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Volume 22 | Number 7366 | 2 RiyalsTuesday 5 December 2017 | 17 Rabia I 1439 www.thepeninsulaqatar.com

Qatar’s Fares bags silver at Worlds

Vodafone Qatar takes part in business

continuity conference

BUSINESS | 26 SPORT | 33

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QATAR

184UNDER SIEGE

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Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani visited yesterday the fifth Ajyal Youth Film Festival, organised by Doha Film Institute, at the Cultural Village Foundation (Katara). The Emir toured the amateurs’ corner exhibition as well as siege-themed exhibition LeBlockade. The Emir also met at the Drama Theater with the young jurors and youth, who review the films and pick the winners of Ajyal awards at its closing ceremony.

→ See also page 6

Emir awards Hamad bin Khalifa Sash to Al KhulaifiEmir H H Sheikh Tamim bin

Hamad Al Thani met, at Emiri Diwan office yesterday with former speaker of the Advisory Council H E Moham-med bin Mubarak Al Khulaifi. The Emir decorated Al Khu-laifi with Sash of Hamad bin Khalifa, and extended, on his behalf and on behalf of the Qatari people, thanked him for his efforts in the service of his country in the past years. For his part, Al Khulaifi expressed his thanks to the Emir for this honour.

→ See also page 2

Emir meets Brazilian Defence Minister

Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani met at the

Emiri Diwan with the Minis-ter of Defence of Brazil, Raul Jungmann, and his accompa-nying delegation, on the occasion of their visit to the country. The two sides reviewed bilateral relations and prospects for enhancing them.

→ See also page 2

Credentials of five envoys received

Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani received

at the Emiri Diwan yesterday the credentials of five new ambassadors to the State. The Emir received the credentials of Dr Haruna Bawa Abdullahi Wase (Nigeria), Ivonne Juez A. Baki (Ecuador), Drago Lovric (Croatia), Nguyen Dinh Thao (Vietnam) and Metase-bia Tadesse (Ethiopia).

→ See also page 6

QNA

The Advisory Council discussed the draft state budget for the fiscal year 2018 and the draft law annexed to the draft

budget, in the presence of Minister of Finance H E Ali Shareef Al Emadi and a number of high-ranking officials from the Ministry. The Minister explained the gov-ernment’s point of view regarding the draft budget and responded to the questions and inquiries raised by the Council members.

The Speaker of the Council H E Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid Al Mahmoud expressed his gratitude and appreciation to the Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, who under his wise leadership, the country was able to overcome the excep-tional circumstances of the unjust siege. The Speaker said the directives of the Emir has the utmost impact on the progress of a nor-mal life in the country, where the implementation of major economic devel-opment projects are taking place in compliance with the set plan, as well as the

increase in production rates and the expan-sion and diversification of investment fields. Al Mahmoud confirmed that the vital projects in the draft budget for the next year strength-ened the sense of confidence, and the continuity of balanced development that ensures economic progress and meets the aspirations of citizens.

He said the budget is one of the results of proper planning and strategic vision, which reflects in the importance given to finishing major projects in main sectors, continuing to increase non-oil revenues, continuing to focus on increasing the effi-ciency of public expenditure, developing the public and private services in the fields of health and educations, allocating financial resources for the development of housing plots for citizens, supporting food security projects, small and medium-sized indus-tries, the tourism sector and developing infrastructure in the economic and free zones, all inspired by the Qatar National Vision 2030.

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Emir leads Qatar’sdelegation to GCC Summit in Kuwait

Yemen ex-president Saleh shot dead as fighting shakes capitalSana’a / AFP

Yemen’s ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh was killed by Houthi rebels yesterday as he tried to flee heavy fighting in Sana’a after the collapse

of his alliance with the Iran-backed insurgents.Saleh, who ruled with an iron fist for three dec-

ades, had joined forces with the Shia Houthi rebels in 2014 when they took control of large parts of the Arabian Peninsula country including the capital Sana’a. But that alliance unravelled over the past week, with heavy fighting across the capital. A military source said the Houthis stopped their four-car convoy about 40km south of Sana’a and shot dead Saleh and two other senior GPC officials. The collapse of the alliance between Saleh and the rebels saw at least 100 people reported dead in fighting that continued yesterday, with reports of heavy clashes and coalition strikes against Houthi-controlled buildings. .

→ See also page 14

QNA

Qatar Financial Markets Author-ity (QFMA) has approved an important package of regula-

tions and rules that come within the framework of its initiatives for the capital market sector in Qatar and its continuous efforts to regulate and activate the capital market and pro-tect its stability and customers as well as the diversity of its invest-ment tools and mechanisms supporting the Qatar Stock Exchange (QSE).

QFMA explained in a statement that the approval of these impor-tant regulations came during the last meeting of its board of direc-tors held under the chairmanship of Qatar Central Bank Governor and QFMA Board Chairman H E Sheikh

Abdullah bin Soud Al Thani.The regulations and rules

approved by the QFMA board included approval of the regulations governing the activity of the mar-ket maker, which constitutes a new addition to the financial services activities.

It aims to activate trading and increase liquidity in the market while maintaining its stability and balance through specialised financial serv-ices companies licensed by QFMA and under its supervision by submitting continuous quotations for the pur-chase or sale of securities traded in the market.

The operational procedures of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have also been approved, including the short sale of these units or compo-nents of the index, which is a new

financial product, as well as treasury shares and treasury bills, which con-tributes to the diversity and multiplicity of securities available to investors.

In addition, the QFMA board approved the procedures for pro-tecting the minor and small investors as a result of the transfor-mation of the public shareholding companies into another type of companies stipulated in the Com-panies Law No. 11 of 2015.

Through these procedures, QFMA aims to provide adequate protection in accordance with international best practices for all shareholders, during the transformation of companies listed on the QSE to any other type of company.


Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister H E Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani attending the Foreign Ministers’ meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), in Kuwait City, yesterday.

Advisory Council Speaker lauds draft state budget for 2018

QFMA okays regulations to activate capital market

The Peninsula

Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani will leave Doha today for Kuwait lead-ing the State of Qatar’s delegation to the 38th summit

of the Supreme Council of Gulf Coop-eration Council (GCC), which will begin today.

Ahead of the two-day session of the Supreme Council, the Foreign Ministers of the GCC held yesterday their 144th meeting which is the first GCC ministe-rial meeting since the outbreak of the current Gulf crisis.

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister H E Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani headed Qatar’s delegation in the meeting.

Speaking about the meeting, Kuwait’s First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sheikh Sabah Al Khaled Al Hamad Al Sabah, said the GCC unity and solidarity is still intact, standing against various kinds of challenges and trials over the years.

Delivering his opening speech to the 144th Foreign Ministers meeting, Sheikh Sabah Al Khaled welcomed the partic-ipants, saying that their presence will

contribute to the success of the summit. Sheikh Sabah thanked Bahrain for host-ing the 37th GCC Summit, affirming that the fellow GCC country is an integral member of the council.

He also thanked the GCC Secretar-iat and participants for attending the preparatory meeting.

The Kuwaiti Foreign Minister stressed on the importance of the cur-rent summit, noting that it will contribute to the continuation of the council’s success, Kuwait News Agency (Kuna) reported yesterday.


Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister H E Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani led Qatar’s delegation in the Foreign Ministers’ meeting yesterday ahead of the two-day session of the Supreme Council.

Emir visits 5th Ajyal Youth Film Festival

Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani with former Speaker of the Advisory Council H E Mohammed bin Mubarak Al Khulaifi. The Emir decorated Al Khulaifi with Sash of Hamad bin Khalifa, and extended, on his behalf and on behalf of the Qatari people, thanks to Al Khulaifi for his efforts in the service of his country in the past years. For his part, Al Khulaifi expressed his thanks to H H the Emir for this honour which he cherishes.

Emir awards Hamad bin Khalifa Sash to Al Khulaifi

Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani with Minister of Defence of the Federative Republic of Brazil, Raul Jungmann, at the Emiri Diwan, yesterday. During the meeting, the two sides reviewed bilateral relations and prospects for enhancing them.

Emir meets Brazilian Defence Minister

QA first airline in Mideast to get IEnvA Stage 2 certificate

The Peninsula

Qa t a r A i r w a y s announced yesterday its accreditation to the highest level of the International Air

Transport Association’s (IATA) Environmental Assessment pro-gramme (IEnvA). Exceeding its deadline set in March 2016, Qatar Airways is the first airline in the Middle East, and the fifth world-wide, to achieve IEnvA Stage 2.

Qatar Airways Group Chief Executive Akbar Al Baker was presented with the IEnvA Stage 2 certificate by Alexandre de Juniac, Director-General and Chief Executive Officer of IATA, during Al Baker’s inaugural meeting as the new Chair-Elect of IATA’s Board of Governors in Geneva on December 1, 2017.

On accepting the certificate, Al Baker said: “I am proud to receive this acknowledgment of our success in developing and embedding a comprehensive

environmental management sys-tem in the year we celebrate our twentieth anniversary. Looking back over the last two decades, we have transformed from an emerg-ing regional airline to a world leader in aviation. As we continue to build our global network, we remain committed to dedicating the leadership and resources needed to meet our vision for environmental sustainability”.

“Our continued involvement in IATA’s environmental pro-grammes positions Qatar Airways at the forefront in estab-lishing a sustainable aviation industry.”

Alexandre de Juniac said: “We offer our congratulations to Qatar Airways for successfully completing Stage 2 of IATA’s environmental assessment

program, and our thanks to them for their continuing leadership in environmental performance. IEnvA accreditation is independ-ently assessed and aligned with internationally recognised stand-ards, and the voluntary commitment of Qatar Airways and other airlines to the IEnvA program is further evidence of the airline sector’s determina-tion to meet and exceed the highest environmental standards.”

Through its environmental management system, Qatar Airways has implemented a range of initiatives to improve environmental performance. This includes Qatar Airways’ systematic approach to avia-tion fuel efficiency, which focuses on weight reduction,

route optimisation, and aircraft performance. This initiative has delivered savings which include 1,800 tonnes fuel (5,600 tonnes CO2) through optimising pota-ble water upload, and 4,800 tonnes fuel (15,300 tonnes CO2) by reducing the use of engines while taxing on arrival at Hamad International Airport.

Further, the environmental management system has rein-forced business processes to

improve how the airline engages its suppliers. In particular, it has launched a new Sustainable Pro-curement Charter and promotes the use of sustainably-sourced items within its award winning in-flight catering.

A central part of Qatar Airways’ Environmental Man-agement System involves providing its employees with the skills to deliver effective envi-ronmental management on a

day-to-day basis. During 2016, in partnership

with the Institute of Environ-mental Management & Assessment (IEMA), Qatar Air-ways launched a leading-edge environmental competency matrix to set skill requirements for every employee and incor-porated environmental responsibilities into the job descriptions of all airline employees globally.

Qatar to push for greater diversification next yearThe Peninsula

Qatar is likely to push for greater economic diversi-fication in 2018 and

strengthen economic ties in Asia as a response to the ongoing eco-nomic blockade, according to experts set to gather for The Euromoney Qatar Conference this week.

The event is one of Qatar’s most comprehensive annual financial events, covering a wide range of topics including the glo-bal economy, international

investment, cybersecurity and financial technology. Senior executives from a range of finan-cial organisations will take part, as in previous years.

However, the key topic for debate at this year’s Conference will be the performance and potential of Qatar’s economy, which over the last six months has continued to be dynamic despite the diplomatic and eco-nomic blockade.

Following the official open-ing by Prime Minister and Interior Minister H E Sheikh

Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani, the conference will welcome a number of senior government figures and captains of Qatar industry for their views on the direction of the economy. They will provide the most com-prehensive picture of Qatar’s economic performance during the first six months of the block-ade, as well as offer insight into the country’s plans for future development.

The Euromoney Qatar Con-ference will run from December 5-6, 2017, in Doha.

Qatar Airways Group Chief Executive Akbar Al Baker receiving the IEnvA Stage 2 certificate from Alexandre de Juniac,

Qatar Airways has implemented a range of initiatives to improve environmental performance, including systematic approach to aviation fuel efficiency, which focuses on weight reduction, route optimisation, and aircraft performance.

02 TUESDAY 5 DECEMBER 2017HOME

03TUESDAY 5 DECEMBER 2017 HOME


Emir receives credentials of new ambassadorsQNA

Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani received at the Emiri Diwan office yesterday the credentials of five new ambassadors to the State. H H the Emir received the creden-

tials of Ambassador of the Republic of Nigeria Dr Haruna Bawa Abdullahi Wase, Ambassador of the Republic of Ecuador Ivonne Juez A. Baki, Ambassador of the Republic of Croatia Drago Lovric, Ambassador of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam to Qatar Nguyen Dinh Thao, and HE Ambassador of the Federal Democratic Repub-lic of Ethiopia Metasebia Tadesse.

Their Excellencies the Ambassadors conveyed to the Emir greet-ings of their countries’ leaders and wishes of further progress and prosperity to the Qatari people. For his part, the Emir welcomed the new ambassadors and wished them success in their duties and further development and growth in the relations between Qatar and their countries. Their Excellencies the Ambassadors earlier were accorded official reception ceremonies at the Emiri Diwan.

Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani visited the fifth Ajyal Youth Film Festival at the Cultural Village Foundation (Katara).

The Peninsula

The fifth Ajyal Youth Film Fes-tival presented by the Doha Film Institute yesterday

announced the winners of its Ajyal Competition, voted by Ajyal Jurors in three categories — Mohaq (jurors aged 8 to 12), Hilal (voters aged 13 to 17) and Bader (voters aged 18 to 21).

The winners in Mohaq cate-gory are Best Feature – At Eye Level directed by Joachim Doll-hopf and Evi Goldbrunner (Germany/2016), Best Short – Sing directed by Kristóf Deák (Hun-gary/2016) while in Hilal category, winners are Best Feature, The Breadwinner directed by Nora Twomey (Ireland, Luxembourg, Canada/2017); Best Short: Mare Nostrum directed by Rana Kaz-kaz and Anas Khalaf (France, Syria/2016). In Bader category, Best Feature: Loving Vincent directed by Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman (UK, Poland, Qatar/2017); Best Short: All of Us directed by Katja Benrath (Ger-many, Kenya/2017) were the winners.

There were 48 films in the Ajyal Competition this year; in the Mohaq programme there were 4 feature-length films and 12 shorts;

in Hilal – 4 feature-length films and 10 shorts, and in Bader – 4 feature-length films and 14 shorts. Each of the Ajyal juries voted for the Best Film prize for their favourite short and feature-length films, for a total of six awards.

The winners were honoured at the closing ceremony that was followed by the screening of Lov-ing Vincent (Poland, UK, Qatar), a co-production by the Doha Film Institute, and directed by Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman. The film also won this year’s Audience Award. The ceremony also included a special screening of musical project film Summer Cloud directed by Ali Al-Tayeb and Mohammed Sharif and dem-onstrates the unity and solidarity of Qatar’s vibrant nation and how traditions and heritage are deeply rooted in their daily lives.

The winner of the Bariq Award, which is given by the youngest festivalgoers, children aged under eight, was Little Bird and the Caterpillar (Switzer-land/2017), a whimsical animation about adversaries becoming friends in which a little bird tend-ing to the leaves on a nearby branch is confronted by a pesky caterpillar that eats all the buds.

Jurors voted on their

preferred name for the recently unveiled mascot of the Ajyal Youth Film Festival. Named ‘She-hab’, the falcon-like character embodies Ajyal’s five values of curiosity, empowerment, film, friendship and joy, and will rep-resent future editions of the festival. Earlier, the festival also awarded the winners in the Made in Qatar programme, presented by Occidental Petroleum Qatar, that included 16 films by Qatari directors and those who call Qatar home. The winners are: Best Narrative: Amal Al-Muftah’s Smicha (Qatar/2017); Best Doc-umentary/Experimental: Rawan Al-Nassiri and Nada Bedair’s Treasures of the Past (Qatar/2017); Special Jury Award: Aisha Al-Jaidah’s 1001 Days (Qatar/2017) and Nibu Vasude-van’s Walls (Qatar/2017); Special Jury Documentary/Experimen-tal Award: Rawda Al-Thani’s I Have Been Watching You All Along (Qatar/2017)

The Mohaq ‘Best Film’ win-ner, Joachim Dollhopf and Evi Goldbrunner’s At Eye Level tells the story of ten-year-old Michi, who has grown up without a father. After his mother dies, Michi finds an unsent letter announcing her pregnancy, addressed to a

man called ‘Tom’ but when father and son are reunited, Tom isn’t exactly the person Michi imagined him to be. The Breadwinner, the opening film of the fifth Ajyal Youth Film Festival, directed by Nora Twomey and executive pro-duced by Angelina Jolie, is an animated Afghan tale that puts a young girl’s will and determina-tion in the spotlight.

Loving Vincent is a first of its kind animation set a year after the death of Vincent van Gogh, each frame of which has been hand painted to look like it is a series of animated oil paintings executed in the artist’s signature style. Sing is the story of little girl unfairly told by her teacher that she cannot sing and Mare Nostrum explores the reasons why a Syrian man finds himself with no choice but to put his daughter’s life at risk.

All of Us deals with a real inci-dent in 2015, when Al-Shabab terrorists attacked a bus of Ken-yan travellers. Muslim passengers protected their Christian country-men by refusing to identify them to the terrorists.

This year, the Festival once again featured the Ajyal Talks, a series of open discussions. Sub-jects included child trafficking, the way media influences perceptions and the power of art in overcom-ing adversity, and concluded with a special conversation with vis-ual artist Shirin Neshat.

Katara Cultural Village was the Cultural Partner of the Festi-val; Qatar Tourism Authority was the Strategic Partner, and Occi-dental Petroleum Corporation and Ooredoo were the Principal Partners.

Emir visits Ajyal Youth Film Festival

Winners of Ajyal announced

The winners at the fifth Ajyal Youth Film Festival.


Deputy Emir H H Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad Al Thani with the governor of Bank Al-Maghrib A b d e l l a t i f Jouahri who called on the Deputy Emir to greet him on the occasion of his visit to the country. During the meeting, a number of issues of mutual interest were reviewed.

Deputy Emir meets Governor of Bank Al-Maghrib Ooredoo unveils new Hala India packsOoredoo announced yesterday the

launch of four new Hala India packs driven by the growing popularity of

its’s Hala India Packs. The new packs, which have been launched due to the great response of the Hala India QR10 and QR30 packs, were designed to offer a host of inter-national and local calling minutes and data.

With the new Hala India Pack 45, sub-scribers will enjoy 525 minutes to call India (valid for 30 days) and a bonus 500 MB of local data, as well as 40 local min-utes (valid for 10 days) for just QR45. Hala India Pack 60 subscribers can take advantage of 725 minutes to India (valid for 30 days) as well as a bonus 750 MB of local data and 50 local min-utes (valid for ten days) for QR60.

For expats looking to call home for longer, the Hala India Pack QR100/ QR200 packs offer 1,250/2,800 min-utes to India valid for 30 days, 1,500 MB/10,000 MB of bonus local data, and 70/250 bonus local minutes valid for 15/30 days. The new dedicated packs

will work with any network in India and for Qatar, and once the international min-utes have been used, subscribers can enjoy an out of pack international rate of just 10 Dhs/min. To subscribe to a new Hala India Pack, customers should head to the Oore-doo App, dial *121#, or send ‘INP pack number’ (e.g. ‘INP 30’) to 121. Hala India Packs will be available until Febraury 18, 2018.


Prime Minister and Interior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani with the Minister of Defence of the Federative Republic of Brazil, Raul Jungmann, and his accompanying delegation on the occasion of their visit to the country. The meeting reviewed bilateral relations and ways of enhancing them, as well as a number of issues of mutual concern.

Prime Minister meets Brazilian Defence Minister

Hamad Bin Khalifa University launches Innovation SpaceThe Peninsula

Hamad Bin Khalifa Univer-sity (HBKU) recently announced the launch of

its new Innovation Space, a groundbreaking initiative that is designed to foster entrepreneur-ship and creativity, at an internal staff gathering for all HBKU employees.

The Innovation Space will serve as a platform for connect-ing and sharing ideas, people, resources and expertise, and will act an incubator for novel initi-atives that address critical issues.

“HBKU’s Innovation Space is grounded in the University’s

identity and is one of many crit-ical projects outlined in the 10-year strategic plan,” explains Dr. Ahmad Hasnah, president of HBKU.

“Across all levels, HBKU works to develop an innovative culture under which novel ideas from the HBKU community are encouraged and can thrive. The Innovation Space will play a crit-ical and integral role in instilling this entrepreneurial mindset. Acting as a hub, for all colleges and institutes within the Univer-sity and extended to partner universities and the industry, the Innovation Space will be a plat-form within HBKU for

experimentation and creativity, fostering a culture that encour-ages risk-taking and does not stigmatise failure.”

The Innovation Space is also meant to help the students, fac-ulty and researchers transform their ideas into reality, and has substantial added value in tech-nology t ransfer and commercialization.

The initiative will connect members of the HBKU commu-nity to leaders in start-up ecosystems around the globe; provide entrepreneurship-related education to the Education City community; assist local businesses and industries

in developing an innovation focus; connect start-up teams with experts for mentorship and potential investors; and provide support services.

The ultimate aim of the Inno-vation Space is to develop a steady pipeline of commercial-ization-ready technologies and ideas.

