03Tattooing: Practising the controversial art

05Hit-and-run incident goes viral

08 Google faces EU antitrust fine

10

Egyptian Housing minister named as acting premier12WORLD

FRIDAYC E L E B S

Val Kilmer returning for ‘Top Gun: Maverick’Actor Val Kilmer will bring back the character of the skilled fighter pilot (and beach volleyball player) Tom Kazansky aka Iceman for “Top Gun: Maverick”.P17

FRIDAYJUNE 2018

200 FILS ISSUE NO. 7771

Words to address hearts and minds

‘Individual stars are good, but we’re not a team’ 20 SPORTS

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Saudi Arabia, Bahrain boost tiesTDT|Riyadh

The Custodian of Two Holy Mosques, King Salman bin

Abdulaziz Al Saud, received His Royal Highness Prince Sal-man bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the Crown Prince, Deputy Supreme Commander and First Deputy Prime Minister, at Al-Safa Pal-ace in Mecca yesterday.

During the meeting, the Cus-todian of the Two Holy Mosques highlighted the ongoing collab-oration and coordination be-tween Saudi Arabia Bahrain, and extended his best wishes to His Majesty King Hamad, wishing Bahrain and its people contin-ued progress and prosperity.

HRH the Crown Prince ex-pressed his thanks to the Cus-todian of the Two Holy Mosques for high-lighting the extensive and ongoing cooperation be-tween Bahrain and Saudi Ara-bia, stressing that this historic partnership is rooted in a joint commitment to advance shared strategic interests.

HRH the Crown Prince em-phasised the instrumental role Saudi Arabia continues to play in supporting Arab and Islamic security and development is-sues while highlighting the Sau-di-led Arab coalition’s extensive efforts to restore security and stability in Yemen and protect its citizens. HRH the Crown

Prince highlighted Saudi Ara-bia’s long-standing commitment to improving infrastructure and facilitating services for all Muslims coming to Mecca to perform Hajj. HRH the Crown Prince conveyed HM King Ham-ad’s best wishes to the Custodi-an of the Two Holy Mosques and affirmed Bahrain’s commitment to continue extending collabora-tion between Bahrain and Saudi Arabia at all levels.

Members of the royal family and other senior officials also attended the meeting. The Cus-todian of the Two Holy Mosques hosted an Iftar banquet for HRH the Crown Prince and his dele-gation.

The Custodian of Two Holy Mosques, King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud with His Royal High-ness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa at Al-Safa Palace in Mecca yesterday

Peace bid in YemenUN envoy Martin Griffiths will present a “framework for negotiations” by mid-June, say sources

• The plan, which has not been made public could be modified, is the latest effort to end Yemen war

Reuters| Washington

A UN peace plan for Yem-en has called on the Houthi militia to give

up its ballistic missiles in return for an end to the bombing cam-paign against it by a Saudi-led coalition and a transitional gov-ernance agreement, according to a draft document and sourc-es. The plan, which has not been made public and could be modified, is the latest effort to end Yemen’s three-year-old civil war. Previous efforts to end the conflict have failed. It is unclear whether the new plan will fare any better, given the divergent interests of fighters

on the ground and international backers. The draft document seen by Reuters and confirmed by two sources familiar with it says that as a step toward new security arrangements, “heavy

and medium weapons including ballistic missiles shall be handed over by non-state military actors in an orderly and planned fash-ion.” “No armed groups shall be exempt from disarmament,”

it says. The sources confirmed that the language included the Houthis, who have launched ballistic missiles at neighbour-ing Saudi Arabia. The document also cites plans to create a tran-

sitional government, in which “political compo-nents shall be adequately represented,” in an apparent nod to Houthis, who may not cede Sanaa without par-ticipation in a government.

UN envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths is escorted by bodyguards during his departure at Sanaa airport on Tuesday

KNOW WHAT

Previous efforts to end the conflict have

failed. It is unclear whether the new plan

will fare any better, given the divergent interests of fighters on the ground and

international backers

HM King allocates land to build cathedral at AwaliTDT| Manama

His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa

has donated land to the Sacred Heart Catholic Church to build a cathedral at Awali, a press re-lease said yesterday.

The ground-breaking cere-mony of the new cathedral to be built in the name of ‘Our Lady of Arabia’, will be held at 9:00pm on Saturday. VIPs, dignitaries, clergymen, nuns, and members of the Christian community will participate in the ceremony.

A 110-member committee, under the guidance of Par-ish Priests Rev Fr. Xavier, Fr Saji Thomas, Fr Rowen, has

been selected to conduct the ground-breaking ceremony.

Cabinet Ministers, Royal Fam-ily members, governors, sen-

ior representatives of BAPCO, ministry officials besides, Am-bassadors of various countries in Bahrain, businessmen icons,

community leaders, clergy and religious with faithful of the Sa-cred Heart Church and Awali Church will also attend the cer-emony.

Italian Consultant Mattia Del Prete will design the project. Ismail Khonji Associates has been appointed as Consultants to the project while Moham-med Jalal Contracting Co. will be the contractors. The project will be completed in 22 months. A 17-member committee will oversee the construction of the project.

A panel, under Rev Fr. Xavier, Fr Saji Thomas and Fr Rowen, has been formed to conduct the ground-breaking ceremony

Saudi bans fruit, vegetables from Kerala Reuters| Geneva

Saudi Arabia has banned imports of frozen and

processed fruit and vege-tables from India’s Kerala state, citing the risk from an outbreak of Nipah virus, Saudi Arabia said in a filing published by World Trade Organization yesterday.

Nipah has killed at least 15 people in Kerala, but no cases of the virus have been found outside the state. There is no vaccine for the virus, which is spread through bodily fluids and can cause encephalitis, or inflammation of the brain, the World Health Organi-zation says.

Terror cell busted in Saudi ArabiaReuters |Riyadh

A special Criminal Court in Saudi Arabia has is-

sued preliminary sentences for the execution of four persons who formed a ter-rorist cell to communicate with Iran, it has been re-vealed.

The group is said to have received training at Revolu-tionary Guard camps in Iran on the use of weapons and explosives and fighting in the streets and how to hide from security agencies.

The trainees travel to Iran were facilitated through a tourist office that recruit-ed them. Terror cells were formed after they were trained to use weapons, ex-plosives and conduct mili-tary warfare in order to dis-rupt the unity and stability of the Kingdom.

02FRIDAY, JUNE 8, 2018

These soldiers presented the

finest examples in modern history

HRH PRINCE SALMAN

BDF plays key role in YemenCrown Prince meets Bahrain Defence Force soldiers in Jizan and Al Taif, Saudi Arabia

TDT | Manama

Hi s Roya l H i g h n e s s Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa yes-

terday expressed his deep pride in the successful and continued participation of the BDF to re-store legitimacy in Yemen, un-der Operation Restoration of

Hope. “These soldiers presented

the finest examples in modern history by paying the ultimate sacrifice in fulfilment of their duty towards their nation, and to uphold the values of peace and justice,” said the Crown Prince, Deputy Supreme Commander and First Deputy Prime Minis-

ter. This came as HRH the Crown Prince visited the Bahrain De-fence Force (BDF) Task Forces participating in the Saudi-led Arab Coalition and stationed in Jizan and Al Taif, Saudi Arabia.

 His Royal Highness went on to convey the greetings and ap-preciation of His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa to the

BDF for their efforts and sac-rifices, wishing them victory and success in their ongoing endeavours. 

 His Royal Highness then un-derscored the important and in-fluential role of Saudi Arabia un-der the leadership of the Custo-dian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, in promoting collective action to overcome challenges.

  During meetings with the Royal Bahraini Artillery Task Force in Jizan and the Royal Bahraini Air Force Task Force in King Fahad Air Base in Al Taif, His Royal Highness received op-erational briefings and inspect-ed BDF military assets support-ing Operation Restoring Hope.

  His Royal Highness then praised the Task Forces’ sacri-fices and efforts to protect se-curity and stability in the region and alleviate the suffering of the Yemeni people caused by exter-nal interference.

HRH CP greeting soldiers HRH Crown Prince attending a meeting in Saudi Arabia Presenting a memento

Indian embassy marks World Environment DayTDT | Manama

India’s embassy in Ma-nama has marked World

Environment Day.The event was attended

by the Undersecretary for International Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Dr Shaikh Abdullah bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, Resident Representative of UNDP Amin Al Sharkawi, Region-al Representative of UNEP for West Asia Sami Dimassi, UNIC Director Samir Im-tair Aldarabi, Director of International Relations and Information Department of Supreme Council for Envi-ronment Amna Al Rumaihi, Bahraini businessmen and members of the Indian com-munity. 

Ambassador of India to Bahrain Alok Kumar Sinha said: “It is a matter of great pride that India is the global host of 2018 World Envi-ronment Day.” The theme for this year’s edition “Beat Plastic Pollution”.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr Shaikh Abdullah said: “As India is the global host of 2018 World Environment Day and given the close friendly relations shared between India and Bahrain, the Kingdom of Bahrain will be looking for close associ-ations with various events being organized by UN en-vironment agencies.”

Focus on traffic safety

TDT | Manama

Interior Minister, Lieuten-ant-General Shaikh Rashid

bin Abdulla Al Khalifa yester-day stressed to continue efforts to promote traffic safety for all road users. 

The minister, while chair-ing a meeting of the Traffic Council, highlighted the need to consider international plan-ning standards for establishing pedestrian crossings.

The meeting also discussed topics on agenda including inspection campaigns on ille-

gal expatriate taxi drivers and technical conditions of the lo-cations to keep rental cars. 

Minister of Education, Dr Majid Al Nuaimi, Minister of Works, Municipalities’ Affairs and Urban Planning, Essam Khalaf, Minister of Transporta-tion and Telecommunications, Kamal Ahmed and CEO of the Urban Planning and Develop-ment Authority, Shaikh Nayef bin Khalid Al Khalifa were present.

Minister of Education appre-ciated the role played by the General Directorate of Traffic

and the Community Police in achieving the safety of students.

Light rail project Tra n s p o r t a t i o n M i n i st e r briefed about the light rail pro-ject and the hiring of an inter-national investment company to set the primary designs of the project and determine the tech-nology that should be adopted. 

The CEO of the Urban Plan-ning and Development Author-ity also briefed the meeting on the project of the modernisa-tion of the strategic transpor-tation plan of Bahrain.

Interior Minister holding the meeting

Minister of Foreign Affairs, Shaikh Khalid bin Ahmed bin Mohammed Al Khalifa in talks with Ambassador of the Republic of India to Bahrain, Alok Kumar Sinha. During the meeting, the Foreign Minister took pride in the friendly relations with India and affirmed the keenness to boost its ties and open new fields of cooperation. Ambassador Sinha expressed his pride in meeting His Excellency the Minister of Foreign Affairs and wished the Kingdom continued prosperity and progress

Condolences offered to King TDT | Manama

His Majesty King Ham-ad bin Isa Al-Khalifa

yesterday received a cable of condolences and sym-pathy from His Highness Shaikh Khalid bin Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa on the sad demise of the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (SCIA) President HH Shaikh Abdulla bin Khalid bin Ali Al-Khalifa. 

Premier thankedTDT | Manama

His Royal Highness Prime Minister Prince

Khalifa bin Salman Al Khal-ifa received a cable from the President of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, in reply to his condolences over the vic-tims of the deadly terrorist attacks in Surabaya.

President Widodo ex-pressed his thanks and appreciation to HRH the Prime Minister for his no-ble sentiments and stressed the depth of the relations between the two countries.

Minister of Foreign Affairs, Shaikh Khalid bin Ahmed bin Mohammed Al Khalifa holding talks with Watani Society’s Board Chairman, Fawaz Ahmed Sulaiman, and members in his office at the Ministry’s General Court. During the meeting, Fawaz Ahmed Sulaiman granted the minister the Honorary Presidency of their Society in recognition of the great role he is playing at various regional and international forums

Education Minister Majed Al Nuaimi received Dr Mohammed Noman Jalal who presented a copy of his book on protocols and diplomacy between Islamic traditions and modern society. Al Nuaimi also received Dr Murad Al Janabi, from the University of Applied Sciences, who presented a copy of his book on tools to destroy minds. The minister lauded the efforts exerted in both books and wished the authors further success.

Under the patronage of His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, “This is Bahrain” society held at the catholic Sacred Heart Church, in Manama, its annual Ramadan Ghabga, in the presence of Labour and Social Development Minister Jamil Humaidan, Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Council for Environment and President of Bahrain Royal Equestrian and Endurance Federation (BREEF) Shaikh Faisal bin Rashid bin Isa Al Khalifa, members of the diplomatic corps, representatives of the civil society institutions and invitees

03

big story

FRIDAY, JUNE 8, 2018

Tattooing: Practising the controversial art

Several tattoo artists in the Kingdom are finding it difficult to practice the art in the absence of proper legislation

There is no law to regulate the

process here. In Bahrain,

tattooing isn’t illegal as

there’re no laws prohibiting it.

But at the same time, there’re

no legislations authorising it

eitherAHMED AL ALAWI

BAHRAINI TATTOOIST

• With several concerns raised by opponents of the art, the practice of tattooing remains an unknown term in the Bahraini law book

Muhannad Mansour

TDT|Manama

Tattoos have become a controversial matter that split the opinions of peo-

ple in Bahrain and other Middle Eastern nations during recent years, with a big segment of the society rejecting it, as they con-sider it an unwanted fad, while a growing number of individu-als support it and consider it a personal freedom that mustn’t be waived.

With health, social and re-ligious concerns raised by the objectors of such trends, the practice of tattooing remains an unknown term in the Bah-raini laws, with no explicit text authorising or prohibiting it.

According to reports, those who practice it utilise their res-idences to receive clients, with-out any supervision from the authorities or a legislation to

regulate the profession.In recent years, some conserv-

ative MPs attempted to criminal-ise the practice by introducing a number of proposed laws that ban tattooing in Bahrain, but such attempts weren’t fruitful as the majority of lawmakers didn’t approve them.

Awareness neededTribune recently spoke to a former Bahraini tattoo artist, who preferred to maintain his

anonymity, saying that he has “started a new life,” after find-ing it difficult to practice the art. “That chapter of my life is over”, said the artist who was in the tattooing field for more than a decade.

As a talented painter, drawing on bodies grabbed his attention and he was more interested in it. This motivated him to take a two-year training course at a special tattooing institute there, so he could be certified to prac-tice tattooing and learn more about the profession.

“Time has changed and tat-toos have gained more popular-ity in the Kingdom, the entire GCC and the Middle East region, which strongly rejected the idea in earlier years due to religious, social and health concerns,” he said.

“I think tattooing will grow more in the next few years. This is easily predictable if we notice how the younger generations are affected by the media and celeb-rities these days. They always want to copy the latest trends and the fads created by their favourite personalities. This in-cludes fashion, hairstyles and even tattoos. This culture has been spreading worldwide and not only in our region,” said the artist.

“However, the former artist insisted that more awareness on the topic is needed as it’s grad-ually growing in the society, es-pecially among the youth of both genders, who he said are mostly “uneducated about the side ef-fects of inking their bodies”.

“In western societies, you need to be certified to prac-tice tattooing. The beginners’ training courses would take ap-proximately one to two years. But here in Bahrain and the neighbouring GCC countries, I have personally witnessed some three-day courses offered to cer-

tify professional tattooists. This results in certifying inexperi-enced tattooists and could even-tually harm those interested in inking their bodies. More aware-ness, supervision and regulation are surely needed in this field,” he remarked.

Ahmed Al Alawi, another Bah-raini tattooist, called for more regulation of tattoo parlours in Bahrain, saying, “There is no law to regulate the process here. In Bahrain, tattooing isn’t illegal as there are no laws prohibiting it. But at the same time, there are no legislations authorising it either.”

“We need more supervision from Health Ministry as there are some foreigners who prac-tice it without the slightest commitment to hygiene stand-ards. They use the same nee-dles for more than one client to save money. This is extremely dangerous as it may transmit deadly diseases. The authorities must take action and protect the people. The equipment used by tattooists must be periodically inspected. This profession must be registered with Industry, Commerce and Tourism Min-istry, as it is widely spreading in the country and must be regulat-ed by the authorities,” Al Alawi stressed.

Use disposable tools, says dermatologist

Tattoos don’t have any side effects on the

skin or human health, provided they’re done using the appropriate methods and that all pre-cautions are taken in the process, said dermatolo-gist Dr Khalil Al Arayedh told The Tribune.

“The tools used in the tattooing process must be sterilised and dis-posable. Using the same tools for more than one person may lead to dan-gerous results. If the tat-tooist didn’t follow the appropriate methods, the tattooing process could pass on deadly diseases among people, such as HIV, hepatitis and syph-ilis,” Dr Al Arayedh said.

Dr Al Arayedh said “tattoo removal process-es are common in Bah-rain, with hundreds of cases received annually”.

“Using laser technolo-gy, tattoos could be easi-ly removed in a series of sessions, with approxi-mate gaps of one month between each session. The process is simple as the laser is used to break-up the ink from under the skin,” he said.

