Qatar gives $100mn in aid to Syrians - Qatar Tribune

THURSDAY 

FEBRUARY 21, 2013 

RABI AL-AKHIR 11, 1434 

VOL. 7 NO. 2362 QR 2 

First with the news and what’s behind it 

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QATAR EXCHANGE 

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AFRIDI RETURNS 

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TALAL AL QASEIMI: 

BRINGING HIS 

IDEAS TO LIFE 

CHILL OUT 

DEPUTY EMIR WITH UK MINISTER 

The Deputy Emir and Heir Apparent His Highness Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al Thani with UK Foreign Minister William 

Hague, in Doha, on Wednesday. 

Qatar gives $100mn 

in aid to Syrians 

QNA 

DOHA 

QATAR has given $100 million to 

the National Coalition for Syrian 

Revolutionary and Opposition 

Forces, on the directives of the 

Deputy Emir and Heir Apparent 

His Highness Sheikh Tamim bin 

Hamad al Thani. This contribution 

is in the form of humanitarian aid 

for all who need it. 

The contribution is a result of the 

Qatari government and people 

shouldering their responsibility 

towards the Syrian people to alleviate 

their suffering and to support 

them until they get their rights to 

freedom and dignity. 

HH the Deputy Emir 

met with British Foreign 

Minister William 

Hague and discussed 

Syria’s bloody conflict 

Also on Wednesday, HH the 

Deputy Emir discussed with British 

Foreign Minister William Hague 

Syria’s bloody conflict. 

An AFP report quoting QNA said 

that HH the Deputy Emir met with 

Hague in Doha, where they “discussed 

cooperation between their 

countries as well as regional developments, 

mainly in Syria”. 

The meeting comes two days after 

European Union foreign ministers 

stopped short of meeting Britain’s 

demand to lift an arms embargo on 

Syria but agreed to allow “nonlethal” 

aid and “technical assistance” 

to flow to the opposition. 

After weeks of “divisive” talk on 

whether to arm Syria’s rebels, the 

ministers agreed to renew sanctions 

against President Bashar al Assad 

until the end of May that notably bar 

the supply of any lethal weaponry to 

the country — regime or rebel. 

Qatar had repeatedly voiced support 

for the 23-month rebellion 

against Assad’s regime which has so 

far claimed nearly 70,000 lives, 

according to the United Nations. 

SEE ALSO PAGE 12 

All eyes on Qtel 

at Barcelona 

telecom meet 

TRIBUNE NEWS NETWORK 

DOHA 

ALL eyes will be on Qtel 

Group at the GSMA Mobile 

World Congress with the 

global communications 

leader set to unveil a series 

of new initiatives at the meet 

starting on February 25 in 

Barcelona, Spain. 

The Qtel Group delegation 

will be led by Chairman HE 

Sheikh Abdullah bin 

Mohammed bin Saud al 

Thani and will include teams 

from Qtel in Qatar; Asiacell 

in Iraq; Indosat in 

Indonesia; Nawras in Oman; 

Nedjma in Algeria; 

Tunisiana in Tunisia and 

Wataniya in Kuwait, the 

Maldives and Palestine. 

Group CEO of Qtel and 

Chairman of the GSMA 

Mobile for Development 

Foundation Dr Nasser 

Marafih outlined the group’s 

initiative to be unveiled at 

the oncoming congress, 

Marafih said: “Our services 

have the capability to enrich 

people’s lives. We will be 

focusing on the social and 

human impact of communication 

services through our 

participation in the 

Congress, and outline our 

plans for new initiatives that 

will benefit the communities 

that we serve.” 

DETAILED REPORT ON PG 4 

Qatar back in 

race for Greek 

airport project 

AFP 

ATHENS 

QATAR has rejoined a public 

competition to develop the former 

Athens airport, one of the 

prized sites of Greece’s privatisation 

drive, a Greek spokesman 

said on Wednesday. 

The emirate “has signed the 

confidentiality agreement and is 

returning to the Hellinikon tender,” 

government spokesman 

Simos Kedikoglou told To Vima 

radio. 

“This is important news,” he 

added. 

Qatari Diar, a subsidiary of the 

Qatar Investment Authority, had 

pulled out of the tender in 

January prior to a visit to Doha 

by Greek Prime Minister Antonis 

Samaras. 

Greek reports at the time had 

suggested that Qatar would discuss 

only a direct assignment of 

the contract. 

The three other bidders are 

Elbin Cochin Ltd from Israel, 

London & Regional Properties 

from Britain, and Lamda 

Development of Greece. 

The former airport of 

Hellinikon, a disused Olympic 

park that is considered one of 

the cash-strapped nation’s most 

attractive property assets, was 

originally put up for sale in 

December 2011. 

Reports at the time said the 

government hoped to raise at 

least €5.0 billion from the sale. 

Situated eight kilometres (five 

miles) south of Athens, 

Hellinikon and an adjoining 

337-berth marina built for the 

Athens 2004 Olympics span 

nearly 620 hectares (1,530 

acres) and include waterfront of 

about 3.5 kilometres. 

It is more than three times the 

size of Monaco, and more than 

twice the size of Hyde Park in 

London. 

According to the Greek privatisation 

agency, the final submission 

of technical offers is 

expected to take place in July 

2013. 

Greece had originally pledged 

to raise €50 billion ($66.8 billion) 

through the sale or lease of 

state assets by 2015, a commitment 

made to the European 

Union and the International 

Monetary Fund in return for 

debt bailout funds. 

This was later scaled down to 

€19 billion, and in October the 

government said it planned to 

raise just €9.5 billion by 2016. 

Kedikoglou said on 

Wednesday that this year’s targeted 

privatisation revenue of 

€2.6 billion ($3.5 billion) would 

be “exceeded.” 

QUICK READ 

Cabinet move to encourage foreign investment 

THE Cabinet, at its weekly meeting, 

agreed to amend some provisions 

of the law No/20/ of 2008 

exempting the share of non-Qatari 

investors in profits of Qatari joint 

stock companies from income tax. 

The amendment aims to encourage 

the flow of foreign capital into the 

Qatari markets. 

The Cabinet also approved a draft 

law regulating Hajj and ummrah and 

referred it to the Advisory Council. 

The draft law provides for the safety 

and welfare of pilgrims, ensuring a 

hassle-free pilgrimage. The draft also 

provides for the formation of Qatar 

(Hajj) pilgrimage mission. 

It also approved a proposal to set 

the power tariff for farms registered 

with the Ministry of Environment at 

less than the cost price, to support 

and develop the sector. 

The Cabinet also approved a draft 

law on aquaculture farming, 

endorsed an MoU on health with 

Bulgaria, and approved a draft convention 

on security cooperation 

between Qatar and Jordan. 

DETAILED REPORT ON PAGE 2 

Doha Bank 50% capital hike plan okayed 

THE extraordinary general assembly of Doha Bank on Wednesday 

approved the two-phased 50 percent capital increase plan. 

The general assembly approved raising 25 percent of the current 

paid-up share capital through the issuance of 51,674,450 new shares 

to Doha Bank’s existing shareholders who are registered at Qatar 

Exchange, at a price of QR30 per share representing a premium of 

QR20 in addition to a nominal value of QR10 per share. 

Another 25 percent of the current paid-up share capital would be 

raised through the issuance of new shares, in the form of global 

depositary receipts, to be held by a strategic shareholder being the 

depository bank, and the global depositary receipts to be listed on the 

London Stock Exchange. 

DETAILED REPORT ON PAGE 6 

Qatar-India trade 

touches $14 billion 

QATARI-INDIAN trade increased 

from $1.2 billion in 2005 to 

$14 billion in 2012. While 

Indian exports to Qatar posted a 

very little increase during this 

period, there was a massive 

jump in exports from Qatar to 

India. However, a senior official 

of Indian Embassy in Qatar said 

there is immense scope for 

Indian traders in the Qatari 

market to reduce this imbalance. 

Sasi Kumar, deputy chief of 

mission at the Indian Embassy 

in Qatar, was addressing a 

meeting between members of 

an Indian trade delegation and 

their Qatari counterparts at the 

Qatar Chamber, in Doha, on 

Wednesday. 

Qatar Chamber Director- 

General Remy Rowhani also 

urged the Indian delegates to 

have a look at various opportunities 

that Qatar can offer. 

The 12-member Indian delegation, 

under the banner of 

Capexil, is in Doha to explore 

business opportunities by having 

face-to-face talks with their 

Qatari counterparts. 

DETAILED REPORT ON PG 21

02 Thursday, February 21, 2013 

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EL SALVADOR’S FIRST LADY VISITS QF 

Qatar Foundation’s Deputy Director of Communication Rashed al Qurese with the First Lady of El Salvador Vanda Pignato and her 

accompanying delegation at Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development, in Doha, on Wednesday. 

Pignato is in Doha on an official visit that aims at enhancing bilateral relations between Qatar and El Salvador. 

Draft law exempts investors of I-T on profits 


DOHA 

IN a move aimed at encouraging 

foreign capital investment 

in the Qatari market, the 

Cabinet on Wednesday 

approved the draft law 

exempting the share of non- 

Qatari investors in profits of 

some Qatari joint stock companies 

from income tax. 

The Cabinet at its weekly 

meeting at Emiri Diwan, 

which was presided over by 

the Deputy Prime Minister 

and Minister of State for 

Cabinet Affairs Ahmad bin 

Abdullah al Mahmoud, 

agreed to amend some provisions 

of the law No 20 of 

2008 in this regard. 

The approval of the draft 

law is expected to facilitate 

exemption of non-Qatari investors’ 

profits in shares realised 

from trading of all securities, 

including units of investment 

funds, listed for trading 

on the stock exchange. 

The Cabinet also approved a 

draft law regulating the practice 

of Hajj (pilgrimage) and 

Ummrah (lesser pilgrimage) 

services by introducing conditions 

and controls over granting 

of licence to offer the Hajj 

and Ummrah pilgrimages. 

The draft, which has been 

referred to the Advisory 

Council, also calls for formation 

of Qatar (Hajj) pilgrimage 

mission and deciding about its 

functions. 

Besides, the Cabinet 

approved the proposal for a 

fixed slice of power consumption 

at the productive farms 

registered with the Ministry 

of Environment to be less 

than the cost price in order to 

boost agricultural production 

and enforcement of the modern 

farming methods. 

The Cabinet also approved 

a draft law of the Ministry of 

Environment on the controls 

and terms of aquaculture 

farming. The aforesaid draft 

law formulates the licensing 

procedures for establishing 

fish farms, importing 

and transferring of the 

farmed aquatics.

Nation Thursday, February 21, 2013 03 

Bright Smiles, Bright Futures 

for better oral health care 

LANI ROSE R DIZON 

DOHA 

MORE than 6,000 primary 

schoolchildren in Qatar will 

be monitored on their daily 

brushing habits as part of an 

oral health programme. The 

programme is aimed to promote 

good habits like brushing 

at least twice a day. 

The eight-week-long ‘Bright 

Smiles, Bright Futures’ 

programme which is being 

organised by the Supreme 

Council of Health (SCH) and 

the Colgate-Palmolive, will be 

implemented to all second 

and third year primary school 

students from 30 health-promoting 

independent schools 

in Doha from March 1 till 

April-end. 

An agreement to facilitate 

the programme, which is said 

to be the first of its kind in 

Qatar, was signed on Wednesday 

by SCH Public Health 

Director Dr Mohammed al 

Thani and Marios Tirkides, 

marketing director for Colgate- 

Dr Mohammed al Thani with Marios Tirkides during an agreement 

signing ceremony, in Doha, on Wednesday. 

Palmolive Arabia & Gulf States. 

Dr Abdulla al Emadi, consultant 

of oral health at the 

SCH, also said, “For the coming 

eight weeks we will provide 

the students with the 

needed educational materials 

such as daily brushing charts, 

toothbrushes and toothpastes, 

and other lecture 

materials to educate them 

about proper oral health care. 

The charts will determine 

whether a student brushes 

his/her teeth in the morning 

and evening. At the end of the 

programme the students will 

receive certificates to recognise 

their efforts towards 

good oral care. Through the 

programme, they will develop 

healthy habits, and brushing 

twice a day would become 

natural for them. This will 

also promote oral health 

within the family.” 

According to Emadi, the 

programme will be implemented 

in Arabic for the next 

three years. Afterwards it will 

be re-evaluated to be implemented 

for all second and 

third year primary students 

under the umbrella of the 

Supreme Education Council 

(SEC) in Qatar. 

Dental caries followed by 

periodontal disease are the 

most common oral health 

problems among the children 

in Qatar, added Emadi. 

He further said, “We did the 

first national oral health survey 

among over 4,200 students 

in Qatar, and the results 

of the study will be released by 

the World Health Organisation 

by April-end. I can tell 

from my experience and the 

data gathered that there is a 

desperate need for a programme 

promoting oral health care 

among schoolchildren here.” 

Meanwhile, according to 

Tirkides, children who took 

part in the ‘Bright Smiles, 

Bright Futures’ programme, 

tend to brush twice daily, visit 

the dentist more, and often 

have better nutritional habits. 

He also said, “The programme 

has already reached 

more than 650 million children 

and their families in 80 

countries. And we’re targeting 

to reach one billion children 

by 2020. Through the 

programme, children in need 

receive free dental screenings 

and education to help build 

healthy habits, self-esteem 

and a foundation for success.” 

QA career offer for 

Qatari students 

at London fair 


DOHA 

QATAR Airways continues 

its drive to recruit young 

Qatari students by sponsoring 

an annual career fair in 

London this weekend. 

The event, organised by 

the State of Qatar’s 

Embassy in London, 

expects to attract over 150 

pre-registered Qatari students 

currently studying at 

UK universities and colleges. 

Taking place at the 

Royal Lancaster Hotel in 

London on February 22 

and 23, it aims to provide 

undergraduates with 

opportunities to secure 

scholarships with leading 

Qatari organisations. 

Qatar Airways, one of the 

world’s fastest growing airlines, 

will again have a leading 

delegation from its 

National Scholarship Programme 

from head office on 

hand in London to provide 

undergraduates with career 

opportunities in over 20 

different career disciplines. 

Chief Executive Officer 

Akbar al Baker said: “Qatar 

Airways is committed to 

identifying and nurturing 

the best young national talent 

for wide range of 

careers we have on offer, 

from technical, operational 

and marketing to sales, airport 

services and corporate 

communications. With so 

many options available, 

Qatar Airways provides a 

career path both in Qatar 

and overseas across our 

over 120 global network of 

destinations.” 

Baker also said: “The 

annual Career Fair in the UK 

this week, our third presence 

over the years, will enable us 

to meet some young people 

and show them what we 

have to offer. Our continued 

success and growth depends 

on harnessing young Qatari 

talent as leaders of tomorrow 

and to maintain pride in 

the country’s national airline 

— and with it the world class 

standards that passengers all 

over the world have come to 

expect from us.” 

Drive to evict labourers from family areas continues 


DOHA 

INSPECTIONS by the Doha 

municipal authorities have 

revealed several violations of 

the law banning labourers 

from residing in areas where 

families live. During the 

inspection, the officials issued 

21 warnings for violation of 

Law No 10 of the year 2010 

which prohibits workers from 

residing in family areas. 

Besides, 10 eviction orders 

were issued and 26 evictions 

were carried out with the help 

of police force. 

On completion of the ‘operation 

eviction’, the Municipal 

Control Department expressed 

its gratitude to Al Fazaa 

for assistance in implementing 

the eviction orders. The 

inspecting team also 

received 44 complaints of 

labourers housed in buildings 

in family areas. 

Under the law in force, in 

the event of non-compliance 

with eviction orders, police 

forces intervene to get the 

properties in question 

vacated. 

A law issued in 2011 prohibits 

workers from residing 

in family areas. The law also 

prohibits renting out of any 

type of house by owners or 

managers to workers in the 

zones meant for families. 

Implementation of the law 

is a multi-stage affair. 

First, municipal officials 

conduct an inspection of the 

premises. 

Then a warning notice asking 

the property owner to 

evict workers from the house 

within 30 days of the issuance 

of the notice is sent through 

registered post along with 

acknowledgement receipt. 

If the workers stay put in 

the said quarters, an administrative 

decision to vacate 

the house is served on the 

home owner followed by 

forced eviction in case of 

non-compliance. 

A Qatar Airways poster.


Nation 

‘Qatar Egypt’s 

biggest 

supporter’ 

QNA 

DOHA 

End Israeli occupation by unifying 

Palestinian factions, say experts 

EGYPT’S Minister of Manpower 

and Migration Khaled al Azhari 

has described the Emir His 

Highness Sheikh Hamad bin 

Khalifa al Thani and Qatari government 

as the biggest supporters 

of Egypt after the revolution that 

swept the country. 

In an interview with Al Watan 

daily, the minister lauded Qatar’s 

economic support for Egypt, 

which consolidates the close relations 

between the two countries. 

Azhari hoped Qatari firms will 

recruit more Egyptian workers as 

Qatar goes ahead with the execution 

of mega projects in preparation 

for the 2022 FIFA World 

Cup. 

Regarding the gain of Egyptian 

workers after the revolution, the 

minister said that the voice of the 

Egyptian worker has become 

audible and unrestricted. 

He stated that Egyptian-Qatari 

relations have taken an impressive 

turn after the revolution. 

He said: “HH the Emir was the 

first Arab leader to visit Egypt 

after the revolution and express 

great interest in revamping the 

Egyptian economy.” 

He added that Qatar first made 

a $2 billion deposit in the 

Egyptian bank, which was later 

increased to $5 billion, with a 

promise to inject $18 billion 

worth of investments into Egypt 

over the coming five years. 

DENISE YAMMINE 

DOHA 

PALESTINIAN unity, popular 

non-violent resistance and 

international support for 

Palestine are the ways of ending 

occupation, according to 

Palestinian ‘thought leaders’. 

These topics were widely 

discussed during a public policy 

session at Brookings Doha 

Center on Wednesday. 

The discussion was titled, 

‘The future of the Palestinian 

National Project’. It assessed 

national efforts to end the 

Israeli occupation and achieve 

political reconciliation 

between opposing factions. 

“Ending occupation by 

negotiation has proved to be 

futile. We definitely need a 

new strategy which could be 

based on popular non-violent 

action, like the ongoing 

hunger strike in the Israeli 

prisons and Bab al Shams’ 

action opposing Israeli settlements,” 

Palestinian National 

Initiative Secretary-General 

Mustafa Barghouti said. “We 

also need to achieve 

Palestinian unity and reach a 

unified leadership, along with 

a different economic policy 

that helps us face the Israeli 

policy of evacuation, and an 

international support that 

Khaled Elgindy of Saban Center for Middle East Policy, Secretary-General House of Wisdom Ahmed Youssef, Deputy Secretary-General 

of Fatah’s Revolutionary Council Sabri Saidam, Secretary-General of Palestinian National Initiative Mustafa Barghouti and Director of 

Brookings Doha Salman Sheikh during a panel discussion, in Doha, on Wednesday. (JALAL PATHIYOOR) 

stops this apartheid in 

Palestine,” he added. 

The most optimal option to 

achieve the change in 

Palestine is to sign an agreement 

for a unified government 

under Mahmoud Abbas’ 

presidency and prepare the 

ground for elections, 

Barghouti said. “We’ve always 

been forced to do what is suitable 

for Israel. I guess it is 

time to change the balance of 

power, and let the US change 

its position,” he added. 

The discussion session also 

hosted Deputy Secretary- 

General at Fatah’s 

Revolutionary Council Sabri 

Saidam, House of Wisdom 

Secretary-General Dr Ahmed 

Youssef, along with Khaled 

Elgindy, a researcher at Saban 

Center for Middle East Policy. 

They discussed the effects of 

the ongoing Arab Awakening 

on Palestine’s domestic arena, 

the backdrop of the recent 

Israeli general elections and 

the inauguration of the US 

President Barack Obama’s 

second term. 

“The two-state solution is 

becoming impossible while 

Israeli bulldozers are destroying 

Palestinian’s homes,” 

Saidam noted. The 

Palestinian leader assured 

that “Unity is the key to end 

occupation. The Palestinian 

Liberation Organisation is the 

core of discussion and I think 

that leaders of all factions are 

focusing on reviving it.” 

“Palestinians’ project” to 

have a democratic state was 

converted to a two-state solution 

by the international community, 

which also failed to 

convince Israel, the speakers 

further said. 

Commenting on the 

changes emanating from the 

Arab Spring, Saidam noted, 

“We cannot support democracy 

and don’t support its outcome. 

It is obvious that things 

have changed. However, 

unfortunately, we are witnessing 

the curse of democracy — 

we hold elections but cannot 

run the system.” 

Talking to Qatar Tribune, 

Saidam said that Palestinian 

factions are not interfering in 

the events related to Syria or 

Lebanon. “We don’t want to 

push Palestinians into a bigger 

regional conflict or make 

them carry arms again,” 

Saidam added. 

Youssef, who is known for 

supporting the bi-national 

state solution, declared that 

the problem is not about the 

Jews, but the Zionists “who 

are throwing us out of 

Palestine by expanding their 

settlements. What options are 

they giving us? We will keep 

on fighting because Al Aqsa 

and Jerusalem are a Muslim 

and Arab cause”. 

Discussing the lessons 

learnt from the Arab Spring, 

Youssef further said, “We 

were delighted in the beginning, 

watching revolutions 

moving from one country to 

another. But, Arab countries 

are still struggling. The positive 

thing is that we are witnessing 

governments comprising 

of Islamists and liberalists. 

This is pushing us 

towards an internal reconciliation. 

We realise that this is 

the right time.” 

The past year has seen the 

Palestinian Resistance 

Movement, Hamas, shift its 

base from the Syrian capital, 

Damascus. “We took a position 

that benefits the Syrian 

people who has long supported 

the Palestinian cause. 

Staying in our office in Syria 

would have been a shame for 

Hamas, as the bloodshed continues 

to cover the streets of 

Syria,” Youssef said. “Today, 

we have no communication 

with the Syrian regime, especially 

after the arrest of some 

of Hamas figures,” he added. 

Businessmen urged to conduct 

audit to prevent fraudulent acts 

RAMY SALAMA 

DOHA 

A US-BASED foreign affairs 

law expert Joseph L Brand 

has urged industrialists and 

businessmen in Qatar to conduct 

an annual audit of their 

company expenses to guard 

against fraudulent acts. 

Speaking at a lecture organised 

by the American 

Chamber of Commerce in 

Qatar on Wednesday, Brand 

discussed the US Foreign 

Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), 

a legislation which governs 

financial transactions 

between companies and governments 

in order to prevent 

bribery. 

Underlining the US, efforts 

against corruption, Brand 

said, “The US Department of 

Justice has a proactive 

enforcement division like the 

Federal Communications 

Commission (FCC) that fights 

corruption at all levels. The 

FBI has also formed a task 

force devoted to promoting 

enforcement of FCPA.” 

He added: “In terms of 

penalties, the Department of 

Justice is now insisting on 

International law expert Joseph L Brand speaks at a lecture, in 

Doha, on Wednesday. (HANSON K JOSEPH) 

prison terms for violators of 

the Act. A recent development 

reflected the US government’s 

crackdown on bribery as violators 

of the FCPA were made to 

pay fines.” 

It is worth mentioning that 

the FCC and the Department 

of Justice are the two departments 

of the US Federal government 

responsible for 

enforcing the FCPA. The 

FCPA was first passed in 

1977. It was enacted for the 

purpose of making it unlawful 

for certain classes of persons 

and entities to make payments 

to foreign government 

officials to assist in obtaining 

or retaining business. 

“A recent amendment to the 

legislation in 2010 regarding 

‘new whistleblower policy’ 

permits a whistleblower to 

receive between 10 percent 

and 30 percent of fines the US 

imposes on a bribe giver”, 

Brand said. 

Brand is a senior partner in 

Patton Boggs LLP, a law firm 

operating from Washington. 

He specialises in international 

law and US law as it applies 

abroad. 

Brand has done legal work 

around the world on behalf of 

clients such as foreign sovereigns, 

multinational enterprises, 

international financial 

institutions, educational 

institutions and non-governmental 

organisations. 

In his domestic practice, he 

helps his foreign and 

American clients on their 

mergers and acquisitions 

deals, financings, regulatory 

compliance, corporate governance 

matters and dealings 

with the federal government. 

Brand also advocates for 

clients in the area of international 

human rights. 

To his credict, he led negotiations 

on an electricity project 

in Iraq on behalf of private 

investors, advised a European 

government on debt restructuring 

and counselled an 

African government on its 

relations with the 

International Monetary 

Fund. 

He has also advised a US 

university on establishing a 

campus in an Asian country 

and conducted a human 

rights audit of a multinational’s 

foreign operations. 

Qtel Group to unveil slew of 

plans at world telecom meet 


DOHA 

ALL eyes will be on Qtel 

Group at the upcoming GSMA 

Mobile World Congress with 

the global communications 

leader set to unveil a series of 

new initiatives to enrich customers’ 

lives at the Congress 

kicking off on February 25 in 

Barcelona, Spain. 

