Kuwaiti-Kurdish ties deep-rooted: Barzani - Kuwait Times

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THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013 RABI ALAWAL 5, 1434 AH www.kuwaittimes.net
Two killed
as helicopter
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in London
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TOKYO: Japan’s two biggest airlines yesterday took half
the global Dreamliner fleet out of service on safety
grounds after an emergency landing by an ANA flight
brought new trouble for Boeing’s next-generation plane.
But carriers including All Nippon Airways insisted that
the highly fuel-efficient 787 Dreamliner was still a safe
bet, despite several incidents that have prompted investigations
by US and other aviation regulators. ANA - the
world’s first carrier to receive the Dreamliner from Boeing
after years of delays - said smoke possibly connected to a
faulty battery forced the pilots to land the passenger
plane in Takamatsu, southwestern Japan.
The airline said cockpit instruments had detected the
smoke inside a forward electrical compartment, and
Japanese Transport Minister Akihiro Ota said it was a
“serious incident that could have led to a serious accident”.
One of the 129 passengers on the Tokyo-bound
domestic flight was quoted by broadcaster NHK as saying
he “smelled something strange” after take-off and feared
the plane was going to crash. Nobody was seriously
injured when the passengers and eight crew members
evacuated via emergency chutes.
ANA and its rival Japan Airlines (JAL) - among Boeing’s
biggest customers for the Dreamliner - said they would
ground their entire 787 fleets through today at least,
pending safety checks. ANA has 17 Dreamliners in its
fleet and JAL has seven - half the total of 49 planes in
operation worldwide. Boeing has orders for nearly 850.
Continued on Page 13
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IRBIL, Iraq: President of the Iraqi Kurdistan region
Masoud Barzani stressed that Kuwait-Kurdish relations
are deep-rooted and Kurdish leaders always rejected
the abusive practices of the Iraqi governments towards
Kuwait before 2003. Welcoming a Kuwaiti media delegation
currently visiting the region at the Salahuddin
Resort in Irbil, Barzani expressed his happiness at the
visit and termed it a good gesture by ‘a group of highly
educated Kuwaiti elite’ who wish to have a closer look at
the region.
“Relations between Kuwait and Kurdistan region are
very strong and we have a lot in common - as peoples,
we both suffered from the Baath regime of Saddam
Hussein. For three decades, the Kurdish people went
through what the Kuwaiti people suffered during the
Iraqi invasion,” he underlined. Barzani also recalled that
when the former Iraqi president Abdul Kareem Qassim
erred against Kuwait in the 1960s, Mulla Mustafa
Barzani, his father, rejected and opposed his claims. He
also noted that he had always felt closely related to
Kuwaiti politicians and has utmost respect for HH the
Amir.
Barzani also called for a direct flight from Kuwait to
the Kurdistan region to help boost both peoples’ communications.
On the opportunities that the region
offers to foreign investors, Barzani stressed that the
region’s investment law is one of the best worldwide.
On the rise of Islamist movements in Kurdistan, Barzani
stressed that they formed no more than 16 percent of
the region’s population and enjoy freedom and democracy
to a great extent as long as they remain within the
limits of democracy and law. “We have no problem with
either the Islamist blocs or any other movements,” he
reiterated, reminding that, at the same time, a policy of
zero tolerance towards any security threats or calls to
spread anarchy in the region.
On yesterday’s Kirkuk blasts that claimed many innocent
lives, Barzani stressed that terrorism was a dangerous
phenomenon threatening everybody in Iraq.
However, he assured that the security situation was relatively
stable in Kurdistan.
Continued on Page 2
Ambitious
Bayern hand
the reins to
Guardiola
20
Kuwaiti-Kurdish ties
deep-rooted: Barzani
President of Iraq’s Kurdistan region meets Kuwaiti journalists
KUWAIT: Opposition supporters take part in a demonstration to demand the dissolution
of the National Assembly in Riqqa yesterday. — Photo by Yasser Al-Zayyat
Govt wants to impose VAT
By B Izzak and A Saleh
KUWAIT: The government yesterday
told the National Assembly that it
plans to submit 56 draft laws on a variety
of issues that should be accorded
priority by MPs, including a draft law
on value added tax (VAT). The list of
priorities will have to be worked out by
the Assembly and the government and
later fixed dates will be set for the
debate on these issues. The Assembly
will also submit its own set of priorities
HIV is turned
against itself
in AIDS ‘cure’
SYDNEY: An Australian scientist said yesterday he had
discovered a way to turn the HIV virus against itself in
human cells in the laboratory, in an important
advance in the quest for an AIDS cure. David Harrich
from the Queensland Institute of Medical Research
said he modified a protein in HIV that normally helps
the virus spread, into a “potent” inhibitor. The protein
was introduced to immune cells targeted by the
human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), where it
slowed the reproduction of the virus after infection.
The experiments were conducted in a lab dish, and
thorough testing on lab animals is needed before any
human trials can begin. “I have never seen anything
like it. The modified protein works every time,” said
Harrich. Harrich’s team, whose study is published in
the journal Human Gene Therapy, said the modified
protein dubbed Nullbasic inhibited virus replication
about eight- to ten-fold in some cells. “If this research
continues down its strong path, and bear in mind
there are many hurdles to clear, we’re looking at a
cure for AIDS,” the researcher said.
Commenting on the study, Frank Wegmann, an
Oxford University HIV vaccine researcher, told AFP a
Nullbasic-based drug was “quite far from application”.
Continued on Page 13
and then the two sides will agree on a
united list.
The government’s list includes a
draft law stipulating the imposition of
VAT for the first time in Kuwait. Details
of the proposed legislation were not
provided. Also on the list is a government
proposal to amend a 1995 law
that bans the imposition of charges on
public services or raising them without
a law that must be passed by the
Assembly. Also, there were no details
Continued on Page 2
SABZEVAR, Iran: An Iranian officer lashes a man convicted of rape in the northeastern
city yesterday. Rape, like murder and treason, can be punished by the
death sentence in Iran, but sometimes judges impose a sentence of lashes
before execution or imprisonment. — AP
Max 19º
Min 09º
High Tide
03:03 & 15:57
Low Tide
09:48 & 22:12
IRBIL, Iraq: President of the Iraqi Kurdistan region Masoud Barzani meets Kuwait
Times General Manager Badrya Darwish at the Salahuddin Resort yesterday. — KUNA
Japan airlines ground Dreamliners
ALGIERS/MARKALA, Mali: French troops battled
Islamist rebels in Mali yesterday as Al Qaedalinked
fighters claimed to have taken 41 foreigners
hostage in a retaliatory attack in neighbouring
Algeria. After days of airstrikes on Islamist
positions in the northern territory the rebels
seized in April, French and Malian troops battled
the insurgents in the small town of Diabaly, some
400 km north of the capital Bamako. In a dramatic
development over the border in Algeria,
Islamists claimed to be holding 41 foreigners
hostage, including seven Americans, after an
attack on a gas field in the country’s east.
“Forty-one westerners including seven
Americans, French, British and Japanese citizens
have been taken hostage,” a spokesman for the
Islamists told the Mauritanian News Agency as
TAKAMATSU, Japan: An All Nippon Airways flight sits at Takamatsu airport after it made an emergency landing
yesterday. — AP
Islamists seize hostages
in Algeria gas field raid
France launches ground campaign in Mali
well as Sahara Media. The attack was the first
reprisal by the Islamists for the French air and
ground assault that began on Jan 11. It comes
after Algeria threw its support behind the Mali
offensive and opened its airspace to French
fighter jets.
Algerian state media said two foreigners,
including a Briton, had been killed and six
wounded, in the dawn raid on a bus carrying
engineers near a gas field. “We are members of
Al-Qaeda and we came from northern Mali,” an
Islamic militant told AFP by telephone in claiming
responsibility for the attack. He said his group
belonged to a fighting unit led by renowned
one-eyed jihadist Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a former
Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) leader.
Continued on Page 13
Mokhtar Belmokhtar

‘No punishment’ making
students more rebellious
By Nawara Fattahova
No respect for teachers
KUWAIT: Students in Kuwait are now much more rebellious
than in the past. One of the main reasons for this
behavior is the Ministry of Education decree of early 1990s
vintage which ordered schools and guardians to refrain
from punishing the students. Most people, including
teachers and parents, feel that teachers nowadays are not
as respected as they were in the past. Reports about students
assaulting their teachers and indulging in violence
are published frequently.
“I think that corporal punishment should be meted out
to students if they deserve it. That is how we were raised.
We were punished by the teachers when we were children.
Otherwise the students, especially at an early stage,
will not respect the teacher. I witnessed some of their
reckless behavior. They rudely tell the teachers that their
parents are paying money for them to study and they are
not receiving education for free, so they have the freedom
to do whatever they want. Of course, such punishment
should not be excessive or cause harm or serious injury to
the child,” Ahmad, a 56-year-old father, told the Kuwait
Times.
Teachers agree that students these days are a mutinous
lot, but they say they find ways to punish them. “It was
always a tradition to punish the naughty students, but
around 1993, the Ministry forbade physical punishment to
students and asked the teacher to restrict the punishment
to marks or termination for three days by the school
administration. I do not think it has proven very effective,
especially in case of careless students who are not bothered
about their marks and come to school only because
they are forced by their parents,” said Hasan, 51-year-old
teacher of English language at an Arabic public school.
For Hasan, the decree mattered little as he always had a
rather great rapport with his students. “I was always trying
to treat my students nicely and have friendly relations
with them. Even when I wanted to punish them, it was
always gentle to make them feel as if I was their older
brother, and I only had their best interest in my mind,” he
added.
According to him, the new generation was not open to
the idea of accepting punishment and they also see great
gap between their generation and the older generation of
teachers, especially those above 50 years of age. “They
see us as hailing from the dinosaur era as, unlike them, we
are far removed from new technology and social media.
They think they know more than us, so they refuse to be
punished,” stressed Hasan.
“The school has its own internal rules for study and to
deal with behaviorial issues which are in harmony with the
Ministry’s rules and decrees. So teachers can punish the
students with marks, but they are not allowed to use
deduction of marks as a threat. Also, a student can be terminated
for three days, and if the days of his termination
reached 15, he will not be able to sit in the exams. Usually,
the teacher complains to the supervisor, and the school
administration then takes action,” he pointed out.
He was once assaulted in the class by a student and
had to complain to the administration, resulting in the termination
of the student for three days. “The student then
collected his friends to talk to me to refrain from the termination
decision. I asked that he apologize in front of the
class, and he did. Still, he was terminated by the school
administration. I think this was a punishment that he
deserved,” concluded Hasan.
Govt wants to impose VAT, new charges
Continued from Page 1
on what the government needs
to amend in the law. Government
attempts to introduce such legislations
were rejected by previous
national assemblies when the opposition
either controlled the house or
had an important presence.
Among other bills on the government’s
list is a legislation calling to
amend the penal code to change
the duration of detention which
was sharply reduced by the previous
opposition-dominated
Assembly. The government also
wants to add a new article to the
penal code which will ban gatherings
outside courts or justice offices
in order to prevent any attempt to
influence the decisions of judges.
The government also asked for
according priority to a draft law for
fighting money laundering and
counter-terrorism. Similarly, the
government asked for priority to a
key amendment to the civil service
law to deal with strikes and work
stoppages.
The government also sought early
debate on a number of draft laws
calling to establish a telecommunications
commission, a roads and
transport authority, a food authority
and civil aviation authority. The government
also requested that a draft
law combating trafficking in persons
should be on the priority list.
After discussing the priorities of the
Assembly and government, the
office of the assembly will approve
the final list to be debated as soon
as possible.
In other developments, the constitutional
court postponed until
Feb 5 nine petitions against the
elections. No ruling is expected on
that date on these petitions as more
deliberations are expected. The
court has already dealt with around
20 out of 56 petitions it has received
against the Dec 1 elections, some of
which are against the results and
others against the Amiri decree that
amended the electoral constituency
electoral law.
Member of the scrapped 2012
Assembly and opposition figure
Hamad Al-Matar said yesterday that
he will seek international recourse
and the help of international human
rights bodies against a decision to
prevent him from travelling. Matar, a
university professor, said it is illogical
to prevent a university professor
from leaving the country for a small
case and warned that if the ban was
not lifted, he will seek help from
international bodies.
LOCAL
Continued from Page 1
“Iraq has been going through a real dilemma and
everybody should stick to the constitution and work
together on sparing Iraq going through possible disasters.
Only then, we will all be able to find solutions and
ways out of this dilemma,” he said.
Moreover, Barzani stressed that he wholeheartedly
supported the demands of protestors in Anbar governorate
and any other city provided everybody fully
observes the constitution and prevents Al-Qaeda elements
from penetrating their groups and seizing the
THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013
IRBIL, Iraq: President of the Iraqi Kurdistan region Masoud Barzani meets a Kuwaiti media delegation at the
Salahuddin Resort yesterday. — KUNA
Kuwaiti-Kurdish ties deep-rooted: Barzani
opportunity for their own benefit.
Commenting on the situation in Syria, Barzani said
that in collaboration with UN organizations, Kurdistan
has sent large quantities of relief aid to the Syrian people.
He also expressed his readiness to coordinate with
Kuwaiti NGOs to pass the aid to the displaced Syrians.
“Kurds in Syria are only seeking their rights - they have
no ambitions to grab power or authority and they realize
that the Syrian people have every right to determine
their own destiny,” he concluded, reminding that he had
rejected repeated requests from the chairman of the
Syrian transitional council to intervene in the conflict.

LOCAL
‘Priority to Kuwaitis’ at clinics
proposal sparks debate
‘Most absurd idea ever by an MP’
By Ben Garcia
KUWAIT: Reports about a proposal by an MP to
accord priority to Kuwaitis in local hospitals and
clinics have gone viral among the expatriates
community which said the scheme, if passed,
would be a huge blunder. Expatriates comprise
nearly two thirds of Kuwait’s population. The
proposal has generated a rather rabid debate on
the social media where netizens are calling it
“the most absurd and stupidest idea ever by an
MP.”
MP Nawaf Al-Fuzai submitted the proposal
urging the Ministry of Health to accord priority
to Kuwaitis at public hospitals and clinics. Al-
Fuzai, who is a lawyer by profession, made the
proposal claiming Kuwaiti patients usually have
to wait for a long time before they are examined
by the doctors.
Although he suggested that expatriates in an
emergency situation must be exempted from
having to wait till the Kuwaiti patients are
cleared, some expats said medical services must
be made available on an equal basis to everyone,
regardless of their social status or nationality.
Meanwhile, an expatriate doctor to whom
Kuwait Times spoke to said, “Irrespective of
whether you are poor or rich, you should receive
the same amount of care and treatment from
the hospitals and clinics.”
Wishing to remain anonymous, the expat
doctor admitted that discrimination often happened
in according priority at the hospitals in
KUWAIT: His Highness the Amir
Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah
assured a team of MPs he met on
Tuesday that the government plans
to build five new public hospitals,
construct 80,000 houses on allocated
lands, and transform the Failaka
Island into a national touristic site,
several local newspapers reported
yesterday.
MP Tahir Al-Failakawi briefed the
media about the meeting which was
attended by MPs Abdullah Al-
Ma’youf, Khalid Al-Shulaimi, Badr Al-
Bathali, Hammad Al-Dousari,
Mohammad Al-Jabri, Saad Al-Bous,
Nasser Al-Shemmari and Mubarak
Al-Urf. “HH the Amir urged [the par-
Kuwait. “We all know that certain medicines are
only given to Kuwaitis. We all know that there
are services available exclusively to Kuwaitis and
expats can avail of these only on payment. The
prioritizing on nationality basis was a bad idea
and is akin to rubbing salt into expats’ wounds,”
he said.
“Nowhere in the world will you see a hospital
giving priority to a class of patients on such a
basis. We cannot do that, we cannot discriminate
against someone while treating or seeing a
patient. Why propose a law to legalize discrimination?”
A Kuwaiti employee, however, seemed to
agree with the MP’s proposal. “I think it is the
right of every Kuwaiti citizen to be treated without
facing any problems in any of our hospitals
since these are our own facilities and our government
has a sworn duty to protect us and
enact a law that will make our lives easier. So
there is nothing wrong in it. I agree with the MP
since he is protecting our rights and interest. If
Al-Fuzai wants to prioritize Kuwaitis in the hospital
because they have not enough beds, I think
there is nothing wrong.”
An expat teacher disagreed with the proposal
since expat patients pay for the treatment.
“Expats are paying their medical insurance, and
a little percentage visits the hospitals in any given
year. So, most of the money goes into funding
the services provided by the hospital,” he
commented. “If the Kuwaitis do not want to wait,
I think the Kuwaiti government should build
liament to ensure] top focus on
achievements, law enforcement and
meeting the ambitions of the
Kuwaiti people,” MP Al-Ma’youf told
Al-Rai.
The reports came even as the
cabinet submitted to the parliament
yesterday a list containing issues it
wished to give priority in discussion
during future sessions.
In other news, First Deputy Prime
Minister and Minister of Interior,
Sheikh Ahmad Al-Hmoud Al-Sabah,
revealed in exclusive statements to
Al-Rai that priority for naturalization
of stateless residents this year is
going to be given to servicemen. The
government had submitted a draft
law setting a maximum limit of 2000
for stateless residents to be naturalized
annually.
Minister Al-Sabah also indicated
that the ministry is currently studying
the recommendations passed
following a session last week that
was allocated to discuss the security
situation in the country, adding that
the ministry is committed to “work
effortlessly to implement as many
recommendations as we possibly
can.” Al-Sabah also indicated that the
ministry was preparing to submit “its
vision to resolve the traffic crisis” during
a parliamentary session next
March allocated to discuss this topic.
Moving to another subject, Military
special hospitals for Kuwaitis only or they should
set up a separate counter and separate doctor’s
rooms to serve only Kuwaitis. The problem is
what will they do if they have 300 patients, all
Kuwaitis, at the same time? Again, they will have
to wait in a queue,” he noted.
A Filipino nurse noted that such a proposal is
merely and virtually calling for legalizing what
was being practiced in any case since long. “We
have been witnessing certain biases already in
favor of Kuwaitis since a long time, but we do
not complain as we understand that they should
be given priority because after all they are
Kuwaitis and this is their own country. What I do
not like is legalizing the discrimination. It is bad
for the country and it could harm them in the
long term.”
Prior to a residence permit being issued or
renewed in Kuwait, every expat is obliged to pay
the government a health insurance premium in
return for a health card. By law, the sponsoring
company will have to pay the obligatory KD 50
for an adult and KD 30 per child. After paying the
amount, one is entitled to receive medical treatment
at any government hospital or clinic on
payment of KD 2 per visit at any hospital and
KD1 in case of polyclinics.
Hospital services such as x-rays, operations,
laboratory tests and medicines are usually free
but payment is required in case of specialized
laboratory tests including MRI and CT scans.
Nevertheless, the costs are still very low as compared
to other countries.
Amir promises 5 hospitals,
‘touristic’ Failaka
Chief of Staff Lieutenant General
Sheikh Khalid Al-Jarrah Al-Sabah told
Al-Rai on Tuesday that joint maneuvers
featuring the Gulf Shield troops
as well as troops of other countries
including the United States, the
United Kingdom and France, are set
to take place near Kuwait’s Northern
borders starting from February 10,
2013.
Lt. Gen. Al-Sabah insisted at the
same time that the maneuvers were
not related to any regional developments.
“The training is aimed to
improve the Gulf Shield troops in
order to boost the joint defense of
the Gulf Cooperation Council states,”
he added.
THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013
KUWAIT: Ministry of Public Works announced that 22.4 % of the work at the Jahra
Road Project has been completed and the first five prefabricated pieces have been
affixed along the slope between the Hospitals Road and the Jahra Road. Project
Engineer Yasser Bu Dastour told reporters that the percentage of the project
achieved is compatible with the pre-determined work schedule and work is in
progress to fix the bridge pieces before the UN roundabout.

kuwait digest
A strange
attitude
By Aziza Al-Mufarrej
Despite all the problems we are suffering from
and which should have been solved a long
time ago, despite the three million expatriates
rendering a million natives into a minority, despite
the traffic jams that now mar even the inner city residential
areas and make one hate having to leave
one’s house to run an errand, despite the tremendous
pressure on state-provided civic amenities which has
affected their quality and speed of delivery, despite
the crime rate zooming every year, despite so many
things that are not in the interest of the country, the
interior ministry has come up with a new circular.
It has now decided to lift the ban on certain
nationalities which were earlier debarred from entering
Kuwait citing reasons that had to do with threat
of terrorism and drug trade. The decision smacks of a
strange attitude as if Kuwait lacked enough problems
of its own already. The interior ministry has opened
the door for family visas for Syrians, Yemenis, Iraqis,
Iranians, Pakistanis and Afghanistanis. It will not be a
long before we see the children of people of these
nationalities gathered at the traffic signals or cooperatives’
parking lots begging under the garb of selling
trinkets.
Such influx of more expatriates from new nationalities
will lead to new criminal gangs of thieves. As it
is, there is no dearth of gangs in Kuwait. The more
skilled among them will undertake a training course
on our cars in garages. Some wives and mothers of
these new expatriates will have their share of activities
and will be seen moving around charity societies
“If the country maintains the
same policy, Kuwaitis will find
themselves no more than one tenth
of the entire population one day.”
and Beit Al-Zakat to receive their share. Some will
indulge in the practice of sorcery, something the
Abdaly border post bears mute witness to.
The interior ministry has left it wide open for expat
employees in both government and private sectors
to bring in their wives and children on the basis that
they can share the burden of their livelihoods
although it knows well that this is not true. It is well
aware about the fact that some people resort to forging
their salary certificates in order to be eligible to
bring in their families, especially in the private sector.
Let the interior ministry excuse us but this is a
decision that lacks wisdom. What will Kuwait gain
from allowing in families of these expats, especially
when it is overcrowded with tailors, bakers, carpenters,
constructors, Nikhi and Bajilla vendors, drugs
traders and smugglers - these are professions some
of the expats have excelled in, so why do we need
more? We used to criticize the UAE saying we could
hardly notice one Emeriti citizen among thousands of
expats in streets and markets. Now, it seems that criticism
will come back to our doors to haunt us as we
are trundling down the same road. I do not think the
Interior Minister is unaware that Kuwaitis make up for
less that one third of the population. Who knows if
they find themselves making up for only one tenth
some day if the country continued with such a stupid
policy. We ask His Excellency, the Minister of Interior,
will you play your role as someone tasked with keeping
our country secure, using the authority you have
or will you let things keep running the way they are
doing? — Al-Watan
kuwait digest
The problem
in our country
By Jaafar Rajab
The problem in our country is that a student, who
spends his time on three network-connected
devices in his room, has to enter a computer lab
at school and sit in front of an outdated computer
while the teacher teaches the class how to ‘click Start’
and ‘press Delete.’
The problem in our country is that while Kuwaitis
sit down to talk about freedoms and the best ways to
ensure more freedoms and spread democratic awareness,
the government at the same time believes that
all problems can be resolved by suppressing the people.
The problem in our country is that while a Kuwaiti
can watch all kinds of movies and read all kinds of
books he can download on his personal computer, the
“Kuwait is a country with smart,
developed and educated people
governed by an unintelligent,
underdeveloped and ignorant
government.”
government still maintains an active censorship
department which bans publications with contents
deemed ‘offensive.’
The problem in our country is that while a Kuwaiti
can easily finalize procedures with companies worldwide
through the internet and shop online without
any difficulty, he has to suffer at the same time when
he wants to finalize a transaction at a state department
which can take months.
The problem in our country is that people realize
that democracy cannot be achieved without law
enforcement, commitment to the constitution and
freedom, but the government still believes that
democracy is represented only through the fifty members
of the parliament.
The problem in our country is that there are highly
qualified human resources who can work in almost all
specialized fields, yet ministers, undersecretaries and
other senior public sector officials are appointed as
per their origins, religious belief or other social categorization.
It is a problem when the people of a certain
country are more qualified to run the state than their
own government.—Al-Rai
LOCAL
Why did they change mind?
Whoever has keenly followed the various marches and
demonstrations organized under the Karamat Watan
theme, will know that many of opposition political
factions, led by the Muslim Brotherhood Party in Kuwait, started
withdrawing gradually from these protests in an attempt to
let these be linked to members of the tribes only since they
are the staunchest opponents of government’s policy.
Some of those political factions, which could be more
accurately described as the hidden parties led by the Muslim
Brotherhood, were primarily opposed to the one vote decree
and participated in the first unlicensed march near Sabah Al-
Salem area demanding that it be scrapped. But once they realized
that the government was adamant on not withdrawing it,
and their leaders had had a meeting with HH the Amir, the
stand of these factions began to
shift gradually.
The Democratic Alliance which
had participated in several
demonstrations against former
Prime Minister HH Sheikh Nasser
Al-Mohammad decided to resort
to the constitutional court and
stopped participating in these
marches altogether in order to
keep the door open for a comeback
in the future.
If the court now rules to cancel
the decree and conduct the elections
according to the four votes
per voter system and retains the
five constituencies, it will become
a hero in the eyes of many Kuwaiti
people because it used a constitutional tool instead of taking
to the street and triggering chaos. It can then claim that it
achieved the goal which many of those who boycotted the
elections were longing to. If, however, the court rules in favor
of the decree, then it will offer an excuse that it respects the
constitution and will defer to it and participate in the politics
as it had consistently maintained.
As for the Muslim Brotherhood Party, they found the
opportunity in the one vote decree to achieve their main goal
which is to demand a popular Prime Minister in order to grab
the power, a tactic that succeeded in Egypt and Tunisia. They
participated enthusiastically in the first march, and the
Kuwaitis saw the interaction between the Brotherhood members
and their youth during this unlicensed march. They also
saw the Brotherhood’s scathing statements against the government.
However, the Muslim Brotherhood began withdrawing
gradually from demonstrations and marches, and their ideologues
issued an edict that the ruler must be obeyed. They
directed their followers not to participate in demonstrations
and marches, especially the unlicensed ones, in order to preserve
the country’s stability and to keep saboteurs from using
In more than one article, we pointed to the fact that
the Kuwaiti opposition suffered setbacks as far as
its political positioning was concerned and even
the crowds that its rallies attracted have been dwindling.
The leadership of the opposition seems listless.
They lost the chance to participate in the elections
held as per the one man- one vote formula, and found
themselves edged out of the political game. They are
now left with no constitution-
al tools, or legal tools, or any
other logic to object to the
laws issued by the National
Assembly Council. They have
no means to object to the
decisions being taken by the
government.
It has also started losing
significantly its political position
as far as the number of
those participating in its rallies
or gatherings was concerned.
A large number of
youth left them after they had
to face the police, which took
them to the court by filing
cases against them. Though
we did not want it to happen,
we were expecting that the
organizers of the rallies would
be caught by crime sleuths or political detectives.
The opposition thinks that it can still question the
Prime Minister or the ministers about the performance
of their ministries even though it no more enjoys
the earlier exalted position. It thinks it can question
the decisions made or procedures adopted by the
government. Had the opposition allowed, when it was
Do not allow yourself to be used
as tools in the hands of such political
factions. Do not allow your youth to
be used as a fuel when such factions
are trying to set your country on fire.
Many Brotherhood members participated
in the demonstrations at
Qurtuba, and we say this is indeed
true, but they participated to fulfill
their personal political gains only.
kuwait digest
By Hamad Salem Al-Merri
such marches to cause chaos and damage.
Ironically, the same people, before their meeting with the
political leadership, were maintaining that the demonstrations
must be allowed and the decree must be cancelled. Why did
they change their mind? Was it not for the sake of their partisan
interests? So, you, the leaders of the tribes, must pay
attention to what is going on behind closed doors, as all political
factions that were instigating all of you to participate in the
demonstrations started keeping a door open so that they
could catapult back, leaving you to confront the authorities.
Do not allow yourself to be used as tools in the hands of
such political factions. Do not allow your youth to be used as a
fuel when such factions are trying to set your country on fire.
Many Brotherhood members participated in the demonstrations
at Qurtuba, and we say
this is indeed true, but they partici-
pated to fulfill their personal political
gains only. If the Muslim
Brotherhood had participated as a
political party, we would have
seen all their members as we did
during the first march since this is
a highly organized cadre-based
party and has experience in dealing
with current events, and
knows how to use these in its
favor.
The attempt to hark back to
Karamat Watan rallies, which were
linked to the Muslim Brotherhood,
makes it clear that the demonstrations
were being organized in tribal
areas, particularly in Sabah Al-Nasser, every now and then as
a bid to link the opposition with only the tribes.
The repeated calls by Karamat Watan organizers were in
tune with what the book preaches while keeping such
protests non-violent. This book is taught at the Nahdha for
change institute which is managed by Hisham Morsi, one of
the three authors of the book. He is the son-in-law of the
Muslim Brotherhood ideologist Dr. Yousuf Al-Qardhawi.
The aim of this book is to use demonstrations to achieve
the main goal of changing the regimes by claiming that these
are peaceful marches and that the people have a right to
express their opinions. If the people became used to such
demonstrations, some will indulge in actions like blocking
roads and throwing stones at policemen.
In case the public lent its support, they will take their
actions further and destroying cars and public property, then
clash with policemen till the lar and order collapses and chaos
prevails. This will be a window of opportunity for the
Brotherhood members and their supporters who will then rise
to demand a change of regime as happened in the Arab
Spring countries. Is there anyone among the tribes who can
see things clearly? — Al-Watan
Opposition in weak position
The opposition thinks that it can
still question the Prime Minister or
the ministers about the performance
of their ministries even though it no
more enjoys the earlier exalted position.
It thinks it can question the
decisions made or procedures
adopted by the government. Had the
opposition allowed, when it was in
the council, the minority to impose
its opinion and ask the ministers and
the Prime Minister about the performance
of their ministries?
kuwait digest
By Hamad Al-Sarie
in the council, the minority to impose its opinion and
ask the ministers and the Prime Minister about the
performance of their ministries? Putting the youth on
the front line and asking them to face the authority
without standing alongside them was a wrong thing
to do. That some well known people involved with
political work and some university professors
opposed to the government indulged in this is a sad
fact. They led the youth to think that what they were
doing was something legal
and normal.
The opposition has maintained
contacts with the
authorities as declared by
one of its members, but that
does not mean that the
authorities will buckle before
their demands. The opposition
should now prepare
itself to participate in the
political work and contest
the next election under the
one man vote system, after
the current council approves
it. The next election would
happen when either the constitutional
court holds that
the decree was not constitutional
and dissolves the
council or, if the constitutional
court approves the decree, then after the council
completes its term. The opposition has to convince
the voters that it was capable of solving the country’s
political and economic problems if it wanted to win
the votes and trust of the voters. It will have to adopt
a new approach to win over people from various religious,
sectarian or tribal domains. —Al-Anbaa
THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013
kuwait digest
Oil ambitions
of America
By Abdullah Al-Naibari
Kuwaiti newspapers pointed out recently to reports
about the drop in the United States’ oil imports
and expressed ‘concern’ about the development
being felt in countries that depend fully or primarily on
income from oil, especially the Arabian Gulf states.
Kuwait is perhaps the most concerned given the fact that
oil revenues are the backbone of the state’s economy.
The slightest drop in oil prices can trigger panic for some
people who believe that their country failed to provide
any alternatives even sixty years after discovery of oil. It
was not equipped to deal with a situation if global
demand for oil was ever to be affected.
These news reports are based on a recent report of
the International Energy Agency which indicated that
America’s oil production has increased due to utilization
of new techniques to produce shale gas. The report predicted
that this technique would allow America to produce
an additional four million barrels a day by 2020,
which would limit its dependency on imported oil. As it
is, the US oil imports have been declining steadily since
2005.
The most interesting part in the report concerned the
United States overtaking the production rate of Saudi
Arabia and Russia to become the world’s largest oil producer
by 2030.
Achieving energy independence has been a strategic
goal for the United States ever since Richard Nixon’s term
as it wanted to reduce its dependency on countries when
it came to oil imports as these nations, especially the
Estimates indicate that global
demand for oil is still expected to
increase by at least one percent
annually with countries like India,
China and Korea set to register an
increasing need for oil. Of course, oil
is a global commodity whose price is
subject to change depending on supply
and demand. A lopsided production
boost, for example, would affect
the prices, and subsequently the revenues
of oil exporting countries.
Middle Eastern countries, remained vulnerable to uncertainties.
How much of an impact do the current developments
leave on oil producing countries in the Arab and
Gulf regions?
Estimates indicate that global demand for oil is still
expected to increase by at least one percent annually
with countries like India, China and Korea set to register
an increasing need for oil. Of course, oil is a global commodity
whose price is subject to change depending on
supply and demand.
A lopsided production boost, for example, would
affect the prices, and subsequently the revenues of oil
exporting countries. But despite the projected increase in
American oil production, it is not expected to affect
prices given the increasing global demand, not to mention
economic and environmental difficulties still facing
shale gas production. So far, there are no indications that
an increase in America’s oil production would leave an
effect that warrants us to panic. We still have to remain
cautious, however. At the same time, what we should
panic about is the fact that oil is a depleting natural
resource, and one day oil wells will definitely run dry.
That is the true risk threatening our country and the
future of our children. — Al-Qabas
kuwait digest
Free to express
our opinions
By Dr Ali Abdullah Jamal
Article 29 of Kuwait’s constitution, the fountainhead
of all laws, stipulates: “All people are equal in
human dignity and in public rights and duties
before the law, without distinction to race, origin, language,
or religion.” Article 36 stipulates: “Every person has
the right to express and propagate his opinion verbally,
in writing, or otherwise, in accordance with the conditions
and procedures specified by law.”
These two articles prove that the Kuwaiti people are
free to express their opinions the way they deem fit and
that the authorities have to enforce the law equally on
everybody without discrimination.
Yes, we do agree that passions can sometimes overcome
reason and prompt a group of citizens to violate
the law and disrupt peaceful demonstrations. Kuwaiti
political history is full of incidents when laws were violated
by certain groups due to perceived injustice. You can
delve into Kuwait’s history to know for sure that most
Kuwaiti people, if not all of them, did something like that
at one time or the other.
Humans are rebellious by nature and the mob’s psychology
worldwide tends to have a propensity to break
the law in the belief that it could be a step towards
achieving freedom. Kuwaiti people are no exception.
Who has not violated traffic laws, the law on smoking in
public or some other law at least once?
This brings into the picture the role that the authorities
have to play to enforce or invoke the law at all times
and places, emphasizing the sanctity of the law and also
the fact that it has to be applicable to all the people without
any exception. As I see it, the government has been
selective in dealing with the previous six demonstrations
called for by an opposition which is riddled with contradictions
and flailing aimlessly. But whether we agree or
not with the opposition’s leaders of iconic stature or their
demands, this kind of dealing with the protests is a dangerous
indicator that confirms how thoughtless and contradictory
the visions of both sides are. That, in fact, has
led to heightened fears among the citizenry.
Finally, to the government, I want to say this: If you
want to regain the trust of the ordinary citizens and want
them to have faith in the state’s establishments, you
should consider launching a demonstration under the
title of “A Government’s Dignity” following in the steps of
the opposition as evidenced in the recent Sabah Al-
Nasser protest. — Al-Jarida

Kuwait confident on Egyptians’
ability to overcome challenge
CAIRO: “We are confident of
Egyptians’ ability to overcome strife
and challenge, but beyond that, the
policy of the State of Kuwait had
always been opposed to interference
in the internal affairs of other nations,”
Information Minister and State
Minister for Youth Affairs Sheikh
Salman Sabah Al-Salem Al-Sabah told
leading Al-Wafd paper here for its
Wednesday edition.
The minister stressed Kuwait’s
respect of the Egyptian people’s
choices and its desire for political,
administrative, and economic reform
was reflected in the letter His
Highness the Amir addressed to the
Supreme Council of the Armed Forces
Commander, which expressed support
of the Egyptian revolution.
On bilateral level, the official noted
the relations between the two countries
are an example for the region,
and added the cooperation and coordination
in the field of media is just as
strong, citing the protocol on cooperation
and exchange of expertise.
Asked about political action in the
country prior to the December parliamentary
election, he said it was an
opportunity for Kuwait to serve as an
example for the region in democracy
Bilateral ties ‘a role model’
and Human Rights. More specifically,
he remarked that “freedom of thought
and expression are good and desirable,
but must stay within laws and
regulations in place in the country
concerned. The Ministry of
Information,” he added, “is, first and
last, a state institution governed by
law.”
The minister was asked to remark
on the situation in Syria, and Sheikh
CAIRO: Kuwaitís Information Minister and State Minister for Youth Affairs
Sheikh Salman Sabah Al-Salem Al-Sabah holding talks with his Egyptian
counterpart yesterday.
KUWAIT: On its second visit to Kuwait the Pakistan
Navy’s guided-missile frigate PNS Alamgir docked at
Shuwaikh Port yesterday, fresh from an anti-piracy mission
in surrounding waters and to boost bilateral relations
with Kuwait.
“Our visit to the friendly country of Kuwait is bilateral
and aimed at strengthening our existing ties - I am very
happy to be here in our brotherly country, Kuwait. The
reception we received was very warm,” the ship’s Captain
Abdul Munib said on board the frigate.
“We are being deployed on a CMCP (Coalition
Maritime Campaign Plan) and anti-piracy mission, so our
visit is basically being carried out during our deployment,”
he added on the visit which lasts until Jan 20.
The Pakistan Navy is part of the CMCP, which is a USled
maritime counter-terrorism operation currently
being conducted to restore international peace and
security under the UN Charter Chapter VII. Pakistan has
been assigned to command Task Force-150, which covers
an area of responsibility including the Gulf of Oman,
the North Arabian Sea, the Red Sea and the Horn of
Africa. “As far as deployment is concerned this is routine,
Salman stressed “Kuwait fully supports
efforts to provide relief to fellow
Syrians. It firmly calls for a stop to
bloodshed, arbitrary killing, and summary
executions, and demands common
sense in addressing this dossier
and respect for the Syrian people’s
desire for change.”
Earlier, Arab information ministers
voiced solidarity with Bahrain against
all media campaigns, as well as rejecting
some satellite channels’ failure to
respect Arab code of ethics.
The ministers, in a final communique
following their meeting,
referred to the union of Arab radio
stations a decision to scrap membership
of the Lebanese Media Group
which owns Al-Manar TV and Al-Nour
Radio. They called on Arab countries
and organizations who were attacked
by satellite channels to sue the channels
as well as forcing these channels
to abide by the code of ethics.
They urged the Arab foreign ministers
to take a firm action against countries
jamming signals of the Arab
satellites, called for criminalizing
cyber-crimes and recommended formation
of a team of Arab media
experts to activate the Arab code of
ethics and Arab media strategy.
The ministers elected members of
the information ministers’ Council’s
executive office, comprising Saudi
Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, Iraq, Libya,
Jordan, the UAE and Bahrain.They
called upon Arab countries to contribute
to reviving the Arab Prisoner
Day on April 17.
They called on Arab information
ministries to coordinate with health
ministries to launch awareness campaigns
against non-infectious diseases.
The ministers, in their one-day
meeting, said information ministries
should examine Arab strategies on
peaceful use of nuclear energy and to
educate the public over nuclear safety.
Arab media organizations should
have plans to encourage inter-Arab
tourism, said the ministers who recommended
formation of a team of
Arab experts to place a media strategy
against campaigns against Muslims
and Arabs abroad.
The ministers recommended
establishment of a website to highlight
Arab causes. They also called for
highlighting importance of Al-Quds,
Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islamic and Christian
holy sites, as well as disclosing and
documenting Israeli plans.
They said the world should know
that Israeli assaults on these sacred
places, the separation barrier, settlement
policies, and Palestinian and
Arab prisoners would have consequences
on the region.
The ministers said the Arab media
should provide further reports over the
Palestinian cause, shedding more light
on the Israeli settlement policy and
Israeli crimes against the Palestinian
people as well as the judaizing of Al-
Quds.
They recommended the use of
“State of Palestine” instead of the
“Palestine National Authority” in media
coverages and reports. Kuwait was represented
by Minister of Information
and State Minister for Youth Affairs
Sheikh Salman Sabah Al-Salem Al-
Humoud Al-Sabah. — KUNA
Pakistan Navy frigate docks at
Shuwaikh on bilateral visit
but making stops to visit our friends is very important.
During our deployment we made three stops, Bahrain,
Jeddah (Saudi Arabia) and now Kuwait. Our future stop
will be Pakistan.”
The 280-crew-member Alamgir was acquired from
the U.S. Navy and is the only petty class ship in Pakistan’s
vast navy. It was named after the great Mughal Emperor
Aurangzeb ‘Alamgir’ (or world-seizer in English) who was
known, during his close to 50-year reign, for spreading
the Muslim Mughal Empire across the whole Indian subcontinent.
With a length of 139m (around one and a half the
length of a soccer pitch) Alamgir has helicopter-hosting
capabilities and can carry up to 4,100 tonnes. It is also
equipped with several guns and torpedoes, travelling in
speeds of up to 29 knots, which is considered quite fast
in naval standards.
Captain Abdul Munib is planning to meet a number
of senior Kuwaiti military officials early on Thursday, prior
to hosting an on-board lunch reception for them
along with representatives from the diplomatic missions
and Pakistani community based in Kuwait. — KUNA
LOCAL
THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013
KUWAIT: Ahmadi Governor Sheikh Ibrahim Al-Duaij yesterday received the supervisor at Kuwait Society for
Disabled Welfare, Amnah Deyab and a number of disabled children from Ahmadi Daytime Care Center, who
thanked him for his constant support to the disabled.

LOCAL
KUWAIT: Police managed catch a gang, including
an employee of the Traffic General Department,
which specialized in stealing cars and smuggling
them out of the country. Investigations have been
ongoing in several auto thefts reported at police
stations around the Capital Governorates, which
eventually led detectives to a bedoon (stateless)
man who was arrested as a prime suspect. The man
admitted during investigations of working with
four Kuwaitis in stealing vehicles and then changing
their chassis number with the help of one of
them who worked in the Traffic General
Department. Officers then arrested the employee
who confirmed the first suspect’s story and added
that the modification allowed his accomplices to
“smuggle the stolen cars to be sold outside.” Search
is on to nab the remaining three suspects.
Hit-and-run suspect
A driver who was involved in a hit-and-run case
turned himself in recently and told the police that
he had accidently killed a cleaning worker while
driving under the influence of alcohol. Ever since
the accident was reported a couple of weeks ago,
investigations have been on to trace the unidentified
driver who left the Indian man dead. Police
had zeroed in on a vehicle after a Salmiya resident
tipped them off as he grew suspicious about the
vehicle remaining covered for two weeks. Police
summoned the car’s Saudi owner for investigations
after blood traces found on the vehicle matched
with the victim’s blood. After ignoring repeated
summons, the man eventually turned himself in
before the Capital Department detectives and was
held to face manslaughter and DUI charges.
Maid escapes
A Filipina woman employed at a Jahra house
was sexually assaulted for nearly a year by her
Kuwaiti employer and his two brothers before she
could escape and narrate her ordeal to the officials
at her embassy recently. The 40-year-old domestic
worker told officials at the embassy that the sexual
assaults started soon after she was hired approximately
twelve months ago. The embassy’s attorney
reportedly filed a case at the Jahra police station.
Rapist at large
Search is on for a male suspect accused of sexually
assaulting his ex-girlfriend after breaking into
her Jabriya apartment recently. The 28-year-old
Kuwaiti victim told the local police that the suspect
forced his way into her apartment after she
answered the door and then raped her before leaving.
She said the Saudi man committed the crime
as a form of ‘revenge’ since she had broken up with
him after deducing that he was not committed to
their relationship. She also indicated that she used
to give money to her boyfriend during the time
their relationship lasted, adding that he received a
total of KD45,000 by the time they broke up.
Detectives reportedly succeeded in tracking the
suspect’s movements and were confident of arresting
him soon.
THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013
KUWAIT: Assistant Undersecretary of the Ministry of Interior, Lt Gen Sheikh Mohammad Al-Yousuf Al-Sabah, yesterday visited the Kuwait-Iraq border to inspect the maintenance of the
border signs being affixed under the supervision of a UN team in the presence of security leaders from both sides. He was accompanied by Col Ziad Tareq Al-Yousuf.
Interior Minister visits assaulted officer
KUWAIT: The First Deputy Prime Minister and
Minister of Interior, Sheikh Ahmad Al-Hmoud, yesterday
met Lt Col Mohammed Al-Waheeb who,
along with other security personnel, was assaulted
by the crowds during a rally at Sabah Al-Nasser
area.
Lt. Colonel Al-Waheeb, who met Al-Hmoud in his
office accompanied by the Assistant Undersecretary
for criminal security affairs Lt. General Abdul
Hameed Al-Awadhi and Colonel Abdul Rahman Al-
Jazzaf, presented to the Minister of Interior a full
report about the assault by the rowdy members of
Preparations on
for Kuwait Medica
KUWAIT: Eng Samir Al-Asfor, Assistant
Undersecretary of Ministry of Health stated
that, “the healthcare sector holds the greatest
promise for efficiency gains and cost reductions
through the adoption of latest developments
in medical sciences and the smart
application of technology” and invited key
players from the medical industry to participate
in the 4th Kuwait Medica to become
affluent partners in the development of the
healthcare industry and add new dimensions
to their services markets.
The biggest healthcare
event organized under the
patronage of Mohammad
Barrak Al-Haifi, Minister of
Health, to be held from March
19 to 21, at the Al Baraka
Ballroom of Crowne Plaza
Hotel, will offer unique B2B
platform for facilitators,
investors, commissioners and
managers of healthcare projects
with key players in planning,
design, construction,
supply, operations and management.
Kuwait has earmarked a
budget spending of $7.3 billion on hospital
projects in the next four years, out of which
10 projects set for completion by 2016. The
proposed healthcare infrastructure development
plan will create an upsurge of potential
opportunities for medical-dental-lab equip-
NBK announces winners
of DSF trips draw
KUWAIT: National Bank of Kuwait (NBK)
announced the winners of the last draw in its
Dubai Shopping Festival 2013 campaign
offered to its Visa Cardholders in partnership
with Visa International. Another 30 NBK Visa
Cardholders won full travel packages to
attend the Dubai Shopping Festival 2013, one
of the most popular events in the world.
Hanaa Abdulmohsen Mohammed Al-Atiqi,
Fouzeya Abdulla Habeeb Al-Habeeb,
Mubarak Safar Fhaid Al- Hajri, Abdulla Salem
KUWAIT: Abdulmohsen Al-Rushaid,
NBK public relations manager awarding
prize to one of the winners.
Eng Samir Al-Asfor
ment, furniture, supplies and specialized
applications with an additional 3,334 hospital
beds in the public sector. An estimated number
of 15,000 medical, nursing and allied service
staffs will be needed to manage the new
hospitals.
Government’s healthcare agenda has
been to enhance quality of medical services
in through public-private sector participation.
Global firms have been continuously invited
to partake in the country’s upgrade of healthcare
service delivery.
Eng. Al-Asfor invited world’s
best healthcare organizations,
medical professionals, medical
equipment companies, health
services & solutions providers,
and other healthcare vendors
to be partners in the healthcare
infrastructure development
through the 4th Kuwait Medica.
The Kuwait Medica runs parallel
to annual Kuwait Medical
Tourism Conference focusing
on medical treatments abroad
and E-Health GCC Conference
offering a dedicated platform
for emerging technologies in
healthcare and innovative Medical e-Learning
systems and solutions. The exhibition will
accommodate 100 exhibitors and over 5000
people are expected to attend the event that
offers B2B contacts and Trade partnerships as
a key feature of the event.
Yaseen Al-Zaidan, Harish Lonknath Shetty,
Ahmed Mohammed Kamel Al Fakhrany,
Mohammed Osama Ahmed Al-Roumi, Nadiya
Mohammad Abddulla Ali, Shurooq Abbas
Hassan Al Hadad, Nabeel Mohammed Ali Al
Houli, Anwar Abdulkhodor Awad Ali, Ilesh
Narendra Kumar Patwa, Amjad Awni Abed
Abukhass, Ajay Singh Tathgir, George
Abraham, Samya Meshari Abdulkarim Al
Dakheel, Shady Karam Yahya Abdelmajeed,
Potenciano Rodico Pinlac, Abdulaziz Saoud
Abdulaziz Al Rashed, Banala Najabhushan,
Anwar Attia Saber Mohammed, Iqbal
Mahmoud Al Halabi, Hassan Ahmad Abdulla
Al Attar, Yaser Abdulaziz Ali Mustafa, Manju
Shambeka Ragobal, Muwafaq Fahad,
Sulaiman Najeeb Mohammed Abdulla
Abdalwahab, Fouad Abdulkhodor Ali Ibrahim,
Mohammed Abd Al Mannan Nour Ahmed
and Seong Soon Kim each won a full travel
package for two to the Dubai Shopping
Festival 2013, with all expenses paid by NBK.
Each travel package includes two round trip
airline tickets with two-night accommodation
in a five star hotel including transportation.
NBK Visa Cardholders (debit, credit and
prepaid cards) had the chance to win 60 travel
packages to Dubai during this campaign
that was launched last November.
NBK Cards are accepted worldwide and
are the safest, most convenient and rewarding
way to pay. For more information log onto
nbk.com or contact Hala Watani on 1801801,
or follow NBK on Twitter @NBKPage, and on
Instagram @NBKPage.
EU aware of important
GCC role in resolving
regional problems
BRUSSELS: A leading expert on European
Union foreign policy has urged the Gulf
Cooperation Council (GCC) to match its economic
power with political clout. “The GCC has
still not attained the political clout that matches
its economic power,” Prof Steven Blockmans
said in an interview.
“The EU is increasingly aware that the GCC is
an important player that needs to be tagged
along or cooperated with in order to solve
regional problems which are in the interest of
both groupings,” he said.
Blockmans is the head of the EU Foreign
Policy programme and senior research fellow at
the prestigious think-tank, Centre for European
Policy Studies based in Brussels.
The Belgian academic also teaches at the
University of Amsterdam in Holland and in the
University of Leuven in Belgium. “To what
extent the economic power of the GCC would
translate in political clout on the international
scene depends of course on the translation of
their power within voting mechanisms in global
multilateral institutions like the UN or the WTO,”
he said. The GCC includes six countries, Bahrain,
Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
The Belgian political expert said the annual EU-
GCC foreign ministerial meeting “has grown in
importance here in Brussels.” He suggested that
the GCC could assist financially and economically
in trying “to resolve certain issue by putting
economic and financial pressure or by dangling
economic and financial carrots for certain countries.”
More generally, he noted, the EU is discovering
Arab and Muslim international organisations
which can increasingly play a role next to
the EU in solving issues of international peace
and security. —KUNA
the crowd who also damaged several vehicles
belonging to the security personnel.
Strongly backing his subordinates, Al-Hmoud
emphasized that any assault on any security man
will be considered an assault on the Ministry of
Interior and will be deemed to have been committed
against his own person. He said whoever committed
such assaults will be pursued, arrested,
investigated and punished. He said the law gives
everyone his right and he cannot accept that security
men be subjected to any assault.
Meanwhile, the First Deputy Prime Minister and
Kuwaiti, bedoon in police
net for spate of auto theft
Hunt on for three gang members
KUWAIT: Dermatologist at As’ad Al-Hamad
Dermatology Center Dr Mohammad Faihan Al-
Otaibi became the first Kuwaiti to obtain the
International Board Certification in
Dermatopathology of microscopic diagnosis.
He said the medical test of the international
board was held at Frankfurt in beginning of
December, 2012. It was held under supervision
of International Board of Dermatopathology
(IBDP), and The European Institute for Medical
and Scientific Education (EIMSED), involving 35
By Hanan Al-Saadoun
KUWAIT: Launching a major campaign to
ensure that only good quality food stuff is sold
to consumers, the Kuwait Municipality today
expanded its campaign to record samples of
food from factories and food stores in areas
from where food stuff is mainly distributed to
central markets and food outlets.
The campaign began at Mubarak Al Kabeer
governorate to ensure that sellers abide by
municipality regulations and only goods fit for
human consumption are sold.
Sources at the Municipality said the drive
Minister of Interior, Sheikh Ahmad Al-Hmoud, yesterday
met head of the British Foreign Ministry services
administration Chriss Moxy, head of government
contracts Julian Welsh, head of industrial
security unit Ben Flitcher, and First Secretary for
Defence in the British Embassy Richard Memdos.
Kuwait’s Assistant Undersecretary for technology
affairs, Sheikh Mishaal Al-Jaber, was also present
during the meeting at Al-Hmoud’s office.The British
delegation is on a visit to Kuwait to discuss the
Kuwait security system project, one of the most
important security projects in the Middle East. In
doctors of various nationalities. Microscopic
diagnosis of skin diseases is considered a rare
specialty in the dermatopathology field, Dr. Al-
Otaibi said.
This diagnosis is done by taking a testing
sample from under skin of a patient after applying
local anesthesia. Diagnosis is done by a
microscope, then the sample is analyzed for a
period not exceeding two weeks, he explained.
Such a procedure spares a large number of
patients suffering from chronic psoriasis or
will cover the key areas of Al Rai, Al Shuwaikh
and Al Ardiya industrial area.
The campaign which started at 9 am and
lasted until noon was led by food supervisor
Daidhan Al Adwani in cooperation with the
public relations department of the
Municipality. Random samples were recorded
for meat, pastries, juice and water. All the samples
were securely kept in an ice box and were
sent to the health laboratories for tests. Al
Adwani said in a press release that the results
will be available in less than a week, and based
on these, necessary steps will be taken.
He added that surprise and random sam-
another development, Sheikh Ahmad Al-Hmoud,
set up a security committee headed by the
Undersecretary General Ghazi Al-Omar to study the
recommendations of the N.A. Council in respect to
the state of law and order and to implement these.
A number of Assistant Undersecretaries and top
brass from other departments would be members
of this panel, set up on the orders of the Minister.
The Minister set a one month deadline for the
committee to report back in detail about the implementation
status and any other steps taken to deal
with the law and order situation.
Teenager arrested
A teenager who was facing investigations in 20
theft cases managed to escape from police’s custody
by sneaking out and hijacking a stolen car but alert
police officers went in hot pursuit, intercepted him
and arrested him again. The youngster sneaked his
way out from the Juveniles Prosecution Department
where he was taken for investigations in 20 theft cases
in which he was involved. He commandeered a
car that its owner left outside a shop with its engine
running, and drove along the Fourth Ring Road.
Police officers chased the car, forcing it to halt at a
roadblock in Farwaniya but the boy tried to run away
when he was overpowered by the police. He was taken
to the proper authorities to face charges that also
include attempting to stab an officer while being
arrested, as well as damaging eight vehicles during
his escapade in the Farwaniya neighborhood.
Girl saves father
A nine-year-old girl saved her father’s life when
she made an emergency call after finding him
unconscious and bleeding at home. The girl could
not remember her address but paramedics and
police showed their presence of mind by quickly
looking it up from a database since the girl had
called them from a landline number, and rushed to
the scene. Fortunately for the Kuwaiti man, they
arrived in time and rushed the man to the hospital
where his condition later stabilized. The diagnoses
revealed that the man passed out due to low
blood sugar.
Kuwaiti certified in Int’l dermatopathology
eczema misdiagnosis. Some cases of skin cancer
have been, in some cases, diagnosed as psoriasis
or eczema.
Dermatopathology microscopic diagnosis is a
recognized specialty in Kuwait and a large number
of other countries.
This distinguished honoring was earned by
Dr.Al-Otaibi, among other specialized dermatologists
at the Kuwaiti Ministry of Health. A total of
550 cases were diagnosed using microscopic
diagnosis, in 2011. — KUNA
Municipality campaign to ensure food quality
pling will be done periodically to ensure that
products meet the specifications set by
Kuwaiti authorities.
Earlier samples were found acceptable and
some observations were taken into consideration
by factories and store owners.
Al Adwani said that a total of 1055 samples
were sent to laboratories in the month of
December while field campaigns resulted in 67
citations for working either without obtaining
health certificates or possessing expired certificates.
He underlined the importance of
keeping valid health papers while dealing in
food materials.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013
18 frozen human heads discovered
Bombers kill more
than 42 across Iraq
ALEXANDRIA: Egyptians stand in rubble after an eight story building collapsed in Alexandria yesterday. — AP
22 die as building collapses
CAIRO: An eight-story apartment building
collapsed yesterday in the Egyptian
city of Alexandria, killing at least 22
people in the second deadly accident to
hit the country in as many days. The
MENA state news agency said 11 people
were also injured and that rescue teams
were searching for survivors under the
rubble. Military police from a nearby
naval base had cordoned off the area to
help the rescue operation. The collapse
came a day after 19 police conscripts
were killed when the last car of the train
they were riding in jumped the tracks
and smashed into another train just outside
Cairo.
It was not immediately clear what
caused the building to collapse in a
poor district of the Mediterranean port
city, but violations of building specifications
have been blamed for similar accidents
in the past. The governor of
Alexandria, Mohammed Abbas Atta,
told Egypt’s official news agency that
Second deadly accident to hit Egypt in days
the building was constructed without a
permit. Abul Ezz el-Hariri, an opposition
lawmaker from Alexandria, warned that
hundreds of buildings in the city face
the same fate, but that lax law enforcement
following the ouster two years
ago of Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak
means that no action is being taken
against building violations.
Residents complain that landowners
in farmland on the city’s outskirts have
taken advantage of the chaos and near
lawlessness that followed the former
president’s overthrow and illegally sold
their land to developers who built shoddy
apartment blocks. Similar violations
have taken place across much of the
country. Pointing to the magnitude of
the problem, Housing Minister Tareq
Wafeeq told reporters that a total of
318,000 illegal constructions went up in
23 of Egypt’s 27 provinces between
2009 and 2012. Alexandria’s security
chief, police Maj-Gen Abdel-Mawgood
Lutfi, said the building was constructed
five years ago and had 24 apartments.
That the building collapsed early in
the day meant that most tenants were
home. Police evacuated residents of two
adjacent buildings out of concern that
the collapse may have caused structural
damage to them. The collapse could
stoke criticism of President Mohammed
Morsi administration. Critics accuse the
government of failing to carry out
reforms and overhaul the nation’s deteriorating
public services. Two months
ago, 50 children died when a train
rammed into their school bus in southern
Egypt. That tragedy also sparked a
storm of criticism of Morsi, who took
office in June.
The latest train wreck led to protests
Tuesday at railway stations in Cairo,
Alexandria and a third city in the Nile
Delta. The demonstrators were protesting
what they said was official negligence
in maintaining and upgrading
the country’s aging rail network. Morsi’s
government has blamed Tuesday’s train
accident on what officials say is nearly
30 years of corruption and misrule
under Mubarak. Transport Minister
Hatem Abdel-Lateef told another news
conference that overhauling the country’s
railways would cost 15 billion
Egyptian pounds ($2.3 billion), a hefty
sum for nation reeling from two years of
political and economic turmoil.
The news conferences by the two
Cabinet ministers appeared to be an
effort by Morsi’s government to take the
initiative in the face of scathing criticism
from the independent media and opposition
parties. Morsi, the nation’s first
democratically elected president, has
struggled since taking office in June to
address a host of major problems that
include an ailing economy, tenuous
security, a slumping tourism industry
and seemingly endless political turmoil.—
AP
Obama blasts Israel’s Netanyahu
JERUSALEM: Long-strained ties
between Barack Obama and Benjamin
Netanyahu sprang to the fore of Israel’s
election campaign yesterday after the
US president was quoted as criticizing
the prime minister’s character. Less than
a week before a Jan 22 ballot that opinion
polls predict the right-wing
Netanyahu will win easily, Israeli media
highlighted a US commentator’s column
on Obama and asked whether the
Democratic president was trying to
sway the vote.
“Obama said privately and repeatedly,
‘Israel doesn’t know what its own best
interests are’,” wrote Bloomberg columnist
Jeffrey Goldberg. The US president
“seems to view the prime minister as a
political coward, an essentially unchallenged
leader who nevertheless is
unwilling to lead or spend political capital
to advance the cause of compromise”,
Goldberg said. The White House
has not commented on the column’s
content. Netanyahu appeared to chide
Obama, without mentioning the president
or his reported remarks, during a
visit yesterday to an army base near
Gaza.
“I think everyone understands that
only Israeli citizens will be the ones who
determine who faithfully represents
Israel’s vital interests,” Netanyahu said in
broadcast remarks. Obama and
Netanyahu have been at odds over
Israel’s settlement building in the occupied
West Bank and heavy Israeli hints
of possible military action against Iran’s
nuclear facilities. Some Israeli commentators
saw the column as payback for
Netanyahu’s perceived back-room lobbying
on behalf of Republican Mitt
Romney in his failed run against Obama
in November’s US election. Netanyahu
has denied any such meddling.
Though it was front-page news in
Israel, Goldberg’s column looks unlikely
to dent Netanyahu’s electoral lead, with
his Likud-Beiteinu list expected to take
around 34 of parliament’s 120 seats and
form the next coalition government. A
centrist challenger, former Foreign
Minister and peace negotiator Tzipi
Livni, has made Israel’s international isolation
under Netanyahu the focus of her
campaign. Her party has lagged in polls
with a projected 6 to 8 parliamentary
seats. “Attempts to speak to the Israeli
voter through the American press are
total non-starters,” said Amotz Asa-El, a
fellow with the Hartman Institute, a liberal
think-tank in Jerusalem. Most
Israelis, Asa-El argued, were disenchanted
by frozen peace efforts, worried by
regional upheaval and preoccupied
with domestic affairs. Foreign criticism
of Netanyahu, he said, could shore him
up against rivals further to the right.
“These (far-rightists) have never
heard of Bloomberg, let alone of Jeffrey
Goldberg. If anything, this (criticism) is
likely to make them vote for Netanyahu,”
Asa-El said. “There is no traffic of undecided
voters between the rightist bloc
and the centre-left bloc, only within the
blocs.” Several Israeli officials questioned
whether the quotes attributed to
Obama reflected the view of his administration,
which, like the Netanyahu government,
has played up the strength of
bilateral ties on issues ranging from the
Palestinians to the Syrian insurgency
and Iran’s disputed nuclear program.
Vice premier Silvan Shalom, of the
Likud party, told Israel’s Army Radio: “I
don’t know if these things were said
because he (Obama) did not say them in
his own voice.” Shalom appeared to
acknowledge tensions between
Netanyahu and Obama. —Reuters
Page 10
Page 8
Car bombs kill 24
in northwest Syria
BEIRUT: Three car bombs exploded within minutes of
each other in northwest Syria yesterday, killing at least
two dozen people in a coordinated assault on government
positions, a monitoring group said. Fighting has
spread throughout much of Syria and upended civilian
life in many areas as rebels have pushed to uproot
President Bashar Al-Assad’s better-equipped forces
and tip the balance of the 22-month-old conflict.
The World Food Program said Syria’s government
had authorized it to step up food aid to some 2.5 million
people going hungry, but did not say when it
would be able to reach them all. In the meantime, the
war shows no signs of abating. Car bombs at government
buildings and a checkpoint in Idlib province
killed at least 24 people yesterday - most of them
members of government forces - said the Syrian
Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitoring
group.
“The car bombs exploded within minutes of each
other. It seems they were coordinated,” the
Observatory’s director, Rami Abdelrahman, said. State
news agency SANA said 22 people were killed in Idlib
city when two car bombs exploded and said two other
bombs were defused on a main road leading to Idlib.
Reuters cannot independently verify reports from
inside Syria due to government restrictions on independent
media. Insurgents have often used bomb
attacks to try to break a stalemate with government
forces, who have far superior firepower including warplanes
and ballistic missiles.
Elsewhere in the country, the Syrian military
stepped up attacks in the cities of Idlib, Hama and
Homs, and seized hundreds of heat-seeking missiles
from militants in the southern province of Deraa, state
media reported. The armed forces renewed their
assault on “terrorists” in the northern city of Aleppo
and its countryside, killing dozens in the rebel strongholds
of Sukari, Bab Al-Hadeed and Bustan Al-Qasr,
SANA reported. A day earlier, two explosions at
Aleppo’s university killed at least 87 people, many of
them students attending exams, in the deadliest
attack on civilians to hit the commercial hub since
rebels laid siege to it over the summer.
It is still unclear what caused the blasts, which each
side blames on the other. Russia - Assad’s long-standing
ally and arms supplier - condemned the Aleppo
explosions. “It is clear that this was a ruthless, bloody
provocation, revenge by terrorists for significant losses
they have sustained in the confrontation with government
forces,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a
statement. Damascus says rebels fired two rockets into
the university. If confirmed, the claim would suggest
rebels in the area had acquired more powerful
weapons than previously used.—Reuters