Opinion divided on tattoing

Views vary when it comes to the reli-

gious permission of tat-tooing. Several Muslim sects have prohibited it based on sayings of the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH). But those sup-porting the practice say “no Quranic script pro-hibited it”. “Islam pro-hibits tattooing”, said islamic scholar Sheikh Adnan Al Qattan, add-ing, scriptures support this view. “Scores of reli-gious scholars agree that tattooing is prohibited and is a major sin,” said Sheikh Al Qattan, Imam and Khateeb of Al Fateh Grand Mosque. He said tattooing is sinful as it changes and deforms the creation of God. The scholar recited a Quran-ic verse that supports his belief, saying, “In Verse (Ayah) 119 of Su-rat An-Nisa in the Holy Quran, Satan challenges Allah saying he will mis-lead the servants of Allah and will command them so they will change the creation of Allah. This is what tattooing is doing. Changing the creation of God.”

Dr Al Arayedh Sheikh Al Qattan

Ahmed Al Alawi practicing the art of tattooing

KNOW WHAT

KNOW WHAT

When it comes to getting inked, 59 per cent of wom-en have tattoos compared to 41 per cent of men,

according to a new poll released by the

Oxygen Network and Lightspeed

Research

Mixed with coal dust, urine was

used in some cul-tures for tattooing. You have to wonder as to who thought

of this combination - not to mention

how and why

04FRIDAY, JUNE 8, 2018

Court asks man to pay BD70 monthly alimony TDT | Manama

Ali Taraif

The second minor Sharia court has ordered a man to pay his wife 70 dinars

per month as alimony to meet her basic needs and a house to stay in a case demanding a di-vorce.

The court also ordered to give the claimant 50 dinars by hand as alimony payment for two Is-lamic Eids.

Lawyer Warda Ali, as dep-

utized by Huda Saad’s office, represented the woman at the court. She pleaded that the de-fendant is obliged to pay the claimant food, drink and cloth-ing alimony of 100 dinars per month, and the same for the two Islamic Eids as well as BD100 as a housing allowance.

According to the court files, the claimant reported that the man refrained from making the payment, without providing any legitimate reason, for nearly 6 months and also failed to pro-

vide necessary housing. The man lived in his father’s house despite receiving a salary of 900 dinars plus family allowances.

Warda said that the court ap-proved her requests adding that her client requested a divorce as the man failed to provide a separate home as promised in the marriage contract.

The Second minor Sharia Court ruled that the alimony is legally obligatory and if he refrains from paying, he may be prosecuted.

KNOW

BETTER

Alimony is a hus-band’s (or wife’s)

provision for a spouse after separation or di-vorce; maintenance.

Two get prison for planting hoax bomb • The explosive was made of a milk bottle connected with batteries via wires.

TDT | Manama

Two Bahrainis were given varying prison terms by the

High Criminal Court for plant-ing a fake bomb on a road and creating panic.

The first suspect, in absentia, was given a five-year jail term, while his accomplice, the sec-ond suspect, was given a lesser three-year jail term.

The Court said that it decided to give him only three years in prison because he was below 18 years of age when he committed the crime. 

The defendants were pleaded guilty to planting fake explosive and triggering a panic in Karba-bad in August last year.

Prosecutors said their inten-tion was to destabilise the area and instil fear among citizens

and residents. The second suspect told pros-

ecutors that he made the fake device using a picture supplied by the first suspect.

“He sent me an image of an explosive, and asked me to make a replica,” he said.

He then dropped the device in a bag in a farm in Duraz, be-

fore being arrested by the law enforcement agents.

“I pictured the place and sent him (first suspect) the location,” he confessed.

They, reportedly, planted the bomb on a public road in Karb-abad and surrounded it with tyres before setting it on fire.

The explosive was later de-

clared fake by the bomb squad members who arrived at the scene shortly.

The explosive, according to bomb squad members, were made of a milk bottle connected with batteries via wires.

Police also recovered mobile phones used to detonate real bombs from a home based on information given by the second suspect.

The fake bomb

Prosecutors said their intention

was to destabilise the area and

instil fear among citizens and

residents

Taking bribe: Prison guard loses appealTDT | Manama

The High Criminal Appeals Court upheld a three-year

jail term awarded to a pris-on guard for accepting bribes from an inmate in the Jau Pris-on.

The inmate was also tried in the same case and was given an equal prison sentence, but he chose not to appeal.

The officer  reportedly fa-cilitated the entry of a phone as well as dry fruits and via-gra pills to an inmate in the Jau Prison. His illicit act came to light following a tip-off re-ceived by the police.

He was discovered to have received an iPhone 6, two Samsung phones and BD2370 from the inmate’s brother in exchange for smuggling the aforementioned items to jail. 

According to court files, the prison guard, an Asian by na-tionality, has been convinced by the inmate that he could shift him to another depart-ment, where he would be at

ease if he smuggled the items to him. 

The cop confessed that he fell into his trap when the in-mate approached him with an offer for help upon finding that he was in despair.

“I was upset a bit, and the inmate asked me why I was looking sad,” the cop told pros-ecutors earlier.

“I told him I wasn’t feeling comfortable with my work in Jau Prison, and he told me that he had connections who can shift me to another venue,” he added. 

“He requested me to call his brother who later gave me sev-eral phones and dry fruits for him inside the jail.

“He also manipulated me by offering a house and a car,” the cop confessed.

The brother denied knowing anything about his brother’s plans to smuggle the items into the jail.

The High Criminal Court sentenced him to one year in prison. 

May warmer than normalManama

May was warmer that nor-mal with 42.9°C being

the highest temperature re-corded during the month, lat-est met data says.

The highest temperature was recorded on the 12th of May at Bahrain International Airport.

This was revealed in the monthly weather summary released by the Ministry of Transportation and Telecom-munications’ Meteorological Directorate.

The report states that May was warmer than normal in temperatures with below av-erage relative humidities, pre-cipitation and wind speed.

The mean temperature of

the month was 31.5°C which is 1.7°C above the long-term normal. The mean maximum temperature of the month was 36.4°C which is 2.3°C above the long-term normal.

The lowest temperature re-corded was 25.5°C set on the 4th of May at Bahrain Inter-national Airport but recorded 22.9°C on the 21st of May at Durrat Al Bahrain.

Northwesterly to Norther-ly winds accounted 52% with gusts reaching 34 knots on the 10th of May at Bahrain Inter-national Airport. But reached 43 knots on the same day at Durrat Al Bahrain. Dust af-fected the Kingdom of Bahrain on the 12th of May reduced the visibility to 1000 meters at Bahrain International Airport.

UoB, Edge Hill University receive top UK govt grant

TDT | Manama

University of Bahrain (UoB) and Edge Hill Universi-

ty have won a research grant from the UK-Gulf Institutional Links Programme adminis-tered by the UK Government. 

The award will help estab-lish a collaborative research link between the two univer-sities in the critical area of cy-bersecurity. 

The research partnership has a particular focus on in-vestigating the potential uses of disruptive technology in the healthcare sector and block-chain technology and the In-ternet of Things in healthcare applications.

Prof Riyad Hamzah Pres-ident of UoB said: “We are particularly excited by this partnership and we extend our thanks to the UK Govern-ment for the funding under the Gulf Science Innova-tion & Knowledge Economy Programme.”

Recent survey data shows that 85% of Middle East com-panies experience at least twice as many security breach-es than they did just 2 years ago.

Simon Martin, the British Ambassador said, “I look for-ward to learning about the results of the collaboration, which we hope will benefit a number of sectors.”

Riyad Hamzah Simon Martin

Missing toddler found dead in abandoned car

TDT | Manama

A five-year-old boy was found dead inside an

abandoned car in Salma-bad after he was announced missing by the Northen Governorate Police.

However, no official con-firmation is available re-garding the death.

Police said that investi-gation is ongoing into the boy’s disappearance.

He was reported missing by his family.

According to social me-dia reports, the boy, Qas-sim Abbas, vanished since Wednesday morning.

Qassim Abbas

Advertising sector on recovery path: BAA

• There has been a remarkable recovery in television, newspapers and social media advertisement spending during this month

TDT | Manama

The advertising sector in the Kingdom is witnessing

good growth during the holy month of Ramadan, according to Khamis Al-Muqla, President of Bahrain Advertisers Associ-ation (BAA).

There has been a remarkable recovery in television, newspa-pers and social media advertis-ing spending during this month, he said.

Al-Muqla is expecting a growth 10 per cent in the sector during Ramadan as compared to the rest of the months of the year, with an estimated overall revenue between $8 million to $10 million.

He said Ramadan is one of the most important seasons in the advertising sector, as shown by data recorded during the month in the previous years.

He expected this to continue

this year as well because of the high volume of public spend-ing of citizens and residents this month on various food and electronic goods, clothing, cars and other commodities.

Al-Muqla pointed out that what is heartening in the ad-vertising sector in the month

of Ramadan is the recovery achieved in varying degrees.

He stated that television ad-vertising was very active dur-ing this month due to the high percentage of viewers of dif-ferent TV programmes. Ads are also active in social media and digital advertising platforms because of the high use of mo-bile devices. In addition to the revival, newspaper ads and ki-osks also had a large share of advertising during the month of Ramadan.

Al-Muqla expected the growth of ads in 2018 to be more than the last three years.

“Indicators are showing that this year will be better than the previous years for the sector. The performance during the last quarter was auspicious. I expect to see a greater recov-ery in the second half of 2018, thanks to the parliamentary and municipal elections in addition to having the Aviation Show,” he explained, pointing out that the volume of advertising spend this year may exceed $70 mil-lion, according to preliminary data and indicators for the year.

He hoped the revival to con-tinue in the advertising sector with a revenue of more than $100 million.

Khamis Al Muqla

Indicators are showing that this year will be better than the previous

years for the advertising sector

05FRIDAY, JUNE 8, 2018

*Licensed and regulated by Central Bank of Bahrain

Movement of Services from Hamala Branch to Salmabad Branch

Solidarity Bahrain BSC announces to its esteemed clients that its branch located at Hamala - Al Dhila'a Complex will be permanently closed from Sunday 8 July 2018 onwards. Salmabad branch will be ready to offer insurance and claims services.Solidarity Bahrain Management apologizes for any inconvenience caused by the closure of the branch and we would like to thank you for your continued co-operation and support.

Hit-and-run incident goes viralMotorists urged to be extra cautious after a video showed a driver ramming into a four-year-old girl in Diraz village

• The footage stirred nationwide condemnation, as it showed no action by the driver to confirm if the girl was safe

• General Directorate has called upon drivers to take responsibility of accidents, if any

TDT|Manama

Muhannad Mansour

Motorists have been urged to be extra cau-tious while driving in

the narrow roads of old villages. This comes as surveillance vid-eo recordings, showing a driver ramming into a four-year-old

girl in Diraz village in the North-ern Governorate, went viral on local social media networks in the past two days.

The footage st irred na-tionwide condemnation, as it showed no action being taken by the driver involved or passersby, to confirm if the girl was safe. As shown in the video, the driver drove off after waiting for less than a minute inside his car.

However, social networking sites of the village on Wednesday identified the girl as Ruqaya and confirmed that she’s safe and posted pictures of the girl after the incident took place. It was also reported that a manhunt has been launched to nab the driver after the father lodged a com-plaint to Budaiya police station.

The General Directorate of Traff ic yesterday con-firmed in a statement posted

on Interior Ministry’s official sites that the driver has been arrested.

The statement read, “In re-sponse to a video circulated on social media of a hit-and-run case involving a girl in Diraz village, the General Directorate of Traffic confirms the arrest of the driver and that relevant legal steps were taken against him. The General Directorate calls upon drivers to take re-sponsibility for accidents they are involved in.”

Following the announcement, the Daily Tribune spoke to the area’s representative, MP Jalal Kadhim, who urged motorists to be extra cautious while driving in villages.

“The nature of villages dif-fers from the main roads and highways. The roads are narrow and the alleys are usually used

by children and elderly pedes-trians,” MP Kadim said while calling upon motorists to “con-

centrate on the road and not use their mobile phones as they drive”. He commented further on this point saying, “I have per-sonally witnessed drivers busy with their phones while driving inside villages. This is one of the main of the main distractions that may result in disastrous re-sults.”

However, the lawmaker also blamed parents sending their children, unsupervised, to cold stores, supermarkets and res-taurants to purchase goods and groceries, especially during the Holy Month of Ramadan.

He added, “Kids have different perceptions and awareness than us adults. Their evaluation of the danger of upcoming traffic isn’t correct at all times. They should never be wandering the roads without adults’ supervision. Par-ents must understand this.”

Screenshots showing a car apparently ramming a four-year-old girl crossing the road in Diraz village in the Northern Governorate

In response to a video circulated on social media of a hit-and-run case involving

a girl in Diraz village, the General

Directorate of Traffic confirms the arrest

of the driver and that relevant legal steps were taken against

himGENERAL DIRECTORATE OF TRAFFIC

KNOW WHAT

Social networking sites of the village on Wednesday identified

the girl as Ruqaya and confirmed that

she’s safe and posted pictures of the girl af-ter the incident took

place

University education: Myth and reality

• There is a disconnect between the educational output and the growing needs of the labour

TDT|Manama

Abbas Almughanni

Amina Yousef studied civil engineering at a reputed

institution. She has been un-employed for the past 10 years in spite of her best attempts to get a job. She is now sell-ing “grape leaves” dishes from home, unable to find a job in engineering, the subject she studied. Her’s is not an isolated case. There are several gradu-ates in the Kingdom who could not find a job that matches their specialization.

“In the year of graduation, you weave dreams, with bound-less confidence, and hope for a brilliant career, a feeling that can’t be described in words, but once you graduate and do not find a job, frustrations start to sneak into to your heart. And, if you continue to be unem-ployed for several years, it kills your heart and all dreams die a natural death that makes you regret the subject you studied,” says Amina Youssef, a graduate from the College of Engineer-ing. The authorities spent mil-lions on education. But what if the graduates coming out of the

universities cannot find a job that matches what they have studied? The government needs to produce graduates required for the labour market.

“It’s frustrating to discover at the age of 40 that you cannot build a future with what you’ve studied at the university. It’s a big loss of life for an individual, even if a new life can be started with a job like making “grape leaves” dishes and selling it in the village market,” says Amina.

“It is a great loss for the ex-chequer as well. The energy of young people wasted cannot be regained,” she adds.

“The big loss is when the so-ciety makes tremendous efforts and spends huge sums of money on education until they grad-uate from the university, at an age of 20-25 years, and after graduation, they do not find

jobs that match their special-ity. Then, they work in areas that are unrelated to what they studied. The State is, therefore, wasting money, the energy of the youth that was supposed to contribute to the country’s prosperity,” says Amina.

Aqeela Al-Oreibi, a graduate of Law from the University of Bahrain, has the same story to tell. She graduated in 2005 and lost years of her valuable life looking for a job that suits her specialization. So far, she could not find a job.

“Ultimately, a person has to make a decision to carry on life. It’s a waste to hope to find a job that suits what was studied at the university if you cannot find a suitable job. So forget the sub-ject you studied. Start a new life by practising a new profession,” advises Aqeela. Aqeela decided to join a course offered by the Ministry of Labor at the age of 33. She started a new life by working in a salon to become a beauty expert. “Life changed when I actually took a course offered by the Ministry of La-bor and Social Development in make-up art. I now work in a salon. I gradually gained ex-perience in the profession and became a beauty expert with an Instagram account @ aqee-la.aloribi,” she said. She said that there are a large number of graduates working in areas unrelated to the field of their studies at the university.

Aqeela AlOraibi

06FRIDAY, JUNE 8, 2018

The game does not have negative

effects. It is beautiful and

teaches people how to build plans to win

OMAR

“Teenagers through

those games become

indifferent and in

some cases, violence is a norm for

them”

TDT | Manama

Thamer Taifoor

It had now been two weeks since Hamad had his breakfast. Not be-cause he has an eating disorder, but he is totally

absorbed in winning another battle without even getting up to have a glass of water.

You heard it right! The 14-year-old Bahraini boy is com-manding a warfare in the cyber world where enemies are en-gaged in the inevitable carnage. Called the ‘Fortnite’, the game continues its massacre to the last man - the winner.

But as they say, great powers come with great responsibilities too or sacrifices. For the 14-year-old Hamad, his breakfast, as of now, is such a sacrifice.

However, unlike as one might think, the game is just not about winning and killing. Players are battling not only to win the game but to win a contest within themselves, creating an obses-sion. The quest creates an urge in them to remain unique.

To become dazzling or to become unique, Hamad had bought new skins, dances and funny moves for his game char-acter. This costs him about 7BD from his school expenses. “You got a nice, intimidating, skin, it will scare the enemy off and then it’s your chance you kill him and end his threat. Easy!” says Hamad.

The compulsionThe game creates a

compulsion on its us-ers to play it over and over again until they win it. Just to bring that in perspective try this comparison. On 20 March 2018, ‘Fortnite’ had only 600,000 players. That went become 10 million in the next two weeks and 40 million within a month. Not to men-

tion the thousands of Bahrainis involved.

Yes, it is alarming. As the experts say, the game is addictive, like a drug. And, interestingly, as the kids say it is free to everyone over 12 years of age.

Now a question remains for the others: What are the effects of this game on teenagers and children?

Experts say there are striking similarities between addictions

to drugs and food and to activi-ties like gambling, shopping and computer games.

According to Social Super-visor in School Rqaya Primary Girls Basma Awad such games breed the seeds of violence in adolescents. “Teenagers through those games become indifferent and in some cases, violence is a norm for them.”

