INTERNATIONALARAB TIMES, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2016

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Amir condolesContinued from Page 1

demise of Sheikh Khalifa bin Hamad Al-Thani.

His Highness the Amir prayed to Allah the Almighty to bestow His blessing upon his soul and patience for his family and the Qatari people.

His Highness the Crown Prince Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, and His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber Mubarak Al-Hamad Al-Sabah sent similar cables.

Sheikh Khalifa bin Hamad Al-Tha-ni, who passed away Sunday evening at the age of 84, made remarkable achievements for his country and the Arab nation in the social, economic and political fi elds.

When he assumed power on Feb 22, 1972, he started empowering the government through adding new port-folios such as the ministries of foreign affairs, information and municipal af-fairs.

The Qatari economy grew remark-able during his reign which lasted until June 27, 1995, thanks to the numerous oil and gas discoveries.

In 1991, Qatar exported its fi rst consignment of liquefi ed natural gas (LNG) from the Northern Gas Field, the world’s second biggest fi eld.

In 1981 he co-founded with the then leaders of the Arabian Gulf states the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) which emerged as a key player in the international economic and political affairs.

Under his leadership, Qatar played a great role in the military campaign to liberate Kuwait from the Iraqi invasion through committing 23 percent of its armed forces to the campaign which lasted between Feb 24 and 28, 1991.

On the international scale, he man-aged to strengthen Qatar’s external ties through establishing diplomatic rela-tions on the ambassadorial level with as many countries as possible.

The demise of Sheikh Khalifa bin Hamad Al-Thani is a great loss for Qa-tar and the Arab nation at large.

Meanwhile, Qatar began three days of mourning on Monday after the death of Sheikh Khalifa bin Hamad Al-Thani, who oversaw the start of the country’s transformation into an en-ergy powerhouse.

Prayers took place at the national mosque after which the former ruler, who was deposed in a bloodless coup in 1995, was to be buried in Al Rayyan on the western fringes of Doha.

Flags on offi cial buildings fl ew at half-mast, and Arabic- and English-language newspapers printed their front page coverage of the death in black and white.

Many Qataris took to social media to express their condolences and the US Ambassador in Qatar, Dana Shell Smith, gave a statement to local media saying she was “saddened to learn of the passing”.

A state visit by Venezuelan Presi-dent Nicolas Maduro was due to go ahead on Monday, but a high-profi le

Unity, corruption

Bond issue

Continued from Page 1

Continued from Page 1

Al-Tabtabaei, Faisal Faihan Al-Otaibi and Yousef Rashid Al-Al-Muzen■ Third Constituency (fi ve candidates) — Osama Yousif Al-Tahous, Amani Jalil Al-Saleh, Fahad Abdullah Al-Tammar, Faisal Shaheen Al-Hamadi and Nasser Mohammed Al-Ajmi ■ Fourth Constituency (12 candidates) — Sultan Jadan Al-Shumiri, Suleiman Saud Al-saeed, Saif Rashid Al-Mutai-ri, Ayed Bajas Al-Barazi, Abdullah Fahad Al-Anazi, Abdullah Mazouk Al-Adwani, Lafi Hamoud Al-Mutairi, Mutab Lahab Al-Mutairi, Mohammed Duhaim Al-Zufairi, Mishal Hussein Al-Mutairi, Mansour Khalaf Al-Elaj and Naif Abdullah Al-Daihani ■ Fifth Constituency (10 candidates) — Bader Ali Al-Azmi, Hassan Saad Al-Azmi, Talal Saad Al-Sahli, Atif Mohammed Al-Azmi, Abdullah Zaid Al-Azmi, Ali Abdul-Hadi Al-Muri, Mohammed Ali Al-Azmi, Matar Sa-lem Al-Azmi, Nasser Bader Baqer and Anwar Ramadan Dashti

Amani Al-Saleh, the only female candidate who registered Sunday, said in a press statement after fi ling her candidacy that the previous Parliament adopted resolutions deemed insult-ing to the people of Kuwait. She then stressed the need for the next Parlia-

(KIA), would start to look at the meas-ures that needed to be taken to com-plete an offering at the end of October.