TEHRAN: Experts from the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) were back
in Tehran early yesterday to try to resolve
long-running differences with Iran over
its controversial nuclear programme.
The eight-strong team, led by the UN
agency’s chief atomic inspector and
deputy director Herman Nackaerts, was
greeted at the airport by Iran’s envoy to
the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, the ISNA
news agency reported.
It was not clear who would represent
Iran in meetings on Wednesday, but the
office of top nuclear negotiator Saeed
Jalili is in charge of decisions regarding
Tehran’s atomic programme-on behalf of
supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
who has final say on all key state matters.
On Tuesday, before flying out from the
agency’s base in Vienna, Nackaerts had
called on Iran to be “constructive”.
“Throughout this process, the director
general has always said that we are
approaching these talks in a constructive
spirit,” he told reporters.
“Also this time we are approaching it
in the same spirit, and we trust that Iran
will work with us in the same spirit,” he
added. But the IAEA’s hopes of reaching a
deal are not high. IAEA head Yukiya
Amano said Friday he was “not necessarily
optimistic,”
while a Western diplomat told AFP on
Sunday “there still remain some pretty big
disagreements” with Tehran. The agency
wants Iran to respond to what it calls
“overall, credible” evidence of nuclear
weapons research having been carried
out until 2003 — and possibly since then.
Iran vehemently denies having ever
INTERNATIONAL
IAEA experts back in Iran for fresh nuclear talks
SANAA: Iraqi women living in Yemen take part in a protest in front of the Iraqi
Embassy, in the capital Sanaa yesterday, demanding the sacking of Iraqi Prime
Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Iraq is engulfed in a political crisis with Prime Minister Maliki
facing several protests hardening opposition against his rule and calls for his ouster
from many of his erstwhile government partners. — AFP
Iraqi expats hold
anti-Maliki demo
SANAA: Hundreds of Iraqi expatriates
protested against Prime Minister Nuri al-
Maliki outside the Iraqi embassy in Sanaa
yesterday, an AFP correspondent reported.
“Maliki leave, the Iraqi people don’t want
you,” chanted the protesters, who marched
from Sanaa’s northern Sittin Avenue to the
embassy carrying Iraqi flags.
Protests against Maliki and his Shiite-led
government have gripped Sunni Arab
majority areas of northern and western Iraq
since December 23. The protests were
sparked by the arrest of at least nine guards
of Sunni Finance Minister Rafa al-Essawi on
terror charges. In a statement, members of
the Iraqi community in Yemen who organised
yesterday’s protest said it was “to
express our support to our Iraqi people
who are demonstrating in the squares of
dignity for their legitimate demands.”
“Free Baghdad, out Iran,” the protesters
called, referring to Iraq’s Shiite-dominated
neighbour with which Maliki’s government
has warm relations.
Asem al-Dulaimi, spokesman of the Iraqi
community in Yemen, accused Maliki’s government
of “implementing foreign agendas,
especially Iranian, in addition to US
and Zionist” agendas. Iraq is engulfed in a
political crisis with Maliki facing calls for his
ouster from many of his erstwhile government
partners. A wave of attacks in
Baghdad and northern Iraq killed 29 people
on Wednesday as hundreds attended
the funeral of a Sunni MP who died in a suicide
attack on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, gunmen killed the deputy
security chief of Dhamar province, south of
the Yemeni capital Sanaa, an interior ministry
official said, less than a month after an
adviser to the minister of defence was shot
dead in Sanaa.
“Two gunmen riding a motor bike shot
Brigadier Abdulwahab al-Mushki and
killed him immediately,” the official said.
On Dec. 25, gunmen and bombers targeted
three senior military officers and the
transport minister in a series of attacks in
the capital.
Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula,
which is based in Yemen, is seen by U.S.
officials as the most dangerous offshoot of
the militant network. Yemen’s location next
to top oil producer Saudi Arabia and major
shipping lanes has made restoring its stability
an international priority. — Agencies
Israeli watchdog rips
PM over settlements
JERUSALEM: A review of Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu’s settlement policies
shows a clear intent to prevent the creation
of a viable Palestinian state by stepping up
construction in strategic areas, an Israeli antisettlement
group said yesterday.
During Netanyahu’s four-year term, 38
percent of nearly 6,900 West Bank construction
starts were reported in settlements
deep inside the territory, compared to 20
percent under his predecessors, the Peace
Now group said.
The report by the watchdog was released
a week before Israel’s parliamentary elections,
which Netanyahu appears poised to
win. According to the report, the government
also issued bids for 5,302 settlement
apartments in the West Bank and east
Jerusalem and advanced planning for thousands
more, the group said. The group’s findings
were based on aerial photos, field visits
and official reports.
The Palestinians want the West Bank,
Gaza and east Jerusalem, captured by Israel
in 1967, for a future state. In November, the
UN General Assembly recognized a state of
Palestine in these borders, over Israel’s objections.
Israel still occupies the West Bank and
east Jerusalem and while it withdrew settlers
and soldiers from Gaza, it controls most
access to the coastal territory, now ruled by
Hamas militants. Netanyahu has said he’s
willing to negotiate the borders of a
Palestinian state, but wants to keep east
Jerusalem - the hoped-for capital of the
Palestinians - and chunks of the West Bank.
Netanyahu has rejected a Palestinian
demand for a settlement freeze during negotiations,
and talks have been on hold for the
past four years.
Polls ahead of the Jan. 22 vote indicate
Netanyahu is poised to win another fouryear
term. Peace Now concluded that
Netanyahu’s policies in his first term “disclose
a clear intention to use settlements to systematically
undermine and render impossible
a realistic, viable two-state solution to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
Israeli government spokesman Mark
Regev denied the government is trying to
undermine prospects for Palestinian state-
hood through settlement expansion. Israel
has “allowed construction in the Jewish
neighborhoods of Jerusalem and in the settlement
blocs, areas that will remain part of
Israel in any future peace agreement,” he
said. Israel hasn’t clearly defined settlement
blocs, but they are believed to include larger
settlements near Israel as well the Ariel
enclave of 17,000 settlers in the heart of the
West Bank. In all, about half a million Israelis
live in dozens of settlements on war-won
land, including nearly 200,000 in east
Jerusalem and more than 300,000 in the
West Bank.
Asked to comment on Peace Now’s report
of a sharp construction increase in more
remote settlements, Regev said: “I don’t
know that figure to be true.” The Peace Now
report said settlers in some of the more
remote settlements built without approved
plans or permits, but “with the tacit approval
of the Netanyahu government.” In all, construction
began on 6,867 apartments in West
Bank settlements since Netanyahu took
office in March 2009, the report said.
Thirty-eight of those apartments were
located in Jewish enclaves east of Israel’s separation
barrier in the West Bank, proposed by
some in Israel - though not by Netanyahu -
as a future border with the Palestinians. Israel
began building the barrier in 2002, portraying
it as a defense against Palestinian militants
who had killed hundreds of Israelis in
an armed uprising. However, it meanders
through the West Bank to scoop up Jewish
settlements on the Israeli side, prompting
allegations of a land grab under the guise of
security. Thirty-two percent of construction
starts were west of the barrier, and close to
30 percent in areas where the route of the
barrier is not final, the report said. The report
said the count is not complete, and that the
final figure is expected to be higher.
Although Netanyahu outdid his predecessors
in terms of launching settlement
construction deep inside the West Bank,
Peace Now researcher Hagit Ofran said the
annual average of construction starts in the
Palestinian territory was slightly lower under
Netanyahu than under his predecessor, Ehud
Olmert. — AP
sought an atomic bomb. Iran’s foreign
ministry spokesman said on Tuesday that
the government hoped to conclude a
comprehensive agreement with the IAEA
yesterday.
But Ramin Mehmanparast said that
would only be possible if the agency
recognised Iran’s “nuclear rights.”
Mehmanparast appeared to play down
the chances that the IAEA team might get
access to Parchin, a military base near
Tehran where the agency’s experts suspect
Iran could have carried out experiments
with explosives capable of triggering
a nuclear weapon.
“Parchin has no connection with Iran’s
nuclear activities,” Mehmanparast said.
Access to it could be discussed, but only
in the context of a possible agreement,
he added. But the IAEA has pointed to
KIRKUK: More than 42 people died in a suicide
attack and other bombings in northern Iraq and
Baghdad yesterday, worsening sectarian strife as
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki faces mounting
pressure from minority Sunni Muslims and
Kurds. Shoppers and police helped drag bloodied
survivors out of the rubble and wrecked
vehicles after a car bomb and a suicide bomber
in a truck set off huge blasts in Kirkuk, near the
local headquarters of the Kurdistan Democratic
Party (KDP).
Maliki, a Shi’ite Muslim, is locked in a feud
with ethnic Kurds in autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan
over disputed oilfields and is also confronting
Sunni protesters in a western province calling for
him to step down. “A suicide bomber driving a
truck packed with explosives detonated the
vehicle outside the KDP headquarters. It’s a
crowded area; dozens were killed and wounded,”
Police Brigadier Sarhat Qadir told Reuters in
Kirkuk. Local Kirkuk health officials and police
said at least 25 people were killed and more
than 180 were wounded. Another five people
died and 37 more were wounded in another
bombing outside a rival Kurdish political party
office in Tuz Khurmato, 170 km (105 miles) north
of Baghdad. Roadside bombs and gun attacks in
Baghdad and Baiji, north of the capital, killed
seven policemen and soldiers. A year after the
last US troops left, Iraq’s government of Sunni,
Shi’ite and Kurdish parties is mired in a crisis
over how to share power, increasing worries that
the OPEC member state may relapse into widescale
sectarian bloodshed
Violence and unrest are compounding concern
that the conflict in neighbouring Syria,
where mainly Sunni rebels are fighting Shi’ite
Iran’s ally President Bashar al-Assad, will upset
Iraq’s own delicate sectarian and ethnic balance.
Yesterday’s attacks came a day after a suicide
bomber killed an influential Sunni Muslim lawmaker
in the west of Iraq, where thousands of
Sunni protesters have been holding mass
demonstrations against Maliki.
Sunni turmoil erupted in late December after
state officials arrested members of a Sunni
finance minister’s security team on terrorism
charges. Authorities denied the arrests were
political, but Sunni leaders saw them as a crack-
new information uncovered since its last
visits to the site in 2005. They include
satellite evidence that the earth has been
scraped and removed over a 25-hectare
(62-acre) area, leading to Western accusations
that Iran is destroying evidence.
Yesterday’s talks will be closely monitored
by the so-called P5+1 group-Britain,
China, France, Russia, the United States
and Germany. Their parallel negotiations
with Tehran over the nuclear programme
are currently stalled.
At their last meeting, held in June
2012 in Moscow, Tehran rejected P5+1
calls for it to scale back its nuclear enrichment
activities, while asking for substantial
sanctions relief.
Iran’s economy is struggling to cope
with punitive measures adopted by the
US and the EU targeting its vital oil
down. Since the fall of Sunni strongman Saddam
Hussein after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, many
Sunnis feel they have been marginalised by the
leadership of the Shi’ite majority.
Maliki’s National Alliance Shi’ite coalition and
Sunni-backed Iraqiya bloc held preliminary talks
in parliament yesterday in attempt to defuse the
crisis by addressing the demands of the demonstrations.
“We have to admit that we have a tough job
ahead to reach common ground,” Ali al-Shallah,
a lawmaker with Maliki’s alliance. “All the blocs
agree to allow time for the government to
review protest demands; that’s one step.”
Deputy Prime Minister Hussein al-Shahristani,
THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013
income and access to global financial systems.
On Tuesday, top lawmaker Aladin
Boroujerdi repeated Tehran’s demands,
ISNA reported. “The main focus of the
next talks with the P5+1 should be on lifting
the sanctions imposed by the US and
the European Union,” said Boroujerdi,
who heads parliament’s influential foreign
policy committee.
Mehmanparast added on Tuesday that
a much-debated religious decree against
nuclear weapons by Iran’s supreme
leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was binding.
“The fatwa is of utmost importance in
clarifying Iran’s nuclear activities,” he said,
dismissing Western doubts that the fatwa
only served a religious purpose and was
not necessarily an obligation for the government.
— AFP
Bombers kill more
than 42 across Iraq
Blast hits contested ethnically mixed city of Kirkuk
CAIRO: Egyptian President
Mohamed Morsi said yesterday that
comments on Israel attributed to
him before he was elected,
slammed as deeply offensive by the
United States, were taken out of
context.
“The president stressed they
were taken from comments on the
Israeli aggression against
Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, and
stressed the need to put the
remarks in the right context,” said a
statement from the presidency
issued after Morsi met US Senator
BAGHDAD: Fire fighters evacuate the body of a victim killed in a bomb attack that struck the
local headquarters of the Kurdistan Democratic Party in Kirkuk, 180 miles (290 kilometers)
north of Baghdad, Iraq, yesterday. Two car bombs exploded in Kirkuk, the deadliest of the two
explosions struck the local headquarters of the Kurdistan Democratic Party. — AP
John McCain.
According to a TV clip released
by the Middle East Media Research
Institute (MEMRI), Morsi refers in a
2010 interview to “occupiers of
Palestine” as “blood suckers and
war mongers, and descendants of
pigs and apes.”
“We must resist them with all
forms of resistance. A military
resistance in Palestine against these
Zionist criminals assaulting the
land of Palestine and Palestinians,”
he says in the remarks to Quds
Channel three years ago.
In Wednesday’s statement, Morsi
“stressed his commitment to the
principles he has always insisted
on, including full respect for religions,
freedom of faith and religious
practices, especially the heavenly
religions.”
Morsi also “stressed the need to
differentiate between Judaism and
its adherents from (those who practise)
violent actions against
Palestinians.” He also “stressed the
importance of building a strategic
relationship between Egypt and
the United States based on mutual
a prominent Shi’ite who heads the committee
investigating protest demands, said the government
had so far freed more 400 detainees held
under anti-terrorism laws as a concession.
But protesters want detainees released, a
modification of terrorism laws and more control
over a campaign against former members of
Saddam’s outlawed Baath party, a measure they
believe is being used unfairly to sideline their
leaders. Violence in Iraq is down since the
height of sectarian bloodletting in 2006-2007,
when thousands were killed. But last year witnessed
a rise in deaths for the first time in three
years with more than 4,400 people killed in
attacks. — Reuters
Egypt’s Morsi says remarks on
‘Zionists’ taken out of context
CAIRO: In this image released by the Egyptian Presidency, Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, right,
meets with Republican Sen. John McCain, at the Presidential Palace in Cairo, Egypt, yesterday. — AP
respect and shared interests.”
On Tuesday, Washington condemned
Morsi’s remarks and urged
him to clarify his views. “The language
that we’ve seen is deeply
offensive,” State Department
spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said,
adding “we think that these comments
should be repudiated, and
they should be repudiated firmly.”
Morsi, who was a leader of
Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, came
to power in June as the Arab
nation’s first democratically elected
president, following the 2011 uprising
that toppled Hosni Mubarak.
Nuland said Washington had
already raised its concerns about
the television clip with Cairo, and
stressed again that Congress, which
has blocked part of $1 billion in
extra US aid, was watching the new
Egyptian leadership carefully.
“We completely reject these
statements, as we do any language
that espouses religious hatred. This
kind of rhetoric has been used in
this region for far too long,” she told
journalists. “It’s counter to the goals
of peace.”
“President Morsi should make
clear that he respects people of all
faiths and that this type of rhetoric
is not acceptable or productive in a
democratic Egypt,” added White
House spokesman Jay Carney.
The two administration officials
stressed, however, that since coming
to office, Morsi had reaffirmed
Egypt’s commitment to the 1979
peace treaty with Israel. He had
done so “in both word and deed,
and has proven willing to work with
us toward shared objectives,
including a ceasefire during the crisis
in Gaza last year,” Carney said.
Washington would judge Morsi by
both what he says and what he
does, Nuland added. — AFP

INTERNATIONAL
After reassurances on Iran, Israel, Hagel wins key votes
WASHINGTON: Former Republican
Senator Chuck Hagel’s chances of becoming
the President Barack Obama’s defense
secretary received a critical boost on
Tuesday when two leading Senate
Democrats said they had decided to vote
to confirm him. US Senator Chuck
Schumer, the No 3 Democrat in the
Senate, and Senator Barbara Boxer, a senior
member of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee, said Hagel had
eased their concerns over Hagel’s positions
on Israel, Iran and other issues.
“Based on several key assurances provided
by Senator Hagel, I am currently prepared
to vote for his confirmation,”
Schumer said in an extensive statement.
“I encourage my Senate colleagues
who have shared my previous concerns
to also support him.” Critics including
Obama takes on tricky
task in 2nd inauguration
WASHINGTON: US President Barack
Obama faces a near impossible task in his
second inaugural address Monday: uniting
a nation in which the compromise that oils
governing is crushed by deep political
divides. Before a crowd of thousands and
the eyes of the world on television and
online, Obama will stand on the West Front
of the US Capitol and swear to faithfully
execute the office of president and defend
the Constitution.
In a quirk of history, the 44th president
will already be serving the second day of
his second term, as the 20th Amendment
to the US Constitution states that presidential
mandates end at noon on January
20. When the date falls on a Sunday, the
president is privately sworn in-as Obama
will be by Chief Justice John Roberts in the
Blue Room of the White House on Sundayand
then repeats the ritual for posterity on
January 21.
While second term inaugurations lack
the majesty of a peaceful power transfer
from one leader to another, some have
served as important rallying points at perilous
moments in US history. In spectacular
prose, and in only 720 words, Abraham
Lincoln pledged in his second inaugural
address in 1865 with “malice toward none”
to bind the wounds of a nation split by civil
war and reflected on the evils of slavery. In
his second inaugural address in 1937,
Franklin Roosevelt rallied Americans for a
fresh assault on the clinging poverty of the
Great Depression, warning : “I see onethird
of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.”
While Obama may struggle to reach
those heights in the 57th US inauguration,
he may recall the prevailing economic panic
when he took office in 2009 and style
the slow return to growth as evidence of
enduring national purpose. Officials have
declined to preview the president’s
speech, but he is expected to map the
broad contours of his second term, rooted
in his campaign quest to frame a more
equitable economy. “I intend to carry out
the agenda that I campaigned on, an agenda
for new jobs, new opportunity and new
security for the middle class,” Obama said
Monday.
In their seminal study of presidential
rhetoric, authors Karlyn Kohrs Campbell
and Kathleen Hall Jamieson identified characteristics
underpinning successful inaugural
addresses. First, a newly sworn-in president
must unify the wider audience in
order to ratify his leadership, and then seal
the patriotic binding by reaffirming traditional
values drawn from his nation’s past.
Then, presidents seek to lay out the principles
by which they will govern and demonstrate
that they accept the limitations of
executive power, cloaking the whole
address in ceremonial and dignified rhetoric.
“Unifying the country is probably the
most important requirement of an inaugural
address,” said Leila Brammer, a specialist
on political rhetoric at Gustavus Adolphus
College, Minnesota. “Even if you won by a
60-40 margin, there are still 40 percent out
there and you still have to make the case
that you are the president of everybody.”
Obama’s task is even more acute-he beat
Republican Mitt Romney by 51 percent to
48 percent of the popular vote in
November’s election, and his approval ratings,
averaging 53 percent, reflect a nation
split down the middle.
He was also deprived of a honeymoon
that might have soothed tempers after a
negative election, as he was forced to wage
an ugly year-end fight with Republicans
over taxes and spending. Coming fiscal and
budget clashes in Congress are stirring new
bitterness between the parties, and casting
a shadow over Obama’s second term agenda.
Inaugural addresses are not the place
for detailed policy prescriptions-that is the
job of the State of the Union address, which
Obama will deliver in the House of
Representatives on February 12. But he
may refer obliquely to top priorities, including
economic fairness, immigration reform,
energy independence and an effort to curb
gun violence. —AFP
Republican legislators and conservative
pro-Israel groups have sought to portray
Hagel as anti-Israel and as someone who
is not committed to preventing Iran from
obtaining a nuclear weapon, accusations
he strongly denies. White House staffers
arranged the 90-minute meeting
between Schumer, a leading Jewish-
American legislative voice, and Hagel,
which took place at the White House and
WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama proposed
a new assault weapons ban and mandatory
background checks for all gun buyers yesterday
in a bid to channel national outrage over
the Newtown school massacre into the biggest
US gun-control push in generations. Rolling out
a wide-ranging plan for executive and legislative
action to curb gun violence, Obama set up
a fierce clash with the powerful US gun lobby
and its supporters in Congress, who are expected
to resist what they see as an encroachment
on constitutionally protected gun rights.
Obama presented his agenda at a White
House event in front of an audience that included
children from around the country, a
poignant reminder of the 20 first-graders who
were killed along with six adults by a lone gunman
on Dec 14 at Sandy Hook Elementary
School in Newtown, Connecticut. “While reducing
gun violence is a complicated challenge,
protecting our children from harm shouldn’t be
a divisive one,” Obama said. Until now, Obama
had done little to rein in America’s weapons culture
during his first four years in office. But just
days before his second inauguration, he
appears determined to champion gun control in
his next term with a concerted drive for tighter
laws and other steps aimed at preventing further
tragedies like the one at Newtown.
The proposals stem from a month-long
review led by Vice President Joe Biden, who on
orders from Obama met with advocates on both
sides, including representatives from the
weapons and entertainment industries.
Obama’s plan calls on Congress for a renewed
prohibition on assault weapons sales that
expired in 2004, a requirement for criminal
background checks on all gun purchases,
including closing a loophole for gun show sales,
and a new federal gun trafficking law - long
sought by big-city mayors to keep out-of-state
guns off their streets.
He also announced 23 steps he intends to
take immediately without congressional
approval. These include improvements in the
was kept secret until Schumer’s
announcement.
Schumer was initially offered a telephone
interview with Hagel, but Schumer
said he would rather meet face-to-face.
The New York Democrat called both
Obama and Hagel on Tuesday morning to
inform them that he was about to issue a
statement announcing his support, a
Democratic Senate aide said. Boxer had
existing system for background checks, lifting
the ban on federal research into gun violence,
putting more counselors and “resource officers”
in schools and improved access to mental
health services. The most politically contentious
piece of the package is Obama’s call for a
renewed ban on military-style assault weapons,
a move that Republicans who control the House
of Representatives are expected to oppose.
The Newtown gunman, 20-year-old Adam
Lanza, used a Bushmaster AR-15 assault rifle to
shoot his victims, many of them 6- and 7-yearolds,
before killing himself. Underscoring the
tough political fight ahead, the National Rifle
Association, launching a scathing advertising
campaign against Obama’s gun control effort
and deployed its representatives in force on
THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013
held off announcing her support. On
Tuesday, she said Hagel would have her
vote - after they had a long conversation
and he wrote her a letter spelling out his
positions on Iran, Israel and the treatment
of gays and women in the military. “We
spoke for quite a while last week and I was
very pleased with that conversation,” Boxer
told reporters on a conference call from
California, her home state. — Reuters
Obama unveils biggest
gun-control push ever
Assault weapons ban may be tough sell to Congress
Capitol Hill. The NRA, which says it has about 4
million members, took aim at Obama in a stinging
TV and Internet spot, accusing him of being
“just another elitist hypocrite” for accepting
Secret Service protection for his two daughters
but turning down the lobby group’s proposal to
put armed guards in all schools.
Obama’s plan appears to tread cautiously on
the question of whether violent movies and
video games contribute to the gun violence,
NEW CASTLE: Customers line up at the gun counter at Duke’s Sport Shop in New
Castle, Pa. — AP
which would open up issues of freedom of
expression. A senior administration official said,
however, that Obama would be asking for $10
million for the federal Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention to study the root causes
of gun violence, including any relationship to
video games and media images. — Reuters

LONDON: British Prime Minister David
Cameron gives a long-awaited speech in the
Netherlands yesterday that could push his
country towards the European exit door and
put his own position at risk.
The speech in Amsterdam promises to be
one of the most important by a British leader
since World War II, following in the footsteps
of previous premiers who have gone to the
continent to deliver speeches on Europe.
Cameron is expected to set out plans to
renegotiate Britain’s membership with the
EU and then allow British voters to vote on
the new terms in a referendum after the general
election in 2015.
The Conservative leader has said that he
wants Britain to remain in the European
Union, which is Britain’s biggest export partner,
while wresting back some powers from
Brussels.
But it is a huge gamble, as a “no” vote in
any referendum on new terms could precipitate
a “Brexit” from the EU, with far reaching
effects for the whole of the 27-nation bloc.
Cameron defended his plans on Monday,
saying that a straight in-out referendum on
membership would be a “false choice” and
adding: “I’m confident we will get the
changes that we want.”
Yet the issue has become a huge
headache for him as he tries to balance the
demands of an increasingly eurosceptic
Conservative party and British public with
those of his European partners.
The speech was repeatedly put back over
the last six months, then suddenly brought
forward from January 22 after it emerged it
would clash with ceremonies marking 50
years of post-war reconciliation between
France and Germany.
In a further sign of trouble Dutch Prime
Minister Mark Rutte will not attend the
INTERNATIONAL
British PM gambles with risky Europe speech
NAIROBI: A demonstrator wears a mask in the colors of the Kenyan flag as he
stands next to mock coffins, on which are written “State Burial, Ballot
Revolution”, before demonstrators carried the coffins to the Parliament and
burned them, in Nairobi, Kenya yesterday. — AP
Somali Shebab ‘decide to
execute’ French hostage
NAIROBI: Somali Islamists said yesterday
they would execute a French agent they
have held since 2009, as France said the
hostage was likely killed in a failed rescue
attempt. French commandos on
Saturday launched a raid to free the
hostage, known by the pseudonym of
Denis Allex, but the rescue bid failed and
resulted in the death of two French soldiers.
The Al-Qaeda linked Shebab said in a
statement they have “reached a unanimous
decision to execute the French
intelligence officer, Denis Allex.” A senior
Shebab official confirmed to AFP yesterday
that Allex “has been sentenced and
this judgment will not be changed. As far
as we are concerned this man should
die.”
Neither the statement nor the official
explicitly said Allex was still alive. The
Shebab justified their decision by saying
they wanted to avenge “the dozens of
Muslim civilians senselessly killed by the
French forces during the operation.”
Witnesses said eight civilians died during
the operation at Bulomarer, a town
south of Mogadishu still in the control of
the Shebab. The group also cited
“France’s increasing persecution of
Muslims around the world, its oppressive
anti-Islam policies at home, French military
operations in ... Afghanistan and,
most recently, in Mali.”
The Shebab have not provided any
proof that Allex is still alive. The French
army yesterday accused the Shebab of
“manipulating the media” and reaffirmed
that Allex is likely already dead.
“We suspect, and I believe that we are
not wrong to do so, that Somalia’s
Shebab are manipulating the media,”
France’s Chief of Defence Staff Admiral
Edouard Guillaud said on Europe 1 radio.
“We have no element since the raid
indicating Denis Allex is alive. We think
he is most likely dead,” he said. In the
operation to free Allex, two other French
soldiers were killed. The French retrieved
one of the bodies. Pictures of the second
soldier, presented by the Shebab as the
commander of the raid, have been posted
on the Islamists’ Twitter account.
French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le
Drian said Saturday that the raid, by the
elite DGSE secret service, was sparked by
the “intransigence of the terrorists who
have refused to negotiate for three and a
half years and were holding Denis Allex
in inhuman conditions.”
The minister said at the weekend that
a French soldier was missing, but on
Monday he said it now appeared that the
soldier had died. He did not indicate that
he was a commander. Le Drian said 17
guerrillas were killed in the raid.
Sources in Somalia said one of the reasons
the raid failed was that the rebels
had received advance warning, which
senior Shebab commander Sheikh
Mohamed Ibrahim confirmed to AFP by
telephone without giving further details.
Le Drian’s explanation was that French
troops had underestimated the Islamist
rebels’ strength when they launched the
operation involving some 50 troops and
at least five helicopters-and some help
from Washington. President Barack
Obama has acknowledged that US forces
provided limited technical support for
the operation, but said they had played
no role in the fighting. Denis Allex is the
longest held French hostage overseas
since French-Colombian Ingrid
Betancourt, who had been held for more
than six years by Colombian guerrillas
until being rescued by Colombia’s security
forces in 2008. — AFP
BELGRADE: Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic (L) shakes hands with
his Serbian counterpart Ivica Dacic (R) during a visit to Serbian capital
Belgrade yesterday. The visit is the first since relations between the two
neighbours, which have gradually improved over the last 10 years, deteriorated
following the May 2012 election of ultra-nationalist-turned-populist
Tomislav Nikolic as Serbian president. — AFP
speech being made on his country’s soil,
although he will meet Cameron for talks earlier
on Friday. Cameron has tried to win allies
for his position and embarked on a round of
telephone calls to European leaders in the
past week.
But there is likely to be little sympathy for
Britain’s demands for special treatment when
the bloc is still recovering from the crisis in
the eurozone, of which Britain is not part.
“Let’s be honest about it: renegotiation
means either a ‘Brexit’ or the end of the single
market and in fact of the EU,” Belgium’s
former prime minister Guy Verhofstadt, now
a member of the European parliament, said
Tuesday.
International allies including the United
States have criticised Cameron’s plans while
business leaders have warned that the
uncertainty could harm Britain’s economy.
Domestically, Cameron will be walking in the
LONDON: A helicopter crashed into a crane and
fell on a crowded street in central London during
rush hour yesterday, sending black plumes of
smoke into the air as it smashed to the ground.
Two people were killed and nine others injured,
officials said.
The helicopter crashed just south of the River
Thames near the Underground and mainline
train station at Vauxhall, and near the British spy
agency MI6.
Police said one person had critical injuries.
Several people were taken to a nearby hospital
with “minor injuries,” London Ambulance Service
said. The Ministry of Defense said it was not a
military helicopter, and a British security official
who spoke on condition of anonymity because
he wasn’t authorized to speak to the press said
the incident was not terror-related. The horrific
scene unfolded at the height of the morning
commute when thousands of pedestrians are
trying to get to work.
Video on Sky News showed wreckage burning
in a street, and black smoke in the area. The
video from the crash scene showed a line of
flaming fuel and debris. Witnesses said the helicopter
hit a crane atop a 50-story residential
building, the St. George Wharf Tower.
Allen Crosbie, site manager for the landscape
firm Maylim company, who was working at the
scene, said the explosion convinced him and
others that London was being attacked. “I was
100 percent sure it was a terrorist attack,” he said.
“There was debris everywhere, a ton of black
smoke. Parts of the crane, parts of the helicopter.
I heard bang, bang, bang - I presume it was the
helicopter hitting the crane and then the
ground. People were just panicking. Everyone
thought it was a terrorist attack.”
He and everyone just ran for their lives, he
said. William Belsey, 25, a landscape worker at
the St. George Wharf Tower, said he heard the
helicopter hit the crane. “First we heard a big
shadow of previous British prime ministers.
Winston Churchill called for a “United
States of Europe” in Zurich in 1946, but
Britain was not allowed to join what was
then the European Economic Community
until 1973. Margaret Thatcher, the “Iron Lady”,
went to Bruges in 1988 to say that Britain
“does not dream of some cosy, isolated existence
on the fringes of the European
Community” while Tony Blair spoke in
Warsaw to call for enlargement of the EU. But
Cameron’s strategy means he must secure
the repatriation of powers if he is not to
appear weak-and then after that must still
win a referendum on the new terms, likely in
2018.
Failure to win the referendum would
not only torpedo his own leadership but
would also point Britain towards an EU exit,
as voters would effectively have failed to
back Cameron’s vision for Britain’s place in
crash, looked up, that’s when we saw the helicopter
coming toward us.
We heard an explosion as it hit the ground,”
he said. Metropolitan Police Commissioner
Bernard Hogan-Howe said he believed the helicopter
was being diverted to a nearby heliport
when it crashed.
“The top of the crane was actually obscured
by fog so I didn’t see the impact,” Michael Gavin
told the BBC. “But I heard a bang and saw the
body of the helicopter falling to the ground
along with pieces of the crane and then a large
THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013
Europe. Cameron’s referendum plans likely
depend in any case on his ability to win an
outright majority in 2015, as the
Conservatives’ current coalition partners
the Liberal Democrats are strongly pro-
Europe. The Lib Dem deputy prime minister
Nick Clegg-a Dutch speaker-warned on
Tuesday of a “chilling effect” on the economy.
Britain could not “unilaterally simply
rewrite the terms of our membership” of the
EU, he said.
But the biggest threat to Cameron is his
own party, which tore itself apart over the
issue of Europe under both Thatcher and her
successor John Major. The eurosceptic
Conservative right-wing fears that the fervently
anti-European UK Independence
Party could steal its support. The British public
is also turning against the EU. A poll in
December found that 56 percent of those
surveyed would opt to leave. — AFP
Two dead, nine hurt after
helicopter crashes in London
Chopper crashes near British spy agency MI6
Pope’s secretary makes
front page of Vanity Fair
ROME: Pope Benedict
XVI’s dashing personal
secretary Georg
Gaenswein has made
the front page of the
Italian edition of
Vanity Fair, under the
headline “being beautiful
is not a sin.”
“The George
Clooney of St. Peter’s is
the Vatican’s number
two, following his
ordination as bishop,”
says the magazine,
which goes on sale on
Thursday and charts
Gaenswein’s rise up
the Holy See hierarchy.
The blue-eyed 56year-old,
who lives in
the Vatican as one of
the tiny state’s 832 residents,
receives love
letters from enamoured
fans and has
Archbishop Georg Ganswein
learnt not to be distracted
from his work by the endless compliments on his looks, the magazine
says.
Gaenswein is not officially the Vatican’s number two-that role is held by
the powerful secretary of state Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone. But his promotion
to Prefect of the Papal Household in December means Benedict’s closest
adviser wields more influence than ever.
A dapper figure in his black robes and a broad pink sash, Gaenswein has
been a constant presence at the pope’s side at the Vatican and on foreign
trips and his close relationship with the pontiff is said to have sparked jealousy
within the Vatican walls.
“Personally, I see my role or service to the pope as being like a window.
The cleaner, the better. I have to let the sun in, and the less you see the
window the better,” Gaenswein said as he received a prize a few weeks ago,
according to La Repubblica newspaper.
It was Gaenswein who rooted out the whistleblower inside the Vatican
last year, after he realised that the pope’s butler Paolo Gabriele was the
only person who could have had access to some of the secret documents
revealing intrigue within the Holy See, which were stolen and leaked to
the press.
Belief that he also has the pope’s ear on key doctrinal issues has led
some to speculate over whether the leaks may have been part of a power
struggle between Gaenswein and Bertone.
His supporters have insisted he is too devoted to Benedict to betray his
trust and spark one of the most embarrassing scandals to hit the Vatican,
though Italy’s media questioned how he failed to see the theft carried out
on his watch.
The son of a blacksmith, Gaenswein was ordained in 1984 and rose
through the ranks to become Joseph Ratzinger’s secretary in 2003.
When Ratzinger was elected to the papacy in 2005, he kept the blondhaired
monsignor by his side, propelling him into the limelight, much to
the delight of the international media, instantly smitten by the pope’s
dashing assistant. Those who thought he might be punished for failing to
prevent the leaks were wrong: Gorgeous George, once private and
reserved, is now even more powerful and visible than ever. — AFP
plume of smoke afterwards.”
The area, roughly 10 blocks from the major
Waterloo train and Underground station, is
extremely congested during the morning rush
hour. Many commuters arrive at the main line
stations from London’s southern suburbs and
transfer to buses or trains there.
Aviation expert Chris Yates said that weather
may have played a role. Investigators also would
look at whether the crane had navigation lights.
“The question then becomes whether the pilot
was fit,” Yates said. — AP
LONDON: A picture taken by a member of the public shows the scene of a helicopter
crash in central London yesterday. Two people were killed when a helicopter hit a
crane at a building site in central London during morning rush hour and plunged to
the ground, engulfing several cars in flames. — AFP
18 frozen human
heads discovered
CHICAGO: It sounded ghoulish
enough: a shipment of 18 frozen
human heads discovered and
seized by customs officials during
routine X-ray screening of cargo
arriving at O’Hare International
Airport in Chicago. The heads
were used for medical research in
Italy and were being returned for
cremation in Illinois. The holdup
was due to a paperwork problem.
It just so happens such shipments
are commonplace, and
heads - quite a few of them -
crisscross the globe via airplane
and delivery truck.
“Just last week, we transported
eight heads, unembalmed, to
Rush University Medical Center
for an ophthalmology program,”
said Paul Dudek, director of the
Anatomical Gift Association of
Illinois, which supplies cadavers
and body parts to medical
schools in the state for training
students. His association sends
about 450 whole cadavers to
medical schools each year and
also ships individual body parts,
including about a dozen shipments
of heads annually.
The heads are used for training
in fields such as dentistry,
ophthalmology and neurology,
where they are used for
Alzheimer’s research. They are
also used to train plastic surgeons
and by students learning
to perform facial reconstructions
on accident and trauma victims,
Dudek said. Most cadavers are
obtained through voluntary
donation by people who designate
a willingness to have their
bodies benefit science upon their
death, Dudek said. A much smaller
proportion are the bodies of
people whose families could not
afford their burial and so agree to
allow the state to release them
for research.
The shipment to O’Hare was
properly preserved, wrapped and
labeled “human specimens,” said
Mary Paleologos, a spokeswoman
for the Cook County
Medical Examiner’s Office, which
took hold of the shipment on
Monday for storage in its morgue
cooler while authorities continued
to investigate the paperwork.
With little information initially,
news of the shipment’s discovery
fueled headlines and
raised questions about where the
shipment came from, where it
was headed and why. In the end,
it turned out the shipment of
three containers, which arrived in
mid-December, was held up
because of a mix-up with the
paperwork and there was nothing
suspicious about it or its destination.
The heads were originally sent
from Illinois to a medical research
facility in Rome and were
returned to the Chicago area for
disposal as part of the agreement
for the order, Paleologos said. On
Tuesday, a cremation service
arrived at the Medical Examiner’s
Office with paperwork for the
specimens. Once federal authorities
confirm the paperwork, the
specimens will be turned over to
the cremation service, she said.
US Customs and Border
Protection could not discuss the
specific case because of privacy
laws, but it said shipments of
human remains into the US “are
not without precedent,” are lawful
with the right documentation
and fall within the agency’s “lowrisk”
category.
Dudek said such shipments
require thorough documentation,
in part because the scarcity
of bodies donated to science
means there is a black market for
them. “It does go on,” he said of
the illegal trade. Besides medical
schools, many corporations making
medical instruments and
appliances use cadavers for their
training and research programs.
“We receive about 600 wholebody
donations a year. I could
easily place 750, 800,” he said,
explaining the short supply.
Some shipments go by air, but
others end up in delivery trucks
just like any other package. “In
fact, we sent out a shipment of
brains to the University of Texas
at Austin last week via UPS,”
Dudek said.— AP

MUMBAI: An anti-harassment police
squad launched in a district near Mumbai
is targeting single women and young couples
out on the streets after dark, following
a brutal gang-rape and murder in India last
month.
Since the December 16 attack, 10 to 15
plainclothes policemen have been
patrolling streets in Thane district, which
borders Mumbai. But instead of targeting
sex offenders they are fining unmarried
couples out late.
“Unmarried couples and single women,
who are spotted in isolated places or in
corners of parks and gardens late at night,
have been told not to frequent such
places,” local police official Ramakant
Mahire said. “When we catch them, we tell
them not to frequent these places or cause
nuisance in public places,” he told AFP, saying
the streets were now kept empty after
sunset. Mahire said the drive was launched
in response to growing concerns over
crime in the area and the gruesome gang-
INTERNATIONAL
Indian police target single women, couples out after dark
JAMMU: Indian Border Security Force soldiers patrol along the international border
fencing at Suchetgarh area, about 27 kilometers (17 miles) south of Jammu, India,
yesterday. Pakistan accused Indian troops of killing one of its soldiers along the disputed
Kashmir border, in the latest of a series of tit-for-tat attacks that threaten to
ratchet up tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbors. — AP
Pakistan accuses
India of ‘warmongering’
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan accused India of
“warmongering” and lodged an official
protest yesterday after another soldier was
killed in disputed Kashmir in a flare-up that
threatens to derail a fragile peace process.
Diplomats on both sides have warned
against allowing a spate of deadly cross-border
incidents to wreck the tentative progress
that has been made since a total break in
relations following the 2008 attacks on
Mumbai. But tensions escalated as Pakistan
reported another of its troops had been
killed Tuesday in “unprovoked” firing across
the militarised border, bringing the toll on
both sides to five since January 6. Pakistan
army’s director general of military operation
telephoned his Indian counterpart
Wednesday to “strongly protest” over the
death, an official told AFP.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani
Khar hit out at strident comments by Indian
politicians over the incidents, and warned
against “upping the ante” between the
nuclear-powered neighbours.
“We see warmongering,” Khar said at the
Asia Society in New York late Tuesday. “It is
deeply disturbing to hear statements which
are upping the ante, where one politician is
competing with the other to give a more
hostile statement.”
India says two of its soldiers have been
killed, one beheaded, since hostilities erupted
along the Line of Control (LoC), the de
facto border in Kashmir where a ceasefire
has been in place since 2003. It has demanded
the return of the soldier’s head which is
still missing. Pakistan, however, denies its
forces are responsible for the killings and
says three of its troops have now been killed
in the spate of incidents.
India’s army chief Bikram Singh, who has
already called on his commanders to
respond “aggressively” to any Pakistani firing,
made a highly-charged visit Wednesday
to the home of the beheaded soldier.
“Whatever we need to do we are doing,”
Singh said in brief comments to reporters
outside the home in the northern state of
Uttar Pradesh. The two countries have
fought three wars since their independence
in 1947, two of them over the Himalayan
region of Kashmir. But Khar said they had to
get over their “narrative of hostility”.
“The doors to dialogue are open,” she
said. “We need to meet at any level, I think
we need to call each other, we need to
become mature countries which know how
to handle their truth.” Khar again denied
Indian accusations that Pakistani forces had
beheaded one of two soldiers that India says
were killed on January 8. She said an inquiry
had found “no evidence” of the deaths.
Her comments are likely to stoke further
indignation in India, whose prime minister
Manmohan Singh on Tuesday condemned
the beheading as “unacceptable”. “It cannot
be business as usual” with Pakistan, Singh
said in his first public reaction to the attack
which has caused outrage in the army’s
ranks.
Indian newspapers said the prime minister
had highlighted a growing sense of frustration
in New Delhi at Islamabad’s denial of
responsibility. “Singh’s comments signalled a
hardening of the government’s stand which
had so far seemed to be trying to resist
demands for pausing the peace process,” The
Times of India said.
After the collapse in ties following the
2008 Mumbai attacks, which India blamed
on Pakistan-based militants, relations had
been making steady progress, with talks
focused on opening up trade and offering
more lenient visa regimes.
But the mood has soured dramatically
since the apparent tit-for-tat exchanges
along the militarised border. On Tuesday,
India was meant to begin allowing
Pakistanis over the age of 65 to obtain a visa
on arrival at the border in Punjab.
However the programme was put on
hold indefinitely hours after Indian officials
said it had come into force, although the
delay was attributed to “technical” reasons.
Nine Pakistani players were also withdrawn
from a new field hockey league in
India and asked to return home just before
Singh’s comments. — AFP
ICJ urges Sri Lanka to
reinstate ex-chief justice
COLOMBO: The International Commission of
Jurists has condemned the appointment of a
trusted aide of Sri Lanka’s president as the country’s
chief justice and urged the government to
reinstate the former top judge who was fired
after a highly criticized impeachment process.
The group denounced the appointment of
Mohan Peiris, a retired attorney general and a
legal adviser to the Cabinet, as chief justice, saying
it “raises serious concerns about the future
of the rule of law and accountability” and “a further
assault on the independence of the judiciary.”
Peiris was sworn in before President
Mahinda Rajapaksa on Tuesday, two days after
Shirani Bandaranayake was dismissed as chief
justice after a parliamentary committee found
her guilty of having unexplained wealth and
misuse of power.
Bandaranayake denied the charges and
accused the tribunal of not giving her a fair
hearing. Courts have ruled in her favor, but the
president and Parliament ignored the rulings.
“Mohan Peiris’ appointment as the new chief
justice, after a politically compromised and procedurally
flawed impeachment, adds serious
insult to the gross injury already inflicted on Sri
Lanka’s long suffering judiciary,” Sam Zarifi, ICJ’s
Asia director, said in a statement on group’s web
site. He said during Peiris’ tenure as attorney
general and the government’s top legal adviser,
he “consistently blocked efforts to hold the government
responsible for serious human rights
violations and disregarded international law
and standards.”
Rajapaksa’s critics say appointing a confidante
to the post of chief justice gives him control
over the judiciary as well as Parliament,
where more than two-thirds of the 225 members
support him. Peiris has been prominent in
defending Rajapaksa’s government from allegations
of human rights violations and enforced
disappearances.
The critics say replacing the chief justice is
part of an effort to consolidate the government’s
power in the hands of the president’s
family. Rajapaksa’s older brother is the parliamentary
speaker, and two of his younger
brothers hold the powerful positions of economic
development minister and defense secretary.
Rajapaksa’s eldest son is a lawmaker.
Many prominent lawyers in Sri Lanka have
already said they still recognize Bandaranayake
as the chief justice and have written to senior
judges urging them not to recognize a new
appointee.
On Tuesday, a local political think tank, the
Center for Policy Alternatives, and its executive
director filed a petition in the Supreme Court
challenging Peiris’ appointment. Bandaranayake
said in a statement Tuesday that she was still
the legitimate chief justice of Sri Lanka, but that
she decided to leave her official residence and
office fearing violence.
The impeachment has also drawn international
criticism. Canadian Prime Minister
Stephen Harper said the impeachment
“appeared to be highly politicized and lacking
transparency,” adding Canada would continue
to raise its concerns directly with Sri Lanka and
through resolutions at the United Nations and
the Commonwealth.
Media in Canada have raised the possibility
of Canada boycotting this year’s
Commonwealth leaders’ meeting to be held in
Sri Lanka, citing concerns about Colombo’s
commitment to human rights and democracy
since the country’s long civil war ended in
2009. — AP
rape and murder of a female student in
New Delhi last month that sent shockwaves
across India.
He said couples seen behaving inappropriately
were fined 1,200 rupees ($22)
and occasionally their parents were called
by the police. The Times of India newspaper
said yesterday that 95 people had
been booked under the Bombay Police
Act for “causing public nuisance” since the
drive began, but Mahire would not confirm
a number. “Obviously if a girl is alone
KABUL: Six militants wearing suicide vests -
including one driving a car packed with explosives
- attacked the gate of the Afghan intelligence
in Kabul yesterday, setting off a blast that
reportedly caused several deaths and wounded
at least 30 civilians, officials said.
Taleban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid
claimed responsibility for the attack in a text
message sent to The Associated Press. A highranking
official with the intelligence agency,
called the National Directorate of Security, said
there were deaths from the attack but did not
say how many. He declined to give his name
because he was not an official spokesman.
Kabul police said the first attacker detonated
his bomb at the front gate of the NDS compound
and the other five, all wearing bombs
strapped to their chests, piled out of a mini-van
and tried to storm the gate. All were killed, a
police statement said, adding that the van was
also loaded with explosives, which did not detonate
and was later defused by police, the statement
said. The explosion occurred about noon
local time and was followed by volleys of gunfire
for the next 30 minutes. Mohammad Zahir, the
chief of the Kabul police investigation unit, said
at least 30 people were wounded, but he did not
have information on any deaths.
An Associated Press reporter at the scene saw
at least 10 wounded people being taken away in
ambulances. Reporters could see the mangled
wrecks of at least seven cars that had been
caught up in the explosion. The windows of
nearby shops were blown out and glass shards
littered the street two blocks away.
A heavy snow started to fall as uniformed
NDS agents cordoned off the area around the
blown-up gate. The blast walls at the entrance
were blackened from the explosion and metal
pieces - apparently the remains of the entrance
gate - were twisted and strewn about.
The entire NDS compound is surrounded by
tall, thick cement walls designed to protect
buildings from bomb blasts. An eyewitness who
was wounded by flying glass, Mohammad Zia,
in a dark place late at night, boys may try
to approach her. It’s for their safety,” he
said. Thane police commissioner K.P.
Raghuvanshi was unavailable to speak to
AFP, but he told the Times of India the
drive was meant to protect women from
harassment.
“If any policeman is found to have erred
in enforcement of the rules, then we will
initiate corrective and punitive action
against him,” he said. Mumbai’s own police
commissioner Satyapal Singh has mean-
said he saw a car drive up to the NDS gate and
blow up. It was the second attack aimed at the
intelligence agency in two months. On Dec. 6, a
Taleban suicide bomber posing as a messenger
of peace blew himself up while meeting with
agency chief Asadullah Khalid inside a Kabul residence
used for receiving guests. The attack seriously
wounded Khalid and he has since then
been hospitalized in the United States.
Attacks in the heavily secured Afghan capital
are less common than in the country’s restive
south, but they do occur and are often more
sophisticated. For example, they often include
multiple attackers trying to penetrate past the
THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013
while suggested that there is a higher rate
of crime against women in countries
which included sex education in their curriculum,
such as America.
“According to a survey, rape is more
common than smoking there,” he said,
while taking part in a public discussion on
women’s safety on Monday, the Indian
Express newspaper reported. “Countries
with sex education in their curriculum only
have an increased number of crimes
against women.” — AFP
Suicide bombers strike
spy agency in Kabul
Second attack on spy agency in two months
Pakistan cleric
urges politicians
to join protest
ISLAMABAD: A populist cleric yesterday urged Pakistani
politicians to join tens of thousands taking part in the
largest protest in Islamabad for years, ratcheting up the
pressure on the government to step down. In a threeand-a-half
hour speech delivered from behind bulletproof
glass, Tahir-ul Qadri urged his followers to remain
steadfast, despite the winter cold, in their demands for
key reforms and clean elections.
He welcomed a Supreme Court order to arrest the
prime minister over alleged corruption but gave no indication
how long he would prolong the protest outside
parliament, which has brought the city’s main commercial
avenue to a standstill.
“Keep sitting, don’t move. Be steadfast. Your destiny is
closer. There will soon be a decision in your favour,” Qadri
shouted in a third fiery speech since reaching Islamabad
after a 38-hour “march” from the eastern city of Lahore.
“It is now or never.”
Security officials estimated the crowd numbered at
least 25,000, which would make it the largest political
protest in the capital since the government led by the
Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) was elected in 2008.
The rally comes as Pakistan struggles with a weak
economy, a bloody Islamist insurgency, rising sectarian
violence, a sinking rupee and as fledgling peace gains
with India look in jeopardy following a spate of crossborder
shootings. A general election is due to be held by
mid-May, but Qadri wants parliament dissolved now and
a caretaker government set up in consultation with the
military and the judiciary, to implement key reforms first.
But his sudden-and apparently well-financed-emergence
after years in Canada has been criticised as a ploy
by the establishment, particularly the armed forces, to
delay the elections and sow political chaos.
If it goes ahead as scheduled, the ballot will mark the
first democratic transfer of power between two elected
civilian governments in the history of Pakistan, where
the military have staged three coups and ruled for
decades. Qadri denies wanting to delay the poll, but is
calling for a new, independent election commission and
screening to ban corrupt candidates.
The cleric, who as a dual Canadian-Pakistani national
is not eligible for office, called on opposition politician
Imran Khan and other parties to join him.
“I invite Imran Khan to come and join us. He also
wants change... I also invite other parties, those who are
not siding us,” he said.
Khan, a former cricketer who leads the Pakistan
Movement for Justice party but has no seat in parliament,
has called on President Asif Ali Zardari to resign
and for the government to set a date for elections.
So far, other political parties have backed the government
over Qadri, favouring parliament to remain in
place until the government’s mandate expires in mid-
March. But Tuesday’s order to arrest Prime Minister Raja
Pervez Ashraf sparked rumours of a judicial-military conspiracy
to force the government out. Commentators say
there is no imminent sign that the prime minister will be
arrested and that he can remain in office until and unless
he is convicted. The Supreme Court has been at loggerheads
for years with the government, and last June
Ashraf’s predecessor was thrown out of office after the
court found him guilty of contempt. — AFP
perimeter of armed guards and blast walls that
surround government buildings and embassies.
The most recent attack in Kabul was on Dec. 17,
when a car bomber struck outside a compound
used by a US military contractor. That blast killed
KABUL: Afghan firefighters clean the road near the scene following a militant attack in
Kabul, Afghanistan, yesterday. Six militants wearing suicide vests including one driving a car
packed with explosives attacked the gate of the Afghan intelligence in Kabul yetserday, setting
off a blast that reportedly caused several deaths and wounded at least 30 civilians, offi-
cials said. — AP
PESHAWAR: Hundreds of villagers from
northwest Pakistan protested Wednesday
the killing of 18 of their relatives in an
overnight raid that they blamed on security
forces, displaying the bodies of the victims
in the provincial capital.
The Pakistan military has been waging a
campaign against militants in tribal areas
such as the Khyber Agency, where these
deaths occurred late Tuesday, and according
to human rights groups and residents
sometimes commit rights abuses.
About 3,000 people gathered
Wednesday outside the house of the governor
of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in
Peshawar. They said gunmen wearing military
uniforms stormed homes in their area
and shot villagers dead.
Shabir Ahmed, a soldier from the paramilitary
Frontier Constabulary, said his four
brothers and father were present at their
home when uniformed gunmen stormed
his house, opened fire and killed them.
“I want to know who killed my brothers
and father and why?” he said, demanding
justice. But an official with the Frontier
Constabulary, which operates in the area,
at least two Afghan workers and wounded more
than a dozen people.
A spokesman for the international military
coalition in Afghanistan confirmed an explosion
and small arms fire yesterday but did not provide
further details. Maj. Martyn Crighton said
that Afghan forces were responding to the
attack and there was no involvement from the
NATO military coalition. — AP
Pakistanis protest killing
of 18 in village raid
said the villagers had been killed by militants.
The official spoke on condition of
anonymity as he was not authorized to
speak to the media.
Human rights groups have accused the
Pakistani military of widespread human
rights abuses in their counter-insurgency
campaign in the tribal areas.
In a December report, Amnesty
International accused the Pakistani military
of regularly holding people without
charges and torturing or otherwise mistreating
them in custody. The Londonbased
group said in the report that some
detainees do not survive and are returned
to their families dead, or their corpses are
dumped in remote parts of the tribal
region.
The military rejected the allegations and
in a statement called the report “a pack of
lies.” Amnesty also criticized the Taleban for
a range of rights abuses, including the
killing of captured soldiers and innocent
civilians.
The militants have carried out scores of
attacks around the country that have killed
thousands of people. — AP
PESHAWAR: Pakistani villagers from the northwest gather around the dead bodies of
their relatives during a protest in provincial capital Peshawar yesterday.
Demonstrators said gunmen wearing military uniforms stormed homes in Bara
Tehsil in Khyber Agency, some 30 kilometers from Peshawar and shot 18 villagers
dead in an overnight raid. — AFP

