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www.thepeninsula.qa

Volume 24 | Number 8162

Road development works for Al Rayyan and Al Bayt Stadiums completeTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

The Public Works Authority (Ashghal) has announced the completion of development works for the roads leading to Al Rayyan Stadium, and the roads surrounding Al Bayt Stadium. All roads within the two projects are open to traffic to provide a smooth traffic in the area and facilitate access to the two stadiums that will host a number of the 2022 World Cup matches.

On this occasion, Manager of the Roads Projects Department at Ashghal, Eng. Saoud Al Tamimi said that the opening of the roads for Al Bayt and Al Rayyan Sta-diums before the completion of the stadiums’ construction works is an evidence of Ashghal’s com-mitment to implement the infra-structure and roads that serve Qatar’s hosting of the 2022 World Cup, and to deliver them within the planned schedules, stating that the two projects play a stra-tegic role in providing a direct link to the stadiums.

Al Tamimi also stressed that

the completion of road works for Al Bayt and Al Rayyan Sta-diums will significantly con-tribute to improving traffic in the area and reducing congestion during periods of hosting sporting events in the country. He explained that the projects facilitate access to bus and car parks around the two stadiums, and connect with many important arterial roads such as Al Khor Road and Al Egda Street, as well as Dukhan Highway and Celebrations Street.

Ashghal’s Supervisor for the Roads Surrounding Al Bayt Stadium Project, Eng. Hamad Al Bader said that the project

includes the construction of roads at a total length of 13km, 5.4km of which are roads sur-rounding Al Bayt Stadium from the four sides and consisting of three lanes in each direction. The roads provide direct con-nection with main roads such as Al Khor Road and Al Egda Street.

In order to facilitate the spectators’ access to Al Bayt Stadium area, bus and car access points were provided to the designated parking spaces around the stadium, and they include six entrances with traffic lights to regulate the movement of cars inside the parking spaces, in addition to 19 designated bus entrances.

Shared pedestrian and cycle paths of 11 km in length and 8.5 meters in width were constructed, in addition to installing lighting systems using energy saving LED lights that aesthetically fit the stadium lighting, installing ITS, afforestation and landscaping in the area surrounding the stadium. �P3

Shura Council Speaker reaffirms Qatar’s support for rights of PalestiniansQNA — AMMAN

Speaker of the Shura Council, H E Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid Al Mahmoud renewed the position of the State of Qatar and the Qatari people led by Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani that supported the rights of the Palestinians and all peace efforts within the framework of international legitimacy.

In his speech at the 30th extraordinary conference of Arab Inter-Parliamentary Union (APU) on supporting the Palestinian brothers in their just cause, His Excellency said that the State of Qatar and the Qatari people led by H H the Amir have been and are still sup-porting the Palestinian people in the besieged Gaza Strip and in the West Bank, and that Qatar did not and will not abandon them out of its belief in their right and in fulfilment of its moral responsibility to stand with the truth and support the oppressed.

He stressed Qatar’s support for all peace endeavours, and that it welcomed all efforts made to find solutions to the

cause within the framework of international legitimacy and the relevant United Nations reso-lutions that lead to reaching solutions by the two parties under international and regional auspices.

H E the Speaker of the Shura Council affirmed that it is not the right of any regime or entity to act in the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, to relinquish any inch of the occupied land or to impose an unilateral opinion or solution.

He pointed out that the res-toration of our rights comes only through the concerted efforts and our full support of the Palestinian people that rep-resents our first steadfast line of defence, especially in the face of what is known as the deal of the century, which is the unilateral American initiative that does not meet the rights of the Palestinian people and is not based on international legitimacy decisions, the Arab peace initiative that have been put forward since 2002, Oslo agreement or any previous agreement or endeavour.

He pointed out that what is known as the deal of the

century has been rejected by the Palestinian people with all its factions who called on us to stand with them.

His Excellency reaffirmed that the Arab peace initiative laid a set of foundations for peace, and that peace is pos-sible as long as it is just and sus-tainable — a peace that restores the right of the Palestinian people, guarantees the estab-lishment of an independent state on its land on the borders of June 4, 1967 with East Jeru-salem as its capital, guarantees the right of return, remuner-ative compensation for the martyrs, the wounded and the prisoners, and guarantees the release of those who remained in prison.

H E the Speaker called on the conference’s participants to unite all efforts in support of Palestinians in all fields, in order for them not to be at the mercy of the occupying entity that threatens economic measures and to prevent such measures from becoming a col-lective punishment that exac-erbates the economic, health and educational situation in the occupied territories. �P2

Speaker of the Shura Council, H E Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid Al Mahmoud addressing the Arab Inter-Parliamentary Union conference in Amman, yesterday.

Health Minister briefed on preventive measures for novel coronavirusQNA — DOHA

Minister of Public Health, H E Dr. Hanan Mohammed Al Kuwari, was briefed on health sector’s ongoing preventive measures and monitoring for cases of the novel coronavirus during a visit to Hamad Medical Corporation’s (HMC) Communicable Disease Center (CDC) yesterday.

The Ministry of Public Health is working with HMC and Primary Health Care Cor-poration in close collaboration with all stakeholders, including Qatar Airways and Hamad International Airport, to ensure appropriate measures are in place to protect Qatar’s popu-lation from the novel corona-virus that has caused an epi-demic in China and has spread to other countries.

During her visit, Her Excel-lency received an update on the ongoing measures in place across the country to manage the threat of novel coronavirus 2019. The CDC was opened in 2016 and is the first facility of its kind

in the region. The purpose-built facility is equipped to care for patients with rare or unknown, highly communicable diseases and any patient with suspected novel coronavirus 2019 is admitted to the CDC while awaiting their test results.

There are no confirmed cases of novel coronavirus 2019 in Qatar and the risk remains low for residents who have not trav-elled to China in the past 14 days. Qatar has taken all required pre-ventive measures and is closely following the protocols and guidelines set out by interna-tional bodies, including the World Health Organisation.

While the risk for infection remains low, any resident who experiences fever, cough, shortness of breath, or difficulty breathing, and has traveled to China, or had contact with an infected person, in the last 14 days should immediately call the MoPH hotline on 6674 0948 or 6674 0951 for further assistance or visit their nearest primary health center. �P3

Thai soldiershoots dead 20people, holesup in mall

AP — NAKHON RATCHASIMA, THAILAND

A soldier who holed up in a popular shopping mall in northeastern Thailand shot multiple people yesterday, killing at least 20 and injuring 31 others, officials said.

Police said they have secured the mall, and Public Health Minister Anutin Charn-virakul said there were no more bodies left inside. But he added, “we don’t know whether there are any addi-tional injuries or deaths or not.” He did not say whether the shooter had been found.

Anutin said a doctor was shot while helping an injured person.

The gunman, described by police as a soldier angry over a land dispute, appeared to be armed with an assault rifle, based on security camera video aired on Thai Rath tele-vision. Thai Rath said the incident began at about 3:30pm. �P12

The projects facilitate access to bus and car parks around the two stadiums, and connect with many important arterial roads.

Over 40 tonnes of honey sold during Souq Waqif ExhibitionSIDI MOHAMED THE PENINSULA

Over 40 tonnes of honey was sold during the 10-day third Souq Waqif Honey Exhibition 2020 which concluded yesterday. Also, dozens of trade deals were signed on the side-lines of the exhibition between the local and foreign companies.

“The Exhibition witnessed great success this year, whether in terms of sales or in terms of number of Qatari and foreign participating companies,” said General Supervisor of Souq Waqif Honey Exhibition, Khalid Saif Al Suwaidi.

He also added that the sales this year increased by over five tonnes compared to last year as in 2019 around 35 tonnes of honey had been sold. “It indi-cates the success of the exhi-bition,” said Al Suwaidi.

The 10-day event was organised by the Private Engi-neering Office (PEO) in coop-eration with the Ministry of Commerce and Industry and with the participation of the

Ministry of Municipality and Environment. Over 150 com-panies from 37 countries show-cased over 50 varieties of honey in the exhibition.

“The exhibition increased its space this year by 50 percent compared to last year. This year many developments especially the organisation of the event has given Qatar a good reputation. Many Qatari companies signed deals with foreign companies, according to which special types of honey will be imported which are rare and not known in the country,” said Al Suwaidi.

He further pointed out that Qatari companies had proven their competitiveness in the market with their good honey products. “There are rare types of honey which will be imported like Manuka honey, which is available in small quantities. Four companies have signed deals to import Manuka honey from New Zealand. There is also honey from Spain and others that will be imported to the Qatari market.”

Regarding the competitions

held during the Exhibition, he said that for local companies, Warathat Ahmed Rashid Al Kuwari won the first place with QR10,000 prize while the second place was won by Mahaseel with QR7,500 prize and Abdul Hamid Al Ansari won the third prize of QR,5000.

As for foreign companies, the first position was won by a company from Belarus while Azerbaijani and Libyan com-panies secured second and third positions respectively.

The exhibition showcased more than 50 types of honey of which 10 were displayed for the first time in the exhibition. The local companies participated in the event due to superior quality of their honey. For the first time, countries like Sweden, Denmark, and the US participated in the exhibition.

The exhibition also included an Omani laboratory to check the quality of honey. According to the Ministry of Municipality and Environment statistics, Qatar’s production of honey has reached 45 tonnes annually.

02 SUNDAY 9 FEBRUARY 2020HOME

Speaker of Shura Council meets Palestinian, Iraqi counterparts

QNA — AMMAN

The Speaker of the Shura Council, H E Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid Al Mahmoud, met yesterday with the Speaker of the Palestinian National

Council, H E Saleem Zaanoun, on the sidelines of the 30th extraordinary conference of Arab Inter-Parliamentary Union (APU) being held in Jordan.

They reviewed parlia-mentary cooperation relations

and ways of enhancing existing cooperation in this field, in addition to discussing the most important topics on the agenda of the conference.On the side-lines of the 30th extraordinary conference of Arab Inter-Par-

liamentary Union , the Speaker of the Shura

Council, H E Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid Al Mahmoud, met with the Speaker of Iraq’s Council of Representatives, H E Mohammad Al Halbousi. H E the

Speaker and the Speaker of Iraq’s Council of Representa-tives, reviewed parliamentary cooperation relations between the two countries and ways of enhancing them, in addition to issues on the conference’s

agenda. The two meetings were attended by the chairman of the Qatari-Arab parlia-mentary friendship committee, Saqr bin Fahd Al Muraikhi, and a number of the Shura Coun-cil’s members.

‘Arab position totally rejectsso-called deal of the century’QNA — AMMAN

The Speaker of the Shura Council, H E Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid Al Mahmoud, stressed that Arab position at all levels of government, parliament and people totally rejects the so-called deal of the century.

Talking to reporters on the side-lines of his participation in the 30th extraordinary conference of Arab Inter-Parliamentary Union (APU) in Jordan, His Excellency said that the deal of the century is rejected because it does not meet the basic require-ments of the Palestinian people, pointing to the united Arab position regarding the Palestinian cause as there is an agreement among all on the establishment of two states living

side by side in peace.He added that there will be no

solution to peace without establishing an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital, stressing that this is the clear and consistent Arab position.

H E the Speaker of the Shura Council stressed that the State of Qatar, under the leadership of Amir

H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, has clear stance regarding the Palestinian cause, which is Qatar stands with the Palestinian people, with the rights of the Palestinian people, and with any solution to peace, provided that it fulfils the basic con-ditions for the establishment of the Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Ministry of Foreign Affairsto organise severalactivities on Sport DayQNA — DOHA

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs will organise at the Diplomatic Club on Tuesday a variety of activities on the occasion of the National Sport Day which represents a unique and an unprecedented initiative in the region and the world.

The Ministry’s programme will feature various sports including football, volleyball, basketball and tennis, in addition to using exercise machines with help of coaches, horse and camel riding, bicycles, as well as popular games and activities for children.

The Ministry noted that since 2012, Qatar and its embassies abroad have organised programmes and sports activities in public squares in various capitals and cities, where there are embassies, consulates and attaches to the State of Qatar, to mark the occasion of the National Sport Day.

The Ministry said that the interest in the Sport Day stems from its awareness of the growing role of sports in

building healthy people that can strongly and effectively con-tribute to the process of devel-opment and growth, stressing that sports is one of the most important pillars of Qatar National Vision 2030.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs underlined that Qatar is fully aware that sports diplomacy complements the role of official diplomacy in building bridges of communi-cation and bonds of love between nations, and in deep-ening social and cultural ties between peoples.

It noted that Qatar’s interest in sports was manifested at its best in the unprecedented ini-tiative in the region and the world launched by the wise leadership in 2011 when an Amiri Decree stating the second Tuesday in February each year to be the National Sport Day and an official holiday, to ensure a wide participation and consol-idate the cultures of sports and health lifestyle.

The Ministry underlined that Qatar continues its preparations to host the 2022 World Cup in accordance with the plans.

Shura Council Speaker reaffirms Qatar’s support for rights of Palestinians

FROM PAGE 1H E the Speaker said that they

will have no role if they give up sol-idarity and the values of cooperation and coordination efforts, and support those who defend such values and us.

His Excellency added that this conference comes in support of the truth and justice regarding persisting attempts and endeavors by the occupying entity and its sponsors to barter the fate of the steadfast Pal-estinian people, the blood of their martyrs and the suffering of their captives for more than seven decades.

He stated that this cause is facing the last chapter of a series of measures and decisions that flout

international legitimacy, laws, agreements, and peace endeavors, along with the continuing injustice of the occupying entity, which con-tinued to escalate, abuse, and mul-tiply the suffering of our brothers in the occupied territories day after day, besides its present actions to expand in the West Bank and Jordan Valley and the northern Dead Sea, adding that the deprivation of the residents of Jerusalem from partic-ipating in the elections is only another form of the current escalation.

The Palestinian people have made enormous sacrifices and reached numerous agreements and understandings with the occupying entity, but this entity does not

respect them, Al Mahmoud added. At the end of his speech, H E

expressed his thanks and that of the Shura Council delegation to HM King Abdullah II and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan government, parliament and people for responding to the Palestinian call and for the custodianship of Jeru-salem holy sites as well as for the generous hospitality and good reception.

He also expressed his thanks to the Speaker of the Jordanian Par-liament and President of Arab Inter-Parliamentary Union (APU) Atef Al Tarawneh, and to the APU Secre-tariat for the kind invitation to par-ticipate in this important conference.

Cattle vie for top spot today at Halal Qatar FestTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

The 9th Halal Qatar Festival will hold today the competitions for local animals in the categories, like most beautiful local camel, at Katara Cultural Village.

Another competition is ‘weight compe-tition’. The participants of this competition can register on the festival website. Animals will be received on the same day from 12 to 3pm, said a release.

The small shepherd competition also witnessed great turnout of participants in which Ghanem Khadr Al Anazi, Rashid Mahmoud Al Enazi, and Saud Abdullah Al Anazi received first, second and third place respectively.

The Young Shepherd competition is participated by children from 10 to 14 years old, in which the participant to prepare goats for milking and choose the best wool. The competition aims to test the infor-mation of children related to raising sheep and cattle and related skills and experience.

The festival attracted a large number of visitors from different nationalities and groups, and families visited the festival along their children.

There are designated area for children’s games that include a number of modern games and huge rubber sculptures (hoppers), in addition to providing an opportunity for children to ride horses and Arabian camels.

There are large spaces in the festival square for children to enjoy horse riding, pony and camel and bring joy and pleasure into their hearts.

The traditional food shops and the popular Qatari sweets also attract visitors from different nationalities, categories and ages, as the area dedicated to selling famous items witnesses a great turnout by the public, whether citizens, residents or tourist groups, especially in the evening time.

These stores offer the most popular foods and dishes such as puree, marqouqa, biryani, porridge, and other traditional foods, in addition to the presence of modern food restaurants, juices and sweets.

With the opening of the nine-day fes-tival, the southern area of Katara has become a one-stop shop vibrant with many activities including Al Mazad — public auction of Halal (sheep and goats), Al Izab — barns where different breeds of halal

such as Syrian and Arab sheep are show-cased, and the Al Mazain — a competition for the most beautiful sheep and goats as its main features.

Different breeds of sheep and goats were showcased in 10 enclosures as public auctions of and competitions among the best breeds of sheep went underway yes-terday at the festival.

A Bedouin tent where the process of tra-ditional weaving (Al Sadu) is being dem-onstrated, from spinning the sheared sheep’s wool to dyeing to weaving using a ground loom is one of the attractions at the festival. Traditional costumes and hand-woven products with traditional Sadu pat-terns such as bags and boxes are on display at the tent.

A participant with his goat during the small shepherd competition at the festival.

The Speaker of the Shura Council, H E Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid Al Mahmoud, met with the Speaker of the Palestinian National Council, H E Saleem Zaanoun, and the Speaker of Iraq’s Council of Representatives, H E Mohammad Al Halbousi, on the sidelines of the 30th extraordinary conference of Arab Inter-Parliamentary Union (APU), in Amman, Jordan.

Police College welcomes 5th Class of University Graduates’ Course

QNA — DOHA Qatar’s Police College welcomed yesterday its 5th class of inductees into its civil universities graduates.

The class has 101 trainees from the Ministry of Interior, Lekhwiya, Qatar Amiri Guard. The course is six months long.

The Director of the Training Departmentat the college, Major Fahd Al Subaei, said that the course adds to the trainees security-related skills, to

bolster the knowledge they obtained in their universities.

He added that the aim of the course was to help the par-ticipants experience military life and cultivate leadership skills. He added that the course offered to university students saw the addition of modern training activities such as basic skills to fight in populated areas as well as intensifying the sports program and adding martial arts skills.

Qatar’s Police College welcomed yesterday its 5th class of inductees into its civil universities graduates.

FAJR SUNRISE 04.55 am 06.13 am

W A L R U WA I S : 18o↗ 23o W A L K H O R : 17o↗ 25o W D U K H A N : 18o↗ 23o W D O H A : 17o↗ 26o W M E S A I E E D 17o↗ 26o W A B U S A M R A 18o↗ 23o

PRAYER TIMINGS WEATHER TODAY

HIGH TIDE 04:56 – 15:45 LOW TIDE 12:30 – 23:31

Moderate temperature daytime and scattered clouds with a chance of light rain by evening and slight dust at times, cold by night.

Minimum Maximum17oC 26oC

ZUHRMAGHRIB

11.48 am05.26 pm

ASR ISHA

03.00 pm06.56 pm

03SUNDAY 9 FEBRUARY 2020 HOME

Health Minister visits HMC's Communicable Disease Center

The Minister of Public Health, H E Dr. Hanan Mohammed Al Kuwari, with the staff at HMC’s Communicable Disease Center, discussing the healthcare sector’s ongoing preventive measures and monitoring for cases of the Novel Coronavirus 2019.

The Public Works Authority (Ashghal) has announced the completion of development works for the roads leading to Al Rayyan Stadium, and the roads surrounding Al Bayt Stadium.

Road development works for Al Rayyan and Al Bayt Stadiums complete

FROM PAGE 1

Eng. Hamad Al Bader pointed out Ashghal’s keenness to improve traffic movement in the areas adjacent to Al Bayt Stadium. It developed Al Egda Street by increasing the number of its lanes to three in each direction.

