FAHAD AL GHADANIfahadnews@timesofoman.com

MUSCAT: Airport taxi drivers are refusing to use new meters installed in the majority of their blue-and-white cars because they say they should have a monopoly on business at the airport.

A representative of taxi drivers, Abdullah Al Shibli, who is also an airport taxi driver, said, “It is true that meters have been installed in almost all the taxis here, but we have refused to activate it because we want the taxi business at the

airport to be exclusive to us.”He explained that at present

any vehicle can be used as a taxi at the airport.

“That’s why orange taxis, along with expats using their private ve-hicles as taxis, should be stopped from doing business inside the airport,” he stated.

Al Shibli added that airport taxi drivers had refused to use the meter, unless the authorities con-cerned listened to their demands.

“We have approached every-body, including the company, the Royal Oman Police and the Mu-nicipal Council. We are waiting to hear a reasonable solution, even

though the authorities concerned had told us that they don’t have any authority or instruction to stop orange taxis from entering the airport. We are hopeful that some solution can be worked out,” Al Shibli explained.

When contacted, Abdullah Al Busaidi, head of Media and Public Relations, Oman Airport Manage-ment Company (OAMC), said it was the Municipal Council which came up with the suggestion that meters should be installed in air-port taxis. Therefore, we are wait-ing for the Municipal Council and the airport drivers to come up with a solution.”

He said a company is currently in the process of installing meters in airport taxis, and the tariff is yet to be fixed. He added that pre-paid taxis were available from the airport, with the minimum fare starting from OMR6.

Meanwhile, Salim Al Gham-mari, a municipal council member, said the meter system should have been started a long time back. >A6

44204

THURSDAY, October 22, 2015 / 8 Muharram 1437 AH timesofoman.com wtimesofoman.com facebook.com/timesofoman twitter.com/timesofoman blog.timesofoman.com ISO 9001:2008 Certified Company

On the occasion of the International Conference on Environment and Development Brazil

FROM THE WORDS OF HIS MAJESTYTHE SULTAN

The conservation of the environment is the responsibility of all of us, a responsibility that knows no political boundaries. Therefore, man, wherever he lives, must contribute to this conservation and must order his life accordingly. This must be done in a planned, rational way and taking into consideration the numerous causes of pollution, whether natural, biological, industrial, chemical or physical.

‘His Majesty’s Wisdom’

The drivers seek bar

on orange taxis and

private vehicles used

by expats as taxis

OMANFahd receives Roivas

2On behalf of His Majesty, HH Sayyid Fahd received Estonian Prime Minister

Taavi Roivas. >A6

MARKETOmantel-du tie-up

3Omantel has signed a partnership pact with du to provide Internet

Protocol television service. >B1

OMANSix arrested on kidnapping and rape charges

1Four Omani citizens and two Asian expats have been arrested by Al Khoud police in cooperation with the Department of Criminal Investigations, Royal Oman Police, for abusing, kidnapping and

raping a woman. >A5

T O P T H R E E I N S I D E S T O R I E S

A4Bands set for big battle

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>C7

MOBIN MATHEW BLESSON mobinmathew@timesofoman.com

MUSCAT: We often see workers dressed in green uniforms while moving on Oman’s roads but most of us fail to recognise their efforts in making Oman one of the clean-est and most beautiful countries in the world.

Commendable job“They do a commendable job, re-gardless of whether it’s a rainy or sunny day. We can see them work-ing hard to keep Oman’s roads beautiful,” Mohammed Khalid, an Omani businessman in Ruwi, said.

“Especially after the rains, their

work is doubled. However, in a short span of time, they make the roads and surroundings beautiful,” Khalid added.

There are at least 1,000 such workers employed in different sec-tions, such as garbage collection and beautification, and they work

in different camps organised by the Muscat Municipality.

“Our work may be the lowest in the job strata. It’s quite tedi-ous. But, the support we get from Omanis and expatriates makes us happy. Even a smile from people while we do our job is a great inspi-ration,” Raju Abraham, a cleaning worker said, while continuing with his work in Ruwi.

The workers’ morning shift be-gins at 6am and ends at 11am and the afternoon shift begins at 3pm and ends at 5.30pm.

Commenting on the efforts of these workers, residents of Ham-riyah said they are grateful to them for their devotion. >A6

G R E E N B R I G A D E

#OMANPRIDE

THE HOME OFGOOD NEWS

PRAISEWORTHY: Residents of Hamriyah said they are grateful to

the workers for their devotion. - Times of Oman

Airport taxi drivers refuse to use meters

Workers in green help keep the Sultanate clean

OMR6 is the starting fare of the

pre-paid taxis at the airport

A4 T H U R S DAY, O CTO B E R 2 2 , 2 0 1 5

OMAN

TARIQ AL HAREMItariqh@timesofoman.com

MUSCAT: With just a day to go, Oman-based bands are ready and eager to compete in the Ste-reophonics “Battle of the Bands (BOTB)” event, organised by Alive Entertainment, where the winner will be given an opportunity to open for one of the biggest bands in the United Kingdom.

For musicians, this is an op-portunity to shine in front of thousands of people by support-ing a band, such as Stereophonics, but for the most part, it is a night meant to share music and enjoy the atmosphere.

“We are very much excited. Our music is very similar to Ste-reophonics’. We enjoy their mu-sic and we can relate to the way they play. So it is a good oppor-tunity to hopefully support their concert,” said Neil Callang, ‘Cof-fee Soup’s’ representative.

For others, it is a dream come true. “We are a Welsh band as are Stereophonics, so we would love to be their support band,” said Joanna Vos, lead vocalist for ‘The Noisy Neighbours’.

Omani music sceneBOTB, which is set to take place on Friday, October 23 (in Wednes-day’s edition, we had wrongly mentioned the date as Septem-ber 23), at the Shangri La’s Barr Al Jissah Ballroom at 8pm, will provide a much needed platform for local musicians to share their music and enjoy the night unlike any other venue.

The bands that the Times of Oman spoke to all agreed that the Omani music scene is not as active as it should be, but with the organisation of BOTB, there is still hope for it to become ac-tive for aspiring musicians and bands. “I’m happy that we are going to have a night like this in Oman. The music scene in Oman is a bit low profile. There are a lot of musicians that are eager to play,” said Tarek Khorshid, a vo-calist and guitarist of ‘T-Band’.

“Alive Entertainment is doing a great job and we should support the local music scene,” he added.

“We try to keep ourselves active

because the music scene in Oman is not that active. But people would want to see a lot of battles, so BOTB will give the crowd something to support,” said Callang.

Explaining that there are con-stant changes in rules regarding live bands, Vos said, “This is more important than anything since live bands struggle here,” in Oman.

ExpectationsWith seven bands competing, in-cluding, the T-Band, The Noisy Neighbours, Coffee Soup, Marh-sall’s Law, IRIS, B-Sharps and Wadi Dogs, a tough competition is at hand where some are confident of winning the competition, while others said they would rather en-joy the night.

“We expect it to be a tough competition, but we will enjoy the company and performances of the other bands. We will just have fun and enjoy the night,” said Callang.

Vos said, “If this (competition) was in the U.K., we wouldn’t have thought about competing, but in Oman, if you look around, we are a really good band. We work really hard and have fun doing what we do. But I hope and pray that we are good enough.”

Not concerned with winning or losing the competition, Khorshid said, “It doesn’t matter if you win or lose; at least you’re having fun playing the music.

“I hope in the end that all the bands get together and jam.”

Winner of Friday’s

Battle of Bands

competition will open

for Stereophonics,

one of UK’s top bands

TOUGH CONTEST: With seven bands competing, a tough competi-

tion is expected. – Supplied photo

Italian music weaves a magic

Times News Service MUSCAT: Music lovers were treated to a special evening of arias culled from famous Italian operas that were brought to Oman by the Embassy of Italy in Muscat.

The event was presented by the Bank of Beirut, at the Al Bustan Ritz-Carlton Palace Hotel to cel-ebrate the 15th Italian Language in the World Week.

Bound togetherTitled “Dal Deserto Al Mar - From the Desert to the Sea”, the perfor-mance was held under the patron-age of His Excellency Mohammad Al Zubair, Advisor to His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said for Eco-nomic Planning Affairs.

“The Italian language and mu-

sic are bound together in a very special way, resulting in an art that is universally loved and ad-mired,” said Paola Amadei, am-bassador of Italy to the Sultanate.

I T A L I A N E M B A S S Y E V E N T

Initiative for global celebration of 45th National Day launchedTimes News Service

MUSCAT: “Our Glorious Novem-ber... Around the world” initiative to celebrate Oman’s 45th National Day was launched by Sheikha Ayesha bint Khalfan Al Siyabiah, president of the Public Authority for Craft Industries, at her office on Tuesday.

Hamoud bin Mohammed Alazri, general supervisor of the Oman-Qaboos website, was present on the occasion.

As part of initiative, people from any part of the world can express their greetings to His Majesty Sul-tan Qaboos bin Said, by visiting www.oman-qaboos.net on the oc-casion of the 45th National Day.

The initiative is part of the cel-ebrations launched by the web-site, which highlights the life and achievements of His Majesty Sul-tan Qaboos bin Said in more than 25 global languages and to cel-ebrate the completion of His Maj-esty’s 45 years of rule.

“Sheikha Ayesha, the presi-dent of the authority, praised the initiative launched by the website, which undoubtedly reflects the continuation of this national pro-ject, which through an electronic window ensures gratitude and loy-alty to our great leader His Majes-ty, the Sultan,” a press release said.

Al Siyabiah also appreciated the efforts of the website staff.

Hamoud bin Mohammed Alazri, general supervisor of the website, expressed happiness over launch of the initiative, which will record the love people have for His Majesty the Sultan in their own language.

“The e-initiative is available in 25 global languages, so that people can express their love and happi-ness and congratulate His Majesty in their own language,” said Ham-oud bin Mohammed Alazri.

The initiative has received wide support from accredited embas-sies in Oman and from the Sultan-ate’s embassies abroad.

The website administration will

make the option of e-initiative sharing available.

“This has already been designed and translated into all languages,” said Alazri.

“We invite you to share impart-ing the light of the e-initiative on our beloved leader. This initiative will go on until the end of Decem-ber,” he said.

Exchanges will also continue between the website’s administra-tion and the embassies where they read, revise and publish the com-mentaries.

Alazri said residents and citi-zens are keen to take part in a cel-ebration filled with feelings of love and loyalty for His Majesty, as are Omanis and others from all over the world.

“I can only thank Sheikha Ayes-ha for supporting the initiative by launching it, the ambassadors and diplomats for supporting the ini-tiative and every one for contrib-uting to the success and continuity of this initiative,” he said.

4 5 T H N A T I O N A L D A Y C E L E B R A T I O N S

ENCHANTING EVENING: Dal Deserto Al Mar - From the Desert to

the Sea was organised to celebrate the 15th Italian Language in

the World Week. – OK Mohammad Ali

SCAN THIS QR CODE TO INSTANTLY READ

FULL ARTICLEW W W.T I M E S O F O M A N . C O M

INITIATIVE: As part of the initiative, people from any part of the world can express their greetings, to

His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said by visiting www.oman-qaboos.net, on the occasion of the 45th

National Day. – ONA

Projects boost water pressure

MUSCAT: A number of pro-jects have been completed by the Public Authority for Elec-tricity & Water for increasing water pressure in the Muscat Governorate, mainly in the wilayat of Bausher. Water pres-sure was also improved at Al Ansab by installing a pump-ing station and expanding the distribution network with the laying of a water pipe having a diameter of 200mm. —ONA

P A E W

Bands set for big battle

The e-initiative is available in 25 global languages, so that people can express

their love and happiness and congratulate His Majesty in their own language

Hamoud bin Mohammed Alazrim, General supervisor of the Oman-Qaboos website

A5

OMANT H U R S DAY, O C TO B E R 2 2 , 2 0 1 5

Tweet all about it

SCAN THIS TO INSTANTLY LAUNCH TWITTER PAGE

6 arrested on kidnap, rape chargesTimes News Service

MUSCAT: Four Omani citizens and two Asian expats have been arrested by Al Khoud police, in cooperation with the Department of Criminal Investigations, Mus-cat Governorate Royal Oman Po-lice, for allegedly abusing, kidnap-ping and raping a woman.

A Royal Oman Police source said the four Omani suspects had arrived at an Asian resident’s house in South Al Hail, late at night posing as police officers.

Distracting the husband by re-questing his residency card, they managed to kidnap the woman.

After investigations, the sus-pects were arrested and detained by the police.

A case has been filed against all

the accused and they have been handed over to the public pros-ecution for further investigations before being produced in court.

Murder accused arrested A man was arrested in the Al Rusayl Industrial area by police, for allegedly committing a mur-der. A Royal Oman Police offi-cial said the police rushed to the crime scene after the Al Athaiba Police Station received report of the incident.

“The suspect seemed to have had a quarrel with the victim at a local store where the suspect used a sharp weapon to strike the victim,” said the official.

After investigations, the sus-pect was arrested and referred to the public prosecution for further

investigations and to prepare for an appearance in court.

Arrested for stealing walletIn cooperation with the Depart-ment of Inquiries and Investiga-tions, the Baushar police arrested four Arab nationals (three women and a man) for stealing a woman’s wallet. The incident occurred at a local store in Al Ghubra where the woman whose wallet was stolen, was shopping.

The thieves stole the wallet after the woman placed it beside her after being distracted while shopping. This prompted the thieves to steal the wallet and flee the scene. The suspects have been referred to the public prosecution and are being prepared to be pro-duced in the concerned court.

C R I M E

Latest iPhones at Omantel, Ooredoo outletsTimes News Service

MUSCAT: Omantel and Oore-doo have announced Apple iP-hone 6S and 6S Plus availability in the country on Wednesday.

“We had started a pre-book-ing campaign of these phones from last week and from today we will be handing over these phones to our valued custom-ers,” Mohammed Yahya Al Sal-mi, Senior Manager Corporate Communications, Omantel, told Times of Oman. The devic-es would be available at Oman-tel outlet in Muscat Grand Mall from 11:59pm on Wednesday and can be bought by paying as little as OMR100. “Rest they can pay in easy instalments for the next 12 months,” Yahya added.

Ooredoo also said it will launch iPhone 6S and 6S Plus today. “Visit us today between 10pm and 2am at MGM, Sohar or Salalah Ooredoo stores for the iPhone 6s launch,” the com-pany tweeted on Wednesday.

I P H O N E 6 S A N D 6 S P L U S

A6

OMANT H U R S DAY, O CTO B E R 2 2 , 2 0 1 5

All the Municipal Council members voted

unanimously for the move, disregarding a lot of

disagreement on the part of the taxi drivers

Salim Al Ghammari, a municipal council member

SAYYID FAHD RECEIVES ESTONIAN PRIME MINISTEROn behalf of His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said, His Highness Sayyid Fahd bin Mahmoud Al Said, Deputy Prime Minister for the Council of Ministers, received on Wednesday Es-

tonian Prime Minister Taavi Roivas, who is currently on an official visit to the Sultanate. The Estonian prime minister conveyed the greetings of President Toomas Hendrik and the

Estonian government to His Majesty the Sultan, along with their best wishes to His Majesty and his government further success and the Omani people further progress. On his turn,

Sayyid Fahd asked the guest to convey the greetings and best wishes of His Majesty the Sultan to the Estonian president, government and the Estonian people further prosperity.

Sayyid Fahd hosted a luncheon at the Al Bustan Palace Hotel in honour of the Estonian prime minister. -ONA/Mohamed Al Rashdi

Staff Reporter

MUSCAT: Docking of fishing and picnic boats in areas desig-nated for ferries in Shinas and Masirah has been banned by the Ministry of Transport and Com-munications.

With effect from Wednesday, docking of fishing and picnic boats in areas not designated for them are banned. Ministry will not be responsible for any damage occurring to the fishing and picnic boats while they are docked in non-designated areas,” the ministry said. “Violators will be penalised,” the notice added.

S H I N A S A N D M A S I R A H Estonia hails Sultanate for peace efforts

MUSCAT: His Highness Sayyid Fahd bin Mahmoud Al Said, Dep-uty Prime Minister for the Coun-cil of Ministers, and Estonian Prime Minister Taavi Rõivas held talks at the headquarters of the Council of Ministers, in Muscat on Wednesday. Welcoming the guests, Sayyid Fahd expressed satisfaction over the existing rela-tions between the two countries.

Sayyid Fahd discussed the pro-gress in Sultanate, thanks to the wise leadership of His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said. He lauded the existing cooperation between the two countries and the desire to promote it to wider horizons.

Estonia hailed the efforts ex-erted by the Sultanate and the

facilities offered by the govern-ment of His Majesty the Sultan to maintain security and stability in the region.

Peace negotiationsHe said the facilities rendered by the Sultanate to support peace negotiations are clear and obvi-ous. He expressed his admiration for the dialogue pursued by Oman in dealing with all issues.

The Omani-Estonian talks dealt with ways to enhance bi-lateral relations, particularly in the economic, trade, information

technology, renewable energy, higher education and tourism sectors, as well as encouraging mutual investments and benefit-ing from the available opportu-nities in the economic and free zones in both the countries.

The leaders also reviewed de-velopments in the regional and international arenas, besides matters of common concern.

The prime minister of Estonia, and his accompanying delega-tion also visited the Information Technology Authority premises at Knowledge Oasis Muscat. -ONA

Sayyid Fahd

expressed

satisfaction over the

existing relations

between the two

countries

INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION: Estonian Prime Minister Taavi

Rõivas expressed his admiration for the dialogue pursued by

Oman in dealing with all issues. - ONA

Docking of boats in areas reserved for ferries banned

‘These workers do a great job’

“Our city is the most affected dur-ing the rain. Even if it rains for a few minutes, Hamriyah is flood-ed. But within hours, the debris is cleaned by these workers. We, as residents of Hamriyah, always ap-preciate their efforts,” Saji Sam, a resident of Hamriyah, said.

Shop owners in Hamriyah also voiced the same opinion.

“These workers do a great job. We realise their efforts only after it rains. After the rains, it is a mess here. But these workers are capa-ble of clearing it within minutes,” the shop-owners said.

Low salaryAccording to the workers, despite working so hard, they have to

grapple with very low pay and the lack many other benefits, which others people get.

“Our salary is too low. We get only leave after two years and only 75 per cent of the ticket fare to our home country. But what can we do. The commitments back home are compelling us to stay here,” one of the workers said.

T R E M E N D O U S E F F O R T

‘Rules can be set for orange taxis’

He said, “It is a fair demand by the airport taxi drivers asking to ban orange taxis. However, since OAMC owns the airport property they should be the ones who con-trol the entry and exit of orange taxis.”

He clarified that they can set the rules for the orange taxis. “For example they can set a time limit for orange taxi to spend inside the airport taxi premises.”

The decision to introduce these meters in airport taxis was taken by the Municipal Council of Muscat in 2012 and subse-quently approved by the Mus-cat Municipality, according to Al Ghammari.

“All the Municipal Council members voted unanimously for

the move, disregarding a lot of disagreement on the part of the taxi drivers,” said Al Ghammari.

First phase“Airport taxis are being covered in the first phase, and meters will also be installed eventually in hotel and resort taxis in Muscat, and then in all taxis used as public transport,” he said.

He explained that earlier, an international company special-ising in the job had taken charge of installing meters in airport taxis. “I believe meters have been installed in most of the airport taxis so far. For some vehicles, installing the meters was difficult due to technical problems,” said Al Ghammari.

Another taxi driver said that the airport taxi drivers know that when the meter system is applied, the process will be more organ-ised and professional.

“But in the present set up we will be making very little money,” he said.

According to the OAMC web-site, booking a taxi is easy and can be done in a number of ways. One is through pre-booking where taxis can be booked via an online booking system or through the telephone number listed.

Private hire taxis can be booked and are also available pre-paid, depending on your destination, through the Muscat International Airport Taxi Counter located out-side the arrivals building.

M E T E R S Y S T E M

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OMANT H U R S DAY, O C TO B E R 2 2 , 2 0 1 5

SQU student earns recognition at global competitionTimes News Service

MUSCAT: Farah Abdullah Amur Al Kasbi has done her university and Oman proud. A student from the Department of Management at the College of Economics & Political Science, Sultan Qaboos University (SQU), she was se-lected as one of the best students at “X-Culture”, a cross-cultural global competition in interna-tional business, held in the spring this year.

She won the accolade for her project, “Internationalising Sa-kona: A Business Proposal for the Gaming Entertainment Company”.

In all, 14 students from the De-partment of Management at SQU had taken part in the competition this year. Thousands of people from around the world take part in the “X-Culture” competition and try to develop solutions for a number of business challenges.

As the work place goes global, working in a multi-national envi-ronment has become very essen-tial. With appropriate training, going global is exciting and re-warding, both economically and personally.

X-culture is a project where students from around the world work together in virtual teams (Global Virtual Teams) in or-der to learn the best practices of cross-cultural collaboration through personal experience; it also allows business students an opportunity to experience work-ing on a Global Virtual Team.

Al Kasbi said the project was part of the International Man-agement course taught at the

College of Economics & Political Science at SQU.

“When the instructor of this course, Dr James Rajasekar in-troduced this project in the class, I was very interested and enrolled in the project. The purpose of the project was to develop a business proposal for an international company based on the team members’ choice and we were trained by the instructor/global “X-culture” committee and were given hands on training,” she said.

“Also, there was a weekly guid-ance event and feedback given about the tasks that we performed on a weekly basis. The project was started by forming virtual teams, with about six members per team and each member be-ing from a different country. We then worked together for several months and used social media tools, which eased the communi-cation between us,” she added.

B E S T S T U D E N T

Farah Abdullah Amur Al Kasbi

Social media not an ‘option’ but the ‘future’

ELHAM POURMOHAMMADIelham@timesofoman.com

MUSCAT: An engagement with the audience, relevant and in-teresting content, appropriate guidelines and strategies, as well as analysis, are crucial for the suc-cessful performance of a brand on social media.

The importance of social media for business facilitation and pro-motion and some dos and don’ts

were discussed at a panel discus-sion titled “The Business of Social Media”, at the Grand Hyatt Hotel on Wednesday. The event was or-ganised by the Oman American Business Centre (OABC).

The panellists included Ad-veta Dwivedi, digital marketing manager, UMS Social; Freddie Sayers, blogger, Muscat Mutter-ings; Hashar Al Mandhari, chief executive officer, Alamah Mar-keting; Scott Armstrong, chief executive editor, Times of Oman, and Nicholla Henderson-Hall, founder and creator of the ‘Mus-cat-Where Can I Find’ Facebook group, who is also a social media coach and founder of the Learn-ing Curve Podcast.

During the discussion, moderat-ed by Rumaitha Al Busaidi, who is a blogger, radio presenter and global opinion maker, there was unanim-ity that social media is no longer an ‘option’ but is the ‘future’ so busi-nesses that are not using social media platforms are missing the opportunity to expand their market and reach out to more customers.

Companies, large and small, should convey their content and

products, and provide services to customers using social media, they said, adding that using social media did not mean only opening an account.

According to the experts, defin-ing a proper strategy for the com-pany, choosing the right social me-dia platform, developing the right content for each network, and de-

vising guidelines for the platforms are very important.

Engagement Companies should also interact with the audience, post what mat-ters to the customer, use interest-ing and attractive content, espe-cially multi-media content, and then analyse the data to measure

the contribution of social media for the performance of the busi-ness, the experts noted.

Having appropriate guidelines would also ensure that appropri-ate content is published online and would also help with crisis management on social media, they said.

Another issue that was high-lighted was the importance of changing the old mind-set and attitude and creating the belief inside an organisation at all lev-els that using social media can enhance the performance of the company.

Almost all the panellists agreed that Facebook provides a great op-portunity for ‘branding’ and will continue to be one of the most pow-erful platforms in the coming years.

However, they said that each social media network has its own target group and characteristics, and the opportunities they provide should be utilised wisely according to the nature of the business.

The panellist explained that investment of time and money is necessary for social media suc-cess, but there are certain meas-

ures that can be adopted for re-ducing the costs.

Training Employees can also be trained to contribute to social media success and there are various tools that can be easily used to measure their brand’s performance, such as Goog-le Analytics, Facebook Analytics, Twitter Analytics and LinkedIn Analytics, they said. In addition, the number of clicks, likes, comments and similar things can be moni-tored, they added.

There are useful websites, which can teach people how to de-sign their page and use social me-dia networks effectively.

In addition, the panellist empha-sised the significance of the ‘human touch’ and ‘being yourself’ on social media to start a two-way conversa-tion with the audience, finding ‘the readers’ other interests, collaborat-ing with other companies based on those interests and advertising on social media.

Hiding negative comments is not an advisable practice, but of-fensive comments can be removed, they said.

Businesses that

are not using social

media are missing

the opportunity

to expand their

markets, says

a panel of expertsTREND SPOTTERS: The importance of social media for business

facilitation and promotion and some dos and don’ts were

discussed at a panel discussion at the Grand Hyatt Hotel on

Wednesday. – AR Rajkumar/Times of Oman

A8

REGIONT H U R S DAY, O CTO B E R 2 2 , 2 0 1 5

First of all I wanted to express my huge gratitude to the whole leadership of the Russian Federation for the help they are giving to SyriaBashar Al Assad, Syrian President

Syrian president Assad flies to Moscow to thank Putin

MOSCOW: Syrian President Bashar Al Assad flew to Moscow on Tuesday evening to thank Rus-sian President Vladimir Putin personally for his military sup-port, in a surprise visit.

It was Assad’s first foreign visit since the start of the Syrian crisis in 2011, and came three weeks af-ter Russia launched a campaign of air strikes against hardline mili-tants in Syria that has also bol-stered Assad’s forces.

The Kremlin, which said it had invited Assad to visit Moscow, kept the visit quiet until Wednes-day morning, broadcasting a meeting between the two men in the Kremlin and releasing a tran-script of an exchange they had.

Putin said he hoped progress on the military front would be followed by moves towards a po-litical solution in Syria, bolstering Western hopes Moscow will use its increased influence on Damas-cus to cajole Assad into talking to his opponents.

Assad’s confidence is likely to be boosted by the visit, which comes as his forces wage counteroffen-sives in western Syria against in-surgents backed by Assad’s foreign opponent, as well as IS militants. “First of all I wanted to express my huge gratitude to the whole leader-ship of the Russian Federation for

the help they are giving to Syria,” Assad told Putin.

“If it was not for your actions and your decisions the terrorism which is spreading in the region would have swallowed up a much greater area and spread over an even greater territory.”

Russian officials have repeat-edly said they have no special loy-alty for the Syrian leader, but his audience with Putin will be seen in the West as yet another sign the Kremlin wants Assad to be part of any political solution, at least ini-tially. The visit also suggests that Russia, and not longtime ally Iran, has now emerged as Assad’s most important foreign friend.

Russian state TV made the meeting its top news item, show-ing Assad, dressed in a dark blue suit, talking to Putin, together with the Russian foreign and de-fence ministers. The Kommer-sant daily cited unnamed sources saying meetings between the two delegations had lasted over three hours. The Syrian presidency Twitter account said Assad and Putin held three rounds of talks - one of them a closed meeting and the other two including Russia’s foreign and defence ministers.

The Kremlin has cast its inter-vention in Syria, its biggest in the Middle East since the 1991 Soviet collapse, as a common sense move designed to roll back internation-al terrorism in the face of what it says is ineffective action from Washington. It is likely to use As-sad’s visit to buttress its domestic narrative that its air campaign is just and effective and to underline

its assertion that its actions show it has shaken off the Ukraine crisis to become a serious global player.

Russia has a combined force of around 50 jets and helicopters in Latakia protected by Russian marines. It also has military train-ers and advisers working with the Syrian army.

Russia’s air force says it has flown over 700 sorties against more than 690 targets in Syria since September 30. Assad, who looked relaxed, emphasised how Russia was acting according to in-ternational law, praising Moscow’s political approach to the Syrian crisis which he said had ensured it had not played out according to “a more tragic scenario”.

Ultimately, he said, the resolu-tion to the crisis was a political one. “Terrorism is a real obstacle to a political solution,” said Assad. “And of course the whole (Syrian) people want to take part in decid-

ing the fate of their state, and not just the leadership.”

Putin said Russia was ready to help find a political solution and hailed the Syrian people for stand-ing up to the militants “almost on their own”, saying the Syrian army had notched up serious battlefield success in recent times.

Sergei Shoigu, his defence min-ister, said Russia’s air support had helped the Syrian army move from defence to attack, saying Moscow would continue to pro-vide military support.

Putin said Russia had felt com-pelled to act in Syria because of the threat militants fighting As-sad’s forces there posed to its own security. “Unfortunately on Syr-ian territory there are about 4,000 people from the former Soviet Union - at a minimum - fighting government forces with weapons in their hands,” said Putin.

“We, it goes without saying, can not allow them to turn up on Russian territory after they have received battlefield experi-ence and undergone ideological instruction.”

Positive developments on the military front in Syria would pro-vide a basis for a long-term po-litical solution, involving all po-litical forces, ethnic and religious groups, said Putin. “We are ready to make our contribution not only in the course of military actions in the fight against terrorism, but during the political process,” he said, according to the transcript released by the Kremlin. “This will, of course, be in close contact with other world powers and with countries of the region which are interested in a peaceful resolution of the conflict,” Putin said.

Interfax news agency said Pu-tin briefed Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan by phone about the talks. Turkey, which supports rebels trying to overthrow Assad, said the Syrian leader should have stayed in Moscow for the sake of his country. - Reuters

It was Assad’s first

foreign visit since

the start of the Syrian

crisis in 2011, and

came three weeks

after Russia

launched air strikes

Town captured from IS joins Kurdish-led order in SyriaBEIRUT: A Syrian town captured from IS militant group by Kurdish-led forces in June joined the Kurd-ish-led political order in northern Syria on Wednesday, officials said, a move likely to deepen Turkish concerns about the Kurds’ expand-ing role just over the border.

US-led air strikesThe town of Tel Abyad was cap-tured by the Kurdish YPG militia with help from US-led air strikes.

A local leadership council in-cluding representatives of Tel Ab-yad’s Arab, Kurdish, Turkmen and Armenian communities declared it part of the system of autono-mous self government established by the Kurds, two officials who at-tended the meeting said.

Syrian Kurds have established three autonomous zones, or “cantons”, across northern Syria since the eruption of the conflict in 2011. They deny aiming to es-tablish their own state, but Tur-key is alarmed by their territo-rial gains which it fears could stir separatism among its own Kurd-ish minority.

The YPG’s capture of Tel Abyad linked up the Kurdish-controlled canton of Kobane with the bigger canton of Jazeera which is further east and borders Iraq.

DecisionWednesday’s decision formally makes Tel Abyad part of the can-ton of Kobane - a town known as Ayn Al Arab in Arabic, Omar Al-loush, an attendee of the meeting, told Reuters.

“It strengthens our ties to Kob-ane and with the other cantons that also implement the pro-gramme of the autonomous ad-ministration,” he said by phone. But he added that Tel Abyad would be self-governing. He also denied an earlier comment by a Kurdish official who said Tel Abyad had declared itself as an entirely new canton. -Reuters

D E C L A R A T I O N

SURPRISE VISIT: Russian President Vladimir Putin, second left, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, second right, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, right, and Syrian President Bashar Al Assad attend a meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow, on Wednesday. – Reuters/RIA Novosti/Kremlin

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SEND US YOUR VIEWS AND COMMENTSCBI to probe into Faridabad Dalit toddlers killing

FARIDABAD/CHANDIGARH: Under attack from the Opposition and ally Lok Janshakti Party, the Haryana government on Wednes-day recommended a CBI probe into the burning alive of a Dalit family in Faridabad by upper caste perpetrators which left two toddlers dead.

Villagers of Sunpedh, the scene of the ghastly crime, staged pro-tests throughout the day with the bodies of two-and-a-half-years-old Vaibhav and 11-month-old Divya before the administration persuaded them to lift a road blockade and perform the last rites of the little children.

“Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar has recommended a CBI probe in the incident. A SIT has also been formed which is head-ed by Deputy Commissioner of Police Puran Chand,” Khattar’s media advisor, Amit Arya said in Chandigarh.

He said four of the 11 accused have been arrested so far.

The government has an-nounced Rs 1 million as compen-sation and a job to the victims’ family, he said.

Haryana police chief Y. P. Singhal said Officer In-charge Ballabgarh Sadar Police station Anil Kumar and seven other po-licemen have been suspended for dereliction of duty in connection with the incident.

The situation in the village, some 35km from the national capital, turned volatile when the bodies where brought home. Amid the pervading gloom, wail-ing relatives received the body.

However, the sombre atmos-phere soon turned volatile as scores of slogan-shouting dalits, walking hand in hand, carried the bodies, placed it on the Delhi-Agra highway and blocked the traffic. Police had to used “mild” lathicharge to clear the high-way after which the protesters jammed a bypass.

Khattar, who was to visit the village on Wednesday postponed it for Thursday, apparently be-cause of the protests.

While Vaibhav and his sister

Divya had perished in the blaze allegedly set off by some upper caste people who had a running feud with their family on the in-tervening night of October 19-20, their mother Rekha, 28, suffered serious burns and is battling for life in a Delhi hospital.

Their father Jitender, 31, also received injuries while trying to save them. The killers were al-leged to have poured petrol into their house from an open window and set it alight after locking the doors from outside.

As tempers ran high, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi vis-ited the village where he accused the prime minister, Harayana chief minister, the BJP and RSS of practicising “politics of crush-ing” those who are weak which results in such incidents.

“This is an attitude shared by the prime minister, chief minis-ter of the state and the entire BJP and RSS. The attitude is if some-body is weak, he can be crushed.What you have seen is the result of this attitude,” Rahul said after meeting the distraught family members. - PTI

Haryana government

recommended a

CBI probe into the

burning alive of

a Dalit family in

Faridabad by upper

caste perpetrators

which left two

toddlers dead

TENSION SIMMERS: Villagers block a road during a protest against the ghastly crime in Faridabad, on Wednesday. - PTI

A10

INDIA T H U R S DAY, O CTO B E R 2 2 , 2 0 1 5

‘Pre-meditated planning’ behind Dadri lynching

NEW DELHI: The National Commission for Minorities sus-pects there was “pre-meditated planning” behind the beef lynch-ing incident in Dadri and termed “disturbing”controversial state-ments by politicians to “make capital out of such outrages”.

In an apparent criticism of BJP leaders who made controversial comments after visiting Bishada village, where 52-year-old Mohd Iqlakh was lynched over a ru-mour that he had eaten and stored beef, NCM said such statements further“vitiate” the relations be-tween different communities.

These should be stopped at all cost or “things will go out of hand”,

added NCM, which had a three-member team headed by its chair-person Naseem Ahmad making a visit to Bishada village.

“The team feels that a crowd of large numbers appearing within minutes of an announcement from temple’s loudspeaker and at a time when most villagers claimed they were asleep seems to point to some pre-meditated planning.

“The facts as reported to the NCM team point strongly that the whole episode was the result of planning in which a sacred place like temple was used for exhort-ing people of one community to attack a hapless family,” says a re-port prepared by the three-mem-ber team.

NCM said it will be “quite an understatement” to say that the killing was merely an accident “as has been claimed even by some persons in authority” — a clear reference to a statement by Un-ion Minister Mahesh Sharma and some other BJP leaders.

It added that what is more dis-turbing is that responsible persons converge at the place of any such incident and make irresponsible statements that further vitiates relations between communities.

“All the political establishments need to counsel their cadres and sympathisers to desist from mak-ing irresponsible statements and making capital out of such out-rages,” it said.

“The malaise of moral policing” is spreading fast, especially in western UP, it said while seeking vigilance of and curbs on the use of social media, claiming it was being extensively used to flare up communal passions.

The commission members in-teracted with the local adminis-tration and family members of the deceased, besides villagers, before preparing their report on the Sep-tember 28 incident that sparked nationwide outrage.

