportation objectives,” said Al Subaie.

The varied participation of industry lead-ers from the railway and transportation sector was indicative of the two-day event’s importance. The conference (held from March 30 to 31) focused on three major topics that discussed “legal interoperability frame-work”, “railway harmonisation and stand-ardisation”, “railway safety”, “harmonization of cross-border transport” and “railway sup-pliers’ perspectives on interoperability”.

Participating companies mainly included OTIF, UIC, CIT, SRO – Saudi Arabia, Etihad Rail – UAE, Oman Rail, Moroccan State Railways, UIC – Africa, TCDD – Turkey, RAI – Iran, Sina Rail Pars Transport – Iran, AFRA

– Afghanistan, Huawei Technologies - China, Alstom Transport - France, and Qatar Rail.

More than 100 industry leaders attended the two-day event, with a common aim to tackle all interoperability issues that are shaping the technical, operational, legal and regulatory fields in the railway sector in our region.

Abdulrahman Ali Al Malik, Long Distance Project Director at Qatar Rail, added: “Constructing a high-tech rail network that connects the GCC region enables a closer degree of cooperation between the member states, in line with the GCC region’s vision. This will also facilitate cross-border trade for local, regional and international businesses in the near future. In this light, the Qatar Rail Development Program (QRDP) is cur-rently developing a long distance passenger and freight rail network to connect major cities and industries in Qatar, and to play its role in linking the six GCC countries.”

The last day of the event began with a dis-cussion by Ramiz Al Assar, Resident Adviser at World Bank and Secretariat General of the GCC, Saudi Arabia, on the harmonisation and interoperability of the GCC Railway, and the progress made in this regard.

THE PENINSULA

Rail network to boost cross-border trade

Jobless data boosts labour market in USTrade deficit falls to $35.4bn

ATHENS: Greece has told its creditors it will run out of money on April 9, making an appeal for more loans before reforms on which new disbursements hinge are agreed and implemented, but the request was rejected, euro zone officials said.

The appeal was made by Athens at a teleconference of euro zone deputy finance minis-ters on Wednesday organised to assess how far Greece still was from meeting the conditions for unlocking new financial aid.

Greece’s finance ministry denied Athens had told its credi-tors it would run out cash on April 9. “The finance ministry categorically denies an anony-mous report by Reuters on issues which were supposedly discussed during the Euro Working Group on April 1,” the finance ministry said in a statement.

Greece’s appeal echoed remarks by Interior Minister Nikos Voutsis that the country would have to choose whether to pay back ¤450m to the International Monetary Fund on April 9th or pay salaries and pensions. He said it would choose the latter.

A government spokesman later denied that Greece would miss the IMF repayment deadline. But the choice Athens said it would face was repeated at the closed teleconference with creditors.

Greece can get ¤7.2bn of new loans from the eurozone and the IMF if it implements reforms that the previous government agreed

would be the condition for dis-bursement. The new government does not want to implement most of these measures because they go against its election promises of ending budget consolidation poli-cies. It is now negotiating a new list of steps that would keep both sides satisfied.

The Greek representative on the call said that a deal on the reforms should not be a “post mortem” for the country as “there is no way we can go beyond April 9th”, eurozone officials said. He added that holding off with new loans until a deal with creditors can be reached was unrealistic.

But others on the call, includ-ing Germany, reiterated that for Greece to get the reminder of the ¤240bn bailout, Athens would have to agree on the reforms and implement them and there was no chance of releasing the funds on April 9. Eurozone officials pointed out to Greece that it could man-age its liquidity by tapping funds of various entities in the Greek general government and those of state-owned companies, even if it had to pass appropriate laws to do so if necessary.

But Greece repeated that this would not be enough to cover both the IMF repayments and its wage and pension obligations in April after next week. No resolution was reached on the call regard-ing what would happen if the talks continue beyond April 9. Greece sent a more detailed list of planned reforms to institutions

representing the creditors — the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the IMF — earlier on Wednesday.

But the list was work in progress and far from satisfactory, representatives of the institutions said on the call. Some policies, like social measures, went in the right direction, while others still lacked detail or an estimation of how much they would cost, they said.

Others still, like some measures on tax, the labour market, a law to allow the payment of tax debt in instalments or steps to limit the autonomy of public revenue administrations, went clearly against earlier agreed objec-tives, officials said. Fiscal reform assumptions were far too optimis-tic, some officials on the call said.

Eurozone officials said on the call that even though teams of creditor representatives have been in Athens for three weeks, useful work went on only in the last four days and at this rate reaching a deal by the end of April was impossible. They said creditor representatives were struggling to get information on the policy intentions of the Geek govern-ment because Greek officials were sometimes unaware of plans or not allowed to talk about them.

Euro zone deputy finance min-isters and the institutions rep-resenting the creditors will hold further discussions on Greece on April 8, but it is unlikely that a deal could be reached by then, officials said. REUTERS

Greece tells creditors it will run out of cash on April 9

CAIRO: Egypt moved closer to easing its chronic power short-ages yesterday as the arrival of a floating import terminal marked the start of imports of super-cooled liquefied natural gas (LNG).

The Hoegh Gallant floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) from Norway’s Hoegh LNG arrived off Ain Sukhna on the Gulf of Suez, an official at state gas board EGAS said. It is carrying an initial cargo of 160,000 cubic metres of LNG.

Egypt has exported LNG in the past, but the Hoegh Gallant

will allow the country to begin imports. Energy is politically sen-sitive in Egypt, where dissatisfac-tion with persistent power cuts has sparked protests that have helped topple two leaders in four years.

Energy consumption is rising and production falling, turning Egypt from an energy exporter to a net importer and forcing the government to seek energy from abroad to head off the country’s worst energy crisis in decades.

The country is more than $3bn in arrears to foreign energy com-panies, partly from diverting gas

set for export to energy-starved domestic users.

Hoegh signed a five-year con-tract with Egypt in November 2014 to provide the import ter-minal and the country has since agreed to a number of LNG import deals.

EGAS has agreed to import 33 LNG cargoes from Trafigura , 9 from Vitol, 7 from Noble, and 6 from Algeria’s Sonatrach, to be delivered in this year and next. Last month, EGAS signed a deal to import 35 LNG cargoes from Russia’s Gazprom over five years.

REUTERS

Egypt to begin LNG imports

Myanmar economy

A truck drives past a cargo container yard at a port in Yangon yesterday. Myanmar has implemented an array of changes since the end of junta rule. Most Western sanctions have been lifted and the long-cloistered economy is opening up.

14 BUSINESSFRIDAY 3 APRIL 2015

www.thepeninsulaqatar.com

Qatar Exchange index ends in the greenMarket cap rises to QR632bnDOHA: Qatar’s bourse ended the week in green, after rising 1.46 percent or 168 points to 11,699. Barring Insurance, the entire sector indices advanced. The market is 4.78 percent down year-to-date.

Masraf Al Rayan, Ooredoo and Industries Qatar were the top gainers yesterday. A total of 7 million shares worth QR338m exchanged hands yesterday. Barwa Real Estate was the big mover of the day. The real estate major traded over 1.4 million shares worth QR66m.

Transportation sector out-performed the sector indices by gaining 1.6 percent, followed by the Telecoms (1.56 percent), Industrials (1.51 percent), Banks (1.50 percent), Real estate (0.77 percent), Insurance (0.69 per-cent) and Consumer Goods (0.54 percent). Weighed down by Qatar General Insurance and Reinsurance (QGRI), the insur-ance sector lost 0.69 percent. QGRI plunged 4.35 percent.

The Qatar Exchange (QE) weekly report noted the bourse gained 2.53 percent or 288 points during the four-day session in the past week. Market cap rose by 2.43 percent to QR632bn. Trading value increased by 5.62 percent to QR1.8bn. Trading volume decreased by 0.75 percent to reach 38 million shares. Total number of transactions fell by 7.23 percent to 23,241 transactions during the week.

Of the 43 listed companies, 31 ended higher in the past week, while 11 fell and one remained unchanged.

The banks and financial serv-ice sector led trading value,

accounting for 39.01 percent, fol-lowed by industrials sector, real estate and consumer goods and services. The trading volume was also led by the banks and financial services, followed by real estate, the industrials and telecoms.

QNB led trading value during the week, accounting for 11.47 percent of the total trading value, followed by Gulf International (10.63 percent) and Barwa Real Estate (10.51 percent).

Meanwhile, most Gulf markets rose alongside oil yesterday but fresh weakness in the commodity late in the day dampened senti-ment in Saudi Arabia. Egyptian investors dumped most stocks in order to buy newly listed food maker Edita, Reuters reported.

The main Saudi stock index, which had risen as much as 0.7 percent early in the day, closed 0.9 percent lower with most stocks in the red.

Dubai’s stock index jumped 2.4 percent to 3,615 points on heavy volume after rising above techni-cal resistance at its late March high of 3,538 points. The break triggered a minor bullish right triangle pointing up to the 3,800-point area.

Abu Dhabi’s market climbed 1.0 percent as most blue chips rallied, with the exception of telecom-munications firm Etisalat, whose shares stopped carrying the 2014 dividend and fell 2.2 percent.

Egypt’s bourse was the weak-est among major Middle East markets, dropping 2.3 percent as investors rushed to buy shares in food maker Edita, which started trading on Thursday and is not part of the benchmark.

THE PENINSULA

LONDON: European equity markets closed mixed yesterday ahead of the long Easter holiday weekend and on the eve of cru-cial US jobs data.

London’s benchmark FTSE 100 index of top companies ended the day up 0.35 percent to 6,833.46 points and the CAC 40 in Paris rose 0.24 percent to 5,074.14 points. Frankfurt’s DAX 30 index dipped 0.28 percent to 11,976.39 points erasing Wednesday’s gains, hit partly by ongoing worries over Greece.

All three main European stock

markets will remain closed today and on Monday for public holi-days, before reopening for busi-ness on Tuesday.

The region’s indices had risen slightly Wednesday on the back of upbeat manufacturing data in China and the eurozone. “The business week finishes today for many ahead of the extended Easter weekend; however, (US) non-farm payrolls are still to be released tomorrow (Friday),” said analyst Angus Campbell at trad-ing firm FxPro.

US stocks pushed up as traders

took a cautious stance with Wall Street also to be closed on Friday for the Easter weekend. Around midday in New York, the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.11 percent to 17,718.23 points. The broad-based S&P 500 gained 0.34 percent to 2,066.62, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite rose 0.17 percent to 4,888.73.

In foreign exchange activ-ity on Thursday, the European single currency rose to $1.0874 from $1.0760 late in New York on Wednesday.

London’s market won a lift

from news of rebounding fourth-quarter sales at retailer Marks & Spencer. M&S shares rallied as much as 6.13 percent in early trades before closing up 4.43 per-cent at 554.00 pence.

Asian stock markets climbed after the previous day’s losses, but expectations for a Federal Reserve interest rate hike were hit by weak US data. Hong Kong advanced 0.77 percent, Tokyo jumped 1.46 percent, Shanghai rose 0.41 percent and Sydney rose 0.64 percent in value.

AFP

European equities mixed ahead of Easter break

The 2016 Chevy Spark on display at the New York International Auto Show yesterday.

NEW YORK: Mercedes-Benz and BMW are probing unau-thorised exports of luxury cars from the United States to China, which have recently surged and threaten profit in the world’s largest auto market, senior executives said.

So-called gray imports to China have jumped since the coun-try allowed dealers registered in Shanghai’s free trade zone to import cars without the consent of foreign carmakers, exacerbat-ing price pressure for German manufacturers.

As a result, Daimler AG, which owns premium auto brand Mercedes-Benz, said it intensi-fied efforts to clamp down on exports of US models to China about a year ago.

“We got concerned when it hit 4,000,” said Steve Cannon, head of Mercedes-Benz USA, refer-ring to the number of vehicles being shipped to China from the United States.

Mercedes can penalise US deal-ers who knowingly sell vehicles to so-called gray-market exporters, who operate through unauthor-ized channels.

As a first step it has encour-aged dealers to vet buyers of exclusive models such as the GL large SUV, using online resources such as Zillow to check addresses of would-be buyers, and has dis-couraged cash payment for cars, Cannon said.

“We nipped it in the bud,” Cannon said, referring to the ability of unauthorised buyers

to acquire vehicles in the United States for immediate export to China. “We took it down to almost nothing.”

China has had a gray market in auto sales for some time, cen-tered around the northern port city of Tianjin, where about half of China’s total car import deals are done.

Together, Audi , BMW and Mercedes have about 70 to 80 percent market share in the pre-mium segment.

A BMW 650i xDrive Convertible that sells from $97,900 in the United States can cost close to 2 million yuan ($320,179) in China.

Ian Robertson, BMW AG’s board member responsible for global sales, said the company is concerned about the effect of new Chinese laws that clear a legal path for parallel imports.