“We will look at the economic fea-sibility and the cost on the country for the issuance, as it is very important to take this into consideration,” Hamada said.

He added that the country hadn’t yet begun engaging with international banks about the bond because the KIA was still preparing the technical and legal frameworks for the deal.

Kuwait has been granted some fi -nancial leeway by a pick-up in oil pric-es, after they touched a 12-year low in February.

The move has been pronounced since Sept 27, when the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries announced plans to curb production for the fi rst time in eight years, to rein in a global crude glut that has halved prices from mid-2014 highs above $100 a barrel.

“Until the fi rst half of this fi scal year at the end of September, the defi cit reached around 3.6 billion dinars and (the full-year defi cit) is expected to be lower than estimated in the budget due to the slight rise of oil prices,” Hamada told the channel.

Kuwait’s Finance Minister, Anas Al-Saleh, said in July that the coun-try’s projected defi cit for this fi scal year was KD 9.5 billion.

Saleh said at the time the shortfall would be covered through drawdowns of reserves as well as issuing bonds both internationally and locally, with the latter debt worth around KD 2 billion.

“A big chunk” of that fi gure had al-ready been raised by the Central Bank of Kuwait, Hamada said.

conference, involving senior FIFA and Qatar World Cup 2022 offi cials, scheduled for Tuesday was cancelled as a mark of respect.

However, schools remained open

and roads were busy.The 84-year-old former ruler —

grandfather of the current Amir Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani — died on Sunday, Qatar News Agency said,

without giving the cause.Sheikh Tamim ordered the offi cial

mourning period.Before becoming ruler, Khalifa

served as Qatar’s prime minister and was then a pivotal fi gure as the tiny emirate established itself as a major global energy producer and subse-quently one of the richest countries in the world.

He took power from a cousin in February 1972, just months after Qatar gained independence from Britain.

During his reign, the state-owned Qatar Petroleum was set-up in 1974, followed 10 years later by Qatar Gas, now the world’s largest liquefi ed natu-ral gas company.

He was also seen as a founding fa-ther of the Gulf Cooperation Council, the political and economic union in-corporating the six states in the region.

But while on a private visit to Eu-rope in 1995, Khalifa was deposed in a bloodless palace coup by his son, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, who was defence minister at the time.

One year after his removal, an ap-parent failed coup was launched in Qa-tar and 19 people were subsequently charged in what was the country’s big-gest ever trial and sentenced to death for trying to return Khalifa to power.

Khalifa himself remained in exile for almost a decade, living in France before returning in 2004 to Qatar where he kept a low profi le and was rarely seen in public.

At the time he was deposed, Qatar’s population stood at around 490,000 people. Today, it is some 2.6 million, the majority of them foreigners.

Sheikh Hamad remained in power until 2013, overseeing further extraor-dinary economic growth and securing Qatar the rights to host the 2022 foot-ball World Cup, before handing over to Sheikh Tamim.

The former Amir had four wives, fi ve sons and 10 daughters.

ment to ratify laws in the interest of the people.

She asserted the economic situation is diffi cult and there is no censorship on retailers or properties. She added, “We need to settle debts with Kuwaiti traders and impose property tax in or-der to control prices.”

She also emphasized the signifi -cance of addressing a number of issues concerning women, such as treating them as equal to men in granting hous-ing loans.

cerns that the IS militants might move to southern Iraq and to locations close to the borders with Kuwait, Al-Jaral-lah said: “we ought to expect anything from this terrorist organization.” He reiterated full support for the Iraqi Government in its battle to retake Mo-sul and congratulated the Iraqis on their victories on the fi eld.

Al-Jarallah indicated that Kuwait was maintaining its armament policy, securing weapons from strategic allies, namely the United States of America.