Innovation Space initiatives are underway and are carried out within the University and across the colleges and research institutes, as they seek to address topics in humanities, social sci-ences, engineering, ICT, and health and life sciences. A mak-erspace initiative by the College

of Islamic Studies was launched recently through which students were able to produce a global Islamic resolution for humanity. Additionally, researchers at Qatar Computing Research Insti-tute have developed a Machine Learning platform with many applications, currently being piloted at Qatar Airways and other local institutions. A grow-ing number of e-platforms are in different stages of develop-ment, including the Rayyan systematic review system, which has more than 9,000 users worldwide; the Artificial Intelli-gence for Digital Response system, which is consistently

utilized by the United Nations to monitor disaster areas across the globe; as well as the Jalees e-reader application, which proved to be beneficial to many schools in Qatar.

The HBKU Innovation Space is still in its early development stages, and is yet to reach its full-intended potential. Many of its programs are currently in the planning stages, such as the pre-incubation program and the idea development fund, in addition to numerous activities and events, which all aim towards creating opportunities for HBKU’s community of students, faculty, and researchers.

Ashghal shifts truck lane traffic onto New Orbital HighwayThe Peninsula

The Public Works Authority, ‘Ashghal’, will permanently shift traffic onto the New

Orbital Highway truck lanes along a 2.5km stretch of the Tem-porary Truck Route, located 25km west of Doha to the south of Interchange No 24 on Salwa Road in order to continue con-struction of the 5 lane in each direction main carriageway.

The proposed road change has been designed in coordina-tion with the General Directorate of Traffic. It will be implemented and permanently maintained starting today.

This realignment will be

implemented in two phases over the next two weeks. During the two phases, road users travelling in both directions will simply be shifted onto parallel roads and can continue their journey towards Salwa Road or Mesaieed as required.

The first phase will be imple-mented today and will include the complete closure of the east-bound lanes on the existing Temporary Truck Route, to be replaced with the New Orbital Highway completed truck lanes.

The second phase will be implemented on December 17 and will include the complete closure of the westbound lanes on the existing Temporary Truck

Route, to be replaced with the New Orbital Highway completed truck lanes.

Ashghal advises road users that it will need to reduce the number of lanes on this 2.5km section of the Temporary Truck Route from the existing three lanes to two permanent Orbital truck lanes in order to complete the required construction works.

The Public Works Authority will install road signs advising motorists of the road change. ‘Ashghal’ requests all road users to abide by the speed limit, which remains at 80 kph for this 2.5km section of the Orbital, and follow the road signs to ensure their safety.

Ooredoo and Villaggio drive Qatar’s retail leadershipThe Peninsula

Villaggio Mall, Qatar’s leading Mall, has deployed Ooredoo Smart Wi-Fi for its more than 50,000 shoppers daily. The cloud-

based Ooredoo Smart Wi-Fi provides the secure wireless infrastructure that allows retailers to engage with customers with customised web pages, which aim to increase foot traffic and shop-ping time.

“As Qatar’s shoppers increasingly use mobile devices, digital retail solutions will support their needs and Qatar’s retail and tourism economy. Villaggio Mall is showing best practices in digital retail, and Ooredoo is dedicated to enabling the next generation of retail experiences, such as aug-mented reality and virtual reality,” said Sheikh Nasser bin Hamad bin Nasser Al Thani, Chief Busi-ness Officer, Ooredoo Qatar. At the same time, Ooredoo is upgrading Villaggio Mall’s 4G mobile networks on the Ooredoo Supernet to provide an “always-on” mobile Internet experience.

“Enhancing the in-store experience is key for Villaggio Mall stores to deliver a competitive edge and meet the connected customer needs. With Ooredoo Smart Wi-Fi, Villaggio shoppers can find in-store offers, and share shopping experiences quickly and easily on social media,” said Tzoulios Tzouliou, Mall Director, Villaggio Mall.

Qatar’s business customers can leverage the Ooredoo Advantage, making Ooredoo “Best for Business”, thanks to its breadth and depth of tal-ent, best fixed and mobile networks, broadest portfolio of ICT services and solutions, and trusted partner for 60 years.

Emir to lead delegation to GCC Summit in Kuwait

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The Emir of Kuwait H H Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Jaber Al Sabah and his fellow GCC leaders are hopeful that the summit will continue to be the venue that serves the people of the region and carries on the rapid development of GCC nations, said Kuwait’s First Dep-uty Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sheikh Sabah Al Khaled Al Hamad Al Sabah.

He noted that the GCC’s sup-portive stance during the Iraqi invasion in 1990 and the subse-quent liberation of Kuwait in 1991 was one of the many instances that proved the

strength of the regional body against aggressors. The Kuwaiti Foreign Minister hoped that the current summit will meet the aspirations and dreams of the people in the region and would continue the GCC’s strong stride towards a bright future.

Meanwhile, the media center for the 38th Gulf Coop-eration Council’s (GCC) Summit was also launched yesterday to provide up-to-date coverage of the summit. Head of the Center Mohammad Al Baddah said the center, located in Jumeirah Hotel, will assist the 200 media personnel from local, regional and international outlets with the latest tools and necessary

services to enable them to cover the summit.

Al Baddah added that the center has been equipped with the latest tools to enable report-ers to carry out their coverage with ease and comfort.

He also pointed to another media center located at Bayan Palace, the venue of the sum-mit, where reporters can cover the summit from there too.

He pointed out that the for-eign media department in the Information Ministry has pre-pared an itinerary for the news reporters who will go on field trips to become acquainted with Kuwait’s various cultural and touristic sites.

New programme to promote public transportation systemThe Peninsula

The Ministry of Transport and Communications (MOTC) has formally

launched a national integrated public transport marketing and wayfinding programme that will enable citizens, residents and tourists to better understand and access Qatar’s upcoming multi-modal transit system.

The programme has been designed to promote Qatar’s public transportation system, its convenience and its benefits as well as increase the awareness and perception of public trans-port in the country and Contributes to the achievement of Qatar National Vision 2030.

Minister of Transport and Communications H E Jassim Saif

Ahmed Al Sulaiti has given directives on the importance of completing the current study on the programme during 2018, that will unify and raise the pub-lic transport image.

It will help enable a number of important developments in Qatar’s public transportation infrastructure, including the launch of rail, ferry, taxi and enhanced bus services reaching communities across the country.

The integrated marketing and wayfinding project will involve five distinct phases starting with research into glo-bal best practices, followed by a gap analysis, the formulation of an integrated marketing and wayfinding strategy, and then the campaign frameworks and

measurement tools to ensure its effective delivery.

Speaking on behalf of MOTC, Sheikh Mohammed bin Khalid bin Jassim Al Thani, the project sponsor and Director of the MOTC Technical Affairs Depart-ment, commented: “This project is among the most important in the rollout of the new public transportation facilities.”

“The investment in hard infrastructure is almost com-plete, and now it is up to us to understand, engage, and moti-vate all parties to get on board and on the move with public transportation. Making it a suc-cess will require close integration with entities across the country, and a shared vision for what public transportation can achieve.”

Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani received a written message from President of the Republic of Burkina Faso, Roch Marc Christian Kabore, pertaining to bilateral relations and means of boosting and developing them. Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister H E Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani received the message as he met Mohamed Lamine, the special envoy of the President.

Message from President of Burkina Faso

Villaggio Mall Director Tzoulios Tzouliou (left) and Ooredoo Chief Business Officer Sheikh Nasser bin Hamad bin Nasser Al Thani.


The Peninsula

Indonesian Ambassador to Qatar Air Marshal (Ret) Muhammad Basri Sidehabi

held a lecture for its community on “Terrorism and Radicalisa-tion Prevention”.

The lecture was held in cooperation with Indonesian National Agency for Combating Terrorism (BNPT). The event was attended by around 100 persons at his residence recently, said a statement issued by the embassy.

According to BNPT Deputy Chairman, Inspector General (Police) Drs. Hamidin, terrorist organisations can not just be defeated simply by killing its members, capturing its support-ers, or breaking its network of activities.

“Terrorism cannot be defeated just by killing, shoot-ing, capturing its supporters, or destroying its network,” said Hamidin before the Indonesian community in Doha.

He added that it takes a comprehensive, integrated and strategic efforts to tackle the ter-rorism ideology in order to root them out. What can be done among others is the rehabilita-tion program and building communication involving all level of the society.”

He added that BNPT has

also been focusing its program on soft approach method in tackling terrorism. “The approach emphasizes dialogue and friendship to different lev-els of society, even to people involved in radicalism networks and terrorism. Such an effort is expected to break the chain of violent terrorism, in a humane way.”

The event was attended by the Chairman of Dharma Wan-ita Persatuan of Indonesia

Embassy (Indonesian Women Organisation of Embassy), Andi Una which used the event to present the of Indonesian cui-sine delights for the participants. In his speech, Ambassador Basri appreciates the role of Indone-sian Community in Doha (Permiqa) for the excellent con-tributions in bilateral relations between two countries as well as its role in socio-cultural pro-motion in Qatar.

T h e e n v o y a l s o

urged Indonesian community members to use the information of lectures so that they can pre-vent and avoid themselves making any offences or crimes related radicalization, terrorism or whatsoever.

He also advised the commu-nity to prevent themselves from act of radicalization and to abide by the rules and regulations of the country as well as keeping unity and integrity among Indonesians.

Call for strategic efforts to combat terrorism

Indonesian Ambassador to Qatar, Air Marshal (Ret) Muhammad Basri Sidehabi, with community members during the lecture on ‘Terrorism and Radicalisation Prevention’.

The Peninsula

Coinciding with the Inter-national Day of Persons with Disabilities, an exhi-

bition by artist Dania Tariq opened on Sunday at the Cul-tural Village Foundation-Katara Building 13.

Titled “Towards Excellence,” the exhibition, which runs until December 13, includes 30 paint-ings expressing different themes in loving Qatar and revealing the artist’s view of life, emphasizing the importance of hope and optimism.

The artist wanted to chal-lenge her handicap and face the impossible, showing strong ambition to achieve and to prove that disability is just in the mind not in the body, as her canvases inspire hope, peace and love of life. Dania Tariq suffers from hearing impairment since birth, but it did not discourage her tal-ent in drawing, as she express her emotions through colours from the age of three. She has presented many exhibitions, including an art exhibition at Hamad Hospital as part of the celebration of the International Day of Persons with Disabilities 2015 and participated in the

conference of Media Advocacy for Persons with Disabilities in Egypt 2017.

The exhibition was opened by Ahmed Al Sayed, Deputy Director General of Operations at Katara, in the presence of Dr. Mohamed Abdel Rahman Al Sayed, international represent-ative of disability, as well as ambassadors and journalists.

Ahmed El Sayed said the exhibition is distinguished by its

panels that serve as windows not only of Dania Tariq’s artistic experience but also windows of hope and life. Her artistic and human experience is an acclaimed and admirable one. She is a model of positive think-ing and love of life with generosity and creativity.

He stressed that Katara is keen to host various groups in society, including those with special needs and encourage

creativity, which contributes a new understanding of this cat-egory as a class able to fully integrate in life.

For her part, the artist thanked the Katara for its coop-eration, encouragement and facilitation in hosting her exhibition.

Dr. Hala Al-Said, the mother of the artist, said that the exhi-bition coincides with the celebration of the International Day of Disabled Persons on December 3 which is a special day in the life of her daughter, as it is her birthday. She pointed out that the exhibition is about the importance of considering people with special needs posi-tively, since although they have fragile aspects, they have great positive energy for giving and creativity, and the community has to assist them to develop their potential. She thanked to Katara for embracing her daugh-ter’s art experience, which will be a strong motivation for her creativity. Lauding Katara’s efforts to host the exhibition, Dr. Mohammed Abdul Rahman Al Sayed said that people with spe-cial needs are an integral part of the community and should be cared for.

Artist Dania Tariq’s expo unveiled at Katara

The Peninsula

Hamad Medical Cor-poration’s (HMC) Women’s Wellness and Research Center (WWRC) has wel-

comed the first baby born at the new hospital, which is dedicated to caring for women and their newborns as well as providing ongoing care for women through-out all stages of their lives.

Qatari parents and Al Hababi, welcomed baby Tamim on December 3. Weighing 3.2 kilo-grams. Baby Tamim was delivered by a member of the hospital’s highly specialised obstetric teams in one of the Women’s Wellness and Research Center’s new state-of-the-art operating theaters.

H E Dr Hanan Mohamed Al Kuwari, Minister of Public Health, visited the family and newborn to offer her congratulations and present Al Hababi and her new-

born with a special gift.Commenting on the first deliv-

ery, H E Dr Hanan Al Kuwari said: “We are extremely proud to wel-come the first baby born at the Women’s Wellness and Research Center, the largest women’s terti-ary hospital in the country.”

“The birth of baby Tamim marks a major milestone in our journey towards the full opening

of our new facility, which has been carefully designed to provide the women of Qatar with specialist care throughout all stages of their lives.”

Over the next few months, the Women’s Wellness and Research Center will gradually increase the number of women delivering babies at the facility as it works towards operating at full capac-ity. Women’s Hospital will remain open and continue to run inpatient services, including labor and deliv-ery until the new hospital is fully operational.

To date, more than 2,000 women have been scheduled at the Women’s Wellness and Research Center for various out-patient clinics, including gyne-oncology, uro-gynecology, and well-baby clinics, as well as the Specialist Gynecology Day Care Surgery Unit which success-fully operated on its first patients last week.

First baby born at WWRC named after Emir

H E Dr Hanan Mohamed Al Kuwari, Minister of Public Health, with the newborn baby, parents and medical staff.

H E Dr Hanan Mohamed Al Kuwari said: “We are extremely proud to welcome the first baby born at the Women’s Wellness and Research Center, the largest women’s tertiary hospital in the country.”

Ahmed Al Sayed, Deputy Director General of Operations at Katara, Dr. Mohamed Abdel Rahman Al Sayed, international representative of disability and other officials visiting paintings by artist Dania Tariq at the Cultural Village Foundation-Katara Building 13.

The Peninsula

A Qatari student del-e g a t i o n i s participating in the

14th International Junior Science Olympiad which takes place in the Netherlands.

The competition is the largest scientific event involving talented students in the field of science who are under the age of 16, from more than 50 countries around the world. Qatar’s participation is the first of its kind.

The 14th International Jun-ior Science Olympiad continues until the 12th of December, in which students are engaged in individual and group competi-tions through a series of theoretical and practical tests.

The competition aims to stimulate and encourage tal-ented students to develop their talents in the different fields of

natural sciences, and establish friendly relations among them at this early age, from all over the world, in addition to pro-viding opportunities for comparison between educa-tional curricula and trends in science education in participat-ing countries.

Meanwhile, Qatar students have been trained on concepts and scientific and practical skills in preparation for their participation at this interna-tional scientific competition.

Qatar participates in International Junior Science Olympiad

Qatari students delegation at the 14th International Junior Science Olympiad in the Netherlands.

Continued from page 1Also, the regulations on

employee incentive shares have been approved in public share-holding companies listed on the QSE, which allows listed com-panies to organise incentive programs for their employees while preserving the sharehold-ers’ rights in companies by granting them the right to approve these programs and monitor their implementation through periodic reports pre-sented annually to the shareholders.

QFMA Chief Executive Officer Nasser Al Shaibi said the recent decisions of the board are an extension of efforts to support QFMA in its develop-ment of the capital market sector, which witnessed remarkable legislative activity during the year 2017. He noted QFMA’s assertion that the

Qatari capital market has a strong legislative base accord-ing to the nature of the market and its needs, which was clas-sified in the International Competitiveness Report 2017 and 2018 as the best legislative base for the financial market in the Arab region and the ninth internationally. The report also ranked the Qatari market as the sixth best market on the inter-national level in the Smallholder Rights Protection Index. This demonstrates the success of QFMA’s efforts and strategy as well as its adapta-tion of the right policies towards realizing its vision in the devel-opment of the capital market sector, in cooperation with its partners and stakeholders in the capital market in Qatar and within the framework of Qatar National Vision and the finan-cial sector strategy.

QFMA okays regulations

Continued from page 1During his speech, HE Al

Mahmoud confirmed that the country, thanks to God, the directives of the leadership and the awareness of the people is moving towards the future with confidence and optimism. His Excellency added that the pending challenges will only increase the country’s strength, stability, attachment to its sov-ereignty, independent decisiveness and free will.

H E the Council Speaker, on his behalf and the council

members, thanked H E the Finance Minister and his accompanying team for attend-ing the meeting and giving extensive responses to the inquiries of the members as well as their appreciated efforts to prepare the budget.

After wide, honest, deep and patriotic discussion, the council praised the draft state budget for the fiscal year 2018, as it included adequate alloca-tions to the plans and programs of the State, and the role of the government in this field.

Draft state budget for 2018 lauded


Al Kuwari meets Iran’s Ambassador

The Peninsula

Finland’s centenary of inde-pendence is being celebrated in an epic way

throughout the world tomorrow.

The story of the 100-year-old Finland is extraordinary and rests on the values cherished by the Finns: democracy, education, equality and freedom of speech.

The climax of the centenary will be a joint effort, and the pro-gramme will be rich and memorable. The celebrations will take place throughout Fin-land as well as in more than 100 countries on all the continents, said a statement issued by the embassy.

Finland became an inde-pendent state on December 6 1917. The newly born state was

willed into being by Finns after a long struggle. For a hundred years the Finns have been engaged in the building of their country and making decisions together.

“The story of the 100-year-old Finland is unique and deserves a special celebration. The centenary of independence is the most significant anniver-sary of our generation. This epic

year has been built in a unique and open way, together with the whole of society, Finns and friends of Finland, in more than 100 countries,” says Pekka Timo-nen, General Secretary of the Centenary of Finland’s Inde-pendence, Prime Minister’s Office.

Finland 100 has become a phenomenon: the centenary has been celebrated throughout the

year. Four out of five Finns think it is important to participate in the centennial year and more than 600,000 people, 14% of all 15-84-year-old Finns, are involved in creating the cente-nary year programme.

Finland’s Independence Day, December 6, will be preceded by both traditional and new festiv-ities over several days. Most of the official celebrations will take

place in the capital city, Helsinki, but there will be many other unique moments all over Finland.

The Finnish flag will fly for two consecutive days, and the whole country will be illumi-nated with blue and white lights, the colours of Finland. Special monuments and locations, e.g. an entire fell, Saana in Lapland, will be lit up.

Finland’s centenary of independence tomorrow

Sanaullah Ataullah The Peninsula

An inclusive playground, first of its kind in the region, was opened at

Al Legtaifiya Park yesterday to mark the International Day of Persons with Disabilities on December 3.

The playground opens a new chapter for accessibility in Qatar and invites children of all ages and abilities to play together.

Al Legtaifiya Family Pub-lic Park, at area No 66 inside Doha, was reopened on June 21 after renovation.

The inclusive playground is equipped with modified games including space whirl, trampoline, flint slide and swing was inaugurated by the Ministry of Municipality and Environment, represented by the Public Parks Department in collaboration with Sasol, the international integrated chemicals and energy company.

The initiative is under the theme of “Qatar is available to all” and aims at creating opportunities to children with mobility impairment to par-ticipate in all community, educational, entertainment and sport activities.

“The Public Park Depart-ment is ready to implement such key projects that cater big segment of the community,” said Mohamad Ibrahim Al Sadas, Assistant Director of the Department.

Speaking in the inaugural ceremony, Al Sada said that the Ministry of Municipality and Environment is upgrading and renovating all public parks to make it usable for everyone.

The launch was attended by Sasol joint CEOs Stephen Cornell and Bongani Nqwababa, Amal bint Abdul-latif Al Mannai, CEO of Qatar Foundation for Social Work,

Accessible Qatar Ambassadors, children from Al Shafallah Center, and adults and chil-d r e n w i t h m o b i l i t y impairment.

Speaking at the event, Sasol President and CEO Bon-gani Nqwababa said:“Sasol believes that to build a strong society, we must include eve-ryone, and exclude no one”.

He said that the strategic investments such as this play-ground, will lead the conversation and build aware-ness about the important role that people with mobility impairment can have in our communities.

“We are proud to work together with the Ministry of Municipality and the Environ-ment to make this Inclusive Playground a reality”, said Nqwababa.

All attendees had the opportunity to experience the park first hand, and watch a special demonstration of wheelchair fencing, one of the inclusive sports that is being supported by Accessible Qatar initiative. The inspiration behind developing an inclusive

playground for all the commu-nity came after reading an article in the local newspapers ‘Where Should I Play?’ Cry of a Child Mobility Impairment. The article mentions how a child was unhappy as he could not play with his friends.

Sasol wanted to find a solution for children with mobility impairment who are currently unable to play on playgrounds with their friends. Sasol addressed this issue by providing inclusive playground equipment and thus supporting the commu-nity and providing the fundamental right for all chil-dren to be able to play with their friends.

The inclusive playground is the latest breakthrough for Accessible Qatar, a Sasol initi-ative designed to support inclusion and accessibility in the local community. Since the launch of Definitely Able in 2012, Sasol has made contin-uous achievements in raising awareness and addressing issues of inclusion and empow-erment for Qatar’s community with mobility impairment.