BANGKOK: The UN’s refugee agency
said yesterday it had received permission
from Thailand to visit about 850
people, many thought to be from
Myanmar’s Rohingya minority, held
after raids on camps in the Thai south.
Hundreds of migrants have been
arrested in the past week in police
sweeps of remote areas in rubber plantations
near the border with Malaysia,
leading the UNHCR to try to confirm
whether any of them plan to seek asylum.
“The Thai authorities have agreed in
principle to give us access to this group,”
Vivian Tan, spokeswoman for the United
Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees office, told AFP. “There are likely
to be Rohingya among them, but we
can’t confirm their identity without us
first talking to them and doing a preliminary
assessment.”
She said no date had been agreed
yet but the UN was pushing to do the
interviews as soon as possible.
Thousands of Muslim-minority
Rohingya have fled communal unrest in
Myanmar’s western state of Rakhine,
INTERNATIONAL
Thailand grants access to presumed Rohingya
JAKAETA: People ride a man pulled cart through a flooded street in Jakarta
yesterday. Floodwaters have inundated 52 subdistricts in Jakarta, claiming
one life and displacing some 6,000 residents, according to the National
Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB). — AFP
Floods force thousands
to flee in Indonesia
JAKARTA: Monsoon rains and rising rivers
have forced thousands of people to flee
their flooded homes in Indonesia’s capital.
Jakarta’s disaster management agency
said on its website yesterday that 10,825
people were in temporary shelters after
fleeing flooding up to 3 meters (10 feet)
high in several places. In western Jakarta,
a 13-year-old boy was killed after being
swept away by a flooded river.
Media reports said floods inundated
rice fields and roads in central Java and
Indonesia’s part of Borneo. Deaths from
flooding and landslides are common during
annual monsoons in Indonesia. Last
week, flooding cut off a toll road in the
neighboring province of Banten for days,
killing at least four people and causing a
12-kilometer (7 1/2-mile) traffic jam along
a major highway for two days. — AP
Fiji imposes restrictions
on political parties
SUVA: Fiji’s ruling military yesterday unveiled
a raft of restrictions on political parties, in a
move condemned by Australia as the Pacific
nation heads towards elections planned for
2014.
The government, which seized power in a
2006 coup, said trade union executives would
be banned from founding political parties,
along with other occupations deemed to be
“public officials”.
The membership threshold for registering
a political party had also been lifted 40-fold
from 128 to 5,000, Attorney General Aiyaz
Sayed-Khaiyum said.
Sayed-Khaiyum said Fiji’s 16 existing political
parties would have 28 days to re-register
from Friday and must meet all criteria set out
SEOUL: South Korean President-elect Park Geun-hye, right, shakes hands
with US Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell before their meeting at
Park’s office in Seoul, South Korea, yesterday. — AP
SEOUL: The top US diplomat for East Asian
affairs warned North Korea yesterday against
any “provocative” act, as concerns grow that
Pyongyang might be preparing a nuclear
test.
“We are very clear in our position that
provocative steps are to be discouraged,”
Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell
told reporters in Seoul when asked about the
nuclear test speculation. Campbell was in
Seoul to meet with top officials, including
president-elect Park Geun-Hye.
The impoverished but nuclear-armed
North successfully staged a long-range rocket
launch in December, sparking global security
concerns and drawing UN condemnation
and calls from the US and its allies for
tougher sanctions.
Pyongyang said the launch was a purely
scientific mission aimed at placing a polarorbiting
earth observation satellite in space.
Most of the world saw it as a disguised
ballistic missile test that violated UN resolutions
imposed after the North’s nuclear tests
in 2006 and 2009.
Both of those tests came after long-range
missile launches. The US-Korea Institute at
Johns Hopkins University, citing satellite
imagery analysis, said late last month the
North was capable of carrying out a nuclear
test at two weeks’ notice after repairing dam-
by the government. “If you hold yourself out
to be a political party and you are not registered
under the decree then you commit an
offence,” he told the Fiji Times.
The moves comes less than a week after
the government scrapped a draft constitution
prepared by an academic panel and said it
was instead writing its own version, a move
criticised this week by United Nations chief
Ban Ki-moon.
Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr said
the conditions imposed on political parties
were “onerous” and unjustified. “This restriction
on the nature of political parties, however,
cannot be justified. Vibrant political parties
are a vital part of a democracy,” Carr said in a
statement. —AFP
US warns N Korea
against nuke test
age to its test facility.
Campbell said “intense deliberations”
were under way at the UN Security Council
on how to punish Pyongyang for last month’s
rocket launch.
“We anticipate formal steps in the
Security Council in the immediate future,” he
said, stressing Washington was in “very
detailed conversations” with key players such
as Russia and the North’s sole major ally
China.
Beijing is resisting any significant tightening
of sanctions already in place against
Pyongyang. In a briefing with journalists yesterday,
a South Korean government security
expert said North Korea’s next nuclear test
could see a uranium device used for the first
time, rather than plutonium as was the case
in 2006 and 2009.
“It needs to spare plutonium obtained
from earlier reprocessing of spent fuel rods,
while a uranium enrichment programme is
sustainable for continuous testing,” the
expert said. “Such tests are essential for
North Korea to miniaturise nuclear weapons
to fit them onto missiles,” the expert added.
Estimates on how far North Korea has progressed
with its uranium enrichment programme
vary widely, and some question
whether it has succeeded in producing any
weapons-grade uranium. — AFP
heading to Thailand and other countries.
Clashes between Buddhists and
Muslims have left at least 180 people
dead in the state since June, and displaced
more than 110,000 others, mostly
Rohingya.
Lieutenant General Paradorn
Pattanatabut, secretary general of
Thailand’s National Security Council,
confirmed that the government would
allow UNHCR access.
“Police are focused on illegal entry,
illegal detention and the sheltering of
HANOI: Vietnam and Japan must “play a more
active role” in maintaining regional peace and
security, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe
said yesterday, in the face of growing maritime
tensions with China.
The two countries, both locked in separate
bitter disputes with Beijing over contested
islands in the resource-rich South China Sea, said
they would work towards closer cooperation
after talks in Hanoi yesterday.
Citing “challenging developments” in the
Asia-Pacific, Abe-on his first overseas trip since
winning power-said the two countries should
deepen their relationship. They “should increase
political and security dialogues and work
together,” Abe told reporters through a translator
after closed-door talks with his Vietnamese
counterpart.
The countries have “agreed to promote a
strategic partnership (and) play a more active
role in peace and security in the region”, he
added. Abe, who scored a handsome election
win last month after talking tough on a territorial
dispute with China, met Prime Minister
Nguyen Tan Dung and other top officials.
He will spend less than 24 hours in the communist
state before heading to Thailand and
Indonesia in an attempt to bolster relations with
the vibrant economies of the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations bloc.
Dung told a joint press briefing the two countries
wanted all regional disputes to be resolved
“through peaceful negotiations on the basis of
international law”.
He did not elaborate. The two nations are
major trade partners and Japan is Vietnam’s
largest aid donor.
Political and security ties are also growing as
Japan seeks to shore up regional relationships as
a counterweight to an increasingly confident
China. Japan and China are locked in a bitter
battle over the sovereignty of the Tokyo-con-
illegal immigrants,” he said.
He said 160 minors under the age of
18 have been separated from the group
and put into special facilities, with
adults detained at two immigration centres
and four police stations in the
southern province of Songkhla.
Myanmar views the roughly 800,000
Rohingya in Rakhine as illegal
Bangladeshi immigrants and denies
them citizenship. The UN, which has
called the Rohingya one of the world’s
most persecuted peoples, has urged
Myanmar’s neighbours to open their
trolled Senkaku islands, which Beijing calls the
Diaoyus. Vietnam and China have competing
claims to the Paracel and Spratley Islands, and
regularly trade diplomatic barbs over sovereignty
and fishing rights in the contested waters
around the archipelagos.
China is also involved in an acrimonious territorial
dispute with the Philippines over parts of
THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013
borders to people escaping the communal
violence.
Although tensions have eased since
a fresh outbreak of killings in Rakhine in
October, concerns have grown about
the fate of asylum-seekers setting sail in
overcrowded boats.
Thailand has faced pressure from
rights groups to do more to help
Rohingya migrants who reach its territory.
The country has been accused of
pushing them into neighbouring countries
including Malaysia, which offers
them sanctuary. — AFP
Japan, Vietnam to cooperate
on regional challenges
Pledge to play a more active role in peace
the South China Sea. Abe and Dung also
announced a new $500 million pledge of aid
Wednesday, without specifying what it was for.
Last year Japan became the largest single foreign
investor in Vietnam, with major investments in
banking, export-orientated manufacturing and
consumer goods as Japanese companies eye the
rapidly-expanding middle class.— AFP
HANOI: Visiting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (L) and his Vietnamese counterpart
Nguyen Tan Dung (R) leave a meeting room in Hanoi yesterday. Abe is here for a
one-day official visit, the first leg of a Southeast Asian trip which will lead him also to
Indonesia and Thailand. — AFP
Biden becomes Obama’s go-to-guy
WASHINGTON: Garrulous, gaffe-prone and great at glad-handing,
Vice President Joe Biden has become something else to this
White House as his boss embarks on a legacy-building second
term: essential. The first shout-out of President Barack Obama’s
victory speech in November went to the man he termed
“America’s happy warrior” and since then Biden has been everywhere.
When talks to avert the fiscal cliff were in danger of collapsing,
it was Biden to whom Obama turned to get things back
on track. When tragedy struck in Newtown, Connecticut and 20
young lives were ended in a hail of bullets from a maniac’s gun,
it was again the avuncular vice president who was tasked with
drawing up the response.
Biden’s star is rising anew and commentators who once
sniffed and smiled when he spoke of running for president in
2016 have now been given pause. At 70, a successful tilt for the
White House in three years time is still a long-shot but there is
certainly a spring in Joe’s step and he is increasingly becoming
Obama’s go-to-guy in times of crisis. In one important way,
Biden is a perfect foil for the president. Where Obama has been
criticized for remaining aloof from the backroom-dealing of
Washington politics, his deputy appears to relish getting his
hands dirty, flashing his pearly whites and forging unlikely
alliances. Biden’s verbosity has landed him in trouble in the past.
His statement in support of same-sex marriage last May was
seen as forcing Obama’s hand even before he was ready to make
his views known. A remark during the campaign that the middle
class had been “buried” for the past four years was pounced
upon by Mitt Romney’s team as evidence of the president’s
failed economic policies. But when Obama needed him most,
after being trounced by Romney in the opening presidential
debate, Biden was right on cue. He was all fire and passion
where Obama had been passive and listless, and his fierce
defense of the president’s record in a combative face-to-face
with Romney running mate Paul Ryan set the tone for the ticket’s
winning comeback.
When Biden accompanied Obama into the White House in
2008, he brought with him a wealth of experience from Capitol
Hill and the world stage. Known as much for his personal
warmth as for his memorable public gaffes, Biden had spent 36
years in the Senate, representing the tiny state of Delaware,
before Obama made him vice president. Having once referred to
his predecessor Dick Cheney as the most dangerous vice president
in US history, Biden maintained his role at the White House
should be defined by strict constitutional limits.
He has not been an echo chamber for the president, however.
The two differed over Afghanistan at the front end of Obama’s
first term, with Biden opposing a 30,000-troop “surge” in
American boots on the ground. Biden grew up in an Irish-
Catholic family, far from financially privileged, in the town of
Scranton, Pennsylvania, and studied at the University of
Delaware and the Syracuse University law school. In the 2008
campaign, his down-to-earth style and appeal to traditional
grassroots Democrats gave him an edge in connecting with
working-class voters who were initially wary of Obama and his
unusual background.
The young Biden moved to Delaware at age 10 when his
father relocated in search of employment. Growing up, he was
hampered by a stutter so bad he was cruelly nicknamed “Dash.”
In adulthood, he developed a natty dress style and dazzling
high-definition smile, but as a child in Scranton he sometimes
had to walk barefoot as his family struggled to make ends meet.
He was first elected to the Senate in 1972, when he was just 29
years old. Shorty afterwards, he lost his wife and baby daughter
in a Yuletide car crash that also left his two young sons badly
injured. Biden took his Senate oath of office at the boys’ hospital
bedside, then for many years commuted daily to Washington
from Delaware so he could be home each night with them and,
from 1977, his second wife Jill Biden. —AFP
SINGAPORE: Supporters of the Workers’ Party hold posters of their party’s
candidate Lee Li Lian at the nomination center in Singapore yesterday.
Singapore’s ruling party, struggling to reverse a sharp drop in popularity,
received a boost yestreday when the divided opposition fielded three candidates
for a by-election. — AFP
Rape remarks by
judge cause uproar
JAKARTA: A senior Indonesian judge
who joked that rapists should evade
capital punishment because victims
enjoyed the act triggered outrage and
calls for his dismissal yesterday.
Daming Sunusi-a High Court judge
running for a Supreme Court positionmade
the remarks during a fit-andproper
test, when parliament asked
whether the country should introduce
the death penalty for rapists.
“The one raped and the rapist both
enjoy it, so (we would) need to think
about the death sentence,” Kompas daily
quoted him as saying.
Sunusi apologised for making the
statement, saying he was trying to
lighten the mood of the tense interview.
“I’ve said something that no man
should ever say, especially a Supreme
Court candidate,” he said on national
TV.
His comments have caused uproar
among lawmakers and rights groups,
who have called for Sunusi to be
sacked. “The comments were inelegant,
inappropriate and unbecoming of a
judge and a Supreme Court hopeful,”
lawmaker Sarifuddin Suding told AFP.
Commission for Child Protection
chairman Arist Merdeka Sirait said
Sunusi’s comments were “insolent” and
reflected the view from various segments
of society that sexual violence is
a norm.
“It is disturbing that a judge, whose
role is to protect the legal rights of
women and children, could say something
so audacious and consider it as a
joke. He should be sacked,” Sirait said.
Online petitions to parliament to
reject his nomination for the Supreme
Court have been circulating, one
attracting 4,000 signatures overnight.
The Judicial Commission, which
monitors judges’ conduct and professionalism,
said it has questioned Sunusi
and would decide on sanctions later
this month, ranging from a warning to
his dismissal.
The National Commission on
Violence Against Women recorded
4,845 rape cases between 1998 and
2010, but rights activist Andy Yentriyani
said many perpetrators got light sentences
or escaped punishment.— AFP

Syrian rebels from the Abu Baker brigade launch a missile yesterday near Albab, 30 km from the northeastern
Syrian city of Aleppo. — AFP
Japan airlines ground Dreamliners
Continued from Page 1
The Dreamliner is seen as an aviation milestone with
its use of lightweight composite materials and electronics,
instead of aluminium and hydraulics, and airlines
have embraced the plane at a time of high fuel costs.
But a week of mishaps leading up to the forced landing
in Japan has generated unwelcome headlines for
Boeing - which says it has “complete confidence” in the
plane and is pledging to work with its customers and
regulatory agencies. Along with fuel leaks and a cracked
cockpit window involving the 787 over recent days,
there was a battery fire and smoke on an empty JALoperated
Dreamliner on the ground in the US city of
Boston last week.
JAL said that involved the battery used for the
Dreamliner’s auxiliary power unit, located at the rear of
the plane. Yesterday’s incident involved the forward battery
for the main power unit, ANA said. “After examining
the fuselage, we confirmed that inside the forward electrical
equipment bay the main battery has been discoloured
and the electrolyte solution has leaked,” it said
in a press release. “We’ve only been using these aircraft
for a year and we don’t have enough information about
the cause. That’s why we decided to stop using these
planes for the moment,” ANA vice president Osamu
Watanabe told a news conference.
Both the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and
Japan’s transport ministry broadened existing probes
into the Dreamliner to encompass the latest incident.
Authorities in India said they were starting their own
investigation. Shukor Yusof, aviation analyst with
Standard and Poor’s Equity Research in Singapore, said
Boeing would suffer a “huge” blow if the FAA orders
structural changes to the Dreamliner, “but we are
nowhere near that stage”. Noting teething troubles with
Airbus’s A380 superjumbo, he said technical glitches
were not unusual with new planes. But Yusof described
the problems as “very embarrassing” for Boeing and said:
“This is an aircraft that was delayed for nearly three years,
so potential customers will naturally question the safety
part of the aircraft.”
Despite the grounding, ANA said it stood by billions
of dollars committed to future 787 orders. The
Dreamliner also received backing from other carriers
that have bet big on the project, with British Airways,
Singapore Airlines, Australia’s Qantas and Korean Air all
affirming pending orders. Public confidence in the
Dreamliner may have been dented, however, after production
setbacks among Boeing’s large array of subcontractors
- many of them Japanese - delayed delivery of
the first plane to ANA by three years to 2011. “This morning,
I heard the news and I got a bit scared. I checked
that my flight wasn’t on a Boeing 787,” said Tomohiko
Maruyama, who was waiting to board his ANA flight at
Tokyo’s Haneda airport. — AFP
NEWS
Continued from Page 1
Creating a drug would be challenging, he said, as
it would require introducing “designed” information
into the genes of people to be treated. “The immune
cells of the blood are the primary cells which are
infected by HIV and if you want to have a cure with
this new protein, you need to... get every immune
cell to make this protein,” he explained. This would
require gene therapy - a complicated, rare, potentially
dangerous and very expensive option. “They (the
Australian researchers) have partly addressed that
question. They have partly tested that (gene therapy),
but not really in patients or in infected people, only
in the lab.”
Harrich said Nullbasic held promise for curbing the
spread of the virus as well as for treating people who
already have AIDS, and described it as “fighting fire
with fire”. “The virus might infect a cell but it wouldn’t
spread,” he said. “You would still be infected with HIV,
it’s not a cure for the virus, but the virus would stay
latent, it wouldn’t wake up, so it wouldn’t develop
into AIDS. “With a treatment like this, you would
maintain a healthy immune system.” An HIV-infected
person is said to have AIDS when their count of CD4
immune system cells drops below 200 per microlitre
of blood or they develop any one of 22 opportunistic
infections like cancer or tuberculosis as a result.
THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013
Islamists seize hostages in Algeria gas...
Continued from Page 1
The gas field, jointly operated by British oil giant BP,
Norway’s Statoil and state-run Algerian energy firm
Sonatrach, is located 1,300 kilometres (810 miles) southeast
of Algiers, close to the Libyan border.
In Washington, the White House said it was closely
monitoring developments. “We are ... in touch with the
Algerians and our other partners in the region,” National
Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor told AFP. He
did not confirm that Americans were among the
hostages. An Algerian lawmaker said one French
national and four Japanese were taken hostage. The
Irish foreign ministry said a man from Northern Ireland
was also among the hostages. A Norwegian man was
also reported seized. French President Francois
Hollande however said it was unclear whether any
French were being held.
Yesterday’s ground battle in Mali was taking place in
Diabaly, a town seized two days earlier by fighters led
by Algerian Abou Zeid, one of the leaders of AQIM. “The
special forces are currently in Diabaly, in close-quarter
combat with the Islamists. The Malian army is also in
place,” a Malian security source said on condition of
anonymity. The French military said it had secured a
strategic bridge on the Niger river near the town of
Markala, south of Diabaly, blocking a key route to
Bamako. French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian
said the western zone where Diabaly lies was home to
“the toughest, most fanatical and best-organised
groups. It’s under way there but it’s difficult”.
A Malian army source said the Islamists had enrolled
child soldiers and were using the population as a shield.
The Hague-based International Criminal Court said it
had launched a war crimes probe targeting the rebels.
“Different armed groups have caused havoc and human
suffering through a range of alleged acts of extreme
violence,” chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said in a
statement. “I have determined that some of these deeds
of brutality and destruction may constitute war crimes.”
As offers of non-military support for the Mali assault
continued to pour in - with Germany pledging two
transport planes and Italy logistical support - Ivory
Coast’s leader Alassane Ouattara urged all European
partners to “mobilise”. Both Paris and Islamist experts
warn the Islamists are better armed and trained than
expected and the battle is likely to be drawn-out and
complex. The rebels have fled many of their northern
strongholds since the French army launched its assault.
But they claim their retreat was merely tactical.
A first contingent of 190 Nigerian troops was due in
Bamako as part of a regional force of over 3,000 soldiers
from Benin, Ghana, Niger, Senegal, Burkina Faso and
Togo. France says its troops will triple from 800 at present
to 2,500 men, and are pitted against some 1,300
Islamic fighters. Mali has been effectively split in two
since April 2012, when Islamists took advantage of a
short-lived coup in Bamako and an offensive launched
by Tuareg separatists in the north to seize half of the
country.
Western countries had voiced fears the vast desert
zone could become Al-Qaeda’s leading global safe
haven and be used to launch attacks on targets in
Europe. France launched its campaign after the Islamists
last week advanced into the government-held centre
and vowed to push further south. The UN and aid agencies
have voiced fears for civilians caught up in the conflict,
as 144,500 refugees have fled to neighbouring
Mauritania, Niger, Burkina Faso and Algeria and another
230,000 were internally displaced. -— Agencies
HIV is turned against itself in AIDS ‘cure’
Most people infected with HIV, if left untreated,
would develop AIDS about 10 to 15 years later,
according to the UN. Antiretroviral treatments can
prolong this window period. The new Nullbasic therapy,
if proven, could see the spread of HIV halted indefinitely,
bringing an end to the deadly condition, said
Harrich. Using a treatment based on a single protein
could spell an end to onerous multiple drug regimes
for HIV patients, meaning a better quality of life and
lower costs. Animal trials are due to start this year.
Even if all goes according to plan, said Wegmann, a
Nullbasic-based treatment was probably about 10
years off. “There are many other potential strategies
towards a cure, but so far nothing works and it’s not
clear whether anything will ever work,” he said. “One
really has to wait for results of animal studies and
clinical trials to really judge this.” UN figures show the
number of people infected with HIV worldwide rose
to 34 million in 2011 from 33.5 million in 2010. The
vast majority (23.5 million) live in sub-Saharan Africa,
with another 4.2 million in South and Southeast Asia.
There were 1.7 million AIDS-related deaths worldwide
in 2011 - 24 percent fewer than in 2005 and
nearly six percent below the 2010 level. New HIV
infections have at least halved in 25 low and middle
income countries over the past decade. The UN said
in November that achieving zero new infections in
children appeared increasingly possible. — AFP

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Issues
Mali war shows
France is Africa’s
reluctant gendarme
By Rory Mulholland and Catherine Rama
Despite sending warplanes and soldiers to fight Islamists
in the Sahara, President Francois Hollande has largely
kept his promise to shun the shady system that saw
France dictate politics in former African colonies, analysts said.
But the Mali conflict shows that the Socialist leader must accept
that France is destined to play gendarme in Africa, they noted.
Hollande made his vow in a speech to Senegal’s parliament in
October, saying “francafrique”, the murky system France used to
maintain political and business interests in the colonies it gave
up in the 1960s, was dead and buried.
On Tuesday he insisted his decision to send hundreds of
troops to Mali - to battle Islamists poised to seize control of the
entire country and install a Taleban-like regime - had “nothing to
do with the policies of another era”. The intervention that began
Friday was of a very different nature to previous French military
ventures in Africa, said Paul Melly of the Chatham House thinktank
in London. “You can’t say it is like the old-style ‘francafrique’
because that was France getting involved in decisions about
overthrowing African governments or changing presidents or
keeping allied regimes in place,” he said.
In Mali, “what we’ve got is a normal interaction between sovereign
governments”, with the former colony asking Paris to provide
support for its ramshackle army in the fight against the Al-
Qaeda-linked extremists. “I think that what you might call the
face-value explanation given by the French government, that if
the French had not intervened then the jihadists would probably
have taken over southern Mali, including (the capital)
Bamako, seems entirely plausible,” he said. And that would have
been a threat to all of West Africa, Melly noted.
France, whose colonial empire was the second largest in the
world after Britain’s and spanned much of west and central
Africa, has thousands of troops stationed in Africa and maintains
three major military bases in Djibouti, Senegal and Gabon. Its
soldiers have frequently intervened on the continent in the
post-colonial era, sometimes to sway an African state’s internal
politics under the “francafrique” system put in place by president
Charles de Gaulle.
An uprising in the Central African Republic provided an
opportunity last month to test Hollande’s resolve to break with
past practices, said Antoine Glaser, a writer on African affairs.
Despite pleas from the country’s president who was worried
that rapidly advancing rebels were about to capture the capital,
he conspicuously refused to let French troops stationed there be
used to prop up the regime. In stark contrast, Glaser said,
Hollande made a snap decision to deploy major military force in
Mali. “When it is a question of international security, such as the
battle against terrorism, then obviously it is France that will be
on the front line” in much of Africa, he said.
Richard Banegas, a historian and Africa specialist, said the
Mali crisis gave France the chance to face up to the fact that it
was a country “that has a foreign policy which can include military
engagement if our interests are at stake, which does not
mean that this is a recolonisation of the continent”. “Africa for the
Africans is not operational (in the case of Mali) because the
problem is not African, it is global, it is regional and it concerns
the interests of France in the sub-region and on its own soil,” he
said.
West African states had been preparing a United Nationsapproved
force to intervene in Mali to oust the Islamists, who
had seized the north after a coup last March. But they were
dithering and after a swift Islamist advance towards the capital,
France decided to send in its own force to hold back the rebels
until the African troops were in place. France’s foreign minister
recently rejected the suggestion that France was obliged to be
Africa’s gendarme. But given its military presence and its historic
links with the continent, this is the role it will likely have to play,
said analysts. “It would be very difficult for France not to be
involved in conflicts on the continent,” said Glaser.
Melly of Chatham House said that in the case of Mali,
Hollande had little choice. “If having made those commitments
to support reform and economic development and the progress
of a modern democratic Africa, if France had then done nothing
(in Mali)... that would have been a betrayal of what Hollande was
saying,” he said. But he noted that as the president has only been
in power a few months, it is still too soon to say whether he can
keep his promise on “francafrique”.
His predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy also promised to break with
the ‘francafrique’ networks of his predecessors. In his five years in
power he used French troops to help install the democratically
elected president in Ivory Coast and spearheaded the international
intervention in Libya in 2011. Critics point out that France
under Hollande still has close ties with African states, such as
Gabon, Cameroon, Congo and Chad, whose governments have
poor human rights records. “If there is a domestic political problem
in these countries France will not of course intervene like it
might have in the past, but at the same time it doesn’t want to
offend these presidents” because of its economic or military
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By David Lewis
Apowerful southern offensive by Islamists
in Mali last week, halted only by French
air strikes, showed that a loose alliance of
rebels from Al-Qaeda’s North African wing and
local groups has been united by the threat of
foreign intervention. When the coalition of
Islamists swept across northern Mali last year,
massacring army troops and carving up the vast
desert zone, ties between Al-Qaeda in the
Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and local groups Ansar
Dine and MUJWA had looked opportunistic,
and regional mediators believed they could
prise them apart.
Some fighters imposed strict Islamic law and
recruited foreigners and locals hungry for jihad,
others framed the conflict around local Malian
tribal politics and religion, while criminal networks
smuggling drugs and contraband joined
the fray, earning them the title “gangster
jihadists”. With Mali’s army crippled by political
divisions and a series of defeats to rebels that
led to a March coup, West African mediators
tried to divide the rebels by offering talks to
local Islamists while excluding foreigners,
extremists and criminals.
UN backing in December for an African-led
intervention due later this year changed the
picture. “People in the north don’t have any
choice now but to stand together,” said
Algabass Ag Intallah, a senior member of Ansar
Dine, a group that only last month had committed
to peace talks with Mali’s government. “This
is an aggression. We all have to defend ourselves.”
“Al-Qaeda helped us, but we are the
ones who are leading,” he added. Residents in
the north-eastern Malian town of Gao, MUJWA’s
stronghold, confirmed pick-up trucks carrying
its turbaned fighters had also joined the rebel
offensive.
The seizure by Islamists of the northern two-
ANALYSIS
thirds of Mali, for decades one of West Africa’s
most stable democracies, sowed fears that its
desert dunes and craggy mountain ranges
could become a base for terrorist attacks on
Europe. Yet as Islamists severed limbs, silenced
music and smashed traditional Sufi shrines in
the ancient caravan town of Timbuktu - acts
reminiscent of Afghanistan under the Taleban -
Malians and foreign powers wavered throughout
2012. Much of the delay was due to confusion
over the nature of the Islamist alliance,
experts say.
Some governments advocated dialogue to
tackle the long-standing political grievances of
those living in Mali’s under-developed north.
Others, led by France, called for swift military
action to stamp out a security threat, finally winning
UN backing for an African-led operation.
These divisions evaporated last week with the
united rebel advance on the central town of
Konna, a gateway toward the southern capital
Bamako, deemed so dangerous that Paris
reversed pledges not to intervene directly. The
African force, which had not been expected
until September, is being hastily rolled out.
Even Algeria, which had previously hoped to
unravel the coalition by enticing Ansar Dine
into peace talks, dropped its opposition to military
intervention, allowing French Rafale jets to
fly via its airspace to pound the rebels. “Ansar
Dine, MUJWA and AQIM worked together and
coordinated their push on Konna,” said France’s
military chief Admiral Edouard Guillaud, whose
jets and helicopter gunships have strafed rebel
columns, training camps and fuel depots.
Behind Mali’s reputation for stability, Al-
Qaeda’s presence there has worried regional
powers and Western nations for over a decade.
The United States has led efforts to train national
armies and improve security coordination
within the region. Until last year, AQIM had
struggled to break from its Algerian roots and
activities focused on the multi-million dollar
business of taking hostages for ransom, including
eight French citizens it still holds captive. Its
numbers were limited to a few hundred mobile
fighters in the remote desert.
However, last year’s rebellion - launched by
Tuareg separatists but quickly hijacked by
Islamists - changed all that. In Iyad Ag Ghali, a
veteran of previous Malian Tuareg rebellions
who had acted as a negotiator in hostage
releases, AQIM found an ally to expand their
local presence in return for arms and funding,
diplomats said. Ag Ghali, described in US diplomatic
cables as an expert at “playing all sides”,
had sought to lead the Tuareg separatists. When
he failed, he split from them to found Ansar
Dine, with AQIM’s backing. Previously known for
his love of the high life, Ag Ghali has over the
last decade became a convert to fundamental
Islam. After routing Mali’s army and sidelining
MNLA Tuareg separatists, Ansar Dine occupied
Ag Ghali’s fiefdom around Kidal in the far north.
MUJWA emerged in late 2011 as a splinter from
AQIM, establishing itself by recruiting among
Arab and black African communities in Mali and
elsewhere in the region. Tapping into fears of
dominance by the minority Tuaregs, the group
was able to wrest control of Gao - northern
Mali’s largest town - from the separatists in June.
Al-Qaeda fighters have since drifted between
these groups but been more present in
Timbuktu, experts say.
Washington estimates the core of the combined
Islamist force to be 800 to 1,200-strong. A
military plan drawn up by West Africa’s ECOWAS
bloc estimated the rebel fighting ranks just over
twice that size. With Mali’s army in tatters and
neighbouring African states needing time to pull
together an intervention force, hopes for regional
mediation had focused on Ag Ghali’s Ansar
Dine. “Ansar Dine had all the opportunities to
talk. We wanted to bring Ansar Dine to the table. I
THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013
Mali’s Islamist groups united by war threat
By Mark John
In five days, France’s mercy dash
to Mali to stop Al-Qaeda-linked
Islamists seizing the capital has
bounced it into a promise to keep
troops there until its West African
former colony is finally back on its
feet. Exactly how long that will take
is hard to say. But Africa’s latest war
is likely to entail a long stay for
France with an exit strategy that
will depend largely on allies who
have yet to prove they are ready for
the fight. “We should get used to
the idea we are embarking on a
major mission alongside Malian
and African forces for the duration,”
Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le
Drian said late on Tuesday.
The outcome could seal France’s
role in Africa for decades. At best, it
is a chance to rescue a country
destabilised by arms flooding in
from the 2011 war in nearby Libya
which France, under ex-president
Nicolas Sarkozy, helped to promote.
But if it goes wrong, it could
burden France with accusations of
neo-colonialism on a continent
which it wants as a trading partner
to boost its own flagging economic
vitality. When France began air raids
on the rebels last week and sent in
ground troops, the government
stressed it wanted to pass the
baton quickly to Mali’s neighbours.
However, on Tuesday President
Francois Hollande announced it
would stay long enough to rid Mali
of insurgents and ensure stability.
That long-term goal did not necessarily
contradict a Foreign
Ministry statement barely an hour
earlier that insisted France’s top priority
was to hand formal leadership
of the fight against Islamist rebels
to an African-led force as soon as
possible. But it suggested France
foresees three phases: a weekslong,
mainly airborne effort to
inflict huge damage on the enemy
in its northern stronghold; discreet
but decisive support to African
troops in a messy ground war to
win back the north’s main towns;
and finally an open-ended stabilisation
mission to protect its 6,000
expatriates and ensure chaos does
not return.
That is if all goes well. But at each
turn Hollande, who is embarking on
his first military conflict since entering
power in May, will encounter
unknowables that could upset the
timetable. France threw crack
troops and state-of-the-art hardware
including Rafale and Mirage
jets into Mali, quickly blocking the
rebels’ advance south and destroying
many of their operating bases,
fuel and munitions stocks with air
strikes in the north. Paris can rely on
intelligence from its Harfang surveillance
drones and 800 soldiers have
been redeployed, some from missions
in Chad and Ivory Coast.
Others, including units hardened by
battle in Afghanistan, will bring the
total up to 2,500.
But France is adamant it wants to
transfer leadership of the operation
to troops promised by nations of
the West African ECOWAS regional
grouping and to Malian forces
which the European Union has
promised to train up to battleground
standards. Neither ECOWAS
nor the EU are known for quick decisions
or rapid implementation on
the ground. “We’ve got some transport
and logistics issues to sort out,”
a French Foreign Ministry
spokesman said, acknowledging
the fact that many African countries
simply do not have air transport to
get their soldiers into the war zone.
Help from NATO allies including
Britain, the United States, Germany,
Belgium, Canada and Denmark
means the first African troops
should start arriving in Mali within
days and a 3,000-strong ECOWAS
contingent could gather in the next
few weeks. But it will be weeks
before the EU training mission starts
yielding fruit, even if member states
can agree later this week to speed
up deployment of their military personnel.
“In the best-case scenario,
we could have a decision to launch
the mission around mid-February,”
said one EU diplomat, adding that
this would only be when the trainers
begin arriving rather than the
start of activities.
But assuming France is able to
hand over formal leadership to
African troops relatively soon, even
the larger contingents will struggle
in a desert war zone far removed
from the tropical savanna terrain
they know best. “The whole thing’s
a mess. We don’t have any troops
don’t know why they made the other choice,”
said a senior West African official involved in the
negotiation process. “In this war, they are all
together.”
A former senior Malian intelligence officer
said Ag Ghali’s commitment to fundamentalist
Islam - cultivated during years spent in the Gulf
and through connections in the proselytising
Muslim movement Tabligh - had been underestimated.
Mali and other countries in the region say
scores of fanatical foreign fighters have flocked to
the north. Independent reports on their numbers
and their origin vary wildly. “The numbers I
have heard range from 100s to 1,000s, so it is
clear that no one has much of a clue,” a senior
Western security official told Reuters. A Reuters
correspondent travelling in Gao in the weeks
before the French intervention reported at least
three white Westerners in the Islamist ranks
there. French officials have said about 10 of its citizens
have been arrested trying to reach Mali to
join the rebels. Late last year, the FBI arrested two
US citizens they said were planning to travel to
West Africa to carry out jihad. But the most serious
threat could stem from closer to home.
Officials and residents say MUJWA, based in the
eastern town of Gao, has succeeded in recruiting
black Africans from Mali and elsewhere in the
West African region in a way AQIM never did. The
West African official involved in the mediation
process called it a “gangrene” that had been
underestimated.
Marc Trevidic, France’s top anti-terrorism
judge, warned that Mali was the first case of
jihad in sub-Saharan Africa. “For the first time
there is a ‘black jihad’: a jihad done for blacks by
blacks,” he told Reuters, saying its militants
were both West Africans and dual nationals
able to move freely in and out of France. Paris is
concerned at the ability of African Muslims,
some of whom have dual nationality, to move
between France and the region. “That is the
France digs in for long, uncertain stay in Mali
French army soldiers stand on armoured vehicles as they
leave Bamako and start their deployment to the north of Mali
as part of the “Serval” operations on Tuesday. —AFP
with experience of those extreme
conditions, even of how to keep all
that sand from ruining your equipment,”
a top government adviser in
Nigeria, which has promised a 900strong
contingent. “We’re facing
battle-hardened guys who live in
those dunes.”
Strengthened by Libyan arms
that spilled out of Muammar
Gaddafi’s caches when NATO
bombing helped his overthrow, the
Islamist insurgents were still holding
on Wednesday the central towns of
Konna and Diabaly seized in the
past week. The downing of a French
helicopter on the first day of the
strikes showed they may have MAN-
PAD shoulder-mounted rockets to
knock out low-flying aircraft. “Even
when the African operation has
started, the French will not leave the
picture. They will offer support and
no doubt one-off strikes,” said Bruno
Tertrais, senior research fellow at the
Paris-based Foundation for Strategic
Research (FRS).
While French air power will give
its allies a massive advantage over
their utility vehicle-borne enemy,
that will not substitute for the
ground war needed in the end. UKbased
Sahara expert Jeremy
Keenan suggested one scenario
could be that French troops embed
with, and discreetly guide African
units in the end-game to take back
and hold northern cities such as
Gao, Timbuktu and Kidal. “Sooner
or later you will have to put ground
troops in to clear up the mess - and
it could be very messy,” he said. “In
practice, France will run the shooting
match.” —Reuters

Beckham rumors swirl
MILAN: David Beckham is on the verge of making a sensational return to Milan, according
to media speculation in Italy yesterday. Beckham recently ended his long spell with Major
League Soccer (MLS) side Los Angeles Galaxy but has not yet announced his next destination.
Rumors of a return to Milan, where he
played on loan on two separate occasions
in 2009 and 2010, have, however, gathered
pace in recent days. Gazzetta
dello Sport newspaper carried a
report Wednesday which claimed
that bookmakers in England had
slashed the odds of Beckham
returning to the Rossoneri. The
report cited no one from the club but
speculated that Beckham would be a
welcome addition to Massimiliano
Allegri’s squad, especially for European fixtures.
Milan sit seventh in Serie A, but are still
in the Champions League and will meet
Barcelona in the last 16 knockout phase next
month. The seven-time European champions
have made no official comment on the
reports.—AFP
BLOOMINGTON: Yogi Ferrell No 11 of the Indiana Hoosiers gets fouled under the basket
by Jared Berggren No 40 of the Wisconsin Badgers during the game at Assembly
Hall on January 15, 2013 in Bloomington, Indiana. —AFP
Badgers hold off No 2
Indiana for 64-59 upset
BLOOMINGTON: Wisconsin played
Tuesday night like it always does - defended
everything, made big shots and limited
the turnovers. Indiana looked like anything
but its usual self. It was just another
chapter in a series filled with strange
twists. Ryan Evans scored 13 points,
Traevon Jackson added 11 and the
unranked Badgers moved into sole possession
of the Big Ten lead with a 64-59
upset at No. 2 Indiana. “We’re feeling good
about ourselves right now,” Badgers forward
Jared Berggren said. “It shows we
can beat anyone, anywhere, anytime; so I
think it shows what we’re capable of.”
Especially if the Badgers (13-4, 4-0) keep
playing this way. Wisconsin has won seven
straight and has beaten two top-15
teams in four days. It is the last unbeaten
team in Big Ten play.
All the Badgers needed to do against
Indiana was hold the nation’s highest-scoring
team to its fewest points of the season,
its worst shooting performance of the season
and end its 18-game home winning
streak. Mission accomplished. Wisconsin
became the first team to win 11 straight in
a series with Indiana since the Badgers last
did it in 1919, and the first team to win five
straight in Bloomington since Purdue last
did that in 1923. No team has ever won six
straight on Indiana’s home court and only
Purdue, from 1908-14, has won 12 in a row
against the Hoosiers.
The Badgers just stuck to the game
plan. “We knew that if they got it going in
transition they can score in bunches. All
you have to do is look at their game films,”
Bo Ryan said, acknowledging he coached
with flu-like symptoms. “Our goal was not
to let that happen, but saying it and doing
it, having it as a plan, are two different
things. It just so happened to work
tonight.” Indiana (15-2, 3-1) felt ill for
another reason.
The Hoosiers scored only three fastbreak
points and watched the Badgers
toss in shot-clock beating 3-pointers.
Indiana came into the game averaging a
Big Ten-leading 17 assists per game, yet
managed only seven against the Badgers.
And instead of pressuring Wisconsin into
miscues, the Badgers committed just
eight turnovers.
Cody Zeller, who made all eight of his
shots and had 18 points in the first half,
finished with 23 points and 10 rebounds
and made only one basket in the second
half. Christian Watford had 11 points, and
Victor Oladipo had 10. “That’s their style of
play. We just didn’t defend the dribble
well enough, didn’t make enough shots,”
Zeller said. “That’s what it boils down to.”
The Badgers followed the script perfectly.
They limited the mistakes, took advantage
of seemingly every opportunity they
got, especially in the second half as
Hoosiers fans moaned and groaned
about everything from missed shots to
errant passes.
Indiana rallied late in the first half to
take a 32-31 halftime lead, then opened
the second half with a three-point play to
make it 35-31. The home crowd figured it
was going to be the start of a big run.
Instead, Wisconsin gave up only six points
over the next 6:34, a drought that allowed
Wisconsin to retake a 38-37 lead with a 7-0
run. A few minutes later, the Badgers were
off on a 9-0 spurt that ended when Mike
Bruesewitz’s 3 beat the shot-clock buzzer
to make it 47-39. It was 51-41 before the
Hoosiers finally cranked up the pressure.
“When you get momentum going, it’s
amazing what can happen,” coach Tom
Crean said. “They played really hard and
they got the momentum.” Indiana looked
like it had swung the momentum back in
its direction when it scored four straight
and after Evans made 1 of 2 free throws,
they answered with a 6-0 spurt - the final
basket a 3-pointer from Yogi Ferrell that
cut the lead to 52-51 with 4:40 to go. But
that was as close as Indiana got. Ben Brust
made a 17-foot jumper and the Badgers
closed it out with a game-ending 12-8 run.
“If you just play the game and have the
right attitude about it, you make good
things happen,” Ryan said. “Players have to
play.”—AP
SPORTS
Schalke recruit Raffael
BERLIN: Bundesliga side Schalke 04 have strengthened their attacking
options in the German league by signing Brazilian attacking
midfielder Raffael on loan from Dynamo Kiev until the end of the
season. Schalke play Hanover 96 in the Bundesliga tomorrow, then
face Galatasaray in the last 16 of the Champions League on February
20 in Istanbul. Having played three Champions League games for
Dynamo already this season, Raffael is now not eligible to play in
Europe’s top domestic competition with the Gelsenkirchen-based
Royal Blues. The 27-year-old has been brought into replace Dutch
wing Ibrahim Afellay, who is out until the end of February with a
thigh injury, and the Royal Blues have an option to buy ex-Hertha
Berlin star Raffael. “Due to our bad luck with injuries - for example,
the loss of Ibrahim Afellay for the next two months - we have decided
to once again to be active in the transfer market,” said Schalke’s
manager Horst Heldt. “We are delighted Raphael’s transfer has been
completed. It increases our attacking options. “Raffael will have no
problems adjusting as he has already spent four years playing in
Germany.” Raffael joined Dynamo from Hertha last July for eight million
euros (US$10.6m) and said he is delighted to return to the
Bundesliga outfit, who have picked up just two points in their last
six league games and are seventh. —AFP
LA RIOJA: Orlando Terranova delighted the
home crowd here on Tuesday by becoming
the first Argentinian driver to win a stage of
the Dakar Rally. The 33-year-old BMW driver -
competing in his seventh Dakar Rally - came
home 2min 07sec ahead of Monday’s stage
winner Nani Roma in a Mini and the latter’s
team-mate and defending champion
Stephane Peterhansel was third another
12sec adrift. Terranova was delighted with his
victory and said that it had been a really
smooth drive. “We took the stage very easily,
to not make a mistake because it was very
narrow and it was possible to burst a tyre or
break some piece of the car,” he said. “We
want to continue like we have done. We are
having a good race without mistakes.”
Peterhansel, seeking his 11th win after six
in the motorbike section and four in the cars
category, extended his overall lead to 52min
38sec over South African Giniel de Villiers.
The 47-year-old Frenchman’s chances of winning
the title again grew immeasurably when
closest rival, Qatar’s 2011 champion Nasser
al-Attiyah had to pull out of the race after suffering
mechanical problems on Monday’s
stage. Peterhansel admitted that he had
vchanged his strategy now that Al-Attiyah
had been forced out and conceded that it did
not make for a great spectacle. “For the race,
for the show, it’s no good, for the suspense,
it’s not really good, but for me it’s not so bad
and it’s more comfortable,” he said.
“I can manage the car as well. “I can manage
for example the stage tomorrow and the
stage at Copiapo which will be really complicated
in the dunes. So if I have more time I’ll
be able to manage the race, to wait to see the
good places to cross the dunes, so it’s better
for me for sure.” Earlier defending champion
Cyril Despres took the overall lead in this
THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013
Tevez given driving ban
LONDON: Manchester City striker Carlos Tevez was disqualified from driving for six
months yesterday, after a court heard he failed to understand a letter sent to him by
police. The 28-year-old Argentina international, who did not attend the hearing at a
court in Manchester, was also ordered to pay £1,540 ($2,469, 1,855
euros) in fines and costs. Tevez pleaded guilty to two counts
of failing to provide information relating to incidents when
his car was clocked speeding. His solicitor, Gwyn Lewis,
told the court he did not recognize the word ‘constabulary’
on the letters he received from police. “He does
understand the word ‘police’, but not more complicated
words. The letters are written from Cheshire Constabulary
and the word police doesn’t appear on it anywhere,” Lewis
said. “The word constabulary is not one that is recognized
internationally, but of course police is. “The correspondence
was not dealt with properly and
that has resulted in these
offences.” On the possibility
that his client might face a
fine, Lewis said: “He is a
footballer and in that
regard he is relatively
well paid.” —AFP
Terranova breaks new
ground for Argentina
LA RIOJA: BMW’s Orlando Terranova of Argentina competes during the Stage 10 of
the Dakar 2013 between Cordoba and La Rioja, Argentina. The rally takes place in
Peru, Argentina and Chile between January 5 and 20. —AFP
year’s Dakar Rally on Tuesday after the 10th
stage, a 636km ride including a 357km timed
section from Cordoba to La Rioja. The 38year-old
KTM rider had made his charge on
Monday when, having been over 24 minutes
off the pace, he stormed to his first stage victory
of this year’s edition and on Tuesday he
showed he was the man in form in finishing
second in the stage.
Spaniard Joan Barreda Bort took the stage
honours on his Husqvarna bike, finishing
1min 15sec ahead of Despres. Despres, seeking
his fifth Dakar title, leads overnight
De la Rosa joins Ferrari
ROME: Spanish driver Pedro De la
Rosa has joined Ferrari in a development
role to help them with
simulator work this season, the
Italian Formula One team said yesterday.
Ferrari principal Stefano
Domenicali also told reporters, at
a media event in the Dolomites
resort of Madonna di Campiglio,
that his team will launch their
2013 car at the Maranello factory
on Feb 1. The first pre-season test
starts at the southern Spanish
Jerez track on Feb 5.
MADONNA DI CAMPIGLIO: Ducati riders Nicky Hayden
(top) and Andrea Dovizioso pose near a new Ducati racing
motorbike during the Wrooom, F1 and MotoGP Press Ski
Meeting, Ducati and Ferrari’s annual media gathering, in
Madonna di Campiglio on January 15, 2013. —AFP
De la Rosa, 41, raced last season
for the financially-strapped
HRT team, absent from this year’s
starting line-up after failing to
find a buyer. He was a McLaren
test driver for eight seasons. The
move reunites him with compatriot
Fernando Alonso, the double
world champion who was
runner-up in the championship
last year for Ferrari, after they
were together at McLaren in 2007
in Alonso’s troubled sole season
with that team. “We decided to
add De La Rosa to our group of
drivers mainly to strengthen one
area, namely work in the simulator,
which with the current regulations
regarding testing, is
becoming ever more important,”
said Domenicali.
Formula One teams cannot
test during the 2013 season,
apart from a three-day young
driver session, which puts a premium
on simulator work. Ferrari
also have Spaniard Marc Gene as
one of their development driver
and De La Rosa’s arrival will be
seen as further consolidation of
Alonso’s grip on the team after
eclipsing Brazilian team mate
Felipe Massa on the track. Pat Fry,
the Ferrari chassis technical director,
was also previously at
McLaren. De la Rosa made his
Formula One debut with Arrows
in 1999 and raced for Ferraripowered
Sauber in 2010 as well
as a one-off appearance in 2011.
“It is amazingly motivating to
be working for a team like Ferrari,
not just because of what it represents
in the history of Formula
One and motoring in general, but
also because it will be a completely
new and very stimulating
experience for me,” commented
De la Rosa on the team website
(www.ferrari.com). “I really hope I
can get to work as soon as possible
and to help in the development
of the car. I am happy to be
collaborating with Fernando
again and also to be working
with Felipe. There’s not much
time until Australia, but there is a
lot to do and I am available to
help the team from right now.”
The season starts in Australia on
March 17. —Reuters
leader and team-mate Ruben Faria by 1min
37sec in the overall standings in the race
which finishes on Sunday. Despres said he
was in good form and that his tactics of not
racing all out throughout the Rally was paying
off as it entered its decisive stages.
“Picking up seconds in the general standings
is not the most important thing,” he said.
“What matters is making statements, making
a difference, gaining in confidence and letting
the racing do the talking. As a result, the
general standings reflect that on paper in
the evening.”—AFP
Badminton’s
future
‘in doubt’
SEOUL: Badminton’s Olympic future is
in jeopardy due to the continual midtournament
retirements of leading players,
Athens Games gold medalist Taufik
Hidayat said yesterday. Last week’s $1
million Korean Open, the most lucrative
super series event on the schedule, was
blighted by a number of match retirements
by players in the singles and doubles
draws, a now common occurrence
on the tour. Chinese coaches have long
been criticized for withdrawing their
players to stop them going head-tohead
in tournaments, and Indonesian
Taufik is concerned the International
Olympic Committee could end the
sport’s 20-year run at the Games.
“The situation has worsened since I
started playing badminton at the age of
15. The constant retirements of players
do not augur well for the game,” the 31year-old
told Malaysian media on
Wednesday. “There is talk that badminton
may not make it as a sport in
the 2020 Olympics. We must bear in
mind that other sports are strongly lobbying
to be included. “I have just started
my own centre. It caters for eight or
nine-year-olds. Now, I am not sure
whether they will get a chance to play
in the Olympics.” Squash is one of the
sports that is campaigning heavily for a
place in the 2020 Olympics alongside
karate, the Chinese martial art of wushu,
baseball/softball, roller sports, wakeboarding
and climbing.
Badminton received a barrage of
negative headlines in London last year
after four women’s doubles pairs played
to lose matches in order to get a more
favorable draw. The Badminton World
Federation (BWF) disqualified and
banned the players involved and Taufik
called for the Malaysia-based body to
take a similar stance on withdrawals. “I
hope to see BWF amend or strengthen
their rules and regulations on players
and the tournaments. And the BWF
must also make a greater effort to make
the sport big in America and Africa,” said
Taufik. The Indonesian is in Kuala
Lumpur to take part in the ongoing
Malaysian Open, one of his final events
before he retires in June after his home
Indonesia Open. —Reuters