Qtel Group, one of the 

world’s fastest-growing communications 

companies, is 

aiming to demonstrate its credentials 

as a forward-looking, 

community-focused company 

at the Mobile World Congress 

this year. The group continues 

to expand its reach and deliver 

innovative and essential 

services to more than 89 million 

customers in the Middle 

East, North Africa and South- 

East Asia. 

The Qtel Group delegation 

will be led by Chairman HE 

Sheikh Abdullah bin 

Mohammed bin Saud al Thani 

and will include teams working 

in some of the most interesting 

markets in the world, 

including Qtel in Qatar; 

Asiacell in Iraq; Indosat in 

Indonesia; Nawras in Oman; 

Nedjma in Algeria; Tunisiana 

in Tunisia and Wataniya in 

Kuwait, the Maldives and 

Palestine. 

Covering an area that is 

home to a young, rapidlygrowing 

population, Qtel 

Group has been one of the 

leaders in providing mobile 

Internet access to people 

across the developing world. 

The group continues 

to expand its 

reach and deliver 

innovative and 

essential services 

to more than 89 

million customers 

in the Middle East, 

North Africa and 

South-East Asia. 

Group CEO of Qtel Group 

and Chairman of the GSMA 

Mobile for Development 

Foundation Dr Nasser 

Marafih will focus on the challenges 

and the lessons learned 

by the group in his keynote 

presentation on ‘Connecting 

the next billions to the 

Internet.’ 

He will be joined on stage to 

tackle this challenging area by 

Gary Kovacs, CEO of Mozilla 

Corporation; Manoj Kohli, 

CEO (International) and joint 

MD, Bharti Airtel and 

Stephen Elop, president and 

CEO of Nokia. 

Outlining the Qtel Group’s 

initiative to be unveiled at the 

oncoming congress, Marafih 

said: “Qtel Group believes that 

our services have the capability 

to enrich people’s lives. We 

will be focusing on the incredible 

social and human impact 

that communication services 

can deliver through our participation 

in the Mobile World 

Congress this year, and outlining 

our bold plans for new initiatives 

that will benefit the 

communities that we serve.” 

Across all markets, Qtel 

Group is deploying leading 

network technologies and 

smart investments to enable a 

better customer experience. 

The group has initiated a 

major network modernisation 

programme with the use of 

latest 3G technology (U900), 

and increased emphasis on 

Wi-Fi, resulting in improved 

indoor quality and a better 

mobile broadband data experience. 

In Qatar, Qtel continues to 

install broadband fibre-optic 

network across the country, 

and is preparing to commercially 

launch its 4G LTE 

mobile broadband network. 

ASD story book to cement cultural bonds among students 

CATHERINE W GICHUKI 

DOHA 

AMERICAN School of Doha 

(ASD) on Wednesday 

launched a forty-page story 

book titled Compassion, the 

first in the schools ‘Diversity 

Series’ project. 

Jointly written by students 

and teachers, the book comes 

in both English and Arabic 

languages. 

According to the school 

management, the proceeds 

from the sale of the book will 

go to Al Faisal Without 

Borders Foundation (ALF), a 

non-profit charitable organisation 

promoting education 

and healthcare in Qatar and 

abroad. 

The publication was funded 

by the ASD Global Citizenship 

Fund, a board of teachers and 

parents, which aims to 

encourage students to be 

active global citizens. 

The book narrates the journey 

of two children (Isabela 

and Anise) from different cultures 

who become friends. As 

a result of their bonding, the 

American girl learns about 

Qatar, the country where she 

has come to live with her family. 

The nervousness of moving 

to a new place, the unfamiliarity 

of a new country, the 

anguish of being a new student 

at the school dissolve 

because of their friendship. 

Speaking at the launch, 

ASD Director Dr Deborah 

Welch said the story was relevant 

to many of the students 

in the school. 

“With two thousand students 

from 72 nationalities, 

we are truly a microcosm of 

the world. It is a unique and 

fascinating experience for our 

ASD Director Dr Deborah Welch (Right) with Compassion’s authors, illustrators and contributors at the 

book launch, in Doha, on Wednesday. (MANEESH BAKSHI) 

children to learn together and 

it is a wonderful opportunity 

to be in this country. This 

book is special because it is a 

story about children, by children 

and for children,” she 

said. 

She said the book was 

about one of the four values 

the school promotes - 

Compassion. 

According to her, other 

ASD values include honesty, 

respect and responsibility, 

adding that the second book 

on ‘Honesty’ was in the 

pipeline. 

She added that the school 

aimed to publish four books, 

one on each value. 

Commenting on the book, 

Chairperson of ASD Global 

Citizenship Fund Judy Priest 

said, “The fund selected this 

project because it deals with 

one of the subjects of ASD 

missions and values. This 

project does not only help the 

children but also assists us in 

connecting with the culture 

that we live with here.” 

Sheikha al Anood Faisal 

Qassim al Thani, a representative 

of ALF, said: “It’s a wonderful 

book for the community. 

ASD has always been in the 

forefront of such initiatives.” 

Twelve-year-old Haelin 

Kim, one of the illustrators, 

said the project began two 

years ago when she was in 

grade 5. 

“It was a great experience 

for me. We learnt how to 

work as a team because we 

worked closely with the writers,” 

she said. 

Canadian student Ben 

Lenoing, who is one of the 

authors, said: Working on the 

book has taught sacrifice. For 

two years, we went to the artroom 

and brainstormed after 

school every Wednesday.” 

Other illustrators and 

authors of the book include 

students Grace Tobleson and 

Tilde Jacobsen. Other student 

contributors include Athaya 

Putri, Soleyman Theilmann- 

Gohr, Cedric Steigler and 

Andrew Coble. 

The book was translated by 

Sabrina El Karmouty, 

Mariem Karimi, Lina El- 

Turk, Berna Hijazi, Rita 

Karam and the ALF.

Nation Thursday, February 21, 2013 05 

Exposed electric 

cables a hazard 


DOHA 

EXPOSED electric cables of a 

lamppost are posing a serious 

threat to the safety of residents 

of Street No 2 in 

Industrial Area. The street, 

which is a hub of car agencies 

attracts a large number of visitors 

daily. 

The residents suggest 

putting up 

warning notices on 

these lampposts in 

order to keep people 

off the uncovered 

cables. 

Located next to the frequently 

used shortcut to the 

Toyota Motor Corporation, 

the exposed wires also put at 

risk lives of the users of the 

road. According to residents, 

people use this bypass to 

avoid heavy crowds on the 

main street. 

According to some residents, 

the lamppost on the 

street is not an isolated case 

of a pole with uncovered electric 

wires as there are other 

lampposts in the Industrial 

Area with the same problem. 

The residents suggest putting 

up warning notices on 

these lampposts in order to 

keep people off the uncovered 

cables. 

The residents also urged 

the Ministry of Municipal 

Affairs and Urban Planning 

and the Qatar General Water 

and Electricity Corporation 

(Kahramaa) to intervene at 

the earliest and get the wires 

covered to avert an untoward 

incident. 

A lamppost with exposed electric cables at Street 2 in Industrial 

Area, in Doha, recently. 

Georgetown plans 10 new courses 


DOHA 

GERD Nonneman, dean of 

Georgetown University’s 

School of Foreign Service in 

Qatar (SFSQ), has said that 

the university plans to introduce 

10 new courses in the 

near future to give students 

more options. 

The new courses include 

International Relations of 

the Middle East, Iran’s 

Foreign policy since 1941, 

Comparing Electoral 

Systems in MENA region, 

and Money and Banking – 

including Islamic finance 

among others. 

Nonneman said: “We plan 

to provide 10 additional 

courses at the university taking 

the total number of 

courses offered by the university 

to 60 and offering 

more options to the students.” 

According to Nonneman, 

the university also seeks to 

increase the number of faculty 

members by 80 per cent 

over the next three years as 

the number of students is 

expected to reach 300 by 

2015. 

The SFSQ Dean also 

announced that the university 

in Qatar has obtained 

the accreditation to introduce 

a new major (branch) 

to the university and added 

that the details of the branch 

would be announced in July 

this year. 

With the introduction of 

the new branch, the university 

would be offering as 

many as four branches of 

studies at SFSQ from the 

next academic year including 

‘Culture and Politics’, 

‘International Economics’, 

‘International Politics’ and 

the proposed branch, he 

pointed out. 

The dean added: “Currently 

we are studying a proposal 

on introducing postgraduate 

programmes at 

SFSQ, which can be 

immensely beneficial for 

Qatar and the entire region. 

Our proposals are based on 

detailed study of the benefits 

of the programme and the 

possibilities of cooperation 

between Georgetown and 

other universities at the 

Education City and Hamad 

Bin Khalifa University in this 

regard.” 

He revealed that the SFSQ 

was currently negotiating 

with Georgetown University 

in Washington DC and other 

universities of Qatar to proceed 

with its expansion plan 

without affecting its existing 

programme 

Qatar-US trade mission visits 

facilities across West Coast 


DOHA 

THE Qatar 2022 Supreme 

Committee and the US 

embassy in Qatar sent a joint 

trade mission to the western 

United States this week 

which will tour sporting venues, 

visit infrastructure projects, 

research innovative, 

sustainable energy technologies 

and build mutually beneficial 

partnership opportunities 

for US companies as 

Qatar prepares to host the 

2022 FIFA World Cup. 

Commercial ties between 

Qatar and the United States 

have expanded at a rapid 

pace over the last seven 

years, with trade volumes 

growing from US $738 million 

in 2003 to $4.03 billion 

in 2011. 

The delegation led by the 

Secretary-General of the 

Qatar 2022 Supreme 

Committee Hassan al 

Thawadi and US 

Ambassador to Qatar HE 

Susan Ziadeh has met with 

Los Angeles is the 

second largest city 

in the United 

States, one of the 

world’s largest 

economies and is 

home to six professional 

sport teams. 

Mayor of Los Angeles 

Antonio Villaraigosa to discuss 

areas of mutual interest 

including, infrastructure, 

green technologies, trade and 

investment. 

Los Angeles is the second 

largest city in the United 

States, one of the world’s 

largest economies and home 

to six professional sport 

teams. In the meeting, the 

mayor announced that he 

would lead a reciprocal trade 

and investment mission to 

Qatar later this year. 

Later, the secretary-general 

delivered a presentation to 

over a hundred American 

companies on the business 

opportunities the 2022 FIFA 

World Cup Qatar presents to 

the West Coast and the 

United States, as a whole, at a 

briefing organised by the US 

Qatar Business Council and 

the National US Arab 

Chamber of Commerce. 

Secretary-General Thawadi 

and Ambassador Ziadeh 

expressed confidence that the 

trade mission would deepen 

the vital economic relationship 

between Qatar and the 

United States, and generate 

economic growth and high 

quality investment for both 

countries. 

“We are here in the United 

States - a country that is very 

well known for nurturing and 

incubating innovative spirits, 

releasing them and creating 

great success stories whether 

on an individual basis or 

organisationally - in order to 

build mutually reciprocal 

partnerships with companies 

who are interested in using 

the 2022 FIFA World Cup 

Qatar as a platform to target 

a market of 300 million consumers 

across the Middle 

East and the Arab World”, 

Thawadi said. 

Pakistani actor to 

give talk on Urdu 

poetry tomorrow 

LN MALLICK 

DOHA 

Qtel customers 

can now enjoy 

3D movies 


DOHA 

ZIA Mohyeddin, a world 

renowned Pakistani actor, 

narrator, producer, director 

and broadcaster, will give a 

talk at a function to be held 

at Diplomatic Club Tent on 

February 22. 

The event titled ‘An 

evening of prose and poetry 

with Zia Mohyeddin’ has 

been organised by Pakistan 

Professionals Forum Qatar 

(PPFQ). 

The programme will commence 

at 7.30 pm. 

Pakistan’s Ambassador to 

Qatar HE Muhammad 

Sarfraz A Khanzada will 

attend the function as the 

chief guest, according to the 

event’s media coordinator 

Abdul Basit. 

In the 1980s, 

Mohyeddin worked 

in Birmingham, the 

UK, where he produced 

Central Television’s 

flagship 

multicultural programme 

Here and 

Now. 

Born in Faisalabad in 

1930, Mohyeddin received 

training in acting at the 

Royal Academy of Dramatic 

Arts in London from 1953 to 

1956. He has featured in 

both Pakistan and British 

cinemas. After stage roles in 

Long Day’s Journey into 

Night and Julius Caesar, he 

made his West End debut in 

A Passage to India in 1960. 

He made his film debut in 

Lawrence of Arabia in 1963, 

playing the role of Tafas, an 

Arab guide who is shot by 

Omar Sharif for drinking 

Zia Mohyeddin 

water from the wrong well. 

Mohyeddin later made 

several TV and film appearances 

and starred as Dr Aziz 

in the 1965 BBC television 

version of A Passage to 

India. He returned to 

Pakistan in the late 1960s. 

There he founded and ran 

the PIA Arts and Dance 

Academy and hosted his 

own TV talk show. 

In the 1980s, Mohyeddin 

worked in Birmingham, the 

UK, where he produced 

Central Television’s flagship 

multicultural programme 

Here and Now. 

He has since travelled the 

world performing Urdu 

poetry and prose recitations. 

In February 2005, 

Mohyeddin was invited to 

serve as chairman of the 

new National Academy of 

Performing Arts in 

Karachi. Despite his growing 

age, Mohyeddin is still 

active among Pakistani 

media as a speaker and 

hosts several TV programmes 

both for national 

and private channels. 

QTEL customers can now enjoy 3D movies at 

home via the Video on Demand (VOD) service, 

available on Next Generation Mozaic TV. 

Launched in 2012, VOD enables customers to 

enjoy the latest and best new movies from 

Hollywood, Bollywood and across the Arab 

world in the comfort of their own home. 

Now, the service even offers the latest blockbuster 

3D movies, including Hotel 

Transylvania, Men In Black 3, The Amazing 

Spider Man and Arthur Christmas. 

With 3D movies becoming increasingly popular 

in Qatar, subscribers can simply press the 

VOD button on their Mozaic TV remote control 

and start enjoying the experience with friends 

and family. 

The VOD service was launched in partnership 

with Avail-TVN’s On Demand Group, the leading 

global provider of multi-platform video 

services. It provides a wide range of the latest 

movies in ‘Movies On Demand’, and hundreds 

of programmes, kids entertainment, classic 

movies and music videos in its ‘On Demand 

Club’ service. 

As an added bonus, customers can watch programmes 

whenever they want during the rental 

period and can pause, rewind, and fast forward 

films and programmes. The range of films available 

continues to expand, with more 3D titles 

coming to the service in 2013. 

Next Generation Mozaic TV is the most 

advanced TV service in the Middle East, offering 

amazing HD picture quality and on-demand 

features for subscribers. The service is currently 

only available to customers on Qtel’s new 

nationwide fibre network. 

Poster of Hotel Transylvania


Nation 

Qatar Airways begins 

flight to Cambodia 

RAMY SALAMA 

DOHA 

ARTISTS from around the 

world joined Mathaf’s 

Acting Director Michelle 

Dezember on Tuesday to 

discuss the significance of 

museum in promoting art 

and challenges facing artists. 

The artists who participated 

in the discussion were 

Beirut-born Mohamad-Said 

Baalbaki, Hungarian duo 

Little Warsaw and Kristine 

Agergaard, one of the two 

members of Danish- 

German J&K. 

The discussion was the 

second of Mathaf’s ‘In conversation’ 

series. 

Speaking to Qatar 

Tribune about the event, 

Dezember said, “We created 

the ‘In conversation’ series 

with an aim to facilitating 

direct contact and conversation 

between artists, whose 

work are being exhibited, 

and our audiences, who 

often have questions about 

the works and other things 

they want to know. So, we 

wanted to promote dialogue 

between the artists and the 

people who come to see their 

works in the galleries.” 

She added: “We also 

realised in the course of the 

programme that the conversations 

opened debates 

about issues that go beyond 

Mathaf ‘In Conversation’ 

talk series bring artists 

closer to people 

Beirut-born artist Mohamad-Said Baalbaki speaks during Mathaf’s 

‘In conversation’ series, in Doha, on Tuesday. (HANSON K JOSEPH) 

art. The discussions cover a 

whole gamut of things and 

aren’t just about artist, artworks 

and museums. They 

allow us to explore issues 

about contemporary society 

and the world we live in, 

which art gives us a unique 

way to look at”. 

The acting director sought 

to place the conversation in 

the wider context of one of 

Mathaf’s current exhibitions, 

commenting that “this 

series is structured around 

the exhibition ‘Tea With 

Nefertiti’ The making of the 

artwork by the artist, the 

museum and the public’. 

There will be three talks in 

this series. They are 

designed to focus on the 

artist, the museum and the 

public of the exhibition’s 

title as we wanted to investigate 

these three topics. Last 

month, the topic of the conversation 

was the idea, the 

perception of the artist. We 

will have the third and last 

talk next month, which is to 

be about the role of art relative 

to the general public.” 

Referring to the evening’s 

discussion, Dezember said, 

“The talk is about the museum 

itself, taken from the 

perspective of the artist, and 

how the museum can be 

questioned, and how it can 

be used to question what we 

expect from a museum.” 


PHNOM PENH (CAMBODIA) 

QATAR Airways’ (QA) inaugural 

flight to Cambodia touched 

down in the capital Phnom 

Penh on Wednesday further 

expanding the airline’s reach in 

Asia Pacific. 

With the launch of daily 

scheduled services, Qatar 

Airways becomes the only 

Middle Eastern airline flying to 

the South East Asian nation. 

The flight QR602 arrived to 

a traditional water salute followed 

by a ceremony featuring 

colourful Cambodian dancers 

at the Phonm Penh 

International Airport. 

The event was attended by a 

number of dignitaries, including 

Cambodian Secretary of 

State Tekreth Samrach, 

Secretary of State of Civil 

Aviation Mao Havanall and 

Undersecretary of State from 

Cambodia’s Ministry of 

Tourism Pak Sokhom. 

Qatar Airways Chief 

Executive Officer Akbar al 

Baker was joined on the inaugural 

flight from the carrier’s 

Doha hub by Cambodia’s 

Ambassador to Kuwait, who is 

also responsible for Qatar HE 

Long Kem and representatives 

of international media. 

Baker said the latest route by 

the airline opened up a new 

market for business and leisure 

travellers from around the 

world, while at the same time 

facilitating air access from 

Qatar Airways CEO Akbar al Baker with Cambodian Secretary of State Tekreth Samrach and other 

dignitaries watch a presentation by Cambodian dancers during the launch of the airline’s flight to 

Phonm Penh, on Wednesday. 

Cambodia to destinations 

worldwide. 

“I take this opportunity to 

thank the Cambodian government 

and local airport authorities 

for their support in helping 

us launch daily flights to this 

wonderful country. Though 

Cambodia is one of the fastest 

growing economies in South 

East Asia, it has an air travel 

market that is highly underserved. 

Qatar Airways is here 

to fill this void and we look forward 

to working with the travel 

trade and our business partners 

to make this a successful 

operation, Baker said. 

He added: “We are sure 

Cambodian travellers will be 

impressed with Qatar Airways’ 

award-winning hospitality. 

Qatar Airways can connect 

travellers from Cambodia via 

our Doha hub to diverse cities 

like Paris, London, Frankfurt, 

Zurich, Milan, Dubai, Cape 

Town, New York and 

Montreal. 

“At the same time, with our 

new daily service between 

Doha and Phnom Penh, we 

offer travellers from around 

the world access to heritage 

tourist spots in Cambodia such 

as the world famous Angkor 

Wat temple in Siem Reap and 

the picturesque beach island 

resorts in Sihanoukville.” 

The tourism industry, 

Cambodia’s second largest 

income source, received 3.6 

million international tourists 

in 2012, a 24 per cent increase 

on the previous year. 

Cambodia is also home to a 

new industry following the 

recent discovery of oil and minerals, 

offering huge potential 

for overseas investors. 

Baker said, “Qatar Airways is 

spreading its reach in Asia and 

we are proud to say that our 

commitment to this diverse 

continent will continue. In just 

a month’s time, we will be 

adding Chengdu in China, 

which will join our family of 

destinations in Asia, a continent 

which now represents 

around 30 percent of Qatar 

Airways’ global network. 

“Another significant milestone 

for Qatar Airways this 

year will be the introduction of 

Chicago as our fourth US gateway 

adding to daily operations 

to New York, Washington and 

Houston.” 

India’s first pollution control 

ship to arrive in Doha on Feb 23 


DOHA 

INDIAN Coast Guard Ship (ICGS) 

‘Samudra Prahari’, the first pollution 

control vessel not only of the 

Indian Coast Guard but also in the 

entire South East Asia, will pay a 

four-day visit to the Doha Port 

from February 23 to February 26. 

According to an Indian Embassy 

press release on Wednesday, the 

ship’s visit is part of the efforts to 

boost relations and multi-faceted 

cooperation between India and 

Qatar. 

The indigenously built ship has, 

among its charter of duties, tasks like 

preservation, protection and prevention 

of the seas from marine pollution. 

It also protects the waters around the 

country from marine pollution from 

ships. ‘Samudra Prahari’ has been 

responding to oil spills up to Tier II levels. 

The ship, commissioned on 

October 9, 2010, is equipped with 

state-of-the-art pollution response 

and control equipment as well as 

other special features. 

‘Samudra Prahari’ is designed to 

carry one twin engine 

ALH/Chetak helicopter, five high 

speed boats and four water scooters 

for SAR, Maritime law enforcement, 

EEZ surveillance and high 

speed interdictions. 

Stable Afghanistan in the interest of 

South Asia region, says envoy 

L N MALLICK 

DOHA 

THE outgoing Ambassador of 

Afghanistan to Qatar HE Khaled 

Ahmad Zekerya has said that a stable 

Afghanistan is in the interest of 

all in the South Asia region. 

Speaking at a farewell reception 

hosted in his honour by a Pakistani 

social worker M Ashraf Siddiqui 

recently, Zekerya said he tried his 

best to discharge his duties as an 

ambassador. 

He hinted that he might return to 

Qatar one day, but in a different 

capacity. 

“I spent a wonderful time in 

Qatar having made many friends 

and am returning home with sweet 

memories,” remarked Zekerya, who 

is likely to become Afghanistan’s 

deputy foreign minister on his 

return to his homeland. 

Zekerya said there were lots of 

similarities between the peoples of 

Afghanistan’s Ambassador to Qatar HE Khaled Ahmad Zekerya (sixth right) with 

host M Ashraf Siddiqui (fifth right) and other dignitaries at a farewell reception, 

in Doha, recently. 

Pakistan and Afghanistan as they 

shared common culture and religion 

and stressed the importance of 

people-to-people contact in 

improving bilateral ties. 

“As a diplomat I never tried to 

politicise things. I feel that people 

to people contacts are far more 

important than government-togovernment 

contacts. I wish the 

Pakistanis every success in their 

upcoming general elections and I 

hope democracy will further 

strengthen in Pakistan and the 

country will attain more prosperity,” 

said Zekerya. 

Doha Bank announces QR30 

rights issue share price 


DOHA 

THE extraordinary general assembly 

of Doha Bank on Wednesday 

approved the proposed amendments 

on the articles of association 

that were on the assembly’s agenda 

and the two-phased 50 percent capital 

increase. 

The general assembly approves to 

raise 25 percent of the current paidup 

share capital through the 

issuance of 51,674,450 new shares 

to Doha Bank’s existing shareholders 

who are registered at Qatar 

Exchange, at the close of business 

on February 19 at a price of QR30 

per share representing a premium 

of QR20 in addition to a nominal 

value of QR10 per share. 

Another 25 percent of the current 

paid-up share capital will be raised 

through the issuance of new shares, 

in the form of global depositary 

receipts, to be held by a strategic 

shareholder being the depository 

bank, and the global depositary 

receipts to be listed on the London 

Stock Exchange. 

Doha Bank’s existing shareholders 

shall waive their pre-emptive 

right to subscribe in these new 

shares to allow the depository bank 

to directly subscribe for such shares 

as an exception to article 19 of the 

articles of association of the bank. 

The general assembly also granted 

the board of directors full 

authority to execute this second 

phase including the date of 

issuance of these shares, the 

amount of share premium and the 

related terms and conditions, provided 

that the share price, inclusive 

of premium, shall not be less 

than 90 percent of the market 

price of the company’s ordinary 

shares as traded on the Qatar 

Exchange at the date of issue. 

The total amount of the capital 

increase as described above in the 

two phases shall not exceed 50 percent 

of the current paid-up share 

capital. 

Doha Bank Chairman Sheikh 

Fahad bin Mohammad bin Jabor al 

Thani said that in the first phase the 

bank will issue an additional 

51,674,450 shares to its existing 

shareholders for subscription at the 

price of QR30 per share. 