This is in addition to con-structing a pedestrian path that is 4.4km long and 3 metres wide on both sides of the road, starting from the roundabout at the entrance of Al Khor City until Al Bayt Stadium’s Northwest side, while pro-viding a link to Al Khor Road, which is the main road to reach Al Bayt Stadium.

In addition to roadworks, the project included the con-struction of a sewage network with a length of 2.2 km, a sep-arate stormwater drainage network and an irrigation network using TSE to irrigate the area leading to the stadium and its surroundings, which in turn is connected to the existing network near Al Khor Corniche.

Eng. Hamad Al Bader also noted that Ashghal is currently implementing development works on Ras Al Nouf Street leading to Al Farkiyah Street with a length of 1.5 km. All projects works are planned to

be completed at the end of Q3, 2020.

Eng. Mohammed Al Ateeq, Ashghal’s supervisor for the project implementation, noted that the project works included developing the roads leading to Al Rayyan Stadium which provide a direct link to and from the stadium, with a total length of about 5 km and includes two lanes in each direction.

Three signal-controlled intersections and one round-about were constructed to facilitate access to Mall of Qatar, Al Majd Road, and the roads connecting to the Cele-brations Street. This comes in an aim to serve these vital des-tinations and Al Rayyan Hotel, as well as to facilitate movement of spectators between these destinations and the stadium, in addition to enhancing the capacity of the roads that are witnessing an increase in traffic density.

This project significantly helps link Al Rifaa area with the neighboring areas and facili-tates access to the vital centres adjacent to the new roads such as Mall of Qatar, Al Rifaa Cele-brations Complex and Al Rayyan Sports Club.

One of the most important features of the project is its link

with Al Rifaa Metro Station, which is located at the Gate of Mall of Qatar, which serves vis-itors, business owners, fans and event organisers heading to and from Mall of Qatar, as well as Al Rayyan Stadium during the matches.

Eng. Mohammed Al Ateeq pointed out that the project also included the implementation of a 10-km surface water drainage network, a 3-km sewage network in addition to installation of 339 electricity poles, diversion of existing infrastructure services, instal-lation of traffic lights, signs and road markings.

This is in addition to affor-estation and beautification works in the areas adjacent to the roads, on an area of 70,000 square metres including 216 trees and 1,300 shrubs. A 7-km irrigation network and a 2-km potable water network were also constructed.

Eng. Mohammed also stressed that in order to encourage the practice of sports activities, the project included providing pedestrian paths with a length of 10 km and a width of 10 metre, dedi-cated cycle paths with a length of 513 metres, and running paths with a length of 513 metres.

Doha Institute for Graduate Studies holds English Language SeminarTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

The Doha Institute for Graduate Studies (DI) held its first English Language Seminar on February 6, titled Teaching across the Curriculum.

The Language Center at the DI welcomed around 80 English language teachers from various universities, col-leges, and schools within Doha to this one-day event.

The opening speech and welcoming remarks were given by Dr. Alaa El Gibali, Director of the Language Center at the DI. In his speech, he stated that language ability of students must meet the challenges of critical thinking in both English and Arabic, specifically the challenge of transfer with respect to the skills necessary to deliver and complete academic tasks.

He highlighted the impor-tance of higher education institutions paying attention to these aspects of language acquisition and use as a means to empowering their students to be proficient consumers and

producers of knowledge. The first session was given by Dr. Dudley Reynolds, Teaching Professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar, and was on ‘Teaching for Transfer: Moving Beyond Task Authenticity in EAP’. In his talk he highlighted that curriculum design should promote transfer of learning from the language classroom to disciplinary study, but ques-tioned whether task authen-ticity is adequate.

His talk began by consid-ering what is meant when we talk about “transfer” in lan-guage learning, whether it is desirable, from where to where transfer occurs, and what can be transferred. He also illustrated specific tech-niques for promoting transfer beyond role plays and authentic tasks.

The second session was delivered by Dr. Okon Effiong, Lecturer at Qatar University, and was titled ‘Today’s lan-guage classroom: How much is too much’. He highlighted that addressing concerns in

the language classroom requires a closer look at what the teacher does, the learner response, and the relevance of such instruction to the larger society.

He examined contextual appropriateness, support structure, and the link between curriculum and the job market. He also sought input from attendees, obtaining multiple perspec-tives on issues affecting lan-guage teaching in the 21st century with specific focus on the region.

The final session was pre-sented by Dr. Mick King, Chair of the English Language Center, Community College of Qatar. The seminar supports the Language Center’s mission in developing linguistic and cultural capacities for excel-lence in knowledge pro-duction. It also falls within the context of the DI’s community outreach initiative and con-tributes to enhancing commu-nication between the Institute, individuals, and organisations in the Doha community.

04 SUNDAY 9 FEBRUARY 2020HOME

Qatar Chamber delegation reviews ties with Northern IrelandTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

A delegation from Qatar Chamber led by Second Vice-Chairman, Rashid bin Hamad Al Athba paid a visit to Northern Ireland to enhance cooperation in economic and commercial cooperation with Northern Ireland and with the United Kingdom (UK) in general.

The delegation also included QC board members Mohamed Mahdi Al Ahbabi and Mohamed bin Ahmed Al Obaidli. The British ambassador to Qatar, Ajay Sharma, was also present.

The delegation visited many institutions, government, and private companies including Investment Authority, Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce, Queen University, Ulster Uni-

versity and Parliament.The delegation also held a

meeting with Northern Ireland Minister for Economy, Diane Dodds. The meeting reviewed means of strengthening economic,

investment cooperation, and investment opportunities available in Northern Ireland.

In statements, Al Athba said that Qatari business owners are interested to identify investment opportunities available in Northern Ireland and to establish businesses in Belfast.

He stressed the strong relations between Qatar and the UK, pointing to the visit of Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani to UK in Sep-tember, which reflected the dist inguished relations between both countries.

Al Athba pointed out to the trade volume between both countries reached about $2.9bn in 2018 and $3bn in the first three quarters last year.

British Ambassador to Qatar, Ajay Sharma, with members of Qatar Chamber during their visit to Northern Ireland.

Ooredoo most awarded company at QSE Investor Relations Excellence eventTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

For the fifth year in a row, Ooredoo has been a winner at the Qatar Stock Exchange (QSE) Investor Relations Excellence Awards, in a ceremony held on Wednesday. This year, Ooredoo has been recognised as a leader in these categories: “Best CFO”, “Best Investor Relations Officer”, and “Best overall IR”. The Ooredoo IR website was ranked first in the “Best IR Website” category, said the company in press release

yesterday. The awards high-light the merits of Ooredoo Group’s senior management and the investor relations team.

Sheikh Saud bin Nasser Al Thani, Group Chief Executive Officer, said: “We are pleased to have been recognised by the Qatar Stock Exchange for our excellence in investor relations for the fifth year in a row. I would like to thank my team for upholding the highest standards of communications and trans-parency in investor relations and my gratitude goes to all

Ooredoo Group employees who are central to the success of our company, our strong revenue generation ability, and the social and economic impact that we make in the countries where we operate. All of these con-tribute to our goal of delivering long term shareholder value. I would like to congratulate our fellow award recipients and to thank the Qatar Stock Exchange for promoting best practice dis-closures and overseeing a healthy capital market activity in Qatar.” Sara Ibrahim Al Sayed, Andreas Goldau and Moza Al Mohannadi from Ooredoo received the awards.

The delegation visited many institutions, government, and private companies including Investment Authority, Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce, Queen University, Ulster University and Parliament.

Under the program, General Directorate of Traffic held a consultative gathering at the private Majlis of Mohamed Saleh Al Khayarin, CMC member for of the constituency No.16 Beni Hajir on Wednesday.

Mirqab Mall energises Doha community for National Sport Day

THE PENINSULA — DOHA

Mirqab Mall, Doha’s world-class community mall, has proven to be the one and only destination for this year’s National Sport Day for the local community to enjoy an exhil-arating day of fitness activities with family and friends.

From February 6 until February 11, there will be something for all ages to celebrate the country’s most energetic holiday.

Throughout the campaign, Mirqab Mall will be action-packed, hosting a massive Human Foosball activation in the food court location, free yoga and Zumba classes, as well as a pop-up soft-play obstacle course area where children can test their physical skills alongside a vast

bootcamp obstacle course for children to showcase their dexterity.

Mirqab Mall also offers a popular range of sports brands under its roof, where shoppers have a chance to find all their sporting gear at spe-cialty shops like Go Sport, HMV and Courir, which offer items ranging from workout clothing and trainers, to special equipment for indoor and outdoor activities.

Healthy dining is another pro-motional focus of Mirqab Mall on National Sports Day. From specialty fresh juices at Ladies & Gents Caffe on the mezzanine floor to the refreshing favourites of Lokmana on

the ground floor, the Mall hosts an array of dining offerings, where healthy eating is encouraged, and meals are cooked to the highest standards.

Rony Mourani, General Manager of Al Mana Malls, com-mented “We have built Mirqab Mall with the Doha community in mind. We are delighted to be offering the public a wide range of events in line with National Sport’s Day as part of Qatar’s 2030 Vision.”

Keep an eye on their website to know more details and offerings coming up from retailers during Feb-ruary for National Sports Day.

From February 6 until February 11, there will be something for all ages to celebrate the country’s most energetic holiday.

Throughout the campaign, Mirqab Mall will be action-packed, hosting a massive Human Foosball activation in the food court location, free yoga and Zumba classes, as well as a pop-up soft-play obstacle course area where children can test their physical skills alongside a vast bootcamp obstacle course for children to showcase their dexterity.

CMC Constituency No. 16 residents complain lack of pedestrian crossing linesSIDI MOHAMED THE PENINSULA

Residents of Constituency No.16 have demanded from the authorities concerned to build more pedestrian crossing on Al Shahama Road to ensure a safe and smooth traffic flow.

This came during an interactive session attended by CMC member, rep-resentatives from General Directorate of Traffic and Public Works Authority (Ashghal) held under the community partnership program.

Under the program, General Direc-torate of Traffic held a consultative gathering at the private Majlis of Mohamed Saleh Al Khayarin, CMC member for of the constituency No.16 Beni Hajir on Wednesday.

The community partnership program implemented by the General Directorate of Traffic within its annual operating plan with the aim of com-municating with all groups of society to spread the traffic awareness among people.

A number of traffic issues was dis-cussed during the visit, including the absence of pedestrian crossing lines in

Al Shahama street as the main street in the region, some road engineering and traffic safety issues, in addition to the importance of raising traffic awareness issues on social media in order to reach more of people specially youth.

CMC Member, Mohamed Saleh Al Khayarin said that he received a number of traffic complaints from the residents including absence of pedes-trians crossing lines on Al Shahama Street, which causes traffic accidents. Also there is always traffic jam on the street, especially during peak hours in

the morning and evening. Al Shahama Street is an extension

of Al Doha — Al Rayyan Street, and therefore the street must be redesigned to include surveillance cameras to control traffic violations and to increase signals, he said.

The residents of the constituency said that many areas and schools have been opened, while there is only one entrance for the area (Beni Hajer), and among the regions are Rawdat Qadim, Al Sik, and others.

They also asked Traffic Department

and Ashghal to amend the places for signals and add more speed bumps in the streets to reduce traffic accidents. At the end of the visit, the attendees stressed the necessity of coordination to enhance the traffic safety among the youth, and urged the youth to participate in the targeted programs organised by the Ministry of Interior and other various state institutions.

The Department’s officers have affirmed the department’s keenness to coordinate with Ashghal and the relevant authorities to raise the level of road safety and ensure the smooth flow of traffic, stressing that all attendance proposals will be submitted to the authorities concerned.

The General Directorate of Traffic recently visited residents of Constit-uency 11 and discussed a number of traffic issues including the problem of parking trucks in residential areas and the negative effects resulting from this violation. They also discussed other matters related to traffic engineering and safety in the region, enhancing traffic awareness on social media in order to reach more of people espe-cially the youth.

CMC member for Constituency No. 16, Mohamed Saleh Al Khayarin (left), with an Officer from the General Directorate of Traffic, Hamed Salim Nahab (centre), and an Ashghal official during a meeting at a private Majlis at Beni Hajir.

05SUNDAY 9 FEBRUARY 2020 HOME

Saudia Group ‘Shop & Win Car Raffle’ final draw heldSaudia Hypermarket Group and Qatar Shopping Complex, under the supervision of the Ministry of Economy and Commerce held Shop & Win Car Raffle Final Draw on Thursday at Saudia Hypermarket Umm Al Dhoom Main Branch. The Managing Director, HR-Manager, Marketing Manager, and Branch Managers attended the event.

06 SUNDAY 9 FEBRUARY 2020HOME

Ooredoo to celebrate NSD with activities at MIA ParkTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Qatar’s leading telecommuni-cations company is set to cele-brate 2020 National Sport Day with an active day out at MIA Park and a host of exciting promotions.

The telecomms leader will be offering a wide range of activities in the Park from 8am until 5pm on February 11. More than 45 activities suitable for all ages and abilities will be available, from handball, vol-leyball and basketball to martial arts and more.

There will also be group activities on the main stage including aerobics, boot camp and a whole host of other exciting

activities for all the family. Customers can also make

the most of special promotions in honour of the day. The latest version of the Ooredoo app will be required, which can be downloaded from the App Store or Google Play. Under the 2020 National Sport Day Quiz pro-motion, there will be a new question every day on February 9,10 and 11 and all customers need to do to be in with a chance to win a smart watch or a QR2,000 voucher for Sports Corner is get the question right. There will be two winners each day. Customers can track steps with the Ooredoo App and reach 10,000 to get 2020MB data absolutely free, and a

QR69 voucher to be used at Sports Corner on a spend of QR299 in one transaction. The special 2020 National Sport Day barcode will be hidden in MIA Park; customers can find it and scan it to receive 500 Nojoom points absolutely free.

And, if customers take part in all three promotions, they will get an extra 500 Nojoom points absolutely free. Cus-tomers who are not already Nojoom members can enrol online or via the Ooredoo App.

The winners of the 2020 National Sports Day Quiz will be announced on February 12.

Speaking of the event, Manar Khalifa Al Muraikhi, Director PR and Corporate

Communications at Ooredoo – said: “A key focus of our cor-porate social responsibility strategy is supporting the Qatar National Vision goals, one of which is to promote health and wellbeing, and this event is the perfect way to encourage eve-ryone to get moving, get fit and adopt a healthy, active lifestyle. We’re looking forward to cele-brating National Sport Day with as many Doha citizens and res-idents as possible, and to enjoying a great day of fun fitness activities for all the family. And, of course, we’re delighted to be offering special promotions in honour of the occasion, so our customers can enjoy great benefits.”

Ooredoo Kuwait Telecom Sponsor for ‘Made in Qatar 2020’

THE PENINSULA — DOHA

Ooredoo Kuwait will be the Telecom Sponsor for the upcoming ‘Made in Qatar 2020’ exhibition which will be held from February 19 to 22 in Kuwait, said the company in a press release, yesterday.

The third edition of the expo to be organized outside the State of Qatar will be held on an area of 10000 sqm at the Kuwait International Fair with the participation of over 220 companies and factories from Qatar.

Commenting on the spon-sorship, the company’s CEO, Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdulla Al Thani said that the exhi-bition represents a special cer-emony between Qatar and Kuwait, saying: “We are pleased to participate in one of the largest events in the Gulf region. The expo brings together innovations and high technologies of Qatari com-panies and factories under one umbrella in the brotherly country Kuwait."

He pointed out that the exhibition offers a good oppor-tunity for Kuwaiti youth to meet with Qatari manufacturers, businessmen and investors to learn more about Qatar’s various industries.

“The expo provides an optimal platform for both parties to review establishing new alliances and partnerships that help enhance Qatari indus-tries, particularly those that depend on modern technol-ogies,” he added.

Stressing the company’s role in social responsibility, Sheikh Mohamed said that Ooredoo’s participation in the exhibition emphasised our social responsibility strategy that is based on many values including communicating with all segments of the society, caring for them and enriching their digital lives, as well as facing all obstacles that might hinder the progress of our societies.

For his part, Qatar Chamber Director-General, Saleh bin Hamad Al Sharqi

praised the Ooredoo Kuwait’s participation in the exhibition, assuring that the company’s sponsorship affirmed its interest to support cooper-ation ties between Qatari and Kuwaiti companies and create an appropriate climate for m u t u a l a n d j o i n t investments.

He also said that the private sector in both countries are very close, assuring that this convergence opens the door for more partnerships, alli-ances and transaction between exhibiting and Kuwaiti companies.

The exhibition, which is organised by the Qatar Chamber in cooperation with the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Qatar Development Bank as strategic partner and in coordination with the Kuwait Chamber of Commerce &

Industry, aims to foster coop-eration and exchange expertise between Qatari and Kuwaiti companies.

It also helps inform the Kuwaiti business community on Qatari products and open new external markets for Qatari large and small industries.

Ooredoo Kuwait, formerly known as Wataniya Telecom, is a member of Ooredoo Group. Commercially launched in December 1999, the company provides mobile, broadband Internet and corporate managed services tailored to the needs of customers and businesses.

Ooredoo is guided by its vision of enriching people’s lives and its belief that it can stimulate human growth by lev-eraging communications to help people achieve their full potential.

Saleh bin Hamad Al SharqiSheikh Mohamed bin Abdulla Al Thani

College of Islamic Studies at HBKU holds conference on Islamic FinanceTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

The Circular Economy and its implications for Qatar and the wider region provided the backdrop for a recent interna-tional conference organised by the Center of Islamic Economics and Finance (CIEF), College of Islamic Studies (CIS) at Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU).

Held on February 5 and 6, the International Conference on Islamic Finance explored the Circular Economy principles as an alternative economic par-adigm. Participants from academia, policymaking and Islamic financial organizations also explored how the Circular Economy promotes the elimi-nation of waste from local, regional and global economies. In doing so, the event con-sidered how this emerging concept might hold the key to sustainable business practices, which are socially impactful and ecologically friendly.

The International Con-ference on Islamic Finance also provided the perfect oppor-tunity to hear distinctly Islamic economic perspectives on the Circular Economy. These pri-marily came in the shape of papers and analyses deliberated by aspiring and established aca-demics as well as practitioners engaged in a range of Islamic finance initiatives. Synergies between the Maqasid Al Shariah, multi-dimension development discourse, and the Circular Economy were among the issues discussed over the course of the event. A mix of country-specific case studies, business models and related activities also helped to frame debates in contemporary settings.

Speaking after the con-ference, Dr Syed Nazim Ali, Director of Research Division and CIEF, CIS, said: “I’d like to begin by acknowledging the support of the event’s main sponsor, the Qatar Financial Centre (QFC) . Their involvement reflects that while Islamic finance’s contribution to Qatar’s economy is well-understood, public knowledge regarding the Circular Economy remains a work-in-progress. This must change.”

Dr Nazim added: “The prac-tices and principles that define the Circular Economy can help our institutions and people to better respond to climate change. They also offer the potential to develop a competitive and diver-sified economy based on long-term sustainable models. Finally, responsible business practices help to preserve the built and natural environment. That said, the benefits of the Circular Economy also apply to the entire Islamic world. We’re confident that our conference amply dem-onstrated this point.”