“Violence games, such as Fortnite, causes tension and addiction. You find them fully integrated into the game and screams madly, which continues for hours creating psychological problems that finally affect their education.”

“Instead of learning some-thing new, teenagers are now squandering away their time before screens,” says Basma.

Door to insults

She also accuses that the game teaches children insulting and obscene words. “There are words and insults used continu-ously by players, such as: ‘He kill my son of ...’,” Basma points out.

An expert, who is engaged in a programme that deals with game addicted people, recently revealed that he was told by one

of his patients that the game is giving him the same pleas-ure when “he was on Amphet-amines”. The health damage caused by the game is tremen-dous. “Dry eye, bending back are common issues,” Basma adds.

Lawyer Faisal al-Jamaan said that such games have no legal effect and are available to every-one over 12. “Their effects may be devastating from the social point,” he said. “Today In the

average the players lost about 7 hours a day in Fortnite. My brother, for example, spends his time outside the university and misses his studies to play Fortnite.”

On the other side, Omar which spends more than 4 hours a day at Fortnight says: “The game does not have negative effects. It is beautiful and teach-es people how to build plans to win, how to make their own strategies to reach their goals. It is free and does not force an-yone to pay one dollar.” Hamad,

who now has more than seven characters in the game, says that all his school friends play with him and that they always meet after school electronically. But he also admits that “he no longer has time to study and perform duties because of the game.”

Dr Abul-Karim Mustafa Awadh, Chairman & Consultant Psychiatrist in Serene Psychia-try Hospital said: “Fortnite is an-other example of violent games that shape the consciousness of our kids.”

“It spread in schools and pro-motes violence and bullying among students. Addiction on these games is another problem which has a lot of other compli-cations.”

Talk to you kidParents, according to him, should ensure greater care. “Parents should allow such games only at an appropriate age

and for a controlled amount of time. Removing the game will create resentment and should

be made through a strong rela-tionship with the youngster.”

He added:“Talk to your kid, Get involved, Set

rules, Be a role mod-el, Monitor your

kid”.

FORTNITE

KNOW WHAT

“Violence games, such as Fortnite,

causes tension and addiction. You find them fully integrat-

ed into the game and screams madly, which continues for hours creating psy-chological problems

that finally affect their education”

A new addiction to teenagers in Bahrain

Screen grabs of the game in action

Signal sending chip wins prize for new tech to protect women• The winning designers get $1 million

Reuters | New Yrok

A tiny computer chip that sends emergency alerts in

areas without cellular phone service has won a global com-petition for technologies to help protect women and girls from violence.

The winning device is so small it is built into a watch and re-cords audio when it is activated, said XPRIZE, which designs com-petitions to spur technological innovation with a social impact.

Globally, one out of every

three women and girls expe-riences physical or sexual vio-lence - or both - from an intimate partner, or sexual violence by a non-partner, the United Nations estimates. The figure is twice as high in some countries.

“With so many advances in in-

novation and technology today, it was unacceptable to us that we didn’t have a solution to help curb this sexual assault pandem-ic,” said Anu Jain, founder of the Women’s Safety XPRIZE, in a statement.

Ending violence against wom-

en and girls is one of the targets of the Sustainable Development Goals adopted by UN member nations to be achieved by 2030.

“Safety is a fundamental hu-man right and shouldn’t be con-sidered a luxury for women. It is the foundation in achieving gender equality,” said Jain.

A tiny button on the device, made by Leaf Wearables of New Delhi, India, inconspicuously triggers an emergency alert with location details to a network of responders within 90 seconds.

It costs less than $40.The competition rules specified that the device could cost no more than that, in order to make it affordable to those who need

it most. The winning designers get $1 million, and the award was announced late on Wednesday at UN headquarters in New York.

The first round of competition had 85 teams, including app de-velopers, technology research-ers, schools and startups.

One team of finalists devel-oped a device that could “detect a user’s panic, fear and stress” by monitoring speech and physio-logical changes.

Finalists also included a de-vice “camouflaged as a fash-ion accessory” that could send hands-free alerts. Another drew on global positioning services, cellular data and Bluetooth to connect women to emergency services.

Geely Auto rolls out 500,000th Bo YueThe model was launched just over 25 months ago in March 2016

• A team of four Bo Yue will set off on a 18,000 km drive challenge from Xi’an to London in just one month

• Geely Auto and Shell have partnered up to make the challenge through 58 cities and 9 countries possible.

Xi’an

Geely Auto has delivered its 500,000th Bo Yue to a customer at a special

ceremony in Xi’an. In just 25 months, half a million people became owners of the Bo Yue.

On the heels of this milestone, Geely has also announced that a team of four Geely Bo Yue will set off on a European trip, trav-elling 18,000 km from Xi’an to London in just one month.

Geely Auto has partnered with Shell to undertake this gruelling marathon. For the first time ever, a Chinese auto brand will take up the challenge of driving across continents to show the world the quality of “Made in China” vehicles and build new confidence towards Chinese auto brands. A team of four Bo Yue will travel through 58 cities in 9 countries includ-ing Russia, Belarus, Germany, France, and the United King-dom.

Since its launch in March 2016, the Bo Yue has opened the gates to the development of smart and connected Chi-nese SUVs. By combining smart comfort, smart connectivity and smart safety, Geely has estab-lished itself as the leader in this particular segment of vehicles. The Bo Yue and Geely have won the trust of consumers through its high quality, affordable price

and high standards of service. The sale of half a million units in just 25 months is a testament to the confidence that consumers have in the brand.

Speaking at the ceremony, Song Jun, Deputy General Man-ager of Geely Auto Sales, said, “The 2018 Bo Yue, which was launched in March, has been op-timised and upgraded to better meet the needs of users. With the facelift, we have not only made the model look sharper and more dynamic, we have also installed the GKUI Geely Smart Ecosystem that is currently the leading in-car application plat-form in the industry.”

“The smart ecosystem puts the internet directly into the car, making it a truly intelligent connected vehicle. This update further enhances the qualities of the Bo Yue and consolidated the model’s status as the leading smart connected SUV for the new era”, he added.

With the milestone of having

sold 500,000 units behind it, the Bo Yue has not only become a leader among Chinese SUVs, it has also become the best rep-

resentation of Geely’s 3.0 era products around the world. Last November, the Geely plant in Belarus was officially opened and the first Bo Yue produced at that plant went on sale in the Russian market back in Feb-ruary this year. In the second half of this year, the first model based on the Bo Yue from the PROTON and Geely strategic partnership will be launched in Malaysia. The Bo Yue is truly becoming the best representa-tive to the world of what Chi-nese auto brands can achieve.

Zhang Lei, General Manager of Shell (China) Sales said, “The development of the auto indus-try is global and this friendship tour is just one example of that global development. For this challenge, we will not only pro-vide our extremely clean lubri-cant oil to help Geely weath-er extreme environments and driving conditions, we will also mobilize our global resources to help Geely succeed.”

07

business

FRIDAY, JUNE 8, 2018

700dinars is the down

payment for Fuso truck which is now on offer from Zayani Motors

Electricity and Water Affairs Minister Dr Abdulhussain Mirza holding talks with Italian Ambassador Domenico Bellato. The meeting reviewed projects implemented by the Electricity and Water Authority and the Sustainable Energy Unit, in particular the project to establish a 100 MW solar power plant and investment opportunities available to Italian companies. The ambassador expressed the desire of the Italian companies to participate in these projects according to the available opportunities.

Instant prize on Fuso trucks from Zayani

TDT | Manama

Zayani Motors, exclusive dealer of Mitsubishi

Fuso in the Kingdom, has announced instant prizes for purchasing a Fuso Canter truck during Ramadan from the dealer.

The truck can now be pur-chased for a reduced down payment of BD700, with an in-stant prize won, including one year, 20K free service or 1000 liter free diesel and more, the company said in a statement.

Zayani Motors, the King-dom’s exclusive distributor of Mitsubishi, FUSO, is combining itsannouncing a thrilling new offer on its Fuso Canter truck line with the seasonal Ram-adan offer. The robust truck

can now be purchased for a reduced down payment of only BD700, with an instant prize won during the holy month..

“The new offer comes in line with this commitment, allow-ing buyers to own the distin-guished Canter for a staggering down payment of just BD700, ” said Mohammed Zaki, General Manager of Zayani Motors.

In just 25 months, half a million people became owners of the Bo Yue

KNOW WHAT

Geely became a global name when

it acquired Volvo in 2014. In 2017, it took

a 49.9% stake in Proton, Malaysia’s na-tional car, and became a well-known brand in

Malaysia.

A Fuso Canter truck

A tiny button on the winning device, made

by Leaf Wearables of New Delhi, India,

inconspicuously trig-gers an emergency alert with location

details to a network of responders within 90

seconds.

KNOW WHAT

Representative picture

Saudi, UAE sign raft of economic, defence dealsAFP | Jeddah

Saudi Arabia and the Unit-ed Arab Emirates have

unveiled a raft of economic deals, including in the defence industry.

The two nations signed 20 memoranda of understanding

for over 60 joint projects to be implemented over the next five years in sectors including oil and gas, banking, nuclear energy and defence.

The projects were approved at a meeting of the Saudi-Emi-rati Coordination Council in Jeddah Wednesday night, chaired by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al-Na-hayan.

“The Saudi-Emirati Coor-dination Council provides the ideal model for bilateral co-operation between countries while supporting the Gulf Co-operation Council joint work system,” said a statement by the Saudi information ministry after Wednesday’s meeting.

The joints projects also in-clude investments in the pet-rochemical sector, unified food security projects and creating a $1.4 billion (1.2 billion euro) agricultural investment firm.

Google faces EU antitrust fineEU penalty is likely to top the record 2.4-billion-euro ($2.8 billion) fine handed out to Google last year

• Google was accused of blocking rivals in its online AdSense search

• Prevented promoting alternatives to apps such as Google Search and Maps

Reuters | Brussels

Google is expected to be hit with a second EU anti-trust fine in mid-July for

using its dominant Android mo-bile operating system to squeeze out rivals, three people familiar with the matter said.

The European Commission, which has been investigating the case involving the unit of

Alphabet since 2015, could issue its decision in the week of July 9, although the timing might change. As a deterrent to others, the EU penalty is likely to top the record 2.4-billion-euro ($2.8 bil-lion) fine handed out to Google last year for unfairly favoring its

shopping service, sources told Reuters last year.

The EU competition enforcer will also tell Google to stop its anti-competitive practices such as licensing deals which prevent smartphone makers from pro-moting alternatives to apps such

as Google Search and Maps.Android is the most impor-

tant of three EU cases against world No. 1 internet search en-gine Google because of its huge growth potential.

EU-mandated changes how-ever may have little impact on

Google because of its market power and the benefits of stick-ing with the company, industry executives, analysts and even its critics have said. Google point-ed to a 2016 blog by its general counsel Kent Walker who re-jected the EU charges.

Google recently sought a closed-door hearing in a bid to present its case to senior Com-mission officials and national competition agencies after being told of new details and evidence which the regulator plans to use against the company, other peo-ple with direct knowledge of the matter said. Its request was denied.

A third case where Google was accused of blocking rivals in its online AdSense search ad-vertising in 2016 is likely to drag on to the end of the year or even later, other people said.

08FRIDAY, JUNE 8, 2018

Android is the most important

of three EU cases against world No. 1 internet search

engine

The strategy calls for setting up a

joint fund for nu-clear energy and

a bilateral council to coordinate well over $1.3 trillion in foreign invest-

ments

Representative picture

KNOW WHAT

KNOW WHAT

FB confirms data sharing with China

• A Facebook executive said the company had carefully managed the access it gave to the Chinese companies.

Reuters | Washington

Facebook Inc said Tuesday it has data sharing partner-

ships with at least four Chinese companies including Huawei, the world’s third largest smart-phone maker, which has come under scrutiny from US intel-ligence agencies on security concerns.

The social media company said Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, computer maker Lenovo Group, and smartphone makers OPPO and TCL Corp were among about 60 companies worldwide that received access to some user data after they signed con-tracts to re-create Facebook-like experiences for their users.

Members of Congress raised concerns after The New York Times reported on the practice on Sunday, saying that data of users’ friends could have been accessed without their explic-it consent. Facebook denied that and said the data access was to allow its users to access account features on mobile devices.

More than half of the partner-ships have already been wound down, Facebook said. It said

on Tuesday it would end the Huawei agreement later this week. It is ending the other three partnerships with Chinese firms as well. Chinese telecom-munications companies have come under scrutiny from US intelligence officials who argue they provide an opportunity for foreign espionage and threaten critical US infrastructure, some-thing the Chinese have consist-ently denied.

Senator Mark Warner, vice

chairman of the Intelligence Committee, who asked Face-book if Huawei was among the companies that received user data, said in a statement that the House of Representatives Intel-ligence Committee had raised concerns about Huawei dating back in 2012.

“The news that Facebook pro-vided privileged access to Face-book’s API to Chinese device makers like Huawei and TCL raises legitimate concerns, and I look forward to learning more about how Facebook ensured that information about their users was not sent to Chinese servers,” Warner said.

Speaking in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said she would not comment on cooperation between companies and knew nothing of the situation.

“But we hope that the US side can provide a fair, transparent, open and friendly environment for Chinese companies’ activi-ties,” Hua told reporters.

Facebook’s founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg

Facebook’s integrations with Huawei, Lenovo,

OPPO and TCL were controlled

from the get-go — and we approved

the Facebook experiences these companies built

FRANCISCO VARELA

Turkey hikes interest rate AFP | Ankara

The Turkish central bank yesterday hiked interest

rates for the second time in two weeks, prompting the lira to rally strong-ly with elections on the horizon.

The 125 basis point (bps) headline interest rate hike comes after the bank raised its emergency rate by 300 bps on May 23.

On Thursday the bank said it would raise the one-week repo rate to 17.75 per-cent from 16.5 percent, after a monetary policy commit-tee (MPC) meeting.

The one-week repo rate has been the bank’s poli-cy rate since June 1, after a long-awaited overhaul of its interest rates. 

The lira surged after the bank’s announcement at 1100 GMT, gaining 1.7 per-cent against the dollar to reach 4.48 after previous record lows last month.

Airlines industry struggles with global pilot shortageReuters | Sydney/Bangkok/Montreal

A growing shortage of airline pilots is putting the indus-

try’s recent growth at risk as planes sit idle, higher salaries cut into profits and unions across the globe push for more benefits.

Carriers such as Emirates and Australia’s Qantas Airways have poured resources into hiring, but struggled in recent months to use their jets as often as their business plans dictate because of training bottlenecks.

Pilots at Ireland’s Ryanair are forming unions across Europe seeking better working condi-tions, and those at Air France are striking over pay.

In the United States, pilots who took pay cuts when carriers went bankrupt a decade ago are receiving big raises under new contracts now that airlines are posting strong profits.

The surge in employee costs, which rival fuel as the biggest

strain on an airline’s finances, comes as higher oil prices are already squeezing margins. Air-lines say ticket prices have not kept pace with costs.

“These cost pressures are not about to stop imminently,” In-ternational Air Transport As-sociation (IATA) chief econo-mist Brian Pearce said at the trade group’s annual meeting in Sydney, where IATA lowered

its airline profit forecast by 12 percent, citing higher fuel and labour costs.

“It’s the symptom of a wider issue. If we look at developed economies, unemployment in the OECD has fallen to lows and we are starting to get wage pres-sures, of which pilot shortages are a symptom in our industry,” he told airline bosses, many of whom expressed concern about

a shortage on the sidelines of the IATA annual meeting this week.

The high cost of pilot training and several years of earlier hir-ing freezes in markets like the United States and Australia have deterred potential aviators from entering an industry that Boeing says will need 637,000 more pi-lots over the next 20 years.

IATA estimates airline traffic will nearly double during that period, so companies like Cana-dian training group CAE Inc and L3 Technologies are building new flight simulators to cash in on training demand.

Planemakers Airbus and Boe-ing are also expanding into ser-vices like training, where mar-gins are potentially higher than building jets.

And some airlines are plan-ning to expand in-house training programs. Qantas says it will invest A$20 million ($15.26 mil-lion) in a new flying school to ensure a supply of pilots amid high turnover in its regional arm QantasLink. Emirates opened a

$135 million fight training acad-emy in November for up to 600 cadets.

BIDDING WAROther airlines are having to

look outside their home markets, competing with China, where experienced foreign captains are in high demand and airlines offer annual salaries of up to $314,000 - tax free.

“There is not so much a short-age of pilots as a rising cost of attracting and retaining the pi-lots you need, particularly the experienced ones,” said Andrew Herdman, director general of the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines. “There is a bidding war going on.”

SriLankan Airlines has lost a “steady trickle” of pilots to Gulf carriers, SriLankan CEO Suren Ratwatte, who was an Emirates pilot, told Reuters.

Thailand’s Bangkok Airways PCL is raising pilot salaries and benefits and hiring foreigners for international flying, Presi-

dent Puttipong Prasarttong-Osot said.

Dan Adamus, president of the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) Canada, said Canadian pilots are generally getting pay raises, although salaries at U.S. mainline carriers are higher than at Air Canada.

“It’s certainly harder for air-lines to recruit qualified pilots,” he said, which has led carriers to raise pay. “The pilots are going to go where there is better pay.”

