Monday 14 October 2019 | 15 Safar 1441 …€¦ · 14/10/2019 · making it the busiest season so far, according to Mwani Qatar. Mein Schiff 5 will be the first cruise ship of the

Volume 24 | Number 8044 | 2 RiyalsMonday 14 October 2019 | 15 Safar 1441 www.thepeninsula.qa

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BUSINESS | 03 SPORT | 10

Bottas wins race in Japan as Mercedes celebrate sixth world double

Policy reforms reflect Qatar's

economic strength

PM, Chinese Minister discuss bilateral relations

Prime Minister and Interior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani met yesterday with the Deputy Minister of Public Security and Counter-Terrorism Commissioner in the People’s Republic of China, Liu Yuejin, and his accompanying delegation. They reviewed cooperation relations between the two countries and ways of enhancing them in various fields in addition to a number of topics of mutual interest.

Around 235,000 cruise tourists expected to visit Qatar this season

SACHIN KUMAR THE PENINSULA

Qatar’s tourism sector is set to witness record number of cruise tourists in the current cruise season. Around 235,000 tourists in 74 cruise ships are expected to arrive at Doha Port in the 2019-20 season, making it the busiest season so far, according to Mwani Qatar.

Mein Schiff 5 will be the first cruise ship of the season to dock at Doha Port, said Mwani Qatar in a tweet yesterday. Cruise season 2019-2020 will see arrival of several mega ships.

MSC Lirica, AIDA Prima, Sea-bourn Encore, Crystal Esprit, Jewel of the Seas, Costa Diadema, MSC Bellissima, Seabourn Ovation, Azamara Quest are among the major luxury cruise ships that will bring tourists to Qatari shores this season.

Cruise ships MSC Bellissima and Jewel of the Seas will mark their maiden voyage to Qatar. The cruise season runs from September to April in Qatar.

The previous cruise season was immensely successful as huge number of tourists had come to Qatar aboard luxury

ships. Doha Port had welcomed a record number of passengers in the 2018-19 season. The port received 144,707 passengers and crew on 44 ships during the season according to Mwani Qatar. High number of tourists was a result of main line cruise vessels expressing their interest in Doha and deploying bigger cruise vessels to Doha.

Government’s focused measures for the tourism sector and Mwani Qatar’s efforts to bring in major cruise liners to Qatar are the major factors behind country’s booming cruise tourism sector.

Doha Port’s passenger ter-minal infrastructure is being developed to bring it in line with international passenger ter-minals in anticipation of further volume growth leading to FIFA World Cup 2022.

The Ministry of Transport and Communications, in June had announced completion of the dredging works at Doha Port as part of its redevelopment project. Up to 3.5 million cubic metres of material in the approach channel had been cleared and extra berthing was pro-vided to accommodate more than one giant cruise ship.

Minister of Commerce and Industry H E Ali bin Ahmed Al Kuwari (third right); South Korea’s Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy Sung Yun-Mo (fourth right); Second Deputy to the Chairman of the Qatari Businessmen Association Sheikh Dr. Khalid bin Thani Al Thani (third left) and other officials during the Qatari-Korean Business Forum yesterday.

Ashghal, QMIC sign pact to enhance efficient mobility and road safetyIRFAN BUKHARI THE PENINSULA

In a bid to provide residents of Qatar more efficient mobility and road safety, the Public Works Authority (Ashghal) yesterday signed a strategic partnership agreement with Qatar Mobility Innovations Center (QMIC).

The agreement was signed in the presence of Ashghal

President, Dr. Eng. Saad bin Ahmad Al Muhannadi; President of Qatar University, Dr. Hassan Al Derham; Executive Director & CEO of QMIC, Dr. Adnan Abu Dayya; Chairman of QMIC, Abdulla Zaid Al Talib, and other officials of Ashghal and QMIC.

Through this strategic engagement, Ashghal and QMIC aspire to provide the residents of Qatar with tangible results and benefits related to efficient mobility

and road safety, as well as engage key stakeholders in taking strategic steps towards realising Smart City applications and services.

Under the agreement, QMIC will work with Ashghal to provide technical consulting, data analytics, and smart mobility innovations in four important domains.

The first domain is ‘Inte-grated Traffic and Road Asset Monitoring’. �P2

QU opens online registration for Spring 2020 degree courses

QNA DOHA

Qatar University (QU) has announced the opening of the electronic application for the undergraduate degrees for Spring 2020 class, for those who have met the minimum requirements for admission as of today until November 5.

QU said in a statement that registration is open for new stu-dents, transfer students and students applying for the second bachelor’s degree.

The application shall be sub-mitted by completing the elec-tronic application on QU's official website and delivering the required documents at the admis-sions and registration building.

The admissions decisions for spring 2020 class will be announced on December 22 in the applicants’ online admission accounts. QU noted that admission to all colleges depend on the capacity of each indi-vidual college, rather than sat-isfying requirements.

QU' Admissions and Regis-tration Department urged students to submit all documents based on the type of application made by the student on the dates specified in the registration schedules.

Karwa launches new taxis for passengers with special needsTHE PENINSULA DOHA

Mowasalat (Karwa) has launched new fleet in addition to existing number of Karwa taxis for passengers with special needs. The new additional cars are equipped with all safety and security requirements and fitted with main features to provide convenient and comfortable service.

The new taxis are launched in two types with different seating capacity that can accommodate from two to three wheelchairs, along with seats for their escorts. With the new addition, number of Karwa taxis for passengers with special needs reached 20.

They are equipped with ramps that are latest in the market to sustain weight up to 400kg with built-in safety locks, and non-slippery floors that keep wheel-chairs stable inside the vehicle, in addition to electrical doors and other advanced features.

Karwa is also keen to ensure that public transport buses are wheelchair accessible in accordance with international standards to provide the highest levels of safety and comfort for wheelchair users as a vital and importance mode for commuting Karwa taxi for passengers with special needs can be ordered or booked through the toll-free number 8008294 or through Karwa Taxi application.

Nasser Mamdouh Al Shammari, LTS Director said: “We believe in the importance of supporting members of the com-munity with special needs as part of our social responsibility initi-atives. Mowasalat has increased its fleet of special needs taxis to cater for the increased demand and to modernize the fleet to ensure safe and affordable trans-portation for them and support their social inclusion in society, helping them to commute with ease and comfort and eco-nomical too.” �P2

A total of 74 cruise ships are expected to arrive at Doha Port in the 2019-20 season, making it the busiest season so far.

Qatar-Korea trade shows strength of bilateral tiesTHE PENINSULA DOHA

Minister of Commerce and Industry H E Ali bin Ahmed Al Kuwari said yesterday that the Qatari-Korean Business Forum presents an important oppor-tunity to consolidate cooperation between the private sectors in both countries and to build successful investment partner-ships that serve the shared aspi-rations and interests of both nations.

H E Ali bin Ahmed Al Kuwari and Sung Yun-Mo, South Korea’s

Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy, inaugurated yesterday the Qatari-Korean Business Forum held in conjunction with the fifth meeting of the high-level strategic cooperation com-mittee between Qatar and Korea in Doha.

H E Ali bin Ahmed Al Kuwari said Qatar’s partnership with South Korea serves as a model for Qatar’s economic relations worldwide, noting that the two countries have enjoyed an advanced level of bilateral cooperation over four decades. The strength of this relationship

has been marked by the exchange of official visits, par-ticularly the visit of Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani to Seoul this year and the visit of South Korea’s Prime Minister Lee Nak-yeon to Doha last July.

The growth in Qatari-Korean bilateral trade and investments demonstrate the strength of bilateral economic relations and their promising prospects, H E the Minister said, noting that South Korea ranks as Qatar’s second-largest trading partner with $15.1bn worth of traded

goods in 2018. South Korea accounted for 12.95 percent of Qatar’s total trade volume last year.

H E the Minister said more than 37 fully owned Korean companies are currently oper-ating in Qatar in the trade, con-tracting, construction and infor-mation technology fields in addition to 140 joint Qatari-Korean firms.

South Korea represents an attractive destination for Qatari investments in vital industries and economic activities, H E the Minister said. �P2

02 MONDAY 14 OCTOBER 2019HOME

PM meets envoys of Algeria and Greece PM, Korean Minister discuss boosting ties

The Prime Minister and Interior Minister, H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani, met yesterday with the Ambassador of People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria to the State of Qatar, Abdulaziz Saba, on the occasion of the end of his tenure in the country. The Prime Minister wished the Algerian’s envoy success in his future tasks and the relations between the two countries further progress and prosperity. The Prime Minister also met with the Ambassador of the Republic of Greece, Constantinos Orphanides. They reviewed bilateral relations and ways of developing them.

Mada signs MoU with Kotra to promote digital innovations QNA DOHA

Qatar Assistive Technology Center (Mada ) has signed with Korea trade investment promotion agency (Kotra) a memorandum of under-standing and cooperation during the Qatar - Korean Business Day — which kicked off yesterday.

The signing ceremony was attended by the Minister of

Commerce and Industry, H E Ali bin Ahmed Al Kuwari, and Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy of the Republic of Korea, Sung Yun-mo.

The agreement, which was signed by the CEO of Mada, Maha Al Mansouri, and the Executive Vice-President of Kotra, SangMook Kim, estab-lishes a cooperation between the two institutions in the field of development of innovations related to digital accessibility

and assistive technology, pro-viding a space for Korean inno-vations at Mada Innovation Lab, as well as promoting the latest technologies and their endorsement from Madas side.

This is part of Mada’s coop-eration with various partners and innovators to develop a sup-portive ecosystem to create tech-nological solutions that promote digital accessibility for people with disabilities and the elderly. It was also learned that the two

sides also agreed on cooperation in the field of research and studies.

This agreement comes within the framework of Mada Center with various partners and innovators to develop an ecosystem that supports the creation of technological solu-tions that promote digital access for people with disabil-ities and the elderly and help provide solutions to the chal-lenges facing these groups,CEO

of MADA Maha Al Mansouri said. This agreement is to support people with disabilities in the Arab world and not only within the State of Qatar as these technological solutions will be appropriate for the challenges facing the Arab countries with disabilities, she added.

Under this agreement, the parties will establish a joint committee that meet periodi-cally for follow-up, planning,

implementation and evaluation of the scope of work of this agreement.

Mada Center is a private institution for public benefit, which was founded in 2010 as an initiative that aims at pro-moting digital inclusion and building a technology-based community that meets the needs of persons with func-tional limitations (PFLs), persons with disabilities (PWDs) and the elderly.

The new taxi launched by Karwa for passengers with special needs.

Taxis for passengers with special needsFROM PAGE 1

He said that It was the endeavour of Karwa to diversify its services and establish value proposition in serving the com-munity capitalising on strengths as a pioneer and leader in the market, perpetually updating fleet.

“Such efforts are in line with the great efforts made by our wise leadership through their support giving attention to people with special needs. Ena-bling us to realise this project,” said Al Shammari.

Ashghal, QMIC sign pact to enhance efficient mobility and road safety

FROM PAGE 1This track will support Ash-

ghal’s ongoing efforts for road assets management by providing visibility through traffic data, crowd analytics and needed information.

QMIC’s rich traffic data bank and innovative algorithms and mobility analytics tools will provide an efficient overview about the performance of the road network and the positive effect of Ashghal’s achievements in this regard.

Under ‘Connected Vehicles (V2X) Field Pilot & Deployment Plan’ track, QMIC will aid Ashghal in enabling Qatar’s road infra-structure with V2X technologies and applications to get ready for hosting the next generation of intelligent transport systems and road safety.

This will also include carrying out a large scale pilot of V2X system and applications to better understand the performance and assess the value for different use cases.

Furthermore, it will be a landmark achievement for Qatar as the first country to regionally implement this emerging tech-nology that will significantly improve road safety and enable autonomous vehicles.

Under the pact, with the real-isation of ‘Smart Highway Testbed for New Innovative Technologies’ track, Ashghal will have a desig-nated corridor in Doha to act as a living testbed for piloting and showcasing emerging ITS and mobility solutions and applications.

This will provide great insight into observing the pros and cons of each emerging technology in a real-life setting before nationwide implementation, and will con-tribute to better predict the ben-efits and impacts. QMIC will also work with Ashghal to take ‘Wain’ mobile digital platform to the next phase via introducing new fea-tures and enhancing the current capabilities. The Wain platform will increasingly become the main mobile channel for communi-cating with the public about road conditions and location-based

services. Dr. Eng. Saad Ahmed Al Mohannadi said that within the framework of implementing the directives of H E the Prime Min-ister and Interior Minister to strengthen the partnership between the public and private sectors, the contract had been signed to enhance partnership with QMIC.

“This will help in leveraging the digital assets and expertise that QMIC has built in Qatar over the last few years. This will support Ashghal’s strategy in focusing on smart road asset management and in slowly transitioning from being a technology user to an innovation service provider.”

He stressed that Ashghal had been keen to cooperate with QMIC in order to encourage the local manufactures, especially as it is a Qatari centre with local outputs that support development and innovation.

Dr. Hassan bin Rashid Al Derham highlighted the impor-tance of cooperation between Qatar University and QMIC centre (under QU) with Ashghal to create an advanced innovative solution for the intelligent transport sector, as part of the university’s role in supporting the knowledge economy and human development.

QMIC will also work with Ashghal to take ‘Wain’ mobile digital platform to the next phase via introducing new features and enhancing the current capabilities.

The President of Public Works Authority, Dr. Eng. Saad bin Ahmad Al Muhannadi; President of Qatar University, Dr. Hassan bin Rashid Al Derham; and Executive Director & CEO of QMIC, Dr. Adnan Abu Dayya, during the signing ceremony at Ashghal head office, yesterday.PIC: ABDUL BASIT / THE PENINSULA

Qatar-Korea trade shows strength of ties

FROM PAGE 1

H E the Minister emphasised Qatar’s keenness to support the economies of its strategic partners and to promote the exchange of expertise in sectors that would serve Qatar’s developmental trends, espe-cially in industrial and technological sectors, which are key contributors to South Korea’s growth and advanced ranking on several international reports.

H E the Minister praised the progress that experts made during the fifth meeting of the high-level stra-tegic cooperation committee between Qatar and Korea, which contributed to strengthening ties across various fields. H E the Minister touched on Qatar’s success in recent years in implementing major

development projects, which have cemented its position as one of the region’s most stable, compet-itive and growth-oriented economies. H E the Min-ister expressed hope that the forum will incentivise businessmen to enhance joint cooperation and take advantage of positive investment climate to establish strategic projects that will benefit both nations.

Sheikh Dr. Khalid bin Thani Al Thani, Second Deputy to the Chairman of the Qatari Businessmen Association also attended the forum.

Sheikh Dr. Khalid bin Thani Al Thani said that Qatar’s economic progress has proved to be sus-tainable despite all the changes and the regional and global challenges, explaining that it is sup-ported by attractive investment incentives pro-vided by the State to foreign investors, such as the new investment law, which allows full ownership in most economic sectors. He also mentioned about the logistical elements such as the single window and the free zones that help the foreign investors in establishing their business in Doha, in addition to world-class facilities such as Hamad Interna-tional Airport and Hamad Port.

Sheikh Dr. Khalid bin Thani Al Thani called on Korean investors to benefit from the promising opportunities and favourable environment provided by the Qatari economy in various sectors and par-ticipate in achieving the desired economic diversi-fication goals. He said the meeting will help in opening new avenues of cooperation, attracting investors from both sides, identifying available investment oppor-tunities and working side by side to achieve the eco-nomic interests of both countries.

He said that Qatar is proud of having the Republic of Korea, the main industrial and economic artery in Asia and the world, as one of its most important trading partners. Mohammed bin Ahmed bin Towar Al Kuwari, First Vice-Chairman of Qatar Chamber, and Kim Jun-dong, Executive Vice-Chairman of The Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and rep-resentatives of major Qatari and Korean companies from various industries also attended.

Sheikh Dr. Khalid bin Thani Al Thani, Second Deputy to the Chairman of the Qatari Businessmen Association.

Prime Minister and Interior Minister, H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani, met yesterday with the Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy of the Republic of Korea, Sung Yun-Mo, and the accompanying delegation, who are visiting Qatar to participate in the fifth meeting of the Qatari-Korean Joint Higher Strategic Committee. During the meeting, they discussed aspects of joint cooperation between the two countries and means to further develop and promote them in different spheres.

03MONDAY 14 OCTOBER 2019 HOME

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Qatar takes part in WHO Regional Committee meet QNA DOHA

Qatar will participate in the 66th session of the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Committee for the Eastern Mediterranean, which will be hosted by the Iranian capital Tehran from today until Thursday.

The preparatory meetings will be held today to discuss several important topics including the financing of phar-maceuticals in the Eastern Med-iterranean Region and the achievement of the objectives of the Eastern Mediterranean Action Plan for Vaccines.

Qatar is also participating in the 6th meeting of sub-com-mittee on programmes of the WHO Regional Committee for the Eastern Mediterranean.

Amir condoles with Emperor, Prime Minister of JapanDOHA: Amir H H Sheikh

Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani

and Deputy Amir H H

Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad

Al Thani sent yesterday

cables of condolences

to Emperor Naruhito of

Japan and Prime Minister

Shinzo Abe on the victims

of Typhoon Hagibis, which

hit the country, wishing a

speedy recovery for the

injured. The Prime Minis-

ter and Interior Minister, H E

Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser

bin Khalifa Al Thani, also

sent a cable of condolences

to Abe. QNA

OFFICIAL NEWS

Qatar strongly condemns attack on church in USDOHA: Qatar has strongly

condemned the shooting

attack on a church in the

city of Pelham in the north-

eastern United States of

America, which resulted in

two injuries. The Ministry

of Foreign Affairs reiter-

ated Qatar’s firm stance on

rejecting violence and ter-

rorism, regardless of the

motives and reasons. QNA

Shura Council Speaker meets IPU President

The Speaker of the Shura Council, H E Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid Al Mahmoud, met with the President of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), Gabriela Cuevas Barron, on the sidelines of the 141st General Assembly of IPU in Belgrade, yesterday. During the meeting, a number of issues of mutual interest were reviewed, particularly those related to cooperation in parliamentary and legislative fields, as well as the topics on the agenda of the IPU General Assembly.

Fifth edition of Katara Prize for Arabic Novel beginsTHE PENINSULA DOHA

The fifth edition of Katara Prize for Arabic Novel kicked off at Katara Cultural Village yesterday.

The function was attended by several Arab novelists, critics and academics. The event will run until Tuesday.

Inaugurating the event, Dr Khalid bin Ibrahim Al Sulaiti, General Manager of Katara Cul-tural Village, said that the Katara Prize for Arabic Novel has become an important event in Arab literary calendar and its popularity is increasing every year.

“Katara has become an incu-bator of Arab literary talent and creativity. The world is noticing our initiatives and we are making constant efforts to promote Arab novels and creativity,” he said.

The huge increase in the number of entries for the prizes is proof of the increasing popu-larity and acceptance of the award in the Arab world, he added.

This year, the number of

entries reached 1,850, which has witnessed an increase of 30 percent over the fourth edition, which received 1,283 entries.

Prizes are given in five cat-egories namely fiction in pub-lished category; fiction in

unpublished category; Qatari fiction; young adult fiction, and literary research and criticism. The winners of this year’s prizes will be announced at the con-cluding ceremony on Tuesday.

At the function, Al Sulaiti

presented Dr. Mohammad Abdel-rahim Kafoud, former education minister of Qatar and a linguistics expert, with the Al Dhad Shield, in recognition of his contributions to Arabic language. Dr. Al Sulaiti reiterated Katara’s

full commitment to creating the right environment to achieve the vision and objectives of the Prize, through its commitment to the values of independence, trans-parency and integrity at all stages of the award, starting from the opening of nominations and the selection of the members of the jury to the announcement of the winners.

“I express my sincere wishes to the candidates in the five cat-egories of the Prize. Those who are not lucky in this session must continue their efforts and sharpen their talent and achieve their goals,” he said.

Also, a seminar was held on the late Tunisian novelist Mahmoud Al Massadi, who was chosen as the Person of the Year for the fifth edition. Speakers at the seminar said that Al Massadi was one of the most influential writers of Tunisia in the modern era because of the intellectual depth of his writings.

A book signing ceremony for last year’s winners was also held. Thirty-one published books were available for signing by the authors.

Dr. Khalid bin Ibrahim Al Sulaiti, Katara General Manager, and Dr. Mohammad Abdel-rahim Kafoud, former education minister of Qatar, during the opening of the fifth edition of Katara Prize for Arabic Novel at Katara, yesterday.

Ecuador Vice-President to visit QatarFAZEENA SALEEM DOHA

A high-level delegation from Ecuador including the Vice-President, Otto Ramon Sennonholzner Sper, will soon visit Qatar during which several agreements are expected to be signed.

Two MoUs will also be signed between the two countries in the fields of culture and ports, said the Ambassador of Ecuador to Qatar, Ivonne A Baki, yesterday.

The delegation will include four ministers in charge of tourism, pro-duction, foreign trade, investment and fisheries, culture and transport and public works.

“I would like to seize this oppor-tunity to assure on the strong friendship ties between the State of Qatar and the Republic of Ecuador, which is built on trust. I believe that today is the right moment to renew the trust and strengthen all means of cooperation between the two countries,” said A Baki addressing a press conference held at her official residence in Doha.

“In addition, we are the only Embassy of Ecuador in the Gulf

region, and that confirms the recog-nition of the Ecuadorian Government for the distinctive diplomatic role of Qatar internationally and regionally,” she added.

According to A Baki , Qatar and Ecuador reciprocated high level visits which resulted in a great cooperation and created opportunities to further consolidate the relations during the past two years.

“In October 2018, the Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, started his tour to South America in Ecuador, which was a positive and fruitful visit for both countries where several agreements have been signed in different fields.

“Ecuador is a country of oppor-tunities and is a promising desti-nation for investment. Its door will always be open to friendly countries. From this perspective, I reaffirm that my country is keen to further promote its relations with Qatar. Therefore, a high-level delegation will be visiting Doha soon through which several projects and proposals are expected to be initiated while fol-lowing up on the implementation of the previously launched projects.”

“In the coming few weeks, we

are in a process to sign two important memorandums of understanding, one is on the cooperation on the field of culture between the Government of Ecuador and the Ministry of Culture and Sports. The other one is between the Ministry of Transpor-tation and Public Works of the Republic of Ecuador and Mawani Qatar, which will boost the mutual relations in the fields of culture and transport and create new opportu-nities for further cooperation between the two countries,” she added. A Baki also emphasised that Ecuador is going through a challenge because of the recent demonstrations which are taking place in Ecuador on the wake of governmental reforms which eliminate fuel subsidy and a pack of economic measures aimed to decrease the budget deficit and safeguard the dollarisation of the economy and its stability.

“I believe that Ecuador, as a gov-ernment and people will pass together this challenge with positive outcomes for all sides. As recently, the President has offered an open dialogue with the protesters which is promising start to overcome the situation,” she said.

Ambassador of Ecuador to Qatar, Ivonne A Baki, during a press conference, yesterday. PIC: BAHER AMIN / THE

PENINSULA

141st IPU Assembly and its related meetings start with Qatar’s participationQNA BELGRADE

The 141st Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and its related meetings kicked off yesterday with the participation of the Speaker of the Shura Council, H E Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid Al Mahmoud, and his accompanying dele-gation.

The President of Serbia, Ale-ksandar Vucic; IPU President, Gabriela Cuevas; IPU Secretary-General, Martin Chungong, and Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva Tatiana Valovaya, attended the opening ceremony of the Assembly, which continues until Thursday.

Earlier, H E the Speaker of the Shura Council headed the delegation of the State of Qatar at the coordination meeting of

the Islamic Group accompa-nying the work of the 141st Assembly, which discussed several topics on the agenda of the Assembly.

The meeting adopted a common position on issues of mutual interest to the Islamic Group before the Assembly on the agenda items.