ABU DHABI: The opening skirmishes for
the 2014 Ryder Cup at Gleneagles,
Scotland, have been played out and the
United States have come out on top. The
issue of team captaincy, traditionally the
starting point in the two-year cycle, saw
the Americans act decisively in naming
golfing legend Tom Watson to the position
for a second time almost 20 years
after his first stint as skipper.
In contrast, the Europeans went
through a messy process that was only
resolved in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday night
with the naming of Irishman Paul
McGinley. Key to the early US edge was
the speed with which they regrouped following
the shocking last day collapse
against Jose Maria Olazabal’s Europe side
in Chicago in late September. The choice
of Watson to lead the US team barely six
weeks later was not only met with near
unanimous consent at home, it promptly
stirred divisions in the European camp.
The early thinking had been that it was a
straight choice for the captaincy between
Irish pair McGinley and Darren Clarke,
both of whom have fine Ryder Cup
records as players.
But Watson, a nine-time major winner,
who is adored in Scotland, suddenly
loomed larger than life and fears were
expressed that neither McGinley nor
Clarke had the stature to go up against
him. Enter Colin Montgomerie, a Ryder
Cup legend himself, the winning captain
at Celtic Manor, Wales in 2010 and a Scot
to boot, eager to put in a second shift on
home territory in 2014. With Clarke all
but ruling himself out of contention, it
came down to a contest between
SPORTS
First blood to US ahead of Ryder Cup
ABU DHABI: Colin Montgomerie
has congratulated Paul McGinley on
being named Europe’s Ryder Cup
captain and insists there are no sour
grapes from him over been overlooked
for a second stint. Driven on
by some powerful backing from
Europe’s top players, the 46-yearold
McGinley was chosen to succeed
Jose Maria Olazabal at a late
night meeting in Abu Dhabi on
Tuesday of the European players’
tour committee. Five names were
discussed at the meeting but
Montgomerie, the victorious 2010
skipper at Celtic Manor, Wales, was
viewed as the main threat to stop
McGinley from becoming the first
Irish Ryder Cup captain. As it turned
out no vote was needed and
McGinley, strongly backed by world
No.1 Rory McIlroy, was a unanimous
choice.
Montgomerie, a member of the
15-strong tour committee, said he
fully supported the choice of
McGinley, who was one of his assistants
at Celtic Manor two years ago.
“I’m not at all disappointed - it
would have been a dream come
true, but it has not happened,” he
said. “I was very flattered even to be
considered again - it meant a lot to
me. The selection process was such
that they appointed the best man
for the job. “We all get behind Paul
now and wish him well. I appointed
him for the Seve Trophy and he did
a very good job - as he did twice as
a vice-captain (in the Ryder Cup).
“He’s a very good man-manager
McGinley and Montgomerie and it took
what amounted to a player power movement,
led by world No.1 Rory McIlroy, to
ensure that the Dubliner got the nod to
become the first Irishman to captain a
Ryder Cup side.
Fittingly McIlroy was on hand in an
Abu Dhabi hotel when the European
Tour’s tournament committee announced
their decision to name McGinley as captain.
“I’m absolutely thrilled for Paul,” said
the 23-year-old Ulsterman, who will open
his season at the Abu Dhabi Golf
Championship this week. “As soon as I
found out he had been appointed captain
I couldn’t wait to rush down and congratulate
him. “I’d like to think it means something
when you’ve got players like myself,
Ian Poulter, Luke Donald and Justin Rose
all voicing their opinion that they want
Montgomerie pledges
‘support’ for McGinley
Colin Montgomerie of Scotland
and very good at assessing people’s
strengths. “I will be there to support
and fly the flag for Europe
McGinley, who sunk the winning
putt at The Belfry in 2002 when
Europe won back the Ryder Cup
after a three-year absence caused
by the September 11, 2001 terrorist
attacks on the United States, said
that Montgomerie had been quick
to give him his backing. “He was the
first man I saw, he came up and
congratulated me warmly and
wished me the very best of luck,”
the Irishman said on Radio 5 Live.
“He was very, very gracious to me.”
“Monty has been a great captain
and a great stalwart of Ryder Cups. I
have played in three Ryder cups
with Monty, everybody knows what
the Ryder Cup means to him and
how he has carried the Ryder Cup,
not just as a player, but how he
spoke at the meetings and the air of
authority he had around it.”
There was more praise for
McGinley yesterday from Sam
Torrance the victorious European
captain at The Belfry in 2002. “I think
he is the right man for the job,” the
Scot told Sky TV. “He has the pedigree,
he was twice captain in the
Seve Trophy and has been (Ryder
Cup) vice-captain twice. “He has the
respect of the players, he is meticulous,
he is a great orator. “The fact
that he had McIlroy, (Luke) Donald
and (Ian) Poulter on Twitter supporting
him ahead of yesterday’s
decision speaks volumes for what
they think of him.”—AFP
Qatari pair qualify for 2013
Commercial Bank Masters
DOHA: Two up-and-coming Qatari golfers, 18year-old
college student Saleh Al Kaabi and 31year-old
business owner Ghanim Al Kuwari, have
earned the chance to compete with some of the
world’s best players at the 2013 Commercial Bank
Qatar Masters, a pivotal stop on the European
Tour. The two members of the Qatar National
Golf Team qualified for a spot in the 16th
Commercial Bank Qatar Masters by finishing as
the top two Qatari Nationals at the 2013 Qatar
Open amateur event this past weekend.
The European Tour sanctioned tournament
will be staged on the Championship Course at
the Doha Golf Club 23-26 January, Wednesday to
Saturday. Al Kaabi and Al Kuwari will join a field
that includes World Number Four Louis
Oosthuizen, World Number Five Justin Rose*,
defending champion Paul Lawrie, Jason Dufner,
Sergio Garcia and many other renowned professional
golfers, all vying for the right to hoist the
iconic Mother of Pearl trophy. “This is a tremendous
accomplishment for Saleh and Ghanim, and
they will now get to represent Qatar against topranked
players on a world stage. We hope they
enjoy great support from the spectators at the
tournament,” said Andrew Stevens, Group CEO of
Commercial Bank of Qatar.
Al Kaabi, the younger of the two, is training
with hopes of becoming a full-time professional
golfer and competing in events like the
Commercial Bank Qatar Masters regularly. Now a
scratch golfer, he grew up in a family full of regular
players who started bringing him along to the
course when he was five years old. A graduate of
Aspire Sports Academy and a first-year student at
Qatar University, Al Kaabi has only been playing
tournaments for about three years, but his coach,
Mike Elliott, believes he has the skill set to make
it as a touring golfer.
“He hits the ball extremely long, well over 300
yards regularly. He’s up there in distance with
anyone,” said Elliott, the Qatar National Team
coach. “He’s also a very calm and focused person
on the course. His temperament always remains
the same, which is great. He’s the whole package.”
Al Kuwari, a married father of three, has
been one of Qatar’s top golfers at numerous
points over the past decade. A sporadic tournament
player, balancing his love of the game with
life responsibilities, Al Kuwari has recently rededicated
himself as a member of the Qatar
National Team and played some of the best golf
of his life. Elliott highlights Al Kuwari’s course
management and his putting as his top skills,
calling him one of Qatar’s most exceptional playerson
the green.
As regular playing partners on the National
Team, the two golfers are enthusiastic about representing
Qatar together and going toe to toe
with the European Tour stars they usually watch
on television. Said Al Kuwari, “I’m really excited
that we will play alongside the best pro golfers in
the world next week.” “It’s very exciting to be able
to represent Qatar in such a prestigious, professional
event,” Al Kaabi added. Both players admit
they are excited to learn who they will be paired
with when groups and tee times are announced
in the days before the tournament, but their central
focus remains on their own preparation.
When Championship play begins on
Wednesday, 23 January, the two Qatarishope to
make a strong impression on the fans that turn
out to watch them. “The Commercial Bank Qatar
Masters organizers and the thousands of spectators
will all be supporting Ghanim and Saleh next
week. Both men have worked tirelessly to
improve their golf games, and now they have
earned the opportunity of a lifetime to represent
their country in a home tournament,” President
of the Qatar Golf Association (QGA) Hassan Al
Nuaimi said. “Part of the mission of the QGA is to
provide Qatari golfers with the access and the
support needed to achieve at a world-class level.
We are proud to have these two players representing
Qatar golf in the Commercial Bank Qatar
Masters.”
Paul to captain the team. I don’t mind it
being a David and Goliath situation in
terms of the captains. It’s won on the
course, not on the stage.”
McGinley, who sank the winning putt
at the 2002 Ryder Cup at The Belfry,
admitted that he had endured a testing
last few weeks amid the doubts being
expressed that he was undeserving of
going up against the mighty Watson. “I
watched with interest,” he said. “Like a yoyo
my chances seemed to go up and
down. “I felt the more I said the more my
chances would lessen. I was very tempted
to speak up, but my wife and friends
told me to stay with dignity, don’t get
involved and it will work in the long term.
I believed it too.” McGinley will now be
able to enjoy a relatively quiet period
when he can take stock of the task before
THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013
him and put in place a team of assistant
captains to share the burden.
At some stage he will also have his first
joint Ryder Cup news conference with
Watson, when the comparisons of their
respective careers will undoubtedly resurface.
The American, 17 years older than
McGinley at 63, dubbed his European
counterpart a “class act” and added: “I
congratulate Paul McGinley upon his
selection as the next European Ryder Cup
captain and anticipate that his passion
and love of the event will transfer to
being an outstanding leader of his team
in 2014 at Gleneagles. “Paul has been connected
to four winning European Ryder
Cup teams and is an outstanding representative
of European golf. I look forward
to sharing the stage with him as we make
our journey to Scotland.” —AFP
ABU DHABI: Rory Mcllroy from Northern Ireland (left) talks to Justin Rose of
England, as he holds a traditional Arabic coffee pot at a press briefing ahead
of Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf championship at the Abu Dhabi Golf Club. —AP
Justin Rose seeks to
thrive in the desert
ABU DHABI: Justin Rose believes he is
capable of closing the gap that exists
between himself and leading pair Rory
McIlroy and Tiger Woods. The 32-year-old
Englishman enjoyed a strong finish to 2012
at the Ryder Cup and in the Race to Dubai
and he has chosen to open his campaign
this year back in the Gulf at the Abu Dhabi
HSBC Golf Championship. World No1
McIlroy and No 2 Woods head a strong
European Tour field in the emirate and Rose
relishes the opportunity to have an early
crack at the game’s two biggest stars.
“I think status is something I’m a long
way from but I believe my game is not that
far at all,” he said yesterday. “I’m very happy
with my skill set. I’m very happy that I can
close the gap (on McIlroy and Woods) or
hopefully make the gap disappear with
some hard work and just continue what I’m
doing. “I know what I need to improve and I
know how I’m going to do it and I back
myself and I feel comfortable standing up
in that situation now and believing that I
have the tools and the skills to compete.”
Rose’s career to date has seen a number
of ebbs and flows in form since he first
burst onto the scene as a 17-year-old ama-
ABU DHABI: The European Tour may change
the way future Ryder Cup captains are chosen
after an often “unseemly” campaign ended this
week with Paul McGinley being picked to lead
the 2014 team, said chief executive George
O’Grady. McGinley’s appointment on Tuesday
as the first Irish skipper in the 86-year history
of the event came at the end of a campaign
during which golfing politics came to the fore.
Tour players came out in support of their own
favorites in the newspapers and on social networking
sites in the weeks leading up to the
selection, causing a swirl of media debate
about which of the candidates was most suited
to the role.
“It was never meant to be a campaigning
business,” O’Grady told Reuters in an interview
on the eve of the $2.7 million Abu Dhabi
Championship. “That will probably have to be
looked at in the cold light of day but the world
has changed with all this twittering. “I think
personally one person should be invited to
become captain and there should be no losers.
There should be a view that this is the right
guy at the right time because it can all be a little
unseemly.”
Ten members of the 15-man Players
Committee, chaired by Dane Thomas Bjorn,
debated the respective merits of McGinley,
2010 skipper Colin Montgomerie, Miguel
Angel Jimenez, Paul Lawrie and Sandy Lyle at a
meeting in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday before
plumping for the Irishman. “In the end, with all
the talk in the social media and the newspapers
in the run-up, it was a triumph for democracy,”
added O’Grady. “It was done very well.
The decision was taken by the committee, it
was a unanimous decision but it was more a
consensus of everybody’s feelings. “I think to
have a guy announced as captain and to have
the world number one (Rory McIlroy) coming
in at the back of the room to show his support
gives you great confidence,” said O’Grady.
Before the Players Committee meeting,
McIlroy said he felt strongly that McGinley
should be appointed and the twice major
teur at the 1998 British Open at Royal
Birkdale where he finished fourth. He took
several years to get to grips with the
demands of the professional tour but by
2007 he had won the European Order of
Merit and was ranked in the world top 10
for 34 weeks between November 2007 and
July 2008. A troublesome back saw him
tumble down the rankings but he rebounded
in 2010 with two tournament wins on
the USPGA Tour and was a regular contender
in the majors.
Last year he ended the year ranked
fourth in the world after a strong Ryder
Cup where he beat Phil Mickelson in the
closing singles, defeated McIlroy and
Woods in Turkey and then took second
spot behind McIlory in the season-ending
Race to Dubai. “So, there’s three very positive
experiences on which I can draw,” he
said. “I now begin to trust. I don’t need to
do anything different in order to, one, put
myself into contention and, two, I trust my
processes enough now to believe that I can
deliver under pressure.” Rose will set off
today in the company of British Open
champion Ernie Els and Abu Dhabi defending
champion Robert Rock.—AFP
Tour chief hints at
captaincy change
champion was there to back his man when the
decision was announced to the world’s media
in a hotel conference room. Bjorn said the captaincy
never went to a vote and O’Grady congratulated
the Dane for the way the meeting
was conducted. “We have to say the Players
Committee have a habit of getting it right,”
said O’Grady. “Thomas chaired the meeting
superbly well, everybody had their viewpoint,
it went round the table once and then people
had a view. “No single player dominated at all,
one person proposed Paul and the motion was
Paul McGinley
carried. “The actual physical process was conducted
superbly but whether we need all that
space in the papers, we’ll think about that
calmly,” added O’Grady.
The tour chief backed McGinley’s selection
and said he would make an “outstanding captain”.
“We can’t be unaware of the fact that so
many members of the current team were so
supportive of Paul,” he explained. “Everyone in
the room accepted the outstanding credentials
of all the other candidates, especially
Colin Montgomerie who was an outstanding
captain in 2010, but generally speaking there’s
an unwritten rule that you do the job once
(only).” McGinley succeeds Spain’s Jose Maria
Olazabal who led Europe to a remarkable
comeback victory over the United States in
Illinois in the biennial team event in
September. —Reuters

New Orleans 111, Philadelphia 99; Indiana 103, Charlotte 76; Brooklyn 113, Toronto
106; LA Clippers 117, Houston 109; Denver 115, Portland 111 (OT); LA Lakers 104,
Milwaukee 88.
Eastern Conference
Atlantic Division
W L PCT GB
NY Knicks 24 13 .649 -
Brooklyn 23 15 .605 1.5
Boston 20 17 .541 4
Philadelphia 16 23 .410 9
Toronto 14 24 .368 10.5
Central Division
Indiana 24 15 .615 -
Chicago 21 15 .583 1.5
Milwaukee 19 18 .514 4
Detroit 14 24 .368 9.5
Cleveland 9 31 .225 15.5
Southeast Division
Miami 24 12 .667 -
Atlanta 21 16 .568 3.5
Orlando 13 24 .351 11.5
Charlotte 9 29 .237 16
Washington 7 28 .200 16.5
NBA results/standings
Western Conference
Northwest Division
Oklahoma City30 8 .789 -
Denver 24 16 .600 7
Portland 20 18 .526 10
Utah 21 19 .525 10
Minnesota 16 19 .457 12.5
Pacific Division
LA Clippers 30 9 .769 -
Golden State 23 13 .639 5.5
LA Lakers 17 21 .447 12.5
Sacramento 14 24 .368 15.5
Phoenix 13 27 .325 17.5
Southwest Division
San Antonio 29 11 .725 -
Memphis 24 12 .667 3
Houston 21 18 .538 7.5
Dallas 16 23 .410 12.5
New Orleans 12 26 .316 16
Clippers send Rockets
to fourth straight loss
LOS ANGELES: Los Angeles Lakers center Dwight Howard (right) dunks as
Milwaukee Bucks center Larry Sanders defends during the second half of
their NBA basketball game on Tuesday, Jan 15, 2013 in Los Angeles.— AP
HOUSTON: Jamal Crawford scored a season-high
30 points, including 12 straight to
start the fourth quarter, and the Los
Angeles Clippers looked just fine without
Chris Paul in a 117-109 win over the struggling
Houston Rockets on Tuesday night.
The Clippers won their second game in a
row despite missing their star point guard,
who is day to day with a bruised right
kneecap. Los Angeles used a big third quarter
to take the lead, and Crawford extended
the advantage to 20 by outscoring Houston
12-7 in the opening minutes of the fourth
quarter. James Harden had 23 points for
the Rockets, whose four-game losing streak
is a season worst. The Clippers improved to
11-1 this season when Crawford leads the
team in scoring. Los Angeles opened the
second half with a 10-0 run to take a 68-59
lead with about nine minutes left in the
third quarter.
NUGGETS 115, TRAIL BLAZERS 111, OT
Wilson Chandler hit a tiebreaking 3pointer
with 14.9 seconds remaining in
overtime and Denver beat Portland for its
season-best sixth consecutive victory.
Danilo Gallinari had 25 points, including a
key 3-pointer in the extra period. Ty Lawson
added 24 points and 12 assists for the
Nuggets, who are 2-0 in overtime this season.
Portland, which lost for the first time
in six OT games this season, was led by
LaMarcus Aldridge’s 28 points. Nicolas
Batum had 22 points and J.J. Hickson 19.
LAKERS 104, BUCKS 88
Dwight Howard had 31 points and 16
rebounds, Kobe Bryant also scored 31
points and Los Angeles beat Milwaukee for
its second straight win after a six-game
skid. Metta World Peace added 12 points as
the Lakers prepared for Thursday’s visit
from the NBA champion Miami Heat with
an impressive effort against the Bucks, who
lost for the second time in five games
under interim coach Jim Boylan. Bryant and
Howard both had 30-point games for the
second time in their brief tenure together,
and the Bucks couldn’t cope with Bryant’s
outside game or Howard’s inside dominance.
Monta Ellis scored 17 points for
Milwaukee, while Brandon Jennings was
held to 12 points on 4-of-14 shooting
largely by Bryant’s defense. Howard again
played with an obvious spark in his second
game back from a three-game absence
with a torn labrum in his shoulder, defending
aggressively in the paint while overpowering
the Bucks on offense. Pau Gasol
missed his fifth straight game for the Lakers
with a concussion, but the 7-foot Spaniard
worked out before the game and will be reexamined
before Thursday’s game against
Miami.
PACERS 103, BOBCATS 76
Roy Hibbert had 18 points and seven
rebounds, and Indiana handed Charlotte its
13th straight home loss. The Pacers
bounced back from Sunday’s 11-point
defeat to Brooklyn and won for the fifth
time in six games. With team owner
Michael Jordan looking on from the bench,
the Bobcats lost their fifth in a row. They’ve
dropped 24 of 26 since Thanksgiving.
Indiana won this one going away behind
some dominant inside play, outrebounding
the Bobcats 60-31 and outscoring them 52-
22 in the paint. Paul George had 16 points
and 10 rebounds, while David West added
15 points and eight rebounds for the
Pacers. George Hill chipped in with 16
points and seven rebounds. The Central
Division leaders (24-15) have not lost consecutive
games since Dec 9. Gerald
Henderson led the Bobcats with 15 points.
NETS 113, RAPTORS 106
Brook Lopez had 22 points and nine
rebounds, Joe Johnson and Deron Williams
each scored 21 points, and Brooklyn beat
Toronto to extend its season-high winning
streak to seven games. Andray Blatche
added 14 points for the Nets, in the midst
of their longest winning streak since running
off 14 in a row late in the 2005-06 season.
A .500 team when they fired Avery
Johnson late last month, Brooklyn is 9-1
under interim coach PJ Carlesimo and has
pulled within 11/2 games of the New York
Knicks for the Atlantic Division lead. The
Nets dominated the fourth quarter again,
pulling away for their sixth straight home
victory. Kyle Lowry scored 21 points for the
Raptors, who have dropped two in a row
but still have 10 wins in their last 15 games.
HORNETS 111, 76ERS 99
Greivis Vasquez scored 23 points and
Eric Gordon added 19 to help New Orleans
beat Philadelphia. Ryan Anderson had 14
points, Xavier Henry scored 11 and
Anthony Davis 10 for the Hornets, who are
last in the Western Conference at 12-26 -
with matching 6-13 records at home and
on the road.Jrue Holiday led the Sixers with
29 points and 11 assists. Nick Young and
Evan Turner added 14 points each while
Thaddeus Young scored 12. Philadelphia
hasn’t won consecutive games since a
three-game streak from Nov 25-30.— AP
SPORTS
WASHINGTON: The US government
can take Lance Armstrong to
court once the fallen cycling hero
publicly admits to doping, experts
and people familiar with the matter
say. Armstrong is said to have come
clean about his use of performance-enhancing
drugs in an interview
with Oprah Winfrey set to air
today, his first interview since being
stripped of his seven Tour de France
titles last year. Until now
Armstrong, 41, had strenuously
denied doping allegations for several
years, even after a 1,000-page
report by the US Anti-Doping
Agency put him at the heart of the
greatest doping scandal in the
annals of cycling. “Because he has
now admitted he doped, that
makes it a lot easier to prove a
fraud claim,” said sports lawyer
Brian Socolow.
“Given that he has now said that
he did use performance-enhancing
drugs, the government is given the
opportunity to reopen an investigation.”
Peter Keane, a law professor
at Golden Gate University, said
Armstrong could face criminal
prosecution over the government
sponsorship he received while riding
on the US Postal team from
1998-2004. “I’m talking about money,
lots of money. I’m talking about
liberty,” he said. The interview was
Armstrong’s first since he was
stripped of his Tour de France titles
and came after more than a decade
of vigorous denials that he had
used banned substances to win his
way into the history books.
In terms of potential criminal
charges, the case has enough of a
high profile for the government to
consider prosecuting Armstrong for
fraud, over millions of dollars of
public sponsorship, and for perjury,
after his denials under oath,
according to Socolow of New York
firm Loeb & Loeb. In terms of civil
charges, the Justice Department
has until today to join a lawsuit
filed in 2010 by Armstrong’s former
teammate Floyd Landis to recuperate
public funds disbursed to his US
Postal team, a source close to the
matter said.
A court document shows that
Landis’s complaint has recourse to
the False Claims Act, allowing an
individual to file a lawsuit against
someone else or against a company
for having lied to the federal government.
The text allows the accuser
to pocket 15 to 30 percent of the
funds recuperated by the government.
The government spent more
than $30 million sponsoring US
Postal, according to The Wall Street
Journal. Experts say the government
can seek three times that
amount. The Justice Department
refused comment on any possible
lawsuits, whether civil or criminal.
PARIS: A picture shows a broken Livestrong wristband, a yellow silicone gel
bracelet launched as a fund-raising item for the Lance Armstrong
Foundation. — AFP
But a source close to the matter
said there was no risk of criminal
prosecution.
Experts, however, say criminal
charges could come if Armstrong
admits to more than just doping
and confesses to distributing performance-enhancing
drugs. “I don’t
think the government-or a majority
of the American people-have the
stomach for a criminal suit,” in light
of Armstrong’s widespread popularity,
said Jordan Kobritz, who
chairs the Sport Management
Department at the State University
of New York at Cortland. The government
has had lackluster success
THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013
Armstrong could face legal action after confession
KANSAS: Major League Soccer’s Sporting
Kansas City have ended their stadium
naming deal with Livestrong, the cancer
foundation started by disgraced former
cycling champion Lance Armstrong, the
team said on Tuesday. The $200 million
stadium was opened in June 2011 and
the club announced a high-profile sixyear
deal with the charity, naming the
venue Livestrong Sporting Park and committing
to contributions to Armstrong’s
organisation.
Since being stripped off his seven Tour
de France titles and deciding to end his
fight against doping charges, Armstrong
has stood down from his positions with
the charity. In a statement issued on
Tuesday, Sporting did not mention
Armstrong directly nor did they give any
specific reasons for ending the arrangement.
“Over the course of the past year, it
became clear that Livestrong no longer
shared the same spirit of partnership,
despite our perseverance to the contrary,”
said Sporting CEO Robb Heineman in the
statement.
“This morning we were disappointed
to learn Livestrong is utilizing aggressive
tactics designed to force us into an unsatisfactory
arrangement. “We willingly
L’ALPE D’HUEZ: A file picture shows yellow jersey US Lance
Armstrong taking the start of the 16th stage of the 91st Tour
de France cycling race. Shamed cyclist Lance Armstrong has
admitted that he used performance-enhancing drugs. —AFP
admit we were not expecting the foundation
to treat a partner in this manner.
Even more surprising is that Livestrong
would take this action in the midst of a
significant transitional phase for their
organization,” added Heineman.
Armstrong personally endorsed the deal
for the stadium in March, 2011 saying it
was an “innovative opportunity”. The stadium,
which will hold this year’s MLS All
Star game, will now be known as
Sporting Park, the team said.
Livestrong were not immediately available
for comment but chief financial officer
Greg Lee told ESPN.com. “We strive to
be great partners ourselves and expect
the same from those we do business
with. “If a partner is struggling to meet
the terms of our agreement, we do everything
possible to reach a fair and reasonable
compromise. If no compromise can
be reached, as good stewards of our
brand and mission, we have no choice
but to bring that agreement to an end.”
Armstrong is to break his silence over the
doping accusations in an interview with
Oprah Winfrey to be broadcast today. The
Texan is reported to have admitted to
doping in the show which was recorded
on Monday.— Reuters
with perjury cases against athletes
who testified under oath about
using illegal drugs, Socolow said.
It has spent millions of dollars in
seeking to prosecute former baseball
stars Roger Clemens and Barry
Bonds, with meager results. A
statute of limitations bars lawsuits
for perjury more than five years
after declarations made under
oath. And there are contradictory
reports as to when Armstrong
made his declarations, with the oldest
dating back to 2005. However,
“the government could investigate
him for obstruction of justice if he
misled the grand jury investigation
last year,” said Michael McCann, set
to head a new Sports and
Entertainment Law Institute at the
University of New Hampshire this
fall.
Experts agree that Armstrong
likely clinched an out-of-court
agreement with the government
before speaking to Oprah. “I’m sure
his attorneys reviewed the potential
impact an ‘admission’ would
have in all existing legal matters
against him and all possible suits
that could result from his admission,”
said Kobritz.
Armstrong “will return either
voluntarily or by force of law millions
of dollars of sponsors fees,”
predicted Socolow. In addition to
government prosecution and the
Landis case, Armstrong could face
several civil complaints.
In Texas, sports insurer SCA
wants to recoup at least $7.5 million
in performance bonuses paid
to Armstrong in 2006 for multiple
Tour victories. The Sunday Times of
Britain has sued him for more than
£1 million ($1.6 million) over a 2006
libel payment.
It had paid Armstrong £300,000
to settle a libel case after publishing
a story suggesting he may have
cheated, and now wants that money,
plus interest and legal costs,
repaid. And Livestrong donors may
demand compensation after
Armstrong’s admission. The foundation
has raised more than $500
million since the cyclist founded it
in 1997.— AFP
Club says Livestrong ‘I confess’ - 5 great
sports ‘mea culpas’
stadium deal is over PARIS: US rider Lance Armstrong will admit doping dur-
Former WADA chief urges Armstrong to co-operate
LOS ANGELES: The former head of the World
Anti-Doping Agency, Dick Pound, has called
on Lance Armstrong to co-operate fully with
drug-testing authorities if he wants to have
his lifetime ban from the sport lifted.
Armstrong has given his first interview since
being stripped of his seven Tour de France
victories and banished from the sport. In it,
the talk show host Oprah Winfrey, who talked
to the Texan for two-and-a-half hours, said he
admitted doping.
But on the eve of the much-anticipated
broadcast and as speculation swirled about
the extent of his confession, Pound said
Armstrong should face a proper grilling from
anti-doping and cycling authorities, naming
names and details about how he cheated.
“Simply by confessing to what everybody
knows is not going to do anything here,”
Pound said in an interview. “USADA (US Anti-
Doping Agency) can, if Lance provides significant
or substantial assistance in the fight
against doping in sport, make a recommendation
to change the ban from life to something
less than life, depending on the degree
of information and assistance he gives.”
The USADA last year said Armstrong was
at the centre of the most sophisticated doping
program in the history of sport, publishing
reams of damning eye-witness testimony
from former team-mates about the extent of
his cheating. The scandal plunged the sport
into crisis, raising questions about how he
was able to avoid detection for so long, amid
claims that the International Cycling Union
(UCI) governing body turned a blind eye to
widespread doping in the peloton. Pound,
who is now a member of the International
Olympic Committee, alleged that profession-
al racers were tipped off about how to evade
tests for the illegal blood booster erythropoetin
(EPO). A Swiss lab even met Armstrong
and his former team manager Johan
Bruyneel at the request of the UCI to explain
the EPO testing process, after the rider had
given a “suspicious” test in a race in 2001,
USADA has said. Pound said that by giving
the interview now and admitting what he
had always denied, Armstrong could be hoping
to pave the way for a return to competition
in marathons and triathlons and rehabilitate
his tattered reputation.”— AFP
ing his cycling career in a television interview with Oprah
Winfrey to be broadcast today, the chat show host has
confirmed. Here are five other memorable sports confessions:
TIGER WOODS (GOLF)
US superstar Woods’s carefully stage-managed goodguy
image was shattered forever thanks to a car crash
outside his Florida home in November 2009. That led to a
string of scandalous revelations over his private life which
revealed him to have been a serial cheat with a bevy of
actresses, strippers and waitresses. Woods went on
national television, apologising to wife, Elin, and his
mother, Kultida. “I hurt them the most. Those are the two
people in my life who I’m closest to, and to say the things
that I’ve done, truthfully to them was very painful. I was
living a life of a lie. I really was. And I was doing a lot of
things, like I said, that hurt a lot of people.”
ANDRE AGASSI (TENNIS)
Eight-time Grand Slam title winner Agassi retired in
2006 but in 2009 stunned tennis by using his autobiography
to confess to having taken the drug crystal meth.
Equally shocking was his revelation that he had escaped a
ban by convincing the ATP that he had taken it accidentally.
“It was full of lies, interwoven with the truth,” wrote
Agassi, when he described his letter written to the ATP
seeking clemency. Agassi, who is married to former
women’s world number one Steffi Graf, also admitted that
he secretly hated playing the sport which brought him
untold fame and fortune.
HANSIE CRONJE (CRICKET)
South Africa captain Cronje admitted to accepting
bribes from illegal bookmakers to influence matches
when he appeared at the King Commission probing corruption
in cricket. “My great passion of the game and for
my team-mates was matched by an unfortunate love of
money,” said Cronje who was banned from the game for
life in October 2000, six months after New Delhi police
accused him of taking money from Indian bookmaker
Sanjeev Chawla. Two years later, on June 1, 2002, he was
dead aged 32 when a light plane in which he was travelling
crashed into the mountains near the South African
coastal town of George in bad weather.
MARION JONES (ATHLETICS)
In 2008, five-time Olympic medalist Jones appeared
on the Oprah Winfrey show having just served a sixmonth
jail sentence for lying to federal investigators
about her drug use and her part in a cheque fraud.In a
tearful performance, the American, caught up in the BAL-
CO scandal, insisted she had no idea she was being given
a performance-enhancing drug by her coach, maintaining
she thought it was just a supplement. “I didn’t love
myself enough to tell the truth,” she told Winfrey. Of her
time in prison, she added: “There were moments, Oprah,
where I felt like my world was over. But there were
remarkably days where I just felt empowered, almost. It’s
almost like I got this renewed energy where I felt that: ‘I’m
here for a reason.’ The searching for that reason, I think, is
what really changed my life.”
DAVID MILLAR (CYCLING)
British cyclist Millar, once banned for two years for
using the banned blood booster erythropoetin (EPO), has
since become a vocal anti-doping campaigner. In his
autobiography, “Racing in the Dark”, the man who once
wore the famed Tour de France leader’s yellow jersey,
wrote: “The moment I was caught I was fired and they
didn’t bat an eyelid. I was so very unimportant in the big
scheme of things. “I had built up this scenario in my mind
that I had to win for Cofidis, that upwards of 70 jobs
might depend on me delivering the goods, and to be
honest that is why I eventually succumbed and started
doping.”— AFP

PARIS: Didier Drogba may lead a star-studded
cast list at the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations-but
this year’s competition which gets underway
on Saturday is bereft of some of the continent’s
top names. For while Ivory Coast captain
Drogba and the Toure brothers Kolo and Yaya
and company head for South Africa, the likes of
Samuel Eto’o, Demba Ba and Papiss Demba
Cisse are missing out, forced to watch the
action on television. Ba and Cisse failed to join
the party when Senegal were kicked out of the
2013 tournament by organisers CAF as punishment
for crowd trouble which flared up at the
qualifier against Drogba’s Ivorians.
Senegal’s disqualification must have been
greeted with quiet relief, though, at the pair’s
respective Premier League clubs. Ba, who
moved from Newcastle to Chelsea in the
January transfer window, is one of the deadliest
strikers in the league, and made an immediate
impact for Chelsea when scoring twice in
the 5-1 FA Cup third-round triumph at
Southampton.
At Newcastle, the 27-year-old forward’s
prowess helped lift the Magpies to fifth place last
season. While sorry to see Ba head to London,
Newcastle manager Alan Pardew still has a
Senegalese ace up his sleeve in the shape of
Cisse. He joined Newcastle on a £10 million
(12,033 million euros/$16,093 million) deal from
German Bundesliga outfit Freiburg and has
proved a major hit, scoring 13 goals last term.
SPORTS
While the Africa Cup showcases the cream of the
continent’s abundant talent, joining Ba and Cisse
on the absentee list is one of Africa’s biggest
names in the shape of Eto’o.
The 31-year-old is Africa’s most decorated
player, being voted African Footballer of the Year
in 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2010. After standout
spells at Barcelona and Inter Milan, he is currently
one if not the highest paid footballers in the
world, with a reported weekly pay packet of
some £350,000 (421,000 euros/$563,000) at
Russian big-spenders Anzhi Makhachkala. With
three World Cups and six Nations Cups under his
belt, the Cameroon captain and his team will be
sorely missed. Cameroon’s shock defeat to Cape
Verde in the qualifier also robs the 2013 Nations
Cup of talented midfielder Alex Song, who
moved to Barcelona from Arsenal last August.
He made a name for himself at the 2008 Cup
of Nations in Ghana when he was selected for
the team of the tournament, an honor he also
picked up three years ago. As in 2012, the former
continental kings Egypt have once again been
excluded from the feast of African football. The
Pharaohs have suffered a startling dip in fortune
since rattling off three consecutive titles in 2006,
2008 and 2010. Their bid to qualify for 2013,
against the sombre backdrop of the Port Said
stadium disaster in February which cost the lives
of 74 people, came to a premature end with a
first round 4-3 defeat to the Central African
Republic. Their absence deprives the Nations
THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013
Ba, Cisse, Eto’o - missing stars at Africa Cup
TV ‘pirates’ preying on
Africa Cup of Nations
JOHANNESBURG: Television rights to the
Africa Cup of Nations have caused a stir as
organizers battle illegal broadcasters using
hi-tech modern-day piracy. Interest in the
premier African football competition has
grown in recent years with a rapidly
expanding audience inside and outside
Africa. “We’ll be present in Europe, we’ll be
present in the Arabic countries. We expect
to have a viewership of two to three billion
people,” local organizing committee head
Mvuzo Mbebe said.
Broadcasting rights for Africa’s largest
sporting event are a cash cow which the
organizers, the Confederation of African
Football (CAF), guards jealously.CAF sold
the media distribution rights for the tournament
to French company Sportfive, who
send the match feed to broadcasters.
However, many TV stations in Africa cannot
afford the hefty fees, especially in sub-
Saharan Africa, while others try to steal and
resell broadcasts.”Some people were trying
to sell these television and radio broadcasting
rights or related advertising spaces in
Nigeria,” said the distributor’s African affiliate
LC2 Media-Afnex. They were “compelled
to draw the public’s attention to the
fact that these aforementioned people are
usurpers”, said the company.
“All TV and radio broadcasts of Afcon
MILAN: Inter Milan squandered a two-goal
lead but then scored in the last minute of
extra time for a 3-2 win over Bologna on
Tuesday to reach the Italian Cup semifinals.
Defender Andrea Ranocchia scored the
winner in the 120th minute on a rainy night
at the San Siro with a header from a corner
after Bologna goalkeeper Federico Agliardi
had fallen over. Colombia playmaker Fredy
Guarin had put Inter ahead in the 34th and
substitute Rodrigo Palacio doubled the
lead in the 77th - with both goals coming
from beyond the area - before Bologna
struck back with two late goals.
Italy international Alessandro Diamanti
curved a free kick around Inter’s wall and in
off the crossbar in the 80th, and Manolo
Gabbiadini equalized with a volley from
close range in the 84th. Inter will next face
Fiorentina or Roma, who played yesterday.
Serie A leader Juventus and second-place
Lazio already advanced in the other half of
South Africa 2013, without prior written
authorization, will constitute an act of piracy,
leading to systematic and immediate
prosecution.” South African public broadcaster
the SABC will be the host broadcaster
during the January 19-February 10 tournament.
They will film the 32 matches with
high-definition cameras, edit the pictures,
and send the feed to Sportfive’s satellites.
Sportfive then distribute the images to
rights-holders. Pirates tap into this transmission
without anybody knowing,
explains SABC group head of sport Sizwe
Nzimande.
“They hack like you would hack any
computer program,” he said. “They are
sending it to another satellite, which then
sends it to a receiver tower. You have now
got a pirate feed.” The technology to do this
is as common as TV cameras, he added. “It’s
sophisticated, but it’s readily available.” CAF
tries to safeguard the transmission by giving
access codes that change regularly to
rights-holders, but pirates even get around
that. Botswana’s public broadcaster, BTV,
broadcast the 2012 Africa Cup in
Gabon/Equatorial Guinea without a licence.
When the renegade broadcaster said prices
were too high, Sportfive halved the initial
fee of $1.98 million (1.48 million euros) for
the following tournament. — AFP
Chinese top club in limbo
BEIJING: China’s most successful football
club has been plunged into financial limbo
after sporting authorities blocked a
merger with their city rivals, state media
reported yesterday. Eight-times Chinese
champions Dalian Shide-struggling for
cash despite their history on the pitchhad
been due to join forces with wealthy
neighbours Dalian Aerbin, who have just
captured France international Guillaume
Hoarau. But the Chinese Football
Association (CFA) “negated” the deal,
Xinhua news agency said, forcing Shide
to reapply on Tuesday for their spot in
the Chinese Super League (CSL).
“Shide may meet the requirements
but it’s most likely that the club cannot
hold it to the end of next season due to
insufficient money,” said Xinhua, citing
unspecified sources. Shide won the Jia A
League, China’s first professional league,
in its inaugural season in 1994, and went
on to take another six Jia A titles before
winning the rebranded CSL in 2005. They
are also one of only two Chinese sides to
reach the final of Asia’s top club championship,
now known as the AFC
Champions League. Clubs in China are
commonly controlled by mega-rich business
titans and Shide were bankrolled by
Xu Ming, one of China’s richest men and
the owner of Shide Group.
The tycoon was a close associate of
disgraced former politician Bo Xilai, who
served as mayor and Communist Party
Chief in Dalian before rising up the political
ranks. Xu was linked to the scandal
that brought down Bo, and was reportedly
detained last March, on the same
day Bo was sacked as party chief of the
southwestern metropolis of Chongqing.
He is believed to still be in detention.
Dalian Aerbin were only founded in 2009
but are backed by one of China’s largest
construction companies, enabling them
to sign former Paris Saint-Germain player
Hoarau on a three-year deal earlier this
month, reportedly doubling his salary.
The CFA did not respond to AFP’s
requests for comment. — AFP
Inter Milan overcome
Bologna in Italian Cup
the draw. Amid a flurry of action, Ranocchia
briefly thought he had scored the winner in
the 85th, but his effort was ruled out for
offside. Earlier, Ranocchia had appeared to
injure his left foot.
In the 110th, Inter’s 39-year-old captain
Javier Zanetti hit the post. “It seemed like it
was over after Palacio’s goal, but that’s the
great thing about football, you never know,”
Inter coach Andrea Stramaccioni said. Inter
played the final minutes with virtually 10
men, since Antonio Cassano was limping
but all three substitutions had been used.
“We really showed our character,”
Stramaccioni said. “I think in the end we
deserved to advance.” Before kickoff, representatives
of both clubs honored Hungarian
coach Arpad Weisz, who guided Inter to one
league title and Bologna to two in the
1920s and 1930s. Weisz, who was Jewish,
died at the Auschwitz concentration camp
in Poland during World War II. — AP
MILAN: Bologna defender Mikael Antonsson, of Sweden (left) and Inter Milan’s
Tommaso Rocchi vie for the ball during their Italian Cup quarter final soccer match,
at the San Siro stadium in Milan on Tuesday, Jan 15 , 2012. — AP
LONDON: Sunderland went out of the FA Cup to
second-tier Bolton Wanderers after losing their
third-round replay 2-0 on Tuesday, while Fulham
celebrated the narrowest of narrow escapes
against Blackpool. Sunderland have enjoyed an
upsurge in Premier League fortunes in recent
weeks, moving six points clear of the relegation
zone, but they joined north-east rivals Newcastle
United in falling at the first hurdle in the cup.
England Under-21 striker Marvin Sordell was the
match-winner at the Reebok Stadium, striking
twice in the space of nine second-half minutes
to earn Bolton a home game with Everton in the
fourth round.
His first goal arrived from the penalty spot in
the 64th minute after a foul on Darren Pratley by
Jack Colback, before he dispatched a Tyrone
Mears cut-back in the 73rd minute to complete
the scoring. “This is a big club and we shouldn’t
be spending 40 years without winning something,
we really shouldn’t,” said Sunderland manager
Martin O’Neill. “I know some people field
weakened sides but we didn’t. We tried to win
tonight and we weren’t able to do it, and that
was very disappointing.”
On the prospect of a meeting with Everton,
JOHANNESBURG: There is a heavy
French influence in the coaching
ranks at this year’s African Nations
Cup finals, but unusually some of
the continent’s heavyweights have
plumped for local expertise to lead
their squads. The majority of the 16
finalists are employing an expatriate
coach at the tournament in South
Africa, with seven hailing from
France and one from Belgium.
A single South American,
Uruguay’s Gustavo Ferrin in charge
of Angola, continues a trend of
African sides moving away from
seeking coaches to help them play a
more flamboyant style. Some of the
continent’s heavyweights, however,
have now shunned the foreigners
they previously preferred. Ghana,
Morocco, Nigeria and hosts South
Africa all have their own nationals at
the helm, after expensive imports
failed to deliver in recent tournaments.
“There is a time now for the local
coaches to be given a chance at the
highest level,” said South African
Football Association president
Kirsten Nematandani in a recent
interview. Morocco’s Rachid Taoussi
has only been in his post since
September, having replaced Belgian
Eric Gerets, who arrived amid high
expectations but was unable to
make the most of a talent-laden
squad. There remains, however, a
heavy French influence in Nations
Cup dressing rooms. Franco-German
coach Gernot Rohr has been in
charge of Niger for only three
months, but has experience from
the last Nations Cup when he was in
charge of co-hosts Gabon.
The other French connections
Bolton coach Dougie Freedman said: “We’re
looking forward to it. “We feel right now that we
can perform against anyone, and if we defend
like we did tonight and keep our discipline, we
have definitely got every chance.” Fulham were
on the verge of elimination to Bolton’s
Championship rivals Blackpool after on-loan
Aston Villa forward Nathan Delfouneso put the
hosts 1-0 up in the 82nd minute at Bloomfield
Road. However, a stunning 25-yard strike by
Kieran Richardson in the last minute took the
game to extra time and Fulham skipper Brede
Hangeland scored the winner with four minutes
left to secure a 2-1 win.
Fulham will now meet either Manchester
United or West Ham United, who locked horns in
a replay at Old Trafford yesterday. Jon Walters
went some way towards atoning for his horror
show in Stoke City’s 4-0 loss to Chelsea at the
weekend by scoring twice as Tony Pulis’ side saw
off Championship club Crystal Palace 4-1 after
extra time.
Walters scored two own goals and missed a
penalty in Saturday’s game but he netted twice
in extra time on his return to the Britannia
Stadium, after Glenn Murray’s 87th-minute
are provided by Bosnian-born Vahid
Halilhodzic (Algeria), Herve Renard
(Zambia), Patrice Calderon (Mali),
Sabri Lamouchi (Ivory Coast), Didier
Six (Togo) and Democratic Republic
of Congo’s Claude Leroy, who is
competing in a record seventh tournament.
It was Le Roy who famously
coined the term ‘Club Med coaches’
as a slur on the approach of those
who led African national teams but
only flew in for the matches and
never took time to immerse them-
selves in the local culture. “It is
important to understand and learn
the richness of the culture. It is a
privilege to be part of the passion
for the game that Africa has,” he said.
The influence of foreign coaches
has been palpable since the early
days of the tournament over half a
century ago, but they have won only
half of the 28 previous tournaments.
For a young ambitious coach, Africa
offers a potential springboard, as
was the case with Carlos Alberto
Cup of such Egyptian luminaries as goalkeeper
Esaam Al Hadary, defender Wael Gomaa and
midfielder Mohamed Abou Trika.
Of the teams who qualified, Ghana will have
to do without the services of Marseille’s star midfielder
Andrew Ayew and striker Yahaya
Mohamed, who are both injured. Morocco’s
Queens Park Rangers’ midfielder Adel Taarabt,
Arsenal’s striker Marouane Chamakh, on loan to
West Ham, and Qatar-based midfielder
Houssine Kharja all failed to make the Atlas
Lions’ squad. Hosts South Africa must do without
retired midfielder Steven Pienaar, Mali’s
Mahamadou Diarra is injured, while Nigerian
duo Danny Shittu and Shola Ameobi declined
their country’s call. — AFP
SUNDERLAND: Bolton Wanderers’ English striker Marvin Sordell (3 left) scores their second goal during the English FA Cup third round replay
football match between Sunderland and Bolton Wanderers at the Stadium of Light in Sunderland, on January 15, 2013. — AFP
Sunderland out of FA Cup
Fulham survive scare
penalty for Palace cancelled out Kenwyne Jones’
opener. Cameron Jerome claimed a late fourth
for Stoke, who will tackle English champions
Manchester City for a place in round five in what
is a repeat of the 2011 final which City won.
Chelsea, meanwhile, will face a trip to third-tier
Brentford in the fourth round after the League
One outfit saw off Southend United 2-1. In the
only all-Premier League encounter of the
evening, Queens Park Rangers put their relegation
fears to one side to win 1-0 at West
Bromwich Albion through a 75th-minute header
by Jay Bothroyd.
Wigan Athletic avoided an upset as Mauro
Boselli’s emphatic 18th-minute strike gave them
a 1-0 win away to third-tier Bournemouth, who
twice hit the frame of the goal. Former Senegal
star El-Hadji Diouf celebrated his 32nd birthday
by scoring the decisive goal from the penalty
spot as Leeds United won 2-1 at Birmingham
City to set up a home tie with Tottenham
Hotspur. Arsenal host Swansea City in another
all-Premier League replay on Wednesday, with
second-tier Brighton and Hove Albion, conquerors
of Newcastle, awaiting the victors in
round four. — AFP
Local and foreign coaches vie
for supremacy at Nations Cup
JOHANNESBURG: In this file photo, the sun sets over Soccer City Stadium, on the edge of Soweto,
Johannesburg. — AP
Parreira who led Ghana as a 28-yearold
in 1970. He went on to win the
World Cup with his own country
Brazil 24 years later. Renard won the
Nations Cup with Zambia in 2012
less than a decade after he ran an
office cleaning business in his home
town of Aix-les-Bains in France. “I
took out the rubbish for eight years
and now I’m the winning coach in
the African Nations Cup. Soccer is
magical,” he said after last year’s success.
— Reuters

Underclass leaders quietly
advance to Open 3rd round
MELBOURNE: Agnieszka Radwanska has
not dropped a set and is unbeaten in 11
matches in 2013. Yesterday the world
number four comfortably dealt with the
challenge of Irina-Camelia Begu to
advance to the Australian Open third
round. As did fifth seed Angelique
Kerber, who beat Lucie Hradecka 6-3 6-1
in 69 minutes.
Despite her hot form Radwanska, who
won both the Auckland and Sydney titles
before the year’s first grand slam, is not
quite sure if she’s playing as well as she
can. “I hope not,” she said with a broad
grin when asked if she was in the form of
her life after the 6-3 6-3 win over Begu.
“Then I can play even better. “I’m definitely
happy that I’m playing my best
tennis at the start of the year which is
always tough after a few weeks just practicing.
“(But) playing matches is always
different and I didn’t really expect to win
that many matches in a row and hopefully
I can keep going.”
The Polish 23-year-old, who made her
first grand slam final appearance last
year when she lost to Serena Williams at
Wimbledon, had entered the consciousness
of the public at the Australian Open
as one of the favourites of the underdogs.
A player likely to advance comfortably
through the early rounds, then just
as likely lose to someone below here in
the rankings from the quarter-finals
onwards, as she was to beat the three
women ranked above her. Champion
Victoria Azarenka, world number two
Maria Sharapova and Serena Williams,
who twisted her ankle on Tuesday, all
demolished their first round opponents
with their powerful ground strokes and
service game to the fore.
Radwanska is more of a grafter.
Someone who plays superb defense,
works her opponents around the court,
mixes her pace and exploits the angles
but does not overpower them.
Yesterday, she did exactly what she
needed to do against Begu. She had initial
problems with the ball toss of her
serve as the giant television screen overhanging
Rod Laver Arena was in her eyeline
and was broken in the first game.
However she quickly adjusted and got
into her stride, moving the tall Romanian
around and running down everything to
win the first set in 46 minutes.
In the second set, she was forced to
scramble to overcome Begu, but again
consistently put pressure on the
Romanian and sealed the third round
clash with either Heather Watson or
Ksenia Pervak when she punched away a
backhand volley. “Today was a better
match for sure,” she said. “It was a tight
match but I played the (important)
moments a little bit better and I managed
to take it in two sets.” Kerber, like
Radwanska, dropped the first service
game of the match before clicking into
gear in the second set and sealing a clash
against either American wild card
Madison Keys or Austria’s Tamira Paszek
with an ace. The German left-hander has
also quietly moved into contention in
the grand slams, accumulating rankings
points with a series of semi-final appearances.
She also won her first WTA career
titles, in Paris and Copenhagen, last year
and won eight times against women
ranked in the top-10. One of those victories
was against Serena at Cincinnati -
the only match the American has lost
since Wimbledon last year - and the
German is relishing going deeper at
Melbourne Park than her previous best
third round appearances in 2010 and
2012. “I have a lot of confidence from the
last year,” she told reporters after her victory
over Hradecka. “I beat a lot of good
players and reached the top 10, top five.
“I’m just enjoy(ing) where I am right
now.”— Reuters
Swimming: Big money Super
Series draws Chinese stars
PERTH: Teenage Chinese Olympic sensation
Ye Shiwen headlines the field for the
inaugural Super Series, billed as the
world’s richest swim meet, which starts
tomorrow in Perth. The dual Olympic
gold medalist is part of a powerful
Chinese team facing on Australia and
South Africa in the unique tri-nation
event, with $500,000 in prize money paid
by a wealthy mining corporation for
both individual and relay events over
two days.
The 16-year-old won Olympic gold
medals in the 400 meters and 200 meters
individual medley at London 2012, setting
an astonishing world record in the
400m event and an Olympic record in
the 200m. London 200m butterfly champion
Jiao Liuyang and 2008 gold medalist
Liu Zige will also be competing in the
Super Series as China seek to continue
their emergence as a swimming power
to rival the United States.
The Chinese claimed five gold medals
in London, second only to the USA, and
their Super Series team includes four current
world record holders. Host nation
Australia will be looking to reclaim some
of the ground lost in London, where their
reputation as one of the strongest swimming
nations took a battering. They won
just a single gold, in the women’s
4x100m freestyle relay. Much of the
attention for the Australians will centre
on James Magnussen, the high-profile
sprint freestyler nicknamed “The Missile”.
As the reigning world champion,
Magnussen was the favorite for the
100m freestyle heading into the London
Olympics, but finished second to
American Nathan Adrian by a hundredth
of a second and failed to reach the final
of the 50m freestyle. One of the highlights
of the Super Series in the Swan
River capital of Western Australia will be
the clash between Ye and Australian
Alicia Coutts, who claimed the silver
medal in the 200m individual medley in
London. The South African team suffered
a blow when Chad le Clos, who achieved
worldwide recognition after beating
United States Olympic legend Michael
Phelps in the 200m butterfly in London,
withdrew with a shoulder injury.— AFP
OSN awards UAE’s Khalil
KUWAIT: Following a great game,
UAE celebrated its exciting qualification
to the highly anticipated finals
after their victory against Kuwait on
January 15th at the Gulf Cup of
Nations which kicked off earlier this
month in Bahrain. As part of its commitment
to support local and regional
sporting events, OSN awarded the
Most Valued Player (MVP) award to
UAE’s National team player, Ahmad
Khalil, for his game-changing performance.
Ahmad Khalil also received a one
year OSN subscription from Mehdi
Baker, a senior representative from
OSN, the region’s leading pay-TV network.
The finale which takes place
tomorrow will see the Most Valued
Player of the tournament also being
honored by OSN.
19 SPORTS
MELBOURNE: Polish giant Jerzy Janowicz
admitted he “went nuts” and expected to be
fined after an extraordinary meltdown during
his marathon Australian Open victory over
India’s Somdev Devvarman yesterday. The
24th seed screamed his discontent at a line
call when he led 9-8 in the tiebreaker of his 6-
7 (10/12), 3-6, 6-1, 6-0, 7-5 triumph. The
imposing 2.03 meters tall Janowicz repeatedly
yelled “How many times” before falling to his
knees and continuing his tirade.
He faces sanctioning from the International
Tennis Federation for angrily hitting the
umpire’s chair with his racquet at the completion
of the first set. “The umpires, they’re making
so many mistakes,” Janowicz said. “One of
the most important mistakes was set point in
the tiebreak, 9-8. Was a shanked forehand
from Devvarman. The ball was really slow, it
was clean out,” he said. “I was already happy, I
was already shouting ‘come on.’ But the refer-
ees didn’t say anything. This was the moment
when I went nuts. “Sometimes it happens like
this. Sometimes I have a problem to control
my emotions, but I’m trying to work on this.”
The ITF will announce on Thursday if Janowicz
will be fined.
He was unable to compete at the
Australian Open last year because with a
world ranking of 221, he could not afford the
airfare to Melbourne. He has since taken his
ranking to number 26 and accumulated
career prizemoney of more than $660,000.
“This changed my life, but not changed me,”
he said. “All the time, I’m the same crazy person,
and I hope it is going to be the same all
the time.” Asked if he had ever gone “as nuts”
in a match, Janowicz smiled: “Yeah.” On
whether it was the first time he had struck an
umpire’s chair, he replied more sheepishly:
“Maybe.” Devvarman said he had never witnessed
an outburst like the one delivered by
THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013
MELBOURNE: Poland’s Jerzy Janowicz reacts to a line call during his second round match against India’s Somdev Devvarman at the
Australian Open tennis championship yesterday. — AP
Janowicz admits he ‘went
nuts’ in Open meltdown
MELBOURNE: American Brian Baker’s hopes
of a fairytale run at the Australian Open were
ended in the cruellest of fashions yesterday
when he was taken off court in a wheelchair
after suffering a serious knee injury. The 27year-old,
who returned in 2012 after seven
injury-plagued years off the professional circuit,
had won the first set of his second round
match against compatriot Sam Querrey when
he suffered the injury. “I didn’t see what happened,”
Querrey told reporters. “I hit a ball,
and then he hit a ball long. I was looking at the
ballkids to grab balls for my serve, and then I
looked back and he was on the ground.
“And then just asking him, he said he kind
of just felt his knee almost buckle and kind of
heard like a pop or a snap. He didn’t know if it
was bones or a tear, but he couldn’t straighten
it, couldn’t walk. “I feel awful for him.” After
receiving treatment on his right knee, Baker
was wheeled away with what broadcaster
ESPN reported was a torn lateral meniscus,
which will require surgery and four months on
the sidelines. Runner-up at the French Open
juniors in 2003, Baker was working his way up
the senior rankings in 2005 when he first felt
an injury in his left hip, which required surgery.
That began a nightmare run of two left hip
surgeries, a right hip operation, hernia surgery
and right elbow surgery which, with the
exception of a couple of matches in 2007, kept
him off the tour until 2011. “He’s the last person
that deserves anything like that with his
five or six surgeries already,” added Querrey.
“He does everything right, treats his body
great, just trying to come back, and then
something like that happens, it’s just so
unlucky.” Baker gave it one final go last year
and went from world number 456 to 57 at the
start of this year’s first grand slam, taking in a
run to the last 16 as a qualifier at Wimbledon
on the way.
His victory in the first round at Melbourne
Park against Alex Bogomolov Jr of Russia on
Monday was his first at the Australian Open
and he had hoped to get back into the top 50
in the world by May. “In my mind he’s a top 50
Janowicz, whose tantrum was attracting a
stream of YouTube viewers shortly after the
match.
An outburst by Marcos Baghdatis at the
Australian Open last year, when the Cypriot
smashed four racquets during a changeover,
has since had 1.4 million hits on YouTube. “I
was thinking dude, relax,” Devvarman said.
“He is a friend and I have played him before.
He got a little upset with a couple of calls. “I’m
the kind of guy who goes out there and
works, regardless of what is happening on the
other side of the net. I played him three or
four years ago and he was only a baby back
then. “He’s improved so much, you can see it
in his game, his maturity, although ...
“Janowicz might have earned the ire of officialdom,
but spectators were on his side.
Walking off court, a group of girls gave him
flowers. “This was me,” Janowicz said. “Never,
never happen to me before.”— AFP
Baker’s Open ends in wheelchair
MELBOURNE: One year ago, a
star-struck Bernard Tomic was
left shaking his head in disbelief
as he was taken apart by the
great Roger Federer. This time
around, his attitude is a little less
reverent. Rather than paying
homage to the mighty Swiss, the
cocksure Australian has taken a
distinctly different tack, cheekily
suggesting Federer may lose
before their expected clash in the
Australian Open’s third round.
“Well, if he gets that far,” was
the response of Tomic to being
drawn against Federer, for a likely
prime-time clash inside Rod
Laver Arena on Saturday night. “I
would love to get in that position
to play Roger in the third round.
He has to get there as well. You
don’t know what can happen.
Tennis is a funny sport. So we’ll
see.” Given that Federer, who
MELBOURNE: Brian Baker of the US hits a return against compatriot Sam Querrey during
their men’s singles match on day three of the Australian Open tennis tournament in
Melbourne yesterday. — AFP
meets Nikolay Davydenko in
round two on Thursday, is on a
run of 34 straight Grand Slam
quarter-finals, it was an impertinent
suggestion. To meet
Federer, Tomic must first beat
German qualifier Daniel Brands.
Last year, he only took eight
games off the 17-time Grand
Slam champion as he went down
in straight sets in the fourth
round.
At the same age as Tomic,
Federer had only one tournament
victory before going on to
amass a record-breaking 17
majors. But Federer has been distinctly
cool about the controversial
young Australian. “Is he playing
first?” Federer said, when
asked if he would watch Tomic’s
opening match on TV. “Second? I
don’t know. I haven’t got my
plan yet for tonight, my dinner
plans.” Federer, 31, also cast
doubt on Tomic’s ambition of
cracking the top 10 within a year,
calling it a “big ask”. “Let’s speak
in a year’s time. Everybody wants
to jump from, what’s his ranking,
60, to 10 in a year. It’s hard to do.
Ten is a big ask,” he said. “Don’t
forget how tough the top 10
players are right now.”
It was reminiscent of Federer’s
attitude in the build-up to the
equally hyped clash with Tomic
at the Australian Open last year.
Tomic needed to beat Ukraine’s
mercurial Alexandr Dolgopolov
to reach the fourth round and
face Federer. Asked if he had
viewed Tomic versus
Dolgopolov, Federer replied: “An
entertaining match. I was laughing
like everyone else. But it did
take four hours out of my day.”
The message was clear. Tomic
player and he can beat guys who are top 20,
top 10,” Querrey, the 20th seed, said. “I think if
he can heal quickly ... I think he can get right
back where he is right now. He’s talented, he’s
good enough.” Querrey, the sole American
men’s seed this year in the absence of injured
compatriot John Isner, will now meet Swiss
Stanislas Wawrinka for a place in the fourth
round.— Reuters
Federer and Tomic trade
barbs at Australian Open
was little more than nuisance value.
Hardly a serious threat. Some
48 hours later, Federer schooled
him 6-4, 6-2, 6-2.
It was not the first time
Federer, who is known to store
remarks from opponents as motivational
weaponry, has put a
young upstart in his place at
Melbourne Park. Famously, a
young Novak Djokovic told an
Australian TV station in 2007 that
he would beat Federer in the
fourth round. Federer was world
number one and already on the
road to becoming an all-time
great. Djokovic, 18, was
unproven. Federer learned of the
Serb’s boastful prediction and
vowed to remind him who’s
boss. The result? A pointed 6-2,
7-5, 6-3 triumph to Federer. Then
and now, he wants the last
word.— AFP

THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013
Sunderland
out of FA Cup;
18
Fulham survive
Inter beat
Bologna in
18
Italian Cup
‘I confess’ - 5 great sports ‘mea culpas’ Page 17
MELBOURNE: Russia’s Maria Sharapova serves during her women’s singles match against Misaki Doi (inset) of Japan on the third day of the Australian Open
tennis tournament in Melbourne yesterday. — AFP
Sharapova pumped as Stosur flops
MELBOURNE: A dominant Maria Sharapova
routed another hapless opponent yesterday as
ninth seed Samantha Stosur flopped out of the
Australian Open, amid increasing speculation
about Serena Williams’ fitness. The world number
two Russian handed a tennis lesson to
young Japanese Misaki Doi in a one-sided 6-0,
6-0 rout to book a blockbuster third round clash
with seven-time Grand Slam winner Venus
Williams. Sharapova also thrashed her first
round challenger 6-0, 6-0 to become the first
woman since Wendy Turnbull at the Australian
Open in 1985 to bag two double bagel Grand
Slam wins in a row. “I was just really trying to be
focused. I didn’t know too much about my
opponent; just knew she was a few inches
shorter than I was,” she said. “But it’s always
tough, especially when you’re up a set and a
couple of breaks to keep that momentum.” Next
Venus sets up Sharapova showdown
up is Venus Williams, who disposed of France’s
Alize Cornet in straight sets.
Williams has been battling injury and illness
in the past two years and her ranking has
dropped, but she has clawed her way back to
be 26. She knows she will have to dig deep
against Sharapova. “I look at the draw, I’m not
superstitious. I play Maria and I better bring my
best game against her,” she said. Venus’s sister
Serena is due on court today against Spain’s
Garbine Muguruza and she held a closed indoor
training session, fuelling speculation about her
fitness after she painfully rolled her ankle on
court Tuesday. The defiant 15-time Grand Slam
champion, a hot tournament favorite, claimed
only a “fatal” injury would prevent her contesting
the second round.
But she chose to move her scheduled session
from court 17 to the indoor training facility
Real blank Valencia 2-0
MADRID: Real Madrid put themselves on
course for a place in the King’s Cup semifinals
after securing a 2-0 first leg victory
over Valencia at the Bernabeu on Tuesday.
Karim Benzema scored just before the
break and an own goal from Andres
Guardado in the 74th minute gave Jose
Mourinho’s side the advantage in the
quarter-final ahead of next week’s return
at the Mestalla. The winners go on to
meet either holders Barcelona or Malaga,
who meet at the Nou Camp on
Wednesday.
On the other side of the draw, Real
Zaragoza hosted Sevilla yesterday, and
Atletico Madrid receive Real Betis today. “It
is a good result,” Real captain Iker Casillas
told reporters, “But the way forward in the
Cup is very tough. “We have the return leg
away and after that, if we progress, a
meeting with either Barca or Malaga, who
are in good form. But the victory gives us
a lift and helps us get over our frustrations
in La Liga.” After a recent poor run of form
which has seen Real slip 18 points behind
league leaders Barcelona, Mourinho’s
name once again was met with a mixture
of whistles and applause before the start
of the 600th top-flight match of his career.
Brazil full back Marcelo was back in the
side after almost three months out with a
foot injury but first-choice centre-backs
Sergio Ramos and Pepe were missing
through suspension and injury respectively.
Luka Modric fluffed an early chance
for the hosts and Iker Casillas pulled off a
great reflex save to deny Jonas. As so
and closed it to the media and public, disappointing
hundreds of spectators who wanted to
watch. Australia’s Stosur threw away the last five
games to hand China’s Zheng Jie passage in her
match, admitting she choked. Stosur, who suffered
first-round flops at WTA events in Brisbane
and Sydney this year, was leading 5-2 in the
third set but collapsed and double faulted to
hand Zheng victory 6-4, 1-6, 7-5. “Whatever
word you want to put on it, at 5-2 up in the
third, double break probably is a bit of a choke,
yeah,” she said.
Elsewhere, fourth seed Agnieszka
Radwanska built on her sizzling start to the season
to progress along with Chinese star Li Na
and fifth seed Angelique Kerber. Radwanska
stormed to her 11th straight victory of the year
as she carried the form shown in winning titles
at Auckland and Sydney in the lead-up to the
MADRID: Real Madrid’s Angel Di Maria from Argentina (center) duels for the ball
with Valencia’s Guardado (right) during their Copa del Rey soccer match at the
Santiago Bernabeu stadium in Madrid. — AP
often happens with Real, a close chance at
one end turned into a goal at the other, as
Michael Essien burst away on a counterattack.
He fed Sami Khedira, who immediately
laid off for Benzema and the hosts were 1-
0 up in the 37th minute. Valencia carved
the perfect opportunity to equalize midway
through the second half, after good
work by Ever Banega, but when Casillas
parried Roberto Soldado’s shot Jonas fired
wide of the gaping goal. As with the first
goal, Real immediately struck back.
Substitute Fabio Coentrao’s low cross was
turned into the net by a combination of
Guardado and Gonzalo Higuain as the
two slid in at the near post, the Argentine
getting the final touch with his hand.
Valencia’s new coach Ernesto Valverde
was sent off after the goal, though he was
sanguine when asked if he was unhappy
with the referee. “It’s a lot easier when you
see it on the television,” Valverde told a
news conference. “We have to try and put
ourselves in their place. “Perhaps when I
see it on the television it will hurt more.
We had chances to score and this is more
painful.”— Reuters
year’s opening Grand Slam. The Pole beat Irina-
Camelia Begu 6-3, 6-3 and now faces Britain’s
Heather Watson. While Radwanska had no dramas
in overcoming the Romanian, former
French Open champion Li was erratic in her 6-2,
7-5 victory over Olga Govortsova of Belarus.
Li sailed through the first set but struggled
in the second, before finally knuckling down to
claw back four games in a row to progress. “She
started the second set much better so I’m just
happy to win,” said Li, adding that she was confident
of adding to her solitary Grand Slam title in
2011. “Australia for me-I really believe I can win
this Grand Slam.” In contrast to Li’s struggle,
Germany’s Kerber, who broke through last year
with WTA titles in Paris and Copenhagen which
pushed her to her current rank of five, looked
comfortable in her 6-3, 6-1 win over Czech Lucie
Hradecka.—AFP
Devastating Djokovic
crushes US’ Harrison
MELBOURNE: Novak Djokovic delivered a stinging lesson in
the realities of grand slam tennis to young American Ryan
Harrison yesterday and warned the next generation they
need to work harder to break into the top ranks. The steelyeyed
Serb’s campaign for a hat-trick of Australian Open titles
kicked into overdrive in the late match at Rod Laver Arena,
as he demolished the highly-fancied 20-year-old 6-1 6-2 6-3
to charge into the third round. “I definitely didn’t want to
underestimate my opponent tonight, even though he’s
younger than me, still didn’t establish himself, you know, as a
top 20 or top 30 player,” the world number one told
reporters after the 91-minute rout. “But I still knew that he
has a quality.
“Mentally he’s probably going to go out on the court
knowing he doesn’t have anything to lose. “He’s going to try
to smack serves and forehands. I went with that kind of
mindset on the court, just trying to play as sharp as possible
from the start, and I’ve done so.” Bullied on the baseline and
broken early in each set, the 62nd-ranked Harrison scrambled
hard to make a contest under the lights on centre
court, but was left pinned at the back and stunned by
Djokovic’s shot-making. It was a harsh reality-check for the
American, who had pumped himself up like a prize-fighter
prior to the match, talking of taking it up to the five-times
grand slam champion.
Two breaks down into the second set, a punch-drunk
Harrison was shell-shocked. He later conceded he felt powerless
against a man with no perceptible frailty. “Whenever
your game plan is to try and take control of a guy and you’re
not getting balls to hit, you know, if I try to lace balls from six,
eight feet behind the baseline I just look stupid and crazy,”
said Harrison. “It’s one where you’re disappointed because
obviously leading up the last day and a half, two days, I’m all
excited because I’m wanting to make a statement, wanting
to win this match, wanting to step up. —Reuters
BARCELONA: In this file picture, then FC Barcelona’s coach
Pep Guardiola is thrown in the air after the match FC
Barcelona and Espanyol during a Spanish La Liga soccer
match in Barcelona, Spain. German soccer club Bayern
Munich said yesterday Pep Guardiola will become the club’s
coach in July on 3-year contract. —AP
Guardiola replaces
Bayern’s Heynckes
MUNICH: Bayern Munich have appointed former Barcelona
coach Pep Guardiola to replace Jupp Heynckes from the end of
this season, the Bundesliga club said yesterday. Spaniard
Guardiola, 41, will take over from Heynckes, who has decided not
to extend his contract, in July and has agreed a deal until the end
of June 2016, Bayern said in a statement on their website. “We are
very pleased that we have managed to convince the football
expert Pep Guardiola, who was coveted and contacted by many
top clubs, to come to Bayern Munich,” Bayern CEO Karl-Heinz
Rummenigge said.
“Pep Guardiola is one of the world’s most successful coaches
and we are sure that he can bring a great deal of sparkle not only
to Bayern Munich but to German football in general,” he added.
Bayern’s announcement brings to an end weeks of speculation
about which club would win the race to hire Guardiola, who
announced this month he would return to coaching next season
after taking a year out to rest. He stepped down as Barca coach at
the end of last term after leading the La Liga club, where he
began his career as a player, to 14 trophies in four years, including
two Champions League crowns and three straight Spanish
league titles.
It is a significant coup for the German club, runners-up in
the Champions League last season, given that big-spending
rivals, including Chelsea, Manchester City and Paris St Germain,
were reportedly also hoping to hire Guardiola. The Spaniard,
speaking to the English Football Association as part of the
organization’s 150th anniversary celebrations this week, had
said his ambition was to manage in the Premier League in
future. Bayern are top of the Bundesliga with a nine-point lead
after 17 matches. The league resumes this week after a monthlong
winter break.—Reuters

Business
THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013
Dubai stock market
booms, cautiously
Page 22
US consumer prices edge
up, give Fed room to act
Page 23
Dollar squeeze adds to economic hardship in crisis-hit Sudan
FRANKURT: An employee of the German Federal Bank piles bars of gold during a press conference at the German Federal Bank in Frankfurt am Main, western Germany, yesterday.
(inset) An employee measures a bar of gold. — AFP
Page 24
Germany slashes
growth estimates
amid EU crisis
Page 25
Bundesbank to bring home gold reserves
Piles of gold ingots to be brought from US, France
FRANKFURT: The Bundesbank has decided
to bring home to Germany some of its
huge piles of gold ingots stashed away in
the United States and France, it said yesterday
after accusations that it has not kept
proper track of the reserves.
During the Cold War, the German central
bank, which with nearly 3,400 tons has the
world’s second biggest gold reserves after
the US Federal Reserve, stored most of the
ingots outside the country in case of a
Soviet invasion. Up until unification in
1990, 98 percent of the Bundesbank’s gold
reserves were stored outside the country.
Nevertheless, since the fall of the Iron
Curtain, the Bundesbank has already repatriated
some 900 tons it had given to the
Bank of England for safekeeping. And now
under a new storage plan unveiled by the
central bank yesterday, it will also ship back
home all 374 tons it had stored with the
Banque de France in Paris, as well as 300
tons-or just under one fifth of a stockpile
currently guarded by the US Federal
Reserve.
That meant that proportion of gold
stored in the Bundesbank’s own vaults in
Frankfurt will increase from 31 percent to
50 percent by 2020, board member Carl-
Ludwig Thiele told a news conference.
The increase has become possible
thanks to additional capacity becoming
available in the Bundesbank’s own vaults,
Thiele argued. The shift will enable the central
bank to “focus on the two primary functions
of the gold reserves: to build trust and
confidence domestically, and the ability to
exchange gold for foreign currencies at
gold trading centres abroad within a short
space of time,” Thiele explained.
All of the reserves held in France would
be moved back home, he said. The reason
for this was that, since both France and
Germany shared the euro as their national
currency, the Bundesbank was “no longer
dependent on Paris as a financial centre in
which to exchange gold for an international
reserve currency should the need arise,”
Thiele explained.
High security
The Bundesbank gave no indication as
to when and how the transfers would take
place, but Thiele insisted the central bank
had “huge experience” in handling such
high-security transports.
Thiele insisted the decision represented
no diplomatic slight to France and the Bank
of France “remains an important partner,
whom we thank for taking care of our gold.”
In future, the US Federal Reserve would
continue to guard 37 percent of the
Bundesbank’s gold reserves and the Bank
of England 13 percent.
Even though Thiele insisted the
Bundesbank had taken the decision in full
independence, it did come after the central
bank locked horns with the federal court of
auditors or Bundesrechnungshof last
October over criticisms it was not keeping
proper track of its vast reserves of gold.
At the time, the Bundesrechnungshof,
which audits Germany’s finances, complained
that the Bundesbank had never
made sure that large parts of its gold
reserves held by foreign central banks were
subject to regular on-the-spot checks.
“In view of the high value of the gold
reserves stored with foreign central banks
and the fact that these have never been
registered, the court of auditors views it as
essential for regular physical checks and
assays to be carried out at the foreign central
banks,” the letter stated.
The Bundesbank retorted that it was
“not usual practice between central
banks” to carry out checks to verify its
gold reserves were all present and correct.
“There is no doubt about the
integrity, reputation and security” of the
foreign central banks’ depositary facilities
and the Bundesbank received certified
confirmation of its inventory down
to the nearest troy ounce every year
from the central banks concerned, it
said. Nevertheless, public pressure and
increasingly vocal euroscepticism in the
wake of the debt crisis has increased for
the bank to keep a closer track on its
gold. — AFP
OPEC sees weaker demand in 2013
LONDON: OPEC expects demand for its crude to be lower than expected
in 2013 because of higher supply from rival producers, indicating inventories
could build up substantially if the producer group maintains current
output. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries’ monthly
report indicated world supply will comfortably outstrip demand in the first
half of this year, even after top exporter Saudi Arabia cut its production in
December to fend off a supply overhang and defend prices well above
$100 a barrel.
It forecast demand for OPEC crude this year would average 29.65 million
barrels per day, down 100,000 bpd from last month. This is less than
OPEC’s December production of 30.37 million bpd as estimated by secondary
sources.
Demand for OPEC crude will average 29.07 million bpd in the first half
of 2013, the report estimated, implying inventories could build up by
about 1.3 million bpd should OPEC maintain December’s output rate.
OPEC has a target for its 12 members to produce 30 million bpd. With
prices above Riyadh’s preferred $100 but with expectations of slower
demand in early 2013, OPEC at a meeting in December left the target
unchanged, leaving the door open to informal supply tweaks depending
on demand.
Saudi Arabia told OPEC it produced 9.025 million bpd in December,
down from 9.49 million bpd in November, confirming figures provided last
week by an industry source familiar with Saudi policy.
Record Saudi output last year of up to 10 million bpd helped to cushion
the impact of Western sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program by helping
to bring prices down from a 2012 high of $128 in March. The other significant
cutbacks in OPEC output in December were due to technical and
political setbacks in Iraq, the world’s fastest-growing exporter, and the
impact of the sanctions on Iran.
Other OPEC producers may not join Saudi Arabia in voluntarily curbing
output. The United Arab Emirates sees no need to do so since the market is
well balanced, the country’s oil minister said yesterday.—Reuters
ATHENS: Striking Hellenic Postbank employees gather outside the offices of the Hellenic Financial
Stability Fund in Athens yesterday protesting against bank’s planned split and privatization. — AFP
Markets bounce back
on bargain hunting
MIDEAST STOCK MARKETS
DUBAI: Most Middle East bourses rose yesterday as bargain
hunters bought banking stocks following early-week
declines. Banks results in Saudi Arabia and Qatar have
failed to impress investors, but three straight losses on
both markets have enticed some buyers back in at lower
prices. Saudi Arabia’s index rose 0.3 percent to 7,036
points, steadying around a psychological support level at
7,000 points. It hit a four-month closing high of 7,166
points on Saturday.
“Banks so far reported moderate growth and the only
solid numbers were in smaller banks - investors are now
waiting for the bluechips to report,” said Hesham Tuffaha,
a fund manager at a Saudi investment firm. Heavyweight
Saudi Basic Industries Corp (SABIC) gained 0.3 percent and
Al Rajhi Bank climbed 1.8 percent. Both firms have yet to
declare their quarterly results. Other banks also advanced,
with the sector’s index closing 0.9 percent higher to claw
back some of this week’s losses.
“I see the market as slightly oversold - I expect in the
next two weeks to move towards 7,300 points again,”
added Tuffaha. In Doha, the benchmark climbed 0.5 percent,
up 2.6 percent so far in January. Qatar National Bank
rose 0.5 percent, Commercial Bank of Qatar added 0.8 percent
and Doha Bank gained 0.6 percent.
Sentiment was weak in Qatar after QNB set a 60 percent
cash dividend, equivalent to 6 riyals per share, that
disappointed retail investors due to a lack of bonus shares.
Foreign interest in Doha stocks has increased this year
after a lull in 2012, although many investors are waiting
for Qatar to move ahead with infrastructure projects
planned as part of the country’s hosting of the FIFA World
Cup in 2022. “Outflows of foreign funds were significant
last year and despite recent inflows, it’s a drop in the
ocean,” said Anastasios Dalgiannakis, institutional trading
manager at Mubasher. “There is scope for more gains but
we need some concrete signs.”
Elsewhere, Dubai’s top lender Emirates NBD lifted the
emirate’s bourse, with its shares surging 6.4 percent. The
bank will hold an analyst meeting later this month and is
expected to post quarterly earnings earlier than usual.
“There’s been a focus on bank valuations and Emirates
NBD is a lot cheaper in a peer group with National Bank of
Abu Dhabi (NBAD) and First Gulf Bank (FGB),” said an Abu
Dhabi-based trader. “If there’s good news from the bank,
ENBD will get massively re-rated because it has been a
laggard.” Dubai’s index climbed 0.4 percent, up for a second
session in the last four since hitting a two-year high
on Thursday.
Abu Dhabi-listed NBAD rose 1.3 percent and FGB
slipped 0.8 percent. Abu Dhabi’s benchmark dipped 0.2
percent, down from Tuesday’s 26-month high. Elsewhere,
Egypt’s measure climbed 0.6 percent, up for a second session
in the last five. Shares in Talaat Moustafa advanced
1.2 percent, giving back some of their intraday gains after
an early-session surge. —Reuters

EXCHANGE RATES
Commercial Bank of Kuwait
US Dollar/KD .2740000 .2840000
GB Pound/KD .4480000 .4610000
Euro .3710000 .3810000
Swiss francs .2990000 .3120000
Canadian Dollar .2830000 .2920000
Australian DLR .2940000 .3030000
Indian rupees .0040000 .0067500
Sri Lanka Rupee .0020000 .0035000
UAE dirhams .0762170 .0769830
Bahraini dinars .7425550 .7500180
Jordanian dinar .3880000 .4060000
Saudi riyals .0720000 .0770000
Omani riyals .7279430 .7352597
Egyptian pounds .0430000 .0510000
CUSTOMER TRANSFER RATES
US Dollar/KD .2808500 .2829500
GB Pound/KD .4509890 .4543610
Euro .3731370 .3759270
Swiss francs .3013250 .3035780
Canadian dollars .2850110 .2871420
Danish Kroner .0500010 .0503750
Swedish Kroner .0432120 .0435350
Australian dlr .2964790 .2986960
Hong Kong dlr .0362260 .0364960
Singapore dlr .2292650 .2309800
Japanese yen .0031860 .0032100
Indian Rs/KD .0000000 .0051950
Sri Lanka rupee .0000000 .0022440
Pakistan rupee .0000000 .0029100
Bangladesh taka .0000000 .0035700
UAE dirhams .0764950 .0770670
Bahraini dinars .7452570 .7508290
Jordanian dinar .0000000 .4002120
Saudi Riyal/KD .0749130 .0754730
Omani riyals .7297650 .7352220
Philippine Peso .0000000 .0070170
BUSINESS
Dubai stock market
booms, cautiously
Companies successfully restructure debts
DUBAI: Mohammad Jamal, a veteran investor in
Dubai’s stock market, switched to trading commodities
several years ago as the global financial
crisis struck. But in recent months he has started
putting money into stocks again.
The 40-year-old Egyptian, who runs a commodities
trading operation in Dubai, thinks the
market has bottomed out after a five-year slump
and that real estate and banking stocks look particularly
attractive.
“The downturn is almost over and the only
way to go is up,” he says. “Things are not back to
how they were in 2005, but they’re better than
2008.”
Dubai’s main stock index lost nearly threequarters
of its value in 2008 because of the global
crisis and the bursting of a bubble in the emirate’s
real estate market. The index has largely
moved sideways in the past four years as companies
and investors licked their wounds.
But over the last several months, much of the
confidence of both local and international
investors has returned, as companies have made
progress restructuring billions of dollars of
debts, property prices have started to rebound,
and a tourism boom has lifted the economy.
The improving mood has been seen in plunging
yields on Dubai bonds and in the credit
default swaps used to insure against the possibility
of the government defaulting; CDS have
dropped very near levels seen before the crises
struck.
Now there are signs that stocks have entered
their own recovery. The index rose 19.9 percent
last year and is up 7.3 percent so far in 2013,
Al-Muzaini Exchange Co.
ASIAN COUNTRIES
Japanese Yen 3.203
Indian Rupees 5.150
Pakistani Rupees 2.889
Srilankan Rupees 2.224
Nepali Rupees 3.246
Singapore Dollar 231.160
Hongkong Dollar 36.408
Bangladesh Taka 3.533
while trading turnover has in the last couple of
weeks hit its highest levels in nearly a year.
The rise in turnover suggests many individual
investors like Jamal, who left the market in disgust
during its crash, are coming back.
“We’ve seen credit rally and real estate recover,”
said Anastasios Dalgiannakis, institutional
trading manager at Mubasher, a regional financial
services firm.
Peak
Nobody is predicting any quick return to the
market’s pre-crash heights. The index, which
ended Wednesday at 1,741 points, is still a
whopping 72.5 percent below its 2008 peak.
And while trading turnover has reached 500
million shares on some days this month, it has
not come close to levels of around 1 billion
shares seen a few years ago. This suggests a
degree of caution remains. Nevertheless, analysts
say the fledgling recovery of the real estate
market means the stock market is on a stronger
footing than it has been at any time in the past
five years.
Property stocks are heavily weighted in the
index, and because an estimated 40 percent of
bank lending in the United Arab Emirates is to
real estate firms, bank shares are very sensitive
to property prices as well. A boost to confidence
in real estate came in November when Dubai’s
ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-
Maktoum, announced plans for a huge tourism
and retail development including the world’s
largest shopping mall. It is not clear when the
project will be completed, or whether all of it
will end up being built, but the plans fanned
Ahmadinejad pushes
subsidy reform
DUBAI: Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad appeared in parliament yesterday,
urging lawmakers to allow government
plans to cut subsidies to go ahead as a
way to revive the economy, struggling in the
grip of tightening Western sanctions.
Parliament suspended the second phase
of the government’s subsidy reform plan in
November, saying that reductions in subsidies,
which began in 2010, had contributed
to higher inflation. Further cuts would harm
an economy already battered by Western
sanctions on the banking and energy sectors,
they said. But Ahmadinejad yesterday
defended the reforms, also called the targeted-subsidies
plan, saying they had reduced
income inequality between the rich and
poor and were key to combating the effect
of sanctions.
The reforms are aimed at easing pressure
on state finances by cutting tens of billions
of dollars from government subsidies on
food and fuel, while offsetting the impact on
Iran’s citizens by giving them monthly cash
payments. “Our foes claim they have
imposed the heaviest sanctions against us,
including restrictions on oil sales and sanctions
on the central bank and monetary
transactions,” Ahmadinejad told parliament,
according to the Iranian Students’ News
Agency (ISNA).
“Naturally the sanctions create a series of
problems, including a slowdown in the
country’s growth, pressure on wide swathes
of people who have a fixed income, disruption
in foreign trade, and certainly a gap
between classes.”
Iran’s economy is suffering badly, partly
as a result of US and European Union sanctions,
which are designed to starve Tehran of
funds that might be channelled into expensive
nuclear weapons programs.
Iran denies it is seeking nuclear weapons,
saying its atomic program is solely for
peaceful purposes.
Its currency the rial has crashed in value
in the last year, contributing to higher inflation,
which official estimates put at around
25 percent. Oil revenues, the country’s economic
lifeblood, have been reduced by half
in the last year. “One of the best development
measures to ensure sustainable
growth and circumvent the sanctions and
neutralize the enemy’s pressures has been
the targeted subsidies plan,” Ahmadinejad
said.
“If this plan is fully implemented, wealth
will be fairly distributed, national capital will
be preserved, production efficiency will go
up, the government’s dependency on oil
income will be reduced and poverty will be
eradicated.” Iranian MP Mohammad Reza
Bahonar, in response to Ahmadinejad’s
speech, said that there were problems that
arose from implementing the first phase of
the reforms that needed to be dealt with
before the second phase is put in place.
Parliament speaker Ali Larijani, who some
speculate may mount a bid for the presidency
in elections due to be held in June, said
legislators objected to parts of the subsidy
reform which could hurt Iran’s manufacturing
sector. He had said earlier that raising energy
prices would hurt producers. — Reuters
Philippine Peso 6.994
Thai Baht 9.443
Irani Riyal - transfer 0.271
Irani Riyal - cash 0.273
GCC COUNTRIES
Saudi Riyal 75.297
Qatari Riyal 77.584
Omani Riyal 733.400
Bahraini Dinar 749.970
UAE Dirham 77.886
ARAB COUNTRIES
Egyptian Pound - Cash 46.200
Egyptian Pound - Transfer 42.785
Yemen Riyal/for 1000 1.318
Tunisian Dinar 182.330
Jordanian Dinar 398.350
Lebanese Lira/for 1000 1.894
Syrian Lier 3.067
Morocco Dirham 34.212
EUROPEAN & AMERICAN COUNTRIES
US Dollar Transfer 282.250
Euro 376.520
Sterling Pound 454.420
Canadian dollar 287.720
Turkish lire 159.460
Swiss Franc 304.150
Australian dollar 298.620
US Dollar Buying 281.050
GOLD
20 Gram 311.000
10 Gram 157.000
5 Gram 81.500
UAE Exchange Centre WLL
COUNTRY SELL DRAFT SELL CASH
Australian Dollar 301.97 300.000
Canadian Dollar 290.56 289.000
Swiss Franc 308.38 311.000
Euro 378.73 380.000
US Dollar 281.65 282.850
Sterling Pound 455.48 458.000
Japanese Yen 3.27 3.750
Bangladesh Taka 3.554 3.800
Indian Rupee 5.151 5.400
Sri Lankan Rupee 2.231 2.600
Nepali Rupee 3.244 3.550
Pakistani Rupee 2.899 2.980
interest in the sector. Another positive factor is
the efforts of Abu Dhabi, a neighboring member
of the United Arab Emirates, to engineer a statebacked
merger between its two top property
developers, Aldar Properties and Sorouh Real
Estate.
By allowing better coordination of residential
property projects, the merger, which is still
under discussion, could support real estate
prices in Abu Dhabi and thus have a beneficial
effect on Dubai’s property firms and banks too.
“The UAE’s general macro picture is getting
better - a potential positive trigger that can
affect the UAE is the merger between Aldar and
Sorouh,” said Ali Adou, portfolio manager at Abu
Dhabi’s The National Investor.
“The more important aspect is the outcome
of it and how it will affect the real estate sector,
and what business lines the merged entity will
operate. The other trigger is the improvement in
Dubai from a debt perspective.”
The extent of the stock market’s confidence
could be seen in its calm reaction to news at the
end of last month that the UAE central bank was
placing caps on mortgage lending, to reduce the
risk of another property bubble developing.
Shares in Emaar Properties, Dubai’s largest
listed property developer, initially dipped but
quickly resumed rising and are up 8.8 percent so
far this year, after a 46 percent leap in 2012.
Amer Khan, fund manager at Dubai’s Shuaa
Asset Management, said the stock market would
continue upwards if fourth-quarter corporate
earnings, to be announced in coming weeks,
met analysts’ expectations. — Reuters
UAE sees no need to
reduce oil output
after Saudi cut
ABU DHABI: The United Arab Emirates sees no need to
cut oil production, the UAE’s oil minister said yesterday,
after Gulf OPEC ally Saudi Arabia slashed output in late
2012. The world’s top oil exporter cut its crude production
by around 700,000 barrels per day (bpd) over the
last two months of 2012, pointing to low demand at
home and abroad.
The UAE produced around 2.60 million bpd of crude
in December and November, down marginally from
around 2.62 million bpd in October. But the UAE has
enough customers to take all its current production and
sees no pressing need to follow the Saudi cut.
“No. At the moment we are just producing the way
we are ... We are monitoring the market all the time, and
right now the market is capable of taking all we produce,”
Mohammed Al-Hamli, the UAE oil minister, told
journalists when asked if he saw the need to cut output.
“The market is well balanced ... Well maybe it’s a little bit
over supplied, but generally it is well supplied,” he said.
“World demand is still not in good shape. There will be
an increase in demand (in 2013) but less than last year ...
It really depends on how the crisis is handled.” Saudi production
of 9 million bpd in December was more than a
million barrels below its peak production last summer,
when the kingdom’s own oil use peaks as it generates
electricity to meet soaring air conditioning demand.
The UAE produces nearly all of its electricity by burning
gas, so its demand for oil is less seasonal than in
neighboring Saudi Arabia. Record Saudi output last summer
helped cushion the impact on the oil market of
Western sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program by
helping to bring prices down from a 2012 high of $128
in March. Even after the Saudi reduction, OPEC output
still looks set to outstrip demand in the first half of 2013.
OPEC is pumping about 30.2 million bpd, while forecasts
from the cartel’s economists for the first half indicate
demand for its oil of 29.25 million bpd. — Reuters
UAE Dirhams 76.75 77.200
Bahraini Dinar 749.94 748.000
Egyptian Pound 42.79 45.500
Jordanian Dinar 401.26 399.500
Omani Riyal 733.02 733.000
Qatari Riyal 77.78 78.500
Saudi Riyal 75.32 75.350
Dollarco Exchange Co. Ltd
Rate for Transfer Selling Rate
US Dollar 282.650
Canadian Dollar 286.870
Sterling Pound 454.355
Euro 370.475
Swiss Frank 306.160
Bahrain Dinar 748.310
UAE Dirhams 76.930
Qatari Riyals 77.585
Saudi Riyals 75.335
Jordanian Dinar 398.440
Egyptian Pound 43.553
Sri Lankan Rupees 2.212
Indian Rupees 5.144
Pakistani Rupees 2.900
Bangladesh Taka 3.506
Philippines Pesso 6.913
Cyprus pound 693.345
Japanese Yen 4.230
Thai Bhat 9.375
Syrian Pound 3.975
Nepalese Rupees 3.305
Malaysian Ringgit 92.855
Bahrain Exchange Company
COUNTRY SELL CASH SELLDRAFT
Australian dollar 301.000 299.500
Bahraini dinar 749.950 749.950
Bangladeshi taka 3.910 3.532
Canadian dollar 290.100 288.600
Cyprus pound 553.800
Czek koruna 45.900
Danish krone 51.500
Deutsche Mark 167.800 231.700
Egyptian pound 45.080 42.924
Euro Cash 381.000 379.500
Hongkong dollar 37.080 36.930
Indian rupees 5.470 5.172
Indonesia 0.032 0.031
Iranian tuman 0.161
Iraqi dinar 0.242
KUWAIT: The Embassy of the Republic of
Indonesia participated in the 3rd Economic
Exhibition for foreign embassies which was
held by the economic department of the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Kuwait at
Sheraton Hotel on January 13.
The booth of the Embassy of the
Republic of Indonesia displayed many
hand-crafted and carved boxes of gift
items and radios produced by one of
Indonesian companies named PT Kriya
Nusantara. The booth provided a glimpse
into potential investment opportunities in
the tourism sector in Indonesia especially
in the tourism project of Tanjung Lesung.
In addition, the Indonesian booth displayed
information about one of the
biggest textile and garment companies in
Indonesia PT Sritex which is involved in
supplying military uniforms to various
countries.
Besides, the booth also displayed the
Achilles Tyre, a product of an Indonesian
tyre company PT Multistrada Arah Sarana
which has entered the Kuwaiti market in
partnership with the Kuwait Automotive
Imports Company as its distributor.
Samples of palm oil products, cocoa
powder, stationeries and cosmetics and
healthcare products from various
Indonesian companies as well as other promotional
materials on investment and
tourism potential of Indonesia were also
displayed. The exhibition served as a right
opportunity to showcase many Indonesian
products with a potential to find an entry
of into the Kuwaiti market in cooperation
with Kuwaiti partners.
Undersecretary of the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs of Kuwait Khaled Suleiman
Al-Jarallah visited the exhibition accompanied
by a number of high-ranking officials
THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013
KUWAIT: Indonesian Ambassador Ferry Adamhar (right) with Minister of Commerce
Anas Al-Saleh.
Indonesian Embassy takes
part in economic exhibition
JEDDAH: Savola Group, the Saudi-based
food conglomerate, posted a 17 percent drop
in fourth-quarter net profit, missing analysts’
forecasts, mainly due to a gain it booked from
land sales in the year-ago quarter.
The firm, which owns the Middle East’s
biggest sugar refining business, made a net
profit of 413.4 million riyals ($110.2 million) in
the three months ending December 31, compared
with a profit of 498.6 million riyals in the
same period a year earlier, it said in a statement
yesterday. Three analysts surveyed by Reuters
KUWAIT: The Indonesian Ambassador
with Mohammed Ahmed Al-Majren Al-
Roumi.
of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, including
the Director of Economic Department,
Sheikh Ali Al-Khaled Al-Sabah and the
Secretary General of Kuwait Chamber of
Commerce. Indonesian Ambassador Ferry
Adamhar explained to the guests about the
hand-carved boxes of gift items and radios
produced by PT Kriya Nusantara that reflect
the high value of the art works and their
superior quality. He informed them that the
art works bagged 18 awards from UNESCO.
The Indonesian booth was among the
most visited booths at the exhibition.
Several high-ranging Kuwaiti officials
including Anas Al-Saleh, Minister of
Commerce of Kuwait and the Director of
Asia Department, Ministry of Foreign
Affairs of Kuwait, Mohammed Ahmed Al-
Majren Al-Rumi visited the booth.
Saudi Savola Q4 net down 17%
expected Savola to post an average profit of
456.7 million riyals for the fourth-quarter.
Savola attributed the dip in profits to a capital
gain of 153 million riyals it incurred from the
sale of two land plots during the fourth quarter
of 2011. Operational profit for the fourth-quarter
rose by 32.3 percent to 792.2 million riyals,
the statement said. In a separate statement,
Savola said it expects to make 1.5 billion riyals
before capital gains and exceptional items in
2013 and net income of 260 million riyals in
the first-quarter. —Reuters
Japanese yen 3.260
Jordanian dinar 399.630 399.590
Lebanese pound 0.191 0.190
Malaysian ringgit 96.410 96.410
Morocco dirham 45.200
Nepalese Rupees 4.340 3.260
New Zealand dollar 240.500 239.000
Nigeria 1.827
Norwegian krone 52.400
Omani Riyal 732.500 732.320
Pakistani rupees 3.030 2.901
Philippine peso 7.290 6.964
Qatari riyal 78.000 77.570
Saudi riyal 75.290 75.290
Singapore dollar 231.720 231.720
South Africa 35.040 35.040
Sri Lankan rupees 2.686 2.234
Sterling pound 457.100 455.100
Swedish krona 44.700
Swiss franc 308.800 307.300
Syrian pound 3.400 3.400
Thai bhat 9.710 9.570
Tunisian dollar 198.263
UAE dirham 76.890 76.790
U.S. dollars 282.400 282.000
Yemeni Riyal 1.360
GOLD
10 Tola 1,765.300
TRAVELLER’S CHEQUE
Sterling Pound 455.100
US Dollar 282.000
Al Mulla Exchange
Currency Transfer Rate (Per 1000)
US Dollar 281.650
Euro 377.150
Pound Sterling 454.650
Canadian Dollar 288.300
Japanese Yen 3.225
Indian Rupee 5.142
Egyptian Pound 42.765
Sri Lankan Rupee 2.224
Bangladesh Taka 3.559
Philippines Peso 6.945
Pakistan Rupee 2.889
Bahraini Dinar 750.200
UAE Dirham 76.700
Saudi Riyal 75.175
*Rates are subject to change

ALAFCO earns net profit of
KD11m for Q1 ended Dec 31
KUWAIT: The Chairman & CEO, Ahmad A
Alzabin announced that ALAFCO has
achieved a net profit of KD 11 million
and earnings per share of 14 fils for the
first quarter ended December 31, 2012.
He said that the net profit includes
exceptional gains realized through the
adjustment of some purchase agreements
with aircraft manufacturers during
the period.
During this quarter, ALAFCO
announced the lease of 2 Airbus A320
aircraft to Vietnam based Vietjet Air for a
term of 9 years, bringing the total to 5
leased aircraft to the same client. The
company has also sold 2 used B777-
200ER aircraft, manufactured in 1998, to
China Southern airlines. He reiterated
that the selling transaction is in line with
the company’s strategy of maintaining
its owned portfolio consists of young
and modern aircraft.
He also confirmed that ALAFCO has
signed an agreement with Boeing to
purchase 20 B737MAX aircraft valued
$1.9 billion at list prices during the same
period, enhancing the ambitious plan of
ALAFCO that aims to expand the fleet to
100 aircraft by the end of this decade.
Alzabin concluded that the
PARIS: EU Trade Commissioner Karel de
Gucht listens during a press conference at
the OECD headquarters in Paris yesterday
to launch a new OECD-WTO database on
trade in value-added. — AFP
PARIS: Current trade statistics miss a vital
part of the story of where production
occurs in the globalised economy, the
OECD and WTO said yesterday, adding that
China’s trade surplus with the United States
was overstated by a quarter.
The Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development and the
World Trade Organization unveiled a new
database that seeks to measure the valueadded
in trade.
With manufacturing highly dependant
on imports of raw and intermediate materials,
the OECD-WTO database sought to
reveal where value was being added
throughout global trade.
It found that measured by value-added
that China’s bilateral trade surplus with the
United States was over $40 billion (25 percent)
smaller in 2009, and 30 percent smaller
in 2005.
It said this reflected value attributable to
goods China imported from the United
States and Asian suppliers that China
processed and ultimately sent the United
States.
The OECD-WTO initiative also found that
Ahmad A Alzabin
announced results are a testament to
the company’s ability to achieve the
aspirations of its shareholders. ALAFCO
is a Kuwait-based aircraft leasing company.
Its stock trades on the Kuwait Stock
Exchange under the ticker symbol ALAF-
CO. The company’s owned aircraft portfolio
consists of 46 Airbus and Boeing
aircraft leased to airlines globally. In
addition, ALAFCO also manages another
6 aircraft for investors.
PARIS: WTO director General Pascal Lamy
gestures while talking during a press conference
at the OECD headquarters in Paris
yesterday to launch a new OECD-WTO
database on trade in value-added. — AFP
China’s trade surplus with US
inflated by stats: OECD-WTO
services were greatly underestimated in
traditional trade statistics. While services
account for about two-thirds of output in
developed economies, traditional statistics
put their share in trade at less than one
quarter, while on a value-added basis it rises
to over 50 percent of exports for countries
such as the United States, Britain and
Germany.
With production chains becoming
increasingly globalised, the OECD and WTO
cautioned that “traditional measures of
trade..., alone, may lead to misguided to
misguided decisions being taken” in trade
policy. “Blocking imports will damage a
country own productivity growth and automatically
damage its competitiveness,” said
OECD chief Angel Guria.
The OECD-WTO calculations showed for
example that a third of the value of the cars
that Germany’s powerhouse car industry
exports is generated in other countries. “If
Germany would say ‘no imports’, well, no
export of cars!” said Guria. WTO Director-
General Pascal Lamy said “countries that
export more and best are the countries
that import more and best.” — AFP
YANGON: Buddhist nuns walking in front of Kanbawza bank in downtown Yangon.
As it strives to become Asia’s next economic star Myanmar has set its sights on overhauling
its battered and distrusted banking system, a move which could pave the
way for foreign lenders to open branches. —AFP
BUSINESS
WASHINGTON: US consumer prices were flat in
December, pointing to muted inflation pressures
that should help give the Federal Reserve room
to prop up the economy by staying on its ultraeasy
monetary policy path. The Labor
Department said yesterday its Consumer Price
Index was unchanged last month, held back by a
drop in gasoline prices. The reading was in line
with analysts’ expectations in a Reuters poll.
Last month, the Fed said it would keep interest
rates near zero at least until the jobless rate
falls to 6.5 percent, as long as the central bank
believes inflation will stay below 2.5 percent.
Yesterday’s data reinforced the view that inflation
will not hit the Fed’s threshold anytime
soon. “This leaves Ben Bernanke and the Fed
with a free hand to continue with ultra-accommodative
monetary policy.” said Michael
Woolfolk, a currency strategist at BNY Mellon in
New York. Stock investors, however, appeared to
shrug off the data. Prices for US stock index
futures slipped, with shares of Boeing set to
weigh on the market after two Japanese airlines
grounded their Dreamliner fleets.
To boost growth and get Americans back to
work in the wake of the Great Recession, the Fed
has kept interest rates near zero since late 2008
and has bought some $2.5 trillion in assets.
Some economists think steady improvement
in the labor market could at least lead the Fed to
curtail its asset-buying program by the end of
this year. Weak inflation helped consumers
increase their purchasing power last month.
Inflation-adjusted weekly earnings rose 0.6 percent,
the Labor Department said in a separate
report. Gasoline prices fell 2.3 percent, marking
the third straight monthly decline.Away from
gasoline and food, the cost of apparel fell 0.1
percent. New motor vehicle prices were flat.
Confidence among US homebuilders
remained unchanged this month from
December at the highest level in nearly seven
years, but builders are feeling slightly less optimistic
about their prospects for sales over the
next six months.
The National Association of Home
Builders/Wells Fargo builder sentiment index
held steady at 47, the highest reading since April
2006, just before the housing bubble burst.
Readings below 50 suggest negative sentiment
about the housing market. The last time the
index was at that level or higher was in April
2006, at 51. It began trending higher in October
2011, when it stood at 17.
Prices for used cars and trucks fell 0.4 percent,
declining for a sixth straight month.
Housing costs edged up, with owners’ equivalent
rent of primary residences rising 0.1 percent.
The Fed does not use CPI to target inflation,
and instead uses an index released by the
Commerce Department. The two indexes usually
track one another quite closely.
By either measure, annual inflation remains
below the Fed’s 2 percent target. In the 12
months to December the CPI increased 1.7 percent,
the smallest increase since August. That
compared to November’s 1.8 percent rise.
THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013
US consumer prices edge
up, give Fed room to act
Homebuilder confidence steady
European auto sector
hits 17-year low,
Renault cuts jobs
PARIS: European auto sales plunged to their lowest
point in 17 years in 2012, trade data revealed yesterday
after Renault announced the latest job cuts to hit the
beleaguered sector. New car registrations in the
European Union fell by 8.2 percent from their 2011 level
to 12.05 million units last year, the European
Automobile Manufacturers’ Association said. Sales in
December fell for the 15th month in a row by 16.3 percent
on a 12-month basis, even slipping slightly in
Germany despite the global strength of top German
brands.
French automakers in particular are being hard hit
with Renault announcing 7,500 job cuts late on Tuesday.
PSA Peugeot Citroen, the second-biggest carmaker in
Europe after the booming German VW group, has just
been rescued by the state. The group is restructuring
with 8,000 job cuts and targets development abroad
after a government report said its strategy had missed
the bus of globalisation.
And yesterday French car parts maker Faurecia
reported weak results causing its shares to plunge.
By contrast the VW group has reported record global
sales for 2012 with a rise of 11.0 percent to 9.07 million
units and aspires to being the biggest manufacturer
globally, ahead of Japanese Toyota, by 2018. German
Daimler said at the Detroit auto show this week that it is
on track to be the world’s top luxury carmaker by the
end of the decade. The second-biggest manufacturer
globally is General Motors, which struck a strategic partnership
with PSA this year, but GM’s sales across the
whole of Europe fell by 8.2 percent last year, the US
group said in Detroit.
Hyundai-Kia sales rise
These companies, and European manufacturers in
general, are looking to growth in emerging markets to
compensate for what they expect to be a lasting weaker
trend in Europe, but these markets are also the home
base for new competitors notably in China.
The European trade association said in its report on
the European market:
“Demand for new cars reached the lowest level
recorded since 1995, totalling 12,053,904 units” in 2012.
Last year’s 8.2 percent shrinkage was the worst since a
downturn of 16.9 percent in 1993, the association said.
The trend was aggravated by exceptionally bad figures
for December in debt-stricken Europe.
“In December, new car registrations declined by a
sharp 16.3 percent in the EU, continuing a downward
trend commenced 15 months ago. The decline is the
steepest recorded in a month of December since 2008,”
the statement said. With the euro-zone struggling to
cope with the tax rises and cuts in state spending
imposed to correct its debt crisis, businesses and consumers
have cut down their spending on vehicles.
In some countries the market, and employment,
were supported after the financial crisis hit economies
in 2008 by government subsidies for the replacement of
old vehicles with new ones. But these schemes have run
out and many European groups have announced job
cuts and plant closures similar to, albeit less dramatic,
those that occurred immediately in the US auto industry.
The latest came late on Tuesday from Renault which
said it would shed 7,500 French jobs, or about 17.0 percent
of its workforce by 2016, but by means of not
replacing normal departures.
Renault, which has diversified its manufacturing into
low-cost countries close to western Europe in recent
years, notably in Romania where it builds its Daciabranded
vehicles, said that an agreement with unions
on the cutbacks would save it 400 million euros ($534
million) in overheads and would avert any plant closures.
“On the basis of a progressive recovery of the
European market, establishing such an agreement
would allow for growth in French output that is more
sustained than that of the European market,” Renault
said. However the European trade data for the year
showed big differences between countries. — Reuters
“This supports the Fed’s contention that inflation
is mild and that inflation expectations
should be stable,” said Terry Sheehan, an economic
analyst at Stone & McCarthy Research
Associates in Princeton, New Jersey. A measure
of underlying inflation, which strips out volatile
food and energy prices, edged up 0.1 percent in
December, slightly less than expected.
In the 12 months to December, core CPI
increased 1.9 percent after rising 1.9 percent in
November. The Fed’s efforts to lower interest
rates are helping many Americans buy homes,
and housing is expected to provide a substantial
boost to the economy this year.
The Mortgage Bankers Association said
applications for US home mortgages rose in the
week ended Jan. 11, the second straight week of
gains. — Agencies
NEW YORK: Trader Jonathan Corpina (right) works on the floor of the New York Stock
Exchange. Stocks are opening lower on Wall Street yesterday after the World Bank said that
ongoing budget fights in Washington pose a significant risk to the global economy. — AP
Outlook for euro-zone’s
strugglers worsens again
LONDON: Spain, Greece and Portugal face
a tougher 2013 than previously thought,
while the outlook for growth in Ireland, the
only bright spot among the euro-zone’s
most vulnerable economies, was cut for the
first time in nearly a year.
A Reuters poll of 46 economists published
yesterday showed austerity has
caused the southern economies to shrink
far more than authorities predicted but will
only lead to slow fiscal improvement and
unemployment will keep rising.
The outlook for Spain, Portugal and
Greece has worsened in almost every quarterly
poll since the first one was conducted
in June 2011. The forecast for Irish growth
was cut for the first time since April 2012.
The gloom is incongruous with optimism in
financial markets that started when
European Central Bank President Mario
Draghi promised in July to do “whatever it
takes” to preserve the euro.
Spanish stocks are more than 15 percent
higher since the last poll in October and
benchmark sovereign yields are down 250
basis points from a peak before his comments.
“Regardless of the improvement in market
sentiment, the fundamentals are still
pointing to steep falls in output in those
economies,” said Jonathan Loynes, chief
European economist at Capital Economics.
He said a lack of competitiveness inside the
currency union, high levels of debt, and
structural problems prevented economies
growing and governments bringing debt
down.
The poll showed that Greece, Portugal
and Spain should exit recession next year,
although growth will be so slow that it will
hardly make up for the huge declines in
output since the start of the sovereign debt
crisis in 2010.
Spain
Furthermore, efforts to cut budget
deficits will prove far more onerous than
governments are suggesting. Spain’s deficit
will shrink to 6.1 percent by the end of this
year, not quite at the 6 percent target the
European Union set for 2012 and worse
than the 5.3 percent forecast from
October’s poll.
There was also a marked deterioration in
forecasts for Spanish unemployment,
where around a quarter of the work force is
already out of work. The jobless rate looks
set to hit 26.5 percent by year-end, compared
with 25.8 percent in the last poll.
“I’m very worried. The indicators show
that there is no recovery and until the
European economic policy changes, that
will continue to be the case,” said Jose
Carlos Diez, economist at Intermoney, a
Spanish broker. “Spain and Italy need more
time to meet their deficit targets and
Germany needs a more expansive policy.
But, as we start the year, there’s this inexplicable
optimism, which just doesn’t hold
up.”
Predictions for the depth of Spain’s economic
decline stabilised, with output
expected to show a 1.5 percent decline for
this year, unchanged from October’s poll.
Spain’s government, meanwhile, maintains
the economy will shrink by just 0.5
percent this year.
Greece
Greece is destined to suffer another year
of depression, and worse than October’s
forecast, although economists think it will
make better progress in slimming its budget
deficit.
The economy will shrink around 4.3 percent
this year compared to the 3.0 percent
decline pencilled in last October.
Economists think the jobless rate will reach
26.5 percent by the end of the year. Still,
the poll suggested the Greek depression is
starting to ease, even if a recovery may be
years off.
“Latest readings of forward-looking indicators
provide the first solid evidence of a
sustainable improvement in confidence,”
said Nikos Magginas, economist at the
National Bank of Greece.
“Trends in exporting sector-especially
tourism-appear far more supportive compared
with 2012.” Greece’s economy will
eke out a tiny amount of growth in 2014,
perhaps around 0.2 percent, the poll
showed.
Portugal
Economists expect Portugal’s economy
will contract 1.7 percent this year, compared
to a decline of 1.5 percent in the previous
poll and after shrinking some 3 percent
last year. It will also miss its budget
deficit target of 4.5 percent. The shortfall
will be around 4.7 percent of gross domestic
product by the end of 2013.
Portugal’s EU, ECB and IMF lenders,
under a 78-billion euro bailout, agreed last
September to ease the fiscal goals for 2012
and 2013, citing the country’s good record
in following its austerity program.
Portugal’s tax revenues have plummeted in
the steepest recession since the 1970s.
“We see economic conditions in
Portugal remaining depressed this year, hit
by tighter fiscal policy, high and rising
unemployment and muted external
growth,” said Diego Iscaro, economist at IHS
Global Insight.
Ireland
Ireland’s economy is the bright spot of
the four economies, showing signs of a
fragile recovery.
The poll suggested Ireland will grow
around 1.2 percent this year, slower than
the previous 1.5 percent forecast but better
than most euro peers, including Germany,
where the government cut its 2013 growth
forecast to 0.4 percent. The Irish economy is
still more than 10 percent smaller than
before the crisis began in 2008 and
although progress is being made, economists
warned that it could be knocked off
course.
“There are so many uncertainties that
you’d be mad at this stage to get a tattoo of
1.3 percent growth put onto your hand or
some other part of your anatomy,” said
Austin Hughes, chief economist at KBC
Ireland.
“But while again consumer spending
will be a drag, it will be nowhere like the
drag that we’ve seen.
The nature of Ireland’s export beast is
that you should be able to eke out a significant
positive contribution even if the global
economy is soft.” —Reuters

BUSINESS
Oil rises due to North Sea pipeline closure
LONDON: Crude oil edged up towards
$111 a barrel yesterday, recovering slightly
from a drop in the previous session, supported
by the closure of the Brent pipeline
system in the North Sea.
Gains were limited as weak European
data pushed down other risk-sensitive
assets such as equities, and as OPEC
released a downbeat assessment of
demand for its oil output in 2013.
Benchmark Brent crude oil futures for
February were up 15 cents to $110.50 a
barrel by 1346 GMT. The February contract,
which expires later in the day, settled $1.58
lower in the previous session, while the
more heavily traded March contract ended
down $1.32.
US oil rose 5 cents to $93.33 a barrel.
The Brent pipeline system, which with
oil from other fields in the UK North Sea
underlies the futures contract, was shut as
a result of the closure of the Cormorant
Alpha oil platform, affecting as much as
90,000 barrels per day. Abu Dhabi oil com-
pany TAQA said it had no restart date for
oil output stopped after a leak at the platform,
linked into Britain’s 20-field Brent system.
“Pipeline outages in the North Sea have
been putting (upward) pressure on Brent
prices. Brent supply has been pretty unreliable
over the past year and these interruptions
have led to high price volatility,”
Jason Gammel, a commodities analyst at
Macquarie, said.
Geopolitical factors were also support-
ive of oil prices. In Algeria, Islamist militants
kidnapped at least seven foreigners
and killed a French national, creating worries
about potential supply disruption.
Investors were reassured by a solid 0.5
percent rise in December US retail sales,
which beat expectations for a 0.2 percent
increase and showed consumers were
resilient although at the time they faced
the possibility of automatic tax increases
and government spending cuts.
In Europe, however, demand for new
THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013
HONG KONG: Demonstrators display placards against Hong Kong Chief
Executive Leung Chun-ying prior to his policy address in Hong Kong yesterday.
Leung who won office after he campaigned promising to improve the
lives of poor and middle-class citizens, was to give his first policy address
amid discontent over issues including sky-high property prices and anti-
Beijing sentiment. — AFP
Dollar squeeze adds to
economic hardship
in crisis-hit Sudan
KHARTOUM: Scanning his company’s
2012 financial statement, El Rashid El Amin
Hamid, head of Sudan’s biggest pharmaceutical
maker, should be celebrating -
sales shot up 70 percent while marketing
costs plummeted as strong demand
reduced the need to advertise.
But the entrepreneur still has a problem.
How does his company get dollars to
import raw materials for the antibiotics,
malaria pills, diabetic tablets and other
drugs it makes, and, if it can access hard
currency, at what exchange rate?
“We need to import materials for our
drugs which are paid for in dollars, but it’s
very difficult to get dollars through the
banking system,” said Hamid, director of
Amipharma Laboratories, sitting in his spacious
office in Khartoum’s Bahri industrial
district. Sudan is battling its biggest economic
crisis for decades as it struggles
with a severe shortage of hard currency
following the loss of three quarters of its
oil production due to South Sudan’s independence
in 2011. Oil revenues were the
main source of revenue for Sudan’s budget
and for foreign currency needed to pay for
vital imports including food and medicine.
The situation has deteriorated sharply
in the past few weeks as new tensions with
South Sudan dashed hopes that oil exports
from the South would resume soon and
pass through Sudan for a hefty fee. South
Sudan shut down its oil production a year
ago after failing to agree a pipeline fee
with Sudan. Economists say Sudan’s central
bank and commercial lenders have been
finding it increasingly difficult to supply
the market with enough dollars. That
forced people travelling out of the country,
as well as exporters, to go to black market
traders.
But when the Sudanese pound hit a
record low in late December with black
market dealers demanding a rate of 7.1
pounds to the dollar - compared to an official
rate of 4.4 - the central bank, which
does not disclose its foreign reserves,
launched a crackdown on the black market.
Within days, security agents had
arrested dozens of dealers, seizing their
cash, market sources say. Most street vendors
went into hiding or left Khartoum.
The crackdown has brought down the
dollar rate to 6.5 pounds on the black market.
But now there is an even bigger problem:
with the black market frozen it is
almost impossible to obtain or even
change dollars. Instead of going to a bank
and using the poor official exchange rate
as the government had hoped, many
Sudanese with dollar reserves are sitting
tight, depriving the economy of a muchneeded
injection of hard currency.
The pharmaceutical industry, one of the
country’s main industries along with food,
mining and textiles, is being hit especially
hard by the freeze in the black market and
by sharp currency swings, which saw the
pound lose as much as 15 percent in a
month on a few occasions last year.
Depreciation of the pound has pushed
inflation above 44 percent and is making it
harder and more costly for Sudanese to
access drugs. That raises the risk of dissent
and is adding to the hardship of the 32
million Sudanese who have endured
decades of ethnic strife, poverty and economic
crises.
While the country has avoided an “Arab
spring”, Khartoum and other large cities
have seen small student protests against
both high food prices and austerity measures
imposed to plug a 6.5 billion pound
($1.5 billion) deficit caused by lost oil revenues.
Many ordinary people struggled to
pay for drugs or hospital treatment even
cars fell in December to the lowest level
since 1995, registrations data showed,
adding to figures the previous day showing
Germany’s economy shrank at the
fastest pace in almost three years in the
final quarter of 2012. OPEC also said it
expected demand for its crude this year to
be lower than initially expected because of
higher supply from rival producers, indicating
inventories could build up substantially
if the producer group maintains current
output. — Reuters
before the currency crisis.
“We don’t have some heart drugs and
diabetic pills at the moment,” said a pharmacist
in downtown Khartoum, who did
not wish to be named. “Some foreign products
have disappeared or are very difficult
to get,” she said. The government has
insisted it will ensure supplies but pharmaceutical
traders stopped ordering some
foreign brand drugs when the pound went
down. That has triggered a surge in
demand for cheaper local versions offered
by companies like Amipharma.
“We cannot meet demand at the
moment,” said Hamid.
But the jump in sales is offset by a rise
in costs as raw material imports paid for in
dollars account for a third of the company’s
equipment operating expenses.
“It’s a challenge doing a good job,” said
Hamid. With Sudan largely cut off from
international financial markets due to US
trade sanctions, local banks have never
played a dominant role in the economy.
Most Sudanese do not have bank
accounts, while many large firms such as
Amipharma are family-owned and use
money traders in and outside Sudan to
obtain dollars.
Since South Sudan’s secession the black
market has become a problem because
the loss of oil revenues has left the central
bank with insufficient dollars to keep the
gap between the official and black market
rates tight.
Last July it nearly halved the official dollar
rate to 4.4 pounds, from 2.7, and
allowed licensed dealers to offer a rate
above 5.5 in an attempt to encourage millions
of Sudanese living abroad to send
money home via official exchange
bureaus. Most remittances however seem
to have been exchanged on the black market.
The government hopes a $1.5 billion
loan from a Chinese bank, announced by
Sudan last week and guaranteed by
Chinese state oil producer China National
Petroleum Corp - the biggest investor in
the oil industry in Sudan and South Sudan
- will stabilise the currency. China has yet
to confirm the loan.
But Harry Verhoeven, a Sudan expert at
Oxford University, said Khartoum would
not be able to keep the black market
frozen for long as that would risk
paralysing the economy because people
are unwilling to sell dollars at the official
rate. “This is clearly unsustainable,” he said.
“They’ll have to backtrack ... The main
money traders in Sudan, these are guys
who get picked up here and then the next
day government officials themselves go to
these guys to change money.”
But even if the dealers come back soon,
the highly volatile exchange rate and the
loss of oil production are making Sudan a
difficult place to do business, despite its
potential as a cheap manufacturing base
from which to export to emerging markets
in Africa and the Middle East.
“We came here in 2006 when Sudan
was a very good market with a stable
economy,” said Abdulrahman al-Shamiri, a
Yemeni national who heads Azal
Pharmaceutical Industries, a Sudan joint
venture owned by investors from Yemen
and Saudi Arabia.
“Now the economy is in shock.” While
the currency crisis continues, Azal
Pharmaceuticals is holding off on plans to
open a second plant to serve neighbouring
African countries such as Chad or
Uganda. “We will see how it goes,” Shamiri
said. Pulling out of Sudan is not an option
though, despite the problems. “We would
make big losses and lose our investment.
So we’ll stay.” — Reuters