Quoting district officials, NCM noted that two more attempts were made to “incite” people by spreading rumour that a cow had been killed but police responded instantly and did not allow the

situation to escalate. Iqlakh’s fam-ily members told NCM members that there was no tension between them and other villagers before the incident.

“They claimed that the attack was sudden and vicious and the men were particularly and brutal-ly targeted and women were also assaulted and injured. They were, however, all praise for the help provided by the administration,” the report said.

Members of the majority com-munity expressed regret over the shameful incident, it noted, and promised to provide security to Muslim families but Iqlakh’s brothers said it was difficult to be ensured in the backdrop of the murder. The families of Iqlakh and his three brothers still felt vulnerable and insecure, it said.

“The NCM chairman said pro-viding security to Muslim fami-lies in the village was at this time paramount and all efforts have to be made to expedite police in-vestigation so that the guilty are brought to book quickly. He also emphasised that all assistance to the victim’s family has to be pro-vided, whether it is legal, mate-rial or emotional,” the report said. NCM has also called for reviving intelligence gathering so that such incidents are not repeated.

“It has to be revived with ut-most sincerity if we are really in-terested in restoring communal amity. It is an issue on which both the central and state authorities have to work in tandem without blaming each other,” it said. -PTI

National Commission

for Minorities said

it will be ‘quite an

understatement’ to

say that the killing

was merely an

accident ‘as has

been claimed even

by some persons

in authority’GHASTLY INCIDENT: Family members of Iqlakh, who was lynched in Dadri, with Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, addressing the media in Lucknow, recently. - PTI file photo

Indira Gandhi ‘predicted’ the next century would be Priyanka’sNEW DELHI: Indira Gandhi spoke of her granddaughter Pri-yanka as her virtual political heir shortly before her death, predict-ing that “she will shine and the next century will be hers”.

This has been revealed in the book The Chinar Leaves by veteran Congress leader M. L. Fotedar, to whom Indira Gandhi during her visit to Srinagar in October 1984 had shared her premonition that she may not live long and clearly mentioned her preference to have

Priyanka groomed to assume reins of the party.

Fotedar quoted the former prime minister as saying to him,

“People will see me in her.” The book, brought out by HarperCol-lins and is yet to be released, comes at a time when there are frequent calls within the Congress to bring Priyanka into active politics.

Fotedar, a senior member of the Congress Working Commit-tee, also recalls in his account of Congress history that while for-

mer prime minister Rajiv Gandhi had reacted happily when told of Indira’s desires about Priyanka, Sonia Gandhi has not taken kindly to what the messenger had to say.

He adds that while Rajiv Gan-dhi had responded with happiness when he brought Indira’s desires about Priyanka to his notice, Sonia had responded in quite the oppo-site manner.

The book also claims that So-nia was miffed at Fotedar when he told her about Indira’s will and

left the room in a huff as she was taken aback with her mother-in-law’s views. This, the author says, happened when he went to meet Sonia who had sought his counsel on fielding son Rahul into politics with a ticket in Amethi.

Fotedar’s about-to-be-released book documents facts about a will Indira Gandhi dictated to him two days before she died.

“I may not live long. But you must watch over her — Priyanka — as she grows,” Fotedar quotes In-

dira as telling her a few days before her death, where she shared with him how clearly she foresaw the glorious future of Priyanka.

The book also mentions that Sonia had sought Fotedar’s advice when she decided to vacate her Amethi seat for Rahul.

Fotedar says that when he hand-ed over Indira’s will dictated to him just two days before her death, “Soniaji’s face became very grim.She asked me very curtly whether this was what Indiraji had desired.”

After he replied in the affirmative and told her that every word writ-ten on that paper had been dic-tated by Indiraji and explained the circumstances in which this con-versation happened.

“I also told her that I had brought this to the notice of Rajivji who was very happy to read it.Rajivji had asked me, ‘Mummy ne aisa kaha hai?’ and then instructed me to preserve this document.

Soniaji seemed upset and left the room in a huff. - PTI

T H E C H I N A R L E A V E S

India, Russia decide to triple bilateral trade to $30 billion MOSCOW: India and Russia have discussed ways to boost their economic ties and triple their bilateral trade to $30 billion in the next decade.

External Affairs Minister Su-shma Swaraj and Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, chairing the 21st India-Russia In-ter-Governmental Consultations on Tuesday, also looked at ways to enhance the mutual direct invest-ment to $15 billion by 2025.

Both sides identified various sectors to achieve these commer-cial targets, agreed upon by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and and Russian President Vladimir Pu-tin during their summit meeting

last year. Bilateral trade in 2014 amounted to $9.51 billion, with Indian exports touching $3.17 billion and imports from Russia stood at $6.34 billion.

Agriculture, pharmaceutical and infrastructure were some of the areas identified by both sides to strengthen their economic en-gagement.

While economic agenda was one of the focus areas in the con-sultations on Wednesday, the oth-er areas deliberated upon were space, energy, culture and science and technology.

Officials said India also reit-erated its commitment to work towards having 12 Russian nu-

clear plants as was agreed be-tween Modi and Putin. Russia is an important partner for India in peaceful uses of nuclear energy.

Earlier, Swaraj interacted with top Russian Indologists.

The Indologists briefed her about their work including trans-lations of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata as well as teachings of Indian languages.

“From translations of Ramaya-na and Mahabharata to Rabindra Sangeet and teaching of Indian languages, Russian Indologists briefed the External Affairs Min-ister on their work,” spokesper-son in the Ministry of External Affairs Vikas Swarup said. - PTI

B Y 2 0 2 5

‘Job of elected politicians to uphold tolerance’

KIRNAHAR (West Bengal): In a clear message to governments, President Pranab Mukherjee on said it is the job of elected politi-cians to uphold the civilisational values of tolerance and peace-ful co-existence, comments that come against in the backdrop of recent violent incidents including the lynching and killing of people on the basis of suspicion.

“I do not give any message on any contemporary issues or any such thing. I do feel it is only poli-ticians who are responsible and whom people have elected to run their administration and form the government. That is their job to carry on the administration and governmental activities and at the same time to uphold the rich civi-lisational values of Indian culture.

“We have inherited the rich tra-ditions which have kept the vari-ous elements together,” he told In-dia Today.

This is the fourth time the Presi-dent has made public his views in less than a fortnight ever since the Dadri lynching incident.

Since then, there have been rising incidents of intolerance including killing of two men in Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir on mere suspicion and Shiv Sena’s acts of blackening the face of an author, forcing can-cellation of concert of Ghulam Ali and storming the office of Cricket Board in protest of resumption of bilateral series that aborted talks between the two sides.

The President has been talking about promotion of tolerance, ac-cepting differences and respect of dissent. - PTI

P R E S I D E N T ’ S M E S S A G E

All the political establishments need to counsel their cadres and sympathisers to desist from making irresponsible statements and making capital out of such outragesNational Commission for Minorities

A11

PAKISTANT H U R S DAY, O C TO B E R 2 2 , 2 0 1 5

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BOAT RIDE AT SUNSETA family rides on a motor boat as the sun sets at the Rawal Lake Park in Islamabad, Pakistan, on Wednesday. - Reuters

Sharif set to say ‘no’ to limits on tactical arms

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will tell US President Barack Obama this week that Islamabad will not ac-cept limits on its use of small tac-tical nuclear weapons, Pakistani officials said on Wednesday.

Pakistan insists smaller weap-ons would deter a sudden attack by its bigger neighbour India. But the United States worries tactical weapons may further destabilise an already volatile region because

their smaller size makes them more tempting to use in a conven-tional war.

Sharif and Obama are due to meet on Thursday.

Keeping options openThe United States wants Pakistan to commit to not using tactical nuclear weapons but Islamabad wants to keep its options open as a way of deterring a potential

Indian attack, said Maria Sultan, head of the South Asian Strategic Stability Institute.

Pakistan says the United States is demanding unreasonable limits on its use of nuclear weapons and not offering much in return apart from a hazy promise to consider Pakistan as a recognised recipient of nuclear technology.

For the past two years, Paki-stan has tested missiles that can

reach India’s outermost territo-ries, and very short range missiles that could be used if Indian troops cross onto Pakistani soil.

Pakistani Foreign Secretary Ai-zaz Chaudhry told state television on Tuesday this was a reaction to Indian threats to make a limited, lightning raid with conventional forces in case of militant attack, an idea known as the “Cold Start” doctrine.

“In India, they brought the cold start doctrine,” he said. “So we have also preserved our deter-rence capability.”

Nonproliferation experts worry that Pakistan’s tactical nuclear weapons may further destabilise an already volatile region.

“The smaller they (nuclear weapons) are, the more tempting it becomes to use them against a conventional force,” said nu-clear physics professor Pervez Hoodbhoy.

“The development and deploy-ment of tactical nuclear weapons is a complete change of strategy. Earlier, nuclear weapons were in-struments for deterring war, but now they’re seen as weapons for actually fighting a war.”

Maria said the United States was demanding that Pakistan in-crease its threshold for launching a nuclear attack and crack down on anti-India militants. — Reuters

Washington

worries tactical

weapons may

further destabilise

an already volatile

region because

their smaller size

makes them more

tempting to use in

a conventional war DIALOGUE: US Secretary of State John Kerry, left, meets with Paki-stan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif at Blair House in Washington on Wednesday. — Reuters

Karachi population likely to increase by 50% in 15 yearsISLAMABAD: In the next 15 years, Karachi will be the seventh most populous city of the world, forecasts a new Asian Develop-ment Bank (ADB) report, high-lighting the urgency for making strategies to manage resources and build infrastructure for trans-forming the country’s commercial hub into an engine of growth.

Karachi’s population will in-crease by 50 per cent in the next 15 years to 24.84 million, according to “Key Indicators for Asia and the Pacific 2015” report of the ADB. The statistics put the current to-tal population of the country’s largest metropolitan city at 16.62 million, making it the 12th most populous city.

Tokyo, New Delhi, Shanghai will be the top three cities of the world in terms of housing maximum number of people by 2030.

Lahore, which is currently not included in the list of 30 most pop-ulous cities, is projected to have a population of 13.03 million, mak-ing it the 27th most populous city by 2030, according to the report.

The ADB population growth forecasts are slightly lower than those projected by the previous Pakistan Peoples Party govern-ment in its Framework for Eco-nomic Growth (FEG).

Engine of growthPrepared by the Planning Com-mission, the FEG placed the urban development at the centre of eco-nomic growth, arguing that the cit-ies can become engine of growth, provided there is better planning and utilisation of resources.

The FEG showed Karachi popu-

lation at 27.9 million by 2030 and that of Lahore at 14.6 million.

Currently, the city planners have failed to cope with the grow-ing needs of the population, result-ing in unplanned development in the city, which is not catering to the needs of the people.

The ADB report says that the ur-ban population is rapidly growing. As against 34 per cent urban popu-lation in 2005, the number has grown to 38.6 per cent till last year.

Residing in citiesThe Framework for Economic Growth has projected that by 2030 half of the country’s population will be residing in cities.

According to the FEG, proximi-ty and density create large markets for goods and services. In turn, large markets build social capital, allow interactivity, nurture in-novation and entrepreneurship. Large-scale production and di-verse services demand efficiencies and specialisation. Innovation oc-curs in dense clusters, where there is intense competition.

Secondly, the FEG argues that cities are poor-friendly.

They are open to people with different backgrounds, affiliations, offer jobs and self-employment. Social mobility, from rags to rich-es, happens in cities.

However, this cannot be achieved without proper plan-ning of resources and building infrastructure.

Karachi faces challenges like commercialisation of residential properties due to complex build-ing regulations, controlled by half a dozen departments. — Express Tribune

A S I A N D E V E L O P M E N T B A N K R E P O R T

Police detain two MQM workers in KarachiKARACHI: Two workers of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), allegedly involved in nearly 21 cases of targeted killings, were arrested on Tuesday, while Rangers apprehended over half a dozen other suspects during ongo-ing targeted operations in the city.

The two MQM workers, who were later identified as Kam-ran alias Kami and Atif alias Kunni, were taken into custody in Karachi.

Federal B Industrial Area po-lice officer Naeem Khan said that the accused are affiliated with the MQM.

Khan added that Kamran con-fessed to murdering at least 14 people while Atif confessed to kill-ing nearly seven people.

“Majority of the people were killed in old city areas including Garden, Ramswami, Nabi Bux, Napier and Eidgah areas,” said the SHO. “People belonging to Sunni Tehreek and gang war were also killed by them.”

The arrests were made when the police was busy on routine snap-checking, the officer said. A bomb and a hand grenade were also seized from their possession and cases were registered against them. — Express Tribune

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Josh Rogin

One reason President Barack Obama has struggled to close the prison at Guantan-amo Bay, Cuba, is a dispute with Congres-

sional Republicans over six former prisoners who made a lot of noise in Uruguay -- and whom some see as a threat to American security.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce and others criticise the administration’s approach to the “Uruguay Six,” who were released from Guantanamo last December and relocated to Montevideo. Republicans tailored the national defence authorisation bill to limit the release of Guantanamo prisoners. If enacted it would effec-tively rob Obama of his last chance to close the prison, as he promised on his second day as presi-dent. He is expected to veto the bill.

“This is a case study of how the administration has chosen to neglect security considerations,” Royce told me in an interview. “The administra-tion appears to have placed a political goal of clos-ing the detention center ahead of the real threat these detainees pose.”

He faults the administration’s arrangement with Uruguay, which granted the six prisoners refugee status. Because Uruguay grants extensive rights to refugees, Uruguayan authorities could not monitor the detainees there. Royce argues that this violates US law, which requires former detain-ees’ host countries to mitigate the risk they pose.

Then Uruguayan president, Jose Mujica, might not have believed monitoring the released Guanta-namo prisoners was necessary.

The State Department’s special envoy for de-tainee resettlement, Clifford Sloan, wrote him a letter last December assuring him that the six men had never been terrorists.

“There is no information that the above men-tioned individuals were involved in conducting or facilitating terrorist activities against the United States or its partners or allies,” the Sloan letter stated. Royce’s staff released the letter over the ad-ministration’s objections.

That struck a different tone than the US mili-tary did in classified assessments of the Uruguay Six. The Defence Department’s Joint Task Force Guantanamo compiled reports in 2007, as revealed by Wikileaks, that stated that all the men posed a “high risk” and constituted “a likely threat to the

US, its interests, and allies.” One of the men, Adel Bin Muhammad Abbess Ouerghi, who was born in Tunisia, was reported to have high-level Al Qaeda contacts, including with Osama bin Laden, and may have had prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks.

Ian Moss, a senior adviser for the new special envoy, told me the State Department stands by the Sloan letter “because it’s true.”

The 2007 assessment revealed by Wikileaks was only one piece of the puzzle, he said. A more thorough assessment conducted by an interagency task force in 2010 found that these men were safe to release, he said, and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel signed off on it. “That rigorous interagency process collected and considered all reasonably available information concerning the detainees at Guantanamo Bay, including on the six transferred to Uruguay,” said Moss.

Congressional Republicans argue that appropri-ate security measures were not taken in Uruquay. Royce says the Uruguayan government refused to monitor the released Guantanamo prisoners, who at the time lived six blocks from the US Embassy. Royce also says that when a senior Uruguayan in-telligence official, Jose Colman, told US Embassy officials about the prohibition and they appealed to the Uruguayan president’s office, Colman was fired for insubordination. Colman declined to comment.

US Embassy officials altered security proce-dures near the embassy and asked for more local police patrols. Royce said that the six released de-tainees were seen walking past the embassy dozens of times, which raised alarms among the embassy staff. Four of the six released prisoners did set up a protest in front of the embassy in May, demanding that the US government provide them with finan-cial support. After that, President Tabare Vazquez, who succeeded Mujica in March, moved the men to a different part of town. He also made it clear Uruguay will not take any more Guantanamo pris-oners. The only sign of trouble from the men since then has been one allegation of domestic violence.

After seven years of hostility with the adminis-tration over Guantanamo, Congress is unlikely to give the president what he needs to release the 114 remaining prisoners. Concerns about the Uruguay Six have complicated this item on Obama’s to-do list, and maybe doomed it.

That would deny the president a major part of his foreign policy legacy. - Bloomberg View

US needs to stop its anti-China policiesThis refers to the online story, Chinese president says China and Britain ‘increasingly interdependent’ (October 20). Xi Jinping is very right. This fact holds true for every country as China is the top country which buys materials from all producing countries. Lately,

China’s state-cum-private companies have started investing in companies worldwide. Along with this is the pres-ence of Chinese researchers and acad-emicians in Western universities who set up collaborations with fast-improved research groups back home. In such a scenario, in my opinion, it is unwise for the US to try to bully the country with its moves in South China Sea. Such moves will destabilise Asia just as it has angered Russia over its zones of interest. — Sami Iqbal, Ruwi

Certain countries might have created the migrant crisis This refers to the online story, Migrants suffer from freezing cold, bottlenecks in Balkans (October 21). It is puzzling to see the migrants bent on reaching Europe, even in the wintry conditions. The trek through Turkey, Greece and Central Europe will soon become unbearable. It seems the chaos in their home countries is not ending or that certain countries

are behind their displacement. It is quite possible non-state actors in these countries have created the mess for their own ulterior motives. — Roger Morris, Muscat

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Dates palm cultivation reflects HM’s views, says RowahiMUSCAT: Dr Ahmed bin Khalfan Al Rowahi, minister of agriculture and fisheries, said the government’s strategy con-cerning the dates palm trees translates His Majesty Sultan Qaboos’s concern over the protection of the tree. He said the dates palm trees had been cherished by the Omani citizen as part of his life for a long period of time, and continued to be a source of food, furniture and fuel and personal income.

1836: Sam Houston sworn in as the first president of the Repub-lic of Texas. 1918: The cities of Baltimore and Washington run out of coffins dur-ing the “Spanish Inflenza” epidemic.

1964: Jean Paul Satre declines the Nobel Prize for Literature.

2005: Tropical Storm Alpha forms, making 2005 the most ac-tive Atlantic hurricane season on record with 22 named storms.

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If the Liberals feel compelled by public opinion to tackle, early

on, the more controversial issues they ran on then the argument

that Canada is a progressive country at heart, long thwarted by a prime minister who wasn’t,

will acquire some meaningbit.ly/testforjustintrudeau

CHRISTOPHER FLAVELLE

Think of the Republican field as a series of lanes. In this race, there are four: establishment, tea party, social conservative

and libertarian. They are not of equal size: Establishment biggest,

followed by tea party, social conservative and then libertarian

bit.ly/republicansraceaslanes

FRANCIS WILKINSON

The decision by a upholding most of the assault weapons

bans passed by New York and Connecticut is a win for gun-

control advocates. But the unanimous decision nevertheless

points to potential trouble for similar laws should they ever be reviewed by US Supreme Court

bit.ly/usgunlawcomplications

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According to Escape Game Orlando, the rooms’

roots are in video games, with the basic idea

of trapping a player in a single location first

appearing in the 1988 game ‘Behind Closed Doors’

WASHINGTON: Dental lab tech-nician Jon Choi and his friends celebrated his birthday this month under pressure: they were locked together in a small “escape room” and had to solve a series of puzzles to achieve their freedom within 60 minutes. They finally made it out with one minute to spare. Choi avidly plays computer games with the same set-up, but had never vis-ited a physical escape room before. The experience was both fun and tough enough that he is now plan-ning to try other similar rooms.

He has plenty of options. Escape rooms are the latest entertainment phenomena to seize the United States, where people break out of locked rooms using their smarts, or any that the friends, fam-ily members or strangers interred with them may possess.

There are more than 100 across the country, according to the Es-cape Room Directory, charging be-tween $20 and $30 for the experi-ence. In an era when socializing no longer requires real-time conver-sation and the answers to all life’s questions are a screen-tap away, those seeking to connect with oth-ers in person and use their own knowledge for intellectual chal-lenges find the rooms refreshing.

ConceptThe concept has captivated Amer-icans so much that the Science Channel created the game show “Race to Escape” around it.

Themes of the independently-owned rooms vary from place to place. In Pittsburgh, families are encouraged to share “bonding

time” in the “Prison Escape” room.In Los Angeles, players can re-

live their city’s Raymond Chan-dler past in a room called “The Detective.” Once the door is closed and the timer set, the first puzzle emerges. Its solution leads to the next puzzle. Clues are tucked all over the room, some in plain sight

and others in secret compart-ments. Step by step, players solve the overarching mystery of the room. For Choi and his friends at Escape Room Live in Alexandria, Virginia, that mystery revolved around fictional detective Sher-lock Holmes.

“We looked up at the time and

there was 10 minutes left and I was like, ‘God!’” said Andew Kim, who was shocked when they finally cracked the mystery.

According to Escape Game Or-lando, the rooms’ roots are in video games, with the basic idea of trap-ping a player in a single location first appearing in the 1988 game

Behind Closed Doors. A real-life room opened in Kyoto

in 2007 and the trend soon spread throughout Asia and Europe, ac-cording to the company.

When Ginger Flesher-Sonnier started Escape Room Live a year ago in Washington, DC with a se-cret agent-themed room, she was surprised by the demand. Within three weeks, Flesher-Sonnier, a former math teacher, had to cre-ate a second room at the site and within nine months she opened the Alexandria location featuring two Holmes-themed rooms.

In August alone, 6,000 people visited both Escape Room Live locations. So many people have tramped through that, after rent and salaries, prop storage has become the company’s biggest expense. It must have exact dupli-cates of all the puzzle objects ready to swap in every few weeks.

Flesher-Sonnier estimates 60 per cent of visitors are millennials.

Corporate team-building pro-vides many customers and three men have popped the question by having engagement rings hidden in puzzles.

Few players solve the mysteries in time without getting hints from the game masters who monitor and run the rooms. They have seen that the puzzles bring out all sorts of quirks in people’s personalities and relationships. “I think stran-gers work the best. The reason why is you can’t get mad at a stranger,” the manager of the Alexandria lo-cation, Hop Dang, said. “Families — they don’t hold back.”

Dang attended his first escape room a year ago, thinking, “why am I paying someone to lock me in a room?” Now he often dreams at night about secret doors and hid-den objects. The world tends to look different to people once they have escaped, Dang said.

“Every thing that you see, you’re going to try to open.” - Reuters

The concept has

captivated Americans

so much that the

Science Channel

created the game

show ‘Race to

Escape’ around it

ENGROSSED: People work to find clues and solve puzzles to escape from a Sherlock Holmes-themed escape room in Alexandria. - Reuters

FIRST CLUE: The first clue is shown from a Sherlock Holmes-

themed escape room in Alexandria. - Reuters

NEW PHENOMENA: Dang, the manager of Escape Room Live, speaks

to people before they enter an escape room in Alexandria. Escape

rooms are the latest entertainment phenomena to seize the United

States, where people break out of locked rooms using their smarts,

or any that the friends, family members or strangers interred with

them may possess. Picture taken October 17, 2015. - Reuters

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SOLVING PUZZLES: People work to find clues to escape from an

escape room in Alexandria. - Reuters

ESCAPE ROOM: The door bearing the number 221B, is shown from a

Sherlock Holmes-themed escape room in Alexandria. - Reuters

‘ESCAPE ROOMS’ CHALLENGE AMERICANS

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DEMAND: Iraq’s new premier Haider Al Abadi sits during a

parliamentary session to vote on Iraq’s new government at the

parliament headquarters in Baghdad, Iraq in this September 8,

2014 file photo. – Reuters Files

Students, police clash in South Africa

CAPE TOWN: South African riot police fired stun grenades on Wednesday at hundreds of pro-testing students who stormed the parliament precinct in Cape Town to try to disrupt the reading of Fi-nance Minister Nhlanhla Nene’s interim budget.

As chaos erupted around the building, Nene, standing calmly at the podium inside the cham-ber, continued to read his speech, in which he outlined the gloomy outlook for Africa’s most advanced economy.

The speech was delayed by 45 minutes as MPs from the opposi-tion Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party raised multiple ques-tions of order, arguing the budget

should be delayed because of stu-dent protests over a hike in tuition fees. Scuffles broke out as par-liamentary security guards were eventually called in to remove the EFF members by force.

At that point, pandemonium

broke out as hundreds of stu-dents demanding the government scrap planned increases in tui-tion fees stormed the parliament compound.

“We were pushed back by po-lice with force. The stun grenade

was shot right next to my ear. I still have the buzzing in my ear,” said Motheo Lengoasa, a student at University of Cape Town as others chanted and sang songs demand-ing the fees be reduced.

Earlier she was assisted by fel-

low students after lying prostate on the ground in front of the en-trance to the National Assembly where Nene was speaking.

Soweto uprising“This looks like 1976 all over again,” she said referring to the Soweto uprising where police killed at least 69 students who were protesting against plans to teach them in Afrikaans.

Many of South Africa’s universi-ties have been hit in the past week by the student protests, some of them violent.

President Jacob Zuma, who wore a stony expression through Nene’s speech, has not comment-ed on the protests. Many students will have no recollection of apart-heid and thus little emotional al-legiance to the ruling African Na-tional Congress.

South African universities initially wanted to increase tui-tion fees by up to 11.5 per cent, prompting students to launch their protest campaign on October 13. Critics say the move will fur-ther disadvantage black students, who are already relatively under- represented.

The protesters — who include

white learners — have rejected a proposal from some student lead-ers, university dons and Higher Education Minister Blade Nzi-mande to cap fee increases at 6 per cent for 2016, just above infla-tion. At least 14 universities are involved in the demonstrations, which have led to the suspension of some classes.

University bosses said the in-creases were needed to maintain standards, and called on the gov-ernment to find the extra funding.

“We need to find a sustainable way of dealing with the issue of fi-nancing education in general, and in this instance because of the cri-sis we are facing, we do need to find a solution,” Nene told reporters be-fore reading his speech.

DeficitIn his budget speech, Nene cut his deficit estimate for the year 2015/16 marginally to 3.8 per cent of GDP from 3.9 per cent forecast in February.

The deficit is projected to nar-row further to 3.3 per cent in 2016/17 before reaching 3 per cent in 2018/19.

Nene said the economic growth forecast for 2015 had also been cut to 1.5 per cent from 2.0 per-cent forecast in February. “Elec-tricity supply constraints, falling commodity prices and lower con-fidence levels have resulted in our growth forecasts being revised lower,” he told parliament. — Reuters

Police fired

stun grenades

on Wednesday

at hundreds of

protesting students

who stormed the

parliament precinct

in Cape Town

Iraq’s ruling alliance,

militias urge Abadi to

seek Russian strikes

BAGHDAD: Iraq’s ruling alli-ance and powerful militias have urged Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi to request Russian air strikes on IS militants, who con-trol large parts of the country, members of the coalition and mi-litias told Reuters.

Growing pressure on Abadi to seek Russian support puts him in the delicate position of trying to appease his ruling coalition, as well as militias seen as a bulwark against IS, while keeping strate-gic ally Washington on his side.

America’s top general, Joseph Dunford, said on a trip to Bagh-dad on Tuesday that the United States won assurances from Iraq that it would not seek such strikes. Dunford, on his first visit to Iraq since becoming chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Oc-tober 1, said Abadi and Iraqi De-fence Minister Khaled Al Obeidi both told him they were not seek-ing Russia’s help.

SpeculationSpeculation has grown that Rus-sia could expand its campaign to Iraq, where Abadi and militias have expressed frustration with the pace and depth of the US campaign against IS.

Two members of parliament said the prime minister was un-der “tremendous pressure” from the ruling National Alliance to request Russian intervention.

Iraq received over $20 billion in US military training since 2003 but its army virtually col-lapsed when IS militants swept through the north last year and made gains in the west.

US-led air strikes have failed to turn the tide in the war against the ultra-hardline militants who have declared a caliphate and want to redraw the map of the Middle East.

MPs and alliance members

said an official request for Rus-sian air strikes was relayed to Abadi last week and that he has not officially responded.

“Abadi told the meeting par-ties that it wasn’t the right time to include the Russians in the fight because that would only complicate the situation with the Americans and could have unde-sired consequences even on long-term future relations with Amer-ica,” said a senior politician close to Abadi.

Abadi’s spokesman said he has not discussed air strikes with Russia. At the same time he was “not ruling out any side that could provide support to Iraq,” Saad Al Hadithi said. During his visit, Dunford pledged to seek new ways to build momentum against Islamic State and challenged descriptions of the conflict as a stalemate, after an advance which secured most of the strate-gic Baiji oil refinery.

Russia, Iran, Syria and Iraq have formed a Baghdad-based intelligence cell to boost efforts to counter Islamic State. The cell has already shared intelligence for air strikes in Iraq and Syria.

Karim Al Nuri, a Badr Bri-gade spokesman, said an Iranian member of the intelligence-shar-ing cell had helped in the Baiji refinery operation. That account was confirmed by an official from the Asaib Ahl Al Haq militia.

The US-led coalition said in a statement it had conducted more than 130 air strikes to support operations around Baiji since August 1 and said its relationship with Iraq “is as strong as ever”.

Muen Al Kadhimi, a senior aide to the leader of the Badr Brigade militia, said Russia had proven more decisive in its air campaign in Syria than the Americans so it was only natural to seek Mos-cow’s help in Iraq. — Reuters

I N S U R G E N C Y

UP IN ARMS: Students from the University of Cape Town clash with members of the South African

Police Services after they forced their way into the South African Parliament in Cape Town on Wednes-

day. – AFP

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Typhoon Koppu weakens in Philippines; toll hits 58

CASIGURAN (PHILIPPINES): A typhoon that dumped heavy rains on the northern Philip-pines, killing 58 people as it flat-tened houses and destroyed crops, was petering out on Wednesday, weather officials said.

Typhoon Koppu weakened from a tropical depression into a low pressure area, but authorities maintained a warning to ferries and fishermen on three northern islands not to go to sea.

LandslidesRaging floodwaters and landslides triggered by the typhoon in the main Philippine island of Luzon caused most of the deaths, Romina Marasigan, a spokeswoman for the national disaster agency, .

More than 100,000 people are still in temporary shelters as Koppu destroyed more than $141.63 million (6.57 billion pesos) worth of crops, infrastructure and homes.

“We were terrified and prayed as we stayed under a table for hours after strong winds blew away the roof and walls of our house,” said

one survivor, Andres Subang, 72, wiping away tears as he told of how his family made it through the disaster.

“I have experienced countless typhoons in my lifetime, but this was the worst.

It left nothing, we have no food and no more livelihood.”

Farm officials said flooding destroyed 5 per cent of expected fourth-quarter production in rice-producing provinces. — Reuters

Raging floodwaters

and landslides

triggered by the

typhoon in the main

Philippine island of

Luzon caused most

of the deaths, said

a spokeswoman

for the national

disaster agency

ESCAPE: Typhoon victims are transported on farm tractors and a truck along a flooded portion of a highway in Zaragoza, Nueva Ecija in

northern Philippines on Tuesday, after the province was hit by Typhoon Koppu. - Reuters

MANILA: The husband of a woman working at a Chinese consulate in the Philippines shot dead the deputy consul general and a senior staff member at a birthday lunch on Wednesday and wounded the consul general, police said.

In a bizarre drama police have yet to unravel, waiters at a popular Filipino-food restau-rant in the central city of Cebu

said they heard shouting from a private room but could not understand what the argument was about, officers said.

GunshotsMinutes later they heard gunshots.

Consul General Song Ronghua was rushed to hos-pital, Chief Superintendent Prudencio Banas said, adding

that the Chinese suspect, Li Qing Liang, was arrested and his wife, Guo Jing, who works in the visa section, was held for questioning.

It was not immediately clear whose birthday was being celebrated. Police, who sup-plied the English names of the suspects and victims, earlier said Guo Jing was the main suspect. — Reuters

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Former chiefof investment is new Saudi envoy to USRIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s new ambassador to the United States is Prince Abdullah bin Faisal bin Turki Al Saud, a Brit-ish-educated former head of the kingdom’s investment authority and of a commission on indus-trial cities, state media reported on Wednesday.

The seven-decade-old alli-ance between Washington and Riyadh, one of the most endur-ing pillars of the Middle East’s strategic architecture, has been strained in recent years by disa-greements over the aftermath of the Arab Spring uprisings.

However, the United States remains an irreplaceable part-ner for Saudi Arabia as its main security guarantor and defence supplier. Washington in turn, despite its own low imports of Saudi oil, sees stability in the world’s top crude exporter as es-sential for the world economy.

Born in 1951, Prince Abdul-lah, known by his initials AFT during his stint as governor of the Saudi Arabian General In-vestment Authority (SAGIA) from 2000-2004, was a familiar figure among Western business-men and diplomats.

His tenure at SAGIA coin-cided with the kingdom’s most ambitious period of economic reforms, during which it nego-tiated accession to the World Trade Organisation and opened swathes of its closeted economy to foreign and private investors.

Previously, he had overseen the development of Saudi Ara-bia’s two main industrial cities as Secretary General of the Roy-al Commission for Jubail and Yanbu from 1985. — Reuters

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Khamenei approves nuclear deal

ANKARA: Supreme Leader Aya-tollah Ali Khamenei on Wednesday approved the Iranian government’s nuclear deal with world powers but said Tehran should not give up core elements of its atomic programme

until allegations of past military di-mensions had been settled.

In a letter to President Hassan Rouhani, whose pragmatist ap-proach opened the door to nuclear diplomacy with the West, Khame-

nei ordered the July 14 agreement to be implemented, subject to cer-tain security conditions the Ira-nian parliament stipulated in a law passed last week.

Under the Vienna agreement, Iran is to curb sensitive parts of its nuclear programme to help ensure it cannot be diverted into developing bombs, in exchange for a removal of sanctions that have isolated the Islamic Republic and hobbled its economy.

Last procedural hurdleKhamenei’s green light was the last procedural hurdle to carrying out a deal that ended a decade-long stand-off which raised fears of a wider Middle East war.

But the Supreme Leader has

ruled out any detente with the West beyond the nuclear deal, and he said Iran would stop imple-menting it if the six powers — the United States, Britain, France, Germany China and Russia — im-posed any new sanctions.

“Any comments suggesting the sanctions structure will remain in place or (new) sanctions will be imposed, at any level and under any pretext, would be (considered by Iran) a violation of the deal,” Khamenei said in the letter pub-lished on his website.

He said implementation of the deal should be “tightly controlled and monitored” because of some “ambiguities” in it.

“Lack of tight control could bring significant damage for the present

and the future of the country,” he said, while praising the efforts of Rouhani’s negotiating team.

The United States and the Eu-ropean Union took formal legal steps on Sunday that will rescind sanctions once Iran meets cer-tain conditions such as reducing the number of centrifuges used to enrich uranium, and its enriched-uranium stockpile.

Another condition will be a resolution of a UN nuclear watch-dog inquiry into whether Iran conducted atom bomb research at a military complex in the past — “possible military dimensions (PMD)” to the programme, as the agency terms it.

On that point, Khamenei said that until UN inspectors settled the

PMD issue, Iran should delay send-ing its stockpile of enriched ura-nium abroad and reconfiguring a heavy water reactor to ensure it can-not make bomb-grade plutonium.

The International Atomic Ener-gy Agency finished collecting sam-ples from Iran’s Parchin military complex earlier this month and is expected to announce its conclu-sions on PMD by December 15.

Iran has long denied covertly re-searching bombs and says its nu-clear programme has always been for civilian energy purposes.

“Any action regarding Arak (re-actor) and dispatching uranium abroad... will take place after the PMD (possible military dimen-sions) file is closed,” Khamenei said in the letter. - Reuters

The Iranian Supreme Leader ordered

the July 14 nuclear agreement to be

implemented, subject to certain security

conditions the Iranian parliament

stipulated in a law passed last week

Migrants face freezing

cold at Balkans border

LJUBLJANA (Slovenia): About 3,500 migrants spent the night camped out in freezing cold at the Berkasovo-Bapska border crossing between Serbia and Croatia after the Croatian gov-ernment closed the gates to limit the number of people entering the country.

At first light on Thursday, groups of refugees bypassed the of-ficial border crossing and walked through orchards into Croatia.

“Babies crying, women cry-ing, we were burning big fires, but it was very cold, no one gave us food, only some bread,” said a man named Sayed, who had made it to the border from the Syrian capital of Damascus.