About the proposed emer-gency items, the meeting dis-cussed a resolution on tackling climate change, proposed by India. It also called for the inclusion of the youth voice to address climate change, pro-posed by Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, and Turkey.

Several members of the Shura Council and Qatar’s Ambassador to Serbia, Sheikh Mubarak bin Fahad Al Thani, attended the meeting.

Second local dates exhibition from October 16THE PENINSULA DOHA

The Ministry of Municipality and Environment and Souq Waqif will organise second local dates exhi-bition for the 2019 season from October 16 to 26 , with the partici-pation of 56 local farms and Hassad

Food Company. The exhibition, which will held for the second year in a row in Souq Waqif, aims to promote the national product of dates and to introduce various types.

The 10 day event will provide platform to local farms to market their products directly to the public and reflected positively on their sales

volume which will encourage them to increase production. This exhi-bition is also an opportunity to exchange experiences between local date producers and manufacturers to contribute to the development of this important sector to increase palm plantations and produce the best varieties.

Al Muraikhi meets Foreign Minister of Antigua and BarbudaDoha: The Minister of State

for Foreign Affairs, H E Sul-

tan bin Saad Al Muraikhi,

met yesterday with the

Minister of Foreign Affairs,

International Trade, and

Immigration of Antigua and

Barbuda, Paul Greene, who

is on a visit to Qatar. During

the meeting, the two sides

reviewed bilateral cooper-

ation relations, in addition

to issues of common con-

cern. QNA


Tanzania invites Qataris to invest in mining, gas sectors SIDI MOHAMED THE PENINSULA

Fatma Mohammed Rajab, Ambassador of Tanzania to Qatar, has said that Tanzania enjoys very good relations with Qatar and now both countries are working to further expand them.

“We are inviting Qataris to visit and invest in Tanzania in the mining sector and in gas explo-ration. To enhance bilateral rela-tions and make them stronger, we are working to expand trade cooperation between both the countries,” she added.

Speaking to The Peninsula on the sidelines of a photography exhibition titled, ‘Experience Tanzania’ which is being held at Multaqa (Education City Student Center), Rajab pointed out that Qataris can get Tanzania’s visa on arrival, adding that a lot of Qataris are visiting Tanzania as tourists.

Regarding a question about visit visa facility for Qatari resi-dents, the Ambassador said: We facilitate the process for them; they can apply online to get the visa and it is easy and not takes more than three days. They need not visiting the embassy for the purpose and can apply anytime from any place.”

On Tanzania community here in Qatar, she said that the community population was more than 2000 and they are working in many fields such as banking, police, defence and construction.

Recently, Weill Cornell Med-icine – Qatar (WCM-Q) and Qatar Foundation (QF) opened a photography exhibition titled

‘Experience Tanzania’.The exhibition, is being

held at Multaqa (Education City Student Center) and runs until December 8, gives vis-itors an opportunity to know more about the lifestyle, tra-ditions, socioeconomic hier-archies and health systems of t h e l o c a l T a n z a n i a n communities.

A number of people visited the exhibition to learn more about the lifestyle in Tanzania, its culture and what sets it apart from the rest of the world.

The exhibition is very important and will definitely attract more people to visit Tan-zania and know more about its culture and lifestyle.

The exhibition represents not only Tanzania but also African continent, because there exist a lot of similarities in African countries.

Fatma Mohammed Rajab, Ambassador of Tanzania to Qatar.

Ooredoo represents ICT, tech industries at Qatar-Korea Business ForumTHE PENINSULA DOHA

Ooredoo yesterday represented Qatar’s ICT and technology industries at the Qatar- Korea Business Forum held at Grand Hyatt Doha.

The Forum was intended to provide a platform for prominent companies from both countries, as well as senior government officials, to explore bilateral trade and development opportunities.

Minister of Commerce and Industry H E Ali bin Ahmed Al Kuwari joined Sung Yun-mo, Korean Minister of Energy and Industry, and industry heavyweights such as Qatar Financial Centre, Qatar Free Zones Authority and Korea Maritime Institute at the event, where representatives from both countries presented bilateral

investment opportunities. Ooredoo’s participation was in

‘Promising Areas: Artificial Intelligence

and Smart Cities and their Contribution to Businesses in the Past Decade’. Hassan Ismail M S Alemadi, Assistant

Director Government Accounts at Ooredoo, presented the company’s Arti-ficial Intelligence solutions, noting the successful use of AI in several fields, such as Customer Empowerment, Zero Touch & Digital Assistant Interactions and Superior Analytics. Several cases were presented as evidence of Oore-doo’s position as an enabler of transfor-mation through technology.

Haya Al Qahtani, IoT Product Devel-opment Analyst presented ‘Smart Cities – Transforming Qatar through Tech-nology’. Progress towards becoming a Smart Nation was also highlighted, with Ooredoo outlining its provision of high quality telecoms and connectivity infra-structure - its 5G network and Supernet, as well as a wide range of Smart solu-tions for Transportation, Environment, Public Safety and Energy – that support

the country’s drive to achieve Qatar National Vision 2030.

Yousuf Abdulla Al Kubaisi, Chief Operating Officer, Ooredoo Qatar, said: “We were very happy to be repre-senting Qatar at the Qatari Korean Business Forum, an opportunity we considered invaluable to strengthen ties between our two countries and explore the many possibilities for bilateral trade and development. We share many similarities with Korea, not least a forward-thinking, pro-gressive approach to business. We’re confident our technology can effec-tively link both countries to the rest of the world through our global connec-tivity services and innovative solu-tions, and we look forward to expanding business relations with Korea yet further.”

An official addressing the Qatar-Korea Business Forum at Grand Hyatt Doha.

Afif Charity supports QRCS School ProgramTHE PENINSULA DOHA

Qatar Red Crescent Society (QRCS) has agreed with Afif Charity to support the QRCS School Program, which is implemented at public and private schools, under the super-vision of the Ministry of Education and Higher Education.

It is a capacity-building program for students, teachers, and adminis-trative staff in first aid and health education. The agreement involves the sponsorship of health training and education in 50 schools. Training courses will be held for students of different grades on main first-aid skills for common injuries, whether for self or for others. Also, awareness sessions will discuss health topics of interest for society members in eve-ryday life.

The topics include the first aid of bleeding, nosebleed, head injury, fracture, burn, epilepsy, and heat stroke. Other examples are protection against injuries and diseases, food and hygiene, communicable diseases, home safety, oral health, and smoking risks. “We are happy for this cooperation with Afif Charity, within the bilateral mandate of empowering vulnerable groups, such as women and children. It goes in line with the overall government strategy of capacity-building and development of young generations, towards the human development goals of Qatar National Vision,” said Muna Fadel Al Sulaiti, Executive Director of Volun-teering and Local Development Division at QRCS.

She said that this support from Afif Charity is a testimony to the impressive success of the program.

“Within three years only, it could reach out to over 11,000 beneficiaries in 159 schools. In reflection of trust in its content and objectives, the program became part of the aca-demic achievement requirements approved by the Ministry of Edu-cation,” said Al Sulaiti.

Zulaikha Hassan Al Asmakh, Con-sultant to Board of Directors at Afif Charity, praised the agreement as an important step towards better pre-ventive efforts and a joint work to protect vulnerable groups against future risks. She said that Afif Charity is fully aware of the importance of this kind of awareness programs to make positive results. They fall under the comprehensive concept of awareness against disasters, through protection and education of students, so that they become active contributors to the development of this country.

QSRSN organises health day for its membersTHE PENINSULA/DOHA

Qatar Society for Rehabilitation of Special Needs (QSRSN) has organised a health day for its members with disabilities at the educational and rehabilitation centers for girls affil-iated to QSRSN in Al Thumama area.

The Health Day was organised in cooperation with the Primary Health Care Corporation, where the tests were conducted for the students of the educational and rehabilitation

centers for girls. Member of the Board of Directors at QSRSN, Taleb Afifa praised the high turnout of people for the necessary medical examina-tions, which are held regulurly in cooperation with the Primary Health Care Corporation.

He lauded the excellent and pos-itive cooperation between the QSRSN and the Primary Health Care Corpo-ration, which offers nurses, and a specialized doctor who visits the headquarters of the QSRSN once a

week to follow up health cases.The health institutions in the

country, represented by the Ministry of Public Health, Hamad Medical Corporation and the Primary Health Care Corporation, all provide out-standing support for the QSRSN and provide outstanding services to persons with disabilities, which is reflected positively on the life of persons with disabilities contributes more to their healthy and safe life for them in the State.

Speaking to The Peninsula on the sidelines of a photography exhibition titled, ‘Experience Tanzania’ held at Multaqa (Education City Student Center), Rajab pointed out that Qataris can get Tanzanian visa on arrival, adding that a lot of Qataris are visiting Tanzania as tourists.

WCM-Q and HMC boost physician leadership skillsTHE PENINSULA DOHA

Doctors trained at Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar (WCM-Q) and physicians from Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) completed a rigorous training course designed to enhance their ability to lead, manage and mentor colleagues.

Sixteen consultants, residents and fellows from HMC, six of whom graduated from WCM-Q, convened at Multaqa (Education City Student Center) to complete the seven-day ILM Level 5 Certif-icate in Leadership and Man-agement program. The certificate, awarded by the UK-based Institute of Leadership & Man-agement, helps project managers, department heads and middle managers develop a range of skills to improve the performance of the teams they lead.

The participants took work-shops on subjects such as man-agement and leadership styles, performance management, decision-making, and presen-tation and communication skills. The training, delivered by UK firm

Leadership Focus, also featured modules on managing change, emotional intelligence, influencing and assertiveness skills, and coaching and mentoring skills. Two more 16-physician cohorts will take the course, one in November and one in December, so that 48 will eventually have completed the training. Of those, 24 are graduates of WCM-Q.

Dr Ayobami Omosola, a member of WCM-Q’s first ever graduating class, the Class of 2008, is now a fourth-year car-diology fellow at HMC Heart Hos-pital. She said, “One of the most useful things was learning about strategic leadership and how to face challenges. We work with extremely capable leaders and you sometimes wonder how they manage it. The course really helped to demystify leadership and show us a path towards being effective, high-performing leaders.”

Dr Shereen Darwish, a fourth-year senior pediatrics res-ident at HMC and Sidra Medicine, graduated from WCM-Q in 2016. She said, “The course gave us a

great opportunity to learn about different leadership and man-agement styles and work out which of them suits us best. We also got to meet and learn from the experiences of other profes-sionals who were also taking the course.”

The course, coordinated jointly by WCM-Q’s Office of Alumni Affairs and the Office of The Chief Medical Officer at HMC, concluded with a closing cer-emony and certificate presen-tation at which speeches were given by Alia Taub, Chief Exec-utive of Leadership Focus, Dr Ahmed Zarour, Chief of Acute Surgery and Executive Director Surgical Services at HMC, and Dr Robert Crone, Vice Dean for Clinical and Faculty Affairs and Professor of Pediatrics and Anesthesiology at WCM-Q.

Dr. Crone said: “For any medical institution to deliver truly excellent healthcare it needs not just great doctors, but also great leaders who are willing and able to take responsibility for main-taining and continuously improving standards.”

WCM-Q and HMC physicians during their seven-day course on leadership and management.

Woqod opens new petrol station in Al ThumamaTHE PENINSULA DOHA

Qatar Fuel, Woqod opened new petrol station in Al Thumama yesterday and by this raised its network of various petrol stations to 91, as part of Woqod’s ongoing expansion plans to be able to serve every area in Qatar.

Al Thumama-3 Petrol Station is spread over an area of 2,800 square metres and has three lanes with six dispensers.

The new petrol station offers round-the-clock services to residents and include Sidra convenience store, and sale of LPG cyl-inders ‘Shafaf’, in addition to the sale of gasoline and diesel products for light vehicles.

Woqod’s Managing Director & CEO, Saad Rashid Al Muhannadi, said: “We are pleased to open a new fixed petrol station in Al Thumama. Woqod aspires to expand its petrol station network in the country to meet the rising demand for petroleum products and

achieve the goal of providing customers with access to best-in-class products and services at their convenience and comfort.”

He said that Woqod has recently accelerated the process for the construction of new petrol stations to meet the fuel and energy needs of the country. Woqod team would like to extend their gratitude to all concerned governmental and private entities that contributed to

the completion of this project.

Al Muhannadi added that Woqod is currently over-seeing the implementation of 20 new petrol stations, which most of them will be opera-tional in the current year 2019.

Al Muhannadi said that as part of its strategic expansion plan, Woqod is targeting the achievement of a total of 114 fuel stations by the end of 2020.

Al Thumama-3 Petrol Station is spread over an area of 2,800 square metres and has three lanes with six dispensers.


Sidra Medicine introduces technologically advanced Sidra Fibroid CenterTHE PENINSULA DOHA

Sidra Medicine has launched a fibroid removal program using minimally invasive methods and robotic surgery.

The Sidra Fibroid Center is a new clinical multidisciplinary service launched by the Department of Gynaecology.

Since opening its main hos-pital in January 2018, Sidra Med-icine has proven itself as a pioneer in its field by using the latest technology and techniques to provide the highest levels of healthcare for the people of Qatar.

It is also one of the only women’s hospitals in the region to offer ground-breaking Robotic Myomectomy, a minimally

invasive technique using robotic machines to remove uterine fibroids.

A study conducted by the Journal of Women’s Health1 esti-mates the prevalence of fibroids in up to 70 percent of women - depending on age; family history; time since last birth; premeno-pausal state; hypertension and diet. The presence of fibroids or tumours of the uterus can cause heavy menstrual bleeding; pain;

infertility and recurrent miscar-riages in addition to pressure on the bladder or bowel.

“Many women with fibroids are given medical recommen-dations to have a hysterectomy. We believe this is not their only option and we encourage women to seek a second opinion at the Sidra Fibroid Center,” said Dr Aisha Yousuf, Director of Repro-ductive Surgery at Sidra Medicine.

Dr Yousuf is also the first Qatari physician specialised in minimally invasive and robotic gynaecology surgery in the country. “Technology has evolved so that we treat the fibroid without the removal of the uterus or traditional open cut

surgery. There are lots of options by using a minimally invasive approach including robotic surgery to remove fibroids, even very large ones,” said Dr Yousuf.

One possible option is Mag-netic Resonance-guided Focused Ultrasound which uses ultrasonic

pulses to destroy the fibroids by heating them up. This method spares healthy tissue to accu-rately target the fibroids.

Dr Nady E. Mohamed, the Division Chief of Gynaecology at Sidra Medicine, said they recently had a patient with a major fibroid. The patient had come for a second opinion as she felt that at 40 years old, she did not want to a hysterectomy. “Patients come after other doctors have told them that they need a hysterectomy and here at Sidra Medicine, we give them a second chance with this new procedure.” Women seeking a second opinion or more details about the Sidra Fibroid Program can call Sidra Medicine directly without requiring a referral on +974 4003 7113

Dr Aisha Yousuf and Dr Nady E. Mohamed

Qatar Airways offering BRIC’s pink-themed amenity kits to raise breast cancer awarenessTHE PENINSULA DOHA

Qatar Airways passengers travelling on long-haul flights in First Class and Business Class are being presented with BRIC’s limited edition pink themed amenity kits during the month of October, marking the airline’s annual support for Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

The exclusive amenity kits are made from vegan leather and are offered in two different colour options – a white kit with the iconic breast cancer pink ribbon prints for female passengers and a charcoal grey kit with pink accents for male passengers.

Both kits feature a unique zipper pull in the shape of the breast cancer ribbon. Each kit is further person-alised with a message imprinted on a band, reading: ‘Support the fight & think pink’.

Akbar Al Baker, Group Chief Exec-utive, Qatar Airways, said: “Qatar Airways is devoted to raising awareness on the importance of breast cancer, and will continue to highlight the significance of Breast Cancer Awareness Month by offering very special BRIC’s luxury amenity kits to passengers in First Class and Business Class. Our annual campaign aims to increase the number of sup-porters who are dedicated to tackling breast cancer and creating positive change worldwide.”

Business Class bags contain socks, eyeshades, ear plugs and an organic range of products from Italy’s Cas-tello Monte Vibiano Vecchio, the innovative and nutrition-centric olive oil company. The skin care range includes lip balm, hydrating facial mist, and anti-ageing moisturiser. First Class kits are equipped with the same products but include an addi-tional Night Recovery Cream as well as BRIC’s signature eyeglass pouch. The Business Class and First Class

bags for women are distinct with their all pink-coloured socks, eyeshades and ear plugs, while the men’s kits feature the same in grey tone.

Economy Class passengers trav-elling on overnight long-haul and all ultra long-haul flights are also offered limited edition breast cancer awareness amenity kits.

The bags feature pink ribbons and include eyeshades, socks, ear plugs, lip balm, toothbrush and toothpaste.

Earlier this year, the airline launched its new line of luxurious BRIC’s amenity kits for passengers in its First Class and Business Class cabins. The luxury kits come in a

variety of colours for male and female passengers.

A multiple award-winning airline, Qatar Airways was named ‘World’s Best Airline’ by the 2019 World Airline Awards, managed by international air transport rating organisation Skytrax.

It was also named ‘Best Airline in the Middle East’, ‘World’s Best Business Class’ and ‘Best Business Class Seat’, in recognition of its ground-breaking Business Class expe-rience, Qsuite. Qatar Airways is the only airline to have been awarded the coveted “Skytrax Airline of the Year” title, recognised as the pinnacle of excellence in the industry, five times.

BRIC’s limited edition pink-themed amenity kit.

Since opening its main hospital in January 2018, Sidra Medicine has proven itself as a pioneer in its field by using the latest technology and techniques to provide the highest levels of healthcare. It is also one of the only women’s hospitals in the region to offer ground-breaking Robotic Myomectomy.

Akbar Al Baker, Group Chief Executive, Qatar Airways, said: “Qatar Airways is devoted to raising awareness on the importance of breast cancer, and will continue to highlight the significance of Breast Cancer Awareness Month by offering very special BRIC’s luxury amenity kits to passengers in First Class and Business Class. Our annual campaign aims to increase the number of supporters who are dedicated to tackling breast cancer and creating positive change worldwide.”

MME launches new system for inspection of building permitsTHE PENINSULA DOHA

The Ministry of Municipality and Environment has launched a new system for inspection of building permits in all munici-palities which is considered a quantum leap towards the digital transformation of the Ministry services.

The new system in Arabic and English was launched by the Ministry represented by the Department of Information Systems and the Department of Building Licensing Complex and in cooperation with the Tech-nical Affairs Departments of the Municipalities.

The system was introduced first on July 14 to a number of municipalities and was gradually applied and circulated to other municipalities. It provides a

number of technical advantages that increase the quality, pro-ductivity and accuracy of the inspection.

The most important feature of the system is that it will enable the inspector to do his field work on his electronic device (tablet) only without having to carry any documents or other requirement to com-plete his work.

The system works through internet and in case of inter-ruption of communication or poor network, the inspector can continue to work without any disruption, because the possibility of storing all inspection requirements locally on the tablet of the inspector

It also enables to inspect all attachments and maps related to inspection tasks. The inspector

can see the schedule of the tasks assigned to him and take photos of violations and link them to comments on the map.

The system provides pre-defined electronic checklists that identify identical and non-con-forming items to the inspected site.

The system integrates elec-tronically with the building permit system, which con-tributes to the speedy issuance of the building completion cer-tificate. It provides electronic signature of the final inspection report.

The Ministry of Munici-pality and Environment is cur-rently working on developing a unified electronic inspection system in the ministry covering all types of inspection in all sectors of the ministry and others.

Retirement Authority to take part in fifthWorld Social Security Forum in BrusselsQNA/DOHA

The General Retirement and Social Insurance Authority will participate in the Fifth World Social Security Forum which will begin today in Brussels under the theme ‘Protecting People in a Changing World’.

The five-day forum is the largest international gathering dedicated to social security professionals and administrators, enabling decisions-makers from around the world to engage in strategic debate as well as exchange and discuss how to build and extend social

security worldwide. 1000 people from 150 countries are expected to participate in the Forum.The Forum will discuss on shaping the future of social security and the challenges it faces with focus on excellence and innovation in social security administration.


Region experiencing a necessity of change: ExpertTHE PENINSULA DOHA

Qatar University’s (QU) Gulf Studies Center (GSC) organised a lecture on “The Gulf Seen from the European Union: Time for Change”.

The guest speaker of the event was Prof Jesús A Nunez Villaverde and moderated by GSC Director, Dr. Mahjoob Al Zuwairi. It was attended by a number of university officials and students from QU, who also participated in a Q&A session.

Prof Jesús A Nunez Vil-laverde is a prominent Spanish economist and co-director of the Institute of Studies on Conflict and Humanitarian Action (IECAH). He also works as a pro-fessor of international relations at the Universidad Pontificia Comillas in Madrid. He is a retired army officer who spe-cialises in security issues, peace building and conflict prevention

with a key focus on the Arab-Muslim world. He is also a regular contributor to various media outlets focusing on inter-national affairs.

Prof Jesús A Nunez Vil-laverde first expressed his pleasure in visiting Qatar and the QU campus for the first time. He began the lecture by explaining that the European Union (EU) is different to Europe as a whole, similarly, he says, the Gulf Coop-eration Council (GCC) is different from the Gulf.

Prof Jesús A Nunez Vil-laverde then discussed the rela-tionship between the EU and the Gulf and explained the benefits that the EU gains from the Gulf including energy dependency, economic cooperation and the way in which stability of the Gulf affects the European and Western world in general.

In discussing the current climate of the region he said, “In this entire region, in the global Arab-Muslim world as a whole, we are experiencing, in some

way, a necessity of change. There is a movement in favour of change, simultaneously; there is counter-revolution in progress , with strong promoters.”

He also talked about the reality of citizens in the region saying, “Today, there is Internet,

there is social networks, so eve-rybody knows in which world they are living. Nobody can silence this reality.”

Dr. Mahjoob Al Zuwairi then opened the floor for discussion where a number of students took the opportunity to ask Professor Jesús A Nunez Villaverde about

many issues including climate change and the EU’s role in the Qatar blockade.

The Gulf Studies Center, which is a part of the College of Arts and Sciences at QU, covers topics of politics and security, energy and economics and culture and society.

An expert sharing his views during the lecture organised by QU’s Gulf Studies Center.

Young talents to display skills at thirdseason of ‘Qatar’s Best Talents’ at MoQTHE PENINSULA DOHA

Mall of Qatar’s (MoQ) successful programme, ‘Qatar’s Best Talents’, will run again every Friday at 4pm at the iconic Oasis stage from October 18 until November 29.

Singing duets, hip-hop per-formances, folk dances and piano recitals are just a small snippet of the excellent enter-tainment mix to be showcased as part of the programme, Qatar’s Best Talents.

Launched in 2018, the thriving programme at Mall of Qatar showcases the eclectic talents of young performers from around Qatar. The third season will kick off on Friday (October 18) until Friday (November 29) and will host over 500 young talents during seven shows at the iconic Oasis stage.

In collaboration with some of the nation’s top academies, such as IAID, the country’s leading performing arts academy, Mall of Qatar has proved again its commitment to providing the best family enter-tainment while connecting with l o c a l s c h o o l s a n d communities.

“We are committed to pro-viding an exciting lineup of family entertainment while

supporting the country’s most talented performers. We welcome everyone to join the fun and support the talents with us,” said Khaled Sam Hosn, CEO of Mall of Qatar. Every Friday

from October 18 until November 29 at 4pm, ‘Qatar’s Best Talents’ showcases up to 10 performances in dancing, singing, and other performing arts selected by Mall of Qatar.

This file picture shows children performing at the iconic Oasis Stage of Mall of Qatar as part of ‘Qatar’s Best Talents’ programme.

Souq Waqif Boutique Hotels receives ‘Condé Nast Traveler’s 2019 Readers’ Choice Award’THE PENINSULA DOHA

Souq Waqif Boutique Hotels proudly received accolades from the prestigious USA based travel magazine ‘Condé Nast Traveler’s 2019 Readers’ Choice Award and ranked 11 in the ‘Top 15 hotels in the Middle East’ by scoring 94.47 and rising two positions ahead since last year’s ranking.