Subscription will be open from 

February 28 to March 13. As for the 

second phase of the capital increase 

through the issuance of global 

depositary receipts to be offered to 

international investors residing 

outside Qatar, it will be executed 

after obtaining the approval of the 

concerned regulatory authorities. 

He also stated that the ordinary 

general assembly of shareholders 

endorsed, in its meeting held on 

the same date, the balance sheet 

and the profit & loss accounts for 

the financial year ended 

December 31.

Nation | Pakistan Prism 

Thursday, February 21, 2013 

07 

AMBASSADOR’S 

MESSAGE 

PEC COMMITTED TO 

TOP QUALITY EDUCATION 

IT is very encouraging to know that Qatar 

Tribune will be publishing an exclusive weekly 

page covering activities of the Pakistani 

community based in Qatar. 

Pakistan and Qatar are brotherly Muslim countries 

which have very strong relations and enjoy 

the confidence of each other on all international 

and regional issues. Pakistan and Qatar share a 

common understanding of terrorism and have 

cooperation to fight against the menace to make 

the region free of such unwanted and unacceptable 

activities. 

We Pakistanis are confident that Qatar 

Tribune, as per the past practice, will continue 

playing a constructive 

role in 

enhancing 

Pakistan’s image The Pakistani diaspora 

has a signifi- 

by publishing 

news about cant role in promoting 

Qatar as a 

achievements 

and contributions diverse state in 

of Pakistani community 

based in 

the Gulf region 

Qatar. Print 

media plays a very significant role in publicising 

and promoting all positive developments thereby 

helping strengthen the bilateral relations. Print 

media documents history for future reference and 

at times sets precedence for other countries to follow. 

The Pakistani diaspora has a significant role in 

promoting Qatar as a diverse state in the Gulf 

region. The Pakistani workforce including doctors, 

engineers, academics and skilled workers, 

have been playing a pivotal role in the development 

of Qatar. 

We, as a nation, are very grateful for the patronage 

of royal family especially the Emir His 

Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani, Her 

Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser and Heir 

Apparent His Highness Sheikh Tamim bin 

Hamad al Thani. We hope their gestures of kindness 

towards Pakistani expatriates will continue 

by providing more opportunities in development 

of Qatar. 

The very wise decision of Qatar Tribune management 

to highlight the diversity of Qatar by providing 

an opportunity of coverage to all expatriate 

communities will enable them to reach out further. 

This will not only give a wide circulation to 

the daily as approximately 90,000 Pakistani expatriates 

in Qatar would be kept informed about the 

new developments in their country back home but 

will also cover their weekly activities in Qatar. 

We wish them the very best and are ready to 

provide all support required to promote a healthy, 

vibrant and diverse society based on different ethnic, 

cultural and religious beliefs. 

HE MUHAMMAD SARFRAZ A KHANZADA 

Pakistan’s Ambassador to Qatar 

L N MALLICK 

PAKISTAN Education Centre 

(PEC) is the largest Pakistani 

educational institution in 

Qatar. It is affiliated to the 

Islamabad-based Federal 

Board of Intermediate and Secondary 

Education and offers excellent educational 

facilities to boys and girls upto 

intermediate level. Nargis Raza Otho, 

who has a rich teaching and administrative 

experience, joined the institution as 

its principal on September 9, 2011. 

Earlier, she was a professor at University 

of Sindh, the second oldest university of 

Pakistan. The institution, having over 

3,000 students, witnessed tremendous 

growth recently thanks to the keen interest 

of Pakistan’s ambassador HE 

Muhammad Sarfraz A Khanzada, who is 

chairman of PEC’s Board of Governors, 

as well as the dedicated efforts of the 

principal. In an interview with Qatar 

Tribune, the principal spoke about the 

major issues faced by the institution and 

the efforts made to further improve the 

standards. Excerpts from the interview. 

Q: What plans are in the pipeline 

to upgrade the existing facilities of 

the institution? 

A: In order to facilitate more students, 

we are constructing new classrooms 

besides an examination hall that will also 

be used for purposes like parent-teacher 

meetings, seminars and debates. Upgradation 

of the science club will be carried 

out in collaboration with Qatar 

University to produce robots so as to 

bring our students to the level of students 

of other institutions. 

What are the major issues facing 

the PEC? 

We need more students from the educated 

families whose children are studying 

in other schools. Academically and 

structurally our school has undergone a 

huge change. We have improved our 

curriculum and incorporated more 

interactive activity into it. Students now 

have a lot of opportunity to nourish their 

creative writing skills. We are also focusing 

on their reading skills and striving to 

improve it by acquiring new books. 

How much do you think has the 

interaction of parents with the 

school authorities helped improve 

running of the school? 

Interaction with the parents proved to be 

very fruitful because they have come to 

know about their children’s progress 

through teachers. Initially, there was a 

slow response from them but later on it 

kept on increasing rising up to 1,100. 

Now we have launched a vigorous campaign 

to attract more parents. We have 

also set up a media committee to show 

them what we have and what we have 

achieved. 

What is your message for the students 

and their parents? 

PEC is a not-for-profit community 

Pakistan Education Centre Principal Nargis Raza Otho. 

school which is proudly and successfully 

catering to the educational needs of the 

students of all the segments of the 

Pakistani community. As the school 

aims to attain its cherished goals of academic 

achievements, we deem it imperative 

to seek parents’ support and backing. 

We are committed to imparting top 

quality education to the students and 

grooming them into more vibrant and 

productive individuals. 

PEC has produced excellent 

results in the recent Federal Board 

examinations. What are your 

plans to achieve even better results 

in future? 

We arranged additional teaching classes 

for all the classes (IX – XII) on a regular 

basis in which the syllabus was covered 

well in time. Now we have enough time 

for revision. We are conducting the 

monthly test besides the regular class 

tests on the Federal Board pattern which 

will help the students to improve their 

skills of attempting the paper and secure 

more marks. We hold parent-teacher 

meetings on a regular basis in which the 

progress of the students is discussed 

with the parents and strategies are made 

to help the students make up their deficiency 

in any subject. In this regard, the 

improvement of maximum attendance 

of the students in the classes is ensured. 

Every possible help and guidance is provided 

to students regarding their studies. 

We hope to produce even better results 

in future. 

Do you offer fee concession or 

exemption to students? If yes, how 

much fee concession has been 

given in year 2012? 

In educational institutions, 

the students must not be 

part of the academic 

world only; rather they 

must be encouraged to 

participate in extra-curricular 

activities. 

Yes we do. In 2011-12, QR35,000 fee 

concession was given to the deserving 

students of PEC and in current year 

2012-13 QR50,000 has been approved 

and given to 14 families. 50 percent concession 

is also being provided for all students 

with special needs starting from 

this year. A special discount of 25 percent 

and 50 percent has been given to 

the third and fourth children of a family 

studying in PEC, respectively. 50 percent 

discount is also given to the children of 

PEC staff members every month. 

You have recently overhauled 

school uniform design and colour 

scheme. What was the reaction of 

the students and parents in this 

regard? 

Most of the parents state that they are 

pleased with the school’s new uniform. 

They have supported the uniform in a 

positive way by considering it to be a 

decent and well-designed dress. The 

colours have also been appreciated by 

them. The change is based on the belief 

that the way we wear, affects how we feel 

and behave. We need to strike the right 

balance between practicality and formality 

in line with life and work outside 

school. The uniform is available at the 

school in all sizes. We hope that this 

change is widely accepted by the parents 

and the community. During the whole 

process of costing and designing, multiple 

companies were contacted for price 

details and designs. Change in uniform 

brings several effects on students. It can 

also help students focus by drawing 

attention back towards schoolwork and 

away from fashion. Students have virtually 

no need to even think about their 

clothing, allowing them to streamline 

their daily activities. Maintaining a neat 

appearance is advantageous to the students 

for several reasons. It develops 

habits of neatness and cleanliness. It 

requires discipline and teaches them 

about the importance of their personal 

appearance. Uniform gives students a 

sense of belonging and encourages them 

to take pride in their school. 

Do you think co-curricular and 

curricular activities are important 

for proper upbringing and grooming 

of a child and what efforts are 

being made by your institution in 

this regard? 

All work but no play makes Jack a dull 

boy, reads the proverb which carries a lot 

of weight. Hence in educational institutions, 

the students must not be part of 

the academic world only; rather they 

must be encouraged to participate in 

extra-curricular activities. It might happen 

that some children might not be 

good in academics but has a lot of potential 

in other activities. So it is the responsibility 

of every educational institution to 

encourage children to marshal their 

skills by allowing them to participate in 

the extra-curricular activities that they 

are good in. Extra-curricular activities 

must be made a mandatory part of the 

curriculum as it enhances the all-round 

development of a child. A child’s growth 

depends upon many factors and one 

such factor is his participation in co-curricular 

activities. Schools must have 

these activities in order to promote 

healthy learning on the school premises 

and for each child to understand and 

know his strong points. 

PEC management knows very well 

the importance of extra-curricular 

activities. Therefore, the Arts and 

Culture Department (ACD) has been 

established in order to provide students 

with the right opportunities. We manage 

these activities under different banners 

such as literary, sports, creative, 

science and field trips. We are also 

committed to developing and nurturing 

the various skills of students which will 

help them emerge as better human 

beings and professionals. These skills 

include learning time management and 

prioritising, getting involved in diverse 

interest, learning about long term commitments, 

making a contribution, raising 

self esteem and confidence and 

building interpersonal skills. We greatly 

support the initiatives taken by Qatar 

government to promote extra-curricular, 

sports and other healthy activities. 

These steps ensure the vision of the 

government to have a healthy society in 

Qatar. 

Pak Shamaa School and College celebrates Sports Day 

L N MALLICK 

PAK Shamaa School and College 

organised the National Sports Day 

at its premises recently. After the 

recitation of the Holy Quran, the 

function started with an impressive marchpast 

and spectacular physical training show. 

President of Pak Shamaa School 

Management Committee M A Shahid cut a 

ribbon to mark the event open. Students 

from the junior as well as the senior sections 

including Cambridge students took 

part in the various sports and athletic 

events such as cricket match, football 

match, slow cycle race, table tennis, badminton, 

wheel chair race, ring race, chatti 

race, female teachers race and musical 

chair involving parents and staff. 

Principal Nabila Kaukab, teaching staff, 

guests and a large number of parents were 

present on the occasion. The winners were 

awarded prizes and trophies for team as 

well as individual performances. . 

While International Stream and 

Cambridge students won the cricket match, 

the English medium wing emerged as the 

overall winner. 

Established in 1958, the PSS is the oldest 

M A Shahid, President of Pak Shamaa School Management Committee, cutting a ribbon to 

mark the event open. 

expatriate school in Qatar. It is affiliated to 

the Islamabad-based Federal Board of 

Intermediate and Secondary Education. 

The institution inaugurated its Cambridge 

school system recently to cater to the educational 

needs of different nationalities 

residing in the country. School’s own purpose-built 

building is spread over an area of 

10,000 square metres which was inaugurated 

in April 2010. 

The Next Generation Kindergarten 

and Primary School holds Sports Day 

The Sports Day at the Next Generation 

Kindergarten (TNG) and Primary School 

started with a march past by tiny tots. The 

flag bearer led the formation around the 

field. The oath-taking ceremony included 

all the students and teachers. The races 

Principal Nabila Kaukab presenting a trophy to a student. 

began with the adorable Early Years students 

lined up for exciting and very unique 

challenges like milk drinking, musical 

chairs, muffin eating and balloon sandwich 

race. Key Stage 1 and 2 moved from fun filling 

races to rekindling the competitive spirit. 

The accompanying chants and vibrant 

colours added to the background. Everyone 

enjoyed the day thoroughly and quite a few 

went home winners with their prizes 

tucked under their arm. Located on main 

E-Ring road between Al Thumama roundabout 

and Mesaimeer traffic signal, TNG 

school system provides quality education of 

an international standard. 

The vision and mission of the TNG is 

aligned in accordance with the strategy of 

Qatar’s Supreme Education Council. 

For events and press releases contact LN Mallick by email at qatar.editor@gmail.com or call (974) 44422077.


Nation 

BPS students go on eco-awareness trip to Al Khor 


DOHA 

MEMBERS of the Eco Club of 

Birla Public School (BPS) 

recently took a trip to Al Khor 

as part of ‘A Flower Each 

Spring’ programme. They 

were enlightened about the 

various aspects of ecology 

during the trip. 

At the booth of birds, the 

lady volunteer explained to 

them the features of birds, the 

sizes of their beaks and eggs. 

Before learning about the 

flora and fauna of Qatar, birds 

and insects, the students were 

introduced to the plant of the 

year, Thilooth, a shrub that 

grows in the littoral salt marshes 

along the shores of the Gulf, 

especially in south-west Qatar. 

The students also took lessons 

about the disposal of different 

kinds of wastes and the 

bins used, like red for aluminum, 

blue for paper, 

brown for general wastes and 

more. 

They were also informed 

about the ongoing construction 

of Quranic Botanical 

Gardens, for the purpose of 

providing education about 

the flora mentioned in the 

Holy Quran and also for 

research. 

They cleaned the shore and 

collected as much waste as 

possible. They were told that 

“with diligent effort we can 

save not only mangrove but 

also the various kinds of 

plants.” The volunteers also 

showed the ways through 

Eco Club members of Birla Public School during a trip to Al Khor recently. 

which the early divers 

obtained pearls from the 

ocean floor. In the end, there 

was a quiz session to assess 

how much the students had 

learnt. 

‘A Flower Each Spring’ programme 

is aimed at increasing 

community awareness about 

the flora of Qatar, their medicinal 

and other qualities and to 

stress the need for conserving 

the flora in order to check ecological 

degradation. 

It also seeks to encourage 

individuals to contribute to 

sustainable development, 

strengthen efforts dedicated to 

preservation and development 

of natural resources and 

encourage the private sector to 

utilise flora as a resource for 

manufacturing materials. 

Over 350 students 

to take part in MUN 

from today 


DOHA 

Over 350 high school students 

from 20 local schools 

and 40 international 

schools representing at 

least 25 countries will converge 

in Doha from 

Thursday to Sunday to take 

part in academic simulations 

of the United Nations. 

The 8th annual Model 

United Nations (MUN) 

conference hosted by 

Education City’s 

Georgetown School of 

Foreign Service in Qatar 

(SFSQ) will take place at the 

Qatar National Convention 

Center where the students 

will debate, deliberate, consult 

and develop solutions 

to real world issues, in a 

recreation of the real workings 

of the UN. 

Over the years, several 

MUN conferences have 

been established and practiced 

all over the world. The 

Georgetown University 

Model UN projects - held 

on both the Washington 

D.C. and Qatar campuses - 

benefit in particular from 

the breadth of expertise and 

focus that a foreign affairs 

curriculum provides to both 

the student organisers and 

the participants. 

Kathryn King, associate 

director of student development 

at SFSQ, touched on 

the interplay of the MUN 

and Georgetown’s education 

mandate, saying 

“SFSQ’s MUN is run by 

Georgetown students. 

Additionally, we have the 

participation 

of 

Georgetown faculty with 

expert briefs offered in our 

committees and sample lectures 

given during the 

event.” 

The scope of the conference 

is further enhanced by 

the tremendous representation 

from both regional and 

international schools. SFSQ 

Dean Gerd Nonneman 

makes the point that “the 

opportunity to participate 

in the Model United 

Nations presents a transformative 

moment for a future 

generation of engaged citizens. 

High school students 

from around the world 

coming to Doha will gain a 

unique insight into the 

mechanisms of effective 

negotiation and global conflict 

resolution. We are 

incredibly proud of our university 

students serving as 

role models through the 

dedication and hard work 

they have invested in this 

important programme.” 

This year’s Model UN 

theme, along with the 

committees and committee 

topics chosen by the 

MUN Student Board, is 

focused on the issue of 

sustainability. 

William YangUn Cha, an 

SFSQ senior in international 

economics and the secretary-general 

for the upcoming 

SFSQ MUN, reflects on 

the chosen topic of sustainability 

as “particularly relevant 

to Qatar, the host 

country of our conference.” 

A student makes a point during the Model United Nations, in 

Doha, last year. 

METS 2 meet from March 18 


DOHA 

THE 2nd Middle East 

Turbomachinery Symposium 

(METS 2) will be held at the 

Qatar National Convention 

Center (QNCC) from March 18 

to 20 with short courses being 

offered on March 17 in conjunction 

with the symposium. 

The Turbomachinery 

Laboratory at Texas A&M 

University is organising the 

event with support from 

Qatar Petroleum, the host 

and titanium sponsor. Other 

major sponsors include: platinum 

– ExxonMobil and 

RasGas, gold – Qatargas, and 

silver – Dolphin Energy. 

In February 2011, the inaugural 

METS debuted in Doha 

with over 1,000 attendees 

and 60 exhibiting companies. 

Following this successful 

SANTHOSH CHANDRAN 

DOHA 

MEDIA Plus, a local advertising 

and event management 

company, has released two 

Malayalam language short 

films in Doha on Tuesday. 

Within a brief span of time, 

the concept of ‘home cinema’ 

has earned widespread 

acceptance in Kerala community. 

Mediaplus CEO Amanulla 

Vadakkangara said, “Home 

cinema’ is a kind of entertainment, 

which is now popular 

among the Kerala expatriate 

community in the Gulf 

region. These films are produced 

with less expensive 

technology and are low-budget. 

It provides an opportunity 

for young filmmakers to 

experiment with their concept 

on cinema without much 

financial commitments. As 

these films are themed on 

family affairs and comedy, it 

has enough audience among 

the Kerala expatriates in this 

region.” 

While the film ‘Virahathin 

A view of the Qatar National Convention Center in Doha. 

launch, METS 2 is primed to 

be the premier turbo machinery 

event in the Middle East, 

combining a world-class technical 

conference and international 

exhibition. 

METS 2 will be held under 

the patronage of Minister of 

Energy and Industry HE Dr 

Mohammed bin Saleh al Sada 

who will be the keynote 

speaker at the opening ceremony. 

The METS Technical 

Advisory Committee 

(MTAC), a group comprised 

of highly respected engineers 

from both regional and international 

companies in the 

industry, oversaw the development 

of the technical programme. 

Dr Dara Childs, 

director of the 

Turbomachinery Laboratory, 

and Abdulaziz al Naimi, manager 

(joint interest) at 

RasGas, serve jointly as 

MTAC co-chairs. The programme 

was developed with 

end users in mind, particularly 

users from oil and gas, 

petrochemical, and power 

generation industries. 

Delegates can choose to 

attend and engage in a combination 

of eight short courses, 

12 lectures, eight tutorials, 

eight discussion groups and 

21 sessions of case studies, led 

by 133 accomplished authors 

from around the world. 

Topics to be covered include 

compressors, steam and gas 

turbines, expanders, pumps 

and drivers including motors, 

and auxiliary equipment such 

as couplings, bearings, gear 

boxes, dry gas seals, and 

annular seals. 

The symposium exhibition 

show will host booths of 63 

leading companies from the 

oil and gas, petrochemical, 

power, pumping and turbo 

machinery industries. The 

companies will display fullsize 

equipment, cutting-edge 

technology, and emerging 

industry trends. Highly-qualified 

technical personnel will 

be on hand to address business 

needs. During a part of 

the symposium, the exhibit 

hall will be open to the public 

upon completion of a freepass 

registration form. 

Online registration for the 

symposium will close on 

February 24 after which delegates 

must register on-site at 

the QNCC. In addition, delegates 

have the option to register 

for a tour of Ras Laffan. 

The Port of Ras Laffan was 

built by Qatar Petroleum as 

an export facility to support 

Ras Laffan Industrial City 

(RLIC), the world’s most 

sophisticated energy related 

industrial city. 

Two Malayalam short films released in Doha 

CIGI Qatar chapter President MP Shafi Haji (third right) releases a CD of short films, in Doha, on Tuesday. 

Vedhana’ (Pain of 

Separation) directed by 

Rasheed Naas narrates the 

story of love and family values, 

the other one, ‘Pavam 

Paramashudhan’ (Naïve and 

Innocent) directed by 

Ramesh Palemad, narrates a 

family story with a satirical 

flavour. 

Qatar chapter President of 

Centre for Information and 

Guidance India (CIGI) 

Kollam Shafi released the CD 

of ‘Virahathin Vedanta’ by 

handing it over to General 

Manager of Falkland 

Electrical and Trading 

Company, Teyseer Ibrahim. 

The other film, ‘Pavam 

Paramashudhan’, was 

released by NKM Group 

Managing Director NKM 

Mustafa with handover of its 

CD to Managing Director of 

Sulfer Chemical Ahmed 

Tuneri. 

Mediaplus CEO Amanulla 

Vadakkangara, Faleh Naser 

Faleh Foundation Manager 

KV Abdulla Kutty, Global 

Forum Vice-chairperson CK 

Rahel and Administrative 

Manager of Al Rawabi Group 

Mohamed Jamsheer were 

present on the occasion. 

Mediaplus marketing coordinator 

Abdul Fathah 

Nilambur proposed the vote 

of thanks on the occasion. 

‘Francophone Cinema Week’ in Doha from March 7 


DOHA 

KATARA DFI Cinema, in collaboration 

with the French 

Embassy/Institut Français du 

Qatar and with the support of 

the embassies of Belgium, 

Canada and Switzerland, will 

present ‘Francophone Cinema 

Week’ (La Semaine du Cinéma 

Francophone) in Doha from 

March 7 to March 13. 

Coinciding with worldwide 

celebration of Francophonie 

Month (March), the 

Francophone Cinema Week’ 

would be held at Katara 

Drama Theatre, building 16, 

and feature a selection of the 

finest contemporary cinema 

from Francophone member 

countries including Belgium, 

Canada, France, Luxembourg, 

Morocco, Senegal and 

Switzerland. 

The programme will open 

with the Qatari premiere of 

the Cannes Palme D’or winner 

and five times Oscar nominated 

film, ‘Amour’ by 

renowned director Michael 

Haneke and will close with 

the worldwide box-office hit 

‘The Intouchables’ directed 

by Olivier Nakache and Eric 

A still from the film, Armour. 

Toledano. 

Other titles that will be 

screened during this dedicated 

week include the heartfelt 

animation ‘Ernest et 

Célestine’ (Ernest & Celestine) 

by Stéphane Aubier, 

Benjamin Renner and Vincent 

Patar, a short film ‘Champs- 

Elysees Je T’aime’ by Qatari 

director Mahdi Ali Ali, from 

the Arab world the poignant 

story of ‘Yema’ by Djamila 

Sahraoui, the dark fairytale 

‘Androman - De Sang et de 

Charbon’ (Androman - Blood 

and Coal) by Az Larabe 

Alaoui, the Academy Award 

nominee for Best Foreign 

Language Film 2012 

‘Monsieur Lazhar’ by Philippe 

Falardeau, an intense family 

drama based on a true story ‘À 

perdre la raison’ (Our 

Children) by Joachim Lafosse, 

the acclaimed Cannes title ‘La 

Pirogue’ (The Pirogue) by 

Moussa Touré and the 2012 

Berlinale Silver Bear winner 

‘L’enfant d’en haut’ (Sister) by 

Ursula Meier. 

Abdulaziz al Khater, chief 

executive officer, Doha Film 

Institute, said: “We are 

pleased that throughout the 

‘Francophone Cinema Week’ 

audiences in Doha will have 

the opportunity to experience 

films from French-speaking 

countries, a variety of cultures 

and explore cinema from different 

parts of the world. This 

collaboration is part of our 

overall mandate to help 

enhance film culture and 

appreciation in Qatar.” 

Ambassador of France HE 

Jean-Christophe Peaucelle 

said: “It’s a great pleasure to 

collaborate with Doha Film 

Institute and share a great 

ensemble of French-speaking 

films with audiences in Doha. 

“Katara DFI Cinema provides 

an ideal platform to 

showcase such films and we 

are really pleased to have this 

programme. 

“We look forward to working 

with DFI and promoting 

awareness of this cultural initiative.”

Philippines / East Asia 

Thursday, February 21, 2013 

09 

Filipino rebels 

storm pineapple 

plantation; 1 killed 

Philippine police stand in front of a burnt payloader inside the compound of Del Monte Philippines Inc, in Manolo Fortich town, 

Bukidnon province, southern Philippines, on Wednesday. (AP) 

AP 

MANILA 

MORE than 100 communist 

guerrillas stormed one of the 

world’s largest pineapple 

plantations in the southern 

Philippines, killing a guard 

and torching farm equipment 

in their biggest attack this 

year, officials said on 

Wednesday. At least two 

other guards and a villager 

were shot and wounded by 

the New People’s Army guerrillas, 

who barged into a residential, 

recreational and 

office complex on the vast 

plantation of Del Monte 

Philippines Inc. late Tuesday 

in Manolo Fortich town in 

Bukidnon province, Army Lt. 