Playground for the disabled opens at Al Legtaifiya Park

Bongani Nqwababa (centre), Joint President and Chief Executive Officer at Sasol and Amal bint Abdullatif Al Mannai, CEO of Qatar Foundation for Social Work, with other officials during the inauguration of the inclusive playground by Sasol and the Ministry of Municipality at Al Legtaifiya Park yesterday. Pic: Baher Amin / The Peninsula

The Peninsula

Hassad will support ‘Made in Qatar 2017’ exhibition as a silver sponsor, Qatar

Chamber of Commerce & Indus-try (QC) announced yesterday.

The expo, scheduled to be held between December 14 – 17, will be organised by QC in coop-eration with the Ministry of Energy and Industry on an area of 29,000 sqm at the Doha Exhi-bition & Convention Centre.

With the participation of over 320 Qatari companies and 138 productive families, the exhibition basically aims to pro-mote the locally-manufactured products.

Saleh bin Hamad Al Sharqi, Director-General at QC, and Hassad’s CEO, Mohamed bin Badr Al Sadah, signed the spon-sorship agreement at the QC venue yesterday.

Speaking at the agreement signing ceremony, Al Sadah said:

“We are privileged to sponsor and take part in the fifth edition of “Made in Qatar” Exhibition. This exhibition has successfully managed to showcase a wide selection of local made products, by providing a great platform for exchanging experiences and best practices,”

Al Sadah invited all visitors to pass by Hassad’s stand at the exhibition, to learn about its lat-est products brought to the people of Qatar from a number of local investments.

Meanwhile, Saleh Al Sharqi said that QC extends its deep thanks to “Hassad” for sponsor-ing the event which emphasizes its great interest in supporting the country’s strategies of grow-ing and developing the industry sector.

He praised the key role played by Hassad in the support-ing the national economy and its commitment to fulfilling the demands of the Qatari market .

Hassad silver sponsor of ‘Made in Qatar’ expo

Saleh bin Hamad Al Sharqi, Director-General at QC, and Hassad’s CEO, Mohamed bin Badr Al Sadah, sign the sponsorship agreement at the QC venue yesterday.

The Peninsula

College of the North Atlan-tic – Qatar’s (CNA-Q) Qatari Youth Club organ-

ized the most impressive Qatar National Day celebration to date on-campus.

The event was organized by the College’s Qatari Youth Club, which has made an impressive contribution to the preservation and enhancement of Qatari val-ues at CNA-Q. Qatari Youth

Club Leader, Faisal Al Mohannadi, said, “National Day is a day to recall our glorious past, celebrate the present, and to look forward to a very bright future. This year we are filled with more pride than ever! Qatar is strong and more united that it has even been!”

This year was especially momentous, as students stood in solidarity with the Emir, His Highness Sheikh Tamim Bin

Hamad Al Thani, who has been a symbol of strength and peace for the nation.

CNA-Q always hosts a spe-cial event in advance of the official Qatar National Day on December 18, before College students start the busy exam period. This year it was held on Sunday, December 1.

“We are so very proud of our Qatari students who led the organization of our campus Qatar National Day celebrations. Their leadership is an outstand-ing example of the national pride instilled in our students, and proof that Qatar’s future is in good hands with bright lead-ers such as these,” said CNA-Q President Dr. Ken MacLeod. The campus was draped in maroon and white, with hundreds of ‘Tamim Al Majd’ flags waving proudly. A play was specifically designed and directed for the event called “Fedayt Trabetj”.

CNA-Q Qatari Youth Club organises National Day celebration

Fazeena Saleem The Peninsula

Qatar’s rich tradi-tions, values, and culture

were celebrated recently at the Educa-tion City as part of Qatar Foundation’s N a t i o n a l D a y celebrations.

‘Education City United’ event organ-ised by student leaders also highlighted the achievements of Qatar.

The event held at the Education City ‘s ceremonial court included a flag-raising ceremony and a display by mem-bers of the Qatar Armed Forces, traditional sword dancing, sing-ing, poetry recitation and a vintage car show.

The event highlighted the diverse multicultural community within Education City and aimed to demonstrate the bonds that strengthen the wider community through the country’s many achievements, as well as the mor-als and values that Qatar represents.

“This is a student initiative supported by Qatar Foundation. We have gathered all universities

within Education City for this event. This is to show that we as students can collaborate and stand together for Qatar,” AlDana Mohammed Al-Dosari, a senior student at NU-Q, told The Peninsula.

“By celebrating together, we want to show how much we appreciate this country and eve-rything it has done for us. Besides celebrating National Day together, this event provides an opportu-nity for the public to learn about aspects of the different universi-ties in Education City,” she added.

‘Education City United’ event

also featured a souq area and included two traditional majlises for males and females, around 20 emerging Qatari businesses and food stalls. Participating univer-sities provided a news studio simulation by Northwestern Uni-versity in Qatar (NU-Q), representing the role of media, and Hamad Bin Khalifa Univer-sity presented the first map of Qatar made from LED lights.

Also an exhibition with por-traits of prominent Qatari personalities was showcased by renowned Qatari artist Abdul Hameed Al Siddiqi.

Qatar’s rich traditions celebrated

H E Hamad bin Abdulaziz Al Kawari (centre), Minister of State, and other officials during the Education City United event which took place at Qatar Foundation Ceremonial Court yesterday. Pic: Baher Amin / The Peninsula

Minister of Public Health H E Dr. Hanan Mohammed Al Kuwari met yesterday with Islamic Republic of Iran’s Ambassador to Qatar, Mohammad Ali Sobhani. The meeting reviewed bilateral relations and ways to boost them, especially in the health field.


The Emiri Guard Commander Major General Hazza bin Khalil Al Shahwani met yesterday morning with the Military Attache at the Embassy of Kuwait to the State, Brigadier General Huwaidi Sahan Al Hajri, on the occasion of assuming his duties as Military Attache at the Embassy. During the meeting, they discussed a number of issues of common concern in the framework of enhancing cooperation and exchanging military expertise between the two brotherly countries.

Qatar-Kuwait ties

The Peninsula

The Drug Enforcement Department of the Minis-try of Interior (MoI)

yesterday organised a workshop on the role of the Ministry of Interior in protecting young people in educational institutes.

The inauguration of three-day workshop was attended by the Minister of Education and Higher Education, H E Dr Mohammed Abdul Wahe+d Ali Al Hammadi and Director-Gen-eral of Public Security Staff Major General Saad bin Jassim Al Khulaifi. The workshop held at the Qatar National

Convention Center (QNCC). “The Ministry of Education appreci-ates the role of the MoI of protecting the future genera-tions because the nation depends on them and also we cant forget the role of other enti-ties either families, media and other social institutions,” Al Hammadi said in a statement at the occasion.

He added that the Ministry of Education needs the efforts of the Ministry of Interior and the Drug Enforcement Depart-ment for protecting the sons through awareness about the dangers of drugs, adding that the awareness programs about the dangers of drugs also part of

educational curriculum. There are contacts between special-ists at the Ministry of Interior and specialists in the Ministry of Education in order to discover any suspicious behaviors and also how to deal with them, he added.For his part, Al Khulaifi said that the sustainable devel-opment did not depend only on idea of natural resources but it also depended on human resource. “The humans are pil-lars to lay the foundations of civilization for future genera-tions. The stage of education is one of the most important stage in the human life in which their capacities grow and talents are sharpened.”

‘Drug awareness should be part of school curriculum’

Minister of Education and Higher Education, H E Dr Mohammed Abdul Wahed Ali Al Hammadi (second right) and Director-General of Public Security, Staff Major General Saad bin Jassim Al Khulaifi (third right) with other officials from the two ministries during the workshop.

Mohammed Osman The Peninsula

In its third edition, Sheikh Hamad Award for Translation and International Understand-

ing (SHATIU) 2017, has received a total of 146 nominees represent-ing 30 nationalities (17 Arab countries and 13 foreign states) while the deadline for submissions was August 31.

The final result of the compe-tition and names of the winners will be announced on December 14, said Dr Hanan Al Fayadh, the Award’s Media Consultant during a press conference held yester-day at Doha Exhibition Center.

This year the value of Awards has been from $1m to $2m for all three categories where the first category on translation has $800,000 prize, the second cat-egory on achievement will have $1m prize, and the third category on International Understanding will have $ 200,000.

French and English languages were selected for this year awards as languages reflecting the core cultural relations between Arab countries and Francophone nations, Dr Hanan added.

The awards have also expanded its category for this year edition by adding Eastern lan-guages like Urdu, Chinese, Persian, Malay and Japanese and these languages are selected annually, Al Fayadh stressed.

Sheikh Hamad Award for Translation and International Understanding (SHATIU) was accepting nominations for the year 2017 in the Translation Prizes under which the first category is awarded to translation from Ara-bic into English, translation from English into Arabic, translation from Arabic into a language other than English and translation from a language other than English into Arabic. The winner of the first prize in this category is awarded (US$100.000), the second (US$60.000) and the third

(US$40.000).The second category includes

Achievement Prizes which are awarded to translations from Ara-bic language to Urdu, Chinese, Persian, Malay and Japanese lan-guages or vice versa and its total of $1m.

The third Category of the award, “International Under-standing” is awarded to individual(s) and/or institution(s) with substantive contribution to building a culture of peace and promoting international under-standing said the Award Consultant, said Dr. Hanan Al Fay-adh. She pointed out that the award aims to honour translators and acknowledge their role in building peace through cultural dialogue and bridges between nations and people around the world.

The selection of the Eastern languages for this year edition of the awards has come within the framework of the goals of the awards to encourage translation between Arabic and these Asian languages, encouraging individ-uals, publishing houses in the Arab

world and speakers of these lan-guage to play role in creating bridges for cultural dialogues and communications between the people, Dr Al Fayadh stressed.

The works which have been submitted for the competition include works on all fields of social science, humanity, arts, history, philosophy, linguistics and Islamic studies, Al Fayadh outlined.

The conditions also included that the translation works under the first category must have been published in the five years prior to the announcement date of the award while achievement cate-gories are not subject to time limitation and can be awarded to a set of works/achievements of a lifetime.

Within short time of the award which founded in 2015, the number of participants is signifi-cantly increasing and competition is becoming more tough as the number if inquires and media coverage about the award has doubled ten fold. More informa-tion can be obtained from official website of the awards (www.hta.qa/en).

146 nominees from 30 countries for SHATIU 17

Saleh Ghareeb (left), Hanan Al Fayad (center) and Asaad Al Zafery officials during a press conference of SHATIU 2017 at Doha International book fair yesterday.Pic: Abdul Basit / The Peninsula

QNA

The fourth session of the Gulf and Arabian Penin-sula Studies Forum

concluded today. The three-day forum discussed the Gulf crisis in terms of regional and international contexts and the role of media in dealing with this crisis. The forum, which received about 120 research summaries, of which 35 of were approved, discussed the Gulf crisis in two areas. The first tackled media issues including media ethics in the crisis, news coverage, public opinion and the role of social media. The second focused on regional and international policies regarding the Gulf crisis, its repercussions, its legal and economic dimen-sions, and the future of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in light of the crisis.

The Peninsula

The Foreign Ministry’s Diplo-matic Institute yesterday organised a forum on com-

bating violent extremism on the sidelines of the seventh meeting for the board of Global Commu-nity Engagement and Resilience Fund (GCERF), which will be hosted in Doha today for the first time in the Middle East.

The forum was attended by the secretarial of the fund, and entities related to fighting violent extremism, administrations,

concerned offices from different ministries such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, academic and research institutions and a number of governmental and non-govern-mental organisations.

Special Envoy of Qatar’s For-eign Minister for Counterterrorism and Mediation of Conflict Resolu-tion, Dr. Mutlaq bin Majed Al Qahtani, revealed the role of the State of Qatar and the great efforts it is making regionally and inter-nationally in mediating and preventing conflicts. He also revealed that Qatar is enabling

youth, providing education oppor-tunities and is eradicating unemployment. Al Qahtani referred to the role of Qatari insti-tutions and its initiatives such as “Al Fakhoora program”, “Educate A Child” and “Education Above All” which spread education and pro-vide job opportunities in areas of conflict. “The State contributes to providing education opportuni-ties to more than seven million children in more than 47 countries, through its contributions to the fund and in all institutions active in the system against violent

extremism,” he added. Al Qahtani said social and eco-

nomic marginalization, lack of good governance, conflict out-break and resolving it with non-peaceful methods are of the main factors leading to violent extremism. He added that the State of Qatar focuses its foreign poli-cies on preventive diplomacy and the prevention of conflict and its outbreak, in addition it plays a main and leading role in media-tion to resolve conflicts.

The forum aimed to coordi-nate and unify the efforts of

fighting violent extremism and to benefit from global experiences in the field. It also aimed to introduce the efforts of the State of Qatar in the field of blocking extremism and assisting local societies on resilience and the State’s financial contributions in supporting GCERF.

Through three discussion pan-els, the forum addressed fighting violent extremism, introducing the efforts of the civil society organi-zations in the State of Qatar and the importance of creating job opportunities to prevent the

spread of violent extremism between the youth.

Chairman of Qatar’s National Counter Terrorism Committee at the Ministry of Interior, Major Gen-eral Abdul Aziz Abdullah Al Ansari, said the absence of violent extrem-ism in the State of Qatar is the result of several factors, mainly the social and political and economic stability, and good communica-tion between all groups of society, the high level of education, and the great role played by civil society institutions and the media in the prevention of this scourge.

The Peninsula

Acclaimed visual artiste Shirin Neshat accompa-nied by actress Neda

Rahmanian, talked about her film Looking For Oum Kulthum and of the difficulties she faced in telling the story of the legen-dary Egyptian singer, whose weekly broadcasts on Radio Cairo were listened to all over the region and who is still known as the ‘Star of the East’.

Neshat explained that the star’s reputation and the com-plication of seeking to make a film that would resonate in the Middle East, where Oum Kulthum needs no introduction, as well as in the West, where she is still largely unknown, guided her decision not to make a straightforward biopic but rather to create a story within the story through the addition of an Iranian female character, a kind of alter ego, who like Neshat herself is engaged in a search for the star.

“I spent six years preparing this film, I know the story very well. I knew I could not cover her entire life, so I chose to focus on the pivotal moments that related to the story.”

The roundtable of journal-ists had many questions about the film that touched on

different creative decisions, notably the way many scenes had very little dialogue, as well as the reason that Neshat chose Oum Kulthum as a subject and why, as an Iranian director, she chose an Egyptian singer, rather than one from her own country. m“I am a poetic, visual artist and for me, dialogue can sometimes diminish the impact of a scene, so I tried to keep it to a mini-mum,” she said. “I wanted to show the West the side of the Middle East they don’t usually see, poetry, singing and culture. As for why I chose Oum Kulthum, it’s because there is no one else of her standing in our region.”

Neshat talks about her film

Neda Rahmanian and Shirin Neshat at Ajyal Youth Film Festival.

Gulf & Arabian Peninsula Studies Forum concludes

Diplomatic Institute organises forum on combating violent extremism

The Peninsula

The Indian Embassy has issued 88 Emergency Certificates (ECs) in

November, 2017 to Indian nationals for their repatriation to India. The Embassy also issued 17 air tickets to needy Indian nationals for their return to India in November, 2017, said in a press release.

During November 2017, the Embassy also organized four consular camps at Salwa, Mesaieed, Al-Khor and Dukhan & Zikreet areas and rendered 254 consular services to the Indian nationals.

An Embassy team visited the Central Prison and Depor-tation Centre last week to enquire about the welfare of detainees from India. The total number of Indian nationals in the Central Prison and the Deportation Centre currently is 210 and 86 respectively.

Since January, 2017, 11 Open Houses have been held, including the Open House held on November 30, 2017. A total of 60 complaints were received during these Open Houses. Out of these, 44 complaints have been resolved, 16 are under active follow up of the Embassy.

Indian mission issued 88 emergency certificates in Nov

Peaceful co-existence and mutual respect are among the fundamental principles behind the progress of not only communities but of countries across the world. Any country, whether it is big or

small geographically, powerful or weak, rich or poor, its peaceful existence depends on the situation and environment of the region which it belongs to. And especially if the bigger countries try to impose their ‘big brother’ attitude on smaller countries it will be a real threat to the very basic fabric of the latter. And this is exactly what is happening in the Gulf and the wider Middle East region.

The Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Qatar H E Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said in his address to the Rome MED 2017 (Mediterranean Dialogue): “We need to stop the power game players (in the Gulf) from continuing their games and their adventures. We need to take a serious step right now to engage them in regional security dialogue and to agree on principles all countries should adhere to. Principles which unite us and make us move towards cooperation in different areas of development.” The Deputy Prime Minister asserted the role Qatar has been playing for peace and progress of the region and the constructive steps it had taken to strengthen cooperation among

regional countries.The power play by

some of the countries in the region has resulted in the iniquitous siege of Qatar which is an unjust interference in the internal affairs and aimed at destabilising Qatar. But the wise policies and vision of the Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani prevented the willful intentions of the blockading countries. Qatar gathered all its strength and redoubled its efforts to make the country self-sustainable

by increasing domestic production of essentials and finding new sea and air routes to boost imports to alleviate the suffering of its people.

Qatar will not only survive but will also gallop to progress without the help and support of the blockading countries, but there are other nations in the region who are struggling to find a way out of the imbroglio that they were forced into by the regional power players.

The world should put an end to this polarisation and power play.

It is the responsibility of the comity of nations to rein in the wayward behaviour of the ‘big brothers’ and ensure regional security and stability and peace and development of the whole world.

12 TUESDAY 5 DECEMBER 2017VIEWS

E S T A B L I S H E D I N 1 9 9 6

CHAIRMANSHEIKH THANI BIN ABDULLAH AL THANI

EDITOR-IN-CHIEFDR. KHALID BIN MUBARAK AL-SHAFI

[email protected]

ACTING MANAGING EDITORMOHAMMED SALIM MOHAMED

[email protected]

Qatar for peace

QUOTE OF THE DAY

Ireland wants to move onto phase two, however, we cannot agree to do that without firm guarantees that there will not be a hard border on the island of Ireland under any circumstances.

Leo VaradkarIreland’s Prime Minister

Peaceful co-existence and mutual respect are among the fundamental principles behind the progress of not only communities but of countries across the world.

The Gulf Cooperation Council’s (GCC) Summit is seen by many as an event which comes out with important resolutions and vital decisions.

Between 1981-2016, the GCC Summit came out with various decisions which contributed to the development of cooperation and security of the Gulf countries.

In Abu Dhabi, the UAE, June 1981, the leaders of the six Gulf countries announced the official formation of the GCC. The lead-ers came out with a resolution which called for a just solution to the Palestinian struggle against the Israeli occupiers.

In November of 1981, the GCC Summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, agreed on an accord to facilitate economic transactions and business amongst the council’s members.

In Manama, Bahrain, the GCC Summit held in 1982 agreed on the establishment of the Gulf Investment Corporation (GIC) at the capital of USD 2.2 billion. The Doha, Qatar, Summit held in 1983, the GCC leaders focused on developing relations and coordi-nating efforts during the Iran-Iraq War.

In Kuwait’s summit of 1984, the summit agreed on a draft resolution enabling Gulf citizens to acquire real-estate in any given GCC countries. In 1985, the Muscat summit in Oman, the GCC leaders agreed on policies to bolster cooperation in the agricultural, education, industrial, environmental, and security domains.

During the Abu Dhabi Summit of 1986, leaders approved of a resolution that allowed GCC citizens to gain loans from banks and funds in each of the Gulf states. The leaders also agreed on an accord to coordinate military cooperation.

In the Riyadh Summit of 1987, GCC leaders agreed on a system for petroleum loans for the Gulf countries.

In 1988, the GCC Summit in Manama allowed GCC citizens to acquire stocks in joint shareholding companies.

Muscat’s 1989 GCC Summit focused on the recent developments in the occupied Arab lands in Palestine with the advent of the Intifada. The situation in Lebanon after the Tai’f accord and the international devel-opments that year were also discussed during the event. In 1990, the Doha Summit condemned the heinous Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and expressed solidarity with the Kuwaiti people against their aggressors. The summit called for the immediate with-drawal of Iraqi troops from Kuwait. It also demanded from Iraq to respect interna-tional accords and laws.

Kuwait’s 1991 summit saw Gulf leaders discussing the regional status quo after the liberation of Kuwait. The leaders called on Iraq to implement UNSC resolutions regard-ing the release of Kuwaiti POWs and other nationals from Iraq’s prisons. It also called on Baghdad to implement UNSC resolutions pertinent to compensations for Kuwait.

In Emirati capital Abu Dhabi in 1992,

GCC Summit .. An event of important resolutions, vital decisionsAbdulsallam Al-Sallat KUNA

GCC leaders lauded UNSC resolution 773 regarding the Iraqi-Kuwaiti borders. They called on Iraq to abide by the decision.

In 1993, the Riyadh Summit dis-cussed Iraqi regime’s selective implementation of international resolu-tions concerning Kuwait. The participants stressed that Baghdad should abide by all decisions in this regard. The GCC leaders lauded the dec-laration of principles accord between Palestine and Israel which called for a comprehensive and just peace in the Middle East.

Manama’s 1994 GCC summit came out with a resolution to reject all forms of terrorism and extremism.

The issue of the spread of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East and their threat was highlighted in the Muscat Summit of 1995.

The GCC Summit in Doha in 1996 discussed cooperation within the mili-tary, security, legal, and media domains.

In 1997, the GCC Summit in Kuwait issued resolutions aimed at protecting the environment nuclear pollutants and trash. In Abu Dhabi’s 1998 GCC Summit, the developments of Pan Am Flight 103 Lockerbie bombing was discussed dur-ing the event.