The crossing is one of the new focal points of Europe’s biggest refugee and migrant crisis since World War II, which has seen hundreds of thousands of people fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and Africa this year to try to reach Europe’s rich coun-tries. Hungary sealed its border with Croatia last week, blocking entry with a metal fence and ra-zor wire. Croatia began directing migrants west to Slovenia, which has tried to stem the flow as mi-grants sought new routes and hu-man bottlenecks built up through the Balkans.

Most want to continue their journey on to Austria and Ger-

many, the preferred destination for most.

Extraordinary meetingBoth Slovenia and Hungary are part of Europe’s passport-free Schengen Area while Croatia is not. With many now trapped in deteriorating conditions in the Balkans, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker called an extraordinary meeting of several European leaders to take place on Sunday.

The commission said in a statement on Wednesday that Juncker had invited the lead-ers of Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Romania, Serbia and Slovenia.

“In view of the unfolding emer-gency in the countries along the Western Balkans migratory route, there is a need for much greater cooperation, more exten-sive consultation and immediate operational action,” the commis-sion said. More than 20,000 mi-grants have arrived in Slovenia since Saturday morning in order to pass through to Austria. - Reuters

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Vatican denies report

Pope has brain tumour

VATICAN CITY: The Vatican de-nied an Italian newspaper report on Wednesday that Pope Francis has a benign brain tumour, say-ing the 78-year-old pontiff was in good health and denouncing the article as “inexcusable”.

In one of three increasingly tough denials issued as the story spread around the world, the Vat-ican called the report in Quotidi-ano Nazionale daily “a grave act of irresponsibility, absolutely in-excusable and unconscionable”.

Francis held his weekly general audience before tens of thousands of people in St. Peter’s Square and

afterwards returned to a three-week gathering of bishops, which he has been attending daily.

Quotidiano Nazionale reported on its front page on Wednesday that a Japanese doctor and his team had secretly flown from Tuscany to the Vatican on a heli-copter bearing the Holy See’s white-and-yellow flag to examine the Pope “some months ago”.

“I am able to confirm that the Pope is in good health,” chief spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said in a statement he read out during a news confer-ence on another topic. - Reuters

Q U O T I D I A N O N A Z I O N A L E D A I L Y

MARKEWWW.TIMESOFOMAN.COMT H U R S DAY, O CTO B E R 2 2 , 2 0 1 5B

Muscat

5,918.43 - 1.61

- 0.03%

Dubai

3,648.68- 33.84

- 0.92%

Abu Dhabi

4,543.21- 41.65

- 0.91%

Saudi Arabia

7,496.63- 193.13

- 2.51%

Kuwait

5,793.41- 11.51

- 0.20%

Bahrain

1,252.20 + 3.30

+ 0.26%

Qatar

11,627.20- 128.05

- 1.09%

CURRENCY RATES* DRAFT RATES (OMR1)* GOLD PRICES*Forex rates vs OMR1*

US Dollar ................................. 2.58

Euro ............................................2.26

Pound ........................................... 1.67

Indian Rs .............................169.03

Pak Rs ....................................266.74

Bangla Taka.......................199.48* Rates are as of Oct. 21

Source: Bank Muscat

Indian Rs ..................................169.00

Pakistan Rs ............................ 269.50

Sri Lanka Rs .......................... 362.30

Bangla Taka.............................201.70

Phil Peso ...................................120.00

* Rates as of Oct. 21 Source: Oman UAE Exchange

Muscat 24ct per gm (OMR) .......15.00

Muscat 22ct per gm (OMR) .......14.55

Dubai 24ct per gm (Dh) .............141.25

Dubai 22ct per gm (Dh) .............134.25

* Rates as of Oct. 21

Source: Malabar Gold & Diamonds

Type ............................Delivery...........Price

Oman Crude ............. (Spot) .........$44.74

Dubai Crude ............. (Spot) .........$44.19

Murban Crude ........ (Spot) ........ $45.73

Arabian Light ......... (Spot) ........$44.82

N.Sea Brent ............... (Spot) ........$48.20

West Texas Int ....... (Spot) ........$45.58

CRUDE OIL PRICE

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Omantel-du tie-up for Internet protocol television platform

Times News Service

MUSCAT: Oman Telecommuni-cations Company (Omantel), the largest telecom operator in the Sultanate, has signed a partner-ship agreement with the United Arab Emirate’s du, to provide In-ternet Protocol television (IPTV) service platform in Oman.

Through this regional first tie-up between the operators, Om-antel will be able to launch IPTV service in its local market using

du’s IPTV platform, thereby re-ducing its time-to-market and of-fering its customers a world-class IPTV experience.

The partnership agreement provides an opportunity for du to expand the regional reach of its IPTV platform.

“We strive to further enhance

our leadership of digitalisation in the Sultanate through different aspects. We are pleased to enter into this partnership agreement with du which will enable us to offer our customers state-of-the-art IPTV service,” said Talal Said Marhoon Al Mamari, chief executive officer of Oman Tel-

ecommunications Company. “As the owner of Oman’s largest

IP network, we believe IPTV pro-vides a unique opportunity to offer our customers unmatched broad-cast quaality for on-demand enter-tainment services,” he explained.

Regional player“Our partnership with Omantel marks a significant step for us as we continue in our steadfast growth throughout the region. We are now a regional ICT player, having diversified from pure tel-ecommunications, and we are ex-panding our offerings for regional incumbents,” said Osman Sultan, chief executive officer of du.

This new partnership is demon-strative of the collaboration po-tential between regional operators that can reduce costs, and create a new order where operators do not have to build infrastructure from scratch, but can rely on partners to launch new services and sharing best practices and offerings.

Through the regional

tie-up between the

operators, Omantel

will be able to launch

Internet protocol

TV service platform

in Oman using du’s

platform

PARTNERS IN PROGRESS: The partnership agreement between

Omantel and UAE’s du provides an opportunity for du to expand

the regional reach of its IPTV platform. - Supplied picture

HAVE YOUR SAY Send us your comments at facebook.com/timesofoman blog.timesofoman.com haveyoursay@timesofoman.com

E N E R G Y M A R K E T

We strive to further

enhance our leadership

of digitalisation in

the Sultanate through

different aspects. We

are pleased to enter

into this partnership

agreement with du,

which will enable us

to offer our customers

state-of-the-art IPTV

service

Talal Said Marhoon Al MamariChief executive officer, Omantel

Five non-Opec member states attend Vienna conferenceVIENNA: Only five non-Opec countries have sent representatives to a meeting of Opec and non-Opec oil market experts that began on Wednesday at the petroleum ex-porter group’s Vienna headquarters.

The Organisation of the Petro-leum Exporting Countries (Opec) had invited eight non-member na-tions including Russia for talks on the market.

Of the non-Opec countries in-vited, Mexico, Russia, Colombia, Kazakhstan and Brazil are under-stood to have sent representatives.

Non-Opec producers have re-fused to work with Opec in cutting supply to reduce a surplus that has prompted oil prices to sink to be-low $50 a barrel from $115 in June 2014. In turn, Opec has refused to limit supply alone and many of its members have raised output.

The meeting is not expected to increase the prospect of coop-eration on supply curbs or show much support for a price band proposed by Opec member Ven-ezuela. “There will be an exchange of views, discussion of the market and the Opec secretariat’s presen-tation, but I don’t think there will be an agreement to coordinate,” an Opec delegate said. Opec’s next meeting is on December 4. - Reuters

B2

MARKETT H U R S DAY, O CTO B E R 2 2 , 2 0 1 5

MUSCATSECURITIES MARKET

SHARE PRICE BULLETIN FOR WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 21

REGULAR MARKET .........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................OM0000004933 ...........AL SUWADI POWER ....................................................95,378 ............ 20,983......................11 ........... 0.220 ...........0.220 ...........0.220 .......... 0.220 ............. 0.215............ 0.005 ............. 2.326 ................0.220 ............. 0.215...................0.220 ................. 157,169,395 ........0.100

OM0000003711 ............SOHAR POWER ............................................................ 648,040 ........ 242,224........................6 ........... 0.370 ........... 0.374 ...........0.370 ........... 0.374 .............0.368 ........... 0.006 ............. 1.630 ................0.374 ..............0.372...................0.376 ................... 82,657,740 .........0.100

OM0000002028 ...........GULF INTERNATIONAL CHEMICALS ..............10,250 ............... 2,931........................2 ........... 0.284 ...........0.286 ...........0.284 .......... 0.286 .............0.284 ........... 0.002 ............. 0.704 ................0.286..............0.284...................0.288 ...................6,006,000 ..........0.100

OM0000001483 ............NATIONAL BANK OF OMAN ................................. 222,386 ............ 67,516........................7 ........... 0.304 ...........0.304 ...........0.300 .......... 0.304 .............0.304 ........... 0.000 .............0.000 ................0.300 ............ 0.300...................0.310 ..................407,575,916 ........0.100

OM0000001517 ............HSBC BANK OMAN .................................................... 169,041 .............19,947........................4 ............0.118 ........... 0.118............ 0.118 ............0.118 ............. 0.118 ............ 0.000 .............0.000 ................ 0.118 .............. 0.118...................0.120 ................. 236,036,909 .......0.100

OM0000002820 ...........GULF INVESTMENT SERVICES ......................... 250,500 ........... 25,546........................8 ............0.101 ........... 0.102 ...........0.101 ........... 0.102 .............0.102 ........... 0.000 .............0.000 ................0.102 ..............0.102...................0.103 ....................6,002,008 ..........0.100

OM0000003026 ...........OMAN TELECOMMUNICATION ........................ 791,759 .......1,286,873..................... 29 ............1.625 ........... 1.630 ...........1.625 ............1.625 ............. 1.625 ............ 0.000 .............0.000 ................1.625 .............. 1.625...................1.630 ................ 1,218,750,000 ......0.100

OM0000003125 ............GLOBAL FINANCIAL INVESTMENT ................. 30,000 ...............3,000........................2 ........... 0.100 ........... 0.100 ...........0.100 ........... 0.100 .............0.100 ........... 0.000 .............0.000 ................0.100 .............. 0.101...................0.104.................. 20,000,000 ........0.100

OM0000003398 ...........BANK SOHAR................................................................ 162,853 ........... 28,499........................3 ............0.175 ........... 0.175............0.175 ............0.175 ............. 0.175 ............ 0.000 .............0.000 ................0.175 .............. 0.173................... 0.175 ................. 252,252,000 .......0.100

OM0000003521 ............GALFAR ENGINEERING AND CON. .................. 756,730............ 64,392..................... 62 ........... 0.084 ........... 0.086 ...........0.084........... 0.085 .............0.085 ........... 0.000 .............0.000 ................0.085 ..............0.085...................0.086...................24,648,354.........0.100

OM0000003661 ............VOLTAMP ENERGY ................................................................7 ....................... 3........................ 1 ........... 0.428 ........... 0.428 ...........0.428........... 0.440 .............0.440 ........... 0.000 .............0.000 ................0.428..............0.430...................0.440 ..................26,620,000.........0.100

OM0000003968 ...........OOREDOO....................................................................... 200,000......... 151,400........................6 ............0.756 ........... 0.760 ...........0.756 ............0.756 ............. 0.756............ 0.000 .............0.000 ................0.760 .............. 0.752...................0.760 ..................492,113,838 ........0.100

OM0000004925 ...........AL BATINAH POWER .................................................... 5,000 ............... 1,075........................ 1 ............0.215 ........... 0.215 ...........0.215 ............0.215 ............. 0.215............ 0.000 .............0.000 ................0.215 .............. 0.215...................0.220 ................. 145,100,797 ........0.100

OM0000002796 ...........BANK MUSCAT ............................................................ 950,651 ...........511,396..................... 90 ........... 0.540 ...........0.544 ...........0.536 ........... 0.538 .............0.540 ...........-0.002 ........... -0.370 ...............0.538 ..............0.538...................0.540 ............... 1,233,000,557 ......0.100

OM0000005005 ...........ALMAHA CERAMICS ..................................................13,300 ...............6,395........................3 ........... 0.482 ........... 0.482 ...........0.480........... 0.480 .............0.482 ...........-0.002 ............-0.415................0.480..............0.480...................0.482 ..................25,200,000 ........0.100

OM0000003141 ............ACWA POWER BARKA .............................................. 20,000 ............ 16,400........................ 1 ........... 0.820 ...........0.820 ...........0.820........... 0.820 .............0.824 ...........-0.004 ........... -0.485 ...............0.820............. 0.000...................0.820 .................131,200,000........0.100

OM0000001160 ............NATIONAL GAS ............................................................. 11,500 ................3,611........................3 ............0.314 ........... 0.314 ...........0.314 ........... 0.314 ............. 0.316............-0.002 ........... -0.633 ...............0.314 .............. 0.312...................0.314 ...................15,700,000 .........0.100

OM0000001525 ............OMAN INVESTMENT AND FINANCE .............. 339,359 ...........62,900..................... 28 ............0.185 ........... 0.187 ...........0.182 ............0.185 ............. 0.187............-0.002 ........... -1.070................0.182 .............. 0.183...................0.188 ...................37,000,000 .........0.100

OM0000003224 ...........RENAISSANCE SERVICES ..................................... 293,030 ........... 51,280......................31 ............0.175 ........... 0.175............0.175 ............0.175 ............. 0.177 ............-0.002 ............-1.130 ................0.175 .............. 0.175................... 0.176 ...................50,863,929 .........0.100

OM0000004768 ...........AL MADINA TAKAFUL ............................................. 236,000 ........... 20,066........................8 ........... 0.086 ........... 0.086 ...........0.085 ........... 0.085 .............0.086 ...........-0.001 ............-1.163 ................0.085 ..............0.084...................0.085...................14,875,000 .........0.100

OM0000001772 ............AL ANWAR HOLDING............................................... 715,400 ......... 132,575..................... 66 ............0.191 ........... 0.191 ............0.184 ............0.185 ............. 0.191 ............-0.006 ............-3.141 ................0.185 .............. 0.185...................0.188 ................... 27,763,875 .........0.100

OM0000001962 ............AL MADINA INVESTMENT ................................... 100,000 ..............5,854........................5 ........... 0.059 ........... 0.059 ...........0.058 ........... 0.059 ............. 0.061............-0.002 ........... -3.279 ...............0.058 ..............0.058...................0.060 ..................12,221,932 .........0.100

OM0000001319 ............NATIONAL ALUMINIUM PRODUCTS ............. 350,600 ........... 73,868..................... 32 ........... 0.209 ........... 0.215 ...........0.209 ...........0.211 ............. 0.219............-0.008 ........... -3.653 ...............0.210 ..............0.210...................0.214 .................... 7,083,576 ..........0.100

.............................................SUM: .................................................................................. 6,371,784 ...2,798,733...................409 .............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

........................................................................................................................................... TRADED SEC. ......23........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

PARALLEL MARKET ................................................................................................................................................................................. OM0000001368 ............CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS IND. ....................42,635 ............... 1,492........................5 ........... 0.035 ........... 0.035 ...........0.035 ........... 0.035 .............0.035 ........... 0.000 .............0.000 ................0.035 ..............0.035...................0.036....................2,975,000 ..........0.100

OM0000002564 ...........AL HASSAN ENGINEERING...................................... 2,700 .................. 246........................2 ............0.091 ........... 0.091 ...........0.091 ............0.091 ............. 0.091............ 0.000 .............0.000 ................0.091 ..............0.086...................0.091 ....................6,843,928 ..........0.100

OM0000004420 ...........BANK NIZWA ................................................................ 3,008,089...... 225,736..................... 53 ............0.075 ........... 0.076 ...........0.074 ........... 0.075 .............0.075 ........... 0.000 .............0.000 ................0.074 ..............0.074...................0.075 ..................112,500,000 ........0.100

OM0000005963 ...........PHOENIX POWER ...................................................... 515,095 ..............77,411..................... 46 ............0.150 ........... 0.152 ...........0.150 ........... 0.150 ............. 0.151 ............-0.001 ........... -0.662 ............... 0.151 ...............0.151...................0.152 ..................219,390,219 ........0.100

OM0000004511 ............ALIZZ ISLAMIC BANK.............................................. 118,227 ...............8,190......................13 ........... 0.070 ........... 0.070 ...........0.069........... 0.069 .............0.070 ...........-0.001 ........... -1.429 ...............0.069 ..............0.069...................0.070...................69,000,000.........0.100

OM0000001053 ............OMAN TEXTILE HOLDING ..................................... 13,602 ...............4,941......................13 ........... 0.366 ........... 0.366 ...........0.362........... 0.364 .............0.378 ...........-0.014 ........... -3.704 ...............0.362..............0.356...................0.362 ...................2,184,000 ..........1.000

.............................................SUM: .................................................................................. 3,700,348 .......318,016................... 132 .............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

........................................................................................................................................... TRADED SEC. ........ 6........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

BONDS MARKET ................................................................................................................................................................................. OM0000004602 ...........BANK MUSCAT CONV. BONDS 4.5 ........................43,627 ...............4,886........................ 1 ............0.112 ........... 0.112............ 0.112 ............0.112 ............. 0.111 .............0.001 ............. 0.901 ................0.112 .............. 0.112................... 0.115 ...................33,907,900 .........0.100

OM0000005971 ............B.MUSCAT COMPL. CONVR. B.B.3.5 ................... 160,329 ............ 15,071........................4 ........... 0.094 ...........0.094 ...........0.094........... 0.094 .............0.094 ........... 0.000 .............0.000 ................0.094..............0.094...................0.098................... 30,471,192 .........0.100

.............................................SUM: .................................................................................. 203,956 ............19,957........................5 .............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

........................................................................................................................................... TRADED SEC. ........ 2........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

ISIN ......................................SECURITY NAME .................................................................. VOLUME ..... TURNOVER ............TRADES ......OPEN PRICE ......HIGH ............. LOW ........ CLOSE PR. ...PREV. CLOSE...DIFF (RO).........DIFF % ............. LAST PR .....LAST BID .............LAST OFFER ........MARKET CAP .PAR VALUE

O M A N S T O C K S

INDICESIndex .................................................High .................Low ..................... Value ............... Prev . Value.......... Diff ...............Diff %MSM30 Index ........................................5,920.13 ............... 5,915.14 ....................5,918.43 ...................5,920.04 ...................-1.61 .................. -0.03Financial Index .....................................7,273.32 ...............7,258.50 ................... 7,258.50 ................... 7,272.85 ................ -14.35 .................. -0.20Industrial Index ....................................7,333.30 ...............7,325.08 ....................7,325.78 ................... 7,332.08 .................. -6.30 .................. -0.09Services Index ...................................... 3,284.44 .............. 3,274.98 ................... 3,283.49 ...................3,278.08 .................... 5.41 ................... 0.17MSM SHARIAH INDEX...................... 908.26 ..................907.94 .......................907.94 ......................908.20 ..................-0.26 .................. -0.03

Trading SummaryVolume ................ Turnover ..........Trades .............. Market Cap............. Up ............Down ............. Equal .........Sec. Traded10,276,088 ..................3,136,707 .....................546 ...............14,708,084,692 .................. 4 ......................13 .................... 14 .........................31

MSM closes in red again

MUSCAT: In a lacklustre trad-ing volumes on the Muscat bourse, the MSM 30 index closed at 5,918.43 points, down by 0.03 per cent. The MSM Sharia Index declined 0.03 per cent to close at 907.94 points.

Bank Nizwa was the most ac-tive in terms of volume while Omantel led in terms of turno-ver. Wednesday’s top gainer was Al Suwadi Power, up by 2.33 per cent, while Oman Textile Hold-ings was the day’s top loser, down by 3.70 per cent.

As many as 546 trades were ex-ecuted during the trading session generating turnover of OMR3.1 million with 10.2 million shares changing hands.

Out of 31 traded securities, four advanced, 13 declined and 14 remained unchanged.

Omani investors were net buy-ers to the tune of OMR282,000 worth of shares followed by GCC and Arab investors at OMR101,000. Foreign investors, who were net sellers, sold shares amounting to OMR383,000.

Financial Index ended nega-tively at 7,258.50 points, a loss of 0.20 per cent. Al Madina Invest-ments, Al Anwar Holding, Al Izz Bank, Al Madina Takaful and Bank Muscat declined by 3.28 per cent, 3.14 per cent, 1.43 per cent, 1.16 per cent and 0.37 per cent, respectively.

Industrial Index edged down by 0.09 per cent to close at 7,325.78 points. Gulf Internation-al Chemicals, up by 0.70 per cent, was the only sector gainer. Oman Textiles, National Aluminium and Al Maha Ceramics declined by 3.70 per cent, 3.65 per cent and 0.41 per cent, respectively.

Services Index closed at 3,283.49 points, up by 0.17 per cent. Al Suwadi Power and Sohar Power advanced by 2.33 per cent and 1.63 per cent, respectively. Renaissance Services, OIFC, Phoenix Power, National Gas

and ACWA Power fell by 1.13 per cent, 1.07 per cent, 0.66 per cent, 0.63 per cent and 0.49 per cent, respectively.

Emerging stocks fall Emerging-market stocks fell with currencies as lower commod-ity prices and renewed concern about global growth following de-clines in Chinese stocks sapped demand for riskier assets. Rus-sia’s rouble and the South African rand headed for one-week lows.

The MSCI Emerging Markets Index slipped 0.5 per cent to 860.01 in London, its second day of losses. Gazprom, Russia’s big-gest natural-gas exporter, headed for a two-week low, leading en-ergy shares lower. The Shanghai Composite Index retreated the most since September 15, falling from an eight-week high. The ru-ble, the rand and the Chilean peso weakened at least 0.6 per cent versus the dollar.

The Bloomberg Commodity Index sank to the lowest level in almost three weeks as slower growth in China, the top consum-er of grains, energy and metals, dented demand. The developing nations stock gauge has risen 8.6 per cent in October, set for the sharpest monthly gain since Jan-uary 2012, as traders pared back bets for a Federal Reserve inter-est-rate increase this year amid signs that a China slowdown will crimp United States growth.

“China remains the main risk for developing countries,” said Maarten-Jan Bakkum, a senior emerging-markets strategist at NN Investment Partners, who prefers Indian and the Philippine equities to shares in Brazil and Thailand. “If local markets are weak in China, global investors get nervous.” MSCI developing-markets index has dropped 10 percent this year and trades at 11.3 times projected 12-month earn-ings – United Securities/Bloomberg News

The top gainer was Al Suwadi Power, up by

2.33%, while Oman Textile Holdings was the

day’s top loser, down by 3.70%

Sensex falls again; rupee dropsMUMBAI: In a volatile market, the S&P BSE benchmark Sensex extended losses for the second consecutive day, finished lower by another 19.17 pts to close at 27,287.66 due to selling pressure mainly in realty, capital goods, healthcare, banking and refinery sectors amidst mixed Asian cues. However, metal, IT and technol-ogy sectors firmed up on good buying enquiries.

The Sensex resumed higher at

27,312.35 and firmed up further to a high 27,445.24 on initial buying on the back of sustained foreign capital inflows.

However, it declined after-wards to 27,190.55 before closing at 27,287.66, showing a loss of 19.17 pts or 0.07 per cent.

The CNX 50-share Nifty moved down further by 9.95 points or 0.12 per cent to close at 8,251.70 after moving in a range of 8,294.40 and 8,217.15.

Decline continuesThe rupee continued to decline against the US currency for the second straight day, by ending lower by another 7 paise to to 65.12 per dollar on persistent dollar demand from banks and importers amidst firm dollar in Tokyo market despite sustained foreign capital inflows.

Indian rupee opened margin-ally lower at 65.09 per dollar as against Tuesday’s 65.05. - PTI

I N D I A N M A R K E T S

B3T H U R S DAY, O C TO B E R 2 2 , 2 0 1 5

MARKET

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Oman seeks Taiwan’s help in developing SME exchange

ELHAM POURMOHAMMADIelham@timesofoman.com

MUSCAT: Taiwanese experience is being used to establish a stock market for small and medium en-terprises (SMEs) in Oman, said a senior official at the Capital Mar-ket Authority (CMA).

“The best in SME stock market are the Taiwanese so we have vis-ited them to export their experi-ence in this field, and, currently, we are working on the proposal itself,” said Sayyid Hamid bin Sul-tan Al Busaidi, who is the director general of support and services

and in charge of Oman Centre for Governance and Sustainability.

“Later on, we need to forward this to the concerned authority to approve,” Al Busaidi told ‘Times of Oman’ on the sidelines of the OER Finance Summit, which was held recently. The initiative is in initial stages and will take time to complete, he said, adding that no specific date can be given for the launch of the SME exchange.

According to the CMA, the ob-jective of the exchange will be to support the development of SMEs across a wide range of growth ena-

blers, provide fair and attractive returns to investors and market participants, and provide clients and suppliers of SMEs with better access to and information on the opportunities of doing business with small and medium units.

ChallengesAsked about the challenges facing the project, Al Busaidi said that one of the issues would be how to con-vince the SMEs to join the market as they are ‘conservative’. “(How-ever), the mechanism, transpar-ency and disclosure will not have to

be so tight and does not have to be detailed not to scare them. We hope we can overcome these challenges,” the official noted.

But there will be certain crite-ria for the SMEs to be listed, he said, adding that the ones which are well-established and are do-ing well will be selected. “We will not take small ones like (the ones which) do not have a strong financial statement,” the CMA official explained.

Asked about the fact that banks have been given until the end of 2015 to allocate 5 per cent of their

total loans to SMEs, Al Busaidi said that other parties should comment on this but noted that he thinks it would be better to ex-tend the period instead of reducing the percentage.

In 2013, the Central Bank of Oman (CBO) stipulated that com-mercial banks’ loans to SMEs must account for at least 5 per cent of their total loans, in a bid to contribute to the development of the entrepreneurship sector in the country. Banks have already been given a one-year extension until the end of this year.

The objective of

the exchange will

be to support the

development of small

units across a wide

range of growth

enablers and provide

fair and attractive

returns to investors,

according to CMA

Platts set to expand Dubai oil grades amid Chinese move

DUBAI: Platts, the commodi-ties price-reporting agency, may decide soon after October 30 to make changes to the formula of the benchmark for much of the Mid-dle Eastern crude sold to Asia as it seeks to stay competitive with China planning to introduce its own contract.

The agency is considering add-ing two crudes to the three grades it uses in calculating the Dubai oil benchmark, which determines prices for almost 30 million bar-rels a day in exports to Asia, said Dave Ernsberger, its global edito-rial director for oil. Platts seeks to ensure liquidity amid rising de-mand from Asia, especially China, which plans to introduce a futures contract this year.

Qatar’s gradesPlatts, a unit of McGraw Hill Fi-nancial, is seeking opinions from the oil industry about whether to include Qatar’s Al Shaheen and Abu Dhabi’s Murban grades, Erns-berger said in Dubai.

State companies from China, the world’s second-biggest oil consumer, bid aggressively for cargoes over the past 18 months using Platts’ market-on-close price-assessment process, Erns-berger said. Al Shaheen and Mur-ban would together add at least 600,000 barrels a day to the Dubai benchmark, he said. Platts cur-rently assesses Dubai, Oman and Abu Dhabi. - Bloomberg News

C R U D E M A R K E T

Iran to pay oil firms higher fees to attract investment DUBAI: Iran will pay foreign oil companies larger fees than it did under previous buy-back con-tracts to attract $100 billion of investments needed to rebuild its energy industry.

The country, once Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Coun-tries’ (Opec) second-largest crude producer, will also offer 20-year contracts on oil and natural gas projects, Roknoddin Javadi, man-aging director of state-run Nation-al Iranian Oil Company, said in an interview in Tehran.

“What’s been announced so far looks like an attractive contract — no doubt it’s a vast improvement on the buy-back contracts,’’ said Robin Mills, a Dubai-based con-sultant who worked formerly for Royal Dutch Shell on projects in Iran from 1998 to 2003.

Iran, holder of the fourth-larg-est reserves of oil, is preparing to

boost its output once world pow-ers remove economic sanctions that choked off investment in its oil and gas industry. Oil exports fell to an average 1.4 million barrels a day last year from 2.6 million in 2011, United States Energy Infor-mation Administration data show.

New contractNew contract terms will be intro-duced next month, as part of plans to boost oil production to 5.7 mil-lion barrels a day and gas output to 1.4 billion cubic metres a day by 2021, Javadi said.

“The new contract that we’re going to present has raised the op-portunity for those who invest to be able to participate in operation and production for a long term, let’s say 20 years,” he said. “This is the major incentive.”

Russian Energy Minister Alex-ander Novak was leading a trade

delegation to Tehran on Wednes-day, the Tehran Times reported, without citing anyone.

Delegates were to meet with Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh and other Iranian officials to dis-cuss cooperation in the oil indus-try and power projects.

Iran’s previous buy-back con-tracts merely paid oil companies a fixed fee over five to seven years, without giving investors a share of a field’s production in the longer term. The new contract will link payments to oil companies to the quantity they produce, Javadi said.

Most attractiveUnder a typical buy-back deal, a foreign investor paid to develop and operate an oil field before turning it over to Iranian authori-ties, and an investor who produced more than the planned amount received no compensation for the additional barrels, Mills, an ana-lyst at Manaar Energy Consulting, said on Tuesday by phone. Iran reimbursed only the budgeted production costs and paid a pre-arranged fee of 12 per cent to 15 per cent, he said.

The new contract looks more appealing to investors than the service fees offered by neighbour-ing Iraq, and it shares some fea-tures with the production-sharing agreements in common use else-where in the oil industry, Mills said. Investors will apparently have an incentive to produce more oil and develop a field for much

longer than permitted under a buy-back, he said.

“It’ll be one of the most attrac-tive contracts in the Middle East for the size and quality of the fields that are being offered,” Mills said.

OMV’s interestOMV will invest in Iran if terms are flexible, chief executive officer Rainer Seele said Monday. Javadi, Seele and executives from produc-ers Eni, Korea Gas and contractors JGC Corporation all spoke at the first Iranian Petroleum and En-ergy Club conference in Tehran. Iran will present its new oil and gas contracts on November 27-28 in Tehran, Javadi said.

The country pumped 2.8 million barrels a day of oil in September, making it the fifth-biggest pro-ducer in the Opec. Iran’s exports of crude and condensate, a light oil liquid, fell. - Bloomberg News

E N E R G Y S E C T O R

Japan’s exports grow at slow pace TOKYO: Japan’s exports grew at the slowest pace in more than a year in September, with a drop in shipments to Asia all but over-whelming gains in sales to Europe and the United States.

The trade data are one of the most crucial economic indicators before the Bank of Japan (BoJ) meets on October 30 to consider whether the nation needs more monetary stimulus to stoke infla-tion and economic activity.

Exports to China, India, Indo-nesia, Thailand and Malaysia all fell as the slowdown in China’s economy sapped demand across Asian countries.

The value of Japanese ship-ments rose just 0.6 per cent in September from a year earlier,

marking the third straight month of waning growth, the Finance Ministry reported on Wednesday. Economists surveyed had ex-pected a 3.8 per cent increase. The value of imports sank more than 11 per cent, underscoring a lack of demand in Japan’s domestic econ-omy as well as falling oil prices.

“The numbers confirm that Ja-pan’s economy is in a soft patch,” said Taro Saito, the director of economic research at NLI Re-search Institute in Tokyo.

“It’s too optimistic for the cen-tral bank and the government to be saying the recovery is contin-uing,” he said.

The economy contracted in the second quarter and a slump in industrial production in Au-

gust prompted some economists to predict Japan went backwards again in the third quarter. The weakness in exports in Septem-ber was also apparent when meas-ure by the volume of shipments, with a 3.9 per cent decline from a year earlier.

StimulusThe yen was little changed at 119.91 per US dollar in Tokyo while the Topix stock index ad-vanced 0.7 per cent amid specu-lation that pressure is building on the Bank of Japan to consider adding to stimulus.

NLI’s Saito said it is hard to make a call on monetary policy because the central bank has re-peatedly said there is improve-

ment in inflation trends. Some 42 percent of economists surveyed from September 29 to October 2 forecast the BoJ will boost stimu-lus later this month.

Exports to the US rose more than 10 per cent in September, with strength in sales of cars and pharmaceuticals.

Shipments to Europe advanced 5.1 per cent while exports to Chi-na dropped 3.5 per cent.

The volume of crude oil imports rose 1.1 per cent in September while the value dropped almost 44 per cent after a rout in the en-ergy market over the past year.

The trade deficit for September was €114.5 billion ($955 million), compared to expectations for a sur-plus of €87 billion. - Bloomberg News

E C O N O M Y

BOOSTING PRODUCTION: Iran is preparing to boost its output once

world powers remove economic sanctions that choked off invest-

ment in its oil and gas industry. – Bloomberg News

The best in SME stock market are the Taiwanese so we have visited them to export their experience in this field, and, currently, we are working on the proposal itself. Later on, we need to forward this to the concerned authority to approve

Sayyid Hamid bin Sultan Al BusaidiDirector general, support and services & in charge of Oman Centre for Governance and Sustainability

B4

FEATURET H U R S DAY, O CTO B E R 2 2 , 2 0 1 5

About 542 million years ago, something weird and profound happened on Earth. Quite

abruptly, life went inventively crazy, proliferating from simple, rudimen-tary single-cell organisms into myriad multi-cellular forms. Evolution dis-covered the idea of more sophisticated and specialised cells, and most of the basic body plans we know today. Biol-ogists call it the Cambrian explosion.

Human technology may be on the verge of a similar explosion.

The technological upheavals of the last few centuries — the Industrial Revolution and the information age — have been relatively tame in the sense that people have remained the creative force, even if using different tools and working in different ways. That may finally be about to change, according to Gill Pratt, programme director for robotics research at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). He makes a good argument that we’re about to have a Cambrian moment in robotics and artificial intelligence, as devices be-come able to do anything people can do, including thinking.

To be sure, robotics enthusiasts have been making such predictions since the 1950s. What makes now dif-ferent is the amazing and totally unex-

pected progress of research in the past few years. The buzzwords are “deep learning” and “cloud robotics.”

Even five years ago, algorithms for computer vision could barely recog-nise even simple objects, such as a ball or a square block, especially in realistic environments. Now, such al-gorithms can easily distinguish differ-ent breeds of dogs, and can recognise human faces as well as or better than real people can. Neural networks are breaking image-recognition records on an almost weekly basis. In July, Google announced that it could trans-late text from more than 20 foreign languages just from photos — say, from a menu or handwritten note. Earlier this year, Google’s deep learning group demonstrated that an algorithm could learn to play all of the Atari video games of the 1980s with the same skill as human experts — simply by watch-ing and learning.

The neural networks differ from those explored in the past in several fundamental ways. In particular, they use insights learned from modern neuroscience about how the brain stores and reworks old knowledge. Pratt, who has followed these devel-opments as closely as anyone, expects that robots, following the deep learn-ing ideas, will soon be able to perform

“any associative memory problem at human levels.” Any. And that’s just the beginning.

Robots no longer need to learn on their own: They can now share in-sights over networks, so that powerful knowledge spreads quickly to other robots. Google’s self-driving cars, for example, share maps, images, and data on previous driving experiences and traffic. All the information gets fed to computers in the cloud — that is, dis-tributed over the Internet — where analysis takes place to improve the cars’ performance.

As Pratt notes, robots will soon be able to learn by imagination as well, a trick previously unique to people. Having learned pretty good behav-iour in a variety of situations, a robot can run simulations to explore cir-cumstances unlike anything it has yet faced. It can experiment with different ways of behaving and find possible so-lutions. And through the cloud, as he puts it, “every robot’s dreams will im-prove the performance of all robots.”

Which is why the Cambrian explo-sion analogy is far from silly. In biol-ogy, that explosion happened when evolution somehow stumbled on the pathway of design leading out of the single-celled trap and into new open space, where so much more was pos-

sible. In artificial intelligence, the combination of deep learning meth-ods, advancing neuroscience, comput-ing power and the Internet is doing the same for brains and intelligence, which will no longer be limited to the human kind. What will we find — and what will our super-smart robotic companions find — in this new space?