Col. Eugenio Osias said. 

Shortly before the assault, the 

Maoist guerrillas, who were disguised 

as army soldiers, blocked 

a patrol car carrying three police 

officers at a bridge in Manolo 

Fortich and seized weapons 

from them, Osias said. 

Reinforcement troops 

clashed with the rebels for 20 

minutes prior to the Del 

Monte attack, but the guerrillas 

managed to withdraw and 

proceed to the plantation, 

where they shot to death a 

guard at the gate and later 

wounded two other guards, 

regional police chief Catalino 

Rodriguez said. 

The Maoist rebels burned 

farm equipment and 

destroyed a number of computers 

in an office. They ransacked 

buildings and seized 

firearms at the plantation’s 

Camp Phillips, a scenic complex 

of country homes, a golf 

course and a clubhouse for 

farm officers and workers, 

Del Monte senior manager 

Ramon Velez said. 

The rebels also burned a 

small Del Monte office building 

and a fertilizer warehouse 

in nearby Sumilao town, 

according to Velez. 

Rebel spokesman Jorge 

Madlos said Wednesday that 

the assaults were punishment 

for Del Monte’s refusal to heed 

a guerrilla demand to stop 

expanding its already-vast 

plantations, which they blame 

for harming the environment. 

Velez said the company, 

which employs about 10,000 

people, adheres to all laws, 

including those pertaining to 

environmental protection. 

Osias called Madlos’ statement 

propaganda to cover a 

ruthless attack on civilians 

and a private company. 

“It’s not for environmental 

protection; it’s for extortion,” 

he said. 

Del Monte Philippines was 

part of the U.S.-based food 

giant until the 1980s, when 

Filipino investors started 

buying into the company. 

Now owned by Filipinos, it 

still supplies canned pineapple 

under a contract with its 

U.S. counterpart, Velez said. 

According to its website, 

the company operates the 

largest integrated pineapple 

operation in the world, growing 

pineapples across 20,000 

hectares (49,421 acres) in the 

Bukidnon region, about 860 

kilometers (535 miles) southeast 

of Manila. 

The 43-year-old Marxist 

insurgency is one of Asia’s 

longest-running. The rebels’ 

armed force has been weakened 

from a peak of about 

25,000 fighters in the mid- 

1980s to about 4,000 due to 

battle losses, surrenders and 

factionalism. The Philippine 

government still regards 

them as the country’s most 

serious security threat. 

Horsemeat 

scandal fears 

spread to 

Hong Kong 

AFP 

HONG KONG 

FEARS over a Europe-wide 

food fraud scandal concerning 

horsemeat sold as 

beef have spread to Hong 

Kong after an imported 

brand of “beef” lasagne was 

pulled from shelves, officials 

said on Wednesday. 

Hong Kong authorities 

last week ordered a top 

local supermarket chain to 

remove the lasagne made 

by frozen food giant 

Findus, one of the firms at 

the centre of the scandal. 

The product was imported 

from Britain and made 

by French firm Comigel. 

Western food is popular in 

the Asian financial centre, 

which has a large population 

of expatriates. 

Hong Kong’s Centre for 

Food Safety urged locals 

not to consume the item, 

which it said “might be 

adulterated with horsemeat 

which has not 

undergone tests for veterinary 

drugs”. 

The product had been 

sold at supermarkets run 

by ParknShop, one of the 

biggest supermarket 

chains in the southern 

Chinese city and owned by 

tycoon Li Ka-shing. 

“The product was 

removed from our stores 

last week following the government’s 

instructions,” a 

ParknShop spokeswoman 

told AFP on Wednesday. 

The chain has about 280 

stores in Hong Kong and 

the neighbouring gaming 

hub of Macau. 

A spokeswoman at the 

government’s food and 

environmental hygiene 

department said authorities 

would monitor the 

food fraud scandal closely 

but only one contaminated 

product had so far been 

sold in Hong Kong. 

Neither the supermarket 

nor the government 

could give the number of 

the Findus frozen beef 

lasagnes that were recalled 

in the city. 

Manila defends UN move 

over China challenge 

AFP 

MANILA 

THE Philippines said on 

Wednesday it was on “the 

right track” in seeking to have 

a UN tribunal strike down 

China’s claims to most of the 

South China Sea, after the 

Chinese government rejected 

the process. 

President Benigno Aquino’s 

chief aide, Rene Almendras, 

said the government expected 

China to ignore the plan to 

bring the matter up at the 

United Nations and stressed 

the case could still proceed 

without Beijing’ approval. 

“We will follow the process 

whether they agree to it or not,” 

Alemndras told reporters. 

“Of course, we are of the 

opinion that we are on the 

right track... we would not 

have started it if we did not 

think that we would have 

enough basis to file all these 

issuances.” 

The Philippines announced 

last month it had applied for 

its dispute with China over 

AFP 

MANILA 

BOYS shout in delight as they 

flip backwards off a bridge. 

Fishermen quietly cast rods 

out. They are joyful acts that 

should belong to an earlier era, 

before the Philippines’ Pasig 

River turned toxic. 

Yet some slum dwellers in 

Manila whose shanty homes 

choke the river and its tributaries 

have little choice but to 

live as if the national capital’s 

most important waterway is 

clean. 

“It’s hot. We have no other 

place to swim and escape the 

heat,” 16-year-old Christian 

Ivanes said as he took a break 

from jumping off a bridge 

near the mouth of the river 

with his friends. 

Ivanes, his seven siblings 

and a few hundred other illegal 

squatters live under the 

the South China Sea to be 

arbitrated under the United 

Nations Convention on the 

Law of the Sea, a 1982 treaty 

signed by both countries. 

President Benigno 

Aquino’s chief 

aide, Rene Almendras, 

said the government 

expected 

China to ignore the 

plan to bring the 

matter up at the 

United Nations and 

stressed the case 

could still proceed 

without Beijing’ 

approval. 

The Philippines wants the 

tribunal to declare Chinese 

claims to most of the sea, 

which is believed to sit atop 

vast natural resources and is 

home to rich fishing grounds, 

as unlawful. 

But China says it has sovereign 

rights over nearly all of 

the South China Sea, even 

waters approaching the coasts 

of the Philippines and other 

Southeast Asian nations. 

On Tuesday China 

announced it had rejected the 

Philippines’ call for UN arbitration, 

insisting on bilateral 

negotiations with its less powerful 

neighbour. 

Although China has recently 

sent ships into the South 

China Sea to enforce its 

claims and established a local 

government to rule over the 

contested waters, it warned 

the Philippines not to 

increase tensions. 

“The Philippine side 

(should) keep its word not to 

take any action that magnifies 

and complicates the issue,” 

foreign ministry spokesman 

Hong Lei told reporters in 

Beijing. 

Under the UN convention’s 

rules, the arbitration can proceed 

even if China declines to 

participate. 

China can choose to ignore 

any eventual ruling by the tribunal. 

Nevertheless, a UN 

verdict that its claims were 

unlawful would be a diplomatic 

blow. 

Illegal shanties choke Philippines’ Pasig river 

The swollen Davao river due to rains from tropical depression 

‘Crising’, near Davao City, southern Philippines, recently. (EPA) 

bridge in stilt houses made of 

junk wood and plastic, their 

existence as desperate as any 

in an Asian megacity infamous 

for its brutal poverty. 

Shopping from the community 

stall at high tide requires 

wading ankle-deep through 

plastic wrappers and other 

garbage that is floating in 

black water. A thick stench 

rises with strong hints of 

untreated sewage and industrial 

waste. 

“There have been people 

who have gone into this with 

an open wound and died,” said 

Gina Lopez, a prominent environment 

campaigner who is 

leading the latest government 

drive to clean up the Pasig. 

The national government is 

spending 10 billion pesos 

($240 million) a year to 

transform the waterway and 

its 47 tributaries, according to 

Lopez, chairperson of the 

Pasig River Rehabilitation 

Commission. 

Half the money is being 

spent on trying to relocate 

about 300,000 squatters who 

live directly along the banks of 

the river and tributaries, 

known locally as esteros. 

“As long as there are illegal 

dwellers living along the 

estero, using the place as their 

toilets and dumping garbage, 

MILITARY EXERCISES 

A US Marine holds a cobra skin during a jungle survival programme as part of the annual 

combined military exercises, Cobra Gold 2013, at a navy base, in Sattahip, on Wednesday. 

Cobra Gold is a joint, multi-national military training exercise that focuses on maintaining and 

improving military-to-military relationships among nations sharing common goals and security 

commitments in the Asia-Pacific region. (AFP) 

there’s no clean-up that can 

happen. So that’s the beginning,” 

Lopez said. 

The commission has cleared 

and rehabilitated four esteros 

since 2010, when President 

Benigno Aquino took power 

and implemented the programme, 

according to Lopez. 

It is aiming to start work on 

16 more this year, then have all 

the esteros as well as the Pasig 

transformed by the time 

Aquino ends his term in 2016. 

At Estero de Paco, a 2.9- 

kilometre (1.8-mile) tributary 

that a few years ago was one 

of the most polluted in the 

city, shanty homes have been 

replaced with tree-lined 

boardwalks while watertreatment 

machines now nestle 

amid plants. 

The more than 1,300 families, 

or roughly 6,500 squatters, 

who lived within three 

metres (10 feet) of the channel 

have been relocated, while 

vendors at a nearby market 

have stopped dumping 

garbage into the water. 

Programmes with local 

water companies to improve 

sewage facilities have also 

been implemented. 

Flooding that regularly hits 

the area has lessened because 

drains are not blocked by 

garbage, according to Lopez, 

and the residents who have 

remained beyond the threemetre 

clearance zone appear 

much happier. 

“It’s like living in a subdivision 

now,” said Evelyn 

Quitala, 51, who has called 

Estero de Paco home all her 

life and runs a small shop from 

her two-storey concrete home. 

“We can now jog here along 

the footpath and our children 

don’t have to go somewhere 

else to play... and it is no 

longer smelly.”


Opinion 

ESTABLISHED SEPTEMBER 3, 2006 

SILVIO BERLUSCONI, who resigned 

as Italy’s prime minister 15 months 

ago, is staging an appalling comeback. 

With less than a week to go before national 

elections this weekend, polls show that 

Berlusconi’s coalition has surged into second 

place, trailing the centre-left coalition 

by single digits. 

While Berlusconi is unlikely to ever win a 

fourth term, a strong showing by his forces 

could make it impossible for any party to 

form a working parliamentary 

majority. That 

would be disastrous for 

Italy, which needs to push 

through overdue reforms, 

like stronger anticorruption 

laws, a fairer tax code 

and more competition. 

These are not the issues 

Berlusconi can credibly 

run on. Instead, the centrepiece 

of his campaign 

has been a populist promise 

to end the unpopular 

homeownership tax 

introduced in 2012 and 

refund last year’s payments. 

The housing tax is 

made necessary by Italy’s poor record in 

collecting other taxes and the European 

Union’s perverse insistence on balanced 

budgets in a recession. But refunding it 

would punch a huge hole in Italy’s finances 

and set off an increase in interest rates for 

Italian bonds, wiping out all the painful 

sacrifices last year. 

This reckless pandering has boosted 

Berlusconi in the polls, largely because his 

rivals have failed to inspire voters. Pier Luigi 

Bersani, leader of the centre-left Democratic 

HAMAD BIN SUHAIM AL THANI 

CHAIRMAN 

ADEL ALI BIN ALI 

MANAGING DIRECTOR 

DR HASSAN MOHAMMED AL ANSARI 

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF 

PRINTED AT ALI BIN ALI PRINTING PRESS 

Italy Votes On Its Future 

The centre-left could form a coalition govt in case no party gets majority 

Party, is a moderate ex-Communist and 

former industry minister in the 1990s. To 

many, he symbolises Italy’s old political 

class, out of ideas and out of touch. He is 

also seen as too beholden to the unions to 

press labour market reforms. Running third 

is an anti-politics slate organised by a comedian, 

Beppe Grillo. 

Centrist supporters of Prime Minister 

Mario Monti are in fourth place. Monti, a 

technocrat chosen to lead the government 

after Berlusconi 

resigned, has failed to 

connect with voters and 

is blamed for unpopular 

austerity measures like 

the homeowners tax, 

which have not produced 

clear signs of economic 

revival. The austerity 

obsessions of 

European Union leaders 

and German Chancellor 

Angela Merkel condemned 

Italy to recession. 

That has made it 

easier for Berlusconi to 

pose as a champion of 

ordinary Italians against 

the demands of Europe. The scary thing is 

that Berlusconi could emerge as a kingmaker, 

ready to trade his support to protect 

his business and personal interests. 

More likely, Bersani and Monti could 

end up forming a postelection coalition, 

which would be far better than a return to 

the Berlusconi era. But if Italy is to move 

from recession to growth, it needs real 

change rather than tepid policy compromises. 

Berlusconi, of course, is doing all 

he can to make that path harder. 

Finding Out Who Pays Your Doctor 

THE Obama administration issued a 

new rule this month that requires the 

makers of prescription drugs and other 

medical products to disclose what they 

pay doctors for various purposes, like 

consulting or speaking on behalf of the 

manufacturer. This overdue rule adds 

much-needed weight to previous, more 

limited disclosure requirements. 

The goal is to let the public know 

about payments that might lead doctors 

to prescribe treatments that benefit 

them financially without necessarily 

benefiting patients. This information 

will allow patients and their families to 

check whether their own doctors are 

receiving payments and to see if those 

financial connections affect a doctor’s 

recommendation for a particular treatment 

or device. 

The rules may require 1,000 or more 

(NYT) 

(NYT) 

makers of drugs, medical devices and 

other medical products to report payments, 

gifts, consulting fees, research 

support among other types of compensation 

made to physicians and teaching 

hospitals. The federal government will 

post the payment data on a public website 

that will be easily searchable starting 

late next year. 

The rules don’t flatly forbid any payments, 

but even disclosure alone is an 

important first step. The data collected 

will provide the most comprehensive evidence 

yet of how common various types 

of payment are, and will allow researchers 

to document more fully whether these 

payments influence medical judgments in 

ways that actually harm patients. 

If it turns out that they do, there will 

be a strong basis for banning such payments 

completely. 

David Cameron’s 

Date In Delhi 

The UK is courting Indian business, but the prime minister 

needs to raise the bar if he wants to be taken seriously 

INDIA is being wooed again. In the 

space of a few days, both Francois 

Hollande and David Cameron have 

turned up on its doorstep with 

palms outstretched in the search 

for business contracts. It will have come 

as a soothing balm to an Indian government 

facing increasing disillusion at 

home and growing cynicism on the part 

of investors abroad. 

There was a period, especially in the 

last decade, when India’s policymakers 

could do no wrong in the eyes of global 

capital and western powers. Then, the 

same policies that were celebrated as 

causes of India’s dynamism were discovered 

to have resulted in corruption, 

cronyism and growing inequalities. 

Popular revolts against these conditions 

forced even the global media to take note. 

And now, suddenly, India is acceptable 

again. Even the more unpleasant elements 

such as Narendra Modi - once 

shunned following the pogrom of 

Muslims in Gujarat, where he was chief 

minister - are brought in from the cold. 

Within India this renewed enthusiasm 

is hard to understand, as the macroeconomic 

indicators continue their downward 

trend to the point that even India’s 

central banker is sounding warnings 

about the future. GDP growth is projected 

to be only 5 percent this fiscal year, the 

lowest in more than a decade. The current 

account deficit is 5.3 percent of GDP, 

much higher than it was before the 1990- 

91 crisis, and it is being funded by highly 

volatile flows of short-term finance that 

can be easily reversed. The general election 

next year is likely to throw up no clear 

result, portending more uncertainty. 

JAYATI GHOSH | 

GUARDIAN NEWS SERVICE 

Cameron spoke on 

February 18 of his vision 

of becoming “the partner 

of choice” for what would 

become one of this century’s 

major economies. 

Lots of work is required 

to get there. 

So why all this interest? Of course, it is 

true that while Indian economic growth 

may be decelerating, it’s still higher than 

Europe’s, and the Indian market is 

unquestionably vast. Also, India and 

China are two of the few remaining ‘hinterlands’ 

for global capital to penetrate 

through privatisation, since there are 

large public sectors. While the French 

president was low-key about his intentions, 

Cameron made no bones about 

his: big business and bigger business. He 

brings with him more than 100 ‘captains 

of industry’, supposedly the largest such 

delegation ever to accompany a British 

PM on a foreign trip. And the delegation 

went first to India’s business capital 

Mumbai, and only afterwards to the 

administrative capital New Delhi. 

Cameron spoke on February 18 of his 

vision of becoming “the partner of 

choice” for what would become one of 

this century’s major economies. Lots of 

work is required to get there: trade with 

the UK has been declining in importance 

for India, with exports to the UK 

only 2.5 percent of total merchandise 

exports (compared with 6.5 percent in 

1990-91) and imports from the UK even 

less significant at 1.5 percent (down 

from 6.7 percent in 1990-91). 

For such ambition, Cameron’s actual 

promises were somewhat bonsai in 

nature. He promised GBP1m to help 

fund a feasibility study into using British 

expertise to develop a ‘business corridor’ 

between Mumbai and Bangalore - an 

amount so pathetically tiny that it may 

even have embarrassed his Indian listeners. 

And he promised easier and 

greater visa access to Indian students 

coming to the UK - perhaps a belated 

response to the reduction in Indian student 

numbers that has become a matter 

of concern in British universities. 

Both miss the point. Cameron’s strategy 

of engagement is based on the continuation 

of an Indian economic strategy 

that has lost its legitimacy within the 

country. It ignores the genuine Indian 

economic concerns about British policy 

with respect to trade and investment 

rules and intellectual property rights. It 

underplays and even seeks to accentuate 

the growing inequalities of opportunity 

that afflict education and result in a brain 

drain. So it is unlikely to gain much traction 

in India, however large the size of his 

delegation. In such a context, maybe a 

smaller but smarter group of British visitors 

may have been more effective. 

(Jayati Ghosh is professor of 

economics at Jawaharlal Nehru 

University, New Delhi.) 

The Pope’s Muffled Voice 

The media frenzy about choosing the new pope doesn’t reflect the reality on the ground 

THERE were reports over the 

weekend that cardinals might 

tweak the rules and begin the 

conclave to choose Pope 

Benedict XVI’s successor sooner 

than March 15, which had been the earliest 

date mentioned. That would be a 

blessing. Already in the American news 

media it’s all pope all the time, a tsunami 

of papal coverage, and until a new 

pope is named, the tide won’t quit. 

You’d be forgiven for concluding that 

he’ll actually have significant sway over 

Catholics in this country. 

He won’t, not over the majority of 

them, not in any immediate sense. And 

it’s worth pausing, amid this hoopla, to 

remember that. In large parts of the 

Roman Catholic world, certainly in 

North America and Western Europe, 

most Catholics don’t feel any particular 

debt or duty to the self-appointed caretakers 

of their church. They don’t feel 

bound by the pope’s interpretation of 

doctrine or moral commands. And many 

regard him and other Vatican officials as 

totems, a royal family of dubious relevance, 

partly because these officials have 

often shown greater concern for the 

church’s reputation than for the needs, 

and wounds, of the people in the pews. 

The blanket coverage of matters papal 

is deceptive, a function to some degree of 

habit and convenience. We in the media 

love the clear-cut drama of transitions. 

They’re easy to grasp and frame. And in 

the case of the Vatican, they come with 

majestic visual backdrops, colourfully 

costumed characters: a pageant extraordinaire. 

It looks splendid on the front 

page and even better on the nightly news. 

We traffic in celebrities, and the pope 

qualifies as one. We also relish the narrative 

of any winner-take-all contest in 

which there are multiple hopefuls, murky 

dynamics and a familiar brand of suspense. 

This informs the way we approach 

presidential elections, focusing on the 

horse race. It explains all the cook-offs, 

the sing-offs, the analyses of the face-off 

between Argo and Lincoln for Best 

Picture. The papal selection process is in 

FRANK BRUNI | 

NYT NEWS SERVICE 

The blanket coverage 

of matters papal is 

deceptive, a function to 

some degree of habit 

and convenience. 

one sense ‘Top Chef’ without the cooking. 

It’s the ecclesiastical Oscars. It fits a mold, 

regardless of import. 

There’s import, certainly. The Roman 

Catholic Church is a worldwide organisation 

with enormous financial 

resources; with a network of charities 

and agencies that provide crucial help 

to the downtrodden; and with parishes 

in which the prayerful nurture their 

relationship with God. And the pope is 

its CEO, ultimately responsible for 

where the money flows and for the 

placement and policing of its staff. The 

policing part matters, as the child sexual 

abuse crisis made agonisingly clear. 

But the trend over the last half-century 

has been for the prayerful in this 

country to feel less invested in that 

organisation, less attached to its traditions. 

Polls chart a decline in churchgoing 

among American Catholics and a 

robust disobedience. 

A 2011 survey published in the 

National Catholic Reporter showed 

that while 73 percent of American 

Catholics described their belief in Jesus’ 

resurrection as “very important” to 

them, only 30 percent described the 

teaching authority of the Vatican that 

way, and only 21 percent characterised 

an all-male, celibate priesthood in those 

terms. More than 60 percent supported 

the ordination of women as priests. 

When it comes to divorce, premarital 

sex, abortion and more, Catholics routinely 

break with the church’s edicts. 

Pew polling last year found that more 

than half of American Catholics support 

same-sex marriage, which church 

leaders vociferously oppose. This particular 

renunciation of church teaching 

travels beyond the United States. Spain, 

Portugal and Argentina have legalised 

same-sex marriage; all have populations 

that are more than 75 percent 

Catholic, at least nominally. 

A Gallup poll last year showed that 

82 percent of American Catholics had 

no qualms about birth control. Church 

leaders do, and during the presidential 

campaign they railed against 

President Barack Obama’s health care 

reform for mandating insurance coverage 

of contraception. He won the 

Catholic vote anyway. 

Does the pope fully appreciate this 

drift? Every Sunday, he looks from his 

window onto St Peter’s Square and sees 

adoring, rapt masses. Everywhere he 

goes, traffic parts and cameras follow 

him. But here in the US, the Catholics 

watching closely are fewer and fewer. 

They’re Christian. They’re caring. 

They’re moral. But they have minds 

and wills of their own, and no conclave 

will change that. 

THE VIEWS EXPRESSED ON THE OPINION AND ANALYSIS PAGES ARE THE AUTHORS’ OWN. QATAR TRIBUNE BEARS NO RESPONSIBILITY.

Analysis Thursday, February 21, 2013 11 

How Not To Fix 

Climate Change 

Obama must approve Keystone pipeline between Canada and the US 

Have 

your say 

Is there an issue you feel strongly 

about, or an article you want to comment 

on? QT will carry your voice to the 

public and to places where it matters. 

Write to us at 

Basic Stuff 

JOE NOCERA 

NYT NEWS SERVICE 

Like it or not, 

fossil fuels are 

going to remain 

the world’s dominant 

energy 

source for the 

foreseeable 

future, and we are 

far better off getting 

our oil from 

Canada than, say, 

Venezuela. 

AFTER much back and forth, 

James E Hansen and I had 

agreed on a date to meet. 

Hansen, the director of NASA’s 

Goddard Institute for Space 

Studies, is the scientist most closely associated 

with climate change activists like 

Bill McKibben, who has led the charge 

against the Keystone XL pipeline, and 

Michael Brune, the executive director of 

the Sierra Club. In Hansen’s view, the 

country needs to start moving away from 

fossil fuels now, before the damage 

becomes irreversible. 

As regular readers know, I believe the 

Obama administration should approve 

the Keystone pipeline, which would 

transport oil mined and processed from 

the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, to 

refineries in the Gulf of Mexico. Like it 

or not, fossil fuels are going to remain 

the world’s dominant energy source for 

the foreseeable future, and we are far 

better off getting our oil from Canada 

than, say, Venezuela. And the climate 

change effects of tar sands oil are, all in 

all, pretty small. I had the strong sense 

that Hansen hoped that once we met, I 

would begin to see the error of my ways. 

The date we set was on Thursday, 

February 14. The only glitch, he said, is 

that on the 13th, he was participating in 

an anti-Keystone demonstration in 

front of the White House led by his 

friend McKibben. The plan was they’d 

all try to get arrested. “It is conceivable 

that we will be spending the night of the 

13th in the clink, in which case it is not 

clear when I will arrive on the 14th,” 

Hansen wrote in an email. (He added, 

“Yes, I know, the merits of this continuing 

activity may be dubious, but Bill is 

working his butt off so hard that I can’t 

refuse.”) I postponed the meeting. 

Suddenly, it appears, the Keystone XL 

pipeline, which President Barack 

Obama temporarily blocked during his 

re-election campaign, is back in the 

news. Nebraska, which had previously 

opposed the pipeline, recently dropped 

its opposition after TransCanada, the 

company hoping to build it, rerouted 

portions of it to avoid sensitive lands 

and aquifers. Canada, still miffed by 

Obama’s rejection of the pipeline last 

year, is threatening to sell the oil to 

China if the United States says no again. 