The Riyadh Summit in 1999 focused on international economic develop-ments. The GCC leaders called for a unified Gulf front in the global scene.

In 2000, the GCC leaders called for speeding the process for the establish-ment of a joint Gulf customs union and a unified currency.

Muscat’s 2001 Gulf Summit approved a new economic accord for the GCC which replaced the one in the first sum-mit of 1981. The meeting’s participants also approved resolutions to speed up the formation of the customs union and lower customs fees.

In 2002, the GCC Summit in Doha focused on program to form a unified monetary union. The meeting expressed its satisfaction over pegging GCC curren-cies with the US Dollar. The summit also touched on Iraqi regime’s threats towards Kuwait.

Kuwait’s 2003 GCC Summit touched on the war on Iraq, expressing solidarity with the Iraqi people against its regime which ruled for decades. The summit

called for measures to link transportation amongst the GCC countries.

Manama’s GCC Summit in

2004, participants called on the UN to coordinate with the interim Iraqi gov-ernment on the issue of returning Kuwaiti properties stolen since the inva-sion in 1991. During Abu Dhabi’s 2005 GCC Summit, participants agreed on a unified trade policy for the GCC at the global scene.

In Riyadh’s summit of 2006, GCC leaders mourned the late Amir of Kuwait Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, saying that his death left a huge gap in the hearts of Gulf citizens. The summit approved a GCC system for the protection of trademarks.

In 2007, the Doha GCC Summit expressed satisfaction for the efforts to shape the joint Gulf market. The summit touched on measures to regulate retail trading and business.

The GCC Summit held in Muscat Oman in 2008 lauded the efforts to bol-ster relations between the Saudis and Qataris. The world economic crunch was also on the radar of the summit.

In the extraordinary GCC Summit, held in Riyadh in January of 2009, the GCC leaders expressed solidarity with the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip who were suffering from a barbaric Israeli military assault.

In December of 2009, the GCC Summit in Kuwait focused on bolster-ing educational and military cooperation.

In 2010, the GCC Summit in Abu Dhabi approved a resolution which allowed GCC companies to open branches in each respective Gulf State.

The 2011 GCC Summit in Riyadh approved a resolution to allow GCC citizens to use their civil identification cards as an official document to allow them to work in the public and private sectors.

The Manama Summit in 2012 approved a draft resolution to establish a unified military command for GCC land troops, marines’ corps, and air forces.

The 2013 GCC Summit in Kuwait, the meeting approved the formation of a united GCC military command. The summit condemned the Assad regimes atrocities against the Syrian people.

Doha’s 2014 GCC Summit called for the establishment of a unified security command for the Gulf polices forces. It also called for efforts to denounced extremism and terror acts.

The Riyadh GCC Summit in 2015 called for a peaceful solution to the Syr-ian and Yemeni crises. The meeting’s participants focused on bolstering mili-tary cooperation among Gulf troops.

The GCC Summit in Manama Bahrain in 2016 agreed on a unified payment system in the Gulf countries. The summit tasked banks and financial institutes with the nitty-gritty of the whole process.

The meeting also called for intensi-fying measures to combat commercial fraud. The GCC members also touched on efforts to establish the Gulf railway project as a measure step to link trans-portation in the region and beyond.

Between 1981-2016, the GCC Summit came out with various decisions which contributed to the development of cooperation and security of the Gulf countries.

ED ITOR IAL

13TUESDAY 5 DECEMBER 2017 OPINION

(and) job cuts in the public sector in particular,” said Raphaele Auberty, Tunisia analyst at BMI Research.

On the other hand, “risks of social instability in the country are limiting the scope for fiscal consoli-dation without triggering large-scale protests”, she said.

Under pressure from unions, officials have agreed to increase public sector salaries in 2018 and avoid compulsory lay-offs which could provoke protests. The government wants to cut the public sector wage bill to 12.5 percent of GDP in 2020 from 15 percent by offering voluntary redundancies, although that would be expensive.

A spokesman for the IMF said the fund and Tunisia agreed urgent reforms were needed, “including tax reforms and measures to limit the further growth of the public wage bill that risks becoming unaffordable and is among the highest in the world.”

Tunisian officials also want to raise taxes on bank profits to 40 percent from 35 percent. Tax on real estate deals will rise to 19 percent from 6 per-cent, which businesses say will undermine their competitiveness.

“Taxes kill investors’ desire to come here,” said Nafaa Naifer of the business association UTICA, which says companies will close if the tax plan goes ahead. “We cannot tolerate more sacrifices if our sacrifices only go to boost the public sector salaries ,” he said. Last year, the government imposed a temporary 7-percent tax on companies to help finance the budget, 45 percent of which is spent on public sector salaries.

Western countries are keen that Tunisia should attract investment because high unemployment has forced many young Tunisians to go abroad in search of better fortune or even war.

Tunisia plans to launch long-awaited reforms to reduce its chronic budget deficit, but the measures could harm invest-ment if the government imposes

new taxes and resists cutting the bloated public sector in order to avoid social unrest.

The International Monetary Fund is in Tunis this week to review the govern-ment’s efforts to fix an economy in turmoil since President Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali was ousted in the first of the Arab Spring rebellions in 2011.

Tunisia has been praised as the only democratic success among the Arab Spring nations. But economic performance has lagged, with phosphate exports hit by strikes and tourism suffering from Islamist attacks.

Hoping to secure further IMF finance to fund the 2018 budget, Economic Reforms Minister Taoufik Rajhi said the government would launch “unprece-dented reforms” to cut the deficit to 4.9 percent in 2018 from 6 percent this year.

Tunisia wants to reduce the public workforce by 20,000 from 800,000, overhaul loss-making state firms, and increase taxes and social security contri-butions, Rajhi told Reuters.

Rajhi said the government is serious about reforms this time, but analysts say Prime Minister Youssef Chahed is likely to amend the proposals in order to calm social tensions.

That would put Tunisia at odds with its lenders. Since 2011, nine governments have failed to cut the deficit and the coun-try needs $3 billion in foreign loans next year alone.

“The government is heavily reliant on financial assistance from multilateral lenders – such as the IMF – which are putting pressure and conditioning their support on the implementation of struc-tural reforms, notably on the fiscal front,

Tunisia seen softening economic reforms to avoid unrestThe number of boats smuggling migrants to Italy has

risen sharply, while Tunisia has produced the largest number of jihadists heading for battlefields in Iraq, Syria and Libya. In April, the IMF agreed to pay out a delayed $320 million second tranche of a $2.8 billion loan to Tunisia after complaining about lack of progress in cutting the public sector.

Chahed is walking a tightrope, presiding over a coalition of secularists and Islamists who have repeatedly clashed over the country’s transition since 2011.

He especially needs to listen to the powerful labour union UGTT, which mediated in 2013 when tensions between Islamists and secular forces were threatening Tunisia’s stability.

The UGTT opposes deep cuts, saying people are worse off than before the revolution due to inflation of around 5.8 percent. The dinar has fallen by 35 percent since 2011 as tourists have stayed away. Two big militant attacks almost killed off the sector in 2015. Tunisia lost nearly $2 billion due to a drop in phosphate exports when jobless youths blocked rail tracks near the mines.

The IMF wants to cut energy subsidies but the govern-ment plans to keep the total bill for subsidies of petrol, bread and other goods stable at the equivalent of $1.4 billion next year. The sensitivity of the issue was apparent when a min-ister told Reuters recently that bread prices would rise by a few cents because the government could not absorb the cost of an increase in global wheat prices.

Local media jumped on the story and the UGTT leader met Chahed to press him to keep prices stable.

Opposition parties expect the reforms to cause protests.“These measures are painful and 2018 will be the most

difficult year for Tunisians. I don’t think it will go without a popular reaction,” said Jilani Hammami, an official in the left-leaning Popular Front movement.

The government plan calls for an overhaul of overstaffed state firms but avoids any mention of layoffs.

“We will determine what should be kept entirely under the state and what should be a partnership between the public and private sectors, and what should privatised,” said Rajhi, the reform minister, without elaborating.

The UGTT’s opposition to privatisations has alarmed investors. Dubai Holding sold its 35 percent stake in Tunisie Telecom after labour unions forced the state cellphone operator to cancel listing plans which would have meant job cuts. There are other problems too. Restrictions on the avail-ability of hard currency to pay for imports, imposed by the government to support the dinar, could spell trouble with the IMF, London-based Capital Economics said.

Investors also dislike Tunisia’s “inefficient bureaucracy, high-level corruption and favouritism toward well-estab-lished firms”, said Charlene Rahall at Arabia Monitor Economic Research & Strategy.

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Syrian refugees trapped in a no man’s land

In a no man’s land along the Syria-Jordan bor-der, an estimated 55,000 Syrians escaped the horrors of Syria’s conflict only to languish, abandoned in the desert as one country after another evades responsibility for their safety

and wellbeing. Some have been there since at least June 2016. In a statement to the media on November 9, Jan Egeland, the United Nations humanitarian adviser on Syria, highlighted the complexity of the Syrians’ situation. Considering Jordan’s total refusal to provide aid across the border, he said, the UN with the help of Russia and the United States has finalised a plan that would provide aid from inside Syria. “Inshallah soon,” he said.

“Inshallah soon” is not good enough for the des-perate people stranded there. Their situation is steadily deteriorating, as the winter cold sets in.

The Syrians are living in makeshift tents and mud huts in deplorable conditions in an informal camp known as “Rukban”, in a desert area just north of a raised sand barrier, or “berm” near the convergence of the Iraqi, Syrian, and Jordanian borders. They were trapped there when Jordan sealed the border following an attack on its soldiers there that was claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) in June 2016.

In addition to denying Syrians the right to seek asylum, Jordan’s border closure has impeded deliv-ery of life-saving humanitarian aid and severely restricted humanitarian agencies’ capacity to oper-

ate there. The last partial aid delivery was almost six months ago and reached only 35,000 people, accord-ing to the UN refugee agency, UNHCR.

On October 8, Jordan announced an end to even limited humanitarian assistance to Rukban from its territory. Its foreign affairs minister, Ayman Safadi, said that Rukban camp “will never be a Jordanian responsibility”. He said that aid must come from the Syrian side. The Syrian government itself has made no promises to deliver aid to the camp and has a long track record of blocking humanitarian assistance to opposition-held areas leaving people there to starve.

When aid groups have tried to deliver aid from government-held areas into rebel-held areas, in addition to the serious difficulties of getting the gov-ernment’s permission, they have experienced ongoing hostilities, removal of life-saving material from aid packages, inconsistent access, and attacks on humanitarian convoys.

We recently spoke to four residents at the berm by phone. Abu Ahmed, a refugee from Palmyra who arrived in the Rukban camp over a year and a half

ago, described the chaos, poverty, and suffering that characterises life there. He said his wife has severe kidney problems, which he blamed on polluted water and the lack of adequate medical care.

“She is in a lot of pain,” he said. “It doesn’t go away. She is the mother of six, the youngest is only one and a half years old. If something happens to her, it will be a catastrophe for us.”

About the closed border, he said, “If my wife poses a national security threat, then you can cuff her when you let her in, but please let her in.”

Other residents told us they had not had access to drinkable water for 15 days, resulting in diarrhoea and dehydration for children and adults. One resi-dent said that “the water is so salty, it is as though we are drinking from the Dead Sea.”

Jordan should not reject any Syrian seeking asy-lum at its border and send them back to face persecution or worse. Tragically, at this point, the

An internally displaced boy who fled Raqqa city herds sheep while riding a donkey in a camp near Ain Issa, Raqqa Governorate.

issue is not about fundamental principles, but rather about what, at a minimum, Jordan needs to do to prevent deaths in the desert. The immediate need is to allow life-saving aid to cross its border into Syria, but it should also allow in vulnerable individuals and those needing medical care. The plan by the UN, US and Russia to work on a cross-line delivery from Damascus should help to calm any concerns that Jordan has that it will be left to bear the responsibility for Rukban on its own.

Other countries with a stake in the conflict, such as the United States and Russia, also have a role in ensuring the safety and well-being of those at risk. However, international collective action has been consistently marred by diverging interests and backsliding on commitments, even for issues as noncontroversial as access to aid. This failure has spelt catastrophe for people on the ground, with Rukban as only one in a string of horrific examples.

Residents of Rukban need a place where they are safe - where their children do not come under attack or starve to death. The US, Jordan and Russia should stop passing the buck and resolve the serious humanitarian crisis in Ruk-ban camp now. The critical, immediate imperative is for Jordan to re-instate cross-border aid delivery and allow the most vul-nerable people to enter the country. The absence of real political will and quick collective action is ham-pering any solution, and the clock is ticking.

Sara Kayyali Al Jazeera

The Syrians are living in makeshift tents and mud huts in deplorable conditions in an informal camp known as “Rukban”, in a desert area just north of a raised sand barrier, or “berm” near the convergence of the Iraqi, Syrian, and Jordanian borders.

The International Monetary Fund is in Tunis this week to review the government’s efforts to fix an economy in turmoil since President Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali was ousted in the first of the Arab Spring rebellions in 2011.

Ulf Laessing & Tarek AmaraReuters

14 TUESDAY 5 DECEMBER 2017MIDDLE EAST

Sana’a/Dubai

Reuters

Veteran former president Ali Abdullah Saleh (pictured), was killed in a shooting yes-terday after switching sides in Yemen’s civil war, aban-

doning his Iran-aligned Houthi allies in favour of a Saudi-led coalition, foes and supporters said.

Sources in the Houthi militia said its fighters stopped Saleh’s armoured vehi-cle with an RPG rocket outside the embattled capital Sana’a and then shot him dead. Sources in Saleh’s party con-firmed he died in an attack on his convoy. The footage of his bloodied body lolling in a blanket circulated just days after he tore up his alliance with the Houthis following nearly three years in which they had jointly battled the Saudi-led coalition that intervened to try to reinstate Yemen’s internationally recog-nised government. In a televised speech yesterday, Houthi leader Abdul Malik Al Houthi congratulated the Yemeni people for what he described as a victory against a “conspiracy of treason” engineered by the group’s Gulf Arab enemies. He did not mention Saleh’s death.

Saleh, 75, had said in a speech on Saturday that he was ready for a “new page” in ties with the coalition and called the Houthis a “coup militia”, leading them to accuse him of betrayal.

Warfare between the former allies has torn densely populated Sana’a for days as Houthi fighters seized control of much of the capital and yesterday blew up Saleh’s house while coalition jets bombed their own positions.

The end of their alliance had seemed poised to transform the fortunes of war after two years of attrition along mostly static front lines, which gave the Saudi-led coalition a new advantage over the Houthis. Stalemate in Yemen has con-tributed to a human catastrophe as a

Saudi-led blockade and internal fight-ing has thrust millions to the brink of famine and accelerated the spread of deadly epidemics. Eyes will now turn to Saleh’s political allies and military com-manders, whom analysts credited with aiding the Houthi march southwards in 2014 to dominate swathes of western Yemen. “What happens now and whether his family and political allies fight on is wnot yet clear,” said Adam Baron, a Yemen expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

“His people will be angry, and many will certainly be out for blood, but there

are many in the middle especially among the tribes who will fall with whoever appears stronger,” he said. “The Saudi-led coalition may have put a lot of their eggs in Saleh’s basket only for it to fall over now. They appeared to strongly support his attempt to confront the Houthis and now that bid may have failed.”

Saleh once compared his 33-year rule over Yemen to “dancing on the heads of snakes”, a period that included unification of conservative north and Marxist south Yemen, civil war, upris-ings, Islamist militant campaigns and tribal feuds. But he was forced from

power in 2012 following an Arab Spring uprising that left him wounded by an attempted assassination, leading to a Saudi-brokered political transition.

He fled to his one-time ally Saudi Arabia for treatment of his injuries and the princes in Riyadh allowed him to return to Yemen months later — some-thing they came to bitterly regret as he undermined the transition plan and later joined the Houthis.

That set the stage for his final role — that of ally to the Houthi movement which he had previously fought six times during his own presidency, and to Iran,

the Houthis’ political backer.But they vied for supremacy over

the territory they ran together, includ-ing Sana’a, which the Houthis seized in September 2014, and their feud burst into open combat on November 29.

The manoeuvring ended yesterday, as footage circulating on social media appeared to show his corpse, a deep wound in the side of its head, wrapped in a red blanket and being loaded onto a pick-up truck as tribal fighters waved their weapons. “Praise God!” and “Hey Ali Affash!” (another name for Saleh) they were shouting.

Yemen’s ex-president Saleh shot dead

Bloomberg

The Houthis announced Saleh’s killing in a statement yesterday, calling it “the end

of the crisis of the treasonous mili-tia” and claiming to have “complete control” of Saleh’s “hideouts” in the capital and prov-inces. Saleh’s death amounted to a “historic” defeat of the Saudi-led coalition, Houthi leader Abdul Malik Al Houthi said in a televised speech. Videos and photos of Saleh’s bloodied corpse also cir-culated on local media.

Saleh’s death, days after he called on Yemenis to rise up against the Houthis, may alter the course of a civil war that has also become a proxy battle in a broader regional struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which backs the Houthis. Saleh’s “towering” posi-tion in Yemeni politics mean that “the gloves are off” for the Saudi-led coalition, according to Peter Salisbury, senior research fellow at the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House in London.

“The Saudis have been work-ing towards a deal with Saleh, and

with him that was their best chance to take the Houthis out of commis-sion,” Salisbury said, adding that Saleh was the one person who could have allied various factions. “They will do everything possible now to destroy the Houthis.”

For the past two years, Saudi Arabia’s southern neighbor has been divided into two camps, with the government of the ousted Saudi-backed elected president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, based in Aden and the Houthis in con-trol of the capital, Sana’a, and parts of the north.

The Saudi-led coalition that formed in 2015 to try to reinstate Hadi has devastated swaths of the country with airstrikes, and Al Qaeda militants have also exploited the chaos to expand their foothold in the Arabian Peninsula. The war also marked an extension of the Saudis’ proxy fight with dominant Shiite power Iran, left at least 14,000 killed or wounded and triggered a humanitarian catastrophe, with nearly 1 million people having contracted cholera, and 3 million internally displaced.

Until recently, Saleh had

partnered his forces with the Houthis, though the alliance was always a tenuous one because the former president had battled the rebels during his more than two decades in power.

Many saw it as a marriage of convenience motivated by his wish to regain the presidency he lost in 2012 during a popular uprising. Houthi rebels earlier this year accused Saleh of holding secret talks with the United Arab Emirates, a close Saudi ally and member of its coalition in Yemen. The Houthis said Saleh — who denied the charge —crossed “red lines” and denounced his descrip-tion of them as a militia, a term the Saudis use to challenge their legitimacy.

On Saturday, Saleh called on the Yemeni people to “defend their republic” against the Houthis and urged the Saudis to stop their air-strikes and lift all blockades. The Saudi-led coalition later backed his stance. It would be a “terrible mistake” for the Saudi-led coali-tion to escalate the conflict following Saleh’s death, said Joost Hiltermann, program director for the Middle East and North Africa

at International Crisis Group.“The war has been incredibly

costly for them, so they desper-ately need an exit strategy — but they don’t have one,” he said. “The only sensible way is to talk to the Houthis again.” To do that, the Saudis will have to “overcome their hesitation and this notion that the Houthis are so strongly sup-ported by Iran that by talking to them they are encouraging Iran’s rise,” he said.

Fighting between Saleh’s forces and Houthi rebels escalated over the weekend, with the thud of tank artillery and other heavy weapons piercing the air in Sana’a. Houthi officials said they seized Saleh’s home in the capital, and wrested control of houses belong-ing to his son Ahmed and nephew Tarik, the commander of the former president’s forces. Saleh lived underground after his home was bombed by coalition airstrikes.

The Houthis also said they fired a ballistic missile at a nuclear plant in Abu Dhabi, without pro-viding any evidence to back up the claim. It was denied emphatically by the UAE government.

Yemen plunges deeper into confusion

Hadi calls on Yemenis to rise up against Houthis after Saleh’s deathDUBAI: Yemeni President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi called on Yemenis yesterday to rise up against the Iran-aligned Houthis after the death of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Speaking in a speech carried live on the Saudi-owned Al Arabiya television, Hadi also called for a new chapter in the fight against the Houthis, who were allied with Saleh before he turned on them and offered to back the Saudi-led coalition.

Houthis reportedly gain control of majority of Sana’aSANA’A: Yemen’s Houthi rebels have gained control of the majority of the country’s capital from former President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s forces, a Sanaa-based activist told Al Jazeera.

“Only small pockets remain,” Hussain Albukhaiti, who has close ties to the Iranian-backed Houthis, said on Monday.

Albukhaiti spoke to Al Jazeera before the news of Saleh’s death. The former Yemen president was killed later yesterday in fighting in Sana’a.

Albukhaiti said that fighters had secured key areas south of the capital, including the “very strategic” Al-Mesbahi resi-dential area, which is approximately 200 metres from Saleh’s home.

“The area around his home is completely surrounded and may be taken over by the Houthis within the next few hours,” he said.

Other key places that have been taken over by the Houthis include a building where Saleh’s son, Ahmed Abdullah Saleh, resides, and the local Al Saleh mosque.