It’s hard for our limited human brains to imagine how this will change our world. Maybe, as Pratt suggests, robotic capabilities will advance so quickly that most human skills will become redundant, and robots will de-stroy our economies or create massive inequality. Perhaps, as Nick Bostrom explored last year in his brilliant book “Superintelligence,” robots doing their own research and development, better and faster and smarter than we can, will simply replace us as the new top species. They’re not only going to be better at number-crunching and mathematics, but at other traditional human skills as well — persuasion, de-ception and strategy.

Perhaps humans will go the way bacteria did. They existed before the Cambrian explosion, and they still exist today. In fact, they continue to thrive. They just don’t hold the domi-nant position they once did.

-Washington Post-Bloomberg News

SOONER THAN WE THOUGHT

We're about to

have a Cambrian

moment in robotics

and artificial

intelligence, as

devices become

able to do anything

people can do,

including thinking,

says Gill Pratt,

programme director

for robotics research

at the Defense

Advanced Research

Projects Agency

ROBOT AGE

ISARRIVING

B5T H U R S DAY, O C TO B E R 2 2 , 2 0 1 5

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OOC awarded for its key social initiatives

DOHA: Oman Oil Company (OOC), the government’s invest-ment arm in the energy sector, has been awarded for its social invest-ments by the Councils of Ministers of Labour and Social Affairs in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

The award was part of the 32nd session of the Councils, hosted in the State of Qatar recently. The session’s main objective was to recognise pioneering or-ganisations in social investments which have inspired societies and achieved sustainable develop-ment. This award is a strong incen-tive for institutions to continue

their outstanding creative work in the field of CSR towards their communities.

‘Ghaytuh’ programmeAs such, OOC has been nominated from Oman through the Sultan-ate’s Ministry of Social Develop-ment (MoSD) for its sustainable initiatives this year, specifically for its pioneering programme ‘Ghay-tuh’, says a press release.

Commenting on this remark-able achievement, Eng. Isam Al Zadjali, chief executive officer of OOC, said: “OOC and its group of companies have proved their commitment to the community through their CSR initiatives eve-ry year in areas of training, entre-

preneurship and capacity building as well as empowering human re-sources throughout Oman.”

“Oman Oil Company integrates social responsibility and sustain-ability in all aspects of its opera-tions, where the company’s ap-proach focuses on partnering with both the public and private sectors to support economic growth and prosperity for the local commu-nities. OOC obtained this award due to its unique approach in CSR, where the company harnessed the power of business to achieve sus-tainable economic, social and en-vironmental development across Oman.” Al Zadjali concluded.

'Ghaytuh' is a programme devel-oped by OOC in partnership with

the National Centre for Career Guidance, under the Ministry of Ed-ucation. The programme is designed to help a great number of Grade X students from all over the Sultan-ate to build their entrepreneurship skills and start up their own compa-ny, develop their ideas around per-sonal business and showcase their products through exhibitions.

The programme has been ongo-ing since 2013, and is being devel-oped in its practical as well as the-oretical aspects through tailored training workshops.

In Ghaytuh 2014/2015, the pro-gramme took in a total of 120 stu-dents from both private and public schools as well as students from Al Amal School of the Deaf.

The award was part

of the 32nd session

of the Councils of

Ministers of Labour

and Social Affairs,

hosted in Qatar

Burjeel Medical Centre celebrates World Sight DayMUSCAT: Burjeel Medical Cen-tre recently celebrated World Sight Day on its premises in Mus-cat under the theme ‘Eye care for all’. The centre marked the day along with key members of Al Noor Association for the Blind.

The occasion was marked by the convening of a small gathering to focus attention on the importance of the day which is commemorat-ed annually on the second Thurs-day of the month of October. It aims to raise awareness on eye care and facts about the subject matter, says a press release.

The event began with a short speech by Dr Zainab Jassim Mohammed, medical director, Burjeel Medical Centre. In her speech she emphasised that eye sight is one of the most important sensory organs. “Our eyes are the window to the world. How-ever due to our stressful lives and with everyone being cued onto digital technology; our eyes seldom get rest. This affects our vision over time and causes prob-lems. In children, it is especially harmful as it affects their neuro-logical pathways as well as their eyes,” she said.

Dr Aji Sam Mathews, specialist ophthalmologist, Burjeel Medical Centre, stressed on the impor-tance of annual eye check-up for adults and advised parents to be vigilant and caring on matters re-lating to their children’s eyes and report any abnormality noticed.

Rashid bin Sulaiman Al Farsi, chairman, Al Noor Association for the Blind, who was the chief guest felt that it was important to celebrate World Sight Day as it created awareness about vision and vision related problems. He felt such days also remind peo-ple about their rights and enable them to get screening for them-selves and their families.

“The greatest burden in the world is eye impairment and therefore there is a necessary to take eye care; as it is a very serious

and important element of health. Everyone should undertake regu-lar eye check and follow doctor’s advice; not self-medicate or seek traditional remedies," he added.

He felt that despite the aware-ness being created every year on the importance of ‘Sight’, very few people utilised the resources available to them. “I thank Bur-jeel Medical Centre for taking this initiative in creating awareness about eye sight and urge everyone to visit its facilities and seek pro-fessional advice,” he concluded.

Burjeel Medical Centre lo-cated in Azaiba, is designed to be a primary healthcare facility. It hosts a network of speciality clinics to cater to various health-care needs of the people of Oman. With world-class medical profes-sionals, sophisticated diagnostic equipment and superior health services, Burjeel provides a com-forting ambience, full of warmth and personalised attention.

‘ E Y E C A R E F O R A L L ’

Splash showcases AW’15 collectionMUSCAT: Imagine a chic club brimming with the affluent and the well-travelled. It’s a space that brings a section of people who con-nect through their mutual love for fashion, travel and music.

Splash created that atmosphere for its guests this season to show-case the AW’15 collection that was an amalgamation of classic trends with an updated look. The cafe was a glamorous one which saw the Bespoke Military and Retro Futuristic trends coming together to create the ultimate look for a jet setting individual. Effortless piec-es, structured look and the retro chic silhouettes were dominant on the runway that was seen across the fashion weeks in the past days, says a press release.

Raza Beig, CEO Splash & ICON-IC added, “Harnessing the power of simplicity, classic and utili-tarian in fashion, this season we have embraced two classic trends namely Military and Retro with a modern spin. The collection de-fines a well read, travelled person who was part of the very niche cult called Café Society. The show

is a way of showing our support-ers and consumers the creativity that the brand imbibes, not just in our collection but in the way we conceptualise a theme that breaks boundaries and presents fashion like never before.”

The venue was Madinat Jumei-rah where the guests were wel-comed into a pre-function area that was designed as a café with heavy French and retro influences. A café deemed fit for hi-flyers, the guests relaxed and soaked in the luxurious ambience while they were served premium beverages

and canapés. DJ Kennedy made sure to keep the crowd grooving to his eclectic tunes.

Stirring just the right amount of excitement, the guests were taken to their seating for the show over-looking an LED lit airport runway which resembled an actual run-way. Twenty five top models sash-ayed down the runway in a surreal set that came to life with the en-ergy from the audience.

The VIP show was attended by UAE’s crème de la crème which saw Raza Beig walk the finale amidst a thunderous round of ap-

plause. All fashion followers and Splash customers also got a taste of the season’s most awaited run-way action at the earlier show in the evening.

To maximise the reach of the shows and celebrate fashion on a larger scale, the two shows were live streamed on all the brand’s social media platforms along with other leading online platforms across the region, where a mil-lion or more fans and consumers watched the show.

The collection presented on the runway is available in the stores.

F A S H I O N S H O W

Geely GC9 to be launched in Oman soon

MUSCAT: Geely GC9, Geely’s new premium sedan, will be made available soon in the Sultanate of Oman exclusively at Towell Auto Centre (TAC).

Geely GC9 is the first model to be based on the unusual and fu-turistic Geely KC concept that was unveiled at many leading global auto shows. In Oman, this #Super Sedan will be made available with 2.4L and 3.5L V6 engine options, says a press release.

Riyadh Ali Sultan, director of TAC, test drove the Geely GC9 3.5L V6 variant. TAC is currently test-ing this model to gauge its perfor-mance, limitations and suitability for local driving conditions. Driv-ing the GC9 for almost a month now, Riyadh is very happy with its design and performance.

“I am both thrilled and awe struck by the design and the driv-ing capabilities of the GC9. It is the first model that prides itself on the strong Geely - Volvo partnership and we keenly look forward to its introduction into the Oman mar-ket. Super design, touch controls and multi-dimensional camera are some of the features that I love. Its spacious interior and above-class

features are worthy of apprecia-tion and can be compared to the premium car segment in Oman. Indeed, the GC9 will prove to be the game changer for the brand. One really needs to drive and feel the car to understand what I am saying,” says Riyadh.

The Geely GC9 #Super Sedan is a four-door ‘fastback’ sedan with an aggressive profile, an overall length of 4956mm and wheelbase of 2850mm, giving an elegant and solid stance. It features an artistic innovation that borrows heavily from classical Chinese aesthetic needs and international styling philosophy. The distinctive side shoulder line arches over the front wheel and then sweeps cleanly around the vehicle’s length, com-bining a sense of speed with char-acter and elegance. The wide shoulder surface gives a strong and confident feel.

The headlights and grille form a unified graphic, with the arched curve of the grille inspired by the distinctive profile of historic Chi-nese stone bridges. The graceful and modern interior design of the GC9 reflects a mix of technol-ogy and quality. The steering wheel,

door armrests and front control display have a lightweight and el-egant appearance. The central con-sole arches from the front to the rear passenger area. The seats are well-designed, floating on bridge-like supports and dressed in the style of Chinese clothing. Fine red wood, jade, traditional patterns and ambient lighting works together to enhance the interior quality.

“Geely’s philosophy has been to make cars that offer great luxury and an enormous array of comfort and safety features at an unbeliev-able value. Already the best-selling China-made car in the GCC, the automaker is now focusing on new generation cars such as GC9 de-signed using the KC concept. This concept brings together a whole new era of luxury, class and next generation technology thanks to the dedicated 300 designers and R&D engineers who work relent-lessly at the Geely European In-novation centres,” commented a senior spokesperson of TAC.

By bringing the Geely range to the Sultanate, TAC has reinforced its commitment to providing high-quality products and services to its customers in Oman.

N E W C O N C E P T

Kerala Wing’s inter-school quiz

competition sees huge turnout

MUSCAT: Indian Social Club Kerala Wing’s inter-school quiz competition was conducted at In-dian School Darsait recently and the participation was in excess of 1,000 students from 19 Indian schools of Oman.

Indian School Darsait had the maximum number of contest-ants to impart a sheer challenge to other teams. Renowned writer, journalist and social activist Par-vathi Devi hosted the event who deliberated about each questions beyond the boundary of quiz but covering its social relevance, says a press release.

The quiz was organised for the 14th consecutive year with a goal to promote the language, literature and awareness about the contemporary issues in the young minds.

Prabhavarma, 2013 Vayalar Award winner for poetry tele-addressed the participants and inaugurated the function.

He emphasised the need to pro-mote the culture of preserving the native language, familiarity towards one’s literal legacy and guarding oneness amid diversi-fied diaspora.

Six teams each participated from junior and senior categories final and ground their knowledge base and thinking skills in art, literature, sports and contemporary issues.

Sidharth Sajeeve, Abhirami Anil Babu, Malavika Siva Prasad of Indian School Ghubra bagged the first prize in the junior catego-ry; Indian School Seeb and Indian

School Darsait secured second and third position respectively.

Sourav Sivaprasad, Akhil Gopakumar, Vishnav S. Nair of Indian School Ghubra bagged first in senior second round fol-

lowed by Indian School Muscat and Indian School Muscat in the second and third place.

Parvathi Devi presented the mementos and certificates to the winners.

S H A R P E N I N G K N O W L E D G E

I thank Burjeel Medical Centre for taking this initiative in creating awareness about eye sight and urge everyone to visit its facilities and seek professional advice

Rashid Al FarsiChairman, Al Noor Association for Blind

B6 T H U R S DAY, O CTO B E R 2 2 , 2 0 1 5

ROUND-UPPDO stages awareness workshop for SMEs

MUSCAT: Petroleum Develop-ment Oman (PDO) staged a work-shop for Omani small and medium enterprises (SMEs) on Tuesday to raise their awareness of how they can do business with a company.

Around 75 entrepreneurs from SMEs and Local Community

Contractors (LCCs) — businesses owned by individuals or families within PDO’s Block 6 concession area — participated in the half-day event at the company’s Learning and Development Centre at Mina Al Fahal, says a press release.

The seminar included an over-view of the oil and gas industry and topics such as PDO’s processes and procedures for vendor registra-tion, contracting and procurement and tendering, and its stringent health, safety and environment (HSE) policies and practices and business ethics.

Delegates also learned more about PDO’s In-Country Value (ICV) strategy to retain more of the industry’s wealth in the Sultanate through greater Omanisation of

the goods and services supplied to the oil and gas industry and more training and employment oppor-tunities for Omani jobseekers.

During the workshop, experts from the company’s ICV team shared a number of success stories where PDO had supported Omani businesses. For example, during 2014, more than 170 active LCCs benefitted from PDO contracts, providing services such as electri-cal, mechanical, civil engineering, logistics, manpower supply and equipment hiring.

Khalfan Salim Al Busaidy, ICV operations manager, PDO, said: “PDO is an active champion of small and medium local business-es, providing support across a wide range of activities. The workshop

showcased our continuous com-mitment to support government directives to provide support to SMEs so that they understand fully what is required if they want to work with us. There are some fantastic Omani SMEs which can begin or expand work in the oil and gas industry. PDO wants to fully unlock that potential but it is important that suppliers and ven-dors are made fully aware of the standards and specifications and rules and regulations which must be complied with.”

The awareness-raising work-shop is the second of its kind at Mina Al Fahal this year and fol-lows one held in April. PDO’s ICV team has also conducted other workshops in 2015 to enhance LCC business acumen and HSE, and highlight commercial oppor-tunities, including at two of its main operational areas at Fahud and Marmul.

Additionally, another work-shop on PDO’s tendering pro-cedures was conducted in May 2015 to help Omani firms which had been unsuccessful in bidding for PDO business. The company is planning to conduct another event for unsuccessful bidders on November 10.

Around 75

entrepreneurs

from SMEs and

Local Community

Contractors (LCCs)

— businesses owned

by individuals or

families within PDO’s

Block 6 concession

area — participated in

the half-day event

Bank Sohar sponsors Infrastructure Risk Management ForumMUSCAT: As part of its commit-ment towards supporting the de-velopment of the local economy, Bank Sohar recently sponsored the fourth annual Infrastructure Risk Management Forum organised by Marsh - a global leader in insurance broking and risk management.

Focused on the current unprec-edented risks and pressures faced by project stakeholders within the region, the forum was held recent-ly at the Al Bustan Palace, a Ritz-Carlton Hotel, says a press release.

The forum saw the attendance of prominent CEOs, CFOs, risk officers, owners, operators, finan-ciers, contractors, consultants, and other stakeholders involved in investment in infrastructure

development across the country. Attending the event on behalf of Bank Sohar were several key rep-resentatives from the bank’s cor-porate division.

Shared responsibilityCommenting on the bank’s spon-sorship of the event, Sasi Kumar, Group GM of Business at Bank So-har, said: “Bank Sohar has always been dedicated towards develop-ing the full potential of the Omani economy and supporting the coun-try’s vision for a prosperous future. This future however, involves a number of major infrastruc-ture investments that have been planned over the next few years, and with any investment comes

risk. Managing and mitigating risk is a shared responsibility among all critical infrastructure stake-holders, and it is vital to recog-nise that any disruptions in these investments can easily cascade across sectors. Forums such as the fourth annual Infrastructure Risk Management Forum provide vital guidance for implementing a coordinated, all-hazards approach to critical infrastructure risk man-agement. This is why we consider our support of forums such as these as part of our commitment to the Sultanate, its economy and the businesses that operate within it.”

Following the theme ‘Can we ensure certainty of outcome in these uncertain times? Oil price

volatility, political risk climate, and demand for infrastructure: a perfect storm’, the half-day event saw key industry experts share their thoughts on the risk land-scape in which organisations op-erate in today.

These included various key top-ics including the effect of oil price volatility, consequences of the paradigm shift in financing, con-stantly evolving political risk en-vironment, market forces driving procurement strategies and con-tractual risk allocation, together with a dedicated panel discussion. Two dedicated masterclasses were also hosted at the forum on ar-eas that are topical and constantly discussed, covering professional

indemnity and SLAM impact as-sessment modelling respectively.

Successful event“The event was a stellar success with attendees appreciating the in-sightfulness of each topic discussed and the overall professionalism with which the forum was organ-ised. We are truly pleased to have sponsored this event and look for-ward to sponsoring such key events in the future,” added Sasi Kumar.

Bank Sohar over the past eight years of operations has earned itself a reputation of offering world-class products, services and expertise to businesses in Oman. Comprising multiple industry ex-perts, the bank’s corporate team

is ideally placed to provide finan-cial assistance to businesses, both in commerce and industry and is considered to be one of the lead-ing providers of corporate banking services in the country.

With an ever-evolving product portfolio, Bank Sohar services the needs of small businesses as well as medium and large corporate by offering an inclusive variety of cor-porate finance instruments rang-ing from working capital finance to project finance. The bank’s current clients comprise several organisa-tions engaged in activities across all sectors of the economy such as contracting, trading, telecommu-nications, real estate and interna-tional trading.

S U P P O R T

Geepas launches Dark BusterDUBAI: Geepas, the flagship brand of Western International Group, has added another innova-tion to its esteemed line of prod-ucts – the Dark Buster. The new emergency lantern is set to create ripples in the market by being the most powerful emergency lantern in the world.

Geepas has lightened up homes and improved lives of millions of people around the world, and the Dark Buster is here to set a bench-mark by solving key concerns of an emergency lantern user, says a press release.

The Dark Buster is locked and loaded with 48 Mega Luminous Intensity White LEDs, supported by strong electroplated reflectors, making it the brightest emergen-cy lantern in the world. All other emergency lamps in the market currently have a range of 15-24 LEDs, which are incomparable to the Dark Buster’s power-packed super bright 48 LEDs. The Dark Buster is the first emergency lan-tern in the market that comes with an extended battery life running up to an astounding 200 hours in a single charge. With an energy efficient design and an automatic lighting option during power fail-ure, the Dark Buster is also pro-

tected by a firm unbreakable poly-carbonate glass.

Geepas is known for embracing technology in its best form, out-standing product durability and performance. The Dark Buster is yet another impressive innovation that holds the claim to be the best and most powerful emergency lan-tern in the history of lighting.

“We don’t want to just make our customers happy, we want them to have the best and make sure their needs are taken care of. With an extended battery life of 200 hours, the Dark Buster ensures complete light support to our customers in every situation and lasts for days.

“ We are all about practical in-novation that brings meaning to our loyal customers around the

globe,” said Nizar T. N., director of Operations, Western Interna-tional Group.

Recently crowned as a Super-brand, Geepas is popular for its re-liable and quality products at cost-effective pricing, and is now one of the most prominent names in the world of electronics. The Dark Buster promises to be a best seller, a trend setter in the market, and will be available across all leading hypermarkets and retailers.

Geepas is a part of Western In-ternational Group and has one of the world’s largest electronics product portfolios with over 1,500 products in entertainment prod-ucts, home appliances, kitchen appliances, lighting devices and personal care gadgets.

E M E R G E N C Y L A N T E R N

Daewoo unveils new refrigerator and washing machine rangeMUSCAT: Daewoo Electronics recently launched a new series of refrigerator. The new models have dynamic edge design, smart cool-ing system and space solution.

A special compartment, ‘Farmer Case Plus’ for storing fresh fruits and vegetables is the highlight of the new refrigerator. It is fitted with a long lasting crystal LED lighting that is brighter and more efficient, says a press release.

Fitted with four large pock-ets on the door makes it easy to store big bottles like cold drink, milk, water, etc. The tempered glass shelves in the refrigerators are stronger, more durable and less prone to cracking and break-ing than regular glass, allowing the support of heavy items up to 100kg. Additionally, multi cool technology distributes the cold air through multiple outlets, maintaining the constant tem-perature from top to bottom thus ensuring that all the refrigerated items stay fresh and have a longer shelf life.

Designed for people looking for a high-performance, user-friendly and aesthetically stunning re-

frigerator, the new Daewoo GPF refrigerator fits into any interior setting and adds a touch of class.

“We are focused on constantly developing products that are most technologically advanced with the premium design in the home appliance industry, and we have the patented technology to prove it,” said Y. D. Kim, managing director of Dongbu Daewoo Elec-tronics Middle East.

Daewoo Electronics now revo-lutionises one’s laundry experi-ence with its recently launched top loader global platform wash-ing machine series. The new GPF washing machine series has air bubble 4D technology that eas-ily gets rid of the dirt and grease without damaging the fabric. Also, it has dynamic waterfall

system which pumps up the wa-ter to the top of the tub creating strong flow of the water that falls straight onto the clothes.

The drum resembles the shape of a shooting star thereby giving a unique stylish look. The convex hexagon pattern of the drum func-tions like a washboard, giving it a handwash effect and the diagonal placement heightens the water flow while the tub rotates. This revolutionary technology keeps your clothes safe from snags.

The GPF series excels as a re-sult of its modern and rigorous aesthetics improved washing per-formance and energy efficiency. The sizeable stainless steel drum and air bubble 4D technology boosts washing results for large loads up to a capacity of 17kg.

R E V O L U T I O N A R Y T E C H N O L O G Y

Paul Ross appointed managing director of Creative ActionMUSCAT: Creative Action has appointed Paul Ross as its new managing director. In this role, Ross will concentrate on further developing business with con-sumer and retail brands, govern-ments, cultural organisations, educational institutions and in-novative start-ups in Bahrain, Oman and Saudi Arabia, says a press release.

“I am excited to join Creative Action, an international design agency producing innovative solutions and I look forward to building on this foundation,” said Ross.

“My objective is to continue to attract world-class clients so that we can link our ideas with unique design solutions in the areas of brands and environments for our clients,” he added.

Prior to joining Creative Ac-tion, Ross was the marketing di-rector of Volkswagen Oman. Be-fore his time at Volkswagen, Ross was the director at New Business at TBWAZeenah and principal of his own firm. He attended the University of California Davis Graduate School of Management in 2012 and received his Bachelor Business Administration degree

from the University of Ottawa. “Paul’s unique blend of design

and business expertise makes him well-qualified to excel in the managing director’s role for Creative Action,” said Ian Silver-stein, founder of Creative Action.

“He is a leader with a success-ful track record in the GCC and a fantastic addition to the sen-ior management of the agency, strengthening the way we serve our clients and expanding our new business efforts. Adding Paul to our team gives me more freedom to focus on innovation and creativity and developing our business globally,” added Ian.

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MGS celebrates 40th anniversary in style

MUSCAT: Gujarati Wing of the Indian Social Club Muscat, popu-larly known as Muscat Gujarati Samaj (MGS), recently celebrated its 40th anniversary, lining up a string of cultural and entertaining activities to enthral the Gujarati Diaspora living in Oman.

Dr Darwish Al Mahrabi, under-secretary at the Ministry of Health, was the chief guest and Sheikh Kanaksi G. Khimji was the guest of honour. Anar Patel, Anil Khimji, Kiran Asher, Bakul Mehta, Ashwin Dharamsey, Anil Wader, Dileep Mehta, Hemraj Sha, Rajendra Ved, Arvind Toprani, Bharat Shah from Dubai, educationist Bhadrayu Vac-chrajani, Komal Thaker from Gu-jarati/Hindi/Punjabi Bollywood industry, Ramesh Tanna, Narendra Jadav and Sonu Bhatia were among the guests who attended the event, says a press release.

Al Mahrabi released the MGS’s 40th anniversary souvenir and

appreciated and congratulated the Samaj for the unity and team-work. Punit Sharma, first secre-tary at Embassy of India and Neelu Rohra, second secretary at Embas-sy of India also congratulated the Samaj for organising excellent so-cial and cultural activities.

Kiran Ashar and Pankaj Udhas also appreciated the Gujarati com-munity harmony and unity which is known all over the world.

To celebrate the 40th anniver-sary in a grand manner, MGS flew in star attractions like the re-nowned ghazal singer Pankaj Ud-has who was born in Jetpur, Gu-jarat and has mesmerised crowds with his melodious voice across the globe. Pankaj rose to fame and received global acclaim for his fa-mous ghazal Chhithi Aai Hai for the film Naam in 1986 and there has been no looking back since then as he has almost 50 albums to his own name.

The MGS members were able to greet, meet and mingle with a few actors of the famous TV soap Tarak Mehta Ka Ulta Chashma; Atmaram Tukaram Bhide (Man-dar Chandwadkar), his wife Madhavi Bhide (Sonalika Joshi) as well as the reporter, Popatlal (Shyam Pathak).

This crew of Tarak Mehta was accompanied by none other than their producers Neela Asit Modi and Asit Mody who has earned global name and fame owing to this extremely successful TV rendition Tarak Mehta Ka Oolta Chashmah which has already clocked a mam-moth 1,775 episodes.

There was also ‘Hasya Darbar’ and ‘Dayro’ programmes by Vijay Raval and Nilesh Ghadvi along with Sariam Dave and Ankit Trive-di who attended the occasion.

This was followed by a unique cooking competition anchored by the famous Himali Modi of the trendsetting Rasoi cookery show on ETV Gujarati which has already been successfully run-ning for more than a decade. All this was followed by a felicitation ceremony and dinner on the last day for the special guests, spon-sors, well-wishers, supporters, board members and managing committee members of the Mus-cat Gujarati Samaj.

The Gujarati Wing is the old-est subsidiary of the Indian So-cial Club and has, over the past 40 years, promoted social and cul-

tural activities across a broad and diverse spectrum.

Muscat Gujarati Samaj has al-ways been in the forefront of ren-dering its tireless, wholehearted and selfless services to the fellow citizens of India during its entire journey spanning four decades. The tremendous progress achieved by Muscat Gujarati Samaj since its inception is very well captured in its tagline Samp, Sahkar and Sa-marpan which means, harmony, cooperation and dedication for selfless service to the community.

The Gujarati community has been residing in Oman for the last 300 years and it is a matter of im-mense satisfaction the Muscat Gujarati Samaj has contributed significantly to the promotion of Indian culture as well as develop-ment of the Sultanate of Oman.

MGS thanked all its spon-sors, members and well-wishers and said it looks forward to their continued support as it marches ahead for yet another decade, now in pursuit of a Golden Jubilee.

Chandrakant Chothani, conven-er of Muscat Gujarati Samaj gave vote of thanks and conveyed their gratitude for the whole hearted support of the sponsors for so many years. Diresh Pawani also thanked the team members of the commit-tee for their hard work and efforts to organise such a glorious event.

Darshan Palicha, Kala Ved and Urvi Patel compered the programme.

The Gujarati community has been residing

in Oman for the last 300 years and it is a

matter of immense satisfaction the MGS has

contributed significantly to the promotion of

Indian culture as well as development of Oman

OMC to host conference

on role of pharmacists

in healthcare system

MUSCAT: Oman Medical Col-lege (OMC) is hosting a two-day conference on ‘Emerging role of Pharmacists in health care system’ scheduled to be held on October 28 and 29 at OMC, Bausher campus.

The conference will be inau-gurated at 9am on October 28 under the patronage of Dr Ali bin Saud Al Bimani, vice chancellor, Sultan Qaboos University. The guest of honour, Ph. Nusaiba Ha-bib Mohammed, director general of Medical Supplies, Ministry of Health, will give the inaugural ad-dress, says a press release.

Dr Mohammed Hamdan Al Rubaie, director general of Phar-maceutical Affairs and Drugs Control will attend the function. Dr Lucinda L. Maine, execu-tive vice president and CEO of American Association of Col-leges of Pharmacy, Alexandria, USA will give the keynote ad-dress on the topic ‘PharmD Education: Learning from the United States experience’.

“The conference would bring different stakeholders from the healthcare community to inter-act professionally and discuss innovations in the field,” says Dr Yaseen Moosa Malallah Al La-watia, vice dean, Oman Medical College and chairperson of or-ganising committee.

Scientific deliberationsThe planned scientific delibera-tions are scheduled to support the theme of the conference and will highlight pharmacists’ im-portant role in better patient care and improved drug therapy. Eminent speakers from USA, France, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and India will speak on the topics related to pharmacy education, pharmaceutical care, patient counselling, medication safety and Pharmacovigilance in healthcare. Scientific papers will

be presented as posters during the conference.

Unique opportunityThe conference proceedings will be published as a special is-sue of the International Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Research (IJPSR), an Elsevier & PubMed indexed journal. This conference will also provide a unique opportunity to the exhibi-tors of pharmaceutical indus-tries, hospitals, distributors and dealers to display their products.

Dr Jayasekhar P. Nair, Chair of the Pharmacy Programme and General Convener of the confer-ence is of the opinion that the conference will consolidate and leverage the patient-centred pharmacy practice in the Middle East region; and would highlight the necessity of clinical phar-macy service in the healthcare systems. He is confident that the outcomes of the conference will create a vision for forward-think-ing pharmacy practice models that will ensure that pharmacists participate as competent mem-ber of the healthcare system.

The workshops like paediat-ric care practice and total par-enteral nutrition are designed to improve the competency of a working pharmacist.

Updating skillsThe workshop on ‘training the trainers’ for the pharmacy precep-tors in hospitals and community pharmacies is designed purely to update the professional skills of pharmacy training supervisors, preceptors and coordinators.

The two days conference has been accredited by Oman Medi-cal Specialty Board (OMSB) for 9.5 CPD points under Category I. He added that this conference would prove to be an inspiring and truly transformative experi-ence for pharmacy professionals.

I N F O R M A T I V E S E S S I O N

Malabar Gold promotion promises exciting prizesMUSCAT: Malabar Gold & Dia-monds, the leading jewellery re-tailer, unfurled the details of its much awaited campaign to cel-ebrate this festive season.

This campaign will run at all Ma-labar Gold & Diamonds outlets in Middle East & Far East from today till November 14. The customers get unprecedented opportunities to win a total of OMR500,000 worth gold coins, says a press release.

A true shopper’s delight, Ma-labar Gold & Diamonds will cap-tivate the customers by exhibit-ing eye catching designs in gold, platinum, diamonds and precious stones from different parts of the world to flaunt any occasion or event and are well priced too.

For every purchase of gold jew-ellery above OMR200, the cus-tomers get a ‘Scratch & Win’ cou-pon through which they can win a

guaranteed gold coin or up to 250 gold coins instantly. The custom-ers can also avail a free one gram gold coin for every OMR250 spent on diamond jewellery.

Keeping the convenience of their customers in mind, they also offer advance booking facil-ity, where the customers can book their ornaments in advance by paying a certain percentage of the total cost. Furthermore, to ease

the shopping stress on Dhanteras day, the most auspicious day to buy ornaments for Indians and one of the busiest jewellery trading days in the whole year, Malabar Gold & Diamonds gives their customers a unique opportunity to buy dia-mond jewellery of their choice and get free home delivery in Oman on Dhanteras Day.

The customers also get a fabu-lous chance to buy 8gm gold coins

with absolutely no making charg-es from any of Malabar Gold & Diamonds outlets in GCC during this period.

Customers can buy their favour-ite jewellery by using their credit/debit cards without paying any ad-ditional charge. Malabar Gold & Diamonds also gives their custom-ers the advantage of converting their jewellery purchase into ‘Easy Payment Plans’ in association

with various banks through which they can enjoy flexible payment options for up to 12 instalments without paying any interest.

To add more glitter to this sea-son, they have also unveiled the latest collection of jewellery spe-cially designed for the festive season in gold, diamonds and pre-cious gems to suit the tastes of their multicultural and multina-tional customers.

F E S T I V E D E L I G H T

New Bridgestone offer for truck, bus tyres

MUSCAT: Towell Auto Cen-tre (TAC), the sole distribu-tor in Oman of the leading tyre manufacturer Bridgestone, has launched an exclusive campaign for their truck and bus tyres.

For owners of heavy vehicles looking for a good deal for their truck tyres, TAC has a great offer on the TBR segment where cus-tomers can avail instant cash back of upto OMR20 on every 02 tyres on exchange of their old truck tyres limited to the same quantity. This offer is valid on cash pur-chase of every 02 truck tyres of rim size 20, 22.5 and 24 inch and will be valid through all the Truck Tyre centre, Fleet Point, Tyre Care Plus outlet and First Stop store, says a press release.

To make purchasing tyres even

easier and reduce the financial burden, TAC and Bridgestone have joined hands with Bank Muscat where Bank Muscat credit card holders can avail a 0% interest with the Easy Payment Plan for 12 months.

Customers can enjoy these

amazing offers until November 13 with the campaign currently run-ning successfully across the Sul-tanate of Oman.

“This scheme works as an eco-nomic deal for owners of heavy vehicles and fleets. Bridgestone tyres have always been the pre-ferred tyre. We have devised this exclusive campaign for our cus-tomers, keeping in mind their needs and conveniences,” said Oommen John, AGM, Bridge-stone Tyre Division at Towell Auto Centre.

Bridgestone tyres have been recognised the world over with numerous accolades to its name. In the Sultanate, Bridgestone was recently honoured with the prestigious title of being the ‘Top Brand in Oman’ in its category.

TAC’s flawless service by dedi-cated professionals, when cou-pled with the reliability of Bridge-stone’s world class tyres, results in them being the most trusted partners in the industry.

With the latest addition of First Stop stores, Towell Auto Centre has expanded its network of Tyre Care Plus outlets dedicated to tyres and First Stop dedicated to autocare. TAC has a strong pres-ence all across the sultanate with presence in Barka, Musannah, Sohar, Saham, Buraimi, Bu Ali, Ibra, Sinaw, Ibri, Nizwa, Karsha, Sumail, Sur and Salalah.

In the capital, they are located at Wadi Kabir, Bausher, Ghubra, Ghala, Rusayl, Al Khoud and Ma-belah. First Stop stores are locat-ed in Amerat and Seeb.

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Stage set fort first Oman Girls Cross-country Championship>C3

Mendis confident of Oman’s good show at World Twenty20 in India

T.K. MOHANDOSSsportseditor@timesofoman.com

MUSCAT: When Oman quali-fied for the World Twenty20 Championship, to be held in India March next year, it was indeed a déjà vu for the national coach Duleep Mendis.

Having achieved the feat in style, the Sri Lankan cricket leg-end, who is also the Chief Devel-opment Officer of Oman Cricket, doesn’t want to rest on the laurels.

As ambitious as ever, Mendis’

goal is to help Oman leave a distin-guished mark on the big platform.

If Oman Cricket is busy with their developmental projects, Mendis is busy chalking out plans for the national teams.

Busy with his planners in his office room at the Oman Cricket headquarters, Mendis took some time off to provide Times Sport with the itinerary for the national team, before they head to India to make their debut on world stage.

“The greatest encouragement, of course, is the co-operation of the employers of the players and the

enthusiasm, determination and dedication of the players in addi-tion to the whole-hearted support from the Oman Cricket officials,” Mendis, who indicated that these were the main ingredients of the success in the qualifiers, said.

“After a month-long hiatus, since we returned from Ireland, the players have not shown fatigue and were ready for the rigorous training schedule thereafter,” said a very satisfied looking Mendis.

“My first priority was to get back to prime as far as fitness was con-cerned, and the boys were ready

for the training regime under the guidance of specialist physical trainer Nagendra Prasad from India, who has also lent his ex-pertise to various IPL franchises,” said Mendis, complementing his team’s positive response to the rig-orous sessions.

“We started the physical train-ing sessions early October and the Indian trainer, who was rec-ommended to us by Anil Kumble, was with the boys for around eight days,” said Mendis, who added to say that Nagendra will continue to have short stints with the team.

“Another objective was to help domestic trainers enhance the knowledge of modern training techniques, which in turn help our entire cricketing system to im-prove,” the coach said.