He estimates that about 1,000 Canadian pilots are flying for carriers overseas such as Emir-ates.

An Air France pilot stands in the cockpit of the airline’s new Boeing Inc. 787-9 Dreamliner passenger aircraft

637thousand more pilots are needed in over the

next 20 years

Kuwaiti creditor refuses Abraaj dealThe move could complicate Abraaj’s effort to sell its investment management business to New York-based Cerberus Capital Management

Reuters | DUBAI

A Kuwaiti creditor is re-fusing to agree to a debt

settlement deal with Abraaj, which could push the private equity firm to seek provision-al liquidation, three sourc-es close to the matter told Reuters.

The refusal by Kuwait ’s Public Institution for Social Security (PIFSS) to join oth-er creditors in a debt freeze could complicate Abraaj’s efforts to sell its investment management business to New York-based Cerberus Capital Management, the sources said.

On Thursday a PIFSS legal notice was published in UAE daily The National, seeking liquidation of Abraaj and the appointment of FTI consulting as liquidators.

An Abraaj email to Reuters said the firm is aware of the filing in the Cayman Islands by “a single creditor” and that it continues “to engage closely with them to reach a consen-sual outcome for the benefit of all parties”.

Abraaj, which bankers es-timate has debt of about $1 billion, is already grappling with allegations that it mis-used investor money. The Mid-dle East and Africa’s largest private equity firm has denied any wrongdoing.

Two sources said Abraaj had started preparations for apply-ing for provisional liquidation, a process in which a court ap-points a liquidator on a provi-

sional basis before hearing or ruling on a petition to wind up a company.

Abraaj, which is being ad-vised by Houlihan Lokey, said it was focused on concluding a standstill agreement with creditors, saying the “vast ma-jority” of them backed the debt deal.

Sources said the standstill agreement was needed to help facilitate the sale of its invest-ment management business to Cerberus. Sources also said that PIFSS, an unsecured lend-er, held out and was given a 48-hour deadline to agree.

09FRIDAY, JUNE 8, 2018

Closing BellSAUDI 0.5% » 8,344

DUBAI 0.5% » 3,042

ABU DHABI 0.2% » 4,663

QATAR 0.9% » 9,242

KUWAIT 0.6% » 4,758

BAHRAIN 0.2% » 1,264

OMAN 0.3% » 4,596

EGYPT 0.1% » 15,924

Most Gulf markets fall• Banks lead Saudi market down as investors take profits pre-Eid

• Dubai’s DXB Entertainments sinks 4.8pc

• Buoyant construction sector helps offset Dubai losses

• Telecom shares fall again in Egypt

Reuters | Dubai

Banking shares dragged down Saudi Arabia’s stock market yesterday

on selling ahead of the Eid hol-iday, profit-taking also weighed on Dubai shares despite news of new economic stimulus steps.

Trading volume was high as retail investors - the majority in Gulf markets - took profits after strong gains in the past few ses-sions. Eid al-Fitr lasts for about two days and falls at the end of next week.

The Saudi main index fell 0.5 per cent with National Com-mercial Bank, the biggest lender, losing 0.5pc, and Alinma Bank giving up 1.2pc in heavy trade.

Other Saudi blue-chips also fell. Top petrochemical firm Saudi Basic Industries lost 0.5pc and Saudi Arabian Mining (Ma’aden) dropped 0.7pc.

Saudi Pharmaceutical Indus-tries climbed 5.0pc after saying it had made a 167.6 million riyals profit from the sale of shares in Yansab, and would use the

proceeds to finance its projects.Dubai’s benchmark index

was down 0.5pc, shrugging off a government announcement of economic stimulus steps, with standout loser DXB Entertain-ments sinking 4.8pc.

The emirate’s rulers said they would reduce municipal fees, scrap some aviation charges and freeze school costs in the latest of a series of efforts to reduce corporate costs and stimulate economic growth. But it re-mains unclear whether such steps can revitalise a slumping real estate market.

Builder Arabtec, however, climbed a further 4.3pc after gaining 3.9pc on Wednesday. It has rebounded about 35pc from a multi-year low since it reported in mid-May its highest quarterly profit since late 2014.

Drake & Scull also gained 0.9pc and was the second most heavily traded stock.

In Abu Dhabi, the index was up 0.2pc as real estate develop-ers Aldar Properties rose 1.4pc and Rak Properties gained 1.5pc. However, the index gains were held back by Dana Gas which fell 0.9pc in heavy trade. Emir-

ates Telecom was up 0.6pc.In Qatar, the main index fell

0.9pc, dragged down by Qatar Gas Transport, which dived 4.4pc in heavy trade and tele-communications firm Ooredoo which lost 2.2pc. Qatari lenders were also down and led by Qatar National Bank which lost 0.3pc. Masraf Al Rayan and Commer-cial Bank also dropped 0.6 and 0.9pc respectively.

Egypt’s main index was flat to higher as it was held back by telecommunications shares which have been falling on ex-pectations that the government will cut fuel and electricity sub-sidies in the next financial year. Orascom Telecom fell 1.4pc and Global Telecom was down 0.7pc.

Qalaa Holdings fell 0.7pc in heavy trade but Commercial International Bank gained 1.6pc.

Investors are seen at the Dubai International Financial Market in Dubai

Fawaz Abdulaziz Alhokair raises $300n Islamic loanReuters | Dubai

Fawaz Abdulaziz Alhokair & Co has raised a 1.125 billion

riyal ($300 million) Islamic loan with a group of regional banks, a month after conclud-ing a much larger facility for one of its businesses.

The Saudi-listed retail com-pany signed a new mudarabah loan agreement with National Commercial Bank, Samba Fi-nancial Group and Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank, it said on Thurs-day.

The loan will be used to re-pay the outstanding balance on a 1 billion riyal syndicated loan obtained in 2014 and 500 mil-lion riyals in sukuk issued in the same year and due in 2019.

The new debt facility has a seven-year maturity, the com-pany said in a stock exchange

announcement.Fawaz Alhokair was one of

hundreds of business people and officials detained for sev-eral months in a sweeping an-ti-corruption crackdown by Riyadh in November last year.

The 7.2 billion loan was provided by Samba Financial Group, National Commercial Bank, Al Rajhi Bank and Arab National Bank.

1.125 billion riyal Islamic loan

raised with a group of regional banks

US saves China’s ZTE from brinkReuters | Washington

US officials reached a deal yesterday to ease

sanctions which threatened to cripple Chinese smart-phone maker ZTE, Com-merce Secretary Wilbur Ross said.

Ross told CNBC television the deal includes a $1 billion fine levied on the Chinese firm and a requirement that it change its board of direc-tors. In April, the Chinese group was cut off from US technology products for vi-olating US sanctions against North Korea and Iran -- measures which threatened to put ZTE out of business.

Ross said the agreement calls for “embedding a com-pliance department” chosen by Washington to monitor company conduct.

“They will pay for those people but the people will report to the new chair-man,” Ross said.

“This is a pretty strict set-tlement. The strictest and largest settlement fine that has ever been brought by the Commerce Department against any violator of ex-port controls.”

Ross said the plan calls for ZTE to create a $400 million escrow account in case of future violations, and a re-quirement to overhaul the board within 30 days.

Saudi Arabia appoints local banks as primary bond dealersDubai

Saudi Arabia’s finance min-istry said its Debt Man-

agement Office would sign an agreement on Thursday to appoint local banks as pri-mary dealers in government

bonds.The statement on the minis-

try’s Twitter account gave no details. Saudi Arabia is trying to develop an actively traded debt market as part of reforms to diversify the economy be-yond oil exports.

KNOW WHAT

Abraaj, which bankers estimate has debt of about

$1 billion, is already grappling with

allegations that it misused investor

money. The Middle East and Africa’s

largest private eq-uity firm has denied

any wrongdoing.

Crude prices climb Reuters | London

Oil rose by nearly $1 a barrel yesterday, lifted by concern

about a steep drop in exports from Venezuela, although surg-ing US production kept gains in check.

Brent crude futures were up 85 cents at $76.21 a barrel by 1222 GMT, while US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude rose 58 cents to $65.31 a barrel.

Venezuela, which faces the threat of US sanctions and is in the midst of an economic crisis, is nearly a month behind deliv-ering crude to customers from its main oil export terminals, according to shipping data, and chronic delays and production declines could breach state-run PDVSA’s supply contracts if backlogs are not cleared soon.

Tankers waiting to load more than 24 million barrels of crude, almost as much as state produc-er PDVSA shipped in April, are sitting off the OPEC member’s main oil port, according to ship-ping data.

“Troubles over supply from Venezuela come at a time when OPEC is considering easing supply cuts which have been in place since 2017 and were implemented to support the price,” London Capital Group head of research Jasper Lawler said.

“The big question for oil is

whether or not OPEC decides to ease the production cuts, with the meeting still some two weeks away, oil traders could be in for an increased bout of volatility.”

Venezuela’s supply problems have materialised while the

Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries has volun-tarily cut output since 2017 to help bring global output in line with demand.

Outside OPEC, however, crude output continues to rise, especially in the United States, which is fast closing in on Rus-sia’s position as the world’s largest producer, as supply ap-proaches 11 million bpd.

US crude inventories rose by 2.1 million barrels in the week to June 1, to 436.6 million barrels, the Energy Information Admin-istration said on Wednesday.

Surging US production has pushed the discount of WTI fu-tures to Brent to more than $10 a barrel.

A general view of the Amuay refinery complex which belongs to the Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA

$76.21a barrel was the price of Brent crude futures by

1222 GMT

HAPPINESS IS NOT SOMETHING YOU POSTPONE FOR THE FUTURE; IT IS SOMETHING YOU DESIGN FOR THE PRESENT. JIM ROHN

QUOTE OF THE DAY

JUNE 8, 2018

W R I T I N G F O R P E A C E

FRIDAY

Dalal Abdullah Yousif has made numerous cultural

and artistic contributions as well as hosted television

interviews. She has also published many poems,

literary thoughts and interviews in newspapers

and magazines throughout the Arab world

Hon. Chairman Najeb Yacob Alhamer | Editor-in-Chief Mahmood AI Mahmood | Deputy Chief Editor Ahdeya Ahmed | Chairman & Managing Editor P Unnikrishnan | Advertisement: Update Media W.L.L | Tel: 17579900, Fax 17256470, Email: sales@newsofbahrain.com | Newsroom: Tel: 17579911, Email: mail@newsofbahrain.comSubscription & circulation: Tel: 38444692/17579877 | Email:subscription@newsofbahrain.com | Website: www.newsofbahrain.com | Printed and published by Al Ayam Publishing

Words to address

hearts and minds

C I V I L I A N ’ S T R I B U N E

When you lose, weep softly and when you win brag, gently!Dear Editor

When you lose, weep softly

and when you win brag, gently! The photo which was c a p t u re d w h e n the incumbent PM of Spain, Mariano Rajoy was ousted over a corruption scandal in a ‘no confidence motion’ vote while Pedro Sanchez took over as a new PM had proved this saying right.

The intricate moment was well documented and appeared on page 13 of TDT’s 2 June 2018 issue, as Mariano Rajoy gracefully accepted the defeat and Pedro Sanchez humbly took the victory.

Bravo! Truly

May May Nu

Please write your views and opinions to mail@newsofbahrain.com

Chihuahua wows the crowed with acrobatic act during NBADaily Mail | Massachusetts

A man and his skillful pup wowed the crowd during

their halftime performance at the NBA Eastern Conference Finals.

While the Cleveland Cava-liers took a break from facing the Boston Celtics, Christian Stoinev and his Chihuahua Percy showed off their acro-batic balancing act.

Part of their impressive routine shows Percy weaving through Christian’s legs and standing on his owner’s toes while in a handstand.

Christian performed while wearing a Cavaliers jersey, which may have given the team good luck to win the game and advance to the NBA finals to face the Golden State Warriors for the fourth year in a row.

The pair from California have risen to fame for per-forming at NBA games around

the country under the name of Christian & Scooby.

Scooby is the original dog Christian performed with but is now retired.

Their impressive halftime performance has gained thou-sands of views and shares on social media.

The original duo competed on America’s Got Talent in sea-sons 2 and 9 and stunned the judges with their tricks.

During their second run on the show, the pair made it to the Top 12.

Texas boy spells “koinonia” correctly, wins Scripps Spelling Bee Reuters | Oxon Hill, Md.,

Karthik Nemmani of McK-inney, Texas, won the 91st

Scripps National Spelling Bee on Thursday, taking home a $40,000 cash prize after beating the same speller who defeated him at his countywide bee in February.

Nemmani, 14, went head-to-head with fellow Texan Naysa Modi, 12, for only a few mo-ments before winning the bee with the word “koinonia,” which is a body of religious believers.

“I had confidence, but I didn’t really think it would happen,” Nemmani said moments af-ter receiving his trophy at the Gaylord National Resort and

Convention Centre in subur-ban Washington. “I’m just re-ally happy. This has just been a dream come true.”

Modi quickly wiped away tears as she walked off the stage with her family. She lost the competition by misspelling the

word bewusstseinslage, which is a state of consciousness or a feeling devoid of sensory com-ponents.

13SATURDAY, JUNE 2, 2018

Sanchez takes charge as PM in Spain • Mariano Rajoy ousted as Spain’s prime minister

• Parliament passes vote of no confidence in ruling People’s party over corruption scandal

Reuters | Madrid

Spanish socialist Pedro Sanchez was catapulted to power yesterday, tak-

ing over as prime minister from veteran conservative Mariano Rajoy, who lost a no-confidence vote in the wake of a corruption scandal.

Lawmakers stood and cheered in parliament as the untested 46-year-old - a pro-European lawmaker who has never been in government - became the country’s seventh head of state since its return to democracy in the late 1970s.

Rajoy’s departure after six years in office may lead to a spell of political uncertainty in the euro zone’s fourth-largest econ-omy, just as the third-largest - Italy - pulls back from early elections.

“I am aware of the respon-sibility I am assuming, of the complex political moment our country is going through, and I

will rise to all the challenges with humility and dedication,” Sanchez told reporters.

Sanchez, who became prime minister with only 84 seats for his Socialists in the 350- member assembly thanks to support from the hard-left Po-demos and smaller nationalist parties, said he intends to steer the country through to mid-2020 when the parliamentary term ends.

But his majority - the smallest for a Spanish government since the return to democracy follow-ing Francisco Franco’s death in

1975, makes it unclear how long his administration can last.

His strong pro-European credentials, and the fact that Rajoy also ran a minority gov-ernment, suggest fallout from any political ructions is likely to be limited.

Spain’s stock market rose af-ter the parliamentary vote, to trade nearly 2 percent higher on Thursday’s close, while the country’s borrowing costs fell, soothed by Sanchez’s commit-ment to respecting a fiscally conservative budget passed by Rajoy.

Spain’s new Prime Minister and Socialist party (PSOE) leader Pedro Sanchez shakes hands with ousted Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy after a motion of no confidence vote at parliament in Madrid

Wild animals that escaped German zoo are recaptured

• A bear was shot dead but two lions, two tigers and a jaguar were recaptured

Daily Mail | Berlin

Two lions, two tigers and a jaguar have been recap-

tured hours after breaking out of a flooded zoo in Germany.

A runaway bear, however, had to be shot dead by authori-ties. A drone was used to track the animals and residents were warned to stay indoors, in the town of Lunebach.

The five big cats were safely tranquilised and brought back to their cages in Eifel Zoo yes-terday after a huge operation to hunt them down.

The animals were able to

escape after flooding from an overnight storm that caused a river to burst its banks dam-aged their enclosures.

A video posted to social me-dia showed floodwaters turn-ing streets near the zoo into raging torrents of muddy wa-ter that levelled fences.

The animals were able to escape after flooding from an overnight storm that caused a river to burst its banks damaged their enclosures

I am aware of the responsibility

I am assuming, of the complex

political moment our country is going through,

and I will rise to all the challenges with humility and

dedication PEDRO SANCHEZ

The escape came two years after a

similar case, when two lions broke out

of their cages at the Leipzig zoo

In 1925, Frank Neuhauser was the bee’s first

champion, and his winning word was

“gladiolus”The impressive

halftime perfor-mance shows Percy balancing on Chris-tian’s toes while he does a handstand

Peacock flock causes traffic jam in PhiladelphiaAP | Philadelphia

Four peacocks wandered away from a Philadelphia

Zoo and created a traffic jam on a nearby highway but one was found dead on that stretch of road on Thursday.

Zoo staffers had been working with authorities to try to locate the peacocks after they took a stroll along part of Interstate 76 about a mile (1.6 kilometres) from the zoo on Wednesday night. State police arrived and shut down two of the six lanes of traffic on the highway, causing backups for miles.

Police got the peacocks off the highway but were unable to cap-ture them. The peacocks likely

went to roost for the night, and the search was halted until day-break Thursday.

Two teams of animal cura-tors and keepers from the zoo and police officers circled the

area where the peacocks were last seen. They also checked locations where the zoo teams thought the peacocks might explore.

The peacock found dead on the highway on Thursday like-ly had been hit by a car, zoo spokeswoman Dana Lombardo said.