The carmaker is cooperating with US law enforcement authori-ties investigating the source and flow of the money used to acquire such vehicles.

BMW does not have a precise figure for how many vehicles are being shipped to China from the United States through unofficial channels. “It’s not a single entre-preneur,” Robertson said. “It’s difficult to know.”

But BMW is seeing vehicles turn up in China with navigation systems and engines that are specified for the United States, not China.

One concern, he said, is that US engines are designed to run on

different fuel than is commonly available in China, and the result could be that gray-market BMWs perform poorly.

After years of growth that turned China into the world’s big-gest car market, cooling demand is exacerbating tensions between global carmakers and local car dealers.

Earlier this year, BMW said it will pay 5.1 billion yuan ($823m) to its established China dealers who are suffering from slowing sales as the economy cools and competition from unauthorized dealers increases.

REUTERS

NEW YORK: Crude-oil prices fell yesterday after six world powers and Iran announced they had agreed on a framework to curb Iran’s nuclear drive.

With the tentative deal, if con-firmed, likely to allow Iran crude exports back on the markets, Brent North Sea crude for deliv-ery in May, the global benchmark contract, slumped $2.15, settling at $54.95 a barrel in London trade.

The US benchmark, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for May delivery, shed 95 cents to close at $49.14 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Traders have been following the marathon negotiations closely. Shortly before the New York mar-ket closed, the world powers and Iran said that Tehran has agreed to curtail its nuclear program in return for the lifting of US and European Union nuclear-related sanctions that have harmed its economy.

Lifting sanctions could open up the flow of Iranian crude to an oversupplied global market. The glut has pushed crude prices more than 50 percent lower since last June. At the beginning of the press conference in Lausanne, Switzerland, the price of WTI, which had been trading lower since the market opened, fell to $48.11 a barrel before paring its losses.

The countries announced the drafting of a full agreement would begin immediately, with a June 30 deadline for completion. The sanctions would be lifted after the UN atomic agency verifies Iran has fulfilled the terms of the deal.

Commerzbank analysts, cit-ing shipping sources, said earlier this week that Iran has at least 30 million barrels of crude oil in storage onboard tankers that could quickly move onto the mar-ket if sanctions were lifted.

Iran has the world’s fourth-largest oil reserves. The Opec member’s crude exports have fallen from more than 2.2 million barrels per day in 2011 to about 1.3m b/d because of the US-EU sanctions. Traders also kept an eye on the latest Baker Hughes count of US crude-oil drilling rigs, looking for clues that the strong US crude output could be easing. The count fell by 11 rigs from last week. AFP

DOHA: Qatar General Insurance & Reinsurance Company yesterday announced that its subsidiary Mozoon Real Estate, has completed the initial designs of “Mozoon Towers” project. This exciting project, comprising four hotels and apart-ment towers and 3,485 m2 of quality retail space, is located in Al Dafna area.

General Real Estate Company, a com-pany wholly owned by Qatar General Insurance & Reinsurance Company, has been appointed to manage the project. Oberoi & Marriot will operate the hotels and serviced apartments in this complex,

the firm said in a regulatory filing with Qatar Exchange (QE). General Real Estate Company recently awarded the enabling works package to “BAUER” who will com-mence the works during April 2015.

“Mozoon Real Estate” was established in the year 2009 by “Qatar General Holding company” and “Al-Sari Trading Company”, as each one owns 50 percent of the company’s capital. The purpose of this company is to develop the plot of land located in the Doha City-Al-Dafnah area which is owned equally by “Qatar General Insurance & Reinsurance Company” and

“Al-Sari Trading Company”.In a separate filing to the QE, Qatar

General Insurance & Reinsurance Company announced the completion of the signing of the agreement under which General Real Estate Company, a wholly- owned subsidiary of Qatar General Holding Company , which is fully owned by QGIRC, acquired the entire share capital of Oriental Enterprises Company. However, this agreement entering into force remains subject to the approval of the regulatory authorities, including Qatar Central Bank.

Oriental Enterprises Company, operating

in the field of construction and building materials as well as the maintenance of the buildings, holds an “A” rating in the field of construction works and maintenance of buildings. The Company has completed several projects since its inception varied in terms of type and size of housing projects and other commercial projects.

This acquisition is designed to support the company’s real estate activities, as well as diversifying the sources of income of the parent company, QGIRC. QGIRC’s shares tumbled 4.35 percent on Qatar’s stock mar-ket yesterday. THE PENINSULA

Initial designs of ‘Mozoon Towers’ project completed

BMW, Mercedes probing gray imports to China

A Volkswagen concept Beetle on display at the show.

Oil price falls amid tentative Iran N-deal

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange yesterday.