“Now that Nagendra has gone back to India, we are still following his pattern of training. However, he will return in January next year to once again review the fitness of our players,” Mendis detailed.

“In addition, we also have the

services of fielding expert Vijay Bharadwaj, who is with the team presently and working on the fresh fielding technique and also hon-ing the sharp catching skills of the players,” he added.

Camps in Dubai, IndiaNagendra and Vijay with good experience are shaping the team well, but soon more experts will share their expertise in spe-cialised fields. >C2

Oman coach will

take the team to

Dubai and India for

extensive preparatory

camps for the Asia

Cup T20 and World

T20 and has also

roped in former

Sri Lankan pacer

Rumesh Ratnayake

and former India

spinner Sunil Joshi

to hone the skills

of the playersWORKING HARD: Oman national cricketers at net practice in Barka. The players have been undergoing

rigorous training under the watchful eyes of coach Duleep Mendis.

We know it’s a daunting task, but our aim is to carve out

a niche for ourselves on the world stage. The boys are

keen and focussed, which is making my job a lot easy

Duleep MendisOman Cricket coach

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Mendis confident of Oman’s good show at World T20

Former Sri Lanka pacer Rumesh Ratnayake and former India spin-ner Sunil Joshi will join the team during the camps in Dubai and In-dia (Chennai) respectively.

“We will be having a nearly month-long camp in Dubai from November 5 to December 1 and we will move on to Chennai on De-cember 10. We may also camp in Mysore during our stay in India,” said Mendis.

The camp in Dubai at the ICC Academy will also see Oman play-ing matches against the United Arab Emirates, Papua New Guin-

ea, Afghanistan and Hong Kong.“We will play a two-day game

against UAE, a three-day game against Afghanistan, a one-day game against PNG and six T20 matches against Honk Kong and Afghanistan,” said Mendis, who added to say that Ratnayake and Vijay will also be joining the team.

“Rumesh will be with us for 12 days and Vijay for eight days,” he added. On playing two-day and three-day games, Mendis said: “Those are also as important as the T20s for Oman team, if you keep an outlook for the future.”

Meanwhile, he said the camp in India will be at Chennai’s Sri Ra-machandra Sports Centre. “They boast of modern training facilities and will be the right place to train in India,” Mendis said. “We will also play good opponents (four to five matches).”

The advantage will be special session for our spinners with Sunil Joshi, who will be with the team for more than one week.

Asia Cup 2016 qualifierAfter the external camps Oman will return home to continue train-

ing in Muscat though there will be slight change in programme if the venue and dates of Asia Cup 2016 qualifiers are announced.

The ICC has planned to hold Asia Cup 2016, which had been changed to T20 format from now on, as a prelude to the World T20.

“In January we will have the ser-vices of Vijay and Ratnayake and after the internal camp we are like-ly to go to India in February to play in the qualifiers,” the coach added.

Taking part in the qualifiers are Afghanistan, Hong Kong, the UAE and Oman. “If we qualify or not

we will continue to stay in India (Chennai) to get used to the play-ing conditions,” said Mendis, who has also picked up Uttarakhand for high-altitude training, in case Oman has to play at venues like Dharamsala.

BCCI is yet to release the fix-tures for World T20.

Oman will have to play the first round of the World T20 against full members Bangladesh and Zimba-bwe, and qualifiers Scotland, Ire-land, Hong Kong, the Netherlands and Afghanistan. Only two from this round will make it to the sec-

ond round to face India, England, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Af-rica, Sri Lanka and West Indies.

“We know it’s a daunting task, but our aim is to carve out a niche for our-selves on the world stage. The boys are keen and focussed, which is mak-ing my job a lot easy,” said Mendis.

On the team fulcrum, Men-dis said it is almost the same that brought us success in Ireland. “I have indeed added some more players and we have a pool of 27 players, which will be pruning to 15 before the tournament proper,” he signed off.

O M A N C R I C K Z E T

< FROM

C1

ONE FOR THE ALBUM: Oman national team probables pose for a group photo with coach Duleep Mendis and physical trainer Nagendra Prasad during a recent training session. – Supplied photo

Infrastructure development in full swing, says Pankaj Khimji

T.K. MOHANDOSSsportseditor@timesofoman.com

MUSCAT: Experience floodlight cricket soon, Oman Cricket Direc-tor Pankaj Khimji had said at the Annual Awards Gala recently.

And a visit to the Ministry of Sports Affairs cricket ground at Al Amerat shows the purpose and determination of the national body to get things done within the stipu-lated time frame.

“Work is going on according to

the specified schedule and the ex-isting green ground at Al Amerat will be well lit and ready for day-night cricket by November,” said Pankaj Khimji in a brief chat with Times Sport.

“We have kick-started landscap-ing of the second ground as well and by the end of this season the greening of the second ground will also be completed,” said the Oman Cricket official.

“The dream of having a full-fledged facility in Al Amerat is not far and work regarding installa-tions of light towers are going in a brisk pace,” he added.

Meanwhile, Oman Cricket’s General Secretary Madhu Jesrani elaborated on the ongoing devel-

opmental work. Madhu said the existing green ground will boast of 10 turf pitches in the middle.

“At the moment the ground has five pitches and five more will be added,” said Madhu Jesrani, who sounded excited on the develop-mental activities, which gained

momentum after Oman’s qualifi-cation for the World T20.

“Proscape, an Oman-based company, is handling the job of developing the grounds, and land-scaping on the second ground is in full progress,” said Madhu.

“The second ground will also

have 10 pitches and 12 additional ones on the side (6 turf pitches and 6 astro-turf ) will be prepared for net practice and cricket academy.

He also hinted at building a grand pavilion with dressing rooms and indoor practice facilities. “The fa-cilities coming up will be up to in-

ternational standards,” he pointed.Madhu was also confident that

the upcoming facilities will en-hance the popularity of cricket in Oman and also help in developing the standard to the next level.

Ministry of Sports

Affairs cricket ground

at Al Amerat depicts

the purpose and

determination of the

national body to

get things done

within the stipulated

time frame

WORK IN PROGRESS: A view of the Ministry of Sports Affairs cricket ground at Al Amerat where work on installing floodlight facilities is in full swing. – O.K. MOHAMMED ALI / Times of Oman

OPTIMISTIC: Oman Cricket Gen-eral Secretary Madhu Jesrani.

The dream of having a

full-fledged facility in Al

Amerat is not far

Pankaj Khimji

Fatma makes winning start in CanadaMUSCAT: Omani tennis star Fatma Al Nabhani made a win-ning start to her campaign in the first of two back-to-back ITF Pro Circuit tournaments she is taking part in Canada.

The Omani lass, who is current-ly placed at 471 in the rankings, upset third seeded Croatian Bar-bora Krejcikova in the first round of the $50,000 Saguenay tourna-ment in Quebec.

Taking on a player who is ranked 164, Fatma had to dig deep to win a thrilling three-set match and book a place in the second round.

In a see-saw battle, Fatma sur-vived some tense moments in the first set tie-break before winning it 7-5 (4). In the second, Fatma failed to stop her opponent from winning at 6-4. But in the decid-ing set, another close affair, Fatma kept her cool to win 7-5 and with that the match.

In the second round, Fatma is expected to have an easy outing as the Omani will be facing a qualifi-er in the form of Ashley Weinhold of the US. Ashley advanced after defeating unseeded Belgian Marie Benoit 6-3, 7-5.

Doubles defeatFatma, however, fumbled in the first round of the doubles compe-tition. In their first round match, the Omani ace and her Indian partner Karman Kaur Thandi came up against top seeds Sharon

Fichman of Canada and Maria Sanchez of the US.

The Indo-Oman pair managed to win just one game as Sharon and Maria won the match 6-0, 6-1.

Fatma, who has shifted to $50,000 events after finding suc-

cess two back-to-back $10,000 tournaments held in India recent-ly in an attempt to improve her ranking, is also scheduled to take part in the $50,000 Tevlin Chal-lenger in Toronto from October 26 to November 1.

T E N N I S

THRILLING OPENER: Oman’s Fatma Al Nabhani had to fight hard before overcoming third seeded Croatian Barbora Krejcikova in Canada. – File photo

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Stage set for first Oman Girls Cross-country Championship

SPORTS REPORTER

MUSCAT: Excellence Perfor-mance, a professionally run sports management company, has been striving with great success to or-ganise unique sports events — in the disciplines which have no rec-ognised official governing body but has massive following among the sports-loving Omanis.

The main objective of Excellent Performance is to provide a plat-form and a safe environment for the people to practice and compete in the sport they love, and to at-tract not just the trained athletes but also people from all walks of life, there by promoting healthy living among the citizens.

Al Amerat Challenge road race is a case in point. After making an excellent beginning in 2014 in a big way, the organisation went one notch up last year by hosting a truly international race.

The second edition of the Chal-lenge, the first Association of In-ternational Marathons and Dis-tance Races (AIMS) sanctioned road race to be held in the Sultan-ate, had attracted a number of in-ternational stars.

But the major gain from the event was for the local populace — who experienced the thrills of participating in a distance run-ning event — in general and the Sultanate in particular as the race promoted the country globally as a tourist destination. The organi-sation has already made plans to host a similar event, promoting a completely different but equally popular discipline — roller skating, in November this year.

But before that, the organisation has decided to organise a national level event marking Oman’s Wom-en’s Day, which is observed annu-ally on October 17.

And aptly it has been planned as an exclusive women’s event —

Oman Girls Cross-country Cham-pionship, aimed at introducing the local girls to sports and showcas-ing the future Omani talents.

The championship, scheduled to be held on October 31, was offi-cially launched at the Oman Olym-pic Committee Headquarters on Wednesday in the presence of Saada bint Salim Al Ismaili, Direc-tor of Women’s Sport Department at the Ministry of Sports Affairs.

Dr. Mansour Al Touqi, Chairman of Oman Paralympic Committee, and Ministry of Sports Affairs of-ficials also graced the occasion.

Giving the details of the champi-onship, Rashid Ibrahim Al Kindi, Founder and Executive Director of Excellence Performance, said: “The championship will be organ-ised at Al Musannah Sports City on October 31.”

“It has been our endeavour from the beginning to promote the dis-ciplines which have no official association or a committee, and popularise those sports. We have found success with our Al Amerat Challenge road race.

“We have planned this event (Oman Girls Cross-country Cham-pionship) as there is no such meet for the Omani girls though there a number of local girls who want to compete in cross-country races and represent the Sultanate at the international events,” Rashid Al Kindi explained.

“We are glad to host the champi-onship as a time when the country

is celebrating the Oman Women’s Day,” he added. “We hope these kinds of championships will also help the Oman Athletic Associa-tion to spot the Omani talents and groom them for the future.”

“Besides that our main objective as ever is to promote these sports,

in this case among the Omani girls, and healthy living,” he added.

Cash awardsThe championship, to be organised with the support from the Minis-try of Sports Affairs, is scheduled to start at Al Musannah Sports

City at 3.30 pm on October 31 and it will have two categories — a 4km race open to those above 14 years of age and a fun race for women of all ages.

Al Kindi informed that the win-ners in the open category will be presented with cash awards and medals while the top finish-ers in the fun race will be receive the medals.

The top ten finishers in the main race will get cash awards as well as medals starting with OMR 300 for the winners. The next nine will get OMR 200, 150, 100, 50, 30, 20, 20, 20, and 10 respectively.

The organisers have decided to give medals to the first 200 finish-ers in the fun race.

Those interested in participat-ing in the event may register the entries at various centres located at Ministry of Sports Affairs, Sul-tan Qaboos Sports Complex and Millenium Hotel in Al Musannah from October 24 to 30. The entry fee is OMR 1.

The participants can also opt for spot registration before 2 pm on the race day on payment of OMR 2.

Al Kindi thanked the Ministry of Sports Affairs, Oman Athletic Association and Oman Olympic Committee for all the support while also appreciating the back-ing given by various sponsors.

The event is mainly sponsored by Oman LNG, Millennium Resort Hotel, Muscat Pharmacy (Pocari Sweat) and Coca Cola (Arwa).

Excellence

Performance organised

championship, being

held with support of

Ministry of Sports

Affairs and various

sponsors, will take

place at Al Musannah

on October 31

NEW VENTURE: Excellence Performance Executive Director Rashid Al Kindi, left, speaks as Ministry of Sports Affairs’ Women’s Sports

Committee Director Saada bint Salim Al Ismaili, centre, looks on during the launch ceremony of the Oman Girls Cross-country Champion-

ship at Oman Olympic Committee headquarters on Wednesday. – JUN ESTRADA / Times of Oman

It has been our endeavour from the beginning to promote the disciplines which have no official association or a committee, and popularise those sports

Rashid Al KindiExecutive Director, Excellence Performance

Blomstrand wins inaugural Muscat Hills Golf Citizen ChampionshipMUSCAT: Christofer Blom-strand led from start to finish to win the inaugural Muscat Hills Golf Citizen Championship, mak-ing a significant impact on his debut at the MENA Golf Tour on Wednesday.

A good two shots in front over-night, the 23-year-old Swede had the luxury of bogeying the final hole and still winning the tournament by one shot on 11-under after his nearest challenger from Germany, Julian Kunzenbacher, agonisingly missed a 16-footer for birdie.

Spain’s Xavier Puig fired a course record 66 to finish third on eight under, one ahead of Mo-rocco’s Younes El Hassani, Ryan Smith of Australia and Per Barth of Sweden.

With his game on cruise con-trol, Blomstrand never relin-quished his overnight lead and made putts when he needed to make to complete a brilliant win, his second since turning profes-sional three years back.

“It feels just incredible to win here. I had a great week. Every part of my game fell into place, which was good,” said Blomstrand after receiving the winner’s tro-phy from Mohamed Juma Bua-maim, chairman of the MENA Golf Tour, and Ray Stopforth, di-rector of golf at Muscat Hills and Country Club.

“I never really felt threatened and played my own game. I could

smell the victory when I birdied the 16th. Standing on the 18th, I had a two-shot lead. Though I three putted, it was still good enough to get the job done,” said the Swede, who shot a final round 70.

“The victory has given me a good energy boost ahead of the second stage of the European Tour qualifier,” said the Swede who plans to play more events on the MENA Golf Tour next season.

Kunzenbacher went for broke in the last two holes. The aggres-sive approach worked well on the 16th where he picked up a shot, but missed his birdie bid at the last which would have forced a playoff.

“I think I had my chances, but Christofer played brilliantly and deserved to win. Whenever I made a birdie, he was quick to re-spond. There was nothing much I could do. In the end, I lost to a well-deserved winner,” said the 22-year-old German, who closed with a 69.

Earlier, Australia’s Matthew Scarfone matched the day’s best score of a 66, eclipsing the previous course record of a 65 held by Spain’s Sergio Garcia, to reach eight-under for a share of the eighth.

Morocco’s El Hassani closed with a 71 to win the MENA Divi-sion on seven-under, four clear of

second-placed Amine Joudar as Amine El Malki, also of Morocco, carded a 69 to join his compatriot Ayoub Lguirati and India’s Ray-han Thomas in a three-way tie for the leading amateur award on one-under.

Professionals: 1.Christofer Blom-strand (Sweden) 11-under; 2. Julian Kunzenbacher (Germany) 10-under; 3. Xavier Puig (Spain) 8-under.

Leading amateur: Amine El Malki, Ayoub Lguirati and India’s Rayhan Thomas (all one-under).

MENA Division: Leading profes-sional: Younes El Hassani (Morocco), Leading amateur: Amine El Malki and Ayoub Lguirati (both of Morocco).

M E N A G O L F T O U R

CHAMPION: Sweden’s Christofer Blomstrand with Mohamed Juma Buamaim, chairman of the MENA

Golf Tour, and Ray Stopforth, director of golf at Muscat Hills and Country Club. – Supplied photo

PCB chief demands a definitive decision from BCCINEW DELHI: Pakistan Crick-et Board (PCB) Chairman Sha-haryar Khan on Wednesday demanded a definitive answer from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on the proposed Indo-Pak cricket se-ries, saying Pakistan will as-sume a ‘no’ if India continue to delay the decision.

Shaharyar came to India on an invitation from BCCI Presi-dent Shahshank Manohar but the talks were cancelled when Shiv Sena workers barged into BCCI headquarters in Mumbai, protesting against the dialogue.

“It is still not a complete ‘No’ but we need to decide at some point of time and it has to be very soon as there is not much time left. A reply ‘yes’ or ‘no’ is necessary. If there’s

still delay we have to assume that it’s a ‘no’,” Shaharyar said.

“Therefore I have said yes-terday and I am saying it now, chances of this series taking place has reduced significantly,” the former diplomat said.

The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Chairman admitted that not having a discussion was very disappointing.

“We could not engage in dis-cussions and resolve the issues between us. I am not going back disappointed of a possibility of negative response or we would lose money. But that’s not the case at all. We came here to see if we could engage in a bilateral series. If it doesn’t happen that means it has not happened for eight years.”

Shaharyar said if the bilateral series with India is not held in December, then the Memoran-dum of Understanding (MoU) signed between the two nations would be “virtually dead”.

“Well, the future depends on the bilateral series that is sched-uled in December for which an MoU was signed by both India and Pakistan which includes six series in eight years. The December (2015) series was the first amongst those six series. Now if India does not play the series means that MoU is virtu-ally dead,” he said. - PTI

C R I C K E T

Shaharyar Khan

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England weak against spin: ShahDUBAI: Ahead of the second crick-et Test against England, Pakistan leg-spinner Yasir Shah has vowed to exploit the visiting batsmen’s weaknesses against spin bowling.

Yasir missed the opening drawn match between the sides last week due to a back spasm, but looked set to return and add to his impressive career figures of 61 wickets in just 10 Tests.

The 29-year-old believes Eng-land’s batsmen have long been susceptible to high-class leg-spin and is looking to make the most of the conditions in Dubai, despite Moeen Ali’s claims that Joe Root is the “best in the world against spin”.

“In the nets, I try to bowl as per the videos of their batsman and weaknesses I’ve noticed. I’ve focused on those weaknesses. I think they (England) are weak against the leg-spinners, so will strongly try to exploit that,” Shah was quoted as saying by SkyS-ports on Tuesday.

“I watched Shane Warne in the Ashes, and I noticed they are weak against leg-spin. So I’ve watched those videos and have tried in the nets to bowl like that,” he said.

Shah, who has taken 14 wickets in two Tests at the Dubai Interna-tional Cricket Stadium, has con-firmed he is now ready for action after injuring himself in the nets be-fore the opening Test in Abu Dhabi.

“I am 99 percent fit. I did bowl in practice on the third day of the Test, and I didn’t feel any pain,” he said.

England skipper Alastair Cook scored 263 against Pakistan as England recovered to almost se-cure the unlikeliest of victories in last week’s first Test, but Shah admitted he has England’s captain in his sights.

“He played very well in the first innings, but I always relish this

kind of challenge to bowl at good batsmen,” Shah said.

Root is best player of spinEngland off-spinner Moeen Ali believes his team should not fear a turning pitch here this week against Pakistan as they have “the best player of spin in the world” in Joe Root.

“Yasir’s obviously their gun spinner and the guy they go to win them games, but we just need to play him as we would anyone, just get on with it. Batting’s obviously going to be tougher than it was in Abu Dhabi. But we’ve got some good players of spin,” Ali was quoted as saying by Sky Sports on Tuesday.

“I think Rooty’s probably the best player of spin in the world, so we’re not too fazed. We’re prepar-ing well, and as long as we’re pre-pared we’re happy to go into the game full of confidence,” he said.

England’s own leg-spinner Adil Rashid underlined his potential with five second-innings wickets in the first Test, while Moeen’s off-spin yielded two more amid the final-day drama. - IANS

CANBERRA: New Zealand are under no illusions how tough it will be to win their first Test series in Australia in 30 years despite the hosts undergoing a transition phase, coach Mike Hesson said.

New Zealand’s only victory over their trans-Tasman rivals in 11 series in Australia came in 1985, when Richard Hadlee’s swing and seam bowling, and Martin Crowe’s batting helped the tourists to a 2-1 win over Al-lan Border’s side.

Such has been Australia’s dominance over New Zealand in Test cricket that the last three series there have been limited to two matches. How-ever, Brendon McCullum’s side won the last Test between the two, in Hobart in December 2011, by seven runs to level the series after they were thumped by nine wickets in the first game at Brisbane.

“1985 was a long time ago. A lot of us still remember that quite fondly,” Hesson told re-porters in Canberra ahead of their first match on Friday, a day-night one-dayer against the Prime Minister’s XI to be played with a pink ball.

“There have been some good New Zealand sides come over here in the past and I think it has shown how formidable Austral-ia are in their own backyard.”“

“We have had the odd Test win ... but to win a series over here, you need to play very well and we won’t get too far ahead of ourselves,” he said.

Relatively settled sideHesson is leading a relatively settled side into the series, while Australia are in the pro-cess of rebuilding after captain Michael Clarke, Chris Rogers, Brad Haddin and Shane Watson retired after the Ashes loss to England.

New Zealand’s opening bowl-ing pair Tim Southee and Trent Boult are one of the premier new ball attacks in world crick-et and could prove a handful in potentially humid conditions in the first Test, which starts on November 5 in Brisbane.

The batting will again be an-chored by the middle order of Kane Williamson, Ross Taylor and McCullum, while wick-etkeeper BJ Watling provides stubborn resistance with the tail.

Australia will be using the Prime Minister’s XI game and two Cricket Australia XI match-es against the tourists as a chance to give batsmen Usman Khawaja, Cameron Bancroft and Joe Burns the opportunity to push for Test side selection.

“There is an element of un-known I guess with their pos-sible batting options,” said Hesson. “We know a bit about Khawaja but he hasn’t played for a while. Obviously don’t know a lot about Bancroft. Burns is someone we have seen a little bit in one-day cricket but not in red ball cricket.”- Reuters

C R I C K E T

FIFA puts Beckenbauer and Villar under ethics probe

ZURICH: German football great Franz Beckenbauer on Wednes-day became the latest FIFA offi-cial named as under investigation, along with FIFA vice-president Angel Maria Villar and several other former executive committee members.

The Ethics Committee of the scandal-hit body was given the right to disclose information about cases by FIFA’s executive committee on Tuesday and wasted no time in tak-ing advantage of its new freedom.

Franz Beckenbauer, a World Cup winner as a player and coach and a former FIFA executive committee member, has had his case passed to the Adjudicatory Chamber of the Ethics Committee for a decision.

Villar, president of the Spanish Football Federation and a vice-president of both FIFA and Europe-an governing body UEFA, has also had his case passed on to the Ethics judge Hans-Joachim Eckert.

No details were given of the rea-sons for the investigations against Beckenbauer or Villar.

The Ethics Committee con-

firmed that, as widely reported, “proceedings are ongoing” against FIFA President Sepp Blatter and UEFA President Michel Platini “regarding a payment of CHF 2

million from FIFA to Michel Plat-ini in February 2011”.

Both men have already been giv-en 90-day provisional bans pend-ing their full investigations.

Suspended FIFA Secretary General Jerome Valcke’s “ongoing proceedings” were also confirmed.

The Ethics Committee said his case “related to the suspicion of

misuse of expenses and other in-fringements of FIFA’s rules and regulations”.

The committee also said six oth-er former FIFA executive commit-tee members were under investi-gation. All have been suspended or have resigned from office.

“Formal investigation proceed-ings relating to the suspicion of infringements of the FIFA Code of Ethics are amongst others ongo-ing against Worawi Makudi, Jef-frey Webb, Ricardo Teixeira, Amos Adamu, Eugenio Figueredo and Nicolás Leoz,” said the statement.

FIFA was plunged into crisis in May when the U.S. Department of Justice indicted 14 soccer officials and sports marketing executives on a series of corruption charges.

Palestine matchMeanwhile, FIFA said Palestine will be allowed to stage their World Cup qualifier against Saudi Arabia on home territory next month.

Saudi Arabia had declined to play the fixture last month, saying they could not travel to the Palestinian territories due to force majeure.

However, FIFA said that its or-ganising committee for the World Cup qualifying competition had “unanimously agreed” that the game would go ahead in Palestine on November 5.

“The Palestinian Football Asso-ciation (PFA) has given full securi-ty guarantees for the rescheduled match,” said FIFA in a statement.

“FIFA has agreed to appoint a security officer who will work hand in hand with the Palestine authori-ties to supervise the security plan and make sure that the match is played in very good conditions.”

Saudi Arabia lead Group A in the second round of Asian qualifying af-ter winning all their first four games.

Palestine are third in the group with five points.

The Saudi team, whose govern-ment does not recognise Israel, would have to pass through an Is-raeli border post to reach Pales-tine’s Faisal Husseini stadium in Al Ram. - Reuters

The Ethics

Committee of the

scandal-hit body was

given the right to

disclose information

about cases by FIFA’s

executive committee

on Tuesday and

wasted no time in

taking advantage

of its new freedomUNDER INVESTIGATION: Franz Beckenbauer, left, and Angel Maria Villar. – Agencies

SEOUL: South Korea’s Chung Mong-joon says he has been left in a “double bind” after a Swiss court rejected his request to temporarily lift a six-year ban from football that would allow him to stand as a candidate in FIFA’s presiden-tial election.

FIFA said on Tuesday that a Zurich District Court denied Chung’s request and ruled there was no indication of a defective procedure on the part of the soccer body’s ethics committee in banning the South Korean.

Chung has said he would appeal the ban to the Court

of Arbitration for Sport and described the sanction as a “shameful attempt” to punish his open criticism of FIFA, which is mired in the worst corruption scandal in its 111-year history.

Chung hit out at FIFA on Wednesday, saying the ethics committee had yet to provide him with the reasoned decision behind his ban, which under-mined his court case.

“FIFA continues to sabo-tage my candidacy for FIFA president,” the scion of South Korea’s Hyundai industrial con-glomerate said in a statement.

“I am in a double bind: I cannot maintain my candidacy because of the unjust sanc-tions, but I cannot appeal those sanctions or get an injunction from the Swiss court because I do not have the reasoned decision that FIFA’s Ethics Committee has so far refused to send me.”

Chung admitted that time was running out for him to meet the October 26 deadline to submit his candidacy to replace outgoing president Sepp Blatter. FIFA has confirmed the election of a new president would go ahead on February 26. - Reuters

Chung concedes his candidacy hangs by a thread

KARATE TEAM WIN FOUR BRONZE MEDALS, OMAN IN OVERALL THIRD PLACE AT GCC GAMESOman national karate team

won four bronze medals as the

Sultanate squad moved to third

place in overall standings at the

ongoing second GCC Games in

Saudi Arabian city of Dammam

on Wednesday. Omani athletes

have so far bagged 22 medals,

including three gold, ten silver

medals and nine bronze medals.

Oman swimming team clinchd

three medals, two gold by Issa

Al Adawi in the 800m freestyle

(8:59.07) and in the 200m

freestyle (1:56.97) as well as a

bronze medal by 4x100m relay

team. The Sultanate’s handball

squad, who are still in the hunt

for a top three place, will play

their final match against hosts

Saudi Arabia on Thursday. — ONA

FOCUS ON WEAKNESSES: Pakistan leg-spinner Yasir Shah. – Reuters

New Zealand not discounting Australia team in transition

C R I C K E T

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India’s task in the fourth One-day International at Chennai will be made

a bit easier by the absence of JP Duminy who injured his hand while fielding a fierce straight drive by the Indian skipper MS Dhoni in the Rajkot international. The ball was hit with such force that it thudded into Duminy’s chest as it slipped through his fingers. Duminy has played a crucial role in South Africa’s team in this series smashing his way with the bat as South Africa look to accelerate the scoring and then bowl his gently deceptive off-spinners and pick wickets at crucial times and break partnerships that look threatening. South Africa, unlike India, go in with four regular bowlers and hope that the fifth bowler’s quota is filled inexpensively by Duminy and Behardien. It has worked so far simply because the four regular bowlers are doing such a splendid job that even if the fifth bowler is a tad expensive it does not mat-ter that much. They also have Quinton de Kock who scores runs at the top of the order and keeps wickets and gives the balance that the team needs.

Duminy’s absence through injury may just put a little more pressure on the South Africans as they look to fill in the fifth bowler’s quota and whether his replacement will be able to do an adequate job with

both bat and ball remains to be seen. India’s strategy of going in with five bowlers is not working because the bowlers are being expensive and are unable to contrib-ute with the bat. In the circumstances when India is chasing a target then the pressure on the top order is tremendous as they know there is not much to come with the bat lower down the order.

South Africa’s tactics of banging the ball short worked brilliantly as the Indians brought up to play domestic cricket where the bouncer is laughed at are not able to deal with it from the South African pacers. Morne Morkel who has played in the shadow of the great Dale Steyn was superb on a placid wicket at Rajkot mixing the short ball cleverly and not giving the length that the Indian bats-men were looking for. He deservedly won the Man of the Match ahead of de Kock whose effort in the searing heat of Rajkot was also a tremendous one.

The weather is going to be even more sapping at Chennai and India will be hoping that it’s the weapon that will turn the series their way. — PMG

Duminy’s absence may put pressure on South Africa

C O M M E N T A R Y India look to save series

CHENNAI: Skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni will face one of the trickiest tests of his international career as he frets on a perfect bat-ting combination when India take on South Africa in a must-win fourth cricket ODI here tomorrow.

Down 1-2 and a bunch of bats-men not showing enough flex-ibility at different numbers, it has become a tough task for skipper Dhoni, who is facing the danger of losing a home ODI series and a second straight one after the 2-1 defeat against Bangladesh earlier this year.

If Ravichandran Ashwin’s side strain is one of the many on-field worries for Dhoni, the problems have been compounded by off-field woes as leg-spinner Amit Mishra is facing assault charges with a woman filing a case against the leg-spinner at the Bengaluru po-lice station.

It is still not clear whether Mishra will be playing this match or not. Run chases have been a problem of late for the Indian team as skipper himself has admitted that the side is yet to figure out as to who are the ideal players at Nos 5, 6 and 7.

These are the three slots where batsmen who are capable of big hits and can be finishers in close run chases are preferred.

However, with an ageing Dhoni preferring to bat up the order, Ajinkya Rahane is yet to find his mojo at No 5 or 6.

Dhoni’s deputy Virat Kohli fi-nally got some ODI runs (77) in the last game albeit it came in a losing cause. But Virat scored the mo-ment he was back at his preferred No 3 slot while Rahane, the mo-ment he was demoted, couldn’t get going after two half-centuries in the first two games.

Suresh Raina is another player who is not in good form. Only 3 runs from 3 matches is not a fair indication of one of India’s better limited overs cricketer but Raina is certainly going through a lean patch which has increased the pressure on the other batsmen.

While Rohit Sharma is in the form of his life in the shorter ver-

sions with more success than fail-ures in recent times, the same can’t be said about his opening partner Shikhar Dhawan, who has man-aged only 59 runs in 3 matches.

Strangely, Dhawan has so far scored three centuries in his last three Test matches but sadly that form has not rubbed off on him when in coloured clothes.

Dhoni has so far done a lot of shuffling with the batting order and it will be interesting to see what exactly will be the permuta-tions and combinations he will be trying in tomorrow’s game.

With Kohli scoring runs, it will be difficult to remove him from No 3 while it will be even more diffi-cult to slot Rahane at No 4 consid-ering that skipper himself is feel-ing comfortable up the order.

With 173 runs in three matches, Dhoni is now second in the list among Indian run-scorers after Rohit Sharma (218 runs) but some of the times, his batting has been a bit different from the usual. While

Indore saw what Dhoni is capable of, Rajkot was an example of a play-er who is reaching the business end of a fine limited overs career.

The Indian team’s bowling at-tack will depend a lot on how Bhuvneshwar Kumar in the initial overs and Harbhajan Singh in the middle overs perform.

Ashwin’s absence will certainly hurt the team as he was in peak form and the South Africans with a clutch of left- handers would have found him difficult to handle.

For South Africa also, there will be some injury issues that they need to deal with.

Morne Morkel has a sore leg and is unlikely to feature in the penultimate match while one of their finest death-over hitters JP Duminy is out for three weeks with a hand injury. His replacement Dean Elgar will have his task cut in the next two games.

The South African team has had a mix and match kind of per-formance by their batsmen with

skipper AB de Villiers scoring a hundred and Faf du Plessis hitting three half- centuries in as many matches. Quinton de Kock re-turned to form with a responsible century in the last game.

The only problem has been Hashim Amla’s form which has been patchy with only 59 runs in three matches.

Teams:India: MS Dhoni (capt, wk), Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Ajinkya Rahane, Virat Kohli, Suresh Rai-na, Axar Patel, Harbhajan Singh, Amit Mishra, Mohit Sharma, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, S Arvind, Stuart Binny, Ambati Rayudu, Gurkeerat Mann.

South Africa: AB De Villiers (captain), Hashim Amla, Quinton de Kock, Faf Du Plessis, Dean El-gar, David Miller, Farhaan Behar-dien, Chris Morris, Khaya Zondo, Aaron Phangiso, Imran Tahir, Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel, Kyle Abbott, Kagiso Rabada. - PTI

Down 1-2 and a

bunch of batsmen

not showing enough

flexibility at different

numbers, it has

become a tough task

for skipper Dhoni,

who is facing the

danger of losing a

home ODI series and

a second straight one

after the 2-1 defeat

against Bangladesh

LET’S FOOTBALL: India’s Virat Kohli during a practice session ahead of 4th One-day match against

South Africa at MAC Stadium in Chennai. – PTI

TRAINING SESSION: Indian skipper M.S. Dhoni with Shikar Dhawan

and Ajinkya Rahane waiting for their turn to bat. – PTI

TALKING STRATEGIES: South Africa’s Imran Tahir, right, speaks to

Hashim Amla while attending a practice session. – Reuters

Viru had ‘great mental strength’MELBOURNE: Former Aus-tralia cricket captain Ian Chap-pell on Wednesday heaped praise on recently retired India batsman Virender Sehwag, terming him as someone unique with great mental strength, also adding that he will miss the 37-year-old’s “like it or lump it” style of approaching the game.

Sehwag on Tuesday an-nounced his retirement from all forms of international cricket and Indian Premier League (IPL) with immediate effect.

In a career spanning over 15 years in international cricket, Sehwag featured in 104 Tests and scored 8,586 runs at a staggering average of 49.34.

In 251 One-Day Internation-als (ODI), he amassed 8,273 runs at an average of 35.05. He also scored 38 international hundreds.

“Sehwag is amongst the most entertaining batsman I have ever seen. It has been many hours of pleasure watching Sehwag bat-ting. He is a player of great men-tal strength. He just listens to you and then goes to the field the way he wants. And to be so successful in it was amazing,” Chappell was quoted as saying by espncricinfo.

Sehwag also smashed his high-est ODI score in 2011 against the West Indies at Indore, slamming 219 runs off only 149 balls. This is the third highest score in ODIs, after Rohit Sharma (264) and Martin Guptil (237 not out).

“The specialty about him was he said this is the way I play, you can say what you like about it but this is how I play. This suits me best. There are not many guys who are so mentally strong like him,” he said.

It was in Tests that Sehwag

went on to establish himself as one of the very best in the game.

He is still the only Indian to have a triple century in his name, having done so twice against Pa-kistan (309 in Multan) and South Africa (319 in Chennai).The ‘Nawab of Najafgarh’ last rep-resented India in a Test against Australia in March 2013 and his spot was subsequently filled by the likes of Shikhar Dhawan and Murali Vijay following a string of low scores.

When asked if Sehwag should have changed his style of playing and approach during the latter part of his career, the 72-year-old said: “I think players need to change their approach as they get into the latter part of the career. But Sehwag is different. He says this is not the way I play. He plays by his own style.”

“Quite a few say like this, but not many have become what Sehwag has achieved. He might have prolonged his career, but he might not have been Sehwag. I like it that he said, this is how I play, take it or leave it,” he said.

Chappell also shared an inci-dent when then India chief coach John Wright told Sehwag to be cautious ahead of playing shots and Sehwag replied to it with just a smile.