BEIJING: Foreign direct investment in
China declined for the first time in three
years in 2012, official data showed yesterday,
amid economic turmoil in developed
markets and a slowdown in China.
FDI, which excludes financial sectors,
into China declined 3.7 percent to
$111.72 billion last year from 2011, the
commerce ministry announced.
It slipped from an all-time high of
$116 billion recorded in 2011 and was
the first year-on-year decrease since
2009, according to previous figures.
Ministry spokesman Shen Danyang
said, meanwhile, that in 2012, Chinese
directly invested $77.22 billion overseas
in non-financial sectors in 141 countries
and regions, an increase of 28.6 percent
from the year before. The investment figures
come as China’s economy slowed
throughout most of 2012, while developed
economies such as the United
States, the European Union and Japan
largely remained weak.
For the month of December FDI into
China also fell, slipping 4.5 percent from
the same month in 2011 to $11.7 billion,
the commerce ministry said. Economic
growth in China has declined for seven
straight quarters through the three
months ended September, though
recent positive signs have led economists
to expect a rebound in the fourth
quarter and this year.
GDP growth figures for the fourth
quarter and all of 2012 are scheduled to
be released today.
The median forecasts in surveys of
economists by AFP are for growth of 7.8
percent in the fourth quarter and 7.7
BUSINESS
Foreign investment in China in first fall for 3 years
This handout picture taken yesterday and released from a passenger to AFP
via social network Twitter shows a Boeing 787 Dreamliner operated by All
Nippon Airways (ANA) on the runway with its emergency slides inflated
after an emergency landing at Takamatsu Airpirt in Takamatsu, west of
Japan, yesterday.—AFP
Dreamliner scare also poses
threat to Japanese suppliers
TOKYO: The grounding of two Dreamliner
fleets yesterday only dents the US giant’s reputation
but also threatens to deal a blow to
Japanese firms that make around a third of the
aircraft, analysts said.
Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways halted
all flights on the next-generation plane
after an ANA domestic flight bound for Tokyo
made an emergency landing when cockpit
instruments showed smoke in an electrical
bay.
The incident, the latest in a spate over the
last 10 days that have triggered safety probes
in the US and Japan, are a headache for the
Japanese carriers which have bet heavily on
the 787 Dreamliner, between them ordering
111 units. But with Tokyo having pushed hard
for Japanese suppliers to be part of the manufacturing
process, the setback also presents
problems for companies that make everything
from batteries to wing flaps for the high-tech
plane.
Yesterday, traders fled from industrial behemoths
like composite fibre-maker Toray and
wing-supplier Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.
“We should watch to see if this affects the
broader Japanese economy as so many companies
supply parts to the 787,” said Waseda
University professor Hajime Tozaki, an expert
on aviation policy. Tozaki said the Japanese
government had actively pushed domestic
firms to supply the new aircraft as “a national
project”.
Market players had a whole trading day to
digest news of the emergency landing-the
seventh setback for the Dreamliner in a little
over a week-which occurred shortly after the
Tokyo bourse opened. It was not until late in
the session that carriers including ANA, Korean
Air, Qantas’s budget carrier Jetstar and
Singapore Airlines’ offshoot Scoot began publicly
backing Boeing’s centrepiece offering and
pledging to keep orders intact.
By the close Toray had tumbled 4.13 percent
to 510 yen, Mitsubishi Heavy fell 3.23 per-
cent to 478 yen and battery maker GS Yuasa
plunged 4.46 percent to 321 yen. Fuji Heavy
was off 2.87 percent to 1,150 yen. The drops
outpaced a broader market decline-the Nikkei
225 index was down 2.56 percent on the day.
But while markets quickly reacted to the
news, the glitches were unlikely to create a
long-term problem for Japanese suppliers
“unless a serious flaw is discovered”, Tozaki
said, adding that Boeing rival Airbus had previously
seen “minor problems” with its own new
aircraft.
Masaharu Hirokane, analyst at Nomura
Securities, said that “if authorities conclude
these issues come from a fundamental problem,
that would stop operation of the new airplanes”.
“But if the Dreamliner has to replace its
lithium-ion batteries with those of the older
version, for example, that would take just a few
months,” Hirokane said.
That is a key issue for ANA and Japan
Airlines since major repairs would mean
grounding their Dreamliner fleets-ANA currently
operates 17, while JAL has seven-for an
extended period, hitting customer traffic and
taking a bite out of earnings, analysts said.
“That would have a really grave impact
because both JAL and ANA plan to put the aircraft
into their European and American routes
to compete with low cost carriers,” said Tozaki.
The impact on the carriers’ share price was
limited with ANA down 1.62 percent at 182
yen in Tokyo while JAL was up 1.80 percent to
3,675 yen. Boeing shares had closed up 0.51
percent to $76.94 on Tuesday in New York,
before news of the latest safety scare.
For the aircraft maker itself, Shukor Yusof,
aviation analyst with Standard and Poor’s
Equity Research in Singapore, said that while
glitches were not unusual with new planes, the
problems were “very embarrassing” for Boeing.
“This is an aircraft that was delayed for
nearly three years, so potential customers will
naturally question the safety part of the aircraft.”
he said. — AFP
TOKYO: A pedestrian passes before a share prices board in Tokyo yesterday.
Japan’s share prices fell 278.64 points to close at 10,600.44 points at the
Tokyo Stock Exchange as the yen rebounded, while Boeing Dreamliner suppliers
fell after two Japanese airlines grounded their fleets of the troubled
next-generation aircraft. — AFP
JPMorgan Chase profit
jumps 53% in Q4
NEW YORK: JPMorgan Chase said yesterday
that its fourth-quarter profit had surged 53
percent, capping a third straight year of
record income for the US banking giant.
Net income grew to $5.7 billion in the final
quarter of 2012 from $3.7 billion in the yearago
period, the largest US bank said. For the
full year, JPMorgan posted a record profit of
$21.3 billion, up from $19.0 billion in 2011,
and underscored what was the third year in a
row of record profits.
Earnings of $1.39 per share in the fourth
quarter were well above the market consensus
estimate of $1.16. “The firm’s results
reflected strong underlying performance
across virtually all our businesses for the
fourth quarter and the full year, with strong
lending and deposit growth,” Jamie Dimon,
JPMorgan’s chairman and chief executive,
said in a statement. The blue-chip Wall Street
firm reported fourth-quarter revenue of $24.4
billion, up 10 percent from a year earlier, and
“flat” full-year revenue of $99.9 billion. The
bank lowered its provision for credit losses by
70 percent, to $656 million in 2012. Dimon’s
2012 bonus was slashed in half for the
“London Whale” derivatives trade debacle by
the bank’s Chief Investment Office (CIO) that
racked up $6 billion in losses in the first half
of the year. The firm’s board of directors
approved an unchanged annual salary of $1.5
million for Dimon and cut his bonus to $10
million, compared with $21.5 million for 2011.
The board “took into consideration both
the continued strong performance of the
firm, and the CIO losses, including Mr.
Dimon’s responsibility as the firm’s chief executive
officer,” JPMorgan said in a filing with
the Securities and Exchange Commission
(SEC).— AFP
percent in 2012. Economists polled also
expect the economy to grow 8 percent
in 2013. The lion’s share of FDI into China
comes from 10 Asian countries and
economies including Japan, Taiwan and
Hong Kong. That figure declined 4.8 percent
last year to $95.74 billion, the ministry
said. Investment from the European
Union fell 3.8 percent to $6.11 billion,
the ministry said.
But investment from the United
States and Japan increased.
Inflows from the US gained 4.5 percent
to $3.12 billion, while those from
Japan increased 16.3 percent to $7.38
billion. “The growth momentum of
investment from some developed countries
including the United States and
Japan was good,” the ministry said in a
statement. However, growth of invest-
BERLIN: Germany slashed its estimate for
growth this year by more than half yesterday, as
the debt crisis hits the top European economy,
but forecast a solid rebound in 2014. The
German economy, the powerhouse in Europe,
should expand by 0.4 percent in 2013, Economy
Minister Philipp Roesler said.
This was a sharp downwards revision from a
previous forecast of 1.0 percent. In 2014, growth
should be 1.6 percent, he said. “There is every
reason for confidence,” Roesler said in a statement
as he presented the government’s annual
economic report. “We believe that the weak
phase this winter will be overcome in the rest of
ment from Japan last year slowed from
the 33.2 percent gain recorded in 2011
amid a spiralling dispute between
Beijing and Tokyo over uninhabited
islands in the East China Sea. Shen, the
ministry spokesman, downplayed the
overall decline in FDI, saying a study by
the ministry did not find foreign investment
leaving the country on a large
scale. “We still actively encourage foreign
investment”, he said, adding that
China has been the largest foreign
investment host nation among developing
countries for 20 consecutive years.
In 2013, the ministry will “keep fundamental
policies on foreign investment
stable and the overall size of FDI stable”,
he said.
China said yesterday that it expects
foreign trade to grow at a similar pace to
the year and that our economy will get back
into gear,” added the minister.
Germany has until recently fared better than
most of its debt-stricken euro-zone partners in
the crisis but the economy began to slow
sharply at the end of last year. Data published
on Tuesday showed that Germany’s economy
grew by a mere 0.7 percent in 2012 after a stellar
2011 when GDP expanded by 3.0 percent.
And the economy seemed to have slammed
abruptly into reverse in the fourth quarter of the
year, as officials estimate a contraction of 0.5
percent.
Germany has been hit not only by the prob-
THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013
the economy this year, indicating a feeble
pickup from 2012. “Our target this
year is... to try to keep foreign trade
increasing at a rate that is roughly in
accordance with GDP growth,” Shen
Danyang, spokesman of the Ministry of
Commerce, told reporters at a regular
briefing without giving a specific figure.
China had declared it wanted to see
trade grow by 10 percent in 2012, but
last week announced expansion of 6.2
percent for the period, missing the target.
That was a marked slowdown from
2011, when trade increased 22.5 percent.
The world’s-second largest economy
is yet to announce its goal for economic
growth this year. But Beijing has
set a target of 7.0-percent average annual
growth for the five years through
2015.— AFP
Germany slashes growth
estimates amid EU crisis
solid rebound in 2014 predicted
BERLIN: German Chancellor Angela Merkel, left, smiles next to German Economic
Minister Philipp Roesler (right) prior to the weekly cabinet meeting at the chancellery
in Berlin yesterday.—AP
Oil firms overlook safety
issues in Arctic: Watchdog
STAVANGER, Norway: Oil companies are
overlooking some vital safety issues when
preparing to drill in frontier Arctic areas, the
head of the safety watchdog for the
Norwegian oil industry said.
The Arctic is estimated to hold some 30
percent of the world’s undiscovered gas and
13 percent of its untapped oil, which is leading
energy firms to explore further north.
But exploring in this remote, cold region is
risky, as Royal Dutch Shell most recently experienced
when its Kulluk oil rig ran aground in
Alaska on New Year’s Eve in near hurricane
conditions.
Environmentalists have long said the
Arctic’s challenging conditions make it too
risky to search for hydrocarbons. A spill, they
say, would be near impossible to clean up.
Norway, the world’s eighth-biggest crude
exporter, is one of several Arctic nations opening
vast swathes of northern offshore areas to
oil companies, most of them so far ice-free and
relatively accessible. But oil companies are also
looking even further north to more difficult
zones. “There are several things that do not
appear to be clearly on their agenda,” Magne
Ognedal, head of the Petroleum Safety
Authority Norway, said in an interview. “One of
them is satellite coverage, which is so bad so
far north that some say that you cannot navigate
safely in these areas,” he added.
“Polar low-pressure fronts are (also) difficult:
a storm can form in half an hour.
Suddenly you have a storm that you were not
warned about, and what do you do? We need
better weather warning systems.”
A third issue is the lack of interest in predicting
the edge of the polar ice cap, which
changes in size with the seasons and the years,
Ognedal suggested. Installations could be covered
with ice or risk colliding with drifting icebergs.
“Where will the ice edge spread to? It
could be that they (companies) do not need to
care about that, because the ice and snow are
melting,” he said.
He cited Skrugard, Norway’s northernmost
oil discovery so far, situated some 240 kilometres
(150 miles) north of Europe.
“From a 10,000-year perspective, Skrugard
is lying on the ice polar cap. It could be in 2014
or in 10,000 years, but there is a risk, and they
need to factor that in.”
On other safety aspects, the industry is
making good progress, including developing
suitable clothing for staff to work outdoors in
very cold temperatures, the regulator said.
Companies are also concerned about emergency
preparedness - how to respond to a crisis
situation, he said.
“They have a lot of good things on their
agenda, for which they are seeking solutions,”
he said. Norway has no plans to change its
safety regulations to make it easier for the
industry as it pushes further north, Ognedal
added.
“Someone who drops in the sea with a survival
suit must be picked up from the sea within
two hours, whether it is in the southern
North Sea or in the North,” he said. “There will
be no change in the regulations to make it feasible
for companies to do work there.”
This year, the Norwegian safety regulator
will pay particular attention to the monitoring
of drilling firms. “We are sharpening our attention
at the moment ... towards drillers ... such
as Transocean and Seadrill, and not just the oil
firms,” he said.
“Before Macondo, (drillers) did not have a
good enough focus on how to prevent big
accidents,” Ognedal added, referring to the BP’s
huge Macondo oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico
following an explosion that killed 11 people.
The Macondo disaster and a 2009 accident
in the Montara field operated by Thailand’s PTT
in the Timor Sea off Australia have resulted in a
wider focus on drilling by safety regulators, he
said.
In the United States, the regulator is scrutinising
contractors more closely, unlike its previous
practice of mainly examining the operators
employing the contractors.
In Norway, high oil prices and a slew of
recent discoveries have boosted investment to
record levels. Authorities expect investments
of 157 billion crowns ($28.2 billion) this year,
rising to 190 billion crowns in 2017.
Companies are so busy exploring and producing
oil that the industry’s own lobby has
warned they may not have enough engineers
to do the work required. Ognedal is concerned
that a lack of competent staff could have an
impact on safety.
“I have told the industry that they must set
the limits themselves, not the authorities, but
they must take it seriously,” he said.
“Some companies are very good and serious,
but it is a more important question today
than it was before ... when you see the level of
investments expected for Norway.”
Ognedal is also concerned about delays in
maintaining safety-critical equipment in good
condition at ageing installations.
“It is getting better, but there is a lot to do ...
Not everything is as it should be,” he said.
He did not name specific companies, but
the largest operator of Norway, state-owned
Statoil, came under fire a few years ago for
delays in maintenance at its Norwegian platforms.
Statoil says it still has a backlog to address
but that maintenance of equipment crucial to
safety is under control. — Reuters
lems of its euro-zone trading partners but also
by a slowing of the global economy which has
reduced demand for exports which are vital to
German growth.
However, analysts said they still expected a
bounce this year. “Following the soft patch (in
the fourth quarter), we still expect the German
economy to recover swiftly in 2013,” said analysts
at Barclays Capital. Roesler also said he
expected the fourth quarter to be the low point
in the economic cycle, but declined to answer
questions about whether Germany could suffer
a technical recession-two successive quarters of
negative growth.
“All the early indications we have are
absolutely positive,” he said. He pointed to
industrial orders and business confidence data
as signs that the economy was likely to pick up
in the course of this year. “In the course of 2013,
growth should noticeably pick up. It will be driven
primarily by domestic demand,” he added.
Industrial orders in October and November
were up by 1.6 percent overall compared to the
two-month period before. And figures in
December showed that business confidence in
Germany, as measured by the closely watched
Ifo institute’s monthly survey, improved by more
than expected. Unemployment remains at low
levels for the moment, although analysts have
warned that this too cannot last forever.
Roesler himself said there would be around
60,000 more people unemployed in 2013 than
in 2012 but said this period of weakness would
be “temporary.” The unemployment rate would
be “virtually unchanged” this year compared to
2012. Last year, the annual average jobless total
fell by 78,837 to 2.897 million on a raw or unadjusted
basis and the annual average jobless rate
fell to 6.8 percent from 7.1 percent a year earlier.
Germany would achieve its goal of registering a
structurally balanced budget in 2014, Roesler
said. — AFP
Ryanair to open
two new bases
in Morocco
MARSEILLE: Low-cost Irish airline Ryanair is to
open two new bases this spring in Morocco, its first
outside Europe, company chief Michael O’Leary told
AFP yesterday.
“We will open two new bases in Morocco, in Fes
and Marrakesh, and we’ll be in two new airports,
Essaouira and Rabat,” O’Leary said during a visit to
Marseille’s airport.
“We’ve been growing strongly in Morocco in the
last five years,” he said, noting that the new bases
will also serve destinations in France and other
parts of Europe. Ryanair closed its base in Marseille
in early 2011 after French prosecutors
charged the airline with a number of illegal labor
practices, including registering workers employed
in France as Irish employees. Two planes will be
based in Marrakesh serving 22 routes and one in
Fes serving 15 routes, the company said in a statement.
It said it was investing more than $210 million
(158 million euros) in Morocco. O’Leary also
said Air France’s launch this month of low-cost
flights to destinations in Europe and around the
Mediterranean posed little threat to Ryanair. “Their
low-cost offer is based on a relatively high fare for
us, it starts at 49 euros, our first prices are 15
(euros),” he said. “It is a recognition by Air France
that the low-cost model, which they always said
wouldn’t work in France, is destined to rule in
France.” — AFP
VITROLLES: Chief executive officer (CEO) of Irish
airline Ryanair Michael O’Leary gestures during
a press conference, yesterday in Vitrolles, near
Marseille’s airport, southern France. — AFP

KUWAIT: Ford and Lincoln sales in
the Middle East closed 2012 on a
high note, breaking the 75,000 unit
barrier - a 10 per cent year over year
growth. Sales of both brands in the
last quarter of 2012 jumped an outstanding
42 per cent year over year
according to Larry Prein, Ford
Middle East’s managing director
who is confident that the momentum
will be equally strong for 2013.
Kuwait posted a positive growth
owed largely to the strong sales of
trucks and SUVs which registered a
56 per cent growth versus 2011, led
by Ford Edge, Flex, Explorer,
Expedition and F-150 trucks. Bestselling
passenger cars for 2012 featured
the Ford Focus (up by 72 per
cent), Mustang (up by 21 per cent)
and the Taurus (up by 30 percent).
“2012 has truly been a landmark
year for Ford in the region,” Prein
said. “We continued to drive growth
aggressively across our markets
thanks to the great new products
we’ve introduced lately, and the
tremendous support we’ve seen
from our dealers. In the last quarter
we’ve gained momentum as our
supply got better. It is quite impressive
to see that despite the discontinuation
of the large volume Ford
Crown Victoria, our total sales still
recorded a double digit growth for
the year.
“With this, we are geared up to
start 2013 on a high note as we continue
to be laser-focused on the
One Ford plan and work with our
dealers to further grow the business
and introduce exciting models such
as the all-new Ford Focus ST, Escape,
Fusion and EcoSport, together with
the all-new Lincoln MKZ, all of
which are true to the One Ford
promise,” he added.
According to Ford Middle East’s
director of Sales, Thierry Sabbagh,
Ford continued to witness increasing
consumer preference throughout
the region in 2012 as evidenced
by the growing sales. “We’ve seen
great demand on our new range of
products last year,” he explained.
“This is a remarkable testament
to the success of the One Ford strategy
of delivering what the customer
wants. More and more customers
realise and value the superiority of
Ford products in terms of technology
offerings, quality and craftsmanship,
attractive dynamic design and
great value for money. These important
factors, coupled with the great
offers from our dealers make own-
BUSINESS
Dhari Hamad Al-Wazzan - Business
Development Manager
ing a Ford vehicle a vote that our
customers are going for with their
wallets,” Sabbagh added.
On the product front, the Ford
Edge, Explorer, Expedition and F-
150 led the truck and SUV regional
sales which sawa 43 per cent
increase in 2012 versus 2011.Ford
and Lincoln passenger cars registered
40 per cent growth in retail
sales - excluding the discontinued
Ford Crown Victoria - with Focus,
Fusion, Mustang and Taurus leading
the pack.
In the UAE, total Ford and Lincoln
sales posted a remarkable growth of
55 per cent in 2012 where passenger
cars recorded a 38 per cent
growth. Best sellers included the
Taurus, Mustang, Fusion and Ford’s
all-new small car, Figo. Meanwhile,
trucks and SUVs registered a whopping
55 per cent increase, driven by
increased demand on Edge, Escape,
Explorer, Expedition and F-Series
trucks. Lincoln’s new-gen
crossovers, the MKX and MKT were
also among the well-performing
Ford Middle East’s director of Sales,
Thierry Sabbagh
models in the UAE having achieved
a three digit growth.
In Saudi Arabia, overall sales
were even year over year. However,
excluding the impact of the Crown
Victoria discontinuation, salesof the
remaining vehicles grew by nearly
30 per cent, with strong performances
across the range. Top sellers
included the Expedition, Explorer,
Edge, Flex, Taurus, Fusion, Focus and
Figo. Ford also saw unprecedented
growth in the remaining GCC markets
where sales recorded an
impressive increase of 107 per cent
in Qatar, 42 per cent in Oman and
48 per cent in Bahrain.
“Overall, the momentum we
gained together with our dealers in
2012 has been truly remarkable, setting
a robust foundation for us to
launch into 2013 from,” concluded
Prein. “We are confident that with
the continued investments from our
dealers, the great new product
introductions from both the Ford
and Lincoln brands coupled with
aggressive customer-focused
THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013
New models put Ford in the fast lane
A view of the attendees
2012 ME sales reach greater heights • Kuwait sustains solid performance
‘Times Realty India
2013’ in Kuwait
KUWAIT: If you have been planning to
invest in India, this is the time to do so.
Reputed builders across India will showcase
their properties at Times Realty India
2013 event to be held on 18th & 19th Jan
2013 at Ramada Hotel - Al Riggae - Kuwait
Events organized by The Times of India
Group- the leading media conglomerate,
The Times of India Group’s business, span
across the print , Television, out of Home ,
Radio and online space and Mindscape
Exhibitions Pvt Ltd -India’s leading Event &
Exhibitions Management Group in association
with Confederation of Real Estate
Developers’ Association of India (CREDAI),
Kochi. Zia Sait - Managing Director
Mindscape Exhibitions speaking to media
and said India’s real estate sector is expected
to grow to a $180 billion industry by
the year 2020 as per the Confederation of
Indian Industries (CII). With rising urban
population and a growing economy driven
by a growing services sector, the fundamentals
for the growth of the Indian Real
estate industry are strong.
With the Real Estate sector opening up
for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in
2005, several foreign and domestic funds
have invested in Indian Real Estate sector.
Until 2010 nearly 27% of all the PE investments
made in India were in the Real
Estate and Infrastructure sector.
Traditionally Indian Real Estate sector was
dominated by regional players with limited
expertise and sources of funding. But
today, various channels of financing are
available to the sector like PE funds,
External Commercial Borrowings (ECB),
Qualified Institutional Placements (QIP),
Initial Public offering (IPO) and offshore
listing to name a few. Also, the presence of
foreign funds in the Indian market and
strict regulation by Reserve Bank of India
(RBI), transparency levels have increased in
this previously unorganized sector. This
has also brought in the much required
stream-lined approach towards construction
and project delivery.
On the demand side, the Net
Employment Outlook for Q3 2012 remains
positive as per HR Consultancy firm
Manpower. Employers in all four regions
and across all sectors expect their payrolls
to increase in Q3 2012.Several technology
firms have announced their expansion
plans in the southern cities of Bangalore,
Hyderabad and Chennai in 2013. Key companies
that have announced their expansion
plan in these cities include Facebook,
Amazon, and AMD, Intuit and Xerox.
Office
Commercial office space market in
India is driven by the services sector. IT/
ITeS, BFSI, manufacturing, media and telecom
industries are some of the industries
that have contributed significantly to
office space absorption in the past decade.
The office market has evolved significantly
in the last decades. The total office stock in
the seven major cities1 is pegged at 270
million sqft. Close to 55 million sqft of
office space is under construction in the
seven major cities in India and is expected
to enter the market by 2013. Tier I cities
namely Bangalore, Delhi NCR and Mumbai
will contribute to majority of the absorption.
Pre-leasing activities have been high
during 2012 due to
Seven major cities include: Bangalore,
Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad,
Pune and Kolkata.consolidation activities
of large corporations in Tier I cities in India.
Companies are also opting for the built-to
suit option as in the case of Goldman
Sachs deal in Bangalore. This quarter also
saw several companies opting for the purchase
option as valuations are attractive as
in the case of Citi in Mumbai.
With an increase in office space absorption
over the last two years rental and capital
values are appreciating in almost all
cities. The strongest market for office
spaces is Bangalore which has recorded
the maximum absorption in the last two
years. With steady demand and restrained
supply rental values are likely to remain
stable across micro-markets in most cities.
Retail
Mumbai and Delhi NCR have been the
forerunners in the development of the
organized retail real estate in India. These
two cities account for more than 70% of
the retail stock in the country. Cities like
Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai and Pune
are now witnessing high activity in organized
retail segment. Post the financial crisis
the retail sector has laid emphasis on good
mall management and various revenue
sharing models have been introduced.
Retailers are now focusing on leasing
space in superior grade malls.
The first half of 2012 saw limited supply
(1.65 million sqft) of mall space in the
major cities with majority of the supply in
Bangalore. The year 2011 saw the completion
of nearly 14 million sqft of mall space
in the seven major cities. As a result of
such large supply, several developers have
deferred completion of under construction
malls this year in order to maintain
demand-supply equilibrium. Also with the
uncertainties in the macro-economic conditions
and business sentiment retailers
are watchful about their expansion plans.
Therefore both supply as well as absorption
has been restrained thereby keeping
the rents stable in most cities. Tier I cities
are witnessing absorption in superior
grade malls. This has led to retailers willing
to pay a premium for space in good quality
malls due to a shortage of such spaces.
No consensus has been reached on the
proposal allowing 51% FDI in multi-brand
retail, but a positive response is expected
in the short-term.
Residential
Residential sector contributes to more
than 80% of the Real Estate sector. This
sector also contributes to 5-6% of the
India’s GDP. While the real estate recovery
in India post the global economic recession
was driven by the residential sector.
The residential sector currently has varied
formats catering to different buyers falling
under various income levels. Capital values
are increasing steadily in most cities
with some cities like Mumbai witnessing a
strong price increase. RBI’s decision to shift
focus from reigning inflation to easing liquidity
in Q1 2012 is expected to be beneficial
to the residential sector. However,
there is a severe shortage for affordable
housing units for people in the lowest
income bracket. The government is taking
steps at the policy level to encourage private
sector participation in the affordable
housing sector.
KUWAIT: HCL Infosystems Ltd India’s
premier Services and ICT Systems
Integration, Distribution and
Hardware Company has today
announced the launch of a new
range of ME tablets in the Middle
East and Africa. As part of HCL’s continuous
commitment to the market
and their customers, HCL has
launched three new ME tablets,
namely U2, V1 and Y3. HCL has
emerged as the leaders in value
tablets in the Middle East and the
new series aims to enhance user
experience and create absolute value
for customers across categories in the
region. HCL has tied up with Axiom
Telecom, the leading telecom solutions
provider in the region, as its
service partner for the region.
The New ME Tablets will be available
across leading retailers across
the various countries in Middle East
and Africa. In UAE the tablets will be
available by this week in leading
stores like Sharaf DG, Lulu, EMAX,
Plug-ins, Ecity, Jackys and Abu Dhabi
Cooperative. In Kuwait the new
devices will be available in this week
in stores such as Al Ghanim, GEANT,
Lulu and Electrozan. In Oman the
new ME Tablets will be available this
week in Extra, Lulu, Emax and Sharaf
DG. In Qatar the new Tablets will be
available by this week in stores such
as Lulu and Safari. In Egypt the new
Tablets will be available by beginning
of February 2013 in stores such as
Compume and B.tech. In Saudi
Arabia the tablets will be available by
this week in major key retailers. In
Bahrain and Jordan the tablets will be
available in leading stores by the
beginning of February 2013. In the
African countries - Nigeria, Kenya,
Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda the
new ME Tablets will be available in
leading stores by the beginning of
February 2013.
Some of the Exclusive Distributors
for ME Tablets in the region include
CGC (Consolidated Gulf Corporation)
in Qatar; BDL Gulf and BDL Saudi in
UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Jordan,
Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
Commenting on the launch,
Srinath Nagarajan, Business Head-
MEA, Mobility Business Unit, HCL
Infosystems MEA, said, “We are very
excited to launch our new range of
ME tablets in the region. The launch
comes as part of our commitment to
offer the best in technology and continue
our innovation and leadership
in the value category of tablets in the
region. This region has a highly competitive
tablet market with the
demand for innovative technologies
growing at a rapid pace. We have
made huge investments in research
to develop innovations that would
enable us to deliver devices to a larger
customer base, making technology
more accessible. Understanding the
need to cater to individual preferences
of our customers and resonating
the brand message - Change
Begins with ME, we wish to meet and
exceed their expectations in technology
by delivering an amazing user
experience.”
The ME tablets have been innovated
to offer various unique and
specialized features. The U2 Tab offers
a fast processor and Google Play, the
V1 Tab has a facility for 2G calling and
the Y3 Tab has 3G calling facility and
a Dual Sim.
The U2 has an integrated HDMI
connectivity Port, which connects
the tablet to external display devices
for gaming, video playback or emails.
It has a powerful CPU, being powered
by a 1 GHz Cortex A9 CPU which
enables U2 to deliver high performance
with low power consumption.
The Tab has an integrated front camera
for video chat. The tablet also carries
a powerful GPU and 1GB DDR3
RAM which enables one to enjoy
smooth 2D/3D graphics gaming. The
tablet has an 8GB internal memory
where one can store all their favorite
movies, photos, games and also
which is externally expandable
through a 32GB micro SD card. It also
comes pre loaded with Thinkfree
Office which enables users to create
and edit office documents on the go.
The key features & specifications of
Mohammed S Khuzam, General
Sales & Marketing Manager
actions across the region, we will set
yet another record performance in
the Middle East.”
Growing in Mideast
Ford and its dealers continue to
work towards more network expansions
in the GCC, Levant and Iraq,
whether in dealership facilities,
service centers and parts distribution
outlets. The company has over
20 new sales and service facilities in
process region-wide to serve the
ever growing customer base.
Additionally, Ford expects to
increase the number of Quick Lane
and Quick Parts outlets in the GCC,
with 40 branches scheduled to be
opened this year to help provide a
wider reach for customer service
and genuine Ford and MotorCraft
spare parts.
The $53m Middle East Regional
Parts Distribution Centre in Jebel
Aliis already providing growing support
to the regional customer base
and dealerships of Ford and Lincoln
in the region.
HCL launches new range
of ME Tablets in MEA
NEW YORK: Goldman Sachs earnings almost
tripled in the fourth quarter, handily beating
analysts’ estimates, as investment banking revenues
surged. The investment bank earned
$2.83 billion after paying preferred dividends,
compared with $978 million a year earlier. The
bank’s debt underwriting business profited from
a rally in bonds and a surge in demand for debt
securities. Goldman’s debt underwriting business
earned $1.96 billion in revenues for the
year, its second-best annual performance and
the highest since 2007. “While economic condi-
U2, a powerful entry level tablet
tions remained challenging for much of the last
year, the strengths of our business model and
client franchise, coupled with our focus on disciplined
management, delivered solid performance
for our shareholders,” Goldman’s CEO Lloyd
Blankfein said in a statement yesterday.
The bank’s compensation cost rose 6 percent
to $12.94 billion for 2012. The bank also reduced
its headcount by 3 percent to 32,400. That
means that the average employee at the bank
earns almost $400,000 a year.
Goldman differs from other big US banks
the ME U2 are:
• Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich)
• 7 inch Multi - touch Capacitive
Screen
• Next Generation Processor
• ARM Mali-400GPU
• Front camera for Video Chat
• HDMI Port
• Priced at KWD 29.99
The HCL ME V1 tablet has a sleek
and slim Metal ID, combining fashion
and sturdiness in an elegant form. It
has a built-in voice calling, having the
integrated phone functions of voice
calling and integrated SIM slots. The
V1 Tab even beats its similar competitors
in the android tablet and phone
category with its powerful features
such as 1 GHz processor, Android 4.0,
dual camera with LED flash, 1 GB
DDR3 RAM and 8GB internal memory.
It also has an integrated voice receiver,
proximity sensor, and loud speakerphone
enabling the tab to be used
as a full-fledged android smartphone.
It has integrated Graphics enabling
smooth graphics and gaming.
Goldman Sachs net surges
on investment banking
because it deals almost exclusively with institutions,
rather than consumers. Its clients are usually
mutual funds, international corporations,
other banks and similar firms. Revenue for the
fourth quarter rose to $9.24 billion, 53 percent
higher than in the same period a year ago, beating
analysts’ estimates of $7.97 billion.
Goldman earned $5.60 on a per-share basis,
compared with the average analysts forecast of
$3.71, according to data provider FactSet. The
banks stock gained $2.87, or 2.1 percent, to
$138.46 in pre-market trading. — AP

DETROIT: A Ford Focus electric concept car with a home charging unit on display at
the 2013 North American International Auto Show in Detroit. — AFP
Bling is the thing at
Detroit auto show
DETROIT: Headlights, grilles and other
doodads are stepping up and popping out
on cars. Car bling is proliferating, from daytime
running lights that go up the hood of
the new Cadillac ATS, to a wide, bold grille
on the Ford Fusion, to engraving within the
lamps of the new Corvette and Ford Transit.
It is inexpensive but distinctive, providing
automotive eye candy that can even
boost gas mileage or improve safety. Bling
isn’t new, but advancements in technology
and design are allowing automakers to do
more of it and move it from luxury cars into
the mainstream.
“You’ve got form and function with the
beauty,” says IHS Automotive analyst
Rebecca Lindland. The adornments are on
display at the North American International
Auto Show in Detroit, which opens to the
public Jan. 19:
FETCHING ETCHING
Mom never advised looking into lights,
but peering into the lamps of certain vehicles
offers some aesthetic rewards: Tiny
engravings are appearing inside, like figures
inside a snow globe.
Headlights in the splashy new Corvette
feature the brand’s crossed-flag logo, and
the utilitarian Ford Connect offers Ford’s
Blue Oval logo contained in a seven-sided
shape. Likewise, the new Jeep Grand
Cherokee features a vintage miniature Jeep
silhouette and the phrase, “Since 1941,”
referring to the year Jeeps began rolling
out. IHS Automotive analyst Rebecca
Lindland says it’s intriguing that designers
are “laying this kind of jewelry in just that
small spot” - in the process attracting buyers
and providing recognition on the road.
LINE OF SIGHT
Distinctive lights abound, but a prime
example graces the front of the new
Cadillac ATS, a sport sedan.
The car’s daytime running lights go up
the top of the fender along the hood line.
They help contribute to an overall design
that is angular and edgy. Those lights are
helping Cadillac set itself apart from competitors,
says Consumer Reports lead car
tester Jake Fisher.
Osram Automotive supplies lighting
components for the ATS and other
Cadillacs. David Hulick, the company’s
global marketing director of solid state
lighting, says the ATS benefits from hidden
LEDs, or light-emitting diodes, which offer
an “intense, white appearance” that can’t be
duplicated with traditional bulbs.
Hulick says getting more out of illumination
was the impetus behind the first automotive
use of LEDs in exterior lighting: a
mid-1990s Ford Thunderbird. He says that
model used “super-red LEDs with a neon
look” - something that also “couldn’t be
achieved with traditional technology.”
HOT OFF THE GRILLE
Ford is heating up its grilles, particularly
its Fusion model. The Fusion jettisoned the
old, bulky shutters that go back years and
embraced a wide, bold grille with numerous
thin blades. Consumer Reports’ Jake
Fisher says the grille helps the midsize family
sedan “evoke the looks of an Aston-
Martin” - adding to the mystique and brand
identity without adding to the bottom line.
Ford hopes to finally surpass Toyota
Camry’s sales with the new Fusion, helped
by a more aggressive-looking trapezoidal
grille.
There are other grilles providing artistic
thrills: When the light hits it just right, the
angular brushed-metal grille of Hyundai’s
new luxury concept car shows off at least a
dozen small inverted triangles that appear
behind horizontal bars. The wide-mouth
grille has a bunch of tiny holes, and the
angles reflect light. It’s just one of many
new styling cues on the HCD-14 Genesis,
which Hyundai says is the direction it will
take the next generation of its luxury cars,
the Genesis and Equus.
THE EYES HAVE IT
The tail lamps on the high-performance
version of the 2014 Jeep Grand Cherokee
are tinted black, giving it an ominous look.
Ralph Gilles, a Chrysler design leader, noted
the lamps are “kind of like death.”
“They look like they’re really staring at
you. If you look at them they’re all dark
inside. You can’t even see the lens,” Gilles
says. He says it’s the first time Chrysler has
done such headlamps. The vehicle, he
added, “can pretty much be sinister if you
want it to.” He says designers wanted to
create something unique that “owners will
love.” The headlights on Land Rover’s small
SUV - the Range Rover Evoque - also give
that vehicle “a bit more of the sinister look,”
according to IHS Automotive analyst
Rebecca Lindland. The slim lamp also represents
an advance in functionality.
“The great thing with lighting technology
is that you can actually have a very narrow
light and still have a tremendous
amount of road illumination,” she says.
CRYSTAL CLEAR
When it comes to headlights, there’s
bling, and then there’s the king of bling.
The Acura RLX’s headlights look like a
crystal chandelier, courtesy of a horizontal
collection of lenses and LED light that has
been split and directed in a beam pattern,
according to Hulick of Osram Automotive.
He says Acura’s lights are a great example
of a vehicle being simultaneously eyecatching
and illuminating with the help of
LEDs. “Lighting, in my opinion, has replaced
chrome as the jewelry on the car.”
STEPPING UP
The 2014 Chevrolet Silverado pickup
truck has a practical feature that breaks up
the boring horizontal view of the bumper.
There are two steps that make it easy to
climb into the bed to fetch tools or tie
down a load. The steps are inset into the
corner of the bumpers, and even have
treads to stop work shoes from slipping.
The always-ready steps could give GM
an advantage over other automakers in an
increasingly competitive pickup market,
especially with buyers who constantly are
going in and out of the truck bed. — AP
DETROIT: General view of the floor of the 2013 North American International Auto
Show in Detroit yesterday. — AFP
Curiosity rover
to drill on Mars
LOS ANGELES: Scientists have zeroed in on
a Martian target for the Curiosity rover to
drill into: A rock outcrop as flat as a pool
table that’s expected to yield fresh insight
into the red planet’s history.
Running a tad behind schedule, Curiosity
was due to arrive at the site in the next several
days. After an inspection of the surroundings,
the car-size rover will test its drill
for the first time “probably in the next two
weeks,” project manager Richard Cook of the
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory said
Tuesday.
The highly anticipated drilling has been
billed as the most complex engineering task
since the acrobatic landing inside a Martian
crater last summer. Curiosity is on a quest to
determine whether environmental conditions
could have been favorable for
microbes.
By boring into a rock and transferring the
powder to the rover’s onboard chemistry lab
and other instruments, scientists should get
a better handle on the region’s mineral and
chemical makeup. “We’re thrilled, and we
can’t wait to get drilling,” said project scientist
John Grotzinger of the California
Institute of Technology. — AFP
technology
DETROIT: The green car market is only inching
along in the United States, hampered by high
comparative costs and limited ranges on pure
electric vehicles, but automakers remain confident
their time will come. “Everybody thinks that everybody
else should be driving a green car,” said Dave
Sergeant, an auto analyst with JD Power.
Automakers have launched a host of hybrids and
electric vehicles in recent years with huge fanfare
in response to political pressure from the Obama
administration to improve fuel economy drastically.
But lower emission vehicles are still struggling
to find their public, winning over just 3.5 percent
of US sales last year, with about 500,000 vehicles
sold. That is perhaps one reason why they were
not a prominent part of this year’s Detroit auto
show, where luxury brands, pickups and performance
dominated new vehicle launches.
“It’s getting better every year but there’s a very
slow adoption rate,” said Jesse Toprak, an analyst
with the specialty site TrueCar.com.
Hybrids have overcome the initial fears many
consumers had about the reliability of a new technology.
However, few are willing to swap to alternatives
like a pure electric, compressed natural gas
or hydrogen fuel cells that could strand them on
the side of the road if they get too far from a filling
station or electrical outlet, Sergeant said.
“Consumers are terrified by the range issue,” he
said.. Cost is another major concern as consumers
“tend to have a poor ability to do the math in
terms of what they’re going to pay and what
they’re going to save” on a hybrid, he said.
And even with big tax breaks, the $30,000 to
$40,000 price tag for a plug-in electric Chevy Volt
or fully electric Nissan Leaf is also off-putting.
Nissan responded to poor sales of its pioneering
Leaf by slashing the price Monday by about
$6,000, which would bring it down to as little as
$18,800 in some US locations, once tax breaks are
considered.
Leaf’s US sales rose just 1.5 percent to 9,819
vehicles in 2012, far below Nissan’s target of doubling
sales in its second year on the market.
Global sales rose 20 percent, well below
Nissan’s target of a 50 percent increase.
“It’s a disappointment,” admitted Nissan-
Renault chief Carlos Ghosn. General Motors managed
to triple the sales of its plug-in electric Volt to
nearly 23,500 vehicles last year, but that remains
well below the largest US automaker’s target of
35,000. “Unless gas prices go up to five to six dollars
a gallon, we don’t see a major shift in this,”
Sergeant said, noting that US consumers have
become accustomed to gasoline priced at around
$3.25 a gallon. “There will be a very slow drift
towards these vehicles but it’s going to be very
gradual.” Automakers expressed confidence in
green cars currently on display at the Detroit auto
DETROIT: From navigation systems
serving as game consoles to sound
systems doubling as amplifiers and
nail polish matching a paint job,
automakers are trying new tricks to
lure fickle young buyers. Connected
consoles that sync with smartphones
to stream music and even
read incoming text messages aloud
seemed to be almost standard features
on most of the cars on display
at the Detroit auto show. “It’s difficult
to capture this group because
they’re not brand loyal at this stage
in their life,” said Joe Vitale, an auto
analyst with Deloitte. Young buyers
also have higher expectations than
their parents, he said. They take reliability,
quality and safety as a given,
want good fuel economy and access
to “infotainment” like satellite radio
and social media, and perhaps like
their parents-want a car that makes
a statement.
Aggressive styling, a renewed
focus on design, souped-up interiors
and zippy small cars are becoming
more common on the showroom
floor as automakers jostle for position
with a group that is expected to
soon be buying one in every four
cars sold in the US.
“When you build more emotional
cars, you get more young people to
buy your product,” Jim Lentz, head
of Toyota Motor Sales USA, said in an
interview on the sidelines of the
show. Toyota developed an entirely
separate brand-Scion-to help it connect
with young buyers and get
them to develop the kind of brand
show. “When you look at our sales for electrified
vehicles, we’re seeing growth in that market,” said
Mark Fields, chief operating officer at Ford, which
is developing a whole range of green cars, including
its compact C-Max.
Toyota dominates the green car market in the
United States, accounting for 70 percent of hybrid
sales. “There’s no question that over time the price
of fuel is going to go up, so we’re confident that
our plan to develop hybrids is the right long-term
play, as is our foray into extended range plug-ins,”
Jim Lentz, head of Toyota Motor Sales USA, said in
an interview on the sidelines of the show. Toyota’s
dedicated hybrid line Prius is the best-selling car in
Japan and achieves volumes in the United States
that most mainstream brands dream of: 236,000
in 2012. With hybrids also available in Toyota’s top
selling Camry and Highlander models along with
its luxury Lexus brand, they now account for 16
percent of the Japanese automaker’s US sales at
more than 327,000 in 2012.
Despite an outsized investment in advertising
of green cars-which can create a ‘halo effect’ for
the whole lineup without necessarily leading to
sales-Toprak said automakers haven’t done
enough to explain the benefits of hybrids.
“They need to do a better job of communicating
the financial benefit of owning this car,” he told
AFP. With the GM Volt, if you calculate the benefits
of tax breaks, attractive leasing costs and fuel savings
“it’s basically a free car,” he said. — AFP
loyalty their parents have.
One way it connects is through a
focus on personalization-something
young buyers care a lot about and
for which they are often willing to
pay a premium.
Scion offers enthusiasts over 250
different ways to accessorize their
cars, including sporty mufflers, lowering
springs, graphics to highlight
the trim and an interior lighting kit
that illuminates the lower level of
the interior in green, red, purple and
white. Daimler’s Mini brand also
focuses on personalization and has
got to be the hippest car at the
show. The choices of colors and patterns
for the exterior seem endlessincluding
the classic Union Jack
rooftop-while the interior offers surprises
like a hidden glove box and a
circular key fob to match the console
design.
The joystick-operated sound system
shifts the volume on the speakers
to match your drive (say, shifting
to the right on a turn) and a little
goldfish turns good driving into a
game by falling out of its bowl if a
corner is taken too fast.
Ford certainly doesn’t expect that
a bottle of nail polish in “Ford Fiesta
Storm” alone will bring new buyers
to its zippy small car lineup.
It gets them in the door by offering
a lot of higher-end features like
heated side mirrors and a voice-activated
entertainment system that
will read incoming tweets aloud in a
fuel efficient, funky and low-price little
car. The matching polish perk is
part of a broader strategy to get
THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013
Does everyone think someone
else should drive a green car?
MENLO PARK: Facebook unveiled a new search
tool yesterday that gives users a chance to sift
through the photos, places and other information
available on the site - all through the lens of
their social connections. Would you like to know
which of your friends live in San Francisco? Are
you curious about who likes Madonna? Or are
you dying to know which friends appeared in
photos with you before 2006?
Facebook’s new search tool will tell you, in
the hopes that you’ll spend more time on the
world’s largest online social network.
The search feature, called “graph search,” is
being rolled out slowly. For now, users can only
search in English and the service will be available
only to a tiny fraction of Facebook’s more
than 1 billion users. As part of a group of
reporters who attended Facebook’s unveiling of
the service on Tuesday, I was one of these users.
I got a chance to try out the feature and sift
through my friends’ interests, photos and other
data. While most searches revealed little information
about my friends that I didn’t already
know, it was nice to see it indexed and categorized
in a way that wasn’t possible before. There
have been countless times I’ve wished I could
group my friends by where they live, or find
people who’ve worked at a particular company.
Google, too, has tried to incorporate social
DETROIT: The Hot Wheels edition of the
Chevrolet Camaro sits on an oversized track
that appears to swoop down from the ceiling
at the North American International Auto
Show in Detroit yesterday. General Motors Co.
last year announced it would sell the vehicle
with Hot Wheels logos and other toy-inspired
touches such as red-lined wheels. —AP
DETROIT: Visitors look over vehicles during the media preview at the North American
International Auto Show in Detroit yesterday. —AFP
New tricks to lure young car buyers
DETROIT: The Mercedes-Benz display at the 2013 North American
International Auto Show in Detroit yesterday. — AFP
features in its powerful search engine, but it
doesn’t have the breadth of personal data that
Facebook has amassed. Even so, Facebook isn’t
the best place to search for home flu remedies
or movie show times. As such, I will continue to
use Google to find crucial information such as
Ryan Gosling’s age or the year “The Hobbit” was
published and I’ll stay with the reviews site Yelp
to find the highest-rated Chinese restaurant in
New York that’s cheap enough to warrant two
out of four dollar signs.
Facebook, meanwhile, should help unearth
interesting details about my social network. It’s
through Facebook’s search feature I that I was
able to find a trove of adorable “photos of my
friends before 1990,” or see which of my friends
are fans of the savvy Seattle sex columnist Dan
Savage (12 of them, it turns out).
Searching for photos is one of the most personal
and interesting features of the new tool.
There are 19 photos of me and my husband
taken by my friends that my friends like, for
example. There are “fewer than 100” photos of
my family before 2008, which is pretty good
considering I joined Facebook just a year earlier.
Rather than using keywords or various filters,
Facebook’s search tool aims to replicate the way
people talk. It prompts users to “search for people,
places and things” and will try to complete
new buyers to make an emotional
connection to their cars that will
lead them to think of Ford again
when it’s time to replace their vehicle.
Ditto for Volkswagen’s Fender
Beetle. It’s not a huge seller, but the
advanced sound system-that you
can plug your guitar into-and the
stylish interior adds to the already
distinctive car’s appeal.
Young buyers also want their cars
to be more than just a way to get
somewhere, said John Mendel, head
of sales for American Honda.
“They’re looking for the flexibility
of being the Swiss Army knife of
cars,” he told AFP.
Honda is reaching out with an
expansion of its small car offerings,
like the “urban SUV” concept
unveiled on Monday that combines
the function of a sport utility with
the handling of a small car.
GM has targeted young buyers
with its Chevy Spark and Sonic cars,
which offer bold design in a small
package, bright colors echoed in the
interior through stitching and trim,
and text-message reading sound
systems that link up with smartphones.
But its Equinox SUV and
Silverado pickup are also big sellers
among millennials looking for more
utility. Hyundai tries to tempt young
buyers with power and aggressive
styling, but
offers a great perk for anxious
parents worried about teen drivers:
a navigation system that will alert
them if the car leaves a pre-set “safety”
zone. — AFP
Searching for answers on Facebook
your sentences. It should get better over time
as more people outside of Facebook’s labs use
it. Graph search doesn’t dig through people’s
status updates, only the likes and interests that
they have listed on Facebook. But that could
come later, as CEO Mark Zuckerberg hinted at
Tuesday’s event. The tool also searches photos -
who’s in them, who’s liked them and who posted
them. EMarketer analyst Debra Aho
Williamson predicts a “mass exodus” of untagging
and unliking of photos and interests as
Facebook rolls out the search feature more
broadly and people realize that the things they
liked 5 years ago are suddenly searchable by
their friends and others, depending on their privacy
settings. To soothe privacy concerns that
invariably arise with every new feature
Facebook announces, Zuckerberg stressed that
users will only be able to find information they
have access to. This means no matter how
many times you search for “photos of Mark
Zuckerberg in diapers,” you won’t find one
unless Mr. Z has shared his hypothetical baby
photos with you in the first place.
The search tool could take more than a year
to roll out to all of Facebook’s billion-plus users,
and it’ll surely see a lot of changes in that time.
A shortcoming I already noticed is that few of
my friends are the oversharing type. —AP