MARKET 15FRIDAY 3 APRIL 2015

www.thepeninsulaqatar.com

QATAR EXCHANGE | DAILY TRADING REPORT | 01-04-2015

QE Market Summary Comparison Today Previous day

02-04-2015 01-04-2015

Index 11,699.03 11,531.01

Change 168.02 180.39

% 1.46 1.54

YTD% 4.78 6.14

Volume 7,926,104 5,005,671

Value (QAR) 338,233,653.99 282,948,210.73

Trades 4,467 3,672Up 36 | Down 05 | Unchanged 01

QE Indices SummaryQE Index 11,699.03 1.46 %

QE Total Return Index 18,179.38 1.46 %

QE Al Rayan Islamic Index 4,304.68 1.31 %

QE All Share Index 3,130.24 1.24 %

QE All Share Banks & Financial Services

3,169.52 1.50 %

QE All Share Industrials 3,895.48 1.51 %

QE All Share Transportation 2,434.48 1.60 %

QE All Share Real Estate 2,388.57 0.77 %

QE All Share Insurance 4,069.67 0.69 %

QE All Share Telecoms 1,315.97 1.56 %

QE All Share Consumer Goods & Services

6,900.74 0.54 %

EXCHANGE RATE

GOLD & SILVERWORLD STOCK INDICES

CRUDE OIL

Buying SellingINDEX Day’s Close Pt Chg % Chg Year High Year Low

A B G Infra-T/D 163.9 -5 5716

A C C-A/D 1583.45 22.85 9238

Aarti Drugs-B/D 649.25 -2.5 9448

Aban Offs-A/D 428.8 3.1 192148

Ador Welding-B/D 219 -3.1 1721

Aegis Logis-B/D 656.5 48.6 82891

Ahmed.Forg-B/D 230.9 3.2 177359

Alembic-B/D 36.6 1.95 271722

Alok Indus-A/D 7.96 0.56 1434151

Apollo Tyre-A/D 174.55 6.3 357066

Asahi I Glass-/D 141.55 -2.6 4688

Ashok Leyland-/D 74.15 0.6 1393807

Bajaj Hold-A/D 1304.75 3.05 1983

Ballarpur In-B/D 13.92 0.19 163141

Banaras Bead-B/D 38.2 4.65 1660

Bata India-A/D 1100 9.25 10709

Bayer Crop-A/D 3299.9 -26.15 1935

Beml Ltd-A/D 1138.9 46.55 173286

Bh Electronic-/D 3496.15 148.9 84247

Bharatgears-B/D 75.5 2.85 2917

Bhel-A/D 231.8 -3.15 482313

Bom.Burmah-B/D 450.8 11.2 42665

Bombay Dyeing-/D 66.1 2.2 317038

Camph.& All-B/D 264.8 15.6 2262

Canfin Homes-B/D 645 39 11913

Caprihans-B/D 69.3 2.9 2118

Castrol India-/D 468.8 -5.6 36259

Century Enka-B/D 157.5 7.8 27421

Century Text-A/D 676.75 39.6 555702

Chambal Fert-B/D 72.2 4.7 526025

Chowgule St-T/D 24 0.05 6395

Cimmco-B/D 95.2 4.5 11365

Cipla-A/D 709.45 -1.75 126934

City Union Bk-/D 98.95 2.3 24738

Colgate-A/D 2001.9 -11.55 9916

Container Cor-/D 1581.55 0.3 3929

Dai-Tichi Kar-/D 160 3.1 10639

Dhampur Sugar-/D 36.5 0.5 8809

Dr. Reddy-A/D 3545 57.55 26138

E I H-B/D 110.3 3.15 24435

E.I.D Parry-A/D 171 -4.9 8764

Eicher Motor-A/D 16028.4 138.2 4402

Electrosteel-B/D 19.35 0.35 751406

Emco-B/D 34.45 1.4 49779

Escorts-A/D 126.7 -0.35 190673

Essar Oil-T/D 110.05 1.35 61055

Eveready Indu-/D 270.2 9.8 30371

F D C-B/D 153.9 2.25 13785

Federal Bank-A/D 133.4 1.4 109082

Ferro Alloys-B/D 4.15 0.13 74276

Finolex-A/D 289.25 5.6 8080

Gail-A/D 384.6 -4.25 47280

Gammon India-T/D 19.15 1.6 116477

Garden P -B/D 26.05 -0.2 20549

Godfrey Phil-B/D 443.65 19.05 2997

Goodricke-B/D 149 0.5 12676

Goodyear I -B/D 543.5 26.25 18654

Hcl Infosys-B/D 53.3 1.7 698358

Him.Fut.Comm-T/D 14.69 1.29 2903827

Himat Seide-B/D 81.5 1 49987

Hind Motors-T/D 6.71 0.43 66618

Hind Org Chem-/D 14.65 0.55 6257

Hind Unilever-/D 882.4 9.5 50125

Hind.Petrol-A/D 653.05 2.95 143030

Hindalco-A/D 132.15 3 759131

Hous Dev Fin-A/D 1333.8 22.55 57940

I F C I-A/D 34.35 1 520192

Idbi-A/D 72.75 1.7 352051

Ifb Agro-B/D 263.1 12.8 2823

Ifb Ind.Ltd.-B/D 624.75 41.25 37302

India Cement-A/D 89.2 2.75 179700

India Glycol-B/D 86.5 5.25 24218

Indian Hotel-A/D 114.6 -2.25 64083

Indo-Tcount-T/D 395.1 16.3 15526

Indusind-A/D 925.35 42.85 114681

J.B.Chemical-B/D 205.65 5.55 54106

Jagson Phar-B/D 29.55 1.05 28569

Jamnaauto-B/D 237.4 -5.4 1801

Jbf Indu-B/D 224.9 13.5 67948

Jct Ltd-B/D 3.11 0.1 165680

Jenson&Nich.-B/D 6.44 0.3 41684

Jindal Drill-B/D 168.3 2.3 1692

Jktyre&Ind-B/D 117.55 12.05 865197

Jmc Projects-T/D 188.4 5.3 8183

Kajaria Cer-A/D 785 -18.3 4694

Kakatiya Cem-B/D 122.2 2.5 1551

Kalpat Power-B/D 227.85 7.8 122737

Kalyani Stel-T/D 138.4 3.6 33942

Kanoria Chem-B/D 41.5 0.5 16662

Kg Denim-B/D 21.75 0.75 5623

Kilburnengg-T/D 54.95 0.65 84471

Kinetic Eng-B/D 44.5 0.35 5378

Kopran-B/D 47.95 2.45 92647

Lakshmi Elec-B/D 330.4 10.1 2583

Lakshmi Mach-A/D 3877.2 50.65 3733

Lgb Broth-B/D 543 -6.5 1598

Lloyd Metal-B/D 7.26 0.87 7061

Lok.Hous&Con-B/D 10.95 0.15 9564

Lumax Ind-B/D 328.7 -6.7 9768

Lupin-A/D 2038.3 31.25 43859

Lyka Labs-T/D 51.45 1.6 106407

Mafatlal Ind-B/D 155.1 1.1 11397

Mah.Seamless-B/D 209.6 12.25 16499

Mangalam Cem-B/D 279.3 13.6 9911

Maral Overs-B/D 27.55 1.4 16894

Mastek-B/D 423.7 -2.5 265322

Max India L-A/D 449.2 18.05 51653

Mrpl-A/D 70.25 3.1 183593

Nahar Spg.-B/D 91.45 4.65 36635

Nation Alum -A/D 47 0.35 81258

Navneet Edu-B/D 102 2.75 16565

Nepc India-T/D 2.43 0.11 4766

Neuland Lab-B/D 349 16 2870

Nrb Bearings-B/D 131 -1 5556

O N G C-A/D 306.45 -0.35 229958

Ocl India-B/D 455.6 1.65 4834

Oil Country-B/D 31.9 1.55 3759

Orchid Chem-B/D 53.25 1.6 166950

Orient.Carb.-T/D 450.1 -0.5 3467

Orient.Carb.-T/D 450.1 -0.5 3467

Patspin India-/D 6.81 -0.09 5610

Punjab Chem.-B/D 190 6.3 74232

Radico Khait-B/D 89 -0.2 32038

Rallis India-A/D 230.25 3.95 40060

Reliance Indus/D 401.85 3.75 78252

Ruchi Soya-B/D 45.85 0.95 152363

S Bk Bikaner-B/D 598.45 5.95 28189

Salora Inter-B/D 40.7 3.7 3203

Saur.Cem-B/D 43.85 0.4 41249

Timexgroup-T/D 19.85 0.85 221422

Tinplate-B/D 57.55 3.25 89497

Ucal Fuel-B/D 114.3 4 27008

Ucal Fuel-B/D 114.3 4 27008

Ultramarine-B/D 65.5 0.6 4682

Unitech P -A/D 16.25 0.05 4681895

3I Group/D 480.2 3 402797

Assoc.Br.Foods/D 2835 19 215711

Barclays/D 253.02 3.75 16240465

Bg Group/D 850.7 -0.7 5336125

Bp/D 440.2 -1.9 8406244

Brit Am Tobacc/D 3543 4.5 819560

Bt Group/D 440.75 -0.65 7143686

Centrica/D 251.728306 -3.2 3594517

Gkn/D 359.5 0.7 1842087

Hsbc Holdings/D 581 2.4 11111906

Imperial Tobac/D 3102 57 1789884

Kingfisher/D 360.7 -7.3 4083513

Land Secs Grou/D 1249 -6 448518

Legal & Genera/D 279.6 -0.9 3148926

Lloyds Bnk Grp/D 78.69 -0.7 42997327

Marks & Sp./D 557.5 27 5545419

Next/D 7010 10 117119

Pearson/D 1429 -14 953412

Prudential/D 1673.5 -1.5 992227

Rank Group/D 186 -0.2 242289

Rentokil Initi/D 136.551 0 345967

Rolls Royce Pl/D 940.08 -10 1961115

Rsa Insrance G/D 425.1 -1.5 1939358

Sainsbury(J)/D 260 1.9 2713913

Schroders/D 3213 5 68468

Severn Trent/D 2085 1 251591

Smith&Nephew/D 1146.5 14 877074

Smiths Group/D 1113 -4 435148

Standrd Chart /D 1073.1 -8.5 2485469

Tate & Lyle/D 624.3582 16.5 1012682

Tesco/D 241.983 -1.25 7194799

Unilever/D 2831 18 807873

United Util Gr/D 931.5 -8 667077

Vodafone Group/D 221.15 1.1 15367802

Whitbread/D 5220 -5 95497

LONDON

INTERNATIONAL MARKETS A List of Shares from the worldCOMPANY CLOSE NET VOLUME VolumeNAME CHG TRADED

COMPANY CLOSE NET VOLUME VolumeNAME CHG TRADED

COMPANY CLOSE NET VOLUME VolumeNAME CHG TRADED

COMPANY CLOSE NET VOLUME VolumeNAME CHG TRADED

COMPANY CLOSE NET VOLUME VolumeNAME CHG TRADED

COMPANY CLOSE NET VOLUME VolumeNAME CHG TRADED

US$ ..........................QR 3.6305 QR 3.6500

UK ...........................QR 5.3601 QR 5.4360

Euro .........................QR 3.9219 QR 4.9768

CA$ ..........................QR 2.8567 QR 2.9130

Swiss Fr ..................QR 3.7693 QR 3.8229

Yen ..........................QR 0.0302 QR 0.0308

Aus$ ........................QR 2.7256 QR 2.7802

Ind Re ......................QR 0.0580 QR 0.0592

Pak Re .....................QR 0.0354 QR 0.0361

Peso ........................QR 0.0812 QR 0.0828

SL Re .......................QR 0.0271 QR 0.0277

Taka .........................QR 0.0464 QR 0.0473

Nep Re ....................QR 0.0363 QR 0.0367

SA Rand ..................QR 0.3008 QR 0.3068

BRENT

$ 56.07

DUBAI

$ 53.97

GOLDQR141.4522

SILVER QR 1.9834

All Ordinaries 5869.743 36.825 0.63 5962 5248.5

Cac 40 Index/D 5068.53 6.31 0.12 5110.79 4076.16

Dj Indu Average 17698.18 -77.94 -0.44 18288.6 15855.12

Hang Seng Inde/D 25275.64 192.89 0.77 25113.2 23312.5

Iseq Overall/D 6000.44 -17.59 -0.29 6212.11 5072.7

Karachi 100 In/D 31132.25 527.2 1.72 35055.94 28648.23

Nikkei 225 Index 19312.79 277.95 1.46 19778.6 16592.57

S&P 500 Index/D 0 0 0 2119.59 1814.36

Straits Times/D 3453.75 6.73 0.2 3469.02 3267.89

Straits Times/D 3290.99 -1.82 -0.06 3387.84 2953.01

Straits Times/D 3274.06 -8.82 -0.27 3291.83 2953.01

16 CLASSIFIEDSFRIDAY 3 APRIL 2015

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Harden smashes 51 points as Rockets outwit KingsNBA: Harden bolsters chance to win Most Valuable Player honour HOUSTON: James Harden scored a career-high 51 points on Wednesday to lift the Houston Rockets to a 115-111 NBA vic-tory over the Sacramento Kings.

Harden’s electrifying perform-ance, less than a fortnight after he scored 50 points against the Denver Nuggets on March 19, fur-ther bolstered his claim to Most Valuable Player honours.

He connected on 16 of his 25 shots from the field. That included making eight of nine attempts from three-point range to match his career high, and he drained 11 of 13 free-throw attempts.

The play-off-bound Rockets notched their 51st victory of the season. Their fifth win in six games pulled them level with the

Memphis Grizzlies for the sec-ond seed in Western Conference and first place in the Southwest Division.

Trevor Ariza scored 22 points and Terrence Jones, back in action after being sidelined with a col-lapsed lung, added 16 points and seven rebounds in the triumph.

DeMarcus Cousins produced a triple-double for the Kings in the setback, scoring 24 points, 21 rebounds and 10 assists.

Cousins also tied his career high for blocks with six.

A three-point play by Harden gave Houston a 112-102 lead with 4:04 to play, but the Kings weren’t done.

A jump shot by Cousins was followed by a three-pointer from Ben McLemore, which cut the deficit to 112-107.

The Rockets rebuilt the lead to 115-107 with 1:22 remaining.

But Sacramento’s Jason Thompson made two free throws and after a turnover by Houston’s Jones Omri Casspi’s layup with 52.2 seconds left made it 115-111.

Both teams came up empty on their next possessions, and Harden missed two free throws with less than 10 seconds left. But time ran out for Sacramento.

Harden joined Cleveland’s Kyrie Irving as the only other NBA player with multiple 50-point games this season.

Irving scored 55 points in a win over Portland in January and 57 in a 128-125 overtime triumph over San Antonio on March 12.

Hornets 102, Pistons 78Forward Marvin Williams

scored 18 points and guard Kemba Walker added 17, as Charlotte cruised to a much-needed win over Detroit. The Hornets were in control throughout, leading by as many as 20 in the first half before extending in the second half despite a lot of sloppy play.

Mavericks 135, Thunder 131Guard Monta Ellis scored

26 points to lead Dallas past Oklahoma City at the Chesapeake Energy Arena.

The Mavs (46-29) pushed their lead over the Thunder (42-33) to four games for seventh place in the Western Conference standings.

Dallas forward Chandler Parsons scored 22 points on 10-of-15 shooting. Forward Dirk Nowitzki and center Amar’e

Stoudemire each posted 18 points.Spurs 103, Magic 91San Antonio continued its late-

season surge toward the playoffs by crushing outmatched Orlando for a fifth consecutive victory in the event.

The Spurs, who won in Miami on Tuesday, have won 15 of their last 18 games. They did it Wednesday with reserves car-rying much of the load, and the starters resting the entire fourth quarter. AGENCIES

James Harden

(left)of the Houston Rockets

looks to drive with the

basketball against Ben McLemore

of the Sacramento Kings during

their NBA game at

the Toyota Center on

Wednesday in Houston,

Texas.

NFL: McClain returns to Dallas after $3m deal NEW YORK: Linebacker Rolando McClain returned to the Dallas Cowboys on a one-year, $3m deal on Wednesday.

McClain, 25, played 13 games and recording 108 tackles for the Cowboys. He is facing a four-game fine for a substance-abuse violation, and another positive test would mean a four-game suspension.

McClain, who had a compet-ing offer from the New England Patriots, can earn another $1m in incentives.

To make room for McClain and other moves, the Cowboys created nearly $13m in salary cap space by restructuring the contract of quarterback Tony Romo, accord-ing to Yahoo Sports.

Oregon quarterback Marcus Mariota plans to skip the NFL Draft, following the same likely move of Florida State’s Jameis Winston.

According to ESPN.com, Mariota informed the league he plans to be in Hawaii among his family and the community that helped raise him.

Mariota reportedly told the NFL that it is important to him, “both personally and culturally,” to be in Hawaii.

The NFL will be allowed to view seven photographs from Greg Hardy’s domestic violence case to help determine whether the former Carolina Panthers defensive end violated the league’s personal conduct policy.

The Mecklenburg County District Attorney’s office in Charlotte, N.C., said Wednesday it will allow the NFL to see seven photos in the prosecutor’s file from Hardy’s first trial.

Hardy, who had 15 sacks with the Panthers in 2013 during his Pro Bowl season, remains on the commissioner’s exempt list and could face an NFL suspension of as many as six games.

The Denver Broncos acquired center Gino Gradkowski in a trade with the Baltimore Ravens involv-ing 2016 draft pick considerations.

According to reports, the Ravens will get Denver’s 2016 fourth-round pick in exchange for Gradkowski and Baltimore’s 2016 fifth-round selection.

The Houston Texans signed wide receiver Nate Washington to a one-year deal worth $1m, according to the Houston Chronicle.

Washington, 31, played his first four seasons with the Pittsburgh Steelers and the last six with the Tennessee Titans.

The Chicago Bears signed line-backer Sam Acho and re-signed special-teams standout Sherrick McManis.

Both deals are for 2015 only.The New Orleans Saints signed

cornerback Kyle Wilson and also extended the contract of guard Jahri Evans through 2017, creat-ing salary cap room.

A first-round pick by the New York Jets in 2010, Wilson is the second new cornerback to join the Saints, following Brandon Browner.

Indianapolis Colts running back Dan “Boom” Herron signed his exclusive-rights free-agent tender.

Herron has had 83 rushes for 384 yards and a touchdown, as well as 22 catches for 230 yards in 22 games since being signed by the Colts from the Bengals’ prac-tice squad on Oct. 9, 2013.

He also contributed 10 special teams tackles over the past two seasons.

With all 32 NFL teams in attendance, the University of Miami had several prospects impress at the Hurricanes’ pro day, most notably senior wide receiver Phillip Dorsett, who timed in the mid-4.2 range on his two 40-yard dash attempts.

Dorsett, who ran a 4.33 at the NFL Scouting Combine in February, showed off his speed on the field during positional drills, and catching passes from quar-terbacks Ryan Williams and Jake Heaps.

The general manager of the Montreal Alouettes said the Canadian Football League team has a 50-50 shot of signing defen-sive end Michael Sam, the first openly gay player to be drafted by an NFL team.

AGENCIES

NHL: Flyers rout Penguins 4-1 NEW YORK: The Philadelphia Flyers topped cross-state rivals Pittsburgh 4-1, with Brayden Schenn leading the way with two goals.

The win was Philadelphia’s sev-enth straight over the Penguins and improved their regular-season record at Consol Energy Center to 11-2-0 since the build-ing opened.

The seven-game winning run is the Flyers’ longest such streak since 1985.

Sabres 4, Maple Leafs 3Buffalo scored two third-

period goals to beat Toronto 4-3 in a matchup of the Eastern Conference’s bottom two teams.

Sabres winger Matt Ellis net-ted the game-winner on a close-range backhand shot 3:14 into the third, less than two minutes after Matt Moulson tied the score with a power-play goal.

Meanwhile, t he New York Rangers agreed to terms with

defenceman Brady Skjei on an entry-level contract on Wednesday.

Skjei, 21, selected by the Rangers in the first round (28th overall) of the 2012 NHL draft, skated in 33 games with the University of Minnesota this season, registering one goal, nine assists and 32 penalty minutes.

The 6-foot-3 Skjei in 109 col-legiate games over three seasons, recording eight goals, 19 assists and 76 penalty minutes.

The Boston Bruins signed for-ward Austin Czarnik to an entry-level contract and will report to the Providence Bruins of the American Hockey League.

Czarnik, 22, finished up his

senior season at Miami of Ohio, appearing in 40 games while reg-istering nine goals and 36 assists to lead the team with a total of 45 points. He led the Redhawks the previous three seasons in both assists and points.

The San Jose Sharks reassigned forward Nikolay Goldobin from HIFK to the Worcester Sharks of the American Hockey League.

Goldobin, 18, tallied 11 goals and 10 assists in 38 games with HIFK this season, helping the team reach the play-offs in the Finish Elite League.