“I remember, I met John Wright during his coaching in India. He said to me after Sehwag got out cheaply off a bad stroke, he told Sehwag to be a bit cau-tious. When I asked John what was Sehwag’s reply, John said Sehwag just smiled and did not reply. I am going to miss Sehwag, as I really enjoyed his batting,” Chappell concluded. - IANS

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Bishen Singh bags

men’s A singles title

MUSCAT: Bishen Singh Bhalla defeated Prabhu AR in straight games to lift the men’s A singles ti-tle at the National Bank of Oman-sponsored annual badminton tournament being organised by the Indian Social Club, Muscat.

Bishen Singh reached the fi-nal after having won a thrilling encounter against Niyas while Prabhu had a good win over Shi-vadas in his semifinal.

In the summit clash, the first game started with both players using powerful smashes and drop

shots. Prabhu looked in control, being more positive and built up a small lead during the break.

However, Bishen Singh kept up the pressure using his power-ful smash to take the first game at 21-17.

The second game continued in the same vein with the top seed looking to gain control and while it was clear that Bishen Singh was in trouble due to a side strain he was carrying. However, he managed to win the second game 21-19 to win the title.

I S C B A D M I N T O N

FINALISTS: Bishen Singh Bhalla and Prabhu AR. – Supplied photo

ISG STUDENTS WIN RICH HAUL OF MEDALS AT CBSE CLUSTER SWIMMINGThe CBSE Oman Cluster

Swimming Competition

2015 was successfully

hosted by Indian School

Al Ghubra (ISG) recently

with participation of

181 students from nine

Indian Schools in Oman.

Forty-two students of

ISG brought laurels to

the school by winning 65

gold, eight silver and two

bronze medals in various

events. — Supplied photo

Chhetri’s double guides Mumbai to first victory

MUMBAI: After a flop show in his Indian Super League (ISL) debut, forward Sunil Chhetri came back with a power-packed performance on Wednesday netting a brilliant brace to steer hosts Mumbai City FC to a 2-0 win over Delhi Dynamos FC at the D.Y. Patil Stadium here.

India national team skipper Chhetri opened the scoring in the 13th minute and got his sec-ond in the 74th minute to power Mumbai to their first win of the edition. Mumbai climbed from bottom of the table to the seventh spot, with four points from as many games, having lost two and drawn one earlier.

On the other hand, Delhi, who had earlier gathered momentum after three consecutive wins before this match, lost a chance to go top of the points table fol-lowing the loss. It kept them in the second spot with nine points from five games, having lost one in their season opener.

Nicolas Anelka managed Mumbai went with a strong 4-4-2 formation for the crucial match. A total of five changes were made in the starting XI. Subash Singh, Juan Aguilera, Gabriel Fer-

nandes, Aitor Lopez and Darren O’Dea replaced Ashutosh Mehta, Selim Benachour, Frederic Piqui-onne, Pratesh Shirodkar and Frantz Bertin.

On the other hand, Roberto Carlos, after three successive wins in their previous games, went in with a 3-5-2 formation by one change in their side. Zod-ingliana Ralte was left out due to injury, midfielder Sehnaj Singh came in for the Indian.

Delhi kick-started the proceed-ings for the night and both the sides looked aggressive from the word go. Some positive play by the home side soon after yielded fantastic results as Chhetri’s goal in the 13th minute helped them go 1-0 up. Delhi got the best chance to equalise in the closing minutes of the first half, when Mulder’s powerful shot from outside the 30 yards box found Mumbai goal-keeper Subrata Paul.

Chhetri doubled the lead for Mumbai in the 74th minute. He chipped in perfectly in the right which saw Anas’s poor clearance, as the ball finds Norde. The Haitian midfielder got beyond the defender to cross the ball to Chhetri who fin-ishes it off in style. - IANS

I S L

Springboks unchanged for All Blacks semifinal

GUILDFORD: South Africa have named an unchanged starting line-up for their Rugby World Cup semi-final against New Zealand on Satur-day, but recalled veteran lock Victor Matfield to the bench in anticipa-tion of a hugely tense last quarter.

The 38-year-old was the only change made by coach Heyneke Meyer to the match-day 23 for the colossal clash at Twickenham.

Hooker Bismark du Plessis has recovered sufficiently from a gash on his hand and starts while lock Lood de Jager hurt a tendon in his foot against the Welsh and will have a fitness test later in the week.

Matfield, the 2007 World Cup winner who retired from interna-tionals after the 2011 tournament but made himself available again last year, is set to play in his 126th test after recovering from a ham-string strain suffered against Sa-moa four weeks ago.

“It’s great to be able to give an-other run to the team that got us through to the semi-finals in the biggest test of the year,” Meyer told reporters on Wednesday.

“Victor’s inclusion on the bench gives us even more experience there

and, as we saw last weekend against Wales, when the replacements did very well towards the end of the match, this will be crucial. His in-fluence will also be pivotal against a strong New Zealand line-out.”

Scrumhalf Fourie du Preez will continue as captain, with young flyhalf Handre Pollard and inex-perienced centres Damian de Al-lende and Jesse Kriel outside him.

Bryan Habana and JP Pieters-en continue on the wings, while fullback Willie le Roux, who had a poor game in the 23-19 quarter-final victory over Wales, retains his place.

South Africa needed a late try from Du Preez to beat Wales in the quarters and now face an All Blacks side who have beaten the Boks in 10 of their last 12 meetings.

Since winning the 2011 World Cup New Zealand have lost only three of their 52 games — includ-ing one against the Springboks at Ellis Park in 2014.

“This is probably the best team ever to play the game,” said Meyer. “There’s usually a decline after a World Cup but they’ve got better.

“We need our best performance ever to beat them but you have to believe you can beat them.

“I love playing the All Blacks and it’s probably the easiest game for me as a coach — I don’t have to mo-tivate them. I live for these games and I can’t wait to go.”

Team: 1-Tendai Mtawarira, 2-Bismarck du Plessis, 3-Frans Malherbe, 4-Eben Et-zebeth, 5-Lood de Jager, 6-Francois Louw, 7-Schalk Burger, 8-Duane Vermeulen, 9-Fourie du Preez (captain), 10-Handre Pollard, 11-Bryan Habana, 12-Damian de Allende, 13-Jesse Kriel, 14-JP Piet-ersen, 15-Willie le Roux. Replacements: 16-Adriaan Strauss, 17-Trevor Nyakane, 18-Jannie du Plessis, 19-Vicor Matfield, 20-Willem Alberts, 21-Ruan Pienaar, 22-Pat Lambie, 23-Jan Serfontein. - Reuters

South Africa needed

a late try from Du

Preez to beat Wales in

the quarters and now

face an All Blacks

side who have beaten

the Boks in 10 of their

last 12 meetings

ON THE BENCH: South Africa’s Victor Matfield, right, trains with his teammates at Surrey Sports Park

in Guildford, Surrey on Wednesday. – Reuters

Al Jarwani Group fetes Oman U-16 team

MUSCAT: Al Jarwani Group fe-licitated Oman under-16 national team, who recently won the GCC Under-16 Football Championship in Doha and also qualified for the AFC U-16 Championship to be held in India in 2016.

The honouring ceremony was organised at the group’s head of-fice in Al Khuwair and attended by Group Chairman Sheikh Mahmood Al Jarwani, Oman Football Association board mem-ber Mohammed Al Shahi and a

number of officials from the Al Jarwani Group and the OFA.

OFA official Mohammed Al Shahi appreciated the initiative of Al Jarwani Group and its support for the team.

He also extended his thanks

to the chairman of the group and the employees of the group for their support. Sheikh Mahmood Al Jarwani said that the support for the team came as part of the group’s Corporate Social Respon-sibility initiative.

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CultureSECTIONC L I F E S T Y L E T H U R S DAY, O CTO B E R 2 2 , 2 0 1 5

TEXT: T.A. Ameerudheen

PHOTO COURTESY: Helen Couchman & Gallery Sarah

Helen Couchman was on a photo shoot at the edge of the Empty Quarter in Febru-ary 2012 when she

saw two Bedouin women walking towards her. She captured them on camera from a distance. When they reached closer they invited her home for the traditional Omani welcome of dates and coffee. The chance encounter inspired Couch-man to think about an artist’s jour-ney to meet Omani women.

She travelled through villages, towns and cities on three differ-ent expeditions and camped in the mountains, deserts and on the beaches. The result was a rare book with 146 portraitures of Omani women from different regions. The book, titled Omani Women, was re-leased at a private view opened by the US Ambassador to Oman held at Gallery Sarah on October 12.

The British artist talks about the diversity of Omani women, their self-presentation, fashion, modesty and beauty in a free-wheeling chat on the sidelines of her solo exhibition at Gallery Sarah in Muscat.

Excerpts:What inspired you to shoot portraits of Omani women?I often work on commissioned photography projects to make a living. I came to Oman in Febru-ary 2012 on such a project. I was on a photo shoot at the edge of the Empty Quarter when I saw two Bedouin women walking towards me. They invited me to their bara-sati (a home constructed of tall palm frond fences) for a cup of cof-fee. And the chance encounter in-spired me to think about an artist’s journey to meet Omani women to ask for their portraits.

Later, I went to Nizwa Souq where I saw women who were trading livestock. I was struck by their dynamism in conducting the business of buying livestock.

How did you take the project forward?I researched libraries in London and Oxford. I discovered how little interest Omani women have solic-ited in photographs.

How many times did you visit Oman?The project was conceived in Feb-ruary 2012 and I visited the coun-try frequently since then. It took three years for me to complete it.

How did you interact with the women without knowing Arabic?I explained to them that I am an artist and that I am interested in the fashion of modern Omani women. I did not take a transla-tor to accompany me during the trips. Rather I had a translated text with me to introduce myself in Arabic. Also, I found that in most families at least one person spoke good English and, if ness-esary, would explain to the oth-ers. So the women I met started to trust me. And many readily posed for photographs.

Were you able to convince all the women you met?Some women said they don’t like to be photographed. I didn’t persuade them and we just con-tinued talking. I must have spo-ken to around 300 women out of

which 146 agreed to pose.

How did you manage your time?I undertook three different expe-ditions to complete the project. I camped in the mountains, desert, and on the beaches. I didn’t stay in hotels, not just to avoid the cost but also because it allowed me to be flexible with my time and to reach more remote places.

Where did you meet women?I navigated with the help of a road map. When I reached a village, I drove slowly looking to meet some-one. I tried to meet at least one per-son in every place and I succeeded. I was determined to cover the whole country. I met women either in the street or at their workplaces. I asked them what they would like to wear for the portrait. The Omani hospi-tality was wonderful. The women

treated me with Omani kahwa, dates and fruits.

Has the visits changed your per-ception about Omani fashion?Omani women love to wear colour-ful and tailor-made clothes. They have got a huge variety of dresses. The fabrics are great and their col-our choices are really amazing.

Which camera did you use?I used a Canon 5D Mark II and I am happy with the output.

Can you describe some of the interesting incidents?During my visit to a home in Thum-rait, an Omani man asked me about my nationality. I told him that I am British. Then he told me that Wil-fred Thesiger was the last British man to pass through the town. I was stunned to hear this as Thesiger’s

travel through the Empty Quarter took place some eighty years ago.

Who published the book?The Anglo-Omani Society funded the publication. It was released at Gallery Sarah on October 12. The UK launch is planned for November 12 at The Photographer’s Gallery.

Will your book benefit those who study Oman’s history?I won’t claim it will benefit stu-dents of history. The project is quiet important because these women haven’t been portrayed at all. I am proud to take the initiative.

This is your first trip to an Ara-bian country. Has it shattered any prejudices?I didn’t have any prejudices. But I am surprised by people’s hospital-ity. People very often invited me to

their homes and served me coffee and fruits.

It seems you always love to work on portraits?Omani Women is my third book of portraits. I published Workers, which comprises portraits of mi-grant workers who constructed the Olympic Stadiums in Beijing, and Mrs West’s Hats, which contain self portraits inspired by memories of my grandmother’s love for hats.

Surprisingly in my books, it turns out everything is portrai-ture. It is just a coincidence.

Finally, what are your thoughts about Oman?I like Oman. It is a beautiful country and a special place. I’d like to comeback to Oman for more projects in the future. ameerudheen@timesofoman.com

LIFESTYLEC8 T H U R S DAY, O CTO B E R 2 2 , 2 0 1 5

HELEN’S SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2015Omani Women – Gallery Sarah, Bait Al Zubair Museum, Muscat, Oman. 12th October - 5th November

2011In Beijing – Aluss Art Photography Space, Beijing, China

2010Cloud Series, Yellow Lining – Hanbury Hall, 3rd Festival On Cities, This Is Not A Gateway (TINAG), London

2007New Work – Gallery Perif, 5th DIAF Art Festival, 798 District, Beijing, China

2006Gift – 3rd Floor Contemporary, 4th Dashanzi International Art Festival, 798 District, Beijing, China

2005Linebuilding – The Well Gallery, London College of Communication

2004Lost Landscape – Digital Design Department, London College of CommunicationMrs West’s Hats – First Floor Gallery, Yerevan, Armenia

2001Italy Series – The Photographer’s Gallery Bookshop, London

200019.30 – Langham Place, London (National Contemporary Art Prize, Pizza Express – London winner)

1999There was no single reason for me to be there at first – The Photographer’s Gallery, London

1997Streetscape – Peckham Women’s Centre, London

1997Preface – The Windows Gallery, Charing Cross Road, London

WATCH HELEN’S WORKS Helen Couchman has exhibited widely in the United Kingdom, as well as held exhibitions in Beijing, New York, and Hong Kong. Her latest exhibition on Omani Women is now on at Gallery Sarah at Bait Al Zubair Museum in Muscat. The exhibition, which began on October 12, will conclude on November 5. Timings: 9.30am to 6:00pm, Sunday to Thursday.

Cover page of Helen Couchman’s book, ‘Omani Women’

Phot

os: H

elen

Cou

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an &

Gal

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Sar

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HcOfuhTo

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CoDrmBfrmCover page of Helen Couchman’s

LIFESTYLEC9T H U R S DAY, O C TO B E R 2 2 , 2 0 1 5

SO TO SPEAK

SALEHAL-SHAIBANY

It’s a Matter of ReadingBooks have a life of

their own. I remem-ber a particular old gentleman who had spent a lifetime col-

lecting books - volumes of every size and subject under the sun. He housed them in a big room and the shelves bowed precariously under the weight. There were books on the floor, the chairs and tables in that ‘room of knowledge’ as he called it.

He didn’t bother to arrange them — subject wise or language wise — and just piled them up on top of each other when the shelves were filled. Some of them were untouched for years and the dust on them proved it. He never let any grown person into that room, just children. “I lost many volumes that way,” he explained to me one day. “Be-sides, nobody appreciates a good book these days. People are too busy with their daily lives to bother about old volumes.”

He would sometimes read a story when there were enough children in that room. He had a

loud thundering voice that capti-vated them. The Arabian Nights’ tales were his favourites and he had a gift of drawing a picture in your mind as he read. Sometimes it was like watching a play with him as the actor.

My favourite time to visit the ‘room of knowledge’ was in the afternoon when he took his si-esta. If I was lucky, I would be the only one there and I then had the opportunity of reaching for the volumes that were piled up high towards the ceiling. The shelves were made of Indian teak and I could climb them like stairs. I would drop any heavy volume that had a catchy title and it would land on the Persian cush-ions on the floor without a sound.

There was this particular one, I can’t remember the title now, that gave vivid details of the Arab conquest of Spain. He saw me reading it and there was that sad smile on his face as he pulled a stool and sat opposite me.

“Do you know why we couldn’t hold those territories? Because there was no respect or trust

among ourselves.” I have often thought about that statement and I still do now.

Nevertheless, he always made sure we understood what we were reading. “Books are not for parrots,” he would say. “You read people’s experiences through the ages and you are supposed to feel their fears and blessings. All these books were written for peo-ple like you and me.”

I might add now that reading is not entirely a leisure habit. Not every book leaves a lifetime im-print on you but even the most boring one can be quite enter-

taining if is read with the right attitude. Books can’t talk back, but they do provide a reader with excellent comradeship whenever you need an intellectual compan-ion. Old books have special ap-peal and their heavy binding bear testimony to the fact that some-where in the past somebody had a message for us.

I remember with particular ap-preciation watching an old lady who owned a bookstore carefully blowing the dust off each and every book. She had been doing it, she explained to me, once a week for the last 10 years.

“It’s the least I can do for peo-ple who worked very hard to pass on knowledge to us,” she said and then added wistfully, “Do you know that books don’t make any demands at all? They are just there, waiting for you to pick them up.”

Looking back after all those years, I know for sure now books have made up who I am now. My attitude and life’s outlook are profoundly influenced by what I read when I was growing up.

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My attitude and life’s

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New Preview for Justin Bieber’s ‘Sorry’

Singer Justin Bieber is only three days away from releasing his new track Sor-ry. To keep the anticipation high, he has shared a new snippet in a video he post-ed online via Instagram. The short black-and-white teaser also features Skrillex and Blood Diamonds who collaborated with Bieber on the track. Donning a white T-shirt teamed with black hoodie and hat, the Baby hitmaker sings some lines over the acoustic guitar played by Skrillex. “Who’s ready for sorry, I know I Am,” Bieber captioned the clip. He added some plane emojis, tagged his col-laborators and added the hashtag “#3days.”

Timberlake in Memphis Music Hall of FameJustin Timberlake was feted at the Memphis Mu-sic Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony on Saturday. The star was introduced by comedian-actor Jimmy Fallon, at the Cannon Cen-tre in Memphis, Tennessee. The singer-turned-actor got emotional during his ac-ceptance speech and said: “I am truly honoured to be able to stand on the shoul-ders of all these legends that I grew up listening to and I grew up admiring to say that I stand alongside them now. This is the cool-est thing that has ever hap-pened to me,” he added. Timberlake also compared it with the Grammy and Emmy Awards.

‘War of the Planet of the Apes’ Begins FilmingDirector Matt Reeves has marked the beginning of filming the new instalment of Planet of the Apes movie series by sharing the on-set photo via Twitter. Reeves shared the first photo of War of the Planet of the Apes, which was taken on the filming set. The picture showed a silhouette of two actors on a lonely beach. One person stood while gesturing another person on horseback. -IANS

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1st Chiropractic Centre 24472274

Hamdan Hospital 23212340

International Medical

Centre LLC 24794501/2/3/4/5

Kims Oman Hospital 24760100

24 Hrs Emergency 24760123

Lama Polyclinic, Sohar 26751128

MBD 24799077

Al Khuwair 24478818

Magrabi Eye and

Ear Hospital 24568870

Muscat Private Hospital 24583600

Welcare Diagnostic and Treatment

Centre, Al Khuwair 24477666

Al-Hayat Polyclinc LLC 22004000

AIRLINE OFFICES

Muscat Airport Flight information

(24 hours) 24519456/24519223

Aeroflot 24704455

Air Arabia 24700828

Air France 24562153

Air India 24799801

Air New Zealand 24700732

Biman Bangladesh Airlines 24701128

British Airways 24568777

Cathay Pacific 24789818

Egypt Air 24794113

Emirates Air 24404400

Ethiopian Airlines 24660313

Gulf Air 80072424

Indian 24791914

Iran Air 24787423

Japan Airlines 24704455

Jazeera Airways 23294848

Jet Airways 24787248

Kenya Airways 24660300

KML Royal Dutch Airlines 24566737

Kuwait Airways 24701262

LOT Polish Airlines 24796387

Lufthansa 24796692

Malaysian Airlines 24560796

Middle East Airlines 24796680

Oman Air 24531111

Pakistan International

Airlines 24792471

Qatar Airways 24771900

Qantas 24559941

Royal Jordanian 24796693

Saudi Arabian Airlines 24789485

Singapore Airlines 24791233

Shaheen Air 24816565

SriLankan Airlines 24784545

Swiss International

Airlines 24796692

Thai Airways 24705934

LISTINGS

LONG DISTANCE BUS TIMINGS (OMAN NATIONAL TRANSPORT COMPANY SAOC) *SUBJECT TO CHANGE

FROM MUSCAT (RUWI)

Dept Destination Arrival Operatingtime time days

QURIYAT - SUR - JAALAN (ROUTE 36)

15:00 Quriyat 16:30 Daily

15:00 Sur 18:00 Daily

15:00 Jaalan 19:30 Daily

TO AL BURAIMI (ROUTE 41)

06:30 Sohar 08:50 Daily

06:30 Buraimi 11:00 Daily

08:00 Buraimi 14:30 Daily via Ibri

13:00 Sohar 15:45 Daily

13:00 Buraimi 17:40 Daily

16.00 Sohar 18.35 Daily

16.00 Buraimi 20:20 Daily

TO SINAW (ROUTE 52)

17:30 Sinaw 20:50 Daily

TO YANQUL (ROUTE 54)

14:30 Nizwa 16:50 Daily

14:30 Yanqul 19:30 Daily

TO IBRI (ARAQI) (ROUTE 54)

08:00 Nizwa 10:20 Daily

08:00 Al Araqi 12:30 Daily

TO SUR (ROUTE 55)

07:30 Sur 12:00 Daily

14:30 Sur 18:45 Daily

TO FAHUD - YIBAL (ROUTE 62)

06:30 Fahud 10:30 Daily

06:30 Yibal 11:15 Daily

TO MARMUL-SALALAH (ROUTE 100)

07:00 Salalah 20:00 Daily

10:00 Marmul 20:30 Daily

10:00 Salalah 23:30 Daily

19:00 Salalah 07:40 Daily

TO MARMUL (ROUTE 101)

06:00 Marmul 16:50 Daily

SALALAH TO DUBAI (ROUTE 102)

15:00 Dubai 07:00 Daily

TO DUBAI (ROUTE 201)

06:00 Sohar 08:30 Daily

06:00 Dubai 11:30 Daily

13:00 Sohar 15:30 Wed,Thur

13:00 Dubai 18:30 Wed,Thur

15:00 Sohar 17:35 Daily

15:00 Dubai 20:55 Daily

TO DUBAI VIA FUJIRAH & SHARJAH (ROUTE 204)

07:00 Fujairah 11.45 Daily

07:00 Sharjah 13.30 Daily

07:00 Dubai 14.00 Daily

TO MUSCAT (RUWI)

Dept Destination Arrival Operatingtime time days

FROM JAALAN-SUR-QURIYAT (ROUTE 36)

05:30 Sur 06:45 Daily

05:30 Quriyat 08:30 Daily

05:30 Ruwi 10:00 Daily

TO AL BURAIMI (ROUTE 41)

07:00 Sohar 08:55 Daily

07:00 Ruwi 11:40 Daily

13:30 Ruwi 20:20 Daily via Ibri

13:00 Sohar 14:55 Daily

13:00 Ruwi 17:40 Daily

13:00 Sohar 19:20 Daily

17:00 Ruwi 22:15 Daily

TO SINAW (ROUTE 52)

07:00 Ruwi 10:25 Daily

TO YANQUL (ROUTE 54)

06:00 Nizwa 08:40 Daily

06:00 Ruwi 11:00 Daily

TO IBRI (ARAQI) (ROUTE 54)

15:40 Nizwa 17:55 Daily

15:40 Ruwi 20:20 Daily

TO SUR (ROUTE 55)

06:00 Ruwi 10:45 Daily

14:30 Ruwi 19:00 Daily

TO YIBAL - FAHUD (ROUTE 62)

12:30 Fahud 13:15 Daily

12:30 Ruwi 17:30 Daily

TO SALALAH -MARMUL (ROUTE 100)

07:00 Ruwi 19:50 Daily

10:00 Marmul 13:15 Daily

10:00 Ruwi 22:30 Daily

19:00 Ruwi 07:30 Daily

TO MARMUL (ROUTE 101)

06:00 Marmul 16:30 Daily

DUBAI TO SALALAH (ROUTE 102)

15:00 Salalah 07:00 Daily

TO DUBAI (ROUTE 201)

07:30 Sohar 10:50 Daily

07:30 Ruwi 13:40 Daily

13:00 Sohar 16:15 Thur-Fri

13:00 Ruwi 19:10 Thur-Fri

15:30 Sohar 18:45 Daily

15:30 Ruwi 21:35 Daily

FROM DUBAI VIA FUJIRAH/SHARJAH (ROUTE 204)

16:00 Sharjah 16:30 Daily

16.00 Fujairah 18.15 Daily

16.00 Ruwi 23.00 Daily

BAHJA CINEMAFilm information 24540856 / Advance Booking

24540855

Website: www.albahjacinemaoman.com

Paranormal Activity:The Ghost Dimension (Horror)

Cast: Chris J Murray, Britshaw, Ivy George

6.00 p.m. & 11.55 p.m.

CP No: 2815 (15+)

The Last Witch Hunter (Action /Adventure/

Fantacy)

Cast: Vin Diesel,Rose Leslie, Elijah Wood

2.00 p.m.,8.00 p.m., 10.00 p.m. & 11.55 p.m.

CP No: 2816 (PG12)

Breaking Through (Drama /Music)

Cast: Julie Warner, Robert Roldan, Jordan

Rodrigues

2.00 p.m., 4.00 p.m. & 10.00 p.m.

CP No: 2817 (12+)

Shaandaar (Comedy/Drama /Romance)

Cast: Shahid Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, Kumud Pant

4.00 p.m. & 7.00 p.m.

CP No: 2818 (PG)

STAR CINEMAFilm information 24791641 / 24786776

Website: www.isurf.co.om

Ennu Ninte Moideen (Mal) (Drama)

Cast: Prithviraj, Parvathi Menon,Bala & Lena

Show Time : 3-00, 6-30 & 10-00 Pm Cinema Main

10 Endrathu Kulla (Tamil) (Act )

Cast : Vikram, Samantha & Jackie Sherof

Show Time : 3-30, 6-30 & 9-30 Pm Cinema -2;

9-45 Cinema -3

Brucelee The Fighter (Telugu) (Act)

Cast: Ramcharan, Rakul Preet Singh &

Bramanandam

Show Time : 3-45, 6-45 Pm Cinema-3

Shaandaar (Hindi) (Rom)

Cast : Shahid Kapoor, Ali Bhatt

Show Time : 3-45, 6-45 & 9-45 Pm At Cinema -4

Programmes are subject to change

@MGM @RUWI

The Last Witch Hunter 2D (Action | Adventure | Fantasy) PG12Cast : Vin Diesel, Rose Leslie, Elijah WoodTiming : 02:00PM, 07:00PM & 11:55PMGold Class : 08:45PM & 11:00PM

@SHATTI

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY: THE GHOST DIMENSION (Horror)- (3D)(15+)Cast : Chris J. Murray, Brit Shaw, Ivy George04:00 pm /08:00 pm /10:05 pm

@SOHAR

Patthu Endrathukulla - 2D (T) (PG12) ActionCast : Vikram, SamanthaTiming : 9:00 PM

Shandaar : 2D (Romance| Comedy) PGCast : Shahid Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, Kumud PantTiming : 02.30pm , 05.30pm, 0830pm, 11.30pm

Dhuhr 11.56pmAsr 3.14pmMaghrib 5.41pmIsha 6.52pm Fajr (Tomorrow) 4.51am

PRAYER TIMINGS

WEATHER

33Maximum

270

Minimum

TEMPERATURE

50-70%RELATIVE HUMIDITY

Send us a colour photograph of the child (below 16 years) whose birthday you are celebrating, along with his/her full name, date of birth, address, telephone number and parents’/your name to Times of Oman, With Love, PO Box 770, PC 112, Ruwi or through e-mail to extra@timesofoman.com

JOE SEBY CHITTATUKARAOctober 22, 2013

AHAANA ADARSH NAIROctober 23, 2008

AKSHAJ CHANDEROctober 23, 2008

MOHD BASHEER AHMED ZAINOctober 22, 2001

WITH LOVE

LIFESTYLEC11T H U R S DAY, O C TO B E R 2 2 , 2 0 1 5

GHAWIBAZAAR

BUY LOCAL: OMANI RUGSMost homes in Oman have a Majlis. It is the place for

guests to chat about life, religious topics and family

issues. The important component of the Majlis is the

rug where the guests can sit comfortably for many

hours. Omani artisans produce quality rugs that last

for many years.

PHOT

OGR

APH

Y: A

.R. R

AJK

UM

AR

WHATOmani rugs are woven in patterns of brown and

white from natural wool, or red thread dyed with

madder, a rich colouring from India.

HOWThe wool for weaving rugs is obtained by shearing

sheep and goats and then spinning it into yarn. It is

a slow process done by the shepherds, women and

older children whenever they have spare time. Each

ball of yarn, called a kubba, takes about four days

to complete, and nine balls of yarn are needed for a

complete rug.

WHO Making the rug itself was an exclusively masculine

activity and done on a simple, two-beam wooden

loom which can be set up on the ground and easily

carried from place to place. The technical know-how

of rug making has been passed on to generations.

Households that engaged in rug-making used to

make 10 to 15 rugs annually.

HOW MUCHRugs are available in all souqs across the Sultanate.

The price ranges between OMR75 and OMR2000,

depending upon the size.

Have a favourite Omani product or shop? Tell us about it: ameerudheen@timesofoman.com

BY DR PATRICIA GROVES

As three lovely young Japanese ladies in formal evening gowns walked into the salon at the Residence of

George Hisada, the Japanese Am-bassador, the audience settled in for an evening of beautiful classi-cal music from Europe and Ja-pan. Pianist Saori Jo sat before a gleaming black grand piano, while Mai Munemoto raised her golden flute and soprano Kaoru Kiichi stood poised for song. After a charming piece for flute and piano – Salut D’amour by El-gar (1857-1934) – the Trio capti-vated the audience with JS Bach’s lively Coffee Cantata.

I had heard the Trio perform in a 2012 concert celebrating the For-tieth Anniversary of diplomatic relations with Oman and was ex-pecting to be dazzled by the purity and strength of Kaoru’s voice – and this time she was even more im-pressive. From a slender perfectly formed figure came singing that made me think of a celestial bird waking the world at dawn. Mai’s flute and Saori’s piano were in perfect harmony with this image. Among the highlights was a stun-ningly performed solo piano piece

by Felix Mendelssohn, a Chopin Fantasie and two famous opera se-lections – Rossini’s Una Voce Poco Fa (Barber of Seville) and Puc-cini’s O Mio Babbino Caro (Gianni Schicci). Everyone was delighted with the concert, including the Guest of Honour, HE Mohammed Al Zubair, Advisor to His Majesty for Economic Planning Affairs, who heartily congratulated the tal-ented young musicians and stayed with us to enjoy superb Japanese hors d’oeuvres from the ambassa-dor’s award-winning chef.

Among the highlights was a solo piano piece by Felix Mendelssohn, a Chopin Fantasie and two famous opera selections – Rossini’s ‘Una Voce Poco Fa’ (Barber of Seville) and Puccini’s ‘O Mio Babbino Caro’

Japan’s Three Graces

BOLLYWOOD

Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (DDLJ) tugged at the heartstrings of one and all when it released way back on October 20 in 1995. Fast for-ward to 2015, Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol have brought the magic back by recreating the poster of the ro-mantic drama. SRK is glad that even after 20 years they are “still holding on to each other”.

With the Aditya Chopra direc-torial, Shah Rukh and Kajol made their characters — a fun loving London-bred Punjabi boy Raj and NRI simpleton Simran — eternal and created a permanent place in the history of Indian cinema.

As Shah Rukh and Kajol are again working together in forthcoming film Dilwale, they seized the oppor-tunity to relive the iconic moment. SRK took to Twitter to share the DDLJ poster with the caption that read: “Want to thank team Rohit Shetty and Red Chillies for doing

this last minute. All looked happy that I picked Kajol again.”

In the poster, Shah Rukh is seen carrying Kajol on his shoulder and both of them are all smiles. SRK is even sporting a fedora hat, which was central to his character in DDLJ. The poster takes notice of the time gone by as it reads: “20 years after...falling in love...still holding on to each other”.

And it was SRK’s idea as he had earlier posted: “20 years of DDLJ round the hour now...hmmm...Ka-jol and me together doing another ‘Dilwale’ right now. Should do a pic with her!”.

Shah Rukh, who is busy shooting with Kajol for Rohit Shetty’s Dil-wale, also asked his fans and admir-ers to watch out for a special video made for all the DDLJ adherents.

Shah Rukh wrote: “Celebrated enough tonight with Dilwale team. But amidst mad shooting Rohit

has made a video for you all for DDLJ. Yrf will upload it soon.”

DDLJ brought a refreshing change as well as a clutter breaking and trend-making entertainer with all ingredients of a Bollywood masala potboiler — love, romance, comedy, action, melodrama, thrills, songs and dance — put together cohe-sively to tell a story of the victory of true love.

The film has a simple story — Raj meets Simran during a European holiday, love blossoms between them, but winning over the girl’s conservative family is not a cake-walk for the hero, who then makes every effort to take his dulhania (bride) with him. Produced by the late Yash Chopra, the film’s songs like Tujhe dekha toh ye jaana san-am, Mehndi lagaa ke rakhna, Ruk ja oh dil deewane and Mere khwa-bon mein jo aaye continue to be played even today. — IANS

Blast From the Past: Shah Rukh, Kajol Get Into ‘DDLJ’ Mode

PHOTOGRAPHY: IANS

PHOTO COURTESY: EMBASSY OF JAPAN

LIFESTYLEC12 T H U R S DAY, O CTO B E R 2 2 , 2 0 1 5

AMITABH BACHCHAN, who emerged as the quiz-master of In-dian television after Kaun Banega Crorepati, is jittery about his new TV show Aaj Ki Raat Hai Zindagi (AKRHZ). The megastar says he is wondering how the audience will react to the show.

“A flow occurs on the AKRHZ... matters move a bit sooner and more efficiently... the order is restored for most parts of the show, but the apprehensions of its receiving or rejection are fore-most in the mind,” Big B shared on his blog.

The 73-year-old Indian star’s show began airing on Star Plus from Sunday, featuring Am-itabh Bachchan in a never-seen-before avatar.

Big B hopes the audience ap-proves his new role as the host of the show, which brings forward a new concept to celebrate good-ness in life.

“Attendance for any celebra-tion of the product is mercilessly cut through the body... it is far too much to be in the presence when broadcasts explode upon the tele-vision seasons... one would rather sit in its quietude and pray and hope that the semblance of a dis-aster is avoided,” he posted.

The show will present the jour-ney of people, who went against all odds to help the society improve

and worked as an inspiration for others to change their outlook.

The thespian actor asserted that though the show’s concept is famous worldwide, a whiff of freshness and distinctness has been infused into the series to make it stand out from the rest.

“It is a format that is fresh and new... a concept, which runs in the other parts of the world too... but as always the spread and the taste become local when it is

produced within our environs... and that is the double-edged sword,” Amitabh said.

Many Bollywood celebrities like Alia Bhatt, star actor Ajay Devgn, singer Daler Mehndi and Huma Qureshi will be seen as guests on the show.

The cine icon added that “they teach us lessons in academics, yes, but also about the insides of our being and how it would be possible to achieve that”. - IANS

Amitabh Bachchan Nervous Over TV Show

She might be tagged as one of the most stylish actors of Bollywood, but Deepika Padukone feels her “personal style

statement is boring”. The actress says she depends on her stylists to add the dose of glamour and fashion quotient to her look.

“I believe my personal style is very boring. I don’t think that I have any sort of personal sense of style. And this is why I’m so dependent on professionals like Anju (Modi), who do a fantas-tic job,” Deepika said at the song launch of her forthcoming film Bajirao Mastani.

She feels “fortunate” to be in the business and have access to “such amazing people”.

“We are constantly dressing up for the red carpet, film premiere, for the shoot of film or advertise-ment. We are being styled for one thing or the other and this is why I think that when I end up check-ing my wardrobe, I just have jeans and T-shirts. I don’t put much ef-fort into my dressing up on daily basis,” she said.

The film’s track titled Dee-wani Mastani was launched at Day One of Blenders Pride Fash-

ion Tour 2015 here recently. The song sets the grand stage of the film evincing opulence and mag-nificence.

Recreating the setup of Aina Mahal, the song lays out mesmer-

ising visuals and plays well with the reflection of the dancers in the mirrors — leaving a dazzling impression on mind.