Riyadh

AFP

The Organisation of Islamic Coopera-tion (OIC) yesterday called for a summit of Muslim nations if the United States

takes the controversial decision to recog-nise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

President Donald Trump faces a key decision this week over Jerusalem’s status, potentially reversing years of US policy and prompting a furious response from the Pal-estinians and the Arab world.

The 57-member OIC sought to amplify concern over the possible move in an emer-gency meeting yesterday in the Saudi Red Sea city of Jeddah.

“If the United States takes the step of rec-ognising Jerusalem as the so-called capital of Israel, we unanimously recommend hold-ing a meeting at the level of council of foreign

ministers followed by an Islamic summit as soon as possible,” the pan-Islamic body said in a statement.

The OIC also warned that recognising Jerusalem or establishing any diplomatic mission in the disputed city would be seen as a “blatant attack on the Arab and Islamic nations”.

The status of Jerusalem is one of the most contentious issues of the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Most of the international community, including the United States, does not for-mally recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, insisting the issue can only be resolved through final-status negotiations.

Central to the issue of recognition is the question of whether Trump decides to move the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

All foreign embassies are located in Tel Aviv with consular representation in

Jerusalem. Israelis and Palestinians are eagerly watching to see whether he again renews a waiver delaying the move, as his predecessors have done.

There are suggestions that Trump will sign the waiver and decline to move the embassy for now, but later this week declare Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Israel, which seized the largely Arab east-ern sector of Jerusalem during the 1967 Six-Day War and later annexed it, claims both halves of the city as its “eternal and undivided capital”.

But the Palestinians want the eastern sector as capital of their promised state and fiercely oppose any Israeli attempt to extend sovereignty there.

Several peace plans have come unstuck over debates on whether, and how, to divide sovereignty or oversee the city’s sites holy to Christians, Jews and Muslims.

OIC for summit if Trump recognises Jerusalem

A general view shows the Dome of the Rock and Jerusalem’s Old City.

Houthis take security measures as they build up checkpoints and place tanks at Ali Abdullah Saleh’s residential building in Hadda neighbourhood of Sana’a, Yemen, yesterday.

Sources in the Houthi militia said its fighters stopped Saleh’s armoured vehicle with an RPG rocket outside the embattled capital Sana’a and then shot him dead. Sources in Saleh’s party confirmed he died in an attack on his convoy.

15TUESDAY 5 DECEMBER 2017 MIDDLE EAST / AFRICA

Former Indian Air Force pilot Rakesh Sharma listens as US astronaut Mae Carol Jemison speaks during a press conference on the sidelines of the three-day UN Environment Assembly at the UN Environment headquarters in Nairobi yesterday.

UN environment meet

Macron to turn new page during Algeria visitParis/Algeria

Reuters

French President Emmanuel Macron is likely to use a visit to Algeria tomorrow to look to the future and

turn the page on the colonial past, but stop short of apologis-ing for his country’s actions as some demand.

The trauma of the 1954-1962 independence war, in which hun-dreds of thousands of Algerians were killed and tortured was used on both sides, has left deep scars.

Former French leader Fran-cois Hollande sought a more conciliatory tone describing his country’s colonisation of Algeria as “brutal and unfair” and Macron is unlikely to go further.

With President Abdelaziz Bouteflika rarely seen in public since a 2013 stroke, Macron will focus on the generational shift and importance of enhanced economic and security within that context.

On a visit to Algeria in Feb-ruary as a candidate, Macron, 39, already shocked many at home when he said France’s 132-year colonial rule was a “crime against humanity.”

“The president had strong words. It was appreciated by Alge-rians, but today the idea is to turn the page and build a new relation-ship with Algeria,” a French presidential source said, adding that youth was his key message.

During a three-day tour in

Africa last week Macron again addressed the colonial past. While recognising the crimes of the European colonisers, he also pointed to the positives of the era and made clear that his generation should not be blamed.

Facing high unemployment, low oil prices, austerity and political uncertainty, Algeria’s youth is likely to warm to Macron’s call to look to the future more than the war veterans.

“It’s very difficult to have a relationship between one part-ner (Macron) that is young, vibrant and wants renewal and the other partner (Bouteflika) who represents such a severe contrast,” said Pierre Vermeren, a North Africa specialist at the Paris Sorbonne university.

Economic ties between the two countries have marginally progressed since 2012 and France is now behind China as the main partner. Annual trade

stands at about €8bn compared with €6.36bn five years ago.

More than 400,000 Algeri-ans are given visas for France annually, almost twice as many as in 2012.

“If Macron makes it easier to get a visa, that will be great for me. As for the history stuff I really don’t care,” said Slimane Khalifa, 25 who is an engineer at a state firm. Polit-ical jostling around Bouteflika has intensified as his health has waned,

fuelling questions about the transi-tion if he steps down before his term ends in 2019.

With more than four million people of Algerian origin in France, all with ties to the North African state, any upheaval across the Mediterranean would have a serious impact on Paris.

“Macron’s biggest foreign policy test could be Algeria because the state of Bouteflika’s health is a worry and potentially

what happens after could have huge ramifications on us,” said a French diplomat.

Macron’s “friendship” visit, downgraded from an official visit, is also an opportunity to appease some anger in Algiers after he travelled first to arch-rival Morocco earlier this year, a taboo for previous French leaders. Many hope Macron will go one step further when it comes to the past.

Palestinian shot in West Bank clashes: OfficialsNablus

AFP

A Palestinian was shot and wounded by Israeli security forces

in clashes that broke out near a settlement in the occupied West Bank yester-day, Israeli and Palestinian officials said.

“Dozens of Palestinians arrived at the area of Qusra southeast of Nablus and began rolling burning tyres and throwing rocks at secu-rity forces,” an army statement said.

“(Israeli) soldiers and bor-der policemen responded by using crowd-control means in order to disperse the riot,” it added, saying they had declared the area a closed military zone.

The Palestinian health ministry said one man had been shot in the chest, and reported that he was in a sta-ble condition.

The Palestinian village of Qusra is close to the settle-ment of Migdalim.

A wave of violence in Israel and the Palestinian ter-ritories that began in October 2015 has killed at least 309 Palestinians or Arab Israelis, 52 Israelis and seven foreign-ers. The violence has subsided in recent months.

A file picture of Emmanuel Macron during his visit to Algeria as head of the political movement En Marche!, or Onwards! and candidate for the 2017 French presidential elections leaves the Basilique Notre Dame d’Afrique in Algiers. Macron will visit Algeria tomorrow.

Syria govt unsure on return to Geneva talksGeneva

AFP

Syrian government negoti-ators are still unsure whether they will return to

continue peace talks in Geneva after they flew back to Damas-cus this weekend, a government source said yesterday.

The government’s chief negotiator Bashar al-Jaafari had told reporters in Geneva on Fri-day that his team would go home to Syria and that “Damascus will decide” whether they would return to the UN-backed talks.

“For the time being there has been no final decision. Damas-cus is still thinking about the feasibility of its participation,” the government source said on condition of anonymity.

“As soon as a decision is reached, it will be made public through the usual diplomatic channels.”

A spokesman for the opposi-tion delegation, Yahia Al Aridi, said meanwhile that his side’s chief Nasr Al Hariri would be back in Geneva yesterday evening.

The office of UN special envoy Staffan de Mistura, who

is mediating the talks, made no announcements Monday on the planned return to negotiations.

De Mistura had said the negotiations would resume today.

But after meeting with de Mistura Friday, Jaafari said there were “big problems in this round of talks,” pointing to a commu-nique published by the opposition last month in Riyadh signalling it was maintaining its insistence on Assad’s removal.

The opposition, united in one delegation for the first time, has defied calls to give up on its

demand that Assad must step down before any peace deal can be reached. “The language was provocative, irresponsible politi-cally speaking,” Jaafari said, warning that if the opposition del-egation stuck to such language “there will be no progress.”

The government delegation had initially refused to confirm that it would attend the eighth round of UN-backed talks at all, and arrived a day late.

Syria’s six-year war has claimed more than 340,000 lives, forced millions to flee their homes and left the country in ruins.

Kenya frees Odinga’s adviser after arrestNariobi

Reuters

A prominent strategist for Kenya’s opposition who has strongly criticised

President Uhuru Kenyatta and called for some parts of the country to secede was released yesterday after being briefly detained on suspicion of incit-ing violence.

Kenya’s public prosecutor said on Twitter that David Ndii had been released on police bond and that “appropriate actions” would be taken after investigations are completed.

Police had earlier said Ndii, an economist and anti-corrup-tion campaigner who was arrested on Sunday in the coastal town of Diani, was “under interrogation regarding ... the offence of incitement to violence”.

Opposition leader Raila Odinga condemned the arrest, saying yesterday: “He has com-mitted no crime. (This is) designed to intimidate and fragment the people of Kenya.”

Pro-democracy groups said Ndii’s arrest raised concerns about freedom of expression.

“Ndii has been at the fore-front of articulating the problems with the way the country is run,” said Gladwell Otieno, executive director of Africa Centre for Open Govern-ance (AfriCOG) in Nairobi.

Ndii is an outspoken critic of Kenyatta, who was sworn in for a second presidential term last week after a prolonged

elections season that has dis-rupted the economy and spurred protests that killed more than 60 people.

A senior policy adviser to the opposition National Super Alli-ance (NASA), he has called since a disputed August election that was voided by the Supreme Court for western and coastal areas that are opposition strong-holds to declare independence.

Odinga, who boycotted a repeat poll in October saying the election commission had failed to carry out sufficient reforms, has said his preference is for Kenya to remain united.

Kenyatta won the re-run election with 98 percent of the vote but the country, a West-ern ally in a volatile region, remains deeply divided after months of bitter campaigning and sporadic violent clashes.

Salim Lone, an Odinga adviser, said Ndii was helping to organise the “swearing in” of Odinga by a people’s assembly on Dec. 12, Kenya’s independ-ence day, a plan that has raised the prospect of further confron-tations with security forces.

Ndii’s wife Judith Mwende Gatabaki told journalists on Monday that he was arrested by men who identified them-selves as members of the “flying squad”—a police unit that is part of the criminal investiga-tion directorate.

She said they searched the couple’s hotel room before tak-ing him away and that she had been unable to reach her hus-band since.

Djibouti to drink Ethiopian water for free: Ambassador Djibouti

Anatolia

People in Djibouti will be drinking their water for free solely from an Ethi-

opian source, Addis Ababa’s ambassador to the Horn of Africa country, Shamebo Fit-amo Adebo said yesterday.

The ambassador spoke to Anatolia Agency on the side-lines of the International Trade Fair in Djibouti.

The installation of a water pipeline from Ethiopia to Dji-bouti has been ongoing. In fact, residents of the Djibou-tian town of Belbela are now drinking Ethiopian fresh water.

“Within a period of three months now, the entire tap water supply of Djibouti will come from the Adigala wells of [northwestern] Ethiopia,” said Adebo.

He said 104,000 cubic meters of water would be supplied to Djibouti from Adi-gala every day.

The ambassador said the decision to supply water for free to Djibouti emanated from a recognition that the peoples of the two countries “have blood ties”.

Six police officers die in Nigeria herder-farmer clashKano

AFP

Six police officers were killed in northeast Nigeria, police said yesterday, in an attack

blamed on cattle herders follow-ing deadly clashes with farmers over land.

“We lost six policemen in an ambush by suspected Fulani herdsmen,” Othman Abubakar, a spokesman for the Adamawa state police, said.

“The police were on their way to Dowaya village, outside Numan (district), with the inten-tion of disarming Fulani herders,

who reports said were carrying arms.”

No arrests had been made in connection with the ambush, which occurred on Friday, but it comes as the state is on height-ened alert because of rising tensions between herders and farmers.

On November 20, at least 30 people were killed when farmers from the Christian Bachama ethnic group stormed four settlements of the Muslim Fulani herders in Numan district.

Herders representatives gave a higher death toll and said

women and children were among those killed as they tried to flee.

Jaura Hammayidi, a herder in the area, said he did not know who was responsible for the ambush but claimed it followed a police attack on the community.

“The president had strong words. It was appreciated by Algerians, but today the idea is to turn the page and build a new relationship with Algeria,” a French presidential source said.

16 TUESDAY 5 DECEMBER 2017ASIA

Navy Day

Sharad Yadav, Ali Anwar disqualified from RSNew Delhi

IANS

Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu, who is also the Rajya Sabha Chairman, yesterday disquali-

fied rebel Janata Dal-United leader Sharad Yadav and Ali Anwar as members of the upper house of Parliament, party leader R.C.P. Singh said.

In a Facebook post, Singh said: “Today (Monday) the

Chairman Rajya Sabha M. Venkaiah Naidu decided and

declared the decision against the petition filed by me against Ali Anwar Ansari and Sharad Yadavji under the 10th schedule of the Constitution of India that the Respondent, Sharad Yadav and Ali Anwar Ansari have incurred disqualification for being a Member of the House in terms of paragraph 2 (1)(a) of the 10th Schedule to the Constitu-tion of India.”

“Both of them have thus ceased to be a Member of the Rajya Sabha with immediate

effect. I decide and declare accordingly.”

“This was the order and deci-sion and I am enclosing a copy of the order for your reference. Congratulations to all party workers for being united with our leader and National Presi-dent Nitish (Kumar) jI. Thank you!” he said attaching the copy of the Rajya Sabha secretariat order.

The action comes in the wake of the petition filed by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish

Kumar faction seeking the Rajya Sabha Chairman disqualify Sharad Yadav and Ansari.

Sharad Yadav confirmed that a notice was served to him in Delhi late in night today.

“I was informed by my wife that a notice has served late in night at around 10 pm,” he said.

He also said that as the notice is over 15 pages, he shall com-ment on it after going through it in morning.

Earlier in the day, Sharad Yadav left for Gujarat to

campaign for the party in the assembly election there for his party candidates who are contst-ing on the symbol of Bharatiya Rashtriya Tribal Party on seven out of 182 seats.

He, Ansari and a section of the JD-U fell out with Nitish Kumar after the latter broke away from the “Mahagathband-han” (Grand Alliance) with the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress to re-align with the Bharatiya Janata Party earlier this year.

India seeks extradition of tycoon from UKLondon

Reuters

India asked a London court yesterday to extradite tycoon Vijay Mallya to face fraud

charges of palming off losses from his failing Kingfisher Air-lines onto a state-owned bank.

Mallya denies any wrong-doing, and a court document showed his lawyers planned to argue that the case against him was politically motivated and aimed at quelling public anger in India over the accumulation of bad debts by state lenders.

Mallya, 61, is the co-owner of the Formula One motor rac-ing team Force India.

Long-haired and bearded, Mallya arrived at Westminster Magistrates Court wearing a dark blue pin-striped suit and gold-rimmed dark glasses.

He was mobbed by a large crowd of reporters on arrival, and again later when the build-ing was briefly evacuated because of a fire alarm and he had to step outside.

The case against Mallya cen-tres on a series of loans Kingfisher obtained from Indian banks, and in particular from state-owned IDBI. Indian banks want to recover a total of about $1.4bn that the Indian authori-ties say Kingfisher owes.

Mark Summers, a British lawyer acting for India, told the court at the start of a two-week extradition hearing that it was entitled to conclude that he never intended to repay money borrowed by Kingfisher from IDBI in the year 2009.

“His company was in inten-sive care ... it was heading in only one direction,” Summers

said. “As it went down, it was going to sustain huge losses.”

Summers said Mallya faced a choice: to take those losses on himself and his lavish lifestyle, or to palm them off.

In a written document pre-pared before the hearing, Mallya lawyers argued that the extra-dition request should be rejected because of a lack of evidence, the “abusive origins” of the case, the impossibility of a fair trial in India and detention conditions there being incompatible with British human rights laws.

“It is a case which has been driven in India not by eviden-tial enquiry, but by a populist and misguided sentiment that the sheer size of the losses involved in the collapse of King-fisher Airlines Ltd (KFA) must be indicative of some criminal-ity somewhere.”

Rahul set to take over as Congress chiefNew Delhi

AFP

Rahul Gandhi appeared certain to be named leader of India’s opposi-

tion Congress Party, a job he has spent his life preparing for, after a deadline for nominations expired yesterday with no other reported candidates.

Speculation has been rife for months that the 47-year-old vice-president of the party would soon take over from his mother Sonia, who has led Con-gress for 19 years.

Rahul, whose father, grand-mother and great-grandfather all served as prime minister, was elected vice-president of the

Congress party in 2013 and has long been his mother’s pre-sumed successor.

Congress has not officially confirmed his new role, which sources said may only be announced after December 11, the deadline for candidates to withdraw.

But with no sign of a rival, senior leaders of the party were on Monday tweeting their con-gratulations to the scion of the most enduring dynasty in Indian politics after he officially filed his nomination papers.

Manmohan Singh, who headed the last Congress gov-ernment, told reporters outside the Congress headquarters that Rahul would “carry on the great

traditions of the Congress party”.A party spokesperson later

said that Rahul had been endorsed by 9,000 party dele-gates during the nomination process, calling it a “very happy and proud moment for us”.

Gurpreet Mahajan, political studies professor at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, said the change in leadership was a “significant development” in the history of India’s oldest party.

“Rahul is going to be its face from now on,” he said.

“It will be important how he manages to bring changes in the party functioning, like bringing young leaders to the fore, and overcoming opposition criticism about his leadership.”

Russia remains India’s major arms supplierNew Delhi

IANS

Stating that Russia will remain a key foreign pol-icy priority for India, New

Delhi yesterday called for joint defence equipment manufac-turing between the two countries under the Make in India initiative.

“Russia is and will remain the key important foreign pol-icy priority for India,” Vijay Gokhale, Secretary, Economic Relations, in the Ministry of External Affairs, said while addressing the Second India-Russia Heads of Think-Tanks Forum organised by the Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA) here.

“It would not be out of place to state that this is a strong national consensus,” he said.

Contending that the past relationship between India and Russia should not transmute into a passive present partner-ship, he cautioned that “there is no room for complacency in our ties” for it “cannot remain isolated from global changes or be immune from their impact”.

Stating that Russia remained a major supplier of India’s defence requirements, Gokhale said that New Delhi appreciated Moscow’s “consist-ent support through the seven decades of our partnership”.

“At the same time, we believe that this is the oppor-tune time to move from a buyer-seller format to joint production and joint invest-ments under our Prime Minister’s ‘Make In India’ initi-ative, in order to bring a new dynamism to our military-tech-nical co-operation,” he said yesterday.

“We invite Russian defence industry to look at our new pol-icies in this regard and to partner us as India begins a journey to become a defence manufacturer.”

Holding cooperation in the energy sector was now embarking in new directions, Gokhale said that Indian invest-ments in the Vankor and Taas-Yuryakh oilfields in Rus-sia was symbolic of this and cooperation in nuclear energy is a cornerstone of the Strate-gic Partnership.

NIA searches facts at hotel in RSS leader’s murder probeNew Delhi IANS

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) yesterday car-ried out searches at a hotel in Meerut in connection with its ongoing probe into the murder of a RSS leader in Pun-

jab, officials said.An NIA official requesting anonymity told IANS, “Searches

were being carried out at Taj hotel in Delhi gate area of the city.”

According to NIA officials, the deal to provide arms was being carried out in hotel.

The NIA team also seized the guest register of hotel and questioned its propreitor.

On Sunday, a team of NIA and Uttar Pradesh Police was attacked by a mob when it raided a village in Ghaziabad district to arrest a suspected arms supplier linked to the killing of Punjab RSS leader Ravinder Gosain in Ludhiana.

The team had gone looking for arms supplier Malook.

Tharoor releases white paper on pollution in DelhiNew Delhi

IANS

Congress leader Shashi Tharoor yesterday released a white paper

on air pollution in the national capital, saying the people of Delhi have a right to breathe, but the central and Delhi government are pre-venting it.

The white paper was pre-pared at the direction of party’s Delhi unit President Ajay Maken by the Delhi chapter of the Professionals’ Congress, with the help of experts and members of var-ious chapters across the country to look into feasible short and long-term meas-ures to deal with air pollution crisis.

Tharoor, who is also head of the Professional’s Congress, said: “How bad the air pollu-tion has become in Delhi was evident from the fact that the visiting Sri Lankan cricket team not only found the going tough, but they could not field even 11 players in the ongoing Test match against India at the Ferozeshah Kotla ground.”

“Delhi is experiencing an unprecedented air quality emergency, tackling which will require a concerted effort by the central and state gov-ernment, industries, traders, citizens and various sections of society.”

The White Paper says that the air pollution needs to be confronted with a mix of short and long-term measures, and suggests measures.

Sharad Yadav confirmed that a notice was served to him in Delhi, adding that as the notice is over 15 pages, he shall comment on it after going through it in morning.

Notice received

Indian tycoon Vijay Mallya (centre) before the extradition hearing at Westminster Magistrates Court, in central London, yesterday.

New human trafficking data inaccurate: ActivistsChennai

Reuters

New data released by the Indian government shows reports of human traffick-

ing rose by almost 20 percent in 2016 against the previous year, but campaigners said yesterday the figures failed to reflect the true magnitude of the crime.

The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) said there were 8,132 human trafficking cases last year against 6,877 in 2015, with the highest number of cases reported in the eastern state of West Bengal, followed by Rajas-than in the west.

Activists attributed the rise in to greater public awareness and increased police training,

resulting in better enforcement of anti-human trafficking laws.

The figures, however, remained a gross under-esti-mate as many cases went unreported, they said, with many people still unaware of the crime or lacking confidence to seek police help.