San Jose’s first-round pick in 2014, Goldobin also played in the inaugural Champions Hockey League tournament with HIFK, recording four points (three assists) in three games.

He also tallied five points (two goals) to help Russia win a silver medal at the 2015 World Junior Championship in January.

AGENCIES

Vincent Lecavalier (left) of the Philadelphia Flyers celebrates his first period goal during the NHL game against the Pittsburgh Penguins at Consol Energy Center on Wednesday in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Hackett comeback headlines Australia’s trials SYDNEY: Grant Hackett yesterday said making the Australian team for the world championships would be like winning Olympic gold as he pre-pares to make his competitive return after seven years out of the pool.

The 34-year-old walked away from the sport in 2008 after win-ning the 1,500m freestyle at both the 2000 Sydney and 2004 Athens Olympics, and claiming four world titles in the event. He won silver in the event at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Hackett, whose life later ran into problems, with a messy divorce and allegations he smashed up his Melbourne apart-ment, returns on Friday and has entered in the 100, 200 and 400m freestyle events at the nationals in Sydney.

“If I made the Australian team it would feel like winning an Olympic gold medal,” he said ahead of the Australian trials for the world championships in Kazan, Russia later this year.

“(But) I never thought in a mil-lion years I would qualify for the team. It was just to see where I

was at, if I want to go another six or 12 months and actually be competitive.

“I don’t have expectations and I have consciously approached it like that.”

As a former leader of the Australian team, Hackett said he hopes his return has a positive effect on the country’s younger generation of swimmers.

“That’s the point of being a part of Australian swimming and the Australian swim team is that you want to see everybody swim quick,” he said.

“If me coming back into the sport for my own reasons actu-ally lifts the younger competitors and see them get that little bit extra out of themselves, then my job is done.”

Last year the former 1500m world record-holder underwent rehab in the United States after seeking help for an addiction to sleeping pills.

He is now back under his old coach Denis Cotterell and said the upheaval in his personal life led him back to the pool, but he was a different swimmer the second time around.

“I don’t have expectations like I did before and I sort of reserve the right to pull out at any time,” he said.

Dual world champion James Magnussen said he was under no pressure heading into the trials despite a controversial coaching switch.

Magnussen said he does not know how fast he will swim at the eight-day meeting after over-coming a back injury and tackling a different training programme under new coaches Mitch and Lach Falvey.

But he said he had no regrets as he looks to recapture his national 100m title, despite Australian team coach Jacco Verhaeren mak-ing it clear he will be watching the 2012 Olympic silver medallist closely due to the surprise coach-ing switch.

“Even if we don’t get the results immediately I really believe they will come because I am really a big believer in what we are doing and the sort of set up I have got,” he said.

“The structures around swim-ming in Australia are so rigid and old school.

“It’d be good for people to see if you can or can’t succeed outside one of those programmes.”

Following their impressive

performances in 2014 the scores are level between Magnussen and fellow Australian Cameron McEvoy, with one gold each from the major international meets. Magnussen finished first at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games while McEvoy took gold at the Pan Pacific Championships.

Meanwhile, US swimming leg-end Michael Phelps will not be taking part in the sport’s world championships in Russia or in the Pan-American Games in Toronto this year.

“He is not a member of the 2015 world championships team, per the mutual decision of his withdrawal from the team last October,” said a spokesman for US Swimming.

US Swimming executive direc-tor Chuck Wielgus had opened the door to a change of mind last month, when he said that while Phelps’s readmission would be complicated, “there are ways in which it could happen”.

“The team for Team USA at the Pan-Am Games in Toronto is set and he is not on that team,” the US Swimming spokesman said. AGENCIES

In this file photo dated August 17, 2008 shows Australia’s Grant Hackett standing on the podium for the men’s 1,500m freestyle swimming final medal ceremony at the National Aquatics Center during the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

NHL ResultsBuffalo 4 Toronto 3

Philadelphia 4 Pittsburgh 1

Anaheim 5 Edmonton 1

San Jose 5 Colorado 1

NBA ResultsCharlotte 102 Detroit 78

San Antonio 103 Orlando 91

Washington 106 Philadelphia 93

Boston 100 Indiana 87

Brooklyn 100 NY Knicks 98

Houston 115 Sacramento 111

Milwaukee 95 Chicago 91

Toronto 113 Minnesota 99

Dallas 135 Oklahoma City 131

Utah 98 Denver 84

LA Clippers 126 Portland 122

New Orleans 113 LA Lakers 92

19SPORT FRIDAY 3 APRIL 2015

www.thepeninsulaqatar.com

Minister of Youth and Sports, H E Salah bin Ghanem bin Nasser Al Ali and President of the Organising Committee and Secretary-General of Qatar Olympic Committee Sheikh Saoud bin Abdulrahman Al Thani along with the heads of delegations of participating nations during the opening ceremony of the GCC Beach Games in Doha, yesterday.

The parade of the nations during the opening ceremony of the GCC Beach Games. Over 300 athletes from across the GCC will take part in the event that will conclude on April 9.

GCC Beach Games kick off in styleDoha hosts impressive opening ceremony DOHA: The second edition of the GCC Beach Games begun with a spectacular opening cer-emony yesterday at the beach basketball courts in Al Gharafa Club, one of the host venues of the Games.

More than 300 athletes from Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, the UAE and Saudi Arabia took part in the Parade of Nations during the cer-emony, which also saw the heads of the visiting delegations.

Qatar, the host nation will par-ticipate in all of the eight sport-ing disciplines with 65 national athletes to be seen in action till April 9.

President of the Organising Committee and Secretary-General of the Qatar Olympic Committee, Sheikh Saoud bin Abdulrahman Al Thani gave the opening speech of the Games.

Speaking during the Ceremony, Sheikh Saoud said: “Hosting the second edition of the GCC Beach Games is an honour and we hope that by hosting the Games we can raise the profile of beach sports in Qatar and the region.

“We have leveraged our years of experience in hosting major sporting events as well as our world-class facilities to ensure that this edition of the Games garners more attention for beach sports among youth in the region and all over the world,” he added.

The opening Ceremony also included various cultural festivi-ties, including a traditional Qatari band that played throughout the night.

After the first edition held in Bahrain in 2010, this year’s GCC Beach Games will be staged in Doha’s state-of-the-art facilities and iconic landmarks over an action-packed eight-day sport-ing spectacle.

Katara Cultural Village is the second host venue of the Games, and will host open water swim-ming, rowing, sailing and air

sports. Over 300 athletes from across the GCC will participate in 13 events across eight sporting disciplines, with Al Kass channel broadcasting the excitement live.

In addition to the athletes, the GCC Beach Games will see the participation of 70 team officials and 150 technical officials from the six GCC countries taking part.

Aspetar, one of the world’s leading specialised orthopedic and sports medicine hospitals and the first of its kind in the Middle East, will provide medical services for the Games while the prestigious Anti-Doping Laboratory Qatar will handle the drug testing for the event.

The concept of a Beach Games was created by the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) with the staging of the first-ever Asian Beach Games in Bali, Indonesia in 2008, and is seen as a pioneer in bringing new sports to the sand.

The Asian Beach Games have been held every two years since, with the most recent edition being hosted in 2014 in Phuket, Thailand.

It’s popularity and success led to a resolution at the Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC) General Assembly in November 2014 to launch a World Beach Games, with the first event set to take place in 2017.

THE PENINSULA

An artist performs during the opening ceremony of the GCC Beach Games, yesterday in Doha.

Al Rayyan’s players and officials pose with the trophy after beating El Jaish in the final of Qatar Basketball League Cup, yesterday at the Al Gharafa Indoor Hall.

Al Rayyan edge El Jaish to clinch Qatar League title

Al Rayyan coach Koufos Stergios lifts the trophy in jubilation after his side defeated El Jaish in an absorbing final in Doha yesterday. Al Rayyan won 78-74 after a tough fight.

DOHA: Bolds Demarius Armond yesterday poured in 30 points and managed four assists while Davon James Dominic chipped in with 18 to help Al Rayyan power to Qatar Basketball League title with a hard-fought victory over El Jaish.

Ewing Jr. Patrick Aloysius scored 11 points as Al Rayyan beat El Jaish 78-74 at Al Gharafa Indoor Hall yesterday. Both sides were tied at 1-1 after two games in the best-of-three series.

For El Jaish, Taggart Shawn Larell (20), Watson Boney Harold (18), Abilmona Fadi Hani (14) and Macklin Vernon Leon (14) managed to reach double fig-ures but Al Rayyan - coached by Koufos Stergios - were not to be denied.

El Jaish, who were dreaming to win the title for the second time since 2007-08, failed to stop the rampaging 15-time champions Al Rayyan.

It was Al Rayyan’s third win over El Jaish in five meetings this season.

Al Rayyan picked up the top prize of QR 600,000 while El Jaish got richer by QR 400,000.

Influential player and captain Musa Yasseen Ismail managed 9 points for the winners.

Rashid Al Khalifa, Vice- President of Al Rayyan, said the club would now up the ante in the remaining part of the season.

“With this win, the boys will be confident for the remaining part of the season,” Al Khalifa said.

“I feel my team is peaking at the right time,” he added.

“This could be the turning part for our side. We could go on an win other titles as well,” he said.

Al Khalifa said the team worked hard in the last two years that it didn’t win the league.

“This has been a different sea-son for us. Our goal was to win the league and we did it,” Al Khalifa said.

“I want to thank the players for

the way they battled on not just in this match, but for their role in the entire league,” Al Khalifa said.

“I also thank the backroom staff beginning with the coach. They are heroes in equal meas-ure,” he said.

He dedicated the title win to Rashid Shaikh Saud bin Khaled Al Thani, Chairman of Al Rayyan, and all the members of the Board

of Directors and fans of the club.Sheikh Saoud bin Abdulrahman

Al Thani, President of Qatar Basketball Federation (QBF), handed over the trophies and medals to the finalists.

Now the teams will prepare for the Emir Cup and Qatar Cup events in the last two months of the 2014-15 season.

THE PENINSULA

Action during the final of Qatar Basketball League final between Al Rayyan and El Jaish, yesterday.

Past Champions1981–82 Al Arabi

1982–83 Al Arabi

1983–84 Al Arabi

1984–85 Al Arabi

1985–86 Al Arabi

1986–87 Qatar SC

1987–88 Qatar SC

1988–89 Qatar SC

1989–90 Qatar SC

1990–91 Qatar SC

1991–92 Al Arabi

1992–93 Qatar SC

1993–94 Al Arabi

1994–95 Qatar SC

1995–96 Al Rayyan

1996–97 Al Rayyan

1997–98 Al Rayyan

1998–99 Al Rayyan

1999–00 Al Rayyan

2000–01 Al Ahli SC

2001–02 Al Rayyan

2002–03 Al Rayyan

2003–04 Al Rayyan

2004–05 Al Rayyan

2005–06 Al Rayyan

2006–07 Al Rayyan

2007–08 El Jaish

2008–09 Al Rayyan

2009–10 Al Rayyan

2010–11 Al Rayyan

2011–12 Al Rayyan

2012–13 Al Sadd

2013-14 Al Gharafa

2014-15 Al Rayyan

20 SPORTFRIDAY 3 APRIL 2015

www.thepeninsulaqatar.com

Murray to face Berdych in semi-final World number four fights back at the Miami Masters after being pushed by ThiemMIAMI: World number four Andy Murray booked his semi-final berth at the Miami Masters on Wednesday, rally-ing for a 3-6, 6-4, 6-1 win over Austrian Dominic Thiem.

The third-seeded former cham-pion will face eighth seed Tomas Berdych after the Czech dis-patched Juan Monaco 6-3, 6-4 to extend his perfect record against the Argentine to 7-0.

Murray, who won title at Crandon Park in 2009 and 2013, was initially stunned by the clean and powerful one-handed back-hand of the 21-year-old Thiem, who has looked strong in Miami after coming into the tournament with a 3-5 record in 2015.

“I expected a tough match, he’s beaten some very good play-ers this week,” said Murray, who needed one hour and 44 minutes to seal the win. “He’s a very big hitter of the ball, a very strong guy and he moves extremely well.

“When you let him dictate the points, he hits the ball as hard off each side as anyone. He made me do a lot of running.”

Thiem, ranked 52nd in the world, now stands 1-7 against top-10 opponents.

But he surprised Murray in the opening set, breaking for 3-1 on his way to winning the first frame.

“I would’ve liked to have started the match a little bit bet-ter, but with his game style, if you’re not, like, right on it from the beginning, he’s an extremely tough, tough guy to play against,” Murray said.

Two-time Grand Slam cham-pion Murray launched his fight-back with a quick break for a 2-0 lead in the second.

Thiem regained the break to narrow the gap to 4-3, but Murray broke him in the final game of the set — Thiem saving one set point before putting a backhand wide on another.