The four peacocks were part of a larger flock that roams free-ly on the zoo’s grounds and that is cared for by veterinary staff. The birds sometimes venture past the zoo’s gates but normally return on their own, Lombar-do said. They have a homing sense, and it’s unusual for them to travel that far from the zoo, she said.

The four peacocks that wandered away from the Philadelphia Zoo are seen on a highway as they are being safeguarded by a police vehicle

Christian Stoinev and is chihuahua performed at Game 3 of the NBA Eastern Conference Finals between the Boston Celtics and Cleveland Cavaliers

KNOW WHAT

KNOW WHAT

SMILE

Karthik Nemmani celebrates with E.W. Scripps Company CEO Adam Symson after winning the Scripps National Spelling Bee at National Harbor

Cover of her latest book ‘Dalaliyat’

Jordan’s veteran musicians revive

Arab songBeit Al-Ruwwad (The House of Pioneers),

founded in 2008, celebrates the golden era of Arab music as well as Jordanian folklore songs

1953An F5 tornado hits Beecher, Michigan, killing 116, injuring 844, and destroying 340 homes.

2004The first Venus Transit in well over a century takes place, the previous one being in 1882.

1949George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four is published.

1949Helen Keller, Dorothy Parker, Dan-ny Kayeand many others are named in an FBI report as Communist Party members.

TODAY DAY IN

HISTORY

M U S I C A L D E L I G H T

W R I T I N G F O R P E A C E

Dalal Abdullah Yousif has made numerous cultural

and artistic contributions as well as hosted television

interviews. She has also published many poems,

literary thoughts and interviews in newspapers

and magazines throughout the Arab world

Hon. Chairman Najeb Yacob Alhamer | Editor-in-Chief Mahmood AI Mahmood | Deputy Chief Editor Ahdeya Ahmed | Chairman & Managing Editor P Unnikrishnan | Advertisement: Update Media W.L.L | Tel: 17579900, Fax 17256470, Email: sales@newsofbahrain.com | Newsroom: Tel: 17579911, Email: mail@newsofbahrain.comSubscription & circulation: Tel: 38444692/17579877 | Email:subscription@newsofbahrain.com | Website: www.newsofbahrain.com | Printed and published by Al Ayam Publishing

Words to address

hearts and minds

Supriya ReginaldTDT | Manama

Author Dalal Abdullah Yousif urges blooming authors to utilize their gift to write for a greater cause that instils peace and harmony.

“The sound of words is stronger than the sound of bombs and can change the situations from worse to better. Writers can raise a banner on issues through their work,” said Yousif.

“A writer is not only a writer, he must be a cultured person of the first order and adhere to intellectual integrity and believe in his ideas,” she added.

The Bahrain based author has recently published her fourth book titled “Dalaliyat” which is a collection of articles which have been published in the newspaper columns of Al Ayyam and others.

Her book is dedicated to the memory of her late father.“The book contains various social topics, including national identity

and how to harness our hearts in the love of our countries away from the social hypocrisy that harms our patriotism; which threatens the history and the future of culture and civilization for our generation,” revealed Yousif.

“I have not neglected the topics that concern the relationship be-tween men and women of appreciation, love and interest between the two. I also focused on the strengthening of faith in God,” she added.

Her previous other works include her novel “The Cage of Mary” which won three awards and was nominated for the best script at the Al-Sawari Theatre Festival of Youth.

Yousif has made numerous cultural and artistic contributions as well as hosted television interviews. She has also pub-

lished many poems, literary thoughts and interviews in newspapers and magazines throughout the Arab world.

“Writing is a great gift and it is God’s blessing that I am born with it. Since my childhood, my mother has embraced my talent and cared for it and taught me that writing can only be upgraded by reading. I have learned from my experiences in life to be frank with a paper and pen, to express myself without cost or shame or restrictions. Everything in life with the most accurate details can inspire and incite my thoughts and passion to write, especially sadness. When I am sad I channel my emotions in writing,” said Yousif.

“My writing is centred to deep thoughts. It is very close to my heart for the simplicity of its style and vocabulary, and the articles also have a strong impact on followers and readers. When I write something I try to be closer to others, especially in my writings that touch their reality. I write until I

address hearts and minds,” she added.Bahrain hosted its 18th Book Fair

in March this year, showcasing the country’s support and encourage-

ment toward literary works and writers.

“The nation’s support, wheth-er material or moral, has a very deep influence, it stimulates the author’s energies and encourages him to write while simultaneously highlighting their production,” said Yousif.

“The absence of critics in our country has a negative impact on

the published work and the writer. The writer needs to be criticized to im-

prove the quality of his pen,” she added.Dalal Abdullah Yousif

AFP | Amman

A group of musicians are causing a sensation in Jordan by reviving the

golden age of Arab song — and not one of them is under the age of 50.

“I would give you anything for the feast, my angel.”

Beshara Rabadi, 62, sang the line to an enthusiastic crowd at a concert hall in central Am-man.

Many instantly recognized the song of famous Iraqi singer, Nazem Al-Ghazali, responding with applause and singing the rest of the phrase:

“But you have everything. Should I give you bracelets? I don’t want to tie your hands.”

Beit Al-Ruwwad (The House of Pioneers), founded in 2008, celebrates the golden era of Arab music represented by

Ghazali and legendary Egyptian diva Umm Kulthum as well as Jordanian folklore songs.

The singers, some of them in their 80s, wear dark suits and in some cases sunglasses as they play a wide range of instru-ments: oud (Arabian lute), flute,

drums and accordion.Each Tuesday, they give a free

concert at Amman’s Al Hussein Cultural Center.

“Our goal is to preserve clas-sical Jordanian and Arab music and provide a comfortable social space that supports original art

and artists,” said group’s founder and leader Sakher Hattar, 54.

A buzz spread throughout the audience as the group performed another well-known song about a girl leaving her family home to get married.

Women raised their hands

while an older man span a cane above his head and tried out a few dance steps.

“I come every Tuesday, I never miss the concert,” said Russayla Bayzidi, 75, sitting in the front row in a white hijab and an ele-gant electric blue jacket.

“I love these old songs be-cause they take me back to a beautiful time,” she said. “I re-lax so much when I come to these concerts.”

The group’s fans include people from across Jordanian society and the concerts always have a family atmosphere, said Hattar, who is also an oud teacher and head of the Arabic music department at Jordan’s National Music Conservatory.

He likes to talk of how the group was formed.

He had met officials at the culture ministry to discuss hav-ing veteran musicians perform

individually at the annual Jerash Festival, which brings artists from across the Arab world.

“They were rejected on the basis that they weren’t able to perform,” he said.

“That idea hurt, and it gave me the idea of setting up the band.”

He set about gathering a group of musicians in their later years, including singers Mohamed Wa-hib (84), Salwa Al-Aas (74) and Fuad Hijazi (70).

“These artists still have a lot to give, they have a really high standard of musicianship,” he said.

In May, 10 years since the group was founded, King Ab-dullah presented Hattar with an award for the band’s role in sup-porting pioneering musicians.

Singer Wahib said the group had “brought together pioneers who gave a lot to Jordanian and Arab art.”Jordanian singer Mohamed Wahib sings with the Beit Al Rowwad ensemble during a concert at Hussein Cultural Center in

Amman

12

world

FRIDAY, JUNE 8, 2018

Egyptian Housing minister named as acting premierMostafa Madbouli, who was asked to form the new government, had served as housing minister since 2014Xinhua | Cairo

Egyptian President Ab-del-Fattah al-Sisi yes-terday assigned Housing

Minister Mostafa Madbouli to form a new government, offi-cial Al-Ahram news website reported.

Madbouli will thus become the new prime minister to re-place his predecessor Sher-if Ismail, who submitted the resignation of his cabinet to Sisi on Tuesday.

The de facto appointment of Madbouli as Egypt’s new prime minister came a few days after Sisi was sworn in for a second four-year presidential term.

As the new prime minister, Madbouli will have to name his cabinet ministers and pres-ent them to the parliament for approval.

“The new cabinet has to be approved by the majority of parliament members,” Nabil al-Gamal, member of the par-liament’s legislative and con-stitutional affairs committee, told Xinhua.

He expects Madbouli to pres-ent list of new cabinet ministers to the parliament next week.

As the housing minister, Madbouli has been carrying out huge projects including the ongoing establishment of

a new administrative capital city on the outskirts of Cairo, the construction of hundreds of thousands of housing units as well as the building of new cities in several provinces.

Parl iamentarian Maged Abul-Khair expects the new government to focus on the de-velopment of housing and road networks and the eradication of slums in the coming period.

“I believe President Sisi ap-pointed Madbouli in particular to lead the new government because he has already been in-volved in these projects,” Abul-Khair told Xinhua.

The outgoing government has been implementing a strict three-year austerity economic reform since late 2016.

The reform started with lo-cal currency liberalization, fol-lowed by fuel and energy sub-sidy cuts and tax increases to contain the budget deficit, caus-ing price and inflation hikes.

“I expect the new govern-ment to continue the same economic reform policies but I hope it could change the way of implementing them to relieve the burdens of low-income peo-ple,” Abul-Khair said.

Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi

I believe President Sisi appointed

Madbouli in particular to lead the new government

because he has already been

involved in these projects

MAGED ABUL-KHAIR

Turkey ends migrant readmission deal with Greece

Reuters | Istanbul

Turkey has suspended its migrant readmission

deal with Greece, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu was quoted as saying by the state-run Anadolu news agency, days after Greece released from prison four Turkish soldiers who fled there after a 2016 attempted coup.

The four soldiers were released on Monday after an order extending their cus-tody expired. A decision on their asylum applications is still pending.

“We have a bilateral re-admission agreement. We have suspended that re-admission agreement,” Cavusoglu was quoted as saying, adding that a sepa-rate migrant deal between the EU and Turkey would continue.

Under the bilateral deal signed in 2001, 1,209 foreign nationals have been deport-ed to Turkey from Greece in the last two years, data from the Greek citizens’ protec-tion ministry showed.

Cavusoglu was quoted as saying he believed the Greek government wanted to resolve the issue about the soldiers but that Greek judges were under pressure from the West.

“The Greek government wants to resolve this is-sue. But we also see there is serious pressure on Greece from the West. Es-pecially on Greek judges,” Cavusoglu was quoted as saying.

Afghanistan announces Eid ceasefire with TalibanReuters | Kabul

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani yesterday an -

nounced for the first time an unconditional ceasefire with the Taliban, coinciding with the end of the Muslim fasting month, but excluding other militant groups, such as Is-lamic State.

The decision came after a meeting of Islamic clerics this week declared a fatwa, or rul-ing, against suicide bombings, one of which, claimed by Is-lamic State, killed 14 people at the entrance to the clerics’ peace tent in Kabul, the cap-ital.

The clerics also recommend-ed a ceasefire with the Taliban, who are seeking to reimpose strict Islamic law after their ouster in 2001, and Ghani en-dorsed the recommendation, announcing a laying down of arms until June 20.

Ghani has urged ceasefires with the Taliban before, but this was the first unconditional offer since he was elected in 2014.

“This ceasefire is an oppor-tunity for Taliban to intro-spect (sic) that their violent campaign is not winning them hearts and minds,” Ghani said in a message on social network Twitter after a televised ad-dress.

There was no immediate reaction from the Taliban but an international political ana-lyst based in Kabul was unim-pressed.

“It’s a one-sided love story,” he said.

US Forces-Afghanistan said they would honour the cease-

fire.“We will adhere to the

wishes of Afghanistan for the country to enjoy a peaceful end to the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, and support the search for an end to the con-flict,” Gen. John Nicholson, US Forces-Afghanistan and the NATO-led Resolute Support commander, said in a state-ment.

The ceasefire would not in-clude US counterterrorism ef-forts against Islamic State and al Qaeda, it said.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani

KNOW WHAT

One of Taliban’s sources of income was the cultivation and smuggling of

opium. During their rule, the primary

source of income of many Afghanis was the cultivation of

opium

Earliest animal footprints found in China: study• The footprints uncovered in China date back some 541 million years ago

AFP | Tampa

The earliest known foot-prints left by an animal on

Earth, dating back at least 541 million years, have been un-covered in China, a study said Wednesday.

It is unclear just what kind of tiny creature left the tracks, which lie just a few millime-tres apart and look like a two rows of shallow depressions, or holes, marked in the dark grey limestone.

“This is considered the ear-liest animal fossil footprint re-cord,” said the report in the US journal, Science Advances.

The trackways were found in the Yangtze Gorges area of South China, and date to the Ediacaran Period 541 million to 635 million years ago.

“The rock that contains the fossil has been very well dated

between 551 and 541 million years old,” study author Zhe Chen, a researcher at the Chi-nese Academy of Sciences, told AFP in an email.

“Previously identified foot-prints are between 540 and 530 million years old. The new fossils are probably up to 10 million years older.”

Unfortunately for scientists, the creature that made the foot-prints did not die nearby and leave an equally well preserved fossil to be studied.

That leaves a mystery about what kind of animal left the tracks.

The earliest known footprints left by an animal on Earth uncovered in China

KNOW WHAT

The Ediacaran bio-ta, that lived during

the Ediacaran period, consisted of enigmatic tubular and frond-shaped, mostly sessile or-

ganisms

Pandas fed ice lollies by children using bamboo sticksDaily Mail | Beijing

As a national symbol of Chi-na, giant pandas get all

kinds of special treatment in zoos. One of them are yummy ice lollies in summer - lots of them.

The temperatures in Guang-zhou reached 35 degrees Cel-sius last week, and the black-and-white bears were given fro-zen treats, chilled bamboo and air-conditioned rooms at the city’s Chimelong Safari Park.

Zoo visitors had opportunity to feed pandas as pictures show children delivering ice lollies to the animal stars by dangling them down bamboo sticks.

Video and pictures taken at the zoo show the giant pandas embracing the hot weather by eating ice lollies, lying on frozen beds and enjoying cooling mist sprays.

Air-conditioning was also turned on in the panda enclo-sure to help the animals beat the heat.

One of the lucky pandas, 20-month-old boy Qin Qin, can be seen leaning forward to reach the huge ice lollies, which were packed with chucks of ap-

ple, pineapple and grape.In the past, zoos across China

have found various ways to help their pandas to stay cool.

Pandas at a zoo in central China’s Wuhan city were pro-vided with huge blocks of ice to rest on. Zookeepers also sprayed cooling mist in the en-closure regularly to lower the temperatures indoors.

While pandas in an east Chi-na zoo enjoyed a cold floor while eating bamboo sticks straight out of the refrigerator.

Two pandas are pictured trying to reach ice lollies as children deliver them with bamboo in China

SMILE

The fluffy animals also enjoyed chilled bamboo, snacked on frozen fruits and lay

on lumps of ice

Blind man teaches himself to skateboard through video game Daily Mail | Los Angeles

A blind man taught himself to skateboard through touch,

feel and memories of playing video games.

Coco Atama began losing his vision before he could even form memories, after he was diag-nosed with Leber’s Congenital Amauros, a rare eye disease, at just 10 months old.

On his seventh birthday, Coco was handed his first skateboard, a gift that would turn his life around and provide him with what he calls the greatest possi-ble therapy.

The 22-year-old, from Bur-

bank, California, has been skat-ing for the past 15 years in an effort to improve his mental health, teaching himself tricks through feel, touch and play-

ing the video game Tony Hawk Pro-Skater.

Being the ‘first and only’ blind child in his school, he said he was treated ‘more like a doll’ than a person as children and teachers were fascinated by his condition.

He said: ‘Other kids were fas-cinated with me [in school], but not in a good way.

‘Even though I could see a lit-tle bit, I didn’t have any periph-eral vision, so they kids would constantly take my stuff and watch and laugh as I scrambled around to find it.

‘But when I got my first skate-board, skating would become

like therapy and my own escape from the world.

‘No matter how bad school was, I used to just skate around the sidewalk outside my house, or at the park and life would be okay again.’

Skating almost every day, Coco is now a sponsored skateboard-er, and has become a renowned figure among skaters in his area.

He said: ‘After watching the X Games and playing Tony Hawk, it was almost a no-brainer that I’d eventually fall in love with skateboarding and want to do it myself.

‘While being unique and un-orthodox is the most fun way to

live, I also picked the kinds of tricks I do because you can really feel and connect with the board, as opposed to looking at it.

‘The first few years riding were spent developing a mic of my ever-changing eyes and al-ways-reliable ears. Without my hearing I’d fail miserably.

‘It gives me the ability to listen and have a field of awareness, not only in front of me but to the sides and behind as well.

‘I just want to show the world that you should never worry about whether or not anyone else thinks you can do some-thing. If you love doing it or want it bad enough, just do it. ‘

Spain swears in mostly-female government• Women outnumber men in Sanchez’s team by almost two to one

AFP | Madrid

King Felipe VI yesterday swore in Spain’s new pro-

EU government, with women holding the majority of minis-terial posts.

Socialist Prime Minister Pe-dro Sanchez named 11 women to top posts including defence and economy in a cabinet with six male ministers.

That makes it the European government with the highest ra-tio of female cabinet ministers, ahead of Sweden’s, which has 12 women and 11 men.

But Sanchez’s administration risks not lasting until the end of the current mandate in 2020, however, given the fragmented state of Spain’s political parties.

His Socialist Party holds just 84 seats in the 350-seat con-gress, the smallest parliamen-tary presence of any Spanish government since the return to democracy in the 1970s.