Yousuf Mohamed Al Jaida, Chief Executive Officer, QFC Authority, said: “We are hon-oured to be part of this distin-guished event, and participate in exploring the untapped opportunities, latest trends, and the profound sustainable impact that the Circular Economy can bring to our economic diversi-fication strategy. In fact, Qatar is poised to bolster its Islamic Finance industry in 2020 and the Circular Economy is likely to play an integral role as it introduces comprehensive business models and policies that would unlock the vast potential of the underpene-trated Islamic Finance industry.”

Yousuf Mohamed Al Jaida (centre), Chief Executive Officer, QFC Authority, during conference on Islamic Finance at HBKU.

Stressing the company’s role in social responsi-bility, Sheikh Mohamed said that Ooredoo’s par-ticipation in the exhibition emphasised our social responsibility strategy that is based on many val-ues including communicating with all segments of the society, caring for them and enriching their digital lives, as well as facing all obstacles that might hinder the progress of our societies.

QFBA in partnership with Northumbria University participates in Qatar Youth ForumTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Qatar Finance and Business Academy (QFBA) in partnership with Northumbria University participated in Qatar Youth Forum’s third edition, organised by the Qatar Cultural and Heritage Events Center under the patronage of the Ministry of Culture and Sports on February 4 and 5.

QFBA’s participation in the Qatar Youth Forum came into fruition as a part of its continuous effort to raise awareness to young graduates and profes-sionals seeking educational opportunities. It aims to inform interested graduates on various finance related careers and edu-cational opportunities and famil-iarize them with the goals, vision and programs offered by the Academy, such as the pioneering quality Qatarisation program Kawader.

QFBA in partnership with Northumbria University (QFBA-NU) aims to shed light on the importance of undergraduate education and engage with the youth in a dialogue about their educational and professional futures, as well as highlight some of the leading degree programs offered by QFBA in partnership in Northumbria University New-castle. Currently QFBA-NU offers undergraduate programs in accounting, finance and investment management and international banking and finance.

The Qatar Youth Forum included several interactive activities that aimed to famil-iarize participants with finance related fields and highlight the distinct differences between

areas such as accounting and finance. Participants learned about the requirements needed to become a successful accountant and the responsibil-ities it entails. They were also were invited in a friendly quiz activity that tested their knowledge of the Academy’s services and programs offered including, its quality Qatarisation program Kawader.

Additionally, Khalifa Al Yafei, Director of Student Affairs at Qatar Finance and Business Academy lead a workshop ded-icated to informing students on the best practices when it comes to writing a CV. The workshop focused on the importance of one’s CV, its various types and mechanisms to formulate the most successful CV.

On this occasion Dr. Khalid Al Horr, President of QFBA said: “We are delighted to participate in this rendition of the Qatar Youth Forum as its goals align with the vision and future of Qatar Finance and Business Academy and its partnership with Northumbria University. Our aim is to assist students and

professionals in their academic journey to reach their true potential and goals with the guided expertise of an experi-enced group of specialists from the financial services sector. It is an opportunity for participants to gain accredited bachelors degrees that empower them to compete in the current labor market.”

He further said: “The Qatar Youth Forum provided a unique platform for QFBA to commu-nicate directly with promising talent and introduce them to the future needs of the Qatari financial services sector. Our aim through Kawader program, one of many QFBA programs and ini-tiatives, is to provide the financial sector with a stream of qualified young talented professionals, who are in return able to raise the capabilities and efficiencies of financial institutions and help position Qatar as the ideal financial hub. With Qatar working towards becoming an attractive financial hub for busi-nesses and investment, we bring ourselves closer to achieving the Qatar national Vision 2030.”

Participants during the Qatari Youth Forum.

THE PENINSULA — DOHA

The Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation (Kahramaa) has completed preparations to celebrate the ninth National Sport Day, which will fall on Tuesday. Many sport activities, competitions and games will be held at Kahramaa pavilion set up at Beach No. 4 of Katara Cultural Village, said Kahramaa in a statement.

The activities are scheduled to start by 8am, as the event includes a slew of activities and sports competitions that suit different age groups in cooper-ation with the Qatar Volleyball Federation by organizing the Kahramaa Beach Volleyball Championship and the Qatar Table Tennis Federation.

Separate places are made for children so they could play with their friends and families. Kahramaa has also allocated a women area for playing

sports and participating in events.

For the first time this year, Kahramaa events include the Power Challenge with the par-ticipation of champions of the strongest men in Qatar through truck pulling competitions, walking with heavy weights, rolling giant tires and other competitions.

Kahramaa celebrates this year’s Sports Day under the slogan ‘Movement is a blessing’, with the aim of raising awareness of the importance of sport and ensuring that it is practiced permanently and reg-ularly, especially among employees and those who spend long hours sitting at offices during working hours, by following a number of tips and advice that urge Movement and exercise to become a life-style, in order to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Kahramaa's celebration of

this occasion comes as part of its social responsibility as an expression of its commitment to contribute to advancing the health and well-being of society in general and employees and workers in particular.

Kahramaa launched awareness messages on this occasion through its social media platforms to introduce the importance of movement, exercise and make it a way of life. The Corporation also launched awareness messages to its employees encouraging for movement, exercise and awareness of healthy habits

Kahramaa believes in the importance of sport as an effective means in building an active and healthy society that develops the capabilities of the individual and helps in using their energies in a positive way that depends on their health and activity in achieving the its goals.

Kahramaa lines up activities on Sport Day

07SUNDAY 9 FEBRUARY 2020 GULF / MIDDLE EAST

Syrian troops gain more groundAP — DAMASCUS

Syrian government forces captured new areas from insur-gents in their efforts to control a key highway in the northwest yesterday, state media and opposition activists said.

The weeks-long gov-ernment offensive has created a humanitarian crisis with about 600,000 people fleeing their homes in Syria’s last rebel stronghold since the beginning of December, according to the United Nations. Rebels control

much of Idlib province and parts of the neighbouring Aleppo region that is home to some 3 million people .

The Syrian offensive appears aimed for now at securing a strategic highway in rebel-controlled territory, as opposed to an all-out campaign to retake the entire province, including the city of Idlib, the densely populated provincial capital. “Our aim is to clear the highway and evict terrorists from it,” a Syrian commander on the ground told state TV. He

was referring to the M5 highway, which links the capital Damascus with the northern city of Aleppo.

Syrian state TV reported that forces captured four vil-lages in Aleppo province near the highway. It added that Syrian troops and demining experts have cleared explosives and mines from the recently captured town of Saraqeb that sits on an intersection where the M5 meets with the M4 highway, linking Syria’s coast with the country’s east.

Turkey not to tolerate attackon its forces in Idlib: OfficialANATOLIA — ISTANBUL

Turkey will never tolerate attacks by the Assad regime on its forces in Idlib, northwestern Syria, said Turkey’s communi-cations director yesterday.

“Let me state clearly that it is never possible for us to tol-erate the things that have hap-pened in Idlib. Turkey held the terrorists who pointed guns at our heroic soldiers responsible, and now it will also hold those murderers responsible for martyring [its soldiers in Idlib],” Fahrettin Altun told a meeting on Turkey and Syria held in Istanbul.

The Turkish troops are in northwestern, Syria, just across the Turkish border, as part of an anti-terrorist and cease-fire mission, but this week a group of Turkish soldiers was killed by an Assad regime attack.

Turkey was the first country to send its military forces to combat the terrorists of ISIS and the YPG/PKK in Syria, which clearly shows its views of proxy wars in the region, Altun added.

He said Turkey aims not only to maintain its own national security but also to

foil ill-intentioned designs on the region.

“If the process [of a refugee influx], which started just beyond our borders, cannot be stopped immediately, a new and larger influx of refugees will start, [eventually] reaching European capitals,” he warned.

This Monday, an Assad regime attack in Idlib, north-western Syria, martyred seven Turkish soldiers and one civilian contractor working with the Turkish military, and injured over a dozen people.

In retaliation, Turkey struck over 50 targets and killed 76 Syrian soldiers.

Idlib has been a stronghold of opposition and anti-gov-ernment armed groups since the

outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011.

In September 2018, Turkey and Russia agreed to turn Idlib into a de-escalation zone in which acts of aggression are expressly prohibited.

But more than 1,800 civilians there have been killed in attacks by regime and Russian forces since then, flouting both the 2018 cease-fire and a new one that started on Jan. 12.

More than 1.5 million Syrians have moved towards the Turkish border due to intense attacks over the past year. Turkey remains the country with most refugees in the world, hosting more than 3.7 million migrants since the start of the Syrian civil war.

A Turkish military convoy in the village of Al Mastumah, about 7km south of the city of Idlib, yesterday.

“Let me state clearly that it is never possible for us to tolerate the things that have happened in Idlib. Turkey held the terrorists who pointed guns at our heroic soldiers responsible, and now it will also hold those murderers responsible for martyring [its soldiers in Idlib],” Fahrettin Altun told a meeting on Turkey and Syria held in Istanbul.

Iran says it is ready to mediate between Turkey and SyriaREUTERS — DUBAI

Iran is ready to help Turkey and Syria resolve their differences over the nearly nine-year-old war in Syria, the Foreign Ministry said yesterday, adding that Tehran backs the sover-eignty of its key regional ally Damascus.

Turkey has backed rebels

looking to oust Syrian President Bashar Al Assad, while Iran and Russia have supported Assad’s forces in the war. The three countries have also collabo-rated on a political solution to the conflict.

In a meeting between the visiting United Nations’ special envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, and Iranian officials, Tehran

underlined the importance of resolving issues in Syria through diplomacy, it said on its website.

“During the meeting, Iran reiterated that civilians in Syria should not be used as human shields... and that Iran is ready to mediate between Turkey and Syria to solve the issue,” the website reported. Iranian state TV reported that Foreign

Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, in a separate meeting with Pedersen in Tehran, said Iran was prepared to help in the de-escalation of the crisis in Syria with respect to Syria’s inde-pendence and sovereignty.

Russian-backed Syrian forces have tried to capture Syria’s Idlib province, the last rebel stronghold in the country,

displacing more than half a million people since early December. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has threatened to drive back the Syrian troops in Idlib unless they withdrew by the end of the month, after eight Turkish soldiers were killed on Monday by Syrian government shelling near the town of Saraqeb.

Kuwait National Assembly Speaker meets Iraqi counterpartQNA — AMMAN

Kuwait’s National Assembly Speaker Marzouq Al Ghanim met yesterday with the Speaker of Iraq’s Council of Representatives, Mohammad Al Halbousi.

The Kuwaiti National Assembly said, in a statement yesterday carried by Kuwait News Agency, that they dis-cussed a number of issues of common concern, in addition to the regional and interna-tional developments.

The two sides held the talks on sidelines of the 30th Arab parliamentary con-ference due to kick off today in the Jordanian capital Amman to discuss the Pales-tinian cause and the US peace plan, known as the “deal of the century”.

Khamenei says Iran must become strong to end ‘enemy threat’AGENCIES — TEHRAN

Iran’s supreme leader Ayat-ollah Ali Khamenei said yesterday that the Islamic republic must become strong enough to ward off the “enemy’s threats” and prevent a war.

Khamenei also said Iran had a strong air force despite decades of US pressure and sanctions on the country since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

“We must become strong so that there will not be a war, become strong so that enemy’s threats will end,” he told a gathering of air force com-manders and staff.

“We do not want to threaten anyone... this is to prevent threats, to maintain the country’s security,” he added in a speech aired on state television.

Tensions escalated between Tehran and Wash-ington after a January 3 US drone strike killed top Iranian general Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad. Iran retaliated days later by firing a wave of mis-siles at American troops sta-tioned in Iraq. Its defence forces had been braced for US retaliation when they shot down a Ukraine International Airlines flight a few minutes after take-off from Tehran on January 8.

“Our Air Force, which had no right to & couldn’t even repair parts of aircrafts (before the revolution) now builds

planes,” Khamenei was quoted as saying on his English-lan-guage Twitter account. “Sanc-tions are literally crimes, BUT they can be turned into oppor-tunities,” he added.

In 2018, the United States withdrew unilaterally from a landmark nuclear deal with Iran and began reimposing sanctions as part of its “maximum pressure” cam-paign on the country.

Top EU diplomat Josep Borrel visited Tehran last week on a mission aimed at lowering tensions over the Islamic republic’s nuclear pro-gramme, which has been crumbling since the US withdrawal.

Iran has gradually stepped back from its own commit-ments under the deal, prompting the European parties to trigger a complaint mechanism under the deal to pressure Tehran to return to full implementation.

Iran is marking the 41st anniversary of the Islamic rev-olution, which toppled the US-backed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in 1979.

Washington has reimposed crippling sanctions aimed at halting all Iranian oil exports, saying it seeks to force Iran to negotiate to reach a wider deal. Iran and the United States stormed to the edge of a war in early January when Tehran's most prominent general, Qassem Soleimani, was killed in Baghdad.

Israel bans Palestinian agriculturalexports through Jordan in trade warREUTERS — RAMALLAH, WEST BANK

Israel has escalated a trade war with the Palestinians by stopping their agricultural exports through Jordan, Pales-tinian Agriculture Minister Riyal Al Attari said yesterday.

Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) opened a new front in their decades-long con-flict with a trade dispute that began in October and has esca-lated over the past week.

“Yesterday, the director of Israeli crossings informed all exporters and all relevant parties that all Palestinian agri-culture products would be banned from export to world

markets through the Jordanian crossing starting Sunday,” Al Attari told Voice of Palestine Radio.

In October, the PA announced a boycott of Israeli calves. Last weekend Israeli Defence Minister Naftali Bennett said he would halt all PA agricultural imports, which in turn prompted the PA to say it would end imports of Israeli agricultural products, fruit juice and bottled water.

Those moves have frayed trade links that have generally held strong since the two sides signed interim peace accords in the 1990s, even weathering the collapse in 2014 of peace talks.

Bilateral tensions have been further fuelled by the announcement of US President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan which has prompted a string of violent incidents in Jerusalem, the occupied West Bank and Gaza.

“We are at a critical political moment and we completely understand the negative impact that will result from these measures, but I say with all confidence that negative impact will also affect the Israeli economy,” said Al Attari. “We have several options and measures with which we can respond to each Israeli decision that aims to harm our national economy,” he added.

Hammoudeh Sabbagh, Speaker of the Syrian People’s Assembly, attends an emergency session of the Arab parliamentarians to discuss US President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan in Amman, Jordan, yesterday.

Coronavirus: Two more cases detected in UAE REUTERS — DUBAI

Two new cases of coronavirus infection have been detected in the United Arab Emirates, bringing the total number of people diagnosed with the disease to seven, the country’s health ministry said on Twitter yesterday.

Iran repelscyberattackAFP — TEHRAN

Iran repelled a cyberattack yesterday that disrupted the country’s Internet services for an hour, a telecommunications ministry official said.

“At 11:44 a distributed denial-of-service attack dis-rupted the Internet services of some mobile and fixed oper-ators for an hour,” tweeted Sajad Bonabi.

The attack involves over-whelming a target’s servers by making a massive number of junk requests.

“Connections have returned to normal following the intervention of Dejfa shield,” Bonabi added, referring to Iran’s so-called digital fortress against cyber-attacks. Internet monitor Net-Blocks confirmed yesterday’s outage and said it was “con-sistent with a targeted dis-ruption and no technical faults are evident at the present time”. Iran said in December it had thwarted a “highly organised cyberattack” tar-geting its e-government infrastructure.

Aoun: Foreign states, especially France, keen to help LebanonAGENCIES — BEIRUT

Lebanon’s President Michel Aoun said yesterday that foreign states, particularly France, had expressed a desire to help his country emerge from a severe economic crisis.

As Lebanon grapples with its worst economic and financial strains in decades, foreign donors have said they will only help if the government enacts long-stalled reforms.

Aoun said he had a phone call with French President Emmanuel Macron and the two would speak again in the next few days.

“A number of states have expressed their desire to help Lebanon, with France at their forefront,” Aoun’s office quoted him as saying on Saturday in an interview with French mag-azine Valeurs Actuelles. It did not elaborate.

The new Lebanese

government has approved a rescue plan that envisages seeking foreign help, calls for interest rate cuts, and warns some “painful steps” will be necessary, according to a copy seen by Reuters on Thursday.

The policy statement will be presented to parliament next week for a vote of confidence.

Prime Minister Hassan Diab’s cabinet was formed last month with the support of the Iran-backed Hezbollah

movement and its political allies, which hold a parlia-mentary majority.

The government must contend with a liquidity crunch, shattered confidence in banks, a weakened Lebanese pound and soaring inflation.

It took office some three months after Saad Al Hariri’s government resigned under pressure from nationwide pro-tests against a ruling elite accused of corruption.

Lebanese President General Michel Aoun stressed the importance of controlling the security situation in Lebanon, to maintain stability and civil peace, and not to compromise with any attempt to undermine the prestige of the state, its insti-tutions, and its official head-quarters. This came during Aoun's presidency of the Supreme Council for National Defence meeting that was held on Friday.

So the upshot is that hundreds of millions of people might possibly be considered part of the Twitter audience, but Twitter itself no longer considers them “users” for the purpose of monetization.

08 SUNDAY 9 FEBRUARY 2020VIEWS

CHAIRMANSHEIKH THANI BIN ABDULLAH AL THANI

EDITOR-IN-CHIEFDR. KHALID BIN MUBARAK AL-SHAFIeditorinchief@pen.com.qa

ACTING MANAGING EDITORMOHAMMED SALIM MOHAMEDm.salim@pen.com.qa

DEPUTY MANAGING EDITORMOHAMMED OSMAN ALI osman@pen.com.qa

EDITORIAL

TENS of thousands of Palestinian prisoners are languishing behind bars after being arrested and unlaw-fully kept in Israeli prisons and the “deal of the century”, unveiled by President Trump, has stated that these pris-oners will be forced to sign a pledge to promote the ben-efits of coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians in order to be released.

Unfortunately the number of prisoners who were kept unlawfully for decades is continuously growing as

hundreds of Palestinian youth, male and female, are being shot or critically injured or put in jails by Israeli occupation forces, for no reason except practising their basic rights as people under occupation and coming out in peaceful demonstrations to defend their basic rights as native citizens of the land.

Since the recent announcement of US President Donald Trump’s “deal of the century” plan, which the Palestinians see undermining their absolute right to statehood and get rid of Israeli occupation, many Pal-estinians have been shot dead and many others have been critically injured by Israeli occupation forces during ongoing protests across the occupied West Bank and Gaza strip.

Yet the peace plan not only being rejected by the Palestinians but almost by the entire international

community as being unrealistic and unfair, and instead of settling the long-standing conflict in the world, it has created further complications and possible new wave of violence.

If the peace initiative denies the right of 6.5 million Palestinian refugees to return to their homeland and denies the right to establish an independent state, and more settlements to be implanted in the remaining pockets of land, and after decades families will not be able to see their dear ones being released from prisons then no options for the Palestinian but to perceive the plan as “destructive and rejected” and there are no pros-pects or viability for any solution.