His confidence boosted, Murray ran away with the final set, taking his lead to 5-1 with a second break of Thiem before closing out the win with a service winner.

“Before this week I would have given a lot for the quarter-finals, but now of course in the first moment I’m a little bit disap-pointed, especially as I won the first set,” Thiem said. “I played a good match.

“But I will leave Miami positive for sure and with a good feeling for the claycourt season.”

Berdych took 92 minutes to get past Monaco, producing a pair of love service games and a break in the final three games to capture the tight second set and seal the win.

“It was a tough one today, it was very important to get an early lead,” said the winner. “He was playing fast and giving me pressure on every ball.

“But I managed to find a way. It was not easy but I’m very happy to go through. My focus was to stay as close as possible with him and try to create opportunities.

“When I had a chance I tried to take it.”

Berdych has won six of 11 encounters with Murray, but

lost their last meeting, in the Australian Open semi-finals two months ago. AFP

ATP and WTA Miami Open Results

Results on Wednesday from the ATP and WTA Miami Open (x denotes seeded player):

Men’s Quarter-finals

Andy Murray (GBR x3) bt Dominic Thiem (AUT) 3-6, 6-4, 6-1

Tomas Berdych (CZE x8) bt Juan Monaco (ARG) 6-3, 6-4

Women’s Quarter-finals

Serena Williams (USA x1) bt Sabine Lisicki (GER x27) 7-6 (7/4), 1-6, 6-3

Simona Halep (ROM x3) bt Sloane Stephens (USA) 6-1, 7-5

Andy Murray of Great Britain celebrates match point against Dominic Thiem of Austria in their quarter final match during the Miami Open at the Crandon Park Tennis Center on Wednesday.

MIAMI: Serena Williams marked another milestone Wednesday, punching her semi-final ticket at the Miami Masters with her 700th career match win, a 7-6 (7/4), 1-6, 6-3 triumph over Sabine Lisicki.

Williams will face a familiar foe for a place in the final, taking on popular Romanian Simona Halep, a 6-1, 7-5 winner over Sloane Stephens.

World number one Williams became the eighth player to win 700 WTA matches. Martina Navratilova owns the most match wins, with 1,442.

“I didn’t know I had 700, now I just want to keep going, doing the best that I can,” said the 33-year-old American, who was feted with a cake from tournament organ-izers after the victory.

“(I’m) just staying positive and winning as much as I can,” added Williams, who grabbed her 19th Grand Slam title at the Australian Open this year.

Third-seeded Halep dominated Stephens, racing to a 6-1, 3-0 lead before the American dug in. Stephens won five of the next six games to take a 5-4 lead in the second but couldn’t force a third set.

“I’m really happy I played like this, it was an amazing match for me,” Halep said. “I played my best till 3-0 in the second set, and then I lost the rhythm a little bit.

“She changed the tactic and it was more difficult for me to hit the ball. But I’m really happy that I could finish in two sets and to stay focused until the end.”

Halep has some history with Williams. The Romanian is the last woman to beat the US super-star on the WTA tour, humbling the world number one 6-0, 6-2 in the round robin phase of the WTA Finals in Singapore in October.

Williams rebounded quickly -- beating Halep 6-3, 6-0 in the final days later.

“I have just to play aggressive against Serena like I did today at the beginning the match,” Halep said. “I think this is the most

important thing to have to the chance against her.”

Williams and Halep were to have faced off in the semi-finals at Indian Wells a fortnight ago, but Williams withdrew from the match with a knee injury.

Halep went on to win the big-gest title of her career in the premier level tournament in the California desert.

The Romanian owns a WTA-leading three titles this season.

Against her, Williams will have to avoid the kind of lapses that made the going difficult against Lisicki.

Williams, seeking a third straight Miami title and her eighth overall, fought off a set point in the opening set,

breaking Lisicki’s serve to force the tiebreaker.

Williams looked to be on her way when she broke Lisicki in the first game of the second set, but Lisicki reeled off the next six games to claim the set as Williams’ unforced errors ballooned.

Williams regained her concen-tration, grabbing an early break in the third en route to the vic-tory in just over two hours.

“I know today wasn’t my best day,” Williams said. “I just told myself, I’m not serving the way I normally serve and hitting the way I normally would hit, so at this point all I can do is just fight and try to give 200 percent instead of 100 percent.” AFP

Serena Williams celebrates a point against Sabine Lisicki of Germany during day 10 of the Miami Open at the Crandon Park Tennis Center on Wednesday.

Serena to face Halep after 700th match win

Surgery to sideline Pedrosa for at least two racesMADRID: Repsol Honda rider Dani Pedrosa will miss at least two races after deciding to undergo more surgery to try to fix a persistent arm problem, the Spaniard’s team said yesterday.

Pedrosa, 29, will go under the knife in Madrid on Friday, with an estimated recovery period of four to six weeks, meaning he will definitely miss the MotoGP in the United States on April 12 and the race in Argentina a week later, Repsol Honda said.

Test rider Hiroshi Aoyama will temporarily take Pedrosa’s place in the team alongside world champion Marc Marquez, they added.

Pedrosa is suffering from a problem common among motor-cycle racers.

Pressure builds up in the fore-arm, causing intense pain, and makes riding a bike exceptionally difficult when the muscle becomes too big for the ‘sack’ that it sits in.

“Obviously this isn’t the news I wanted to be sharing with every-one,” Pedrosa said.

“However, after speaking with some key doctors and medical professionals that I trust, they are all in agreement that this is the only option for me.

“We will have the surgery on Friday and they will use a special technique to help close the wound to try and prevent this issue con-tinuing to affect me.”

REUTERS

Ko eyes big breakthrough at Mission HillsRANCHO MIRAGE, USA: Lydia Ko, at 17 already the youngest golfer ever to reach number one in the world, will try to add a first major champi-onship to her sparkling resume this week at the LPGA’s ANA Inspiration.

A victory would make the South Korean-born New Zealander the youngest major champion in LPGA history, sur-passing American Morgan Pressel who was 18 when she lifted the trophy on the same Mission Hills Country Club Dinah Shore Tournament course in 2007.

Although Ko hasn’t finished in the top 25 in two prior appear-ances at Mission Hills, her remarkable recent consistency makes her the player to beat this week.

Ko brings a streak of 28 straight LPGA rounds under par into the tournament — one shy of matching the record set by Swedish great Annika Sorenstam in 2004.

“I wish I had that,” laughed American Lexi Thompson, who out-dueled Michelle Wie to lift the trophy here last year.

“There’s not a weakness in her game,” Thompson said of Ko. “She’s very straight off the tee and has a great short game. It’s great to play with her because she has a great attitude on the golf course, and probably the best tempo I’ve ever seen on a golf swing or a putting stroke.”

A victory would also help Ko consolidate her position atop the world rankings, with former world number one Park In-Bee of South Korea threatening to

unseat her with a win or even a runner-up finish — depending on where Ko finishes.

Park, who won the title here in 2013, was looking forward to the challenge.

“It feels like it’s been for-ever since we played in a major

tournament,” she said. “We’re finally here and I feel like I’m in good form, so I’m very, very excited.”

Park was pleased to see the rough up at Mission Hills, which promised to pose a tough chal-lenge to any player who wants to

take the traditional champion’s leap into Poppie’s Pond.

“I do like to see some longer rough and firm and fast greens for the major tournaments because we just don’t get that every week,” she said. “I think it’s a good test because you have to hit the tee shot off the tee really straight and you have to judge the distance on the greens. I think because it is a major tournament, we’ve got to have something different.”

Thompson fired a four-under par 68 in the final round last year to collect her first career major in the tournament formerly known as the Kraft Nabisco Championship. Thompson hasn’t won since while runner-up Wie went on to win the second major of 2014 at the US Women’s Open.

Thompson is trying to join Sorenstam as the only players to win two straight titles at Mission Hills. Sorenstam did it in 2001 and 2002.

After finishing in a tie for 10th last week, Thompson believes her game is good enough to win, and said that if she’s in contention on Sunday she’ll be more comfort-able after last year’s triumph.

“It’s something I really learned when I first turned professional, and I struggled a few Sundays when I had the lead or was close to it,” said Thompson, who turned 20 in February. “I just got really quick and just everything, my routine was quick. I didn’t really focus on that, and that’s huge.

“It’s important to just slow down everything and take your time, breathe, and just focus on doing your routine before every shot.” AFP

Lydia Ko of New Zealand, the youngest golfer ever to reach number one in the world, in action during the pro-am for the ANA Inspiration on the Dinah Shore Tournament Course at Mission Hills Country Club in California on Wednesday.

Friend O’Meara thinks Tiger will play in AugustaHOUSTON, TEXAS: Mark O’Meara believes his good friend Tiger Woods will compete in next week’s US Masters.

Former world number one Woods, whose ranking has plum-meted to a mind-boggling 104th, has struggled badly for form and fitness this season and has played only twice on the PGA Tour.

His manager Mark Steinberg said earlier this week that the 39-year-old American had played 18 holes at Augusta as he contin-ued to assess whether his game would be “tournament-ready” for the first major of the year.

“Deep down I think he will play,” said O’Meara at a media viewing of Woods’ first U.S.-designed golf course at BlueJack National, an hour’s drive from Houston.

“I hope he plays but I also understand he is doing what he needs to do for him. Everybody struggles in the game of golf and no-one is immune to struggling.

“Let’s face it, for a long time Tiger didn’t have to struggle and nobody dominated a sport like he did,” added O’Meara.

The 1998 Masters and 1998 British Open champion said 14-times major winner Woods always gets extra motivation when he is written off.

“He certainly dominated golf for quite a while but then a couple of years ago when I didn’t think he was swinging the club that well he won five tournaments in a sea-son and was named ‘Player of the Year’,” said O’Meara. REUTERS

21SPORT FRIDAY 3 APRIL 2015

www.thepeninsulaqatar.com

Sri Lanka urges Sangakkara retirement rethink COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s sports minister urged the world’s number one batsman Kumar Sangakkara to reconsider plans to retire from Test cricket and urged him to play on for another year.

Navin Dissanayake told report-ers that he hoped a government-ordered overhaul of Sri Lanka Cricket might persuade the 37-year-old to stick around a bit longer after he again underlined his class at the World Cup.

“As sports minister, I hum-bly appeal to Kumar to recon-sider (retirement) and play for the country for at least one more year,” the minister said in Colombo.

Dissanayake said he hoped that the appointment of an interim management team, headed by former Test player Sidath Wettimuny, would demonstrate the new government’s determi-nation to “clean up” the govern-ing body which has been beset

by accusations of corruption and mismanagement.

“I spoke with him (Sangakkara) in New Zealand during the World Cup,” the minister said in Colombo.

“He was very disappointed and unhappy (with the cricket admin-istration) and now that there is a change, I think there is a possibil-ity that he will change his mind,” he said.

The minister said he had “asked Sidath to talk to Kumar” about staying on after the left-hander’s outstanding performances at the World Cup.

Sangakarra scored an unprec-edented four successive ODI hun-dreds during the tournament in Australia and New Zealand, racking up a total of 541 in seven innings at an average of over 108.

As well as being the number one batsman in the world rank-ings for Test cricket, the former captain is also the number two in the ODI rankings.

Although Sangakkara had announced before the World Cup that it would be his swansong in one-day international cricket, he caused a stir during the tourna-ment by speaking of his intention to quit Tests within months.

“There are Test matches in June and July, and I will be done by the end of August,” he told the ESPNcricinfo website. “A series or two in June and in August, and that’s it.”

Sri Lanka are due to play both Pakistan and India over the sum-mer, although the exact dates are yet to be finalised.

Sangakkara has already signed up to play for English county side Surrey in 2015 and 2016, compli-cating the prospects of a u-turn.

He has scored 12,203 runs in Test cricket, more than any other active player, putting him at number five on the all-time list.

There was no immediate com-ment from Sangakkara to the minister’s appeal. AFP

Sri Lanka’s cricketer Kumar

Sangakkara waves to the crowd as he leaves the

ground after the 2015 World

Cup quarter-final match,

in this March 19 file photo. Sangakkara

bid farewell to limited overs

cricket.

Pietersen not in our focus, says Moores LONDON: Kevin Pietersen is not on Peter Moores’ radar and the England coach says he is frustrated by the constant debate over the South African-born batsman’s chances of mak-ing a test return.

Sacked after the 5-0 Ashes whitewash in Australia last year, Pietersen rejoined county side Surrey last week to boost his comeback bid.

Incoming England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) chairman Colin Graves has hinted at a recall but Moores refused to be distracted by the issue before the squad flew out for the tour of West Indies.

“Kevin is not on this trip so I don’t need to focus on Kevin at all,” he told a news conference on Thursday.

“I understand Kevin’s a huge subject but I don’t think we can be drawn into that.

“My focus is to support Alastair (Cook). I always support the cap-tain and work with those 16 play-ers to try and make sure we put the best 11 out.