Nestled in the heart of the his-toric Souq Waqif, Souq Waqif Boutique Hotels is a collection of nine unique buildings repre-senting the best of Qatari hospi-tality and culture.

These awards are solely selected by the esteemed readers of ‘Condé Nast Traveler’, in one of the most awaited yearly travel awards by voting. Over 600,000 Condé Nast Traveler readers across the globe submitted a record-breaking number of responses rating their travel expe-riences to provide a full snapshot of where and how we travel today.

The Condé Nast Traveler Readers’ Choice Awards are the longest-running and most pres-tigious recognition of excellence in the travel industry and are com-monly known as ‘the best of the best of travel’. This year the votes from readers of both the US and

UK editions of the magazine were combined for the first time.

Souq Waqif Boutique Hotels is an exclusive collection of nine boutique hotels. Individually rec-ognized as Al Mirqab, Arumaila, Musheireb, Al Jasra and Al Bidda, Bismillah, Najd, Najada and Al Jomrok Boutique Hotel, all are unique, and each hotel is designed to set an atmosphere with their distinctive décor, service and dining outlets.

Following the concept of bou-tique hotels with bespoke services, introduced by Souq Waqif Bou-tique Hotels to the Middle East,

none of the hotels feature more than 37 rooms. Speckled across the historic, thriving Souq Waqif, the nine boutique hotels have inherited their traditional names from nearby residential neighbourhoods.

From leisure to fine dining, the Souq Waqif Boutique Hotels offers a rich variety of opportunities to experience Qatari hospitality. Ulti-mately, Souq Waqif Boutique Hotels aim to offer a culturally rich series of accommodation, offering guests a unique blend of authentic local experiences and modern facilities.

The drawing room lounge, Al Jasra, at the hotel.

Jumbo Electromech offers Bosch’s Aviotec IP Starlight 8000THE PENINSULA DOHA

Jumbo Electromech, one of the leading companies in the MEP industry in Qatar, has been successfully implementing various projects in safety and security systems over the years. It is MOI approved for video surveillance, safety & security devices and Qatar Civil Defence approved for fire & life safety systems.

Through its partner Bosch it is now providing a new version of Aviotec that is based on algo-rithms that detect smoke and flames that are specially developed for use in tunnels, which have been optimised in comprehensive tests in real environments. The cameras require only seven lux ambient light to reliably detect smoke and flames using the integrated intelligent video analysis.

For use in tunnels, Bosch has also more than doubled the detection range from 50 to over 100 meters by using new lenses. This corresponds to the usual distance between cameras for video surveillance in such environments. Thus, Aviotec allows the same cameras to be used for video surveillance as well as for fire detection and thereby reduces investments and operating expenses.

These new cameras approved by Qatar Civil Defense can be part of a fire alarm system that minimizes accident risks through very early fire alarm detection and simultaneous video sur-veillance which benefits from the intelligent video analysis in the cameras.

By continuously tracking movement curves, they can automatically detect sta-tionary vehicles as well as drivers driving the

wrong way or people on the road. As with the detection of smoke or flames, a

message is also generated in these cases so that the safety personnel can immediately take appropriate measures and minimize the risk of an accident.

Intelligent video analysis is implemented in the cameras themselves and therefore does not require a central server, which could rep-resent a so-called ‘single point of failure’. Aviotec also records machine-searchable metadata of all scenes, thus enabling very rapid forensics when investigating the cause of a fire or an accident.

Aviotec was the first solution for video-based fire detection to pass the demanding test pro-cedure of German VdS Schadenverhütung GmbH even before this updated version. VdS had con-ducted the test procedure in accordance with the VdS guidelines 2203 ‘Requirements for fire protection software’ and the ‘Specifications for testing flame detectors’.

In April 2019, Aviotec IP starlight also received certification according to the Australian standard CSIRO TS010 for video-based fire detection systems.

Operators who are already using an Aviotec solution can upgrade to the new version with a free firmware update. In existing applications where a longer range is required, an upgrade can also include the purchase of a new lens.

The cameras require only seven lux ambient light to reliably detect smoke and flames using the integrated intelligent video analysis.

Qatar Alumni of TKMCE holds ‘Keralolsavam’The members of the Qatar Alumni of TKM College of Engineering (TKMCE), an institute in the southern Indian state of Kerala, and their families celebrating their victory in the tug-of-war competition during an event, titled Keralolsavam, organised by Engineers Forum Qatar on Friday. The teams bagged titles in both men’s and women’s category.

MoCI recalls IKEA children’s bibTHE PENINSULA DOHA

The Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MoCI), in cooperation with IKEA, has announced a free of charge recall of IKEA children’s bib (Matvra) due to a loose button that can come off and thus presents a choking hazard on children.

Customers have been urged to return the Matvra bibs to IKEA for a full refund or exchange them for a similar product.

The recall campaign comes within the

framework of the Ministry’s continuous efforts to ensure that suppliers follow up on product defects and recall defective items in a bid to protect consumers.

The Ministry said that it will coordinate with the suppliers to follow up on the maintenance and repair works and will communicate with customers to ensure that the necessary repairs are carried out.

The Ministry has also urged all customers to report any violations to its Consumer Pro-tection and Anti-Commercial Fraud Department.

The guest speaker at the event organised by Qatar University’s Gulf Studies Center, Prof Jesús A Nunez Villaverde, said: “In this entire region, in the global Arab-Muslim world as a whole, we are experiencing, in some way, a necessity of change. There is a movement in favour of change, simultaneously; there is counter-revolution in progress, with strong promoters.”


HMC begins community engagement campaignTHE PENINSULA DOHA

Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) has started a five-month community engagement campaign to educate the public about its healthcare services and to raise awareness of important health issues.

The campaign, which began at Villaggio Mall on October 6, and will continue through Feb-ruary 2020, will be rolled out across five more popular malls around the country. Bespoke mall stands will be staffed by teams from HMC, with the cam-paign designed to promote key health services and the Guides to Healthcare Services in Qatar, which were introduced last year.

The Guides, which were jointly launched in November 2018 by the Ministry of Public

Health (MoPH), HMC, Primary Health Care Corporation (PHCC), and Sidra Medicine, aim to make it easier for people to access the healthcare system in Qatar and to choose the right service for their healthcare needs.

“The three Guides, for

children, adults, and the elderly, explain everything people need to know about accessing healthcare services in Qatar, including what services each provider offers, how to get an appointment, and information on choosing the right service for their needs,” said Ali Abdulla Al Khater, Chair of the Healthcare Communications Committee and Chief Communications Officer at HMC.

Since the launch of the Guides to Healthcare Services in Qatar last year, more than 100,000 copies have been dis-tributed within HMC and PHCC facilities. Additionally, social media videos highlighting the Guides’ key messages have been viewed more than 650,000 times.

“Across the healthcare system, we have made enormous

progress in recent years to expand capacity and improve the quality of services we provide to Qatar’s population. This com-munity engagement activity aims to educate the public about our services and to ensure they are fully aware of how to access these services,” added Al Khater.

As part of the five-month community engagement cam-paign, key health topics will be promoted by HMC teams at the mall stands. These topics will include mental health, stroke, seasonal flu, elder care, and others.

The topic of mental health will be highlighted this week, with teams from HMC’s mental health services talking about the importance of promoting an environment where mental health is talked about as openly as physical health.

Ali Abdulla Al Khater

CHLS holds seminarson cutting-edge medical topicsTHE PENINSULA DOHA

As part of its commitment to providing essential educational and research training, the College of Health and Life Sciences (CHLS) at Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU) recently held public seminars covering topics at the cutting-edge of biomedical sciences and precision medicine.

The series began on Sep-tember 25 with a session on the regulation of human ageing genes and their association with frailty and clinical phenotypes. Delivered by Dr Imad Abuges-saisa from the RIKEN Center for Integrative Medical Sciences, Japan, the seminar emphasised that regulating human aging genes is essential for under-standing aging processes and discovering biomarkers for risk, diagnosis and the prognosis of frailty in elderly adults. This has inspired researchers at the RIKEN Center to utilise the CAGE method to profile transcription start sites (TSSs) from the whole-blood of a cohort of old adults. Doing so enabled Dr Abuges-saisa to characterise promotes and enhancer activities within this cohort.

The second seminar held recently considered the state of research concerning the repair of the vertebrate retina. Delivered by Dr Peter Hitchcock, University of Michigan. Regeneration of Pho-toreceptors from Intrinsic Stem Cells was an opportunity for the Professor of Ophthalmology and

Visual Sciences to outline his research on the function of the cytokine/growth factor, Mid-kine-a, and the inflammatory protease, matrix metallopro-teinase-9. His findings were informed by examining photore-ceptor regeneration in zebrafish. Sharing such research, in turn, reflects HBKU’s commitment to identifying molecular mecha-nisms that regulate the birth, death and regeneration of neurons and photoreceptors in the vertebrate retina.

Speaking after the most recent seminar, Dr Edward Stu-enkel, Dean, College of Health and Life Sciences, HBKU, said, “These seminars were delivered by prominent scholars in their respective fields. Their research has a global reach and sets an example for like-minded aca-demic institutes to follow. These include HBKU, which remains focused on developing the type of healthcare required to fulfil Qatar National Vision 2030. For that, the country requires highly-trained and intellec-tually-curious medical profes-sionals. We are determined to develop these individuals through our academic programs and seminars.”

Participants listen to the speaker during a seminar organised by the College of Health and Life Sciences at HBKU.

The series began on September 25 with a session on the regulation of human ageing genes and their association with frailty and clinical phenotypes.

Lulu Hypermarkets showcases Spanish food products to celebrate National DaySANAULLAH ATAULLAH THE PENINSULA

Lulu Hypermarkets showcased a number of food products imported from Spain on the side-lines of a ceremony held to cele-brate the National Day of Spain held at Marsa Malaz Kempinski, The Pearl-Qatar, recently.

“Lulu is importing over 250 items, mainly food products including dairy, fruits and veg-etables from Spain,” Mohammed

Althaf, Regional Director, Lulu Hypermarkets told The Peninsula.

He said that people in Qatar prefer products from Spain as there is pretty good demand of these products in Qatar due to their good quality. “Over 25 percent of our European imports are sourced from Spain which include mainly olive oil, tomatoes, fruits, vegetables and choc-olate,” said Althaf.

He said that Lulu is running

a huge facility comprising of an office and a warehouse in Spain for sourcing products. “We do source our own products like olive and olive oil, cakes, fruits and juices made in Spain. We are expanding our operation to get more products from Spain in near future.”

He said that airline connec-tivity between Qatar and Spain is very good which helps to import food products easily and on time.

A Lulu Hypermarket stall displaying food products from Spain on the sidelines of a ceremony held recently to celebrate the National Day of Spain, at Marsa Malaz Kempinski, The Pearl-Qatar.

Dreama organisestraining course for social andwelfare service & care providersTHE PENINSULA/DOHA

The Orphan Care Center (Dreama), organised a training course for social and welfare service & care providers, Qatar University female trainee students of the Social Services Department, and students of the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies.

The course aimed at raising the efficiency of social workers, and service providers for Dreama children, and support the development of the orphan child needs. The course also targeted achieving the best standards, procedures, policies and protocols to provide high-quality services for orphans.

Mariam bint Ali bin Nasser Al Misnad, the Executive Director of Dreama, empha-sised the importance of organ-izing regular training courses to raise the efficiency of workers and service and care providers for the fostered children, as one of the main objectives of the center for the development of methods and projects that directly enhance the status of orphans and empowering them.

Out of the vision and strategy of Dreama and in accordance with the founding document inspired by the objectives of Dreama, which guides the work of the Center to contribute to the provision of a safe and stable envi-ronment for the targeted groups in the State of Qatar, we have to develop thera-peutic protocols to meet inter-national legal standards, and in line with the terms of ref-erence and the Center nature of work.

In preparing the manual, the team relied on international legal standards in the devel-opment of a therapeutic pro-tocol and guidance from the American Psychiatric School and World Health Organization (WHO) protocols.

She noted the role of the Center in training the female students of Qatar University trainees in the Department of Social Services, and their presence in Dreama, whether in the Department of Social Services, or the Department of Internal Care, where they receive training on the role of the social worker, study; diagnose cases, interviews and others.

Dr. Wissam Al-Ded, Con-sultant Psychiatrist, stressed the importance of this course in raising the efficiency of the staff of Dreama and the training of caregivers on the rights of this category of children and spread awareness of the rights of orphan children deprived of family environment, at the level of the Center staff and foster families.

Expo Doha 2021 will also contribute to achieving cultural and knowledge exchange and introducing Qatar as a leading tourist destination.

08 MONDAY 14 OCTOBER 2019VIEWS

Qatar pavilion’s win at Expo Beijing 2019 is a new success

The State of Qatar has added a new success to its record of successive achievements and accomplishments in all fields

and at various levels after Qatar Pavilion participating in (Expo Beijing 2019) awarded the most prestigious awards for foreign pavilions partici-pating in the exhibition. Qatar has won the grand award from the Expos organizing committee for the best

foreign pavilion and also won the grand award of the Inter-national Association of Horticul-tural Pro-ducers (AIPH).

Qatar’s distinguished participation and excel-lence in such forums and its winning of awards rep-

resent a new arena in which Qatar is at the forefront and a role model in the development of desertification control, a technology which can inspire other countries.

The Qatari participation in Beijing was characterized by events and activities that exceeded the visitors’ expectations. Qatar Pavilion was the largest foreign pavilion in the exhi-bition. The distinguished and unique design inspired by the Sidra tree, known in the Qatari environment for its ability to withstand high tempera-tures and lack of water, provided an inspiring symbol of the Qatari efforts to combat desertification and a symbol of the ability to face difficulties.

Qatar Pavilion also conveyed the success and efficiency of Qatar’s vision and its directions in preserving the environment, paying attention to agri-culture, afforestation, combating desertification and increasing green areas, assuring the world of Qatar’s firm principles of preserving the envi-ronment and striving for sustainable development, and affirming that Qatar’s future orientation will not con-tradict its commitment to the preser-vation of the environment, nature and sustainable development. Qatar Pavilion received more than two million visitors, as well as a number of dignitaries from different countries.

In addition to highlighting the envi-ronmental and agricultural aspects, Qatar Pavilion also offered a brief pres-entation on the State’s economic suc-cesses and development accomplish-ments, with a focus on its historical and social aspects and authentic traditions. In a symbolic celebration of the National Day, the Qatar Pavilion at Expo Beijing 2019 presented its visitors with a number of heritage events that won their admiration.

Moreover, the participation of the State of Qatar in Expo Beijing 2019 contributed to introducing Qatar’s vision and future plans to host Expo Doha 2021, and its potential and con-tributions in this field.

The International Bureau of Exhi-bitions (BIE) and the International Association of Horticultural Producers (AIPH) have approved Qatar’s organi-zation of Expo Doha 2021, believing that Qatar has something to offer in this area, especially as the State of Qatar is the first country with a desert climate in the Middle East and North Africa to host this exhibition.

On October 9, the State of Qatar received the flag of organizing the Inter-national Horticultural Expo Doha 2021 from the People’s Republic of China, the host country of the 2019 edition.

The Expo Doha 2021 will serve as a platform for exchanging ideas and insights on various topics related to sustainable development, agriculture, horticulture, environmental conser-vation and energy. It will focus on technological solutions to meet envi-ronmental challenges, and aims at contributing to the transformation of arid landscapes into energetic and environmentally friendly environ-ments along with increased green area and afforestation.

Expo Doha 2021 will also con-tribute to achieving cultural and knowledge exchange and introducing Qatar as a leading tourist destination.

On the sidelines of the closing activities of Expo Beijing 2019, Ambas-sador of the State of Qatar to the Peo-ple’s Republic of China Mohammed bin Abdullah Al Dehaimi expressed pleasure for the winning which was the outcome of the efforts exerted by the Ministry of Municipality and Envi-ronment and the Qatar Pavilion Organizing Committee, on the fore-front Minister of Environment and Municipality H E Abdullah bin Abdulaziz bin Turki Al Subaie.

Speaking to Qatar News Agency (QNA), the Qatari Ambassador said that the International Horticultural Exhibition (Expo Beijing 2019), which received about 10 million visitors, represents an important platform and opportunity for all participating countries, especially the State of Qatar which achieved a unique success in highlighting its efforts in the field of agriculture and horticulture, as well as introducing its heritage and history to the world.

H E Al Dehaimi said that the State of Qatar achieved important gains through its participation in Expo Beijing 2019 in several fields like benefiting from the exchange of experiences and expertise among the participating countries, and providing a realistic picture on the insistence of Qatari competencies on uniqueness and international success. He added that Qatar’s participation in this international exhibition contributed to enhancing and promoting the growing friendly and fraternal relations between the government of the State of Qatar and the government of the Peo-ple’s Republic of China, and represented an extension to Qatar’s distinguished presence in such international forums.

He underlined that Qatar’s presence in the exhibition also contributed to the enhancement of the diplomatic rela-tions and bilateral cooperation between Qatar and China, based on the mutual cooperation and win-win with China, which was reflected by the State of Qatar’s announcement that Qatar Pavilion will be dedicated to the Chinese side to remain a symbol for friendship and mutual cooperation

between the two countries.On Qatar Pavilion’s winning of two

grand awards at Expo Beijing 2019, Qatar’s Ambassador to China said that Qatar Pavilion’s winning of the most prestigious awards for foreign pavilions participating in the exhi-bition, which are the grand award of the Expo’s organizing committee for the best foreign pavilion and the grand award of the International Association of Horticultural Producers (AIPH), confirms the excellence and uniqueness of the Qatari capacity in international forums, and the success of the Qatari competencies on interna-tional competition.

The Ambassador continued on saying that Qatar will continue its suc-cessful endeavors in such interna-tional forums and will invest them in the success of organizing and holding the International Horticultural Exhi-bition (Expo Doha 2021).

For his part, Secretary-General of the Bureau International des Exposi-tions (BIE) Vicente Gonzalez praised the participation of the State of Qatar in Expo Beijing 2019, noting that it was a serious, effective and strong participation.

In a statement during his visit to Qatar Pavilion in the framework of the closing activities, the BIE Secretary-General said that the Qatari partici-pation was characterized by the estab-lishment of a beautiful masterpieces designed in the shape of the Sidra tree, noting that the design included a blend of luxury and tradition that reflects the taste of the Qatari society, envi-ronment, customs and culture.

He added that Qatar Pavilion was distinguished and the Qatari partici-pation was outstanding, as it is Qatar’s habit in all its participations in the Expo exhibitions. He praised the sections of the pavilion and its diversity, noting that the special section devoted to children to raise awareness of environmental issues, agriculture and horticulture shows the State of Qatar’s interest in the young generation, as a seed to be planted for a promising future with an increased awareness of environmental issues and the fight against desertifi-cation and global warming.

He added that the Pavilion also reflected the Qatari values such as generosity, welcoming and openness to the other, through the luxury Qatari Majlis where guests were received with dates and the Qatari coffee, which indicated the warmth and gen-erosity of the Qatari people.

The BIE Secretary-General under-lined that the participation of the State of Qatar this time is a clear indication of its readiness to host the next Expo. The Qatar Pavilion at Expo Beijing is undoubtedly the best pavilion, which is reflected in the length of the waiting queues to enter the Pavilion.

The State of Qatar is accustomed to excellence in hosting the largest important events in the field of sports, science, environment and agriculture, he stressed, expressing confidence that Qatar will host an excellent and excep-tional Expo Doha 2021 which will serve as a role model. The BIE Secretary-General underlined that the State of Qatar has won the Bureau International des Expositions for its contributions, excellence and success in organizing and hosting major international events.

QNA DOHA

QUOTE OF THE DAYIt’s very upsetting to hear

that Justin Trudeau had to wear a bulletproof vest

tonight at a campaign event. Threats of violence

against political leaders have absolutely no place

in our democracy.

Andrew Scheer Leader of the Canada’s

Conservative Party

CHAIRMANSHEIKH THANI BIN ABDULLAH AL THANI

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

ACTING MANAGING EDITORMOHAMMED SALIM [email protected]

DEPUTY MANAGING EDITORMOHAMMED OSMAN ALI [email protected]

ESTABLISHED IN 1996

EDITORIAL

Quest for peace

Qatar’s unflinching support to establish and expand peace, stability and security in the region is not some-thing new rather the country for many years

making relentless endeavor for peace around the world. Backed by a strong foreign policy which quests for peace, Qatar actively engages world nations and raises strong voices for peace in conflict-ridden regions across the world. The recent statement by the Deputy Prime Min-ister and Minister of Foreign Affairs H E Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani at the World Policy Con-ference (WPC) in Marrakesh, Morocco, reiterates the firm stance of the nation on peace and security.

He called for expanding regional security in the Middle East and the conclusion of a security agreement based on the fundamental principles of security and rules of good governance. H E the Minister also recalled the invitation of Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani to conclude a regional security treaty in the Middle East.

The statement made by Qatar is significant in the wake of the sequence of conflicts in the region and

undoubtedly the region des-perately needs a sustainable framework to ensure long-term peace and stability. Qatar is well cognizant of the fact that only a sustainable approach can pave the way for regional security.

The foreign policy of Qatar is one among the best and dignified in the world as it truly reflects the nation’s thirst for peace, security, sta-bility as well as projects a wise humanitarian per-spective towards the world. The speech of H H the Amir at the UN General Assembly is significant as His Highness stressed the fact that regional security system is critical to maintaining the security and stability of the Middle East in general and the Gulf region in particular.

Qatar has got a goal-ori-ented wise approach in its mission to ensure peace and security in the region. It stresses the need for a col-lective mechanism, based on

agreed principles, in the field of security and a set of rules of governance and respect for sovereignty and equality among its members.

Most importantly in order not to use ethnic diversity and minorities as a pretext for intervention, countries of the region must build systems that respect the rules of coexistence in the international community, hoping that these initial steps will provide the necessary incentive and pave the way for peace and prosperity in the region.

Qatar has got a goal-oriented wise approach in its mission to ensure peace and security in the region. It stresses the need for a collective mechanism, based on agreed principles, in the field of security and a set of rules of governance and respect for sovereignty and equality among its members.

Bangladesh, with geo-strategic location between South and Southeast Asia, is also struggling with the issue of 1.1 million Rohingya refugees, an issue which involves all major regional and global powers with diverse stakes.

09MONDAY 14 OCTOBER 2019 OPINION

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What’s on the tablein those Brexit talks

Bangladesh’s act of balancing Asian giant foes

THERESE RAPHAEL BLOOMBERG

KHAWAZA MAIN UDDIN ANATOLIA

No news can be good news sometimes. The logic of past Brexit negotiations suggests that the less we hear about

what’s happening in intensive Brussels talks, the greater the chance that those talks are getting some-where. Once the details start to leak and the anonymous briefings

start, what’s left tends to be dead on arrival.

Yet even with scant details on the new negotiations between the Brits and the EU, or what concessions either side might have made to activate them, it’s possible to draw some conclusions about what’s being discussed.

First, what it doesn’t mean. The quiet luxury wedding venue in Cheshire, where UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson met with his Irish coun-terpart Leo Varadkar on Thursday (discovering a “pathway to a possible deal”) is a long way from the Justus Lipsius building in Brussels, or wherever the nitty-gritty of any pos-sible Brexit deal might be thrashed out. As my colleague Lionel Laurent wrote on Friday, negotiations don’t mean an agreement is a sure thing; there are many degrees of separation between the parties.

Any deal must satisfy three requirements if it’s going to fly politi-cally in the UK and the EU. It must let Johnson bring Britain out of the bloc by Oct. 31 or very soon after, as he has promised his supporters. Second, Northern Ireland must be deemed part of the UK customs territory for any future trade deals struck by Britain. Third, an agreement would have to avoid customs checks in Ireland that would threaten either the Good Friday peace settlement or the EU’s single market rules.