Deepika, who plays the second wife of Maratha Peshwa Bajirao I (played by Ranveer Singh), is dancing with stoic face and ex-pressing her love and admira-tion for Bajirao with her steps and eyes.

The actress, who turned muse for designer Modi at the fash-ion gala, notes that she looks for comfort in her day-to-day out-fits, and active wear has become her staple outfit these days.

“I’m someone who needs to feel comfortable and I most of-ten wear loose clothes. My latest thing is gym wear. It is the easi-est. When I am not shooting, I’m in my active wear so that I can go to gym or go running any mo-ment and it is very comfortable as well,” the Piku star said.

Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s mag-num opus Bajirao Mastani nar-rates the love story of Peshwa Bajirao I, and his second wife Mastani. Actress Priyanka Chopra plays Bajirao’s first wife Kashibai. The film is scheduled to release on December 18. - IANS

I N T H E N E W S

I believe my personal style is very boring. I don’t think that I have any sort of personal sense of style. And this is why I’m so dependent on professionals, who do a fantastic job. I don’t put much effort into my dressing up on daily basis

DEEPIKA

‘ ‘ M Y P E R S O N A L

S T Y L E I S V E R Y

B O R I N G

W W W.T I M E S O F O M A N . C O MSECTION

CONNECT H E D A I LY G U I D E

D

D4 VACANCY CARGO D6

T H U R S D AY, O C T O B E R 2 2 , 2 0 1 5

RENT D2

FLATS FOR RENTSpacious 3 Bedroom flats at Rex Road, with

Split a/c’s & ample Parking facility.

3BR flats at Qurum.

Brand new 3BR flats at Bowsher with Split a/c’s.

Brand new 2BR flats at Bowsher with Split a/c’s.

2BR flats at Al Khuwair (near Badr Al Sama).

2BR flats at Azaiba (next to MHD Showroom).

1BR flats at Al Khuwair & Ghala.

Studio type of flats at Rex Road, Al Felaj,

Wadikabir.

RENT: NEAR AL FALAJ HOTEL : DELUXE 1 B H K with 2 bath rooms, built in wardrobe, security & split a/c with furnished & without furnished. Wattayah- Honda S/R-Back side : DELUXE 2 B H K with 3 bathrooms-built in wardrobe, split a/c ,security . Contact:

990 49 722

Email: dailyguide@timesofoman.com classifieds@timesofoman.comTel.: 24726666 Ext: 413 / 430 /431 / 456 / 461

FOR RENT

One /two, B/R, Res / comm. flats

near Bank Muscat Bausher from

owner directly . Contact: 92158031

Flat for rent in Al Hail 5 floor build-

ing 1bedroom R.O 180/-, 2 bedroom

R.O 260/- Mabela, 3 bedroom R.O

280/- near Nesto Hyper market.

Contact: 99614346

2BHK flat + AC Amerat 6 km from

Amerat police. Contact: 95521432

600 SQT Commercial flat for rent op-

posite Oman flourmill Darsait more

details please Contact: 91214849/

95729711

1BHK R.O 190/- & 2BHK R.O 225/-

near Medical Darsait Muttrah house.

Contact: 98748925

New buildings commercial / residential in Muttrah both

will BE rented out for one com-

pany only for more details. Contact:

99364735/95729711 Deluxe 3 BHK Penthouse with Seav-

iew, ideal for office / residence at

Qurum near PDO. #9772 1313

Villa at Al Khuwair having six

bedrooms, six bathrooms, sitting,

dinning, hall, kitchen . Contact

24833972/24833974/99367448 Single BHK flat avail-

able in Honda road Ruwi Contact

24833972/24833974/99367448

Brand new deluxe flats located near

Seeb fly over on the right hand side

of the main road coming from the

Seeb palace roundabout, two bed-

rooms family, hall, kitchen, 3 toilets,

balcony & split unit AC.

Contact: 97755586

D2 T H U R S D AY, O C T O B E R 2 2 , 2 0 1 5

DAILY GUIDE

3 rooms, Majlis, living room,

kitchen, 4 toilets & swimming pool

in Amerat Heights (phase one).

Contact: 99277377

Um Obelah 5/1 just walking dis-

tance from the Nesto hypermarket

and opposite the new pullman mall,

2 bedrooms with two toilets and

seating area on 4th floor. only 250

omani rial. Contact 99203381

Flat for rent, 3 bedrooms, kitchen &

bathroom in wadi kabir for 280 RO.

Contact : 97771444

3 BHK Penthouse Flat with Split

A/Cs, Free Unlimited Broadband

WiFi, Security access system, Pvt.

Terrace & Secured car park,

Opposite Kims Hospital Al Falaj,

Monthly Rent: 625/-.

Contact: 99657906 or 24702141

1BHK Wadi Kabir. #99024730

1& 2 BHK C.B.D. Contact: 99024730

Duplex flat Al Athaiba, near Sultan

Center 3BHK, 3 Bathrooms, hall &

living room family only 500/-R.O.

Contact: 92479515

Flat AL Ghubrah near 18 Nov ST,

bedroom, living room, 2 bathrooms,

first floor without ac family only

325/- R.O. Contact: 92479515

Deluxe beach front villa at Al Hail

North with 5 bedrooms and Staff

quarter having excellent finishes is

available for immediate occupation.

Contact: 93888666 / 244493666 /

99228454

Bedroom ground floor apartment

with sitting, 2 baths, big richen close

to Indian School near to Mars

hypermarket Wadi Kabir.

Contact: 98011224

For rent one bedroom Majlis, 2

toilets, kitchen, balcony Greater Mut-

trah near Muscat Electricity distribu-

tion new building rent

R.O 230/-. Contact: 99243059

Deluxe 2 bedroom flats MBD, Ruwi,

Wadi Kabir. Contact: 99472457 /

24707340

Al Hail Villa & Flats. Contact: 95282986

Flat 2bedrooms, 2 toilets, kitchen

and sitting room in Al Ansab.

Contact: 95302993 / 95216161

Office/Shop 28 SQM, Wadikhabeer,

Contact 93004902

2BHK with Split Unit A/C ,

Wadikhabeer near Indian School,

99441193, 93004802

2BHK with Split Units , WadiKhabeer,

93004802.

Flats and shops for rent in Ruwi,

MBD Mumtaz area. Contact :

97293708 / 92433127

2 BHK available Ghubra near

Al Maha hotel. Contact: 99269751

1BHK , 3BHK flats at Wadi Al Kabir

new building with split unit and lift

behind Muscat Bakery.

Contact: 99338133

Furnished room for rent at

Al Khuwair R.O 225/- for family only.

Contact: 99251975

Villa Al Amerat behind Al Raffah

Hospital 5BHK, living room, hall, 6

bathrooms, split ac family only 425

R.O. Contact : 92479515

Deluxe, spacious & air conditioned

two bedroom flats with good quality

finishes, wardrobes & secured base-

ment parking are available for rent

in Azaiba North, close to 18th No-

vember Street. Contact: 93888666 /

24493666/ 99228454

Air conditioned two bedroom flats

centrally located at Al Khuwair

are available for rent. Contact:

93888666 / 24493666 / 99228454

2 rooms, bath room & kitchen OR.

175/- & 2 B.H.K OR. 250/- Wadi Kabir

near Sana. Contact: 95094028

Flat Al Khuwair near Bader

AL Samaa, 2 BHK living room,

2 bathrooms, Kitchen split ac family

only 350 R.O. Contact 92479515

Flat 3 mint from Indian School,

2 BHK, living room, 3 bathrooms

without A/c, Ground floor family only

340/-R.O. Contact 92479515

Flat for rent 2BHK Wadi Kabir near

Kuwaiti Mosque. Contact: 97007934

/ 92629232

Staff accommodation / 2 storey

full building available for rent in

Rusayl, near Industrial area. Contact:

99352441 / 98116480 / 99358724

2 bed room flat at Al Khodh com-

mercial Street Souq. Contact :

99224748 / 99332297

1000 sq mtrs industrial land in Gha-

la suitable for ware house, work shop

etc. Contact : 24700120 / 92584715

Brand new residential flats in Wadi

Kabir near Muscat football club,

have 2 bedroom family hall, 2 toilets,

Kitchen with spilt AC for 250/- R.O.

Contact: 95999904 / 98585889 /

92383886

2bed room villa in Sidab, 2 Bedroom

villa in Wadi Kabeer. Contact :

95755953 / 95555162

Villa for rent in Wadi Kabeer.

Contact: 95562646 / 99059333

Furnished flat for rent, 3 rooms with

attached bathroom, 1 dining room,

1 sitting room, 1 kitchen at Al Hail

South. Contact 99835995

For rent a full office building of

3100 sq mtrs opposite to Central

Bank in CBD (Ruwi) for R.O 4 per Sq

mtrs. Contact: 95330200

600 SQT commercial flat for rent

opposite Oman flourmill Darsait

more details.#91214849/ 99364735

1 room, 2 rooms, 3 rooms with all

supplements including water elec-

tricity and sewage. Also we provide

the following services free 1plumber,

electrician for any failed center for

garbage on price call on Farahat

98020768 , Hilal 96541263

New flats for rent At Darsait near to

Ministry of Sports, Mumtaz area the

flats includes1 living room,

2 bedrooms, Kitchen, 3 toilets, every

rooms with split A/C, high quality

finishing, rent RO 340 /-.

Contact: 00968 92225523

Workers’ campus, shops, work-

shops, stores in a building in

Al Misfah, Wilayat Bausher.

Contact 98918090

02 BHK commercial / residential

(with split AC) Flat at Honda road.

Contac: 99342733 / 99795241

02 BHK residential flat opposite

to Al Nadha Hospital. Contact:

99342733 / 99795241

1000sqm industrial and with com-

pound well & two rooms at Misfah.

Contact: 99342733 / 99795241

Readymade office space for rent

(100sm) in Bank Melli Iran building,

MBA area, Ruwi, opposite Center

Point. Contact: 99011352

Shop / store for rent about 250 sq

mtrs area in the heart of Ruwi City

good for restaurant, store or general

sale. Contact 99326639

DAILY GUIDET H U R S D AY, O C T O B E R 2 2 , 2 0 1 5 D3

FOR SALE

FOR SALE

FOR RENT

Beauty parlour in Mobela for sale.

Contact: 96131261

Restaurant for sale lease running

restaurant, opp. Mars Wadi Kabir 7

visa. Contact: 93334685

Shop for sale North Al Hail near

Zam Zam Hyper market. Contact:

99618161 / 94422131/ 96557131

Expat leaving, house hold Items

for sale W. machine, A/C, furniture.

Contact: 90320430

A reputed Muscat based logistics

company owned & well maintained

MAN prime mover (2011) & Trailer

(40 ton) available for sale. model year

2011. Done (730000) kms and in ex-

cellent condition. For buying enquiry

& inspection of the vehicle, please call

Mr. Hamed Al Brashdi on 92829030

on or before 3 PM of 25th Oct’ 15.

Office for sale in Ruwi Chamber

Oman. # 94241385 / 97244766

Fully furnished, 2 bedroom luxury

flat for rent at Ghala for short or long

term basis. # 91786526 / 99881653

1&2 BHK flat for rent at MBD Ham-

riya, Al Khoud, Mabela and shop at

Al Khoud. Contact: 24834644 / GSM:

93994401/02/03, 3 lines

Luxury apartments in Al Khoud 3,

composed of clean – conditioned

room, lounge and toilet, kitchen and

store. Contact 93366421

Al Mawalh villa for rent 17 bed-

rooms, all attached toilet, 2 big hall,

1 big kitchen, outside 1 kitchen 1 PVT

room near (Mac Donald). Contact:

99654252 / 95566475

2bedroom centrally air conditioned

flat at CBD. #24714625 / 94460790

Flats in Wadi Kabir. #99376454

2 bedrooms flat with hall, 2 bath-

rooms in Darsait near Muscat Mu-

nicipality. # 92584715 / 24700120

1BHK flat spilt with A/C Al Khuwair,

230/-. # 99358589 / 95570288

Ware house space for rent at Ghala

and Barka up to 20000/- Sqm.

Contact: 99509460 / 93731363

1, 2 BHK in Azaiba. Contact:

99385835 / 99428143

1BHK flats available for rent in CBD

area. Contact: 98116480

1 & 2 bedroom flats available for

rent in wadi-kabir (opp: pencil bldg),

ideal for company staff / families -

bulk corporate deal possible.

Contact: 97677170

Running furniture showroom for urgent sale.

Ladies beauty parlor sale at u rah.

Contact - 91135930

Running furniture showroom for urgent sale.

Ladies beauty parlor sale at u rah.

Contact - 91135930

ACC. AVAILABLE

ACC. AVAILABLE AVAILABLE

Available for rent 1500 sqmt,

secured plot, suitable for keeping

containers, construction equipments,

trailers etc, near Sohar Airport-

Contact 98236616

Party & Wedding equipment rentals.

Full line, from Tables, Linen & Skirt-

ing, Chairs & Chair covers, Cutlery,

Crockery, Glassware, Chafing Dishes,

Ice Sculptures, to Large Sound Sys-

tems and spectacular lighting. Call

Andrea 9606 2222 for Catering and

Croyden 9623 5555 for Sound & Light.

ww.tunesoman.com,

E-mail: info@tunesoman.com

Fully furnished office space in As -

Assalah Tower Ghobra.#98202001

Furnished room with attached

bathroom separate balcony MBD

area available for couple or Execu-

tive bachelor. Contact: 96275098

Furnished single room for Exe.

bachelor at Rex Road near Kamat

Hotel with WIFI available. Contact

92873832

Furnished room available in Ruwi.

Contact: 99740622

Sharing accommodation available

in Bausher with split AC. Contact:

99223261

Sharing accommodation available:

Bedroom with attached bathroom

for Indian executive bachelors.

97704794

Furnished single rooms available

for Executive bachelors at Ruwi.

Contact : 93431089

CLASSES

SITUATION WANT-ED

BUSINESS

M.V.FOR SALE

ACC. WANTED

Toyota YARIS. Model 2008. KM

70000 Expat driven, All services at

Toyota. Very clean. Rate: 2750. Con-

tact 99445675.

BWM 320i 2006, 120K kms, black fully automatic engine interiors exte-

riors in excellent condition

R.O 4200 (O.N.O). Contact:

92801633

Toyota Fortuner Safari2013 First

hand owner from oman Toyota

agent Kilometers Reading : 41700

km Phone:95203620

4-5 bedrooms villa with / without

swimming pool in Wave / Madinat

Qaboos / Al Shatti area. Contact:

91396909

Workshop Supervisor 29 years work-

ing in Oman P.D.O area project NOC

available. Contact 94594234 Email:

acmshaheed@outlook.com

INVESTORS in real estate needed

to develop and construct a low cost

housing and memorial/burial parks

in the Philippines. Return of invest-

ment is very good due to big de-

mands. Business partner is available

to help you. Please email drjmd719@

gmail.com for details.

IELTS & TOEFL

Academic / General

Target Band 8

TQT Institute.

Ph # 24480800 / 99347202

Well running shop at Hamriya (5

yrs old), for immediate sale. With 2

visa activity printing & stationery,

designing, corporate gift items, sig-

nage work. Contact: 96395770

A well running Pharmacy at prime

location for immediate sale. Contact

92548672 / 99627621 / 99516236

Attention to wholesalers, retailers

& manufacturers. We can Sell/Buy

your dead stock. Contact : 99742983,

95226989

Split A/C -2, Window A/C- 25, Iron

cot- 120, cupboard - 130, water

cooler - 2, Gas big - 2, small-3 ,

Grinder-1 , Chapatti tava-1 ,

stove-2, kitchen equipment etc .

Contact: 99328223

Homegym with cross trainer for

sale. Contact 95367937

Comm. & Res land in the heart of

Ruwi 2400 sq mtr for sale.

Contact : 91155779

Comm. & Res land in Darsait, opp.

Pakistani School, 900 sq mtr for sale.

Contact: 91155779

Used Fabrication machinery for

sale : Fabrication machinery and

tools in excellent condition for

immediate sale. Contact

94652485/ 99273774/ 99202278

Comm. & res. land for investment

for 25 years in Ghala heights.

Contact: 91155779

Comm. & Res land in Ghala

heights 400 sq mtr for sale. contact

91155779

For sale land in Amerat 3000 Sq.mt

with petrol pump permission.

Contact 99323957 / 92702891

Furnished master b.room with

attached bath ,and Furnished

room with sharing bathroom fully

equipped kitchen immediately avail-

able in N. Azaiba. 95450250

Semi furnished two Bed room flat

immediately available in N.Azaiba

.Contact -95450250

Furnished room for rent Indian fam-

ily near Honda road. #99076546

Room available at Walja. Contact

96246625

Sharing accommodation for family

or bachelors near Indian school Ghu-

bra. Contact : 99836676 / 99056701

Single room attached bath

S/ kitchen at Mumtaz area.

Contact: 95212017 / 96916398

Furnished room for rent for Indian

family near Honda Road. contact

99016546

Sharing accommodation available at

Darsait near ISD specious room, bath,

passage sharing kitchen. Preference

Vegetarian. Contact: 99419390

Studio flat MBD Ruwi.contact

95698714

Room for Rent Alkhuwair - Behind

Al Aktham Restaurant. 120 RO.

With elec. and water.For executive

bachelors only. Contact :

98803261

Flat for rent available in CBD near

Costa Coffee. Mobile no.92820734

Private room with toilet near Qurum

park incl. W& E, monthly RO 220/-.

Contact Hassan 99349990

Accommodation available for

indian executive bachelor’s (no

kitchen).RO:125 including water

and electricitycontact 98145825,

98949724

CHANGE OF NAME

I, Prakasan Peterbabu (holder of

Indian Passport No. F4936575)

son of Peterbabu having per-

manent address in Flat No. 1101,

Blue Excellency Co-op HSG

Society Ltd, S.V. Road, opp. Patel

auto pump Garage, Goregaon

(W), Bombay 400104 (complete

postal address in India) and

presently residing in Muscat,

Ghubra round about, Ali Shaihani

complex, 5th floor, Sultanate of

Oman (complete postal address

in Oman), intend to change my

name from Prakasan Peterbabu (old name) to Prakash Peterbabu Chettiar (new name) for all

practical purposes. Any objec-

tion towards my name change

may please be communicated

to Embassy of India, Muscat,

Diplomatic Quarters, Al Khuwair,

P. Box No. 1727, PC 112, Ruwi,

Sultanate of Oman.

DRIVING

COMPUTER

DAILY GUIDED4 T H U R S D AY, O C T O B E R 2 2 , 2 0 1 5

SITUATION WANTEDSITUATION VACANT

Email: dailyguide@timesofoman.com classifieds@timesofoman.comTel.: 24726666 Ext: 413 / 430 /431 / 456 / 461

DOMESTIC HELP

EDUCATION

ENGINEER/TECH/MECH

ACCOUNTANT

DRIVER

MEDICAL

ACCOUNT. & FINANCE

ACCOUNT. & FINANCE

SITUATION WANTEDSITUATION WANTED

SITUATION WANT-ED

SIT. WANTED

SALES / MARKETING

SALES / MARKETING

SKILLED / UNSKILLED

We required driver (L.M.V). Con-

tact: 92392979

Urgently required one experi-

enced House Driver to work in

capital area. Contact: 93888666 /

24493666 / 99228454

Required heavy duty driver,

preferably with good experience

and communication skills. Contact:

91408759 Email: hanaa.alritaj@

gmail.com

Required Indian driver with

Omani driving license and experi-

ence to work in house. Contact :

96255558

ADMIN

Required female Nurse with MOH

license for a private a private clinic

in Bowsher area, Muscat. Contact:

92189807

Required Prometric passed nurse to

join clinic from end August. Contact:

99352793

Female Lab Technician required

urgently for Sohar International

Medical Centre-reasonable sal-

ary and furnished accommodation

-email: muttaheraziz@yahoo.com ;

sohar.imc@gmail.com / tel:91304511

/ 92369417 /93342567

Request urgently a Pharmacist

for new pharmacy in Amerat only

Indian (male) National with MOH

license. #only Watsap: 97313310

New private clinic looking for GP

Doctor & OBS & GYNK Doctor & staff

Nurse with MOH license in Oman.

Contact: 97882811

Required lady physician with Ultra

Sonography license lab techni-

cian male/female for a poly clinic

in south sharqiyah region. Email:

writevinnu@gmail.com

Required MOH licensed Laboratory

Technician for a reputed Medical

center at Azaiba ready to join by

1st Jan 16. Please contact any time:

92724345 evening only:

99676812

Wanted Staff Nurses (female) with

or without MOH license for a poly-

clinic near Sohar. Excellent salary &

accommodation. Contact 99006915,

email : alhinaee.clinic@yahoo.com

Required teachers with B.Sc B.Ed

, BA B.Ed, Karate and art for Omani

Pvt. School. Contact : 95141554 /

95825772

Post Graduate researcher required. Contact 99229700

ARCHITECT

*Classified Advertisement space booking with text,

should be done till 12.00 noon for next day’s publication. * Subject to space availability

Interior Designer; Post Graduate

in Interior Design with Diploma in

Journalism, 2 years work experi-

ence (1 year in UAE) in concep-

tualizing designs for residential/

commercial projects. Interested in

taking up full-time, part-time or

freelance projects in Oman. Contact

no. 97897018 Email: nimimenon@

gmail.com

Interior 3d designer, good knowl-

edge in softwares. #93837973

Architect with bachelor degree

4 years experience in architec-

tural design (interior & exterior)

professional in (3D Max- Archicad

- AutoCAD - Photoshop). Contact:

96041201 Email: amer.yousfan@

gmail.com

Wanted Accountant in finance

department of trading company.

CA with 4 years local experi-

ence. All accounting, finalization

and reporting, Age below 30

years driving license and NOC

must. Contact: 99332547

Urgently Required: Account-

ant cum Store Keeper- with 3

years experience in building

construction, MUST have NOC

and immediately join. Apply, fax

00968–24605955, emails sbc@

steelbuildingsllc.com,

sbeoman@yahoo.com.

Wanted Accountant. #94007259

Email: smylackal@gmail.com

Required ACCOUNTS OFFICER to ensure accurate processing of

revenue data into ERP systems

and invoicing module. Posting of

invoices to customer SAP portal

and delivery to customer of-

fices and interface with Country

Manager / Reporting to Regional

CFO. Qualifications : BSc Ac-

counting. Relevant experience

and knowledge on Online Ac-

counting Systems especially the

customer SAP system. SUBMIT

CV to : me-job@interwell.com

Senior Finance Manager, B.Com,

ACA, ACMA, Indian Male with 19

years experience and 10 years in

Oman. Currently employed with a

reputed Manufacturing and Trading

Company. NOC available. contact

-97239328

Male Accountant 24 yrs, MBA (Fi-

nance & HR), DIFA certified having 2.9

yrs experience as Account assistant

looking for suitable job, Currently on

Visit Visa. Contact:95878661 E-mail:

nazeelc@yahoo.com

Fresher 24 years B.Com Graduate,

Tally 7.2 & ERP-9, looking for a suit-

able placements in accounts. Contact:

97219505

Accountant finance Indian male 24

years B.Com Tally ERP-9, 4 years

working experience in India on visit

visa seeks immediate and suitable

placement. Contact: 95583953 /

96392009 Email: shafadmusthafa@

gmail.com

Accounts finance Indian male 22

years B.Com Tally ERP-9, 2 years

working experience in India on visit

visa seeks suitable placement. Con-

tact: 95636987 / 94280567 Email:

nihadniha777@gmail.com

Male accountant BSc Hons (Finance

& Accounts) having 2 years experi-

ence in accounts, looking for suitable

job on visit visa. Contact: 91420128

Accountant Indian male 6 years

experience in Oman having driving

license & NOC. Contact: 96012973

Indian male Accountant looking

for a suitable placement in Salalah.

More than 20 years experience in

accounting job (upto the finalization

of accounts), 8 years working experi-

ence in Middle East in Dubai, Salalah.

Contact: 91325029

Sr. Accountant M.Com (finance) 15

years experience (2 years in Oman)

with a reputed firm, NOC available.

Contact: 92404608

Email: jin_75@rediffmail.com

SENIOR ACCOUNTANT. 8 years

experience. Noc Available. Oman

driving License seeks suitable Op-

portunity. GSM- 98184170

CMA, three years experience 24, In-

dian on visit visa seeking accounts

/ Audit position. Contact: 96694516

Email: kalathiljoe@live.com

Wanted full time maid for Indian

family. Visa provided. Contact :

97448484 / 95539842

ADMIN/ HR

MISC

Urgently required for a Hotel

/ hotel apartments in Muscat:

Receptionists (Omani) – male /

female. Contact 97677211

A well reputed profile sheet &

Purlin manufacturing company

urgently requires following person-

als with valid Oman driving license,

Factory Manager, Accountant, Sales

Executive. Send your CV to ap-

plymd2015@gmail.com

Required cleaner for restaurant

at Ruwi. Labor clearance available.

Release letter required. Call immedi-

ately- 92836495

Need car mechanics for workshop.

Contact 99157377

Required cleaner/helper for res-

taurant at Ruwi high street. labour

clearance ready. Contact 92836495

Indian female MBA , 3 Years

experience in Admin MIS , family

Visa. Contact 98234427,

jkjsmith01@gmail.com

10 years Gulf & 4 years Oman

experience in HR / Admin & lo-

gistics fluent in Arabic / English

with D/L looking for suitable

position. Contact: 95824598

Looking for job Admin / HR.

Release available. contact

94229041

A BBA degree holder Man look-

ing For suitable job #95864575

Indian, Male having 8 years in

purchase and admin furnish-

ing / metal scrap On visit visa,

available to join Immediately

if selected – contact 00968-

96675184 , 97704828

Indian male, HR / Admin (MBA)

Executive with 3 years experi-

ence (UAE , India) seeks suitable

placement ready for immediate

joining. Contact: 90162412

HR/ Recruitment specialist

with 8 years Oman experience in

entire gamut of HR functions like

resource planning, recruitment,

HR policies & procedures perfor-

mance appraisal, expatriate af-

fairs, exit interviews & ticketing.

Contact 93825307

Email: javthath@rediffmail.com

Domestic helper for a family in

Muscat. Must be able to cook Indian

food & speak Hindi. Cleaning home

laundry and accompanying chil-

dren. Contact: 91396909

Urgently required Sales & Market-

ing Executives, carpenters and light

duty drivers for a Muscat based

kitchen company valid Omani D/L

and experience in the related field are

preferred. Contact: 92929906 Email:

omansales2016@gmail.com

Required Sales executive & Graph-ic Designer Omani with experience

for Advertisement company. Submit

CV to choice.ap@gmail.com Contact:

97982427 or 97982406

Male/Female advertising and me-

dia sales executives required with

valid driving license and minimum

1 year experience. Mail CV to black-

andwhiteoman@gmail.com

Sales man with 3- 5 years experi-

ence with driving license to work

in insurance brokerage in Oman.

Contact: 93544244

Wanted outdoor salesman for elec-

trical, hardware and sanitary items.

Should have 3 years local experi-

ence selling similar products. Age

below 30 years, driving license and

NOC must. Contact: 99332547

Job opportunity in real estate

company, with experience in Real

Estate Management field. Send CV :

careers@realestatesouq.com

Require sales executive with expe-

rience in hydraulic hoses, crimping

and services / building materials -

contact@absmct.com/92830110

Required urgently for sales of

building materials, PPE & related

products with driving license & 4+

yrs experience in this field. Email

CV & expected package to

salesforoman@gmail.com

Urgently required: Sales Execu-tive- with 5 years experience in

aluminum and sales, MUST have

NOC and immediately join. Apply,

fax 00968–24605955,

emails sbc@steelbuildingsllc.com,

sbeoman@yahoo.com

Required Sales Executive for a

leading building material manufac-

turer in Oman having valid Omani

Driving License and 1-2 years of

sales experience. NOC from the cur-

rent sponsor is required.

Contact: 95646844

Indian male 25 B.B.M Arabic,

English, Hindi speaking 2 years

experience in Accounting at Oman

seeking suitable placement. Contact:

91266733 / 96392009 Email:

safvank.k9@gmail.com

Urgent Accountant (female India, 6+

years exp in tally ERP (latest), fina-

lization of account, tax accounting,

stock maintenance, payroll, ledger

etc. Contact: 91551164 / 91175456

Accountant, B.Com, male, having

2 years Oman & 8 years Kerala ex-

perience in finalization of accounts,

stock maintenance, payroll, tally ERP

, MS Office etc. NOC in hand. Contact:

+917356273548 Email: shaju-

mathew23@gmail.com

ACCA member / B.Com looking for

Accountants / auditing or relevant

job on visit visa. Contact:

97769145

Accountant cum Sales Execu-

tive Indian male 29 yrs, 6 years

experience in Oman presently on

visit visa, Oman D/L, NOC available.

Contact: 95273713, Email:

binadam399@gmail.com

Having 14 yrs exp in accounts &

finance, looking for senior jobs in

accounts. NOC available. Contact :

99800982 / 94413946

Male, 27 years work experience

3 years lost employment Admin-

istration Manager and Finance

Executive education MBA and BBA

finance C.G.P.A 3.71 Good hardwork-

ing professional. #99685330 Email:

hussain_ca87@yahoo.com

Accountant Indian female having

5 years exp in finalization, audit

and administration in GCC pres-

ently in Muscat seeking suitable

position. Contact 97323574 Email:

sreeja@236@gmail.com

10 yrs UAE experience fin. Control-

ler looking for job change. Contact:

98006226

Accountant Indian male 10 years

experience in Oman can do up to

finalization and good knowledge of

Tally ERP- 9 can be joined immedi-

ately with NOC. Contact: 94134085

Email: muscatoman95@yahoo.com

Keralite lady (2 yrs experience in

Oman) required job in Accounts. Con-

tact: 97096918

Accountant, Indian female on visit

visa degree: B.Com, exp 6+ years in tally

ERP-9 (latest), finalization of account,

Tax, Accounting, Stock maintenance

payroll etc. Contact: 91551164 /

91175456 Email: jothipriya@gmail.com

Sri Lankan Male Accountant, Age

26, BBA Spl, CA Inter, Having more

than 5 years’ Experience in

accounting field seeking for Suitable

Placement NOC Available Contact:

97250638 msmnaja@gmail.com

Indian male with B.Com, MBA

finance & marketing 14 yrs exp seek-

ing suitable placement.

Contact : 0091 8697292219,

Email : rejesh.nair@gmail.com

Indian male 8 years experience hav-

ing B.Com and MBA ready to work in

HR customer service,

Admin banking & related field.

Contact : 97436890 / 96939803.

Email: girimub@gmail.com

Indian lady, bachelor degree in

Preparatory Programme (BPP) and

Bachelor of Commerce (BCom), com-

pleted training course in MS Word,

Excel, Power Point and Outlook from

KTI looking for full time / part time

job opportunity in Oman.

Contact 92437568, 96795853,

Email: linda_navs@yahoo.com

Accountant, Indian Male, 15 Years ex-

perience (8 Years in Oman with Driving

License & NOC) Seeks suitable place-

ment, Contact 94117616, 91238272

praveen78oman@gmail.com

Situation Vacant

Star Hotel looking for a

well experienced Indian

Chef / South Indian with

minimum 3 yrs

experience.

Email : albalushi@hotmail.co.uk, mutrahhotel@googlemail.com

Or Call: 96668830 / 24790951 / 24790952

Leading construction company

requires experienced Site Engineer

and QA/QC Engineer for residential/

commercial project. Require

NOC. Send your CV :

degree.engineer2015@gmail.com

Wanted Civil Engineer, gradu-

ate for building construction and

maintenance company. Should have

3 years local experience handling

construction projects. Age below 30

years, driving license and NOC must.

Contact: 99332547

Urgently required Civil Engineer,

Diploma holder with experience.

Contact: 95766844

Urgently required for a leading

Company Planning engineer. Fax

: 24478522, Email : gh1.careers@

gmail.com

Turning or Mechanical Engineer wanted to work in workshop if

interested please call: 96996884 /

98021385 / 99745330/ 95179003

Experienced construction Civil Engineer with qualification

(attested) certificates & with Omani

driving license.

Contact: slayhawk@yahoo.com

Aluminum Foreman – with

minimum 5 years experience in

aluminium fabrication, MUST have

NOC and immediately join. Apply,

fax 00968–24605955, emails

sbc@steelbuildingsllc.com,

sbeoman@yahoo.com.

Urgently Required: Mechanical Engineer for a steel fabrication

welding workshop 10 yrs exp he

should know how to design drawing

with auto cad estimate & quotation

he must have exp to supervise job of

workshop & sites. Contact: 97130671

Required foreman for a steel weld-

ing workshop 10 yrs exp.

Contact :97130671

Wanted urgentlyA well known family in

Oman urgently needed an

experienced Indian

female part time or full

time Nursing Assistant to

take care of their Mother

recovering from stroke.

Contact 99717791 or 94084335

SITUATION VACANTRequired smart and efficient COUNTER SALES

EXECUTIVE (FEMALE) Omanis/Filipinas for a reputed

trading company with:-

1. Min. 2 years experience in sales of perfumes, watches

etc.

2. Ability to handle the cash/stock/outlet

independently.

3. Excellent knowledge in English and Arabic is an

added advantage.

4. Good knowledge of computers.

5. Attractive salary according to the experience.

May fax their CV’s to 24597347 or email to techno@omantel.net.om

A LEADING CLEANING COMPANY IN OMAN

REQUIRE THE FOLLOWING STAFF

1.MANAGERS2.SUPERVISORS3.FOREMAN

CANDIDATES MUST HAVE THE EXPERIENCE IN THE CLEANING INDUSTRY.

SEND YOUR CVs TO hrdept191@yahoo.com

A LEADING FACILITIES MANAGEMENT

COMPANY REQUIRE THE FOLLOWING STAFF

1.ASST. MANAGERS - OPERATIONS* AGE: BETWEEN 35 TO 45* QUALIFICATION: DEGREE IN ANY BRANCH OF ENGINEERING* Experience: Not required

2.SENIOR ACCOUNTANT* AGE: BETWEEN 35 TO 45* QUALIFICATION: INTER. CA/ ICWA

SEND YOUR CVs TO hr@alyafeigroup.com

MANAGER

A newly started travel agency in

Ruwi requires a Manager. The can-

didate should have 5-7 years experi-

ence with excellent communication

skills and a valid Omani driving li-

cense. Interested candidates , please

send CV to manager4travels@gmail.

com, within 15 days from the date of

this advertisement

Required Sales Executive with

corrugated cartons manufacturing

background. Minimum 3+ years

experience. Omani D/L is a must.

Please send CV to this email:

corrugatedpackagingoman@gmail.

com

Urgently required Sales Executive

with 2 years experience in electri-

cal outdoor sales. Must have D/L

and NOC. Contact: 91373200 Email:

oman@sentorsupplies.com

Sales & Marketing Executive for

travel and tourism.

Contact: 92890506

A trading company in Muscat requires Sales Executive with

minimum 1 yr experience & Oman

driving license & welding machine /

electronics / power tools technician

with min. 1 year experience.

Email: jobs.trading2015@gmail.com

Wanted Sales man (experienced in

transporting etc). contact 94007259

Email: smylackal@gmail.com

Chief Accountant, 12 years of Oman

experienced looking for suitable

placement. Contact: 99513082

Part time accountant, senior

accountant, doing all type of ac-

counting works, up to finalization.

contact.95254864

Accountant Indian male 32 years

B.Com 5 Plus years experience in

Oman, seeking suitable placement.

Contact: 94410485 / 98008164

SENIOR ACCOUNTANT, with

13yrs experience, 6 yrs Oman in

manufacturing, trading & con-

tracting Cos, capable of handling

all accounting, finance, bank-

ing, L/C, import, export & fina-

lization seeks placement. NOC

Available. Call+968-98932752,

mail:jjohnmuscat@hotmail.com

Finance Manager, 12 years experi-

ence in leading Construction and

manufacturing companies (9 years

in Oman) have strategic vision and

proven leadership ability. B.Com,

CPA- USA & modern accounting

certificate from “AUC”. “NOC” in

hand. Contact: 97220505

Indian female 28 years M.Com,

Accountant having 6 years experi-

ence in Accounts, finalization, Tally

currently on visit visa.