“The frustration for me is that people whose dreams are being made by going on this tour aren’t being mentioned,” added Moores who is in his second spell as coach and fell out with Pietersen during his first tenure.

“They are not getting any air time and it’s frustrating. We’ve got some very, very good players. That’s very exciting.”

Opening batsman Cook said Pietersen’s fate was in the hands of the ECB.

“Contrary to what a lot of you guys read in the media, I am a long way away from that decision-making,” said the England test skipper.

“It is not down to us. We’ve got 16 guys going to West Indies who are desperate to start turn-ing around English cricket from what’s happened over the last three months.”

Under new one-day skipper Eoin Morgan, England were woeful in the recent 50-over World Cup in Australia and New Zealand and were knocked out in the first round.

‘Kevin is not on WI trip so I don’t need to focus on him’

England batsman

Kevin Pietersen walks off the pitch

during the fifth and final Test against Australia in Sydney in

this January 2014 file photo.

“We need to get back to win-ning ways,” said Cook.

“In terms of a brand of cricket it’s about trying to win this series and that’s all these 16 guys and the support staff can focus on.

“Everything else, the ECB, the

hierarchy, have to deal with that,” he added.

After two practice games in St Kitts, England take on West Indies in the first Test in Antigua which will be starting on April 13. REUTERS

Peter Moores

McCullum should remain as NZ captain: FlemingWELLINGTON: Brendon McCullum’s inspirational cap-taincy has lifted New Zealand and the flamboyant batsman should continue leading the side in all three formats at least until next year’s World Twenty20, former captain Stephen Fleming (pictured)said.

Since last year, New Zealand at home have won test series against India, West Indies and Sri Lanka and dazzled in 50-overs and breezed into their maiden World Cup final at Melbourne.

Great rivals Australia won the title but for six weeks, the Black Caps displayed an aggressive brand of cricket which earned them eight successive victories and the admiration of millions.

Former captain Daniel Vettori and seamer Kyle Kills have since retired but Fleming hoped that the 33-year-old McCullum will stick around to continue the “good work”.

“I hope he opts to carry on in charge of the side across all for-mats for the foreseeable future,” Fleming wrote in his column on the International Cricket Council’s website on Thursday.

“He has lifted the Black Caps up by their bootstraps ... and he ended the World Cup with his position water-tight. “He is a pos-itive leader who leads by example and although Kane Williamson is regarded as the next cab off the rank in terms of captaincy, it would be ideal if McCullum stayed on to continue the work he and coach Mike Hesson have begun, at least until the end of that ICC

World Twenty20 at the earliest.”The World Twenty20 will

be held in India next year and former wicketkeeper McCullum, who has long complained of back problems, said throughout the New Zealand summer that he was treating every game as his last.

Fleming, New Zealand’s most successful captain, feels the team’s recent achievements have drawn a huge number of fans in a country where rugby is the number one sport.

“It has created a euphoria and an awareness of cricket that has not (been) existing in New

Zealand since 1992 but now it is impor-tant that the legacy... is built upon,” the 42-year-old wrote.

“We have to hope the team’s success and the fact its pro-file has now grown in a major way will provide New Zealand Cricket’s administrators with more clout around

negotiating future commitments for the national side.”

Meanwhile, Yorkshire have signed India’s Cheteshwar Pujara until the end of May after cancel-ling the contract of Younus Khan, the English county champions announced on Wednesday.

Veteran batsman Younus was due to be Yorkshire’s overseas player for 2015, but his desire to join Pakistan’s tour of Bangladesh has effectively ruled him out of the County Championship, open-ing the door for Pujara.

“I was looking to return to the UK after my previous experience of county cricket, which I greatly enjoyed,” said 27-year-old Pujara, who scored 219 runs for last sea-son. AGENCIES

China’s Chen Long eyes a return against P Kashyap of India during their men’s singles match at the 2015 Malaysia Open Badminton Superseries in Kuala Lumpur, yesterday.

Chen, Lin march into quarters KUALA LUMPUR: World number one Chen Long contin-ued his dominant form yesterday to breeze into the quarterfinals of the Malaysia Open, joining his superstar Chinese compatriot Lin Dan.

Chen needed only 35 minutes to dispatch India’s Parupalli Kashyap 21-10, 21-6, harrying his foe with deep forehand attacks and precise smashes.

“I played well today, but I’m not thinking that far ahead for now. I am just focusing on one match at a time,” Chen said after the vicotory.

Lin, a five-time world champ and twice Olympic gold medal-list who is regarded by many as one of the greatest singles play-ers ever, passed his first real test comfortably.

Lin brushed aside India’s H.S. Prannoy 21-15, 21-14 to keep his sights trained on the only title missing from his glittering career.

It was the first time Lin, the current world number three, broke a sweat in Kuala Lumpur. His first-round opponent Tommy Sugiarto of Indonesia had to

withdraw after just two points on Wednesday due to a back injury.

Lin dictated play almost at will, forcing Prannoy deep with his drives in the first game and stepping up the pace in the second with a series of forehand smashes.

“This was my first proper

match of the tournament and I couldn’t afford to take him lightly as Indian players are improving very fast,” Lin said.

“I also can’t preserve my energy for the next tie because in a pre-mier tournament like this, every player will give you a tough game.”

Lin, 31, has tasted success before in Kuala Lumpur, winning the World Championship here in 2007 and the Thomas Cup in 2010, but the Malaysia Open has remained elusive.

That is due in part to the domi-nance of the tournament by its notable absentee, Malaysian Lee Chong Wei.

Lee has won a record 10 Malaysia Open titles but is now serving a doping suspension.

“I have won major champion-ships here except this tourna-ment. Hopefully that changes this time around,” Lin said.

Denmark’s Jan Jorgensen, the world number two, also waltzed into the final eight thanks to a 21-7, 21-10 win over Kenichi Tago of Japan.

In the women’s singles, world number three and top seed Li Xuerui edged rising Japanese star Akane Yamaguchi in a marathon encounter, 21-16, 10-21, 21-17.

Spain’s Carolina Marin cele-brated her new ranking as world number two with a 21-15, 21-19 victory over Iris Wang of the United States. AFP

China’s Lin Dan

watches as his opponent

Tommy Sugiarto of Indonesia

retired injured during their

men’s singles match at the 2015 Malaysia

Open Badminton Superseries

in Kuala Lumpur,

yesterday.

22FRIDAY 3 APRIL 2015

www.thepeninsulaqatar.comSPORT

Sadd coach hoping for ‘gift’ from Shahaniya Lekhwiya to field full-strength squad in bid to win titleDOHA: Al Sadd coach Hussein Ammouta is hoping for a “gift” from Al Shahaniya as Lekhwiya look to wrap up the title in round 24 of the Qatar Stars League (QSL) this weekend.

Lekhwiya lead the QSL stand-ings by seven points and a win over Al Shahaniya tomorrow will almost surely secure the league title, but Al Sadd, who face Al Gharafa in a must-win game tomorrow, are hoping for a slip-up by the league leaders.

“We will play for the three points and wait on Lekhwiya to make a mistake. Gharafa is the biggest game of the season. We want to win and keep the pressure on Lekhwiya in this title race,” Ammouta said on Wednesday.

“We will give our 100 percent, we don’t know the Lekwiya result. We will try to win and hope for a gift from Shahaniya. Even if you have a small chance you must always look to win. My focus is the game against Gharafa,” he said.

“Even if we don’t win the league this season we can still fight to win second or third place this sea-son. Ibrahim Majid will be absent, Medhi Ali and maybe Talal will be absent. All professionals will be present in the squad.”

Lekhwiya coach Michael Laudrup said he would field a full-strength squad for today’s important clash

“Today Vladimir Weiss and Nam Tae are back from inter-national duty so it’s our first day with full group today,” Laudrup said.

The Dane made it clear that

they would not take Al Shahaniya lightly. “There are no easy games, everything is possible. Al Shahaniya are looking for wins and they need results to avoid rel-egation. If we play the same level we have in previous matches I am sure we will win the game.”

On the opportunity to decide the title, Laudrup said: “I prefer the pressure of being seven points ahead in the league than seven points behind. We have to take the opportunity against Shahaniya to pick up the trophy. To win a title is always great, because the league title represents perform-ance across the whole season.”

Al Shahaniya coach Luka Bonacic said his side would do everything possible to avoid relegation.

“We must concentrate on

Lekhwiya and also look at the Qatar versus Wakrah game. Last week we had some important players injured, which affected our result against Jaish. Mohammed Sayar will be out for three weeks and will miss this game.

“No one believed we could beat Al Sadd but we did. This is foot-ball we will go into the game look-ing for the best possible result to ensure our survival,” Bonacic said.

“We need lots of belief to win. We will be fighting to the last minute, I believe that we can stay up and stay in this league,” he said. Al Gharafa coach Marcos Paqueta said he will be trying to secure a top-four finish for his side.

“All games against Al Sadd are hard...Sadd can still grab the title and we can get into the top four,” Paqueta said.

“In the final games, we will have to focus and give ourselves the best possible chance to be in the top four this season, our dream is to win trophies.”

THE PENINSULA

Liverpool won’t sell Sterling: RodgersLONDON: England for-ward Raheem Sterling is not for sale and will not be leav-ing Liverpool at the end of the season despite media specula-tion over his future, manager Brendan Rodgers (pictured) said yesterday.

“I’m quite relaxed about it. It’s part of the modern game. He has got two and a half years left on his contract and is going nowhere this summer,” Rodgers told reporters ahead of Saturday’s Premier League match with Arsenal.

Sterling, in a non-permissioned inter-view with the BBC, denied on Wednesday he was a “money-grabbing 20-year-old” but said he was in no rush to sign a new contract.

The forward has been offered an eye-watering 100,000 pounds ($148,300) a week to sign a fresh deal, according to media reports.

Rodgers, who has had to deal with rumours about Sterling for most of the season, said Liverpool did not need to let the player go.

“If the club isn’t going to sell, it won’t sell — it’s as simple as that,” he added.

“For us it’s about continuing the nurturing and developing of

a young player who has made huge strides in the last couple of years and for me that is the only thing to concentrate on over the remaining games until the end of the season.”

Rodgers confirmed a point made by Sterling in the BBC interview that a new contract would not be discussed until the end of the season at the earliest.

The manager also said the reported interest shown in the

player by Arsenal did not detract from Liverpool’s aspirations.

“His ambition is to win trophies and be successful and that’s perfectly aligned with what we are trying to do,” explained Rodgers.

“Arsenal are a fan-tastic football club but this is Liverpool, one of the great clubs

of the footballing world and it is an honour for Raheem to be playing here in front of our great supporters.

“But he understands that. He has developments to make on and off the field and this is a great place for him to be.”

It will be interesting to see what kind of reception he gets from Liverpool and Arsenal fans today. REUTERS

England have edge over Italy, says RooneyMILAN: Manchester United star Wayne Rooney believes a new-look England proved they have the edge over Italy based on the evidence of their 1-1 draw in Turin on Tuesday.

After a largely unproductive first-half display in the friendly at Juventus Stadium, where Graziano Pelle hit a 29th minute opener for the hosts, it took a superb leveller from Spurs winger Andros Townsend for England to complete their turnaround in what was a far more promising second half.

England had travelled to Turin without injured forwards Daniel Sturridge and Danny Welbeck, forcing manager Roy Hodgson to reshuffle his side and deploy several players in unfamiliar positions.

Rooney, who was partnered up front by Harry Kane making his first start in an England shirt having come on as a substitute

and scored on his debut against Lithuania last Friday, admit-ted there was disappointment in the England dressing room at half-time.

But he believes the second-half display has shown their potential, as well as underlining their supe-riority over an Italy side which like them has been heavily over-hauled since they both went out at the group stage of the World Cup finals last year — Italy failing to build on their opening 2-1 win over the English.

“We were all disappointed with our performances as a team and as individuals, that’s why we are so pleased with the result in the end - we came out in the second half and showed we are a better footballing team, I feel, than Italy are,” said Rooney.

“Even though we had a lot of changes we know we are bet-ter than that. Our preparations weren’t (reflected in) what we

showed in the first 45 minutes.“I think we showed good char-

acter second half, we came out and I thought we dominated the game, created the best chances and were unlucky in the end not to win it.”

Rooney’s belief was based on how much sharper England were than their opponents once they found their stride in the second-half.

Their pressure finally paid off with Townsend creating space on the edge of the area to beat Buffon with a precise shot at the keeper’s far post.

Italy coach Antonio Conte -- who replaced Cesare Prandelli after the World Cup flop -- said England played like a side that was used to winning.

“There’s not a lot friendly about these games,” said Conte.

“But you can’t forget that England have won their past seven games since the World Cup,

and they’ve shown their desire to remain unbeaten.”

Rooney said that it was no mean feat to get back into a game against a side that historically are past masters at guarding a lead jealously. “It is important not to lose games,” said Rooney.