Once a deal ticks those seemingly contradictory boxes, it must also pass muster with the Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland. The DUP leader Arlene Foster gets very twitchy about anything that separates Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK. Without her support of any com-promise agreement, it will be very dif-ficult for hardline Brexiters in John-son’s ruling Conservative Party to back a deal. That means Johnson would have to rely on Labour MPs if a deal came to a parliamentary vote, although he’d be unlikely to put his ini-tials on one without some assurance of support from his own side.

The window in which to sell any agreement would be small. If, as many suspect, Johnson is considering a vari-ation on part of his prede-cessor Theresa May’s maligned Chequers deal - a “customs part-nership” with the EU but that includes only Northern Ireland rather than her plan to include the whole of the UK - agreement would be difficult to secure and implementation would be messy. It would also be ironic since Johnson resigned over May’s plan and the EU rejected it out of hand.

There’s nothing in Johnson’s past

that suggests he’s a slave to his posi-tions, quite the contrary. He’s per-fectly happy, shamelessly so at times, of changing with the wind if it delivers political victory. By contrast, every-thing in the DUP’s history suggests that it doesn’t budge even when the case for doing so is compelling. It says it won’t accept Northern Ireland staying in the EU’s customs union.

Ireland’s own position is delicate too. Any Varadkar concessions would need to be less onerous than the cost to Ireland of accepting no deal. Each side will be doing rapid calculations of whether a deal works better than the ugliest alternatives.

You can see why there’s been an 11th hour push, though. If Varadkar and Johnson hadn’t found their “pathway,” there wouldn’t have been much to discuss at next week’s EU council meeting other than an extension to the Halloween Brexit date.

That would have been grim for Johnson, who’s been forced by his own parliament to seek an extension if he can’t strike a deal. For someone who won the Conservative lead-ership on a promise of leaving on Oct. 31, “no ifs or buts,” having to ask for a delay is an unappetizing prospect.

On the EU side, they’d no doubt rather get this done and move on to other things before a new European Commission takes its seat and before a new budget is voted on next year; especially if they can avoid chucking Dublin under a bus.

Even though the two sides haven’t yet entered the famed negotiating “tunnel,” where they pore over the draft legal text of an agreement, at least they appear to be struggling toward the light. That doesn’t mean they’ll get there.

Bangladesh is turning into a hotspot of military compe-tition between China and India in the Bay of Bengal

region, strategic analysts apprehend in view of recent developments.

With occasional see-saw in Dhaka’s tilt toward Beijing and New Delhi, Bangladesh historically main-tains moderation in its foreign policy pursuit.

But, the analysts pointed out, the latest Bangladesh-India deal allowing Delhi’s surveillance along the Bangla-deshi coastline may have shattered the balance, irritating one of the rivals — China.

India will install a network of 20 Coastal Surveillance Radar Systems under a memorandum of under-standing (MoU) the two countries signed during Bangladeshi Prime Min-ister Sheikh Hasina’s visit to Delhi, early this month.

It was officially announced that the radar systems would enhance sur-veillance on Bangladesh’s maritime domain and eventually pave the way for a white shipping agreement, the sharing of advance information regarding identity and movement of non-military commercial vessels between the two countries.

However, this will be useful for containing the growing presence of China in the Bay of Bengal region, Indian media reports suggest.

India has already set up radar sta-tions in littoral countries such as Mau-ritius, Sri Lanka and the Maldives and is planning one in Myanmar,

implementing a project at a cost of around $80 million to strengthen its maritime security system in the Indian Ocean since 2015. “India is, understandably, not giving them [radar systems] to Bangladesh; its target is to monitor movement of China in the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean,” Humayun Kabir, pres-ident of Bangladesh Enterprise Institute, a think tank, told Anadolu Agency. China, he believes, would definitely ask questions from Bang-ladesh on how the radar systems would be operated and maintained.

Tricky choice Bangladesh is surrounded on

three sides by India, which is a major benefactor in the South Asian coun-try’s liberation from Pakistan in 1971. China, which fought a war against India in 1962, is the major supplier of defense equipment for Bangladesh’s armed forces since the two countries established diplomatic relations in 1977.

Both China and India are the two largest importers to Bangladesh.

But China’s offer for making investment of at least $27 billion in Bangladesh during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Dhaka in 2016 overshadowed India’s line of credit worth less than $3 billion back then. The Indians were watchful about China’s economic muscle shown in Bangladesh.

The Chinese authorities recently expressed frustration at the delay in utilization of their pledged money by the Bangladesh officials, saying that no investment would be made under

the government-to-government arrangement until existing investment proposals are commissioned.

Beijing also keeps an eye on “the proposal for joint study on the bilateral Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement between India and Bangladesh,” according to Shahab Enam Khan, a professor of interna-tional relations at Jahangirnagar Uni-versity, Bangladesh. “While this is important for strengthening the bilateral economic ties, the issue needs to be synchronized with the Beijing-led Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) since Bangladesh formally became a partner of BRI,” he said.

On the military front, the Bang-ladesh Navy had received two subma-rines from China in order to intensify surveillance in the Bay of Bengal in 2016. The two are reportedly equipped with torpedoes and mines that are capable of attacking enemy warships and submarines.

“India was very unhappy with Bangladesh’s decision of procuring Chinese submarines. The Indians have expressed their displeasure, assuming that Chinese technicians would be coming to Bangladesh,” Kabir said.

In that context, the Bangladesh prime minister may have played a balancing game, by allowing India to install radar systems. Maybe the decision was taken in view of bal-ancing act,” he added.Kabir, a former Bangladesh ambassador, observed that there is a gap of information as to who would manage the radars and who would share information with whom. “It’s up to Bangladesh how it will keep equidistance from both China and India.”

In great power rivalry Bangladesh, with geo-strategic

location between South and Southeast Asia, is also struggling with the issue of 1.1 million Rohingya refugees, an issue which involves all major regional and global powers with diverse stakes.

India remains silent about the issue, while China was quietly engaged in the last two abortive attempts to send back the Rohingya Muslims to their homeland in the northern Rakhine state of Myanmar.

However, the U.S., which pro-motes the Indo-Pacific maritime strategy in the region, is more vocal against gross violation of rights of the Rohingya people.

M Shahiduzzaman, a security analyst, favors use of deterrence by linking Bangladesh with its interest in the northern Bay of Bengal connected to the Indian Ocean. “Despite the viable and meaningful opportunities

Yet even with scant details on the new negotiations between the Brits and the EU, or what concessions either side might have made to activate them, it’s possible to draw some conclusions about what’s being discussed.

to create the contingencies for a long term security partnership with the USA which covers the Arakan (Rakhine) coastline and the northern Bay, this country had either continued to place all the eggs in the Chinese security basket or the Indian view of self-denial,” he said in a paper titled The Deterrent Options and Coalition Culture in Confronting the Burman Rohingya Invasion. Against this backdrop, Bangladesh’s MoU on the radar systems with India may further complicate the equation in the Indian Ocean region, where the U.S., China and India are seriously active and trying to establish or retain their hegemony.

“The MoU on coastal surveil-lance radar may raise Beijing’s eye-brows since radars are considered as strategic assets and not just a regular monitoring tool. Perhaps Beijing may see this as India’s pur-poseful attempt for custodianship over the Bay of Bengal and ability to become the most capable sea-faring state in the region,” Khan noted.

By joining India’s security bandwagon in the Bay, Bangladesh is going to participate in the “larger strategic objective” of New Delhi. “Bangladesh is perhaps focusing on the collaborative side but India will emphasize her competition part with China and other countries,” said Kabir.

He, however, expressed his conviction that Bangladesh has the scope to become a balancer -- a bridge builder between Indian objective and Chinese objective in the region. “We can work with both.”

A file picture of Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping in Beijing, during her three-day official visit to China.

10 MONDAY 14 OCTOBER 2019GULF / MIDDLE EAST

Turkey takes control of strategic highway in Syria

AGENCIES/ISTANBUL

Turkish forces have taken control of the key M4 highway in northern Syria as part of Ankara’s operation against Kurdish militants, the defence ministry said yesterday.

“Following successful oper-ations as part of Operation Peace Spring, the M4 highway has been brought under control after a 30-35 km-deep incursion,” the ministry announced on Twitter.

The road, which runs east and west through northern Syria, is seen as a vital transport link for the Kurdish People’s Pro-tection Units (YPG), which con-trols much of the region.

Losing the road is expected to hamper the YPG’s resupply and reinforcement efforts as it tries to repel the Turkish offensive, now in its fifth day.

Turkey also said it had cap-tured two towns that had been the focus of the initial phase, Tal Abyad and Ras Al Ain. Turkey’s incursion into Syria will stretch from Kobani in the west to Hasaka in the east, going some 30km into Syrian territory, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, and the town of Ras Al Ain was already under Turkish control.

Addressing a news con-ference in Istanbul, Erdogan said the Turkish-led forces had also besieged the Syrian border town of Tel Abyad, west of Ras Al Ain, in its fight against the YPG Kurdish militia, which Ankara says is a terrorist organisation.

“We focused first on the 120km area between Ras al Ain and Tel Abyad. Thus we will divide the 480km terrorist cor-ridor down the middle,” Erdogan said. “Then we will take control of Hasaka on the one side and Ain Al Arab (Kobani) on the other and complete the operation,” he said, referring to towns either side of the current focus of oper-ations. “We will go down to a depth of around 30-35km, in line with the safe zone map which we declared previously.”

Erdogan said two Turkish soldiers and 16 Turkey-backed Syrian rebels had been killed in the operation. He added that Turkish-led forces had killed 440 fighters from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), in which the YPG comprises the main fighting element.

The Turkey-led forces have so far seized control of 109 sq km, territory including 17 villages around Tel Abyad and four

villages around Ras Al Ain, Erdogan said. Erdogan said that threats of sanctions and arms embargoes by Western powers would not stop Turkey’s military offensive against Kurdish

militants in Syria. “After we launched our operation, we have faced threats like economic sanctions and embargoes on weapons sales. Those who think they can make Turkey turn back

with these threats are gravely mistaken,” Erdogan said in a tel-evised speech. France and Germany said on Saturday that they were suspending arms exports to Turkey over its offensive in Syria against the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG).

Erdogan said he spoke with German Chancellor Angela Merkel by phone and raised the issue of the arms embargo. “I told her to explain it to me. Are we really allies at the heart of Nato, or has the terrorist group (the YPG) been accepted into Nato without my being informed?” he said. He also rejected the idea of any mediation between Turkey and the YPG. “When did you see a state sit at the same table with a terror group?” he said.

Smoke rising from the Syrian border town of Ras Al Ain as fighting rages along the border of a Turkish offensive in Syria against the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG). The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the capture of Tal Abyad left the town of Ras Al Ain as the only other major target remaining in the initial phase of the five-day-old Turkish military action.

Israel sent drone over Hezbollah areaAFP/BEIRUT

The Lebanese army yesterday accused Israel of sending a reconnaissance drone at the weekend over Beirut’s southern suburbs, a bastion of the Shiite militant Hezbollah group.

On August 25, two explo-sives-laden drones were sent to the same area. One of them exploded, sparking a dangerous escalation between Hezbollah and Israel.

On Saturday night, “one of the Israel enemy’s reconnais-sance drones violated Lebanese air space... overflew the southern suburbs and left,” the army said in a statement.

The Iran-backed Hezbollah is represented in Lebanon’s government and parliament but is considered a terrorist organ-isation by Israel and Wash-ington, which has stepped up the financial pressure on the organisation.

The August incident heightened regional tensions, which culminated in a cross-border exchange of fire in early September. Hezbollah vowed then that it would shoot down any Israeli drones violating Lebanon’s air space.

Israel plans to build 251 new settlement homes in West BankAGENCIES/JERUSALEM

The Israeli government has advanced plans to build 251 settlement units in the occupied West Bank, according to a Pales-tinian official yesterday.

The plans were approved by the High Planning Committee of the Israeli Civil Administration, a body responsible for author-ising settlement building.

“The committee approved the construction of 146 housing units in Gush Etzion settlement, south of Bethlehem city, while 105 settlement homes will be built in Kfar Al dad east of the city,” Hassan Bureijia, head of the Committee Against the Wall and Settlements in Bethlehem, said in a statement.

Roughly 650,000 Israeli Jews currently live on more than 100 settlements built since 1967, when Israel occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The Palestinians want these territories — along with the Gaza Strip — for the establishment of a future Palestinian state.

International law views both the West Bank and East Jeru-salem as “occupied territories” and considers all Jewish set-tlement-building activity there as illegal.

Meanwhile, hundreds of people demonstrated against violence in the Israeli Arab community yesterday in the northern Israeli Arab village of Ara, located in the Wadi Ara area.

Arab League condemns Israeli attempt to prevent teaching Palestinian curriculumQNA/CAIRO & RAMALLAH

The Arab League yesterday condemned the Israeli attempt to prevent teaching the Pales-tinian curriculum in Occupied Jerusalem, considering that to be a violation of international conventions.

Arab League Assistant Sec-retary-General for Palestinian and Occupied Arab Territories Affairs Saeed Abu Ali stressed that the Israeli government’s attempt to prevent teaching the Palestinian curriculum in Occupied Jerusalem is a new vio-lation of the rights of the Pales-tinian people and a breach of international conventions and treaties, especially the Fourth Geneva Convention and its

provisions on the educational situation in the occupied countries.

This came in the Speech of Ambassador Abu Ali at the opening meeting of the 100th session of the committee of edu-cational programs for Arab (Pal-estinian) Students in the Occupied Territories, which is held at the Arab League and lasts for five days. Abu Ali said that international treaties, obliges occupying states to provide the appropriate edu-cational atmosphere for students without interfering in the course of the educational process, pointing to the massive challenges facing education in Palestine.

In the Gaza Strip, the occu-pation authorities also continues to target educational institutions,

and continues to destroy them and obstruct the arrival of recon-struction materials, he said adding that they also impede the access of textbooks to students in this sector and deny them access to universities in the occupied West Bank.

He stressed that local, Arab and international human rights institutions are required to pressure the Israeli occupation to stop its violations of the right to education, which constitute a serious threat to international human rights instruments and a serious breach of international conventions and treaties, espe-cially the Fourth Geneva Con-vention and its provisions on the educational situation in the occupied countries.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian government has rejected the Israeli threats of “serious conse-quences” for its decision to stop importing livestock from Israeli markets by threatening to halt the entry of Palestinian agricul-tural products to these markets.

The Palestinian government pointed out that these threats are a continuation of the policy of annexation, settlement, and Judaism adopted by the leaders of the Israeli far-right.

Ibrahim Melhem, the spokesman of the Palestinian government, said in a statement Saturday, the Palestinian gov-ernment insists on its right to diversify its sources of import, as stipulated in the Paris Protocol on Economic Relations.

ANATOLIA/SANLIURFA, TURKEY

In attacks targeting civilians in Turkey’s border provinces, the YPG/PKK killed 18 civilians and injured 100, including 9-month-old baby Muhammed Omar.

Up until now, 11 civilians were killed in Nusaybin district of Mardin province.

In the southeastern border districts of Tur-key’s Sanliurfa province, three civilians were killed in Suruc district, two in Akcakale and two in Ceylanpinar. Mazlum Gunes, 11, who left home

to get bread was killed in Ceylanpinar. Also, 11-year-old Elif Terim playing on the streets was struck down. Emine and Leyla Yildiz, sib-lings aged 12 and 15, respectively were killed outside their house in Nusaybin along with their mothers.

Some eight civilians were killed in Nusaybin on Saturday. Also, 35 people were wounded in a mortar attack when terrorists attacked a house and passersby who gathered to help the victims. A third and a fourth mortar attack at the site resulted in the high number of casualties.

Arab Israeli protesters carry placards and chant slogans as they block a highway near the Arab Israeli city of Ar’Ara, north of Israel, yesterday, during a demonstration against violence, organised crime and recent killings among their communities.

18 dead as PKK targets civilian settlements in Turkey

“After we launched our operation, we have faced threats like economic sanctions and embargoes on weapons sales. Those who think they can make Turkey turn back with these threats are gravely mistaken,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a televised speech.

‘Very smart’ not to get involved in Syria: TrumpANATOLIA/ANKARA

US President Donald Trump yesterday defended his decision to not get his country involved in the intense fighting along the Turkish border.

“Very smart not to be involved in the intense fighting along the Turkish Border, for a change. Those that mistakenly got us into the Middle East Wars are still pushing to fight. They have no idea what a bad decision they have made. Why are they not asking for a Dec-laration of War?” Trump said on Twitter. Referring that Turkey has been combating terror groups for many years, he said Turkey considers the PKK the worst terrorists of all.

“..The Kurds and Turkey have been fighting for many years. Turkey considers the PKK the worst terrorists of all. Others may want to come in and fight for one side or the other. Let them! We are moni-toring the situation closely. Endless Wars!” he added.

Trump announced that the U.S. would pull back its forces from the Syrian border after a telephone call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. He reiterated that his administration is unwillingly mulling economic sanctions under pressure from American lawmakers but that he hasn’t made his decision yet.

Morocco distances itself from Arab League statementANATOLIA/RABAT

Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita said yesterday a recent Arab League statement condemning Turkey’s Operation Peace Spring in northern Syria does not reflect the country’s official position.

The statement “does not necessarily reflect the official position of the kingdom”, he said in statements cited by local media.

Morocco “did not voice reservations about the final statement out of the kingdom’s keenness not to disrupt the general atmos-phere of the meeting”, he said. Following an emergency ministerial meeting in Cairo on Saturday, the Arab League described the Turkish anti-terror operation in northern Syria as a “military invasion”.

The statement said that participants agreed to reevaluate dip-lomatic and military relations with Turkey. Libya has rejected the statement, while Qatar and Somalia expressed reservations about it.

Turkey on Wednesday launched Operation Peace Spring in northern Syria to secure its borders by eliminating terrorists there and to ensure the safe return of Syrian refugees and Syria’s terri-torial integrity. Ankara wants to eliminate terrorist elements of the PKK and its Syrian offshoot, the PYD/YPG, from east of the Euphrates River in northern Syria. In its more than 30-year terror campaign against Turkey, the PKK — listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S. and the European Union — has been responsible for the deaths of 40,000 people, including women, children, and infants.

11MONDAY 14 OCTOBER 2019 MIDDLE EAST / AFRICA

Sudanese rebel groups seek peace after years of fightingAP CAIRO

Sudan’s new, transitional author-ities have six months to make peace with the country’s rebels under a power-sharing deal reached this summer between the military and the pro-democracy movement following the ouster of longtime autocrat Omar Al Bashir in April.

If they fail to do so, it could undermine the deal and put the country’s fragile transition in jeopardy.

Talks with the rebels are to officially start today in neigh-bouring South Sudan’s capital. Sudanese government officials met informally with a rebel leader in Juba this week to

prepare for the talks. This came after some rebel groups signed a draft agreement in Juba last month, detailing a roadmap for the talks, trust-building measures and an extension of a cease-fire already in place.

Here is a look at what’s at stake in Sudan and for the coun-try’s main rebel groups:

Since its independence from British colonial rule in 1956, Sudan has been convulsed by long rebellions and fighting between the mostly Christian and animist south and the Muslim and Arabized north.

The country’s longest internal conflict, a civil war that spanned decades, led to South Sudan gaining independence from the north in 2011.

However, in the 2000s, Sudan was most known for al-Bashir’s brutal repression of an uprising in the western Darfur region, where pro-government militias known as the Janjaweed became notorious for their atroc-ities and Al Bashir himself was indicted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and genocide.

Sudanese rebels have for years fought al-Bashir’s loyalists, not just in Darfur but also in the southern provinces of Blue Nile and South Kordofan.

The rebels did not sign on to the power-sharing deal with the military, reached in July, though they have observed a cease-fire since before Al Bashir’s over-throw, in solidarity with the

protest movement.Ahead of Monday’s talks in

Juba, Khartoum has been in a flurry of diplomacy, with Sudanese leaders visiting France, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates recently to enlist their support.

The Sudan Revolutionary Front was established in November 2011 following fighting in South Kordofan and Blue Nile provinces that broke out after South Sudan’s secession from Sudan.

It’s an alliance of rebel groups in the region, including the Justice and Equality Movement, the Sudan Liberation Army-Mini Minawi, named after its leader, and a faction of the Sudan People’s Lib-eration Movement-North, led by

Malik Agar. The Sudan Revolu-tionary Front joined the protest movement against al-Bashir but did not fully support the power-sharing deal with the military. It did, however, engage in talks with protest leaders and the generals before and after the August signing of the power-sharing deal.

SRF leader Yesir Arman has called for a role in the transi-tional government, and wants its fighters to be included in the country’s military, something the Sudanese generals are unlikely to accept.

The Sudan Liberation Movement-North split in 2017 into two factions, one led by Abdel-Aziz Al Hilu and the other by Agar, which later joined the Sudan Revolutionary Front.

Demonstrators carrying national flags and banners during a protest against a proposed new hydrocarbons law in Algiers, Algeria, yesterday.

Kenyan policemen dead in roadside bomb attack near Somali borderAFP NAIROBI

A number of Kenyan police officers were killed on Saturday when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb near the Somali border, police said.

“Unfortunately we lost some officers and the vehicle they were travelling in has been severely damaged,” Kenyan chief of police Hilary Mutyambai said in a statement, without giving an exact number of fatalities.

Another police source, however, who asked not to be named, said there were “about ten officers” killed and the device was suspected to have been placed by the jihadist Shabaab group.

The attack took place in the eastern Kenyan county of Garissa , bordering Somalia, which is regularly the scene of Shebaab attacks.

One June 15, at least eight police officers were killed in similar circumstances in the county of Wajir, to the north of Garissa.

The use of home-made weapons against police and army patrols in the northern and eastern border regions is relatively common.

The Al Qaeda affiliate Shebaab has been fighting for more than a decade to over-throw successive interna-tionally-backed governments in Mogadishu.

A regional peacekeeping force in Somalia AMISOM, which chased Shebaab out of Mogadishu in 2011, includes troops from a number of African nations including Kenya, making police and troops from the country a target for the Islamist group.

In new snub to protests, Algerian cabinet passes energy lawBLOOMBERG ALGIERS

Algeria’s cabinet approved a new energy law aimed at boosting investment in the vital hydro-carbon sector, but which has become the latest target for demonstrators demanding the purging of the Opec member’s old regime.

Hours before its passing, hundreds of protesters had massed outside parliament, saying the interim government lacked the authority to approve the legislation and was intent on passing it only to win the backing of Western nations as it faces near daily protests. Authorities

also approved the 2020 budget, the private Ennehar TV station reported.

The draft energy bill was seen by many as another attempt by the country’s caretaker gov-ernment to impose its will after authorit ies unilaterally scheduled presidential elections in December. Protesters rejected the push for the ballot, saying it was an attempt by the country’s powerful elite to ensure their grip on power even after the mass demonstrations that led to the resignation of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika in April.

Ahead of its passing, Mus-tapha Hanifi, head of the Energy Ministry’s hydrocarbon

department, said earlier yes-terday that the current law had “shown its limits.” The choice before authorities, he said, was to decide between maintaining high taxes or cutting them to lure investors. Deeper pockets were needed than those available to the state-run energy giant, Sonatrach, he said.

Algeria relies on oil and gas for the lion’s share of its foreign revenue —money that had been critical to sustaining a system of heavy subsidies that, in turn, helped appease the population. But volatility in the oil market over the past few years forced a sharp draw-down in the coun-try’s foreign currency reserves.

Mortar fire hits Somaliairport zone, 9 injuredAFP/MOGADISHU

Mortar fire on the zone around Mogadishu airport wounded nine people yesterday, including staff at the African Union and UN missions located there, Somali police and UN sources said.

No group has so far claimed responsibility for the Sunday afternoon assault, but the Islamist militant group Shabaab has carried out similar attacks during more than ten years of fighting.