The firm position of the State of Qatar towards Pal-estine issue is based on the Arab peace initiative which laid a set of foundations for peace, and that peace is pos-sible as long as it is just and sustainable as the Speaker of the Shura Council H E Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid Al Mahmoud stressed during his speech at the Arab Inter-Parliamentary Union (APU) conference held in Amman.

The Arab peace plan according to him, restores the right of the Palestinian people, guarantees the estab-lishment of an independent state on its land on the borders of June 4, 1967 with East Jerusalem as its capital, guarantees the right to return, remunerative compen-sation for the martyrs, the wounded and the prisoners, and guarantees the release of those who remained in prison.

Plan with no peace prospects

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Quote of the day

We call on countries and companies to work with WHO to ensure fair and rational use of supplies and the re-balancing of the market. We all have a part to play in keeping each other safe.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, World Health Organization Chief

Allow me to let you in on a little secret: Twitter Inc. isn’t a big user of its own product.

That’s right, while the com-pany’s main account @twitter has 57.1 million followers, it follows just one other, which doesn’t make it a very engaged account holder. And its tweet fre-quency is relatively low - even I have sent more tweets than @twitter has, and I signed up two years later. President Donald Trump has sent four times as many - 48,700 tweets since March 2019.

The other thing that’s worth noting is that most of Twitter’s users are worthless. The social network company on Thursday reported fourth-quarter revenue that surpassed $1 billion for the first time, driven in large part by a 21% increase in monetizable monthly active users (mMAU, in Twitter parlance).

This “monetizable” moniker was introduced in late 2018 and compares with an old metric it used simply called MAU. But the big result of this change is to cut its user numbers - under this

definition - by more than 60%. That sounds bad. It’s not.

Twitter defines monetizable users as “people, organizations, or other accounts who logged in or were otherwise authenticated and accessed Twitter on any given day through twitter.com or Twitter applications that are able to show ads” (emphasis added). A few years ago, the company boasted about being able to serve ads to people who weren’t even Twitter users; it contended more than 500 million people visited the site without logging in.

So the upshot is that hun-dreds of millions of people might possibly be considered part of the Twitter audience, but Twitter itself no longer considers them “users” for the purpose of mone-tization. They are, for all intents and purposes, worthless, except that makes Twitter itself more valuable to advertisers. By assuring the real customers of Twitter (the ad buyers) that the product they’re getting (the users) is genuine, it can push up prices and increase revenue. As a result, the money it makes from each of those “valuable users” (let’s call it AARPmMAU)(1) is trending up.

Going into a US election year, this could matter. There’s bound to be a lot of noise online over the next nine months, including a lot of fake news, conspiracy the-ories and partisan rancor. Sure, this may drive up use and engagement, but Twitter seems

to be taking the line that not all engagement is good engagement. Quality is important.

As part of this, the company has bolstered measures “to protect the integrity of election-related conversations and proac-tively limit the visibility of unhealthy content on Twitter.” Contrast that to Facebook Inc., which has decided to take a hands-off approach to cen-sorship to the point of allowing demonstrably false advertising.

If Twitter is lucky, this approach will also help bring audiences back. In its call with investors Thursday morning, Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal noted that the company aims to make casual users - for example, those who haven’t been on Twitter for more than a month - return more often. I believe that this could in turn boost mone-tizable monthly active users, and lure more advertisers, creating a virtuous cycle.

Twitter has already lost the size battle. At more than 2.5 billion users globally, Facebook has that trophy. But in attempting to make its platform appear more sanitized, from both a content and a user-metrics standpoint, Twitter may have a shot at becoming the platform of quality, not quantity.

Who knows, maybe even Twitter will use its own product more often.

Tim Culpan is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering technology.

When scientist Peter Soroye first saw the figures showing esti-

mated bumblebee populations in North America had fallen by nearly 50% in a single gener-ation, he thought it must be a typo.

He checked the numbers - the result of a long-term analysis of bumblebee popu-lations published in the journal Science on Thursday - seven times to be sure they were accurate.

Rising temperatures are contributing to drastic declines of bumblebees across Europe and North America at rates “consistent with a mass extinction”, threatening food

cultivation, the study concluded.

The researchers estimated that Europe’s bumblebee pop-ulations fell by 17% between the two periods the study looked at - from 1901 to 1974 and from 2000 to 2014 - while in North America, the figure was 46%.

“We couldn’t believe that the declines were this severe over such a short time period,” said Soroye, lead author of the study and a PhD student at University of Ottawa.

“I reckon I must have gone through, like, seven times to double check that everything was right and it was. And so yes, these declines are really drastic. They’re really severe,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone.

Declining bee populations have also been linked to heavy pesticide use and habitat loss caused by changes in land use. But Soroye said global warming was exacerbating their plight.

“This paper in no way absolved ... pesticides or habitat loss. It’s that climate change is another thing that’s been added to the mix that’s driving this extinction,” he said.

Bumblebees are larger than honeybees, and while they do not produce honey, they are important pollinators.

“When they land on flowers, they physically shake these flowers and shake the pollen off,” said Soroye.

“A lot of crops like squash, berries, tomatoes need bum-blebees to pollinate them, and honeybees or other pollinators just can’t do that.”

Bees play a crucial role in producing healthy fruits or seeds for three quarters of the crops that feed people, according to the United Nations.

Yet studies show pollinator populations have been declining across much of the world.

If the trend continues, nutritious fruits, nuts and

many vegetables would have to be substituted by staple crops like rice, corn, and potatoes, leading to an imbal-anced diet, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization warned in 2019.

The researchers used a database encompassing 550,000 records of 66 bum-blebee species from 1901 to 1974 and from 2000 to 2014 and compared their distri-bution and diversity to local changes in temperature and precipitation.

Much larger declines are “likely if climate change accel-erates in the coming years”, the study’s co-author Tim Newbold from the University College London said in a statement.

The 10-year period from 2010-2019 is likely to be the hottest decade on record, the Geneva-based World Meteor-ological Organization said recently. Warming southern regions such as Spain and Mexico saw the biggest losses, the researchers said.

Half of Twitter’s users are worthless, and that’s good

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Econ 102, meanwhile, tells us that taxes alone aren’t enough. In much the same way that there are negative spillovers from too much carbon pollution that need to be taxed, there are also positive spillovers from technological change.

Economic ties between China and Israel have undeniably picked up in recent years. In

addition to commercial links, the Israeli lobby has also been working hard to forge stronger political and cultural interaction between the two.

Israel’s growing socio-cultural influence on China started with the development of commercial relations. However, the fact that many institutions with Israeli origins have begun to interact with Chinese society could be con-sidered a step towards political intimacy with China. The primary motivation for this ever-deepening rela-tionship comes from Israel’s ability to show itself as an attraction factor for China. Capitalizing on the qualities that make it a “Startup Nation” in many fields, Israel enjoys high prestige in the Chinese market thanks to its high technology and value-added services.

Many traces of Judaism can be found in ancient Chinese history. The Jews

who settled in China from the 8th century on and whose numbers are smaller com-pared to many other ethnic/religious groups in the country were initially assimi-lated even though they were homogeneous at the beginning of their migration. Jews, who were assimilated into the Chinese society between the 8th and 19th cen-turies, became more visible in the daily social life of China thanks to the Jewish mer-chants who came to Hong Kong and Shanghai ports and Harbin via the trans-Siberian railway line beginning from the mid-19th century. When we add to this picture the Jews escaping from the Russian pogroms of the early 1900s and the Bolshevik Rev-olution, we can say that the Jewish population in China increased quantitatively at the beginning of the 20th century, when China was a safe haven for Jews. It is useful to state at this point that Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, the founding leader of the Republic of China, had sympathy for political Zionism. What largely con-tributed to this sympathy were Sun Yat-Sen’s close ties with the American Protestant missionaries of the period and the influence of Christian Zionism.

This relationship can, on the other hand, be interpreted as Sun Yat-Sen’s search for an alliance in that he wanted to

break the colonial pressure in China and sought full inde-pendence. His words about political Zionism were a sig-nificant reference for the Chinese approach to Jewish nationalism in the first quarter of the 20th century: “Despite the disappearance of their homeland, the Jewish people have existed until today. Zionism is one of the most significant social move-ments of today. Not all democracy lovers can help this movement, but they have to have sympathy and sin-cerity towards it.”

Until the middle of the 20th century, the number of Jews in China increased spo-radically. After the Second World War, for example, 18,000 European Jews settled there, taking advantage of

Shanghai’s applying no immi-gration restrictions. And in total, the number of Jews who immigrated to China from 1845 to 1950 was roughly 40,000.

However, this situation of a growing Jewish population reversed after the 1950s. The end of the Second World War, the establishment of the State of Israel (1948) and the Peo-ple’s Republic of China (1949) prompted a reverse Jewish migration from China to Israel, which kept growing gradually.

In conjunction with the course of the diplomatic relations between Israel and China, the Chinese Jewish community has helped to develop the overall ties between the two countries. The Jewish population is mainly concentrated in Beijing and Shanghai. China’s diplomatic recog-nition of Israel in 1992 once again increased the influence of the Jewish diaspora. Although the Jews living in China today number no more than 2,500, they have a direct impact on Israeli-Chinese relations. It is difficult for us to say that Israel’s lobbying activities in China and the field of aca-demic/cultural diplomacy are just a unilateral propa-ganda activity. China is enthusiastic about improving its relations with Israel due to its national interests. Israel’s desire that its technologies be used by China economically and mil-itarily causes the Chinese side to have a favourable view of these lobbying activ-ities. Moreover, Israel is becoming a shining star in China’s Middle East policy. China, which has established good relations with Arab countries and Iran for many years, has diversified its Middle Eastern policies by making Israel an important station of the Maritime Silk Road Project. This high level of interaction has brought cultural and academic part-nerships. Israel has increased its investments in China by utilizing this smooth atmosphere.

Educational and cultural activities are elements that increase Israel’s effectiveness in China and mobilize cultural interaction independent of its diaspora. Developments in areas such as student exchange programs, aca-demic education programs and touristic activities have affected the cooperation between the two countries

positively. Having made many strides in education in China, Israel has encouraged the opening of many academic programs to introduce itself. Departments and centers on Israeli, Judaic and Hebrew studies have been opened in prestigious academic institu-tions in China, such as Nanjing University, Henan University and Shandong Uni-versity. Furthermore, in addition to 100 post-doctoral fellowships per year at Israeli educational institutions, 350 undergraduate scholarships are allocated exclusively to Chinese and Indian students. According to numbers in 2017, there were 1,000 Chinese exchange students taking classes in Israel.

On the other hand, Israeli educational institutions are expanding their campuses into China. In 2014, Tel Aviv University established an innovative research and edu-cation center with Tsinghua University. In 2015, Technion University, one of the leading universities in the field of engineering in Israel and the world, became the second institution with an inde-pendent education program in China by establishing the Guangdong Technion-Israel Institute of Technology Uni-versity, after Moscow State University. In 2016, Ben-Gurion University opened a joint entrepreneurship and innovation center with Jilin University, while Haifa Uni-versity built a joint laboratory in the fields of ecology, big data, biomedical and neurobi-ology at East China Normal University.

In addition to educational activities, tourism volume is another factor that increases Israel’s cultural appeal. Tourism mobility improves Israel’s relations with the Chinese community across borders. In 2017, the number of Chinese tourists to Israel was around 123,000. There are also direct flights from Tel Aviv to Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Chengdu via dif-ferent airline firms.

The rising graph of eco-nomic relations leads to cul-tural interaction. The Jewish culture highlighted by the Jewish population, which has been present in China for cen-turies, and Israel can be con-sidered among those trends in China with rising popularity. Although the economic and political partnership between Israel and China prompted reactions from the US, the two countries are continuing their investments.

Israel set to increase its soft power in China

I love taxes. OK, let me qualify: I love how simple the intended effect of taxes is, if and when it is

intended. For climate change that means taxing carbon and watching demand for it go down. Markets will take care of the rest. The goal ought to be to find the right price for each ton of CO and get out of the way. Economics 101.

Econ 102, meanwhile, tells us that taxes alone aren’t enough. In much the same way that there are negative spillovers from too much carbon pollution that need to be taxed, there are also pos-itive spillovers from techno-logical change.

This goes for basic research and development-think scientists doing founda-tional work in a lab. It also goes for RD&D, with an extra “D” for deploying existing technologies. Add a third “D” for demonstration, if you want to demonstrate your insider knowledge: RDD&D. The fourth, RDDD&D for

diffusion, appears to not have caught on.

Every one of these letters deserves to be subsidized.

The reasoning is simple. Inventors tinkering in their garage might stand on the shoulders of giants, but by and large they consider the benefit to themselves only when deciding how much to invest. They don’t consider that they are creating shoulders for others to stand on. That logic goes for the R, and it extends through every one of the Ds. Diffusion often comes in the form of network effects. When someone puts a solar panel on the roof, his neighbours are more likely to do so, too. The right answer: Subsidize.

Perhaps the most famous climate-related case is solar photovoltaic (PV), with prices declining by around 85% in a decade and about 99% since the 1970s. The reason? Sub-sidies every step along the way.

At first it was basic R&D, leading to enormous effi-ciency gains and other improvements in the panels themselves. That’s to be expected from an infant tech-nology. Beginning in the 2000s, a team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, led by Jessika Trancik, concluded that econ-omies of scale had started taking over. The larger the overall market, the cheaper

any one panel. Those scale economies were still very much aided by policies aimed at stimulating market growth.

Germany’s Energiewende, a government-led program to jump-start an energy tran-sition away from fossil and toward renewable technol-ogies, played a significant role. Germany has subsidized solar PV via ambitious feed-in tariffs, offering a favorable long-term contract for anyone installing solar panels. Initially, in 2010, those sub-sidies were more than45 cents ( 0.4 euro) per kilowatt-hour, quickly scaled back to less than 16 cents (0.15 euro0 per kWh by 2015.

Those government pol-icies are textbook Econ 102: Subsidize heavily at first, and quickly scale back. California has done something similar with its Solar Initiative, offering large initial subsidies for everyone installing solar panels on their roof.

The upshot? It’s clear that sensible climate policy needs to consist of both carbon prices and subsidies for the alternatives. It’s equally clear that “tax” is a four-letter word. Precisely for that reason, some political pro-posals go to pains to avoid stating the obvious. The latest Republican congressional proposal avoids the term, focusing instead on

“innovation.” That-plus planting a trillion trees-might sound good, and it appears to take Econ 102 seriously, but it ignores Econ 101. (It does have some surprising echoes of Green New Deal-style pro-posals, with their focus on green industrial policy, while often shying away from men-tioning carbon pricing directly.) There’s also the inconvenient bit that sub-sidies for clean electricity go counter to some of the desirable Econ 101 effects of taxes. Subsidies, all else equal, lower prices and encourage consumers to use more overall electricity. The only way to counter that effect is to raise rates. That may well be what happens in reality anyway. The money for sub-sidies needs to come from somewhere. Germany has among the highest electricity prices in Europe precisely because its households are paying for the large initial feed-in tariffs.

Another problem: German subsidies helped create a boom in solar PV manufac-turing capacity in China. The resulting bubble led to the inevitable bust, making it harder for others to raise capital. A further unintended effect of solar PV’s success was the infamous Solyndra bankruptcy. Solyndra simply couldn’t compete with its

thin-film solar technology that proved too costly.

Still, there are some excellent reasons to emphasize Econ 102 over 101, subsidies over taxes. Even if pricing the negative carbon externality is key, the path to getting there might be via driving down the price of alternatives. The past may be a good guide. In the vast majority of cases, from California to Sweden, green industrial policy has preceded carbon pricing.

Time, of course, is quickly running out. We can’t afford to sit around and wait for the ideal policy. Although the rapidly declining price of low-carbon technologies has made extremely bad outcomes less likely, the news from scien-tists isn’t exactly good.

The right reaction for the rest of us, then, is to practice writing danke and start sending grateful notes to the German households who made it easier for everywhere else to pass sensible climate policies. Subsidies made low-carbon alternatives viable against fossil fuels. That’s no longer Econ 101 or 102. It’s Political Economy 101-politics.

Wagner writes the Risky Climate column for Bloomberg Green. He teaches at New York University and is a co-author of “Climate Shock.”

Carbon taxes alone aren’t good climate policy

SELIM HAN YENIACUN ANATOLIA

GERNOT WAGNERBLOOMBERG

In conjunction with the course of the diplomatic relations between Israel and China, the Chinese Jewish community has helped to develop the overall ties between the two countries.

Until the middle of the 20th century, the number of Jews in China increased sporadically. After the Second World War, for example, 18,000 European Jews settled there, taking advantage of Shanghai’s applying no immigration restrictions. And in total, the number of Jews who immigrated to China from 1845 to 1950 was roughly 40,000.

A man takes a selfie in front of the Oriental Pearl Tower, with a message projected on it reading “Wuhan, keep going”, in Lujiazui financial district in Pudong in Shanghai, yesterday.

10 SUNDAY 9 FEBRUARY 2020AFRICA

11 civilians deadin two separateattacks in Niger AFP — NIAMEY

At least 11 civilians have been killed in two separate attacks in Niger, which is struggling to contain a wave of militant violence, officials said yesterday.

In one attack on Friday, members of the Boko Haram group killed six civilians in Bosso district in the southeast region of Diffa bordering Chad and Nigeria, a local official said.

Four members of the same family were among those killed, said the official.

Officials in Bosso district confirmed the attack, but said five people had been killed.

In a separate attack in the southwestern region of Tillaberi, which borders Mali, four armed men on two motor-bikes opened fire on workers in the village of Molia, killing four people, a regional official said. That attack took place late on Thursday.

The use of motorbikes is banned in the region.

The attacks were just the latest in a surge in violence in the West African country.

Niger’s Diffa and Tillaberi regions are vulnerable to

increasingly deadly incursions by the militants based in northern Nigeria.

According to an official toll, three attacks in December and January, all claimed by Islamic State, have killed 174 soldiers.

In January, officials in Tillaberi were forced to suspend voter registration in several towns because of the growing violence.

The first round of presi-dential elections, coinciding also with a legislative ballot, is scheduled for December 27 this year.

These will be preceded by municipal and regional elec-tions, on November 1.

According to UN figures, militant attacks in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger left around 4,000 dead last year.

According to an official toll, three attacks in December and January, all claimed by Islamic State, have killed 174 soldiers.

Malawi President appeals ruling nullifying voteAFP — BLANTYRE, MALAWI

Malawian President Peter Mutharika has filed an appeal against a landmark court decision that overturned his 2019 election victory, accusing it of bias against him, documents showed.

Malawi made history on Monday when the top court ruled in favour of an oppo-sition bid to cancel last May’s presidential election results over allegations of rigging.

In his appeal papers on Friday, Muth-arika said the judges had “erred in law” in concluding that his re-election was “undue” and he asked the Supreme Court to reverse the judgment which also ordered new elections.

After six months of marathon hearings broadcast on public radio, the judges had declared Mutharika was “not duly elected” over what it called widespread irregular-ities, especially “massive” use of correction fluid on results sheets.