“Don’t get me wrong, this is a good result against Italy away, when they have gone in front and they are really good at trying to kill the game.

“We didn’t let them do that, we tried — we knew we had to be patient at times — but I really felt we could hurt them on the break and in the channels, cer-tainly with their three defenders and we got more joy with that.

“I don’t think they coped well physically, I think they tired in the last 10 or 15 minutes and that’s when we should punish them. I think probably it was a fair result over all,” added the 29-year-old. AFP

England’s Wayne Rooney in action during the international friendly match against Italy at the Juventus Stadium in Turin on Tuesday.

Kane keen on U-21 duty: HodgsonLONDON: Tottenham Hotspur’s Harry Kane (pic-tured) is determined to play for England at this year’s Under-21 European Championship, national coach Roy Hodgson said in comments published by British newspapers yesterday.

Kane, 21, made his senior England debut last week, scoring 80 seconds after coming on in a 4-0 win over Lithuania, before making his full debut in Tuesday’s 1-1 draw with Italy in Turin.

Spurs are wary of over-burdening a player who has scored 29 goals this season, but Kane has played a key role in the England Under-21s’ qualifying campaign and Hodgson says he is eager to go to the Czech Republic in June.

“Harry wants to go with the Under-21s,” Hodgson said. “He wants to finish the job that he has done. He has been a major part of their qualifying campaign for the last 18 months.

“He’s had to work his way into the team and in my conversations with him it has been pretty obvi-ous to me he would like to play in this tournament.”

Hodgson added: “I’ve got to say,

I’m not a great lover of the burn-out argument.

“If you want to be an interna-tional player then you’ve got to accept football tournaments take place in the summer at the end of the season.”

Kane already has one post-sea-son commitment on his agenda, with Tottenham due to travel to Australia for a friendly game against Sydney FC on May 30.

But Spurs manager Mauricio Pochettino suggested that his club were relaxed about the prospect of Kane being called up by England Under-21 coach Gareth Southgate.

“We want to help the national team, the player and in this case, we always

have a very good relationship,” Pochettino told a press conference on Thursday.

“We need to share the decision. The first (consideration) is the player, the FA and us.

“There are a lot of things to discuss with the FA, with Gareth Southgate, with us, but always we try to find the best for the player, and for the national team and what is logical for Tottenham.”

AFP

Lekhwiya coach Michael Laudrup (centre) addresses a news conference in Doha on Wednesday.

Bayern’s Ribery out for Dortmund derbyBERLIN: Bundesliga leaders Bayern Munich will be without winger Franck Ribery for their league match against Borussia Dortmund as the injuries pile up.

Frenchman Ribery was ruled out with a nagging ankle injury, joining Arjen Robben and David Alaba, out for seven weeks with a ligament tear, on the side-lines but club CEO Karl-Heinz Rummenigge believes the squad is big enough to compensate for the absences.

“Alaba’s injury is obviously very painful for us,” Rummenigge told the club website, following the Austrian fullback’s injury while on international duty on Tuesday.

“But we cannot change it and it would be a mistake if Bayern started to lament now,” he said adding the Bavarians had enough depth in their squad to compen-sate for the absences.

“No need to complain about Ribery either. If he does not feel

well, if he is in pain then he can-not play.”

Bayern have had to deal with injuries to key players this season but have been extremely consist-ent, losing just twice in the league to open up a 10-point gap at the top as they cruise towards their 25th German league title.

Last season’s runners-up Dortmund never got their season off the ground, languishing in last place right after the winter break before a seven-game unbeaten run saw them bounce back and chase a European spot with eight matches left in the campaign.

“One does not have to be a big prophet to know that Borussia Dortmund are not happy with their current position in the table,” Rummenigge said.

“But they still have a chance for a Europa League spot. We have to prepare for that and the fact that it will be hard. It will be a difficult game and we have a lot of respect for our opponents.”

There is no love lost between the two clubs as Bayern have snapped up Dortmund’s Mario Goetze and Robert Lewandowski in the past seasons, both crowd favourites at the Ruhr valley club.

Dortmund’s good run in the past two months has raised hopes among fans of winning the one game that could prove decisive for their season.

Defeat at home would not just be a further prestige blow after their loss in Munich earlier in the season but would also see them lose ground in their bid for a top-six finish with Dortmund in 10th spot on 33 points.

“We have to do a lot of things right, play like we did against Schalke 04 (in a 3-0 win). We want to win if we want to keep an eye on the Europa League,” Dortmund striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang told reporters here yesterday.

REUTERSBayern Munich’s Franck Ribery

QSL FixturesFriday

El Jaish vs Al Shamal at Lekhwiya Stadium from 6.15pm

Al Ahli vs Al Arabi at Al Arabi Stadium from 6.15pm

Al Kharaitiyat vs Al Khor at Al Khor Stadium from 8.15pm

Saturday

Lekhwiya vs Al Shahaniya at Lekhwiya Stadium from 6.15pm

Al Sadd vs Al Gharafa at Al Sadd Stadium from 6.15pm

Qatar SC vs Al Wakrah at Qatar SC Stadium from 8.30pm

Al Sailiya vs Umm Salal at Al Wakrah Stadium from 8.30pm

Sherman’s Lagoon By Jim Toomey

C O O DSR S RW

Yesterday’s answer

Yesterday’s answer

How to play Hyper Sudoku:A Hyper Sudoku Puzzle is solved by filling the numbers from 1 to 9 into the blank cells. A Hyper Sudoku has unlike Sudoku 13 regions (four regions overlap with the nine standard regions). In all regions the numbers from 1 to 9 can appear only once. Otherwise, a Hyper Sudoku is solved like a normal Sudoku.

How to play Kakuro:

The kakuro grid, unlike in sudoku, can be of any

size. It has rows and columns, and dark cells

like in a crossword. And, just like in a crossword,

some of the dark cells will contain numbers. Some

cells will contain two numbers.

However, in a crossword the numbers reference

clues. In a kakuro, the numbers are all you get!

They denote the total of the digits in the row or

column referenced by the number.

Within each

collection of cells

- called a run - any

of the numbers 1

to 9 may be used

but, like sudoku,

each number may

only be used once.

HYPER

ACROSS

1 Rage

6 Hardly ice outside

10 Places for sprigs

14 Quiet parter?

15 Pie cutter’s tool

16 Umber at the opera

17 First part of a hit for this crossword

19 Relative of “Hey, ma”

20 Arc’s target, maybe

21 Plat pouch

22 Easter floor mat

24 Pog or Pogs, formerly

26 Lives

29 Bad member to pick?

30 Fly of film

32 Hit, part 2

34 Olympia with a watery realm

36 Perform peace

37 Fried with four legs

38 Covered with slug mud

40 Sorters’ quarters

43 Dramatically scored sorceress

44 Ager

46 Hit, part 3

50 Cagey parts, e.g.

51 Early

52 Part of a euro

54 Tige, say

55 Adds a little toe to

57 Like a great bod

59 Bled for a social affair, perhaps

61 Dramatic cry from people who get subbed

62 Last part of the hit

66 Caker, for example

67 Car whose logo is liked?

68 Ever lost to

69 Starts of some chorus lies

70 Eve

71 Chia growth area?

DOWN

1 Crow

2 Vegas would love this type of world

3 Casio game

4 Kat’s “I” ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE

B B Q S A N D W I C H H E HS A U D I A R A B I A I N OT R A I N S I G N A L B A MA H I G A V E T E A M OR O L L E E W E S D C O NS P A Y F R A N K G E H R Y

S T E A L R O Y A L I S MM I L S L R

I T S M A G I C I P A D SD E E P T H R O A T A R T YC A T E T R A P P H Y L AA M I G A R A G A F U NR U N B L I S T E R P A C KD S T L A K E O N T A R I OS A O E Z E R W E I Z M A N

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

14 15 16

17 18 19

20 21 22 23

24 25 26 27 28 29

30 31 32 33

34 35 36

37 38 39 40 41 42

43 44 45

46 47 48 49 50

51 52 53 54

55 56 57 58 59 60

61 62 63 64 65

66 67 68

69 70 71

5 Slag for sleuths

6 Product made by Moe

7 Kid of poetic work

8 Arm from a Mideast lad

9 Did a baker’s job

10 Covert, maybe

11 Margarie might be described thus

12 Grad’s opposite

13 Gere of “Gulliver’s Travels”

18 User’s circuit

23 I pieces

25 You might board yours at the keel if you take a cruise

27 Wig of the old Greek army

28 Program that asks “Are we aloe?,” for short

30 Metal worker’s claim?

31 Abruptly becomes violet

33 Doe, e.g.

35 Bombs without bags

39 Sci-fi character remembered for her large bus

40 Strad part that becomes frayed

41 Wet like a seesaw

42 Spas that last 52 wks.

43 Bugled strokes

45 Deadly gag

46 Mesa prerequisite

47 Guy who may offer a girl a rig

48 Mystical chat

49 H.L. player

53 Refusal from a boy lass

56 “Ow!”

58 O

60 Murray who’s highly raked

63 Be-___

64 Ed of some school addresses

65 Old rival of America

TV LISTINGS

13:05 Good Luck Charlie

13:30 Dog With A Blog

13:55 Gravity Falls

14:20 H2O: Just Add Water

14:55 Liv And Maddie

15:20 Binny And The

Ghost

15:45 Hank Zipzer

16:10 Violetta

17:00 The Little Mermaid

18:40 Liv And Maddie

19:05 H2O: Just Add Water

19:30 Violetta

20:20 Binny And The

Ghost

20:45 H2O: Just Add Water

21:10 Austin & Ally

21:35 Jessie

22:00 Gravity Falls

22:25 Sabrina: Secrets Of

A Teenage Witch

22:50 Sabrina: Secrets Of

A Teenage Witch

23:10 Wolfblood

13:00 My Boys

14:00 Baby Daddy

14:30 Black-Ish

15:00 Parks And

Recreation

15:30 The Daily Show With

Jon Stewart

16:00 Hot In Cleveland

17:00 Late Night With Seth

Meyers

18:00 Last Man Standing

18:30 New Girl

19:00 Black-Ish

19:30 Parks And

Recreation

20:00 The Tonight Show

Starring Jimmy

Fallon

21:00 The Daily Show With

Jon Stewart

21:30 Hot In Cleveland

22:00 You’re The Worst

23:00 South Park

23:30 Late Night With Seth

Meyers

13:50 Treehouse

Masters

15:15 Nature’s

Newborns

15:40 Tanked

16:35 Killer Iq: Lion

vs Hyena

17:30 Tigerfish:

Africa’s Piranha

19:20 River Monsters

20:15 Tanked

21:10 Predator’s

Playground

22:05 Treehouse

Masters

23:00 River Monsters

23:55 Gator Boys

12:00 India Poochega

Sabse Shaana

Kaun

14:00 Bollywood Cut

16:00 Maharakshak

Devi

17:00 Servicewali Bahu

18:00 Hello Pratibha

18:30 Jodha Akbar

19:00 Jamai Raja

19:30 India Poochega

Sabse Shaana

Kaun

21:30 Gulf Rangoli

Season 4

21:00 Friday Movie

01:00 India Poochega

Sabse Shaana

Kaun

13:15 Garfield’s Fun

Fest

16:15 Happily N’Ever

After 2: Snow

White

18:00 Spiderwick

Chronicles

20:00 Dino Time

22:00 Barbie In The

12 Dancing

Princesses

23:30 Happily N’Ever

After 2: Snow

White

01:00 The Happets

10:00 13 Going On 30

12:00 The Adventures

Of Rocky And

Bullwinkle

14:00 28 Days

16:00 Austenland

18:00 Madea’s Witness

Protection

20:00 Grown Ups 2

22:00 John Dies At The

End

00:00 28 Days

02:00 Madea’s Witness

Protection

04:00 Austenland

13:30 Free Birds

15:15 White House

Down

17:30 Epic

19:15 Moms’ Night Out

21:00 Planes: Fire And

Rescue

23:00 Delivery Man

01:00 3 Days To Kill

03:00 White House

Down

13:00 World’s Deadliest

Animals

15:00 Convoy: War For

The Atlantic

16:00 Armageddon

Outfitters

17:00 Animal Mega

Moves

18:00 Wild Russia

20:00 Armageddon

Outfitters

22:00 Wild Russia

23:00 Family Guns

TEL: 444933989 444517001SHOWING AT VILLAGGIO & CITY CENTER

BREAK TIME 23FRIDAY 3 APRIL 2015

www.thepeninsulaqatar.com

12:15 American Muscle

13:05 Storage Hunters

13:30 Dukes Of Haggle

13:55 Storage Wars

Canada

14:20 Yukon Men

15:10 Wheeler Dealers

16:00 Fast N’ Loud

16:50 How It’s Made

17:15 How It’s Made

17:40 Dive Wars Australia

18:30 Fast N’ Loud

19:20 Misfit Garage

20:10 Dukes Of Haggle

20:35 Storage Wars

Canada

21:00 Fast N’ Loud

21:50 Misfit Garage

22:40 Wheeler Dealers

23:30 Dive Wars Australia

00:20 Fast N’ Loud

01:10 Fast N’ Loud

02:00 Misfit Garage

02:50 Wheeler Dealers

03:40 Storage Hunters

08:00 News

08:30 Earthrise

09:00 Al Jazeera World

10:00 News

10:30 Inside Story

11:00 News

11:30 The Stream

12:00 News

12:30 101 East

13:00 NEWSHOUR

14:00 News

14:30 Inside Story

15:00 The Fight for

Amazonia

16:00 NEWSHOUR

17:00 News

17:30 The Stream

18:00 NEWSHOUR

19:00 News

19:30 Fault Lines

20:00 News

20:30 Inside Story

21:00 NEWSHOUR

22:00 News

22:30 Viewfinder Asia

23:00 Fire in the Blood

SCREEN 1 Fast & Furious 7 (2D/Action) 11:15am, 2:00, 4:40, 7:20, 10:00pm &12:40am