HEALTH & SCIENCE
Dengue fastest-spreading tropical disease: WHO
GENEVA: Dengue is the world’s fastestspreading
tropical disease and represents
a “pandemic threat”, infecting an estimated
50 million people across all continents,
the World Health Organization (WHO) said
yesterday.
Transmitted by the bite of female mosquitoes,
the disease is occurring more
widely due to increased movement of
people and goods - including carrier
objects such as bamboo plants and used
tyres - as well as floods linked to climate
change, the United Nations agency said.
The viral disease, which affected only a
handful of areas in the 1950s, is now present
in more than 125 countries - significantly
more than malaria, historically the
most notorious mosquito-borne disease.
The most advanced vaccine against
dengue is only 30 percent effective, trials
last year showed.
“In 2012, dengue ranked as the fastest
spreading vector-borne viral disease with
an epidemic potential in the world, registering
a 30-fold increase in disease incidence
over the past 50 years,” the WHO
said in a statement.
Late last year, Europe’s suffered its first
sustained outbreak since the 1920s, with
2,000 people infected on the Portuguese
Atlantic island of Madeira.
Worldwide, 2 million cases of dengue
are reported each year by 100 countries,
mainly in Asia, Africa and Latin America,
causing 5,000 to 6,000 deaths, said Dr.
Raman Velayudhan, a specialist at the
WHO’s control of neglected tropical diseases
department.
But the true number is far higher as
the disease has spread exponentially and
is now present on all continents, he said.
“The WHO estimates that on average
about 50 million cases occur every year.
This is a very conservative estimate,”
Velayudhan told Reuters, adding that
some independent studies put the figure
at 100 million. “Dengue is the most threatening
and fastest spreading mosquitoborne
disease. It is pandemic-prone, but it
is a threat
only. Definitely a bigger threat now
than ever,” he said. Malaria caused more
deaths but was on the decline, affecting
100 kids die of flu each year
Risk to all ages
NEW YORK: How bad is this flu season,
exactly? Look to the children. Twenty flurelated
deaths have been reported in kids
so far this winter, one of the worst tolls
this early in the year since the government
started keeping track in 2004.
But while such a tally is tragic, that
does not mean this year will turn out to
be unusually bad.
Roughly 100 children die in an average
flu season, and it’s not yet clear the
nation will reach that total. The deaths
this year have included a 6-year-old girl in
Maine, a 15-year Michigan student who
loved robotics, and 6-foot-4 Texas high
school senior Max Schwolert, who grew
sick in Wisconsin while visiting his grandparents
for the holidays.
“He was kind of a gentle giant” whose
death has had a huge impact on his
hometown of Flower Mound, said Phil
Schwolert, the Texas boy’s uncle. Health
officials only started tracking pediatric flu
deaths nine years ago, after media reports
called attention to children’s deaths. That
was in 2003-04 when the primary flu
germ was the same dangerous flu bug as
the one dominating this year. It also was
an earlier than normal flu season. The
government ultimately received reports
of 153 flu-related deaths in children, from
40 states, and most of them had occurred
by the beginning of January. But the
KUWAIT: Shifa Al-Jazeera Medical
Group, the leading conglomerate
among premium healthcare providers
in GCC in the path of expansion with
the newfangled innovative systems,
technologies and equipments along
with a dedicated team of medical and
paramedical staffs, has announced an
outstanding healthy offer as their
dedicated New Year Gift to the society
“Cervical Cancer Prevention
Awareness Campaign” providing
Cervical Cancer Vaccine- “CERVARIX”
at a discounted rate from 12/01/2013
till 24/01/2013 - a 12-day campaign
targeting the improvement of
women’s health and saving lives
through Cervical Cancer prevention
programs which mean the ultimate
goal of caring and assuring their
responsibility towards the society as a
part of accomplishing their vision and
mission of reaching new heights in
the medical world.
Apart from usual health campaigns
held in the foregoing periods which
was a form of socio awareness activity,
this time it is against Cervical Cancer
by which we lose a woman in every
hour in Middle East. Vaccination is preferred
for girls and women from 10-55
years of age based on physician’s recommendation.
It could be identified
only with regular screening and vaccination.
When we come to know that
possibility is 50% for cervical cancer in
a normal situation and that every
reporting was scattershot. So in October
2004, the government started requiring
all states to report flu-related deaths in
kids. Other things changed, most notably
a broad expansion of who should get flu
shots. During the terrible 2003-04 season,
flu shots were only advised for children
ages 6 months to 2 years.
That didn’t help 4-year-old Amanda
Kanowitz, who one day in late February
2004 came home from preschool with a
cough and died less than three days later.
Amanda was found dead in her bed that
terrible Monday morning, by her mother.
“The worst day of our lives,” said her
father, Richard Kanowitz, a Manhattan
attorney who went on to found a vaccinepromoting
group called Families Fighting
Flu. The Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention gradually expanded its flu
shot guidance, and by 2008 all kids 6
months and older were urged to get the
vaccine. As a result, the vaccination rate
for kids grew from under 10 percent back
then to around 40 percent today.
Flu vaccine is also much more plentiful.
Roughly 130 million doses have been
distributed this season, compared to 83
million back then. Public education seems
to be better, too, Kanowitz observed. The
last unusually bad flu season for children,
was 2009-10 - the year of the new swine
flu, which hit young people especially
woman is at a risk of cervical cancer
throughout life, makes us realize the
importance of vaccination and screening
as a preventive procedure.
Dr Rekha Thomas, one of the well
known Gynaecologist &Obstetric
Specialist in Kuwait and a part of Shifa
Al Jazeera Medical Center says that
the cervical cancer is a form of cancer
effecting Cervix (the lower part of
uterus also known as ‘neck’ of womb)
which is having two parts, endocervix
and ectocervix / exocervix, and func-
tioning as a connecting agent of
uterus to the vagina and makes
mucus which facilitates sperm entry.
Also during pregnancy it serves to
keep infection outside the uterus,
protecting the fetus , helping to keep
the baby inside the uterus.
During child birth it opens to allow
the baby pass through the vagina.
The endocervix or the endocervical
canal is lined by glandular cells and
the exocervix is lined by squamous
cells.The junction where the two cell
types cells meet is called the
Transformation Zone (TZ) where the
two types of cervical cancers,
Squamous cell Carcinoma (in the surface
lining of the cervix) and
Adenocarcinoma (from the glandular
cells / columnar cells lining the endocervical
canal) begins which is the
second most common type of cancer
deaths in women, worldwide and the
third leading cause of cancer in
hard. As of early January 2010, 236 flurelated
deaths of kids had been reported
since the previous August.
It’s been difficult to compare the current
flu season to those of other winters
because this one started about a month
earlier than usual. Look at it this way: The
nation is currently about five weeks into
flu season, as measured by the first time
flu case reports cross above a certain
threshold. Two years ago, the nation wasn’t
five weeks into its flu season until early
February, and at that point there were 30
pediatric flu deaths - or 10 more than
have been reported at about the same
point this year. That suggests that when
the dust settles, this season may not be as
bad as the one only two years ago.
But for some families, it will be
remembered as the worst ever. In Maine,
6-year-old Avery Lane - a first-grader in
Benton who had recently received student
of-the-week honors - died in
December following a case of the flu,
according to press reports. She was
Maine’s first pediatric flu death in about
two years, a Maine health official said. In
Michigan, 15-year-old Joshua Polehna
died two weeks ago after suffering flu-like
symptoms. The Lake Fenton High School
student was the state’s fourth pediatric flu
death this year, according to published
reports. And in Texas, the town of Flower
Shifa Al Jazeera Medical Center
to hold cervical cancer campaign
women after breast and lung cancer.Malignancy
or Cancer - normal
cells of the body start to divide
uncontrollably and form a tumor- of
the cervix begins in the cells of the
surface of the cervix and then invade
deeply into the cervix-she added.
Dr. Revathi - a reputed name in
Gynaecology / Obstetrics & Infertility,
working with Shifa Al Jazeera
Medical Centre mentioned that the
cause of cervical cancer is infection
by the Human Papilloma Virus HPV, a
KUWAIT: Gynecologist Dr Revathy Ravi and Dr Rekha Paulson with Medical Director Dr Abdul
Nazer and Admin Manager Abdul Azeez.
group of more than hundred related
viruses by which most adults have
been infected in their lives and most
infection clearup on their own. She
also explained about HPV types
which cause warts on skin, genital
(HPV 6 and 11of Low risk types),
anus, mouth & throat and are rarely
linked to cancer.
Major cases of cervical cancers are
caused by infections with oncogenic
or high risk types of HPV that is 16 &
18 because of risky sexual practices
like having sex at an early age or having
multiple sex partners, weakened
immune system, poor socio economic
status, smoking. She preferred screening
test / Pap smear test (an outpatient
procedure in which cells are
scraped from the cervix and looked at
under a microscope) and HPV vaccine
before becoming sexually active as
protective factors because most of the
time, early cancer has no symptoms
Mound mourned Schwolert, a healthy,
lanky 17-year-old who loved to golf and
taught Sunday school at the church
where his father was a youth pastor. Late
last month, he and his family drove 16
hours to spend the holidays with his
grandparents
in Amery, Wis., a small town near the
Minnesota state line. Max felt fluish on
Christmas Eve, seemed better the next
morning but grew worse that night. The
family decided to postpone the drive
home and took him to a local hospital. He
was transferred to a medical center in St.
Paul, Minn., where he died on Dec. 29.
He’d been accepted to Oklahoma
State University before the Christmas trip.
And an acceptance letter from the
University of Minnesota arrived in Texas
while Max was sick in Minnesota, his
uncle said. Nearly 1,400 people attended
a memorial service for Max two weeks
ago in Texas. “He exuded care and love for
other people,” Phil Schwolert said.
“The bottom line is take care of your
kids, be close to your kids,” he said.
On average, an estimated 24,000
Americans die each flu season, according
to the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention. People who are elderly and
with certain chronic health conditions are
generally at greatest risk from flu and its
complications. —AP
and cervical cancer has a long precancerous
phase.
She pointed out some symptoms
like abnormal vaginal bleeding, post
contact bleeding, continuous vaginal
discharge and increased bleeding at
periods about which we have to be
cautious. Cervical cancer, in its precancerous
stage which could be detected
by a Pap smear is 100% treatable as it
can take years for precancerous lesion
to change to cancer.After doing a Pap
smear, test like colposcopy & cervical
biopsy could be advised as necessary.
Liquid based Pap cytology tests are
nowadays available too.PAP smear is
repeated every 3 to 5 years from the
age of 21 for sexually active women. It
is better to be combined with HPV
Testing.
Also she explained the Pap smear
results which could be reported as
Inflammation, ASCUS (Atypical Squamous
Cells of Undetermined Significance), LSIL
(Low grade Squamous Intra epithelial
Lesion-CIN-1- most common and benign
usually resolves spontaneously), HSIL
(High Grade Squamous Intra epithelial
Lesion- CIN 2 or CIN 3-Moderate or
severe dysplasia which can lead to cancer
of cervix which could be treated by
LEEP-Loop Electrosurgical Excision
Procedure, Cryotherapy, Conisation,
Laser Ablation), Squamous cell carcinoma
and Adenocarcinoma. Treatments
for cervical cancer are surgical removal
of uterus, ovary tube and lymph nodes
apart from radiotherapy or chemotherapy.
Developed countries which implemented
similar programs have experienced
dramatically reduced rates of
cervical cancer due to well organized
screening and treatment programs
where as in developing countries in
the cases cervical cancer occur, it
remains a leading cause of death
among women.
A recent situation analysis documented
that screening women with an
accurate test and positive test results
managed properly increased the count
of cured. Best possible protection
against cervical cancer is Vaccination
(Cervarix- Women Only Vaccine against
HPV 16 & 18 & Gardasil- against HPV 6,
11,16,18) other than Screening. Shifa Al
Jazeera Medical Center Management
also informed that the detailed brochure
of the campaign for the public awareness
could be obtained from their
Farwaniya Branch located opposite
Farwaniya Police Station and all were
requested to utilize this opportunity to
safeguard their health.
fewer than 100 countries.
Speaking to a news briefing after the
WHO released a report on 17 neglected
tropical diseases affecting 1 billion people,
Velayudhan said: “The mosquito has
silently expanded its distribution.
“So today you have (the) aedes mosquito
in over 150 countries. The threat of
dengue exists all across the globe.” In
Europe, the aedes mosquitoes that cause
both dengue and chikungya disease have
spread to 18 countries, often via the
importation of ornamental bamboo or
second-hand tyres, he said.
“But we are trying to address this in a
more systematic way, by controlling entry
of vectors at points of entry - seaports, airports,
as well as the ground crossings,”
Velayudhan said, noting that it was hard
to detect mosquitoes and their eggs.
Dengue causes flu-like symptoms that
subside in a few days in some sufferers.
But the severe form of the disease
KUWAIT: The Harley Street Clinic in London
has recently opened its newly refurbished
Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU). The
PICU boasts an internationally recognized
specialist team of pediatric cardiac consultants
to provide the best quality of care for
the most complex heart conditions for
babies, children, through to adulthood. The
new pediatric unit is technologicallyadvanced
and is now in the most beautiful
and modern surroundings. The unit specializes
in the treatment of cardiac conditions,
particularly congenital heart disease and
offers a combination of experience, technology
and close, well-established links with
other hospitals from across the globe to provide
the highest standard of care for critically
ill babies and children.
“As a global centre of excellence, The
Harley Street Clinic prides itself on providing
exceptional care for critically ill patients from
many different countries including Kuwait,”
said Neil Buckley, Chief Executive Officer.
“The newly opened unit further reinforces
the hospital’s reputation as one of the most
prestigious private hospitals in the world and
adds to its existing intensive care offering for
adults, children and babies”.
The paediatric service is comprised of a
13 bedded Paediatric Intensive Care Unit, a 5
bedded High Dependency Unit, and a whole
floor at ward level providing 18 individual
rooms that supports paediatric care. Parents
are therefore offered the security of knowing
that their child is in safe hands whatever the
situation or treatment.
THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013
requires hospitalisation for complications,
including severe bleeding, that may be
lethal.
There is no specific treatment but early
detection and access to proper medical
care lowers fatality rates below 1 percent,
according to the Geneva-based WHO.
“You have to bear in mind that it has
no treatment and vaccines are still in the
research stage,” Velayudhan said.
The most advanced, being developed
by French drugmaker Sanofi SA, proved
only 30 percent effective in a large clinical
trial in Thailand, far less than hoped,
according to results published in
September.But researchers said it did
show for the first time that a safe vaccine
was possible.
The WHO also said aims to eliminate
globally two neglected tropical diseases,
dracunculiasis, known as guinea worm
disease, in 2015, and yaws, or treponematoses,
in 2020—Reuters
Prestigious London Hospital
welcomes Kuwaiti patients
CHICAGO: For children, time spent actually
inactive - such as lying on the couch -
appears to have less of an impact on how
much body fat they have than a lack of
exercise does, according to a US study.
Researchers, whose study appeared in
the Journal of Pediatrics, found that the
more minutes children spent exercising at
the pace of a fast walk each day, the lower
their percentage of body fat. But the time
they spent lying around made no difference.
“Our study supports the current physical
activity guideline, that’s what I want
people to know,” lead author Soyang Kwon,
a pediatric researcher at Northwestern
University in Chicago, said.
The US Department of Health and
Human Services recommends that children
and teens exercise at least at the
intensity of a fast walk, about 5.6 kilometres
per hour (3.5 miles per hour), for 60
minutes every day.
Last year, a study in adults found a different
result: regular exercise doesn’t protect
against the dangers of sitting for
many hours at desk jobs. This is likely
because children are more active than
adults overall.
“In adults, where the activity levels are
generally less, the time spent sedentary
may have more of an effect,” said Russell
Pate, who studies physical activity in children
at the University of South Carolina in
Columbia.
Kwon and her coauthors from the
University of Iowa used data from a study
in that state that followed children of various
ages from 2000 to 2009.
With specialist services available to
Kuwaiti families, from referral to discharge,
The Harley Street Clinic fully understands
the needs of patients and their families and
has created a caring, culturally sensitive and
supportive environment in a modern setting.
The Harley Street Clinic also understands
the importance of privacy and personal
space for families and this is reflected
in the PICU through bespoke design features
such as window partitions between
beds, which become opaque with the flick
of a switch.
For our congenital heart patients, Care
for Life is offered from before birth, throughout
their young lives and continuing on into
adolescence and adulthood. By supporting
and nurturing patients in each stage of their
development, our highly trained and skilled
team of professionals offer them every
opportunity to live full lives of the highest
quality and standard.
“The Harley Street Clinic is proud to have
a highly trained, multi-disciplinary team of
experts consisting of intensivists, resident
medical officers, nurses and allied health
professionals such as dieticians, play specialists,
physiotherapists and speech therapists,”
said Libby Basson, Paediatric Matron. “Our
specialist team is on hand to ensure all our
patients receive the full spectrum of care”.
The Harley Street Clinic is embracing digital
technology to provide a more interactive
and informative experience for people to
help them choose the best care for their
needs, from wherever they are in the world.
No exercise, more
than lying around,
tied to fat in kids
A group of 277 boys and 277 girls were
measured at eight, 11, 13 and 15 years old
for body composition and fat content
using a precise X-ray technique originally
developed to assess bone density.
The same children wore an accelerometer,
which measures body movement, for
several days in a row sometime in the
same year.
Even among children who exercised
the least, the amount of time sitting didn’t
make much of a difference.
For the 13-year-olds, those who sat less
than, more than or equal to the average six
and a half hours per day all had about the
same body fat mass.
But boys who spend the least amount
of time in moderate to vigorous activity
had about 5 kilograms (11 pounds) more
body fat on average than those who exercised
the most. For 13-year-old girls, the
low level exercisers had about 3.2 kg (7 lbs)
more body fat than the exercisers.
Results were similar in every age group,
but the researchers did not record if each
child was overweight or not.
In a previous study, the same team of
researchers found that even light intensity
activity, like walking, every day, was linked
to lower levels of fat in teens, but not
young children.
“Parents should encourage their
children to be physically active, the
more the better,” said Ulf Ekelund, who
studies obesity risk factors in children
at the Norwegian School of Sport
Science in Oslo. “That might sound simple,
but the execution isn’t so simple
sometimes.” —Reuters

HAVANA: Cuba’s second cholera outbreak in
four months after 130 years without the diseasehas
sickened more than 50 people and killed
one in Havana, authorities and the family of the
deceased said Tuesday.
The latest outbreak was from the same
cholera strain found to have been introduced in
Haiti by Nepalese UN peacekeepers, unleashing
an epidemic in 2010 that has killed some 7,900
people. Miriam RodrÌguez, who lives in the
Havana neighborhood most affected by the outbreak,
said her son, Ubaldo Pino, a 46-year-old
barber, succumbed to the disease on January 6.
“He died of cholera and that is what is on his
death certificate,” she told AFP. Authorities have
not officially confirmed the cause of his death.
The Health Ministry said the outbreak was
detected in the Cuban capital, a city of 2.2 million
people, on January 6 after a surge in cases
of acute diarrhea. It said 51 cholera cases had
been confirmed.
The Pedro Kouri Institute of Tropical Medicine
traced the disease back to the same strain of
cholera that caused last year’s outbreak in the
city of Manzanillo, 800 kilometers (480 miles)
east of Havana in Granma province.
That outbreak, which hit in July and was
declared eradicated August 28, claimed the lives
of three people and infected 417.
It was the first time cholera had been reported
on the Caribbean island since 1882. The
Health Ministry said the Havana outbreak “is in a
phase of extinction.” The cholera was “generated
by a food vendor, an asymptomatic carrier of the
disease, contracted earlier in other regions of
the country,” the Health Ministry said. The latest
outbreak first appeared in a working class district
called Cerro situated in the center of
Havana, between the Plaza of the Revolution
and the city’s main baseball stadium.
Rumors of a cholera outbreak spread in
recent days after doctors and nurses began
going door to door in certain neighborhoods to
distribute medicine. “They came to all the houses
and said: ‘Are you allergic to penicillin?’ And
they gave us three Doxycycline pills to take, but
wouldn’t tell us anything,” a woman told AFP. “I
asked them if it was cholera, and they laughed
but didn’t tell us anything.”
Arasay Silva, whose Cerro music shop is next
to the usually busy pizzeria “El Gran Pizzero,” said
authorities shut down the restaurant indefinite-
ly. The Health Ministry called on the public to
pay increased attention to hygiene, urging frequent
hand washing, the drinking of chlorinated
water, and careful cleaning and cooking of food.
Preventive measures also were being taken at
Havana clinics and schools, various sources told
AFP. Rodriguez praised the medical attention her
son received, but said he had been weakened by
alcoholism.
“If he had been a strong person he would
have been saved,” said Yanicet Pino, the victim’s
sister, who said Pino first presented symptoms
on December 22 but refused to see a doctor.
The outbreak comes at the height of the
tourist season in Cuba, which runs from
December to April, when planeloads of travelers
descend on the island from Canada, Europe and
Latin America.
Nearly three million tourists visited Cuba last
year. Cuba was a Spanish colony when the last
major cholera epidemic swept the island from
1867 to 1882, leaving nearly 6,000 dead, according
to the Medical Sciences Information Center
in the western province of Matanzas.
HEALTH & SCIENCE
Cuban doctors have gained experience treating
the disease in Haiti, which suffered a cholera
epidemic that originated in the Artibonite river
valley near a base for UN peacekeepers from
Nepal.
A 2011 study published by the US Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention found that the
cholera strain was brought to Haiti by the peacekeepers.
The outbreak in Haiti, which had never
had a recorded case of cholera, has since spread
to Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela and
the United States.
The cholera strain found in Haiti-V. cholerae El
Tor 01 — was found to bear a strong relationship
to a cholera strain isolated in Bangladesh. It is
the same strain identified in the Cuban outbreaks.
Cuban scientists have been working in recent
years to develop a vaccine against cholera,
which causes serious diarrhea and vomiting,
leading to dehydration.
It is easily treatable by rehydration and antibiotics,
but the ailment can be fatal if not
addressed quickly enough. — AFP
KUWAIT: Curves is all about strengthening
women, and that also includes strengthening
their budgets with an offer that allows
them to keep more money in their pockets
when they join Curves. Between January
1st 2013 and February 28th 2013, Curves is
cutting 50 percent off the initial service fee
and offering the first 30 days free to help
new members save more and weigh less.
“Good health” is priceless. We are here
to support our neighbors and to help
them on their journey to a healthy lifestyle.
This promotion will allow women in the
Salmiya, Jabriya, Shaab, Discovery, Al-
Bairaq, and Salwa areas to join Curves at a
great price and hopefully motivate them
to get in shape and achieve their goals.
Curves provides an exercise and weight
control program designed specifically for
women. Whether you’re interested in getting
more exercise for health and general
condition, or want to lose weight or tone
your muscles, Curves can help you establish
a regimen to help you meet your goal.
THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013
Cuba battles to contain fresh cholera outbreak
50 sick, one dies in Havana
HAVANA: People wash their hands using disinfectant as a precaution against cholera at the
entrance of a bus station in Havana yesterday. — AP
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SEND US YOUR
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other people see the way you see
Kuwait - through your lens. Friday Times will
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feeds. If you want to share your Instagram photos,
email us at
instagram@kuwaittimes.net
UC College Aluva Alumni
Kuwait - 3rd Annual Day
The UC College Aluva Alumni Kuwaitís 3rd Annual Day
celebrations will be held from 5.30 pm on Friday, the
18th of January 2013 at the Jabriya Indian School,
Kuwait. Prof. Dr. Varghese K. John former Principal of U C
College will inaugurate the event and Prof. Dr. Jyothi Mariam
John former Head of Chemistry Department of UC College will
be felicitated on the occasion along with Professor N.
Geethakumari former Head of Physics Department of UC
College. Melodious songs by Strings of Kuwait, mimics
parade, dances and various talent programmes will be performed
on this day. Dinner and surprise gifts will also be there.
Announcements
Arabic courses
AWARE will begin Winter 1 Arabic language courses
with new textbooks and curricula on from
December 2, 2012 until January 24, 2013. AWARE
Arabic language courses are designed with the expat in
mind. The environment is relaxed & courses are
designed for those wanting to learn Arabic for travel,
cultural understanding, and conducting business or
simply to become more involved in the community. For
more information or registration, please log-on to our
website.
India - Flag
Hoisting Ceremony
On the occasion of the Republic Day of India, a
Flag Hoisting Ceremony will be held at the
Embassy of India premises at 9.00 am on
Saturday, January 26, 2013. This will be followed by the
reading of the message of Honorable President of India
by the Ambassador, singing of patriotic songs, and an
Open House Reception. All Indian nationals in Kuwait
are cordially invited to attend the Ceremony.
Nritta Dhyana
silver jubilee
Nritta Dhyana, a well-known school for Indian
classical dance in Kuwait, will celebrate its silver
jubilee tomorrow January 18 from 5.30 pm
onwards at the Marina Hall, Abbassiya. During the celebration,
Nritta Dhyana students under the guidance of
its creative director Sujatha Rajendran will present a
dazzling show of Indian classical dances. All dance
lovers are welcome.
TASK general body
Technical Staff Association of Kuwait (TASK), Kuwait
conducted 12th Annual General Body meeting at
Hi-Dine Auditorium, Abbassiya. The meeting was
presided over by President P.C. Biju and Patron Mathai
Koshy briefs the activities of the association during his
address. Jailesh P. Domnic, Gen. Secretary presented the
annual report and Treasurer Mr. Achankutty submitted
the annual statement of account.
R. Unnithan and Madhu Menon controlled the election
and selected the following office bearers including
committee members for the year 2013.
Patron - Mathai Koshy; President - P.C. Biju; Gen.
Secretary- Jailesh P. Domnic, Treasurer - Achankutty
Anchal and Gen.Convener - Bovas Mathew and John
Yohannan as Joint Secretary and an executive committee.
TASK gave a grandeur Farewell to Madhu Menon, a
senior member who is leaving to Kerala after completing
his 15 years of expatriate life in Kuwait. Madhu
Menon was very much active in various social and cultural
activities among the Indian community. Mr. P.C.
Biju and Mr. Mathai Koshy gave memento to Madhu
Menon as a symbol of his valuable service to the association
during his tenure. Madhu Menon made felicitation
speech and Achankutty conveyed vote of thanks.
Write to us
Send to What’s On
upcoming events, birthdays or
celebrations by email:
local@kuwaittimes.net
Fax: 24835619 / 20
As part of the daily show “Good
Morning Kuwait”, Kuwait TV hosted
Dr. Hesham Al Awadi,
Associate Professor of Political Science
and History at AUK to talk about
Kuwait’s Future Generations Fund (FGF)
and its role in boosting the governmental
education sector in Kuwait.
The discussion covered several
points including, the increase in the
assets of the Future Generations Fund
(FGF) and the concurrent talks over
WHAT’S ON
AUK’s Dr Al Awadhi discusses
educational development in Kuwait
Time of Your Life’ was the
theme of the Class XII Farewell
‘The
at Carmel School, Kuwait. The
extravagantly attired seniors were
escorted in by the hosts, Class XI as the
Band played the welcome march while
teachers and students in the auditorium
applauded them. The programme
began with a prayer service which
asked God to bless, guard and protect
the students. This was followed by a
powerful Pantomime which depicted
the struggle of youth against the evil
forces in the world and how they can be
overcome if God is on their side. An
amusing skit supported with media
presentations had the audience in
splits. The power point presentation
showcased the activities of the Cabinet
all through their senior years. A variety
entertainment followed comprising of a
Fusion, Contemporary Dance, a Hindi
and Arabic Dance, Jive and a performance
by DManiax all of which enthralled
the audience. Sr. Marialytta then
addressed them and told them about
the importance of hard work, building a
strong foundation and urged them to
work tirelessly for the upcoming board
examination. Every student from class
XIIA, XIIB and XIIC was invited to receive
a memento and a title from Marialytta,
Sr. Serena and Sr. Hazel respectively. The
Grand Finale presented the ever popu-
loans write-off. Dr Al Awadi expressed
his optimism about the rise in educational
funds from 10% to 25% of oil revenues.
This, in his opinion, should
make great contribution to the standard
of education in Kuwait, if wisely
utilized. Such resources should go to
the development of educators and educational
resources rather than infrastructure
investments. “People need to
regain trust in governmental education
in Kuwait”, stressed Dr Al Awadi.
lar Gangam Style merging with memories
of Class XII,much to their delight.
The hosts invited their teachers, Ms.
Capuchina and Ms. Nandita to conduct
the much awaited Master and Miss
Carmel Competition. The contestants
were Amy George, Avneet Anand, Sarah
Abraham and Zainab Lokhandwala. The
boys were Arjun Krishnamoorthy,
Jansen George, Kevin Chacko and Vinay
D’Souza. After two gruelling rounds of
answering questions, both written and
oral, Avneet was declared as Miss
Carmel 2013 and Vinay as Master
Carmel 2013. Amy and Kevin were the
Runners up.
The representatives from all the
three classes then spoke on behalf of
their respective classes and thanked
The Sisters, their teachers from classes
KG through XII, the Office, Support Staff
and all Carmelites for their contribution
in their School life. On behalf of the
staff, Ms. Marita gave a poignant message
bidding Adieu to a much loved
batch of Carmel. School Leaders, Hansel
and Ashel closed the programme with a
word of gratitude and invited them to a
lunch buffet. The programme was a
grand success thanks to the effort of the
Class XI students and their Class teachers.
Carmel School wishes its outgoing
batch of 2012 - 2013 God’s every blessing,
“In His Time”.
The public discussion over loans
write-off, in Al Awadi’s opinion, should
not be seen in separation from the positive
efforts in building the educational
process. “The mentality of exclusion of
opposing views should disappear from
our dialogue”, Al Awadi commented on
the Parliament talks over loans writeoff.
Unless we forget about personal
interests, we will never be able to build
a future for our coming generations” he
concluded.
THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013
Dr Hesham Al Awadi
Seniors have ‘the time of
their life’ at Carmel School
Santhwanam announces
12th anniversary & AGM
Indian socio-voluntary organization,
“Santhwanam Kuwait” announces its 12th
Anniversary-cum-Annual General Body
Meeting on Friday, 18th January, 2013 at
Abbasiya United Indian School Auditorium at
04 pm. Santhwanam has a strength of more
than 2500 likeminded expatriate Indians from
all walks of life, irrespective of region, religion,
cast, creed or class. More than 50 volunteers
from all areas of Kuwait actively involved in its
day to day activities.
Santhwanam provides direct and indirect
help to diseased, distressed, homeless, highly
needy individuals & poor families in India,
particularly in the rural areas of Kerala.During
2012 itself, it has helped more than 750
deserving patients, the office bearers told.
The association was formed in 2001 with a
prime intention of providing financial aid for
medical treatment of poor patients in Kuwait
and India. Over the years, “Santhwanam” has
risen as a source of valuable support to large
number of helpless individuals afflicted by
disease, poverty and calamities in diverse
ways. It’s noble and timely contributions to all
individuals helped them to recover safely and
live more fulfilled lives.
Every year Santhwanam initiate Special
Aid Programs in addition to its regular philanthropic
activities. Inassociation with
DevakiWarrier Foundation in Kerala, it facilitated
free accommodation for Out Patients
waiting for treatment at Regional Cancer
Centre (RCC) & Medical College at
Thiruvananthapuram. The facility everyday
benefits 70 patients and their by-standers
those are coming from various parts of south
India for treatment. Besides, Santhwanam
continued sponsoring 8 heart surgeries at
Heart Care Foundation (HCF)and supported
children at “Special Bud School” for the
Endosulfan affected children at Kasargod
with milk & other nutritious food as a part of
special aid scheme 2012.The program included
financial help to Cancer Patients at
Regional Cancer (RCC), Thiruvananthapuram.
Many kidney patients in Wayanad district
are being benefitted from the free/subsidized
dialysis unit operated by Santhi Medical
Information Centre wherein Santhwanam
donated a dialysis machine to the center as a
part of their special aid program of 2011.

WHAT’S ON
Kuwaiti businesswomen attend
Taiwanese trade forum
The Taiwanese Trade Office in Kuwait
invited Kuwaiti businesswomen to
attend a trade forum in Taipei,
Taiwan, and organized by TAITRA, a compa-
Under the slogan “Be a Distinctive
Journalist,” the organizers of
Sheikh Mubarak Al-Hamad Al-
Sabah Award for Journalistic Excellence
launched their awareness campaign aiming
to establish a new generation of
expert journalists in Kuwait. This year,
universities around Kuwait were among
the most important targets of the campaign.
On Thursday, Dec. 20, 2012, the organizers
visited the American University of
Kuwait (AUK) to meet the students and
present the competition guidelines, conditions
and requirements for eligible participation.
Ayman Al-Ali, Chairman of the Higher
Organizing Committee, conducted the
presentation at the AUK Auditorium. He
started off by introducing the competition
and the motives behind initiating
this contest. Al-Ali spoke of Kuwait’s keen
interest to establish a new generation of
expert journalistic writersin Kuwait.
“The main aim of this competition is to
entice the youth category, that’s why we
are operating in means similar to the
youth, use of technology, where our reg-
ny acting similar to a chamber of commerce
and industry to represent Taiwanese
companies in oil-producing countries. The
three-day event featured various commer-
istration process is possible via the website,
in a way to make it easier for the
youth to participate and attract them
more. We hope to have high youth participation
this year,” said Al-Ali.
The competition this year seeks not
only to attract the Kuwaiti youth, but also
to polish their journalistic skills.
Therefore, the conditions for the Kuwaiti
Youth category come with more privileges
to facilitate the process of their participation.
This includes a lower word
count and the possibility of English submissions,
accompanied by Arabic translation.
Additionally, the submissions should
be related to Kuwait, yet not limited to a
single topic, allowing more space for creativity
and innovation to be part of the
participation.
The deadline for participation in the
competition is scheduled to be the 17th
of January 2013. Participants will be
required to visit Kuwait News Agency
(KUNA) to complete their registration
application and submit their work to Yasir
Al-Saadi, Media Officer.
In order to have a comprehensive
judging approach, the judging panel of
cial activities including a exhibition for
Taiwanese products, a visit to the Taipei
101 Tower and tours across factories specialized
in different manufacturing indus-
the competition will consist of professional
journalists and academics. One of
the announced renowned members of
the judging committee will be Dr. Ahmed
Al-Sharif, Head of Media Department at
Kuwait University.
From their side, the Communication
and Media Department at AUK saw this
competition as a valuable opportunity for
students to participate and increase their
exposure to technical and professional
writing. Therefore, in collaboration with
the Public Affairs Department, the session
was successfully held to encourage
interested students to learn more about
the competition and share their questions.
“I would like to thank the organizers
of the Sheikh Mubarak Al-Sabah Award
for Journalistic Excellence for taking the
time to talk to our students. I hope our
students realize that participating in this
competition will give them an opportunity
to compete with other aspiring writers
and to improve their writing skills,” said
Dr. Mohamed Satti, Chair & Assistant
Professor at Department of
Communication & Media.
The informational session given by Al-
tries. The Kuwaiti delegation consisted of
Ms Nawal Al-Khalid, Dr. Najat Behmen, Ms
Narjis Al-Shatti, Dr haneemah Al-Sharhan
and Ms. Narjis Al-Yousufi.
Ali did not only attract AUK Media students,
but also students from different
majors who were interested to know
more about the competition guidelines,
hoping to submit future contributions.
It is with the support of His Highness
Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak, Prime Minister,
and his aspiration to create many initiatives
to encourage youth participation
and their involvement that this competition
is running for its fifth session. Al-Ali,
therefore, promised of a paradigm shift in
attracting youth and creating more
opportunities in future sessions.
Sheikh Mubarak Al-Hamad Al -Sabah
Award for Journalistic Excellence was
founded five years ago and took the
name of the late, Sheikh Mubarak Al-
Hamad Al-Sabah, with the support and
blessing of the patronage of His Highness
Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak, Prime Minister,
who has spared no effort in the development
of this award, which aims to
encourage excellence journalist and for
the first time the Kuwaiti youth, also create
a spirit of competition to take them to
the ranks of the highest levels of the
global media.
Embassy
Information
EMBASSY OF AUSTRALIA
The Australian Embassy Kuwait does not
have a visa or immigration department.
All processing of visas and immigration
matters in conducted by The Australian
Consulate-General in Dubai. Email: info.ausdxb@vfshelpline.com
(VFS)
immigration.dubai@dfat.gov.au (Visa Office); Tel:
+971 4 355 1958 (VFS) - +971 4 508 7200 (Visa
Office); Fax: +971 4 355 0708 (Visa Office). In
Kuwait applications can be lodged at the
Australian Visa Application Centre 4B 1st Floor,
Al-Banwan Building Al-Qibla Area, Ali Al-Salem
Street, opposite the Central Bank of Kuwait,
Kuwait City, Kuwait. Working hours and days:
09:30 - 17:30; Sunday - Thursday. Or visit their
website www.vfs-au-gcc-com for more information.
Kuwait citizens can apply for tourist visas
on-line at www.immi.gov.au/e visa/e676.htm.
EMBASSY OF CANADA
The Embassyof Canada in Kuwait does
not have a visa or immigration department.
All processing of visa and immigration
matters including enquiries is conducted
by the Canadian Embassy in Abu Dhabi,
U.A.E. Individuals who are interested in working,
studying, visiting or immigrating to
Canada†should contact the Canadian Embassy
in Abu Dhabi, website: www.UAE.gc.ca†or
www.goingtocanada.gc.ca, E-mail: abdbi-imenquiry@international.gc.ca.
The Embassy of
Canada is located at Villa 24, Al-Mutawakei St,
Block 4 in Da’aiyah. Please visit our website at
www.Kuwait.gc.ca. The Embassy of Canada is
open from 07:30 to 15:30 Sunday through
Thursday. The reception is open from 07:30 to
12:30. Consular services for Canadian citizens
are provided from 09:00†until 12:00, Sunday
through Wednesday.
EMBASSY OF KENYA
The Embassy of the Republic of Kenya
wishes to inform the Kenyan community
residents throughout Kuwait and the
general public that the Embassy has acquired
new office telephone numbers as follows:
25353982, 25353985 - Consular’s enquiries
25353987 - Fax Our Email address:
info@kenyaembkuwait.com.
EMBASSY OF MYANMAR
Embassy of the Republic of the Union of
Myanmar would like to inform the general
public that the Embassy has moved
its office to new location at Villa 35, Road 203,
Block 2, Al-Salaam Area in South Surra. The
Embassy wishes to advice Myanmar citizens
and travellers to Myanmar to contact
Myanmar Embassy at its new location. Tel.
25240736, 25240290, Fax: 25240749, email:myankuwait11@gmai1.com.
EMBASSY OF NIGERIA
The Nigerian embassy has its new office in
Mishref. Block 3, Street 7, House 4. For
enquires please call 25379541. Fax-
25387719. Email- nigeriakuwait@yahoo.com
or nigeriankuwait@yahoo.co.uk.
THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013
EMBASSY OF PERU
The Embassy of Peru is located in Sharq,
Ahmed Al Jaber Street, Al Arabiya Tower,
6th Floor. Working days / hours: Sunday-
Thursday /9 am - 4 pm. Residents in Kuwait interested
in getting a visa to travel to Peru and companies
attracted to invest in Peru are invited to
visit the permanent exposition room located in
the Embassy. For more information, please contact:
(+965) 22267250/1.
Seminar on Islamic
Banking & Finance
‘Be a distinctive journalist’ at AUK “The AWARE Center cordially invites you
to its diwaniya presentation entitled,
“Islamic Banking & Finance: An
Introduction to Riba ‘interest or usury’,” (Part One)
by TA. Omar N. AlHussainan on Tuesday January
22nd, 2013 at 7 pm.
This presentation aims at giving you an introduction
to Islamic Banking and Finance from Riba’s
(interest or usury) perspective. In the presentation,
Omar will underline the key principles of Islamic
banking, contrasts between the conventional
banking system and the Islamic banking, define
the variants of Riba and explain the Islamic rational
for the prohibiting ‘Riba.’ Yet, he will describe
riba from the Holy Qur’an, Sunnah (sayings, acts
and approvals of Prophet Mohamamad (PBUH)
and the economical perception.
Omar N. AlHussainan is a certified Islamic
finance analyst and an Islamic banking and
finance academic. He wrote research papers on
“How Islamic is Islamic Banking?”, “Cross-country
comparison of regulation on ownership characteristics
and capital issues” and others within the
Islamic Banking and Finance field. He graduated
from one of the top research universities in the
United Kingdom, Bangor University, Wales.

00:50 Animal Cops Phoenix
01:45 Your Worst Animal
Nightmares
02:35 Untamed & Uncut
03:25 Wildest Arctic
04:15 Great White: The Impossible
Shot
05:05 Zebras On The Move
05:55 Call Of The Wildman
06:20 Cheetah Kingdom
06:45 Wildlife SOS
07:35 Wildlife SOS
08:00 The Really Wild Show
08:25 Breed All About It
08:50 Breed All About It
09:15 Dogs/Cats/Pets 101
10:10 Weird Creatures With Nick
Baker
11:05 Wildest Arctic
12:00 Animal Cops Philadelphia
12:55 Call Of The Wildman
13:20 Wildlife SOS
13:50 Gator Boys
14:45 Animal Precinct
15:40 Wildest Arctic
16:35 Cheetah Kingdom
17:00 The Really Wild Show
17:30 Dogs/Cats/Pets 101
18:25 Bondi Vet
18:50 Rescue Vet
19:20 Extraordinary Dogs
19:45 Extraordinary Dogs
20:15 Monkey Life
00:00 Extreme Makeover: Home
Edition Specials
01:20 Come Dine With Me
02:10 Antiques Roadshow
03:00 House Swap
03:50 Saturday Kitchen 2008/09
04:15 Saturday Kitchen 2008/09
04:45 House Swap
05:30 Come Dine With Me
06:20 Antiques Roadshow
07:15 House Swap
08:00 Rick Stein’s Mediterranean
Escapes
08:50 10 Years Younger
09:40 Bargain Hunt
10:25 Antiques Roadshow
11:15 Extreme Makeover: Home
Edition Specials
12:35 Come Dine With Me
13:25 Rick Stein’s Mediterranean
Escapes
14:15 Vacation Vacation Vacation
14:45 Vacation Vacation Vacation
15:10 Bargain Hunt
15:55 Antiques Roadshow
16:45 Extreme Makeover: Home
Edition Specials
18:05 Britain’s Dream Homes
19:00 Eating In The Sun
20:00 Rhodes Across Italy
00:05 Taz-Mania
00:30 Pink Panther And Pals
00:55 Moomins
01:20 Tom & Jerry Kids
01:45 A Pup Named Scooby-Doo
02:10 Puppy In My Pocket
02:35 Wacky Races
03:00 Looney Tunes
03:25 Duck Dodgers
03:50 Dastardly And Muttley
04:00 Dexter’s Laboratory
04:30 Wacky Races
04:55 Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries
05:20 Tom & Jerry
05:45 The Garfield Show
06:00 Moomins
06:10 Looney Tunes
06:35 Tom & Jerry Tales
07:00 Dexter’s Laboratory
07:30 Baby Looney Tunes
07:55 Jelly Jamm
08:10 Gerald McBoing Boing
08:35 Bananas In Pyjamas
08:50 Ha Ha Hairies
09:05 Tom & Jerry Kids
09:30 A Pup Named Scooby-Doo
09:55 Puppy In My Pocket
10:20 Wacky Races
10:45 Looney Tunes
11:10 Duck Dodgers
11:35 Popeye
12:00 Top Cat
12:25 The Flintstones
12:50 Dastardly And Muttley
13:00 Ha Ha Hairies
13:15 Gerald McBoing Boing
13:40 Jelly Jamm
13:55 Baby Looney Tunes
14:20 Bananas In Pyjamas
14:35 Moomins
14:50 Dexter’s Laboratory
15:20 Johnny Bravo
15:45 Tom & Jerry
16:10 Pink Panther And Pals
16:35 The Garfield Show
17:00 What’s New Scooby-Doo?
17:25 Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries
17:50 Tom & Jerry Tales
18:15 The Looney Tunes Show
18:40 Taz-Mania
19:05 Moomins
19:30 Pink Panther & Pals
19:45 The Garfield Show
20:00 Jelly Jamm
00:40 Chowder
01:30 Bakugan Battle Brawlers
01:55 Bakugan Battle Brawlers
02:20 Foster’s Home For...
02:45 Foster’s Home For...
03:10 Courage The Cowardly Dog
04:00 The Amazing World Of
Gumball
04:25 Ben 10: Ultimate Alien
04:50 Adventure Time
05:15 The Powerpuff Girls
05:40 Generator Rex
06:05 Ben 10
06:30 Ben 10
06:55 Angelo Rules
07:00 Casper’s Scare School
07:30 Casper’s Scare School
08:00 Mucha Lucha
08:25 Johnny Test
08:45 Regular Show
09:05 Total Drama Island
09:30 Total Drama Island
09:55 Ben 10: Omniverse
10:20 Young Justice
10:45 Thundercats
11:10 Adventure Time
12:00 The Amazing World Of
Gumball
12:50 Foster’s Home For...
13:15 Foster’s Home For...
13:40 Courage The Cowardly Dog
14:30 Powerpuff Girls
15:20 Angelo Rules
16:10 Batman: The Brave And The
Bold
16:35 Young Justice
17:00 Ben 10: Omniverse
17:20 Johnny Test
18:00 Level Up
18:25 The Amazing World Of
Gumball
18:50 Adventure Time
19:15 Regular Show
19:40 Mucha Lucha
20:05 Total Drama Island
20:30 Total Drama Island
20:55 Ben 10: Ultimate Alien
21:20 Young Justice
21:45 Bakugan: Mechtanium Surge
22:10 Grim Adventures Of...
23:00 Ben 10: Ultimate Alien
23:25 Ben 10: Ultimate Alien
23:50 The Powerpuff Girls
00:00 Paranormal Cops
00:30 Paranormal Cops
01:00 Snapped: Women Who Kill
02:00 Gangland
03:00 Paranormal Cops
03:30 Paranormal Cops
04:00 Psychic Detectives
04:30 Psychic Detectives
05:00 Snapped: Women Who Kill
06:00 Gangland
07:00 The First 48: Missing Persons
08:00 The FBI Files
09:00 Psychic Detectives
09:30 Psychic Detectives
10:00 Crime Stories
11:00 Beyond Scared Straight
12:00 Psychic Detectives
THE MORGUE ON OSN ACTION HD
12:30 Psychic Detectives
13:00 Crimes That Shook Britain
14:00 Snapped: Women Who Kill
15:00 The First 48: Missing Persons
16:00 The FBI Files
17:00 Psychic Detectives
17:30 Psychic Detectives
18:00 Crime Stories
19:00 Beyond Scared Straight
20:00 The First 48: Missing Persons
00:15 Magic Of Science
00:40 Time Warp
01:10 Mythbusters
02:05 Mythbusters
03:00 Mythbusters
03:55 Border Security
04:20 Auction Kings
04:50 Auction Kings
05:15 How Stuff Works
05:40 How It’s Made
06:05 Sons Of Guns
07:00 Mythbusters
07:50 Discovery Saved My Life
08:45 Gold Divers
09:40 Border Security
10:05 Auction Kings
10:30 Auction Kings
10:55 How Stuff Works
11:25 How It’s Made
11:50 Magic Of Science
12:20 Time Warp
12:45 Mythbusters
13:40 Mythbusters
14:35 Border Security
15:05 Auction Kings
15:30 Auction Kings
16:00 Airplane Repo
16:55 Gold Divers
17:50 Mythbusters
18:45 Sons Of Guns
19:40 How Stuff Works
20:05 How It’s Made
20:35 Auction Kings
21:00 Auction Kings
21:30 Sons Of Guns
22:25 Ross Kemp On Gangs
23:20 Outlaw Empires
00:40 Risk Takers
01:30 Mythbusters
02:15 Street Customs
03:05 Cafe Racer
03:30 Cafe Racer
03:50 American Chopper
04:40 Sci-Trek
05:30 1,000 Places To See Before You
Die
06:20 Chasing Classic Cars
06:45 Chasing Classic Cars
07:10 Risk Takers
08:00 Sunrise Earth
08:55 Cafe Racer
09:20 Cafe Racer
09:40 American Chopper
10:30 Sci-Trek
11:15 Risk Takers
12:05 How It’s Made
12:30 Street Customs
13:15 Cafe Racer
13:40 Cafe Racer
14:05 American Chopper
14:50 1,000 Places To See Before You
Die
15:35 Chasing Classic Cars
16:00 Chasing Classic Cars
16:25 Mythbusters
17:10 Sci-Trek
18:00 Man, Woman, Wild
18:50 Atlas 4d
19:40 Ultimate Journeys
20:30 Chasing Classic Cars
20:55 Chasing Classic Cars
21:20 Risk Takers
22:10 Sci-Trek
23:00 Man, Woman, Wild
23:50 Atlas 4d
00:00 Dirty Soap
00:55 Style Star
01:25 20 Acts Of Love Gone Wrong
03:15 Behind The Scenes
03:40 Extreme Close-Up
04:10 THS
TV PROGRAMS
05:05 E!es
06:00 15 Remarkable Celebrity Body
Bouncebacks
07:50 Behind The Scenes
08:20 E! News
09:15 Ice Loves Coco
09:45 Ice Loves Coco
10:15 THS
12:05 E! News
13:05 Opening Act
14:05 Kourtney & Kim Take New
York
14:30 Kourtney & Kim Take New
York
15:00 Style Star
15:30 THS
16:30 Behind The Scenes
17:00 A-List Listings
17:30 A-List Listings
18:00 E! News
19:00 THS
20:00 Giuliana & Bill
21:00 Married To Jonas
21:30 Fashion Police
22:30 E! News
23:30 Chelsea Lately
00:15 Have Cake, Will Travel
00:40 Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives
01:05 Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives
01:30 Heat Seekers
01:55 Charly’s Cake Angels
02:20 Charly’s Cake Angels
02:45 Unique Sweets
03:10 Unique Sweets
03:35 Have Cake, Will Travel
04:00 Have Cake, Will Travel
04:20 Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives
04:50 United Tastes Of America
05:15 Unique Eats
05:40 Chopped
06:30 Iron Chef America
07:10 Unwrapped
07:35 Unwrapped
08:00 Iron Chef America
08:50 Kid In A Candy Store
09:15 Unwrapped
09:40 United Tastes Of America
10:05 Barefoot Contessa
10:30 Barefoot Contessa
10:55 Cooking For Real
11:20 Hungry Girl
11:45 Healthy Appetite With Ellie
Krieger
12:10 United Tastes Of America
12:35 Unwrapped
13:00 Iron Chef America
13:50 Tyler’s Ultimate
14:15 Andy Bates American Street
Feasts
14:40 Everyday Italian
15:05 Healthy Appetite With Ellie
Krieger
15:30 Healthy Appetite With Ellie
Krieger
15:55 Hungry Girl
16:20 United Tastes Of America
16:45 Chopped
17:35 Barefoot Contessa
18:00 Barefoot Contessa
18:25 Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives
18:50 Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives
19:15 Andy Bates American Street
Feasts
19:40 Tyler’s Ultimate
20:05 Guy’s Big Bite
20:30 Chopped
21:20 The Next Iron Chef
22:10 Unwrapped
22:35 Unwrapped
23:00 Crave
23:25 Crave
23:50 Unique Eats
00:40 Disappeared
01:30 Dr G: Medical Examiner
02:20 The Haunted
03:05 American Greed
03:55 I Almost Got Away With It
04:45 Disappeared
05:30 Dr G: Medical Examiner
06:20 The Haunted
07:10 FBI Case Files
08:00 Mystery Diagnosis
08:50 Street Patrol
09:15 Street Patrol
09:40 Real Emergency Calls
10:05 Who On Earth Did I Marry?
10:30 On The Case With Paula Zahn
11:20 FBI Case Files
12:10 Disappeared
13:00 Mystery Diagnosis
13:50 Street Patrol
14:15 Street Patrol
14:40 Forensic Detectives
15:30 On The Case With Paula Zahn
16:20 Real Emergency Calls
16:45 Who On Earth Did I Marry?
17:10 FBI Case Files
18:00 Disappeared
18:50 Forensic Detectives
19:40 Mall Cops – Mall Of America
20:05 On The Case With Paula Zahn
20:55 Who On Earth Did I Marry?
21:20 Nightmare Next Door
22:10 Couples Who Kill
23:00 Kidnap And Rescue
23:50 I Faked My Own Death
01:15 Welcome To Woop Woop
02:49 The Lost Brigade
04:09 To Kill For
05:40 Shock To The System
07:10 I’ve Been Waiting For You
08:35 Solarbabies
10:06 Hunter: Back In Force
11:30 Mgm’s Big Screen
11:45 Charge Of The Light Brigade
13:50 Danielle Steel’s Once In A
Lifetime
15:20 Frankie And Johnny
16:45 While Justice Sleeps
18:15 The Unforgiven
20:20 Masquerade
22:00 The Falling
23:30 Blacula
00:15 David Rocco’s Amalfi Getaway
00:45 Amish: Out of Order
01:40 Meet The Natives: USA
02:35 Bondi Rescue
03:00 Bondi Rescue
03:30 Bondi Rescue
03:55 Bondi Rescue
04:25 Ultimate Traveller
05:20 Nomads
06:15 Food School
06:40 Food Lover’s Guide To The
Planet
07:10 David Rocco’s Amalfi Getaway
07:35 David Rocco’s Amalfi Getaway
08:05 Amish: Out of Order
09:00 Meet The Natives: USA
09:55 Bondi Rescue
11:45 Ultimate Traveller
12:40 Nomads
13:35 Food School
14:00 Food Lover’s Guide To The
Planet
14:30 David Rocco’s Amalfi Getaway
15:25 Amish: Out of Order
16:20 Meet The Natives: USA
17:15 Bondi Rescue
19:05 Ultimate Traveller
20:00 David Rocco’s Amalfi Getaway
21:00 Food School
21:30 Food Lover’s Guide To The
Planet
22:00 Nomads
22:55 Food School
23:20 Food Lover’s Guide To The
Planet
23:50 Street Food Around The World
00:00 Megacities
01:00 Light At The Edge of The
World
02:00 Nordic Wild
03:00 Bite Me With Dr. Mike Leahy
04:00 Situation Critical
05:00 Hunter Hunted
06:00 Bite Me With Dr. Mike Leahy
07:00 Dangerous Encounters With
Brady Barr
08:00 Megacities
09:00 Light At The Edge of The
World
10:00 Nordic Wild
11:00 Bite Me With Dr. Mike Leahy
12:00 Situation Critical
13:00 Hunter Hunted
14:00 Bite Me With Dr. Mike Leahy
15:00 Dangerous Encounters With
Brady Barr
16:00 Megacities
17:00 Light At The Edge of The
World
18:00 Nordic Wild
19:00 Cruise Ship Diaries
20:00 Lockdown
21:00 Hunter Hunted
22:00 Cruise Ship Diaries
23:00 Dangerous Encounters With
Brady Barr
00:00 Wild Case Files
01:00 World’s Deadliest
01:55 Wild India (aka Secrets of Wild
India)
02:50 The Incredible Dr. Pol
03:45 Planet Carnivore
04:40 Swamp Men
05:35 Hidden Worlds
06:00 Hidden Worlds
06:30 Wild India (aka Secrets of Wild
India)
07:25 The Incredible Dr. Pol
08:20 Planet Carnivore
09:15 Ultimate Animal Countdown
10:10 In The Womb
11:05 Hunter Hunted
12:00 Anaconda: Queen Of The
Serpent
13:00 Cuba: The Accidental Eden
14:00 The Incredible Dr. Pol
15:00 Planet Carnivore
16:00 Ultimate Animal Countdown
17:00 Animal Autopsy (AKA Inside
Nature’s Giants)
18:00 Ultimate Predators GPU
19:00 Monster Fish
20:00 The Incredible Dr. Pol
21:00 Planet Carnivore
22:00 Ultimate Animal Countdown
23:00 In The Womb
00:15 The Morgue-18
02:00 Deadtime Stories 2-18
04:00 Wild Bill-PG15
06:00 Season Of The Witch-PG15
08:00 The Presence-PG15
10:00 Boiler Room-PG15
12:00 Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle
14:00 The Presence-PG15
16:00 Biker Boyz-PG15
18:00 Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle
20:00 Alien Resurrection-18
22:00 Road To Perdition-18
01:00 Riddles Of The Sphinx-PG15
03:00 The Deep End Of The Ocean-
PG15
05:00 Game Of Death-PG15
07:00 Eva-PG15
09:00 Riddles Of The Sphinx-PG15
11:00 John Carter-PG15
13:15 The National Tree-PG15
15:00 Certain Prey-PG15
17:00 Elevator Girl-PG15
19:00 The Artist-PG
21:00 Young Adult-PG15
23:00 Killer Elite-18
00:30 The Daily Show With Jon
Stewart
01:00 The Colbert Report
01:30 Community
02:00 The Big C
02:30 The Ricky Gervais Show
03:00 New Girl
03:30 The Simpsons
04:00 Brothers
04:30 The Tonight Show With Jay
Leno
05:30 Til Death
06:00 Samantha Who?
06:30 Seinfeld
07:00 Late Night With Jimmy Fallon
08:00 Brothers
08:30 New Girl
09:00 Til Death
09:30 Samantha Who?
10:00 Melissa & Joey
11:00 The Tonight Show With Jay
Leno
12:00 Seinfeld
12:30 Brothers
13:00 Til Death
13:30 Samantha Who?
14:00 The Simpsons
15:00 Melissa & Joey
15:30 The Daily Show With Jon
Stewart
16:00 The Colbert Report
16:30 Seinfeld
17:00 Late Night With Jimmy Fallon
18:00 New Girl
18:30 2 Broke Girls
19:00 How I Met Your Mother
20:00 The Tonight Show With Jay
Leno
21:00 The Daily Show With Jon
Stewart
21:30 The Colbert Report
22:00 Community
22:30 The Big C
23:00 The Ricky Gervais Show
23:30 Late Night With Jimmy Fallon
00:00 Warehouse 13
01:00 Awake
03:00 The Finder
04:00 Breaking Bad
05:00 Good Morning America
07:00 Royal Pains
08:00 Emmerdale
08:30 Coronation Street
09:00 The Ellen DeGeneres Show
10:00 House
11:00 Royal Pains
12:00 Warehouse 13
13:00 The Finder
14:00 House
15:00 Live Good Morning America
17:00 The Ellen DeGeneres Show
18:00 Emmerdale
18:30 Coronation Street
19:00 Drop Dead Diva
20:00 American Idol
23:00 Boardwalk Empire
00:00 Grimm
03:00 Six Feet Under
07:00 Emmerdale
07:30 Coronation Street
12:00 Emmerdale
12:30 Coronation Street
15:00 Parenthood
16:00 Emmerdale
16:30 Coronation Street
18:00 C.S.I.
19:00 Drop Dead Diva
23:00 Six Feet Under
02:00 The Waterboy-PG15
04:00 Desperately Seeking Santa-
PG15
06:00 The Marc Pease Experience-
PG15
08:00 Elf-PG
10:00 Beware The Gonzo-PG15
12:00 Desperately Seeking Santa-
PG15
14:00 A Cinderella Story: Once Upon
A Song-PG
16:00 Beware The Gonzo-PG15
18:00 12 Dates Of Christmas-PG15
20:00 Old School-18
22:00 The Life Aquatic With Steve
Zissou-PG15
01:15 Woodstock-18
05:00 Would Be Kings-PG15
06:45 The Insider-PG15
09:30 Pina-PG15
11:15 The Nanny Express-PG15
13:00 Miles From Nowhere-PG
15:00 Pina-PG15
17:00 The Eagle-PG15
19:00 Yelling To The Sky-PG15
21:00 Resolution 819-PG15
23:00 Munich-18
01:00 Never Let Me Go-PG15
03:00 Hop-PG
04:45 Courageous-PG15
07:00 Restless-PG15
09:00 Alabama Moon-PG15
11:00 Real Steel-PG15
13:15 Ghost Machine-PG15
15:00 Kung Fu Panda 2-PG
17:00 Alabama Moon-PG15
18:45 Mission: Impossible - Ghost
Protocol-PG15
21:00 Young Adult-PG15
23:00 Horrible Bosses-18
01:00 Cars 2-FAM
02:45 Free Birds-FAM
04:30 A Fairy Tale Christmas-FAM
06:00 Little Secrets-PG
08:00 The Nimbols: Part I-FAM
HORRIBLE BOSSES ON OSN MOVIES HD
10:00 Ploddy Police Car-FAM
11:30 Marley & Me: The Puppy
Years-PG
13:00 The Happy Cricket-FAM
14:30 Little Secrets-PG
16:15 The Adventures Of Tintin-PG
18:00 Ploddy Police Car-FAM
20:00 The Hairy Tooth Fairy 2-PG
22:00 The Happy Cricket-FAM
23:30 The Adventures Of Tintin-PG
00:00 The Edge Of Love-PG15
02:00 Spud-PG15
04:00 Fat Albert-PG
06:00 Take Shelter-PG15
08:00 Spy Kids: All The Time In The
World-PG
10:00 Josie And The Pussycats-PG15
12:00 A Better Life-PG15
14:00 Glee: The Concert Movie-
PG15
16:00 Spy Kids: All The Time In The
World-PG
17:45 X-Men: First Class-PG15
20:00 The Ides Of March-PG15
22:00 The Romantics-PG15
02:00 Cricket Twenty20
05:00 European Tour Weekly
05:30 Inside The PGA Tour
06:00 Trans World Sport
07:00 Snooker Masters
11:00 Futbol Mundial
11:30 European Tour Weekly
12:00 Live European PGA Tour
16:00 Trans World Sports
17:00 Futbol Mundial
17:30 Live Dubai World Cup Carnival
22:00 Live Snooker Masters
00:30 Trans World Sport
01:30 PGA European Tour Weekly
02:00 Inside the PGA
02:30 Snooker Masters
06:30 Triathlon UK
07:00 Cricket T20
10:00 Trans World Sport
11:00 Triathlon UK
11:30 Snooker Masters
15:30 Cricket T20
18:30 NFL Gameday
19:00 UFC The Ultimate Fighter
20:00 UFC The Ultimate Fighter
21:00 UFC The Ultimate Fighter
22:00 UFC The Ultimate Fighter
22:45 Live European Challenge Cup
00:00 World Cup of Pool
01:00 Golfing World
02:00 PDC World Darts
Championship
03:00 Dubai World Cup Carnival
05:00 Trans World Sport
06:00 Extreme Sailing
06:30 Extreme Sailing
07:00 Golfing World
08:00 PGA Tour Highlights
09:00 World Pool Masters
10:00 World Cup of Pool
11:00 Rugby Union European
Challenge Cup
13:00 Golfing World
14:00 Trans World Sport
15:00 World Cup of Pool
16:00 Live Snooker Masters
20:00 PGA European Tour
00:00 UFC The Ultimate Fighter The
Smashes
01:00 V8 Supercars Highlights
03:00 UFC Unleashed
04:00 UFC Unleashed
05:00 NHL
07:00 WWE SmackDown
09:00 V8 Supercars Highlights
10:00 V8 Supercars Highlights
11:00 NHL
13:00 WWE Vintage Collection
14:00 WWE Bottom Line
15:00 Prizefighter
18:00 WWE NXT
19:00 UFC The Ultimate Fighter The
Smashes
20:00 UFC Unleashed
21:00 UFC
23:00 WWE NXT
THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013
00:15 Randy Jones’ Strike Zone
01:30 Speargun Hunter
02:45 Penn’s Big Water Adventure
04:00 Tarpon Of Boca
05:15 Speargun Hunter
06:30 Randy Jones’ Strike Zone
08:00 Roll With It
09:15 Randy Jones’ Strike Zone
10:30 Roll With It
11:45 Fall Flight
13:00 Wingshooting The World
14:15 Ducks Unlimited
15:30 Fall Flight
16:45 Wingshooting The World
18:00 Ducks Unlimited
19:15 Fall Flight
20:30 Wingshooting The World
21:45 Ducks Unlimited
23:00 Roll With It
00:55 Cat On A Hot Tin Roof
02:40 Kelly’s Heroes-PG
05:00 Live A Little, Love A Little-PG
06:30 Bad Day At Black Rock-PG
08:00 Live A Little, Love A Little-PG
09:30 Kelly’s Heroes-PG
11:50 Live A Little, Love A Little-PG
13:20 Bad Day At Black Rock-PG
14:45 Torpedo Run-FAM
16:20 Key Largo-PG
18:00 Ice Station Zebra-FAM
20:25 Where Eagles Dare-PG
23:00 Pink Floyd - The Wall
00:00 Storage Wars
00:30 Storage Wars
01:00 Pawn Stars
01:30 Storage Wars
02:00 Ancient Aliens
03:00 Swamp People
04:00 Storage Wars
04:30 Storage Wars
05:00 Mud Men
06:00 Pawn Stars
06:30 American Restoration
07:00 Ancient Aliens
08:00 Pawn Stars
08:30 Storage Wars
09:00 Mud Men
10:00 Pawn Stars
10:30 American Restoration
11:00 Pawn Stars
11:30 Storage Wars
12:00 Ancient Aliens
13:00 Swamp People
14:00 Storage Wars
14:30 Storage Wars
15:00 Pawn Stars
15:30 American Restoration
16:00 Mud Men
17:00 Swamp People
18:00 Storage Wars
18:30 Storage Wars
19:00 Pawn Stars
19:30 American Restoration
20:00 Mud Men
21:00 Pawn Stars
21:30 Storage Wars
22:00 Ancient Aliens
23:00 American Restoration
00:05 Fashion Police
01:00 Chicagolicious
02:00 Videofashion News
02:25 Videofashion Collections
02:55 Big Rich Texas
03:50 Big Boutique In The City
04:20 Jerseylicious
05:15 Glam Fairy
06:10 Chicagolicious
07:05 The Amandas
08:00 Videofashion News
08:30 Videofashion News
09:00 Videofashion Daily
10:00 Open House
10:30 Big Boutique In The City
11:00 Top 10
11:25 Top 10
11:55 Giuliana & Bill
12:55 Tia And Tamera
13:50 Videofashion News
14:20 Videofashion Collections
14:50 Dress My Nest
15:15 Dress My Nest