More to doContinued from Page 1

Meanwhile, Al-Jarallah affi rmed Kuwait’s commitment to FATF’s rec-ommendations on fi ghting terrorism, especially through legislations and other measures that guarantee trans-parency of information on donations to charity works overseas.

Formed early last year, CIFG is led by the United States, Italy and Saudi Arabia and is made up of over 35 coun-tries and four international bodies.

Jarallah said Kuwait “has come a long way in introducing legislation that controls the collection of (char-ity) donations”, a suspected channel of funding extremists.

The CIFG takes a global approach to undermining the fl ow of funds to the jihadist group, according to Adam Szubin, US Treasury’s acting Under Secretary on Countering the Financing of Terrorism.

Szubin said last week that the meet-ing in Kuwait City aims “to share in-formation and continue developing and coordinating countermeasures against ISIL’s (IS) fi nancial activity worldwide”.

He said the Treasury was working closely with Kuwait and Qatar in par-ticular to strengthen the technical side of the fi ght against terrorism fi nance, but “there is room for improvement”.

Szubin said the effort to choke off funding was showing some success.

IS fi ghters had been abandoning the fi ght “as their pay and benefi ts have been cut and delayed, in what ISIL members in Mosul are calling a ‘reces-sion’”, he said, referring to Iraq’s bat-tle to recapture the city from jihadists.

Kuwait on Monday affi rmed that bonds between the GCC countries and the Arab Republic of Egypt have been solid, noting that support for the na-tion particularly at the economic level would continue.

The GCC states’ relations with Egypt have been strong and solid, said Al-Jarallah.

On record fall of the Egyptian pound value, Al-Jarallah said the Egyptian currency rating “is determined by the market and Egypt’s economic condi-tions.” He affi rmed that Kuwait, along with the other GCC member states, would continue backing Egypt’s econ-omy, its security and stability.

He denied reports about a “crisis” in Egypt’s ties with the GCC countries indicating that such allegations are merely ink on paper.

In further statements to journalists after the inauguration session, Al-Jarallah affi rmed that Kuwait is fully prepared to cope with any eventualities emanating from the battle for control of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.

Asked whether there are any con-

Sport ‘inContinued from Page 1

and clubs handle their affairs inde-pendently, said Sheikh Fahad in a statement to Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) and Kuwait Television. He also renewed the denial of charges made by the International Olympic Committee about State intervention in Kuwait sports affairs.

Sheikh Fahad, taking part in the an-nual conference of the Arab sports un-ion’s chiefs, said the Kuwaiti Olympic Committee “will spare no effort to sus-pend and nullify” the decision by the international committee, barring Ku-waiti teams and champions from tak-ing part in international tournaments under Kuwait Flag.

The chief of the Kuwaiti committee, who took part in inaugurating the confer-ence on Sunday, urged participants in the meeting to support the Kuwaiti efforts aimed at lifting the international ban.

He also called on them to allow the Kuwaiti teams take part in Arab tournaments on grounds that the Arab sports unions are not subject to the in-ternational committee’s jurisdictions.

He noted that the Kuwaiti teams and athletes could compete with other Arab teams and champions, under umbrella of the Arab Sports Federation (ASF).

Earlier, Sheikh Fahad held talks on the issue with ASF General Secre-tary Saud Bin-Ali Bin Alabdul-Aziz, Chairman of the Arab Boxing Federa-tion Yousef Al-Kathem and Chairman of the Arab and African triathlon fed-erations, Ahmad Nasser.

The Kuwait Olympic Committee affi rms that the Kuwaiti Government is the prime supporter of the national sports federations and clubs; with money, installations, administrative and technical facilities. However, the Government does not meddle in their organizational and electoral affairs.

Newswatch

ABU DHABI: An Emirati court on Monday jailed a Sudanese man for 10 years for planning a bomb attack aimed at killing foreigners in the Gulf country, local media reported.