It was only the second time that a pres-idential election has been cancelled by a court in sub-saharan Africa, after Kenya in 2017.

But Mutharika, 79, said the judges’ findings were “grossly biased” against him and a “miscarriage of justice”.

Lazarus Chakwera, the leader of the main opposition Malawi Congress Party (MCP), who came a close second to Muth-arika, complained that he was robbed of victory. Mutharika was declared the winner of the May 21 election with 38.5 percent of the vote, with Chakwera losing by just 159,000 votes. It is the first time a

presidential election has been challenged on legal grounds in Malawi since inde-pendence from Britain in 1964.

The normally stable country was hit by protests throughout last year over the election result, and on Friday the activists threatened the electoral commission with “the mother of all demonstrations” if they don’t step down in the next week.

In separate court papers on Friday, the Malawi Electoral Commission chairwoman Jane Ansah sought an order “suspending the enforcement” of the Constitutional Court ruling, pending the hearing and deter-mination of an appeal.

The court ordered a fresh election within 150 days — as well as an

investigation into the conduct of the elec-toral commission.

But Ansah accused the Constitutional Court of acting in “excess of its jurisdiction”. She said organising an election would require more time — at least 261 days — suggesting October 28 for the new polling date.

In its ruling, the court also ordered a number of legislative changes including that a candidate should be chosen by more than 50 percent of the ballots cast. Mutharika rubbished that court’s order to parliament to change the laws saying that matter was never raised by the opposition in their petition, and that the order went against the “doctrine of separation of powers”.

Opposition Malawi Congress Party leader Lazarus Chakwera addresses supporters after a court annulled the May 2019 presidential vote that declared Peter Mutharika a winner, in Lilongwe, Malawi, on February 4, 2020.

‘Think about your people’, UN chief tells South Sudan rivalsAFP — ADDIS ABABA

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres yesterday said it was “unacceptable” South Sudan’s warring parties had yet to make peace as a deadline approaches for the rivals to join forces in government.

President Salva Kiir and rebel leader Riek Machar have failed to break a deadlock over key terms of a power-sharing agreement with just two weeks until they are to form a unity

government. The pair have already missed two previous deadlines to settle their differ-ences and enshrine a lasting peace to put an end to six years of bloody civil war that has left 380,000 people dead and mil-lions more in dire poverty.

“Think about your people, respect your people, you have not the right to continue the confrontation when your people are suffering so much,” Guterres told reporters in Addis Ababa ahead of an African

Union summit. “It is your moral and political responsibility to put an end to this and to find the agreements that are nec-essary to make South Sudan enter into a normal life.”

Kiir and Machar signed a peace deal in September 2018, pausing the bloodshed that erupted in 2013 when the pres-ident accused his former deputy of plotting a coup.

They agreed to come together in a coalition in May the following year, however

disputes over territory and security arrangements dogged negotiations and the deadline was missed, followed by another six months later.

In November, the pair were given 100 more days to resolve these sticking points as fears grew that the tenuous ceasefire could be derailed if a break-through was not achieved.

But progress has been piecemeal as the new February 22 looms nearer.

“It is for me totally

unacceptable that we are again closing to a deadline... and there is no agreement on a number of issues,” Guterres said.

“It is time for the South Sudanese leaders to agree to cooperate, and to deserve the wonderful people they have.”

A UN rights commission on South Sudan warned on Friday that violence was on the rise in parts of the country, and that efforts to unify armed factions under the terms of the peace agreement were faltering.

Guterres backs greater AU role in solving Libya crisisAGENCIES — ADDIS ABABA

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres yesterday said he supported the African Union (AU) taking a greater role in mediating the Libya crisis, acknowledging the bloc’s frus-tration at being sidelined so far.

The AU leadership has com-plained at being overlooked in peace-making efforts related to Libya, which have been led primarily by the UN and heavily involved European nations.

“I fully understand that frustration,” Guterres said at a news conference in Addis Ababa ahead of the annual AU summit today and tomorrow.

“Africa has been put aside in relation to Libya.... We believe it is absolutely essential to associate the AU in searching (for) a solution to the libyan conflict”.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who takes over as AU chair tomorrow, has said Libya would be a key focus of his tenure as the pan-African

bloc seeks a more prominent role in solving conflicts on the continent.

Guterres welcomed a rec-onciliation forum organised by the AU last month in relation to Libya, adding their delegates were welcome at the UN mission in Tripoli.

Libya has been torn by

fighting between rival armed factions since a 2011 NATO-backed uprising killed dictator Moamer Kadhafi.

The North African state remains in chaos, mostly split between strongman Khalifa Haftar, who controls eastern Libya, and the UN-recognised government in Tripoli.

Meanwhile, militias loyal to Khalifa Haftar targeted the only international airport in the country’s capital Tripoli on Friday.

In a statement, the Gov-ernment of National Accord (GNA) said Mitiga Airport — open to civilian use — was hit by missiles. It was temporarily closed for a short time imme-diately after the attack, but has now resumed flights.

The airport had only recently reopened after flights had been suspended when Haftar declared Tripoli and sur-rounding areas a “no-fly zone,” threatening to down any aircraft.

Since early April, forces loyal to Haftar have been launching a campaign to capture Tripoli from forces of the GNA, Libya’s UN-recognised government. Clashes between the two sides since then have left more than 1,000 people dead and about 5,500 wounded, according to the World Health Organization.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks during a press conference at the African Union headquarters during the 33rd African Union (AU) Summit, in Addis Ababa, yesterday.

State funeral for Daniel arap Moi on February 11Military officers escort the coffin of Kenya’s late former president Daniel arap Moi from the Lee Funeral Home to Lie-in-State for public viewing at the Parliament Buildings in Nairobi, Kenya, yesterday. Moi, who ruled the country between 1978 and 2002, will be honoured with a state funeral on February 11.Moi died on February 4, aged 95.

Fighters step up attacks in Mozambique gas region: UNREUTERS — GENEVA

People are fleeing a surge of attacks in northern Mozam-bique where witnesses have described beheadings, mass kidnappings and villages burned to the ground, the United Nations said on Friday.

Officials said armed groups had stepped up assaults in Cabo Delgado province, the centre of an insurgency that has killed hundreds since it started in 2017.

The northern region is also home to one of the world’s biggest recent gas finds.

Displaced villagers have described killings, maiming, torture and destroyed crops, Andrej Mahecic, the spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), said.

“They speak of men in par-ticular being targeted and beheaded, and many, many reports of women and children... being kidnapped or simply disappearing,” he told a briefing in Geneva.

Some of the attackers appeared to be bandits. “But there is also the element of some of the groups being driven by ideological or other ideas. And they have been quite vicious... in spreading the terror in this part of Mozambique,” Mahecic added.

The UNHCR said there had been a sharp increase in vio-lence in recent months, and the past weeks had been the most turbulent period since attacks began in October 2017.

In all, 100,000 people have been uprooted by the violence in the last two years.

UN calls for global action on East Africa locust outbreakBLOOMBERG — ADDIS ABABA

The United Nations Secretary-General has appealed for “speedy and generous” financial assistance to curb an outbreak of locusts in the eastern African desert, which may worsen significantly if left unchecked.

Antonio Guterres citied global warming as a cause of the problem and called for developed countries to support African nations that are bur-dened with the consequences, in remarks made to the press on the sidelines of the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa.

“There is a link between climate change and the unprecedented locust crisis plaguing Ethiopia and East Africa,” Guterres said.

“Warmer seas mean more cyclones generating the perfect breeding ground for locusts. Today the swarms are as big as major cities and it is getting worse by the day.” The desert locusts outbreak is the worst Kenya has experienced in 70 years, and the infestation also includes Ethiopia, Somalia, Djibouti and Eritrea.

The UN’s Food and Agri-culture Organization last week said it had mobilised $15.4m of the $76m requested for the five countries.

Lions kill woman in South African game reserveAFP — JOHANNESBURG

Lions mauled to death a 21-year old woman on a South African private game reserve where she worked and lived, police said yesterday.

The woman, identified as Swans Van Wyke, was attacked on Thursday afternoon “while performing her duties” on the reserve in the northern-most province of Limpopo, police said.

It is unclear whether she was employed as a ranger or ground staff.

Regional police spokesman Colonel Moatshe Ngoepe said police and emergency services found the woman with severe injuries outside a lion cage.

South Africa has as many as 8,000 lions in captivity being bred for hunting, the bone trade, tourism and aca-demic research, according to estimates by wildlife groups.

French and Malian troops kill 30 extremists in SahelAP — PARIS

The French military has said operations by French and Malian forces have killed 30 more extremists in Africa’s Sahel region in recent days, amid stepped-up efforts to combat militant groups in the area.

Two air strikes on Friday involving one of France’s first armed drones killed some 20 militants in the restive border zone where Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso meet, according to a French military statement.

Earlier in the week, two French commando operations killed about 10 others in the border zone where extremists groups including Islamic State in the Grand Sahara operate, the statement said.

The French military said France’s Barkhane force in the Sahel region worked closely with Malian forces on the operations, and did not report any casualties among French or Malian troops.

REUTERS — THAILAND/BANGKOK

A Thai soldier killed at least 20 people in a shooting rampage in northeastern Thailand yesterday, posting messages on Facebook during the attack, and was holed up in a shopping mall nine hours after he first struck, authorities said.

Security forces blocked the street leading to the Terminal 21 mall in the city of Nakhon Ratchasima.

Groups of soldiers and police could be seen heading in as rescue workers waited nearby, nearly 10 hours after the soldier began his attacks in another part of the city.

Earlier, security forces had stormed the mall and helped hundreds of people escape, but the gunman was still at large inside, defence ministry spokesman Kongcheep Tan-trawanit told Reuters.

The soldier opened fire in several places, including a house and an army base, before heading to the mall in Nakhon Ratchasima, which is about 250km from the capital Bangkok, police said.

Local media showed footage of the soldier getting out

of a car in front of the mall and firing off a series of shots, sending people fleeing for cover.

“We don’t know why he did this. It appears he went mad,” Kongcheep said.

One video from a bystander showed a man slumped at the wheel of a car in a pool of blood. It was unclear if he was among the dead. Another video showed at least four people who had clearly been shot and showed no sign of movement.

CCTV footage from inside the mall posted on social media showed the gunman dressed in black and wearing a mask, his gun slung over his shoulder with no sign of other people

around. Kongcheep said at least 20 people had been killed and it was not clear whether the gunman had taken hostages in the mall.

“It’s not known how many are still inside,” he said.

Police identified the suspect as Jakrapanth Thomma. During the attack he posted “Death is inevitable for everyone” on his Facebook page and later asked “Should I give up?”

Facebook said it had removed the suspect’s account.

“Our hearts go out to the victims, their families and the community affected by this tragedy in Thailand.

There is no place on Facebook for people who commit this kind of atrocity, nor do we allow people to praise or support this attack,” a Facebook representative said in a statement.

Thai media said the sus-pect’s mother was being taken to the mall to try to persuade him to give up. Video showed her in tears saying “why did he do it?” as she got in a police vehicle.

Major shootings are rare in the Southeast Asian country other than in the far south,

where a decades-old insur-gency persists.

A woman told Thailand’s Channel One television she heard gunshots when she was at the mall and hid in a clothing store with other people before escaping.

The shooter first went to a house in the city and shot two

people dead before going to an army base, where he took a gun from the weapons store and fired at people, local police said.

Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul asked on his Facebook page for blood donations at four hospitals in the area.

Prime Minister Prayuth

Chan-ocha expressed condo-lences to the families of those killed, a government spokes-woman said.

Nakhon Ratchasima is one of the biggest cities in north-eastern Thailand, a rice growing area and one of the poorest parts of the country of 69 million people.

11SUNDAY 9 FEBRUARY 2020 ASIA

Thai soldier kills 20 people, holes up in mall

Thai police arriving at the scene of a shooting in the Nakhon Ratchasima city, Thailand, yesterday.

Delhi elections: Exit polls predict defeat for BJPAFP — NEW DELHI

Millions in the Indian capital voted yesterday in a key regional election, with exit polls suggesting a big defeat for right-wing Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Modi’s nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was a distant second behind the upstart Aam Aadmi Party, or Common Man’s Party, led by former tax inspector Arvind Kejriwal, according to exit polls released after voting ended.

An average of nine exit polls showed Kejriwal’s party was likely to win 52 out of 70 seats.

“We are winning by a huge margin,” tweeted Manish Sisodia, the deputy chief min-ister of Delhi.

Federal Home Minister Amit

Shah, who had campaigned vig-orously for BJP highlighting his tough stance on national security, called a meeting of party members yesterday.

Earlier in the day long lines had formed outside New Delhi polling stations amid heavy security as a weeks-old protest by women against a new citi-zenship law took centrestage.

In an often vitriolic election campaign, Modi and other BJP leaders had slammed opponents of the law who deem it anti-Muslim.

The BJP had been seeking to oust Kejriwal, the capital’s chief minister whose party took a record 67 of 70 Delhi assembly seats in 2015.

While Kejriwal focused on local issues including the heavily subsidised electricity, water and

healthcare he introduced, BJP leaders sought to turn the vote into a referendum on the women’s protest.

Hundreds have been blocking a main road through Shaheen Bagh district since December 15 in protest against legislation that offers a fast-track to Indian nationality for persecuted religious minorities from neighbouring countries but excludes Muslims.

On the eve of the elections, the BJP sent out messages telling people to vote for the party if they wanted an end to the Shaheen Bagh demonstration.

With the BJP on the back foot after failing in recent state elections in Maharashtra and Jharkhand, analysts said the Delhi result will be a key test of opinion on national issues.

Near the women’s protest site, food company senior exec-utive Maroof Ahmad said the “BJP has only two agendas — Shaheen Bagh and Pakistan. They have nothing else to talk about.

“GDP is falling, the economy is in a mess and they are only bothered about temples and mosques,” he added.

But others lined up behind the prime minister.

In the affluent Jangpura neighbourhood, flower garlands and balloons decorated the polling station as financial con-sultant Vinod Kumar came to vote.

“I am not biased towards any political party but I don’t endorse the Shaheen Bagh protest. Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru believed in

and supported the citizenship law,” he said referring to India’s revered independence leaders.

Thousands of extra security officers were on duty for the election with a large contingent at five polling stations near the Shaheen Bagh protest.

Women’s safety has increas-ingly become an issue in Delhi since a 2012 gang rape murder made international headlines.

In a bid to persuade more females to vote, authorities set up dozens of women-only “pink polling booths” across the capital.

“I still don’t feel safe in Delhi, a lot more must be done,” said Shweta Laxmi.

More than 14 million people were eligible to take part in yes-terday’s vote. The results will be announced on Tuesday.

Passengers wearing protective face masks wait for their flight at Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu, Nepal, yesterday.

Precautions

Hong Kong enforcing virus quarantine for mainland China arrivalsAFP — HONG KONG

Hong Kong yesterday began enforcing a mandatory two-week quarantine for anyone arriving from mainland China, a dramatic escalation of its bid to stop the deadly new coronavirus from spreading.

The vast majority of people crossing the border are expected to self-quarantine and will face daily phone calls and spot checks by officials, with up to six months in prison for those found in breach of the isolation period.

Authorities hope the prospect of quarantine will vir-tually halt cross-border traffic while allowing the city to remain stocked with food and goods from the mainland, where the virus has now killed more than 700 people.

As of 4pm yesterday, arrivals in Hong Kong drasti-cally dropped to around 9,000, compared with nearly 96,000 on Friday. Overland crossings slowed to a trickle of 807. Only 161 people have been put under mandatory quarantine, of which a vast majority are Hong Kongers and 18 are non-local visitors.

Arrivals have plummeted by 75 percent in recent weeks. But thousands queued in neighbouring Shenzhen on Friday night to beat the mid-night deadline before the new quarantine rules came in.

By yesterday morning only a trickle of people were arriving via the Shenzhen Bay crossing.

“I have to come back because my daughter is going to school here,” a woman who gave her surname as Song said after ending a 20-day family

holiday on the mainland.“We will quarantine our-

selves, because this is for the public good,” she added.

A security guard who gave his surname as Lam said arrivals were up about 50 percent in the last few days and most were Hong Kongers.

Cabinet ministers unveiled how the quarantine would work on Friday evening, just six hours before the new policy took effect.

Hong Kong residents are allowed to self-quarantine at home and mainland and inter-national visitors at hotels or other accommodation they have arranged.

But those with no planned accommodation will be taken to temporary facilities pre-pared by the government.

Anyone who has been to mainland China in the past 14 days and then flies into Hong Kong from another destination will also be quarantined.

Visitors with a visa for less than 14 days will be denied entry, which will block most mainland visitors, who tend to travel to Hong Kong on a seven-day permit.

The city is planning to use an army of volunteers from the civil service and some students to make spot checks and daily calls to ensure people are staying at home.

The new regulations have been enacted under a sweeping emergency law that allows the city’s leaders to bypass the leg-islature during an outbreak of disease. Exemptions are being made for a variety of key jobs including flight and shipping crews and cross-border truck drivers to ensure goods and food keep coming into the city.

India urgesSri Lanka toresume TamilreconciliationAP — NEW DELHI

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked his counterpart from neigh-bouring Sri Lanka yesterday to resume a post-civil war reconciliation process with minority ethnic Tamils that appears to have stalled since a new president was elected last year in the island nation.

“We had an open conver-sation about reconciliation in Sri Lanka. I’m confident that the government of Sri Lanka will meet the Tamil people’s expectation of equality, justice, peace and dignity in a united Sri Lanka,” Modi told reporters after meeting with Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Rajapaksa, who earlier was Sri Lanka’s president, led security forces to crush a Tamil rebel group, the Tamil Tigers, in 2009, ending a 26-year civil war. As president, he had promised India, whose 80 million Tamils share linguistic and family ties with Sri Lankan Tamils, that his government would give Tamils a level of autonomy as stipulated in a peace agreement between the two countries. But critics say those promises were not fulfilled.

Rajapaksa, addressing reporters alongside Modi, said yeterday the two leaders also discussed ongoing projects in Sri Lanka that have received Indian assistance.

Turkmenistan President gives son important new ministerial postAFP — ASHGABAT, TURKMENISTAN

Turkmenistan’s powerful leader has appointed his son minister of industry and construction, state media reported yesterday — a role that will involve over-seeing the reclusive country’s most lucrative building projects.

State newspaper Neutral Turkmenistan published a copy of the presidential order which said that President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov had appointed 38-year-old Serdar Berdymukhamedov minister of the new ministry “created on the foundations of the industry and communications ministry.”

The industry and con-struction ministry will also oversee the state agencies in

charge of air, road and water transport as well as communi-cations, according to the order, which relieved Berdy-mukhamedov junior of his pre-vious job as governor of Ahal region.

Serdar Berdymukhamedov, 38, is regularly mentioned as a potential successor to his father who oversees a political system without opposition, checks on his authority or a free media.

The move comes after Ber-dymukhamedov this month ordered the cabinet to allocate nearly $1.5bn to the construction of a new city in the Ahal region from where the Berdy-mukhamedov family hail.The country began work on the so far unnamed city in April, 2019.