In fact, this should be a no-brainer 

for the president, for all the reasons I 

stated earlier, and one more: the strategy 

of activists like McKibben, Brune 

and Hansen, who have made the 

Keystone pipeline their line in the 

sand, is utterly boneheaded. 

Brune and McKibben have been very 

clear about what they hope to accomplish. 

Oil companies have invested 

upward of $100 billion to extract the 

unconventional oil in the sands. A 

pipeline is the only way to export it. The 

Keystone pipeline is Canada’s Plan A. 

Plan B is a pipeline to British Columbia, 

which would get the oil to China. If the 

The emphasis should be 

on demand, not supply. 

If the US stopped consuming 

so much of the 

world’s oil, the economic 

need for the tar sands 

would evaporate. 

president blocks Keystone, and the First 

Nation tribes continue their staunch 

opposition to the western pipeline, then 

Canada will have the second largest oil 

reserves in the world – and no place to 

sell it. The environmental assumption of 

the activists is that by choking off the 

supply of new oil sources like the tar 

sands, the US – and maybe the world – 

will be forced to transition more quickly 

to green energy. 

Can you see how backward this logic 

is? As Adam Brandt, an energy expert at 

Stanford University, pointed out to me 

recently, so long as the demand is there, 

energy producers are going to search for 

new supplies of fossil fuel – many of 

them using unconventional means like 

tar sands extraction. “With growing 

global demand, the economic pressure 

to develop unconventional resources is 

enormous and not going away,” he said. 

“Can environmental groups expect to 

win a series of fights for decades to come, 

when the economic forces are aligned 

very strongly against them in each 

round?” The answer is obvious: no. The 

emphasis should be on demand, not 

supply. If the US stopped consuming so 

much of the world’s oil, the economic 

need for the tar sands would evaporate. 

On Monday, I finally spoke to 

Hansen. His knowledge and sincerity 

are easy to admire, even if his tactics are 

not. He told me he would like to see oil 

companies pay a fee, which would rise 

annually, based on carbon emissions. 

He said that such a tax could reduce 

emissions by 30 percent within 10 

years. Well, maybe. But it would also 

likely make the expensive tar sands oil 

more viable. If you really want to eliminate 

expensive new fossil fuel sources, 

the best way is to lower the price of oil, 

which would render them uneconomical. 

But, of course, that wouldn’t exactly 

lower demand either. 

In any case, McKibben, Hansen and 

others were arrested on Wednesday, as 

planned. They spent a few hours in jail 

and paid $100 fines. And that was it. 

Until the next time, of course. 

ADDRESS: PO BOX 23493, 

DOHA, QATAR 

TELEPHONE: +974.44422077 

FAX: +974.44416790 

EMAIL: LETTERS@QATAR-TRIBUNE.COM 

No horsemeat 

THIS is with reference to the news 

report, ‘Qatar free from horsemeat: 

MoE’, published in Qatar Tribune dated 

February 18. 

I have learned from your newspaper 

some months ago about the ‘Tesco fiasco’ 

(as I call it) in the UK. At one point, I was 

affected by this horsemeat- in-beef scare. 

I have skipped visiting fast food chains for 

the last few weeks frightened that a ‘horse 

burger’ will be served to me. Not only 

that, even buying canned meat was a nono 

for our family recently. For sometime 

we opted for canned fish tuna. What a 

relief to know that the government has 

given us assurance that we can safely 

gorge on our favourite canned meat. 

Qatar is absolutely free from horsemeat. 

It is nice knowing as well that ever since 

the outbreak of the mad cow disease in 

some European countries and the US, 

Qatar has imposed a ban on the import of 

meat from these countries. This is a 

clear example of how the ministry is safeguarding 

Qatar’s public health. All we 

have to do is to do our part in supporting 

all these significant actions. I praise the 

livestock management department’s 

effort for keeping abreast of any new 

information on any disease of epidemic 

proportions in other countries and take 

steps to protect the country. 

JILAN N 

“Life is like Twitter - Follow. 

Unfollow. Block.” 

PAULO COELHO 

DOHA 

Health is Wealth 

Bloggers’ Borough 

Too Much Coffee In Pregnancy 

Tied To Smaller Newborns 

STEVEN REINBERG | HEALTHDAY | NYT 

THE coffee or other caffeinated beverages 

a woman drinks during her 

pregnancy might up the odds for a low 

birth weight newborn or an extended 

pregnancy, a new study says. 

The researchers included data on 

nearly 60,000 Norwegian women. 

“As the risk for having a low birth 

weight baby was associated with caffeine 

consumption, pregnant women might be 

counselled to reduce their caffeine intake 

during pregnancy as much as possible,” 

said lead researcher Dr Verena Sengpiel, 

an obstetrician/gynaecologist at the 

Sahlgrenska Academy of Sahlgrenska 

University in Goteborg, Sweden. 

She believes the findings should also 

spur a re-evaluation of current recommendations 

from the American College 

of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, 

which advises that a pregnant woman’s 

caffeine intake not exceed two cups of 

coffee per day. 

However, because the study was 

observational in nature, it can’t establish 

a cause-and-effect relationship 

between caffeine and low birth weight, 

Sengpiel stressed. “We cannot say from 

our data whether caffeine is the specific 

substance responsible for the fetus 

being at greater risk of becoming a low 

birth weight infant, nor did we study if 

these babies actually had special health 

problems during the neonatal period,” 

Sengpiel said. 

The report was published online on 

February 18 in the journal BMC 

Medicine. 

In the study, Sengpiel’s team 

accounted for all sources of caffeine, 

including coffee, tea, sodas and food 

including cocoa, for almost 60,000 

pregnancies tracked by the Norwegian 

Institute of Public Health. 

They found that while caffeine was 

not linked to premature birth, caffeine 

from all sources was tied to a higher 

risk for reduced birth weight. 

For example, if an infant’s weight is 

expected to be 7 pounds 15 ounces, 

every 100 milligrams of caffeine consumed 

by its mother a day reduced a 

newborn’s weight by almost an ounce, 

the researchers reported. 

Memo To The Boss: Don’t Do My Job For Me 

STEPHEN BUNGAY | 

HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW 

IN August 1942, General Montgomery 

arrived in North Africa to take command 

of the British 8th Army. Within a 

few days he began replacing the senior 

officers. One of his new corps commanders 

was Brian Horrocks, who had last 

seen action in France in 1940 as commander 

of an infantry battalion, after 

which he had been promoted quickly to 

leadership of a Division. 

Montgomery put Horrocks in charge of 

stopping Rommel’s last offensive in 

what has become known as the ‘Battle of 

Alam Halfa’. The British defenses held 

and Rommel was forced to withdraw. 

Horrocks was understandably pleased 

with himself until a liaison officer from 

8th Army headquarters brought a letter 

from Montgomery. It began: 

“Well done — but you must remember 

that you are now a corps commander and 

not a divisional commander...” 

It went on to list four or five mistakes 

Horrocks had made, mainly around interfering 

with the tasks of his subordinates. 

As Horrocks thought about it, he realised 

that Montgomery was right. So he rang 

him up and said, “Thank you very much.” 

Horrocks went on to become one of the 

most successful generals of the war. 

Fast forward to 2012. 

I was running a workshop with the 

executive team running the R&D function 

of a highly successful Danish company. 

They were talented and doing well, but 

wanted to raise their game. 

We devoted one session to what they 

called ‘innovation briefs’. These documents 

define what R&D projects they 

want to carry out, assign responsibility for 

them, and give direction to the next level 

down: the project managers. 

‘Suppose you were the project manager,’ 

I said. ‘Which elements of this document 

would be the most and which the least 

helpful in allowing you to do a great job?’ I 

threw in another question from the project 

manager’s point of view. ‘What choices do 

you think you will face during the project?’ 

I made up an example: ‘According to this, 

the new product has to create superior 

user value and be ready in 18 months. 

Suppose the project team were to come to 

you in 15 months’ time and say that they 

could enhance the value by a further 20 

percent, but it would take another 6 

months. What would you want them to do: 

create a better product or hit the deadline?’ 

At first they were split down the middle. 

After 15 minutes of arguing, the matter 

was resolved: they would go for hitting the 

deadline. The timing was critical. 

Someone commented that they had not 

been clear about that themselves before 

having the discussion. 

The following morning we compared 

their effort with the original. The new one 

was a fraction of the length. Everyone preferred 

it, but there were some questions 

about the content. So we set to work. An 

hour or so later, it had changed again and 

everyone was happy with it. Someone said 

it was the best one they had ever produced. 

It was good for two reasons: it no longer 

specified details that the project team 

could decide on for themselves during the 

project; and it added some additional 

information on issues that had needed, 

but not hitherto received, resolution by 

the executives. Like Brian Horrocks 70 

years before, they had been so busy doing 

their subordinates’ jobs that they had not 

properly done their own. 

It’s a mistake that’s all too common. In 

some companies everyone is doing the 

jobs of the level below. As a result no-one 

actually does the top job. Once you see 

what’s going on, fixing the problem is not 

difficult, though it can take some work — 

work well worth doing.


Gulf / Middle East 

Russia, Arab League see chances to start Syria talks 

REUTERS 

MOSCOW 

RUSSIA and the Arab League 

see signs of hope that the rival 

sides in the Syrian civil war are 

willing to start talks to end 

nearly two years of conflict. 

Russian Foreign Minister 

Sergei Lavrov and visiting 

Arab League head Nabil el 

Araby said on Wednesday they 

were encouraged that both the 

Syrian government and the 

opposition had voiced readiness 

for dialogue. 

“There have been signs of a 

positive tendency to start dialogue 

and both the government 

representatives and the opposition 

have begun speaking 

about this,” Lavrov told a joint 

news conference with Araby. 

“For now both sides still 

come up with preconditions 

but, according to our common 

view, once there is the key 

common readiness to start 

dialogue, then agreeing 

parameters for this process is 

just a matter of diplomatic 

art,” he said. 

Russia, a long-standing ally 

of President Bashar al Assad 

and Syria’s main arms supplier, 

has vetoed three UN 

Security Council resolutions 

that would out pressure on the 

Syrian government to cease 

violence in which some 70,000 

people have been killed. 

Syrian Foreign Minister 

Walid al Moualem is due in 

Moscow next Monday and 

Lavrov said the head of the 

Syrian Opposition Coalition, 

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (right), Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr (centre) 

and Secretary-General of the Arab League Nabil el Araby, in Moscow, on Wednesday. (REUTERS) 

Moaz al Khatib, would likely 

visit in March. 

Khatib has said he is willing 

to negotiate with a deputy of 

Assad but the aim of such talks 

would be to find a way to allow 

the president safe passage into 

exile and set up a transitional 

government. 

“We welcome the initiative 

by Khatib who proposed to 

start a dialogue with the government 

and I think we will be 

able to reach this goal,” Araby 

said after talks that also 

included foreign ministers 

from Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon 

and Egypt. 

The Cairo-based Arab 

League in November welcomed 

the creation of the 

Syrian National Coalition, but 

stopped short of giving it full 

recognition as the representative 

of the Syrian people. 

“Russia has very good relations 

with the government in 

Damascus and we hope it will 

use that to convince them that 

this conflict can only be solved 

in a peaceful way,” Araby 

added. 

Russia, accused by the West 

and some Arab states of 

shielding Assad in the conflict, 

says calls for his departure 

should not be a precondition 

for peace talks and that 

Syrians should decide their 

own fate without foreign interference. 

“It is very important that 

opposition leaders’ readiness 

for dialogue is met with confirmation 

by the government 

that they are ready for dialogue 

too,” Lavrov said. 

“Now it’s time for words to 

be confirmed by deeds.” 

In the course of the conflict, 

which started as a clampdown 

on street protests against the 

rule of Assad in March, 2011, 

before descending into civil 

war, the Arab League has also 

called on Moscow to halt arms 

sales to Damascus. But 

Russia’s export agency said 

earlier in February it would 

continue delivering weapons 

to the government army. 

Lebanese judge 

for death penalty 

to ex-minister, 

security chief 

AFP 

BEIRUT 

A LEBANESE judge on 

Wednesday demanded the 

death penalty for ex-minister 

Michel Samaha and 

Syrian security chief Ali 

Mamlouk, who face charges 

of plotting attacks on political 

and religious figures in 

Lebanon. 

Lebanese former information 

minister Michel Samaha 

Samaha and 

Mamlouk were 

first accused 

in August of 

planning the 

attacks along 

with a Syrian 

army colonel 

identified only 

by his first 

name, Adnan. 

Military magistrate Riad 

Abu Ghida said Samaha and 

Mamlouk should be given 

the ultimate punishment 

“for transporting explosives 

from Syria to Lebanon in an 

attempt to assassinate 

Lebanese political and religious 

leaders,” according to 

a copy of the indictment 

received by AFP. 

They were also accused of 

targeting “Syrian gunmen” 

and “smugglers” in the 

Akkar region along 

Lebanon’s northern border 

with Syria. 

Samaha and Mamlouk 

were first accused in August 

of planning the attacks along 

with a Syrian army colonel 

identified only by his first 

name, Adnan. 

Investigators have said 

that explosives were found 

in Samaha’s car when he 

was arrested at his home on 

August 9. A former information 

minister, the Christian 

politician is known for having 

close ties to the 

Damascus regime. 

An arrest warrant for 

Mamlouk was issued on 

February 4. 

According to the indictment: 

“The explosives were 

delivered by Colonel Adnan 

to Samaha in Syria with the 

approval of Mamlouk.” 

“Defendants Mamlouk 

and Adnan agreed with 

Michel Samaha to carry out 

bombings aimed at killing 

Syrian gunmen and smugglers... 

and to recruit people 

to carry out the bombings 

against insurgents and 

smugglers in the Akkar 

region.” 

Samaha is also accused of 

“inciting sectarian strife”. 

An inquiry will be made to 

learn the full identity of 

Colonel Adnan. 

The military court, meanwhile, 

decided not to prosecute 

in the same case 

Buthaina Shaaban, a senior 

advisor to Syrian President 

Bashar al Assad, citing “lack 

of evidence”. 

Syria occupied Lebanon 

militarily and politically for 

nearly three decades until 

2005, when its troops were 

forced to pull out of the 

country under international 

pressure. 

Seven years after Syria 

withdrew from Lebanon, the 

country’s political forces 

remain sharply divided over 

their powerful neighbour. 

People look at a hole made on the ground after mortars were fired near the Tishrin Stadium, in Al Baramekah neighbourhood, Damascus, on Wednesday. (EPA) 

Syrian footballer killed, three 

hurt as mortars hit stadium 

AP 

DAMASCUS 

TWO mortars exploded next 

to a soccer stadium in central 

Damascus on Wednesday, 

killing one player and injuring 

several, Syria’s state-run 

news agency said. 

The mortar attack was the 

second in as many days in the 

capital. On Tuesday, two 

mortars exploded near one of 

President Bashar al Assad’s 

palaces, causing material 

damage only. 

But it was the first confirmed 

strike close to a presidential 

palace and another 

sign that the civil war is moving 

closer to the heart of 

Assad’s seat of power and 

into areas of the capital once 

considered safe. 

SANA news agency said the 

mortars landed on 

Wednesday in a complex 

housing the Tishrin Stadium 

and a hotel next to it in the 

central Baramkeh district. 

Some players were practicing 

in the stadium at the time. 

It said the player killed was 

from the Homs-based al- 

Wathbah club. He was 

wounded inside the hotel as 

some players were getting 

ready to go out and join the 

practice and died later at the 

hospital. 

The Britain-based activist 

group Syrian Observatory for 

Human Rights also reported 

one player was killed. 

Players from al-Wathbah 

team who witnessed the 

It said the player 

killed was from 

the Homs-based 

al-Wathbah club. 

He was wounded 

inside the hotel as 

some players were 

getting ready to 

go out and join 

the practice and 

died later at 

the hospital. 

attack identified the dead 

teammate as 19-year-old 

Youssef Suleiman, the team’s 

striker. They said he was the 

father of a 6-month-old baby. 

They said the mortars 

landed in front of Tishrin 

hotel next to the stadium 

where players normally 

stayed, and shattered some of 

the building’s windows. 

The attack hit a few hours 

before the team was to play 

against the Hama-based al- 

Mawaair club as part of the 

domestic league. 

“We were collecting our 

things about to head to the 

stadium when we heard the 

first explosion and the windows 

were blown off,” said Ali 

Ghosn, a 20-year-old player. 

“Youssef was hit in the 

neck. We ran out to the corridor 

when the second explosion 

struck and I saw Youssef 

fall down bleeding from his 

neck,” he said in Damascus as 

some of his colleagues wept. 

Ali said Suleiman died 

shortly after he arrived at the 

hospital. Three other players 

were wounded, one of them 

in critical condition. 

Assad has tried to maintain 

an image as the head of a 

functioning state even as 

rebels edge closer to the heart 

of Damascus. 

The capital had largely 

been spared the violence that 

has left other cities in ruins. 

For weeks, however, rebels 

who have established 

footholds in the suburbs have 

been pushing closer to the 

centre of Damascus from the 

eastern and southern outskirts, 

clashing with government 

forces. 

Egyptian court allows policemen to grow beards 

REUTERS 

CAIRO 

AN EGYPTIAN court ruled 

on Wednesday that policemen 

may grow beards, ending 

a decades-old convention 

barring them from making 

what is often seen here as a 

display of Islamic piety. 

Dozens of police officers 

were suspended from work 

in February for breaking the 

de facto ban on beards introduced 

under deposed 

President Hosni Mubarak. 

They had protested outside 

the Interior Ministry, calling 

on Islamist President 

Mohamed Morsi – who is 

bearded himself – to secure 

their reinstatement. 

Cairo’s High Administrative 

Court rejected a 

request by the Interior 

Ministry to let it suspend 

officers who defied the 

unwritten rule. “The court 

ruled ... that police officers 

have the right to grow 

beards,” judge Maher Abu el 

Enin said. 

Mubarak used the police to 

crush Islamist groups he saw 

as enemies of the state. 

During his rule, sporting any 

kind of beard precluded 

Egyptians from holding senior 

government posts. 

Wednesday’s decision 

backed a similar ruling by a 

lower court and the decision 

makes the verdict final. The 

Interior Ministry’s spokesman 

was not immediately 

available to comment. 

Men across Egyptian society 

wear beards, including many 

leftists, but the pressure for 

ending the police ban came 

from religious officers who 

wish to emulate the Prophet 

Mohammad (PBUH). 

Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood, 

the state’s most organised 

Islamist movement, has 

come to power through elections 

since the popular uprising 

that toppled Mubarak in 

February 2011. 

The ruling is expected to 

raise worries among minority 

Christians, liberal-minded 

Muslims and others who fear 

that emboldened Islamists 

will try to force their beliefs 

and customs on society. 

Morsi said during his campaign 

for the presidency that 

he had no objection to members 

of the security forces 

growing beards. 

Egyptian policemen outside the Shura Council, in Cairo, recently. (AFP)

Gulf / Middle East Thursday, February 21, 2013 13 

Tunisian political impasse continues 

AFP 

TUNIS 

TUNISIA was in political 

limbo on Wednesday as 

President Moncef Marzouki 

suffered setbacks in his bid to 

replace Prime Minister 

Hamadi Jebali, who quit after 

failing in his plan to form a 

non-partisan cabinet. 

Talks between Marzouki 

and Rached Ghannouchi, 

head of Islamist Ennahda 

party, ended inconclusively, 

dashing hopes of a soon end to 

Tunisia’s deepest political crisis 

since the revolt that ousted 

Zine El Abidine Ben Ali two 

years ago. 

“For the moment we have 

no name,” said Ghannouchi, 

whose party holds the majority 

in the National Constituent 

Assembly, after his meeting 

with Marzouki. 

He added that he was in 

“talks with Jebali” to continue 

in his post. 

Jebali announced his resignation 

on Tuesday, saying he 

had failed in his efforts for a 

solution to the long-running 

crisis. 

He stressed when he 

resigned he would not sign on 

again as prime minister under 

“any initiative that does not fix 

a date for new elections. What 

about the constitution? What 

about elections?” 

As well as the row over the 

new government, there is 

deadlock over the drafting of a 

constitution, with parliament 

divided over the nature of 

Tunisia’s future political system 

15 months after it was 

elected. 

Ghannouchi after Wednesday’s 

talks with Marzouki said 

“numerous parties have 

expressed their desire to be 

part of” a new government. 

“I hope that forming of the 

government will not go 

beyond this week,” he added. 

Adnene Mancer, spokesman 

for the presidency, said it was 

hoped that a candidate for the 

premiership would be known 

by Thursday. 

“The issue is in the hands of 

the party that has the majority 

in the National Constituent 

Assembly. Ennahda has not 

yet decided on its candidate,” 

he said. 

Tunisia was plunged into 

the crisis when leftist politician 

Chokri Belaid was shot dead 

outside his home in Tunis on 

February 6. 

Though no one claimed 

responsibility, Belaid’s family 

accused Ennahda of being 

behind the killing, which the 

party vehemently denied. 

The assassination did little 

to ease the misgivings of liberals 

and secularists who believe 

Ennahda is failing to rein in 

religious extremists threatening 

the stability of Tunisia. 

Belaid’s murder also 

sparked deadly street protests 

as well as strikes, which Jebali 

attempted to defuse by 

announcing plans for a nonpartisan 

cabinet of technocrats 

Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki (right) with PDP General-Secretary Maya Jeridi at the Carthage palace, in Tunis, on Wednesday. (AFP) 

to lead Tunisia into early elections. 

The proposal quickly 

foundered and Jebali received 

a final rebuff by his own 

Ennahda party on Monday, 

prompting him to carry out his 

threat the next day to resign if 

he failed to win sufficient support. 

Names being mentioned for 

the prime minister’s post are 

Health Minister Abdelatif 

Mekki and Justice Minister 

Noureddine Bhiri, both from 

Ennahda. 

Marzouki was pursuing his 

efforts, with a meeting scheduled 

on Wednesday with Maya 

Jribi from the opposition 

Republican party, which has in 

recent days made it clear it is 

ready to support a cabinet 

comprising a mix of politicians 

and technocrats. 

Ahmed Nejib Chebbi, a 

prominent figure in the 

Republican party, expressed 

support for Jebali on 

Wednesday. 

“We support him because he 

has gained credibility,” he said. 

Samir Bettaieb, leader of Al- 

Massar party, said he had 

“confidence in Hamadi Jebali 

due to the role he played after 

Chokri Belaid’s assassination.” 

A section of the Tunisia 

media also showered praise on 

Jebali. 

Police arrest 2 

south Yemeni 

separatist leaders 

AFP 

ADEN 

POLICE arrested two separatist 

leaders in south 

Yemen, ahead of planned 

rival rallies to mark the first 

anniversary of ex-president 

Ali Abdullah Saleh’s ouster, 

a security official and 

activists said on 

Wednesday. 

Qassem Askar, a leader of 

the hardline faction of the 

separatist Southern 

Movement, was arrested 

early in the morning in the 

southern port city Aden, 

activist Yasser al Yafie said. 

“He was taken to an 

unknown location.” 

Southern cleric Hussein 

bin Shouaib was arrested 

late on Tuesday after he 

chaired a meeting urging 

protests in Aden, the excapital 

of the formerly independent 

south, a security 

official said. 

The arrests come on the 

eve of the first anniversary 

on Thursday of the uncontested 

election of President 

Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi 

which ended Saleh’s 33- 

year autocratic rule, following 

a year-long deadly 

uprising to topple the former 

president. 

Supporters and opponents 

of Hadi, himself a 

southerner, have said they 

will hold rival rallies on 

Thursday, prompting fears 

of possible clashes in Aden 

— a stronghold of southern 

separatists. 

The Islamist Al-Islah 

(reform) Party has called 

for a pro-Hadi rally in 

Aden’s Khor Maksar district. 

“We believe that the wise 

ones among the Southern 

Movement will not use violence 

against a peaceful and 

civilised gathering,” said 

Abdullah al Alimi, a youth 

activist linked to Al-Islah. 

The powerful separatist 

Southern Movement has 

warned of unrest if Al-Islah 

goes ahead with demonstrations 

while the head of 

the group, Hassan Baoum, 

called on supporters to hold 

anti-Hadi rallies in Aden. 

Baoum said called for 

massive rallies in Aden “to 

reject the election” that 

brought Hadi to power and 

pursue the “struggle until 

liberation” of the south. 

“We have already warned 

Al-Islah from holding any 

gatherings in Aden,” said 

Naser al Khabji, a leader of 

the Southern Movement 

who also warned that 

“clashes could break out” 

pro-Hadi supporters 

demonstrate in Aden. 

South Yemen was a separate 

state before unification 

with the north in 1990. It 

broke away four years later, 

sparking a civil war, before 

it was overrun by northern 

troops. 