CROSSWORD 72
ACROSS
1. Electronic warfare undertaken to prevent or
reduce an enemy's effective use of the electromagnetic
spectrum.
4. A tumor composed of immature undifferentiated
cells.
12. Not reflecting light.
15. A flat wing-shaped process or winglike part
of an organism.
16. A genus of Cricetidae.
17. Title for a civil or military leader (especially in
Turkey).
18. Italian painter and art historian (1511-1574).
20. Large mostly Old World wading birds typically
having white-and-black plumage.
21. The federal agency that insures residential
mortgages.
22. (Old Testament) The eldest son of Isaac who
would have inherited the Covenant that God
made with Abraham and that Abraham passed
on to Isaac.
23. A city in Tuscany.
25. A city in central southwestern Iran.
27. A Christian Bishop who translated the Bible
from Greek into Gothic (311-382).
30. Type genus of the Amiidae.
32. An alloy of mercury with another metal (usually
silver) used by dentists to fill cavities in teeth.
36. An awkward stupid person.
39. Any of a group of heavenly spirits under the
god Anu.
42. Small depression under the shoulder joint
where the arm joins the shoulder.
43. A burn cause by hot liquid or steam.
44. English theoretical physicist who applied relativity
theory to quantum mechanics and predicted
the existence of antimatter and the
positron (1902-1984).
46. The compass point that is one point north of
due east.
47. (prefix) Opposite or opposing or neutralizing.
48. An international organization of European
countries formed after World War II to reduce
trade barriers and increase cooperation among
its members.
49. The longer of the two telegraphic signals
used in Morse code.
50. To fix or set securely or deeply.
52. The financial means whereby one lives.
54. A Kwa language spoken in Ghana and the
Ivory Coast.
56. The United Nations agency concerned with
atomic energy.
57. (of eggs) No longer edible.
60. Humorously vulgar.
62. (in Gnosticism) A divine power or nature
emanating from the Supreme Being and playing
various roles in the operation of the universe.
64. The Mongol people living the the central and
eastern parts of Outer Mongolia.
68. An organization of countries formed in 1961
to agree on a common policy for the sale of
petroleum.
71. A vast multitude.
75. A branch of the Tai languages.
76. Small New Zealand broadleaf evergreen tree
often cultivated in warm regions as an ornamental.
78. Beads threaded on a string.
80. A master's degree in business.
81. The state of being decayed or destroyed.
82. Especially a long, formal letter.
84. Tag the base runner to get him out.
85. Type genus of the Alcidae comprising solely
the razorbill.
86. Chinese evergreen conifer discovered in
1955.
87. A loose sleeveless outer garment made from
aba cloth.
DOWN
1. The overhang at the lower edge of a roof.
2. A loud resonant repeating noise.
3. A Nilotic language.
4. The rate at which heat is produced by an individual
in a resting state.
5. A city in southeastern Germany famous for
fairs.
6. A colorless and odorless inert gas.
7. East Indian tree whose leaves are used for fodder.
8. Constituting the full quantity or extent.
9. United States musician (born in Japan) who
married John Lennon and collaborated with him
on recordings (born in 1933).
10. An iron-clad vessel built by the Confederate
forces in the hope of breaking the blockade
imposed by the North.
11. Inquire about.
12. A Chadic language spoken south of Lake
Chad.
13. Title for a civil or military leader (especially in
Turkey).
14. An official language of the Republic of South
Africa.
19. A sensation (as of a cold breeze or bright
light) that precedes the onset of certain disorders
such as a migraine attack or epileptic
seizure.
24. An island in Indonesia east of Java.
26. Any organic compound containing the group
-CONH2.
28. The syllable naming the fourth (subdominant)
note of the diatonic scale in solmization.
29. Lacking in rigor or strictness.
31. A resource.
33. Fleshy spore-bearing inner mass of e.g. a
puffball or stinkhorn.
34. American dramatist (1928- ).
35. A Dravidian language spoken in south central
India.
37. (of complexion) Blemished by imperfections
of the skin.
38. (usually followed by `to') Determined by tragic
fate.
40. A Chadic language spoken south of Lake
Chad.
41. Of or relating to Iraq or its people or culture.
45. According to the Old Testament he was a
pagan king of Israel and husband of Jezebel (9th
century BC).
51. (Greek legend) The greedy king of Phrygia
who Dionysus gave the power to turn everything
he touched into gold.
53. Windowpane oysters.
55. In an exposed manner.
58. The branch of engineering science that studies
the uses of electricity and the equipment for
power generation and distribution and the control
of machines and communication.
59. An uproarious party.
61. A gonadotropic hormone that is secreted by
the anterior pituitary.
63. A state in New England.
65. A genus of Lamnidae.
66. Cubes of meat marinated and cooked on a
skewer usually with vegetables.
67. Jordan's port.
69. United States feminist (1885-1977).
70. Surpassing the ordinary especially in size or
scale.
72. A notice of someone's death.
73. The 20th letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
74. A collection of facts from which conclusions
may be drawn.
77. A former agency (from 1946 to 1974) that
was responsible for research into atomic energy
and its peacetime uses in the United States.
79. Relating to or characteristic of or occurring
on the sea or ships.
83. An informal term for a father.
Yesterday’s Solution
34 stars
STAR TRACK
Aries (March 21-April 19)
ARIES
You are ready to understand what comes next in your life and you
seem eager to get down to business. Your immediate superior is easy to
work for and you may work closely with this person today. Here are real opportunities to
complete and work out difficulties and projects that require both long-term effort and a
high degree of discipline. You and your friends will be able to visit and enjoy activities
together this afternoon. There is a talk of jobs, family, children, homes and health. You will
probably agree to exercise together and at least a few will follow through with this. You
will want to be in good shape mentally and physically for this evening’s activity with
young people. These little guys need your encouragement and influence.
Taurus (April 20-May 20)
Some people just need a boost in the right direction and that may be
the case today with a friend or co-worker. Be aware of opportunities to encourage and
uplift someone that may have had a rough time lately. Lunch with a co-worker may have
you talking over past trips or vacations that you have each enjoyed. There is a feeling of
support and camaraderie that you did not know could exist in the workplace. This is a
great time to be with others and to work together. You may be sought after as just the
person for a particular job this afternoon. Your management abilities and objective
strategies are in demand. There is a boost in your home life this evening—everyone is in
a positive mood. Dive into your creative endeavors tonight.
Gemini (May 21-June 20)
You may not be in charge of activities today, but you are required to
give your input. Whatever is asked of you gets your full attention. This is a
lucky day for you to receive money—expected or not. Perhaps you have won a football
pool and the money is just now forthcoming. A group meeting this afternoon is productive.
There are excellent ideas to be shared and inspiration is easy to find. Everyone seems
genuinely interested in accomplishing a goal as a group and not as a competition. This
may mean you represent a customer that needs intervention or a project that demands
the talent of the whole group. If you are in a music group, you may enjoy the results from
a choir practice or a bell choir rehearsal this evening.
Cancer (June 21-July 22)
The clarity with which you speak will aid you in an important meeting
today. Your mind is quick and sharp and you have insight into how to outline
important issues about which you have strong feelings. Gathering information for a
presentation is a stimulating part of your day. The climb to reach your goal is almost as
exciting as the achievement of your goal. Someone may oppose your ideas but you have
great insight, particularly if you have done your research. This is a mentally and socially
active period for you. The secret ingredient is research. A friend may seek you out for psychological
advice today. Through listening and giving advice to others, you gain insights
into some answers for yourself. You enjoy quiet activities this evening.
Leo (July 23-August 22)
Your speed slows today as you contact with people that may want to
unknowingly interrupt or slow your progress. Slowing down is okay—you may not
be able to avoid the interruptions. Your intuition will come into play today. You can rely
on it to steer you in the right direction. Your imagination will see you through any problems.
Superiors watch the confident way you handle yourself. Your ideas could be challenged
but do not give up—you are on the right path. It may be that the timing is just
not quite right for now. Through helping a young person this afternoon, you may come
up with new ideas that will benefit your own life as well. Believe in yourself so that others
will believe in you too. You may spend some time this evening with a friend.
Virgo (August 23-September 22)
This could be a time for real breakthroughs in the idea department.
You are in top form when it comes to mental activity now. This, however, may not be the
time to try new things or make a push to break away from the old routine. This is a great
time to reflect and understand your own situation, just how you feel about yourself. A
problem concerning a friend may come to your attention this afternoon. You feel deeply
and passionately and when you are asked for advice you give others your full attention.
Learn to make positive movements toward your own peace of mind—you do this for
others, why not yourself? You are full of good ideas today. Later—laughter, as well as
music, is good for the soul. A love relationship benefits from your affection.
Word Search
Daily SuDoku
Libra (September 23-October 22)
THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013
Listening is the key word today. The ability to clearly communicate may
not be necessary just now. Some people can make our lives quite stressful
if we allow it. You could be the third person in an argument and become too involved to
be helpful—observe. Know that this situation will pass and you will then wonder what
happen to cause the problem. Gathering information and working with others may be an
important factor in your job duties for the next few weeks. You have some excellent ideas;
do not be afraid to express them. A little progressive thinking when expressing yourself
will develop into some fascinating ideas. Work, achievement and ambition, as well as a
few sweet words from your beloved, are just what motivates you.
Scorpio (October 23-November 21)
You may only have one project in the works for now but soon there will
be more than you can handle. You seem to know that the work is about to
increase. You go about your day helping others that have not figured out some new technical
matter most of this day. Authority figures are pleased at your cooperation and ingenuity.
In the afternoon, at home, you may find yourself running errands and helping family
members with homework, correspondence, bills, etc. You might consider a trip to the
country soon or some fun entertainment that would help you and your family have some
real family time together. Find the time to have a side interest such as: a second job, volunteer
work, charity, etc. Use your creativeness! You can relax this evening.
Sagittarius (November 22-December 21)
You are inventive, original and involved with high tech matters today.
Money will come to you through other people or through your loved one’s
investments. Earnings are strong and new opportunities come through your contacts
with a variety of people. There are some new ideas and new plans into what you want to
do with your investments. You may want to work toward setting up some plans to help a
particular family or group—perhaps a college fund. You see yourself in a better light than
from the past and with this new awareness come the desire to help others.
Breakthroughs in compassion and fellowship are obvious today. Everything points to
your taking the initiative. You could feel great support from those around you.
Capricorn (December 22-January 19)
Sympathy and understanding are important qualities that take on
greater meaning. It’s wisdom, not knowledge, that counts the most today.
Coming to understand how you got where you are may give you an attitude of appreciation.
Remember that your goals are within your reach so that you do not become distracted
with your competitive desires. You crave organization and practicality and you
want to get things accomplished. You aim to have a place for everything and this
includes the home place as well as the workplace. Others know just what to expect when
they communicate or work with you. You can expect a little boost, some extra support
from those around you. Your confidence is strong as you guide young people tonight.
Aquarius (January 20- February 18)
You have an assistant or helper at work that will go the extra mile
for you. Ask plenty of questions in order to understand a new project
and seek this helper if there are remaining questions. You may be encouraged to
expand your thinking with regard to education. Perhaps it is time to teach or take a
class just to test the waters—you can do it! During the noon break, make sure that
you find a positive atmosphere in which to enjoy your meal. Stay away from tense
discussions at the table. Vary your menu as the same thing can become dull and will
cause you to eat too fast. There may be unexpected surprises later today. Your
romantic appeal is strong today; if you are looking, you could find that for which you
are looking.
Pisces (February 19-March 20)
Obtaining and exchanging information takes on more emotional significance
for you now. You will begin to find yourself digging for answers
today that you never really knew you cared about before. There are new and exciting
challenges ahead. Avoid, however, mental power struggles with others—allow events to
unfold. A friend will teach you a new skill—perhaps turning it into a hobby. Involve yourself
with a volunteer program. This will give you insight into other ways of life and different
levels of acceptance. You will become more involved with neighbors or siblings this
afternoon. You could help with plans for a wedding or a shower soon. Listening and communicating
feelings become more important now. This is one of your best days for love.
Yesterday’s Solution
Yesterday’s Solution

For labor-related inquiries
and complaints:
Call MSAL hotline 128
Sabah Hospital 24812000
Amiri Hospital 22450005
Maternity Hospital 24843100
Mubarak Al-Kabir Hospital 25312700
Chest Hospital 24849400
Farwaniya Hospital 24892010
Adan Hospital 23940620
Ibn Sina Hospital 24840300
Al-Razi Hospital 24846000
Physiotherapy Hospital 24874330/9
Kaizen center 25716707
Rawda 22517733
Adaliya 22517144
Khaldiya 24848075
Kaifan 24849807
Shamiya 24848913
Shuwaikh 24814507
Abdullah Salem 22549134
Nuzha 22526804
Industrial Shuwaikh 24814764
Qadsiya 22515088
Dasmah 22532265
Bneid Al-Gar 22531908
Shaab 22518752
Qibla 22459381
Ayoun Al-Qibla 22451082
Mirqab 22456536
Sharq 22465401
Salmiya 25746401
Jabriya 25316254
Maidan Hawally 25623444
Bayan 25388462
Mishref 25381200
W Hawally 22630786
Sabah 24810221
Jahra 24770319
New Jahra 24575755
West Jahra 24772608
South Jahra 24775066
North Jahra 24775992
North Jleeb 24311795
Ardhiya 24884079
Firdous 24892674
Omariya 24719048
N Khaitan 24710044
Fintas 23900322
Ophthalmologists
Dr. Abidallah Al-Mansoor 25622444
Dr. Samy Al-Rabeea 25752222
Dr. Masoma Habeeb 25321171
Dr. Mubarak Al-Ajmy 25739999
Dr. Mohsen Abel 25757700
Dr Adnan Hasan Alwayl 25732223
Dr. Abdallah Al-Baghly 25732223
Ear, Nose & Throat (ENT)
Dr. Ahmed Fouad Mouner 24555050 Ext 510
Dr. Abdallah Al-Ali 25644660
Dr. Abd Al-Hameed Al-Taweel 25646478
Dr. Sanad Al-Fathalah 25311996
Dr. Mohammad Al-Daaory 25731988
Dr. Ismail Al-Fodary 22620166
Dr. Mahmoud Al-Booz 25651426
General Practitioners
Dr. Mohamme Y Majidi 24555050 Ext 123
Dr. Yousef Al-Omar 24719312
Dr. Tarek Al-Mikhazeem 23926920
Dr. Kathem Maarafi 25730465
Dr. Abdallah Ahmad Eyadah 25655528
Dr. Nabeel Al-Ayoobi 24577781
Dr. Dina Abidallah Al-Refae 25333501
Urologists
Dr. Ali Naser Al-Serfy 22641534
Dr. Fawzi Taher Abul 22639955
Dr. Khaleel Abidallah Al-Awadi 22616660
Dr. Adel Al-Hunayan FRCS (C) 25313120
Dr. Leons Joseph 66703427
Psychologists
/Psychotherapists
Soor Center
Tel: 2290-1677
Fax: 2290 1688
information
GOVERNORATE PHARMACY ADDRESS PHONE
Ahmadi Sama Safwan Fahaeel Makka St 23915883
Abu Halaifa Abu Halaifa-Coastal Rd 23715414
Danat Al-Sultan Mahboula Block 1, Coastal Rd 23726558
Jahra Modern Jahra Jahra-Block 3 Lot 1 24575518
Madina Munawara Jahra-Block 92 24566622
Capital Ahlam Fahad Al-Salem St 22436184
Khaldiya Coop Khaldiya Coop 24833967
Farwaniya New Shifa Farwaniya Block 40 24734000
Ferdous Coop Ferdous Coop 24881201
Modern Safwan Old Kheitan Block 11 24726638
Hawally Tariq Salmiya-Hamad Mubarak St 25726265
Hana Salmiya-Amman St 25647075
Ikhlas Hawally-Beirut St 22625999
Hawally & Rawdha Hawally & Rawdha Coop 22564549
Ghadeer Jabriya-Block 1A 25340559
Kindy Jabriya-Block 3B 25326554
Ibn Al-Nafis Salmiya-Hamad Mubarak St 25721264
Mishrif Coop Mishrif Coop 25380581
Salwa Coop Salwa Coop 25628241
STAAT TE OF KUWA K AIT
DIRECTORAT
TE GEN GENERAL OF CIVIL AVVIATTION
METEOROLOGICAL DEPA ARTMENT
DAY: Y
BY NIGHT:
BY DAY Y: :
Weednesday
WAARNING
STA ATTION
KUWAAIT
CITY
KUWAAIT
AIRPORT T
NUWAAISEEB
WAAFRA
SALMI
ABDALYY
JAL ALIYAAH
FA AILAKA
AHMADI PORT T
UMM AL-MARADEM
WAARBA
- BUBYAAN
A
DAYY DATTE
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
PRIVATE CLINICS
Plastic Surgeons
Dr. Mohammad Al-Khalaf 22547272
Dr. Abdal-Redha Lari 22617700
Dr. Abdel Quttainah 25625030/60
Family Doctor
Dr Divya Damodar 23729596/23729581
Psychiatrists
Dr. Esam Al-Ansari 22635047
Dr Eisa M. Al-Balhan 22613623/0
Gynaecologists & Obstetricians
DrAdrian arbe 23729596/23729581
Dr. Verginia s.Marin 2572-6666 ext 8321
Dr. Fozeya Ali Al-Qatan 22655539
Dr. Majeda Khalefa Aliytami 25343406
Dr. Ahmad Al-Khooly 25739272
Dr. Salem soso 22618787
General Surgeons
Dr. Amer Zawaz Al-Amer 22610044
Dr. Mohammad Yousef Basher 25327148
Internists, Chest & Heart
Dr. Adnan Ebil 22639939
Dr. Mousa Khadada 22666300
Dr. Latefa Al-Duweisan 25728004
Dr. Nadem Al-Ghabra 25355515
Dr. Mobarak Aldoub 24726446
Dr Nasser Behbehani 25654300/3
info@soorcenter.com
www.soorcenter.com
16/01/2013
Expected WWeeather
for the Next 24 Hours
Paediatricians
Dr. Khaled Hamadi 25665898
Dr. Abd Al-Aziz Al-Rashed 25340300
Dr. Zahra Qabazard 25710444
Dr. Sohail Qamar 22621099
Dr. Snaa Maaroof 25713514
Dr. Pradip Gujare 23713100
Dr. Zacharias Mathew 24334282
(1) Ear, Nose and Throat (2) Plastic Surgeon
Dr. Abdul Mohsin Jafar,
FRCS (Canada) 25655535
Dentists
Dr Anil Thomas 3729596/3729581
Dr. Shamah Al-Matar 22641071/2
Dr. Anesah Al-Rasheed 22562226
Dr. Abidallah Al-Amer 22561444
Dr. Faysal Al-Fozan 22619557
Dr. Abdallateef Al-Katrash 22525888
Dr. Abidallah Al-Duweisan 25653755
Dr. Bader Al-Ansari 25620111
Neurologists
Dr. Sohal Najem Al-Shemeri 25633324
Dr. Jasem Mola Hassan 25345875
Gastrologists
Dr. Sami Aman 22636464
Dr. Mohammad Al-Shamaly 25322030
Dr. Foad Abidallah Al-Ali 22633135
Kaizen center
25716707
Te el.: 161 Ext.: 2627 26 - 2630
Fax: 24348714
WWW.MET.GOV.
.KW
Issue Time
Ve ery cold with light to moderate north westerly wind, with speed of 08 - 30 km/h
Clouds Clouds will will increase increase gradually gradually with with light light variable variable wind, wind, with with speed speed of of 06 06 - - 20 20 km/h
km/h
17/01
18/01
19/01
20/01
MAX. REC. MIN. N. EXP EXP. .
18°C
10 10°C
17°C 09 09°C
18°C 08
°C
18°C 08
°C
14°C 04
°C
18°C 06
°C
17°C 06
°C
16°C 09
°C
16°C 1
1°C
16°C 13
°C
17°C 07
°C
WEAT THER
PRA PRAY YER TIMES
Fajr
05:20
Sunrise
06:43
Zuhr
11:58
Asr
14:53
Sunset
17:12
Isha
18:33
All times are local time unless otherwise stated.
No Current Wa arnin arnings
4 DAYYS
FORECAST
clouds to increase 19 °C
clouds to decrease 21 °C
warm
23 °C
warm + scattered clouds 23 °C
Endocrinologist
Dr. Abd Al-Naser Al-Othman 25339330
Dr. Ahmad Al-Ansari 25658888
Dr. Kamal Al-Shomr 25329924
Physiotherapists & VD
Dr. Deyaa Shehab 25722291
Dr. Musaed Faraj Khamees 22666288
Rheumatologists:
Dr. Adel Al-Awadi 25330060
Dr. Khaled Al-Jarallah 25722290
Internist, Chest & Heart
DR.Mohammes Akkad 24555050 Ext 210
Dr. Mohammad Zubaid
MB, ChB, FRCPC, PACC
Assistant Professor Of Medicine
Head, Division of Cardiology
Mubarak Al-Kabeer Hospital
19:00
SFC. CHAR CHART 16/01/2013 1200 UTC
T emperatur emperatures
MAX. MIN.
Wind
Direction
09 °C VRB
11 °C VRB-SE
13 °C SE
12 °C SE
Wind
Speed
06 - 20 km/h
06 - 26 km/h
08 - 30 km/h
15 - 38 km/h
RECORDED
YESTERDAYY
AT T KUWA AAIT
AIRPORTT
MAX.
Temp.
17 °C
MIN. Temp.
08 °C
MAX. RH
50 %
MIN. RH
20 %
MAX. Wind
NW
53 km/h
TOTAAL
RAAINFAALL
IN 24 HR.
00 mm
16/01/13 14:20 UTC
V1.00
Consultant Cardiologist
Dr. Farida Al-Habib 2611555-2622555
MD, PH.D, FACC
Inaya German Medical Center
Te: 2575077
Fax: 25723123
William Schuilenberg, RPC 2290-1677
Zaina Al Zabin, M.Sc. 2290-1677
T1.06
THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013
Al-Madeena 22418714
Al-Shuhada 22545171
Al-Shuwaikh 24810598
Al-Nuzha 22545171
Sabhan 24742838
Al-Helaly 22434853
Al-Faiha 22545051
Al-Farwaniya 24711433
Al-Sulaibikhat 24316983
Al-Fahaheel 23927002
Jleeb Al-Shuyoukh 24316983
Ahmadi 23980088
Al-Mangaf 23711183
Al-Shuaiba 23262845
Al-Jahra 25610011
Al-Salmiya 25616368
INTERNATIONAL
CALLS
Afghanistan 0093
Albania 00355
Algeria 00213
Andorra 00376
Angola 00244
Anguilla 001264
Antiga 001268
Argentina 0054
Armenia 00374
Australia 0061
Austria 0043
Bahamas 001242
Bahrain 00973
Bangladesh 00880
Barbados 001246
Belarus 00375
Belgium 0032
Belize 00501
Benin 00229
Bermuda 001441
Bhutan 00975
Bolivia 00591
Bosnia 00387
Botswana 00267
Brazil 0055
Brunei 00673
Bulgaria 00359
Burkina 00226
Burundi 00257
Cambodia 00855
Cameroon 00237
Canada 001
Cape Verde 00238
Cayman Islands 001345
Central African 00236
Chad 00235
Chile 0056
China 0086
Colombia 0057
Comoros 00269
Congo 00242
Cook Islands 00682
Costa Rica 00506
Croatia 00385
Cuba 0053
Cyprus 00357
Cyprus (Northern) 0090392
Czech Republic 00420
Denmark 0045
Diego Garcia 00246
Djibouti 00253
Dominica 001767
Dominican Republic 001809
Ecuador 00593
Egypt 0020
El Salvador 00503
England (UK) 0044
Equatorial Guinea 00240
Eritrea 00291
Estonia 00372
Ethiopia 00251
Falkland Islands 00500
Faroe Islands 00298
Fiji 00679
Finland 00358
France 0033
French Guiana 00594
French Polynesia 00689
Gabon 00241
Gambia 00220
Georgia 00995
Germany 0049
Ghana 00233
Gibraltar 00350
Greece 0030
Greenland 00299
Grenada 001473
Guadeloupe 00590
Guam 001671
Guatemala 00502
Guinea 00224
Guyana 00592
Haiti 00509
Holland (Netherlands) 0031
Honduras 00504
Hong Kong 00852
Hungary 0036
Ibiza (Spain) 0034
Iceland 00354
India 0091
Indian Ocean 00873
Indonesia 0062
Iran 0098
Iraq 00964
Ireland 00353
Italy 0039
Ivory Coast 00225
Jamaica 001876
Japan 0081
Jordan 00962
Kazakhstan 007
Kenya 00254
Kiribati 00686
Kuwait 00965
Kyrgyzstan 00996
Laos 00856
Latvia 00371
Lebanon 00961
Liberia 00231
Libya 00218
Lithuania 00370
Luxembourg 00352
Macau 00853
Macedonia 00389
Madagascar 00261
Majorca 0034
Malawi 00265
Malaysia 0060
Maldives 00960
Mali 00223
Malta 00356
Marshall Islands 00692
Martinique 00596
Mauritania 00222
Mauritius 00230
Mayotte 00269
Mexico 0052
Micronesia 00691
Moldova 00373
Monaco 00377
Mongolia 00976
Montserrat 001664
Morocco 00212
Mozambique 00258
Myanmar (Burma) 0095
Namibia 00264
Nepal 00977
Netherlands (Holland)
0031
Netherlands Antilles 00599
New Caledonia 00687
New Zealand 0064
Nicaragua 00505
Nigar 00227
Nigeria 00234
Niue 00683
Norfolk Island 00672
Northern Ireland (UK)
0044
North Korea 00850
Norway 0047
Oman 00968
Pakistan 0092
Palau 00680
Panama 00507
Papua New Guinea 00675
Paraguay 00595
Peru 0051
Philippines 0063
Poland 0048
Portugal 00351
Puerto Rico 001787
Qatar 00974
Romania 0040
Russian Federation 007
Rwanda 00250
Saint Helena 00290
Saint Kitts 001869
Saint Lucia 001758
Saint Pierre 00508
Saint Vincent 001784
Samoa US 00684
Samoa West 00685
San Marino 00378
Sao Tone 00239
Saudi Arabia 00966
Scotland (UK) 0044
Senegal 00221
Seychelles 00284
Sierra Leone 00232
Singapore 0065
Slovakia 00421
Slovenia 00386
Solomon Islands 00677

36 LIFESTYLE
M u s i c & M o v i e s
Samsung Galaxy 27th Golden Disk Awards
THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013
South Korean K-pop band T-ara pose on the red carpet during the final day of the Samsung Galaxy the 27th Golden Disk Awards at the Sepang International Circuit in Sepang outside Kuala
Lumpur yesterday. The Golden Disk Awards have been called the Korean equivalent of the Grammys. Malaysia becomes the second country outside of South Korea to host the awards, as K-
Pop’s bubble-gum tunes and dance moves continue to defy language barriers and find fans around the world. —AFP
South Korean K-pop band Sister. South Korean K-pop singer Ailee.
‘X Factor’ winner
Stevens signs
record deal
X Factor” champ Tate Stevens has signed
a record deal. A Tuesday news release says
“The
the Season 2 winner signed a deal with
Syco
Music/RCA
Records
Nashville and is
already writing
and recording
his major-label
debut.
The 37-yearold
Stevens, of
Belton, Mo,
won “The X
Factor” last
month, earning
the title by
never finishing
worse than
second in voting
on Simon
Cowell’s reality
singing contest
show. The untitled
new
album will be
released later
this fall. Syco
Music is
Cowell’s label.
Edward Furlong arrives at the premiere “The Green Hornet” in Los
Angeles. —AP
Edward Furlong charged
with battery against ex
Actor Edward Furlong has been
charged with misdemeanor battery
on an ex-girlfriend during
an altercation on Sunday morning. The
actor was arrested in West Hollywood,
Calif, on suspicion of battery and for an
outstanding misdemeanor warrant on
another domestic violence battery
case involving the same woman.
Furlong’s attorney, Brian Michaels,
says he is still gathering information
about the arrest. The 35-year-old actor
pleaded not guilty in the new case
Tuesday and is due back in court on
Jan 25. He has also been involved in a
custody dispute with his ex-wife and
faces a probation violation hearing on
Feb 15 for contempt of court in a Los
Angeles case. Furlong was charged in
the domestic violence case in
December but failed to appear at a
court hearing. —AP
IKEA Kuwait presented its extensive
range of textiles and fabrics in an
innovative way to deliver inspiration
for individuals planning for their home
and furniture. In-line with its vision of
establishing the perfect home, IKEA
Kuwait recently participated at the Car
Booth Fair, which was held earlier at
360 Mall. The car booth fair displayed
variety of vendors which showcased
their products on Ford cars.
The IKEA Kuwait Car Booth display,
which took place from the 9th - 12th of
January, aimed at educating the public
about using textiles to breathe a new
South Korean K-pop band Teen Top pose on the red carpet during the final day of the Samsung Galaxy
the 27th Golden Disk Awards at the Sepang International Circuit in Sepang outside Kuala Lumpur.
IKEA Kuwait creatively
displays its textiles at 360
MALL’s car booth fair
life to a home or bring an old favorite
back to life. This idea falls in line with
IKEA Kuwait’s recently launched ‘Bring
New Life to your Home’ Catalogue
2013, which focuses on textiles and
their importance while also emphasizing
on creativity and full utilization of
an array of products to decorate a personalized
feel to the home. Part of IKEA
Kuwait’s ethos is to help its individuals
express and build a home that reflects
their personalities through colorful and
inventive textiles that are zestful and
filled with promise of new life and its
endless possibilities.
Indian filmmaker accused of raping actress
An Indian film producer was due to
appear in court yesterday after his arrest
for allegedly raping an aspiring actress
whom he had promised a role in his next
movie, police said. Ramesh Singh, 49, was
detained on Tuesday after the woman complained
to police in Mumbai about the alleged
sexual assault, according to a police official at
Oshiwara police station in the city’s north. “He
had promised her a role in his upcoming
movie, so he called her to read out the script.
He showed her the script and locked the room,”
said the policeman on condition of anonymity.
“He told her to sit on the bed as there was a
‘bed scene’ and that’s when she got spooked.
She ran into the bathroom and locked the
British pop star Elton John announced
yesterday he had become a father for
the second time after the
birth via a surrogate mother of
Elijah Joseph Daniel Furnish-John.
The “Rocket Man” and “Candle in the
Wind” singer and his partner David
Furnish confirmed the news in a
short statement on John’s official
website, which also provided a link
to an article in People magazine.
“Both of us have longed to have
children, but the reality that we now have two
sons is almost unbelievable,” said the couple,
who entered a civil partnership in 2005. “The
door. He broke open the door and she said he
then raped her.” The Indian Express said Singh
was a Marathi-language film producer, as
opposed to working in Hindi-speaking
Bollywood which dominates the Mumbai
movie industry. Sexual crimes against Indian
women have been in the spotlight over the
past month, since a 23-year-old student was
gang-raped and murdered on a bus in the capital
New Delhi in a case that has shocked the
nation. The crime sparked nationwide protests
expressing outrage over the worrying numbers
of sexual assaults and calling for tougher laws
to punish rapists. —AFP
Singer Elton John a
father for second time
birth of our second son completes our family
in a most precious and perfect way,” they told
People.
John, 65, and Furnish, 50, are
already parents to Zachary, who is
two. Elijah was born in Los Angeles
on Jan 11. “I know when he goes to
school there’s going to be an awful
lot of pressure, and I know he’s going
to have people saying, ‘You don’t
have a mummy,’” John said of his
decision to have another baby. “It’s
going to happen. We talked about it before
we had him. I want someone to be at his side
and back him up. We shall see.” —Reuters

37 LIFESTYLE
M o v i e s & M u s i c
Call for entries for Gulf Films and
International films competitions
Official competition submissions are
now open for the 2013 Gulf Film
Festival (GFF), the home of bold,
experimental, and the best of Arab cinema
from the length and breadth of the Arabian
Peninsula and around the world. Held
under the patronage of Sheikh Majid Bin
Mohammed Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum,
Chairman of the Dubai Culture & Arts
Authority (Dubai Culture) the Festival,
whose core mandate is to encourages
excellence in Arab cinema, runs from April
11 to 17. The non-profit annual cultural
event has established itself catalyst for the
evolution of regional filmmakers, whilst
shining an international spotlight on the
very best of Arab cinema.
Appealing to up-and-coming and established
filmmakers the Festival welcomes
entries across its’ three categories: Gulf
Films, Gulf Students’ Shorts and
International Shorts which will collectively
offer over half a million dirhams in funds.
Last Stand” is the Arnold
Schwarzenegger movie you didn’t
“The
even realize you wanted to see. This is
the action superstar’s first leading role in a decade,
having left acting to serve as the governor of
California and whatnot, and while it may not have
occurred to you to miss him during that time, it’s
still surprisingly good to see him on the big screen
again. He is not exactly pushing himself here.
Korean director Kim Jee-woon’s American filmmaking
debut turns out to be an extremely
Schwarzeneggerish Schwarzenegger film, full of
big, violent set pieces and broad comedy. He may
look a little creaky (and facially freaky) these days,
but Arnold proves he’s still game for the mayhem
as he fires off rounds and tosses off one-liners, and
the movie at least has the decency to acknowledge
that it knows that you know that he’s old.
The script also feels a bit old - “The Last Stand”
is essentially an amped-up version of “Rio Bravo,”
with some “Jackass”-style hijinks courtesy of
Johnny Knoxville himself. But Kim keeps things
moving briskly and the members of the strong
supporting cast don’t seem to mind that they’re
playing flimsy types. Everyone’s just here for a
mindless good time. Schwarzenegger stars as Ray
Owens, sheriff of the tiny Arizona border town of
Sommerton Junction, the kind of place where
everyone knows everyone and the locals sit
around the diner trading folksy jokes. That’s why
the sheriff is immediately suspicious of some visitors
sharing a booth over breakfast one morning -
they clearly don’t belong there. Andrew Knauer’s
script makes some passing mention of Owens’
past career as a highly decorated Los Angeles
police narcotics detective, which is intended to
explain why this mild-mannered guy with the
thick accent is such a bad-ass. Turns out these new
folks (led by Peter Stormare) are there laying the
The Gulf Films category is open to feature
and short film-makers from the Gulf, or
film-makers with a film that showcases the
region. To qualify for the Gulf Students’
Shorts category applicants must be current
students in the Gulf with fiction or non-fiction
short film. The final category,
International, encompasses film-makers
from around the world with fiction or nonfiction
short films. Entries for all categories
can be submitted through the GFF website
at www.gulffilmfest.com, and must be
completed before the February 25th deadline.
The Festival is also home to multiple
out-of-competition segments including
Lights, Intersections, and Films For Children
along with a wide range of initiatives such
as master classes, nightly industry discussions
and other special events.
Masoud Amralla Al- Ali, GFF Festival
Director, said: “As the home of contemporary
cinema from the Arabian peninsula,
the key success factor for GFF lies in the
Winners of the 2012 Gulf Film Festival.
Review
This undated publicity photo released by Lionsgate shows Forest
Whitaker, left, as Agent John Bannister, and Arnold Schwarzenegger,
as Ray Owens, in a scene from the film, “The Last Stand.” —AP
Arnold’s back in
‘The Last Stand’
groundwork for Mexican drug kingpin Gabriel
Cortez (Eduardo Noriega), who’s just escaped federal
custody in Las Vegas in elaborate fashion. He’s
headed straight for the border at Sommerton with
a hostage in the passenger seat in a stolen,
souped-up Corvette that can reach speeds of 250
mph. While FBI agent John Bannister (Forest
Whitaker) and his crew try in vain to chase Cortez,
the sheriff and his makeshift posse set up a barricade.
And they wait. His team consists of the innocent
newbie (Zach Gilford), the grumpy veteran
(Luis Guzman), the pretty and capable female
deputy (Jaimie Alexander), her screw-up exboyfriend
who happens to be in the town’s lone
jail cell (Rodrigo Santoro) and the wacko with an
arsenal who gives his weapons pet names. That
would be Knoxville. The shootouts and showdowns
are muscular, high-energy and consist of
an insane amount of gunfire, although there are
some bursts of squirm-inducing, creative carnage.
Much of the hand-to-hand combat is shot and
edited in a way to obscure what Schwarzenegger
is actually doing while creating the illusion that
he’s kicking all kinds of butt. Far more effective is a
clever, intimate car chase through a cornfield
that’s alternately thrilling and quietly suspenseful.
That this scrappy band of underdogs can take out
the more technologically advanced villain and his
crew should come as no surprise. It’s as predictable
as Arnold saying he’ll be back, and making
good on that promise. “The Last Stand,” a
Lionsgate release, is rated R for strong, bloody violence
throughout and language. Running time:
107 minutes. Three stars out of four. Motion
Picture Association of America rating definition for
R: Restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying
parent or adult guardian.—AP
quality and diversity of films submitted and
showcased from around the region. This
Festival offers a window into the lives,
issues and opinions of the region through
raw, emotive and thought-provoking stories
powerfully brought to life through the
wonder of film. I have no doubt that this
year’s submissions will offer strong competition
and raise the bar - not only for filmmakers
across the region, but also across
the globe.”
With an eye to the business element of
the industry, GFF will also host the second
edition of Gulf Script Market for Short
Films. The unique initiative aims to support
script-writers by assisting them with script
development and forging synergistic partnerships
between producers and directors.
Participants will be offered an invaluable
opportunity to exchange ideas, in addition
to artistic and technical expertise, with
their peers in order to realize the production
of their short films and create long-
lasting industry relationships. The inaugural
Script Market in 2012 saw over 100 submissions,
with some chosen projects partnered
with directors and producers and
currently in production.
In order to participate in the Gulf Script
Market for Short Films budding filmmakers
must apply through the GFF website before
March 15th. The fifth edition of GFF
screened 155 films from 40 countries and
over 100 films participated in the Official
Gulf Feature Film Competition and the
Official Gulf Short Film Competition. The
event attracted a significant global audience,
including a line-up of acclaimed filmmakers
and actors including veteran
Bahraini filmmaker Bassam Al-Thawadi,
French filmmaker Gerard Courant and legendary
Iranian actor Behrouz Vossoughi.
Patti Smith on her
photography show
Singer Patti Smith is best known for
her rock ‘n’ roll songs from the punk
era of the 1970s, but visitors to a new
photo exhibition will see a different side of
the musician, poet and artist. The 70 photos
in Toronto’s Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO)
“Camera Solo” show, which runs from Feb 9
to May 19, include poetic images of gravestones,
religious iconography and objects
that belonged to dead writers and artists.
“The show expresses a lot about my inner
life-about a certain vision I have of the
world, my travels, my aesthetic vision and
some of the wonderful things I’ve seen, the
people I’ve met,” Smith said in an interview.
“Hopefully, it will inspire people to learn
more about some of the artists or places
I’ve shown, or to embark on their own studies
or adventures.” The 66-year-old artist,
whose songs include her rendition
of “Gloria” and
“Because the Night,” hopes
the Polaroid snapshots will
rekindle a sense of appreciation
for the commonplace.
The show includes photographs
of photographer
Robert Mapplethorpe’s slippers,
author Virginia Woolf’s
bed, writer Susan Sontag’s
grave and poet Arthur
Rimbaud’s fork and spoon. In
a 2010 memoir “Just Kids”
Smith wrote about her love affair and
friendship with Mapplethorpe, which lasted
until his death from AIDS-related complications
in 1989 at age 42. Smith, a mother
of two was married to guitarist Fred
“Sonic” Smith who died in 1994. She
released the album “Banga” last year and
will begin a music tour in Japan. She spoke
to Reuters about the show and Polaroid
photography, a pre-digital technique that
produces an instant print.
Q: What inspires you as a photographer?
A: “Truthfully, I don’t really think of
myself as a photographer. I don’t have all
the disciplines and knowledge of a person
who’s spent their life devoted to photography.
I’ve been taking pictures most of my
life, but more seriously in the last decade ...
“Light inspires me. I’m drawn to architecture-often
graves, statues, trees-things usually
that are quite still ... I’ve been taking
pictures continuously since 1995 until the
end of Polaroid film. I’m taking very few
pictures now because I have very little film
left, most of it expired.
Q: Are your pictures about nostalgia or
trying to hold on and remember that person?
A: It’s not nostalgia. I’m not really a nostalgic
person. I’m memory-oriented, so a
sense of remembrance ... All of these things
are to bring all these people and things up
to date, to walk with us. These are artists,
family, people that we love- people that
pass away. We can keep them with us
always.
Q: So you aren’t out there snapping
everything-you are being quite selective?
A: I never snapped everything. Polaroid
by its nature makes you frugal. You walk
around with maybe two packs of film in
your pocket. You have 20 shots, so each
shot is a world.
Q: Was there anything that you learned
from Mapplethorpe in doing your photography?
A: “The one thing that we had in common
is that both of us had a very good
sense of composition. It’s the same type of
work ethic but I work quite
differently. The atmosphere of
my pictures is different. I drew
a lot from 19th-century photographers
and I don’t really
strive for the things that
Robert strived for-the deepest
blacks and the most radiant
whites. “Robert was a real
photographer. He was an
artist, but he also really
immersed himself in every
aspect of how to project light
in his work. In any event, we
had a different eye, but we understood
each other.
Q: How would you say photography
intersects with your other creative work?
A: I think of myself really as a writer. So
perhaps the pictures are somewhat literary,
but I think they also stand on their own.”
Q: Do you identify with the punk scene,
a romantic tradition or is it more organic?
A: “I was involved in the pre- and postpunk
scene in the 1970s ... I’m where I am
today. I have two grown children; I’ve experienced
a beautiful husband. I’m a widow.
I’m doing my work. I feel unfettered by any
scene. I feel like I’ve moved through many
scenes, scenes before the punk movement
and scenes after the punk movement, and
the punk movement is in flux. It’s still going
on and it was going on before it had the
name “punk movement.”
Q: How do you reflect on the fact that
you not only pushed music forward, but
you also pushed things forward for women
in the music scene?
A: “I think I work in two worlds. I’ll
always try to kick through a wall. I did that
when I was younger and I still have my way
of doing that ... People have said that I’ve
opened up things for women, but look
what they’ve done.” —Reuters
THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013
Kirk Douglas
Douglas to receive
Lifetime Achievement
Honor from publicists
Kirk Douglas will receive the Lifetime
Achievement Award at the 50th annual ICG
Publicists Guild awards luncheon Feb 22 at the
Beverly Hilton Hotel, the group announced Tuesday.
“No other actor personifies the term ‘iconic movie star’
more than Kirk Douglas,” said Publicists Guild awards
committee chairman Henri Bollinger. “His acting talent
is the underlining basis for his extraordinary success,
but it is also due to his uncanny understanding and
appreciation for the role that publicity and promotion
play in the ultimate success of movies that made him a
box office sensation.”
Douglas, 96, has earned three Oscar nominations
for Best Actor - for “Champion” (1950), “The Bad and
the Beautiful” (1953) and “Lust for Life” (1957) - and a
lifetime achievement Oscar from the film Academy in
1996. He’s also received lifetime achievement awards
from the American Film Institute, the Screen Actors
Guild and the National Association of Theater Owners,
the Presidential Medal of Freedom and National
Medal of the Arts and a Kennedy Center Award. Past
recipients of the publicists’ award include George
Burns, Lew Wasserman, Warren Beatty, Arnold
Schwarzenegger, Clint Eastwood, Julie Andrews,
Harrison Ford, Sylvester Stallone, Robert Zemeckis
and Carol Burnett. —Reuters
Naturalism of ‘LUV’
beset by cliches
Review
It comes as a disappointment that “LUV,” a drama about the
tragic realities of fathers and sons in unforgiving urban
environs, can’t measure up to the lyricism of its star’s own
music. The film stars Common, the thoughtful, charismatic
Chicago rhymer who, in three- and four- minute hip-hop
ruminations, summons more vibrant social imagery than the
well-intended but hollow 1 1/2 hours of “LUV.” Common has
been more of a cultural ambassador for years now (he was a
bizarrely controversial White House guest in 2011), and has
increasingly concentrated on acting. “LUV,” for which he is also
a producer, is perhaps the best close-up yet of an uncommonly
smooth performer. In the film, the feature film debut of
Sheldon Candis who co-wrote it with Justin Wilson, Common
plays the former convict Vincent, an uncle to the parentless
11-year-old Woody (Michael Rainey Jr). “LUV” takes place over
a day in Baltimore in which Vincent, driving Woody to school
from his grandmother’s, instead detours for a lesson-filed day
of bonding. Vincent pledges that he’ll teach the shy Woody
how to “handle your business across the board.” Dressed
handsomely and driving a Mercedes, Vincent appears an
upright father-figure, but he’s desperate to put to work a business
plan for which he’s $22,000 short. Worse, gang warfare is
raging and the word on the street is that Vincent got out of
prison suspiciously early.
It’s a promising enough conceit - a stressed, untrustworthy
but inherently decent guy trying to play the role-model - but
the day takes awkward, implausible turns, jumping from violence
to stone-skipping in the harbor. The dialogue, too, is
often cringe-worthy as the two meet various friends and associates
of Vincent’s, with cameos by Danny Glover, Dennis
Haysbert, Clark Johnson and Michael Kenneth Williams. Along
the way, Vincent teaches Woody (whom Rainey Jr plays with
poise beyond his years) some tenants of manhood: how to
properly open crabs, how to give a strong handshake, how to
drive a car, how to shoot a gun. Though lacking some
dynamism, Common has the gravity to keep the film grounded.
The film, wearing its inspirations on its sleeve, is a kind of
“Training Day” hoping for interstitial Terrence Malick poetry in
the Baltimore landscape of “The Wire” with the occasional sensationalism
of an action film. The clichÈs mount as the journey
leads to bloody standoffs and drug dealer confrontations.
Surely there is plenty here to scar a child, though there’s little
that suggests any trauma for Woody. Still, there is tenderness in
“LUV.” One suspects Candis can mature as a naturalistic director
if he follows the tagline of his film: “Follow your hero, or become
your own man.” After all, we are not exactly showered with intimate,
aspiring films of urban life. “LUV,” an Indomina Media Inc.
release, is rated R for violence, language, child endangerment
and some drug content. Running time: 95 minutes. One and a
half stars out of four. Motion Picture Association of America rating
definition for R: Restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying
parent or adult guardian.—AP

lifestyle
F a s h i o n
More than a fashion show, the
Fendi winter menswear presentation
was a fashion happening.
Dressed in the latest cold
weather styles from cozy fur capes to
sporty parkas, a bevy of Fendi models
marched up and down makeshift scaffolding
to an obsessive disco beat. The
parade went on for an hour while the
fashion crowd stood around sipping
exotic Nordic drinks and tasting bean
bread and frozen nuts.
The repetitive show presented
Monday in a contemporary art gallery
also gave fashion experts time to take
in the collection and pick up the details,
helped by mega screens projecting the
show. Fendi designer Silvia Venturini
Fendi said she had chosen the new
show concept because it offered the
opportunity to “study a collection from
various angles” The Fendi winter
menswear wardrobe is made up of generous
coats in fur, wool or leather, an
array of hooded sport jackets ranging
from parkas to pea jackets, shirts combined
with bulky knitwear, light wool
daytime suits, and, for evening, a tuxedo
made out of daytime fabric but with
a distinguishing satin lapel. Accessories
included heavy-soled moccasin laceups,
fur boots, muffs and the latest
Fendi bag - an oversized fanny pack in
long-haired fur. —AP
THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013
Fendi shows off Nordic-inspired winterwear
Models display creations as part of Fendi Fall-Winter 2013-2014 Menswear collection. —AFP photos
John Richmond
Etro

lifestyle
F a s h i o n
Models present creations by Omani designers Nawal al-Hooti, fashion house Das Collection and Zhor Rais during the 2013 Muscat Fashion Week in the Omani capital. —AFP photos
Muscat Fashion Week
Berlin Fashion Week
Lima worried about
victoria s secret show
Adriana Lima was worried about appearing in lingerie after giving birth. The Brazilian
supermodel almost backed down from the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show - held in New
York in November last year - after giving birth to her second child, Sienna, only eight
weeks before. She said: “I had no idea if I was going to make it, honestly. The hormones - you
don’t know how your body is going to react.”
Adriana, 31, also has three-year-old daughter Valentina with husband Marko Jaric, and
admits it’s not easy being a model and a mother of two. She said: “It’s not easy with two children
because you basically have to go to the gym or work out at home when they are taking
a nap. As a mom, you feel guilty leaving because you want to be with your children all the
time.” Adriana is currently the fourth highest paid Supermodel in the world, earning an estimated
$7.3million from may 2011 to may 2012. She also made headlines last year when she
became the first pregnant model to appear in the famously raunchy Pirelli calendar’s 2013
edition. —Bang Showbiz
Models present creations by label ‘Minx’ during the Autumn/Winter 2013 show of the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week yesterday in Berlin. The Berlin Fashion
Week takes place from January 15 to 20, 2013. —AFP photos
THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013
Quvenzhane Wallis
Quvenzhane Wallis admits
fashion is her ‘kryptonite’
The nine-year-old star of ‘Beasts of the Southern
Wild’ - who is the youngest person to ever be
nominated for a Best Actress Oscar - is a fan of all
things pink and sparkly and admits clothes are her
biggest weakness. Quizzed about her taste in fashion
by VOGUE’s AndrÈ Leon Talley, QuvenzhanÈ responded
by singing a line from hit song ‘Fashion is My
Kryptonite’ by Disney teen duo Bella Thorne & Zendaya.
She laughed: “Fashion is my kryptonite!” after reeling
off a list of her musical idols whose style she admires.
The adorable actress pondered: “Nicki Minaj, Selena
Gomez, Demi Lovato, Debby Ryan, um... who else?”
QuvenzhanÈ has taken the fashion world by storm
with her cute and savvy fashion choices, most recently
the glittery purple dress she wore while accepting her
Best Young Actress trophy at the Critics’ Choice
Awards. The actress refused to answer what her dress
might look like at the Oscars ceremony on February 24,
but there’s a good chance it could be pink since that is
her favourite colour. However, she is adamant her sartorial
choice won’t be floor-length, saying: “I might
step on it and trip on it. And I don’t want to humiliate
myself!” Asked whether she was enjoying her invitations
to showbiz parties, she grinned: “Yeah, I just like
partying!” —Bang Showbiz
Arterton
insists she isn
glamorous
The ‘Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters’ actress enjoys
fashion and getting dressed up for red carpet events,
but feels more at ease when she is relaxed about her
appearance. She told Britain’s Hello! magazine: “I do enjoy
fashion - I think it’s fun - and now that I’ve had my hair and
make-up done, I do feel quite nice. “But you should have
seen me a couple of days ago. I’d just got back from a trip
to Spain, where I didn’t really wash for a week. My hair was
in dreadlocks and my nails were filthy. That’s the real me -
not what you’re looking at right now.”
Gemma has previously admitted she likes to keep her
style simple. She said: “For me it’s kind of simple really. I
don’t really go for anything too embellished or fancy or
frilly or girly and it has to be easy because I haven’t got
time for anything that’s too difficult! I just like putting on a
pair jeans and jacket and going, although I do like heels -
I’ve got a passion for shoes, but I always end up wearing
the one same pair of shoes. But it works with my lifestyle
because I’m always running around so it doesn’t work for
me to wear tight skirts and corsets, or whatever it is! Jeans
are definitely the way forward.” —Bang Showbiz

Photo shows an Afghan girl, right, practices playing
the piano in a class at the Afghanistan National
Institute of Music in Kabul, Afghanistan. —AP photos
Afghan students practice playing the guitar.
Not so long ago Fakira roamed
the mean streets of the Afghan
capital, hawking magazines for
13 US cents apiece to support her
poverty-stricken family. Next month,
the 15-year-old cellist appears in
America’s most prestigious concert
halls, performing alongside other former
street children and orphans of
Afghanistan’s decades of violence.
“Suddenly my whole life changed, and
now I am going to America,” she says,
recounting her chance encounter
with a rather improbable school that’s
reviving music, both Western classical
and Afghan, in a country where the
Taliban had made even listening to it
a crime - and where a generation of
musicians vanished through killings,
old age or exile.
The teenager, who uses only one
name like many Afghans, will be playing
in the Afghan Youth Orchestra,
which on Feb. 3 begins a 12-day US
tour that includes concerts at
Washington’s Kennedy Center -
President Barack Obama has been
invited - New York’s Carnegie Hall and
the New England Conservatory in
Boston. “Most reports about
Afghanistan are about suicide bombings,
killings, destruction, corruption,
(depicting) Afghanistan as a place
where hope has died,” says Ahmad
Sarmast, who leads the youth orchestra.
He says the young musicians will
try “to show a different Afghanistan,
an Afghanistan where hope is alive
and the people are striving to bring
about changes. The kids are the symbol
of hope. “
The orchestra is the centerpiece of
the Afghanistan National Institute of
Music, which Sarmast founded 21/2
years ago. By all accounts, the music
institute is proving a success story in a
country where failed development
projects - through poor planning, corruption
or militant violence - are more
the norm. Its 141 students, half of
them former street kids or orphans
ages 10 to 22, study free of charge in a
well-ordered, two-story building
stocked with mint-condition instruments,
new computers, a distance
learning center and the country’s first
instrument repair shop. Rising nearby
are concert and rehearsal halls scheduled
for completion this summer.
A cacophony of sounds echoes
down the school’s first-floor corridor
hour after hour. In one practice room,
four girls practice scales on oboes
under portraits of Bach, Mozart and
THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013
An Afghan girl, Gulalai plays the sitar in a class. An Afghan youth, Sayed Menhaj Sadat, practices
playing the cello in a class.
Beethoven, whose “Ode to Joy” theme
emerges from a trumpeter down the
hallway. The rubah, sitar and sarod -
traditional Afghan string instruments -
and the tabla drum are being played
in other rooms. The 48-member touring
company, which also includes
three smaller ensembles, will perform
both Afghan pieces and specially
adapted Western classics when they
will be joined by members of two
American youth orchestras. One program
item, titled “Four Seasons in
Afghanistan,” fuses Antonio Vivaldi’s
popular concertos with Afghan
melodies played on traditional instruments.
It’s the handiwork of William
Harvey, of Indianapolis, Indiana, a violinist
and graduate of New York’s eminent
Julliard School who serves as the
institute’s principal conductor. Urbane
and articulate, Sarmast has also been
able to attract seven resident foreign
teachers, visiting artists and hefty
funding and donations from foreign
governments, private sponsors and
the World Bank, which provided $2
million and is exploring how the institute
can be used as a template for
other vocational schools in the country.
Son of a famous Afghan composer
and conductor, Sarmast sought asylum
in Australia after the Taliban
swept into power and perpetrated
what he calls “nothing less than musical
genocide.” Obtaining a doctorate
in musicology, he returned home after
the 2001 US-led invasion toppled the
Islamist group to “give back to my
society.”
“It was my strong belief in the power
of music in bringing about social
changes,” he says. “A strong belief in
the healing power of music, especially
for a country like Afghanistan which is
recovering from 30 years of civil war,
where the people are badly traumatized,
especially the children.” For
some at the institute, Sarmast’s words
ring true. “When I return to the
orphanage and there is no trumpet, I
miss my mother,” says Meena Zamani,
a 10-year-old orphan just beginning
to master the instrument. “Playing
takes away all my sadness.” Fakira
remembers watching students in
neat, clean uniforms going off to
school while she and her two brothers
scoured the streets for money to help
their jobless father, mother and five
other siblings.
She was finally offered some
schooling at an orphanage that took
Kirk Douglas to
receive Lifetime
Achievement
37
Honor
in the poorest of children and where
the institute was spotting for the
musically talented. It was love at first
sound when Fakira heard the “soft,
comforting” tones of the cello. “When I
pick up and play my cello, the hard
times, the bad feelings vanish - I forget,”
she says. Now, like other former
street children, she receives a monthly
stipend of $27 to compensate for lost
family income, studies English and
other subjects offered by the institute
and looks forward to seeing the White
House and the bright lights of New
York City. But she and her fellow students
also express anxiety, wedged as
they are between the tragic past and
an Afghanistan that could again
descend into chaos after the departure
of US and other NATO forces in
2014.
“I am not sure about my future as a
musician in Afghanistan. But I love
music so that’s why I came here,” says
22-year-old Shabeer Aharad, practicing
the oboe in preparation for the
American journey and heaping praise
on his school and teachers. Other
efforts to bring back a rich musical tradition,
including a onetime budding
Western classical scene in Kabul, have
not proved so successful. The ragged
An Afghan boy, Ahmadullah, 14, practices playing
the Rubab.
Young Afghan musicians to tour US
Malaysia has been rated the
world’s top Muslim-friendly holiday
destination in a survey
released yesterday that listed Egypt,
Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Saudi
Arabia and Singapore as runners-up. The
study by Singapore-based Muslim travel
consultancy Crescentrating ranked
countries on how well they cater to the
growing number of Muslim holidaymakers
seeking halal-or Islam-compliantfood
and services. It used criteria including
the level of safety in a country, the
ease of access to halal food and prayer
facilities, and whether hotels cater to the
needs of Muslim guests.
On a scale of one to 10 in which 10 is
the best score, Malaysia came out number
one with a grade of 8.3 among 50
nations surveyed. Egypt was in second
place with 6.7, followed by the United
Arab Emirates and Turkey both with 6.6.
Saudi Arabia was in fourth place with a
score of 6.4 and Singapore was fifth with
An Afghan student practices playing the guitar. Afghan students practice playing the bassoon and
the trumpets.
6.3. Indonesia, Morocco and Jordan
scored 6.1 to tie in sixth place, trailed by
seventh-place Brunei, Qatar, Tunisia and
Oman, all with a score of 6.0.
Crescentrating chief executive Fazal
Bahardeen said the survey was taken
from the point of view of the traveller,
meaning that it measured the ease of
access by Muslim tourists—not locals—
to halal food and facilities. “Malaysia is
one of the few countries where you can
find a prayer place in almost every location-be
it a shopping mall or the airport,”
Fazal told AFP. He said that while
Malaysian authorities have been focusing
on the market for several years,
Indonesia-the world’s most populous
Muslim nation-has not done as well.
“The main problem for Indonesia is
that it’s not straightforward for a Muslim
visitor to find halal food availability. For
locals it’s probably not an issue.” Saudi
Arabia figured as a holiday destination
for the first time since the survey started
in 2011 because more Muslims use their
holidays to go there to perform the
Umrah, a minor pilgrimage, Fazal said. In
terms of cities as a shopping destination,
Dubai pipped Kuala Lumpur for the
number-one spot, according to the survey
which rated the presence of halal
food and prayer facilities at shopping
malls.
Istanbul, Jeddah, Singapore, Cairo,
Abu Dhabi, New Delhi, London and
Doha completed the top-10 shopping
destinations. Thailand’s Suvarnabhumi
Airport and the Kuala Lumpur
International Airport were rated among
the friendliest to Muslim travellers.
Spending by Muslim tourists is growing
faster than the global rate and is forecast
to reach $192 billion a year by 2020,
up from $126 billion in 2011, according
to a study by Crescentrating and another
company released last year. —AFP
Afghans practice playing the string instruments in a
class.
instruments at the country’s only university
music department include one
beat-up drum and a decrepit cello,
with even music stands lacking. There
are very few seasoned Afghan instructors
and only two foreigners.
One is retired, 64-year-old Faith
Rynders, who volunteered to come to
Kabul University from Bemidji,
Minnesota, hoping her career as a
pianist and voice teacher could prove
useful in building a new generation of
musicians. Despite the hurdles she
faces, it has. In an almost bare room,
pierced through with bitter winter
cold, one of her students slowly
places his hands on a piano keyboard.
“The fingers get so stiff,” says 22-yearold
Fawad Sultani by way of apology.
Then the lean, handsome pianist
unfurls the rapid runs and yearning
themes of Frederic Chopin’s Fantaisie-
Impromptu in C-sharp minor. Rynders
stands at a distance, smiling. “I’m very
proud of him,” she says. —AP
Malaysia rated top Muslim-friendly holiday destination
Photos show rows of halal Muslim food restaurants next to Arab street in Singapore.
—AFP photos