Prior to becoming Ahal’s governor, Serdar Berdy-mukhamedov served as Ahal’s deputy governor and the deputy foreign minister.

He also currently holds a seat in parliament.

Turkmenistan’s regime has been accused by international rights groups of diverting energy revenues towards vanity projects of little long-term benefit to the population. Berdymukhamedov, a former dentist, came to power in 2006 following the death of his predecessor Saparmurat Niyazov who transformed himself from a Communist leader into a “Turkmenbashy”, or “Father of the Turkmen” after independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

Japan confirms 3 more coronavirus cases on cruise linerREUTERS — TOKYO Another 3 people on a cruise liner off Japan have tested positive for coronavirus, bringing the total number of confirmed cases from the ship to 64, Japan’s health ministry said yesterday.

Japan’s health minister on Friday said 41 people aboard the Diamond Princess had tested positive for corona-virus in addition to 20 previ-ously identified cases, with those infected being moved to hospitals on land.

The liner was placed on a two-week quarantine on arriving at Yokohama on February. 3. Amid an epi-demic that has already killed more than 700 in mainland China,

Japan’s health ministry said yesterday that some 279 of the 3,700 people on board the ship when it arrived had been tested for the virus.

The soldier opened fire in several places, including a house and an army base, before heading to the mall in Nakhon Ratchasima, which is about 250km from the capital Bangkok, police said.

12 SUNDAY 9 FEBRUARY 2020ASIA

US citizen dies of novelcoronavirus in Wuhan as toll rises to 723REUTERS — BEIJING

A 60-year-old American has died of the new coronavirus, the first confirmed non-Chinese death of the illness, US officials said, as millions of Chinese began returning home after a Lunar New Year break that was extended to try to contain the outbreak.

While the vast majority of cases have been in China, the virus has spread to some two dozen countries abroad, including five British nationals infected in a French ski resort.

The American man died on Thursday in Wuhan, epicentre of the virus outbreak in the central Chinese province of Hubei, a US embassy spokesman said in Beijing yesterday.

“We offer our sincerest con-dolences to the family on their loss,” he said. “Out of the respect for the family’s privacy, we have no further comment.”

A Japanese man in his sixties and hospitalised with pneumonia in Wuhan, capital of Hubei, also died after suffering symptoms consistent with the new

coronavirus, Japan’s foreign min-istry said.

The death toll in mainland China rose to 723 yesterday, the World Health Organization (WHO) said, looking likely to pass the 774 deaths recorded globally during the 2002-2003 outbreak

of Severe Acute Respiratory Syn-drome (SARS). Most of the deaths in China have occurred in and around Wuhan. Across mainland China, the number of cases stood at 34,598, the WHO said.

The virus has spread to 27 countries and regions, according to a count based on official reports, infecting more than 330 people. Two deaths have been reported outside mainland China — in Hong Kong and the Philip-pines. Both victims were Chinese nationals.

The latest patients include five British nationals staying in the same chalet at a ski resort in Haute-Savoie in the Alps, health officials said, raising fears of further infections at a busy period in the ski season.

The five had stayed in the same ski chalet with a person who had been in Singapore. They were not in a serious condition, the officials said.

Hidden among the statistics are poignant tales of grief and frustration. Canadian mother Amelia Pan is at home while her two-year-old daughter, Cerena, is running a fever and stranded

in Hubei where her father has contracted the virus.

“I am just hanging in there,” Pan said in a Skype interview. “I need to stay strong so I can fight for my family.”

US experts are awaiting approval to enter China, having been included on a list proposed by the World Health Organi-sation, a US embassy spokesman said. “It is hard to say how lethal this novel coronavirus infection is,” Professor Allen Cheng, an infectious diseases expert at Monash University in Melbourne, said.

“While the crude mortality

appears to be around 2 percent, there are likely to be many people who have been infected that haven’t been tested.”

News of the death on Friday of Li Wenliang, a doctor who was reprimanded by police for raising the alarm about the new coro-navirus, sparked outrage on Chinese social media and rekindled memories of how Beijing was slow to tell the world about the SARS outbreak.

A team of investigators sent by the anti-corruption watchdog to Wuhan to probe “issues raised by the people in connection with Dr Li” had arrived in the city, state

broadcaster CCTV said. Chinese-ruled Hong Kong introduced a two-week quarantine yesterday for all people arriving from the mainland, or who have been there during the previous 14 days.

Another three people on a cruise liner off Japan tested pos-itive for coronavirus, bringing the total number of confirmed cases from the ship to 64, Japan’s health ministry said.

Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd on Friday banned “any guests holding Chinese, Hong Kong or Macau passports, regardless of when they were there last” from boarding the company’s ships.

A man wearing a face mask walks at the Beihai Park, in Beijing, yesterday.

The death toll in mainland China rose to 723, the World Health Organization said, looking likely to pass the 774 deaths recorded globally during the 2002-2003 outbreak of SARS. Most of the deaths in China have occurred in and around Wuhan. Across mainland China, the number of cases stood at 34,598.

Eight dead, over 40 hurt in Kazakhstan clashesAFP — MASANCHI, KAZAKHSTAN

Eight people were killed, dozens hurt and property burned during clashes in southern Kazakhstan, prompting concern yesterday from authorities who portray the country as a beacon of stability.

Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev held an emer-gency government session yes-terday to tackle Friday’s violence in an ethnically-mixed pocket of the Jambyl region, near the border with Kyrgyzstan.

A commission of enquiry was also set up.

“Eight died, more than 40 were injured” in the clashes, Interior Minister Yerlan

Turgumbayev said in the capital Nur-Sultan.

A journalist who visited Masanchi — one of the villages where clashes took place — said few people were out walking on streets lined by smouldering houses as fire crews put out the remaining fires.

Some residents could be seen gathering belongings from houses partly destroyed by fire as they prepared to leave the village, which is under the guard of police and special forces.

The clashes that saw 47 people detained occurred close to the Kyrgyz border where a journalist saw over a thousand people queuing to get into

Kazakhstan’s poorer neighbour. Border authorities were only letting women and children through, he said.

Kyrgyzstan’s health ministry said that a hospital in the city of Tokmak close to the border admitted 18 patients following the clashes, 10 of whom were still being treated.

President Tokayev said the fighting that subsided overnight occurred in a number of settle-ments in the Kordai district of Jambyl region.

“Unfortunately there are injuries and fatalities. I express my sincere condolences to the close ones of those who died,” T o k a y e v s a i d

during the emergency session. A government commission set up to “determine the reasons for the conflict, decide questions of a socioeconomic and humani-tarian character, and determine the scale of the damage” arrived in the area yesterday day.

Deputy Prime Minister Ber-dibek Saparbayev visited a hos-pital in Korday and pledged that “the guilty will be punished.”

“The main question now is ensuring stability, the law and security in the region,” he said in comments published on the prime minister’s website.

Footage posted on social media late Friday showed scenes of young men, some armed with

clubs, marching along the road of a village with buildings ablaze either side.

The conflict is widely believed to have pitted Kazakhs against minority Dungans.

Dauren Abayev, Kaza-khstan’s information minister, said it had been sparked by an “everyday confrontation.” Abayev also said that key bazaars in Almaty had been closed to ensure the conflict did not spread.

“There were calls for vio-lence at these markets,” he told journalists in the capital Nur-Sultan.

“Accordingly, precautionary measures were taken,” he said.

China lauds Pakistan’s assistance on coronavirusINTERNEWS — ISLAMABAD

Chinese Deputy Director-General of Asian Affairs Yao Wen has welcomed Pakistan’s efforts during the ongoing coro-navirus outbreak in the country.

“China has the confidence, capacity and determination to win against and control this epi-demic,” Wen said during a joint briefing by the Embassy of Pakistan in Beijing and China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The diplomat lauded the support from ‘iron brother’ Pakistan in this difficult time and thanked the Government of Pakistan for supplying medical aid.

He also mentioned the mes-sages of sympathy from the President and Prime Minister of Pakistan to the Chinese leadership.

Pakistan’s Ambassador to China Naghmana Hashmi, in her keynote speech, paid tribute to the courage and resilience of the Chinese nation during the testing times and said that they have proven that they can control this outbreak with their extraordinary determination.

She said that, like true brothers, Pakistan will stand shoulder to shoulder by the Chinese side.

Singapore sees panic buyingafter virus alert level raisedAFP — SINGAPORE

Anxious Singapore shoppers formed long lines at grocery stores yesterday and cleared the shelves of essential items, after the city-state raised its alert level over China’s coronavirus outbreak.

Since emerging late last year, the virus has killed over 700 people and infected more than 34,000 in China, and spread to many other countries. Singapore, which has reported 33 cases, raised its alert level Friday to “orange” — the same as during the deadly 2003 SARS outbreak, indicating the virus is severe and passes easily between people.

The announcement trig-gered panic in the city-state of 5.7 million starting late Friday, with shoppers — many wearing

masks — rushing to stock up on items including rice, noodles and toilet paper.

Pictures circulating on social media showed empty shelves in some stores, carts filled with goods and long lines at counters, which continued till yesterday.

“I’m afraid that if they further raise the alert level, we will not be able to go out,” a 50-year-old housewife, who did not want to be named, said after leaving a grocery store.

The highest level on Singa-pore’s four-point scale for dealing with disease outbreaks is “red”, one above “orange”.

There were, however, ample stocks of other items such as fruit, meat, fish, and alcohol. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong urged calm, saying Singapore had “ample supplies”

and there was no need for people to stock up with items such as instant noodles or toilet paper.

“Fear can do more harm than the virus itself,” he said in a statement.

“It can make us panic, or do things which make matters worse, like circulating rumours online, hoarding facemasks or food, or blaming particular groups for the outbreak.”

Singapore raised its alert level amid a growing number of virus cases in citizens with no recent travel history to mainland China and no known links to previous infections.

Hong Kong has also been hit by a wave of panic-buying in recent days as it seeks to battle the virus, with supermarket shelves frequently emptied of crucial goods.

A worker cleans the empty shelves at a local supermarket in Singapore, yesterday.

Cyclone nears Australia’s West with heavy windsREUTERS — MELBOURNE

A tropical cyclone expected to hit Western Australia yesterday was forecast to bring ferocious winds and a potentially dangerous storm tide, while much of the bushfire-battered east coast faced flood warnings due to torrential rains.

Severe tropical cyclone Damien was expected to make landfall on the west coast near Port Hedland, the world’s largest iron ore port, on Sat-urday afternoon. The ports had been cleared of vessels ahead its arrival.

At 1 pm AWST, Damien was a Category 3 storm, expecting to bring winds with gusts up to 220km per hour near its centre when crossing the coast later yesterday, the Bureau of Mete-orology in Western Australia said.

Residents of some coastal

areas were urged to seek shelter.

“Residents between Dampier and Whim Creek, including Dampier and Karratha, are warned of the potential of a very dangerous storm tide as the cyclone centre crosses the coast,” the agency said on its website.

“Tides are likely to rise sig-nificantly above the normal high tide mark with damaging waves and very dangerous flooding.”

Sparsely populated Western Australia was also facing several severe fire warnings with hot temperatures expected in most of the state.

After months of destructive wildfires that have razed mil-lions of hectares of land, Aus-tralia has been hit in recent weeks by wild weather that has brought heavy downpours, hail storms and heat waves.

Court bans plastic bagsat mega stores in PunjabINTERNEWS — LAHORE

The Lahore High Court in Paki-stan’s Punjab banned use of plastic bags at all mega stores in the provincial metropolis and gave them 15-day deadline to comply with the order and switch to alternative shopping bags.

Justice Shahid Karim passed the order on an appli-cation moved by Haroon Farooq seeking a direction to the Punjab government to leg-islate on banning use, manu-facture and sale of polythene bags and introduce a necessary legislation in this regard.

During the hearing, peti-tioner’s counsel Barrister

Abuzar Salman Niazi told the court that in October 2019, the provincial chief secretary had given an undertaking to a full bench in a separate case that the government would introduce law on prohibition of polythene bags. However, he said, nothing had been done so far by the government.

He argued that the acts and omissions of the government were in clear violation of Article 9 and 14 of the Consti-tution, which deal with funda-mental rights of citizens.

The counsel contended that being most thickly populated province, the polythene bags were used in Punjab in great variety and huge numbers.

Pakistani novelist Nisar Aziz Butt passes away

INTERNEWS — LAHORE

Eminent novelist Nisar Aziz Butt has passed away. She was 93.

According to information provided by a member of her family, Nisar had suffered a stroke on Sunday night.

Born in 1927 in Mardan, Nisar Aziz Butt belonged to the same generation of some other widely acclaimed Pakistani women writers, including Qur-ratulain Hyder, Altaf Fatima, Khadija Mastur, Jamila Hashmi, as well as short story writers Mumtaz Shirin, and Hajra Masroor.

She has four novels to her credit, namely Nagri Nagri Phira Musafir (The Traveller Wandered From Land to Land), Nae Chiraghay Nae Gulay (No Lamp, No Flower), Darya Kay Sang (The Stones of the River), and Karavan-i-Wujood (Procession of Existence).

She also published her autobiography, Gaey Dino Ka Suragh (In Search of Days Gone By).

13SUNDAY 9 FEBRUARY 2020 EUROPE

Ireland votes in ‘three-horse race’ for powerAFP — DUBLIN

Irish voters cast their ballot yesterday with Prime Minister Leo Varadkar hoping to secure a new term on the back of his Brexit strategy, but polls put his Fine Gael party behind rivals Sinn Fein and Fianna Fail.

Polls opened at 0700 GMT, although a small number of islands off the west coast voted on Friday to allow for rough seas potentially disrupting the transport of ballots by boat.

Varadkar, whose party has been in power since 2011, cast his vote on the outskirts of Dublin, seeming in a relaxed mood as he chatted with offi-cials and posed for selfies with voters.

His Fine Gael party has been in power since 2011 but polling suggests they are trailing left-wingers Sinn Fein — the former political wing of the now-defunct Irish Republican Army paramilitary group — and centre-right rivals Fianna Fail.

In Monday’s final opinion poll, Sinn Fein were in front on 25 percent, with Fianna Fail on 23 percent and Fine Gael on 20 percent.

In Dublin, a stream of voters made their way to polling stations.

Liam Allen, 27, said housing was a “big concern” for him.

“I still live at home with my parents and for the foreseeable

future I won’t be able to afford a home,” he said.

Nurse Terry Sanor said: “I’m hoping that the health service will improve, and the waiting list, and the pay for the nurses and the housing.”

The centre-right Fine Gael and Fianna Fail parties have traditionally held a duopoly on power.

“I’m hopeful there will be change. In this country, for far too long it’s been dominated by two parties,” said 60-year-old James Comiskey.

Alexander Faw, 22, said: “I’m looking for a more left gov-ernment of Ireland.”

Some 3.3 million people are eligible to vote to elect 159 members of the Dail, the lower chamber of parliament in Dublin.

A single transferable vote system is used to elect multiple m e m b e r s f r o m 3 9 constituencies.

Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin, 59, voted with his family in his Cork city constituency.

“We are very confident. We

had a good campaign,” he told reporters outside the polling station.

“Housing and health and the impact of the cost of living on people have been the dominant issues of this campaign.” Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald voted in central Dublin.

“People have told us throughout this campaign that they want change,” the 50-year-old told reporters outside the polling station.

“They want a change in rep-resentation and they want a change in government.” Var-adkar plumped for an early election after successfully helping to broker a deal cush-ioning Britain’s EU exit on January 31 by avoiding a hard border with Northern Ireland, part of the United Kingdom.

But experts suggest he may have miscalculated the public mood, with surveys indicating Brexit was a low concern among the electorate.

Other parties have ham-mered Fine Gael over failings in health care, housing and

homelessness.“This election is wide open,”

Varadkar admitted at his final campaign stop in the western town of Ennis on Friday.

“It’s a three horse race: three parties all within shouting distance of each other.”

In office since June 2017, Varadkar, 41, is Ireland’s first mixed-race premier who has come to represent a more socially progressive Ireland

after years of dominance by the Roman Catholic church.

“Varadkar is young, he looks like part of the new Ireland,” Eunan O’Halpin, of Trinity College Dublin, said.

“Yet his personal popularity appears to have dipped, and that of his party has dipped very significantly.”

Polls close at 2200 GMT and votes start being counted at 0900 GMT today.

Despite its opinion poll lead, Sinn Fein is not fielding enough candidates to form a majority government, while both Fine Gael and Fianna Fail have ruled out working with them in coalition.

Since 2016, Fianna Fail have propped up Fine Gael in office with a confidence and supply arrangement that could implicate them in the perceived failings of the government.

Leader of Ireland’s Fianna Fail party, Michael Martin (second left), his wife Mary (centre) and family pose for a photograph as they arrive to cast their votes in Ballinlough, Cork, in Ireland, yesterday.

Merkel dismisses adviser for eastern Germany after Thuringia scandalBLOOMBERG — BERLIN

Chancellor Angela Merkel stepped in to halt a government crisis over her party’s flirt with the far right in eastern Germany, defusing one threat to her political legacy while potentially setting the stage for the next.

Under fire from the gov-erning coalition in Berlin, the premier of the eastern state of Thuringia limited the imme-diate fallout by resigning yes-terday. His election with the votes of Merkel’s party and the nationalist Alternative for Germany had set off the political firestorm.

Yet it took Merkel’s return from a trip to Africa to contain the crisis, underscoring the weakness of her successor at the helm of the Christian Dem-ocratic Union party and the domestic pressures on Merkel as she seeks to keep Germany on the centrist path that has defined her more than 14 years in office.

It was a lesson in crisis management for CDU chair-woman Annegret Kramp-Kar-renbauer, a Merkel protegee who has struggled to make her mark and stake a claim to suc-ceeding Merkel as chancellor in the next federal election in 2021.

AKK, as Kramp-Karren-bauer is known, had tried since Wednesday to establish control after Thomas Kemmerich, a Free Democratic Party poli-tician, was elected state leader of Thuringia with help from local CDU lawmakers.

That broke a taboo estab-lished by national parties, including the CDU, never to cooperate with the Alternative for Germany party, or AfD. It incensed the Social Democrats, Merkel’s coalition partner in Berlin.

Out of Africa Merkel took the first step shortly after her plane touched down yesterday morning in Berlin.

She contacted her top liaison for the eastern German states, Christian Hirte, to tell him that his services were no longer needed.

Hirte, the CDU’s leader in Thuringia, had applauded Kemmerich’s election with the AfD’s help as a victory of the political center.

At 1 pm, Merkel met with her CDU-led party bloc and the Social Democrats at the chan-cellery in Berlin to avert a pos-sible breakup of the coalition after the SPD’s two national leaders in a newspaper interview threatened to leave the government if Kemmerich didn’t resign immediately.

Two hours later, the coa-lition demanded exactly that and called for an early state election soon. Around the same time, Kemmerich tweeted he was resigning with immediate

effect after insisting a day earlier he wouldn’t.

In the statement, Merkel’s coalition called the circum-stances of Kemmerich’s election “unforgivable,” echoing language she used on Thursday during a visit to South Africa.

Kemmerich’s exit and the call for elections in Thuringia helps avoid an immediate bust-up with Social Democrats, which had pressed Merkel’s CDU to be more aggressive in seeking his removal.