“Several rounds of mortar shells landed within the vicinity of the airport,” police officer Mohamed Hassan said.

While the police had no details on casualties, a UN source who asked not to be named said nine people had been injured but none seriously.

The injured were three sol-diers from the African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM), one civilian AMISOM worker, a

UN mission staff member and four UN contract workers, the source added.

UN special representative for Somalia, James Swan, in a statement confirmed the attack had injured several people without giving further details.

“There is no justification for such despicable acts of violence, and the United Nations remains determined to support Somalia on its path to peace,” the statement said. Witnesses inside the AMISOM said the attack pro-voked panic at the base.

One witness, Abdulahi Hassan, said: “Around three rounds of mortar shells struck close to the AMISOM hospital and the UN compound, three soldiers and several UN con-tractors were wounded.”

The high-security zone around Mogadishu international airport houses not just interna-tional organisations but a number of embassies.

Four dead in latest Burkina Faso attackAFP/OUAGADOUGOU

Four civilians have been killed in the latest attack in the volatile northern region of Burkina Faso, security sources said yesterday.

Saturday’s attack in Sam-boulga, in the northern province of Lorum, comes after armed men stormed a mosque in the town of Salmossi killing 16 on Friday, under-scoring the difficulties faced by the country in its battle against

militants. “Four people were killed on Saturday night by armed indi-viduals in Samboulga,” one security source said. “According to residents, the attackers broke into the village and shot people indiscriminately.

There was no immediate information about who the attackers might have been but since the beginning of 2015, jihadist attacks have become more frequent and deadly in the country, especially in the north

and east. Burkina Faso has been caught in a spiral of violence attributed to jihadist armed groups, some affiliated with Al Qaeda and others affiliated with the Islamic State group.

The governor of Northern Burkina, Justin Some, said in a decree a curfew in Lorum province will run from October 15 to November 14 between the hours of 6:00 pm and 6:00 am local time.

Landslide win for Kais Saied in Tunisia presidential pollREUTERS TUNIS

Conservative academic Kais Saied yesterday won a landslide victory in Tunisia’s presidential run-off, sweeping aside his rival, media magnate Nabil Karoui, state television Wataniya said.

It said he scooped almost 77 percent of the vote, compared to 23 percent for Karoui.

News of the victory triggered celebrations at the retired law professor’s election campaign offices in central Tunis, as fire-works were set off outside and supporters honked car horns. Earlier, Tunisia’s Mosaique FM radio cited an exit poll by the polling company Emrod as giving Kais Saied, an independent law professor, 72.53% of votes in the run-off against Nabil Karoui.

Tunisians voted for their next president yesterday in the last round of a series of elections that have tested the young democracy, with citizens rejecting established politicians and a major candidate spending weeks behind bars. Voting ended at 1700 GMT. The run-off presi-dential election pitted Kais Saied against Nabil Karoui, after they won more votes than any of the other 24 candidates in the first round last month.

Preliminary turnout figures suggested contest had grabbed the public imagination more than either September’s first round vote or a parliamentary election a week ago. At 1430 GMT, turnout was 39.2% according to the electoral commission. By comparison, on the day of the first round vote it said that turnout at 1400 GMT was 27.8%.

At a polling station in the working class Ettadamon district of Tunis, a man stood haranguing passersby, urging them to vote against Karoui, until a policeman

asked him to quieten down.Inside, Hanan Madouri, a

25-year-old call centre worker in a big straw hat, said she was voting for Saied, citing the corruption trial hanging over his opponent. “I want to vote for a correct, serious person,” she said.

The two candidates offer starkly different options for pres-ident: Saied has spent almost nothing on his campaign, has the backing of both leftists and Islamists, and wants Tunisia to adopt an experimental form of direct democracy.

Karoui has courted the poor, showcasing his philanthropy on the television station he owns, but has also appealed to the business elite and to some secular Tunisians worried about Saied’s conserv-ative social views.

Karoui was arrested in August and held pending a verdict in his trial for money laundering and tax evasion before a court released him on Wednesday. Both candi-dates present themselves as out-siders taking on an establishment that has failed to improve Tuni-sia’s economy or arrest a decline

in living standards since the 2011 revolution that introduced democracy and inspired the “Arab spring”. Dissatisfaction with the political elite was evident in both the first round vote and last week’s legislative election, as major parties lost ground, independents did well, and turnout was low.

Nearby, a soldier stood with a hand on her assault rifle watching over the polling station, a reminder of the jihadist attacks that have sporadically shaken Tunisia, threatening its tourism industry and alarming voters.

Whoever wins the presi-dential race, along with any gov-erning coalition that can be forged in the fragmented par-liament, will face the same problems that have bedevilled recent governments: unem-ployment of 15%, inflation of 6.8% and high public debt. An interna-tional election monitoring team in Tunisia raised concern about the fairness of the vote, however, because of Karoui’s detention during much of the run-up to the election including the first round vote.

Tunisia’s presidential candidates Kais Saied (left), and Nabil Karoui casting their ballots at different polling station in the capital Tunis, yesterday.

12 MONDAY 14 OCTOBER 2019ASIA

Rahul, on poll trail, putsCentre on the mat over jobs and economyIANS LATUR

Attacking the BJP government in the centre and state over “massive unemployment”, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi yesterday said the “Made in China” policy is killing jobs of Indian youth.

Addressing his maiden poll rally for the October 21 Mahar-ashtra Assembly elections in the parched and backward Mar-athwada region, he said that the county is witnessing the maximum employment in the past four decades, but there are no jobs.

“The government is talking about ‘Make In India’, but only Chinese industries have swamped India, which is killing jobs in this country. The worried youth have no hopes for the future,” Gandhi said.

On Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s meeting last weekend with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Gandhi demanded: “When they were having tea and snacks the other day, did the PM ask him about the aggression in Doklam? No!”

On the economic situation, the Congress leader said that the after the demonetisation of November 2016 followed by Goods & Services Tax, the entire country’s economy is in shambles, ranging from automo-biles to textiles and diamonds to

small businesses with over 2,000 factories shutting down in Maharashtra alone, while “thieves” like Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi have looted and fled the country.

Gandhi warned that the current economic status of the nation is “just the beginning” and predicted dire consequences in the coming six-seven months for the economy.

“You go anywhere in the country... People only talk about joblessness, farmland crises, the economy... Where are the promised ‘acchhe din’? They have not come. After demoneti-sation, nobody knows how much black money was recovered, but only the poor, and honest masses suffered,” he said.

While the farmers continue to suffer, he alleged that in the past few years, the government has cleared off bad loans of around 15 top industrialists to the

tune of Rs5.50 lakh-crore in past few years.

Besides, the government also gave a “Diwali gift” of tax ben-efits to the rich industrialists worth Rs1.45 lakh crore last month, but there were no similar concessions for the suffering farmers, and the government could not provide barely Rs35,000 crore for rural jobs guarantee scheme which is a boon for the rural poor, Gandhi added.

“In the past many years, the country has been built and pros-pered because of the contribu-tions made by people from all castes and communities. But the present government is resorting to ‘divisive tactics’ which will not work and drag down the nation’s progress,” he alleged.

“However, instead of con-centrating or debating on these burning issues, the government is busy showing people how the Indian Chandrayaan rocket was sent to the moon, Article 370 in Jammu & Kashmir, Pakistan, China, Japan, Korea, et al... But, remember, rockets will not help fill up the stomachs of the hungry millions,” Gandhi said.

Gandhi called for a return to the Congress “which lives in the soul of Maharashtra”, adding the party wouldn’t promise the moon, but make down-to-earth promises which it would sin-cerely fulfil for the peoples’ welfare in the state.

Soldiers and civilians pay tributes beside the coffin of soldier Naik Subash Thapa, 25, who died in shelling by Pakistani troops along the Line of Control in Nowshera sector of Jammu and Kashmir’s Rajouri district on October 11, during a wreath-laying ceremony at Bagdogra airport on the outskirts of Siliguri, yesterday.

Modi assures Kashmir situationwill normalise in four monthsREUTERS NEW DELHI

Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday said it would take four months for Jammu and Kashmir to return to normal after his government stripped the state of its special status in August and imposed harsh restrictions.

At a rally in the western state of Maharashtra, Modi said that his government had taken nec-essary steps to maintain security in Jammu and Kashmir.

Alongside the withdrawal on

August 5 of constitutional pro-visions that gave Jammu and Kashmir more autonomy than any other Indian state, Modi’s government flooded the region with additional troops, and imposed curfew-like restrictions to keep a lid on protests.

Although many curbs, including those on movement have been eased, mobile tele-phone and Internet connections in the Kashmir valley, home to around seven million people, remain cut off. Some mobile phone connections are set to be

restored today, the government said on Saturday.

“I assure you that it won’t take more than 4 months to nor-malise the abnormal situation that has persisted there for 40 years,” Modi said at the rally, speaking in Hindi. “Jammu Kashmir and Ladakh aren’t just a piece of land for us,” Modi said, referring to the remote Buddhist enclave that borders China.

New Delhi insists that its move in August was essential to inte-grate Kashmir fully into India and bring development to the region.

Karnataka givesadditional aidof Rs10,000 toflood-hit peopleIANS BENGALURU

The Karnataka government declared an additional Rs10,000 more compensation to the flood-hit people in the state’s regions, Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa said on Saturday.

“The aid is in addition to the relief amount from the National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF) by the central government,” the Chief Minister told lawmakers in the assembly here.

The Central government on October 4 granted Rs1,200 crore interim relief to the state for stepping up relief works and rehab the affected people in the coastal, central and northern regions, which were flooded by excess monsoon rains in August.

The state government has, however, estimated the total loss to be about Rs35,000 crore from the floods and heavy rains which wreaked havoc, leaving behind a trail of disaster and destruction.

“With the additional aid, the monetary relief has gone up to Rs 16,800 per hectare in rain-fed area, Rs 23,500 per hectare for horticulture crop, Rs 28,000 for assured irrigated area and coffee plantation,” said Yediy-urappa on the concluding day of the 3-day winter session.

Muslim Board hopes just verdict on Babri caseIANS LUCKNOW

The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) has said that under the Shariah, the status of any land dedicated to a mosque cannot be altered, changed or transferred in any manner.

The AIMPLB Working Com-mittee meeting held at the Darul Uloom Naadwatul Ulema under the chairmanship of its

President Maulana Syed Mohammad Rabey Hasan Nadvi on Saturday reiterated what it described as the “basic stand of the Muslim Community that no Muslim can surrender or transfer or trespass such Waqf land”.

The meeting was in response to the October 10 meeting of eminent Muslims under the banner of Indian Muslims for Peace where they had expressed the desire to hand over the 2.77

acre land with the Sunni Central Waqf Board to apex to the Centre as a solution to the Ayodhya Ram Janambhoomi issue.

The AIMPLB in a statement said that handing over the Ayodhya land was not possible as it was “based on historical facts and evidence that the Babri Masjid was constructed without demolishing any temple or any other place of worship”.

The statement maintained that the Board had fully

participated in several earlier proposals for mediation with the hope that a solution based on justice could be found.

“But after several efforts, it is now clear that there is no possibility of mediation/recon-ciliation and the legal pro-ceedings are in the final stages,” it said.

Expressing satisfaction at the Supreme Court proceedings, the AIMPLB was optimistic of a favourable judgement “in favour

of the Muslim cause which will be based on right, fair play and justice”.

Then AIMPLB added that the Babri Masjid issue was being watched not just nationally but internationally.

“The AIMPLB stated that it was a test case for the basic value of secularism enshrined in the Indian Constitution and hoped that the judgement would be in consonance of the rule of law,” the statement added.

Harvest festivalPerformers take part in a Garba dance on the eve of Sharad Poornima, a harvest festival marking the end of the monsoon season, in Ahmedabad.

Deaths fascinatedKerala serial killer Jolly: PoliceIANS KOZHIKODE

With serial killer Jolly Thomas confessing to all the six deaths between 2002 and 2016 in her family, she told the police she liked death and the news of death.

According to the police, Jolly Thomas revealed that death fas-cinated her and she always wanted to know more about death and read such news. However, during the ques-tioning, Jolly Thomas said she didn’t wish to witness any more deaths and the only death that she wished for was hers.

It also came to light that Jolly’s penchant for luxurious life was the motive behind the crime and she never expected to be caught. People are shocked to know that contrary to her image of a good homemaker, she boozed, had extra-marital affairs and acted as a real estate agent.

The police revealed that she often carried cyanide in her bag.

With her six-day police custody set to end on Wednesday, Superintendent of Police KG Simon, who is leading the probe team, said yesterday further custody would be sought, if required.

“The probe is going well. Jolly has confessed to all the six murders. Evidences are there against the three accused. At the moment nothing could be said about Shaju, second husband of Jolly Thomas,” said Simon.

Jolly Thomas had met a lawyer a day before her arrest, he said and added, it was on the lawyer’s advice that she held on during in the first few days of questioning.

“Lawyers while taking care of their client’s needs should also care for their social responsi-bility,” said Simon, expressing his ire at the lawyer, whose pep talk gave Jolly a lot of confidence.

Shaju has been asked to appear before the police today. Last week, when Shaju appeared for questioning, the local TV media went ga-ga and claimed his arrest was imminent. But he walked out in the evening, much to their dismay.

Despite all the confessions, the police know they have only circumstantial evidences and they continue to dig deep for the evidence to nail Jolly in the court.

The police are awaiting the first round of forensic reports on all the six bodies, exhumed a few days before Jolly and her two accomplices were arrested.

No loan waivers in BJP’s Haryana manifestoIANS CHANDIGARH

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) yesterday released its manifesto for the October 21 Haryana Assembly polls with no promises to waive farm debt or job reser-vations for women, saying it is more realistic and practical than its rival Congress’ “populist” manifesto.

The 25-page manifesto was released in the presence of BJP

Working President J P Nadda, Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar and senior party leaders here.

Focusing on farmers, labourers, youth and industri-alists, the manifesto pledged to give an interest-free crop loan of up to Rs3 lakh to farmers and announced to complete a target of Rs5,000 crore interest and penalty waiver on crop loans taken from cooperative banks.

It promised to give col-lateral-free loan of up to Rs3

lakh to people belonging to the Scheduled Castes. For women empowerment, the BJP promised to provide free education to two girls from families whose total annual income is less than Rs1.8 lakh.

Khattar claimed the mani-festo of the Congress with focus on loan waiver to farmers and job reservations to women was unre-alistic as it needed Rs1,26,000 crore to fulfil the poll promise.

“It is totally unrealistic with

no budgetary provisions. Our manifesto needs a budget allo-cation of Rs32,000 crore that can be easily meted out through state funds,” he told the media.

He said his government would give benefits to farmers in the form of better prices for their produce.

In the manifesto, there is no promise to waive farm debt but there is a promise to compensate the farmers for damage to the crops due to natural calamities.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi warned that the current economic status of the nation is “just the beginning” and predicted dire consequences in the coming six-seven months for the economy.

13MONDAY 14 OCTOBER 2019 ASIA

Imran holds talks with Rouhani, KhameneiINTERNEWS TEHRAN

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan yesterday met Iranian President Hassan Rouhani during his day-long visit to Tehran.

The Prime Minister held wide-ranging consultations with President Rouhani, an official in the Pakistani delegation said.

The Prime Minister said Pakistan attaches high impor-tance to bilateral ties with Iran. “Pakistan is willing to play its role towards strengthening peace and stability in the region,” Khan said.

The Prime Minister arrived in Tehran as a part of his initi-ative to promote peace and security in the region. He was received at the airport by Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif with whom Imran Khan also held a meeting.

The Prime Minister, who is on his second visit to the country, also met Supreme Leader Ayat-ollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei during his visit.

Besides the issues relating to peace and security in the Gulf,

Imran Khan discussed bilateral issues in meeting with the Iranian leaders.

Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Special Assistant to PM on Overseas Pakistanis, Zulfiqar Bukhari, accompanied the Prime Minister.

The prime minister also had a bilateral meeting with the Iranian president on the side lines of the 74th UN General Assembly session in New York last month.

Imran’s visit to Tehran came amid heightened tensions in the Gulf region after a spate of still unexplained attacks on shipping

in and around the vital seaway. Washington had accused Tehran of attacking the vessels with

mines, something Tehran strongly denies.

On Saturday, Zarif welcomed

efforts for mediation ahead of Prime Minister Imran Khan’s visit to the country.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani (right) and Prime Minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, hold a joint press conference after their meeting at Sa’dabad Palace Complex in Tehran yesterday. This was the second visit by Imran Khan to Tehran this year.

Prime Minister Imran Khan said Pakistan attaches high importance to bilateral ties with Iran, and is willing to play its role towards strengthening peace and stability in the region.

Kabul closesconsulate inPeshawar overmarket disputeANATOLIA KABUL

Afghanistan on Friday closed down its consulate in Peshawar, Pakistan, after an alleged police raid on a long-disputed market in the city.

According to an official statement by the country’s embassy in Islamabad, the con-sulate was shut in protest after police raided the market in Firdaus neighbuorhood of the city reportedly claimed by the Afghan authorities as a property of the Afghan government.

This came after a Peshawar court verdict ordering the pos-session of the market to handover to a Pakistani citizen named Shaukat Kashmir.

According to local media, the Peshawar High Court gave its verdict on Wednesday against the Afghan State’s claim of ownership over the market.

Afghan Ambassador to Pakistan Atif Mashal visited the site and hoisted an Afghan flag on it on Thursday.

Islamabad described the matter as a purely legal issue over the possession of the property claimed by a private citizen. “The case for legal pos-session of the Afghan Market in Peshawar was between a private Pakistani claimant and the Afghan National Bank. The Supreme Court has decided in favour of the private claimant,” Foreign Office Spokesperson Mohammad Faisal said.

President Xi concludes Nepal visitFROM LEFT: Chairman of National Assembly of Nepal, Ganesh Prasad Timilsina; Nepal’s Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli; China’s President, Xi Jinping; Nepal President Bidhya Devi Bhandari, and Vice-President Nanda Kishor Pun, waving before the departure of the Chinese President after his two-day visit to Nepal, in Kathmandu yesterday.

Bangladesh indicts 8 for murdering publisherAP / DHAKA

A court in Bangladesh’s capital yesterday indicted eight suspected militants tied to a banned group over the 2015 killing of a publisher.

Anti-Terrorism Special Tri-bunal Judge Majibur Rahman read out the charges to six of the suspects, who pleaded not guilty. Another two, including a sacked military official, remained fugi-tives, but the judge issued arrest warrants for them. Police say they belong to the banned domestic militant outfit Ansar al Islam.

In October 2015, suspected militants hacked Faisal Abedin Deepan of the Jagriti Prokashoni publishing house. On the same day, another publisher, Ahmed Rashid Tutul, survived an attack

by suspected militants in Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital.

A bomb attack on October 24, 2015, in Dhaka killed a teenager and injured more than 100 other people. Foreigners including Italian aid volunteer and a Japanese agricultural worker were also killed.

Authorities say the network of the militant groups has been broken after a massive crackdown following a 2016 attack on a cafe in Dhaka in which 22 people, including 17 foreigners, were killed by five young men who belonged to a local militant group, according to police. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the 2016 attack and other attacks, but Bangladesh’s gov-ernment said that domestic groups were behind them.

Pakistan urges stepped up UN efforts to deal with terrorismINTERNEWS UNITED NATIONS

Pakistan has called for stepped up efforts to address the root causes of terrorism and to counter the unjust defamation of certain religions and commu-nities that fosters misconceptions between the Muslim world and the West.

“The international com-munity must address the root causes of terrorism, including protracted unresolved conflicts,

unlawful use of force, aggression, foreign occupation, denial of the right to self-determination and political and economic injustices, as well as political marginali-sation and alienation,” Ambas-sador Maleeha Lodhi told the General Assembly’s Sixth Com-mittee, which deals with legal matters.

Speaking in a debate on ter-rorism, she reiterated Pakistan’s condemnation of the deadly menace in all its forms and manifestations.

Noting some progress on the UN’s Global Counter Terrorism Strategy, the Pakistani envoy underscored the need for sharp-ening its focus on countering the unjust defamation of certain reli-gions and communities in the context of the fight against terrorism.

“The unfair and biased por-trayal of Islam and Islamic beliefs is unacceptable and must not be allowed to continue,” Ambassador Lodhi said.

Acts of incitement and

hate-speech against Muslims, she said, not only exacerbated the gulf in attitudes but also fos-tered misperceptions between the Muslim world and the West and these challenges must be addressed through political, nor-mative and legal measures as also dialogue and diplomacy.

“The hard-earned stability that Pakistan enjoys today has been accomplished by a com-prehensive approach to counter terrorism,” Ambassador Lodhi said. No terrorist movement, she

said, could be defeated by mil-itary means alone. On its part, Pakistan was following a “whole of society approach”, engaging community leaders, developing strong counter-narratives, enhanced regional cooperation and following international obligations.

Pakistan, she said, backed the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation position on a con-sensus-based Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism.

Gotabaya Rajapaksa vows to bolster intelligenceAP COLOMBO, SRI LANKA

Sri Lanka’s former defence chief, a front-runner in next month’s presidential election, said yesterday that he would empower the state’s intelligence sector with necessary legal cover to help secure the country in the aftermath of the deadly Easter Sunday bomb blasts.

Gotabaya Rajapaksa, a pow-erful defence official in the gov-ernment of his brother, former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, is accused of using his intelli-gence team for extrajudicial killings, abductions and torture of dissidents and Tamil rebel suspects during the island nation’s long civil war.

A number of former intelli-gence personnel are currently under detention for allegedly killing a journalist, and allegedly attempting to kill, abduct and torture others.

Gotabaya Rajapaksa

declared in his first election rally last week that he will release all military personnel under detention if he comes to power. He is a favourite to win the November 16 election, in which national security has become the focal point.

“We will give due powers to the intelligence officers and also the necessary legal cover to perform their duties,” said Rajapaksa, pledging to revive the “country’s crippled defense mechanism.”

“By doing so, we will rebuild

a secured country where you can live without any fear,” he told an election rally in the town of Kad-awatha, on the outskirts of the capital, Colombo.

To many Sri Lankans, espe-cially ethnic majority Sinhalese, Rajapaksa is a hero for his crucial role in ending the prolonged civil war in this Indian ocean island nation a decade ago. His popu-larity is on the increase after April’s Easter attacks that killed 263 people and wounded 500 others.

But to his opponents and critics, Rajapaksa is a feared defence official accused of con-doning rape, torture and shadowy disappearances of critics. A former army officer, Rajapaksa played a crucial role in crushing the Tamil Tiger rebels, who fought the civil war to create a separate state for ethnic minority Tamils. The war ended in 2009, but both sides are still facing allegations of war crimes.

Supporters of the Sri Lanka People’s Front party presidential election candidate, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, cheer during an election campaign rally in Kadawatha, Sri Lanka, yesterday.

Two soldiersmartyred inBalochistanINTERNEWS QUETTA

Two soldiers of paramilitary Frontier Corps were killed and five other personnel injured when their vehicle collided with a truck near Dalbandin in Chaghi district of the south-western Balochistan province.

The FC vehicle was returning to Dalbandin after performing security duty of pilgrims.

The dead and injured per-sonnel were shifted to Frontier Corps hospital in Dalbandin where the injured were given medical treatment and later referred to Quetta for further treatment.

The deceased soldiers were identified as Sepoy Abdul Qadir and Sepoy Abdul Aziz whose dead bodies are being sent to their native cities.

Rakhine rebelsstorm bus andabduct 31AFP YANGON

Suspected ethnic Rakhine rebels disguised as a sports team stormed a bus in rural Myanmar and took 31 hostages — mostly off-duty firefighters and construction workers — authorities said yesterday.

The state-backed Global New Light of Myanmar said the bus — travelling to the Rakhine state capital of Sittwe — was flagged down by a man dressed in civilian attire before 18 rebels in sportswear emerged from the forest and ordered the pas-sengers off at gunpoint.