The Federal Supreme Court also convicted the defendant on charges of supporting the Islamic State jihadist group on social media, The National daily reported.

“Prosecutors said he was inspired by the terrorist group’s ideology,” the Abu Dhabi newspaper added on its website.

The official WAM news agency confirmed that an “Arab national was convicted of planning a terror-ist act and creating online accounts to promote DAESH (IS)” and was jailed for 10 years.

Another daily, Gulf News, reported that the same court on Monday sentenced a Pakistani man to 10 years in prison for “financing the terrorist organisa-tions Daesh and al-Qaeda”. (AFP)

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BEIJING: A powerful explosion ripped through a building in a northern Chinese city on Monday, killing 10 people and injuring more than 150.

Media reports said the blast in Yulin, which destroyed or damaged nearby buildings including a hospi-tal, may have been caused by explo-sives illegally stored in the building.

The official Xinhua news agency said dozens of firefighters were sent to the scene in Shaanxi prov-ince, and rescuers were hunting for survivors who may be trapped in the rubble. (AFP)

Iraqis push toward MosulBaghdad bombings kill 11

BARTELLA, Iraq, Oct 24, (AP): Iraqi forces fought their way into two villages near Mo-sul on Monday as the offensive to retake the extremist-held city entered its second week and a rights group urged a probe into a suspected air-strike that hit a mosque, kill-ing over a dozen civilians.

Iraqi special forces began shell-ing IS positions before dawn near Bartella, a historically Christian town to the east of Mosul that they had retaken last week. With patriot-ic music blaring from loudspeakers on their Humvees, they then pushed into the village of Tob Zawa, about 9 kilometers (5 ó miles) from Mo-sul, amid heavy clashes.

After entering the village, they al-lowed more than 30 people who had been sheltering in a school to escape the fi ghting.

The Iraqi Federal Police, a military-style force, pushed into a small village in the Shura district south of Mosul, where they fi red a large anti-aircraft gun and rocket-propelled grenades as they battled IS militants. They later appeared to have secured the village, a cluster of squat homes on a desert plain, and handed out water and other aid to civilians.

DestroyingThe US-led coalition said it had car-

ried out six airstrikes near Mosul on Sunday, destroying 19 fi ghting posi-tions and 17 vehicles, as well as rocket and mortar launchers, artillery and tun-nels.

Human Rights Watch meanwhile called for an investigation into last week’s purported airstrike in northern Iraq that struck the women’s section of a Shiite mosque in the town of Daquq.

The strike happened amid a large Is-lamic State assault on the nearby city of Kirkuk that was meant to distract the Iraqi forces and their allies from the massive operation around Mosul, the country’s second largest city.

The IS attack on Kirkuk, some 170 kilometers (100 miles) southeast of Mosul, lasted for two days and killed at least 80 people, mainly members of the Kurdish security forces, who assumed control of the city in 2014 as Iraqi forc-

es crumbled before an IS advance.Human Rights Watch said Daquq’s

residents believe Friday’s attack was an airstrike because of the extent of the destruction and because planes could be heard fl ying overhead. The New York-based watchdog said at least 13 people were reported killed.

The US-led coalition and the Iraqi military, which are waging the offen-sive to drive IS from Mosul, are the only parties known to be fl ying mili-tary aircraft over Iraq.

Col. John Dorrian, a US military spokesman, said the coalition had “de-fi nitively determined” that it did not conduct the airstrike that killed civil-ians in Daquq, and had shared its fi nd-ings with the Iraqi government, which

is carrying out its own investigation.“The Coalition uses precision mu-

nitions and an exhaustive process to reduce the possibility of civilian casu-alties and collateral damage because the preservation of civilian life is (of) paramount importance to us,” Dorrian said.

Iraqi Brig. Gen. Yahya Rasool, the spokesman for the Joint Military Com-mand, confi rmed the Iraqi government was investigating the attack. He de-clined to say whether Iraqi or coalition planes were fl ying in the area at the time of the explosion.