SCREEN 2 Fast & Furious 7 (2D/Action) 10:00am, 12:45, 3:30, 6:15, 9:10 & 11:55pm

SCREEN 3 Get Hard (2D/Comedy) 10:00am, 12:00noon, 2:00, 4:00, 6:00, 8:00, 10:00 & 11:55pm

SCREEN 4 Bonta (2D/Animation) 10:40am, 12:00noon & 1:40pm

The Canal (2D/Horror) 3:10, 5:00, 7:15, 9:15 & 11:15pm

SCREEN 5 Decor (2D/Arabic) 11:00am, 4:10 & 9:20pm

Detective Byomkesh Bakshi (2D/Hindi) 1:20, 6:30 & 11:45pm

SCREEN 6 Cinderella (2D/Drama) 10:45am, 1:15, 3:45, 6:20 & 8:45pm Focus (2D/Comedy) 11:00pm

SCREEN 7 Run All Night (2D/Action) 11:30am, 4:30 & 9:30pm

The Gunman (2D/Action) 2:00, 7:00 & 11:50pm

SCREEN 8 The Divergent Series: Insurgent (2D/Adventure) 7:00, 9:20 & 11:55pm

Home (2D/Comedy) 10:50am, 12:40, 02:40 & 04:40pm

SCREEN 9 Fast & Furious 7 (IMAX 2D/Action) 10:50am, 1:30, 4:10, 7:00, 9:45pm & 12:30am

SCREEN 10 Fast & Furious 7 (IMAX 2D/Action) 10:30am, 1:15, 4:00, 6:45, 9:30pm & 12:20am

NOVO

MALL

LANDMARK

ROYAL PLAZA

SCREEN 1 Komban (2D/Tamil) 2:30pm Cinderella (2D/Drama) 5:00pm

Fast & Furious 7 (2D/Action) 7:00pm

Decor (2D/Drama) 9:30pm

Paper Planes (2D/Family) 11:30pm

SCREEN 2 Komban (2D/Tamil) 2:00pm Home (2D/Animation) 4:30pm

Detective Byomkesh Bakshi (2D/Hindi) 6:15pm

Fast & Furious 7 (2D/Action) 9:00pm The Canal (2D/Horror) 11:30pm

SCREEN 3 Bonta: Axel The Biggest Little Hero (2D/Adventure) 2:30pm Fast & Furious 7 (2D/Action) 4:00 & 11:00pm

Paper Planes (2D/Family) 6:30pm

100 Days of Love (2D/Malayalam) 8:15pm

SCREEN 1 Paper Planes (2D/Family) 2:30 & 9:30pm

Komban (2D/Tamil) 4:30pm

Fast & Furious 7 (2D/Action) 7:00pm

The Canal (2D/Horror) 11:30pm

SCREEN 2 Bonta: Axel The Biggest Little Hero (2D/Adventure) 2:30pm

Fast & Furious 7 (2D/Action) 4:00, 8:30 & 11:00pm

Cinderella (2D/Drama) 6:30pm

SCREEN 3 The Canal (2D/Horror) 2:30pm

Home (2D/Animation) – 4:15 pm

Decor (2D/Drama) 6:15 & 8:30pm

Komban (2D/Tamil) 10:45pm

SCREEN 1 Detective Byomkesh Bakshi (2D/Hindi) 2:45pm

Fast & Furious 7 (2D/Action) 5:30, 8:00 & 10:30pm

SCREEN 2 Bonta: Axel The Biggest Little Hero (2D/Adventure) 3:00pm

Fast & Furious 7 (2D/Action) 4:30pm

Cinderella (2D/Drama) 7:00pm

Paper Planes (2D/Family) 9:00pm

Detective Byomkesh Bakshi (2D/Hindi) 10:45pm

SCREEN 3 Home (2D/Animation) 2:30pm

The Canal (2D/Horror) 4:30 & 11:00pm

Paper Planes (2D/Family) 6:30pm

Decor (2D/Drama) 8:30pm

MORNING BREAK24FRIDAY 3 APRIL 2015

www.thepeninsulaqatar.com

Nice to see!

A man installs shark-shaped balloons enclosed in a plastic globe in a water fountain in Nice, France, yesterday.

Japan denies aliens invaded countryTOKYO: Alien spaceships have never entered Japanese airspace, the country’s defence minister has told parliamen-tarians, after being questioned about a possible aerial invasion by little green men.

Gen Nakatani said the nation’s war planes can be scrambled whenever there is a report of an unidentified flying object (UFO) but, so far, they had not encoun-tered visitors from space.

“When the Air Self Defence

Force detects indications of an unidentified flying object that could violate our country’s air-space, it scrambles fighter jets if necessary and makes visual obser-vation,” he said.

“They sometimes find birds or flying objects other than aircraft but I don’t know a case of find-ing an unidentified flying object believed to have come over from anywhere other than Earth,” he said.

Nakatani, a sober politician

with a reputation for thorough understanding of his brief, was responding to a question from flamboyant wrestler-turned-lawmaker Antonio Inoki.

At a meeting Wednesday of the budget committee in Japan’s upper house, Inoki had asked if aircraft were dispatched to meet extra-terrestrial visitors and “whether studies (into them) are going on”.

Inoki, known for his outsized chin and trademark red scarf,

said he did not know whether or not aliens existed, but he had once seen a mysterious flying object rocket into the air on the horizon and disappear.

Wednesday’s exchange was not the first official Japanese pro-nouncement on spacemen and their aircraft. A 2007 statement said the government “has not con-firmed the existence of unidenti-fied flying objects believed to have come from anywhere other than Earth”. AFP

Pizza-loving Pope piles on the pounds ROME: Pizza-loving Pope Francis has been told to cut down and exercise more, reports said yesterday as the pontiff made the latest in a string of allusions to feeling weary.

The 78-year-old pontiff is visibly chub-bier these days than he was when he lived in Argentina and was known for a frugal lifestyle and walking as much as he could.

Since being elected he has made several enigmatic remarks suggesting he does not expect to be pope for longer than a few years, triggering speculation about possible health issues.

The latest came in a pre-Easter mass yesterday, when he talked about the physi-cally and emotionally exhausting nature of the work of a parish priest.

“Do you know how often I think about this weariness which all of you experience?” he asked. “I think and pray about it often, especially when I am tired myself.”

The mass was the start of another hec-tic phase for Francis, who has a string of engagements over Easter, the holiest period in the Christian calendar.

After the morning mass, he was back on duty last evening, visiting a Roman prison for a ceremony in which he washes the feet of prisoners, as Jesus did for his disciples.

Pasta and dessert According to Italian media reports, doc-

tors have advised the leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics to cut back on pasta to shift his surplus pounds.

That will have the knock-on effect of easing the painful attacks of sciatica that have dogged him throughout his time in Rome. The pontiff has a history of back

problems linked to having had part of one of his lungs removed as a young man. He walks with a slight limp.

In a recent interview with Mexican tel-evision he described his dearest wish as being able to escape the cloistered world of the Vatican and go for a pizza.

His doctors would approve of the walk, less so pizza, which is considered one of the most fattening foods there is because of its combination of refined carbohydrates and high-fat content. Francis biographer Elisabetta Pique says the weight gain is unlikely to be due to overeating, despite

the stress created by his responsibilities and tough schedule.

“He is not a big eater,” she told AFP.“But now he is not able to walk as he

did in Buenos Aires and I think that is the reason he’s gained a little weight.

“But I wouldn’t call him unhealthy, you can see that he has a lot of energy and that basically his health is very good,” added the author of “Pope Francis: Life and Revolution.”

Fat popes past Although Francis is more portly than

his recent predecessors he has still some way to go to match some gargantuan popes of the past. French Pope Clement IV, who was in charge from 1265-68, was so big he was referred to in Italy as Guido Fulcodi il Grosso, although ironically he was also famed for his ascetic lifestyle in his later years.

More recently, Pope John XXIII, the architect of the early 1960s Vatican II reforms, liked to tell the story of how he overheard a woman walking past him in Rome remark: “My God, he’s so fat!”

Famed for his quick wit, the pontiff responded by saying: “Madame, I trust you understand that the papal conclave is not exactly a beauty contest.”

As well as being keen on pasta, Francis is said to be fond of desserts.

A chef who worked for the Vatican’s Swiss Guards published a book of recipes last year in which he revealed that the current pope has a particular weakness for dulce de leche, the famous dessert of his homeland made from concentrated, sweetened milk. AFP

The wax effigy of Pope Francis is displayed in front of Paris cathedral Notre-Dame yesterday.

Portuguese cinema legend Oliveira dies at 106LISBON: Portuguese cin-ema legend Manoel de Oliveira (pictured), reportedly the only director whose career ran from the silent era into the digital age, died yesterday at the age of 106.

The award-winning director made more than 50 films, includ-ing features and documentaries, over the course of a career that began in 1931.

And despite his fragile health, he completed his last work, a short film, only last year.

His death was announced to AFP by his producer Luis Urbano. Media reports said he died at his home in the northern coastal city of Porto, where he was born in 1908. Oliveira was introduced to cinema by his father, a movie-lover and factory owner.

Aged just 20, the accomplished athlete and would-be filmmaker had his first stint in cinema as an actor in a silent movie.

In 1931, he made his first docu-mentary, also a silent film, titled “Labour on the Douro River”.

After making several other documentaries, he made his first fiction film “Aniki-Bobo” in 1942, which focused on the tough lives of children in a poor district of Porto. The film was a powerful social critique, and would only receive acclaim several years later.

Restrictions under Antonio Salazar’s dictatorsip and a lack of infrastructure in Portugal kept Oliveira away from filmmaking until 1963, when he made his sec-ond feature, “The Rite of Spring”.

In 1972, he made “Past and Present”, a powerful social sat-ire that tells the story of a young widow with a number of mar-riages past her, who betrays each new husband yet venerates each one of the deceased.

He then shot a tetralogy of failed love stories, kicking off with “Doomed Love” in 1979.

In 2008, he was awarded the coveted Palme d’Or at Cannes for his life-long contribution to cin-ema, as well as the French Legion of Honour. AFP

Surprises make babies learn, finds researchWASHINGTON: The red-and-blue ball rolls down a ramp and, thanks to a little bit of trickery, seems to pass right through a purple wall.

The 11-month-old girl watch-ing the demonstration appears surprised, then grasps the ball and bangs it on a table, testing whether it is actually solid. The unexpected event motivated the baby to learn.

Researchers yesterday reported a series of experiments that dem-onstrated that babies actively sought to learn when they wit-nessed something surprising and were less inclined to learn when they saw something predictable.

Previous experiments had shown that infants stared for a longer time after seeing differ-ent kinds of surprising events but they did not look at the cog-nitive consequences of seeing such events, the researchers said.

“Our hypothesis was that infants might be using these sur-prising events as special oppor-tunities to learn, and we show that is indeed the case,” said cog-nitive psychologist Aimee Stahl of Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins University, whose research appears in the journal Science.

The study involved 110 11-month-olds, with roughly equal numbers of girls and boys. They watched various demonstrations, some defying their expectations. “Infants are very adept learners, and can learn about the world through observation and explo-ration,” Stahl said.

“We found that babies learned new information about objects more efficiently if they saw that object do something unexpected than if it had done something expected.”

The babies also preferred to explore objects that behaved sur-prisingly, doing so in a way that suggested they were seeking an explanation about the unexpected outcome. REUTERS

Fajr (Dawn) 4:07

Shorook (Sunrise) 5:24

Zuhr (Noon) 11:37

Asr (Afternoon) 3:06

Maghrib (Sunset) 5:52

Isha (Night) 7:22

PRAYER TIME

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WASHINGTON 24/11 Thunderstorm 14/03 Cloudy

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