“We are still following them,” Colonel Win Zaw Oo said, adding the insurgents may have mistaken the firemen for members of the armed forces.

The Arakan Army, which is fighting for more autonomy for ethnic Rakhine Buddhists, could not immediately be reached for comment.

Myanmar’s army has deployed thousands of troops to the state to try to crush the rebels.

Rights groups say Myan-mar’s military has abducted civilians and tortured detainees, but the army points to targeted shootings, roadside bombings a n d k i d n a p p i n g b y insurgents.

Rakhine state was also the site of a deadly crackdown that in August 2017 drove some 740,000 minority Rohingya Muslims into Bangladesh.

A UN fact-finding mission warned in a report published last month that some 600,000 Rohingya remaining in Myanmar still face a “serious risk of genocide”.

The area on the Bay of Bengal is highly militarised and difficult for independent media and rights monitors to access.

Myanmar and Bangladesh governments have made attempts to convince Rohingya refugees to repatriate but the refugees have demanded rec-ognition and citizenship in Myanmar for them to return.

14 MONDAY 14 OCTOBER 2019ASIA

Typhoon leaves 33 dead in JapanAP TOKYO

Helicopters, boats and thousands of troops were deployed across Japan to rescue people stranded in flooded homes yesterday, as the death toll from a ferocious typhoon climbed to as high as 33. One woman fell to her death as she was being placed inside a rescue helicopter.

Typhoon Hagibis made landfall south of Tokyo on Sat-urday evening and battered central and northern Japan with torrents of rain and powerful gusts of wind. The typhoon was downgraded to a tropical storm yesterday.

Public broadcaster NHK said 14 rivers across the nation had flooded, some spilling out in more than one spot.

The Tokyo Fire Department said a woman in her 70s was accidentally dropped 40 meters (131 feet) to the ground while being transported into a rescue helicopter in Iwaki city in Fuku-shima prefecture, a northern area devastated by the typhoon.

Department officials held a news conference to apologise, bowing deeply and long, according to Japanese custom, and acknowledged the woman had not been strapped in

properly.The government’s Fire and

Disaster Management Agency, which tends to be conservative in its counts, said late yesterday that 14 people died, 11 were missing and 187 were injured as a result of the typhoon. It said 1,283 homes were flooded and 517 were damaged, partially or totally.

Japanese media tallies were higher. Kyodo News agency reported that 33 people died and 19 were missing.

“The major typhoon has caused immense damage far and wide in eastern Japan,” gov-ernment spokesman Yoshihide Suga told reporters.

News footage showed a rescue helicopter hovering in a flooded area in Nagano pre-fecture where an embankment of the Chikuma River broke, and streams of water were con-tinuing to spread over residential areas. The chopper plucked those stranded on the second

floor of a home submerged in muddy waters.

Aerial footage showed tractors at work trying to control the flooding and several people on a rooftop, with one waving a white cloth to get the attention of a helicopter. Nearby was a child’s school bag. In another part of Nagano, rows of Japan’s prized bullet trains, parked in a facility, were sitting in a pool of water.

A section of the city of Date in Fukushima prefecture was also flooded, with only rooftops of residential homes visible in some areas, and rescuers paddled in boats to get people out. Parts of nearby Miyagi pre-fecture were also underwater.

The Tama River, which runs by Tokyo, overflowed its banks, flooding homes and other buildings in the area.

Among the reported deaths were those whose homes were buried in landslides. Other fatal-ities included people who got swept away by raging rivers.

Early yesterday, Suga said that some 376,000 homes were without electricity, and that 14,000 lacked running water.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. said late yesterday that more than 66,000 homes were still without power. Tohoku Electric

Co. said 5,600 homes still lacked electricity, in the northern pre-fectures of Miyagi, Iwate and Fukushima. Both utilities said they were working to restore power.

Several train services in the Tokyo area resumed early in the morning, while others restarted later.

Ruling party politician Fumio Kishida said the government would do its utmost in rescue operations, including making sure that those who moved to shelters were taken care of.

He acknowledged that Japan’s power grids need to be strengthened so people in dis-aster areas can rely on timely information.

“So many risks remain, and it is a reality that we must stay on guard,” Kishida said on news talk show on NHK. “We must do our utmost. In these times, a dis-aster can hit anytime.”

Stores and amusement parks had also closed, and some Tokyo stores remained closed yesterday.

As the typhoon bore down on Saturday with heavy rain and strong winds, the usually crowded train stations and bus-tling streets of Tokyo were deserted. But life was returning to normal on Sunday, and flights

that had been grounded from Tokyo airports were gradually being resumed.

Evacuation centres had been set up in coastal towns, with tens of thousands seeking shelter. Kyodo News agency said evac-uation warnings had been issued to more than 6 million people.

The typhoon disrupted a three-day weekend in Japan that

includes Sports Day today. The authorities had repeatedly warned that Hagibis was on par with a typhoon that wreaked havoc on the Tokyo region in 1958, but the safety infra-structure that Japan’s moderni-sation has brought was apparent. The typhoon six decades ago left more than 1,200 people dead and half a million houses flooded.

A local resident is rescued by a Japan Self-Defence Force helicopter from residential areas flooded by the Chikuma river, caused by Typhoon Hagibis in Nagano, central Japan, yesterday.

South Korean PM set for highest-levelvisit to Japan next week to reset tiesREUTERS SEOUL

South Korea’s prime minister plans to visit Japan next week in what would be the highest-level trip since Japan imposed export curbs in a deepening trade and diplomatic row, officials said yesterday.

Lee Nak-yon, whose trip is scheduled for October 22-24, will attend Japanese Emperor Naruhito’s enthronement cer-emony, Lee’s office said in a statement.

Lee is expected to take part in a banquet hosted by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Thursday, and hold separate talks with him, which would

mark the highest-level dialogue since tension flared up last year over the issue of Japan’s wartime use of South Korean forced labour, officials said.

“We hope his visit would help, as both sides share under-standing that we continue dia-logue to improve relations,” a government official said on con-dition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the ties.

Relations between the neighbours are arguably at their lowest ebb since they normalised ties in 1965, after South Korea’s Supreme Court last year ordered two Japanese companies to com-pensate some wartime labourers. Japan says the issue was settled under a 1965 treaty that normalised ties.

The dispute has since spilled over into trade and security, with Japan slapping export curbs and South Korea scrapping a bilateral intelligence-sharing pact.

Abe and Lee, a former jour-nalist with a stint as Japan corre-spondent, have built a rapport since their days as politicians and last met during an international forum in Russia in Sept 2018.

Seoul rallyPeople take part in a protest to support South Korean Justice Minister Cho Kuk and to demand a prosecution reform in front of Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office in Seoul, on Saturday.

Clashes as Hong Kong protesters target metro, shopsREUTERS HONG KONG

Hong Kong pro-democracy activists and riot police clashed in chaotic scenes around the city yesterday with police in full riot gear chasing protesters through crowds of horrified lunchtime shoppers.

Several rallies in shopping mall started peacefully around midday with a few hundred people at each chanting slogans such as “Free Hong Kong”, but by late afternoon hardcore black-clad activists trashed shops and metro stations and erected road blocks around the city.

Police made numerous arrests and deployed tear gas to disperse protesters, saying they used “minimum force”. Tele-vision footage showed shoppers screaming and some injured when police charged inside a mall. The young protesters, many

wearing face masks to shield their identity, were often sup-ported by shoppers.

The unrest has plunged the city into its worst crisis since Britain handed it back to China in 1997. Hong Kong is facing its first recession in a decade due

to the protests, with tourism and retail hardest hit.

The Hong Kong government introduced emergency laws to ban the wearing of face masks at public rallies, a move that sparked some of the worst vio-lence since the unrest started in

June. The violence has seen police trade tear gas and rubber bullets with protesters throwing petrol bombs and bricks. Two people have been shot and wounded during protests.

Police have arrested more than 2,300 people since June. Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam has said that since September, nearly 40% of those arrested were under the age of 18 and 10% under 15, without giving the total number of arrests.

Protesters scaled the city’s Lion Rock peak and hoisted a large statue they called “Lady Liberty” early yesterday to rally anti-government activists.

The three-metre statue, wearing a gas mask, helmet and protective goggles, was carried up the peak overnight by several dozen protesters. It held a black banner that read “Revolution of our time, Liberate Hong Kong” and could be seen from the city below.

Anti-government protesters smash windows during a demonstration at New Town Plaza shopping mall in Hong Kong, yesterday.

Nine dead in China gas blastAP BEIJING

Nine people were killed yesterday in a restaurant gas explosion in eastern China, reported state broadcaster CCTV. The explosion gutted the restaurant and damaged neigh-bouring shops in coastal Jiangsu province’s Wuxi city.

CCTV reported that 10 others who were injured are in stable condition. Over 200 rescue workers have been dis-patched to the scene.

Australia to invest $679m in dams for drought-stricken regionREUTERS MELBOURNE

Australia will invest A$1bn ($678.70m) to revamp water infrastructure in rural and regional communities in the drought-stricken New South Wales (NSW).

The federal and the New South Wales governments will spend A$650m to upgrade the Wyangala Dam in the state’s central west and A$480m to

build new Dungowan Dam near Tamworth, the government said in a statement yesterday.

“Our response to the ongoing drought impacting rural and regional communities is compre-hensive and committed,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison said in the statement.

“It deals with immediate needs for financial assistance in and longer-term investments to build drought resilience for the future.” Australia, which has

enjoyed economic growth for a generation, has its livelihoods now at a growing risk from drought, worsened by climate change, a predicament more familiar to developing countries.

NSW, a southeastern state with Sydney as its capital, has grappled with drought since mid-2017, according to the gov-ernment estimates. Nearly the whole state remains in some drought category.

The state also has been hit by spring fires, further straining the communities in the region. Two people were killed and more than 50 homes were destroyed in the latest bushfires, which are yet to be contained.

Australia’s conservative gov-ernment has been slow in addressing the country’s increasing climate challenges, arguing often that stronger envi-ronmental action would cripple the economy.

The Nature Conservation Council, an environmental advocacy group in NSW, criti-cised the government’s slow actions and the dam plans, saying they don’t provide water security as they deprive people downstream of water.

“Building new dams is like paying off your house loan with a credit card, we’re just getting deeper and deeper into water debt,” spokesman James Tremain said.

Philippine top diplomat says sorry over tweets on MaoBLOOMBERG MANILA

The Philippines’ top diplomat apologised yesterday for Twitter posts on Mao Zedong, the founding father of the People’s Republic of China.

In a tweet two weeks ago, Philippine Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin called the Chinese revolutionary Mao Che “Tutung,” which means burnt rice in the Filipino language.

In a separate tweet on October 11 while reacting to a challenge by left-leaning groups for leaders to use public transport, Locsin said the point of communism is “to take power and unleash a famine like Mao did.”

Locsin apologised to China and its ambassador to the Phil-ippines, Zhao Jianhua, for using Mao’s name “in vain.”

The Philippines under Pres-ident Rodrigo Duterte has improved its ties with China.

Australia, US in talks on rare earths minesBLOOMBERG / MELBOURNE

Australia is advancing separate talks with the US, Japan and South Korea over the devel-opment of local rare earths mining projects in an effort to bolster production outside China, which dominates the output of the materials.

Rare earths, a group of 17 elements needed in compo-nents for missile systems to consumer electronics, had been flagged as a potential weapon in the US-China trade tensions, focusing attention on work to develop new sources of supply.

“There is a good case for worldwide cooperation here to diversify the supply of these minerals,” Australia’s Resources Minister Matt Canavan said yes-terday in an interview with Sky News television.

“The concentration of all these markets could cause a risk to the security and afford-ability of the supply of these critical minerals.” Australian officials held new talks last week with US counterparts and are considering how best to help projects win access to financing and to secure long-term supply deals, he said. Similar discussions were held last month in Japan and South Korea, Canavan said.

President Donald Trump in July ordered the Defence Department to spur production of a range of rare-earth magnets used in military hardware.

Public broadcaster NHK said 14 rivers across the nation had flooded, some spilling out in more than one spot.

PM Lee Nak-yon will attend Japanese Emperor Naruhito’s enthronement ceremony and will also meet Shinzo Abe.

15MONDAY 14 OCTOBER 2019 EUROPE

No sign of Brexit breakthrough as negotiators continue talksAFP LONDON

British and European negotiators yesterday played down hopes of a rapid breakthrough in their last-ditch bid to strike an amicable Brexit divorce deal.

Intense talks continue in Brussels, but European dip-lomats say the two sides are still far apart on how to manage trade and customs on the island of Ireland.

And EU negotiators also want British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to promise to maintain a level playing field in business regulation after Brexit, in order to ease the path to a future free trade deal.

The last planned European Council summit before Britain is due to leave the bloc on October 31 opens on Thursday, and diplomats see little hope that there will be a treaty ready for them to sign.

“A lot of work remains to be done,” EU negotiator Michel Barnier told the bloc’s ambas-sadors. For once, a British spokesman in Brussels echoed him: “There is still a significant amount of work to be done. Technical-level talks will con-tinue tomorrow.”

London and Brussels are trying to achieve in a few days what they had failed to do in the more than three years since Britons first voted to leave the

European Union after nearly 50 years — agree the terms of Brit-ain’s departure.

Ongoing technical talks are variously described as “intense” or “constructive”, but no-one familiar with the closed-door process would point to progress on issues like Northern Ireland’s place in or out of the EU customs zone. “No breakthrough yet. But the good news is: Intensive dis-cussions continue,” a European diplomat said.

“Overall not an easy starting position and only a few days remain until the European Council. If the British gov-ernment wants a solution, it must move quickly now. The clock is ticking.” In London, Downing Street said Johnson had told his cabinet to brace for a cliff-hanger finish.

The British leader said “a pathway to a deal could be seen but that there is still a significant amount of work to get there and

we must remain prepared to leave on October 31.” Johnson rose to power in July on a promise not to extend Brexit for a third time this year — even for a few weeks.

Breaking that pledge could come back to haunt him in an early general election that most predict for the coming months.

But, thanks to a law passed by rebel British MPs, Johnson is also under parliamentary orders to seek a extension until January 31 of next year if no deal emerges by Saturday.

Johnson has promised to both follow the law and get Britain out by October 31 — a contradiction that might end up being settled in court.

Outgoing European Com-mission chief Jean-Claude Juncker said British politics were getting more difficult to decipher than the riddle of an “Egyptian sphinx”. “If the British ask for more time, which they probably will not, it would in my view be a historical nonsense to refuse them,” Juncker told Austria’s Kurier newspaper.

Ireland’s Prime Minister Leo Varadkar hinted on Thursday that he could support the talks running up to the October 31 deadline if a deal seemed within reach. Britain will only avoid a chaotic breakup with its closest trading partners if the agreement is also passed by the UK par-liament .

A protester in a wheelchair talks to other protesters at a ‘Disabled Rebels’ demonstration organised by Extinction Rebellion outside New Scotland Yard in London, yesterday.

Climate crisis prompts radical move by scientists REUTERS LONDON

More than 300 scientists have endorsed a civil disobedience campaign aimed at forcing governments to take rapid action to tackle climate change, warning that failure could inflict “incalculable human suffering.”

In a joint declaration, climate scientists, physicists, biologists, engineers and others from at least 20 countries broke with the caution traditionally associated with academia to side with peaceful protesters courting arrest from Amsterdam to Melbourne.

Wearing white laboratory

coats to symbolise their research credentials, a group of about 20 of the signatories gathered on Saturday to read out the text outside London’s century-old Science Museum in the city’s upmarket Kensington district.

“We believe that the con-tinued governmental inaction over the climate and ecological crisis now justifies peaceful and non-violent protest and direct action, even if this goes beyond the bounds of the current law,” said Emily Grossman, a science broadcaster with a PhD in molecular biology, who read the declaration on behalf of the group.

“We therefore support those

who are rising up peacefully against governments around the world that are failing to act pro-portionately to the scale of the crisis,” she said.

The declaration was coordi-nated by a group of scientists who support Extinction Rebellion, a civil disobedience campaign that formed in Britain a year ago and has since sparked offshoots in dozens of countries.

The group launched a fresh wave of international actions on Monday, aiming to get govern-ments to address an ecological crisis caused by climate change and accelerating extinctions of plant and animal species.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his wife Aniko Levai cast their votes at a polling station in Budapest, yesterday.

Festival of Lights in BerlinColourful designs are projected on the TV Tower (Berliner Fernsehturm) as part of the yearly Festival of Lights in Berlin, yesterday.

Spain’s Sanchezoffers proposalto end politicaldeadlockBLOOMBERG MADRID

Acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has pledged to make a proposal to Spain’s main political parties within 48 hours after next month’s general elec-tions that would allow for the formation of a government and end a long-standing political stalemate in the country.

Sanchez will offer the rest of the parties an agreement on basic policies with the aim of having a government ready in December that could pass a new budget in the first quarter of 2020, the Socialist party announced on its Twitter account Sunday. Sanchez is aiming to form a government that wouldn’t need the support of parties seeking inde-pendence for the northern region of Catalonia, Servimedia reports, citing a document from the Socialists.

Spaniards will vote on November 10 for the fourth time in four years.

176 migrantsrescued offLibya coastAP/ROME

Humanitarian groups yesterday said they rescued 176 migrants on two rubber boats in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Libya while Tunisian author-ities reported blocking a smug-gling boat carrying 110 migrants from setting off for Italy.

Doctors Without Borders and SOS Mediterranee said their Ocean Viking ship rescued 74 migrants yesterday morning about 80km off the Libyan coast. The groups said six children were among those rescued. In the afternoon, the groups said they rescued 102 people aboard another rubber boat about 40 miles off the coast. They said 12 women and nine children were on board.

Meanwhile, three small boats carrying migrants reached Italian shores yesterday.

Germany’s far-right AfD loses support after Halle shooting: ReportREUTERS FRANKFURT

Support for Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has dropped in an opinion poll following an anti-Semitic shooting attack near a synagogue in Halle on Wednesday, broadcaster RTL/n-tv reported.

A survey of 2,500 Germans by research institute forsa showed 11% support for AfD on Thursday, down from 13% at the beginning of the week, RTL/n-tv reported on Saturday.

Prosecutors said a man accused of killing two people in the attack in Halle, eastern Germany, had confessed to the crime and to a far-right, anti-Semitic motivation.

The man, who had published a racist and anti-Semitic mani-festo and live-streamed the shooting on Wednesday, had shot the two bystanders after failing to enter the synagogue.

Only his poor aim and the unreliability of his home-made

firearms had saved from injury nine other people he fired upon during his half-hour rampage, prosecutors said on Friday.

According to another survey, by research group Emnid, support for AfD was flat at 15% while the Social Democrats (SPD), which are part of Chan-cellor Angela Merkel’s coalition, dropped one percentage point to 14%, Bild am Sonntag reported.

The survey was conducted over October 2-9, while the shooting occurred on October 9.

That marks the first time since August that the AfD

trumped SPD in an opinion poll, the paper said, while Merkel’s CDU gained one percentage point to 28% and the Greens remained unchanged at 21%.

The AfD has drawn on voters’ discontent with Merkel’s coalition and especially her 2015 decision to let in refugees, many from war zones in the Middle East and Africa.

In the Emnid polls, AfD has consistently remained above its 12.6% level of support in the 2017 general election and recently came close to becoming the largest party in two eastern German states.

According to a second forsa survey among people who said they do not back the far right, 90% view AfD as providing a spiritual breeding ground for right-wing extremist acts of vio-lence through their appearance and their choice of words.

None of the supporters of AfD share this view or see any responsibility for the Halle events on the part of the party, RTL/n-tv reported.

UK: Fatal crash suspect doesn’t have diplomatic immunityAP LONDON

British media reported that the wife of an American official who left the UK after being involved in a fatal road accident no longer has diplomatic immunity.

BBC and Sky News said yes-terday that UK Foreign Sec-retary Dominic Raab had told the family of Harry Dunn that “immunity is no longer per-tinent” because the suspect has left the UK. Dunn, 19, was killed in August when his motorcycle collided with a car outside a British air force base in southern England used by the US military. The alleged car driver, Anne Sacoolas, who is married to a US official, subse-quently left Britain.

Prosecutors say the man accused of killing two people in the attack in Halle, eastern Germany, had confessed to the crime and to a far-right, anti-Semitic motivation.

The last planned European Council summit before Britain is due to leave the bloc on October 31 opens on Thursday, and diplomats see little hope that there will be a treaty ready for them to sign.

Hungary opposition eyes Budapest in local pollsAP/AFP BUDAPEST

Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s dominant right-wing Fidesz party was facing a challenge yesterday from opposition parties who are backing joint candidates in many cities in Hungary’s nationwide local election.

Voter turnout was projected to be near 50%, high for a local election, but it was unclear which side would benefit more. Turnout was even higher in Budapest, the capital, a key mayoral contest pitting the expe-rienced Fidesz-backed incumbent against a younger rival representing five parties across the political spectrum.

Officials started counting ballots after voting stations closed at 7pm (1700 GMT). Earlier this week, the main oppo-sition parties said they would compile their own tally of votes to compare their figures with the official results.

Fidesz has been easily

winning local, national and European Parliament elections since 2010, but a more unified opposition shook up the last days of the campaign.

The conservative Fidesz, which since 2015 has made its reputation on anti-migration policies, also casts itself as a

defender of Christian and family values. In Hungary’s most closely-watched vote, Budapest Mayor Istvan Tarlos, who is not a member of Fidesz but is backed by Orban’s party, was running against Gergely Karacsony, a dis-trict leader in Budapest who is supported by left-wing, Green

and liberal parties.More than 8 million people

were eligible to vote for over 3,000 mayors and 17,200 local council members elected for five-year terms.

Despite the scandal-ridden campaign the Hungarian gov-ernment’s dominant influence over large sectors of the media and its blatant warnings about dwindling financial support for cities that don’t elect Fidesz mayors meant that opposition candidates were fighting mostly uphill battles.

After sweeping to power, Orban pushed through swathes of new legislation, including measures that critics at home and abroad say have neutered key democratic institutions such as the media and the judiciary in the EU member state.

Critics say some of those reforms helped Fidesz to rout opposition parties at parlia-mentary, European and local elections despite around half of the electorate often voting against it.

16 MONDAY 14 OCTOBER 2019EUROPE

Macron seeks to slow EU expansion in blow to Balkan aspirationsBLOOMBERG/PARIS

Balkan hopes of starting accession negotiations with the European Union hang in the balance, as France insists the bloc is not yet ready to discuss the possibility of accepting new members, documents exchanged between diplomatic missions in Brussels show.

North Macedonia and Albania are keen for a green light this week to start formal talks to

join the world’s largest trading club. While most member states back their request, France and the Netherlands want a complete overhaul of the enlargement process before negotiations with the two countries can begin.

Paris wants any further talks to be “more gradual, more con-crete in the benefits they bring to concerned countries and reversible according to the effective, tangible and sus-tainable implementation of

reforms,” a draft communique of a ministerial meeting in Lux-embourg showed.

No date for formal negotia-tions should be given to Albania and North Macedonia before the EU completes this overhaul of its “methodology,” it said.

Expansion proponents argue that the prospect of EU mem-bership will help further anchor the troubled region to the West, while failure to set a date for the start of formal negotiations risks

weakening reformist forces in Albania and North Macedonia.

But western EU officials exasperated by the failure of eastern nations that joined in 2004 and 2007 to uphold the rule of law and fight corruption are wary of admitting new members.

Countries including Poland, Hungary and Romania —among the largest recipients of EU struc-tural funds and agricultural aid — are at loggerheads with the

European Commission over their democratic standards, and the bloc’s executive arm has so far failed to force them to fall in line.

At France’s insistence, the EU said in its June communique on the topic of enlargement that admission of new members should take into account the bloc’s “capacity to integrate” them.