“The trend the data is reflect-ing is pretty accurate. Trafficking

is on the increase and that should be a cause of concern for all stakeholders,” said Anita Kanaiya from The Freedom Project, an anti-slavery charity.

“But the numbers them-selves are far from ground reality. The number of traffick-ing cases will be many times more than what the data in the (NCRB) report states.”

Indian Navy marine commandos demonstrate their skills during Navy Day celebrations, in Mumbai, yesterday.

17TUESDAY 5 DECEMBER 2017 ASIA

An Afghan man looks on as he stands at a bird market in Kabul, Afghanistan, yesterday.

Dealing in birds

US and Pakistan seek new ground to fight terrorismIslamabad

Agencies

Defence Secretary Jim Mattis met with top Pakistani leaders yesterday to seek common ground on

the counterterrorism fight, amid Trump administration calls for Islamabad to more aggressively go after the insurgents moving back and forth across the border with Afghanistan.

In brief comments before their meeting began, Pakistan Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi said his country is com-mitted to the war on terror and shares the same common objec-tives as the US. “Engagement is there,” he said, adding that they “need to move forward with issues at hand.” Mattis did not speak while media were present.

Earlier, Mattis told reporters that he wants to work with Paki-stan to address the problems, adding that the US is committed to a pragmatic relationship that expands cooperation while also “reinforcing President Trump’s call for action against terrorist safe havens.”

“We have heard from Paki-stan leaders that they do not support terrorism. So I expect to see that sort of action reflected in their policies,” Mattis said before his trip to Islamabad. Mat-tis met with Abbasi and army chief General Qamar Javed

Bajwa as well as a number of senior Pakistani leaders and mil-itary officials and US Ambassador David Hale.

Asked if he was going to press the Pakistani leaders to take more action against the insurgents, Mattis said: “That’s not the way I deal with issues. I believe that we work hard on finding the common ground and then we work together.”

Mattis’ optimism, however, comes despite persistent US assertions that Islamabad is still not doing enough to battle the Taliban and allied Haqqani net-work insurgents within its borders.

The US has been alleging that militants in Pakistan cross the mountainous border with Afghanistan to wage attacks

against US, Afghan and allied forces. In August, the United States said it would hold up $255 million in military assistance for Pakistan until it cracks down on extremists threatening Afghanistan.

Imtiaz Gul, an Islamabad security analyst, said US officials always come to Islamabad with their “own wish list.”

“I am sure the US defence secretary is also carrying a wish list with him but I don’t think Pakistan will accept any dicta-tion as it has already demonstrated its seriousness in fighting terrorism, and Washing-ton in recent weeks has appreciated and acknowledged Pakistan’s sacrifices in war on terror,” he said.

Gul said relations between Pakistan and the United States have gone from bad to worse since the Trump administration announced Afghan strategy in which Pakistan was degraded and India was elevated. “Paki-stan is genuinely concerned,” he said.

President Donald Trump’s tough words about Pakistan as he unveiled the updated US strat-egy for the war in Afghanistan, infuriated Islamabad and trig-gered anti-US protests there that Pakistani police had to use tear gas to disperse

Pakistani Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif said during a visit to Washington in October that

Pakistan was willing to cooper-ate fully with the Trump administration. He said Pakistan had wiped out militant hideouts with little help from the US

Mattis’ trip to Pakistan comes at the end of a short trip to the region, including stops in Egypt, Jordan and Kuwait.

According to Reuters: more than 100 days since President Donald Trump announced his South Asia strategy, however, US officials and analysts say there has been only limited success and it is not clear how progress will be made.

US officials have long been frustrated by what they see as Pakistan’s reluctance to act against groups such as the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani network that they believe exploit

safe haven on Pakistani soil to launch attacks in Afghanistan.

”Mattis, who is visiting Paki-stan for the first time as defence secretary, said the goal for his trip would be to find ”common ground” and work together.

Senior US officials believe they have not seen a change in Pakistan’s support for militants, despite visits by senior US officials.

Pakistan says it has done a great deal to help the United States in tracking down militants and Pakistani officials have pushed back on the US claims.

US officials expressed hope that relations between the two countries could improve after a kidnapped US-Canadian couple and their three children were freed in Pakistan in October.

However, while the Trump administration has used tougher words with Pakistan, it is has yet to change Islamabad’s calculus and if the United States is seen as bullying, it is unlikely to suc-ceed, experts say.

While Mattis travelled to the region earlier this year, he did not make a stop in Pakistan, although he did visit its arch rival, India, a relationship that has grown under the Trump administration.

”There is not an effective stick anymore because Pakistan doesn’t really care about US aid, it has been dwindling anyway and it is getting the money it needs elsewhere ... treat it wit respect and actually reward it when it does do something good,”

Mattis told reporters that he wants to work with Pakistan to address the problems, adding that the US is committed to a pragmatic relationship that expands cooperation while also “reinforcing President Trump’s call for action against terrorist safe havens”.

RawaIpindi

Internews

MAJOR Hercharn Singh, the first Sikh officer of Pakistan Army, got mar-ried last week at the Gurdwara Panja Sahib, Hasan Abdal. A number of army officers attended the marriage. Army Chief Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa also extended good wishes for his matrimonial life. Major Harchar Singh was commissioned in the Paki-stan Army in 2007.

3,000-year-old Hindu temple being restoredIslamabad

Internews

Pakistani authorities are working on a compre-hensive plan to restore

religious sanctity and archae-ological value of the historic Hindu temple Katas Raj near Chakwal, 40 km south of fed-eral capital.

Evacuee Trust Property Board Chairman Siddiqul Farooq said yesterday that the plan was part of govern-ment’s efforts to provide maximum facilities to minor-ities. “Katas Raj is a confluence of four civilisa-tions. There are 3,000 years old Hindu temples, a stupa of Budhism, a havali of Hari Singh Nalva, a Sikh general of Maharaja Ranjeet Singh and two mosques, situated close to each other,” he added. He said that Katas Raj was a sacred place for Hin-dus. “We have renovated it on modern lines and that part has been completed. We are also working on archaeolog-ical its attractions,” he added. The water obtained from a well there, which was closed for several hundred years ago has been restored.

Ruling PML-N striving for reconciliation with PPPLahore

Internews

As the ruling Pakistan Mus-lim League-N has renewed efforts for a

meeting of its leader Nawaz Sharif with Chairman Asif Zard-ari of Pakistan People’s Party, the PPP says the former president may shake hand with the ex=premier provided it is guar-anteed that the latter will not use this to cut a deal with the establishment.

“Some of the main leaders including Mian Shahbaz are in contact with the establishment.

We have apprehensions that like past, the PML-N is trying this time too to use PPP for its own gains and not for strengthening democracy,” PPP Information Secretary Chaudhry Manzoor said.

“The PML-N leadership is seeking help of leaders like Mah-mood Achakzai and Fazlur Rehman for arranging Sharif-Zardari meeting but this is not possible without certain guar-antees,” he said.

The PPP had stood with the PML-N in 2014 when there was a threat to the democratic sys-tem but Sharif even used that

support to consolidate his posi-tion instead of democracy.

“The credentials of the Shar-ifs for democracy are questionable. The former pre-mier has no idea what real democracy is all about. Who knows if today Zardari meets Sharif for the sake of democracy, tomorrow the latter ditches the former and joins other forces for his own benefits,” he said.

The PML-N is of the view that Sharif’s desperation to meet Zardari is not confined to the matter related to seeking PPP’s support for the passage of the 24th Constitutional Amendment

Bill for timely holding the 2018 election but beyond that. It wants to “strengthen democratic proc-ess” in the country in the face of current challenges.

Asked about possible meet-ing between Sharif and Zardari, Senator Pervaiz Rasheed of PML-N said: “Yes, Mian Sahib is desperate to see Zardari for a national cause. He wants to see him for strengthening the dem-ocratic system. It is not only the wish of Mian Sahib that this sys-tem should continue but other players like Zardari has his duty to play his role.”

For continuity of democracy

Nawaz Sharif would continue making efforts to take on board all those sincere to this cause in the country, Pervaiz Rasheed said.

Manzoor, however, said that Zardari had lent his full support to Sharif to try Musharraf but Sharif let him off the hook.

Another PML-N leader from Punjab said: “We are surprised as why Zardari is not budging from his stance of not meeting Sharif. There must be something fishy. Sharif is aware of it but for democracy’s sake he is not los-ing hope to have the PPP by his side,” he said.

Dengue vaccine scam: Philippines orders probeManila

Reuters

The Philippines ordered a probe yesterday into the immunisation of more

than 730,000 children with a vaccine for dengue that has been suspended following an announcement by French drug company Sanofi that it could worsen the disease in some cases.

Amid mounting public con-cern, Sanofi explained its “new findings” at a news conference in Manila, but it did not say why action was not taken after a World Health Organization (WHO) report in mid-2016 that identified the risk.

An NGO claimed it had received information that three children who were vaccinated with Dengvaxia had died. How-ever, Department of Health Undersecretary Gerardo Bay-ugo said that the three referred to by the NGO died due to causes not related to the vac-cine, and Sanofi said no deaths had been reported as a result of the programme.

“As far as we know no deaths reported related to dengue vaccination,” said Ruby Dizon, medical director

at Sanofi Pasteur Philippines. Last week, the Philippines Department of Health halted the use of Dengvaxia after Sanofi said it must be strictly limited due to evidence it can worsen the disease in people not previously exposed to the infection.

The Department of Justice yesterday ordered the National Bureau of Investigation to look into “the alleged danger to pub-lic health ... and if evidence so warrants, to file appropriate charges thereon.”

There was no indication that Philippines health offi-cials knew of any risks when they administered the vacci-nation. However, the WHO said in a July 2016 research paper that “vaccination may be ineffective or may theoret-ically even increase the future risk of hospitalised or severe dengue illness in those who are seronegative at the time of first vaccination regardless of age.”

According to Sanofi in Manila, 19 licences were granted for Dengvaxia, and it was launched in 11 countries, two of which – the Philippines and Brazil – had public vacci-nation programmes.

Afghan cabinet nominees approvedKabul

AFP

Afghanistan’s parliament yesterday approved 11 nominees for ministerial

posts after months of deadlock, following a string of sackings and resignations in the embat-tled unity government. More than half of the cabinet’s 25 min-isterial posts remained unfilled for months.

Many of the posts have been left vacant after the ministers were fired by parliament for a range of offences including incompetence and failure to manage their budgets.

Political quarrels between factions loyal to President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Execu-tive Abdullah Abdullah have also seen officials abandon the frag-ile government in droves.

“Of 12 nominees that the

government presented to us, 11 were approved and became ministers,” said parliament chairman Abdul Raouf Ibrahimi, adding that the lone female in the group nominated for the post of minister of mines was rejected. The endorsements come as the Taliban have inten-sified their attacks, while the national unity government con-tinues to be sapped by infighting between rivals.

US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis being greeted on arrival in Islamabad yesterday.

Pakistan’s first Sikh military officer weds

18 TUESDAY 5 DECEMBER 2017ASIA

Nepal poll

300 foreign leaders back Xi as peacemakerBeijing

Bloomberg

The signatures of almost 300 foreign political leaders on a docu-ment praising Chinese President Xi Jinping’s

(pictured) contribution to world peace has provided him valua-ble ammunition to counter arguments by those who fear the country’s rising international clout.

The so-called Beijing Initi-ative was signed on Sunday at the end of a four-day Commu-nist Party gathering that brought together hundreds of political representatives, including Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi and Cambodian Prime Min-ister Hun Sen. The document said, among other things, “We highly praise the great effort and major contributions made by the Chinese Communist Party with General Secretary Xi Jinping as its core leader to build a com-munity of shared future for mankind and a peaceful and fine world.”

China’s largest-ever global interparty dialogue represented Xi’s latest play for greater over-seas clout since outlining plans in October to make his country a great power by 2050.

One challenge facing Xi is overcoming suspicion that China, which already has the world’s second-largest economy and one of its most powerful militaries, would seek to use its

growing influence to coerce smaller countries.

The Beijing event showcased a growing willingness to let China assume a leadership role as US President Donald Trump’s “America First” policies and Brexit negotiations undermine confidence in the established Western powers. While most participants were from left-leaning parties in developing nations, Italy’s Democratic Party, New Zealand’s Labour Party, South Korea’s Democratic Party and Japan’s Komeito Party also sent representatives.

“Many political parties in the world are confused and strug-gling and searching for new path,” said Wang Yiwei, direc-tor of at Renmin University’s Institute of International Affairs and a speaker at the event. “As Brexit and Trump have shown,

there’s no teacher of liberal democracy and teachers have made mistakes. There is no uni-versal model of development.”

Suu Kyi, who addressed the gathering on Friday, has sought to improve ties with China amid Western criticism over her country’s crackdown on the Rohingya ethnic minority.

Xi, who emerged from a Communist Party congress in October as China’s most pow-erful leader in decades, told cadres then that the country’s party-state model could provide an alternative for developing countries.

On Friday, Xi sought to reas-sure dialogue attendees that China would neither import for-eign development models nor export its own.

The document signed in Bei-jing also endorsed Xi’s signature “Belt and Road” trade-and-infrastructure initiative, saying it “suits people’s interests” in countries along a route spanning from Asia to Africa and Europe.

Hasina seeks Cambodia’s help on Rohingya crisisPhnom Penh

IANS

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday-called for Cambodias

support in developing a sustain-able solution to the Rohingya crisis and the minoritys persecu-tion in Myanmars Rakhine state.

Hasina made the remarks during a discussion with her

Cambodian counterpart Hun Sen in Phnom Penh yesterday, the report said.

“We have discussed some of the emerging security challenges facing our region and expressed our common resolve to fight ter-rorism and extremism,” Hasina said during a joint statement.

“We have also discussed the Rohingya crisis that threatens the peace and stability of our

region. Bangladesh continues to shelter more than 1 million Rohingyas, among them around 630,000 who fled atrocities in Myanmar and took shelter in Bangladesh recently.”

Hasina asked for Hun Sen’s support for a durable solution as Bangladesh continued bilateral talks to return Rohingyas safely to their homeland.

“We highly appreciate

Bangladesh (for giving shelter to the Rohingya refugees)... even though it has a population of over 160 million, it took the issues of refugees on its shoul-der,” said the Cambodian leader.

Bangladesh let in a wave of Rohingya refugees since late August, when the Myanmar mil-itary launched a crackdown in Rakhine state over insurgent attacks.

China suspends flights from Bali due to volcanic ashShanghai

Reuters

China’s aviation author-ity has suspended all flights from the Indone-

sian holiday island of Bali to Chinese cities until the threat of volcanic ash clears, the state-run People’s Daily news-paper reported yesterday.

Clouds of volcanic ash from Bali’s erupting Mount Agung volcano disrupted flights to and from the island’s airport last week, stranding many thousands of tourists.

Flights began resuming when the airport reopened on Wednesday, after the wind changed and blew the ash away from flight paths. Indi-vidual airlines make their own decisions on whether to operate.

Australia’s Jetstar resumed flights yesterday, while Virgin Australia Holdings Ltd said it planned to do so today.

Despite the resumption of some services, China’s avia-tion authority was stopping any more flights after the return yesterday of the last charter flight, bringing to 15,237 the number of stranded Chinese tourists brought home, the People’s Daily newspaper said on its Twit-ter page.

North Korean fishermen invade Japanese island and steal itemsTpkyo

AFP

Japanese officials said yester-day they were investigating a group of North Korean fish-

ermen after items reportedly including a fridge, a TV—and an anime poster—disappeared from a remote island where they had taken shelter.

The Japanese coastguard first spotted the group of ten’s

rickety vessel off the northern island of Hokkaido on Wednes-day as it struggled during poor weather.

The fishermen—who identi-fied themselves as North Korean—briefly landed on an uninhabited island to take refuge.

But soon after the group left, officials noticed items from buildings on the island had vanished.

“There are solar panels at the lighthouse on the island and some of them are missing,” a spokesman said yesterday.

A TV, a fridge, a washing machine, an anime poster and blankets were also missing from a shelter facility for local fisher-men, according to state channel NHK.

Government top spokesman Yoshihide Suga said that police a n d t h e c o a s t g u a r d

were “conducting necessary investigations” such as question the crew, who are still in Japa-nese waters.

Dozens of North Korean fish-ing vessels wash up on Japan’s coast every year, sometimes with dead bodies aboard.

Separately, three bodies were found off northern Yamagata prefecture, according to the coastguard.

The coastguard also found a

wooden boat nearby, but it is not confirmed whether the three came from North Korea.

NHK reported that one of the three wore a badge with a pho-tograph of Kim Il-Sung, who founded the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in 1948.

Experts say some North Korean fishermen travel far out to sea in order to satisfy govern-ment mandates for bigger catches.

Hong Kong

AFP

Hong Kong carrier Cathay Pacific said yesterday that one of its air crew

spotted what they believed to be the missile fired by North Korea last week, as they flew between the southern Chinese city and the United States.

The North fired an intercon-tinental ballistic missile believed capable of hitting the US main-land last Wednesday.

A statement from Cathay said a flight crew had that day sighted “what is suspected to be the re-entry of the recent DPRK test missile”.

Cathay did not give the loca-tion of the flight at the time of the sighting, but said the crew of the CX893 flight between Hong Kong and San Francisco had notified Japanese air traffic control “according to procedures”.

Operations had continued as normal, the statement added.

Pyongyang said the missile reached an altitude of 4,475 km and splashed down 950km from its launch site.

It also claimed the Hwa-song-15 missile fired Wednesday can be tipped with a “super-large heavy warhead” capable of striking the whole US mainland.

Cathay said there is no cur-rent plan to change air routes, describing the flight as being “far from the event location”.

“We remain alert and review the situation as it evolves,” the statement said.

In a message shared with staff, Cathay general manager Mark Hoey said the crew had described seeing the missile “blow up and fall apart”, the South China Morning Post reported.

Hoey said that another plane, CX096 which is a freight service between Hong Kong and Mexico, was only a few hundred miles away and could have been closer than the San Francisco flight, according to the report.

Jakarta

Reuters

Indonesian President Joko Widodo has nominated the chief of staff of the air force

to be the new head of the armed forces (TNI), to replace a con-troversial general who is due to retire in April.

Air Chief Marshal Hadi Tjahjanto has close ties to the president and was previously in charge of an air base in the city of Solo, on the island of Java, when Widodo was its mayor.

Since then, Tjahjanto has been promoted a number of times including to inspector general of the defence minis-try and the president’s military secretary.

“Marshal Hadi Tjahjanto is considered capable and quali-fied to become TNI commander,” presidential spokesman Johan Budi said yesterday after confirming the nomination.

The proposal had been sent to the parliament, which needs to approve it, he said.

Abdul Kharis Almasyhari, chairman of a parliamentary commission with oversight of defence and security, said the commission would do a “fit and proper” assessment of the

nomination, which hopefully could be completed by a Dec. 14 recess.

The outgoing armed forces chef, General Gatot Nurman-tyo, who will step down at the end of his term in April, has often courted controversy over what analysts see as his politi-cal ambitions.

He has been accused of whipping up nationalist senti-ment by promoting the notion that Indonesia is besieged by “proxy wars” waged by foreign states looking to undermine it.

In October, Widodo said the armed forces should stay out of politics and ensure their loyalty was only to the state and the government - a statement many believed referred to Nurman-tyo’s actions.

There has been speculation that Nurmantyo would seek to run for vice president or even president in 2019.

The so-called Beijing Initiative said, among other things, “We highly praise the great effort and major contributions made by the Chinese Communist Party with General Secretary Xi Jinping as its core leader to build a community of shared future for mankind and a peaceful and fine world.”

Beijing Initiative

Airline crew ‘saw’ North Korea missilePeople attend one of the civilian-army joint meetings to celebrate North Korea's nuclear progress, in Pyongyang, yesterday.

Widodo endorses air chief to replace military head

Marshal Hadi Tjahjanto is considered capable and qualified to become TNI commander: Presidential spokesman

Election officers arrange ballot boxes for the upcoming second phase of parliamentary and provincial elections at the election office, in Kathmandu, yesterday.

19TUESDAY 5 DECEMBER 2017 EUROPE

UK and EU fail to reach Brexit dealBrussels

AFP

Britain and the EU failed to strike a Brexit divorce deal during talks in Brussels yes-terday but said they

were “confident” of reaching an accord later this week.

British Prime Minister Theresa May and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker fell short of a breakthrough, despite encour-aging progress on the thorny issue of the Irish border.

The EU says Britain must make sufficient progress on key divorce issues—Ireland, Britain’s financial bill for leaving the bloc, and the rights of EU nationals in Britain—to allow the opening of trade and transition talks at a summit on December 15.

“Despite our best efforts and the significant progress we and our teams have made in the past days on the remaining with-drawal issues, it was not possible to reach a complete agreement today,” Juncker said at a joint news conference with May.

“This is not a failure... I am very confident that we will reach an agreement in the course of this week.”

Juncker said May was a

“tough negotiator and not an easy one.”

May said differences remained on a “couple of issues”.

“But we will reconvene before the end of the week, and I am also confident we will con-clude this positively,” May said.

The failure of the talks came despite EU president Donald Tusk saying just hours earlier that negotiators were “getting closer to sufficient progress” at the December summit, and that he was “encouraged” by a phone call with Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar.

Tusk—who was to see May later in Brussels, and who can-celled a Middle East trip because of the “crucial” talks—said recently that Monday was the “absolute deadline” for an improved offer from London.