Next Crisis? Now, Merkel will have to deal with detractors in her own party.

CDU officials in Thuringia, who saw their party’s slump in the last election in October, opposes sending voters to the polls again.

Kramp-Karrenbauer spent Thursday night in Erfurt, the

state capital, unsuccessfully trying to persuade them oth-erwise — until Merkel sought o lay down the law from Berlin yesterday.

Part of Merkel’s loss of authority in her waning years stems from the CDU’s collapse in the formerly communist east.

The AfD, which built a nationwide base by denouncing Merkel’s openness to refugees, has capitalised on the region’s prosperity and jobs gap with western Germany.

Alternative for Germany more than doubled its support in Thuringia to 23.4 percent in the last election, pulling ahead of a slumping CDU.

That set up this week’s election of Kemmerich, whose FDP party barely made it into the state legislature but was eager for a share of power.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel leaves the Chancellery in Berlin, yesterday.

Five British nationals test positive for coronavirus in FranceAFP — PARIS

Five British nationals including a child have tested positive for the new coronavirus in France, the health minister said yesterday, adding that they had all stayed at the same ski chalet.

France has now detected a total of 11 cases of the novel coronavirus. The new “cluster” is centred on a Briton who had returned from Singapore and stayed in Contamines-Montjoie, near Mont Blanc in the French Alps for four days from January 24, Health Minister Agnes Buzyn said.

“They show no serious signs” of a life-threatening infection added Buzyn, herself a doctor.

The Briton at the centre of the new cases is now in Britain and was not counted among the French tally, she told a press conference.

In addition to the five Britons who have tested positive for the virus, six other Britons staying in the same chalet have also been hospitalised for obser-vation, the minister said.

Altogether there were seven adults on holiday in one apartment in the chalet and a father with his three children who lived in another, local authorities said.

Authorities in France and Singapore are now trying to contact people who came into close contact with the initially infected Briton, she said.

He was on a business trip and had stayed at a hotel January 22-22 for an event with 94 other foreigners, according to senior health official Jerome Salomon who attended the press briefing along with Buzyn.

Other “clusters” have been identified in Malaysia and South Korea around people who attended the same event, he said. Singapore officials say 109 people in all — some of them from Hubei, the Chinese

province at the heart of the health crisis — attended the meeting at the Grand Hyatt hotel. All foreign participants have since left Singapore and the health authorities of their home countries have been notified, they added.

The UK authorities said they were aware of the latest devel-opment and were “contacting people who were in close contact with any of the cases that have been confirmed in the UK, to provide them with health advice.”

“We are working closely with the French authorities,” Public Health England said in a statement.

The 11 Britons were sent to hospitals in Lyon, Grenoble and Saint-Etienne.

The novel coronavirus which erupted in Wuhan, central China, in December has already infected more than 34,500 people and killed more than 700, according to the latest official figures from China.

French local authorities, urging calm, said two schools where the British child, aged nine, had gone, would be closed next week to allow his contacts to be traced and investigated.

Parents of about 250 children in one school and some 100 in the other would be informed and questioned about their health, officials said.

“We start from the principle that children who do not exhibit symptoms are not infected but they will be under observation during the incubation period,” said Anne-Marie Durand, head of the regional public health authority.

William Keevil, professor of Environmental Healthcare at the University of Southampton, noted how the latest case involving a child showed “that this virus is not limited to older, more vulnerable people and one infected person can cause a cluster of cases.”

Johnson may ‘spare’ female ministers in UK Cabinet overhaul BLOOMBERG — LONDON

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson may reconsider cutting several female ministers from his cabinet and could name Britain’s first female attorney general as he carries out a significant overhaul of the government following the December election victory, according to

newspaper reports.Johnson, whose Conserv-

ative Party won an overall majority that helped push through Britain’s exit from the European Union last month, has been considering axing five female ministers yet may now change his mind, while he’s also preparing to appoint Lucy Frazer as attorney general, according to a Times report.

Andrea Leadsom, named as one of the ministers under threat, warned of the dangers of “male-dominated” work-places in a column for the Daily Telegraph.

The prime minister is attempting to move on from the paralysis that Brexit imposed on British politics for the past three years and has promised to spend tens of billions of

pounds more on the National Health Service, teachers and cutting crime while signing new trade deals overseas.

Johnson may use legislation later this year to exert more control over the NHS, the Times reported, while Chancellor of the Exchequer Sajid Javid is considering a tax raid on higher-income earners when he unveils his budget next

month, according to the Financial Times.

The government will soon decide on whether to proceed with a costly high-speed rail line connecting London to cities in the north of England.

While the project has been hampered by delays and soaring costs, the government is under pressure to invest in the north, traditionally a

heartland for the opposition Labour Party that turned to the Tories in December.

The London terminus for the HS2 project, which has been hampered by delays, is so far behind schedule that the state-owned company in charge of delivering it should be stripped of its duties, according to a Financial Times report yesterday.

The Fine Gael party has been in power since 2011 but polling suggests they are trailing left-wingers Sinn Fein — the former political wing of the now-defunct Irish Republican Army paramilitary group — and centre-right rivals Fianna Fail.

14 SUNDAY 9 FEBRUARY 2020EUROPE

Polish judiciary changes are a ‘destruction’: EU CommissionerREUTERS/AP — WARSAW

Poland’s overhaul of its judi-ciary constitutes “destruction” not reform, EU Values and Transparency Commissioner Vera Jourova said in an interview published on yesterday, amid growing concern that Poland’s nation-alists are seeking to muzzle judges.

Since coming to power in 2015, Poland’s eurosceptic, nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party has introduced a series of judicial reforms that EU officials and democracy activists say may breach the bloc’s standards on the rule of law.

Its most recent reforms aim to discipline judges who question court appointments under new rules, introducing measures that critics say are designed to silence dissent.

“This is no longer a targeted intervention against individual black sheep, similar to other EU member states, but a case of carpet bombing,” Jourova told German weekly magazine Der Spiegel.

“This is no reform, it’s destruction.”

Her comments came as over a thousand demonstrators gathered in front of Poland’s

Constitutional Tribunal in Warsaw to support the reforms, arguing they are necessary to protect Poland’s sovereignty.

Protesters carried Polish flags and placards saying “EU’s politicians, hands off Polish courts” and “We support the reform of courts.”

A series of protests against the reforms have also taken place across Poland in recent months.

PiS says the reforms will make the court system more efficient and root out the left-overs of communism. Poland’s President Andrzej Duda, a PiS ally, signed the most recent changes into law this week.

Jourova said the Com-mission was scrutinising the new law and keeping all legal options open.

She visited Poland in January and met with a number of Polish officials, including

Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro, Senate Speaker and opposition member Tomasz Grodzki and Poland’s Human Rights Commissioner Adam Bodnar.

During her visit, she expressed a willingness to enter into a dialogue with Poland’s government.

Her visit came after the European Commission said it was “very concerned” about the Polish changes to the judiciary.

Those who rallied in front of the Constitutional Tribunal in Warsaw yesterday described the legislative changes as a m a t t e r o f n a t i o n a l sovereignty.

They urged the government not to back down in its stand-off with the European Union, which has sharply criticized the judicial overhaul.

The rally came four days

after President Andrzej Duda, who is aligned with the ruling party, signed into law much-criticized legislation that gives politicians the power to fine and fire judges whose actions and decisions they consider harmful.

It also comes as Poland braces for possible retribution from the 27-member European bloc. Citing unnamed European officials, the daily newspaper Rzeczpospolita reported yes-terday that Poland could pos-sibly soon face fines of ¤2m per

day if it does not reverse that legislation.

That law comes after more than four years of changes to the judicial system by the ruling Law and Justice party.

The EU and many Polish judges say the changes violate the separation of powers essential in a democracy.

The pro-government rally included speakers who described the new legislation as necessary to clean up what they denounced as a corrupt “caste” of judges working since

the communist era.Party leader Jaroslaw Kac-

zynski sent a letter to a different political gathering that recalled how his party won national elections in 2015 and again in 2019 on promises to reform the judiciary, claiming a “strong mandate to act.”

“There cannot be talk of a just Poland without a proper functioning of the justice system,” Kaczynski said.

“We will continue to reform the judicial system because that is what the republic needs.”

Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki (left) meeting European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen in Brussels, Belgium, on Thursday.

EU voices concerns over Guinea referendumAFP — DAKAR

The European Union has joined the United States in voicing concerns about a constitutional referendum in Guinea, which the opposition calls a ploy by President Alpha Conde to stay in power.

The bloc on Friday urged an “inclusive dialogue” in the West African state to ensure the fairness of the poll, which is planned for the same day as parliamentary elections on March 1.

“Unity and peace in Guinea must prevail over partisan

interests, the EU said. Since mid-October, hundreds of thousands of people have dem-onstrated against changing the constitution in the former French colony, in protests that have sometimes turned violent.

At least 28 civilians and one gendarme have been killed in the unrest to date.

A draft constitution still limits the number of presi-dential terms to two.

But critics argue that the new constitution would reset the term counter to zero and allow Conde to run a third time.

The President has neither

confirmed nor denied those claims.

“The decision to couple the parliamentary elections of 1 March 2020 with a constitu-tional referendum deeply divide(s) the country,” the EU said.

Guinea’s main opposition parties have vowed to boycott both the parliamentary election and the referendum.

Conde, 81, was a longtime opposition figure who became Guinea’s first-ever elected president in 2010 on promises to fight corruption. He was re-elected in 2015.

Venice carnival festivitiesRevellers take part in the Carnival at the St. Mark’s Square in Venice, Italy, yesterday.

Dutch euthanasia clinic says death requests rose by 22% in 2019AFP — THE HAGUE

The Netherlands’ only eutha-nasia clinic said on Friday there had been a 22 percent jump in people wanting help to end their lives last year compared with 2018.

The Euthanasia Expertise Centre, which helps doctors to carry out assisted death, said the 3,122 requests it received last year was “far more than expected”.

The Netherlands is one of a handful of countries where euthanasia is legal and by law all Dutch people older than 12 are entitled to ask for it -- but they first have to meet strict criteria.

“Every working day there are 13 people who come to us and say: ‘I cannot go on any longer’. There is a great need,” said clinic manager Steven Pleiter.

He said the number of requests remained stable in 2017 and 2018, but then accel-erated last year.

Clinic spokeswoman Elke Swart said one of the reasons for the spike could have been a court case against a doctor last year who euthanised a patient with severe dementia, “possibly scaring off doctors with similar requests who then referred their patients to our clinic”.

The doctor was later acquitted on charges of having

carried out the euthanasia without following strict guidelines.

The rise in 2019 could also be demographic — an ageing population that is more aware of the practice of euthanasia, Swart said.

Clinic manager Pleiter said some 900 requests to the clinic were carried out last year.

But he said the jump in euthanasia demands rang alarm bells as his clinic, based in The Hague, was battling to deal with the increase.

“We have openings on all fronts, for doctors, psychiatrists and nurses,” Pleiter said.

Just over 6,000 assisted deaths were carried out across the Netherlands in 2018, according to official figures, with the Euthanasia Expertise Centre assisting in 727 cases.

The Netherlands was the first country to legalise eutha-nasia in 2002. It can only be carried out under strict condi-tions set down in Dutch law.

Children up to 16 need the permission of their parents and guardians, while parents must be involved in the process for children aged 16 and 17. From 18, any Dutch citizen may ask for assisted death.

In all cases, the patient must have “unbearable and endless suffering” and must have requested to die “ear-nestly and with full conviction”.

A frosty day in MoscowSteam rises from chimneys of a heating power plant on a frosty day in Moscow, Russia, yesterday.

Lost portrait and unpublished letters of Charles Dickens to go on displayREUTERS — LONDON

A lost portrait of Charles Dickens and 25 of his unpub-lished letters will go on display for the first time after a major acquisition from a private collector.

The Charles Dickens museum in London has bought a huge collection of objects belonging to the Victorian nov-elist, including a delicate chalk and pastel portrait by Samuel Laurence.

A lithograph of the portrait already exists, but the original was thought to be lost. It is likely to be from 1837, the museum said.

Among more than 300 items are 144 letters, offering a window into the author’s life through his famously vivid prose.

One letter from 1857 describes getting lost on a w a l k i n g t o u r w i t h

fellow-novelist Wilkie Collins, who sprained his ankle after the route “necessitated amazing gymnastics”.

In another, he answers fan mail, writing “The mystery is not here, but far beyond the sky...”.

The collection, bought in the United States for £1.8m ($2.3m), also includes a handwritten excerpt from “David Copper-field”, original drawings by illustrator George Cruikshank,

jewellery, books and a golden writing tool that doubles up as a pen and a pencil.

“This is a treasure trove — a true once-in-a-lifetime moment for the museum,” said Cindy Sughrue, director of the Charles Dickens Museum.

“150 years after the death of Dickens, it is wonderful to be able to bring such a rich and important collection to the museum at his first family home.”

The writer’s great-great-grandson, Mark Dickens, said that “this quite staggering material brings us even closer to the man himself, his char-acter, feelings, family and friends.”

The objects will be cata-logued and conserved at the museum — which is in a Bloomsbury townhouse Dickens’ family moved into in 1837 — before going on display over the next two years.

Top EU diplomat apologises for ‘Greta syndrome’ comments

AFP — BRUSSELS

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell yesterday apologised for comments questioning the sincerity of young climate protesters and joking that they have “Greta syndrome”.

Borrell triggered the row by saying he believed school students had been galvanised by teen Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg without fully realising the costs they would have to bear to ensure a carbon-neutral future.

It “can be called ‘Greta syndrome’,” Borrell, 72, had said during a meeting at the European Parliament on Wednesday.

The Greens grouping of MEPs in the European Par-liament criticised Borrell, tweeting that his comments “are unacceptable for a repre-sentative of the EU”.

Yesterday, Borrell said he had not meant to offend.

“I want to apologise to anyone that may have felt offended by my inappropriate reference to the important youth movement fighting climate change,” he tweeted.

The Commission has made tackling climate change the centrepiece of its action, pledging to spend billions of euros a year towards its Green Deal with the goal of making the EU climate change neutral by 2050.

A plaque outside the Charles Dickens Museum in London.

Poland's President Andrzej Duda, who is aligned with the ruling party, has signed into law much-criticized legislation that gives politicians the power to fine and fire judges whose actions and decisions they consider harmful.

15SUNDAY 9 FEBRUARY 2020 AMERICAS

Trump ousts two officials who testified against himBLOOMBERG — WASHINGTON

President Donald Trump moved swiftly to exact retribution on those he blames for his impeachment, purging his administration of two witnesses who testified against him in the House inquiry just two days after his acquittal by the Senate.

G o r d o n S o n d l a n d announced he’d been ousted as US ambassador to the European Union just hours after the White House dismissed Army Lieu-tenant Colonel Alexander Vindman from the National Security Council. Both offered damaging details about Trump’s pressure campaign on Ukraine.

In his first comment on the matter, Trump yesterday lashed out at Vindman on Twitter, terming the decorated military veteran “very subordinate.”

Vindman was escorted from the White House in the afternoon, along with his twin brother, Yevgeny a senior lawyer and ethics official on the

NSC, Alexander Vindman’s lawyer said. The lawyer, David Pressman, said Alexander Vindman “was asked to leave for telling the truth.”

“The truth has cost Lieu-tenant Colonel Alexander Vindman his job, his career, and his privacy,” Pressman said in a statement.

Hours later, Sondland announced that he, too, was no longer a member of the Trump administration.

“I was advised today that the president intends to recall me effective immediately as United States ambassador to the European Union,” he said in a statement.

The removal of Sondland

and the Vindmans — two days after Trump’s acquittal in the Senate impeachment trial — suggests Trump is feeling emboldened to retaliate against people whom he thinks betrayed him.

Sondland ultimately decided to leave his post, but departed amid intense pressure from officials at the White House and in the upper ech-elons of the State Department intent on purging people seen as disloyal, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Trump appeared to tele-graph the moves earlier Friday. Asked at the White House whether he wanted Alexander Vindman to leave, Trump said: “Well, I’m not happy with him.”

White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said Thursday on Fox News that Trump believes he was treated “horribly” during impeachment and “maybe people should pay for that.”

Reaction to the abrupt

departures came swiftly from Capitol Hill.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement that Vindman’s firing “was a clear and brazen act of retaliation that showcases the president’s fear of the truth. The presi-dent’s vindictiveness is pre-cisely what led Republican sen-ators to be accomplices to his cover-up.”

“The administration’s dis-missal of Lieutenant Colonel Vindman, his brother and US ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland is clear political retaliation, the likes of which is seen only in authori-tarian countries around the world,” Senator Robert Menendez, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee New Jersey Dem-ocrat, said in a statement.

Trump has repeatedly slammed his critics since his acquittal on Wednesday. He accused Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, the only Republican

who voted to convict, of using “religion as a crutch” in justi-fying his vote. Romney, a devout Mormon, cited his “promise before God to apply impartial justice” as he explained on the Senate floor why he decided Trump was guilty.

The president tweeted on Friday that he was “very sur-prised & disappointed” with Senator Joe Manchin’s vote to convict. The White House hoped that Manchin, a moderate Dem-ocrat from West Virginia, would vote for acquittal.

“No President has done more for the great people of West Virginia than me,” Trump wrote. “I was told by many that Manchin was just a puppet for Schumer & Pelosi. That’s all he is!”

Sondland, a hotelier from Portland, Oregon, who con-tributed $1m to the Trump inau-gural committee before being nominated to the prestigious post in Brussels, offered some of the most damning testimony

of the impeachment saga.He confirmed there had

been a “quid pro quo” regarding Trump demands that Ukraine investigate his political enemies and that top aides, including Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, knew exactly what was going on.

Vindman, a decorated officer who testified in his Army dress uniform, raised the alarm over the president’s July 25 telephone call with Ukraine’s new leader, Volo-dymyr Zelenskiy. Before his testimony to House Democrats, the only account of that call came from an anonymous whistle-blower whose identity has remained largely hidden, and a partial transcript released by the White House.

At the State Department, diplomats fear that Trump could unleash his anger at the foreign policy establishment he’s long equated with what some of his advisers and supporters call the “Deep State.”

The lawyer, David Pressman, said Alexander Vindman “was asked to leave for telling the truth”.

Democrats scramble for lead in New HampshireREUTERS — CONCORD

Democrats scrambled to gain an edge with voters yesterday on the last weekend before the party’s next presidential nomi-nating contest in New Hamp-shire, which could help boost one candidate above the pack after a debacle in Iowa.

US Senator Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, ended up in a virtual tie as results trickled in from Mon-day’s Iowa caucuses, with both candidates claiming victory. Senator Elizabeth Warren fol-lowed in third place, while former vice-president Joe Biden trailed in fourth.

The problems that plagued the caucuses overshadowed any victory bump the candidates could claim before New Hamp-shire’s contest on Tuesday and cast a pall as the Democratic Party began the process of picking a nominee to face Republican President Donald Trump in November.

Buttigieg, at 38 the youngest candidate in the Democratic contest, overtook Sanders, at 78

the oldest, in a Suffolk Uni-versity tracking poll of New Hampshire Democratic voters.