France and the Netherlands aren’t alone in their scepticism. Adding to the complications,

countries such as Greece and Bulgaria cite bilateral issues that first need to be resolved, while others seek conditions attached to any positive nod, especially for Albania.

EU ambassadors will make a last-ditch effort to broker a compromise today before min-isters meet in Luxembourg on Tuesday, where a decision is due to be taken. EU leaders must sign off when they meet in Brussels on Thursday.

Kosovo electionofficials fall illafter opening boxes from SerbiaAP/PRISTINA

More than 20 Central Election Commission officials have been taken to the hospital with health problems after opening five ballot boxes from Serbia, authorities in Kosovo said yesterday.

Twenty-six officials had allergic reactions and skin problems after opening the ballot boxes, local media Kos-ovapress reported.

Emergency centre doctors said all had itching and red-dened skin.

Naser Ramadani, head of the Public Health National Institute, said nine women, including two pregnant ones, were treated for itching and vomiting, adding that they were in stable condition.

A police spokesman con-firmed the incident but declined to give details, saying that they are investigating. The election commission spokesman declined to comment.

Kosovo held snap elections a week ago which were won by a left-wing party. More than 300 ballot boxes are being recounted, and yesterday’s incident occurred at an office verifying the boxes being recounted in downtown Pristina.

Kosovo, a former province of Serbia, declared inde-pendence in 2008. It has been recognised by more than 100 countries but not by Serbia.

The Serbian office for Kosovo in Serbia and the Bel-grade-supported Serb List party in Kosovo called the incident a “manipulation” while the new Kosovo Cabinet is being formed.

Cargo ship runs aground on Corsica islandAFP AJACCIO

A 90 metre cargo ship ran aground yesterday in a pristine marine reserve in the Strait of Bonaficio off the French Medi-terranean island of Corsica, but no oil appears to have been spilled, maritime police said.

The Rhodanus, transporting 2,650 tonnes of steel coils and seven crew, ran into trouble in the Mouths of Bonifacio nature reserve in the early morning hours after missing an opening in the strait, the authority said in a statement.

The captain “did not turn in

time and headed straight for the coast despite repeated calls” for nearly an hour from traffic con-trollers in Corsica and nearby Sardinia, it said.

The ship got lodged in sand without tilting, and does not appear to have shed any oil, according to the statement. But anti-pollution measures are being deployed as a precaution.

“The ship is stuck in the middle of the islands of the Natural Reserve of the Mouths of Bonifacio in a protected area that is environmentally very sen-sitive,” the reserve’s director Jean-Michel Culioli said at the

scene. “It (the ship) should never have been there. We remain vigilant.”

The reserve, stretching over 80,000 hectares, is the largest in mainland France, a scuba divers’ paradise with several small islands in the strait sepa-rating French Corsica from Italian Sardinia.

Maritime police have boarded the ship, and a marine intervention team has departed from Toulon on southern France to inspect the damage.

The authorities have pro-hibited any ships or other nau-tical activities in a one-kilometre radius of the stranded ship.

A boat named “Rhodanus” stranded on the rocks on Cala longa beach near Bonifacio on the French Mediterranean island of Corsica, yesterday.

France ‘worried’ after 800kin of IS flee Syrian campAFP PARIS

France said yesterday that it was “worried” after Kurdish author-ities reported that hundreds of relatives of foreign jihadists had escaped from a displacement camp in northern Syria, under Turkish assault.

“Of course we are worried about what could happen and that is why we want Turkey... to end as quickly as possible the intervention it has begun,” gov-ernment spokeswoman Sibeth Ndiaye told France 3 television.

The Kurdish administration in northern Syria said Turkish bombardment near a displaced people’s camp had caused nearly 800 relatives of members of the IS militant group to flee.

Kurdish authorities and foreign powers have warned repeatedly that the hostilities could undermine the fight against the IS group and allow jihadists to break out of captivity.

“I do not know, today, who exactly the people are who fled from the camp; it has been a worry for France since the beginning of this armed inter-vention,” said Ndiaye.

She underlined France’s stance that French jihadists fighting abroad must be tried in

the country where they are apprehended.

Fighting has engulfed the area since Wednesday when Ankara launched a long-threatened offensive against the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which it considers “terrorists” linked to insurgents in Turkey.

US President Donald Trump has been accused of abandoning a loyal ally in the fight against IS militants after ordering American troops to pull back from the border.

Ndiaye said that in a call to Trump on Friday, French Pres-ident Emmanuel Macron had pressed upon him France’s con-cerns about the Turkish offensive, and underlined the need to prevent a resurgence of IS in the region.

France and Germany on Sat-urday suspended arms exports to Turkey.

France, which has been hit by a wave of jihadist attacks since 2015, many of them claimed by or inspired by IS, fears the assault on Kurdish forces that led the fight against IS in Syria would bolster the radicals.

The spokeswoman added that there were also fears for a “serious humanitarian crisis” in Syria, where the number of people fleeing has soared to 130,000.

Trump not to be blamed for lack of improvement in ties: PutinREUTERS MOSCOW

Moscow is not blaming US Pres-ident Donald Trump for failing to improve US-Russian relations, a pledge he had made during his election campaign, Russian Pres-

ident Vladimir Putin said.“We know that, including

during his previous election campaign, he spoke in favour of a normalisation (of US-Russia relations), but unfortunately it has not happened yet,” Putin said in the interview.

“But we have no claims because we see what’s going on in US domestic politics,” he said, according to a transcript pub-lished on the Kremlin’s website yesterday.

Putin added that the “internal political agenda” was not allowing

Trump to take steps aimed at a drastic improvement of bilateral relations, adding Moscow would in any case work with any US administration to the extent that Washington itself wants.

Putin also said Russia had weapons that neutralise any

threat from Nato’s missile deployments in Poland and Romania.

“This obviously poses a threat to us because it’s an attempt to level out our strategic nuclear potential. It’s bound to fail, this attempt, it’s already obvious.”

German policerescue womankidnapped inthe NetherlandsAP BERLIN

German police said that they have liberated a 22-year-old Polish woman who was kidnapped by three men in the Netherlands.

According to a Cologne police statement yesterday they freed the woman from a car in the western German county of Viersen late on Saturday.

They said at least one man was armed when the woman was pulled into a car by the men in the Netherlands earlier on Saturday.

A cross-border police oper-ation was launched and she was tracked down by Cologne police to the county of Viersen in western Germany.

The two men inside the car were slightly injured during the operation, but the woman was unharmed.

The third suspect was later arrested in nearby Bergheim.

The woman and the three kidnapping suspects, aged 26, 27 and 32, were not identified.

Authorities are still investi-gating the motive for the kidnapping.

Second term awaits PiS party as Poles voteREUTERS WARSAW

Poles voted yesterday in an election that is likely to hand the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party a second term in office, potentially deepening the coun-try’s isolation as unease within the EU about its commitment to democratic standards grows.

PiS is expected to win more votes than it did in 2015 and may get enough parliamentary seats to continue to govern alone - but the shift in the political climate that it has presided over in the past four years has polarised the country.

Polls opened at 0500 GMT and will close at 1900 GMT. Surveys show PiS winning 40-46% of votes.

The party has cast the election as a choice between a society rooted in traditional values and a liberal order that promotes a chosen few and undermines family life.

Opposition parties and Poland’s European Union partners said the outgoing gov-ernment has undermined the independence of the judiciary and the media and made Poland

less welcoming for minorities.“We can guarantee that

Polish families are protected, that Poland’s freedom is pro-tected and that we are protected against attacks,” PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski told sup-porters in its eastern rural heartland on Friday.

That may give the party an absolute majority. But it might need to form a coalition, which would raise the possibility of the far-right Confederation — one of three smaller groups that might garner the 5% of votes needed to enter parliament —becoming part of government.

Polling around 19-26%, the centrist Civic Coalition — an umbrella group that includes the Civic Platform formerly led by EU Council president Donald Tusk — looks certain to continue

forming the main opposition.Its candidate for prime min-

ister, Malgorzata Kidawa-Blonska, on Thursday accused Kaczynski of destroying democracy and seeking to sow further divisions.

“He is building a huge wall and creating great tensions,” she told supporters on Thursday. “That is why I call on all people of good will ... regardless of their political views: let’s defend Poland against such ...hatred.”

One of the foundations of PiS success is the way it has tapped into anger among poorer Poles who have missed out on pros-perity since the collapse of com-munism in 1989, mixing nation-alist rhetoric with a vast welfare programme that an economic boom has allowed it to implement.

The party has shifted Poland’s foreign policy away from the European mainstream, becoming a leading proponent of calls to take some powers away from the EU, with which Warsaw is embroiled in a long-running row over judicial and media reforms.

Brussels has taken legal action to force Polish authorities to row back on legislation it says

has politicised the courts.PiS said the reforms are

needed to make the court system fairer and more efficient and plans further changes if it is re-elected.

PiS has also sought closer ties with US President Donald

Trump, with whom it shares views on coal mining, climate and abortion — fuelling concern among some western EU dip-lomats that Trump could use the biggest of the EU’s ex-communist states to sow discord in Brussels over issues such as Iran.

Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of PiS party, casts his ballot at a polling station during the parliamentary elections, in Warsaw, yesterday.

The nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) is expected to win more votes than it did in 2015 and may get enough parliamentary seats to continue to govern alone.

17MONDAY 14 OCTOBER 2019 AMERICAS

Hunter Biden to step down from Chinese board

Mexico halts US bound migrant caravanREUTERS HUEHUETAN

Mexico’s military police halted and turned back a caravan of up to 2,000 migrants from Africa, the Caribbean and Central America, hours after they embarked toward the United States, according to witnesses.

The migrants had departed before dawn from Tapachula in the southern state of Chiapas near Guatemala despite an ongoing crackdown on migration on both sides of the US-Mexico border.

The group, including people pushing children in strollers,

proceeded on foot about 30km before being apprehended on the road in Huehuetan.

Around 500 members of Mexico’s National Guard military police in helmets and tactical vests blocked the highway on both sides, according to a Reuters witness, and some pursued migrants who fled into neighboring fields.

Officials from Mexico’s national immigration institute detained most of the group, putting them on buses back to Tapachula. About 150 migrants decided to return on foot.

Activist Irineo Mujica of Pueblo Sin Fronteras, who

accompanied the migrants, said only a small group opted to walk back on their own.

“The vast majority were taken to Tapachula, the caravan was dismantled,” he said in a video documenting the incident.

The scene was reminiscent of a string of caravans that left Central America a year ago, at one point ballooning into a group of 7,000 people in southern Mexico.

That en masse migration drew extensive media attention and triggered a crisis with US President Donald Trump, who called the caravans an “invasion” and demanded Mexico do more to halt their progress.

Mexican authorities detain a group of migrants in Tapachula, Chiapas state, in Mexico, yesterday.

AP WASHINGTON

Facing intense scrutiny from President Donald Trump and his Republican allies, Hunter Biden announced that he will step down from the board of directors of a Chinese-backed private equity firm at the end of the month as part of a pledge not to work on behalf of any foreign-owned companies should his father win the presidency.

Biden, the 49-year-old son of Democratic presidential can-didate Joe Biden, revealed his plan in an Internet post written by his attorney, George Mesires, who outlined a defense of the younger Biden’s work in Ukraine and China, which have emerged as one of Trump’s chief lines of attack against hunter’s father despite no proof of impropriety.

“Hunter makes the following commitment: Under a Biden Administration, Hunter will

readily comply with any and all guidelines or standards a Pres-ident Biden may issue to address purported conflicts of interest, or the appearance of such con-flicts, including any restrictions related to overseas business interests. In any event, hunter will agree not to serve on boards of, or work on behalf of, foreign owned companies,” Mesires wrote.

He continued: “He will con-tinue to keep his father per-sonally uninvolved in his business affairs, while availing himself as necessary and appro-priate to the Office of the White House Counsel to help inform his application of the Biden Admin-istration’s guidelines or standards to his business decision-making.”

Hunter Biden’s work overseas sits at the center of the House impeachment inquiry into Trump, who has admitted to asking foreign powers to inves-tigate hunter Biden’s business

dealings abroad.The White House released a

transcript of a call in which Trump asks Ukraine’s new

president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, to probe Biden’s family and Ukraine’s role in the 2016 election that put Trump in office. Trump has also encouraged China to dig into hunter Biden’s work in that country.

The president’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, is also under increasing scrutiny for his efforts to dig into hunter Biden’s business background.

Late last week, two busi-nessmen who played key roles in Giuliani’s efforts to investigate hunter Biden’s dealings in Ukraine were charged with federal campaign finance violations.

Mesires noted repeatedly that there is no evidence of wrongdoing against Hunter Biden, despite intensifying attacks from Trump ahead of the 2020 election.

The attorney wrote that hunter Biden worked as an unpaid board member for BHR Equity Investment Fund

Defence chief vows to cooperate with House impeachment probeAFP WASHINGTON

US Defence Secretary Mark Esper said yesterday that the Pentagon would cooperate with the congressional impeachment inquiry — in an apparent break with President Donald Trump’s policy to thwart the probe.

Esper said his department would try to comply with a sub-poena from House Democrats seeking records relating to the withholding of US military aid to Ukraine.

“We will do everything we can to cooperate with the Con-gress,” Esper said on CBS’s Face The Nation.

Democrats s lapped

subpoenas on Monday on the Pentagon and White House, demanding documents tied to Trump’s withholding of almost $400m desperately needed by Kiev in its conflict with Russia over Moscow’s 2014 annex-ation of Crimea.

Esper said that adminis-tration officials and Trump himself may place restrictions on the release of documents demanded by the subpoena.

“I don’t know the status of what that document prepa-ration is. I don’t know what restrictions they will have internally,” Esper said. “The White House has a say on the release of documents as well. There are a number of things that play into this.”

Search on for missing workerin New Orleans hotel collapseAP NEW ORLEANS

Rescue crew in New Orleans yesterday were trying to find a worker missing in the rubble of a hotel that collapsed while under construction but work in the unstable structure must be done delicately, officials said.

Officials won’t say if they have any indication whether the missing worker is alive. New Orleans Fire Chief Tim McCo-nnell said they are going to treat their work as a rescue mission until they have evidence the missing person is dead along with two other people killed in the Saturday collapse at the Hard Rock Hotel project near the city’s historic French Quarter.

“Safety is the No. 1 thing. The last thing you want to do when you are trying to rescue somebody is lose someone else,” McConnell said at a news con-ference yesterday.

Several floors of the hotel collapsed on Saturday. WWL-TV obtained a viewer’s dramatic

video of upper floors collapsing Saturday before one side of the building crashed to the street in a blinding cloud of dust and debris.

The bodies of the two people killed have not been recovered. Thirty people were injured. Only one remains in the hospital. New

Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell visited the man, who had surgery for a leg injury.

“He told me it could have been worse. He wanted to make sure his co-workers were safe. He was envisioning the two who were on the floor with him,” Cantrell said.

Emergency officials are on the scene of a partial building collapse at the Hard Rock Hotel construction site downtown, in New Orleans.

Southern Californiawildfires slowingAFP WASHINGTON

Wildfires raging across southern California showed signs of slowing, as firefighters contained nearly half of the biggest blaze.

A fire that had burned rapidly through the San Fernando Valley in greater Los Angeles was the strongest of several across southern California.

By early yesterday morning, the Saddleridge fire was about 41 percent contained, fire offi-cials said, adding it had con-sumed 3,200 hectares about 32km north of downtown Los Angeles.

Evacuation orders were lifted on Saturday after 100,000 people were forced to flee their homes.

Cooler temperatures and lighter winds over the weekend improved the outlook, and res-idents were allowed to return.

One man in his 50s died of a heart attack as he struggled to save his home, fire officials said.

The fire broke out on Thursday night and quickly grew out of control in the city of Sylmar, driven by low humidity and gusts known as the Santa Ana winds.

About 1,000 firefighters, backed by water-dropping hel-icopters and planes releasing fire retardants, fought the blaze that forced the shutdown of several major highways in California.

The metro line in the area was also closed, as were schools and businesses.

The blaze destroyed around 76 homes and buildings, and killed an 89-year-old woman who was unable to escape the flames.

The wildfires in southern California erupted as the state’s largest utility, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), implemented rolling power blackouts that affected some two million people in the north.

The shutoffs were designed to reduce the threat of wildfire that can be sparked by lines downed in heavy winds.

10-year-old dies after being ejected from festival rideAP BRIDGETON

A 10-year-old girl died after plunging from an amusement park ride at a harvest festival in southern New Jersey over the weekend, authorities said.

Troopers were called to the Deerfield Township Harvest Festival in Cumberland County after the girl was “ejected” from a Wisdom Super Sizzler “Extreme” rid eon Saturday evening, state police said. The girl was airlifted to Cooper Uni-versity hospital, where she was pronounced dead, police said.

The girl’s name wasn’t immediately released. The cause and circumstances of her death remain under investi-gation, police said.

The festival said on its website that rides were provided by Skelly’s Amusements, of Wil-liamstown, which said on its Facebook page that it was “abso-lutely heartbroken” by the death.

US set to pull remainingtroops from northern SyriaREUTERS WASHINGTON

The United States is poised to move about 1,000 US troops from northern Syria amid an ongoing Turkish incursion into the region, Defence Secretary Mark Esper said yesterday, calling the situation “untenable” for US forces.

The pull-back of troops from the region dovetails with Pres-ident Donald Trump’s long-standing desire for the United States to extract itself from foreign conflicts. It comes after Trump a week ago withdrew some US troops deployed to support Kurdish forces in the fight against Islamic State.

That decision, which came under heavy fire from fellow Republicans and allies, helped open the door for Turkey to launch an offensive against the US-backed Kurdish forces, part of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), who have been America’s most capable partners in quashing IS miltiants.

“In the last 24 hours, we learned that (the Turks) likely intend to extend their attack further south than originally planned, and to the west,” Esper said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

“We also have learned in the last 24 hours that the ... SDF are looking to cut a deal, if you will, with the Syrians and the

Russians to counterattack against the Turks in the north.”

Esper said he spoke with Trump on Saturday night, and that the president directed the US military to “begin a deliberate withdrawal of forces from northern Syria.”

US officials had spent the last week ramping up pressure on Turkey to halt the assault on Syria and the Kurdish fighters that it considers a threat to national security.

US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Friday said sanctions against Ankara were all ready should the president choose to make good on his threat to obliterate Turkey’s economy.

Turkey’s offensive has raised alarm bells around the world amid concerns about its impact on civilians and the possibility of Islamic State militants escaping from Kurdish-led authorities.

Esper said the United States knew ahead of time about

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s intentions to cross the border into Syria.

“It was clear to me that Pres-ident Erdogan was committed to coming in. He informed us that he was coming in. He didn’t ask permission.”

He added that the United States simply did not have enough troops to stop a Turkish advance and they needed to be taken out of harm’s way.

“There is no way they could stop 15,000 Turks from pro-ceeding south,” he said.

Esper did not put a timeline on how long the drawdown from northern Syria would take or whether the troops would be relocated within Syria or moved out of the country entirely.

One official suggested that the troops would be moving away from northern Syria, but still saying in Syria.

Another US official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said it was difficult to imagine troops staying without having a presence in northern Syria, which is the primary route through which American sup-plies move.

But the official added that the situation was fluid.

It is also not clear what will happen with the several hundred troops that are located at the US military outpost of Tanf, near the border with Iraq and Jordan.

Defence Secretary Mark Esper said the US knew ahead of time about Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s intentions to cross the border into Syria.

AP NEW YORK

The four people killed when gunfire erupted at an illegal gambling club in Brooklyn were all local men, police said as they continue to investigate the circumstances of their deaths.

The New York Police Department identified the dead as Terence Bishop, 36; Dominick Wimbush, 47; Chester Goode, 37; and John Thomas, 32. Three other people were wounded but expected to survive.

Police said just over a dozen people had been gambling with dice and cards at the small club when the violence erupted just before 7am on Saturday.

The unlicensed club had a sign identifying it as the “Triple A Aces Private & Social Event Space.” It was on the first floor of an older wood-frame town-house on a block with some empty storefronts and boarded-up buildings.

Police identify 4 dead in illegal gambling spot

18 MONDAY 14 OCTOBER 2019AMERICAS

Moreno orders curfew, military control in QuitoAFP QUITO

Ecuador President Lenin Moreno yesterday ordered the capital Quito and surrounding areas be placed under curfew and military control, as an 11th day of deadly protests against government austerity measures roiled the city.

The order would “facilitate the work of public forces against intolerable outbreaks of vio-lence,” he announced on Twitter, as clouds of smoke hung over the city.

“I have arranged for the Joint Command of the Armed Forces to immediately carry out nec-essary measures and opera-tions,” Moreno said in a brief national address, flanked by Vice President Otto Sonnenholzner and Defense Minister Oswaldo Jarrin.

The restrictions in Quito, a city of 2.7 million, came on top of a state of emergency Moreno had declared on October 3, deploying some 75,000 military and police and imposing a nighttime curfew in the vicinity of government buildings.

Violence continued in Quito on Saturday even as the indig-enous movement leading the protests over fuel price hikes

reversed course and said it had accepted a proposal for direct talks with Moreno.

In his address, Moreno thanked indigenous groups for agreeing to negotiations, but did not say when or where the talks would take place.

The president stressed that he would restore “order throughout Ecuador” as thou-sands of protesters thronged the streets of Quito.

Demonstrators on Saturday ransacked and set fire to the building housing the comptroller general’s office. The building was shrouded in thick smoke after being attacked with fire bombs.

According to the prosecutor’s office, 34 people were arrested.

Nearby, protesters erected barricades in front of the National Assembly building as police fired tear gas at them, according to journalists at the

scene.A television station and a

newspaper also came under attack, the outlets said.

The Teleamazonas TV channel interrupted its regular broadcast to air images of broken windows, a burned vehicle and heavy police presence on the scene.

“For about half an hour we were under attack. They threw stones at us, forced open the doors and threw Molotov cock-tails,” presenter Milton Perez said.

The station evacuated 25 employees, none of whom were hurt.

El Comercio newspaper reported on Twitter that its offices were attacked by a “group of unknowns.” It did not provide further details.

Protest leaders denied being involved in the attacks on the TV station or the comptroller gen-eral’s office.

“We have nothing to do with the events at the comptroller’s office and Teleamazonas,” said CONAIE, the indigenous umbrella group which has been leading the protests.

Protesters did not immedi-ately heed the curfew which went into effect at 3:00pm (2000 GMT), with security forces still

struggling to impose order in some parts of the city as night fell.

People who emptied the streets little by little left demanding the end of repression.

“Where are the mothers and fathers of the police? Why do they let them kill us?” cried Nancy Quinyupani, an indig-enous woman.

The demonstrations have left six people dead and nearly 2,100 wounded or detained, according to the ombudsman’s office.

On Saturday, CONAIE said it had agreed to hold talks with

Moreno after consulting with its members. On Friday, the group had rejected the president’s pro-posal to negotiate.

Ecuador’s indigenous groups make up a quarter of the coun-try’s 17.3 million people.

Indigenous groups from dis-advantaged communities in the Amazon and the Andes have spearheaded demands that Moreno reinstate fuel subsidies that were cut last week — part of a deal his government struck to obtain a $4.2bn loan from the IMF.

Fuel prices have more than

doubled from October 3.The violence has forced

Moreno to relocate his gov-ernment to Ecuador’s second city, Guayaquil, and has hit the oil industry hard with the Energy Ministry suspending more than two-thirds of its distribution of crude.

Protesters seized three oil facilities in the Amazon earlier this week.

Moreno is struggling with an economic crisis that he blames on waste and corruption by the administration of his predecessor Rafael Correa.

Demonstrators reconstructing barricades during the 11th day of a protest over a fuel price hike ordered by the government to secure an IMF loan, in Quito, yesterday.

Trudeau dons bulletproof vest for campaign event after threatREUTERS MISSISSAUGA

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau donned a bulletproof vest for an election campaign rally on Saturday, an eyewitness said, and the Canadian Broad-casting Corp cited sources saying a security threat had been received.