Some factions of the 

Southern Movement want 

autonomy for the area, but 

more hardline members are 

pressing for a return to 

complete independence for 

the south where residents 

complain of discrimination 

by the Sanaa government. 

Police troopers inspect cars at a checkpoint, in Aden, on 

Wednesday. (REUTERS) 

Riyadh recalls 

ambassador 

to Lanka 

AFP 

RIYADH 

SAUDI Arabia has recalled its 

ambassador from Colombo in 

a tit-for-tat move amid tensions 

after a Sri Lankan nanny 

convicted of murder was 

beheaded in the kingdom, the 

official SPA news agency 

reported. 

“Based on the decision by 

the Sri Lankan government 

to withdraw its ambassador 

from the kingdom, the 

(Saudi) foreign ministry has 

recalled its ambassador in 

Sri Lanka for consultations,” 

SPA reported late on 

Tuesday quoting a ministry 

spokesman. 

Tensions between both 

countries have been strained 

since the January 9 execution 

at a prison in Riyadh of Sri 

Lankan maid Rizana Nafik, 

who was only 17 when she was 

charged with smothering a 

four-month-old baby in Saudi 

Arabia in 2005. 

Nafik was found guilty of 

smothering the infant in her 

care after an argument with 

the child’s mother, the Saudi 

interior ministry said. 

Last month, Sri Lanka’s 

Information Minister Keheliya 

Rambukwella announced that 

women under 25 were now 

banned from going to Saudi 

Arabia to work as maids, 

adding that it was the first step 

towards a worldwide travel 

ban for low-paying jobs. 

Gaza decision in murder case raises protests 

AFP 

GAZA CITY 

PALESTINIAN human rights 

groups and NGOs on 

Wednesday demanded that a 

Gaza court explain why it had 

cut the life sentences handed 

to two men for the murder of 

an Italian national. 

The statement was issued a 

day after a military court 

accepted an appeal by two 

Salafist militants who were 

convicted last year of the kidnap 

and murder of Italian 

activist Vittorio Arrigoni in 

April 2011. 

Shura member voices concern 

over 30 jailed Omani activists 

AFP 

MUSCAT 

A MEMBER of Oman’s consultative 

council voiced concern 

on Wednesday for the 

health of 30 jailed activists 

who have been on hunger 

strike for the past 12 days, as 

activists said some of them 

were in hospital. 

“We are concerned, as are 

their families, about the deterioration 

of the health conditions 

of the detainees after 12 

days on hunger strike,” said 

Malek al Abri, a member of 

Oman’s elected Majlis al 

Shura (consultative council). 

The council “is in contact, 

at all levels” with the government 

to allow a delegation to 

visit Samayl central prison, 

60 kilometres south of 

Muscat, to “inquire about the 

situation of the hunger strikers,” 

Abri said. 

The hunger strike was first 

launched by 17 cyber 

activists in protest at delays 

in their appeals after they 

were jailed for between six to 

18 months for “unlawful 

assembly and violating the 

Cyber Law.” 

They were later joined by 

13 other prisoners protesting 

their conditions of detentions, 

according to activists. 

Their appeals will be considered 

by the Supreme 

Court on February 25 and a 

Omani Leader Sultan Qaboos bin Said (centre) during a session of the Council of Oman, in Muscat, 

recently. (AFP) 

final decision will be made on 

March 4, according to Abri. 

An activist, who requested 

anonymity, said that “some 

of the hunger strikers were 

hospitalised after they lost 

consciousness”. 

Two of them — Saeed al 

Hashmi and Abdullah al 

Arimi — were still in hospital, 

the activist said. 

In their appeal, the 

two militants had 

asked the court 

drop the murder 

conviction, leaving 

only kidnapping 

on their file, but 

it was not 

immediately clear 

whether that part 

of the appeal was 

accepted. 

Both were sentenced to life 

behind bars but escaped the 

death penalty following a 

request from Arrigoni’s family. 

“In its latest decision on 19 

February 2013, the court 

granted the convicts’ appeal 

by reducing the first and the 

second defendants’ sentence 

from life imprisonment with 

hard labour to 15 years 

imprisonment,” said a statement 

by the Palestinian 

Centre for Human Rights, Al- 

Mezan, Addameer and the 

Palestinian NGO network. 

In response, they demanded 

that the court “publish the 

reasoning of its decision to 

reduce the sentence as soon as 

possible, in order to clarify its 

Several groups of activists 

are on trial on charges of 

defaming or using Internet 

social media networks to 

insult Sultan Qaboos, who 

has ruled the Gulf sultanate 

for 42 years. 

The appeals court has 

upheld the jail terms of many 

already sentenced. 

Others have been tried 

after taking part in protests 

demanding political reforms 

that shook usually calm 

Oman in 2011. 

Riot police used force to 

disperse the demonstrations, 

but Sultan Qaboos responded 

to the unrest by reshuffling 

the cabinet and increasing 

the powers of the consultative 

assembly. 

motive.” 

Although the family had 

expressed a wish that the 

court refrain from applying 

the death penalty, it was not a 

licence for “tolerance or waiving 

the private or public right 

when dealing with perpetrators 

of dangerous and serious 

crimes like in this case,” it 


A third man who was also 

convicted in connection with 

the Arrigoni murder will also 

appeal on February 24 to 

reduce the 10-year sentence 

he was handed. 

In their appeal, the two militants 

had asked the court 

drop the murder conviction, 

leaving only kidnapping on 

their file, but it was not immediately 

clear whether that part 

of the appeal was accepted. 

Arrigoni, 36, a member of 

the pro-Palestinian International 

Solidarity Movement, 

was kidnapped on April 14, 

2011 by a group of Salafists 

and found hanged in an abandoned 

house in northern 

Gaza. 

It was the first time a foreign 

national had been murdered 

in Gaza since Hamas 

took over.


India 

Jallianwala Bagh 

killings deeply 

shameful, says 

British PM 

AFP 

AMRITSAR 

BRITISH Prime Minister 

David Cameron visited the 

site of a colonial-era massacre 

in India on 

Wednesday, describing the 

episode as “deeply shameful” 

while stopping short of a 

public apology. 

On the last leg of a threeday 

trip aimed at forging 

deeper economic ties, 

Cameron took the bold decision 

to visit the city of 

Amritsar and tackle an 

enduring scar of British rule 

over the subcontinent, 

which ended in 1947. 

Dressed in a dark suit and 

bowing his head, he laid a 

wreath at the memorial to 

the victims at Jallianwala 

Bagh where British troops 

opened fire on thousands of 

unarmed protesters in 1919. 

In a message in the visitors’ 

book, he wrote: “This 

was a deeply shameful event 

in British history and one 

that Winston Churchill 

rightly declared at the time 

as ‘monstrous’. 

“We must never forget 

what happened here. And in 

remembering we must 

ensure that the UK stands 

up for the right of peaceful 

protest around the world.” 

He later defended his decision 

not to say sorry, explaining 

that it happened 40 years 

before he was born and “I 

don’t think the right thing is 

to reach back into history 

and to seek out things you 

can apologise for”. 

“I think the right thing is 

to acknowledge what happened, 

to recall what happened, 

to show respect and 

understanding for what happened,” 

The Guardian newspaper 

quoted him as saying. 

The number of casualties 

at the Jallianwala Bagh garden 

is unclear, with colonialera 

records showing about 

400 deaths while Indian figures 

put the number killed at 

closer to 1,000. 

S K Mukherjee, the secretary 

of the Jallianwala Bagh 

memorial trust, spent half 

an hour guiding the British 

leader around the site, showing 

him a well into which 

120 people jumped to their 

deaths as well as bullet holes 

AP 

NEW DELHI 

SPORADIC violence broke out 

on Wednesday as labour 

unions began a two-day strike 

to protest rising prices and government 

policies to open the 

economy. 

Millions of factory and bank 

employees stayed away from 

work and public transport was 

shut down in most big cities 

after major trade unions called 

the countrywide strike. 

A labour leader was fatally 

crushed when he tried to stop 

buses from leaving a terminal 

in Ambala (Haryana). 

“The workers are being totally 

ignored and this is reflected 

in the government’s antilabour 

policies,” said Tapan 

Sen, general secretary of the 

umbrella Centre of Indian 

Trade Unions. 

The government’s “big ticket” 

reforms include opening 

the retail, insurance and aviation 

sectors to wider foreign 

investment, raising prices of 

subsidised diesel used by 

farmers and reducing the 

number of discounted cooking 

gas cylinders.Workers 

armed with iron rods smashed 

factory windows and set several 

cars on fire in Noida. 

Factory owners said police 

did not come to their aid 

PTI 

NEW DELHI 

ON the eve of budget session of 

Parliament, the government 

on Wednesday sought to buy 

peace with the Opposition saying 

it was ready for any kind of 

inquiry into the chopper scam 

on which there was a political 

consensus. It also sought to 

mollify the BJP, which is 

incensed over Home Minister 

Sushilkumar Shinde’s “Hindu 

terror” remarks, saying it 

would try to sort out the issue 

through dialogue. Leader of 

the Opposition in the Lok 

Sabha Sushma Swaraj 

demanded that Shinde withdraw 

his remarks and apologise 

so as to ensure smooth 

functioning of the House. 

Taking an aggressive stance 

at the all-party meeting convened 

by Lok Sabha Speaker 

Meira Kumar, Swaraj said that 

if BJP was training terrorists, 

as alleged by Shinde, then she 

should cease to be the Leader 

of the Opposition and BJP 

members should not be 

allowed in Parliament. 

“As custodian of the House, 

we seek your protection as the 

Home Minister, who is also 

Leader of the House, has 

Bankers protest against government’s economic and labour policies, in Bhopal, on Wednesday. (PTI) 

despite frantic calls to them. 

“The windows of many factories 

in Noida were broken. 

We called the police but they 

were delayed, and meanwhile 

the damage was done,” said 

Pankaj Shah, a factory owner. 

In New Delhi, buses and the 

subway system were crowded 

as few taxis and autorickshaws 

plied the streets. Banks were 

alleged that BJP is running terror 

camps,” she told the 

Speaker during the meeting. “If 

we are doing so, then I have no 

right to be Leader of 

Opposition and BJP members 

should not be allowed to sit in 

the House. We should be 

probed. But first resolve this 

matter,” Swaraj said. 

Prime Minister Manmohan 

Singh hoped that the session 

would see “productive and 

constructive debate leading to 

shuttered, but most shops were 

open. Trade unions oppose 

government policies to open 

the retail, banking and aviation 

sectors to foreign investors in 

an effort to jumpstart India’s 

sputtering economy. 

Labour unions affiliated with 

the main opposition BJP, the 

two main communist parties, 

and even the ruling Congress 

agreed solutions” to many 

national problems. 

Noting that all parties have 

an obligation to ensure that 

Parliament runs smoothly, 

Singh said, “I am hopeful and 

confident that this is going to 

be a fruitful session.” 

He expressed the hope that 

at a juncture when the country 

is facing many economic challenges, 

all political parties 

would join hands for productive 

and constructive solutions. 

party-led trade union are 

demanding that the government 

roll back its economic 

reforms, which they say harm 

workers’ interests. The unions 

have issued 10 demands, 

including raising the minimum 

wage for all workers to 10,000 

rupees a month, controlling 

prices and providing social 

security for all workers. 

Swaraj said political parties 

want discussion on several 

issues including VVIP chopper 

scam, Indo-Pak ties in the 

backdrop of beheading of two 

Indian soldiers, situation in 

Maldives, attempts by China to 

encircle India, severe drought 

in Maharashtra and plight of 

farmers due to hailstorm in 

Madhya Pradesh as also the 

burden of rising prices on the 

common man. 

Earlier staging a strong 

protest over Shinde’s “saffron 

terror” remarks, BJP President 

Rajnath Singh questioned the 

Home Minister’s intentions in 

making such a provocative 

statement. “This comment of 

the Home Minister is part of a 

conspiracy to divide the nation 

for votebank politics,” Singh 

said, addressing a large number 

of protesting party workers 

at Parliament Street in New 

Delhi on Wednesday. 

Leader of Opposition in the 

Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley said 

the Congress was indulging in 

“communal polarisation” 

through such remarks. “The 

Congress votebank is contracting. 

Shinde wants to divide the 

nation on the basis of religion. 

They are indulging in communal 

polarisation,” he said. 

Rahul vows to work for Meghalaya’s progress 

PTI 

MAWKYRWAT 

SEEKING vote for Congress, 

party Vice-President Rahul 

Gandhi on Wednesday 

pledged that he and his mother 

along with Prime Minister 

Manmohan Singh would 

work for a “progressive” 

Meghalaya under a Congressruled 

government. 

“Congress president, the 

Prime Minister and I, will 

work to help Meghalaya. We 

will support Meghalaya and 

we will support your voice in 

Delhi. We will do everything 

we can to make this state 

in the walls. Mukherjee said 

Cameron had struggled for 

words but said he was 

“regretful and this should 

not happen ever again” as he 

left the memorial which has 

20,000 visitors a day. 

The incident saw soldiers 

under General Reginald 

Dyer’s command open fire 

on men, women and children 

in the enclosed area in 

one of the most infamous 

episodes of Britain’s colonial 

rule that helped spur the 

independence movement. 

But the move to visit the 

site is seen as a gamble by 

Cameron, who is travelling 

with British-Indian parliamentarians, 

and could lead 

to calls for similar treatment 

from other former colonies 

or even other victims in 

India. It immediately invited 

a debate about why 

Cameron was opening up 

wounds from the past — and 

was stopping short of saying 

sorry — during a visit 

designed to stress the future 

of Indo-British ties. 

Cameron said on Monday 

in Mumbai that he wanted 

Britain to be India’s “partner 

of choice”, stressing their 

shared history, democratic 

values and the 1.5 million 

Britons of Indian origin as a 

foundation for a deeper 

alliance. 

“Writing a note in the visitors’ 

diary is a half-hearted 

approach. He should have 

met us to say sorry,” Bhusan 

Behl, who heads a trust for 

the families of Jallianwala 

Bagh victims, said. 

He has campaigned for 

decades on behalf of his 

grandfather who was killed 

in the shooting, which was 

immortalised in Richard 

Attenborough’s film Gandhi 

and features in Salman 

Rushdie’s epic book 

Midnight’s Children. 

Cameron is the first serving 

British prime minister to 

visit the site, diplomatic 

sources said, but not the first 

senior British public figure. 

In 1997 the Queen laid a 

wreath at a site during a tour 

of India. But her gaffe-prone 

husband Prince Philip stole 

the headlines by saying that 

the Indian estimates for the 

death count were “vastly 

exaggerated”. 

British PM David Cameron lays a wreath in tribute at the 

Jallianwala Bagh memorial, in Amritsar, on Wednesday. (PTI) 

progress faster,” Rahul told a 

rally in Mawkyrwat, 80 km 

from state capital Shillong. 

Lauding Chief Minister 

Mukul Sangma and the state 

government under the 

Congress rule, Rahul said, 

“You have your government 

in Delhi which wants to support 

the growth of 

Meghalaya. I want both these 

governments to work together 

to bring massive developments 

to the state.” 

Hinting that the state suffers 

from corruption in high 

places, Rahul reminded how 

his father had said that only 

15 paisa reaches the last man 

Violence marks labour strike 

against economic policies 

BJP takes aggressive stance 

on eve of budget session 

in the country out of one 

rupee spent, and said, “We 

need to change so that our 

Hinting that the 

state suffers from 

corruption in high 

places, Rahul 

reminded how his 

father had said 

that only 15 paisa 

reaches the last 

man in the country 

out of one rupee 

spent, and said, 

“We need to 

change so that you 

can benefit.” 

Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde (left) and Leader of 

Opposition Sushma Swaraj, in New Delhi, on Wednesday. (PTI) 

people can benefit.” 

Praising the unique grassroots 

democracy practice by 

indigenous tribals in the 

state which gives the common 

man his voice, Rahul 

said, “The west talks about 

democracy and over here, 

you have had traditional 

democracy for hundreds 

and hundreds of years.” 

“What is democracy? 

Democracy is the voice of 

the people. It is the voice of 

every person regardless of 

who he is ? whether rich or 

poor, and this is what you 

have taught to the rest of 

the country,” he said. 

Stating that the vision of 

the Congress is also in similar 

lines with the true 

democracy of the tribal people 

in Meghalaya, Rahul 

said, “I want to thank you for 

giving this gift to the country. 

And we for the last couple 

of years have been running 

a government in the 

country which also tries to 

listen to the voice of the people 

before taking decisions.” 

Assuring that all groups 

and tribes would be taken 

into consideration for 

development in the state, 

Rahul said, “When we want 

to talk about development 

in Meghalaya, we want to 

say that every single tribe, 

every single group has to 

move together forward.” 

According to him, the 

Congress believes that it is 

everybody’s right to have 

access to development 

regardless from where they 

are from or who they are. 

Stating that the decisions on 

MGNREGA, Right to 

Information, or Right to 

Food, all are the result of listening 

to the voice of the people, 

Rahul said, “We do this 

because we understand that 

every single person’s voice is 

important.” 

Trade unions say the government’s 

recent moves to open the 

supermarket sector will hurt 

millions of small store owners 

who will not be able to compete 

against multinational retailers. 

Bank employees oppose the 

government’s decision to allow 

big companies to enter the 

banking sector and a policy to 

privatise state-run banks. 

India, Israel to 

cooperate on 

terror threats 

PTI 

NEW DELHI 

INDIA and Israel on 

Wednesday agreed to 

enhance dialogue and cooperation 

in the area of counterterrorism 

and discussed terror 

threats in regional and 

global arenas. 

The discussions were part of 

the 8th meeting of India- 

Israel Joint Working Group 

(JWG) on Counter Terrorism 

held in New Delhi. 

The Indian delegation was 

headed by Asoke Kumar 

Mukerji, Special Secretary in 

the Ministry of External 

Affairs. The Israeli delegation 

was co-led by Ambassador 

Jeremy Issascharof, Deputy 

Director General, Head of 

Strategic Division, Ministry of 

Foreign Affairs and Eitan Ben 

David, Head of Counter 

Terrorism Bureau at the 

Prime Minister’s Office. 

Both sides 

exchanged 

perceptions of 

threats emanating 

from terrorism and 

emphasised their 

determination to 

fight the menace, 

a MEA statement 

said in New Delhi. 

The delegations comprised 

representatives from relevant 

ministries and agencies of the 

two countries. 

Both sides exchanged perceptions 

of threats emanating 

from terrorism and emphasised 

their determination to 

fight the menace, a MEA 

statement said. 

They discussed terrorist 

threats in regional and global 

arenas as well as national 

counter-terrorism measures, 

state sponsored terrorism, 

prevention of transfer of 

weapons to terrorists, cooperation 

in multilateral fora and 

lessons from 26/11 and 13/2 

(the day when an Israeli 

embassy car was attacked last 

year). 

The two sides agreed to 

enhance dialogue and cooperation 

in the area of counterterrorism, 

the statement said. 

The 9th meeting of the JWG 

will be held in Israel in 2014.

India Thursday, February 21, 2013 15 

Jaya terms Cauvery award her govt’s victory 

PTI 

CHENNAI 

HAILING the notification of 

the final award of the Cauvery 

Water Disputes Tribunal, 

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J 

Jayalalithaa on Wednesday 

said the state has got justice 

after 22 long years of struggle 

as Karnataka is now bound to 

release water from the river. “It 

is a great victory for me and my 

government... after 22 long 

years we have got justice,” she 

told reporters at the Secretariat 

in Chennai responding to the 

development. 

Noting it was also a victory 

of Cauvery Delta farmers, she 

said since the award has been 

notified it becomes binding 

on the neighbouring state, 

which she said, cannot deny 

water in the future to Tamil 

Nadu which was “literally at 

the mercy of Karnataka.” 

She said at times of distress, 

the state would also abide by 

the tribunal’s directions in 

sharing Cauvery water. 

Terming as a “tremendous 

victory,” the notification of 

the final award, she said after 

spending 30 years in politics 

“first time in these years, I 

have a sense of fulfilment and 

achievement today.” Flaying 

the Centre, she said it was 

“reluctant” even to notify the 

interim award even as there 

was a delay in notifying the 

final award too. 

The Chief Minister noted 

that while the monsoon 

sometimes came in bounty to 

her state, only the overflow 

from reservoirs in Karnataka 

during good monsoon there 

were made available to Tamil 

Nadu. “We are grateful to the 

Supreme Court for giving us 

justice,” she said. 

“It is a red-letter day for me 

personally,” she said even as 

her government won its case 

at the National Green 

Tribunal over converting the 

New Assembly-Secretariat 

complex into a multi-speciality 

hospital. 

Earlier, after a wait for six 

years, the final award of the 

Cauvery Waters Dispute 

Tribunal was notified on 

Wednesday. 

The move came after the 

Supreme Court of India 

rapped the Centre for delaying 

the decision and had on 

February four set February 

20 as the deadline to issue 

notification. 

The notification was issued 

in Tuesday’s date. The 

Tribunal, comprising chairman 

Justice N P Singh and 

members N S Rao and Sudhir 

Narain, in a unanimous 

award in February, 2007 had 

determined the total availability 

of water in the Cauvery 

basin at 740 thousand million 

cubic (TMC) feet at the Lower 

Coleroon Anicut site. 

The proceedings of the 

Tribunal, set up in June, 

1990, went on for more than 

16 years. In, what was then 

described as a balancing act, 

the Tribunal gave Tamil Nadu 

419 TMC of water(as against 

the demand of 562 TMC); 

Karnataka 270 TMC (as 

against its demand of 465 

TMC); Kerala 30 TMC and 

Puducherry 7 TMC. For environmental 

protection, it had 

reserved 10 TMC. 

The Tribunal’s award will 

come into effect within 90 

days of its notification by the 

Centre. As per law, the award 

comes into being after being 

notified by the Centre through 

its publication in a gazette. 

After the issuance of the 

notification, institutions like 

the Cauvery River Authority 

(CRA) chaired by the Prime 

Minister and the CMC will 

cease to exist. New organisations 

like the Cauvery 

Management Board and the 

Cauvery Water Regulation 

Committee will be constituted 

which will have representatives 

from all the co-basin 

states, experts in hydrology 

and agriculture. 

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa addresses a press conference, in Chennai, on Wednesday. (PTI) 

They will be headed by an 

officer of the central government 

and will be under the 

control of the Centre. 

While Tamil Nadu had 

been demanding an early 

notification, Karnataka was 

opposed to it saying till the 

times cases filed by it in the 

Supreme Court are settled, 

the notification should be 

kept in abeyance. 

Karnataka govt 

presses Centre 

against Cauvery 

board formation 

PTI 

BANGALORE 

KARNATAKA Chief 

Minister Jagadish Shettar 

on Wednesday pressed the 

Centre not to constitute the 

Cauvery Management 

Board till the disposal of 

civil appeals filed by the 

State in Supreme Court. 

The constitution of the 

Board is the sole prerogative 

of the Central government 

under Section 6 A of 

the Act of 1956, Shettar told 

reporters at Kolar and 

Davanagere when asked 

about the notification of the 

final award of the Cauvery 

Water Disputes Tribunal. 

“There is no law to say 

The constitution 

of the Board is 

the sole prerogative 

of the Central 

government 

under Section 6 A 

of the 1956 Act, 

Shettar said. 

that the Board has to be 

constituted. It (clearance 

for the proposed Board) has 

to come before Parliament, 

and there has to be discussions. 

Under law, there is 

room for amendment,” the 

Chief Minister said. 

The notification of the 

final award sparked 

protests with members of 

Kannada outfit, Karnataka 

Rakshana Vedike, staging 

demonstrations in Mysore, 

Mandya and Bangalore. 

Police detained KRV 

activists who barged into 

railway stations at Mysore 

and Bangalore. Reacting 

angrily to the Centre notifying 

the final award of the 

CWDT, the former Prime 

Minister and JDS supremo 

H D Deve Gowda 

announced “peaceful struggle” 

against the move. 

“If it becomes inevitable, 

fasting will be Deve 

Gowda’s last resort”, he told 

reporters in Bangalore. 

Karnataka’s consistent 

stand has been that the final 

award is detrimental to the 

State’s interests. As against 

Karnataka’s claim of 465 

TMC, only 270 TMC has 

been allocated (for a normal 

year), among other major 

concerns. 

Shettar said an all party 

delegation had during a 

meeting with Prime 

Minister Manmohan Singh 

on February 18 pressed him 

not to constitute the Board 

till the disposal of civil 

appeals. “We are pressing 

the Government even now 

not to constitute the Board”. 

Karnataka Governor Hansraj Bhardwaj with CM Jagadish 

Shettar (left), in Bengalore, on Wednesday. (PTI) 

DMK chief slams murder of LTTE 

chief’s son in Lanka as war crime 

PTI 

CHENNAI 

ACCUSING the UPA of its ‘laxity’ 

in playing an active role on 

the issue of alleged rights abuse 

in Sri Lanka, its key south- 

Indian ally DMK party on 

Wednesday asked the Central 

government to support a US 

backed resolution against the 

island nation at the UN 

Human Rights Council meet at 

Geneva in March. 