As in Kirkuk, IS launched an attack on the western Iraqi town of Rutba, hundreds of kilometers (miles) away from Mosul, on Sunday. Rasool said

the situation there “is completely un-der control,” and IS militants have no presence inside the town.

In Baghdad, meanwhile, a series of small bombings killed 11 people and wounded another 35, according to po-lice and hospital offi cials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.

The campaign to retake Mosul comes after months of planning and in-volves more than 25,000 Iraqi troops, Kurdish forces, Sunni tribal fi ghters and state-sanctioned Shiite militias. It is expected to take weeks, if not months, to drive IS out of Iraq’s sec-ond largest city, which is still home to more than a million people.

No ‘humanitarian pauses’: Russia

Syrian troops capture high groundBEIRUT, Oct 24, (AP): Syrian gov-ernment forces and their allies on Monday captured strategic high ground in embattled Aleppo as Russia — a key ally of Syrian Presi-dent Bashar Assad — said it was not planning more “humanitarian pauses” in the fi ghting in the city’s eastern, rebel-held districts.

The fi ghting in Aleppo came as airstrikes hit towns in the north-western province of Idlib, killing at least 13 people, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Local Coordination Committees. They said the people killed were in the towns of Kfar Takharim and Khan Sheikhoun, where a market was hit.

Fighting resumed in Aleppo over the weekend, following a days-long lull announced by Moscow that was meant to allow rebels and civilians to leave the eastern districts. The rebels rejected the Russian offer and none of the civilians left.

Government troops launched a fresh offensive and on Monday took the hilltop of Bazo on the southern edge of Aleppo, near mili-tary bases, and shelled the rebel neighborhoods, according to oppo-sition activists.

The Britain-based Syrian Obser-vatory for Human Rights said Bazo

was taken amid heavy bombard-ment. Both the Observatory and the Aleppo Media Center, an activ-ist collective, reported government shelling in eastern parts of the city.

A video released by the Syr-ian army showed tanks and can-nons pounding rebel positions in the area. The state SANA news agency, meanwhile, said the rebels shelled government-held neighbor-hoods in western Aleppo, killing one person and wounding seven.

A pro-opposition media outlet cir-culated footage of a powerful and hard-line Islamist rebel coalition known as Jaish al-Fatah announc-ing that the campaign to break the government’s siege of the city’s east would begin “within hours.”

Syrian troops have besieged re-bel-held parts of Aleppo for weeks, subjecting the districts to some of the worst air raids since a cease-fi re brokered by the United States and Russia collapsed on Sept. 19. Opposition activists say more than 600 people have been killed in Aleppo and neighboring villages since then.

Jaish al-Fatah commander Ali Abu Odai al-Aloush told the Qa-sioun News Agency that “zero hour has drawn near,” and that his militants had begun moving toward

Aleppo. It was unclear when the in-terview was recorded.

A spokesman for the Nour el-Din al-Zinki rebel faction in Aleppo said an operation to break the govern-ment’s siege of the rebel-held east-ern districts of Aleppo was “coming.”

The spokesman, Yasser al-Yousef, said the rebels would not intentionally target civilians in Alep-po’s government-held districts, but warned of collateral damage from the anticipated operations.

In Moscow, Russia’s deputy for-eign minister Sergei Ryabkov said Russia wasn’t planning another humanitarian pause in Aleppo any-time soon.

“In order to resume it, our oppo-nents need to make sure the anti-government groups behave proper-ly,” he said in comments carried by Russian news agencies, blaming the rebels for the fact that medical evacuations from eastern Aleppo, planned during the pause, were scrapped at the last moment.

“What needed to happen didn’t happen ... that’s why resuming a humanitarian pause is not on the agenda,” Ryabkov said. He also said that Moscow doesn’t expect any new round of Syria peace talks in the Swiss city of Lausanne until after the US elections.