Sanchez, 46, ousted conserv-ative veteran Mariano Rajoy as prime minister last Friday in a parliamentary no-confidence vote.

The vote was sparked by corruption convictions against former officials from Rajoy’s Popular Party (PP), which had governed for six years.

Equality a priority At yesterday’s ceremony, the

ministers broke with tradition by taking their oaths on the constitution rather than the Bible.

They followed the example set by Sanchez, who became

the first Spanish prime minis-ter to forego religious symbols during his own swearing-in on Saturday.

The first minister to take the oath was veteran Socialist Car-men Calvo, a former culture minister, who became deputy prime minister and will also be in charge of equality.

Equality is a priority for Sanchez’s government in a country where women staged an unprecedented strike to de-fend their rights in March.

Calvo said her government would work to “build the great-est equality, that between men and women”.

13FRIDAY, JUNE 8, 2018

SMILE

KNOW WHAT

Toy grenade causes bomb scare in HoustonAirport was evacuated after novelty grenade was found in Boy Scout’s bagReuters | Houston

A security checkpoint in-side a Houston airport was briefly evacuated

yesterday after security screen-ing found what appeared to be a hand grenade in a passenger’s bag, airport officials said, then later determined it was a toy.

US Transportation Security Administration officials spotted the bag carrying the suspicious item around 4:30 am CDT (0930 GMT) as it was going through an X-ray machine at William P. Hobby Airport, said Bill Begley, a spokesman for the Houston Airport System.

Travellers were immediate-ly evacuated, Begley said. The Houston Police Department bomb squad investigated the object.

“It turns out that it was a nov-elty grenade that a young person had packed in their bags but we didn’t know that, so immedi-

ately the protocols were put in place,” Begley said in a phone interview.

Details about the adults and child involved were not imme-diately available. Houston Police

Department officials did not im-mediately respond to requests for comment.

Photos on Twitter showed hundreds of travellers crammed together, about 200 feet from

the security checkpoint to the lobby area, as they waited for TSA screenings to resume.

Begley urged passengers to review TSA guidelines on what can be carried in luggage, say-ing, “They can help us greatly by understanding what they can and cannot pack in a bag.

People wait outside Houston’s William P. Hobby Airport yesterdayafter a toy grenade in a passenger’s bag forced the shutdown of a security checkpoint

It turns out that it was a novelty grenade that a

young person had packed in their

bags but we didn’t know that, so

immediately the protocols were

put in placeBILL BEGLEY

The new spanish government’s ministers pose with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez (7L) and king Felipe VI (C) after taking oath of office at La Zarzuela palace in Madrid

One of the stand-out names in the new government was

ex-astronaut Pedro Duque, 55, who last

went to space in 2003 as part of an Interna-tional Space Station

(ISS) mission

Coco taught himself tricks by playing the

video game Tony Hawk Pro-Skater

Coco is now a sponsored skateboarder, becoming a renowned figure in his local area

Scans reveal newsprint, painting under PicassoAFP | Tokyo

Infrared imaging technol-ogy has helped peel back

the layers of a Pablo Picasso painting on display in Japan, and revealed a page from a 1902 newspaper and another composition below.

US and Japanese researchers scanned the piece “Mother and Child by the Sea”, owned by the Pola Museum of Art in Ha-kone, west of Tokyo, and un-covered a page of the French newspaper Le Journal from January 18, 1902.

“While the reason for the

presence of newsprint in the paint layers in a mystery, the discovery is significant for Picasso scholars due to the proximity of the date to the artist’s move from Paris to Barcelona,” said the Washing-ton-based National Gallery of Art, whose researcher John Delaney led the project in Japan.

Picasso is thought to have moved to the Spanish city in early January 1902, bringing a few canvasses with him, and the newspaper article revealed in the painting suggests the work was completed some time after his move.

The scan also provided clear images of an underlying paint-ing of a woman sitting down next to an absinthe glass with a spoon in it.

Picasso frequently reused canvasses or incorporated previous sketches into a final work.

However, it was not immedi-ately clear why the artist used a page from Le Journal, which he was known to have read frequently.

Washington-based National Gallery of Art researcher John Delaney sits next to the original painting of ‘Mother and Child by the Sea’, by Spanish painter Pablo Picasso

Volunteers carry the bodies of victims from a single turboprop Cessna Caravan plane, operated by local firm FlySax, that crashed in a forested cliff in the Aberdare Range, in central Kenya

Ten killed as domestic flight crashes in KenyaReuters | Nairobi

Eight passengers and two pilots were killed when

a scheduled domestic flight to Kenya’s capital Nairobi crashed into a mountain late on Tuesday, a senior govern-ment official said yesterday.

The single turboprop Cessna Caravan plane, operated by local firm FlySax, lost contact with the control tower min-utes before it was scheduled to land at Jomo Kenyatta Inter-national Airport while flying from Kitale, a farming town in

the west.Aerial search teams spotted

wreckage on a densely forested cliff in the Aberdare Range in central Kenya, said Paul Ma-ringa, principal secretary at the ministry of transport.

“A ground team of military specialists in mountain res-cue operations has been dis-patched to the site,” Maringa told a news conference.

The team reached the site by lunch time local time and es-tablished all aboard had died, Maringa said at a second news briefing.

14

When Mohamed Salah was injured, there were some

who came to see me as if it

was me who was suffering. In my neighbourhood,

over a number of days, people who passed me would

say ‘Get well soon’HUSSEIN ALI

features

FRIDAY, JUNE 8, 2018

Salah’s Iraqi

lookalike dreams of

football glory

Iraqi footballer Hussein Ali can not leave his house without being stopped for photographs, but the 20-year-old has World Cup ambitions of his own

Iraqi footballer Hussein Ali, who plays for the Iraqi Al-Zawraa FC and is a lookalike of Liverpool’s Egyptian forward Mohamed Salah, poses for pictures in the capital Baghdad

AFP | Baghdad

With his black beard, curly h a i r a n d football shirt, Iraqi striker

Hussein Ali is often mistaken for one of the world’s top players: Egypt’s Mohamed Salah.

In the Iraqi capital Baghdad, 20-year-old Ali is frequently stopped in his working-class Hurriya neighbourhood by peo-ple wanting a photograph with their idol.

Although he is himself a strik-er, for the Al-Zawraa club, it is Ali’s likeness to Salah which piques Iraqis’ interest.

“At the first training session, he introduced himself as ‘Hus-

sein Ali’. I replied, ‘No, no, you are Mohamed Salah,” said Ali’s coach Adnan Mohammad.

Back when Salah was playing for AS Roma, Ali was aware of the resemblance but took the comments as “a joke”.

But when the Egyptian shot to global fame in the Premier League -- becoming “the num-ber one footballer for all Arabs” according to Ali -- his Iraqi dop-pelganger started to seriously work on his image.

Since then, he has started wearing the red shirt of Salah’s club Liverpool.

“It’s the real shirt, bought from an official supplier,” he said proudly from his small house, where the shutters are closed against the Baghdad heat during

the long hours of electricity cuts.Ali said he paid $40 for the

shirt, which he takes carefully from its hanger, while working every day to support his large family and without a wage from playing football.

Lately, the “Mohamed Salah of Iraq” can’t leave his house without being stopped for pho-tographs or approached by foot-ball fans who mistake him for the Egyptian star.

“The day before yesterday I was in a mall; the security guards, the shop workers and the clients, everyone wanted to take a photo with me... even the girls!” said Ali.

He attracts similar attention at football matches. When Ali’s team played against the Leba-nese club Al-Ahed, “people were taking photos with me for an

hour and a half,” he said.Last month Ali joined a group

of supporters in the city centre to watch Salah’s Liverpool take on Real Madrid in the Champi-ons League final.

“When Mohamed Salah was injured, there were some who came to see me as if it was me who was suffering,” he said.

“In my neighbourhood, over a number of days, people who passed me would say ‘Get well soon’,” he remembered.

While such confusion amus-es him, Ali’s similarity to Salah has prompted him to rethink his own life.

Passionate about football since his was little, Ali made it onto the B team of Al-Zawraa, Iraq’s most decorated club. One day he

hopes to live the same dream as Salah, who was thrust from his Nile Delta village into the heart of international football.

“We play in the same position and I do everything to imitate and copy his movements,” said Ali, smiling widely.

The Iraqi player is also keen to follow Salah’s example off the pitch, which in the past has led English fans to adopt an “I’ll be Muslim too” chant praising the footballer.

“He reads the Koran and he asks God to help him before matches. I also read the Koran and pray, like Abu Makka,” said Ali, using a nickname for the Liverpool striker who named his daughter after the holy city of Mecca.

Kim Jong Un’s impersonator preparing for appearance in Singapore summit• The Hong Kong-based Kim impersonator will take part in an alternative summit on the sidelines of Trump - Kim summit

AFP | Hong Kong

As the world awaits the historic sum-mit between Don-ald Trump and Kim Jong Un, one man

who has risen to prominence for his impressions of the North Ko-rean leader is preparing for his own appearance in Singapore.

The Hong Kong-based Kim impersonator, who goes by the

name Howard X, will take part in an alternative summit on the sidelines of the meeting between the US president and Kim, sched-uled for Tuesday.

In recent months Howard has worked the international circuit and appeared at the Pyeong-chang Winter Olympics along-side a Trump impersonator.

There he was hauled away by police after dancing and waving the unified Korean flag in front of North Korea’s female cheer-leading team.

Howard says the duo have been hired by a Singapore hotel to give their own take on the landmark meeting.

Their aim is to encourage the public to discuss politics via sat-ire, Howard told AFP in Hong Kong yesterday. But he admits

his family have reservations about his new career path.

“The first thing they said was ‘Don’t get killed’,” Howard told AFP, adding his mother had tak-en out life insurance for him.

Born in Hong Kong, Howard grew up in Australia and pre-viously worked as a musician. But his impressions of Kim have become the main act since he be-gan work as a lookalike in 2012.

To prepare for each perfor-mance, Howard, who says he is in his 30s, applies foundation and trims his eyebrows, but spends the most time perfecting Kim’s slicked back hairstyle with copious amounts of spray.

Onstage he dresses in a black Mao-style suit with a North Ko-rean flag pin and thick-rimmed glasses.

Kim Jong Un impersonator, who goes by the name Howard X, brushes off his suit after dressing up as the North Korean leader, at his studio in Hong Kong

KNOW WHAT

Howard X along with an impersona-tor of US President

Donald Trump appeared at the Py-eongchang Winter Olympics opening

ceremony but were thrown out by secu-

rity

15

entertainment

FRIDAY, JUNE 8, 2018

C R O S S W O R D

S U D O K U

Across

1- Bundle; 5- Atari founder Bushnell; 10- Male swine; 14- ___ instant; 15- Rock concert venue; 16- Nautically sheltered; 17- Kidney-shaped seed; 19- Part of a bird’s beak; 20- Ruhr Valley city; 21- Bulrush; 23- Use an abacus; 25- Vertical face of a stair; 26- Ardent; 29- Harness part; 31- City in Tuscany; 35- Diddley and Derek; 36- Tournament favorite; 37- Cossack chief; 38- Court order; 40- Tonsil’s neighbor; 41- Takes by theft; 42- Author ___ Stanley Gardner; 43- Uno + due; 44- ___ la vista; 45- ___ spumante; 46- Afternoon affairs; 47- Uncle!; 49- Stu-

B E E T L E B A I L E Y

YESTERDAY’S SOLUTION

YESTERDAY’S SOLUTION

How to playPlace a number in the empty boxes in such a way that each row across, each column down and each 9-box square contains all of the numbers from one to nine.

Y O U R S T A R T O D A Y

AriesYou should be feeling especially passionate today, so don’t be surprised if you can’t get sex and romance out of your mind. If you’re currently involved, sched-ule an intimate evening with your lover. If you aren’t involved, don’t be surprised if you pull someone new and exciting under your spell.

TaurusLong-buried emotions from the past, some of them pleasant and some in need of release, could well up from your subconscious today. This is likely to have an uplifting effect on your mental and emotional state, so don’t fight it. It’s also likely to release whatever hang-ups you might have about relationships.

GeminiSome exciting social events or group activities could take place in your neighbourhood today. You’ll defi-nitely want to attend. You may go with some close friends or a romantic partner. Contact with others is likely to be intense and gratifying now, so expect your head to be spinning by day’s end.

CancerYour business and financial interests definitely get a big boost today, perhaps through contacts with friends. Career matters are skyrocketing and your financial future looks promising. Keep up the good work. Your health is especially strong and vigorous, but your primary interest is likely to be romance.

LeoLove and romance are apt to be your primary focus today. If you’re currently romantically involved, ex-pect a wonderfully intense evening with your special someone. If you aren’t involved, don’t be surprised if someone new and exciting comes into your life, per-haps from another state or foreign country.

VirgoToday dreams, visions, and intuitive insights enrich your innovative side and interactions with others. Don’t hesitate to put your ideas into motion, even if they seem a bit too ambitious. You’re well attuned to the collective unconscious and likely to be picking up on future trends, so be on the alert.

LibraA neighbour or relative you haven’t spoken to for a while might suggest attending a social event togeth-er. Make the time, as it could open up doors for you that you wouldn’t normally expect. Relationships of all kinds should be going especially well, and these include romantic ones.

ScorpioYour working life and income are likely to be enhanced today through the influence of people who live in distant states or foreign countries. The desire for knowledge is probably strong, and you might seek to develop some new skills.

SagittariusRomance is front and centre today, as you’re proba-bly feeling especially passionate. This is a great day to plan an intimate evening with a lover. Make use of candles, muted lights, and soft music. You’re apt to be feeling especially passionate about your other interests, whether they’re intellectual, creative, or business oriented.

CapricornYou’re likely to be feeling especially romantic today. If you’re currently involved, plan an intimate evening at home with your lover. If you aren’t involved, any-thing goes.

AquariusToday you might find that your social life takes a defi-nite turn for the better. You could receive more than one invitation to parties or group activities, and spend a lot of time on the phone discussing arrangements for future get-togethers. If you aren’t romantically involved now, you may meet someone promising.

PiscesBusiness and money matters may seem too good to be true. Success and good fortune in these departments are definitely indicated for you today. If you’ve been trying to get a break in a creative or artistic field, it may finally manifest. The present looks profitable and the future bright. In the evening, celebrate by scheduling a romantic encounter with your lover. You should find it especially gratifying now.

dent’s conveyance; 51- Go before; 54- Oscar de la ___; 58- Author Morrison; 59- Captivating; 63- Footless animal; 64- Examine account books; 65- Swing around; 66- Zaire’s Mobutu ___ Seko; 67- Take care of; 68- Cornerstone abbr.;

Down1- Bicycle; 2- Black cuckoos; 3- Scottish boys; 4- Group of nine; 5- Negative vote; 6- Globe; 7- Shelter; 8- Aleve alternative; 9- Grand-mas; 10- Camel having two humps; 11- Olive genus; 12- Ethereal: Prefix; 13- Rod’s partner; 18- Wrap up; 22- Exam taker; 24- Women’s wear; 25- Free; 26- Make ashamed; 27- River of Ghana; 28- Capri and Man; 30- Shoe width; 32- Ham it up; 33- Monetary unit of Nigeria; 34- Peaks of Peru; 36- Farm storage; 37- Go off-script; 39- Substance for killing rats; 40- Illustrative craft; 42- Ending for legal or Japan; 45- Wide street; 46- Deadly fly; 48- Concepts; 50- Vase; 51- School orgs.; 52- Thick cord; 53- Slaughter in Cooperstown; 55- Guitarist Lofgren; 56- Hardware fastener; 57- Got on in years; 60- Alphabet trio; 61- Strike; 62- From ___ Z;

W O R D O F T H E D A Y

boondoggleDefinition:1 : a braided cord worn by Boy Scouts as a neckerchief slide, hatband, or ornament

2 : a wasteful or impractical project or ac-tivity often involving graft

Did You Know?When boondoggle popped up in the early

1900s, lots of people tried to explain where the word came from. One theory traced it to an Ozarkian word for “gadget,” while another related it to the Tagalog word that gave us boondocks. Another hypothesis suggested that boondoggle came from the name of leather toys Daniel Boone sup-

posedly made for his dog. But the only theory that is supported by evidence is much simpler. In the 1920s, Robert Link, a scoutmaster for the Boy Scouts of Amer-ica, apparently coined the word to name the braided leather cords made and worn by scouts. The word came to prominence when such a boondoggle was presented to the Prince of Wales at the 1929 World Jamboree, and it’s been with us ever since.

16 FRIDAY, JUNE 8, 2018

June Ramadan Day Imsak Fajr Sunrise Dhuhr Asr Maghrib Isha8 23 Fri 3:02 AM 3:12 AM 4:45 AM 11:37 AM 3:03 PM 6:29 PM 7:59 PM

Ingredients• 2 green bell peppers• 3 tablespoons olive oil• 4 fresh tomatoes, peeled and chopped• 2 teaspoons sugar• 1 1/2 teaspoons paprika• 1 teaspoon fresh parsley• 1/2 teaspoon cumin• 1/2 teaspoon salt• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder• ground black pepper to taste• 1 (2.25 ounce) can sliced green olives

Method1. Preheat the oven broiler.2. Place the green bell peppers on a baking sheet, and broil, turning occasionally, 5 minutes, or until tender and scorched on all sides. Remove from heat, peel, and chop.3. Heat the olive oil in a skillet, and mix in the pep-pers and toma-toes. Stir in sug-ar. Season with paprika, parsley, cumin, salt, gar-lic powder, and pepper. Continue cooking until to-matoes are heat-ed through. Serve topped with ol-ives.