Party chief M Karunanidhi, 

responding to the alleged coldblooded 

killing of slain LTTE 

chief V Prabhakaran’s 12 yearold 

son Balachandran, said this 

was proof enough that “(Sri 

Lankan President) Rajapakse 

is a war-criminal.” “Countries 

need not search for more proof 

that Rajapakse is a war criminal 

as the atrocity like gunning 

down of Balachandran cannot 

be seen anywhere else. There is 

no record of such a brutal murder 

in any country,” he said. 

He said images in UK-based 

Channel 4 documentary had 

moved political leaders in the 

state to tears. “How can one 

point a gun at the teenager?” 

PTI 

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM 

AHEAD of the Budget session 

of Parliament, Rajya Sabha 

Deputy Chairman P J Kurien 

has written to members of the 

House, saying three police 

inquiries and two judicial 

processes have cleared him in 

the 17-year-old Suryanelli rape 

case. Kurien, who is under 

attack since the victim 

demanded recently that he be 

made an accused in the case, 

has attached an elaborate note 

on the sequence of events 

along with his appeal — “kindly 

read in full and apply your 

judicious mind”. 

The attempt by the senior 

Congress leader from Kerala to 

reach out to Rajya Sabha members 

assumes significance as it 

comes just ahead of the Budget 

session beginning tomorrow 

during which opposition is 

expected to rake up the issue 

with demands for his resignation. 

he asked. “Channel 4 is making 

clear various atrocities committed 

by the Lankan Army 

and the face of Rajapakse, who 

claims himself to be a noble 

man, is exposed,” he said. 

The island nation’s army had 

been spreading lies that the 

boy was killed in battle, he said. 

On the US sponsored Lankaspecific 

resolution at UNHCR, 

he said many countries had 

supported it, but “it is a matter 

of regret India that has not officially 

declared its stand.” 

“There was a natural desire in 

the state for India to play an 

active role in UN on this matter 

by virtue of the people sharing 

an ‘umbilical cord’ with 

Lankan Tamils, he said. “...The 

Indian government seeming to 

show laxity on this matter and 

welcoming Rajapakse, who is 

the reason for all such atrocities, 

cannot be tolerated,” he 

said in an apparent reference 

to the Lankan leader’s recent 

pilgrimage to India. 

UN had written to various 

countries seeking support on 

the rights abuse issue against 

Colombo even as it has not 

taken any action in the last one 

The note titled “The Truth 

About Prof P J Kurien” reads— 

“This false allegation was 

investigated three times by 

senior-level police officers (two 

under the Left Front governments). 

The Kerala High Court has 

exonerated him and the 

Supreme Court confirmed the 

discharge in 2007. What more 

MDMK activists during a protest, in New Delhi, recently. (PTI) 

year on such charges,he said. 

“Therefore, when countries 

like the US come forward to 

take action against Sri Lanka, 

Indian government should also 

come forward to strengthen 

such initiative rather than 

shielding it. This is the desire of 

people of Tamil Nadu, this is 

their request,” the 88 year-old 

leader added. 

Meanwhile, slamming the 

Lankan government over the 

can Prof Kurien do to prove his 

innocence?” The note alleges 

that the CPI(M) was “propagating 

falsehood” by “trying to 

link” the recent Supreme Court 

judgment to the exoneration 

given to Kurien by the Kerala 

High Court which was upheld 

by the Supreme Court. 

“The Supreme Court recently 

set aside the Kerala High Court 

‘inhuman act’ of alleged killing 

of slain Prabhakaran’s son, 

Tamil Nadu CM J Jayalalithaa 

also said India should act 

tough against Colombo and 

support the Lanka-specific resolution 

on alleged human 

rights abuses at the March 

UNHRC meet in Geneva. 

“He was just a child who had 

not committed any crime. He 

was killed in cold blood as he 

was the son of Prabhakaran. It 

acquittal of 35 accused in the 

Suryanelli case. It must be 

noted that Kurien was not at all 

an accused in this case,” says 

the note. It says that the recent 

SC direction in the Suryanelli 

case to Kerala HC “does not 

involve (a) re-trial of the case, 

or (b) re-investigation of the 

case” and “it is only for re-hearing 

the appeal of the convicts, 

is an evidence of many such 

killings and reveals the mindset 

of the present Lankan government,” 

she said, describing 

it as ‘an inhuman act of 

extreme cruelty.’ 

The AIADMK chief said such 

“systematic and methodical 

killings” reminded her of Naziera 

Germany under Hitler 

where Jews were persecuted 

just because of their race. 

Balachandran’s killing is a “war 

crime of grave nature and 

unforgivable,” she added. 

Demanding tough action 

against Colombo over alleged 

human rights violations, she 

said India should talk to the 

US, which is moving a Lankaspecific 

resolution at the 

UNHCR next month. 

“All those guilty of war 

crimes should face the ICJ,” 

she demanded. She recalled a 

2011 TN Assembly resolution 

seeking imposition of economic 

embargo against Sri Lanka 

till the time Tamils were 

ensured of better conditions on 

par with majority Sinhalas and 

said the same had been reiterated 

during the recent weeklong 

Assembly session. 

Kurien writes to RS members on rape charges 

The CPI(M)’s women activists protest over Suryanelli rape case, in Thiruvananthapuram, recently. (PTI) 

who were acquitted by the 

Kerala High Court”. 

“It is (a) reiterated that exoneration 

of Kurien by the Kerala 

High Court (in a private complaint 

filed by the girl) and the 

Kerala High Court’s acquittal 

of the 35 accused persons, convicted 

by the trial court, were 

not linke at all,” the note says. 

Meanwhile, in a related development, 

the Kerala government 

has turned down the 

stand of K Sudhakaran MP in 

the Suryanelli case and the 

comments he passed against 

the victim girl, with Home 

Minister T Radhakrishnan 

making it clear in the assembly 

on Tuesday that the comments 

made by the former could not 

be approved in any manner. 

However, the Home 

Minister said a case cannot be 

slapped against Sudhakaran, 

as demanded by K S Saleekha 

(CPI-M) through a submission. 

The comments were 

made by Sudhakaran outside 

Kerala, he said.


Bulgarian PM 

quits amid 

growing protests 

UK / Europe 

Thousands join anti-austerity 

protests in Greece 

AFP 

SOFIA 

BULGARIA’s prime minister 

announced on Wednesday 

the surprise resignation of 

his government after days of 

sometimes violent rallies, 

paving the way for early elections 

in the European 

Union’s poorest member. 

“It is the people who put 

us in power and we give it 

back to them today,” Boyko 

Borisov told parliament. 

“I will not participate in a 

government where the 

police beat up people or 

where threats for protests 

replace political dialogue. If 

the street wants to govern 

the country, let it do it.” 

Elections were expected to 

take place in late April and in 

the meantime the president 

was expected to appoint a 

caretaker government of 

experts. 

Bulgaria has been shaken 

over the past 10 days by 

protests that were first 

focused on soaring electricity 

prices but then grew into 

nationwide demonstrations 

against the right-wing government. 

With the Bulgarian economy 

barely growing, voters 

are frustrated by what they 

see as his failure to clamp 

down on corruption and 

cronyism, as repeatedly 

demanded by Brussels. 

After tens of thousands 

rallied on Sunday, violent 

clashes erupted on Monday 

and Tuesday night with running 

battles between demonstrators 

and protestors leaving 

26 people injured. 

Two men also reportedly 

set themselves on fire, one of 

whom — who was mentally 

ill — has died and the other 

was in hospital with 80-percent 

burns. 

Borisov had attempted to 

take the heat out of the crisis 

by announcing on Monday 

the sacking of the unpopular 

finance minister and on 

Tuesday saying he would 

revoke the licence of Czech 

electricity firm CEZ and 

lower electricity prices by 

8.0 percent. 

“There is nothing more we 

could do, we gave the maximum... 

I do not want to see 

blood on the streets again,” 

the premier said on 

Wednesday. 

Analysts have long said 

that people’s empty cupboards 

were set to cause the 

once hugely popular Borisov 

— a former firefighter, bodyguard 

and police chief — to 

lose his sway with voters as 

the end of his government’s 

term in July neared. 

The average monthly 

wage is 400 euros ($534) 

and the typical pension 138 

euros ($184). Official unemployment 

is around 11.5 percent 

but unions say the real 

figure is 17 or 18 percent. 

Support for Borisov’s 

right-wing GERB party has 

eroded to about 22 percent, 

about the same as for the 

opposition Socialists, a 

recent Gallup poll showed. 

Borisov’s personal 

approval rating was also 

down to an unprecedented 

29 percent, or as much as 

that of Socialist leader 

Sergey Stanishev. 

Experts meanwhile were 

uncertain whether Borisov’s 

resignation would be 

enough to assuage public 

anger. 

“This move of Borisov 

aims to put out the fire of the 

protests. But we are yet to 

see if it will work,” political 

analyst Rumyana Kolarova 

told state BNT radio. 

For Gallup analyst 

Kancho Stoychev, however, 

“the resignation was the only 

right move in the current situation.” 

Another analyst, Haralan 

Alexandrov, said that 

Borisov had “panicked” by 

quitting but that it was also a 

smart move, enabling him to 

stop losing any more support 

and run for a second 

term. 

Protesters with placards reading ‘Merit’ and ‘Firing’ gather during a protest, in Thessaloniki, Greece, on Wednesday. (AP) 

AFP 

ATHENS 

POLICE in Athens fired tear 

gas at stone-throwing protestors 

on Wednesday as thousands 

of Greeks walked off the 

job to join the debt-ridden 

country’s first general strike 

this year and oppose austerity 

measures. 

About 15,000 striking workers 

took part in a Communistorganised 

demonstration in 

Athens and 20,000 more 

joined protests organised by 

other unions, according to 

police figures. 

Another 15,000 people 

marched in Greece’s northern 

metropolis Thessaloniki, local 

authorities said. 

Protesters tried to firebomb 

a car in Athens and threw 

rocks at police, who fired back 

tear gas, while in the city of 

Iraklio on the island of Crete, 

demonstrators overturned a 

squad car, police said. 

“Unpaid bills, slashed wages 

and pensions, boarded-up 

shops. Greek people cannot 

wait for saviours. Only by taking 

their fortunes into their 

own hands can they exit the 

stalemate,” main opposition 

leader Alexis Tsipras, head of 

the radical leftist Syriza party, 

told reporters. 

The nationwide strike — the 

first general work stoppage in 

Greece this year — forced airport 

authorities to scrap or 

reschedule dozens of flights 

while hospitals operated on 

reduced staffing. 

Ships were to remain 

docked throughout the day, 

disrupting ferry services to the 

islands. And although most 

public transport was to run, 

buses and train services 

expected disruptions. 

Doctors, lawyers and teachers 

took part in the protest 

action organised by private 

sector union GSEE and the 

public sector ADEDY. 

“No to modern sweat-shops, 

hands off collective labour 

agreements,” read the main 

banner carried by Communist 

demonstrators in Athens. 

“Everybody I know is unemployed,” 

said Alexandra 

Papadatou, a 28-year-old jobless 

economist. 

“I am fighting on the streets 

for this government, which 

passes all these measures, to 

fall,” she said. 

“I am considered lucky 

because at least I have a salary, 

about 600 euros,” said 

Panayiotis Kolovos, a 25-yearold 

novice lawyer. 

“This amount is probably a 

privilege for the majority of 

youth near my age. We truly 

marginally survive,” Kolovos 


Greece’s three-party government 

insists there is no alternative 

to the harsh austerity 

programme demanded by the 

country’s creditors in return 

for vital loans to stave of bankruptcy. 

Successive cuts to salaries 

and pensions over the past 

three years have angered 

Greeks who have frequently 

taken to the streets to demonstrate 

their frustration. 

The government has 

pledged to remedy some of the 

cuts when the economy limps 

back into growth next year — a 

prospect that had been originally 

forecast for this year. 

UK jury fails to reach verdict in Pryce case 

Supporters of Bulgarian Prime Minister Boiko Borisov applaud 

in front of the parliament, in Sofia, on Wednesday. (REUTERS) 

AP 

LONDON 

A BRITISH jury was dismissed 

on Wednesday after 

failing to reach a verdict in the 

trial of Vicky Pryce, the ex-wife 

of a former UK cabinet minister 

who resigned after lying for 

years about a speeding ticket. 

Pryce had pleaded not guilty 

to obstructing justice for taking 

the penalty for a speeding 

violation by her then-husband, 

Chris Huhne, in 2003. She 

claims he coerced her. 

Huhne — who had repeatedly 

denied wrongdoing — 

entered a last-minute guilty 

plea to the same charge just 

before his trial was due to start 

earlier this month. The case 

shattered his political career: 

he resigned as a UK lawmaker 

Vicky Pryce 

the same day he pleaded 

guilty. 

The judge in Pryce’s trial at 

London’s Southwark Crown 

Court discharged the jury on 

Wednesday after jurors said it 

was “highly unlikely” they 

could reach even a majority 

verdict. 

Pryce, an economist who 

has worked as a senior adviser 

in both the private sector and 

in government, will now face a 

retrial, expected to start on 

Monday. 

The details of her case riveted 

Britain, as deeply personal 

and embarrassing revelations 

about the powerful couple’s 

25-year marriage emerged. 

Pryce and Huhne split in 

2010 after his affair with his 

public relations adviser was 

revealed. 

British neighbourhood wants its Banksy back 

AP 

LONDON 

A LONDON neighbourhood 

wants its Banksy back. A stencil 

by the famed, secretive graffiti 

artist of a young boy sewing 

Union Jack bunting on an 

antique sewing machine 

appeared on the side of a north 

London bargain store last 

May. Soon the gritty Turnpike 

Lane area was drawing art 

lovers keen to see Banksy’s 

typically cheeky take on the 

Diamond Jubilee celebrations 

of Queen Elizabeth II’s 60 

years on the British throne. 

Last week it vanished, leaving 

nothing but a rectangle of 

exposed brick — only to reappear 

on the website of a Miami 

auction house. Listed as “Slave 

Labor (Bunting Boy),” it is due 

to be sold Saturday with an 

estimated price of between 

$500,000 and $700,000. 

On Wednesday the local 

government authority said it 

planned to appeal to the auction 

house for the return of the 

mural to its rightful home. 

Alan Strickland, a councillor 

with local Haringey Council, 

said the work had become “a 

real symbol of local pride” in 

an area badly hit in England’s 

August 2011 riots. 

“The Banksy created a huge 

amount of excitement when it 

first appeared, and residents 

are understandably shocked 

and angry that it has been 

removed for private sale,” 

Strickland said. “The community 

feels that this artwork was 

given to it for free, and that it 

should be kept in Haringey 

where it belongs, not sold for a 

fast buck.” 

Strickland said he had asked 

England’s Arts Council for 

help. 

The government-funded 

council called the loss of the 

Banksy “a shame” but said 

there was little it could do. 

The council has the power to 

stop the export of culturally 

significant artworks, but only 

if they are more than 50 

years old. 

The lawmaker for the area, 

Lynne Featherstone, says she 

has asked the building’s owner 

for an explanation but has yet 

to receive a reply. Poundland, 

the store that occupies the 

building, said it had nothing to 

do with the removal. 

“(It’s) totally unethical that 

something so valued should be 

torn without warning from its 

community context,” 

Featherstone said. 

Fine Art Auctions Miami 

said it had acquired the work 

legally, but gave few other 

details. 

It said in a statement that it 

had “done all the necessary 

due diligence about the ownership 

of the work.” 

“Unfortunately we are not 

able to provide you with any 

information by law and contract 

about any details of this 

consignment,” it said. “We are 

more than happy to do so if 

you can prove that the works 

were acquired and removed 

illegally.” 

Banksy’s publicist did not 

immediately reply to a request 

for comment. 

The anonymous street artist, 

who refuses to reveal his real 

name, began his career spraypainting 

buildings and bridges 

in his home city of Bristol in 

southwest England. His often 

satirical images include two 

policemen kissing, armed riot 

police with yellow smiley faces 

and a chimpanzee with a sign 

bearing the words “Laugh 

now, but one day I’ll be in 

charge.” 

Original Banksy works now 

sell for up to hundreds of thousands 

of dollars and the artist 

has become an international 

The former site of ‘Banksy: Slave Labour’, a mural by Banksy, in London, on Wednesday. (REUTERS) 

celebrity. He has created 

sequences for “The Simpsons” 

and directed an Academy 

Award-nominated documentary, 

“Exit Through the Gift 

Shop.” 

His works are still sometimes 

obliterated by zealous 

local officials, street cleaners 

or — as in this case — taken off 

buildings along with a chunk 

of wall for private sale.

Pakistan / South Asia Thursday, February 21, 2013 17 

Shiites bury 89 

blast victims 

amid tension 

Nepalese Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai (centre right), Vice-Chairman of Nepali Congress Ram Chandra Paudel (fourth left), President of Nepali Congress Sushil Koirala 

(left), Chairman Communist Party Jhalnath Khanal (centre left) and Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal (centre) during a meeting, in Kathmandu, on Tuesday. (AFP) 

Nepal political parties fail 

to reach deal on new govt 

AP 

NEW DELHI 

NEPAL’S major political parties 

failed on Tuesday to complete 

an expected agreement 

to settle a years-long political 

standoff, after Maoists insisted 

that the accord include 

amnesty for past crimes. The 

amnesty issue derailed a tentative 

deal reached Monday to 

appoint as interim prime 

minister the chief justice of 

the country’s Supreme Court, 

Khil Raj Regmi, to lead Nepal 

until elections in June. Now it 

appears that the wrangling 

will continue indefinitely, 

worsening the paralysis of the 

country’s civic functions. 

Nepal has been trying to 

establish a working representative 

democracy since 2008, 

when a constituent assembly 

was elected to replace the former 

monarchy. But the 

assembly has been unable to 

draw up a constitution or settle 

on when or how to hold 

further elections. 

Maoists, who fought a long 

civil war against the monarchy, 

now control the most 

important government posts, 

but the ethnic, caste, religious, 

ideological and regional 

differences that permeate 

Nepalese society have made 

even the most basic political 

agreements impossible. 

Meanwhile, the country’s 

judiciary has been arresting 

former Maoist fighters from 

the bitter civil war, which cost 

at least 13,000 lives, prompting 

the Maoist party to call for 

amnesty and for a less punitive 

reconciliation process, such as 

a parliamentary committee 

that the party could influence. 

‘’Amnesty is still under consideration,” 

said Devendra 

Poudel, adviser to the present 

Maoist prime minister, 

Baburam Bhattarai. “Instead 

of addressing one or two 

issues separately, why not 

deal with them all in the same 

package?” 

Nepal has been trying 

to establish a 

working representative 

democracy 

since 2008, when a 

constituent assembly 

was elected to 

replace the former 

monarchy. 

But the country’s other 

political parties and civil-society 

organisations have insisted 

on a process in which war 

criminals are jailed. 

‘’The Maoists are very much 

afraid of the regular judiciary 

of this country,” said 

Rajendra Dahal, a spokesman 

for President Ram Baran 

Yadav, a leader of the centrist 

Nepalese Congress party. 

‘’But until there is an agreement, 

they will control the 

government,” he said of the 

Maoists. “So they benefit 

from the standoff.” 

Dahal said that the president 

had welcomed the tentative 

deal to put the chief justice 

in charge temporarily. 

‘’The president’s single mission 

is to have elections,” he 

said early Tuesday. “Any way 

the parties get some consensus 

in the goal of having elections, 

the president will support.” 

By late Tuesday evening, 

however, the optimism surrounding 

the tentative agreement 

had faded. 

Kanak Mani Dixit, a civil 

rights activist and commentator, 

said he was worried that 

the Maoists supported the 

deal in hopes of discrediting 

the Supreme Court, which he 

said is the last civic institution 

in Nepal with any credibility. 

‘’The Maoists agreed 

because they have already 

destroyed every other important 

institution of the state,” 

Dixit said. 

Regmi was expected to be 

appointed to a three-month 

term as prime minister, after 

which he would return to the 

court. If Regmi had been 

unable to oversee elections in 

that time, a new agreement 

would have had to be 

reached. 

The Maoist leader, 

Bhattarai, rejected all previous 

proposals to replace him, 

and other political parties 

have refused to allow elections 

while Bhattarai and his 

allies hold the crucial levers of 

government, saying that his 

oversight would make the 

elections unfair. 

In the meantime, basic civil 

functions in Nepal have 

begun to fail one after another, 

and the country’s economy, 

never robust, has stalled. 

As a result, Nepalis have been 

emigrating to neighboring 

countries in large numbers, to 

the exasperation particularly 

of India, where many of the 

migrants settle. 

AFP 

QUETTA 

SCUFFLES broke out 

Wednesday as Pakistani 

Shiite Muslims buried the 

89 victims of a second major 

bomb attack in five weeks, 

which has highlighted the 

government’s inability to 

stem sectarian violence. 

Shiite leaders called off a 

three-day nationwide 

protest demanding army 

protection after the government 

promised those 

responsible would be arrested 

in a “targeted operation” 

and relatives of the dead 

compensated. 

But for many of the 

mourners, the deal was 

insufficient. 

Around 1,000 people, 

shouting anti-government 

slogans and beating their 

chests, quarrelled with community 

leaders who agreed 

late Tuesday to call off their 

sit-in on a main road in the 

southwestern city of Quetta. 

Similar protests had been 

held in other major cities 

including Karachi, Lahore 

and Islamabad, paralysing 

key routes and neighbourhoods. 

In Quetta on Wednesday, 

an angry mob of young people 

and women, crying and 

screaming, initially refused 

to bury the dead, an AFP 

reporter said. 

Mourners pelted stones at 

the car of a government official, 

as the burials got under 

way, prompting security 

forces and then protesters to 

fire into the air. No-one was 

hurt in the incident. 

As the bodies, wrapped in 

white shrouds and placed in 

wooden coffins, were buried 

in a row of graves, hundreds 

of volunteers formed a 

human chain in a symbol of 

solidarity and protection. 

Shiites, who make up 

around 20 percent of the 

mostly Sunni Muslim population 

of 180 million, are facing 

record numbers of 

attacks, raising serious 

questions about security as 

nuclear-armed Pakistan 

prepares to hold elections by 

mid-May. 

The 89 people were killed 

when a massive bomb tore 

through a market in the 

Quetta suburb of Hazara 

Town on Saturday. Suicide 

bombers killed 92 others at 

a Hazara snooker hall on 

January 10 in another area 

of Quetta. 

A Pakistani soldier stands guard during a mass burial ceremony, 

in Quetta, on Wednesday. (AFP) 

Afghan villagers gather near a house destroyed in an apparent NATO raid, in Logar province, south of 

Kabul, recently. (AP) 

Top rebels among 25 killed in 

NATO’s Afghan operations 

AP 

KABUL 

NATO and Afghan forces have 

killed at least 25 insurgents and 

three of their commanders in 

separate operations around the 

country, Afghan and coalition 

officials said on Wednesday. 

The size and scope of the latest 

operations were an indication 

that the Afghan war is far from 

over after 11 years of conflict, 

even as US and foreign forces 

begin rapidly withdrawing and 

handing the lead role for security 

to the Afghans. 

Fighting is also expected to 

intensify as the traditional 

spring fighting season gets 

under way after the heavy 

snows that blanket much of 

northern and eastern 

Afghanistan starts melting. 

The US-led International 

Assistance Force has about 

100,000 troops in the country, 

including about 66,000 from 

the United States. America is 

expected to pull out 34,000 of 

its troops within a year and its 

allies are also expected to scale 

back considerably. Afghan 

forces are to take the lead for 

security starting in the spring ó 

months ahead of schedule. 

An Afghan security operation 

on Tuesday in Mehterlam, the 

capital city of eastern Laghman 

province, killed 15 insurgents, 

the Interior Ministry said on 

Wednesday. The ministry said 

the insurgent’s commander, 

identified as Qari Almas, was 

also killed in the raid. 

Also on Tuesday, joint operations 

by Afghan and coalition 

troops killed 10 insurgents in 

southern and eastern 

Afghanistan, NATO said. 

The coalition said five insurgents 

were killed in the lawless 

Andar district of eastern 

Ghazni province, three died in 

an operation in eastern Logar 

province, and two were killed in 

southern Helmand province. 

Bangladesh, 

Japan sign 

$2.8 bn Dhaka 

metro deal 

AFP 

DHAKA 

BANGLADESH on 

Wednesday signed a loan 

deal with a Japanese development 

agency for construction 

of the country’s first-ever 

metro rail system, costing 

$2.8 billion and intended to 

ease Dhaka’s traffic jams. 