Yesterday’s results showed Buttigieg at 25% and Sanders at 24%, within the margin of error and a clear split between the moderate ex-mayor and the party’s progressive standard-bearer from neighbouring Vermont.

Warren, Sanders’ fellow liberal from next-door Mas-sachusetts, was third with 14% and Biden finished fourth with 11%, the poll showed. The other candidates were in single digits with 7% of voters undecided.

The two-day tracking poll of 500 likely Democratic primary voters had an error margin of plus or minus 4.4 per-centage points. Buttigieg has risen 14 points since the first tracking poll was published on February 3.

With the latest poll showing him in fourth place, Biden braved the northern New England wind and cold and spent part of the morning meeting volunteers and handing out food at a community food

bank in Manchester. He did not make remarks.

At the presidential debate, Biden conceded that he likely would not win the state, prompting local media to ask afterward whether he was writing off New Hampshire. His campaign maintained that Biden would continue to cam-paign in the days leading up to

the primary and expected to finish competitively.

Biden was the only top-tier contender absent from yester-day’s presidential forum on reproductive rights and the courts in Concord that drew eight other Democratic candi-dates including Buttigieg, Sanders and Warren.

There is broad consensus

among the Democratic candi-dates on abortion rights, an issue that is drawing intensified debate amid Republican-backed state laws that restrict a woman’s right to end a pregnancy.

Candidates vary on ways to protect those rights, with some advocating structural changes to the Supreme Court.

Democratic presidential candidates are seen debating on video screens in the media filing centre at the Democratic 2020 US presidential candidates debate in Manchester, New Hampshire, yesterday.

ICE sued over treatment of 5-year-old with head injuryAP — HOUSTON

The mother of a 5-year-old Guatemalan boy sued US Immi-gration and Customs Enforcement over the medical care he has received in detention for a head injury suffered before the family was arrested.

The lawsuit filed yesterday in California asks a judge to order the child to be taken to a pediatric neurologist or pedi-atric neurosurgeon. It also seeks to prevent ICE from trying to immediately deport the family.

The boy fell out of a shopping cart in December, fractured his skull and suffered bleeding around his brain. About a month later, he and his

family were detained by ICE during what they thought was a routine check-in. The boy, his 1-year-old brother and their mother were taken to ICE’s family detention center at Dilley, Texas, while their father was taken to a detention center in California.

The child’s relatives and advocates allege that ICE is not properly treating symptoms caused by the accident that began before he was detained. The boy has severe headaches and is hypersensitive to normal levels of sound, according to his aunt and Dr. Amy Cohen, an advocate working with the family. He is also starting to wet himself, according to his aunt.

They allege the boy’s mother has pleaded for medical care, but has been disregarded.

ICE has defended the care the boy has received at Dilley. The agency says medical staff at the detention centre con-ducted multiple check-ups and found no lasting neurological issues. ICE took the boy to the Children’s Hospital of San Antonio on Tuesday and Wednesday, where he was found to have a normal MRI and no signs of continued bleeding in his skull.

The boy was not seen at the hospital by a pediatric neurol-ogist, according to medical records obtained by his family’s

attorneys. According to the records, hospital doctors con-sulted the neurosurgery department and determined that no follow-up was necessary because the MRI was clear.

Cohen said the boy had an appointment to see a neurol-ogist before the family was detained by ICE. The symptoms his family reported began before their detention and could be caused by a head injury even if the initial bleeding is gone, meaning that an MRI would not be enough, she said.

The San Antonio hospital also did not have the paperwork from the California hospital that first treated him, according to the latest records.

No sign of engine failure in Bryant copter crashAP — LOS ANGELES

Wreckage from the helicopter that crashed and killed Kobe Bryant, his daughter and seven others did not show any sign of engine failure, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said.

A witness told the NTSB the hillside where the crash occurred was shrouded in mist when he heard the helicopter approaching. It sounded normal and he then saw the blue-and-white aircraft emerge from the fog moving forward and down. Within 2 seconds it slammed into the hillside just below him.

The January 26 crash in Cal-abasas, just outside Los Angeles, occurred as the group was flying to a girls basketball tournament at Bryant’s Mamba Sports Academy. He coached his 13-year-old daughter Gianna’s team, which was scheduled to

play. She and two teammates were among the nine people killed.

The NTSB issued an investi-gative update that included factual details. Findings about a cause for the crash isn’t expected for a year or more.

Investigators said the twin-engine Sikorsky S-76B was traveling at more than 290kph and 1,219 metres per minute when it crashed.

The helicopter’s instrument panel was destroyed and most of the devices were displaced. The flight controls were broken and suffered fire damage.

Investigators believe that since a tree branch at the crash site was cut, the engines were working and rotors turning at the time of impact. All four of the hel-icopter’s blades had similar damage, the report stated.

John Cox, an aviation-safety consultant, said the NTSB’s report

was further indication that the pilot likely became disoriented in the thick fog and clouds. The pilot had told air-traffic con-trollers he was climbing to 1,219 metres — presumably to get above the cloud layer. The heli-copter began turning left, then descended rapidly.

Cox called the aircraft’s path “classic symptoms” of a disori-ented pilot.

Bryant’s helicopter did not have a device called the Terrain Awareness and Warning System that signals when an aircraft is in danger of hitting ground.

The NTSB has recommended the system be mandatory for hel-icopters but the Federal Aviation Administration only requires it for air ambulances.

It’s not clear if the warning system would have averted the crash. The helicopter was also not required to have a black box.

Muralist Jonas Never paints a portrait of the late retired basketball player Kobe Bryant at the Grand Central Market in Los Angeles.

Suicides in Air Force surged last year to highest in three decadesAP — WASHINGTON

Suicides in the active-duty Air Force surged last year to the highest total in at least three decades, even as the other military services saw their numbers stabilise or decline, according to officials and unpublished preliminary data.

The reasons for the Air Force increase are not fully understood, coming after years of effort by all of the mil-itary services to counter a problem that seems to defy solution and that parallels increases in suicide in the US civilian population.

According to preliminary figures, the Air Force had 84 suicides among active-duty members last year, up from 60 the year before. The jump fol-lowed five years of relative stability, with the service’s yearly totals fluctuating between 60 and 64. Official figures won’t be published until later this year and could vary slightly from preliminary data.

Air Force officials, who confirmed the 2019 total, said they knew of no higher number in recent years. Data and studies previously pub-lished by the Pentagon and Air Force show that 64 suicides in 2015 had been the highest total for the Air Force in this century. A 2009 Air Force study said suicides between 1990 and 2004 averaged 42 a year and never exceeded 62.

“Suicide is a difficult national problem without easily identifiable solutions that has the full attention of leadership,” Lt Gen Brian Kelly, the Air Force’s deputy chief of staff for manpower, personnel and services, said in a statement. He said the Air Force is focused on immediate, midterm and long-range solu-tions to a problem faced throughout the military.

Actor-comedian Orson Bean in LA car accidentAP — LOS ANGELES

Orson Bean, the witty actor and comedian who enlivened the game show “To Tell the Truth” and played a crotchety merchant on “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman,” was hit and killed by a car in Los Angeles, authorities said. He was 91.

The Los Angeles County coroner’s office confirmed Bean’s Friday night death, saying it was being investi-gated as a “traffic-related” fatality. The coroner’s office provided the location where Bean was found, which matched reports from police.

A man was crossing the road outside of a crosswalk in the Venice neighbourhood when he was clipped by a vehicle and fell, Los Angeles Police Department Officer Drake Madison said. A second driver then struck him in what police say was the fatal col-lision. Both drivers remained on the scene, neither was impaired and Bean’s death was being treated as an accident, Madison said.

Bean appeared in a number of films — notably, “Anatomy of a Murder” and “Being John Malkovich” — and starred in several top Broadway productions, receiving a Tony nod for the 1962 Comden-Green musical “Subways Are for Sleeping.” But fans remembered him most for his many TV appear-ances from the 1950s onward.

Born in Burlington, Vermont, in 1928 as Dallas Fre-derick Burrows, he had picked the stage name Orson Bean “because it sounded funny.”

16 SUNDAY 9 FEBRUARY 2020AMERICAS

Canadian lawyers sue Iran over victims of downed Ukrainian planeREUTERS — TORONTO

Canadian lawyers, who previ-ously successfully sued Iran, are seeking class action status in a lawsuit on behalf of victims aboard a Ukrainian plane shot down over Tehran last month, looking for at least $1.1bn in compensation.

The suit names Iran, its supreme leader, the elite Rev-olutionary Guards and others as defendants.

Iran admitted its missiles downed the Ukrainian airliner by mistake on January 8, killing all 176 people aboard, including 57 Canadians.

The lead plaintiff in the case is anonymous, preliminarily identified as John Doe, and described as immediate family to a victim identified as Jack Doe.

The filing says John Doe’s identity must be protected because of the risk that “his Iranian family would be put at risk of harm or death by the Iranian regime.”

The suit alleges that the downing of the plane was “an intentional and deliberate act of terrorism.”

Iranian authorities did not immediately comment yes-terday, when government

offices are closed.Jonah Arnold is co-lead

counsel with his father Mark Arnold, who has represented clients in several suits against Iran, including a 2017 appeal decision that led to seizure of some Iranian assets in Canada.

The 2017 ruling was in a case brought by US victims of bombings, killings and kidnap-pings that US courts ruled Iran was responsible for. But the plaintiffs could not claim the $1.7bn in judgments in the United States.

It was not clear whether Iran has any assets remaining in Canada. Arnold said the case would likely unfold over years, and any judgment could be renewed and enforced in the future.

“Providing a voice for the

families and seeking compen-sation for them in the courts is the primary objective,” Jonah Arnold said. “When we get there, and we need to look for those assets, that’s what we’ll do.”

Besides Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, others named in the lawsuit are top commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, including the head of the unit responsible for shooting down the plane, Amirali Hajizadeh.

Foreign states are not typ-ically within the jurisdiction of Canadian courts.

A 2012 Canadian law limited that immunity for coun-tries Ottawa lists as “foreign state supporters of terrorism,” currently Iran and Syria.

The suit was filed on January 24 in Toronto, but it is not clear whether it has been served on defendants in Iran.

Arnold said the Canadian government is required to ensure that happens, and that he has received confirmation that the suit is “en route.”

Global Affairs Canada did not immediately comment.

he case is Doe v Islamic Republic of Iran et al, Ontario Superior Court of Justice, No. CV-20-635078.

President of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, and Sergei Lavrov (left), Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, shaking hands as he arrives to Miraflores Government Palace in Caracas.

Russia reiterates firm support for MaduroANATOLIA — ANKARA

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reiterated his country’s firm support for Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro.

Lavrov met with high level officials, including Maduro and Vice-President Delcy Rodriguez in a visit to Venezuela for the first time since 2011.

“We reiterate our support for the legitimate President of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro. We also welcome the president’s initiative to open the dialogue

tables to all sectors of the country,” said Lavrov.

Lavrov also met “National Dialogue” representatives and referred to “unacceptable, illegal,” US sanctions against the Latin American nation, Telesur television station reported.

“Unfortunately, the crisis Venezuela is going through comes from a campaign led by the United States to overthrow the legitimate government chaired by President Nicolas Maduro,” Lavrov said during the meeting, after hailing the

normalisation initiatives of the National Dialogue Round Table.

“Venezuela’s National Dia-logue is open to all political parties. It is clear that radical opponents are allergic to these events,” Lavrov said, while stressing US restrictions are aimed at starting a “popular uprising” in Venezuela.

Lavrov said the two allies agreed to enhance cooperation on a wide range of fronts despite the ongoing “illegal blockades.”

Brazil sees week of ‘attacks’ on indigenous rights: CongresswomanREUTERS — RIO DE JANEIRO

Brazil’s indigenous people have endured a week of “attacks” as a former missionary was appointed to manage the coun-try’s uncontacted forest tribes and a push to open protected land for development moved ahead, indigenous campaigners said.

This week, Brazil’s gov-ernment appointed Ricardo Lopes Dias, who worked for a decade as a missionary in an indigenous reservation in Ama-zonas state, to run the office of Brazil’s indigenous affairs agency that manages the

country’s as-yet-uncontacted forest communities.

Brazil’s President Jair Bol-sonaro also announced a bill that would allow commercial mining on protected indigenous lands, in a move that shocked indigenous leaders.

“The government is trying as much as possible to interfere with indigenous, social and environmental rights in Brazil, and doing it with maximum vis-ibility,” said Joenia Wapichana, Brazil’s sole indigenous congresswoman.

“Instead of working to improve education and health ... (Bolsonaro) spends his time

attacking indigenous people,” she told Reuters yesterday.

Bolsonaro has vowed to encourage economic devel-opment in the Amazon to lift indigenous groups from poverty and improve the lives of 30 million Brazilians who live there.

But environmentalists fear his plans will speed up destruction of the world’s largest rainforest, which is a crucial bulwark against global climate change and regulates rainfall in South America’s agri-cultural regions.

Invasions of protected forest reserves by illegal loggers and miners have increased since

Bolsonaro took office last year, leading to violent clashes.

At least eight indigenous leaders were killed last year in circumstances that have not yet been clarified.

Bolsonaro also has pushed to “integrate” indigenous people into Brazilian society.

On Wednesday, Dias, who formerly worked with a Christian religious group committed to opening churches on indigenous land, was appointed to head the office responsible for uncon-tacted Indians, rights groups said.

Dias’ appointment suggests a hands-off approach to the remote groups — seen by some

previous officials as the best way to shield them and protect their unique lifestyle — may be fast changing.

The appointment was crit-icised by employees of FUNAI — the country’s indigenous affairs agency — who released an open letter on Monday before Dias was formally assigned the post.

The FUNAI workers’ asso-ciation noted that Dias was “devoid of any experience in indigenous politics” and the move represented “yet another act against indigenous rights”.

FUNAI did not reply to a request for comment.

Haiti President lays out terms for deal with oppositionAP — PORT-AU-PRINCE

President Jovenel Moise said that he is optimistic that nego-tiations with a coalition of his political opponents will succeed in forging a power-sharing deal to end months of deadlock that have left Haiti without a func-tioning government.

In an interview, Moise laid out his bargaining position in the talks that began last week in the mission of the papal envoy to Haiti with political opponents and some civil society groups. He said he

would accept an opposition prime minister and a shortened term in office, but only after adoption of a constitutional reform strengthening the presidency.

Moise said his efforts to improve living conditions for Haiti’s 11 million people had been thwarted during his first three years in office by the constitu-tional requirement that the National Assembly must approve virtually all significant presi-dential actions, adding that he would serve only a single term in office so he would not personally

benefit from the powers of a stronger presidency.

“It makes me optimistic to see my brothers and sisters from the political opposition, civil society and religious groups,” he said. “I think we’re at a crossroads.”

Moise is a former banana farmer who won 56% of the vote against three opponents in the 2016 election. He made some progress on rural infra-structure projects during his first two years in office. Then the end of subsidised Vene-zuelan oil aid to Haiti fueled

chaos in the Western Hemi-sphere’s poorest nation.

Without the help, the economy shrank, and investi-gations found questionable spending of hundreds of mil-lions of dollars over the years in aid from the Petrocaribe program run by Venezuela. Pro-tests began over the Petrocaribe misspending and protests snowballed until Moise’s oppo-nents waged a near-total lockdown of Haiti’s capital for three months last fall.

Protests were accompanied by a constant blocking of

Moise’s agenda in the National Assembly.

The country was unable to organise legislative elections and the National Assembly shut down last month, leaving Moise without a constitutionally recognised government. He says the consti-tution allows him to rule by decree with legislative approval but he is choosing not to in order to forge national unity.

Haiti’s 1987 constitution was drafted after the end of three decades of dictatorship and aims in part to prevent the emergence of another

strongman by sharply limiting presidential powers.

Moise said he wants a new constitution to stipulate that presidential proposals automat-ically pass if the National Assembly does not vote them up or down within 60 days. He also wants all political terms to last five years.

Most of the political oppo-sition has demanded that Moise significantly cut his time in office, with some demanding his immediate resignation and others asking for him to hand over power early next year.

Terminally ill Peruvian woman demands right to euthanasiaAP — LIMA

A Peruvian woman who is almost completely paralysed and requires round-the-clock care for a terminal illness took her fight to change the South American nation’s law forbidding euthanasia to courts.

The public defender’s office joined Ana Estrada in filing a lawsuit urging the Ministry of Health and other state institu-tions not to enforce a law pun-ishing those who help terminal patients end their lives. The law carries penalties of up to three years in jail.

The 43-year-old woman with polymyositis, a disease that wastes away muscles and has no cure, is also asking Peru’s government to establish new regulations allowing patients like her the right to choose how and when to die.

“This is about life,” said Estrada, who spoke to jour-nalists through a live video feed transmitted from her sick bed

announcing the suit.Estrada first began experi-

encing the side effects of her illness at age 12. By 20, she was too weak to walk and started using a wheelchair. Even so, she graduated from university with a psychology degree and worked as a therapist.

She continued to build her life, saving money, buying an apartment, having a rela-tionship and taking care of a pet cat. But in 2015 her con-dition deteriorated, she got pneumonia and spent a year in a hospital intensive care unit.

Estrada now relies on a feeding tube in her belly and another tube inserted into her windpipe to help her breathe.

“My privacy, my autonomy, my independence — I lost it,” she said.

The public defender’s office said Estrada’s case is the first in Peru asking the government to recognise a patient’s right to “death in d igni f ied conditions.”

The lawsuit alleges that the downing of the plane was “an intentional and deliberate act of terrorism”.

Georgia cop faces murder charges in wife's death

Unrest in Chile continues

AP — EATONTON

A Georgia police officer who said his wife killed herself during an argument has been charged with her murder, authorities said.

Eatonton Police Officer Michael Perrault was charged with murder in the death of his wife Amanda Perrault, 44, Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills said.

Her death came about a week after she had accused her husband of domestic violence.

Amanda Perrault was found fatally shot in the head at her home on Monday. Sills said Michael Perrault called his boss, Eatonton Police Chief Kent Lawrence, and told him his wife pulled out a gun and shot herself during an argument.

Prior to Amanda Perrault’s death, Michael Perrault was arrested on January 28 and charged with simple battery, family violence and cruelty to children in the third degree. Michael Perrault told author-ities he didn’t hit his wife, but the couple’s 8-year-old daughter said she saw her father shove her mom out of the entryway of the home. Sills said Amanda Perrault had red marks on her neck and chest. Michael Perrault was then put on leave from Eatonton police.

During Michael Perrault’s bond hearing after the domestic violence arrest, Amanda Perrault allowed him to return to the home because he had nowhere to go, Sills said. “I could sense some reluctance, but that’s what she said”.

Michael Perrault has been a Eatonton police officer since 2018.

Demonstrators throw stones at a riot police vechicle spraying tear gas during a protest against Chilean President Sebastian Pinera’s government in Santiago, yesterday. On October 25, over a million people took to the streets throughout Chile to protest against Piñera, demanding his resignation. Human rights organisations have received several reports of violations conducted against protesters by security forces, including torture, abuse and assault.