Ramadan cooking

Moroccan Cooked Pepper Salad

Majid Al Futtaim shopping mall is encouraging visitors to participate in the last week of its 12th annual ‘Make A Difference Together’ campaign. City Centre Bahrain’s visitors can donate any gently used clothes, books, toys and non-perishable food items, at the special donation boxes placed inside the mall, until end of Ramadan. Last year, more than 60 tonnes of items were collected from participating malls and donated to underprivileged families across the region.

Partners were honoured by Kanoo Travel during its Ramadan Ghabga last night. The event at the Kanoo Guest House in Mahooz was attended by senior management of Kanoo Travel, airline suppliers and General Sales Agents (GSAs).

Yousif & Aysha Almoayyed Charity sponsored the tennis tournament held during the holy month of Ramadan organised annually by the Bahrain Tennis Club in honour of the late Yousif Khalil Almoayyed. The donation was handed by Salwa Almoayyed – Head of Charity to Mirza Al Sammak – Vice Chairman of the Bahrain Tennis Club on May 17 at YK Almoayyed & Sons head office in Manama.

A number of volunteering staff from Batelco distributed dates and refreshments at different mosques, traffic lights and roundabouts across the Kingdom of Bahrain. The light meals consisted of water, laban and dates, which were distributed by Batelco staff right before Iftar time. The volunteers expressed their joy in participating and being part of the campaign to give back during the holy month of Ramadan.

17 FRIDAY, JUNE 8, 2018

KAALA ( TAMIL / ACTION / CRIME )

Rajnikanth, Eswari Rao, Nana Patekar

DANA CINEMA 10:45,13:45,16:45,19:45,22:45SEEF (I) 10.30 AM + 10.45 AM + 11.15 AM + 1.30 + 2.00 + 2.30 + 4.30 + 5.00 + 5.30 + 7.45 + 8.15 + 8.45 + 11.00 + 11.30 PM + 12.00 MNAL HAMRA 11.15 AM + 2.30 + 5.30 + 8.45 PM + 12.00 MN

KAALA ( TELUGU / ACTION / CRIME )

Rajnikanth, Eswari Rao, Nana Patekar,

DANA CINEMA 10:30,13:30,16:30,19:30,22:30SEEF (I) 1.00 + 4.15 + 7.30 + 10.45 PM

KAALA ( HINDI / ACTION / CRIME )

Rajnikanth, Eswari Rao, Nana Patekar,

DANA CINEMA 11:00, 14:00, 17:00, 20:00, 23:00CINECO (20) 10.30 AM + 1.45 + 5.00 + 8.15 + 11.30 PMSEEF (II) DAILY AT: 10.45 AM + 2.00 + 5.15 + 8.30 + 11.45 PM SAAR 7.45 + 11.00 PM WADI AL SAIL DAILY AT: 7.45 + 11.00 PM

PARMANU ( HINDI/ ACTION/ DRAMA/ HISTORY )

John Abraham, Boman Irani, Diana Penty

DANA CINEMA 10:45,13:15,15:45,18:15,20:45,23:15CINECO (20) 1.30 + 6.30 + 11.30 PM

VEERE DI WEDDING (HINDI/ACTION/DRAMA/HISTORY)

John Abraham, Boman Irani, Diana Penty

DANA CINEMA 10:45,13:00,15:15,17:30,19:45,22:00,00:15CINECO (20) 11.15 AM + 1.45 + 4.15 + 6.45 + 9.15 + 11.45 PMSEEF (II) DAILY AT: 10.45 AM + 1.15 + 3.45 + 6.15 + 8.45 + 11.15 PM SAAR 8.45 PM WADI AL SAIL DAILY AT: 8.45 + 11.15 PM

JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM – 3D (ACTION/ADVENTURE/SCI-FI)

Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Jeff Goldblum

DANA CINEMA 11:00,13:30,16:00,18:30,21:00,23:30 10:45,13:15,15:45,18:15,20:45,23:15CINECO (20) 12.45 + 3.30 + 6.15 + 9.00 + 11.45 PM DAILY AT (IMAX 3D): 1.00 + 3.45 + 6.30 + 9.15 PM + 12.00 MN DAILY AT: 12.15 + 3.00 + 5.45 + 8.30 + 11.15 PM DAILY AT (VIP II): 12.30 + 3.15 + 6.00 + 8.45 + 11.30 PM DAILY AT (VIP I): 12.00 + 2.45 + 5.30 + 8.15 + 11.00

SEEF (II) DAILY AT: 11.45 AM + 12.45 + 2.30 + 3.30 + 5.15 + 6.15 + 8.00 + 9.00 + 10.45 + 11.45 PM DAILY AT (3D): 12.15 + 3.00 + 5.45 + 8.30 + 11.15 PM SAAR 7.45 + 8.45 + 10.30 + 11.30 PMWADI AL SAIL DAILY AT: 8.00 + 9.00 + 10.45 + 11.45 PM DAILY AT (3D): 8.30 + 11.15 PM

SHOW DOGS (ACTION / ADVENTURE / COMEDY)

Alan Cumming, Natasha Lyonne, Will Arnett

DANA CINEMA 11:00,12:45,14:30,16:15,18:00,19:45,21:30,23:15,01:00CINECO (20) 11.45 AM + 1.45 + 3.45 + 5.45 + 7.45 + 9.45 + 11.45 PMSEEF (II) DAILY AT: 11.15 AM + 1.15 + 3.15 + 5.15 + 7.15 + 9.15 + 11.15 PM

E.MA.YAU ( MALAYALAM / COMEDY )

Chemban Vinod, Dileesh Pothan, Vinayakan

DANA CINEMA 10:45,13:00,15:15,17:30,19:45,22:00,00:15SEEF (I) 11.15 AM + 1.45 + 4.15 + 6.45 + 9.15 + 11.45 PM

LAST RAMPAGE : THE ESCAPE OF GARY TISON ( CRIME / DRAMA / MYSTERY )

Robert Patrick, Heather Graham, Bruce Davison

DANA CINEMA 10:45,12:30,14:15,16:00,17:45,19:30,21:15,23:00,00:45CINECO (20) 12.00 + 2.00 + 4.00 + 6.00 + 8.00 + 10.00 PM + 12.00 MNSEEF (II) DAILY AT: 11.30 AM + 1.30 + 3.30 + 5.30 + 7.30 + 9.30 + 11.30 PM

DEADPOOL 2 (18+) (ACTION/ADVENTURE/COMEDY)

RYAN REYNOLDS, JOSH BROLIN, MORENA BACCARIN

CINECO (20) 11.30 AM + 2.00 + 4.30 + 7.00 + 9.30 PM + 12.00 MNSEEF (II) DAILY AT: 12.30 + 6.00 + 11.30 PMSAAR 11.15 PMWADI AL SAIL DAILY AT: 9.00 + 11.30 PM

AVENGERS: INFINTY WAR (PG-15) (ACTION/ADVENTURE)

KAREN GILLAN, ROBERT DOWNEY JR., TOM HOLLAND

CINECO (20) 11.30 AM + 2.30 + 5.30 + 8.30 + 11.30 PM SEEF (II) DAILY AT: 3.00 + 8.30 PM

RAMPAGE (PG-15) (ACTION/THRILLER/SCI-FICTION)

DWAYNE JOHNSON, JEFFREY DEAN MORGAN, WILL YUN LEE

CINECO (20) 10.30 AM + 12.45 + 3.00 + 5.15 + 7.30 + 9.45 PM + 12.00 MN

BREAKING IN (PG-15) (THRILLER/CRIME)

GABRIELLE UNION, BILLY BURKE, RICHARD CABRAL

CINECO (20) 11.15 AM + 1.15 + 3.15 + 5.15 + 7.15 + 9.15 + 11.15 PM

SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY (PG-15) (ACTION/ADVENTURE/FANTASY)

ALDEN EHRENREICH, WOODY HARRELSON, EMILIA CLARKE

CINECO (20) 12.30 + 3.15 + 6.00 + 8.45 + 11.30 PM

PETER RABBIT (PG) (ADVENTURE/COMEDY/FAMILY)

ROSE BYRNE, DOMHNALL GLEESON, SAM NEILL

CINECO (20) 11.00 AM + 1.00 + 3.00 + 5.00 + 7.00 + 9.00 + 11.00

LIFE OF THE PARTY (15+) (COMEDY)

MELISSA MCCARTHY, GILLIAN JACOBS, JULIE BOWEN

CINECO (20) 12.30 + 2.45 + 5.00 + 7.15 + 9.30 + 11.45 PM

A QUIET PLACE (15+) (THRILLER/HORROR/DRAMA)

EMILY BLUNT, JOHN KRASINSKI, NOAH JUPE

CINECO (20) 11.30 AM + 1.30 + 3.30 + 5.30 + 7.30 + 9.30 + 11.30 PM

MASHA & THE BEAR (G) (ANIMATION/ADVENTURE/COMEDY/FAMILY)

ANGELICA KEAMY, BORIS KUTNEVICH

CINECO (20) 11.15 AM + 4.00 + 8.45 PM

RAAZI(PG-15) (HINDI/THRILLER/DRAMA)

ALIA BHATT, VICKY KAUSHAL, JAIDEEP AHLAWAT

CINECO (20) 1.15 + 6.00 + 10.45 PM

TOMB RAIDER (PG-15) (ACTION/ADVENTURE)

ALICIA VIKANDER, HANNAH JOHN-KAMEN, WALTON GOGGINS

CINECO (20) 11.00 AM + 4.00 + 9.00 PM

SID & AYA: NOT A LOVE STORY (PG-15) (FILIPINO/ROMANTIC/DRAMA) NEW

ANNE CURTIS, DINGDONG DANTES

SEEF (II) DAILY AT: 11.45 AM + 1.45 + 3.45 + 5.45 + 7.45 + 9.45 + 11.45 PM

ABATTOIR (18+) (HORROR/THRILLER/CRIME) NEW

JESSICA LOWNDES, JOE ANDERSON, LIN SHAYE

SEEF (II) DAILY AT: 11.00 AM + 1.00 + 3.00 + 5.00 + 7.00 + 9.00 + 11.00 PM

at Seef District too

Um al Hassan +973 17728699

Seef District +973 17364999

SAABI/TABU - Male, 1.5 yrs, responds to both names, neutered, not wearing collar or ID tag, very friendly and affectionate - but may scratch if in painor scared, went outside and did not return, Saar (near Spartan Gym), 29/5/18. 36622879

ZOE - Female Persian mix, 2 yrs, spayed, microchipped, all white, wearing collar w bell - no ID tag, disappeared from garden, Awali (near Awali Church), BD100 REWARD for safe return, 6/2/18. 39609175

SOOZE - Male, 7 yrs, white with ginger spots and patches, blue eyes, neutered, microchipped, not wearing collar or ID tag, workers left front door open, Saar (Lamees Garden), 10/4/18. 39533150

MALTY - Male Shih Tzu, 6 yrs, mostly brown, wearing black colllar - no ID tag, very friendly, gate left open by contractor, Hamad Town (roundabout21), 7/2/18. 66334468

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MISSING PETS

Val Kilmer returning for ‘Top Gun: Maverick’IANS | Los Angeles

Actor Val Kilmer will bring back the character of the skilled fighter pilot (and beach volley-

ball player) Tom Kazansky aka Iceman for “Top Gun: Maverick”.

Actor Tom Cruise is also returning for the sequel to 1986’s “Top Gun”, the film that launched the actor as a global star, reports hollywoodreporter.com.

In the original film, Iceman was a rival to Maverick, before the pair even-tually became friends after earning each other’s grudging respect.

Cruise recently tweeted a photo-graph announcing that production had begun on the “Top Gun: Maverick”.

Joseph Kosinski will helm the se-quel, which follows fighter pilots dealing with a world in which drone technology is making their old style of flying obsolete.

German composer Harold Falter-meyer is also returning to the pro-duction. Val Kilmer

Lady Gaga shines in ‘A Star Is Born’ ANI | Los Angeles

Hollywood sensa-tion Lady Gaga has

stepped into the spotlight in the trailer of ‘A Star Is Born’, also starring Brad-ley Cooper. The 1937 film of the same name is about a star who helps an as-piring young actress find fame as he struggles with his own demons.

The trailer opened with musician Jackson Maine (Cooper) per-forming at an outdoor concert. When Maine discovers struggling art-ist Ally (Lady Gaga), he

believes that his luck has turned around. Footage is also shown of the pair falling in love as Ally’s

career begins to take off.In one scene, Maine

encourages Ally to take the stage with him.

‘A Star Is Born’ trailer

18

sports

FRIDAY, JUNE 8, 2018

Gold Medallists ready for Brave 13 in Belfast• Benjamin Bennett is the gold medallist from 2017 IMMAF World Championships

TDT | Manama

Brave Combat Federation will feature two gold medallists from IMMAF

World Championships at Brave 13: Europe Evolution hosted in Belfast.

Frans Mlambo who is an Irish national trains at SBG Ireland is a 2015 Gold Medallist at IMMAF World Championships while Benjamin Bennett is the gold medallist from 2017 IMMAF World Championships hosted in Bahrain. Mlambo will be facing Stephen Loman for the bantamweight championship at the main event of the fight night. He is currently on a three fight winning streak.

Meanwhile Benjamin Bennett

will be making his professional debut in Belfast. The 2017 IM-MAF gold medallist from the United States of America has an amateur record of 30-3-0.

Brave Combat Federation had also signed multiple med-allists and prospect from IMMAF World Championships includ-ing Hussain Ayyad and Akmat

Magomedov from Bahrain, Ab-dul Hussien from Finland and Hardeep Rai from the United Kingdom. Brave 13: Europe Evo-lution marks the entry of the Bahrain based Mixed Martial Arts organisation to Europe.

Brave Combat Federation is found by His Highness Shaikh Khalid bin Hamad Al Khalifa from the Royal family of Bah-rain.

IMMAF Champions Franns Mlambo and Benjamin Bennett

Windies untroubled in rain-curtailed morning session AFP | Port of Spain

Persistent rain limited play to just 43 minutes on the

second morning of the first Test between the West Indies and Sri Lanka in Trinidad yes-terday.

In the playing time available at the Queen’s Park Oval, West Indies advanced their first in-nings score by 22 runs without losing a wicket. They were 268 for six when showers drove the players off the field and forced an early lunch interval.

Shane Dowrich is on 57 with Devendra Bishoo on seven.

Rain had already delayed the start of play by 50 minutes and with more inclement weather

forecast, further interruptions are a distinct possibility.

With the second new ball in hand, Sri Lanka’s senior seam-er Suranga Lakmal and young fast-medium bowler Lahiru Gamage sought a much-need-ed breakthrough. However, Dowrich and Bishoo negotiat-ed the brief period without too much difficulty in extending their seventh-wicket partner-ship to 31.

After closing day one in watchful mode after captain Jason Holder was dismissed to end a 90-run fifth-wicket partnership, wicketkeeper Dowrich rapidly completed the sixth half-century of his 19-match Test career.

Parker looking forward to ‘war’ with Dillian Whyte

• Joseph Parker accepted a tough clash with Whyte in London on July 28

AFP | London

New Zealand’s former world heavyweight cham-

pion Joseph Parker says he is willing to wage war with next opponent Englishman Dillian Whyte and the hope it earns the winner a world title bout.

Parker, who lost his WBO

belt to Britain’s world cham-pion Anthony Joshua in their bout in Cardiff in March, has accepted a tough clash with Whyte in London on July 28.

However, the 26-year-old Kiwi has no regrets about ac-cepting the challenge against the 30-year-old Jamaica-born pugilist, who like Parker has lost to Joshua but pre the latter becoming world champion.

“The last time I was here it was a great experience fight-ing in Cardiff,” said Parker at a press conference in London announcing the fight yester-day.

Joseph Parker (R) with Dillian Whyte

Brave CF conducts open workoutsTDT | Manama

Brave Combat Federation conducted its first open

workouts in Europe. The event was attended by celebrities, businessmen, key governmen-tal officials and major athletes.

The open workout in Belfast was conducted at the St. Anne’s Square next to Ramada Encore ahead of the first event by the promotion in Europe.

The event was hosted as a prelude to Brave 13: Europe Evolution at the SSE Arena, Bel-fast on Saturday 9th June.

Eleven fighters took part in the open workout at the St Anne’s Square. The fighters showcased their skills and inter-acted with the fans, media and community groups. Members of the public were invited to come

along and interact with fight-ers including bantamweight champion, Stephen Loman from Philippines, Irish fighters Frans Mlambo and Myles Price and local MMA superstars Norman

Parke, Declan Dalton, Glen Ir-vine and Andy Young.

Open workouts were aimed to create a deeper understand-ing about the sport of Mixed Martial Arts and to promote a

healthy and disciplined lifestyle in the society.