Contact : 95595083 Email:

merlinfernandes16@yahoo.in

DAILY GUIDET H U R S D AY, O C T O B E R 2 2 , 2 0 1 5 D5

SITUATION WANTEDSITUATION WANTED

MANAGER/ SUPERVISOR

MEDICAL

IT

HOSPITALITY

MISCELLANEOUS

PROJECTS

Sudanese lawyer with experience

10 years in Judiciary in Khartoum.

Contact: 94458976

Microbiologist, Indian female, 25

yrs Msc Microbiology with 2.5 yrs

Exp in Hospital & Dairy industry. Ex-

pertise in Microbial analysis of milk

products and clinical samples. Cur-

rently in Oman seeking for suitable

job opportunities. GSM#94767297

Email:shobi24190@gmail.com

Indian male 30 yrs 9 experience

in Oman housekeeping supervisor

with NOC seeking suitable place-

ment. Contact: 96254837 Email:

sudheeshmrf@gmail.com

Jordanian Engineer in MECHANICAL

& MANUFACTURING Good experience

Sheet Metal Fabrication, AutoCad,

Solidworks 3D, Storage Tanks & Silos,

Sales - Speaking Arabic/English/Rus-

sian -GSM#90198575 / 99201710

DRIVER

ENGG. / TECH./MECH.

ENGG. / TECH./MECH.

DRAUGHTSMAN

Autocad d/man, exp in arch, interior

3d, photoshop. Contact : 93837973

Civil designer, Autocad, Diploma

(3 yrs) Civil Engg, well exp PH :

92741929

Architectural & Structural Draughtsman 5 years experience.

Contact: 97312627

Indian female, 30 yrs, Interior Designer

Bachelor degree with 5 yrs working experience seeking suitable

placement in Oman. Contact 98499975,

Email :swasdesigner@gmail.com

Civil Engineer, Indian male, 25

years, B.Tech, have 3 years experi-

ence in building construction seeks

suitable positions. 92609893,

alenalexander123@gmail.com

Electrical Engineer (B.E) with 5

years experience (3 yrs in Gulf) NOC

available. Contact: 92119851 Email:

mayurdevadiga@gmail.com

Resident Engineer B.E civil 25 years

exp 12 yrs in Architecture consul-

tancy having Oman Dubai D/L NOC

available. Contact: 95732453

Email: milindj951@gmail.com

Medical Lab technician, MSc, 29

years, An Indian female having 3

years experience with prometric

passed on family visa seeking suit-

able placement in capital. Contact:

93231549 Email: sujithsolomon@

yahoo.co.in

Indian female Dentist (BDS) 3 Yrs

Exp ,PROMETRIC Passed, Presently

in Visit visa looking for placement.

Contact-24286098, 99284260

Palestinian dentist looking for job in

private hospitals, Medical Center or

Dental Centers in Muscat 15 yrs exp

P. hospitals out Muscat. Contact:

96951750

Project/ Program Manager/ Finance professional

bank, telecom, transport. .

Contact - 97203531

Driver looking For job 95154610

Light duty driver seeks placement.

Contact: 94435912 / 92439315

Light duty driver 8 years exp

in U.A.E need visa Oman seeks

placement. Contact: 96975028 /

95803184

Pakistani Driver wanted job,

with 3 years experience. Contact:

94356465

Driver, 42 yrs, suitable job K.S.A 12

years Oman, 4 years release avail-

able. Contact: 93885404

Looking for driving job. Contact:

93650209

Light driver need job exp 4 years.

Contact: 94208089

Looking for driving job. Contact

98219182

Indian driver, 4 years experience

in Oman with car looking for suit-

able job (NOC available). Contact:

93053917

Light duty driver looking for job, 2

yrs exp. Contact : 96342684

Driver seeking suitable placement.

Contact: 98134080

20 years experience. Contact:

94795033

Indian Driver need job. conrtact

91254539

Light driver looking for job.

Contact: 96942547

Light driver for job 5 yrs exp.

Contact: 92171166

Bangladeshi male driver, 48 yrs,

exp 14 years, 9 years need job &

visa, got release letter. Contact:

99165961

ME Communication System, Exp

in RF/Microwave, Access Ctrl, Net-

working & Server Ph: 95508754

Indian male (22) Java /J2EE

specialization with BCA Graduate

having 6 months experience in web

application development / IT techni-

cal support, looking for suitable job.

Contact: 00968 96292480 Email:

farzeenfarook@gmail.com

IT Telecom / Networking Engineer

with CCNA & CCNP, 3 yrs experi-

ence, currently in visit visa. contact

97435944 Email: abdulsameerr@

gmail.com

Computer and Systems Engineer. Contact: 91770668

Indian male B.Eng in IT CCNA

MCITP, 2+ yrs exp in IT support,

Networking and Server support.

#93311963 Email: sajal035@gmail.

com

Male 25 years B.E (CSE) 3.5 years

experience in System and Network-

ing / IT support currently in visit

visa looking for a suitable job. Con-

tact: +968-98914760

IT System Administrator MCSA

Sudanese UAE experience. contact

91302074

Computer & Network Engineering.

11 yrs experience looking for

suitable job. Contact 92811179/

95882614 Email: khalido24@

yahoo.com

B.F hotels management 2 years exp

food and beverages service, kitchen,

4 languages, N.O.C available. Con-

tact: 95196212 Email:

mido.hossams09@yahoo.com

Hotel exp 4 years F+ B (service) visit

visa expires 13/11/2015, B.A Hotel

Management. Contact: 91987013 /

96971643 Email: shinekls34@gmail.

com

Indian 14 years experience in con-

sumer goods as Marketing Manager

with visa D/L. Contact: 90314809

Manager- Media & Advertising

industry-15 yrs Gulf exp - seeks suit-

able opening- 93031168

Indian female 2+ years Oman

experience with D/L seeks suitable

position in Business development /

corporate & retail sales in training

/ IT / education ITES companies.

Contact: 98989784

Indian Male 22 years B. Com Gradu-

ate currently in Oman on family visa

looking for a job, preferably in sales

department. Also possess a valid

Oman driving license.#98504698

Pakistani male, 8 years sales and

marketing experience specialized in

MBA, Marketing with valid driving

license (GCC), NOC and with best

sales performance award looking

for suitable position Email: sheraz.

rotanahotel@gmail.com , 99249296

/ 93313173

Indian male MBA, 2 years experi-

ence in sales and 2 years experience

in HR with D/L looking for a suitable

position. Contact: 91202335 Email:

mrishad90@yahoo.com

Indian male, 26 M.A., 2 yrs experi-

ence in India and 11 months in Oman

looking for job in sales or accounts.

Contact: 97022508 Email:

zakariyazba@gmail.com

Having 5 years exp, as office coor-

dinator, NOC available. #92889617

Indian male, 38 years BE & MBA in

Marketing from UK and 12 years expe-

rience in the IT industry seeks suit-

able placement. Contact: 91200413

Email: mniyaz@hotmail.com

Indian male 38 yrs , MBA in Mar-

keting with Oman D/License, over

8 yrs experience in ironmongery

scheduler / specifier & general

trading, currently on visit visa. NOC

available. Contact: 98891737

Indian male 21+ years Managerial

experience in Oman in FMCG Indus-

try seeking suitable placement with

NOC can head any Business / work-

ing partner. Contact: 95264562

Indian male more than 8 years

experience in UAE in Office , Sales

Marketing with good computer skills

having driving license looking for

suitable placement. #99369081

Email: shazulashraf60@gmail.com

Male BA, with D/L having 7 years exp

in Oman wanted suitable job in Sales

inventory & procure. #92191026

Instrumentation Engineer, Indian

male 24 years of age on visiting visa

with 2 years experience in oil & gas

seeking suitable position. Contact:

94743685 Email: akashpp444@

gmail.com

Indian male, 23 years, B.Tech [ECE],

1 year experience in sales and instal-

lation (electronics, IT and network-

ing devices) is looking for suitable

job. Currently on visiting visa.

Contact: +968 96761020 email:a

dik.mm7@gmail.com

Indian male, 23 yrs, post Graduate

Mechanical Engineer M.SU (U.K) 1

year Sales exp. having Oman D/L

seeking for suitable employment

in reputed firm. Contact: 91419764

Email: z.enggoman@gmail.com

Female Electrical power system

Engineer with experience seeks suit-

able placement. Contact: 99842083

Indian female 25 years B.Tech (Elec-

trical) having 4 years experience in

tendering, estimation and costing

seeking suitable placement cur-

rently on family visa. #97228117

Indian male 26 y Mechanical en-

gineer on express visa with 4 years

India experience in HVAC Design/

Estimation/Site Execution is seek-

ing a suitable job in Muscat contact

99339707 (ashfaq_1974@yahoo.com)

Omani Mechanical Engineer with

2years Experiences looking for new

opportunity . Contact:95993315,

alrus7idisaif@gmail.com

Maintenance planner (CMMS),

Indian male 29 yrs, B.Com, MBA hav-

ing 5 years Gulf exp in oil and gas

industry in planning dept. currently

on visiting visa, looking for suitable

job. Contact: 93179096

Civil Engineer, Indian male, 11 years

experience in construction, having

D/L and NOC. Contact: 94194399

Email: shiblyrock@gmail.com

B.E Mechanical Engineer Indian

male 27 years having 4 years experi-

ence including 2 years GCC experi-

ence, seeking suitable placement.

Contact: 90156984 Email:

noorullahanas@gmial.com

M.Tech (Electronics) Indian lady (on

visit), 5 years teaching experience

in engineering colleges also running

entrance coaching centre for 8 years

is looking for a better placement in

colleges, schools & office etc. Con-

tact: 93596002

Indian male 23 years, B.Tech Electri-

cal Engineer 2 years experience in

construction + Auto Cad designing,

is looking for suitable job. Currently

on visiting visa. Contact: 98266897

Email: elbinkeldhose92@gmail.com

Indian B. tech Civil, 19 years exp ,

seeks suitable position.

Contact: 98365910

Email: kks.pkd1969@gmail.com

Electrical Engineer, B.Tech, with 8

years GCC experience (5 years in

Oman) in MEP & Oil/gas construc-

tion/Inspections side with NOC, is

seeking new assignments in Oman.

Has attested degree certificate and

Oman D/L. Contact No.96083636,

Email:tobineasow@gmail.com

Indian male, Mechanical Engi-

neer having 1Year experience,

on visit visa looking for suit-

able job. Contact:97416564,

Email:jovinmathias@gmail.com

Job required for Senior Electrical

Engineer has 10 yrs experience in

construction and management field

with valid Oman light vehicle license

and NOC available immediate from

current employer. #96223283

Indian male 38 yrs total 19 yrs

experience (Gulf 13 yrs) in Electrical

field, electrical Forman experience 4

yrs in Oman seeking suitable place-

ment in hospital setup, maintenance,

department, construction field now

visit visa, NOC available. Email: binu.

kumar51@yahoo.com

Palestinian Petroleum Engi-

neer (B.E) 25 yrs available in

Oman seeking for placement.

Contact: 91445467 Email:

abdulrahman.m.mustafa@gmail.com

Indian female 11 years experience in

Oman as a Quantity Surveyor in Civil

having valid Omani driving license.

NOC available. Contact: 99879525

Indian male 24 years Instrumen-

tation technician have 2.5 years

experience in India, seeks a suitable

job. Contact: 92696798 Email:

ajoarikkatt@gmail.com

Architect more than 2 years exp in

design, site supervision with strong

knowledge in AutoCAD, Revit , 3D

Max, Photo shop and Microsoft

office looking for a good job. N.O.C

available. Contact: 90162685 Email:

mohamed.dakrory92@gmail.com

Qualified Engineer with 3-5 yrs exp

in purchase, 2.2 yrs in automotive

service, excellent communication,

presentation and management skills.

PH: 968 91306841; Email:

shanyphilip23@gmail.com

Indian male B.Tech Mechanical

Eng (2 years exp in India) fire safety

seeking suitable placement. Contact:

93523752

Telecom Engineer Indian male 27

years, Telecom field Engineer experi-

enced in vsati microwave 1.3 years of

experience. Email: rogin.mk@gmail.

com Contact: 95216362

Civil Structural Engineer profes-

sional in R.C structural design & Q.S

& shop drawings. C.N (97983610)

Electronics diploma 1 year exp in

telecommunication, mobile tower

field support Engg. Vishnu Madhu

Soodanan. Contact: 94519571 /

95233636 Email: vishnumadhull@

gmail.com

BSc. in Civil Engineer 12 years ex-

perience in infrastructure & building

having UAE D/L currently on visit

visa looking suitable placement.

Contact 91206763 Email:

delwar.civil.97@gmail.com

Diploma in Civil Engineer, have

total 4.5 years experience & have 1.5

years experience in Oman. Contact:

96535084

Mechanical Engineer (Indian male) with experience in HVAC & Fire fight-

ing looking for suitable placement

in electro mechanical field. Contact:

90154793 Email:

sangu.vazhoor@gmail.com

BE Mechanical Engineer, 23 years,

Indian male on visit available for

immediate placement please contact:

96145820 or arunsankar.10.92@

gmail.com

B.Tech Engineer (Civil), having 14

yrs of experience (6 years in Oman)

with valid driving license is seeking

for a suitable placement. NOC avail-

able. email: masum.civil10@gmail.

com GSM:97455456

Civil Engineer B.Sc 5 years experi-

ence with building construction

companies in Oman seek suitable

placement. Contact: 98180524

Electrical Instrument Engineer

having 10 years experience in high

voltage and low voltage with exten-

sive experience in instrumentation

& automation, approved from PAEW

for more info. Contact: 92950788 /

Email: engtariq2007@gmail.com

Mechanical Engineer with 7 years

experience in oil & gas field have

extensive experience in QA/ QC

(Static equipment) , have API 653 &

CSWIP3.1 certifications for more info:

khaled19858@gmail.com Contact:

91917294

Civil Engineer 5 years experience

with construction companies in

Oman having valid driving license

seek suitable placement. Contact:

99742280

Mechanical Technician oil & gas

with 9 yrs experience in GCC worked

in rotating EQP, Static EQP, commis-

sioning and troubleshooting looking

for an opening. Contact: 99598462

Email: bakash_85@yahoo.co.in

Diploma Civil Engineer 11 yrs expe-

rience (9 yrs building construction

+ 2 yrs O&G) with valid Oman D/L

seeking suitable placement. Con-

tact: 97669006 / 99142744 Email:

shafique88am@gmail.com

A senior professional with Engi-

neering background is available for

Executive lead in Contract Manage-

ment, Coordination, Execution in

construction establishments and

consultancies. Contact: 99703972

Experienced Civil Engg profes-

sional 12/26 years ran a company

as Working partner have estima-

tion, tendering of high rise building

infrastructure steels conc. Products

seeks suitable placement. contact

95360102 / 94460357

Project Engineer (Electrical) 5 years

experience in Oman primary substa-

tions + OHL, oil & gas, AutoCAD de-

sign driving license. NOC available.

Contact: 93210528 / 99410588

4 years experience Electrical Engi-

neer electrical primary substations

UG cables and OHL, fluent in English

and Arabic. Contact: 91204243

Electrical Engineer 4 years experi-

ence oil and gas electrical substa-

tion water project fluent in Arabic

and English primavera p6 operator.

Contact: 99525856

M.Tech having 3 years experience in

Mechanical Engineering department

looking for any University to hire.

Contact: 90150913

Email: rahmanmechengg@yahoo.in

B.Tech Mechanical Engineer with

MBA in marketing & HR 3 yrs exp

seeking suitable placement. #0091

9846568080 / 0091 4772702080,

Email: jbabu4@gmail.com

Civil Engineer, Indian male 29, hav-

ing 7 years exp in construction field&

Auto Cad in Oman. Having valid

driving license. Fluent in English &

Arabic. Looking for suitable job in

reputed firm. Contact - 99650569

SALES / MARKETING

Diploma Engineer civil. #91151237

B.Sc Civil 9 years experience

looking for suitable placement

as a Residence Engineer having

valid Omani D/L. Contact : 94431917

Email: gmssohel.ce@gmail.com

Bangladeshi female Project Engi-

neer Civil having 5 years experience

or construction site currently or

visit visa looking a suitable position.

Contact 91207329

Email: dipabangladesh@yahoo.com

Male Project Engineer (Civil) 12

years experience Dubai + SA in con-

struction & water supply field with

valid UAE D/L Currently on visit visa

looking suitable position.

Contact: 91206763

Email: delwar.civil.97@gmail.com

Indian male, 26 yrs, 4 years experi-

ence diploma in Civil Engineering

field on visit visa looking for suitable

job. Contact: 95585564

Email: safvanullal6644@gmail.com

Civil Engineer B.Sc -6 years experi-

ence with constructions companies

- 1 years in Oman - qualified as Site

Engineer & Planning Engineer.

Contact+968-94682217

Degree Civil Engg total 9 yrs experi-

ence, 7 yrs in Oman Construction

Company with valid Oman driving

license. Contact: 99721926

Email: tanvircivil@gmail.com

Electrical Engineer Indian male 29

years, having 5 years of experience

in industrial automation and utility

maintenance in India (MRF Tyres),

seeking suitable placement.

Contact: 92789995 Email:

akhilabrahamlktr@gmail.com

Road and Construction Engi-

neer exp 5 years in Oman. contact

97646908

LOGISTICS

10 yrs exp in Oman in logistics-

have Oman D/L-looking for suitable

placement-contact 96410767, email:

harishkts@yahoo.com

Sales and marketing - male 27 yrs,

2 years experience seeking suitable

placement with Oman D/L.

Contact: 95642740 Email:

shaijichakkara@gmail.com

SALES / MARKETING

SECRETARIAL & OFFICE

Indian Male more than 10 years

gulf experience in Office / Sales

Coordinator, Admin, Secretarial

and purchase with good comput-

er skills. Having Driving license

and NOC available. Looking for

suitable placement. #95149624

SKILLED / UNSKILLED

Welder fabrication, 6g 3g,tig arc gas

PH : 95068064

MISCELLANEOUS

Chemical Engineer, Indian, 2 years

of exp in industrial production, seek-

ing suitable placement. #91247222

Indian male, 4 years of experience

in Structured cabling, termination

and Fiber optic splicing. Look-

ing for a suitable Placement. NOC

available. GSM- 92484039, Email

–rajaveer8989@gmail.com

Indian male , 23 yrs, postgraduate

Mechanical Eng. (M.Sc, UK), 1 year

sales exp, having Oman DL, seeking

for suitable employment in reputed

firm. Contact: 91419764 Email:

z.enggoman@gmail.com

Pakistani male, MBA(Marketing)+PGD(HR) with 9

yrs experience in banking & hospital

industry (Consumer Credit Review,

Admin & HR). 3 yrs experience as

Asst Manager, Admin & HR in fa-

mous private hospital in Oman with

NOC. Contact: 95761982 or umerok@

hotmail.com

Structure/Pipeline,Piping Draughtsman have 12+ yrs. Exp. in

Oman seeking suitable placement.

Contact 92103713 NOC available.

Indian male 25 years, MBA finance

and marketing with tally have 1.3

year experience in India. Now in

Oman on visit visa. GSM: 97445488

Indian male, 19 years experience

in purchase, material coordinator in

building construction & factory pro-

duction field. have good computer

skills & driving license and NOC,

looking for a suitable placement.

Contact: 99008101

Working as Senior accountant,5yr.

exp.in oman, Accounting upto

finalisation, relevant computer skills

tally9, Sage, vcams , Audit ,valid

oman driving license, languages

known English, Arabic, Hindi. NOC

avaliable can join immediately.

Tel: (+968) 96339599. E-mail-

(ahmedmohdkhan@gmail.com)

Indian Female, 35years, Bachelor of

Pharmacy (BPharm) fresh graduate

with BSc and MA looking for posi-

tions in Front Office, administration

office, or any suitable positions in

hospital, polyclinic, companies or

Institutions. Contact 90236481

Network/Noc engineer, CCNA certi-

fied & CCNP trained, Indian male 27

years B.com(general) 5 years & 4

month’s of experience in the field of

networking seeks for better place-

ment.#97663834 / 98730758

INDIAN FEMALE– ME in CSE with 2

years’ experience in teaching seek-

ing Suitable Job Opportunity. Con-

tact: 94263445 or +91 9486251274,

E mail – apshinmar@gmail.com

Registered Filipina Nurse look-

ing for a suitable job in Admin/

receptionist, experience in admin, on

visit visa seeks placement. Contact

97435849

Indian male 22 years, looking for

suitable placement in Hardware

and Networking field, Having 1 year

exp. in India, training in al ameen

computers Muscat Ruwi. Qualifi-

cation is Diploma in Electronics

and Communication at present I

am having my valid employee

visa In the same work. Contact : -

9739622910/8050101914, Email ID

:- fairozhuded13@gmail.com

Admin, having 10+ years experience

in Admin/HR/Logistics/Time Keeper,

in reputed companies. Presently work-

ing in Muscat. #968 94369965,mail

- satya1528@gmail.com

Civil Engineer B.Sc -6 years

experience with constructions

companies - qualified as A Project

Engineer & Planning Engineer .

Contact+968-94682217

DAILY GUIDE Tel. 24726666 Ext: 413 / 430 431 / 456 / 461 Fax: 24812624

Email: dailyguide@timesofoman.com

D6 T H U R S D AY, O C T O B E R 2 2 , 2 0 1 5

RENT A CAR

Dolphin Watch, Dhow Cruise with

Buffet, & Land Tours Al- Ainain Marine

Tours # 98029602, 92808636

TOURS

SITUATION WANTEDCARGO

TRANSPORTATION

Transport. Contact:

94510847

Transportation available Ruwi to

Al Khuwair, Ghubra & Azaiba.

Contact: 91103909

Transportation available.

Contact: 99867456

Pick & drop any time. Contact: 93598436 / 96743215

Pick & drop any time. Contact:

92218001/ 96502406

MANPOWER

We offer labour for loading and

unloading if any one required we

are providing this service. Contact:

95208185 /95456022

Leading manpower agency to hire Recruiter from India housemaids. Contact: 99226093,

Email: fesalwardi48@gmail.com

DAILY GUIDET H U R S D AY, O C T O B E R 2 2 , 2 0 1 5 D7

SITUATION WANTEDSERVICES

Split & widow unit A.C servicing &

repairing. Contact: 99557080

Split & window unit A.C servicing

& maintenance. #96236476

Window & split unit A.C ser-

vicing & maintenance. Contact

93769089 / 95323517

GUARANTEED CLEANING: Carpet

& sofa shampooing, Contact

99314807/24792998

Split window unit A/ C servicing.

Contact 94694472

Cleaning & Carpet Shampooing, Ocean Center LLC. #99884591

Pest Control Treatments. Ocean Center LLC. #99344723

Carpet Shampoo, marble & tile

polishing, pest control & anti-

termite treatment, general clean-

ing painting, Plumbing, Electrical,

shifting. Contact Mundhir Al-Rizaiqi

trading. L.L.C. contact 24810137,

99450130

House shifting & packing. Contact: 99657644 /98518013

House shifting & transporting.

Contact 92490422

MARBLE CRYSTALLIZATION restore the original shine of

your marble. contact 24793614/

99314807

Window & split unit A.C ser-

vicing & maintenance. Contact

93769089 / 95323517

Pest Control Gulfa Intl .LLC. Contact: 92326955

Water proofing ABUQABAS-

Contact 99320217/24788722

Marble Restoration, Mosaic tiles

polishing, carpet shampooing,

maintenance. Contact

ABU QABAS- 99320217

/24788722

WEBSITE

WEB, ERP and Business Intel-

ligence (BI) creation and manage-

ment at rock bottom price.

Contact: http//webviewoman

SIT.WANTED

SIT.WANTED

Indian male having 7 Years of Expe-

rience in Oman Having Valid Driving

License working as a Office Driver

,Looking for a suitable Position, NOC

Available. Contact: 99680429, E-

mail:anzarkutty1975@gmail.com

Syrian architect have years and half

experience in oman looking for work,

full time perfect in architectural

programs 3d max , auto cad , Pho-

toshop , and sketch up. for contact :

0096897482871

Female, Indian, 35 years, Bachelor

of Pharmacy (B. Pharm) fresh gradu-

ate with BSc looking for positions in

Front Office, administration office,

or any suitable positions in hospital,

polyclinic, companies or Institutions.

Contact 90236481.

Indian Male 47 years MBA-Opera-

tions Management with total 25 Yrs

exp inclusive of 9 yrs in Oil & Gas

sector in Oman, having valid Omani

D/L & NOC, seek challenging posi-

tion in SCM/Logistics/Procurement.

GSM-94236414. Mail id –

dialindia33@gmail.com

Well experienced management

finance specialist having 18 years

experience available for placement.

Contact.95602518

23, Male, ACCA Affiliate, OBU Bsc,

2.5 years of experience in audit and

finance in Big 6 Firms, Looking for

permanent placement in similar

field. Release NOC available. Contact:

#95140445, a.saran891@gmail.com

22, Male, Indian, BBA (Marketing),

1 year experience in India, Looking

for suitable placement in Sales and

Marketing. #91897046,

azzamsiddique1@gmail.com

Indian Male,27,ACCA Part

Qualified,B.COM with 7+ yrs exp in

receivables and credit control in

Oman looking for suitable place-

ments. NOC available. # 9657 4343.

Indian Female, Science Graduate,

3 years Experience in Teaching back

home. Looking for a suitable job op-

portunity as a teacher, in Schools in

Muscat Region. Contact : 96431456

/ 95704814

Looking for a suitable job as Jr.

Accountant/ Jr. Administration in

a reputed company. NOC Available.

GSM # 93004738.

ACCOUNTANT, Male, 8 years experi-

ence, presently working in Oman as a

Senior Accountant with oman Driving

license. NOC available, seek suitable

opportunity. GSM: 97705854

Chemical Engineer Indian 2 years

of experience in production field

Contact: 91247222

Email:sahadpoonchola@gmail.com

Syrian male 3yrs. exp in IT support,

Networking, Security systems, Serv-

er support, IT sales and marketing.

Valid Omani D/L seeking suitable

placement. Contact 91033395

Civil Autocad Draughtsman part

time work for job mob :

96023726

Indian female, MBA, 25yrs Having

4yrears of experience in MNC, hands

of experiences in recruitment and

administration, flexible for any suit-

able job placements currently in

visting visa. Contact Tel : 98864639

Email : neethuvijayan06@gmail.com

Indian Male, 25, Chartered Account-

ant, working with ICICI Bank India.

On a Visit Visa in Oman. Staying with

parents at Azaiba. Ph: 24492638.

Email: shyamal008@gmail.com

Indian Male, 26 Yrs, Business

Management, 6 years in Oman.

Knowledge of MS Office and Arabic

Language. Seeks suitable position.

Contact 93931935

MATRIMONIAL

Looking for alliance from Tamil

Muslim grooms for working girl

28 years 5 FT. Wheatish Contact:

93263185 Email: mrtgifts@gmail.com

Thiya girl 27/150 B.Tech Star Chothi

seeks alliance from professional

B.Tech / MBA from Kannore / Malabar

area. Contact: 99454129

Malayalee boy-36-Manager in MNC -

seeks alliance-0091 7639622079

Seeking alliance for our son from

Muslim families. Interested

families Contact: 99889590

NRI

Water front luxurious apartments

at Marine drive Kochi, DD Samudra

Darshan Apartments 1850 sq. ft INR

1.60 CR (negotiable). Common ameni-

ties include multi gym billiards, home

theatre party hall etc. #Owners 968

- 99754109 AND 971 - 505194598 or

email: porus2009@gmail.com

Water front luxurious apartments at

Marine drive Kochi, prestige Neptune

courtyard 2225 sq. ft, INR 1.80 CR (ne-

gotiable) common amenities includes

4 swimming pools multi gym party,

halls, squash courts walk ways etc.

Contact Owners: 968 - 99754109 &

971 - 505194598 or Email:

porus2009@gmail.com

Architect designed 5000 Square

feet exquisite Villa in 16 cents of

land at a scenic location on Aak-

kulam Road, Ulloor, Trivandrum for

sale. Contact +968 95372011

GOOD NEWS

Kutchhi coffee shop, pure Veg avail-

able, Mandvi Kutch Dabeli, Chappati,

puri Bhaji, Vada Pav, Farari Kachori,

many more, next to Lulu Wadi Kabor

Souq Al Juma, shop #3. Contact Udit

– 94460286, Kishore – 99437869

Genuine Ayurvedic treatments &

massage, Ayurvedic clinic at

Al Khuwair. Contact: 24478618 /

97263637 / 93309131

FREE INFORMATION ABOUT ISLAM. If you would like to know

more about Islam, please call:

99425598, 99250777, 99353988,

99253818, 99341395, and 99379133.

For ladies: 99415818, 99321360,

99730723 Orvisit:www.islamfact.com

Ayurvedic treatment for backache,

paralysis, arthritis etc & massage,

All Season (Vaidyaratnam). Contact

24475280 / 95371664 / 92504980

www.siddhayur.com

MISCELLANEOUS

MISCELLANEOUS

Sudanese / Arabic & English teacher for all nationalities / willing

to teach at home. Tel:

94211377

B.Tech CS, Indian female 23 yrs,

looking for suitable placement (IT/

Banking / Administrator) currently

on visit visa & ready to join

immediately. Contact:

94704707 Email:

sooryasnkr1@gmail.com

Indian male with over 8 years expe-

rience in sales & marketing seeking

suitable placement holding valid

Omani driving license, fluent in

English & Arabic. #97890681

Hospitality / Hotel Indian male 18

years of experience with excellent

cooking Supervisory, Manage-

ment and communication skills

seeking suitable job on visit visa.

#95363751

Indian Mechanical Engineer, 30, having 8yrs of UAE Sales/Busi-

ness Development. experience in

Electromechanical and Irrigation

sectors. Contact no- +971558763220

email id-sangowri@outlook.com

Indian male, with finance and Law

degree, having more than 25 years

of experience in Finance/ Accounts /

Audit (5 years of Oman experience)

seeks suitable placement. NOC avail-

able. Contact: 98421619.

E-mail: talemadhamu@yahoo.com.

Indian male Executive Secretary

having vast experience in admin,

logistics & procurement well versed

with computer seeks suitable place-

ment. Contact : 99514286

Pakistan Male: 24 years,M.Com

Finance having 2.5 year experience

as a accountant & marketing execu-

tive looking for suitable placement.

Contact: 97670816,

E.mail: naeem.ahsan68@gmail.com

ACCOUNTANT: Indian male 25 hav-

ing 4 years experience in accounting

& having well knowledge in tally.

Contact:968094535881,

0091 9037622048,

Email: vishnuraj889@gmail.com

Senior Accountant. 8 Years experi-

ence. NOC available. Oman driving

license. Seek suitable opportunity.

GSM- 98184170

31 year Indian male PG in HR ,with 5

yrs Professional experience in HR in

Construction Oil & Gas Oman seek-

ing for a suitable placement. Kindly

contact me on 93488914, email-

Kaarthickshankar@gmail.com

MBA Finance with more than five

years of experience in Finance &

Accounts including GCC, looking for

a suitable opening. Having UAE driv-

ing license. #91391802.

Indian female with MBA in finance

seeking immediate placement.

Contact: 968-93316493

Sudanese/26/Bsc Computer Sci-

ence /3 years exp/skills Excellent

knowledge in operating systems

and maintaining computers Java

Programmer Web Developer Linux

SMS solutions Android developer/

email khalid.omx@gmail.com/

# 944958080 and 99758186.

Indian male B.Eng. in IT,CCNA,

MCSA,MCSE, 2.5 yrs + exp. in IT sup-

port, networking and server support

valid Omani D/L seeking suitable

placement in IT/Network/Server

support. Contact 92607532

Indian B.E Computer Science graduate

2012 passout. 1 .5 yrs exp. in Account-

ing. Having good communication skills

and mindset to work in a team. Having

NIIT certificate in Diploma in Java

Technology. # 97767894

Email: jinsonjacobjohn@gmail.com

Indian male 24 YEARS, B.Tech (Elec-

trical & Electronics), having 2 yrs. exp

as Electrical Site Engineer. Done IOSH

& NEBOSH- IGC certifications, seeking

for suitable placement in any related

industries. Contact 98045482,

Email: mastanshaik1008@gmail.com

Indian male, 24 years, HSE Engineer

having 2 years of Indian experience.

Done IOSH & NEBOSH- IGC certifica-

tions, seeking for suitable placement

in any related industries.

Contact 98045482

Indian male 22yr BBA with LOGIS-

TIC Diploma, exp in tally and data

entry seeking in suitable placement.

Contact; 90151739

email shakeeb.mp280gmail.com

Indian Male (Diploma in electronics

Engineering and CCNA.) having 9

years of experience in Networking, 5

years’ experience in Oman. Looking

for a suitable Placement. NOC avail-

able. GSM- 93787098,

Email –anishktr@gmail.com

Mechanical Draftsman, Indian male

27, Diploma in Mechanical Engineer-

ing having 7 years of experience

in Auto CAD looking for a suitable

placement.#97351786 / 96143708

mohammednazeer07@gmail.com

ACCA Affiliate, OBU Degree, 2.5

years experience in audit and

finance in Big6 firm, Looking for

permanent placement. NOC release

available. Contact: #95140445,

a.saran891@gmail.com

27, male, ACCA finalist, have profes-

sional experience up to finalization

of Accounts, Statutory and internal

audit, expertise in using tally and

focus & Oracle Software, have 3.5

years experience in accounts

till finalization, seeking for perma-

nent replacement ,#97654769, email

id- abdullah.nooralam@yahoo.com

SENIOR ACCOUNTANT, 8 years ex-

perience ,Oman driving licence,Noc

available. Seek Suitable opportunity.

GSM- 98184170

B.E Mechanical Engineer with 2

years’ experience in HVAC field on

visit visa looking for suitable job.

Contact: 93442296

Email Id: sal201091@gmail.com.

MBA (F) B.COM Indian female

having knowledge of accounts with

Tally looking for full or part time job.

Presently on family visit visa.

Contact: - 96259171. Email: -

bhumicapandya@gmail.com

Indian Male, MBA, Talented

management expert having 6 year

experience at U.A.E, India and Oman

in luxury goods and Retail. Seeking

suitable openings in related or same

field. Contact:92700670

Email: jobcareer44@gmail.com

B.Tech EEE with 4+ years experi-

ence in the field of it, networking,

ex-tonics etc. presently working in

Amazon India development centre as

a content quality associate seeking

for suitable jobs in Oman.

Contact : +91 9940514005, 93116402

email: mail2nbn@gmail.com

MBA Finance with more than five

years of experience in Finance &

Accounts including GCC, looking for

a suitable opening. Having UAE driv-

ing license. Contact no..91391802

Part- Time Accountant, well experi-

ence senior accountant ,doing all

type of accounting works, Finaliza-

tion, Budgeting available.

Contact 98803439

Pakistani, Male, Pak, Exp 14 Years

in IT Trainer / Computer Teacher,

looking for a better position in Oman,

already working in Prestigious Con-

struction Company. # 95983711.

Join.mtmali@gmail.com

M. Tech VLSI design, B. tech Elec-

tronics and instrumentation, Indian

female,3 years teaching experience

for graduation level students,

seeking suitable placements .

Ph:00968 92904155.

email-achusooraj@gmail.com

Indian 26M, B. Tech Computer Sci-

ence graduate, 3 years exp in India,

looking for suitable job in Muscat.

Contact : 93125669,

Email : amritrajGT18@gmail.com

Sudanese/Bsc IT/26/2 years experi-

ence/excellent Eng-Arb speaking/

Omani driving license/96387227/

henrykarrar@gmail.com

Tel. 24726666 Ext: 413 / 430 431 / 456 / 461 Fax: 24812624

Email: dailyguide@timesofoman.com

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