Irish broadcaster RTE said Britain was ready to keep the EU customs and single market rules for Northern Ireland in order to meet Dublin’s insistence that Brexit should not bring back a “hard border” and threaten a peace process that ended dec-ades of sectarian tensions.

Dublin’s demands on the sta-tus of the border with British-ruled Northern Ireland have been the key stumbling block recently, with fears that the talks could even collapse amid tensions between the two neighbours.

But an angry reaction from the Northern Irish unionists who prop up May’s minority Conserv-ative government meant there was still no deal three hours later, and the meeting was put on hold while May made calls to try to win them over.

“We will not accept any form of regulatory divergence which separates Northern Ireland eco-nomically or politically from the rest of the United Kingdom,” Democratic Unionist Party

leader Arlene Foster said in a statement.

In a sign of the tensions within the United Kingdom caused by Brexit, the leaders of Scotland and Wales together with the mayor of London all called for similar deals to the one being considered for Northern Ireland.

May, Brexit minister David Davis and the prime minister’s Brexit adviser Olly Robbins attended the “working lunch” with Juncker, the EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier and Juncker’s chief

of staff Martin Selmayr.The EU has demanded “suf-

ficient progress” from Britain on the exit bill, citizens rights and Ireland in order to move on to talks on a post-Brexit transition period of up to two years, and on a future relationship includ-ing a trade deal.

Failure to do so this month could make the EU “rethink” whether an overall Brexit with-drawal deal is possible at all, Tusk has warned, raising the prospect of a chaotic exit with far-reaching economic effects.

First French baby Panda named ‘Yuan Meng’Beauval

Reuters

Brigitte Macron revealed yesterday that the first panda born in France, to

whom she is “godmother”, will go by the name of Yuan Meng.

The names means “Dream come true” and was chosen by China, the country of origin of the cub’s parents.

The small male cub, survi-vor of two babies born on August 4 at Beauval zoo about 250km south of Paris, until now went by the name of Mini Yuan

Zi after his father Yuan Zi, whose names translates as Podgy.

Brigitte Macron, wife of President Emmanuel Macron, announced the creature’s offi-cial name at an event attended by China’s vice foreign minis-ter, Zhang Yesui.

The cub lost his twin sibling barely two hours after their August births, which were firsts in France.

The arrival of the panda par-ents in France back in the year 2012 was billed in official cir-cles as a sign of warming bilateral ties.

Mother Huan Huan and her partner Yuan Zi are due to return to China in 2022 while the young panda is expected to stay in France until the age of two or three.

The cub, weighing in at 142.4 grams at birth, opened his eyes for the first time in mid-Septem-ber and weighed 7.903 kilos as of December 4, the Beauval zoo said on its website.

While an adult female panda can weigh up to 125kg, a baby panda often weighs was little as 120 grams at birth - or 143 grams in this case.

Bosnia govt must make reforms or EU window could close: HahnSaravejo

Reuters

Bosnia must start mak-ing concrete reforms if it wants to join the

European Union, or the win-dow to becoming a member could close, the bloc’s enlargement chief said yesterday.

The European Union accepted Bosnia’s application 15 months ago - but Johannes Hahn said the Balkan nation had not made any of the reforms or changes agreed with the bloc and interna-tional creditors.

“So far nothing has been delivered. We now expect very concrete results,” Hahn said after meeting political leaders.

Bosnia’s prime minister, Denis Zvizdic, said he hoped the leaders would reach a compromise on outstanding issues by later this month or early January.

The ethnically divided country has so far not man-aged to respond to the initial EU questionnaire on its read-iness to join the bloc.

Political bickering has held up a law raising excise tax on fuel, required to unlock external financing for infra-structure projects. There has also been no sign of develop-ment and energy and agriculture sector strategies demanded by the bloc.

“There are a lot of issues in the pipeline but I would like to have them through the pipeline,” said Hahn.

“It is absolutely high time now to deliver on what has been agreed, otherwise, the window can be closed again and this is not something we all would like to see,” he told a news conference.

Hahn urged government and opposition leaders to stop appealing to ethnic national-ism, and said the EU would be looking for evidence of European values, including a respect for court rulings.

“Without that under-standing one cannot make any progress,” he said.

Switzerland unveils national plan to fight extremismZurich

Reuters

Switzerland released a national plan yesterday to prevent violent extremism,

including training teachers and coaches to recognise warning signs and re-integrating people who have already been radicalised.

The Swiss so far have avoided the kind of attacks that have hit neighbouring Germany and France, but the Swiss

Intelligence Service said last month it was tracking 550 peo-ple deemed a potential risk to Switzerland as part of its “jihad monitoring programme,” up from 497 people at the end of 2016.

Last month, Swiss and French police combined in a cross-border anti-terrorism swoop in which 10 people were arrested. Several high-profile criminal prosecutions have been carried out against people accused of supporting banned

groups, including Al Qaeda or IS militant group.

Over the past 14 months, Switzerland developed the new action plan, which includes 26 measures to better counter such threats. The government is set-ting aside $5.08m to support the programme over five years, although officials said the main responsibility for implementing programmes lies at the local rather than federal level.

“If you want to stop terror-ism, you cannot wait until it is

at your door and the police have to take action, you have to tackle it much earlier,” Justice Minis-ter Simonetta Sommaruga said.

“If we want to accomplish something, we have to prevent people from being radicalised in such a way that they resort to violence and turn themselves into terrorists.”

Switzerland has not partic-ipated in wars in the Middle East, but some fear domestic policies could put the country in the crosshairs of extremists.

Voters in 2009 banned the construction of new minarets, and the Italian-speaking can-ton of Ticino has banned facial coverings. A national referen-dum to ban burqas is also in the works.

The action plan comes on top of a separate effort by Bern to tighten anti-terrorism laws, a push that could toughen sen-tences for people who support violent extremism and boost cooperation with other coun-tries’ intelligence services.

Moscow upholds house arrest of theatre directorMoscow

AP

Moscow court yester-day ruled that a prominent theater

and film director who is being investigated for fraud must remain under house arrest.

Kirill Serebrennikov, arguably Russia’s best known director, was detained and put under house arrest in August in a criminal case that raised fears of a return to Soviet-style censorship.

Serebrennikov’s plays have often been targeted by conservative circles, which dismiss his work as decadent and unpatriotic.

The court ruled yesterday Serebrennikov should stay under house arrest at least until late January, rejecting a plea for bail.

Investigators have accused him of scheming to embezzle about $1.1m in gov-ernment funds allocated for one of his productions and the projects he directed between 2011 and 2014.

Serebrennikov has dis-missed the accusations as absurd.

Kosovo reopens debate on Montenegro border dealPristina

AP

Kosovo’s government has decided to reopen the parliamentary debate on

a border demarcation deal with Montenegro.

A government statement issued yesterday said the Cab-inet decided to seek ratification of the border deal in Parlia-ment, where it lacked sufficient support for approval earlier this year and led to a no-confidence vote for the coalition leading the country at the time.

The statement said that a report from a new government commission covering border issues will be sent to the par-liament after it had found that a report of its predecessor had “many shortcomings.”

The opposition had claimed the deal signed in 2015 would cost Kosovo territory. The pre-vious Cabinet, international experts and Western backers of the agreement disputed the claim.

The party of current Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj had been part of the opposition at the time.

On his Facebook page, Haradinaj said he considered the report of the new commis-sion to be “credible,” adding

that the previous version “dam-aged its territorial integrity.”

But it is not clear how the government will proceed if the Parliament turns down the signed deal, as expected.

The former opposition used tear gas at the parliament hall to protest the deal while its sup-porters outside clashed with police.

The European Union insists Kosovo must approve the bor-der demarcation deal before its citizens can enjoy visa-free travel within the Schengen zone.

Montenegro has said it con-siders the deal closed and expects Pristina to approve it.

Despite our best efforts and the significant progress we and our teams have made in the past days on the remaining withdrawal issues, it was not possible to reach a complete agreement today. This is not a failure... I am very confident that we will reach an agreement in the course of this week: Juncker

Not a failure

British Prime Minister Theresa May (left) and European Commission Chief Jean-Claude Juncker shake hands prior to a Brexit negotiation meeting at the European Commission, in Brussels, yesterday.

Brigitte Macron, wife of the French president; China's Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Zhang Yesui and Rodolphe Delord, Director of the zoo, attend a naming ceremony of the panda born at the Beauval Zoo in Saint-Aignan-sur-Cher, France, yesterday.

A government statement said the Cabinet decided to seek ratification of the border deal in Parliament, where it lacked sufficient support for approval earlier this year and led to a no-confidence vote for the coalition leading the country at the time.

20 TUESDAY 5 DECEMBER 2017EUROPE

Madrid

AFP

Catalonia’s sacked vice-president Oriol Junqueras and three other separatist lead-ers will remain in

prison during a probe over their role in the region’s independence drive, a Spanish judge decided yesterday, as critical Catalan elections approach.

Six other former ministers who were also remanded in cus-tody last month will be released on bail of $119,000 each as an investigation into charges of rebellion, sedition and misuse of public funds continues, the Madrid court said in a statement.

The decision comes as axed Catalan leader Carles Puigde-mont attended an extradition hearing in Belgium, where he escaped to after his region’s par-liament declared independence on October 27, claiming he would not get a fair trial at home.

Spain is seeking to have Puigdemont and four of his former ministers who fled with him sent back to face charges over their role in the independ-ence drive.

The Belgian judge will decide on December 14 whether to grant the European arrest warrant, their lawyers said after the hearing.

The ruling that Junqueras, former regional interior minis-ter Joaquim Forn and two civil society leaders will stay in prison

comes as the official campaign for Catalan elections on Decem-ber 21 kicks off at midnight.

Madrid called the new elec-tions after the independence declaration, while dismissing Catalonia’s government and sus-pending the region’s autonomy.

After receiving a request to free the 10 Catalan leaders, Supreme Court Judge Pablo Llarena decided there was a risk that Junqueras and three others would repeat their alleged offences if he released them.

The news sparked outrage a m o n g i n d e p e n d e n c e supporters.

Marta Rovira, Junqueras’s deputy in his ERC party, said the four who remain in prison were “paying a political price for the success of October 1,” referring to an independence referendum

that took place despite a court ban.

Junqueras “is in prison because they know he is the best candidate for the future of this country,” she added.

Madrid hopes the elections will “restore normality” to the wealthy northeastern region, which declared independence following the referendum, though this never materialised.

Puigdemont, Junqueras and other former ministers are can-didates for the elections.

This means the campaign will take an unprecedented turn, with candidates either in “exile” or in prison.

Separatist parties have repeatedly accused Madrid of taking “political prisoners” and

“repression,” and the decision to keep some Catalan leaders in jail is likely to magnify those claims.

But Catalans remain deeply split on independence, and sev-eral polls suggest pro-secession parties might struggle to win enough seats to form a new regional government.

A poll carried out in Novem-ber by the central government’s influential Sociological Research Centre (CIS) predicted that the three pro-independence parties would get only up to 67 parlia-mentary seats out of 135, just under the absolute majority of 68.

In 2015 those same parties won 72 seats, which allowed them to form the largest bloc in the region’s parliament.

But this time around, pro-independence parties are running on separate lists.

Junqueras hopes to lead his ERC, which is ahead in the polls, to victory on December 21.

Puigdemont launched his campaign last month from Brus-sels with a flurry of high-profile media appearances and a demand that he be returned as the “legitimate” president of Catalonia.

His lawyer said at the week-end that he would remain in Belgium until after the Catalan elections, which indicates he will campaign from there.

“No matter what, they will be (in Brussels) till at least Decem-ber 21 and according to my calculations this could go on till

mid-January,” lawyer Jaume Alonso Cuevillas said.

“I am convinced that no mat-ter what happens they will have recourse to an appeal,” he said.

Spanish Prime Minister Mar-iano Rajoy and fellow opponents of Catalan independence, mean-while, have hitched their hopes on a record turnout on Decem-ber 21 to return a legislature in favour of unity with Spain.

The CIS opinion poll, in which 3,000 people were inter-viewed in Catalonia, said just over 90 percent of those ques-tioned were completely certain to vote in the elections, while five percent would “probably” go.

About 29 percent of eligible voters, however, are still unde-cided as to whom they will elect.

Four Catalan separatists to stay in jail

Greek police nab nine suspected Turkish militantsAthens

AP

A Greek investigating judge yesterday ordered nine suspected

left-wing militants from Tur-key to remain in custody pending trial on terrorism-related charges.

They were arrested last week in raids before a visit by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan later this week. The eight men and one woman have been charged with ter-rorism-related offenses, forgery, arms and explosives possession and resisting arrest.

The suspects were arrested on suspicion of links with the Revolutionary Peo-ple’s Liberation Party-Front, which is deemed a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the US and European Union.

Merkel to face kin of Berlin attack victimsBerlin

AFP

German Chancellor Angela Merkel will this month hold her first face-to-

face meeting with relatives of the victims of last year’s Christ-mas market attack, her spokesman said yesterday, after the families criticised her for not sufficiently acknowledging their grief.

Relatives of the 12 people who were killed in the Decem-ber 19, 2016, truck rampage in Berlin vented their anger in a withering open letter to Mer-kel, accusing her of “political inaction” and of failing to reach out to the bereaved.

“Almost a year after the attack, we note that you have not shared your condolences with us either in person or in writing. In our opinion, this means that you are not doing justice to your office,” read the letter, published by weekly magazine Der Spiegel recently.

“It is a matter of respect and decency and it should be self-evident that you as head of the government... acknowledge to our families the loss of a rela-tive because of a terrorist act.”

Government spokesman

Steffen Seibert said it was “a moving, critical letter” that was read at the chancellor’s office “with the greatest respect”.

Merkel will meet the fami-lies on December 18, a day before the first anniversary of the attack, to listen to their grievances and see “which les-sons can be learned”, Seibert said.

But he emphasised that the meeting had been scheduled before the open letter was sent, and pointed out that Joachim Gauck, the president at the time, met with the families back in March in agreement with Merkel’s office.

Nevertheless, “the letter shows how useful and urgent this meeting is”, Seibert added.

The signatories also had harsh words for the security failings that allowed Anis Amri, a failed asylum seeker from Tunisia, to carry out the attack, the deadliest yet in Germany to be claimed by the Islamic State group.

Investigations have shown that authorities missed a number of opportunities to arrest and deport the 24-year-old, a known drug dealer with connections to IS militant group.

US embassy in Russia to resume some visa services Moscow

Reuters

The US Embassy to Rus-sia said it would restart some visa services in US

consulates which it had pre-viously cancelled due to diplomatic expulsions that had left it short-staffed.

The US began to scale back its visa services in Rus-sia in August, drawing an angry reaction from Moscow three weeks after President Vladimir Putin ordered Wash-ington to more than halve its embassy and consular staff.

The embassy said in a statement on Monday some visa services would resume on December 11. “On Decem-ber 11, the US consulates in St Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, and Vladivostok will begin to offer limited interviews for non-immigrant visas.”

Madrid court said six other former ministers will be released on bail of $119,000 each as an investigation into charges of rebellion, sedition and misuse of public funds continues.

Court ruling

The Belgian judge will decide on December 14 whether to grant the European arrest warrant.

Catalan ERC deputy Joan Tarda (left) waits at the entrance to Estremera prison where he and other ERC deputies arrived to await the release on bail of former Catalonian cabinet members in Estremera, outside Madrid, yesterday. RIGHT: A group of people holding Catalan ‘Estelada’ flags and banners.

Hungary opposes Estonia’s offer on migrantsBudapest

Reuters

Hungary remains firmly opposed to illegal immi-gration and the

European Union should focus efforts on protecting its exter-nal borders, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said about an Estonian compromise proposal on asylum-seekers.

“Hungary’s view on migra-tion is clear and rock steady: We

think illegal immigration is dan-gerous. Because of illegal immigration, Europe has never had to face the kind of terror threat it faces now,” Szijjarto told a news conference with ministers and officials from eastern and southern Europe.

Under the Estonian plan, the executive European Commis-sion would determine “fair shares” of asylum-seekers that countries would be expected to take in at their own

borders - largely based on their population and wealth. But it would trigger an “early warn-ing” if arrivals looked about to test such levels.

Szijjarto said any “encour-agement” for further migrant arrivals was against Europe’s interests, adding that the only solution acceptable to Budapest was that illegal immigration should be stopped, preferably as far outside the EU’s borders as possible.

Hungary’s Foreign Affairs and trade Minister, Peter Szijjarto (second left) with Greece’s Foreign Affairs Minister Nikolaos Kotzias (right) and Bulgaria’s deputy Prime Minister Valeri Simeonov during Visegrad and other centre and eastern European countries meeting, in Budapest, yesterday.

Ten suspects arrested over murder of Malta journalistValletta

AFP

Maltese authorities yes-terday arrested 10 people in connection

with the killing of a whistle-blowing journalist that turned an international spotlight onto crime and corruption on the Mediterranean island.

Daphne Caruana Galizia, who died when her car was blown up on October 16, was one of Malta’s most prominent

public figures, thanks to a widely read blog she used to expose the murky underbelly of the economically booming island nation.

Her most explosive reports included allegations that mem-bers of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat’s inner circle benefited from kickbacks from major business deals and a controver-sial passports-for-investment scheme.

But the 53-year-old also focused on alleged dubious

behaviour by prominent oppo-sition and business figures, fuelling speculation she could have been the victim of mob-sters as easily as a political vendetta.

Muscat said all the suspects were Maltese and some were known to the police. The Times of Malta identified two of those arrested as brothers Alfred and George Degiorgio, describing them as members of a criminal gang.

Muscat said a joint team of

police, military and security services made the arrests fol-lowing a nearly seven-week investigation carried out with help from the FBI, Europol and Finnish intelligence.

Caruana Galizia’s murder led to an outpouring of grief on Malta and an international outcry.

Sven Giegold, a German Greens lawmaker who was part of a European Parliament del-egation which visited the island last week, welcomed the arrests

as “good news,” but warned on Twitter they must not be used as “a fig leaf for not investigat-ing cases of corruption and money laundering in Malta.”

Muscat announced the arrest of eight of the suspects in a statement and then added in a Twitter post that two more had been detained.

The statement said the sus-pects had been arrested on the basis of “reasonable suspicion in connection with involvement in the murder” of Caruana Galizia.

Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro speaks during his weekly radio and TV broadcast “Los Domingos con Maduro” in Caracas, Venezuela.

21TUESDAY 5 DECEMBER 2017 AMERICAS

Tegucigalpa

AFP

Honduras yesterday finally concluded a m u c h - d e l a y e d count from a pres-idential election

held more than a week ago, but refrained from declaring incum-bent leader Juan Orlando Hernandez the outright winner as soldiers tried to keep a lid on simmering post-poll unrest.

The small Central American nation of 10 million, which suf-fers chronic violence and prolific gang activity, has been put under nighttime curfew after clashes during protests and some reports of looting.

On Friday, a 19-year-old woman was fatally shot during a confrontation between protest-ers and the police. Her family said she was killed by police, a claim authorities are “exhaus-tively” investigating.

Yesterday, police said two officers were fatally shot by uni-dentified assailants while patrolling during the curfew in the eastern province of Olancho. The deaths were not immedi-ately linked to the political unrest.

Hernandez’s leftwing rival, Salvador Nasralla, a charismatic former TV presenter, aged 64,

has aired suspicions of fraud fol-lowing the November 26 election.

His supporters have taken noisily to the street, banging on pots, blaring vuvuzelas and sing-ing campaign songs which included insults towards the conservative Hernandez. Nas-ralla has demanded a recount from some rural electorates.

“They are stealing our votes,” a visibly angry Jesus Elviz, a 58-year-old accountant, said during a march on Sunday.

Suspicions were triggered by the drawn out ballot count.

In the hours after the vote, an initial tally of more than half the ballots gave the lead to Nas-ralla, who claimed victory. But then his margin shrank. The

Supreme Electoral Tribunal said its computers had suffered inter-ruptions that slowed counting, but that Hernandez had emerged with a tiny lead.

The tribunal’s president, David Matamoros, announced yesterday that the final count showed Hernandez with 42.98 percent of the vote compared with opposition leader Nasral-la’s 41.39 percent.

But he said the tribunal was not declaring a winner yet, because of possible appeals that could go on up to late December.

“We urge all candidates and all parties to put Honduras first,” Matamoros said.

A group of European Union election observers echoed that.

“The electoral process is far from finished,” the coordinator of the EU group, Portuguese member of the European Parlia-ment Marisa Matias, told a news conference in Tegucigalpa.

“Please make no declaration of the winner until the process is completed,” she said.

Hernandez, a 49-year-old lawyer who has been president since 2014, had sought re-elec-tion despite a constitutional ban on serving more than one term.

His conservative National Party had argued that a 2015 rul-ing by the Supreme Court voided that ban.

Going into the election, he was seen as the clear favorite on the strength of his policies clamping down on Honduras’

gang violence and endemic corruption.

He had backing from the United States, which is pouring $750 million into Central Amer-ica’s so-called Northern Triangle -- the poor, gang-infested trio of nations made up of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala -- to try to stem the outflow of its cit-izens to the US.

Nasralla, though, provided an upset to the voting prognos-tics. He and his leftist coalition, the Opposition Alliance Against the Dictatorship, denounced Hernandez’s bid as illegal.