Traffic in Bangladesh capital, 

home to 15 million people, 

is among the slowest in 

the world with commuters 

spending three-to-four hours 

in jams daily. A mix of 

200,000 motor vehicles and 

another half-million cyclerickshaws 

clog the roads. 

Officials said the proposed 

20.1-kilometre (12.5-mile) 

ground and elevated railway 

will stretch across Dhaka 

from north to south with 16 

stations and will ferry four 

million commuters every day, 

easing the jams substantially. 

The project will cost an 

estimated $2.8 billion, 

Japan International 

Cooperation Agency (JICA) 

Bangladesh chief Takao 

Toda said, adding that his 

agency will finance 85 percent 

of the cost at an interest 

rate of 0.01 percent. 

Kabul captures senior 

Pakistan Taliban leader 

AP 

KABUL 

THE Afghanistan authorities 

have captured a senior member 

of the Pakistan Taliban in a 

stretch of mountains near the 

frontier between the two countries, 

Afghan and Pakistani 

officials said on Tuesday. 

One Afghan official said the 

militant, Maulvi Faqir 

Muhammad, had been arrested 

after US airstrikes, some carried 

out via drones, had flushed him 

out of a more remote haven. 

Although Muhammad, 

picked up over the weekend, 

had lost much of his standing 

in the Pakistan Taliban over 

the past few years, his arrest 

was likely to please Pakistani 

officials and further improve 

the already warming relations 

between Kabul and Islamabad. 

‘’This is big news,” a senior 

Pakistani security official said. 

Afghan officials, including 

members of the intelligence 

agency, the National 

Directorate of Security, said 

agents, aided by Afghan army 

special forces, had captured 

Muhammad on Sunday along 

with four other militants in 

the Mohmand Dara District of 

Nangarhar province in eastern 

Afghanistan. The district 

borders Pakistan. 

A member of the Pakistan 

Taliban, formally known as 

the Tehrik-i-Taliban, also said 

he had heard of Muhammad’s 

capture, and that the news 

was spreading quickly among 

the many militant factions 

that make up the Islamist 

movement. 

Muhammad, 

believed to be in 

his 40s, fled to 

Afghanistan in 

2010 after an 

offensive by Pakistan’s 

military on 

his stronghold in 

the Bajaur tribal 

agency. 

Shukrullah Durani, the governor 

of Mohmand Dara, said 

the five men had been carrying 

an AK-47 assault rifle, hand 

grenades, a pistol and a radio 

when caught about 4:30 p.m. 

They were driving a white 

Toyota Corolla — one of 

Afghanistan’s most common 

cars, and thus a low-profile 

way to travel — and were passing 

through the village of 

Hazarnaw, he said, adding 

that authorities had been 

tracking the men for some 

time. Except for the district 

governor, Afghan and 

Pakistani officials spoke on the 

condition of anonymity, citing 

the sensitivity of the case. 

Pakistani officials have in 

the past year often complained 

that Afghan and U.S. 

authorities were doing little 

to capture the wanted militant 

leader. To the dismay of 

officials in Washington, they 

repeatedly sought to draw 

equivalence between his case 

and longstanding accusations 

that Islamabad let the 

Afghan Taliban use Pakistan 

as a rear base. 

Muhammad, believed to be 

in his 40s, fled to Afghanistan 

in 2010 after an offensive by 

Pakistan’s military on his 

stronghold in the Bajaur tribal 

agency. He was at the time a 

deputy leader of the Pakistan 

Taliban, an offshoot of the 

Afghan Taliban movement. 

Muhammad continued to 

attack Pakistani forces in 

Bajaur after taking refuge in 

the isolated valleys of Kunar 

and Nuristan provinces in 

northeastern Afghanistan, 

prompting Pakistani complaints 

of US and Afghan 

inaction.


World 

Japanese whalers blamed for ship crash 

AFP 

SYDNEY 

ENVIRONMENTAL campaigners 

from the militant 

Sea Shepherd group said 

Wednesday a Japanese whaling 

ship had rammed its vessels 

in their worst confrontation 

in the Southern Ocean in 

three years. 

Sea Shepherd said the 

Japanese factory boat the 

Nisshin Maru had deliberately 

collided with boats crewed 

by anti-whaling campaigners, 

the Steve Irwin and the Bob 

Barker. 

“There has been the most 

outrageous attack on the Sea 

Shepherd Australia ships 

today; multiple rammings of 

those ships by the giant factory 

whaling ship from Japan,” 

co-campaign leader Bob 

Brown said. 

“Water cannon laid on the 

ships and concussion 

grenades lobbed on the ships 

from the Japanese government 

escort vessel. 

“Japan through its loud 

hailers... ordered Australian 

ships out of Australian territorial 

waters while they wanted 

to proceed with their illegal 

refuelling of the Nisshin 

Maru... to allow them to continue 

their illegal whaling in 

this international and 

Australian whale sanctuary.” 

Brown said the incident 

had destroyed a life boat on 

the South Korean tanker the 

Sun Laurel, which was refuelling 

the Japanese factory 

ship when the clash occurred. 

He said it was the worst 

confrontation since a January 

2010 collision that caused the 

campaigners’ vessel the Ady 

Gil to sink, with at one point 

the Bob Barker sandwiched 

between the Nisshin Maru 

and the Sun Laurel. 

Sea Shepherd said the 

Nisshin Maru rammed the 

Bob Barker several times, 

including from behind, 

destroying one of their radars 

and all of their masts and 

causing it to lose all power 

and issue a MayDay distress 

call. Power has since been 

restored to the ship. 

“It’s extraordinarily dangerous 

and it’s just a direct 

break of international law,” 

said Brown, the former leader 

of Australia’s Greens party. 

“Canberra needs to tell 

Tokyo to haul off immediately 

and to despatch naval vessels 

down there to uphold international 

law.” 

Sea Shepherd’s Jeff Hansen 

said the Steve Irwin had been 

struck on the stern and right 

hull. 

“We’re now under attack 

The Sea Shepherd vessel, Bob Barker (left) and Japanese fuel tanker Sun Laurel in the Antarctica, on Wednesday. (REUTERS) 

with concussion grenades 

being thrown by armed 

Japanese coastguard in 

Australian waters at our 

crew,” he told ABC television. 

“We’re very concerned for 

the safety of our crew at the 

moment.” 

An official at the whaling 

division of the Japanese government’s 

Fisheries Agency 

said it was checking the allegations. 

The incident comes after 

the US Supreme Court earlier 

this month denied a plea 

from Sea Shepherd to throw 

out a lower court’s injunction 

to stay at least 500 yards 

away from the whaling vessels. 

The Sea Shepherd 

Conservation Society is chasing 

the Japanese fleet hunting 

whales off Antarctica as it 

has done for years in a bid to 

harass the whalers and prevent 

animals being slaughtered. 

Environment Minister 

Tony Burke has described 

Japan’s whale hunt as cruel 

and unnecessary but has so 

far rejected calls to send an 

Australian government vessel 

to monitor the hunt. 

He said he was unable to 

confirm details of the alleged 

clash. 

“The government condemns 

so-called ‘scientific’ 

whaling in all waters and we 

urge everyone in the ocean to 

observe safety at sea,” he 


Australia strongly opposes 

whaling and launched legal 

action challenging the basis 

of Japan’s so-called “scientific” 

hunt in December 2010. 

Japan claims it conducts 

vital scientific research using 

a loophole in an international 

ban on whaling, but makes 

no secret of the fact that the 

animals ultimately end up on 

dinner plates. 

Sea Shepherd said its boats 

were now escorting the Sun 

Laurel north, behind the 

Japanese vessels. None of its 

crew have been injured, it 


Kenyan women yet to win equality 

REUTERS 

NAIROBI 

VIOLENCE, a deeply chauvinistic 

society and a lack of 

cash are locking women out of 

elected office in Kenya, east 

Africa’s leading economy but 

a laggard when it comes to 

female representation. 

The country’s new constitution 

guarantees women a 

third of seats in parliament, 

but two and a half years since 

its adoption, Kenya’s maledominated 

assembly has still 

not passed the necessary legislation 

to put the constitutional 

principle into practice. 

In next month’s general 

election only one of eight presidential 

runners is female, and 

women held just 10 percent of 

seats in the last parliament, 

half the sub-Saharan average. 

“Society sees our place 

being the kitchen and the bedroom. 

Nothing beyond there,” 

parliamentary candidate 

Sophia Abdi Noor told 

Reuters. Noor is the only 

woman running for parliament 

in the remote, arid 

northeast. 

Hailing from Kenya’s conservative 

ethnic-Somali community, 

Noor and her family 

have been on the receiving 

end of public taunts and curses 

since her first foray into 

politics in 1997. 

“People abused my husband. 

They told him, ‘Now 

wear the skirt, let Sophia wear 

the trousers’,” said Noor, who 

in 2007 was handed a seat 

reserved for marginalised 

groups. 

The northeastern region has 

never elected a female lawmaker. 

Across Kenya, from the fertile 

slopes of the Rift Valley to 

the steamy Indian Ocean 

coastline, female political 

aspirants painted the same 

picture: politics is the preserve 

of men in a country that struggles 

to deal with women in 

authority. 

N Korea’s 

nuclear test 

heroes win 

capital trip 

AFP 

SEOUL 

NORTH Korea is rewarding 

the scientists and workers 

behind its recent nuclear test 

with a fun-packed visit to 

Pyongyang to enjoy “the 

greatest privileges”, state 

media said Wednesday. 

Scientists, technicians, 

workers and officials behind 

the February 12 test received 

a hero’s welcome when they 

arrived in the capital, the 

Korean Central News Agency 

(KCNA) said. 

Residents turned out along 

the route with bouquets, banners 

and posters to give them 

a “hearty welcome”. 

“They will spend significant 

days in Pyongyang, enjoying 

the greatest privileges and 

preferential treatment,” 

KCNA said, promising a “joyful 

and delightful time” at the 

city’s open-air ice rink and 

roller skating centre. 

The group will also visit the 

Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, 

which holds the embalmed 

bodies of North Korea’s 

founder Kim Il-Sung and his 

son and former leader Kim 

Jong-Il. 

North Korea’s third nuclear 

test was its most powerful to 

date, with Pyongyang claiming 

a breakthrough with a 

“miniaturised” device. 

While the outside world 

was united in condemnation, 

the test triggered days of 

orchestrated celebrations and 

mass rallies in North Korea. 

The test followed a widely 

criticised long-range rocket 

launch in December, which 

the UN Security Council saw 

as a disguised ballistic missile 

test. 

Cameroon govt 

orders rescue of 

French hostages 

AP 

YAOUNDE 

MILITARY helicopters are 

searching for a vacationing 

French family of seven 

kidnapped in Cameroon 

and security around the 

region is being increased 

amid tensions over 

France’s role in western 

Africa. Cameroonian 

President Paul Biya 

ordered tight security 

measures and urgent steps 

to free the hostages, who 

include four children. 

They were kidnapped by 

armed gunmen in the 

country’s far north on 

Tuesday and whisked 

across the nearby border 

to Nigeria. A ministry 

statement said the 

Cameroonian government 

is in contact with Nigerian 

and French authorities. 

Officials suggested the 

involvement of Boko 

Haram, one of Nigeria’s 

Islamic extremist sects. 

These are groups 

who adhere to the 

same fundamentalism 

and who 

have the same 

methods, whether 

it is in Mali, in 

Somalia or in 

Nigeria, who want 

to create a lawless 

zone. 

The kidnapping came 

as thousands of French 

troops are deeply involved 

in a military intervention 

against Islamic extremists 

who had taken control of a 

big part of the West African 

country of Mali. 

French President 

Francois Hollande, speaking 

at a Cabinet meeting 

Wednesday, called it an 

“odious act” and expressed 

particular horror that children 

were involved, 

according to his government 

spokeswoman. 

France’s defense minister 

said Wednesday that 

there was no proven link 

between the French operation 

in Mali and the 

Cameroon kidnapping. 

But, speaking on France- 

2 television, Jean-Yves Le 

Drian said: “These are 

groups who adhere to the 

same fundamentalism and 

who have the same methods, 

whether it is in Mali, 

in Somalia or in Nigeria, 

who want to create a lawless 

zone” stretching from 

the Atlantic across the 

southern edge of the 

Sahara to Sudan. 

France’s government 

warned French citizens to 

avoid travel in northern 

Cameroon after the kidnapping 

and urged anyone 

currently there to leave 

immediately. 

French Foreign Ministry 

spokesman Philippe 

Lalliot, in an online 

exchange with reporters 

Wednesday, said that in 

northern Cameroon, 

“There was never a security 

incident linked to terrorism; 

Nigerian terrorist 

groups had never carried 

out actions in this part of 

Cameroon.” 

A Cameroonian government 

official said military 

helicopters were being 

used in the search. 

The French gas group 

GDF Suez identified the 

captives as an employee 

working in the Cameroon 

capital of Yaounde and his 

family. French media says 

the children are between 5 

and 12 years old. 

Cameroon state television 

cited government sources in 

the locality saying that the 

three adults have been separated 

from the four children. 

The family was on tour at 

the Waza National Park in 

Cameroon’s Far-North 

Region before they were 

abducted at gunpoint by 

five gunmen aboard motorbikes, 

according to paramilitary 

sources in the area. 

A Cameroon government 

statement late Tuesday 

night said the hostages were 

abducted at Sabongari, 

seven kilometers from 

Dabanga, which flanks 

Cameroon’s frontier with 

Nigeria. 

The statement did not say 

whether the Cameroon government 

is in contact with 

the kidnappers.

United States Thursday, February 21, 2013 19 

1 killed, 15 hurt in Kansas hotel blaze 

A video image shows fire engines and emergency officials near the scene of the fire at Kansas City, in Missouri, on Tuesday. (REUTERS) 

REUTERS & AP 

KANSAS CITY 

FIREFIGHTERS found the 

body of a young woman on 

Wednesday in the rubble of 

a popular restaurant 

destroyed by a natural gas 

blast and fire that injured 

another 15 people, authorities 


Kansas City Mayor Sly 

James said firefighters were 

still looking through the 

blackened rubble for other 

potential victims of the 

Tuesday night explosion and 

fire at JJ’s restaurant in the 

upscale Country Club Plaza 

shopping district. 

“We can’t be 100 percent 

sure we can account for 

every single person who 

might have been at JJ’s last 

night,” James said at a news 

conference, flanked by 

Kansas City Fire Chief Paul 

Berardi. 

James said firefighters had 

recovered the body of a 

young woman. Berardi said 

the body had been found in 

the bar area but declined to 

give an age or sex. 

Berardi earlier said a 

female restaurant employee 

was missing. 

Missouri Gas 

Energy said in a 

statement that 

first indications 

showed that a 

contractor doing 

work in the area 

had struck a 

natural gas 

line, but the 

investigation 

was ongoing. 

The eatery was engulfed 

by flames around 6 pm CST 

on Tuesday after an explosion 

that was felt for hundreds 

of yards. 

Missouri Gas Energy said 

in a statement that first indications 

showed that a contractor 

doing work in the 

area had struck a natural gas 

line, but the investigation 

was ongoing. 

Berardi said 15 people had 

been treated at hospitals and 

nine had been released. 

Three people were in critical 

condition. 

The fire chief said earlier 

there were several patrons 

as well as employees inside 

the restaurant and wine bar 

at the time of the blast. The 

explosion triggered a fouralarm 

fire that took 50 minutes 

to control. 

Dr John Verstraete, who 

works next door to the 

restaurant, told The Kansas 

City Star newspaper that 

several employees of the 

office smelled gas for several 

hours on Tuesday afternoon. 

The smell grew stronger 

through the day, and a gas 

company employee entered 

the medical office just before 

6 pm recommending that it 

be evacuated, he said. 

Dr Marc Larsen, medical 

director of the emergency 

room at St Luke’s Hospital, 

said they had treated eight 

people, six of whom were 

walk-ins with minor 

injuries. 

Jesse Jackson Jr 

pleads guilty in 

campaign case 

AP 

WASHINGTON 

FORMER US Representative 

Jesse Jackson Jr entered a 

guilty plea on Wednesday in 

federal court to criminal 

charges that he engaged in an 

alleged scheme to spend 

$750,000 in campaign funds 

on personal items. 

Both the former Illinois congressman 

and his wife, 

Sandra, had agreed to plead 

guilty in deals with federal 

prosecutors. Jackson’s guilty 

plea was to a conspiracy 

charge. 

His wife was due in court 

later on a charge of filing false 

joint federal income tax 

returns for the years 2006 

through 2011 that knowingly 

understated the income the 

couple received. The Jacksons 

were appearing separately 

before US District Judge 

Robert L Wilkins. 

Both Jackson and his wife 

face maximum penalties of 

several years in prison; he also 

faces hundreds of thousands 

of dollars in fines and forfeitures. 

Jackson, 47, used campaign 

money to buy items including 

a $43,350 gold-plated men’s 

Rolex watch and $9,587.64 

worth of children’s furniture, 

according to court papers filed 

in the case. His wife spent 

$5,150 on fur capes and 

parkas, the document said. 

When prosecutors charged 

the couple last Friday, the excongressman 

said he fully 

accepts the responsibility for 

the improper decisions and 

mistakes he has made. Tom 

Kirsch, an attorney for 

Jackson’s wife, said she has 

signed a plea agreement with 

federal prosecutors and would 

plead guilty to one tax count. 

The conspiracy charge 

against the former congressman 

carries a maximum statutory 

penalty of up to five years 

in prison, a fine of up to 

$250,000, and other penalties. 

The charge against 

Sandra Jackson carries a maximum 

of three years in prison. 

However, one of her lawyers, 

Tom Kirsch, says the plea 

agreement “does not contemplate 

a sentence of that 

length.” Sandra Jackson was a 

Chicago alderman before she 

resigned last month during the 

federal investigation. 

In court papers filed against 

Jackson on Friday, prosecutors 

said that upon conviction 

he must forfeit $750,000, plus 

tens of thousands of dollars’ 

worth of memorabilia items 

and furs. 

Panetta raises govt 

jobs cut scare 

AP 

WASHINGTON 

DEFENCE Secretary Leon 

Panetta told Congress on 

Wednesday that if automatic 

government spending cuts 

kick in on March 1 he may be 

compelled to furlough the 

“vast majority” of the Defence 

Department’s 800,000 civilian 

workers. 

He also said the across-theboard 

spending reductions 

would “put us on a path 

toward a hollow force,” meaning 

a military incapable of fulfiling 

all of its missions. 

In a written message to 

employees, Panetta said that 

he notified members of 

Congress on Wednesday that 

if the White House and 

Congress cannot strike a 

deficit reduction deal before 

March 1 to avoid the furloughs, 

all affected workers will get at 

least 30 days’ advance notice. 

The furloughs would be part 

of broad spending cuts the 

Pentagon would implement in 

order to achieve $46 billion in 

reductions through the end of 

this budget year, which ends 

September 30. More cuts 

would come in future years as 

long as the automatic government 

spending cuts, known as 

sequestration, remained in 

effect. 

“In the event of sequestration 

we will do everything we 

can to be able to continue to 

perform our core mission of 

providing for the security of 

the United States, but there is 

no mistaking that the rigid 

nature of the cuts forced upon 

this department, and their 

scale, will result in a serious 

erosion of readiness across the 

force,” Panetta wrote. 

Secretary of State John 

Kerry said the fiscal impasse is 

a serious threat to American 

credibility around the world.


The Last Word 

Pathway to Happiness, a great success 

THE cultural committee at Qatar Sports Club (QSC) organised on Tuesday the first Darb Al-Sa’ada (Pathway of 

Happiness) festival for the people with special needs. More than 100 participants representing various rehabilitation 

societies and organisations in addition to large number of people attended the event at the QSC’s sports hall. The 

event that was covered by Al-Rayyan TV channel. 

Oscars in Hollywood cliffhanger over Best Picture, Director 

REUTERS 

LOS ANGELES 

SUNDAY’S Oscar ceremony 

is set for a cliffhanger ending 

after a topsy-turvy awards 

season that has left the two 

top prizes - Best Picture and 

Best Director - too close to 

call. 

With just days to go before 

the movie industry’s highest 

honors are handed out on 

February 24, awards watchers 

are keyed up for one of the 

most exciting nights in recent 

Academy Awards history. 

Despite entering the Oscar 

race with a leading 12 nominations 

in January, the frontrunner 

Best Picture status of 

Steven Spielberg’s presidential 

drama “Lincoln” has been 

undermined by a slew of 

awards picked up Ben 

Affleck’s Iran hostage 

thriller “Argo.” 

But an “Argo” win despite 

Affleck’s omission from the 

Best Director shortlist would 

defy the conventional wisdom 

that says the Oscar for Best 

Film usually brings a trophy 

for its director. 

Gold & Silver Oscar statues stand together during preparations for the 

Academy Awards in Hollywood, California on Wednesday. (REUTERS) 

“Argo” would be the first 

movie to take home the statuette 

for Best Picture without 

its director winning even a 

nomination since “Driving 

Miss Daisy” in 1990. 

“Everything is kind of haywire, 

so those of us in the 

(awards prediction)business 

are all left scratching our 

heads and saying what does it 

mean?” said Matt Atchity, 

editor in chief of movie review 

website Rotten Tomatoes. 

After beating “Lincoln” at 

the Golden Globes, Screen 

Actors Guild, directors, producers 

and writers guilds, 

“Argo” now has the edge in 

the Best Picture race. 

“Even if ‘Argo’ wins for Best 

Picture, which is kind of a 

foregone conclusion at this 

point, it still feels exciting 

because ‘Argo’ has managed 

to keep this underdog status 

even though it has been winning 

every award,” Dave 

Karger, chief correspondent 

for Fandango.com told 

Reuters. 

“If ‘Lincoln’ wins, ironically 

it will be considered an upset 

even though it has the most 

nominations. That’s what’s 

strange about this year - all 

the rules seems to be turned 

on their heads,” Karger 

added. 

A Reuters/Ipsos poll 

released on Wednesday 

underlined the stiff competition. 

Some 17 percent of the 

1,443 people questioned in 

the United States between 

February 15 and 19 thought 

that “Lincoln” was most likely 

to win Best Picture, but the 

same percentage gave their 

backing to musical “Les 

Miserables.” 

WEATHER REPORT 

DOHA REGION WORLD 

TODAY 

DAY 

High 26° 

Sunshine 

NIGHT 

Low 18° 

Clear 

THURSDAY 

DAY 

High 26° 

Sunny 

NIGHT 

Low 15° 

Partly cloudy 

FRIDAY 

DAY 

High 25° 

Sunny 

NIGHT 

Low 17° 

Clear 

Manama TODAY Sunny High 22° Low 19° 

TOMORROW Sunny High 22° Low 16° 

Makkah TODAY Sunny High 37° Low 22° 


Dubai TODAY Sunshine High 25° Low 18° 


Muscat TODAY Sunny High 27° Low 21° 


Kuwait TODAY Sunny High 25° Low 13° 


Riyadh TODAY Sunny High 23° Low 11° 


Baghdad TODAY Sunny High 22° Low 10° 


Abu Dhabi TODAY Sunny High 24 Low 18° 


Tehran TODAY Mostly Sunny High 13° Low 6° 


Athens TODAY Showers High 14 Low 11° TOMORROW Warmer High 18° Low 8° 

Washington TODAY Sunny High 4° Low -1° TOMORROW Snow High 5° Low 2° 

Beirut TODAY Sunny High 20° Low 15° TOMORROW Cloudy High 22° Low 15° 

Bangkok TODAY Clouds & sun High 35° Low 26° TOMORROW Cloudy High 36° Low 24° 

Berlin TODAY Flurries High -2° Low -7° TOMORROW Flurries High -1° Low -5° 

Cairo TODAY Sunny High 25° Low 16° TOMORROW Sunny High 26° Low 14° 

Cape Town TODAY Sunny High 25° Low 15° TOMORROW Showers High 26° Low 16° 

New Delhi TODAY Fog High 24° Low 13° TOMORROW Sunny High 25° Low 13° 

Dhaka TODAY Sunshine High 30° Low 17° TOMORROW Sunny High 31° Low 18° 

Hong Kong TODAY Sunny High 21° Low 17° TOMORROW Sunny High 23° Low 16° 

Istanbul TODAY Cloudy High 11° Low 8° TOMORROW Rain High 10° Low 8° 

Colombo TODAY Sunshine High 33° Low 23° TOMORROW Sunshine High 33° Low 23° 

Karachi TODAY Sunny High 28° Low 19° TOMORROW Cloudy High 28° Low 18° 

Manila TODAY Showers High 31° Low 26° TOMORROW Showers High 30° Low 25° 

Sydney TODAY Showers High 27° Low 20° TOMORROW Rain High 26° Low 20° 

Singapore TODAY Showers High 31° Low 25° TOMORROW Showers High 32° Low 24° 

Paris TODAY Colder High 3° Low -4° TOMORROW Flurry High 2° Low -4°

Qatar gives $100mn in aid to Syrians - Qatar Tribune

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