Pictures taken by Reuters photographer Stephane Mahe at the event in the Ontario city of Mississauga outside Toronto showed Trudeau wearing bulky protection under his shirt.

Police wearing backpacks surrounded Trudeau on stage for the first time since the start of a six-week election campaign leading up to what polls suggest will be a closely contested vote on October 21.

The scenes were almost unprecedented in recent

Canadian political history, which has been overwhelmingly peaceful.

CBC cited unnamed sources inside Trudeau’s Liberal Party as saying he donned the bullet-proof vest after the campaign received a threat.

Liberal spokeswoman Zita Astravas declined to comment on Trudeau’s security arrange-ments. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police also declined to comment.

Trudeau, who arrived 90 minutes late for the event, addressed the rally without incident. His wife Sophie had been due to introduce him but did not do so.

Trudeau, who often plunges into crowds to shake hands and pose for photos, did the same as he was leaving the event, but this time he was closely surrounded by security, said Mahe.

Police officer fatally shoots Texas woman inside her homeAP FORT WORTH

A white police officer who killed a black woman inside her own home in Texas didn’t have time to perceive a threat before shooting her, an attorney for the woman’s family said.

“You didn’t hear the officer shout, ‘Gun, gun, gun,’” attorney Lee Merritt said after viewing video taken from a Fort Worth officer’s bodycam during Satur-day’s shooting death of Atatiana Jefferson, 28.

“He didn’t have time to per-

ceive a threat. That’s murder.”Her family said that Jefferson

was watching her 8-year-old nephew when she was killed early Saturday while police checked on the home after a neighbor called a police non-emergency line to report that the front door was open.

The Fort Worth Police Department said in a statement that officers saw someone near a window inside the home and that one of them drew his duty weapon and fired after “per-ceiving a threat.” The video released by police shows two

officers searching the home from the outside with flashlights before one shouts, “Put your hands up, show me your hands.” One shot is then fired through a window. The officer does not identify himself as police in the video.

“It’s another one of those sit-uations where the people that are supposed to protect us are actually not here to protect us,” said Jefferson’s sister, Amber Carr.

“You know, you want to see justice, but justice don’t bring my sister back,” she said.

An aunt, Venitta Body, said the family doesn’t understand why Jefferson was killed.

“It’s like from the moment we got the call, it’s been more and more inconceivable and more confusing. And there has nothing been done in order to take away that confusion,” Body said.

Police said the officer, who’s been on the force since April 2018, is on administrative leave pending the outcome of an investigation.

Neighbour James Smith, who called police about the open

door, told reporters he was just trying to be a good neighbour.

“I’m shaken. I’m mad. I’m upset. And I feel it’s partly my fault,” Smith said. “If I had never dialed the police department, she’d still be alive.”

Merritt said Jefferson’s family expects “a thorough and expe-dient investigation.”

The Fort Worth Police Department said it released bodycam footage soon after the shooting to provide trans-parency, but that any video taken inside the house could not be dis-tributed due to state law.

Gunman opens fire at wedding ceremony, two people shotAP PELHAM, NEW HAMPSHIRE

A gunman opened fire at a wedding ceremony inside a New Hampshire church, shooting two people including the presiding bishop before guests tackled the shooter and pinned him to the ground until police arrived, authorities said.

Dale Holloway, 37, has been charged with first degree assault for shooting Stanley Choate, 75, in the chest at the New England Pentecostal church, according to the state’s attorney-general office.

A second person, Claire McMullen, 60, was shot in the arm. A third person, Mark Cas-tiglione, 60, was struck in the head by an object. Choate, the presiding bishop at the wedding, is in serious condition at Tufts Medical Center in Boston while McMullen is in good condition at a local hos-pital. Castiglione was treated at a hospital and released.

Holloway is expected to be arraigned tomorrow at Hillsborough County Superior Court. It was unclear if he is represented by an attorney.

Pelham’s Police Chief Joseph Roark said no fatalities were reported in the shooting.

“This does not seem to be a random event, at least at this point,” Roark said.

Roark did not offer a motive for the shooting.

“I have arranged for the Joint Command of the Armed Forces to immediately carry out necessary measures and operations,” President Lenin Moreno said in a brief national address.

Liberal leader and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during an election campaign visit to Mississauga, in Ontario, yesterday.

Indianapolis Zoo receives $4m grant to open conservation centreAP INDIANAPOLIS

The Indianapolis Zoo plans to open an international centre devoted to saving threatened species, an effort that zoo offi-cials call a natural extension of their biennial Indianapolis Prize honouring animal conservation leaders.

The Global Center for Species Survival is expected to open next year and employ a team of nine Indianapolis-based experts who will work with more than 9,000 wildlife experts worldwide to save threatened species.

The zoo has received a $4m startup grant from the Indiana-polis-based Lilly Endowment Inc. to support the fledgling

centre. Rob Shumaker, president of the zoo, said the centre also aims to assist researchers with their work, including fund-raising, talking to policy makers and crafting social media campaigns.

“It’s no exaggeration to say that every significant conser-vation project in the world will be touched by the Global Center for Species Survival,” Shumaker said in written remarks.

The centre is a collaboration between the zoo and the Inter-national Union for Conservation of Nature’s Species Survival Commission, or IUCN. The zoo and IUCN signed a deal last Monday to establish the centre-during a commission meeting.

The IUCN , founded 70 years ago and composed of biologists

who maintain a list of threatened species, is considered the world’s largest and most significant environmental conservation organisation.

The Species Survival Com-mission, known as SSC, prepares action plans to save species and provides information to IUCN that is used to develop and define the Red List, which iden-tifies and evaluates endangered species.

CEO Michael Crowther, who is retiring from the commission at the end of 2018, started working with SSC leaders two years ago to develop the concept of the centre, the zoo said. The center is a natural offshoot from the Indianapolis Prize, which the zoo has awarded every other year since 2006.

California first state to ban animal fur productsAP/SACRAMENTO

California will be the first state to ban the sale and manufacture of new fur products and the third to bar most animals from circus performances under a pair of bills signed by Governor Gavin Newsom.

The fur law bars residents from selling or making clothing, shoes or handbags with fur starting in 2023.

Animal rights groups cheered the measure as a stand against inhumane practices. The pro-posal was vigorously opposed by the billion-dollar US fur industry,

and the Fur Information Council of America has already threatened to sue.

It follows Newsom’s signing of legislation that makes Cali-fornia the first state to outlaw fur trapping and follows bans on sales of fur in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

“California is a leader when it comes to animal welfare, and today that leadership includes banning the sale of fur,” Newsom said in a statement. “But we are doing more than that. We are making a statement to the world that beautiful wild animals like bears and tigers have no place

on trapeze wires or jumping through flames.”

The fur ban doesn’t apply to used products or those used for religious or tribal purposes. And it excludes the sale of leather, dog and cat fur, cowhides, deer, sheep and goat skin and any-thing preserved through taxidermy.

It could mark a significant blow to the fur industry that makes products from animals including mink, chinchillas, rabbits and other animals.

Fashion designers said they plan to stop using fur.

Under the California law,

there is a fine of up to $1,000 for multiple violations.

Also, California joins New Jersey and Hawaii in banning most animals from circus perform-ances. The law exempts domesti-cated dogs, cats and horses and does not apply to rodeos.

State officials said at least two circuses that include live animals were scheduled to perform in California this year. At least 18 circuses don’t use animals, including Cirque du Soleil.

The law includes penalties of up to $25,000 per day for each violation.


CROSSWORD MALL ROYAL PLAZA

Biennial Hamad bin Khalifa Symposium onIslamic Art at VCUarts Qatar on November 10THE PENINSULA DOHA

One of the world’s most prestigious events on the Islamic art and archi-tecture calendar, the eighth Biennial Hamad bin Khalifa Symposium on Islamic Art, will take place at Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts in Qatar (VCUarts Qatar) in Education City on November 10 and 11.

The Symposium takes place every two years and this year’s theme is, “The Seas and the Mobility of Islamic Art.” It will feature panel discussions and debates on subjects ranging from “Seas Imagined and Depicted in Middle Eastern Art, Maps and Geography” and “Tran-soceanic Movement, Muslim-Centred Design, and Architecture in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries” to “Islamic Art in 11th-14th Century Chinese Port Cities”.

Eminent scholars from institu-tions such as Columbia University,

University of Pennsylvania, SOAS University of London, University of Vienna, and University of Melbourne will be speaking at the Symposium.

The Symposium co-chairs will be VCUarts Qatar Art History pro-fessors Dr Radha Dalal, Dr Jochen

Sokoly, and Dr Sean Roberts. The Art History program at VCUarts Qatar is the only undergraduate degree program of its kind in the Gulf region and offers a distinctive concentration in Islamic art within a global perspective. The program

is designed to focus on the inter-change between the Islamic World, the Western World and the non-Islamic cultures of Asia.

The Symposium will include an exhibition at the University’s Gallery, titled, “The Sea is the Limit”. The exhibition will bring together works by international artists who are addressing the issues of ref-ugees, borders, migration and national identity. Using the lan-guage of painting, drawing, sculpture, video, installation and virtual reality, the artists explore some of the complex experiences and emotions associated with borders and migration, state-lessness and belonging. The opening reception will take place on November 10 at 5:30pm and the exhibition will run until Dec 7.

The Symposium will take place at VCUarts Qatar in Education City. Registration is free and available through http://islamicartdoha.org/registration/

VCUarts Qatar in Education City will host the 8th Biennial Hamad bin Khalifa Symposium on Islamic Art under the theme “The Seas and the Mobility of Islamic Art”.

THE PENINSULA/DOHA

The Women’s Branch of Qatar Charity Center for Community Development in Al Rayyan has launched a series of cultural, educa-tional, social and recreational programs, announcing that regis-tration is still open for women, girls and children. These programmes fall within Qatar Charity’s keenness to provide young people and students with a safe environment combining educational, scientific, cultural and recreational aspects, by using and applying a scientific method suitable for all participants.

Targeting children, girls, non-literate mothers, educated women,

and non-Arabic-speaking mothers, the four programs aim to teach them Arabic and the Holy Quran.

The programmes, which kicked off this month and will last until the end of December, include training courses, workshops, lectures, cul-tural events and competitions. Some 300 persons are expected to benefit from these activities.

One of these programme aims to provide a Quranic environment that includes the scientific, educa-tional and cultural aspects as role models. It also aims at consolidating the principles and values that con-tribute to building personality. The programme is expected to benefit 180 students, including mothers and

non-Arabic speaking women. Another programme aims to

teach children correct pronunci-ation of Arabic alphabets and letters and enhance their reading and writing skills, in addition to holding cultural activities to improve their acquired reading and writing

abilities. The programme targets 85 children aged 4 to 7 years.

The third programme offers an excellent opportunity for women and girls to memorize the Holy Quran completely. Some 20 female partic-ipants aged 16 or above are expected to benefit from this programme.

Children involved in various activities at Women’s Branch of Qatar Charity Center for Community Development in Al Rayyan.

QC launches educational programmes for children

Gemini Man is a American action thriller film directed by Ang Lee and written by David Benioff, Billy Ray, and Darren Lemke. Starring Will Smith, Mary Eliz-abeth Winstead, Clive Owen, and Benedict Wong.

Note: Programme is subject to change without prior notice.

GEMINI MAN

Adhya Rathri (2D/Malayalam) 2:30 & 9:00pm; Katapadi Kattappa (2D/Tulu) 3:00pmA Shaun The Sheep Movie: Faramageddon (2D/Animation) 2:30 & 5:00pm; Abominable (2D/Ani-mation) 6:00pm; The Sky is Pink (2D/Hindi) 4:30 & 11:30pm; Gemini Man (2D/Action) 7:00pmJoker (2D/Crime) 7:00 & 9:15pm; Ganagandharvan (2D/Malayalam) 4:30 & 11:30pm; War (2D/Hindi) 8:00 & 11:00pm; Petromax (2D/Tamil) 11:30pm;

Manoharam (2D/Malayalam) 11:00am & 6:30pmWar (2D/Hindi) 11:45am, 5:30 & 11:15pmGemini Man (3D/Action) 10:30am, 3:30 & 8;30pm; Gemini Man (2D/Action) 4:00 & 11:30pmAdhya Rathri (2D/Malayalam) 1:30 & 9:00pmThe Sky is Pink (2D/Hindi) 2:45 & 8:30pmJoker (2D/Crime) 1:00, 6:00 & 11:00pm

LANDMARK

AL KHOR

Manoharam (2D/Malayalam) 5:00, 7:30 & 10:00pmAdhya Rathri (2D/Malayalam) 5:30, 8:00 & 10:30pmAruvam (2D/Tamil) 3:30, 8:45 & 11:15pmWar (2D/Hindi) 6:00pm; The Sky is Pink (2D/Hindi) 6:00pmPetromax (2D/Tamil) 1:00 & 11:30pm

ASIAN TOWN

FLIK Mirqab Mall

ROXY

A Shaun The Sheep Movie: Faramageddon (2D/Animation) 4:30, 8:40

& 12:30pm

Adhya Rathri (2D/Malayalam) 3:00 & 8:30pm;

Abominable (2D/Animation) 2:20 & 6:20pm

Gemini Man (2D/Action) 12:30, 1:00, 5:40, 8:40, 10:50 & 11:10pm

Manoharam (2D/Malayalam) 12:30, 6:00 & 11:30pm

Joker (2D/Crime) 3:00, 3:20, 6:00, 8:10 & 10:50pm

The Sky is Pink (2D/Hindi) 3:10 & 8:40pm

Petromax (2D/Tamil) 12:30, 6:00 & 11:30pm

Abominable (2D/Animation) 11:45am, 1:30, 3:30, 4:10, 6:10 & 7:55pmAd Astra (2D/Adventure) 12:05 & 4:55pmGemini Man (2D/Action) 10:40, 11:10am, 12:20, 1:00, 2:40, 3:20, 5:00, 5:40, 7:20, 8:00, 9:40, 10;20pm & 12:00 midnight.Gemini Man (3D/Action) 11:20am, 1:40, 5:00, 6:20, 8:40 & 11:00pmJoker (2D/Crime) 10;45am, 11:45am, 1:10, 1:45, 2:10, 3:35, 4:35, 6:00, 7:00, 8;25, 9:25, 11:10 & 11:50pmWar (2D/Hindi) 8:10 & 10:50pm

War (2D/Hindi) 3:00 & 11:15pm; A Shaun The Sheep Movie: Faramageddon (2D/Animation) 5:00pm; Adhya Rathri (2D/Malayalam) 2:30 & 11:30pm; Manoharam (2D/Malayalam) 4:00pm; Gemini Man (2D/Action) 7:00 & 9:30pm; Joker (2D/Crime) 5:00, 7:15, 9:15 & 11:30pmPetromax (2D/Tamil) 6:00pm; The Sky is Pink (2D/Hindi) 8:30pm; Aruvam (2D/Tamil) 2:15pm

Manoharam (2D/Malayalam) 2:00pm Aruvam (2D/Tamil) 2:15pmGemini Man (2D/Action) 7:00pmThe Sky is Pink (2D/Hindi) 9:00pm;War (2D/Hindi) 2:00, 6:00, 8:45 & 11:30pm The Big Trip (2D/Animation) 4:15pm; Adhya Rathri (2D/Malayalam) 4:45 & 11:30pm; Joker (2D/Crime) 4:45, 7:00, 9:15 & 11:30pm

Autumn in Sweden

Authors shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction

20 MONDAY 14 OCTOBER 2019MORNING BREAK

WEATHER TODAY

Courtesy: Qatar Meteorology Department

Minimum Maximum31oC 37oC

HIGH TIDE 06:06 – 17:09 LOW TIDE 11:39 – 00:00

Misty at some places at first with local

clouds and a chance of rain at some

places by afternoon may be thundery and

slight dust to blowing.

FAJRSHOROOK

04. 15 AM05. 32 AM

11. 20 AM02.39 PM

05. 10 PM06. 40 PM

ZUHRASR

MAGHRIBISHA

PRAYER TIMINGS

People walking under colourful autumn trees next to Djurgarden canal in Stockholm, Sweden, yesterday. In the autumn, numerous tree species, such as pine, spruce, birch, oak and beech gain vibrant and contrasting colours in Sweden.

Danger of nomophobia is growing, says expertANATOLIA/ANKARA

Children are spending an exorbitant amount of time glued to their electronics, increasing the danger of nomophobia.

A study found that 66% of people in the Europe have nomophobia, that people cannot escape phones, said an expert.

A 2019 survey published by a Medi-acompany found that European teenagers (ages 13-18) averaged six and a half hours of screen time per day on social media and other activities such as video games.

A 2019 research center report found that 24% of 13-to-17-year-olds reported being online “almost constantly” and 73% had a smartphone or access to one.

The technology addiction survey was conducted with thousands of students and their families and the referral and follow-up of people with addiction was carried out. More teens are also starting to get addicted to their phones and other devices. So far, there is a term -”nomo-phobia”— to describe people who can’t escape the phone. One study found that 66% of people in the Europe have some form of nomophobia.

With all this overuse of the telephone, a group of neuroscientists wanted to find out if exposure is hurting neurological health, especially in children and ado-lescents whose brains are still developing. The research team at the University of Korea in Seoul, South Korea recently pub-lished a study that found that being addicted to smartphones creates a chemical brain imbalance linked to

depression and anxiety in young people.In Turkey, a project office has been

established in 2017 in Pamukkale district of Denizli province, under the direction of Governor Hayrettin Balcioglu and coordinator of educator Sinan Demircan, carry out projects of conscious and safe use of technology. Every year, on March 13, World Nomophobia Day is celebrated. Nomophobia studies on the use of social media and harmful content, which address all segments of the society, are continuing every year in order to make cybersecurity and academic social cul-tural activities efficient.

“The researchers assessed the severity of addiction in adolescents by analyzing their productivity, feelings, social life, and daily routines. They found that teens addicted to their phones had higher rates of anxiety, depression, impulse control problems, and sleep dis-orders than other teens the same age,” Deniz Unay, social media expert told Anadolu Agency in an exclusive interview.

“The researchers used a technology called magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) to track the movement of biochem-icals in teenagers’ brains. They analyzed a chemical called, which is involved in motor control and vision, and regulates brain function. Excessive GABA can lead to anxiety.” Unay said. He went on to say that they also observed levels of gluta-mate-glutamine (Glx), a neurotransmitter that causes arousal in brain nerve cells. The amount of these chemicals we have in our brains affects our emotions and

cognitive ability. Thus, addiction, anxiety and depression can result when these chemicals are unbalanced.

“The amount of these two chemicals in the study participants clearly showed that the brain was altered due to smart phone addiction. They saw how GABA decreased brain function, resulting in less attention and control. So when people are so connected to the phone, they are basically destroying their ability to con-centrate. In addition, they observed how addicted adolescents had significantly higher levels of anxiety, depression, insomnia, and impulsivity,” he added.

Describing the result of the study as “worrying”, he said that there is a con-nection between extensive telephone use and negative brain changes and regardless of the age of children, people can start thinking about how to stop addiction to phones and other electronic devices before they become too attached or even addicted. “Learn more about technology addiction and see if your kids are having problems. Consider taking this test online. Seek professional help so they can undergo cognitive behavioural therapy. Show attention to help break your kid’s technology habit. Apply tech-nology usage rules, such as storing gadgets during dinner and homework, and while driving. Turn off notifications from social media apps like Facebook and Twitter on your phone. Turning off notifications will slightly reduce our curi-osity for posts posted on social media,” he suggested.

Facebook researchers use maths for better translationsAFP/PARIS

Designers of machine translation tools still mostly rely on diction-aries to make a foreign language understandable. But now there is a new way: Numbers.

Facebook researchers say rendering words into figures and exploiting mathematical simi-larities between languages is a promising avenue— even if a universal communicator a la Star Trek remains a distant dream.

Powerful automatic

translation is a big priority for internet giants. Allowing as many people as possible worldwide to communicate is not just an altru-istic goal, but also good business.

Facebook, Google and Microsoft as well as Russia’s Yandex, China’s Baidu and others are constantly seeking to improve their translation tools.

Facebook has artificial intel-ligence experts on the job at one of its research labs in Paris.

Up to 200 languages are cur-rently used on Facebook, said

Antoine Bordes, European co-director of fundamental AI research for the social network.

Automatic translation is cur-rently based on having large databases of identical texts in both languages to work from. But for many language pairs there just aren’t enough such parallel texts. That’s why researchers have been looking for another method, like the system developed by Facebook which creates a mathematical repre-sentation for words.

Each word becomes a “vector” in a space of several hundred dimensions. Words that have close associations in the spoken lan-guage also find themselves close to each other in this vector space. “For example, if you take the words ‘cat’ and ‘dog’, semantically, they are words that describe a similar thing, so they will be extremely close together physi-cally” in the vector space, said Guillaume Lample, one of the sys-tem’s designers. “If you take words like Madrid, London, Paris,

which are European capital cities, it’s the same idea.” These lan-guage maps can then be linked to one another using algorithms—at first roughly, but eventually becoming more refined, until entire phrases can be matched without too many errors.

Lample said results are already promising. For the lan-guage pair of English-Romanian, Facebook’s current machine translation system is “equal or maybe a bit worse” than the word vector system, said Lample.

‘Joker’ tops North American box office for second weekAFP/WASHINGTON

Warner Bros.’ “Joker” laughed best again this weekend as it took in an estimated $55m in North American movie theaters, an industry group reported yesterday.

Starring Joaquin Phoenix, “Joker” provides the backstory for the rise of Batman’s maniacal nemesis, painting a dark and disturbing portrayal of a would-be stand-up come-dian’s descent into madness.

Last week, the film directed by Todd Phillips -- maker of “The Hangover” trilogy -- set a record for an October release, taking in $93.5m in its first weekend, Exhibitor Relations said. United Artist’s family- and Halloween-friendly “The Addams Family” placed second, scaring up an estimated $30.3m for its opening weekend.

It follows the mysterious and spooky Addams family as they prepare for a visit from some even creepier relatives.

Turkish-British author Elif Shafak poses with her book, ‘10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World’, during the photo call for the authors shortlisted for the 2019 Booker Prize for Fiction at Southbank Centre in London, yesterday. Also seen are (from left) US-born British novelist Lucy Ellmann (Ducks, Newburyport), British author Bernardine Evaristo (Girl, Woman, Other), Canadian author Margaret Atwood (The Testaments) and Nigerian author Chigozie Obioma (An Orchestra of Minorities).

Man-eating tiger capturedIANS/BENGALURU

The man-eating tiger, which was at large for five days, was tracked down and safely captured in Karnataka’s Bandipur reserve forest yesterday after tranquilising it, an official said.

“The tiger was captured late in the afternoon with the help of Soliga tribals, who spotted it hiding in a bush,” state Chief Wildlife Warden Sanjay Mohan, who was supervising opera-tions from outside the forest, said. The tiger, aged 4 to 6 years, had killed two men since last month and a search was on for the animal since October 9 in the 872km Bandipur forest in the state’s Chamarajanagar district, about 220km southwest of Bengaluru.

Soligas, who are experts in hunting the wild animals in the forests, found the tiger hiding in a thick bush and guided the guards and the vets to the spot.

“The tiger was hit by a tran-quiliser dart by forest guards atop on an elephant based on the Soligas’ cues, but that attempt failed as it recovered quickly from the impact of the dart and crossed over a stream into another thicket. As a result, the Soligas had to again track it down,” said Mohan. The Soligas, however, managed to spot it again and enable the big cat be hit with another dart, which succeeded in immobi-lising it, he said. “As the tiger lay unconscious after it was tranquilised, the forest guards brought it out in a net with the help of the Soligas,” Mohan said.

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Monday 14 October 2019 | 15 Safar 1441 …€¦ · 14/10/2019 · making it the busiest season so far, according to Mwani Qatar. Mein Schiff 5 will be the first cruise ship of the