The issue of re-election is especially charged in Honduras, following the toppling of a former leftwing president, Manuel Zelaya, in a 2009 coup.

Honduras ends vote count, but no winner yet

A group of men struggles to move a tractor wheel to clear a road, where supporters of the presidential candidate for Opposition Alliance against the Dictatorship, Salvador Nasralla, set up a barricade during protests in Tegucigalpa, yesterday.

Trump endorses accused child abuser Moore for SenateWashington

AFP

US President Donald Trump yesterday issued his most explicit

endorsement to date of embattled Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore, who has been accused of sexual assault by multiple women including one who was 14-years-old at the time.

Trump had previously characterized the allegations, first reported by The Wash-ington Post, as “very troubling” before changing tack and warning voters in Moore’s home state of Ala-bama that a victory for his Democratic rival Doug Jones “would be a disaster!”

Yesterday, he cited Dem-ocrats’ opposition to his legislative agenda, including tax cuts, as reasons for his support.

“Democrats refusal to give even one vote for mas-sive Tax Cuts is why we need Republican Roy Moore to win in Alabama,” he tweeted.

“We need his vote on stopping crime, illegal immi-gration, Border Wall, Military, Pro Life, V.A., Judges 2nd Amendment and more. No to Jones, a Pelosi/Schumer Puppet!”

“Look at your 401-k’s since Election. Highest Stock Market EVER! Jobs are roar-ing back!” he added, referring to an employer-sponsored retirement savings plan.

Moore, a 70-year-old Christian conservative with a history of controversy stem-ming from his tenure on Alabama’s supreme court, had been a strong favorite to win the rightwing state’s spe-cial election on December 12 before the allegations broke.

Most of the allegations about Moore relate to when he was a prosecutor in his mid-30s and sought to pur-sue relationships with teens, according to the reports.

The race, which is being held to replace Jeff Sessions who was named US attor-ney general, has national repercussions because Republicans hold only a slim 52-to-48 majority in the senate.

Allegations of sexual har-assment have plagued both of America’s main political parties in recent weeks.

Families condemn police brutality in CaliforniaBakersfield

AFP

James de la Rosa was unarmed when four police officers in the rural Californian town of

Bakersfield ended his life in a hail of bullets by the roadside.

At the age of 22, he had never picked up a single conviction, but initial police reports justified the killing by saying he had reached into his waistband after being chased by police and crashing.

“I’m broken”, sobs his mother Leticia as she visits his grave in a local cemetery three years after the killing, cradling a picture of her beaming son in happier times.

“No money, nothing in this world, will bring me back my son. I think of James everyday. I live in the house he was living in. He was a good kid, he had a bright future.”

A family lawsuit alleged that De la Rosa had his hands in the air when an officer first tried to taser him and then other offic-ers opened fire, shooting him five times in the head, groin and other areas.

The family settled on a $400,000 compensation deal after it emerged that an officer had “tickled” De la Rosa’s dead body — but many other victims’ families feel they have never seen justice.

Far from the media spotlight on flashpoints like Ferguson, Missouri and Baltimore, at least 29 people have been shot by police in Kern County, where the oil production hub of Bakersfield is located, since 2013.

“In recent years, Kern County Sheriff’s deputies shot and killed considerably more people than law enforcement agencies in areas of equivalent population sizes,” the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said in a recent report.

“And the Bakersfield Police Department had the highest rate of police homicides per capita of the country’s 60 larg-

est police departments.”The report described “a disturb-

ing pattern of shootings, beatings and canine attacks” by police and sheriff’s deputies, especially target-ing unarmed suspects.

Families of the dead say the real toll over the period covered by the report is 38 -- and more than one a month in 2015 -- although Mark Nations, a lawyer for the the sheriff’s office, told AFP that year was an anomaly.

“We have not had an in-cus-tody death since then. I can tell you there was a spike in inci-dents in the sense that there was not much going on before that and not much after that,” he said.

The Bakersfield Police Department, involved in at least four deaths since 2016, refused to comment, citing an ongoing investigation by California’s pub-lic prosecutor.

The ACLU says the level of lethal violence directed at His-panics and African Americans in Bakersfield by the predomi-nently white police force is out of proportion with the level of local crime.

Peter Bibring, the group’s director of police practices for California, has noted that a small number of officers in Bakersfield have been involved in two deaths or more.

Big changes for Florida with mass Puerto Rican immigrationOrlando

AFP

Cristina Sanchez is one of thousands of Puerto Ricans fleeing their hur-

ricane-ravaged island for Florida, a mass migration set to shape the southern US state as much as migrants from commu-nist Cuba in the late 20th century.

Sanchez left the island with three suitcases, her small dog — and no plans to return.

As her flight departed the capital San Juan, she glanced out the window at what she was leaving behind: a sun-drenched Caribbean island turned into a hellhole by Hurricane Maria.

On September 20, powerful Maria tore across Puerto Rico, destroying homes, shattering the island’s rickety power grid and phone network, and leaving its 3.4 million residents in the dark and incommunicado. Many remain so today.

“It’s a relief to be off the island and to be away from where

everything is so difficult,” said Sanchez, a 43 year-old bilingual school teacher.

Chico, her Shih Tzu, was given a sedative and slept at her feet during the flight.

After the hurricane, Sanchez’s home was left with-out running water or electricity. A diabetic, she could not keep her life-saving insulin refriger-ated without power. “I’m literally fleeing to get away from it, from everything that’s going on there,” she said.

“It takes its toll emotionally and mentally.”

The official hurricane death toll in Puerto Rico stands at 58, though large areas were isolated for weeks after the storm -- and news reports now place the toll as high as 500. Since Puerto Rico is a US possession, its residents —known as ‘boricuas’ — are US citizens and have no immigra-tion obstacles.

Sanchez headed to Orlando, a central Florida city best known for its amusement parks, includ-ing Disney World and Universal

Studios. Central Florida, espe-cially the Orlando area, has long attracted Puerto Rican immi-grants fleeing the island’s economic woes.

Since the hurricane struck, at least 212,000 people have traveled from Puerto Rico to Florida -- mainly central Flor-ida, according to figures from the State Emergency Response Team (SERT).

Around one million Puerto Ricans now live in Florida, mostly in the central Tampa-Orlando corridor.

At Orlando’s airport Sanchez went straight to one of three special “Welcome Centers” set up by the state government for Puerto Rican immigrants.

There she received informa-tion on how to start her new life, how to get a temporary Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) housing subsidy, and how to get a job.

Sanchez was optimistic that she’d be able to find a fresh start before the FEMA hotel subsidy ends in January.

Trump’s son, former business partner due before HouseWashington

Reuters

President Donald Trump’s eldest son and a former business asso-

ciate of the president are due to testify to the US House of Representatives Intelligence Committee this week, as it continues its investigation of possible Russian involvement in the 2016 election, a source familiar with the schedule said.

Donald Trump Jr is due to appear before the com-mittee tomorrow and Felix Sater, a Russian-American who was a former Trump business associate who claimed deep ties to Mos-cow, on Thursday, the source said. Neither session will be public.

CNN had reported previ-ously, citing multiple sources, that Donald Trump Jr was due to appear on Wednesday. His attorney declined a request for comment.

The Supreme Electoral Tribunal’s president, David Matamoros, announced yesterday that the final count showed Hernandez with 42.98 percent of the vote compared with opposition leader Nasralla’s 41.39 percent.

Radio talk

22 TUESDAY 5 DECEMBER 2017AMERICAS

FROM LEFT: President of the Cuban National Assembly Esteban Lazo, Cuban President Raul Castro, Cuban First Vice-President Miguel Diaz Canel and the Second Secretary of the Cuban Communist Party Jose Ramon Machado Ventura attending a tribute ceremony to late leader Fidel Castro, at Santa Ifigenia cemetery, in Santiago de Cuba, yesterday.

Tribute to Fidel Castro

Washington

AP

Lobbing new criticism at the special counsel’s Russia investigation, President Donald Trump said yesterday

he feels “very badly” for former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who last week pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about reaching out to the Russians on the president’s behalf.

“I think it’s a shame,” Trump said of Flynn’s situation, adding that it’s “very unfair” and that Flynn had “led a very strong life.”

Trump tried to contrast Flynn’s treatment with that of his Democratic presidential rival, Hillary Clinton, whom he said “lied many times to the FBI and nothing happened.”

“Flynn lied and they destroyed his life,” Trump said.

The FBI didn’t conclude that Clinton lied to agents, however. Former FBI Director James Comey testified last year that agents found Clinton to be truth-ful in her interview, telling a House committee, “we have no basis to conclude she lied to the FBI.”

Flynn is cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

Even as Trump sought to minimize Flynn’s misdeeds, the Kremlin insisted that Flynn’s conversations with the Russian ambassador to the US had not

influenced Russian President Vladimir Putin’s response to sanctions imposed by Trump’s predecessor.

Flynn was forced to resign in February following reports that the Obama administration offi-cials had informed Trump’s team that Flynn had discussed sanc-tions on Russia Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak, a fact at odds with the public assertions of Vice President Mike Pence. Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said yesterday it was “absurd” to suggest that the phone conversation could have influenced Putin’s decision and added that “such requests couldn’t have been passed on” to him.

Trump, who spoke to report-ers Monday as he left the White House to head to Utah, unleashed a string of tweets over the week-end in which he criticized the FBI and raised questions about the federal investigation into Rus-sian election meddling and

possible ties to his campaign.In one of his messages,

Trump again denied that he directed Comey to stop investi-gating Flynn.

Trump questioned the direc-tion of the federal law enforcement agency and wrote that after Comey, whom Trump fired in May, the FBI’s reputation is “in Tatters — worst in History!” He vowed to “bring it back to greatness.” The president also retweeted a post saying new FBI Director Chris Wray “needs to clean house.”

Former Attorney General Eric Holder tweeted in response: “Nope. Not letting this go. The FBI’s reputation is not in “tat-ters”. It’s composed of the same dedicated men and women who have always worked there and who do a great, apolitical job. You’ll find integrity and honesty at FBI headquarters and not at 1600 Penn Ave right now.”

Trump seized on reports that a veteran FBI counterintelligence agent was removed from special prosecutor Robert Mueller’s team last summer after the discovery of an exchange of text messages that were viewed as potentially anti-Trump. The agent, Peter Strzok, had also worked on the investigation of Democrat Hil-lary Clinton’s use of a private email server.

Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mueller, said Mueller removed Strzok from the team “immediately upon learning of the allegations.” He

would not elaborate on the nature of the accusations. The person who discussed the matter with The Asso-ciated Press was not authorized to speak about it by name and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Trump tweeted on Sunday: “Tainted (no, very dishonest?) FBI ‘agent’s role in Clinton probe under review.’ Led Clinton Email probe.” In a separate tweet, he wrote: “Report: ‘ANTI-TRUMP FBI AGENT LED CLINTON EMAIL PROBE’ Now it all starts to make sense!”

Strzok’s removal almost cer-tainly reflected a desire to insulate the investigators from any claims of political bias or favouritism. Trump and many of his supporters have at times sought to discredit the integrity

of the investigation, in part by claiming a close relationship between Mueller and Comey and by pointing to political contribu-tions to Democrats made by some lawyers on the team.

Following the tweets, Senator Lindsey Graham warned the pres-ident to tread cautiously. “You tweet and comment regarding ongoing criminal investigations at your own peril. I’d be careful if I were you, Mr President. I’d watch this,” Graham said.

On Saturday, Trump tweeted that he “had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice Pres-ident and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies. It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was

nothing to hide!”The tweet suggested that

Trump was aware when the White House dismissed Flynn on Feb. 13 that he had lied to the FBI, which had interviewed him weeks ear-lier. Comey has said Trump the following day brought up the Flynn investigation in private at the White House and told him he hoped he could “let this go.”

With questions raised by the tweet, Trump associates tried to put distance Saturday evening between the president himself and the tweet. Trump’s personal lawyer John Dowd told ABC News that he drafted the tweet and gave it to the president’s social media director, Dan Scavino.

Flynn’s situation a shame, says Trump

US President Donald Trump shouts to be heard over the helicopter noise as he speaks to reporters while departing for Utah from the White House in Washington yesterday.

Request for Dakota Access spill response plan grantedBismarck

AP

The Army Corps of Engi-neers and the developer of the Dakota Access

pipeline must complete an oil spill response plan for the stretch of pipe beneath the Missouri River in North Dakota, a federal judge ruled yesterday.

US District Judge James Boasberg’s order grants a request by the Standing Rock and Cheyenne River Sioux tribes for additional protec-tions for the river’s Lake Oahe reservoir. The tribes draw water from the lake.

Completion of a response plan and additional pipeline monitoring are warranted while the Corps determines the pipeline’s impact on the tribes, the judge said in his ruling. He cited in part the spill of 210,000 gallons of oil from the Keystone Pipeline in South Dakota last month. He ordered the environmen-tal impact study in June.

“Although the court is not suggesting that a similar leak is imminent at Lake Oahe, the fact remains that there is an inherent risk with any pipe-line,” Boasberg said.

The $3.8bn Dakota Access pipeline began moving North Dakota oil through South Dakota and Iowa to a distribu-tion point in Illinois in June. Texas-based developer Energy Transfer Partners maintains the pipeline is safe, and the company and the Corps had argued that tribal requests for additional protections at Lake Oahe were unnecessary or unwarranted.

Boasberg disagreed and ordered ETP and the Corps to work with the tribes on com-pleting a spill response plan by April 1.

Trust in media grows under Trump: SurveyWashington

AFP

Americans’ overall trust in the news media has increased since the elec-

tion of Donald Trump despite a rise in those who believe the president’s claims of “fake news,” a survey showed yesterday.

The survey prepared for the Poynter Institute found a sharp partisan divide on the media, with Republicans and Trump supporters sceptical about news

organisations and others more confident.

In the survey, 12 percent said they have a “great deal” of trust and confidence and an addi-tional 37 percent have a “fair amount.”

But 39 percent respondents had “not very much” trust and 13 percent “none at all.”

The researchers compared their findings to Gallup poll results which found confidence in the news media rose from 32 percent in September 2016 to 41 percent in September 2017.

“Encouragingly, we find that the public supports the press, albeit weakly,” said the report by Andrew Guess of Princeton University, Brendan Nyhan of Dartmouth and Jason Reifler of the University of Exeter.

“However, this result masks dramatic polarisation in media attitudes.”

Revealing a stark political contrast, roughly three in four Democrats expressed confi-dence in the news media compared with just 19 percent

of Republicans.And 44 percent of survey

respondents said they believe the news media fabricates stories about Trump and 31 percent agreed with the president’s claim that large media outlets are the “enemy of the people.”

A large majority — 69 per-cent — said the media “tend to favor one side,” but the same percentage believe that news organizations “keep political leaders from doing things that shouldn’t be done.”

And the authors cited the

“disturbing” finding that 25 per-cent endorsed limitations on press freedom — including allowing the government to block news stories it sees as biased or inaccurate.

“The American news media is experiencing unprecedented attacks from the highest office in the land,” the authors said.

“Politicians frequently resist unfavourable coverage, but the constant barrage of public attacks on the legitimacy of the press is unprecedented in the modern era.”

Second stealthy destroyer heads out to seaBath, Maine

AP

The second in the stealthy Zumwalt class of destroy-ers is heading out to sea

for the first time.

The future USS Lyndon B Johnson left Navy shipbuilder Bath Iron Works yesterday. With the help of tugs, the 610-foot ship is careful ly navigating the winding Ken-nebec River before reaching

the North Atlantic.The warship will be away

for a couple of days during builder trials. The shipbuilder will make tweaks before it’s presented to the Navy at a later date.

Peru jails executives linked to scandalLima

AFP

Four top executives at Peruvian construction companies linked to Bra-

zil’s Odebrecht, which is ensnared in a corruption scan-dal that has shaken Latin America’s political establish-ment, were jailed yesterday for bribing Peru’s ex-president Ale-jandro Toledo for contracts.

In the first court decision linked to Odebrecht to affect executives in Peru, Judge Rich-ard Concepcion Carhuancho said 18-month terms of preventative detention were necessary because the men presented a “flight risk” and potential “obstruction of justice.”

Three of Peru’s largest con-struction companies are involved: Grana y Montero, whose shares are listed in both Lima and New York; JJ Camet; and ICCGSA.

The jail terms, linked to col-lusion and money laundering charges, were requested by prosecutors.

Jose Alejandro Grana Miro Quesada, who until recently was president of the Grana’s

board of directors and one of the most emblematic business-men in the country, has been jailed along with ex-director Hernando Alejandro Grana Acuna.

JJ Camet’s president Fern-ando Gonzalo Camet Piccone was also jailed, as was ICCGSA managing director Jose Fern-ando Castillo Dibos.

A fifth businessman, Gra-nay Montero’s former executive president Gonzalo Ferraro Rey, was placed under house arrest as he is battling cancer.

According to prosecutors, the Peruvian companies, together with Odebrecht, paid a $20m bribe to Toledo — who was president from 2001 to 2006 — to secure a contract to build sections of the interoce-anic highway that unites Peru with Brazil.

An investigation showed that the Peruvian companies paid $15m of the $20m bribe, with the rest paid by Brazil.

Odebrecht’s former repre-sentative in Peru, Jorge Barata, revealed the bribe as part of a plea deal detailed by the prosecution.

Trump tried to contrast Flynn’s treatment with that of his Democratic presidential rival, Hillary Clinton, whom he said “lied many times to the FBI and nothing happened.”


FAJRSHOROOK

04.44am

06.05 am

ZUHR 11.24 am

ASR 02.24 pm

MAGHRIBISHA

04.46 pm

06.16 pm

PRAYER TIMINGS

HIGH TIDE 06: 15 – 17:15 LOW TIDE 07:45 – 20:30

Moderate temperature daytime

with some clouds.

WEATHER TODAY

Minimum Maximum

Courtesy: Qatar Meteorology Department

19oC 26oC

www.thepeninsulaqatar.com

LATEST NEWSUPDATE

Raynald C Rivera The Peninsula

Filipino-American a w a r d - w i n n i n g artiste apl.de.ap (pictured) (Allan Pineda Lindo) of the

famous hip hop group The Black Eyed Peas will be per-forming for the first time in Qatar on December 15.

The musician, rapper, singer, and record producer, who is best known as co-founder and member of the Grammy Award-winning group will be performing a DJ Set at The St. Regis Doha set to attract around 2,000 fans.

“Knowing that apl.de.ap

has a massive fan base in Qatar with chart-topping hit songs, we expect about 2,000 people to enjoy the show,” Enrica Barbagallo, Managing Partner of Amazing Produc-tions, who is organizing the concert, told The Peninsula.

She said the event was something they had planned for quite some time and on which apl.de.ap expressed excitement to perform for his fans here for the first time.

With a music career span-ning around two decades, apl.de.ap has contributed to the music industry writing, co-writing and performing songs that made to the top of the charts such as Where is the

Love, I Gotta Feeling, The Apl Song, and Bebot. Some of these songs will be part of his repertoire during the 90-minute show.

Apl.de.ap, who is also famous for his coaching stints in The Voice of the Philip-pines, has been a known philanthropist honoured by

the prestigious This Time Foundation for his charity works. He founded the Apl Foundation helping commu-nities and children in the Philippines and other Asian countries.

This will be the first time Amazing Productions is organising a concert of this scale with plans to bring in more international artistes on a regular basis next year enhancing the music scene.

The show will be held on December 15, 8pm at Oyster Bay at The St. Regis Doha. Tickets are priced QR250 and QR500 and are available at Virgin Megastores in Doha and online.

Filipino-American artiste to perform in Qatar

Sidi Mohamed The Peninsula

Many exhibitors at the 28th Doha International Book Fair have expressed their satisfaction

over the sale of books especially his-torical and political books, in addition to children books.

“The demand is big from all ages and daily we are selling around 25 books and most of them are historical and political books, and also religious books,” Mohamed, an exhibitor at Book Fair told The Peninsula yesterday.

“This is my third time to partici-pate in the exhibition and this year the demand is very high compared to pre-vious years. As usual most in demand are children books and books on his-tory and politics. Many of the books I’m selling are on Kuwait, and the buy-ers of these books are people from Kuwait and those interested in Kuwaiti history,” said Mohyee Al Deen, an exhibitor of one of Kuwaiti publishing houses.

For his part, an exhibitor Nour said that the exhibition was on the proper time because it is in the end of the month and people got their salaries and also they were interested in buy-ing books and expressed keenness to bring their children with them. “In my opinion the exhibitors which are sell-ing children books and games witnessed more demand because par-ents give priory to their children. Also the literature books witnessed high demand.”

“The demand is high and not only people are buying books, there are also some institutions which are buying them and this is positive sign. The most of the books I have sold are novels, children books and curriculum books,” said Najwa, exhibitor.

Regarding the prices, Abdul Kar-eem, a visitor said, “The prices are not high and all the stalls are offer books we need for our studies. I have already registered for a master degree program in media and the university recom-mended me some books which I could

not find at various shops of the coun-try but the exhibition brought me a chance to find all books I was looking for and their prices ranged from QR100 and up.”

The Book Fair is open to public until today, and this year it is hosting 29 Arab and foreign countries attract-ing around 400 publishing houses from across the world.

Big sale delights exhibitors at Doha book fair

Visitors at a stall during the 28th Doha International Book Fair at Doha Exhibition and Convention Center, yesterday.Pic: Baher Amin / The Peninsula

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