Previously Brave CF had host-ed open workouts session in Brazil, which benefitted over 100 underprivileged children

Highlight of Open Workouts

BOC: Bahrain is ‘keen’ to compete at OlympicsTDT | Manama

Assistant Secretary Gener-al of the Supreme Coun-

cil for Youth and Sports, and Bahrain Olympic Committee (BOC) Secretary General Ab-dulrahman

Askar has revealed the com-mittee keenness to take part at the next Olympics Games, to be hosted in Tokyo, Japan in 2020.

This announcement came at his reception of Japanese Ambassador to Bahrain Hideki Ito at the BOC offices in Seef.

The meeting was as per di-rectives of HH Shaikh Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa, repre-sentative of His Majesty the

King for Charity Works and Youth Affairs,

Supreme Council for Youth and Sports Chairman, and BOC President, as Bahrain looks forward to make their marks at the Tokyo Olympics.

Abdulrahman Askar also expressed the committee’s willingness to support the or-ganising committee with all its capabilities in order to make this global event a very suc-cessful one.

On his part, the Japanese Ambassador thanked the com-mittee for its interest to take part and support the organ-isers, wishing the Kingdom of Bahrain progress and pros-perity.

Alaphilippe pips Martin to clinch Dauphine stage four

AFP | Lans-en-Vercors, France

Quick Step’s Julian Al-aphilippe beat a bevy of

top-drawer climbing talent to win the fourth stage of the Criterium du Dauphine in a summit finish in lashing rain yesterday.

S k y ’s G i a n n i Mo s c o n emerged as the new yellow jersey after finishing in the winning pack along with Ire-land’s Dan Martin, Welshman Geraint Thomas and the great French hope Romain Bardet of AG2R.

This first foray into the Alps saw an early escape which only ended with 400m to go when Martin dug in and caught the last survivor the Italian Dario Cataldo of Astana.

Martin, who rides for Emir-ates, went for the line setting a pace too hot for overnight

leader Michal Kwiatkowski. Despite losing a little ground, the Pole is still level second with Sky teammate Geraint Thomas at 6sec in the overall classification.

Martin, Bardet and Thomas were all overtaken a couple of metres before the finish line as Alaphilippe, who rides for Quickstep, timed his late burst to perfection.

France’s Julian Alaphilippe celebrates as he crosses the finish line

09is the overall standing

position of Romain Berdet

KNOW WHAT

KNOW WHAT

The fighters showcased their skills

and interacted with the fans, media and community groups

IMMAF gold medal-list Benjamin Ben-nett will be making

his professional debut in Belfast

Messi woos Griezmann, hopes Neymar stays AFP | Madrid

With Antoine Griezmann’s reported transfer to

Barcelona inching closer, Ar-gentine superstar Lionel Messi described the French striker as a “great player”, Spanish sports daily Mundo Deportivo reported yesterday.

“He is clearly a great player,” Messi said when asked about the Atletico Madrid striker, although he said he was “not

100 percent sure” if the French striker would make the move to Catalonia.

But Messi layed on the com-pliments for the diminutive No.9.

“Good players always have an understanding and he’s at an exceptional moment in his career,” said Messi.

The Barcelona man told Mundo Deportivo he hoped Real Madrid’s pursuit of Paris Saint Germain striker Neymar would come to nothing.

“The truth is that wouldn’t please me at all,” said Messi of the prospect of meeting his former teammate in Madrid’s all-white shirt.

Russia lowest ranked team at WCBBC | Moscow

Hosts Russia will enter their own World Cup as

the lowest-ranked side of all 32 teams competing in the tour-nament.

Russia had been ahead of Saudi Arabia when Fifa’s previ-ous standings were released in

May, but have slipped four plac-es to 70th in the new rankings.

England move up one place to joint 12th, alongside Denmark.

Gareth Southgate’s Three Li-ons will face Belgium, Tunisia and Panama in Group G, who are ranked third, 21st and 55th respectively in the list.

Reigning World Cup champi-ons Germany top the list with five-time winners Brazil sec-

ond, while Portugal and Argen-tina complete the top five.

The five top ranked sides who failed to qualify for the World Cup are Chile (ninth), Nether-lands (17th), Wales (18th), Italy (19th) and USA (25th).

Both Northern Ireland and Scotland have slipped in the rankings, with the former down two places to 29th while the latter drop eight places to 42nd.

Nadal cruises into semisRafael Nadal will face Juan Martin del Potro, for a place in French Open finalReuters | Paris

Rafael Nadal lost his first set at the French Open since 2015 but that blip

did not prevent the 10-times champion from marching into the semi-finals with a 4-6 6-3 6-2 6-2 victory over Diego Schwartzman in their rain-de-layed match yesterday.

The world number one had looked out of sorts in damp conditions on Wednesday as Schwartzman bombarded him with winners to cause him all sorts of problems, with the Ar-gentine leading by a set and a break when the players were first called off court due to rain.

Upon resumption, the Span-iard gradually improved before rain brought an early end to the day with Nadal on the brink of winning the second set.

It was a very different story when the contest resumed on Thursday in drier conditions as Nadal won 12 of the first 13 points before cruising into the last four.

The 16-times Grand Slam

champion will face another Ar-gentine, fifth seed Juan Martin del Potro, for a place in Sunday’s final.

“It was a very difficult match against a very good friend and a very good player. I think that after the rain interruption I played much better, I was more aggressive,” said Nadal.

Despite entering the contest

with a stupendous 83-2 win-loss record at Roland Garros, Nadal is known to suffer jitters early and Diego Schwartzman capi-talised on those nerves to break for a 2-1 lead in the opening set.

Nadal broke straight back by raising his own level.

But as the Spaniard struggled to win points on his first serve, he was broken again for 5-4 and Diego Schwartzman served for the set.

He fired long on a first set point, Nadal saved the second with a jaw-dropping drop shot but on the third, just after the match was interrupted for a few minutes while an unwell spec-tator was evacuated, Schwartz-man unleashed a stunning forehand winner down the line -- his 20th winner.

Nadal had both his wrists bandaged before the start of the second set but that failed to offer much help as he sent a forehand long to hand another break to Schwartzman, who led 40-0 in the following game, only for his opponent to break back.

19FRIDAY, JUNE 8, 2018

He is clearly a great player

LIONEL MESSI

16is the number of times that Rafael Nadal won the singles Grand Slam

titles

KNOW WHAT

The five top ranked sides who failed to qualify for the WC are Chile, Nether-lands, Wales, Italy and USA

Spain’s Rafael Nadal returns the ball to Argentina’s Diego Schwartzman

Halep to play Stephens

• Simona Halep beats Garbine Muguruza in the French Open semi-finals 6-1, 6-4

BBC | Paris

World number one Simo-na Halep has another

chance to finally land her first Grand Slam title after beat-ing Garbine Muguruza in the French Open semi-finals.

The Romanian, 26, won 6-1 6-4 against the Spanish third seed.

She will now face Sloane Stephens in Saturday’s final after the US Open champion beat Madison Keys 6-4 6-4.

Halep has lost three previ-ous Grand Slam finals, includ-

ing two at Roland Garros in 2014 and 2017.

The Romanian arrived in Paris as the top seed and the leading player on the WTA Tour this year, hoping this would be the moment she fi-nally lands her first major.

She further proved her cre-dentials with a dominant, yet gutsy, win over 2016 champion Muguruza, who failed to hold serve in the first set.

“I think I played one of my best matches on clay,” Halep said. “Every day I play better and that makes me happy.”

One thing Halep will not want to dwell on is the fact she has won only one of her past eight finals - including a defeat by Jelena Ostapenko in last year’s Roland Garros showpiece. Halep also lost to Maria Sharapova in 2014.

Romania’s Simona Halep celebrates after victory

Players of the Russian national football team attend a training session

Lionel Messi of Argentina

England’s Rose reveals battle with depressionAFP | London

England World Cup left-back Danny Rose has been bat-

tling with depression which even his parents did not know about until he told the British media this week.

The 27-year-old Tottenham Hotspur defender -- who has told his family to stay away from the finals in Russia later this month because of fears they would be racially abused -- had his depression exacerbated by the suicide of an uncle and one of his brothers narrowly es-caping being shot at the family home.

“It’s no secret that I’ve been through a testing time at Totten-ham this season,” Rose told re-porters at England’s pre-World Cup finals training camp.

“It led to me seeing a psy-chologist and I was diagnosed with depression, which nobody

knows about.“I haven’t told my mum or

my dad, and they are probably going to be really angry reading this, but I’ve kept it to myself until now.”

Rose, who was not happy at Spurs medical team’s treatment of a knee injury last year which

eventually saw him undergo an operation four months after be-ing told it was unnecessary, said the only respite he had from his battle with depression had been when he was with the Eng-land squad and manager Gareth Southgate.

However, despite his reser-

vations about the advice he was given over his knee injury he does credit the Spurs doctor for referring him to a psychologist in order to help cure his de-pression.

“My uncle killed himself in the middle of my rehab, and that triggered the depression as well,” said Rose.

“Off the field there have been other incidents: back home in August my mum was racially abused in Doncaster. She was very angry and upset about it, and then someone came to the house and nearly shot my broth-er in the face -- a gun was fired at my house.

“England has been my sal-vation and I can’t thank the manager and the medical staff enough. It was really hard, and being referred to a doctor and psychologist by the Spurs club doctor helped me massively to cope.”

I haven’t told my mum or my

dad, and they are probably going to

be really angry reading this, but

I’ve kept it to myself until now

DANNY ROSE England’s defender Danny Rose attends a open media day

‘Sane’s snub makes no sense’Reuters | Munich

Germany manager Joachim Loew’s decision to pick

Julian Brandt over Leroy Sane in the nation’s 23-man squad for the World Cup makes no sense, former captain Michael Ballack has said.

Sane had his best season for Manchester City last campaign, scoring 10 goals to help the club seal the Premier League title and earning a PFA Young Player of the Year award in the process.

However, Germany Manager Loew said a “tight decision”

had to be made between him and Bayer Leverkusen winger Brandt for Germany’s World Cup contingent.

“I can’t explain that. For me there is no photo finish. I can’t see it,” Ballack told British me-dia.

Leory Sane

England ‘have 4 per cent chance of winning in Russia’BBC | London

England have less chance of winning the Fifa

World Cup than Peru, ac-cording to sports data com-pany Gracenote.

The Peruvians who are ranked 11th in the world - two places ahead of Eng-land - have been given a 5 per cent chance of lift-ing the trophy in Moscow on 15 July, while Gareth Southgate’s side have a 4pc chance, the same as Belgium and Portugal.

Five-time champions Bra-zil are favourites with a 21 pc chance of winning the tournament, ahead of Spain, Germany and Argentina.

England face Tunisia, Panama and Belgium in Group G and they have a 71 pc chance of reaching the knock-out rounds.

Midfielder Mesut Ozil to skip Germany’s final warm-up gameReuters | Munich

Midfielder Mesut Ozil will miss Germany’s fi-

nal World Cup warm-up game against Saudi Arabia today so that he can recover from a minor knee injury, manager Oliver Bierhoff said yesterday.

“That knock on the knee is something you don’t want to risk (in a friendly match),” Bi-erhoff told reporters on the last day of their training camp in northern Italy.

“He has been sprinting and the knee is absolutely no issue for the World Cup. We still have a bit of time and it is noth-ing dramatic.”

The 2014 World Cup win-ner has also had to deal with a barrage of criticism in Ger-many after he was pictured with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan.

Ozil caused a furore in Ger-many last month after photos taken in London showed him and Germany team mate Ilkay Gundogan beaming while they presented Erdogan with shirts from their Premier League clubs - Arsenal and Manches-ter City.

The photos unleashed a storm of criticism from law-makers across Germany’s po-litical spectrum and the foot-ball federation.

20FRIDAY, JUNE 8, 2018

P L A Y E R O F T H E D A Y

Gylfi Sigurdsson Iceland’s talismanic midfield playmaker has been named his country’s footballer of the year for the last five years running. Sigurdsson supplied four goals and as many assists in the team’s Russia 2018 qualifying campaign.

‘Individual stars are good, but we’re not a team’

Reuters | Sao Paolo

Brazil may be five-time winners of the World Cup and joint-favourites

to make it six in Russia this year but the South Americans do not yet have the right blend for success, three-time World Cup winner Pele said on Wednesday.

Brazil have lost once in 20 games since coach Tite took over almost two years ago but he has been forced to chop and change his side in recent friend-

lies due to injuries.“I have the utmost confidence

in Tite’s ability,” Pele said. “My worry is about one thing; there are only a few days until the World Cup starts and we still don’t have the right team. Indi-vidually all the players are very good. But we’re not a team.”

Talismanic forward Neymar injured a foot and ankle in Feb-ruary and full-back Dani Alves dropped out the squad due to a knee injury. Renato Augusto and Douglas Costa picked up strains

that kept them out of Sunday’s 2-0 win over Croatia.

Neymar returned at halftime in that match to lead Brazil to victory and Pele, the only player to have won the World Cup three times, said the Paris Saint-Germain striker was ca-pable of inspiring Brazil to the title in Russia.

“Neymar is to me one of the best players in the world,” Pele said.

“Today he is more mature and he has more experience but he

isn’t going to win the World Cup on his own. It’s teams that win the World Cup.”

“The greatest Brazil team of all-time was the one in 1970, with Tostao, Rivellino, Gerson and Pele all wearing the number 10 shirts for their clubs. In the 1970 World Cup we spent more than six months together. That’s why it worked.”

Brazil have played only three friendlies this year and face one final warm-up match on Sunday against Austria in Vienna.

Pele (file picture)

My worry is about one thing; there

are only a few days until the

World Cup starts and we still don’t

have the right team. Individually all the players are

very good. But we’re not a team

PELE

Group C: Favourable draw for Les BleusTEAMS:France : FIFA ranking: 7 best achievement: Champion 1998Coach: Didier Deschamps

Australia : FIFA ranking: 36Best achievement: Round of 16 2006Coach: Bert Van Marwijk

Peru : FIFA ranking: 11Best achievement: Quarter-fi-nals 1970, 1978Coach: Ricardo Gareca

Denmark: FIFA ranking: 12Best achievement: Quarter-fi-nals 1998Coach: Age Hareide

KEY GAMEDenmark-France, (26 June

2018, Luzhniki Stadium) This duel between two high-

ly fancied European sides will likely be given top billing dur-ing the third round of games in Group C. The countries know each other well, having gone head-to-head on the World Cup

stage on two previous occasions, both times in the final match of the group.

What you need to knowFrance and Peru have only

ever faced each other once be-fore, on 28 April 1982 at the Parc des Princes. In what served as a

preparatory match for the forth-coming World Cup in Spain, Michel Platini and Co lost 1-0, with Juan Carlos Oblitas scor-ing for the South Americans in the 82nd minute.

“Last time around, everyone said that it was a fantastic draw, even some of our players, but we’re not going to get through it just by clicking our fingers,” said Didier Deschamps after the Draw. The wily coach was clearly keen to keep feet in the French camp firmly on the ground.

He may have reason to do so, as according to the latest FIFA World Ranking in November, Group C is in fact the most chal-lenging pool of Russia 2018, fea-turing France, Australia, Peru and Denmark.

Kylian Mbappe of France

3The number of World

Cups in which Tim Cahill of Australia has found the

back of the net

Germany’s midfielder Mesut Ozil stretches during a training session

KNOW WHAT

Ozil has also had to deal with a bar-rage of criticism in Germany after he was pictured with Turkish President

Tayyip Erdogan

“We were robbed!” Panama WC team hotel raided

• Police say objects worth around 53,000 euros were taken from three rooms

AFP | Oslo

At around the time that World Cup minnows Pan-

ama were playing Norway this week, thieves were busy rifling their Oslo hotel rooms, police told AFP on Thursday.

The Panamanian football federation tweeted: “Three #Panamayor hotel rooms were robbed in Oslo, Norway. Nor-wegian police are at the scene

looking for clues.”Police say objects worth

around 53,000 euros ($62,000) were taken from three rooms in a downtown Oslo hotel, ex-plaining thieves are thought to have used an old magnetic room key or a stolen one and that video footage would be examined.

Police spokeswoman Aslaug Rohne said the robbery proba-bly took place at the same time as Panama were being beaten by Norway on Wednesday in a match that ended 1-0.

Panama will make their World Cup debut in Russia, where the central Americans will face England, Belgium and Tunisia in Group G.

Nigeria fall to Czech Republic, 1-0• Nigeria opening group game against Croatia

Espn | Schwechat

Tomas Kalas’s first-half win-ner condemned an unin-

spiring Nigeria to a 1-0 defeat in their final pre-World Cup friendly at the Rudolf Tonn Stadium in Schwechat, Austria on Wednesday. It was a second successive defeat in four days for the Super Eagles, a disap-pointing conclusion to prepa-rations ahead of a sixth World Cup appearance for the West

Africans, who have to improve ahead of their opening group game against Croatia on June 16.

Despite expectedly making two changes in midfield from

the England defeat, with John Ogu and the returning Wilfred Ndidi coming into the line-up for Ogenyi Onazi and Joel Obi, the alterations did little in im-

proving the Eagles’ fortunes.Nigeria were living danger-

ously early on, conceding seven corner kicks within the opening 17 minutes. Abdullahi Shehu also had to produce goal-saving blocks to deny Josef Sural an opener.

Highlight of Nigeria vs Czech Republic match

6days to go……